Episode 38: Isaiah and the Messiah 5: Isaiah 43

This week, we will be covering Isaiah 43 which marks a dramatic turn in the action. We will be talking about regnal names in the ancient world and the polytheistic Law of Continuity that plagued the ancient world with beliefs that the gods are part of the system, and not outside it–leading pagan people into the belief that their gods could not do anything “outside the box.” Yahweh, on the other hand, is telling His people to stop thinking in terms of polytheistic limitations and realize that He is outside the system and can, therefore, do whatever He wants to save them and can use whoever He wants–and no one can stand in His way.

Transcript below–not super well edited so just ignore the small stuff.

*****************

Isaiah and the Messiah Part 5—Isaiah 43

I really hope that you’ve been following along with the broadcasts but if not, I will review the main points so far. Isaiah 1-39 is largely doom and gloom with a few rays of light and a few historical vignettes—but mostly it is bad news for idolatrous Israel who is being warned that if they do not mend their ways, they will be going into exile—which of course happened in the sixth century BCE when the Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and took almost everyone east into exile. Isaiah 40-55 sets an entirely different tone, being written to those who have been suffering in exile. Throughout, we see them being comforted, rebuked, promised deliverance, rebuked again, we see the nations and their idols repeatedly being caricatured and mocked as ludicrous and powerless to stop Yahweh’s plans to deliver His people from exile—something new and impossible that has never happened historically before. We have a number of players and voices—Yahweh, Isaiah, the two Heavenly council members, Israel the blind and deaf servant, the nations and their gods, the coming Warrior from the East who will be Yahweh’s mode of deliverance—and, last week, another servant who instead of being blind and deaf, removes blindness, the one who brings the law to the ends of the earth, and yet does not break a bruised weed or snuff out a smoldering wick—the one whom Rabbi David Kimchi, Abarbanel and some of the targums identify as the Messiah—the man who is the ideal representative of Israel.

The action has moved from the Heavenly council to the courtroom—where most of the action of these chapters takes place. Yahweh has put the nations and their gods on trial to prove that they are truly gods, and the result can be very comical. Interspersed between the courtroom scenes are idol polemics and reminders/rebukes toward Israel to have faith and to get a grip and to finally come to terms with the fact that the exile was Yahweh’s will and not a failure on His part to protect the rights of His people. There is also a constant theme of the spiritual blindness and deafness of Israel and the nations and a promise of a new exodus out of Babylon and back into Israel. And we are going through all of this just to set the stage for the Gospel of Mark, which will draw heavily on this material to illuminate the ministry of the Messiah.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on youtube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com.

All Scripture this week is taken from the ESV, the English Standard Version, because that is what my interlinear is in. And unlike my usual MO, I will be saying Yahweh instead of God and Lord because there are so many different voices speaking back and forth in Isaiah 40-55 that it will help eliminate confusion. Otherwise, I always use titles because I don’t like to use His name carelessly or casually. Just a personal preference.

When we left off last week, Yahweh was really laying down the law and making it very clear that exile was the consequence of their own actions yet, despite seventy years of hardship, they still weren’t seeing the truth. We need to review those verses because the first verse of Chapter 43 begins with “But now…” and “but now…” means that there was previously a “then” that will be contrasted with the new material about to be introduced.

²⁴ Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?
²⁵ So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

As a review, Israel has been in exile for somewhere around seventy years, but they are still mistakenly believing that they are a conquered people only because Yahweh Himself was conquered by Babylon’s gods. Somehow, He let them down and so Isaiah is assuring them here that no, it is the result of their sin and the exile was Yahweh’s will, not His failing. What follows at the beginning of chapter 43 is just insanely stunning, despite not getting the big picture about the reasons for His wrath and who is to blame, He makes a 180 degree turn:

43 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Remember we talked about salvation oracles? They prophetically speak of speak of deliverance and redemption in the future as though they are already a done deal and often contain the phrase “fear not!” Well, this one is a doozy.  Yahweh reminds Israel of who He is as their creator, and says, “I HAVE redeemed you”—speaking of the future as though it has already happened because when God makes a promise, it is a done deal and we just wait for the promise to manifest as something concrete, but the result is no longer in doubt.

