Isaiah 27

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 



Continuing the song "On That Day".


27:1 BA YOM HA HU YIPHKOD YHVH BE CHARBO HA KASHAH VE HA GEDOLAH VE HA CHAZAKAH AL LIVYATAN NACHASH BARI'ACH VE AL LIVYATAN NACHASH AKALATON VE HARAG ET HA TANIN ASHER BA YAM


בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִפְקֹד יְהוָה בְּחַרְבּוֹ הַקָּשָׁה וְהַגְּדוֹלָה וְהַחֲזָקָה עַל לִוְיָתָן נָחָשׁ בָּרִחַ וְעַל לִוְיָתָן נָחָשׁ עֲקַלָּתוֹן וְהָרַג אֶת הַתַּנִּין אֲשֶׁר בַּיָּם

KJ (King James translation): In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

BN (BibleNet translation): On that day YHVH, with his vast, sharp and powerful sword, will punish Liv-Yatan the fleeing serpent, and Liv-Yatan the twisted serpent; and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. {S}


As per my title, this chapter is a continuation of the last, and the change of number is an error by the Christian translators. The Yehudit text does not have chapters anyway, but uses Pey and Samech breaks (for which see my note at Nehemiah 3:1); there were Samech-breaks at 26:11 and 12, and a series of Pey-breaks at 26:10, 15, 19 and 21; so it seems logical to assume that 27:1 is the resumption. And the form of words, "on that day", endorses this.

So we need to start by reminding ourselves what was happening "on that day" at the end of chapter 26. The song itself is about the triumphant completion of Yeru-Shala'im, with the Mosaic covenant now capable of fulfilment because all the prerequirements are in place. And with it the recognition by the rest of the world that their gods are falsehoods, that only YHVH and the Elohim are the true explanation of the workings of the Cosmos, and the beginning of the destruction of those false idols. Clearly it is this to which Y-Y is returning our current verse, though the last few verses of 26 did digress for a moment to berate those among his people who were not following YHVH with proper Kavanah.


LIPHKOD: Used three times in the last chapter.

LIV-YATAN: Elsewhere LEV-YATAN, and interesting to find him here, alongside Tahamat and Behemot earlier in this song: these after all were the pre-Creation inhabitants of the universal black hole, so their "removal" is by inference Creation
   But is there one Liv-Yatan, described twice, or are there two different creatures? And is L-Y not himself "the dragon that is in the sea"? Melville certainly thought he was, when he reinvented him as Moby-Dick; and D. H. Lawrence too, in his essay on the novel - click here

TANIN: But we need to read LIV-YATAN alongside the TANIN at the end of the verse, for which click here, and then the other pre-Creational land-and-sea beasts, for whom click here, and here.

This gives the sense of the deity of the milky way engaged in battle with the other deities, a kind of 
Götterdämmerung, the overthrow of Lucifer, and nothing to do with human life at all. But then, is it not worth considering that perhaps none of this book, perhaps nothing in Yesh'a-Yah, is about human life at all, but is entirely an account of the movements of the stars and planets, the operations of Nature in the Cosmos?


27:2 BA YOM HA HU KEREM CHEMER ANU LAH

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא כֶּרֶם חֶמֶר עַנּוּ לָהּ

KJ: In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.

BN: On that day, sing of her: "A vineyard of fermented wine!"


Yes, the vineyard again, though we heard about the planning for this party at 25:6; but in full flow now, and hopefully they remembered the savouries and the marrow as well, because "that day" has come, the one on which everything profane has been overthrown, and ethical capitalism, human rights complete with human responsibilities, the United States of World Harmony, and the end of all personal quarrels and animosities, has come... to fruition.

But alas it never will come, and not only because of human nature, but because of divine nature, and divine Nature, and Divine nature, too. Because there will still be the volcanic eruptions, the cascading snowfalls, the need to eat impeded by flood or drought, and all those other divine creations which Humankind in our wisdom has rendered "endangered": the cancer cell, the Ebola virus, the malarial mosquito, the city-fox, the Martian ectoplasm.

CHEMER: My text, above, has CHEMER, which is is the standard Masoretic reading (click here and/or here for confirmation). But non-Christian publications that present the text in Hebrew, change the last letter from a Reysh to a Dalet, making the word CHEMED (click here), which renders the vineyard "desirable" rather than the wine "fermented" (click here). The answer to this puzzle surely lies, again, in 
Isaiah 25:6; there the wines were "not yet at the lees-stage", because the conditions were not yet right for the celebratory party. But now they are.


27:3 ANI YHVH NOTSRAH LIRGA'IM ASHKENAH PEN YIPHKOD ALEYHA LAILAH VA YOM ETSARENAH

אֲנִי יְהוָה נֹצְרָהּ לִרְגָעִים אַשְׁקֶנָּה פֶּן יִפְקֹד עָלֶיהָ לַיְלָה וָיוֹם אֶצֳּרֶנָּה

KJ: I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.

BN: I, YHVH, do husband it. I water it at every moment. Lest my anger should visit it, I shall husband it night and day.


NOTSRAH...ETSARENAH: "supervisor", "guardian", "keeper", but this is a vineyard, so I have gone for "husband", fully aware that English "husband" has a double meaning, just as Y-Y intends. Because this entire song is an image of the Garden of Eden, fathered by YHVH, brought to parturition by CHAVAH, the merging of the male with the female that outcomes as the physical manifestation of the primordial seed.

And of course the wine is sacramental, because (when red, not white) it symbolises the Eucharistic blood.

But it is also more signifcant than this, and I am shocked that Christian translators have not found a translation that incorporates it (yes, I definitely do mean "incorporates"). Rather than explaining it all again here, see my notes at 11:1, and remember that the original Christians did not call themselves Christians, they called themselves NOTSRIM, and they had been around as a Gnostic sect since the last years of Y-Y, mostly as followers of Yirme-Yah, though clearly, from this verse, "the branch of Yishai" is this Yesha, not the Christian one (or is this further evidence that Yesha was the title given to the Rosh Yeshiva, and so Isaiah and Jesus were simply the post-holders of their epoch?).


