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In the second episode of The Study Podcast, join Paul Wegner and examine the most common literary devices used in Isaiah.
Show Notes
In the second episode of The Study Podcast, join Dr. Paul Wegner and host Tyler Sanders as they discuss common literary devices used in the Book of Isaiah. This introduction to parallelism, Hebrew word play, similes, chiasms, and more is a good foundation for later episodes that dig more directly into the biblical text!
Creators and Guests
What is The Study Podcast?
The Study Podcast is an in-depth look at the Bible with Dr. Paul Wegner and Dr. Alex Stewart.
Tyler Sanders 0:00
Welcome to Study Isaiah podcast where we examine the language, historical context and meaning of the book of Isaiah with Dr. Paul Wegner. I'm Tyler Sanders and across from me is Dr. Wegner, who's going to tell us the Hebrew word of the day.
Paul Wegner 0:14
And are you ready for this? It's the name Isaiah.
Tyler Sanders 0:18
That's a good one to handle early. Yeah,
Paul Wegner 0:22
it's Yasha. Ya-who actually at the end, and, and just like a lot of names that have the divine name in it, like Daniel has the name El at the end, or Jeremiah has the name Yahweh at the end. So Isaiah has the name Yahweh at the end, although it's a shortened form. Oh, I didn't tell you what it means.
Tyler Sanders 0:45
Let's get, let's add the two things together, we have Yahweh. Okay. And the second part, right,
Paul Wegner 0:50
Actually yep. And the first part is saves or salvation. Names are hard to know whether they're verbs or nouns. So most people say it's Yahweh is salvation or something like that.
Tyler Sanders 1:02
Yeah. Now, Yahweh is a very fascinating word in hebrew.
Paul Wegner 1:06
It is.
Tyler Sanders 1:07
And I would love for you to walk us through some of those interesting pieces of it.
Paul Wegner 1:11
Okay. Can we go through all the names for God?
Tyler Sanders 1:15
Let's do that. Let's go back even further. I like that. Yeah.
Paul Wegner 1:18
Okay. I tried to think what different names for God would you guys be familiar with? And one would be El, which is a name for God. And it's more of a general term. And you see that like in Emanuel. It's got Eman: with, with us, Emanu: is the with us. And then El. So it's God is with us.
Tyler Sanders 1:42
Yeah. Okay.
Paul Wegner 1:43
So that's El, then the more common one is Elohim, which is a plural ending on that noun. And commonly said to be a plural of 'majesty' or a majestic plural or plural of honor or something like that, it's usually called that. And that makes sense, I think. The next name would be the LORD. And that that's one, you'll sit commonly in your translation as capital L, and then capital O, R, D, but those O, R, D are going to be smaller letters. That's become the conventional way to do Yahweh. But Yahweh is a unique word and we want to get into in a minute, but I need to tell you two more words. One is Lord, and that would be capital L, small o, small r, small d. And that's actually another name for God sometimes and it's more like master or or, lord. Okay, but it's another name for it. It's separate from Yahweh.
Tyler Sanders 2:48
So it was more of a generic term?
Paul Wegner 2:50
It's probably more of a general name, but that one is always used for God. Okay. And then there's one more 'my lord'. That's usually a human lord, or master or something like that. Sarah calls Abraham and her lord or her husband, in Genesis 18:12. So that one is more of a-that's your general term. And it actually has a suffix on it, 'my lord'. Oh, I didn't tell you the one right above that actually has a plural suffix on it. So it's matching, like the name Elohim. Only it's Lord. Another one would be like majestic plural kinda thing. All right. Now let's get into the one that's really interesting. Usually the word LORD and remember, we talked about it being capital letters, only the O, R D are going to be smaller than the first L.
Tyler Sanders 3:40
This is pretty common in English translation. They're working to tell us, often, which Hebrew word referring to God is being used.
Paul Wegner 3:47
And I'd actually even argue that the specific name that's used for God is usually there for a reason. It's either highlighting a characteristic of God or something like that. So the different names are just fascinating for God. And I think it's really important that we know what they are. Elohim is usually the more general name for this all powerful God. Yahweh is the personal name for God. In Exodus chapter six, it talks about 'I'm gonna make my self known as Yahweh to them'. And then later, He makes a covenant with Abraham. And so He's, it's His personal name that He's making known to him. But what's interesting is we have no idea what the vowel pointings are. The four consonants from Yahweh are basically what we know God revealed. When the first texts were written, they didn't have vowel points. Those didn't come around till like 500 to 800 AD. So these are unpointed texts. As far as we can tell, the Jewish people did not want to blaspheme by saying God's name, so what they did is every time they got to that tetragrammaton we call it, the four letters, they actually put the vowel pointings for 'The Lord' onto it. So every time you see that name Yahweh, they are actually pronouncing the name 'Lord', 'The Lord'. Here's my word Adonai, over here, and it's taken the vowel points off and put on the four consonants from Yahweh. That's actually where you got the name Jehovah. If you take the Yodh, in German the Yodh is a J. Then you have a shewa, which would be like an E, then you have an H, then you have an O from the holem there. Actually in Hebrew, the 'holem waw' is one letter. It's a vowel. But what they've done is they've actually pronounced the holem, the waw, and the 'qamets' underneath it has three different letters, even though they're not okay. And then there's a 'he' at the end. So we actually know that Jehovah is not the real name for God. So the Jehovah's witness are actually wrong, but instead, so what that is, is a mega made up name, so that every time they got to the tetragrammaton, they would say the Lord, rather than what His real name was. So, in actual fact, we really don't know how to pronounce His name. That's the best we've got.