I have called you by name—if you have read King, Kingdom, Citizen you will recognize this phrase as an ancient adoption formula. A man would take a child and name that child and it was as though he/she was a natural born son or daughter. We see this, actually, in the Gospel of Matthew when Joseph names Yeshua/Jesus.

² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

We have some obvious Exodus imagery that is going to continue through the rest of the chapter, with the passing through the waters, and Jordan imagery with passing through the rivers.

Okay, just wow. Yahweh is calling them redeemed, but is this some sort of prosperity Gospel promise now where nothing terrible will ever happen to them again? No way—“WHEN you pass through the waters…and the rivers…and WHEN you walk through the fire”—not if but when. Not, “you won’t have to pass through crises” but “when you pass through crises.” This isn’t the kind of redemption we long to hear about, right? Anyway, they will go through trials of many kinds, but they will be preserved because they belong to Yahweh. Always have, always will. They just have to be spanked regularly—and don’t we all?

³ For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…

Alright, this is self-explanatory but we are going to go through it because it pops up a number of times in this chapter, slightly altered in the later occurrences and I want you to notice—I am Yahweh your God—and he is uniquely the God of Israel from its formal and legal institution as a people at Sinai. The Holy One of Israel—when you see the phrase “holy one” popping up it is in reference to Yahweh teaching them (Israel) the right way to live under His covenant. Your Savior—the word is Moschia’—and it is, in context here, referring to the promised deliverance from exile. No one else is going to save them—not even King Cyrus. Cyrus is a tool in the hands of God, one that is being used. Cyrus’s gods are not responsible for his victories, as we have seen throughout, they are discredited as nothing, unable to do anything. It was Yahweh who acted in the first exodus, and He will again be responsible for this new thing, and no other god can thwart His plans. Now—here is where it gets weird and it is a head scratcher.

…I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
⁴ Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you,
    peoples in exchange for your life.

Going to be honest here—a lot of scholars have a lot of theories but no one has “the“ answer. If it was just Egypt, this could be hearkening to the past, to the death of the firstborn—but Cush and Seba? This is definitely bartering language, pretty much everyone agrees on that and as such is very Middle Eastern—like Abraham bartering with God over the fate of Sodom. But this isn’t something that we have any historical records of ever happening. Might be just saying, “I will do whatever it takes” but I honestly can’t give you a hard answer. There is no consensus, just theories. And that’s okay. The folks who wrote it are dead.

⁵ Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.
⁶ I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,
⁷ everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

We’ve been talking over the last month about “ends of the earth” language and here is another installment to be added to the coastlands, islands, and ends of the earth—references to the four cardinal compass points—north, south, east and west.

And we can see the salvation oracle continues—“fear not!” along with a promise that they are indeed not hopelessly scattered—Yahweh will return them to the Land. Nothing, not nations or other gods, or armies or anything and not even distance can keep Yahweh from delivering His people from exile. And He says something interesting here about those who are called by His Name, that they are created for His glory. And we are going to see in a minute here how they are to function as vessels of His glory—namely, as His witnesses in the earth. Because of this—for the sake of His glory, they must be restored from exile—or else Yahweh looks powerless and shamed. He must have witnesses. Remember, we are still in the midst of a courtroom drama going on here. This is just an interlude with Yahweh conferring with His witnesses.

⁸ Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!

Who is this being spoken to? Blind Israel of Isaiah 42:18-20 and 6:9-10 or the blind nations of Psalm 115 and referenced in the idol polemics here in Isaiah? We have to read forward to find out. No guessing allowed!

⁹ All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right,
    and let them hear and say, It is true.

Aha! The blind ones being referenced are the nations and their gods again, the same ones commanded to come into the court room to present their arguments back in Isaiah 41. Time and again, and we saw this last week, their gods are challenged to declare the future and to show how they have successfully predicted past events. Their worshipers are called to be witnesses to their prowess in being above and beyond the system and not just part of it. That’s a big part of idolatrous religions—their gods are part of the system, tied to it, but they didn’t create it. They don’t exist outside of the system like Yahweh does. Yahweh is unique, and apart from Him there was no ancient conception of any god like Him in any way, shape or form. Again, He makes His challenge and once more we are invited to listen to the sound of silence and crickets as they are left without evidence and quite speechless.

