CHAPTER 3
The Classical Prophets
The lion has roared, who will not fear?
AMOS 3:7
THE EIGHT CENTURY BCE marks the beginning of the period in human spiritual history sometimes called the Axial Age because it marked a revolutionary change in the spiritual foundations of humanity and the appearance of a higher level of spiritual consciousness worldwide. Great mystics and spiritual leaders appeared in countries around the globe – Buddha and Mahavir in India, Lao-Tse in China, Socrates in Greece, and many of the prophets who guided the Israelite people between 800 and 400 BCE.
The prophets Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, who appeared at that time, urged the people to turn inward and worship the one true God, and adopt moral behavior in all their dealings. The prophets warned of impending punishment if their corrupt behavior did not improve, though always reassuring their followers of God’s compassion and their eventual return to his favor. The potential for forgiveness is an overriding theme in their message.
A century later, Jeremiah became a witness to the fulfillment of this prophecy, as he went into exile with his people. His commitment to speaking the truth despite his unpopular message is unequalled in passion and poignancy. Divine compassion resonates in every word.
And in Ezekiel, in the sixth century BCE, we have the visionary prophet-mystic whose personal spiritual experience mirrors the priestly Temple ritual. His vision of an ascent on a chariot made of angels and supernal creatures, whirling with lights and sounds, bears witness to his awe-inspiring experience of God. He also cries out with anguish as he tries to correct the behavior of the people he ministers to.
Looking to the future, a day when exile will end and the people can return to the lap of the Lord, Zechariah and other later prophets look with longing to “the end of days” – a time when peace will reign, when the messiah will liberate his people. This theme is more fully developed by the anonymous authors of 1 Enoch and the book of Daniel starting in the fourth century BCE. The theme of Ezekiel’s inner ascent on the chariot of light and sound reappears in the documents found at Qumran, written in the second century BCE, attesting to the continuation of the inner mystic practice described in terms of the Temple ritual.
Most of these prophets embody similar qualities:
a dramatic inner experience of being called by God to preach to their rebellious people;
a sense of their own unworthiness – it is only God’s selection of them that has given them the ability and wisdom to prophesy;
extraordinary eloquence and passion in their words, including the use of dramatic metaphors based on their own life experiences, to shock the people;
their compulsion to fulfill the mission God has given them, even when it is painful;
their compulsion to speak the truth even when the people want the comfort of false reassurances;
their rejection of false worship of God, sacrifices and empty prayers, and their insistence on heartfelt prayer and a life of compassion and concern for the weaker sections of society.
Amos: Seek the Lord and live
Surely the Lord God will do nothing,
without revealing his secrets
to his servants the prophets.
The lion has roared, who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?
AMOS 3:7–8
Amos proclaims that he has no option but to be God’s messenger. When the Divine wishes to communicate with humanity, he reveals his secrets “to his servants, the prophets.” But what is the response Amos encounters? How is he received by the Israelites?
They hate him who rebukes in the gate,
and they loathe him who speaks uprightly.
AMOS 5:10
The compulsion to prophesy burns within the prophet; it was placed there by God, a reflection of his divine compassion and love for a people uninterested in spirituality, who even try to corrupt the spiritual leaders placed among them.
Considered the first of the classical prophets, Amos was active in the early eighth century bce in the northern kingdom of Israel.* Like the earlier prophets Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, he narrates his direct ecstatic experiences of the holy spirit.
Amos is true to his mission. He boldly tells the people: God wants justice, love, and compassion, not sacrifices.
I hate, I despise your feast days,
and I will not smell the sacrifices
of your solemn assemblies.
Though you offer me burnt offerings and meal offerings,
I will not accept them;
nor I will regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
for I will not listen to the melody of your lutes.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like a mighty stream.
AMOS 5:21–24
He exhorts the people to turn within and find God the Creator within themselves, to seek him and find life.
Seek Me, and you shall live …
Seek the Lord, and you shall live …
Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns the deep darkness into morning,
and makes the day darken into night;
Who calls for the waters of the sea,
and pours them out upon the face of the earth.
The Lord is his name.
AMOS 5:4, 6, 8
Speaking in God’s name, Amos conveys deep frustration that the Israelites use any pretext to cheat one another and take advantage of the poor. He reflects extreme intolerance for this kind of personal moral corruption, and explains that unethical and immoral behavior will result in an equivalent punishment. The people have been warned to reform their ways, but still they persist in exploiting those who are helpless.
Therefore, since you trample upon the poor,
and you take from him exactions of wheat,
You have built houses of cut stone,
but you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink wine of them.
For I know your many transgressions, and your mighty sins;
You who afflict the just, you who take a bribe,
and turn aside the poor at the gate.
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time;
for it is an evil time.
Seek good, and not evil, that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you,
as you have spoken.
Hate the evil, and love the good,
and establish justice in the gate;
It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
AMOS 5:11–15
How simply he expresses God’s will, to “Seek good and not evil, that you may live.… Hate evil and love the good.” This is reminiscent of his call to “Seek the Lord and live.” To seek the good means to seek God in all our actions. Otherwise we bring great suffering upon ourselves.
Behold, the days come, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine in the land,
Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord;
And they shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east,
They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,
and shall not find it.
AMOS 8:11–12
Here the prophet is informing the people that they will have to pay for their actions, according to the law of action and reaction. And the worst suffering, he says, even worse than the natural disasters he predicts, will be that they will not be able to experience the divine within themselves any longer. They will become alienated from spirituality. They will suffer a famine, “not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; … they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.”
Another characteristic of Amos’s prophecies, in addition to his exhortations, were numerous graphic symbols, metaphors, and parables through which he dramatized the urgency of God’s call for repentance and reform. The use of allegories and parables was a common form of teaching in the ancient Near East. The heritage of the Israelites was an oral literature of myths, legends, and stories that transmitted the collective spiritual and material history of the people. Most of the other classical prophets also used these literary devices to illustrate the spiritual truths and principles they wished to convey.
It couldn’t have been easy to be a prophet in ancient Israel, but Amos had no choice. God had called him, and he was compelled. He was a simple and humble farmer and shepherd sent on God’s mission.
I am not a prophet, nor am I a prophet’s son;
but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees;
And the Lord took me while I followed the flock,
and the Lord said to me:
Go, prophesy to my people Israel.
AMOS 7:14–15
The tremendous power and compassion in Amos and the other classical prophets, which comes from their direct experience of the divine, gives their writings a relevance and immediacy to the contemporary reader.
Hosea: The husband betrayed
I am like an evergreen cypress tree.
From me comes your fruit.
Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
HOSEA 14:9–10
Hosea followed Amos in ministering to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BCE. His prophecies reveal the Lord’s overwhelming love and forgiveness for his people despite their errant behavior. This is the first instance in biblical writings where the metaphor of love and marriage between man and woman is used to describe the relationship of the Lord with the Israelites, and mystically of the Lord with the soul.* Later it would be used by other prophets, and most emphatically in the Song of Songs.
But the Israelites were unfaithful to their husband; they worshipped other gods. Hosea likens their betrayal of God to the unfaithfulness of an adulterous wife. By expressing his disgust in such graphic terms, he is attempting to awaken the people to the seriousness of their actions.
In the first chapter of the Hosea scroll, the prophet recounts his experience of “the word of the Lord” manifesting within him. It commands him to marry a harlot and have “children of harlotry; for the land has committed great harlotry, departing from the Lord” (1:2). He is told to call his three children by horrific names: Jezreel, a play on Israel, who would become the destruction of Israel; Lo-Ruhamah (unpitied), to illustrate that God would no longer be merciful to the Israelites, and Lo-Ammi (not my people), to remind them that he no longer considers them his chosen people. He says: “You are not my people and I will not be your ‘I am’ (Ehyeh), your God” (1:9).
