The Gospel of Isaiah: Highlights of Chapter Eight

The Gospel of Isaiah: Highlights of Chapter Eight.

WANTED: An imaginative scribe who can write exquisite poetry. A faithful, articulate believer in Yahweh who can switch from one extreme to another at the Lord’s command… from a sublime vision of God’s glory, to a ridiculous demonstration of shameful nakedness; from confronting the people over their sinfulness, to comforting people with hopefulness; from being an outspoken messenger one minute, to a living object lesson the next; from having one foot in the immediate surroundings one minute, to one foot in the future messianic realm the next. Must be adaptable, thick-skinned, and extraordinarily brave. Person who answers, “Here I am. Send me!” will be especially considered. (from The Jerusalem Post, 740 BC).

• “It is Yahweh, the Lord of Hosts, whom you should sanctify and set apart as holy. Let Him be your only fear, only He should be held in reverent ase.” (8:13).

Yahweh: The Personal Name of God. When God created that sacred space on Mt. Horeb and presented Himself to Moses at the burning bush, Moses didn’t exactly know how to respond. Moses wanted to know God’s name for one thing, so that he would know how to properly address Him, and call out to Him, and refer to Him. God seemed reluctant to share His most personal eternal Name, so He gave Moses a name that wasn’t even a word. Was this purposely mysterious, or even evasive? Perhaps God’s Name was too “wonderful” to even understand or take in at the human level (Judges 13:18). Or, maybe God’s name here was deliberately unclear because, similar to God’s face that couldn’t be seen, His Name could not be heard by mere mortals? Who’s to say? It’s clear that the precise pronunciation and spelling have been lost through time.

Yahweh is the Truth. God gave to Moses His name of Yahweh, which is about as close to a personal name of God as we’re going to get. Scholars have been lining up to solve this puzzle of a name for centuries, and have been unsuccessful. It is obviously an archaic use of letters, because Yahweh is the “to be” verb in the future tense. There is no “am” in the Hebrew language, which leads many to claim that Yahweh means, “I will be what I will be.” But many others say that God was using that non-word in the poetic sense with “I AM,” because He is trying to communicate that He is outside of time, so must always speak int the present tense. So now we can try to read Yahweh as, “I AM He who is,” “I AM the One who exists,” or “I AM the Existing One.” In other words, God declares the bedrock truth that upholds the universe… He exists! And this is the truth that Jesus bore witness to in his incarnation. Jesus basically said to the world, I am here to tell the one indisputable fact of the universe… that God exists in the world!

LORD. In Scripture, every time the reader sees LORD in all caps, that signifies Yahweh. This Name is used about 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible, and 700 times in Psalms alone. The first time we seen Yahweh in the Bible is in Genesis 2:4 = “In the day that Yahweh-Elohim made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for Yahweh-Elohim had not caused it to rain upon the earth…”  The shortened form of Yahweh is Yah, or Jah, which is found over 40 times in the Psalms, including “Hallelujah,” which literally means “Praise Yah.”

I AM Present. The non-word Yahweh is connected with the Hebrew verb “hayah,” to be, to become, to happen. Martin Buber thinks the verb could also partly mean “to be actively present.” So Buber, and many other Jewish scholars, think the Name could mean something like, “I will be there as I will be there,” or “I will be what I will be.” In other words, “I live an uncreated existence, and yet I will be ready, willing, able to be present in whatever situation you are in.” Rabbi Jonathon Sacks believes that early Christian translations omitted that future tense altogether. He says that in this Name, the LORD claims to be “the God of the future tense.” In this important future tense, Sacks believes that He is a God of surprises, that we will have to learn to trust Him, and that we will only know Him through His moral commitments and His acts, not just His abstract essence. Dr. David Stern states his view that the root idea of Yahweh is “to breathe,” in other words, “I live!”