27:4 CHEMAH EYN LI MI YITNENI SHAMIR SHAYIT BA MILCHAMAH EPHSE'AH VAH ATSIYTENAH YACHAD

חֵמָה אֵין לִי מִי יִתְּנֵנִי שָׁמִיר שַׁיִת בַּמִּלְחָמָה אֶפְשְׂעָה בָהּ אֲצִיתֶנָּה יָּחַד

KJ: Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

BN: I am not burning with anger. Who would [be so foolish as to] set the briers and thorns at war with me! I would trample them with one step. I would burn them to nothingness.


This is important to our understanding of Y-Y's deity, because the divine tantrum is one of his most familiar characteristics, yet he is also the bringer of beneficence: good and evil coming from the same source, not separated dualistically between deity and devil. So there can be life or there can be death. So the briers and thorns go with the earlier trees and branches, but these are the scratchy sort, not the fruitful. And the language, the very style of the declamation, matches perfectly that passage from the Book of Job to which I linked in verse 2.

But it is also poetical, and poets need to be able to play with whichever words meet their needs at the time. Several on this occasion:

CHEMAH comes from CHAM and means "heat" - of which "fury" is certainly one type. But see Psalm 19:7, and perhaps "fury" is a mistranslation. And then look at Isaiah 30:26, where Y-Y uses CHAMAH rather than SHEMESH for "the sun". So we do YEVARECHECHA, yearning for the sun "to turn its face and shine on us". But sensibly we put on sun-tan lotion first, and take a water-flagon. And if the rains of verse 3 don't come, we do the husbanding of the vineyards ourselves, with a hose or a watering can.

EPHSE'A: The root is PASH'A (
פָשַׂע), but no Jew can hear PASH'A without also hearing PESHA, one of the three levels of sin. And reading it in the first person future, as here, any student asked for its root will probably guess EPHESS, rather than recognising the more obscre PASH'A. EPHESS means "nothing", and I have found a way to include this in my translation. PASH'A means "to step" or "to march", but in this conext becomes yet another version of the "treading" and "trampling" that we have witnessed throughout the last several chapters.


27:5 O YACHAZEK BE MA'UZI YA'ASEH SHALOM LI SHALOM YA'ASEH LI

אוֹ יַחֲזֵק בְּמָעוּזִּי יַעֲשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם לִי שָׁלוֹם יַעֲשֶׂה לִּי

KJ: Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.

BN: Or else let him yield to my strength, so that he may make peace with me. Yes, let him make peace with me.


The relationship is again Mafia-like in its protectionism; which comment becomes ironic when Ya'akov (Jacob) is mentioned in the next verse; Ya'akov who gave up his 10% protection money at Beit-El (Genesis 28:22).


27:6 HA BA'IM YASHRESH YA'AKOV YATSITS U PHARACH YISRA-EL U MAL'U PHENEY TEVEL TENUVAH

הַבָּאִים יַשְׁרֵשׁ יַעֲקֹב יָצִיץ וּפָרַח יִשְׂרָאֵל וּמָלְאוּ פְנֵי תֵבֵל תְּנוּבָה

KJ: He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.

BN: In days to come shall Ya'akov take root. Yisra-El shall blossom and bud. And the face of the world shall be filled with fruit. {P}


Blossom and bud continues the physical imagery used as metaphor, but fructified now. The message has become pure Omnideism: choices between fertility and destruction, light and dark, good and evil, but with the significant qualification that this is choice not conflict, dualism within monotheism, because both sides of the coin are the same deity, and not a bifurcation into Heaven-Hell, God-Devil. 

Rare use of rhetoric in this verse.

YASHRESH: But what binyan (conjugation) is this? LEHASHRISH in the Hiph'il as most scholars assume? Or LESHARESH in the Pi'el? Both are possible, but neither yields YASHRESH in the future tense - it would either be YASHRIYSH or YESHARESH, so let's be generous and say that the Masoretic pointer must have been reading it with his Norman accent!


27:7 HA KE MAKAT MAKEHU HIKAHU IM KE HEREG HARUGAV HORAG

הַכְּמַכַּת מַכֵּהוּ הִכָּהוּ אִם כְּהֶרֶג הֲרֻגָיו הֹרָג

KJ: Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?

BN: Has he smitten him, as he smote those who smote him? And has he slain others in the same manner of slaughter as those who were slain by him?


Has he smitten who? Lev-Yatan again, I presume, though many scholars reckon this is about the deity treating his covenant-people rather more leniently than those others described in the destructions of the previous chapters. Why would Y-Y say that, in this context, when he has just described Yisra-El as putting down roots at last, in its homeland, and blossoming through the completion of the moral code and the Temple? And then, to make this even less likely as an explanation, the verse uses the masculine "him" (MAKEHU, HIKAHU, HARUGAV), which it never does for the AM, which is to say "the people" Yisra-El, because AM is feminine. Whereas the next verse does indeed switch to that feminine.

HA KE MAKAT MAKEYHU HIKAHU: Poetry! Poetry!
HEREG HARUGAV HORAG: Wonderful!

Odd though - some chapters are full of this sort of poetic play, followed by chapters with absolutely none. Can we assume that there are different writers, all named Yesh'a-Yah because all were Prophets of the same Guild, but from different generations? Or does it depend on the scribe who wrote this down later ? Remember that the Prophets never wrote anything down, or if they wrote scripts for themselves, they did not publish those scripts.


27:8 BE SA'SE'AH BE SHALCHAH TERIVENAH HAGAH BE RUCHO HA KASHAH BE YOM KADIM

בְּסַאסְּאָה בְּשַׁלְחָהּ תְּרִיבֶנָּה הָגָה בְּרוּחוֹ הַקָּשָׁה בְּיוֹם קָדִים

KJ: In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.

BN: Measure for measure, when you send her away, thus should you resolve your quarrel with her; but he removed her with his rough blast on that ancient day.


