Episode 48: Isaiah and the Messiah 12–The First Zion Song (Is 49:14-50:3)

In light of the marvelous deliverance promised in last week’s segment, through the work of the Servant, we would think that Jerusalem would respond with joy and song and exultation! We would be wrong.

Transcript below, as is, not really very edited or elegant.

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Isaiah and the Messiah 12

Last week we delved into the section of Isaiah 49 known as the “Second Servant Song” and this is where Deutero-Isaiah, the fancy schmancy scholarly name for Isaiah 40-55, changes course. Up until Isaiah 49:1, this section has been characterized by what I like to call “Yahweh’s re-education program” or “Israel’s reality check.” Quick review again—Isaiah 1-39 is “hear and obey or else you are going to be conquered and go into exile” peppered with some hopeful prophetic images of the coming child and such, then Isaiah 40-48 focuses on the messed up mindsets of a people long in exile who are more afraid of the nations than they have faith in Yahweh, and this section is filled with idol polemics and courtroom disputations where Yahweh makes a mockery of idol worship and disputes with both the Nations and Israel about who is the only God while proving time and again that the idols of the nations do not stand beside Him, they cannot predict the future as He can, and they are hopelessly pawns of the universe instead of outside creating and controlling it—that there is nothing godlike about them because they are the creations of the creation and not the Creator. We also see two mysterious figures pop up in the narrative—one is a physical deliverer out of exile who is later called by name, Cyrus, who Yahweh calls His anointed, and the other is identified in chapter 42 as the Servant who will not come with political or military power but will be given as a “covenant for the people and a light for the nations.”

Last week, we read Isaiah 42:1-9, as well as 49:1-13, to get a fuller picture of this Servant whose task was not only to bring Jacob back to Yahweh–because Yahweh, said that was too small a task, that He should also bring salvation to the ends of the earth. This Servant, as deliverer of Israel, does not replace Israel but is Israel perfected—the perfect representative to perform the task for which Israel was created and intended. Starting this week, we get into our first “Zion song” where Zion, Jerusalem, will be personified as a woman and will be directly responding to the revelation of the coming Servant. All of creation was commanded to break forth in singing at the announcement of the Servant—but what is Zion’s response?

Maybe I should introduce myself first!

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 the 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 and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com.

All Scripture references are taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible, the ESV.

So, the prophet commands all of Creation to sing for joy and to exult and to break forth in singing because Yahweh is comforting His people and having compassion on the afflicted through His Servant.

¹⁴ But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”

First of all, we see that “but” so we have to go backward because it means that someone is protesting something. You know how when someone says, “I love you but..” and then says something awful to you which totally negates the expression of love? Or how about “I am really a nice person, but I have to say…” and then they say something that proves they are not a nice person. Anyway, “but” is a word that completely negates or attempts to negate what went before—in this case, the proclamation by the prophet that Yahweh “has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted.” Oftentimes in prophetic poetry, which makes up a lot of Isaiah, you have what is called prophetic perfect where something is spoken of as if it already happened but is clearly referring to the future. The whole idea behind this, as we have discussed before, is that when Yahweh makes a promise, it is as firm as if it has already happened when in fact it is still to come. So the verb tense sounds like it has already happened, but the only thing that has already happened is the promise and Yahweh never breaks His promises. I hope I explained that clearly. Sometimes things sound better in my head than when people actually hear them.

So, Zion says “but”—“but what?” “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” What? How can you talk about comfort and compassion when Yahweh has clearly forsaken me and Adonai has clearly forgotten me?? That second “Lord” there is a rare usage of Adonai in Isaiah if we count the Adonai Yahweh references that occur elsewhere but this is the only time it appears alone in Isaiah 40-55. This is a complaint in light of the announcement of the Servant—what should it remind us of? It should remind us of part one in this series—Isaiah 40 where Yahweh has declared His coming deliverance of the exiles and they respond (behind the scenes but reported by the prophet) with accusations that Yahweh is blind and deaf to their cause, not seeing their plight and forgetting all about them. It has been a recurring theme for Yahweh to announce His salvation in His way only to have the exiles protest. Of course, we are totally different, right? Not so much.