So Hosea’s entire life became a painful allegory for the unfaithfulness of the Israelites to their covenant with God, which he symbolized as a marriage contract. Hosea is not content simply to speak the truth. He is made to act out his prophecy on the stage of his own life. He is the supreme performance artist, and the shock value of his performance corresponds to the deviant behavior of the Israelites.
What is so touching about Hosea’s writings is the depth of his identification with the divine commitment to humanity. Just as Hosea was in anguish at his wife’s unfaithfulness and the birth of their bastard children, so is God in anguish at the unfaithfulness of his “chosen” people and the fruit of that unfaithfulness – their immoral behavior and the establishment of syncretistic cults that encouraged indulgence in the sense pleasures.
Mystically, this divine anguish expresses the yearning of the Lord for the soul to reunite with him and escape from its imprisonment in the material creation. The soul has been separated from its divine source since the time of creation and is under the sway of sensuality and selfish involvements. But all souls are, ultimately, the chosen of God, who is waiting to forgive them. The mystics try to awaken humanity and kindle their desire to return.47
Hosea’s outrage was sparked because the people persisted in worshiping the Canaanite gods called ba’alim despite the fact that God had revealed himself continuously, for hundreds of years, through the prophets. He expresses God’s displeasure that they preferred to appease the fertility gods; he says that it is their wayward tendencies, “their spirit of harlotry,” that has misled them, as well as their loss of discrimination through unethical and immoral practices.
O Ephraim,* what shall I do to you?
O Judah,* what shall I do to you?
For your goodness is like the morning mist,
and like the dew that early goes away.
Therefore have I hewn them by the prophets; …
For I desired loyal love, and not sacrifice;
and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant;
there have they dealt treacherously against me.
Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity,
and it is polluted with blood.
And as troops of robbers wait for a man,
so does the company of priests;
they murder on the way to Shekhem;
for they commit lewdness.
HOSEA 6:4–9
He complains that the people themselves have established kings and princes – who were not chosen by God nor anointed by the prophets. Furthermore, they have fashioned idols from silver and gold. These idols are made by men, not by God, and they are useless. Poignantly he declares: They have sown nothing so they will reap nothing.
For they have sown the wind,
and they shall reap the stormy wind;
It has no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal;
If, perhaps, it yields, strangers shall swallow it up.
HOSEA 8:7
Yet, despite the harshness of his predictions, Hosea always emphasizes God’s fundamental love and forgiveness, like a father’s love for his erring child. It is as if the Lord longs for the loyal love of his people; he is in pain because he knows their true state and can see that they are being misled and helplessly fall prey to their lust and greed. He knows the suffering their false worship and sins will bring them. Out of his love he wants to protect them and nurture them.
When Israel was a child, then I loved him,
and called my son out of Egypt.
As they called them, so they went from them;
they sacrificed to the ba’alim,
and burned incense to carved idols.
I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms;
but they knew not that I healed them.
I drew them with human cords, with bands of love;
And I was to them like those who take off the yoke
from their jaws, and I laid food to them.
Hosea 11:1–4
Hosea courts his wife again with a message of forgiveness. He brings a vision of peace, justice, harmony, faithfulness, and mercy. The covenant becomes a betrothal, a marriage contract, as he converts the harlot into a virtuous wife. The prophets’ relationship with the people is always loving and tender even when he has to chastise them.
By exploring the quality and extent of God’s love, Hosea conveys something of the “inner life” of God – the dimension of God’s unqualified, abundant love and compassion. He tells the people to “wait on your God,” to patiently wait for the divine grace to manifest itself.
And the Lord YHWH is the God of hosts;
His remembrance is his name YHWH.*
Therefore turn to your God;
Keep loving kindness and judgment,
and wait on your God continually.
HOSEA 12:6–7
Through the ages, Hosea teaches, God has demonstrated his love and mercy by sending prophets to teach humanity how to obey him and follow his path of purity and righteous behavior. He sometimes called the prophet the “watchman” who looks out over the city (9:8). He didn’t just send one prophet, Moses, to free them from Egypt, he has continued sending prophets in all times to sustain Israel spiritually. He is implying that God never forgets his children: there are always prophets sent by God to guide souls to a spiritual life.
Towards the end of his prophecies, Hosea speaks with extraordinary love and comfort, using symbolic language that has a clearly mystical overtone.
I will be as the dew to Israel; he shall flower like the lily,
and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
His branches shall spread,
and his beauty shall be like the olive tree,
and his fragrance like the Lebanon.
Those who dwell under his shadow shall return;
they shall revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine;
their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.*
Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?
I answer him, and look on him;
I am like an evergreen cypress tree.
From me comes your fruit.
Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
whoever is prudent, let him know them;
For the ways of the Lord are right,
and the just walk in them;
but the transgressors shall stumble in them.
HOSEA 14:6–10
Like the grapevine, he is saying, the divine reality has a wonderful spiritual fragrance. Like the olive tree, it provides shade from the heat of the world. God will be as the dew to Israel, to nurture them on the spiritual journey. Perhaps by this he is referring to the inner nourishment or bliss on the journey to stages of higher consciousness, or he may simply be giving wise guidance to a people making their way through the experiences of life. Like the evergreen cypress tree, which never loses its leaves, he is the “tree of life” which knows no death. The tree of life is an ancient Judaic symbol for the inner wisdom and the journey through various stages of spirituality to ultimate divine union, the spiritual “fruit.”
“Whoever is wise,” he says, “let him understand these things.” He will understand the ways of the Lord, and will please him by living according to his word. Because of the universal resonance of these passages, it is probable that the prophet is referring not only to intellectual knowledge and wisdom, but to the inner wisdom, hokhmah, the higher knowledge identified by Jewish mystics with the creative power of God. Wisdom is often personified as a feminine spiritual entity in the poetic literature of the ancient Near East. The term carries multiple levels of meaning – those awakened to the deeper levels would understand it in a mystical sense, while others would take it simply as good advice.48
Hosea’s life and teachings have been presented in depth because of the intensity of his portrayal of the intimate relationship between God and humanity. These passages illustrate the theme of all the prophets in one way or another. Although their personalities may have differed, they shared one common goal: to impress upon the people God’s great love for them and his desire that they return in repentance to him; that they give up their corrupt behavior which arises from their moral and spiritual weaknesses. These passages also urge the listeners to give up external forms of worship and find the experience of God and his divine power within. By finding the God within, it becomes more difficult to exploit others, as the same God lives within everyone, and “others” become a mirror for oneself.
Isaiah: A vision of holiness
O house of Jacob, come,
and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
ISAIAH 2:5
Isaiah ben-Amoz, prophet to the southern kingdom of Judea., was a contemporary of Hosea. Isaiah received his calling in an astounding spiritual vision, which he eloquently recounts. Yet he calls himself “a man of unclean lips.” A hallmark of the prophetic calling is the ecstatic experience of the divine, along with a sense of one’s unworthiness to undertake God’s mission.
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 serafim;* each one had six wings;
with two he covered his face,
and with two he covered his feet,
and with two he did fly.
And one cried to 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 he who 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 my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
Then flew one of the serafim to 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,
Behold, this has touched your lips;
and your iniquity is taken away, and your 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.
