Intertextuality is a technical term that simply means one book referring to another one. As might be expected, the Bible has a great deal of intertextuality in it since, although it was composed by many different human authors, it was all inspired by the same Holy Spirit. Two books have been published in the last few years that are of immense help to anyone who wants to study how different books of the Bible interact with one another: Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament edited by Beale & Carson and Old Testament Use of Old Testament by Gary Edward Schnittjer.
On this blog, I have written a number of posts entitled “The Old Testament in – Mark's Gospel, Acts, Revelation, etc. etc.” but none concerning the situation when two OT passages in different books, A and B, use the same or similar language. In that particular case, as Schnittjer says, “Nearly every aspect of the scriptural use of Scripture remains contested.” The reason is that there are at least four possible reasons for such similarities:
1. Both A and B may simply be using stock phrases and idioms common to the time and culture.
2. Both A and B may be dependent on a third source C.
3. A may be dependent on B.
4. B may be dependent on A.
As a random example, I would like to look at the Book of Micah to discuss some examples of potential borrowing. Micah was one of the earliest Minor Prophets, a younger contemporary of Isaiah, and was active in the second half of the 8th century BC during the neo-Assyrian period. First consider the cases where the later prophet Jeremiah appears to echo Micah's words. One would think that there would be no doubt as to the direction of borrowing here, but Andersen and Freedman propose that Micah 4-5 may be a later addition to the book, and thus these chapters may actually have been taken from Jeremiah instead of the reverse. Cha has identified four major themes and 23 specific examples of common vocabulary between these two prophets. Without attempting to be exhaustive, here are some of those parallels abstracted from writings by Keil, Schnittjer, Mobley and others:
Micah 1:8 // Jer. 50:39 The stock phrase “howl of the jackal and ostrich,” which is also used three times by Isaiah, indicates the desolation of the cities.
Micah 1:16 // Jer. 7:29; 16:6 The concept of shaving one's head during mourning and lamentation also appears in Isaiah 15:2 and 22:12. The practice was usually accompanied by wearing sackcloth and ashes and wailing out loud.
Micah 2:1 // Jer. 18:11 Andersen and Freedman note that the order “plan (evil)” and “do (it)” in Micah is reversed in Jeremiah.
Micah 2:4 // Jer. 31:22; 49:4 The key noun translated as captors, plunderer, apostate, etc. only appears in these three biblical passages. It appears in the masculine form in Micah and the feminine in Jeremiah.
Micah 3:5 // Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 23:17 Three times Jeremiah repeats Micah's denunciation of those prophets who falsely promise peace to the people when there is no peace.
Micah 3:5,11 // Jer. 6:13; 8:10 Abuse of the custom of giving a gift to a prophet for a consultation is mentioned in these passages. (Grisanti)
Micah 3:9,12 // Jer. 26:18 This is perhaps the most interesting use of Micah in the OT in that he was quoted at Jeremiah's trial. “A century after his death, the words of Micah concerning the downfall of Zion were still remembered. On that occasion the prophet Jeremiah might well have been put to death for prophesying destruction for the Temple and the Holy City had not certain elders of the land recalled that Micah of Moresheth had said precisely the same thing a hundred years earlier.” (Harrison) So we have a unique case of one OT prophet being saved by another one.
And D.J. Clark adds, “On the testimony of Jer. 26:17-19, this passage (Mic. 3:1-12) or at least the last part of it...was influential in stimulating reform.”
Micah 4:9-10 // Jer. 4:31; 48:41; 49:22 The simile comparing Jerusalem in her distress with the travails of a pregnant woman undergoing birth pains is found in Micah and Jeremiah 4:31. The other two Jeremiah passages apply it to surrounding nations as God visits them in judgment. This picture also appears in Isaiah 13:8 and 26:17.
Micah 5:11 // Jer. 5:17 The only similarity between these two passages is that they both contain prophecies that the fortified cities of the land will be overthrown.
Micah 6:16 // Jer. 19:8; 25:9,18; 51:37 These passages use the stock prophetic phrase of judgment on a nation which will become “an object of hissing” (and desolation, object of horror, etc.).
Micah 7:5 // Jer. 9:4 Society has degenerated to the point that Micah warned his audience to even beware of their friends and relatives. Similarly, Jeremiah warns the people to beware of their neighbors and own kin.
Note that Jeremiah may well be borrowing from Isaiah rather than from Micah in three instances noted above. And since Micah and Isaiah were writing during the same time period, that brings up the additional possibility that either of those two prophets may have borrowed from the other one in the parallel passages listed below (also derived from lists in Keil, Schnittjer, and Mobley):
Micah 1:2 // Is. 1:2 Both prophets begin by giving their name and then stating that what follows is “a vision” (or something the prophet “saw”) “concerning Samaria (Judah) and Jerusalem.”
