Isaiah 62:10-12.

Professor Barker isn't always so much the master of the obvious, nevertheless, the statement above is almost a criminal understatement. Barker goes on in the same stream of thought to say: "Unfortunately, such genius is as disturbing as it is liberating, and the needs of ordinary mortals, and of the religious institutions which offer them order and security, can only be met by less exotic stuff." Isaiah's commission to Israel is explicitly to present his stuff in exotic, oracular, parable, so that the reader "Be ever hearing but never understanding" (6:9); at least, that is, until the last days, when all that's shut up in exotic prose will suddenly be opened.



John

John D. Brey said:

I have long thought that it is the Second Isaiah who holds the key to our understanding of the Old Testament. So much is crammed into these chapters, so many layers are apparent, so many images fused and re-fused that the mind behind them must have been a religious genius.

Margaret Barker, The Older Testament, p. 161.​

Professor Barker isn't always so much the master of the obvious, nevertheless, the statement above is almost a criminal understatement. Barker goes on in the same stream of thought to say: "Unfortunately, such genius is as disturbing as it is liberating, and the needs of ordinary mortals, and of the religious institutions which offer them order and security, can only be met by less exotic stuff." Isaiah's commission to Israel is explicitly to present his stuff in exotic, oracular, parable, so the reader "Be ever hearing but never understanding" (6:9); at least, that is, until the last days, when all that's shut up in exotic prose will suddenly be opened.

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Parallelophobiacs will no doubt arise to call sound exegesis of Isaiah's exotic stuff "parallelomania." Nevertheless, one of the exegetical premises used here to unveil Isaiah's oracle is the understanding that there are parallels between all religious thought and that all religious thought parallels all non-religious thought. The key is not putting up borderlines, so to say, between religion, and thought in general, but finding the binding that unifies them in order to release the spirit of truth living in the prophet and his prophetic utterance.



John

John D. Brey said:

Parallelophobiacs will no doubt arise to call sound exegesis of Isaiah's exotic stuff "parallelomania." Nevertheless, one of the exegetical premises used here to unveil Isaiah's oracle is the understanding that there are parallels between all religious thought and that all religious thought parallels all non-religious thought. The key is not putting up borderlines, so to say, between religion, and thought in general, but finding the binding that unifies them in order to release the spirit of truth living in the prophet and his prophetic utterance.

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The recent exegesis of Isaiah 63:16 noted the peculiar cry of a unique people claiming that though they're part and parcel of the Abrahamic-covenant, Abraham isn't their father (God is), and their mother, Israel, rejects wholesale, their claim to even being part of the Abrahamic-covenant. An orthodox Jew might be forgiven for not appreciating how close the cry in Isaiah 63:16 is to the frustration registered by a unique group of first century Jews who claimed to have been "born-again" (with God as their father) into a formerly unknown element of the Abrahamic-covenant. These Jewish heretics (as they're known by orthodox Judaism), in their theological, retroactive, re-rendition of the Tanakh, appear to unleash, or release, a parallelomaniacal meaning of many of Isaiah's parabolic nuances that is at the very least disturbing to, and of, the orthodox reading of the prophet's prose.



John

John D. Brey said:

The recent exegesis of Isaiah 63:16 noted the peculiar cry of a unique people claiming that though they're part and parcel of the Abrahamic-covenant, Abraham isn't their father (God is), and their mother, Israel, rejects wholesale, their claim to even being part of the Abrahamic-covenant. An orthodox Jew might be forgiven for not appreciating how close the cry in Isaiah 63:16 is to the frustration registered by a unique group of first century Jews who claimed to have been "born-again" (with God as their father) into a formerly unknown element of the Abrahamic-covenant. These Jewish heretics (as they're known by orthodox Judaism), in their theological, retroactive, re-rendition of the Tanakh, appear to unleash, or release, a parallelomaniacal meaning of many of Isaiah's parabolic nuances that is at the very least disturbing to, and of, the orthodox reading of the prophet's prose.

