JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES
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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES
398 Founding Editors
David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn Executive Editor Andrew Mein
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick, Andrew D. H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
GENDER, CULTURE, THEORY
13 Editor J. Cheryl Exum
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Mixing Metaphors God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah
Sarah J. Dille
T8.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL A Continuum imprint LONDON
•
NEW YORK
Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint Published by T&T Clark International The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010 www.tandtclark.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Typeset by TMW Typesetting, Sheffield Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by CPI Bath
ISBN 0-8264-7156-0
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments Abbreviations
xi xii
Chapter 1 UNDERSTANDING METAPHOR 1. Introduction The Goals of this Study Metaphoric Coherence Associated Commonplaces Understanding Metaphor 2.1. A. Richards 3. Max Black The Interactive View of Metaphor The System of Associated Commonplaces Emphasis and Suppression (or Filtering) 4. Lakoff and Johnson Metaphor as Conceptual Structure Entailments Highlighting, Hiding, and Downplaying Metaphoric Extension Coherence (vs Consistency) The Experiential Dimension of Metaphor 5. Conclusion
1 1 1 1 2 2 4 6 6 7 7 8 8 10 11 12 14 16 17
Chapter 2 KINSHIP AND BIRTH IN DEUTERO-ISAIAH AND ANCIENT ISRAEL 1. Deutero-Isaiah and the Rhetoric of Family Offspring Child-bearing and Child-rearing Begetting Marriage and Zion Extended Family Conclusion 2. The Associated Commonplaces of Kinship Associated Commonplaces of Childbirth Associated Commonplaces of the Father of the Family 3. Father and Mother as Metaphors
21 21 22 22 23 23 23 24 24 25 29 32
vi
Mixing Metaphors Ancestors Covenant: Loyalty and Love The Priest Master of the Guild Other Positions of Leadership 4. The Deity as Father and Mother in the Ancient Near East 5. YHWH as a Father and a Mother The Pentateuch The Prophets The Psalms and Proverbs The Deuteronomistic History YHWH as a Father in Israelite Names 6. Conclusion
Chapter 3 LIKE A WOMAN IN LABOR: ISAIAH 42.8-17 Translation 1. The Unit: Form and Structure 2. An Overview of 42.8-17 Verses 8-9, 17: New Things and Deutero-Isaiah's Anti-Idolatry Polemic Verses 10-12: The Hymn of Praise Verse 13: The Man of War Verse 14: A Woman Giving Birth Verses 15-16: Laying Waste; Darkness to Light Verse 17:1 Am YHWH 3. Interacting Metaphors: The Divine Warrior Metaphoric Coherence The Divine Warrior in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East The Divine Warrior in Deutero-Isaiah The Divine Warrior in Isaiah 42.8-17 4. The yoledah—One Who Is In Labor' Commonplaces of Birth The Literary Convention ki-yoledah The yoledah in Isaiah 42 5. Conclusion Chapter 4 YHWH ' s SONS AND DAUGHTERS : ISAIAH 43.1-7 1. Translation and Literary Structure 2. 7813, go"el (Redeemer): An Interacting Metaphor Overview of the ^NU go 'el A Redemption of the Hebrew Debt Slave Redemption of the Land Advocacy on Behalf of One's Kin in the Courts
32 33 33 34 34 34 35 35 37 38 39 39 40
41 41 42 44 44 46 46 47 47 48 48 48 48 50 50 52 52 56 67 72
74 75 78 78 79 82 83
Contents Honor Conclusion 3. Exposition of Isaiah 43.1-7 The Image of YHWH as Creator (vv. 1,7) 'Do not fear' (vv. Iba, 5a) The Metaphor of Name: Identity and Relationship (vv. 1,7) Passage or Movement (vv. 2, 5-6) YHWH's Self-predication (v. 3a) Redemption (vv. 3b; 4b) Precious, Loved, and Honored (v. 4) 4. YHWH as Father and Redeemer and the Journey through Water and Fire Tribulation Purification or Refinement Trial by Ordeal The New Exodus 5. Conclusion: The Literary Focal Point—Precious, Honored, Loved (v. 4a) Chapter 5 THE DIVINE ARTISAN: ISAIAH 45.9-13 Translation 1. Literary Context: The Cyrus Oracle Introduction: 44.24-28 Thesis: 45.1-7 Confirmation: 45.8 Epilogue: 45.9-13 2. An Interacting Metaphor: YHWH as an Artisan YHWH vs the Idols: Creator and Proclaimer of the Things to Come Divination and Power over the Future YHWH and the Babylonian Artisans YHWH as an Artisan in Isaiah 45.9-13 3. Exposition of Isaiah 45.9-13 Verse 9 Verse 10 Verse 11 Verses 12-13 4. Metaphoric Coherence: Artisan, Father, and Mother 5. Conclusions 6. Appendix: Textual Analysis Verse 9a Verse 9b Verse 10 Verse 11 Verses 12-13
vii 84 84 85 85 85 86 87 88 88 90 91 91 92 93 95 99
102 102 103 104 105 107 107 107 108 112 112 114 115 115 116 119 121 121 122 123 123 124 125 126 127
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Chapter 6 CAN A MOTHER FORGET? ISAIAH 49.13-23 1. Translation and Notes 2. The Two Sections of Deutero-Isaiah 3. The City Lament Features of the Mesopotamian City Lament The Israelite City Lament 4. Deutero-Isaiah and the Book of Lamentations 5. Mother of the Infant: Commonplaces 6. Exposition of Isaiah 49.13-21 Verse 13 Verse 14 Verses 15-16 Verses 17-18 Verses 19-20 Verse 21 7. YHWH as a Mother A Problematic Metaphor Zion as a Mother A Positive Metaphor 8. Conclusion
Chapter 7 DIVINE HUSBAND AND FATHER: ISAIAH 50.1-3 1. Introduction and Translation 2. YHWH as a Husband: A Structuring Metaphor YHWH as a Husband in Hosea 1-2 YHWH as a Husband in Jeremiah YHWH as a Husband in Ezekiel The Issue of the City as the Wife of the Deity in the Ancient Near East 3. Personified Zion The City as Goddess The Virgin City The City as a Mother 4. Interacting Metaphors: Husband/Wife and Mother in Isaiah 49-54 5. The City as a Negative Image 6. Exposition of Isaiah 50.1-3 Verse 1 Verse 2a Verse 2b Verses 2c-3 7. Conclusions
128 128 129 131 131 134 135 136 138 138 139 141 142 142 143 144 144 148 149 150
152 152 154 154 155 156 157 157 157 158 158 159 161 162 162 166 168 170 172
Contents Chapter 8 CONCLUSIONS 1. Literary Context 2. The Coherence of Commonplaces 3. God as a Father and a Mother in Deutero-Isaiah God as a Father God as a Mother 4. YHWH as Father and Mother and the Experiential Dimension of Metaphor 5. Implications for Biblical Studies 6. Implications for God-language Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors
ix
173 173 174 175 175 176 176 177 177 179 187 19 8
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been fortunate to have had many fine teachers of the Hebrew Bible over the years at St. Olaf College, Luther Seminary, and Emory University. I am grateful for the love of the Old Testament which my teachers instilled in me in college and seminary, and which led me to continue my studies at Emory. Thanks to my teachers at Emory for continuing to nurture this love of the text. This book originated as a doctoral dissertation. I wish to thank my doctoral advisor, Martin Buss, for the freedom he gives his students to find their own voice, and for his ever-socareful reading of the dissertation manuscript. I'd also like to thank my reader, Carol Newsom, who challenged me to clarify my thinking at every turn, resulting in an improved final draft. I wish to acknowledge my parents, Roland and Beth Dille, whose periodic financial support helped me through the lean years, and my father, a former English professor, for reading my dissertation and providing stylistic suggestions and a few grammatical points. I am grateful for the generosity of my friend Keith Golke, for his technical computer support (priceless to someone who went through seminary with a mere typewriter). Thanks to my friend and former colleague Susan Shapiro for her encouragement and prodding. I also wish to thank Ruth Spielmann for her fine proof-reading of the revised book manuscript and a few good observations about how a book should be different from a dissertation. Finally, while my husband, Daniel Stauffer, was spared the agony of the dissertation stage, I'd like to acknowledge his forbearance in the first four months of our marriage, listening to my mantra 'I have to finish my book revisions!' NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS All citations of the Bible in English are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (substituting 'YHWH' for 'LORD') with the exception of my translations of the five key texts from Deutero-Isaiah and where otherwise noted.
ABBREVIATIONS
A. Bibliographical Abbreviations
AB ABD AnBib AUSS BA BDB
BHS Bib BibOr BTB BZAW CBQ EBib HBC HBD HBT HTR HUCA IB IDE IDBS ITC JAAR JANESCU JBL JNES JPS JQR JR JSOT JSOTSS NCB NCBC NICOT OTL RB SBLDS SJOT SVTQ
Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Analecta Biblica Andrews University Seminary Studies Biblical Archaeologist Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Biblica Biblica et Orientalia Biblical Theology Bulletin Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly Etudes Bibliques Harper's Bible Commentary Harper's Bible Dictionary Horizons in Biblical Theology Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Interpreter's Bible Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible Supplement International Theological Commentary Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the Ancient Near East Society of Columbia University Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Near Eastern Studies Jewish Publication Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament—Supplement Series New Century Bible New Century Bible Commentary The New International Commentary on the Old Testament Old Testament Library Revue Biblique Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly
Abbreviations TDNT TDOT TQ TynBul VT VTSup WBC WTJ ZAW
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Theologische Quartalschrift Tyndale Bulletin Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Westminster Theological Journal Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
B. Other Abbreviations CH IQIsa KJV LSUr LU LXX MT NRSV P PN
YHWH
Code of Hammurabi An Isaiah scroll from Qumran King James Version Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur Septuagint Masoretic Text New Revised Standard Version Priestly source Personal Noun The divine name, often rendered Yahweh
xiii
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Chapter 1 UNDERSTANDING METAPHOR
1. Introduction The Goals of this Study This study is an exploration of metaphors and their interactions with their literary and cultural contexts. This is approached through an examination of DeuteroIsaiah's use of parental imagery for God. There are five units in Deutero-Isaiah that will be examined: Isa. 42.8-17,43.1-7,45.9-13,49.13-21, and 50.1-3. The purpose is to illuminate selected texts in such a way that the mechanisms of metaphor and their rhetorical impact may be more deeply appreciated. Among Deutero-Isaiah's many metaphors for God are 'father' and 'mother'. Five pericopes clearly use one or both of these images. The parent imagery appears alongside, and interacts with, other metaphors for God. Thus, the implications of the images of father and mother vary greatly within Deutero-Isaiah depending on the literary context. Neither 'father' nor 'mother' constitutes a metaphor with a single meaning. Metaphors do not function in isolation. They exist in both a rhetorical context and a cultural context. Deutero-Isaiah's use of parental imagery can best be appreciated when attention is given to a) other metaphors with which parental imagery is interwoven ('metaphoric coherence'), andb) the common cultural views associated with these metaphors ('associated commonplaces'). George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's concept of 'metaphoric coherence' is useful for explaining the interactions of diverse metaphors.1 'Coherence' refers to the overlap of metaphors that are not 'consistent'. Two inconsistent metaphors interact 'coherently' by virtue of their shared entailments. Useful for understanding these is the concept of 'commonplaces'. This refers to the network of associations a metaphor evokes. 'Associated commonplaces' are the beliefs about something generally held to be true in a given culture. Interacting metaphors highlight shared commonplaces. Metaphoric Coherence. When two or more metaphors appear together within a literary unit, they interact rhetorically. We argue here that areas of commonality (coherence) are highlighted by their interaction. Thus, for example, when YHWH is portrayed in the same unit as a warrior and as a woman giving birth, the two images interact and what is common to both (the overlap between them) is
1. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
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highlighted. Their interaction has an impact on the interpretation of the metaphors and of the unit as a whole. Associated Commonplaces. An appreciation of the interaction of metaphors is dependent upon an understanding of the culturally specific ideas associated with the metaphors, that is, the 'associated commonplaces'. Thus, in order to appreciate the areas of overlap between the image of the warrior and the image of the birthing woman there must be an understanding of how these two figures are understood in their cultural setting. What are the culture's definitions and attitudes concerning warriors and childbirth? The five selected passages will be examined closely to demonstrate how attention to the rhetorical and cultural contexts illuminates Deutero-Isaiah's use of the images of father and mother for YHWH. These two images interact with various images: warrior, redeeming kinsman, artisan, and the city as a woman, wife, and mother. Specifically, in Isa. 42.8-17, the image of God as a woman in labor interacts with that of the Divine Warrior. Areas of overlap include 'crying out', anguish, courage, danger, inevitability, the hope of deliverance from death, life, and the literary convention of one facing a siege reacting 'like a woman in labor'. In Isa. 43.1-7, God as a father interacts with God as the redeeming kinsman who redeems his kin from slavery. This interaction highlights honor, identity, deliverance, protection, and the exodus tradition. In Isa. 45.9-13, the imagery of the begetting father and the laboring woman interact with the image of the artisan shaping the clay. The dominant area of coherence is the concept of creator. YHWH creates Israel's future salvation, and Israel's savior (Cyrus). In Isa. 49.13-26, the image of Zion as a mother bereaved of her children elicits the image of God as a nursing mother (who does not forget her children). Zion's forgetting contrasts with YHWH's remembrance. In Isa. 50.1-3, the image of God as a father is elicited from the interaction of the images of God as a husband and Zion as a mother. YHWH is the husband of Zion whose children have been sold. Understanding Metaphor Theologians have increasingly acknowledged the metaphorical nature of language and thought about God.2 Metaphorical theory also provides a fruitful approach to exploring the rhetoric of the Hebrew Bible. While Old Testament theologies of the past have dealt with biblical metaphors (e.g. 'covenant', 'redeemer', the kingship of God3), they have not dealt with these metaphors as metaphors to any great extent, that is, with attention to what a metaphor is and what it does. However, 2. Note especially the work of Sallie McFague: Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1993). 3. See, for example, Carroll Stuhlmueller, Creative Redemption in Deutero-haiah (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970); Martin Buber, The Kingship of God (London: Humanities Press International, 1967).
1. Understanding Metaphor
3
increasing interest in the rhetoric of the text has led to a greater appreciation over the past ten to fifteen years of the importance of understanding metaphor in the Hebrew Bible.4 'Old Testament Theology' has often sought consistency in its understanding of the YHWH of the Hebrew Bible, seeking one overarching paradigm under which everything else may be subsumed (for example, 'covenant').5 But rather than seeking a single root metaphor, a more fruitful approach may be found in examining how diverse metaphors interact with one another to create various and often innovative characterizations of YHWH. This study draws on the analyses of metaphor in the works of I. A. Richards, Max Black, and (writing jointly) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Richards's work in the 1930s and Black's later work have been foundational for the ongoing discussion of metaphor. The most relevant contributions will be summarized below. Among scholars who have built on the work of Richards and Black are George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Mark Turner,6 Monroe Beardsley,7 Eva Kittay,8 and Paul Ricoeur.9 Of these, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have proven especially helpful for the present study. Their concept of'metaphorical coherence' provides the method and language for dealing with the interaction of Deutero-Isaiah's multiple metaphors. Other theories are not expressly utilized here, partly in order not to conflate 4. James Muilenburg is credited with the rise of rhetorical criticism in Hebrew Bible studies, particularly with his commentary on Deutero-Isaiah (IB, V [New York: Abingdon, 1956], pp. 381773). Interest in metaphor is a more recent outgrowth of the rhetorical school. Recent treatments of Hebrew Bible metaphors for God range from those that give virtually no attention to methodology, to those with a cursory treatment of metaphorical theory, to a very few that conscientiously utilize metaphor theory in reading the biblical texts. Some recent examples of works on metaphors for God in the Hebrew Bible are Michael L. Brown, Israel's Divine Healer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); Tremper Longman and Daniel G. Reid, God is a Warrior (Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); Gottfried Vanoni, 'Du bist dock unser Voter' (Jes 63, 16): Zur Gottesvorstellung des Ersten Testaments (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995); Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos, Reimagining God: The Case for Scriptural Diversity (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995); Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Isaiah's Vision and the Family of God (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994); Claudia V. Camp and Carol Fontaine (eds), Women, War and Metaphor (Semeia 61; Alpharetta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993); Tryggve Mettinger, In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God, an Old Testament Perspective (Overtures to Biblical Theology 14; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). 5. Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, I (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961). 6. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors; George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). 7. Monroe C. Beardsley, 'The Metaphorical Twist', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22 (1962), pp. 293-307, reprinted in Mark Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 105-22. 8. Eva Feder Kittay, Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987). 9. Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), and 'The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling', Critical Inquiry 5 (1978), pp. 143-59, reprinted in Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives, pp. 228-47 and in Sheldon Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 141-57.
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several approaches. Of course, a fuller analysis of metaphor may make use of these. Beardsley has concerned himself with the issues of how we know a metaphor when we see it, and what the actual mechanisms are that make a metaphor work. He speaks of a 'metaphorical twist'. Kittay has concerned herself with the issue of how metaphors convey meaning. Among Ricoeur's interests in metaphor are the role of the imagination and (an interest shared by Lakoff and Johnson) the role of metaphor in our imaginative construction of our world. Johnson refers to Ricoeur's work in metaphor and reality as addressing 'a fundamental ontological and epistemological issue'.10 All of these scholars make valuable contributions to the discussion. However, their questions about how we recognize a metaphor and by what mechanism metaphors actually work are beyond the scope of this study. What the heirs of Richards and Black have in common is a belief in the irreducibiliry of a metaphor to a literal paraphrase. Metaphors have cognitive content that exceeds any attempt to paraphrase. The purpose of this study is, therefore, not to fully explain the metaphors of Deutero-Isaiah, but rather to explore some of the potential meanings. 2.1. A. Richards I. A. Richards, lecturing and writing in 1936, established some foundational premises for the theory of language and metaphor, which continue to influence metaphor studies. Specifically, in The Philosophy of Rhetoric,11 he presented many of the propositions that are presupposed in the present study in biblical metaphor. His main points are as follows. First, he argues, one cannot access 'bare' ideas. One must deal with words.12 Second, a word does not have a particular or absolute meaning in isolation, 'independent of and controlling its use'.13 (He calls the belief he refutes the 'Proper Meaning Superstition'.) Rather, all discourse has a multiplicity of meanings.14 (He refutes the 'One and Only One True Meaning Superstition'.) Expect ambiguity— not as a fault but 'as an inevitable consequence of the powers of language...'.15 The reader must always guess the author's meaning.16 Richards argues that words are multivalent: 'so much misinterpretation comes from supposing that if a word works one way it cannot simultaneously work in another and have simultaneously another meaning' (Richards's emphasis).17 Essential to the present study is Richards's idea that words are 'interinanimated'. 10. Mark Johnson, 'Introduction: Metaphor in the Philosophical Tradition', in Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, pp. 3-47 (41). 11. L A . Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). (Unless otherwise noted, emphases in Richards's quotations have been added.) 12. Richards, Philosophy, pp. 5-6. 13. Richards, Philosophy, p. 11. 14. Richards, Philosophy, p. 39. 15. Richards, Philosophy, p. 119. 16. Richards, Philosophy, p. 55. 17. Richards, Philosophy, p. 119.
1. Understanding Metaphor
5
Meaning is determined within a literary context.18 (In prophetic speech, then, the words used by the prophet are uniquely transformed by the literary context in which they appear, since each literary context is unique.) Regarding metaphor, Richards argues that metaphor is 'the omnipresent principle' of language.19 Richards quotes Shelley: 'Language is vitally metaphorical; that is, it marks the before unapprehended relations of things and perpetuates their apprehension, until words, which represent them, become, through time, signs for portions of thought instead of pictures of integral thoughts...'.20 Richards defines metaphor as 'two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a resultant of their interaction'.21 He designates the two parts of the metaphor as the vehicle and the tenor. The tenor is the 'underlying idea or principal subject which the vehicle or figure means'?2 By this definition, in the present study the primary tenor is YHWH (or the idea of YHWH) and the vehicles are those words that speak of YHWH as a 'parent', for example 'woman in labor', 'my sons', 'my daughters'. Tenor and vehicle interact. Their meanings are transformed by this interaction: the co-presence of the vehicle and tenor results in a meaning (to be clearly distinguished from the tenor) which is not attainable without their interaction. [The] vehicle is not normally a mere embellishment of a tenor which is otherwise unchanged by it, but... vehicle and tenor in co-operation give a meaning of more varied powers than can be ascribed to either. 23
Thus, Deutero-Isaiah does not simply say some things about YHWH, but uses metaphoric language to transform the very concept of who YHWH is. The relationship between tenor and vehicle is both one of resemblance and one of disparity or tension. 'The mind is a connecting organ, it works only by connecting and it can connect any two things in an indefinitely large number of different ways ... In all interpretation, we are filling in connections, and for poetry, of course, our freedom to fill in ... is a main source of its powers'.2* The force of the metaphor comes 'at least equally from the differences that resist and control the influences of their resemblances'.25 Richards argues that dead metaphors (metaphors that seem to have lost all vitality, for example, 'table leg') are easily awakened.26 This point is relevant for Hebrew poetry. For example, the term ^N~"l£T~n]I3 ('sons of Israel' or 'children of Israel') may be considered a dead metaphor, as is apparently assumed by 18. Richards, Philosophy, pp. 47-65. 19. Richards, Philosophy, p. 91. 20. Richards, Philosophy, pp. 90-91; source of Shelley citation not provided by Richards. 21. Richards, Philosophy, p. 93. 22. Richards, Philosophy, p. 97. 23. Richards, Philosophy, p. 100. 24. Richards, Philosophy, p. 125. Regarding disparity between tenor and vehicle, Richards states, 'In general, there are very few metaphors in which disparities between tenor and vehicle are not as much operative as the similarities' (127). 25. Richards, Philosophy, p. 127. 26. Richards, Philosophy, p. 101.
