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Enter YHWH’s servant: Isaiah 42

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , on September 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The opening lines of the first of four ‘servant songs’ in the book of Isaiah establish with their bare descriptiveness a range of qualities about this figure that will be sustained and developed in the ensuing chapters. It is indeed an introduction in every respect, just as הן עבדי (‘Behold, my servant’ or [NRSV] Here is my servant…’]) would lead us to expect.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

Isaiah 42:1-4 (NRSV)

Notwithstanding the neatly aligned, almost prosaic, sentences that profile this newly introduced figure, the vocabulary is so rich that it renders the interpreter reluctant to offer the kind of abbreviation that follows. Nevertheless, there is value in doing so.

First, the servant’s relationship with YHWH is both substantive and deeply felt in a way that captures the formidable turn from justice to mercy and from enmity to collaboration that surges forth from chapter 40 onward. YHWH upholds and chooses the servant. Yet there is sentiment in the arrangement, for the servant is the one ‘in whom my should delights.’ The subsequent expression—‘I have put my spirit on him’—likely envelopes both the substance and the feeling that have been expressed just before it.

A rupture has been repaired, giving way to a remarkable functional intimacy between YHWH and his enigmatic servant.

Second, there is a preoccupation with the servant’s role vis-à-vis the world beyond Judah’s borders. We read that the servant ‘will bring forth justice to the nations’. Later, the servant will prove resilient until ‘he has established justice in the earth’. Indeed, a kind of reciprocity is hinted at, for on their side of things ‘the coastlands wait for his teaching’. The combination of these elements seems to suggest something other than a mere judgement upon the nations. In any case, that point could have been made more simply, and in combination the elements suggest that populations remote from Judah will welcome the servant’s justice when it arrives and perhaps even cooperate in seeing it established.

This is all the more so if the תורה for which the coastlands wait in 42.4 is understood principally as instruction rather than an imposed regimen, as seems likely to be the case. If this is the correct reading, then one discerns an allusion to the nations’ eager receptivity in the Vision of Visions at 2.3, taking into account that the learning of YHWH’s תורה back on that exalted mountain leads directly into some kind of imposed—even if welcomed!—rearrangement of relationships among the nations.

Third, the modus operandi of the servant is firmly established as a quiet and persistent one. Even if the servant is destined to achieve great and international things, the quiet and persistent gentleness of his manner will be sustained to the end. An excerpt establishes the point:

He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

Isaiah 42:2-3 (NRSV)

There is more to be said, even in this first of four servant songs, about the conduct and the anticipated accomplishment of YHWH’s servant. Yet these three observations will be sustained even in those moments when the more glorious aspects of the servant’s commission are commended. It begins to seem that his identity as YHWH’s עבד—his servant—is multivalent. Quite obviously, this figure is a servant in a way that faces YHWH himself, who here presents and upholds him. That is to say, he is an agent of YHWH’s purpose. Yet his manner also suggests a servant’s posture with regard to those entities whom he faces in the course of fulfilling his commission. ‘A dimly burning wick he will not clench’ stands here as an early declaration of this latter point.

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active and clueless: Isaiah 22

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , on September 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Isaiah’s enigmatically betitled ‘Oracle concerning the valley of vision’ appears to depict Jerusalem in panic as enemy forces advance upon it. Yet it is not a mindless and ineffective panic, at least not on pragmatic terms alone. The city is much occupied with sound preparation for the city’s admittedly long-shot defenses.

Still, the prophet perceives an existential cluelessness even as busy hands are at work.

On that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, and you saw that there were many breaches in the city of David, and you collected the waters of the lower pool. You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago.

Isaiah 22:8-11 (NRSV)

The burgers of a besieged city would be fools not to undertake these preparatory moves, notwithstanding the tactical sacrifice of those whose homes were demolished for the greater good of a city’s defensive walls.

Yet, from the prophet’s perspective, the citizens of Jerusalem did all this and were still fools.

On what grounds could such diligent patriots be faulted?

