In the days to come,
YHWH’s temple mount
Shall stand firm above the mountains,
And be raised higher than the hills.
All the nations shall look brightly upon it.
Many peoples shall set out [for it], saying:
Come, let us ascend the mountain of YHWH,
To the temple of the God of Jacob;
That he may instruct us of his ways,
So that we will walk in his paths.
For rulings are issued from Zion,
YHWH’s oracle from Jerusalem.
That he shall adjudicate between the nations,
And render verdicts to many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
Their spears into pruning hooks.
One nation shall not raise the sword
against another nation,
They shall never again train for war.
This passage can be interpreted from many
different perspectives. Here we are concerned with Isaiah’s attitude toward the
temple of Jerusalem and its cult, and my comments will consequently focus on
this aspect. Several relevant themes inform the prophecy. We should note, first
of all, the figure of firmness associated with the temple; it will be a nākôn,
‘standing firm’, unshakeable. We will have occasion further on to discuss the typology
of temples in ancient Near Eastern literature. By saying that the temple of
Jerusalem will stand firm Isaiah means to say that it is a temple of righteousness,
for a temple of wickedness would not endure.
Several terms of reference also require comment.
God’s verdicts are to be rendered as dābār and tôrāh. In the
present context, dābār is best translated ‘oracle’, and tôrāh, ‘ruling’.
The Hebrew term tôrāh is actually of priestly provenance, referring
primarily to the rulings issued by priests on questions of law in their role as
judges. This priestly function is most specifically expressed in Deuteronomy 17
which sounds as though it is related to Isaiah’s prophecy:
If a case is too deep for you to adjudicate, be it
a dispute over homicide, civil damages, or assault, matters of dispute in your
gates, you must promptly ascend to the cult-site (māqôm) which YHWH your
God will have selected. You must approach the Levitical priests and the judge (šôpēṭ)
presiding at that time, and request a decision. They will announce to you the
verdict/oracle in the case (debar hammišpāṭ), and you must act in
accordance with the verdict/oracle (haddābār) they announce to you at that
cult-site which YHWH will have selected. You must carefully carry out all that
they instruct you. In accordance with the ruling (tôrāh) they instruct
you in accordance with the judgment they inform you you must act. (Deut.
17.8-11a)
Here we have all the terms of reference featured
in Isaiah’s prophecy, and it is a moot point whether to translate dābār
in Deuteronomy 17 as ‘verdict’ or ‘oracle’.
The use of dābār in Isaiah’s prophecy clearly
expresses the function of the Jerusalem temple as an oraculum, a
function epitomized in early traditions by the Tent of Meeting mentioned by the
Elohist in Exod. 33.7-11; 34.34-35. One knowing tôrāh and in receipt of dābār
would find YHWH’s ‘path’, derek (and ‘ôraḥ), a theme already
discussed [in] Jeremiah 7.
It is improbable that Isaiah envisioned a temple
in Jerusalem that would no longer serve as a house of worship of the God of
Israel. What he seems to be saying is that Jerusalem has a role as the seat of
justice and, conforming to the pervasive ancient Near Eastern pattern, the
court would be located adjacent to the temple in an acropolis complex.
The court on Mount Zion, standing near the temple,
would settle the wars of Assyrian conquest and domination through the rule of
divinely revealed law. This process would end the direct threat to Jerusalem
and Judah, and bring peace to other nations as well. But before Judah and
Jerusalem could assume a role in international affairs, and before the God of
Israel could enlighten the nations by revealing just settlements of
international conflict, the existing Jerusalem, with its injustice and corruption,
must be reconstituted into a Jerusalem of righteousness.
In Isaiah’s eyes, the persistence of a wicked society in Jerusalem, capital of Judah, was in reality preventing the fulfillment of YHWH’s plan for his people and for the world. Could this be the reason for divine wrath over the profusion of cultic activity in the temple of a corrupt Jerusalem? What an irony! The Judeans delude themselves that they are glorifying YHWH in the temple, whereas in truth they are delaying YHWH’s exaltation as God of all nations! (Baruch A. Levine, “An Essay on Prophetic Attitudes Toward Temple and Cult in Biblical Israel,” in Marc Brettler and Michael Fishbane, eds., Minḥah le-Naḥum: Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of his 70th Birthday [Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 154; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993], 202-25, here, pp. 218-20)