פרשת יתרו
When the God of Justice Goes Rogue

Professor Marvin A. Sweeney

A scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Wikimedia

Part 1
The Revelation Accounts in Yitro and Isaiah 6

The Shabbat of Parashat Yitro combines two very challenging texts, the Torah portion in Exodus 18-20 and the haftarah portion in Isaiah 6:1-7:7; 9:5-6 according to the Ashkenazi tradition (Isaiah 6:1-13 in the Sephardi tradition).  Both draw on imagery derived from the Jerusalem Temple to present the character of God.  Exodus 18-20 presents God’s capacity for justice and mercy in the revelation of Torah at Sinai, but the haftarah portion in Isaiah 6:1-13 in particular raises difficult questions concerning God’s purposes in imposing judgment on the people of Israel. 

Together, the Torah and haftarah portions point to Judaism’s capacity to ask challenging questions of God in the face of disaster, e.g., foreign invasion of the land of Israel in antiquity and the reality of the Shoah in modern times, while maintaining fidelity to our eternal covenant with God.

Temple Imagery in the Sinai Theophany
Modern interpreters have recognized that the account of YHWH’s theophany at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19 uses Sinai as a symbol for the Jerusalem Temple.^[1]

• The people must wash themselves (Exod 19:10) as they would prior to entering the Temple precincts.

• They are barred from crossing into the holy areas (Exod 19:12-13), as the Israelites were from the Temple areas where only the priests could tread.

• The cloud and lightning of YHWH’s theophany (Exod 19:16, 18) resemble the incense smoke and flickering lights of the Temple’s ten menorot (1 Kings 7:49) as YHWH’s divine presence was manifested in the Temple.

Exodus 19 combines E, J, P, and non-source elements.^[2]  The final form of this text develops this Temple-Sinai connection.

Temple Imagery in the Isaiah’s Call Narrative
Isaiah’s initial call comes in the form of a vision of YHWH in the Temple,^[3] a memorable scene, which has indelibly marked Jewish liturgy in the form of the Kedusha prayer:

 Isaiah’s vision vividly employs Temple imagery to depict the presence of YHWH before the prophet:^[5] 

• The verse explicitly locates the prophecy in the Heikhal, the main hall of the Temple.

• The portrayal of YHWH’s train pouring out of the Temple is likely based on the imagery of the smoke from the incense altars that were burning in the Temple.

• The Seraphim flying back and forth before the divine presence are likely based on the flickering lamps of the ten menorot that likewise burned in the Temple Heikhal during a Temple worship service.

• The liturgical chant, “Holy, holy, holy is YHWH Tzeva’ot! The whole earth is filled with His glory!” presupposes the singing of the Temple choir.

• The rumbling sound of the doorposts would likely result from opening the heavy wooden doors of the Temple at the beginning of the service that would begin at sunrise.

Altogether, the revelation of the divine presence is just as overwhelming as that at Mt. Sinai depicted in Parashat Yitro. And both transpire at a Temple, or in a Temple-like setting, making the Isaiah passage a suitable haftarah.

Part 2
A Revelation at Sinai Surrounded by
Courts and Justice

Although revelation is at the core of the parasha, it is sandwiched between texts that deal with courts and justice. The parasha begins in Exodus 18 (primarily an E text) with the account of Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro’s visit, in which Jethro advises Moses to set up a court system of capable men who respected God and hated bribes.  These men should serve as judges for the people and thereby assist Moses in hearing the court cases of all the people of Israel.^[6] 

The revelation itself includes the Decalogue, which states the basic principles of Israel’s legal system of justice, intended to provide the foundations for a just and holy society. This is followed up by Parashat Mishpatim, which goes into the basic rules expected of Israelite society in greater detail.

