A New-Old Take on the name, "Immanuel"

One of my favorite books/podcasts is "Freakonomics." The authors, Steven Leavitt and Stephen Dubner have the perfect tagline: "The hidden side of everything."

One of my favorite books to study is the Bible. Yet no matter how many times I read it, I am constantly coming across the "hidden side" to stories that I have read or referenced all my life--facts that hide in plain site right there in the text.

Read a few verses before or after a text. Check one of the cross-references listed in the study Bible. Try to do both, and you you will be taken deep inside the culture; your eyes will be opened to the "hidden side."

For example, one of Christmas's most cherished quotes was first delivered beside a water pipe. No angels sang, no shepherds watched. A king was there, but he was none too happy with the Christmas message.

The king was Ahaz, father of Hezekiah, a king who divided his loyalties between Yahweh and King Tilgath-Pilesar of Assyria. The prophet, as we all know well was Isaiah, the proto-Christian voice of pre- and post-exilic Israel.

If you read biblical encounters of prophets and kings, you figure out the prophetic modus operandi pretty quickly. Prophetic visits aren't announced or arranged. The best encounters--Moses with Pharaoh, Elijah with Ahab, Nathan with David--occur when prophets just 'show up.'

And that's what Isaiah did one day in 735 B.C., surprising Ahaz as he inspected the pools of Jerusalem. Ahaz wasn't preparing for a message from God, he was preparing for war. The kingdoms of Israel (Ephraim) and Damascus (Aram) had united against Judah. Ahaz had done two things to secure his throne (neither of which involved prayer): he had requested aid from Assyria, the superpower, and he had fortified his defenses. The aqueducts, which brought water into Jerusalem's pools and fountains, would be among the first defenses to be attacked during a siege.

Driven by divine order, Isaiah took his son, "Remnant will Return" (you have to feel for offspring of prophets in the Bible--modern-day celebrities having no corner on bizarre baby names). Isaiah met Ahaz at one of the pools.

His message was benign: "[This invasion] will not take place, it will not happen," he told King Ahaz (Isaiah 7.7). Yet Ahaz didn't respond: no praise, no thanks, no offering...no worship.

Maybe he didn't hear Isaiah and his son. "Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz," the story continues, "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights" (verses 10-11).

I imagine that Isaiah was pretty brusque at this stage. Ahaz had just been given a prophecy that would certainly seem to be "glad tidings of great joy." Peace in Judah had been confirmed by God.

Ahaz didn't want a sign. "I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test," I have things under control--thanks but no thanks.

This is pretty surprising, considering Ahaz's superstitions. Later his son, Hezekiah, would ask for a sign--the sun retreating down a sun dial. But Ahaz was in every way superstitious and pagan. For example he

• carved Hezekiah's sun dial into the Temple steps, much to the dismay of God-fearers like Isaiah
• erected two golden horses at the east-facing entrance to the temple, modeled on those harnessed by the sun god every morning
• built a pagan altar inside the Temple, modeled on one he had seen on a royal visit to Assyria

To put it succinctly, he had most certainly put the Lord's mercy to the test.

Isaiah erupted--but his eruption ties in with the Christmas story. In the face of this vacillating, idolatrous king of Judah, Isaiah threw the Christ child.

Perhaps if this king didn't "get it" (and how many kings--or presidents--or representatives--ever really do), then a good king would come from the most unlikely of places.

"Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (7.14)

Before there was a Joseph or a Mary, before angels appeared to shepherds or a star lighted the way for wise men, there was a king, checking his water supply, who ignored some pretty good news from a very great prophet.

It's still pretty good news today.

Babylon and Monotheism (1)

I've been studying fin de siecle events in the Kingdom of Judah over the past few weeks. This has been a part of the Bible that I usually passed over for a number of reasons: it's more interesting to skip from Solomon to Daniel than to trace Judah's descent as a nations; Israel had better prophets (Elijah, Elisha and Amos); and it's flat-out depressing.

A couple of weeks ago, I entered into a study of Josiah the Great. Ruling just a generation before the destruction of Jerusalem, Josiah was a final breath of grace before generations of suffering. Josiah was a revolutionary: one who implemented monotheistic reforms throughout the kingdom, starting in his own backyard.

I once saw monotheism as a belief that unified Israel in its history from the days of Abraham through to the time of Christ (and even on to today). I think a careful study of the Old Testament shows, however, that monotheism was an exception rather than the rule. Certainly, the writers of the Old Testament hold Yahweh-centered views of history, yet time and time again, the worship of idols comes up. How many times does the Bible say, "After the days of X the people lost their love of God and slipped into idolatry."

Considering how rare Yahweh worship was in Israel, it might be more accurate to state, "During the days of X, Israel lost their devotion to Baal/Ashtorah and slipped into Yahweh worship." The Bible clearly proves that voices for God existed throughout Israel's history--indirectly, it also states that those voices were distinct for their loneliness.

A good way to understand this is to look at the extraordionary rule of Josiah (640-609 BC). The 23rd chapter of 2 Kings describes some of the activities he took in his reforms. They included (a) tearing down the Ashterah pole inside Solomon's temple (around which orgiastic dances where held on feast days); (b) tearing down the dormitories for male prostitutes located in the courts of the temple. This doesn't sound like an idolatry hiccup--in fact it makes me wonder if Solomon's Temple had ever been used in Yahweh worship after its famous dedication.

For example, not the story of Josiah as told in 2 Chronicles 35. In the Book of the Law found in the Temple, Josiah learns of the Passover ceremony, and he orders Israel to follow it. The writer of Chronicles remarks upon how remarkable that celebration was:

The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the
prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a
Passover as did Josiah (verse 18)

None of the kings of Israel? That means that David hadn't celebrated Passover, neither had Solomon or Asa. (This may be inaccurate, because the writer of 2 Chronicles uses Chapter 30 to celebrate Hezekiah's own renewal of Passover.) So what had these kings been doing? How had the people of Judah worshipped? It seems evident that the worship of God was very, very different prior to Josiah and immediately after his extraordinary reign.

So how did it change? How did the monotheistic worship of Yahweh move from the fringes of Judahite society into the hallmark of Judaism?

I'll need another post to fully answer that question.