![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidopderbeck.com\/Isaiah\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/mapsmall-1024x748.png?resize=580%2C424\")
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\u2019s own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall canonical shape of these oracles as they are knit together in the text of First Isaiah supports the theme of God\u2019s governance over history. From the perspective of First Isaiah, each of these nations \u2014 including, at times, Israel and Judah \u2014 tried to assert their governing authority and autonomy against Yahweh. It\u2019s important to recall that there is no concept of \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cnatural\u201d and \u201csupernatural\u201d as a seamless whole and ascribes Divine purpose to history. But there are also immediately \u201csupernatural\u201d 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 \u201cgoat-demons\u201d dance. (13:10, 21-22.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the oracles target specific nations and cities, the scope of Yahweh\u2019s judgment is often depicted as universal: he will \u201cmake the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place\u201d (13:13); he will \u201clay waste to the earth and make it desolate\u201d (24:1). At the same time \u2014 surprisingly \u2014 there are notes of apocalyptic hope even for the powers outside Judah<\/em>. 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: \u201cBlessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.\u201d (19:25.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019 prophetic literature. We might imagine this kind of activity as a sort of protest performance art by the prophet in some public venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This section appears in an oracle against Babylon. It is famous in Christian history because the title \u201cDay Star\u201d (helel<\/em>), translated \u201cLucifer\u201d in Latin, was taken to refer to Satan. The immediate reference is to the King of Babylon \u2014 possibly one of the Babylonian kings who ruled not long before Tiglath-Peleser III of Assyria conquered Babylon. The names helel<\/em> and ben-sahar<\/em> (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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another interesting example of this kind of response to a temporal King\u2019s claim to divinity occurs in Ezekiel 28. In the first part of Ezekiel 28, the prophet declares to the King of Tyre, \u201cyour heart is proud and you have said \u2018I am a god. . . yet you are a mortal, and no god. . . .\u201d (Ezekiel 28:2). Here, the prophet outright denies the King\u2019s claim to divinity. In the same chapter, however, there is another oracle against the King of Tyre, in which Yahweh says<\/p>\n\n\n\n You were the signet of perfection, Notice how Ezekiel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some questions on this section:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This section concludes an oracle against Egypt. In the context of the Hebrew Scriptures\u2019 broader narrative, and also coming on the heels of the oracle of judgment, this section is astonishing. As Brueggemann notes, \u201c[t]he remarkable fact of this rhetoric is that it replicates the ancient Exodus narrative.\u201d (Brueggemann, First Isaiah, 162.) Egypt will be brought into \u201chard service,\u201d cry out, and be rescued by God, just like Israel when enslaved by Egypt. In the conclusion to this section, as Brueggemann notes, \u201c[t]he oracle takes three pet names by which Yahweh characterizes Israel \u2014 \u2018my people,\u2019 \u2018the work of my hands,\u2019 and \u2018my heritage\u2019 \u2014 and generously redeploys them across the Fertile Crescent.\u201d (Brueggemann, First Isaiah, 153.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some questions on this section:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Search for:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Background This section of First Isaiah is commonly called the \u201coracles against the nations.\u201d The prophet utters oracles concerning Babylon, Assyria, Phillistia, Moab, Damascus, Ethiopia (Cush), Egypt, Dumah, Arabia (\u201cthe desert plain\u201d), Kedar, and Tyre. All of these are oracles of judgment. The markers on the map below show the cities and regions mentioned. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biblical-studies","category-isaiah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/babylon.png?fit=669%2C461&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Ur","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3501,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions\/3501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Focus: 14:12-20<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>Ezekiel 28:12-16<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nFocus: 19:16-25<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Focus: 24:1-13; 21-23<\/h2>\n\n\n\n