Canter Bridge

The moral architecture of the book of Isaiah is one of its sustaining threads, holding together deep complexity by the persistence of a singular theme. With its recurrent promise that ‘YHWH alone shall be exalted on that day’, the book establishes that when things are as they should be, YHWH is lifted up and all his creatures stand below him in proper submission. Indeed, chapter six’s vision tells us that the view from the heavenly throne room is just this way. Only matters on earth have gone temporarily akilter.

One of the outworkings of this architectural premise is that YHWH’s utilitarian employment of a great power like Assyria ought not to be interpreted as license for self-elevation. Let us hear the prophet’s words to this point:

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger—
the club in their hands is my fury!
Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
But this is not what he intends,
nor does he have this in mind;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
and to cut off nations not a few.
For he says:
‘Are not my commanders all kings?
Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols
whose images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
what I have done to Samaria and her images?’
When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride.
For he says:
‘By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I have removed the boundaries of peoples,
and have plundered their treasures;
like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones.
My hand has found, like a nest,
the wealth of the peoples;
and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,
so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved a wing,
or opened its mouth, or chirped.’

In a text that consciously alludes to other biblical tradition, the phrase in which Assyria’s king equates Jerusalem’s ‘idols’ to all others he has vanquished is particularly egregious. It implicitly makes Israel/Judah ‘like all the other nations’, which is in fine irony a besetting desire of the people. YHWH will not have this. The architecture of the book will not bear it.

Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one who wields it,
or the saw magnify itself against the one who handles it?
As if a rod should raise the one who lifts it up,
or as if a staff should lift the one who is not wood!
Therefore the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts,
will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors,
and under his glory a burning will be kindled,
like the burning of fire.
The light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame;
and it will burn and devour
his thorns and briers in one day.

It is illuminating that the metaphor by which the prophetic passage has YHWH announcing his verdict is one that accuses the great Assyrian of lifting himself above the stature of YHWH himself.

Arrogance could hardly be more carefully delineated.

The history of Christian interpretation has labored over the quest to define the most elemental of human sins. Isaiah had little doubt.