Isaiah 32 as Literature and Political Meditation

Abstract

Isaiah 32 opens with a gorgeous paean to a future ideal ruler (w. 1-8), shifts to a lament for the despoiled nation (w. 9-14), and ends by anticipating national and royal restoration (w. 15-20). An analysis of the ways in which the constituent units individually and in combination use metaphor and argument to structure an audience's beliefs, emotions, and actions—in short, the text's rhetorical function ing—reveals a carefully wrought dialogue. This dialogue both sums up the rich reflection on kingship in the early Isaian tradition and sets the stage for the book's ultimate, though hard-won abandonment of human kingship in favor of Yhwh's. Far from being a heterogeneous assemblage of oracles, the three pieces fit together to posit a dialectical relationship between a view of monarchy that imagines it as the answer to all problems and one that envisages disaster for the nation. This disaster is brought on in part by royal malfeasance or neglect, allowing the reader or hearer to imagine the reinvigoration of the monarchy and thus the nation. Because an ideal cannot be realized in history, the focus on the ideal human ruler opens up the possibility of shifting kingly images primarily to Yhwh. Scholars at least since Bernhard Duhm ordinarily identify three units in Isaiah 32: w. 1-8, 9-14, and 15-20, with the first unit expressing hope for a revitalized monarchy and the rest of the chapter addressing concerns that such beatitude might not be realized.1 The relationship of the three units to one another and to their larger context is a subject of debate.