As Those Who Are Taught (Sbl - Symposium)

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“AS THOSE WHO ARE TAUGHT”

Symposium Series Christopher R. Matthews, Editor

Number 27 “AS THOSE WHO ARE TAUGHT” The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL

“AS THOSE WHO ARE TAUGHT” The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL

Edited by

Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2006


Copyright © 2006 by the Society of Biblical Literature This edition published under license from the Society of Biblical Literature by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions Office, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta, GA 30329 USA. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data “As those who are taught” : the interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL / edited by Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull. p. cm. — (Society of biblical literature symposium series ; no. 27) Includes indexes. ISBN-13: 978-90-04-13041-8 (cloth binding : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 90-04-13041-1 (cloth binding : alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T. Isaiah—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History. 2. Bible. O.T. Isaiah— Versions. 3. Bible. N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. McGinnis, Claire Mathews. II. Tull, Patricia K. III. Series: Symposium series (Society of Biblical Literature) ; no. 27. BS1515.52.A82 2006b 224'.10609—dc22 2005037069 ISSN: 1569-3627

Printed in The Netherlands on acid-free paper.

For Jerry Sheppard In memoriam April 26, 1946–November 15, 2003

CONTENTS Abbreviations ................................................................................................ ix Remembering the Former Things: The History of Interpretation and Critical Scholarship Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull.......................................... 1 “It’s All about Us!”: Nationalistic Exegesis in the Greek Isaiah (Chapters 1–12) David A. Baer ........................................................................................ 29 Interpretation of the Book of Isaiah in the Septuagint and in Other Ancient Versions Arie van der Kooij................................................................................... 49 On Isaiah at Qumran George J. Brooke ..................................................................................... 69 Moses and Isaiah in Concert: Paul’s Reading of Isaiah and Deuteronomy in the Letter to the Romans J. Ross Wagner ........................................................................................ 87 The Testimony of Isaiah and Johannine Christology Catrin H. Williams............................................................................... 107 Isaiah and the Book of Revelation: John the Prophet as a Fourth Isaiah? Jan Fekkes III ....................................................................................... 125 Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah J. David Cassel ..................................................................................... 145 Structure and Composition in Isaiah 1–12: A Twelfth-Century Northern French Rabbinic Perspective Robert A. Harris ................................................................................... 171

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CONTENTS

The Suffering Servant and Job: A View from the Sixteenth Century Alan Cooper ......................................................................................... 189 “Becoming a Part of Israel”: John Calvin’s Exegesis of Isaiah Amy Plantinga Pauw ............................................................................ 201 The Poet’s Prophet: Bishop Robert Lowth’s Eighteenth-Century Commentary on Isaiah Gary Stansell ........................................................................................ 223 On the Road to Duhm: Isaiah in Nineteenth-Century Critical Scholarship Marvin A. Sweeney............................................................................... 243 Form Criticism, Rhetorical Criticism, and Beyond in Isaiah Roy F. Melugin ..................................................................................... 263 One Book, Many Voices: Conceiving of Isaiah’s Polyphonic Message Patricia K. Tull..................................................................................... 279 Contributors .............................................................................................. 315 Index of Ancient Sources............................................................................ 317 Index of Scriptural Citations ...................................................................... 319 Index of Authors and Historical Persons..................................................... 335

ABBREVIATIONS

The abbreviations used for biblical, rabbinic, pseudepigraphical, and Dead Sea Scrolls texts may be found in The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (ed. P. H. Alexander et al.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999). AB ABD ACCSOT AGJU AnBib Ant. AOAT ArBib ASOR Aug ATA ATD AUSS BASOR BBB BEvT BETL BGBE BHK BHS BHT Bib Bijdr BJRL

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Analecta biblica Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities Alter Orient und Altes Testament The Aramaic Bible American Schools of Oriental Research Augustinianum Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen Das Alte Testament Deutsch Andrews University Seminary Studies Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bonner biblische Beiträge Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese Biblia Hebraica. Edited by R. Kittel. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1905–6, 19252, 19373, 19514, 197316. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Biblica Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester -ix-

x BK BKAT BN BSac BTB BWANT BZ BZAW BZNW CBET CBQ CBQMS CCSL CSRT DJD DSD EncJud EstBib ETL EvT ExpTim FAT FOTL FRLANT GCS HBC HTR IB ICC Int JBL JE JJS JQR JR JSIJ

ABBREVIATIONS

Bibel und Kirche Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament Biblische Notizen Bibliotheca sacra Biblical Theological Bulletin Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Corpus Christianorum: Series latina. Turnout: Brepols, 1953–. Columbia Series in Reformed Theology Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Dead Sea Discoveries Encyclopedia Judaica. 16 vols. Jerusalem: Keter, 1972. Estudios biblicos Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses Evangelische Theologie Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Die griechische christliche Schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte Harper’s Bible Commentary. Edited by J. L. Mays et al. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988. Harvard Theological Review Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by G. A. Buttrick et al. 12 vols. New York: Abingdon, 1951–57. International Critical Commentary Interpretation Journal of Biblical Literature The Jewish Encyclopedia. Edited by I. Singer. 12 vols. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1925. Journal of Jewish Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal

ABBREVIATIONS

JSJSup JSNT JSNTSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSSSup JTS KHAT LCC LS LTQ lxx Mils mt MT NCB Neot NIB NIGTC NovT NovTSup NTS OBO OBT OTL OTS PG PHS PL RB RBB RevQ SBL SBLDS SBLSCS SBLSP

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Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Kurzgefaßtes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Library of Christian Classics Louvain Studies Lexington Theological Quarterly Septuagint Milltown Studies Masoretic Text (of the Hebrew Bible) Modern Theology New Century Bible Neotestamentica The New Interpreter’s Bible. 13 vols. Nashville: Abingdon: 1994– 2004. New International Greek Testament Commentary Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum Supplements New Testament Studies Orbis biblicus et orientalis Overtures to Biblical Theology Old Testament Library Old Testament Studies Patrologia graeca [=Patroliogiae cursus completus: Series graeca]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 vols. Paris: Migne, 1857–86. Proceedings of the Huguenot Society Patrologia Latina [=Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 217 vols. Paris: Migne, 1844–64 Revue biblique Revista biblica brasileira Revue de Qumran Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers

xii SBLSymS SBS SC SNTSMS SSN ST STDJ StPB TSAJ TZ UTPSS Vg VT VTSup WBC WMANT WTJ WUNT ZAW ZNW

ABBREVIATIONS

Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Sources crétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943–. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studia semitica neerlandica Studia theologica Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studia post-biblica Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum Theologische Zeitschrift University of Texas Press Slavic Series Vulgate Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Westminster Theological Journal Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

REMEMBERING THE FORMER THINGS: THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION AND CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP Claire Mathews McGinnis Patricia K. Tull

This Volume’s Origins and Aims In 1990, a group of distinguished scholars, some of whom had been studying Isaiah and its formation for many years, met for a consultation on the emerging issue of the nature of the “unity” or “coherence” of the book of the prophet Isaiah. This consultation led to the Formation of the Book of Isaiah Seminar of the Society for Biblical Literature. For several years participants discussed, from a variety of viewpoints, how readers in an intellectual climate beyond the hegemony of historical criticism might understand Isaiah as a biblical book with its own plot and integrity, given its evident redactional growth over the course of several centuries in Judahite history.1 This annual seminar subsequently became an SBL Group, and it is out of the work of that Group that the present book grew. Over the course of the initial years of the Isaiah Seminar it became evident to some participants that there were questions about seeing Isaiah’s form today that could be better answered with a more complete understanding of the interpretations through which it was read over the past two millennia, interpretations that continue to exert influence—whether consciously recognized or not—on contemporary scholars, both Christian and Jewish. The work of Bernhard Duhm offers a case in point. Duhm’s importance to scholarship of Isaiah for the past hundred years is undeniable. Yet his two most important original contributions, the redactional isolation of four “Servant Songs” in Isa

1. Much of the work from the initial years of the Formation of Isaiah Seminar was published in Roy Melugin and Marvin Sweeney, eds., New Visions of Isaiah (JSOTSup 214; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), now reprinted by the Society of Biblical Literature. An overview of the unity of Isaiah discussion overall, and of the work of the Isaiah Seminar, may be found in the final chapter of this volume, “One Book, Many Voices: Conceiving of Isaiah’s Polyphonic Message.”

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40–55, and the existence of a distinguishable prophetic voice he called “TritoIsaiah” in Isa 56–66, have been identified as having been rooted, at least in part, in traditional Christian presuppositions that are no longer widely accepted by scholars. As John Sawyer has noted, Christian scholars’ fascination with Duhm’s Servant Songs theory was much bolstered by correspondences between the New Testament Gospel narratives and the story that could be derived from Duhm’s four “servant” passages when isolated from their context in Isaiah: “Much of the exegesis of these passages in the twentieth century has been, often unintentionally, the modern critical equivalent of early Christian interpretation” 2 that identified the servant passages with Jesus. Similarly, it has been pointed out that the impetus in Christian circles to follow Duhm in seeing a defining break between Isa 40–55 and 56–66 has been at least partially based on assumptions that the prophet announcing the redemptive return from Babylon would not be interested in the particulars about ritual law introduced in chapter 56. Perhaps not coincidentally, as Marvin Sweeney notes in his essay in this volume, these two contributions of Duhm’s have come increasingly under question in the past generation. Even more fundamentally, we discovered that unless scholars intend to reduce interpretation of Isaiah to what Gerald Sheppard described as “a neutral ‘secular’ territory of discourse apart from the religious,” contemporary interpreters must grapple with the historic distinctions between Jewish and Christian scholarly approaches to Isaiah.3 In the 1996 session of the Isaiah Seminar, which concerned Isaiah as Christian and Jewish Scripture, Roy Melugin and Benjamin Sommer each described particularities within their faith traditions that condition modern critical reading of Isaiah.4 Melugin portrayed traditional Christian interpretation of Isaiah not as a reading of its words as originally construed but as necessary “reinterpretation” for the church’s own life, reinterpretation that employs typological transformation of Isaiah’s imagery to retain relevance to the Christian church’s particular story.5 Sommer called into question the value for contemporary Jewish scholarship of the project of reconstructing the internal unity of Isaiah. He pointed out that, even though modern scholarship is built

2. John F. A. Sawyer, “Isaiah,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Hayes; 2 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 1:553. 3. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Isaiah as a Scroll or Codex within Jewish and Christian Scripture,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1996 Seminar Papers (SBLSP 35; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 211. 4. Roy F. Melugin, “Reading the Book of Isaiah as Christian Scripture,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1996 Seminar Papers, 188–203; Benjamin D. Sommer, “The Scroll of Isaiah as Jewish Scripture, or, Why Jews Don’t Read Books,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1996 Seminar Papers, 225–42. 5. Melugin, “Reading the Book of Isaiah as Christian Scripture,” 193–94.

McGINNIS AND TULL: REMEMBERING THE FORMER THINGS

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upon historical understandings of Isaiah that differ from those of earlier tradition, “a modern Jewish approach to Bible as Scripture must be sensitive to the emphases of older Jewish biblical exegesis,”6 and “in Jewish scripturality, the literary unit of ‘book’ is insignificant. For the midrashic exegete, the next unit after the verse that matters is the Bible as a whole.”7 In those same discussions Gerald Sheppard drew attention to the importance of understanding Isaiah’s interpretive past, in particular the second-century contexts shaping interpretation in the two incipient religious communities who read Isaiah as Scripture, and to the way in which the two traditions subsequently retained similar concepts of revelation but saw different trajectories in Isaiah: “While rabbinic Judaism emphasized the book as commentary on the Torah as well as prophecy of the future, Christians sought to see in the book a promise fulfilled in the Gospel.”8 Sheppard summarized by saying, “If we are going to describe the book of Isaiah as a scriptural book, we cannot ignore this specific religious [i.e., canonical] setting in which Isaiah functions differently in two different religions. Concommitantly, only by acknowledging these differences can what remains the same attain its full significance for both religions.”9 Clearly, a more comprehensive understanding of Isaiah as a prophetic book necessitated a fuller grasp of its treatment in Jewish and Christian interpretive history. Well aware that our training as critical biblical scholars had equipped us with detailed knowledge of the scholarship of the previous century or two alone, we saw the need to learn much more about premodern interpretation.10 So the Isaiah Group spent several years inviting scholars from various disciplines to take soundings in the earlier history of interpretation of Isaiah. Several biblical scholars among us also set out to study particular figures or periods of history. Those explorations grew into this book. It is the product of invitations advanced to experts in a variety of disciplines and time periods to carry out original work exploring a facet of Isaiah’s interpretive history. By no means comprehensive, especially in regard to Jewish scholarship, this volume nevertheless presents what we hope will be a starting point for further exploration of the enormous exegetical effort the book of Isaiah has occasioned over the centuries.

6. Sommer, “The Scroll of Isaiah as Jewish Scripture,” 227. 7. Ibid., 228. 8. Sheppard, “Isaiah as a Scroll or Codex,” 218–20. 9. Ibid., 221. 10. We have deliberately chosen the term “premodern” rather than “precritical” to describe the work of scholarly biblical interpretation before the 1800s. “Precritical” can mean “pre–historical critical,” but in usage it has tended to serve as a synonym for “uncritical,” a judgment that holds up poorly when the sources are studied on their own terms.

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The History of Interpretation in Recent Scholarship It was no accident that those interested in the formation of Isaiah should be moved to turn toward the history of interpretation for insight. This turn coincided with a burgeoning interest in the history both of scholarly interpretation and of popular reception of other individual biblical books and of Scripture in general. In 1996 John Sawyer published his wide-ranging book The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity, which traced popular use of Isaiah across the centuries and through many cultures. 11 Three years previously, William Holladay had offered a similar survey for the Psalms in his work The Psalms through Three Thousand Years.12 Both of these scholars gathered data from a wide range of sources, more on the analogy of an archaeological survey than a site dig. Other recent studies exploring the story of a biblical book or text in its travels through time include many works on the book of Genesis—mostly on the creation narratives13 and the Noah story,14 but also on

11. John F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 12. William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Oxford Bible Series; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For other major works on the history of interpretation of Psalms, see David M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973); Uriel Simon, Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms: From Saadiah Gaon to Abraham Ibn Ezra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991); Nancy van Deusen, ed., The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); Erich Zenger, Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum (New York: Herder, 1998); Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler, eds., Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions (SBLSymS 25; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). 13. Such as Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Vintage Books, 1988); Jeremy Cohen, Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989); Philip C. Almond, Adam and Eve in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Kristen K. Kvam, Linda S. Schearing, and Valarie H. Ziegler, Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, ed., The Creation of Man and Woman: Interpretations of the Biblical Narratives in Jewish and Christian Traditions (Themes in Biblical Narrative 3; Leiden: Brill, 2000); and Gary Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). 14. Such as Norman Cohn, Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Florentino García Martínez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, eds., Interpretations of the Flood (Themes in Biblical Narrative 1; Leiden: Brill, 1998); Stephen Haynes, Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); and David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).


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other passages.15 Many of these works focus primarily on early Christian and Jewish exegesis, but some reflect another chapter in the history of reception or take a longitudinal approach. While Genesis seems to have been by far the most frequently investigated work up to this point, recent works have also appeared exploring aspects of the interpretation of Judges,16 Ruth,17 Kings,18 Esther,19 Psalms,20 Song of Songs,21 Jeremiah,22 Amos,23 and Jonah.24 Nor have New Testament scholars lagged behind in this enterprise. Histories of interpretation have been especially abundant for the Gospels or parts of them,25 although other sections of the New Testament have been studied as well.26

15. Such as J. T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1–11 in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Jerome I. Gellman, Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac (Aldershot, U.K.; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2003); J. A. Loader, A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Early Christian Traditions (Kampen: Kok, 1990); Esther Marie Menn, Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) in Ancient Jewish Exegesis: Studies in Literary Form and Hermeneutics (JSJSup 51; Leiden: Brill, 1997); Michael McGaha, ed., Coat of Many Cultures: The Story of Joseph in Spanish Literature, 1200–1492 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997); and James Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). 16. David Marcus, Jephthah and His Vow (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1986). See also John Lee Thompson, Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), which investigates the history of interpretation of Jephthah’s daughter and the Levite’s concubine in Judges and Hagar in Genesis. 17. Lesley Smith, ed., Medieval Exegesis in Translation: Commentaries on the Book of Ruth (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996). 18. David McLain Carr, From D to Q: A Study of Early Jewish Interpretations of Solomon’s Dream at Gibeon (SBLMS 44; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991). 19. Barry Dov Walfish, Esther in Medieval Garb: Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Esther in the Middle Ages (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). 20. See note 12. 21. E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); and Mark W. Elliott, The Song of Songs and Christology in the Early Church 381–451 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 22. Christine Ritter, Rachels Klage im Antiken Judentum und Frühen Christentum: Eine Auslegungsgeschichtliche Studie (AGJU 52; Leiden: Brill, 2002). 23. Sabine Nägele, Laubhütte Davids und Wolkensohn: Eine Auslegungsgeschichtliche Studie zu Amos 9,11 in der Jüdischen und Christlichen Exegese (AGJU 24; Leiden: Brill, 1995). 24. Uwe Steffen, Die Jona-Geschichte: Ihre Auslegung und Darstellung im Judentum, Christentum und Islam (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1994); and Yvonne Sherwood, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 25. See, for example, Sherman W. Gray, The Least of My Brothers: Matthew 25:31–46: A History of Interpretation (SBLDS 114; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989); Ulrich Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Robert W. Herron Jr., Mark’s Account of Peter’s

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During the same time period, the production of dictionaries of biblical interpretation, commentaries, commentary series, and large multivolume works focusing on the history of interpretation of Scripture have both provided tools for beginning exploration and brought the matter of Scripture’s pilgrimage through time front and center in the eyes of many.27 Several works by historians, usually centering on the interpretation of Scripture in a specific time period or by a specific figure of religious history, have clarified the value for biblical scholars of seeking cross-disciplinary help in bringing Scripture’s history into focus. A turn toward the history of interpretation has also made itself felt in studies of innerbiblical exegesis, of the New Testament’s use of the Old, and in the study of versions (e.g., lxx and Targum).28

Denial of Jesus: A History of Its Interpretation (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991); Sean P. Kealy, Mark’s Gospel, a History of Its Interpretation: From the Beginning until 1979 (New York: Paulist, 1982); Andrew Gregory, The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period before Irenaeus: Looking for Luke in the Second Century (WUNT 2/169; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Janeth Norfleete Day, The Woman at the Well: Interpretation of John 4:1–42 in Retrospect and Prospect (BibInt 61; Leiden: Brill, 2002). 26. See, e.g., Daniel Patte and Eugene TeSelle, eds., Engaging Augustine on Romans: Self, Context, and Theology in Interpretation (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2002); Robert Schlarb, Wir Sind mit Christus Begraben: Die Auslegung von Römer 6,1–11 im Frühchristentum bis Origenes (BGBE 31; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990); Douglas W. Lumsden, And Then the End Will Come: Early Latin Christian Interpretations of the Opening of the Seven Seals (New York: Garland, 2001); Irena Dorota Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 27. For dictionaries, see Donald McKim, ed., Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998); Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation; and R. J. Houlden and J. L. Coggins, eds., A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM, 1990). For commentary series, see the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series, edited by Thomas Oden, which now includes Steven A. McKinion, ed., Isaiah 1–39 (ACCSOT 10; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004); The Church’s Bible, edited by Robert Wilken (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), which offers compilations and translations of early and medieval Christian commentaries on key biblical books; and the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series, edited by John Sawyer (Oxford: Blackwell), which emphasizes the use of the Bible in diverse settings, including literature, art, and music. For other commentaries not centered on the history of interpretation but seeking to include it in the discussion, see Brevard Childs, Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), and commentaries in the Smith & Helwys Bible Commentary series (Macon, Ga.: Smith & Helwys). For multivolume works, see not only the classic edited by P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, The Cambridge History of the Bible (3 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), but also Henning Graf Reventlow, Epochen Der Bibelauslegung (4 vols.; Munich: Beck, 1990–2001); Magne Saebø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages: part 1, Antiquity; part 2, The Middle Ages (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996, 2000). 28. Foundational to this work is Michael Fishbane’s Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), which shows the earliest interpretations of Scripture to be embedded


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Why the History of Interpretation? In traditional exegesis courses and commentary work, the history of interpretation seems at best to have been tacked on to the end of the more central work of ferreting out the context and contents of the text itself, quite apart from what others, especially in the distant past, have had to say about it. Indeed, the enterprise of higher criticism was largely aimed at shaking free from a long history of traditional interpretation. If we cannot and do not intend to return to premodern assumptions in our study of Scripture, why learn about premodern interpretation at all? Work that has already appeared in the history of biblical interpretation has begun to demonstrate what is to be gained by such study. While our predecessors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proceeded with the notion that texts were “containers into which a single, stable meaning has been poured … and which can be extracted by means of the appropriate method,” 29 the present generation of scholars have become much more aware of the gaps in cultural knowledge that render the recovery of a biblical author’s original intention problematic, as well as of the inevitable influence that later hermeneutical assumptions, including our own, exert on our understanding of the Bible. Increased sensitivity to literary theory has helped contemporary scholars understand that the openness of texts to meanings exceeding their authors’ own time-bound understandings is inherent in their nature and, some would argue, native to a skillful writer’s intention.30 While biblical scholarship has benefitted greatly from the historical, scientific, and theoretical discoveries of the past two

within the formation of Scripture itself. Works on innerbiblical exegesis beyond the interpretation of Isaiah are too numerous to name, as are the many, many studies of the New Testament’s interpretation of various portions of the Old Testament. We will note below major studies of this type that are specifically related to Isaiah. 29. Stephen E. Fowl, ed., The Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), xvii. The words of Benjamin Jowett in his 1859 essay “On the Interpretation of Scripture” may stand in for those of many other nineteenth-century scholars who recognized in critical methodology a means to free interpretation from church dogma and yet were proven by subsequent history to be overly optimistic about the assured results of critical method: “Scripture has one meaning—the meaning which it had in the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it” (“On the Interpretation of Scripture,” in The Interpretation of Scripture and Other Essays by Benjamin Jowett [London: Routledge, 1907], 36). 30. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (ed. M. Holquist; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 419–22; Bakhtin, “Response to a Question from the Novyi Mir Editorial Staff,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (ed. C. Emerson and M. Holquist; UTPSS 9; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 1–9. For a helpful elucidation of this subject, see G. Morson and C. Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), 284–90.

