DRA against Israel
Isaiah 6. In Isa 6, Isaiah ben Amoz describes a vision he received during the year of King Uzziah’s death 6 : “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne [which was] high and
3 In what follows, I adopt a discourse-oriented approach to the book of Isaiah (for a brief description of the approach, see Jacob Stromberg, An Introduction to the Study of Isaiah, T & T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies [London: T & T Clark, 2011], 98–102). As such, I do not endeavor to uncover the text’s prehistory nor do I interpret passages on the basis of theoretical reconstructions of said prehistory. My goal is to interpret relevant passages as they have come to readers in the canonical book of Isaiah. In addition, I use the name “Isaiah” or “the prophet” to refer to the individual (or group) responsible for the final form of the book. While I believe that Isaiah ben Amoz may have been that person, the arguments that follow do not depend on any particular view of authorship.
4 In the following sections, I generally use the name “Israel” as a shorthand for the Jewish people from both the northern and southern kingdoms. Such a practice is supported by Isaiah’s own use of
“Israel,” since he could also use the designation without intending to distinguish between Judah and Ephraim. See Reinhard G. Kratz, “Israel in the Book of Isaiah,” JSOT 31, no. 1 (2006): 103–28; J. Barton, Isaiah 1–39, OTG (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 112–15; John Goldingay, “The Theology of Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah: Issues and Approaches, ed. David G. Firth and H. G. M.
Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 175. In cases where I am speaking particularly of the northern kingdom, the context will make my intentions clear.
5 For a helpful summary of modern approaches to Isa 6, see Torsten Uhlig, The Theme of Hardening in the Book of Isaiah: An Analysis of Communicative Action, FAT 2, vol. 39 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 73–78.
6 Scholars disagree regarding whether or not Isaiah’s vision should be understood as his
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lifted up, and the hem of his robe filled the temple!” (Isa 6:1). Standing beside him were the mysterious, six-winged Seraphim,
7whose voices caused the foundations of the temple to shake and the building to be filled with smoke. These heavenly creatures attended to the Lord as they proclaimed to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy is YHWH of
inaugural call to prophetic ministry. I agree with those who take Isa 6 to refer to a commission given to Isaiah after he had already begun his prophetic ministry. However, this particular issue does not significantly impact my characterization of DRA in Isa 6 or elsewhere. For those who argue in favor of taking Isa 6 as an inaugural call, see Ivan Engnell, The Call of Isaiah: An Exegetical and Comparative Study, Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift (Uppsala, Sweden: Lundequistska bokhandeln, 1949), 42–43; Rolf Knierim, “The Vocation of Isaiah,” VT 18, no. 1 (1968): 63–64, 67–68; Stromberg, Introduction to Study of Isaiah, 108; Paul R. House, “Isaiah’s Call and Its Context in Isaiah 1–6,” CTR 6, no. 2 (1993): 213; J. J. M.
Roberts, First Isaiah, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 91–92; William J. Dumbrell, “Worship and Isaiah 6,” RTR 43, no. 1 (1984): 1; H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Isaiah, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 126; Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, trans. John Bowden, 2nd ed., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 121–23; Peter J. Gentry, “Sizemore Lectures II: ‘No One Holy Like the Lord,’” Midwestern Journal of Theology 12, no. 1 (2013): 28; John N. Oswalt, Isaiah, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2003), 125; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 2, The Theology of Israel’s Prophetic Traditions, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 148; Gerhard F. Hasel, The Remnant: The History and Theology of the Remnant Idea from Genesis to Isaiah, Andrews University Monographs (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1972), 230; Uhlig, Theme of Hardening, 83–
84, 119. For those who believe that Isa 6 reflects a commission (whether specific of general) that came after a period of prophetic ministry, see Joseph Addison Alexander, Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977), 144–46; Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, NAC (Nashville: B
& H, 2007), 183–84; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, AB (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 223;
Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 55; Victor Hurowitz,
“Isaiah’s Impure Lips and Their Purification in Light of Akkadian Sources,” HUCA 60 (1989): 41n1; Craig A. Evans, To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9-10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation, JSOTSup 64 (Sheffield, England: JSOT, 1989), 22. For the argument that Isa 6 is a retrospective reformulation of his prophetic mandate in light of Isaiah’s mature reflections on Israel’s response to his preaching, see Julian P.
