Isaiah (part 2 of 5)

 This week in Come Follow Me, we read Isaiah 13-35.  As I stated in my last post, my focus this year is on seeing the prophecies of Isaiah as the people of Isaiah's time would have seen them.  I want to focus on the chapters that are super familiar to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and try to see them with new eyes.

Out of the readings this week the chapter that has the most familiar passages is Chapter 29.  Lot's of my comments come from the podcast, "Follow Him" again, this week with guest star Dr. Kerry Muhlstein. To start off, let's establish what Ariel is. Ariel means "lion of God" and is one of the nicknames of King David.  The place, Ariel, is therefore, the City of David or Jerusalem.  

In verse 4, Jerusalem is told that it "shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit." Members of the Church like to see this as a prophecy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. I am pretty sure the people of Isaiah's day didn't see it like that. So what would it have meant to them? When Assyria invaded they burned many of the surrounding walled cities, killing their inhabitants. If the people of those cities could "speak out of the dust" what would they say? Would they warn the people not to try to fight against their enemies by creating alliances and relying on the arm of flesh? In the next verse he asserts "the multitude of they strangers shall be like dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away."  In other words, alliances with strangers won't avail you anything, because they will just blow away.

Then in verse 11-12, we come to another passage familiar to members of the Church, "And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:  And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned." So what would this "sealed book" represent to people of Isaiah's time. In the podcast, Dr. Muhlstein suggested this could have reference to one way that people made contracts in the ancient world.  There would be two copies of the contract made.  One copy would be kept available for both parties to reference, and the other copy would be sealed.  If either of the parties to the contract accused the other of altering the terms of the contract, they would get the sealed copy, bring it out, and in the presence of legal authority, read it. In Isaiah's scenario, when the members of the contract go to consult the sealed copy, neither the legal authority, or the common person involved in the contract are willing or able to read it.  In other words, this is a passage about broken covenants.  The House of Israel has not only altered the terms of their covenant with the Lord, they have become so far removed from it that their common people cannot read it and their learned refuse to.  The system is not fixable, and destruction and captivity are therefore inevitable. If you read the following verses, it supports this interpretation pretty well, if you don't assume that the "marvelous work" mentioned in verse 14 is not necessarily a positive thing.  It is just something astounding enough to make people marvel, like the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. 

The chapter ends with an assurance that even after these things happen, in some blessed future day  everyone will learn of the contents of the "sealed book" (i.e. the Abrahamic covenant) even the blind and deaf (vs 18), because the descendants of Jacob will once again "fear the God of Israel" (vs. 23). The writer is anticipating (in very optimistic terms) the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and the re-establishment of the temple there. History shows that this happened in a manner, under the leadership of Cyrus the Great.

Conclusion: The interesting thing about this ancient interpretation of these chapters, is that they still apply pretty well to future events, like a pattern repeating itself.  Just as Israel had, at the time of Isaiah, strayed from the original covenant, Christians at the time of Joseph Smith had strayed from the teachings of the original church at the meridian of time.  The House of Israel needed to consult and recommit the pure form of their covenants, just as God lead Joseph Smith to restore a pure version of his gospel.  So even if these passages didn't remind members of the Church of Joseph Smith's experience with Charles Anthon, they could still be foreshadowing to the restoration of the Church in latter days.  

What to do with Isaiah

This week in the Come Follow Me curriculum we start on the book of Isaiah and we will continue in Isaiah for a total of 5 weeks.  In the Book of Mormon, Jesus tells the people of Bountiful that they are commanded to search the words of Isaiah (3 Nephi 23:1).  Whole chapters of Isaiah are quoted in several different places in the Book of Mormon. I must admit, however, that up to this point of my life I have not been a fan.  As I considered studying Isaiah again, I tried to analyze why I don't like it.  I think it is because it has always seemed rather schizophrenic to me.  At one point he is talking about the political situation in his day, and then in the next verse, he is prophesying about Jesus, or the end of the world. People have said, "Oh, that's just the "manner of prophesying among the Jews" (2 Nephi 25:1) and if you have the spirit of prophesy it will make sense to you."  This is not encouraging, but discouraging. 

So this time through, I decided to pretend that it is not schizophrenic.  I have decided to look at Isaiah the way that people in his time would have seen it. I will assume that what he said was intended for his contemporaries and concerned their specific situation.  I realize this is a very narrow interpretation, and not the only valid one, but I am hoping this will help me understand Isaiah better, and dislike it less.

