Round about Chapter 17, Isaiah
predicts that the city of Damascus and the nation of Syria will cease to exist.
You may be familiar with Syria and Damascus; they’re in the news a lot lately.
Because they still exist something like 2500 years after this prediction was
made. Of course, since the passage making the prediction doesn’t bother with
trivia like when or how any of this destruction will happen, plenty of people
like to argue that it just hasn’t happened yet.
But honestly “someday City X and Nation Y will cease to exist… eventually” is
so trivial a prediction that any rational person would ignore any claim that
it’s prophetic at all. It’s a statement that could be made about literally any
city and any nation ever founded, and it will eventually come true.
In the midst of Chapter 21 we get
the prediction that one day Egypt and Assyria will join Israel in the worship
of Yahweh. By a strict reading, not only has this not come true, but it’s
impossible for it to come true. You see, Assyria stopped existing a couple
thousand years ago. Of course, you could pull the popular apologetics trick of
claiming that this just means the people who live on the lands Assyria once
occupied rather than the actual nation of Assyria. And you could even really
make a stretch and claim it actually has
come true… but only if you make the assumption that Allah and Yahweh are, in
fact, the same god and Islam is Biblically valid. Somehow, I suspect most Jews
and Christians would not be willing to make that assumption. But in any case,
Isaiah 21:24 further claims that the three nations will worship together and be
“a blessing in the midst of the earth,” and I don’t know anyone with a
fucked-up enough world view to think that
portion of the oracle has come true!
This is made all the more
entertaining by the fact that the book later includes two chapters demanding
that Israel not make alliances with Egypt, and detailing all the catastrophes
that will befall them if they do.
Then there’s this little gem….
“Isa 21:11 The oracle concerning Dumah.
One is calling to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman,
what time of the night?’ 12 The
watchman says: ‘Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire,
inquire; come back again.’”
The very next verse starts
introducing an oracle regarding Arabia, so that lovely little piece of gobbledygook
up there is the whole of the “oracle concerning Dumah.” You know how you can
shake a Magic 8-Ball, and get “ask again later” as a possible answer because
it’s just a child’s toy with no real clairvoyant ability? Yeah, that.
A few more oracles, some chapters
dedicated to verbally fellating God, more warnings and condemnations of
everyone from the women of Jerusalem to the whole of the world… and finally we
get to something resembling history/storytelling in Chapter 36. Here, king Sennacherib
of Assyria invades Judah, and this section seems to be written in a historical
style similar to that of Kings and Chronicles. In fact, it’s a retelling of a
story from Second Kings, which is a good thing if you want to have any clue
what the context is supposed to be; Isaiah just jumps in right in the middle.
Interestingly enough, this story is
quite literally the exact one where, in my own blog entry on Second Kings, I
declared “aw, fuck it!’ and started breezing through to the end out of sheer
boredom. It says a little something about what it’s like to read Isaiah that
I’m now willing to write about the same story.
Anyway, Isaiah starts with the
armies of Assyria attacking and capturing a bunch of cities from Judah, then
starting to lay siege to Jerusalem. It leaves out the bits from Second Kings
about how the king of Judah had been suckling at the Assyrian teat, had
recently bribed them to attack and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, and
had tried (and apparently failed) to bribe the Assyrians into forestalling the
attack on Judah that is the subject of this story. I think, based on trying to
piece things together in the various books, that the Assyrians were attacking
Judah to prevent them from allying themselves with Egypt against Assyria.
Anyway, the commander of the
Assyrian army (called the Rabshekah, which seems to be a title or military
rank), shows up at Jerusalem to demand that Hezekiah surrender and to taunt
them for the inevitability of their defeat. He makes a point of saying that
their god can’t help them, since Assyria had conquered so many other kingdoms
and their gods hadn’t saved them. He also mocks them for trying to rely on an
alliance with Egypt for protection. Rabshekah also tries, unsuccessfully, to
incite the people of Jerusalem to abandon their king and accept Assyrian rule.
After the Rabshekah left to rejoin
the Assyrian king, Hezekiah sent his servants to ask Isaiah for help. Isaiah’s
response was:
“Isa 37:6 Isaiah said to them ‘Say to your master, “Thus says
Yahweh: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which
the young men of the kind of Assyria have reviled me. 8 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor
and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own
land.”’”
That just seems like odd and
pointless phrasing. Why not just “I’ll cause him to hear a rumor…?” Why does a
spirit need to be put in him that would make him hear a rumor. People don’t
hear rumors because of spirits, they hear rumors because other people speak
them. Ah, whatever.
Meanwhile, the king of Assyria is besieging
the town of Libnah, when he hears that the king of Cush is coming to attack
him. And this is where things get a little confusing. Not sure if it’s just
that the author of Isaiah is a shitty storyteller, or what. But it apparently,
after hearing this rumor, the king of Assyria sends Hezekiah a letter with
words to the effect of “I’m still coming to kick your ass.” Is this meant to
suggest that God’s spirit/rumor gambit failed to turn him back? ‘Cause that
would mean God lied and/or failed to do something he said he’d do. The book
never actually explains this, or comes right out and says what is really
happening either way. And since the Assyrian king eventually does leave (for
other reasons, as we’re about to discuss), I suppose it’s technically true that he 1) heard a rumor and 2) returned to his
own land, even though they are unrelated events and not linked as the little
mini-prophecy implied.
Hezekiah goes on another prayer
binge after getting this latest letter, and Isaiah delivers God’s response. It’s
weird, in that he’s speaking to Hezekiah even though portions of the response are
clearly directed at the king of Assyria as if he were present. But the long and
rambling response includes a promise to defend Jerusalem, which is accomplished
by sending an angel to kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers in the
middle of the night. This, finally, convinces the king of Assyria to go home to
lick his wounds, where he is eventually assassinated by a couple of his own
sons.
And that will be my stopping point
for today. When next we come back, we can get into Hezekiah getting sick, recovering,
and being kind of a dick about his own kids as we continue our wondrous exploration
of Isaiah.
