Isaiah 1-7, Romans 1:21-31, Luke 2, Matthew 1:23
Passages from the beginning to the end of the book of the prophet Isaiah are prescribed for us in the lectionary all through Great Lent. This prophet is the most well-known among Christians, even more than the great prophet Jeremiah, who has two books associated with his name. No doubt this is because it is by the light of this book that we see glimpses of at least four great mysteries: God’s heavenly realm with the attending angels singing the Trisagion, the coming of Emmanuel, the atonEing death of God’s Servant, and the glorious end of the age when all the nations will stream to God for salvation. It is because of these high moments that St. Gregory of Nyssa proclaimed that Isaiah “knew more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the Gospel” and that the Latin scholar Jerome spoke of him as “more an evangelist than a prophet,” and his work as the “fifth Gospel.”
But this proclaimer of the good news to come also was very plain about the “bad news.” In this short series we will take the book in three large sections, looking at its major themes. It may be helpful to know that some contemporary scholars consider that the book of Isaiah was compiled of oracles not only by Isaiah, but in chapter 40 on by anonymous prophets who followed in his school several centuries later. They make this judgment because the perspective of chapters 1-39 reflects the point of view of the prophet gazing forward to the dreaded exile, chapters 40-55 sound as though the exile has taken place, and the last part of the book looks to the distant future. A division of the book among different authors, however, is not necessary if we consider that God gives his prophet insight into more than his own age. We can notice the differences in the sections without worrying about authorship: the book has stood as a whole for centuries, and thematic links between the three sections are obvious. At any rate, this week we zoom in on chapters 1 through 7, in which God’s judgment predominates, studded throughout with moments of light and hope.
The prophet begins by identifying himself, and the huge expanse of his initial visions, which are spread out over the time of four monarchs, and which concern especially Judah and Jerusalem. From Isaiah’s own words, we understand that his ministry began in the eighth century, prior to the death of King Uzziah in 739 BC, and reached to the time of King Hezekiah. The ancient historian Eusebius reminds us:
It needs to be noted that the whole book, which only seems to be a single composition, was actually spoken over long periods of time, since there was need of extensive and precise understanding to discern the future, to determine the meaning of the events of the time and to suit the prophecy for the events that occurred in each reign. For the age of these kings covered fifty years in all, during which the things contained in this whole book were spoken.(Commentary on Isaiah; 4.15–23).
Though his tenure is so long, the prophet is self-effacing, and says nothing more about himself besides giving his parentage. (Amoz, his father, is not to be confused with the prophet Amos.) It is not his own status that is important, but “the vision that he saw.” In his visions, he will hammer home eight themes, four having to do with the state of the people (the bad news), and four with the character of God:
God’s people are marred by:
- their refusal to acknowledge God or give thanks
- their fixation on the world and not on God
- their idolatry
- their arrogance vs. the call to repentance
God, in contrast, tells them:
- They are His own people
- He will use ordinary events and even pagans for His future plans for them
- There is a mysterious worshipping heaven that they do not know
- He will forgive those who repent
These four pairs of themes, which contrast with each other, run throughout the entire book, and throughout the first seven chapters.
Immediately when the book begins, God calls the Judeans to account. The prophet relays the very word of God, with the divine “I” calling upon all heaven and earth to hear of the ingratitude of God’s own people. From the very beginning, then, we see the contrasting first two themes: God calls them his own, but they do not acknowledge Him. In this, they are even worse than the brute beasts, for donkeys and oxes recognize their owners, but Judah does not acknowledge the Creator who also nurtures her. St. Basil the Great has this to say:
If the love of children for their parents is a natural endowment and if this love is noticeable in the behavior even of brute beasts, as well as in the affection of human beings in early infancy for their mothers, let us not appear to be less rational than infants or more savage than wild beasts by alienating ourselves from him who made us by being unloving toward him. . . . This gratitude is characteristic not only of humans, but it is also felt by almost all animals, so that they attach themselves to those who have conferred some good upon them. (The Long Rules 2.16; FC 9.236).
