Isaiah 1-39

By Walter Brueggemann

In this volume, Walter Brueggemann writes on Isaiah 1-39, which many scholars believe had a single author, Isaiah, of the eighth century BCE, who wrote in the context of the Assyrian empire between 742 and 701.

Books in the Westminster Bible Companion series assist laity in their study of the Bible as a guide to Christian faith and practice. Each volume explains the biblical book in its original historical context and explores its significance for faithful living today. These books are ideal for individual study and for Bible study classes and groups.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 1998
• ISBN: 9781611644876

Walter Brueggemann

Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, he is the author of dozens of books, including Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out, and Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age.

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Introduction

The book of Isaiah is like a mighty oratorio whereby Israel sings its story of faith. Like any oratorio, this one includes interaction among many voices, some of which are in dissent. Like any oratorio, this work requires a rendering; and because each interpretive rendering (including this one) takes on a peculiar character, no one rendering may claim to be the correct one. Like any oratorio, moreover, this one conveys its primary themes with great authority, so that they persist through the vagaries of many imaginative interpretations. In this oratorio, a primary theme is the predominant and constant character of Yahweh, who looms over the telling in holy sovereignty and in the faithful gentleness of a comforting nursemaid. All said, the book of Isaiah is a remarkable artistic achievement wherein the artistry is a match for the awesome, inscrutable Character whose tale it tells.

In broad sweep, the story told in the book of Isaiah is the long account of Israel’s life in the midst of a demanding sequence of imperial powers. The book of Isaiah has in its purview an international geopolitical horizon. The book traverses the chronology of the Assyrian Empire from the incursions of Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 B.C.E. [Before Common Era—formerly known as B.C.]) to the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in 701; the Babylonian Empire under the domination of Nebuchadrezzar; and the radically altered policies of the Persian Empire under Cyrus that resulted in a benign support of emerging Judaism. The interaction between Judah and the several imperial powers is a key element in the staging of the story.

The book of Isaiah, however, is not simply a telling of the political story of Judah, nor of the sequence of superpowers. It is not in the end an act of political theory or of history. What makes this rendering of Judah’s life distinctive is that the story is told with unfailing attentiveness to Yahweh, who is reckoned to be the primal player in the life of Judah and in the life of the world around Judah. The book of Isaiah, with wondrous artistry, manages to hold together the realities of lived public history in that ancient world and the inscrutable reality of Yahweh, who is said here to impinge decisively in that history. Thus the book of Isaiah is neither history in any modern sense of the term nor theology in any conventional way.

The convergence of history and theology here results in a quite distinctive genre of documentation for which the best term we have is prophecy. Prophecy in this context may be understood as a redescription of the public processes of history through which the purposes of Yahweh are given in human utterance. As a consequence, any human decision—whether by Judean kings or by imperial overlords or by authorized priests—is reckoned to be penultimate, for what is ultimate is the resolve of Yahweh and the capacity of Yahweh to do something utterly new in such processes that appear to be settled and autonomous. Yahweh, as given us in the Isaiah tradition, is endlessly surprising, disjunctive, and elusive, so that the book of Isaiah does not yield a smooth presentation of sovereignty, but proceeds by disjunctive fits and starts, some unbearably harsh and some astonishingly healing. The hearer of the book of Isaiah must endlessly marvel at a text that dares to make this Disjunctive One available through artistic imagination, with the nuts and bolts of Judean history following meekly in the wake of that Holy Resolve.

The horizon of long-term international history and the cruciality of Yahweh for the telling of that history are even more focused, however, for in the end the book of Isaiah is an oratorio about the suffering and destiny of Jerusalem. The city is regarded as the center of Yahweh’s peculiar attentiveness, as the seat of the world’s best hopes for well-being, and as the site of the most profound disobedience and recalcitrance. Jerusalem is taken in this tradition as an epitome of Yahweh’s creation, which owes its life to Yahweh and which seeks with great resourcefulness to have a life other than the one Yahweh would give.

