Isaiah and the Resurrection

A Poetic Theodicy

Chapter 26:7-21

 

 

 

                               מתיך יחיו                                May your dead live

                     יקומון נבלתי                                                       May my vessel rise up  

         עפר שכני ורננו הקיצו                                                             May those who dwelling the dust

     טלך אורת  טל כי                                                                                     rejoice and sing.

   ;תפיל רפאים וארץ                                                                            for the dew at light is your dew.

               עםי לך                                                                                         Go, my people,             

      בחדריך בא                                                                                                               come into your room

 בעדך דלתיך  וסגר                                                                                                                 close your door behind you.

 רגע-כמעט                                                                                                                                          for short time rest

      זעם-יעבור-עד                                                                                                                       until the wrath has passed.

 

                In his Anchor Bible commentary on Isaiah, Joseph Blenkinsopp claims that the earliest reference to resurrection in the Hebrew scriptures comes in the 26^th chapter of the Book of Isaiah.  This is a remarkable claim since it is commonly assumed that the earliest references to resurrection are to be found in the late Biblical material, Daniel 12.2, if not later yet in the apocryphal books such as the 2 Maccabees. My deeply felt conviction that this is true, however, rests not on authority, but on my own close read the Hebrew text of Isaiah.  Let me take you to the 26^th chapter of Isaiah and see if in the end, you might agree.

                The text takes us to Jerusalem where a prophetic school is laboring to reckon with their world, what we would call the Levant, in or around the year of 705 B. C. E. By then, they are in the second phase this reckoning.  The first phase began with a crisis triggered by the ascension of a new king, Ahaz, which was troubled by the ascendancy of the Assyrian Empire and the pressure from the kingdom of Aram, Damacus, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  They were insistent that the Southern Kingdom join them in their resistance to the Assyrians.  The prophetic school’s counsel delivered by a youthful Isaiah was to not fear and not to join Aram and the Northern Kingdom. By 705 it had proven to be valid council.  They had refined and recorded their position in a text, what we know as chapter 3-12 of the Book of Isaiah, completed somewhere in and around the year 730.

                Jerusalem, due in part to its isolation in the rugged hill country of the south and due in another part to their judicious behavior, had escaped a direct attack. From that vantage point they watched the world around them violently oppressed.  Fortified cities were crushed by the Assyrian army, Tyre, Gath, Megiddo, Damascus, Dibon, Ashdod, and lastly Samaria, their neighbor forty miles to the north in 722 B. C. E. Death and deportation surrounded them. Moreover, this reign of terror had continued for thirty years with no end in sight. With that, the prophetic school was forced to reappraise their theological analysis of what was happening and to recast their message in terms of perseverance. Recall that its early prophesies implied fulfillment would come “by the time this child knew or said this or that.”  that is, “not long.”  Now they needed to be amended to “however long.”

Part of the school’s strategy was to amend their existing text, 3-12. The added text would be a recognition of new developments, and it would reposition their theology with an orientation that embraced the posture of waiting.  By the time they turned to the composition of this poem, they had already composed a substantial thread of new material beginning with what we call chapter 13 and which advanced through a series of study on the suffering of the peoples around them, from Moab to Tyre.  Their working draft now constituted a text that we would recognize as more or less chapers,15-23.

            This new composition was to be a poem which would address the problem that we know of as theodicy, justifying the ways of God. As such it would be a restatement of the Prophetic School’s fundamental theology which they had pioneered at the beginning the Assyrian crisis some thirty year before.  When this poem was finished It would take its place as the 26^th chapter of the Isaiah text as we know it. 

                The poet, perhaps Isaiah himself, now a mature elder of the school, began the poem with a statement which asserts the justice of God’s ways.  “Truly the ways of God are just.” To this initial supposition, he adds a second: waiting for God “is the soul’s desire.”  This is what we would call a transcendental, a precondition of mind/consciousness which points the mind to waiting for God.  With this the argument for theodicy is set. 

