The 2nd and 3rd Books of Isaiah
Fall 2004 Bible Study
Second Isaiah 46-48
The 2nd and 3rd Books of Isaiah
Fall 2004 Bible Study
Second Isaiah 46-48
| "St. Joan of Arc Bible Study is an open and growing group that meets for fellowship and to discuss the Bible and other faith-centered literature. Our informal study group draws from biblical scholarship, historical perspectives, current events and personal reflections. We welcome honor and respect the personal ideas and spiritual journeys of all who join us." |
Hello, greetings and salutations from your long-lost cousin.
It has been a tough but rewarding past couple of weeks with our new business
venture and I have really missed not being with you all. I hope to join you
this coming Tuesday.
If you happened to miss this week, you missed a good one. (I have excellent
sources!) Our cousin, Cristana, led us on a thoroughly enjoyable journey of
chapters 46-48. Also, Cristina, would you please share what we missed for
treat time?
Oh sure, We had great cinnamon buns with cream cheese frosting from Vi!
Are u kidding me!!! I knew I would suffer grave consequences for missing
three weeks in a row! Yikes. Never again, never again. Thank you.
Now, here follows the overview...
October, 12th 2004
Cristina Monfardini
ISAIAH, 46-48
46, 1-13: Gods that are carried or the God who carries and saves?
46, 1-2: Here we go again with another of Second Isaiah's tirades against idols! ("The mocking song"). SI returns often to this issue because it represented a deadly threat to the spiritual existence of the people in exile. The tedious repetition is however lightened by the literary qualities of this chapter: "the chapter opens with a snapshot of a cult procession, that central part of the annual New Year's festival in which the cult objects were carried forth from the temple to circumambulate the walls of the city " (Hanson).
HOWEVER the beasts carrying the high gods of the Babylonian cult, Marduk (here under his traditional title Bel), god of the upper air and creation divinity, and Nebo (Marduk's son), the patron of scribes and the god of wisdom, are falling under their load and the gods are falling with them: the gods who are supposed to save their devotees, cannot save themselves, and they will fall with the city of Babylon.
Note the passive verbs (be borne, be carried) and the gods' incapacity to save!
How often do we worship idols that cannot save us(= make us really happy and content , make us fulfill our highest hopes and acts of compassion and justice )?
46, 3-4: The true God speaks (notice the imperative "Hear me" at 46, 3 and "Remember" at 46, 8) and the verbs' active forms define him: this God carries and bears his people. The verbs are both in the past and future tenses, indicating that the true God has always carried and always will carry his people to safety.
The choice has been placed before people: the passive gods of Babylon or the active God of the universe?
Can we recognize in our own life the presence of a God who has carried us and in whom we can completely put our hope and trust that he will always be there for us?
46, 5-7: To underline their difference, God's creation activity (verse 4b "It is I who have done this...") is seen against the goldsmith's making of a god from silver. The idol's worshipers fall down before the work of human hands, they bear and carry it, but the idol cannot answer them or save them from trouble.
How often do we worship the work of human hands, intellect, culture?
46, 8-10: The rebels (46, 8), the fainthearted (46, 12), namely the exiles, are summoned to remember that their one and only God is the God of history: he alone has foretold in the past and brought to fulfillment. Hope and faith are central here. "God's appeals to tradition is not to some static thing in the past, but to something living out of the past in the present, to the nation's continual experience of God in history" (Scullion). This interpretation of history revolves around faith in the divine promise: "I have planned it and, I will do it" (46, 11). "Hope guided by faith preserves those communities in times of trial by allowing them to see beyond tragedy and empowers them to be agents of divine purpose in acts of deliverance (root meaning righteousness) and salvation". How easy/difficult is to see the presence of God in history?
46, 11-13: He alone controls history, and that is what he is doing now: declaring, saying, calling. Among his calls is Cyrus, from a distant land, coming to save Israel. Do we hear our call form God? Do we accept that the leading forces, opening our eyes, could come from a distant land?
47, 1-15: The fall of Babylon and the failure of human illusion
47, 1-4: From the demise of the gods of Babylon to the demise of the city. This poem belongs to the type called oracles against the nations (see also Jer 46-51, Ezek 25-32 and other minor prophets), and a good number are against Babylon. Babylon is addressed in terms similar to those used by prophets and poets in addressing Jerusalem when it was threatened: they personify her as a young woman (the most helpless of the captives in ancient warfare), who is enslaved, put to hard labor, or raped.
Let's immediately say that historically this picture never realized: Babylon fell peacefully and bloodlessly, Cyrus paid due homage to Bel and Nebo, and the city remained important under the Persian empire. The prophet would probably have said that these details are not relevant to the judgments of Yahweh, since these are based on other things (we'll see them in a second). There is a lot of anger in this poem, there is not love of one's enemy! It reminds me of Jesus with the merchants in the temple.
How do we feel towards anger? Is it an important step in taking position or is it something to avoid as part of a violent attitude?
