Hope for the Hopeless - A Reading of the Transcendent God of Isaiah 40

Earlier today I posted with a close look at two texts that people often misuse to prove the Bible’s scientific infallibility. We looked at how people often misuse Job 38:14 and Isaiah 40:22 regarding the physical structure of the Earth, and I demonstrated how both of the texts assume and apply an Ancient understanding of the world. If you missed my point, it is not to argue that the Bible is faulty, but rather that the writers made assumptions and used them in allegories with no intention of teaching scientific truths. Rather, they were focusing on the transcendence of God using worldviews common to the day. If you have not already read it, you may want to reference that post first, though it is not necessary in order to understand this one.

In this post I am applying the principle of the previous post. I wish to look at Isaiah 40:22 in light of the meaning of the entire chapter and in context of both parts of Isaiah. You can decide if the Ancient worldview of a flat disc changes the meaning of the text at all. 

Regardless of the date of the writing, scholars agree that the events depicted in Isaiah 40-66 are Isaiah’s visions after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BC. Isaiah 39 concludes with King Hezekiah in power, having heard a good word from God, thinking he would have peace and security the rest of his life serving as Israel’s King. If we only had the book of Isaiah to go off of, in Isaiah 40, we wake up a century and a half later. What has happened to the peace and security Hezekiah thought he would have? We don’t know. What has gone on? Jerusalem has fallen. This we know. The temple therefore has presumably been destroyed, and the King is presumably dead. Israel's children have been raptured from their homeland and forced into exile in Babylon. Where is God in all this turmoil? Isaiah 40 therefore is the introduction to this half of the book, addressed to comfort those in exile and address this very question.

Below I have offered a direct paraphrase of all of Isaiah 40. My intent was to use some of the same concepts and emotions as the original writing rather than simply directly translating the passage. Isaiah was written during the apex of written Hebrew, and I hope to convey that apex of emotion below, as modern near-direct translations do not convey the emotion present, in my opinion. For reference purposes, I have included verse-by-verse citations in superscript, and I have included rhetorical information implied but not present in a grey font.  I have preserved the Hebrew proper name of God as YHWH, translated as “The LORD” in most English Bibles. I will not be concluding with a prayer but will rather leave you with the Word of God, inviting you to internalize the Message for yourself:

¹Comfort, oh comfort, my people! ^2fJerusalem is gone, destroyed for her sins, but in this time of desert, YHWH, our God, is coming... ^4fMountains may fall and valleys may fill with the sands of time, but YHWH is coming.... He said it Himself! ⁶I heard a voice. It said to proclaim the good news: He is coming!  

^7fCivilizations fade like dry grass, but the word of YHWH our God lasts forever. ^9fDo not fear, for the fallen Jerusalem will rise!. Behold! He’s coming now! ¹¹He brings a reward for his flock. He will feed us like a shepherd. He will gather us up in His arms as tender lambs.

¹²What? You do not know this God?! How can I describe Him?! The oceans are in His hands! The limits of the sky are but an arms reach! The Earth and its mountains are but dust on a scale! ^13fWho directs Him? Who advises Him? With whom did He consult to enlighten Himself or teach Him justice? ^15fNo one! Even all the peoples of the Earth are like a drop in the bucket to Him! All the trees of the King’s forrest and all the animals therein could never amount to an offering to Him! 

¹⁷All the peoples of the Earth are nothing compared to our God. ^18-20With what or whom can you compare God? An idol? Worthless! ^21fDo you not know? Have you not heard? Have you not been told since your birth? Do even the foundations of the earth not attest to this understanding? It is He! He! whose throne is above this petty disc of land, whose inhabitants are but insects! He parts the curtains of the Heavens and dwells in them as a tent. ^23fHe humiliates those rulers of the Earth, for they are nothing compared to Him. They are like scarce seed, planted without root, withering away and blowing as dust in the wind. ²⁵The Holy One of Israel Himself asks: “Who is like Me?" No one! 

