First Isaiah and the Disappearance of the Gods

Isaiah 1–39 uses the unique term אלילים—usually translated as “idols”— more than anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Using this linguistic phenomenon as a point of departure, Matthew J. Lynch reexamines the rhetorical strategies of First Isaiah, revealing a stronger monotheizing rhetoric than previously recognized.

Standard accounts of Israelite religion frequently insist that monotheism reached its apex during the exile, and especially in Deutero-Isaiah. By contrast, Lynch’s study brings to ...