Come to mind (65:17). Literally “go up to the heart,” the equivalent clause is also found in the Aramaic Sefire inscriptions: “If it should cross your mind, and if it should come upon your lips to kill me,” you will have broken this treaty.1431
Utopian Paradise (65:17–25)
Looking beyond his present situation, Isaiah envisages a renewed paradise of peace and plenty. Similar renewal language is found in the Akkadian Marduk prophecy at the coming of a new Babylonian king: “He will renew the house of announcement, the Ekur-Sagil (shrine). He will draw the plans of heaven and earth in the Ekur-Sagil [implying their renewal]. . . . The fields and plans will be full of yield. . . . The harvest of the land will thrive. . . . Brother will love his brother.”A-299 Here, as well as in Isaiah, both human and divine benefit from the anticipated situation, though Isaiah portrays paradise coming from divine, rather than royal, initiative.
A similar utopian motif appears in Enki and Ninhursag, a Sumerian myth whose setting is Dilmun, probably identified with modern Bahrain.A-300 It is a “pure, virginal, pristine” land where “the lion slew not, the wolf was not carrying off the lamb,” there is no widowhood, suggesting lack of death, nor sickness or aging.A-301 Originally lacking water, the gods supply it so there grows plentiful grain and fruit.A-302 The nature of this description is under dispute, but it does refer to a mythological period in the past. It could be a previous, desirable paradise,A-303 or the initial uninhabitable world state prior to creation of the functioning world as we know it.A-304 While sharing motifs with Isaiah, the latter clearly anticipates a future time of blessing and plenty.
Such positive renewal is usually associated with the earthly realm, not the afterlife (see sidebar on “Cult of the Dead” at 57:7). The latter, according to Egyptian understanding, would be blessed for some, but they had to make a dangerous and arduous passage between the world of life and the underworld and were dependent for a high standard of living there either on items interred with them or on offerings for them made by those yet alive (see comment on 5:25). The afterlife does not appear intrinsically paradisiacal.A-305