Transcript
BRIGHT: The little pun that you just heard upon my name is really a classical example of the way oral tradition, tenacious though it is, tends to refract. There's truth in the story but the actual fact is that my teacher at Johns Hopkins was Professor Albright and I had not been on the campus two days because I -- before I was known among the other students as
"Half-bright." But, it's an excellent example of the operation of oral tradition, which I think biblical students ought to keep in mind. Now, yesterday, we talked of the background of eschatological expectations in Israel. Mind you, we spoke only of background for at least until the eighth century,
Israel had no eschatology in any proper sense of that word. But, she did have from the earliest times an orientation towards the future, a hope and a confidence in the future which was characteristic and unique. We saw that this rested in her understanding of her God and her relationship to that God, specifically in her belief that God had elected her, made covenant
with her, and extended His promises to her. But, we also saw that the nature of God's covenant with Israel and therewith of Israel's future under God could be conceived of in more than one way. These ways were not intrinsically incompatible but actually complementary as we shall argue. Yet, the balance between them was delicate and could be easily upset and the possibility
of attention is certainly present. Let's remind ourselves briefly of what we said. We observed yesterday the great achievement of David and the theology that grew up about him, namely of the eternal covenant that God had made with him. Like the Abrahamic covenant which we also noted, this was a promissory covenant. It was, in effect, a binding promise on the part of God
that having chosen Mount Zion as the seat of his earthly rule, He would dwell there forever among his people and protect them from their foes and he would give to David a dynasty that would never end. True, there was the understanding that a king might, through his sin, bring chastisement upon himself and his people, but no condition attached to the promise. The dynasty would endure, be given
victory over its foes and a wide domain with the kings of the earth fawning at its feet. Now, such a theology must have allowed for an enormous optimism with regard to the future, though it allowed for the possibility that the nation might have to face troubles, reversals, problems, as all nations do. There was, in the final analysis, no ultimate need to worry about the future; what is secure
in the promises of God. Indeed, in difficult times, it gave rise to a reaching out towards the future, towards better times, victory, the recoveries of the lost glories of David, for after all this, according to what was affirmed in the cult was what the future held. Now, this was in no sense an eschatology. It looked for no terminus of the divine purpose in history, no new order which God would create
. Rather, it was a sublime confidence in the continuation and ultimate triumph of the existing order, which might readily lapse into complacency. But, we also observe the theology of the Sinaitic covenant. This understanding of covenant had never been forgotten in Israel. No doubt, it had been crowded from center stage in the cult of the Jerusalem temple where the theology of the Davidic
covenant was official but it was very much alive in rural Judah and also in prophetic and Levitic circles in northern Israel. Indeed, the traditions of exodus and Sinai and the land-giving probably formed the basis of the official state cult of Northern Israel where the theology of the Davidic covenant had never been accepted. Now, this view of covenant ought to have allowed no complacency whatever with regard
to the future. As we said, the Sinaitic covenant followed the pattern of an international Suzerainty Treaty. It knew of no unconditional promises. It was based in the recollection of God's prevenient grace in calling His people from bondage and giving them the Land of Promise, and it issued an unconditional acceptance of the divine overlord's binding stipulations under threat of the covenant curses
in the event of disobedience. Far from leading to complacency, such a notion of covenance should have called a nation to continual self-examination and penitence. But, as again we said, it seems that by the eighth century, the whole concept of covenant had been internally perverted. The notion seems to have established itself that its stipulations could be met by sacrifice and cultic observance alone,
and since that was being done, the covenant stipulations are being met and the nation may be assured of the continuation of the covenant blessings, and in dangerous times men could look forward eagerly to a great day of Yahweh when he would come to the aid of His people and put things right again. As we said, this hope of the day of Yahweh was not in eschatology. Rather, it was the confidence that, as in the past,
so in the future God would always come to the aid of His people and secure them in the possession of the promised blessings. Now, such complacency was a fragile facile thing as we must agree. It simply couldn't last. It might survive through times of prosperity or limited emergency but it could never survive the eighth century.
