The Isaiah Project: Chapter 57, or, The Prophetic Palimpsest
Greetings--we are closing in now on the end. Below you'll find a few thoughts on the style of the prophecy as a whole, and what it means for us.
The Vision Isaiah Saw: Chapter 571. The righteous dies, and no man takes it to heart. Men of mercy are taken away, with no one to consider that the righteous is taken away from the evil.
2. He comes into peace while they rest on their beds, the one walking in rectitude.
3. But you: come here, up close. You sons of witches and offspring of adulterers and whores —
4. Who are you making fun of? Your mouth gaping wide and your tongue sticking out — against whom? Aren’t you the sons of a rebellion and the offspring of a lie?
5. You, inflaming yourself beneath the terebinths, beneath every green tree, slaughtering children in riverbeds and in rocky crevices —
6. Among the smooth stones of the riverbed, you’ll get what’s coming to you: them. They are your fate. For them you even poured out libations, brought them gifts. And in all this, I'm supposed to stay calm?
7. You laid out your bed on a lofty, uplifted mountain — you went right up to that spot to sacrifice your sacrifices.
8. Behind the door, in back of its frame, you placed your memorial. You disrobed and rose up away from me; you spread out your bedding and cut a deal for yourself with them. You loved their bed; you saw their hand.
9. You went off to the king with oils; you amassed your ointments and sent envoys far and wide. You went low — all the way down to the Grave.
10. Though you grew weary with the length of your path, you never said, ‘it’s a lost cause.’ You found life in your hand, and so you did not fall.
11. Who were you afraid of? Whom did you hold in such reverence that you lied and forgot me, didn’t keep me at heart or in mind? Haven’t I kept silent for ages past, yet you don’t fear me?
12. I, I will pronounce your righteousness, and the things you do — but you’ll get nothing out of them.
13. Let’s see them save you when you scream — the ones you gathered around you — a breath of wind will carry them off, all of them. Nothingness will take them. But anyone who takes refuge in me will inherit the earth — will take possession of my sacred mountain,
14. And say, ‘rear up! Rear up, clear a path, get the stumbling block up out of my people’s way.’
15. For so says the exalted, the uplifted who dwells in eternity, Sacred by name: ‘I dwell in exaltation and sanctity with him who is crushed — whose spirit is brought low to give life to the spirit of those who are brought low; to give life to the heart of those who are crushed.’
16. Because I won’t fight forever, and my rage won’t go on relentlessly — because the spirit would expire in my presence, as would the life-breath which I myself made.
17. It was his greed and corruption that fueled my rage, and I beat him. I hid in my rage, and he went on, his back turned, down the path of his own heart.
18. I saw his path, and I will heal him. I’ll guide and give comfort, give peace back to him and those who grieve for him.
19. I create what their lips produce — peace, peace to those far off and close by, says God, and I will heal him.
20. But the wicked are like a storm-tossed ocean which can’t find stillness — its waters toss up mud and sediment.
21. No peace, says my god, for the wicked.
Isaiah in this chapter can be fairly described as apoplectic. After the exalted vision of the last chapter, in which the peoples of the world come flooding into Zion, we are now confronted abruptly by an indignant cri de coeur: 'the righteous dies, and no man takes it to heart.' At times the phrasing is so disjointed that the prophet seems almost to be sputtering with rage, as well as brooding with grim satisfaction over the reversal of fortune to come. 'Men of mercy are taken away,' he mutters darkly, but no one realizes that 'the one walking in rectitude' is really being 'taken away from evil.' The galling effrontery of the world's power brokers is as clear to Isaiah as the efficacy of the trap which they have laid unwittingly for themselves.
A recurring theme of this project has been the fluidity of time, space, and speaker in the prophecy: the voice of Isaiah and the voice of God; the end of days and the end of exile in Babylon; the Messiah and the whole human race all meld by turns with one another. It is a powerfully suggestive technique, even if at times it is maddeningly hard to follow. The effect is similar to that of what literarly scholars call a 'palimpsest': a manuscript with multiple texts written one on top of the other, so that the earlier text slips into view at the points where the top layer pauses or simply gets worn down.
This chapter is a palimpsest: history is the top layer, but beneath it glows eternity. Isaiah's personal rage is directed squarely at the apostates and abusers of the Jewish people in exile. The Israelites who have buckled under pressure or temptation, and the foreign oppressors who have blackmailed and tempted them, are signing their death warrants by chasing after the benefaction of false idols and petty kings. Like common whores they slipped out of their true love's bed and stripped naked, abandoned God and left a sign on their door for any false deity they liked the look of (verses 7-9).
This infidelity will be punished simply by being permitted: terribly, those who go hunting after false gods are at risk of getting what they ask for. 'you'll get what's coming to you: them. They are your fate. For them you...poured out libations, brought them gifts' (verse 6).
But rumbling behind this fit of righteous anger on the prophet's part is another, more cosmic fury: 'Haven't I kept silent for ages past, yet you don't fear me?' This is more than one man's passionate frustrations; it is the crashing forth of an ancient energy which has been stifled since the world was made and fell. God has stepped back from the stage to let men choose for themselves; what they have chosen is misery, and now at last God will speak.
This is not a tantrum; it is not an outburst of mere resentment on the part of a sinful man. It is an anguished moan of infuriated love, the true God betrayed and left alone in an empty bed by his adulterous people. Hence the conclusion: 'I won't fight forever.' It would destroy the spirit of mankind to endure God's limitless anger; he will calm himself to preserve 'the life-breath which I myself made.' Though we prostrate and abase ourselves in the hunt for empty pleasures and misbegotten power, in the end we will not, in fact, get what we asked for or deserve.
And so here perhaps is another palimpsest, a figure silent and submerged beneath the punishment of mankind. The suffering servant whom God afflicted in the chapters just before this one also received an affliction and a reward which is now directed at all humanity: 'I beat him. I hid in my rage.' Who is this one man to be scourged and then forgiven? Who could bear to get what we deserve?
Christian doctrine answers this question by splitting lines like verse 17 into two: the greed and corruption are ours, the punishment is his. That is the thought which has given courage to suffering martyrs for 2,000 years, which comforts the sick and the dying still today: that in the worst of our afflictions, in the relentless furnace of the world, we are each of us a palimpsest. Like Isaiah, the surface of us is all helpless fury and impotent rage. But every human sorrow is underwritten by words of a deeper grief, eternal and anything but impotent. The miracle is not that we never suffer; we do, terribly. The miracle is that our afflictions do not finally destroy us but reveal, beneath the surface of us, the afflicted God whose eternal life is ours.
Rejoice evermore,Spencer