Talk:Isa 6:8-13

What does pen (lest) mean in v. 10?

Joe, I've been studying what you've written about these verses with fascination. Part of the reason I've been delaying digging into these verses more myself is b/c I was hoping you'd start into verse 10. I'm guessing you're aware how most scholars interpret this verse (that Isaiah is called to effectively speed up the judgment of the people). If I'm understanding what you've written correctly, I expect you take to a radically different approach (a good thing in my book, I find this traditional view very unsatisfying).

From the work you've done, it seems the prophet is being called here to call the people to have the same kind of "woe is me for I am undone" conversion experience that occurred in verse 5. On this view, the fat heart, heavy ears and shut eyes seem to be describing someone in a pre-conversion state like the prophet was in verse 5. If this is the case, then it seems the word pen translated as "lest" is a severe mistranslation. That is, the fat heart, heavy ears and shut eyes are not being contrasted to conversion but precipitate conversion. (Interestingly, pen seems to come from the root word panah which has a "turning" connotation, but I guess this is a different kind of turning than repentance-type turning?) Since I don't have a good lexicon (yet, there was a problem with my order...), I don't have a good sense of what pen could mean here. Help please! --RobertC 04:32, 2 Aug 2006 (UTC)

If the reading I'm proposing can be viewed as plausible (to my mind, this largely turns on whether pen must be taken as a contrasting conjunction or not...), then can the traditional view also be accepted in a purposeful double meaning sense? In verse 11, the destruction theme of the previous and subsequent chapters is returned to, although perhaps even in them a double meaning can be taken: as the prophet's iniquity was taken away in his conversion, so too if all wickedness is removed from the houses and cities in verse 11, only righteousness will remain.

But my sense is that verse 11 is fairly clear in its connotation that the wicked people will be destroyed and that this at least indirectly b/c of what the prophet calls the people to do. This is why I think the conventional interpretation of verse 10 is usually taken, it leads more nicely—or at least more naturally—into verse 11. However, if the double meaning I suggest above is allowed, I think this underscores nicely the people's choice in the matter in a way consistent particularly with Isa 28:12. --RobertC 14:45, 2 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I hadn't gotten to this until this afternoon. I was going to begin on verse 10 yesterday, but had some YM emergency things comes up. I got quite a bit in on it today. A more direct response, however, to your question: pn seems only to mean "lest." Some have connected it to pnh (including Dahood), but it is not clear how it would connect. Besides, its other 132 instances in the OT appear universally to mean "lest." Regardless of how much I try to think another translation that could represent it well in English, "lest" remains the best.

I hope, however, that some of the difficulties I raise in the commentary I posted today will help you to rethink the verse along other lines. Perhaps there is more to the story: an anointing, a glorifying, and a letting see? I'm not yet sure how to interpret it myself. I think there is a way to interpet the "lest" strictly as "lest" and yet to read this other than in the traditional manner. I will unfold that tomorrow. (It will, by the way, tie itself more clearly, then, to Isa 28:12). --Joe Spencer 20:09, 2 Aug 2006 (UTC)

If pn is indeed a contrasting conjunction, I'm inclined to read the verse as sarcastic (as most commentators do). But I still have the following problem: Isa 59:1 says that the "Lord's ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear" (parallel with his hand is not shortened that it cannot save). This suggests a heavy ear is indeed a bad thing. This would suggest that the prophet in verse 10 is being called to somehow expedite judgment on the people. Based on the contrasting/warnging connotation of pn, this would suggest the second half of verse 10 is a good thing: seeing with eyes, hearing with ears, understanding with their heart, being converted, and being healed—all of these things seem to be what would prevent judgment on the people.

However, Isa 11:2-4 talks about a person who judges with righteousness and it says he does not "judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears." This makes me suspicious of everything in the previous paragraph. Here, seeing with eyes and hearing with ears seems to have a bad connotation. It seems either, (1) Isaiah is flip-flopping the connotation of "seeing with eyes" and "hearing with ears" or (2) there is something else going on. One idea I have for (2) is that the emphasis in 11:3 is on judging and reproving. That is, seeing with one's eyes and hearing with one's ears are in themselves good things, but judging with the sight of one's eyes and reproving after the hearing of one's ears are bad things.... --RobertC 10:28, 3 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think I sorted out the possibility of reinterpreting pn here, Robert. But unfortunately, I posted what I did today while away from home, meaning, without my language helps. I have to look more closely at the Hebrew possibilities here, but it may be that there is some reason to rip "and convert, and be healed" from under the sway of the "lest" (which is to be interpreted only in terms of the seeing, hearing, and understanding then). I'll have more to write tomorrow. --Joe Spencer 20:22, 3 Aug 2006 (UTC)

A bug?

