Week 28 Isaiah 8
Partway through the chapter Isaiah says: I will write down all these things as a testimony of what the Lord will do. I will entrust it to my disciples, who will pass it down to future generations. I noticed a couple of things.
For one thing I saw that Isaiah used the word “disciples”. I was surprised because I think of “disciples” as a NT word. I looked at a word book:
“Disciple” is used ~30 times in the bible. Once in the OT (by Isaiah).
“Disciples” is used ~240 times. Twice in the OT (both by Isaiah).
So it is a NT word. But I’m not sure what to make of Isaiah using it. Not sure if there’s anything to be made of it. But I am surprised that Isaiah was the only OT writer to use it.
The other thing I noticed was the four-step communication sequence. I backtracked and saw that Isaiah had already said three times in chapter eight that the Lord had spoken to him – so that’s step one. And then he said: I will write down all these things – step 2. Isaiah planned to give that written document to his trustworthy disciples – step 3. Once the original document was reproduced the disciples would pass copies to their contemporaries and then on to future generations – step 4.
The chain of communication: the Lord > Isaiah > Isaiah’s disciples > future generations (and all the way down to the 21st century).
Note: quote from Isaiah 8:16 (NLT)