Love, “Call of Isaiah: Exposition of Isaiah 6,” Int 11, no. 3 (1957): 290–94. For the claim that Isa 6 was the product of Isaiah’s despair over his failed ministry, see Mordecai Menahem Kaplan, “Isaiah 6:1–11,” JBL 45 (1926): 251–59. For scholars who do not come to a firm conclusion on the matter, see Andrew T.
Abernethy, The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom: A Thematic-Theological Approach, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016), 23; Shawn Zelig Aster, Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 1–39: Responses to Assyrian Ideology, ANEM (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 48–49; Joh. Michael Schmidt, “Gedanken Zum Verstockungsauftrag Jesajas (Is. VI),” VT 21, no. 1 (1971): 74–75, 86–87.
7 The nature of the seraphim continues to be debated. However, since the identity of the seraphim does not impinge upon the matter of DRA, I shall not delve deeply into the subject. For those who maintain that the seraphim are serpentine creatures, see Karen Randolph Joines, “Winged Serpents in Isaiah’s Inaugural Vision,” JBL 86, no. 4 (1967): 410–15; Uhlig, Theme of Hardening, 86–88; Gentry, “No One Holy,” 31; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 125; Roberts, First Isaiah, 95–97. For those who argue that the seraphim are fiery beings, see Alexander, Isaiah, 1:146; Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 33; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 189; Leupold, Isaiah, 130. For a recent work which posits that Isaiah’s seraphim were intended to be a parody of an Assyrian mythical creature called the apkallū, see Aster, Reflections of Empire, 56–71.
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hosts! His glory is that which fills all the earth!” As others have observed, the vision granted to the prophet emphasized YHWH’s status as king.
8However, the scene does not depict a king ready to save; instead, it seems to picture a king ready to judge.
9Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the vision fills Isaiah with dread: “And I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I am dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips! For my eyes have seen the King, YHWH of hosts!’” (Isa 6:5).
10Instead of being met with fury, Isaiah was met with purifying grace: one of the Seraphim flew down and touched the prophet’s lips with a coal taken from the altar (Isa 6:6–7). Through an act that symbolized both judgment and mercy,
11Isaiah’s iniquity and sin were turned aside (Isa 6:7b) and the prophet was morally prepared for the task he was about to be given (Isa 6:8).
12After his purification, Isaiah was allowed to listen as the LORD asked a question
8 See for instance Abernethy, Isaiah and God’s Kingdom, 14–22; Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 32;
Roberts, First Isaiah, 98; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 187.
9 Uhlig argues that the presence of the Seraphim, the shaking of the foundations, and the mention of smoke all point to God’s judging presence. Uhlig, Theme of Hardening, 86–89; also see Uhlig,
“Too Hard to Understand? The Motif of Hardening in Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah: Issues and
Approaches, ed. David G. Firth and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 64–
65. Knierim meanwhile notes the parallels between Isa 6 and 1 Kgs 22:19–23 to argue that the former was also a vision of judgment (Knierim, “Vocation,” 54–59). Hurowitz reaches the same conclusion but from another angle: he posits that the vision of Isaiah can be shown to have been a vision of judgment by comparing it to Mesopotamian prayer rituals (see Hurowitz, “Isaiah’s Impure Lips,” 81–85). For others who understand Isaiah’s vision similarly, see Leupold, Isaiah, 133; Dumbrell, “Worship,” 3; Abernethy, Isaiah and God’s Kingdom, 14–17.
10 Hurowitz fails to persuade when he contends that Isaiah’s exclamation refers to the prophet’s failure to perform the ritual purification normally required before having a prophetic experience.
