On Imagining the Virgin Conception

Annunciation 2025

 

Hard to imagine a virgin conception

                when we live in a box,

                for is that not how we imagine our reality?

                Recall that those former little gods did so as well,

                which meant that if one was bent on a conception

                they had to leave their box and enter ours, as a swan or bull,

                which meant that what they conceived was from the outside in,

                at the loss to some degree of their supposed divinity.

 

                But our reality is not a box,

                but is smear across the face of God,

                which means that the great God is not in a box,

                nor is he outside of ours in need of getting in.

                So, a conception, if God willed it,

                would be from the inside out

                With no loss of virginity.

 

                This I can believe

                 since that is how God has come to me

                from the inside out,

                through my heart

                with no loss of my humanity.

 

 

                       וְנָשָׂ֣א אַ֠הֲרֹ֠ן אֶת־שְׁמ֨וֹ  בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל בְּחֹ֧שֶׁן הַמִּשְׁפָּ֛ט עַל־לִבּ֖וֹ

                        בְּבֹא֣וֹ אֶל־הַקֹּ֑דֶשׁ לְזִכָּרֹ֥ן לִפְנֵֽי־יְהֹוָ֖ה תָּמִֽיד׃

 

“Aaron shall carry the names of the sons of Israel on the breast piece of decision over his heart, when he enters the sanctuary, for remembrance before God at all times.” Ex. 28:29

 

I have read Exodus 28 a time or two and over read it many more, but impact this morning of reading in Hebrew, thanks to Sefaria, who makes the weekly reading available, came with a wave of emotion.  I recalled how I as a priest went to altar of God carrying the names my charge on my heart.  But not just their names for on the breastplate they are joined with their burden, with their judgment in the face of God.  Now long retired, the truth is I still do.  

 

 

Joseph’s Ghost

Or

The Dead Are Not Lost

Tribute to Han Kang.

 

Joseph’s Ghost passed by that ugly little hill beside the Jaffe Gate,

               and thought I have been here before with that woman and her child.

               Then he saw the man and thought he’d cry, but ghosts don’t cry.

That he would scream, but ghosts don’t scream except in dreams,

So, he flagged, whipped and snapped, as in a gale.

And then he saw ghosts rising out of that place,

sighing, “We live again,” and flying to the corners of the earth.

 

After that, Joseph’s ghost passed down the road that ran south,

and saw that rock on Har Homa where that woman had sat with child,

and where he had wondered if he had been right

to have taken her to be birthed in Bethlehem.

Then he saw the boy playing in the threshold of the kitchen door,

Sighed and thought how short that stay had been.

 

Then he came upon to the tomb on the edge of Bethlehem

 of which is said, it marks the grave of Rachel

in which she cries for her children, who are no more.

On seeing her ghost rise, he said, “No need, mother,

still to cry for your children are no more.

Oh no, the ghost shuddered, there are yet more,

all the way to the Gaza’s shore.

 

 

The poem above came as dream which was a result of reading Han Kang’s We Do Not Part. It is the most painful book I have ever read, and yet I am glad to have done so. This is because I do not think “salvation” is an escape from pain and that the pain of the world somehow belongs to us all.  That is how I hear “We do not part.”  In the poem I imagine Joseph, the Virgin Mary’s spouse, visiting the pain of the world, purgatorially.  How you may ask could Joeph be a ghost, as he is surly he is in heaven. I would reply to that by sharing the fact that I cannot think of “heaven” as a place and time not here and now.  My understand of death is that begins a journey into eternity, a time that is both then and now, and tomorrow as well.  It is etched on the other face of a single reality that all, the living and the dead, share, each as were on opposite faces. 

