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excerpts from Lawrence Boadt, Reading
The Old Testament, Chapters 16-20
A. Isaiah of Jerusalem
B. The Prophet Jeremiah
C. The Prophet Ezekiel
D. Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55)
Isaiah and the Historian
The Message of Isaiah
Isaiah and the Royal Traditions of Jerusalem
While Amos and Hosea prophesied in the north, Isaiah, son of Amoz, was
active in the kingdom of Judah. Isaiah began his ministry sometime after 740
and continued down to at least the year 700. The book under his name is the
largest work of prophecy in the Bible, and naturally also the richest in
prophetic thought. As noted earlier, its sixty-six chapters grew over several
centuries, and we {325} must search for the life and work of the original
Isaiah of Jerusalem only in the first thirty-nine chapters of the present
book. Even in these chapters, scholars believe that many passages come from
much later times.
The material in First Isaiah, as chapters 1-39 are called, can be divided
into the following sections:
Chapters
Is 1-12 Oracles against Judah mostly from Isaiah's early years 740-732)
Is 13-23 Oracles against foreign nations, many from his middle years
724-705)
Is 24-27 A "Little Apocalypse" added at a much later date,
perhaps in the sixth century
Is 28-33 Oracles from Isaiah's later ministry 705-700)
Is 34-35 A vision of Zion, perhaps a later addition
Is 35-36 Stories of Isaiah's life, some from the Book of Kings (see 2 Kg
18-19)
Like his colleagues in the north, Isaiah was passionately involved in the
political life of his day. In many cases he seemed to have direct access to
the king and so may well have been from a noble family himself. He lived
through several major crises including the fall of Samaria in 722. But the
oracles that have been preserved for us stress just two of these events. One
was the war declared jointly by King Hoshea of northern Israel and the king
of Damascus against Judah in 734. They wished to rebel against Assyrian rule
but were afraid of a hostile Judah at their back if it would not become their
ally. When King Ahaz of Judah refused to join the rebellion, they decided to
attack Judah first. The evil outcome of this event in the eyes of Isaiah was
the tragic, desperate decision of Ahaz to call on Assyria to come to his aid,
and thus to ally himself with the pagan faith of that country.
Assyria did defeat the two kingdoms of Israel and Damascus and saved Ahaz
from defeat, but at a terrible cost. Tiglath-pileser III destroyed the
kingdom of Damascus altogether and divided northern Israel into three
Assyrian provinces ruled directly by a governor from Nineveh, with only a
small territory around the capital city of Samaria left as a kingdom to King
Hoshea. At the same time, Ahaz became a vassal of Assyria and had to pay a
large sum of tribute money each year and pledge loyalty to the Assyrian
monarch. The pleas of Isaiah to avoid any involvement with Assyria had fallen
on{326} deaf ears, and the result was a worse situation than before. Chapters
6-11 of Isaiah capture this period of the prophet's life most fully.
The second great event was a later attempt by King Hezekiah of Judah, the
son of Ahaz, to free himself from the subjection to Assyria that his father's
actions had inflicted upon the country. Hezekiah revolted and declared
freedom in 705 B.C., the year that the Assyrian king died and his son
Sennacherib took the throne. Judah was not the only nation to try for
independence at the time, and it took Sennacherib four years to get control
of his homeland and the eastern parts of the Assyrian empire. But then in 701
he appeared in Palestine with his army and began the siege of Judah. He took
all the major cities and surrounded Jerusalem for a final assault, intending
to wipe out Judah forever. Lord Alfred Byron captured the scene forever in
his great poem, Sennacherib:
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like the stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
The story of this attack, found in Is 36-37, ends with a miraculous plague
that wiped out much of the Assyrian army and forced them to return home
without taking Jerusalem. Such a result, in answer to both the prayers of the
king and the prophecy of Isaiah, strengthened the conviction of the people of
Judah that Yahweh indeed loved the city of Jerusalem because of his temple
and would protect it at all costs.
But Judah did not escape from Sennacherib without great cost. First of
all, every city except Jerusalem was attacked and destroyed; secondly,
Hezekiah had to pay a huge sum of money to the Assyrians to maintain his
throne and keep them from attacking again; finally, the people's joy made
them forget the warnings of the prophets about injustice and evil. They began
to trust too much that God would put up with anything. This attitude grew
worse in the following decades and led to even more dire prophetic words of
judgment in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel a hundred years later.
This time in the history of the Old Testament stands out vividly for the
historian. There are a number of important monuments and {327} inscriptions
that throw light on events mentioned in the Book of Isaiah. Sennacherib, the
Assyrian king, left a whole throne room in his palace covered with detailed
scenes of his assault on the second largest city in Judah, Lachish. These can
now be seen in the British Museum where the remains of the palace from
Nineveh are on display. He also left a pillar covered on six sides with an
account of his battle against Hezekiah. In an indirect reference to the
disaster that ended his attack, he never claims to have actually captured
Jerusalem but only to have trapped Hezekiah inside "like a bird in a
cage" (see accompanying chart).
The longest known Hebrew inscription from the time of the Israelite kings
comes from this battle also. Hezekiah is reported to have covered over the
water supply of the city which lay outside the walls in order to protect it
against the possibility that the Assyrians would cut if off and so force the
city into surrender through thirst (2Kg 20:22; 2Ch 33:30). Hezekiah then dug
a tunnel underground leading the water within the walls of Jerusalem to a
pool at Siloam. In 1880 some boys discovered a description carved into the
wall of the Siloam tunnel. It explains in lively terms the problems the
diggers ran into:
... while there were still three cubits to be cut through, (there was heard)
the voice of a man calling to his fellow, for there was an overlap in the
rock to the right. And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen
hewed, each man toward his fellow, axe against axe; and the water flowed from
the spring toward the reservoir for twelve hundred cubits... (ANET 321).
Visitors can still go through the tunnel into the pool of Siloam today.
Finally, close by on a hill facing the walls of Jerusalem stands a tomb from
Hezekiah's time. A broken inscription notes that it is the tomb of "(?)
-yah, who is over the house." Though the name cannot be completely made
out, it may well be the tomb of Shebnah, the steward over the royal palace,
whom the prophet denounces (Is 22:15-16) for building his tomb facing the
city.
Isaiah is often considered the greatest of the Old Testament prophets
because of the sheer range and vision of his prophecy. He {329} matches Amos
and Hosea for intense anger against oppression and injustice. In Is 3:15, for
example, he asks: "What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding
down the faces of the poor? says the Lord God of Hosts." He can match
their denunciations of idolatry and abandonment of Yahweh: "They have
forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly
estranged" (Is 1:4). He, too, hates vain worship: "Bring no more
empty offerings. Your incense is an abomination before me. New moon and
sabbath and the calling of assemblies- I cannot endure evil at the same time
as a solemn assembly" (Is 1:13). And he shares the anguish of Hosea in
trying to express how much God wants Israel to turn back. Isaiah's famous
story of the vineyard in chapter 5 captures God's sorrow dramatically but
also reveals his unbending demand that justice be done: "He looked for
justice, and behold there was bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an
outcry" (Is 5:7).
Beyond these traditional concerns, Isaiah concentrated on God's plan for
the whole world. He could speak freely of Assyria as God's instrument sent to
punish the chosen people (see Is 10:5-15), and of God's control over all
nations great and small, and of how just as he blessed nations and gave them
good things, he could also punish them for their evils and abuses (Is
14:24-27 and Is 28:14-21 are good examples of this). Isaiah's theology
demanded that Israel and Judah place their trust only in God and not in
foreign powers. In the great crises of 734 and 701, Isaiah warned against
playing power politics. He told Ahaz not to get help from Assyria in 734, and
again in 701 he warned Hezekiah not to seek aid from Egypt against Assyria.
The beautiful visions of Immanuel that fill Is 7, Is 9 and Is 11 came about
because Isaiah tried to show Judah's kings that God would stand by them if
they remained faithful and would bring about a better day. Ahaz angrily
rejected Isaiah's words; Hezekiah couldn't find the courage to believe them.
As a result, Isaiah turned his hopes to a future king who would obey Yahweh.
From this moment, the words of Isaiah inspired hopes of a messiah, a new king
in Israel's future who would better serve God and bring about a full measure
of the divine blessing on the land (see Is 9:1-6 and 11:1-9).
Together with the vision of hope in Isaiah, the theme of God's holiness
stands out. Again and again, Isaiah calls God the "Holy One of
Israel" (Is 5:16; Is 6:3; Is 10:20, etc.). This phrase sums up the
majesty of God as king of the universe and as the one who resides in the
midst of his people in glory. For Isaiah, Yahweh is both the all- {330}
powerful Creator whom we worship and the intimate Savior whom we can approach
in the temple and in prayer. Moreover, because God is holy and has made his
home in the midst of Israel, he demands of all the chosen people a holiness
and right living that imitates his own. This insight leads Isaiah to blast
the human pride that puts itself against God's ways and exalts itself:
The haughty stares of
a man shall fall,
and people's pride will be humbled,
and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
For the Lord of hosts sets a day
against all that is proud and raised up (Is 2:11-12).
It also makes Isaiah keenly aware of the oppression and injustice
committed by wealthy classes against the poor in the name of good business
and profit:
Woe to those who call
evil good and good evil,
claim darkness as light and light as darkness,
put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter....
Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against his own people,
and he has stretched out his hand against them and struck them down (Is 5:20,
25).
God's punishment can be expected, not because God hates this people or
rejects his covenant with them, but because "the Lord of hosts is
exalted in justice and the Holy God reveals his holiness in
righteousness" (Is 5:16).
As a result of this understanding, Isaiah predicted the downfall of both
kingdoms, but also foresaw a day when God would rebuild a remnant that would
be holy and righteous before God:
And he who is left in
Zion
and remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy,
anyone who is marked off for life in Jerusalem,
When the Lord washes away
the dirt from the daughters of Zion
And cleanses the blood from the midst of Jerusalem
with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of scorching (Is 4:3-4).
{331} This remnant can be very small indeed, only a stump from the
original tree of Judah: "And though a tenth of it remain, it will be
burned again" (Is 6:13).
Yet this remnant would also be the source of hope for Israel because it
represents God's promise that he will not destroy Jerusalem or the temple on
Mount Zion completely. Isaiah ends the first collection of his oracles of
judgment against Judah with a great vision of the people restored in glory on
Mount Zion, shouting out their praise: "Cry out and sing for joy, O
dweller of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel" (Is
12:6).
The combination of the Holy One of Israel, the greatness of Mount Zion,
and the dream of Immanuel, the faithful king, sets Isaiah off from the
thought patterns of an Amos or Hosea. Because he was a citizen of Jerusalem,
he made use of the special royal traditions associated with the capital city
and with the royal house of David much more than did prophets working in the
north. Since we know that the temple stood next to the royal palace (1 Kg 6-7),
and has even been referred to as a "royal chapel" (to express the
close connection between the political and religious areas of Judah's life),
it should not be surprising to discover that the prayers and worship used in
the temple often centered on the promises of Yahweh to the house of David.
Jerusalem liturgy especially celebrated the oracle of the prophet Nathan
promising a lasting throne to the kings who came from the family of David
(2Sm 7). We gain a small glimpse of this royal theology in Ps 89 and Ps 132,
which praise the covenant of David, but also in many psalms that pray for the
welfare of the king, such as Ps 2, Ps 21, and Ps 45. Closely tied to this
concern for the king are the psalms that extol Zion as the dwelling place of
Yahweh and the source of protection for Israel: Ps 4, Ps 47, and Ps 48, for
example.
