An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 141: God fights a Sea Monster, and the Ephraimites fail a hygiene inspection (Isaiah 26-30)

Isaiah 26-30
God fights a Sea Monster, and the Ephraimites fail a hygiene inspection.

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 26

“In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.”

In the past few chapters of Isaiah there’s been a general breaking down of nations, ending with a rebirth, and this continues apace in this chapter.

Before tackling that, though, a thought struck me about the previous chapters; where Isaiah is used in Christianity as a source for the prophecy of the coming of Christ, all the nations mentioned by name are currently Muslim, with Christians in a minority. So was Isaiah using the named countries as metaphors, not actually Egypt and Assyria (Iraq), but “Egypt” and “Assyria” in the sense of some generic unspecified empire or rich nation? Are there people that believe that the prophecy hasn’t finished yet? Quite a few of those countries are experiencing the kind of woes described in the earlier chapters after all. To my mind, it’s really just a good illustration of how you can’t trust a prophecy.

So, this chapter. God is in his house, the snail’s on the thorn, all’s right with the world. The doors of the mighty fortress of Jerusalem are open to the righteous (and thus, metaphorically, so is the church?). There’s a dedicated casting off of old gods, suggesting that old habits of polytheism die hard, but here Isaiah is seeing a time of dedicated monotheism (“O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name”). The old gods are dead. There’s some bits about the dead rising, possibly for punishment, possibly not; it’s unclear to me, nor why this should be a good thing, but I guess it can be tied back to the concept of “resurrection” under NT scripture.

One thing that I did take from this chapter, though, is that the “wicked” are evidently not considered worth saving. Once you’re bad, you’re bad. No chance of redemption under Isaiah’s future (“Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness”).

Isaiah 27

“In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I could barely make head nor tail of this chapter. The idea of God killing a giant sea monster is an odd one, but matched with lines at the bottom that talk of another parting of the Red Sea, possibly the two are related. Leviathan is not a giant serpent (as depicted in the accompanying Dore engraving) but the power of the sea itself – “slaying leviathan” means controlling the seas. Well, maybe.

As for the rest, too many unattributed pronouns, and some obtuse language makes it hard to fathom. Verse 2 “In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine”. Who is “her”? Leviathan? The “vineyard of red wine” kind of fits with the blood of a slain sea serpent, but already I’m lost. “Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him?” Who? Which two “him”s? One seems to be God, by the context, but it could equally be “one man” and “another man”. And Verse 8 “In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind”. When what shooteth forth? I can’t even begin to parse that first half. And the second part seems a total non-sequitor. What does that mean? That an easterly wind is a gentle one.?No, sorry, utterly baffled here.

The ending I can get; it refers to the return of the remnant of the Israelites from captivity.

Isaiah 28

“Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!”

This is another decidedly odd chapter, and it gets a bit ranty in places – some of the use of language is strange to modern ears, to say the least. So, initially, Isaiah rails against the tribe of Ephraim, singling them out as drunkards that will be trampled down by God’s judgement. Verse 2 illustrates some of the problems with this chapter “Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one”. A strong what? Smutty innuendo aside, really, this doesn’t parse, there is no prior or later reference to what this might be. Whatever it is, it’s used to destroy the unrighteous; possibly under 17^th century language its meaning was perhaps more obvious.

Anyway, as well as overdoing the strong drink and getting a terrible review on Trip Advisor (“For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean”), the Ephraimites have also made a covenant with death, and with hell which they believe will save them from God’s wrath. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. This is the first mention of such a concept, possibly Isaiah is exaggerating worship of non-Yahweh deities by the Ephraimites, but I like it nonetheless. The rest of the chapter is also kind of along these lines about there being no hiding from God, with some slightly obscure metaphor involving a ploughman and sowing crops, some of which are “bruised” with rod and staff, I think to help them grow, therefore the people will be punished by God to beat the wickedness out of them. I think that’s where that is going.

Oh, and I also liked this line about the setting down of God’s law; “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” which is repeated a bit later on. It’s so wonderfully vague and repetitive, yet conveys a steady drip of teaching quite well.

Isaiah 29

“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.”

This chapter starts with the destruction of Ariel, by earthquake and fire and tempest, reducing it and its people to the likes of dust and chaff. Because they worship false idols, but also because they go through the motions of worshipping God, but don’t really mean it in their hearts – there’s an interesting metaphor given here in that people who deny God are like a clay artefact that denies it has been fashioned by the potter’s hand. I quite like the imagination behind that sentiment.

I was thinking, whilst reading this, on how throughout Isaiah those who get punished as being wicked aren’t given any chance to redeem themselves – once wicked, always wicked and so should be destroyed seemed to be the concept. So it was good to come across the final line of this chapter where “They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine”. This is in the new age of the “Holy One of Jacob” when the meek and the poor will rejoice, the eyes of the blind will see and so on.

Isaiah 30

“For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.”

I think the first part of this chapter is saying that it’s no use running to the Egyptians for help; they are better when they stay out of affairs and won’t prevail (from later context, probably against the Assyrians). Furthermore, anyone who does so should feel ashamed of seeking help form the Egyptians (instead of, perhaps, from God).

There’s some more general prophesying about a time of destruction followed by a new age of peace and plenty; I like Isaiah’s damnation of those who want their prophets to only prophesy nice things! The prophecy then becomes a bit more specific again, with God’s wrath turned against the Assyrians. There’s not a lot more to be said on this chapter, it doesn’t say much that hasn’t already been said in this book, although it’s marginally less obtuse about it than some of the previous few chapters have been.