But this is Zion, Jerusalem, personified as a woman. Isaiah has been and continues to be all about Yahweh’s victory over the nations of Assyria and Babylon, as well as over idolatry and sin.  It is a long view and things get messy because first Jerusalem/Israel and her inhabitants had to be dealt with for their covenant violations. She is bitterly complaining, Zion, the Nation as an entity and we will see why.

¹⁵ “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

I didn’t mention it in verse one, but I want you to notice a pattern of words related to a woman being abandoned, vulnerable and bereft. Forsaken, forgotten, have no compassion, forget, forget. And here we have a metaphor comparing the love of Yahweh toward Israel as being superior to even that of a mother with her child. Yahweh isn’t being equated with a woman here (nor is He male either because he is spirit). His love is being exalted above a mother’s love. This is like mamma bear on steroids language. Mamma bear wishes she loved her cubs as much as Yahweh loves Israel but she has to hang her head in shame in comparison. Forgetfulness is equated with being forsaken and having no compassion. This has been the constant accusation of Israel toward Yahweh since chapter 40. They just are not letting this go. Have you noticed that so far, no one has apologized or owned up to their culpability?

¹⁶ Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

Behold is an awesome word. It means, in this case, “look, here is the proof that you are wrong.” What does it mean to be engraved on the palms of Yahweh’s metaphorical hands? Well, scholars debate this. Could be a comparison to how slaves were tattooed or cut to show who they belonged to—like the disgusting practice of branding slaves in the American south. In this case, it would be a reversal where the Master is engraved with the Name of His servant nation. But, in any case, this is a permanent mark—not temporary. He isn’t going in for skin grafts or laser surgery later. How about the claim that “your walls are continually before me”? Goodness, the initial small group of faithful and obedient exiles went back in 536 BCE to a shattered Jerusalem with no walls and no Temple. When Nehemiah made Aliyah in 445 BCE, ten years after Ezra’s return, the walls were still in shambles. That’s ninety-one years from the first return. That’s always shocking the first time anyone hears it because we don’t think in terms of rebuilding taking that long. The temple itself took twenty years to build and it was a shadow of its former glory. Remember how I was talking about the “what if”? What if everyone had returned? Yeah, if everyone had left Babylon when commanded, Jerusalem would not have been in ruins for so long. But here, Yahweh is telling Zion that when He looks at her, her walls are intact. Is that a false prophecy? No, it’s a promise, Zion will never ever be destroyed forever.

¹⁷ Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.

Yahweh is promising that the invaders will leave her alone and that builders will replace them. The few that were there must have made haste because otherwise, without modern building materials, it would have taken those people a lot longer. Isn’t it awesome how, although our disobedience can delay God’s promises, it cannot destroy them? But this shows the importance of community obedience, as a body working toward one goal. It could have been done so much easier and those meddling Samaritans would have been too intimidated to harass them. Really makes you think about all the times you and I and everyone decide not to contribute to good works just assuming that other people will get the job done. I think about this with missions all the time. Like, every night as I pray.

¹⁸ Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord,
    you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.

This is an oracle of hope to a bereft woman—lift up your eyes! Your children are gathering and they are coming home to you! We also see “As I live” and that is an oath formula. This isn’t a maybe, it is an oath on the very existence of Yahweh. And they will be beautiful, they will be for your honor and glory like a bride with her jewelry. I once heard a story, long ago and I do not know if it is true and I don’t feel like fact-checking today—but that some Jewish communities will have community garments and jewelry for the brides so that no girl will be shamed on her wedding day by not looking splendid. If it is true then I heartily approve. That’s what I think of here, a bride who was once shamed and impoverished dressed in the finest and honored.