ISAIAH 6:1–8
The transcendence or “otherness” of God breaks into the prophet’s consciousness during his inner ascent to a higher state. Mystically, the throne is a symbol of God himself. The sound created by the serafim, angels of this region, is a metaphor for Isaiah’s experience of inner spiritual music (which the Greeks called “the music of the spheres”), which made him aware of the holiness, the glory of God that fills and sustains the entire creation. Consequently, he becomes conscious of his own finite physical self with its inherent limitations and impurity. The angels symbolically purify him by placing a live coal on his lips. Isaiah finally hears the voice of the Lord calling for someone to send on the divine mission, and he responds to the challenge.
The prophet’s awe-inspiring experience of being chosen by God echoes Moses’ overwhelming encounter with the divine reality at the burning bush. Despite feeling themselves ill-equipped and incapable, impure and weak, they both ultimately surrendered to God’s summons, serving him faithfully without concern for the suffering, humiliation, and social ostracism it inevitably caused them.
Throughout the entire Isaiah scroll, the prophet eloquently expresses the need for a living spiritual teacher to understand God’s will and learn the most effective way to worship Him. In the passage below, Isaiah gives one of the most profound descriptions of the holy spirit and its power to guide the future prophet, to give him wisdom and understanding, knowledge and awe of the Lord, and the ability to distinguish between true and false. By means of his virtue, or righteousness, he will be able to help the poor and humble. Isaiah is saying that in the future you will have a living teacher who is guided by the spirit of the Lord and who in turn will guide you with that same spirit. The “rod” and “branch” are ancient symbols for the spiritual master. The rod and branch are cut from the “tree of life,” a metaphor for the divine spirit, the source of life.* Thus he is saying that the master is a branch or extension of God’s divine power.
And there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Yishay,
and a branch shall grow from his roots;
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear [awe] of the Lord;*
And his delight shall be in the fear [awe] of the Lord;
and he shall not judge by what his eyes see,
nor decide by what his ears hear.
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the humble of the earth.
ISAIAH 11:1–4
This is the first instance where a prophet has spoken of the appearance of a future prophet in such utopian terms, giving it what would later be called a messianic overtone.
And then, in terms that have become classic to the English language, Isaiah speaks of the ideal future, when harmony will reign through the influence of the prophet, the man of God:
The wolf also shall live with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed;
their young ones shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.
And in that day there shall be a root of Yishay,
who shall stand for a banner of the people;
To it shall the nations seek;
and his resting place shall be glorious.
ISAIAH 11:6–10
When Isaiah says that the wolf and the lamb will live together, he is saying that even the creatures whose instincts put them in conflict with one another will be able to live in harmony. Although this passage is generally interpreted to mean there will be a time of peace on earth, a more mystical interpretation is perhaps more realistic. He may not be referring to a material, physical peace in the political arena but rather to the inner peace that comes from spiritual realization. Once people have achieved inner peace, conflict on the material plane would diminish, as they would resolve their problems more rationally and peacefully. He may also mean that there will be an end to the duality of existence, a state in which we now live, never knowing peace. We will transcend all these temporary states when we realize our true spiritual essence, which is permanent.
Isaiah eloquently declares that the prophet of the future will evaluate life not by his outer ears and eyes, the external senses, but rather by inner knowledge. He will bring not only justice but mercy and compassion. The “little child who leads them” represents the state of innocence, the soul itself, which assumes control. It is childlike in its purity. Alternatively, this could also be a reference to the archetypal spiritual master, who is pure and is the epitome of innocence. In Jewish mystical literature he is often called the “youth” or the “child.”
Although this entire passage has been interpreted as a prediction of one particular prophet-king, it cannot be limited to only one future prophet or redeemer, one messiah. Through this beautiful metaphor, he is conveying the fact that people need a spiritual master to guide and lead them to higher states of consciousness. When he says that there shall be no violence “on my holy mountain,” for the entire creation will be full of the “knowledge of the Lord,” he is again referring symbolically to the higher spiritual realms, which are often symbolized as a physical mountain.
Isaiah proclaimed that the prophet would always be waiting for the disciples to return to him. He explained that although the people have been rebellious and have even asked the prophets not to prophesy, yet when they change their ways and become receptive to the divine teaching (Torah) and turn to him, he will answer their cry with his grace. Till now, he says, their teacher has been withdrawn; they could not see him, as they were blind to the spiritual call. Yet, when they turn back to God they will see him and hear his words, his instructions to walk the path, the way back to God:
You shall weep no more;
He will be very gracious to you at the voice of your cry;
when he shall hear it, he will answer you.
And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity,
and the water of affliction,
Yet your teacher shall not withdraw himself any more,
but your eyes shall see your teacher;
And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,
This is the way, walk in it,
when you turn to the right hand,
and when you turn to the left.
ISAIAH 30:19–21
The Israelites were farmers, pressers of olives and grapes. The prophets of the ancient Near East often used parables and allegories taken from the daily lives of the people they ministered to. In the much-loved and well-known passage below, Isaiah uses the classic mystic allegory of the gardener and the vineyard to convey the Lord’s loving relationship with the Israelites and, on a deeper level, the relationship of God with the individual soul. His frustration comes from his inability to help them. He has given them every advantage and yet they refuse to wake up. Ultimately he destroys the garden.49
Now will I sing to my well beloved a song
of my beloved touching his vineyard.
My well beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill;
And he dug it, and cleared away its stones,
and planted it with the choicest vine,
and built a tower in its midst,
And also made there a winepress;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
and it yielded wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and men of Judah, judge,
I beg you, between me and my vineyard.
What could have been done more to my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes,
it yielded wild grapes?
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard;
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up;
and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down;
And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned, nor dug;
but there shall come up briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds not to rain upon it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah his pleasant plant;
And he looked for judgment, but behold oppression;
for righteousness, but behold a cry.
ISAIAH 5:1–7
Isaiah, like Amos and Hosea, emphasized the need for social justice and true worship; he boldly declared that sacrifices, pilgrimages, and outward prayers are not the way to worship God. He refers to the Israelites as the rulers and inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (1:10), the biblical epithet for the most immoral and abominable of societies. He condemns their “vain offerings, incense of abomination,” their sabbaths, and their “new moons and appointed feasts” (1:13). “When you stretch out your hands in prayer,” he says, “I will hide my eyes from you” (1:15). How can they find God’s favor? In terms reminiscent of Amos and Hosea, he says, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge [advocate for] the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:16, 17).
Essentially, when one gives up sinful behavior, then there is nothing to stand in the way of having communion with God within. But he reminds them that if they refuse to change their ways and continue rebelling, they will be punished. Reminiscent of Hosea, he calls the city unfaithful to God, a harlot, full of evil.
Come now, and let us reason together, said the Lord;
Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
But if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured with the sword;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
How the faithful city has become a harlot!
It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it;
but now murderers.
Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water;
Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves;
everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards;
They judge not [for] the orphans
neither does the cause of the widow reach them.
ISAIAH 1:18–23
He begins another mystical psalm with the metaphor of the strong city, fortified by the walls of spiritual “salvation,” to signify the spiritual strength of the disciple who is true to God’s ways, whom God trusts and who has trust in God. He reminds the people that if they trust in the Lord and attach their minds to Him, they will find “perfect peace” – the inner peace that never ends. Ultimately, Isaiah teaches, the true worship takes place at the spiritual core within oneself where one can find the divine reality that guides a person to a moral and ethical lifestyle, which he calls “the path of the just.”
On that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah;
We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint
for walls and bulwarks.
Open the gates, that the righteous nation
which keeps the truth may enter in.
You will keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on you;
because he trusts in you.