Isaiah makes use of these traditions
throughout his prophetic oracles. He almost never mentions ideas directly
tied to the covenant with Moses at Mount Sinai, but rather draws a picture of
Yahweh passionately concerned with the failures of the king and angered
because the people turn from his presence as their God on Mount Zion to other
nations and their kings. Isaiah proclaims the need for trust in the God of
Zion: {332}
For thus says the Lord
God,
the Holy One of Israel:
In turning back to me
and in quiet you shall be saved;
in silence and trust shall be your strength (Is 30:15).
Yes, people of Zion
who dwell in Jerusalem:
you will no longer
weep,
For he will give you favor when you cry out
and answer you when he hears you (Is 30:19).
At the same time, he emphasizes that God will not abandon the house of
David but will raise up a king who will obey Yahweh and give glory to his
name:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse
and a blossom shall spring from his roots.
And the spirit of the
Lord shall come upon him:
the spirit of wisdom
and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and power,
the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord,
and the fear of the Lord shall be his delight (Is 11:1-2).
While Isaiah seems to have been totally disappointed in Ahaz and his
response to the prophet's words in 734, Isaiah's later oracles directed to
his son Hezekiah seem more hopeful despite the greater time of danger that
Sennacherib's attack of 701 posed to both king and state. The oracles in Is
28-32 still contain warnings of judgment and disaster, but the following
chapters go out of their way to reassure Israel and Judah that God will not
abandon his promises to Zion and to the king. Is 33-35 are songs of praise of
Zion, and Is 36-39 tell the story of how God delivered Hezekiah from the
Assyrians. These were perhaps added later than the oracles of judgment in
order to emphasize the grounds for continued trust in Yahweh. They may even
be expanded beyond Isaiah's original words but are solidly based on his
preaching and echo the themes found in the Immanuel prophecies of Is 7-11.
The Second Book of Kings notes that Hezekiah began a major reform of
religious abuses in Judah, but that these did not take hold {333} for long.
Part of the reason no doubt was the devastation caused by the Assyrian attack
in 701; another was the quick rejection of these reforms by Hezekiah's son
and successor, Manasseh, who ruled from 687 to 642. There is even a legend
that Manasseh martyred the prophet Isaiah shortly after taking the throne.
The true importance of Isaiah, however, does not depend on whether or not
he was able to reform the thinking of the king and people of Judah during his
own lifetime. His words contained that rare mix of ethical insight, realistic
warning of disaster, and long-range hopefulness that mark his as the most
profound vision of the Old Testament. The words of Isaiah did not fall
forgotten by the wayside, but became the basis for Israel's later reflection
and speculation. His oracles provided the foundations for hope in the time of
exile to later prophets such as the authors of the last half of the Book of
Isaiah in chapters 40-55 and 56-66. They also stirred the messianic hopes of
post-exilic prophets such as Haggai and Zechariah, and of the early
Christians who quoted Isaiah more than any other book of the Old Testament to
explain the meaning of Jesus. {334}
B. The Prophet Jeremiah
The Background of the
Book of Jeremiah
Outline
of the Book
The
Political Situation of Jeremiah's Day
Jeremiah's
Message
The
Temple Sermon
Jeremiah's
"Confessions"
The
Call of the Prophet
Jeremiah's
Words of Hope
The Background of the Book of
Jeremiah
Jeremiah's book opens with his call as a prophet in the thirteenth year of
King Josiah about 627 B.C. He claims to be young, too young (Jr 1:6), and
some scholars believe this date actually refers to his birth (he is
"called from the womb" in Jr 1:5), but the majority opinion still
sees 627 as the beginning of his actual ministry. Since he continues to
preach down past the final exile in 586 and doesn't disappear from sight
until about 582 B.C., he holds the biblical record for prophetic activity,
some forty-five years in all. His book is remarkable not only because it
covers the drama of Josiah's reform, the failures of the kings that followed
him and the final collapse of the whole nation, but because it reveals a side
to prophets that is rarely seen: the emotionally powerful feelings that went
with their zeal for Yahweh's word. This reveals more of the individual than
any other Old Testament book. It shows Jeremiah to be "a man born out of
his due time," a person in ancient dress with whom modern readers can
readily identify.
But while we gain a sympathy and understanding of the man Jeremiah, we
must still wrestle with the difficult way the book is put together. Ancients
did not have the same sense of order as modern people do, and they often seem
to simply gather words in any old way. Indeed, the present material, like
most prophetic books, really had first appeared in smaller collections taken
from various sources, and the editors had to organize it as best they could
without destroying the earlier parts altogether. They worked according to
their ideas of how to best present the prophet's message for their own time,
and the reasoning they used is not always clear to modern readers or scholars
today. Several different types of divisions can be discovered in the text.
First of all, there are three major time periods in which Jeremiah worked.
The first takes place during the reign of Josiah, from the time of his call
in 627 down to at least 622 and the beginning of the reform, and perhaps down
even to the death of Josiah in 609. We do not know much about this period
except that many of the early oracles in chapters 1-6 probably reflect
Jeremiah's demands for conversion and reform. The second period is during the
reign of Josiah's son, King Jehoiakim, from 609 down to 598. During this
period, Josiah's reform collapsed and Jehoiakim seems to have purposely moved
in the opposite direction and re-established many pagan practices. The third
and final period of Jeremiah's ministry took place in the twelve years
between the first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 598 and its
second and final ruin in 586, with a short period of activity in the
following years of 586 to 582.
These three periods form a bare skeleton for Jeremiah's life. The oracles
and stories about the prophets, however, do not actually appear in their
proper order as he delivered them. They have been collected and arranged by
other principles than a time-line- although some effort was made to keep as
many events in order as possible. Thus we have much from the last two periods
of Jeremiah's life but not much from the first.
A brief outline of the whole book of fifty-two chapters gives five
divisions, each with its own type of materials: {362}
1. Chapters 1-25 Oracles and accounts involving
the evil of Judah under three kings: Josiah (1-6), Jehoiakim (7-20), and
Zedekiah (21-24).
2. Chapters 26-36 Stories about the prophet and
oracles from the times of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah.
3. Chapters 37-45 The story of Jeremiah's last
days (told by Baruch?).
4. Chapters 46-51 Oracles against foreign
nations.
5. Chapter 52 An appendix describing the fall of
Jerusalem in 586 (taken from 2 Kg 25 to complete the story of Jeremiah's
words).
But even within these five sections, the materials are not always the same
kind. Oracles delivered in poetry stand side by side with stories about the
prophet's life in prose, and oracles in prose are mixed with homily material
very similar to the Book of Deuteronomy. It has become common for scholars to
discuss three special types of material that can be found scattered through
the book:
Type A material Original oracles of Jeremiah, preserved as he gave them,
almost always in poetry. These are most common in chapters 1-25 and 46-51.
Type B material Memoirs or biographical accounts about the prophet's work
or personal suffering. These fall mostly in chapters 26-45. They are from
someone else than Jeremiah, usually thought to be his scribe Baruch (named in
Jr 36:4), but they are not completely orderly, so may well come from several
different sources.
Type C material Prose oracles that have been handed down and edited, often
extensively, by members of the school of Deuteronomy. They usually appear in prose
and contain many typical Deuteronomic words. They can be found in chapters
1-25 at places such as chapters 7, 16 and 21, but also later, as in chapter
32.
All of this must make us realize that this is a collection about Jeremiah
as much as it is an anthology of his own sayings and writings. Some of the
oracles in prose form will be more in the way of a third-person report about
what Jeremiah said on a certain day, or even what he would have said about
some evil situation- but the editors no longer had his words, so they
composed it in his style. This is close to the method used by Deuteronomy and
seems to have been very popular in the late monarchy period. The fact that
some oracles were not actually said just the way they were written down {363}
does not mean that we cannot know Jeremiah; they rather add to his own words
a number of important insights into his message made by his followers at the
time. Their value is great, for without them his oracles may never have been
saved for future generations.
During Jeremiah's ministry of forty-five years, the world changed
dramatically. When he began, Assyria was still the world's greatest power,
but by the time he died in exile in Egypt, Babylon stood supreme. Facing Babylon,
however, in the moment of victory was the Egyptian army of Pharaoh Necho who
had rushed to help the weakened Assyrian army stop the Babylonians from
winning a total victory. Egypt failed in that but did hold onto most of Syria
and Palestine. The small countries, who had hoped so much for their freedom
as Assyria fell, learned the hard lesson that they were going to simply
change masters. But there was no room for two great powers in the Near East,
and after four years 609-605), Nabopolas-sar's son and crown prince,
Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the Egyptian armies near the Syrian city of
Carchemesh.
The old King Nabopolassar died shortly after, and Nebuchadnezzar took the
throne of Babylon in 605 to begin a forty-three year reign. He restored the
ancient splendor of Babylon and built his famous "hanging gardens,"
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But it was not a time of hope
or joy in Judah, which had barely freed itself from Assyrian control when it
was forced to submit first to Egypt, then to Babylon.
While Josiah lived, the political situation in Judah remained calm. But
the king died young trying to play a role in the battle for control of the
falling Assyrian empire. His sons inherited a much changed situation, and
were much less stable: three of them plus a grandson sat on the throne of
David in the next twenty years. The dates they ruled can be diagrammed as
follows:
{364} At Josiah's death fighting the Egyptians, his son Jehoahaz was named
to succeed him even though he was not the oldest son. This was probably
because he promised to continue his father's policies. But the Egyptians who
now controlled Palestine would not permit a leader who favored Babylon, so
they removed Jehoahaz from the throne almost immediately (after a three month
rule) and named his older brother Jehoiakim to be king. Jehoiakim readily
reversed his father Josiah's policies and became an obedient subject of
Egypt. But when the Babylonians drove Egypt out of Asia at the battle of
Carchemesh in 605, Jehoiakim immediately reversed himself again and pledged
loyalty to Babylon. It must have been done unwillingly, however, for not long
after this he began to plot toward breaking free of foreign control. When he
finally refused to pay the annual tribute money to Babylon in 599, it was
open revolt. The Babylonian army appeared the next spring, in 598, and, after
a short siege, forced the city of Jerusalem to surrender, took many of the
leading citizens away as exiles to Babylon (2 Kg 24:10-16), and stripped the
temple of all its treasures. In the middle of this rebellion, Jehoiakim died
and left his young son Jehoiachin to become king just in time to surrender.
Nebuchadnezzar took the boy-king into exile and placed his uncle, Jehoiakim's
brother Zedekiah, on the throne in his place.
Archaeology has provided us with a first-hand account of this battle for
Jerusalem in 598 from the records of King Nebuchadnezzar himself. It is part
of the Babylonian Chronicle, the yearly list of the king's activities, and
the part that relates to Jerusalem comes in the seventh year of the king's
reign:
In the seventh year, in the month Kislev, the
king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to Hatti-land, and besieged the
city of Judah and on the second day of the month Adar he captured the city and
seized its king. He appointed there a king after his own heart, received its
heavy tribute and sent it to Babylon.
