An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 144: Trees are really useful: don’t worship them. Plus Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Plus a thinly-veiled Trump reference. (Isaiah 41-45)

Isaiah 41-45
Trees are really useful: don’t worship them. Plus Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Plus a thinly-veiled Trump reference.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Isaiah 41

“Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.”

Well, it’s good to start a new batch of chapters with something obscure. This chapter would appear to be God speaking, telling of how He raised a “righteous man from the east” who conquered all before him, so that “islands” (perhaps meaning disparate nations?) drew together. There’s quite a lot of reference to trades in this chapter. There’s a nice verse about the carpenter encouraging the goldsmith, and even a mention of soldering – references here to affixing things that seems to be a metaphor for the alliances between nations. Later on there is mention of winnowing chaff as well – it kind of lends the chapter the air of being addressed to the common folk, rather than kings and priests.

Israel is singled out, with God promising great things to them again (whilst slightly insulting them as well, “thou worm Jacob”), offering to make the desert fertile and to bring up water for the thirsty, amongst more martial promises. This probably intentionally reflects Exodus, but it does also raise a thorny issue  - if God can bring forth water for the thirsty, presumably the times of drought are all due to him as well, and if this is your worldview you end up getting into philosophical knots about what you must have done to deserve dehydration. The chapter finishes with an attack on false gods, and also on weak leaders and backsliders. Intriguing is the mention of raising up “one from the north” to trample the enemies of Israel like a potter treadeth clay (more crafters). I wonder if we’ll get more on this prophesied figure in the next few chapters.

Isaiah 42

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.”

Looks like we do get some information on the mystery figure from the North, but we get no further clue as to his identity (Jon Snow?). Obviously one reading of this has been that it refers to Jesus, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law”. Bringing “judgement unto truth” to the Gentiles sounds a lot like the ministry of Paul, as does spreading the word across the earth. But that’s as much that the evangelical language comes from this chapter as it being any kind of “proof”. I’m not sure, I reckon there are more contemporary people that it is supposed to refer to, if it indeed refers to a specific person at all and isn’t just an exercise in optimistic thinking.

Anyway, God further emphasises His greatness by promising various destructions to the enemy, and re-affirming that He really, really, doesn’t like idol worship. I don’t understand the reference “who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD'S servant?” Is this meant to be an exhortation of “blind faith”? That a true worshipper trusts only in God and not his own senses? It’s a mysterious passage.

Isaiah 43

“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”

Most of this chapter is God regaling the reader with His accomplishments. Is it possible to say that He comes across a bit boastful here? I mean, yes, if you’ve got a God that is all powerful and created you and everything around you, I guess in one sense He has a right to talk about it. But also I’d hope that He wouldn’t feel the need to do so. To whom is He trying to justify Himself? It’s a bit like a president still going on about winning the election over a year into his presidency.

But the meat of this chapter, I think, is that it ends with God saying to the Israelites that, yes, you may have been remiss with your sacrifices and with your worship, but I forgive you. That this promised gathering together of the scattered Israelites feels a lot like the Exodus all over again I think is deliberate on the part of the writers, particularly in the light of these passages that make the whole affair something of a rebirth for the Jewish people. After a long line of backsliding kings and idol worship, culminating in them being punished by God in the form of foreign captivity, here God seems to be telling them to go back to how it was in the days of Moses (mind you, they weren’t much better then,* cough* golden calf).

Isaiah 44

“He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire”

There’s some rather funny snarkiness in this chapter. A lot of it is devoted to condemning idol worship, and as before craftsmen get a prominent role, both the smith and the carpenter get a detailed description of how they work, although since in this context it is to make idols I don’t think they are particularly praised for it (but neither are the condemned). God points out that a man can take a tree, burn some of it to keep warm, some to cook his food and then worship the rest, and that this is foolish. Be that as it may, however, I don’t see anything wrong to respecting the tree and the forces that grew it in the first place so that it can provide warmth and cooked food. I think that’s a fairly spurious argument, to be honest.

There’s some more mention of redemption from transgressions and sin, which here is part of the return from exile. Presumably from the viewpoint of Christian theology either this doesn’t count, or is meant to be a prophecy of the death of Jesus, or perhaps mankind has once again become mired in sin by the time of Jesus and so His death and resurrection (to redeem mankind) is another attempt at redemption by God. But if He can forgive mankind with, essentially, a wave of a hand as He does so here, why go through the whole rigmarole of embodying as a human and getting tortured to death in order to do so later on?

Two name checks are of note here: Cyrus, king of Persia, is mentioned as doing God’s bidding. And someone called Jesurun, who is some kind of chosen one (if not Chosen One).

Isaiah 45

“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me”

I chose that verse as a the quote because in this chapter God repeats that He is the only God quite a lot. It’s another chapter of God talking of what He can do, and also what He will do to aid the Israelites, but as such it’s not vastly different from the past few chapters.  There is the line “Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?” which is one way of answering a lot of my questions from the past few chapters with something akin to “Shut up, that’s why”. So that’s me told then.

Oh, and I looked up Jesurun/Jeshurun; turns out it’s just a poetic name for the nation of Israel and not an individual.