Five Responses to Yahweh’s Promises: Chapters 61 and 62 recapitulate much of chapter 60, but they do so in a new framework. They offer five responses to those promises. Whereas the prophet’s word was a brisk preliminary to Yahweh’s word in 59:21–60:22, in chapters 61–62 the prophet speaks a number of times in a way that has significance in its own right but also introduces recapitulations of the promises.

Accounts of a prophet’s own experience or actions appear in the OT because the testimony is in some way significant for the audience, though the way in which it is relevant varies. In the classic accounts of Yahweh’s commission of prophets such as Isaiah ben Amoz, Amos, or Jeremiah, the logic is, “This is why you ought to take me seriously and turn back to Yahweh” (or why you ought to have…