Isaiah

A Commentary

Brevard S. Childs

• Editorial: Westminster John Knox Press
• Año: 2000
• ISBN:
  9781611643619
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Biblical Commentary

In this important addition to the Old Testament Library, now available in a new casebound edition, renowned scholar Brevard Childs writes on the Old Testament's most important theological book. He furnishes a fresh translation from the Hebrew and discusses questions of text, philology, historical background, and literary architecture, and then proceeds with a critically informed, theological interpretation of the text.

The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

Selected Bibliography

P. Ackroyd, “Isaiah I–XII: Presentation of a Prophet,” Congress Volume Göttingen, SVTSup 29, Leiden 1978, 16–48; reprinted in Studies in the Religious Tradition of the Old Testament, London 1987, 79–104; H. Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josia Zeit, WMANT 48, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1977; J. Barton, Isaiah 1–39, OT Guides, Sheffield 1995; W. A. M. Beuken, “Jesaja 33 als Spiegelbild im Jesajabuch.” ETL 67, 1991, 5–35; D. M. Carr, “Reaching for Unity in Isaiah,” JSOT 57, 1993, 61–80; B. S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, London and Philadelphia 1979, 311ff.; Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, London and Minneapolis 1992; “Retrospective Reading of the Old Testament Prophets,” ZAW 108, 1996, 362–77; R. E. Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem, JSOTSup 13, Sheffield 1980; “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah,” Int 36, 1982, 117–29; C. Hardmeier, “Jesajaforschung im Umbruch,” VF 31, 1986, 3–31; D. R. Jones, “The Tradition of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem,” ZAW 76, 1955, 226–46; L. J. Liebreich, “The Compilation of the Book of Isaiah,” JOR 46, 1955/6, 259–77; 47, 1956/7, 114–38; R. Rendtorff, “Zur Komposition des Buches Jesaja,” VT 34, 1984, 295–320; J. F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity, Cambridge 1996; C. R. Seitz, “Isaiah 1–66: Making Sense of the Whole,” Reading and Preaching the Book of Isaiah, ed. C. R. Seitz, Philadelphia 1988, 105–26; G. T. Sheppard, “The ‘Scope’ of Isaiah as a Book of Jewish and Christian Scriptures,” New Visions of Isaiah, ed. R. F. Melugen et al., JSOTSup 214, Sheffield 1996, 257–81; B. D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture, Stanford 1998, 6–31; M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1—4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition, BZAW 171, Berlin 1988; Isaiah 1—39, FOTL 16, Grand Rapids 1996; M. E. Tate, “The Book of Isaiah in Recent Research,” Forming Prophetic Literature, Fs J. D. Watts, ed. J. W. Watts et al., JSOTSup 235, Sheffield 1996, 22–56; J. Vermeylen, “L’unité du Livre d’Isaïe,” The Book of Isaiah, ed. J. Vermeylen, Leuven 1989, 11–53; H. Wildberger, “Jesaja, das Buch, der Prophet und seine Botschaft,” Jesaja, BK x/3, 1982, 1509–1713; H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction, Oxford 1994.

The interpretation of the book of Isaiah has gone through many important changes during the last hundred years. Because this history has been reviewed often (cf. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament, 311ff.; Tate, 22ff.; Sweeney, Isaiah 1—39, 31ff.), there is no need to repeat it in detail, but merely to draw a few main lines.

The initial literary critical commentary of B. Duhm brought to bear on the text a new level of penetrating literary analysis, and his division of the book into three major parts (chapter 1—39; chapter 40—55; chapter 56—66) has been a major influence on the study of the book ever since. The application of form criticism to Isaiah, represented by scholars such as Wildberger and Westermann, sought to show the effect on the composition of traditional oral patterns and to break out of an impasse that developed when too great an emphasis fell on distinguishing between “genuine” and “non-genuine” passages (e.g., Marti). However, the approach did little to halt the atomizing of the book and at times even exacerbated its fragmentation. Most recently, new methodological approaches such as redactional criticism have sought to trace larger horizontal layers of editorial shaping. These approaches have discerned forces of redactional activity that have sought to lend a measure of coherence and unity to the diverse parts of the book of Isaiah as a whole (Vermeylen, 11ff.).

