Isaiah tried hard to convince the people not to rely on political treaties with local powers but to find their inner resolve - within. He means for people to find their own inner strength in faith in the divine and for Judah to rely more on its own resources rather than appeal to Egypt for help against Assyria. It’s going to fail - he warns the king and the court - but they refuse to listen. What will be the consequences - dire, as usual. But Isaiah call out not just for the present moment of predicament but for the future - he’s imagining his words echoing far beyond that crisis - and he’s right.
There will be a day in which you once again will have reverence for teachers, he says, bitterly. And the words he uses will become a hallmark for honoring teachers - and putting up their pictures on one’s walls, to fulfill Isaiah’s words in today’s chapter “ Your eyes will see your teachers.” This is literally the reason why in many pious homes and institutions you will find the portraits of great rabbis and sages, mystics and saints. Not unlike the presence of the Pope or the Buddha, rock stars or gurus.
When I was 18 years old in an Israeli Yeshiva I almost got expelled for following Isaiah’s rule - ironically in line with yet another vision that is echoed in this chapter.
Over my bed I hung up a picture of Leah Goldberg, still one of my favorite poets. It was not, of course, a pin-up of erotic purpose but it was not a male rabbi either, so I was told to take it down and things got a little messy when, at first, I refused.
Patriarchy and masculine supremacy are hardly issues of the past - late 20th century CE or 8th century BCE. And our aspirations for a world of total equality and equity where gender does not suffer bias and discrimination still have a long long way to go. And even in his day, despite his attitudes towards the feminine that leave some room for improvement, Isaiah seems to echo at least one startling vision that imagines a future where female power even eclipses that of the male.
In the future, he imagines, the very light we see above us will transform:
“And the light of the moon shall become like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall become sevenfold, like the light of the seven days, when YHWH binds up the wounds of this people and heals the injuries it has suffered.”
When will the lunar light be brighter than the sun - and is that a good thing? Isaiah thinks so.
The reference to the original light from the seven days of creation seems to echo a famous legend that was likely known to him as well. It is mentioned in the Talmud, linking the feminine powers to the moon, and the masculine essence - to the sun. On the fourth day of creation, according to this legend, both moon and sun were created equal. But the moon, imagined as a feminine essence, complained to the creator that two sovereigns can not share a single throne. As punishment - or as reward - it isn’t clear from this myth - the moon got to diminish, each month growing bigger and then smaller, again and again, getting its light from the solar source.
But in the future - it’ll shift, and she will once again reign supreme.
Is this a feminist approach to the future?
Robert Alter reads it as more plain reference to the rise of Judean freedom - not eclipsed by Assyrian power:
“The striking hyperbole has invited eschatological readings, and “the light of the seven days” is clearly a mythological reference to the seven days of creation during which, according to some understandings, the light was more perfect. Creation begins with God’s summoning light to replace the primordial darkness, so a national restoration is imagined in cosmic terms as a kind of renewal of creation.”
But I prefer to think that even in the midst of male-centered reality Isaiah knew that one day poets like Lea Goldberg would be revered and references, on walls and on bills (she’s on the Israeli money) and that light, lunar and solar, radiant and radical, will echo our deepest and highest hopes for a world where equal is not different and dignity is celebrated, one and all.
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