Isaiah: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
7:1 VA YEHI BIYMEI ACHAZ BEN YOTAM BEN UZI-YAHU MELECH YEHUDAH ALAH RETSIN MELECH ARAM U PHEKACH BEN REMAL-YAHU MELECH YISRA-EL YERU-SHALA'IM LA MILCHAMAH ALEYHA VE LO YACHOL LEHILACHEM ALEYHA
וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אָחָז בֶּן-יוֹתָם בֶּן-עֻזִּיָּהוּ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה עָלָה רְצִין מֶלֶךְ-אֲרָם וּפֶקַח בֶּן-רְמַלְיָהוּ מֶלֶךְ-יִשְׂרָאֵל יְרוּשָׁלִַם לַמִּלְחָמָה עָלֶיהָ וְלֹא יָכֹל לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ
BN (BibleNet translation): And it came to pass in the days of Achaz ben Yotam, the son of Uzi-Yah, king of Yehudah, that Retsin the king of Aram, with Phekach ben Remal-Yah, the king of Israel, went up to Yeru-Shala'im to make war against it; but they could not prevail against it.
Move back again the best part of 20 years, or perhaps this is where the previous chapters were also dated; either way cf 2 Kings 15:25 ff for the first Assyrian War. What we know of the total Assyrian assault is that it lasted several decades, through the reigns of four kings, first Tiglath-pileser III, then Shalman-Ezer V, then Sargon II, and finally Sennacherib, before the Northern Kingdom of Yisra-El (also called Ephrayim) was finally defeated; and only then did the assault on Yeru-Shala'im take place, during Chizki-Yah's reign there.
So, as far as this chapter is concerned anyway, Yisra-El still exists and has a king, separate from the southern kingdom of Yehudah, though its end cannot be so far away that it requires a prophet to seer it.
Who is the author of this text? Verses 3 and 4, for example, speak to, and then about Yesh'a-Yah in the 3rd person, so it clearly isn't him. Probably none of this book was written down by Yesh'a-Yah, but rather, like the Qur'an, the students (disciples is not the best word to describe them) either wrote down his sermons verbatim in the manner of stenographers, or took detailed notes and wrote them up in his style later on, or, probably the most likely, the favoured few worked with him to prepare the gist of these sermons in advance, Y-Y then extemporising the script to some degree, and a final version defined later on. The generally accepted fantasy-version has a man on haoma speaking-in-tongues the inspired wisdom that occurs to him at the time, or worse an angel, or the metaphorical deity, simply ventriloquising through him. The complexity of the form, the analogies, the allegories, the biblical references, allusions and quotations, the sophisticated word-play especially, all belie these fantasies. Even Shakespeare could not have extemporised Hamlet, while sober, let alone while drunk or stoned.
ACHAZ: See the link.
ACHAZ: See the link.
UZI-YAH: We met him in the earlier chapters; see 1:1 where we are told that his son Yotam succeeded him, and then his son Achaz, with Chizki-Yah about to be announced in this chapter (Chizki-Yah, not Jesus; sorry Matthew but you got that one very wrong - see Matthew 1:23).
RETSIN: See the link for an evaluation both of the man and the empire that he inherited... and lost; his was Aram, not Ashur.
PHEKACH BEN REMAL-YAHU: See the link. And note that, once again, we have a Yah-name that has been masculinised by the later redactor.
7:2 VA YUGAD LE BEIT DAVID LEMOR NACHAH ARAM AL EPHRAYIM VA YAN'A LEVAVO U LEVAV AMO KE NO'A ATSEI YA'AR MIPNEI RU'ACH
וַיֻּגַּד לְבֵית דָּוִד לֵאמֹר נָחָה אֲרָם עַל אֶפְרָיִם וַיָּנַע לְבָבוֹ וּלְבַב עַמּוֹ כְּנוֹעַ עֲצֵי יַעַר מִפְּנֵי רוּחַ
KJ: And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
BN: And it was reported to the house of David, saying: Aram is in league with Ephrayim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest are moved by the wind.
NACHAH... VA YAN'A: This could easily be read as a warning, that Ephrayim and Aram are in conspiracy against Yehudah. But not so. They have joined forces because they can both see the Assyrians approaching, and mutual defense will be more potent. The call is for Yehudah to become the third ally.
EPHRAYIM: The northern kingdom, which we think of as Yisra-El, in contrast to the southern kingdom of Yehudah, styled itself as Ephrayim, though the name did not in fact come from the tribe, nor was it a reclaiming of the tribal ancestor's birthright from Menasheh.
LEVAV rather than LEV; the plural of LEV is always LEVAVOT, but we have already witnessed Y-Y using the singular, and doing so to make a clear distinction between the LEV and the LEVAV - see my note at 1:5.
samech break
7:3 VA YOMER YHVH EL YESH'A-YAHU TSE NA LIKRA'T ACHAZ ATAH U SHE'AR-YASHUV BENECHA EL KETSEH TE'ALAT HA BERECHAH HA ELYONAH EL MESILAT SEDEH CHOVES
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל יְשַׁעְיָהוּ צֵא נָא לִקְרַאת אָחָז אַתָּה וּשְׁאָר יָשׁוּב בְּנֶךָ אֶל קְצֵה תְּעָלַת הַבְּרֵכָה הָעֶלְיוֹנָה אֶל מְסִלַּת שְׂדֵה כוֹבֵס
BN (provisional translation): Then YHVH said to Yesh'a-Yah: Go down now to meet Achaz, you and She'ar-Yashuv your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway at Fullers' Field...
This verse presents an enormous challenge, and an enormous opportunity, to the historians, simply by asking the questions that are implied by it:
i) Why Yesh'a-Yah? He might think he is the right person to go and do whatever-it-is, but why would YHVH choose him?
ii) Can just anyone go down to wherever the king happens to be, and take his son for company, and walk up to engage in conversation with the king?
iii) Is this the clearest indication yet that Y-Y was a nutcase, a man who took drugs, hallucinated, fantasised his own self-importance, and articulated his Tourette's Syndrome in public rants?
iv) Or is he, not just a Temple priest, but a senior figure in the religious world of his day, perhaps the Dean of the University (or, in Jewish terms, the Rav of the Yeshivah) in whose authority, much like the Archbishop of Canterbury in England, lay the semicha on which a king depends?
I shall not attempt to answer those questions immediately, but as each verse goes by we will hopefully find our answers likewise implicit.
*
TSE NA: That is a very polite, indeed a very formal request from YHVH. When Av-Ram was sent from Padan-Aram (Genesis 12:1), YHVH said "LECH LECHA", not "LECH NA!" (and yes I chose this example deliberately, rather than say Mosheh out of Egypt or Yonah supposed to go to Ninveh; because Padan-Aram is precisely the place from which the invasion that Y-Y is about to describe is coming from and what they brought with them will impact on both proto-Judaism, Talmudic Judaism, and indeed Christianity, including the very text of the Tanach and the Christian Bible, for ever).
