A Crowded Temple and a City Full of Blood

Isaiah’s name, Yesha’yahu, means “the LORD is salvation”. Amoz is spelled differently in Hebrew from the prophet Amos and is not the same man. The four reigns run from Uzziah, who died around 740 BC (6:1), to Hezekiah, still on the throne at the Assyrian siege of 701.

Moses opened his last song the same way: “Give ear, O ye heavens... and hear, O earth” (Deuteronomy 32:1). Heaven and earth were the witnesses called when the covenant was made (Deuteronomy 30:19), so they are summoned now to hear the case. “Brought up” is literally “made great and raised high”.

“Crib” is evus, the feeding trough, as in Proverbs 14:4, “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.” The Hebrew leaves the verb without an object: “Israel does not know”, full stop. Knowing in the prophets is covenant loyalty, the “knowledge of God” whose absence Hosea 4:1 laments.

“Ah” is hoy, the cry of a funeral lament, as the old prophet mourned “Alas, my brother” in 1 Kings 13:30. “The Holy One of Israel” is Isaiah’s own title for God, used about twenty-five times in this book and only half a dozen times in the rest of the Old Testament.

“Why should ye be stricken any more?” can be read as “Where could you be struck again?”, since the Hebrew al meh may mean “on what part”. There is no unbruised place left to hit. Head and heart together name the whole person, thinking and willing alike.

Three treatments are listed and all three withheld: wounds were pressed to close them, bound with cloth, and softened with oil. The Samaritan does the same for the wounded man in Luke 10:34, binding his wounds and pouring in oil and wine. “Putrifying sores” is literally fresh, raw wounds.

“Overthrown” is mahpekhah, the word reserved for the overthrow of Sodom (Deuteronomy 29:23, Amos 4:11), and many scholars read “as the overthrow of Sodom” here, which verse 9 would then pick up. Sennacherib’s annals claim he took forty-six walled cities of Judah in 701 BC.

A “cottage” is a sukkah, a booth of branches, and a “lodge” is the flimsy hut where a watchman slept to guard a crop at harvest. When the harvest was in, it stood alone in a stripped field. Sennacherib boasted that he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage”.

“The LORD of hosts”, YHWH Tseva’ot, the commander of heaven’s armies, is used some sixty times in Isaiah and this is the first. Paul quotes the verse in Romans 9:29 for the remnant of Israel that believes.

“Law” is torah, which means instruction, and here it runs parallel to “the word of the LORD”: Isaiah’s own message is torah. He will later tell his disciples to “seal the law” (8:16), using the same word for his teaching.

“I am full” is the word for being sated, as after a heavy meal. The “fed beasts” are fatlings, stall-fattened for slaughter. Sacrifices were many; Solomon offered twenty-two thousand oxen at the temple’s dedication (1 Kings 8:63). The complaint is not scarcity but surfeit.

“To appear before me” is literally, by its consonants, “to see my face”. The scribes seem to have pointed it to read “to appear”, as in Exodus 23:17, out of reverence at the thought of seeing God’s face. “Tread” is to trample, the sound of hooves and feet on the pavement.

“Vain oblations” is minchat shav, an offering of emptiness, and shav is the word of the third commandment, taking the name “in vain”. “I cannot away with” is old English for “I cannot bear”. The “solemn meeting” is the closing assembly of a festival (Leviticus 23:36).

“Trouble” is torach, a burden or load, the word Moses used when he asked how he alone could bear Israel’s “cumbrance” (Deuteronomy 1:12). God speaks of being weary, as he does again in Isaiah 43:24: “thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.”

Spreading the hands was the posture of prayer, palms upturned, as Solomon did at the dedication (1 Kings 8:22). “Blood” is plural, damim, which in Hebrew means bloodshed or bloodguilt rather than simply blood. The hands lifted to heaven show exactly what they have done.

Nine commands follow in two verses, four of them here. “Make you clean” is reflexive: clean yourselves. “From before mine eyes” answers verse 15, where God hid his eyes; the evil has to go out of his sight before the eyes can open again.

“Relieve the oppressed” may also be read “correct the oppressor”, since the rare word chamots can mean the ruthless one, and the ancient versions divide on it. “Plead” is riv, to take up someone’s lawsuit. The law protected the fatherless and the widow by name in Exodus 22:22.

“Reason together” is a courtroom verb, to argue a case to a verdict, the verb Job uses in Job 23:7. Scarlet dye came from tola’at, a scale insect, and was colourfast: it did not wash out. God promises what washing could not do.

“Obedient” is literally “and you hear”, shema’tem, the same verb as “Hear, O heavens” in verse 2. The creation was told to listen; the people are told the same. “The good of the land” is the covenant blessing of Deuteronomy 28, crops and flocks.

The edge of a sword in Hebrew is its “mouth”, pi cherev, and a sword “devours”. The verse sets that mouth against another: “the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it”. The sword will eat because God’s mouth has said so.

“How” is ekhah, the word that opens the Book of Lamentations over fallen Jerusalem. “Lodged” means stayed the night, as a guest does. “Murderers” comes from ratsach, the verb of the sixth commandment. The city has become a funeral before its fall.

Both images are of cheating in trade: silver passed off with slag in it, and wine sold watered. “Mixed” is mahul, a word found only here. The substance is still labelled silver and wine, and it is worth less than the label.

The first clause is a pun: sarayikh sorerim, “your princes are rebels”. “Gifts” is shochad, a bribe; “rewards” is shalmonim, payoffs, a word found only here that sounds like shalom. The widow’s case never even reaches them, because she has nothing to offer.

Three titles are stacked before the verdict, and one of them, “the mighty One of Israel”, appears only here; elsewhere it is “the mighty One of Jacob” (Genesis 49:24). “Ease me” is from nacham, the verb of comforting: God will comfort himself on his enemies, and the enemies are his own people.

“Purely” is kabbor, as with lye: an alkali added as a flux to separate metal from its slag. “Tin” is bedil, the base alloy, listed with the metals of Numbers 31:22 that must pass through fire. The hand turned against the city is the smelter’s hand.

Jerusalem’s old kings bore righteousness in their names: Melchizedek, king of Salem (Genesis 14:18), and Adoni-zedek (Joshua 10:1). “City of righteousness” may recall that heritage. The two new names answer the two lost qualities of verse 21, judgment and righteousness.

“Her converts” is shaveha, those in her who return, from shuv. The same verb names Isaiah’s son Shear-jashub, “a remnant shall return”, in 7:3. “Redeemed” is padah, to ransom, the price paid to buy something back.

“Transgressors” is poshe’im, rebels, from the verb of verse 2: “they have rebelled against me.” “Destruction” is shever, a breaking or crash. The chapter’s first charge returns as its last sentence.

The “oaks” are great terebinths, the shade trees where shrines stood; Hosea 4:13 condemns sacrifice “under oaks and poplars and elms”. The “gardens” are sacred groves, which Isaiah 65:3 names again. The pronouns jump from “they” to “ye”, as if the prophet turns to face them.

The terebinth sheds its leaves in the summer drought and stands bare. “A garden that hath no water” is the opposite of the promise in Isaiah 58:11, “thou shalt be like a watered garden”. The people become the trees and gardens they worshipped at, and wither with them.

“Tow” is the short fibres shaken from flax, which catch at a touch; Samson snapped his bonds “as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire” (Judges 16:9). “The maker of it” is literally “his work”, perhaps the idol he made: the man and his handiwork burn together.