Background
This section of First Isaiah is commonly called the “oracles against the nations.” The prophet utters oracles concerning Babylon, Assyria, Phillistia, Moab, Damascus, Ethiopia (Cush), Egypt, Dumah, Arabia (“the desert plain”), Kedar, and Tyre. All of these are oracles of judgment. The markers on the map below show the cities and regions mentioned. They include the superpowers of the day — Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon — and other important city states and tribal regions, all of which surround Jerusalem.
There are also, however, oracles against Israel and Judah in this section. So, while one theme of the oracles is that God will judge the nations that are not his own, judgment extends also to God’s own people.
It’s likely that each of these oracles were uttered and published by Isaiah and his associates at various times during his ministry in response to specific threats and circumstances. Scholars offer various theories about what these specific events might have involved, but for the most part there is little consensus.
The overall canonical shape of these oracles as they are knit together in the text of First Isaiah supports the theme of God’s governance over history. From the perspective of First Isaiah, each of these nations — including, at times, Israel and Judah — tried to assert their governing authority and autonomy against Yahweh. It’s important to recall that there is no concept of “separation of church and state” in the ancient near east. Each of these nations aligned themselves with various deities, and many of them asserted that their rulers were living gods. Their claims to authority, then, were direct claims against Yahweh.
The oracles mention several means of judgment, including war, famine, and economic collapse. These judgments are depicted as acts of Yahweh. Wars, famines, and economic crises, of course, were common threats in the ancient near east, just as they are today. First Isaiah depicts the “natural” and “supernatural” as a seamless whole and ascribes Divine purpose to history. But there are also immediately “supernatural” elements to some of the oracles. The stars and constellations, the sun and the moon, understood in the ancient near east as cosmic beings, participate directly in some of the judgments, and where there were once vibrant human communities, the animals and “goat-demons” dance. (13:10, 21-22.)
Although the oracles target specific nations and cities, the scope of Yahweh’s judgment is often depicted as universal: he will “make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place” (13:13); he will “lay waste to the earth and make it desolate” (24:1). At the same time — surprisingly — there are notes of apocalyptic hope even for the powers outside Judah. Egypt, Assyria, and Tyre are depicted as receiving restoration from Yahweh. (19:23-25; 23:17-18.) Chapter 19 concludes with an astonishing blessing from Yahweh: “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (19:25.)
While most of the oracles are delivered in poetic stanzas, there are also some prose passages. One of the most interesting is in chapter 20. Yahweh instructs Isaiah to wander around Jerusalem naked and barefoot as a sign to the Egyptians and Ethiopians that Assyria will control them. This kind of performative sign-oracle occurs frequently in the Hebrew Scriptures’ prophetic literature. We might imagine this kind of activity as a sort of protest performance art by the prophet in some public venue.
Focus: 14:12-20
This section appears in an oracle against Babylon. It is famous in Christian history because the title “Day Star” (helel), translated “Lucifer” in Latin, was taken to refer to Satan. The immediate reference is to the King of Babylon — possibly one of the Babylonian kings who ruled not long before Tiglath-Peleser III of Assyria conquered Babylon. The names helel and ben-sahar (Son of the Morning), however, also draw on Canaanite mythology. The text recognizes, then, that the King of Babylon claims some kind of divine lineage. The text doesn’t deny that the King of Babylon possesses some kind of divine or supernatural power. However, it declares that this power is no match for Yahweh.
Another interesting example of this kind of response to a temporal King’s claim to divinity occurs in Ezekiel 28. In the first part of Ezekiel 28, the prophet declares to the King of Tyre, “your heart is proud and you have said ‘I am a god. . . yet you are a mortal, and no god. . . .” (Ezekiel 28:2). Here, the prophet outright denies the King’s claim to divinity. In the same chapter, however, there is another oracle against the King of Tyre, in which Yahweh says
You were the signet of perfection,
Ezekiel 28:12-16
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone was your covering
. . . .
You were blameless in your ways
from the day that you were created,
until iniquity was found in you.
In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and the guardian cherub drove you out
from among the stones of fire.
Notice how Ezekiel’s oracle against the King of Tyre depicts the King as a kind of semi-divine being, and also as Adam. Notice also that the oracle refers to the city and its King interchangeably. Similarly, the oracle against Babylon refers both the the city / nation and to the King, and is cast in cosmic terms.
Some questions on this section:
- We have been suggesting that Isaiah is a form of “political theology.” How would you describe the political theology of First Isaiah? Is any of this relevant to our contemporary circumstances?
- How does the cosmic dimension of good and evil — God and the “Morning Star” — inform your understanding of the world? How might it affect how you conduct your daily life?
Focus: 19:16-25
This section concludes an oracle against Egypt. In the context of the Hebrew Scriptures’ broader narrative, and also coming on the heels of the oracle of judgment, this section is astonishing. As Brueggemann notes, “[t]he remarkable fact of this rhetoric is that it replicates the ancient Exodus narrative.” (Brueggemann, First Isaiah, 162.) Egypt will be brought into “hard service,” cry out, and be rescued by God, just like Israel when enslaved by Egypt. In the conclusion to this section, as Brueggemann notes, “[t]he oracle takes three pet names by which Yahweh characterizes Israel — ‘my people,’ ‘the work of my hands,’ and ‘my heritage’ — and generously redeploys them across the Fertile Crescent.” (Brueggemann, First Isaiah, 153.)
Some questions on this section:
- What does this section tell you about God’s grace? About God’s plan for history?
- In the context of First Isaiah, is this section suggesting that Egypt is rewarded for becoming like Israel? If Israel is also judged, what does that say about God’s plan for history?
Focus: 24:1-13; 21-23
This is a harsh judgment oracle that seems to summarize all the previous judgments against the nations as a judgment of the whole earth. Notice that this catastrophe levels the poor and rich and affects the natural environment on which people depend for sustenance. The last part of this oracle is cosmic in scope: God judges both heavenly beings and kings, who once again are depicted as somehow connected, as well as the moon and the sun.
- How and why do God’s judgments affect the natural environment? Can we say that our current environmental crisis is a judgment of God?
- Is God’s judgment arbitrary? Is it constrained by anything outside God?
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