ULDAH MINISTRY

No,59　　Sep. 2000

　　【 COME NOW, LET US REASON TOGETHER 】

Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. … When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! … When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; ? but if you resist and rebel you will be devoured by the sword," For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
ISAIAH 1:2~20.

Translators and scholars face a fundamental problem when reading the original Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament ), as the entire text lacks punctuation. However, I should point out that in the early times, the Hebrew Bible, 'the Masoretic text' was actually accompanied by instructions as to how to read individual words and how to break up the sentences. It was only around the 7th century CE that punctuation marks were incorporated into the text itself. Even so, there is as yet no equivalent to question marks, exclamation marks, quotation marks and other symbols found in Western languages. This unique character of the Hebrew language naturally gives way to two ways of reading; 'reading out (exegesis)' and 'reading in (eisegesis)' of the text, though it might be said that interpretation tends to be the latter. This implies that any verse and passage can be read in more than two completely different or even opposite ways. Isaish1:18, quoted at the beginning is one such example. The verse lies in the context, where the LORD has warned His people Israel (Judah and Jerusalem) of their never-changing rebellious attitude towards Him. The LORD has declared that He would no longer accept such a hypocritical religious practice, so superficially performed by those whose deeds were aligned with idolatry, injustice, oppression, exploitation, immorality, unrighteousness and with all other detestable things in the eye's of the LORD. Isaiah outspokenly depicts the corrupted state of the nation Israel, from the religious leaders to the populace, as harlots, murderers, rebels, thieves, bribers, the greedy and unjust judges in the verses that follow.
Laying out a courtroom scenario before the throne of God, Isaiah appealed to his audience to stand there and judge the situation for themselves, saying, 'Come, now, let us reason together, says HASHEM. If your sins are like scarlet they will become white as snow; if they have become red as crimson, they will become (white) as wool.' (v.18 from the Masoretic Hebrew Bible, The Stone Edition). At first sight, this verse appears to offer God's foremost forgiveness under the condition of verse 19 and it has widely been regarded as so. In other words, God offered the nation the choice of repentance and forgiveness, or ignorance and destruction. However, rabbis point out that the verse could be read, without any change to the Hebrew text, in a different way; 'If your sins are like scarlet, will they become white as snow?!; if they have become red as crimson, will they become (white) as wool?!' With both question- and exclamation-marks, the tone of the entire passage turns out to be sarcastic, scornful and desperately negative. In this case, in stark contrast to the first nuance, emphasis is placed on destruction as a continuation of the preceding passage, which refers to the helplessly corrupted state of Israel.

Added to the nature of the Hebrew text which is open to several ways of reading, rabbis have developed many interpretations, which they call, "the seventy faces of Torah". Their approach involves reading the text with questions and trying to read between and behind the lines. Where there are one way conversations, of which there are many in the Bible, they try to establish the other side of the conversation with their own words and understanding. This distinctive Jewish approach to the Hebrew Bible, which is in contrast to the Christian approach that attempts to seek a single true meaning over a verse and a passage, is nicely explained by Jonathan Margonet. 'The Rabbis summed up this view nicely when they pointed out that at the burning bush, God introduced himself to Moses as the "God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" - but not as the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Why is this the case? Because each of the patriarchs had to discover God for himself out of his own experience in his own time, certain only that it was the same God. If the Rabbis are right, then this process never stops, and the act of interpreting the Bible is our own way, in each generation, of entering the same process of discovery, but carrying with us as we do it, all the understandings and lessons of the past' ('A Rabbis' Bible' SCM Press). Whereas this arbitrary way of interpretation is often accompanied by danger of being led to distortion, it is also true that it can convey up to date, inspired insights into the presenting situation.

