50 Fun Facts About Book of Isaiah

According to Isaiah 2:4, nations that stop learning war will beat their swords into which farming tools?

Plowshares gave the verse a long afterlife: a bronze statue in the United Nations garden, a gift from the Soviet Union, shows a man hammering a sword into one.

Often misquoted as the lion, which predator does Isaiah 11:6 actually picture living with the lamb?

The wolf dwells with the lamb, while the lion turns up later in the verse beside a calf, with a little child leading them all.

Which name does Isaiah 7:14 give the child promised as a sign to King Ahaz, a verse Matthew later quotes?

Immanuel means God with us, and Matthew 1:23 quotes the verse when it tells of the birth of Jesus.

Which Persian king does Isaiah 45:1 call the Lord's anointed, a title usually kept for Israel's own kings?

Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BC and let the Jewish exiles go home, and Isaiah 44:28 also calls him God's shepherd who will see the temple rebuilt.

According to Isaiah 40:31, those who wait on the Lord will rise up on wings like which birds?

Eagles are the image, and the verse adds that such people will run without growing weary and walk without fainting.

In Isaiah 1:18, God offers to turn sins that are red as scarlet as white as what?

Snow is the promise, and the verse opens with an invitation from God to come and reason the matter out together.

Isaiah 53:6 compares all people who have turned to their own way to which straying animals?

Sheep that have wandered off stand for everyone, the verse says, and the wrongdoing of them all is laid on the suffering servant.

All four Gospels apply Isaiah 40:3, about a voice crying in the wilderness, to which New Testament figure?

John the Baptist is the voice in all four Gospels, yet the original verse pictures a highway through the desert for exiles heading home.

Which six-winged heavenly beings does Isaiah 6 describe calling to one another above the throne of God?

Seraphim flew with only two of their wings: Isaiah says each kept another pair over its face.

Which title ends the list of names Isaiah 9:6 gives the child with the government on his shoulder?

Prince of Peace comes after Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God and Everlasting Father, and the next verse seats this ruler on the throne of David.

In Isaiah 6, what does a winged being take from the altar with tongs and touch to Isaiah's mouth?

A live coal touched his lips, and the being declared his guilt taken away, answering Isaiah's fear that he was a man of unclean lips.

Isaiah 6 dates the prophet's vision of God enthroned in the temple to the death of which king of Judah?

Uzziah had reigned for 52 years, and in the vision that followed his death the train of God's robe alone was enough to fill the temple.

In Isaiah 38, a poultice made from which fruit is laid on the boil of the dying King Hezekiah?

Figs were Isaiah's remedy, and Hezekiah recovered to enjoy the fifteen extra years that God had just promised him.

As a three-year sign against Egypt and Cush, how does Isaiah 20 say the prophet Isaiah walked about?

Naked and barefoot was how Assyria would march its Egyptian captives away, the chapter explains, so Isaiah acted out the warning in advance.

In the song that opens Isaiah 5, Israel is pictured as what, fenced and cleared of stones by its owner?

A vineyard is the picture, and despite all the care it yielded only wild fruit, so the owner vows to break down its wall.

Isaiah 11 promises a shoot from the stump of which Bethlehem man, whose youngest son became king?

Jesse stands for David's royal line cut down to a stump, and the chapter says the spirit of the Lord will rest on the new growth.

Isaiah 9 promises a great light for people walking in darkness in which region, where Jesus later preached?

Galilee is named beside the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, and Matthew's Gospel quotes the passage as Jesus begins his ministry there.

When God asks who will go for him in Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah's reply ends with which two-word offer?

Send me was the reply, yet the mission that followed was bleak: Isaiah was told the people would hear without understanding.

Which Assyrian king besieges Jerusalem in Isaiah 36 and 37, only to lose his army overnight?

Sennacherib went home to Nineveh after an angel struck down 185,000 of his soldiers, and two of his own sons later killed him as he worshipped.

Isaiah 1:1 names which man, often confused with a shepherd prophet, as the father of Isaiah?

Amoz appears in the Bible only as Isaiah's father, and rabbinic tradition made him a brother of King Amaziah of Judah.

Which word, said twice in a row, opens Isaiah 40 and the section often called Second Isaiah?

Comfort is the first word, and the next verse tells Jerusalem that her hard service is over and her guilt has been pardoned.

Isaiah 40:22 pictures God enthroned above the circle of the earth, its people looking like which insects?

Grasshoppers is the comparison, and the same verse has God stretching out the heavens like a curtain and spreading them like a tent to dwell in.

In Isaiah 40:15, the nations are said to be like what to God?

A drop in a bucket comes straight from this verse, which also weighs the nations as a speck of dust on the scales.

In Isaiah 42:3, the servant of the Lord is said to be so gentle that he will not break what?

A bruised reed is safe with him, and neither will he put out a smouldering wick; Matthew's Gospel applies both images to Jesus.

In Isaiah 49:16, where does God say he has engraved Zion so that he can never forget her?

On his palms is the answer, given just after God asks whether a nursing mother could forget her baby and says that even she might.

Isaiah 52:7 calls which body part beautiful on the mountains when it belongs to a bringer of good news?