Tyler Sanders 6:20
They're getting to it and when they're reading it in Hebrew, they're seeing the consonants for Yahweh but the vowels for Adonai essentially, and that kind of clues them in. Say this; Adonai
Paul Wegner 6:20
Yes, yep.
Tyler Sanders 6:20
So that you don't accidentally blaspheme.
Paul Wegner 6:35
This is called a perpetual cray. They're always pronounced this way. But in actual fact there are other ones that they do this commonly in the Hebrew-well I wouldn't say commonly but they do it regularly in the Hebrew texts- if they want you to see what the consonants are, but they want you to say something else, they'll put the vowel points of the other word on there, and that that does happen other places. So it's not like this is unique. It does happen other places.
Tyler Sanders 7:03
Yes. Okay. And so when this fits into Isaiah, how exactly is that working? Is it using a shorter version of Yahweh?
Paul Wegner 7:11
Yes, it is. In fact, names can actually do that and quite often. So if you look at like 'Isaiah' is really only pronouncing the yodh and then in an 'a' vowel, and then the 'he'. But his name is 'Yahoo' at the end. So in actual fact it has a 'shuruk' at the end, or a U vowel, even though, that's like the next shortest way to say it. And so you've got just the first two letters, then you've got it with the waw on there. And then you can say the whole name Yahweh. So it's interesting. A lot of times the names do have the 'Yahoo' on it, even though most of the time we don't pronounce it.
Tyler Sanders 7:53
Yeah we just pronounce it with like a, I don't know if that's a hard H but we end it on an H sound.
Paul Wegner 7:53
And we were talking about this. I'm not exactly sure why we don't pronounce the Ooo on the end, you know, Isaiah-yah-ooo we could have done it but we usually don't.
Tyler Sanders 8:08
For some reason.
Paul Wegner 8:09
Yeah. And I've seen that, I've seen those shortened forms on coins, too. They just have where God's name is there, just has one or two of the letters. Usually two in that one.
Tyler Sanders 8:21
Okay. Yeah. And it just kind of clues people in this is-
Paul Wegner 8:24
They know that a yodh he means Yeah. It's an abbreviation for it. So that's our names for today.
Tyler Sanders 8:33
That's good. Let's do one more time. Lets pronounce the word of the day 'Isaiah' in Hebrew one more time. Just so we can really get it.
Paul Wegner 8:38
Okay, let's go back to it. All right. So it's Yash-ah yah-hoo.
Tyler Sanders 8:41
Yash-ah yah-hoo.
Paul Wegner 8:45
Yep. And then we would say Isaiah without the 'oo' on the end.
Tyler Sanders 8:49
And it is 'Yahweh Is Salvation', or potentially 'Yahweh saves', that it could be the verb version.
Paul Wegner 8:54
Yep. And I'm assuming that his name is important to the context of the text, right? Because in actual fact, God does save, it's going to take a lot longer-remember we talked last week about; I think the theme of the book is 'will Israel ever obey?' And I think the answer is yes, it's gonna be a lot longer time down the road, and it's going to be a lot fewer, it's not going to be the whole nation, it'd be a remnant from a remnant. So it does fit the book really well.
Tyler Sanders 8:55
Well, that's good. And I think that will help us to get into our next segment where we start to discuss, before we get into the actual meat of the text a little bit, we're gonna get into literary techniques that we're going to be seeing used a lot. So I think the first one you have for us is parallelism, or actually you call it Hebrew parallelism.
Paul Wegner 9:44
This is all over the book, you know, not every place because there are narrative sections. But Isaiah mostly is like a semi-poetic format. So you'll see a lot of Hebrew parallelism and usually you can tell it by-there's two units and usually the second unit will say almost the same thing as the first one does. Look at that first one. "An ox knows its owner, a donkey his masters manger". See, okay, so you got different animals, but they're basically saying the same thing.
Tyler Sanders 10:15
Yeah, they're relating the same way.
Paul Wegner 10:16
Yeah, the other one, "But Israel does not know, my people do not understand". See, there it's real clear, Israel is my people and they don't know they don't understand. Now, each one of those words have a slight different connotations. But it's really trying to get at that these are saying the same thing, basically, in two different phrases. And sometimes, like at the bottom one, I've got three phrases there, where it does. So usually you have two, but sometimes you will have a third one that also says the same thing. And I wanted to make sure you could see that they do have a variety of them. And you can see, "They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from him". So everyone of them's basically saying the same thing.
Tyler Sanders 11:02
And in this way, this repetition, these parallel thoughts, is this to like kind of hammer in a point. To emphasize a point more?
Paul Wegner 11:09
It probably is, I mean, I'm sure Hebrew parallelism was- I mean, think about this, this is going to have to take a writer some time to consider what you're gonna, how you're going to say it and the second unit, how you're going to advance it or something. And usually, there's two different kinds of thoughts on this. One is that A equals B, so the first unit-
Tyler Sanders 11:35
First thought, second thought.