BE SA'SE'AH: Or should that be BE SA'SAH - does the Aleph count as a consonant or a vowel on this occasion, because the answer to that affects the shva beneath the second Samech. I believe my transliteration is correct. If it were SA'SAH, as appearance would like it to be (or perhaps SA'SE'AH), there would need to be a sheva under the first Aleph, a patach under the second Samech, and no nikud at all under the second Aleph - and that would also leave open a question about the feminine ending, denoted by the Hey, but which is absent earlier. Again, I believe my transliteration is correct.

WHAT DOES SA'SE'AH mean anyway? Samech-Aleph-Samech-Aleph, so another of those double-words that Y-Y seems to enjoy so much. The root in fact is single, and probably with a Hey ending - SE'AH (סאה). It occurs as such just once in the Tanach, at Genesis 18:6, where Av-Raham tells Sarah to get "three measures of fine flour" ready to bake cakes for the messengers.

So these are not just measures, but some sort of playing with the concept of measures; and in the previous verses it has been questioned whether the treatment of one group was somehow more generous, more favourable, than that of another group. Which leads me to Leviticus 24:19-22:
And if a man maims his neighbour - as he has done - so shall it be done to him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has maimed a man, so shall it be done to him. He who kills an animal shall make good for it; but he who kills a man shall be put to death. You shall have one manner of law, both for the stranger and for the home-born; for I am YHVH your god.
and thence to my translation. Shakespeare, incidentally, uses it in precisely the same way, in the speech that gives his play that title:

DUKE  
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged
Your well-defended honor, you must pardon
For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged your brother -
Being criminal in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent for your brother’s life -
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure. -
Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested,
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very blockhere
Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste. -
Away with him.

(Measure for Measure, Act 5, Scene 1)
BE YOM KADIM: And it may very well have been the east wind that brought the storm that shipwrecked the whale, but KEDEM is also the word for "ancient", and what Y-Y is seeking, to use a later liturgical equivalent, is a Kavanah-driven attention to the laws that were given by Mosheh, and which in our days are read on a weekly basis in synagogue, the ceremony of putting back the scrolls afterwards accompanied by the song "Eyts chayim hi le machazikim bo", which ends with the phrase "chadesh yameynu ka kedem", "renewed in our days to what they were in ancient times." Click here for the full song.

And as to the switch to the feminine - no question that this is Lev-Yatan, and yes, all of those "sea-monsters", the primordial dragons, were female: they had to be, in order to carry and give birth to the universe.


27:9 LACHEN BE ZOT YECHUPAR AVON YA'AKOV VE ZEH KOL PERI HASIR CHATA'TO BE SUMO KOL AVNEY MIZBE'ACH KE AVNEY GIR MENUPATSOT LO YAKUMU ASHERIM VE CHAMANIM

לָכֵן בְּזֹאת יְכֻפַּר עֲו‍ֹן יַעֲקֹב וְזֶה כָּל פְּרִי הָסִר חַטָּאתוֹ בְּשׂוּמוֹ כָּל אַבְנֵי מִזְבֵּחַ כְּאַבְנֵי גִר מְנֻפָּצוֹת לֹא יָקֻמוּ אֲשֵׁרִים וְחַמָּנִים

KJ: By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.

BN: And so, in this way, shall the iniquity of Ya'akov be expiated, and this will be the outcome of the removal of his sin: that he will make all the stones of the altar like chalkstones that have been crushed to pieces, so that the Asherim and the sun-images can rise no more.


YECHUPAR: The full "atonement". Just as we encountered three levels of sin at verse 4, so there are also three levels of expiation. This, from page 15 of my book "Day of Atonement":

The triple concept of pesh'a, chata’ah and avon is crucial to the process of atonement; three entirely different types of sin, each with its own consequences. Biblical usage suggests that a pesh'a is stronger than a chet, where avon is full-scale iniquity, the deepest level of sin. A chet will incur a forfeit or a fine, but is expiable and may only be an error. A pesh'a has the sense of wilfulness, even of protest or rebellion against the Law and against God; it requires a sacrificial offering at the Temple. This is why the words for pardon are also varied - a selichah for the chet, a mechilah for the pesh'a. Selichah is forgiveness, mechilah the full pardon, relative strength to relative strength.* Only on Yom Kippur itself do we ask for and receive the highest level, beyond selichah, beyond mechilah, the full kappara which gives the day its name, the complete obliteration of our sins from the record books, the nulling and voiding of the entire page, so that we may start again afresh, at-one.

* "Relative strength to relative strength" - another way, though it didn't occur to me at the time that I wrote that book, of saying "measure for measure".

BE SUMO...: The second part of this verse comes with a philosophical conflict for which human history provides rather too much evidence. "False worship has to be destroyed". So Good Queen Bess was right to have every fresco on every Catholic church wall whitewashed into unrecoverable oblivion. So the Cromwellian Puritans were justified in shutting down the theatres and smashing the gargoyles on the exterior church walls. So Muhammad with the 365 ikons in the Ka'aba. So "Woke" and "Cancel" and the Nazi burning of the books and Mary Whitehouse... and so - this too must be included - even the destruction of the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, because his gods were the true gods, and those of the Yehudim were therefore false.

CHAMANIM: Note those Hamans again, long before Purim! See my notes at Leviticus 26:30.


27:10 KI IR BETSURAH BADAD NAVEH MESHULACH VE NE'EZAV KA MIDBAR SHAM YIR'EH EGEL VE SHAM YIRBATS VE CHILAH SE'IPHEYHA

כִּי עִיר בְּצוּרָה בָּדָד נָוֶה מְשֻׁלָּח וְנֶעֱזָב כַּמִּדְבָּר שָׁם יִרְעֶה עֵגֶל וְשָׁם יִרְבָּץ וְכִלָּה סְעִפֶיהָ

KJ: Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

BN: Because the fortified city will be left to stand solitary, a habitation abandoned and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf shall feed, there shall he lie down, and strip its branches bare.