SHE'AR and YASHUV are two separate words, and not even hyphenated in the pointed versions. She'ar means "remnant", and "Yashuv" means "settlement" (Jews in the Diaspora for the last two thousand years have referred to the homeland as "the Yishuv"); so is this in fact his "son", or rather "you and those who remain in the homeland", the "remnant" that will be spoken of repeatedly throughout the Prophetic writings?
The only difficulty with this reading is the word BENECHA which follows, and which generally means "your son" - except that, as we have seen repeatedly through the Tanach, the word is also used for a clan-member, a tribesman, a fellow artisan or craftsman, a fellow member of the choir or orchestra - in Yesh'a-Yah's case it most likely refers to the other members of the Guild of Prophets.
MESILAT SEDEH CHOVES: Fuller's Field: much dispute among the scholars as to what, and where, it was. The place is mentioned again in Isaiah 36:2, at the time of Sennacherib:
The only difficulty with this reading is the word BENECHA which follows, and which generally means "your son" - except that, as we have seen repeatedly through the Tanach, the word is also used for a clan-member, a tribesman, a fellow artisan or craftsman, a fellow member of the choir or orchestra - in Yesh'a-Yah's case it most likely refers to the other members of the Guild of Prophets.
MESILAT SEDEH CHOVES: Fuller's Field: much dispute among the scholars as to what, and where, it was. The place is mentioned again in Isaiah 36:2, at the time of Sennacherib:
"Then the king of Ashur sent Rav-Shakeh from Lachish to Yeru-Shala'im, to king Chizki-Yah, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway at Fullers' Field."
which is virtually a quote from 2 Kings 18:17. The continuation of Isaiah 36 likewise mirrors 2 Kings 18:26, which tells us that
"Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, 'Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Yehudit in the hearing of the people on the wall."
which at the very least tells us that the conduit in Fullers' Field was very close to the wall, though at which point of the wall remains unknown.
And just for the information, a Fuller is a person who cleans the wool after it has been sheared from the sheep; the process, not surprisingly, is called "fulling".
BN (revised translation): Then YHVH said to Yesh'a-Yah: Please will you go down to meet Achaz, and not just you, but all who are your students and disciples among the remnant of this land; you will find him at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway by the Fullers' Field...
BN (revised translation): Then YHVH said to Yesh'a-Yah: Please will you go down to meet Achaz, and not just you, but all who are your students and disciples among the remnant of this land; you will find him at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway by the Fullers' Field...
7:4 VE AMARTA ELAV HISHAMER VE HASHKET AL TIYRA U LEVAVECHA AL YERECH MI SHENEY ZANVOT HA UDIM HA ASHENIM HA ELEH BA CHARI APH RETSIN VE ARAM U VEN REMAL-YAHU
וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו הִשָּׁמֵר וְהַשְׁקֵט אַל תִּירָא וּלְבָבְךָ אַל יֵרַךְ מִשְּׁנֵי זַנְבוֹת הָאוּדִים הָעֲשֵׁנִים הָאֵלֶּה בָּחֳרִי אַף רְצִין וַאֲרָם וּבֶן רְמַלְיָהוּ
BN: And say to him: Be watchful, but stay calm. There is nothing to fear, so do not let your heart grow faint over these two tails of smoking firebrands, the fierce anger of Retsin and Aram, and that of ben Remal-Yah...
The [remarkably gentle] message is that this war will fail, but verse 8 will tell us that, sixty-five years hence, "Ephrayim will be broken". This adds a layer of complexity to the dating of the book, and weight to the suggestion that there were multiple Yesh'a-Yahs over a very lengthy period. If Ephrayim is understood as the northern kingdom that split in the civil war between Yerav-Am (Jeroboam) and Rechav-Am (Rehoboam) after the death of Shelomoh (Solomon), then sixty-five years hence will be precisely those quotes from Isaiah 32 and 2 Kings 16 that took us to the same Fullers' Field. Is that coincidence of history, or a later author of a book wanting to wrap his text symmetrically?
However, the scholars (see my notes to Isaiah 1) reckon Yesh'a-Yah to have begun his Prophetcy in 742 BCE, and sixty-five years from then would take us to 677 BCE, whereas Sennacherib's conquest was around 700 BCE, and not later than 720 BCE; which would need this prophesy to date somewhere between 767 and 787 BCE, which doesn't work with the king-names associated with Yesh'a-Yah (probably that renders the scholars, not the author of this text, as the ones in error!).
If we look at those king lists, we see that Achaz was Chizki-Yah's father and predecessor, that Hoshe'a (not to be confused with the later Prophet of the same name) came to the throne of Ephrayim in the 12th year of Achaz's rule in Yehudah, and ruled for nine years before Sennacherib took his throne. Before him (in reverse order here) Pekach ruled for twenty years, Pekach-Yah for two, Menahem his father for ten, Shallum for just one month, Zechar-Yah for six months, and Yerav-Am II for 41 years before them, which places this prophecy in the middle of Yerav-Am II's reign (you can read the full list, and in chronological order, at 2 Kings 15).
All of which may well be correct, we cannot know. But if we now jump to the end of the book, we will find "deutero-Isaiah" (a ridiculous underestimation!) prophesying the fall of Yehudah, and then being present with the captives in Babylon, an event that we know took place around 586 BCE, giving the Prophet a longevity of fully 200 years. Can we then read the name Yesh'a-Yah as a title, in the way that we should read David and Shelomoh, in the way that John Paul or Pius are in the Vatican, indeed as all four Assyrian kings of this epoch were, and Prophet as something like the equivalent of Senior Academician, even Chief Rabbi, or, perhaps, closer to the role of the Oracle of Delphi?
All of which may well be correct, we cannot know. But if we now jump to the end of the book, we will find "deutero-Isaiah" (a ridiculous underestimation!) prophesying the fall of Yehudah, and then being present with the captives in Babylon, an event that we know took place around 586 BCE, giving the Prophet a longevity of fully 200 years. Can we then read the name Yesh'a-Yah as a title, in the way that we should read David and Shelomoh, in the way that John Paul or Pius are in the Vatican, indeed as all four Assyrian kings of this epoch were, and Prophet as something like the equivalent of Senior Academician, even Chief Rabbi, or, perhaps, closer to the role of the Oracle of Delphi?
And one last alternative to the above: that Yesh'a-Yah simply got the time-scale of his prediction very badly wrong!
