NEW COLLEGEVILLE BIBLE COMMENTARY: ISAIAH - 9780814628478

New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Isaiah (Volume 13) by Leslie J. Hoppe, OFM, is a 184-page paperback commentary on the Book of Isaiah. Rather than dividing the book according to theories about how it was composed, Hoppe reads Isaiah as a whole, following its literary shape and treating it as a work with its own literary and theological integrity. It is suited to individuals, Bible study groups, homilists, and catechists who want a scholarly but readable guide to one of the major prophetic books of the Old Testament.

Isaiah combines prose and poetry in a drama of great emotion and intensity. Scholars still debate how the book reached its present form, and Hoppe acknowledges that it was composed over time. His focus is the book's larger purpose: giving the people of Judah and Jerusalem hope for the future and the will to return to their ancestral religious traditions. Read this way, Isaiah is an expression of faith in the Holy One of Israel and in the future of Jerusalem, faith that has shaped Jewish and Christian believers for centuries. Hoppe is a Franciscan biblical scholar who served on the faculty of Catholic Theological Union for twenty-four years and is a former editor of The Bible Today.

Use & care: Suited to reading alongside the Book of Isaiah in personal study or a parish Bible study, and to homily preparation during Advent, when Isaiah features prominently in the Sunday readings. Open the paperback gently rather than folding the cover back, and store it upright on a shelf.