Paul Wegner 11:36
Equals, yeah. And there is some, they call it synonymous parallelism. And that happens in the biblical text sometimes. But almost all the time, when you use a different word, it's going to have different connotations. So it's either going to highlight a different element, or take it a little deeper than the first one. So the second way that people have tried to explain parallelism is A and what's more B. So it's the first unit and then the second unit takes it a little further. Like these ones I'm not sure would do that but look at look at verse four, "Alas, sinful nation. People weighed down with iniquity". So that weighed down with iniquity is probably highlighting a little more emphasis on what's happening to them.
Tyler Sanders 12:27
Or maybe illustrating even. Kind of giving you how.
Paul Wegner 12:31
Yeah. So that's why people have said, A and what's more B, so it advances that idea just a little further.
Tyler Sanders 12:38
It may even work for the second one, really.
Paul Wegner 12:40
Yeah! "They don't know, they do not understand". And understands a little different connotation of just than just knowing something. The problem with Hebrew is that all these words have a range of meaning. So almost every- it's very rare that you ever get two words that totally overlap in meaning. So every time you use a different word, it is going to highlight a little different characteristic or modify it to some extent.
Tyler Sanders 13:08
And this seems pretty easy for an English reader, you know, reading the Bible to pick up on. Are there anyother ways that people may-or any techniques people can use to try to look for these and make sure they find them?
Paul Wegner 13:21
You know what? Often a good Bible translation will put the lines in a certain way. Like narrative will just keep running on the lines. Poetry, usually, they try to highlight the balance in them. So right when you read your English translation, you'll see right away that the author, the publisher, whoever they were that put those connotations in there, were trying to help you see what they were doing. So that is, I think that's your easiest way, just go to a good Bible translation that will highlight that. But I think then the next way is, just be aware of it. Because if you practice this a little, it'll actually really help you. I'm teaching Psalms at my church. And it really does help them to understand; they've said something again but now that set in a slightly different way but it's still trying to tell you the same idea. And so I think that's really helpful for people.
Tyler Sanders 14:24
I imagine it would be helpful just for people to know its purposful. Just so you're not kind of like man why do they keep saying the same thing, like what? And that's true, like, I think a lot of times in English when we write it is always about compression and condensing. Perhaps not in poetry. But in this case, this is a purposeful technique. To highlight a point really.
Paul Wegner 14:48
But you said maybe not in poetry, but in actual poetry, isn't that what the core of what poetry is all about? Trying to pack as much into a set number of words as possible. And I think that's what the author's doing. And I'm amazed. You couldn't, you couldn't just rattle this off, it would seem like. It seems like you'd have to think about 'okay, what am I going to say the second one?' Now I realized God is guiding him. But he's using the author's words and all that to get that parallel understanding.
Tyler Sanders 15:18
Do you think there's a connection to like, potentially using this in an oral tradition, kind of being able to speak it and hear it making that a little more clear?
Paul Wegner 15:26
Yes, I'm convinced that's what it's for. Because I mean a lot of times when we're talking, we don't always catch maybe what the person is saying. If it's set in a slightly different way the second time the person going, "Oh, now I get it". And so maybe that's partially intended for the oral listener to hear those things. And maybe get a slightly different nuance a second time that actually helps clarify things. All right. So that's Hebrew parallelism. And I think to tell you the truth, you're gonna see that regularly in the book, so that's why we put it first because it's so common in the book.
Tyler Sanders 16:06
And probably throughout the Old Testament. In poetic books at least.
Paul Wegner 16:08
Quite a bit. Especially in the prophets.
Paul Wegner 16:13
The second one is a play on words. And these ones, a lot of times, we won't even catch them in English, because the word is going to sound alike in Hebrew. But unless you can match it in English, it's going to be pretty hard. Actually, there's one-before we do that there is one place in Genesis 3:15. When he says she is she will be called Ish or she'll be called Isha, because she's taken from Eesh. So there's a play on that word. What we do in English is we tried to say she will be called woman, because she's taken from man. So it almost sounds like they're trying to match the Hebrew sounding words with English sounding words. Now, a lot of times they don't do that. And this one is an example where you would never know this if you didn't know what Hebrew sounded like and stuff like that. So in Isaiah 5:7, it says, "For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel", this is like the climax, "and the men of Judah, his delightful plant". See, that's actually poetic Hebrew parallelism too, right? "Thus he looked for justice" Mishpat okay, "But behold, bloodshed", Mispach. Okay, so the mishpat versus mispach. So they would have caught that that would have been enough for them to say, "Oh, that's a play words." And so it would have caught their interest.
Tyler Sanders 17:40
And opposites. Right? Justice and bloodshed.
Paul Wegner 17:42
Yeah. Even though the word sound alike, they mean totally opposite. This second bunch are the same way. "He was looking for righteousness." Tsedaqah. "But behold, a cry of distress." Tseaqah. Okay, so I hate to say that because it sounds like I'm swearing or something. But you can tell tsedaqah versus tseaqah. And once again, they would have caught that, that would have been perfect for their ears to say, 'oh.' So it would have had a meaning and then it would have been a cute little thing that he did to throw it in to, just to remind them of it. And once again, like you said before, they're totally opposite. So he look for righteousness and got a cry of distress.
