BIBLE STUDY: December 2nd

The meeting opened with prayer

In the Scriptures, by the Spirit,
   May we see the Saviour's face,
Hear His word and heed His calling -
   Know His will and grow in grace.
Amen
 

After briefly recalling what we had done last week, we proceeded to read and reflect on the next two chapters of Isaiah.
 

Isaiah 6: 1 to 8

1

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple.

2

Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.

3

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!" they cried one to the other. "All the earth is filled with his glory!"

4

At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

5

Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

7

He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."

8

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am," I said; "send me!"

King Uzziah died in 742 BC. Isaiah was called to be a prophet sometime during that year when, in the temple he had a vision of the LORD in glory with the seraphim around Him. The seraphim (singular: seraph) are, with the cherubim, heavenly beings standing nearest the throne of God and, in Christian theology, rank highest in the heavenly hierarchy. The name is popularly believed to be derived from Hebrew saraph (to burn, consume with fire) and the association with fire is apparent in this passage.

Traditionally the seraphim are said to burn with the fire of divine love. They veil their faces in the presence of God's holiness, and similarly cover their extremities. Recognizing God's perfect holiness they continually sing the tersanctus (thrice holy), from which the Sanctus of the Mass is derived:

Sanctus, sanctus, santus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth, Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

This reminds us that in the Mass we join with all the angels and saints in the one eternal Mass of heaven, our Saviour's eternal act of reconcilation. We join with the seraphim as we prepare for the Eucharistic Prayer during which, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine becomes the Holy One, Christ Himself, upon the altar and whose glory fills the place where we worship.

Before the divine prescence, Isaiah feels he is unclean and, because he has seen God, doomed to die. But a seraph touches his lips with an ember taken from the heavenly altar; Isaiah is purified by the fire of divine love. Then Isaiah heard the call "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" He now has perfect faith in God, and answers simply: "Here I am, send me!"

Do we have such faith in God? How do we answer His call to us?
 

Isaiah 6: 9 to 13

9

And he replied: Go and say to this people: Listen carefully, but you shall not understand! Look intently, but you shall know nothing!

10

You are to make the heart of this people sluggish, to dull their ears and close their eyes; Else their eyes will see, their ears hear, their heart understand, and they will turn and be healed.

11

"How long, O Lord?" I asked. And he replied: Until the cities are desolate, without inhabitants, Houses, without a man, and the earth is a desolate waste.

12

Until the LORD removes men far away, and the land is abandoned more and more.

13

If there be still a tenth part in it, then this in turn shall be laid waste; As with a terebinth or an oak whose trunk remains when its leaves have fallen. (Holy offspring is the trunk.)

Isaiah is warned that his peple will remain impenitent despite what he may say. Indeed, that they will remain impenitent is vividly foretold as if the prophet's warning would actually cause their obstinancy insteas of merely occasioning it. The synoptic evangelists (Matthew, Mark and Luke) all record Jesus using the same or similar words when he explained to the disciples why he spoke in parables: "This is why I speak to them in parables, because 'they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.' Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: 'You shall indeed hear but not understand you shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.' " (Matt. 13:13-15).

It is the people that refuse to see with their eyes and hear with their ears so that they prevent God from healing them. Jesus, indeed, adds: "But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear." The messengers of God, including Jesus himself, meet obstinancy and lack of repentance. But there are always some who will believe.

How long will this go on? asks Isaiah. He is told that it will continue until the cities of Judah are desolate and the land is without inhabitants. There were several limited invasions and deportations of people from Judah until the final capture of Jerusalem and exile of its peoples under the Babylonians.

But, we are told, just as when a terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus, also called ther 'turpentine tree') or an oak has lost all its leaves, a trunk remains and the leaves will grow again, so a 'trunk' , holy offspring, will remain. The line of Davidic kings will be preserved from which will sprout, so to speak, the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary of the House off David.
 

Isaiah 7: 1 to 9

1

In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, son of Remaliah, went up to attack Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it.

2

When word came to the house of David that Aram was encamped in Ephraim, the heart of the king and heart of the people trembled, as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.

3

Then the LORD said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field,

4

and say to him: Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear; let not your courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands (the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans, and of the son of Remaliah),

5

because of the mischief that Aram (Ephraim and the son of Remaliah) plots against you, saying,

6

"Let us go up and tear Judah asunder, make it our own by force, and appoint the son of Tabeel king there."

7

Thus says the LORD: This shall not stand, it shall not be!

8

Damascus is the capital of Aram, and Rezin the head of Damascus; Samaria is the capital of Ephraim, and Remaliah's son the head of Samaria.

9

But within sixty years and five, Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nation. Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm!

In this chapter we move forward to the reign of king Ahaz, grandson of Uzziah, who reigned from 735 to 715 BC. The kings of Aram (i.e. Syria) and of Israel (i.e. the northern kingdom, otherwise known as 'Ephraim' from the name of the dominant tribe among the ten northern tribes) were attacking Jerusalem because Ahaz had refused to enter into an alliance with them against the Assyrians. They are not able to capture Jerusalem, but its people are clearly troubled.

Isaiah is told to go with his son and meet Ahaz and reassure the king that he should not be afraid just because these two kings were plotting to take Jerusalem and install a puppet king, who is not even named but just called 'the son of Tabeel', and so depose Ahaz, descendant of David. God simply is not going to let it happen.