After writing my commentary on verse 10 today, the site saved only verse 10 as the whole content of the page (and no, it was not just a preview--I checked that possibility). So I reconstructed the page by cutting and pasting from a "diff" page and looking at another page that still had the code there. So it looks fine now, but I thought I ought to mention that something goofy had happened. --Joe Spencer 20:22, 3 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Joe, thanks for pointing this out. It is good to bring such odd things to attention so that we can track them. Should this happen to anyone in the future, here I think would be the easiest way to fix it. a) copy the new changes into the clipboard. b) Go to the most recent good version of the page from the history. c) edit that page and re-apply the changes from the clipboard. d) save. --Matthew Faulconer 06:24, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

The waw + perfective construction

Joe, thanks for the excuse to dig into some Hebrew grammar books which I checked out but have been gathering dust. If the final three verbs are using the waw + perfect (waw consecutive) contruction, my sense is that this is pretty common in moving a narrative along (here's a good summary I found online, though it applies to narratives using the imperfect rather than the perfect tense). The best discussion I've found is in A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar by van der Merwe, Naude, & Kroeze (1999). There's one paragraph that confuses me though:

"A waw consecutive + perfect can also sometimes be interrupted b/c the BH necessitates this, for example, if a negative or a conjunction has to be used. The backbone of the future statement or habitual action concerned, however, is not interrupted in such cases." (p. 170)

Unless you're invoking whatever this means (I'm mainly confused by what "interrupted" means here), what I'm learning doesn't look promising. That is, it seems the waw + perfect is just tying the verbs last 3 verbs to see and hear together in, most likely, a logical progression.

Also, if it ends up that the ambiguity aspect of the first part of verse 10 is important to maintain, I think we should address Isa 59:1 explicitly here. Maybe it would be sufficient to say that the fact that the phrase "neither his ear heavy" is modified by the clause "that he cannot hear" suggests that a heavy ear unmodified is ambiguous. However, the parallelism would then suggest that the phrase "the Lord's hand is not shortened" is also ambiguous without the modifying phrase "that it cannot save." I've thought about this a bit in terms of the opposite "stretched out arm" (see Ex 6:6 commentary), but I couldn't find any Old Testament verses using a stretched out arm with a positive connotation (except possibly Ps 136:12) though in the BOM the stretched out arm does seem seem to be ambiguous.

Regardless of everthing I've just posted, it's hard for me to see how the ambiguity in the first half of v. 10 can hold up with the contrasting connotation of pn and the seemingly unambiguous "good" connotation of convert and be healed. The only possibility I can conceive of right now (that doesn't require reading a sarcastic tone into v. 10, which I'm not adamantly opposed to, it seems there are many other Isaiah verses that read sarcastically...) is for (1) the pn to have a softer "warning" connotation than the English word "lest" implies, perhaps like the "that . . . not" in Gen 24:6 and (2) the final "convert and be healed" is freed from the pn sway. With these two two-holds, I could the see "convert and be healed" modifying/fulfilling the ambiguity of first half of the verse and the verse would take on a meaning such as: "Offer my word to the hearts, ears, and eyes of this people and, not that they will see with see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their heart, but so they might convert and be healed."

Finally, I like your discussion about different ways the Lord might not want the people to "see with their eyes." I think a similar take on "hear with their ears" is convincing, but it's harder for me to accept this view for the phrase "understand with their heart." Understanding via the heart seems to be a good thing throughout Isaiah (e.g. Isa 29:13, Isa 32:4, and Isa 44:18-20), and although I think giving our hearts to God is a viable and interesting concept, I don't see much evidence that this was really a concept Isaiah was suggesting. . . .

