In the days to come,
The Mount of the LORD’S House
Shall stand firm above the mountains
And tower over the hills;
And all the nations Shall gaze on it with joy.
And the many peoples shall go and say:
“Come,
Let us go up to the Mount of the LORD,
To the House of the God of Jacob;
That he may instruct us in his ways,
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For instruction shall come forth from Zion,
The word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Thus he will judge among the nations
And arbitrate for the many peoples,
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks:
Nation shall not take up
Sword against nation;
They shall never again know war.
—Isaiah 2:3–4
Although the book of Isaiah goes under the name of a single prophet, it is generally agreed that it contains the writings of three people. The first occupies chapters 1–39, the second 40–55, and the third 56–66.1 This chapter and the next one will take up the thought of the First Isaiah (or simply Isaiah for short), whose ministry took place in the Southern Kingdom (Judah) during the end of the eighth century BCE.
Isaiah prophesied for approximately four decades, which took him through the reigns of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The period in question extends from the eighth to the early seventh century BCE. As kings go, this group was a mixed lot, with some successful rulers and some regrettable ones. Although Uzziah extended the boundaries of the kingdom and ushered in a period of prosperity, he grew proud, appropriated some of the ritual duties reserved for the priests, and eventually was stricken with leprosy. Jotham, who reigned as a co-regent when his father was suffering from leprosy, continued to expand the kingdom and to sustain its prosperity. Jotham’s son Ahaz was forced to confront the growing power of Assyria, which meant that he had to choose between joining an anti-Assyrian alliance or becoming an Assyrian vassal state. He chose the latter, fought a costly war against the alliance, and became so pro-Assyrian that he erected a Syrian altar in the Jerusalem Temple. The Bible (2 Kings 16:3–4) also records that he engaged in abominable practices such as human sacrifice.
The last king, Hezekiah, removed the idols from the Temple and restored traditional religious practices but continued to pay tribute to Assyria until the Assyrian king Sargon II was killed in battle. At that point, Hezekiah tried to enlist first Babylonian and then Egyptian support to form another anti-Assyrian alliance. Angered by Hezekiah’s actions, Sargon’s successor, Sennacherib, attacked Judah and came close to destroying it. In an effort to appease Sennacherib, Hezekiah paid a lavish tribute, including gold from the doors and doorposts of the Temple (2 Kings 18:13–15). Apparently this was not enough, and Sennacherib attacked again. The Bible (2 Kings 19:35) says that Jerusalem was spared when an angel smote the Assyrian army as it was laying siege to the city. Another account holds that Hezekiah closed off all the sources of fresh water, forcing the Assyrian army to drink contaminated water, which led to an outbreak of cholera.2
Sandwiched between major powers like Egypt and Assyria, the small state of Judah faced the problem of how to preserve its ethnic and religious identity, not to mention its very existence. After all, oppose a major power and you confront the prospect of annihilation. Recall that when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE, the people were sent into exile, never to be heard from again. On the other hand, Judah’s alternative—becoming a vassal state—could be just as risky. In addition to fighting battles in defense of the dominant state, a vassal state had to levy taxes on its citizens to pay tribute. Worse, there was always the possibility that the dominant state might demand that the vassal state honor its gods by erecting statues of those gods in public places and adopting the dominant state’s religious practices.
What, then, was a small state like Judah supposed to do? It was all very well to hold out the ideal of peace, as Isaiah did in the verses beginning this chapter, but how was one supposed to get there?
Immersing himself in the political issues of the day, in particular how to deal with the grim reality of military might, Isaiah rails against the nation’s alliances with foreign rulers and any policy that asked the people to put their trust in weapons. For example, during the Syro-Ephraimite War of 734–33 BCE, Syria and the Northern Kingdom attacked Judah because Judah had refused to join their coalition. According to 2 Chronicles 28:1–8, 120,000 Judean soldiers were slaughtered in a single day, several high-ranking officials including King Ahaz’s son were killed, and 200,000 women and children were exiled to the North.3 What advice does Isaiah give amid this crisis? “Be firm and be calm. Do not be afraid and do not lose heart” (7:3).
Be calm? Isaiah assures Ahaz that his enemies will fail, which turned out to be true in the end. But instead of putting his trust in God, Ahaz turned to Assyria for help, a tragic decision in Isaiah’s opinion. It is at this point that Isaiah prophesies that a son named Immanuel will be born to a young woman and that by the time the son can tell the difference between good and bad, the people will be eating curds and honey and the nations plotting against Judah will be destroyed. We saw that this sign was ambiguous and, according to most accounts, could not be verified for years to come. With enemies attacking his country at that moment, how could Ahaz remain calm?