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translators who render it 'Israelites'. But it may be re-animated. In Isa. 43.1-7, 'Israel' or 'Jacob' has offspring or 'seed' who are, in parallel verses, also referred to as YHWH'S 'sons' and 'daughters'. 3. Max Black In 1962 Max Black further developed some of the implications of Richards's work and contributed some new ideas. His analysis provides three categories that are especially relevant to the present study: the interactive view of metaphor; the system of associated commonplaces; and emphasis and suppression (orfiltering).21 The Interactive View of Metaphor Black describes three views of metaphor, the first two of which he rejects. First is a Substitution View which holds that 'metaphoric expression is used in place of some equivalent literal expression'.28 What the metaphor expresses could be expressed literally. For example, the metaphor 'Richard is a lion' could be expressed as 'Richard is brave'. Second is a Comparison View which holds that a 'metaphor consists in the presentation of the underlying analogy or similarity. (This is actually a "special case" of a substitution view—the metaphor could be expressed by a literal comparison.)'29 For example 'Richard is a lion' could be expressed as 'Richard is like a lion in being brave'. Black criticizes these two views, arguing that Metaphorical statement is not a substitute for a formal comparison or any other kind of literal statement, but has its own distinctive capacities and achievements ... It would be more illuminating in some of these cases to say that metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates some similarity antecedently existing.30
The inadequacy of these two models is especially apparent in God-language. It is impossible to speak of God literally,31 and thus one cannot claim a literal equivalent for a metaphorical statement about God. Alternatively, Black proposes (following Richards) an Interaction View. Black cites Richards's definition of metaphor, by which Richards argues that the meaning 'is a resultant of the 'interaction' of tenor and vehicle.32 He cites Richards's
27. Max Black, Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 25-47. Unless otherwise noted, emphasis in quotations from this work are my own. 28. Black, Models, p. 31. 29. Black, Models, p. 35 (Black's emphasis). 30. Black, Models, p. 37. 31. This is presupposed by this study. All speech and even thought about God is necessarily either metaphorical or analogical. See the discussion by Janet Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 97-117. 32. For the sake of consistency, this summary of Black will use the terms 'tenor' and 'vehicle' even though they are not his preferred terms.
1. Understanding Metaphor
1
contention that 'the reader is forced to "connect" the two ideas'.33 Black further develops this Interaction View in conjunction with his categories of 'associated commonplaces' and 'filtering'. The System of Associated Commonplaces 'Commonplaces' are the beliefs about something generally held to be true in a given culture. Black describes these commonplaces in relation to the vehicle of a metaphor, for example, the term 'wolf in 'Man is a wolf. What is relevant is those beliefs that are generally associated with wolves. These commonplaces may or may not be true (i.e. true of wolves), but they are generally believed and 'readily and freely evoked'. In this investigation of parent imagery in Deutero-Isaiah, the commonplaces of father, mother, childbirth, etc. will be explored. Since commonplaces are culturally determined and culturally specific, attention must be given to the associated commonplaces of the ancient Near East, especially Israelite culture and neo-Babylonian culture, so far as this can be determined. Parenthood may be based on biological fact, but for human beings parenthood is also a social construct. The 'associated commonplaces' of parenthood and other utilized vehicles (i.e. other images) serve as a starting point for Deutero-Isaiah, though the vehicles are not limited to the commonplace, but are at times imaginatively 'extended' beyond what is commonplace (see the discussion of Lakoff and Johnson below). Emphasis and Suppression (or Filtering) Black's third relevant point is the mechanism of 'emphasis' and 'suppression'. Black's interactive approach and his system of commonplaces are integrally related. The 'commonplaces' that are associated with the vehicle 'organize' our view of the tenor. They 'filter and transform'. Black offers as an example the description of war in terms of a chess game. Chess language is used to speak of battle. Black points out that the vehicle of chess emphasizes (or highlights) some aspects of battle andfilters out (or hides) other aspects of battle. (For example, the chess imagery highlights strategy and hides bloodshed and human suffering.) Black summarizes, 'The metaphor selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features of the principal subject [the tenor, here 'battle'] by implying statements about it that normally apply to the subsidiary subject [the vehicle, here 'chess']'.34 An example of this in the Hebrew Bible can be clearly seen in the metaphor of God as a rock, common in the Psalms. The concept 'rock' highlights such characteristics as strength, protection, and dependability. It hides or suppresses characteristics attributed to God in other speech, such as relationality, personality (including emotion), and changeability. Black's mechanism of emphasis and suppression offers a partial explanation of Richards's interaction theory. However, while explaining how the vehicle transforms the tenor, Black merely hints at the transformation that the vehicle itself undergoes.
33. Black, Models, p. 39, citing Richards, Philosophy, p. 125. 34. Black, Models, p. 45.
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Mixing Metaphors 4. Lakoff and Johnson
Approaching metaphor from the perspective of linguistics and philosophy, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Metaphors We Live By provoked much discussion in the field of philosophy as well as in theology when it came out in 1980. While Metaphors We Live By occasionally shows up in bibliographies of Hebrew Bible metaphor studies, its contribution to an understanding of metaphor has not been widely utilized.35 However, aspects of their work are quite useful for the present study. Six points that are most helpful for the purposes of the present study are: metaphor as conceptual structure; entailments; highlighting, hiding, and downplaying', metaphoric extension', coherence (vs consistency)', and the experiential dimension of metaphor. Metaphor as Conceptual Structure The central premise of Lakoff and Johnson's book is that 'Our ordinary conceptual system ... is fundamentally metaphorical in nature'.36 They thus define metaphor as including thought and experience as well as speech. A metaphor is a concept that structures understanding and experience: 'The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another' ,37 All experience is thus filtered through these metaphoric structures. There is no raw, unmediated experience. Lakoff and Johnson's use of the term 'metaphor' to designate 'metaphorical concept'38 stands in contrast to the school of metaphor theory that defines metaphor strictly as a rhetorical event or a speech event.39 They argue that 'Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people'.40 Conceptual metaphors structure our language. Thus, particular metaphorical statements point to the conceptual structures that shaped them.41 35. One exception is Camp and Fontaine (eds.), Women, War, and Metaphor. 36. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 3. 37. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 5. Unless otherwise noted, emphasis in quotations from this work are added. 38. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 6. 39. For example, Janet Soskice makes a distinction between metaphor and 'model': 'it should not be thought that metaphor is primarily a process or a mental act, and only secondarily its manifestation in language. Metaphor is by definition a figure of speech and not an "act", "fusion", or "perception". Were this not the case we should not know where to look for metaphor at all' (Soskice, Metaphor, 16). 40. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 5. 41. Many theorists give considerable weight to etymology in arguing that language is, in its origin, metaphorical. Soskice cautions against this, arguing that this supposition leads one to what she calls the 'metaphor-as-myth thesis'—'the idea that metaphors represent concealed myths in everyday speech' (Soskice, Metaphor, 78). Soskice cites Lakoff and Johnson's book as a recent version of this theory. She criticizes it thus: 'Carried to an extreme, it is in danger of falling into the fallacy, criticized by James Barr in The Semantics of Biblical Language, of confusing word derivation with word meaning' (81). Soskice's caution may be somewhat valid, but Lakoff and Johnson themselves show little interest in the etymologies of single words and are, rather, interested in the underlying roots of fuller expressions or systems of expression.
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What others might call 'models' or 'paradigms', Lakoff and Johnson call 'structural metaphors'. It is important to keep in mind the distinction for Lakoff and Johnson between a 'metaphor' (as a concept) and a 'metaphorical statement'. Structural metaphors give rise to rhetorical expressions of the metaphor. Lakoff and Turner note that It is a prerequisite to any discussion of metaphor that we make a distinction between basic conceptual metaphors, which are cognitive in nature, and particular linguistic expressions of these conceptual metaphors. Thus, though a particular poetic passage may give a unique linguistic expression of a basic metaphor, the conceptual metaphor underlying it may nonetheless be extremely common.42
Lakoff and Johnson offer as an example of a structural metaphor 'Argument is War'. The structuring metaphor is reflected in our speech about argument: Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. I demolished his argument. I've never won an argument with him. If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out. He shot down all of my arguments.43
The metaphor 'Argument is War' structures how we think about argument, speak of argument, and even how we experience argument. 'Argument is War' is our culture's primary metaphor for argument. Our speech does, however, reveal other metaphors for argument which function in our culture. For example: Argument is a Building We've got the framework for a solid argument. If you don't support your argument with solid facts, the whole thing will collapse. He is trying to buttress his argument with a lot of irrelevant facts, but it is still so shaky that it will easily fall apart under criticism. With the groundwork you've got, you can construct a pretty strong argument.44 Argument is a Journey So far, we haven't covered much ground. This is a roundabout argument. We need to go into this further in order to see clearly what's involved.45 Argument is a Container Your argument doesn't hold water. You have all the right ideas in your argument... Your argument is full of holes.46
Language reveals the structural metaphors that organize our thoughts and experiences. We may thus suggest that Deutero-Isaiah's major themes are expressed
42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
Lakoff and Turner, Reason, p. 50. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, see p. 4. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 98. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, pp. 90-91. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 92.
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in language that reveals its (or its author's) structural metaphors. Some structural metaphors for YHWH that may be discerned in the language of Deutero-Isaiah are the redeeming kinsman, the husband of the city Zion, and a complex of creator metaphors—the artisan, the one who conquers the chaotic waters, and the source of fertility. These metaphors are identifiable not only through explicit use of central terms, for example, the term 7tW, gaol (redeem), and terms for create (N"Q, n&17, and ~liT), but also through the entailments of these metaphors. Entailments Entailments are those concepts that logically follow from a metaphor or a metaphoric statement. For example, Lakoff and Johnson explore the entailments of Michael Reddy's 'conduit' metaphor: 'Language as a Conduit':47 the LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING aspect of the CONDUIT metaphor entails that words and sentences have meanings in themselves, independent of any context or speaker. THE MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS part of the metaphor, for example, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and contexts. The part of the metaphor that says LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING entails that words (and sentences) have meanings, 48 again independent of contexts and speakers.
As another example of entailment, Lakoff and Johnson compare two metaphors for time: 'Time is a Moving Object'49 and 'Time is Stationary and We Move Through It'.50 They argue: [These are] two subcases of 'Time Passes Us': in one case, we are moving and time is standing still; in the other, time is moving and we are standing still. What is in common is relative motion with respect to us, with the future in front and the past behind. That is, they are two subcases of the same metaphor . . . This is another way of saying that they have a major common entailment. Both metaphors entail that, from our point of view, time goes past us from front to back.51
An example of entailment in the Hebrew Bible is YHWH'S statement in Isa. 1.2, 'Children I have reared and raised'. This entails that God is a parent (father or mother). Another example of entailment is that if YHWH is the husband of the city (Jerusalem, an image used in Ezekiel), it follows that the city's (the citizens') worship of other gods is 'adultery' and that God can 'divorce' his city/wife (see Ezekiel 16 and 23). The concept of entailments works best with the systematic structural metaphors
47. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 10; Michael Reddy, 'The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language', in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 284-324. 48. Although Lakoff and Johnson use the conduit metaphor as an example of entailments, 'conduit' does not express their own understanding of language and meaning: see Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, 11. 49. e.g. 'The time will come when ...' and The time has long since gone when ...' 50. e.g. 'As we go through the years ...' and 'We're approaching the end of the year'. 51. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 44.
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or 'conceptual metaphors' (or 'models' or 'paradigms'), which, Lakoff and Johnson argue, are the concepts that structure human thought and perception of reality. 'Metaphorical entailments play an essential role in linking all of the instances [i.e. expressions] of a single metaphorical structuring of a concept'.52 Entailments, then, provide the network of associations that characterize a metaphorical concept. The present study of metaphor in Deutero-Isaiah proceeds by identifying specific language that 'entails' the concept of 'parent'. Specifically, texts in Isaiah 40-55 that contain the implicit (non-explicit) structural metaphor 'God is a parent' will be examined. Highlighting, Hiding, and Downplaying The concepts of 'highlighting' and 'hiding', central to Lakoff and Johnson, are essentially Black's concepts of'emphasis' and 'suppression' (see above). 'Argument is War' highlights winning or losing and hides the cooperative aspects of arguing. Lakoff and Johnson use as an example the metaphor 'Love is a Collaborative Work of Art'. It entails such things as 'love is work', 'love requires cooperation', and 'love involves creativity'.53 This metaphor highlights the 'active side' of love and hides the emotional aspects of love, which are 'almost never viewed as being under the lovers' active control in our conventional conceptual system'. 54 In contrast, the dimension of 'lack of control' is highlighted in the metaphor 'Love is Madness' as expressed in such expressions as 'I'm crazy about her' and 'She's driving me wild'. They also cite the incompatibility of the metaphor 'Love is a Collaborative Work of Art' with the metaphor 'Love is War', as in 'She is my latest conquest' and 'He surrendered to her' (which hides cooperation). Lakoff and Johnson add to 'highlighting' and 'hiding' the term 'downplaying'. By 'downplaying' they mean that a given metaphor 'is consistent with, but does not focus on' certain aspects of the tenor.55 The difference between hiding and downplaying is that what are hidden are those aspects of the tenor that are inconsistent with the vehicle. The downplayed aspects are entailments of the vehicle or the tenor that are not inconsistent with the metaphor, but are not highlighted. Lakoff and Johnson explore 'downplaying' in the interrelationship between two metaphors for love, 'Love is a Collaborative Work of Art' and 'Love is a Physical Force'. The first metaphor downplays 'certain aspects of love experiences': In particular, it downplays those experiences that fit the LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE metaphor. By 'downplaying', we mean that it is consistent with, but does not focus on, experiences of love that could be reasonably described by 'There is a magnetism between us', 'We felt sparks', etc.56 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.
Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors,
p. 96. p. 140. p. 141. p. 149. p. 149.
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Their discussion of categories illustrates how highlighting and downplaying work. Lakoff and Johnson give four sentences used to describe one person, each sentence using a different category, thus either highlighting or downplaying aspects of the person: 1. I've 2. I've 3. I've 4. I've
invited invited invited invited
a sexy blonde to our dinner party. a renowned cellist to our dinner party. a Marxist to our dinner party. a lesbian to our dinner party.
They write, 'Though the same person may fit all of these descriptions, each description highlights different aspects of the person. Describing someone who you know has all of these properties as "a sexy blonde" is to downplay the fact that she is a renowned cellist and a Marxist and to hide her lesbianism'.57 In exploring language for God in Deutero-Isaiah the question is, then, what is being highlighted about God in this text? A given metaphor will highlight certain aspects of God and hide others. A given entailment will highlight aspects of the conceptual metaphor and downplay others. The categories of highlighting and downplaying are important in understanding Lakoff and Johnson's categories ofmetaphoric extension and coherence, as will now be shown. Metaphoric Extension Like Black's concept of 'associated commonplaces', entailments primarily function as a system of stereotypical associations, culturally defined. This system of associations may be 'extended'. Lakoff and Johnson describe 'extension' as the activation of previously 'unused' parts of a metaphor in a figurative or imaginative way.58 A rhetorical expression may extend the conventional network of associations that 'characterize' the conceptual metaphor by highlighting potential entailments that are normally not commonplace to transform the metaphor and create new meaning. Rhetorical extensions give new meaning to the conventional metaphor by highlighting what was previously downplayed. Julie Galambush explores this phenomenon in her study of the city as the wife of YHWH in Ezekiel.59 She cites what she identifies as a conventional ancient Near East concept of the city as a woman and the wife of the deity. This metaphor, she argues, is extended by Ezekiel to include the entailment of impurity—an entailment not previously used or highlighted in the metaphor of the city as a wife, yet a potential entailment of woman (thus not inconsistent with it). Impurity, in the ancient Near Eastern context, is an entailment that is consistent with the feminine imagery. Thus, impurity is not hidden in the city-as-wife metaphor, but had 57. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 163. The assumption that the term 'sexy blonde' hides 'lesbianism' reveals Lakoff and Johnson's own assumptions of a heterosexual male perspective as normative. 58. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, pp. 52-55. 59. Julie Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh 's Wife (SBLDS 130; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).
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previously been downplayed in the ancient Near Eastern use of this metaphor. The innovative rhetorical move by Ezekiel (writing from the priestly tradition), associating the feminine with uncleanness, now redefines the metaphor. Thus a conventional metaphor, the city as the wife of the deity, informs Ezekiel's use of the image, and Ezekiel's rhetorical expression, through extension of the metaphor, transforms and extends the previously conventional metaphor. The city is an unclean woman. The extension of a metaphor functions in this way: the particular, innovative rhetorical expression extends the older, general, structural metaphor. In Galambush's study, the general is the conventional structural metaphor of the city as the wife of the deity.60 The conventional metaphor of the city as wife highlights the covenant relationship between the city and the deity, the expectation of fidelity, and the characterization of infidelity as adultery. The structural metaphor is expressed in the particular rhetorical event, that is, Ezekiel's use of the image of the city as the unfaithful wife of YHWH. In turn, Ezekiel extends the metaphor to include the entailment of uncleanness or defilement. Galambush writes, 'Ezekiel recasts the adultery metaphor to focus on the pollution that precipitates Yahweh's abandonment of the Jerusalem temple'.61 She adds, Exploiting the commonplaces of pollution and 'otherness' associated with the female body, Ezekiel shapes his personification to highlight the woman's sexual pollution, which becomes a symbol of the pollution of the city's 'holy place'.62
She concludes, The metaphor of the city as Yahweh's wife, already powerful as employed by Hosea and Jeremiah, is reshaped by Ezekiel into a virtually obsessive investigation of Jerusalem's sexual impurity. Influenced both by his anguished revulsion at the pollution of Yahweh's temple, and by its quickly approaching destruction, Ezekiel rereads and retells the story of the woman Jerusalem as the story of female sexual pollution and of male disgust and revenge.63
Thus, the rhetorical event (i.e. Ezekiel's speech), through extension, redefines the structural metaphor.64 There are numerous examples of this rhetorical strategy in 60. Galambush, Jerusalem, pp. 20-21. While Galambush argues that this is a convention in the ancient Near East, it is actually a convention particular to Hebrew literature, so far as we can tell from the available evidence (see below, Chaps 6-7). Although I do not accept some of the particulars of her argument about the city as wife, her study is an excellent example of the application of the concept of'metaphoric extension'. 61. Galambush, Jerusalem, p. 78. 62. Galambush, Jerusalem, p. 89. 63. Galambush, Jerusalem, p. 124. 64. Ezekiel elsewhere uses the rhetorical tactic of starting with a conventional metaphor and then highlighting what is normally downplayed. The conventional metaphor of kings (including God) as shepherds usually highlights the king's function as a protector and a provider. Ezek. 34.3 accuses the shepherds (the leaders) of being bad shepherds: 'You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fallings; but you do not feed the sheep'. The practices of eating the sheep and wearing their wool are usually downplayed in the metaphor of the king as a
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the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, including Deutero-Isaiah. Coherence (vs Consistency) An important contribution of Lakoff and Johnson for the present study of DeuteroIsaiah is their category of coherence vs. consistency. They discuss coherence between seemingly inconsistent metaphors. Given that Hebrew poetry frequently interweaves and juxtaposes metaphors, the concept of metaphoric coherence is quite helpful. Rather than simply referring to the interweaving of metaphors as a 'mixed metaphor', Lakoff and Johnson enable us to see how multiple metaphors interact. The areas of overlap or coherence serve to highlight specific aspects of the metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson emphasize that a conceptual metaphor 'focuses on one aspect of the concept'.65 To highlight more than one aspect of the concept, two or more metaphors are needed. No single metaphor will do.66 Thus, to express multiple aspects of one's subject (e.g. God), multiple metaphors are needed. Multiple metaphors, however, are usually inconsistent. Lakoff and Johnson call two different metaphors 'consistent' if a 'single clearly delineated metaphor' can satisfactorily encompass both of them. However, 'complete consistency across metaphors is rare'.67 They propose, however, that inconsistent metaphors may be 'coherent'; that is, that there can be an overlap of entailments between two different metaphors. To demonstrate the mechanism of coherence, they use the following two examples of metaphors for 'argument': 1) 'An Argument is a Journey'68 and 2) 'An Argument is a Container'.69 While there is a logical inconsistency here, the metaphors are not incoherent. The term 'coherence' describes how these two (or more) metaphors can be shown to fit together by virtue of one or more shared entailments under a more general category that satisfies the purposes of the two metaphors. The shared entailment of these two metaphors for argument is 'more of a surface is created'. An Argument is a Journey: 'As we make a journey, more of a surface is created. Therefore, as we make an argument, more of a surface is created ...'. An Argument is a Container: 'As we make a container, more of a surface is created. Therefore, as we make an argument, more of a surface is created'.70 shepherd, even though these practices are entirely consistent with what shepherds do. Ezekiel drops these entailments in v. 11 when God is depicted as the good shepherd. 65. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 95. 66. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 95. 67. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 96. 68. ' We have setout to prove ...', 'We will proceed in & step-by-step fashion', and 'Our goal is to show that...' (Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 90). 69. 'Your argument doesn't have much content", 'Your argument won't hold water', etc. (Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 92). 70. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, pp. 93-94.
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Lakoff and Johnson explain that It is this overlap of entailments between the two metaphors that defines the coherence between them and provides the link between the amount of ground the argument covers and the amount of content it has.71
Thus, when inconsistent metaphors share a major common entailment, they are coherent: 'When a concept is structured by more than one metaphor, the different metaphorical structurings usually fit together in a coherent fashion^2 The concept of coherence is especially helpful in dealing with multiple metaphors within a given unit. Hebrew poetry often seems to be inconsistent to the Western reader bent on logical consistency.73 However, even such a reader can intuitively accommodate inconsistencies as long as the text is coherent. Lakoff and Johnson argue that this coherence lends itself to logical analysis. Such an analysis can be fruitful for a study of Hebrew poetry. Deutero-Isaiah uses multiple metaphors; Lakoff and Johnson provide the language needed to speak about how these metaphors function together coherently. Deutero-Isaiah uses the language of the father, the mother, the artisan, the husband, the redeemer, the warrior, etc. Some of these terms fit consistently as expressions of a single metaphor. 'Father' and 'mother' come close to being consistent, as parallel expressions for 'parent' (Isa. 45.10). God as husband and God as father are consistent when the 'wife' is Zion and the 'children' are her people (Isa. 50.1-3). But not all the metaphorical language of Deutero-Isaiah can be forced into a single, consistent metaphor. Rather, there are multiple metaphors functioning here, inconsistent yet coherent metaphors, whose coherence is demonstrated by the agile interweaving of the separate strands into a single textual unit. By the interweaving of metaphors, the text creates coherences not previously evident. Each textual unit of Deutero-Isaiah has a unique combination of metaphors and what is highlighted is what overlaps. A good example of reading a text in light of coherence of inconsistent metaphors is Katheryn Darr's article on Isa. 42.10-17, in which she examines the metaphors 'YHWH is a Warrior' and 'YHWH is a Birthing Woman':74 13
YHWH goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against all his foes. 14 'For a long time I have been silent, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant, I will lay waste mountains and hills ...' (Isa. 42.13-14, Darr's translation) 71. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 94. 72. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 86. 73. The effort to find a consistent figure to fit the Servant Songs of Deutero-Isaiah is a good example of such a bent. 74. Katheryn Pfisterer Darr,' Like Warrior, Like Woman: Destruction and Deliverance in Isaiah 42.10-17', CBQ 49 (1987), pp. 560-71.