Trust you in the Lord forever;
for the Lord God is an eternal Rock;
For he brings down those who dwell on high;
the lofty city, he lays low;
He lays it low, even to the ground;
he brings it even to the dust.
The foot shall trample it down, even the feet of the poor,
and the steps of the needy.
The way of the just is uprightness;
You, most upright, do make level the path of the just.
ISAIAH 26:1–7
Speaking in the voice of the people, the prophet says: “Lord, the desire of our soul is to your name and to the remembrance of you” (26:8). We meditate through the night, and seek you with the “spirit within” (26:9). He declares that there is no deliverance on earth – there is no kingdom of heaven here. Nothing of this world will bring forth any result. We are like a pregnant woman who delivers only air; no child is born.
He ends the psalm with a beautiful declaration of future salvation: The spiritually dead shall awaken and live, and the soul shall sing its inner song and taste the dew that brings life every morning. So come, enter your “chambers,” your inner rooms – take your attention within yourselves and quiet your minds in meditation.
Your dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
for your dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the shades of the dead.
Come, my people, enter into your chambers,
and close your doors behind you;
Hide yourself for a little while,
until the wrath has passed.
ISAIAH 26:19–20
Aryeh Kaplan comments that although the prophets revealed little of their actual techniques of meditation, there are hints throughout the Bible.50 For example, there are several passages where Isaiah refers to meditation in terms of hearing the inner music, the voice of God, and seeing the word of God, the inner light, on “the mountain of the Lord.”
You shall have a song, as in the night
when a holy solemnity is kept;
And gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute
to come to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Rock of Israel.
And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard.
Isaiah 30:29–30
These are not references to hearing outer music; this is all a metaphor for going up the inner “mountain of the Lord” and hearing his “glorious voice.” In another poem he uses the same metaphor of climbing the mountain in order to learn the divine will or way, so we can walk in the Lord’s “light.”
O house of Jacob, come,
and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
ISAIAH 2:5
We have taken a glimpse into only some of the powerful teachings preserved in the Isaiah scroll, those which are attributed to the first of several prophets called Isaiah. There was probably a long lineage of anonymous prophets called Isaiah who lived over more than two hundred years.51 Keeping to our chronological approach, we will take up the prophets generally called Second and Third Isaiah after Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Jeremiah: A message of comfort
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him. lamentations 3:25
Jeremiah received his prophetic calling in the late seventh century BCE, about one hundred years after First Isaiah, just prior to the conquest of the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians and the exile of the Judeans to Babylon. It is believed that Jeremiah may have begun his teaching as early as the reign of King Josiah, who had embarked on a series of religious reforms in 606 BCE. The Jews, as ever, had not been faithful to the worship of the one Lord YHWH, and his goal was to reestablish the sole worship of YHWH at the Temple in Jerusalem. Josiah was succeeded by King Jehoiakim, who did not support the reforms and returned to the worship of the deities of the Canaanite pantheon along with YHWH at numerous shrines around the kingdom. When the scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecies reprimanding the king and predicting divine judgment was read to Jehoiakim, the king became enraged and burned it. Jeremiah was forced to flee for his life.
One of the main themes of Jeremiah’s prophecies was the admonition to return to the worship of YHWH alone, and to obey the moral and ethical guidelines required by God in order to avoid the destruction and exile that were threatening the Israelites from both their northern borders with Babylon and the southern border with Egypt. What made Jeremiah the object of scorn – and of the king’s rage – was that he repeatedly told the people that their fate of exile was inevitable, a consequence of their evil behavior, and that they should accept it. He also predicted that the exile would last only seventy years. He urged them to adopt a detached attitude and concentrate on improving themselves spiritually. For this, he was labeled as a traitor by the institutional prophets of the monarchy who flattered the king.
While Jeremiah urged acceptance of the exile as the price of sin, he always maintained that the essential spiritual relationship of God with the soul remained constant and loving. The suffering was a direct result of their actions. Seeing himself (like Isaiah) as a “servant” of God, Jeremiah denounced the corrupt Temple practices and the hypocrisy of the many “false prophets” who urged the people to fight the Babylonians. In fulfilling his mission of prophesying to a people undergoing great external instability, Jeremiah opposed the king, the court, and the Temple. By the end of his life, Jeremiah was unpopular and isolated – despised, even considered deranged – as he did not give people an optimistic message they could comfortably live by.
Jeremiah’s description of his call to prophecy (1:4–9) is similar to the experiences of Moses and Isaiah. God selected him for this task even before his birth. “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Yet Jeremiah feels himself inadequate, just as Moses and Isaiah did. He says he is just a child, but God says no, you are not a child. “Be not afraid of their faces,” he says: Be bold and prophesy. Then Jeremiah eloquently recounts the moment when God invested him with his power: “God put forth his hand and touched my mouth.” Jeremiah experienced his mouth becoming filled with the Lord’s words – another graphic description of how he has been charged with the divine will, and a potent declaration that he is not speaking his own thoughts or words; he is conveying the will of the Lord who has sent him. He has thus been given divine reassurance that he has nothing to fear from those who are not receptive to his prophecies.
The prophet preaching to an unreceptive and unrepentant public was a common theme in the Bible, but with Jeremiah, perhaps, we can empathize even more strongly, as he expresses the anguish of his dilemma in very human terms. Yet he had no option but to fulfill God’s mission:
O Lord, you persuaded me, and I was persuaded;
you are stronger than I, and have prevailed;
I am in derision daily, everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I cry out loud,
I shout of violence and ruin;
The word of the Lord is a reproach to me,
and a derision all day.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him,
nor speak any more in his name.
But his word was in my heart like a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
And I was weary with restraining myself,
and I could not.
JEREMIAH 20:7–9
Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel, a fifteenth-century mystic and philosopher, explained that Jeremiah’s experience of the divine word, which he feels compelled to teach, is the holy spirit, ruah ha-kodesh, which he experienced in the prophetic state as burning or flashing fire.
The “flashing fire” alludes to the influx of prophecy that reaches his mind, which in its power, is like purifying fire. This is what God told Jeremiah, “Are not my words like fire?” (23:29). Jeremiah himself also said, “It was in my heart like the burning fire” (20:9).52
Fire is purifying. It burns away the dross from metal, and in that sense it is like the truth, which separates reality from illusion. Jeremiah has no choice but to speak the truth, to convey God’s message without diluting or distorting it. He is totally obedient to the mission God has sent him on: “Whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will declare unto you; I will keep nothing from you” (42:4).
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE PROPHET?
Although Jeremiah bemoaned his inability to express himself, he
revealed himself to be quite eloquent. The passage below gives an
excellent overview of his relationship with God, and the message he
brought the people on His behalf. He begins by explaining that the word
of God came to him and enjoined him to “stand in the gate of the Lord’s
house” and preach the word to them. Here there could be a double meaning
to the term “the gate of the Lord’s house,” as it refers both to the
Temple gates, where he was physically standing, as well as mystically,
to the third eye, the entry to the inner spiritual regions, which were
known as the “gates” to the Lord’s house.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house,
and proclaim there this word, and say,
Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah,
who enter these gates to worship the Lord.…
Amend your ways and your doings,
and I will make you dwell in this place.
JEREMIAH 7:1–3
Jeremiah speaks in God’s voice, as was the style of many biblical prophets. Like Amos and other prophets who preceded him, he cajoles the people to give up their immoral and sinful ways. He says that if you act justly and mercifully with your fellow man; stop oppressing the widow and orphan; give up murder, adultery, and stealing – if you stop worshiping the Ba’al and other gods, and only worship me, then “I will make you dwell in this place,” the land of Judah, which was in danger of conquest. On a mystical level, he is telling them that the inner, spiritual realms will always receive them if they return to the true worship of God.