Traditions vary, but in most cases, they hint at a process. So, in Eastern Christianity it is said the soul of one who has passed lingers in their home for seven days and then it walks the earth for forty.  In Western Christianity, there is the doctrine of purgatory with a complicated calculus. Let us simply say that this process (be it purgation or growth) is a process of being progressively graphed into the risen Christ. That Christ left no ghost in the world, because of the completeness and immediacy of His resurrection. As a result, he was everywhere at all times.  As each will in him become after a time.  One so close to the Christ, as his mother, would share quickly in the completeness of the resurrection.  That would explain the significance of her intercession and the possibility of her assumption, not by means another resurrection, but by an inclusion in the one resurrection.  Joseph would also be close, but not so much as that a lingering part of him might yet find itself on a journey through this world. His ghost was called out by some exceptional degree of pain and relevance to him. The grave circumstance of his homeland might, I imagine, even now call him back.  At least I would say without doubt that this land is presently filled with ghosts and will be for some time.

               There is a kind of curious affirmation of these thoughts in modern fiction.  Along with Han Kung, We Do Not Part, I would note Shehan Karunatilaka”s The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia. Neither are easy reads and one must accept that part of the experience has do with feeling pain. I think of them as preparations for the walk that I will take on my leave of the world as they have made some preparation for a passage through the veil of pain through which all must past to be with everyone everywhere.

 

 

Event and Text in the Early First Isaiah

Part VI

Concluding Poems and a Retrospect on the Proto Isaiah Text

 

            This is the last talk in this series: “Event and Text in the Early First Isaiah.” It has been rather difficult to face up to the final talk in this series, as it has been an exciting adventure and any closure must be prefaced with the admission that much is left undone, and that whatever is done is subject to revision as we continue to work our way through the Isaiah scroll. Our thesis has been that chapter 3 through 12 is a distinct literary unit whose composition is comparatively transparent. In terms of ancient text, including the Bible, it is sophisticated literature. It includes a number of well-crafted poems; all of which have been marshalled to the purpose of making possible a theological reflection on some specific events that defined the life of Judah and Jerusalem between 641 and 730 B. C. E.  This composition has been done with a firsthand experience with these events, which makes it most exciting!  There are other examples of sophisticated literature in the Bible.  For example, the Joseph story, Genesis 37-50, is virtually a novella in a modern sense. The Book of Job is a powerful philosophical debate cast in poetic terms.  But in either case, their historical ground is hidden, generally, if vaguely referred, to as late wisdom literature. The immediacy found in this section of Isaiah means that the text, in particular, 3 through 12, provides a special insight into the development of the Bible as a whole.   

             This early Isaiah unit is preceded by two chapters, each of which are prologues, composed at later dates, and used to reorient the material of the scroll to the historical horizon of these later editors. This narrative unit is followed by a collection of prophetic oracles, chapters 13-28, relevant to the following period, dated in and around the year king Ahaz died, 715 B. C. E.  This is followed with a return to narrative, chapter 29- 39, centered on the siege of Jerusalem in 701 including a brief coda, which reflects the end of Hezekiah’s reign. Both of these succeeding sections reflect back on the proto-Isaiah unit which provided their authors with literary, historical and theological guidance.   

            Though out our study thus far, we have noted that the text includes a number of poetic elements which are not simply collected but thoroughly integrated into the narrative.  In other words, the poems do not appear to be inserts from other sources, but creations in and by the very milieu that was producing the text.  An interesting test of this claim can be seen with the poetic unit in chapter 11, which I passed over in the last talk, a promised to discuss in this talk.  We are likely to recognize this unit, chapter 11:6-9 as the “Peaceful Kingdom,” a term made famous by the 19^th century American artist Edward Hicks. “The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . . and over the eyeball of the adder a weaned child shall stretch forth his hand.”

            The opening lines of chapter 11 are a description of a spirit endowed successor to the throne of David, and they employ metaphors based on the battle dress of a king. This king is girded with the belt of righteousness and his loins are covered with faithfulness. The lack of any transition from the opening lines, and an entirely different set metaphors drawn from the animal kingdom, indicate that the origin of this poem is separate from the origin of the other.  We argued in our prior discussion of chapter 11 that 1-5 were originally connected with 10-16 and that the lines 6-9 obscured that link. My conclusion at that time was that the poem of the animal kingdom was located here by a second editor, or by a second thought of the first editor.  That said, it is likely that 6-9 was composed within the Prophetic School of Jerusalem at the at the same time that the text of 3-12 was coming together, sometime after 733 but before 722 B. C. E.  

