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SBL Annual Meeting Papers- November 2009

For Review Only; Do Not Distribute 

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Total Otherness, Self-Condemnation, and ‘Mission Impossible’:
A Psycho-Dramatic Reading of Isaiah 6

Barbara M. Leung Lai
Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Canada

To invite an audience-perspective, this presentation will be incorporated with a 5-minute video.

Introduction: Reading Agenda

Once one of the most debated chapters in the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 6 has received relatively little attention in Old Testament scholarship in the recent past. While exploration into the wisdom background and parabolic implications of verses 9-10 in the Synoptics continues to abound,1 attempts to read the chapter afresh with newer angles of vision are still in demand. Shaped by my current interpretive interest in the inner life of Hebrew personalities, I seek to employ a psychological lens and revisit the chapter from a distinct angle of perception—dimensions of the interiority of the prophet as embedded in the first-person vision report in this intriguing, sometimes perplexing, chapter of Isaiah.

In keeping with the widening perspectives of literary theory, I shall undertake a three-world approach to Isaiah 6, an approach that considers the world behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text. Any such approach to biblical text calls for an integration of competing methods and tools. This study is no exception. My point of departure is to approach the task with a view that the three worlds are intimately interconnected and the interface of the text and reader shapes all the three worlds. With a focused reading agenda for each world of the text, I seek to establish “points of entry” specific to each world. The entry points are, in essence, empirical attempts to formulate a coherent interpretive strategy for each world as well as the study proper (the whole). It is my high hope that this reading can demonstrate the way(s) that a three-world approach can expand the horizon of our perception and enrich the meaning-significance of this chapter.

I concur with John Watts that a “vision-drama” reading is an appropriate port of entry.2 Unique to this chapter is its highly descriptive and dramatic character, with scenic renderings of situations and events (including the character Isaiah’s inner speech/thoughts).  In other words, the dramatic nature of this vision report invites an “audience perspective in readers.” To grasp the full impact of its depiction, the chapter is best imagined, even viewed. I invite each reader to fully immerse himself or herself in the visionary experience of Isaiah—both emotionally and experientially—as it is described by the author’s “I”-voice. To demonstrate the “empirics” of engaging text, we readers need to become the audience of its performance.

A 5-Minute video (mini-movie) will be shown here.

The World Behind the Text

Essential to any “world behind the text” approach to first-person vision report is coming to terms with the issue of authenticity and textual coherence with regard to the historical data.3 For Isaiah 6, the historical reference in verse 1 (“In the year that King Uzziah died”) is the locus of debate: whether the chapter authenticates the inauguration of the Isaian prophetic office (i.e. to be read as a first person “call report”) or something else. While we have not as yet come up with a common consensus among scholars, I seek to reshape the focus of examination and converge on three distinct angles of inquiry.

1. The Impact of the Death of King Uzziah upon the Prophet (v.1)

As one of the two first-person narratives in Isaiah (also ch. 8), the Isaian “I”-voice emerges for the first time in v.1, providing a precise historical reference to his vision: “In the year that King Uzziah died.”  Uzziah/Azariah died between 742 and 735 b.c. after an outstanding, prosperous reign of about 50 years and a period of co-regency with his son, Jotham (cf. 2 Kgs. 15). While we could never be certain of the exact date of the vision-report (Isaiah could have written it after the actual event), it is quite unique in Isaiah in that the prophet dates the revelation from God by strategic events in the historical, political world (cf. 14:28). Millard Lind4 has noted the “political implications” of verse 1. Isaiah being a figure active in the king’s court (cf. chapters 37-38), he would have perceived the king’s death as an important transitional moment in the political scene of Judah. Threatened with the impending invasion of the Assyrian world power, Uzziah’s decline from a triumphant monarch ruling Judah with wealth and prosperity for 50 plus years to his death by leprosy (also paralleled with Judah’s spiritual decline as reflected in chapters 3 and 5) would have disturbed the prophet greatly. To say that his vision of the Lord came “in the year that Uzziah died” is surely to state more than a point of historical reference. It might have denoted unrest and “uncleanness” to Isaiah. This lays the scene from which springs the vision report: a powerful aura of “uncleanness” and the need “to be cleansed” (both personally and corporately, with Judah as a nation). Zooming in from this angle, the emotive setting of the chapter is that of sadness, guilt, and doom.