SE'IPHEYHA: But the root (forgive the unavoidable pun) is not the NETSER of 11:1, nor the TSEMACH of 4:2, but an entirely physical branch, as are the KETSIYRAH in the next verse; so for once we can say that this is not a metaphor. And the next verse confirms it. These are the branches and bough of a "sacred tree", a physical tree that has been shaped and pollarded to provide some kind of Asherah or totem pole for the rites - see the illustrations at the link.


27:11 BIYVOSH KETSIYRAH TISHAVARNAH NASHIM BA'OT ME'IYROT OTAH KI LO AM BIYNOT HU AL KEN LO YERACHAMENU OSEHU VE YOTSRO LO YECHUNENU

בִּיבֹשׁ קְצִירָהּ תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה נָשִׁים בָּאוֹת מְאִירוֹת אוֹתָהּ כִּי לֹא עַם בִּינוֹת הוּא עַל כֵּן לֹא יְרַחֲמֶנּוּ עֹשֵׂהוּ וְיֹצְרוֹ לֹא יְחֻנֶּנּוּ

KJ: When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

BN: When its boughs have withered, they shall be broken off. The women shall come, and set them on fire. For this is not a people with understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion for them, and he who formed them will not show mercy to them. {P}


YERACHMENU: from the root RECHEM, meaning "the womb". Islam uses the same root to make the same abstract idea: bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm - بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ - the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Compassion from the female, while the male deity is symbolised by the number Seven, which in Yehudit is Zayin (ז), which is also the penis, and drawn to look like it.


27:12 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YACHBOT YHVH MI SHIBOLET HA NAHAR AD NACHAL MITSRAYIM VE ATEM TELUKTU LE ACHAD ACHAD BENEY YISRA-EL

וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יַחְבֹּט יְהוָה מִשִּׁבֹּלֶת הַנָּהָר עַד נַחַל מִצְרָיִם וְאַתֶּם תְּלֻקְּטוּ לְאַחַד אֶחָד בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.

BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that YHVH will [beat off?] [his fruit] from the flood of the River as far as the [Brook of Egypt], and you shall be gathered one by one, you Beney Yisra-El. {P}


YACHBOT: We return again to this image of "threshing" the people, a universal John Barleycorn, a prefiguration of Tammuz reborn as Jesus. We saw this at 25:11 and it has come up in variant forms since.

Is this the SHIBOLET that I think it is? You can read the story at Judges 12; Shibolet itself comes up from verse 6.

Lots of square brackets. The first because I just don't like that translation. The second is not mine, but added by other translators, because the verse is clearly incomplete without something like this added. The third because I think the translators have the river wrong again, but think the first one is the Nile, when clearly it's the second, and so got for stream or brook of Egypt for the second, having no idea what it could be. In Biblical texts, when they say NAHAR, simply as "the river", it is always the Perat (Euphrates) that is intended; while the Nile is usually rendered as YE'OR (
יאוֹר) as in Amos 8:8.


27:13 VE HAYAH BA YOM HA HU YITAK'A BE SHOPHAR GADOL U VA'U HA OVDIM BE ERETS ASHUR VE HA NIDACHIM BE ERETS MITSRAYIM VE HISHTACHAVU LA YHVH BE HAR HA KODESH BIYRU-SHALA'IM

וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִתָּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל וּבָאוּ הָאֹבְדִים בְּאֶרֶץ אַשּׁוּר וְהַנִּדָּחִים בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וְהִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַיהוָה בְּהַר הַקֹּדֶשׁ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם

KJ: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

BN: And it shall come to pass on that day, that a great horn shall be blown. And they who were lost in the land of Ashur shall come back, and they who were dispersed in the land of Mitsrayim. And they shall worship YHVH on the holy mountain at Yeru-Shala'im.{P}


The trumpet is the SHOFAR on this occasion, not the CHATSOTSRA: religious, not military. cf the 10th blessing of the Amidah for the Messianic triumph ("sound the great shofar…"), which is also about bringing back the "dispersed", though in the latter's case it is post-Roman, not post-Ashurian.



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 

Copyright © 2022 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press


Isaiah 26

SurfTheSite
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 



No use undertaking a misanthropic rant against all the bad things in the world, however rationally and logically you articulate it, however valid the proving evidence you bring to support it, if you don't have something "better" to offer as an alternative, and a means of transforming that "vision" into a reality. So we were given the "vision" in the opening chapters of the book, and repeated references and allusions to it during the rants: the Mosaic Laws, legislated at Mount Chorev. So we have heard the rant in no uncertain terms. So, now...


26:1 BA YOM HA HU YUSHAR HA SHIR HA ZEH BE ERETS YEHUDAH IR AZ LANU YESHU'AH YASHIT CHOMOT VA CHEL

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יוּשַׁר הַשִּׁיר הַזֶּה בְּאֶרֶץ יְהוּדָה עִיר עָז לָנוּ יְשׁוּעָה יָשִׁית חוֹמוֹת וָחֵל

KJ (King James translation): In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

BN (BibleNet translation): On that day this song shall be sung in the land of Yehudah: "We have a strong city. He has appointed walls and bulwarks for our salvation....


"On that day" remains undefined; is it one of the many days of natural destruction, or the first of re-Creation? And where does the Messiah fit into this (and is that name ever actually used?) Does his coming incipit the destruction, or the re-Creation?

Take a look at Psalm 48, the latter verses especially, which since Second Temple times has been the Psalm of the Day for Mondays, the "second day towards the Shabat". Is Y-Y quoting, alluding, or is it pure coincidence of standard poetical language?


26:2 PIT'CHU SHE'ARIM VE YAV'O GO'I TSADIK SHOMER EMUNIM

פִּתְחוּ שְׁעָרִים וְיָבֹא גוֹי צַדִּיק שֹׁמֵר אֱמֻנִים

KJ: Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.