But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago.

The feminine singular objects of the Hebrew verbs that generate ‘did’ (עשׂה) and ‘planned’ (יצר, somewhat demetaphorised by the NRSV away from its more standard rending as ‘shaped’ or ‘molded’) are not entirely transparent. Probably, the feminine represents an abstract object. Most likely, the referent of the object is the entire impending calamity that is about to dash itself upon the city.

Busy with defensive strategy and tactics, it seems, Jerusalem does not contemplate the possibility that YHWH is in this; worse, that their soon destruction is YHWH’s own work.

It is a terrible and unpopular rendering of events.

Yet the book suggests that, if it is accurate, then besieged Jerusalem’s busywork is not only in vain. It is fighting against its divine Sovereign’s awful handiwork.

Jerusalem, in Isaianic perspective, shall be redeemed by justice (1.27a).

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no hope: Isaiah 13

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Readers of these reflections will have observed this author’s perception that the book of Isaiah is essentially hopeful regarding the fate of nations. Although one takes pains to observe the hard edge of chastisement that generally precedes the promise of inclusion of other peoples in YHWH’s redemptive plan for Israel, hope is there to be had. Sometimes subdued, at times mixed with subjection even if it be glad or much awaited subjection, at times bursting outlandishly from denunciation into blessing, nearly always there is a note of hopeful anticipation for erstwhile adversaries of Jacob.

But not so for Babylon, at least in the book’s thirteenth chapter.

The oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw.  

On a bare hill raise a signal, cry aloud to them; wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles.

I myself have commanded my consecrated ones, have summoned my warriors, my proudly exulting ones, to execute my anger.  

Listen, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering an army for battle.

They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth.  

Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty! 

Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt, and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.

See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the insolence of tyrants.

I will make mortals more rare than fine gold, and humans than the gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.

Like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, all will turn to their own people, and all will flee to their own lands.

Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.

Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.

See, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold.

Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.

It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; Arabs will not pitch their tents there, shepherds will not make their flocks lie down there.

But wild animals will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will live, and there goat-demons will dance.

Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand, and its days will not be prolonged.

Isaiah 13:1-22 (NRSV)

Although the oracle oscillates between Babylon and the whole inhabited world—or humanity, generally—it never strays far from the hooks that penetrate into the flesh of historical Babylon, Judah’s oppressor.

Perhaps the point is that there exists a final and determined opposition to YHWH’s counsel that is in the end respected and allowed to be what it is. It is not difficult to understand how this dark denunciation will be taken up in Christian apocalyptic to signal not the end of an historical empire at the point of Median (Persian) swords, but rather a final destruction of all human resistance to Redemption’s purpose.

The observation does not murder hope. But it kills frothy optimism.

There is, even in this oracle of misery, a purpose beyond battle, one that assumes the low profile of expectant imperatives—Listen! … See!. Someone, it seems, will benefit after the river of blood subsides.

But, oh, the humanity!

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Parásitos: Isaías 14

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , on September 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Dos facetas extraordinarias del discurso de Isaías se manifiestan en este breve oráculo.

Cuando el Señor tenga compasión de Jacob, escoja de nuevo a Israel y los establezca en su propia tierra, entonces se les juntarán extranjeros que se unirán a la casa de Jacob. Los tomarán los pueblos y los llevarán a su lugar, y la casa de Israel los poseerá como siervos y siervas en la tierra del Señor. Tomarán cautivos a los que los habían llevado cautivos, y dominarán sobre sus opresores.

Isaías 14:1-2 (NBLH)

Sin embargo, sería inútil apreciarlos sin tener en cuenta primero un hecho muy grande sobre el terreno: Los pueblos no estaban destinados a sobrevivir a la experiencia del exilio en el Antiguo Oriente Próximo.

Por el contrario, el exilio significaba la abolición de una nación de la faz de la tierra, del futuro, incluso de la memoria. Mediante el asesinato y el caos, mediante la asimilación tanto forzada como no forzada, un grupo étnico no tenía ninguna esperanza razonable de salir de la experiencia del exilio a manos, por ejemplo, de los babilonios bíblicos.