1. The Psychology of the First Audience/Community of Readers

Harold Ellens has advocated a largely unexplored yet refreshing “port of entry” to inquiries related to the world behind the text. It focuses on the question: “What are the psychological implications to the first audience/recipients?”5 In other words, what did the first audience “hear” and understand as they listened to the authentic “I”-voice of Isaiah? As a new paradigm in approaching the authorship and unity issue of Isaiah, Christopher Seitz also argues from a distinct angle of vision—the “acceptance of the original community” (or a “theology of reception”).6To the 8th century first audience and recipients, dating the vision report with a precise historical reference (“In the year that King Uzziah died”) as well as the “I”-voice of the prophet brings about two effects. First, it was likely perceived as a real historical event. Second, it is an “authentic” report as it is retold in the Isaian “I”-voice, and thus Isaiah’s prophetic office was authenticated. As von Rad has long observed, this dating an event in the historical and political world among Hebrew prophets is quite unique as there is no parallel found among other ANE religions.7

1. The Hebrew Ways of Expressing “Self” and “Interiority”/The Ways that the “I”-Voice appeals to the Hebrew Mind

Although Philip R. Davies still maintains that dimensions of the inner life of characters (such as feelings, conflicting emotions, hopes and regrets) are virtually absent in the Hebrew Bible,8 my own publications in the recent past have demonstrated that strong evidence of the internal profile of Hebrew personalities can be found in the Old Testament.9 One fundamental question still remains: How is this complex concept of self and interiority communicated? Or, guided by the context of this chapter, how does the “I” voice of an individual appeal to the Hebrew mind?

(a) The “I”-Voice: Authenticity and Invitation

In Hebrew, the first person “I” is conveyed by a host of first-person singular verb forms and suffixes as well as the independent pronoun אני (“I”). Besides providing authenticity to the things communicated, this self-referential “I” occurs frequently in Ecclesiastes as well as the 15 identifiable I-passages in Isaiah (strategic places where the prophet speaks in the first-person singular voice: 5:1-30; 6:1-13; 8:1-18; 15:1-16:4; 21: 1-12; 22:1-25; 24:1-23; 25:1-12; 276:1-21; 40:1-8; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 51:17-23; 61:1-11; 63:7-19). The use of “I” serves as a window into the person. In this light, the first-person “I”-voice can be taken as an invitation to the first community of readers to look at the intimation of the writer’s “self.” (I shall return to this observation again in my discussion on the “world of the text” in that the chapter can be divided by the 3 Isaian responses: each begins with “Then I said” [in v. 5, 8, and 11]—invitations to the first community of readers to look at the intimation of his “self”).

(b ) The “I”-Voice and Self-Consciousness

It has been claimed that the “I”-voice in vision reports or in monologues is the ground of a person’s self consciousness.10 Michael Fox expands the idea further, suggesting that this “I”-voice “thrusts the ego of the speaker into prominence, leaving no doubt about his investment in what is being reported.”11 The same observations can be applied to our case here. The Isaian “I”-voice in the chapter has the cohesive power that enables the first audience/readers to speak of Isaiah as a unified person and to follow his vision report in a cohesive fashion. In essence, it is an intentional foregrounding of the character’s interiority.

The World of the Text

Two factors shape the strategy for the analysis of this chapter: (1) the biblical genre adopted in reading, and (2) one’s interpretive interest/agenda. Mark G. Bret has precisely spelled out the interrelatedness between interpretive interest, goal, and reading strategy. To him, any talk about strategy should be preceded by an analogy of interpretive interests. A reading strategy can only be coherent if it is guided by a clearly articulated question or goal.12 My interpretive interest in the inner life of the prophet sets the point of departure in this section. 

