Sloppy Editing or Rhetorical Subtlety?

I’m fascinated by the way the book of Isaiah begins.

 I was reading the book of Isaiah recently when I was struck by how oddly it begins. The books of the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea all begin with an account of the prophet’s call to be a prophet. That account may be short, as in the case of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-10) or long, as in the case of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:1-3:27).

This call establishes the prophet’s credentials in proclaiming a word of God to the people. Only once that authority has been established do we get the content of the messages each prophet is commissioned to deliver.

The prophet Isaiah, as envisioned by Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, 16th century.

The call of Isaiah, however, does not come in his book until Chapter 6. What precedes it are five chapters of the actual messages that Isaiah delivers. That’s what I find odd. We don’t learn about Isaiah’s authority to speak for God until we have been exposed to a powerful summary of his prophetic burden.

Lifted High, Dropped Low

That summary is a real emotional roller coaster ride. Chapter 1 begins with a denunciation of Judah and its capital city Jerusalem. The prophet denounces the people’s religious infidelity. This infidelity is shown in the people’s extravagant piety in worship while they accommodate to injustice in the kingdom’s social and economic life.

So fierce is the prophet’s denunciation that he calls Jerusalem Sodom and Gomorrah. These two cities are the Old Testament’s great symbols of urban corruption. They suffer a fire and brimstone fate (Genesis 19). One can hardly imagine a greater insult to Judeans, who considered themselves pious, faithful, and respectable.

Chapter 2 opens, however, with a glorious vision of the temple mount in Jerusalem drawing pilgrims from all over the world. People come to the mount because there they expect to receive instruction from God and the word of the Lord. It will be a transforming word, for they shall end up beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Then the prophet returns to his denunciations. The land is filled with riches and the machinery of war, but it will be humbled when the Lord comes in judgment. Chapter 3 continues this recital of destruction, describing a society collapsing in chaos. It contains a particularly vivid description of the elite women strutting around town in their jewelry and finery (Isaiah 3:18-23),* before they will be reduced to baldness and sackcloth.

Then abruptly in chapter 4 the prophet returns to a hopeful vision of the glory that will return to Jerusalem after its spiritual cleansing. The Lord will dwell in the city and protect it as the Lord did the Israelites journeying through the wilderness during the Exodus. Whoever lives in the city will be called holy.

Then as we launch into chapter 5 we plunge again into a fierce denunciation of Judah as a people who were created to be the vineyard of the Lord, but a vineyard that has produced a harvest of sour, wild grapes. As a result, Sheol, the land of the dead, will open its mouth and swallow the people into its land of no return. This chapter ends with a vision of darkness enveloping the land:

They [foreign invaders] will roar over it on that day,

            like the roaring of the sea.

And if one look to the land–

            only darkness and distress;

and the light grows dark with clouds. (Isaiah 5:30)

Only after this rhetorical cycle of highs and lows do we come to the story of the prophet’s call. When I reach chapter 6, I am crying out for a respite. In a sense that is what chapter 6 provides for at least its first eight verses, before the text launches into another searing description of the judgment to come.

Why This Beginning?

When I read all this, I find myself asking what rhetorical purpose did the editor who compiled the book of Isaiah have in mind when he chose to arrange his material in this way. Was it to grab his audience’s attention immediately, and when they begin to protest to the emotional barrage, to spring the authority behind it with the call of the prophet?

I am not sure I see clearly the rhetorical purpose. But I have learned that the biblical writers and editors are generally very astute communicators. Things in the biblical text are seldom left to chance. The writers and editors bring an acute intelligence to their work.

And so when I come upon things that I don’t understand, I don’t immediately assume that this is a case of sloppy writing and careless editing. There may be a rhetorical subtlety at work that I don’t yet perceive. Is such the case with the opening of Isaiah?

Any thoughts among you, my readers?

___________

* This passage is a particularly detailed description of all the paraphernalia that the women of ancient Jerusalem would have considered high fashion.

The Oddest Image for God in the Bible

Bible text: Isaiah 31:4-5

In my personal Bible reading, I’ve recently been working my way through the first portion of the prophet Isaiah (Chapters 1-39). A few days ago, I encountered what struck me as the oddest image for God that I’ve ever found in the Bible.

The image is found in Isaiah 31:4. There God compares himself to a lion that has seized a lamb from the flock and now stands guard over his prey against all the threats of the shepherds that try to frighten him away. They raise a horrible ruckus of noise and shouting. But the lion does not run away or back off.

The text reads like this:

For thus the LORD said to me,

            As a lion or a young lion growls over its prey,

                        and—when a band of shepherds is called out against it—

            is not terrified by their shouting

                        or daunted at their noise,

            so the LORD of hosts will come down

                        to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hill.

            Like birds hovering overhead, so the LORD of hosts

                        will protect Jerusalem;

            he will protect and deliver it,

                        he will spare and rescue it.

Comparing God to a lion is not odd in Scripture. In Job 10:16, Job compares God to a lion, who relentlessly hunts him down. In Hosea 5:14, God speaks as if he is a lion who will destroy the people of Ephraim. The metaphor of the lion is again applied to God in Hosea 11:10 and 13:7-8.

And in the New Testament, we have the famous image in Revelation 5:5 where Christ is called the Lion of Judah. C.S. Lewis has good Scriptural precedent for choosing the image of a lion as his image for Christ in his Narnia Chronicles.

But the thrust of most of the Old Testament passages is use of the image of a lion to refer to God coming in judgment upon his people. Like a lion, God will rend and devastate his people for their faithlessness.