Con este sombrío telón de fondo, YHVH, en el libro de Isaías, promete repetidamente tener compasión de y volver a elegir a su pueblo cautivo, Israel/Judá. Es una afirmación que escupe en la cara de toda probabilidad histórica, por no hablar del poderío de la propia Babilonia.

Sólo un señor que está fuera y por encima de la historia podría hacer esta afirmación sin que se rieran de él. E incluso entonces, YHVH necesitaría dejarse ver en el espacio y el tiempo antes de que tal promesa fuera tomada en serio por todos, excepto por los más desesperados de los cautivos de Sión.

Este giro divino hacia el cautivo Judá es la primera de las dos hazañas extraordinarias del mensaje isaiánico a las que he aludido. Este giro misericordioso respalda y da credibilidad al llamamiento del profeta para que Judá se convierta (en arrepentimiento) y retorne (físicamente a Sión). Los distintos vocablos que son necesarios para expresar estas realidades en español velan el uso polifacético del verbo hebreo שׁוב para representar cada una de las acciones. Sin el giro previo de YHVH hacia este pueblo, no tiene sentido ninguna medida tan heroica por su parte. Sería una simple locura histórica, un breve estallido de entusiasmo que la historia no registraría.

En segundo lugar, las ‘naciones’ ocupan un lugar ambiguo en esta retórica. El texto afirma que los forasteros ‘se unirán’ a Judá y ‘se adherirán’ a la casa de Jacob, expresiones con un fuerte olor a conversión e injerto.

Además, ‘los pueblos’ -en su mayoría paganos- llevarán ellos mismos a Judá/Israel de vuelta a su tierra y luego se convertirán en siervos y esclavos de la nación dentro de ella. De nuevo, Isaías está mediando con imposibilidades, a menos que YHVH sea creíble.

El lugar de las naciones en la visión de Isaías es un problema muy discutido. Por momentos, el libro nos permite vislumbrar a los no israelitas como iguales virtuales a los propios judíos en compañía de su Señor redentor. Más comúnmente, las puertas se abren generosamente a los no judíos incluso cuando el texto mantiene una especie de subordinación de los ‘gentiles’ (la gente de las naciones no judías) a los propios judíos que regresan. Este es ciertamente el caso en este pasaje. El lector sigue sin saber hasta qué punto las naciones se sentirán cómodas como sirvientes domésticos de Israel. Tal vez un poco. Tal vez mucho.

Cuando se tienen en cuenta estas características del texto, queda claro que se trata de cualquier cosa menos de un optimismo prosaico e ingenuo de que las cosas saldrán bien al final. Por el contrario, Isaías nos haría quedarnos sin aliento -quizá incluso maldecir un poco en señal de incredulidad- ante un mundo conocido deshecho. Y uno nuevo que acaba de empezar.

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Two waters and a puzzle: Isaiah 8

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on September 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

A little oracle that dares to bring its low profile into the struggle of titans during Judah’s Syro-Ephraimite and Assyrian Crises deploys classic Isaianic irony and then a puzzle.

The LORD spoke to me again: Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and melt in fear before Rezin and the son of Remaliah; therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks; it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.  

Band together, you peoples, and be dismayed; listen, all you far countries; gird yourselves and be dismayed; gird yourselves and be dismayed!

Take counsel together, but it shall be brought to naught; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.

Isaiah 8:5-10 (NRSV)

The irony is a play on two kinds of waters. The Syrio-Ephraimite conspiracy has shaken the House of David to its core. One recalls reference to hearts shaking as do leaves before a wind. Mindless, purposeless, pitiful trembling.

Here the prophet probes at cause.

Trust in YHWH’s purposes for his Jerusalem has not been forthcoming. The operation of that purpose is represented here by a watery metaphor: the waters of Shiloah that flow gently. It appears that the spirit of Realpolitik has convinced Judah’s powers—such as they are—that gentleness is of no worth in such belligerent days.