Speaking as God, he continues by saying he never commanded the sacrifices and offerings with which they worship in the Temple. He expresses disgust at the Temple, which has become “a den of robbers” (7:11) not a place of worship. What kind of worship did God teach your ancestors? “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you” (7:23). The “ways” he commanded include compassionate and ethical behavior towards others – the moral foundation for spirituality – as well as the obedient worship of the word of God, not through sacrifices, but through inner devotion (7:21–22).
The prophet’s role is to speak the truth to the people and try to bring them back, even if the punishment they are destined to suffer is set. In the passage below, Jeremiah again describes how he received God’s word within himself, which commanded him to preach to the people.
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying,
Thus said the Lord; I remember you,
the devotion of your youth, your love like a bride,
when you went after me in the wilderness,
in a land that was not sown.…
Be astonished, O you heavens, at this,
and be horribly afraid,
Be greatly appalled, said the Lord.
For my people have committed two evils;
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and dug cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water.
JEREMIAH 2:1–2, 12–13
This passage is also reminiscent of Hosea and Isaiah, as Jeremiah draws on the same metaphor of the bride and the beloved for the people of Israel and the Lord (esoterically, the soul and the Lord). He reprimands the people for being unfaithful, and reminds them of the idyllic time in the past when they shared in a mutual love and had total trust and faith in him, although they didn’t know where he was leading them.
Now, he says, they have committed two evils: they have forsaken God, the “fountain of living waters,” the source of the spiritual word or divine power,* and they have run after the false gods and false prophets, whom he calls “broken cisterns” because they cannot retain water nor provide life-giving sustenance.
Jeremiah rails against the false prophets, who mislead the people into complacency. He reassures the people that He will gather them from the diaspora and give them true shepherds to guide and protect them after they return. In one of the Bible’s most eloquent and concise statements of God’s omniscience, he says: “Am I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God far away? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? said the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (23:23–24). He continues:
I have heard what the prophets said,
who prophesy lies in my name, saying:
“I have dreamed, I have dreamed.” …
The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;
and he who has my word,
let him speak my word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat? says the Lord.
Is not my word like a fire? says the Lord;
and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? …
Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord,
who use their tongues, and say: “He said.”
JEREMIAH 23:25, 28–29, 31
The punishment comes through the divine utterance, he says, because truth destroys deception. It separates the wheat from the chaff; it is a hammer that breaks the rock of delusion into pieces. Sometimes it creates cacophony, but that is an expression of God’s power also.
HOW TO PLEASE GOD AND FIND HIM?
First, we have to recognize his power and our true status, and become
humble. Jeremiah reminds the people of the fragility of life and the
need for devotion to God, to remember that their destiny is in his
hands. Jeremiah, more than the other prophets, emphasizes human
powerlessness in the face of God’s plan. Here he uses the familiar
parable of the potter:
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
Arise, and go down to the potter’s house,
and there I will cause you to hear my words.
Then I went down to the potter’s house,
and, behold, he was working at the wheels.
And the utensil that he made of clay was spoiled
in the hand of the potter; so he made again another utensil,
as it seemed good to the potter to make.
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?
said the Lord.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand,
so are you in my hand,
O house of Israel.
JEREMIAH 18:1–6
In another passage Jeremiah gives his spiritual teachings in the form of proverbs and examples drawn from the people’s experience of desert and drought, and their understanding of the life-giving quality of water. The “wise” person, meaning he who trusts in God and not in his own ego, will be like the life-giving tree, the “tree of life.” He draws his water from the ever flowing river (the eternally flowing divine power), and so he can withstand all adversity. As earlier, the Lord is called “the fountain of living waters,” as he is the never-ending water that sustains life – the spirit that nourishes our souls. God sees into our hearts; he knows who we really are and whether we are pure or corrupt. The “glorious high throne from the beginning” that he refers to is the spiritual realm, the abode of God. He asks the Lord to “heal” him spiritually and “save” him, through his fountain of living waters. At the end, Jeremiah submits himself humbly before the Lord, saying that he acted as God’s shepherd and never hesitated to carry out his will.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
and whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
that spreads out its roots by the river,
And shall not see when heat comes,
but its leaf shall be green;
And shall not be anxious in the year of drought,
nor shall it cease from yielding fruit.…
I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the inward [parts],
to give every man according to his ways,
and according to the fruit of his doings.…
A glorious high throne from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.
O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you
shall be ashamed,
And those who depart from me shall be written in the earth,
because they have forsaken the Lord,
the fountain of living waters.
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;
Save me, and I shall be saved; for you are my praise.
Behold, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord?
Let it come now.
As for me, I did not hasten from being a shepherd
to follow you;
nor have I desired the woeful day;
You know, that which came out of my lips
was right before you.
Jeremiah 17:7–16
We do not have any indication of the specific technique recommended by the prophet through which the people could come in tune with the Lord’s will and surrender to him, other than by being true to his “name,” giving up idol worship, and following moral and ethical norms. As we have seen, the prophets often referred to their own experience of God’s word, name, or holy spirit, and Jeremiah felt a compulsion to preach that word to the people and awaken them through its power. But no specific meditation practice is taught. In the scroll of Lamentations, written in the poetic style of the Wisdom literature and traditionally attributed to Jeremiah, we get some hint of a meditation practice. In it, he states the basic principles of God’s grace and compassion which accompany the soul, the soul that renews itself and “waits for him” in meditation each morning; that searches for him within, quietly, and has hope and faith in his salvation; that recognizes the Lord as its “portion,” its inheritance. Every phrase of this passage has spiritual depth and beauty:
The grace of the Lord has not ceased,
and his compassion does not fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul;
therefore will I hope in him.
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that a man should quietly hope
for the salvation of the Lord.
LAMENTATIONS 3:22–26
Ezekiel: Visionary of the chariot of God
And he said to me, son of man, stand upon your feet,
and I will speak to you.
EZEKIEL 2:1
The prophet Ezekiel experienced his divine calling in the sixth century bce while he was in exile in Babylon, sitting on the banks of the river Kevar. He had come to Babylon in the company of the large group of Judeans who were taken there following the conquest of the southern kingdom and the destruction of Jerusalem. We know that Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, was born into a priestly family, but beyond that there are no details of his life prior to his call to prophecy.
The scroll of Ezekiel opens with a dramatic and wondrous vision of mystic transport to spiritual realms on a chariot of supernatural beings accompanied by awe-inspiring lights and sounds. This is one of few explicit descriptions of the inner spiritual journey that appear in the prophetic literature. Selections are reproduced below:
And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Kevar river, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.…
And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came from the north, a great cloud, and a fire flaring up, and a brightness was around it, out of its midst, as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of its midst came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. And everyone had four faces, and everyone had four wings.…
As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of torches; it flashed up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and from the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned like the appearance of a flash of lightning.…
Where ever the spirit would go, they moved, for the spirit wanted to go there; and the wheels were raised with them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.… And when they moved, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty.… And there was a voice from above the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood still, and had let down their wings.…
And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like lapis lazuli; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness like the appearance of a man upon it. And I saw something like the color of amber, like the appearance of fire enclosed around it, from what appeared to be his loins upward; and from what appeared to be his loins downward, I saw what appeared to be fire, and it had brightness around it.* As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one speaking.