We can't pause to sketch the history of the period enough to say that the latter half of the eighth century saw the beginning of a serious period of empire and a time of sheer terror for the petty states of Western Asia, Assyria, long a menace on the horizon, had now come to conquer, occupy, and rule, and the little nations of Western Asia had just one choice -- surrender
and pay tribute or resist and die. Northern Israel chose to resist and within 25 years had been rubbed from the map. Though Judah submitted and yielded tribute and so survived, she was not to be a free country again for more than 100 years. When late in the eighth century, Hezekiah attempted rebellion, it was put down to the accompaniment of a frightful bloodbath in the best Assyrian tradition.
It was a time of shameful servitude, onerous tribute, and the forced recognition of Assyrian guards, even in the temple itself and the ever-present threat of Assyrian reprisals for the least attempt to alter the situation. The great-grandchildren of men alive when it began would not see the end of it. Now, in such a time, facile optimism regarding the future simply had no place.
The events gave the lie to whatever optimistic confidence there may have been. Obviously, God is not always going to defend His people. Obviously, He is not always going to give the Davidic king victory over his foes. The Davidic king is a helpless vassal, the lackey of a foreign power, and what shall one say of God's kingly and worldwide rule on Mount Zion when He has to move over and make place for Assyrian guards
in His very own palace? What, indeed? The popular confidence in the promises of God and His continuing protection must have seemed questionable in the face of what the nation was undergoing. Some profound explanation of God's dealings with His people, what the future had in store for them, was urgently needed and if this had not been given, it is difficult to see how any conclusion could logically have been drawn
; save either that God is powerless or is unfaithful to His promises. Surely, if any hope for the future was to be offered at all, it had to be something profounder than facile optimism regarding God's continuing protection of the existing order. Now, providentially, it was just at this time that the first of the classical prophets stepped on the scene and they brought the needed word and with them true
eschatological patterns begin to emerge. Now, the prophets were, of all things, not facile optimists. Their word was, first of all, not a word of promise at all but of judgement. They were rooted in the sacred traditions of Israel's past more deeply than their contemporaries were but they rejected the popular hope drawn from those traditions completely. Indeed, they made those very traditions the norm
of their evaluation of the national policy and character and in the light of them, they saw the nation as under the judgement of God and heading for disaster. When they attempted to describe the judgement that was coming, they frequently did so in terms of the very sacred traditions and saving events which the people had made the basis of their hope. Remember, Amos' classical upending of the hope of the day of YHWH. But, the prophets
did not see the judgement as entailing the revocation of promise, as the end. All of them had hope for the future, though some like Amos had little to say about it. But, this hope did not lie in straight line continuity with the present order. It lay beyond a radical break, God's judgement on the present order, and it would come through a new and decisive divine act
for the future, an act that would re-establish the relationship of God and people in a new and profound way. To describe this final provision of God, they once again reached back to those factors in the nation's history and tradition that had been the foundation of its existence and self-understanding and projected them onto the future as the pattern of God's final provision for His people. Just here, we may speak of the beginnings
of eschatology for this final divine act, though described in terms of patterns drawn from the past, is no mere repetition of the past, no mere putting things back as they were. It is a new act that will exceed the past, will make actual the true intention of the past in a profounder way and it is something final. Nothing was looked for beyond it. It would be forever. It would not end.
But, in view of what has been said, it isn't surprising that the eschatology of the eighth century prophets did not follow any single pattern but several. At the risk of oversimplification, we can say that two stand out, corresponding to the two views of election and covenant already observed. On the one hand, we see a reaching back to the traditions of exodus and land-giving and the covenant league, which conceived the future
in terms of the bringing down of the covenant curses, ejection from the land, followed in the farther future by a restoration of the covenant bond on a deeper level. On the other hand, we see a reaching back to the traditions of Jerusalem and David, which conceived of the future in terms of a terrible chastisement followed in the farther future by the vindication of God's kingly rule in Zion under the ideal Davidic
king. Now, the first of these patterns finds its classic expression in North Israel's great prophet Hosea. True, Amos' preaching was likewise rooted in the traditions of exodus and land-giving and in the stipulations of the covenant law. Amos, of course, preached in the mid-eighth century before the storm broke, at a time when Israel and Judah had reached heights of prosperity unknown since Solomon.