The challenge is that as I was reading along, I came to passages that have been used as a reference to later events so many times it is hard for me to try to see them in their original context.   So for the next few weeks I am going to try to wrench those kinds of passages from the cultural biases with which I have always seen them and try to see how they applied to Isaiah's time. One of the podcasts, Follow Him with special guest Dr. Jason Combs was helpful this week in that he takes a similar approach.  

To start I want to go over a super basic overview of what was happening in Isaiah's time.  He was a court priest or advisor for four different kings of Judah. During his life the Assyrians threatened the land and Israel (northern tribes) and Syria wanted to form an alliance with Judah to fight against Assyria.  Isaiah recommended to Hezekiah that Judah not join the alliance. Israel and Syria attempted to invade Jerusalem to force the alliance, but Jerusalem withstood the invasion. Ephraim and Syria ended up making alliances with other surrounding nations, but when the Assyrian King, Sennacherib, invaded, the alliance fell and the northern kingdoms were taking into captivity and eventually lost their cultural identity. Even though Jerusalem survived these two invasions, Isaiah prophecies that they will eventually be conquered by Babylon and be carried into captivity.  He also prophesies that after a time a remnant of the faithful will return to Jerusalem, set up a temple, and live in peace.

This is starting to be a long post, so lets just look at two really well known passages, and see how they fit into this historical setting. 

Isaiah 7:14-16 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

This passage is quoted every Christmas as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus, but in context, it is just a way for Isaiah to prophecy how long it is until both Syria and Ephraim will fall. The word "virgin" just means a young woman, perhaps a hypothetical one. The name "Immanuel" means "God is with us"  so by giving this hypothetical son the name of "Immanuel" Isaiah is emphasizing that Jerusalem will be saved because God is with them. What Isaiah is saying is that "if a child were born today, he wouldn't have grown old enough to know good from evil before both Israel and Syria were defeated." This prophecy turned out be be true.  From the time this prophecy was given it was only a couple of years before Israel and Syria were defeated by Assyria.

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

This is another passage that is always read at Christmas time.  It is hard not to see a prophecy of the birth of Jesus in this passage. How would the Jews of Isaiah's time see this passage?  Even now Jews see this as a prophecy of the one righteous king to reign during Isaiah's life, King Hezekiah. The name Hezekiah means "The Lord Strengthens".  That is Isaiah's message for the Jews, and for Hezekiah specifically, that they should not rely on alliances, but on the Lord as their strength.  It makes sense that Isaiah would speak very highly of him, calling him the all those great epithets. 

In conclusion, I am not saying that these were not prophecies of Jesus.  I am only saying they were not only prophecies of Jesus.  They related to Isaiah's time and situation, and we can understand them better if we look at them in context. 

Hevel, hevel, all is hevel

 This week the Come Follow Me curriculum covered Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In the Tanakh, Jewish scholars put the wisdom writings, including Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, at the end of their scripture.  That is presumably because they don't think they are as doctrinially or historically significant as other books. I tend to agree. I struggled a little to know what to talk about in this week's post.  I decided to investigate the main thematic word in the book of Ecclesiastes. 

Ecclesiastes begins "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem. Vanity of Vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." (Ecc 1: 1-2)  I was curious about the word "vanity." In modern English the word has come to mean something like "conceit" particularly about one's appearance. That is not the meaning the translators were using back in King James' time.  in JKV it means "emptiness" or "lack of substance."  The Hebrew word is הבל, pronounced "hevel" or "havel" (depending on the tense) and my Hebrew Bible app gives the definition of "breath or vapor."  I wondered about that because there is another word, רוח ruach, that means breath or wind.  I wondered if there were any instances in the Bible where hevel means vapor, like real atmospheric water vapor. My app allows me to look at all the instances of a word in context, and as I did, and it seems it is always used in just the same way as in Ecclesiastes, to represent moral emptiness. So then, I asked myself, why would the dictionary writer think it means vapor or breath?  

The only hint I got was from Isaiah 57:13 

When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; 
but the wind shall carry them all away
vanity shall take them;
but he who putteth his trust in me shall possess the land
and shall inherit my holy mountain.

in this passage the word, wind, is רוח. and then the word, vanity, is הבל. Basically all of Isaiah is poetic, and in Hebrew poetry they use rhyming ideas rather than rhyming words. Scholars would call it parallelism. The ruach here is clearly seen as parallel to the hevel. It is the only place I found where hevel is associated with breath or wind.  