Within the last three decades the most creative work of Isaiah has fallen largely into this last category of redactional criticism for four reasons. First, the issue of the structure of the book has occupied much attention. Within the English-speaking world, P. Ackroyd’s illuminating essay (1978) coined the phrase “presentation of a prophet.” Ackroyd’s concern was to go beyond the familiar issues of authorship and historical setting and to raise the question of how the editor wished to render his material. He argued that it was not by harmonizing the great diversity, but by the recognition of the full impact of the prophet on the editor, even when using different forms of presentation. Duhm had assumed that each of his larger divisions had developed mostly independently of each other and that only at a very late date were they joined. Now the emphasis shifted, not only to the presentation in the individual sections (1—12; 13—23; 36—39), but to the linking of chapters 33—35 and to the function of the parts within the whole (cf. Seitz, Sweeney Isaiah 1—39). The effect has been to raise a host of new and fresh interpretive questions.

Second, the emphasis on structural and editorial shaping is an indication of a major paradigm shift that has occurred regarding the very nature of prophetic literature. The shift involves the recognition of the force of textualization of the oral tradition into a written corpus. Whereas the earlier form critics tended to see the creative periods lying within the oral stage, later critics have discovered a continuing process of reinterpreting the written text. Whether this reinterpretation is called “extension” (Fortschreibung) or “midrash” (Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance), it assumes that a corpus of written texts was continually evolving in response to changing historical forces. The result is that interpreters have become reluctant to eliminate verses as meaningless glosses, but to reckon with the possibility of an intentional expansion on the part of an editor.

Third, there has arisen a new interest in the book of Isaiah as a whole, but in a form that differs markedly from the traditional view that defended unity in terms of single authorship. In a well-known article (“The Unity of the Book of Isaiah”) R. Clements outlined his understanding of the unity of Isaiah in terms of a redactional process in which at least four distinct layers can be identified: an eighth-century (preexilic), a seventh-century (“Josianic”), an exilic, and a postexilic redaction. This shaping process was largely driven by Israel’s changing historical fortunes. In addition, one of the startling new developments within the last three decades has been the attention paid to different redactional layers within Second Isaiah, a collection that previously had been largely regarded as of one piece. It is now widely held that the concluding chapters of the book (65 and 66) are closely related to the first chapter, and that a conscious intention can be discerned toward uniting the various parts into some form of coherent literature as a whole (Liebreich, Compilation 259ff.).

Fourth, another feature of importance within the rubric of redactional criticism has been the role assigned to retrospective reading of the prophet. Whereas it was once thought that First, Second, and Third Isaiah could each be assigned to different historical periods with some consistency, now it has emerged that the earlier material has often been reinterpreted by the later. A growing consensus now suggests that the heart of the entire redactional process lies with Second Isaiah, whose influence reshaped First Isaiah and largely determined the form of Third Isaiah (cf. Rendtorff, Williamson). According to some new hypotheses, Second Isaiah has been assigned the role of transforming the inchoate material of First Isaiah by means of a retrospective interpretation in order to reflect the disastrous experience of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587. Clearly such an approach raises a great number of new and difficult interpretive issues (Childs, “Retrospective Reading”).

In the light of these newer exegetical challenges in the field of Isaianic studies, I think that it is in order to set forth my own approach in this commentary. Although I have learned much from the many modern studies of the book of Isaiah and identify myself in many respects with the newer methods, I still have enough serious reservations over the state of the field as to wish to move in a different direction from that represented by both the left and right. My concern is to develop my interpretation of the book in an exegetical form rather than as a theological or hermeneutical tractate.