Tyler Sanders 18:23
Yeah, you're really highlighting that even hough these sound so similar. You know, they're such a different kind of thing. It has a weight to it when you hear it, I think. I was an English major in college so we looked at a lot of this kind of stuff. But that was like Shakespeare, like crazy. A lot of times it'd be double or triple meanings on words. And it was a way even, you know, I mean, there's people who think this at least, that he could be critical, perhaps of whoever's in charge of ruling...there's a way you could say it without saying, and people would try to get it. But it'd be like, it meant something else. You know, you always had a little bit of little space in there, but it was so specific even to that. Yeah, that audience that today you read Shakespeare, you wouldn't know. The word meaning has changed, even if we can read it or whatever, it would be so different.
Paul Wegner 18:59
If you expect Shakespeare could do this kind of thing, imagine what a divine author could do. He's gonna have these plays in there, and it's gonna make a lot of sense. And it'll be cute and wise all at the same time.
Tyler Sanders 19:29
Yeah. Now, what's the best way for a person reading an English translation- like, is this something that may pop up in a study Bible? Do you need a commentary, maybe to find these kinds of things?
Paul Wegner 19:39
Yeah, I think your commentary would probably do it. A study Bible may but usually a study Bible does more like a topic or something like that. It'll remind you of other places where it is or something like that. But I think your commentary would be the best place to get these play on words. All right.
Tyler Sanders 19:58
Let's move on to our next one.
Paul Wegner 19:59
So that one's kind of fun.
Tyler Sanders 20:00
And that's a good one.
Paul Wegner 20:00
Yeah. Similes. Okay. Similes are trying to equate two things with the name like or as.
Tyler Sanders 20:07
You're defining the relationship.
Paul Wegner 20:09
All right. So here in Isaiah 1:8. "The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city". So there's actually three in that one, there's three connections that he's trying to give examples of or making connections to. So that's unusual. Usually, you don't have that many in a verse.
Tyler Sanders 20:33
And how's this working in Hebrew? What's the clue that we're looking at a simile in Hebrew?
Paul Wegner 20:39
You would probably have the word 'like' in Hebrew. And so it would it usually it's-
Tyler Sanders 20:45
It's a pretty straight translation actually.
Paul Wegner 20:46
You'd have the preposition kah. And so it would be on each one of those words. Okay, the next one is Isaiah 1:9. "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah". Okay, first of all, that would have really caught them off guard. Later on, he calls them Sodom and Gomorrah. So he gets even specific. Well, that would have been an image from in Genesis that they would have been aware of. And so when he likens them to Sodom and Gomorrah that's-now this one doesn't do that. But later on, he is going to call them Sodom and Gomorrah. So he's using a simile here, but later on he connects it to them. And they caught it. I'm sure they were angry listening to that. They wouldn't think they were like Sodom and Gomorrah. So that's our simile or example, the connections of likening several things together.
Tyler Sanders 21:45
How far do you think you can relate these two items? When you say like, "daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard", how narrow do you think that is in that definition?
Paul Wegner 21:55
In this one, it actually is pretty clear. It's trying to give you an image of what it looks like. And that's actually-this is one of the verses that helps us to date chapter one of Isaiah. When he's saying that the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard. Basically, what he's saying is that Jerusalem is sticking up and everything else is-well in actual fact, that's exactly what happened in 701 BC. The Assyrians came in, destroyed all the nation of Judah, and Jerusalem was the only thing spared so it's sticking up. And actually I have a picture of Jerusalem, which is on a hill. Especially Zion, is on a hill. So that would have fit that picture just perfectly. So it's that clear. Not all of them are that explicit, but these ones seem to be that explicit. That's that one.
Paul Wegner 22:24
Chiasm. This one, people have heard the term but usually don't know what it means. So we'll try to explain. I've got a good example here from Isaiah 7, verses 15 through 16. And usually what happens; you've got A and then B, the second unit, and then B prime, which matches B, and then A prime which matches A. And the way it came about is the Greek letter 'key' it begins with an X like, and it may not exactly give you that format, but it's telling you that the two in the middle are matching and the two outside are matching. Now that actually helps on this verse, these two verses quite a bit. First of all, let's look at the inside part. "At that time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good", okay. "For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good". Those are clearly matching. Alright, so that means that A and A Prime are matching and that's the part that you would never know. So look what it says, "he will eat curds and honey", "the land of the two kings you dread will be forsaken". So it's actually helping us understand what it means to eat curds and honey. Well, what it means is the land of the two kings you dread will be forsaken. So how is he going to eat curds and honey? Well, in the context it's talking about, at least I think, it's talking about when Syria and the northern kingdom, Israel, are destroyed. This child will be eating curds and honey. So 'the land of two kings you dread will be forsaken', that's Syria and Israel. At that time, this child who's going to be born in verse 14, will eat curds and honey. So it's helping you to know. And the way I got that actually was because I knew the two; B and B prime were-
Tyler Sanders 21:58
Clearly related.