BN: Open up the gates, that a righteous nation which keeps the faith may enter in.


Or look at Psalm 118, verses 19 and 20 especially. Perhaps Yesha-Yah is trying his hand at Psalmistry, rather than palmistry! Though probably, as a trained priest who had officiated in the Temple rites and ceremonies before he quit to become a Navi (see chapter 6), he will have known the liturgy off-by-heart and could simply be making allusions and references.


26:3 YETSER SAMUCH TITSUR SHALOM SHALOM KI VECHA BATU'ACH

יֵצֶר סָמוּךְ תִּצֹּר שָׁלוֹם שָׁלוֹם כִּי בְךָ בָּטוּחַ

KJ: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

BN: You keep in perfect peace and harmony the mind that remains focused upon you ; because it trusts you.


The point at which proto-Judaism resembles Buddhism rather more than it does any other form of religion - and really a philosophy, rather more than a religion, anyway, focused on inner harmony rather more than the world peace that can only be achieved through world conquest.

YETSER: You cannot use this word in a Jewish text and not expect PhD theses as a consequence; I shall keep mine to link-length, inviting you to click here, but see also chapters 29, 45 and 46 where the word will recur, as well as numerous references elsewhere in the Tanach (but the important ones are all at the "click here" link). And in very brief: "human beings are responsible for their own decisions, their own actions, their own outcomes: don't buck the blame: deal with your issues, and achieve your own salvation from within". This, alongside the concept of the deity - as in YHVH rather than God - is the key, fundamental, quintessential difference between Judaism and Christianity, the reason why you cannot call it Judeo-Christianity; at least, not if you are Jewish. 


26:4 BIT'CHU VA YHVH ADEY AD KI BE YAH TSUR OLAMIM

בִּטְחוּ בַיהוָה עֲדֵי עַד כִּי בְּיָהּ יְהוָה צוּר עוֹלָמִים

KJ: Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:

BN: Place your trust in YHVH, and in Yah your rock, for ever.


TSUR: As in Tsur Yisra-El, the prayer sung immediately before the Amidah, definitely since Second Temple times - probably First Temple too, but we have no archeological evidence to confirm that so I can only speculate, not state.
“Tsur Yisra’el kumah be-ezrat Yisra’el u-phdey chinumecha Yehudah ve-Yisra’el. Go’aleynu Adonay tseva’ot shemo kedosh Yisra’el. Baruch atah Adonay, ga’al Yisra’el.”

“Rock of Yisra-El, rise to the aid of Yisra-El and liberate, as you pledged, Yehudah and Yisra-El. Our redeemer - the Lord of the Heavenly Host is his name - the Holy one of Yisra-El. Blessed are you, Lord, who redeemed Yisra-El.”
YAH: And then, what do we do with the continuing presence of the Queen Consort in this verse, when we understood that YHVH had performed the Night of the Long Knives a chapter or three back, masculinising everything, and absorbing into his Omnideity all the "powers" of the now defunct "Heavenly Host"? Well, clearly not, if Y-Y is thinking of the same liturgy that I am with the word TSUR. Does this then date this chapter earlier than it is presented in the book?


26:5 KI HESHACH YOSHVEY MAROM KIRYAH NISGAVAH YASHPIYLENAH YASHPIYLAH AD ERETS YAGIY'ENAH AD APHAR

כִּי הֵשַׁח יֹשְׁבֵי מָרוֹם קִרְיָה נִשְׂגָּבָה יַשְׁפִּילֶנָּה יַשְׁפִּילָהּ עַד אֶרֶץ יַגִּיעֶנָּה עַד עָפָר

KJ: For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.

BN: For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city, laying it low, laying it low even to the ground, bringing it down even to the dust.


YOSHVEY MAROM: Is this a variant on my aphorism from many years ago, that "the poor shall inherit the earth; the rich shall live in penthouses"? Or in this case, the poor get the slums in the valley, along the river, while the rich build mansions on the hill-slopes: the nearest they can get to being gods themselves. Though probably, this being Y-Y, he intends the "dwelling on high" as "self-importance", the arrogance of the "high-and-mighty", and not just the physical location.

YASHPIYLENAH YASHPIYLAH ...YAGIY'ENAH: Three Hiph'il (causative) verbs in a single sentence; no question here that this is DAVAR, natural destruction, rather than anything proxied through humans.


26:6 TIRMESENAH RAGEL RAGLEY ANI PA'AMEY DALIM

תִּרְמְסֶנָּה רָגֶל רַגְלֵי עָנִי פַּעֲמֵי דַלִּים

KJ: The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

BN: The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.


TIRMESENAH RAGEL: See my notes at 25:10; and again we can see why getting our translations as accurate as possible matters. There, it was not trodden by the feet, but crushed by the hand, and the theological implications were massive, as I explained. But here it is most definitely the feet, and most definitely a "treading down". And given the intention to bring down the high-and-mighty in the previous verse, this trampling by the poor and the peasants does sound thoroughly revolutionary!
 
And so we must ask: is YHVH then even willing to use the revolutionary proletariat to achieve his goals? In the world of God, where YETSER does not apply but blame does: if Communist Revolution overthrows the Christian monarchy, this too is the design of the deity, this too is the consequence of your sins! But in the Jewish world?


26:7 ORACH LA TSADIK MEYSHARIM YASHAR MA'GAL TSADIK TEPHALES

אֹרַח לַצַּדִּיק מֵישָׁרִים יָשָׁר מַעְגַּל צַדִּיק תְּפַלֵּס

KJ: The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.

BN: The way of the just is straight. You, the most upright, make level the path of the just.


MEYSHARIM: Not to be confused, except as a modern pun, with the Me'ah She'arim or "Hundred Gates", the most orthodox Jewish sector of today's Yeru-Shalayim. Nonetheless, the linguistic coincidence is unignorable.


