sins of the community (vv. 4-6). Contrasting with God’s majestic theophany, the sinful situation of the confessional community (or the servants) is hopeless. It isexpressedbyaseriesofsimilies:ameJ'k,;~yDIÞ[idgq' yrEî[,' !AYci, ~il;Þv'Wry>, WnTare >a;p.tiw> Wnveäd>q' tyB.eó The place where their fathers had praised God is
34Muilenburg, Isaiah 40-66, 739; Childs, Isaiah, 525.
35Muilenburg, Isaiah 40-66, 743.
36Paul Niskanen, “Yhwh as Father, Redeemer, and Potter in Isaiah 63:7- 64:11,” 405-6. 221 now devastated and burned with fire. The prayer of the servants in 63:7-64:11 ends with the twofold rhetorical question in v. 11, anticipating God’s answer in the following chapter.37
Isaiah 63:7-64:11 presents the lament of the servants over
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redaction or literary perspectives).39 In this section,
37Some scholars have raised the question of the connection between the lament of the servants in 63:7-64:11 and God’s answer in chapter 65. Cf. Whybray, Isaiah 40-66, 266. However, in the following section, we will discuss the numerous thematic and linguistic correspondences between the two sections. Cf. Koenen, Ethik und Eschatologie im Tritojesajabuch, 161. Koenen writes, “Hier soll gezeigt werden, daß Jes 65,1-7 als Antwort auf Jes 63,7-64,11 verfaßt wurde, daß aber auch Jes 65,8-66,17 zur Beantwortung des Psalms gehört. Die Klage des Volkes erfährt in der Komposition Jes 63,7-66,17 eine differenzierte Antwort: Die treuen Knechte Jahwes werden das Heil sehen, aber die Götzendiener, die Jahwe verlassen haben, werden zugrunde
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1-7. Verse 1 begins with God’s answer to the lament of the servants (“where is he?”, 63:11), the anticipation of theophany (63:19b-64:2), and the queries “will you hold yourself back? and “will you keep silent?” (64:11).40 Even though people did not find, seek, and call God, he takes initiative in revealing himself to them. The expression ymi(v.bi ar"îqo-al{) in v. 1 alludes to its occurrence in 64:6 (^êm.vib. arEäAq-!yaew> ). The twofold repetition of ynINEëhi emphasizes God’s accessibility to those who did not call upon him. God’s readiness to respond is emphasized further by the expression of ~AYàh;-lK' yd2y: " yTif.r:óPe in v. 2. Childs notes, “Whereas it is usually the petitioner who spreads out his hands towards God (Isaiah 1:15; 4:31), here God is pictured extending his hands towards his rebellious people.”41 There are thematic and linguistic connections between vv. 1-2 and 55:6-11: yTiv.r:’d>nI (v. 1 cf. 55:6), ytiaceÞm.nI (v. 1 cf. 55:6), ar"îqo (cf. 55:6), %rb;W), eating swine’s flesh (~ylik.ao)h)' . Some of this language implies the cult of the dead and necromancy in the ancient near eastern world.42 The wicked who practice the pagan cult nowspeakinv.5:^yTi_v.d:q.yKiäyBiÞ-vG:Ti-la;^yl,êaebr:äq. Theybelievethattheyareholierthan others by practicing the pagan cults.43 However, God’s judgment on them is proclaimed in a climactic summary statement: ~AY*h;-lK' td
Isaiah 58:6-14 is a very powerful passage. The first bible version that I read it in was the King James Version. That version didn't really make very much sense to me because of all the "thou's" and "thee's" and "thines". So then I looked it up again in the New Revised Standard Version. It was a lot clearer when I looked it up in that bible. There are a few similarities and differences from the different versions that I read. The two that stood out the most to me was the King James Version, and the New Revised Standard Version. The differences were like night and day. Probably because they were the first two that I read, and maybe because the King James Version, like I said earlier, has a lot of the "1800's language," like "thou"
A dull routine can always cause artificial stimulants that can lead to not more than fake results. In Unholy Sonnet 14 by Mark Jarman, he illustrates how the congregation is becoming more of a social organization than a faith-based community mainly because of the routine it follows. The poem reveals how the typical congregation seeks for sin to be forgiven. However, it also suggests that a congregation’s conventional dull routine cannot relive the pain of sin when it remains in the heart of the individual.
Although they are all sinners, they passionately believed in themselves as “God’s chosen people” (Saari, 20).
