Monday, December 25, 2023

Are the References to God as Redeemer in Isaiah 40-55 Evidence for Multiple Authorship?

  

The frequency of references in Isa 40-55 to God as Redeemer is the fundamental reason that Marien Halvorson-Taylor locates the audience of these chapters in an exilic setting. She believes the author is picturing the exiles when using the metaphors of prisoners, desolate children, a mother without children, and debt slaves, with the exile being their prison sentence. Thus Halvorson-Taylor’s thematic reasoning based on associated terminology that is only tangentially related to the exile or redemption is unconvincing. According to Halvorson-Taylor, Judah needed a Redemer (from the root ג-א-ל, g-‘-l, which occurs seventeen times in Isa 40-55; cf. the root פ-ד-ה, p-d-h, which occurs once) who would deliver them and return them to their land in a new exodus experience. Although Deuteronomy uses פ-ד-ה (p-d-h) six times, always to refer to the exodus, it never uses ג-א-ל (g-‘-l) (which it uses twice) in this way. The book of Exodus uses ג-א-ל (g-‘-l) only twice, both times to refer to the exodus. In Isa 41:14 and 49:26 the term Redeemer (גּאַל, gō’ēl) serves as a title for a God, who would help his people in war (42;11-14; 49;25-26); it has nothing to do with an exodus or deliverance from exile. Isaiah 54:5, 8 include “Redeemer” as one of the titles of God, Isa 52:9 tells the “ruins of Jerusalem” that God has redeemed (ג-א-ל, g-‘-l) them, and God’s plan to redeem his people mentioned in 43:1 and 51:10 relates to the eschatological gathering of Israel. Isaiah 44:22 connects the word “Redeemer” (גּאַל, gō’ēl) lack any direct connection to an exodus experience (43:14; 44:6, 24 47:4; 48:17; 49:7). Isaiah 48:20 is the only verse that associates fleeing Babylon with God’s redemption.

 

In contrast to Halvorson-Taylor, Tiemeyer questions the claim that the use of exodus imagery proves a Babylonian setting, since the general concepts associated with exodus events could be used in various settings to illustrate God’s care for his people. Hans Barstad maintains that the exodus imagery in Isa 40-55 is metaphorical and thus not a major emphasis in these chapters. Furthermore, some parts of this text describe God’s return to Jerusalem (40:5; 52:7012), not an exodus of Judeans. Although exodus imagery is widely used in Isaiah, it is often a reminder of YHWH’s powerful past actions in the original exodus (e.g., Isa 42:13; 43:16-17; 48:21; 5110; 52:3-4) or metaphorical imagery for what God will do eschatologically (e.g., Isa 41:17-18; 43:2-3, 20; 49:10; 51:3; 52:12) when he gathers many people from all nations to Zion.  (Gary V. Smith, “Cyrus or Sennacherib? Historical Issues Involved in the Interpretation of Isaiah 40-55,” in Bind Up the Testimony: Explorations in the Genesis of the Book of Isaiah, ed. Daniel I. Block and Richard L. Schultz [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2015], 184-85)