One might wonder at precisely what kind of quietism Isaiah has in mind here. We know only a little about this, but we can certainly learn something by considering its opposite: the fearful search for a defending coalition among nations that do not name Zion-committed YHWH as their god.

In any case, Judah’s choice is defined as rejection or refusal (יען כי מאס) rather than by any gentler representation of choosing an alternative option. Even when speaking relatively quietly, the Isaianic tradition knows how to deploy its severer mercies.

The irony comes in when consequence is bolted onto cause. The refusal of quieter waters will now subject Judah to a raging flood.

(T)herefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River (את־מי הנהר העצומים והרבים), the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks; it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

Isaiah 8:7-8 (NRSV)

The discourse itself makes the contrast all the more severe, dedicating just a few words to Shiloah’s quiet waters while multiplying clause upon clause in a tumbling effort to portray Assyria’s capacity to overwhelm.

Then the puzzle.

The oracle ends with a peculiar expression, rendered by the NRSV as a cry of mingled desperation and hope: O Immanuel. The Hebrew meaning is less that completely clear. עמנו אל has no explicit particle that might render NRSV’s ‘O’. I think the NRSV has captured the meaning here, but this is not to say the translation it has provided is an obvious one.

Context helps a little, but not with determination.

Just a chapter prior to this oracle, a child is given the name that exactly anticipates the cry in 8.10. It will be important for the moment not to race too quickly to meaning when reading any one of these verses, whenever עמנו אל is in view.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (עמנו אל).

Isaiah 7:14 (NRSV)

Then, just two verses after the occurrence at 8.8 that is currently under scrutiny, the expression is used again.

Take counsel together, but it shall be brought to naught; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us (כי עמנו אל).

Isaiah 8:10 (NRSV)

Here the frequently explanatory particle כי lends considerable assistance, virtually locking down the notion that NRSV provides with its translation by obliging an English reader to supply the verb is.

So what exactly is happening at the end of 8.8, serving as it does in the Massoretic tradition as the conclusion of the oracle quoted earlier?

Perhaps here, too, one must supply some version of the verb to be. Perhaps the oracle cries out affirmingly in its conclusion that ‘God is with us!’, lodging this formidable truth against the conspiratorial agonies of the moment.

Or perhaps it is not a declaration but rather a forlorn hope: ‘God be with us!’

In my view, each of these is grammatically and contextually possible and can be defended.

However, I prefer to read אמנו אל at 8.8 in a slightly different manner. It is an evocation of an earlier moment, indeed of the very public prophetic act of naming a child with this ambiguous but resonant expression.

Why this interpretive hedging of bets? It seems to me that the same powerfully suggestive ambiguity of the naming of the child at 7:14 carries over into the cry at the end of 8:8—in context, a necessarily allusive and evocative one—and bears all the same ambiguity.

Does it mean ‘God is with us!’? Perhaps it does, placing faith over against fear in a moment where the choice of one or the other is in the prophetic view determinative for the people’s future.

Or is it a humbler plea, ‘O God, be with us!’ Perhaps, underscoring the painful fact that results are not yet known?

NRSV’s ‘O, Emmanuel!’ preserves the ambiguity while opening its flanks to a new vulnerability, that of reading the cry as an invocation of a person named ‘Emmanuel’. I am not persuaded that in context it can be exactly that.

The oracle at 8:6-8 ends, in my reading, as in part a summons to pay attention while YHWH’s strangely invisible but substantially present hand moves among the conspiring players in this moment of critical and decisive Realpolitik. This book is, after all, חזון ישעיהו (the vision of Isaiah). True to form, it claims here that the prophet sees things that others do not yet contemplate, unless they join him in resolutely quiet consideration of unraveling events.

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hired guns: Isaiah 7

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on September 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

In the Isaianic vision, YHWH’s inventory of weapons bulges in its closet.

