SHUFFLING ISAIAH

In previous posts, I have pointed out those places where modern critics and translators have rearranged the Hebrew text of various books of the Bible in order to “make better sense.” When these changes are made in the total lack of any hard manuscript evidence, it is probably best to ignore them as sheer speculation. As another example, in the case of Isaiah we are fortunate to be able to compare the proposals of four different renderings of and commentaries on the book carried out by more liberal scholars.

I should mention up front that I have no real problem in carefully considering such proposals and do not simply ignore them out of hand. However, I will admit that two barriers standing in my way are (1) the fact that many evangelical scholars fail to see any problem whatsoever with the order of the text as reflected in the Hebrew text, and (2) the observed lack of agreement between different liberal scholars concerning any of these proposals. The case of Isaiah is a prime example of this second factor especially.

John McKenzie's Anchor Bible Commentary on the second half of Isaiah makes only one rearrangement in the text, but it is a major one. He places chapters 34-35 directly before chapters 40-66 and labels it “Scattered Poems.”

But going to Blenkinsopp's companion volume covering the first half of the book, one can see that he has no problem with chs. 34-35 being placed where the Hebrew text locates it. However, he proposes a whole series of rearrangements for chaps. 5-25 so that the new order of verses becomes:

5:1-7; 10:1-4; 5:8-24; 9:7-20; 5:25-9:6; 10:5-24:23; 25:6-8, 1-5, 9-12; 26:1

Next to consider side-by-side are two translations: The Jerusalem Bible and New English Bible:

Rearranged Verses                     (JB)                                              (NEB)

                                                                                                5:23, 26, 27, 24

                                7:1-7, 8a, 9a, 8b, 9b, 10-15

                                                                                                8:14, (15 omitted), 16

                                                                                                10:1-4; 5:24-25; 10:5

                                                                                                27:7, 9, 10a, 8, 10b, 11

                                29:4, 5c, 6, 5ab, 7

                                30:28, 30-32a, 29, 32b, 33

                                33:21, 23a, 22, 23b, 24

                                34:15, 16c, 16ab, 17

                                38:1-6, 21-22, 7-20                                 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-20

                                40:19, 20c, 20ab, 20d, 21                       40:20; 41:6-7; 40:21-31

                                                                                                41:1-5, 8-29

                                49:4, 5b, 5a, 6

Note that according to both Blenkinsopp and NEB, some verses in Isaiah 5 and 10 ought to be combined together. However, they can't seem to agree on how that should be done.

Secondly, JB and NEB feel they must rearrange Isaiah 40, but they disagree totally on which are the “problem verses” in that chapter.

But there is one area in which both JB and NEB concur perfectly – how the verses in chapter 38 need to be reordered.

The above are the only points of agreement between these four sources. Other than those, there is no overlap in these various opinions. It makes one suspect that the proposed changes are made for more subjective than objective reasons, especially since virtually no comments or pieces of evidence are offered to justify these rather arbitrary changes. But let us look a little more closely into chapter 38, since at least two diverse sources, as well as others, make the same proposal for rearrangement.

The rather obvious reason for seeking to reorder the text here is that the chapter starts out with a prose description of Hezekiah's illness and recovery, followed by his poetic witness, and closing with two miscellaneous comments in prose regarding his progress that appear to have been left out of the earlier prose section.

Thus, the chapter certainly does not follow any sort of chronological order and appears to cry out for rearrangement. But before making my own comment on this situation, I would like to present three different views from commentators on the chapter just to show that scholars cannot seem to agree on some issues regarding its origin.

Isaiah 38 presents us with an unusual situation in that it reads virtually the same as II Kings 20:1-11 except for splitting the material into two blocks. Walton simply states that Kings took its material from Isaiah.

By contrast, Cogan and Tadmor begin by noting an apparent lack of consistency in the II Kings account: “The inner logic of the story is disturbed by v. 8, for if the king had indeed recovered, there is little warrant to ask for a sign of future healing.” Therefore, they conclude that “Isa 38:2 proves that the Vorlage [prior version or manifestation of a text under consideration] with which the Isaiah editor worked must have been similar to the text of Kings. The rearrangement in Isaiah sought to smooth out the difficulty of 2 Kg 20:7...by removing it to the end of the chapter; therefore the text of kings is earlier.”

Paradoxically, Oswalt starts out with the opposite view that it is II Kings 20:1-11 which preserves a better account of the story “in that it is fuller and has a more logical sequence of events.” But he reaches the same conclusion of Cogan and Tadmor that the II Kings account is the earliest. Below are his theories regarding the composition of the Isaiah 38 version:

    1. “It appears that the writer of the Isaiah account, abridging the original..., inadvertently left out the references to Isaiah's poultice. He then added this on at the end of the account.”

    2. “It is also possible that a later editor, knowing of the Kings account, felt that these details were important and added them at the end. If so, this was done very early, since both LXX [Septuagint] and Targ. [i.e. targum(im) = Jewish commentaries] preserve the same form.”

Neither of these explanations appears to be likely since it would have been just as easy to add these two prose details to the start of Isaiah 38 as the conclusion.

I believe there is a much easier explanation to the arrangement of Isaiah 38 than anything suggested above, namely the literary one shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Structure of Isaiah 38

    A. Hezekiah's illness (PROSE) (vv. 1-8)

        B. Hezekiah will recover (PROSE) (v. 9)

            C. Hezekiah's writing (POETRY)

                1. I am consigned to death away from the LORD (vv. 10-12)

                    2. plea to God (v. 13)

                        3. lament (vv. 14-15)

                   2'. plea to God (v. 16)

            1'. You have saved me from death (v. 17-20)

        B'. Hezekiah will recover (PROSE) (v. 21)

    A'. Hezekiah's recovery (PROSE) (v. 22)

Verbal parallels confirming this chiastic organization include the following:

    A // A': “sign”

    B // B': “recover”

    C1 // C1': “my life,” “Sheol,” “days-day – day-days”

The liberal scholars have started with a faulty thesis – the text must follow a strictly chronological order – and thus missed out entirely on the purpose of the present organization of the text.