An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 137: Signs and Portents, and the Return of Reverend Lovejoy (Isaiah 6-10)

Isaiah 6-10
Signs and Portents, and the Return of Reverend Lovejoy.

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 6

“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.”

It seems like a long time since we’ve had anything supernatural happening in the bible. There are a few psalms that talk about the miracles that God has performed, but these are looking back to events of Genesis and Exodus. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are written on a fairly human scale, as I recall the little books Esther and Nehemiah have very little activity from God; and in Kings and Chronicles God’s approval or disapproval is attributed to when kingdoms rise and fall. But columns of fire, burning bushes, plagues; there’s not been anything like this for a good while.

So it’s kind of exhilarating that this chapter starts with a vision given to Isaiah, of God flanked by seraphim. Whether seraphim are meant to be humanoid angels, or if they are a kind of winged lion hybrid like the cherubim of the temple, I don’t know; either works for the vision. I wonder what the symbolism of them covering their feet and eyes with their wings is meant to be. Feet seem to be seen as unclean in the bible (and hence washing the feet of others a humbling experience). Perhaps they keep their eyes covered because they aren’t worthy of seeing the glory of God, or perhaps as good servants they are deaf and blind. It’s an interesting image, and I’m sad that the Dore engraving that accompanies this chapter doesn’t try to portray it.

The seraphim burn away the sins of Isaiah’s mouth with a hot coal (ouch!), and the God tells him that he will spread the word to the people, but they will not listen to him, until the lands have been wasted. One tenth will be saved.

Isaiah 7

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Ah, now, here we have some actual prophesying, and that quoted verse must be one of the most important ones in Christian mythology as it seems to predict the coming of Jesus. But if we take the opposite assumption, for the moment, that it doesn’t, to whom would it refer? The name Immanuel means roughly “God is with us”, and I suppose the major sticking point with attempting to apply it to Jesus is that, well, he’s named Jesus (or probably Jeshua), not Immanuel. So to make the prophecy stick it has to be that Jesus represents God being with the people. Or you take the meaning of Jeshua (“salvation”) as being near enough to “God is with us” as to make no difference. Or perhaps, as with other aspects of the bible, and indeed this chapter from what I’ve read whilst researching this, the name is representative of an idea rather than an actual person. I mean, the “virgin” could as equally be taken to mean a nation, perhaps untouched by Babylonian persecution, as the person of Mary. I guess that way lies heresies that have been stamped out over the centuries.

But to the rest of the chapter; the historical context moves down to the reign of King Ahaz of Judah, grandson of Uzziah. The Syrians, the Israelites and the Samaritans have formed an alliance to attack Judah, and Isaiah is sent to warn Ahaz. God grants Ahaz some prophetic visions, including the one above but also the rather flat-sounding “And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep”, which really sounds like Michael Palin’s boring prophet from Life of Brian (“No one will really know where lieth those things, with a sort of raffia work base, that has an attachment”). Unless, of course, you take the allegorical view again – the “young cow” and “two sheep” are, I don’t know, warriors, or cities or something.

The rest of the prophecies concern a kind of mix of abundance and pestilence – swarms of flies, overgrown vineyards, people eating butter and honey, war and cattle herding.

Isaiah 8

“And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz”

I had to look this name up – it means “Make haste to the plunder” or similar; the reason being seems to be that if the Judeans defeat their Syrian enemies they won’t hold onto their spoils for long because eventually the Assyrians and Babylonians will come along and take them (as I recall from Kings/Chronicles, one king rather foolishly showing off his wealth to the Assyrian king, who then said “very nice, I’m taking that”).

The other prophecies given out by Isaiah here seem to be warnings of the “waters of Shiloah” flooding, and a dire end to wizards and soothsayers who will be driven to darkness during a time of upheaval. Meanwhile those who remain faithful and/or fearful of God will look for “signs and wonders” of His return.

Isaiah 9

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

There’s a strange mix of prophecies here. On the one hand, Isaiah speaks of dire times and burning as Syria, Israel and Samaria (variously) are brought to fight Judah as a result of God’s disappointment in the Judeans for not keeping faith. But on the other hand there are some well-known verses that have been taken as predictions for the coming of Christ – “unto us a child is given, unto us a son is born”, who will be the “Prince of Peace” who will establish an everlasting rule of judgment and justice. In other words, good will rise from the ashes of forthcoming destruction.

Again, these lines have become so firmly established in Christian mythology as referring to Jesus it’s hard to unpick them and consider what else they might mean. What is unusual is that the titles of the given child include “the mighty God, the everlasting Father”. That’s quite an accolade; I had been working on the assumption that Isaiah could be talking of a Messiah in the sense of an anointed king, a good one like David or Solomon, but to make the figure actually God – that’s an unusual and audacious choice. One option is that the verses are meant metaphorically – the “son” is the return of proper and respectful worship of God, but it does seem rather than Isaiah is meaning a more imminent arrival of God. Intriguing.

Oh, one other thing, the verse about “the leaders of this people cause them to err” – some things never change, where tin-pot dictators and fools still lead their people into disaster as a result of their own vanity and/or stupidity.

Isaiah 10

“Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.”

As with Kings and Chronicles, here we fall into the problem of attributing the rise and fall of nations as being due to the will of God, as the back and forth of fortune turns God into some kind of crazed puppet master.

As punishment for their idolatry, the people of Jerusalem will be over-run by the Assyrians and carried off into slavery, their goods taken as spoils. However, then God knows that the King of the Assyrians will become boastful and assume that his victory is on his own merits, not due to the will of God. So God will then punish him (with famine, by the looks of things; “send among his fat ones leanness”) and the remnant of the Jewish people will be free to return home and rebuild. According to this kind of philosophy, all a person can do to survive is to allow that God has complete and utter control over any event in his or her life, and deal with it. It’s a somewhat fatalistic view of things.

I liked with this chapter the return of lots of people and places with evocative names: “Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth”. I’ve missed that.