Isaiah is many a reader's most beloved book of the Old Testament / Tanakh outside the Torah itself and the Wisdom books.
We know that Isaiah was probably the most popular of the
nevi'im [prophets] in Second Temple Judaism (
Hannah 2005, p. 7).
So highly regarded was he by the church fathers and medieval Christians, that St. Jerome could write:
“Methinks Isaiah writes not a prophecy, but a gospel", while St. Augustine could say: "
He could be better called an evangelist than a prophet." That was high praise from a Christian pov.
It is a gorgeously written ancient text, with vivid imagery and yet a real cadence of mercy and compassion running through its oracles that is quite striking if one compares the book with the other Major Prophets (for instance, Ezekiel).
That said, I would be hesitant in referring to 'Isaiah' in the singular: scholars have discerned at least three possible 'Isaiahs' behind the text - the original prophet himself, Isaiah son of Amoz (40 BC to 700 BC); Deutero-Isaiah prophesying in about the fifth century BCE (
Chapters 40–55), at the end of the Babylonian captivity and potentially a third, dubbed Trito-Isaiah (
chapters 55–66).
The two latter prophets are anonymous, because they were following in the footsteps of the original prophet (whose oracles make up the lion's share of the text,
chapters 1 - 39) and helped to further embellish some of the themes he had voiced in his own lifetime.
Your quotation
@adrian009 is from the last author of the Book of Isaiah, "
Trito" (a post-exilic prophet in Judah). Most scholars accept the separation between Proto-Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah but there is no common agreement on the Third Isaiah. However, I'll treat him as a distinct personality for the purposes of this post (as per Duhm and Schmid: "
in contrast to the unconditional salvation oracles in Isaiah 40 55, judgment oracles return in chapters 56-66").
To quote one scholar, Blenkinsopp: "
Most scholars agree, nevertheless,that the bulk of 56-66 reflects the situation in the province of Judah (Yehud) during thefirst century of Persian rule, corresponding more or less to the reigns of Darius (522-486),Xerxes I (486-465) and Artaxerxes (465-424)." (Blenkinsopp,
Isaiah 56-66, 43).
Chapters 55 - 66 mainly deal with social and religious problems. At the beginning, we have economic difficulties (Isaiah 60:17; 62:8) and unstable politics (Isaiah 60:10, 18). This appears to reflect the pessimism of the return of the first exiles to Judaea after the ascension of Cyrus the Great and their liberation, momentous events that had led to the buoyed hopes and idealism of Deutero-Isaiah (acclaiming Cyrus as Adonai's 'annointed'). To comfort the exiles, Trito-Isaiah propounds an eschatological vision of the future.
In some respects, Trito-Isaiah is here picking up a refrain already delivered by his predecessor Deutero-Isaiah (43:16-21).
The majority of scholars do not appear to interpret Deutero-Isaiah as predicting a truly 'apocalyptic' scenario (although this is defended by prominent ones such as Westermann (1969) and J.D. Smart (1965)), with the 'old' heaven and earth being destroyed and the creation of a new cosmos (as most Christians have understood it). If that were so, Isaiah would not be a
prophet (per se) but an
apocalypticist like the author of the Book of Daniel and the text would be found in the
Ketuvim (writings) section rather than in the Prophets.
Trito-Isaiah, likewise, seems to envisage a miraculous 'renewal': "
a total and radical change of the existing state of affairs [...] It has its place of reality in history - in this world, not in another one." (
Studies in the Book of Wisdom, p.120). The past participle in 65:17 indicates a change that is already "
beginning to be" but will be realised fully in the "gathering of the nations". It fits a theme of utopian hope about a future age of peace in Isaiah (found in the original prophet and Deutero as well).
However, these last chapters of Isaiah may also depict a future reality in which God will fashion an entirely new heaven and a new earth - in other words, the first clear outline of what Orthodox Jews call
olam ha-ba the "
world to come", עולם הבא, a properly transcendental reality as opposed to just temporal well-being (i.e. Deutero-Isaiah), after the resurrection of the dead and the earthly Messianic Age.