One of the ironies of prophetic denunciation is that those who are on the receiving end likely did not see their actions and attitudes in the way the prophets’ searing metaphorical rhetoric chooses to frame them.
The LORD rises to argue his case; he stands to judge the peoples.
The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of his people: It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord GOD of hosts.
Isaiah 3.13-15 (NRSV)
A textual issue slightly bedevils the passage. Where the Masoretic text has YHWH rise to judge the peoples, the Greek (LXX) and Syriac (Peshitta) versions align the text with its Judah-facing context and envisage YHWH judging his people. Although this contextual reading self-evidently honors the quoted passage’s wider context, we should probably prefer ‘the peoples’ with the Masoretic presentation as the ‘harder reading’ (lectio difficilior).
By this view, the prophet berates the nations before focusing on Israel/Judah in particular, perhaps in the mix implying that Israel has descended to the level of those unwashed hordes.
It is easy to imagine that ‘the elders and princes of (YHWH’s) people’ did not understand their attention or inattention to the plight of the poor as abject, willful cruelty. They—as we—might rather have preferred an explanation based in sound economic theory or meritocratic appeal to individual responsibility or a steely ethical realism. Inevitably, someone has to lose.
It sounds so reasonable.
The prophet’s perspective is different.
The double rhetorical question of verse 15 would have been forceful enough if it had begun with the more ordinary ‘Why?’. Instead, the text seems to turn the screws on Judah’s powerful by introducing the question with the more indignant ‘What do you mean by…’ (מלכם). The phrase seems to insinuate what is elsewhere declared: the violence (by design or by neglect) of the powerful against the vulnerable is an affront against how things ought to be that offends and will be taken personally.
Independently of this detail, the two verbs that anchor the rhetorical question in the concrete behavior of the powers are exceedingly inculpating.
What do you mean by crushing (תדכאו) my people, by grinding the face of the poor (ופני עניים תטחנו)? says the Lord GOD of hosts.
Isaiah 3.15 NRSV, emphasis and Hebrew text added)
(Isaiah 3:15 NRSV)
The violent physicality of the expression converts more passive economic and social moves (or failure to move) into kinetic destruction of the bodies of the poor. The rhetorical framing of the situation invites the hearer and the reader to ask which view of reality—the theoretical and passive appeal to impersonal economic and social inevitabilities or the willful assault of the rich upon the poor—better describes reality.
Even if we are obliged to decide, the prophet in this instant does not stand with us. He has already made up his mind. He claims that YHWH has, too.
Canter Bridge 