YASHAR...TEPHALES: I don't often criticise Y-Y's choice of lexicon, but I do have a problem with this verse. "The way of the just is straight" makes it flat, and adding TEPHALES makes it level. But YASHAR is upright, and it cannot be both "level...flat" and "upright". And yes, of course I know that he is mixing up his physicals with his metaphoricals, yet again...


26:8 APH ORACH MISHPATEYCHA YHVH KIVIYNUCHA LE SHIMCHA U LE ZICHRECHA TA'AVAT NAPHESH

אַף אֹרַח מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ יְהוָה קִוִּינוּךָ לְשִׁמְךָ וּלְזִכְרְךָ תַּאֲוַת נָפֶשׁ

KJ: Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

BN: Even on the way to your judgments, YHVH, we have waited for you; to your name and to your memory is the desire of our soul.


ORACH: And a similar word-play with ORACH: the physical path which is usually rendered as HALACHAH, from HALACH = "to go", and the intellectual-spiritual journey which leads to MISHPATEYCHA

MISHPATEYCHA: And again here, the MISHPAT being a "legal verdict", in one sense of the word "sentence", but also "a complete articulation of an idea through language", in the other sense of that word.

KIVIYNUCHA: To wait, but with a strong sense of anticipation, even expectation. See for example Genesis 49:18 or Psalm 25:5 and 21; though it's also worth looking at verse 4 of that Psalm, because it too has the ORECH, but also the third of the words used for the "Way", DERECH.


26:9 NAPHSHI IVIYTICHA BA LAILAH APH RUCHI VE KIRBI ASHACHARECHA KI KA ASHER MISHPATEYCHA LA ARETS TSEDEK LAMDU YOSHVEY TEVEL

נַפְשִׁי אִוִּיתִךָ בַּלַּיְלָה אַף רוּחִי בְקִרְבִּי אֲשַׁחֲרֶךָּ כִּי כַּאֲשֶׁר מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לָאָרֶץ צֶדֶק לָמְדוּ יֹשְׁבֵי תֵבֵל

KJ: With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

BN: With my soul have I desired you in the night. To the very pulse beating within me have I sought you earnestly. For when your judgments are on the Earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.


NAPHSHI...RUCHI: The difference between the "spirit" and the "soul" in English is one I leave to others to explain. The difference between the NEPHESH and the RU'ACH can be found at Genesis 1:20 for the former, Genesis 1:2 for the latter; but essentially (or should that be elementally, or even existentially) it is precisely the same difference that exists between YHVH and CHAVAH, the former being the elemental state, pre-existence, the other manifest existence.

MISHPATEYCHA: I return to this word because it seems to me essential to Y-Y's philosophy. The deity is not a judge in court, he/they are simply the E that equals MC2, which is why it is foolish to think thunderstorms and droughts are caused by sin, and then try to propitiate your way through them. On th`e other hand (the human YAD working in partnership with the divine YAD), as per my note above, when human beings manage to articulate in coherent sentences what the E and the M and the C actually mean, and how they work, then a meaningful understanding of the "judgements" of the deity can be achieved, and non-propitiatory ways through them developed. This is not about sin, it is about science. When human beings apply their intelligence to the optimum, rather than indulging their greed, their self-importance and their high-and-mightiness, a decent human world becomes a viable possibility (preferably with hurricane-proof glass, earthquake-proof foundations, lightning rods, and agreement not to build towns on the slopes of active volcanoes).


26:10 YUCHAN RASH'A BAL LAMAD TSEDEK BE ERETS NECHOCHOT YE'AVEL U VAL YIR'EH GE'UT YHVH

יֻחַן רָשָׁע בַּל לָמַד צֶדֶק בְּאֶרֶץ נְכֹחוֹת יְעַוֵּל וּבַל יִרְאֶה גֵּאוּת יְהוָה

KJ: Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD.

BN: Let favour be shown to the wicked, though he still will not learn righteousness. Even in the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully, and will not behold the majesty of YHVH.{P}


Sarcasm! But Y-Y is correct. The man who sells dodgy goods under the slogan "the company that cares", doesn't expect you to realise that what he cares about is "how much profit can I make?", and not "how good is this for my customers?" And ditto the politician asked to come up with a solution to a national problem: his answer will not be, "what is the best solution for the country?" but "which solution will secure the most votes?". Plus ça change!


[P] The Christian texts do not change chapter at this point, but the Masoretic symbol suggests that the Rabbis think it should have done.


26:11 YHVH RAMAH YADCHA BAL YECHEZAYUN YECHEZU VE YEVOSHU KIN'AT AM APH ESH TSAREYCHA TO'CHLEM

יְהוָה רָמָה יָדְךָ בַּל יֶחֱזָיוּן יֶחֱזוּ וְיֵבֹשׁוּ קִנְאַת עָם אַף אֵשׁ צָרֶיךָ תֹאכְלֵם

KJ: LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.

BN: YHVH, your hand is raised up, but still they do not see you. They shall see with shame your zeal for the people. Yea, fire shall devour your adversaries. {S}


That YAD again - whence my comment a verse ago. But this one is a raised hand, which reminds us of Mosheh fighting against the Beney Amalek, when Chur on one side, and Aharon on the other, held up his hands so that YHVH would be with them, and when his hands were raised, the Beney Yisra-El moved towards victory, but when he needed to rest them for a while, the Beney Amalek fought back (Exodus 17:10 ff).

YECHEZAYUN YECHEZU: The root here is CHOZEH, the third of the "prophetic" words, the other two being RO'EH and NAV'I. See my note to CHAZO. Y-Y's use of it here, and in this manner, is significant to our understanding of the role of the Prophet: if he was himself simply a CHOZEH, a man who stares into a crystal ball  or a palm and recounts what he "sees", then he would be mocking and criticising himself by saying this, and dishnouring his deity at the same time. 

And this is significant here, not so much to Y-Y as to our reading, because the grammar has left the translators somewhat bewildered. Look at Biblehub, for example, and it will tell you that most of the verbs are in the past tense (it says "Imperfect, which is even more problematic, because there is no Imperfect tense as such in Yehudit), which they are not; they are in the present (RAMAH) and future (
YECHEZAYUN, YECHEZU, YEVOSHU, TO'CHLEM); and without a Vav Consecutive either to render them as past-by-construction. Yet KJ and others all translate this - entirely correctly - into the future.