7:5 YA'AN KI YA'ATS ALEYCHA ARAM RA'AH EPHRAYIM U VEN REMAL-YAHU LEMOR
יַעַן כִּי יָעַץ עָלֶיךָ אֲרָם רָעָה אֶפְרַיִם וּבֶן רְמַלְיָהוּ לֵאמֹר
KJ: Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
BN: Because Aram is planning evil against you, and Ephrayim too, and ben Remal-Yah, saying:
RA'AH: AS with LEV and LEVAV previously, we need to be able to see the distinction between RA and RA'AH. Here it is RA'AH, and that definitely means "evil", which is not just "something bad" that happens, but wilfully so, deliberately so, done by someone who knows exactly what he is doing. But in verses 15 and 16 we are given RA, not RA'AH, and that is not evil, but simply "bad", as in "incompetent", or even "failed" - as with King Sha'ul, the man is not evil, he simply isn't up to the task of kingship.
7:6 NA'ALEH VIYHUDAH U NEKIYTSENAH VE NAVKI'ENAH ELEYNU VE NAMLICH MELECH BETOCHAH ET BEN TAV'AL
נַעֲלֶה בִיהוּדָה וּנְקִיצֶנָּה וְנַבְקִעֶנָּה אֵלֵינוּ וְנַמְלִיךְ מֶלֶךְ בְּתוֹכָהּ אֵת בֶּן טָבְאַל
KJ: Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
BN: Let us go up against Judah, and conquer it, and establish ourselves as its ruler by making ben Tav'al their king.
TAV'AL: We might have expected the name to be TAV-EL, and indeed that is how most translations render it; but the pointed Yehudit is definitely TAV'AL. It is also odd that we are not given his own name, but only his patronymic - with ben Remal-Yah we were given his own name first (verse 1), and then he is referred to by his patronymic. Presumably it was a matter of tone; referring to some by their patronymic - in today's world we would use their surname - distances them, slightly derogates them, where the use of the first name allows affection, intimacy, support, etc.
pey break
7:7 KOH AMAR ADONAI YHVH LO TAKUM VE LO TIHEYEH
כֹּה אָמַר אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה לֹא תָקוּם וְלֹא תִהְיֶה
KJ: Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
BN: Thus saith the Lord YHVH: It will not happen, it will not be.
Yesh'a-Yah is "instructed" to give this as counsel to the king - see verse 3; but is it "official" advice, asked for and therefore offered, or has he simply set up his soap-box at the crossroads, knowing the king will pass by?
The answer to these questions does not lie here, nor anywhere else in the Prophetic books; but it can be found in the two books of Shemu-El, the two books of the Kings and the two books of Chronicles, where we witness the Prophets in action - Shemu-El, Natan, Gad - working alongside the priesthood, including the Kohen Gadol himself, but still separately from them/him, ditto working alongside the king, but actually with a higher authority than the king.
7:8 KI ROSH ARAM DAMESEK VE ROSH DAMESEK RETSIN U VE OD SHISHIM VE CHAMESH SHANAH YECHAT EPHRAYIM ME AM
KJ: For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
BN: For the head of Aram is Damesek, and the head of Damesek is Retsin; and within sixty-five years Ephrayim will be broken, so that it is no longer a nation.
DAMESEK: Elsewhere DAMASEK.
7:8 KI ROSH ARAM DAMESEK VE ROSH DAMESEK RETSIN U VE OD SHISHIM VE CHAMESH SHANAH YECHAT EPHRAYIM ME AM
כִּי רֹאשׁ אֲרָם דַּמֶּשֶׂק וְרֹאשׁ דַּמֶּשֶׂק רְצִין וּבְעוֹד שִׁשִּׁים וְחָמֵשׁ שָׁנָה יֵחַת אֶפְרַיִם מֵעָם
KJ: For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
BN: For the head of Aram is Damesek, and the head of Damesek is Retsin; and within sixty-five years Ephrayim will be broken, so that it is no longer a nation.
DAMESEK: Elsewhere DAMASEK.
Given that all this was only written down long after the event, are we supposed to regard Y-Y as a seer with an uncanny ability to read the future, or is this the methodology of the modern science fiction writer, creating dystopias set in the future or on other planets, as a way of analogising present realities? Is this, in other words, the Y-Y of Chizki-Yah's time pretending a historical prediction in order to make his point more potently in the present? Given the overlap of texts between this and Kings...
7:11 SHE'AL LECHA OT ME IM YHVH ELOHEYCHA HA'MEK SHE'ALAH O HA GEBE'ACH LEMA'LAH
KJ: Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
SHIM'U NA: One or two oddities as well in this that are worth noting.
7:14 LACHEN YITEN ADONAI HU LACHEM OT HINEH HA ALMAH HARAH VE YOLEDET BEN VE KARA'T SHEMO IMANU EL
KJ: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
BN: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the recently married young woman has fallen pregnant, and will soon give birth to a son, and they will cry out "El is with us".
OT: The deity offers a sign anyway, and it is one of the most significant signs – historically, politically - ever misinterpreted in human history: But in brief... no, I shall not waste time and energy repeating it here. See my notes to Genesis 24:43, and also a fuller exegesis of this verse under ESHET.
7:16 KI BE TEREM YEDA HA NA'AR MA'OS BA RA U VACHOR BA TOV TE'AZEV HA ADAMAH ASHER ATAH KATS MIPNEY SHENEY MELACHEYHA
KJ: For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
BN: Because, even before this child can know how to reject the wrong, and choose the good, the land whose two kings have caused such terror in you will be forsaken.
ADAMAH: Not Erets. The distinction is between "land" as "country", which is Erets (though the word is also used for Planet Earth), and Adamah, which is the rich, red soil, the fertlility upon which a king depends because that is what keeps kings in power: "The economy, stupid", as Bill Clinton famously reminded the world in 1992. That fertility, in Y-Y's time, came from the deity, who sent the rain in the right season, and turned his sunny face to shine upon the farmers (= good; or declines to do so = bad). So yes, there are prophecies of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Ephrayim by Ashur, and it may be that drought will assist that destruction by enfeebling the people, but this is about famine in Ephrayim, and famine is caused by a failure of government to make "good" decisions (click here). And by implication, if the natural drought has been turned into famine by mis-management in Ephrayim, the same weather conditions in Yehudah will... Good and bad decisions, Achaz! The fruit of the tree of Eden. Bloom's Taxonomy. Education rather than teaching. Use your LEVAV, Achaz, not your LEV. Now listen to your Prophet and do what I tell you.
7:17 YAV'I YHVH ALEYCHA VE AL AMCHA VE AL BEIT AVIYCHA YAMIM ASHER LO VA'U LE MI YOM SUT EPHRAYIM ME AL YEHUDAH ET MELECH ASHUR
KJ: The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
BN: YHVH will bring on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, days such as have not been seen since the day that Ephrayim broke away from Yehudah: the king of Ashur.