Hope my comments don't come accross as caustic or negative or anything, I'm just trying to make honest sense of these verses and am playing devil's advocate. --RobertC 00:25, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Caustic or negative? Anything but that. No worries when all is consecrated. I have, I think, found a way out. I suspected it yesterday, but I had to get home to look at a few grammatical possibilities, and I believe I have found the answer. The "see," "hear," and "understand" in the second half are all imperfect verb forms, which is what one would expect following pn. pn is, in fact, in every case but two followed by an imperfect. The only two where this is not the case are situations in which the "lest" refers to past events: "lest the Lord has done this" or "lest he have already captured these cities, etc." In other words, "and convert, and be healed" absolutely MUST be imperfect if they are to fall under the sway of the "lest" here. Otherwise, they would have to be already completed actions Isaiah is to undo, and I don't think there is any justifiable way to read that into the verse.

But here's the clincher: the two verbs (convert, be healed) are not perfect either! They are imperative (I can't believe I didn't catch this before!). The clue is the missing waw in vshb. This also calls for a retranslation of shwv here anyway. Though it might be translated in terms of conversion, it is simply the fact that it only seems to mean that in the tiniest handful of instances. The overwhelming majority of its occurrences call for "return" or "go back." In other words, I think I would translate the passage thus (adding some words to make the point really clear): "lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts. And then, Isaiah, [you] return and be healed." Return and report, Isaiah; come back to be healed (literally, mended) after your mission. Now, that does not finish off the interpretation called for the heart/eyes/ears business, and I need to work all of this out in the commentary. I don't have time to do that well today, so I will take it up tomorrow. But for now, there's your answer. Once I saw it, it was the most obvious thing in the world. --Joe Spencer 15:21, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a very interesting way to interpret this verse and it seems to at least be possible. As a "test" I'll be curious if this helps us understand Mark 4:12 which I've started reading a bit on (according to WBC some scholars have argued, based on the Aramaic Targum, that the "lest" there should be translated "perhaps" or "unless" with more of a "if they did" connotation pointing toward the possibility of salvation rather than a "so they can be judged" flavor).

However, I don't follow what you're saying with the "missing waw." If people took the plural, I would follow what you said: the 3rd-person plural takes a waw suffix in forming the perfect form, but my understanding is that people takes a singular form in which case the 3rd person singular perfect and 2nd person singular imperative forms are identical aren't they?? --RobertC 16:48, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Somehow my last post disappeared. Verbs with a waw in the second letter of their root drop the waw in the imperative but not in the perfect, because the waw is a "weak letter." One shwb, "returned," but I command you, shb, "return!" While I'm at it, could you quote the passage from the WBC at length or post a subpage with it or something? I am very interested in the point, but have access only to the volumes of the WBC that I own (and I don't own that one). I'd like to see it before I post the remainder of my thoughts on verse 10. --Joe Spencer 16:56, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this is a good kick in the pants for me to learn Hebrew better.... Turns out it's easy to past WBC into a Word document but not post on the site (formatting issues), so I emailed it to you. If you have any problems let me know (I probably should've just converted it to pdf b/c that's easy for me...). Feel free (anyone) to ask if you're interested in WBC commentary on any other particular passage. --RobertC 17:21, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I double checked this and confirmed you're right that the waw is dropped in the perfect form for "II waw verbs" in Biblical Hebrew according to van der Merwe et al, pp. 121-22. So why hasn't anyone noticed this before? I've looked this up in many different commentaries and everyone seems to be making this same mistake (or what appears to be a mistake). In the Old Testament Parsing Guide (Beall, Banks, and Smith, 1990), they clearly have the last two verbs of the verse maked as waw consecutive perfect, 3rd person masculine singular. It's really hard for me to believe that no one has thought of what you're proposing before if it's as obvious as you're painting the picture to me. Maybe I'll try finding a forum of scholars to post this question to somewhere for feedback. (If you can't tell, I'm really excited and just trying not to jump the gun in a "it's too good to be true sense"...). --RobertC 17:46, 4 Aug 2006 (UTC)

More on the dropped waw

I've found some very interesting discussion by Craig Evans and Bruce Chilton regarding verse 10 in alternate manuscripts. They basically argue that Christ was quoting the Aramaic text (Mark 4:12 in particular), though this view is challenged by Mark Goulder (Novum Testamentum, v. 33, Oct. 1991, pp. 289-302). Of particular interest is the book To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6:9-10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpolation by Craig Evans. He basically argues that all the alternative manuscripts try to soften the difficulty of the Masoretic Text which arises from God telling Isaiah to harden the people's hearts. None of this addresses the issue we're discussing (though it does seem to make a pretty good case that the understanding of this passage had changed by NT times...).