^26fLift up your eyes and see: the Creator is coming! He is mighty! Do not feel that God has abandoned you. ²⁸Do you not know? Have you not heard? YHWH is an everlasting God! The Creator of even the very edges of the Earth! He doesn’t grow weary Himself, ^29fno, He even energizes those who are weary. He strengthens those without power. Even the most stalwart young man will fall. But He doesn’t!  

³¹Wait for Him.... He will restore our strength.... We will soar with Him again like eaglets... We will run with Him again like untiring deer... We will walk with Him again and never get tired of it... Wait for Him.... He is coming!

~ The Deeper Magician's Apprentice 

Subtle Science or Transcendence of God using Ancient Concepts: You Decide - Isaiah 40 and Job 38

Good morning to my fellow disciples. I apologize for not taking the time to write a new post yet this month. It has been a very hectic Summer with my added responsibilities as a teaching assistant to the normal shortened and more intensive Summer term, but I will make it up to you today with a two-part post.

I’d like today to take a brief look at how we approach the Bible, taking a close look at a few passages as illustration. Modern Science and Philosophy have brought a lot to the table in the past few hundred years. Faced with apologetic evidence from a few who seek to destroy our faith in God’s revelation to us in the Bible, Christians have often either abandoned their faith in the veracity of the Bible or have turned the Bible into a tool to combat Science. The Bible is indeed True. It is a faithful representation of the nature of God and God’s relationship to man. But those who have turned the Bible into a tool to combat Science miss the point of the Biblical message entirely. If we want to truly understand the message of the Bible we need to move beyond using it as an apologetic tool, often in the form of a weapon against flesh and blood (in contrast to Ephesians 6), and instead view it as an attestation of the reality of God and an attestation of how God has remained True to His Word over the course of the history of mankind.

With this hermeneutic in mind--that is, the way I am approaching the text--I want to take a close look at two passages often incorrectly used as a proof against Science and show how they demonstrate the reality of the truthfulness of God’s word. First let’s look at Job 38:12-15. In some Christian’s minds, Job is viewed as the oldest book of the Bible. This is not my view, but I am not here to debate dating. Let’s just assume for a moment that it is the oldest book in the Bible so we can hear the full argument. Christian apologists against Science will often quote Job 38:14 as a proof that the oldest book in the Bible refers to the Earth as round. The King James version is most often used to support this view, as it has God speak the following phrase to Job and his associates: “It (the Earth) is turned as clay to the seal.” They read this as throwing a sphere of clay on the potter’s wheel and letting it spin on its axis, similar to how the Earth is a globe that spins on its own axis.

We know today that the Earth is round and that it spins on its own axis, and there is nothing wrong with knowing that God, who sets all things in motion, created this sphere and set it spinning. But that is a true claim that is deducted from what we know outside the Bible and applying it to the passage. The passage in itself doesn’t say anything about this. What we have here in Job is a scene near the end of the book where God has come down to rebuke Job’s associates for continuing to say Job did something wrong. God is likening himself and his ways to a Master Potter shaping not only human clay vessels but also all of creation. If Job’s associates can’t understand how God is shaping all of creation, then how could they understand why he chose to shape Job the way he did? This is an allegory, not a scientific statement of the shape of the Earth.

In fact, if we were to read Job 38:14 as a Scientific statement that God “turns” the Earth as a globe, we would have to read the entire paragraph of 38:12-15 in the same light. 38:12 suggests God commands light--no problem there, we read that in Genesis 1 that God spoke light into existence via a command: “Let there be light!” But when we get to 38:13 we run into problems. The dawn (i.e. morning Sun) is said to “take hold of the ends of the Earth.” The word for “ends” literally means “wings” and is often appropriately translated “edges.” A clay statue under heat can be envisioned here, with God grabbing the edges of a clay eagle’s wings and “shaking out” the unwanted excess pieces of clay, likened to wicked people whose power will be broken (v 15).

If we don’t interpret it as literal “wings” but rather stick with the allegorical “edges,” we still run into problems, as we now are using 38:14 as allegory to support a metaphor of spinning clay as an exact replica of the spinning Earth. This spinning earth shouldn’t have any edges. What could this be referring to? To answer this question we should look to the second passage often incorrectly used to suggest the same thing, Isaiah 40:17-24. 