This deity of what remains of little Jacob can anoint Cyrus the Persian emperor in order to restore YHWH’s people in a cross between chess played out on the stage of international affairs and puppetry guided by an expert master.

If this is so in blessing, it is also true in judgement. In this part of the Isaianic vision, mighty Assyria and Egypt are wielded—though for different purposes—as effortless as Cyrus will in future perform YHWH’s bidding ‘though he not know him’.

On that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the sources of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.

On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.

Isaiah 7:18-20 (NRSV)

We have perhaps grown too accustomed to reading this sort of thing to feel the shocking confidence required of the Jerusalemite prophet who would say it or write it. The nerve of such a little man amidst his tiny people, speaking of these two éminences grises of the Great Game! Who does he think he is?

Both of the these twin oracles are placed firmly in the sphere of YHWH’s sovereignty over the nations. ‘On that day the Lord…’ locates the envisaged events out of reach both of the prophet’s calendar and his capacity. These nearly identical introductions cement the prophet’s role as YHWH’s spokesman but emphatically not as his military attaché.

Then one must reckon with the denigration of the two empires’ identity. In the first oracle, YHWH’s whistle for the Egyptian fly and the Assyrian bee clearly communicates a vertical power structure. YHWH commands, his empires-cum-insects respond.

In the second oracle, Assyria is a razor, an inert implement with no functionality of its own, entirely dependent on the hand that wields it.

In this Isaianic vision of international events, YHWH brings the difficult matter of Israel’s disciplining to an unpleasant head. Yet he gives nothing away to those supposed powers that he will use in order to accomplish this dark phase of his purpose.

A Judahite prophet has the nerve to say so.

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relentless disgrace: Isaiah 3-4

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on September 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The reader of Isaiah grows accustomed to the formula ‘in that day’ as a reference to better times after judgement’s calamity. Yet it would be a mistake to presume that the expression (ביום ההוא) always invokes weal rather than woe.

The imagery is unmistakably and uncomfortably feminine. The bulk of this judgement oracle directs its savagery to Judah’s population without direct reference to gender and even leans in the direction of the men who would have been more publicly responsible for the body politic (but see 3.12). However, that ends when the text turns to direct its considerable wrath to the ‘daughters of Zion’ (בנות ציון) at 3.18.

From that point forward, the allure of feminine finery is dismantled by means of a step-by-step degradation of its artifacts. The plight of Zion’s daughters involves the loss of their men in battle (3.25), yet the focus remains on the women themselves. This focus carries over even to the feminine singular of 3.26, which presumably represents not so much the daughters of Zion but rather the city itself as Daughter (of) Zion. Still, the judgement on women is not lost on the reader as this subtle shift occurs.

The aforementioned oracular expression in that day (again, ביום ההוא) occurs once again in 4.1. It does so not from its customary location at the very outset of an oracle, but rather from halfway through the verse.

Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, ‘We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes; just let us be called by your name; take away our disgrace.’

Isaiah 4:1 (NRSV)

It is likely the recurrence of this formula that explains the post-biblical versification of what is for us chapter 4, verse 1 as a component of a new and fourth chapter rather than the conclusion of the third chapter’s address of Zion’s daughters. There is much to be said for this kind of reading.

However, the strikingly different tone at 4.2 persuades me that it is best to read 4.1 together with the denunciation of Jerusalem’s women that begins at 3:16. Indeed, I take 4.1 as the culminating and conclusive declaration of those women’s sorry condition. The verse repays close inspection, though in the coin of sadness rather than mirth.

Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, ‘We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes; just let us be called by your name; take away our disgrace.’

Isaiah 4:1 (NRSV)

It is difficult to imagine within the context of a traditional society a more complete diagnosis of its complete breakdown. The men are no longer prominent, as the tradition assumes they should be. This is hinted at already in the picture of oppressive rule by children and women in verse 12. In 4.1, it is patently the consequence of a subsequent tragedy, the loss of Jerusalem’s ‘warriors’ in battle (3.25).