Also, I realized I read my Hebrew reference grammar incorrectly. Actually it says that only in the 1st and 2nd person singular perfect does the waw drop, not in the imperative. But 2nd person perfect would seem to work pretty much the same way as the 2nd person imperative (or is it more awkward?), so I don't think this changes much. --RobertC 02:39, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm.... My books on Hebrew don't have sysematic diagnostics; I was working from memory (was Isaiah, too?). Second person perfect makes a great deal more sense than first person perfect here, but it is more awkward--that is clear. But regardless of the awkwardness, there doesn't seem to be any other way it should be read without some emendation. The simplest reading would, I think, be to read the slightest "emendation" (if it is even an emendation here--biblical Hebrew is notorious for breaking all of the rules for whatever reasons, often poetic) to the imperative (especially because it makes more sense with verse 11 that way), or to maintain the perfect second person, in which case the awkward phrasing has to be overlooked to mean something at least broadly like the imperative reading. I think the reading stands. Tomorrow, I'll adjust the commentary accordingly. --Joe Spencer 03:37, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

After looking through several journal articles and the Craig Evans book, I sent an email to Craig Evans, partly out of impatience, partly on a whim, and probably a bit prematurely. But he responed! (Probably only b/c he saw my BYU address and knows and respects Donald Parry.) He says that shwb commonly drops the waw in the 3rd person perfect. Here are the examples he cited: Gen 18:33; Ex 33:11; Lev 14:39; Lev 25:27, 28, 41; Deut 23:15. (I checked the first two and I couldn't see any other way to interpret the grammar; but again, you shouldn't trust my opinion om a Hebrew language question unless I'm quoting a scholar!) --RobertC 13:10, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

After reading Evans' e-mail carefully, and after looking at the other examples, I think I have a better answer. It is not so much that the third-person perfect form of the verb can become shb as that shwb (the correct spelling of the third-person perfect) can become shb. In other words, scribes once in a while dropped the waw in favor of pointing (though they did not point) the word with the equivalent vowell sound. Evans' himself, I think, is reading an implicit emendation into the text, then: shwb, not shb. If we read shwb, then it might be third-person perfect, and it might be second-person imperative. I'm leaning in that direction. The examples Evans cites are not all too simple (see especially the ones in Lev 25), not all simply an obvious third-person perfect form. I think we can justifiably interpret the imperative into the verse. You may want to check this up against Parry (who has published, if I remember rightly, an article or two on this chapter), but I think this is a good reading. I'll write it, briefly, into the commentary right now. --Joe Spencer 15:45, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I think the "return and report" approach is viable, interesting, and uniquely LDS approach. I think it would help the case to find and cite other uses of shb where it could (or preferably should) be read in 2nd person imperative. I'll look for such verses when I have time.

I think one reason this view might be a tough sell (esp. to a non-LDS audience) is that in NT times it seems the "convert and be healed" (or "convert and be forgiven" in Mark) interpretation had become generally accepted (though I haven't looked carefully at NT manuscripts to verify this specifically—I do think Evans' analysis of variations in manuscripts is quite interesting and I will probably post arguments from his book over the next few weeks...). Of course, even if other manuscripts don't support the 2nd person imperative reading, there's still room to maintain that the original text (or at least the Masoretic Text) should be read as 2nd person imperative.... Thanks again for all your work on this Joe! --RobertC 17:59, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps one further note on the imperative possibility. The WBC fragment you sent me stakes quite clearly that shb is second person perfect, contra Chilton. As I read the KJV rendering again, I wonder if the translators were trying to write ambiguously so that it could be read either way. I'm wondering if the BoM, then, isn't a manuscript that confirms this reading. Given the freedom of punctuation in the BoM, couldn't the phrase be read: "lest they see.... And convert [i.e., return] and be healed [, Isaiah]"? I think you are right to point to the New Testament appropriation of the text, but a quick glance at just the phrasing suggests that either a number of different versions of the text were circulating or that (as is commonly assumed) there are paraphrasings and adaptations at work.