It is Jerusalem that is under judgment and that draws the negating attention of Yahweh (3:1, 8). It is Jerusalem that is addressed in exile, in recognition of its need and in assurance commensurate with its need (40:2; 44:28). It is Jerusalem that is imagined healed, restored, ransomed, forgiven (65:18–19). It is Jerusalem, the meeting place of divine will and historical reality, that is the recipient of Yahweh’s judgment and Yahweh’s renewing comfort and mercy. All of this is described at the outset, where the whole course of Jerusalem and the entire sequence of the book are laid out (1:21–27).

We late Western, Christian readers of course are not in Jerusalem. We read only at a distance. But we continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for as peace comes there, we shall all be made whole.

MODELS OF INTERPRETATION

The book of Isaiah has been assessed through a variety of approaches, of which we may identify three quite distinct models:

1. A pre-critical, or traditional, understanding, still found in some quite conservative scholarship, keeps the entire book of Isaiah connected to the prophet Isaiah of the eighth century B.C.E. Much of the first part of the book refers beyond question to such a historical character. But with equal clarity it is certain that much of the later part of the book refers to circumstances and events long after the lifetime of the prophet. This reality poses no problem for what is essentially the traditional approach, for with the genre of prophecy, it is entirely credible to judge that the eighth-century prophetic figure, by special grace as a prophet, was able to anticipate all that comes subsequently in the book. There is nothing intrinsically impossible about such an approach. It is nonetheless important to note that with the rise of modern theories of knowledge and specifically given historical criticism, such an approach has been commonly rejected in the interpretive world represented by this series and by the church traditions related to it.

2. A critical understanding of the book of Isaiah is reflective of the intellectual world of the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that focused on historical issues. Scripture interpretation in such a posture sought to situate every book of the Bible and every major part of every book of the Bible in an appropriate historical context. As concerns the book of Isaiah, long and sophisticated historical study produced a longstanding scholarly consensus that is still found in most informed books on Isaiah.

According to that critical consensus, chapters 1—39 are linked to Isaiah of the eighth century B.C.E. in the context of the Assyrian Empire between 742 and 701. Chapters 40—55 are commonly dated to 540, just at the moment when the rising Persian Empire displaced the brutal and hated domination of Babylon. And chapters 56—66 are dated later, perhaps 520, when Jews who had returned from exile went about the critical and difficult task of reshaping the community of faith after its long, exilic jeopardy.

The judgments made in this approach concerning the divisions of the book of Isaiah, now referred to by the shorthand references First Isaiah, Second Isaiah, and Third Isaiah, largely continue to dominate scholarship. The gain of such an approach is the insistence that the theological claims of the text are evoked by and addressed to particular, sometimes recoverable, historical situations. Unfortunately, the assigning of parts of the book of Isaiah to particular historical contexts has led to an inadvertent judgment that the Three Isaiahs only exist back-to-back as an editorial convenience, but without integral connection to each other.

3. Although a critical understanding of the book continues to be nearly unanimous among interpreters, by the end of the twentieth century, with some critical distance from the assumptions about knowledge that seemed to be givens, it is not surprising that scholarly attention and energy have more recently moved away from common critical judgments in a canonical direction. The canonical study of the book of Isaiah continues to recognize that the book is a literary complexity. Representative of the newer approaches are the essays in New Visions of Isaiah, edited by Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney. A canonical approach is not a return to a traditional approach. The newer perspective seeks to understand the final form of the complex text as an integral statement offered by the shapers of the book for theological reasons.

This approach by scholars is relatively recent, and a great deal more work is yet to be done in this regard. To illustrate this perspective that seeks to relate elements of the book that critical judgment has separated, I cite two cases.

First, many scholars have pointed to the theme of former things and new things, as in 43:18–19:

Do not remember the former things,

or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

When attention is paid to this theme, it may be noticed in 9:1 (former time . . . latter time), in what is likely an early text, and in 65:16–17 (former troubles . . . former things), surely a late text. That is, the theme is evident in every major part of the book. It is argued in a canonical perspective that former things refers to the harsh judgments of Yahweh culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Exile, and latter things are the promises of Yahweh for the restoration after the Exile. When these historical matters are related to the literature of the book of Isaiah, they correlate as former things in the judgment texts of chapters 1—39 and the latter things as the promises of chapters 40—66. Matters are much more complex than this, but the themes provide a guiding principle for interpreters that gives primary attention not to apparent historical contexts but to the shape of the canonical literature.

