Canter Bridge

Alongside Gerhard von Rad, Walther Zimmerli is one of the giants of 20th-century biblical theology. In his customarily lively prose, Brueggemann introduces this collection of four essays by showing how Zimmerli is a model of theologically-acute biblical criticism who `stays close to the text’ and therefore does not pay too high a price for the rebuttal of larger concepts like those put forth by von Rad, G.E. Wright and others of the time. Brueggemann paid his dues in the scholarly salt mines by editing and interpreting Zimmerli and H.W. Wolff relatively early in his career, labor that certainly enriched his own tradition criticism later on. The essay that introduces this volume contains some delicious irony, such as the observation that recent (in 1982) continental scholarship is `inclined to return to a critical, pretheological perspective’. This slightly acid turnabout on the terms `theological’ and `precritical’ anticipates criticism of the mature Brueggemann and sometime soul-mates like B. Childs for being `too theological’ and even `precritical’.

In the 1953 essay that gives this anthology its title (`I Am Yahweh’, pp. 1-28), Zimmerli carefully analyzes the self-presentation formula, finding ancient antecedents that are picked up with particular tenaciousness by the Priestly writers and Ezekiel. The phrase is revelatory of a `unique ego-the “I” of Yahweh that makes itself heard most distinctly in self-introduction’. Everything that Yahweh has to announce to his people is contained in this name. Though the predicate assertion is picked up creatively in Deutero-Isaiah, it is not prophetic in its core but rather is a self-revelation that was safeguarded and transmitted in the cult. When, say, Ezekiel or Deutero-Isaiah echo the formula, they show the influence that liturgy has exercised upon them. A brief paragraph can hardly do justice to Zimmerli’s densely-argued thesis, which has its theological payoff (without that, we would scarcely find a volume of these essays edited by Brueggemann) in the self-revelation of Yahweh, a matter that is not concerned with abstractions or ontology but with divine activity in history.

A year later, Zimmerli followed up this essay with a wide-ranging and related one (`Knowledge of God According to the Book of Ezekiel’, pp. 29-98). The `recognition formula’ is indeed the other side of the relationship that is so often initiated by Yahweh’s self-presentation formula. The formula is densely present in Ezekiel, which is `a relatively late witness to a significantly older tradition of prophetic discourse structure, a traditional already manifested in the prophetic groups in the Northern Kingdom. That which in the book of Ezekiel is so quickly noticeable and appears to be on of the characteristic elements is by no means an original coinage of Ezekiel himself.’ Zimmerli traces the formula back still further to the Moses tradition in its various traditions, as to Deutero-Isaiah and scattered other texts.

After fixing the textual loci of the formula, Zimmerli identifies the statement as something that follows upon historical action by Yahweh. It clings to situations in which a decision between diverse options has been taken: `Recognition is not just the illumination of a new perspective; it is a process of acknowledgement that becomes concrete in confession and worship and leads directly to practical decisions.’ Moreover, the moment of recognition develops its own post-history, for in Israel’s faith the testimony of that moment is rehearsed and actualized. Signs-for example, the Sabbath-join proclamation as the vehicle by which recognition is extended from one generation to the next.

Zimmerli believes that the recognition statement originated in the context of signs, though it has certainly been mediated to other contexts and to the plight of needy individuals by, say, the priestly appropriation of a statement whose origin owed more to prophetic intervention. The statement implies that one comes to `know … that I am Yahweh’. The inherent dignity of the name is the object of human knowledge, attainable not by speculation but only by self-revelation. Here, Zimmerli is at his most quotablenot a frequent occurrence-and deserves to be heard without interruption:

`This (i.e. Yahweh’s revelation through present historical activity) strongly personalizes the historical experience both of Israel as a whole and of the individual Israelites who receives (sic) the divine word from the priest. No matter how significant and irreplaceable the stories of the great initial encounters may be, Israel and the individual Israelite do not have to return to some limited, isolated initial salvation history in order to encounter Yahweh. Instead Yahweh wants to encounter them unexpectedly in the midst of their present situation by means of his personal self-introduction in the word of his authorized emissary. In the word of the proclaimer, both the present history proclaimed by the prophet as well as the event of supplication hearing in an individual’s life announced by the priest become events of Yahweh’s personal address.’

In his 1957 essay, `The Word of Divine Self-Manifestation (Proof-saying): A prophetic genre’ (pp. 99-110), Zimmerli placed his work on the recognition statement as a prophetic form squarely within progress that was still fresh on what has now been almost formally titled as `the forms of prophetic speech’. Though Zimmerli’s contribution in this article is limited, he is clearly pushing forward his research in an attempt to trace the liturgical after-life of a form that enjoyed its early innings in the context of holy war.

The book’s moving final essay (`Plans for Rebuilding After the Catastrophe of 587′, pp. 111-133) underscores the radical incapacity that Ezekiel diagnosed in Israel from the exile, noting the peculiar Ezekielian insistence that Israel was debased from its very beginnings. Zimmerli discovers in the famous reconstruction project of Ezekiel 40-48 evidence of a desire to seize the `blessing of the nadir’ and to begin anew the conceptualization of a Jewish people and commonwealth. However, an inbuilt restraint on this instinct for correction is also evident within the text. It consists of the conviction that, even in radical newness, the Lord remains faithful to his ancient promises to the people.

Zimmerli does not discern in the Ezekiel 40-48 project the paralyzed quiescence that might have characterized a people wholly corrupt from its inception in the face of the impossibility of revivification. Rather, the power of the Ezekielian word moves deportees to labor long and patiently over a vision of reconstruction that would indeed be continent upon Yahweh’s intervention `for his own name’s sake’. One element of this critical rebuilding ought to be cited. It is the `turning away from the king’s name’ that places in the monarch’s stead the vision of a privileged prince who is yet one of the people and goes in and out of the city gates and the new urb’s cultic congregations with his compeers.

By editing this volume of Zimmerli’s classic—in the sense of direction-setting, not necessarily gripping from page one to the finale—Brueggemann has placed in the hands of younger scholars an example of what it means (meant?) to master the languages and to stick with a text long enough to comprehend its elements, its nature, its direction, and its tone.