How did Isaiah die?

The opening verse of this great book gives us information concerning the prophet Isaiah and the period covered by his official ministry. "The Vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." Of his personal history we know but little. Jewish tradition claims that he was related to King Uzziah. That he must have come from a prominent family may be gathered from the fact that he had ready access into the presence of the kings of Judah, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and probably also the others. That he was married we learn from the book. He had two sons which bore prophetic names. The one was Shear-Jashub (a remnant shall return), prophetically indicating that God would leave a remnant of His people. The second son was Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means "hasting to the spoil, hurrying to the prey," prophetic of the coming and threatening invasion of Assyria.

Nothing else is said of his personal history in the book which bears his name nor do we find anything about his death. There is a trustworthy tradition that he lived during the reign of Manasseh, also that he suffered martyrdom, because he reproved the vices and idolatries rampant during the reign of that wicked king. This tradition says that the mode of his death was by being sawn asunder. (See Hebrews 11:37 which, in case this tradition is true, would apply to Isaiah.) Josephus, the great Jewish historian, speaks of the cruel persecutions under the reign of Manasseh in the following words: "He barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews; nor would he spare the prophets, for he every day slew some of them, till Jerusalem was overflowed with blood."

Isaiah (salvation of the Lord). This is the grandest, sublimest, and most comprehensive of the prophetical books; and because of its fulness of subjects and wide sweep of the prophetic future, occupying itself with the whole scene of God's purposes respecting Israel and the nations, is first in order in all Hebrew and English Bibles. If Isaiah lived to the close of Hezekiah's reign, then he must have worn the prophetic mantle for a period of at least sixty years, dating his introduction to the prophetic office from the last year of Uzziah's reign (Isa. 6). Being a Judah-prophet, and standing in high repute in the royal court, these magnificent prophecies were mainly uttered in Jerusalem. Jewish tradition asserts that the aged prophet, then about ninety years old, was "sawn asunder" during the reign of Manasseh, and that to protract his sufferings a wooden instrument was used for the cruel purpose. Many suppose that Heb. 11:37, "sawn asunder," refers to the barbarous martyrdom of our prophet. Isaiah too being their favourite prophet must have a royal parentage; so they tell us that Amoz the father of the prophet was a brother of king Amaziah. These traditions are not supported by a particle of evidence. We do not say they are false, neither can we affirm their truth.

Isaiah's prophetic service covered the reigns of the kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Uzziah's autocracy started around the year 767 BC and Hezekiah died around 697 BC. The prophet's service fell into this time. According to Jewish tradition Isaiah shall have been persecuted by the impious king Manasseh (son of king Hezekiah) and sawn asunder in a hollow trunk (compare with Heb. 11:37).

God's power opened the way to faith through the Red Sea for the salvation of His people while the unbelieving Egyptian perished. Jericho 's walls fall and Rahab's house, standing upon the wall, is preserved because she believed. And then Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets and the heroes of faith which follow. Their names are not given, but God knows them all as well as the countless thousands of martyrs who are constantly added to this list. "The strongest thing in the world is faith--it has an eagle's eye and lion's heart. It has a lion's heart to confront dangers and hardships, and an eagle's eye to descry the unseen glories and the sure victory. The heroism of faith is a wonderful thing. It may suffer indescribable tortures and agonies, as often it has, but it is unconquerable, invincible. Some were tortured (tympanized, i.e., stretched in a wheel as the drumhead), 'that they might obtain a better resurrection,' as were the mother and her seven sons who were put to death one after the other, and in sight of each other, by the Syrian monster, Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc. 7). Some were stoned, as Zechariah (2 Chron. 24) and Jeremiah, according to tradition. Some were sawn asunder, as was Isaiah under Manasseh. Some were slain with the sword, as Urijah, (Jer. 26:23), and James the brother of John (Acts 12). They might have rustled in silks and velvets and luxuriated in the palaces of princes had they denied God and believed the world's lie. Instead, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, themselves accounted no better than goats or sheep, nay, they like these reckoned fit only for the slaughter. The world thought them unworthy to live here, while God thought them worthy to live with Him in glory" Professor Moorhead).

What prophets God used at this time is not known. Isaiah was still alive, possibly, though very aged, and the tradition may be true which says he "was sawn asunder" — with a wooden saw. Josephus does not mention this, though he does say that Manasseh "barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews. Nor would he spare the prophets." (Ant. x.: 3, § 1.) "Moreover," says the inspired historian, "Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 21:16). Wicked as his grandfather Ahaz had been, he did not, so far as we know, redden his hands with blood like this human monster Manasseh. But the reaping came at last, though harvest-time was late, perhaps, in the long-suffering patience of God. "Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." They refused to hear the word, so they were compelled to feel the rod. As befitted this monster of evil, Manasseh was brought in chains to Babylon.

It will be remembered that in Jer.5:1 the Lord promised to pardon the city if even one person was found in it who executed judgment and sought the truth. One might wonder there were not to be found in Jerusalem a few righteous ones, as in a former day were found in Sodom; but, alas, they had all been slain or driven away by these ungodly priests and false prophets. A new translation, which we follow here, will make the following verses plainer: "It is for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, who have shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her. They wandered about blind in the streets, they were polluted with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. They cried unto them, Depart, unclean! Depart, depart, touch not! When they fled away and wandered about, it was said among the nations, They shall no more sojourn there. The face of Jehovah hath divided them; He will no more regard them. They respected not the persons of the priests, they regarded not the aged" (v.13-16). The false prophets and false priests had put the just to death, or driven them into banishment. These faithful men "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth" (Heb.11:36-38). God's witnesses were despised and hated by the very people to whom they sought to minister. Isaiah, according to Jewish tradition, was sawn asunder. Elijah's life was sought by Jezebel and Ahab; Obadiah had to hide the prophets of the Lord in a cave; Amaziah endeavoured to intimidate Amos (Amos 7:12-13); Jeremiah was imprisoned on several occasions, and would have been left to die in the pit but for Ebed-melech; Baruch's life was declared forfeited. Thus, in a later day, Stephen could ask, "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7:52). In rejecting those sent of God they rejected the Sender: therefore the woes that had come upon them.

Hezekiah had a wicked father and his son Manasseh did not follow the example of his father, but became even more wicked than Ahaz, his grandfather. Manasseh means "forgetting." No doubt Hezekiah named him thus because the LORD had delivered him and thus made him forget his troubles and trials. He was born three years after Hezekiah's recovery from sickness. And now Manasseh forgot all the goodness and mercy of the LORD and plunged headlong into the worst apostasy. All the vile practices of the Canaanites and the Sodomites were revived by him. The Moloch-worship flourished, sorcery and the practice of demonism as well. The corruption was more vile than the corruption of Samaria. It was even worse than the corruption of the Canaanites. "Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel." And still more evil is recorded of this king. "Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another" (verse 16). Josephus declares that he killed all the righteous in Jerusalem and it is not unlikely that the tradition of aged Isaiah's violent death under Manasseh's reign is correct. Then the LORD sent to him His judgment message, announcing the coming doom of Jerusalem. Of his conversion and subsequent reign nothing is said in Kings. We find the record of these interesting events in Chronicles. His conversion was indeed a miracle of grace.

Then there were enchantments, witchcraft and wizards, and he dealt also with a familiar spirit. This was demon-power manifested as it is today in spiritualism and similar cults. So wicked was his work that he made Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel (verse 9). "Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much till he filled Jerusalem from one end to another" (2 Kings 21:16). "And the LORD spake to Manasseh, and to his people, but they hearkened not" (verse 10). God's prophets bore faithful witness against these awful deeds. Isaiah, Jewish tradition claims, suffered martyrdom under Manasseh's reign. But though the LORD sent His messages, they did not hear. In 2 Kings 21:10-15, we have preserved the message which the LORD sent by His servants the prophets. But Second Kings has nothing to say of the conversion and restoration of this wicked man, one of the greatest miracles of grace on record. The king of Assyria came and bound Manasseh in fetters and carried him to Babylon. A certain class of higher critics, a number of years ago, used to sneer at this record, and denied its historicity because it is entirely missing in the book of Kings.

699-643 Manasseh, king of Judah. Tradition claims that under Manasseh, Isaiah suffered martyrdom.

We have stated before that according to Jewish tradition Isaiah perished by the hands of wicked men by being sawn asunder. Equally wicked men have "sawn him asunder" in a different way. We mean the so-called "higher or destructive critics." Did Isaiah really write this book? Could it be the work of one man? Are there not evidences of a composite authorship? These and other questions have been raised, and their answers given by men whose boast is of superior scholarship, of greater knowledge than the knowledge of the past generations; men who blasphemously assert that their finite brains have absorbed more knowledge in these matters than the infinite Lord of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, possessed in the days of His dwelling on earth.