This is the publication of the second talk in the Isaiah Project.  The first can be found on the Elder's You Tube channel and the second one will be published there as well.  Comments would be most welcome as this project is seeking deepen the level in which capable of carryout its exploration of the Isaiah Scroll, which we regard as a central mystery of the Word becoming text. 

We have begun a series of talks on the Isaiah Scroll, this being the second.  

What makes a close reading of the Isaiah scroll so fascinating is that through it, one is able to experience the spiritual effort of a Biblical community responding to their history as it is unfolding.  This is a contrast to other readings of the Biblical text, say of Exodus, in which the spiritual effort is responding to a remote history that is finished, and is being used as a surrogate for their own historical moment.  The latter case is haunted by a vagueness about the past being remembered and about a present seeking answers through remembering.  The events of the 12^th century BCE migration out of Egypt are obscure and the persons doing so in the 8^th century, or the 7th century, or even later, are equal obscure. But in the Isaiah scroll we are dealing with clear verifiable historical events and with individuals whose presence can be clearly felt by us as they struggle to make theological sense of what is happening to them.  This is both exciting and useful for us who are engaged in our own attempt to come to a theological understanding of what we are going through and with our own need for a theological vision of our future. 

In this second talk we will begin by taking on the early part of the Isaiah scroll which begins with chapter 3 and ends with chapter 12.   In our last talk we looked at the splendid Hebrew poem which constitutes Chapter 12, a poem likely familiar to us because we sing it as a hymn or canticle, “Surely is God who saves us.”   Well one might ask, what sort of writer makes use of a poem for closure! This writer has, I will attempt to demonstrate, also opens his text with a poem, namely, verses 1 through 7 of Chapter 3.  We also noted in our past talk that this section of the text references particular dates, 641 BCE, the year king Uzziah died, and again 634 the year in which Isaiah confronted King Ahaz on the road that passes by the Gihon spring on the east side of the city of David.  It also provides enough specific information that we can imagine the date in which this text was finalized, which is sometime after 722, when Samaria, the capital of the Northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians, and some time before the death of King Ahaz, 615, referenced in Chapter 13, and, therefore, well before Assyria lay siege to Jerusalem 701.  The composition of text must happen around 720.

 The core of this text, which one might consider the first installment of the Isaiah scroll, is this encounter king and prophet.  Uriah was king for fifty years, his last years as co-regent with his son Jotham.  His advisors no doubt continued not only during the coregency but also to the end of Jotham reign.  One can imagine the impatience of a new generation to assume power with the young king. 

 Just as one can imagine the anxiety of the school of Jerusalem prophets, to which the equally young Isaiah had been called, had about the capacity of the new leadership to deal with impending crisis that the kingdom faced. 

 With this in mind let us look at the open unit of Chapter 3, which is a poem or at least, poetic prose.

                  האדון הנה כי

              מסיר צבאןת יהוה

              ומיהודה מירושלם

                   ומשענה משען

        מים-וכל לחם-משען כל

 

Isn’t a fact that the Lord,

            Yahweh of the Hosts is removing

            from Jerusalem and from Judah

            the supply, the essential supply;

            all the supply of bread,

            and all the supply of water.

 Note first that adonai is not in its common form, but is modified by the definite article, ה and ends with ון- on, a suffix which intensifying a noun and which is common in Hebrew poetry.  In this case this special treatment seems dictated by a desire for a kind of cadence, 6 beats, then repeated once, and then ending in line of 8.  There is also a consonance which is made possible by the use of the Hebrew participles that are made with the performative מ, m, along with the m ending on the words Jerusalem, bread and water. ירושלם לחם מים.  This brief text rings with the m sound.   

             The text begins in an unusual manner, not in the way one would expect a prophetic statement, but in the manner of a declaration of a present fact.  There are a number of ways to indicate a prophetic oracle, for example, common in Isaiah is the term משאת “harsh prophesy” as at the beginning of Chapter 13 and following.  Another form makes use of the verb נאם  נאם-אדני, “says the Lord,” as can be seen in the editorial insertion in this text, verse 15. Here however we read הנה כי which has been a puzzle for translators.  The first word is the very common word for “because” or the demonstrative “that”.  The second word is the equally common command, “behold.”  I would suggest that this unusual conjunction in this case should be read as a declarative, “Isn’t it a fact.”  Isn’t it a fact that God has taken away the sufficient support of bread and water?  More important than material failure is the failure in governance. Key individuals are missing: hero and warrior, judge and prophet, soothsayer and elder, captain of fifty and the man of esteem, the counselor and skilled crafts man and one who discerns the secrets, literally, what is whispered, rumored about. The new people, on the other hand, disrespect their elders.  “They behave haughtily, the youth against the elder and the base against the honorable.”  In summation, verse 8, beginning with the same כי: key, “In fact Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah is fallen.”