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centuries, today’s interpreters are well positioned to appreciate anew the labor of exegetes from previous times. Reassessing Commentary of Earlier Eras

Exploring the history of biblical interpretation often leads to increased respect for the sensibilities, sensitivities, and capabilities of earlier commentators. For instance, as John Thompson has observed, modern commentators sometimes assume that contemporary readers are the first to be troubled by the stories of women such as Hagar, Jephthah’s daughter, and the Levite’s concubine.31 But his study showed that “Christian interpreters through the centuries have regularly wrestled with the texts of terror, sometimes writing volumes ‘between the lines’ of Scripture out of an apparent concern for the women in these stories. Indeed, many struggled with these texts in ways that seem to subordinate their patriarchal instincts to a far more existential concern with issues of justice, humanity, and women’s dignity.”32 In addition, study of the history of interpretation often offers a more balanced understanding of early scholars’ theological views. Many sensitive and important exegetical discussions did not make their way into the wider religious context because “theological systems tend to homogenize the details of exegesis, or simply omit them, in order to establish a consistent dogmatic front.”33 Since doctrinal works from premodern times continue to be read by theologians, while exegetical works, sometimes even from the same individuals, have been overlooked by biblical scholars, the complexity of premodern religious thought has often gone underreported. This is the case, for instance, in John Calvin’s wrestling with Old Testament texts such as Isaiah, as Amy Plantinga Pauw’s essay in this volume shows. His understanding of Scripture’s inspiration is challenged and complicated by tensions between his hermeneutical aim of “finding Christ” in each passage of Scripture and his honest historical assessment of Isaiah’s meaning. Although contemporary scholars do enjoy advantages over earlier interpreters that must not be taken for granted—the latest Bible software, climate-controlled comfort, even printed books themselves, which did not exist for most of the history of the Bible’s reception—our distant forebears also had distinct advantages over us. First, whereas recent developments have imposed ever-increasing specialization, so that biblical scholars tend to be out of practice and perhaps properly insecure when it comes to religious history or systematic theology, pre-

31. Gen 16:1–16; 21:9–21; Judg 11:29–40; Judg 19:1–3, respectively. 32. Thompson, Writing the Wrongs, 6. 33. Ibid.


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modern interpreters had the advantage of nonspecialization, of being able to think more broadly about exegesis and theological or political issues together. Second, lacking electronic databases, earlier interpreters had to approach the Scriptures the old-fashioned way—by knowing them by heart. Steeped in a cultural assumption of Scripture’s divine unity, many premodern interpreters were far more inclined than we to notice correspondences of theme and expression across the canon, to do the kind of text-eminent work to which canonical and literary critics, intertextualists, and biblical theologians are now returning. Third, earlier interpreters stood historically and often, more importantly, sociologically closer to the original communities of Scripture. This is poignantly the case, for example, in the Jewish exegesis of Esther in the Middle Ages, which, as Barry Walfish has pointed out, is much more sensitive to the diplomacy with which a tyrant must be handled by members of minority groups than most citizens of the United States can imagine.34 Although the effect of cultural milieu on interpretation is often viewed negatively, Walfish presents it as a medium for seeing more of the text than might otherwise be seen. Recovering the Contours and Contexts of Earlier Exegesis

An occupational hazard for scholars sitting in splendid isolation with a beloved and much-pored-over text is to begin to assume that it is somehow ours alone, or at least that it belongs to us and the other living scholars who have written extensively on it, who inhabit our footnotes and rebuttals. But it is often the case that if we ourselves puzzle over a peculiarity in a verse, we are not the first to do so, and neither were our familiar forebears of the twentieth century. What we see may have already been worked over, with spectacular results, by Rashi, Jerome, or someone else we do not know. Further, studying the history of interpretation allows contemporary scholars more fully to appreciate our intellectual indebtedness to those who came before us. For example, Bishop Robert Lowth is well known as the eighteenth-century expounder of the idea of parallelism in Hebrew poetry. But the magnitude of his contribution can only be appreciated by recognizing the context into which his ideas were introduced, a context in which there was deep dispute over the best way to render biblical psalms into vernacular languages, as well as a widespread and long-standing assumption among both Christians and Jews that biblical prophets were not in any sense poets. It is ultimately because of his concentrated study of Isaiah in relation to biblical poetry that nearly all contemporary Bibles,

34. Walfish, Esther in Medieval Garb; see especially 157–82 on the relationship of Jews to the royal court.

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including the BHS, represent major sections of the prophetic books in poetic lines. As Stephen Prickett pointed out, it is to Lowth that “we owe the rediscovery of the Bible as a work of literature within the context of ancient Hebrew life.”35 It is equally instructive to explore the origins and contours of interpretations that prevailed in supporting injustices from which we still suffer. Though our individual copies of the Bible lie flat and apparently dormant on the desk before us, it helps to be reminded that the Bible has been the cause, warrant, and excuse for intense and even violent quarrels over the centuries. We do not come to such a text, in the words of Mikhail Bakhtin, “from the sidelines.” Every new attempt to interpret Scripture finds it already “overlain with qualifications, open to dispute, charged with value, already enveloped in an obscuring mist—or, on the contrary, by the ‘light’ of alien words that have already been spoken about it.”36 It may be difficult to imagine today, for instance, how the story of Noah and his son Ham could have been interpreted to justify both slavery and segregation. Yet the seeds of this reading, as Stephen Haynes has shown, were planted centuries before they bore fruit in the American context, and images and assumptions derived from this understanding continue to manifest themselves today.37 Conversely, it is easy to assume that relatively recent prejudices are more ancient and wide-ranging than they may in fact have been. For example, while Eusebius of Caesarea, like many other fourth-century patristic scholars, was sure that the Jews had gone astray in rejecting Jesus, his critique did not extend to a rejection of the priestly traditions of Second Temple Judaism. On the contrary, as Michael Hollerich has noted, Eusebius characterized this period as a time of “deep peace” and prosperity in Judaism and an authentic sign of God’s special favor toward Israel.38 Such an understanding has been maintained in Jewish scholarship all along but was lost to Christian perception for centuries, only to be regained in post-Holocaust reappraisals of Judaism. All of these reasons for more fully appreciating the work of earlier readers encourage in contemporary scholars a proper humility. Without clear understanding of the history of ideas, there is a great temptation to what C. S. Lewis once called “ ‘chronological snobbery,’ the uncritical acceptance of the intellec-

35. Stephen Prickett, Words and the Word: Language, Poetics, and Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 87. 36. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 276. 37. Haynes, Noah’s Curse, 23–61, 161–74. 38. Michael J. Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 141–42.


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tual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”39 Not all understandings pass away because they were actually refuted. If they merely became unfashionable, they may deserve renewed consideration. “From seeing this,” Lewis continues, “one passes to the realization that our own age is also ‘a period,’ and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.”40 Knowing the history of biblical interpretation “challenges the ‘absoluteness’ of modern methods,” enlarging our critical horizons.41 Since it is so much easier to see the relationships between interpretation and culture elsewhere than among ourselves, becoming attentive to the impact of the times on what was conceivable in other milieus may make us more sensitive to the impact of cultural assumptions on our own exegesis. Reading works from different periods and perspectives may render unconscious assumptions visible or may bring to the surface questions about a passage that would not otherwise have emerged. Just as the history of interpretation may edify academic work, it also holds out promise for exegetes on behalf of synagogue and church. Premodern interpreters present themselves as potentially rich conversation partners in our ongoing theological quests. As Stephen Fowl observes, “throughout Christian history it has been the norm for Christians to read their Scripture theologically … to guide, correct, and edify their faith, worship, and practice…. Indeed, until relatively recently it would have been unusual to suggest that Scripture might be read for other purposes.”42 The pedagogical value of earlier commentary is similarly reflected in Jacob Neusner’s translation of rabbinic discourses on the readings for the ninth of Av.43 By showing how the sages took account of historical calamity and “transformed the crisis of faith precipitated by the encounter with evil into the occasion for renewal and regeneration nourished by Israel’s prophets in particular,” the discourses represent an important resource for responding to the Holocaust.44

39. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1955), 207, quoted in Herron, Mark’s Account of Peter’s Denial, 4. 40. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 208. 41. Herron, Mark’s Account of Peter’s Denial, 5. 42. Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, xiii. 43. Jacob Neusner, Beyond Catastrophe: The Rabbis’ Reading of Isaiah’s Vision (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 131; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996). The ninth of Av is the day on which the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and other calamities are remembered and mourned. 44. Ibid., v.

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The History of Biblical Interpretation as Uncertain Destination

A tempting shortcut through the vast and relatively uncharted area of interpretive history is, in Thompson’s words, “to pillage the past, to strip-mine the landscape for useful ore and discard the unfamiliar as so much slag.”45 Of course people of present times search the past for what it can teach for the present, but there is much in the past that is not immediately or easily intelligible. It will take patience to get to know past eras for their own sakes, in their own integrity, in order more fully to appreciate their bearing on the present. “What we need first,” according to church historian Karlfried Froehlich, “is a knowledge of the material regardless of its aimed usefulness, inroads into the vast maze the coherence of which we can only guess.”46 Similarly, Henri de Lubac warned against “explain[ing] all the syntheses of the past as a function of our present synthesis”: When one wants to give an account of the present, it is entirely legitimate, by a “regressive process,” to delve into the past in order to do research on the outlines and preparations for the present and to see how the present is anticipated in a more remote time. What is much less legitimate, if one wishes to know the past, is to be primarily interested in it only in order to detect elements in it that might bear some relationship to the present. In this way, a person is liable to reject everything that does not make an immediately useful contribution in terms of a response to the questions of the day…. This failure to appreciate the past on its own terms is a form of contempt that carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.47

One of the first necessities is to begin patiently to recover a fuller picture of just what the resources in our heritage are. Beryl Smalley’s story is illustrative. When she set out in the 1920s to describe the study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, it seemed to her professors and colleagues that she was on a quest doomed to failure, since it was well known among historians that there was little creativity to be found in medieval biblical interpretation. To the contrary, Smalley discovered a very rich culture of inquiry embedded in the commentary tradition, including the then-forgotten but now much better known twelfth-century

45. Thompson, Writing the Wrongs, 11. 46. Karlfried Froehlich, “Church History and the Bible,” in Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. M. Burrows and P. Rorem; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 11. 47. Henri de Lubac, The Four Senses of Scripture (vol. 1 of Medieval Exegesis; trans. M. Sebanc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), xviii (originally published as Exégèse Médiévale: Les Quatres Sens De L’écriture [Paris: Aubier, 1959]).


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student of the literal and historical sense of the Old Testament, Andrew of St. Victor. Smalley came to recognize him as the first Christian in Western Europe who “wanted to know what the authors of the Old Testament were saying to the Jews.” He was also the first Christian scholar in his age systematically and constructively to seek to learn from Jewish scholars, who themselves, thanks to the tradition following Rashi, had within the previous century become newly reacquainted with literal (or peshat) biblical exegesis.48 Calling Andrew a “second Jerome,”49 Smalley traced links from his literal exegetical tradition to Stephen Langton, Nicholas of Lyra, Thomas Aquinas, and John Wycliffe, whose hitherto unrecovered lectures on the entire Bible Smalley found among Oxford manuscripts. Smalley’s wealth of discovery proved to be the payoff of inquiry made without certain knowledge of her destination. Biblical scholars do indeed need to set off to learn for the sake of intellectual integrity and knowledge in themselves. Still, the gains to be had nevertheless prove worthwhile time and time again. Above all, studying the history of interpretation keeps us reminded of the hundreds of generations of readers who stand between us and the biblical text, who wrote, preached, prayed, painted, and composed music under its power. Reading someone else reading Isaiah reminds us of how very large the prophet’s reading community is and how lately we have come to the gathering. The History of Isaiah’s Interpretation in Recent Scholarship and in This Volume This volume is intended to introduce the discussion of Isaiah by a variety of commentators over the course of twenty centuries. Contributors represent a mix of biblical scholars and religious historians. The book unites established and younger scholars, Christians and Jews, and men and women in a common project. We asked each author to offer an overview of Isaiah’s interpretation in the particular temporal and social worlds in which he or she worked and to contribute a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary works. But we left it up to each writer to seek a particular question or theme he or she considered worth exploring within each context. The results were often surprising and always

48. R. W. Southern, “Beryl Smalley and the Place of the Bible in Medieval Studies, 1927–84,” in The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley (ed. K. Walsh and D. Wood; Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 9; Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (2nd ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), 171. 49. Smalley, Study of the Bible, 185. It should be noted that William McKane (Selected Christian Hebraists [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 57) disputes this designation, seeing few signs of Andrew’s proficiency in Hebrew.

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instructive. We hope our volume will offer readers a taste of the careful exegetical work this one prophetic book has inspired in over two millennia of study. Ancient translations of the biblical books from Hebrew into Greek and other languages represent the earliest available evidence of extrabiblical interpretation of Isaiah. In scholarly study of the Greek Septuagint and other ancient versions, the focus of inquiry has shifted away from text-critical relationships to the Hebrew Vorlage and toward attention to these translations as biblical interpretations.50 David Baer’s study When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66 illustrates this shift.51 Arguing on the grounds of both content and style, Baer concludes that chapters 56–66 of lxx Isaiah do not represent a systematic interpretation of the source text. Nonetheless, as a translation that differs from its source in tone and detail, “the Greek text has its own inner coherence that makes atomistic analysis of particular verses unfruitful.”52 Baer’s study in the present volume, “ ‘It’s All About Us!’ Nationalistic Exegesis in the Greek Isaiah (Chapters 1–12),” demonstrates some of the actualizing tendencies of the lxx translation. As he observes, readers of Isaiah in the translator’s day found in the book allusions to second-century b.c.e. Diaspora life, which the translation expanded and underscored. Baer also argues that the Septuagint translation reflects a nationalistic bent in the various ways in which it preserves a special status for Judah/Israel, nuances absolute judgments or softens violent ones, and foreshortens exile. Arie van der Kooij’s work is also representative of the trend to view the versions as sustained readings of the Hebrew text. In The Oracle of Tyre: The Septuagint of Isaiah XXIII as Version and Vision, van der Kooij demonstrates that the differences in the lxx of Isa 23 with respect to the Hebrew are not random but derive from a consistent technique and perspective.53 He writes, “The Greek text in its own right turns out to be a coherent text to a large extent, syntactically, stylistically and semantically. Significant renderings and passages appear to be related to each other. It points to a translator who aimed at producing a meaningful text.”54

50. See Arie van der Kooij, “Isaiah in the Septuagint,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah (ed. C. Broyles and C. Evans; VTSup 70/2; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 513–29. 51. David Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66 (JSOTSup 318; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Another work that takes into account the interpretive aspects of the lxx as a translation is Eugene Robert Ekblad Jr., Isaiah’s Servant Poems according to the Septuagint: An Exegetical and Theological Study (CBET 23; Leuven: Peeters, 1999). 52. Baer, When We All Go Home, 277. 53. Arie van der Kooij, The Oracle of Tyre: The Septuagint of Isaiah XXIII as Version and Vision (VTSup 71; Leiden: Brill, 1998). 54. Ibid., 87.


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The “meaningful text” produced by the translator, van der Kooij concludes, offers “a reapplication of ancient prophecy” by means of a “fulfilment-interpretation of the underlying prophetic text in Hebrew.”55 In the first part of his contribution to the present volume, “Interpretation of the Book of Isaiah in the Septuagint and in Other Ancient Versions,” van der Kooij illustrates the practice of acculturation in the lxx. He shows how the list of women’s clothing and accessories in Isa 3:18–23 has been understood and (re)formulated by the lxx translator as a list of dowry objects brought to a marriage, as reflected, for instance, in extant marriage contracts and related texts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the second part of his essay van der Kooij compares how “the city” and “the cities” in Isa 24–27 are interpreted differently in the lxx, in the Aramaic Targum, and by Jerome. All, however, are actualizing interpretations, reading the ancient prophecies in reference to events in the recent past, present, or near future of the translators’ communities. George Brooke’s contribution, “On Isaiah at Qumran,” opens by recalling the excitement of scholars over the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, quoting two pieces from the archive of William H. Brownlee’s papers: a personal letter to his fiancée recounting his first encounter with the scrolls in 1948; and a vivid description of the discovery of the Great Isaiah Scroll at the American School in Jerusalem. Brooke then reviews the shifting perspectives on the significance of the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa). The initial excitement over the variant readings found in this scroll quickly waned; the assessment that many of its variants were “demonstrably secondary” readings led to the view that the scroll simply witnessed to the antiquity and reliability of the Masoretic Text.56 However, given that more recent studies have dismissed those early judgments concerning purported sectarian readings in the scroll, Brooke concludes, a reconsideration of the scroll’s role in the discussion concerning Isaiah’s transmission in the late Second Temple period is in order. He writes, “It is becoming increasingly important for all the variants in the Qumran scriptural scrolls to be considered on an equal footing with other extant readings.”57 Brooke’s essay also discusses the significance of the scroll’s layout for our understanding of the transmission and interpretation of Isaiah and the differences in the kind of interpretive literature spawned by Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve, as compared to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Finally, using Isa 40:3 as an example, he demonstrates how current reconsiderations of the history of the

55. Ibid., 107. 56. Jesper Høgenhaven, “The Isaiah Scroll and the Composition of the Book of Isaiah,” in Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (ed. F. Cryer and T. Thompson; JSOTSup 290; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 152. 57. Brooke, “On Isaiah at Qumran,” 76 in this volume.

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Essene movement also give rise to new ways of understanding changes in Isaiah’s interpretation from one point in the history of the movement to another. The growing corpus of literature on the use of the Old Testament in the New has yielded a number of studies on Isaiah. In Heralds of Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans, J. Ross Wagner builds on the work of Dietrich-Alex Koch, Richard Hays, Christopher Stanley, and Timothy Lim.58 Wagner’s interests in the study are multiple but related. He first seeks to understand how Paul as an ancient reader approached Isaiah. This includes the question of the form or forms in which he encountered the book as well as the interpretive assumptions and techniques with which he read it. Second, Wagner asks how Paul’s understanding of the gospel and his calling as an apostle shaped his reading of Isaiah, as well as how Isaiah’s oracles helped form Paul’s conception of his message and mission. Finally, Wagner asks how the interplay of Scripture, theology, and mission come to expression in Paul’s argument in Romans and the extent to which attention to these questions enriches modern interpretation of the letter.59 In his contribution to the present volume, “Moses and Isaiah in Concert: Paul’s Reading of Isaiah and Deuteronomy in the Letter to the Romans,” Wagner builds on his earlier study, demonstrating how Paul conflates or juxtaposes passages from Isaiah with those from Deut 29–32 three times in Romans, thereby gaining the “interpretive leverage necessary to recontextualize and reinterpret” the Isaiah oracles as witnesses to Paul’s own mission and preaching of the gospel.60 By reading Deuteronomy and Isaiah in relation to each other, Paul is able to hear Moses and Isaiah as prophesying the divine hardening of part of Israel for the sake of the Gentiles, while at the same time testifying to God’s fidelity to Israel in the confidence that “all Israel” will ultimately attain salvation. Studies on the Gospel writers’ use of Isaiah have also advanced our appreciation of the reception of Isaiah. In Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel Richard Beaton argues that Matthew’s use of a “redactionally nuanced” quotation

58. J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 51; Leiden: Brill, 2002); Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Pauls (BHT 69; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986); Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 69; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Timothy H. Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 59. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 2–3. 60. Wagner, “Moses and Isaiah in Concert,” 89.


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of Isa 42:1–4 is integral to Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus.61 Similarly, Rikki E. Watts argues that Isaiah’s new exodus is central to understanding Mark’s structure, Christology, and soteriology.62 In I Am He: The Interpretation of ‘anî hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature, Catrin Williams studies the use of the expression “I am he” ( O@QF" B)in biblical and later Jewish literature, in order to understand how its Greek counterpart, FHX FJNJ, functions in the Gospels of Mark and John.63 In her essay for this volume, “The Testimony of Isaiah and Johannine Christology,” Williams builds on this work, exploring the central role of Isaiah’s testimony in the christological reflection of the Gospel of John. She observes that, while John’s Gospel generally relies more on allusion than explicit quotation, the public ministry of Jesus is framed by an inclusio of explicit quotations from Isaiah, bringing to the surface “a sustained christological reflection on a series of related Isaian passages.”64 For the Fourth Gospel writer, the climax of “the way of the Lord” is the manifestation of God’s glory to all in Christ’s death and exaltation. The core of the Gospel’s testimony, set forth in John 1:14, Williams argues, is: “We have beheld his glory.” Because Isaiah saw Christ’s glory 61. Richard Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Other studies of Matthew’s use of Isaiah include M. J. J. Menken, “The Source of the Quotation from Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17,” NovT 39 (1997): 313–27; Menken, “The Quotation from Isaiah 42,1–4 in Matthew 12,18–21: Its Text Form,” ETL 75 (1999): 32–52; W. J. C. Weren, “Quotations from Isaiah and Matthew’s Christology (Mt 1,23 and 4,15–16),” in Studies in the Book of Isaiah (ed. J. van Ruiten and M. Vervenne; BETL 132; Leuven: Leuven University Press; Peeters, 1997), 447–65; Weren, “The Use of Isaiah 5,1–7 in the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12,1–12; Matthew 21,33–46),” Bib 79 (1978): 1–26; A. M. Leske, “Isaiah and Matthew: The Prophetic Influence in the First Gospel: A Report on Current Research,” in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (ed. W. Bellinger and W. Farmer; Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1998), 152–69. 62. Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (WUNT 2/88; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977). On Mark’s use of Isaiah, see also Richard Schneck, Isaiah in the Gospel of Mark I–VIII (Berkeley, Calif.: BIBAL, 1994); and Sharyn Dowd, “Reading Mark Reading Isaiah,” LTQ 30 (1995): 133–43. On the use of Isaiah in Luke-Acts, see J. Severino Croatto, “La elaboración lucana de la alegoria de la viña de Isaías 5,1–7 (Lucas 20,9–12),” RBB 64 (2002): 193–204; Frans Neirynck, “Q 6,20b–21; 7,22 and Isaiah 61,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels (ed. C. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Leuven University Press; Peeters, 1997), 27–64; Thomas S. Moore, “The Lucan Great Commission and the Isaianic Servant,” BSac 154 (1997): 47–60; Edna Brocke, “Die Hebräische Bibel im Neuen Testament: Fragen anhand von Lk 4,14–30” in Gottes Augapfel (ed. E. Brocke and J. Seim; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1986), 113–19; James A. Sanders, “Isaiah in Luke,” Int 36 (1982): 144–55; Christopher M. Tuckett, “Luke 4:16–30, Isaiah and Q,” in Logia: Les paroles de Jesus—The Sayings of Jesus (ed. J. Delobel; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1982), 343–54; Paul B. DeCock, “The Understanding of Isaiah 53:7–8 in Acts 8:32–33,” in The Relationship between the Old and New Testament (ed. I. du Plessis; Bloemfontein: New Testament Society of South Africa, 1981), 111–33; and David Secombe, “Luke and Isaiah,” NTS 27 (1981): 252–59. 63. Catrin Williams, I Am He: The Interpretation of ‘anî hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (WUNT 2/113; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 64. Williams, “Testimony of Isaiah,” 122–23.

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beforehand, according to the Fourth Gospel, the prophet serves as a paradigm of a true witness to Jesus. Jan Fekkes’s study Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation represents an important contribution to the understanding of Revelation’s use of the Old Testament.65 There he examines the self-conception of the author of Revelation and inventories the many allusions to Old Testament texts proposed by scholars, assessing their validity and, for those deemed valid, determining their purpose and significance. Fekkes’s essay in the present volume, “Isaiah and the Book of Revelation: John the Prophet as a Fourth Isaiah?” summarizes and draws conclusions from those findings as they pertain to Isaiah. He observes that, while John shares certain christological presuppositions found in other Christian literature, the variety of exegetical and literary devices he uses in Revelation are like those of his fellow Jewish exegetes. Fekkes offers a representative sample of Revelation’s use of Isaiah, arranged in thematic categories, paying attention both to its transformation of the prophetic material to which it alludes and to the role of the allusions in their new settings in Revelation. Although John does not call himself a prophet, it is clear to Fekkes that “he regarded himself … as part of a revelatory network with God’s prior messengers,” taking over where the prophets left off and what they left behind.66 The study of patristic literature has recently come to the fore in the history of Isaiah’s interpretation through book-length studies of individual or multiple patristic interpreters, as well as through translations of patristic commentary on Isaiah. In The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, Brevard Childs examines interpretations of Isaiah extending all the way from the Septuagint and New Testament to eighteenth-century interpretation. He focuses attention especially on patristic exegesis, however, including chapters on Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria in the second century; Origen in the third century; Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, and John Chrysostom in the fourth century; and Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret of Cyrus in the fifth century. 67 Steven A. McKinion’s volume on Isa 1–39 in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Series excerpts interpretive comments on particular passages of the first part of Isaiah from a wide variety of patristic writers. 68 A volume on patristic exegesis of Isaiah, prepared by Angela R. Christman, is expected to appear in 2006 in the series The Church’s Bible, edited by Robert Wilken.

65. Jan Fekkes III, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and Their Development (JSNTSup 93; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994). 66. Fekkes, “Isaiah and Revelation,” 130. 67. Brevard Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). 68. McKinion, Isaiah 1–39.