The twelve years between the first fall of the city of Jerusalem in 598
and its final destruction in 586 was a troubled time with many people still
hoping for victory over Babylon and complete independence. Zedekiah, as he is
seen in the Book of Jeremiah, proved to be a weak and uncertain man who first
leaned one way and then another. But finally he too broke with Babylon about
589 B.C. under the prodding of the new Egyptian pharaoh, Hophra.
Jeremiah and the Deuteronomistic History {365} Nebuchadnezzar moved
quickly to deal with this rebellion because he feared Egyptian designs on
Palestine. He captured all the cities of Judah, surrounded Jerusalem and for
two years starved the people into defeat. When all was lost, Zedekiah tried
to flee at night to safety but the Babylonian army caught him near Jericho
and he had to watch while his sons were executed before his eyes, then have
his own eyes put out and finally be led away to die a captive in a Babylonian
prison. Nebuchadnezzar took more people into exile, this time leaving only a
remnant, including Jeremiah, to make some kind of a living in the land. He
tore down the city walls and leveled the temple to the ground so that
Jerusalem would no longer serve as a center for Jewish hopes. But despite his
efforts, many still waited for the day when God would restore the city (cf.
Jr 41:4-8).
Jeremiah came from Anathoth, a small town north of Jerusalem that actually
lay in the old northern tribe of Benjamin. Perhaps his father, who was a
priest, had learned much the same traditions as are now found in Deuteronomy.
In any case, Jeremiah proved to be both a great defender of the best of the
northern tradition of Hosea and Deuteronomy and a true southerner in love
with Zion and Jerusalem. In style he favors longer oracles than did the
earlier prophets, with a great deal of emotional drama in them. He prepares
the way for his younger contemporary, Ezekiel, who brings the art of the
elevated and literary oracle to perfection. But Jeremiah was not so much a
writer as a speaker. He used colorful imagery of battle, plague, and the
terrors of war, as well as the everyday pictures drawn from potmaking,
cooking, metalwork and sexuality. We gain a good picture of the man Jeremiah
in his book because we{366} see him through many eyes at slightly different
angles: we have his own oracles, the stories about him by Baruch, and the
theological reflections on him by the Deuteronomic writers.
But all three agree on his singleminded sense of mission. He never stopped
preaching against the two major evils of his day: idolatry and injustice. He
was relentless even when it led to great personal suffering and persecution.
But he was also tender and filled with compassion for the people, and he
often pleaded for people to be converted and come back to the covenant, so
that Yahweh would have mercy. He had great sensitivity both to what God asks
and to what humans need to find. Abraham Heschel, the great Jewish Old
Testament scholar, describes Jeremiah as the prophet of God's pathos- the
divine sympathy. When the people refused to hear his words, Jeremiah felt the
anguish personally. But he felt the pain borne by the God they had rejected
even more. In one moving event of his life, God demands of Jeremiah that he
remain unmarried as a witness to terrible conditions that are coming on the
land to make the raising of children a horror instead of a joy (Jr 16:1-4).
Above all, Jeremiah's message was one of obedience to the divine will
expressed in the covenant God had made with Israel. In this he stood in the
shoes of all the prophets before him. But in a special way he continued the
approach of Hosea, stressing the tender love of God and the divine
willingness to receive the people back. Yahweh desires to forgive and treat
Israel as a beloved wife:
Thus says the Lord,
I remember the faithfulness of your youth,
your love as a bride,
How you followed me in the desert,
in the wilderness. Israel was holy to the Lord (Jr 2:2-3).
Return, faithless
Israel, says the Lord. I will not look upon you with anger,
For I am compassionate. I will not be angry forever (Jr 3:12).
And I thought you
would call me, "my father,"
and would not turn away from following me.
Indeed as a faithless
wife deserts her husband,
so you have been unfaithful to me,
O house of Israel (Jr 3:19-20).
{367} Because the people did not respond to the call of Yahweh, Jeremiah's
words of hope for repentance became fewer and fewer. By the time of Jehoiakim
and Zedekiah, he had despaired that anything could turn back the punishment
that the people deserved for their sins. In several passages, Jeremiah even
declares that God ordered him not to intercede on behalf of the people any
longer (Jr 7:6; Jr 11:14).
Jeremiah's condemnations were just as strong as those of Amos, Hosea or
Isaiah before him. He warns against the policies of going first to Assyria
and then to Egypt for political gain (Jr 2:17-18), he compares the people to
a camel in heat for their lust after pagan idols (Jr 2:23-24), and he
condemns the oppression of the poor and powerless (Jr 2:33-34), widespread
adultery and fornication (Jr 5:7-8) and the stubborn rebellion against the
covenant (Jr 5:23). In between each condemnation, he calls on the people to
turn back to Yahweh (Jr 3:22; Jr 4:1; Jr 7:3; Jr 8:5; Jr 18:8). But his
greatest scorn is kept for those who turn to pagan statues and idols for
strength. He describes the piety of people who call a piece of wood
"father" (Jr 2:27-28) and bow down before a gilded and richly
clothed idol which is as dead and unmoving as a scarecrow in a cornfield (Jr
10:3-5). To regain their loyalty to Yahweh he calls up the memory of the
exodus and the tender care of God in the desert years, hoping to move them
(see Jr 2:27-28; Jr 7:16-19; Jr 10:1-5; Jr 11:1-5; Jr 19:4-5).
If Judah will not hear and listen to the word that Jeremiah brings, then
God will surely permit an enemy to destroy them. The prophet sees a vision of
a foe from the north pouring destruction over the land like a pot of boiling
water being tipped on its side (Jr 1:13-15). This "foe from the
north" is never named but could be none other than the Babylonian army
on the march. Jeremiah returns to the theme often (Jr 4:5-8; Jr 4:13; Jr
5:15; Jr 6:22; Jr 10:22), and often resembles fiery Nahum with his battle
scenes against Judah (Jr 4:5-29; Jr 6:1-5). Like a schoolteacher repeating
the lessons again and again, Jeremiah drums the warning into the ears of his
people. Another favorite image is borrowed from the work of forging metal
objects. Just as ores have to be burned so that the metal in them will melt
and separate and be able to be shaped into tools and weapons, so God will
burn away the bad ore of Israel and Judah to get good metal (Jr 6:27-30). He
warns repeatedly that the punishment God sends will be so severe that it can
be named "Terror on every side" (Jr 6:25; Jr 20:3, 10; Jr 46:5; Jr
49:29).
Sometimes the prophet seems near despair over the evil that he sees around
him. He cries out that "death" has climbed up into the {368}
windows, has walked into our palaces (Jr 9:20); he laments the incurable
wound that only gets worse until the patient dies, and no healing oils can be
found anywhere (Jr 8:22; Jr 30:12-13). He imitates the funeral laments for
the dead: "Take up lamenting and weeping for the mountains, and wailing
for the desert pastures, because they have been laid waste so no one can pass
by" (Jr 9:10).
Soon after Jehoiakim became king and began to turn back from Josiah's
reform, Jeremiah went to the temple to proclaim a word of warning. This
"temple sermon" was so powerful and shocking that the editors
included two different accounts of it, once in chapter 7, and again in
chapter 26. He shocked his audience of religious people who had come to the
temple to pray by declaring that their trust in God's protection was in vain.
Instead, Jeremiah declares, God will wipe out the Jerusalem temple just as he
had earlier destroyed the sanctuary of Shiloh where the ark of the covenant
had been kept in the time of Samuel. Chapter 7 develops Jeremiah's arguments
at great length, pointing out the constant idolatry and hypocrisy of the
people, and promising that the wrath of God's justice cannot be stopped.
Chapter 26 is shorter and probably closer to the actual original words of
Jeremiah. It also includes the reactions of both those who heard the oracle
and the authorities who had to deal with it. Jeremiah's words angered the
people, the priests, and the prophets who were attached to the temple and
they seized him and threatened his life (Jr 26:8). The princes, who were the
civil authorities, rushed up to the gate of the temple where law cases were
heard, and held a trial right on the spot. The priests and prophets pushed
for his death. But when Jeremiah said in his own defense that he had acted on
God's command when he called them to return to the ways of the Lord, he
convinced both the princes and the crowds that he was a prophet and should be
spared. They argued that Micah the prophet had spoken the same way a hundred
years earlier and King Hezekiah had feared to put him to death. But although
on this occasion the princes decided to let Jeremiah go, they failed to
convince the priests and prophets, who continued to be major opponents of
Jeremiah's mission.
This incident added to Jeremiah's anguish but did not stop him from
speaking again. The oracles gathered together in chapters 20-23 show that he
often singled out the leaders, priests and proph- {369} ets for particular
warning. It makes it easy to understand why he constantly faced strong
opposition. He was persistent and fearless in his duty to announce all
violations of the covenant and the coming fall of Judah and its capital city
of Jerusalem. This made him unpopular and even considered a traitor by many
royal officials. They wanted to convict him of high treason for undermining government
policy and the will of the people to fight for the city. At times he had even
predicted that the Davidic dynasty was to end forever:
Thus says the Lord:
Write this man (King
Jehoiachin) down as childless,
whose life will never prosper;
He will leave no descendants to sit
on the throne of David to rule Judah (fer 22:30).
At other times he had advised surrender:
To Zedekiah, king of Judah, I spoke similarly: "Bring your neck under
the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his nation and live"
(Jr 27:12).
Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "Thus says the Lord, the God of
hosts, the God of Israel: If you surrender to the generals of the king of
Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned to the
ground, and you and your house shall survive" (Jr 38:17).
King Jehoiakim earlier had sought to arrest him, probably to execute him,
but friends in high places had warned Jeremiah and hidden him away (Jr 36).
Later, Jeremiah was arrested several times, thrown into a prison or even into
an open water cistern (Jr 37-39), and saved only because King Zedekiah
considered him a prophet and was afraid to have him killed. The kings and
their officials were most disturbed because other prophets spoke words of
encouragement and support for the national war for independence. Jeremiah not
only stood aside from these but denounced them as false prophets. Perhaps his
strongest words against any group were directed at prophets who claimed to
speak God's word but came out with only comfort and pats on the back for the
people they served. In chapter 23 he levels his most serious attacks on the
integrity of prophets who claim to have dreams or visions but in fact simply
repeat old formulas and official sounding phrases (Jr 23:26, 30), {370} while
they themselves live lives of adultery, dishonesty, and even idolatry (Jr
23:14).
Chapter 28 tells how Jeremiah denounced the message of Hananiah, a prophet
who was loudly proclaiming that God would soon defeat the Babylonians. Since
both prophets did symbolic actions (Jeremiah wore a yoke on his neck to show
the years of slavery ahead; Hananiah broke it in two to show the coming
liberation), and both spoke with authority, "Thus says the Lord,"
it was difficult for people to know whom to believe. Jeremiah used two proofs
against Hananiah: first, he predicted that God would strike him dead as a
sign that his message was false (Jr 28:16); second, he challenged the right
of a prophet to proclaim a word of salvation unless he can make it come to
pass. He says:
Now hear this word which I speak before you and all the people. The
prophets who have gone before you and me from earliest times have prophesied
war, famine and plague against many nations and mighty kingdoms. As for the
prophet who prophesies peace, when, that word of the prophet actually
happens, then it will be known that the Lord sent him (Jr 28:7-9).
