Dear undershepherds of the risen Lord Jesus,
Last summer, in the middle of the pandemic, when pastors’ attention was largely consumed with adjusting to alternative ways of conducting gospel ministry under government-mandated restrictions, Northwestern Publishing House released a new professional book for pastors. The book is a commentary on the book of Isaiah—The Scroll of Isaiah: Its Unity, Structure, and Message by Dr. Seth Erlandsson. Perhaps you noticed its release and purchased a copy. Perhaps it didn’t catch your attention at the time. If it didn’t, my letter is especially intended for you.
You may recognize the name of the author, or perhaps not. If the name is not familiar to you, Seth Erlandsson is from Sweden, and he is a member of our sister Lutheran church in Sweden. He taught Old Testament studies at the Uppsala University in the 1960s. For 16 years he was the Director of the Bible Research Centre of the Biblicum Foundation, affiliated with our Swedish sister church. His doctoral thesis was on the book of Isaiah, and he describes in the commentary’s preface how “this commentary has developed and grown during a long time of wandering with Isaiah. After 50 years together, I am beginning to become familiar with him and his message. I cannot get enough of his company.”
If you were to assume that this commentary, like some other commentaries, is therefore a thousand pages long and loaded with footnotes on every page to demonstrate how familiar the author is with all the secondary literature related to Isaiah, you would be mistaken! Professor Erlandsson’s commentary is just over 300 pages long. If you were also to assume that this book is loaded up with Hebrew on every page, you would also be mistaken. Erlandsson occasionally refers to Hebrew words, always transliterated into English, and often rendered into English with his own translation.
The Scroll of Isaiah provides what the author calls a “walkthrough of the entire book.” It is similar to what some of our seminary professors would refer to as a “running exegesis”—more than a mere isagogical introduction to a biblical book, but not a detailed exegesis of every word, phrase, and sentence of the book either. Dr. Erlandsson focuses throughout the commentary on the overriding message of Isaiah (law and gospel, centered in Christ, and addressed to his historical contemporaries), the overall structure (outline) of the book, and its unity in authorship, audience, and message. Pastors will recognize that in the back of Erlandsson’s mind are the modern critical theories that the book of Isaiah was written by multiple authors and was addressed to multiple audiences separated by centuries, which he seeks to refute.
The size and scope of this commentary make it a very handy study tool for the busy pastor as he does his text studies for sermons and Bible classes on Isaiah, especially for reviewing the overall message and line of thought in the section of Isaiah that he is studying. (Note: the great Messianic prophecies of Christ still receive plenty of attention.) In the future, if I am working on a sermon text from Isaiah, and I have completed my own exegetical work, and it’s time to read some commentaries, I will still read Pieper (for Isaiah 40–66) and Young. But I will start with Erlandsson.
Just to conclude: with the three-year lectionary that most of our churches use, there are plenty of opportunities to preach on Isaiah texts. In the revised Lutheran Lectionary included in the forthcoming Christian Worship (2021), I counted 52 times over the three years that Isaiah texts have been selected for the First (OT) Reading.
I am happy to commend to you: The Scroll of Isaiah by Dr. Seth Erlandsson.
With you in Christ arisen!
Curtis A. Jahn
P.S. Something else to call to your attention: We have recently added to our list of NPH professional commentaries in the Logos Library System, which are available for preorder now at a discount. To be released by the end of this month at the regular price, the new six-volume Bible Commentary Set contains the following titles:
- Psalms 1-72
- Psalms 73-150
- Ephesians
- 1 & 2 Thessalonians
- 2nd Timothy: Be Strong
- Revelation: The Distant Triumph Song
The titles in this set are also available as individual print copies at nph.net.