Is it our moral duty to welcome refugees who seek asylum across our borders? Is it a religious obligation to open our homes even to our enemies at their time of distress?
Many pious Americans don’t think so. Nor other people all over the world, then and now.
But Isaiah says yes.
As the Moabite nation crumbles under Assyrian rule and its people who have not always been best friends with Judah seek sanctuary, this prophet wants Jerusalem to open up its gates. And while it isn’t clear if the people listened - his words are etched in our book and in our memory - as vital and critical now as they ever were.
Isaiah’s prophetic vision is not just a political call for welcoming the strangers - it’s a theological statement, grounded in his radical understanding that divine love is at the heart of every interaction - and that welcoming the homeless and refugee, no matter the cost, is what being a person and people of faith is all about.
To demonstrate this divine demand he envisions the Throne of Glory - God’s royal seat which is the ultimate symbol of sacred sanctuary:
וְהוּכַ֤ן בַּחֶ֙סֶד֙ כִּסֵּ֔א וְיָשַׁ֥ב עָלָ֛יו בֶּאֱמֶ֖ת בְּאֹ֣הֶל דָּוִ֑ד שֹׁפֵ֛ט וְדֹרֵ֥שׁ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט וּמְהִ֥ר צֶֽדֶק׃
“A throne was established with mercy and love; and God sat upon it in truthfulness, inside the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking justice, and quick to do righteousness.”
Isaiah 16:4
The Hebrew word for ‘sitting’ which in this case indicates God’s actually sitting down, is also the word for ‘settling down’ as in every refugee’s dream.
In Isaiah’s vision, we humans who are in divine image are to echo this aspiration to swift justice, to compassion, mercy and generous welcome. We who are comfortably sitting in our own homes owe it to our human siblings who want nothing else. By modeling this behavior ourselves we impact the very change in the world towards the better days - the Messianic times.
This theme would be picked up by later generations - as more and more of the people of Israel found themselves on the other side of the situation - seeking sanctuary and relying on the rare kindness of strangers for our very lives. That’s when the mystical kicks in - perhaps when the reality is way too stark.
The Zohar, central text of Kabbalah, composed in Spain in the 13th century, provides this interpretation of this verse:
“Rabbi Elazar taught: ‘And a throne shall be established in Mercy, and on it shall God sit in Truth’: When the joyful thought arose in God’s mind to establish the earthly Throne of the Messiah, God established it “in Mercy”. This Throne bears the seal, which when stamped leaves the imprint of Truth. And the Holy One sits on that Throne only in virtue of that seal of Truth. And “in the tent of David”, is where the Messiah sits upon the Lower Throne.”
In other words - what Isaiah imagines in Jerusalem is God’s throne in the temple, sealed in mercy and justice, handed over to us humans and especially the King of Jerusalem who continues David’s promise - to activate judicial generosity, right in our own homes.
By the time Isaiah likely speaks these words Jerusalem is also close to its demise though there will be a few more decades before that happens. We won’t know if King Ahaz or his successors opened up their doors to Moab or the other refugees across the river but we do know that the refugees from Northern Israel would be welcomed in the south and be responsible for what eventually would be the fusion that would generate the Jewish stories and traditions that we are the heirs of.
In the 21st century, with unprecedented numbers of human beings fleeing their own homelands in search of safety – threatened by wars, violence, poverty and religious fanaticism or terror, this vision of radical hospitality should be our wake up call, again and again.
What would it take for us to listen to this ancient prophet and commit to moral obligation towards asylum seekers - in the name of what’s most sacred?
Isaiah was not popular then and his words are not as popular now. And yet - it’s on us, to keep repeating them, with hope that more of us rise from our comfortable seats, roll open the welcome mats, and make sure all who need get a seat at the table of dignity, safety, health and hope. If there’s anything we can learn from history - it’s that what goes around, comes around, and the welcome mat that we put out is the one that we or our children will one day yearn for with every fiber of our being.
Welcome home to the Isaiah’s innermost divine throne of loving justice - a love seat with room for many, inside each and every single one of us.
“Like Watchmen in the Night”
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I wonder how to read Isiah. It seems to me that what I find are images embedded in an often exhortative verse. It is the images that stand out and the tendency to read them in their context is the habit of reading we have inherited for thousands of years--- a kind of illusion of linear progressive flow. But I think the images were meant to be foci of contemplation, visualized in the heart, savored as affirmations, told again and again like beads on a prayer wheel. Meant, that is, to be seen for what they perhaps once were, the astonishing revelatory visions of the prophetic mind, not so much offering forecasts as offering touch-stones of the sanctified imagination, seeds inviting the mind to dwell and bring them to fruition.
Did G d. join them?