The Exegetical Task: Some parts of the Bible call for time and patient revision to understand. Some people find help in Bible dictionaries, commentaries and Bible handbooks (Fee/Stuart p189). Fee and Stuart feels that everyone needs to understand both the prophets’ era and the context of a single oracle (Fee/Stuart p190). The words spoken by the prophets at a variety of times and places are written down without any indication as to where one oracle ends and another begins (Fee/Stuart p193). The prophets employed an assortment of literary forms. 3 of the most common are: “The lawsuit”, God is portrayed as the plaintiff, prosecuting attorney and judge against the defendant, Israel (Fee/Stuart p194). The Woe, Woe oracles implicitly or explicitly contain an announcement of distress, the reason for distress and a prediction of doom. “The promise”, This contains an allusion to the future, a mention of radical change and blessing (Fee/Stuart p195). Hermeneutical Suggestions: What is God’s word to us through these inspired oracles, spoken in another time to God’s people? Once we understand what God said to them then, we will hear it again in our own surroundings (Fee/Stuart p199). The prophets’ messages were concentrated on the near rather than the distant future (Fee/Stuart p200). Sometimes the New Testament makes reference to Old Testament passages that don’t seem to refer to what the New Testament says they do
3. The Lord threatens the Egyptian people that he will smite or whip there fist-born child until they are dead unless they free the Israelites. The Israelites represent the hebrew slaves.
In his book God Behaving Badly David Lamb examines difficult texts in the Old Testament and tries to answer the hard questions that arise from those readings. In my own examination of Lamb’s God Behaving Badly I will look at a few of the- questions and difficult texts that I found most interesting. Specifically, I will examine Lamb’s response to God 's anger, apparent lack of concern for race and genocide, and violence in the Old Testament, and I will offer my own response.
The harsh and unyielding tone of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is created by the powerful imagery and the address of the congregation.
Isaiah’s terminology when describing God as “The Holy One of Israel”, not only shows reverence by admission of God’s holiness, but also emphasizes the point of the great offenses that the Israelite nation committed against God. As a holy God, he cannot allow sin in his presence, and therefore, must bring effect to the cause. With God’s ultimate goal of reconciliation, punishment is used to its effect while the Servant’s main role was making it available to the people.
The first portion of the book, “Part 1: Interpretations of Isaiah 53” explains the Christian and Jewish interpretations of Isaiah 53. Richard E. Averbeck defines Christian interpretation as “strictly as those that, in one way or another and to one degree or another, end up associating the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 with Jesus the Christ, the son of God, who took on the very nature of a servant in order to live and die sacrificially and rise from the dead to be exalted by God the Father above all as the eternal Savior of those who will put their trust in him”. In essence, Isiah 53 highlights the extension as well as the suffering of the prophet himself to Jesus who suffered for himself and
It is known that king Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jews to Babylon, after his conquest of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. This traumatic event for the Jews could be understood in terms of Yahweh's judgment of His people. The Jews felt abandoned and more importantly, the question of why had the God of Israel let foreigners destroy them? God’s use of Gentiles and their gods to punish
This paper will address these biblical passages in Isaiah 52 and 53, which describes a “suffering servant” to the Lord God. There has been a debate as to whether these passages where describing the Messiah who would come to restore Israel as God’s chosen people or if the passage was describing the nation of Israel as the “suffering servant”. Christian scholars and clergy view these passages as describing Jesus who they affirm as the Messiah. The text is written in a poetic form and flows from one subject to another, however, many view these passages as being extremely detailed prophecy about the Messiah to come. I will point out key passages and explain how these passages provide clarity about whom the writer was speaking. This paper will point out why Jesus is the “suffering servant”, who is mentioned in Isaiah and explain why the “suffering servant” is not the nation of Israel as others propose.
The next significant exegetical issue we shall examine is found in 53:3 and concerns the phrase 'a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; ' (ESV) Alternative reading;
To speak of the Hebrew Scripture is to speak of story, a story stretching from the very beginning of time to only a few centuries before the beginning of the Common Era. It is to speak of richness of content, of purpose and of reality and to engross oneself in an overarching narrative that, depending on your personal convictions, continues to the present day. Within this richness is found a wide variety of different events and experience, told through a series of genre ranging from foundational myth to apocalypse, law giving to poetry, genealogy to wisdom and many more. Within this diversity however, three broad sections can be discerned that speak to a shared purpose and content, these are the sections of Law, Prophecy and Writings. It
The concept of faith and suffering in the Hebrew Bible has filled worshippers with fraught throughout the ages of its existence. The crux of the matter is that there is no definition of what exactly these things are and what they mean, leading to many different theories to emerge on the concept of whether suffering is necessary for faith in God. This has historically caused strife between many populations of worshippers, and continues to be a point of bitter disagreement between people. Wildly contradicting itself between various books, the Hebrew Bible is at best ambiguous in many of these concepts, but when analyzing small passages, certain themes can be argued for with much more strength. In the Book of Job, loyalty to God is questioned, and ultimately the theme of free will in faith is addressed through the pain and suffering of its characters.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and Genesis 49:10 are two examples of textual critical problems in the Old Testament. The phrase “sons of God” will be examined in Deuteronomy 32:8, and the word “Shiloh” in Genesis 49:10. These issues have caused much debate as to how one should interpret these verses in light of the textual critical problems. This paper will examine both passages and provide solutions to each of the textual critical issues.