I adore Yithro, which has two essential parts: first Moses taking the advice of his goyische father-in-law of the parshah title, and then the Ten Commandments and the covenant of the Torah. Both powerful and moving stories, and both fascinating in their details. And the haftorah is Isaiah 6:1-7:6, and 9:5-6, which contains my favorite image in the whole text: the Lord on his throne with the hem of his garment filling the temple, and the seraph using tongs to place a hot coal on Isaiah’s lips. Very Julie Taymor.
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, [is] the LORD of hosts: the whole earth [is] full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, [which] he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid [it] upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the LORD have removed men far away, and [there be] a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it [shall be] a tenth, and [it] shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance [is] in them, when they cast [their leaves: so] the holy seed [shall be] the substance thereof.
And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, [that] Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind. Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, [even] the son of Tabeal.
…For every battle of the warrior [is] with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but [this] shall be with burning [and] fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
I am always troubled by the remnant stuff, where the Lord burns away the greater part to purify what’s left. These are people. And there is a very distressing tendency to assume that I am one of the remnant, not one of the ones that needs burning away. This leads to bad decision-making, lack of compassion and general trouble-making.
Do y’all know the story about Isaiah’s death? It seems that in Isaiah’s age, he offended Menasseh (the son of Hezekiah and inheritor of the throne of Judah, not Ephraim’s brother, although presumably named for him), who sentenced him to death. There are several versions of what happens next. In some, Isaiah hides behind a tree, but is discovered because his tzitzes are hanging out. Funny, but not really very Isaiah-ish. The one I like is that Isaiah realizes that he will not escape alive, but does not want the King to incur the sin of his unjust execution, so he prays to be swallowed up by a tree, which does happen. At any rate, Menassah has the tree cut down with Isaiah in it (or behind it, or whatever), thus killing Isaiah with a wood saw. The cut is said to go through his jaw, where the angel purified him with the coal.
Why such a gruesome end? It is punishment for lashon harah evil words. When Isaiah protests his unworthiness for Divine prophecy, he not only confesses his own sin (unclean lips) but he implicates his community (I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips). This is slander, according to the Law. We should not speak of the failings of our neighbors. Sure, it was true, but that is no reason to bruit it about. Had he said we are a people of unclean lips, that presumably would have been different, but he separated himself from the people, and so was punished. Eventually. When the Lord was done with him.
There is also much discussion about Isaiah’s claim to have actually seen the Divine presence, something which is clearly indicated elsewhere to be fatal. Some tend to grant that the poet/prophet was using memorable imagery to indicate his experience, and that therefore it wasn’t actually true that he saw the Lord on a throne. Others take his description as accurate, and then take the coal-on-lips business and the wood-saw business as two parts of a death incurred by the witnessing of the Divine presence. That requires a rather loose definition of fatal, as the two parts occur more than fifty years apart.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.