Isaiah Chapter 64 Notes

Chapter Sixty-four:

v.2:  The prophet wants God to make the nations to tremble with fear as fire makes a burning bush and boiling water tremble.  The quaking mountains also express the theme of trembling in the presence of God; perhaps the specific reference is to God’s descent on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:18.  Another continuation of the fire/quaking theme may be in v.7 where the speaker says God has “delivered us [Israelites] into the hand of our iniquity.”  There, the word “delivered” literally means “melted” according to both Barnes and the Oxford commentary.

v. 5:  Barnes and the Oxford commentary note that this verse is difficult to translate.  The NRSV translation says that the Israelites sin because God has hidden his face from them.  I have no doubt that when God hides his face from us, we are even more inclined to sin, but I do not believe that he does this before we have already given ourselves over to sin.  See notes on 63:17.

v. 8:  The same image appears in 29:16.

Isaiah Chapter 54 Notes

Chapter Fifty-four:

v. 1:  Isaiah uses a mixed metaphor to describe Jerusalem in verses four and seven.  In verse four she is a widow, whereas in verse seven she is a woman whose husband has divorced her because of her unfaithfulness.  Both metaphors, however, meet in the image of “the desolate woman” here in verse one.  The desolate woman has no husband.  And yet, says God, the woman who is desolate now will have more blessings (children) than the woman who is married.  By analogy, the woman who is married represents any nation whose current circumstances promise future prosperity.

v. 5:  Obviously pagans do not call God “the God of the whole earth,” but this is a true title of his, and all who know him use it.

Vs. 8-9:  God’s wrath was “overflowing” when he sent the Babylonians to destroy the Israelites and take them into captivity.  According to Barnes, this word “means a gushing out, an overflowing, an inundation, a flood” (299).  Thus, God’s wrath against the Israelites was like the flood of Noah’s day (v.9) in several ways.  It was a very destructive event that only a remnant of faithful people survived (though even these were swept away from their homeland), and to those survivors God promised that nothing like that would happen again.

God’s promise that nothing like the Babylonian captivity would happen again should be examined.  What does it mean?  If one takes this promise at face value and applies it to the Israelites, then one could make the argument that God broke his word.  After all, the second temple, which the Jews built upon returning from the Babylonian captivity was utterly destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and has not been rebuilt since.  Of course, the situations are not exactly parallel; as far as I know, the Romans did not deport the Jews[1] wholesale from their homeland as did the Babylonians.  Nevertheless, the parallels are close enough to merit comparison.  I wonder how orthodox Jews today explain this passage.

As for me, I believe the passage refers ultimately to spiritual Israel (i.e. the kingdom of the Messiah) and this may explain how the promise is fulfilled by God: He made it to the returning Jews as he reestablished their physical kingdom on earth, but he referred to the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah (to which all who love God belong, and of which the physical kingdom was merely a type).  Notice how the description of Jerusalem in vs. 11-12 is similar to the description of the New Jerusalem (spiritual Israel) in Revelation 21.

Besides, the specific promise is that God will not strike his people in anger any more: “I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you.”  Notice how the ministry of Christ reflects this sentiment.  On the cross, Christ asks God to forgive those who are crucifying him because they do not understand what they do.  When James and John want to call down fire on those who do not receive Christ hospitably, he admonishes the two brothers, presumably by telling them that his ministry was not one of righteous vengeance but of mercy (Luke 9:51-56).  Perhaps this is another facet of the promise as it applies specifically to the Jews.  God had acted on his righteous anger against the Jews earlier, and the result was the Babylonian captivity.  Perhaps God is saying he will no longer actively punish the Jews.  This would still leave open the possibility of their suffering at the hands of enemies if they chose to reject the protection God promises in vs. 15-17; in that case, they would not be suffering because God was actively punishing them but rather because they had rejected the protection of his kingdom.  I believe the Jews did just this when they rejected Christ as their king.  At the crucifixion, the Jews cried out, “We have no king but the [Roman] emperor” (John 19:15), and “His [Christ’s] blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).  The results may look the same to us (Babylonian brutality and Roman brutality) but the causes may be different.

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[1] Many Jews did disperse throughout the empire, but I think this was a voluntary flight (spanning generations of time) from the Roman oppression in Judea rather than a Roman-organized, official plan of resettlement.

