A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 Volume II 9781472556141

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III. 44.24-48.22: YHWH'S WORK WITH CYRUS We have noted that Isaiah 44.24-45.8 forms a bridge between two major blocks comprising chapters 41^4 and 45-48 (fMettinger, p. 25). It brings chapters 40-44 to a climax and leads into chapters 4548. It thus faces both ways, and thereby half-justifies the strange medieval chapter division midway through 44.24-45.8. It makes specific links with 40.1-11 as a bracket round the block (cf fBeuken). Both passages bring encouragement for Jerusalem (vv. 26, 28; 40.2, 9) and the towns of Judah (v. 26; 40.9). Both speak of the leadership of a shepherd (v. 28; 40.11) whose road will be levelled (v. 2; 40.3-4), and of one whose word will be [made to] stand (v. 26; 40.8): but in each case in 40.1-11 the reference is to Yhwh, in 44.24-45.8 to Yhwh's human agents. Retrospectively the words of v. 24 take up those of vv. 21-23, which summoned heaven and earth, declared that Yhwh has acted c ( asah, here rendered 'make'), once again declared Yhwh to be the one who shaped Jacob-Israel, and twice more affirmed that Yhwh is restoring Jacob-Israel. In content there was little link between vv. 21-23 and what preceded. There is more with what now follows. Verse 24 introduces sections that will give more specific indication of how the one who shaped Jacob-Israel will bring about its restoration. This God relates to heaven and earth as actor/maker in a broader sense (cf 45.8). That underlies the summons to song in 44.23. How far does the unit extend? While 44.24-28 could stand alone, in the present context it introduces 45.1-7. Verse 1 there comprises a resumptive opening that summarizes 44.24-28. Verse 8 then closes off 44.24-45.8. As a unit that could stand alone, but it is shorter than those in 40.12-44.23, and as we read on, we find vv. 9-13 taking up issues raised by 44.24-28 and grammatically requiring the 'Cyrus' of 44.28 and 45.1 as antecedent for the 'him' of v. 13. The topic under dispute in vv. 9-13 is obscure unless read in the light of 44.24-45.8. Yhwh is again one who stretches/stretched the heavens (vv. 24, 12) and is committed to building Jerusalem by means of Cyrus (vv. 28, 13). Typically, the overt confrontation in vv. 9-13 makes explicit the indirect confrontation in 44.24-28, in the light of the explicit oracle in 45.1-7. In itself v. 13 is not a particularly strong ending, and once more vv. 14-17 continue to respond to the same agenda and grammatically require a noun from v. 13 as antecedent for the feminine suffix 'you', which recurs six times in v. 14. Its talk of wealth and treasure takes up from v. 13 as well as from v. 3, its confession in v. 14 is that anticipated in v. 6, its positive response to Yhwh provides an

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appropriate foil to vv. 9-13, and it shares links with chapter 29 that run through this material. Verse 17 would make a feasible strong ending to a chapter but once again vv. 18—25 link with what precedes, not only by means of the Id ('for') with which they open but in terms of the speakers/addressees and subject matter. They continue in the manner of these chapters to move on from allusiveness to greater explicitness, now with regard to the fate of the nations in relation to that of Israel. The section repeats motifs such as Yhwh's being sole God and restorer, and the contrast between the destinies of imagemakers and Israel (compare vv. 24-25 with 16-17), and also takes further the new question of Yhwh's hiddenness from v. 15. With v. 25 we reach another strong ending and then something that looks more like a new start in 46.1. We thus follow the medieval Christian chapter division at this point rather than any of the Hebrew divisions. A closes a section after 44.28. Most MT MSS, lQIsa, and lQIsb close one after 45.7. L a a and lQIs close one after 45.13. The MT and lQIs close one after 45.17. A and lQIsa begin the next new section at 46.3; L does not do so until 48.17. A new synagogue lection runs from 45.18 to 48.1.