In chapter 23 Jeremiah uses one other major argument to back up his right
to oppose the prophets of hope. He claims to have stood in the heavenly court
when God made his decisions and to have been sent back to speak the divine
word of judgment. This is very similar to the scene described in 1 Kg 22
about the prophet Micaiah ben Imlah. Micaiah had opposed four hundred
prophets of the king who supported the royal plans to go to war. He argued
that his word was true and theirs were false because he had known firsthand
that God had decided in heaven to send a lying spirit into their mouths and
give the true word to Micaiah. For both Micaiah and Jeremiah, the ultimate test
of the prophetic office is to hear and understand the divine word while being
in some way taken up into the actual presence of God and his angels who are
deciding what to do on earth. It is the claim to be the messenger of the
divine decisions from heaven to earth. And it goes far to explain why the
prophets that have been preserved in the Bible use such formulas as
"Thus says the Lord" or "This is the oracle of the Lord."
These are formulas used by messengers and heralds all over the Ancient Near
East. The prophetic role is primarily one of speaking what God has already
spoken. It is a message addressed from the plans and ap- {371} peals of a
caring God to the hearts and minds of human peoples. It must be thought about
and pondered, not just "enjoyed."
Jeremiah was persecuted by both King Jehoiakim and King Zedekiah. But
Zedekiah at least respected his prophetic office as genuine even while
keeping him in prison. Jehoiakim, as Jr 36 makes clear, actively hated
Jeremiah and sought to silence him somehow without going so far as to murder
him. Jeremiah, in turn, saw Jehoiakim as the chief offender against Josiah's
reforms and had few kind words for the king. So it is no wonder that this
monarch's years were also the most difficult for Jeremiah. The oracles
collected in chapters 11-20 catalogue moments of loneliness and feelings of
despair that sometimes gripped the prophet. A few passages in particular
stand out as deeply moving expressions of the prophetic trust in God mixed
with a sense of total aloneness: Jr 11:18-12:6; Jr 15:10-21; Jr 17:14-18; Jr
18:18-23; Jr 20:7-18. These five "confessions" borrow many
expressions from the psalms of lament and trust and so we must be careful not
to overstate how emotionally worked up Jeremiah seems to be. He hid behind
the traditional phrases of the psalms so that the attention would focus on
the point that God will surely deliver the prophet out of these terrible
situations because God loves and guards Jeremiah while he proclaims the
divine word.
But at the same time we can readily believe that the descriptions of how
the people have tried to kill him (Jr 11:18-20; Jr 18:18-20), how he was left
in anguish while his enemies prospered (Jr 12:1-6), how he is mocked and made
a fool of (Jr 20:7), how he wishes God would wipe out his foes and destroy
them (Jr 17:18; Jr 18:22-23; Jr 20:12), and how even God seems to have
betrayed him (Jr 10:7) all come straight from the heart of the man. They
sound like someone on the edge of giving up altogether, of throwing away his
work as a prophet and calling it quits. But through it all, Jeremiah clearly
lasted and endured the awful burden God had put upon his back. The nature of
these "confessions" as a personal testimony to the inner struggle
of the prophet is unique among the books of the Old Testament. Even
Jeremiah's great model, Hosea, never tells us so much about his own personal
life.
Jeremiah's trials are told in great depth in the section called Baruch's
biography (chapters 36-45), and his own words reveal {372} much about his
sense of mission. Jeremiah was no silent sufferer; he sometimes yelled
loudly. He had longings to return and live on the land far from the danger
and agony of the capital city (Jr 32), but it was not to be. Despite the
loneliness, the sense of frustration and the very real horror of having to
tell his own people that God was going to wipe out their country, Jeremiah
kept his first and greatest loyalty to the word that God had given him to
speak- like it or not!
It is time to return to the opening scene in the Book of Jeremiah to
understand Jeremiah's life and preaching. The first chapter stands as a
preface to his words, laying out the core of meaning that the reader is to
find in the chapters which follow. It is built around the special call that
Jeremiah received to the office of prophet. It has two scenes, verses 5-10
and 11-19. In the first, God speaks to Jeremiah as a young man and tells him
that he has been set aside for the task of prophet from before his birth.
Jeremiah objects that he is too young and that he has no training in
speaking. God overrules him and promises to give the words which he will say.
The prophecy will not be Jeremiah's but God's. It will be a task much greater
than anything.he could do on his own, for he shall speak to many nations, not
just to Judah and Israel. But he will have to speak judgment as well as hope.
This first scene can be compared to the call stories of Isaiah (Is 6) and
of Ezekiel (Ezk 1-3). In each case, God overcomes the weakness or
shortcomings of the prophet and gives him courage. Note how God says to
Jeremiah in verse 8, "Fear not, I am with you!" It also points us
back to the great figure of Moses, who needed God's reassurance in order to
go back and proclaim God's message of freedom to his people and who declared
he did not know how to speak and asked God to let his brother Aaron come with
him (Ex 3-6). The prophet Jeremiah in this description will be a new Moses,
both declaring God's words and interceding for the people when they are evil,
as Moses had to do again and again in the wilderness when the Israelites
rebelled out of hunger and tiredness (Nm 11-14).
The second scene in verses 11-19 adds new aspects to Jeremiah's call. In a
vision of the almond tree, whose blossoms come out like hundreds of eyes a
month before other trees awake in the spring, he discovers he is to be a
watchman for Israel, to call out {373} warning to the city. In a second
vision, he sees a boiling pot, and discovers that God will use the Babylonians
as an instrument to punish Israel for its sins. Finally, God promises to make
him a "fortified city, with iron pillars and a wall of bronze against
the whole land of Judah" (Jr 1:18). Yahweh does not abandon his chosen
ones in the hour of need, but he also did not tell Jeremiah at what price his
courage would be tested.
Chapter 1 sums up the task of Jeremiah in the expression: "I have set
you this day over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and break down, to demolish
and destroy, to build and to plant" (Jr 1:10). For most of his career,
at least from the days of Josiah down to the final fall of Jerusalem in 586,
he was engaged in the first task of warning against the evils in Judah. His
theology, firmly rooted in the mystery of the exodus as a time when God saved
and yet punished rebellion, made him understand that God could indeed destroy
Jerusalem. But just as the forty years in the desert were not a total end,
but only the end of one generation, Jeremiah held out the longer hope that
God would restore the people.
Most of these oracles of hope and comfort come from Jeremiah's last years
when the doom was so certain or perhaps had even already come, that no more
warning needed to be said. His message of promise takes several different
forms. In the simplest example, he buys a family farm in chapter 32 despite
the fact that the Babylonians had already captured it.. It was Jeremiah's
conviction that a day would come when he could farm it again. A second
example comes from his call to surrender to Babylon because their rule will
be limited. Chapter 29 contains a letter to those already in exile in Babylon
after 598. In it, Jeremiah sees only seventy years before God will restore
the people back to the land of their inheritance, Palestine.
Chapters 30 and 31 are often called Jeremiah's "Book of
Consolation." Here are gathered many of his words of hope from a variety
of different times and occasions; Some of these are addressed to
"Israel" and probably were from the early days of his prophetic
work under Josiah when he spoke to the remnants of the northern kingdom of
Israel (Jr 30:10, 18; Jr 31:7). Later Jeremiah reused them to comfort the
exiles of Judah who would be a new Israel of the future. These oracles are
filled with words of healing, visions of {374} fruitful fields, the joy of
singing, hopes for free travel to Jerusalem for feasts and a return to the
great days of David and Solomon when the nation was one.
But the most vital and moving of the visions is found in Jr 31:31-34, the oracle
about a "new" covenant. Jeremiah sees a time when God will renew
his covenant with Israel but it will be unlike the first covenant at Sinai
which demanded that Israel obey the Lord with all its heart and soul and
strength. Instead, it will be written in the heart and given power by God's
spirit. In the past Israel had never been able to achieve full obedience by
its own strength, so now God will not only give the covenant but will also
give the grace to live it fully. It is a beautiful vision of the mercy of God
reaching out. Such a vision has also had profound influence on later
Christian interpretation of Jesus. Jesus gives a new covenant which can best
be described by language borrowed from Jr 31: it depends on the grace of God,
it heals the heart and it gives the Spirit.
Jeremiah addresses his words to the future, but he never includes the
people left at home after Babylon has sent the leading citizens into exile.
Apparently after 598, and especially after 586, he became convinced that
those left behind would never provide the reform and leadership needed to
create the future. In chapter 24 he relates a vision of two baskets of figs,
one good and one rotten. The good figs are the exiled citizens; the bad figs
those still in the ruined country of Judah (see also Jr 25:1-14, 29:1-14 and
32:36-46). Nor at the final end of his life, when he was dragged to Egypt
against his will (chapters 43-45), would he allow any word of encouragement
to those who had sought safety there, For Jeremiah, God's plan involved a new
vision that would come out of the experience of exile in Babylon, and it is
to there that we must look for the continuation of biblical tradition.
C. The Prophet Ezekiel
The Prophet Called in
Exile (Ezk 1-3)
The
Nature of the Book of Ezekiel
Structure
of Ezekiel
Ezekiel's
Theology of Judgment
The
Plan of Restoration
The Prophet Called in Exile (Ezk
1-3)
The most remarkable individual during Israel's period of exile was the
prophet Ezekiel. The opening lines of his book tell us that he was called in
the fifth year of the exile, i.e., 593 B.C., at a Jewish settlement on the
Chebar (Kebar) River, one of the great canals that brought water from the
Euphrates to irrigate the lands around Babylon. He was, like Jeremiah, both a
priest and a prophet, although he shows distinct differences from Jeremiah by
making more use of his priestly training in his message. On the other hand,
many of his oracles are clearly influenced by, and drawn from the work of,
his older contemporary Jeremiah. He spoke with a great deal of freedom and
seemed to have been very well informed about what was going on back in
Jerusalem, sometimes describing scenes in the temple and city that are just
like eyewitness accounts. We know that Jeremiah wrote letters to the exiles,
and Ezekiel himself mentions messengers who traveled back and forth (Ezk 33),
so it is most likely that he received word through travelers and used this
{387} plus a first-hand knowledge of the temple from the days before he was
exiled. But some scholars are so impressed at how vivid his knowledge of
Jerusalem is (in chapter 8, for example) that they doubt he could have been
anywhere else than in Jerusalem during the last days of Judah.
One reason that they believe this stems from the personality of the
prophet as it is described for us in his book. Ezekiel shows strong
tendencies toward psychic powers and an older style of prophetic behavior
which includes dreams, trances, ecstasy and fantastic visions. He speaks of
the hand of the Lord lifting him up and transporting him places, or of the
spirit of the Lord moving him. He does symbolic actions which seem impossible
for an ordinary person, such as lying on his side for three hundred and
ninety days (chapter 4) or not speaking for long periods (chapter 24).
Because of these kinds of behavior, many commentators have called Ezekiel a
psychotic person, or at least highly neurotic. But they miss an important
factor by doing popular psychoanalysis on the prophet. All of his actions and
visions draw on very old traditional language used by prophets in earlier
centuries. Elijah and Elisha stories often refer to the work of the spirit of
God or of the hand of the Lord. Visions and ecstasy are recorded for prophets
in the days of both Samuel and Elijah. Many of his own words of warning and
judgment are borrowed from the old curses attached to treaties, or from
covenant ceremonies of one type or another.
