Anyway, on to Isaiah. Today is Isaiah 21, one of those chapters that is difficult to comment on in terms of substance. It's pretty straight forward: Babylon will fall and its idols will be destroyed, Edom will become stilled or silenced and Arabia's armies will be shattered. The thing for me about this chapter is the language. If you didn't know its origins, you would think that it was part of some fantasy novel:
1 An oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea:
Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland,
an invader comes from the desert,
from a land of terror.2 A dire vision has been shown to me:
The traitor betrays, the looter takes loot.
Elam, attack! Media, lay siege!
I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.3 At this my body is racked with pain,
pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor;
I am staggered by what I hear,
I am bewildered by what I see.4 My heart falters,
fear makes me tremble;
the twilight I longed for
has become a horror to me.5 They set the tables,
they spread the rugs,
they eat, they drink!
Get up, you officers,
oil the shields!
That first verse is highly gripping prose, "Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror, " followed by "A dire vision has been shown to me..." I can hear the dramatic music, see the fade from black as a ravening horde stampedes through the desert. Once again Isaiah shows that he is as much an artist as a prophet. I think the two seem to very compatible. Last week I wrote about nudism as prophecy as Isaiah spent three years without clothes as a sign against Egypt. That seems like just the thing an artist would do. It's like protest art. The prophet must have been highly creative; he works in metaphor and symbolism to craft a message from God for various people.
While I'm at a loss to spin out a profound exegesis from this chapter, I remain amazed at the insight into the person Isaiah. We see his passion and his craft mixed with a truth, an oracle for three different nations. I think I'm getting a picture of this person and beginning to understand who he is. I may not always grasp the point of what he's saying, but I inevitably like the way he says it.
"the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me." I love that. If only I knew Hebrew...I'm not dead yet.