Ilia. 44.24-45.25: THE TRIUMPH OF CYRUS It transpires that 44.24 thus introduces a unit that explicitly handles questions raised by Cyrus's advent, 44.24-45.25. We treat the unit as five sections, vv. 24-28, 1-8, 9-13, 14-17, 18-25 (on the delimitations, see the separate introductions below). In each the prophet passes on words from Yhwh. The messenger formula appears in vv. 24, 1, 11, 14, and 18. Yhwh addresses Jacob-Israel (44.24-45.1), Cyrus (45.2-7), heaven and earth (45.8), unnamed questioners (45.913), the exilic community (45.14-17), and the nations, who were themselves quoted in vv. 14-17 (45.18-25). Indeed, *Balentine (p. 113) sees 44.24—45.25 as 'an extended quasi-dialogue between God, the nations, and Israel'. Yhwh's self-announcement 'I Yhwh' recurs, in vv. 24-28, vv. 1-8 (five times) and vv. 18-25 (four times), the divine T Candid/'am) in w. 9-13 (three times), and a correlative 'you are God' in v. 14-17. The unique deity of Yhwh is asserted in all but the middle part. The claim 'there is no other' ("en cdd) recurs in vv. 6, 14, 18, 21, 22. Verbs for Yhwh's creativity appear in a number of combinations and patterns: yasar/bara*/casah ('form'/'create'/'make') in an ABCB pattern in 45.7, ydsar/'dsdh in 44.24 and 45.9, cdsdh/ bard" in 45.12, bard*/ydsar in a BABA pattern in 45.18; other verbs for creation used in further combinations in these passages further illustrate the interplay of tradition and individuality.1 Within the whole, v. 8 forms a pivot. As well as closing off 44.2445.7, it introduces the concerns that interweave in vv. 9-25, 'right'/ 'rightness'/'be right' (sedeq/seddqdh/saddiq/sddeq) in vv. 8a, 8b, 13, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, and 'deliver'/'deliverer'/'deliverance' (ydsac/mosia / ^sudh/yesa) in vv. 8, 15, 17aa, 17a(3, 20, 21, 22 (tHermisson). The prospect of deliverance, right, and Tightness closes off 44.24—45.8, the prospect of right then closes off 45.9-13 and the prospect of deliverance 45.14-17, while subsequently right and deliverance together recur through 45.18-25. The section incorporates elements from all five of |Kratz's layers (p. 217). From the period just before 539 BC come 44.24-26a; the bulk of 45.1-7; 45.20a, 21. From the Zion layer come the bulk of 44.26b-27 and 45.14. From 520-515 BC come 44.28; expansions in 45.1, 3, 5; the bulk of 45.11a, 12-13; 45.18, 22-23. Material from the images layer comes in 45.15-17, 20b. From the early fifth century BC come 45.8-10, lib, 19, 24-25 and some expansions. 1 Cf P. D. Miller, 'Studies in Hebrew Word Patterns', in HTR 73 (1980), pp. 79-89 (see pp. 88-89), building on an observation by S. Gevirtz, Patterns in the Early Poetry of Israel (Chicago, 1963), p. 44.

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ffl.a.i. Yhwh designates Cyrus as shepherd (44.24-28) In isolation 44.24-28 might be a self-contained oracle, but Yhwh's words lack a main verb, and at least in its written context vv. 24-28 forms the introduction to 45.1-8 (fWestermann; see also his Sprache und Struktur, pp. 144-51). The rhetorical impressiveness of its sequence of participial clauses heightens the significance of the statement they eventually introduce, while the lyrical exhortations of 45.8 have a parallel retroactive effect. Verse 8 links verbally with what precedes by the repetition of pdtah ('open'—an inclusio with v. 1), bard' ('create'; cf v. 7), and am yhwh (T [am] Yhwh'; cf v. 6). Formally the heart of 44.24-45.8 is thus the oracle in 45.2-6a, to which vv. 25-28, 6b-7 provide solemn introduction and conclusion, and vv. 24 (resumed in v. 1) and 8 an inclusio around the whole: 24 Yhwh speaks as lord of heaven and earth 25-28 Yhwh as lord in events (participial self-descriptions) (1) 2-6a Yhwh's words to Cyrus 6b-7 Yhwh as lord in events (participial self-descriptions) 8 Yhwh addresses heaven and earth as lord In other respects v. 24 sets out the agenda for the whole and is the fountainhead from which it springs. Verses 25-28 offers a hymn-like (if also confrontational) response to it (fMerendino). In 45.1 its messenger formula is reprised. Verses 2-6a leads to Yhwh's selfdescription 'I am Yhwh and there is no-one else. Besides me there is no God', which takes up a theme of v. 24. Verses 6b-7 affirm 'I am Yhwh, maker of all these', taking up the words of v. 24. In v. 8 Yhwh calls on the heaven and earth that were the objects of Yhwh's creation in v. 24. Verse 24 begins with a messenger formula, Yhwh's name being characteristically glossed with two familiar participial expressions, 'restorer' and 'shaper from the womb'. These already appeared in vv. 2 and 6 (see also 43.14 at a parallel point in the preceding spiral). In the divine self-designation 'I am Yhwh' that follows, the name is again glossed by a familiar participle, 'maker', one that also appeared both in 43.19 in that parallel spiral and in 44.2. This last participle is admittedly reused in a far-reachingly novel way, for Yhwh is now 'maker of all', not merely Israel's maker, but the participles in themselves nevertheless lull us into a false sense of familiarity. It is false because these three turn out to be only the first of a series that runs right though vv. 24—28 and constitute its distinguishing formal feature. Its series of participles that form Yhwh's self-description is the densest cluster of such participial ascriptions in Isaiah 40-55 (f Mauch). It is also false because of the scandalous novelty of the statement of intent that it introduces. The symmetry of the section's structure is one consideration that leads fMerendino to the conclusion that it does not come from Second Isaiah but is a later imitation of the prophet's style, f Begrich and f Smart see vv. 27-28 as resuming and amplifying the content of