That being said, the idea of hevel as a kind of mist or vapor is an effective image.  Imagine someone who sees a cloud of smoke, and it seems solid, but when he reaches for it just dissipates.  The author of Ecclesiastes sees all of life's joys and trials as just that ephemeral. I must say, now that I am older, I relate with Ecclesiastes more than I did when I was 20.  Things are seeming more impermanent than they used to. The main difference between me and "the Preacher" is that he has no hope or faith in an afterlife. I am beginning to believe that one of the greatest gifts that Jesus gave to the world was a belief that, not only does life continue after this life, but that it is potentially better. 

Psalms as Temple Litergy

One of the podcasts I listen to each week is Talking Scriptures. Their main take on the Psalms is that they are songs that were meant to accompany an annual temple ritual in ancient Israel.  This is an interesting idea to me because I have recently become an ordinance worker in the Provo Temple and have been working hard to try to memorize temple ceremonies. Of course, the ancient temple ceremonies are not the same as the modern ones, but there are some similarities. 

In the podcast , Bryce Dunford talks about the different stages of the ancient temple ritual.  He never lists them explicitly, but these are the ones I picked up on. 

1. approaching the temple in an attitude of repentance

2. being washed, anointed, and clothed in temple clothing

3. learning about God as the creator of the universe

4. the battle between God and the powers of darkness

5. people make covenants of loyalty and obedience to God

6. God promises that the people can become kings and priests.

7. the people are brought back into the presence of God.

8. they live with God forever. 

 

I decided to go through the Psalms and find passages I think might refer or be connected to each of these stages of the temple ceremony.

1. approaching the temple in an attitude of repentance

Psalm 32: 5 "I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and though forgavest the iniquity of my sin."

2. being washed, anointed and clothed in temple clothing. 

Psalm 26:6  "I will wash mine hands in innocency; so will I compass thine alter, Oh Lord."

also

Psalm 18:32 "It is God the girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect."

and

Psalm 23:5 "thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

3. learning about God as the creator of the universe.

Psalm 8: 3-4 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of they fingers, the moon and stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" Also Psalm 29 and Psalm 33

4. the battle between God and the powers of darkness

Psalm 10:15-16 "Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man.; seek out his wickedness til thou find none. The Lord is King for ever and ever:"

5. people make covenants of loyalty and obedience to God.

Psalm 63:1-4 "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is....Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.  Thus will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name."

6. God promises that the people can become kings and priests

Psalm 2:6-11 "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion...Be wise no therefore, oh ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling."

also

Psalm 110: 4 "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedek."

8. the people are brought back into the presence of God

Psalm 27:4 "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."

9. they live with God forever.

 Psalm 61:4-5 "I will abide in they tabernacle for ever; I will trust in the covert of thy wings. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows; thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear him."

 

These are only suggestive. They don't prove that these were used as temple text, they only suggest that they may have been used.  Still, it was an interesting study to find them all.

He that hath clean feet?

 We have started three weeks of studying Psalms.  This week I chose two chapters to read in Hebrew, Psalms 23, and 24.  Both are super familiar in English, but all Psalms are poetry and it is very hard to accurately translate poetry. The translator has to make choices whether to match the literal or the figurative meaning more closely. 

In Psalms 24, I found an interesting translation choice.  In verse 3-4 in the KJV it says: 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

or who shall stand in this holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart. 

 

 The most common Hebrew word for hand is,"pronounced "yad  יר   but that is not the word used in this passage. The word used here is כף   pronounced "chaf".  It means the palm of your hand or the soul of your feet. The question, then, is why did the translator assume we were talking about hands and not feet?  I did a survey of some of the other places the word is used.  It is used to mean palm of the hand more often than soul of the feet.  Also, when it refers to feet, it often has the other word for feet, רגל         nearby so that it basically says, the "palm" of the feet. An example is when the dove came back to the Ark because it couldn't find a place to rest theכף" " of his feet. (Gen 8:9). The translator probably made the best choice he could.  Still I couldn't help but think of all the lovely imagery that could be found if they had translated it "feet" instead of "hands." 

There are a lot of scenes in the Old and New Testament where feet play an important role.  Abraham washed the feet of his holy visitors when they came to tell him he would have a son in his old age.  Moses had to remove the shoes from his feet because he was on sacred ground.  Throughout the Old Testament, there are accounts of someone kneeling at someone else's feet to show submission.