He spoke to a nation that was proud of its strength, untroubled by any external threat and confident of the future. He addressed an affluent society which enjoyed every luxury money could buy. Yet, it was a sick society; at the top, the privileged rich, at the bottom, the hopelessly poor. The rich not only were careless of the plight of the poor. They missed no opportunity to crowd the poor, enslave them, and rob them of their rights.
Now, Amos' attack on the crimes of society is too well-known to require review. It is the positively classic prophet attack upon social injustice and we hear it again and again throughout his book and you are familiar with it. But, it's clear that Amos does not attack these crimes merely for humanitarian reasons. It's clear that he attacks them and marshals his attack
on a platform of theology. Though he nowhere mentions the word 'covenant,' it's clear that the crimes he attacks he views as infractions of covenant law. They are infractions of the stipulation of covenant, and again and again, he throws his attack upon these crimes, against the backdrop of the canonical events, the grace of God in bringing Israel from Egypt to this land, classically in Chapter Two.
YHWH is the speaker. "For three crimes of Israel, nay, for four, I will not revoke it because they sell innocent men for money and the needy by illegal eviction for a pair of shoes, trample the head of the poor and shove aside afflicted men, and so on and so on and so on. Yet, it was I who destroyed the Amorite from before them whose height was the height of cedars and strong was he like the oaks, and it was I who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite." The infraction is an infraction against the grace which was the basis of obligation and, of course, God demands that His covenant people be obedient to His stipulations, namely, His just law, His covenant law, and their attempt to satisfy His demands through cultic observance alone is rejected out of hand. "I hate, I despise
your pilgrim feast. Take no pleasure in your high holy days, even though you are for me -- your plant offerings and meal offerings -- I'll not accept them and the peace offerings of your fatted animals I'll not look at. Take away from me the noise of your songs, the melody of the harp. I'm not listening. But, let justice run down like waters and righteousness like a perennial stream." Amos, therefore, completely rejected the popular confidence that because
Israel is God's chosen people, God will always protect them. "Israel is indeed the elect people but precisely because of that reason, she will be judged. This word that Yahweh has spoken against you, people of Israel, the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, recipients of grace, you only have I known that is chosen out of all the families of the earth, therefore, I will protect
you, therefore, I will punish you for all your crimes. The obligation is based in grace and failure to meet obligation brings down the covenant curse. In the eyes of God, Israel is no better than any other nation. God has no pet people. He who judges the nations will judge Israel also and the day of that judgement will be the day of Yahweh, the very day in which the people repose their hope. God will declare Holy War on Israel.
He'll smite our armies with panic. He will bring down the covenant curses and deport Israel off her land. Behold the eyes of Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom and I'll destroy it from off the face of the earth." But, did Amos have no hope for the future? In my belief, he did but it certainly plays no great role in his book. We have only two short sayings at the end which are highly disputable
and outside of that, nothing more than an 'it may be.' "Seek good and not evil that you may live and it may be that Yahweh, God of hosts, will be merciful to what's left of Joseph." So, that is not a high hope for the future and yet the future is not cleanly a shut door. But, with Hosea, the case is clear.
He was steeped in the traditions of the Sinaitic covenant through and through. Being a North Israelite, the Davidic covenant meant absolutely nothing to him. Indeed, it could be argued from certain verses that he was negative towards the institution of monarchy as such. Unlike Amos, Hosea spoke to a nation that was dying. Though he began to prophesize in the heyday of Jeroboam's reign, his career continued into the dark years that followed, years
when Israel inwardly rotten and faced by the Assyrian threat exploded into anarchy and civil war. King after king was assassinated as one rival party after the other seized the reins and the national policy veered this way and that and law and order broke down. All this one can see reflected in the pages of Hosea's book. Now, Hosea's attack as, again, you well know fell upon the apostasy
of the people from YHWH, specifically the widespread practice of the fertility cult which had even become a syncretism with Yahwehism, it would seem. This has rotted the national character and it is to Hosea the root of the national sickness. "Whine and you whine, take away the understanding. My people enquire
of a wooden thing and their stick gives them oracles. A spirit of whoredom has led them astray. They've left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on tops of the mountains, make offerings upon the hills, under oak and poplar and terebinth because their shade is good. The Baal cult practiced on the high places. Therefore, your daughters play the harlot. Your brides commit adultery. I'll not punish your daughters when they play the harlot nor your brides when they commit adultery.
