Saturday, December 16, 2023

Joseph Blekinsopp on Isaiah 8:16

  

Isaiah confided his testimonies and teachings to his disciples in order to guarantee the authenticity of the predictions they contained after the failure of his first incursion into Judean foreign affairs (Isa 8:16). This written copy is called a “testimony” (tē’ûdâ), an indication that predictive prophecies could take on a quasilegal status when written and notarized for purposes of authentication comparable to the prophetic “witness” written in a “book” alluded to at Isa 30:8-11. (Joseph Blenkinsopp, Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006], 6-7)