Deep emotions, fears and fury, grief and rage - stir deep within each of us, and deeper still within the collective consciousness. The poets and the prophets imagine her rising: The Great Sea Monster who stirs in the deep. She is the mother of chaos and predates creation. She is Matter itself. Her names are many, as are the tales about the epic battle between her and the god, her son or consort, who replaced her with violence, ripping the sea in two, as culture triumphed over nature and the humans took control of chaos to begin our history. She was banished below but when will she rise?
Today she rises again, from the depths, roused by Isaiah’s imagination. He believes that our brightest hopeful future will only rise from deep down, the history of what’s yet to come emerging from the dark abyss of prehistory. The jubilant relief we yearn for, the messianic, better, safer world - will only be released if we know how to first pause and make room for our collective sorrow, honor her who was silenced.
That’s what today is about - in both the daily chapter of Isaiah and the Jewish calendar, on which we weep and fast to hold on to our traumas.
That’s where She comes in, a mysterious mother not vanquished at all.
Past, present and future are woven together in the wild ride that Isaiah takes us on today, as he delivered this breathtaking and complex mythopoetic vision of redemption for the nation that will come with a sigh of relief. He address the nation in the feminine:
עוּרִ֨י עוּרִ֤י לִבְשִׁי־עֹז֙ זְר֣וֹעַ יְהֹוָ֔ה ע֚וּרִי כִּ֣ימֵי קֶ֔דֶם דֹּר֖וֹת עוֹלָמִ֑ים הֲל֥וֹא אַתְּ־הִ֛יא הַמַּחְצֶ֥בֶת רַ֖הַב מְחוֹלֶ֥לֶת תַּנִּֽין׃
הֲל֤וֹא אַתְּ־הִיא֙ הַמַּחֲרֶ֣בֶת יָ֔ם מֵ֖י תְּה֣וֹם רַבָּ֑ה הַשָּׂ֙מָה֙ מַֽעֲמַקֵּי־יָ֔ם דֶּ֖רֶךְ לַעֲבֹ֥ר גְּאוּלִֽים׃
וּפְדוּיֵ֨י יְהֹוָ֜ה יְשׁוּב֗וּן וּבָ֤אוּ צִיּוֹן֙ בְּרִנָּ֔ה וְשִׂמְחַ֥ת עוֹלָ֖ם עַל־רֹאשָׁ֑ם שָׂשׂ֤וֹן וְשִׂמְחָה֙ יַשִּׂיג֔וּן נָ֖סוּ יָג֥וֹן וַאֲנָחָֽה׃
“Awake, awake, clothe yourself with splendor.
O arm of the ETERNAL One!
Awake as in days of old,
As in former ages!
It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces,
That pierced the Dragon.
It was you that dried up the Sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the abysses of the Sea
A road the redeemed might walk on.
So let YHWH’s ransomed return,
And come with songs to Zion,
Crowned with joy everlasting.
Let them attain joy and gladness,
While sorrow and sighing subside.”
Isaiah 51:9-12
The hand that hacked Rahab and smote the dragon is the hand of the divine, here references to in feminine language. In some way Isaiah imagines the ancient primordial battles of creation and liberation as the future battle in which the feminine divine will be the decisive aspect of redemption, even as it comes to terms with its - our - own destructive force.
So who are Rahab and the dragon? What sea is this that was once split?
Isaiah combines the mythologies his listeners knew from their surroundings and dominant cultural surroundings with the biblical stories of their origin. He blurs the pagan myths and turns them into an Hebraic historical blueprint for the splitting of the sea that already happened once - and will happen again.
So who’s Rahab ? We’ve met her before. It’s the name given to the generous hostess from Jericho who hosts the Hebrew spies and helps them conquer her city. But she appears way earlier than that - and the two stories are in fact related. Rahab, whose name means ‘wide’ is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible and in earlier semitic sources as the mythic sea monster and sometimes as the depths of the sea itself. She is an echo of the Sumerian, and later Babylonian tales in which the sky-god, Marduk battles the sea-goddess, Tiamat, for supreme power over the other gods. He ends up defeating her and sends her down to the deep. In other versions he cuts her in two - one half becomes the sky and the other half, suppressed, is the bottom of the sea.
And what’s the sea - named here also, and in modern popular Hebrew as Yam? Stemming from the Ugaritic Yammu, Yam was a god, and sometimes a goddess - representing the sea and other sources of water worshiped and honored all over the coasts of the near east. In the Hebrew Bible, Yam appears as an enemy of Yahweh, vanquished not just at the very beginning of creation, but also when Israel left Egypt and the sea was split in two.
And the dragon? That creature too, named here as “Tanin” a bit like crocodile or alligator is also mentioned in both the very beginning of Creation in Genesis and in the Exodus story where the great serpents of Egypt are part of the miraculous saga.
Isaiah spins it all together - the ancient tales of power games between order and chaos, depicted as the battles between gods and goddess, resurface to give the future redemption a taste of the ancient and the power of the protest that wants its power back. In this text, the hand of god is in the feminine just as the monsters and the sea -- and the people, free from tyranny will once again walk in the sea that’s split, with awe, their mouths full of song.
I sense that what he’s doing here is simultaneously a recap of the Patriarchal power structure in which the masculine man-made world silenced the feminine into the depths of submission -- and a whole new way of spinning these myths to foretell a new horizon in which the feminine is a force to recon with and an essential element of the redemptive. Why else would god’s hand be feminine and Jerusalem no longer the widow now become the bride?
Wake up, Wake up Jerusalem, the prophet sings to the city, she who has become as if a widow, not waking up to better days of consolation and smiles. The sea will subside, the singing will be heard, the days of old will bring about the joy we wait for. Both the creation of the world and the Exodus from Egypt woven here with the older myths to foretell the future, built on mythology and history, and usher in a brand new era that transcends both.
On this day, the Ninth of Av, with woes and what to once again weep for, these visions of optimism, complex as they are, feel like fuel. Let the sorrow and sighs subside, if only for a little bit, so we can all breathe deeply, from our deepest source of grief and power, and let our voices rise with the primordial primal singing that will replace lamentations with a big belly laugh.
May it be so.
Image: William Blake’s The Chaotic Trinity
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Isaiah #Isaiah51 #ProphetIsaiah #ישעיהו #BookofIsaiah #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #postpatriarchy #prophecy #truthtopower #YHWH #Theprophets #Zion #Rahab #Seaserpent #dragons #slaythedragon #Yam #SplittingoftheSea #OrdervsChaos #redemption #religiousfeminism #williamblake #mythology #hope #tishabav