Paul Wegner 22:21
Exactly. Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 22:21
And in a way a chiasm maybe is similar to parallelism. But there's a reversal. Like you may have more units, but then there's whatever order the first units are in, there'll be a reversal in the second. So when I was in seminary I always thought of it more as like an arc or a V shape. That's kind of how I had it in my mind almost like if you're on a bike going off a ramp, you kind of launch from the ramp. And then you land on the other side, the ground. But those two things are related, there's a period where you're kind of moving up in the air and a period where you're coming down, that those are related. And in the middle there's like a vertex, I guess, or whatever, you hit a high point, and you're right in the very center of this arc, and then you start coming down.
Paul Wegner 24:44
Now, the only problem is your vertex at the top. It's actually going to be in the next one. The palistroph. The chiasm doesn't have anything in between. And a chiasm only has four units. Where a palistroph could have many more.
Tyler Sanders 25:54
Yeah. And it kind of seems like, at least in this example, it's almost like the chiasm is kind of working like a logic problem. Kind of like; as this thing is related to this other thing, this other object is related. You can kind of like, figure out how that relationship works. Because I think you're right, you wouldn't necessarily connect "he will eat curds and honey" to "the land whose two kings you dread", but it's telling us those are connected. It's a way to tell us those things are connected.
Paul Wegner 26:25
And I think the author is intentionally doing that.
Tyler Sanders 26:29
Chiasms are pretty common, in both Old and New Testament, really, right?
Paul Wegner 26:33
Yes. And you'll see them a lot in the Psalms. They're less rare in the prophets, but there are enough that you can spot them and they're helpful. As you can see here, I think this is actually helping explain something to us.
Tyler Sanders 26:52
Yeah. This one is a pretty obvious one. Because there's like, what, six? Seven words? That are repeated. A pretty specific phrase would be easy. Is that the best way to find it? Is it going to be repeated phrases? Can it be repeated ideas to find those kind of relations?
Paul Wegner 26:53
Yeah. It can even be grammar. Grammar can even do it. But those are really hard to catch. And I think you'd have to catch those in Hebrew. But it would seem like to me that if you can find units that say the same thing in the middle, then find out if the other two-usually they're quite clear. So you'd usually catch them I think.
Tyler Sanders 27:32
And usually is it the middle ones, closer to the center, the ones that are going to have the similar phrases?
Paul Wegner 27:38
Usually but sometimes A and A prime are going to be almost exact. But these are things that my Sunday school class can catch. We've been going through the Psalms, and they seem to be able to pick them out too. So I think that if you're finding that much similarities-now remember, it's different than your Hebrew parallelism, because the Hebrew parallelism has the two units right next to each other. These are separated by two parallel units too.
Tyler Sanders 28:06
And they can be several units long too. Like this example is two units and two units, essentially.
Paul Wegner 28:13
Yeah. And usually I argue that a chiasm is basically gonna stick to this. It's going to have your four parts. It's almost always going to be like that.
Tyler Sanders 28:21
Okay. So it is a little bit more maybe of a narrow definition here.
Paul Wegner 28:25
So that you can catch them, I think. Now, merism is another thing that I think we need to know about.
Tyler Sanders 28:32
Yeah, that was a word I wasn't familiar with.
Paul Wegner 28:34
It means to take the extremes, and it means everything in between. So like Isaiah 1:2 says, "Listen, Oh, heavens and hear O Earth". I'm assuming that means everybody better be listening. You know, if it's everything on the heavens and everything in the earth, then I assume everything should be listening. The other one is kind of interesting, too. "The Lord cuts off head and tail from Israel". So notice the head and the tail. I think it's thinking about a horse. So you get the head at the beginning, tail at the end. Okay, "from Israel, both palm branch and bulrush". So palm branch is going to be clear at the very top, bulrush is going to be down at the bottom. So I think it means that He's going to cut off everything from the head to the tail, and from the palm branch to the bulrush. So that means everything I think.
Tyler Sanders 29:28
The whole thing.
Paul Wegner 29:29
And then it actually helps clarify it. So in verse 15 it says, "And the head is the elder and honorable man, and the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail".
Tyler Sanders 29:37
It defines them.
Paul Wegner 29:38
Yeah. And I often say, I don't think it means the tail, it's what the tail is connected to. But can you see what He thinks of a prophet that's telling the falsehood? Because it's so deceptive. They think this guy is speaking for God, and he's not. So I can see why he'd be the lowest of the low in God's mind.
Tyler Sanders 29:57
Actually, I found that other good example. Isaiah 7:11, I can't really take too much credit for this. I got it in your commentary. "Make it as deep as Sheol, or as high as Heaven". That's a good one because that's so obvious, the extremes you have there. And I think, you know, heavens and Earth, it's like, what's not included in that.
Paul Wegner 30:00
And remember in the context of that passage, He's asking Ahaz to request a sign from Him. And He said, "It can be anything. As high as Heaven or as low as Sheol". That's amazing. That's a gracious God, isn't it? That's willing to give him a choice of his sign, and it can be anything. So I thought that's amazing.
Tyler Sanders 30:38
And so how is this functioning? Is this kind of like an illustrative...? I mean, obviously, it's more than to bring color into the text. But is it a way to maybe bring a very real kind of metaphor to it? Something concrete?
Paul Wegner 30:54
Well, like your first one, where God's coming in and cutting off the head and the tail. He's going to wipe out all of Israel. Except the remnant, but it's going to be serious punishment that He's got. And so I think that's to remind us; ooh, this is going to be a bad, a serious punishment that the nation is going to go through.
