Every once in a while I read something in the Bible and think it could be pulled right out of a pulp adventure story. Today I'm looking at Isaiah 34 and it seems like Isaiah was trying his hand at this genre. Conan the Barbarian seems to fit. It's not that the content is devalued in any way, it's just the language as translated into english seems very...descriptive. I've written about Isaiah's prose in the past and I think he really did have a gift for writing. I bet he was an amazing story teller. Check this out:
1 Come near, you nations, and listen;
pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
the world, and all that comes out of it!2 The LORD is angry with all nations;
his wrath is upon all their armies.
He will totally destroy [a] them,
he will give them over to slaughter.3 Their slain will be thrown out,
their dead bodies will send up a stench;
the mountains will be soaked with their blood.4 All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved
and the sky rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like shriveled figs from the fig tree.5 My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
see, it descends in judgment on Edom,
the people I have totally destroyed.6 The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood,
it is covered with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
fat from the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in Edom.
It's an amazingly descriptive and evocative chapter and this is just the beginning.
I try to look for the spiritual truths that Isaiah is trying to communicate, but I think this chapter is one of Isaiah's manifestations of justice. The reason I think that is verse 8 "For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion's cause." Somehow this is a righting of wrongs done to Israel. I don't really know how to hold that violence in my head and reconcile it with the God of mercy and grace, yet somehow it is the same God. That is one of the vast mysteries of faith and if I ever say that I have a full understanding of God, then I know I'm speaking rubbish. We finite creatures can only begin to understand the infinite.
I think that is one of the reasons Jesus had to show up - it allowed us a glimpse at the infinite in a finite time in space, held in one man. The ultimate sacrifice at one moment, to allow for eternal salvation for all time. Now we see through a glass darkly, then we shall see in full...
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