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Two noteworthy book-length analyses of individual patristic interpreters of Isaiah are Michael J. Hollerich’s Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine, and J. David Cassel’s “Cyril of Alexandria and the Science of the Grammarians: A Study in the Setting, Purpose, and Emphasis of Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah.”69 According to Hollerich, Eusebius’s commentary, written between 325 and 328 c.e., represents the oldest extant Christian commentary on Isaiah; it was until recently only known to scholars in partial form on the basis of medieval catenae. A complete copy was discovered in 1934 in the margins of a Florentine biblical codex but not published until 1975.70 Cassel’s work on Cyril explores the multiple influences that determine the shape of his Isaiah commentary.71 In his contribution to this volume, “Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah,” Cassel demonstrates how early Christian commentary was shaped, on the one hand, by the approach to reading texts developed by the classical Greco-Roman educational system and, on the other, by two underlying interpretive principles evident in the work of Cyril. Like his Christian peers, Cyril viewed the Old and New Testaments as one integrated text to be interpreted through the lens of “God’s self-revelation in Christ as described in the New Testament” and believed that texts from the Old Testament contained both a historical or literal meaning and a second, deeper level, the spiritual meaning. Cyril’s classical approach to texts is apparent primarily in his exposition of the historical or literal meaning of Isaiah. However, “The culmination of the classical grammarians’ structured approach to the text was the evaluation of the work as a whole.”72 It is at this stage that Cyril expounds on the spiritual meaning of Isaiah, finding in it “a rich theological treasure trove.”73 Rabbinic interpretation of Isaiah was likewise rich in the early period. Although both the source materials themselves and contemporary studies of them are still much more readily available in Hebrew than in English, more and more are appearing in translation. Early Jewish exegesis of Isaiah may especially be seen

69. J. David Cassel, “Cyril of Alexandria and the Science of the Grammarians: A Study in the Setting, Purpose, and Emphasis of Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1992). 70. Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah, 15. The text of this commentary may be found in Der Jesajakommentar (ed. J. Ziegler; Eusebius Werke 9; GCS; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975). 71. See also his essay “Cyril of Alexandria as Educator,” in In Dominico Eloquio/In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken (ed. P. Blowers et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 348–68. 72. Cassel, “Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah,” 162. 73. Ibid., 168.

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in its translation in Targum Jonathan,74 in widespread use of Isaiah’s texts in apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature,75 in references to Isaiah in Josephus’s Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities,76 and scattered throughout early rabbinic literature, including the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds.77 As Elsie Stern has shown, Isaiah’s Jewish interpretive tradition is also evident in the selections of Isaiah readings in the Haftaroth, the Pesikta de Rav Kahana (a collection of homiletical midrashic commentaries on lectionary texts, including Isaiah), and the piyyutim (liturgical poems based on the lectionary readings composed in Palestine beginning in the sixth century), especially the prayers of Eleazar b. Kallir.78 The genre of commentary by individual authors developed in eighth- and ninth-century Jewish interpretation. Medieval exegetes continued to respect the authority of ancient rabbis; however, they found themselves increasingly challenged both by the presence of Muslim scholarly interest in Arabic grammar and lexicography and by the rise of the Karaites, who denied the authority of the postscriptural tradition and found divine revelation only in the Bible itself and whose commentaries used grammar and syntax to challenge traditional interpretations. Soon rabbinic exegetes in Spain began to compose dictionaries and grammars and to focus on linguistic issues in their own commentaries.79

74. See the article by Arie van der Kooij in this volume, as well as Bruce Chilton, The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (JSOTSup 23; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983); idem, The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus and Notes (ArBib 11; Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, 1987); and idem, “Two in One: Renderings of the Book of Isaiah in Targum Jonathan,” in Broyles and Evans, Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah, 547–62. 75. See Michael A. Knibb, “Isaianic Traditions in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Broyles and Evans, Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah, 633–50. 76. See Louis H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Portrait of Isaiah,” in Broyles and Evans, Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah, 583–608. 77. See Gary G. Porton, “Isaiah and the Kings: The Rabbis on the Prophet Isaiah,” in Broyles and Evans, Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah, 693–716. 78. Elsie Stern, “Beyond Nahamu: Strategies of Consolation in the Jewish Lectionary Cycle for the Ninth of Av Season,” Society of Biblical Literature 1998 Seminar Papers (SBLSP 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 180–204. For excerpts from the Pesikta de Rav Kahana, see Neusner, Beyond Catastrophe. 79. For descriptions of this change in exegetical interest, see Michael A. Signer, “How the Bible Has Been Interpreted in Jewish Tradition,” NIB 1:70–73; and Edward L. Greenstein, “Medieval Bible Commentaries,” in Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts (ed. B. Holtz; New York: Summit Books, 1984), 213–27. For more general descriptions of medieval exegesis, see the following articles in Jane D. McAuliffe et al., eds., With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003): Barry D. Walfish, “An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Biblical Interpretation” (3–12); Michael A. Signer, “Restoring the Narrative: Jewish and Christian Exegesis in the Twelfth Century” (70–82); and Joseph W. Goering, “An Introduction to Medieval Christian Biblical Interpretation” (197–203).


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The revolution in medieval Jewish biblical commentary in northern France was presaged first by anonymous commentators in the first half of the eleventh century who created lists of French translations of difficult biblical words, and then by Menahem ben Helbo, who began writing systematic commentaries interpreting briefly the plain meaning of the passages.80 Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac, 1040–1105) developed his methods further, pioneering a movement advocating the literal (peshat) interpretation as an approach methodologically distinct from the derash interpretation that had previously reigned in Jewish interpretation and that had been paralleled in Christian interpretation by appeals to “allegorical, mystical, and anagogical” senses of Scripture.81 Rashi’s peshat interpretation began with issues of translation, grammar, and syntax and proceeded to the elaboration of selected midrashic texts that he found to be relevant both to literal exegesis and to the needs of his community. Although he concentrated on the Pentateuch, he completed commentaries on the entire Hebrew Bible that exerted inestimable influence on subsequent Jewish and Christian interpretation.82 Two other primary medieval rabbinic interpreters of Isaiah were Abraham ibn Ezra in Spain and David Kimchi (Radak) in southern France. Ibn Ezra is particularly well known for the frequent hints in his commentary on Isaiah that chapters 40–66 may have had a different author than the chapters that preceded them.83 David Kimchi also contributed greatly to the understanding of Hebrew grammar and philology. His commentaries on many biblical portions, including Isaiah, continued the tradition of offering peshat interpretation while also referring to midrashic traditions.84 In his article in this volume, “Structure and Composition in Isaiah 1–12: A Twelfth-Century Northern French Rabbinic Perspective,” Robert A. Harris highlights the commentaries of two exegetes, Rabbi Joseph Kara and Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, zeroing in on their discussions of structural and composi-

80. Avraham Grossman, “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France,” in Saebø, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 1.2:323, 331. 81. See Eugene H. Merrill, “Rashi, Nicholas de Lyra, and Christian Exegesis,” WTJ 38 (1975): 66–79. 82. J. Maarsen, ed., The Commentary of Rashi on the Twelve Prophets, Isaiah, and the Psalms, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Hertsberger, 1930). 83. Abraham ibn Ezra, The Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah (New York: Feldheim, 1948; repr. from edition by M. Friedländer, London, 1873). For a discussion of Ibn Ezra’s reasons for positing a sixth-century anonymous author for the latter prophecies, see Uriel Simon, “Ibn Ezra between Medievalism and Modernism: The Case of Isaiah 40–66,” in Congress Volume: Salamanca, 1983 (VTSup 36; Leiden: Brill, 1985), 257–71. 84. Louis Finkelstein, ed., The Commentary of David Kimhi on Isaiah (New York: AMS Press, 1966).

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tional features of Isa 1–12.85 In the tradition of Rashi, these and other medieval commentators concentrated their efforts on contextual exegesis, drawing the meaning of a scriptural passage from its own context rather than from the midrashic explanations of tradition. The resistance to traditional authority and concentration on attentive readings of Scripture exemplified by Joseph Kara and Eliezer were echoed in both Jewish and Christian circles in the Middle Ages, especially in what became the Protestant Christian movement. Harris presents two issues pondered by Kara and Eliezer that modern scholars continue to explore today: (1) whether chapter 6 is to be understood as Isaiah’s inaugural call, and therefore out of sequence chronologically with chapters 1–5, or whether it represents a later stage in his prophetic career; and (2) how the literary aspects of Isaiah’s written composition contribute to its persuasive force. Complementing Harris’s study of early medieval exegetes, Alan Cooper (“The Suffering Servant and Job: A View from the Sixteenth Century”) turns to a later interpreter of Isaiah, examining the treatment of the Suffering Servant in Isa 53 by the Salonikan commentator Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi. Like his predecessors, Ashkenazi asserted himself over against tradition, but in an even more profound way, finding arguments for disengaging Scripture’s meaning from the question of its literal facticity. More central to Cooper’s discussion of him, however, are his exploration of the close correlation of the Suffering Servant with the character of Job and his homiletical insight that Job’s story offers concrete consolation for suffering Jews who await justice in the messianic age. These observations and insights have found parallels, Cooper points out, in contemporary scholarship and liberation theology. Changes in Christian biblical scholarship in the Middle Ages paralleled and were often guided by developments in Jewish scholarship. Scholars at the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris stand out in this regard. In his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, including Isaiah, Andrew of St. Victor (d. 1175) concentrated on Scripture’s literal interpretation—which was for him, functionally, what the Jews said it meant.86 He consulted extensively with contemporary French Jewish scholars working in the tradition of Rashi. Andrew’s attention to the historical dimensions of the Old Testament came to be valued increasingly

85. This study follows up on his dissertation, “The Literary Hermeneutic of Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency” (Ph.D. diss., Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997). 86. No critical edition of Andrew’s commentary on Isaiah is yet available. For discussion of the Victorines and Andrew of St. Victor, see especially Smalley, Study of the Bible, 83–195; Michael A. Signer, “Peshat, Sensus Litteralis, and Sequential Narrative: Jewish Exegesis and the School of St. Victor in the Twelfth Century,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume (ed. B. Walfish; Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993), 203–16; and McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists, 42–75.


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among medieval Christian scholars, including Stephen Langton, Hugh of St. Cher, Roger Bacon, and Nicholas of Lyra. Although the attention paid by Andrew and other Victorines to the historical and literal in scriptural interpretation opened an important door for Christian biblical scholarship, understanding of what was meant by the “literal sense of Scripture” was a profoundly difficult question that could be answered in several different ways—and in fact was. For Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), who wrote expositions on Isaiah (most fully on chs. 1–11) as well as several other books of the Old Testament and New Testament, the literal sense of Scripture was the only one from which doctrine should derive.87 Yet for him the literal sense, being what the divine author of Scripture intended, could and did embrace figurative and metaphorical use of language and even Old Testament typological witness to Christ and the church. Nicholas of Lyra (ca. 1270–1349), unlike Andrew, knew Hebrew well, was able to read Rashi, and depended upon him so thoroughly that, according to Johannes Reuchlin, little would remain in his commentaries if Rashi were excised.88 At the same time, he studied Isaiah “to recover the mystery of Christ, his humiliation, and exaltation.”89 Armed with knowledge of Rashi’s exegesis, Nicholas set out to defend christological interpretation over against Jewish understandings of Isaiah. Throughout the Middle Ages and continuing with the Reformers, a tension can be seen between the desire to do justice to the Old Testament’s grammatical and historical meaning and the need to demonstrate its theological place

87. Thomas Aquinas, In Isaiam Prophetam Expositio, Opera Omnia, vols. 18–19 (Paris: Louis Vivès, 1876). In addition to Childs’s exposition of Thomas Aquinas in Struggle to Understand Isaiah, 148–66, see James S. Preus, From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 46–60; Denise Bouthillier and Jean-Pierre Torall, “Quand Saint Thomas méditat sur le prophète Isaïe,” Revue Thomaste 90 (1990): 5–47; Denise Bouthillier, “Le Christ en son mystère dans les Collationes du Super Isaiam de Saint Thomas D’aquin,” in Ordo sapientiae et amoris: Image et message de saint Thomas d’Aquin à travers les récentes études historiques, herméneutique et doctrinales (ed. C. Oliveira; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1993), 37–64; and Terence McGuckin, “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Theological Exegesis of Sacred Scripture,” LS 16 (1991): 99–120. 88. Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, “Rashi and the English Bible,” BJRL 24 (1940): 4, cited in Merrill, “Rashi, Nicholas de Lyra, and Christian Exegesis,” 71. Nicholas’s most important work is a commentary on the Old and New Testaments entitled Postilla litteralis super totam Bibliam. For further information on Nicholas of Lyra, see Merrill’s article, as well as Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah, 167–80; Karlfried Froehlich, “Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270–1349),” in Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, 2:206–8; Philip D. W. Krey and Lesley Smith, Nicholas of Lyra: The Senses of Scripture (Studies in the History of Christian Thought 90; Leiden: Brill, 2000); and Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 61–71. 89. Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah, 173.

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in the Christian canon. One of these values would tend to be maintained at the expense of the other.90 The conflicts that resulted between understandings of Isaiah that were historically oriented and those that were fundamentally christological created interpretive debates among Christians as well as between Christians and Jews. When on the one hand the events of the prophet’s own day could be viewed as typologically meaningful, and yet on the other hand the “literal” meaning of any given prophecy could be stretched beyond the prophet’s own intention to point to the New Testament, a wide range of interpretations of each passage of Isaiah could hold claims to validity in Christian circles. Whether any particular passage should give rise to a historical, typologically relevant meaning or a traditionally christological meaning depended on the hermeneutical assumptions of the interpreter. Several sixteenth-century Reformers wrote on Isaiah, including not only Martin Luther and John Calvin but also Johannes Brenz, Ulrich Zwingli, Conrad Pellican, Wolfgang Musculus, and Heinrich Bullinger.91 Luther’s comments on Isaiah consist primarily of lectures given in 1527–30.92 His work was traditional in the sense that he agreed with earlier Christians in reading much of Isaiah christologically. At the same time, Luther tended to turn away from the practice of identifying multiple senses. Rather, he saw Isaiah’s prophecies as moving back and forth between discussion of the immediate world of earthly rulers and the anticipation of Christ’s future coming, which for Luther was the central subject of Isaiah and indeed of the whole Old Testament. He reconciled the “letter” and “spirit” of the biblical text by understanding Old Testament prophets as speaking literally, historically, in faith, about the future coming of Christ he viewed as promised by God.93

90. Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 3. 91. R. A. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in McKim, Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, 131–34. 92. For these, see Martin Luther, Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 1–39 (ed. J. Pelikan and H. Oswald; trans. H. Bouman; Luther’s Works 16; St. Louis: Concordia, 1969) and Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (ed. H. Oswald; trans. H. Bouman; Luther’s Works 17; St. Louis: Concordia, 1972). This work is a translation from the series Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe; Weimar: Bohlau, 1883–). 93. See Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah, 181–204, for a detailed description of Luther’s hermeneutics, methods, and theological assumptions as portrayed in his interpretation of Isaiah. For a critical examination of Luther’s prophetic interpretation of the Psalms, see Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 153–271. See also Jesse B. Renninger, “A Study of Selected Isaianic Passages in the Wormser Propheten Übersetzung of 1527 and Luther’s Isaiah of 1528,” in Light unto My Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers (ed. H. Bream et al.; Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974), 409–20.


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As the Protestant Reformation movement drew a variety of followers and began to splinter into opposing groups, different approaches to the exegesis of Isaiah emerged. In her contribution to this volume, “ ‘Becoming a Part of Israel’: John Calvin’s Exegesis of Isaiah,” Amy Plantinga Pauw explores the interpretation of Isaiah during this period with a focus on John Calvin. Like some of his medieval predecessors, Calvin read Hebrew and showed familiarity with rabbinic exegesis. His approach was distinguished by a suspicion of allegorical interpretation and an emphasis on the “historical sense.” However, the range of theological and hermeneutical strategies Calvin employed demonstrates his broader Christian concerns for reading the Old and New Testament Scriptures as a single witness. Pauw’s essay carefully examines the hermeneutical practices in Calvin’s Isaiah commentary and in his sermons on Isaiah in relation to those of other exegetes of his time, that is, other Protestant Reformers, Catholics, Anabaptists, and Jews. Biblical interpretation after the sixteenth century experienced a transformation in thinking about history that has been well documented in discussions of the precursors of historical-critical exegesis. Important figures in relation to Isaiah from the seventeeth century are Hugo Grotius (Annotations in Vetus Testamentum) and his younger contemporary Johannes Cocceius (Curae majores in prophetiam Esaiae), both controversial interpreters in contrasting ways. As summed up late in the seventeenth century by Richard Simon, “Cocceius found Christ everywhere in Scripture, while Grotius found Him practically nowhere.”94 Such contrasting approaches have obvious repercussions especially for understandings of Isaiah. In the early eighteenth century, Cocceius’s student Campegius Vitringa (Commentarius in librum prophetiarum Jesajae) presented his exegesis of Isaiah as a via media between the methods of Grotius and Cocceius, pursuing the literal sense of the words and attempting to reconstruct the historical fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies in the prophet’s near rather than distant future. Bishop Robert Lowth’s translation of Isaiah in 1778 is the focus of Gary Stansell’s contribution to this volume. In “The Poet’s Prophet: Bishop Robert

94. Richard Simon, Histoire critique des principaux commentateurs du Noveau Testament (1693), 764, quoted in Ernestine van der Wall, “Between Grotius and Cocceius: The ‘Theologia Prophetica’ of Campegius Vitringa (1659–1722),” in Hugo Grotius, Theologian: Essays in Honour of G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes (ed. H. Nellen and E. Rabbie; Studies in the History of Christian Thought 55; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 199. For discussions of both of these as well as Abraham Calov and Campegius Vitringa, see also Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah, 230–50; and Childs, “Hermeneutical Reflections on C. Vitringa, Eighteenth-Century Interpreter of Isaiah,” in In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements (ed. E. Ball; JSOTSup 300; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 89–98.

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Lowth’s Eighteenth-Century Commentary on Isaiah,” Stansell reintroduces Lowth’s two important works, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews and Isaiah: A New Translation; with a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes, Critical, Philological, and Explanatory. Today Lowth is primarily known among biblical scholars for recognizing “parallelism of members” as a prevailing characteristic of Hebrew poetry. What has been forgotten until recently is that in elucidating numerous examples of parallelism not only from the Psalms but from the classical prophets (primarily Isaiah), Lowth overturned the idea that had prevailed for over a millenium among both Jews and Christians, that poetry and prophecy were mutually exclusive genres. Lowth’s presentation of the prophet as poet, and his later translation of Isaiah as prophetic poetry, not only revolutionized the visual presentation of Isaiah and other prophetic books in subsequent biblical translations (and even in the BHK and BHS ) but also ignited interest in “poets as prophets” among British romantic poets and deeply influenced German interpretation of Isaiah, beginning with Koppe and Gesenius and extending to Duhm and Gunkel. Since rehearsals of the history of modern critical study of Isaiah are numerous and easily accessible elsewhere, each of the final three chapters of this volume traces only one particular, though important, strand of the discussion. Respectively, these are the source-critical theories leading to Duhm’s notion of three Isaiahs, the form-critical innovations that reclaimed literary continuities in the book, and finally, at the end of the twentieth century, the variety of critical studies organized around the question of coherence in Isaiah’s final form. Bernhard Duhm’s 1892 commentary Das Buch Jesaia was as foundational to twentieth-century Isaiah studies as Wellhausen’s Prolegomena was to modern understanding of the Pentateuch. Yet like Wellhausen’s, Duhm’s theories were deeply embedded in debate about sources and redaction that reached back more than a century before him. Marvin Sweeney’s essay, “On the Road to Duhm: Isaiah in Nineteenth-Century Critical Scholarship,” traces this discussion, first as it is foreshadowed in the Babylonian Talmud and the work of Ibn Ezra and then as it took shape in the writings of Eichhorn, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, and Dillmann. Sweeney works through the details of these various commentators’ discussions to show that nearly all of Duhm’s contributions that have enjoyed lasting favor were anticipated by one predecessor after another. In “Form Criticism, Rhetorical Criticism, and Beyond,” Roy Melugin begins where Sweeney leaves off, tracing form-critical study of Isaiah through several twentieth-century scholars, beginning with Hugo Gressmann’s 1914 article on Second Isaiah. Early work in this field was accomplished primarily in Germany, by Köhler, Begrich, and von Waldow. The terms of the discussion shifted substantially when it was introduced in the United States through James Muilenburg’s 1956 commentary on Second Isaiah. Melugin examines the influ-


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ence of Muilenburg’s attention to rhetorical form on subsequent interpretation through the work of two more recent critics, Claus Westermann and Melugin himself, and shows how these discussions led into the end-of-the-century explorations of the “unity” of Isaiah, an appropriate, if somewhat ironic, conclusion to two centuries of study of the book’s disunifying features. The concluding essay, Patricia K. Tull’s “One Book, Many Voices: Conceiving of Isaiah’s Polyphonic Message,” brings the volume to the end of the twentieth century by exploring the question in recent critical scholarship of the nature of the unity, or coherence, of the historically and editorially diverse book of Isaiah. Scholars joining this conversation brought questions both diachronic and synchronic, both redactional and theological. While the conversation remains unfinished, its concern to account for Isaiah as one integrated book has brought the discussion full circle from the exploration of Isaiah’s multiple authorship that began over two hundred years ago. In this work we aim to offer readers an appreciation for the varied readings of Isaiah across more than twenty centuries. It is our hope that in examining exemplary interpretations in some detail we are not only answering Karlfried Froehlich’s call for “inroads into the vast maze” but encouraging others to continue mapping the enormous territory of Isaiah’s interpretive history.

“IT’S ALL ABOUT US!” NATIONALISTIC EXEGESIS IN THE GREEK ISAIAH (CHAPTERS 1–12) David A. Baer

The search for insight from the Bible for one’s own predicament is as old as biblical interpretation itself.1 At the earliest edges of the written evidence, the Qumran covenanters practiced “charismatic midrash”2 upon biblical texts. They frequently discovered their own community, predicted and instructed, in their biblical scrolls. During roughly the same period, various of the Septuagint translators also sought wisdom for their day in the texts they made available to their Greek-speaking coreligionists. From the first days of biblical interpretation, reception meant interpretation.3 The translator of lxx Isaiah is no exception. This translation reflects a nationalistic bent, finding a surprising number of references in the Hebrew text to second-century Diaspora life that are expanded and underscored in the lxx rendering. At times, such references describe Israel’s future in a general way. At others, there is a remarkably particular application of texts to the Diaspora reality of the translator’s community.4 Such “nationalistic” exegesis assumes that

1. A preliminary version of this paper, presented at the 2001 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature Formation of the Book of Isaiah Group, appears in Society of Biblical Literature 2001 Seminar Papers (SBLSP 40; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 197–219. 2. See the second edition of Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), esp. 30. 3. This was the case even during the texts’ formation; see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 4. This feature has been widely discussed. See especially I. L. Seeligmann, The LXX Version of Isaiah (Leiden: Brill, 1948). Arie van der Kooij has written extensively on the topic. See, representatively, Die Alten Textzeugen des Jesajabuches (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 33–60 (“Aktualisierende Interpretation”); “The Old Greek of Isaiah 19:16–25,” in Sixth Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Jerusalem, 1986 (ed. C. E. Cox; SBLSCS 23; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 127–66; “ ‘The Servant of the Lord’: A Particular Group of Jews in Egypt according to the Old Greek of Isaiah: Some Comments on LXX

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Jews and their destiny are privileged over Gentiles and theirs. The net effect is to tilt the “nationalist/universalist balance”5 of the text in favor of particularism. Scholars have usually identified such translational habits in lxx Isaiah by focusing upon the more obvious exegetical maneuvers. In contrast, this essay discusses several less evident moves in Isa 1–12 that have been largely ignored in studies of the early Jewish interpretation of Isaiah. These examples corroborate the general outlines sketched elsewhere. This is not to imply that the Isaiah translator felt at liberty to rewrite the Hebrew text. The translation has often and unsatisfactorily been described as “free.” Such a description adequately sums up the actualizing tendencies but fails to say anything about its relatively stubborn adhesion to the Hebrew text. 6 Its conservative method means that such exegesis will usually—but hardly always— leave only subtle traces. Because of this subtlety, some plausible examples of nationalistic exegesis might not stand indisputably on their own. Thus, it is necessary to proceed with caution and give greater weight to the more obvious data. A Special Status for Israel/Judah Some passages in the Greek Isaiah appear intended to preserve a special status for Israel/Judah and its descendants. At 1:9, the Hebrew text expresses just how close the people had come to irrecoverable catastrophe: If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we would have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah. (nrsv)

OFDJQLO@LO :;@O@QQDOD EC F"O %J), and his train filled the temple. (Isa 6:1 mt) Behold my Servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up ( >F"O%OJQ) and shall be very high. (Isa 52:13 mt)

By reading these statements as two interdependent passages, whereby the depiction of the Lord sitting on a throne is to be understood in relation to the Servant of God whom John identified with Jesus, John would have been able to interpret Isaiah’s vision as a revelation of Jesus, exalted Lord and Servant, seated on the divine throne. Even if one were to adopt the (by now minority) view that it cannot be proved that John knew Hebrew or Aramaic,18 the combination of the two passages could have been secured some time prior to its adoption in the Fourth Gospel or, alternatively, was due to the author’s knowledge of lxx Isaiah, where similar, albeit less impressive, correspondences can be identified. Third, if the explanatory comment in 12:41 (“he saw his glory”) reflects knowledge of the broader setting of Isa 6:10, it is quite possible that John also takes into account the broader setting of Isa 53:1. In support of this proposal is the fact that the clustering of references to Isaiah in John 12:38–41, of which Isa 53:1 is one, forms the culmination of a chapter in which several of its distinctive motifs resemble those found in the Deutero-Isaianic passage immediately preceding 53:1.19 The most striking correspondences are those between John 12:12–36 and Isa 52:7–15, together with the closely related passage in Isa 40:9– 11. Resonances of these Isaianic texts, which proclaim the return of God as victorious king to a restored Jerusalem, can thus be detected in John 12:12–20, the Johannine presentation of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

17. This has most recently been forwarded by Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 49–51. 18. Cf. Margaret Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup 69; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 267–75. 19. See, e.g., Hans Walter Wolff, Jesaja 53 im Urchristentum (3rd ed.; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1952), 83–85; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (AB 29–29A; 2 vols.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966–70), 1:485. Craig Evans has proposed that John 12, at least in part, can be defined as a midrash on Isa 52:7–53:12; see his “Obduracy and the Lord’s Servant: Some Observations on the Use of the Old Testament in the Fourth Gospel” in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee (ed. C. A. Evans and W. F. Stinespring; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 232–36; idem, “The Voice from Heaven: A Note on John 12:28,” CBQ 43 (1981): 406–8.

