ישע is a result of צדק [the name Yesha is a result of Tsaddik] and its relation to צדק is the same as that of the positive garments of the high priest to the more negative garments of the ordinary priests (see Commentary to Shemos 28:43).
Ibn Ezra, Isaiah 61:10 [bracket added by me].
The statement made by Ibn Ezra above segues into exegesis done
here on Isaiah 49:18. Isaiah 49:18 could quite genuinely be considered the greatest epispasmic exegesis found throughout the entire Tanakh in that this one slip of the interpreter's wrist has covered up the Jewish understanding of deutero-Isaiah more than any such mistake throughout the entire text. The verse speaks of the wearing of the very "ornament" in the crosshairs of the current examination ---Tiferet. But the flawed exegesis found in the MT, and its faithfully unfaithful servant the KJV, claims:
Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: All these gather themselves together and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, And bind them on thee as a bride doeth.
We have the same ornament, and the same bride wearing it, as found in Isaiah 61:10. But here, it's not the joyful priest of God wearing the Name of God, the bejeweled "
chosen gadol", the ornament of the priest צדק and the high priest ישע. On the contrary, the city (Zion) is allegedly wearing the worshipers on her walls (see exegesis
here) rather than the worshipers wearing the personified (anthropomorphized) city.
. . . as truly as I am living, it will be acted upon. כקשורי כלח=ככלח As the ornament of the bride round her neck.
Ibn Ezra, Isaiah 49:18.
Exegeted
faithfully, Isaiah 49:18 speaks of the same ornament as Isaiah 61:10. It's the same ornament fancied worn
of the bride round her neck, found in both passages of Isaiah, as well as being worn by the bride, round her neck, between her breasts, at any church wedding throughout the world. Nevertheless, the latter isn't the reason Isaiah 49:18 is read against the grain of the entire context wear it's found. It's read against the grain of the entire context where it's found because of the context where it's found.
In the context where this ornament worn by brides throughout the world, between their breasts, is noted in the text of Isaiah, we read that a "banner" directly associated with this ornament will be lifted up in the hand (as Moses lifted the serpent rod in the desert), to, as the text says, "beckon to the Gentiles" (49:22). Which makes it clear why it's the Gentile brides throughout the world who wear this ornament said to resemble, typologically at least, the serpent lifted in the desert, betwixt their virgin breasts, and on the most solemn day of their life: God specifically lifted the serpent in the desert to save Israel, but furthermore, to "beckon" to an approaching epoch where Gentiles would follow the colors, or guidon, as it were, to the same or similar salvation acquired by Israel by looking up at the banner become ornament lifted in the hand.
In the original lifting of the serpent rod in his hand (Exodus 4:1-9), God then tells Moses to place this hand, with the serpent rod in it, betwixt his breasts where the serpent rod will become leprous. In context, God tells Moses that Israel might not accept the theophany associated with the leprous ornament between the breasts (which ironically will, the leprous branch, cause the
goyim to come running), but that Israel will join the Gentiles in pursuing, and wearing, this divine, bejeweled spectacle lifted in the desert, precisely, the Jews that is, when its been healed of its leprosy such that Jews no longer fear being made unclean by the bloody corpse worn between an virgin bride's lily white breasts on the most solemn day of her life.
The grotesquery of the irony --- an innocent young
almah or virgin, wearing the ornament of a bleeding, leprous, corpse, as though it's an ornament so glorious she wears it dangling between her milky white breasts (Isaiah 60:16) as she proclaims "I do" to God and Bridegroom -----is, and will be, missed by many religious penitents until such a time as the healing of the corpse, swallowed by Gentiles only at this time, becomes the universal salutary celebration known as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (when the healed emblem of the serpentine lamb of God will be swallowed, universally, by everyone invited to the banquet ---John 6:53; Isaiah 25:6-11).
John
