debrief: Isaiah

~  Historical Background  ~

The prophet Isaiah ministered in Judah throughout the end of the eighth and beginning of the seventh centuries BC. It's likely that he began as just another run-of-the-mill prophet borne from one of the prophetic guilds, preaching a standard message of God's displeasure of Judah's sins. He became a particular kind of prophet when God appeared to him in a theophany, and from then on he became the prophet of Judah. His peculiar calling came during the reign of King Josiah around 740 BC, and Isaiah's message was rooted in the socio-political currents of the day. The Assyrian Empire was on the move, expanding as it liked to do, and the Assyrians' eyes were on the Fertile Crescent and as far west as Egypt. Assyria had thrown its might against the splinter kingdom of northern Israel and gobbled up Galilee and much of Israel's territory east of the Jordan River. Judah had been secure in Josiah's strong predecessor King Uzziah, but Josiah was made of weaker stock. When Israel and Aram Damascus joined hands with several other small nation-states to form an anti-Assyrian coalition, they demanded that the next Judean king, Ahaz, join them. When Ahaz refused their entreaties, Israel and Aram Damascus launched a joint invasion of Judah to depose Ahaz and place a puppet king who would be more amenable to their will. Ahaz, rather than trusting in God for deliverance, sought help from the most powerful and most untrustworthy power: Assyria. He implored Assyria to come to his aid; after all, they had the same enemies! Assyria was more than happy to get involved, but Judah had to pay a heavy tribute for the aid. A few years later, in 722 BC, Assyria dealt a death blow to northern Israel: she razed Israel's territory, ransacked the capital of Samaria, and deported the Israelites to locations scattered throughout the ever-growing Assyrian Empire. Assyria wanted to have Judah, too, so she set her teeth against another Judean king, Hezekiah. King Hezekiah learned from the mistakes of his predecessor, and God delivered him from the Assyrians by sending a devastating plague through the Assyrian troops besieging Jerusalem. Isaiah ministered during all these events, warning the people particularly against seeking foreign aid for help rather than seeking divine deliverance. He had a princely relationship with King Hezekiah, and he was instrumental in goading Hezekiah towards good choices.

Though God had delivered Judah from the Assyrians, the people of Judah persisted in their sin and unbelief. Isaiah criticizes the peoples' religious observances - basically going through the motions - while practicing idolatry on their 'off days,' perpetuating loose and indulgent living, and engaging in idolatrous pagan worship and sorcery. Because of their sin and refusal to repent, Isaiah prophesied that they would suffer a similar fate as Israel but from a different superpower: the Babylonians. His prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah's people was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Isaiah made sure, however, to emphasize how the coming exile wasn't the end of the story. Indeed, the exile was simultaneously judgment on Judah's wicked population and a 'training ground' for those who remained loyal to God. Those who remained steadfast in their loyalty to God would be seen through to the other side; they and their descendants would return to the land and prosper again. Prior to Jerusalem's destruction, Babylon deported wagon-loads of people to the rivers of Babylon where they were established in 'conquered communities'; those who were deported were the favored ones of God. By being deported before Jerusalem's destruction, they were spared the suffering that would soon engulf the land. The destruction of Jerusalem would be just the beginning: the after-shocks of the Babylonian conquest would make life a living hell for those who remained in the land. Drought and famine scoured the lands, and marauding bands of Edomites would make life a perilous thing for those left to fend for themselves. Those carted off to Babylon, however, were able to settle down in their homes, work their jobs, and raise their families with the expectant hope of an eventual return to their homeland when the dusts of desolation settled. The future Babylonian Exile is presented as both a judgment and a purging in the same way that the future Final Judgment is portrayed in scripture as both God's execution of His wrath against His rebellious creatures and the purging of creation to pave the way for a brighter future. Isaiah prophesies at length about both the Exile and the Return from Exile, going so far as to name the one who would lead Israel's exiles back home: Cyrus the Great of Persia. We know from history that just as the Babylonians conquered Assyria, so Persia conquered Babylon. It is a matter of historical record that Cyrus the Great orchestrated the exiled Israelites' return to their homeland. 

Though most of Isaiah's prophetic material deals with the issues of Assyrian aggression, Babylonian Exile, and the Return from Exile, he deals a lot with messianic prophecies and the future hope of Jerusalem and all God's people. Isaiah has been called the 'St. Paul of the Old Testament' because of the litany of messianic prophecies scattered throughout his work. He prophesies the virgin birth, Jesus' ministry, and Jesus' suffering and death. He writes extensively about the Messianic Kingdom that would engulf the world and how all people - not just Jews - would be on equal footing in God's covenant (a blasphemous thing for any prophet to say!). The pinnacle of the messianic prophecies are the four 'Servant Songs' scattered throughout the back half of the Book of Isaiah; these Servant Songs build into a crescendo praising the Servant of YHWH who would finally do all that Israel was supposed to do and who, through his suffering, would bear the sins of God's people and inaugurate a new kind of covenant. Looking beyond the Messianic Kingdom, Isaiah prophesied about a day when God would recreate the heavens and the earth, purging them from evil and recreating them as the perfect and peaceful dwelling place for God's people. 

