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Catching the MotifThis lesson doesn’t revolve around a single text, but around a motif that runs throughout many texts within Isaiah. It’s subtle enough that it might avoid our attention if we confine out study of Isaiah to individual passages, but when the book is read as a whole, or these texts are extracted and compiled together, the presence of the “land” motif in Isaiah becomes clear. Isaiah often graces prophecies of destruction with language of the desolation of the land, and the prophecies of blessing and hope often describe the future in terms of the physical fruitfulness and abundance of the land. Read the texts below as a whole, and you can start getting a picture:
Isaiah’s Texts of the LandThis list of texts omits several, particularly those that are associated with the desolation of other lands, like Babylon or Assyria, in connection with prophecies of their destruction. It focuses on texts that speak of the blessing or desolation of the lands of Judah or Israel. While the reader would benefit from examining each in its own context, they are given here without context in order to get a sense of the motif.
1:7-8
“Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overturned by foreigners.”
5:9-10
“Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.”
6:11-12
“Then I said, ‘how long, O Lord?’ And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.’”
7:23-25
“In that day, every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. And as for the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.”
9:19
“Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is scorched, and the people are like fuel for the fire, no one spares another.”
13:9
“Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation, and to destroy sinners from it.”
24:4-6
“The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.”
24:19-20
“The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.”
26:21
“For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.”
30:23-26
“And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich an plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.”
32:10-16
“In little more than a year, you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. Tremble you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. For the palace is forsaken, the populace city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; until the spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.”
33:9
“The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, Bashan and Carmel shake of their leaves.”
35:1
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of the Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.”
45:8
“Shower, O Heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the Lord have created it.”
51:3
“For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”
What the Land Motif OffersIt’s easy to read a collection of texts like that and shrug them off as trivia. This motif offers a couple of key theological perspectives though, ways that we can understand our lives better. First, it points towards an inherent theological connection between the actions and character of humanity and the quality of the places where we live. This perspective isn’t isolated to Isaiah, but shows up elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and may have been a perspective common to other peoples of the Ancient Near Eastern. In that perspective, the land itself carries a level of ritual purity or contamination based on the righteousness or sin of its people. Note this telling (but not uncommon) text in Numbers 35:33-34, regarding the punishment of criminals: “...this will ensure that the land where you live will not be polluted, for murder pollutes the land. And no sacrifice except the execution of the murderer can purify the land from murder. You must not defile the land where you live, for I live there myself. I am the Lord, who lives among the people of Israel.” Also, think of Genesis 4, where Cain is told that the ground that has swallowed up his brother’s blood is crying out against him, and will not yield crops for him anymore.
Sin, particularly violence, defiles the land. It breaks a connection between humanity, placed on the earth as a steward of the land, and the land itself, which provides for the needs of humanity. Although we tend to think of our sin as something individual and personal, that notion is rejected throughout the Hebrew Bible. Israel affirms that, contrary to our own notions, our morality actually affects not only our own holiness, but the communities we live in and the very earth that we live on. Isaiah confirms this theology of connection, demonstrating that in Isaiah’s time Judah’s unrighteousness made the land a wasteland. Further, God’s promised actions of redeeming the people in the future are also a redeeming of the land. Just as he promises to restore his people, he promises to bring the land back into abundance. The land begins to take on a role as a symbol of God’s blessing. There is a relationship between God, the people and the land.
A second valuable perspective here is how the status of the land reflects the sovereignty of God, a key theme for Isaiah. God’s power to bring the land back into abundance, to cleanse it from the sin that made it a wasteland, is a vivid way of speaking about his ability to bring blessing back to his people. They are part of the hope that Isaiah preaches for the coming messianic age, and hope depends on power. Israel’s hopes for coming change and renewal are not wishes, pipe dreams. They are dependent on Israel’s faith in a God who makes promises, and who has the power to keep those promises. The Lord, as sovereign king over creation, has the power to bring the land which he created back into abundance, to redeem it from the destruction and defilement caused by Israel’s sin. Isaiah’s images of the abundant earth are really description of what the Lord is able to do, not in a purely spiritual sense, but in concrete, physical action. If we are to follow Israel in trusting in the Lord, then we aren’t walking into a religion that is only out to change our spiritual circumstances, but one which claims to trust a God who has the sovereign ability to change physical reality, even that which came about because of our sin. God is not just concerned with our spiritual destinies, but also our physical realities.
Teaching on this MotifIn terms of introducing this lesson, it is difficult to prepare a group to hear a long selection of texts such as are included here. You may find it more helpful to pare the list down somewhat, or to read a large group of the texts while focusing on only a couple for your class discussion. I found the passages in chapter 24, 30, and 32 to be particularly poignant, and you may want to just pick a couple of those to spend some class time unpacking.
There are at least three places of worthwhile discussion on this motif.
1. How does our sin affects others besides ourselves? What is the real impact of our sin? How have we been confronted with the impact of our sin? How can an awareness of our sin’s impact on others sometimes be more motivating to us than our understanding of how it affects us?
Sometimes the destruction, distrust, and brokenness we see around us is a result of sin, maybe our own. Do we ever get the sense that we live in a “polluted” land, not just in terms of physical pollution, but moral pollution? How does it impact us to live in that kind of a place?
2. How do our lives reflect a dependence on the sovereign power of God? What are ways that we continually depend on God’s action? What are ways that we long for his action, but don’t see it? In what ways are we hopeful that God will decisively act in the future? How are the hopes that shape our lives dependent on God?
3. For Israel, a highly agricultural society, the image of the desolate land crying out against them was a powerful way of speaking about the importance of sin. Are there other images that might be more powerful to us? What is it about our world that cries out for our attention because of how it’s changed by sin?
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