Why does Y-Y make reference to the civil war after Shelomoh? Because it was that civil war which took the Northern Kingdom of Ephrayim out of the Davidic Confederacy, and thereby brought it to an end. And now see my note to verse 15.
pey break
7:18 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YISHROK YHVH LA ZVUV ASHER BIKTSE YE'OREY MITSRAYIM VE LADVORAH ASHER BE ERETS ASHUR
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that YHVH will hiss like the fly in the depths of the rivers of Egypt, and buzz like the bee in the land of Ashur.
LA ZVUV: Would that be the tsetse fly or the malarial mosquito? Not the locust though, which is a very different kind of plague, and not a fly at all. BA'AL ZEVUV will become that famous devil Beelzebub in later European literature; and here, as per the link, probably intends the Pelishtim on the Kena'ani coast, rather than the Mitsrim of Egypt, whose empire was also very weak at this juncture.
pey break
7:21 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YECHAYEH ISH EGLAT BAKAR U SHETEI TSON
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that a man shall rear a young cow, and two sheep.
An even odder image of a young cow, and why two sheep (?), all producing a surfeit of milk to fuel the Mashiyach's appetite for milk (curds) and honey, as in the next verse; this seems to link us back to that other sun and moon cult, Ya'akov and Lavan, and Ya'akov's wives cow-Le'ah and sheep-Rachel.
7:22 VE HAYAH ME ROV ASOT CHALAV YO'CHAL CHEM'AH KI CHEM'AH U DEVASH YO'CHEL KOL HA NOTAR BE KEREV HA ARETS
KJ: And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
BN: And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give, he shall eat curd; for curd and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land.{S}
All the remnant in the land will eat only this (because we have entered Paradise and dine like the gods?). But he is speaking of ruination, yet using the language of abundance, even surfeit: why the oxymoron? Or will it be that the drought-turned-into famine will have ruined all the human agriculture, leaving nothing but the divine to sustain life: metaphorically as well as literally?
samech break
7:23 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH CHOL MAKOM ASHER YIHEYEH SHAM ELEPH GEPHEN BE ELEPH KASEPH LA SHAMIR VE LA SHAYIT YIHEYEH
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that in every place where there were a thousand vines, each one worth a thousand shekels, there shall be nothing but briers and thorns.
The vineyard again, but desolate now, seeming to confirm my note to the previous verse.
KASEPH: literally "silver coins", but we know (click here) how measurements were named in those days, so we can be confident that these silver soins were Shekalim.
7:24 BA CHITSIM U VA KESHET YAVO SHAMAH KI SHAMIR VA SHAYIT TIHEYEH CHOL HA ARETS
KJ: With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
BN: Bearing bow and arrow he will come there; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
War in the wasteland! Thunder over Himavant. Maternal lamentation. Hooded hordes swarming over endless plains. Falling towers. Unreal!
The bow and arrow were introduced at this epoch, according to several references in the Book of Samuel. But in terms of the tales of the Mashiyach we also need to think of Golin Robin, or Robin Hood as it is translated into English, pursued into his Sherwood Forest version of the Aravah desert by the Sheriff of Nottingham, his version of King Sha'ul, and with his 12 disciples, I mean Merrie Men, and his Mary Magdalene, named Maid Marian, and his personal Shemu-El, named Friar Tuck. Same story, same metaphorical wastelanddifferent, just a different time and physical location.
Now he has used ARETS, where in verse 16 he used ADAMAH, and I explained the significance at the time. Is this then the universal Messiah, and ARETS is used to mean Planet Earth and not just Yehudah? That, after all, is the Christian reading, and some sects of Judaism follow it as well. But alas, the answer is: no; this is the invasion of Yehudah by those named above: a small, local war to to unseat King Achaz. And the Mashiyach will be conquering Chizki-Yah. Only that.
7:25 VE CHOL HE HARIM ASHER BA MA'DER YE'ADERUN LO TAVO SHAMAH YIR'AT SHAMIR VA SHAYIT VE HAYAH LE MISHLACH SHOR U LE MIRMAS SEH
KJ: And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.
BN: And every hill that has been dug with a mattock, you will not come near them for fear of briers and thorns, but they shall be used for dispatching oxen, and for the trampling of sheep.
7:9 VE ROSH EPHRAYIM SHOMRON VE ROSH SHOMRON BEN REMAL-YAHU IM LO TA'AMIYNU KI LO TE'AMENU
KJ: And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
BN: And the head of Ephrayim is Shomron, and the head of Shomron is ben Remal-Yah. If you do not have faith in me, how can it possibly come to pass?
SHOMRON: Which already existed before the people we now think of as "Samaritans" were force-moved there in 586 BCE. Already existed twice over in fact. Simply the name of a geographical region, well back in history. Then, at the time of the four kings, when it became part of the Ashurian empire, presumably garrisoned and colonised by soldiers, traders, settlers etc, because that is what empires do when they conquer other lands - and this also explains why Aramaic was widely-understood, as in my note to verse 3. Finally the defeat of the Ashurim by the Babylonians, which led to the exile of Yehudah in Babylon, but also, at the same time, the exile of Aram in Shomron.
TA'AMIYNU... TE'AMENU: This needs some lexicography, because surely they both come from the same root (click on this link; then click separately on each of the words in question; then go to "Strong's Hebrew" for each of them). The regular translations are frankly meaningless: "you shall not be established". I think what it is saying is at the conjunction of objectivity with subjectivity, TA'AMIYNU being intellectual understanding based on ratiocination, and TE'AMENU being old-fashioned faith.
pey break
7:10 VA YOSEPH YHVH DABER EL ACHAZ LEMOR
KJ: Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
BN: Then, again, YHVH spoke to Achaz, saying:
Intgeresting phrasing: Y-Y simply the mouthpiece; but we know from Shmu-El's relationship with Sha'ul, and Natan's and Gad's with David, that the king may have been the representative on Earth of the deity, but he owed his spiritual authority to the Prophet, and could have that authority withdrawn at any time (see 1 Samuel 15:10-23). There is no parallel to this in the Catholic world, where the Pope is the emperor of Vatican City and its global empire as well as the mouthpiece of the deity; in Anglo-Protestantism however, there is a close parallel, though the power-balance is not the same, between the monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And note,again, that this may Y-Y's book, but he cannot be writing this chapter. I wonder who did? And when?
