But what happens when wildflowers become not symbols for summer joy but the raw reminder of desolation and exile?
Isaiah keeps scolding the people who are too busy admiring their own handiwork and prioritizing warfare over justice, oblivious to the warnings and instructions on how to live a more attentive and just life.
The result would be annihilation - in Damascus and in Samaria. The Judean prophet looks north and knows that the Aramean Kingdom with its capital in Damascus has already signed a pact with the Kingdom of Israel with its capital in Samaria - united in their defense against the Assyrian onslaught.
Judah stayed out of this alliance, and Isaiah warns the north - It’s all in vain, - you will both be crushed by the empire - and just a few olives will remain on each branch, instead of a full tree of proud harvest.
Thus just a few will remain on the people will be exiled.
He’s not exactly a broken record, but one gets the sense that Isaiah, whether calling out against the corruption of the rich or the general neglect of the religious loyalty to YHWH keeps going on record to try and get the powers that be, and the people around him, to pay attention to what social norms must change, and mend their ways.
The poet in him picks a peculiar phrases in this chapter as he depicts the future picture of disaster. Imagine him speaking in the town square holding up a fresh summer flower and turns it on its head.
What if wildflowers growing alongside ripe vineyards were to become not idle beauty but an indication of occupation and loss?
What if nature played its part in dismantling the human-made culture?
It will all happen because the people forget that we are interconnected - all of us in this together - human and non-human, creations of a greater divine that will discard us if we prioritize our needs over those of others.
The result will be vineyards with no fruit and orchards that will not yield nutrition:
כִּ֤י שָׁכַ֙חַתְּ֙ אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׁעֵ֔ךְ וְצ֥וּר מָעֻזֵּ֖ךְ לֹ֣א זָכָ֑רְתְּ עַל־כֵּ֗ן תִּטְּעִי֙ נִטְעֵ֣י נַעֲמָנִ֔ים וּזְמֹ֥רַת זָ֖ר תִּזְרָעֶֽנּוּ׃
Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you
And have not remembered the Rock who shelters you;
That is why, though you plant a delightful sapling,
What you sow proves a disappointing slip.
Isaiah 17:11
What is the ‘Delightful sapling’ that becomes a ‘disappointing slip’? Most read it as a failed crop. But the English translation of Isaiah’s ornate and obscure Hebrew ‘Nitei Na’amnim’ - which could mean ‘delightful sapling’ may also be a specific wild flower. Perhaps that means that in the future the vineyards will not be tended, its keepers exiled. But the flowers will keep blooming.
Neta Reuveni, one of Israel's premier botanists who specialized in the Bible, claims that this verse is about a popular flower that can grow when there are conditions to go wild. The flower is known in English as the Anemone - which works well with the Hebrew name mentioned here, and is often seen as a sort of poppy. Growing wild in the vineyards indicates that people have gone and the grapes are not tended to, only ruins remain and wild animals that roam.
The interesting note about this flower is that in the 21st century both Israel and Palestine are claiming it as one of their official flowers.
On a recent tour through the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem I was struck by many murals depicting the red Palestinian Poppy as a symbol of resistance to Israel’s occupation. In several places the reference to the flower echo Isaiah’s words - the flowers bloom each spring amid the desolate ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 and inside the fields that once were orchards.
My Palestinian friends pointed out that there is on consensus and that the wild Faquaa Iris is also a contender. Meanwhile - Israel is also claiming the Calanit as its national flower, chosen by the Society for the Protection of Nature.
Isaiah’s words echo through the historical and contemporary ways we let war overcome our wellbeing, forget how interwoven we are - with each other, and with nature, and let wildflowers become symbols of dismay instead of bouquets of blessing, shared by us all.
Yehuda Amichai walks in Isaiah’s footsteps through Jerusalem and dreams with poetry as prophecy of the days after the wars:
“Not the peace of a cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness...
A peace without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words,
A little rest for the wounds—
Let it come like wildflowers, suddenly, because the field must have it: wildpeace.”
Image: Photo by Amichai Lau-Lavie, Silwan mural by the Palestinian Youth Movement’s Resistance Arts committee, I Witness Silwan, Art Forces, and Madaa-Silwan Creative Center. https://www.iwitnesssilwan.org/
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so good to have Yehuda Amichai join this conversation...for surely the poets have loved Isaiah.