The Tanakh Podcast

Tanakh office two models of relationship between Israel and God. Are we God's children? Or is the relationship between Israel and God a relationship of husband and wife? In this podcast we evaluate the two models.

This chapter, seemingly addressed to the Babylonian exiles, after the Cyrus Declaration, urges: "Go forth from Babylon, Flee from Chaldea! ...Say: “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!”

Isaiah relates to the fall of Babylon, the unexpectedness of her demise, and Babylon's vulnerability and fall, from the aristocratic "dainty and delicate" lady, to the humiliation of the slave-girl.

Isaiah addresses the skeptics who doubt that God will save the Jewish people. In contrast to the "powers" of the nations around, God affirms that he has always carried the Jewish people, from the womb, and he will continue to carry us for all time. Music. Paul Simon - Mother and Child Reunion

Isaiah celebrates the Persian king as God's annointed. Indeed Cyrus was the ruler who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and even funded the rebuilding of the Temple. But, as we shall see, the prophet here is commenting on what is now known as the "Cyrus Cylinder", a text that attributes Cyrus's poer to the Persian God., Marduk. Isaiah uses identical language to affirm that God is the exclusive master of history, and it is God and God alone, who will return the Jewish people to their land.

Our chapter offers a speech mocking idolatry. we try to probe what makes idolatry so problematic.

Today we demonstrate how our chapter incorporates many themes that we have studied in previous chapters: 1. Creation themes in the redemption - God as "creator" of Israel 2. "You are My witnesses" - The Jews as a Light Unto the Nations and a delegate of God 3. "Do not Fear" 4. Elements of Redemption: a. The Ingathering of the Exiles, b. The desolate wasteland is rejuvenated and hydrated, c. God's forgiveness of Israel's sins 5. "Do not Fear" - אל תירא 6. The Future Redemption will mirror teh Exodus and lastly, 7. the notion of "God in Exile - Shekhinta Be-Galuta." God cannot part from his people, so he exiles Himself to remain in Israel's companionship.

Isiah uses Creation language and motifs from Genesis 1-3 to depict the redemption of Israel, expressing the idea that the restoration of the Jewish people gives new meaning and redemption to God's creation.

This chapter is an answer to the question posed by the Jewish exiles to God: "Our path has been hidden from God and our justice has been passed over." Here God returns to the biblical figure of Abraham, "My beloved", and reaffirms the special place of the Chosen People.

Chapter 40 opens the chapters of consolation after the Temple's destruction and the national exile. We compare these words of comfort with the expressions of doom and abandonment in Eikha.