The Same Log Cooks Supper and Becomes a God

“Yet now” is the same turn as “But now” in 43:1, and it follows directly on the curse and the reproaches of 43:28. The chapter break falls in the middle of one argument: judgment is named, and in the next breath the servant is addressed by his titles as though nothing could cancel them.

“Jesurun” is Yeshurun, a pet name built on yashar, upright, found elsewhere only in Deuteronomy 32:15 and 33:5, 26. The first of those is biting: “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.” Here the affectionate name returns without the irony. “Formed thee from the womb” is the language of the servant in 49:1 and 49:5.

Chapter 32 had waited for this: “Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field” (32:15). Joel 2:28 uses the same verb for pouring out the Spirit on all flesh. “Floods” are nozlim, running streams, the word for the waters that stood up in a heap at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:8).

The “willows” are aravim, the poplars of Psalm 137:2: “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof,” by the rivers of Babylon. The trees where the exiles hung up their music become the picture of their children’s growth. The Greek reads “as grass in the midst of water”.

“Subscribe with his hand unto the LORD” is literally “write on his hand, The LORD’s”, the way property or a slave might be marked with its owner’s name. “Surname himself” is kanah, to take a title of honour, the verb the LORD uses for Cyrus in 45:4, “I have surnamed thee.” Four people, four ways of claiming the name.

“Beside me” is mibbal’adai, apart from me, outside of me: not that the LORD ranks above other gods, but that there are none outside him. The verse gathers three titles, King of Israel, redeemer, LORD of hosts, before the speaker gives his claim, which in Hebrew has no verb: I first, I last.

“Set it in order” is arakh, to arrange in rows, as troops are drawn up for battle or dishes laid on a table (Psalm 23:5, “Thou preparest a table”). “The ancient people” is am olam, the people of long ago, perhaps humanity from creation. The test is the same: lay out the future in order, as the LORD has.

“Be afraid” translates a verb found only here, tirhu, perhaps to be stunned. “There is no God” is in Hebrew “there is no Rock”, tsur, the title of the Song of Moses, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect” (Deuteronomy 32:4). “I know not any” sounds almost like a shrug: none that the LORD has ever met.

“Delectable things” are chamudim, prized objects, the treasured images their owners loved. In the Hebrew manuscripts the word “they” in “they are their own witnesses” carries extraordinary dots above its letters, one of about fifteen places the scribes marked this way, perhaps to flag a doubtful word. The idols are witnesses who see nothing.

“Profitable for nothing” repeats the verb of verse 9, ya’al, to be of use. Samuel warned against “vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver” (1 Samuel 12:21), and Jeremiah 2:8 speaks of prophets who “walked after things that do not profit”. The question is almost a sigh: who would bother?

“His fellows” are chaverim, his associates or guild brothers, everyone bound up with the image. “The workmen, they are of men” echoes Isaiah’s verdict on Egypt in 31:3: “the Egyptians are men, and not God.” Let the whole guild assemble in court, the verse says, and it will simply be a room of frightened people.

The smith works iron in the coals and beats it out, the way a blade is forged. He grows “faint”, ya’aph, the verb 40:31 promised would never touch those who wait on the LORD. The man who makes a god to save him cannot get through a morning’s work without a drink of water.

Each of the carpenter’s tools is named. The “rule” is qav, a measuring line; the marker is sered, a word found only here, perhaps red chalk; the “compass” is mechugah, from chug, the circle of the earth in 40:22. The “figure” is tavnit, pattern, the word for the plan of the tabernacle shown to Moses (Exodus 25:9).

Four woods are named: cedar, a tree called tirzah that may be a holm oak, oak, and the oren, which the King James calls an ash and which may be a laurel or pine. He cuts some and plants others, but it is “the rain” that makes the planted tree grow, a detail the maker does not control.

Babylonian priests performed a ceremony called the washing of the mouth over a new statue, and in it the craftsmen solemnly declared that they had not made it; the god was held to have been born in heaven. Isaiah does the opposite, following every step of the making and letting the workshop speak for itself.

“Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire” is the only thing the man says before his prayer, a contented sigh by the hearth. “Seen the fire” means felt its glow. “Satisfied” is sava, full: supper and warmth have both come from the same log, and he is pleased with it.

“Deliver me” is hatsileni, the verb the Rabshakeh kept throwing at Jerusalem: “Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land?” (36:18). “Residue” is she’erit, the word Isaiah uses elsewhere for the remnant. The leftover of the log becomes the object of prayer; the leftover of Israel becomes the object of rescue.

“He hath shut” is tach, to smear over or plaster, the verb for daubing a house with plaster (Leviticus 14:42). The eyes are pictured as plastered shut, as a wall is sealed. The subject “he” is left unnamed; it may be the LORD, as in 6:10, or it may be the man himself.

“Considereth in his heart” is literally “turns it back to his heart”, the phrase 46:8 uses: “bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.” “The stock of a tree” is bul ets, a lump of wood, a block. The whole verse is the reasoning he never does, set out in his own first person as the sentence he would say if he could think.

“He feedeth on ashes” is literally “he shepherds ashes”, ro’eh efer, using the verb that in verse 28 names Cyrus, ro’i, “my shepherd”. One man tends a heap of cinders; the other tends the LORD’s purpose. “Deceived” is hutal, deluded, led astray like someone mocked.

The form of the verb in “thou shalt not be forgotten of me” is unusual, and the Greek translators read it as “do not forget me”. As it stands, the promise anticipates 49:15: “Can a woman forget her sucking child... yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”

Two kinds of cloud are named, av, the dense bank, and anan, the ordinary cloud. Morning cloud in Judah burns off as the sun climbs, and Hosea 13:3 uses it for what vanishes by midday. Sins are not buried or hidden here but dispersed, gone as a morning fog goes.

“The lower parts of the earth” are the depths below, perhaps the underworld, set against the heavens above, so that everything from top to bottom sings. “Glorified himself” is yitpa’ar, adorned himself, the verb of 49:3: “Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Israel becomes the LORD’s ornament.

The Hebrew text as written reads “who was with me?” where the traditional reading and the King James have “by myself”; either way the point is that no helper stood beside him at creation. “Alone” is levaddi, “I by myself”, the opposite of the craftsmen’s cooperative workshop.

“Tokens of the liars” are the omens of the baddim, empty talkers; Jeremiah uses the same word in an oracle against Babylon, “A sword is upon the liars” (Jeremiah 50:36). Babylon’s diviners read the livers of sheep and the movements of stars. “Maketh diviners mad” means he makes fools of them.

“Decayed places” are charavot, ruins, the word Nehemiah uses when he surveys the city: “Jerusalem lieth waste” (Nehemiah 2:17). The servant and messengers here are the prophets, whose words the LORD makes good. Babylon’s experts are proved wrong; Jerusalem’s prophets are proved right.

“The deep” is tsulah, the ocean depth, the language of the Red Sea. Herodotus (1.191) tells how Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates and marching his troops in along the riverbed, a report many readers have set beside this verse; the connection is theirs, not the text’s.

Josephus (Antiquities 11.1-2) says Cyrus was shown this prophecy and moved by it to release the Jews. Whether Isaiah of Jerusalem named him a century and a half ahead, or a later prophet spoke in Isaiah’s line, is a long-standing debate. The temple’s foundation was laid about 536 BC, with shouting and weeping (Ezra 3:10-13).