This paper argues that the “covenant with death” in Isa 28:15, 18 refers to Judah’s covenant with Assyria. While scholars usually take this to refer to Egypt at the end of the 8th c., a reference to Assyria makes better sense of the resonances of the metaphor of personified “death.” This oracle is contemporary with vv. 1-4 and functions together with those verses as a single prophetic discourse that predates the fall of the northern kingdom and prophesies destruction for both kingdoms at the hands of the Assyrians.
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See, for example, Gese, “Die Strömende Geissel,” 130-32; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Judah’s Covenant with Death (Isaiah XXVIII 14-22),” vt 50 (2000): 474; Christopher Hays, “The Covenant with Mut: A New Interpretation of Isaiah 28:1-22,” vt (2010): 217, 232; idem, Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (fat 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 288.
William Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel and Their Place in History to the Close of the Eighth Century B.C. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1882), 284. Without defense or elaboration, Brian B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead (fat 11; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994), 160-61, n. 119, also registers a preference for seeing Assyria here. John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 60 n. 106, mentions this possibility, citing W. R. Smith, only to point out that “no scholar today follows this view.”
Blenkinsopp, “Judah’s Covenant with Death,” 474, n. 8. Scholars holding a version of this position not noted by Blenkinsopp include Johannes Lindblom, “Der Eckstein in Jes. 28,16,” in Interpretationes ad Vetus Testamentum pertinentes S. Mowinckel (ed. N. Alstrup and A. S. Kapelrud; Forlaget Land og Kirke, 1955), 129; Gese, “Die Strömende Geissel,” 133; Willem A. M. Beuken, Isaiah II(Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 45-46; and Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39 (Continental Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 38-40.
B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (Zweite verbesserte Auflage; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1902), 170; Jared Judd Jackson, “Style in Isaiah 28 and a Drinking Bout of the Gods (rs 24.258),” in Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (ed. J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1974), 97-98; Karel Van der Toorn, “Echoes of Judaean Necromancy in Isaiah 28,7-22,” zaw 100 (1998): 199-217.202-3, 215-17; Alistair C. Stewart, “The Covenant with Death in Isaiah 28,” ExpTim 100 (1989): 375-76; Day, Molech, 61-62; Francis Landy, “Tracing the Voice of the Other: Isaiah 28 and the Covenant with Death,” in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (ed. J. C. Exum and D. J. A. Clines; Sheffield: jsot Press, 1993), 144; Blenkinsopp, “Judah’s Covenant with Death,” 474, 477-78. Gese, “Die Strömende Geissel,” 131-33, argues that the storm imagery in this passage refers metaphorically to the Assyrian army by means of the iconography of Hadad but denies that an actual agreement with a deity is envisioned in the “covenant with death.”
Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 228-9; So also Jaap Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations: An Exegetical Study of the Zion Text in Isaiah 28:16 (OtSt 54; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 345-46. Cf. also the doubts registered by Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, 160-61, regarding the presence of references to necromancy or the cult of the dead in Isa 28:7-22.
Defended most recently by Blenkinsopp, “Judah’s Covenant with Death”, 477-78.
Blenkinsopp, “Judah’s Covenant with Death,” 477; Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 228.
Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, xv; Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (London: S.P.C.K., 1965), 147-48; J. Cheryl Exum, “‘Whom Will He Teach Knowledge?’ A Literary Approach to Isaiah 28,” in Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (ed. D. J. A. Clines, D. M. Gunn, and A. J. Hauser; Sheffield: jsot Press, 1982), 125; Gary Stansell, “Isaiah 28-33: Blest Be the Tie that Binds (Isaiah Together),” in New Visions of Isaiah (jsotss 214; eds. Melugin and M. A. Sweeney; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 77-78; Jörg Barthel, Prophetenwort und Geschichte: Die Jesajaüberlieferung in Jes 6-8 und 28-31 (fat 19; Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 1997), 318-20; Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations, 120-121; Matthijs De Jong, Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets: A Comparative Study of the Earliest Stages of the Isaiah Tradition and the Neo-Assyrian Prophecies (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 109, 111. Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (fotl 16; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 367, argues that while a treaty with Egypt may not be specifically referenced here, it does refer to the “futility of entering into political alliances against the Assyrians,” and thus includes the Egyptians as well as possibly the Babylonians. Franz Delitzsch, Biblischer Commentar über den Prophet Jesaia (Leipzig: Dürffling und Franke, 1866), 296-97, 301-2, dates the pericope to the period prior to the fall of Samaria, but sees nevertheless a reference to a treaty with Egypt. There is no evidence, however, for any kind of alliance between Judah and Egypt before 713 bce (Cf. J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah [2nd ed. Louisville: Westminster, 2006], 406).
Day, Molech, 85; Hays, Death in the Iron Age II, 288; idem, “The Covenant with Mut,” 217.
Reinhard G. Kratz, “Rewriting Isaiah: The Case of Isaiah 28-31,” in Prophecy and Prophets in Ancient Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, ed. John Day (New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 245–66, slightly updated in idem, Prophetenstudien (fat 74; Tübingen: Mohr Siebek, 2011), 177-97.
