Prophecies of Messiah Through Isaiah

Isaiah wrote his book in standard narrative and Hebrew poetry. As such it makes a difference in how we read Isaiah's words. The same is true for all the all other biblical writers. The manner or form somebody says or writes something has everything to do with formulating a proper understanding of what they said. One of the keys to understanding Isaiah is to come to grips with the poetic genre of communicating. Reading poetry requires us to read at a different pace, paying closer attention to the text, reminding ourselves that it is not straight narrative and focusing more intently. Most of us are not familiar with poetry and its decorative manner of presenting concepts and therefore understanding it does not come naturally. One factor of poetry that helps us understand it is its attempt to put into language God, who is outside of our experience and therefore not easily rendered with straightforward words. So poetry can express what has been called divine communication that exceeds normal comprehension. Isaiah frequently made use of the method called parallelism. Simply stated one statement would be followed by another stating the same thing in a different manner. Isaiah expressed many of the offices and characteristics of the coming Messiah.