“What is the Name’s mystery? First, it has no vowels. Without vowels it is impossible to pronounce a word. But YHWH also has no real consonants! Y, H and W really are blowing sounds, rushings of air through the mouth. The point is one of elusiveness or abstraction. The Name of God is so subtle it could slip away from you. YHWH is not a God you can grab hold of and be sure you’ve got it in your mental grasp.” (Rabbi Arthur Green, These Are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life).

I Exist! The seventy Greek-speaking Jewish scholars who translated the original Hebrew into Greek around 150 BC, produced an authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint. This Greek version of Scripture was determined to be divinely inspired long before Jesus, and copies were spread around the Greek-speaking world. This version of the Scripture then, was the Bible that was used during the 1st Century, and thus by Jesus and His early followers. Whenever Jesus quoted His Jewish Bible (the Old Testament) in the Gospels, He is quoting directly from the Septuagint. That was the commonly used Bible during Christ’s time, in Jewish life and worship and study. The Septuagint translated Yahweh as “I AM the Existing One,” so that would be the most familiar way of referring to Yahweh. All Bible-reading Jews would have thought of Yahweh when hearing the phrase “I AM.” In the minds of the Jews, I AM would have been completed with “the Existing One” since that was what they were most familiar with. So Jews would have been thinking of their God as the Existent One, the only Being who is self-existent and truly independent. Only Yahweh God is the Essence of Being, the Ground of Being. Put another way, they would have thought of Yahweh as, “I AM Being.” One of God’s titles that has lasted through the centuries, “the Existing One,” is drawn directly from the Greek Bible’s version of Yahweh, the sacred Name that cannot be uttered. In the Orthodox Church, “the Existing One” is addressed every day in prayers and worship.

YHWH, or Yahweh, so basic, so mysterious, so elusive. A personal Name, yet somehow impersonal. It is God’s self-revealed Name, alluding to His uncreated existence, His eternal Personhood, His quality of Being, His basic self-sufficiency and self-existence. It is perhaps somehow a spiritual version of an “act of being” verb. Yahweh, intimately relational, a keeper of covenants, unchangeably complete, infinite and everlasting. God is the LORD, He will not give His glory to another. Yahweh, set apart from everything else in His holiness. As one scholar put it, “The whole content of biblical history is a commentary on the meaning of this Name.” 

“Yahweh-sabaoth” = LORD of Hosts; LORD of the Angel Armies; Commander of Heaven’s Armies; Leader of Angelic Warriors; a host of angelic forces massing together for battle at the command of the LORD. This biblical name of God is the most frequently used compound name for God in the Hebrew Bible. It is used over 280 times, in the Torah, the historical books, the Psalms, and in all the major and minor Prophets, especially in Isaiah and Jeremiah.

HOLY: (Hebrew, “Kadosh”); to be set apart from the common or ordinary; to be separate from the profane or impure; to be completely distinctive in character and role; to have attributes and qualities that are uniquely sacred; to possess utterly blameless integrity; to live in complete innocence and purity.

The Holy. Holiness is one of the chief attributes of Yahweh, and marks Him as supremely transcendent. There is God, and there is everything else. What sets God apart in His holiness? What makes God so profoundly distinctive in the universe? In what ways is God uniquely separate from everything else in the world? Why do so many in the Hebrew Bible call God “The Holy”?