First, I remain deeply concerned with the unity of the book, which I agree cannot be formulated in terms of single authorship. In this respect, I differ from the traditionally conservative approach represented by E. J. Young, Oswalt, and Motyer, among others, which, in my judgment, results in a literary and theological flattening of the richness of the prophetic witness. I plan to develop a commentary on the entire canonical scope of the sixty-six chapters that the received tradition designated as the prophecy of Isaiah. By the term canon I am not merely addressing its formal scope, but including the quality of the theological testimony identified with the prophet Isaiah. A major question of concern is to develop in what sense one can truly speak of the canonical corpus as the word of God to Isaiah. The complexity of the issue is especially clear when one considers that the historical eighth-century prophet does not appear in the book after chapter 39. With the majority of modern scholars, I strongly doubt that the problem can be resolved by portraying the eighth-century prophet as a clairvoyant of the future. A much more subtle and profound theological reflection is called upon to do justice both to the unity and diversity of the biblical corpus.

Second, I agree with the modern redactional stress on the multilayered quality of the biblical text. However, in my opinion, it is fully inadequate to find the unity of this book in a succession of redactional layers, each with its own agenda, which are never ultimately heard in concert as a whole. To end one’s critical analysis by outlining a seventh-, sixth-, and fifth-century redactional succession, each with an absolute dating, fails to reckon with the book’s canonical authority as a coherent witness in its final received form to the ways of God with Israel. Ultimately, the analysis of distinct layers and compositional growth must be used to enrich the book as a whole, rather than to fragment it into conflicting voices of individual editors, each with a private agenda. In the end, it is the canonical text that is authoritative, not the process, nor the self-understanding of the interpreter.

Third, one of the most important recent insights of interpretation has been the recognition of the role of intertextuality (cf. Beuken). The growth of the larger composition has often been shaped by the use of a conscious resonance with a previous core of oral or written texts. The great theological significance is that it reveals how the editors conceived of their task as forming a chorus of different voices and fresh interpretations, but all addressing in different ways, different issues, and different ages a part of the selfsame, truthful witness to God’s salvific purpose for his people. The fact that one cannot always determine the direction in which the intertextual reapplication flows is a warning against assigning too much importance on the recovery of sequential trajectories as the key to meaning.

Fourth, I remain critical of those interpreters who attempt to force exegesis into narrowly defined structuralist categories, or who restrict its only legitimate role to synchronic analysis. The relation of the synchronic and diachronic dimensions is an extremely subtle one in the Bible and both aspects must be retained (cf. Childs, Biblical Theology, 98ff.; 211ff.). Basically, my resistance to much of postmodern literary analysis derives from theological reasons. Although I have learned much from modern literary techniques, I differ in my theological understanding of the nature and function of scripture. I regard the biblical text as a literary vehicle, but its meaning is not self-contained. Its function as scripture is to point to the substance (res) of its witness, to the content of its message, namely, to the ways of God in the world. For this reason I remain highly critical of many modern literary proposals, which are theologically inert at best, and avowedly agnostic at worst.

Finally, regarding the place of the New Testament in an Old Testament commentary on Isaiah, the primary task of the latter is to hear the Old Testament’s own discrete voice and to honor its own theological integrity. Yet as a Christian interpreter, I confess with the church that the Old and New Testaments, in their distinct canonical forms, together form a theological whole. However, to deal adequately with the New Testament far exceeds the scope of an Old Testament commentary and the ability of this author. Nevertheless, I have offered a few probes of crucial texts that have played a prominent role within Christian tradition. I am fully aware that the full task remains still to be undertaken.

