A Study of Isaiah by Chad Sychtysz

Twenty-seven lessons through all sixty-six chapters — the prophet who saw Christ more clearly than anyone else in the Old Testament.

Most Bible readers know Isaiah in pieces. A Christmas reading from chapter 9, a funeral text from chapter 40, the Suffering Servant in chapter 53. What they rarely get is the whole book, which is a shame, because the pieces only land the way Isaiah meant them to when you can see what surrounds them.

Chad Sychtysz takes all sixty-six chapters in twenty-seven lessons. Isaiah prophesied for roughly sixty years through the reigns of four Judean kings, watching Assyria swallow the northern kingdom and then camp outside Jerusalem's walls. He had access to the royal court and the nerve to tell kings what they did not want to hear. His book alternates without warning between the ugliness of what Israel had become and glimpses of a city and a King still centuries away, and the study keeps both in view rather than treating the hard chapters as filler between the famous ones.

Two things set this workbook apart. First, it makes the case for Isaiah as sole author of the entire book, answering the standard arguments for a second and third writer rather than waving them off. Second, it reads the kingdom passages consistently. When Isaiah describes the wolf lying down with the lamb, or a new heavens and a new earth, or the mountain of the Lord's house established above the hills, Sychtysz shows why these belong to the reign of the Branch that began at Pentecost — and he holds that reading straight through instead of switching to a literal earthly kingdom whenever the poetry gets vivid.

What's Inside

Introduction to Isaiah — biblical prophecy and how it works, the prophet's life and era, the authorship question, the historical setting, and the major themes the book keeps returning to

Section I — Chapters 1–12

1. Introduction to the Book (1:1–31)
2. Contrast of the Two Jerusalems (2:1–4:6)
3. The Disappointing Vineyard (5:1–30)
4. Isaiah's Commission (6:1–13)
5. The Fall of Syria and Israel (7:1–8:22)
6. Predictions of Hope after Disgrace (9:1–10:34)
7. The Reign of the Branch (11:1–16), with A Song of the Remnant (12:1–6) and a summary of chapters 1–12

Section II — Chapters 13–23

1. Judgment on the Surrounding Nations

Section III — Chapters 24–27, opening with an introduction to the "Little Apocalypse"

1. God's Judgment on "The Earth" (24:1–23)
2. Songs of Praise and Thanksgiving (25:1–26:21), with The Future Reign of Messiah (27:1–13)

Section IV — Chapters 28–35

1. Prophecies against Israel and Judah (28:1–29:30)
2. Warning against an Alliance with Egypt (30:1–31:9)
3. Alternating Scenes of Glory and Judgment (32:1–35:10)

Section V — Chapters 36–39

1. Assyria and Judah (36:1–37:38)
2. Isaiah and Hezekiah (38:1–39:8)

Section VI — Chapters 40–48

1. God's Consolation for His People (40:1–31)
2. The Servant Israel (41:1–42:25)
3. The Living God versus Lifeless Idols (43:1–44:20)
4. God's Challenge to His People (44:21–45:25), with Babylon's Downfall Predicted (46:1–48:22)

Section VII — Chapters 49–55

1. The Servant Israel Further Defined (49:1–50:11)
2. God Promises to Deliver His People (51:1–52:12)
3. The Suffering Servant (52:13–53:12)
4. The Everlasting Covenant (54:1–55:13)

Section VIII — Chapters 56–66

1. Distinction between the Righteous and the Unrighteous (56:1–59:21)
2. Israel's Glorious Future (60:1–62:12)
3. Isaiah's Prayers and God's Responses (63:1–65:16)
4. New Heavens and New Earth (65:17–66:18a), with Final Admonitions (66:18b–24)

Format & Features

A substantial introduction sets everything up before lesson one: what a prophet was, how prophetic language compresses centuries into a single sentence, who Isaiah was, what was happening to Israel and Judah while he wrote, and why the two-author theory does not hold. Every lesson closes with discussion questions and open space to write, so the book works on a Wednesday night, in a Sunday adult class, or at the kitchen table.

A closing chapter, "Reflections on Isaiah," walks back through the whole argument of the book in a few pages — useful for a teacher building a final class or a reader who wants the thread pulled tight. A chart of the kings of Israel and Judah puts the reigns and dates in one place, and more than two hundred endnotes carry the supporting detail without slowing the lessons down.

Scripture quotations are from the NASB (1995). The study draws on Hailey, Edward J. Young, Barnes, Delitzsch, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Harrison, Thiele, and Yamauchi, with a full source list in the back.

Product Details

Who It's For

Adult Bible class teachers who need a full year of Old Testament material and want it laid out lesson by lesson. Preachers working through the major prophets. Anyone who has read Isaiah 53 and wondered what the other sixty-five chapters are doing, or who has been handed Isaiah as proof of a coming earthly kingdom and wants to see the text handled another way.

About the Author

Chad Sychtysz has been a minister of the gospel since 1994, serving churches in Alaska and Washington state. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and has written numerous books and workbooks on the Bible, including studies of Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. He lives in Billings, Montana.