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Darr persuasively argues for the coherence of the inconsistent metaphors. The coherence is established by finding a common entailment of the metaphors. Danidentifies the shared entailment as crying out or noisiness: 'he cries out, he shouts aloud', 'now I will cry out... I will gasp and pant'. Other shared entailments also come to mind—danger, courage, blood, pain, the threat of death, the preservation of life. By juxtaposing these two inconsistent metaphors, the author highlights the entailments that they share and downplays aspects of the metaphors that are not shared.75 In Isa. 54.1-8, two metaphors are used together. Their coherence creates an extension of downplayed aspects of each metaphor. YHWH is the redeeming kinsman (5b: 'The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer [7^13, gd^el]'). In most of Deutero-Isaiah this image highlights release from slavery, while the potential entailment of the 7^13, go'el (redeemer) as the levirate husband is downplayed. The other major metaphor in Isaiah 54 is Zion as the wife of YHWH (5a: 'For your Maker is your husband pin]'). In the Hebrew Bible this functions to express the deity's care for and protection of the city wife and to highlight the expectation of the city's fidelity to the deity. It can also highlight divine abandonment in the case of destruction of the city. Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel use the marriage metaphor to express infidelity. Isa. 54.1-8 uses the redeemer metaphor together with the metaphor of the city as abandoned wife, along with the term 'widow' (4b(3: 'the disgrace of your widowhood'). The metaphors are extended by virtue of their coherence to depict YHWH as the levirate husband who will marry widowed Zion and provide her with children (Ib: 'For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married'). The Experiential Dimension of Metaphor 1. Metaphor Structures Experience. Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphors give structure to our experience. They argue further, 'It is by means of conceptualizing our experiences ... that we pick out the "important" aspects of an experience ... We can categorize the experience, understand it, and remember it'.76 Deutero-Isaiah's multiple metaphors are expressions of Israel's experience of exile. The rhetoric of Deutero-Isaiah gives structure and meaning to the chaotic experience of exile and possibly accomplishes that which Lakoff and Johnson argue metaphors can accomplish: 'New metaphors have the power to create a new reality'.77 Deutero-Isaiah's innovative use of metaphor functions to create a reality of hope in exile: See, the former things have come to pass, the new things I now declare (Isa. 42.9).
2. Experience Structures Conceptual Metaphors. Less relevant to this study, but worthy of mention, is Lakoff and Johnson's contention that many of our conceptual 75. For other examples consider Isaiah 1 (God as father and as master of an animal, coherent in the call to obedience); Malachi 1 (father and master of a slave); Isaiah 64 (father and potter, both creative). 76. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 83. 77. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 145.
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metaphors are rooted in universal human experiences, such as the experience of being in a human body and the experience of gravity. Such universal human experiences shape very basic metaphors that employ such concepts as 'up' and 'down', and 'forward' and 'backward'.78 Lakoff and Johnson do, however, allow for the role of culture to interact with universal physical experience in shaping conceptual metaphors: It is hard to distinguish the physical from the cultural basis of a metaphor, since the choice of one physical basis from among many possible ones has to do with cultural coherence.79
An example of this for our purposes is the concept of childbirth. While this is a widely experienced life event across all cultures, the concept of childbirth is culturally shaped. Thus, a culture's concept of childbirth is derived from both certain universals of the childbirth process (pain, fluids, danger to mother and child, a baby born) and a culture's distinctive understanding of the process. 5. Conclusion In order to understand biblical metaphor it is important to go beyond a search for a single root metaphor for God to a recognition of the multiple metaphors for God in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 40-55 utilizes multiple metaphors in speaking of YHWH. A key to understanding the thought of Deutero-Isaiah is its metaphors and their interaction with one another. For such an understanding, the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson on metaphor is helpful. They offer a system, categories, and language useful for exploring the multiple metaphors of Deutero-Isaiah, especially for exploring how metaphors overlap and interact as they express beliefs about YHWH and YHWH'S acts. Included in Lakoff and Johnson's system are several useful components: the relationship of metaphor to experience, 'structural metaphors', 'metaphorical extension', 'entailment', 'highlighting, hiding, downplaying', and 'coherence'. In the present study of parental imagery for God, these categories are utilized in examining how Deutero-Isaiah's metaphors interact. Parental language can highlight a wide range of ideas about the deity: authority, punishment, emotional ties such as love, legal obligations, honor, inheritance, source of life, source of name, 78. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 4. 79. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 19. Mieke Bal provides the strongest critique of the supposition of a universal human experience. She argues that Lakoff and Johnson's failure to acknowledge gender as central to 'experience' is a serious flaw in their experientially based system. The categories of male and female, she argues, are more basic than the category of personhood. Acknowledgment of gender would strengthen Lakoff and Johnson's book, but feminist theorists themselves do not agree on the extent to which one's experience of the world as a male or a female is rooted in one's bodily experiences or in the cultural constructs by which we create gender. See Mieke Bal, 'Metaphors He Lives By', Semeia 61 (1993), pp. 185-207, esp. 18592. While this author agrees that Lakoff and Johnson's examples reveal a rather severe androcentrism, a limited range of examples is not fatal to the theory.
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etc. In a given text that uses parental imagery, any entailment that is part of the network of associations (Black's 'associated commonplaces') of father or mother is implicitly present, but some of these associations are downplayed, while others are highlighted. Such highlighting is often activated by the interaction of the parental language with another metaphor. Chapter 2 will discuss the cultural commonplaces of parenthood and kinship that are most relevant for this study. In the subsequent chapters, each of the selected pericopes will be discussed, identifying the parental language of the unit and examining at least one other metaphor with which the parent image coherently interacts. The commonplaces of the other coherent metaphors will be explored. Finally, the implications of the interaction of metaphors will be examined, in order to identify those aspects of YHWH as a parent that are highlighted in the interplay of metaphors. The ongoing conversation on metaphor, what metaphor is and how it works, is far too extensive to survey here. Some general comments are, however, in order, in regard to this study's reliance on Black's analysis and Lakoff and Johnson's collaborative work. Discussions of metaphor usually deal with metaphor as language from one sphere being applied to something from another sphere. For example, Lakoff and Johnson write, 'The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another'.80 The discussion then centers on how the 'tenor' and the 'vehicle' interact. For example, in a metaphor such as 'Man is a wolf the interaction is between the meaning of 'man' and the meaning of 'wolf. Theorists deal with this interaction in various ways. But when the tenor is 'God', much of the discussion about the meaning of the tenor is irrelevant or even absurd. The literal meaning of 'God' is an unknown, apart from metaphor or analogy. (The dictionary may be able to provide a somewhat satisfactory definition of 'god', but 'God' is another matter.) Any supposition that the meaning of the tenor 'God' is already known (and simply being expanded upon by use of metaphor) must necessarily derive that meaning from already accepted, conventional metaphors and analogies. Thus the vehicle is not interacting with the literal sense of 'God' but with other metaphors about God. This situation renders the discussions of the interactions of literal meanings in metaphor completely irrelevant. Since the tenor 'God' is metaphorical and the vehicle is applied to God metaphorically, the meaning produced is not from the interaction of literal tenor and literal vehicle, but from the interaction of two metaphors—the immediately identifiable metaphor and the metaphors implied by 'God'. Thus, in DeuteroIsaiah, all metaphors for God known to the author and the audience are potentially present. Those metaphors that appear in the same unit as our identified metaphor (God as parent), and are themselves imaginatively used by Deutero-Isaiah, are the metaphors that are instrumental in defining the tenor 'God' in relation to the vehicle 'parent'. Lakoff and Johnson's concept of'metaphoric coherence' provides the means to talk about the interaction of these metaphors, or perhaps we should 80. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 6.
1. Understanding Metaphor
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say, the interaction of multiple vehicles that share the indefinable tenor 'God'. Most discussions of metaphor focus on the specific metaphoric utterance. The rhetorical 'event' is our starting point—identifying those specific statements in Deutero-Isaiah that apply the language of parenthood to God. However, a method is needed that will allow us to venture into the 'conceptual metaphors' in which these rhetorical utterances are grounded. Lakoff and Johnson provide the language and structure needed. Additionally, Black's 'system of associated commonplaces' enables us to look beyond the specific rhetorical utterance to the ideas, knowledge, and associations that are elicited by the rhetorical event, and draw on DeuteroIsaiah's cultural context. Another limitation of many discussions of metaphor is the supposition that metaphors are necessarily innovative and surprising. While Deutero-Isaiah's specific rhetorical strategies are innovative and imaginative, the metaphorical underpinnings, it will be shown, are quite conventional. In fact, Deutero-Isaiah's rhetoric about God is, while creative, rooted in Israel's conventional metaphors. What is needed for the purposes of this study is an approach to metaphor that does not ignore or discount the rhetorical importance of conventional metaphors. The works of Black and of Lakoff and Johnson provide this approach, particularly Lakoff and Johnsons' concept of 'entailment'. This category may be applied to DeuteroIsaiah's metaphor 'YHWH is a Redeeming Kinsman'. This entails that YHWH is kin to Israel and Israel is in need of redemption, that is, in need of a kinsman to act as an advocate and guarantor of the family honor, land, freedom, and offspring. The metaphor entails that YHWH has both the right and the responsibility to act as the redeeming kinsman. This role of 'redeemer' (yK"U, go "el) includes several possible functions: buying the debt slave out of bondage, providing offspring for a dead brother via the widow, acting as an advocate in the court of law, purchasing the land of impoverished relatives to keep it in the family, and exacting blood retribution on the murderer of one's kin. All of these share the major common entailment of the preservation of the family's honor. The metaphor entails that YHWH'S own honor as well as the honor of Israel is at stake. Reading DeuteroIsaiah in light of the historical context of exile in Babylon, one discerns the entailment that Israel's exile is understood in terms of debt slavery (e.g. 43.1-7) and Jerusalem's state of destruction and loss of population is understood in terms of widowhood and childlessness (e.g. 54.1-8). All of these are entailments of the metaphor 'YHWH is a Redeeming Kinsman' (7^13, go'el). In Isaiah 43 the metaphor of YHWH as the redeeming kinsman is expressed in some of the entailments of the 7^13, go'el when YHWH tells Israel, I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you ... 1 give humanity in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. (3b, 4b; translation mine).
One may say that the metaphor of the redeemer entails that YHWH gives something in exchange for Israel's freedom from bondage. The language of exchange highlights one aspect of the vfcVU, go'el, metaphor (the purchase of freedom for the debt slave) and downplays others (the blood avenger, the levirate husband). The
20
Mixing Metaphors
term 'entailment' can express how various aspects of the metaphor relate to one another, for example, that YHWH purchases his kin's freedom entails that Israel is a debt slave. When this project began the expectation was that the images of father and mother would function fairly consistently throughout Deutero-Isaiah. It was expected that a careful examination of these images would reveal a consistent set of characteristics or associations evoked by the father image and the mother image. What was revealed instead was the extent to which Deutero-Isaiah's many images are not only interwoven, but interact in such a way that a given image cannot be understood in isolation. Deutero-Isaiah's use of the imagery of father and mother for God resists reduction to a consistent set of traits. Rather, every literary unit highlights a unique set of associations for these images as the father or mother imagery interacts with other images for God and Israel.
Chapter 2 KINSHIP AND BIRTH IN DEUTERO-ISAIAH AND ANCIENT ISRAEL 1. Deutero-Isaiah and the Rhetoric of Family The use of parental imagery in Isaiah 40-55 stems from Deutero-Isaiah's general use of the language of family (kinship and birth), rather than from a controlling theological model of God as a parent. This study began as an attempt to identify such a controlling root metaphor, but a careful examination of the texts suggests that a different mechanism is at work in Deutero-Isaiah. The great diversity and particularity of each of the five texts examined suggests that while their imagery draws from a common semantic field (the commonplaces of birth and parenting), they are not derived from a single paradigm for God. We thus need to consider Deutero-Isaiah's use of the semantic field and themes of kinship and birth. Deutero-Isaiah's favorite or central themes are these: • There is no god but YHWH. • YHWH is incomparable. • YHWH is the creator of all things and thus the determiner of Israel's destiny. • Therefore, YHWH is able to save Israel, return the people home, and restore Jerusalem. Deutero-Isaiah utilizes favorite terminologies and figures of speech to express these ideas. Specifically, a small number of semantic fields or word families are interwoven throughout Isaiah 40-55. They include language about vegetation, language about water, legal language, and the language of creation and of the work of artisans. Most relevant for the present study is the use of the semantic field of kinship, that is, family relationships and child-bearing. Sometimes semantic fields and conceptual fields overlap almost completely, that is, there is a fairly direct correlation between the types of words used and the concepts expressed. In Deutero-Isaiah, this is true of creation language. Words such as !"!t£>U ('make'), K"Q ('create'), and "IIP ('shape') generally describe the actions of YHWH the creator. i"It£JU ('make') and "liT ('shape') are also used to describe the work of artisans to make, create, and shape idols for worship. But even the references to idol-makers point to the conceptual metaphor of YHWH as creator, for Deutero-Isaiah uses the figure of the artisan to make the point that YHWH is the creator, not the creation (while the idols, that is, the Babylonian gods, are creations—see Chapter 5). The semantic field of kinship or family relationships, however, functions quite
22
Mixing Metaphors
differently from the language of creation. Deutero-Isaiah uses these kinship terms to express a variety of concepts rather than one central concept. When creation terms are used of YHWH, we can clearly connect them to the concept of YHWH as the creator. However, when parental language is used of YHWH we cannot simply say, 'This means YHWH is a parent'. Nor can we simply translate the metaphor of YHWH as a parent to express a single concept such as covenant or 'YHWH is a protector'. The family language is used with great variety by Deutero-Isaiah, sometimes in reference to YHWH and oftentimes not. Rhetorical units or pericopes that make use of family language for God vary from one another. Even within a given unit more than one concept may be conveyed. Family language in DeuteroIsaiah can be broken down into several categories: offspring,1 child-bearing (feminine), begetting (masculine), marriage, and extended family. Offspring In using the language of offspring, Deutero-Isaiah often shows a preference for live metaphors for offspring. There is no use of the phrase 7N"li£T~^!3, bene—yisrael ('children of Israel'), which is so conventional elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible that it is essentially a dead metaphor. As a dead metaphor the phrase 7N")CT~'']D, bene—yisrael fails to evoke a parent-child relationship (just as names such as 'Johnson' are no longer evocative of the son relationship). Instead, Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the 'seed of Israel' —a livelier phrase which freshly evokes the idea of family connections and procreation. Similarly, in 41.8 Jacob/Israel is 'the offspring (seed) of Abraham', and in 45.25 Deutero-Isaiah says, 'In YHWH all the offspring (seed) of Israel shall triumph and glory'. While Deutero-Isaiah does not use the phrase 7K'~]££71~''!Q, bene—yisra'el, 43.6 speaks of the 'sons' and the 'daughters' of YHWH, and 49. 22 of the 'sons' and 'daughters' of Zion. The language of 'sons' and 'daughters' here is a live metaphor. Deutero-Isaiah also uses a rather rare word to speak of offspring —D^UiMJiJ. In 44. 3b, God says to Jacob, 'I will pour my spirit upon your descendants (seed) and my blessing on your offspring (DTiJUiJ)' and in 48.19, 'your offspring (seed) would have been like the sand, and your descendants (DTHUii of your loins) like its grains; their name would never be cut off. Child-bearing and Child-rearing The second area of kinship language is child-bearing and child-rearing. DeuteroIsaiah frequently utilizes the highly feminine language of childbearing, using such terms as 'woman in labor' (if T7T, yoledd), 'give birth' ("IT), 'womb' (two Hebrew words: ]CDH, and DO"!), and language of nursing. In 51.2, Sarah is she 'who bore you' (DDT?1 !"!£"!). A number of times Deutero-Isaiah refers to God's relationship to Jacob being 'from the womb' (]C33Q). Some examples are: Thus says YHWH who made you, who formed you in the womb . . . (44.2; also 44.24) 1.
'seed' (£HT), 'sons', 'daughters', 'child' O'T), 'descendants'(sadfsgkjlg
2. Kinship and Birth in Deutero-Isaiah and Ancient Israel
23
For I knew ... that from birth (from the womb) you were called a rebel. (48.8) YHWH called me from the womb, from the inner parts of my mother he announced my name. (49.1, translation mine)
Much maternal imagery in Deutero-Isaiah is related to the motherhood of Jerusalem, or Zion. The ruined city is depicted in Deutero-Isaiah's later chapters as the mother of her exiled people. She is a mother who has been abandoned and has lost her children. In ch. 49 Zion says, 'I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away—so who has reared these?' (49.21) This passage uses both the language of child-bearing and the language of child-rearing. Childless Zion will have an abundance of children; Jerusalem will have inhabitants. Begetting The third area of kinship language is begetting or fathering. Male parental terms used are 'beget' ("T7\ hi. 45.10) and 'seed'. In addition, 48.1 may speak of those 'who came forth from the loins (inner parts—D^UQ) of Judah' (a male figure). (This reading departs from the MT which reads 'waters'.) In 51.2 Abraham is called 'your father'. Marriage and Zion The fourth area of kinship language is marriage. The language of marriage appears primarily after 49.14 and is used exclusively to describe the relationship between YHWH and Jerusalem/Zion, and will thus be dealt with in Chapters 6 and 7. Zion is described as the wife of YHWH. Terms connected to the marriage relationship are: 'husband' (^IH, bad, 54.5), 'wife' (Tiefc, 54.6), 'widow' (TIDB^K, 47.8), 'widowhood' (fll^N, 54.4; JQ^K, 47.9), 'bride' (Tta, 49.18), and 'bill of divorce' (mrP"Q ISO, 50.1). The passage that most richly draws on the language of marriage is 54.1-8, in which Zion is addressed. Verses 4-6 read: 4
Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5 For your Maker is your husband (7IO, ba^al), YHWH of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, The God of the whole earth he is called. 6 For YHWH has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man's youth when she is cast off, says your God.
Extended Family The fifth and last category of kinship language is the redeeming kinsman. This language is expressed by the term 7&VU, go'el. The term 7N13, generally translated 'redeemer', is different from IT1271Q, 'savior' (also used by Deutero-Isaiah), in that ^fcVU is a kinship term referring to the male next-of-kin, whereas IT^JIQ has a
24
Mixing Metaphors
more general use, but seems to refer to one who responds to a cry for help in the face of injustice.2 Conclusion Deutero-Isaiah uses the language of kinship in diverse ways. This language often refers to YHWH, but also appears in reference to Israel and to Zion. By acknowledging that this type of terminology is generally characteristic of this author, we are cautioned against treating kinship terms for God in isolation, or considering this terminology as uniquely significant for God. The liveliness of this language throughout Isaiah 40-55 also serves as a reminder that such phrases as 'my children' to refer to Israel are not dead metaphors, but alive and evocative. These observations concerning Deutero-Isaiah's semantic field of kinship terms are merely an introduction for our investigation into Deutero-Isaiah's lively use of structuring metaphors of kinship. Before investigating specific texts, the most relevant commonplaces of kinship and childbirth must be examined. 2. The Associated Commonplaces of Kinship Black, in his theory of associated commonplaces, notes that metaphors are dependent on cultural stereotypes. One's ability to appreciate the metaphor depends on one's familiarity with the cultural associations. We are here concerned with the cultural assumptions, constructions, and stereotypes about kinship and, more specifically, parenthood. Deutero-Isaiah uses both father imagery and mother imagery for YHWH, as well as parental language that is not explicitly either paternal or maternal. (It is worthwhile to note that a gender-neutral term such as 'parent' is not available in Hebrew to speak of a father or mother.3) Three passages in Deutero-Isaiah draw on the commonplaces of childbirth and early infancy. In 42.9-17, YHWH cries out like a woman in labor. 45.9-13 makes reference to the begetting father and the woman in labor, which is followed by YHWH'S reference to 'my children', or 'my son' 0^3). 49.13-21 compares YHWH to the nursing mother of an infant, the child of her womb. The entailments of conception, labor, and early infancy paint an image of YHWH as a mother and, in 45.10, as a begetting father. Two texts describe YHWH in terms suggestive of the father of older children or adults: 43.1-7 and 50.1-3. An appreciation of the implicit network of associations of family relationships will enhance our reading of the text. Thus, what follows is an exploration of the network of associations of childbirth and parenting in the context of Israel and the ancient Near East. In the present study, non-Israelite ancient Near East literary sources are utilized to shed light on the commonplaces of parental imagery, as well as on the images 2. Tryggve Mettinger, In Search of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 166-67. 3. The masc. pi. iTON may refer to all of one's ancestors, both male and female (as it is rendered in some translations as 'ancestors'); however, this is not certain. The Assyrian Dictionary cites the term abi-ummi as a term for 'parents' (The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, I [Chicago: The Oriental Institute; Gliickstadt, Germany: J. J. Augustin Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964], s.v. 'abu\ pp. 68-76).