Isaiah went on to predict that, as punishment for Ahaz’s lack of faith, Assyria would turn against Judah and only a small remnant of the Judean nation would survive. In fact, by 10:5, he claims that Assyria will do God’s work (“Rod of My anger”) by punishing Judah, after which Assyria, a proud and arrogant nation that does not recognize God, will be punished itself. Eventually, the Davidic dynasty would be restored, followed by an era of peace. In Isaiah’s eyes, then, the crisis in which Ahaz and Judea were enmeshed was part of a divine plan that would radically transform the political map of the ancient Near East.
In addition to his oracle foretelling the destruction of Assyria, Isaiah issues oracles against Babylonia, Egypt, Philistia, Moab, and Syria. The lesson to be learned is that no nation, no matter how powerful, can shield itself from divine judgment. In fact, in a passage that has come to be known as the “Isaiah Apocalypse” (24–27), he proclaims that God’s final judgment will encompass the whole earth:
Behold,
The LORD will strip the earth bare,
And lay it waste,
And twist its surface,
And scatter its inhabitants. . . .
The earth shall be bare, bare;
It shall be plundered, plundered,
For it is the LORD who spoke this word. (24:1–3)
If God created the heavens and the earth in a single moment, Isaiah is saying, they could be destroyed just as easily. Or, if the nation put its trust in God, it will be protected from its enemies and enjoy all the benefits of peace. This whole way of looking at things is what Buber calls “theopolitics.”4 Behind the theopolitics of the prophets is a God-centered view of history. God, entangled in the affairs of nations, will see to it that however dismal things may seem at present, justice will prevail in the end. But again, what was the ruler of a nation who had to make day-to-day decisions to protect his people supposed to do?
Although Hezekiah trusted in God and found favor with God (2 Kings 18:3–8), he was also a practical man who made weapons, repaired the walls of Jerusalem, and built a tunnel to carry water into the city so that it could hold out against a siege. When he considers joining an alliance with Egypt to help fend off Syria, Isaiah becomes infuriated. An alliance with Egypt? After all, God had liberated the Jewish people from Egypt. Now, instead of renewing their covenant with God, they are seeking to enter into one with Pharaoh.
Oh, disloyal sons!
—declares the LORD—
Making plans
Against my wishes,
Weaving schemes
Against my will,
Thereby piling
Guilt on guilt—
Who set out to go down to Egypt
Without asking Me,
To seek refuge with Pharaoh,
To seek shelter under the protection of Egypt. (30:1–2)
In addition, Isaiah lambasts the nation’s folly of putting trust in horses and chariots rather than the word of God. As he proclaims at 31:3: “Their horses are flesh, not spirit.” In our day, Isaiah’s advice could easily be shifted to tanks, which are metal, not spirit. If Assyria falls, Isaiah assures the people (31:8), it will not be by the sword of man.
When it comes to specific advice, Isaiah reiterates what he said earlier to Ahaz:
For thus said my LORD God,
The Holy One of Israel,
“You shall triumph by stillness and quiet;
Your victory shall come about
Through calm and confidence.” (30:15)
With an enemy at the gate, Isaiah again asks for calm, promising that God will protect the nation better than any earthly power. In this context the prophet Zechariah (4:6) comes to mind: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit—said the LORD of Hosts.” Yet, again, where is the ruler willing to trust in spirit? How long would he last if he did?
The Bible is not the only ancient source to raise these questions. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides recounts the story of Athens sending ambassadors to the tiny island of Melos to ask the inhabitants to pay tribute.5 When the Melians refuse, the Athenians point out that the way of the world is that the strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. In other words, in international relations, only one thing matters: raw power. When the Melians invoke considerations of fairness and morality, the Athenians scoff. Justice, they counter, is nothing more than political expediency. “Why trust in the future,” they ask, “more than what is currently in front of your eyes?” Still, the Melians refuse to pay tribute, after which the Athenians slaughter every male on the island and sell the women and children into slavery.
Such is the conflict between Buber’s “theopolitics” and what is commonly called “realpolitik.”6 One is based on faith in a just and merciful God, the other on the exercise of power. One calls for a steadied calm, the other for immediate action. One appeals to our better nature, the other to our instinct for survival.
Against Buber, Walzer argues that theopolitics is really a withdrawal from politics as we normally understand it.7 When Isaiah tells kings to be calm, he is asking them to reject alliances with other nations and trust in God. Imagine if someone had given this advice to Churchill or Roosevelt in World War II, when the issue of joining an alliance with Stalin was raised. Does anyone really think that Nazi Germany could have been defeated had they turned their backs on Stalin and turned to God for help?