1. Meaning through Genre: First-Person “Vision-Drama”

Most commentators assign “first-person call report” as the macro genre of Chapter 6. I have taken a “vision-drama” reading strategy in that the textual dynamics in the development of this drama as well as the audio-visual elements (i.e. theatrical depiction of the scene of the Heavenly Court,13 the majesty and holiness of the Lord, the exotic appearance of the seraphim, the sound and magnitude of the noise, the shaking and the smoke)—provide the most crucial stage-setting as background for understanding the Isaian emotive responses. A vision-drama reading strategy would necessitate a reader’s emotive engagement to re-image and behold the unfolding of the drama.

After giving a brief referential introduction (v. 1a), Isaiah now retreats to the background. The Lord is now at the centre of the scene. Interestingly, even though the drama begins with the Isaian “I”-voice—“I saw the Lord”—the description here has nothing to do with the face of God. It centers on the majesty, splendour, holiness and glory—very abstract matters to human perception. From an audience perspective, with Isaiah I witness God sitting on a throne, wearing a robe so large that its train occupies the whole space of the temple. I perceive what it means to be “high” and “exalted”—the Lord’s majesty. The actions and voice of the 6-wing seraphim bring to life a more in-depth depiction of the Lord. They are flying and calling to one another: “Holy (קדושׁ ), Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty; and the whole earth is full of his glory (כבוד )” (v.3). Their voices are so loud that the doorposts and thresholds are shaking, and the temple is filled with smoke (v.4). The unusual appearance of the seraphim, their loud voices, the shaking of the temple, and the smoke in it all contribute to my comprehension of the קדושׁ and כבוד of God (vv. 2-4). To the reader/audience, these would have been very abstract matters without the audio-visual aids. It is an awesome depiction, an awful feeling, a frightening experience. The audio-visual scene depicted in verses 2-4 assists in bringing what seem to be abstract perceptions more concretely to the foreground in a comprehensive way. This forms the background for the subsequent 3 Isaian emotive responses.       

1. From the Three Isaian Responses to the Interiority of the Prophet (vv. 5, 8, 11)

The flow in the development of this vision drama is marked by the same 3 pathos-filled responses: “Then I said” (ואמר ) in verses 5, 8, 11. The motif of seeing-hearing-perceiving frames the whole background for the Isaian “I”-voice and his emotive responses. He “sees” with his own “eyes” the majesty of the sovereign Lord (אדני )14 sitting on a throne, high and exalted. He “hears” with his own “ears” the resounding voice of the 6-wing seraphim shouting to each other with a triple of   קדושׁ (v.3) which shakes the doorposts of the temple. His lips feel the burning sensation of cleansing coal taken from the altar. To Isaiah, this is an all-senses experience that requires the engagement of his whole being—witnessing to the fullest extent what it means to experience the holy and sovereign God as the “Total Other.” As to the Isaian interiority, it is also to be noted that the rhetoric of the chapter indicates a movement from “intense engaging” to “suppressed responding.”                                    

1. “Woe to me!” I said. “I am silent! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (v.5)

Considering Isaiah as the sole object of this vision, the impact on him would even be greater, as is evident in his first “I”-response in the form of an “interior monologue” (v. 5). Overwhelmed with awe and in a state of shock, Isaiah breaks out with a desperate cry: “Woe to me (אוי־לי )! For, I am silent/finished (נדמתי ).” With “woe” (אוי ) indicating an impassioned expression of grief and despair, the fact that here it is directed to himself is quite remarkable. (As אוי is usually used with the dative, with 2nd and 3rd person often imply a denunciation of doom and judgment). The second part of the “woe” provides further qualification: “I am silent.”15 The Isaian אוי and דמה complement each other in this self-representation of his emotive state. As a general expression of dismay, אוי־לי carries the notion of a self-lamenting cry over one’s situation.16 The force of this lament is further strengthened by using דמה 17 together which points to a fatal, hopeless situation, as if Isaiah’s very existence is at the verge of being wiped out. The whole expression here (v. 5a) echoes a funeral setting as if a life is gone forever, and there is absolutely no hope for survival. Only mourning remains.