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Reading Isaiah 62:10-12 within a dispensational framework, by linking the speakers in Isaiah 63:16 with the Jews in the first century who reckoned themselves members of the Abrahamic-covenant who were refused entry into that covenant by Abraham and Israel, their adoptive grandfather and their mother, can easily cause Isaiah 62:10-12 to be read as, god-forbid, a pre-New Testament glimpse of the so-called "rapture" (or resurrection) of the ecclesia, or assembly of Gentile nations, otherwise known as the "church." New Testament dispensational scholars claim Revelation chapter four represents the rapture or resurrection of the church. Although the church is the subject of the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, the church isn't mentioned directly again after Revelation 4:1:



It doesn't take a parallelomaniac to see the parallel between Revelation 4:1 and Isaiah 62:10. In fact, two brilliant German theologians, one Christian, and one Jewish (Luther and Rabbi Samson Hirsch), both relate, in one way or another, the two verses above. In his commentary on Isaiah 62:10, Luther relates the banner lifted for the people with Psalms 4:6 speaking of the banner being the light of God's shekinah, God's countenance:


In The Hirsch Tehillim, Rabbi Hirsch exegetes Psalms 4:6 almost as though he's lending his interpretation to the current study:


Rabbi Hirsch's last statement raises the stakes in the current exegesis since it's precisely the forlorn orphans from the Abrahamic-covenant (found in Isaiah 63:16) who aren't opposed to the lawless elevation of a banner that's a direct, idolatrous, sign of God's Presence; a tangible sign, symbol, emblem, in wood, metal, or both (and one naturally thinks of Nehushtan in John 3:14), that symbolizes the very Presence of God in contradiction to the commandment given to mother Israel not to manufacture such a kerygmatic curse.





John

John D. Brey said:

Reading Isaiah 62:10-12 within a dispensational framework, by linking the speakers in Isaiah 63:16 with the Jews in the first century who reckoned themselves members of the Abrahamic-covenant who were refused entry into that covenant by Abraham and Israel, their adoptive grandfather and their mother, can easily cause Isaiah 62:10-12 to be read as, god-forbid, a pre-New Testament glimpse of the so-called "rapture" (or resurrection) of the ecclesia, or assembly of Gentile nations, otherwise known as the "church." New Testament dispensational scholars claim Revelation chapter four represents the rapture or resurrection of the church. Although the church is the subject of the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, the church isn't mentioned directly again after Revelation 4:1:

After this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hearafter.

Revelation 4:1.​

Come up! come up! by way of the highway to heaven; remove the stones hiding the way and lift up the banner for the people [a banner to see the light of thy countenance upon us (Psalms 4:6)].

Isaiah 62:10.​

It doesn't take a parallelomaniac to see the parallel between Revelation 4:1 and Isaiah 62:10. In fact, two brilliant German theologians, one Christian, and one Jewish (Luther and Rabbi Samson Hirsch), both relate, in one way or another, the two verses above. In his commentary on Isaiah 62:10, Luther relates the banner lifted for the people with Psalms 4:6 speaking of the banner being the light of God's shekinah, God's countenance:

Lift up an ensign over the peoples. Thus Ps. 4:6 reads: "Lift up the light of Thy countenance upon us." Raise up the banner.

Luther, Isaiah 62:10.​

In The Hirsch Tehillim, Rabbi Hirsch exegetes Psalms 4:6 almost as though he's lending his interpretation to the current study:

Give us a sign [banner] of the light of Your countenance upon us O God! . . . The letter ס [samech] seems to have been inserted here in order to add, simultaneously, the concept of נס, "a banner," to the thought of "to raise." נס is a standard [emblem], raised aloft, to which one looks up in order to keep on the right path. . . Thus נסה עלינו אור פניך ה׳ means, "Raise aloft the light of Your countenance as a distinctive sign above us," i.e., Let the light of Your countenance be seen as such a symbol.​

Rabbi Hirsch's last statement raises the stakes in the current exegesis since it's precisely the forlorn orphans from the Abrahamic-covenant (found in Isaiah 63:16) who aren't opposed to the lawless elevation of a banner that's a direct, idolatrous, sign of God's Presence; a tangible sign, symbol, emblem, in wood, metal, or both (and one naturally thinks of Nehushtan in John 3:14), that symbolizes the very Presence of God in contradiction to the commandment given to mother Israel not to manufacture such a kerygmatic curse.

