A Right Messy Text!

Last updated on: December 5, 2016 at 3:16 pm by John C Holbert

A Right Messy Text! 2016-12-05T15:16:13-05:00 John C Holbert

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800px-120.The_Prophet_Isaiah (Lectionary for December 18, 2016)

I have long found it nothing less than peculiar that this particular text has become the stuff of biblical legend. The text itself is a very odd, pseudo-historical mishmash, the subject of vast scholarly commentary, furious denominational debate, and the cause of more than a few trials for heresy! A roaring tempest in a teapot, say I!

The source of a good deal of the brouhaha is to be found in the rather innocuous looking 7:14. Here is the NRSV: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel.” I might read as follows: “Even the Lord will give to you (pl) a sign. Look! The young woman is pregnant, and will bear a son, and will name him ‘God with us.’” And the more specific source of the messy after-history of the text is that word “young woman,” (‘almah in Hebrew). This is a relatively rare word in the Hebrew Bible, occurring with certainty only seven times. Not a single one of those times suggests that it ought to translated “virgin.” ‘almah, as far as we may conclude from so few examples, means a “young woman of marriageable age” or as my venerable Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew lexicon suggests, a woman who is “ripe sexually.” Hebrew has a word for virgin, bethulah, but it is not the word used here.

The real trouble began when the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew appeared sometime in the 3rd century BCE under the new linguistic demands of the astonishing spread of Greek throughout the Mediterranean basin. It translated ‘almah with the Greek word parthenos, a word that may mean “virgin,” though does not always carry that connotation. Matthew’s gospel, quoting the Septuagint passage from Isaiah in his usual attempt to connect his story of Jesus with the only Bible he knew, read parthenos at Mt. 1:23 with the Septuagint, and started the doctrinal wars over whether or not Jesus had, in fact, been born miraculously from the womb of a virgin. I imagine Matthew would have been astonished to witness what his simple quotation unleashed. He merely had in mind his belief that Jesus’s birth was the fulfillment of what Isaiah had promised so long ago and not some conviction that the birth was in any way virginal.

Well, all that is the crux of the maelstrom of commentary that has surrounded this text for now twenty centuries. But there is much more in dispute here, though Matthew has nothiing to do with these further problems. Exactly what are we to make of the entire chapter in which that infamo The_seven_great_monarchies_of_the_ancient_eastern_world-_or,_The_history,_geography_and_antiquities_of_Chaldæa,_Assyria,_Babylon,_Media,_Persia,Parthia,and_Sassanian_or_New_Persian_empire(1880)(14595055200) us verse sits? The historical context is clear. Isaiah offers his oracle during the threats imposed on Judah by the Syro-Ephraimitic war of 735- 732BCE. King Rezin of the Arameans (a potent country east of the Jordan River whose capital was Damascus) and King Pekah of Israel (a separate country from Judah since David’s Israel was divided at the death of Solomon in 922BCE) had made an alliance apparently to force Judah to align with them against the powerful Assyrian empire whose constant threats against the area were increasing dangerously. Ahaz, King of Judah, refused to enter the coalition and instead asked Assyria for help against the alliance of Rezin and Pekah, feeling himself helpless against his northern neighbors.

Isaiah urged Ahaz not to make any foreign alliances but rather to trust in YHWH, the God of Israel. His first attempt to dissuade his king from such alliance was a failure. Meeting Ahaz accompanied by his son, Shear-jashub, whose name meant “a remnant shall return,” perhaps not the most reassuring name that a frightened monarch might confront, met the king at a well-known pool near a highway leading to Jerusalem. There Isaiah stated clearly, albeit in highly charged prophetic language, that Ahaz should simply “be quiet, have no fear, and let his heart not faint” in the face of these two kings who are merely “two smoldering stumps of firebrands” who will soon flame out, leaving Judah safe in the power of YHWH. Ahaz was not buying Isaiah’s reassurances. And so Isaiah tried again to gain the king’s confidence by offering the sign of Emmanuel.

But unfortunately this second oracle was also a failure, and was far more confusing to boot. Isaiah first demands that Ahaz ask any sign at all from YHWH, whether it be “deep as Sheol or as high as the sky” (Is 7:11). Ahaz responds to Isaiah’s offer with a cynical and hypocritically pious retort that he would never dare to tempt YHWH his God with such a testing demand (Is 7:12). Isaiah immediately sees through the king’s reply and proceeds to give his famous prediction that “the young woman is now pregnant, will bear a son and will name him Emmanuel.” He then goes on to offer apparently a most mysterious and enigmatic way to speak of the passage of time. Is. 7:15- 16 are both mysterious as well as hard to translate. NRSV reads: “He (the child) shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.” This is certainly one way to construe the text, but hardly the only way. One might read: “Curds and honey he will eat in order to know a rejection of evil and a choice of good,” implying that the food itself possesses some sort of ritual power that will make this child knowledgeable about good and evil.