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First, a good case can be made for detecting the influence of Deutero-Isaiah’s initial declaration about the coming of the Lord to Zion (40:9–11) on the wording of the citation of Zechariah in the entry account: “Do not fear, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt” (John 12:15; cf. Zech 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”). John not only compresses this quotation (a practice already encountered in connection with the Isaianic quotations), but its initial appeal (“Rejoice greatly”) has been changed to “Do not fear.” That the phrase “do not fear” addressed to Zion in Isa 40:9 (“Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings.… do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ ”) accounts for this alteration is indeed suggested by the analogous setting and shared vocabulary of Zech 9:9 and Isa 40:9–11, for both passages pronounce the visible manifestation (JEPV=) of the God/king who comes (FSYFUBJ) to Zion. Second, the announcement of the Lord’s triumphal procession to Zion (Isa 40:9–11; 52:7–10, especially the announcement in 52:7 lxx that “your God shall reign”) could have contributed to the distinctively Johannine appropriation in John 12:13 of Ps 118:25–26 (cf. Matt 21:9; Mark 11:9; and Luke 19:38), that is, the addition of “the King of Israel” to “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” The role of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, especially within the wider context of the Gospel’s narrative and christology, is in fact greatly elucidated if its verbal, thematic, and contextual links with the Isaianic passages are acknowledged. This applies in particular to the cry of jubilation as Jesus enters the city, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel” (12:13), for in its context this adapted psalm quotation assumes new and deeper meaning. Although the crowd may not, at this point, display awareness of the true force of this acclamation, their initial designation for Jesus, “he who comes,” should be read in the light of John’s repeated emphasis upon Jesus as coming from God into the world (see 3:31; 7:28; 16:28). It is probably also more than coincidental that its titular usage (“the Coming One”) occurs for the first time in the testimony of the Baptist (1:15, 27), whose announcement of the way of the Lord (Isa 40:3) points to its fulfillment in the coming of Jesus. In addition, since Jesus expresses his unique relationship with God by stating that he has been given, and manifests, the name of the Father (cf. John 17:6–26, esp. vv. 6, 11, 12, 26), the crowd’s declaration that he comes “in the name of the Lord” becomes their unwitting testimony to him as the one who bears and makes known the divine name. When the Johannine context of this expression therefore intersects with an interpretation of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as the realization of the coming of the Lord, whereupon “my people will know my name” (Isa 52:6), Jesus is

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presented as the one who comes bearing the name of the Lord whom he reveals (cf. 1:23; 12:38). In Isa 52, the description of God’s return in solemn procession with his people is swiftly followed by the announcement of the suffering and future exaltation of the Servant and of the reaction of many nations (52:13–15). John’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem leads to a narrative about the approach of certain Greeks and to Jesus’ responding discourse (12:20–36). Similarities between these passages are again not limited to a common pattern or sequence. The distinctive Johannine motif of “seeing” is given concrete expression in the request of the Greeks to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see (JEFJO) Jesus” (12:21). This possesses an interesting parallel in Isa 52:15 lxx,20 which, more explicitly than the Hebrew text, links the message about the Servant to the response of many nations:21 their reaction to him will be one of wonder, because they, who have never been told about the Servant, shall see (PZPOUBJ),22 and they, who have previously not heard, shall understand. The request of the Greeks to see Jesus also becomes the trigger for his pronouncement that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (EPDBTRI]_)” (12:23; cf. 12:27), followed by his declaration, “And I, when I am lifted up (V ZXRX_) from the earth, will draw all people to myself ” (12:32; cf. 12:34). It is widely acknowledged that this language of exaltation (lifting up) and glorification has been inspired by Isa 52:13 lxx, where both verbs are already combined to express God’s promise, “Behold my Servant shall understand and shall be exalted and glorified greatly” (LBJ@ VZXRITFUBJLBJ@ EPDBTRITFUBJ TGPESB).23 The future (passive) forms of both verbs, in addition to the reference to the future “seeing” of the nations (52:15 lxx), meant that these statements could be interpreted by John as predictions finding their eschatological fulfillment in Jesus. Ample confirmation is also provided within the discourse that this vocabulary is applied to Jesus’ approaching death; his first declaration about glorification leads to the saying about a seed that must die to bear fruit (12:23–

20. See Johannes Beutler, “Greeks Come to See Jesus (John 12,20f ),” Bib 71 (1990): 341–46. 21. Identifying the Greeks of John 12:20–21 as Gentiles is forcefully argued by Jörg Frey, “Heiden–Griechen–Gotteskinder: Zu Gestalt und Funktion der Rede von den Heiden im 4. Evangelium,” in Die Heiden: Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden (ed. R. Feldmeier and U. Heckel, WUNT 1/70; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 249–64. 22. On the function of FJ>EPO and its related forms (cf. JEFJO in John 12:21) as the aorist active of the verb PSBX (cf. PZPOUBJ in Isa 52:15 lxx), see Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (rev. and trans. R. W. Funk; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 54 par. 101. 23. Cf. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 247; Bauckham, God Crucified, 63–68. The remark that “the Son of Man must be lifted up” (John 3:14) further suggests that this language is drawn from scriptural prophecy.


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24), and the ambiguity surrounding previous references to Jesus being lifted up (3:14; 8:28) is removed on this third occasion by the narrative comment, “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die” (12:32–33). The notion of Jesus being physically lifted up on the cross is thus combined with its theological interpretation as the moment of exaltation; it amounts, at the same time, to a new reading of the “exaltation following humiliation” pattern. In the Fourth Gospel this pattern is transformed into the paradoxical interpretation of Jesus’ exaltation and glorification as supremely evident within, rather than following, his humiliation and death. It remains to be asked: What enabled John to combine, with reference to Jesus, the events of the triumphal return of the Lord to Zion and the work of his Servant? In other words, how does the way of the Lord become the way of Jesus, and to what extent is the glorification of the Servant the manifestation of God’s kingship and glory? In addition to the christological connection between “Lord” and “Servant” that underpins John 12:38–41, a valuable clue is provided in this respect by the image of “the arm of the Lord,” which occurs in the quotation from Isa 53:1 in John 12:38. Since this verse, in its original context, forms a bridge between the divine proclamation (Isa 52:13–15) and the central part of the Song (53:2–12), the question “To whom has the arm of the Lord (P CSBYJXOLVSJPV) been revealed (BQFLBMVGRI)?” can be read in the light of the immediately preceding statements: the arm of the Lord is made manifest in the humiliation and future glorification of the Servant, which many nations and kings will see (PZPOUBJ). The emphasis in this unit upon the Servant as the object of seeing, as the content of divine revelation, could certainly prompt a reader of lxx Isaiah to identify him as the embodiment of the arm of the Lord. But this metaphorical language also occurs earlier in Isaiah’s text, in the promise that, when the Lord shall reign over Zion, his arm will be visibly manifested before the nations: “The Lord shall reveal (BQPLBMVZFJ; mt: has revealed) his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see (PZPOUBJ) the salvation that comes from God” (52:10 lxx). The presence of common vocabulary (the Lord’s arm, the nations, reveal), even the same verbal forms (PZPOUBJ), suggests that Isa 52:10 and 52:13–53:1 lxx lent themselves to be interpreted with reference to each other: the holy arm of the Lord to be revealed to the nations can be identified with the Servant who will be exalted and glorified.24

24. For other examples in lxx Isaiah of “contextual exegesis” linking together the Servant and the arm of the Lord, see Eugene R. Ekblad, Isaiah’s Servant Poems according to the Septuagint: An Exegetical and Theological Study (CBET 23; Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 197–98.

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A third analogous text can be added, one in which the Lord’s arm is virtually personified: “The Lord comes with strength and his arm with dominion” (Isa 40:10 lxx). This is a significant declaration because it forms the centerpoint of Deutero-Isaiah’s first affirmation of the coming of the Lord to Zion (40:9– 11), a message then taken up and expanded in 52:7–10. Additional verbal and thematic links with the other descriptions of the revelation of the divine arm can be detected in its wider context, particularly as the purpose of the Lord’s return is explained in terms of the universal disclosure of his glory and salvation: “Then the glory of the Lord shall be seen (PGRITFUBJ) and all flesh shall see (PZFUBJ) the salvation of God” (40:5 lxx). An interdependent reading of these three Isaianic passages (40:5–11; 52:7–10; 52:13–53:1), based on their shared motif of “the arm of the Lord,” leads to the following interpretation: the glorified Servant, through his humiliation and exaltation, is the one in whom God’s salvation and glory will be revealed in the sight of all the nations. This fusion of prophetic promises about the coming of the Lord and the exaltation of his Servant, further juxtaposed with Isaiah’s vision of God’s glory (6:1–13), therefore enables John to subject his depiction of the transitional events between Jesus’ public ministry and his death to profound christological interpretation. The kingship of God (Isa 6:1, 5; 52:7) is manifested in Jesus, his Servant, who enters the city of Jerusalem as king in preparation for his enthronement on the cross (cf. John 18:33–37; 19:14, 19–22). And while God’s glory fills the earth (Isa 6:3), the promise of its visible manifestation in the world (40:5) is realized in Jesus, whose death signifies his exaltation and glorification. This supreme disclosure of kingly glory cannot be separated from the message that God’s salvation will be seen by “all flesh” (40:5), by “all nations” (cf. 52:10, 15), illustrated above all by the request of the Greeks to see Jesus, in anticipation that all will be drawn to him after he is lifted up on the cross (12:32). In stark contrast, therefore, to those who, as predicted by Isaiah and highlighted by John, cannot see (Isa 53:1) because their eyes have been blinded (6:9–10), the glory and salvation achieved by Jesus through his humiliation and death is perceptible only to those who have faith. This is the glory seen by Isaiah and of which he spoke (John 12:41). Testimony and Christology in the Fourth Gospel Jesus’ earthly ministry in the Fourth Gospel opens and closes with the testimony of Isaiah. The inclusio established by means of these quotations and their accompanying formula (“Isaiah said”) is of theological as well as literary interest. The function of these quotations and their markers is not only to frame and link together the beginning and end of Jesus’ public ministry but to bring to the surface a sustained christological reflection on a series of related Isaianic


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passages. The climax of “the way of the Lord” announced by John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel is the universal manifestation of God’s glory in the death and exaltation of his Servant, “the arm of the Lord.” Jesus, as the “Coming One,” completes his earthly way in Jerusalem, where he manifests God’s glory for all to see through his enthronement on the cross. The integral role of John the Baptist within the Johannine circle of witnesses also becomes apparent from the notable similarities between him and Isaiah. The prophet is commissioned by the Lord to communicate the divine message of obduracy (Isa 6:8), just as the Baptist is the only figure in the Fourth Gospel other than Jesus and the Paraclete (3:17; 14:26) to be described as “sent by God” (1:6; cf. 1:33; 3:28). Both Isaiah and the Baptist are recipients of visual and aural divine communication. What they have seen and heard legitimizes their spoken testimony. The Baptist can announce, “I myself have seen and testified” (1:34), and John, in an explanation of the prophet’s testimonies, can state that “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke about him” (12:41). Even the content of their testimonies bears some remarkable resemblance. Both the Baptist and Isaiah serve as proleptic witnesses to Jesus’ earthly destiny. In language influenced by Isaianic prophecies about the Servant, the Baptist looks ahead to Jesus’ role as the Lamb of God, whose soteriological and universal significance is summed up in the claim that he “takes away the sin of the world.” In the same vein, the report of Isaiah, which finds no belief, is understood to be the prophet’s prediction of the universal manifestation of God’s glory in Jesus. Yet it is Isaiah, not John the Baptist, who is described in the Fourth Gospel as having seen “his glory” (12:41). This makes him the paradigm of a true witness to Jesus, since the prologue demonstrates that such testimony sums up the core of the Gospel: “We have beheld his glory” (1:14). It is because Isaiah is perceived as having beheld God’s glory in Jesus long beforehand that he becomes a key witness in John’s Gospel. Select Bibliography Beaton, Richard. Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel. SNTSMS 123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Broyles, Craig C., and Craig A. Evans, eds. Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition. 2 vols. VTSup 70. New York: Brill, 1997. Johnson, Luke T. “Isaiah the Evangelist.” Mils 48 (2001): 88–105. Lincoln, Andrew T. Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2000. Marcus, Joel. The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993.

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Menken, Maarten J. J. “Observations on the Significance of the Old Testament in the Fourth Gospel.” Neot 33 (1999): 125–43. Pao, David W. Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus. WUNT 2/130.Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Snodgrass, Klyne R. “Streams of Tradition Emerging from Isaiah 40:1–5 and Their Adaptation in the New Testament.” JSNT 8 (1980): 24–45. Watts, Rikki E. Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark. WUNT 2/88. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997. Young, Franklin W. “A Study of the Relation of Isaiah to the Fourth Gospel.” ZNW 46 (1955): 215–33.

ISAIAH AND THE BOOK OF REVELATION: JOHN THE PROPHET AS A FOURTH ISAIAH? Jan Fekkes III

Introduction Recent research into the influence of Isaianic material on later authors has produced some interesting results. Whereas even the Septuagint translation of Isaiah appears to betray theological tendencies that adapt the earlier prophecies to the Jewish Diaspora,1 so also the pseudepigraphic and apocryphal literature of the postexilic period shows various parties and individual thinkers in Judaism, both in Palestine and in the Diaspora, continuing to expand the horizons of prophetic application, setting into motion a dynamic process that continues well into Christian literature.2 The prominence of Isa 40–66 in particular is evidenced by the broad scope of its assimilation, a fact that is probably to be attributed in part to its more positive message of national hope as opposed to the often doleful words of prophets such as Jeremiah or Ezekiel. The currency of the prophetic books in general and Isaiah in particular is likewise evident in the Wisdom of Sirach, which includes a eulogy to the prophet and his work (Sir 48:22b–25) and considers his oracles almost a blueprint for God’s agenda until the consummation of time (Sir 48:25). Much of the remaining literature of the Second Temple period that deals with postexilic expectations draws consistently on the book of Isaiah to address the problem of theodicy, with Isaian themes characteristically dominant in the final stages of the eschatological agenda. In the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the

1. See the essays in this volume by Baer and van der Kooij. See also John W. Olley, Righteousness in the Septuagint of Isaiah (SBLSCS 8; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1979), esp. 147–51. 2. Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) 495–99; Devorah Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. M. J. Mulder; CRINT 2/1; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 379–419.

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cumulative evidence of the discovery of multiple manuscripts, commentaries, and other writings relating to Isaiah provide ample testimony to the pervasive influence of the prophet within many facets of Qumran thought and theology. Beyond Qumran, Palestine under the Hasmoneans offered fertile ground for a host of other interest groups with varying degrees of national and religious aspirations. The Psalms of Solomon, a pseudepigraphical collection of hymns patterned after the Psalter, is one such example from this period. Psalms 11 and 17 in particular reveal something of current eschatological perspectives and the prophetic heritage within which they moved. Psalm 11 has been described as “a pastiche of phrases and imagery from Second Isaiah.”3 This hymn bears the title “In Expectation,” and its theme is the final pilgrimage of scattered Israel to the glorified Zion. Psalm 17 is an extended canticle concerning the anticipated messianic king, in which many attributes are drawn from Isaiah’s description of the anointed root of Jesse in Isa 11:1–10. Another characteristic Isaian theme recurring here is the status of the nations who will return in the last days to Zion to see God’s glory and to serve the Messiah (Pss. Sol. 17:29–31; Isa 60; 49:22–23; 45:14–15). Old Testament Prophecy and Early Christianity The reapplication of prophetic texts takes a new turn with the birth and growth of Christianity in the first century c.e. Yet even though the book of Revelation stands chronologically toward the end of almost two generations of christological reflection on the Old Testament, the prophet John still holds much in common, both thematically and methodologically, with earlier Jewish interpreters. Apart from the focalization of messianic hope in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the other major development of early Jewish-Christian interpretation relates to the prophecies concerning the future of Israel as a nation and its institutions. The church’s gradually developing claim to be the locus of divine activity prompts a reinterpretation of scriptural prophecies concerning Israel’s national restoration.4 Before evaluating the specific use of prophetic material in Revelation, it is important to understand the theological development taking place within Jewish Christianity, whereby a more literal national eschatology based on the prophets was transformed into a more spiritualized form. Especially in the period follow-

3. George W. E. Nicklesburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (London: SCM, 1981), 206. 4. E. Earle Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 101–57; Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 84–121.

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ing the devastation and Diaspora associated with the Jewish War of 66–73 c.e., early Christians used Jesus’ words to explain the establishment of a new community of faith as the rightful heir of the divine promises. The justification for this shift was the rejection by Israel at large of Jesus as Messiah. Two examples from this period reflecting the same fundamental attitude toward Judaism as John in Revelation are the Gospels of Matthew and John. The Gospel of Matthew appears to have been written at a time when Christianity had grown in numbers and influence especially among the Gentiles and was experiencing increasing conflict with certain facets of Judaism. The Gospel reflects a perceived point of separation between Pharisaic Judaism and the Jewish followers of Jesus as Messiah.5 Matthew emphasizes this discontinuity by recording an important encounter and saying of Jesus in Matt 9:14–17. The programmatic announcement that “new wine cannot fit into old wineskins” is understood to mean that the “new wine” of the gospel message could no longer fit into the “old wineskins” of Judaism. The form and character of the “new wineskins” are reflected in a series of replacement themes outlined by Matthew: )

There is a new lawgiver and authoritative figure who supersedes Moses: Jesus, the “new Moses” (Matt 5–7; 26:1; Deut 18:15, 18; 34:10–12). ) There is a new community of God’s people, the church, in contrast to the synagogue (Matt 16:17–18; 13:54–58). ) There is a new leadership base for the new community, the apostles, in contrast to the Pharisees (Matt 16:19–20; 15:12–14; 16:5–12; 23:1–32). ) There is a new mission, expanded to all nations instead of Israel alone (Matt 10:5–6; 15:24; 28:16–20). Similarly, in the Gospel of John, the first “sign” miracle of Jesus turning the water of purification into new wine (John 2:1–11) appears to be the author’s symbolic equivalent of the Synoptic wineskin saying.6 Like Matthew, John follows this with a series of replacement themes in which Jesus fulfills or supersedes the “old wineskins” of Judaism (cf. John 1:17), disputing: 1. the spiritual privilege of Jewish descent (John 1:11–13; 3:5–21; 8:33–41; 10:16); 2. an emphasis on ritual purity (John 2:6; 13:1–10);

5. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 107–10. 6. Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 123–28.

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3. worship centralized around the temple or any other “holy” building (John 2:12–22; 4:21–24); 4. the limitations of the Sabbath (John 5:9–18); 5. emphasizing the written word (Scriptures) over the Living Word, Jesus (John 5:39–40); and 6. celebration of Jewish feasts: ) Passover: physical versus spiritual bread (John 6); ) Tabernacles: physical versus spiritual water (John 7); ) Dedication: physical versus spiritual light (John 10). In Matthew, Jesus confers on the apostles the “keys of the kingdom” (Matt 16:19), while in John, Jesus is said to be the “gate for the sheep” (John 10:7). Although each Gospel writer adopts a different metaphor, both emphasize the conviction that Jesus as the Messiah, and by extension his community, serve as the gateway to salvation and fellowship with God (see John 14:6; 13:20; 17:20–21). The church’s tension with the synagogue reaches fever pitch in the book of Revelation, where John refers to the local Jewish assemblies of Smyrna and Philadelphia as “synagogues of Satan” (Rev 2:9; 3:9). The function of this polarizing rhetoric appears to be to provide spiritual legitimation to the marginalized Christian community vis-à-vis the synagogue “across the street.” Both groups of faithful, Jewish and Christian, claim to be the true people of God. Ironically, the words of the apostle Paul might serve as the expected response of the synagogue faithful to John’s polemic, “to [us] belongs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises” (Rom 9:4). However, in John’s defense of the spiritual priority of the Christian community over against those “who say they are Jews and are not” (Rev 2:9; 3:9), the Messiah becomes the spiritual trump card outweighing all prior rights and privileges.7 Those who confess Jesus as the Christ, regardless of their spiritual heritage or genealogy, become the true people of God and rightful heirs of the divine promises (Rev 3:12).

7. While David Frankfurter’s warning (“Jews or Not? Reconstructing the ‘Other’ in Rev 2:9 and 3:9,” HTR 94 [2001]: 403–25) about the anachronistic use of terms such as “Christian” and “Jew” in the context of first-century faith communities is well taken, his contention that the “socalled Jews” of Rev 2:9; 3:9 are actually members of the Jesus movement in conflict with John’s circle of more stringent Jewish purists is extremely doubtful. Oddly, he never once discusses John’s use of Isa 22, which strongly suggests that the bone of contention revolves around the Messiah, not simply halakic observance.


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In this theological debate, Revelation depends on a messianic interpretation of Isa 22 to explain or defend its claims.8 Rev 3:7 Thus says … the one having the key of David who opens and no one will shut and who shuts and no one will open.

Isa 22:22 And I will place the key of the house of David … and he will open and no one will shut and he will shut and no one will open.

The original oracle in Isaiah concerned the promotion of Eliakim to the position of major-domo in the palace of King Hezekiah. The key of the house of David promised to him by Yhwh served as a symbol of his great authority, which extended not only over the royal household but to the city and nation as well (Isa 22:21). Several factors open up this passage to messianic application by Christian interpreters: (1) in Isa 22:20 Eliakim (whose name means “God raises up”) is called “my servant” by Yhwh; (2) the promise is connected with the “house of David” (cf. Rev 5:5; 22:16); (3) the relationship of authority between the king and his chosen steward offers a ready analogy to the association between God and the Messiah. That John understands the passage messianically is therefore not surprising, and its appropriateness to the circumstances of the Philadelphian church lies precisely in what it asserts about the Messiah’s authority. As the royal steward exercised complete control over the palace and governed access to the king’s presence, so Christ holds the power of admission to or exclusion from God’s kingdom. Even though the Philadelphian Christians may be shut out and rejected by the “synagogue of Satan” (cf. John 16:2–4), Christ has set before them “an open door, which no one is able to shut” (Rev 3:8). This “open door” theme probably extends also to the eschatological promise of the letter (3:12) and the entrance of the faithful into the New Jerusalem. Those who “enter the city by the gates” (22:14) can do so only by means of him who controls the key of David (3:7). To a church that is evidently experiencing the hostility of local Jews, John gives assurance that it is they who have access to the messianic

8. Many scholars see Isa 22 as also lying behind the presentation of the “keys of the kingdom” by Christ to Peter in Matt 16:19; cf. 23:13. Mark R. J. Bredin argues (“The Synagogue of Satan Accusation in Revelation 2:9,” BTB 28 [1999]: 160–64) that in 2:9 the Smyrnan synagogue is “of Satan” because it compromised with Rome over payment of the special Judean tax. This reads a lot into the passage and again does not take any account of John’s Old Testament usage in the parallel text of Rev 3:7–9.