~  "What Stuck Out to Me?"  ~

Perhaps the greatest lesson learned - or, rather, re-learned - was God's control of world history. Isaiah presents world history - especially in the case of the rise and fall of superpowers - as all being part of God's 'Master Plan.' This is an important reality to keep in mind. One can look back at the way superpowers rose and fell in the ancient Near East to decipher an overarching pattern that culminated in the Messiah coming 'at the right time' for the gospel to spread. In a simplistic manner, this is the approach: God orchestrated the rise of Assyria and used Assyria as a tool for judging Israel for her sins and disciplining Judah for hers; though Assyria had no intention of doing the will of God - and did what she did from her own motivations - the end result was that Assyria executed God's will. Assyria was in turn judged for her sinful actions and the prideful motivation behind them. Her judgment came in the shape of Babylon, whom God also rose up to judge and discipline Judah. Babylon wasn't innocent of her crimes, and God judged her by having her conquered by Persia under Cyrus the Great. Persian dominance collapsed in the late fourth century as Alexander the Great trampled through the Middle East and Asia. His success was orchestrated by God: by his actions, he brought judgment on Persia for her sins and spread Greek art, architecture, and - most importantly - language throughout the known world. Alexander's conquests inaugurated the 'Hellenistic Age' in which Greek culture and language became the dominant facets of the ancient world. Because of Alexander the Great, people were able to communicate like never before. Alexander the Great paid for his sins and his kingdom ruptured. The rising Roman Republic was able to pick up the pieces, and by the turn of the first millennium AD, the Roman Empire was establishing the pax romana ('Roman Peace') that made trade and communication easier than ever before. It is at this time that the Messiah came and performed his mission of inaugurating the New Covenant. The early church was able to spread the Good News of Jesus (the gospel) throughout the known world in large part due to the legacies of language and peace wrought by Alexander and the Roman Empire respectively. This is but one example of how God orchestrates world history to suit his ends, and there's no reason to think he's stopped in our day and age.

What, then, do we make of our current political climate? The simple answer, based upon the convictions of the prophet Isaiah, is that God is orchestrating things to bring his overarching plan to fruition. Just as the Judeans of Isaiah's day couldn't fathom God's hand in world events, so we, too, are often incredulous. I struggle to make sense of why God would bring a baffoon like President Trump into office; but I'd do well to remember - as would most evangelical Christians - that God's choice of leaders isn't always for the edification of their countries; sometimes it is for judgment. The trick is that we don't know what until later. We enjoy the hindsight of seeing how Isaiah's prophecies came to pass, but we lack the ability to decipher just what God is doing in our current world. What we do know - and we know this from Isaiah and from the other prophets and from Jesus himself - is that God has an end in view for human history, and he uses world events to bring that end about. We don't know where we are on the timeline, but we can rest assured that God is in control and will do what he said he'd do: establish a Messianic Kingdom, judge and defeat evil, and transform the universe for His people. 

But how is God in control? This is something I wrestle with on a regular basis. The tricky fact is that we have texts that decree, in no uncertain terms, that God is in intimate control of world affairs. Some of the most troubling include: 

The days of humans are determined: you have decreed the number of their months and have set limits they cannot exceed. [Job 14.5] 

[Nor] is [God] served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor He made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and He allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live. [Acts 17.25-26]

Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. [Psalm 139.16]

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. [Proverbs 16.33]

I form the light and create darkness, I may peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things. [Isaiah 45.7]

If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? [Amos 3.9]

We also have biblical texts that inform us that we are responsible for our choices. If God is in complete control, then how can we be held responsible for the choices we make? After all, wouldn't they be God's choices with us as the instruments? For that matter, why should Assyria be held responsible for her crimes against Israel and Judah if she were God's tool in destroying the one nation and disciplining the other? At times I'm bent towards Reformed theology - you know, TULIP and Calvinism and predestination and all that - while at other times I'm stolidly in the Arminian camp advocating human free will: real choice, real responsibility, real consequences. But then I'm reminded that free will as a philosophical idea is actually a pretty tenuous idea that borders on myth. Even if we are free to make choices, our choices are set within parameters; we can't choose to flap our wings like a bird and fly. And how often do we make choices based upon moral knowledge? More often than not our choices are subconsciously driven; we choose from our hearts, and our hearts are murky, deceitful things. Lately I've become intrigued by a middle ground called 'Middle Knowledge' (though it's technical name is molinism, I like 'Middle Knowledge' better because it reflects the 'bridge' or 'middle ground' it takes between Calvinism and Arminianism - which has led some to call it Calminianism). The basic takeaway is this: God knows what choices we will make in any situation, so he shapes situations to bring about the choices that will fulfill his direction for history. Our choices remain our own; we are not coerced, and God remains in control. We make choices within parameters that God has set. We see this with both the Assyrians and the Babylonians in Isaiah: both executed God's will, but they did it for their own reasons, and they were guilty for those reasons. That God used their sinful motivations and actions didn't mean they weren't culpable for what they did; they operated out of free choice, but God designed the parameters knowing what they would choose. 

Yet - and especially in Isaiah - there are tricky texts that cast a shadow over Middle Knowledge. One of the main tenets of Middle Knowledge is that God is in complete control, orchestrating every little thing, by establishing parameters and allowing human beings to move within those parameters. By this scheme, God doesn't need to fiddle with human volition in order to achieve his will. How, then, do we make sense of texts such as Isaiah 44.18 which tells us that the Judeans refused to listen to Isaiah because God had shut their eyes to keep them from seeing and shut their hearts to keep them from understanding? Or what do we make of Proverbs 21.1 which tells us 'The king's heart is a waterway in the hand of the LORD; He directs is where He pleases.' (Though one could argue that the latter text fits snug as a bug with Middle Knowledge; the heart is portrayed as a river, and the 'banks' are the parameters God sets). These are difficult texts, and I don't anticipate having answers anytime soon. But why should I, when these issues have been debated since medieval times? If only we could get a moment to sit down with Jesus and ask him how it all works together!

Speaking of Jesus, I'm spending a lot of time with him next.

Next up on my Bible Reading Queue is the Gospel of Matthew.

I'll be honest: it's one of my least favorite gospels.

(I'm a Johannine guy all the way)

Hopefully I'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Isaiah.

Here's to next time!