Paul Wegner 30:59
All right. Let's go for the next one. Here's palstrophe.
Tyler Sanders 31:17
A palistrophe.
Paul Wegner 31:18
These, there's more in the biblical text than you think sometimes. And this was the first one I found so in my mind, this one was one of the clearest ones. But then later, I found one in Isaiah 1, and I think I can show you that too. But look at this one. It starts with A Song of the Vineyard.
Tyler Sanders 31:38
And that's in Isaiah 5. So this is part of that subsection; Isaiah 2 through 12. That's one of the bigger sections in there, this is a portion of that. We're gonna go from 5 to 12?
Paul Wegner 31:50
Yes, yeah. Where, once again, you've got the third introduction in chapter 13. So that's a good breaking point. But it starts with A Song of the Vineyard. And if you remember, it's got that play on the image, where he invites the people that are listening to help judge this vineyard. And you know, its vineyard owner did everything. He put rocks around it for a fence, he took out all the weeds, he built a wine vat in it and got it all ready (or wine press in it). And it turned out to be sour grapes. So he asked the people, what should I do with it? And I'm sure they're all saying, it doesn't say this, but I'm sure they're all saying, "Well, destroy it".
Tyler Sanders 32:39
Yeah, there's an obvious answer.
Paul Wegner 32:40
Yeah, it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. Destroy it. And then he turns the tables on them and says, "It's you guys. It's the nation of Israel". So that's how this palistrophe starts, it ends with A Song of Thanksgiving. What's interesting is, by the time it gets to chapter 12, God has worked His way through the judgments and stuff like that, so that they can actually praise God for bringing a remnant through for them. So in chapter 12, it just mentions a little thing that says, "You were angry with us for a little while." And then he just starts praising God for delivering them and offering them salvation. So it's really interesting, it starts off with a real bad picture, ends with a just amazing song of praise.
Tyler Sanders 33:26
So we've got a beginning and end. Related. Sounds like we're getting into something kind of like a chiasm.
Paul Wegner 33:32
Okay, good.
Tyler Sanders 33:33
And so this would be, a palistrophe would be like a form of a chiasm?
Paul Wegner 33:37
Yeah, sometimes it is. It's an extended chiasm. Only there's one more thing. There's something usually in the middle that these things balance around, which is not in a chiasm usually. So, I guess you'd say it's a more specific kind of chiasm or figure of speech.
Tyler Sanders 34:00
It uses some of the pieces, it's relating things, there's a kind of parallelism that's reversed. Things move towards the middle, so that part's like a chiasm. But what makes it different is; typically it's longer. I mean, obviously, this covers like seven chapters or something, that's very long. And then there's like a high point in the middle. That's really what everything is leading towards. It's all about the middle. A chiasm is more about either the ends, or could be how those two things in the middle relate to each other. But in this way, a palistrophe is always about the middle. It's leading towards something in the center.
Paul Wegner 34:38
Let's jump to that middle for a minute. If you look at it, it's chapter 1 through 9:7. And basically what you've got there is sometimes called the Isaianic memoir. And the reason is, is because almost all of it is in first person, which is really rare in the book. There's only a couple other places where first person even occurs, probably five altogether. But that's rare to have a whole section that's in first person. Now it is interesting, chapter seven is actually back to third person. But if you remember, we talked about Isaiah being a scribe and that he pretty much wrote about the-Chronicles tells us he wrote about the events of Uzziah. I'm thinking that chapter seven is what Isaiah had already written about the syro-ephraimite war in his history. And so he took that, and in this stuff that's almost all first person, he just stuck that in because he had already written it. It's by him anyway and so I think that's how come you've got this third person section right in the middle of there. Now, one other thing is, do you remember in chapter six is Isaiah's call?
Tyler Sanders 35:54
Oh sure, yeah.
Paul Wegner 35:55
So it starts with his call and commission, he then goes to these two signs that are there, and then it ends in chapter nine with this great thing about this Messiah coming. So what I understand is that Isaiah is going to be the one that gets them from the Song of the Vineyard to the Song of Thanksgiving. His main job is to tell them that they need to repent and they've got to obey God. And so it seems like to me, that's why that's highlighted. It's Isaiah's job to do his best to try to tell them that. Now, God even lets him know it's not going to work, but your job is to do it. And so he's pretty much telling them the message, even though they rebel against it and all that. So I think when I found this, I realized that the songs on the end make a lot of sense, they're balancing. And then I've got six Woe Oracles in chapter five. They're matched by one big Oracle in chapters 10 and 11. And then there's Uplifted Hand Oracles, there's one in chapter 5:24-30, and then there's four Uplifted Hand Oracles in chapter 9:8 through 10:4.
Paul Wegner 37:08
Now, what's interesting; uplifted hand Oracles, they only occur in Isaiah, as far as I can tell. There are a few phrases in Isaiah that are similar to this. But these are definitely, they're a unique kind of Oracle, where God's has already punished them to some extent but because they didn't get it, His hand is still lifted up. And it means it's coming down in more punishment. Now, some of the commentators argue that these were together at some point and now they've got split. Well, in my mind that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless you've got a structure that was intended to do that. So when I found that you had the matching parts on both sides, I thought; oh, that actually helps me to know, especially when those Uplifted Hand Oracles are so rare and don't occur anywhere else in the Bible that I can tell.
