Friday, December 12, 2014

Friday, December 12, 2014

Isaiah 7:10-25

If you remember a few years ago, when Dubya was President, there was a lot of talk about Iraq and a) weapons of mass destruction that could hurt the USA, or others, and b) regime change. Hussein was unpredictable, prone to violence, circumvented international law, and so on. (Like, some might be inclined to point out, Dubya himself.) So he had to be replaced. I bring this up because it might help us to get a small taste of what the mood and political climate was like in the time of Isaiah. 

In Isaiah’s day Israel was split into two kingdoms: North and South, or Israel and Judah. Jerusalem was in the southern part, Judah. Israel, the whole thing, North and South, is in a pretty nice, fertile area that also served as a land bridge between continents. So it was a desirable, strategic place to be. And the Bible is, in part, so full of action (you might have to trust me on this) because of all of the enemies that kept popping up all around Israel. And literally, all around Israel -- on every side. In the 8th century BCE the Assyrians, to the south-east, were rising to power and causing trouble. Killing people, taking land and other things that weren’t theirs. Not good folks. Not good happenings.

Up in the Northern Kingdom they wanted to get ready, and fight back. So a coalition of the Northern Kingdom and some other states went to King Ahaz of the Southern Kingdom, asking him to join their ‘coalition of the willing,’ to pick a name. King Ahaz was a young guy, so they figured he could be bullied into joining. But he didn’t! So what ended up happening was the Northern Kingdom and their friends in the coalition ended up attacking the South, in the name of regime change, with their justification being the greater threat of the Assyrians. They wanted a guy they could deal with (i.e. manipulate) running things in the South. Someone willing to play ball.

So that’s some of what’s going on here. 

And then we have Isaiah, a prophet. I imagine he's bearded. Isaiah is speaking with Ahaz, reassuring him that God is in charge. Bad things will happen. And good things will happen. That’s life. And in life, follow God. Go ahead and ask for a sign. Ahaz says 'aww, shucks, I can't do that!'

What did King Ahaz end up doing? Believe it or not, he went to the Assyrians for help! Abraham Heschel summarizes it powerfully:

No other ruler would have acted differently. The state was in peril, so he appealed to a great power for military aid. Isaiah offered words; Assyria had an army. To rely on God rather than on weapons would have been to subordinate political wisdom to faith. [...] So Ahaz decided that it was more expedient to be ‘son and servant’ to the king of Assyria than son and servant to the invisible God. He took refuge in a lie (cf. 28:15). The independence of Judah was surrendered to Assyria.*

Isaiah’s message about following God came out of this terrible situation. In today’s reading we have some famous words about a young woman giving birth to a son, and about people being reassured of God’s presence in the midst of trials. It appears that the latter parts of the Book of Isaiah come out of different historical periods, with references to different characters, different enemies. But this message of trusting in God is one that people need to keep hearing. And so we turn, as others have before us, to Isaiah, one of the most famous Hebrew prophets. Isaiah 7:14, about the young woman and the child, Immanuel, have of course been cherished by Christians, and are found in the New Testament (slightly altered) in reference to Jesus and Mary. I don’t think we’re getting the whole point when we look at it as a simple proof text for Jesus’s divinity. Let’s ask some questions, like why did the early Christians turn to this portion of Isaiah? How was Jesus’s context, Roman-occupied Palestine, similar to the situation of Isaiah and Ahaz? How are we challenged and reassured of God’s presence with us today? How do we go about following God’s will, and not a lie?

- Matthew Kieswetter

* Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (1962; repr., Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers Marketing LLC, 2010), 64-65.