Notes from Isaiah: A Christmas Reading (Part 1)
Hello! I recently decided to read through the book of Isaiah as a devotional practice for the Christmas season this year. This will not be a comprehensive or formal study, and I am not a theologian or Biblical scholar. I intend it to be a loose collection of impressions and devotional thoughts, posted once or twice a week on average. If anyone wants to read along with me, I’ll include a schedule at the end of this post. I would also be thrilled to hear your own impressions and thoughts in the comments!
Why Isaiah for the Christmas season? As many of you reading this are surely aware, Isaiah was a prophet who wrote many centuries before the time of Christ, and yet wrote many predictions about a servant of God who would bear great suffering. Many of Isaiah’s predictions are marvelously resonant with things that happened in the life of Christ. Not only that, but Isaiah wrote in a social and political context that was similar to the one Christ was born into. And so even aside from the specific writings about a suffering messiah, Isaiah’s words are aimed at the very same underlying problems of humanity that Christ was born to confront (and did indeed address in word and action).
One more note before I begin: quotes will be from the translation I am reading, which is Robert Altar’s: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN5HWWX/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
So far, I have read chapters 1 through 5, and the thought that keeps dominating my reading thus far is, just like Joseph, Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth, the Magi, Simeon, Anna, and others who encountered Christ at his birth, I must approach God’s works with openness, wonder, and corrigibility. From the opening lines, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, / for the Lord has spoken,” and repeatedly throughout, we are enjoined to pay attention to what God is saying and doing. He goes on to pronounce chastisements against God’s people, and in the very first one, his complaint is that:
The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s stall.
Israel did not know,
my people did not pay heed. (1:3)
These chapters are full of statements from the Lord that are stark inversions of what might have been expected or assumed. Israel is likened to Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord claims to be repulsed by the very institutions of ritual that he ordained in his law; burnt offerings and holy days have become an abomination to him because of Israel’s implicit rejection of the more fundamental laws of justice and righteousness.
Isaiah makes it clear in chapter 2 that humans are perpetually faced with two options: humble yourself now, or be humbled by God later. How fitting that Christ, incarnated in full humanity, laid down the example by choosing humility from start to finish. The Lord shall excel in every way. I love how verses 12–16 primarily use imagery of physical height — of God being exalted over every high tree, mountain, or tower — but then also includes “over all lovely crafts.” Whatever God does, we should expect it will excel over all of our best makings, devisings, and imaginings.
In chapter 3, I was astonished by the depiction of the dystopia that comes about when God chastises Israel. He says he will impose upon them this sort of false egalitarianism, whereby every hierarchy and and measure of skill will be obliterated. Verses 2 and 3 tell how there will be no skilled people to carry out essential functions of the society, and the verses after it speak of chaos in a vacuum of leadership. Children and infants will be rulers; peers will oversee each other. Poverty will be universal, to the point that the mere possession of cloak will be considered a qualification for leadership. The beauty and fineries of women will be taken away, and seven will beg to marry one man just for the value of his name.
And into this set of circumstances, “the Lord’s shoot shall become / beauty and glory,” and “who remains in Zion . . . ‘holy’ shall be said of him” (4: 1–3). The beauty of the Lord’s justice is that it always aims at restoration. Pain and sorrow are aberrations, and they are ultimately meant to bring hope and healing. Salvation is not, first and foremost, victory over national enemies, but the formation of righteous, holy people who enact God’s justice without his having to force it.
There’s plenty more that could be said regarding these chapters, but this is where I’ll leave off for today. My planned schedule for reading is below, and I hope some of you reading this will join in and comment. If you do decide to join in, please don’t be discouraged if you miss some days. Isaiah is not the sort of book where you’ll necessarily be lost in one chapter if you haven’t read the previous one. Catch up when you can, but otherwise just do what you are able.
11/6–11/12: Chapters 1–7
11/13–11/19: Chapters 8–15
11/20–11/27: Chapters 16–23
11/28–12/3: Chapters 24–31
12/4–12/10: Chapters 32–39
12/11–12/17: Chapters 40–47
12/18–12/24: Chapters 48–55
12/25–12/31: Chapters 56–63
1/1–1/6: Chapters 64–66
The last week only has 3 chapters, so that does leave some room to push some chapters back if you fall behind.