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kingdom, while the erstwhile children of the kingdom are shut out (cf. Luke 13:27–30).9 John as a Jewish-Christian Prophet The revival of prophecy and prophets in the early Christian community predictably gave rise to questions concerning the relation of new revelations to the previous revelation of the Jewish Scriptures. In Acts 2, the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost opens the door to new prophecies, visions, and dreams (Acts 2:16–18). This fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel 2 becomes in the subsequent narrative of Acts the basis for visions that both supplement and overturn the previous revelations of Scripture (e.g., Acts 7:55–56; 11:2–12). Even Paul, creative exegete though he is, cannot perceive the “mystery of the gospel” hidden in Scripture apart from new revelation (Gal 1:11–12; cf. Eph 3:2–10). By the period of Revelation (probably ca. 95 c.e.), prophetic activity in the local Christian communities and among itinerant prophets, “both men and women” (Acts 2:18), appears to be an established part of church practice. What is John’s relationship to previous prophetic tradition? Although he never explicitly calls himself a prophet, his own prophetic consciousness is clearly attested throughout the book in a variety of ways. Evidence suggests that he regarded himself, and Christian prophets in general, as part of a revelatory network with God’s prior messengers. As a Jewish-Christian prophet, he appears to take for granted that the prophetic heritage of Israel has become the inheritance of the church, and he not only takes up where the prophets left off—he also takes over what they left behind. John is not only part of a prophetic circle but sees himself as part of a continuum that carries on and brings to final revelation the living word of God entrusted to the care of the prophets (Rev 10:7).10 The presupposition of continuity is supremely christological: “for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10). In what ways does John handle the legacy of prophetic traditions handed down to him? Before examining Revelation’s use of Isaiah in particular, it is important to have a broad understanding of John’s use of Scripture in general.

9. For more detailed discussion of this and following Isaiah allusions in Revelation see Jan Fekkes III, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and Their Development (JSNTSup 93; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), from which the rest of this essay is adapted. 10. As Richard J. Bauckham (“Revelation,” in The Oxford Bible Commentary [ed. J. Barton and J. Muddiman: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], 1288) notes, Revelation “clearly understands itself to be the culmination of the whole biblical prophetic tradition.” See also J. Ramsey Michaels, Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 107–9, 126.


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Revelation’s Use of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

The last two decades have seen a sharp rise in scholarly attention to Revelation’s use of Scripture. Studies of John’s use of the Old Testament in general and of particular Old Testament books continue to appear regularly. In addition, the issues surrounding Revelation’s use of previous biblical traditions have been highlighted in several recent major commentaries.11 Some unresolved problems that continue to be debated include: the textual sources of John’s biblical usage (Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek); the allusive nature of the prophet’s scriptural usage and the degree of recognition he expected of his readers; and to what extent the author is sensitive to the original context and purpose of previous biblical tradition as he perceived it.12 There are approximately 150 Old Testament allusions in Revelation that are generally accepted as certain or virtually certain. Many of these are further reused from one to seven times, for a total of about seventy-two recapitulations.13 Careful examination of the context of these allusions shows the correspondence, in nearly 125 of 150 cases, between an Old Testament text and its application in Revelation consistently going beyond similarities in language and imagery to include parallels with the setting and purpose of the original biblical passage. For example, when John wants to emphasize his own prophetic status and authority or illustrate his throneroom vision, he draws on the well-known experiences and examples of earlier prophets. When he describes the New Jerusalem, he builds on a substructure of prophecies relating to the future glorified Jerusalem. Political oracles correspond to political oracles; prophecies of judgment to prophecies of judgment; and promises of salvation serve as a basis for John’s vision of future salvation. The prophet’s thematic application of Scripture suggests that his method transcends special authors and particular books. John’s strategy for employing biblical texts appears to be determined more by the issue concerned than by its canonical source. Special books do not appear to play as important a role as special themes. The following chart shows the principal themes and Old Testament sources used by John (with the main sources in bold):

11. In addition to the works listed in the select bibliography, the following should be noted: David Aune, Revelation (3 vols.; WBC 52a–c; Dallas: Word, 1997–99); Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), and the works he cites on p. 76. 12. See Jon Paulien, “Dreading the Whirlwind: Intertextuality and the Use of the Old Testament in Revelation,” AUSS 39 (2001): 5–40. 13. Christopher Rowland (“Revelation,” NIB 12:737–43) provides an extensive chart of proposed Old Testament allusions in Revelation.

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Revelation

Theme

Source

1:10–19; 10:1–11

prophetic call narratives

Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel

1:13–17; 2–3; 5:5– 6; 19:11–16

christological titles/ descriptions

Isaiah, Daniel, Psalms, Genesis, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

4:1–5:2

throneroom visions

Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel

6:12–17; 14:14–20; 16:14; 19:11–21

Day of the Lord and holy war

Isaiah, Joel, Hosea

8–9; 16

serial judgments

Exodus, Joel

12–13; 17:6–16a

eschatological enemies

Daniel

14:8–10; 17:1–5, 16b–19:3

oracles against the nations (Babylon and Tyre)

Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel

7:14–17; 21:1–22:5

oracles of salvation and renewal (New Jerusalem)

Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah

Isaiah in Revelation

The prophecies of Isaiah have been as formative for John as for the Gospel writers and Paul. Following is a representative sample of the use of Isaiah in Revelation, arranged according to the thematic categories given above.14 Special attention is paid to the transformation and purpose of the allusions in their new settings compared with the original settings of Isaiah.

14. Some other notable treatments of Isaiah in Revelation are A. Gangemi, “L’utilizzazione del Deutero-Isaia nell’ Apocalisse di Giovanni,” Euntes Docete 27 (1974): 109–44, 311–39; and David R. Carnegie, “Worthy Is the Lamb: The Hymns in Revelation,” in Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology presented to Donald Guthrie (ed. H. H. Rowdon; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982): 243–56, who discusses parallels between the hymns of Revelation and Isa 40–55.


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Christological Titles and Descriptions

1. Root of David. Twice in Revelation Christ is called the Root of David, once by one of the twenty-four elders in 5:5b, and once as a self-designation of the exalted Jesus in 22:16b. The source of this messianic title is generally recognized to be Isa 11:1 and 10, which refer to a promised deliverer as the root of Jesse. The first appearance of the title in Rev 5:5 comes in response to the angelic query in 5:2: “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” The answer comes in 5:5b: “The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David … can open the scroll and its seven seals.” What is here only indirectly attributed to a figure whom John from now on calls the Lamb is expressly claimed by Jesus himself in the last “I am” title of Rev 22:16b. In both places the Root of David title is linked with other well-known messianic testimonia and serves to identify Jesus as the fulfillment of traditional messianic expectations. Among these messianically understood scriptural passages, John appears to give a high visibility to Davidic promises. Christ is not only from the tribe of Judah and the family of David (5:5; cf. 7:4a with 14:1), but he also holds the key of David (3:7; Isa 22:22). And because Yhwh’s covenant with David (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:4) has found its fulfillment in Jesus, John can call him the “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5; Ps 89:28). Therefore, the title “Root of David” not only functions as a messianic identification but also emphasizes Christ’s royal authority as the legitimate Davidic heir. Its presence in a vision of Christ’s enthronement and reception of authority (Rev 5) provides a foundation for later statements concerning his kingship, kingdom, and rule (11:15; 17:14; 19:16; 20:4, 6; 1:5). 2. Righteous Judge/Sword-Mouth. In a variety of other passages, John ascribes to Christ qualities ascribed to the “shoot of Jesse” in Isa 11:4. In the initial commission scene of Rev 1:10–20, one of the more striking visionary attributes of Christ is the sword that proceeds from his mouth. This image, with minor variations, is found in Rev 2:12, 16 and 19:15, 21. The initial development of this idea appears to have been connected with the parousia vision in Rev 19:11–21. If so, then John has expanded the motif into the letter series (2:12, 16) and the introductory Christophany (1:16). His presentation of the messianic warrior and judge in 19:11–21 incorporates a variety of eschatologically understood texts, including Isa 11:4 in Rev 19:11, 15. Rev 19:11c, 15

Isa 11:4

in righteousness he judges and makes war … from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations

with righteousness he shall judge the poor … he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth

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The application of Isa 11:4 to the Messiah in his capacity as the eschatological judge was apparently already widespread among Jewish interpreters, for it appears in a variety of texts of differing theological backgrounds.15 The assimilation of this concept to Jesus as Messiah would have been natural, and it appears to have been taken over with little variation. John’s substitution of Isaiah’s “earth” with “nations” appears to arise from a conflation of Isa 11 with Ps 2:8–9 in Rev 19:15a, a procedure that is paralleled in Pss. Sol. 17:24. John’s use of the “sharp sword” in place of the “rod” of Isa 11 may have been influenced by Isa 49:2, where the Servant says, “He made my mouth like a sharp sword.” This preference for the sword image over the rod may have to do with a desire to represent Christ as the bearer of universal judicial authority, in contrast to earthly rulers, whose executive power is often symbolized by the sword (Rev 6:3–4; 13:10; 20:4; Rom 13:4). The first appearance of this image in the Christophany of Rev 1 sets forth Christ’s authority as judge in anticipation of its application—to the community in chapter 2, and to the rebellious nations in Rev 19. 3. The First and Last. The descriptive title “The First and the Last” occurs three times in Revelation: twice as a self-designation of the exalted Christ (1:17b; 22:13), and once as part of a messenger formula introducing Christ’s proclamation to the church at Smyrna (2:8). There is little disagreement that this title has its source in the divine self-predication found in Isa 44:6 (cf. 48:12; 41:4), which invites an application to Christ by employing two introductory divine titles, “Thus say the Lord … and his Redeemer.” More problematic is the relationship of this title to two similar double titles appearing in Revelation: “the Alpha and the Omega” (1:8; 21:6; 22:13), and “the Beginning and the End” (21:6; 22:13).16 Whereas John can use these two titles interchangeably for both God and Christ, the “First and Last” is reserved for Christ alone and seems to be related to his resurrection and enthronement. Not only is the “First and Last” title associated with the resurrection explicitly in two of its three uses, but John relates Christ’s “firstness” specifically to the resurrection when in 1:5 he calls him “firstborn from the dead.” In addition, he repeatedly gives evidence that Christ’s victory over death is the basis of his authority over the church and the world. 4. The Amen. In the messenger formula that introduces the final prophetic letter to the Laodicean church, Jesus is designated as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness” (Rev 3:14). It is somewhat surprising to find that the majority of commentators have little difficulty in accepting Isa 65:16 as the inspiration

15. 1 En. 62:2; Pss. Sol. 17:24, 35; 4QpIsaa 8–10; 1QSb 5 24–25; 2 Thess 2:8; 4 Ezra 13:9– 11, 37–38. 16. See Beale, Book of Revelation, 213–14; Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions, 122–27.


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behind this title, in view of its brevity and its broad currency as a liturgical response. The connection is suggested by the fact that the Isaiah passage likewise employs the Hebrew &E in an atypical manner as part of a divine epithet: God of Amēn (nrsv: God of faithfulness). The probability that John knew and adapted this text is enhanced by the fact that he elsewhere borrows from both the preceding and following verses of Isa 65, as well as from the last part of 65:16 itself. 17 The use of this title as an introduction to the words of Jesus to the church may be influenced by the use of amēn in the teaching of Jesus. In contrast to its conventional use as a liturgical response or concluding affirmation, Jesus “uses amēn to introduce His own words. His amēn does not corroborate what He said just before, but solemnly and authoritatively opens some new declaration of His.”18 John’s connection of “the Amen” with the introductory formula “thus says” in 3:14 produces a messenger formula similar to the introductory amēn formula of the Gospels: “thus says the amēn” (Revelation) compared to “amēn I say to you” (Gospels). The use of this formula introducing a word of Jesus to the Laodicean church would provide an extra reminder of Christ’s authority before the strong criticisms and warnings of the letter. It is also another example of a divine title transferred to Jesus, further underscoring John’s high Christology. Throneroom Visions

In Rev 4:2–7 John’s portrait of the heavenly temple and its occupants is patterned almost exclusively on the throneroom vision of Ezek 1. Beginning in 4:6b, the description of the four living creatures continues on the Ezekiel model in depicting their eyes and faces but follows Isa 6:2–3 to describe their wings (six rather than Ezekiel’s four) and worship. The transition from Ezekiel to Isaiah coincides with a shift from the physical description of the living creatures to a presentation of their function (Rev 4:8b–9). Whereas in Ezekiel the duties of the cherubim are limited to the movement and activity of the divine throne chariot and have no function of worship or praise, the seraphim of Isa 6 serve as close attendants who lead in worship. Thus, while John takes over various physical attributes of Ezekiel’s living creatures, their role as merkabah attendants is abandoned in favor of the worshiping seraphim of Isaiah who “never cease to sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty’ ” (Rev 4:8b; Isa 6:3a).19 In

17. Beale (Book of Revelation, 299) even argues that all three titles of Rev 3:14 (the Amen, faithful and true) are an “expanded translation of Isaiah’s ‘Amen.’ ” 18. L. Gillet, “Amen,” ExpTim 56 (1944–45): 135. 19. See Philip B. Munoa III, “Jesus, the Merkavah, and Martyrdom in Early Christian Tradition,” JBL 121 (2002): 303–25. For John’s use of Ezekiel traditions, see Jeffrey M. Vogelgesang, “The Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Book of Revelation” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1985).

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Isa 6 this thrice-holy, also known as the trisagion, forms part of a short hymn of acclamation addressed to Yhwh, who is seated on his throne in the temple. Further analysis suggests that Isa 6 plays an important role in the movement of John’s plot and is not simply added as ornamental color or liturgical filler. In Isa 6 the trisagion serves to express a moral contrast between Yhwh and the prophet. The immediate response of Isaiah to the revelation of God’s holiness is a realization of personal unholiness, accompanied by an expectation of divine judgment: “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isa 6:5). The outward manifestation of God’s holiness is represented by his glory and heightened by theophanic symbols such as shaking and smoke (Isa 6:3b–4). This presentation of God’s holiness and its consequence for sinful humanity is taken up by John and serves as part of a theological substructure for his own proclamation of divine judgment. But rather than woe for the prophet himself, God’s holiness brings the threat of woe and wrath to an evil society and those in the churches who “share in its sins” (Rev 18:4). More specifically, the revelation of God’s holiness in Rev 4:8 forms the justification for the revelation of his wrath in Rev 15, where John again draws on Isa 6 for the theme of the temple filled with the smoke of God’s glory (Rev 15:8; Isa 6:4). Thus, the revelation of God’s holiness in the emphatic strains of the trisagion in the throneroom vision of chapter 4 is more than simply a statement of being—it is a basis for action. The Holy One is also the Coming One (cf. Rev 4:8 with 16:5), and the action contemplated is fulfilled in the bowl judgments of Rev 15–16.20 Holy War and Day of the Lord Traditions

The opening of the sixth seal in Rev 6:12–17 sets into motion a series of cosmic catastrophes that culminates in an eschatological confrontation between God and the Lamb on one side and earthly sinners on the other. This passage anticipates the climactic encounter between the armies of heaven led by Christ and the demonically assembled earthly forces at Armageddon (Rev 16:12–16; 19:11–21). A fundamental structural and thematic relationship exists between Rev 6:12–17 and the later units of 14:14–20 and 19:11–21. Together they describe the same eschatological event—the parousia—from various perspectives and in increasing detail. In each of these sections (Rev 6; 14; 19; 20:8–9), the final encounter between a holy God and unholy people is conceived in terms of a military conflict and developed to a large extent according to biblical tradi-

20. Cf. Russell Morton, “Glory to God and to the Lamb: John’s Use of Jewish and Hellenistic/ Roman Themes in Formatting His Theology in Revelation 4–5,” JSNT 83 (2002): 89–109, esp. 98–99.


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tions of the Day of the Lord and holy war.21 Virtually every one of the prophetic passages that John adopts in these related sections derives from Day of the Lord contexts in which the concept of holy war is present, including Joel 3–4; Hos 10; Ezek 38–39; and Isa 2; 34; and 63. The influence of Isaiah is seen particularly in the following motifs: ) ) ) ) )

Stars fallen from heaven: Rev 6:13 // Isa 34:4b Heaven rolled up as a scroll: Rev 6:14a // Isa 34:4a Attempts to hide from God’s wrath: Rev 6:15b // Isa 2:10, 19, 21 Hiding from the face of God: Rev 6:16b // Isa 2:19 Trampling the winepress of God: Rev 14:19b–20a; 19:15c // Isa 63:1–3; cf. Joel 4:13 ) One clothed in a robe dipped in blood: Rev 19:13a // Isa 63:3 One of the earliest features of Pauline eschatology was the assimilation of the prophetic Day of the Lord to the Day of Christ. This association made it possible for early Christian teachers to develop the theme of the parousia in accordance with specific Old Testament texts that prophesied or described the Day of the Lord. Functions, characteristics, and terminology originally associated with Yhwh and the Day of the Lord could be transferred to Jesus and the parousia event. For example, in 2 Thess 1:9b Paul describes the Day of Christ with the same Isaiah text (2:19) that is prominent in Rev 6:15–16. Descriptions of cosmic upheaval such as from Isa 34:4 serve as prophetic hyperbole announcing God’s judgment. John’s own presentation of the Day of the Lord builds on the foundation of these precedents, which signal not merely the parousia (as in the Synoptics: e.g., Matt 24:29–31) but the decisive intervention of God in the final eschatological battle. Prophetic Oracles against the Nations

The worldly empire that is the focus of God’s wrath in Rev 14–19 is metaphorically designated “Babylon” and appears to represent not only Rome but the network of nations and provinces under its control or influence. John’s presentation of Babylon and its judgment comes in three stages: (1) preliminary warnings (14:8–11); (2) fall of Babylon (16:1–21); and (3) character and judgment of Babylon (17:1–19:4). In each of these sections, the development of John’s picture of Babylon is dependent on, and virtually a pastiche of, prophetic oracles against the nations, primarily those against Babylon and Tyre. Although

21. For more discussion on the implications of John’s cosmic imagery for the structure of the book and his transformation of holy-war language, see Richard J. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 199–237.

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the association of Rome with Babylon was already widely asserted by the end of the first century c.e., no other author develops the Babylon image to the extent that John does. John’s application of prophetic judgment oracles to Rome again appears to be thematically determined and emphasizes two factors in the current situation. The first relates to Rome’s political and religious domination, the second to its economic monopoly. To accentuate these two factors John adopts two separate prophetic models: Babylon and Tyre. Babylon is the symbol of a proud, idolatrous empire that flaunts its power at the expense of others and scoffs at the thought of its own downfall or judgment. Five Babylon oracles are found in the Old Testament: Isa 13–14; 21:1–10; 47:1– 15; Jer 25:12–38; 50–51. Together these passages prophesy God’s judgment for sins of pride, idolatry, self-sufficiency, and injustice toward God’s people. In setting forth his own “burden of Babylon,” John borrows traditions from every one of these oracles. Tyre, on the other hand, is a symbol of international trafficking, opulent wealth, and commercial hegemony. John’s addition of the merchant theme in Rev 18 is not simply a poetic way to describe Rome’s judgment. Rome’s economic control affected significantly the everyday lives and status of John’s readers, and thus Rev 18 is only a fuller development of socioeconomic issues expressed in earlier passages (Rev 2:9; 3:17; 6:6; 13:16–17; cf. 18:4, 11).22 Only two extended Tyre oracles occur in the Old Testament (Isa 23:1–18 and Ezek 26—28), and John uses them both. The image of Rome as a “harlot” in Revelation may also have been originally suggested by the Tyre prophecies, for the first mention of the harlot in Rev 17:2 corresponds to the first application of a Tyre oracle (Isa 23:17), in which the harlot image also appears. Prophecies of Salvation

With chapter 21 John’s vision of judgment retreats to make way for the final vision of salvation. The expectation of this future consummation and renewal is kept alive in earlier parts of the book by the author’s strategic placement of eschatological reminders. Thus, the manifestation of divine renewal and reward outlined in Rev 21:1–22:5 was already presupposed in the promises of chapters 2–3 to those who “overcome,” projected in the eschatological outline of 11:15– 18, and anticipated in the hymnic pericopes of 7:9–17; 15:2–4; and 19:5–10. These promises serve as a preview to the main presentation and development of salvation oracles in Rev 21–22. In all these future-oriented passages it is Isaiah’s

22. Iain Provan (“Foul Spirits, Fornication and Finance: Revelation 18 from an Old Testament Perspective,” JSNT 64 [1996]: 81–100) provides a helpful evaluation of John’s use of Old Testament lament language in Rev 18, though Provan downplays particular historical connections to Rome in favor of a more general typological application.


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prophecies of renewal and the future restoration and glory of Zion-Jerusalem that dominate the visionary landscape. 1. Salvation Oracles in Anticipation. John’s adaptation of Isa 49:10 in Rev 7:14–17 is the most developed example of this kind of intertextual application.23 Revelation 7:14–17 is a paraenetic preview of the future inheritance of those who survive the great ordeal. Nearly every facet of this pericope anticipates the eschatological conditions of John’s New Jerusalem. His choice of Isa 49:10 is particularly apposite and evokes a plurality of images. As part of Second Isaiah’s “new exodus” theme, Isa 49:10 concerns the return of God’s elect from the Babylonian captivity and their restoration to Zion. Amid the uncertainties of abandoning the known for the unknown and the difficulties that lie along the path, this verse in Isaiah promises the exiles divine provision, protection, and guidance, using imagery that recalls the earlier wilderness experience of Israel. John’s readers too have chosen to forsake the tangible comforts and security of the latest “Babylon” and have set their sights in faith on the as yet unseen glory of the New Jerusalem. But whereas in Isaiah the imagery pertains to God’s provision and protection while in transition, John gives the whole scene a future orientation, reinforced by the subtle addition of FUJ (“[no] longer”). As with the manna promise of Rev 2:17, he transforms Isaiah’s wilderness motifs of feeding, watering, and protection from the elements (7:16) into eschatological gifts reserved for those who make it to the “promised land.” John has little interest in the easy return language of Second Isaiah. For this struggling band of Christians, no mountains will be leveled and no roads smoothed. The catalogue of divine comforts is only for those who have gone through the great tribulation and have persevered.24 2. Oracles of Renewal and Divine Presence (Rev 21:1–8). The central theme of this section is summarized in the divine proclamation of 21:5, “Behold I make all things new.” John’s addition of QBOUB (“all things”) to the tradition of Isa 43:19a (“I am doing a new thing”) emphasizes the magnitude of his concept of renewal, which transcends any particular idea such as the new creation or the renewal of paradise. Rather, John subsumes under the general theme of renewal a variety of important theological traditions, each of which evokes some aspect of the relationship between God and humanity. So we encounter motifs of creation and paradise, as well as covenant, the tabernacle and temple, and ZionJerusalem. The prophet blends all these traditions together into a “theology of

23. See further Kirsten Nielsen, “Shepherd, Lamb and Blood: Imagery in the Old Testament—Use and Reuse,” ST 46 (1992): 121–32. 24. Beale believes that John’s vision of the “great multitude” in Rev 7:9–17 describes the fulfillment of “Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies concerning Israel ” (Book of Revelation, 424, 441–43).