The men themselves go aside with harlots and sacrifice with the holy women, the cult prostitutes." So, the fertility cult has infiltrated YHWHism and has rotted the national character and it is Hosea's central theme to declare that this has broken the cardinal stipulation of the covenant. Again and again, Hosea scores this and again and again throws it against the backdrop of the grace of God to Israel in the wilderness days, 9:10.
"Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers but they came to Baal Peor and consecrated themselves to Baal and became detestable like the thing they love. When Israel was a child and I loved him, out of Egypt, I called my son. The more I called him, the more they went from me and kept sacrificing to the Baali and offering incense
to idols. I am Yahweh, your God from the land of Egypt. You know no god but Me. Besides Me, there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the desert in the land of drought but when they fed to the full, they were filled and their heart was lifted up and they forgot Me, the apostasy and forgetfulness against the backdrop of the grace which is the ground of obligation." Hosea sees them as having broken the cardinal stipulation of YHWH's Suzerainty Treaty, 'You shall have no gods but me.' Again and again, he depicts Yahweh as launching His covenant lawsuit, His "reeb," the lawsuit which the injured party brings against the one who has damaged him and Yahweh now as the injured party brings lawsuit against His people. "The word of Yahweh, people of Israel, Yahweh
has a reeb with the dwellers of the land. There's no truthfulness, no 'hesed,' no knowledge of God in the land, nothing but swearing, lying, killing, stealing, committing adultery." They break out and blood comes upon blood and, therefore, he said, "The land mourns. The covenant curses come down upon you." Hosea, as you well know, was the first to introduce into Old Testament prophecy the figure of marriage to describe the covenant bond. Whether he sort
of got this figure indirectly from the sacred marriage of the fertility cult, we don't know but clearly it was also suggested by his own tragic experience, for however we explain those cryptic first three chapters, it seems clear that his wife was not faithful to him. So, he took the figure of marriage to describe the bond between Yahweh and Israel. In the covenant, Yahweh has married Israel. Israel is the bride of God
and, as any husband would, he expects of his wife absolute faithfulness and when Israel has run after other gods, that is adultery, and the end of that can only be divorce, the ending of the covenant bond. Since pleading with Israel has done no good, there is nothing for it but divorce. He, as it were, calls upon unnamed people to plead with Mother Israel. "Plead
with your mother. Plead. She's not my wife. I'm not her husband. Has she put away her whoredom from her face and her adultery from between her breasts unless I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born." In other words, lest I divorce her, the adulterous wife might be stripped and kicked into the street. "Go. You're not my wife." That's the divorce. Hosea, therefore, announced the divine judgement
in terms every bit as strong as Amos. Israel is no longer God's people. You may remember that he had by his wife three children to whom he gave symbolical names. The last of these was named Lo-ammi, "not my people," and it was explained, "Call his name Lo-ammi, for you're not my people and I'm not your God," and that's the reversal of the covenant formula. The thing is off. So, Israel
stands under the covenant curses and Hosea calls them down with a fury that begs description. "Woe to them. They have strayed from me. Destruction to them. They have rebelled against me. I would redeem them but they speak lies against me or, again, if freedom's glory shall fly like a bird, no birth, no pregnancy, no conception, and if they rear children, I will bereave them until none is left. Woe to them when I depart
from them." Hosea responds, "Give them, Yahweh. What will Thou give? Give them miscarrying wombs and dry breasts." That's the calling down of the covenant curses upon the nation that has violated the stipulations of the covenant. Hosea then has to declare that the promises will be taken away. Israel will be torn from her land, send into exile and destroyed. Israel describes that coming exile
as a new wilderness wandering and, indeed, it would seem as a new Egyptian bondage, 8:13. They love sacrifice. They sacrifice flesh and eat it. Yahweh has no delight in them. Now, He will remember their inequity and punish their sins. They shall return to Egypt, a new Egyptian bondage. The patterns of the past have now become
types of the judgement to come. It's back to the beginning. (Hebrew) has been cancelled and will have to be begun again. As we know, Hosea clearly held out hope for the farther future. This is not a hope that Israel would repent and avert the judgement. He pled for such but he had little hope of it. These people are not capable of repenting.