Isaiah Chapter 48 Notes

Chapter Forty-eight:

v. 3: This and subsequent verses (like v. 10, which reads, “I have refined you”) seem to assume that Babylon’s conquest of Judah is in the past.  The fact that the narrator assumes that the conquest of Judah is in the past could mean that this part of the book was not written by Isaiah himself, since he died as an old man at least a century before the Babylonians conquered Judah.  But this interpretation is not necessarily true.  For whatever reason, Isaiah’s use of tense is very fluid throughout the book.[1]  He may have written this section and chosen to refer to the conquest of Judah in the past because he meant to address the Jewish captives in Babylon, years after his death, as contemporaries.  If Isaiah really did write it, referring to the conquest of Judah in the past tense may have had more rhetorical/emotional weight for the captive Jews because they would have had the impression that the prophet not only predicted the conquest of Judah so long before his death, but that he also has come into their own time (so to speak) to predict the return to Judah under the reign of Cyrus.[2]  But even if Isaiah did not write it,[3] the speaker is obviously a prophet and is predicting a future event (the return to Judah) and assuring his audience that this prophecy is true because God is the source of his knowledge.

v. 6:  In v. 1 God says, “Hear this;” then in v. 6 he continues: “You have heard; now see [4] all this.”  A paraphrase might be: You have heard of my past predictions (all of which came to pass), now behold in the present my new ones as they come to pass before your eyes.  The new ones (“new things”) are Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon (v. 14) and the return of the Jews to Judea (vs. 20-21).

So, there are the old predictions and their fulfillments, which the Jews have heard of.  I am not sure exactly what these old predictions refer to.

And then there are the new predictions (which the Jews have not heard of) and their fulfillments (which they will see).  God says that he has not shown them these new predictions before because he “knew that … [they] would deal very treacherously” with them, i.e. that they would misuse them by claiming that they “already knew them” (v. 7).  In making such a false claim, the Jews could attempt to justify their idolatry by arguing that their idols had made the prediction.[5]

But when were these new predictions made?  If they were made by Isaiah, then it seems like they would have come around the same time as his prophecies concerning the Babylonian Captivity.  If so, then the old predictions in this chapter, “the former things” cannot refer to the Babylonian Captivity.[6]  Perhaps “the former things” is a generic term meaning all the famous old predictions of legend like the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh and their possession of the Holy Land, which v. 21 of this chapter seems to allude to.[7]

v. 9: The Babylonian Captivity had been the product of God’s just anger; therefore, God defers his anger, in this case, by ending the Babylonian Captivity.

10:  God explains his metaphorical reference to refining silver:  “I have [metaphorically] refined you [like silver], but not [literally] like silver [since] I have tested you in the furnace of adversity [rather than in a real furnace of fire].”

v. 11:  God does not rescue the Jews because they deserve it; Verses 1-2 seem to say that they are still insincere and rebellious.  He rescues them because of his own merciful nature.[8]

The specific “other” to whom God will not give his glory is an idol.

v. 16: I believe God is the speaker of all these verses until this one.  Even where the speaker refers to God in the third person (vs. 1-2, 14, etc.) one may reasonably conclude that the speaker is still God since God sometimes refers to himself in that way.[9]  But in v. 16, the speaker refers to himself in the first person and to God in the third person.  So who is the speaker?  I think it must be Cyrus, who was himself a foreshadowing of the Messiah in that he delivered God’s people from their captivity.

v. 22: This verse seems a little random.  Maybe I am missing something.  It occurs again in 57:21.

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[1] Perhaps he did this as a rhetorical device or because, as a prophet, his visions came closer to reflecting God’s own perspective of time.

[2] See note on 41:22.

[3] I do not believe that Isaiah appears by name here or anywhere near this chapter to claim this particular prophecy as his own.

[4] Italics mine.

[5] God makes predictions known before the events they predict so that the people will not attribute the events themselves to their idols (v.5), but in this particular case, he did not make the prediction known for very long before the event.

[6] Throughout this latter part of Isaiah, the prophecies of deliverance from Babylon are interwoven with those concerning the Babylonian Captivity, suggesting that the two types of prophecy (those addressing the Captivity by and Deliverance from Babylon) were initially given around the same time, although (if Isaiah himself never mentioned deliverance from Babylon) I suppose a later editor could arrange Isaiah’s former prophecies about Captivity with a later prophet’s new prophesies of Deliverance.  The editor could justify such an arrangement by claiming Babylon in general as the unifying theme.  In such a scenario, the Babylonian Captivity could be “the former things” of this chapter, but I doubt this is what happened because I believe Isaiah himself spoke both of the Babylonian Captivity and the Deliverance from Babylon.

[7] See also note on 43: 9, 16-18.