                The poem will end as it began, with a re-statement of theodicy.  “God goes forth from his place, מקום, to visit punishment on the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth and the earth would reveal the blood within it and it would no longer cover the slain.” Even as we wait for it, it is underway!

                Between these two statements of God’s justice, the poet places an intensely personal confession.  The universal desire of soul’s, is immediately modified by the poet with an assertion: “My soul’s waits for you in the night, O God, … My spirit seeks for you.”

                With that a conversation with God begins in which the poet reviews the condition that he and his companion find themselves.  Yes, he concedes we are aware that “Fire will consume your adversaries.”  And we know that their dead will not live, and their shades/corpses/רפאים will not rise. We understand that by means of all this suffering, the peoples of the earth, Isarel included, will in the end learn their lesson.

                But You, God, need to understand that the life of the poet and his companions is like that of a pregnant woman approaching childbirth.  We writhe, cry out, and are in pangs.  Thus far, however, we are like those who deliver wind and nothing of substance or human.  The metaphor of childbirth has already established a place in the Isaiah text, where it stands for suffering that has an end and a purpose, but here childbirth is underlined as prolonged and seemly futile labor.    

                At the end of his confession the poet cries out: “May your dead live.” Clearly this is a reference to the above assertion: “Their dead will not live.”  But note the twist from “their” to “your,” third person to second person.  These dead belong to God, for they are God’s people, Isreal. Then another twist, their shades/corpses/רפאים will not rise is changed to my body, corpse, vessel/נבלתי. In the first instance the plea shifts from the third-person plural to the first- person singular, my body. In the second, the poet does not repeat the רפאים, nor uses the crasser term for a corpse, פגר, but chooses instead נבלת.  The word he chooses means a vessel, an earthen vessel, think of Paul’s reference in II Corinthians. Or more commonly a fool, a weak thing, a wicked person or even a harp, musical instrument. The poet is not, of course, dead and his reference to himself seems purposely diminutive, something like when the English poet Gerand Manley Hopkins in a poem about resurrection refers to himself as “poor jack stuff.”  The poet has also done something with the word rise/קום by way of an augmented form, קומון. This suggests that he wants his audience to understand the word is meant not metaphorically but actually.  He continues: “Let them awake and sing.” Referring to the dead, he now adds a comforting metaphor.  It shall be like that which dwells in the dust is moistened by the dew that comes with the light of day.

                The voice in the poem now changes.  God responds and speaks to the poet, the poet’s audience and to all his dead: “Go, my people enter your room, lock the door behind you, hide for a little moment until the wrath passes.”

                With this note of compassion, we return to the magisterial voice of the poet in which he restates the proposition that God’s actions are just and God is even at this moment acting to bring that about. God is on the move. “God goes forth from his high place, מקום to visit punishment on the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth and the earth will reveal the blood within it and earth will no longer cover the slain.” The extension of the theme now includes a reference to the slain.  Their blood will testify against the iniquity of their slayers, and the rising of their bodies will confront them in a way that justice will be done.

                It is not irrelevant to the question of theodicy that a concept of resurrection has emerged in this poem. That it has produced the first/early thought of resurrection should not surprise us as resurrection is essential to theodicy. Without a resurrection, theodicy remains an abstract idea which is easily accused of white-washing the reality of evil.  Apart from theodicy, resurrection becomes a part the candy of afterlife speculation, open to the charge that is a distraction from everyday life. To the poet, on the contrary, it is what allows everyday life to be meaningful and dedicated to justice.

                And theodicy, itself, is not irrelevant to the Isaiah school’s conviction that Yahweh is the one transcendent universal being.  The school’s thoughts were driven to the question of theodicy as soon as they made the move from a local God with limited agency to a transcendent God with universal agency. This raises the issue of death in new way. It is no longer satisfactory to be buried with one’s ancestors and to continue to have an existence in the local community which has defined you. Local communities in an imperial age have a way of ceasing to exist and large blocks of people are deported away from the burial place of their ancestors. The universal transcendent God creates a crisis! 

