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 tripe 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.
Canter Bridge 