[8] Daniel 9:17-18.

[9] As did Jesus.

Isaiah Chapter 47 Notes

Chapter Forty-seven:

v. 1:  At first, I thought the term “virgin” was a strange one to apply to Babylon, especially given that John speaks of “the whore of Babylon” in the book of Revelation.  The Hebrew word here is bethula, which specifically designates someone who has not had sex (Barnes 158) not alma,[1] which should be translated more generally as “young woman.”  Obviously, however, Babylon is not called a virgin to indicate her innocence or lack of worldly experience.  Therefore, I guess the image is meant only to represent Babylon’s vulnerability.

v. 8:  The saying “I am, and there is no one besides me”[2] is very interesting.  It is comparable to descriptions that God gives of himself; for instance, 45:5 says, “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”  45:18 says the same thing as 45:5, and 46:9 says, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me….” I think the fact that Babylon describes itself in similar terms indicates that city’s attempt to usurp the place of God.  Wanting to be God (as a usurper, not as a child who wants to be like his or her parents) is humanity’s most ancient sin. [3]

v. 10:  The wisdom and knowledge of Babylon were proverbial.  At times, however, Isaiah mocks that reputation with characteristic sarcasm, as in vs. 12-13, but this mockery does not mean that the Babylonians did not have an impressive store of real wisdom, nor that Isaiah did not recognize that fact; it only means that their wisdom, in spite of its many real qualities, led them astray because of their wicked hearts.

As for the sorcery of Babylon (v.12), I agree with Sir James Frazer that it should be classified as false science.  “The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption of a sequence of events determined by law, but in its total misconception of the nature of the particular laws which govern that sequence” (57).  I disagree with Frazer, however, in the belief that magic is necessarily impotent because it is ignorant.

I believe that actual supernatural beings (God, his angels, and devils) can appear in our lives and give us access to things that we would not have access to by nature (things such as the ability to heal miraculously, to prophecy, to raise and consult the dead, and so on).  However, I do not believe that we have the ability to manipulate any of these supernatural beings.  God has given us power to manipulate the natural world, so we can tame a lion (even though it is physically stronger than we are) or split an atom, but I do not believe this applies to supernatural beings.  Obviously, God cannot be manipulated, and the innate power of angels is so much greater than our own that we clearly cannot manipulate them either.  Just their appearance is enough to overwhelm us (note Daniel’s reaction).  I also believe the same is true of demons.  Without the supernatural aid of God, I think we would have a better chance of pushing the earth out of orbit with our bare hands than we would of manipulating a demon.  However, I believe that demons have manipulated some humans into believing that certain occult “sciences” can control supernatural beings such as angels and demons, and even God.  I think they have done this by pretending themselves to be bound by the talismans and spells that make up what we call magic.  Their motive in doing this, I assume, is simply to draw us away from the love of God and into the misery of hell.  I do think that there are and have been sorcerers and necromancers (like the witch of Endor) who did supernatural things by means of demons, just as those faithful to God can do supernatural things by means of God and his angels.  Neither the Satanist nor the Christian, however, can manipulate these supernatural beings.  Any “science,” therefore, that involves calling on or manipulating demons (or “gods”) is not the result of genuine power that comes from true knowledge; it must simply be a trick of Satan.  See particularly my notes on 1^st Corinthians 10:20 and 1^st Samuel 28:12.

Isaiah Chapter 44 Notes

Chapter Forty-four:

v. 2:  According to Barnes and the Oxford commentary, “Jeshurun” is a poetic name for Israel.  Barnes says it connotes affection.  Its only other occurrence in the Bible is in Deuteronomy (32:15 and 33:5, 26).  Probably, Isaiah (or whoever recorded this prophecy) meant to allude to Deuteronomy by using this name and other wording similar to that found in Deuteronomy.  For instance, here in Isaiah 44:8, God calls himself a Rock, and Deuteronomy 32:15 (the same verse that uses the name Jeshurun) God is “the Rock of Salvation.”

v. 5:  The Oxford commentary claims that this verse refers to the future inclusion of Gentiles in the kingdom of God, but I think, based on the context, that the speakers in this verse are not proselytes but rather the “descendants” and “offspring” of Israel, who will “spring up…like willows by flowing streams” (vs. 3-4).  Of course, I admit that this could also apply to Gentile Christians as the spiritual descendants of Israel, but I see nothing in the context of the chapter that would suggest that the writer had this in mind.