As Hurowitz himself admits, “There is no explicit evidence that [Israelite] prophets purified themselves prior to their prophesying.” In my judgment, such a concession is more damaging to Hurowitz’s case then he believes it to be. Moreover, given his own observations that (1) purification of the mouth can stand for the purification of the entire person, and (2) that the Mesopotamian incantations resulted in forgiveness for transgressions, it would be possible to posit on the basis of the same Mesopotamian sources that Isaiah’s alarm was due to his sinful state rather than due merely to his ritual uncleanness. See Hurowitz, “Isaiah’s Impure Lips,” 70–79.
11 So also Uhlig, Theme of Hardening, 94; Roberts, First Isaiah, 100; Gentry, “No One Holy,”
34; James M. Hamilton Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 193–94.
12 The purification of Isaiah may suggest the future purification of Israel through the fires of
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of his divine council: “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Who will I send? Who will go for us?’” (Isa 6:8a).
13Isaiah immediately responded by volunteering for the mission: “And I said, ‘Behold, it is I. Send me!’” (Isa 3:8b). God then commissions Isaiah and commands him to perform a troubling task
14:
And [YHWH] said, “Go and say to this people, ‘Listen intently but do not understand! And look carefully but do not comprehend!’ Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears grow heavy and smear over their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and their heart understand, with the result that it turns and heals them.” (Isa 6:9–10)
After hearing the task described, the prophet then asked the Lord how long his hardening ministry was to continue.
15God’s response in verse 11 made clear that Isaiah was to negatively influence Israel until devastation came upon the land, probably in the form of the Assyrian invasion.
16Thus, Isaiah 6 seems to indicate that the prophet was not being
judgment. Two features of the vision make this interpretation possible: (1) Isaiah’s willingness to identify with the sin of the people (Is 6:5), and (2) the reference to the survival of the “holy seed” in 6:13. For others who interpret Isaiah’s purification similarly, see Hasel, Remnant, 242–43; Roberts, First Isaiah, 100;
Craig A. Evans, “Isa 6:9–13 in the Context of Isaiah’s Theology,” JETS 29, no. 2 (1986): 141; Willem A.
M. Beuken, “The Manifestation of Yahweh and the Commission of Isaiah: Isaiah 6 Read against the Background of Isaiah 1,” CTJ 39 (2004): 82. Though Isa 6 contains hints of a future restoration of Israel, these do not nullify the presence of DRA in the chapter. On the contrary, the text clearly asserts that the Lord would negatively influence Israel until the nation experienced actual judgment. The survival of a purified remnant would not change the fact that the nation as a whole would have to experience the destruction of God’s judgment as a direct result of YHWH’s influence.
13 Young rightly notes that the question is rhetorical and is “designed to elicit a response upon the part of Isaiah.” Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 1, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 253.
14 On the basis of the structure of Isa 6, Uhlig rightly observes that “the call to harden the people in verses 9-10 is the goal of the whole passage.” Uhlig, “Too Hard to Understand?,” 64.
15 So also Hanna Liss, Die enerhörte Prophetie: Kommunikative Strukturen prophetischer Rede im Buch Yesha‘yahu, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte (Leipzig, Germany: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2003), 41–42.
16 Similarly Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 57–58; J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1993), 79; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, trans. Thomas H. Trapp
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 274; John L. Mackay, A Study Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1 (New York:
Evangelical, 2008), 177–78; Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature, FOTL (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 136–39. Aster also views 6:11–13 as relating to Assyrian
invasion, though he disputes that Isaiah was sent by God to bring about such a state of affairs (see Aster, Reflections of Empire, 75–77, 282). For an exploration of the connections between Isa 6 and the Assyrian
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sent as a means of salvation; instead, he was now being commissioned to function as the means by which God would secure Israel’s condemnation.
17Therefore, at face value at least, the text characterizes Isaiah’s ministry as a form of DRA.
18Despite the text’s seeming clarity, some have argued that the prophetic task described in Isa 6 did not involve DRA.
19So for instance, some have argued that the imperatives in verses 9 and 10 should actually be read as indicatives.
20That is to say, Isaiah was not being instructed to harden Israel, but was merely being informed that
invasion, see Laato, About Zion, 74–75, 96–98.