2. Kinship and Birth in Deutero-Isaiah and Ancient Israel
25
with which parental images interact. Thus, some comments are in order concerning how the non-biblical material is understood to be relevant. There is good reason to think that quite a few ancient Near East cultural characteristics were widespread. Israel shared certain religious traditions with its neighbors (e.g. the Divine Warrior; see Chapter 3). Israel also shared many legal and social traditions with its neighbors. Additionally, Israel and its neighbors shared certain literary forms (e.g. the city lament; see Chapter 6). Thus, gaps in information in the biblical material may be filled out (with some caution) using non-biblical sources. This approach is most helpful where the biblical text provides some hints at what is more explicit in the non-biblical material. Most of the non-biblical sources cited are understood in this context of a common cultural milieu. Some of the material in Deutero-Isaiah (especially the polemics against the Babylonian gods) suggests that the Judahites of Deutero-Isaiah's context were in close enough contact with Babylonian culture to be influenced by it. The author of Deutero-Isaiah certainly seems to be aware of some of the particulars of Babylonian religious practice. The exiles may well have become familiar with certain Babylonian traditions during the exile. What is not presupposed here is that the author of Deutero-Isaiah was specifically familiar with any of the particular Babylonian texts that will be cited below. What is suggested, rather, is a familiarity with the cultural traditions that those texts reveal. Associated Commonplaces of Childbirth Childbirth is an event that is experienced in every culture. There are certain objective realities about childbirth, that is, physical stages from conception to birth. But these universal experiences are overlaid with a cultural filter (e.g. is birth a simple and natural event, a medical emergency, or a magical occurrence?). Nancy Demand's observations in her work on childbirth in ancient Greece are applicable to a study of childbirth in Israel and the ancient Near East. She notes that Birth is a natural physiological process, but for human beings it is also a social event. Culture intervenes in countless ways to shape and structure the experience. We have a good illustration of this in our own society, where we have seen both the 'medicalization' of childbirth, with its emphasis on monitored and doctor-controlled delivery, and, in reaction, efforts to make the experience more 'natural', ranging from home birth attended by a midwife to hospital care in homelike birthing rooms with father-assisted delivery. Giving birth is not so much a 'natural' event as a 'cultural construction' ... As a consequence, the study of the way in which a particular society perceives and manages childbirth reveals fundamental aspects of its cultural and social values.4
4. Nancy Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 1. Katheryn Pfisterer Darr notes: 'there is a crucial distinction between recovering ancient Israelite society's stereotypical associations with women, and reconstructing the actual lives of Israelite women living at various periods in Israel and Judah's histories. Then, no less than now, one cannot simply equate widespread ideas about women and children with the realities of their lives' (Isaiah's Vision and the Family of God [Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994], p. 86).
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Mixing Metaphors
To appreciate better these texts in Deutero-Isaiah, a survey of the 'associated commonplaces' of birth is provided here. A more detailed examination will be given to those commonplaces that are most relevant for the five central texts of the present study. 1. Fertility and Childlessness. Fertility was always a major concern in Israel and in the ancient Near East. A man's son was the heir who insured the continuation of his 'house' in a patriarchal and patrilineal society. For a woman, having children, in particular sons, would enhance her status in the family and in society.5 In addition to her increase in social status, a son would also provide support for his mother in her widowhood and old age.6 The importance of motherhood and one concern about childlessness are highlighted in Deutero-Isaiah. Childlessness is the central issue in 49.13-21 (analyzed in Chapter 6). In Deutero-Isaiah, Zion is one who has been bereaved of children (49.20 and 51.18-20), and she is the 'barren one' (54.1). She is given the promise of children (49.13-26 and 54.1-14). Given the above benefits of having children, childlessness was clearly a great misfortune: not simply pragmatic, but a misfortune to which society assigned great shame, to both men and women. Shame in childlessness is attested in Ps. 127.5, 'Happy is the man who has his quiver full [of sons/children]. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate'. In Babylon a man with no heir was called a man 'whose hearth is extinguished'.7 This imagery is applied to the mother in 2 Sam. 14.7, where the wise woman of Tekoa pleads on behalf of 'her' son who murdered his brother: 'Thus they would quench my one remaining ember, and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth'. For a woman, infertility was a source of shame and reproach.8 Infertility was often thought to be the will of the deity. The Hebrew Bible explicitly attributes fertility and barrenness to God (Gen. 29.31). When a woman conceives, it is because God 'remembers' or 'hears' her.9 Likewise it is God who 'closes the womb'(Gen. 16.2; 20.17-18; 30.2b; 1 Sam. 1.5).10 The Hebrew Bible's narratives portray women characters' responses to infertility as a reaction of great distress. 5. Darr, Isaiah's Vision, 98. See also Phyllis A. Bird, ABD, VI (1992), s.v. 'Women: Old Testament', pp. 951 -57 (952); Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), p. 39; and Karel van der Toorn, From Her Cradle to Her Grave: The Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian Woman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 92. 6. Leo G. Perdue, 'The Israelite and Early Jewish Family', in Leo G. Purdue et al., Families in Ancient Israel (The Family, Religion and Culture; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997), pp. 163-222(189-90). 7. Dating from the Old Babylonian Period; see J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 83. 8. nsnn—Gen. 30.23; see also Isa. 4.1; 43.4. 9. For 'remember' in connection with pregnancy: 'YHWH remembered her' (1 Sam. 1.19); Then God remembered Rachel and God heeded her and opened her womb' (Gen. 30.22); 'And YHWH took note OpS) of Hannah' (1 Sam. 2.21). 10. In Gen. 16.2, Saraisays, 'YHWH has prevented me from bearing children'. 1 Sam. 1.5 says of Hannah, 'YHWH had closed her womb'.
2. Kinship and Birth in Deutero-Isaiah and Ancient Israel
27
Hannah's response to her childlessness is 'great anxiety and vexation' (1 Sam. 1.16) and she is 'deeply troubled' (1.15). Elkanah's other wife, Peninnah, would 'provoke her severely, to irritate her, because YHWH had closed her womb' (1 Sam. 1.6). In Gen. 29.32-33 Leah speaks of her former childlessness as 'affliction' and adds, 'Because YHWH has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also'. When Rachel becomes a mother she says, 'God has taken away my reproach' (Gen. 30.23). In the ancient Near East a woman's childlessness was grounds for divorce.11 In the ancient Near East, infertility is invoked as a covenant curse: May Belet-ili, the Lady of all creatures, put an end to birth giving in your land, so that the nurses among you shall miss the cry of babies in the streets.12
Hosea may be invoking an infertility curse in a covenant context in Hos. 9.11: 'Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception'. Childlessness could result from a tragic loss of children later in life, as well as from infertility. Zech. 12.10 utilizes this image: 'They shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn'. Isaac faces the loss of his two grown sons (Gen. 27.45), and Jacob of some of his grown sons (Gen. 42.36 and 43.14). Hosea curses Ephraim's fertility, adding 'Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until no one is left'. (Hos. 9.12). Samuel expresses a double-edged curse when he says to Agag, 'As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless among women' (1 Sam. 15.33). (Samuel then proceeds to hack Agag into pieces.) Isa. 47.9 describes Babylon as a woman who experiences both the loss of her children and widowhood. 2. Labor. The standard term for giving birth is \ ) ^ , yld, in the qal form. This root appears in two texts of the present study: Isa. 42.14 (qal) and 45.10 (hi.). The qal form most commonly refers to a woman or female animal giving birth, but is also used to refer to a man begetting.!3 The male begetting may also be expressed by the same root in the hiphil form, which can be interpreted to mean 'cause to give birth'. Only the hiphil form appears in Deutero-Isaiah for the male image (Isa. 45.10).14 11. De Vaux, Ancient Israel, 24, citing CH #138; Jean Bottero, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 186, citing CH #144 and #170. CH #138 states: 'If a seignior wishes to divorce his wife who did not bear him children, he shall give her money to the full amount of her marriage-price and he shall also make good to her the dowry which she brought from her father's house and then he may divorce her' (James B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, I [trans. Theophile J. Meek; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958], p. 153). 12. 'The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon',1.437, trans. Albrecht Goetze, in Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East, I, 63). 13. Prov. 23.22: 'your father who begot you', followed shortly by v. 25, 'her who bore you'. The qal form to refer to a male begetting is most common in Genesis, e.g. Gen. 4.18; 10.8, 13,15, 24, 26; 22.23. 14. Isa. 49.21 is ambiguous as to whether the qal form refers to a male or a female. The hiphil
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When applied to a woman, the verb \)* ,yld, functions in two ways. On the one hand, it refers to actual labor and giving birth.15 On the other hand, it has a very general meaning of 'having a baby' or 'having children', thus referring to the whole experience, for example, in the formula 'she conceived and bore a son', which only implicitly refers to labor.16 Thus the term \)*,yld, sometimes refers specifically to labor, but not always (see Isa. 49.21).17 The term nTTT, yoledd ('she who is giving birth'), is used in one of this study's targeted texts: 42.14 (fern, qal ptc.). This participle means 'one (fern, sing.) who gives birth'. Another word that is used for giving birth is 7 n H, hyl. This is the term used to describe labor in Isa. 45.10 where (as elsewhere) it is used parallel to a masculine use of TT, yld. The term is used in two ways. First, it may mean 'be in labor', including the whole process of labor. As A. Baumann notes, 'The Hebrew word is in fact a comprehensive term for everything from the initial contractions to the birth itself.18 Second, 7"1!"!, hyl, may have a more figurative meaning of 'Fear or trembling, usually as a reaction to a distressing situation'. This is a figurative use 'in situations of anxiety or fear'.19 It is a metaphorical allusion to childbirth. Many texts that have this meaning explicitly connect it to childbirth, for example, 'tremble like a woman in labor'. Other texts combine this term with other terms that are also part of the semantic field of birthing, although not limited to that field (e.g. pTPf [hi. 'take hold'], THN [qal 'seize']). In yet other texts, the metaphorical sense is lost. If it is, indeed, a metaphor, at times it is a dead metaphor (as in Deut. 2.25; Exod. 15.14; Ps. 29.8-9; 96.9; 97.4; Job 26.5; Jer. 5.3, 22; 1 Chron. 16.30, etc.). In describing a situation of dismay, Baumann says, The physical effects are described: the loins are filled with chil (Isa. 21:3; cr. Nah. 2:11 [10]), the knees tremble (Nah. 2:11 [10]), the hands fall helpless (Jer. 6:24; Mic. 4:9), faces pale (Joel 2:6; Nah. 2:11[10]; cr. Isa. 13:8), groans (Jer. 4:31; 22:23; Mic. 4:10) and cries (Isa. 26:17; Jer. 4:3) are heard. These details give us a clear picture of what is meant by chil—involuntary and uncontrolled spasmodic movement, to which the body is surrendered, accompanied by a sense of weakness and heat. The symptoms described are almost exclusively external. At the same
is preferred to the qal in the genealogies of Chronicles. 15. Gen. 30.3; 35.15-16; 38.27; Exod. 1.19; Lev. 12.2; 1 Sam. 4.19; 1 Kgs 3.17-18; 19.3; Isa. 30.14; 26.17-18; 27.3; 66.7-8; Jer. 20.14; Mic. 5.2. Carol Meyers notes that when used in reference to giving birth the verb is intransitive (Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988], p. 106). 16. Just as today a woman might indicate that she's pregnant by saying 'I'm having a baby' or even 'We're having a baby', referring to the whole process; or she might be said to be at the hospital because 'she's having the baby', meaning that she is actually giving birth. For this sense, see Gen. 4.1, 17; 21.22-25; 30.5-7, 17-19,23; 38.2-5; Exod. 2.2; Judg. 13.5-7; 1 Sam. 2.21; 2 Kgs 4.17; 1 Chron. 7.23; Isa. 7.14; 8.3; Hos. 1.3, 6, 8. Meyers notes that the verb is transitive when 'it refers to the status of parenthood' (Eve, p. 106). 17. Meyers, Eve, p. 106. 18. A. Baumann, '"TIT, TDOT, IV, pp. 344-47 (345). 19. Baumann, ''TIT, p. 345.
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time, however, it is clear that the verb refers also to the inward state of the person in question: a state of trembling, panic, fear.20
When used in reference to God, the root 7Tf, hyl, usually alludes to the first meaning ('be in labor') rather than the second ('fear' or 'trembling').21 Thus, in Prov. 8.22-25, Wisdom speaks, 22
YHWH created me ... When there were no depths I was brought forth (Tl77in, from hyl), when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth (TITTin)... 24
God gives birth to creation in Ps. 90.2: Before the mountains were brought forth ("P"', yld), or ever you had formed (gave birth to—7/llim, polal, from hyl) the earth and the world ...
In Deut. 32.18, God gives birth to Israel: You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you ("P"1, yld) (or that begot you); you forgot the God (El) who gave you birth (~[7 vFIQ from hyl)?'2
Another use of this term in connection to God's activity is in Isa. 45.10, which will be discussed in Chapter 5. In Isa. 42.14, YHWH is said to cry out like one giving birth. The culture's network of associated commonplaces related to labor is thus associated with YHWH. Childbirth is almost always quite painful, even in the best of situations. Darr notes, 'Even normal deliveries were often preceded by lengthy, excruciating labor'.23 Because of the mortality rates of women of childbearing age, the life expectancy of women was around 30, while for men it was around 40.24 Acknowledgment of the danger is found in the culturally specific rhetoric of birth, as will be explored further in Chapter 3. Associated Commonplaces of the Father of the Family 1. Authority. The authority of the father is especially relevant in Isa. 50.1-3 (see Chapter 7). The father had authority over the rest of the household and family. He 20. Baumann, '7TT, p. 346. 21. Julia A. Foster identifies four texts in which this root refers to God's activity ('The Motherhood of God: The Use of hyl as God-language in the Hebrew Scriptures', in Lewis M. Hopfe (ed.), Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory ofH. Neil Richardson [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994], pp. 93-102). 22. Foster notes, 'This passage is the only one of the four examined that juxtaposes divine names and birth-words' (Foster, 'The use of hyl', p. 100). 23. Darr, Isaiah's Vision, p. 98. 24. Meyers, Eve, pp. 112-13. Darr describes the dangers: 'Many pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. Maternal death was an all too frequent consequence of conception (e.g. Gen. 35.16-19). Severe hemorrhaging took many women's lives; a breech birth, or some other complication, could result in the deaths of both child and mother' (Isaiah's Vision, p. 98).
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had authority over his daughters until they married (into another household) and over his sons into adulthood. A husband was the vlD, baal, master, of his wife.25 His authority included the power and responsibility to arrange for the marriages of his children, to punish disobedience in his children,26 to sell his children into slavery, to divorce his wife, to adopt as his heir a relative or someone from outside the family, and to legitimize or not to legitimize his children by a slave woman. Joseph Blenkinsopp notes, 'Great emphasis is placed on control, hierarchy, subordination to authority'.27 2. Naming. Children were often named by their fathers (Gen. 16.15; 17.19; Exod. 2.22), but also frequently by their mothers (see below). In addition to this given name, individuals were identified by their fathers' names.28 The common formula is 'PN, son of PN2'. (A woman was likewise identified as the daughter of her father until she was married and was then identified as 'PN! wife of PN2'.) 3. Protector and Provider. The importance of the father's (and husband's) role as protector and provider is clearest in its absence. The lot of the 'widow and orphan' is the lot of those with no means of economic support and no one to protect their interests in society.29 This explains Zion's lot in Isaiah 49-54. Women did make a substantial contribution to the household economy, but their ability to produce depended upon a father of the house to provide the household structure and the property that supported the family. Because of the lack of power of women and children in society and the inability of widows to inherit, they depended very much on the father of the house to provide the structure of support. When a young woman was left without a husband or a son to provide for her, the institution of levirate marriage provided her a place in a DN~STD ('father's house'), and the hope for a son to support her into her old age. 4. Inheritance (rnn3). The family inheritance, that is, land, was of utmost importance in the varied responsibilities of the family's father. Carol Meyers states: 25. Carol Meyers emphasizes the 'considerable level of authority' of both father and mother, even over adult children ('The Family in Early Israel', in Perdue et al, Families in Ancient Israel, pp. 1 -47 [31]). She notes that: 'The subordination of adult children to older adults is nearly always problematic; norms of respect for elders and even customary legal structures favoring the parents are not always able to contain intergenerational tensions or even outright hostility' (35). 26. Although the authority of the father to punish his son had some legal limits. See Deut. 21.18-21. 27. Joseph Blenkinsopp, 'The Family in First Temple Israel', in Perdue et al, Families in Ancient Israel, pp. 48-103 (83). Leo G. Perdue notes the following areas of authority 'of the senior male': 'assigning economic roles to family members, deciding on the male heir... judging family disputes ... arranging marriages ... handling the sale of children when the household was not economically viable, and having, at least for a time, the power of life and death over children and other household members judged in violation of certain laws' ('Jewish Family', p. 169). 28. Dana M. Pike, HBD (1985) s.v. 'Names', pp. 682-84 (683). 29. 2 Kgs 4.1; Ps. 94.6; Isa. 10.2; Mai. 3.5. Care for the widow and orphan is commanded throughout Deuteronomy, e.g. 14.29. See also Exod. 22.21; Isa. 1.17,23; Jer. 7.6; 22.3; Zech. 7.10.
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Land, like labor, was a major feature of an Israelite family household. That the family's immovable or real property (land as well as whatever is more or less permanently built on it) is the sine qua non for the livelihood and survival of an agrarian family need hardly be mentioned. Yet the specific identification of each family household with its inherited domain (na 'alah, 'patrimony' or 'inheritance') was exceptionally strong; family land was to be held in perpetuity.30
The land was the basis for the family's survival. Alienation of the land from the family would be a disaster. Leo Perdue states the importance of the family land thus: Without land, it was impossible for the family as a social entity to exist, and the loss of land made it impossible for most households to survive intact. Insolvency, resulting eventually in the selling of land, usually led to the dissolution of the household. Without land, families fragmented and members dispersed .. .31
This observation is especially noteworthy in view of the historical setting of Deutero-Isaiah—the Babylonian exile. The exile to Babylon was a radical and complete loss of land. The loss of a homeland was a loss to the people's identity. Such a massive alienation from the land, not just national land but family land, would have created a crisis of kinship identity. It was the father's responsibility to maintain the family inheritance for the benefit of the next generation and future generations. Blenkinsopp notes the numerous threats to this inheritance: drought, high interest rates, and debts leading to debt slavery. These concerns were the father's responsibilities: It seems.. .that the head of the household held title to the patrimonial plot in the name of the entire kinship group and was responsible for passing it on intact to the next generation. This would not always have been easy.32
In the ancient Near East, inheritance is one of the primary commonplaces of the relationship between father and son. The primary concern of inheritance is the land, which was the household's economic foundation. Perdue argues: It is important to note that, theologically understood, the land is given [by YHWH] not to Israel's and Judah's kings or even to their temples and priests but rather to the children of Israel in general, and in particular to their households from the very beginning of the nation.33
Thus, Israel's concept of the land as an inheritance suggests a father-son relationship. In Isa. 43.1-7, YHWH calls for a return of his 'sons' and 'daughters' to the homeland. Thus YHWH acts as a responsible father to reverse the alienation of the inheritance that Israel has experienced (see Chapter 4). 5. The Father as Redeemer. The first-born was to be 'given' to God, whether a first-born animal or first-born child. However, the first-born child was to be 30. 31. 32. 33.
Meyers, 'The Family', p. 19. Perdue, 'Jewish Family', p. 169. Blenkinsopp, 'First Temple', p. 55. Perdue, 'Jewish Family', p. 237.
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redeemed (T7~[S,/?<s%) by substituting an animal sacrifice (see Exod. 13.11-16), presumably offered by the father. The sons were, nevertheless, dedicated to YHWH after a fashion in the practice of circumcision, which was also performed by the father.34 6. The Father and Debt Slavery. Economic disparities between households and classes grew in Israel during the time of the monarchy.35 When the family was in dire financial straits, the father had the power to sell his children as debt slaves (Neh. 5.1-5). He could sell his daughter as a concubine (Exod. 21.7). Gregory Chirichigno describes how farmers would lose their land via loans, which often had high interest rates. This would result in the necessity of selling one's dependents: if their crop(s) failed or was below expectation, then the debtors would be hardpressed to pay back the loan. Therefore, many of these small landowners were likely to become insolvent, since they were able to engage only in subsistence farming. As a result of their insolvency farmers were forced to sell or surrender dependents into debt-slavery. Furthermore, they would eventually be forced to sell their land (means of production), themselves and their families. Although kinship groups attempted to prevent the sale of land by offering political or economic support, it is clear that such groups could not always prevent the sale of land on account of insolvency.. .in many cases debtors were unlikely to be able to redeem their dependents.36
The ability to sell his children ironically highlights both a father's power and his powerlessness. While he had the power to decide to sacrifice a child for the good of the rest of the family, the occasion for this would have been his inability to pay his debts. 3. Father and Mother as Metaphors Ancestors The terms 'father' and 'mother' were used to describe relationships other than literal fatherhood and motherhood. Closely linked to the literal meaning is the use of the term or concept 'father' to refer to one's ancestors. In this sense the Israelites are the 7N""lfer~N3, gd^al, and its noun form (!"T71fcW, 'redemption') are used to describe the redemption of the debt slave and of the family land.26 The laws regarding the debt slaves are in w. 39-55. Verses 39-46 deal with a situation in which someone must sell himself and, apparently, his children, to his own relative. In this circumstance, the relative who buys his own kin must treat him as a hired or bound laborer rather than as a slave, although the slave is still under the authority of purchaser until the jubilee. The 26. The dating of Leviticus 25, and the identification of its various layers, is a source of debate. It may be post-exilic. However, Norman Gottwald argues, 'Apart, perhaps, from the extremely questionable provision for release of debt in the year of Jubilee, the laws on the go'el in the Holiness Code of Leviticus seem to reflect old conditions' (The Tribes ofYahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979], p. 264). Thus, Leviticus 25 can provide sociological background for ancient customs concerning the duties of a family member to act on behalf of another family member and on behalf of the family concerning land ownership. While the particulars of the 50th-year jubilee may well be post-exilic, the language of the redemption of kin would have likely been familiar at the time of the exile. (The proclamation of liberty and return to ancestral lands after 49 years in Lev. 25.10 does seem to be a post-exilic allusion to, or reflection on, the exile, which, if one dates it from the destruction of Jerusalem to the edict of Cyrus, is 49 years.)