וְרֹאשׁ אֶפְרַיִם שֹׁמְרוֹן וְרֹאשׁ שֹׁמְרוֹן בֶּן רְמַלְיָהוּ אִם לֹא תַאֲמִינוּ כִּי לֹא תֵאָמֵנוּ
KJ: And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
BN: And the head of Ephrayim is Shomron, and the head of Shomron is ben Remal-Yah. If you do not have faith in me, how can it possibly come to pass?
SHOMRON: Which already existed before the people we now think of as "Samaritans" were force-moved there in 586 BCE. Already existed twice over in fact. Simply the name of a geographical region, well back in history. Then, at the time of the four kings, when it became part of the Ashurian empire, presumably garrisoned and colonised by soldiers, traders, settlers etc, because that is what empires do when they conquer other lands - and this also explains why Aramaic was widely-understood, as in my note to verse 3. Finally the defeat of the Ashurim by the Babylonians, which led to the exile of Yehudah in Babylon, but also, at the same time, the exile of Aram in Shomron.
TA'AMIYNU... TE'AMENU: This needs some lexicography, because surely they both come from the same root (click on this link; then click separately on each of the words in question; then go to "Strong's Hebrew" for each of them). The regular translations are frankly meaningless: "you shall not be established". I think what it is saying is at the conjunction of objectivity with subjectivity, TA'AMIYNU being intellectual understanding based on ratiocination, and TE'AMENU being old-fashioned faith.
pey break
7:10 VA YOSEPH YHVH DABER EL ACHAZ LEMOR
וַיּוֹסֶף יְהוָה דַּבֵּר אֶל אָחָז לֵאמֹר
KJ: Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
BN: Then, again, YHVH spoke to Achaz, saying:
Intgeresting phrasing: Y-Y simply the mouthpiece; but we know from Shmu-El's relationship with Sha'ul, and Natan's and Gad's with David, that the king may have been the representative on Earth of the deity, but he owed his spiritual authority to the Prophet, and could have that authority withdrawn at any time (see 1 Samuel 15:10-23). There is no parallel to this in the Catholic world, where the Pope is the emperor of Vatican City and its global empire as well as the mouthpiece of the deity; in Anglo-Protestantism however, there is a close parallel, though the power-balance is not the same, between the monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And note,again, that this may Y-Y's book, but he cannot be writing this chapter. I wonder who did? And when?
7:11 SHE'AL LECHA OT ME IM YHVH ELOHEYCHA HA'MEK SHE'ALAH O HA GEBE'ACH LEMA'LAH
שְׁאַל לְךָ אוֹת מֵעִם יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ הַעְמֵק שְׁאָלָה אוֹ הַגְבֵּהַּ לְמָעְלָה
BN: Ask for a sign from YHVH your god. Ask for it from the depths of She'ol, or from the Gebean heights above.
Nothing in the standard English translation prepares you for my translation, or for the note that is about to follow: but what a strange coincidence, at the very moment that the Prophet is giving the king counsel, that his choice of language, not once but three times, should serve as a reminder of exactly the power-balance I have just described. And it cannot be chance, because in Yehudit LISH'OL is to ask a question, but LEVAKESH is to make a request, so our author has deliberately chosen that technically incorrect verb, and will have done so for a reason. Normally those "depths below" are TEHOM, and only SHE'OL when speaking of the metaphorical underworld of death ane regeneration; so, again, a deliberate choice. King Sha'ul, by the way, had his palace at Giv-Yah (Gibeah), and was famous for being a follower of Egyptian Set, or Shet in the Yehudit, whose father was the sky-god Geb. Clever man our author! And let's be honest, what he tells the king in that sentence is intrinsically completely empty without those subtle under-meanings.
Nothing in the standard English translation prepares you for my translation, or for the note that is about to follow: but what a strange coincidence, at the very moment that the Prophet is giving the king counsel, that his choice of language, not once but three times, should serve as a reminder of exactly the power-balance I have just described. And it cannot be chance, because in Yehudit LISH'OL is to ask a question, but LEVAKESH is to make a request, so our author has deliberately chosen that technically incorrect verb, and will have done so for a reason. Normally those "depths below" are TEHOM, and only SHE'OL when speaking of the metaphorical underworld of death ane regeneration; so, again, a deliberate choice. King Sha'ul, by the way, had his palace at Giv-Yah (Gibeah), and was famous for being a follower of Egyptian Set, or Shet in the Yehudit, whose father was the sky-god Geb. Clever man our author! And let's be honest, what he tells the king in that sentence is intrinsically completely empty without those subtle under-meanings.
SHE'AL LECHA OT: There is, however, an equally valid alternate reading of this. Or would be, if Y-Y were the oracle, rather than the Prophet. One goes to an oracle to "ask" - definitely LISH'OL in this context, not LEVAKESH - for a prediction of the future; and a prediction of the future is precisely what Achaz is about to be given.
7:12 VA YOMER ACHAZ LO ESH'AL VE LO ANSEH ET YHVH
KJ: But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
BN: But Achaz said: 'I will not ask, because I will not test YHVH.'
Achaz declines, as YHVH clearly expected him to, which is why the Sha'ul references, with their implied threat of the removal of authority from the king, and then, when the silence after the next verse confirms all this, the actual removal of authority in verse 14 and following (see again the link in my note to verse 10).
7:13 VA YOMER SHIM'U NA BEIT DAVID HA ME'AT MI KEM HAL'OT ANASHIM KI TAL'U GAM ET ELOHAI
KJ: And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
BN: And he said: Listen to me, please, House of David: Is it such a small thing for you to make men weary, that you will make my god weary too?
Ordinary folk who speak like this to a monarch can expect to be found hanging from a tree by sunrise - which confirms Y-Y's status, either as Prophet or as Oracle.
7:12 VA YOMER ACHAZ LO ESH'AL VE LO ANSEH ET YHVH
וַיֹּאמֶר אָחָז לֹא אֶשְׁאַל וְלֹא אֲנַסֶּה אֶת יְהוָה
KJ: But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
BN: But Achaz said: 'I will not ask, because I will not test YHVH.'
Achaz declines, as YHVH clearly expected him to, which is why the Sha'ul references, with their implied threat of the removal of authority from the king, and then, when the silence after the next verse confirms all this, the actual removal of authority in verse 14 and following (see again the link in my note to verse 10).
7:13 VA YOMER SHIM'U NA BEIT DAVID HA ME'AT MI KEM HAL'OT ANASHIM KI TAL'U GAM ET ELOHAI
וַיֹּאמֶר שִׁמְעוּ נָא בֵּית דָּוִד הַמְעַט מִכֶּם הַלְאוֹת אֲנָשִׁים כִּי תַלְאוּ גַּם אֶת אֱלֹהָי
KJ: And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
BN: And he said: Listen to me, please, House of David: Is it such a small thing for you to make men weary, that you will make my god weary too?
