Isaiah’s fifty-ninth chapter is seldom quoted. Perhaps it is too bleak for recall, let alone for amplification.
The strong note of theodicy comes in the form of an unidentified (prophetic?) voice, asserting that YHWH’s capacity to save has not somehow become diminished. Rather, the people’s stubborn instinct for rebellion lies at the root of the present disgrace.
The oracle alternates between description of injustice as 2nd-person accusation (v. 3, ‘For your hands are defiled with blood…’), 3rd-person description (v. 4, ‘No one brings suit justly, no one goes to law honestly…’), and 1st-person testimony:
Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Isaiah 59.9 (NRSV)
Such oscillation between grammatical voices is not rare in biblical prophecy. Yet here the sequential march from the second to the third to the first persons and the relentlessness comprehensiveness of injustice seem intended to justify YHWH’s anger and unresponsiveness by means of exhaustive description of Judahite rebellion.
Still, the familiar script of a divine victory that proves redemptive for people makes its appearance.
First, the well-armed deity is seen repaying his enemies in a way that raises hopes of what may be a welcome restoration of justice.
According to their deeds, so will (YHWH) repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital.
So those in the west shall fear the name of the LORD, and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the LORD drives on.
Isaiah 59:18-19 (NRSV, emphasis added)
The nature of this two-fold fear—of YHWH’s name and of his glory—is not to be discovered by way of an atomistic reading. But I have argued elsewhere that such universal recognition of YHWH’s justice in Isaiah is interpenetrated with at least the potential of broad blessing to the nations, whom I presume appear here in the two locative expressions ‘in the west’ and ‘in the east’.
Second, this oracle arrives at its almost predictable destination as it comes to its own conclusion.
And he will come to Zion as Redeemer, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the LORD. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the LORD, from now on and forever.
Isaiah 59.20-21 (NRSV)
As is its custom, Isaianic intimation of a cosmic outcome that is glorious rather than stingy includes the possibility of final resistance. We see this darker side of things here in the positive assertion that ‘those in Jacob who turn from transgression’ will be the beneficiaries of YHWH’s covenant, presence, and words. The offer, apparently, is not taken up by everyone. And the fate of those nations to which allusion is made—so I have argued—in verses 18 and 19 escapes mention in this concluding declaration.
By the time we arrive at this mostly bleak panorama, the vision of Isaiah is nearing its concluding declarations. They will be full of light with mere tinges of darkness, as chapter 59 emphatically is not. Yet it is important to observe that even here in chapter 59, among the book’s darker landscapes, hope manages to abound even though restricted to a few final verses.
This hope is not giddy. It remembers all too well those who choose neglect of YHWH’s justice and who carry this resistance through to outright and presumably final opposition.
Meanwhile, a lavish promise of inter-generational longevity quiets the hearts of ‘those in Jacob who turn from transgression.’
Canter Bridge 