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assumption seems to be that the kinsman is doing the debt slave a service by sparing him from becoming enslaved to an outsider or alien, and by treating him as a free man. Note the connection again to the exodus from Egypt. The law adds in v. 42 (YHWH's voice), 'For they are my servants [or 'slaves'], whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold'. Leviticus 25.47-55 deals with a situation in which a man has sold himself to an alien. Verses 48-49 say: after they have sold themselves they shall have the right of redemption; one of their brothers may redeem (7fcW, ga'al) them, or their uncle or their uncle's son may redeem them, or anyone of their family who is of their ownflesh may redeem them; or if they prosper they may redeem themselves.
There is no mention in Leviticus 25 of the father's right of redemption. Is the father ever the redeeming kinsman? Leviticus 25 suggests that he is not.27 What explains this absence? Three possible situations may apply. Perhaps the father is deceased (see 2 Kgs 4.1-2) or has no means. (A father with means would presumably have prevented the sale of his son for debts in the first place.) Or perhaps the father has means, but desires that the son be sold into slavery, for example as a punishment for failing to honor his father as required by law (maybe it was the father who sold the son)—but it is doubtful that in such a case a kinsman would redeem him. Were the Israelites slaves in Babylon? Muhammad Dandamaev argues that most of the exiles were probably not given actual slave status: Apparently ,.. not all persons taken to Babylonia were turned into slaves ... In 597 and 587 BC, about twelve thousand persons, not counting women and children, were deported from Jerusalem and sent to Babylonia. Among these prisoners were no less than a thousand craftsmen and seven thousand soldiers [2 Kings 24.14-16]... They cannot... be classified as slaves, and legally they were not considered to be such.28
Dandamaev cites the Assyrian exile of 27,000 Israelites in 722 BCE under Sargon II as a scenario for the status of the exiles in Babylon: Some of Ashurbanipal's prisoners of war were distributed among various Assyrian cities or included in the palace economy, but to most he allotted land to work independently, obliging them to pay the treasury a certain share of the harvest.29
The Assyrian precedent seems the most likely situation for many of the exiles in Babylon. Dandamaev argues that most agricultural work was done in Babylon by free laborers rather than by slaves, because of the difficulty of overseeing their work and the great frequency of escape in such situations. It was not practical for slaves to be used as field workers when free labor was cheap and tenant farming
27. Isaiah 63.16 (Trito-Isaiah), however, juxtaposes 'father' and 'redeemer': 'you, O YHWH, are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name'. 28. Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia: From Nabopolassar to Alexander the Great (626-331 BC) (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984), p. 563. 29. Dandamaev, Slavery, p. 564, n. 7.
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produced better results for the landowners.30 Gottwald envisions 'compact groups settled on deserted agricultural sites in Babylonia' which he calls 'detention camps'.31 Thus, many of the Judahites may have been tenant farmers. Many other exiles were likely put to work as wage laborers for state building projects. This does not exclude the possibility that some Judahites were made temple or royal slaves, especially if they had special skills as artisans that could be put to use. Gottwald speculates that over time 'a fair number may have been enlisted in NeoBabylonian governmental service'.32 Jon Berquist argues that the exiles were relocated in two major groups, the agricultural communities reflected in Ezekiel and those relocated in the city of Babylon. Berquist sees the exilic community reflected in Deutero-Isaiah as those relocated in the city of Babylon, and possibly working for the Babylonian temple itself.33 While the actual conditions and status of the exiles cannot be determined with any certainty, what can be determined to some extent is how they spoke of their own status. What paradigms were used to express their perception of their own situation? Jeremiah's metaphor of the good figs (ch. 24) and Ezekiel's image of the remnant with a new heart (11.14-25) are not picked up by Deutero-Isaiah. Rather, Deutero-Isaiah employs a 'prison' paradigm (42.6-7,22; 49.9; 43.14)34 along with the images of 'blindness', 'darkness', and 'deafness'.35 But most dominant in Deutero-Isaiah is the 'servant/slave' paradigm. While the term "QI7 ('servant/ slave') is quite broad in its sense, Deutero-Isaiah calls Israel YHWH'S "TDI7 ('servant/slave') and repeatedly states that YHWH is Israel's vKU, go'el, showing that since Israel is YHWH'S servant Israel is thus, implicitly, not to be Babylon's slave. Redemption of the Land Leviticus 25 also deals with the redemption of the land in the year of jubilee. Verse 25 stipulates, 'If anyone of your kin falls into difficulty and sells a piece of property, then the next of kin shall come and redeem what the relative has sold'. This land does not necessarily go to the original owner, but is kept in the family. This practice was known in the pre-exilic period, as indicated by Jeremiah 32. In 30. Dandamaev, Slavery, p. 564. 31. Norman Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 425-26. 32. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible, p. 426. 33. Jon Berquist, Judaism in Persia's Shadow: A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), p. 16. 34. This image is primarily metaphorical, since Babylon would hardly have housed thousands of Judahite prisoners of war in prisons (although 2 Kings reports that King Jehoiachin was placed in 'prison' when taken into exile and Jeremiah 52 reports that King Zedekiah was put in prison until his death [52.11]). 35. See Daniel L. Smith, Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone Books, 1989), pp. 171 -74. Smith observes, 'It is interesting to note that in Isa. 49.9 and Ps. 146.7c-8a, the combination of release from prison, with "opening eyes" or "sight to the blind" is common (cf. Zech. 9.12)' (171). He adds, 'The experience of exile was compared to prison, and liberation was seen as release from that prison, "opening the eyes of the imprisoned" ', (174).
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Ruth 4, the nearest relative of Ruth's dead husband is given the first opportunity to buy the field of his dead kinsman (Ruth 4.1-6). Other references to land redemption are found in Hos. 13.14, Mic. 4.10, and Ezek. 11.15. It should be noted that debt slavery and loss of land are closely related. Gregory Chirichigno observes, 'free citizens could easily become semifree citizens if they lost their means of production (e.g. their land)'.36 Without land, a peasant was destined to become a debt slave. YHWH'S role as redeemer of the land is not explicit in Deutero-Isaiah. It is, however, implicit, first of all, in YHWH'S promises to return the people to the land in chs. 40-46, although the return emphasizes such things as the 'gathering' of the people, with little reference to the destination (43.6; 44.26,28; 45.13). Second, it is implicit in YHWH's role as Zion's redeemer, Zion representing both the people and a geographical area to which the people shall return (49.16-23; 54.1-3). Advocacy on Behalf of One's Kin in the Courts This function of the redeemer appears in Prov. 23.10-11: 'Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of orphans, for their redeemer (7K"U, go'el) is strong; he "willplead their cause against you'. In Ps. 119.154, Lam. 3.58, and Jer. 50.33-34, YHWH is clearly the TW3, go'el, who will plead the case of the oppressed: Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise. (Ps. 119.154) You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life ... (Lam. 3.58) Thus says YHWH of hosts: 'The people of Israel are oppressed, and so too are the people of Judah; all their captors have held them fast and refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer (/^13, go'e/) is strong; YHWH of hosts is his name. He will surely plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, but unrest to the inhabitants of Babylon. (Jer. 50.33-34)
In Deutero-Isaiah, there are also several examples of YHWH acting to defend Israel or Zion against accusers and oppressors: 41.11-14; 49.25-26; 50.7-9; and 51.22. Isa. 49.25-26 is the most explicit expression in Deutero-Isaiah of this advocacy function of the vK"U, go'el: But thus says YHWH.. .1 will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children... Then all flesh shall know that I am YHWH your Savior, and your Redeemer (TW3, go"el), the Mighty One of Jacob. (49.25-26)
Isa. 43.1-7 has echoes of advocacy as well. The references to water and fire in v. 2 arguably have implications of the judicial ordeal. Thus Israel is the accused whom YHWH acquits as their advocate (7N13, go'el), and as the one who brings them successfully through the ordeal, thus proclaiming them not guilty.
36. Gregory Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSS; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p. 50.
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Honor A 7^13, go'el, is one who acts to ensure or restore family honor. Honor is the value or esteem of individuals or a group in the eyes of the larger society (other individuals and groups), according to the commonly accepted values of what is honored in society. Shame is the loss of honor in the eyes of society.37 As a culture in which identity was more corporate than individual, honor and shame in ancient Israel were social experiences of the group—family, clan, tribe, or nation. The 7N13, go"el, was a family member who acted in various roles to ensure that the honor of the family was maintained, or restored when diminished. This often involved restoring or defending the honor of individuals in the group, through actions as varied as redeeming the debt slave, providing children for a man who died childless (levirate marriage), or avenging a murder. Bruce Malina writes: Throughout the Bible, concern with 'redemption' is always about restoring and maintaining the honor of a family. Acts of redemption are rooted in a society concerned with honor, with the restoration of lost honor and the maintenance of regained honor ... the family member who restores the honor of the family head or of the family in general is called a 'redeemer' (Hebrew, go W).38
Throughout Deutero-Isaiah concerns about honor and shame are expressed. YHWH will put to shame Israel's enemies and their gods. Zion is portrayed as a woman shamed by loss of husband (e.g. 49.14; 50.1; 54.4, 8) and childlessness (e.g. 49.2; 51.18; 54.1). YHWH, her 7^13, go'el, must reverse her shame (49.26; 52.9; 54.5-8). The Servant of YHWH is one who has been put to shame (50.6-7; 53.2-4). In Isaiah 43.1-7 YHWH tells Israel 'y°u are honored' (v. 4—the center of the concentric structure). As Israel's kinsman and father, the restoration of honor to Israel is also for the honor of YHWH. YHWH must redeem Israel for his own name's sake (for his own honor; see 43:25; 48.10-11). Conclusion The redeemer of the slave is the most crucial meaning of the term ;>N13, go'el, in Deutero-Isaiah. Israel is enslaved by Babylon. In Isa. 43.1 YHWH proclaims 'I have redeemed you'. In 43.1-7, YHWH'S role as vN13, go'el, means that Israel is YHWH's kin (more specifically shown to be YHWH'S sons and daughters in v. 6). These sons and daughters are enslaved by Babylon. YHWH redeems Israel by 37. This definition draws on that of Julian Pitt-Rivers who defines honor as 'the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his society', ('Honour and Social Status', in J. G. Peristiany [ed.], Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966], pp. 19-77 [21]. Biblical scholars' attention to the categories of honor and shame in biblical studies owes much to Bruce Malina, especially his book The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981). For use of the categories of honor and shame in Hebrew Bible studies see Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin (eds.), Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible (Semeia 68; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 1996). 38. Bruce J. Malina, Windows on the World of Jesus (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), p. 6.
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ransoming it. In w. 3-4 YHWH says, 'I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you ... I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life'. YHWH acts as redeemer in restoring honor to Israel. Verse 4 proclaims 'you are precious in my sight, and honored'. These entailments of redemption thus expand on YHWH'S statement in 43.1, 'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you'. 3. Exposition of Isaiah 43.1-7 The Image of YHWH as Creator (w. 1, 7) (A,; A 2 ) Verses 1 and 7 frame the unit with creator language: who created you ... who shaped you ... (v. 1). whom I created, whom I shaped, whom indeed I made. (v. 7)
YHWH as creator is one of Deutero-Isaiah's structuring metaphors. This unit uses all three verbs that run through Deutero-Isaiah: N"Q ('create'); HtDl} ('make'); and ~liT ('shape'). The verb iVQ ('create') is especially characteristic of DeuteroIsaiah. In the Hebrew Bible this verb has only YHWH as the subject. The verb "liT ('shape') metaphorically depicts YHWH'S creative work as that of an artisan, although in ch. 43 the connection is not as explicit as elsewhere in Deutero-Isaiah (see Chapter 5). The use of creation language is explicitly connected to the language of naming in v. 7. There is a shift from v. 1 to v. 7. The shift is from the third person and participle forms in v. la, to YHWH speaking in the first person active form in v. 7. The grammatical shift to the first person active makes v. 7 a rhetorically stronger statement of YHWH'S relationship to Israel as its creator. It is further intensified by the addition of a third term, H&U ('make'). The addition of another verb along with the intensifier *}& strengthens and intensifies the characterization of YHWH as Jacob's creator. The overlap of the creator image and the parent image will be explored more fully in Chapter 5. (See also Deut. 32.6; Isa. 64.8.) 'Do not fear' (w. Iba, 5 a) (Xl5 X2) Do not fear, for I have redeemed (7tW, ga'al) you ... (v. Iba) Do not fear, for I am with you ... (v. 5a).
YHWH'S speech begins with the words 'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you'.39 Verses 3-4 spell out the entailments of the kinsman who is buying his relative out of debt slavery and, perhaps, redeeming the family land. The language of'redeem' is expanded on in the concepts of ransom or exchange in vv. 3-4. Of the possible functions of the ^tVU, go'el, those that are highlighted here are the redemption of the debt slave, restoration of honor (w. 4, 7) and, implicitly, through the ingathering of the exiles, the restoration of the land inheritance.
39. 43.1-7 departs from Deutero-Isaiah's usual practice of using the participle vN13, go"el. Instead, the qal perfect verb 7N3, ga^al, is used.
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Verse 5 begins, as does v. Ib, with the words 'Do not fear'. While this phrase in v. 1 is followed by the phrase 'for I have redeemed you', here it is followed by the phrase 'for I am with you', identical to 2aa (but prefixed by 3). There is no equivalent to the verb viW, ga'al (in v. 1) in v. 5a. The mirroring concept in the concentric structure is that YHWH is the father of his 'sons' and 'daughters' (v. 6). The kinship ties are intensified from the general next of kin, the 7813, go 'el, to the closer and more particular relationship, the father. The repetition of'Do not fear' in 5a introduces the whole second half of the unit with its father imagery. Verse 5a marks the transition from redemption language to parent-child language. Thus 'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you' (v. 1) introduces the section that uses ransom and exchange language. 'Do not fear, for I am with you' (v. 5) introduces the parent-child imagery. The Metaphor of Name: Identity and Relationship (vv. 1, 7) (Bi, B2) I have called you40 by your name, you41 are mine. (v. 1) .. .everyone who is called by my name ... (v. 7).
In 43.1, YHWH calls Jacob by Jacob's name, but note that in the mirroring passage (v. 7), YHWH refers to the Israelites as those 'who are called by my name'. The phrase in v. 1, 'I have called you by your name', is not a familial or kinship phrase per se. (The formula for a parent naming a child is 'I have called his/your name PN', without prepositions.42) The form here is 'to call PN by name' or 'to call PN by his name' and indicates familiarity (and recognition)—that YHWH knows Jacob by name. It is also connected to YHWH's status as creator. (See 40.26 for a similar form: he calls all of them by name.)43 The mirroring verse (v. 7) alters the form. Jacob is called by 'my' (YHWH's) name. The form is of someone (or something) being called by someone else's name, for example, 'O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel' (Isa. 48.1), where this form is related to parental 40. The second person masc. sing, suffix ('you') is not in the MT but is found in some versions. 41. The second person is masc. sing, throughout this unit. 42. The typical formula used in the Hebrew Bible by a parent in naming a child is 'PNj (parent) called the name of the child PN2', for example, 'She called his name Ben Oni' (Gen. 35.18). This is often followed by an explanation of the meaning of the name. This formula appears many times in Genesis as well as in Hosea 1. While there is some disagreement as to whether naming was a maternal or a paternal role, biblical examples themselves seem to support the primacy of the mother in naming. This form is also used with YHWH as the naming subject. In Gen. 5.2 YHWH calls 'their' name adam. See also Jer. 11.16: 'YHWH called your [Judah's] name, "A green olive tree" '. This formula also appears in connection with royal naming: Jer. 23.5-6; Isa. 9.6. 43. These formulae are used of Cyrus in 45.3: 'I called your name'. Cyrus is addressed: 'that you will know that it is I, YHWH, who call [you] by your name'. The next verse uses a similar formula: 'I call you by your name, I title you, though you do not know me'. See also Isa. 41.25, variant b in BHS, in which YHWH addresses Cyrus. Compare Exod. 31.2 and 35.20: 'I have called Bizalel by name'. This represents the calling of the temple artisan, Bizalel—the only one of the cult personnel to be 'called by name'. This form also appears in Est. 2.14, in which the girls of the harem had to be summoned by the king, 'called by name'. Cities are also called by name in Josh. 21.9. Related to this is the phrase that appears in Exod. 33.12 and 17, in which YHWH says to Moses, 'I have known you by name', and 'I know you by name'.
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language, adding (following an emended text) 'who came forth from the loins of Judah'. Isa. 44.5 speaks of the person 'who is called by the name of Jacob'.44 In Isa. 41.25 Cyrus (it seems) is 'called by my name' (although the MT is pointed 'who calls upon my name'). The move from 'your name' to 'my name' rhetorically intensifies the relationship between YHWH and Jacob. To be 'called by YHWH'S name' is, conventionally, to belong to YHWH in the sense of being a worshiper, that is, servant, of YHWH. However, the phrase 'called by my name' interacts with the language of the parent-child relationship in the preceding verse. Children are identified by their father's name.45 In 43.1-7 the SpIT"^ ('sons of Jacob') become the miT^n. ('sons of YHWH'). YHWH becomes the redeeming father, conveying a closer bond, and honor as well. Passage or Movement (vv. 2, 5-6) (Q, C2) When you pass through waters, I am with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not scorch you. (v. 2) I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, 'Give!' and to the south, 'Do not withhold!' Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth ...' (vv. 5-6)
Verse 2 might metaphorically describe both the actual experience of exile in Babylon and the anticipated journey out of Babylon back to Judah. As will be shown, the former reading (the exile itself) is most strongly supported by the multiple layers of meaning in this verse. The experience of exile in Babylon is described in terms of water and fire. Israel is reassured that it will survive this ordeal. The language implies the crossing of boundaries. A full discussion of this verse, as it interacts with the unit's major metaphors, will be found in section 4 below. In v. 5 YHWH goes on to speak of the 'seed' or 'offspring' of Jacob. In using the language of offspring, Deutero-Isaiah generally shows a preference for the phrase 'seed of Jacob' or 'seed of Israel', instead of the much more conventional Hebrew phrase 7N"l&71~'1]n ('children of Israel'—possibly a dead metaphor).46 'Seed of Israel' or 'seed of Jacob' evokes the ideas of kinship and fertility, thus of the survival of the family. Verse 6 marks the important transition from Jacob's seed to YHWH's sons and daughters—the second part of the passage conveys a more intimate relationship. The ingathering is described as a future event. In 41.8-10 YHWH speaks in similar language of the past, how he had brought and called Israel, 44. The Masoretic pointing (qal) makes it unclear who is doing the calling. The text can be alternatively pointed as a passive (ni.). 45. Dana M. Pike, HBD (1985), s.v. 'Names', pp. 682-84 (683). 46. See Isa. 41.8; 44.3; 45.19, 25; 48.19; 53.10; 54.3.
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the seed of Abraham, from the ends of the earth. Now in ch. 43 YHWH proclaims this to be a future event. If YHWH could do it before, YHWH can do it again.47 'Do not withhold' (N73) connotes imprisonment and is part of the semantic field of imprisonment terms which metaphorically refers to the exile.48 The noun form refers, with JTD, to the house of restraint, i.e. as prison, in Isa. 42.7 and 42.22. YHWH's Self-predication (v. 3a) (D) For I am YHWH your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Verse 3 a is typical of Deutero-Isaiah in using self-predication to emphasize YHWH'S ability to save Israel. It functions here to convey that it is indeed within YHWH'S power and intent to enable Israel to cross this boundary, to survive this ordeal. It has no structurally mirroring element in the chiasm. However, when read as the concluding argument to v. 2, it explains how YHWH is able to bring about the successful boundary crossing. Its implicit mirroring image is the image of YHWH as Israel's father who is able to bring sons and daughters from north, south, east, and west. Redemption (vv. 3b, 4b) (E1} E2) I give Egypt as your ransom ("123, kpr), Cush and Seba in exchange (finn, tht) for you ... (3b) I give humanity in return for you (Tinn, tht), nations in exchange for (finn, tht) your life. (4b)
Verses 3b and 4b speak of exchange and ransom. A payment or a transaction is an entailment of kinsman redemption from slavery. YHWH's actions in the role of next of kin are thus delineated—he will purchase the freedom of Jacob. YHWH will buy Israel out of the state of slavery. The terms that speak of such a transaction individually carry even richer connotations and functions. The terms "ISIS, koper, andfinn, tht, are especially rich. "IS1D, koper, is often translated 'ransom'. Adrien Schenker explores the noun's uses to obtain a more exact definition.49 He notes that in Exod. 21.28-32 it is used with the term ]TH5J, pidyon ('ransom', from PHS, padd; see also Ps. 49.8 where 1S1ID, koper, and]"P"IS,;?/dy£)) need not be taken as a geographical move, but is conventional language associated with marital separation and divorce. Moreover, the other Zion texts in Isaiah 49-54 indicate that the mother, Zion, has been bereft of, or separated from, her children, or barren of children, as has just been made clear in 49.19-22 (see also 51.17-18; 54.1). In 50.1 the fates of mother and children are not identical. The mother was 'sent away', not only from the father, but from the children as well. Carol Newsom argues that while the Zion passages in Deutero-Isaiah are a response to Lamentations, the characterization of the exiles differs in a significant way. In Lamentations, the exiles are 'referred to in political terms', i.e. princes, king, prophets, priests, elders. Newsom maintains that in Lamentations the leadership in exile is blamed for the fate of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon: 'the critique of leadership, the blame laid on them for the destruction, is sustained and thorough'.28 In contrast, in Deutero-Isaiah, the exiles are not referred to in leadership or political terms but with kinship terms; that is, 'as children, sons and daughters'.29 In Isa. 50.1-3 it does seem to be these exiles who are blamed for the destruction, as in Lamentations, but designated by kinship terms rather than leadership terms. The 'children' are responsible for YHWH'S abandonment of (and thus the destruction of) Zion, as are the leaders in Lamentations. The primary issue in Isa. 50.1-3 and in Lamentations is that YHWH is not the culpable party and the cause of the situation. Dobbs-Allsopp argues that one major difference between the Mesopotamian city lament and the Israelite city lament is the assignment of guilt.30 In the Mesopotamian lament form the city (and its goddess) is depicted as the innocent victim of the arbitrary decision of the gods. In the Hebrew Bible, the city is guilty and deserving of punishment from YHWH. In the Mesopotamian laments the deity's shrine is referred to as the 'Faithful House' ... and the city [referred to] as the 'Faithful City' ... These epithets refer to the presumed innocence of the city or temple in the Mesopotamian laments. That is, they were correct in their cultic duties and moral behavior. The gods' decision to destroy the city and temple was not motivated by [their] actions good or bad ... on Israelite soil the responsibility for the city's destruction is blamed on the misdeeds of the city's population. 31
Dobbs-Allsopp does not address the issue of whether there can be a split between the personified city and her inhabitants regarding guilt. He implies that either both are guilty or both are innocent. Isa. 50.1 says, 'It was for your sins that your mother was sent away'. Therefore, YHWH has not failed. But the expression also seems to deflect an accusation of guilt from Zion herself. Katheryn Darr argues that the text 28. 29. 30. 31.