In Isaiah 40:22, we read in most English translations that God “sits above the circle of the Earth.” Those who wish to read the Bible as a scientific weapon against Modern Science use this passage frequently to say that long before any man conceived the idea of the Earth as a globe that God subtly put this notion into the Bible. While I am not debating God’s scientific knowledge of the Earth, the concept of a globe here is abusively forced upon the text by Modern readers. There is a word for a sphere in the Hebrew Bible, but it is not used here. The word that is used here refers specificly to a flat circle or a compass and can best be rendered “disc.” 

This concept of the world as a disc (with edges) was common in the ancient world. The picture painted by the writers of the Bible is a disc of land surrounded by water. The heavens were above the Earth and below the Earth was an abyss, a bottomless pit. Some in the Ancient world felt that below the Earth a god was forced to hold the world in place, but the Bible rejects this notion, saying that God created even this foundation. Not surprisingly, this foundation is specifically mentioned in the preceding verse, Isaiah 40:21.

Read in context of 40:21, the passage clearly refers to this model of the Earth. However, read in context with all of 40:17-24, we understand that the Bible is not affirming anything about the Ancient view of the structure of the Earth, nor is it subtly referring to knowledge to come. What the passage is focusing on is the utter transcendence of God who created everything and who can be a comforter to Israel in her time of exile. 

As promised, this will be a two-part entry. The next entry will be a personal paraphrase of all of Isaiah 40. You may read it at your convenience and form your own personal opinion as to whether God is trying to tell us something Scientifically about the structure of the Earth or whether Isaiah is focusing on the transcendence of God quite unlike anything the Ancient (and Modern) world could ever dream of. Let me conclude with this prayer:

LORD God, Father, Creator of All things, 

Forgive us for coming to your word with our personal agendas. Forgive us for focusing on trivia instead of You. Forgive us for using Your Word as a weapon against flesh and blood.  

Give us ears to hear Your Living Word. Give us eyes to perceive Your transcendence. Give us hearts to love others in the same way You have always loved us.

We pray this in Your Name alone, Let it be!

Jesus and Nicodemus - The Jewish Perception of the Kingdom of God and Jesus' Redefinition of Identity

Today I want to go a little out of my comfort zone and want to write about what might be called the first Christian commentary on Genesis--the New Testament Book of John. While I call it a commentary on Genesis, I do so to point out its nature, not to degrade it to something less than the inspired Word of God. John 1 clearly parallels Genesis 1 by starting with “In the beginning,” and proceeding to focus on the identity of That Which Was in the beginning and the forming of a man in the Image of God. While there is plenty of material in John (and indeed the major focus of John) regarding the nature of the incarnation, I want to focus today on our identity again, so I will turn to John 3 and the famous story of Nicodemus.

The story goes that Nicodemus was a righteous man, a Pharisee. While today the word “Pharisee” tends to have negative connotations, the term in Jesus’ day was a religious position and referred to a group of people who tried to stick to their religious values while still being active in their cultural society. This Pharisee Nicodemus came to Jesus and wanted to know who Jesus was, as Jesus had been somewhat masking his identity (reference chapter 2). Rather than answering directly, Jesus addressed the question that was really on Nicodemus’ mind: “I know you’re truly a Prophet of God; you might even be the Messiah; How do we bring about the Kingdom of God?”

Jesus cryptically replies, “You want to know the true Truth? I’ll tell it to you: no one will ever perceive the reality of the Kingdom of God unless he or she is born again.” Nicodemus, in more polite terms, says, “What the heck do you mean by that?!” By all means, he had a very legitimate question.

In the mind of the First Century Jew, the Kingdom of God was an immanent, physical reality. They had relatively recently returned from exile physically but were living under a puppet King under Roman rule.  The Kingdom of God, in the mind of the First Century Jew, was to be ushered in by the Messiah, a King in the line of David who would overthrow the Roman tyranny and bring Israel back from their spiritual and political exile, restoring their identity as an everlasting, holy nation. So when Nicodemus asks, “Who are you?” he is really asking, “Are you the Messiah who will usher in this political Kingdom of God?”

