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Posts Tagged ‘Isaiah 61’

substitution: Isaiah 61

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , , on December 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Following the splendidly unilateral YHWH-work of chapter 60, an anointed figure bursts exuberantly upon the scene in chapter 61. He is perhaps to be seen as a further adumbration of the servant-of-YHWH figure. He bears YHWH’s own spirit, the oil of anointing still fresh upon his forehead. His attention turns already toward those who need YHWH-work most.

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn…’

Isaiah 61.1-2a (NRSV)

It is a profoundly moving chapter, not least for those who see in Jesus of Nazareth a concretization of the profile of this rescuing agent of YHWH.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

Luke 4.14-21 (NRSV)

In two places, though by different means in each, the prophet describes the anointed figure’s work in terms of substitution. Those who benefit from his YHWH-work will find their condition so materially transformed that they shall receive for each aspect of their disgrace its opposing counterpart. The figure, speaking in the first person, claims that he has come …

…to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

Isaiah 61.3a (NRSV, emphasis added)

Two distinct pinpoints of alliteration accentuate the delight expressed by the Hebrew text: פאר תחת אפר (‘a garland instead of ashes’) playfully inverts two of each noun’s three consonants and שמן ששון piles identical sibilants together.

The picture is one of radical transformation rather than mere amelioration of the plight of ‘those who mourn in Zion’. The substitution of one experience for another is both extreme and complete.

This type of polarity reverberates through the chapter. However in one other moment it approaches the concreteness that I have sketched out for the three oppositional pairs in verse 3.

Because their shame was double, and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion; everlasting joy shall be theirs.

Isaiah 61.7 (NRSV)

NRSV’s translation obscures a fresh use of תחת (‘instead of’), the preposition that separates each experience from its opposite in verse 3. This prepares the reader to expect further oppositional pairing. It does indeed occur, as I read the verse, though this time more subtly. The word משנה appears in both halves of verse 7, possibly with a play upon its alternative meanings: (a) a double quota and (b) the corresponding counterpart.

‘Their shame was double (משנה)…’ we read, this affirmation of a copious burden of shame fortified by the immediately following claim that ‘dishonor was proclaimed (or ‘sung out’) as their lot’. Then, in the second half of the verse, we learn that ‘they shall possess a double portion (משנה)’, this claim again strengthened by the supportive but differently configured phrase ‘everlasting joy shall be theirs’. (Curiously, NRSV does not translate בארצם, which would normally be glossed by ‘in their land’.)

It seems to me that 7b accentuates first one meaning of משנה to depict the outsized shame or double portion of shame that Zion’s mourners have suffered. Then the second meaning of the same word underscores that their eventual, everlasting joy shall be every bit as extravagant. The latter shall displace and substitute for the former.

So does the prophetic text in one of its most lyrical moments reverse the fate of its protagonists. YHWH’s anointed and spirit-endowed agent shall accomplish, we who know of Zion’s mourning are encouraged to believe, complete and total transformation.

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hanging around: Isaiah 61

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on January 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

We long for permanence.

Much of humanity does or has done, anyway. It may be that the tyranny of the immediate has dulled this appetite in us moderns. We cremate instead of bury. We watch our population rates decline. We think only a little about the past and perhaps even less about the future.

If this is a fair description, then we have become impoverished. Now and here are important, but so is where we came from. So is where we’re going. So is that other day, the one we will not, cannot see.

The rambunctious hilarity of restored Israel’s joy, as it is splashed across the canvas of Isaiah 61 at any rate, spares a thought for the future. For longevity. For the stubborn lingering of fame. For offspring.

The sight is quite beautiful, coming as it does in this text from YHWH’s unseen mouth and developed in two small, lyrical movements.

First, this:

Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the LORD has blessed.

Isaiah 61:9 ESV

The biblical tradition is jealous for longevity, even when it lacks the language for ‘life after death’ to which religious readers naturally resort. If something is real, one holds it heavy in the hand, where it makes a little dent in soft flesh. It lasts. Endures. Does not ‘pass away’.

So with blessing, so with people who have known blessing. One expects the thing to last a good while, even forever. One anticipates that the melody will persist through multiple stanzas, that the variations will have their way with the theme, but that the theme will remain recognizable in each of them.

YHWH’s declaration then, if it is strange, is strange only in its extremity. Otherwise it maps naturally over the longing of Israel’s mothers and fathers. Yet it expands, noisily it expands. It moves beyond permanence and reaches for fame in the way that the dynamic of crescendo ceaselessly does in this long, soulful work called Isaiah. The world will be visited, even saturated by these sons, these granddaughters, these ‘offspring’ as they can be abbreviated into the singular. They’ll be everywhere, and famously so. YHWH’s blessing, resting lightly upon their over-achieving shoulders, will be undeniable. Indeed, ‘all who see them shall acknowledge them.’

Then, this:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Isaiah 61:10-11 ESV

It is the second of these two verses that concerns us here, its lapse into horticultural metaphor simply another way of talking about people. It is a native dialect for this prophet and the interpreters and preachers of his legacy. There will be both YHWH-action and organic development in the vibrating, bodacious, fecund longevity of Israel’s offspring. Where they roam, their ‘righteousness’ and ‘praise’ will grow up like beautiful weeds, like an exuberant wildflower garden before spectating nations.

You’ll grow old, the text seems to concede to the redeemed generation, the stink of Babylon still stuck to their feet but freedom in their gaze. This will not last, it too will have its conclusion as it has known too its genesis in your days. But they, your own, will live on gloriously. Publicly. Like stubbornly beautiful flowers they will push through dirt and soil and rock and display their beautiful heads, while nations startle and wonder.

They’ll hang around, these heirs, these blessed ones, these children aborning, even these grand- and great-grandchildren whom your rescued arms will not cradle. I am not finished with you.

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like a garden: Isaiah 61

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on July 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »

One of the most finely crafted and resonant chapters of the biblical corpus achieves its quiet doxology via a horticultural simile, which catches this reader’s eye on the morning after hauling yet another load of subtropical greenery to our Colombian patio.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:11 ESV)

The author has in the preceding verses gone a bit crazy in the search for metaphors that capture the extravaganza of YHWH’s turning towards his people after the ‘brief moment’ of their affliction. Now, they are walls called ‘salvation’, rebellious citizens will have become ‘the righteous’, the oil of gladness will have displaced mourning, Zion’s children will have become famous throughout the world. (more…)

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