'tis the season for Isaiah
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Festive greetings to you all, I hope that your advent has gotten off to a very good start! This will be the last edition of lectionary notes this year as I plan to give myself a little break having just finished the first draft of my PhD thesis (phew!), so it is a little longer than usual. I look forward to getting started again in the new year, but if you have any thoughts about what you like to see more/less of in this newsletter, do let me know in the comments.
If you have been anywhere near the lectionary readings for the Church of England in these last few weeks, or any time in advent seasons past, you’ll have found yourself reading a great deal of the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah is a popular text within the church, beloved of Christians since the early church. Eusebius, a fourth-century bishop and theologian of the early church even said that
‘We should mention here too that Isaiah was also an evangelist and that he performed the same duty as the evangelists did. For he preaches the Son of God’1
The book of Isaiah contains some of the most significant prophetic material which speaks of the coming messiah and aligns closely with the life of Jesus, but it is also good for us to acknowledge that this isn’t all that the text is doing.
It is important that we resist the tendency to read the book of Isaiah like a game of messianic ‘Where’s Wally’ and appreciate all of the different aspects of the text. In order to do that, as is usual in this newsletter, I am going to briefly share some aspects of the historical and literary context of the book which will help us to appreciate it more fully.
Ugolino di Nerio, The Prophet Isaiah, wikimediacommons.org
The ‘seams’ of the book of Isaiah
Many of us will be familiar with the well-established idea within biblical studies that there are three distinct portions of Isaiah which were written at different times in different contexts.2
An interesting way of thinking about the ‘seams’ between the different parts of the book is to look at the chapters at either side of the divide between the sections. In the morning prayer lectionary, we’ve just passed through one of those ‘seams’ being that between chapters 39 and 40. 3
As John Goldingay says
Between chapters 39 and 40 ‘we go from the court in Jerusalem to the heavenly court, without any warning, or introduction. And we shift suddenly from narrative mode to drama, where no narrator intervenes between reader and the direct speech of the players 4
This is a good reminder of how important it is for us to use simple questions to orientate ourselves in a biblical text, so that we might notice significant or sudden changes in context. For example:
Where are we? As Goldingay points out, between Isa 39 and 40 we move all of a sudden from the court in Jerusalem to the heavenly court. This tells us that we’ve moved into a new portion of the text.
Who is speaking? It is good to be attentive to whose voice is present in the narrative. In prophetic texts especially it is easy to lose who is speaking. Is it God, the prophet, or someone else?
What sort of text is this? The major prophets are books which contain examples of different genres. Often in Isaiah and Jeremiah particularly, we move between prophetic visions, to narratives portions of text which discuss the events happening at the time of writing such as which king is on the throne. Try to notice when there is a change in genre and ask yourself what this change might emphasise.
By using questions like this, we will be more attentive to the text and aware of the places where, for example, scholars might see a ‘seam’ between two parts of a text.
Themes
As we draw near to Christmas and prepare to receive the Christ child in our midst, we are surrounded by texts from the second section of Isaiah, chapters 40-55, known as ‘second’ or ‘deutero’ Isaiah.
These texts were likely written much later than the first portion of Isaiah because they discuss themes that are particularly relevant to the events of the Babylonian exile. These include hope in the face of disaster, images connected to rebuilding, justice and rightly orientated worship.
As Jenni Williams helpfully points out in her commentary on the text:
This section of the book is addressed to [the] exiles, not to those left in Judah. The trauma of the exile and the confusion of those deported to Babylon are the main background of the prophecies in this section of the book. It is impossible to underestimate the effect on the Judahites in Babylon of the deportation and destruction of their city in 587bce 5
In the face of such suffering, a mysterious figure emerges from the prophesies who will bring salvation to a people in their time of need.
The Servant
Although much of what we hear in advent liturgy is taken from first Isaiah (like the people who walk in darkness and ‘see a great light’ in ch 9 or the ‘‘root of Jesse’ in ch 11), second Isaiah is significant for our understanding of messianic hope in the book because of the mysterious figure of ‘the suffering servant’.
This figure appears five times in second Isaiah and is understood variously to refer to Israel itself, to King Cyrus the great, or to the prophet(s) who wrote Isaiah.6
Of course, the servant has also been understood to refer to Jesus for much of Christian history. In particular, the description of the servant in 53:5 as one who ‘was wounded for our transgressions [and] crushed for our iniquities’ seems to foretell the events of the crucifixion.
So what should we make of all this? Is the servant in Isaiah Jesus or someone else? How should we understand the ‘seams’ of the book and the different contexts out of which the text seems to have emerged?
In many ways, the complexity of the book of Isaiah is what makes it rich and interesting. It is likely that the figure of the servent in some way fulfills all of these different purposes, but it is particularly striking n relation to Jesus’ life and ministry.
There absolutely are aspects of Old Testament prophesy and the book of Isaiah in particular which hint at the coming saviour, but these incidents are few and far between. Rather than trying to spot Jesus around every corner, let’s treasure these few places in which we see him and appreciate the rest of the text for all of the other things that it is doing.
As our advent preparation draws to a close, may each of us know deeply the presence of the one who is ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isa 9:6).
Eusebius of Caesarea. Commentary on Isaiah. Translated by Jonathan J. Armstrong. Downers Grove: Illinois, 2013) p 1
If this is news to you, you can find a helpful overview of the history and authorship of Isaiah here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Isaiah
Goldingay, John. The Message of Isaiah 40-55 : A Literary-Theological Commentary / John Goldingay. London, 2005) p 4
Jenni Williams, The kingdom of our God : a theological commentary on Isaiah, (London: SCM, 2019)
The servant appears in 42:1-4, 49:1-6, 50:4-9, 52:13-53:12
Dear Christie, I’ve enjoyed reading your notes. Looking ahead to the morning prayer lectionary for 2022 it looks like basically the narrative of Genesis through to 2Kings this year. But 7-12 Feb there’s a break in Genesis, and the readings are Leviticus . So… how to read Leviticus devotionally on cold damp mornings in February? Also: reading the Psalms as poetry: how can I let them speak to my emotions and imagination through their poetry.
Prayers and best wishes as you engage in the next draft of your PhD. Graham Collingridge