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Clifford Hill's exposition of Isaiah 1:18 using the Jewish approach of interpretation. It would be worth introducing his exegesis here. He pays special attention to the background in which the warnings were given and also to the expression, 'your sins are like scarlet, … shall be as white as snow; … red as crimson, … like wool'' and he likens this description to some characteristic symptoms of "leprosy". There are several verses in the Scriptures, which describe leprosy: 'When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam - leprous, like snow.'(Nu.12:10), 'Then the LORD said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow.'(Ex.4:6), '…Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.'(2Ki.5:27) and '…if the hair in the sore has turned white and appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease. …in the place where the boil was, a white swelling or reddish-white spot appears, … if … the hair in it has turned white, the priest shall pronounce him unclean.'(Lev.13:3 …:19~20,…:24~25). Scarlet, red, white, snow and wool -all are regarded as metaphors of leprosy. Recalling how even Ussiah, such a great king of Judah, had to spend his last nine years separated and excluded from the temple of the LORD as a result of his arrogant disobedience to God and his subsequent death as a leper, Isaiah gave stern warnings of God's imminent judgment upon the nation of Judah. Clifford explains that little scarlet spots on the skin are the first signs of leprosy and if they are ignored they grow soon into the full-blown leprosy with the hair turning white as snow and wool. Treatment must be given in the initial stages. In the same way, Clifford applies it to the present Britain's moral and spiritual decline, and warns the nation of Britain that it is now showing early warning signs just like the small scarlet spots of leprosy, soon to become serious enough as full-blown leprosy, if God's warning signs on them now continue to be ignored.
While Clifford supports the common positive interpretation that the Lord's foremost desire is to cleanse and restore us from our sins even if they are like scarlet, so that we will turn as white as snow, this time, he emphatically warns of God's impending judgment taking place as a consequence of moral corruption unless we repent in response to the apparent warning signs. Indeed, Israel's history has witnessed that inward moral and spiritual corruption of the nation would necessarily be followed by outwardly apparent decline in the nation's social, economic, political and international areas. Worst of all, whenever they were at bay, they would put themselves outside the covering protection of the LORD, breaking the covenant with Him and relying on worldly policies. Needless to say, the consequences were that they brought disasters upon themselves. Clifford reports in the Prophesy Today magazine (Vol.16, No.3), the appalling lack of support from the church in defence of "Clause 28", which was introduced in the 1980s to prevent the promotion of homosexuality in schools by local authorities. He regrets that church leaders, who should administer a sacred duty of declaring the Word of God to the nation, are compromising the standards of morality clearly set out in the Bible. He warns, 'The battle for Britain is raging. It is not a battle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, spiritual forces of evil that are seeking to undermine the basic moral principles of family life and community that will have disastrous consequences for generations to come. God is crying out to his church to repent of the wicked lies and deception that are being promoted as Christian teaching in the nation. The Lord is also calling his people, those who have not turned away to other gods or been deceived by their false shepherds, to mobilise for battle.' Above all, he addresses the Church of England, putting it, 'Surely the Church of England has now gone too far in turning its back upon biblical teaching and spurning the word of God! They are now deliberately misleading the nation in the face of the most serious moral and spiritual battle we have faced for years.'
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, which party are you sided with? The Lord seeks true shepherds, for the battle ahead. If the Lord is speaking to Christians through Clifford and if you find that you stand opposed to his poignant claim, i.e., unbiblical, now may be the last opportunity for you to wholeheartedly repent and to return to Him and to His Word, so as to be His real shepherds, reapers and harvesters in the end of time.

Thought of the Month……….

When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony. And he spoke with him. Numbers 7:89 Line added

According to the rabbi's commentary, the Hebrew verb for 'speaking to him' in the verse is not the usual form of the verb. Instead of the expected 'intensive' form, a 'reflexive' form is used here. This usage of the verb grammatically suggests that God was 'speaking to Himself'. In other words, it is interpreted that Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to find God talking to Himself from atop the atonement cover that was upon the ark of the Testimony, from between the two cherubim. How exciting it is to know that the word of God is always there in the sacred place, waiting to be heard! It seems to imply the possibility that any believer can hear God's word because He is talking to Himself without addressing a particular person, as long as s/he tunes in his heart to God; "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you." (Jer.29:13~14). Can I conclude from this that any believer can be God's prophet if other foundational conditions are met? Didn't Paul encourage believers to be eager to prophesy? However, seeing it from the opposite point of view, it may also be said that there is no guarantee of God's word being heard correctly because there will be no means to judge the accuracy of what was heard in a short period of time. From this standing point, if emphasis is placed on the fact that even the most qualified prophets in the biblical narratives were capable of mishearing of God's word, the revelation of God becomes too dangerous to be left to the experts alone. If God's prophets can make mistakes, then no word through man can be entrusted to be God's. This will throw most of us into confusion and we will fall into the danger of dismissing true prophecies from God. Fortunately, in reality, though many self-professed false prophets flourished for some time in the Bible, only God ordained true prophets would ultimately prove their genuineness, sometimes not in their life time but in a much later age. In other words, what God's prophets spoke under the direction of the Holy Spirit was 100% accurate. To conclude, it might be safer to say that the decision for accepting prophecies or the prophets as genuine remains with each hearer's own judgment and that hearers themselves should be trained to understand God's heart and will by tuning in their hearts to God. The criteria of judgment, needless to say, is the written word of God, the Bible.