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Posts Tagged ‘justice’

the possibility of turning: Isaiah 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , , , on January 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Much of the judgmental language that falls upon the reader in the book of Isaiah sounds deterministic, fatalistic, and final.

Yet, like all language, it is spoken from and into a context. In this long book—and not least in the preparatory montage that is its first chapter—that context casts light on the possibility of turning. The potential for a non-cataclysmic outcome seems part of the deep structure of the book. If so, then it perhaps lightens the gloom when savage denunciation seems to allow no room for turning, for return, for repentance, for life.

In the book’s first chapter, such grim finality is not absent. Yet the second paragraph of the ancient reading tradition begins and ends with a summons to take hope-engendering action:

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.  

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

Isaiah 1.10-17 (NRSV)

I have italicized the prominent imperatives at both ends of the section. The first could be heard as standard convening language of the kind that introduces final judgement. The last series of imperatives (v. 17) is manifestly invitational. Any coherent reading, then, must condition the finality of the opening summons in a way that allows for the possibility of turning. Among nearer-in benefits, such an interpretation accords perfectly with the wider book’s tenacious practice of turning judgement towards redemptive aims.

In between the bookends of this conceptual inclusio, YHWH dissects the abomination of formally orthodox worship that is not founded upon the practice of justice. Fine liturgy, as the passage would have it, offered up by bloody hands. It is a most quotable jeremiad. Except that it is much more than bare denunciation.

The assault upon the efficacy of such worship is enfolded into invitation. To read the paragraph otherwise is to misgauge intent and so to deform the section’s passionate summons.

The reading I propose here tends also to shut the door on a pessimistic reading of verse 18, the well-known imperative which awaits the reader just over the horizon from this second paragraph of chapter 1, where hope—not sunny optimism, but realistic hope—stubbornly claims space for a future.

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for the sake of the redeemed: Isaiah 63

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , , on December 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

One ought not turn one’s hand to the interpretation of a great text and then declare favorite and least favorite portions of it. The worthwhile interpreter is either in or out.

Yet one may perhaps whisper his distaste quietly when a particular passage comes back around. Today, this interpreter releases a quiet sigh.

‘Who is this that comes from Edom, from Bozrah in garments stained crimson? Who is this so splendidly robed, marching in his great might?’  

‘It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save (רב להושיע).’ 

‘Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?’  

‘I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their juice spattered on my garments, and stained all my robes.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year for my redeeming work (ושנת גאולי) had come.

I looked, but there was no helper; I stared, but there was no one to sustain me; so my own arm brought me victory, and my wrath sustained me.

 I trampled down peoples in my anger, I crushed them in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.’

Isaiah 63.1-6 (NRSV, emphasis and Hebrew text added)

This exceedingly bloody text is also oddly dialogical. YHWH parries a questioner’s queries, the first two asking him to clarify his identity and the third to explain his blood-stained clothing.

If modern and post-modern sensibilities recoil at such a depiction of a warrior god, we can at least allow him the grace of hearing out his motivation.

As consistently with matters of divine violence in the book of Isaiah—and generally in the rest of the Hebrew Bible—his fury is not unleashed upon humans for the mere satisfaction of bloodthirst. Rather, such warfare is necessary within its own rhetorical scheme for the purpose of achieving some human-facing good.

I have italicized two clauses above in order to bring out this point. In responding to his interlocutor’s two ‘Who?’ questions, YHWH describes his might as unleashed in order to save. The object of his rescue is left unspoken, but Jacob/Israel must certainly stand in as the core beneficiary (v. 1).

Then, in explaining his red garments, YHWH unleashes this justification:

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year for my redeeming work (ושנת גאולי) had come.

Isaiah 63.4 (NRSV, emphasis and Hebrew text added)

The Hebrew quoted above might just as well be rendered ‘and the year of my redeemed’, a more concrete translation that brings into clearer view the human beneficiaries of YHWH’s assault upon the nations without materially changing the picture. ‘Redeeming work’ and ‘redeemed (ones)’ are both plausible.

The point I wish to make in pointing out the rescuing and redeeming purpose of YHWH’s violence is that in Isaiah divine violence is normally instrumental rather than nakedly punitive. Readers who are unable to conceive or justify purposeful violence will not be assuaged by the observation.

Others will find it possible to imagine a circumstance where resistance to YHWH’s intended shalom is so entrenched and unyielding that only removal of his opponents will allow other humans to flourish.

In either case, the trajectory of Isaiah’s vision returns time and again to violence on behalf of Zion’s redeemed, not as a major theme but certainly as an unavoidable one.

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theodicy and promise: Isaiah 59

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , , , on December 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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.’

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the perseverance and gentleness of YHWH’s servant: Isaiah 42

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

Just as the book called Isaiah plays on the concepts of YHWH’s strength and his provision of strength to Jacob/Israel, so does the book’s discourse regarding the servant of YHWH make artful use of the concepts of gentleness, weakness, and dimness.

The formal presentation of YHWH’s servant in chapter 42 initiates this interplay of concepts across parallel subjects.