He depicts God, 5:15 and on, as awaiting repentance and he puts a liturgy of penitence upon the people's lips. "Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has torn. He will heal us. He has stricken. He will bind us. After two days, He will revive us. On the third day, He will raise us that we may live before Him. Let us know. Let us press on to know Yahweh is going forth as sure as the dawn. He will come
to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. What is God's answer to this liturgy? "Oh, Ephraim, what will I do with you? Oh, Judah, what will I do with you? Your hesed is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away, therefore, I hewed them by the prophets. I slew them by the words of My mouth and My judgement was like the light that goes forth for I desire hesed, not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." These people don't know what repentance means. It means coming to church and saying nice words and nothing more. Hope did not rest in Israel at all. Hope for Hosea rested in the character of God who, beyond the judgement, would still be there, and he depicts God as speaking in the 11th chapter. "How can I give you up, O Ephraim, how hand you over,
O Israel? How make you like a Admah, treat you like Zeboiim? The city is destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah. My heart recoils within Me. My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute My fierce anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim. Why? I am God, not man. If were a man, I'd let them have it. Yes, the character of God whose mercy and love is above
all human mercy and love will be with His people beyond the judgement." This future restoration Hosea describes likewise in patterns drawn from the past. It is a new wilderness experience and a new land-giving and a new marriage, which is to say a renewal of the covenant bond. "Therefore, I will lure her and bring her into the wilderness and there speak home to her heart
and I'll give her vineyards from there and make the valley of Achor a door of hope." Remember, in the conquest narrative, that is where Achan brought curse upon Israel, the valley of Achor. Now, it will be a door of hope. "There shall she answer Me as in the days of the youth, as at the time when she came from the land of Egypt," and it goes on. "I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, in justice, in hesed, and in mercy.
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness and you shall know Yahweh." The words "new covenant" are not used but the stuff of the doctrine of a new covenant is there in the center. Beyond the judgement of the broken covenant, God in His mercy will make a new covenant that will become explicit later on but it is certainly more than merely implicit in Hosea whose entire theology is shaped by that of the Mosaic Covenant.
Now, the other eschatological pattern we mentioned above finds its classic expression -- you've guessed it -- in Isaiah of Jerusalem who prophesized all through the dark days of the Assyrian invasions. Isaiah was rooted and grounded in the theology of Zion and David and in the sure promises that God had made to David. Indeed, this was the theological basis
of his lifelong criticism of the national policy and, mind you, prophets made no non-theological criticisms. As an aside, I think the pulpit has no business to make any but theological ones. It is only in the light of this theology does his critique of the national policy even begin to make sense. At the first glance, Isaiah's political advice seems self-contradictory, so much so
that many scholars have gotten out the scalpel and dissected the man for such contradictoriness cannot exist within the same skin. One is tempted to put Isaiah down as a changeable man who couldn't make up his mind, as a regular weathercock of a man who trimmed his sails to every wind that blew. In his young manhood, he opposed submission to Assyria. Later, on more than one occasion, he opposed rebellion against Assyria and then,
when the chips went down and the game seemed over, he counseled defiance of Assyria. Yet, one single theological line runs through it all. Isaiah's call at all times was to trust in God and His faithfulness, trust in that and trust in nothing else, build the national policy theologically. This was his advice. Evidently,
that was advice in the first political crisis of his career. That took place in 735-4, about seven years after he had begun to preach, just as Ahaz took the throne in Judah. A coalition had been formed against Assyria, led by Rezin, King of the Aramean state of Damascus and by Pekah Ben-Remaliah, who had usurped the throne in North Israel. They wanted Ahaz to join and he wanted no part of it and refused,
so they attacked him. They were going to give him a proper hazing and they were going to whip him into line and more. They were going to depose him and put a creature of their own choosing on the throne in Judah. The continuation of the dynasty was threatened and the promises of God to David endangered and Ahaz was scared. His heart trembled and the heart of his people as the trees of the forest trembled in the wind and he could see nothing for it but to send tribute to Tiglath-Pileser
of Assyria, become a vassal, and implore his overlord's aid, and he did so. He sent a large tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, second, Kings, 16:7. "I am your servant and your son. Now, come and save me from the hand of the kings who are attacking me. I am your dutiful, loyal vassal," and that was the beginning of Judah's vassalage to Assyria. Now, Isaiah opposed this with all the power at his command. He went out and met the king outside the
walls. He was inspecting the war supply. He said to him, in effect, "Keep calm, Your Majesty. Don't do it. Get hold of yourself. Don't be afraid of these two smoking faggots of men that attack you. God didn't ordain their plans," and he said, "It will not stand. It will not happen for the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin, and the head of Ephraim is Sumeria, and the head of Sumeria is Ben-Remaliah."