I suppose I should add one footnote to all of this. I have historically been myself more inclined to read Isaiah's task as one of condemnation, i.e., I am not shaken by such a prophetic commission (I've taught it before in Sunday School--a few years back now--and offended a couple of sisters). But this round of exploring this narrative has been forcing me to recognize a few currents that run through the text that I had not previously noticed at all. One of these is the hint that Isaiah's task is by its very nature one that condemns. By getting bogged down in all these linguistic difficulties, I've put off drawing the conclusion that is already speaking to me in the text: I have not yet so much as hinted at it in my writing the commentary. Essentially, I'm trying to give the more merciful reading a full hearing before I draw the conclusion that seems to me inevitable. I won't have time tomorrow to post (most likely), but Monday I will see if I can't draw those conclusions and set them side-by-side with the imperative possibility. A hint of what is to come: because Isaiah speaks the angelic tongue, his words are at once overflowing and hence completely incoherent; they will inevitably result in the condemnation of the people. The prophetic task itself is, I think the narrative is suggesting, fundamentally flawed, essentially flawed. But that is precisely the point: Isaiah is to give the people the overwhelming experience of the divine simply by speaking with a voice like the sound of many waters. If they respond like Isaiah (the inarticulation that opens onto articulation), then they might come to God; but the fact of the matter is that most will not. God wants Isaiah to overwhelm them so that they see nothing, hear nothing, understand nothing, so that they, in short, stand before a "still small voice" that functions as a call. tsw ltsw, tsw ltsw, qw lqw, qw lqw, and they refuse the rest the Lord offers. But all of this linguistic complication has raised some grammatical issues I had not dealt with before. We'll see what comes out on Monday. --Joe Spencer 19:33, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Second person in the Septuagint

Joe, I think you're actually misreading the WBC commentary (the wording is quite confusing, which is actually what motivated me to go look at the sources in the bibliography). I think the WBC sentence you're referring to says "the Hebrew and Greek texts have the verbs in the second person; Mark and the Targum have the third person" (if you're referring to another sentence, let me know...). The reason this is confusing is that he has just finished talking about the last verb of verse 10 (healed in the hebrew and Greek, forgiveness in the Targum). However, a close look at the LXX shows that the third person is used in v. 10 for converted.

I think the difference that the WBC is actually referring to occurs in v. 9 where the LXX (and MT) uses the 2nd person for perceive and understand whereas the 3rd person is used in the Targum (and in Mark). I'll email you a couple articles I got through my university access to jstor.org which discuss this. --RobertC 21:09, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Other verses to check

Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar is really quite a work. It lists the following passages as using the same pn ("lest") construction with an imperfect verb followed by a waw + perfect (so clearly Gesenius is assuming the last two verbs are waw + perfect forms—see section 112-p, p. 333): Gen 3:22, Gen 19:19, Gen 32:12; Amos 5:6.

Gesenius also lists verse 10 under a section titled "Peculiarities in the Representation of the Subject (especially in the Verbal-clause)." Gesenius says "The indefinite personal subject (our they, one the French on, and the German man) is expressed . . . by the 3rd person singular masculine . . . in Isa 6:10 and one heals them" (p. 460). So it seems Gesienius is interpreting the last lw non-reflexively (God is the agent of healing rather than the people healing themselves). Other verses with this "indefinite personal subject" via the 3rd person singular masculine are:

• Gen 11:9; 16:14; 19:22; Ex 15:23;
• Gen 35:8, 10; 2 Sam 2:16; Isa 9:5;
• "one said" in Gen 48:1, 1 Sam 16:2, 4;
• Gen 38:28; Num 23:21; 1 Kgs 22:38;
• Isa 8:4; Isa 46:7; Amos 6:12; Micah 2:4; Job 27:23

