Canter Bridge

The book of Isaiah works its way forward on a decidedly non-linear path to its ‘new heavens and new earth’, its recreated Zion. As it travels, its text provides us glimpses of doors thrown scandalously wide open.

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

‘And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.’ The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, ‘I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.’ (Isaiah 56:3–8 ESV)

Two groups often excluded from the Israelite ideal are now warmly welcomed. Their core fear is abated. They are invited to belong.

The foreigner who has hung out with YHWH’s people, who has aspired—though without much real hope of it working out—truly to belong to this peculiar race, sees his despondency dismissed.

His half-spoken fear is interestingly put:

The LORD will surely separate me (הבדיל יבדילני) from his people …

Students of biblical Hebrew will recognize the enchainment of the same verb, first as an infinitive absolute and then as a finite verb. The English Standard Version (ESV) joins itself to a tradition of translating this verse when it provides the word ‘surely’, as in ‘will surely separate me’. So does the normal emphasis that is implicit in the infinitive absolute find expression in the degree of sad certainty this foreigner feels: YHWH would never have one of my kind at the hearth of the Israelite home.

It is possible that we should read a plaintive note in the foreigner’s stress. The text identifies this foreigner not as any foreigner, but as one who has joined or bound himself to YHWH. The language of conversion, for lack of a better descriptor, already attaches itself to this man or to this woman. Loyalty has already been transferred. The big decisions have already been made. He is an insider-outsider, the part after the hyphen being the cause of his sleepless nights.

His sense of second-class status lingers. Surely, the foreigner muses in quiet moments, this will not end well. I am not genuinely one of them.

The text sees YHWH adding a few more evidences of the genuine, covenantal joining that mark this foreigner as a man or the woman on the path to becoming a true, adoptive Israelite. Then, astonishingly, the prophet turns his back both on centuries of definition of the Israelite ideal and on vast investment in ink and scroll to declare that the foreigner’s anxiety is no longer justified:

These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

To his surprise, the foreigner is welcomed into the holiest of places and the most intimate of activities, those that place the son or daughter of Israel in that proximity to YHWH that is both dangerous and joyful. Indeed, the promise of levity in this ‘house of prayer’ is explicit, for the building’s intended clientele—the prophet argues—is not or shall no longer be ethnic but universal.

The eunuch, beside the foreigner, finds himself similarly brought in from the cold.

And let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.’

Here the emphasis falls not so much on the eunuch’s off-putting physical deformity, but rather on the children he will never have. The problem to be resolved by YHWH’s newly announced welcome is not so much a missing body part as the ache of an absent legacy.

Again the text insists that there are conditions to the welcome it is about to extend. It opens doors specifically to those eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant. The text offers to foreigner and eunuch not some cheap shift in policy down at city hall, but rather a sober opportunity to belong and to endure as they never imagined possible.

Just as personified and barren Zion in chapter 54 is comforted by the news that ‘the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married’, so here the eunuch who shows himself determined acquires a legacy that is better than sons and daughters.

The poor man will not be forgotten after all! His name will be ever after glimpsed by worshippers in a most holy place. Children will ask, ‘Mommy, who was that man?’ The eunuch’s name shall be everlasting, never cut off from the memory-rich reflection of YHWH’s people.

It is instructive that neither the foreigner nor the eunuch in the prophet’s promise becomes something he is not. The former becomes not an ex-foreigner, but rather a foreigner who truly belongs. The latter becomes not a fully sexed vir, but a eunuch tenaciously remembered.

It would seem that Isaiah’s announcement that ‘YHWH makes all things new’ speaks more to the fresh and vigorous re-positioning of the hopeless than to the imposition of bland conformity.

Over by that wall, a foreigner prays to YHWH in his odd Egyptian accent. Here in this corridor, a man who never married is revered like one’s dearest grandpa.

The God of Jacob has been here.