George Orwell imagined quite a few apocalyptic futures, and his “Animal Farm”, with a nod to Carl Marx, includes the famous line “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
How do you imagine the Apocalypse?
A lot of different artists and prophets of dooms have taken a stab at these futuristic horrors and Isaiah kicks it off in today’s chapter with the first of several chapters that imagine the brutal end of time - not just in Jerusalem but globally. The language of this chapter is hypnotic -and chaotic. It’s impossible to translate the words but possible to feel the essence - verbs and vowels, commotion and alliteration - everything is moving all at once. What will be the defining features of this final chapter? Isaiah imagines the earth tremble and the toppling of towers but also depicts a social situation in which all class distinctions as we know them will become of no importance. No more business class or VIP’s, no more priest or prince, homeowner or homeless - all will be the same. But is this bad news - or what we want??
From a socialist-communist point of view this equality may be the ideal if only aspirational. But for Isaiah this equalization of all people is the problem - and the indication of the end of what we know as order and prosperity:
וְהָיָ֤ה כָעָם֙ כַּכֹּהֵ֔ן כַּעֶ֙בֶד֙ כַּֽאדֹנָ֔יו כַּשִּׁפְחָ֖ה כַּגְּבִרְתָּ֑הּ כַּקּוֹנֶה֙ כַּמּוֹכֵ֔ר כַּמַּלְוֶה֙ כַּלֹּוֶ֔ה כַּנֹּשֶׁ֕ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר נֹשֶׁ֥א בֽוֹ׃
הִבּ֧וֹק ׀ תִּבּ֛וֹק הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִבּ֣וֹז ׀ תִּבֹּ֑ז כִּ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה דִּבֶּ֖ר אֶת־הַדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה׃
“Laity and priest shall fare alike; Slave and master; Handmaid and mistress; Buyer and seller; Lender and borrower; Creditor and debtor.
The earth shall be bare, bare; It shall be plundered, plundered;For it is YHWH who spoke this word.”
Isaiah 24:3-4
Notice that Isaiah isn’t talking here about racial, gender or ethnic differences - but about wealth and access, socio-economic factors. When it comes to brutal wars and their accompanying horrors, so often these are the distinctions that are first to go - regardless of wealth, all are refugees or victims as money can’t buy time or freedom. At least not always.
Isaiah sees the loss of status as a spiritual calamity - this equalizing leveling of people’s status and worth as the reason for the end as well as its defining factor.
The Talmudic sages, reading his words centuries later Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat with at least one destruction only known to them and another on the way, try to decipher what it is about this vision that caused the fall of Jerusalem - and what at the time was seen as the end of all.
One rabbi suggests that the reason Jerusalem fell was that people did not pray three times a day. Another opinion blames it on the lack of education and regard for children’s wellbeing, and yet another that people got shameless with their greed. And then there’s this opinion, quoting Isaiah: “Rabbi Yitzḥak said: Jerusalem was destroyed only because its small and the great citizens were equated, as it is written: ‘And the common people were like the priest,’ etc. (Isaiah 24:2). And it is written afterward: ‘The land shall be utterly desolate’(Isaiah 24:3).”
Perhaps what Rabbi Yizchak fears is loss of leadership, and a democracy where every voice matters the same, with no regard for wisdom or experience, age or status, and not just equal distribution of wealth? Whatever the vision of the future may be, and however those become imagined or real nightmares, Isaiah sees beyond the known to bring about a reset that will lead, eventually, to the life we all want to live. The chapter ends with the bold move towards the recognition that we - not just the humans but all of nature -- are indeed all driven by and operated by the same life force. There is a new order, a re-imagined hierarchy of holiness that will ensure the rule of righteousness and justice:
“Then the moon shall be ashamed. And the sun shall be abashed. For YHWH will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, the Presence will be revealed to God’s elders.”
What happens next?
That’s coming up. Orwell, Marx and other futurists also read Isaiah.. His visions will echo throughout the future chapters that imagine utopian and dystopian futures - some already history and others yet to come.
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