The NRSV reads, “[A]nother will write on[1] the hand…,” but I think this must be a poor translation.  Barnes believes that the verse should read “[A]nother will write with[2] the hand…,” which makes more sense to me given the Law’s injunction against tattooing.

Concerning the word “surname” see notes on 45:4.

v. 15:  Here is a great illustration, demonstrating how illogical it is to venerate as God something whose substance is so perishable.  This appeal to the logical faculties and intelligence of the reader reminds me of Isaiah 1:18[3] and makes a nice segue into verse 18 of this chapter, which is a recapitulation of the common theme of losing the good of the intellect.[4]

v. 25:  It is interesting that Luther’s translation has Wahrsager (“sooth[truth]sayer”) where the OKJ and NRSV have “liars.”  Perhaps the English versions opted to express the writer’s intent rather than the denotation of the word itself.

v. 27:  Barnes makes a good case for reading this verse as a reference to Cyrus’ capture of Babylon.  Apparently Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the course of the Euphrates away from the city, leaving its channel dry and a great gap beneath the city walls under which the river had passed to flow through the ancient city.  Once this gap was laid bare, Cyrus led his troops into the city by it.  Barnes answers the objection that the sea itself is the reference here (rather than the Euphrates) by pointing out that Jeremiah 51:36 applies the same word that is here translated as “sea” to the river Euphrates (141-142).

v. 28:  The mention of Cyrus by name is probably offered as another proof of God’s ability to predict the future, which distinguishes him from the other so-called gods of wood and stone.[5]

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[1] Italics mine.

[2] Italics mine

[3] “Come now, and let us reason together.”

[4] See Isaiah 6:9.

[5] See 43:19 notes.

Isaiah Chapter 38 Notes

Notes on Isaiah Thirty-eight:

v. 2:  It is interesting that the writer includes this detail about Hezekiah’s turning to face the wall to pray.  I suppose the bed was against a wall.  Perhaps he turned to hide his grief, but that seems out of place in a culture where public displays of grief (tearing one’s clothes, hiring professional mourners, etc.) were common.  Therefore, I think he looked at the wall as a means to concentrate his mind for the prayer.  I know this comparison may be off the wall (so to speak) but in doing this, Hezekiah reminds me of Bodhidharma, who supposedly meditated for 9 years while staring at the wall of a cave.

v. 8:  This miracle reminds me of the time the LORD held the sun in midheaven for a whole day for Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14).

V. 10: It seems that the life expectancy of a Jew at this time was roughly what it is for people today.  Hezekiah is 39 years old and “in the noontide” of his days.  The context here, I think, demands not only that we read “in the noontide of my days” as marking the middle of Hezekiah’s life (just like noon marks the middle of the day) but also as having the same meaning as our phrase “in the prime of life.”

v. 17:  The narrative does not say that the death sentence delivered by Isaiah is a punishment for Hezekiah’s sins of resubmitting to Assyria and stripping the temple of its gold and silver as tribute for Sennacherib, but surely these acts were sins.  Perhaps the death sentence was punishment.  Notice that, upon his recovery from the sickness, Hezekiah says, “…you have cast all my sins behind your back.”[1]

v. 21:  Barnes points out that figs were used medicinally in the ancient world (41).  Nevertheless, it is interesting to me how the prophets sometimes performed miracles simply by asking God for them and sometimes by doing some action beyond the simple request.  For instance, Hezekiah’s illness was beyond the cure of human medical science, but presumably he still needed the figs.  (Otherwise, why would Isaiah direct the attendants to apply figs to the king’s boil “…that he may recover”?)  Why not simply heal him?  I suspect the reason has to do with the faith of the individual being healed.  Weaker faith requires more demonstrative signs of assurance.  For example, yesterday we took Jezee (our dog) down into the storm shelter and were coaxing her to walk back up the steep stairs out again.  Eventually she had the faith to do this on her own, but not until I stood over her the whole way as a sign of assurance that I was with her and that she would be alright.  Similarly, perhaps Hezekiah has the faith to believe that God will heal him of his disease but needs signs of assurance to bolster that faith because his fear of the disease is so great.[2]  For further illustrations of this principle of faith, compare the account of Jesus’ healing the blind man (Mark 8:24) with the account of his healing the servant of the centurion of great faith (Matthew 8:5-10).  We know from Mark 6:1-6 that weak faith hinders miracles.

v. 22:  This verse is obviously out of place chronologically.  In fact, it is so obviously out of place chronologically that I suspect that the editor placed it here for some reason other than ignorance of the order of events.[3]  There is a thematic link in this verse with the end of the psalm Hezekiah composed.  Notice that the last verse of the psalm refers to singing “at the house of the LORD” and that here in v. 22 Hezekiah asks for a sign that he will once again “…go up to the house of the LORD.”  Perhaps he thought to sing this very psalm at the house of the LORD.

