Isaiah: A Mentor Commentary

Paul House’s Isaiah is a clear, energetic, and pastorally useful commentary that does a fine job tracing the book’s theological unity and repeated movement from sin to Zion, but its most distinctive argument is also its least convincing: while House joins a small conservative minority in defending single Isaianic authorship, he goes well beyond Motyer, Oswalt, and Young by relocating much of Isaiah 40–66 from the Babylonian exile to the Assyrian era, a move that leaves him isolated not only from critical scholarship but from most conservative interpreters as well. His reading is bold and occasionally stimulating, yet it often feels possibility-driven rather than text-driven, especially in his treatment of exile language, his attempt to read Assyrian deportations where many passages fit sixth-century Babylonian and postexilic realities more naturally, and his highly idiosyncratic handling of Cyrus as an early seventh-century figure from the household of an Assyrian vassal rather than the Persian king almost universally recognized by both critical and evangelical commentators. His view that Isaiah 6 is a redirection of an existing ministry rather than the inaugural call is also possible but depends heavily on reading the book’s order as more strictly chronological than many commentators allow. Overall, this is a stimulating and worthwhile evangelical exposition of Isaiah’s message, but as a guide to historical setting and compositional history it is strained, historically eccentric, and significantly less persuasive than the stronger major commentaries.

Lacks some critical and technical data, but still has solid exegesis. If you're looking for something pastoral and devotional for Isaiah, this isn't a bad stop!