17 Liss wrongly concludes that Isaiah’s hardening ministry cannot be said to have been intended to bring about the destruction foreseen in v. 11 (see Liss, Die enerhörte Prophetie, 41–42). On the contrary, vv. 9–10 already suggests that the hardening was meant to bring about Israel’s punishment. First, the similarities between Isa 6:9–10 and 1 Kgs 22:19–23 suggests that the former passage (much like the latter) has judgment as the intended goal of divine influence. Additionally, by specifying the prevention of Israel’s healing as the goal of Isaiah’s hardening ministry, the passage implies that God’s desired outcome was Israel’s destruction (though v.13 specifies that a remnant would be spared). Lastly, as discussed earlier, the vision in its entirety seems to set the stage for the expectation of divine judgment. These factors make it more likely than not that Isaiah’s hardening ministry was intended to secure the destruction described in v.11.
18 Hasel rightly cautions interpreters against presuming that YHWH could not in fact
commission someone to take on such a dreadful task as is found in Isa 6:9–13. As he states, “We must not apply an a priori standard of our own making as an absolute canon of judgment as to what God can or cannot ask of his servant.” Hasel, Remnant, 229.
19 This interpretative stream is represented by several early translations of Isa 6:9–10. Evans states regarding these early versions: “The general tendency among these traditions was to place the actual cause of spiritual obduracy exclusively upon the people rather than upon God and his prophet Isaiah.”
Craig A. Evans, “The Text of Isaiah 6:9–10,” ZAW 94, no. 3 (1982): 418. For arguments defending the priority of the MT’s rendering of Isa 6:10, see Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 5–15; Dominique Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, vol. 2, Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamentations, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 39–41; Jan de Waard, A Handbook on Isaiah, vol. 1, Textual Criticism and the Translator (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 28–29.
20 The LXX stands as an early proponent of this interpretation. According to Isa 6:9–10 LXX, God says to Isaiah, “Go and say to this people, ‘You will hear with hearing, and will surely not understand, and you will see while seeing, and you will surely not know. For the heart of this people has become dull, and with difficulty have they heard with their ears and they shut their eyes, so that they might not see with [their] eyes and hear with [their] ears and understand with [their] heart and turn and I would heal them.’”
As Roberts rightly observes, the LXX “eases the theological harshness of the passage by introducing a causal particle, changing the imperatives to finite verbs, and making the people the subject of the action”
(Roberts, First Isaiah, 90). For more on the relationship between the MT and the LXX of Isaiah 6:9–10, see Evans, To See and Not Perceive, 61–68.
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Israel would not respond positively to his preaching.
21Others have attempted to remove the sting of Isaiah 6:9–10 by downplaying God’s involvement in hardening and treating it as a by-product of human disobedience.
22So for instance, Gray says of Isaiah 6:9–10 that
“the gradual hardening and ultimately fatal effect on character of continued disobedience to the voice of God is here stated in the bold, direct, dramatic speech of prophecy.”
23Similarly, Everson contends that the motif of divine hardening was simply another way of referring to human disobedience in general; as such, Isaiah 6 functions to warn readers of the constant danger of developing a hardened heart.
24Meanwhile, others have
21 See for instance Bruce Hollenbach, “Lest They Should Turn and Be Forgiven: Irony,” BT 34, no. 3 (1983): 313; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 271; Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 18. Eusebius reads the text similarly, though he understands it as a prediction of Israel’s self-hardening during the time of Jesus Christ;
see Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on Isaiah, ed. Joel C. Elowsky, trans. Jonathan J. Armstrong, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 32.
22 Though Motyer does acknowledge that God has a role to play in the hardening process, he restricts it to the establishment of general laws of human psychology. This becomes evident in his description of Isaiah’s hardening ministry: “[Isaiah], in fact, faced the preacher’s dilemma: if hearers are resistant to the truth, the only recourse is to tell them the truth yet again, more clearly than before. But to do this is to expose them to the risk of rejecting the faith yet again and, therefore, of increased hardness of heart. It could even be that the next rejection will prove to be the point at which the heart is hardened beyond recovery. The human eye cannot see this point in advance; it comes and goes unnoticed. But the all-sovereign God both knows it and appoints it as he presides in perfect justice over the psychological processes he created.” Motyer, Prophecy of Isaiah, 79.