This same paradox, that the animals have more natural affection than some people, is recognized by St. Paul several times in his letters, where he speaks of this as a result of the fall, and as an abomination. For example, we can recall how he focusses upon ingratitude towards the Creator and idolatry as the dominant human characteristics associated with the fall: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him… and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (Romans 1:21-2). He then goes on in the ensuing list of vices to speak of “disobedience to parents” and the “lack of natural affection” (30-31). It would seem that lack of creaturely affection and adoration for God leads naturally to a similar void in one’s love for human parents, and of the parents for their children.
Despite the ingratitude and rebellion, God still claims the people as His own, using every means possible to reclaim them. He sends prophets like Isaiah into the world, “that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths” (2.3). When they turn away, He leaves a faithful remnant who still heed His voice and obey the Law from their heart, and not only with their lips. We see this assurance several times in our seven chapters: “If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah” (1:9); “In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, andthe fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be calledholy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem” (4:2-3). The hope of a remnant is so strong to Isaiah that he even names his son “Shear-jashub,” which actually means “a remnant shall return,” and takes this son with him to meet Judah’s enemy, bringing to them a chastising word from the LORD (7:3). Even though the people will not give thanks or even acknowledge God, He still calls them His own and has plans for their survival. His prophet continues to call out to them “O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD” (2.5).
Our second pair of themes is even more explicit: they are fixated on the world rather than upon the LORD, and so God will aptly use ordinary events and even pagans for His future plans. It is by being influenced by the other nations that the people have been compromised in their devotion to God. Isaiah laments, “you [God] have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of things from the east” (2.6). So, then, God’s chastisement will come from those very pagans with whom the house of Jacob is enamored: “He [God] will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come!” (5:26). Sure enough, the northern people of Israel will be conquered by the great Assyrian nation in 734–720 BC, culminating with the fall of Samaria in 722/721 BC, and later the Babylonians will conquer the southern Kingdom of Judah, taking them captive between 605–582 BC. Yet the terrible exile of Judah is not meant just a punishment, but as a righteous tactic used by God to humble the rebels and bring them back to Himself: “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness” (1:27). The LORD can use even those things that seem disastrous to bring back His people.
One of Isaiah’s most famous passages is God’s “love-song” concerning the vineyard in chapter 5, beginning with the first verse. Jesus Himself used it as a basis for his parable of the vineyard, in which God leaves His people in the care of leaders who forget Him, sends prophets to remedy the situation who are all murdered, and finally sends His Son, who is also rejected. The love song of God in Isaiah is not so explicit about the killing of prophets, but emphasizes the care that God has taken for His people, the protecting wall He has put around them, the nurturing that He has given it, and the thorns that have been produced. Instead of worshipping Him, they have pleased themselves, oppressed the poor, and ruined the land. And so God laments, yearning for their repentance: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter …and who are wise in own eyes” (5:20-21). The result is death: “Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge (5:13),” though they think that they are experts.
God will bring the nations, with whom they are enamored, and turn what they love into a nightmare of arrows, chariots and powerful war horses, darkness, and despair (5:27-30)
But God has another way of recalling His people. He gives them a glimpse not only a destruction, but of glory. In chapter 6, they (and we) are honored by the sight of the Almighty, and the worship that is in heaven. Our third contrasting themes have to do with the idolatry of the people, and with this glimpse of true worship in a normally unseen realm, God’s own heavenly Temple. When the words of the prophet began in chapter 1, God showed His rejection of the people’s insincere worship, telling them that because of their sinfulness ways, they are simply “trampling” His courts, and offering “abominations” to Him. He will not listen to perfunctory prayers from hands and lips of those who pay no attention to Him (1:10-15). But now, Isaiah sees the heavenly places, the holy angels who cry “Holy!” and the burning coal that can cleanse. Regarding the great glory of God, he does not go into great details as does, for example, the prophet Ezekiel, for all is covered with holy smoke, and the Lord is high and lifted up. Even the seraphim cover before Him, and Isaiah cries out “Woe is me!” St. Cyril of Alexandria reminds us that the Scriptures are full not only of revelation but of mystery: “The word of the holy prophets is … filled with hidden meanings and is pregnant with announcements of divine mysteries. The end of the law and prophets is Christ, as Scripture says.”Commentary on Isaiah, Introduction, PG70.9)
And this vision is no exception! It is mainly a vision of judgment, in which God tells the prophet that the people will not listen, for He has stopped their ears, and blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts. This seems very unpromising, and yet there is a glimmer of hope: for if they return, He will heal them, and then the vision closes with a stump or an acorn that has in it the hope of revival. Our God, as we know, is a specialist in raising the dead to life!