A feature of the lamented rule of women still lingers in 4.1, for these desperate women are still able to make their own economic way amid calamity.

We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes.

Yet the unattainable relief for which these women clamor goes beyond food and clothing.

Just let us be called by your name; take away our disgrace.

Even as one smarts under the rhetorical heat of this denunciation of women and in a much less substantial way their children, it is wise to recall that the passage is just one feature of a systematic deconstruction of Judahite society in the face of a crisis of which the only bright spot the text can bring itself to notice is the eventual emergence of a fruitful remnant.

In the midst of the entire passage lies this explanatory declaration, which even in its framing role cannot loosen its grip on metaphor:

For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen…

Isaiah 3:8 (NRSV)

Zion, the once faithful city—as the book’s first chapter would have us recall her—has been completely and utterly dis-graced.

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When form and function conspire *not* to kiss: Isaiah 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , on September 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The litany of accusations hurled against Judah in the name of YHWH Enraged in Isaiah’s introductory montage is white-hot denunciation at its least yielding.

Yet when YHWH and his prophet have at last had their say, this programmatic chapter takes a stunning turn.

Therefore says the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies, and avenge myself on my foes!

I will turn my hand against you; I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.  

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.

Isaiah 1:24-27 (NRSV)

This passage follows immediately upon declaration of the core ethical failure that is brought to the imagined court:

Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them.

Isaiah 1:23 (NRSV)

Placed here, its initial word (לכן, Therefore…) leads the reader’s mind without wobble into the presumed verdict that will now be delivered.

This readerly intuition is supported by the bellicose names assigned to the speaker at this critical juncture, which are followed upon by the standard language of judicial sentencing.

Therefore says the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies, and avenge myself on my foes!

 I will turn my hand against you…

Isaiah 1:24-25a (NRSV)

Syntax, vocabulary, and context unite in a turn that reeks of no future, oozing as it does with penal fury.

Yet here is where we begin to see that this passage has the form of judgement but the content of restoration. What begins as a sentence becomes a promise. The criminal in the dock, head bowed in abject hopelessness, learns of a glorious future. Already these verses set the course for this long book. They establish that YHWH’s judgement of his people—eventually this will flavor as well his anger against ‘the nations’—will restore rather than exterminate, will kindle rather than extinguish, will open up a future rather than merely shutting down a past.

Here is the Isaianic burden, here the חזון ישעיהו in its kernel.

A crack opens between form and function in verse 25, though—craftily—not at its outset. In keeping with prior accusation of Zion’s hypocritically alloyed ethics, the ‘sentencing’ traffics in the language of smelting, which in the nature of the case separates and purifies metals:

I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

Isaiah 1:25 (NRSV)

In its ominous context, this declaration might just dare to awaken hope. Yet the image of smelting might just as well conjure the heat and metaphorized pain of judgement without alluding to a valuable product. The sentence is ambiguous in this respect. In my view its potential for polyvalence is intentional and forms a bridge between the standardized logic of sentencing and the extraordinary surprise soon to be unveiled.

Conventional expectation soon falls away in the face of promissory language that picks up prior lament over a once beautiful city that has become unspeakably degraded.

And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.

Isaiah 1:26 (NRSV)

It is now clear that YHWH’s sentencing language of smelting does not refer exclusively to the trauma a metal suffers in the process, but also to the much purified result that is the ambition of the enterprise when humans hands light the purifying fire. The metaphor is deployed comprehensively rather than partially, taking up both the process and the product and applying them to this faithful city now become a whore, once full of justice and righteous citizens but now of murderers (v. 21). In the smelter’s fire, recreation will follow deconstruction.

Verse 27 then caps the remarkable drama of restorative justice in YHWH’s hands that has employed a familiar form to deliver a most unfamiliar message.

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.

