“The Name of YHWH Comes from Afar” (Isa 30:27) in the Light of Rhetorical Analysis of Isa 30:27–33: an Attempt at Identification
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/BPTH.2019.023Keywords
Isaiah, the name of YHWH, Assyria, Isa 30, 27–33Abstract
The aim of the article is to clarify the meaning of the opening phrase of the prophecy of Isa 30:27–33: הִנֵּה שֵׁם־יְהוָה בָּא מִמֶּרְחָק. Interpretative difficulties arise primarily from the noun שֵׁם and the adverb מִמֶּרְחָק appearing here. The article presents previous attempts to understand the entire expression, and then proposes a new reading of it, which unambiguously links “the name of YHWH” with the Assyrian empire. Such identification results both from the exegesis and the analysis of the context of the prophecy, and is also supported by the latest achievements of Hebrew biblical rhetoric. The message of the prophecy reveals the person of Isaiah as an attentive observer of political events, and at the same time as a high-class theologian sensitive to the subtlety of God’s message. The prophecy of Isa 30:27–33, which is part of the most mature statements of the prophet from the last stage of his activity (705–701 BC), is thus inscribed in the idea of those oracles in which understatements and ambiguous phrases play a fundamental role.
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