Newsom, 'Response', p. 77. Newsom, 'Response', p. 78. Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, pp. 52-54. Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, pp. 149-50.
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depicts Zion herself as blameless: '[Zion's] dismissal resulted from the children's rebellion, and not from misdeeds on her part. Since Zion is blameless and no formal statement of divorce exists, Yahweh can reclaim his wife'.32 In Deutero-Isaiah, the rhetoric directed at the city is consistently that of compassion. Sin is assigned implicitly to the city in 40.2, but with words of comfort. Elsewhere in Deutero-Isaiah sin is assigned to the people (see Isa. 42.24b; 43.3437; 44.22; 46.8; 48.8). Verse 2a [Zion's accusation] 'Why, when I came, was there no one (no 2TK)? I called and there was no answer!'
Commentators consistently treat this verse as YHWH'S speech, usually interpreted either as his challenge that a witness to the divorce be produced,33 or his calling to Israel, who does not answer (the term CTN, 'man' or 'husband', means it is not Zion who was being called). The argument that YHWH is calling out for a witness to the divorce (of course, there is none) seems a bit strained. The idea that YHWH called to Israel, which in its rebellion did not answer, seems a bit more satisfactory. However, another reading deserves consideration: that it is an accusation by Zion (like 49.13), which YHWH does not answer. Deutero-Isaiah's theme of contrasting YHWH to the idols bears consideration here. The idols are those who cannot speak or answer.34 In contrast, YHWH is one who can answer. Nevertheless, YHWH is sometimes silent and, indeed, has been silent for some time (42.14; see above, Chapter 3). In Deutero-Isaiah the accusation that there is 'no one' there or 'no answer' is directed at the idols. They do not answer. They are unable to help. This is the accusation against the gods in Isaiah 41 where YHWH extends a legal challenge to the 'gods': 'Set forth your case,' says YHWH; 'bring your proofs,' says the King of Jacob. 'Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are ... or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods ... You, indeed, are nothing and your work is nothing at all...' (41.21 -24). 32. Darr, Isaiah's Vision, p. 176. R. N. Whybray, however, speaks of the 'erring mother' (Isaiah 40-66 [NCB; London: Marshal, Morgan & Scott, 1975], p. 148). 33. John Scullion says there is no one at the tribunal 'to substantiate the accusation of abandonment' (Isaiah 40-66 [Old Testament Message 12; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1982], p. 104). 34. Peter D. Miscall also sees a connection between the silence in 50.2 and the silence of the idols, although he assumes that it is Israel that is silent like the idols: 'He called and no one answered; in this silence, Israel is like an idol (41.28; 48.1, 12; 65.1)' (Isaiah [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993], pp. 119-20). However, while YHWH is usually the accusatory subject, the object is also a deity or deities exposed as powerless.
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YHWH adds, But when I look there is no one (2TN "pK); among these there is no counselor; who, when I ask, gives an answer? No, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their images are empty wind. (41.28-29)
YHWH looks and asks and finds no one. Why? Because the gods are not real. A similar accusation against the idols is found in 46.7. 46.1-7 is a polemic mocking the Babylonian gods/idols. The crux here is that they cannot move but must be carried around. Deutero-Isaiah adds, 'If one cries out to it, it does not answer or save anyone from trouble' (46.7). Elsewhere in Deutero-Isaiah it is YHWH from whom an answer is desired (49.8, 'In a time of favor I have answered you'), and it is Israel who is to do the calling, not YHWH (43.23). If, in 50.2, it is YHWH being accused of not being there, and of not answering (just as YHWH is accused of divorcing Zion), who is the accuser? Given that 50.1-3 is a continuation of 49.13-26, Zion may well be YHWH'S accuser here, as in 49.13 ('YHWH has abandoned me') and in 49.21 ('I was left all alone'). Throughout 49.13-50.3 Zion speaks intermittently: 49.14 (and possibly 15), 49.21, and possibly 49.24. An unmarked change in speaker is not at all unusual in prophetic texts (see discussion of 49.14-15 in Chapter 6, and note that the term 'why' marks a change of speaker in Jer. 8.19.) Reading this as Zion's voice, Zion has come looking for her husband, and it is Zion who called for help and received no answer. Zion says there was 'no one', that is, 2TN~"pN. This expression is conventionally translated 'no one', but in the context of a metaphor of marriage and a divorce accusation the word 2TK could be translated 'husband', thus, 'There was no husband'. In the Song of Solomon, similar words describe the actions of a bride seeking her groom: Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; / called him, but he gave no answer. (3.1, see also 6.1)35
The view of Zion conveyed in Lamentations is also consistent with assigning Isa. 50.2a to Zion. In Lamentations she finds no comforter (1.2, 9, 16, 17, 21) and no helper (1.7). In Isa. 50.1, YHWH has protested that he has not divorced Zion. She argues back that he wasn't there when she needed him! YHWH has been accused of abandoning Zion. The implications of reading this accusation as Zion's speech is that she is accusing YHWH of being as mute and powerless as are the gods/idols of Babylon. This is the same implicit accusation as is found in 42.14 (see above, Chapter 3), where YHWH finally answers with the admission that yes, he has indeed been silent. Here in 50.2 the implicit accusation of 42.14 is made explicit, 'I called and there was no answer!' Zion gives voice to the accusations of Deutero-Isaiah's 35. NRSV, based on LXX.
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opponents, perhaps those who trust in the other gods.36 It is YHWH (rather than the idols?) who is mute, who does not answer. Trito-Isaiah (= Deutero-Isaiah here?) interprets this for us in 59.1-2: See, YHWH's hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear ... your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear [or answer].
Verse 2b [YHWH's response] 'Is my hand too short to redeem (miS), as though I do not have the power to rescue?'
It may seem curious that Deutero-Isaiah should use the term PITTS, pedut here for 'redeem' rather than 7^3, ga'al (which was just used in 49.26). As in 43.1-7, parental language in 50.1 -3 interacts with language related to the 7813, go 'el. The 7N*U, go'el, metaphor is implied by terminology in v. 1 that is evocative of debt slavery. The root 77£,padd, is less characteristic language for Deutero-Isaiah than is /fcW, ga'al, and, following the language of creditors and selling, seems unusual. Although 783, ga yal, and 773,padd, appear in parallel in the Hebrew Bible (even in Deutero-Isaiah in 51.10-11), they are not strictly synonymous (see above, Chapter 4). 77£,padd, does not generally refer to redemption from debt slavery but primarily refers to the redemption of sacrifices or vows: The first issue of the womb of all creatures, human and animal, which is offered to YHWH, shall be yours [Aaron's]; but the firstborn of human beings you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. (Num. 18.15) 13b Every firstborn male among your children you shall redeem ... 13When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, YHWH killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to YHWH every male that first opens the womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem. (Exod. 13.13b, 15)
Similarly, in 1 Sam 14.45, Jonathan is redeemed (T!7£,pddd) from Saul's vow to kill the warrior who broke the fast before battle: 'So the people ransomed Jonathan, and he did not die'. What are the possible implications of 7173,pddd, being used here? The root is related elsewhere to the exodus tradition and to redemption from sin. 1. The Exodus Tradition (with the Divine Warrior). The exodus tradition includes the redemption of YHWH'S first-born, and the substitutionary sacrifice of the lamb or of the first-born of Egypt (Exodus 12-13). Deut. 15.15 connects the exodus theme with the release of the Hebrew slave in the seventh year, using the term 773,padd: 'Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH
3 6. Trito-Isaiah likewise portrays YHWH as the one called, rather than the caller, in 5 8.9 (' You shall call and YHWH will answer'), 59.1-2, and 65.24.
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your God redeemed (HI 2, pddd) you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today'.37 Exodus language (Deuteronomic) is also consistent with the imagery of YHWH's 'hand' in v. 2. (The language of Isa. 5Q.2b evokes the exodus theme when YHWH says 'by my rebuke I dry up the sea' —more on this below.38) The phrases 'mighty hand' and 'outstretched arm' appear throughout the Deuteronomic material in connection with the redemption from Egypt (e.g. Deut. 7.19). God's hand is the instrument of the exodus redemption in Exod. 13.14, 16: When in the future your child asks you, 'What does this mean?' you shall answer, 'By strength of hand YHWH brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery . . . by strength of hand YHWH brought us out of Egypt'.
For this reason the first-born sons will be redeemed (v. 15, Tl1^,pddd). Verse 2 further begins the shift to the divine warrior image that dominates in v. 3. This image is associated with the exodus (see Chapter 3). The root TT~\3,pddd, is appropriate for the warrior image since the kinship aspect of 7N3, ga'al, would be a poor fit. One example of r\1^i,pddd, used for YHWH as a warrior is 2 Sam 7.23: Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem (711^, pddd) it as a people, and to make a name for himself, doing great and awesome things for them, by driving out before his people nations and their gods?
In Isa. 51.10-11 both 783, ga "al, and HIS, pddd, are associated with the divine warrior and redemption from Egypt: Was it not you who dried up the sea [Yamm], the waters of the great deep (Dirtf!); who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed (root 7K3, ga'al) to cross over? So the ransomed (root rC~\Z,padd) of YHWH shall return, and come to Zion with singing . . .
2. Not for Debts but for Transgressions. While 7&3, ga'al, is characteristic of YHWH's actions in Deutero-Isaiah and YHWH is spoken of as the 7^13, go'el (as recently as 49.26), the point of this passage is that there are no creditors who must be paid off. Debt redemption is not needed because there are no debts. Guilt redemption is needed. For this, HIS, pddd, is more appropriate, referring to the redemption of sacrifices; that is, the substitution of one sacrifice for another. Thus, Ps. 130.7 refers to redemption from sins (711311?) and Exod. 21.29-30 refers to the payment made for the crime of letting one's ox gore a neighbor; in Job 36.18,
37. Gregory C. Chirichigno notes, 'the release of a debt-slave was closely associated with God's release of the Israelites from their bondage to the Egyptians' (Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East [JSOTSS; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], p. 255). 38. For a summary of scholars who read 50.2-3 as exodus imagery see Carroll Stuhlmueller, Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah (AnBib 45; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), p. 272.
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pasdfsdfsddfsdfsdfsdfsfsdfsd, is used in parallel with 1SD. (See Chapter 4 on the which has as its context guilt and reconciliation.) 3. YHWHas a Father. As with Isa. 43. 1-7, there are areas of overlap between YHWH as a father and the imagery of the exodus and T[1^,pddd—redemption (see Chapter 4). As a father, YHWH redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt and redeemed the first-born from death (sacrificing the Egyptian first-born). (See Exod. 4.22-23 and 12.13-15.) Verses 2c-3 2c
('See) by my rebuke I dry up (the) Sea/Yamm, I make Rivers a desert. 2d Their fish will stink for there is no water, and they die from thirst. 3 I clothe heavens in darkness; and I make sackcloth their covering.'
The unit ends with YHWH'S assertion of creative power. YHWH'S power over the sea and the rivers evokes the creation mythology of YHWH'S power over the watery chaos.39 It echoes Ba'al's conquest of Yamm. As a creation mythology, this finds its Babylonian parallel in the story of Marduk's conquest of Tiamat. This is, once again, the image of the divine warrior.40 The root word 'rebuke' here is HI7141 It is used in Nahum in a very similar verse, describing YHWH'S vengeance on Nineveh: 'He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; and he dries up all the rivers' (Nah. 1.4a). In Nahum this is divine warrior imagery, with no explicit connection to the exodus. This language also appears elsewhere in connection with the divine warrior: Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke (~1IJ3) of YHWH, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. (2 Sam. 22.16) 9
He bowed the heavens, and came down; thick darkness was under his feet . . . II He made the darkness his covering around him, his canopy thick clouds dark with water . . . 39. Stuhlmueller, Redemption, p. 87. 40. The drying up of the land is also characteristic of Enlil's attacks in the Mesopotamian city laments. Enlil attacks with storm, which may be flood or may be drying winds. Dobbs-Allsopp quotes from the laments, 'Enlil brought about an evil storm, silence was upon the city, Nintu put door-locks on the storehouses . . . stopped up the waters' {Weep, p. 50). He notes, in reference to Isa. 15.1-1 6. 14, 'Although not found in Lamentations, the disruption of agriculture and alteration of the water supply are motifs used commonly in the Mesopotamian laments to depict the city's destruction. In Isa 15.6 the waters of Nimrim dry up and the green vegetation withers. The disruption of agriculture continues as the primary motif in Isa 16.8-1 1 ' (Weep, p. 105). 41. See J. M. Kennedy, 'The Root g 'r in the Light of Semantic Analysis', JBL 106 (1987), pp. 47-64. Kennedy argues for the translation 'blast' rather than 'rebuke' (p. 59).
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15 Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke pU3), O YHWH, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. (Ps. 18.9-15)
In Isa. 17.12-13, it is the nations that are rebuked, but they are depicted in terms of
the Sea: Ah, the thunder of many peoples, they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations, they roar like the roaring of mighty waters! The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke PU3) them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm. In Job this divine warrior imagery describes creation in terms similar to the Enuma Elish: "The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke P#2). 12 By his power he stilled the Sea; by his understanding he struck down Rahab. 13 By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. (Job 26.11-13) Psalm 104 likewise applies this language to creation: 5
You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke (~1UJ) they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight... 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. (Ps. 104.5-7, 9) These texts shed light on the image in Isa. 50.3 of clothing the heavens in darkness. In Nah. 1.3 the 'clouds are the dust of his feet'. In 2 Sam 22.10 'thick darkness was under his feet'. Job 27.9 says, 'He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud'. All of these depict the darkening of the sky, as does Isa. 50.3, and the power of the divine warrior. The term 'rebuke' (and the related terms 'dry up', 'sea', etc.) is also explicitly connected to the Exodus tradition in places. The term is used in Ps. 106.9-10, which recounts the Exodus story: He rebuked pi?3) the Red Sea, and it became dry; he led them through the deep as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe, and delivered (redeemed—783, gd'al) them from the hand of the enemy.
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Thus, in this imagery of v. 3 there is a coming together of the divine warrior's battle with the sea (the Chaoskampf theme) and the exodus tradition.42 7. Conclusions This text interweaves several metaphors. Verse 1 brings together two distinct yet consistent metaphors: Zion as YHWH'S wife and the people as Zion's children. The interaction of these produces the image of YHWH as the father of the Israelites. The language of w. 2-3, which evokes the exodus, interacts with the father image, as it did in 43.1-7 (see Chapter 4). The implicit question of this text is whether YHWH has severed his ties with, and his commitment to, Jerusalem and her people. Has YHWH divorced his wife and sold his children into slavery? Once again YHWH responds to an implied accusation. He has been accused of abandoning Zion. (This accusation is explicit in 49.14.) YHWH is Zion's husband who has apparently divorced his wife. But YHWH does not address Zion here, as in 49.14-26 (which consistently uses the second person feminine singular). YHWH speaks of 'your [masc. pi.] mother', addressing the people, not the city.43 He challenges them to produce some proof that he has divorced Zion. It is a rhetorical question. They will not be able to prove it, since YHWH has not divorced her. Yet, paradoxically, he does admit that she has been sent away. YHWH admits that yes, he has been silent. Yes, they have been estranged. But, first of all, there is no documentation and so the estrangement is not final, and second, it was because of their sins, not because of YHWH'S failure. Zion then delivers her own accusation. If she is not divorced, why was YHWH not there when she cried out for help? YHWH does not answer the accusation of silence. (After all, YHWH has been silent—42.14.) Rather, he responds with a rhetorical question and a proclamation of his power to redeem. The shift to the divine warrior and exodus imagery serves to show that YHWH is not powerless. YHWH has the power to redeem, and thus to reconcile. Isa. 50.1-3 completes the unit begun in 49.13. God is mother, father, husband, redeeming kinsman, and divine warrior. The unit as a whole acknowledges God's abandonment (49.14-15, 21) and silence (50.2). But God does not forget (49.14) and has not divorced Zion (50.1). Redemption is coming. God, acting as the avenging kinsman (49.26) and the divine warrior (50.3), will defeat Israel's oppressors and restore Zion and her children. These various kinship roles convey to the exiles God's continuing care and a future restoration of relationship between the people, their mother-city, and their God.
42. Stuhlmueller, Redemption, p. 91. Compare Isa. 50.2d with Exod. 7.18. 43. Naturally, YHWH'S addresses to Zion herself are clearly the prophet's words directed to the people, not to a material city. The issue is who YHWH addresses rhetorically. Here the addressee has shifted from Zion (2 fern, sing.) to the people (2 masc. pi.).