In 21:11-12, “an oracle concerning Dumah (silence),” דמה is used as a play on words in this silent “question and answer” oracle. It is a pathos-loaded oracle depicting the helplessness and dilemma faced by the prophet in attending to the people’s inquiry: What of the night? (Or how long the night will be?) in the emotive realm of despair and doom.

This lament is followed by a soliloquy18 (v. 5b). In his own familiar words, Isaiah is addressing to his inner self the reason for his frightened state: “For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (v. 5b). In spite of the fact that he is overwhelmed by fear and grief, he is fully conscious of the miserable state of his existence; an immense gulf exists between the “holiness” of God, as the “Total Otherness,” and the “unclean” prophet who also lives among a people of unclean lips. He is able to formulate his own thoughts/reflections in his own words in a monologic response. Isaiah’s self-representation of his inner self in verse 5 indicates a remarkable degree of self-consciousness.

1. And I said, “Here I am. Send me!” (v. 8)

After the cleansing of his lips and the proclamation that his iniquity is removed, there comes the voice of the Lord: “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” At this juncture of the Lord’s calling and Isaiah’s completed cleansing, there comes the second Isaian response: “Then I said, here I am, send me!” (v. 8). To most commentators, ואמר indicates the immediacy of a spontaneous response. This, in turn, signifies the willingness and readiness of the one who responds. Perhaps a close reading of the text points in another direction. The immediacy of the response becomes the core of my inquiry. Should the cleansing and announcement of forgiveness be taken as a relief for Isaiah? (Note that the cleansing of the people of unclean lips is yet to be carried out). The text itself leaves gaps for the reader/audience to fill in. From the audience perspective, Isaiah is still in a state of shock after his vision of God. He then witnesses a seraph taking a live coal from the burning altar, flying to him and touching his lips. He has experienced an awful experience, a burning sensation! The announcement of the forgiveness of sins comes at the highest point of this intense sensation—rather than a more relieved, settled mental state. The emotive building up at this junction is at its climax. Reading the text with a psychological lens, this Isaian response is that of awe and in a state of shock. It is, therefore, an awe-driven, spontaneous response.

1. Then I said, “For how long, O Lord!” (v. 11)

Next, there comes the commission of God to Isaiah, the content of which is highly paradoxical. He is instructed to go and say to the people, “Hear (שׁמע ) indeed, but do not understand (בינ ), and see (ואה ) indeed, but do not perceive (ידע )" (v. 9).19 By way of explanation, Isaiah is told his prophetic task is to make people’s heart calloused, their ears dull, and to coat their eyes. The whole purpose of this is to make the people deaf, blind and ignorant so that they might not repent and be healed (v. 10). As both Craig A. Evans and John L. McLaughlin have concluded, the causative aspect of the command in verse 10 states explicitly that it is God’s purpose to harden his people in order to prevent repentance, and to render judgment certain. McLaughlin further remarks that verses 9-10 serve to explain Isaiah’s lack of success as a fundamental part of God’s divine plan for him, and it is central to his mission. To a perceptive and skillful (keen in “seeing,” “hearing,” and “perceiving”) prophet like Isaiah, he is fully aware of what it means to dull the faculties of the people so that they become incapable of “hearing,” “seeing,” and “perceiving.” It is an awful task—one that seems very unreasonable for God to commission. “To make certain God’s complete destruction of the land and its people” is a complete reversal of what a prophet’s mission should be! In order to fulfill his task, he will have to put aside his perceptive skills, deny the very capabilities which give him the true identity as a prophet. From the perspective of the prophetic pathos, it is truly a “mission impossible”!

Against this perplexed feeling, Isaiah says, “For how long, O Lord?” (v. 11). This is not simply a request to know how long the situation will last. It is rather a deep-rooted plea that arises out of intense and complex emotions—frustration, confusion, and being restrained by God. Before the Lord Almighty, there is no room for him to argue or demand an explanation. In this sense, the expression here is a lamenting petition as often used in the Psalms of Lament, pleading with God to put present suffering to an end. It expresses a sigh of sadness, a lament of grief—“For how long, O Lord?” It is succinct, yet deep emotion is embedded here.