This is another way of asking what role God plays in the history of national conflicts. Heschel characterizes Isaiah’s view of history as follows: “The world’s great powers are instruments of the divine will. Not the elements of nature, but primarily the powers of history carry out the designs of God.”8 As a historical claim about Isaiah’s worldview, this is undoubtedly correct. The prophets did not recognize nature as a force of its own. According to Isaiah, even a foreign nation like Assyria could play a role in God’s governance of the world. (Later prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel would even see the hand of God in the destruction of the Temple.) After the present dangers have passed, Isaiah foresees a time when the Davidic dynasty will be restored, the world will turn to Jerusalem for guidance, and peace will reign. “Like the birds that fly, even so will the LORD of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting and rescuing” (31:5).
To be sure, there are cases where, unbeknown to them, agents who pursue evil wind up producing God’s desired end. After Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he tells them not to be angry or distressed because it was God’s will that he go to Egypt to save lives and fulfill the promise God had made to Abraham (Gen. 45). As bad as it was, the brothers’ decision to sell him into slavery and lie to their father led to a noble end. Hegel based a whole theory on the idea that the people who make history may have little or no understanding of the consequences of their actions. What he termed the “cunning of reason” is the tendency for agents to act for personal or selfish motives but, due to the presence of unintended consequences, wind up ensuring that history proceeds according to a rational plan. For him, history is the story of ever-increasing manifestations of human freedom.
Hegel’s reading of history was centered on Europe. He was most interested in such events as the fall of the Greek city-state, the rise of feudalism, and the French Revolution. Generally he ignored battles (e.g., the Bourbons versus the Hapsburgs) or whole countries (e.g., India) that did not accord with his worldview.
The problem is, as Heschel himself comes to admit, history does not proceed according to a well-orchestrated plan but is rather a nightmare. Hypocrisy, corruption, conflict, and oppression abound. How, then, can history be the arena in which God’s designs are carried out? Was it God’s design that eventually Jerusalem would fall to the Babylonians, that the Romans would destroy it twice over, that Christians and Muslims would fight a series of bloody battles there, or that Hitler would destroy virtually all of European Jewry? Was Rome—or, perish the thought, the SS—the rod of God’s anger? Distasteful as these questions are, they have to be asked. Some Jews think the answer to these questions is yes. When the full extent of the Holocaust became known, some argued that God wanted Hitler to punish European Jews for their assimilationist tendencies. Even today, some argue that the Holocaust was the “price” Jews had to pay for the formation of the State of Israel.
To me, such responses, which have God in league with Hitler, are nothing but blasphemy. What kind of God would use unspeakable evil to teach people a lesson? What kind of end could compensate for 6,000,000 lives, including 1,500,000 children? Even if the Holocaust led to a millennium of world peace (which clearly has not happened), how could it be alleged that we are better off because they perished in the gas chambers? Given such monstrous evils, the whole idea of compensation is grotesque. To view every historical occurrence as part of an overarching divine plan would make God complicit in the most despicable forms of behavior and, in my view, undermine any possibility of thinking of God as gracious, compassionate, and slow to anger. So far from being worthy of worship, such a God would arguably be worthy of contempt.
If, however, we reject the idea that every historical event reflects God’s judgment, what becomes of Isaiah’s view of history? Part of the answer is staring us in the face. The prophets did not hold back when it came to motivating people to change their ways. Their descriptions are graphic, their oracles gut-wrenching. Within the space of a few chapters, one is likely to find inspired poetry, condemnation of current practices, visions of apocalypse, and promises of redemption. How much of this is to be taken literally? Did Isaiah really think that carnivorous animals like wolves or leopards would lie down in perfect harmony with their prey—or was he trying to say that nations might one day live together in peace? Although no one knows for sure, I suspect it is the latter.
Another part of the answer requires us to accept Isaiah’s limitations as a prophet trying to forecast future events. There is no way he could have foreseen Roman domination of the Mediterranean, the Crusades, the horrifying events of the twentieth century, or the rise of religious terrorism in our own century. Nor could he have anticipated countless other massacres that have occurred since ancient times. If history is a nightmare, then, as one of James Joyce’s characters put it, it is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake. We do not know, and cannot speak with any certainty, as to what Isaiah might have said had he lived through these other events. Furthermore, whenever we aim to consider God’s role in history, we have to keep in mind the limited nature of our understanding. As Second Isaiah (55:9) says:
But as the heavens are high above the earth,
So are My ways high above your ways
And My plans above your plans.
Similarly, we saw that when Moses was alone with God on the mountain, God told him that no mortal can see the divine face and live.9 This is generally taken to mean that an aspect of God will always remain mysterious to us. If so, then anyone who claims to know exactly what God is or what God is thinking—including a prophet—is on shaky ground. As we will see when we get to the book of Job, the same is true of someone who claims to know how God’s power is manifested in the world. The Bible tells us that God created heaven and earth, but the precise way in which God exercises power over them is unknown to even the wisest among us. When it comes to this aspect of divinity, all one can do is respond, as Job does, with wonder coupled with a deep sense of humility.