Razin, king of Syria (Aram) has his city, Damascus; that is where he belongs. Similarly the king of Ephraim (Israel) has his own capital city Samaria. Neither of them shall have Jerusalem. Indeed, we are told that Ephraim will be shattered and no longer a people (they were conquered by the Assyrians - though the reference to 65 years is puzzling; it has been suggested that the text has been corrupted and should read: "six or five years more"). It was also noticed that Pekah, the non-Davidic king of the northern kingdom, is not mentioned by name after the first verse, but is always referred to as 'the son of Ramaliah'. The message of the whole chapter is that the Davidic line will not be destroyed.

The passage ends with a warning: if Ahaz and the people of Jerusalem do not stand with God, they will suffer the same fate as the northern kingdom.
 

Isaiah 7: 10 to 16

10

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz:

11

Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!

12

But Ahaz answered, "I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!"

13

Then he said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God?

14

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

15

He shall be living on curds and honey by the time he learns to reject the bad and choose the good.

16

For before the child learns to reject the bad and choose the good, the land of those two kings whom you dread shall be deserted.

The sign which is to be given to Ahaz is to be as deep as Sh'ol, the 'nether world', and as high as the heavens; it is to be an extraordinary sign of cosmic importance that will prove God's intention to preserve the royal house of David.

Ahaz does not trust in God and hypocritically replies that he will not put God to the test (even though God had told him to ask for the sign). Verse 13 makes it clear that God knows Ahaz's answer is not genuine.

Some modern translations have 'maiden' or 'young woman' where the translation above has 'virgin' in verse 14. It is true that the Hebrew text has עלמה (῾almah) which does not necessarily mean 'virgin', but merely '(unmarried) girl'. It is also likely that the prophecy is partially fulfilled in the conception and birth of the future king, Hezekiah, whose mother was still a young, unmarried girl at the time of the prophecy. Hezekiah will carry on the Davidic line. The child will be fed on curds and honey because by that time the once fertile lands of Judah wll have been ravished and be only fit for grazing.

However it is clear that by the 3rd century BC when the Jews of Alexandria translated their scriptures into Greek, they understood the word to mean 'virgin'. The Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) unambiguously has ἡ παρθένος (hē parthénos), 'the virgin', here; literally, it reads: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel." *

Verse 14 is quoted by Mattehew (chapter 1, verse 23) who states quite clearly that Mary's conception of the Saviour was in fulfilment of this prophecy of Isaiah. The Church has always followed Matthew in seeing the complete fulfilment of this prophecy in Christ and his Virgin Mother. It has already been made clear in verse 5 that the sign will be of cosmic importance. Although the sign is clearly intended by Isaiah to assure Ahaz of the preservation of the Davidic line of kings (and was partially fulfilled in the birth of a son to Ahaz), it points most especially to the coming of the ideal king, the Messiah, born of the ever-virgin Mary, of the house of David. This gives the fullest meaning to 'Emmanuel, God with us', for in Christ was incarnate "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God" and, as St Paul wrote, it is through Christ that "God also reconciled all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven" (Colossians 1:20).

* The spelling of Hebrew עמנואל varies between 'Emmanuel' and 'Immanuel', depending upon whether one uses the vocalization given in the Septuagint or the later vocalization of the Masoeretes at Tiberias in Galilee, which is now used in the standard Hebrew version of Isaiah. The name is a compound of עמנו [῾emmanu/ ῾immanu] 'with us' and אל [᾽ēl] 'God', hence 'God with us'.
 

Isaiah 7: 17 to 25

17

The LORD shall bring upon you and your people and your father's house days worse than any since Ephraim seceded from Judah. (This means the king of Assyria.)

18

On that day The LORD shall whistle for the fly that is in the farthest streams of Egypt, and for the bee in the land of Assyria.

19

All of them shall come and settle in the steep ravines and in the rocky clefts, on all thornbushes and in all pastures.

20

On that day the LORD shall shave with the razor hired from across the River (with the king of Assyria) the head, and the hair between the legs. It shall also shave off the beard.

21

On that day a man shall keep a heifer or a couple of sheep,

22

and from their abundant yield of milk he shall live on curds; curds and honey shall be the food of all who remain in the land.

23

On that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand pieces of silver, shall be turned to briers and thorns.

24

Men shall go there with bow and arrows; for all the country shall be briers and thorns.

25

For fear of briers and thorns you shall not go upon any mountainside which used to be hoed with the mattock; they shall be grazing land for cattle and shall be trampled upon by sheep.

We are told that things will be worse than when the ten northern tribes rebelled under their leader, Jeroboam, and formed the northern kingdom with its capital of Samaria, leaving only Judah and Benjamin with Jerusalem as its capital under king Rehoboam, son of Solomon and grandson of David. The remaining verses go on to describe the desolation that will afflict the kingdom of Juda at the hands of the Assyrians from across the River Euphrates. The people of Judah will be humiliated just as a captor humiliates a captive by shaving off all his bodily hair. The land will be despoiled so that thorns and briars grow where vineyards once stood, and there will be no more cultivation of the land. People will live by grazing just a few animals, and their food will be curds and wild honey.
 

The meeting closed with prayer.

---

Most of the scripture texts on this page are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C.