1. God is The Holy One because of His greatness. God is utterly complete and doesn’t need anything for any reason. He is better than perfect. He is bigger than the universe. He is older than time. He outweighs the world. His fiery presence burns hotter and brighter than a million suns. No space can contain Him, not even the vast expanse of outer space. “His center is everywhere and His circumference is nowhere.” (Lockyer). We cannot discern Him unless He chooses to reveal Himself. We can only understand Him on His terms. Even with our extended knowledge of God in human terms, we are merely on the outer fringes of His ways. Even considering all we have heard about God, we have only heard the faintest of whispers about Him (Job 26). God’s greatness sets Him apart.
2. God is The Holy One because of His power. Can there be any doubt as to God’s unthinkable power? He is the Maker, He created everything in the universe out of nothing. He took nothingness, and He proceeded to make everything… the astounding vast skyscape of planets and stars, the beautiful earth, humankind. He blew His breath into a lump of dirt and created human life where there was no life. Because we are the product of His power, we can’t even begin to understand His matchless and unique ability to create and sustain the vast panorama of universal existence. He is majestic and mighty in His power. How awesome are His deeds. He rules forever by His power and strength. “No one is like you, O Lord; you are great, and your Name is mighty in power.” (Jer. 10:6). When Moses brought the people out of the wilderness camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain, the people witnessed sheer power… “Now Mt. Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke.” (Ex. 19:17-19). After witnessing the plagues of Egypt and the Red Sea and Mount Sinai, the power of God was beyond debate. God’s power sets Him apart.
3. God is The Holy One because of His glory.  “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!” (Isaiah 6:3).  God’s glory is so expansive that it fills the universe and then spills over. The whole world is too small to contain God’s glory. Glory has been defined as the weighty splendor of God’s personal presence. So to glorify God is to acknowledge and applaud the reality of God’s presence in the world; to make His presence heavier than it might appear, clearer and more obvious, more credible and less hidden; to live in a way that preserves and expands God’s good reputation and glorious Name. Because the weight of God’s presence outweighs the universe, His glory has more substance than anything and everything in the world. Our Christian response to God’s glory is to glorify Him in word and deed. God’s glory sets Him apart.
4. God is The Holy One because of His righteousness. God is 100% pure and untainted. He is utterly innocent of any wrongdoing, and is not even capable of doing wrong. “The holy God will show Himself holy by His righteousness.” (Is. 5:6). He is absolutely separate from sin and evil. God lives in the beauty of moral perfection. God is renowned for His righteousness, and was named as such in Jeremiah 23:5-6, “Yahweh-tsidkenu, Lord-our-righteousness.” It is interesting that the word for righteousness in Hebrew has its root in the word for holiness. In some versions, the breastplate of righteousness is translated as the breastplate of holiness (Eph. 6:14). And then Jesus enters the scene, the Messiah, fulfilling His role as the “the Righteous Branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.” (Jer. 23:5-6). Jesus Christ, the Righteous Branch, the Holy One of God. God’s righteousness sets Him apart.
5. God is The Holy One because of His mercy. Mercy can be described in many ways: Eager love-in-action; steadfast kindness; loyal compassion; faithful favor; the deep love reserved for someone in an intimate relationship, and if there is no prior relationship, the strong desire to treat someone as if that relationship existed. In Scripture, mercy is accepted as the chief attribute of God. There are three Hebrew words that combine to give a full picture of biblical mercy. First is “chanon,” which is mercy in the context of grace, forgiveness and pity. Second is the great word “hesed,” which is mercy as loving-kindness, loyalty, and covenantal love. Third is “rachen,” which is the most frequently used word for mercy in the Jewish Bible, our Old Testament. It is a word related to the Hebrew word for womb, a protected place where life is nurtured and springs forth in new life. To live in rachem is to live in the womb of God. Psalm 56:15 says it all, “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful (“rachem”) and gracious (“chanon”), slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness (“hesed”) and truth.” God’s mercy sets Him apart.
6. God is The Holy One because His glory is His mercy. There is a deep mystery, something we’ll not get to the bottom of. His glory is brightest when His mercy is most evident. His glory is most real when His mercy is most clearly expressed. His glory IS His mercy. That truth is clearly expressed in that His Presence, His glory, is situated above the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies. “When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with Yahweh, he heard the Voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the Mercy Seat. And he spoke there with Yahweh.” (Nu. 7:89). And in one of the most dramatic and important portions in all of Scripture, Moses asked God if He could see His glory. (Ex. 33:18). God’s response was to reveal His full identity, His character, His essence: “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed His Name, Yahweh. And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming ‘Yahweh, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and faithfulness, maintaining loving-kindness to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Ex. 34:5-7). Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God reveals His mercy. Somehow they are one and the same. God’s glory-mercy sets Him apart.
7. God is The Holy One because He is lowly. In His greatness and power, God chose to humble Himself, a willing volunteer of love. He chose to empty Himself and made Himself nothing in the eyes of the world (Phil. 2). He left eternal heaven-time and submitted to temporal earth-time. After lowering Himself to become a human fetus, baby, boy, man, He gave Himself up to weakness, torture and death. In all of this, it’s clear that His character embraces lowliness as He joins Himself with the humble. “Though the Lord is on high, He looks upon the lowly. Though the Lord is great, He cares for the humble.” (Ps. 138:6).”For this is what the high and lofty one says – He who lives forever, whose Name is Holy – ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit.” (Is. 57:15). The high and holy God reveals Himself and makes Himself available to mankind, since we cannot possibly reach His height on our own. Because of His humility and righteousness, we need not fear that God would abuse His unlimited power. God’s humility sets Him apart.