Idem, “Rewriting Isaiah,” 255-56, 258-59; idem, Prophetenstudien, 188-89, 191-92.
Idem, “Rewriting Isaiah,” 263-64; idem, Prophetenstudien, 196-97.
Kratz, “Rewriting Isaiah,” 260; idem, Prophetenstudien, 193-94.
Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 235; idem, Death in the Iron Age II, 311.
Scholars holding this view include Smith, The Prophets of Israel, 282; Lindblom, “Der Eckstein in Jes. 28,16,” 128-9; Day, Molech, 64. Day’s argument, however, is based entirely on his theory that the covenant with death refers to Molech worship and the reference to human sacrifice by Ahaz in 1 Kgs 16:3 (see my rejection of this proposal above and Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 228 n. 72). John H. Hayes and Stuart A. Irvine, Isaiah the Eighth Century Prophet: His Times & Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987), 321, 324-26, argue that all of chs. 28-33 refer to the last years of the Ephraim state and are addressed against Ephraim, not Judah. On this interpretation, the references to Egypt in chs. 30, 31 reference Hoshea’s plea for help from Egypt (2 Kgs 17:4). It is far more convincing, however, to take Judah as the audience of these oracles and the references to Egypt in chs. 30, 31 as to Judah’s attempt to form an alliance with Egypt at the end of the 8th century.
Delitzsch, Biblischer Commentar über den Prophet Jesaia, 269; Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, xv; Lindblom, “Der Eckstein in Jes. 28,16,” 128; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, 7-8; Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39, 369; Barthel, Prophetenwort, 285-86; Beuken, Isaiah II, 21; J. J. M. Roberts, “Isaiah’s Egyptian and Nubian Prophecies,” in Israel’s Prophets and Israel’s Past: Essays on the Relationship of Prophetic Texts and Israelite History in Honor of John H. Hayes (ed. B. E. Kelle and M. B. Moore; New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 206-7; Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations, 75; de Jong, Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets, 98. Whether the setting is the Syro-Ephraimite crisis (734-732), or closer to 722, as de Jong, Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets, 216, argues on the basis of a lack of reference to Syria, cannot be ultimately decided.
See Ephraim Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. Vol II: the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods, 732-332 BCE (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 12, 45, 48.
Sweeney, Isaiah 28-39, 28; Claus Westermann, Grundformen prophetischer Rede (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1960), 137-42.
Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, xv; William L. Holladay, Isaiah: Scroll of a Prophetic Heritage (Grand Rapids: Michigan, 1978), 58-59; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, 8; Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39, 369; Barthel, Prophetenwort, 311, 316; Beuken, Isaiah II, 21; Roberts, “Isaiah’s Egyptian and Nubian Prophecies,” 206-7; Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations, 74-78; de Jong, Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets, 109, 111. Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 230, and Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39, 380, also both mention this as a possibility alongside of their own proposals for dating vv. 1-4 to the period between 722 and 701.
Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations, 75. The same basic reason, although less clearly articulated, is represented by the proposals of Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, xv; Holladay, Isaiah: Scroll of a Prophetic Heritage, 58-59; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, 8; Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39, 369; Barthel, Prophetenwort, 316-17; Roberts, “Isaiah’s Egyptian and Nubian Prophecies,” 206-7; de Jong, Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets, 448.
Ibid., 235-36.
So both Shalom M. Paul, A Commentary on the Book of Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 76, and Hans Walter Wolff, A Commentary on the Books of the Prophets Joel and Amos, (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 141, 144, 148-49. This remains the case even if the oracles against Tyre, Edom, and Judah are late additions as Wolff maintains (ibid., 139-40).
Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, 18-19. Beuken, Isaiah II, 17; Dekker, Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations, 75-76, 178.
H. M. Barstad, “Sheol,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons (Second, Extensively Revised ed.; ed. K. van der Toorn et. al.; Brill: Leiden, 1999), 769 (768-70); William Hayes Ward, “A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Habakkuk,” in A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah and Joel (T. & T. Clark: Edinbourgh, 1911), 14; Francis I. Andersen, Habakkuk (ab 25; Doubleday: New York, 2001) 217, 220.
See John Taylor, “The Third Intermediate Period,” in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (ed. Ian Shaw; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 345-46, 352-53.
Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, 36, 45; Hays, “The Covenant with Mut,” 230 n. 85.
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This paper argues that the “covenant with death” in Isa 28:15, 18 refers to Judah’s covenant with Assyria. While scholars usually take this to refer to Egypt at the end of the 8th c., a reference to Assyria makes better sense of the resonances of the metaphor of personified “death.” This oracle is contemporary with vv. 1-4 and functions together with those verses as a single prophetic discourse that predates the fall of the northern kingdom and prophesies destruction for both kingdoms at the hands of the Assyrians.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 452 | 57 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 247 | 4 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 105 | 10 | 0 |