A second gain of the canonical approach is in a study of the call narrative of 6:1–10 (11–12). Whereas earlier scholarship has treated this text as the report of an intense personal experience of the prophet, canonical perspective takes the text as a literary-canonical marker whereby Yahweh’s harsh verdict against Jerusalem is commended:

‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

keep looking, but do not understand.’

Make the mind of this people dull,

and stop their ears,

and shut their eyes,

so that they may not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and comprehend with their minds,

and turn and be healed.

The intention that Israel should not turn and be healed is a governing motif of chapters 1—39. Such a perspective invites the thought that 40:1–11, also a report of a heavenly consultation, announces the gospel of forgiveness (vv. 2–9) that governs chapters 40—66. Thus 6:1–10 (11–12) and 40:1–11 are taken as parallel declarations whereby the large themes of judgment and promise that permeate the book of Isaiah are rooted in visions of heavenly decision making. The assumption, moreover, is that whatever personal, psychological experience may lie behind these two texts, they now function primarily as literary points of reference in the larger canonical book.

The canonical approach, which is only at the beginning of its interpretive work, draws upon historical-critical gains but moves beyond them toward theological interpretation. This latter perspective is the one in which I have tried to work in this study.

DIRECTIONS OF INTERPRETATION

The book of Isaiah is such a rich, dense, and complex work that it is open for interpretation in various directions:

1. The book of Isaiah has been a fertile interpretive field for Christian theology. Positively, one may say that the book of Isaiah is enormously generative and suggestive, and therefore it is open for being drawn into a variety of interpretive molds, among them that of Christian faith. But it must always be recognized that much Christian reading has flatly preempted the text and forced upon the text readings that are far removed from its seemingly clear intent. Readers of Isaiah who are situated in the Christian church would do well to read representative Christian interpreters. For example, John Calvin’s impressive commentary moves, characteristically, directly into christological interpretation whereby references to Israel are routinely taken to refer to the church. We likely need to relearn both how to make such an interpretive move and to notice the preemptive quality of such a maneuver.

Consideration should be given to the remarkable book of John F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity, which explores Christian usage of the book of Isaiah through the history of reading. Sawyer traverses the entire theological-liturgical tradition of the church and pays attention to such focal themes as Virgin Birth, Suffering Servant, and Messiah. The title of the book reflects the claim of early teachers in the church who concluded that along with the four Gospels of the New Testament, Isaiah is a gospel that fully contains the crucial claims of Christian faith.

2. It is a matter of considerable importance, in my judgment, that Christians should not preempt the book of Isaiah. It is legitimate to see how the book of Isaiah fed, nurtured, and evoked Christian imagination with reference to Jesus. But that is very different from any claim that the book of Isaiah predicts or specifically anticipates Jesus. Such a preemption, as has often occurred in the reading of the church, constitutes not only a failure to respect Jewish readers, but is a distortion of the book itself. It is strongly preferable, I suggest, that Jews and Christians together recognize that the book of Isaiah is enormously and generatively open in more than one direction. No interpretive tradition is able to monopolize and close interpretation. This is a difficult and important question to which respectful attention must be paid.

3. Beyond the particular Christian claims the church might make, it is important to recognize that the book of Isaiah provides a large rereading of historical reality that is strikingly pertinent to the current condition of Western culture. On that pertinence, I commend especially Daniel Berrigan’s Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears. Berrigan’s rereading is uncommonly poignant and makes immediate contact with our human crisis.

