Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel: Jesaja 6:6

Bijbelvers
Context
Vertalingen

Jesaja 6:6

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, [], Whether all the angels are sent in ministry?
Vertaling Bijbel, Kanttekeningen SV, [], Maar een van de serafs [20]vloog tot mij, en had een gloeiende kool in zijn hand, [die] hij met de tang van [22]het altaar genomen had.
20. Te weten uit het bevel van God, want zij stonden vaardig
nevens den Heere, om zijne bevelen te ontvangen en uit te voeren.
21. Deze kool was een teken van de afbranding der zonden, dat is
de zuivering en vergeving der zonden.
22. Versta hier, het altaar van het brandoffer, op hetwelk
gestadiglijk vuur was, zijnde dit altaar een voorbeeld van
Christus en zijne offerande voor onze zonden; zie Hebr.13:10.

John F. Hobbins, Ancient Hebrew Poetry, [], November 03, 2009
Plato and Isaiah

One of the most seminal essays ever written in the field of political philosophy was penned by Martin Buber and is entitled, “Plato and Isaiah.”

No one can read Buber’s essay without being overcome by the ever-incipient tragedy of the quest for a philosopher-king and a suitable Republic. Plato’s quest in the real world for the realization of his Republic ended, not once but more than once and without fail, in disaster. Not a minor detail, unless philosophy be understood as little more than a cerebral version of a drunken stupor.

Finally, who can fail to be saddened by the failure of the prophet Isaiah as Buber recounts it? It is not difficult to conclude that Buber’s own sense of failure is encapsulated in the essay.

Like Cassandra, Isaiah spent a night in the temple of his God, at which time the temple snakes licked his ears clean so that he was able to hear the future.¹ Like Apollo, Isaiah’s God sees to it that no one will believe Isaiah’s predictions. According to Isaiah 6, the prophet spoke the truth to power in full consciousness of the fact that his advice was destined to be ignored.

No matter that such accords with human experience. The history of interpretation of Isaiah 6 is largely the story of wish-projection in which interpreter after interpreter corrects the extant text in favor of a gentler, more amenable deity. But if reality corresponds to the extant text, what advantage is there in imagining another deity, unattested in the text, and unattested in reality as we experience it?

The political dimension of life is a minefield in which nothing is more explosive and destructive than having a philosopher-king at the helm, except perhaps having a prophet foresee the future without the ability to effect a change in outcome. Yet how many people continue to look for salvation in the political dimension. An illustration, it seems to me, of a well-known aphorism: “beggars can’t be choosers.”

¹ To be sure, the “metaphors” in Isaiah 6 are somewhat different. The seraphim put a burning coal to Isaiah’s mouth. Per the usual, the hieratic language of this passage of Scripture is more realistic than that of the Greek myths.

Bibliography

Martin Buber, “Plato and Isaiah,” in idem, Israel and the World: Essays in a Time of Crisis (2d ed.; New York: Schocken Books, 1963 [1948]) 103-112

Tijdschrift, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS), [], Volume 4: Article 4 (2002) Hanna Liss, Undisclosed Speech: Patterns of Communication in the Book of Isaiah; This article deals with the lacking communicational equivalence between the prophet and his contemporaries created by the 'command not to comprehend' (Isaiah 6). The structure of non-comprehension is regarded as a necessary result of the prophetic word and describes the impossibility of comprehending what Isaiah himself could only understand after the event of his purification (Isa 6:6-7). Prophetic message and its rejection are thus complementary elements.
This structure of a lacking communicative equivalence is to be illustrated in Isaiah's prophetic activity. Isaianic prophecy consists of several different modes of language that bear relevance regarding the topic of non-comprehension:
1. The use and function of metaphoric language: Isaiah uses the metaphors as an instrument of defamiliarization. At the same time, metaphorical language encloses a destructive element, since it destroys fundamental ideas and beliefs Isaiah's contemporaries still adhere to.
2. The quotations: The quotations fulfill a very important task within prophetic language. Not only is the prophet's theo-political view of history handed down by means of these quotations, but also the confrontation with the prophetic word and thereby the people's status of non-comprehension. The process of the literary tradition of the prophetic heritage includes the confrontation and preserves it for later generations.
3. Fictitious realms: By means of fictitious elements, the prophet creates a "theo-political" sphere over against the "geo-political appearance", thereby giving his God the possibility of escaping the previous patterns of expectation. In view of the political and military circumstances at the end of the 8^th century, the prophetic fiction represents a kind of Judean "counterpropaganda" for later generations.