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what precedes it. fBegrich (p. 123 = 125) then sees v. 26b as an addition, f Smart vv. 27-28. For possible other earlier forms of vv. 24-28 see also fKiesow; fKratz; fvan Oorschot, pp. 74-80. As we have them, the verses are structured with great neatness, such as may itself make such analyses and inferences difficult to believe: 24a

Introduction, beginning with the verb "dmar ('say') and glossing the name Yhwh with two participles 24b Three parallel cola gloss the name further, each beginning with a qal participle 25-26a Three parallel bicola, each chiastic, each beginning with a hiphil participle and each closing with a yiqtol verb 26b-28a Three internally parallel lines, each beginning with the participle hd'omer and relating Yhwh's actual words introduced by / and the identification of the subject/ addressee, each closing with a yiqtol verb 28b Conclusion: an infinitive form of the same verb "dmar introducing two parallel clauses. This formal structure suggests an interpretation of the verses' content. The central three elements set Yhwh's present intentions in their widest context, gradually sharpening the focus: 24b 25-26a

Yhwh's activity in relation to the world Yhwh's activity in relation to the realm of human wisdom in general 26b-28a Yhwh's words regarding Jerusalem/Judah, the deep, and Cyrus in particular The threefold presentation overlaps with schemes such as past, present and future; or creation, history and present; or creation, revelation and history; but its distinctiveness then needs observing. As usual in Isaiah 40-55 there is no suggestion that Yhwh's activity as creator (v. 24b) belongs distinctively to that past moment of initial activity that Genesis 1 portrays. The second stage (vv. 25-26a) concerns neither ongoing activity in general nor revelation in general but the ongoing activity whereby the pretensions of other alleged revelations are exposed and the revelations of Yhwh's own agents are vindicated. In the third (vv. 26b-28a) these capacities to speak and create are applied to the community's present needs. The introduction of the article on the final series of participles signals that the climax of the section lies here. A God who is creator and controller is the very one who now announces a message concerning the present (cf fSchoors and JM 1371, where 45.3 is noted as an example). The sequence as a whole elaborates major themes of earlier chapters— Yhwh as creator, as controller of events and therefore of access to their meaning, and as committed to the restoration of the community.

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It is clear that the doctrine of creation is indeed not introduced for its own sake. While it would be an exaggeration to say that Second Isaiah does not distinguish between Yhwh's original creation, Yhwh's ongoing relationship with the world, and Yhwh's present activity in restoring Israel, it is true that the prophet is not directly interested in Yhwh's past or present relationship with the world as a whole but with the deliverance of Jacob-Israel as exemplifying the same divine dispensation.2 The three triads develop internally in three different ways. In the first, the opening summary colon is expanded into its two logical parts by the two succeeding cola. In the second triad, the initial two bicola parallel each other and the final bicolon offers a contrast and climax. The third triad moves in reverse order from the climax to which the story must move (v. 26b), via the central wonder (v. 27), both of which will be more prominent in later chapters, to the immediate event (v. 28a). Once again, the participles formally parallel ones that sometimes appear in hymns. |Rendtorff (PP- 6-7) compared specifically Psalm 136. That psalm moves on from creation to Israel's originary experiences in history as a people, as is natural to descriptive praise (fWestermann). The prophet in turn does more than merely take over the creation tradition. As ever, the creation tradition is actualized in relation to questions raised by the present. By this very fact, however, at the same time the quasi-hymnic ascriptions necessarily make statements that are controversial and confrontational (fGressmann, pp. 289-90). fBegrich (p. 42 = 49) thus classifies vv. 24-28 as an argument. But the structure of argument and conclusion (cf |Schoors) obscures the section's dynamic rather than illuminating it, and jFohrer's view of it as a mixture of hymn and argument can only apply to its aim or ethos, not to its actual form. Noting that it begins with the messenger formula, |Melugin calls it a disputational promise. In the introduction to 43.22-44.23, in noting its parallel function to 43.14-15, we described it as a promise of deliverance in indirect form, for here, too, Yhwh makes promises and states their reasons. Promises of deliverance can take a variety of forms (cf |van Oorschot's comments on this passage, pp. 74-75). Indeed, formally the participles are not hymnic in the sense of speaking to or of the deity, but self-predication. As such they are without parallel elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. They do parallel the ascriptions of third-millennium Sumerian hymns such as Inanna's

