A Defeat in Victory

I.

IN ISAIAH 6:7, the prophet apparently receives the typical prophetic calling. God asks for a man to send onto the Jewish people, and Isaiah eagerly replies in the following verse, “send me.” Couched in a larger prophesy in which Isaiah describes the heavenly court, this mission on its surface would appear to be Isaiah’s first. The only difficulty with this straightforward explanation is that chapter six is not chapter one. Five chapters of prophecy appear before the words “and it was in the year of King Uzziah’s death”(Isaiah 6:1). Two approaches to deal with this problem arise: either the sixth chapter really was not Isaiah’s first prophecy or the first five chapters were placed before Isaiah’s chronologically first prophecy for reasons of presentation.[1]  To weigh these two options, we must first determine if chapter one predates chapter six, and if it does not, we must look for logical motivations which would have prompted its placement at the beginning of Isaiah.

The book of Isaiah gives us the historical context for chapter six in its first line, “In the year of Uzziah’s death, I saw…”[2] I must prove that the events in chapter one occurred after 747 BCE to show that it could not have chronologically preceded chapter six.

Chapter one begins with a verse that sets the chronological bounds for the entire book. Introducing the prophet Isaiah, the first verse delineates that he prophesied on Jerusalem and Judah during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Thus, the text limits Isaiah’s prophecy to these four reigns, which range from 799 BCE and 697 BCE.

No explicit date or reference to any king appears in the remainder of the chapter. The possibility exists that no historical context accompanies this prophesy, because it may have been a generic warning to the people delivered at many points through Isaiah’s career. However, by examining the military and political events as well as religious and spiritual faults described within the chapter, we can establish the approximate date to which the prophecy refers.

After describing the people’s rebellion against God, Isaiah describes a desolate land in verses 7-9. Only Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion, remains unconquered.[3]

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned by fire, as for your land strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as though overthrown by strangers (Isaiah 1:7).

The verse speaks of a time when enemies have devastated the land and now enjoy the land’s harvest. To date chapter one, we must find the foreign invasion which it describes. No where in the Bible is an invasion recorded in the 799-747 time frame necessary to place the events in chapter one chronologically before those in chapter six. Scouring through the three reigns following the death of Uzziah, we find three times when enemy forces overran Judah.

IIa.

The first instance of destruction during Isaiah’s prophetic period dates to the reign of Ahaz. Peqach, king of Israel, and Retzin, king of Aram, besieged Jerusalem (II Kings 16:5-8). Ahaz was forced into alliance with Assyria to defend against these attackers. The extent of the destruction is unclear, but the descriptions of Judah’s losses in battle are horrifying.

Peqach the son of Remalyahu slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, who were valiant men; because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers (II Chronicles II 28:6).

Thus, we might suggest dating chapter 1 to the reign of Ahaz.[4] However, this approach has many difficulties. Verse seven depicts a desolate land and foreign nations that control the land. Considering that it was Peqach, king of Israel, who lead Aram to battle with Judah, the prophet would not emphasize the “strangeness” of the occupying force by mentioning the word zar twice in the verse.[5]

Additionally, II Kings describes that as a result of Aram-Israel invasion Eilat was permanently removed from Judean control[6] (II Kings 16:6). II Chronicles mentions a more substantial attack, which includes the attacks of the Adomim and the Pelishtim as well as the capture of Ayalon, Giderot, Shocho, Timneh and Gimzo (II Chronicles 28:17-18). However, even with II Chronicles’ larger description of defeat, both books describe an enemy that only captured a few frontier cities, with limited impact on daily life in Judah. These losses did not leave Judah with only one uncaptured fortress like “a booth in a vineyard” (Isaiah 1: 8).

IIb.

An alternative attack to account for Isaiah chapter 1 is the destruction of Samaria and the exile of the ten tribes during the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign (II Kings 18:9-12). This campaign presents a significant foreign invasion but fails to account for many important details in Isaiah. Israel’s defeat and the land’s subsequent resettlement receive special attention in II Kings. Chapter 17 describes how Israel’s sins prompted God to supplant them with foreign settlers. However, the destruction was limited to the ten tribes and not extended to Judah. No mention of a siege of Jerusalem by Sargon exists.[7] Speaking to “Judah and Jerusalem,” it would be inappropriate for Isaiah to describe the attack as “your land is destroyed” (Isaiah 1:1, 1:7).[8, 9]

IIc.

