![]()
We use the word miracle in English in two main ways. It can denote an extraordinary, significant event that is a direct act of God and cannot be explained in terms of regular cause and effect (we may or may not then believe there is such a thing). Or it can denote an event that is simply unexpected and amazing. In asking about how Isaiah speaks about the miraculous, we then have to take into account the way that words and concepts we use in English commonly have different meanings from the same words and concepts when they appear in English translations of the Scriptures. Examples that come to mind are words such as covenant, justice, and righteousness. In each case, there is an overlap between the meaning of those words in ordinary English usage and their meaning when they appear in English translations of the Scriptures—otherwise, the translations wouldn’t use those words. But there are also ways in which the Hebrew or Greek words that lie behind these translations have different implications.
In the case of the word miracle, any focus on whether things can be explained by regular cause and effect already suggests that the customary Western idea of miracle may not correspond to a concept that underlies the First Testament or emerges from it. Indeed, we would be unwise to assume that the same notion runs through the entire First Testament, or even through Isaiah as a whole, let alone continues into the New Testament. So my initial aim is to tease out the equivalent to the notion of miracle that emerges from Isaiah.
I can express the approach I will be seeking to take to this question in terms of several different models of interpretation:
- • In the terms of a mid-twentieth-century model of interpretation, I will treat that twofold understanding of miracle (as a direct “act of God” or, more broadly, as something extraordinary) as an initial understanding of the miraculous that constitutes a “preunderstanding,” or provisional understanding, that provides me with a way into a fuller understanding of the concept in Isaiah. I will be prepared to find that the study of the text leads into my getting a broader understanding of the concept of the miraculous; I will not want my preunderstanding to limit my understanding.
- • In late twentieth-century terms, I will recognize that initial twofold understanding as my initial “horizon,” which overlaps with the horizon in Isaiah but may not be identical to it. Because of the overlap, it opens up the possibility of coming to look at things from within that other horizon. But no two horizons are the same, and I will be seeking to broaden my horizon by looking at the subject within Isaiah’s horizon.
- • In the terms of another late twentieth-century framework, I will be aiming to be the “implied reader,” the “ideal reader,” or the “intended reader” of the texts.1 In other words, I will be seeking to study my way into being the kind of person with the kind of assumptions and ways of thinking that the book itself and the author(s) of its different parts assumed when they were seeking to communicate with the audience they envisaged.
- • In anthropological terms, I will recognize that my twofold understanding implies an “etic” approach to the book. It is one that starts from my cultural framework and makes my cultural assumptions. The cause-and-effect way of thinking is a clear example. I will be seeking to gain a more “emic” appreciation, one that works within the cultural framework presupposed by Isaiah.
With each approach, such study need not presuppose that the interpreter subsequently adopts the text’s understanding or horizon or framework. An interpreter may prefer to return to the one from which they started. I do acknowledge, however, that my own ultimate aim will be to assimilate my understanding or horizon or framework to the one I find in the text. It is an expression of the general stance I want to take in relation to the First Testament Scriptures. Admittedly, a paradoxical snag of that commitment is that I may unconsciously assimilate the ideas in the text to what I can accept: “Confessional, theologically motivated readings often suspiciously end up saying exactly what the interpreter wanted them to say all along.”2 Yet all readings are somewhat confessional and theologically motivated, “liberal” ones as well as “conservative” ones.3 So “conservative readers” are wise to check out what “liberal readers” think they have seen, and “liberal” readers are wise to check out what “conservative readers” think they have seen.
“Isaiah”
I have been speaking of “Isaiah” and of “the book of Isaiah.” Isaiah ben Amoz, who is named at the beginning of this Scripture, lived in the eighth century BCE, and among the miracles that have traditionally been identified in the book is its referring to the rise of Cyrus the Great as Medo-Persian emperor nearly two centuries after Isaiah’s day (44:28; 45:1). In this volume, I assume that actually, the book of Isaiah as a whole includes messages from other figures after Isaiah who lived at least a quarter of a millennium subsequently. They were prophets or theologians or preachers or teachers who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, as Isaiah was. They were also in a sense inspired by Isaiah, or possibly were caused by him to ask questions that they want to reconsider. They knew of things that Isaiah said, and they saw more implications in them, or they wanted to extend them, or they wanted to say the different thing that needed saying now, the kind of thing that Isaiah might say now. A classic example is that Isaiah ben Amoz reports that Yahweh wants to make his people deaf and blind (6:10); it is an act of chastisement for their unwillingness to use their eyes and ears in their relationship with Yahweh. But in contrast, a subsequent prophet or preacher nearly two centuries later reports that Yahweh is opening blind eyes and urging blind people to look up and see (42:7, 18).4 Such later figures saw that there was a “vitality” in Isaiah’s words that made them want to work out their further implications. Paradoxically (or not), associating their own messages with Isaiah’s and holding back their own names was a way of recognizing the creative stimulus in Isaiah’s words.5 I do not imply that every later contribution to the book shared this particular inspiration. Indeed, other inspirations contributed to this process—including, for instance, Jeremiah’s inspiration in a passage such as 49:1–6. And some of the messages that appear in Isaiah look as if they were simply ones whose value was appreciated by the people who gathered the material that appears in the book. I think of these people as the curators of the book that came to be called Isaiah, the people who preserved its material so that it could be read and taken notice of in their day and beyond.