The drama ends with God’s answer which comes in verses 11-13. To Isaiah’s plea, God replies that it will not come about until a complete destruction which brings the people and the land to a final end. In other words, Isaiah’s plea is not granted at the end yet there is a remote notion of hope for the survival of the holy seed (v. 13). From the audience perspective, I see Isaiah on the stage with intense emotions of frustration, fear and grief—a picture of one who is under divine constraint. The portrait itself is very remarkable in terms of its “intense” but “silent” emotive responses.

1. The Multiplicity of Speaking Voices: Bakhtinian Perspectives

Chapter 6 (as well as the later part of the book, especially chs. 40-66) is marked by the multiplicity of speaking voices. In a study devoted to vision and voice in Isaiah, Francis Landy has come to the conclusion that “if vision suggests clarity and exteriority, voice evokes the interiority of the person and an intimation beyond the horizon.”20 According to Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, all languages are carriers of ideologies, and all human communications are in essence, dialogic. In reading Hebrew narratives, interior/exterior monologues are commonly regarded as windows into a character’s inner life. Drawing from Bakhtin’s theories and seeking to push beyond their appropriation here, the following aspects of the text can be identified. They contribute to the overarching message of the book as well as perspectives of the Isaian interiority.

(a) Voice and Ideology

As a multi-voiced chapter, Isaiah 6 moves from the “loudness” (the seraphim) to the “silence” of speaking voices (with the Isaian voice as the most suppressed and emotion-loaded). There are three identifiable speaking voices: The Isaian first-person telling voice (vv. 1, 5, 8, 11), the corporate voice of the seraphim (v. 3), and the commissioning voice of the Lord Almighty (8b, 9-10; 11b-13). Through his I-voice, Isaiah grieves (v. 5), responds (v. 8), and pleas (v. 11). In the collective voice, the seraphim worship the Lord Almighty as the Holy, Holy, Holy (v. 3). The Almighty God commissions and judges the sinful people. Three different voices are all carriers of the same ideology: the Lord Almighty is the Holy God. Isaiah stands in awe of this voice and responds with lamenting cry and sigh. It is to this Holy God the seraphim worship and adore. The Isaian I-voice is succinct and silent, confined and under constraint. The voice of the seraphim is loud and powerful, and the Lord’s is sovereign and determinate/decisive.

In “Strategies of Concentration and Diffusion in Isaiah 6,” Francis Landy has also noted this dynamic in the textual development of the chapter. Reading in this light, the “holiness of God” is at the centre of the chapter, at the front stage of the dramatic description. Chapter 6 begins with the depiction of God’s holiness as the “Total Otherness,” and it ends with a remote hope for the “Holy Seed” (v. 13b), forming a beautiful inclusio.

(b) Dialogism and Isaian Monologue (v. 5)    

The rhetoric of the chapter moves from “exteriority” (vision) to “interiority” (voice).   

The Bakhtinian perspective on dialogism could also be applied here. The Isaian monologic response in verse 5 could be read in this new light. As a literary device, the function of the monologue is to depict the self-consciousness and other aspects of the inner life of the character. L. Alonso Schökel has successfully linked monologue with “interior dialogue” which functions to bring about an internal “doubling” of the individual. Therefore, stylistically speaking, monologue is not one person speaking, but the “breaking into a context of dialogue with a reflection directed towards oneself.” By citing numerous examples from the Psalms, Schökel has insightfully explicated the function of this “doubling-of-oneself” in that the notions of “internal tension” and “inner struggle/inner debate” within the inmost part of the individual are expressed forcefully and dramatically through the monologue. M. Niehoff also suggests the notion of “inner debate.” In a monologue, the character’s externalized self is portrayed as being confronted by his/her internal self. The Bakhtinain perspective is also at work here. The dialogic function of the Isaian interior monologue in v. 5a and his soliloquy in verse 5b, is to create a space for debate and resolving tensions within the Isaian inner self.