Modern interpreters have come to recognize that the Decalogue in Exodus 20, an E stratum text, is not law.^[7]  Indeed, the command, “thou shalt not murder,” is hardly adjudicable in a court of law; if someone did commit murder, the command provides no procedure for resolving the case.  Rather, it must be recognized as a statement of the legal principles that underlie the Israelite law collections, particularly the so-called “Covenant Code” of Exodus 21-23 that follows and appears to be the foundational law code of northern Israel, modeled in large measure on the famous Laws of Hammurabi.^[8]

The Mix of Courts and Revelation
The portrayal of the court system and the basic principles of Israelite law in Yitro and Mishpatim is designed to present a smoothly-working human court system.  In its final form, combined with the imagery of the Temple, it is meant to convey that the courts are backed by the authority of the Jerusalem Temple, in which the divine presence of YHWH dwells. In addition to its position as the place in which God was to be worshiped, the Temple also served as the institutional locus for the authority of the ancient Israelite and Judean court systems—and indeed for the very concept of justice in Israel and Judah, so this connection is hardly surprising.

Ultimately, God is the source of justice and holiness in ancient Israel and Judah. These themes also reverberate in the haftarah, which raises a most basic question:  What happens when God behaves unjustly? 

Part 3
God’s Commission to Fool the People and
Isaiah’s Failure to Challenge Him

Purification of the Prophet
Returning to the haftarah, having seen God and the angels, Isaiah is afraid:

Isaiah’s lips are purified in a mouth purification ceremony typical of those employed by Mesopotamian bāru priests who would speak on behalf of their own deities.^[9] This ceremony calms Isaiah and makes him feel ready for the task of speaking for God. Isaiah can then be  called:

God’s Surprising Commission: Fool the People
A fundamental part of all call narratives is the commission, where God notes the prophet’s specific job.^[10] God commissions Isaiah not to preach God’s law or to convince them to turn to God, but rather to distract the people from turning to God, until God accomplishes his goal of bringing about horrific destruction against the people of Israel and Judah:

This text means what it says: God commissions Isaiah to ensure that the people remain blind, deaf, and dumb as to what God is doing in the world, lest the people realize and save themselves.  This meaning is borne out by the following chapters in Isaiah, where calls for Israel’s repentance are absent. When Isaiah asks how long he must keep the people ignorant, God’s answer is even more shocking:

Such destruction did occur within Isaiah’s lifetime.  This is described in the first chapter of the book, which functions as a type of retrospective introduction to the entire book. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was taken by Assyria in multiple campaign, ending with its destruction in 722 B.C.E. Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 B.C.E., and his destruction of every city but Jerusalem, would have resulted in a very high casualty rate.  Isaiah’s comment in v. 13 suggests that it would have approached ninety percent. 

Why does YHWH want to bring such destruction (Hebrew, “Shoah”—see Isa 10:3) about? Why prevent the people from improving their behavior? Because if the people save themselves from destruction, the overall plan of the book of Isaiah to reveal YHWH’s divine glory to the entire world would not be realized. By removing the possibility of repentance, God consigns the people of Isaiah’s time to death and punishment. With that, the chapter ends.

Isaiah’s Insufficient Response

Isaiah’s response, “How long?” is much debated.  Most think it to be an expression of sympathy on behalf of the people. I agree, but even so, his response was entirely inadequate.  He does not respond at all, but willingly accepts the task. Silent acceptance after God announces that he plans on perpetrating a holocaust against Judah is more than just inadequate. In the face of evil emanating from the divine, Isaiah should have stood up to YHWH and said, “No!  You can’t do it!  Such an act is immoral and unworthy of Your justice and holiness!” At the very least, he should have refused to play any part in this divine travesty of justice, refusing to mislead Judah, lest they repent.  

Biblical Figures Who Stand Up To God
Standing up to God has ample precedent in the Bible: 

• Abraham stood up to God to say that God could not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if there were fifty righteous people in the city—or even ten—and God relented (Gen 18:20-32).

• Moses twice stood up to God to say that God could not destroy Israel and make a new nation from Moses at both the Golden Calf and Spy incidents—and YHWH relented—at least in part—in both instances (Exod 32:11-14, 34:9, Num 14:13-20).