The map of Israel’s life in the book of Isaiah is broadly preexilic/exilic/postexilic. Although those labels refer to actual historical crises in the ancient world, it is possible to see that this sequence around displacement and restoration is peculiarly pertinent in our particular time and place. The displacement (and subsequent exile) is a credible way to characterize Western culture, given the collapse of traditional certitudes and the demise of a covenantal social infrastructure (see Walter Brueggemann, Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles). Western culture now faces a displacement that may indeed be expressed as an exile (see Frederick Buechner, The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections). And like the book of Isaiah, serious people are now disputatiously engaged in a struggle for the shape of the future, the outcome of whose struggles we are not able to see. One cannot, in reading Isaiah, disregard the concrete particularity of the text and simply read past that concreteness. But one can read through the concrete particularity into our own time and place, for it turns out that our time and place is much like that time and place. Believing people (Jews and Christians), moreover, dare to imagine that the same Holy One who acted in that time and place in disruptive and embracing ways still continues to disrupt and embrace even now. Thus the relevance of the text is evident. It cannot be arrived at too easily, but it is an insistent relevance that cannot be put off for too long either.

4. In the end, the book of Isaiah has continuing power among us, not because of historical critical judgments or because of canonical discernments, but because of the theological stuff of the text, given as image, theme, and phrase. This text tradition that insists upon the centrality of the Holy One is a gospel (40:9; 41:27; 52:7; 61:1). It is news about what God has decided, decreed, and is doing that makes a decisive difference in the world. It is a summons to faith (7:9; 30:15) that insists that Yahweh be relied upon in every circumstance of life. The gospel to be received in faith is an offer of comfort (40:1; 49:13; 51:3; 52:98; 61:2; 66:13) in the midst of every crisis. Such claims are endlessly problematic in a time and place such as ours, where the credibility of such gospel claims is difficult. I hazard that such claims are no more problematic now than they were when first asserted. But such a problematic does not deter the voice of the text and its claims. When circumstance is taken too seriously, either in self-confidence or in despair, the text keeps ringing in our doubting ears:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

(55:8–9)

1."Holy, Holy, Holy

Is the Lord of Hosts"

Isaiah 1—12

It is conventional to regard the initial twelve chapters of the book of Isaiah (along with chapters 28—31) as the primary work of the eighth-century prophet Isaiah. Certainly, the editorial notice of 1:1 situates the material in the eighth century. Moreover, the specific confrontation with King Ahaz (7:1–25) and the frequent references to Assyria (7:17, 20; 8:4, 7–8; 10:5–15; 11:16) anchor this material and its speaker, Isaiah, in the latter half of the eighth century. There is no doubt of the historicity of the events reflected therein, nor of the prophet Isaiah, nor of the utterances assigned to him. It is evident that the person of Isaiah occupied defining space in the theological memory, hope, and imagination of Israel.

However, primary attention is now given by scholars not to the initial utterances of the prophet but to the final form of the text as we have it. That is, editorial work by many hands over a long period of time has shaped and reshaped prophetic utterance in order to create a theological message that has been durable and canonical in Judaism. Although that theology is surely seeded by the eighth-century prophet, there is no doubt that the completed theological claim of the book of Isaiah runs well beyond the initial utterance of the eighth century. We may, moreover, see this canonical achievement on exhibit even in chapters 1—12, which are commonly thought to be the primary work of eighth-century Isaiah.

The work of eighth-century Isaiah, with particular reference to King Ahaz and the crisis of the Syro-Ephraimite war (Judah’s war with Syria and Israel) is to summon Judah to radical trust in Yahweh, the God of Israel. But because the king and those around him did not share that trust in Yahweh, they succumbed to Assyrian power. The prophet took submission to Assyrian power to be a wholesale rejection of Yahweh, which inevitably brought Yahweh’s wrath upon the city of Jerusalem. This deeply negative verdict upon eighth-century Jerusalem is funded and reinforced by what must have been a shared prophetic conviction (shared at least by his contemporary, Amos) that disregard of Yahweh’s will in public life leads to subsequent trouble in public life. It is this ethical linkage that constitutes the core of prophetic discernment.