So, why did people need their feet washed in the ancient world?  They wore open, sandal-like shoes and their feet would become covered with dirt, dust, and probably refuse. It would have been really nice to have that washed away. It was considered an act of humility to wash someone else's feet. In the New Testament, Jesus washed his disciples feet just before he was betrayed.  When Peter didn't want the Lord to wash his feet, Jesus said, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."  

Why was it so important for Jesus to wash his disciple's feet? (John 13: 8) Of course, by washing his disciple's feet, Jesus taught the importance of humility and service.  There may have also been a symbolic meaning. We learn in Genesis that "dust" is a symbol of fallen man (Gen 3:19).  Just as Jesus, by humbling himself, cleansed his disciple's feet from dust, He would later that night, by humbling himself before his father, cleanse their sins through the atonement, remove from them the consequences of the fall, and enable them to eventually stand in the "holy place."

It, therefore, seems pretty fitting for the passage in Psalms 24:4 to read, 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

or who shall stand in this holy place?

He that hath clean feet, and a pure heart.

How would they become clean? Through Jesus' willingness to humble himself enough to make them clean.

 

 

"Hast thou considered my servant, Job?"

 This week in Come Follow Me we are studying the book of Job. It is the second book of the "Wisdom Writings" after Esther, and scholars can't agree about when it was written or even when it is set. Most scholars believe that Job wasn't a historical character, and that the entire book is an extended parable. Some people believe that the book of Job is one of the greatest works in all world literature. There were a couple of things that stood out to me as I studied Job this week. 

The theology of Job stands in stark contrast to everything that has come before it in the Bible. In all that we have read so far, the Lord is portrayed as a national deity.  He is the god of the Israelites who helps them prosper when they obey his laws, and leaves them to be destroyed by their neighbors when they do not. There is little discussion of personal welfare and salvation. Obedience to God's law ensured community safety, and those who are obedient are blessed because they have contributed to the well being of the House of Israel. In the book of Job, there is no discussion at all about how Job's obedience or disobedience will affect the community.  Even his detractors don't ever say, "Hey, Job, you better shape up or you will bring the wrath of God down on our city."  This is our first look at God and his relationship with the individual. 

This is also the first time that the Bible authors address the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"  We see, in the words of Job's "friends" that there is a prevailing idea that good people receive blessings and bad things happen to bad people.  Much of the narrative from Joshua to Nehemiah seems to be written to show that the House of Israel was conquered and taken into captivity because of their wickedness. The southern tribes last 120 years longer than the northern tribes because they had a couple of righteous kings. After all that, here is the book of Job arguing that even though Job is righteous, the Lord allows him to suffer. Could this parable be push-back from Jews written during or after the Babylonian captivity because their leaders always said they were conquered because of their wickedness? Could it be their way of saying, "Hey, we weren't captured because of wickedness, but just because it was God's inscrutable will that we should be conquered."

The most intriguing argument I heard on my podcasts this week was one mentioned by Taylor Halverson on Book of Mormon Central.  It is the idea that this story could be an early hint of the Plan of Salvation and that it represents the pre-earth life, life on earth, and the post-life paradise prepared for the righteous. I really liked this idea, though I admit it is probably not the way that ancient Hebrews would have seen the book. Job's prosperity in the beginning of the story could represent the pre-earth life.  Earth life is represented by Job's trials.  Like Job, everyone enters mortality will eventually lose everything they ever had.  They can't take their possessions with them when they die.  Most people see many of their family and friends die before they do as well.  As Job says "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." Then, in the end of the story, Job is admitted into God's presence. After Job is examined, and is brought to acknowledge that the Lord's ways are just, has restored to him all that he had lost, and more. This is like the final judgement when the righteous shall receive their reward.  Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints are the only Christians that preach this progression, but the Book of Job may indicate that there may have been groups among the ancient Hebrews that understood this as well.

One last note.  Although the Book of Job is a discussion about why good people suffer, the book doesn't really give a clear answer to the question.  God never explains to Job why he let him suffer.  His only response to Job's questions about why all the terrible things happened to him, was to show Job how God's power, glory, and greatness exceeds Job's, and indeed, all human's. I actually think this is really the only answer to the question of suffering.  The Earth and all the universe are under God's command, so we should trust that he knows best.