Isaiah 1:27 (NRSV)

In YHWH’s hands and for the moment in Jerusalem-facing terms, משׁפט (commonly, justice) and צדקה (conventionally, righteousness) are instrumental rather than final. Indeed, each is prefixed with the instrumental and inseparable preposition בְּ in a manner that all but precludes the application of both terms in more final terms.

Although in my view this first chapter of the book called Isaiah is an orienting montage that borrows from the subsequent text in order to lay out its program, it is not a haphazard collage nor is it intended to be read atomistically as a mere string of favorite quotes.

Rather, the text expertly leads its reader to anticipate a much-deserved sentencing upon a city and a people that has become silly, then stupid, then half-dead. Yet form and function do not kiss, for if the form is that of a sentence the function is to deliver to Judah a great promise.

YHWH shall indeed judge. Then, faithfulness and glory.

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his throne: Isaiah 66

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The final chapter of the book called Isaiah returns to basic matters.

The Generative Vision of chapter six—when the prophet Isaiah finds himself taken up into a vision of YHWH’s royal throne room—is the only prior moment in the book’s trajectory when YHWH’s throne is glimpsed. Until this:

Thus says the LORD: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place?

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.

Isaiah 66:1-2 (NRSV)

In that Generative Vision, as now in this glimpse of YHWH Enthroned, the prophet does not describe YHWH. Rather, in good, deflective, prophetic style, he describes all that is around YHWH so that we might deduce YHWH’s grandeur by comparison. Notwithstanding Isaiah’s claim that ‘I saw the LORD’, he does not enter into description of the deity himself. Rather, he occupies himself with flying seraphim, a creaturely voice so loud that the temple trembles on its foundation, the hem of YHWH’s robe which filled the temple’s entirety, and the like. Even the awesome descriptor that in time becomes for the prophet YHWH’s proper name—רם ונשׂא (high and lifted up)—is offered ambiguously. It is not clear whether it describes YHWH or ‘merely’ his throne.

It is fitting, then, that a book so tenaciously and allusively intertextual in its primary instinct, should return to YHWH’s throne room now, as at the beginning.

Just as YHWH’s presence was comprehensive and imperial vis-à-vis creation back in Isaiah 6, so here heaven and earth are merely his throne and footstool. In a different accent, this spatial metaphor of fulness places YHWH most emphatically ‘high and lifted up’.

Yet in context YHWH does not attend to those who would manipulate cultic matters at a different altitude in order to curry his favor (see verses 3-4). Rather, from his very high posture, YHWH looks ‘to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.’ YHWH stewards strange affections, odd habits of attentiveness, we are asked to believe and not for the first time. The same affirmation about YHWH’s bizarre predilection for those who lie low—those whom life has crushed—troubled the Septuagint translator with his preference for a more stately deity back in 57:15. There, the Hebrew text offers the visions of chapters six and sixty-six in its own accent and its own moment, though with unmistakable echoes and anticipations of the two glimpses of YHWH’s throne room currently under inspection.

For thus says the high and lofty one (רם ונשׁא) who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy (קדושׁ): I dwell in the high and holy place (מרום וקדושׂ), and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit (דכא ושׁפל־רוח), to revive the spirit of the humble (רוח שׁפלים), and to revive the heart of the contrite (לב נדכאים).

Isaiah 57:15 (NRSV)

In the Isaianic vision, it seems almost superfluous to say, YHWH is very, very high. Yet he is also very low, whether in the coin of judgement and eventual redemption (chapter 6) or resident at his second home (chapter 57) or via his untiring attentiveness to those who find themselves way down there (chapter 66).

It seems transparent to the tradition’s curators that this divine habit is unexpected, otherwise there would be no need for them to insist that it is so. Yet it seems equally clear to the prophetic imagination that being in both places at the same time represents for YHWH neither a contradiction nor a challenge.

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servants and a division: Isaiah 65

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The stirring presentation of the Servant of YHWH (עבד יהוה) in the famous Fourth Servant Song (52.13-53.12) comprises the most intense and personified individualization of the Servant motif that is to be encountered in this long book. It is not difficult to see why messianic interpretation of the passage has been considered such a natural interpretation and has persisted among Christian readings of the book of Isaiah since earliest times.