In short, Ezekiel was not crazy, he was very skillfully trying to recreate
a sense of trust that God still worked as he always had, and that he still
spoke with as much authority and power as he always had. This was no easy
task for Ezekiel. The people had seen- and were suffering themselves because
of it- how empty and false were most of the comforting words of hope that
prophets had spoken to them. It was true that Jeremiah had given warning, but
what about the others? Hananiah of Jr 28 and countless more spoke only of the
coming victory of God- and never of defeat. Ezekiel sought to restore to
prophecy some trust and some leadership for the exiles.
Ezekiel was the first prophet to preach to the people without either the
temple or the promised land to show God's presence. For this reason, the
story of his call to be a prophet has an even more important place to play in
his book than does that of Jeremiah. In one of the greatest scenes in the Old
Testament, Ezekiel describes the appearance of God in majesty upon a chariot
throne. The vision of God's holiness and terrible power overwhelms the
prophet, and his description is full of color and shape and motion as he
tries to {388} capture the experience. The whole vision takes three chapters
to complete, and Jewish tradition has considered it so full of mystical
meaning that a person was not allowed to study it until he or she is a mature
thirty years old. It shares many qualities with the call of Isaiah in Is 6.
God is the Holy One, not like us, but Lord of the world before whom we bow
down in humble acceptance of his will. As did Isaiah, Ezekiel eagerly accepts
what God sends him, and like Isaiah it turns out to be a message written on a
scroll that reads "Lamentation and wailing and woe" (Ezk 2:10). God
sends him to "a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me to this
very day" (Ezk 2:3). "Hard of face and stubborn of heart are they
to whom I send you" (Ezk 2:4). Just as God made Jeremiah a wall of iron
and brass against the whole land (Jr 1:18), so God makes Ezekiel's "face
hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads;
like stone harder than flint I have made your forehead" (Ezk 3:8-9). It
was not a commission designed to make Ezekiel any more popular than Jeremiah
had been. As the vision ended he went away in "bitterness of spirit, for
the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him" (Ezk 3:14). Finally, after
seven days of shocked meditation, God spoke to him a second time and told him
that his role was to be the watchman over Israel. Just as Jeremiah was to
have been a "watching tree" (the almond vision of Jr 1:11-12), and
Habakkuk had stood in his watchtower (Heb 2:1), so Ezekiel had to sound a
warning when he saw what God was about to do. This concept of the prophet's
task stands at the heart of Ezekiel's thought. He repeats it, not only in
chapter 3 when he warns of danger and disaster ahead, but again in chapter 33
when he offers words of hope and future restoration. But he must speak
whether anyone listens or not. He has his duty and the people have theirs. If
the people fail to hear, that will be their problem, but if he fails to
preach, the responsibility will be his.
Ezekiel is one of the most highly ordered books in the Bible. It has a basic
three-part structure which follows the general course of the prophet's career:
Chapters 1-24: Oracles against Judah and Jerusalem before 586 B.C.
Chapters 25-32: Oracles against foreign nations
Chapters 33-48: Oracles of hope and restoration for Judah {389}
THE DATES OF EZEKIEL'S ORACLES
(The following dates are from the time
of Jehoiachin's coronation, 598)
Ezk 1:2 5th year July 593 Chariot
vision and call
Ezk 3:16 5th year July 593 Watchman appointed for Israel
Ezk 8:1 6th year Sept. 592 Vision of judgment of Jerusalem
Ezk 20:1 7th year Aug. 591 Prophecy on the new Exodus
Ezk 24:1 9th year Jan. 588 Siege of Jerusalem begins
Ezk 26:1 11th year 587-586 Prophecy against Tyre
Ezk 29:1 10th year Jan. 587 Prophecy against Egypt as ally
Ezk 29:17 27th year Apr. 571 Prediction of Egypt's capture
Ezk 30:20 11th year Apr. 587 Egypt with broken arms
Ezk 31:1 11th year June 587 Egypt as a great tree cut down
Ezk 32:1 12th year Mar. 585 Funeral lament over pharaoh
Ezk 32:17 12th year Mar. 585 Pharaoh's descent into Sheol
Ezk 33:21 12th year Jan. 585 News of Jerusalem's capture
Ezk 40:1 25th year Oct. 573 Vision of the new Temple
Ezk 1:130th year 593?This is the general heading for the whole book and may
be dated as
(1) 30th year from
Josiah's reform in 622;
(2) Ezekiel's age in 593;
(3) 30th year of his call to be a prophet 563);
(4) 30th year of Jehoiachin as king 568).
We cannot be sure that Ezekiel himself had a hand in arranging his oracles
in this exact way, but if he did not do it personally, it must have been done
very soon after his death. The plan is very carefully modeled on the Book of
Joshua which tells of the holy war for possession of the promised land. So,
too, Ezekiel first preaches against the people's sins in order to purify them
for the battle; then he denounces the power of the foreign nations and rids
the holy land of its enemies; lastly, he portions out the land to the tribes
of Israel.
Beyond this basic outline, several oracles have dates connected with them
so that we can follow the progress of the prophet's thought. This is
especially true of the oracles in chapters 25-32, almost all of which are
dated to the period of greatest crisis just {390} before the final fall of
Jerusalem in 586 and 585 B.C. They give such a clear picture of the times
that there is no need to doubt that many of these oracles came directly from
the prophet's own hands.
Ezekiel's style is also unique. It is elaborate and favors long oracles
with many repetitions and literary allegories and images. Unlike the shorter
and more direct words of an Amos or Hosea or Isaiah, Ezekiel creates very
dramatic picture stories, in which he uses other people's words, or a
favorite proverb, or even pagan myths about the gods, to get his point
across. Examples of this are the allegory of the two eagles in chapter 17,
the great mythical cedar tree in chapter 31, or his description of Egypt as
the great sea monster Leviathan in chapters 29 and 32. He describes the city
of Tyre as a great ship sinking with all its cargo, and compares the two
kingdoms of Israel and Judah to two sisters who choose to live as prostitutes
(chapters 16 and 23).
Another striking feature in Ezekiel is his use of symbolic actions and
visions. He draws diagrams on a brick to show how the city will be taken
(chapter 4), he cuts his beard into three parts and burns one part, chops up
another, and throws the rest to the wind to show what will happen to the city
(chapter 5), and he puts on a backpack and breaks through the walls of his
own house to imitate the attempts people will make to escape during the
coming siege by Babylon (chapter 12). He not only has the vision of Yahweh in
his chariot in chapters 1-3 but another vision of the divine angels marking
off the city of Jerusalem for destruction in chapter 8, a vision of the
priests performing pagan worship in the temple itself in the same chapter,
and a vision of God's glory leaving the city in chapter 11 and its return
again in chapter 43. He sees a famous vision of dead bones that come to life
in chapter 37. Through the symbolic actions and the visions the prophet
conveys the seriousness of his message and also shows the continuity of God's
care- he can be seen guiding and controlling both the punishment and the
restoration as different stages of his plan.
When all of these aspects are considered closely, the Book of Ezekiel has
a great deal more unity than most other prophetic books, even those much
shorter, and confirms the earlier remark that Ezekiel himself is responsible
for a good part of its order. This is just the opposite of the Book of
Jeremiah, which was edited and arranged long after his death by others. It is
therefore worthwhile to describe this order in some further detail: {391-392}
I. Call Narrative
Chapter(s)
1:1-3:27 The call as a solemn preface outlining the prophet's mission as
watchman.
II. Oracles of Judgments
4:1-5:17 Symbolic
actions warning of divine punishment of Judah and Jerusalem for their sins.
6:1-7:27 Oracles of
judgment that announce the day of the Lord for Israel's total destruction.
8:1-11:25 A vision of
the angels investigating Jerusalem for its sins and idolatry; they find it
guilty and God withdraws his presence from the temple.
12:1-14:23 A series of
oracles and symbolic actions that describe the guilt and evil of King
Zedekiah, the prophets, priests and people.
15:1-17:24 A series of
three parables or allegories- of the wood from a vine, of the orphan daughter
and bride who is unfaithful, and of the two eagles- which show the lack of
faithfulness in Judah.
18:1-20:44 Three
lengthy theological reflections on Israel's guilt built upon popular sayings
or metaphors: chapter 18 on individual responsibility, chapter 19 as a lament
for the end of the kingdom, chapter 20 on the failure of the exodus.
21:1-24:14 Oracles
warning about the coming attack of Babylon and explaining why the city must
fall because of its guilt.
24:15-27 The end of
stage one. The prophet's wife dies and he must not mourn her or the city
about to die.
III. Oracles Against Nations
25:1-17 Oracles
against Ammon, Moab, Edom and the Philistines.
26:1-28:26 Oracles
against Tyre and Sidon. 29:1-32:32 Oracles against Egypt.
IV. Oracles of Restoration
33:1-33 The second
preface, announcing Ezekiel as a watchman for God's new acts of salvation and
hope.
34:1-31 The contrast
between the old shepherds and the new shepherds that God will give Israel.
35:1-36:38 The healing
of the land of Israel and the new covenant in the land.
37:1-28 The vision of
the restored Israel as the dead bones come to life (verses 1-14) and the
union of the two kingdoms as one again (verses 15-28).
38:1-39:29 The
invasion of Gog of Magog- the final battle for control of the world fought in
Palestine.
V. The New Community
40:1-43:12 A new
vision of the return of God to the temple and its restoration to perfect
shape.
43:13-46:24 The
establishment of the proper order of worship and sacrifice, the rules
governing the priests and levites for the new temple.
47:1-12 The vision of
the waters of life streaming from the temple renewing the earth.
47:13-48:35 The land
is divided up among the tribes with the temple at its center and the prince
over Israel at its service.
The major portion of the Book of Ezekiel is given over to oracles of
judgment similar to those of Jeremiah. Since Ezekiel only preached in the
last few years before the fall, from 593 to 586, he lacks the great depth of
Jeremiah born from years of disappointment, but he makes up for it with the
fierce power of his images and words. He also gives us a fuller picture of
the conditions in Judah under King Zedekiah. Chapter 8 reveals how pagan
cults had even reached the temple grounds and were being supported by the
priests themselves; chapter 13 attacks the widespread use of magicians and
fortune-tellers and other false voices of authority; chapter 14 shows the
number of prophets who went about preaching that all {393} would be well
despite widespread evil. Again and again Ezekiel returns to the same theme
that had occupied Jeremiah before him: pagan idolatry. Judah is worse than
Samaria had been, and even worse than Sodom (chapters 16 and 23). He
describes the weak and uncertain nature of the king trying to escape in the
middle of the night while the rest of the city perishes (chapter 12). He
takes up the theme of the day of the Lord, used by the prophets before him,
to predict God's final and total rejection of his people (chapter 7). Nor
does he neglect to condemn the sins against justice so common in other
prophets. He often speaks of them in general terms- bloodshed, violence, evil
conduct- but on occasion he gets very specific- bribery, usury, stealing from
the poor (chapters 5, 6, 7, and 18). At times he mentions concrete violations
of religious worship: failing to honor the sabbath, breaking the law,
building idols, eating at high places (chapter 18).
This last group of sins calls attention to the central characteristic of
Ezekiel's thought- it most closely resembles the Priestly source in the
Pentateuch, especially the famous Holiness Code in Lv 17-26. Many of the same
words and phrases found in Lv 2, for example, are found sprinkled throughout
the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel often repeats certain formulas such as "I
the Lord am holy," or "I am the Lord your God," both present
in Leviticus. Most of all, Ezekiel uses the expression, "so that you (or
they) will know that I the Lord am God." It captures the essence of the
thought of Ezekiel, and he ends almost every single oracle with it. Only when
the people turn back to God and recognize the divine hand behind events that
are happening will they understand these events. This reflects both the
Priestly tradition that Israel must always act in an obedient and holy manner
because God himself gives us the lesson and model to follow by his holiness
toward Israel, and also the prophetic spirit of Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah
that Israel's sin comes from not-knowing its God. They have forgotten God,
that is, given up the love relationship with him.
