Biblical Hebrew Forum

[ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)]

On Thu 21 Jan 99 (11:48:04 +0800), zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph wrote:
> I'm wondering about the change from second person to third person
> back to second person in this passage.  (The third person section
> is verses 27-28.)
 [snip]

 Dear Paul,

 Alec Motyer in his fairly recent commentary (1993) sees a chiasm and a
 parallelism in Isaiah 1:21-26 and 27-31, as follows:
 >>
 A1  The collapse of the faithful city (21a)
     B1  Past and Present contrasted: justice replaced by murder (21b)
         C1  Metaphor: values turned to dross (22)
             D1  The corrupt rulers (23)
             D2  The divine Sovereign (24)
         C2  Metaphor: dross purged (25)
     B2  Past and Future identified: justice restored in true judges (26a)
 A2  The restoration of the faithful city (26b)
                                . . . .
 Verses 27-31 are delicately dovetailed into what has preceded:

 A1  Judgment threatened (24-25a)
     B1  Restoration: the restored city (25b-26)
     B2  Restoration: the redeemed Zion (27)
         (a) Redemption consonant with (divine) justice
         (b) Repentance consonant with (divine) righteousness
 A2  Judgment threatened (28-31)
     (a) its moral ground in rebellion and sin (28a)
     (b) Its relational ground in abondonment of the Lord (28b)
     (c) Its religious ground (29-31)
         (i)  The personal harvest reaped from false religion (29)
         (ii) The self-destructiveness of false religion (30-31)
 <<
 J Alec Motyer, /The Prophecy of Isaiah/, IVP, 1993, pp 48, 50f)

 HTH
 Ben
-- 
 Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
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