Because Isaiah trusts in Yahweh’s fidelity, however, this prophetic tradition has difficulty accepting that Yahweh in wrath will finally terminate the beloved city and its people. So there continues to sound, amidst the harsh judgment, the assertion of Yahweh’s resolve to do newness that is grounded not in Israel’s merit or repentance but in Yahweh’s own determination. And beyond the rootage of the prophet in the David-Zion traditions of graciousness, there is no doubt that later editorial work in the Isaiah tradition had on its horizon not only the destruction of Jerusalem in the sixth century but the modest recovery of the city at the end of the sixth and into the fifth century. Those historical realities thus provide substance for the theological conviction of Yahweh’s judgment and Yahweh’s renewing mercy. Thus, both rootage in traditions of prophetic rigor and David-Zion hope and the lived experience of displacement and homecoming together produced in the Isaiah tradition a two-stage presentation of Yahweh-with-Jerusalem: two stages of judgment and renewal. In later Isaiah, this becomes a prominent theme concerning the former things and a new thing (43:18–19). What is remarkable is that this scheme for the final form of the text, which is especially influential in the later tradition of Isaiah, is already decisive for the shaping of chapters 1—12, which are most clearly linked to Isaiah in the eighth century.

As a consequence of this editorial conviction rooted in both theological tradition and lived experience, we are able to see that this two-stage pattern is decisive for chapters 1—12. Thus, after the orientating statement of 1:1, the book of Isaiah presents a long introductory speech of judgment (1:2–31) that is followed by the powerful promise of 2:1–4. In parallel fashion, the extended speech of judgment in 2:5—4:1 culminates with the promise of 4:2–6 concerning the returning remnant. Things are more complicated in the middle portion of 5:1–9:7, but we notice even here that the culminating verdict of distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish (8:22) constitutes the former time (9:1), which is followed by the latter time (9:1), articulated in the exuberant promise of 9:2–7. And in the judgment speech of 9:8–10:4 we are reassured by the hope of a remnant in 10:5–27a, when Assyria is to be overcome in a very little while. (The pattern in 5:1–10:27a is not as clear as elsewhere.) The final statement of judgment in 10:27b—34 is answered by the series of promissory assertions in 11:1—16 and most especially by the visionary oracle of 11:1–9.

Thus we are able to see that the primary tone of these chapters, largely from the eighth century, is judgment. But that harsh judgment is decisively punctuated and reshaped by the promises of 2:1–4; 4:2–6; 9:2–7; and 11:1–9, together with other less formidable affirmations in 10:5–27a and 11:10–16. In the final form of the text, there is no doubt that the promise prevails. The tradition of Isaiah, already in chapters 1—12, refuses to give finality to the harsh judgment that is so palpable and that cannot be denied. In the end, it is not the pain of the historical process but the wonder of Yahweh’s resolve that will carry the day. For that reason, this daring and massive statement culminates in the unreserved, celebrative, exuberant doxology of chapter 12.

It is difficult to know how much of the material of hope comes from the prophet of the eighth century and how much is later editorial work. It seems clear that the prophet himself is grounded in traditions that permit hope in the face of dire circumstance. However that matter may be decided, the finished literary product that became canon is—as it always is in the production of biblical literature—a combination of deeply rooted, tenacious tradition, which already has its mind made up, and poignantly faced, honestly embraced lived experience. These two together—tradition and experience—produce what becomes the normative claim of faith in the book of Isaiah. What is said is honestly impinged upon by lived reality, but there is more at work here than what the world notices about reality.

The book of Isaiah, then, including chapters 1—12, is theology. That is, it has a determined perspective on reality with Yahweh at its center. The two-stage presentation of Yahweh’s life with Jerusalem, the former times and the latter times, is as important a resource for Christians as it is for Jews. That two-stage perception, so profoundly formative for the book of Isaiah, was readily taken up by Christians in the acknowledgment of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It is for that reason that the promises offered by the Isaiah tradition are so readily reread with reference to Jesus. In doing so, it is important for Christians to keep in mind that we are second readers and that our reading is always a rereading.