Chapter 8 CONCLUSIONS
The present study in Deutero-Isaiah has been an investigation of the images of God as a father and God as a mother. Neither 'father' nor 'mother' is a root paradigm for God in the Hebrew Bible. Father and mother are just two of the many images that are expressed, along with king, husband, warrior, artisan, redeeming kinsman, shepherd, and many more. In Deutero-Isaiah the images of father and mother fit into pervasive motifs of fertility and kinship. Images of procreation are consistent with Deutero-Isaiah's overall vision of fertility, including such things as streams in the desert and new sprouts, and the theme of YHWH as creator. Other parent images for YHWH fit into Deutero-Isaiah's overall use of kinship categories, including the redeeming kinsman, references to the offspring of Jacob, and the portrayal of Zion as a mother. Thus, while 'father' and 'mother' may not be Deutero-Isaiah's root paradigms for God, they are expressions of the author's main themes and literary motifs. When work on this study began, it was expected that Deutero-Isaiah's father image or mother image would each have a unifying paradigm, such as the father as a covenant partner, protector, or authority; the mother as nurturer, compassionate, or life-source. Such imagery, one would assume, would be shaped by the author's social and historical context. The presupposition that a single author in a particular historical context produced Isaiah 40-55 might suggest that certain images (father and mother) would have a particular consistent meaning within this body of work. However, an in-depth study of this imagery has challenged this assumption. The images of father and mother vary greatly within Deutero-Isaiah and their implications are determined by their literary contexts and the other metaphors with which they mix. 1. Literary Context The investigation of five selected texts has made it clear that diversity rather than unity characterizes Deutero-Isaiah's use of these images of father and mother. Despite a unified authorship and a unified social and historical context, the literary units of Deutero-Isaiah make use of these two images in such diverse ways that it is difficult to force them into boxes labeled 'God as father' and 'God as mother'. For example, the mother images of 42.14 and 49.14-15 resist reduction to a common function or meaning beyond the extremely broad term 'mother'. The father images
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of 43.1 -7 and 45.10 have almost no overlap. Each occurrence of the father image or the mother image has its own distinctive rhetorical function. It has further become clear that, not only does the literary unit determine how the parent image functions, but in Deutero-Isaiah this literary context invariably includes other metaphors. The images of YHWH as father and YHWH as mother interpret, and are interpreted by, the metaphors with which they co-exist and interact. Thus, the image of YHWH as a 'father' or as a 'mother' cannot be understood to mean one thing. Rather, the metaphor is interpreted by its context, which includes other metaphors. The parent imagery of Deutero-Isaiah interacts with the following metaphors: warrior, redeeming kinsman, artisan, personified Zion, husband. For instance, in 42.9-17 the images of the warrior and the woman in labor interact. Likewise, 45.913 contains important interaction between the image of the artisan of clay and the images of father and mother. Especially rich in interaction is Isa. 50.1-3, which interweaves a great variety of images and conventions: YHWH as the husband of the city, the divine warrior, the redeeming kinsman, and the father. These images function together to deal with issues of abandonment and redemption. Lakoff and Johnson's concept of 'metaphoric coherence' has provided the means to examine this interaction (see Chapter 1). 'Coherence' refers to the overlap of metaphors that are not 'consistent'; that is, they contradict each other on a literal level but overlap insofar as they have shared entailments. For example, in Isa. 42.9-17 the warrior image and the image of the woman in labor have several areas of overlap: both cry out, both face danger and possibly death, both are potentially life-giving. Thus these two images are not as contradictory as they might first seem. While they are 'inconsistent', they are nevertheless 'coherent'. 2. The Coherence of Commonplaces The interaction of metaphors takes place, not only between the metaphoric expressions themselves (what is explicitly stated), but also between entire networks of'associated commonplaces'. Each one of these images and conventions brings to the text a whole network of commonplaces. Such interweaving takes place in each of the passages examined. In Isa. 42.8-17, the birthing mother image interacts with the image of the divine warrior, with all that this image entails in that culture. The juxtaposition of these images highlights the areas where the networks of associated commonplaces overlap. This includes 'crying out' (which is explicitly stated) and (implicit) entailments of the experience of siege—anguish and courage, danger, inevitability, and the hope of deliverance from death and of new life. In 43.1-7, the image of the 7N13, go'el, that is, the 'redeeming kinsman', interacts with parent language to highlight issues of honor, identity, and protection. The idea of the redeeming father interacts with the imagery of passing through water and walking through fire to evoke Israel's historical tradition of the exodus. Just as YHWH redeemed Israel, his first-born son, from Egypt (the furnace), through the waters, so YHWH will once again gather his sons and daughters from exile. In 45.9-13, the images of begetting father and birthing mother interact with the image of the
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artisan and with its network of associations, including an ancient application of that image to the deities and the creation of humanity. Creation stories depict humanity being created from clay or from the dust of the earth. The most obvious area of coherence lies in the concept of creator; both the artisan and the parent create something new. These images also interact with Deutero-Isaiah's critique of Babylonian practices and beliefs surrounding the creation of idols. This interaction highlights the power of YHWH to create a redemptive future for Israel. In Isa. 49.13-21, the portrayal of Zion as a mother is informed by interaction with the literary conventions embedded in the text of the city as the weeping goddess. Zion as mother also interacts with and informs the image of YHWH as a mother to highlight and even to explain issues of remembrance, abandonment, and regeneration. The convention of the city lament portrays mothers abandoning or forgetting their children. This sheds light on Zion forgetting her children and provides a contrast to YHWH as one who does not forget. Isa. 50.1-3 interweaves multiple images. YHWH is the husband of Zion, whose children have been sold. YHWH is the redeemer who can deliver children and mother. YHWH is the divine warrior whose creative power (over chaos) dries up the waters. Thus, YHWH'S image as a father is informed by his relationship to Zion and his power to redeem. Deutero-Isaiah interweaves a variety of images to convey a message to those in exile. The images examined in the present study work together: father, mother, warrior, redeemer, artisan, husband. The interaction of all of these images creates a rather remarkable and quite beautiful tapestry that we call 'Deutero-Isaiah'. 3. God as a Father and a Mother in Deutero-Isaiah What fruit has been brought forth from this interactive approach? We are not able to say that 'for Deutero-Isaiah father means ...' or that 'for Deutero-Isaiah mother means ...' What, then, may be concluded about God as a father and a mother in Deutero-Isaiah? God as a Father Deutero-Isaiah portrays God as a father fairly clearly in three texts. In 43.1-7, interacting with the image of the redeeming kinsman, YHWH is portrayed as the father who redeems his sons and daughters from slavery, just as he once redeemed Israel from bondage in Egypt (through the water and the fire). As a father, YHWH loves Israel and is the source of Israel's identity ('everyone who is called by my name'). The interaction of the father image with exodus imagery appears again in Isa. 50.1 -3, where YHWH is again the redeeming father who frees his children from slavery. This unit adds the dimension of YHWH'S relationship with the exiles' 'mother', Zion. Thus, YHWH as a father in Isa. 50.1-3 involves both the redemption of the exiles from slavery and, implicitly, the restoration of Jerusalem. In 45.9-13 the father image interacts with the images of mother and artisan to highlight God's creative power. A father is one who creates (begets). God sarcastically challenges Israel to 'ask me about my son!' God's son (Cyrus) signifies God's redemptive power as creator and thus, in contrast with the Babylonian gods, YHWH is the one
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who determines Israel's (and Babylon's) destiny and creates the future. The begetting father is the creator of Israel's future. A number of the commonplaces of 'father' are highlighted in Deutero-Isaiah's depiction of YHWH as a father. Among these are the father's role in protecting and redeeming his children and preserving the family (43.1 -7), the father as one who punishes the children (50.1 -3), the father as the source of the child's name (43.7), and the father's role in conception (45.10). God as a Mother The mother imagery is likewise variable. An appreciation of the commonplaces of the 'mother' have shed light on Deutero-Isaiah's rhetoric about YHWH, particularly ideas about labor (42.14 and 45.10), nursing (49.14-15), and child abandonment (49.14-21). In 45.9-13 the laboring woman image appears in parallel with the begetting father to highlight God as the creator who creates Israel's future redemption. Only here in Deutero-Isaiah do father and mother images for God appear together. Here the father image and the mother image advance a common message—God's creative power. Yet the laboring woman suggests something about God that the begetting father cannot. Labor is a process that is all-engaging, in which the outcome occurs at its proper time. The image of the laboring woman in 42.9-17 also conveys God's engagement and creative power. The particular literary form HI7VD, ki-yoledah ('like one who gives birth'), in interaction with the warrior image is suggestive of siege and warfare. The image of the woman in labor in 42.14 evokes not only the culture's understanding of labor itself, but the literary conventions of one facing a situation of siege reacting 'like a woman in labor'. The mother is one who is intensely engaged, who struggles to overcome the constriction of the womb to free the child, to bring the child forth into the light. Thus, in Isaiah 42, the mother is an image of engagement, struggle, constriction, and then freedom and life. In 49.14-15 YHWH is portrayed in terms of the nursing mother. This image functions quite differently from that of the laboring woman. The most obvious association of the nursing mother is one who cares for her child, feeds, nurtures, and has compassion. A closer examination reveals that in this unit a good mother is one who does notforget. YHWH is not just described in terms of a mother, but YHWH is either the model mother or something better than a mother (in contrast to bad mothers, such as Zion, insofar as YHWH does not forget). 4. YHWH as Father and Mother and the Experiential Dimension of Metaphor Why did Deutero-Isaiah favor such familial imagery to describe concepts that could be expressed in any number of ways? The prophet's choice of this imagery must be located experientially, rather than conceptually. Deutero-Isaiah's language seems to have been suggested, not by an implicit systematic theology, but by the experience of exile. (Indeed, Deutero-Isaiah's theology that YHWH is incomparable does not easily lend itself to such anthropomorphic metaphors.) We can imagine that this was a traumatic experience of disruption and discontinuity. The people were wrenched from their homeland, their own families, their history, and their hopes and expectations for the future. The language of family is the language of
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rootedness, of past and future, of identity and belonging, and the language of home. The language of childbirth evokes new life, and thus continuity, into a new generation as creation continues. The unusual prevalence of explicitly feminine language may be especially evocative of the home, since home is stereotypically and archetypally the realm of the mother. The captives are homesick. The longing they experience is for home—for mother Zion, and for the God who has cared for them from the womb. The language of family is also the language of survival and the language of life. The continuity of family ties conveys the sense of timelessness important to Deutero-Isaiah, what was and is and shall be. YHWH may be doing a 'new thing' but this 'new thing' is essentially the means by which YHWH will make it possible for what YHWH created in the past to continue into the future. Family is both ancestors and offspring. It is past, present, and future, as is YHWH'S purpose. 5. Implications for Biblical Studies The interest in biblical metaphors will continue to draw readers to explore these metaphors more fully, perhaps especially metaphors for God, and for Jesus Christ in the New Testament literature. Attention to the commonplaces of a given metaphor has been shown here to be fruitful. The commonplaces of the Hebrew Bible context are located in the socio-cultural context of ancient Israel (and its location in the ancient Near East). This context necessarily includes the literary traditions and conventions of ancient Israel. In addition to the commonplaces (the cultural context), attention to the literary context is essential to appreciate how a metaphor functions and how metaphors act together in a given text. Metaphors exist within texts, where they interact with other elements in the text. Hebrew poetry is especially rich in interweaving multiple images within a single text. Attention to the interaction of these images contributes to our understanding of any given metaphor. Finally, the commonplaces and the literary context come together. When two or more metaphors appear together in a text, the stated entailments of each interact with the rest of the text. But additionally, a metaphor brings a whole network of associations to the text. The metaphors' networks of commonplaces then interact with one another to highlight the areas where the networks overlap. 6. Implications for God-language In recent years there has been intense interest in and discussion of metaphoric language for God, especially in regard to gender. The insights offered by this study are applicable to 'God-language' in a variety of situations—the exploration of other Hebrew Bible texts, New Testament texts, contemporary worship, prayer, and preaching, and virtually any literature about God from the writings of the Church Fathers, to the mystics, to contemporary theological discourse. When God is spoken of as a 'father' or as a 'mother', the meaning of the metaphor cannot be reduced to one simple statement about God. The meaning of a metaphor is highly dependent on the particulars of the 'associated commonplaces'. Deutero-Isaiah's use of a variety of images—father,
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mother, artisan, etc.—shows that Deutero-Isaiah was aware of their metaphoric character and did not limit thinking about YHWH to one major root metaphor. What is important is to recognize the meanings of these metaphors in terms of their associated commonplaces, which vary culturally. For example, the significance of applying the term 'father' to God depends very much on the associations that a given culture assigns to the idea of 'father', whether one is a sixth-century BCE Babylonian Jew, a first-century Galilean peasant, a Roman theologian of late antiquity, a mystic in medieval Europe, a Reformation theologian, or a twenty-firstcentury North American. Metaphoric language about God always occurs in a rhetorical context where it interacts with other metaphoric language about God. Thus, in a worship setting the meaning that 'father' conveys about God depends upon whether, for example, that community of faith speaks of God primarily as 'father' and 'king' or primarily as 'father' and 'mother'. The image inevitably interacts with other images. It is our contention that when inconsistent metaphors share a context the areas of coherence will be highlighted. Diverse metaphors for God which co-exist in a given context of discourse can be assumed to be 'coherent' insofar as the community of discourse understands these diverse metaphors to speak meaningfully of the same subject, namely God. The use of diverse images for God can only enrich our ability to speak of the One who is Incomparable.
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Miller, P. D. and J. J. M. Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the 'Ark Narrative' of 1 Samuel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). Miscall, Peter D., Isaiah (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993). Moran, William L., 'The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy', CBQ 25 (1963), pp. 77-87. Muilenburg, James, 'The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66: Introduction and Exegesis', IB, V (New York: Abingdon, 1956), pp. 381-773. Newsom, Carol, 'Response to Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Class and Ideology in Isaiah 4055"', in David Jobling and Tina Pippin (eds.), Ideological Criticism of Biblical Texts (Semeia 59; Alpharetta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 73-78. Niditch, Susan, 'War, Women, and Defilement in Numbers 31', in Claudia Camp and Carol Fontaine (eds), Women, War, and Metaphor (Semeia 61; Alpharetta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 39-57. North, Christopher R., The Second Isaiah: Introduction, Translation and Commentary to Chapters 40-55 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964). O'Connor, Kathleen M., 'Lamentations', in C. Newsom and S. Ringe (eds), The Women's Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), pp. 178-82. Patterson, Orlando, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). Perdue, Leo G., 'The Israelite and Early Jewish Family', in Leo G. Perdue et al., Families in Ancient Israel (The Family, Religion, and Culture; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997), pp. 163-222. Pike, Dana M., 'Names', HBD (1985), pp. 682-84. Pitt-Rivers, Julian, 'Honour and Social Status', in J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 19-77. Postgate, J. N., Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (New York: Routledge, 1992). Pritchard, James (ed.), The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958). Quell, Gottfried, 'ayamxco: Love in the OT', TDNT, I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), pp. 21-35. Quell, Gottfried, 'ircxTEp: The Father Concept in the Old Testament', TDNT, V (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), pp. 959-74. Rad, Gerhardt von, Genesis, trans. John H. Marks (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961). Rallis, Irene Kerasote, 'Nuptial Imagery in the Book of Hosea: Israel as the Bride of Yahweh', SF7034(1990),pp. 197-219. Reddy, Michael, 'The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language', in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 284-324. Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). Ricoeur, Paul, 'The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling', Critical Inquiry 5 (1978), pp. 143 -59; repr. in Mark Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 228-47 and in Sheldon Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 141-57. Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). Schenker, Adrien, 'Kopher et expiation', Bib 63 (1982), pp. 32-46.
Bibliography
185
