Reformation Commentaries on Isaiah: Historical Context

These commentaries were intended to clarify the words of Scripture—not replace or displace them. Protestant interpreters engaged primarily with the biblical text but also dialogued with other interpreters—from both the past and the present. The most important medieval exegetes on Isaiah included Origen (third century), Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 325), John Chrysostom (c. 386), Jerome, (c. 408–410), Cyril of Alexandria (c. 428), Isidore of Seville (c. 600), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1252), and Nicholas of Lyra (1322–1333). Reformation commentators also engaged with the Glossa Ordinaria, commonly included in many versions of their Vulgate Bibles. Additionally, for several interpreters of this time, on Old Testament books such as Isaiah, they also engaged with Jewish rabbinic interpreters such as Rabbis David Kimchi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Solomon ben Isaac (also known as Rashi). These commentaries—and the sermons and lectures on which they were based—supplied future pastors and theologians with significant content necessary for their academic and ecclesiastical training.

Commentary on Isaiah in the Reformation era comes from all the various traditions that developed during this time period.5 Not all of them produced actual commentaries, but they certainly exegeted, interpreted, and applied passages from Isaiah in their writings. Among those who did publish commentaries on Isaiah, Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531), the reformer of Basel, was the first Protestant to produce a Reformation commentary on Isaiah in 1525, based on his lectures from 1523.6 This important event launched a renewed interest in the prophet and in the exposition of Old Testament literature. Oecolampadius’s teaching on Isaiah gained the attention of Martin Luther, who even sent him words of encouragement while he was lecturing.7 In his own later published work on Isaiah, Luther noted, “Oecolampadius has translated Isaiah with adequate care,” and, “Oecolampadius has sufficiently done good work in the grammar.”8 Not only did Oecolampadius’s work pioneer new ways of commenting on Isaiah, but his Isaiah lectures stood as a model for how the prophet would be discussed in the early years of the Reformation.

Apparently, the commentary by Oecolampadius was sufficient enough that it nearly stood alone in the Strasbourg-Basel tradition. In fact, when Ulrich Zwingli explains the reason for his own annotations on Isaiah published in 1529, he states, “I do not want you to suspect me of calling the most learned and most godly commentary of Oecolampadius into doubt.”9 Zwingli praises Oecolampadius’s commentary as a “cornucopia” that “truly made clear” the genuine sense of Isaiah.10 While Zwingli’s work was the first in the Zurich tradition, many others taught and preached on Isaiah. Theodor Bibliander (c. 1504–1564) published his “Oration on the Life and Times of Isaiah” in 1532, which Bullinger recommended and included a portion of in his own commentary.11 Konrad Pellikan (1478–1556) composed a relatively short commentary in 1534. In 1557, Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) produced the most thorough and substantial commentary on Isaiah, incorporating lexical, philological, grammatical, exegetical, historical, and theological comments. Both Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) and Rudolf Gwalther (1519–1586) had their extended sermon series on Isaiah published as commentaries in 1567 and 1583 respectively. Bullinger preached 190 homilies on Isaiah, and Gwalther’s volume includes 327 weekday homilies from the 1580s. There is no shortage of material on Isaiah from the Zurich exegetical tradition.

The Lutheran-Wittenberg tradition also saw a significant number of commentaries published on Isaiah. Martin Luther taught on Isaiah from 1527 to 1530. While Luther’s lectures were not published more completely until 1914, an edition of his scholia was published in 1532, and in an expanded version in 1534.12 Lutheran authors produced more than half the Protestant commentaries during this time period. The two earliest Lutheran commentaries were by Veit Dietrich (1506–1549) and Johannes Brenz (1499–1570), published in 1548 and 1550. In 1549, Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) began lecturing on Isaiah and sent his early work to Leipzig for publication. However, Melanchthon’s posthumously published comments in 1561 only cover the argument of the book and the first four chapters.13 Among the many Lutheran commentaries published in the late 1560s to the late 1580s, the volumes by Nikolaus Selnecker (1530–1592) in 1569 and Dietrich Schnepff (1525–1586) in 1575 are the most significant. A unique contribution from the Lutherans is the 1584 publication by Philipp Heilbrunner (1546–1616), which provided a series of questions and answers on theological topics drawn from Isaiah similar to the format of a catechism. The majority of this work is quotations from Isaiah organized around thirty-four theological topics.14

In the Geneva tradition, of course, the commentary on Isaiah by John Calvin (1509–1564) is and remains the most important. Like Oecolampadius before him, Calvin chose Isaiah as the first Old Testament book on which he lectured. His lectures from 1549 were published in 1551 based on the careful notes taken and developed by Nicolas Des Gallars (Gallasius).15 The other important work in the Geneva tradition was published posthumously from the work of French Reformed pastor Augustin Marlorat (1506–1562). His 1564 compilation commentary on Isaiah includes excerpts from Oecolampadius, Zwingli, Luther, Pellikan, Calvin, Musculus, and François Vatable interspersed with some of his own exposition. This work is quite important since Marlorat not only selected significant interpreters but also selected what he deemed most important from those significant interpreters. This work was republished in 1610.

Others in the Reformed tradition who produced commentaries on Isaiah include the German Reformed author of the Heidelberg Catechism, Zacharias Ursinus (1534–1583); Italian Reformed Giovanni Diodati (1576–1649); and Abraham Scultetus (1566–1625), a German Reformed professor who had previously been Lutheran. Ursinus’s posthumous publication in 1584 only covers the first twenty-two chapters of Isaiah but goes into significant depth with many different approaches to addressing matters raised by the biblical text.16 Diodati’s publication of 1607 provides a seventeen-page outline, which he labels an Analysis, of the entire book organized and subdivided into many parts, followed by several brief annotations on each chapter. Scultetus’s 1618 volume is unique in that he provides sermon ideas on every chapter of Isaiah.

There are few so-called radical or Anabaptist commentators. Those most closely associated with this group who published comments on Isaiah include Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563) and Martin Cellarius Borrhaus (1499–1564). Castellio’s 1551 annotations are part of his larger work on the whole Bible and are typically quite brief. The 1561 commentary on Isaiah by Borrhaus is far more thorough. However, there are also comments in polemical and catechetical writings from figures such as Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1486–1541), Balthasar Hubmaier (1480/1485–1528), and Menno Simons (c. 1496–1561). Some of these are included in this volume.

While there were not many biblical commentaries published in England during the Reformation era, John Trapp (1601–1699), John Mayer (1583–1664), and William Day (c. 1605–1684) all published Isaiah commentaries in the 1650s. In addition to these works, comments in this volume have been drawn from the English Annotations edited by John Downame (c. 1571–1625) and expositions by the bishop of Lincoln, Thomas Cooper (1517?–1594), on the portions of Isaiah that lined up with...