{"id":20075,"date":"2017-11-30T17:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?p=20075"},"modified":"2017-11-27T19:37:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T13:37:16","slug":"hope-in-the-potter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/11\/hope-in-the-potter\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope in the Potter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Things are not as they should be, and Judah calls for Yahweh to descend to help. Rip the heavens, shake the earth, boil the sea; tear the three-story house of the universe apart brick by brick, but come down to help! (Isaiah 64).<\/p>\n

Judah has come to acknowledge that she\u2019s to blame for her own condition.<\/p>\n

Verse 6 uses a series of comparisons (using the particle\u00a0k-<\/em>\u00a0four times) that stress the universality of Israel\u2019s predicament (kol<\/em>, \u201call,\u201d is used three times):<\/p>\n

*All have become as an unclean one<\/p>\n

*All righteousness is as filthy garment<\/p>\n

*All wither like a leaf<\/p>\n

*Iniquities\/guilt carry us away like wind.<\/p>\n

There seems to be a progression in the comparison. From admitting that she has become as unclean, Israel intensifies the comparison by comparing her righteousness (apparently, the Hebrew terms are rare) to a menstrual cloth. The result of uncleanness is withering; as the unclean people, Israel is drained of life. And, drained of life, she is like a dried leaf, like chaff that is blown away.<\/p>\n

The final comparison, though, is surprising. Israel herself (\u201call of us\u201d) is like a leaf, but what blows the dried leaf away is not the breath of the Spirit but the wind of Israel\u2019s own guilt: \u201cOur iniquities, like the wind, bear us away.\u201d Verse 7 further stresses the power of Israel\u2019s sin: Yahweh delivered Israel \u201cin the hand of our guilt\/iniquities.\u201d Guilt\/iniquity is portrayed here as a spiritual power, personified with breath and hand, a dominating tyrant over the people Israel. No wonder she asks plaintively, \u201cShall we be saved?\u201d (v. 5).<\/p>\n

She has not only sinned, but sinned for a long time, sinned so often that her sin has become habitual, a second nature, a clothing that fits as closely as her own skin. She has become repulsive, an unclean thing. Her righteousness is supposed to be a garment, but one of glorious luminosity. Instead, her righteousness is a defiled garment, as polluted as a menstrual cloth, one of the most intensively defiled and defiling things an Israelite can image. Her bloody garments don\u2019t cover her impurity but display it.<\/p>\n

(N.B. Isaiah\u2019s description of Judah\u2019s righteousness in these revolting terms is not a statement about human depravity generally. Humans are depraved, infected with sin in every respect. But the actions of sinful human beings\u00a0as such<\/em>\u00a0aren\u2019t tampons. They become defiled by long persistent impenitence.)<\/p>\n

The references to garments, leaves, and wind (ruach, also \u201cspirit\u201d) puts us in the garden. Israel has become a new Adam, whose garments do not cover in the presence of the \u201cSpirit\u201d of the day (Genesis 3).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the garden all over again. Judah is like leaves, fig leaves, withered fig leaves that will be blown away by the Spirit-wind of the day. Her leaves don\u2019t hide her, rather Yahweh hides from her, and she cannot find or take hold of Him. The city and the house, once beautiful as a garden, has become a wilderness.<\/p>\n

Still she has hope. No matter she\u2019s withered; no matter she\u2019s impure; no matter she\u2019s ruined and trampled and shattered; no matter how hidden Yahweh has become, she can still call to Him, and she has a trump card: She can call to Him as Father.<\/p>\n

For Yahweh has made Israel, Yahweh has made Israel His, identified Himself with Israel by taking her name (God of Israel) and finally by taking her flesh. The God who formed Judah as a potter forms a pot, as Yahweh made Adam, can remake Judah. The Father who made Judah can remake her, mold her again into a vessel, breathe again the breath of life, robe her yet again in robes of righteousness and glory.<\/p>\n

Isaiah anticipates\u00a0Paul\u2019s plea at the end of Romans 7: Who shall save us from the body of this death?\u00a0Flesh cannot; the law cannot, neutralized through flesh; only the\u00a0ruach\u00a0<\/em>of Yahweh has the power to regather what the\u00a0ruach<\/em>\u00a0of iniquity scatters. Only the hand of the potter whose hands made His people can deliver from the powerful hand of guilt (v. 8).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things are not as they should be, and Judah calls for Yahweh to descend to help. Rip the heavens, shake the earth, boil the sea; tear the three-story house of the universe apart brick by brick, but come down to help! (Isaiah 64). Judah has come to acknowledge that she\u2019s to blame for her own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":19640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-ot-isaiah"],"yoast_head":"\nHope in the Potter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Things are not as they should be, and Judah calls for Yahweh to descend to help. 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