What I find so odd about the Isaiah passage is its use of the image of a lion growling over its prey as an image for God’s protectiveness and commitment to his people Israel. God is so resolute that he will not be moved to abandon his people no matter how fearsome the enemies that attack him.

We are accustomed to think of God as the good shepherd (see Psalm 23), who protects his people against the lions and bears of life. But we are not accustomed to think of the shepherds as images of evil, and God as so resolute in his care for his people that he is like a lion who cannot be frightened into abandoning his prey, even if the threats and noises are frightful.

I find the imagery in Isaiah 31:4 an odd inversion of our expectations. God may be flexible in his tactics. After all, he is dealing with an ever fickle and vacillating humanity. This opens a window for prayer. God can change in his tactics in response to the cries of his people.

But God is resolutely immovable in his eternal person and purposes. And one of his unchangeable qualities is his care and commitment to the world he has created. The coming of God’s kingdom may be delayed by all the twists and turns of human history. But it will come.

Prayer on the Temple Mount

Scripture texts:  Isaiah 56:7, Mark 11:17

In reading Isaiah, I find what God says in Isaiah 56:7 a haunting verse. God speaks into the future—the age of salvation—and declares that in that time, his temple shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Eunuchs and Gentiles who have been excluded from the temple will be welcomed in. It is another one of the Bible’s amazing visions of inclusivity.

In Mark 11:17, Jesus cites this verse as sanction for his driving the merchants and money-changers out of the temple. His citation implies that the future age of salvation has arrived. The temple needs to be opened as a place of worship for all nations. It must be cleansed of all that distracts from the supreme work of prayer.

Yet the spirit of exclusion remains 2,000 years later. Jews lament their destroyed temple at the Western Wall. Muslims lay claim to the site of the temple with their Dome of the Rock. The temple mount remains a locus of conflict and competing demands, not a place of prayer for all nations.

Playing the what-if game, I have long wondered what it would be like if the Dome of the Rock were to be opened as a house of prayer for all peoples. The mosque sits upon the very site of the Israelite temple. Here Abraham prepared to offer up his son. Here undoubtedly Jesus walked the pavements surrounding it. And here Muhammed began his visionary night ascent into heaven.

What if the mosque were to become an open place to all people who wish to draw close to God? What if people of all three religions—indeed of all faiths–were welcomed to use the mosque as a place to draw near to God? Would not then the vision of Isaiah and Jesus be fulfilled? The Dome of the Rock could become a symbol of the most profound inclusivity.

This is not to propose an amalgamated religion, composed of elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam combined. I believe the three faiths share much in common as children of Abraham, but each is also different. We must never try to erase the differences in a naïve belief that amalgamation will ensure peace. But in the act of prayer, people of faith (despite their different theologies) can be spiritually one in acknowledging the sovereignty and compassion of God.

As I see it, each of the three Abrahamic religions could and should retain a special site in Jerusalem that is hallowed to their unique faith. For the Jews that would be the Western Wall. For Christians the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And for Muslims the All Aqsa mosque at the south end of the temple mount. But the Dome of the Rock would become a place serving all of humanity as an open place of prayer.

I realize that in the present heated religious and political climate of the Middle East, such a proposal is totally unrealistic. It would take a great act of condescension on the part of Muslims to open the Dome of the Rock as a place of prayer for all faiths. And fundamentalists in all three faiths would vehemently oppose any such convergence of the three faiths in this way.

But one can still dream. And there remains God’s promise that one day this site will indeed be a house of prayer for all nations. May that day come quickly. 

A Breathtaking Hint of Universalism in Isaiah

Text: Isaiah 19:24-25

Sometimes I stumble upon a passage in the Bible that stops me in my tracks. It may do so because of its exquisite beauty. Sometimes because it says something I don’t expect the Bible to say. And sometimes because of its breathtaking vision.

One such passage is Isaiah 19:24-25. In it the prophet looks into the future. Whether that future is the Eschaton, or just some far future time, is not clear. But what he sees in that future is an astonishing act of God in reconciling bitter enemies.

The passage reads like this:

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (Revised Standard Version)

What takes my breath away is the language the prophet uses. Egypt is called God’s people. Assyria is the work of God’s hands. And Israel is God’s heritage.

 In all three cases the prophet is using language that applies to the concept of God’s chosen people. Throughout the Old Testament, those words—God’s people, the work of God’s hands, God’s heritage—are applied exclusively to Israel. They are titles that grow out of God’s special covenant with Israel.

Yet here Israel’s special covenant terms are be applied as well to Egypt and Assyria, Israel’s traditional enemies. All three peoples are called a blessing in the midst of the earth. The circle of God’s people has expanded to include Egypt, Assyria, and Israel as equals.

Christians often argue that it is Christianity that turns the nationalistic religion of ancient Israel into a universal faith that embraces all humanity, Gentiles as well as Jews. That often makes us Christians feel superior. But we need to be more humble. There are hints in the Old Testament itself that God’s vision has been universalist all along. And this passage in Isaiah 19 is one such hint.  God’s purpose in calling Israel is to liberate the whole earth, not just a select few.

I have never heard any preacher preach on this passage. Why has it been largely ignored?

I also can’t help reading this passage without thinking of the bitter conflict between Israeli and Palestinian over the land of Israel/Palestine. Does not this passage suggest that God intends the land to belong equally to both? In that future day that Isaiah foresees, both Israeli and Arab will belong to God’s people. And so both share the gift of the land.

That will mean both Arab and Israeli will have to give up their exclusive claim to the land. Neither side is ready to do that in the current political climate. Yet Isaiah points to the radical transformation of national spirit in both peoples that could make peace a reality.