--Robert C. 6 Aug 2006

I like Genesius' reading on this. His reading of the waw + perfect seems rather conclusive too. I wonder if I can track down a copy of his text to purchase (all my Hebrew grammar is in my head--an unfortunate situation; but I usually trust the grammar in translations: it is vocabulary that remains most problematic and almost universally unthought). I will get back to my original purposes with Isaiah, then. --Joe Spencer 14:35, 7 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I just finished my work on verse 10, and this Gesenius came very in handy. Read carefully (and re-write if you can make any sense of it and no one else will!) my interpretation of the pn-imperfect-waw-perfect construction. Gesenius opened some real possibilities there with those cross references. Any response would be helpful, and then I think we bury this chapter. --Joe Spencer 15:38, 7 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Nice work Joe. The verdict's still out in my book on whether the lw can/should be taken reflexively like in the NJV/NJPS (see below). I'll probably keep working on this chapter for a while longer (it'll take me a bit to sort out the grammar issues—I'm using this as an excuse to really dig into Hebrew grammar), but I don't expect anyone else to follow this new obsession of mine. --RobertC 16:08, 7 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Re-writing

OK, guys. Y'all have spent a lot of time on this and I'm finding a lot of interesting stuff here and on the commentary pages, but wondering if we can maybe rework it a bit so that its a bit easier to read? Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time for editing right now, but hope we y'all will spend some more time on these pages to make them as succinct and clear as they are interesting.--Rob Fergus 05:03, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, good point, it's just sometimes tedious to go back and do re-writes. I like the changes you made and after we get a little resolution on this final grammar issue, I'll try to go back and do more editing like you did. --RobertC 13:10, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Robert. It'd be great if we could all work on it a bit. I'll do what I can, as time permits, and I'm sure as we all work on this, the writing will become as brilliant as the thoughts themselves.--Rob Fergus 14:13, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Rob, thanks for the re-writes. They are fantastic, and very true to what I was saying, making it much more readable, even coherent. When I post, I am doing all the thinking right then (I don't write elsewhere and then cut and paste, etc.), so often my thoughts come out in the unfortunate language of thought. Thanks for the help. In going back to work on verse 10, I have seen how much work that needed, and I basically revised all the commentary I had posted for that verse. Someone with a fresh view often, however, has more patience than I do to work back through something so quickly after it is posted. --Joe Spencer 15:21, 5 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Nice work, Rob. I'm going to start into verse 9-10 since that is what I've been studying the most. Then I'll probably go back and try to work more on vv. 1-5. I typically use italics for paragraph signposts, would it bother you if I changed to that? If you have a strong preferences, I'll streamline vv. 1-5 to follow the same convention. (My only reasoning is that we made the 4th level headers italics, to differentiate from 3rd level headers, so I think italics is more consistent with that. My counter-argument would be that italics doesn't look all that good or show up all that well on the screen....) --RobertC 13:25, 9 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you want to do on the signposts...but agree that bold shows up better.--Rob Fergus 18:53, 9 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Joe, I'm confused by the following regarding v. 10: First you say "it is clear that the Lord does not want the people to "see with their eyes" etc. But then you say "if seeing/hearing/understanding happens, then returning/being-healed is inevitable." It would seem that the implication is that God doesn't want Israel to return and be healed. But I think you mean to avoid that conclusion—what am I missing? --RobertC 23:18, 14 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Robert, I must be misunderstanding something in your misunderstanding. My point throughout the commentary on verse 10 is that the Lord apparently wants them not to see, not to hear, and not to understand because then they would inevitably be converted and healed. God wants them rather to be forced into a situation where a radical decision must be made (similar to our discussion elsewhere): they are in a situation where they must return and be healed without seeing, hearing, or understanding. If they return under those conditions, the angels will rejoice. If they return because they saw, hear, and understood, then they will have had no faith. Something like that. But I think you understood that. What am I missing in what you are missing? --Joe Spencer 18:31, 15 Aug 2006 (UTC)

This is the point I missed: If they return because they saw, hear, and understood, then they will have had no faith. This makes sense for the "return" part, but what about the "be healed" part? How can they be healed without having faith? --RobertC 18:48, 15 Aug 2006 (UTC)

That's why the Day of Atonement setting is so important, I imagine. Whether or not the people had faith under the Law, they were healed in the atonement rites. Faith was not really the question. Might this chapter be read as a presentiment of the Christian era that ultimately dawns in Isaiah anyway? The word of the prophet that forces the either/or might be read as a premonition of the Word that was the Prophet who eventually forced the Either/Or. In other words, by making things a question of faith (Atonement) instead of the Law (atonement), Isaiah is opening onto the Christian (or Melchizedek, if you will) era. --Joe Spencer 15:03, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I'm starting to see better what you're getting at. The commentary on vv. 11-13 also helps me see this and I think opens up exciting possibilities I hadn't really considered. I'll probably ask more about this there. --RobertC 18:38, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)

What does lw mean (v. 10)?

Hmm, I wrote quite a bit about this but it looks like it didn't show up. Ugh. Basically the question is whether the lw is referring to the Lord as the agent of the healing or wether the people heal themselves. The NJV (a.k.a. NJPS) takes the latter view (I'm quoting this from Ludlow, 1981, who discusses this and gives several LDS and Bible cross-references about how we cannot save ourselves):

 Dull that people's mind,
 Stop its ears,
 And seal its eyes—
 Lest, seeing with its eyes
 And hearing with its ears,
 It also grasp with its mind,
 And repent and save [heal] itself.

Evans (To See and Not Perceive p. 19) also takes the people as the subject of the verb "heal" as oppposed to God being the subject and the people being the object, but takes this only as a passive construction (the people will "be healed"), without emphasizing the reflexivity ("heal themselves"). Evans cites a source in a language I don't know (German I think it is), and the 1910 Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (p. 381, section 19-s). Gesenius says that the 2nd person imperative is most often used with lamedh in the dativus ethicus sense (like in Gen 12:1, "go, get thee away"; Josh 22:4, "turn and go [yourselves] to your tents"). Another way it seems the lamedh could be used would be to indicate a passive form of "be healed" but to signify "by him [the Lord]" (van der Merwe et al, p. 286; cf. Gen 31:15).

Thoughts? (Note: for more on the dativus ethicus I would like to check out "ON THE SO-CALLED DATIVUS ETHICUS IN HEBREW MURAOKA" J Theol Studies 1978; XXIX: 495-498; or the Grammars listed here.) --RobertC 18:38, 6 Aug 2006 (UTC)

All pointing toward one meaning (vv. 9-10)?

I think I'm getting close to an attempt to rewrite the exegesis on vv. 9-10. What I think is interesting, is that regardless of which word is emphasized in the "lest they see with their eyes" phrase, the meaning seems point toward the same thing—the differences I think are interesting and insightful, but not incompatible: If they is emphasized, then this points toward the uncleanness of the lips of Israel (described in chapters 1-5)—Israel is bearing bitter fruit and unless the tree is hewn down, the bitter fruit will continue (cf. the olive tree allegories in Jacob and Romans). If see is emphasized, the problem may be something like Christ is saying to the Pharisees in John 9:40. If their is emphasized, Israel's insincere approach toward God is being emphasized (Israel's insincere worhship is a theme throughout Isaiah). If eyes is emphasized, the point again is that Israel is not fully trusting God (but trusting themselves). So regardless of how one reads this phrase, the point is that God wants Israel to start bringing forth tame fruit (as opposed to wild fruit a la Jacob 5:25).

I also think Joe makes a good point about the first part of the verse (making the heart fat, ears heavy and shutting their eyes) being more about forcing an either/or decision rather than actually forcing the people into one path. The problem is that, given Israel's apostacy, something needs to be done. If nothing is done and annual Day of Atonement healing ritual is simply continued, there is no hope for Israel to bring forth tame fruit. So pruning must be done and, in accordance with prophecy of previous prophets (incl. Zenos's olive tree allegory), this will entail the destruction of all but a remnant of Israel. --RobertC 14:50, 17 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I think this is right Robert, and I think it is the point of much of what I am saying. God wants something more out of Israel, even if it means that goats and sheep must be separated. Finally, though, there will be sheep! --Joe Spencer 15:45, 17 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Further Commentary

Just a quick apology. My comments may have sounded like I was done with Isaiah 6. Not so. I think I'm done with the first ten verses. I plan to finish up the chapter, but I have had little time to post these past few days (in-laws in-town). Tomorrow I should be able to resume my commentary and begin work on these last three verses, as well as return to my work on the facsimiles.

