Product Overview
Walter Brueggemann and Brent Strawn lead readers through the prophetic book of Isaiah, moving between looming predictions of punishment against Israel for breaking covenant with God and exultation in the ultimate hope of Israel’s restoration.
Unwavering Faithfulness provides an accessible guide to Isaiah, helping contemporary readers grasp both the uncompromising demands of God’s holiness and God’s unshakable faithfulness to covenant relationship and desire to bring about a good future for God’s people. Isaiah is a dramatic book of prophecy and oracles that sweeps through the histories of Israel’s kings and dealings with surrounding nations, levying judgment but also offering the hope of restoration, blessing, and shalom. This great prophet’s words are a lot to take in. Israel is taken to task for exploiting the poor and seeking security in political treaties and the human economy rather than in the fidelity of God. Ignoring the call of covenant to enact economic justice and righteousness for neighbors, Israel experiences the holy rule of God as working through geopolitical events that lead to the destruction of Jerusalem. But Isaiah doesn’t rest here, and Unwavering Faithfulness forecasts ahead to the promise of Israel’s return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile and to the imagination of the early church, inspired by the poetry of Isaiah to place its hope in Jesus the Messiah.
The ultimacy of God’s governance and faithfulness in the swirl of global political chaos anchors this Bible study, helping readers grasp Isaiah’s vision of the covenantal fidelity of the Lord who wills newness and redemption amid failed histories. This book will help readers seek to identify the movement of God in the midst of the natural consequences of forsaking the holy way on a global scale (climate disaster and the self-destruction of fearful, power-mongering governments) and to continue to look for the inbreaking of God’s shalom.
Questions for reflection and discussion are included at the end of each chapter, making this book ideal for individual or group study.
Reviews
“Isaiah is a book of such large scale that it can be hard to come to grips with it. Walter Brueggemann and Brent Strawn offer here a great gift: a compilation of pathways into its grandeur by way of key moments. One could hardly ask for two guides with more knowledge and wisdom about the Bible, and it's a particular blessing to hear Brueggemann's voice now that we have lost him.”—Christopher B. Hays, D. Wilson Moore Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
“When I think Brueggemann, I hear, ‘The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire. The empire is fiction when judged by the gospel.’ Breathtaking truth. Crisp, clear, poetic, prophetic, more than most of us can imagine. Dangerous, like the gospel itself. This book does not disappoint. Brueggemann and Strawn’s prose brings Isaiah’s fierce prophecies to life in this time and for all times. You want to preach truth to power? You want to teach your lay leaders how to be prophets for the reign of God? Run to this book, with tools for you and your community.” —Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister and Public Theologian, Middle Church
“Few books of the Hebrew Bible have had a greater influence on Christianity (already evident in the New Testament) than the book of Isaiah. What a privilege, therefore, to have two of our finest Old Testament scholars leading a study of key texts from this powerful, prophetic work. Here we benefit from a fascinating collaboration between Brent Strawn and (in one of his last projects) Walter Brueggemann. In fact, it would be hard to think of two finer navigators for a voyage through the book of Isaiah. In sum, this study guide isn’t merely helpful, it matters.”—Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Professor of Old Testament Studies, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles