By Barry Webb
IVP (The Bible Speaks Today)
252 pages.
ISBN 0 85111 167 X
For many of us, commentaries are tools to be picked up and used for a specific job, then put down again until the next occasion. We so often treat commentaries in the way we would a telephone directory. We pick at it for specific information but rarely read it in its entirety.
Then again, it is rare to find a commentary so compelling and so readable that we cannot put it down! Yet this is how Barry Webb's volume on Isaiah in the 'Bible Speaks Today' series seized my attention.
To be fair on other commentaries, the IVP series is careful to describe itself as exposition rather than commentary. However, Barry Webb not only succeeds in informing his readers of the message of Isaiah, but also in enthusing, exciting and challenging them.
Barry Webb is careful to set Isaiah in its historical and cultural setting clearly and simply. In his introduction, he does not shy away from the issues of authorship and unity and gives helpfully surveys the position adopted by other scholars. But these issues are not allowed to plague his exposition. In a gentle but authoritative way, Barry Webb affirms his confidence in the canonical text and remains faithful to that in his exposition. As he writes: '...the account Isaiah gives of its own origins is far more plausible than any alternative that has so far been proposed.'
There is obviously a limit to how thorough he can be in 252 pages, and Barry Webb is concerned to give us the broad meaning rather than detailed exegesis, but there are some particularly refreshing features about his treatment of the text.
Firstly, he emphasis the challenge of Scripture to our lives today. Sometimes that challenge comes in the numerous 'asides' while explaining the text. For example, commenting on Isaiah's identification with the outrage and grief the Lord felt at the sinfulness of Israel in 5.1-7, Webb adds: 'We should note carefully if our religion has become passionless. Our capacity to share God's anger can be an indicator of how much we really love him.' This almost throw-away remark actually drives us to examine our own lives in the light of the text. At other times, that challenge is systematically worked through the exposition of a particular passage. Discussing Chapters 24- 27, he deals in some depth with the whole area of divine judgement, desperately ignored in so many of our pulpits today, bringing the truths of Scripture to bear on our own situations. Over and over again, Webb is not satisfied with just giving us the meaning of these chapters in their historical context, but is faithful to his own task as a preacher, bringing home their urgent relevance for each one of us today.
Witness to Christ
Secondly, Barry Webb undergirds his exposition of Isaiah with a thorough understanding of biblical theology. 'By far the greatest importance of this book (Isaiah),' he writes in the introduction, '...lies in the witness it bears to Jesus Christ.' The footnotes abound with New Testament references, constantly compelling us to understand the prophecy as a part of the whole revelation of God in Scripture. Webb consistently draws out the overriding sense of anticipation in Isaiah, showing how it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We are not allowed to read Isaiah in isolation from that fulfilment in Christ. For example, in discussing the great banquet (25.1-12), we are reminded: 'Chapter 55 sheds a little more light ... but we have to turn to the New Testament for the full picture. The banquet consists of the blessings of the gospel, of which we are all invited to partake...'. It is refreshing to find such honesty in treating Scripture as a whole and recognising that we cannot understand the Old Testament unless we are willing to see its fulfilment in the New Testament.
Barry Webb lectures in Old Testament at Moore Theological College, Sydney, and his own graciousness and humility pervades every page. While the book will certainly reward the preacher and student, it makes no assumptions about the reader's theological knowledge or background. Literary structures and theological terms are clearly explained, and the reader is never made to feel inferior through lack of knowledge. Consequently, it is an excellent introduction to Isaiah which can confidently be put into the hands of young and mature Christians alike. While we have always acknowledged the centrality of Isaiah to the gospel, the complexities of the book have often made it difficult ground for younger believers. The great achievement of the book is to make the great truths of Isaiah accessible to all, without watering down the power of its message.
Barry Webb is a very able preacher with a deep pastoral heart. So when he sets out to explain the message of Isaiah, it is no mere academic exercise. He does so with the spiritual welfare of his readers foremost in his purposes. The vitality of his own faith shines through every page, and he never fails to raise our sights to witness the glory of the Lord. 'I live,' he writes, 'in expectation of the day when He will take His power and reign, and know with absolute certainty that because of the One who was pierced for my transgressions, the new heavens and new earth will be my home forever.' The Message of Isaiah will help us all to share that great expectation.