The final group of themes concerns what must happen in order for this unlikely revival to take place: the people are arrogant, but God will grant to them forgiveness if they repent. For the people must repent, putting away their arrogance, helped by the God who first humbles them and then who will forgive.
The humbling itself is part of the healing: “For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low” (2:12). This is, of course, God’s way, as we know from the prayer of St. Symeon over Jesus, that “this Child is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34). In Chapter 7 we see a glimpse of that One who will bring about that final humbling, and turn at least some of God’s people back to their Creator.This promise which concerns the birth of a Chid is headed by a commanding word before startling vision, “Behold!” But the meaning of the announcement has been a source of controversy between Jews and Christians from at least the second century: is the mother of this Child a virgin, or simply a young woman? Surely, it is nothing astonishing for a young woman to have a baby, nor could this be a definitive sign. Some declare that the translators of the LXX changed the meaning of the text, since the Hebrew almah means simply “young woman,” but parthenos, the word of the Greek text, means virgin. This is not a good account of the debate, however. The argument concerns what almah actually means, and whether “virgin” is a sensible rendering in Isaiah 7. Were later Greek-speaking Jewish writers after the time of Jesus correct when in their later versions they rendered the Hebrew as neanis, which means specifically a young woman, in contradiction to the older LXX text that had been used by Jewish people up until their time and continued to be used by Christians? Christians maintain that the word used in the LXX, hē parthenos, is an apt description of the Hebrew word ha-almah, which frequently implied a concealed, veiled, or hidden young woman in her engagement period. (On this debate, I recommend heartily the detailed article by Fr. Eugene Pentiuc at the Goarch site, https://www.goarch.org/-/the-word-almah-in-isaiah-7-14.) This whole remarkable event becomes a sign of favor not only to the frightened king of Judah, but to all who are threatened by the dangerous and godless circumstances of life (7:14-16). What was barren will become again pasture land (7:25), and even the nations will turn to God, as they repudiate war (2:1-4). Amidst the “bad news” of the prophet, there are signs of hope, promises of God’s future action. The brief glimpses that we have throughout chapters 1 to 7 provide a picture of renewed intimacy with God, such as the people once had when God led them through the wilderness to the promised land. We are treated to this luminous picture:
Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.(4.5-6)
[Then] the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD” (2.2-3).
The time of refreshment, then, will come. God promises, through Isaiah, to forgive not only those among His people who turn, those who are like Isaiah’s son, Shear-jashub, but also the whole world. It is not, after all, that God is One who needs our worship, who required sacrifices for His own benefit and who is personally piqued by our foolish idolatry. He is generous by nature, and yearns for what is best for us, His beloved. As the blessed Augustine reminds us, “God seeks us, not what’s ours. Anyway, the Christian’s sacrifice is alms, or kindness to the poor. That is what makes God lenient toward sins.” (Sermon 42.1; WSA 3.2. 234)
We see now why Isaiah is so helpful for us during Great Lent. For human refusal of God, we receive the assurance that God still claims us as His own. For our fixation on the world, we are shown how God uses even the tragedies of this world. For human idolatry, we are given the corrective glimpse of heavenly worship. And for human arrogance, we receive the humbling word of God and His offer of forgiveness. The prophet reorients us to the God of life, who needs nothing, and who pours out what we need—correction, but in the end, deep blessing. Come, let us reason together with Him, as He invites us through the prophet: though our sins are like crimson, He will make them white like snow (1:18).
Edith M. Humphrey 