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[1] See my Chronological Summary of Hezekiah’s Reign in 2^nd Kings 18 notes.

[2] He has already required the sign of the sundial.  The fig lump, while not miraculous, may be another tangible thing Hezekiah can look to for assurance.

[3] Besides, if the English translation of tense is correct (past perfect) the editor was clearly aware that these events had happened before Hezekiah’s healing (and before the composition of the king’s psalm).

Isaiah Chapter 37 Notes

Notes on Isaiah Thirty-seven:

v. 2:  I wonder why Joah (36:22) was not sent as part of this delegation to Isaiah.  Perhaps Shebna and Eliakim were higher ranking officials. I do not know the difference between a secretary/scribe (Shebna) and a recorder (Joah), but maybe a scribe was more honored.  In that case, perhaps Joah had accompanied the delegation to the Rabshakeh as a kind of embedded reporter more than as an official ambassador.  At any rate, Hezekiah seems to have selected the most impressive people for this delegation to Isaiah;  note that he sends the senior priests to accompany Eliakim and Shebna.  Also, Luther translates “servants of King Hezekiah” in verse five as Grossen[1] of King Hezekiah, which suggests that they are the highest officials of the court.  Barnes believes that the word “servants” indicates that these people were not high ranking: “The word…is used here probably by way of disparagement in contradistinction from an embassy that would be truly respectable, made up of aged men” (13).  But in the context of the story, this seems like a bad interpretation to me.  Why would Hezekiah not want to honor Isaiah as best he could, given that he wanted help from the prophet?

That being said, however, why does Hezekiah himself not go to Isaiah?  Maybe he had other business to attend to.  Whatever the reason, I am sure he meant to do nothing less than honor the prophet by sending this particular embassy, and there is no indication that Isaiah was offended by the fact that Hezekiah himself did not come to him.

Another curious thing about this episode is why Hezekiah even had to send for Isaiah at all.  Why was the prophet not by the king’s side at this time of crisis?  Perhaps, as God’s mouthpiece, Isaiah was acting as God sometimes acts: waiting for us to ask for his help.  Or perhaps the prophet was absorbed in meditation somewhere in (or out of) the city and was genuinely unaware of these developments; this is a little hard to believe, however, especially given that he was a prophet.  I suppose God could have kept the matter concealed from him.

v. 3:  In this analogy, the fear and pain of childbirth corresponds to the fear and pain of the threat of Assyria; I wonder if it would be taking the analogy too far to suggest that Hezekiah also was thinking of the joy of holding a newborn and the corresponding joy of being delivered from the Assyrians.

v. 12:  It is strange to see Eden mentioned as an identifiable place on the earth.  Since it is listed among the conquests of Assyria, it must have been within the Assyria Empire, probably near or in Mesopotamia.  Of course, the garden of Eden was a specific place in the east of Eden (Genesis 2:8), and I suppose the Cherubim hid (and hide) it from the sight of those that lived (and live) in the country of Eden.

v. 30:  This is a difficult sign to interpret.  The main problem is that it extends three years into the future, so how can it be a sign of the deliverance of Jerusalem from Assyria at the present moment?

It makes sense to believe that the lack of crops in the first two years of the sign refers to the fact that the Jews were unable to plant crops because the Assyrian invasion  lasted two years (Rosenmuller qtd. in Barnes 23), or at least messed up the possibility of planting for the second year, as Barnes himself suggests (23).  Why else would they not plant during those years?  If this is the proper meaning of the prophet’s words, then the heart of the sign is in the third year, which (at the time of its fulfillment) would be more of a reminder or a seal of Jerusalem’s recent deliverance rather than a sign of future deliverance.

However, the OKJ and the NRSV read “in this year,”[2] referring to the first year.  That would rule out Barnes’ and Rosenmuller’s option of placing the first and second years in the past.  If the translation is correct in interpreting “this year” as literally the year in which Isaiah is speaking, I am not sure why the Jews would not plant their crops for the next two years.  Below are three possible explanations.