In recent years there have been a few attempts made to trace the role that the book of Isaiah has played in various periods in the history of the Christian church. Many of these volumes are useful and filled with learning (e.g., J. F. A. Sawyer). Yet I remain critical of approaches that, when tracing the appropriation of the book of Isaiah, assume that the major forces at work were largely cultural. Often the concentration falls on the misuse of biblical texts. What is missing is the ability to see the effect of the coercion of the text itself in faithfully shaping the life of the church—its doctrine, liturgy, and practice—in such a way as to leave a family resemblance of faith throughout the ages. In search of this goal, the voices of the great Christian interpreters—Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas, Luther, Calvin—remain an enduring guide for truthfully hearing the evangelical witness of Isaiah in a manner seldom encountered since the Enlightenment.

2. INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 1—39 (FIRST ISAIAH)

A special introduction to First Isaiah is hardly necessary. The major introductory problems are covered in the commentary. There is a brief review of the major exegetical problems before each of the major sections: 1—12; 13—23; 24—27; 28—35; 36—39. In addition, the function of the sections is often summarized in the concluding chapter.

Following Duhm’s initial division of the book as a whole into three parts, it was often assumed in popularizations of the critical approach that the material of First Isaiah was to be dated preexilic in contrast to the exilic and postexilic dating of Second and Third Isaiah. Of course, this is a major misunderstanding of Duhm, who pointed out from the start that a large amount of late material was found within this first division. He reckoned with a lengthy process extending from an eighth-century core, centered in chapters 6—8, to a late Hellenistic collection in chapters 24—27.

Much energy in recent times has focused on establishing the manner in which the very divergent sections of First Isaiah were formed into its final form of the book. Duhm’s view was that the collection of chapters 1—39, along with Second Isaiah (chapters 40—55), had largely developed independently of each other, and only at a very late date had been joined. At this point much criticism has set in, and a great variety of new proposals have been made, including several that envision a process of mutual influence exerted among the various sections during most of the process of growth. Some of this controversy will be reviewed when it directly impinges on the interpretation, especially regarding the functions of chapters 33, 34—35, and 36—39.

In general, I remain much less certain than many that the precise stages in the compositional history of the book of Isaiah can be recovered. Moreover, I would also question whether these decisions play the exegetical importance that have been assigned to them. I recognize that some structural divisions are clearly intentional and of much importance (e.g., chapters 12 and 39). However, I wonder whether others share a fortuitous element in their positioning, and it is a modern anachronism to require a clear and rational reason for every structural division.

Perhaps the one example of a major revision of Duhm’s classic distinction between the three Isaiahs is the recent case made for seeing the structure of the book of Isaiah falling into two basic parts, namely, chapters 1—33 and 34—66, and in assigning chapters 32—33, 34—35, and 36—39 to transitional roles in linking the two major sections. Sweeney (Isaiah 1—39, 43ff.) has recently summarized the major argument for this new structural analysis. Some of his points are well taken and of interest. However, in the end, I would judge that Duhm’s divisions are still to be preferred. In addition to Duhm’s literary and historical reasons for accepting chapters 1—39 as a discrete section, my major reason is a theological one. The sharp break between the collection of oracles in which the person of the eighth-century prophet is foundational for the tradition ends in chapter 39. Beginning with chapter 40, the message of the book functions in a different fashion apart from any role for the historical figure of Isaiah. Rather, the authority of the prophet continues and encompasses the remaining chapters, but in a strikingly different manner. To shift the major division to chapter 34 blurs this crucial shaping of the Isaianic corpus, and therefore I feel the hypothesis is to be rejected (cf. the commentary on chapter 40).

3. INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 1—12

Selected Bibliography

H. Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit: Israel und Assur als Thema einer produktiven Neuinterpretation der Jesajaüberlieferung, WMANT 48, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1977; K. Budde, Jesaja’s Erleben. Eine gemeinverständliche Auslegung der Denkschrift des Propheten (Kap. 6, 1–9, 6), Gotha 1928; R. E. Clements, “The Prophecies of Isaiah and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.,” VT 30, 1980, 421–36; M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1—39, FOTL 16, Grand Rapids 1996, 65ff; H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-...