What do we pray when we pray that God’s name would be hallowed? As Luther pointed out, God’s name is indeed hallowed, but we pray that He would be hallowed among us. How does that happen? Isaiah 5:16 gives us a clue. Yahweh of hosts is the holy ( qadosh ) God who is hallowed ( qadash ) . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah 5:12 contains the highest concentration of terms for musical instruments in the Old Testament outside a liturgical setting. Even Daniel 3 is liturgical: When the seven instruments sound, everyone is supposed to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s image. Elsewhere, lists of musical instruments are . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah warns the greedy and heavy drinkers that they are going to go into “exile” because of their ignorance (5:13). The land will be uncovered; its nakedness will be exposed (the verb galah means both “go into exile” and “uncover”). When they leave, . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah’s woe against the greedy uses liturgically charged terminology. “Woe to those who touch house to house” uses the verb naga’ , which is used some 28 times in Leviticus, far more than anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. “[Woe to those] who join field to . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah pronounces a woe against those who “add house to house and join field to field” (5:8). He imagines someone building house after house, walls or roof lines touching each other (the verb “add” actually means “touch”). He imagines someone buying the property . . . . Continue Reading »
The vineyard of Yahweh is the house of Israel, the men of Judah His plant. But when He finds only worthless grapes in the vineyard, he calls on the “inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judge” to judge between Himself and His vineyard (Isaiah 5:3). They will have to blame themselves. . . . . Continue Reading »
Most translations say that the Beloved planted his vineyard on a “fertil hill,” but Isaiah wrote that He planted it on “a horn, a son of oil” (Heb. beqeren ben-shamen ). Phrase might refer to a fertile hill, but that’s not what the words mean. The passage closest to . . . . Continue Reading »
The return from Babylonian exile is, Isaiah says, an exodus that so far surpasses the earlier exodus that Israel will forget Egypt and Moses and all that. When it actually happens, everyone can see its sheen is far less brilliant than the first exodus. The new temple is a disappointing, pitiful . . . . Continue Reading »
The Reformation, it is charged, secularized and de-sacralized European culture with its iconoclasm, its attack on relics, its revisions in sacramental theology. Isaiah 3-4 suggest a different assessment. Isaiah describes the stripping of priestly ornaments from the daughters of Zion (3:16-26), but . . . . Continue Reading »
INTRODUCTION At creation, Adam was placed in a garden God planted, but after the flood, Noah planted himself a vineyard (Genesis 9:20). In the exodus and conquest, Yahweh placed Israel in a land of fields and vineyards, and so made Israel His vineyard (cf. Isaiah 5:7). But Israel has not produced . . . . Continue Reading »
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