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presence,” in which the restoration of communion between God and humanity, inaugurated by the Christ-event, reaches the final stage: when God himself “will tabernacle with them” (21:3). Of the ten clear biblical allusions in Rev 21:1–8, eight come from Isaiah, with the main influences being Isa 65 (new heavens and earth),25 Isa 25 (no more death or crying), and Isa 43 (all things made new). The desire to emphasize a sudden and decisive new beginning that originally led Third Isaiah to adopt creation language was born of a life situation and concerns similar to John’s: a prophet trying to inspire the hope of a weary and struggling community. In this circumstance the creation model offers a sense of immediacy, permanence, and divine destiny that the exodus model of Second Isaiah lacks. That model was adequate to illustrate themes of redemption but less well suited for the description of inheritance.26 3. New Jerusalem Oracles. With the announcement and events of Rev 21:1–8 all progress and movement have come to an end; all divine action is consummated, creation is renewed, paradise is reestablished, and all that remains is for God and his people to enjoy the eternal Sabbath in the Holy City. The one task remaining for John is to provide a more detailed description of the New Jerusalem that was introduced in 21:1–8. This is accomplished in a parenthetical expansion (21:9–22:5) that forms an antithetic parallel to the Babylon vision of 17:1–18:24. The prophet’s expanded description of the Holy City and its glory can be divided into two parts: the use of architectural traditions in Rev 21:9–21 and the portrait of the temple-city in Rev 21:22–22:5. In both of these sections virtually every Old Testament allusion is based on prophecies relating to eschatological Jerusalem and its future glory, sanctity, and exalted position, principally Ezek 40–48; Isa 52:1; 54:11–12; 60; and Zech 14. In outlining the structural components of the city and its measurements in Rev 21:9–21, John draws almost exclusively on motifs from Ezekiel’s temple vision (Ezek 40–48). Because he presents the entire city as the dwelling of God, John is not concerned to distinguish between city and temple descriptions and so transfers Ezekiel’s temple imagery to the Holy City itself. Only in the last section of 21:18–21, which specifies the types of building materials used, does John shift from Ezekiel to Isa 54:11–12. Such a transition is natural, since Ezekiel is completely uninterested in building materials and because Isa 54:11–12 is the only Old Testament passage that adorns the New Jerusalem with precious materials. John’s use of this tradition is part of a wider structural and thematic

25. Jacques van Ruiten, “The Intertextual Relationship between Isaiah 65,17–20 and Revelation 21,1–5b,” EstBib 51 (1993): 473–510. 26. For the issue of whether John envisions a completely new creation or a renewal of the existing creation, see Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions, 228–30, 256–60; Beale, Book of Revelation, 1039–41.


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development of marriage symbolism.27 Nuptial imagery lies at the heart of his evocation of the Holy City, and the visionary drama of the bride–New Jerusalem unfolds in three progressive stages. Revelation 19:7–9, which builds on Isa 61:10, shows the planning and final preparations stage: a formal wedding announcement is given; the marriage supper is arranged; the guest list finalized. The ceremony is about to begin, for the bride “has prepared herself ” and awaits her entrance. Her moment of glory arrives in 21:2 (stage 2), where she descends as the New Jerusalem “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The third and final stage of the bride theme comes in 21:18–21, where the description of her adornment, anticipated in 21:2 and 9, is finally presented. John links all three units (19:7–9; 21:2; and 21:18–21) together by catchwords. To the wedding garment given the bride in Rev 19:8, John now adds the rest of her bridal adornment. The New Jerusalem prophecy of Isa 54:11–12, which serves as John’s principal model for 21:18–21, is itself part of a larger oracle employing marriage imagery and may also be taken as a symbolic representation of the personified city as a bride gloriously adorned for her husband. Even a comparison with a modern bridal panoply shows the timelessness of John’s parallel in setting and purpose. Rev 19:7–8; 3:12; 21:18–21

Modern Bridal Description

His bride has made herself ready … clothed with fine linen, bright and pure The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; … jasper … sapphire. [I will write on you the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem … and on my new name.] And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold.

[The bride] wore a white satin gown that she … made herself. It featured an empire waist embellished with sequins and pearls. [On a] white satin ribbon she had embroidered her new last initial. A pearl necklace and pearl and diamond earrings, given by the groom, completed her ensemble.28

27. See David Mathewson (“A Note on the Foundation Stones in Revelation 21.14,19–20,” JSNT 25 [2003]: 487–98), who notes the spiritual symbolism of the foundation stones in relation to the Christian community but does not mention John’s use of marriage imagery. 28. Stanwood/Camano (Washington) News, Tuesday, 15 October 2002, p. 20.

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In the final part of the New Jerusalem vision (Rev 21:22–22:5), John shifts from architectural imagery to a picture of life in the city itself and of its citizens. With this change of perspective comes a corresponding change in biblical foundations. From the building oracle of Isa 54, John now turns to the Zion prophecy of Isa 60, with its emphasis on the relationship between the glorious future Jerusalem and the nations. Although allusions to Isa 60 control this final section, John blends in traditions from other New Jerusalem prophecies as well (Isa 52; Zech 14; Ezek 47). When evaluating the various allusions to Isa 60 in Rev 21:22–22:5, it is important to keep in mind the role of temple traditions in this passage. John’s statement that “its temple is the Lord God … and the Lamb” (21:22) shows that holy space is no longer defined by the presence of the temple but is now coterminous with the unrestricted presence of God. But just because John’s Holy City has no temple building does not mean he is abrogating temple functions as well. He compensates for the absence of the temple by extending temple motifs to the city as a whole. The use of Isa 60 fits well into this scenario, for it also takes up cultic images when it speaks of God’s glory resting on the city, the tribute of kings and nations for the house of God, and pilgrims streaming through the gates of the city. Finally, in light of Ben Sira’s testimony that the priestly blessing of Num 6 was recited at the conclusion of the temple service (Sir 50:19–21), a closing synthesis of Isa 60:1–2, 19 and Num 6:25, 27 in Rev 22:4–5 provides a fitting benediction to John’s vision of the temple city. Concluding Summary In spite of the fact that John’s use of Scripture is largely allusive, there is abundant evidence that he employed a variety of exegetical and literary devices in handling that material. In many cases it would be difficult to distinguish the Jewish-Christian prophet from other Jewish exegetes. Many biblical applications in Revelation could as easily be attributed to a non-Christian Jew with messianic and/or nationalistic concerns. This is especially evident in the anti-Roman propaganda of Rev 17–18 or in the use of Daniel to describe the eschatological enemies of God. This makes it important to draw a distinction between John’s christological presuppositions and his exegetical praxis. To be sure, the fulfillment of his messianic hopes in the risen Jesus had a profound effect on John’s reading of Scripture, but this does not mean he suddenly abandoned one method of interpretation in favor of another or that christological awareness was an overriding determinant in all his Old Testament allusions. It is sometimes suggested that John simply uses the Old Testament as a sort of religious thesaurus to pad his visions with conventional symbolism and rhetoric and that any real exegetical activity would be contradictory to his prophetic position and authority, for “the prophetic spirit creates; it does not quote


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in order to teach or argue.”29 While there is an element of truth in this idea, it fails to take into account that the “prophetic spirit” does not necessarily create ex nihilo. One need only look to the exilic and postexilic prophets to see that the reuse, reformulation, and actualization of previous prophetic testimony was in no way considered incompatible with a prophet’s call and inspiration. The legacy of unfulfilled oracles remained important, along with the obligation to take up the words of predecessors and to bring them to completion through inspired reinterpretation or reapplication.30 The fact that John calls earlier prophecy a “mystery” that is about to be fulfilled (Rev 10:7) witnesses to his interaction with previously revealed traditions and shows an awareness of his role as a prophetic interpreter. As Michael Fishbane has aptly stated, “the secret of the final days was inscribed in the entrails of the older exoteric prophecies.”31 Select Bibliography Bauckham, Richard J. The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993. Beale, Gregory K. John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation. JSNTSup 166. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Fekkes, Jan, III. Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and Their Development. JSNTSup 93. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994. Mazzaferri, Frederick D. The Genre of the Book of Revelation from a Source-Critical Perspective. BZNW 54. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989. Mealy, J. Webb. After the Thousand Years. JSNTSup 70. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992. Moyise, Steve. The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation. JSNTSup 115. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Sawyer, John F. A. The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———. From Moses to Patmos: New Perspectives in Old Testament Study. London: SPCK, 1977.

29. Krister Stendahl, quoted in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 136. Rowland (“Revelation,” 561) likewise believes that John simply uses Old Testament language with little concern for the original setting and that the prophet’s allusions are not “deliberate attempts to echo biblical passages.” 30. Prosper Grech, “Interprophetic Re-interpretation and Old Testament Eschatology,” Aug 9 (1969): 235–65; Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 463, 477, 493–98, 515. 31. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 495.

PATRISTIC INTERPRETATION OF ISAIAH J. David Cassel

Introduction The early church saw Isaiah as a magnificent window through which a student of Scripture could clearly see the grace and love of God, particularly as it was manifest in Christ. In book 9 of the Confessions, Augustine (354–430) demonstrates the patristic emphasis on Isaiah as he recalls a crucial stage in his own spiritual development. Augustine describes how he sensed God calling him to resign his post as a professor of rhetoric so that he could devote his life to the service of his Lord.1 Realizing that he needed guidance as he began to walk a new path of service for God, Augustine wrote to Ambrose, his bishop and spiritual mentor, explaining his change of direction and asking what to read in order to be made “readier and fitter to receive so great a grace.”2 In his summary of Ambrose’s response, the significance of Isaiah for readers in the patristic period is quite clear: “He told me to read the prophet Isaiah, I think because more clearly than others he foretold the gospel and the calling of the Gentiles.”3 Although patristic writers devoted copious amounts of exegetical energy to most every book of the Old Testament, their favorite books were those that they believed pointed directly to Christ. Encouraged by the New Testament writers’ preoccupation with Isaiah and their belief that Isaiah’s prophecies prefigured Christ, patristic interpreters gave Isaiah’s prophecy a privileged place in their

1. Augustine, with characteristic honesty, adds that he resigned his position as rhetorician not only to serve God but also because he had experienced both difficulty in breathing and a persistent pain in his chest! See Confessions (trans. H. Chadwick; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 9.2.4 and 9.5.13. 2. Augustine, Conf. 9.5.13. 3. Ibid. Although Augustine tried to follow Ambrose’s advice, he failed to learn much from Isaiah’s words in his first attempt at studying them. He recalls the experience this way: “But I did not understand the first passage of the book, and thought the whole would be equally obscure. So I put it on one side to be resumed when I had had more practice in the Lord’s style of language” (9.5.13).

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exegesis.4 For the church fathers, Isaiah’s prophecy was a powerful prediction of the future glory of Christ and his saving acts. It was as though Isaiah joined the four Evangelists in proclaiming the good news of Jesus to the world.5 Jerome, the late fourth- and early fifth-century biblical scholar and translator, articulated the patristic perspective that Isaiah functioned as an Evangelist: I will propose that Isaiah is not only a prophet but also an evangelist and an apostle. Isaiah spoke about both himself and the other evangelists in this way: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news” (52:7). In fact, God addresses Isaiah as if he were an apostle, “Whom shall I send, and who will go [to this people]?” Isaiah responds, “Here am I. Send me!” (6:8).6

Jerome also sees a parallel between Isaiah and the New Testament Evangelists in that Isaiah’s preaching centers on the same themes found in the Gospels: This particular book of Scripture contains all the sacred mysteries of the Lord, and he is proclaimed as Emmanuel, as one born of a virgin, as a person who performed remarkable works and signs, and as one who died, was buried, and rose again from the underworld, and as the savior of all peoples.7

The popularity of Isaiah among patristic authors can be documented in two ways. First, Isaiah was the focus of a number of ancient commentaries from both the Greek East and the Latin West. Among others who wrote commentaries on Isaiah are Theodoret of Cyrus (ca. 393–ca. 460),8 Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–

4. Among the books of the Old Testament, only the Psalms are quoted more frequently than Isaiah by the New Testament writers. 5. John F. A. Sawyer develops this theme in his book The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 6. Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam libri I–XI (ed. M. Adriaen; CCSL 73; Brepols: Turnholt, 1963), prologue 18–24; all translations are mine unless otherwise specified. Jerome’s statement that Isaiah is both an evangelist and an apostle is based on the linguistic connection between Isaiah’s words and the titles “evangelist” and “apostle.” The Latin term apostolus is a transliteration of the Greek term BQPTUPMPK, which means “one who has been sent.” Jerome sees the word “send” in Isa 6:8 as pivotal. As one who has been called by God and sent out by the Lord (“ ‘Whom shall I send? …’ ‘Here am I; send me!’ ”), Isaiah is, in Jerome’s opinion, an apostle. Drawing on Isa 52:7, Jerome further suggests that Isaiah, as an apostle, is sent to bring “good news” to the people. The terms Jerome uses to translate both “messenger” and “good news” in Isa 52:7 are derived from the Latin verb euangelizo (a direct transliteration of the Greek term FVBHHFMJ[X) and thus suggest Isaiah is an evangelist. 7. Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam, prologue 26–30. 8. Théodoret of Cyrus, Commentaire sur Isaïe (trans. and ed. J.-N. Guinot; Paris: Cerf, 1980). See also Angela Christman, “Selections from Theodoret of Cyrus’s Commentary on Isaiah,” in The Theological Interpretation of Scripture (ed. S. Fowl; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 173–85.

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ca. 340),9 Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444),10 John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407),11 and Hesychius of Jerusalem (fifth century).12 Second, quotations from the book of Isaiah were frequently used by Christian apologists and theologians to support various aspects of their arguments.13 The quotations of Isaiah in theological and apologetic works, however, are often isolated and presented without any interpretive comments. For this reason, the patristic commentaries provide a much clearer and cohesive picture of the exegetical approach and conclusions of the patristic interpreters and will, therefore, be the subject of this study. The first section of this essay will review two underlying interpretive principles that govern patristic exegesis in general: (1) patristic interpreters viewed the Old Testament and the New Testament as one integrated text that must be interpreted through the lens of God’s greatest self-revelation that is embodied in Christ and described in the New Testament; and (2) patristic interpreters believed that texts from the Old Testament contained two basic levels of meaning, one that they called the historical or literal meaning and a second, deeper level that they called the spiritual meaning. The essay’s second section will focus on the exegetical approach used by patristic interpreters in their commentaries on Isaiah, an approach derived from the classical, Greco-Roman educational system. The third section of the essay demonstrates how patristic assumptions

9. Eusebius of Caesarea, Der Jesajakommentar (ed. J. Ziegler; Eusebius Werke 9; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975). For a thorough analysis of Eusebius’s Commentary on Isaiah, see Michael J. Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 10. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah (PG 70; repr., Brepols: Turnholt, 1987). For further study on Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah, see Alexander Kerrigan, St. Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1952); and J. David Cassel, “Cyril of Alexandria and the Science of the Grammarians: A Study in the Setting, Purpose, and Emphasis of Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1992). 11. Jean Chrysosotom, Commentaire sur Isaïe (ed. J. DuMortier; trans. A. Lefooghe; Paris: Cerf, 1983). 12. Hesychii Hierosolymitani, Interpratatio Isaiae Prophetae (ed. M. Faulhaber; Freiburg: Herder, 1900). There is also a commentary on Isaiah from the patristic period that had falsely been attributed to Basil and now is recognized as the work of an unknown scholar, now called PseudoBasil: Basil [Pseudo], Commento al Profeta Isaia (ed. P. Trevisan; 2 vols.; Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1939). 13. A brief review of the citations listed in the index of biblical texts cited in volume 1 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956) demonstrates how frequently patristic authors quoted Isaiah in their pastoral, apologetic, and theological treatises. For example, Isaiah is quoted approximately 49 times in the apostolic fathers (as compared, for example, with 21 quotations from Romans), 126 times in Justin Martyr’s works (as compared with 45 quotations from Matthew), and 114 times in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies (as compared to 7 quotations from Romans).

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and classical reading methods are employed in the interpretation of Isaiah by Cyril of Alexandria in his Commentary on Isaiah. Principles Underlying the Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah The Bible Is a Unified and Progressive Revelation

Although modern scholars often assume that books or sections of the Bible should be studied in light of the reconstructed social and historical situation in which they were thought to have been written rather than in relation to the Bible as a whole,14 patristic interpreters believed that the Bible was a single, integrated book and that the best approach to interpreting a biblical passage was to seek illumination from other passages in the Bible.15 In their view, the end of the book, namely, the New Testament and its description of God’s full self-revelation in Christ, was the key to understanding earlier portions of the Bible. Cyril of Alexandria, the early fifth-century bishop, scholar, and exegete, articulates the patristic concept of the unity of the Scripture in this way: “The inspired Scripture is one book. All of Scripture is one because it was spoken through the one and same Holy Spirit.”16 Patristic thought also tended to see God’s self-revelation throughout history as linear and progressive. Relying on arguments that Old Testament laws and practices functioned as limited symbols or images prefiguring that which was to

14. This perspective is particularly prominent within the school of form criticism, which has traditionally called for an awareness not only of a biblical pericope’s genre or form (Gattung) but also its reconstructed context in the life of Israel (Sitz im Leben). See, e.g., Sigmund Mowinckel’s claim in The Psalms in Israel’s Worship that understanding the Psalms requires “setting each one of them in relation to the definite cultic act—or the cultic acts—to which it belonged” ([trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; New York: Abingdon, 1962], 23). 15. This practice had it roots in classical scholarship where the ancient grammarians exhorted their students to study Homer by means of Homer ( 0NISPOFD 0NISPVTBGIOJ[FJO). Aristarchus of Samothrace, one of the great pioneers of textual analysis, is said to have developed this principle. See Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). 16. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 29:11–12 (PG 70.656a). Not incidentally, this appears in Cyril’s exposition of Isa 29:11–12, a passage in which the prophet declares that the visions of God he is articulating are inaccessible to his contemporaries: “The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to those who can read, with the command, ‘Read this,’ they say, ‘We cannot, for it is sealed.’ ” It should be noted that Cyril, like many other patristic commentators, studied the Old Testament in Greek. Although a variety of Greek translations of the Old Testament were available, the primary text that they used was the Septuagint (lxx).


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come, as is suggested by the New Testament book of Hebrews,17 the fathers saw God gradually revealing more of the divine character and will as time progressed until the advent of Christ, who was the fullest revelation of God.18 Just as in any good mystery the clues presented early in the story do not make complete sense until the end of the book, so, too, the symbols and types of God’s self-revelation hidden in the Old Testament could not be fully understood until the coming of Christ, the dénouement of the history of God’s relationship with humanity. Patristic interpreters believed that it was necessary to temper and shape their understanding of the Old Testament by means of the revelatory fire found in the New Testament. The third-century Alexandrian scholar Origen puts it this way: “Thus, Christ revealed the light that had been present in the Law of Moses, but that had been obscured with a veil, by taking away that veil. He removed the shadow covering the letter of the Law so that the good things previously under wraps have now come to light and can be known.”19 Cyril demonstrates how these assumptions about the Bible assist Christian interpreters of the Old Testament when they encounter difficulties within the text. In his introduction to his Commentary on Isaiah, Cyril points to the problems in understanding and interpreting the message of the prophets on their own terms, saying, “The words of the prophets are always obscure and filled with hidden spiritual meanings. They are in labor, giving birth to the prediction of divine mysteries.”20 He goes on to say that this obscurity is not alarming, for the meaning of Isaiah’s words can be found through Christ, who is “the end of the Law and the Prophets.”21 This is to say that God’s self-revelation in Christ as described in the New Testament is the light that illuminates all scriptural mysteries that had previously been obscure or hidden.

17. See, e.g., Heb 9:8–10, with its reference to the pentateuchal tabernacle as a symbol for the present time: “By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent is still standing. This is a symbol of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.” 18. The patristic writers drew this understanding from Rom 10:4, “Christ is the end (UFMPK) of the law.” In this case, the Greek word UFMPK (telos) might best be understood as the completion or fulfillment of that which was hinted at or prefigured in the Old Testament. 19. Origen, On First Principles (trans. G. W. Butterworth; New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 4.1.6. 20. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah, prologue (PG 70.9a). 21. Ibid. Cyril is basing his argument on Rom 10:4, where Paul says that Christ is the end of the Law. Cyril’s addition of the Prophets to this Pauline phrase clearly indicates his understanding that the whole Bible must be interpreted in light of the revelation of Christ.

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The Old Testament Contains Two Levels of Meaning

The second principle that forms a foundation for patristic interpretation of the Old Testament is the belief that Scripture contains two primary levels of meaning: the literal or historical and the spiritual. Patristic interpreters favored the spiritual level of meaning and searched diligently for it in their examination of Old Testament texts. Origen’s writings illustrate this point of view. Although in his book On First Principles Origen suggests that there are several levels present within the biblical text, in both his explanation of the biblical text and in his own interpretation Origen appears to emphasize only two: the letter or the literal meaning and the spiritual meaning.22 And, although Origen believes that there are many situations in which the letter of the text or its literal meaning makes sense and can instruct “childish souls,”23 he also asserts that God, speaking through the prophets and the apostles, was primarily concerned with conveying unspeakable mysteries to human beings.24 Thus Origen declares that mature Christians should devote themselves to searching out the deep, spiritual meaning embedded in the biblical text so that they might partake of the doctrines of the Spirit.25 At points, argues Origen, the letter of the biblical text makes no logical sense and therefore cannot be interpreted literally. 26 In these situations, he believes, God is providing stumbling blocks that force readers to seek the spiritual meaning of the passage.27 For Origen, the spiritual meaning of the biblical text is clearly the more important of the two levels of meaning because, although some passages contain both a literal and a spiritual meaning, many others contain only a spiritual meaning. He puts it this way: “We are disposed to say that all of the Divine Scripture has a spiritual meaning, but not all of it has a literal or bodily meaning.”28 Another patristic exegete who emphasized the greater importance of the spiritual meaning of the text over its historical or literal meaning was Theodoret of Cyrus, an early fifth-century interpreter from the region of Antioch in Syria. In the prologue to his Isaiah commentary, Theodoret explains his interpretive goal: “Some of the elements of [Isaiah’s] prophecy have a clear and obvious meaning while others are expressed figuratively and require interpretation. It is my goal to speak concisely about those sections falling into the first category

22. Origen, On First Principles, 4.2.4–4.3.14. 23. Ibid., 4.2.4. 24. Ibid., 4.2.7. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 4.2.5. 27. Ibid., 4.2.9. 28. Ibid., 4.3.5.


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and to go into much greater detail about the things that fall into the second category.”29 Similarly, Eusebius, a fourth-century church historian and interpreter from the Palestinian city of Caesarea, introduces his commentary on Isaiah by addressing the two types of meaning found in the prophet’s words and suggesting that the spiritual meaning of the text is the more important:30 In some cases, the Holy Spirit’s revelation to Isaiah was in straightforward language, but, in other cases, it was through the use of various symbols. When the revelation of the Spirit is straightforward, there is no need to resort to the use of various sorts of allegorical interpretations. When the Spirit’s revelation is symbolic, however, [one must recognize that] the language and visions point to a meaning quite different from a straightforward reading of the text.… In the prophet Isaiah, most of what was revealed to him, he saw through symbols, but he articulated these things by weaving together a narrative containing both a literal sense and a deeper spiritual meaning.31

While the nature of the levels within the biblical text may have been articulated in various ways, patristic authors generally concurred with the views expressed by Origen, Theodoret, and Eusebius. Patristic exegetes first examined the literal or historical meaning of the text and then moved on to interpret the deeper spiritual meaning or meanings contained in it. Clearly, the text’s spiritual implications were the more important of the two. The Exegetical Approach Used by Patristic Interpreters of Isaiah Early Christian scholars educated within the Greco-Roman educational system had learned a rigorous and clearly defined method of reading classical texts. When they began to interpret the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, they employed this classical method as their fundamental approach. Aspects of this method included both prescribed steps of grammatical analysis and the compilation of the results of this analysis into the form of an extended commentary on the text being studied. Quintilian, the first-century Roman rhetorician, in his treatise Insitutio Oratoria provides a lucid description of the three-tiered Greco-Roman educational system through which a young person developed skills to be an outstanding

29. Theodoret, Commentaire sur Isaïe, Hypothesis, 25–29. 30. For a detailed analysis of Eusebius’s exegetical approach that seeks both the literal and the spiritual meaning of the text, see Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah, 67–102. 31. Eusebius, Der Jesajakommentar, prologue 1.1–9.

