In what book of the Bible, do we encounter the name that is actually a promise: "Immanuel"—"God with us"?

Where do we first hear the name "Prince of Peace" given to the Messiah?

Where do we find the promise that someday the lion and lamb will lie down together, that every valley will be exalted, that there is good news for the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed?

Where do all these words of comfort and assurance appear?

The Book of Isaiah.

We take some things for granted and don't feel that they require our full attention. That's not a world-shaking insight, I'll grant you, but we're reminded of it over and over if we have our eyes—or ears—open. I was telling my American literature class the other day about a song I had been hearing for 30 years. It came on the radio, and I suddenly realized that I had been mishearing the lyrics my whole adult life. It was so familiar; I didn't think I had to give any thought to it.

That's an insight we could apply to Isaiah, which is the source of so much of our Christian theology and liturgical language that we often fail to give it proper attention. There's an old joke—probably only funny to Ph.D.s in English—about the student who complains about studying Hamlet because it's just a bunch of famous quotations strung together.

But Isaiah continually rewards our attention, even though it too seems like a bunch of famous quotations strung together, because those famous quotations are at the heart of our faith.

We don't know much about the prophet—or prophets—whose words are recorded for us in the book we call Isaiah, but as we've noted, the words recorded there are some of the most significant in our tradition. The name Isaiah means "Yahweh Saves," or "the LORD is salvation," and that is the beginning of comfort in itself. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells us in Biblical Literacy that in Jewish tradition, Isaiah was thought to be the nephew of King Amaziah, and thus was a person both "worldly and pious, a man with a vision both of this world and the next." In that vision, we see the Messiah predicted, ethical failures indicted, and Isaiah's dream of a world where God's reign will bring peace.

In our tradition, Isaiah is revered as the prophet most closely connected to the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Anointed One of God; St. Jerome actually spoke of Isaiah as the fifth gospel. In the Christian Testament (with the exception of the Psalms) it's the most quoted book of the Hebrew Testament, and it appears in some seminal moments—when Jesus inaugurates his public ministry in Luke, say, or in any of the Gospels when John the Baptist quotes Isaiah to describe what he's come to do and the savior for whom he's come to prepare the way.

Isaiah also tells us much about our savior. He names him and describes his qualities in Chapter 9:

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness-

on them light has shined.

For a child has been born for us,

a son given to us;

authority rests upon his shoulders;

and he is named

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 2, 6, NRSV)