Micah 1:3-4 // Is. 26:21 A coming time of judgment is described as when “Yahweh will come out of his place.”
Micah 2:1-5 // Is. 5:8-12; 32:7 L.C. Allen says that Isaiah wrote “in the same rhetorical vein” in Is. 5:8 regarding the greedy land barons, but makes no suggestions regarding any direct borrowing between the two prophets here. Both Micah 2:1 and Isaiah 32:7 talk about those who “devise wickedness.”
Micah 2:11 // Is. 28:7 The common phrase “teachers of wine and drunkenness” appears in both passages.
Micah 3:2 // Is. 5:20 There are roughly parallel statements in these two passages describing how the people have perverted truth and values completely. Micah denounces those who hate the good and love the evil. Isaiah similarly exposes those who call evil good and call good evil.
Micah 3:5-7 // Is. 29:9-12 Both passages denounce false prophets who will be blinded from receiving any messages from God, as seen by the excerpts below:
“Therefore it shall be night for you without vision and darkness to you without revelation. The sun shall go down upon the prophets and the day shall be black over them” (Micah 3:6 NRSV)
“...blind yourselves and be blind...For the LORD...has closed your eyes, you prophets, and covered your heads, you seers.” (Isaiah 29:9-10 NRSV)
Micah 3:8 // Is. 11:2; 58:1; 61:1-3 There are several echos between Isaiah and Micah 3:8. Both prophets declare the spirit of God is upon them. However, in Isaiah 61:1-3 it is in order to declare good news to the oppressed while in Micah's case it is in order to denounce the nation for its sins. In Isaiah 58:1, he declares “to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sin.” In a similar manner, Micah declares “to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.” As a final similarity between the two prophets, Micah declares in 3:8 that he is “filled with power, with the spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might.” Compare this declaration with the well-known messianic passage Isaiah 11:2 where the prophet foretells that the “spirit of the LORD shall be upon him, the spirit of...counsel and might.”
Micah 3:11 // Is. 1:23 Similar denunciations of the people of Israel are given in these passages including the fact that bribe-taking by those in charge has become a common practice.
Micah 3:12 // Is. 32:13-14 Both prophets tell of a time when Jerusalem will be utterly deserted.
Micah 4:1-5 // Is. 2:1-5 Shared language includes “mountain of Yahweh” and “walk before Yahweh.” Schnittjer extensively discusses the relationship between these two passages before saying: “In sum, the evidence tentatively suggests Mic 4:1-5 as an exegetical allusion to Isaiah's vision of the mountain of Yahweh. Micah elaborates on personal benefits but also sharply distinguishes between Jacob and 'them' in last days.”
Just to show that even careful and knowledgeable Bible scholars do not always agree, Andersen and Freedman devote ten pages to considering the same issue, but using slightly different criteria. They conclude that the direction of borrowing was by Isaiah from Micah.
To confuse the matter even more, Archer proposes that perhaps “the same revelation was granted to both prophets at about the same time; it is hardly likely that one would have copied from the other.”
Oswalt labels Archer's suggestion as “strained.” His own explanation is: “It is more likely that the saying...had become a common possession of the several priestly and prophetic communities within the nation and that one or both of these prophets drew from that common heritage.”
Finally, Blenkinsopp states, “Every possible explanation for this duplication has been given at one time or another...In this instance certainty is unattainable.” But he personally leans toward the explanation that Isaiah was the original.
Micah 4:10 // Is. 39:6-7 Both of these passage clearly predict the Babylonian captivity, although Micah also offers a vision of hope for the people eventually.
Micah 5:2 // Is. 63:9 Allen notes that the phrase “days of yore” which occurs in these two verses is “always set within a historical framework.”
Micah 5:2-4 // Is. 7:14; 9:6-7 The same verb “has brought forth (a child)” is present in both passages. The verb form indicates that the event is imminent, according to Smith. In this messianic prophecy, “Micah is echoing and endorsing popular expectation...rather than directly citing Isa. 7.” (L.C. Allen) Isaiah 9 is similar to Micah 5 in that both describe the birth of a child who will act as savior.
Smith cites several scholars who feel that a common source was used by both prophets as well as others who feel that Isaiah's prophecy came first and Micah added to it.
Micah 5:10-15 // Is. 2:6-22 Blenkinsopp says, “It appears, moreover, that Mic 5:10-15 has borrowed motifs and turns of phrase from the poem about judgment on faithless Israel in Isa. 2:6-22.” One such phrase is when the people “bow down to the work of their hands.”
Micah 7:10 // Is. 10:6 Enemies will be trodden down like the “mire of the streets.”
Micah 7:12 // Is. 11:11 God will return a remnant of his people from exile from many countries including Egypt and Assyria.
Micah 7:17 // Is. 49:23 Defeated enemies will “will lick the dust” of your feet (Isaiah) or like a snake (Micah).
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