Many scholars have concluded that the events of Isaiah 1 are to be identified with Sennacherib’s invasion during Hezekiah’s reign.[10] Occurring in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, this third invasion was the most devastating for Judah making it our prime candidate for dating chapter 1. This invasion led by Sennacherib, King of Assyria laid waste to the entire land of Judah except for Jerusalem. According to the Bible’s account, only an eleventh-hour miraculous plague spared Jerusalem from impending defeat and exile. According to Assyrian chronicles, Sennacherib called off his invasion at the last moment to pursue battle with Kush and subsequently to address other battles in the north.[11]

Regardless of the explanation for the Assyrian retreat, the entire encounter receives disproportionate attention in both the prophets and the Assyrian records. The extent of destruction parallels the severity of that described in Isaiah; only Jerusalem remained of all the Judah’s cities.

In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them (II Kings 18:13).

The narrative in II Kings goes into great detail describing the encounter. Spending several chapters on Sennacherib’s taunting messengers and the prayers of the distraught King Hezekiah, it emphasizes the severity of the Assyrian threat to Judah.

In claiming that chapter 1 refers to the events surrounding Sennacherib’s invasion, we should note Isaiah’s personal role in the II Kings narrative. In II Kings 19:20-34, Isaiah predicts the complete withdrawal of Assyria and counters the Assyrian hubris with a prophecy of divine salvation. This is especially striking, because Isaiah only appears in Kings in the context of Hezekiah. Additionally, the entire story is recorded almost verbatim from the Kings account in the book of Isaiah itself (36:1-37:38).

In addition to special attention given to Sennacherib in the Bible, Hezekiah receives unique treatment in the Assyrian chronicles.

As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to countless small villages in their vicinity and conquered them... (Pritchard, 288).

The Assyrian texts emphasize the extent of destruction inflicted on Judah. However, the description of Judah’s capitulation lacks one fundamental component found in depictions of other battles, the rebellious king is not killed and his city not captured. To substitute this missing element the chronicle must emphasize the campaign’s successes by going into great detail when describing the partial victory.[12] The Assyrian text’s contrition to their campaign’s failures may lend greater veracity to their portrayals of victory.

In giving the intricate details of their failed attack on Jerusalem, the Assyrians mention a very interesting picture of a besieged Jerusalem.

I drove out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female...Himself (Hezekiah) I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving the city’s gate (Pritchard 288).

The chronicle’s use of the birdcage simile parallels the description of Judah in the first chapter of Isaiah, “like a booth in a vineyard” (1:8). The extent of entrapment emphasized by these two similes is frighteningly similar, although from different vantage points. In appreciating these two similes, I do not wish to imply that an Assyrian scribe read Isaiah, or that a prophet read an Assyrian chronicle. Rather, the strange situation of Hezekiah’s tenuous survival fails to meet both the chronicler’s and the prophet’s conventional repertoire for military reporting. To portray the significance of a nation trapped alone, victorious in its survival yet physically devastated, both scribe and prophet must unpack poetic tools to carve this image into their descriptive work.[13] Jerusalem is at one time both a cage imprisoning Hezekiah and a lone shelter protecting Judah from the enemy’s forces.

The Assyrian chronicles continue to describe the foreign domination of land formerly controlled by Judah:

His towns which I had plundered, I took away from his country and gave them over to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, King of Ekron, and Sillibel, King of Gaza (ibid.).

The description of Assyrian vassal kings taking over parts of King Hezekiah’s realm correlates with the conclusion of verse 7 in Isaiah 1. Foreign nations feast on Judah while the Jews holed up in Jerusalem can do nothing.

Combining the exceptional description of lone Jerusalem in Isaiah and the Assyrian chronicles, Isaiah personal involvement in the Sennacherib story, and the extent of the destruction as described in the text, the political evidence strongly indicates that the Isaiah 1 refers to the Assyrian invasion in the year 701 BCE.

IIIa.

Having determined to what event the description in chapter one refers, we must address when that message was delivered. Even if the prophecy refers to Sennacherib’s invasion, Isaiah may have presented these words before, after, or during the invasion.[14] If Isaiah, before the death of Uzziah, prophesies the future invasion by Sennacherib, chapter one could chronologically assume a proper position before chapter 6.

A close reading of chapter one shows that Isaiah first gave this prophecy soon after Sennacherib’s attack during the reign of Hezekiah. The present tense used by the prophet forces the conclusion that the prophecy took place after the invasion, while the land remained in a state of destruction. “From the sole of the foot to the head, nothing in it is whole; wounds, bruises, and festering sores; they have not been medicated, bandaged, nor softened with oil”(Isaiah 1:6), constitutes a medical report soon after battle while national devastation is still fresh. “Your land is destroyed, your cities burned with fire”(Isaiah 1:7), indicates that the land was decimated before the prophet spoke these words.