            Certainly, the Isaiah school had the poetic capacity to compose this poem, unique as it is. The reference to a child connects with a number of children who appear in the early Isaiah text: the child conceived, 7, the child born, 9, the child with ability to number the remaining trees of the devastated forest, 10, to the children of Isaiah with their telling names, 8. This context supplies the means for properly understanding the poem, which is commonly subject to misinterpretation.  One form this takes is as “a return to paradise.” Edward Hick understood it in that way as I suspect a number of other moderns, in their fantasy. There is, however, no orientation to paradise to be found in the Isaiah text, which to the contrary argues that there is no going back to a past; that nothing in the past remains valid, as what God is doing now is new.  An alternative misinterpretation claims that the poem is eschatological, something that happens outside of history or at the end of it. Eschatology has also no place in Early Isaiah. It is true that the reprise of this poem in Third Isaiah chapter 65:25 (which is a good example of the regard later authors of the Isaiah scroll) is properly understood as eschatological, but this is some 200 years later, in very different circumstances than those of the authors of early First Isaiah where the new is never separated from the now.

            In the context of early First Isaiah, it becomes clear that the poem is a comment on the nature of human society.  The wolves, predators, of society in the transformed kingdom will not devour the lambs.  Understood in this way it becomes a description of the transformed, social order.  Since the social order is a corollary of the monarchy, we can see how the editor upon a second look concluded that this poem, too precious to lose, belonged here. The monarch transformed as a servant king is to be matched by a kingdom of servant people, whose social order would be just and peaceful.

            The commitment of the Prophetic school Jerusalem to poetry is further illustrated by Chapter 12, which is a single poem noted for economy and eloquence. The editor or editorial staff, at this point said, let us bring our text to an end with a poem. And with that, this exquisite poem was composed.

            The poem is introduced to the text by means of language common to introducing an oracle: “On this day,” The phrase actually occurs it the poem, verse 4. At the beginning of chapter, it provides the means for the poet/performer to introduce himself and to identify his audience.  His audience is those who are living under the wrath of God, as he is, and he prays that this wrath may turn and he and his audience, may in the meantime be comforted by the act of song.  The message of 3-11 is that Israel, specifically, Jerusalem and Judah, are living under the conditions of a divine wrath which is connected with the rise of the Assyrian Empire.  This wrath is not random but has purpose.  It will work a change in the life of Israel and when that change is complete, as noted in 10:12, the wrath will be turned.  The poet/performer therefore sings under the condition of wrath, and his singing is a relief from wrath. It is God himself, Yahweh, and not some future outcome, that is his salvation. To his audience, he declares that they will draw water from the springs of salvation. Recall that the center of this literary unit takes place at the Gihon Spring, Jerusalem’s source of water.  He asks his audience to “thank the Lord,” “call upon his name,” and to “publicize his deeds.” The Israel transformed by the regime of wrath will become a servant people whose mission is to make God’s deed known to all lands.  This concise well-wrought poem comes to an abrupt end with a single line consisting to two balance clauses:

 

Shout and praise, O Dwellers of Zion,

for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

 

צהלי ורני יושבת ציון          

כי -כגדל בקרבך קדוש ישראל

 

The title “Dweller of Zion” has occurred in 10:24. The “holy one of Israel” in 5:19 and 10:20, which indicates how tightly the poem is linked with the text that has preceded it.  Even as the poem summarizes the text that precedes it, it provides it with an effective stop. Nothing more should be amended or extended.  Poems are effective barriers to emendations or extensions because as a poem it is structurally complete and their assonance and rhythm makes it difficult to alter.   