Feet earn the praise because they carry the messenger running to tell Zion that her God reigns, and Paul quotes the line in Romans 10.

Which title does Isaiah 53:3 give the despised and rejected servant?

Man of sorrows is the phrase, and the verse adds that people hid their faces from him and held him in low esteem.

According to Isaiah 53:5, what happens to us by the stripes of the suffering servant?

We are healed, the verse says, by the wounds of one pierced for the wrongs of others, and 1 Peter quotes the line about Jesus.

According to Isaiah 53:9, the servant assigned a grave with the wicked is with whom in his death?

A rich man shares his death, a detail Christians connect with the wealthy disciple who laid the body of Jesus in his own new tomb.

According to Isaiah 55:1, people without money are invited to come and buy wine and which other drink?

Milk and wine are free to all who come, and the chapter goes on to ask why people spend their wages on what is not bread.

Isaiah 56:7 says God's temple will be called what for all nations, words Jesus quoted while clearing it?

A house of prayer is the promise, made in a passage that welcomes foreigners and eunuchs who keep the covenant.

Isaiah 59:17 pictures God wearing righteousness as a breastplate and salvation as which piece of armour?

A helmet of salvation reappears in Ephesians 6, where Paul gives the same armour to believers along with a shield of faith.

In Isaiah 60:6, travellers from Sheba arrive bearing gold and which fragrant gift, echoed in the Magi story?

Frankincense and gold arrive as nations stream towards Zion's light, and the verse forms part of the background to Matthew's visit of the Magi.

In Luke 4, Jesus reads the opening of Isaiah 61 aloud in the synagogue of which hometown?

Nazareth heard him declare the scripture fulfilled that very day, and the enraged congregation then tried to throw him off a cliff.

Isaiah 61:3 promises those who mourn in Zion a crown of beauty in place of what?

Ashes give way to a crown of beauty, and the same verse swaps mourning for the oil of joy and despair for a garment of praise.

In Isaiah 62:4, which new name meaning Married is given to the land once called Desolate?

Beulah went on to name the restful borderland of heaven in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, while the same verse renames the city Hephzibah.

Isaiah 64:8 calls God our father and likens him to which craftsman, with his people as the raw material?

A potter shaping clay is the image, and the verse adds that every one of the people is the work of God's hand.

In Isaiah 66:1, God calls heaven his throne and the earth his what, asking where his resting place could be?

Footstool is the word, and Stephen quotes the passage in Acts 7 to argue that God does not dwell in anything built by human hands.

Which phrase for smug self-righteousness appears in the King James Version of Isaiah 65:5?

Holier than thou is what the people in the verse say as they warn others to keep their distance, and God calls them smoke in his nose.

The Book of Isaiah ends with a grim image of rebels' corpses, on which what will never die?

Their worm will not die and their fire will not go out, the last verse says, and Jesus uses the same words in Mark 9 to describe hell.

Which composer set prophecies from the Book of Isaiah to music in the 1741 oratorio Messiah?

Handel worked from a text that Charles Jennens compiled from the King James Bible and the Coverdale Psalter, and Part I begins with prophecies by Isaiah.

Which word do the heavenly beings of Isaiah 6:3 cry three times as they call to one another?

Holy, said three times over, became the Sanctus of the Mass and is recited by Jewish congregations in the Kedusha; the verse goes on to call the whole earth full of God's glory.

Which name does the King James Version use in Isaiah 14:12 for the fallen king of Babylon, the morning star?

Lucifer is simply the Latin word for the morning star, carried over from the Vulgate, and Christian tradition later applied it to Satan.

Bedouin shepherds found the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah in 1947 in a cave at which site?

Qumran Cave 1 held the Great Isaiah Scroll, about 1,000 years older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts known before the find.

Jewish tradition says the prophet Isaiah was sawn in two on the orders of which king, Hezekiah's son?

Manasseh had the prophet sawn apart inside a cedar tree where he was hiding, the Talmud relates, and Hebrews 11:37 probably alludes to it.

Isaiah 2's vision of nations streaming to God's mountain is repeated nearly verbatim by which other prophet?

Micah 4 repeats the oracle, while Joel 3 turns it upside down and calls for farm tools to be hammered into weapons.

In Isaiah 36, Hezekiah's officials ask the Assyrian envoy to stop speaking Hebrew and use which language?

Aramaic would have kept the defenders on the wall from following his threats, but the envoy answered by calling out even louder in Hebrew.

By which title does Isaiah 8:3 refer to Isaiah's wife, the mother of Maher-shalal-hash-baz?

The prophetess bore a son whose name, roughly quick to the plunder, is often counted the longest in the Bible.

Which Hebrew word, found in the Bible only at Isaiah 34:14, later named a night demon of Jewish folklore?

Lilith appears among the wild creatures haunting the ruins of Edom, and the King James Version translated the word as screech owl.

Which German scholar first argued that the Book of Isaiah holds three separate collections of oracles?

Bernhard Duhm set out the theory in an 1892 commentary and first singled out the four Servant Songs; his three sons all became chess masters.