While it could be suggested that this prophecy took place during Uzziah’s reign by claiming that Isaiah describes the future as if it already happened using what is termed the prophetic past, this position falters under careful analysis.[15] While verses 7-8 merely describe the appearance of ravaged land, verse nine’s lulei hotir lanu sarid “if God had not left for us a remnant” makes an assertion based on the presumption of that destruction. Isaiah would not create a metaphor chastising the people for ‘almost’ being like Sodom, as he extends in the following verse “listen to me officers of Sodom,” if the people would only be like Sodom 50 years later.[16]

IIIb.

Until now I have discussed international political evidence to position the prophesy in chapter one, I will now raise religious evidence arising from Isaiah’s accusations of the people in this chapter. While political evidence may allow the prophecy to take place before the actual destruction, the prophet’s attacks on the people’s sins limit the delivery date to a post-sin period. The prophet can not criticize the people for something they have not yet done. The chapter makes reference to a number of sins committed by the people at the time of the prophecy. Verses two through six refer to general rejection of God. The prophet strikingly does not chastise them for idol worship, rather only for moral depravity.[17, 18]

The specific sins mentioned later in the chapter emphasize the nature of Judah’s rebellion. Verses ten through eighteen refer to sins between man and his fellow man. If this prophecy had been given in the time of Ahaz, idolatry would presumably have taken a more prominent role in the list of sins.[19] Idolatry’s position as the Bible’s king of all sins would have demanded top billing, especially at the time of Israel’s exile (II Kings II 17:7-23). The lack of such an admonition would force us to place the prophecy at the time when the people worshipped God, but had severe interpersonal faults that warranted destruction.

Beyond the lack of idolatry, the improper worship of God (Isaiah 1:10-15) dates the prophecy to a time when Judah attempted to serve God. The specific mention in verse 12 of “when you come to appear before me” would require us to recognize a service which contained a unique appearance before God’s presence. Such service would not have taken place in the time of Ahaz, the king who built an Assyrian altar in the Temple.[20]

Political and spiritual evidence emerging from the text indicates that Isaiah delivered this prophecy after Hezekiah’s reforms and after the Assyrian attack. It describes a people who seek God but fail, because they only recognize His presence in the Temple and not in the market place and the courthouse.[21] Isaiah criticizes them and promises that a new regime will be created that will correct these ills (Isaiah 1:24-27). We must, therefore, place this prophecy soon after 701 while King Sennacherib’s destruction loomed large in the eyes of Jerusalem’s populace and long after the death of Uzziah in 739.

IVa.

Having established that Isaiah’s prophesy in chapter six took place at least 38 years before the delivery of chapter one, we must now determine why the later prophesy earns the distinction as the books lead-off chapter. We must first carefully define the political context and the prophetic message of the first chapter. Only after we understand what the chapter means in its historic moment can we suggest an explanation for why such a message would head the book as a whole.

After Sennacherib’s attack on Hezekiah, the spiritual reformation that Isaiah had supported collapsed. We can recognize this downward turn by its ultimate consequence, the reign of Menashe. Menashe does not emerge from a vacuum. He saw the failures of his father’s reform and pursued a course of idolatry and contrition to the Assyrian war machine.

Hezekiah had based his efforts on the belief that once the people served God properly in the Temple they would no longer suffer before their enemies (Chronicles II 29:4-11). The people believed that their reforms had failed. Judah lay in total destruction, and the Assyrian threat remained. The people in the wake of Sennacherib’s attack questioned why God had subjected them to such devastation despite their aggressive reforms.

Isaiah’s work responds to this seeming failure by shifting blame for the Assyrian rampage from God to the people’s own moral failings. Isaiah challenges the assumption that God had dealt unfairly in light of the people’s ritual adherence to God’s law. He forces the people and their king to go to court and find out who was really just, God or Judah (1:18). Isaiah demands a closer look at the people’s spiritual state. The text emphasizes the people’s shortcomings in interpersonal relations, while averting reference to any idol worship. The people’s focus on ritual had left them blind to their other spiritual obligations. The realization of Judah’s faults prompt God’s final promise at the chapter’s conclusion. When the people fix the social wrongs and truly repent, they will be indestructible. Only then, will it be a “just city and a trustworthy metropolis” (Isaiah 1:26).

Isaiah fights a war of perception. The prophet demands that the people recognize the true causes of their devastating losses, their failure’s to initiate social justice. He calls for further spiritual reforms, this time not only looking to the Temple but also at themselves, at their own moral failings.

IVb.