                With this incredible poem at the heart of the Isaiah text, we do not have an answer to the crisis, so much as we have the notification that we are on the way to one.

 

 

Notes:

 

The fifth stanza, 19-21 is marked with exceptional poetic skill, beautiful imagery, and profound sentiment.  It strikes me as a proper way to begin my own remembrance of the dead.  מתיך יחיו 

 

14- the dead מתים shall not live, the dead  יםפא ר will rise. .. a sentiment that is dramatically reversed in 19.  The intervening text compares the waiting for deliverance as the pangs of pregnancy which is failing to deliver.

 

19-21 are interesting, but cryptic verses which form the conclusion of Ch. 26.  Its interpretation turns on how רפאים which is read in the Rabbinic tradition as רפה which translates as “slackers.”  But while it shares the sense of being weak, it has its own meaning as a euphemism for the dead.  Isa 14:9

,  שְׁא֗וֹל מִתַּ֛חַת רָגְזָ֥ה לְךָ֖ לִקְרַ֣את בּוֹאֶ֑ךָ עוֹרֵ֨ר לְךָ֤ רְפָאִים֙ כׇּל־עַתּ֣וּדֵי אָ֔רֶץ הֵקִים֙ מִכִּסְאוֹתָ֔ם כֹּ֖ל מַלְכֵ֥י גוֹיִֽם׃

Sheol below was astir
To greet your coming—
Rousing for you the shades
Of all earth’s chieftains,
Raising from their thrones
All the kings of nations.

Is 14:19 corpse carcass פגר

 

Pr. 2:18 יקוצו-בל רפאיםת the dead shall rise up.  26:14 ינוח רפאים בקהל 21:16.

The Talmud contains discussions about resurrection, reflecting its significance in Jewish thought. Here are a few examples:

1.      Pesachim 68a: This passage discusses God's promise to resurrect the dead, emphasizing divine power and the belief in life after death.

2.      Ketubot 111b: This section explores the idea that only the pious will merit resurrection, though it also considers a broader definition of righteousness.

3.      Sanhedrin 90a-92a: These pages delve into the concept of resurrection, including debates among sages about its nature and scriptural basis.

These discussions highlight the centrality of resurrection in Jewish eschatology and its theological implications.

Sanhedrin 90a-92b

(צֶדֶ״ק גַּ״ם גֶּשֶׁ״ם קָ״ם סִימָן) שָׁאֲלוּ צַדּוּקִים אֶת רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל: מִנַּיִין שֶׁהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מְחַיֶּיה מֵתִים? אָמַר לָהֶם: מִן הַתּוֹרָה, וּמִן הַנְּבִיאִים, וּמִן הַכְּתוּבִים. וְלֹא קִיבְּלוּ מִמֶּנּוּ.

The Gemara records a mnemonic for those cited in the upcoming discussion: Tzadi, dalet, kuf; gimmel, mem; gimmel, shin, mem; kuf, mem. Heretics asked Rabban Gamliel: From where is it derived that the Holy One, Blessed be He, revives the dead? Rabban Gamliel said to them that this matter can be proven from the Torah, from the Prophets, and from Writings, but they did not accept the proofs from him.

מִן הַתּוֹרָה, דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל מֹשֶׁה הִנְּךָ שֹׁכֵב עִם אֲבֹתֶיךָ וְקָם״. אָמְרוּ לוֹ: וְדִילְמָא ״וְקָם הָעָם הַזֶּה וְזָנָה״?

The proof from the Torah is as it is written: “And the Lord said to Moses, behold, you shall lie with your fathers and arise” (Deuteronomy 31:16). The heretics said to him: But perhaps the verse should be divided in a different manner, and it should be read: “Behold, you shall lie with your fathers, and this people will arise and stray after the foreign gods of the land.”

מִן הַנְּבִיאִים, דִּכְתִיב: ״יִחְיוּ מֵתֶיךָ נְבֵלָתִי יְקוּמוּן הָקִיצוּ וְרַנְּנוּ שֹׁכְנֵי עָפָר כִּי טַל אוֹרֹת טַלֶּךָ וָאָרֶץ רְפָאִים תַּפִּיל״. וְדִילְמָא מֵתִים שֶׁהֶחְיָה יְחֶזְקֵאל?