¹⁹ “Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land—surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

Surely, mentioned here twice, is translated from the same word where “as I live” comes from in verse 18—the Hebrew word “ki” which is a very very cool word. So, we have two more oaths here. Not only will this “forsaken and forgotten” Zion have her children, but there will also one day be so many that the Land will burst at its seams. The land that has gone fallow will be cultivated once more and Babylon and Assyria will be as nothing—which, at the time of their release from exile by Cyrus, was already true. Assyria and Babylonia were just vassal kingdoms under the Medes and the Persians, who themselves would fall to the Greeks, who would fall to the Romans and of course, Rome collapsed from within and without.

Waste and desolate places are ancient code for anywhere where there are no people and where there are wild animals.

²⁰ The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me;
    make room for me to dwell in.’

That “yet” is another oath formula. This is a promise. As a barren woman, I can tell you that such a promise is like nothing you can imagine. Yahweh uses barrenness very often in speaking to His people who are oppressed and in exile because the emptiness and hopelessness are just beyond imagining. It is a unique kind of shame and agony and it was even worse then than now when women were not even considered women if they could not have kids. Or produce sons. They could be divorced after just a couple of years of infertility (that might even be the husband’s problem and not hers). But here, lonely, empty and hopeless Zion has so many children that they are now complaining—like the children of the little old woman who lived in a shoe!

²¹ Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?’”

We start out with “then” and so we need to go back to the previous verse—this refers to the response to kids coming to complain that they don’t have enough room. Zion marvels, “how on earth did all these kids happen when I have no husband (bereaved means widowed) and, on top of that, I am barren and put away (divorced). I was totally abandoned, for so long, and now I am overflowing with grown children who were brought up elsewhere.”

²² Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.

This is really cool and there is a lot more here than it appears. Zion has been under foreign domination for seventy years, and under the oppressive and wicked leadership of the last of the Davidic kings before that. She hasn’t known righteous rule in so many generations but right here we have a stealth clue that things will change in the future. “I will lift up my hand” and “raise my signal” are part of the ANE kingship language of righteousness and justice, a hendiadys of two words that mean more together than they do separately. Like, “nice and hot”—hot isn’t always nice, but if I say nice and hot you might start drooling in anticipation of a home-cooked meal. Or warm and cozy—warm isn’t always cozy but together they mean comfort. In the same way, righteousness and justice was an ancient idiom meaning the acts that a good king performs upon coming to the throne. If he performed these acts, then he would be written about as a righteous and just king no matter what he did afterward. So, upon coming to power, usually the death of their father, kings would release slaves and political prisoners, they would do justice for widows and orphans and punish their oppressors, that sort of thing. The new King would lift his hand toward those to whom he was doing justice and a banner/signal/standard would be raised outside the gates.

Did you catch that? When a new king came to power, he would release the captives, do right by the vulnerable, and a signal would be placed outside the gates. In this case, it is on behalf of the nations. We have seen that the Servant, and remember this entire Zion poem is a response to that announcement of the Servant who would be a light to the nations as well as gathering Jacob/Israel—this is exactly the sort of thing we see the Servant doing in Isaiah 42, 49 and I think we have already covered chapter 61 as well. When Yeshua was crucified—hear me—He was lifted up outside the gates of the city and through His death and resurrection He inaugurated that New Creation, that new covenant where people are changed not just on the outside but also on the inside. Yeshua/Jesus on the Cross was God’s banner not only for the Jews who believed in Him (perhaps 20% in the first century) but also for the nations. He was a signal, a banner of God’s salvation on behalf of more than just Israel but all who would call on His Name.

Would this be a replacement? Nonsense, otherwise we would not see the nations figuratively carrying Zion’s children home in arms and on shoulders, a very loving sort of contact.

²³ Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.
With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

Do you remember the revenge poetry when we were covering the fate of Babylonia? How it didn’t happen that way? Babylon’s citizens were not enslaved, they were absorbed by the new empire relatively peacefully. Well, remember that was revenge poetry—it isn’t meant to be accurate but instead a reflection of the tables turning. Same here. There is certainly no historical record of this ever happening, and that’s okay. I don’t want to twist history in order to explain a way an ancient literary form. It isn’t how the original audience would have heard it. They would have hear that “we will be more honored than the most honored people on earth.”