Once we appreciate that this chapter presents Isaiah’s explanation for the utter destruction that capped his prophetic term, we can understand why it leads the book. Much as a researcher raising a thesis places his or her conclusions at the front of a paper, Isaiah pushes what might be termed his prophetic conclusion to the head of the book. He sites the people’s sins that evoked God’s wrath, explains where Hezekiah’s reforms fell short, and describes how they could be rectified. This masthead summarizes the spiritual shortcomings of Judah at the end of Isaiah’s prophetic career and places them at the beginning of the book to establish a frame of reference from which all the prophecies are to be appreciated.

I am not the first to suggest that the first chapter of Isaiah serves as an achronological introduction. G. Fohrer[22] suggests that in a succinct manner the first chapter describes Judah’s position in the eyes of God setting the groundwork for the rest of the book. G.H.A. von Ewald[23] termed the chapter “The Grand Arraignment” which sets up all the accusations that God would level against the people and justifies their punishment. I mean to take these explanations one step further in understanding the chapter not only as an introduction, but also as an introduction that emerges from a historical context. The position of Judah described is the position of Judah after Sennacherib’s attack, and the sins described are those after Hezekiah’s reform. Isaiah establishes the failure of his efforts to spark true repentance from the outset, allowing the rest of the book to become evidence to the reasons for this failure.

Navah Gutman[24] explains that that the first chapter serves not only as an introduction, but also as a table of contents for the entire book, setting forth the possibility for destruction and redemption. She explains that verses 1-20 parallel chapters 2-38 in that they present the people with the opportunity to repent. Verses 21-23 parallel chapter 39 that seals the people’s fate after the reign of Menasheh. Verses 24-31 then parallel chapters 40-66 that constitute conciliation to the people destined for exile.

While similar to my approach in that it looks for a literary motivation for organization and looks to the structure of the first chapter to explain why it leads the book, Gutman’s outline fails to take into consideration the first chapter’s historical context. A prophesy at the end of Isaiah’s reign fails as an introduction to a section that permits repentance in the light that the possibility for repentance no longer can forestall the destruction that Isaiah foretells; Sennacherib has already destroyed the land.

Gutman assumes a latent prophecy of imminent exile from the land as a whole based on other books such as Ezekiel and Jeremiah. (80) However, the possibility of exile appears only once in the entire first section of Isaiah, 39:5-7.[25] The primary focus of Isaiah is on future attacks from the likes of Assyria and Egypt; the constant threat is foreign armies and not exile. Gutman’s imaginary chapter describing Menasheh’s time and the final decree for destruction that would have become established at that time should exist in reality if it is to redefine the message of the entire book. That Isaiah contains no such chapter indicates that Isaiah refers only to sins and destruction resulting from the reigns listed in its heading, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. (Isaiah 1:1)

I don’t want to suggest, as Gutman did, that every part of the chapter finds a parallel later in the book. This prophecy was independent in construction but chosen to lead the book because it expresses many, but not all, of the book’s important themes. This chapter, because it summarizes important themes in the book as a whole and dates to the final years of Isaiah’s prophecy, serves as a general introduction of the book’s central message. The people have met destruction at the hands of Sennacherib not for improper ritual practice, but for failing to act justly towards their fellow man.

The book of Isaiah harks back to this theme throughout chapters 2- 39. In 5:18-25, Isaiah attacks the people for gluttony and injustice, promising that for these sins God’s anger will be aroused. In 10:1-2, Isaiah targets the failure to deal honestly in business and warns that Assyria is merely the weapon by which God meets out justice (10:5). These contentions again arise in 26:20-21. Justice and righteous treatment of the widow and orphan become a refrain that reverberates though 3:5, 5:7, 5:16, 11:4, 26:2-11, 28:16-18, 29:13-14, 32:1-8, 32:16 and 33:5-6. These allusions take the form of castigation for the lack of justice, and become the means for redemption that will be achieved through just-righteousness, as 1:27 describes “Zion will be redeemed through justice and those that return to her with righteousness.”

Isaiah’s first chapter sets forth a pitiful panorama of Judah as Isaiah completes his period of prophecy. The people have achieved proper adherence to ritual law but have failed to initiate a society of righteousness and justice. The chapter looks back at the reigns of four kings, analyzing spiritual faults, political errors, and the place where the two meet. By gazing at past and present sins, the chapter gains a perspective on future destruction and ultimate redemption, thus serving as an appropriate masthead for the entire book. Isaiah justifies God’s actions in allowing the Assyrian invasion, recognizing the nation’s distrust, yet responding to them with a call for true repentance that will invite total redemption.