EZEKIEL 1:1, 4–6, 13–14, 20–28
Ezekiel’s experience is of the “glory of the Lord” (1:28). According to scholars, “this glory (kavod in Hebrew) is a technical term in the ancient priestly tradition for the mysterious manifestation of the divine presence in worship.”53 Other scholars have also commented on the priestly nature of the images in the vision. Parallels can be drawn with the entire priestly ritual in the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
Ezekiel’s experience became the paradigm for the inner experiences of Jewish mystics starting in the first century BCE, who used the same vocabulary to describe their “descent” to inner realms in the heavenly “chariot.”* This is possibly an indication that Ezekiel’s teaching and method of meditation were continued through a direct lineage of transmission. Ezekiel’s chariot vision seems to be an attempt at describing what was essentially an overwhelming experience of the great spiritual force that took him inwards, and the sights and sounds of the various spiritual levels he traversed. He ultimately reached the “throne” level, the highest realm, where he saw God seated on a throne, in the form of a man. Scholars have shown that Ezekiel expressed his vision in terms familiar to his audience – as an internalization of the priestly Temple ritual which could no longer take place on the outer, physical plane because the Temple had been destroyed.54
It is as if the prophet-priest Ezekiel, having survived the destruction of the First Temple and living in exile, conveyed the reality of God’s presence by visualizing a re-creation of the Temple. It was certainly an image that would have made a strong imprint in the Jewish imagination of that time.*
Ezekiel recounts how he received his calling: A “spirit” entered into him – this is the ruah ha-kodesh, the holy spirit or divine power which he felt entering into him so powerfully that it actually raised him onto his feet.
And he said to me, son of man, stand upon your feet,
and I will speak to you.
And a spirit entered into me when he spoke to me,
and set me upon my feet,
when I heard him speaking to me.
EZEKIEL 2:1–2
The message he gets is one of retribution for the people’s rebellious behavior, probably intended as a way of instilling fear in them and motivating them to give up their immoral and idolatrous behavior, to prompt them to repent and worship God. Ezekiel knows he must fulfill his task, whether or not the people listen – and it is indeed doubtful they would listen.
As with Hosea, Ezekiel’s life itself becomes a symbol, and his prophecy becomes the enactment of a powerful drama. He is told to eat the scroll of God’s command, to make an unequivocal and powerful public display of God’s imperative and his compulsion to preach it.
But you, son of man, hear what I say to you:
Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house;
Open your mouth, and eat what I give you.
And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me;
and, lo, a scroll of a book was in it;
And he spread it before me;
and it was written inside and outside;
and lamentations, mourning and woe were written in it.
And he said to me, son of man, eat what you find;
eat this scroll, and go and speak to the house of Israel.
So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that scroll.
And he said to me, son of man, make your belly eat,
and fill your bowels with this scroll that I give you.
Then I ate it; and it was in my mouth sweet like honey.
And he said to me, son of man, all my words
that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart,
and hear with your ears.
And go, get you to the exiles, to your people,
and speak to them,
And tell them: “Thus said the Lord God”;
Whether they will hear, or whether they will refuse to hear.
EZEKIEL 2:8–10; 3:1–3, 10–11
Unexpectedly, Ezekiel declares that when he ate the scroll, it was as sweet as honey, as nectar. One would expect a stern and bitter message to taste bitter, but because Ezekiel has become an extension of the divine will, and because God’s message is the divine truth, he finds the message sweet. He is then commanded to retain and repeat everything God communicates to him.
Ezekiel then describes another experience of the spirit taking him up and transporting him. He hears the sound of great rushing, which he describes as the sounds of the wings and wheels of the celestial beings whom he saw in his earlier vision. As before, this must refer to the inner sound of the spiritual realms. His heart is heavy because he knows the bitterness of his prophecy, yet he must do it, because the “hand of the Lord,” meaning the power or will of God, was upon him.
So again he sits at the river bank among the exiles for seven days. We can presume he was engaged in some form of meditation, as he says he was in an “overwhelmed” state. He experiences the divine power or will informing him that he will be a “watchman” to the people – someone to guide, warn, and protect them. He feels God’s “hand” inspiring him to go to the “plain,” perhaps a reference to a spiritual realm within himself or perhaps to a particular physical place. There he experiences “the glory of the Lord” once again, the visual manifestation of the holy spirit or word. The spirit enters into him, its power sets him on his feet and compels him to retreat to his house, where God informs him that the people will bind him with cords. Even if he tries, he will be unable to speak or to reprove them, as they will not listen. But then, when the time is right and the divine will manifests itself in him, he will again be able to convey God’s message loudly and clearly. And those who “will hear, let them hear,” he says in God’s voice; those who are receptive will hear and listen, but the others will not be able to (3:15–27).
As before, he is forced to act out his prophecy on himself, to make himself and his life into a dramatic symbol. This is a powerful way to get across his message, which no one can ignore. But the Israelites are intransigent. They are unable to comprehend the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, unwilling to accept the inevitability of their own exile, so Ezekiel tries to use even more bold and shocking methods to shake them out of their stupor. Unfortunately, he finds that they are still unreceptive.
They become stubborn and vicious in their refusal to listen to the prophet. But God counsels him not to give up nor let their stubbornness affect him. He just needs to persevere. “And whether they hear or refuse to hear, they will know that there has been a prophet among them” (2:5). They will know that God has not given up on them. He continues to send his prophets, spiritual masters, to help them understand the divine will and return to God.
Ezekiel also uses the metaphor of the shepherd for the prophet, demonstrating the softer side of God’s love and care for his people. He says:
As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day
that he is among his sheep [that are] scattered;
So will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them
out of all places where they have been scattered
in the cloudy and dark day.
EZEKIEL 34:12
The text of Ezekiel presents an empathetic portrait of the prophet as a human being touched by the holy spirit, who was raised to the heights – and agony – of divine service. It narrates his life from the moment he experienced God’s summoning, via otherworldly mystical experiences of light and sound, to his faithful and anguished relationship with the community to whom he was sent.
Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah: Polished arrow and servant of God
Listen, O islands; and give heed, you nations from afar;
The Lord called me before I was born;
While still in my mother’s womb, he named me.
And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
And He made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me.
Isaiah 49:1–2
From the depths of his soul, the anonymous prophet we know as Second Isaiah, who lived about 150 years after the First Isaiah, reveals how he experienced God’s call. Like Ezekiel, he probably lived during the period of the exile in Babylonia. Like Ezekiel, he had no choice but to respond. This was his divine destiny. Even before his birth, God had selected him to be his sword and arrow, to boldly and sharply speak the truth to the Israelites and awaken them from their complacency. The divine power uses the prophet to convey its message to humanity. God continues to select spiritual teachers to reach out to humanity and transform their consciousness from negative to positive.
So what is the teaching this prophet was sent to deliver? In one of the first poems in the Second Isaiah grouping, the prophet is simply called “the voice” (40:3), implying that he is the voice that speaks or is propelled by God’s word. He cries out to the people, poignantly warning them to stick to the true path, calling this world a “wilderness” and a “desert.” He describes the great power of the Lord using the topography of the land as a metaphor. Our lives are filled with mountains and valleys – highs and lows, pleasures and pain, wealth and poverty. All of them are subject to God’s will. He can raise or level all of them. Next to him, to his will, human life is insignificant.
“The word of our God shall endure forever,” he says (40:8), referring to the true and eternal quality of the divine creative spirit or power that can be experienced by living according to his instructions. He says that the Lord comes with a strong hand and arm, to convey the power of his reach through his spirit and the teachings of the prophets. As transcendent and powerful as God is, the prophet reminds the people that he intimately cares for his flock like a shepherd, full of compassion and gentleness. Ultimately, the Lord is answerable only to himself: “Who has directed the spirit of the Lord?” (40:13). From whom has he taken counsel?
