Canter Bridge

The culminating oracle of blessing pronounced over Egypt now widens to include what might have seemed to a Judahite hearer or reader of Isaiah the three most important nations in the world. The oracle is in this sense a global vision.

On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.’

Isaiah 19:24-25 (NRSV)

This simple declaration culminates the carefully constructed crescendo of the five sequenced oracles not only because of it stunning reconstruction of Israel’s place in the world. It also claims first-among-equals status as the chain’s supreme statement because for the first time YHWH speaks in his own voice, without a prophet’s mediation.

Clearly, this oracle—manifestly one of five—towers over and completes the work of its peers.

Interpretive difficulties cling to to details. First, what is the antecedent of ברכה, a blessing? The referenced blessing might be Israel herself. Or it might be the composite trio of the three named peoples.

Second, how should we understand the antecedent to the relative particle אשׁר and indeed to the pronominal suffix of ברכו? The latter feature is omitted in the rendering of NRSV that I’ve quoted above, probably wisely.

Reconstructions of sense and syntax abound and the matter is indeed complex. With ברכו, we may indeed have a slightly corrupt text.

With regard to the first question, it must be noted that the Hebrew relative particle אשׁר is undeclinable. Morphology therefore gives us no clues as to its antecedent. The full interpretive burden falls upon syntax.

NRSV’s representation of אשׁר with ‘whom’ indicates that it understands ‘whom the Lord has blessed’ to refer back to Israel, Egypt, and Assyria. Although this trio of nations is not the nearest possible antecedent to אשׁר, they are picked up again in the spoken blessing that the clause introduces. This is a very viable understanding and quite possibly reflects the intentionality woven into the Hebrew text.

A second and equally viable understanding of the matter sees the antecedent of אשׁר not in personal terms that can be represented in English by ‘whom’ but rather as an impersonal antecedent best glossed by ‘which’. In this case, the antecedent is the land. This reading has the benefit of linking אשׁר to its nearest antecedent in the flow of the sentence. As well, it evokes a land that now receives the blessing of its human denizens’ reconciliation. It is not difficult to hear Abrahamic resonances in this reading, to say nothing of potential harmonies with the ironic biblical motif of the land resting after its iniquitous possessors have finally been expelled.

With regard to the remaining details, the 3rd person singular pronominal suffix of ברכו in the Massoretic text, a reconstruction of the text may be in order. I favor an explanation that considers the possibility that the final waw of ברכו is extraneous and results from confusion with one or more of the initial letters of the following יהוה. The Septuagint seems to have arrived at a similar understanding, if indeed its Vorlage corresponds to our MT.

Laying these matters to rest for the moment, YHWH’s concluding declaration is a radical return to Abrahamic convictions, where YHWH’s purpose through Israel is blessing for the nations rather than the mere elevation of Israel’s prospects.

Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.

YHWH’s direct discourse sustains the claim that Israel is now ‘third in the land’ by placing her in exactly that position after Egypt and Assyria. Yet her dignity in that place resonates as loudly as ever.

Now, however, Israel is seen as one component of a vastly broader commitment on YHWH’s part. His determination, according to the Isaianic affirmation so gorgeously unfurled in this sequence of blessing oracles, it to bless, to fashion, and to preserve. The objects of those divine activities are plural rather than singular. Arguably these objects represent all the peoples of the earth, humanity itself. Indisputably, YHWH’s intentions bend towards the three most important nations in Israel’s world.

The careful reader hears in the background the second affirmation of the Seraphims’ song in the book’s generative vision (chapter 6):

The fulness of the earth is his glory!

One detects as well reverberations of the Vision of Visions in chapter 4, where the reader is invited to imagine a world in which swords have been beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. Nations, reconciled there in Zion as they become students of YHWH’s instruction, indeed become a blessing in the land rather than the soil’s most stubborn curse.