            The attempt to understand these alleged circumstances is colored by the later sieges of Jerusalem’s history, 701 by Sennacherib and 587 by Nebuchadnezzar.  That causes the text to be read as “a judgement oracles (Childes p. 33) forecasting these later traumatic events. An example is translation of Rosenberg, and others, who translate the verb forms, that are clearly past or presently on-going action, as futures: The plain reading of v.4 שרים נערים ונתתי, is “I have (or am setting) youth as princes, and v. 5 העם ונגש, the people are, or are being oppressed.  In the end it is not what someone will do to Jerusalem and Judah, but what they have done to themselves. Their timing could not be worse, for the prophetic school is acutely aware of the rise of the Assyrian empire and the way it was about to transform life in the Levent.  Already they see that Damascus, a long-time enemy, will be overrun and not long afterward the Northern Kingdom bring Assyria to the borders of Judah.

            Having identified this unit as a poem, the question becomes, how did the prophetic school employ such a poetic unit and why did they choose it to begin what is in effect the first installment of the Isaiah scroll? 

            I would suggest that such poetic units were seen as a basis for theological refection.  The reflective process would take place in a gathering of elders/disciples of the prophetic community. It would unfold in a series of distinctive steps.  The first step was to identify a judgment that would be passed, second, the nature of judgment and resulting loss, and third, the element of hope for a future in the context of the loss. The process is substantially theologizing. This being the first instant we will have to wait for confirmation that this pattern as a substantial feature of the Isaiah scroll.  We will not, however, wait long for a second poetic unit which undergoes this process is “the song of the beloved vineyard” the very next chapter, Chapter 5.  For now, in verse 11 of this chapter, let note the “woe,” which states the judgment to come: “Your men shall fall by the sword and your warriors in war. . . (the city’s) gates shall lament, and morn and she shall be emptied out and she shall sit on the ground.”   

             The result is that on that day of judgment there will be seven women for every man and each women will plead to be called by that one’ name in order that their reproach be may be removed.  In the future exercise of this process the result of judgment is the reduction of the population in which the land is emptied, re-wilded.  For example, in 7:21 we read “On that day one will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and eat curds because of the abundance of milk that they give; for everyone who is left in the land shall eat curd and honey.”  There appears in such a formula a bad news, good news dynamic.  In this case life will go on, marriage and children will happen, and seconding that, “on that day “the sprout of the Lord shall be for beauty and for honor and the fruiting of the land, for greatness and for glory for the survivors of Israel.” Early on commentators identify this as a messianic text, Christian, but also Rabbinic Judaism and even by the late member of the prophetic school itself before it final publication.        

               Thus, it anticipates the “messianic” text which will be found later as in Chapter 7, verse 14 and Chapter 11, verse 1, ויצא חטר מגזע ישי משרשיו. It is significant that while the birth of child is at stake in these examples, the terminology is not the same.  This, I take it, indicates that this is not so much an actual form of messianic expectation as it is a profound faith in capacity of the Davidic dynasty to renew itself.  This translates into a faith in the future which in time becomes faith in the messiah. The future orientation of the Isaiah scroll from beginning to end is a theological revolution, to which we are all heirs.

            The future, in the Isaiah orientation is also accompanied by forgiveness, in this case a washing from “filth” and “blood.” What is interesting with chapter 3-4 is, that these themes that will be found throughout the Isaiah scroll, occur here, one might say, survive here, in a manner that suggest that are an early, if not the original occurrence of these themes.

            We began this section with two questions: How did the school use such a poetic unit and why was it chosen to begin what in effect is the first installment of the Isaiah scroll.  The answer to the first question is that the school used the poetic units as the beginning of their theological reflection. The poetic text held truth in a way that needed to be unpacked, theologically.

            Second it sets out the coming transformation of Levent life by the rise of the Assyrian Empire.  With Chapter 5 and 6 the lay the background for the message that Isaiah would carry to King Ahaz.  It is the foundation story of the Isaiah scroll.

In our next talk we will turn to Chapter 7 and see in what way the event of the meeting prophet and king set the agenda of the Isaiah scroll.