1)  The Assyrian invasion lasted (roughly) two years after Isaiah tells Hezekiah about this sign.  In that scenario, the sign would prove that God was the one who eventually delivered the city because Isaiah was able to predict the exact time of the city’s deliverance: three years from the present moment.  I do not really believe this explanation because the narrative seems to imply that Jerusalem was delivered fairly soon after Isaiah tells Hezekiah about the sign.[3]

2)  Perhaps the Jews did not plant for the next two years because God (through Isaiah’s sign) commanded them not to plant so that he could sustain them himself through the next two years.  I do not really believe this explanation either because it seems odd that God would manufacture another crisis for the Jews (potential famine) when he has a perfectly good one that he could use already (the Assyrian invasion) to demonstrate his ability to deliver his people.  They would be two separate deliverances; I just do not see how deliverance from famine, three years later, would be a sign of his present ability to deliver Jerusalem from the Assyrians.  The two just do not seem connected.

3) Perhaps the next two years were the Sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee; if that was the case, then the religious laws already in place would prevent the Jews from planting in those years (Leviticus 25:1-24). Observing the rule not to plant for these two years might prove particularly difficult for them if the crops from the previous year had been ruined by the Assyrian invasion.  If this is the proper interpretation of Isaiah’s words, perhaps God is telling the Jews to observe the law as usual and he will deliver them from famine in spite of the crops lost during the Assyrian invasion.  In that way the planting in the third year would be a seal of Jerusalem’s recent deliverancefrom invasion rather than a sign of future deliverance.  If “this” year means the very year Isaiah is speaking in, then this third explanation seems the most likely to me.  Barnes does not accept it for two reasons, but both of those reasons may be answered.  One reason is that we cannot prove that the years in question were the Sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee.  That may be so, but neither can we prove that they were not, which means the option of holding to this explanation is still open.  I will give the second reason in Barnes’ own words:  “It is difficult to see…how that which was to occur two or three years after the event could be a sign to Hezekiah of the truth of what Isaiah had predicted” (23).  To answer this, I would point out that Barnes’ own explanation places the fulfillment of Isaiah’s sign after the Assyrian invasion (not two or three years after, but after nevertheless).

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[1] “Great ones”

[2] Luther’s translation agrees with theirs:  “…in diessem Jahr.”

[3] In v. 35, the LORD says, “I will defend this city;” v. 36 says, “then the angel of the LORD set out and struck down 185,000 Assyrians….”  Besides, 2^nd Kings 19:35 says, “That very night the angel of the LORD set out and struck down 185,000 [Assyrians]….”

Isaiah Chapter 36 Notes

Notes on Isaiah Thirty-six:

2^nd Kings 18-20 contains the entire story of Hezekiah’s reign, and 18:13-19:37 contains the specific story of Sennacherib’s invasion; 2^nd Chronicles 29-32 contains the entire story of Hezekiah’s reign, and 32:1-22 contains the specific story of Sennacherib’s invasion.

v. 3:  See notes on Isaiah 22:15, 25.

v. 10:  Compare this statement with Isaiah 10.  It is interesting to consider how the Assyrian king came to understand that God was angry with the Jews.  Perhaps the king heard from spies or rumors that Isaiah had announced that God was angry with his people and intended to punish them.  Then again, perhaps God directly sent a lying spirit to the king through one of the royal oracles as he did the wicked king Ahab in 1^st Kings 22:19-23.  (See 1^st Kings notes.)

v. 11:  Barnes says Aramaic is in the same language group as Hebrew and Chaldee (Babylonian), but that the Assyrians probably spoke a dialect of Persian (7).  However, the common opinion seems to be that Assyrian and Babylonian are both dialects of the Semitic language, Akkadian.

v. 12:  The original words of the Assyrian here were probably quite rude references to excrement.  I wonder if the Hebrew preserves their crudeness.  Barnes claims that sometimes the Hebrews used euphemisms for crude language in the holy scriptures.

v. 21:  Barnes seems to think the “they” of “they held their peace” refers to the ambassadors, but the 2^nd Kings account of the same story says “the people” held their peace, which seems to indicate the people on the walls; that would make more sense anyway because the Assyrian is addressing them at that moment, not the ambassadors.  It strikes me that their silence indicates a great deal of respect for Hezekiah’s command.

Isaiah Chapter 35 Notes

Chapter Thirty-five

v. 1:  Ending the last chapter with Edom’s desolation (born out of prosperity) and beginning this very next chapter with Israel’s desolation (which will give birth to prosperity) gives this chapter that sense of irony that characterizes so much of the book of Isaiah.

vs. 6-7:  God often uses the image of waters breaking forth miraculously in the desert to express his ability to deliver and rescue his loved ones.  Sometimes the image is metaphorical, as 33:21 may be, and sometimes the image is literal, as when Moses strikes the rock (Exodus 17:1-7) or Hagar and finds the spring (Genesis 20:15-19).

