I hope you like boring prophetic mumbo-jumbo, because we sure have a lot of it! Chapters 56-66 comprise the "Trito-Isaiah," the third book-within-a-book. Trito-Isaiah was probably not written by one author, and as a result is varied and convoluted, lacking in cohesion and with different chapters coming from different periods. As you can imagine, this makes it an absolute JOY to read when you are an amateur bible scholar like myself! Oh geez.
The big theme here is probably God's willingness to forgive the Jews for their transgressions: "No longer will you be deserted, like a wife hated and neglected," he tells them. "I shall make you an object of everlasting acclaim, and a source of never-ending joy" (Isaiah 60:15). We also see the recurrence of a common biblical metaphor: the idea of God as a bridegroom and Israel as his bride.
In chapter 62 it is announced that Israel "will be called by a new name which the Lord himself will announce" (Isaiah 62:2). I got really excited about this because I thought maybe we could all vote and come up with something really cool, like Crypton or something, but God unfortunately neglected to consult me and picked the name Beulah. Beulah?! What the fuck is that? I can't even pronounce it. Is it like Bay-ooh-lah or Boo-lah or what?
The point of the new name, by the way, is to signify a new status and relationship to God.
Chapter 65 was a little fun because it opens with this speech from God: "I was ready to respond, but no one asked, ready to be found, but no one sought me. I said, 'Here am I! Here am I!' to a nation that did not invoke me by name" (Isaiah 65:1). Sounds like a pretty traumatic game of hide-and-seek, huh? Did you ever play that prank as a kid, where you count to ten and then just don't bother looking for anyone and see how long it takes them to come out? I did this sometimes just because the idea of having to find everyone stressed me out. I am a very neurotic person. Hiding also stressed me out. I'm getting stressed out thinking about this!!
There are a lot of descriptions of the "New Jerusalem," which I like because they remind me of this great poem by Donald Hall. In Isaiah, God describes people being "as long-lived as [trees]" while "the wolf and the lamb will feed together" (Isaiah 65:22-25). In Donald Hall's poem, "Distressed Haiku," there is a comparable passage: "In April the blue / mountain revises / from white to green. // The Boston Red Sox win / a hundred straight games. / The mouse rips / the throat of the lion // and the dead return. / the whole sky."
Is that close enough to justify sharing? You know what, I don't even care. I'm doing all the work here! And personally, if we're listing really unlikely things to communicate our points, I think the Boston Red Sox winning a hundred straight games is just as good as a wolf and a lamb feeding together.
Isaiah wraps up by describing how freaking great the rebuilt Jerusalem will be, with a nice addition about all the smoldering corpses of sinners that will be outside the city gates. Awesome. And now we can start Jeremiah!
Jeremiah was a prophet who worked during the period leading up to the Babylonian exile and destruction of the temple, and a little bit afterwards, eventually relocating to Egypt. He sought to sway the people from sin and was generally unsuccessful, although according to my study bible "his major accomplishment as a prophet was his contribution to his people's maturation: Judah could survive, he knew, even without the Jerusalem sanctuary." This realization is pretty darn important, because even though the Babylonian exile didn't last too long, relatively speaking, the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE and even though we don't have a new one yet, there are still a handful of Jews running around. Jeremiah and his pals are evidently an adaptable people.
Anyway, the first half of Jeremiah consists of speeches through which the prophet pleas with the Jews to behave themselves, and also mourns the stubbornness of the people. The second half was written by a biographer who records -- hopefully in exciting narrative fashion -- the events of Jeremiah's ministry.
Chapter 1 opens with Jeremiah's call to the prophecy, which is pretty standard. One day God tells him, "Before I formed you in the womb I chose you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:4). God is always picking fetuses to do his dirty work. What a weird guy. Like a good, humble, god-fearing citizen Jeremiah tries to say that he's not good enough, but God insists and elaborates on his current quandary. He comes up with a great metaphor about a wife cheating on her husband. Israel, he says, "[has] been unfaithful with many lovers...and yet [it] would come back to me?" (Jeremiah 3:1). Well, maybe Israel thought you guys were on a break.
That's it for today. Jeremiah is pretty long, but we only have sixteen or so books left of the Old Testament, and they all get progressively shorter! Hang in there, guys. We've got about two weeks left of this, and then we get to learn all about JESUS!!!
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