Let’s talk about “foster fathers”—the word translated as such is actually o’m’nai and means defender. It gets translated as foster father in order to poetically mesh up with meneket, wet nurse—meaning a surrogate breastfeeder. Not the child’s natural mother but the one breastfeeding the child. Moses’s mother was hired by Pharaoh’s daughter to perform this service for her. And the word for queen is actually sarote from the root word sarah, meaning princess.  In order to make a phrase make poetic sense and to keep to the original context, something English words are used with slightly different meanings. In this case, it is “Kings shall be your defenders and princesses your wet nurses.” Does it change the meaning? Nope. Just mentioning that as sort of an explanation as to how things get translated the way they do—kings line up with queens better and foster fathers line up better with wet nurses than kings with princesses and defenders with wet nurses. As this is poetry meant to convey truth and not a predictive prophecy meant to be accurate, translators go for the sense of what is being said instead of a word by word translation which will oftentimes be inaccurate. Imagine trying to translate idioms word for word. They wouldn’t mean the same thing. In this case, being creative better conveys what Yahweh is promising His people—namely that they will be the apple of the nations’ eyes, to borrow another idiom.

Bowing down and licking the dust from someone’s feet is what we see King Jehu of Israel doing in the stele of Shalmaneser, bowing down at his Suzerain king’s feet after being conquered. This phrase literally reads “noses ground they will prostrate themselves to you.” And that is something we see in many depictions of vassal (lesser) kings with their Suzerain overlords. Yahweh is saying that when this happens, when the tables have turned, Israel will know He is the Lord. Now, this is awkward if we are (1) taking it literally or (2) not looking for future fulfillment. The Qumran covenanters, sometimes labeled as Essenes but we don’t know for sure, were super serious about this and they wrote about this a lot, absolutely longing for the day when the nations would be just a combination of destroyed and subservient to them. These guys were really not filled with the fruit of the Spirit. They were as legalistic as the day is long but they were just not loving guys and gals. If we look at this the way Revelation presents it, as a future thing where the survivors of all the nations who battled against Jerusalem will come bowing down before the Messiah, then there is no problem here. But we can’t forget that this scene isn’t about vengeance and wrath, this is actually a very beautiful scene where God’s people are being lovingly carried home, and protected and nourished lovingly by their former enemies. The Qumran folks read through the Bible with some really bitter lenses.

²⁴ Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?
²⁵ For thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.

How often have we seen this as a theme? Is anything too hard for Yahweh when He has a promise that needs to be fulfilled? Will anything keep Him from doing His will and keeping His word? Once He has declared it, can anything stand in His way?

Verse 24 reads “Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?” and the logical, sane answer is, “No, of course not, not in the real world.”  But then we have Yahweh’s response, “For thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.” In other words, I can and will do even the impossible to save Zion’s children. I am not subject to the real world and its limitations, unlike the gods of the nations who are at the mercy of the cosmos and not the creators of it. Good thing we never doubt that He can overcome our circumstances, boy that would be awkward…

²⁶ I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Okay, that’s just delightful, eh? Interesting reference to people eating their own flesh and drinking their own blood. Let’s look at Isaiah 9:20-21 and Galatians 5:13-15

²⁰ They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied;
each devours the flesh of his own arm,
²¹ Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh; together they are against Judah.
For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

We look at this and we are tempted to think of the siege of Jerusalem where people were eating their own children—but that isn’t the context here. These are people who started out attacking others but ended up destroying themselves. This is what happens to oppressors. Yahweh, In Is 49:26 is saying the same thing about anyone who persists in attacking His people—and we will see that straight through chapter 55. Let’s look at how Paul uses this same imagery in Galatians 5:

¹³do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

So often, flesh doesn’t mean flesh at all. It means self-indulgence and perhaps the most insidious form is strife between peoples.  The nations that war against God’s people, therefore, will fall. They will always fall. They will either be consumed by greater nations or they will be destroyed from within or, oftentimes, both. So, this isn’t talking about the nations literally cannibalizing themselves. No one could do that and survive because they would bleed to death in rather short order. People who devour others get devoured themselves. Simple as that.