Our Best Fear. Imagine an old-fashioned scale with two sides hanging down, ready to weigh different objects and compare their relative weights. On the one side you place all these human fears, and you watch as the scale is overwhelmed, dramatically revealing the heaviness of these fears. But then on the other side you place the holy Fear-of-the-Lord. And you will clearly witness a miracle… the Holy Fear side significantly outweighs the Human Fear side. All the human fears we can come up with, our worst fears, are outweighed by our best fear, our holy fear. The Fear-of-the-Lord ends up having more weight, more substance, more density, more eternal meaning. Holy fear is heavier and more significant than human fear. In a broken world, we are prone to fearfulness. In our weak moments, we are vulnerable to fear.

Seminary professor Ellen Davis, in her book Getting Involved with God, points out that we need to have a “conversion of fears.” In other words, our human fears need to be converted to a holy fear. She then mentions a powerful example of that conversion in Scripture, at the crossing of the Red Sea. On the western shore, Israel looked up, and “here is Egypt coming after them, and they were really afraid.” (Ex. 14:10). And then, on the far shore, Israel looked again, and this time it saw “Egypt dead, on the edge of the Sea. And Israel saw what the great hand of the Lord had done against Egypt, and the people feared the Lord...” (Ex. 14:31). The Israelites’ very human fear was converted to a holy fear. As we face and experience our fears, ask God to convert them to the fear of the Lord. We may still experience various human fears, we’re only human, but living into a life-changing fear of the Lord will go far in deepening our conversion experience.

Various Thoughts on the Fear-of-the-Lord:

“I’ve heard all kinds of preachers… but the ones who have helped me most were the ones who were awestruck in the presence of the God about whom they spoke. I believe we ought to have again the old Biblical concept of God which makes God awful and makes men lie face down and cry, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.’ When the Holy Ghost shows us God as He is, we admire Him to the point of wonder and delight, struck with astonished wonder at the inconceivable elevation and magnitude and splendor of Almighty God. Adoration is to love God with all the power within us. To love God with fear and wonder and yearning and awe.” (A.W. Tozer).

“Fear is a healthy and necessary disposition toward God. In avoiding the word ‘fear’, translations are taking the edge off the point that the Biblical writers are making. The writers are speaking first of all of our proper gut response to God. Fear is an elemental response, the unmistakable feeling in our bodies, in our stomachs and our scalp, when we run up hard against the power of God. If we can experience that power close up and not be gripped in our guts by the disparity between God and ourselves, then we are in a profound state of spiritual slumber. Fear of the Lord is the deeply sane recognition that we are not God.” (Ellen Davis, Getting Involved With God).

“Holy fear involves the raised hands of adoration; the knocking knees of apprehension; the bare feet of awe; the dry mouth of uncertainty; the quickened heartbeat of anticipation; the bowed head of reverence; the humbled spirit of devotion; the straight posture of respect; the closed mouth of deference; the open mind of discovery; the tender heart of gratitude; the open ears of full attention.” (Steve Larson).