And then shall appear the sign or banner of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 24:30.​

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Revelation 4:1 (the rapture passage par excellent according to the scholars) implies a door into heaven is opened through which the apostle peers into the deeper things of God. The word used to speak of this door, or highway to heaven, in Isaiah 62:10, is the word מסלה, which is used in Judges 20:31 to speak of a "highway" literally to heaven, a highway that "goeth up to the house of God." Nevertheless the deep thing of God that's the crux of the examination in Isaiah 62:10-12, is the "banner" נס that's found as something like a mezuzah on the door, or the emblem in the doorway (Isaiah 22:22-24), that must be kissed, or that must be negotiated, before entering into the more heavenly elements of Isaiah's latter revelation. The Hebrew word מסלה (misilah) is like the mistletoe in the doorway beneath which one must kiss the Son (Psalm 2:12) or be denied entry into the way of salvation. There's more than ample evidence that this "banner" נס is the crux of the issue caught in the cross-hairs of Isaiah's entire prophesy as found in the latter half of his book.



John

John D. Brey said:

Revelation 4:1 (the rapture passage par excellent according to the scholars) implies a door into heaven is opened through which the apostle peers into the deeper things of God. The word used to speak of this door, or highway to heaven, in Isaiah 62:10, is the word מסלה, which is used in Judges 20:31 to speak of a "highway" literally to heaven, a highway that "goeth up to the house of God." Nevertheless the deep thing of God that's the crux of the examination in Isaiah 62:10-12, is the "banner" נס that's found as something like a mezuzah on the door, or the emblem in the doorway (Isaiah 22:22-24), that must be kissed, or that must be negotiated, before entering into the more heavenly elements of Isaiah's latter revelation. The Hebrew word מסלה (misilah) is like the mistletoe in the doorway beneath which one must kiss the Son (Psalm 2:12) or be denied entry into the way of salvation. There's more than ample evidence that this "banner" נס is the crux of the issue caught in the cross-hairs of Isaiah's entire prophesy as found in the latter half of his book.

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Isaiah chapter 62 is chock-a-block full of evidence for the foregoing (so to say). Nevertheless, verses 10-12, properly exegeted, are deeply profound in that it's here that the prophet gives the key to most of the other nuances found throughout the chapter and prophesy. It's here, verses 10-12, where the emblem found in the doorway at the end of the highway to heaven (Isaiah 22:22-24; Ezekiel 44:2; Revelation 3:7) is described in its genesis and exodus. After speaking of coming up to the emblem in the gateway of heaven, the next statement in Isaiah 62:19 reads: "remove the stones, get rid of the stones [hiding the emblem in the doorway to heaven]":

Ezekiel 11:19, and 36:26, are speaking explicitly of the "chosen" חשן worn over the heart of the high priest when he entered the doorway into heaven, i.e., the veil into the house of God. Without wearing this stony emblem the priest couldn't enter into the heavenly house of God. It's explicitly, and undeniably, the key to entering the veil or doorway into heaven and the glorious Presence of the Lord. Ironically, the prophet is now singing a new song, is now saying that to enter into the true heavenly portal, rather than the stony emblem, the stone temple, the twelve stones on the chosen must be removed to reveal the nature of what's hidden in the fold behind them.