P.S. Thanks for the rewriting efforts. I'm very impressed with them. --Joe Spencer 15:42, 9 Aug 2006 (UTC)

The remnant

Brainstorm of thoughts and questions here:

1. Isaiah purposely hard. One idea I like about the approach Joe is suggesting is that it really gets at the reason why Isaiah is so hard. He is supposed to be hard so that we will struggle in our own understanding. His writing is supposed to make us undone (v. 5). If we are not undone, we will not be fully converted.
2. Hebrews connection? The recurrent nature of the Day of Atonement rite is contrasted in Hebrews with the eternal sacrifice of Christ. Thus Christ (who incidentally is fully "cut down" in his sufferings) fulfils the law and thereby shows the inadequacy of the law. We must realize this: if we are not undone, if we are not overcome, if we do not reconcile ourselves to God (again, in a relation as opposed to a conception of God), then we will continually have the need to be healed—the Day of Atonement will symbolically have to be performed for us each year until we become fully undone and penitent before God.
3. Brought low theme. I think the "made low" theme is very important thorughout Isaiah and this idea seems to enrich those other passages. Even the "out of the dust" phrase in Isa 29:4 seems to tie in better with this view: the land becomes symbolic of a baptismal-like death and rebirth that the people and the land go through pointing toward what we need to go through ourselves. Even D&C 19:17ff comes to mind: If we don't repent, we will pay for our own sins—we will become the scapegoat that is sent away bearing the sins rather than the other scapegoat that is sacrificed? (or maybe I have this backwards?). That is, we will become undone sooner or later, and better sooner....
4. Other allegories of olive tree. I think the remnant motif and being brought low is consistent with the allegories in Jacob and Romans, but I can't say very confidently without looking closer.
5. Still skeptical.... Despite all these thoughts, it's still hard for me to read verse 10 this way, that God does not want us to be converted and be healed. Perhaps its the KJV that I keep looking at. I think I'm more comfortable reading this as having poetic potentiality for both readings, a conventional one in addition to this reading Joe is pushing for (can I call this a "hidden meaning"?). I want to think more about Mark 4:12 and the obdurating theme in this light. I think it actually opens up a very interesting possibility for reading Mark that doesn't have the problems all the other readings I've looked at do. That is, Isaiah is hard just as the parables are hard for them that (think) they have ears to hear: if we try to understand these things on our own, we will most likely fail. The hiddenness or complexity (or un-plainness to put this in a Nephi context) of these teachings is something that is meant to undoe us so we will truly turn to God for understanding.

Hmmm, a lot to think about here. Joe please let me know where I may be veering from the direction you've been going.... --RobertC 19:10, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Points 1-3. I think these are ultimatley the same thing, but I love it. This is precisely what I'm trying to read into Isaiah. I think it would be fascinating now to dedicate some time to the project (as I'm doing in my book I'm working on) of thinking the textual role of Isa 6 in 2 Nephi (as the chiastic center of the "Isaiah chapters"). In other words, we might return to Robert's posted point of the location of this chapter in Isaiah's corpus. There is some amazing fruit to be plucked (and perhaps reason to see this chapter as set specifically parallel to chapter 28?).

Point 4. Robert, I'm beginning (through your other references to this question) to see where you are headed with the other allegories of the olive tree. I'm not sure exactly how to take up that task. I have been tempted for some time to take a closer look at Ezek 37:1ff in terms of those allegories (and Nephi's vision in 1 Nephi 11-14). The two "sticks" are literally two "trees" and there may be reason to see some connection between all of these things (both Lehi in 1 Nephi 8, 10 and Nephi in 1 Nephi 11-14 have two trees in their visions). But I don't know how that would come up agains the theme of the felling of the tree you are drawing from this last verse here.

Point 5. To be honest, I'm not sure I followed you here. I think you are following me--if I can follow you--, but I am not entirely sure. I think the best two routes here lead into 2 Nephi and Isaiah 28. Any picks or other suggestions? --Joe Spencer 16:01, 17 Aug 2006 (UTC)