So Yahweh turns to Israel. See how complex it is with all the voices and no stage directions??? Ancient writing is nothing like modern writing.

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he….

So He turns to them and declares that they are the witnesses of all He has done, past, present and future. They were chosen, as servants in the earth, for the sole purpose of witnessing all He has done in the earth. We could say that they are a living monument to the reality of Yahweh, and thus, to the reality that there are no other gods in heaven or on earth intervening in the affairs of mankind. He is without rival and without equal and they do not have to worry about anything getting in the way of their redemption.

…Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

Like I said, Yahweh does not exist within the polytheistic worldview, no god was created before Him because He is the Creator of the system—He isn’t bound by the timetable He created for us to exist in. The gods were only considered to be a part of the system and although there were stories about the creation of the earth, there were no stories outside the Bible about the creation of all things and creation being separate from God Himself.

¹¹ I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.

Hear that double emphatic “I”? It’s important. He is re-emphasizing that He is their only reality and everything they have been scared of over the last seventy or so years is nothing. Savior, again, is moschia. AND I forgot to mention last time what moschiach means—a moschiach is someone who steps in when someone else is unable to defend themselves. Shows up quite a bit in Deuteronomy and Judges, no shock there. Put in other words, “Stop looking at Babylon and their gods as though you are at their mercy, I and my plans for your redemption are your only hope and the outcome is not in question. It’s a done deal.”

¹² I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and I am God.
¹³ Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?”

Yahweh has been openly challenging the gods of the nations and their worshipers to declare, to save and to proclaim and there has been only silence—and yet Yahweh is reminding His people that He was making proclamations of deliverance long before they or practically anyone else had ever even heard about Babylon’s gods, when they were a backwater non-entity on the rear end of southern Mesopotamia. And the sad thing—He is saying that they are His witnesses. They know about the original Exodus story. They know about all the miracles, and they should know better than to think He can’t do it again. “Henceforth, I am He” He says –in other words, it is all going to happen again and no one can do anything about it.

¹⁴ Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships in which they rejoice.
¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

We have a second proclamation here of His royal names—whenever you see this sort of thing we are dealing with what are known as Regnal names—we also see it in Isaiah 9:6

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

We also see this in Isaiah 7 with the regnal name “Immanuel”—they are titles. I have seen some folks claim that Yeshua/Jesus cannot be the Messiah because His Name needed to be Immanuel, but that is not correct. Queen Victoria’s real Name was not Victoria, it was Alexandrina—Victoria was a symbolic name. All ancient Kings had them and, in fact, the Psalms use son of David as a general regnal name for all of the kings that issued from David.

But, I digress, back to the verses sandwiched around Babylon’s fate, we have “Yahweh, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” and “Yahweh, your Holy One, Creator of Israel, your King” and although these may seem like they are saying the same thing, they are not. First we have God’s personal Name, and a title of “your redeemer (goal)” a kinship term for the close relative that saves one from ruin, and the Holy One of Israel which, as we discussed before—refers to Yahweh being the One who sets forth the righteous way of life—something that, if Israel had heeded, they would not be in exile in the first place. That’s the first slice of bread in the sandwich, and the second is Yahweh, YOUR Holy One—making His role as lawgiver and guide entirely personal and intimate, Creator of Israel—marking Him as the only god in history to Create a nation, and “your King”—which is all about the allegiance they owe Him as absolute sovereign. And these are important regnal names, vital titles to understanding His relational role with Israel.

In between these, Yahweh speaks again about Babylon’s fate—He will send Cyrus (still unnamed until chapter 44) to Babylon and they will be carted off as fugitives in the very ships they used in their own conquests. Poetic justice, for sure. And speaking of poetry, remember we had a hint of original Exodus language a while back? Nothing subtle about the next verses.

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
¹⁷ who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

This is interesting—not only is Yahweh referencing the destruction of Pharaoh’s army of chariots in the Yam Suf, He is taking credit for having personally led them to their deaths, as though He commanded them to follow Israel. It is an awesome thing to imagine and one of the most compelling pictures in history—probably second only to the Cross and the empty Tomb.

