We are exploring Isaiah in the Come, Follow Me study guide for September. So awesome! If you are like me, you know that Isaiah is HUGELY important, as Jesus said to search his words, “for great are the words of Isaiah” (3 Nephi 23:1). But, and this a big BUT, you struggle to understand him because of his heavy hand with poetry and other literary symbolism. At almost every verse, if you are like me, you are wondering, “What the heck is going on here? I have no clue!!!!”

It helps to understand that the Bible uses symbolic names for Jesus. See above. Isaiah follows this symbolic pattern and uses symbolic names for a tyrant and a servant. See below. The tyrant is the bad guy and the servant is the good guy.

I appreciate all the abundant resources out there to understand Isaiah. They all have their place. So far, the best resource I have discovered for clearly getting Isaiah is the videos from Rhonda and Farrell Pickering over here at propheticappointments.com.

First, start with this video below that gives an overview of Isaiah 1-12, which is what we covered in Come Follow Me last week. This video also gives the Bifid Structure, to give you an overview for the whole book of Isaiah. A bifid is a leaf structure that Isaiah’s book resembles.

You can download a colorful handout of the Bifid structure here (click on “can I download the handout from the Isaiah workshop?”) Thanks to Rhonda and Farrell for all these great resources, and for the pioneering work of the supreme Isaiah scholar, Avraham Gileadi, the Pickerings’ mentor.

Then I recommend you dive deep with all the Isaiah videos, under the tab “Classes” over here at propheticappointments.com. For some reason they are listed backwards, with Class 1.1 B over here. I don’t know why there’s not a 1.1 A. The visual below shows a summary of Isaiah 1-12. Happy studying of Isaiah everyone!