Tyler Sanders 38:06
How did you go about discovering this? Was it seeing the ends; the Song of the Vineyard and Song of Thanksgiving? Is that kind of what clued you in that maybe there's something going on? Or do you start in the middle?
Paul Wegner 38:16
No, I think I started at the end but then I realized Uplifted Hand Oracles and then I found some Woe Oracles on both sides and I thought, wow, that is an interesting structure. And it seemed really clear to me.
Tyler Sanders 38:32
Yeah. But in this case, it seems like the second half would be a lot longer than the first half of this palistrophe. Is that true? And then if it is, the palistrophes, are they more dependent on ideas being kind of reflected to each other?
Paul Wegner 38:52
I also think you got to see key words, like Uplifted Hand Oracle was pretty clear on both of those.
Tyler Sanders 38:57
So there's a phrase in there that's gonna be kind of specific.
Paul Wegner 39:00
Or your Woe-each one of those begins with a woe. So those are pretty clear, Woe Oracles too.
Tyler Sanders 39:09
We're thinking of this right now as the middle, as kind of being the most important part, but it's obviously a lot closer-if you're just reading verse by verse, it'd be closer to the beginning than the end. So it's really more about these terms and the ideas, that's where you're getting the balance in the palistrophe from.
Paul Wegner 39:22
Yeah. And you're right, I think you've got to look for them or I don't think they'll automatically pop up. Although, why don't you go to chapter one, because this one is spread over seven chapters, like you said. But in chapter one, you've got this one over about six verses. So if you go to chapter 1 verse 21 through 26, this one, I think, is pretty clear. Look how it starts, "How the faithful city has become a harlot. She was full of justice, righteousness once lodged in her, but now murders". So it starts off that you have this faithful city and now look at her, she's corrupt. "Your silver has become dross, your drink diluted with water. Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and chases after rewards. They do not defend the orphan nor the widows plea come before them". Okay, you can see that's definitely getting worse and worse and worse. Now look at verse 24. "Therefore, the Lord God of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel declares, 'I will be relieved of my adversaries and avenged of my foes'". That's basically summarizing who the people are that love a bribe and the widow's plea doesn't come before them. "'I will turn my hand against them, and I will smelt away your dross as with lye.'" There it is. We had that in verse 22. "'I will remove all your alloy, then I will restore your judges as the first and your counselors as at the beginning'". That's kind of matching verse 21. "'And then after that you will be called a city of righteousness, a faithful city'". So now you've got the matching terms, the faithful city there. So it seems like to me, that one is easier to spot because you've got within a couple of verses, all the things that are reversing and you had those exact words. And once again, if that's true then verse 24, when God stands up to judge, it makes some sense. That's that center.
Tyler Sanders 41:23
Right. The important thing you need to walk away with understanding in this passage is that God stands up and declares it and that's when things change.
Paul Wegner 41:31
Now, one interesting thing is that chiasm kind of summarizes the whole book again.
Tyler Sanders 41:36
Oh sure, it's that same kind of model.
Paul Wegner 41:38
Yep, you start out with this wicked nation, well, this one started out as a righteous nation or city, but then it says, it got corrupt. God's then going to step in and bring restoration. And that's what the whole book's about. So that chiasm actually fits really well.
Tyler Sanders 41:52
And I think, I mean, smelting away dross, that's infering a remnant, a piece that's left I would imagine, right?
Paul Wegner 41:59
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 42:00
Okay, what's our next literary technique here?
Paul Wegner 42:04
Oh, we're out.
Tyler Sanders 42:05
Oh, I'm so sorry. That's all of them. There's a lot more in Isaiah. These are key ones we need to know as we go through it. These are terms that will probably come up a lot as we're discussing it.
Paul Wegner 42:16
Oh, I did start on the date. So I started to talk about the date of the book, the message. And that's actually going to be really important because in chapter one, remember I told you that verses eight and nine highlight that idea of Jerusalem being destroyed, err I'm sorry, of Judah being destroyed but the city is standing up like a hut in a cucumber-
Tyler Sanders 42:40
In the vineyard.
Paul Wegner 42:42
There's actually two terms, real similar, one's in a cucumber field and one's in a vineyard. But the date of the book actually helps you. So chapter one, I actually think is dated to about 701 BC. That means it's not the earliest thing in the book. A lot of times the Prophets start with an introduction that gives when it was being written and who was the king at the time, a lot of times, and so this one actually helps us. So you've got Uzziah, who's dated from about, let's just use 792 to 739 BC, somewhere in that timeframe. So that means if you go to chapter six, it says, "In the year of King Uzziah's death. So let's say 740 BC, round number. Okay, so now you know that probably, there wasn't much that Isaiah had in the biblical texts that's about Uzziah's time, because that chapter six, basically his call, was probably one of the first things in his life, was his call. So that would make sense. If that was about the first time, then if you go to [Isaiah] chapters 37:37-38, because that actually is probably the last thing that's in Isaiah's lifetime. Here's what it says. "Then the angel of the Lord went and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians and when the men rose early in the morning behold all of them were dead." See, we now know that's 701 BC, okay? "So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh and it came about as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place." Now we know that Esarhaddon started at 681 BC. So if that's the last thing that Isaiah would have lived in and known about, then that means from about 740 to 681 BC is Isaiah's timeframe. That's actually quite long. That's basically 60 years. Most prophets don't prophesy that long. Daniel is one of the ones that does seem to prophesy for that long, but Isaiah has got an awful long time that he's prophesying. And let's say he's got 60 years of prophesying, let's say he doesn't even start till he's probably 20 or 30. Well, that's gonna make him an old man by the time he's done. So that gives us some dates now to help put in perspective what chapter 1 is about, but then his call comes in chapter 6. That's kind of odd that his call doesn't come until chapter 6, you'd expect it much earlier. It doesn't because of the structure, I think.
