Proper 33: Isaiah 65:17-25

Isaiah 65:17-25

65:17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
65:18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
65:19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
65:20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
65:21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
65:22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
65:23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.
65:24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

Comment:
I’ve always been taken by the thought and the possibility of newness, of novelty to the point of a rupture with the old. This is partly the reason that the text for my wedding was one very close to verse 17, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18) My research into the different trajectories of the messianic idea – the inflationary and the deflationary traditions – have pushed me to think seriously about the idea of the unredeemablity of the world, such that eschatology would be a break without continuity, the end of this world as the condition for the next. Does such a thinking lead only to a politics “whose method,” according to Benjamin, “must be called nihilism”? Or, conversely, does the thinking of a (minimal) continuity require a politics whose method must be called liberalism?

This question does not need to be settled in order to read these texts, but it does give some sense of the difference between the possible destinies of a Christian and a Jewish interpretation; which also happens to reverse the political stakes. The Christian reading would be one in which the concrete references are transposed into an eschatological future. The houses would adorn streets of gold and the vineyards produce only the finest wine. The Jewish, on the other hand would hear these texts resonate among the houses and the vineyards of historical existence. These are, of course, caricatures and yield no lasting hermeneutical power, but it does attest to differences.

The text speaks of a redemption in which the injustices of the past are remedied. But it does not begin totally anew. Creation is the stopping point. The residues of created life are not erased in the interest of a complete novelty: death is not overcome, but deferred, labour is not superfluous, but immediately productive – from the land and from the body, predators are not now prey, but docile vegetarians. The exception is the serpent – the serpent continues on exactly as since Genesis: “The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” (3:14)

Redemption is thus neither a radical newness: that would be re-creation; nor a total continuity: that would be the opposite of redemption. Perhaps this is why it is said of the messianic era that it will be like this one with only a slight adjustment.

Proper 32 C: Haggai 1:15b-2:9

I’m going to begin a series of biblical reflections based on the revised common lectionary. I’m doing this first of all because I found my Lenten reflections of last year to be a worthwhile exercise – both as a Lenten discipline and as a hermeneutical practice. But I am also acting on an intuition that I have yet to fully articulate. It has something to do with an alternative practice of time. If I am attempting to elaborate a thinking of messianic time, then this will not be unconnected to notions of repetition, distention, contraction, etc….none of which are unconnected to the reading of sacred texts in a liturgical context.

Haggai 1:15b-2:9
1:15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month.
2:1 In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:
2:2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say,
2:3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?
2:4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts,
2:5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
2:6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;
2:7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.
2:8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.
2:9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

Comment:
First a general comment about prophecy. Rosenzweig points out that God speaks both in human language and in a human voice. Divine speech is not merely mediated, but contingent upon, a human voice: the voice of the prophet.

The prophet is not a mediator between God and man, and he does not receive Revelation so that he can transmit it further; on the contrary the voice of God comes from him immediately, out of him God speaks immediately as I. In contrast to the master who committed the great plagiarism of Revelation, the true prophet lets God speak and transmits to the amazed audience the Revelation that took place in secret. Strictly speaking, it is not at all that he lets God speak, but at the moment [when] he opens his mouth, it is already God who is speaking; the prophet scarcely has time to start with the formula: “Thus speaks the Eternal One [Lord]” or with the still briefer and quicker formula that dispenses even with the verbal form, “Word of the Eternal One [Lord],” and before God has taken possession of his lips the I of God remains the root word resounding through Revelation like a pedal-note, it rises in protest against any translation by He, it is I and must remain so. Only an I and not a He can speak the imperative of love; it must never say anything except: love me. (192)

I have commented before on the role of the imperative in Rosenzweig. Here the general point about prophecy holds true. It is not Haggiai who speaks, but the “word of the Lord.” This is not to say that the biblical text does not narrate theophanic moments, but, on the one hand, these are the exception more than the rule; secondly, the result tends to be less than ideal. So, for instance, the paradigmatic theophany of the Hebrew scriptures – the appearance of God to Moses at Sinai – is in immediate proximity to the embarrassment of the Golden Calf; the originary encounter between God and man in the Garden is one of shame and banishment.

The divine voice that resounds in the prophet’s mouth speaks of hope, restoration, prosperity. But, the condition of this hope is the ruin of the present. “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” The truth of the present is its ruin, what is phrased as a question is in truth a proposition: what was is no more. Courage is offered to the weak, the ruined; not the strong and the established, such would not be courage, but haughtiness, pride. Furthermore, the promise of restoration is not merely a repetition, but a deep repetition. That is, it is not simply the rebuilding of a house that has been destroyed: it is the recurrence of an old redemption (from Egypt) and an older creation (of the world). This is also an iteration – a non-identical repetition – insofar as the new does not start from scratch, but combines creation and redemption in a single act. The work God performs on the earth (“shaking”) this time does not bring forth natural produce, but cultural produce: “the treasures of the nations.” Finally, these treasures do not cycle back into an exchange economy, they are not simply expropriated from a nation or nations and appropriated by another (Israel), but they return in a similarly deep repetition to their originary source: “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.”