Isaiah’s vision of the procession of nations to Jerusalem includes this beautiful image: “Who are these who fly like a cloud, and like the doves to their windows” (Isaiah 60:8). A cloud – Yahweh’s glory, which is the nations. A cloud coming to a house, consecrating it. A cloud of doves, like a bird-cloud from a film by Malick or Richard Attenborough, doves forming a cloud like cherubim. Doves heading toward a window, like Noah’s dove to the window of... Read more
The last five words of Isaiah 24:16 are all from the same root, bagad , which means “to deal treacherously.” The Hebrew sounds something like this: bogdim bagadu ubeged bogdim bagadu , and might be translated like this: “traitors do treachery and treachery traitors do treachery.” (The noun form, beged , usually means garment, and if I were not worried about James Barr, I’d suggest that treachery is “cloaked” behavior.) Earlier in the same verse, Isaiah stutters out a lament:... Read more
After the desolation of the city, Isaiah holds out the hope that there will be a remnant left, pictured as the gleanings of olives and grapes (Isaiah 24:13). The following verse suddenly uses third person plural verbs: “they raise voices, they shout, they cry.” The only evident antecedent is the grapes and olives of the previous voice. Singing grapes and olives, like Veggie Tales with fruit. And they sing about the “excellence” of Yahweh, just like Israel did after they... Read more
Isaiah is the great prophet of tohu , formlessness. Of the 20 uses of the word in the Hebrew Bible, 11 are in Isaiah. Isaiah is the great prophet of the dissolution of form, and its re-establishment. Cities are cities of tohu (24:10). Nations are tohu before Yahweh, and so too are their princes and judges (40:17, 23). Graven images are tohu (44:9). Yahweh created heaven and earth, and when he established it the earth was not tohu . Prayer... Read more
Isaiah 24:7-8 consists of six clauses, each of which begins with a verb, most of them verbs of lamentation: “mourns the wine, languishes the vine, sighs all joyful-hearted ceases mirth of tabrets ends noise of rejoicers ceases joy of the harp.” (more…) Read more
The Hebrew verb lawah means “to join, to adhere.” It also means “to lend” and, confusingly, to “borrow.” James Barr will be upset with me, but I can’t help but wonder if ancient Hebrews viewed loans as a sort of glue that joins the borrower and lender. And – risking Barr’s further wrath – I note that lawah is the etymological root of Levi (Genesis 29:34), and that Levi is named such specifically because Leah hopes he will serve as... Read more
There are problems all over the place in Panikkar’s Trinitarian theology, but there are some lovely, profound passages, like this: “A non-trinitarian God cannot ‘mingle’ much less unite himself with Man without destroying himself. He would have to remain aloof, isolated. No incarnation, descent, and real manifestation of any kind would be possible. He would cease to be God if he became Man. A non-trinitarian Man cannot hump outside his little self, cannot become what he wants and longs for... Read more
Why did Jesus refer to the Father as “my God”? Perhaps to head off reasoning such as this (Panikkar, The Trinity and the religious experience of man;: Icon-person-mystery ): “God is only God for the creature and with reference to it. God is not ‘God’ for himself. The idea of worship is inherent within the concept of God. It would be an absurdity to say that God can worship himself. It is the incarnate Son alone who calls his Father... Read more
A splendid Dostoevskyan passage from Bonhoeffer’s ethics speaks for itself. “The place where this recognition of guilt becomes real is the Church . . . .If my share in this is so small as to seem negligible, that still cannot set my mind at rest; for now it is not a matter of apportioning the blame, but I must acknowledge that precisely my sin is to blame for all. I am guilty of uncontrolled desire. I am guilty of cowardly... Read more
For a man in the disunited state of sin, each individual is a standard and criterion of good and truth. Thus, Bonhoeffer argues, the essence of fallen man is to be a judge. Obviously, this is a false judgment, since it does not arise out of union with God. Reversing common sense, Bonhoeffer says that false judgment doesn’t arise from evil motives. Rather, the primal stance of being a judge is hte source of evil. It is not the case... Read more
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