Tyler Sanders 45:39
That's what I was about to ask. So this is probably a structural reason.
Paul Wegner 45:42
I think so.
Tyler Sanders 45:43
We may think of it like in a more modern, Western, we kind of want things in order. You know, we like to start at the beginning and just kind of go through chronologically. Why do you think it's set up this way?
Paul Wegner 45:56
My understanding is that there's two sections before chapter six comes round. One is the introduction, that one's pretty clear. And it gives, basically the message of what's going to happen Israel; they're going to be judged and God is going to deliver them. Then you go through chapters 2 through 4, and it's got a totally different structure but it says the same message again, only with more detail. Then you get to chapter 6, actually chapter 5, if you remember it's the Song. And then you've got that whole palistrophe thing that's going to go over it again. So I think what's happening is that if a person's reading that, knowing that structure, they realize that it's just going over again and again, the message that God has. You're in sin now, you're going to be punished, but good news is God's gonna restore you. And you hear that message three times before you get to chapter five.
Tyler Sanders 46:54
So do you think I would be overstating it if I said, one thing we can learn from that is, the theme here is maybe even more important than like...
Paul Wegner 47:04
Who does it.
Tyler Sanders 47:05
Yeah, like this is something that's really key, you have to know. That would kind of make sense as it gets passed down to further generations, I think, right? I mean, like, this is the most important thing you need to know out of this writing.
Paul Wegner 47:20
Yeah. And I'd think that if it goes over it three times, you'd probably start getting it. So I think that's what the author's doing. And especially if every once in awhile, you put these palistrophes in there to that highlight that theme one more time. So I would think by the time you get to chapter five, you've already been over this, three and four times, you should be getting it.
Tyler Sanders 47:43
So really, all these literary techniques are just re-emphasizing, maybe not in every example, but in a lot of ways, they're reemphasizing theme, main point of this book, main point of Isaiah's prophecy.
Paul Wegner 47:55
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 47:56
Do you have any recommendations for other resources people can access to learn more about literary techniques? What's the best place for a person who wants to know more about this to go?
Paul Wegner 48:08
I would say commentaries should be able to spot these. Not every commentary will highlight these kinds of things. Maybe the easiest way, is to go into a book that actually talks about literary structures or literary technique and just see, especially if it's in Isaiah, I think I've seen a book called "Literary Technique in Isaiah". And I know there's a book on wisdom in Isaiah, wisdom elements in Isaiah. There's a lot of times, things like that. And I also know of another book that does like tree images, or family images or things like that. That they highlight a theme that might also help us find some of those things. But I think your best bet-maybe if you could just, now know that these are things that you'd be looking for. And if you sometimes go on the internet just to find information about 'what does it mean and then where do you find them' and sometimes they'll have some examples maybe in Isaiah.
Tyler Sanders 49:17
I think some of these, probably about half, maybe a little more than half of these, you should be able to recognize in English, And maybe it's just kind of reading a little slower. Kind of trying to like...don't take the step too fast of trying to figure out what this means, just look at the text and just look for those kinds of patterns and stuff. Maybe take some notes, that probably go a long way.
Paul Wegner 49:37
And maybe another book that would be really helpful, there's one by Watson on Hebrew poetry. And that one would be really helpful to see, how does that parallelism work, and it's sometimes quite complicated, but I think that if you could catch the main parts of it, you ought to be able to spot.
Tyler Sanders 49:56
Yeah, you'd get pretty far probably.
Paul Wegner 49:59
Can I just highlight one more time, that idea of the history?
Tyler Sanders 50:02
Oh, yeah.
Paul Wegner 50:02
If you know the history, the book makes a lot more sense. And so, kind of what I did in my commentary was to try to highlight some of the major times; like the syro-ephraimite war, what happened then. 701 BC, what happened then. 586 BC, what happened then. So if you know, kind of the big structure, some of these things will make a lot more sense how they fit into it and stuff like that. So I think that might be your best thing, is to get a little history under your belt and then start understanding, when are these things happening. Because if you know that in the year of King Uzziah's death, and you know that Uzziah was actually a pretty good king, but at the end of his life he went into the temple and made a sacrifice he wasn't supposed to and he got leprosy. If you knew that; here the human king just got something really bad happen to him and now Isaiah is set to that time period. So in the year that king Uzziah had died, God sends Isaiah. It would actually help you to understand the history some too.
Tyler Sanders 51:16
Right. That's not just a historical statement. That's telling you something very specific because they all know how Uzziah ended.
Paul Wegner 51:24
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 51:26
Okay, that's good. Well, thank you again for your time. And thank you to all of our listeners. And be sure to join us next time as we Study Isaiah.