Second Isaiah calls himself eved YHWH (the servant of God), selected by God and invested with his spirit to perform a specific mission – to bring awareness of the divine presence, truth, and justice to humanity. He acts as an intermediary between God and man, in the same way that Moses, Joshua, and other prophets before him did. In the first of the “Servant Songs,” as this collection of poems is sometimes called, it is YHWH himself who declares that the prophet is his faithful servant. The prophet is filled with the ruah ha-kodesh. He says it is he who was sent as the covenant for the people, the fulfillment of the divine promise of redemption; as a light to the nations, and (using the same metaphor that appears in First Isaiah, Chapter 35) to bring sight to the spiritually blind and freedom to those who sit in the prison of spiritual darkness.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold;
my elect, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he shall bring forth judgment to the nations.
He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall he not break,
and the dimly burning flax shall he not quench;
he shall bring forth judgment to truth.
He shall not fail nor be discouraged,
till he has set judgment in the earth;
and the islands shall wait for his Torah [teaching].
Thus said God the Lord, he who created the heavens,
and stretched them out;
He who spread forth the earth,
and that which comes out of it;
He who gives breath to the people upon it,
and spirit to those who walk in it:
I the Lord have called you in righteousness,
and will hold your hand, and will keep you,
And give you for a covenant of the people,
for a light to the nations;
To open the blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
and those who sit in darkness, out of the prison house.
ISAIAH 42:1–7
And yet, though he is the servant of God who brings a message of hope, he often feels he has failed in his mission. He says: “I have labored in vain …” though he has been true to his calling. He reiterates that he was called for this mission from the womb, to bring Jacob back to God.* Ultimately, he says, God will vindicate him; his spiritual light will not only redeem the Israelites, he will have the power to bring salvation to all the nations, to the “ends of the earth.” One gets the sense that during the exile the prophets were not only ministering to their own people, but that their words and teachings resounded farther, to the surrounding peoples. Here Isaiah’s vision is universalist and all-encompassing, as God’s grace and mercy reach all humanity.
I will also give you for a light to the nations,
that my salvation may be to the end of the earth.
ISAIAH 49:6
The prophet can transcend any personal sense of failure, as his self-confidence lies in God’s confidence in him. Yet the pain he experiences at being unappreciated by his flock persists; in another poem he describes his suffering at the hands of an ungrateful and unrepentant people. They beat him, they spit at him, they humiliate him (50:6–11). Still he obeys God, who has given him the voice, the tongue, and the words to “sustain with a word him who is weary.” It is the divine spirit or inner word that has the power to sustain the person who is tired of the world and its falsehood and is ready to submit to God’s will. The Lord has given the prophet the inner hearing (“opened my ear”) to hear him, despite the fact that his devotion to God and his single-minded pursuit of his mission has caused others to despise him. He concludes by speaking to those who walk in darkness and have no inner, spiritual light. He says, one who “fears the Lord, who obeys the voice of his servant (the prophet), should trust in the Lord and be steadfast.” Then he will no longer walk in spiritual darkness (50:10).
Another astounding passage in Second Isaiah confirms the prophet’s calling by God for his spiritual ministry to all humanity.
As many were astonished at thee;
I anointed his visage more than any man,*
and his form more than the sons of men
So shall he sprinkle many nations;
the kings shall shut their mouths at him:
For that which had not been told them shall they see;
and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
Isaiah 52:14–1555
Just as God has “anointed” him, pouring his spiritual “waters” upon him, so he (the prophet) will sprinkle those waters of wisdom on the world. The spiritual waters were a common symbol for the holy spirit, the divine power that is experienced within oneself. Thus, he is saying that just as he has received this spirit from God, so he will teach others to receive it.
In another song, Isaiah speaks in the voice of his disciples, who lament their terrible behavior towards their prophet. He carried our sorrows and bore our transgressions, they say, yet we didn’t appreciate what he was doing for us. Here he calls God and the prophet “the tsadik,” generally translated as the righteous one, but which means much more than that: it suggests the saintly, compassionate, and pure one. It is a term used throughout the centuries for the holy man, the master, the prophet who emulates God.
Who has believed our report?
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
For he grew up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground;
He had no form nor comeliness that we should look at him,
there was no countenance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with sickness;
and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our sicknesses,
and carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed him stricken, struck by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded because of our transgressions,
he was bruised because of our iniquities;
His sufferings were that we might have peace;
and by his injury we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, but he humbled himself
and opened not his mouth;
He was brought like a lamb to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers,
he did not open his mouth.*
ISAIAH 53:1–7
Second Isaiah teaches that the saint, the “servant of God,” suffers because of his duty; he is despised and rejected by humanity; he is “a man of sorrows.” Using the imagery of the Temple and its sacrificial cult, he says that the prophet bore the sins of his followers, ultimately dying in that cause. At the end of the poem, God promises to vindicate him because he has performed the duty God assigned to him even though it brought him death: “because he has poured out his soul to death.”
This passage has often been interpreted as a prediction of the coming and suffering of Jesus Christ, who would be abused and rejected. Yet it seems there were many such prophets who suffered in the line of duty, and the experiences of Jesus echoed the travails of many of the Jewish prophets.
About the power of this passage, Joseph Blenkinsopp remarks: “It seems reasonable to conclude that the intensity of the language in this lament, almost unparalleled in the Hebrew Bible, arises out of the profoundly revealing experience of conversion to discipleship and prepares for the suffering and rejection of the ‘servants of YHWH’ in Third Isaiah. It is no wonder that it has continued to reverberate throughout Jewish history and that it came to have such a decisive influence on the early Christian understanding of the prophetic ministry of Jesus.”56
Years later, after the Jews returned to Judea from exile, the prophet we now call Third Isaiah, who was probably Second Isaiah’s disciple, also sang about the tsadik who died unappreciated and unmourned. It has been suggested that he was lamenting the suffering of his spiritual predecessor, Second Isaiah, the “servant of God,” who was spurned by his people because he tried to warn them of the evil that would befall them.
The tsadikim perish, and no man lays it to heart;
and merciful men are taken away,
None considering that the righteous
is taken away from the evil to come.
ISAIAH 57:1
The spirit of God is upon him, Third Isaiah says, because he has been sent by the divine power to share the good news of the people’s redemption, their salvation. This is a message for the “humble,” he says – those who are humble in spirit. He has been sent to free those who have been imprisoned by their weaknesses and lower tendencies (in Hebrew, the yetser ha-ra), which cause moral corruption. The prophet, the mystic, is joyful in his role, as he is covered in the “robe” of virtue (tsedakah).*
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord
has anointed me to announce good news to the humble;
He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; …
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in my God;
For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness [virtue],
As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth her bud,
and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it
to spring forth;
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring forth before all the nations.
ISAIAH 61:1, 10–11
Third Isaiah also saw himself as the “servant of the Lord,” much despised by the general populace. Yet he continued with his divine mission as truth-teller, without regard for his personal convenience. He was called by God to teach the Israelites about their true status in life and remind them how helpless they were in the face of destiny and the divine will. He asked the Lord to be compassionate with them because they longed to return to his comfort, but God himself caused them to stray: “O Lord, why have you made us stray from your ways, and hardened our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.… We have become like those over whom you never ruled, who were not called by your name. O that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains would melt away at your presence” (63:17, 19).
