Introduction to
Isaiah: Lawrence Boadt’s Reading the Old Testament, says that
Isaiah lived in the kingdom of Judah. Amos and Hosea prophesied in the northern
kingdom. He began his ministry around 740 BC and continued at least for 40
years.
Threatened by Assyria, King Hoshea of Samaria wanted to
rebel against Assyrian dominance (with the king of Damascus) in 734 BC. They
asked Judah’s king Ahaz to join them, but when he refused, they attacked him
first – fearing he might come at them while they were trying to rebel. Ahaz
foolishly and desperately called on Assyria to aid them against Samaria. They
did beat Israel and Damascus but the price was high. Israel was partitioned and
King Ahaz became a vassal of Assyria and had to pay huge tribute money.
Later, Ahaz’ son, Hezekiah, would try to free himself from
Assyrian rule. He revolted in 705 BC – in 701, Sennacherib besieged Judah, took
all the major cities and surrounded Jerusalem (see chapters 36-37). It ends
with a miraculous plague that wipes out the Assyrian army.
Isaiah 1 – Isaiah,
son of Amoz, prophesies concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Yahweh says to him that
the sons He [Yahweh] has reared have rebelled against him. While even the
stupid ox or ass knows its owner and its place on earth, God’s people seem to
know nothing. They are full of sin, “weighed down with guilt” (1:4), and they
have turned away from their God. “[T]he whole head is sick, the whole heart
grown faint” (1:5).
The “daughter of Zion” (the city of Jerusalem) is like a besieged
city. Only a few are left. Why has all of this come to pass? God is “sick of
holocausts of rams and the fat of calves” (1:11). He is sick of “New Moons,
Sabbaths, [and] assemblies” (1:13). He wants this people removed from His
sight.
What is God demanding? “Cease to do evil. Learn to do good,
search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the
widow” (1:16-17). If only they do this, God will turn and cleanse them: “Though
your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (1:18).
In Jerusalem, integrity has been lost. “All are greedy for
profit and chase after bribes” (1:23). God will turn his hand on Israel and
“smelt away [her] dross in the furnace” (1:25). The judges must restore
integrity to the city.
Isaiah 2 – Isaiah
envisions a time of peace in the “days to come” (2:2) when “all the nations
will stream to [the mountain of the Temple of Yahweh], peoples without number”
(2:3), and they will go to learn the ways of God.
“He will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate
between many peoples; these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their
spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be
no more training for war” (2:4). We are invited to “walk in the light of
Yahweh” (1:5).
The House of Jacob has not been faithful – they “bow down
before the work of their hands, before the thing their fingers have made”
(2:8). But what is “mortal” [of man] must be humbled (2:9). When Yahweh arises
“to make the earth quake” (2:21), man will fling his idols into the crevices.
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 13
In February, my second child, a little girl, was born.
Shortly after, I called the Quaker woman I had met some months earlier and found out where Friends
met in town. I needed to bring some kind of spiritual something into my life. I didn’t really believe in all the
doctrinal paraphernalia religion involved, but Friends did not have any of that.
I wanted my children to have a spiritual community to be part of as well, and
Friends seemed to fit this bill. So I started to go.
Raleigh Friends had no formal Meeting House. They met in an
old, refurbished house near downtown Raleigh. The ten or fifteen people who
attended Meeting there simply sat in chairs in a circle in what had once been
the living room of this house. On the walls there were a few posters that
proclaimed Friends’ faith in “that of God” in every man and in the power of
peace and kindness; other than that, there was no “religious” message
proclaimed here. My friend had told me that Friends, while Christian in their
beginnings, were not strictly Christian any longer, that people believed all
kinds of things. The one common thing, however, was belief in an indwelling
Spirit that people looked to. People did not sing in Meeting or pray. Now and
then someone would feel “moved to speak”, to share a thought or concern, but it
was a quiet Meeting. I liked that it was quiet. I brought the children with
me—sat my son on my lap and put my infant daughter on a blanket on the floor
next to me. They were the only children there most of the time. There was no
organized childcare, no “First Day School” as they call it. After ten or
fifteen minutes of silence, I would take the children out, go upstairs with
them where they could play with a few toys and have a snack. People were good
about offering to take the children out and watch them so I could experience
the Meeting, but more often that not I took them out myself. I remember
thinking how silly it was for me to come and then be the one to take them out
to give them a “Sunday school” experience—me, who had not the first notion of
what to say to them about religion. But I like the little bit of Meeting I was
able to experience. I appreciated the peace and stillness in a way I hadn’t expected,
and I respected the people there.
For two years, I attended Quaker Meeting in Raleigh,
enjoying the silence and the people who went. I shared the group’s social
concerns for peace, equality, and justice, and my husband didn’t mind my going
or taking the children. He shared the concerns for justice that Quakers had. He
just felt no desire to go to Meeting.
