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
<ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk>
232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm