The Prophets

Abstract

The Prophets Fred W. Guyette, Christopher T. Begg, Richard A. Taylor, and Thomas Hieke 978. [The Suffering Servant in Isaiah 40–55] David Wyn Williams, Conversations with a Suffering Servant (London: T&T Clark, 2020). Pp. x + 219. $120. ISBN 978-0567676108. Who is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 40–55? A Jewish "corporate" reading takes Israel to be the Suffering Servant, or perhaps "the nobler part of Israel." Traditional Christian readings see Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant and promised Messiah. Franz Delitzsch proposed a "pyramid" model of the Suffering Servant in which Israel "after the flesh" forms the wide base, Israel "after the spirit" forms the middle part, and a single mediator of redemption stands at the pinnacle. Bernhard Duhm focused attention on a single figure, someone who was a "disciple of the prophets, a teacher of the Law, and a pastor of souls." Continuing this ongoing conversation, W.'s study seeks to understand the Suffering Servant with the help of Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogical model (see Bakhtin's "The Author and the Hero in Aesthetic Activity," in Art and Answerability [Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990]). W.'s chapters are titled respectively: What Scripture Says about the Suffering Servant; What Scholars Say about the Suffering Servant; The Servant as a Polyphonic Hero; What God Says to the Servant; What the Servant Says to God; What the Servant Says about Suffering; What the Nations Say about the Servant; and The Voice-Idea of the Suffering Servant. W.'s study raises important questions around our corporate and individual responses to suffering, offering insight into how the servant's prophetic characterization dismantled an exiled nation's ideologies of suffering and called the people to understand their plight as part of a redemptive story on behalf of the nations. The last seventy pages of the book consist of interviews and dialogues between W. and "Jared," a friend who was suffering from terminal cancer, in light of what Deutero-Isaiah says about suffering.—F.W.G. [End Page 352] 979. [Jeremiah] Walter Brueggemann, Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2022). Pp. xix + 167. $18. ISBN 9780664266868. For some 40 years, Jeremiah tried to tell the people of Judah about God's approaching judgment. Jerusalem's leaders had come to enjoy a high level of prosperity, but to gain these economic advantages they had violated their covenant with God. Injustice and idolatry permeated their way of life. Still, the Lord allowed them time to repent: "If you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, the widow, or shed innocent blood, I will dwell with you here" (Jeremiah 7). But they refused to listen. Then Jeremiah delivered a message of warning from Yhwh: Some of you are destined to perish from pestilence, some by the sword, others by famine, and still others will go into captivity (Jer 15:2). Hananiah contradicted him, saying, "No, God has promised to protect Jerusalem forever!" (Jeremiah 28). But Jeremiah knew that Hananiah was a false prophet. There were several waves of deportation to Babylon, beginning in 598 b.c.e. The worst came in 587 b.c.e., after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. This is the "abyss" referred to in B.'s title. While they were in exile, the children of Israel longed to return to the Promised Land. They even thought of fighting their way out so they could return to Jerusalem, but those dreams were unrealistic. Jeremiah wrote a letter to them: "Seek the peace of that city where you are now. The exile will be long" (Jeremiah 29). The New Covenant described in Jer 31:31-34 is a wonderful message of hope and call to trust in Yhwh's goodness. Yhwh would indeed bring his people out of the abyss of captivity, but only when the time was right. Babylon would fall eventually (Jer 51:64), though Jeremiah himself would not live to see it. Throughout this book, B. finds ways to apply the prophetic words of Jeremiah to America's public life in the twenty-first century. The book's chapters are designed for study and discussion...