            If this literary unit, which I have dubbed Proto-First Isaiah, is marked and bracketed by poetry, it also contains a significant narrative.  Narrative is a significant mark of the Bible, we have only to think of the patriarchal narrative or the exodus narrative, both of which make a substantial contribution of the Gospel narrative. However, each of these narratives are qualified by a substantial temporal separation of event and the act of narrative.  With the Isaiah narrative there is little or no separation between event and the act of narration, which gives it a peculiar relevance to incarnational theology. Indeed, it a most instructive place to experience historical theology at work. It is also important to note that theological transformation associated with the Isaiah text: from a henotheistic local God to a monotheistic, transcendent universal God and from a God that acts episodically to a God who acts constantly include acting by means of human agency, are already in play in these early chapters, giving them a foundational role in the long unfolding history of the Isaiah scroll.

            As we undertake additional studies of the Isaiah text, we will never be far from it, as was the case for the successive authors, poets and editors of the Prophetic School of Jerusalem who continued to build the Isaiah text. Its preservation and its relative exemption from re-writes indicates that this early unit was regarded by the later Isaiah school with a special reverence.

            The next phase of my Isaiah Project will take on the collection of prophetic oracles which constitutes chapters 13-28.  Like the pervious section they are grounded in current history, the history of the decade that is centered around the death of king Ahaz in 715.  The challenge that these oracles present is that they do not have the same kind of linear development as the material which we have been looking at in this past series. This has makes them more vulnerable to emendations and more difficult to interpret. It will be interesting to see what sense we can make of them and how they filled the gap between two great crises that rocked the life of Judah and Jerusalem at the beginning of the 8^th century B. C. E. The first was the crisis of the 730’s which has been our focus these past few months, and the other the siege of Jerusalem in 701, which I hope will be our focus in latter part of 2025. I am anxious to get started, realizing, of course, that whatever form a study of the Isaiah text takes from here on out will cause us to return to 3 through 12 for guidance and for reassessments of what we have made of it.   

 

 

An Appendix to Chapter 10

An Imagined Journey

10:28-32

 

One has the sense that the text at this point was trying to find a conclusion with verse 20, but that it quickly amended itself with a brief summation, verse 21: ‘The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob to the God the Almighty,” signaling it bond with text that preceded it. This amendment, however, opened the door and though it came a series of restatements, 22-27 from a more protracted time. Through this door came also a unit that I find particularly interesting, as it sheds light on the capacity of those who were contributing to the early Isaiah text. It proports to be an account of the journey of a particular Assyrian campaign, without making clear which one that would be. The vagueness of the place names and the difficulty of mapping an actual journey, have long plagued interpreters.  This is not a history, but a poem, as the consonance and rhythm suggest.

 

בא על-עית

עבר במגרון למכמש

     יפקיד כליו

עבר מעברה גבע מלןן לנו

     רדה הרמה

     גבעת שאול נסה:

יצהלי קולך בת-גלים

הקשיבי לישה עניה ענתות

     נדדה מדמנה

     ישבי הגבים העיזו

עוד היום בנב לעמד ינפף ידו   הר בית-ציון   גבעת ירושלם

 

It is difficult to hear Hebrew poetry, much to our loss. Chanting or Cantillation are not much help as they focus on the text as text and on the capacity of an audience to hear the text. One can, however, see in the poem the predominance of ayin, beth and gimel sounds that give the poem a consonant ring.  The lineation, form the first three-word line, cascades down with sustained rhythm unto it final line where it slows and pools into a depth and encompasses it audience.  