2 So G. von Rad, 'Das theologisches Problem des alttestamentlichen Schopfungsglaubens', in Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments (ed. J. Hempel; BZAW 66, 1936), pp. 138-47 (see pp. 140-42) = von Rad, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (TBii 8, 3rd ed., 1965), pp. 136^7 (see pp. 139-41); ET in von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh/New York, 1966), pp. 131-43 (see pp. 134-36) = Creation in the Old Testament (ed. B. W. Anderson; London/Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 53-64 (see pp. 56-58).

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hymn of self-praise. Hearers familiar with such hymns would hear Yhwh once again disputing the claims of other gods to be creators and determiners and therefore announcers of events, and Yhwh's words might evoke a wry grin as they undermine the no-gods' pretensions by appropriating the genre designed to boost those pretensions. It would be a grin no doubt accompanied by an awareness of fear, anger, and frustration, as is often the case with the humour of the oppressed. The incongruity of the parallel is made explicit by the fact that a form of self-predication designed to enable a deity to claim superiority to other deities is used by a God who claims that there are no other deities, a God whose power in the world is absolutely and not merely relatively superior (cf fWestermann). Yet we lack evidence that the prophets' hearers would be directly familiar with such hymns, whose extant examples come from 1500 years previously. We do have evidence that they might be familiar with their monarchic equivalent, the declarations regarding themselves by Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian kings that appear in their inscriptions (*Dion, pp. 227-30; see, e.g., the Cyrus Cylinder, ANET, p. 316). To judge from passages in the Hebrew Bible such as Isa 10.8-14; 14.13-14; Ezek 28.2; 29.3, such monarchs' views of themselves were reckoned to amount to self-divinization. Countries and cities were reckoned to make quasi-divine claims for themselves, too: see Isa 47.8; Ezek 27.3; Zeph 2.15. Against this background, not least in Isaiah, Yhwh's self-declarations are set against the pretensions of Babylon and its king, of Persia and its king, and of Judah and its king. They mesh with the prophet's confining of the term 'king' to Yhwh. It is Yhwh who controls the nations' destinies. Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus (or Jehoiachin or Zerubbabel) is the king's agent, not the king. If Yhwh seems selfcentred, it is so as to be able to be Israel-centred, to be an effective restorer (*Dion, p. 234). The messenger formula in this particular context also emphasizes that the one who speaks is King, one who in his self-assertions speaks with divine-royal authority: so fElliger, who sees the statement in its original form as addressed to the heavenly court. It is the parallels between Babylonian and Israelite hymns with their common stress on the divine activity in creation and history that explain the simultaneously hymnic and confrontational nature of such sequences of participles. fTorrey compares the way 40.12-31 leads into 41.1-7. It also leads into the subsequent spiral that begins with 41.21-29, a section whose emphasis on Yhwh's distinctive capacity to speak about events on the basis of being controller of events is presupposed here in 44.24-28. Other deities cannot so speak 3 ANET, pp. 578-79; for other examples see S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians (Chicago/ London, 1963); S. Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms (Paris, 1909), pp. 192— 95; and esp. A. Falkenstein and W. von Soden, Sumerische und Akkadische Hymnen und Gebete (Zurich, 1953), e.g., pp. 77-79, 228-31.