Schmitt, John J., 'The Gender of Ancient Israel', JSOT 26 (1983), pp. 115-25. Schmitt, John J., 'Gender Correctness and Biblical Metaphors: The Case of God's Relation to Israel', Biblical Theology Bulletin 26 (1996), pp. 96-106. Schmitt, John J., 'The Motherhood of God and Zion as Mother', RB 92 (1985), pp. 557-69. Schokel, Luis Alonso, 'Isaiah', in Alter Kermode, Robert Kermode, and Frank Kermode (eds), The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 165-83. Scullion, John, Isaiah 40-66 (Old Testament Message 12; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1982). Seibert, Use, Women in the Ancient Near East (Leipzig; Edition Leipzig, 1974). Seitz, Christopher R., Zion's Final Destiny. The Development of the Book of Isaiah: A Reassessment of Isaiah 36-39 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). Shaw, Charles, The Speeches ofMicah: A Rhetorical-Historical Analysis (JSOTSS; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). Sigerist, Henry E., A History of Medicine, II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961). Smart, James D., History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40-66 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965). Smith, Daniel L., Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone, 1989). Smith, George Adam, The Book of Isaiah, II (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1927). Smith-Christopher, Daniel L., A Biblical Theology of Exile (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2002). Soskice, Janet, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985). Spykerboer, Hendrik C., The Structure and Composition of Deutero-Isaiah with Special Reference to the Polemics Against Idolatry (Meppel: Krips Repro, 1976). Stuhlmueller, Carroll, Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah (AnBib 45; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1970). Thomas, D. Winton, 'LibrumJesaiae', BHS VII (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1971), pp. 675-779. Thompson, John A., The Book of Jeremiah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). Toorn, Karel van der, From Her Cradle to Her Grave: The Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian Woman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994). Toorn, Karel van der, 'Ordeal', ABD, V (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 40-42. Toorn, Karel van der, 'Ordeal Procedures in the Psalms and the Passover Meal', VT36 (1988), pp. 439-42. Trible, Phyllis, 'Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation', JAAR 41 (1973), pp. 30-48. Trible, Phyllis, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Overtures to Biblical Theology 2; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978). Trible, Phyllis, 'God, Nature of, in the OT', IDBS (New York: Abingdon, 1976), pp. 368-69. Turner, Mary Donovan, 'Daughter Zion: Lament and Restoration' (unpubl. diss., Emory University, 1992). Vanoni, Gottfried, 'Du bistdoch unser Voter' (Jes 63, 16): Zur Gottesvorstellungdes Ersten Testaments (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995). Veldhuis, Nick, A Cow of Sin (Groningen: Styx Publications, 1991). Walker, Christopher, and Michael B. Dick, 'The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian mis pi Ritual', in Michael B. Dick (ed.), Born in Heaven, Made on Earth (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1999), pp. 55-121.
186
Mixing Metaphors
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INDEXES
INDEX OF REFERENCES
BIBLE
Genesis 1-6 1.27 2 2.7 3 3.16 4.1 4.17 4.18 4.20-21 5.2 6.2 10.7-10 10.8 10.13 10.15 10.24 10.26 11.28 11.31 15.7 16.2 16.15 17.19 18.10 18.12 18.14 20.17-18 21.10 21.16 21.22-25 22.13 22.23
74 114 114 107 55 54 28 28 27 117 86 35 90 27 27 27 27 27 88 88 88 26 30 30 70 139 70 26 162 46 28 90 27
25.22-23 25.28 27.38 27.45 29.11 29.31 29.32-33 30.2 30.3 30.5-7 30.15 30.17-19 30.22-23 30.22 30.23 32.21 35.15-16 35.16-19 35.18 37.2-4 38.2-5 38.27 42.36 43.14 44.20 45.7 45.8 45.22
118 100 46 27 46 26 27 26 28 28 90 28 141 26 26-28 89 28 29 86 100 28 28 27 27 100 114 34 114
Exodus 1.19 2.2 2.22 4
28 28 30 97
4.22-23
5 6.6 7.18 11-12 12-13 12.13-15 13 13.11-16 13.12-15 13.13-16 13.13 13.14 13.15 13.16 14-15 14 14.4 14.29 15 15.1-18 15.1-12 15.3 15.8 15.10 15.13 15.14-16 15.14-15 15.14 20.4-5 20.23 21 21.1-6
35, 97-99, 170 105 79 171 97 97, 168 170 97,98 32, 78, 90 98 96 168 169 168, 169 169 96 98 104 96 48,50 96 92 46 50 50 79, 96, 99 57,62 58 28 44 44 80 80
188
Mixing Metaphors
Exodus (cont.) 21.2 80 21.7-11 80 21.7 32 21.26 90 21.28-32 88 21.29-30 89, 169 21.30 89,97 22.21 30 30.12 97 31.2 86 32.1-8 44 32.7-14 95 33.12 86 33.17 86 34.17 44 34.19-20 78 35.20 86 36.22 125 Leviticus 12 12.2 19.4 21.7 21.14 22.13 25 25.10 25.39-55 25.39-46 25.42 25.47-55 25.48-49 26.1 26.29 27
68 28 44 162 162 162 79-82 80 80 80 81,99 81 81 44 146 79
Numbers 5.5-8 5.11-31 11 11.11-15 11.12-15 11.12 11.13 11.18-33
79 94 150 137, 138 35, 149 137 150 149
14.1 18.15-17 18.15 21.29 30.9 31 31.22-23 35 35.31-32 Deuteronomy 1.31 2.25 4.15-19 4.20 4.25 5.8 7.19 8.5 14.1-2 14.29 15.12-18 15.12-17 15.15
15.17 19 21.18-21 22.19 22.29 24 24.1-4 24.1 24.3 28.51-57 28.53-57 28.56-57 32 32.6 32.11 32.13 32.18 32.19 32.20 32.30 33.2
46 78 168 35 162 93 93 79 97
36 28,57 44 92, 97, 99 44 44 169 36 36 30 99 80 80, 99, 168 80 79 30 153 153 163 163 153 153 148 146, 147 137 36,37 36,85 37, 149 37, 137, 149 29, 37, 57 75, 100 36 77 51
Joshua 6.5 6.10 6.16 6.20 15.14-17 17.11 20.3 20.5 20.9 21.9
47 47 47 47 158 158 79 79 79 86
Judges 2.4 4.15 5 5.4 5.7 7.21 9.7 13.5-7 15.14 17.10 18.4 18.6 18.9 18.19 18.24 19.26-27 21.2
46 68 48 51 34 47 46 28 47 33 33 33 47 33 33 139 46
Ruth 1.9 1.14 2.20 3-4 3.9-13 4.1-8 4.1-6
46 46 79 79 79 79 83
1 Samuel 1.5 1.6 1.11 1.15 1.16 1.19-20
26 27 140 27 27 140
189
Index of References
1.19 2.20 2.21 4.3 4.5-11 4.5 4.11 4.19-22 4.19 4.21 8.2 12.3 14.45 15.33 17.20 17.52 24.12 24.16 30.4 2 Samuel 1.9 3.32 4.1 7 7.7 7.13 7.14-15 7.14 7.23 11.1 13.36 14.7 20.19 22.10 22.16
26 90 26,28 51 45 51 133 45 28 55 39 97 168 27 47 47 33 46 46
58 46 57 39 105 105 35 99, 118 169 71 46 26 158, 161 171 170
2 Kings 2.3 2.12 2.15 4.1-8 4.1-2 4.1 4.16 4.17 6.21 6.24-29 6.28-29 7.9 16.7 19.3 19.21 19.24 24.14-16
34 34 34 163 81 30 70 28 34 146 137 47 33 54 158 42 81
1 Chronicles 28 7.23 28 16.30 2 Chronicles 13.12 13.15 16.8 29.1
47 47 90 39
Nehemiah 5 5.1-5 8.11 9.11 9.32
163 32 47 104 46
Esther 1 Kings 1.17 3.16-27 3.17-18 5.5 7.32-36 8.51 19.3 22.3
2.14
139 137 28 105 125 92,97 28 47
86
Job
1.6 2.9 2.12 3.11 3.16 5.1 7.12
35 57 46 55 55 57 49
9.8 17.13-15 26.5 26.11-13 26.12 27.9 28.8 28.19 29.16 31.15 33.24 36.18 38.7-11 38.28-29 39.1-4 41.31 Psalms 2.2 2.7
12.6 13.1 13.3 18.9-15 24 24.5 24.8 27.10 28.1 29 29.1 29.2 29.8-9 29.9 39.3 40.3 45.12 47.2 48 48.5-8 48.6-7 48.6 48.7 49.8 58.8 60.3
49 34 28 171 49 171 34 90 34 121 97 97, 169 49 121 71 104
105 35, 39, 99, 118 43 69 69 170 50,51 46 46 39 47 51 35 51 28 51 47 52 139 47 161 57,59 57 53, 54, 58 57 88,97 55 94
190 Psalms (cont.) 66 92,93 66.1 47 66.6-12 97 66.12 91,97 68.5 39 68.22 104 69.2 104 69.15 104 69.18 78 74.1 43,69 75,9 94 76 161 77 96 77.19-20 97 78.65 46 78.70-71 105 79.5 43,69 84 161 85.6 43,69 87 161 88.6 104 89.10 49 89.20 105 89.26-27 39 89.26 118 89.27 99 89.47 43,69 90.2 29, 121 93.1-4 49 93.3 46 94.6 30 96.1 52 96.9 28 97 51 97.4 28 97.6 51 98 52 98.1 52 98.3 52 103.13 39 104.5-7 171 104.9 171 105.36-38 98 106.9-10 171 107 46 107.24 104 107.33-37 47
Mixing Metaphors 119.154 127.5 130.7 135.8 136 136.10-14 137 139.13 144.9 146.7-8 149.1
79,83 26 169 98 96 96 51 121 52 82 52
10.2 10.211 13.2-8 13.2-7 13.2-5
13.2 13.4 13.6-8
13.7 13.8 13.17
13.21
Proverbs
3.12
21.18 23.10-11 23.22 23.25
39 95 97 29 92 97 89 97 79,83 27 27
Ecclesiastes 3.2 3.8
70 71
6.27-28 6.35 8.22-25 10.20
13.8
16.14
Song of Solomon 3.1 167 6.1 167 Isaiah 1.2-3 1.2 1.17 1.23 3.2 4.1 7.14 8.3 8.7-8 8.8 9.6-7 9.6 10.1-3
37 10 30 30 104 26 28 28 91 92 118 46, 86, 118 115
15.1-16.14
15.6 16.8-11 17.12-13 21.2-10 21.3-4
21.3 22.21 23.4 23.12 24.4-13 24.14 26 26.11 26.16-18 26.17-18 26.17 26.18 26.19 26.27-18 27.1 27.3 28.2 28.15 28.17 28.18 30.1 30.9 30.14 30.19 30.27-28 35.9-10 37.3 37.22
30 46 62 57 62 58 58 62 57,58 28, 54, 57, 58 62 58 170 170 170 170 57, 58, 63 57 28, 54, 58 34 57, 144 158 52 46 63, 66, 67 46 63 28, 53, 57 28, 53, 54, 58 57 72 72 49 28 92 92 92 92 37 37 28 58 92 78 54 158
191
Index of References 42 46 79, 129, 148 17,21,24, 40-55 47, 78, 129, 130, 173 45, 123 40-48 83, 107 40^6 129 40.1-11 138 40.1-2 131, 138 40.1 46, 69, 92, 40.2 162, 166 51 40.3-6 47 40.4 51 40.5 47 40.7-8 50 40.7 40.8-20 110 113 40.8-10 50 40.10 110 40.11 40.12-n-49.12 129 113, 129 40.12 113 40.18-20 44 40.18-19 46 40.18 113 40.19-20 110 40.20 45 40.21-31 143 40.22 47, 50, 69 40.24 46 40.25 74,86 40.26 74, 110 40.28 166 41 41 41.2 46, 109 41.4 45 41.5-9 119 41.5 110, 114 41.7 88 41.8-10 22, 75, 87, 41.8 114 74 41.9 74 41.10
37.25 37.32 40-66
41.11-14 41.13 41.14 41.15-16 41.16 41.17-20 41.17 41.18 41.20 41.21-42.13 41.21-29 41.21-24 41.21-23 41.21-22 41.21 41.22 41.23-29 41.23
41.24 41.25-29 41.25
41.26-29 41.26-28 41.26 41.27-28 41.27 41.28-29 41.28 42
42.1-7 42.1-4 42.5-9 42.5-7 42.5 42.6-7 42.6 42.7 42.8-17
83 74 74,78 113 74 43 128 47 74 43 45 109, 166 43 46, 108 114 45 119 46, 108, 111, 119, 120, 127 110 109, 110 41,86,87, 119, 120 46 43 46, 110 109 46, 108 46, 167 166 15,51, 57-59, 61, 63, 66-68, 71,72,75, 176 43 43 43 43 74 82 58, 106 88 1,2,4144, 48, 50, 52, 72, 174
42^4, 48 41,44^6, 48,51,52, 109 24, 174, 42.9-17 176 42.9 17,43,45, 46, 70, 72 42, 57, 67 42.10-17 42 42.10-16 42.10-14 43 42,43 42.10-13 44, 46, 47 42.10-12 42.10-11 47 42.10 42, 43, 46, 52,74 52 42.11 42.12 41-13,46, 51,52 43 42.13-16 42.13-14 16,48,56 41-46, 50, 42.13 52,59,61, 64, 68, 70 42,43 42.14-17 43 42.14-16 27-29, 42.14 41-44, 46, 47, 53, 60, 61,63,68, 70,71, 129, 141, 148, 166, 167, 172, 176 43,47 42.15-16 47, 50, 52, 42.15 66-68, 70 47,51,52, 42.16 70, 72, 110 42, 44^6, 42.17 48, 110 42.18^3.13 75 76 42.18-25 43 42.18 104 42.21 82,88 42.22
42.8-9 42.8
192 Isaiah (cont.) 77 42.24-25 42.24 89, 92, 95, 166 42.25 50, 89, 92, 101 4214 173 42 428 19, 80, 85, 43 88,89,91, 98,99 43.1-7 1,2,6, 19, 24,31,74, 75, 77-79, 83-85, 87, 95, 96, 98-100, 159, 168, 169, 172, 174-76 74-78, 43.1 84-86, 96, 100, 113 43.2 74, 75, 77, 83, 86-88, 91-97 43.3-4 75, 85, 89, 90 43.3 19, 74, 77, 88-90, 97, 98, 100 43.4 19,26,33, 77, 84, 86, 88, 90, 95, 99, 100 43.5-8 159 43.5-6 74,77 43.5 74, 77, 85-87 43.6 22, 83, 86, 97 43.7 74, 75, 77, 78, 85, 86, 100, 110, 113, 176 43.8-13 45 43.8 92, 114 43.9 45, 46,
Mixing Metaphors
43.10-13 43.10 43.11 43.12 43.14-17 43.14 43.15 43.17-18 43.18-19 43.18 43.19 43.20 43.21 43.22-28 43.23 43.25 43.26 43.28 43.34-37 44-n-45 44.1-7 44.2 44.3 44.5 44.6-8 44.6 44.7-8 44.7
44.8 44.9-11 44.9 44.12 44.21 44.22 44.23 44.24-45.13
44.24-45.7
108 46 46, 108, 110, 114 74 114 50 74, 78, 82, 117 74 95 45 46 47 75 110, 113 92 167 84 114 50 166 106 113 22, 74, 110 22, 47, 87 74, 78, 87 45, 110, 111, 114 46,78 109 45^7, 108, 109, 119, 120, 127 46, 108 110, 111, 114 109, 110, 114 113 113 78, 166 78, 104 102, 103, 105 103
44.24-28 44.24
44.25-26 44.25
44.26-38 44.26-28 44.26 44.27 44.28
45 45.1-7
45.1 45.3-4 45.3 45.4-6 45.4 45.5 45.6 45.7 45.8
45.9-13
45.9-11 45.9-10
45.9
45.10
103-105 22, 78, 103, 104, 110, 121 104 104, 108, 112, 115, 120, 123 104 105 46, 83, 104, 123 50, 105 50, 83, 103-105, 130 105, 115 103, 105, 107 58, 127 74 86 107 107 106, 107 74, 106 74, 106 74, 103, 107, 115, 120 1,2,24, 102-107, 114, 115, 159, 17476 72, 108, 120 103, 104, 114-17, 119, 120 74, 102, 107, 108, 110, 11418, 12026 15,23,24, 27-29, 57, 115-18,
Index of References
45.11-12 45.11
45.12-13 45.12
45.13
45.14 45.15 45.16 45.18 45.19 45.20-21
45.20 45.21-22 45.21 45.25 45.46 46.1-7 46.1-2 46.1 46.2-4 46.2 46.3-4 46.5 46.6-7 46.7-8 46.7
46.8-11 46.8
120, 121, 123, 125, 129, 148, 174, 176 124 45, 74, 75, 102, 104, 108, 109, 111, 114, 115, 11922, 124, 126, 127 121, 127 74, 102, 104, 115, 121,127 41,50,80, 83, 103, 105, 107, 121, 127, 130 74,90 74 111 74 87 45, 46, 111 110, 114 110 45, 46, 74, 108, 109 22,87 110 111, 167 110, 133 113, 114 150 114 36, 110, 114 46 110 110 43, 119, 167 45 166
46.9-11 46.9 46.10-11 46.10 46.11 47
47.1
47.2-31 47.2 47.4 47.5 47.8-9 47.8 47.9
47.12-13 47.12 47.13 47.15 48-55 48-49 48.1 48.3-5 48.3 48.5 48.6 48.8-11 48.8 48.10-11 48.10 48.11 48.12-13 48.12 48.14-16 48.14 48.17 48.19 48.20 48.21 49-55 49-54
111 45-47 109 46, 104 74, 110, 112 112, 130, 135, 158 75, 157, 158, 161 91 91 74,78 75 142 23, 157 23,27, 104, 157, 159 112, 123 104 104 74 130 130 23, 74, 87, 166 109 45,46 109, 110 45 92 166 84,95 113, 114 44, 109 45 166 130 33, 104 74,78 22,87 74, 78, 114, 130 110 130 30, 130, 132, 134,
193
49-51 49
49.1-50.3 49.1-12 49.1 49.2 49.6 49.7-12 49.7 49.8 49.9 49.10 49.12 49.13-55.13 49.13-50.3
49.13-26
49.13-21
49.13
49.14-26 49.14-21 49.14-17 49.14-15
49.14
148, 159, 165 158 23,38, 141, 143, 144, 146, 148, 149 135 130 23, 130 84, 113 74, 130, 131 131 74,78 110, 167 82 110, 128 74, 130 129 129, 138, 139, 152, 153, 167 2, 26, 129, 133, 140, 167 24, 26, 128, 129, 131, 138, 139, 144, 150, 152, 153, 163, 175 130, 138, 139, 149, 166, 167, 172 172 163, 176 137 129, 167, 172, 173, 176 23, 84, 129, 130, 136, 13840, 149, 152, 153,
194
Mixing Metaphors
Isaiah (cont.)
49.15-26 49.15-16 49.15
49.16-23 49.16-17 49.16 49.17-25 49.17-18 49.17
49.18 49.19-22 49.19-20 49.19 49.20
49.21
49.22-26 49.22-23 49.22 49.23 49.24-26 49.24-25 49.24 49.25-26 49.25 49.26
50.1-3
159, 167, 172 132 141 75, 128, 137, 141, 144, 145, 148-50, 153, 167 83 50 130, 163 153 141 75, 95, 130 23, 139, 149, 150 165 142 130, 143 26, 75, 144 23, 27, 28, 134, 135, 140, 143, 148, 167, 172 138, 153 143 22, 75, 138, 149 150 138, 143 153 153, 164, 167 83 75 50, 74, 78, 84, 168, 169, 172 1,2, 15, 24, 29, 78, 79, 136, 138, 139, 144, 152,
50.1-2 50.1
50.2-3 50.2
50.3
50.4-9 50.4 50.6-7 50.7-9 50.11 51 51.1 51.2 51.3 51.7 51.9-11 51.9 51.10-11 51.10 51.12
51.17-52.12 51.17-23 51.17-18 51.17 51.18-20 51.18
51.19 51.20 51.21
153, 159, 160, 16265, 167, 168, 172, 174-76 167 23, 79, 84, 92, 136, 149,153, 163,165, 168, 172 132, 169, 170,172 42, 50, 79, 124,153, 166-69, 171,172 129, 169, 171,172 130 41
84 83,95 92 158 114 22,23,33 138,143 74 49, 50, 95, 96 41 168, 169 74,78 75, 138, 139 129 94,135 165 41, 94, 162 26, 135 75, 84, 130, 144, 158 130, 138 158 128
51.22-23 51.22 52.1-10 52.1 52.2 52.7-12 52.8 52.9 52.11 52.13-53.12 52.14 53.2-4 53.10 54
54.1-17 54.1-14 54.1-8 54.1-7 54.1-3 54.1
54.2 54.3 54.4-6 54.4
54.5-8 54.5 54.6-7 54.6 54.7 54.8 54.10 54.11-12 54.11
132 83, 94, 139.162 132 41 75, 110, 161 50,51 46 78, 84, 138 50, 130 130 75 84 87,104 16, 136, 139, 158, 159 129, 162 26, 132 16, 19,23, 135,139 162 83 16,26,57, 75, 84, 133, 143, 144, 159, 165 130 87 23 16,23,74, 84, 136, 142 84 16,23,74, 78, 143 140.163 23 149 78, 84, 92, 128 128 50, 130, 142 113, 128,
195
Index of References
54.13 54.16 55.5 55.7 57.3 57.11 58.9 59.1-2 59.16 60.4 60.10 62.4-5 63-64 63.1 63.8 63.16 64 64.8
64.11 65.1 65.6 65.24 66 66.7-11 66.7-8 66.8 66.9 66.12 66.13
138 75 74, 113 74 128 104 47 167 167, 168 167 160 128 160 37 52 38 33,37,38, 81, 160 16 37,38,85, 114, 117, 160 42 166 167 167 158 160 28 57 160 150 38, 129, 148, 160
Jeremiah
1.5 2-3 2.2 2.20-25 2.20 2.25 2.27 2.32-37 2.32 2.33 3 3.1-5
121 155 155, 159 155 155 155 35, 122 155 142 155 163 159
3.1
3.6-11 3.8 3.19-20 3.19 4.3 4.9 4.19 4.21 4.29-31 4.29 4.31 5.3 5.22 6 6.22-26 6.22-25 6.22-24 6.22-23 6.23 6.24
6.25 7.6 7.16 7.29 7.32-33 8.19 9.10 9.18 11.4 11.14 11.16 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.20-21 13.21 14.17 18.13 19.9 20.11 20.14 21.3 21.7 22.3
153, 155, 163 155 153 160 38 28 57 60 58 57, 59, 60 58 28, 53, 54, 57, 58, 69 28 28 60,68 57,59 59 60 57 58 28, 54, 57, 58,60 58 30 46 46 108 167 46 46 92,97 46 86 58 58 58 62 54,58 158 158 146 46 28 58 116 30
22.20-23 22.20 22.23 23.1-5 23.5-6 23.9 24 25.25-29 26.17 30.5-6 30.5 30.6 30.18 31 31.4 31.9 31.11 31.15 31.21 31.31-34 31.31-32 32 40.3 40.6 40.9 42.2 42.14 46.10 46.11 47.1-7 47.2 47.3 48.20 48.28 48.40-43 49.12 49.21 49.22 49.23-27 49.23 49.24 50.10 50.15 50.22 50.28 50.33-34 50.41-43
57,61 58 28, 54, 57, 58 105 86 57 82 94 58 57,61 57,58 67 108 156 158 38 78 143 158 141 156 83 58 58 58 58 62 98 158 147 92 147 58 41 62 94 58 62 57,60 57,58 54, 57, 58 58 47 58 58 79,83 57,60
196
Mixing Metaphors
Jeremiah (cont.) 50.42 58 50.43 54, 57, 58, 60 50.46 58 51.3 58 51.7 94 51.13 91 51.36 42 51.39 94 52 82 52.8 58 52.11 82 Lamentations 1 1.1 1.2 1.5 1.7 1.9 1.12 1.15 1.16
1.17 1.18 1.21 2 2.1 2.13 2.19-20 2.19 2.20 2.22 3.32 3.58 4.1-10 4.2 4.3-4 4.4 4.5 4.10 4.21
136 132, 136, 144, 157 138, 167 136, 143, 159, 160 167 138, 167 132 158 136, 159, 160, 167 167 143 167 143 132 132, 158 148 136, 159 137, 146, 147 144, 159 128 79,83 132 159, 160 147 146 132 137, 147, 148 94
5.8 5.20
Ezekiel 7.17 8-11 11.14-25 11.15 16 16.4 16.20-21 16.39-40 21.11-12 22.18-22 22.28 23
23.31-34 23.37 30.4 30.9 34.3 34.11 37 44.22
62, 133 133, 139, 140
57 133 82 83 10, 156, 158, 159 136 156 156 57 92 104 10, 156, 158, 159 94 156 64,90 64 13 14 72 162
Daniel 3 10.16 11.10 11.22 11.26 11.40 12.43
95 57 92 92 92 92 90
Hosea 1-2 1 1.3 1.6 1.8 2 2.1 2.5 2.17 2.18
154 86, 154 28 28 28 154 37, 155 154 154 154
2.22 2.25 5.8 9.11 9.12 11 11.1-4 11.3-4 13 13.13 13.14
54,71 78,83
Joel 2.1 2.6
47 28
154 155 47 27 27 137 35,37 138 71
Amos 4.1 4.4-5 5.2 5.12 7.17
158 97 108
Obadiah 16
94
Jonah 2.3
104
Micah 3.5-7 4 4.9-13 4.9-10 4.9
139
120, 126
104
58, 64, 66-68
4.13 5.1-2 5.2 7.19 10.11
57 57,64 28, 47, 54, 57,58 28, 53, 57, 66,83 64 71 28 104 104
Nahum 1.3 1.4
42, 49,
4.10
171
197
Index of References
2.11 3.9
170 28,64 90
Habakkuk 2.15-16 3 3.3 3.16 12.2
94 52 52 57 94
Zephaniah 1.14 3.14
47 47
Zechariah 7.10 9.9 9.12 10.2 12.10 13.9 14.3 Malachi 1 1.6 2.10 2.11 2.16 3.2-3 3.5
30 47 82 104 27 93 46
16 38 38 35 153 93 30
APOCRYPHA
Wisdom of Solomon 115 7.2 2 Maccabees 7.27
137
NEW TESTAMENT
MESOPOTAMIAN CITY
John 16.21-22
LAMENTS
72
Romans 8.22-23
72
Revelation 5.5 12.1-6 14.3
52 72 52
OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES
Code of Hammurabi Law #2 94 Law #138 p. 26 n. 11 Law #144 p. 26 n. 11 Law #170 p. 26 n. 11 Laws #226-27 p. 164 n. 25 A Cow of Sin
p. 53 p. 53 n. 51 p. 54 n. 57 p. 71 n. 99 Enuma Elish p. 105 p. 113n. 25 Epic ofGilgamesh p. 114 p. 56 p. 66 p. 70
balag 6.32 6.33 42 48
147 147 132 132
Eridu Lament 1.22-23 132 Lamentation over the Destruction ofSumer and Ur (LSUr) 96 147 408-409 133 Lamentation over the Destruction ofUr (LU) 1-39 133 28 158 223 147 234 147
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Anderson, B.W. 35 Bal,M. 17 Barr, J. 8 Batto, B.F. 49, 105 Baumann, A. 28,29 Beardsley, M.C. 3,4 Beaucamp, E. 43 Benjamin, D.C. 84 Berquist, J. 82, 116 Biddle,M.E. 141, 162 Bird, P.A. 26, 154 Black, M. 3,4,6,7, 11, 12, 18, 19,24,48 Blenkinsopp, J. 30-32, 42, 46, 90, 95, 162 Bogaert, M. 127 Bottero, J. 27, 112, 119 Bourget, D. 158 Brown, M.L. 3 Buber, M. 2 Buss,M.J. 115 Caplice, R.I. 112 Carroll, R.P. 62 Chirichigno, G.C. 32, 83, 168 Clements, R.E. 62 Clifford, R.J. 115 Cohen, C. 136, 157 Contenau, G. 164 Cooke, G. 39 Cross, P.M. 49-51 Cryer,F.H. 112 Curtis, E.M. 44, 109 Dandamaev, M.A. 32, 81, 82, 106 Darr, K.P. 3, 15, 16, 25, 26, 29, 42, 44, 48, 53, 68-71, 148, 164-66 DeVaux, R. 26,27,32,34
Demand, N. 25, 70, 137 Dick,M.B. 44, 109, 114, 117 Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. 47, 49, 50, 131-35, 143, 144, 146, 147, 158, 159, 161, 165,170 Eichrodt, W. 3 Elliger, K. 103 Faur, J. 44 Fensham, F.C. 33, 99, 100 Ferris, P. 147 Fitzgerald, A. 157, 158, 161 Follis,E. 149 Foster, J.A. 29 Franke, C.A. 130 Fretheim, T. 3 Frymer, T.S. 94,95 Frymer-Kensky, T. 95 Galambush, J. 12, 13, 156, 157, 161 Gitay, Y. 103, 105, 107, 120 Gottwald, N. 80, 82, 135, 164 Gruber, M.I. 69, 70, 139, 141, 149 Hanson, P. 95, 105 Hayes, J.H. 90 Killers, D.R. 57,64,66, 115 Holladay, W.L. 60-62,70 Holter,K. 112 Jacobsen, T. 34,55, 121, 122 Janzen, W. 115 Jastrow, M. 125 Johns, A.F. 125 Johnson, M. 1, 3, 4, 8-12, 14-19, 69, 152,174
Index of Authors Kaiser, B.B. 142, 143 Kaiser, O. 62,64 Kennedy, J.M. 170 Kittay, E.F. 3 Knight, G.A.F. 69,72,97 Kramer, S.N. 147 Kuhrt, A. 106 Lakoff, G. 1,3, 4, 8-12, 14-19, 69, 152, 174 Lambert, W.G. 56 Lassen, E.M. 33 Leichty, E. 119 Levine, B.A. 136, 137 Lewy,J. 157 Linafelt, T. 135 Lohfink,N. 33 Longman, T. Ill 3, 52 McCarter, P.K. 95 McCarthy, D.J. 33 McFague, S. 2 McKane, W. 94 McKenzie, J.L. 42, 104, 130 Malina, B.J. 84 Malul, M. 145, 146 March, W.E. 39 Matthews, V.H. 84 Mays, J.L. 64 Melugin, R.F. 43, 105, 127 Mendelsohn, I. 164 Mettinger, T.N.D. 3, 24, 78, 79 Meyers, C. 28-31,54 Miller, J.M. 90 Miller, P.D. 45 Miscall, P.O. 166 Moran,W.L. 33,99 Muilenburg, J. 3,103 Newsom, C. 135, 164, 165 Niditch, S. 93 North, C.R. 125, 127 O'Connor, K.M. 146 Patterson, O. 100 Perdue, L.G. 26,30,31 Pike,D.M. 30,87
199
Pitt-Rivers, J. 84 Postgate, J.N. 26 Pritchard, J.B. 114, 115 Quell, G. 99
Rad, G. von 34 Rallis, I.K. 154 Reddy, M. 10 Reid,D.G. 3,52 Richards, LA. 3-7 Ricoeur, P. 3,4 Roberts, J.J.M. 45 Schenker, A. 88-90 Schmitt, J.J. 73, 129, 148, 149, 155, 156, 158,159 Schokel,L.A. 72 Schungel-Straumann, H. 138 Scullion, J. 141, 166 Seibert, I. 54 Seitz, C.R. 45, 46, 108 Shaw, C. 64,65 Sigerist, H.E. 137 Smart, J.D. 47,72,104,126 Smith, D.L. 82,93 Smith, G.A. 42 Smith-Christopher, D.L. 88 Soskice, J. 6,8,48 Spykerboer, H.C. 105 Stuhlmueller, C. 2, 78, 95, 115, 120, 121, 126,127, 169-71 Thomas, D.W. 90, 126 Thompson, J.A. 59 Toorn, K. van der 26, 53, 55, 56, 93-95, 119,121, 137 Trible,P. 39, 137, 139 Turner, M.D. 3,9, 135, 161 Veldhuis,N. 53,55,71, 136 Walker, C. 109, 117 Watts, J.D.W. 42, 106 Watts, R.E. 130 Westermann, C. 42, 43, 74, 75, 77, 91, 103, 105, 110, 126, 127, 129 Whybray,R.N. 42, 105, 125, 166
200 Wijk-Bos, J.W.H. van 3 Willey,P.T. 135, 139 Wilson, R.R. 104
Mixing Metaphors Wolff, H.W. 65 Zannoni, A.E. 137