What is less obvious in the book’s stewardship of the servant motif is the immediate pluralization of the metaphor that ensues. Already, 54.17 can claim the following on behalf of plural servants of YHWH (עבדי יהוה), naming it ‘their vindication from me (YHWH)’ in a manner that may well link the passage to the famous Servant’s experience in the Fourth Song:

No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, says the LORD.

Isaiah 54:17 (NRSV)

Isaiah 56:6 offers a passing glance, though no less poignant for its brevity, at ‘foreigners’ whose love for YHWH’s name makes them welcomed servants of his alongside ‘eunuchs’ who in return for similar fealty will be granted ‘a monument and a name better than sons and daughters’ (56:5). In 63.17, a plea that the heat of divine judgment might soon cool begs YHWH to ‘(t)urn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage’.

Each of these pluralizes the servant in a manner that hearkens back to the collective singular represented by ‘my servant Jacob’ prior to the Fourth Song’s intense individualization of the servant metaphor.

Now, in chapter 65, we encounter a new development. In the face of persistent idolatry on the part of practitioners of aberrant cult who appear to be members of the Community of the Return, YHWH laments the agile love that he has extended to them, unrequited. The result is a division of YHWH’s erstwhile people into a population whose unrelenting provocation of him will finally exhaust his patience, on the one hand, and a population of ‘servants’ who now become the recipients of his restorative mercies, on the other.

The chapter’s first seven verses profile the first of these two increasingly differentiated populations:

I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name.

I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels; who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.’ These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long.

 See, it is written before me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they offered incense on the mountains and reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their actions.

Isaiah 65:1-7 (NRSV)

It is important to observe that such a denunciation might well lead into the narrative of a failed restoration project and a severe judgement of the people in toto. Yet this is manifestly not what follows. Instead the passage pivots resolutely towards the existence of an obedient population of ‘servants’ in a fashion that binds the servant motif to the erstwhile theme of a remnant.

A subsequent oracle beginning at verse 8 drives the contrast between this freshly recruited band of ‘my servants’ and the doomed population from which they have been brought forth (‘from Jacob … from Judah’, v. 9) as deeply as can be imagined.

Thus says the LORD: As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.

Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, for my people who have sought me.

But you who forsake the LORD, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny;

 I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter; because, when I called, you did not answer, when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my sight, and chose what I did not delight in.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame; my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart, and shall wail for anguish of spirit.

You shall leave your name to my chosen to use as a curse, and the Lord GOD will put you to death; but to his servants he will give a different name.

Then whoever invokes a blessing in the land shall bless by the God of faithfulness, and whoever takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of faithfulness; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my sight.

Isaiah 65:8-16 (NRSV)

It is rather arbitrary to pause consideration of this motif without venturing into the explanatory (כי־הנני בורא…) oracle that begins at verse 17. Yet its entirely new cluster of creational imagery perhaps justifies one in doing so here, if momentarily.

If we take stock of how this chapter and its suggestive precursors (54.17, 56.6, 63.17) have begun to develop the Servant motif after its white-hot personalization and individualization in the Fourth Song, we will observe the return—if this is not too tendentious a term—to a collective identity. However, this newly named community of servants is no longer merely ‘Jacob’ or ‘Israel’. Rather, these servants comprise an obedient population within a divinely threatened nation, now become a kind of stay on YHWH’s hand, which might otherwise have struck the nation hard in response to its provocative defiance.

In the unfolding Isaianic drama of YHWH’s servant(s), the future now lies with this new collective, bearers of a new and genuine penchant for both obedience and gratitude. The former troubles forgotten to both YHWH and humankind, this community that bears an as yet unrevealed ‘different name’.

One senses that the Isaianic trajectory one struggles to follow, though not without steadily crystallizing instruction, has still more to declare.

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