Another striking side of Ezekiel's message is the importance he attaches
to individual responsibility. He quotes a proverb, used also by Jeremiah,
"The fathers ate the sour grapes, but the children's teeth
shuddered" (Ezk 18:2; Jr 31:30). He then forbids anyone to speak it
again. No longer will one generation have to bear the sins of another, nor the
whole people suffer because of the sins of a few. It is important to recall
that Israel had often demanded responsibility on the part of individuals- all
the law codes show that; but it also had a general belief that God did at
times hold the entire people {394} guilty of the acts of a few. Achan had
sinned against Joshua in Joshua 7, and the entire army had met defeat as a
result. Amos had warned that God would leave a remnant of northern Israel
when he brought punishment, but it would be no more than a piece of an ear or
two tips of legs in the mouth of a lion (Am 3:12) - not very much and by no
means the best part. Of course, Ezekiel does not reject the idea of Israel as
a nation. He has a strong sense of Israel as a community of faith and
foresees both loss for all and restoration for all. But at the same time he
gives a new accent to the role of the individual person in the community.
Each must decide for or against God; each must take the law into his or her
heart and be able to keep it no matter what the community is doing. In
chapters 14, 18 and 33 he repeats this forcefully so that when the exile
came, and the community was broken up- no temple, no king, no land of their
own- each would still be able to find God and his promises and law as something
to live by.
This brings us to the last note of his theology of judgment. Chapter 20
retells the history of Israel from the days of the exodus. But Ezekiel does
not praise a people who held close to the Lord and remained faithful during
the long forty years in the desert as does Ho 11 or Jr 2. He instead asserts
that Israel has always been unfaithful to the covenant, and that God had to
punish Israel repeatedly in the desert years for rebellion and sin. God had
acted for the sake of "his name" in saving them from Egypt and
guiding them through the wilderness and giving them their land- not because
they were such a worthwhile people, but to show his fidelity and his power as
God. Yet they would not recognize this and obey him, but constantly turned
from him. More than once his wrath could have destroyed them but each time he
had compassion and forgave. Ezekiel then asks what right they have now to
come near to God and seek mercy (Ezk 20:31). Instead God will make a judgment
in a new wilderness and purge out the rebels from the midst of the people.
Before there can be restoration, the evil must be purified from Israel. It is
Ezekiel's way of saying that God would not stop the Babylonian invasion, but
would use them to make Israel know the Lord their God (Ezk 20:44).
As was the case with Jeremiah, Ezekiel did not oppose Babylonian power. He
saw it as an instrument that God used to bring about his purpose. Chapter 21
described God giving Babylon the signal to attack Jerusalem rather than the
Ammonites (Ezk 21:18-23); a short while earlier he utters a final prophecy
condemning the king: "I will strike man and beast, the dwellers of this
city; they shall die of {395} pestilence. After that I will hand over
Zedekiah and his ministers and all the people who survive the pestilence,
sword and famine in this city, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon" (Ezk
21:6-7). Only after all was destroyed would God begin his work of rebuilding.
The oracles against foreign nations in chapters 25-32 contain some of
Ezekiel's most stunning imagery. He hurls threats against seven nations:
Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon and Egypt. These represent the
foreign powers that oppose Israel in the promised land. In some ways Ezekiel
must have had in the back of his mind the famous command of Deuteronomy that
Israel was to destroy the seven peoples in the promised land who were greater
and mightier than itself, and make no covenant with them and show no mercy
toward them (Dt 7:1-2). As Joshua had conquered the Canaanite peoples, so now
God would defeat the foreign nations as a sign of his renewed gift to those
in exile. Ezekiel uses these oracles against foreign nations as a prelude to
the new covenant and the new blessing of the people when he brings them back
from exile. Each oracle was given on a particular occasion. Some of them we
can guess. Ezk 29:17-21 against Egypt was given when Nebuchadnezzar had to
give up his attack on the island city of Tyre after thirteen years of siege
in 572. Ezk 29:1-9 was uttered when the Egyptians sent a relief column to
help Jerusalem escape the Babylonian attack of 588-586 and it failed.
Of all these nations, Tyre and Egypt come under the most severe judgment.
Both represented the allure of pagan gods. Tyre was the home of the cult of
Baal, against whom the prophets had thundered for centuries. Egypt's ruler
claimed to be himself a god with unlimited power. Ezekiel says of him in
mockery: "The phar-aoh bragged, 'The Nile is mine; I made it,' but God
will drag him out of it like a fish on a hook" (Ezk 29:3-4). Over and
over Ezekiel denounces the arrogant pride of Egypt and Tyre who think they
are more powerful than Yahweh. He quotes their own religious myths back to
them to show how shallow are their beliefs: pharaoh is the great sea monster
(chapter 29), or the tree of life (chapter 31); the king of Tyre is the
wisest of all men (chapter 28), perfect in all virtues (chapter 27).
Ezekiel's actual words of hope to the people are not uttered until the
city has fallen. When word reached Ezekiel in Babylon {396} that all was lost
(chapter 33) he immediately turned to the future to find God's promise still
alive. He foresaw a twofold plan of God. The first was to bring the exiles
back from captivity and purify their sense of the covenant. For this reason,
chapters 33-39 concentrate on conversion and change. There will be a new
David to shepherd the people; God will abolish idols and abominations; old
hearts will be removed so that new hearts and a new obedience can be given to
the people, and God will drive all the arrogant pagans from the land and make
his people secure in peace. Of all of these, the passage about the new heart
in Ezk 36:22-32 is the most important. It takes up the work of Jeremiah and
extends it to all areas of life. Where Jeremiah foresaw a new covenant
written on the heart (Jr 31:31), Ezekiel adds that it will also result in
total purity under the law, holiness, and even abundance in crops and flocks.
The second part of the plan is laid out in chapters 40-48. These are
written in a prose style that may be from a disciple of Ezekiel but certainly
follow the master's thought. Once the people have returned to the covenant,
made possible by God's power alone and not by their own good will, then he
shall give the land its order- a new temple at the center of a renewed nation
in which everyone has his or her place. At the center of this vision,
parallel to the new heart in the first part of the plan, are life-giving
waters that flow from the temple to touch every living thing in the land (Ezk
47:1-12). The source of hope and prosperity will be God alone truly
worshiped.
Ezekiel's importance should not be underestimated. Many modern writers
give the impression that he was more interested in legal questions than in
the true spirit of the covenant. But this is not true. He shared many of the
ideals of Jeremiah and was profoundly influenced by oracles and sermons that
came from Jeremiah; but Ezekiel, unlike Jeremiah, was in exile and lived on
to speak to a people who had no chance to escape the punishment. He had to
face the task of picking up the pieces. His answer was to show that Israel's
entire history had been a failure to heed the everyday living out of the
covenant. Israel's political history had shown how often the chosen people
had fallen into injustice and idolatry while claiming devotion to kingly rule
and possession of the land. A new way had to be found now that these had been
lost, a better way so that the violations and failures would not happen again.
Ezekiel found a key for understanding the new covenant to be written on
the hearts of the people in its interior-ness. No longer was religion to be a
matter of what the community did externally, {397} but was to be really from
the heart. Ezekiel stressed the roles of the sabbath as a day of rest,
reflective meditation on the covenant, personal uprightness, purity, and
holiness. The temple and the land would have a place only when people
acknowledged that "the Lord is God." They first must take on the
spirit of the covenant, and for that prayer and study would be more important
than bloodlines. God would no longer accept people because they were born
Israelites; now they must decide for God in order to live (see chapter 18).
Ezekiel's new vision was priestly insofar as it stressed the union of the
moral demands of the covenant with personal devotion to the daily practices
of worship in the temple. His program had an impor- {398} tant effect on the
Priestly school's arrangement of the Pentateuch which placed the law on Mount
Sinai at its center point. In more than one way, Ezekiel was the last of the
great prophets and the first of the new priestly visionaries that would
create modern Judaism as we know it today.
D. Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55)
Who Was Second Isaiah?
The
Outline of the Book
The
Message of the Prophet
The
Servant Songs
Who Was Second Isaiah?
Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah are often called the "Book of
Consolation" because the prophet offers no judgment and condemnation of
Israel, but only a message of trust and confident hope that God is about to
end the exile. These chapters have long been recognized as a single work that
has its own special style, much different from the sharper words spoken by
the earlier Isaiah of Jerusalem in chapters 1-39. The language soars on long
strings of adjectives and titles for God. It is filled with images of
rebuilding, restoring, renewing, and {417} recreating. The poems of this
author almost have the quality of hymns or psalms of praise.
When these are compared to the oracles of First Isaiah in the eighth
century B.C., striking differences appear. Second Isaiah never mentions the political
events of Kings Ahaz or Hezekiah, never mentions the Assyrians and their
attacks, and never mentions the threats from Damascus or the northern kingdom
of Israel. On the other hand, Second Isaiah clearly refers to the capture and
destruction of Jerusalem as a past event (Is 40:1-2; Is 47:6; Is 48:20), and
the present state of the people as exiles in Babylon (Is 43:14; Is 47:1-4; Is
48:20). It praises Cyrus the Persian as a deliverer for Israel (Is 44:28; Is
45:1-7), and places major emphasis on the return home to Palestine for all
the exiles in Babylon (Is 41:17-20; Is 42:14-17).
In short, the setting is certainly that of the middle of the sixth century
and not the middle of the eighth. Moreover, such clear and accurate
references to specific events of the exile are unknown in other prophets such
as Ezekiel or Jeremiah. It is not the prophetic method to predict small
details of the future, and the belief, held by Christians of the Middle Ages,
that the original Isaiah of Jerusalem predicted all that would happen one
hundred and fifty years after his death has been abandoned by modern biblical
scholarship. Instead, scholars understand that our present Book of Isaiah has
been formed by combining the prophecies of Isaiah with those of a second
prophet who lived at the time of the exile. Still a third edition was made
when the exiles had returned to their homeland in Jerusalem. This makes up
chapters 56-66, and we call the author of this section "Third
Isaiah" (see next chapter).
This so-called Second Isaiah (or "deutero-Isaiah") was a
disciple and follower of the thought of Isaiah. He stresses the same central
ideas that Isaiah had earlier emphasized: (1) God is the Holy One of Israel;
(2) God uses foreign rulers and nations as his instruments to punish Israel,
but will in turn punish the evil that those nations do in excess; (3) he
makes his home in Jerusalem on Mount Zion and from there his salvation goes
forth. The times may have changed, but the message still endured: God will
act for his people as he has promised, and as he has actually done so often
in the past.
We do not know the name of this Second Isaiah, or how long he preached, or
anything about his background except that he was among the exiles in Babylon.
He has hidden his own identity behind that of the great prophet Isaiah so
that those who hear or read his prophecies will see only the continuity of
what God is doing from {418} Isaiah's age to his own. From the note of
excitement and urgency in his message, we can be sure that the prophet was working
just before the final end of Babylon in 539. He can see the victories of
Cyrus already won, and he expects the fall of Babylon at any moment. In fact,
some of the oracles may actually have been given after the Persian armies had
already entered the city. The description of the Babylonian gods going into
exile in chapter 46 looks like an eyewitness account!
