Again, this daily cycle of biblical chapters meets current events, and the Jewish calendar:
Tonight we enter the fast of the Ninth of Av, lamenting Zion’s destruction, the loss of lives and home, the exiles and the persecutions. In Israel right now, post exile, maybe pre another one, and all over the world — the tears of Tisha B’av are not just for past but for the present and the future.
What words do we have to name this painful narrative?
The Bible imagined Jerusalem as a war widow. The Zohar imagined Jerusalem as the deserted home after a divorce, with both parents gone. So many other metaphors continue to generate poetic depictions that give us perspectives and offer up hope.
Is national destruction better depicted as death or as divorce? Throughout Jewish history these and other narratives emerged , poetic, political and prophetic, imagining the crises of exile as either a dissolution of a marriage, the breakup of a family, or bitter brawl between brothers turned others. The distinctions offer glimpses into the historical and personal perspectives of the various authors and their attitudes - is the exile/breakup final? Or is there hope for redemption and repair?
From a historical angle, it’s possible that Isaiah’s words in these chapters are directed at the people of Judea, recently returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. This was not a safe or simple period for those attempting to rebuild their city and resume their exiled parents’ way of life. The prophet mirrors their fears and frustrations to help frame the larger picture but he also offers them rebuke - part of this problem is their own doing, challenging them - what can be done to amend?
Isaiah resumes the metaphors of family relationship from the last chapter to illustrate the broken trust between the people and their faith, and likely also with each other. In chapter 49 he indicates that YHWH, God the Father, abandoned Zion - the Nation-Mother, leaving her longing for her husband and her exiled children.
In this chapter he returns to this image, doing a curious thing - exposing familiarity with earlier Judaic texts that deal with the laws of divorce. In some way what he does here is not just paint a mythic picture of national destruction but also demonstrates a hopeful angle for the future - and exposes what continuity of narrative can be about.
Chapter 50 starts with a painful rhetorical question:
Did YHWH divorce Israel, as a husband who severs relations with his wife? Or is he like a parent who sells his children to pay off debts?
The response is - no. The image of divorce of human trafficking is horrific and perhaps echoes some of the tragic circumstances of the time. But his answer is that it isn’t a divorce, and not a sale of children - and therefore there’s still ways to mend the rift:
כֹּ֣ה ׀ אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה אֵ֣י זֶ֠ה סֵ֣פֶר כְּרִית֤וּת אִמְּכֶם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר שִׁלַּחְתִּ֔יהָ א֚וֹ מִ֣י מִנּוֹשַׁ֔י אֲשֶׁר־מָכַ֥רְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֖ם ל֑וֹ הֵ֤ן בַּעֲוֺנֹֽתֵיכֶם֙ נִמְכַּרְתֶּ֔ם וּבְפִשְׁעֵיכֶ֖ם שֻׁלְּחָ֥ה אִמְּכֶֽם׃
“YHWH Spoke:
Where is the bill of divorce
Of your mother whom I dismissed?
And which of My creditors was it
To whom I sold you off?
You were only sold off for your own sins,
And your mother dismissed for your crimes.”
Isaiah 50:1
The word that Isaiah uses here for ‘Bill of Divorce’ shows up only one more time in the Bible - in the book of Deuteronomy, where the Torah laws of divorce are first articulated. Scholars suggest that this may mean that Isaiah may have been familiar with the text of Torah - which is an interesting historical fact. But what’s more poignant here is that he uses that specific law to point out both the pain of this separation but not its finality.
In their book on Isaiah, Rabbis Benny Lau and Yoel Bin Nun shed a light on both the use of these harsh metaphors and also what this strange text tells us about Isaiah’s literary art:
“Isaiah son of Amoz founded a prophetic school with a unique language and style, “the language of the learned” (50:4), and one of its characteristics was the interpretation of the Torah through prophecy.
One example of this special phenomenon concerns the law of divorce in Deuteronomy (24:1–4), which the prophet here deals with. Through the law of divorce, the prophet grapples with the troubling issue of whether exile is like God’s divorce bill to Israel, who is like a wife sent away by her husband.
Can the divorced wife ever return home? After all, according to the Torah law, if she sins “and is with another man,” the “first husband who sent her away may not take her again as his wife” (Deut. 24:2–4).
This question is not raised in the Torah, where the Israelites are generally characterized as God’s children, not as his wife: “My firstborn son Israel” (Ex. 4:22); “You are sons of the Lord your God” (Deut. 14:1). Children may always return home to their parents.
However, in prophetic literature, God and Israel are often characterized as husband and wife.
The prophet’s decisive answer is that God never wrote a “bill of divorce” for Israel, and the gates of redemption are always open.”
Or in other words, however tragic the trauma in which Isaiah’s people feel abandoned by YHWH and resentful of their plight - the prophet is trying to tell them that they are still loved, and the union still exists. The ones to repair the rip - are they themselves - by how they live up to their sacred and more moral ways of living.
One can argue with this theological approach that also puts the burden on the people, but there’s also a tender wise word here for those of us, here and now, seeking deeper connection with each other and with the sacred in our lives: The love endures, despite what feels like distance, and it’s also on us to lean into this love and keep our part of the covenant.
The lamentations that will be recited in Jerusalem tonight, and all over the world, will echo these questions with chilling reminders that this story is ongoing, the discord continues, and whether divorce or death, democracy or dictatorship - we keep finding ways to tell our stories, share our grief, and discover ways with which to heal, mend, and grow.
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to say nothing of the lamentations felt today for what is happening in Israel