23 George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah: I–
XXVII, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1912), 109. Gray’s statement is also quoted approvingly by Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 44.
24 See A. Joseph Everson, “A Bitter Memory: Isaiah’s Commission in Isaiah 6:1–13,” in The Desert Will Bloom: Poetic Visions in Isaiah, AIL (Atlanta: SBL, 2009), 74. Everson’s reading is exactly the kind of approach with which von Rad took issue. Almost a hundred years ago, von Rad leveled a powerful critique against those who would interpret Isa 6 by “appeal[ing] to the undisputed fact that when the word of God is continually rejected, the capacity to hear and understand it dies away.” von Rad, Prophetic Traditions, 152–53. He goes on to say, “This interpretation of the hardening of the heart is open to an objection. It depends entirely on the conditional clause, and so becomes a general truth of religion which can be constantly confirmed in the broad realm of religious experience. This means that the process would be a rational one which could be explained in psychological terms. . . . [in the Old Testament]
hardening of the heart is always represented as an act of God and not as the result of a law of human nature.
. . . If Israel’s alienation from God was due to a psychological process, then it could surely have been brought to its conclusion without waiting for a message from Isaiah. Any attempt to come to terms with what Isaiah says about hardening of the heart by the way of understanding the words indirectly, that is to say, by taking them as the secondary result of theological reflexion, and therefore as the way out from a theological dilemma or an account of a general law of the psychology of religion, is, from the point of view
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downplayed the presence of DRA by claiming that the passage presupposes the
possibility of repentance.
25Still others evade the issue by positing that Isaiah 6 does not reflect Isaiah’s call/commissioning as it had actually been given. So for example, Love believes that Isaiah 6 contains Isaiah’s retrospective re-interpretation of his call in light of his ministry’s meager results.
26He claims that the statements in verses 9–10 contain elements of irony and merely recount the effect that Isaiah’s preaching happened to have on an already stubborn people.
27On the other hand, while Kaplan agrees that Isaiah 6 contains Isaiah’s reflections at the end of his career, he denies altogether that the chapter refers to Isaiah’s call. Instead, he contends that Isaiah 6 gives expression to the prophet’s troubled mind.
28Kaplan goes so far as to posit that, on his better days, Isaiah would have rejected the negative characterization of YHWH found in Isaiah 6. Instead of reflecting Isaiah’s actual convictions, this dreadful portrait of the Lord resulted from “the heat of anger and disappointment” which caused the prophet to fall back upon an archaic manner of theologizing.
29More recently, Aster has argued that Isaiah 6:8–10 is political satire: the
of hermeneutics, a priori to import a standpoint from outside the text itself”(152–53).
25 Engnell, Call of Isaiah, 44; E. J. Kissane, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 1 (Dublin: Brown &
Nolon, 1941), 75.
26 Love, “Call of Isaiah,” 291, 294. Wildberger also instructs readers to be open to the possibility that “the present formulations [of Isa 6] may have taken shape within the framework of the impressions which deepened over a long period of time, during which the prophet found little positive response.” Love, Isaiah 1–12, 259. More recently, Schmid has adopted a modified version of the
“retrojection hypothesis” to explain Isa 6:9–10. In Schmid’s construal, the command to harden functions as a retrospective theological explanation for the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in light of the Isaianic expectation that the city of God would be completely destroyed. See Konrad Schmid, A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible, trans. Peter Altmann (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 222.
27 Love, “Call of Isaiah,” 293–94.
28 As he states, “I venture to suggest that, instead of being a description of Isaiah’s call to prophesy, [Isa 6] merely pictures the sense of despair which came over Isaiah in the course of his career.”
Kaplan, “Isaiah 6:1–11,” 251.
29 Kaplan describes the belief in a God who hardens in a somewhat contradictory manner.
While he says that such a belief was still the “conventional mode of thought” during Isaiah’s day, he also says that such a theological conception “may have functioned in their [i.e., Isaiah and Micaiah] day more as