There are two major divisions in Second Isaiah, chapters 40-48 and
chapters 49-55. In the first, emphasis falls on the whole nation Israel, in
the second, on Jerusalem and Zion in particular. But the book is quite a bit
more difficult than such a simple outline shows. Scholars disagree whether it
is made up of fifty or more short oracles strung together like pearls on a
necklace or whether it is really a small number of very long poems with many
variations within each. Close examination does reveal the following patterns:
1. A matching
introduction and conclusion stresses the power of God's word over everything
(Is 40:1-8 and Is 55:6-11) :
The grass withers and
the flower fades,
but the word of our God stands forever (Is 40:8).
So also will be my
word that I speak.
It will not return to
me empty,
But it will accomplish what I have intended,
and it will succeed in what I have sent it to do (Is 55:11).
2. A second pair of
introductory and closing passages depict a herald announcing salvation to
Jerusalem (Is 40:9-10 and Is 52:7-10) :
Go up to a high
mountain,
Zion, herald of good news,
And cry out loudly,
Jerusalem, herald of good news.
Cry out and do not be
afraid. Say to the cities of Judah:
"Behold your
God" (Is 40:9).
How wonderful on the
mountains
are the feet of the messenger of good news,
Who proclaims peace, announces the coming good,
proclaims salvation and says tp Zion,
"Your God is king" (Is 52:7). {419} 3. Fragments of hymns serve to
divide one section from anoth er. Examples include Is 42:10-13, Is 44:23, Is
45:8, Is 48:20-21, Is 49:13, and Is 51:3.
4. The center of the
book stresses the role of the foreign na tions, especially the collapse of
Babylon and its idols, and the rise of Cyrus of Persia as God's chosen
instrument (chapters 44-47).
5. A series of four
"servant songs" are inserted at important places in the book to
make personal the message of the. prophet. These are found in Is 42:1-4, Is
49:1-6, Is 50:4-9, and Is 52:13-53:12.
6. Several examples of
the longer poems that combine shorter units within them can be identified.
One is chapter 40 as a whole, which serves as a general introduction to the
prophet's thought and joins together the short oracle on God's word as
powerful in Is 40:1-9 and a longer poem on God's rule over all creation in Is
40:10-31. Together they make up a great hymn of praise that exalts God's
power to act. Another example is the combined chapters 54 and 55, which join
together a number of hymns praising God's majesty and achievements, and
inviting Israel to trust completely in him.
Beyond these larger patterns, many special literary forms can be found in
Second Isaiah. The prophet is fond of using trial speeches and lawsuit
language. Many of these may come from actual courtroom practices of his day,
but it is just as possible that they were traditional prophetic ways of
expressing the guilt of Israel for violation of its greatest legal contract,
the covenant with Yahweh. The prophets Hosea and Micah had used similar forms
in their prophecies. But Second Isaiah does not accuse Israel as other
prophets had; instead he turns the lawsuit against the pagan gods to prove
that their claims to power were false.
Second Isaiah also likes special forms that declare God's intention to
save Israel. One type is called a proclamation of salvation, and is arranged
as a formal answer to the people's complaints that God has abandoned them or
let them down. It always mentions what people are disturbed about, and then
follows this with a declaration that God has heard and does intervene for
them. A second type is labeled an oracle of salvation, and imitates the
formal prayer for help that a prophet or priest would have said over {420}someone
who was sick or in need of healing during a temple service. It always
includes the healing word of Yahweh, "Do not be afraid." A good
example of this kind of oracle is found in Is 41:8-13:
Special Address:
But you, Israel, my
servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham my friend (Is
41:8).
You, whom I have taken
from the ends of the earth
and called from its remote corners,
And to whom I have said, "You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not rejected you" (Is 41:9).
Word of Assurance:
"Do not fear! For
I am with you;
do not be afraid, for I am your God."
I strengthen you, I help you,
I uphold you with my victorious right hand (Is 41:10). {421} The Salvation
Behold they will be confounded and ashamed,
Event: all who rage against you.
They will be as
nothing, and perish, all who dispute against you. You will seek for them and
not find them,
those who contend with you. They will be brought to nothing at all, those who
war against you (Is 41:11-12).
Reassurance: For I am
Yahweh your God,
who grasps you by the right hand, Who says to you, "Do not fear!
I am the one who helps you" (Is 41:13).
Still another kind of literary form can be called idol parodies. In these,
the prophet mocks the faith that pagans put in idols of wood and stone. Examples
can be found in Is 40:19-20, 41:6-7, 44:9-20, and 46:6-7. The passages are
very colorful in their descriptions of how much human effort goes into making
gods that have no power at all. This contrasts sharply with the ability of
Yahweh to rule the world:
They pour out gold
from their wallets, and weigh the silver on the scales. {422} They hire a
goldsmith to make from it a god,
then they bow down and worship.
They lift it on their
shoulders and carry it around,
they set it down and it stands there;
it never moves from its place.
When someone prays to
it, it does not answer
nor save him from disaster (Is 46:6-7).
Finally, Second Isaiah often uses a first-person statement of praise
placed in God's own mouth. "I the Lord was there at the beginning"
(Is 41:6), "I alone am the Lord your God" (Is 42:8), "For I am
the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel" (Is 43:3). These formulas are
especially dramatic and forceful and are used often (Is 41:4, Is 10:13,17; Is
42:6, 8, 9; Is 43:3, 11, 13, 15; Is 44:24; Is 45:3, 5, 6, 7, 18-19, 21,
etc.). Any Israelite who heard the prophet speak this way would have been
reminded how God himself on Mount Sinai said, "I am the Lord your
God..." (Ex 20:2).
Chapter 40 is a prologue to the message of Second Isaiah, and the beauty
of the opening scene sets the theme for the whole book. Although no person is
given a name, we hear voices speaking, and can easily detect the typical
questions used in a story about the call of a prophet, as in Is 6, Jr 1, or Ezk
2-3. God asks his heavenly council whom he should send as his messenger to
announce the "good news": "Comfort, comfort my people, says
your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her slavery is
ended and her sins have been pardoned" (Is 40:1-2). God's people have
paid double the penalty and now shall receive salvation. What that salvation
will be is made rapidly clear in verses 10-31: God is coming to be with his
people; he will shepherd the flock; he will be the Creator who controls the
nations; he alone will have power; he will give strength to the weary and the
weak.
They who wait for the
Lord will renew their strength,
they will fly like eagles on their wings,
They will run and not grow tired,
walk and not become faint (Is 40:31).
The prophet seems eager to be the messenger of this new word of salvation.
In verse 6 he asks, "What shall I shout?" And the {423} following
verses stress that above all he is to proclaim the power of God to save. This
is to be shown by recalling the great themes of Israel's faith: God as
Creator, Redeemer from all enemies, Liberator from the slavery under Egypt at
the exodus, Giver of the promise and the covenant. God will march again as
the divine warrior who fights on behalf of his people as he did at the exodus
and later in the conquest of the promised land (Ex 15; Jg 5; see Is 42:13; Is
43:16-19). Second Isaiah never tires of mentioning the titles of God as
Savior, Holy One, King, Creator, Lord, Redeemer, the First and Last, the
Justifier, etc. It is as though he were constantly singing a song of praise
of how wonderful Yahweh is. The key is this active present. Yahweh did not
just do great things in the past- he is doing them now for Israel, if only
the people would look about them and see! Some of the major themes can be
listed separately:
(1) God's word is all-powerful. The entire message of the prophet is
framed by the two statements on God's word in Is 40:1-9 and Is 55:6-11. Grass
and earthly things may wither and die, even human beings, but God's word does
not fail. It goes forth like rain to water and nourish and bring life to all
creation. It never fails to do what God intends. Second Isaiah returns to
this theme often. In Is 43:1-7 he stresses that God has called to Israel; in
Is 41:17-20 he promises to answer the needy; in Is 44:24-28 he confirms his
prophetic word anew. Indeed, a careful reading of the book reveals a major
stress on the idea of calling. God calls Israel, he calls his servant, he
calls Cyrus, he calls Abraham; and in turn he asks the people to call on him
and respond to him.
(2) He will give mercy and forgiveness. The single most striking aspect of
Second Isaiah is that there is no judgment against Israel. From beginning to
end, the prophet sounds the note of God's salvation. It begins dramatically
in the first line, when he joins a double "Comfort, comfort my
people" with the soothing promise that they have already suffered double
what their sins deserved. The book may speak of God's power and majesty more
often, but it is always based on his deep mercy and love for Israel. He is a
God of compassion for the suffering nation and for each and every one who is
weak, tired or unable to go on. It is in light of this fundamental truth
about God that the servant figure makes sense.
(3) God will do new things never done before. In Is 42:9 Yahweh declares,
"Behold, the former things have happened, and new things I now declare;
before they come forth, I announce them to you." Israel's faith is
deeply rooted in remembering what God has {424} done. This is a key insight
about Second Isaiah. Remember all the great acts of salvation that God has
already done, remember all the prophetic words of Isaiah and other messengers
that have come to pass, remember what God is as the only God in the entire universe-
remember everything, but look to the future. In Is 43:18, he commands Israel
to stop living by the past and to notice what God is doing anew:
"Remember not former things, nor consider what was done of old; behold I
am doing a new thing; it is happening, do you not see it?" In Is 48:6-7,
the prophet insists that the new things are really different: "They are
created now, and not long ago; before today you never heard of them!"
Too often in the past, Israel rebelled despite what God had done for them;
now they must recognize and trust the God who acts for them.
(4) There will be a new exodus. The "new thing" that God will do
is lead the people from Babylon back to their homeland. Some major texts
which compare this journey from slavery to freedom with the earlier escape
from Egypt are Is 42:10-11, Is 43:9-10, Is 43:16-21, Is 49:7-12, Is 51:9-10,
Is 52:7-12, and Is 55:12-13. He will feed them with manna and water as Moses
did long ago (Is 41:17-20; Is 43:18-20; Is 48:20-21; Is 49:10). He willguide
them through the un known ways of the wilderness like a shepherd (Is 40:11;
Is 49:9-11; Is 43:16-21). They will pass through fire and water (Is 43:1-3),
there will be a new victory at the Red Sea over the watery terror (Is
51:9-10), and there will be a new conquest of the promised land (Is 49:8-12).
(5) Yahweh is the Redeemer of Israel. No one uses the term
"redeemer" more often than Second Isaiah. The Pentateuch directs
the nearest relative to "redeem" members of his family or clan that
have been forced into slavery (Lv 25:47-55), or to "redeem" their
property (Lv 25:23-34), or to marry the widow of a childless brother in order
to "redeem" his family name with children (Dt 25:5-10; cf. the Book
of Ruth and Gn 38), or to take vengeance on the murderer of a relative to
"redeem" the nearest blood kin (Nm 35:31-34). All of these imply
the duty of standing by the family and protecting its rights against the
attempts of others to steal them away. It is a personal obligation falling on
the next of kin. The Book of Exodus talks about God's saving deeds with a
verb meaning to "free" (padah), but Second Isaiah always uses the
more personal term for "redeemer" found in Leviticus (ga'al). God
de clares that he is the personal relation of Israel, and his promise to
stand by and protect them is linked to being married to Israel as a husband
(Is 54:1-10), to the election of Israel as God's chosen people {425} (Is
43:20-21; Is 44:1-5), and to God as Creator of all (Is 43:1-7; Is 45:9-13).