Verse 28 begins without an introduction: “He came upon Aiath.” This suggests that some prior verses have been dropped. The “he” is not identified but it is assumed that reader will understand from the context that is the king of Assyria or one of his generals. Aiath is probably the twin city of Bethel known more simply as Ai. Ai lies on the main north-south road where it  is intersected by an east west road. The invading army appears to travel west through to Migron, to Michmash where he leaves his baggage. From there he crosses the ford and lodges at Giba.  Ramah quaked; Gib’ath Saul fled.” The poet suddenly surfaces with a call to villages on the periphery of this imagined journey. Bath-gallim is to raise her voice in alarm. Laishah, Aniah, Annathoth are to pay attention.   Madmenah retreats and the inhabitants of Gebim fortify themselves. This indicates that the attention of the invading army was focused on the Benjamine town along the Northern Kingdom southern border.  In the course of this activity, the king finds himself among the northern villages of the Southern Kingdom. At one point it is said “he” stood at Nob, a hilltop village, from which Jerusalem could be seen. His audience well in hand by his account, poet closes by turning his description of what had happening to others to what was likely to happen to those in his audience. The king “waves his hand,” ינפף ידו, to Jerusalem.  This is not so much a threat, as if it were a fist, but a jester of contempt. In this sense it is an illustration of the arrogance of the Assyrian king, which explains why editor thought it belonged here in connection with the two previous examples of Assyrian arrogance.

While many have claimed that this itinerary is based on Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem in 701, and was written back into the Isaiah text, it should be clear a poet needed more than the knowledge of the Assyrian campaign of 733 to create this splendid poem. Moreover, the poet had ever reason to believe after two successive seasons of campaigning in the west, that third would soon follow.  As it turned out, Assyria turned its attention to the east, and by 730 was totally preoccupied with its newly acquired control of Babylon and the west had a respite. It is somewhere in this respite that he writes not history, but a poem which was relevant to preparing the Southern Kingdom for its future. The value for us that it gives us evidence of the creative capacity of early first Isaiah.

 

 

Event and Text in Early First Isaiah

Part IV

Theological Reflections on an Emerging Text

Chapter 10:1-21, 33-34

 

Somewhere in the order of five-to-six-years after Ahaz’s ascension to the throne of Judah, the prophetic school of Jerusalem was in possession of a text built around a historical narrative of the encounter between king and prophet at the Gihon Spring. That text was approximately what we know as chapters 3-9 of the Isaiah scroll. While the school continued to edit this text, they also were in the process of reflecting theologically on it. This was registered as corrections and additions to the text. My version of how the Isaiah text has come about is based on a different understanding of authorship than is commonly assumed. Traditionally, a text is supposed to be the result of a single inspired individual, in this case, Isaiah, who was writing with personal knowledge of the events not long after they happened.  Alternatively, critical studies which came along with time, continued to think about authorship as the work of an individual, but at some distance from the events, possibly centuries, who composed text based on the needs of his or her times.

I have been arguing that the authorship of the Isaiah text lies in the working of a community, which I identify as “the prophetic school of Jerusalem.” That school included Isaiah as well as poets, historians, thinkers and editors.  Particularly, in the special case of chapter 3-12 this process is quite visible, and, in being so, enhances what this text has to say to us. We have seen in our study of Chapter 8, that there are three brief testimonials which were clearly the work of Isaiah, dateable to months following the prophetic event.   Before that, in chapter 7, we identified an author which we have called “the historian.” He was an anonymous member of the prophetic school of Jerusalem, and he was responsible for the opening section of the chapter 7.  Since historians are seldom poets or poets, historian, we imagine the existence of one or more poets, who authored units as “the ballade of the beloved vineyard,” Chapter 6, or the birth announcement of Hezekiah, Chapter 9, or the splendid poem, “Surly it is God who saves me,” chapter 12, which was used to close this literary unit which I call proto-Isaiah.

In addition to these testimonials, historical narratives and poems, there are what I call “theological reflections.” They were the result of the community reflecting theological on particular units like the historical narratives or one of the poems, some of which were then recorded and appended to those units, augmenting the text. 

Finally, there were editors who recorded, shaped and preserved the various materials.  In the course of the critical study of ancient texts, Biblical and otherwise, editors have often been dismissed as uninspired technicians, standing in the way of discovering the original genius of the individual author, the beguiling conviction of Western culture under which we continue to struggle.  One of the major changes in textual studies in the last 50 years was to reappraise the role of the editor.  Source criticism which searched for individual authors was joined by redaction criticism which valued the contribution of an editors. This led to an understanding that editors are an inspired part of the authorship. Clearly editors have played an important role in the formation of the Isaiah scroll and in the material on which we are presently focusing.  Indeed, we can recognize the work of a chief editor who has been assembling a text. By the end of the 730’s, the text had become what we know as chapters 3-9.  At this point the prophetic school’s theological reflection turned from individual units, as we have seen, to the new text as whole.  It is this change that gave rise to the material which we find in Chapter 10, on which this talk is focused.

