The Book of Isaiah may span two centuries and more than one author
Tradition says a single prophet wrote all 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah in the 8th century BC. Many scholars think otherwise: only parts of the first half go back to him, while later chapters date from around the end of the Babylonian exile, nearly two hundred years after his lifetime, perhaps from a school of his followers.
Isaiah, whose Hebrew name means 'Yahweh is salvation', prophesied in the kingdom of Judah under four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He probably began in the 740s BC, a few years before Uzziah died, and may have lived into Manasseh's reign, which would make his career as long as 64 years. The traditional view has him writing in two phases between 740 and about 686 BC; the critical view places prose commentary from King Josiah's time, a century later, among the early oracles.
His family carried messages in their names. His wife is called 'the prophetess', perhaps because she prophesied herself or simply as the prophet's wife. Their sons were Shear-Jashub, 'a remnant shall return', and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, roughly 'quick to the spoils, swift to the plunder'. Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 adds a son named Immanuel, a verse Christians read as foretelling the virgin birth of Jesus.
He lived through the Assyrian storm. After Shalmaneser V destroyed Samaria and the northern kingdom, Hezekiah of Judah allied with Egypt and rebelled. Sennacherib invaded, and when a detachment threatened Jerusalem, Isaiah urged the king to hold out. The biblical account in 2 Kings says an angel struck the Assyrian camp in a single night, and Sennacherib mounted no further campaigns against Judah or Egypt. Hezekiah's remaining years passed in peace.
Later rabbinic tradition filled in his biography. It made his father Amoz a brother of King Amaziah, and one account casts Isaiah as Manasseh's maternal grandfather. A Midrash has God warn him that the people are troublesome and might insult or beat him; he accepts anyway and becomes the most patient of prophets. The Bible does not say how he died, though the Talmud preserves a story that Manasseh had him martyred.
Source: Isaiah