26:12 YHVH TISHPOT SHALOM LANU KI GAM KOL MA'ASEYNU PA'ALTA LANU

יְהוָה תִּשְׁפֹּת שָׁלוֹם לָנוּ כִּי גַּם כָּל מַעֲשֵׂינוּ פָּעַלְתָּ לָּנוּ

KJ: LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

BN: YHVH, you will establish peace for us; for you have indeed wrought all our works for us. {S}


TISHPOT: I wonder if Y-Y is using the verb in the same way that Yechezke-El does, at 40:43 of his book, or even as a deliberate contrast with it? There, in his rather silly "vision" in which an angel brings him the complete architectural plan for the rebuilding of the Temple (presumably he is doing it from personal memory of the one destroyed just a few years previously; Muhammad will use the same format he creates the Qur'an), Yechezke-El lays out the SHEPHATAYIM (הַשְׁפַתַּיִם), the "slabs", precisely the length of a hand each, on which the sacrifices will be placed for the act of propitiation.

So we appear to have two very different Prophetic "visions", Y-Y versus Y-E, the one all about the humans taking charge through a scientific understanding of the "Nature" of the gods, the other yielding to their superior power and wanting to restore the Temple rituals (Y-E's vision takes place in Bavel, during the exile; see Ezekiel 40:1, and note that his "vision" is a MA'AROT, yet a fourth word for our list).

But Y-Y has already rejected the Y-E version, and his YHVH will bring peace through "obedience", not "sacrifice". The Y-E will bring peace by submission: an entire world passively obedient to the same dictator is indeed a form of peace; cf Stalinist Russia in the 1930s. 

The same with the second half of the verse, which in Y-E would turn Hebrewism into Islam = "submission", mere vassaldom to the Pharaonic deity: "For you have also done all our works for us." Abnegation of responsibility by the human, just as all credit for achievement was expropriated earlier. The human simply becomes an automaton, mechanically performing the rites, ceremonies and liturgies required by the ideology, blameless and uncreditworthy; not really a human at all, even when the brain is totally engaged at the most sophisticated level, but automatonically engaged only in the act of learning what rites, ceremonies and liturgies to perform, and the variations at given times (the ultimate methodology of social control). But, as we have seen repeatedly, this is not Y-Y's vision: the work that has been "done for us" was PA'ALTA, which is Homo Faber developing his Homo Sapiens, not DAVAR, which is the deity making Creation in the first place. "You have given us the means to understand your Creation, and to work out for ourselves how to develop a righteous human world, for everybody's benefit." An Aristotelian peace, where Y-E's is purely Platonic - though neither of those, I know, have yet come about.


26:13 YHVH ELOHEYNU BE'ALUNU ADONIM ZULATECHA LEVAD BECHA NAZKIR SHEMECHA

יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ בְּעָלוּנוּ אֲדֹנִים זוּלָתֶךָ לְבַד בְּךָ נַזְכִּיר שְׁמֶךָ

KJ: O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.

BN: YHVH, our gods, other lords besides you have had ruled us, and in your name; but we mean you and you alone when we make mention of your name.


YHVH ELOHEYNU: so, again, we are still pre-Omnideity, though this compound does hint at its inception.


26:14 METIM BAL YICHEYU RAPHA'IM BAL YAKUMU LACHEN PAKADETA VA TASHMIYDEM VA TE'ABED KOL ZECHER LAMO

מֵתִים בַּל יִחְיוּ רְפָאִים בַּל יָקֻמוּ לָכֵן פָּקַדְתָּ וַתַּשְׁמִידֵם וַתְּאַבֵּד כָּל זֵכֶר לָמוֹ

KJ: They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

BN: Those gods are dead, and will not revive, any more than the giants of the ancient world will return again. To that end have you overpowered and destroyed them, and made all memory of them perish.


REPHA'IM: See the link.

TE'ABED KOL ZECHER LAMO: Y-Y is wrong on this occasion. Merely to name them here, as he has done, is sufficient to keep their memory alive. And anyway, what matters is not the forgetting who they were, but the continuing to worship them once you have learned that they are falsehoods.


26:15 YASAPHTA LA GOY YHVH YASAPHTA LA GOY NICHBADETA RICHAKTA KOL KATSVEY ARETS

יָסַפְתָּ לַגּוֹי יְהוָה יָסַפְתָּ לַגּוֹי נִכְבָּדְתָּ רִחַקְתָּ כָּל קַצְוֵי אָרֶץ

KJ: Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.

BN: You have gotten yourself honour with the nations, YHVH. Yea, exceeding great honour with the nations. You are honoured to the farthest ends of the Earth. {P}


Two very different translations!

What exactly does "increase the nation" mean anyway, if it is not his honour that has increased? A return to the gods of fertility? The key here is NICHBADETA, from KAVED, "honour".


26:16 YHVH BA TSAR PEKADUCHA TSAKUN LACHASH MUSARCHA LAMO


יְהוָה בַּצַּר פְּקָדוּךָ צָקוּן לַחַשׁ מוּסָרְךָ לָמוֹ

KJ: LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.

BN: YHVH, they sought you when things were bad. They poured out their prayers only when they knew they had done something wrong.


PEKADUCHA: Which repeats the verb used in verse, but here with its other meaning: "to visit". How can the same word, its root spelled the same way, have two completely different meanings? Apparently, in Bromley-by-Bow, the people who make the sticks you use to play a violin take the applause for their skills in much the same way. And they get the wood for those sticks, not from the tree's branches but from its... oh, that's spelled boff, like cough, and thoff. Y-Y games, constant throughout these texts.

But there is also another key part of the vision here, because Y-Y wants his people to do "obedience", but he wants it with KAVANAH, sincerity-intensity, regardless of whether life is going well or badly. People only turning to YHVH in times of trouble makes for a really negative statement about religion.