It is characteristic of editors that they leave poems alone, the poem’s interior logic making it difficult to make changes. Historical narratives are more tempting and easier to amendments but are rather easy to sort out.  Theological reflections are another matter, being a more fluid and subjective. Not only do they tempt an editor, but amendments are more difficult to spot since in reality they are unfolding discussions in which various opinions are coming together.  All that is to say, Chapter 10 presents us with more difficulties than the material we have looked at up to now.

Our initial problem with Chapter 10 is where does the chapter begin?  The two modern commentators on whom we have relied, Childs and Blenkinsopp, are of the opinion that it is not with verse 1, but with verse 5. Blenkinsopp argues that the “Woe unit” of verse 1-4 belongs to Chapter 5, as it properly pairs with the series of woes found there.  For him, Chapter 10 begins, verse 5, “Woe to Assyria.”  This works, if the description of being the rod and the staff of God is bracketed out as an aside, for in the long run Assyria, after serving God’s purpose, would come to woe, being punished for its arrogance.  Child agrees, except for a different reason.  He makes verses 1-4 part of Chapter 9 on the grounds that verse 4 ends with the refrain which we already encountered in Chapter 9; “for all this his anger did not turn and his hand remained outstretched.”  In 9, this refrain appears three times, at ends of three units, each of which describes the suffering that the Israel is experiencing, which however, has not led to and end of God’s wrath.  Not only is the triadic unit sufficiently eloquent by itself, the content of an alleged fourth, 1-4, which is not about a punishment that is happening, but one that was to come and is a question addressed to specific individuals about how they will respond: “to whom then will you leave your wealth/glory when you are visited from afar?”

            The ending in verse 4, “for all this .. .” is a good example of the work of the editor who is compiling this text. Not only is it awkward, but we can also see that it is an editorial suture, tying chapter 10 to 3-9.  Doing so, however, has obscured the fact that 10 begins with a single “woe” directed at Israel’s leadership.  They are identified, in an unusual manner, as החקקים hchakakim and  מכרבים  makarabim , ruler makers and writers.  We might, say from our own context, politicians and media people.  The rulers rule vainly, doing nothing, and the writers write corruptly and about things that are beside the point. The graphic image suggests a firsthand experience and not a more generalized condemnation of injustice by not hearing the poor. The condemnation continues not only do they distort the defense of the poor but they steals from the judgment of the lower class and loot  שללם shallam the widows and יבזו ybzu prey on the orphans. These two verbs shalal and bz, are not actions usually directed at widows and orphans, but they are directly link with the name of Isaiah’s son, mahar shalal, chash bz who we learned about in chapter 8.

Given that, on the day of a visitation “which will come from afar,” clearly a reference an Assyrian campaign, it asks the “politicians and media” from whom they will seek aid and to whom they will leave their glory.  

This introductory woe sets the stage for a primary proposition, verse 5.  It is not “Woe to Assyria,” but Assyria is the woe.  With it, the prophetic school is announcing its major theological claim, in the very words of text:

 

“Assyria is the rod of my wrath and my fury is a staff in their hand.”

 

God will direct them, the rod and the staff, against a hypocritical nation, גוי חנף, and he will order them to loot and plunder. ( לשלל משלל ולבז בז ) and to make this people trodden down like the mud of the street.  The words, “loot” and “plunder,” links the theological proposition to the opening lines of this chapter, and to the amending prophesy of Isaiah which was recorded in chapter 8.

