An uncompromising distance is clearly drawn
not only between his wisdom and the ‘wise men’, but also between his power and
Egyptian military strength. So רוח is used here
to sharpen the distinction further, as A.R. Johnson describes:
[The] distinction is here
made explicit, for the parallelism, coupled with the foregoing illustrations,
will surely warrant our saying that Yahweh, like the heavenly forces under his
control, differs from mankind as being of a more rarefied substance ‘like
fire’—in short, רוח or spirit. (Johnson,
The One and the Many, p. 14)
The contrast between flesh and spirit is
particularly pronounced when the difference between God and his created world
is being stressed. The characteristic of God in his power is said to be רוח as that of humans and
animals, even if they are many and strong, is בשׂר (flesh) in their weakness and frailties. This opposition may
have an allusion to Gen. 6:3. Yet רוח is not a general word for power, but ‘it is power only because
it partakes of and stems from the source for all power, God himself.’ רוח apart from God becomes void as wind, for the spirit is neither
a substance nor an entity standing apart from Yahweh. It becomes evident in the
following judgment which will be brought about by God or Yahweh himself.
However, the prophet is not ready to say, ‘God is spirit’. In a sense, on the
one hand, this shows a connection to an old tradition as found in the book of
Judges in which the רוח of Yahweh is
described as the source of extraordinary physical strength for national heroes.
But on the other hand, the passage differs from the Judges traditions. Here,
Yahweh is directly involved in the conflict between Pharaoh’s horses with
horsemen and the רוח which
characterizes God. (Wonsuk Ma, Until the Spirit Comes: The Spirit of God in
the Book of Isaiah [Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement
Series 271; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999], 53)
Since the otherliness of Yahweh is at stake,
‘God’ here is not used as a generic term. No other deity is known in this
polemic. Naturally foreign gods are ignored. Wildberger rightly observes that אל rather than אלהימ or יהוה is used in Isaiah (e.g. 7:14; 9:5) to denote the quality of
divine being, that is being göttlich (of God). Pharaoh, in spite of his claim of divinity and
of being the ‘sweet breath of life’ to the people, is only בשׂר. Here בשׂר is ‘not
“material” nor “physical” but that which comprises the entire being of humans’.
It is possible that the prophet further denounces the deification of the
Egyptian army, along with the Egyptian king. (Ibid., 53-54)