AN OVERTURE OF THE MAIN THEMES 1:1–2:4

This opening presentation provides an overture to the entire book of Isaiah. As we will see, the book of Isaiah reflects upon, interprets, and shapes Israel’s imagination over a long sweep of the history of Jerusalem—from royal prosperity through exilic displacement to modest rehabilitation. The present first chapter has all of this sweep in purview and enunciates the themes that will be predominant in all that is to follow. The book of Isaiah is fully aware of the historical and geopolitical vagaries that beset Jerusalem. It insists, however, upon redescribing those ups and downs with primary reference to the character and resolve of Yahweh, the God of Israel, whom it regards as the primary agent in the destiny of Jerusalem.

Locating the Book (1:1)

1:1 The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Like many of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah begins with an editorial comment that situates the book to follow. In good journalistic fashion, we are quickly given four pieces of who, when, what data. First, the source is Isaiah, son of Amoz. We know nothing about this historical personage except what can be deduced from the book itself. Moreover, if Isaiah is understood as a historical figure (as seems beyond dispute), then this verse pertains only to portions of the book found in chapters 1—39, for it is clear that subsequent chapters are situated well after the eighth-century figure.

Second, the subject of what follows is Judah and Jerusalem. We will be able to see that each part of the long sweep of the book is indeed preoccupied with Jerusalem and Judah, in life and in death; that is, in monarchic Israel and in exile, and then in the new life finally given to Jerusalem after the Exile.

Third, the time line offered concerns four kings. Of these, Jotham is relatively unimportant and does not figure in the book of Isaiah (cf. 2 Kings 15:32–38). His father, Uzziah (= Azariah), was a notably strong king whose long reign was prosperous (2 Kings 15:1–7), though he seems only to provide the entry point for the ministry of Isaiah (cf. Isa. 6:1). Thus, of the four kings named, only two figure significantly in the book that follows. Ahaz is commonly regarded as a weak ruler and, from a Yahwistic perspective, vacillating and eventually unfaithful (734—715; cf. 2 Kings 16:1–20). His son Hezekiah is commonly assessed as a strong, independent, and reliable king, a sharp contrast to his father (715–697?; cf. 2 Kings 18:1–20:21). Hezekiah receives extended, favorable treatment in the biblical recounting of Israel’s history. The two kings together provide a backdrop for the prophet, who is situated in royal history but not defined by it. These two kings, in fact, pertain to only a brief slice of the apparent chronology of the book of Isaiah (735–690) and perhaps are regarded editorially, in the larger sweep of the book, as symbols for weak Yahwism and strong Yahwism, postures of faith and power with which prophetic faith must contend in every context in every generation.

From a historical perspective, Ahaz and Hezekiah are reference points in the monarchic period, that is, in the eighth century. Ahaz models a weak king who jeopardizes the realm, and Hezekiah models a strong king who enhances the realm. Although the book of Isaiah undertakes specific monarchic history, however, it characteristically looks past monarchic history with one eye in order to keep in mind the larger sweep of the history of Jerusalem that extends through the end of monarchy (up to 587), through the Exile (587–537), and into the postexilic period (perhaps as far as 520).

It is for that reason necessary (and demanding) to read Isaiah with a bifocal vision, focused both on near history and on far history, both viewed from a deeply committed Yahwistic perspective. Read in the long perspective of the book of Isaiah, Ahaz is a metaphor for the refusal of Jerusalem to trust Yahweh, whereby Israel comes to failure and exile; conversely, Hezekiah is a metaphor for the trust that Israel may have in Yahweh, which makes possible an enduring communal existence into and beyond exile. Thus the data of verse 1 offer both historical particularity and a more generalizing model, and the reader must always attend to both, even as the text itself seems characteristically to attend to both at the same time.

Fourth, we are told that what follows in the book of Isaiah is a vision. The book of Isaiah presents itself as testimony to the presence and purpose of Yahweh. We are put on notice of a peculiar presentation of history that has Yahweh’s holiness at its center. We may anticipate, for that reason, that what follows will not accommodate itself to any conventional notion of historical reality or political possibility.

Chapters 1—4 together prepare us for an extraordinary redescription of historical experience viewed in terms of Jerusalem’s God-given, God-governed destiny. Although we have an interest in the human voice that testifies, this first verse invites us to look beyond Isaiah to the true Subject of the vision and the real Author of Jerusalem’s destiny, who is Yahweh.