The primary theological proposition has a corollary. While Assyria is the agent of God, they are not exempt from punishment for the manner in which they carry out their commission. As it is, Assyria is acting with arrogance. Verse 7, while the king of Assyria is God’s agent, “he does deem it so, and his heart does not think it so.”  In the following verse Assyria is given a voice: “Are not my princes together kings?”  Victories are listed, Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Damascus and so will Samaria be added to the list.  Verse 12 bring this to an end with an important summation: “When the Lord completes all His work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will bring retribution upon the Assyrians.”  Underline first the proposition that what has been done by Assyria against Isreal is God’s work, and then note that when it is done, with transforming Israel to accord with God’s will, the punishment of Assyria will follow.

 There is a special delight in giving voice to the arrogant speech of Assyria, mimicking the kings, so in verse 13 it is given a second round. “I have erased borders,” “My hand found the wealth of the peoples as one gathers eggs from untended nests. No one moved a hand, or opened his mouth, or even chirped.”  With verse 15, we now have a second argument on the nature of Assyrian arrogance.  An instrument, an ax or a saw does vaunt itself over the one who wields it.  There follows with this new argument a rather cryptic version of the retribution which in the end Assyria will suffer.  The light of Israel will become a fire, and the fire will rid the land of thorns and thistles. This is likely the work of a secondary editorial process which is a common part of the textual tradition, and it is neither the first of the last that we will find in the Isaiah text.

In spite of this reset, the theological reflection that began with the “Woe,” verse 1, finds its ending in verse 20: “It shall come to pass that on that day the remnant שאר of Israel and the survivors פליטצ of the house of Jacob shall not continue to lean on him that smote them,” Assyria, “but they shall lean on the Lord, the Holy one of Israel, Amen.” This is immediately echoed:  with final summation of the prophetic school, “The remnant shall turn,” שאר ישבו .” Recall that is the name of Isaiah’s first son who accompanied him on the prophesy in Chapter 7. Continuing, the people will turn “to God All Mighty, אל גבר.” The name, el gabor is one of the names given to the child whose birth is announced in Chapter 9. This ties the theological reflection of chapter 10 to a core text, well on its way to being that text we know of as Isaah, Chapter 3-9.

The text that follows 22 to 32 is an intrusion on the part of an editor which Blenkinsopp calls commentary. As intrusions in text frequently do, they make room for others to follow, here it is a wonderful poem which recounts the itinerary of an invading army, which I will pass over in interest of time, but, it you are interested you will find my take on this material in my blog, the Elder of Omaha.

For now, let us follow Blenkinsopp suggestion that the first draft of chapter 10 continued with verse 33 where the text returns to the metaphor of the saw and the ax.  “Behold the Lord, God Sabaoth lops off the branches with a saw. . .” leading to a deforestation of the land, Lebanon in the wake of the Assyrian campaign of 734 comes to mind.  This image of deforestation lead directly into the announcement in chapter 11 that “a branch shall spring forth from the stump of Jesse, resulting in the renewal of the Davidic dynasty.  Our next talk will be on “the royal figure” of chapter 11,  and on its preludes in chapter 9, and 7. 

Before bringing this talk to a close, I would like to go back for another look at the theological position, “Assyria is the rod of my wrath and my fury is a staff in their hand.” This likely strikes a modern ear as a theology that belongs to darker ages that we have somehow left behind.  This, however, misses the point that the prophet school of the 8^th century was not resting on, or turn back to some dark ancient mystagogue.  It was essaying a theology that was a radical innovation. Their world posited “local gods,” and with that the attack of the Assyrian would be understood as a struggle between gods, theirs and ours.  Was the god of Assyria, Assur, stronger than the god of Damascus or of Samaria?  Corollary of  “local gods” is that the violences that one is enduring is meaningless and that suffering one going through is irredeemable.

Once the prophetic school of Jerusalem committed themselves the conviction of a universal monotheism, it was necessary to conclude that the violence to come must be, in  some way, God’s will.  If it was God’s will then it had purpose and meaning. The corollary of their conviction was the Assyrian king was an agent of God, even if unaware of it. The suffering that resulted could be redeeming.  For the prophetic school, this meant that through suffering Israel would be transformed into the Israel of the future.  This, as we have seen in 10:12, explicit stated: “When the Lord Sabaoth will have completed all that he would do on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem . . .”

