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.
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.