26:17 KEMO HARAH TAKRIV LALEDET TACHIL TIZ'AK BA CHAVALEYHA KEN HAYIYNU MI PANEYCHA YHVH


כְּמוֹ הָרָה תַּקְרִיב לָלֶדֶת תָּחִיל תִּזְעַק בַּחֲבָלֶיהָ כֵּן הָיִינוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ יְהוָה

KJ: Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.

BN: Like a pregnant woman, when she draws near to the time of her parturition, and is in pain, and cries out in her pangs, so have we been at your presence, YHVH.


26:18 HARIYNU CHALNU KEMO YALADNU RU'ACH YESHU'OT BAL NA'ASEH ERETS U VAL YIPLU YOSHVEY TEVEL


הָרִינוּ חַלְנוּ כְּמוֹ יָלַדְנוּ רוּחַ יְשׁוּעֹת בַּל נַעֲשֶׂה אֶרֶץ וּבַל יִפְּלוּ יֹשְׁבֵי תֵבֵל

KJ: We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

BN: We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the land; neither have any of the inhabitants of the world come to life.


...in the good times we don’t even show gratitude. But worse, even those who have preached what Y-Y is preaching, and those who listen and nod their agreement, haven't actually made an iota of difference to the human world. Please don't tell him that here we are, two and a half thousand years later, and the same still applies.


26:19 YICHEYU METEYCHA NEVELATI YEKUMUN HAKIYTSU VE RANENU SHOCHNEY APHAR KI TAL OROT TALECHA VA ARETS REPHA'IM TAPIL



יִחְיוּ מֵתֶיךָ נְבֵלָתִי יְקוּמוּן הָקִיצוּ וְרַנְּנוּ שֹׁכְנֵי עָפָר כִּי טַל אוֹרֹת טַלֶּךָ וָאָרֶץ רְפָאִים תַּפִּיל

KJ: Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is asthe dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

BN: Your dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is as the dew of light, and the Earth shall bring to life the shades. {P}


Is this the resurrection of the dead, stated for the first time, yet another break with Mosaic theology that will become mainstream Judaism (see the second paragraph - Gevurot - of the Amidah, though you will need an orthodox prayer book as Reform and Liberal have removed the reference).

Or is this a mis-reading by the Rabbis and other scholars later on, and not a resurrection of the physically dead at all, but a statement about the continuing existences of the living-dead, those who just go through life like cattle, grazing, satisfying their biological needs, but no more than that, while Y-Y's disciples arfe being exhorted to wake up from their empty lives, and begin to fulfil them meaningfully? I think the answer to this already lies in verse 14.


26:20 LECH AMI BO VA CHADAREYCHA U SEGOR DELATEYCHA BA ADECHA CHAVI CHIME'AT REGA AD YA'AVOR ZA'AM


לֵךְ עַמִּי בֹּא בַחֲדָרֶיךָ וּסְגֹר דלתיך (דְּלָתְךָ) בַּעֲדֶךָ חֲבִי כִמְעַט רֶגַע עַד יעבור (יַעֲבָר-) זָעַם

KJ: Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

BN: Come, my people, go into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a brief moment, until the indignation has passed away.


Didn't Tony Blair once say something very similar, when asked to wrap up the "vision" of his party's election manifesto in one sentence? He stole the format from Bill Clinton, but the phrasing might just as well have been this verse: "Education, education, education".

CHADAREYCHA: Which Blairism also makes me wonder who Y-Y is addressing, and where. I imagine this as morning assembly at his Yeshiva, the Head come in to deliver a sermon rather than just having the music teacher lead some songs and the deputy head do announcements. In which case CHADAREYCHA needs to be rendered as "classrooms" - and anyone who has been to a Jewish Sunday school will know that it is known, to this day, as CHADER (though sometimes spelled Yiddishly as CHEDER).
   But this was a Yeshiva, and just as the Christian church was modelled, physically as well as ceremonially and liturgically, on the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im, there is strong evidence that the Abbeys and monasteries and convents were likewise modelled on the study-houses on the Temple campus, small cells built around the cloistered quadrant of the courtyard.
   Though whether Y-Y is sending them to their cells to study, or to pray, or both, is not explicit in the verse.

Nor is it clear whose indignation this is that has passed, YHVH's at the people, or the people's at YHVH. 


26:21 KI HINEH YHVH YOTS'E MI MEKOMO LIPHKOD AVON YOSHEV HA ARETS ALAV VE GILTAH HA ARETS ET DAMEYHA VE LO TECHASEH OD AL HARUGEYHA

כִּי הִנֵּה יְהוָה יֹצֵא מִמְּקוֹמוֹ לִפְקֹד עֲו‍ֹן יֹשֵׁב הָאָרֶץ עָלָיו וְגִלְּתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת דָּמֶיהָ וְלֹא תְכַסֶּה עוֹד עַל הֲרוּגֶיהָ

KJ: For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

BN: For, behold, YHVH has gone out from his place to visit their iniquity upon the inhabitants of the Earth. So the Earth shall uncover her blood, and provide no more cover for her slain. {P}


MI MEKOMO: Pronounced by elision as MIMKOMO, but I always separate in this manner to show the preposition, as that impacts on meaning.

LIPHKOD: The third usage of this word in this chapter.

GILTAH: How does the Earth "disclose her blood"? If this chapter were about some political or military event, we might read it as opening up the trenches where the "Desaparecidos" have been machine-gunned and bulldozed. But it is not that. And we have seen Y-Y consistently using the physical landscape metaphorically. Blood in Jewish texts is the most sacred of all aspects of life, to be drained entirely before cooking, taken away in special gutters from the Temple altar and removed from the precinct, mikvehed monthly by women, etc. A full revelation, and an end to disclosure, becomes as full an understanding of the NEPHESH and the RU'ACH as it is possible to metaphor.


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 

Copyright © 2022 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press