47, 5-7: Babylon passes from glory and acclamation to darkness and silence. She is no longer "Queen of the kingdoms" (47, 5). "Yahweh, the lord of history, delivered Israel into her hands and she didn't recognize this" (Scullion). Babylon took this as license to vaunt its power as if it were personal possession and not delegated authority: it is Babylon's arrogance that is to be punished. How could any nation claim to exercise power forever (47, 7)?. "The God who guides the historical destiny of nations chooses agents of divine purpose. They are servants. They are commissioned for specific tasks. They may be members of the Jewish community. They may be Assyrian kings or Babylonian rulers, they may be idols' worshipers... But whoever they are, they are not master or mistresses acting on their own authority and ruling forever. There is but one Forever: "For I am God, and there is no other: (46, 9)"" (Hanson).
There are 2 situations we can be in:
How often do we put ourselves as the center of everything? How often do we justify our behavior with "good" reasons (= we hide our selfish decisions behind false good reasons) forgetting that God and our conscience always see us? How often do we live in a false security (I am not talking about the homeland security!)?
47, 12-15: "...the noblest and the best that civilization can offer is ultimately incapable of securing safety and happiness... In spite of the highest achievements of science, the most advanced accomplishments of civilization, humanity is doomed if it does not recognize an "infinite qualitative distinction" between what is human and what is divine" (Hanson). It's normal to feel the divine/not human nature of something that is extraordinary (birth, death,...). But do we think that sometimes we can control things in a divine way? (Watch Kieslowski's first short movie from "Decalogue"!).
48, 1-22: The promise of God and the problems of his people
The chapter interweaves words of salvation to Israel with harsh charges against it. Some critics think that only the salvation theme belongs to SI (1a, 3, 5a, 6, 7a, 12-13, 14-16, 20-21), with the harsh additions being added by a later writer. Hanson however likes to think of this chapter as a unit, showing a SI that is a more subtle thinker than the above critics' prophet, and this is why: "In Isaiah 48 the prophet addresses a human condition that is filled with ambiguity. Even the promises of God at a time of renewed hope retain a bittersweet quality given the inconsistency of human commitment...This chapter reflects the prophet's realistic awareness of the convolution of the human response to divine initiative". (Hanson) Remember that in previous chapters we already noticed that Israel is at the same time "the light of nations" and a "blind servant, a deaf messenger"? God's call is underlined by verbs like "to hear" (10x), "to call" (6x), "to speak" (2x), "to declare or to tell" (6x), "name" (6x), while Israel is now defined as "without sincerity or justice (1), stubborn (4) treacherous (8), rebel (8)". So God is calling but Israel is not responding.
48, 1-2: Yahweh addresses the people as Jacob, Israel, Judah, 3 names with ancestral, religious and tribal history and with associations of election, blessing, solidarity, promises. The context is that of Israel's long tradition of worship, but their lives have not been lived in accordance with the spirit of their worship, so now "Israel, in spite of its covenantal background, has come precariously close to matching the self-delusions of Babylon" (Hanson). Notice how 48, 1 ("Hear this, o house of Jacob") recalls 47, 8 ("Hear this, voluptuous one", =Babylon).
We have already noticed that the same verbs, adjectives, images used for Babylon, the worshipers of idols etc are often used to also describe Israel, and that is because Israel (we) can become or are in part like Babylon, we are stubborn, we don't hear, we are deaf. How stubborn are we?
48, 3-8: "Things of the past I foretold (48, 3)...from now on I announce new things (48, 6)" How did Israel respond? For some critics there is inconsistency between 6a and 8, for others the interpretation could be that Israel heard/hears, but it didn't/doesn't understand. The prophet is saying that Israel has not learnt, Israel hears but doesn't listen. Do we learn from our pats experiences?
48, 9-11: God is angry at Israel, but he holds back his anger. Why does God forgive Israel and not Babylon?
48, 12-16: God speaks here as the everlasting one (48, 12), the creator (48, 13) the lord of history (48, 14), the one who effects the accomplishment of Cyrus' work (48, 14), the one who does not act in secret (48, 16. The pronoun "I" occurs 7x to stress Yahweh's personal interest and interaction in Israel's life.
48, 16: "In contrast to the Babylonian religion, which excluded participation of common folk from the process of religious interpretation, prophetic faith is held up to public scrutiny and discussion... God and Cyrus: God is present in the contemporary world". (Hanson) 48, 16: is the prophet speaking? Not clear.
Speak in the open! How do we do it both for Scriptures interpretation and for the important issues of society? Are we afraid of not being mainstream?
48, 17-19: The familiar epithets "Lord", "Redeemer", "Holy one of Israel" make a passionate appeal to the heart of Israel to follow the way (both geographical and spiritual) prepared by Yahweh.
How do we distinguish God's way from our way (especially when we are so good in disguising it under the mask of God)?
48, 20-22: A culminating invitation, a specific command to leave Babylon (whatever Babylon means in our lives) and to announce that God was/is (former things /new things) with us in our journey and never let/lets us without water (=Spirit).
Do we have the strength to eradicate, re-root, and uproot ourselves (remember Michael Fox's book?), trusting completely in God?
This chapter is important for the prophet's realism, "for its warnings that the promises of God are ever threatened by the obstinacy, and rebelliousness would continue to be painfully relevant in years to come. For as we shall see in chapters 56-66 the promise did not unfold in a dream-like romance but in the bitter struggles that are ever a part of the human condition". (Hanson)
Thank you very much Cristina!
Also for next week:
Chapters 49-51
Ciao a tutti!
Rik Murray
(612) 872-8694