He wanted Ahaz to dub in another line which he knew very well and the head of Judah is Jerusalem and the head of Jerusalem is Ben-David, the son of David, and nothing else. "If you will not believe," and he meant believe that, "surely you will not be established." It's a pun. You can't translate it. (Hebrew). I have to translate it with a bad pun. If you won't stand for him,
you won't be stood firm. Put your feet down on it and stand like a man and trust it. That was the meaning of the sign of Emmanuel, which he gave him at the same time; the birth of the royal child as assurance that the dynastic promises were sure, a word which recalled cultic affirmations. Yahweh (Hebrew). "Yahweh of Hosts is with us," says the Zion hymn. (Hebrew). It was the sticking power of cultic affirmations which we
sneer at. They can say a thousand more than we little preachers can frame up with our facile lips. It was precisely the same conviction that causes Isaiah later in his life to oppose rebellion against Assyria. This was the case when early in Hezekiah's reign, rebellion broke out in the Philistine town of Ashdod, backed by Egypt. Ambassadors of the Philistines and the
Egyptians appeared in Jerusalem to get Judah to join and Isaiah opposed it. He begged the king to give a negative answer. In Chapter 20, he walked about Jerusalem naked and barefoot, which means clad in a loincloth, the garb of a prisoner of war, symbolical of what this policy would cost. Now, this was not merely that Isaiah realized that the rebellion was futile, as it turned out to be, and it was emphatically not that
he was content to see his country subservient to Assyria forever. On the contrary, he believed, Chapter 18, that God in His good time would give the signal for the overthrow of Assyria. Until then, wait and trust. This is the answer he wanted given the ambassadors. "What do we want to answer the messengers of the nation? This -- Yahweh has founded Zion and in her his afflicted people find refuge, trust."
This is also why, after Sennacherib comes to the Assyrian throne and rebellion was made in alliance with Egypt that Isaiah opposed it with a bitterness done parallel. The nation has trusted in Egyptian gods and in Egyptian chariots when it ought to have trusted YHWH. "Ah, the rebellious children," Yahweh's word, "who carry out a plan, not mine, who make a league not inspired by Me
that they made add sin to sin, who set out to go down to Egypt without asking My counsel to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt." Now, those words "refuge" and "shelter" are of the same roots as the familiar one in the Zion hymn, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble, therefore, will we not be --." So, the king in church sings, "God is our refuge
in strength." When the chips go down, it's "Pharaoh's our refuge in strength," and Isaiah found that to be nothing short of heresy. It will bring disaster. "All these will be down to Egypt for help; rely on horses and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are strong but look not to the Holy One of Israel nor consult Yahweh. The Egyptians are men, not gods! Their horses are flesh, not spirit,
and when Yahweh stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble and he is helped will fall and they will both go down together." He is playing on another of the royal psalms where the king says, "Some boast of horses. Some boast of chariots. We boast in the name of Yahweh." That's what you sing in church but that's not what you do on the political stage. You are denied your own faith. Put your actions where your mouth is, Your Majesty, for if you do not, it will only
end in disaster. Yet, later, when Sennacherib came down like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts all gleaming in purple and gold and had Jerusalem in a vice, Isaiah stood beside the king and said, "Your Majesty, don't be afraid of that loudmouth out there. He won't get in. He shall not come to this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with shield or cast up siege mound against it. By the way that he came,
by the same he'll go back. He'll not come to this city for I will defend this city and save it for my own sake and my servant David's sake." So, it's clear that Isaiah was informed by the theology of Yahweh's eternal covenant promises to David. Now, this is not to say that Isaiah was ignorant of the Sinaitic covenant as some scholars had wanted to argue and
