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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53: in his death?
  • Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 19:03:16 -0500

Dear Liz,

Dear Jack, Harold, Peter, Vadim, etc.
These events are to be treated as descriptive of events
that took place in the Persian period, the time of Second
Isaiah. Any other interpretation violates all common sense
imo. Prophets deal with the events and concerns of their
own times. They do not deal with events happening 700 or
500 years in the future.

HH: That's your view of things. God talks about things way in advance, so the prophets can, too. This is especially the case when it concerns His Messiah. God talked to Abraham about things more than four hundred years in advance:

Gen. 15:13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

HH: A prophet spoke of Josiah three hundred years in advance. This prophecy was made by a man of God in the time of Jeroboam I in the northern kingdom:

1Kings 13:2 He cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD: "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: 'A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.'"

HH: Joshua pronounced a curse that was fulfilled about five hundred years later in the time of Ahab:

Josh. 6:26 ¶ At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the LORD is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: "At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates."
1Kings 16:34 ¶ In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the LORD spoken by Joshua son of Nun.

HH: Jeremiah, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel and others make prophecies about the Messiah, many of which have not yet been fulfilled.

HH: Amos and Hosea speak of a restoration of the Davidic kingship, which has not happened yet:

Hos. 3:5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
Amos 9:11 "In that day I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be,

HH: Daniel prophesied things hundreds of years in advance in the time of Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, and beyond. Many prophets prophesy concerning the end of the age.

This poem is a continuation of Isaiah 50, and there the speaker
is definitely jailed by Persians. Pulling out the hairs of the head
and beard, as well as flogging, are Persian sanctions, not Jewish.
Read Helzer, M. "The Flogging and Plucking of Beards in the
Achaemenid Empire and the Chronology of Nehemiah," AMI 28
(1995-96):305-7. This article definitely shows the Persian background
to Isaiah 50. The speaker is jailed for disobedience to Persian authority
for some reason. The kindlers of fire (50:11) may be Jews who rush after
the customs of the Zoroastrians.

HH: Are you claiming that the Persians were the only people to abuse others by pulling out their hair? Something like that does not have to be in a lawcode to be done.

I see Isaiah 53 as refering in the third person to the first person
speaker of Isaiah 50.

HH: Finally you say something that I can agree with.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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