Excess! Greed! How much did you pay for that new outfit in that fancy Fifth Avenue boutique while homeless people beg for change right outside? Can we justify the growing gap, the never changing chase for more - at the expense of the weakest among us?
What will the price tag be for our society’s relentless refusal to take care of the poor, of the planet, for not hearing the calls of today’s prophets who preach on street corners to deaf ears? The high heels trot by, the suits are busy on their phones.
Isaiah’s rants against the wealthy elites In today’s chapter, as part of what seems to be a three chapter series of direct attacks on Jerusalem’s ruling class, with warnings about consequences. Isaiah violently criticizes the haughtiness of the Jerusalem’s women so elegant and well dressed, taking care of their looks but not taking care of the people, as guilty as the king and their men, disregarding the poor, looking away from justice:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֗ה יַ֚עַן כִּ֤י גָֽבְהוּ֙ בְּנ֣וֹת צִיּ֔וֹן וַתֵּלַ֙כְנָה֙ נְטוּי֣וֹת גָּר֔וֹן וּֽמְשַׂקְּר֖וֹת עֵינָ֑יִם הָל֤וֹךְ וְטָפֹף֙ תֵּלַ֔כְנָה וּבְרַגְלֵיהֶ֖ם תְּעַכַּֽסְנָה׃
YHWH spoke:
“Behold the daughters of Zion
Are so haughty,
And walk with heads thrown back,-
With roving eyes,
And with seductive gait,
tinkling with ornaments around their ankles”—
Isaiah 3:16
This violent striptease of the wealthy women of Jerusalem who look away from those in need - and whose guilt is part of what will eventually destroy the nation.
Their punishment for looking away from them the needy will be harsh. Isaiah imagines a striptease that is not seductive but shameful. In stunning detail he lists 21 items of feminine fashion, jewelry and decoration, including the most intimate - stripped one by one, leaving these women barely dressed in rags, barefoot and begging for bread.
The list includes anklets, fillets, crescent-shaped bracelets, earrings, bracelets, veils, turbans, armlets, sashes, talismans, amulets, rings, nose rings, robes, mantles, shawls, purses, gowns, vests, kerchiefs, and capes.
Many of the words he uses here are unique, a treasure trove for historians and scholars who try to identify what a fashionable Iron Age lady may have worn - based on his admonishments.
But it is also fair to question Isaiah’s attack on the women of his hometown - as part of of the general male-dominated sexism that so permeates this patriarchal reality. Why is he focusing on the women? What does this privileged man who grew up in the royal court where kings take charge - of women, in general?
There is another line in this chapter that gives us an indication of his cultural bias. In his despair over the corruption of the court and the king he mutters ‘As for my people... women rule over them. ..’ (3:12)
It’s unclear who or what exactly he’s referring to here -perhaps Isaiah is using this metaphor of women’s power -- that the people of Judah have come so low that it is as if they are being ruled over by women -- to illuminate how far his people have fallen.
In her feminist critical commentary on this chapter, Sivan Rotholz writes:
“What, after all, could be worse than being ruled over by a woman?
Such was the position of the men who wrote the Book of Isaiah hundreds of years before the Common Era.
..More than 2,500 years after Isaiah was written, it is beyond time to ask: Is this what our tradition has to teach about women’s leadership? That there is nothing worse than being under a woman’s rule? That only treacherous women wield power?
Today’s three major world religions can all trace their origin to the stories of the Hebrew Bible. It is impossible to overestimate how these stories have shaped western culture. And we can barely begin to grapple with how pervasively their oppressive depictions of women have been woven into the fabric of our society.
Given this, when we look to Isaiah 3:12, is it any wonder that we have such a dearth of women leaders in the western world today? From the boardroom to the oval office, women continue to be plagued by a perpetual glass ceiling. We live in a society that has spent thousands of years telling itself that there is nothing worse than being under a woman’s rule, that women’s power is treacherous. Is it any wonder that women face a perpetual double standard and are considered “unelectable” presidential candidates?
The time has come to give a whole new meaning to the idea that “as for my people... women rule over them.” #TimesUp”
The problematic polemics of Isaiah and other prophets who blame women for the woes of society become a deeper issue when increasingly Jerusalem is depicted as female and Judah as a widow, or a fallen queen. In the following chapters we’ll try to expose some of these faultiness, even as the messages keep coming about what it means to be guilty of greed - all genders alike.
Whatever Isaiah’s bias against women tells us about him - his words of warning about excess as violence still echo loud today, against all of us, regardless of gender. High heels still click and suits still exude power and the price tag? Stay tuned.
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Born Divided. Israel Vs. Judah: Then, Now, Next?
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