Jesus responds in kind, saying, “The Kingdom of God isn’t what you think it is. The Kingdom of God is one of rebirth.” What does this rebirth look like? It is a complete transformation of identity. This is stressed in the Greek passage by literally being “born from the top down,” using a separate adverb that is emphatic to the typical word used in the New Testament for being reborn. It is a revoking of the identity of flesh. Flesh comes from dust, and to dust shall the flesh return, because flesh identifies with the change of identity in Genesis 3. If one is to be reborn, he must accept the birth of the Spirit, the original identity that was breathed into dry flesh in Genesis 2--the identity of being the Image of God in Genesis 1.

What does this look like practically? Jesus continues by paralleling Genesis 1 in John 3:19. He identifies Himself as the Light of the World. During the Creation cycle, creation occurred during the day, during the light. It is a symbol of empowerment of inviting those who wish to actualise the immanent, physical Kingdom of God. (Although Jesus makes no reference to a political kingdom.) Jesus vocation as Messiah was to usher in the Kingdom of God by giving humanity back their identity as the Image of God, a partner in creation and restoration. 

To those who embrace the Light, to those who accept their identity as Image Bearers of God, to those who choose to partner with God in the acts of re-creation and restoration, those are the ones who will manifest and perceive the present actuality of the Kingdom of God (3:21). To those who live in darkness, the period of inactivity and complacency to the world around them, they are the ones whose deeds are defined as “evil.” They continually live in the sin of Genesis 3 of believing the lie that they are less than the very Image of God and can be (or are) greater. To those, they have already been judged, and as long as they persist to live the lie, they will never perceive the present reality Kingdom of God.

While this passage may have potential implications for both the nature of Jesus and eschatological implications regarding salvation, my concern does not lie there. My concern lies with the question implied by Nicodemus and Jesus’ response. Nicodemus asked a practical question: “Are you going to usher in the Kingdom of God, and how can I participate in it?” Jesus gave a practical answer: “Within My Lifetime, the Kingdom of  God will be a present reality for those who choose to define themselves as Image Bearers of God and partner with Me in the acts of Re-creation and Restoration.” 

Believe, perceive, and act; or live in the lie of less-than. The choice is yours. As for me and my house, we are serving as present-day Image Bearers of YHWH in an ever-present Kingdom of God.

Establishing Identity via the Naming of Jacob as Israel

The Biblical Patriarch Jacob was renamed Israel in Gen 32. The story tells us the meaning of his namesake. Jacob was a deceiver or "supplanter," from birth up until this point, but rather than clinging to the heal of his human-given identity, here Jacob wrestles with God to give him a new identity.

The story goes that God renamed the Deceiver as Israel, and it defines it for us: "One who strives (sara) with God" (and men and prevails). The word strive also has a synonym in 32:24 (abaq) that is translated as "wrestle," or literally, "get dusty," and scholars will often point out that this is a physical fight because Jacob literally "got dusty" with God.

The significance of Jacob "getting dusty" with God does not stop at a physical fight. It has much more of a deeper magic that can only been seen when reading it in context with the rest of the epic narrative. In Genesis 1:26-28 we read that God made humanity in the Image of God, and in Genesis 2:7 we read that humanity was created out of the dust of the Earth. In Genesis 3 humanity redefined itself not as God's image but rather under the authority of the "whispering deceiver" (nachash, often translated "serpent").

The renaming of Jacob as one who wrestles with God fits into a redemptive and re-creative Type of undoing what was done in Genesis 3. Jacob sheds his serpent-given identity of a deceiver and instead assumes the identity of one who chooses to define himself as one who joins in God's efforts by "getting dusty." Joining God in the vocation of re-creation is not enough though, and Jacob decides he will not let go of God until God redefines his identity. God obliges, redefining Jacob as Israel, one who strives with God, in the authority of God, on behalf of men. Jacob prevails, and thus Israel is born.