The World in Front of the Text: Appropriation

In recent year, I have been developing versions of the “appropriation theory” to facilitate my teaching in biblical interpretation. I concur with Andrew Kille that “appropriation involves not only an analysis of various aspects of the text, it requires a re-expression of those elements in a way that the reader can grasp.”21 Appropriation takes place in the imaginative space between the reader’s own world and the possible world projected by the text. It is controlled neither by the objectivity of the text alone nor the subjectivity of the reader. Appropriation occurs in the intersection between text and reader.22 Building on Kille’s articulation, I carry the concept further and have established a two-step appropriation theory: (1) re-living,and (2) re-expressing.

The following illustration best demonstrates the dynamics behind this 2-step theory. Kazoh Kitamori was probably the first Asian-American theologian to contribute to the theology of the pain of God. His monograph came out in the mid-1960s. In identifying himself with the shame, pain, and suffering of the Japanese nation after the atomic bomb, he wrote the insightful and penetrating book Theology of the Pain of God.23 As a young seminarian reading his book in the early 1970s, I was astonished by the depth of his insights as well as the level of his engagement with the subject. As Katamori re-lived the national suffering and shame and re-expressed the emotional pain through the production of his book, the same “transitive” impact was made upon me. I hope this illustration may illuminate the act of appropriation.

1. Three Readerly Questions of the Text

Shaped by my own gender-culture-context-situatedness, and engaged in the meaning-making process of Isaiah 6, I ask three readerly questions of the text. First, is “Here I am, Send me” an indication of readiness/willingness or an awe-driven, spontaneous response? Second, is the last Isaian reply “For how long, O Lord” a “quest for information” or a sustained, silent lamenting cry—a “plea for mercy”? Third, what is the overarching message of the chapter, a first-person “call report,” a “commissioning report,” a “vision report,” or something else?

The textual analysis does provide directives in reply to these questions. My reading supports the idea that Isaiah 6 is essentially a dramatic “vision report” in that the holiness of God (as the total “Otherness”) is the core subject of depiction. It is cast in a stage setting of a Heavenly Council, with a self-conscious unclean individual standing in front of a majestic holy God, climaxing in the emotive realm of mysterium trememdum. The essence of the 3 Isaian responses is that of “awe” and “silence.” Reading in this light, the response in v. 8 is an awe-driven, spontaneous response.

1. The Embedded Isaian Emotions and their Implications for the Nature of the Prophetic Office

While the commissioning of Isaiah to be a “prophet of doom” (vv. 9-10) can be perceived as truly a “mission impossible,” especially when it is depicted as utter desolation (v.13a), it is remarkably beautiful for the “vision drama” to end with a notion of “hope” (v. 13b, “so the ‘holy’ seed will be the stump in the land”) – an inclusio echo to the “Holy One” on the throne.

Dealing with tensions seems to be an essential aspect of the Isaian prophetic office (cf. 21: 11-12, the oracle concerning “Dumah/silence”). Beholding the “holiness” and “glory” of God, Isaiah responds with a silent lament (“For I am silent!” v. 5). Challenged with a “mission impossible,” his response is nothing more than a “sustained, quiet plea for mercy” (“For how long, O Lord?”). This tension becomes an essential nature of the Isaian prophetic office; perhaps, “silence” is the required coping strategy (even though I have written elsewhere on the theology of “protest”). Being able to cope “in silence” (or to be able to carry on while in tension) is to draw on the sustaining grace of God—in all circumstances.

The interiority of the prophet is tactfully embedded in this “vision drama.” In particular, the layers of emotions are planted in the dramatic movement of the 3 stages of Isaiah’s responses (vv. 5, 8, 11)—from self-condemnation, to awe, and then finally and surprisingly to a “silent plea.” It is only with a psychological lens that we can pierce through the embedding and unfold the layers. The end product is a remarkable dramatic presentation of the nature of the prophetic office which is uniquely Isaian.

NOTES

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