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of past or future events. Yhwh's distinctive lordship in these areas frustrates them (more accurately, their representatives) if they attempt to do so. These parallels also hint at the intrinsic link between 44.24-28 and 45.1-7. The former can be read as a self-contained section, for although formally it contains no main verb and no message such as the messenger formula makes one expect, in substance its actual message appears in vv. 26b-28. But formally no message comes until 45.1-7. Formally the further significance of 44.24-28 lies in its preparing the way for 45.1-7. Verse 1 thus resumes the messenger formula, though it formally redirects the message to Cyrus, even if yv. 1-8 substantially continue to address Jacob-Israel. A converse implication is that the confrontational tone of vv. 24-28 that takes on the claim of Babylonian deities and their representatives has JacobIsrael in mind. It cannot be assumed that Jacob-Israel automatically accepted the statements in vv. 24b-26a, except perhaps in some theoretical sense. Rather the opposite. The introduction and conclusion with their shared use of "amar also combine general and specific as they pair talk of Yhwh as Israel's restorer and shaper with talk of Yhwh building the city and establishing the temple. Some suspense is established by the introduction, with its reference to Yhwh's relationship with JacobIsrael, or rather Yhwh's role in relation to Jacob-Israel. Jacob-Israel then disappears for the duration of the first two triads. JerusalemJudah features at the opening of the third triad, but arguably the conclusion then plays an important role in satisfying the expectations raised by the introduction. 44.24a. Yhwh has said this—your restorer, your shaper from the womb.

The Syr adds w'drk ('and your help'), assimilating to v. 2. Once again the messenger formula marks a new beginning, and once again it is immediately followed by participles. As usual these qualify the subject of the verb rather than constituting the beginning of Yhwh's own words. Although in picking up from vv. 21-23 the suffixes do establish that Jacob-Israel is addressed directly and not merely indirectly, the suffixes and messenger formula are unaccompanied by a naming of Jacob-Israel such as appeared in 'fear not' and other promissory oracles at 43.1, 14; 44.1, 6. This hints both at the fact that 44.24-45.8 as a whole focus on a formal addressing of Cyrus not Jacob-Israel and at the more confrontational nature of 44.24-45.13 as a further whole. With such usage the 'messenger formula' is indeed closer to being a 'citation formula' (Bjorndalen: 'Zeitstufen'). Another way to put it is to say that we are now two steps away from the social context of the literal delivery of a message. The messenger is a metaphorical one, and is delivering the message to someone other than the addressee.4 fElliger infers that the addressee 4 See G. Fohrer's comments, 'Remarks on Modern Interpretation of the Prophets', in JBL 80 (1961), pp. 309-19 (see pp. 311-12).

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is the heavenly court as in 42.1-4, but this presupposes too literal an understanding of the formula (the divine King must be addressing his court) and introduces an unnecessary complication. The familiar participles both take us back to the beginning of Israel's life and by their nature hint that these are Yhwh's characteristic activities in relation to Jacob-Israel. In the context they also remind the people that their present restorer (cf vv. 22-23) is their original shaper (cf v. 21). 44.24b. I am Yhwh, maker of everything, stretcher of heavens alone, beater out of the earth of myself. The MT's accents imply T Yhwh am

maker of everything...', but more likely the opening words constitute in themselves a complete self-declaration, 'I am Yhwh', which then introduces the first of the three triads of participial phrases in vv. 24b-28a (see the introduction to vv. 24-28). Such a self-declaration is not merely a phrase whereby someone unknown offers an introduction, and the fact that the audience knows Yhwh's name thus does not preclude such a self-declaration. It is unlikely that the divine name is '"only" an apposition' to be put in brackets (against *Fokkelman, pp. 305-6; his own inverted commas point to this). The expression here is distinctive for the use of the long and thus perhaps more impressive form of the pronoun, "andki not "ani, as in 43.11 (but see the comment there); 51.15 (cf also 46.9); and in the Ten Words (Exod 20.2). It prepares the way for the extremely impressive sequence of participles that is to come. These continue the form of description in v. 24a and bridge the gap involved in the change of speaker (*Fokkelman, p. 303). fThomas plausibly presents their beginning in v. 24b as two lines, 2-2 and 3-3, rather than a tricolon (tKittel). 'Everything' is spelled out in the more familiar terms of the merism 'heaven' and 'earth'; anarthrous 'heavens' but 'the earth' corresponds to common usage in Isaiah 40-44 (e.g. 40.22; contrast 42.5). Some LXX MSS thus narrow down kol in rendering it TTdvTa Tairra, assimilating to 45.7 with its different reference. 'Stretcher' and 'beater out' similarly spell out 'maker', and do so in more vivid pictures. On the participles' lack of the article, see JM 138e. The Tg renders 'I suspended the heavens by my word', and thus suggests a more specific link between this statement about creation and what follows in vv. 25-28. In turn, 'alone' and 'of myself spell out 'I [am] Yhwh'. j p on the form, see GK 65d. rM? 'of myself (Q; cf Tg TTTOJO, 'by my power'; Syr mny wly, 'from me and for me') is preferable to ^118 ntt ('Who was with me?'; K, lQIsa, 4QIsb, and some MSS; cf LXX TLS erepog, Aq ris