This takes special shape in God's choice of Cyrus the Persian as his human
redeemer. Is 44:24-28 is a poem about God the Redeemer who picks Cyrus to be
his shepherd to fulfill all that God has promised. Is 45:1-7 goes further and
names Cyrus as God's anointed one, his messiah, and announces over him the
same oracle of salvation that has been given to Israel. This is clearly a
radical proposal, for in effect God replaces the king and the house of David
with a foreign ruler, and a pagan besides! Historically, the exiles must have
rejoiced greatly at the thought of Cyrus winning the war against Babylon. He
had a reputation for mercy toward the defeated rulers and their people, and
he followed a regular policy of letting nations that had been exiled and
resettled by the Babylonians and Assyrians return to their native lands. It
is no wonder that the prophet sees the hand of the compassionate Yahweh
behind everything that is coming about. Indeed, part of the "new
thing" is precisely the victory given to Cyrus.
(6) There will be a new creation. No prophet stresses the theme of
creation so much as does Second Isaiah. God made all things and gave order to
all things, as Gn 1 expresses it so beautifully. All nations and all events
are under the control of God's saving plan. A God this powerful has not
forgotten Israel or fallen so low that he cannot use his power. The prophet
also sees that this new salvation is really a re-creation. Important texts
are found in Is 40:12-31, Is 43:16-21, Is 45:7-9, Is 48:13-14, and Is
51:13-16. God has a plan and no one else knows it. It is on the basis that
God alone is Creator that Second Isaiah bases all his lawsuits and trial
speeches against the pagans and their idols. Not one of them can show what
will happen next nor can they demonstrate any power to help their followers. This
belongs to the Creator and only God, Yahweh.
Because of the great emphasis that the prophet gives to God as Creator and
Lord of the whole world, commentators have long remarked that no book in the
Old Testament puts greater stress on monotheism than does Second Isaiah.
Israel is different from the other nations of the ancient world and their
polytheism because of this conviction. It runs as a single thread that ties
all of the message of revelation together from the patriarch Abraham down to
the end of the Old Testament story. But no Old Testament book reaches a
higher level of understanding of God's oneness than does Second Isaiah.
(7) There is a role for all nations in God's plan. Many scholars {426}
have debated whether Second Isaiah is a narrow nationalist who sees salvation
only for Israel, or the first universalist who envisions a rule of Yahweh
over every nation. We must remember that his message is directed to
Israelites in exile to give them hope, and so his message is first and
foremost directed to those in covenant with Yahweh. But then it is all the
more remarkable that so many passages indicate a concern for other nations as
well. Yet the theology of one God and the stress of God as Creator really
left the prophet no other choice. First of all, Cyrus and the Persians were
divine means of salvation and blessed because of it. Secondly, Israel itself
is not commanded to go forth and win over other nations, but there is a
definite belief that the other nations will look to Israel and learn from its
rescue from exile how good God is. They will come on their own to discover
Yahweh in the restored Jerusalem. This is the message found in Is 45:14-17,
Is 45:22-25, and Is 55:1-5. It is found in a different and deeper way in the
life of the servant, who will give witness by both teaching and suffering to
the nations (see Is 42:4; Is 49:6; Is 53:11).
(8) Yahweh will restore Zion. One of the greatest sorrows of the exile was
the knowledge that Jerusalem and the temple lay in ruins. We have seen the
pain expressed in the Book of Lamentations. Now God will restore Zion and
make it once again the center of the world. Chapters 49-55 shift toward
dreaming of the restored city. The prophet counters the despairing complaint
of the exiles that God has forgotten them altogether: "Zion says,
'Yahweh has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.' Can a mother forget her
infant, or have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even these may
forget, but I will never forget you" (Is 49:14-15). He promises that the
exiles shall return, "singing" as they come to Zion (Is 51:11). The
city's watchmen will rejoice as they see Yahweh coming (Is 52:8). Zion will
not only be a symbol of God's presence with Israel, but will be the seat of
his kingly rule over the world. Many scholars have noted that Second Isaiah
does not speak of the return of the Davidic king. He has no place for a
covenant based on Israel's own power and independence. Instead, as Is 55:1-5
makes clear, God will establish a covenant with the whole people and will rule
over them and the nations directly from his throne in Zion. The return of
Yahweh to Jerusalem is seen as a liturgical procession like those found in
the temple services. Is 49:17-21, Is 52:7-12 and Is 54:1-17 all describe the
Lord's return in this manner, building on the descriptions of the new exodus
and new creation to unite them all in one great vision. {427} The three
themes of creation, redemption and the universal rule of God come together
often in the prophet's thought. It is a "creative redemption" of
the world. This is especially true in the prayer of chapter 51:
Awake, awake, gird on
strength,
O arm of the Lord;
Awake as in the ancient days,
the ages long ago.
Did you not cut Rahab
in pieces.
and slay the dragon?
Did you not dry up the sea,
the waters of the great abyss,
And make the depths of the sea a road
for the redeemed to pass through? (Is 51:9-10).
In this poem, Second Isaiah combines the ancient pagan story of the battle
of the gods against the chaotic ocean (in order to bring about ordered
creation) with the traditions of the exodus to reveal that Yahweh alone is
both Creator and Redeemer.
Second Isaiah frequently speaks about Israel (or Jacob) as "my
servant" (Is 41:8-9; Is 42:19; Is 44:1-2; Is 45:4; Is 48:20, etc.). Israel
as the servant is chosen by Yahweh, comforted by him, and given the spirit of
Yahweh; yet the servant Israel is also called a worm, despised, rebellious,
blind and deaf. The term "servant" has as many uses in Second
Isaiah as Israel has roles to play. It sums up the people who sinned,
suffered and now turn to God to be redeemed. It sums up God's loyalty and
special relationship to them in turn.
But there are four passages which have always been seen differently. These
are Is 42:1-4, Is 49:1-6, Is 50:4-9 and Is 52:13-53:12. In these the servant
is described as a single individual with enough personality to make the
reader wonder if the prophet did not have someone particular in mind who
actually played this role. True enough, in Is 49:3, the text says outright
that Israel is this servant, but most scholars believe this is a later
comment that was added to the text by a reader who wanted to identify the
mission of the servant with post-exilic Israel. It is difficult to see how
Israel could be the servant when only three verses later, in Is 49:6, the
servant is to raise up Israel. {428} Most commentators have understood the
servant either to be a real individual or a symbolic figure created to
represent the best ideals of Israel. Before trying to choose one or the
other, it is best to examine the texts themselves to get a picture of what
the servant was like. The first servant song in Is 42:1-4 describes a mission
for the servant in which he will bring justice by means of gentle persuasion
and quiet. The second song in Is 49:1-6 suggests that speaking will again be
part of the servant's mission, but even more he must show trust when he has
no strength. By this he will not only convert Israel but become a witness to
all nations. The third song in Is 50:4-9 again describes the servant's role
as speaking, but this time mixed with suffering and rejection. By accepting
this, the servant will find that God supports his cause and he will emerge in
victory. The fourth song in Is 52:13-53:12 expresses in moving language how
God uses the undeserved violence against his servant to save other guilty
people. This is the famous "suffering servant" of Isaiah. It is a
remarkable passage because it suggests more clearly than anywhere else in the
Old Testament that God accepts one individual's suffering to atone for the
sins of others. The scene is cast in the form of a dialogue between God and a
chorus of voices to bring out the drama and the human involvement. But all is
still in the hands of the powerful Creator and Redeemer to deliver the
servant. Yet only God would value this broken and beaten servant who can no
longer speak. This is another way of affirming that in the end Yahweh accepts
the helpless in their helplessness and suffering even more than he does the
strong.
Who is this servant who is chosen from the womb, speaks God's words, is
abused and rejected and plotted against, and who finally manifests God's
goodness before the nations of the earth? For those who believe the servant
is just an image of Israel as a nation, the suffering servant is Israel past,
while the servant vindicated and giving light to the nations is Israel
restored and still to come.
This future dimension of the servant's role explains why the New Testament
recognized Jesus as the true servant so readily. His crucifixion would lead
to a new role in exaltation. Although Second Isaiah was thinking of the
Babylonian exile and the return to Jerusalem, and saw with deep reverence
that God used Israel's sufferings as a witness and light to the world, the
New Testament authors tapped their faith in Jesus to see the same God acting
to redeem all nations by his suffering in fulfillment of what Israel had
already been asked to do in part. What Israel nourishes in its community,
Christ did for still others outside. {429} But even for Israel, the personal
and individual aspects of the suffering servant had deep meaning. No one
could miss the image of the greatest of all prophets, Moses, whom Deuteronomy
called repeatedly the "servant of Yahweh." What Moses taught as the
Torah, the servant will teach anew. But he must bear the same rejection and
rebellion that Moses bore in his mission. Nor could one miss the close
connection between the servant in Second Isaiah and the picture of Jeremiah
found in his life story. It is Jeremiah who remains faithful to the word of
God even when they plot against his life. Still other examples have been
proposed: King Jehoiachin in exile, Second Isaiah himself speaking
autobiographi-cally, Zerubbabel the first governor after the exile, and many
others.
The most important line of thought brings out the kingly aspects of the
servants. First of all, it was common for David and other kings to describe
themselves as "your servant" when addressing Yahweh (see, e.g.,2 Sm
7:18-29). Secondly we know from ancient Near Eastern documents that kings
often spoke of themselves as "called from the womb," "grasped
by the hand of the God," "the servant of the God," and
"giving light to those in prison." A well-known New Year's rite
involved making a king strip off his clothes and crown and be beaten for the
sins of his people before he was reinstalled in splendor for another year.
This way he was the "scapegoat" for the whole nation over which he
ruled.
All of this might lead us to consider that the servant figure combines in
one person qualities of the king, Moses, and the prophet Jeremiah as an ideal
Israelite. This would also permit us to see the servant representing the
people Israel as well. Second Isaiah no longer waits for the king to be
restored nor for the prophets to rise again. Instead, the people themselves
must become invested with the royal and prophetic tasks ahead for the new
Israel. We may never know all that Second Isaiah actually intended by his
servant, but we must not rule out the possibility that he intended all the
above suggestions. Hebrew thought often moved back and forth between the
individual and the nation in describing God's covenant relationship. It is
not too much to expect that the genius of this prophet was able to give shape
to both an individual mission and a national one in the same prophetic word
of hope.
For Christians, on the other hand, it is just as legitimate to see in the
person of the servant, no matter what Second Isaiah intended, the key to
understanding Christ's suffering, death and resurrection as redemption for
all nations. God's hand that guides the faith {430} of Israel can easily
prepare human understanding for a new and unexpected follow-up in Christ's
life and teaching. The faith to see the connection was given to Jesus'
disciples; it does not mean that Second Isaiah saw such a coming event, nor
that faithful Jews reading Second Isaiah would see it. The Christian faith
remains faithful to its roots in the Old Testament and would be the first to
agree with the message of Second Isaiah that God acts always "new."
But faith in Christ is given not to all but to some only, and does not lessen
the beauty and faith present in the Jewish understanding of the servant
passages.
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