• When Job prays for the lives of his friends, despite the fact that they had angered YHWH (Job 42:7-8) and bad-mouthed Job at the same time, YHWH accepts Job’s prayer and spares the lives of Job’s friends (42:10).

Isaiah does no such thing here.

Dealing with an Unjust God
In the aftermath of the Shoah, questioning God’s justice should hardly come as a surprise, insofar as God did not intervene to save the Six Million who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their supporters. But this is not a modern problem. It would not have come as a surprise in the aftermath of the 586 B.C.E. destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian Exile, or the 70 C.E. destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent exile of Jews from Judea following the failed Bar Kochba Revolt of 132-135 C.E. 

Explaining God
Indeed, Judaism worked hard in both cases—after the destruction of the First Temple, and again after the destruction of the Second Temple and the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt—to reconstruct itself in the aftermath of these catastrophes in order to hold the people together with God. In the former case, Ezra and Nehemiah reconstructed Judaism as a Temple- and Torah-based religious nation, and in the latter case, the Rabbis further reconstructed Judaism as purely a Torah-based nation.  In both cases, the destruction of the Temples and the exiles were explained in part as due to the failure of the people to observe divine Torah, and the religious dimensions of Judaism were designed to overcome this fault by calling upon the people to live holy lives in accordance with divine expectations.

Leaving Room for Critique
But neither the Second Temple period Sages and Priests nor the post-Bar Kochba Rabbis were so one-sided in their assessment of what went wrong in the aftermath of their respective catastrophes.  The former gave us the books of Job, Lamentations, and Esther to ponder the questions of divine righteousness and absence, and the latter gave us the Heikhalot literature, which posited God’s acknowledgement of potential wrongdoing in bringing about the divine decree of punishment upon Israel.^[11] The haftarah for Parashat Yitro in Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6 also enables us to reflect on God’s character. But this is where the haftarah, and indeed Isaiah himself as portrayed in this text, falls short.^[12] 

The Rabbis Stand Up to Prophets
The book of Isaiah shows a marked interest in punishment through its very end.  This is remarkable, because the book is not all from one prophet but from three, and much of the message in the second part of the book, is highly positive and optimistic.^[13] In fact, the very last verse of Isaiah (66:24) closes the book with the portrayal of the corpses of those who would be punished, prompting the Rabbis to call for the next to last verse of Isaiah 66 to be read again after the final verse when the passage was read as a haftarah, so that it would not end on such a horrific note.^[14]

Haftarat Yitro shows further interest in presenting images of divine mercy. After reading chapter 6, the haftarah continues with the beginning of chapter 7 (vv. 1-6), omitting the lurid portrayal of punishment that follows in Isaiah 7:10-8:23, and concludes with 9:5-6, which contain images of divine mercy.  Such skipping around in the haftarot portions is unusual, although not unknown (cf. haftarat Tzav, Jer 7:21-8:3; 9:22-23). The need to do this implies discomfort both with God’s desire to punish Judah at all costs, and Isaiah’s passive acquiescence to this divine plan.

Conclusion: What If Isaiah Had Stood Up to God?

And so as readers who commit ourselves to God and to Judaism, we must ask, “What would have happened if Isaiah had stood up to YHWH like Abraham, Moses, or Job?”  Maybe the punishment would have been averted. Of course, we cannot really connect Isaiah’s call narrative with the Assyrian campaigns against Israel and Judah in a historical sense. Nevertheless, we must recognize that one of the reasons that the Shoah took place was because not enough Germans stood up to Hitler to say that Nazi policy was wrong.  And not enough world leaders, such as Neville Chamberlain and Franklin Roosevelt stood up to say that Hitler was wrong even as he carved up Austria and Czechoslovakia for inclusion in the Third Reich.