I take a conservative and traditional version of the mainstream scholarly view that much of Isaiah 1–39 does go back to Isaiah ben Amoz, that most if not all of Isaiah 40–55 goes back to someone who worked in Cyrus’s time in the 540s, that most if not all of Isaiah 56–66 goes back to someone or to more than one person who worked nearer the end of the sixth century, and that the book was put into the form that we have in the fifth century.6 It is particularly difficult to have a strong conviction about how much of Isaiah 1–39 goes back to Isaiah ben Amoz, and my references to “Isaiah” in connection with those chapters, and with the rest of the book, regularly refer to the book that bears the name of Isaiah, which has indeed been nicely called “The Book Called Isaiah,”7 rather than to the person Isaiah himself. They thus do not imply a conviction about the authorship of particular messages. But anyway, this volume is looking at Isaiah as a whole, to which I will often refer as the “Isaiah scroll.” Even though a number of prophets and theologians contributed to it, it does not seem to be incoherent on the subject that is our focus in this volume; it wouldn’t be surprising if the curators of the eventual scroll assumed it to be coherent.8
That last consideration perhaps accounts for what might otherwise seem a puzzle. If the scroll developed over at least two or three centuries, and maybe over half a millennium, one might expect to see some change in the way it sees things between (say) the time of Isaiah ben Amoz and the time of the material in Isaiah 56–66, let alone the material in Isaiah 24–27 (if one works with another traditional critical assumption—namely, that those chapters come from the Hellenistic period). And there is indeed some development, but it involves the elaboration of an existent way of seeing things more than a move into wholly new ways of seeing things. Isaiah ben Amoz often speaks of a city’s destruction (Jerusalem or an Assyrian city); Isaiah 25:1–2 speaks of the destruction of an unnamed city (variously identifiable with Jerusalem or an imperial city).9 Isaiah ben Amoz speaks of “Yahweh’s day” or “that day” as an occasion when Yahweh will implement his purpose in a definitive way; Isaiah 24–27 and Isaiah 65–66 speak about that prospect in much more detail, but it is a similar prospect. We have already noted that Isaiah 40–55 can imply, “You know how Yahweh inspired Isaiah ben Amoz to picture things? Well, Yahweh is picturing things differently now.” These different outlooks and perspectives fit within one broad viewpoint. So the changing perspectives within the Isaianic material over the centuries can be embraced within one account of their viewpoint that stands against the picture that emerges from Genesis or Joshua or Jeremiah or Qohelet, for instance. And I will not focus on the way these outlooks expressed within Isaiah changed over time.
The Extraordinary
To work toward an understanding of the idea of the miraculous in Isaiah, we will first consider passages that look as if they have a similar understanding to the idea in English. The most extraordinary passage is a divine declaration about the extraordinary in 29:14:
Therefore here I am,
once more doing something extraordinary with this people,
doing something extraordinary, something extraordinary.
Isaiah here uses two forms of the verb pālāʾ, then the related noun peleʾ, for which translations commonly use words such as amazing and wonder. The verse follows up an occurrence of the verb in 28:29 in a line with a noteworthy parallelism between its two halves, or cola. It’s tightly expressed; here is a rather prosaic translation:
He has done something extraordinary, with a plan,
he has done something big, with good sense.
The parallelism in the line indicates that the extraordinary action meant doing something big or acting big; the plan it involved was one that embodied insight. The statement is the punch line to a description of the work of a farmer, who stands for Yahweh. Whereas 29:14 refers only to tough action that Yahweh is about to take, 28:23–29 compares Yahweh to a smart farmer who combines harsh action and positive action in relation to his land. A farmer treats the ground in a tough way, but he doesn’t plow forever; he plants seed as well. He knows what he is doing. So does Yahweh as he combines harsh action and positive action in order to achieve an extraordinary aim.
The noun peleʾ occurs with some comparison and contrast in that declaration about the city in 25:1–2, again with some reference to Yahweh making plans and executing them:
Yahweh, you are my God, I will exalt you,
I will confess your name,
Because you have done something extraordinary,
plans from a distant time, truthfulness, truth.
Because you have made out of a city a heap,
a fortified town into a ruin.
The citadel of foreigners is no longer a city;
it will not be built up ever.
This act of praise does not identify the city, which fits with its nature as an act of praise; prayers and praises in the Psalms commonly omit identification of people or places, which makes them open to use in different contexts.10 But there is no doubt that Yahweh’s extraordinary deed is bad news for the city in question.
Isaiah has one other occurrence of the noun peleʾ, as part of the name to be given to a royal child and again with some reference to Yahweh’s making plans that he executes:
An extraordinary planner is the warrior God,
the everlasting Father is a commander for well-being. (9:6 [5])11
Translations traditionally describe Yahweh as a counselor here, but the word used (yôʿēș) is related to the word for plan...