Ordinary folk who speak like this to a monarch can expect to be found hanging from a tree by sunrise - which confirms Y-Y's status, either as Prophet or as Oracle.
HAL'OT...TAL'U: But I always choose my imagery as fastidiously as the people I am writing about, and my use of "hanging" in that last note was entirely deliberate. Y-Y references the House of David, and Achaz will know how the House of Sha'ul came to its final end, in a treaty with the good folks of Giv-Yon, which included the fate of Giv-Yah, and depended on the ending of the Sha'uline line... by the hanging by the Beney Giv-Yon of the seven remaining male offspring from a line of terebinth oak trees (2 Samuel 21). The second verb used here for "to weary" - TAL'U - just happens to look and sound remarkably like the verb for "to hang" - but my certainty about all this does depend on going back and checking what verb was used at the end of 2 Samuel and the beginning of 1 Kings, when those events took place (in case you know modern Ivrit, but missed it: "does depend" is "talu'i": things that rather tiresomely hang). Word-play! Stunningly brilliant word-play! Not mine, our author's.
SHIM'U NA: One or two oddities as well in this that are worth noting.
First, that SHIM'U is 3rd person plural yet he is addressing "Beit David" in the supposedly singular. Does that mean the addressess is not simply Achaz the man, or even Achaz the king, but Achaz the representative of the entire people?
And then that "NA" again.
And finally, returning to the "hanging", there appear to be two different verbs in use here, both of which get translated as "weary"; the second we have looked at above; the first is HAL'OT, which I take to be a deiberate playing with the word "OT" that Achaz refused at verse 11, and which Y-Y will give him anyway in the very nexct verse.
But in fact, having said all that, they are not different verbs; the root is LA'AH (לאה); it is only in the very precise ways that the root has been deployed here that the seeming homonyms and homophones come into play.
7:14 LACHEN YITEN ADONAI HU LACHEM OT HINEH HA ALMAH HARAH VE YOLEDET BEN VE KARA'T SHEMO IMANU EL
לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא לָכֶם אוֹת הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ עִמָּנוּ אֵל
KJ: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
BN: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the recently married young woman has fallen pregnant, and will soon give birth to a son, and they will cry out "El is with us".
OT: The deity offers a sign anyway, and it is one of the most significant signs – historically, politically - ever misinterpreted in human history: But in brief... no, I shall not waste time and energy repeating it here. See my notes to Genesis 24:43, and also a fuller exegesis of this verse under ESHET.
But I will note a seeming-oddity, that it is specifically HA ALMAH, "the...". Not "a", which could be anyone; and the assumption that of course Achaz will know who is intended. I think we can assume that, this being the House of David, Achaz will have served as surrogate for the male-deity at the Spring festival, and this young woman, a virgin before her anointing as May-Queen (Ishtar, Ester...) and her time in the Ohel Sarah with the May-King, will have been staying in one of the Temple precincts ever since, so that she can be monitored by the priestesses, and an announcement of her pregnancy across the land to let the people know that the divine marriage has been fruitful, that this year will be fertile for their crops, including their own marriages. Ha Almah. In a fertility cult there is only one Ha Almah. This, then, is the announcement (which is different from an annunciation; that comes before, this after)
For the information, Christians have long chosen to misinterpret this as a prophesy (in the sense of prediction) of the coming of Jesus, whereas Jews understand it as the provision of straightforward information to Achaz that his time as king is now in suspension, because "the recently married young woman" in question is his wife, and his replacement will be along in not less than nine months from now: Chizki-Yah (Hezekiah), as it happens.
For the information, Christians have long chosen to misinterpret this as a prophesy (in the sense of prediction) of the coming of Jesus, whereas Jews understand it as the provision of straightforward information to Achaz that his time as king is now in suspension, because "the recently married young woman" in question is his wife, and his replacement will be along in not less than nine months from now: Chizki-Yah (Hezekiah), as it happens.
IMANU-EL: Is not a person's name, though it has become a person's name through this mis-reading. IM means "with", "ANU" is "us", "EL" is the Kena'ani equivalent of Geb, the head of the pantheon of the gods (see verse 11).
7:15 CHEM'AH U DEVASH YO'CHEL LE DA'TO MA'OS BA RA U VACHOR BA TOV
KJ: Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
BN: He shall eat curds and honey, when he knows enough to reject what is wrong, and to choose what is good.
And not just the "milk and honey" of the Promised Land - which is a subtle way of telling Achaz that his successor will restore the full Davidic kingdom - but the very best of the cream, the curds. But the allusion also connects to the fruit of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and infers that Achaz is incapable of making that necessary distinction between good and bad which yet again takes us to Y-Y's equivalent of the Plato-Aristotle debate: the ability to form judgements for yourself rather than repeating automaton-like the instruction you have been given.
Why "milk and honey"? They are the only foods that you can eat raw but they taste cooked. They are provided free by Mother Nature, the only involvement of humans being to gather and enjoy it. They are the produce of the talismans (that really ought to be talismen, and in this case taliswomen) of the fertility goddess: the cow and the bumble-bee. To the Greeks too they were the food of the gods: ambrosia and nectar.
But doesn't all this make for a portrait of Shimshon, or Hera-Kles, the scion of the sun-god? Or actually, yes, but specifically no - this is David himself. Go back to the Psalms, especially Book One, and you will see why.
And let me make the first note of this now, because it will become one of the central themes of the book: Y-Y is talking about the Davidic kingship, which is Mashiyach, and not that Christian idea of a future Azaz-El, a "redeemer" or "Saviour", which in Yehudit is Moshi'a, and which Y-Y will spend several chapters telling us is YHVH's role, and no one else's.
RA: See my note at verse 5.
7:15 CHEM'AH U DEVASH YO'CHEL LE DA'TO MA'OS BA RA U VACHOR BA TOV
חֶמְאָה וּדְבַשׁ יֹאכֵל לְדַעְתּוֹ מָאוֹס בָּרָע וּבָחוֹר בַּטּוֹב
KJ: Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
BN: He shall eat curds and honey, when he knows enough to reject what is wrong, and to choose what is good.
And not just the "milk and honey" of the Promised Land - which is a subtle way of telling Achaz that his successor will restore the full Davidic kingdom - but the very best of the cream, the curds. But the allusion also connects to the fruit of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and infers that Achaz is incapable of making that necessary distinction between good and bad which yet again takes us to Y-Y's equivalent of the Plato-Aristotle debate: the ability to form judgements for yourself rather than repeating automaton-like the instruction you have been given.
Why "milk and honey"? They are the only foods that you can eat raw but they taste cooked. They are provided free by Mother Nature, the only involvement of humans being to gather and enjoy it. They are the produce of the talismans (that really ought to be talismen, and in this case taliswomen) of the fertility goddess: the cow and the bumble-bee. To the Greeks too they were the food of the gods: ambrosia and nectar.