certainly not that he held to the Davidic covenant in any complacent way. It's true that the book contains only two clear allusions to the exodus tradition and both of these are in dispute, I think, wrongly and simply because they are illusions to the exodus tradition. The traditions of exodus in Sinai were known in Judah. It's impossible to believe that Isaiah was unaware of them. Moreover, his attack on the crimes of society runs fully parallel to that of Amos
and is clearly rooted in covenant law. Like Hosea, he depicts Yahweh on a couple of occasions as launching his covenant lawsuit, his reeb. Yahweh takes his place to reeb. He stands to judge the people. Then, what does Yahweh do but enter into judgement with the elders and princes of His people? "You're the ones who've devoured the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean, crushing My people, grinding the face of the poor?"
That could have been Amos just as well as not. His attack on the lavish cultists was likewise parallel to that of Amos. It's clear then that Isaiah realized that Israel's obligation to Yahweh lay in prevenient grace and that failure to discharge those obligations would issue in the divine displeasure. Nowhere is this clearer put than in that matchless song of the vineyard in Chapter Five.
(Hebrew). This man was a master stylist, perhaps the greatest the Bible has preserved for us. He steps forward as if to sing a song about a friend's vineyard; a very fine vineyard, fertile soil, sunny hill. The friend had prepared the soil and sent out the very best of vines and he looked for it to yield grapes
and it yielded -- I translate it literally, "stinkers." Then, he turns to the crowd and says, "What would you do if you had a vineyard like that? Was there anything I could have done for that vineyard I didn't do? Was I remiss in any way? No, I was not and you know it. I'll tell you what I'll do to that vineyard. I'll knock the wall down and let the cattle in to eat it. "For the vineyard of Yahweh, of hosts, is the House of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant planting, and he looked for justice,
'mishpat,' but, behold, bloodshed, 'mispat,' for righteousness, 'sedekah,' but, behold, an outcry, (Hebrew)." He plays with the Hebrew language as a master artist might play with a musical instrument but his point is quite clear. Israel has failed to meet the obligations imposed upon her by the grace of Yahweh and must face the judgement. Isaiah certainly didn't believe that God would
defend the nation, no matter what. One might say that in Isaiah, Davidic and Sinaitic traditions are in creative tension. They are held in balance by a stress on the possibility of chastisement which is inherent in the Davidic covenant. You remember, that's a standard feature. If a king sins, I will chasten Him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men as possibility
of chastisement and, in principle, there was no limit short of the fall of the dynasty on how severe the chastisement might be. In Isaiah, chastisement reaches the point of national disaster. Remember that first chapter where he addresses the people? "Our sinful nation, people heavy with guilt, brood of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly," and then he goes on to liken them to a man
who has been beaten so badly that there isn't a sound spot from the crown of his head to the souls of his feet. He says, "Why go on with it, for except Yahweh of Hosts had left us very few survivors. We should have been like Sodom. We should have been like Gomorrah. We just missed it. We almost had it. We almost bought it for good, and but for the grace of God, we would have." As a matter of fact, in announcing this chastisement,
Isaiah more than once reaches precisely back to the traditions of great David and upends them. For instance, in Chapter 28, where he is announcing the judgement, he declares that the rebellious people have worked themselves into a trap from which there is no escape and he says, "Yahweh will rise as at Mount Perazim, will rage as in the Vail of Gibeon to do his deed, strange his deed,
to work his work, alien his work, Mount Perazim, Gibeon." Read back in the Book of Samuel, Chapter Five. Those were the two battles in which David broke the power of the Philistines definitely. Now, Yahweh will intervene as he did in David's day. He will come with his mighty power against you, and the other examples we have in time. Yet, I can see no evidence that Isaiah
looked for the total destruction of the nation and the end of the Davidic dynasty. Assyria is the instrument of God's judgement but only an instrument. Assyria will never have the last word. Assyria is a tool in God's hand. Indeed, twice he speaks of Yahweh whistling Assyria in and Assyria coming as a good dog should to do Yahweh's bidding. Classically, however, in