Barnes points out a particularly beautiful use of such imagery here in v. 7.  According to him, the “parched ground” (“burning sand” in the NRSV) of 7a is a translation of the Hebrew wordsharab, which he says is a cognate of the Arabic word serab, which should be translated as “mirage.”  To prove this, he provides several Arabic proverbs in which the word serab clearly refers to the phenomenon of a mirage.  Thus, he argues that the writer is actually saying that God will turn the mirage of water (a disappointing and dangerous illusion) into real, refreshing water.  I think he makes a good argument.

vs. 8-10:  This image of the Holy Way is very pleasant.  Both Barnes and the Oxford commentary connect it with the return of the captives from Babylon, which seems reasonable to me. The language is idyllic, so, in as much as it does literally refer to the return from the captivity, the writer must be using hyperbole a little.  In the context of the rest of Isaiah, however, I believe it also refers to the Messianic age and the beauty of that time.[1]  Nevertheless, the interpretation of one part of the image is a little elusive for me.  This Holy Way is such that “not even fools shall go astray” from it.  I wonder what that means, especially if this Holy Way has application to the time of the Messiah.  It sounds like the kind of verse that George MacDonald and others who believe in the universal salvation of humanity could get a lot of mileage out of.

[1] See notes on 2:1-4.

Isaiah Chapter 34 Notes

Notes for Isaiah Thirty-four

Although this chapter begins with the declaration that God is “enraged against all the [pagan] nations,” the specific nation that bears the brunt of that rage is Edom; therefore, I will present a brief history of Edom.

The nation of Edom, or Idumea according to the Greeks (Barnes 489) was located just south of the Dead Sea and had two capitals: Bozrah in the East and Selah (the famous city better known as Petra^[1]) to the south (Barnes 489).  Edom is named for the man who fathered it: Edom (also known as Esau) the twin brother of Jacob (also known as Israel).  These two twins were the sons of Isaac, the son of Abraham.  The names Esau and Edom both mean “red” and were given to Jacob’s brother on two separate occasions: he got the name Esau at his birth because, as a newborn, he was covered with reddish-brown hair^[2] (Genesis 25:25).  He got the nameEdom after selling his birthright to his younger (by only a few seconds) twin brother for some red-colored stew (Genesis 25:29-34).  In his youth, Jacob seems to have been a clever but deceitful man, and Esau seems to have been strong but slow-witted, being more oriented toward the flesh than toward the mind or the spirit; thus, Jacob was able to cheat his older brother out of his birthright, twice (Genesis 25:29-34, 27:1-40).  After the second time, Jacob fled in fear from his brother and lived in a foreign land (Genesis 27:41-43) where God proceeded to humble the future father of the twelve patriarchs (Genesis 28-32).  After much fear and pain, Jacob returned to his home and he and his brother were reconciled to each other (Genesis 33).  When Esau eventually took his family to the land later known as Edom, he apparently left on his own free will for more elbow room (Genesis 36:6-8); the brothers seem to have parted on reasonably good terms.

The next significant interaction recorded between Edom and Israel is when the nation of Israel, under the guidance of Moses, asked for permission to pass peacefully through the land of Edom on their way to the Promised Land of Canaan (Genesis 20:14-21).  Moses seems to have asked humbly, and he appealed to the nation of Edom as a brother; nevertheless, Edom refused to let them pass through.  Thus, Israel turned back and had to go around Edom.  According to Barnes, there is no mention of Edom again until the time of David (490).

David waged a fierce war against the Edomites, eventually making them his subjects (2^ndSamuel 8:13-14).  Later, during the reign of Jehoram, the Edomites rebelled against Judah and set up their own king (2^nd Chronicles 21:8-10).  After this time, the relationship between the Jews and the Edomites seems to have been particularly turbulent and violent.  Amaziah, king of Judah, killed 10,000 Edomites in battle during one of his campaigns, and executed another 10,000 afterward by hurling them from the top of one of the cliffs of their capital city, Selah – later known as Petra (2^nd Chronicles 25:11-12).