But doesn't all this make for a portrait of Shimshon, or Hera-Kles, the scion of the sun-god? Or actually, yes, but specifically no - this is David himself. Go back to the Psalms, especially Book One, and you will see why.
And let me make the first note of this now, because it will become one of the central themes of the book: Y-Y is talking about the Davidic kingship, which is Mashiyach, and not that Christian idea of a future Azaz-El, a "redeemer" or "Saviour", which in Yehudit is Moshi'a, and which Y-Y will spend several chapters telling us is YHVH's role, and no one else's.
RA: See my note at verse 5.
7:16 KI BE TEREM YEDA HA NA'AR MA'OS BA RA U VACHOR BA TOV TE'AZEV HA ADAMAH ASHER ATAH KATS MIPNEY SHENEY MELACHEYHA
כִּי בְּטֶרֶם יֵדַע הַנַּעַר מָאֹס בָּרָע וּבָחֹר בַּטּוֹב תֵּעָזֵב הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה קָץ מִפְּנֵי שְׁנֵי מְלָכֶיהָ
KJ: For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
BN: Because, even before this child can know how to reject the wrong, and choose the good, the land whose two kings have caused such terror in you will be forsaken.
ADAMAH: Not Erets. The distinction is between "land" as "country", which is Erets (though the word is also used for Planet Earth), and Adamah, which is the rich, red soil, the fertlility upon which a king depends because that is what keeps kings in power: "The economy, stupid", as Bill Clinton famously reminded the world in 1992. That fertility, in Y-Y's time, came from the deity, who sent the rain in the right season, and turned his sunny face to shine upon the farmers (= good; or declines to do so = bad). So yes, there are prophecies of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Ephrayim by Ashur, and it may be that drought will assist that destruction by enfeebling the people, but this is about famine in Ephrayim, and famine is caused by a failure of government to make "good" decisions (click here). And by implication, if the natural drought has been turned into famine by mis-management in Ephrayim, the same weather conditions in Yehudah will... Good and bad decisions, Achaz! The fruit of the tree of Eden. Bloom's Taxonomy. Education rather than teaching. Use your LEVAV, Achaz, not your LEV. Now listen to your Prophet and do what I tell you.
7:17 YAV'I YHVH ALEYCHA VE AL AMCHA VE AL BEIT AVIYCHA YAMIM ASHER LO VA'U LE MI YOM SUT EPHRAYIM ME AL YEHUDAH ET MELECH ASHUR
יָבִיא יְהוָה עָלֶיךָ וְעַל עַמְּךָ וְעַל בֵּית אָבִיךָ יָמִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא בָאוּ לְמִיּוֹם סוּר אֶפְרַיִם מֵעַל יְהוּדָה אֵת מֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר
KJ: The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
BN: YHVH will bring on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, days such as have not been seen since the day that Ephrayim broke away from Yehudah: the king of Ashur.
Why does Y-Y make reference to the civil war after Shelomoh? Because it was that civil war which took the Northern Kingdom of Ephrayim out of the Davidic Confederacy, and thereby brought it to an end. And now see my note to verse 15.
pey break
7:18 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YISHROK YHVH LA ZVUV ASHER BIKTSE YE'OREY MITSRAYIM VE LADVORAH ASHER BE ERETS ASHUR
וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִשְׁרֹק יְהוָה לַזְּבוּב אֲשֶׁר בִּקְצֵה יְאֹרֵי מִצְרָיִם וְלַדְּבוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר בְּאֶרֶץ אַשּׁוּר
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that YHVH will hiss like the fly in the depths of the rivers of Egypt, and buzz like the bee in the land of Ashur.
LA ZVUV: Would that be the tsetse fly or the malarial mosquito? Not the locust though, which is a very different kind of plague, and not a fly at all. BA'AL ZEVUV will become that famous devil Beelzebub in later European literature; and here, as per the link, probably intends the Pelishtim on the Kena'ani coast, rather than the Mitsrim of Egypt, whose empire was also very weak at this juncture.
DEVORAH: And is the bee that is found in Ashur somehow different from the one found in Yehudah? Non-kosher honey perhaps? Or is the intention to remind Achaz of the one at the link, the one from Alon Bachot as well as the one who worked with Barak to overthrow the invaders from... oh yes, Ashur?
Today we would probably talk about the bear and the eagle, meaning Russia and the USA, using exactly similar metaphorical allusion. How about, for the Ukraine war: "And it shall come to pass on that day, that YHVH will growl like the bear in the woods by the Dnieper river, and roar like the eagle in the lands of the Oblast."
7:19 U VA'U VE NACHU CHULAM BE NACHALEI HA BATOT U VINKIYKEI HA SELA'IM U VE CHOL HA NA'ATSUTSIM U VE CHOL HA NAHALOLIM
KJ: And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
BN: And they will come, and all of them will rest in the rugged valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon every thorn, and upon every bramble.
Though the extent to which they will infest the land does indeed recall the plagues of Egypt, as no doubt it is meant to.
7:19 U VA'U VE NACHU CHULAM BE NACHALEI HA BATOT U VINKIYKEI HA SELA'IM U VE CHOL HA NA'ATSUTSIM U VE CHOL HA NAHALOLIM
וּבָאוּ וְנָחוּ כֻלָּם בְּנַחֲלֵי הַבַּתּוֹת וּבִנְקִיקֵי הַסְּלָעִים וּבְכֹל הַנַּעֲצוּצִים וּבְכֹל הַנַּהֲלֹלִים
KJ: And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
BN: And they will come, and all of them will rest in the rugged valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon every thorn, and upon every bramble.
Though the extent to which they will infest the land does indeed recall the plagues of Egypt, as no doubt it is meant to.
NACHU...NACHALEI...NAHALOLIM: Sound-games and letter-games that simply lack equivalents in English.
I wonder if Byron read these verses, with their animal images, before sitting down to compose his poem.
KJ: In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.
BN: On that day the Lord will shave with a rented razor in the lands beyond the River, even with the king of Ashur: the head, and the hair on the legs; and it shall also sweep away the beard.
YEGALACH...RAGLAYIM: The first is a most odd image: total shaving, and with a "rented razor" - "hired razor" is actually more precise, but I can't resist the alliteration. Does it have something to do with Nazirut, which would then connect it yet again to the sun-god - for which see verse 15 - which itself links back to Yesh'a-Yah continuously naming his god as Adonai and not YHVH? Or is the razor a way of setting up a word-play for the Galil, the Sea of Galilee where Byron's "blue wave rolls nightly"? The equally odd image of the hairy feet (SA'AR HA RAGLAYIM) employs those same Gimmels and Lameds, and we will see it again with much significance at the start of the next chapter.