Okay now, these next three verses are an odd place to end this but there is nothing to be done about it because starting in 50:4 we start a new Servant song. Although this is the prologue, it is also the epilogue to this last bit. Sometimes transitional material is neither here or there while being here and there!  So we will hit it again at the beginning of next week too.

So, right after Yahweh’s warning/promise that the nations who war with Israel will be the source of their own undoing, we have another one of these imaginary pauses where we have an unspoken challenge to which Yahweh will respond angrily before the voice of the Servant speaks up for the first time. But here we are going to get a bit of context, which makes it fun.

50 Thus says the Lord: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away?
Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
² Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
³ I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.”

Well, that’s a bummer of a way the end today’s lesson, eh? Let’s break it down verse by verse. We can almost imagine, AGAIN, the exiles (who are being addressed once more, not Zion) protesting that they haven’t done anything wrong and remember–if you ever claim that there is no forgiveness for the unrepentant just remember Yahweh forgiving the exiles back in chapter 44 despite their utter lack of repentance or taking responsibility for the consequences of their sins—I am not talking about universal salvation here but oftentimes Yahweh forgives pre-emptively—why? Scripture says for His own sake. Maybe we’ll talk about that at the end if there is time.

50 Thus says the Lord: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away?
Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

Now, sometimes people say that Judah was never divorced from Yahweh—and I have even said it in the past, but I was wrong. Right here, it is clear that Judah was divorced. The exiles are commanded to present the certificate of divorce. Why is that? Well, historically on a certificate of divorce would be listed the reason for divorce—in this case, “transgressions” which, if you remember from earlier teachings, is the translation of pesha, which is wilful rebellious, spit in the face of God sin. As opposed to the word sin, which is the English for chattat, unintentional sins, and avon, which is translated iniquities, which are sins that are chosen but not out of hatred. Like temptation kinds of sins where we give in but feel guilty about it. So, pull out your mother’s certificate of divorce and on it, you will see that she committed wilful rebellious sin because she hated me. She went after many other gods. She went to foreign nations for help in war instead of depending on me., etc. etc…

The other half of this is about being sold to creditors. When would that happen? Leviticus 25 details the circumstances by which a man became impoverished and sold himself and his family into slavery in order to pay off his debts to his creditors. It was for six years only and in the seventh they were to be freed. But here’s the deal—Yahweh has no debts. Let’s look at this verse fragment again–

“Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold”

Yahweh “sold” them for nothing because He has no debts to pay off. Because He sold them for nothing, He can take them back whenever He wants to. That is what they are not getting. In chapter 44, we see that He flat out forgave their pesha transgressions, wiped them away, for His own sake, as well as their chattat sin and avon iniquities. The exiles can protest their innocence and their having been wronged all they want—it is meaningless. Yahweh is not unjust. He didn’t divorce them frivolously nor did He sell them into exile without just cause. Because He was right to do those things, He can snatch them back whenever He wants and has promised to do so.

² Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?

The partial verse just breaks my heart. Yahweh called them through the prophets from dawn to dusk for many hundreds of years. From Moses to the Judges to the pre-and post-exilic prophets. Always coming to them through the prophets and always calling but it never ever worked. Only exile and oppression worked. They wouldn’t ever respond to loving-kindness. Oh I wish we were different! It got to the point where, after Malachi, it would appear that there was nothing more to be said. Malachi is after the exile and is horrifying—the crimes being committed against God and one another. And even by the priests.

Yeshua lamented about this phenomenon as well. Strangely enough, preaching alone was enough to turn the Ninevites from their wickedness at least for a season but God’s people, us, we always seem to need something terrible to happen.

Matt 23:37 (also Luke 13:34) “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

No one gives Yahweh a suitable answer and no one heeds His coming.

…Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
³ I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.”

Here, Yahweh reminds them of His power. His supremacy. His superiority. His uniqueness. None of the nations and none of their gods can stand in His way. They were just His tools, not His equals not His conquerors. Next week, we are going to get the response of the Servant of Is 42 and 49 to this. He will finally be talking to us for the second time and will further unwrap His mission and His character.