Haftarat Yitro shows us what not to do.  It shows us that despite the presumption of righteous justice and holiness in Parashat Yitro, sometimes God is not just, and that protest is not only possible, but necessary.  We must remember Elie Wiesel’s observation that from within one’s tradition, we can say anything to God.  We might add, not only can we, but we must in such situations talk back to God.^[15]

___________________

Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Tanak and Chair of the Faculty at the Academy for Jewish Religion California.  He is the author of thirteen volumes, such as Reading Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary (2013); Tanak: A Literary and Theological Introduction to the Jewish Bible (2012); and Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (2008).

[1] Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985).

[2] Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introduction, Annotations (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 43, 145-146; 186-189.

[3] In Isaiah 6, the prophet sees God for the first time. Even though the prophecy in question appears in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, most scholars  believe that this chapter is Isaiah’s first prophecy (cf. Radak, who suggests that Isaiah 1-5 might contain Isaiah’s earliest oracles). Isaiah 6 is referred to by scholars as a “call narrative,” meaning that it is prophecy in which God first speaks to Isaiah—calls him—and asks him to speak to the people  as a prophet from God.

[4] This would be prior to the Syro-Ephraimitic War that inaugurated Assyrian intervention in Israelite and Judean affairs, ultimately resulting the destruction of both Aram and the northern Kingdom of Israel and the complete subjugation of the southern Kingdom of Judah by the end of the eighth century B.C.E. For a full critical analysis of the Isaian texts, see my Isaiah 1-39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1996) ad loc.

[5] Marvin A. Sweeney, The Prophetic Literature (IBT; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995) 58-60.

[6] Later prophets, such as Deborah and Samuel, filled the role of chief justice in northern Israel (Judg 4:4-5; 1 Sam 7:15-17).  Later Judean texts, such as Deut 16:18-17:13, envisioned a similar tiered court system in which the Levitical priests of the Temple and an individual appointed as the chief magistrate would hear the most difficult cases.  According to 1 Chronicles 19, such a system was established by the Judean King Jehoshaphat. 

[7] Cf. Georg Braulik, “The Sequence of Laws in Deuteronomy 12-26 and in the Decalogue,” A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed., D. L. Christensen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993) 313-335.  Although his comments on the Ten Commandments are based on the version in Deuteronomy 5, they are equally relevant here.

[8] David P. Wright, Inventing G-d’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Reused the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).  Although some scholars now maintain that the Covenant Code is potentially a late composition, the citations of the Code in Amos’s condemnation of northern Israel [Amos 2:6-16] indicate that it was already known in the mid-eighth century B.C.E. (see Marvin A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets [Berit Olam: Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2000] 214-218).

[9] For a discussion of the related ritual of preparing an idol through the opening of the mouth ceremony, see Uri Gabbay’s TABS essay, “Understanding Idolatry.”  

[10] See, for example, Jeremiah 1:10 and Ezekiel 2:3-7.

[11] For the Heikhalot literature, see, e.g., David Blumenthal, Understanding Jewish Mysticism: The Merkabah Tradition and the Zoharic Tradition (New York: KTAV, 1978) 3-97.

[12] For the following, see especially my essay, “Isaiah and Theodicy after the Shoah,” Strange Fire; Reading Isaiah after the Holocaust (ed. T. Linafelt; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 208-219; cf. Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008) 84-103.

[13] For critical discussion of the formation of the Book of Isaiah, see my Isaiah 1-39, 31-62, and my forthcoming Isaiah 40-66 (FOTL 17; Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2016).

[14] See the Masoretic note on Isaiah 66:24, The JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1999/5759) 1001.  J. H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (New York: Metzudah, 1941) 951, attributes this practice to “ancient Jewish custom.”  Michael Fishbane, Haftarot (JPS Bible Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002) 107-114, makes no mention of the practice.

[15] Elie Wiesel, Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters (New York: Summit, 1972) 111, “Man’s inner liberation is God’s justification.  From inside his community, he (man) may say everything.”