Chapter 10, "Woe to Assyria, rod of My anger, staff of My fury, it's in their hands. Against a godless nation, I send Him, against the people of My wrath, command Him," and so on. But, he goes on to say the Assyrian never got the point. He rather thought he was acting autonomously out of his own will and power and that it was he who was in control of history, and Isaiah flares back in Verse 12. That is somewhat like the ax getting the notion that it is
doing the chopping independently. Assyria, for its overweening pride, for its hubris, will be brought low and God will never allow Zion to be taken. The judgement then is a chastisement, a great chastisement but a chastisement. It is a purifying purge out of which a remnant will come. That must have been deep in Isaiah's thought because he named his
boy, Shear-Jashub, which can be stressed two ways. A remnant will return. Only a remnant will get back. A remnant will return. A remnant will return, I promise you. The book plays on it both ways. But, Isaiah, though repeatedly disappointed, saw God's judgement as a purifying judgement out of which a small remnant would return. Classically,
in Chapter 1:21, "What a whore she's become, the once-faithful town, she that was full of justice, where righteousness used to lodge; now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your wine cut with water. Your rulers are rebels, buddies of thieves. Everyone loves a bride and runs after graft. They don't defend the orphan and the widow's case never gets before them." Then, Yahweh speaks.
"Ah, but I'll ease me of my adversaries, avenge me on my foes. I'll turn my hand against you and smelt away your dross in the furnace and remove all your alloy and afterward you shall be called here [Hasidic?], the faithful town;" a purging judgement. Now, this is all, and we say this in conclusion -- a consistent articulation of the theology of the Davidic Covenant.
It's scarcely surprising then that Isaiah's eschatological hope should develop the same theology. In Isaiah, the, quote, "Messianic hope," receives its first and classical expression; this, of course, most clear in the two great passages in Chapter 9 and in Chapter 11, which we have not time to go into but are familiar passages to you, passages which look for the coming king to take the throne who will rule in justice and
in righteousness. He will rule by the Spirit of Yahweh, Chapter 11. He will be a charismatic, endowed with the spirit of YHWH as the whole Davidic dynasty in theory is but, in fact, isn't, and he will judge injustice as the king is ideally supposed to do. "Give to the King Thy justice, O God, Thy righteousness to the royal son." Remember the royal psalm. "With righteousness, he will judge the poor, decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
He will be that ideal king and Eden-like peace will come to man for the knowledge of Yahweh shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." Now, this is not a mere ditto of the popular hope affirmed in the cult. It doesn't see the future as resting in unconditional promises of divine protection. It's not a hope for this nation right now as it is. It did not lie in
straight line continuity with the existing order as the goal towards which the nation's history inevitably marched. It stands in radical discontinuity with the present order, beyond the judgement. The chastisement allowed for by the official theology is in Isaiah no theoretical possibility. It is expressly announced and his hope is for a purified nation beyond the chastisement. His king
is no repetition of the mere kingly ideal expected of every king. It is the expectation of a coming king unlike any king ever seen who would fulfill the kingly ideal and make the promises actual. Just here, there began the hope for him who shall come, the Anointed One of David's line whom we, although Isaiah did not use the word, call "the Messiah."
It was a hope, of course, that would never find fulfillment on its own terms. No such king ever sat on David's throne. Finally, the nation fell and the eternal dynasty turned out not to be eternal. But, hope was not surrender. It pointed ahead into a yet farther future beyond frustration, beyond despair, beyond renewed frustration, down the corridors of BC
time, beyond BC and all the possibilities of BC until at the turning point of the years, it found a greater fulfillment. To you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Messiah, Christ, the Lord.