To continue with Moses and God, earlier we saw that God reveals the divine self as gracious, compassionate, and slow to anger. While these qualities may not tell us everything there is to know about God, they are the best that we in our limited knowledge can say. According to the prophets, too, as angry as God gets at the evils we perpetrate, graciousness and compassion win out in the end. If, however, we take away God’s compassionate side, if the world is no longer ruled by a just and merciful creator, then it seems that the biblical conception of God loses all meaning. One might just as well worship a malevolent God—or no God at all.
Can we then relinquish the idea that every agent in history is an instrument of the divine will and still find something of value in Isaiah’s message? I think the answer is yes if we can pivot from the eighth century BCE to the twentieth century CE. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) wrote that the distinguishing feature of Jewish existence is its ability to stand apart from history and be its judge.10 He meant that history is not always on the side of right: Sometimes bad causes triumph and the good ones are trampled on. The fact that the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish people scattered does not mean that the principles they stood for were refuted. The same goes for the countless pogroms and persecutions that followed. For Levinas, what distinguishes Judaism is its ability to exist in defiance of history. In other words, raw power is not the only way to settle problems. However uncommon it may be, a nation can put morality ahead of political expediency.
This, I believe, is what Isaiah wanted when he asked Hezekiah not to trust in horses and chariots. Those may not have been the best options from the standpoint of expediency. But if expediency is all we have, if no regard is paid to what Isaiah calls spirit, then he is telling us that whatever victory we achieve is likely to be fleeting.
In its day, Assyria was a mighty power that threatened everyone in its path, but it was conquered by Babylonia, which was conquered by Persia, which was conquered by Alexander the Great, much of whose empire was conquered by the Romans. In defiance of this, Isaiah looked forward to the day when nations would live together in peace. Although we are still waiting for that day to arrive, it is significant that Isaiah’s vision captures our attention long after the Assyrian army has been forgotten. As discussed in chapter 2, the prophets were moral idealists. It is in that light that we should understand Isaiah’s vision of lasting peace.
Taking Isaiah’s lesson to heart may mean that we have to alter our conception of how God enters our lives. Given the historical record as we have it, it seems highly unlikely that God acts like a stage manager who puts everything in place and makes sure the actors follow a tight script. Nor is it likely that nothing can happen without God’s approval. Rather, we might think of God as the commanding voice of morality. Such a voice puts before us a choice and asks us to follow our better nature—to live according to the teachings revealed at Sinai.
As Isaiah explains, this is what God wants of us:
Cease to do evil;
Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow. (1:16–17)
Not everyone hears this voice, and many of those who do choose to ignore it. Isaiah knew that—and still spoke of a day when swords would be beaten into plowshares. Here, as discussed earlier, we might take these words more as an exhortation than a prediction. It is not that peace will break out no matter what people do, so that we can keep to business as usual and let God do the necessary work. It is instead that peace will break out and Israel will become a light unto the nations if its people do what they promised to do when they entered into the covenant with God. If Isaiah is right, being a light unto the nations means that, to some extent, we all have to take up the cause of idealism.
From the standpoint of ordinary people, it often seems as if the prophets inhabit a different world than the rest of us. Whereas we tend to think in terms of what is going to happen tomorrow, they think in terms of what will happen when justice is finally served. Whereas we tend to focus on the necessities of everyday life, they focus on the ideals to which life should be committed. One of the challenges we face in reading them is how to balance these perspectives. No nation can safely avoid alliances with other nations. By the same token, Isaiah is telling us, no nation should think that alliances alone—or anything that falls under the rubric of political expediency—will be enough to secure the welfare of its people. In addition to survival, there is also the question of what we are surviving for.
It is at this point that Isaiah’s urging that we devote ourselves to justice, aid the wronged, uphold the rights of the orphan, and defend the cause of the widow has real force. Although Isaiah lived more than 2,500 years ago, these demands are timeless in their application. The people, and that includes us today, have to listen to that part of their nature that recoils against oppression and feels compassion for the poor—that part that brings us closest to the God we have committed ourselves to follow. If we cannot accept everything Isaiah says about the way God acts in history, we can accept the claim that history will only become tolerable if we dedicate ourselves to the goals that Isaiah and the other prophets insist on. In place of war, peace; in place of hostility, compassion; in place of anger, composure. These are the qualities that make life worth living. If kings or rulers lose sight of them, however successful they may otherwise be in subduing their enemies, we must still regard them as failures.