When it comes to visions of utopian futures the triumph of life over death is a recurring motif in popular myth, from most primal to most modern. Even Harry Potter stumbles on this aspiration as he finds his parents’ grave and on it the inscription “"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." This particular quote comes from the first book of Corinthians and is about how Jesus has conquered death.Harry’s own triumph against Voldermort and the dark powers will include self sacrifice and his own return from death. But Isaiah calls if first - detailing in today’s chapter a curious option for the end of time: The death of death.
What does he actually mean?
Isaiah’s visions are mostly realistic, combining pragmatic political perspective with harsh critique of the social norms of the day and a call for spiritual responsibility. But suddenly, in these chapters of apocalyptic visions he twists into a rhetoric of rhythmic ruptures, as storms howl and we wonder where all this comes from and what this horror show is all about. Isaiah’s chapters of the furious future are a psychedelic kaleidoscope of a world that crashes and is reshaped from darkness into light, again and again, and hopefully becomes a radical redemption. One of the starkest statements is his future claim in today’s chapter that even death will be defeated - conquered at the end of the time by the Creator of all:
בִּלַּ֤ע הַמָּ֙וֶת֙ לָנֶ֔צַח וּמָחָ֨ה אֲדֹנָ֧י יֱהֹוִ֛ה דִּמְעָ֖ה מֵעַ֣ל כׇּל־פָּנִ֑ים וְחֶרְפַּ֣ת עַמּ֗וֹ יָסִיר֙ מֵעַ֣ל כׇּל־הָאָ֔רֶץ כִּ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה דִּבֵּֽר׃
Death will be consumed forever.
My Sovereign YHWH will wipe the tears away
From all faces
And will put an end to the reproach of God’s people
Over all the earth—
For it is YHWH who has spoken.
Isaiah 25:7-8
Scholars debate whether he’s being literal, offering an eschatological idea that will surface in later centuries as a valid option represented by the model of the resurrection of the dead, or whether he’s just being poetic and talks about the end of brutal death of in battle as the end will bring about a calmer way to live and die. But either way this notion that Isaiah brings raises important questions about our own response and thoughts to our mortality. Do we ignore and avoid the fact that all the living will one day seize to be, including us and our loved ones, or can we honor this fact by living out loud, looking death in the eye with respect and honest preparation?
Do we want death to be defeated or is it wise for us to learn to live with death even as we imagine the end of life as we know it? Perhaps we defy death by our understanding that the moral is fleeting but our essence is not? The legacy we leave behind is what it’s like to live forever? This does seem to be what Harry Potter makes of his ordeal, as he honors his parents memory and sacrifice and continues where they left off.
Isaiah is just getting started. In the coming chapters he’ll go deep into more visions of the resurrection and the end of days, opening a magical portal into what will one day feed the minds of many myth makers and magicians, storytellers and poets who invite us to hold a skull in the palm of our hands and wonder about the power and preciousness of being, or not.
Image: Laurence Olivier as Hamlet
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Isaiah #Isaiah25 #ProphetIsaiah #ישעיהו #BookofIsaiah #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #postpatriarchy #prophecy #HarryPotter #deathofdeath #Jerusalem #deatheaters #fearofdeath #resurrection #Jesus #Corinthians #theafterlife #whathappenswhenwedie? #nomoredeath #hamlet
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Dylan Thomas
1914 –1953
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.