But the act that drove the greatest wedge between the two nations seems to have been Edom’s jubilation over (and assistance in) the Babylonian conquest of Judah (Psalm 137:7, Ezekiel 25:12-14).  This, no doubt, is why the Edomites are the particular object of God’s wrath in this chapter of Isaiah.

v.7: I am not sure why the writer distinguishes between “wild” oxen and those seemingly domestic animals of v. 6.  (If the v.6 animals are supposed to be wild too, then why specify the oxen of v. 7 as wild?)  I feel certain that the animals marked for sacrifice in v. 6 represent the people of Edom in some respect.^[3] Perhaps, then, the wild oxen (young and old) represent some subset of Edomites, or some neighboring people who will share the same fate as the Edomites.  Regardless of whom the wild oxen represent, the image of sacrifice here and in v. 6 is really powerful, frightening and violent; I think it depicts the rage of God very well.

v. 9: Barnes and the Oxford commentary agree that the allusion here is to Sodom and Gomorrah.  See Jeremiah 49:17-18.

v. 10: Since Edom is not (I suppose) still literally smoking from the flames of burning pitch, at least some of this language must be hyperbole, or the allusion could be similar to that of the “everlasting flames” of 33:14.

v. 12: For some reason Luther’s version has an extra line of text that neither the King James version nor the NRSV has.  It reads, “Und Feldgeister werden darin wohnen, und seine Edlen werden nicht mehr sein,” which means, “and spirits of the field will live therein, and his (precious ones?) will be no more.”

v. 14: There are some odd creatures in this list of the future inhabitants of Edom.  One is a creature called a satyr, in the OKJ, a goat-demon in the NRSV, and a Feldgeist (field spirit) in Luther’s version.  Here is a very interesting point of irony: according to Strong’s Concordance, the Hebrew word here translated in these various ways is saiyr, the same word that all the translations (that I have) render as “hairy” in Genesis 27:11: “Look, my brother Esau is a hairyman.”  How odd that these hairy creatures should replace the children of Esau, the hairy man from whom the land of Edom derived its name.

As for what the creature actually is, I have no idea.  Most versions seem to translate the word as some sort of demon or creature out of mythology, like a satyr.^[4] According to Barnes, however, this is not necessary since the word basically means “hairy” and could be applied just as easily to a wild goat (260-261).

The word also occurs in chapter thirteen, which describes the destruction of Babylon in similar terms.^[5] I wonder if Isaiah intended to connect the two passages by using similar imagery?  Perhaps he meant to suggest that, since Edom sided with Babylon against Judah, Edom would share the fate of Babylon.

Another strange creature in this passage is the one translated as “Lilith” in the NRSV.  The oxford commentary reads this as “a malevolent, winged female demon, in later Jewish tradition identified as Adam’s first wife.” The OKJ translates it as “screech owl” or “night monster.”  Luther translates the word as Nachtgespenst (“Night Specter”).

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^[1] I am not sure what culture was responsible for the famous cliff-rock (Petra) carved architecture of this city.  The sources that Barnes quotes describe the style as Egyptian and Greek (296-297).

^[2] Esau also means “hairy.”

^[3] In the context of the chapter, I cannot imagine that the Edomites themselves literally sacrificed these animals to God, just as I cannot imagine that God literally and personally sacrificed animals like this to himself on this occasion. In fact, whenever this chapter addresses the literal fate of wild animals, they seem to come off rather well, having inherited the land of Edom as their home.  See vs. 11-17.

^[4] Just because Isaiah may have intended it to be a mythological creature does not necessarily mean that he believed in the literal existence of such things.  It may just be a poetical way of saying that the land would be the home of wild and dangerous things.  I can imagine a modern poet using similar language without actually believing in satyrs.  Then again, maybe Isaiah (as a member of his culture) falsely believed in the literal existence of such creatures.  In that case, I do not believe God would be lying to Isaiah to say that Edom would be the home of satyrs because he (God) would simply be using language and imagery that Isaiah would understand to convey the true statement: “Edom will be a wasteland inhabited only by wild and dangerous things.”  Perhaps God would use language similarly if he were speaking to a modern prophet to accommodate our modern constructs of how the world works.  For instance, we have invented the modern construct of gravity as an “impersonal force,” but gravity may not exist as such.  For instance, what if God himself is personally, actively responsible for the things we attribute to the impersonal force of gravity?  Would God be lying, then, if he incorporated our mistaken construct into some true message he had for us?  I do not believe so.  Finally, of course, it should be noted that the creature may have been real.  This would certainly be true of demons, anyway.

^[5] Not only does Isaiah say that Babylon will be inhabited by these goat-demons, but in 13:19, he also draws a parallel between the fate of Babylon and that of Sodom and Gomorrah, just as in v. 9 of this chapter he draws a parallel between the fate of Edom and that of Sodom and Gomorrah.