Thus, proto-Isaiah, at the close at the 8^th century, launches the trajectory that passes though the later sections of its text, where it finally takes on the mature form of “the suffering servant,” and ultimately, passes on into the Christian interpretation of the cross.

Next time, in our fifth talk we will bring our series, “Event and Text in Early First Isaiah” to a study of those fascinating royal figures found in Chapter 7:13-16, 9:5-6 and 11:1-5, which were so fundamental to the hope the prophetic school held for the Israel in their own times and so provocation for the age to come.

 An Addenda to The Study of Chapter 8

An Isaiah Poem  

The Waters of Shiloah

Chapter 8:6-11

This poetic unit is appended to the “Mahar” prophesy, 1-4.  It is remarkable metaphorically, rhythmically and theologically.  Since there is every reason to assign this poem to the young Isaiah, we have the evidence to consider him to be among the skilled poets of the Prophetic School of Jerusalem.

 

 

       ינן כי מאס העם הזה את מי השלח ההלכים לאט

משוש את רצין ובן-רמליהו             

ולכן הנה אדמי מעלהם אתמי הנהר העצומים והרבים

            את-מלך אשור ואת-כל-כהודו

 

ועלה על-כל-אפיקיו והלך על-כל-גדותיו

וחלף היהודה שטף           

     ועבר עד-צוואר           

יגיע והיה מטות כנפיו          

מלא רחב ארצך          

 עמנו אל

 

רעו עמים וחתו                 

והאזיני כל מריקי—ארץ        

התאזרו וחתו התאזרו וחתו        

עצו עצה ותפרו דברו דבר ולא יקום        

כי עמנו אל

       

 

This poem, addressed to the Northern Kingdom, begins with a metaphor, the flow of water, and unfold in a pattern three stanza.  The first stanza addresses the northern kingdom with reproach or warning and puts the chief metaphor into play.  In the first instance, it references the flow of water that is the source of Jerusalem’s water that flows softly down the conduit from the Gihon Spring to pool in the lower city call Shiloh.  This links the poem to the event is chapter 7 in which Isaiah encountered Ahaz at the Gihon spring.  This water has been rejected by the northern kingdom in favor of Rezin and Pekah, the kings of Damascus and Samaria.  As a result, they will be engulfed in a flow of water that is mighty and vast, which are known as the Euphrates, simply referred to here as “the river.”

Two stanzas follow which change the rhythm of the soft flow in the long opening lines, to staccato of short verb driven lines.  The Water of the river is identified as the Assyria Empire (the king of Assyria and his glory) who is flooding the northern kingdom and is even pass beyond it, right up the neck of Jerusalem, to its very wing tips.  The new metaphors, neck, wings, address the geography of Jerusalem. 

The second stanza ends with a refrain: Emmanuel.  This is the name of the child promised in chapter 7, and which again links this poem with the chapter 7 event.  The third stanza is addressed to “peoples,” to “distant lands,” all of whom will share in the rise of the Assyrian Empire.  The are called to be broken in an intense play on the words “harken,” “gird,” and “broken” which literally sounds like breaking glass or wood collapsing!  And, of course, the stanza ends with refrain, “Emmanuel.”

This makes us ask, is this young Isaiah an accomplished poet as well as a seasoned prophet.

My attempt at translation.

How Waters Flow

 Because this people rejected the waters of Shiloah which flows softly,

                and have rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

The Lord will cause to flow over them the river water which flows strong and broadly out,

                                The king of Assyria and his all his glory.

 

Up over all the feeder streams and out over all the banks 

                                Gushing out upon Judah

                                Flowing up to its neck

                                Reaching tips of its wings

                                                                                                Emmanuel

             The peoples gather, but will be broken

                                                Harken, all you distant lands

                                gird yourselves and be broken

                                                harken and be broken  

                                Counsel intensely, speak crafted words,

                                                they will not stand.

                                                                                                Emmanuel