The NRSV translation suggests that before the child ceases to eat curds and honey, apparently typical baby food at the time, the alliance of Pekah and Rezin will be destroyed. And since Is 7:16 begins with the adverb “before,” it seems likely that Isaiah does have the passage of time in mind. Before the child knows how to distinguish good and evil, Judah will be rid of the threat of the two northern kings. How long that may be is of course problematic. Just when any child begins to know and discern questions of morality is quite dependent on the child. Three years? Four? Five? Ahaz can hardly have found much comfort here, and his subsequent alliance with Assyria suggests that he thought very little of Isaiah’s famous words, whatever their precise meaning. The_seven_great_monarchies_of_the_ancient_eastern_world-_or,_The_history,_geography_and_antiquities_of_Chaldæa,_Assyria,_Babylon,_Media,_Persia,Parthia,and_Sassanian_or_New_Persian_empire(1880)(14595188920)

And the rest of the oracle in Is. 7:17-25 takes a very dark turn. Assyria is now described as the agent of YHWH who will “shave (Judah) with a razor hired from beyond the River—the king of Assyria—shave the head and the hair of the feet, and will take off the beard as well” (Is 7:20). Ironically, after this Assyrian assault on Judah, the remaining inhabitants will have only “curds and honey” to eat, thus reducing them to children without meat and bread. Where there used to be “a thousand vines” there will be only “briars and thorns” (Is 7:22-23). And where those vast vineyards once stood, there will be only wandering cattle and sheep (Is 7:25).

Just what are we to do with this large and quite specific historical context in the face of Matthew’s infamous appropriation of only one verse of the chapter? Just what are we moderns to glean from this text? I suggest the following: Isaiah 7 is in fact a text about the separation of church and state. Ahaz’ Judean policy is in the end unaffected by Isaiah’s demand to turn to YHWH for guidance. Ahaz aligns himself with Assyria against the northern alliance for short-term gain. Soon his Assyrian allies will turn on Judah as all powerful and hungry empires ultimately do, threatening its extinction in 701BCE when Tiglath-Pileser, a successor king of Assryia, surrounds the city of Jerusalem with the intent of wiping them off the map. The city is saved only by some act that remains historically undetermined. Ahaz’ foreign policy is doomed to failure.

What would it mean to listen to the call of Isaiah to avoid foreign entanglements and instead to rely on the power of YHWH? We cannot be too simplistic here, assuming that full reliance on God will always lead to success. History speaks otherwise. Reliance on God in these matters of statecraft can only be evaluated when it is made clear just what sort of God we are called to rely upon. If YHWH is a God who calls in all things for justice and righteousness, which Isaiah affirms again and again in his prophecy, his call for turning to YHWH clearly means more than being quiet and allowing YHWH to act alone on behalf of Judah. Reliance on YHWH implies a careful discernment concerning what is finally just in every situation, not just only for Judah but just for the entire world. The role of the church in the face of the state is always to call the state’s policy into the most serious question. States rarely if ever act out of justice for all. More often they act out of a desire for prestige and power, out of the demand for economic advantage for themselves. It is there that the church must speak against the cravings of the state, confronting the state with the longer-range questions of justice for all the nations.

My own country stands at just such a juncture in its history. Our president-elect has made it clear that he will operate his administration with an America-first policy. In all things, he has said repeatedly, he will act with American interests, American demands, American economic desire uppermost in his mind. In that, he is like Ahaz, acting for short-term gain, uninterested in the longer vision of Isaiah.

We church people must be Isaiah for our time. We must call loudly and clearly that policies that help only the rich over against the poor cannot be pursued, that short- term oil and gas policy for the enrichment of the few cannot supersede the needs of a deteriorating environment, that America is only one of the nations whose God is the Lord and that peoples of other lands are in direct need of the technologies and wisdom that only a very rich nation may provide. In short, the church in 2016 must be Isaiah to the Ahazes of our world. And this is so because once again a child has been born, a child given to us, whose government will be characterized by peace and justice and whose way will be unity and wholeness for all rather than war against all. You and I are the Isaiahs that God calls for today. May this Christmas season be more than sweetness and light but also a clarion call for advocacy and a prophetic stance against those who have yet to see the true light of the God of justice for all people. (Images from Wikimedia Commons) Bible_primer,Old_Testament,for_use_in_the_primary_department_of_Sunday_schools(1919)(14778963391)

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