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 (ופשתה כהה) he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

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

Isaías 42:1-4 (NRSV, emphasis and Hebrew text added)

The servant’s task and eventual achievement is portrayed as a quite formidable establishment of justice across many nations, indeed ‘in the earth’ (NRSV). In ordinary circumstances, such a feat might be expected to depend upon the application of great force.

Not here. Instead, the servant will not quench ‘a dimly burning wick’. The expression deploys the verb כהה. The metaphor is best understood as presenting a weary or disheartened person or population. We are asked to imagine that the subjection of that people to the conditions of justice will not crush the dispirited or vulnerable members of its population.

One might have expected the metaphor, having served its purpose, to recede from view. But this does not happen.

Instead, the very next verse hints at the servants own vulnerability and the effective perseverance that will triumph over it. The very same root is now deployed as a verb. The servant ‘will not grow faint’ (לא יכהה). The oscillation in NRSV between the metaphorical wick’s ‘dimly burning’ nature and the servant’s refusal to ‘grow faint’ is perhaps a necessary concession to the demands of translation. Sadly, it sacrifices the play on words that binds the weak members among the nations who will not be crushed in the course of the servant’s administration or impost of justice to the servant’s own refusal to give in to the exhaustion with which his task is understood to threaten him.

This is not the last time that verbal artistry will serve to bind YHWH’s servant deeply to the identity of YHWH himself or to that of human beings who will be impacted by his vocation. In this case, the servant’s gentle disposition towards the objects of his calling and the vulnerability he shares with them but somehow overcomes conspire to bind the two subjects into a remarkable if subtly suggestive solidarity.

All of this occurs in the context of the world-shaping, world-remaking administration of justice which the servant of YHWH appears to ‘bring out’ from Zion for the benefit of nations that, for their part, await the instruction that will shape their new future.

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YHWH goes dark: Isaiah 9

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

In chapter nine the prophet denounces the pride of Jacob/Israel. In doing so, he affirms two common components of prophetic discourse and inverts another.

The people did not turn to him who struck them, or seek the LORD of hosts.

So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day—elders and dignitaries are the head, and prophets who teach lies are the tail; for those who led this people led them astray, and those who were led by them were left in confusion.

That is why the Lord did not have pity on their young people, or compassion on their orphans and widows; for everyone was godless and an evildoer, and every mouth spoke folly. For all this his anger has not turned away, his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 9:13-17 (NRSV, emphasis added)

We look first at the commonalities that are here affirmed. First, the oracle deploys the frequent pattern in which YHWH strikes and heals or perhaps strikes in order to heal. Here this frequent trope is interrupted but is not aborted. The wider context of the Isaianic Vision will assure us that Jacob/Israel—or a portion of the nation—did posture itself for the healing portion of YHWH’s engagement with his people. Within this oracle, however, we have only a warning that this has not yet occurred.

Second, the aforementioned failure on YHWH’s part to relent is consolidated by what can only be described as a refrain in the early chapters of the book:

For all this his anger has not turned away, his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 9:17 (NRSV)

Insofar as these two components of the oracle are concerned, the passage is continuous rather than discontinuous with its surroundings.

However, the content of verse 17 (verse 16 in the Hebrew text) just prior to this refrain slightly modifies and then rather radically inverts a common prophetic concern:

That is why the Lord did not have pity on their young people, or compassion on their orphans and widows; for everyone was godless and an evildoer, and every mouth spoke folly.

Isaiah 9:17 (NRSV)

Isaiah and his prophetic counterparts frequently delineate the most vulnerable victims and therefore the first affected by injustice as the poor, orphans, and widows. Here, the latter two—orphans (יתומים) and widows (אלמנות)—make their customary appearance as those who receive more mercy. ‘The young people’ (בחוריו) stand where one might expect ‘the poor’, yet it must be admitted that they are the object of a different verb (לא ישמח, shall not rejoice over; NRSV follows 1QIsa/a’s לא יחמול, shall not have compassion upon).

The radical inversion, one that occurs with something of a prophetic bite, is that it is not the unjust who will show themselves hard-hearted against the plight of Israel’s young, widows, and orphans. It is YHWH himself, the one exalted in this book precisely for his justice, righteousness, and compassion!

The text provides a justification for its astounding declaration:

…for everyone was godless and an evildoer, and every mouth spoke folly.

Isaiah 9:17 (NRSV)

This is not the only moment in which the Vision of Isaiah presents a ‘strange work’ of YHWH, one to which he appears to have been driven by his people’s exasperating behavior but which does not flow from his nature.

For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will rage as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!

Now therefore do not scoff, or your bonds will be made stronger; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land.

Isaiah 28:21-22 (NRSV)

We also read that YHWH is the author of darkness, woe, and calamity (see 31.2, 42.23, 45.7, 50.3, 54.16). Yet the passage under scrutiny is no less jarring for the company of its friends.

YHWH, in the Isaianic vision, goes dark. He becomes unmoved by the plight of the victim, a collaborator in the deeply rooted injustice that is both cause and consequence of Israel’s deaf ears and blind eyes.

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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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