The proof from the Prophets is as it is written: “Your dead shall live, my corpse shall arise. Awake and sing, you that dwell in the dust, for your dew is as the dew of vegetation, and the land shall cast out the dead” (Isaiah 26:19). The heretics said to him: But perhaps the prophecy was fulfilled with the dead that Ezekiel revived. No proof may be cited from that verse with regard to any future resurrection

 

Ketubot 111b

 

אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר: עַמֵּי הָאֲרָצוֹת אֵינָן חַיִּים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״מֵתִים בַּל יִחְיוּ וְגוֹ׳״, תַּנְיָא נָמֵי הָכִי: ״מֵתִים בַּל יִחְיוּ״, יָכוֹל לַכֹּל — תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״רְפָאִים בַּל יָקוּמוּ״, בִּמְרַפֶּה עַצְמוֹ מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה הַכָּתוּב מְדַבֵּר.

§ Rabbi Elazar said: The common, uneducated people will not come alive in the future, as it is stated: “The dead live not” (Isaiah 26:14). In other words, those who were already considered dead in their lifetimes will not come back to life afterward either. This idea is also taught in a baraita: “The dead live not”; one might have thought that this is referring to everyone, i.e., none of the dead will live again. Therefore, the verse states: “The shades [refa’im] rise not” (Isaiah 26:14). This teaches that the verse is speaking of one who weakens [merapeh] himself from matters of Torah.

אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: לָא נִיחָא לְמָרַיְיהוּ דְּאָמְרַתְּ לְהוּ הָכִי, הָהוּא בִּמְרַפֶּה עַצְמוֹ לַעֲבוֹדָה זָרָה הוּא דִּכְתִיב. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מִקְרָא אַחֵר אֲנִי דּוֹרֵשׁ, דִּכְתִיב: ״כִּי טַל אוֹרוֹת טַלֶּיךָ וָאָרֶץ רְפָאִים תַּפִּיל״, כׇּל הַמִּשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ בְּאוֹר תּוֹרָה — אוֹר תּוֹרָה מְחַיֵּיהוּ, וְכֹל שֶׁאֵין מִשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ בְּאוֹר תּוֹרָה — אֵין אוֹר תּוֹרָה מְחַיֵּיהוּ.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Rabbi Elazar: Their master, i.e. God, is not pleased that you say this of ordinary Jews. Rather, that verse is written about one who weakens himself and succumbs to idol worship. Those who commit this great sin do not merit to be resurrected in the future. Rabbi Elazar said to him: I teach it from a different verse, as it is written: “For Your dew is as the dew of light, and the earth shall bring to life the shades” (Isaiah 26:19). Rabbi Elazar explains: Anyone who uses the light of Torah, which is called the dew of light, the light of Torah will revive him; and anyone who does not use the light of Torah, the light of Torah will not revive him.

כֵּיוָן דְּחַזְיֵיהּ דְּקָמִצְטַעַר, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: רַבִּי, מָצָאתִי לָהֶן תַּקָּנָה מִן הַתּוֹרָה: ״וְאַתֶּם הַדְּבֵקִים בַּה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם חַיִּים כּוּלְּכֶם הַיּוֹם״, וְכִי אֶפְשָׁר לִדַּבּוֹקֵי בַּשְּׁכִינָה? וְהָכְתִיב: ״כִּי ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵשׁ אוֹכְלָה״?

Since Rabbi Elazar saw that Rabbi Yoḥanan was grieved over the distress of common, uneducated people, he said to him: My teacher, I have found for them a remedy from the Torah so that they will merit life in the World-to-Come, as it states: “But You who cleave to the Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day” (Deuteronomy 4:4). But is it possible to cleave to the Divine Presence? Isn’t it written: For the Lord your God is a devouring fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24)?

אֶ

 

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.