The Destruction of Sennacherib
7:20 BA YOM HA HU YEGALACH ADONAI BE TA'AR HA SECHIYRAH BE EVREI NAHAR BE MELECH ASHUR ET HA ROSH VE SA'AR HA RAGLAYIM VE GAM ET HA ZAKAN TISPEHThe Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen:Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.And there lay the rider distorted and pale,With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יְגַלַּח אֲדֹנָי בְּתַעַר הַשְּׂכִירָה בְּעֶבְרֵי נָהָר בְּמֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר אֶת הָרֹאשׁ וְשַׂעַר הָרַגְלָיִם וְגַם אֶת הַזָּקָן תִּסְפֶּה
KJ: In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.
BN: On that day the Lord will shave with a rented razor in the lands beyond the River, even with the king of Ashur: the head, and the hair on the legs; and it shall also sweep away the beard.
YEGALACH...RAGLAYIM: The first is a most odd image: total shaving, and with a "rented razor" - "hired razor" is actually more precise, but I can't resist the alliteration. Does it have something to do with Nazirut, which would then connect it yet again to the sun-god - for which see verse 15 - which itself links back to Yesh'a-Yah continuously naming his god as Adonai and not YHVH? Or is the razor a way of setting up a word-play for the Galil, the Sea of Galilee where Byron's "blue wave rolls nightly"? The equally odd image of the hairy feet (SA'AR HA RAGLAYIM) employs those same Gimmels and Lameds, and we will see it again with much significance at the start of the next chapter.
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7:21 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YECHAYEH ISH EGLAT BAKAR U SHETEI TSON
וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יְחַיֶּה אִישׁ עֶגְלַת בָּקָר וּשְׁתֵּי צֹאן
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that a man shall rear a young cow, and two sheep.
An even odder image of a young cow, and why two sheep (?), all producing a surfeit of milk to fuel the Mashiyach's appetite for milk (curds) and honey, as in the next verse; this seems to link us back to that other sun and moon cult, Ya'akov and Lavan, and Ya'akov's wives cow-Le'ah and sheep-Rachel.
7:22 VE HAYAH ME ROV ASOT CHALAV YO'CHAL CHEM'AH KI CHEM'AH U DEVASH YO'CHEL KOL HA NOTAR BE KEREV HA ARETS
וְהָיָה מֵרֹב עֲשׂוֹת חָלָב יֹאכַל חֶמְאָה כִּי חֶמְאָה וּדְבַשׁ יֹאכֵל כָּל הַנּוֹתָר בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ
KJ: And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
BN: And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give, he shall eat curd; for curd and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land.{S}
All the remnant in the land will eat only this (because we have entered Paradise and dine like the gods?). But he is speaking of ruination, yet using the language of abundance, even surfeit: why the oxymoron? Or will it be that the drought-turned-into famine will have ruined all the human agriculture, leaving nothing but the divine to sustain life: metaphorically as well as literally?
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7:23 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YIHEYEH CHOL MAKOM ASHER YIHEYEH SHAM ELEPH GEPHEN BE ELEPH KASEPH LA SHAMIR VE LA SHAYIT YIHEYEH
וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה כָל מָקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה שָּׁם אֶלֶף גֶּפֶן בְּאֶלֶף כָּסֶף לַשָּׁמִיר וְלַשַּׁיִת יִהְיֶה
KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.
BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that in every place where there were a thousand vines, each one worth a thousand shekels, there shall be nothing but briers and thorns.
The vineyard again, but desolate now, seeming to confirm my note to the previous verse.
KASEPH: literally "silver coins", but we know (click here) how measurements were named in those days, so we can be confident that these silver soins were Shekalim.
7:24 BA CHITSIM U VA KESHET YAVO SHAMAH KI SHAMIR VA SHAYIT TIHEYEH CHOL HA ARETS
בַּחִצִּים וּבַקֶּשֶׁת יָבוֹא שָׁמָּה כִּי שָׁמִיר וָשַׁיִת תִּהְיֶה כָל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
BN: Bearing bow and arrow he will come there; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
War in the wasteland! Thunder over Himavant. Maternal lamentation. Hooded hordes swarming over endless plains. Falling towers. Unreal!
The bow and arrow were introduced at this epoch, according to several references in the Book of Samuel. But in terms of the tales of the Mashiyach we also need to think of Golin Robin, or Robin Hood as it is translated into English, pursued into his Sherwood Forest version of the Aravah desert by the Sheriff of Nottingham, his version of King Sha'ul, and with his 12 disciples, I mean Merrie Men, and his Mary Magdalene, named Maid Marian, and his personal Shemu-El, named Friar Tuck. Same story, same metaphorical wastelanddifferent, just a different time and physical location.
Now he has used ARETS, where in verse 16 he used ADAMAH, and I explained the significance at the time. Is this then the universal Messiah, and ARETS is used to mean Planet Earth and not just Yehudah? That, after all, is the Christian reading, and some sects of Judaism follow it as well. But alas, the answer is: no; this is the invasion of Yehudah by those named above: a small, local war to to unseat King Achaz. And the Mashiyach will be conquering Chizki-Yah. Only that.
7:25 VE CHOL HE HARIM ASHER BA MA'DER YE'ADERUN LO TAVO SHAMAH YIR'AT SHAMIR VA SHAYIT VE HAYAH LE MISHLACH SHOR U LE MIRMAS SEH
וְכֹל הֶהָרִים אֲשֶׁר בַּמַּעְדֵּר יֵעָדֵרוּן לֹא-תָבוֹא שָׁמָּה יִרְאַת שָׁמִיר וָשָׁיִת וְהָיָה לְמִשְׁלַח שׁוֹר וּלְמִרְמַס שֶׂה
KJ: And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.
BN: And every hill that has been dug with a mattock, you will not come near them for fear of briers and thorns, but they shall be used for dispatching oxen, and for the trampling of sheep.
BA MA'DER YE'ADERUN: I believe I have a description of this traditional farming method in Part 1 of "City of Peace".
MISHLACH SHOR U LE MIRMAS SEH: The question here is, given the desertification, the wastelandising of the place: are the oxen being dispatched for slaughter, because there is no pasture land left for them, and ditto the sheep will be pastured, but will die "trampled" by wild beasts? Or is the intention the opposite, as most translations prefer (click here for example)? It seems to me it must be the former: desertification and the domesticated beasts roaming wild – once again the wrath of the deity manifested in Nichretah, but this time it is the traditional Mosaic destruction in the form of Nature and fertility. More on the argument here.
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Isaiah:
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