An Initial Negative Judgment (1:2–3)

1:2  Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth;

for the LORD has spoken:

I reared children and brought them up,

but they have rebelled against me.

³ The ox knows its owner,

and the donkey its master’s crib;

but Israel does not know,

my people do not understand.

These two verses provide a basic theme by which to enter the book. They consist in a summons to heaven and earth (v. 2 a), an affirmation of Yahweh’s generous attentiveness (v. 2 b), and an indictment of unresponsive, recalcitrant Israel (v. 3). The force of the two verses is to assert that the situation between Yahweh and my people, as the book begins, is one of disruption, alienation, and contradiction. The book of Isaiah is evoked by an assertion on Yahweh’s part that Israel, in its willful stupidity, has disrupted what might have been an amiable, reliable, sustaining relationship.

The call to heaven and earth is a rhetorical assertion of indignation on Yahweh’s part. Yahweh summons cosmic witnesses to observe the mess that has become of the relationship with my people. Because Yahwism is monotheistic, Yahweh cannot summon other gods to observe, and so instead summons the most formidable of creatures, heaven and earth. Israel’s failure in its response to Yahweh is a matter of cosmic concern, now made evident to the whole known world.

In the abrasion now made cosmically public, Yahweh is not at fault. Indeed, Yahweh has been a caring, attentive parent who brought Israel to adulthood. The two verbs reared and brought up suggest nurture that brought a child—small, weak, and vulnerable—to strong viability (cf. Hos. 11:1–3). The verbs serve to acquit Yahweh of any wrongdoing in the relationship.

By contrast, Israel is completely responsible for the disruption. Israel rebelled. The term is one of an active resistance. Israel has intentionally refused a relationship with Yahweh that is proper and indispensable to its very character. In verse 3, the poetry employs a telling image to further expose Israel. Yahweh’s relationship to Israel is like that of an owner of an ox or a donkey. The animal is completely dependent, and the owner is completely reliable. The animal unreservedly trusts the owner, trusts even though such animals are not excessively bright or discerning. It is first nature (not second nature) for a donkey or an ox to know instinctively that to survive depends upon trust of the master. Israel, by contrast, refuses this most elemental relationship of trust upon which everything depends, and has indeed sloughed off the very relationship that would make its life viable. Israel is dumb, to its own hurt. Unlike a knowing donkey, Israel will starve to death by rejecting its master. What a way to begin a book of the Bible!

Primary Themes of Guilt, Punishment, and Rejection (1:4–17)

1:4  Ah, sinful nation,

people laden with iniquity,

offspring who do evil,

children who deal corruptly,

who have forsaken the LORD,

who have despised the Holy One of Israel,

who are utterly estranged!

⁵ Why do you seek further beatings?

Why do you continue to rebel?

The whole head is sick,

and the whole heart faint.

⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head,

there is no soundness in it,

but bruises and sores

and bleeding wounds;

they have not been drained, or bound up,

or softened with oil.

⁷ Your country lies desolate,

your cities are burned with fire;

in your very presence

aliens devour your land;

it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.

⁸ And daughter Zion is left

like a booth in a vineyard,

like a shelter in a cucumber field,

like a besieged city.

⁹ If the LORD of hosts

had not left us a few survivors,

we would have been like Sodom,

and become like Gomorrah.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD,

you rulers of Sodom!

Listen to the teaching of our God,

you people of Gomorrah!

¹¹ What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

says the LORD;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

or of lambs, or of goats.

¹² When you come to appear before me,

who asked this from your hand?

Trample my courts no more;

¹³ bringing offerings is futile;

incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—

I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed festivals

my soul hates;

they have become a burden to me,

I am weary of bearing them.

¹⁵ When you stretch out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen;

your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶ Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your doings

from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,

¹⁷ learn to do good;

seek justice,

rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,

plead for the widow.