The chosen was adorned with twelve stones representing the stony hearts of the 12 tribes of Israel. And beneath those twelve stones worn over the priest's heart was hidden the so-called "chosen" חשן one of God, represented by the tetragrammaton placed in the fold behind the stones that make up the the stony-hearted tribes of Israel. The prophet Ezekiel states that this stony-emblem worn as the key to entering the house of God will be replaced by one single heart (in contradistinction to the stony-hearted tribes of Israel); a heart of flesh and blood dangling, bleeding, between the breasts of the new priests of God, who are associated with those speaking in Isaiah 63:16, and described more precisely in various other passages of the prophet:


In context Isaiah isn't speaking of the Levites, nor even the children of Israel, since he's unabashedly revealing a hidden revelation associated with the hidden people given voice in Isaiah 63:16. In the next chapter, specifically our passage, Isaiah 62:10-12, the prophet explains that these new priests and ministers of God won't wear the stony-heart known as the "chosen" חשן, but will have that emblem replaced, those stones removed, to reveal what was hidden behind the 12 stones on the Levitical priest's breast-borne ornament, banner, all along. Those stones must be removed to see what's hidden behind them. Those twelve stones must be replaced with an emblem of a singular heart of flesh that's dangling between the breasts of God's new priesthood as the wood and metal ornament, emblem, idolatrous-"banner" נס, seen, in its living reality, standing in, as, the veil into the very heart of the house of God.



John

John D. Brey said:

And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of God.

Isaiah 61:6.​

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Lest some stony-willed orthodox Jew still reading along (and that would take a steely or stony will indeed) reject the idea that God is calling out a new priesthood, a priesthood come from the tribe of Judah rather than Levi (something unheard of in the corridors of the synagogue), we have, in our chapter, Isaiah 62, the statement that these new priests, wearing the new bosom-borne ornament or banner (one fleshly Rock to replace the twelve tribes of the chosen), will be called by a new name:


And we don't even have to go too far to have the prophet reveal to us what this new name of the new priest will be. In Isaiah chapter 60, verse 21, we read that, "They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for they display my glory." The new chosen displays the glory of the Lord and not glorious Israel arrayed in precious stones and sacerdotal tones. The new priestly emblem, banner, key into the house of God, is the glory of the Lord not another (Isaiah 48:11). It's the singular Rock hidden behind Israel, or in Israel, as it were, until born out of her as a "shoot" planted by God and not Abraham; a son born of virgin credentials and not of the will of a human father be he Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob/Israel.

Properly interpreted Isaiah 60, verse 21, reads differently than found in the Masoretic Text and her Masoretes-mimicking English translations. In the Hebrew, the text explicitly reveals the "new name" emphasized in the next chapter.


Verse 11 of Isaiah 62 says:


The Nazarene produces the Nazarenes, and that's the name of the new people of God who are before him on the day of his revelation to Israel and the rest of the ends of the earth. The Nazarene was for too log a lithopedion, a stilbirth par excellent, the most encrusted and forgotten firstborn in all creation. But he's still born. He's the Rock hidden in the fold of the twelve tribes of Israel throughout the the full measure of their old existence. He was planted their not by father Abraham, since God is his father (Isaiah 63:16). And his existence behind, inside the fold, of the tribes of Israel, the chosen ones, was a "secret" not revealed to Israel until Isaiah blurts it out. And it's a peculiar "secret" in that he was there without a human father. He was a "nazar" נצר, a Nazarene, which is the Hebrew word for an asexual branch growing out of the root rather than the sexual process of the tree in the cross hairs.



John

John D. Brey said:

The Nazarene produces the Nazarenes, and that's the name of the new people of God who are before him on the day of his revelation to Israel and the rest of the ends of the earth. The Nazarene was for too log a lithopedion, a stilbirth par excellent, the most encrusted and forgotten firstborn in all creation. But he's still born. He's the Rock hidden in the fold of the twelve tribes of Israel throughout the the full measure of their old existence. He was planted their not by father Abraham, since God is his father (Isaiah 63:16). And his existence behind, inside the fold, of the tribes of Israel, the chosen ones, was a "secret" not revealed to Israel until Isaiah blurts it out. And it's a peculiar "secret" in that he was there without a human father. He was a "nazar" נצר, a Nazarene, which is the Hebrew word for an asexual branch growing out of the root rather than the sexual process of the tree in the cross hairs.