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orator or public speaker.32 In the first stage of the process, the young person was initially taught to recognize the forms of each letter and the sound associated with each.33 Once this skill was mastered, the student proceeded to learn how to recognize and read basic words, then sentences, and eventually extended passages in both Greek and Latin.34 The second stage of the system focused on teaching students how to understand and interpret literature. This phase of the educational process was overseen by teachers called grammarians (grammatici), whose primary task according to Quintilian was to teach students two things: “the art of correct expression and the interpretation of the poets.”35 Quintilian gives a detailed description of what should be included in teaching the science of interpretation.36 Grammarians should teach students about music, astronomy, philosophy, and the metrical aspects of poetry so that students can understand the allusions to these areas within literature. Developing a broad background of knowledge in a variety of areas was particularly necessary, since there were no dictionaries or encyclopedias in the ancient world. Quintilian also argues that students must be taught about the grammatical structure and stylistic devices used in literature in order to understand the meaning of the various component parts of a literary text. In other words, in addition to a general knowledge base, students also had to acquire the grammatical skills necessary to understand the meaning of the text and its ethical and moral implications. Finally, Quintilian says that grammarians should teach students the techniques of textual criticism so that they can determine the proper reading of potentially corrupted texts.37 The students were reading inexpensive, hand-copied manuscripts that contained many obvious errors, which the rudimentary skills of textual analysis enabled them to recog-

32. Quintilian, Insitutio Oratoria (ed. Donald A. Russell; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001). Quintilian states that he was asked by his friends to write an extended treatise on rhetoric since there were so many divergent views on the subject (prologue, 2). For modern descriptions of the classical educational process, see Henri Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (trans. G. Lamb; New York: Sheed & Ward, 1956; repr., Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982); Stanley Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977); and Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship. 33. Quintilian, Insitutio Oratoria 1.1.26. 34. Ibid., 1.1.31. 35. Ibid., 1.4.2. 36. The grammarians referred to their task as a technē (Dionysius Thrax, Ars Grammatica [Hildesheim: Olms, 1965], 1.8). Although one might be tempted to translate this term as “art” or “craft,” the explicit rules laid out by the grammarians for this technē seem to indicate that they perceived their job to be more of a scientific endeavor than an artistic one. 37. Quintilian, Insitutio Oratoria 1.4.3–5.


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nize. The third stage of the classical education was the school of rhetoric where young people were taught the skills of public oration. It was the second stage of the classical educational system that influenced patristic interpretation the most—the stage that taught students how to read, understand, and interpret texts. Although it appears as though there was a great deal of variation among grammarians at various points in history, gradually the techniques for reading developed by these instructors became more consistent and were codified.38 The grammarians eventually developed textbooks that they used to guide their students in learning the skills of reading and interpretation. These texts took two forms. The first form was the grammatical handbook that explained the various aspects of the science of interpretation. In his first-century b.c.e. grammatical handbook, the Ars Grammatica, Dionysius Thrax articulated issues that educated people reading literary texts should address: 1) expert reading of the text with its correct accents and punctuation, 2) explication of the poetic tropes that occur in the text, 3) the appropriate interpretation of both rare and unusual words and historical aspects of the text, 4) research into etymologies, 5) reflections on analogies, and 6) the evaluation of the work, which is the most elegant of all of the parts of this science.39

The second form of textbook developed for students was the commentary, which demonstrated how these steps could and should be applied to a particular text such as Homer’s Odyssey. Among the most frequently used commentaries were those of Aelius Donatus on the plays of Terence and on Virgil’s Aeneid 40 and the commentary of Servius on the Aeneid.41 In these commentaries the grammarians started at the beginning of the text they were interpreting and pro-

38. For a thorough study of the classical grammarians and their influence and role in ancient society, see Robert Kaster, Guardians of the Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988). 39. Dionysius Thrax, Ars Grammatica 1.4–8. 40. Terence was a comic poet born in Carthage in central Africa in 195 b.c.e. He was the author of six plays that became part of the canon of literary texts studied by Roman grammarians and their charges; see Aelius Donatus, Commentum Terenti (ed. P. Wessner; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1962). Donatus was also the author of a two-volume handbook on interpretive principles called the Ars Grammatica. The first section of this work, the Ars Minor, focused on the basics of grammar, while the second section, the Ars Maior, was for more advanced students and dealt with such topics as metrical and tonal questions, the parts of speech and their use in literature, and various other stylistic topics such as tropes and metaphors. 41. Servius, In Vergilii Carmina commentarii (ed. G. Thilo and H. Hagen; Hildesheim: Olms, 1961). Servius was a fourth-century grammarian whose commentary on Virgil’s works was broadly used in the classrooms of the ancient world.

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ceeded seriatim through the text, going word by word and line by line, applying the principles of interpretation to the text in each instance. For Christian scholars who had been educated in the secular, classical educational system of the time, it must have seemed natural to approach the Bible using the same questions and format for recording their interpretive conclusions. Although the genesis of the application of classical interpretive principles to the Bible is unknown, Origen, who had a strong classical education,42 appears to be one of the first Christians to make use of these principles in his study of the Bible. He examined various books of Scripture in a line-by-line, seriatim fashion and recorded his findings in the classical commentary form.43 This approach to biblical interpretation was adopted by other patristic exegetes, and soon commentaries became the favorite tool of Christian interpreters.44 The widespread interest in Isaiah during the patristic period coupled with the growing popularity of the commentary style led to a large number of patristic commentaries on Isaiah.45 Classical Influences and Patristic Assumptions in Cyril’s COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH Cyril of Alexandria’s exhaustive Commentary on Isaiah embodies the various elements found in the classical commentary, both in its structure and in the sort of questions it addresses.46 Like a classical commentary, Cyril’s proceeds

42. Among Origen’s teachers was the classical philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who is said to have been the founder of Neoplatonism. Ammonius Saccas also taught the pagan philosophers Plotinus and Longinus. 43. For a study of Origen’s use of the tools and questions of classical grammar in his exegesis, see Bernhard Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe (Basel: Reinhardt, 1987). 44. I have argued elsewhere that the emphasis on commentaries that proceeded in a seriatim fashion through the text and asked the questions posed by the classical grammarians may have been stimulated by the church’s need to educate a growing cadre of lectors and preachers in the skills of literary analysis that such church leaders were unable to develop within the limits of the classical educational system. See J. David Cassel, “Cyril of Alexandria as Educator” in In Dominico Eloquio— In Lordly Eloquence (ed. P. Blowers et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 348–68. 45. During the Middle Ages, students of Scripture frequently compiled notebooks in which they copied highlights from a number of different commentators that related to a specific book of the Bible. These texts, known as catenae (from the Latin catena, meaning “chain”), have helped to preserve patristic interpretations of Isaiah. One of the most important catenae on Isaiah was compiled by Nicolai Muzani and can be found in mss Pluto V. 6 at the Laurentian Library in Florence and mss gr. 14 at the Court and State Library in Munich. 46. Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah fills an entire volume of J. P. Migne’s Patrologia graeca series—some 725 columns of Greek text.


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through the book of Isaiah in a verse-by-verse fashion.47 In Cyril’s exposition of each verse, he takes up the questions laid out by grammarians such as Dionysius Thrax, addressing a variety of grammatical points: he discusses poetic tropes (figures of speech), explains rare and unusual words, clarifies various historical, scientific, or social references, deals with etymologies, reflects on analogies, and addresses the overall meaning of the work.48 At the same time, Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah also reflects the two basic principles governing patristic exegesis. Throughout the commentary Cyril assumes that the Bible is a unified text in which the New Testament must be used to interpret the Old Testament. Cyril also focuses his comments on the spiritual meaning of the text, and he searches for ways that Isaiah’s prophecies reveal various aspects of the divine nature, purpose, and call. The Identification and Explication of Literary Tropes

In a variety of places in his Commentary on Isaiah Cyril addresses the first of the literary grammatical issues articulated by Dionysius Thrax.49 He does this by identifying particular literary tropes that are used in Isaiah and by explaining their meaning. Among the tropes Cyril identifies are prosopopoeia, synecdoche, emphasis, and hyperbole. In his comments on Isa 21:2–4, for instance, Cyril points out Isaiah’s use of prosopopoeia, in which fictitious or dead characters are introduced into the

47. The same seriatim approach to the text being studied is evident in Donatus’s Commentum Terenti. Donatus begins with a prologue explaining the general situation and goal of each play and then proceeds through the play in a line-by-line fashion answering general grammatical questions raised by each section of the text before he moves on to the next line or section. See also James Zetzel, Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity (Monographs in Classical Studies; Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1984). 48. It seems probable that Cyril’s reason for approaching the text in this way related to his position as a Christian bishop who was responsible for the ordination and training of clergy who could staff the various churches within his diocese. His commentary on Isaiah both demonstrated how the text should be addressed and acted as a handbook for those clerics who did not have the advantage of a thorough classical education. For a full argument concerning Cyril’s place as an educator of clergy who used his commentaries as teaching tools, see Cassel, “Cyril of Alexandria as Educator.” 49. Although this is the second stage of Dionysius Thrax’s approach to reading texts, it is the first of his points that addresses the grammar of the text from a literary perspective. The first of Dionysius’s points, namely, “the expert reading of the text with its corrects accents and punctuation,” focuses on the oral aspects of the text. This was particularly crucial for early readers, since texts were written in scriptio continua, in which the text was copied without punctuation, accents, or separation between words. For a fuller description of scriptio continua, see Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 48, 203–4.

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text in order to make a specific point.50 In these verses Isaiah creates a speech full of despair that he puts into the mouth of a future king of Assyria. The lxx text reads: The Elamites are pressing me, and the emissaries of the Persians are approaching me. I am groaning, and I will seek aid for myself. My loins are full of feebleness, and birth pangs have seized me as if I were in travail. I was wrong not to listen; I was so quick not to see. My heart goes astray, and lawlessness washes over me. My very being stands in fear.

In his comments, Cyril identifies the trope and explains how the prophet is using it to communicate his point effectively to his listeners: The speech contained in these verses had the force of prosopopoeia. The Assyrian king is introduced by Isaiah as a person being attacked. The king is well aware that he is the sole focus of the enemies’ assault and that their massed ranks are advancing against him. For he says, “The Elamites and the elite forces of the Persians have not attacked others; they are attacking me.” … It is the custom of the holy prophets to put speeches such as this in the mouths of certain characters (QSPTXQPQPFJ_OUB=KGXOBK) on account of the needs of their listeners.51

Cyril also points out another case of prosopopoeia in his exposition of Isa 14:9–11. In this passage, Isaiah explains that God’s people will be able to taunt the king of Babylon when the Lord comes to their aid. Isaiah adds that not only will God’s people ridicule the Babylonian king, but the very shades of hell will also rise to condemn him.52 Those mighty kings and rulers of the past whose earthly power was gained through tyranny and bloodshed, but who have been put in their place by God’s judgment, will confront the king: “And they will respond and say to you, ‘you are conquered just as we are; you are condemned to be among us.’ ”53 Here Cyril informs his audience that the use of this figure of speech is fairly common in Scripture: It is customary, now and then, in the inspired Scripture to use the trope prosopopoeia, such as when the text gives voices to certain things.… Here the

50. Alexander Kerrigan discusses Cyril’s use of prosopopoeia in St. Cyril of Alexandria, 77–81. Cyril deals with synecdoche in places such as Isa 13:9–11 (PG 70.357a), with emphasis in passages such as 43:1–2 (PG 70.884d), and with hyperbole in reference to such verses as 13:13 (PG 70.357c). 51. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 21:24, PG 70.485c. 52. Although the Hebrew text says sheol, Cyril was using the lxx, which translates sheol as BEIK (hades). 53. Isa 14:10 lxx.


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blessed prophet uses nothing less than prosopopoeia as he says that [shades of ] hell, meeting face to face with him as he is brought down, will provoke him and bitterly chastise him. To me, this use of language seems quite appropriate, for through it he shows that, since the king was murderous and bloodthirsty, his ultimate end, because of his savagery, will be hell and the company of the shades of hell.54

The Interpretation of Rare Words and Historical Aspects of the Text

Cyril’s exegesis also embodies the next stage of the grammarians’ approach to the analysis of texts, the appropriate interpretation of both rare and unusual words and historical aspects of the text. Because ancient readers did not have access to dictionaries, the process of defining rare or unusual words was exceptionally important in Cyril’s day, and commentaries that explained such words were often the reader’s only avenue to understanding words with which they were not familiar. Commentaries were similarly helpful in giving readers insight into historical aspects of the text (J TUPSJB) that might have been perplexing for them. For the classical grammarians, these aspects included references to history, geography, agriculture, philosophy, and science.55 Cyril frequently gives definitions for rare or unusual words in the text. In some cases his explanation of a word’s meaning or Isaiah’s unique use of a particular word is lengthy, but in general Cyril defines words with simple synonyms. His most common procedure is simply to note the problematic word and then to present a synonym with the connecting phrase “this is” (UPV_U FTUJO), perhaps better translated as “this means.” A typical example of Cyril’s approach to obscure words appears in his comments on Isa 1:8, as he addresses the relatively obscure and apparently intimidating Greek word FHLBUBMFJGRITFUBJ. Cyril thinks it is important for his audience to understand this word, since it occurs in an oracle that sets the stage for the entire book of Isaiah. The oracle asserts that, since the people have rebelled against God and refused to return, they will be punished. Cyril clarifies the term’s meaning in this way: “The prophet says that the widely esteemed and famous Zion, namely, Jerusalem, will be abandoned (FHLBUBMFJGRITFUBJ). This means (UPV_U FTUJO), it will become a desert (FSINPKFTUBJ).”56

54. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 14:9–11, PG 70.372c–373a. 55. Alfons Wouters translates the Greek J TUPSJB as “subject matter” (The Grammatical Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Contributions to the Study of the “Ars Grammatica” in Antiquity [Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1979], 35). 56. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 1:8, PG 70.25d.

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Cyril also frequently identifies the specific meaning of words that might be understood in various ways. For example, Cyril explains how one should understand Isaiah’s term “mighty men” (JTYVPOUFK) as it is used in Isa 1:24. Isaiah’s oracle declares, “Therefore the sovereign Lord of Hosts says this, ‘Woe to the mighty men of Israel, for my anger toward my adversaries will not come to an end, and I will pass judgment on my enemies.’ ” Cyril points out that “mighty men” in this context does not mean people who are physically powerful; it means the rulers of Israel: [Just as John the Baptist predicted], the revenge of the Lord has occurred against the mighty men, that is (UPV_U FTUJO), against the ones in their midst who possessed the most power, namely, the rulers, when their country was wasted and handed over to the Romans.57

Cyril also suggests meanings of words or phrases that he believes are being used in a metaphorical or allegorical way in Isaiah. He says, for example, that the term “baldness” in Isa 15:2 is a symbol for “dishonor”58 and argues that the phrase “God’s courts” in Isa 1:12 is an allegorical reference to “the church.”59 Following the guidelines of the grammarians, Cyril also deals with the historical aspects of the text. In the prologue he states explicitly his intention to address both the historical aspects of the text and the text’s spiritual meaning: I believe that it is necessary for those who wish to articulate clearly the subtleties and enigmatic breadth of Isaiah’s precepts to hasten to consider diligently, with the eyes of their minds, both the historical elements of the text and its spiritual meaning. In this way, their interpretation will, in every way, be useful to the readers, and the clarification of the dual sense of that which lies before us will lack nothing.60

Cyril similarly defends the importance of investigating the historical aspects of the text in commenting on Isa 7:1, a passage that reviews the history of the attack of the anti-Assyrian coalition against Judah during the reign of Ahaz: Those who avoid the historical aspects ( J TUPSJB; historia) of the inspired Scripture as pointless flee, it seems, the possibility of viewing them in a manner which is fitting to that which is written in them. The spiritual meaning (RFXSJB; theoria) is, on the one hand, both good and beneficial, since the

57. Ibid., 1:24, PG 70.57a. 58. Ibid., 15:2, PG 70.400c. 59. Ibid., 1:10–14, PG 70.36b. 60. Ibid., prologue, PG 70.9a.


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proper enlightening of the eye of the mind perfects people of good sense. But, on the other hand, whenever something which happened historically is introduced in the sacred text, at that time it is appropriate to look for something useful in the historical description so that at all points the Holy Scripture might clearly be both useful and lead to salvation.61

Although Cyril, with other scholars, believed in the priority of the spiritual sense of the biblical text, in his emphasis on both the historical and spiritual senses Cyril reflects the classical grammarians’ belief that it is impossible to understand and evaluate the deeper meaning of any text without first understanding the references to history, geography, agriculture, philosophy, and the sciences embedded in it. Indeed, whenever Cyril believes that the historical situation in which Isaiah spoke is relevant to understanding Isaiah’s prophecy, he includes a summary of the relevant facts. For example, when interpreting Isa 28:21, Cyril explains that the only way to make sense of the passage is to understand the historical reference that Isaiah has woven into his oracle. The lxx text reads: “A mountain of impious men will rise up, but it will be just as it was in the Valley of Gibeon. The Lord will accomplish his task with vengeance; it will be the work of bitterness.” Cyril observes: Both the definition of what is articulated and the text itself are extremely obscure. For this reason, I think that it is necessary to explain the historical situation, for in this way that which has been revealed will with difficulty be visible to diligent students.62

He then proceeds to recount the story of the destruction of the enemies of God’s people that took place in the Valley of Gibeon as it is described in Josh 10:9–12. Isaiah, says Cyril, is using this reference to the historical destruction of the alliance of the five Canaanite kings as an allusion to illustrate the utter destruction that is coming to anyone who opposes God’s will.63 The grammarians also included under the heading of history the clarification of scientific, agricultural, and geographical allusions within the text. Cyril includes explanation of such references throughout his discussion of Isaiah’s prophecies. An example of Cyril’s clarification of an agricultural allusion can

61. Ibid., 7:1, PG 70.192a. Cyril reinforces his belief in the importance of the historical sense of the Scripture in his Commentary on Hosea, where he says, “We will not be convinced by any argument to deny or condemn the historical sense of the Scripture as useless” (Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini In XII prophetas [ed. P. Pusey; London: Macmillan, 1868; repr., Brussels: Culture et civilisation, 1965], 1.15.12). 62. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 28:20–21, PG 70.636b–c. 63. Ibid., 28:20–21, PG 70.636d–637b.

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be seen in his interpretive comments regarding Isa 1:8, which says, “And the daughter of Zion is abandoned like a tent in the vineyard, like a hut in the cucumber field, like a city under siege.” To be sure that his audience understands the shocking extent of Israel’s desolation, Cyril explains the agricultural practice to which the first two of these three similes refer: The guards, who are placed in the vineyards while the grapes are still bearing fruit, provide the greatest possible protection for them by attacking robbers who want to cut off the grapes. They also drive away every kind of wild animal. This, too, is the custom of the guards or even the owners of the cucumber fields. But when the clusters of grapes have been picked and crushed and the cucumbers have been removed from the fields, those who have been guarding the fields are finally sent home, and they abandon their tents. At that point, those who wish to enter the fields are free to do so.64

By explaining matters of history that include historical, geographical, agricultural, and scientific references in his Commentary on Isaiah, Cyril is completing step three of the interpretive pattern established by the ancient grammarians. Explaining Words by Means of Their Etymologies

Although Cyril is commenting on the Greek version of Isaiah rather than the Hebrew, he nonetheless carries out the next step of the classical grammarians’ approach to interpretation by commenting on various words and their etymologies. Cyril employs this approach primarily in relation to names found in the text that are merely transliterated from the Hebrew into Greek. For instance, Cyril uses the etymology of the name Jacob (“he will supplant”) to help him interpret Isa 49:25–26 (“All flesh will perceive that I am the one who saved you, and I am the strong one who came to the aid of Jacob”): There will be a most notable and righteous judgment of all flesh, that is, of all people. There will be those who, through their piety, have become imperiled, and it is to those that he says, “In every way all the aid of the one who empowers will come to you, Jacob,” that is, to you who are the seed of Jacob. I think that the prophetic word written concerning these things was speaking about the person of the holy apostles and evangelists who were the physical descendants of Jacob. It would not be at all unreasonable for Jacob to be called a supplanter, that is, one who supplants Satan and who both vigorously

64. Ibid., 1:8, PG 70.25d–28a. Cyril frequently explains references to the agricultural practices of Isaiah’s time in such sections as Isa 3:12 (PG 70.112b) and 18:4–5 (PG 70.445d).


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and ingeniously overtakes the snare of sin, for Jacob, when translated, means supplanter.65

Cyril also comments on the etymology of place names such as Edom,66 Zion and Jerusalem,67 and Bozrah, the capital city of Edom.68 Explanation of Words by Means of Reflection on Analogies

Cyril clarifies the meaning of Isaiah’s words through the use of analogies, the next step in the grammarians’ approach to the analysis of classical texts. He frequently suggests that a reader should interpret the meaning of certain words in Isaiah based on comparison or analogy with a given term’s use in other places in the Septuagint. Cyril uses analogy, for example, to suggest that the term “silver” used in Isa 1:22 means “oracle” or “words.” The text reads: “Your silver will no longer be pure, your merchants will water down your wine, and your rulers will take bribes.” Cyril argues that just as “silver” means “oracle” in Ps 11:6, so, too, it has the same meaning in this context: At one point, the sweet-sounding David sings, “The oracles of the Lord are pure oracles. They are fine silver, which has been tested by the fires of the earth.” Therefore, the adulterated or completely impure silver [of which Isaiah speaks] is that which originates with the Jews, this is, the word of the scribes and the Pharisees, who are like peddlers attempting to water down their wine.69

The use of analogy is perhaps the weakest aspect of Cyril’s use of the classical grammarians’ approach to interpreting texts. This may be because Cyril’s classical education had given him a stock set of literary analogies that he has difficulty applying to Scripture. In fact, Cyril overtly states that analogies drawn from classical texts are sometimes not at all helpful in interpreting the Bible. Such is the case when he attempts to interpret Isa 13:21, a text that in the Septuagint reads, “The wild beasts will rest there, and the houses will be full of their sounds. The sirens will rest there, and the demons will dance.” The most difficult word to understand is “sirens” (TFJSI_OFK). Cyril recognizes that in classical texts such as the Odyssey the term refers to the nymphs whose mellifluous voices

65. Ibid., 49:25–26, PG 70.1081d. 66. Ibid., 34:5–6, PG 70.741d. 67. Ibid., 25:6–7, PG 70.561a–b. 68. Ibid., 34:7, PG 70.744b. (It should be noted here that Cyril addresses #PTPS (Bozrah) as if it should be read with 34:7 rather than with 34:6.) 69. Ibid., 1:22, PG 70.52d–53a.

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seduced unwary sailors to their deaths on the rocks surrounding their island home.70 Cyril notes that this meaning obviously does not fit into the context of Isa 13:21. Being somewhat at a loss, Cyril suggests that the term “sirens” must mean something like “winged creatures,” basing his interpretation on the Hebrew: “He calls the species of winged creatures that sing, I believe, sirens, or as the Hebrew recension has it, owls (HMBV_LB).”71 Cyril’s View of Isaiah as Shaped by the Two Patristic Exegetical Principles

The culmination of the classical grammarians’ structured approach to the text was the evaluation of the work as a whole. They understood that the grammatical building blocks found in a text were but a means to the end and were used by the author to construct a meaningful and pleasing literary work. In other words, they were convinced that the clarification of tropes, historical aspects of the text, etymologies, and analogies was important primarily because it provided the reader with sufficient knowledge of the meaning of the literary work as a whole. It is for this reason that Dionysius Thrax calls the evaluation of the text as a whole “the most elegant of all the parts of the science” of interpretation.72 For Cyril, the evaluation of the meaning of the book of Isaiah was directly related to the deep, spiritual meaning found within the text. His exegesis of individual passages focuses on the way in which the book of Isaiah as a whole reveals the merciful nature of God, the divine plan for salvation through Jesus Christ, and God’s expectation that people will respond faithfully to divine love and commands. In Cyril’s exegesis of the meaning of the Isaiah text as a whole, the two principles of patristic exegesis mentioned earlier in this essay shape his interpretive conclusions. First, throughout his commentary Cyril depends on his concept that the Bible is a single, unified book to clarify obscure elements within Isaiah’s prophecies. When something that Isaiah says is not clear, Cyril attempts to view the text through the lens of God’s fullest self-revelation of Christ as described in the New Testament. Second, when Cyril interprets each passage of Isaiah, it is always evident that he is looking for both the literal or historical meaning and the spiritual meaning of the text. He spends a greater amount of

70. Homer, Odyssey 12.39. 71. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 13:21, PG 70.364d. This is one of the rare instances in which Cyril gives evidence of familiarity with Hebrew. Cyril’s translation of the Hebrew term seems to offer some evidence for the word’s rendering in the neb and the niv as “desert owls” and “owls,” respectively, instead of the more common translation “ostrich,” found in the nrsv and jb and supported by Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996), 419. 72. Ars Grammatica 1.4–8.