The theme of rebellion, announced in verses 2–3, is now explicated in great detail. This extended poem, a characteristic lawsuit speech whereby Yahweh indicts and then sentences Israel, consists of four elements: a general indictment (v. 4), a lament about Israel’s true and pitiful situation (vv. 5–9), a refusal to heed Israel in time of need (vv. 10–15), and a summons to reformation (vv. 16–17).

Verse 4 follows the general indictment of verses 2b—3 with a massive, comprehensive catalogue of the full Old Testament inventory of vocabulary for sin. The people is said to be sinful, with iniquity. These two terms, together with rebel in verse 2, form the primary triad for sin in the Old Testament. They are followed in the third and fourth lines of the verse with two other general terms, do evil and deal corruptly, after which come two very strong, active verbs, forsake and despise. For the purposes of our study, it is not necessary to differentiate among these several terms. What counts is the cumulative force of the whole of the vocabulary. In as many ways as is possible, the poem asserts that Israel is fully turned against Yahweh, against the relationship that promises life. The last line of verse 4 is a difficult phrase. In its place it seems to make a climactic claim that Israel has become completely alien (other) to Yahweh, the very God with whom it had an intimate relationship. All of that relationship has been forfeited, so that Israel is now alone—made so by its own stubbornness.

In this verse, we may notice two other matters. One is the first mention (of many to follow in the book) of Yahweh as the Holy One of Israel. The phrase is a poignant one. It acknowledges at the same time that (a) Yahweh is indeed linked intimately to Israel, but (b) Yahweh is holy, that is, awesome, unapproachable, and not to be presumed upon. The phrase is a kind of contradiction, witnessing to the dangerous freedom of Yahweh and to the disastrous future Israel generates for itself by its Yahweh-mocking conduct. Finally, the verse is introduced by an exclamatory ah. The translation ah is much too weak. The older translation woe more nearly voices the ominous tone of what follows. Israel is put on notice, at the very outset, that its life with Yahweh has become acutely problematic. As a result, its life in the world is deeply at risk. The poet prepares us to watch while this beloved creature of Yahweh engages in self-destruction.

In verses 5–8, the consequences of the actions of verse 4 are now explicated. The poet first appeals to a metaphor of deep wound and sickness. The body politic of Judah is profoundly weak and ailing, from head to foot. There is no soundness (health, wholeness), for its body has become all bruises, sores, and wounds. These wounds, moreover, are unattended. Judah may not have noticed, but Judah is in a very bad way, near to death.

In verse 7, the metaphor of verses 5–6 is unpacked. The poetry concerns the land of Judah and its cities. The land is occupied, presumably (as we will see) by the Assyrians. Like every occupying army, the Assyrians do their share of burning, looting, and devouring. (The term for foreigners here is the same as estranged in verse 4.) Things have gone terribly wrong. The land is disrupted by war and alien presence, when what is intended was a peaceable land shared only by Israel and Yahweh. The military occupation is not only physically dangerous; it is abhorrent to those who imagined a peaceable vision. Indeed, daughter Zion (v. 8), or Jerusalem, stands alone and exposed with all the land leveled around it. The city stands exposed on the landscape, like a garden booth in a patch of vines, dangerously obvious and therefore vulnerable. Scholars believe that this verse may allude to the Assyrian invasion under Sennacherib when the land was massively devastated. Thus the occupying Assyrian army is deftly identified as a consequence of Israel’s rebellion against Yahweh. At the same time, in the larger scope of the book, the text looks beyond Assyria to the ultimate devastation of the Babylonians. Both devastations and all devastators are present to the imagination of the poet.

In verse 9 the poet makes a remarkable move. Judah faces the Lord of hosts, a phrase perhaps better translated here as the God of the troops. The Holy One of Israel is, in Yahweh’s own person, a dangerous military power. The warring

Reviews for Isaiah 1-39

[thinkneil · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very approachable commentary on Isaiah by Brueggemann. It avoids getting caught in the weeds and comments more casually on the canonical picture of what is going on in Isaiah. Brueggemann also doesn't stretch, admitting the places where scholars are just not sure. Even though this portion of Isaiah can be a bit oppressive, the commentary does a good job of linking the messages of woe and hope together