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If our stout-hearted orthodox Jewish reader held on by the skin of his uncircumcised teeth up until that last paragraph, he's surely gone by now, done with us, to return to father Abraham and the Israelite fold. And yet he'll miss the undeniable, ironic, paradoxical, ridiculous, justification for the paragraph above.

In chapter 48 of his prophesy, which is like the mezuzah into deutero-Isaiah and the unique prophesy found there, Isaiah lambastes the phony Jews he targets throughout deutero-Isaiah. He claims they invoke the name of the God of Israel as though they were born of him when they're not (v. 1). He says even allowing them to still be called "Israel," which is one of God's many names, is only so that he not be judged for destroying them to keep them from tarnishing his holy name (v. 9). And yet with all that said, verse 6 is the pièces de ré·sis·tance:


After bemoaning the desecration of his name by Israel, through the prophet Isaiah, God, through Isaiah, now speaks of a new thing, a new "secret," a new priesthood hidden from Israel until now, up until the very start, here, of the great revelation of deuteo-Isaiah: the name of the new Israel, the new priests, born not of Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob/Israel, but by God's own planting of them inside Israel, hidden behind, inside, the twelve tribes of the chosen [ones], until now, deutero-Isaiah, where the great secret hidden throughout the Tanakh is to be revealed.

The word "secret" in the prophet's revelation of the "secret" name that will replace Israel, is the Hebrew word "Nazareth," or "Nazarene" נצרות (Isaiah 48:6). The secret name of God's new covenant priests is the "Nazarenes" born out of the Nazar, the Branch, planted in the womb of Israel by God himself, and without seminal recourse to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob/Israel, and left there to become a lithopidion through sin and neglect. The Rock of Israel (and all the souls stored in this Branch), carried to term in the chosen חשן, the twelve tribes of Israel, is born out of Israel, to their shock, dismay, and rejection, since they know not, "Who bore me these since I was barren to God my husband and rejected of him since I desecrated his name over and over again never feeling a tinge of guilt since I thought it was hidden from the dumb Gentiles whom God would never choose over my gorgeous twelve-bejeweled breasts anyway [Luke 10:10-11]."



John

John D. Brey said:

The word "secret" in the prophet's revelation of the "secret" name that will replace Israel, is the Hebrew word "Nazareth," or "Nazarene" נצרות (Isaiah 48:6). The secret name of God's new covenant priests is the "Nazarenes" born out of the Nazar, the Branch, planted in the womb of Israel by God himself, and without seminal recourse to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob/Israel, and left there to become a lithopidion through sin and neglect. The Rock of Israel (and all the souls stored in this Branch), carried to term in the chosen חשן, the twelve tribes of Israel, is born out of Israel, to their shock, dismay, and rejection, since they know not, "Who bore me these since I was barren to God my husband and rejected of him since I desecrated his name over and over again never feeling a tinge of guilt since I thought it was hidden from the dumb Gentiles whom God would never choose over my gorgeous twelve-bejeweled breasts anyway [Luke 10:10-11]."

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There are so many nuances hidden by the Masoretic interpretation of the text that even a starving exegete drooling over the banquet before him can't sink his teeth in deep enough or fast enough to get to all he would like. For instance, Isaiah 62:10-11 clearly parallels Isaiah 52:10 in suggesting that the arm of the Lord, become banner, is viewed and acknowledged not just in Israel, Jerusalem, or the precincts near Golgotha, but to the very ends of the world. And because of this, as read in Isaiah 62:10-11, those viewing this arm, or Branch, of the Lord, are told to say to the daughter of Zion:


"Yeshua" is used here, even in the Masoretic Text, as a personal pronoun. There's no way around that even for the Jewish exegete: Yeshua is the personal name not of some abstract reward for performing mitzvot by the letter of the law, but is the name of Israel's own, personal, Jesus; someone who hears their prayers, someone who cares. Their salvation is a person, referred to in the text by a personal pronoun.




John