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time and effort on the spiritual meaning of the text because he considers it to be the more important level of meaning. It is through this level of meaning that Isaiah speaks to the believers of Cyril’s time about the grandeur of God, the revelation of Christ, and the response to God expected from humans. Vivid examples of Cyril’s emphasis on the spiritual meaning of the text can be seen in his interpretation of Isaiah’s vision of God in chapter 6. Cyril begins his interpretation by reflecting on the timing of God’s revelation to Isaiah—“in the year in which Uzziah died” (Isa 6:1)—and finds here an eternal, spiritual principle. God “knows all that is hidden and will reveal these deep and mysterious things at the proper time,” he says.73 The proper time for revelation can come only when people repent of their sin and put their unclean actions and attitudes behind them. When people are willfully sinful, Cyril observes, God will remain silent. Thus, God waited until the year in which Uzziah died to reveal the divine presence, plan, and character to Isaiah, because during Uzziah’s lifetime the people were unclean. To substantiate the sinfulness of both Uzziah and the people of Judah during the time when God was silent, Cyril refers to the introduction to the book of Amos. Amos 1:1 notes that Amos’s preaching in Israel, concurrent with Uzziah’s reign in Judah, occurred “two years before the earthquake.” Cyril understands this earthquake as a sign of God’s displeasure with the people, for “Jerusalem was shaken by an earthquake and the whole land of Judah felt its tremors.”74 It was only when Uzziah died that “the time of silence ceased and the Almighty God again began to give visions.…”75 Cyril further illustrates the connection between the sin of the people and God’s silence by referring to Ezek 3:26: “I will make your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth so that you shall be dumb and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious people.” Cyril concludes: “In other words, God was silent to show his irritation with the people.”76 Since, in Cyril’s mind, the Bible is a single, unified book, the spiritual truth stated plainly in Ezek 3:26 is applicable to the situation described in Isaiah. Cyril’s exegesis of the spiritual meaning of Isa 6:1 also employs the patristic principle that God’s self-revelation in Christ as described in the New Testament is the interpretive key to the Old Testament. According to the Septuagint, the prophet “saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the house was full of his glory” (Isa 6:1). Cyril’s interpretation of this depends on John 12:41,

73. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:1, PG 70.169b. 74. Ibid., 6:1, PG 70.172c–d. 75. Ibid., 6:1, PG 70.172d. 76. Ibid., 6:1, PG 70.172c.

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which states that Isaiah “saw his glory and spoke about him.” Based on this clarification of Isa 6:1 by John’s Gospel, Cyril maintains that no one could rightly doubt that the vision Isaiah saw was a vision of the Son within the glory of God the Father.77 Since the New Testament declares that Isaiah’s vision reveals the glory of Christ, Cyril is at liberty to interpret various elements of Isaiah’s narrative as descriptions of Christ and as predictions of his incarnation and work. Cyril sees a number of aspects of God’s character revealed symbolically by the seraphim who appear on either side of the divine throne. He suggests, for example, that their antiphonal singing is a prophetic pronouncement of Nicene Trinitarian theology.78 He states: [The seraphim] begin their doxology with a threefold repetition of “Holy,” and they conclude with the words “Lord of Hosts.” In this way they affirm that within the one divine nature lies the Trinity. For we say in our confession that there are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is no argument that can divide each into different natures according to their names; instead, they must be considered to be three persons yet one divine Godhead.”79

Cyril also interprets the seraphim’s declaration that the “whole earth is full of his glory” through the lens of Christ. He says that the seraphim are speaking prophetically both of Christ’s incarnation and of the fact that Christianity would expand throughout the known world: [The seraphim] are foretelling the mystery of that special providence that would occur at Christ’s coming. For up until the time when the Word became flesh, the demon (also known as the transgressor, the dragon, and the apostate) ruled all that which was beneath heaven, and the creation worshiped that which was created rather than the creator.80 But when the only begotten Son of God, the Word, became flesh, the whole earth was filled with his glory. Everything will bow before him and serve him, just as it is written.… This has indeed come to pass, since a multitude of nations now call upon him, and everyone worships him who became human like us and for us and yet remains above all.81

77. Ibid., 6:1, PG 70.172d–173a. 78. Cyril’s comments here demonstrate that he has expanded the concept of interpreting the Old Testament by means of the New, interpreting also in light of what he considers to be orthodox Christian tradition. 79. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:3, PG 70.176a. 80. Cf. Rom 1:25. 81. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:3, PG 70.176b.


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Cyril’s interpretation of the shaking foundations and smoke-filled temple in Isa 6:4 likewise accentuates the deeper, spiritual meaning of the text. Cyril recognizes that Isaiah’s repetition of the term “house” from verse 1 raises an immediate interpretive question.82 Since the prophet has already stated that “the house was full of [God’s] glory” in lxx Isa 6:1, what might it mean that subsequently the house was filled with smoke, as indicated in 6:4? While the passage must be approached with caution, Cyril observes, the best interpretation of the text is to see it as a prophecy of what happened when the earth was filled with the glory of God, both in Christ and in the history of the world after Christ.83 Cyril says: We must approach this passage with both extreme care and wisdom. Prior to the incarnation and earthly sojourn of our Savior, Israel still possessed the legal rights of citizenship without restriction or blame, and the renowned temple that Solomon erected in Jerusalem was filled with the glory of God.… But when the Son arrived from heaven and assumed human form, that which had been preached through the Law and the Prophets was no longer acceptable. Yet they killed the one from whom all life had sprung, and God left the temple and abrogated their inheritance. God then turned toward the Gentiles, and the “whole earth was filled with his glory.” The territory of Judah was then reduced to wilderness, and God set the temple on fire.84 Thus, when the prediction of the seraphim came to pass and the whole earth was filled with the glory of God, then the thresholds of the temple shook and it was filled with smoke.… The phrase, “the thresholds shook” signifies, I believe, the temple being abandoned, and since the temple was set on fire, the prophecy says it was “filled with smoke.”85

Cyril’s interpretation of Isa 6:5 illustrates his conviction that the spiritual meaning of Isaiah’s prophecies are timeless revelations of God and of the divine nature, applicable to all believers. In 6:5, Isaiah recognizes his own sinfulness when he finds himself in the presence of God, and he says: “Woe to me! My life is coming to an end, for I am a man of unclean lips … yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Isaiah said this, Cyril observes, because he knew

82. In both Isa 6:1 and 6:4 the Septuagint employs the term PJ_LPK (house). The Hebrew text has DCQ@ (temple or palace) in 6:1 and LQ: (house) in 6:4. 83. Cyril believes that much of the suffering experienced by the Jews has come about because of their failure to accept Jesus as Lord. For a full discussion of Cyril’s attitude toward the Jews, see Robert Wilken, Judaism and the Early Christian Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 54–69. 84. Cyril is referring here to the burning of the temple in 70 c.e. by the Romans under the leadership of Titus. 85. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:4, PG 70.176c–177a.

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from the law that Moses transcribed that one could not mix the holy with the profane. Cyril then gives several scriptural examples of people who, when confronted with the holiness of Christ, recognized their own sinfulness. He cites Peter, who fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “depart from me, for I am a sinner” when Jesus demonstrated his holiness by filling the empty nets of the fishermen (Luke 5:8), and the citizens of the region of the Gergesenes, who “begged [Jesus] to leave their neighborhood” after he cast the demons out of those living among the tombs (Matt 8:34).86 Cyril argues that the people in both these cases were following the law that prohibited contact between the holy and the unclean: “Reverence was, as I have said, the normal pattern for that time, for the law that had been handed down to them forbade them from any attempt at joining the holy with that which is base and unclean.”87 Cyril then moves from the specific words of Isaiah to the general spiritual meaning by arguing that all people are tainted by sin and thus prohibited from entering God’s presence. Isaiah’s words, says Cyril, indicate the culpability of all people, for Isaiah says that he “lives in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Cyril further supports his point by citing Ps 116:11: “Every person is a liar.”88 He concludes, “People’s minds are all infected by falsehood.”89 Despite its pointing to the sinfulness of all humanity, Isaiah’s vision also contains a message of hope for the reestablishment of a life-giving relationship between sinful humans and a holy God, Cyril declares. He finds in verses 6–7 Isaiah’s metaphorical explanation of how the relationship between God and humans can be restored. One of the seraphim takes a fiery coal in a pair of tongs, flies over to Isaiah, and touches him on the lips, saying, “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity has departed and you have been cleansed of your sin.” Cyril suggests that the task of the seraph here should be interpreted in light of Heb 1:14, where angels are described as ministering spirits sent from God “for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.” Cyril notes that the seraphim in Isaiah’s vision “prefigure the mystery of Christ for Isaiah.”90 Cyril goes even further in his spiritual interpretation of this text by declaring that the coal with which Isaiah’s lips were cleansed symbolizes Jesus Christ. He says:

86. Ibid., 6:5, PG 70.177c–d. 87. Ibid., 6:5, PG 70.17180a. 88. Cyril appears to choose this verse because its reference to speech brings to mind Isaiah’s phrase “unclean lips.” 89. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:5, PG 70.180c. 90. Ibid., 6:6–7, PG 70.181a.


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This [coal] is clearly a symbol for Christ, who, on our behalf, offered himself up to God the Father as a pure and unblemished spiritual sacrifice with the most pleasing fragrance. In this way, Christ is received just as if he were being taken from an altar. One must say that he is similar to the burning coal and the sort of cause for which it is used. In fact, it is customary in the Holy Scripture for the divine nature to be likened to fire.… One might well liken the burning coal to Emmanuel, who, if he might somehow be placed on our lips, would totally remove all of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.91 Yet how could he be placed on our lips? This happens whenever we confess our faith in him. This is what Paul said when he wrote, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is the word of faith that we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.…”92 Let God then be on our lips like a glowing coal that burns away the rubbish of our sins, purges us of our unrighteousness, and sets our spirits on fire!”93

It is clear to Cyril that when Isaiah’s vision in chapter 6 is viewed through the lens of Christ’s revelation in the New Testament, it speaks of the profound mysteries available to those who believe in Christ, are purified by him, and are thus freely allowed to enter into the realm of the holy without fear of retribution. Conclusions The book of the prophet Isaiah was a favorite topic for patristic exegetes. Although in theological and apologetic works patristic writers used disconnected portions of Isaiah in various ways, the most complete examples of patristic exegesis of Isaiah are found in commentaries on the book. Although each patristic commentary is unique, all of them seem to embody the two primary principles of biblical unity and diverse levels of meaning. The patristic interpreters saw some value in understanding the historical situation described in Isaiah, but they were far more concerned with finding what they called the deeper or spiritual meaning of the text, for it was this meaning that revealed insights about the nature of God and the Christian’s relationship with the Divine. Patristic interpreters of Isaiah viewed Isaiah through the lens of the revelation of Christ as found in the New Testament, and they attempted to see how Isaiah’s words prefigured or pointed to Christ. Because the patristic exegetes were able to find clear and insightful references to Christ when they

91. See 1 John 1:9. 92. Rom 10:8–10. 93. Cyril, Commentary on Isaiah 6:6–7, PG 70.181c–d.

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examined the spiritual meaning of the words of Isaiah, they found Isaiah to be a rich theological treasure trove. Patristic interpretation of Isaiah was also shaped by reading methods taught by the classical grammarians. Early Christian scholars applied the classical approach to reading and interpreting texts to their interpretation of the Bible. This approach emphasized the various consecutive steps that a knowledgeable reader should take in the process of interpreting texts, such as clarifying the meaning of literary tropes, rare and unusual words, historical aspects of the text, etymologies, and analogies. Such an approach led to the ultimate goal of understanding the meaning of the text as a whole. Thus, the patristic exegetes spent a good deal of time explaining exactly what the text said and meant on a grammatical or historical level and then proceeded to explain the deeper, spiritual meaning of the book of Isaiah as a whole, as this meaning was visible in various sections of the text. Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on Isaiah embodies both the methods developed by the classical grammarians and the generally accepted principles that patristic interpreters believed governed Christian exegesis. Cyril addresses the use of literary tropes, the meaning of words, the historical aspects of the text, and the etymologies of words and draws meaning from the text by means of analogies. He also interprets the meaning of Isaiah’s prophecies as a whole by describing their deeper spiritual meaning as pointing to God’s merciful character, God’s self-revelation in Christ as portrayed in the New Testament, and the proper Christian response to God’s love and commandments. Cyril sees many of Isaiah’s prophecies as predictions of God’s future revelations, and he is able to do so because he subscribes to the patristic principle that the Old Testament contains both a literal or historical meaning and a deeper, spiritual meaning that reveals the nature of God in Christ. Select Bibliography Cassel, J. David. “Cyril of Alexandria and the Science of the Grammarians: A Study in the Setting, Purpose, and Emphasis of Cyril’s Commentary on Isaiah.” Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1992. Christman, Angela. “Selections from Theodoret of Cyrus’s Commentary on Isaiah.” Pages 173–85 in The Theological Interpretation of Scripture. Edited by S. Fowl. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997. Cyril of Alexandria. Commentary on Isaiah. PG 70. Paris: Imprimerie Catholique, 1857. Repr., Brepols: Turnholt, 1987. Eusebius of Caesarea. Der Jesajakommentar. Edited by J. Ziegler. Eusebius Werke 9. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975.


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Gamble, Harry. Books and Readers in the Early Church. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Hollerich, Michael J. Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Jean Chrysostom. Commentaire sur Isaïe. Edited by J. DuMortier. Translated by A. Lefooghe. Paris: Cerf, 1983. Jerome. Commentariorum in Esaiam libri I–XI. Edited by M. Adriaen. CCSL 73. Brepols: Turnholt, 1963. Kerrigan, Alexander. St. Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1952. Théodoret of Cyrus. Commentaire sur Isaïe. Translated and edited by J.-N. Guinot. Paris: Cerf, 1980.

STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION IN ISAIAH 1–12: A TWELFTH-CENTURY NORTHERN FRENCH RABBINIC PERSPECTIVE Robert A. Harris

Introduction Any number of modern studies of the book of Isaiah have focused on its literary structure and poetics of composition.1 Generally, scholars have expressed interest in such specific structural issues as how to understand the historical relationship of its various sections, what chapter constitutes Isaiah’s inaugural vision, and whether the overall arrangement of the book reflects chronological or other considerations.2 Moreover, even within the block of chapters called “First Isaiah,” scholars have entertained the question of what passages may represent actual autobiographical material of the eighth-century prophet and what may best be ascribed either to later prophetic circles or to the redactor of the book.3 Scholars have sought to discover literary devices at play in the book’s dis-

1. An earlier form of this essay was presented as an address to the Formation of the Book of Isaiah Group at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Nashville, 2000. I am grateful to my colleague Alan Cooper, who first suggested my name as a participant in the work of this group and who offered suggestions regarding the course of my study, and to my teacher Edward L. Greenstein for his patient counsel and his many contributions toward the final shape of this essay. 2. See the various formulations of questions and bibliographic references in two recent commentaries: Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 1–10; and Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 73–140. 3. See Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 22–30 (31–113); and Rolf Rendtorff, “The Book of Isaiah: A Complex Unity: Synchronic and Diachronic Reading,” in Prophecy and Prophets: The Diversity of Contemporary Issues in Scholarship (ed. Y. Gitay; SemeiaSt 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 109–28.

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course and rhetorical factors in the presentation of individual prophetic oracles as well as in larger units within the book’s literary composition.4 These questions are not new. In the eleventh century, and especially during the twelfth, rabbinic exegetes explored literary and rhetorical issues in their commentaries on the Bible. This exploration took place within the context of a virtual revolution in scriptural reading and exegesis among Jewish and Christian scholars in northern France.5 While expressions of this new exegetical agenda may be found particularly in the Torah commentaries these scholars produced, this article will examine the attention they paid to literary concerns in the first twelve chapters of Isaiah.6 After a brief survey of the hermeneutical developments in this era, I will examine the exegetes’ discussions of the chronology of the prophecies and the events behind them and of the rhetorical and redactional arrangement of these chapters. Although I will include reference to the commentaries of Rashi (composed in the late eleventh to early twelfth centuries), I will concentrate primarily on the contributions of two other northern French commentators, R. Joseph Kara and R. Eliezer of Beaugency. Though these two present a high concentration of comments regarding structural and compositional aspects of Isa 1–12, there are no other extant commentaries on Isaiah produced by twelfth-century northern French rabbinic exegetes. Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) and R. Joseph Bekhor Shor—two of the most prominent northern French exegetes, whose other works were replete with observations of a “literary” nature—apparently did not write commentaries on Isaiah.7 Two

4. See Yehoshua Gitay, Isaiah and His Audience: The Structure and Meaning of Isaiah 1–12 (SSN; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1991); Peter D. Quinn-Miscall, Reading Isaiah: Poetry and Vision (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001); Roy F. Melugin, “Figurative Speech and the Reading of Isaiah 1 as Scripture,” in New Visions of Isaiah (ed. R. Melugin and M. Sweeney; JSOTSup 214; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 282–305. 5. For an examination of “contextual reading” as it was practiced by the northern French rabbinic exegetes, see my article “Medieval French Biblical Interpretation,” in Encyclopaedia of Judaism, vol. 5, supplement 2 (ed. J. Neusner et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 2045–61. For a historical orientation, see Avraham Grossman, “The School of Literal Exegesis in Northern France,” in From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (until 1300) (vol. 1 of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation; ed. M. Saebø; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 321–71. For a survey of recent scholarship, see Sara Japhet, “Major Trends in the Study of Medieval Jewish Exegesis in Northern France,” Trumah 9 (2000): 43–61. 6. I first learned to approach Isa 1–12 as an integrated unit from the scholarship of H. L. Ginsberg. See his “From the Diary of Isaiah Ben Amoz,” in Oz Le-David: Essays in Biblical Studies Dedicated to David Ben Gurion in Honor of His Seventy-Seventh Birthday [Hebrew] (ed. Y. Kaufmann et al.; Publications of the Society for Biblical Studies in Israel 15; Jerusalem, 1964), 335–50. This discussion is recapitulated in English in his “First Isaiah,” EncJud 9:49–60. 7. Citations of comments on Isaiah attributed to Rashbam are found in the thirteenth-century liturgical commentary Arugat Habosem; see Sara Japhet and Robert Salters, eds., The Commentary

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additional twelfth-century commentators from outside northern France, R. Abraham ibn Ezra (Spain) and R. David Kimchi (Radak, southern France), will be referred to in the notes. It is not my purpose to demonstrate how the medieval scholars anticipated the results of modern historical and literary critics. Rather, my primary effort will be to demonstrate how these exegetes may help modern scholars, equipped with historical-critical tools unavailable to previous generations, to read Scripture with greater acumen and sensitivity.8 We will be guided by the judgment of Moshe Greenberg in his commentary on the book of Ezekiel: “One is impressed with the modesty of advances made since their time in linguistic matters and contextual interpretations, compared to the gravity of the losses sustained by modern commentators in these areas as a result of ignoring medieval scholarship.”9 Background: Reading in Context as a New Development in Exegesis All of the medieval commentators whose works are surveyed in this essay were dedicated to the proposition that Scripture should be interpreted in its own context ( H, peshat, or O OH, peshuto). The pioneer in what became a concerted effort to supplant the authoritative midrashic readings of the ancient rabbis in favor of one that was rooted in what the commentator sensed to be the contextual meaning of a text was Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki, or Rashi (1040– 1105).10 Rashi began developing a methodology for reading on the basis of one’s

of R. Samuel Ben Meir (Rashbam) on Qoheleth (Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1985), 15 n. 33 [Hebrew and English]. For an examination of Rashbam’s attention to the “literary dimensions” of Scripture, see Martin I. Lockshin, “Rashbam as a ‘Literary’ Exegete,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (ed. J. McAuliffe et al.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 83–91. While I am not aware of an equivalent article on the exegesis of R. Joseph Bekhor Shor in English, for now see Edward L. Greenstein, “Medieval Bible Commentaries,” in Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts (ed. B. Holtz; New York: Summit, 1984), 212–59. 8. I have explored this topic at greater length in “Why Should Modern Bible Scholars Study Medieval Commentaries?” (The Yohanan Muffs Lecture, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, 2001; this essay awaits publication). 9. Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20: A New Translation, with Introduction and Commentary (AB 22; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), 23–24. 10. For further information on Rashi’s exegesis, see Grossman, “School of Literal Exegesis,” 332–46. See also Benjamin J. Gelles, Peshat and Derash in the Exegesis of Rashi (Études sur le judaïsme médiéval 9; Leiden: Brill, 1981).

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own intuitive sense of a given passage.11 We will have occasion to observe his approach to at least one specific issue below. Less well known in the modern world than Rashi, his younger contemporary Joseph Kara (active in the late eleventh century) helped mediate Rashi’s commentaries to subsequent generations; he was also a significant exegete in his own right.12 Kara reveals much about his approach to exegesis in his extended comment on Isa 1:18.13 Adumbrating Rashbam’s more celebrated distinction between peshat and midrashic methodologies,14 Kara writes: “[Despite the importance of midrash in Judaism] there is no greater attribute (in the reading of Scripture) than the contextual interpretation of texts, for even in the presence of midrash, our Rabbis have taught us: ‘Scripture never escapes the hold of its context’ (b. Yebam. 24a).”15 Thus Kara, while making room for midrashic considerations in his commentaries, prizes a contextual approach above all. Kara returns to this theme in his comment on Isa 3:1: You must apply this principle whenever you read: every place in which you find two words in close proximity, whose (meaning) is not made explicit; or

11. Commenting on Gen 3:8, Rashi describes his approach to interpreting Scripture: “There are many homiletical midrashim (on these verses), and the Rabbis have long ago arranged them in their proper place in Genesis Rabba and the other midrashim, whereas I have only come to explain Scripture according to its contextual [peshuto] understanding, and according to the aggadah that reconciles the words of Scripture, each word understood according to its character.” For an example from Isaiah in which Rashi expresses a preference for a contextual interpretation over rabbinic midrash, see his comment on Isa 26:11. For a study of Rashi’s methodology, specifically with regard to the methodology articulated at Gen 3:8, see Edward L. Greenstein, “Sensitivity to Language in Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah,” in The Solomon Goldman Lectures (ed. M. I. Gruber; Chicago: Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1993), 51–71. 12. For an introduction to Kara’s life and works, see Grossman, “School of Literal Exegetes,” 346–56, and the bibliography he cites on 321–22. 13. All citations of medieval rabbinic exegetical literature, unless otherwise specified, are taken from Mikraot Gedolot ‘Haketer’: A Revised and Augmented Scientific Edition of ‘Mikraot Gedolot’ Based on the Aleppo Codex and Early Medieval MSS: Isaiah [Hebrew] (ed. M. Cohen; Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1996). 14. See Rashbam’s apologia for the pursuit of peshat over derash in his commentary on Gen 37:2: “Lovers of reason should understand it well that, as our Rabbis tell us, ‘No scriptural passage ever escapes the hold of its context.’ Although it is also true that the main aim of the Torah is to teach us laws, doctrines and rules of conduct … in their piety the early scholars devoted all their time to the midrashic explanations, which contain, indeed, the main teachings of the Torah.… Furthermore, the Sages say…: ‘It is of value when one studies the Bible, but there is no greater value than when one studies Talmud’ (b. B. Mesi’a 33a).” Note that Kara’s observation is analogous to Rashbam’s, although somewhat more strongly phrased. 15. See also Kara’s comment on 1 Sam 1:17–18, where he draws the dichotomy between peshat and derash with even starker clarity.

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two brief phrases side by side and they, being brief, are opaque, do not weary yourself in search of their explanation (i.e., do not turn to a midrashic explanation16) for you will always find their explanations within their contexts. And I will explain a few of them, and these few will be instructive about the rest of them.

In determining that, in the interpretation of Scripture, one must look first to the immediate context, Kara seems drawn to the approach of the Gaonic era “Thirty-Two Rules for Aggadic Exegesis.”17 These rules, which the northern French rabbis apply with some regularity in contexts of biblical narrative, themselves echo the more ancient “Thirteen Rules for Halakhic Exegesis” found at the beginning of the Sifra, the oldest rabbinic midrash on Leviticus.18 In either case, the rule in question is OFQF E <ED@J:

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