¹⁸ “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

But wait! He says, “Don’t even think about that old stuff. Don’t look at all that in the past with longing.”

Does He actually mean not to remember the Exodus? Nonsense, the Bible commands that the Passover always be remembered throughout the generations. So what is He saying here?

¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Remember last week we talked about the inability of ancient peoples to imagine anything new being done. All of creation was locked into an endless repeating cycle where the unexpected just didn’t occur. No one could do anything that hadn’t been done before—it’s called the law of continuity. It’s all part and parcel of why the pagan gods were part of the system and not the creators of it, because that would mean that at some point there wasn’t a system at all. Impossible! But because Yahweh is outside of the system yet intimately responsible for it and involved with it, He is not bound to these restrictions. He can do a new thing—or in this case, an old thing (redemption) in a new way (through a pagan king). He is telling them to open their minds to the reality that He is not a slave to the system but instead the Creator of and Master over it. He can save them any way He wants—and He has chosen to do it in a shocking way through this pagan king whom no one knows about at this point. He says, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Obviously exodus language here as that is exactly what He did under Moses, Aaron and Miriam.

²⁰ The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
²¹   the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Yahweh is saying that their redemption will be so thrilling, their spiritual renewal so amazing, that all of Creation will rejoice as they witness the return of Israel to the Land. He even reiterates why He made them—to give Him praise. But, we have a but coming up, a big but in the form of a “Yet you…” and that can’t be good. And it sounded so promising, right?

²² “Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel!

Here we have a parallelism, saying the same thing twice but using different words. “You did not call upon me” is equated with “you have been weary of me” just as Jacob is equated with Israel. How utterly heartbreaking! The creatures of the desert will cry out in praise and worship of the Creator as the exiles return home, but Israel in exile has not worshiped or publicly honored God in any way. Apart, of course, from a few examples—there is always a faithful remnant in every generation. But Israel, by and large, was not living up to the purpose for which they were created. Yahweh has a list of charges against them:

²³ You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense.
²⁴ You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices.

In other words, they have done nothing that would show Him even a shred of honor in the ancient world, and if they aren’t doing the external things, they certainly aren’t giving Him their hearts—which is what He has always wanted. Pagan gods just wanted to be cared for and revered—they didn’t care about being loved. Yahweh doesn’t need to be cared for, He wants to be revered and loved. What He has wanted from the beginning, and this is why He created the garden in Eden, is table fellowship with mankind and when the sacrfices, the korbanot, are discussed in Scripture, they are always presented in terms of a shared meal or a food offering.  This is intimacy, at best, and a restoration of broken relationships, at worst—but it was never supposed to be a “going grudgingly through the motions” sort of deal. God has never wanted or needed fake worship. God is not a burden, but a lifter of burdens—and He always wanted His people to see that about Him.

But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.

Whoa—you haven’t lifted a finger to worship me because you were tired of me but you sure made me deal with your issues. Sin, when we see it in Scripture, is translated from chattat and transgressions are how we translate avon—and by “we” I mean people who are actually fluent in Hebrew and not me. There are three types of sins listed in Scripture, and I am going to lift an illustration from my good friend Ryan White of Faith in Messiah ministries and I absolutely recommend his video teaching on sin and sacrifice in ancient Israel—I recommend subscribing to his teaching site. He is quite possibly the best Bible teacher I know. But don’t tell him I told you that or I will have to kill him.

Anyway, he tells this fictional story about his three sons—of course, this was when he had three sons and now he has five but as there are only really four categories of sin in the Bible, and we’re only going to talk about three in this story—we are going to ignore the two youngest.

Anyway, so his youngest son comes in the room and finds cookies on the counter and he takes one and eats it. His dad comes in and scolds him for taking a cookie without asking but that’s about as far as it can go because this was just chattat—unintentional sin. The boy wasn’t thinking about it, he saw a cookie and he took it and ate it and wasn’t considering the implications. It was wrong, but there was no intention of doing wrong. That is chattat—translated sin.

