It’s that time, when for my church’s study of the Old Testament this year, in the study guide Come Follow Me (Christ), we spend five weeks studying Isaiah.
As quoted above in the image, Christ has commanded us to “search these things diligently” meaning Isaiah’s words. Here are some tips to help you do that.
- Understand the 5 days Isaiah talks about. He can switch days in a chapter, verse to verse, and even in one verse. See the 5 days above.
- Know that he doesn’t teach in chronological order.
- Use BibleHub.com to look at modern language translations.
- Use chapter headings in the LDS edition of the KJV Old Testament. These will help you know which day or days Isaiah is talking about.
The four tips above come from the video below.
These next three tips come from the video above.
5. Ask God for the Holy Spirit to help you understand.
6. Know that the book of Isaiah is poetry, not prose. Isaiah purposes to show us the love of God in his writing so we will rejoice in this love. Any book on love deserves to be written in poetry, not prose. One method of poetry that Isaiah uses is parallelism. This is why His poetry can be translated into any language and still be poetry. He doesn’t use rhyming words, he uses rhyming or matching concepts. See the video by Jared Halverson above. Watch him explain Hebrew poetic forms at about the 23:35 mark.
7. Use Nephi’s tips from 2 Nephi 25, shown in the screenshot below. One big thing of the “things of the Jews” is Hebrew poetic forms, which I already mentioned. These include the following: synonymous parallelisms, antithetic parallelisms, and chiastic parallelisms. An example of synonymous parallelism is shown above.
As Brother Jared says, the spirit of prophecy = the testimony of Jesus.
For further exploration of Isaiah’s literary structures, use the material from Rhonda and Farrell Pickering. See their handouts here and here. Rhonda’s Isaiah video classes are here.
Rhonda has 28 Isaiah classes at that link, and they are all free! You can also get her study guide here, with a workbook a friend wrote to go with Rhonda’s and Avraham’s interpretations here.
7. Use the website isaiahexplained.com. This is Avraham Gileadi’s site. Brother Gileadi is a renowned Hebrew scholar. Born in the Netherlands, he lived in Israel for a time where he attended rabbinical school and studied Hebrew analytical methods. He eventually got a PhD in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Wycliffe College in Canada.
8. Understand the meaning of the word “Gentile” which Isaiah uses. In Isaiah’s usage, Gentiles are non-Jews, including Latter-day Saints Christians, even though we are of the house of Israel.
9. Know that Isaiah uses code names. They are also used throughout the rest of scriptures. One example is “the tyrant,” a code name for the anti-Christ in the Latter-days and another is “the servant.” See above and below.
May we all feast on the words of Isaiah, and hearken to them, so we can receive even greater blessings!