Now, his next boy is older and knows from experience that he is not allowed to take a cookie without permission. But no one is in the room, and they smell so good. He tries and tries to resist and he knows it would be wrong to take one but he gets caught up in the moment and gives into temptation and takes a cookie and hides and eats it. He feels bad about it, but temptation just got the best of him. That is avon—translated iniquity. Whereas chattat sin doesn’t have that burden of guilt, chattat is intentional and does. When his dad finds out, there will be consequences and the relationship of trust will have to be restored.

But then, in comes the oldest son and his dad is right there in the room. He knows experientially that there are no circumstances under which it would be right to take the cookie, but he sneers at his dad, looking him straight in the eye, walks over to the counter and takes the cookie and eats it right in front of his dad. This is a willful rebellious act of contempt—called high-handed sin in some writings. This is called pescha in the Hebrew and is translated as transgression. It represents a serious breach of relationship and is not covered by sacrifices. You can’t be happy and prideful about your sin and get it forgiven.

Disclaimer—I know Ryan’s kids and they are all nice boys and the oldest would never have done this. Events in this story are fictitious and do not reflect actual events.

So, back to the verse—Yahweh is saying that they have burdened Him with unintentional offenses (they are clearly ignorant of what He wants) and wearied Him with things they know are wrong but do anyway. But the next verse is meant to knock everyone over.

²⁵ “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Whoa—He just said that he was kinda sick of their antics on the lower level offenses and then He flat out turns around and says that He is going to forgive their willful rebellious ones. Say what? And that he is doing it for His own sake—not for theirs.

Ever have a relationship with someone who is a hot mess? Abusive? Whatever? Ever just forgive their horrifying behavior and go forward because it is the only way to be in relationship with them? Well, I can’t say that I really have. I avoid people like that as much as possible. But Yahweh? Right here He flat out extends a stunning amount of grace toward undeserving Israel—and everything they did in Israel to ignore and rebel against Him? It’s going to just let it slide. He will blot it out. Unreal.

But then we see this, seemingly out of nowhere and we are back to the courtroom scene and Yahweh has His own witnesses on the stand, disputing with them as though they have just said, “But we didn’t sin against you! We didn’t do anything to deserve this exile!”

²⁶ Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right.
²⁷ Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me.

He’s saying, “Think back, present your case to me, Prove to me your innocence. You’ve been sinning against me since Abraham, Moses and Aaron. If they sinned against me, with as faithful as they were, what chance do you have of proving your innocence?”
And the last verse, because of verb tense, is puzzling.

²⁸ Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction
    and Israel to reviling.

It’s speaking of the judgment against Jerusalem and the Temple as though it is future, and although it will happen again in the future, after the return from exile, hundreds of years later—still, it seems oddly placed. The Tree of Life Version even goes so far as to change the verb tenses to past tense and render it:

So I profaned the Sanctuary officials, and gave Jacob over to destruction,   and Israel to scorn.

I am actually inclined to agree with this, but only because of the opening verses of Chapter 44, which pop up next, saying, “But now…” followed by yet another salvation oracle. But that being said, maybe it is talking about the destruction of the Second Temple forty years after the rejection and crucifixion of Yeshua by the Jerusalem elites through the agency of the Romans. In that case, the “but now” means “that’s in the future..but right now this is what I am doing to redeem you.” Could be. It’s an either/or situation.

Next week we will talk about Isaiah 44:1-22 or 23 and we will be covering what I think is the longest and most detailed idol polemic in Scripture and we will compare it to Jeremiah 10, Habbakuk 2, and the Babylonian Erra Epic. Jeremiah 10 is often used, incompletely quoted, to make it sound like it is talking about a Christmas Tree—when Babylonians had nothing of the sort and throughout the ancient world you didn’t cut down fertility symbols because, well, then they weren’t fertility symbols anymore. First rule of Sacred Tree Club is “Don’t cut down the sacred tree.” Christmas Trees are really only hundreds of years old and not thousands of years old and originated in Europe, not Asia. Ancient people would be just scandalized at our wasting of trees. If anything, it’s actually anti-pagan. But we’ll talk about that next week and the week after that, we are going to have a history lesson on King Cyrus because it will help us understand Is 44:24-45:14.