The Israelites were suffering in their separation from God. Ultimately he begs the Lord for mercy, for himself and his people, reminding God that it is He who created them with limitations and weaknesses. “But now, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we are all the work of your hand” (64:7).
Third Isaiah brings us a strong and explicit declaration of the purpose of the prophet as spiritual master. He uses the term mafgi’a, meaning an intermediary or intercessor – someone who could intervene or advocate for them spiritually. He is saying that the reason the Lord has intervened is because there was no intermediary. Therefore he will extend his “hand,” a metaphor for the redeemer, to bring salvation. The concept of redemption was an interesting one in biblical times. Just as one had to pay to redeem a slave, so the prophet sent by God stands in for us, as payment for us. In bringing us a message of forgiveness, he is saying that he has given a guarantee for us, despite our evil behavior, and so we can go free.
And truth is absent;
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey;
And the Lord saw it,
and it displeased him that there was no justice.
And he saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no intercessor [mafgi’a];
Therefore his arm brought salvation to him;
and his righteousness sustained him.…
And a redeemer shall come to Zion,
and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,
says the Lord.
As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord;
My spirit that is upon you,
and my words which I have put in your mouth,
shall not depart from your mouth,
nor from the mouth of your seed,
nor from the mouth of your seed’s seed, says the Lord,
from now on and forever.
ISAIAH 59:13–16, 20–21
Thus the Lord reminds them of their covenant with him, that they should always keep his holy spirit, his command, foremost in their mouths – in their mind and actions.
Like Hosea, Isaiah uses the allegory of the marriage between God and the Israelites to express the relationship of the soul with the divine. He says that when the people return to the true worship of God and give up their corrupt ways, God will fulfill his end of the marriage contract – and they will be reclaimed, possessed, ransomed by their master, and protected by his “watchmen,” another metaphor for the prophets. By calling the people “the crown (keter) of glory” and “the royal diadem (atarah),” he is using the language of mystic symbolism that was later adopted by the Jewish mystics of the Middle Ages, the kabbalists, to refer to the brilliance of the higher spiritual realms – the stages of the emanation of the divine power. When the people come into the orbit of divine love, they will be a means to spread the divine light and love in the creation.
You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken;
nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate;
But you shall be called Hephzibah*, and your land Beulah*;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a virgin,
so shall your sons marry you;
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem,
who shall never hold their peace day nor night;
You who make mention of the Lord, take no rest.
ISAIAH 62:3–6
Third Isaiah explicitly questions the need for temples and altars, because God cannot be limited to these places. Probably written at the time the Second Temple had been rebuilt in 515 BCE, the prophet confronts the people: What kind of house can contain the Lord? He is everywhere! “Heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool” (66:1), he says in God’s name, and I have created them both! How can you best worship me? Who is most acceptable to me? The man who is “poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word” (66:2). Humility is the divine quality of the person who trembles, who is moved by the Lord’s word, his holy spirit. The sacrifices and offerings commonly brought in the temples and altars are anathema to God. They are similar to idol worship. He seems not to condone the killing of animals at all. He spoke strongly: “He who kills an ox is as if he slew a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he who offers a meal offering, as if he offered swine’s blood; he who burns incense, as if he blessed an idol. For they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations” (66:3).
Here he has given a categorical denunciation of the sacrifices and rites of the Temple as instituted in the Bible’s priestly documents, and favors the man who “trembles” or obeys the word, the holy spirit.
So how can God be worshiped? He challenges them: See if your idols can help you! They can be destroyed by the slightest wind. But whoever trusts in God will “inherit my holy mountain,” perhaps a reference to a physical mountain but probably to the inner spiritual regions, the higher states of consciousness. He proclaims himself as the one who is eternal – who is not dominated by time, whose word is holy – all spirit, beyond the level of matter and mind. Come, prepare the way, he says: Come with me. I dwell in the high and holy place. But I also dwell in the heart and spirit of the humble and contrite, to whom I give spiritual life. The humble people may be low in a worldly sense, but they have attained to great heights spiritually, loved and guided by the Lord.
When you cry, let your collection of idols save you;
but the wind shall carry them all away;
a breath shall take them;
But he who puts his trust in me shall possess the land,
and shall inherit my holy mountain;
And one shall say, Build up, build up, prepare the way,
take up the stumbling block from the way of my people.
For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity,
whose name is Holy:
“I dwell on the high and holy place,
yet with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
ISAIAH 57:13–15
The concept of the messiah
Although the Temple had been rebuilt by the late sixth century BCE,
instability persisted in the land of Judea, which now was inhabited by
returned exiles as well as descendants of the original population who
had remained in the land. There were also converts from other tribes
nearby who had intermarried with the Judeans who had remained. Several
prophets appeared, like Third Isaiah, who continued with the prophetic
mission but who increasingly emphasized the dawn of a future “golden
age” – a period when God’s will would be established on earth, when
morality would be upheld by all, and an ideal king-redeemer would reign
from Jerusalem, God’s holy city.* The focus had changed from the present,
full of suffering and subjugation, to a brilliant future. The scattered
Jews in the diaspora would hear God’s call and gather to return to the
Holy Land. In these prophecies there were also predictions of great
battles and tremendous violence that would bring about an apocalypse,
which would precede the ideal “day of the Lord.” The eschatological and
apocalyptic imagery were expanded upon by editors of later periods, who
added their commentaries and interpolations to the texts.57
With the great suffering of the Israelites, their conquest and exile – first of the northern kingdom and then of the southern kingdom – it is only logical that they would develop a longing for deliverance on a material, temporal level. As we saw earlier, when the prophets used external events as dramatic symbols for their teachings, later editors often understood them literally. They took events that happened after the prophets lived, such as battles and earthquakes, and cast them as predictions of future punishment for the people’s behavior.
In the literature of this period, the future redeemer who brings the prophecy, who saves humanity, is called a messiah. Literally, the term “messiah” (Hebrew mashiah) means “anointed one”; and it was through their anointing by God with the ruah ha-kodesh that the prophets were chosen by God to teach, guide, and save the people. And eventually during the Second Temple period, two other figures became associated with the role of the messiah, in addition to the prophet – the king and the high priest, both of whom were literally anointed with oil at the time of their selection.
The concept of the royal messiah originated when the prophet Samuel anointed Saul, and then David, as kings of Israel. As we saw in our discussion of Saul, the people had clamored for a king, but God was reluctant to establish a monarchy, saying: I have given you the prophets to lead and guide you. But the people insisted and God acceded to their request. Thus the anointed king shared in the prophet’s spiritual power and he was expected to function as both a spiritual and temporal leader. However, when the kingdom split apart and was eventually destroyed, the Davidic monarchy became a symbol of the Israelites’ self-identification as a people chosen by God, a people independent of foreign domination and free to worship their own God. So the aspiration for a kingly messiah, embodied by the lineage of David, became a focus of their spiritual hope as well. The kingly messiah was also associated with the tribe of Judah from which David came.
The concept of the high priest as messiah originates in the Bible, with the story of the selection of Aaron as the first high priest, whose lineage continued for millennia. The narrative recounts that Moses felt inadequate for his mission; he hesitated to preach to the Israelites and lead them out of Egypt, so God “reluctantly” chose Aaron to assist him. According to the biblical account, some of Moses’ prophetic role was diverted to Aaron. The priestly messiah is associated with the tribe of Levi, from which Moses and Aaron came.
The priesthood of antiquity, so long as the Temple was standing, was responsible to conduct the Temple rituals and sacrifices that would propitiate God and bring atonement for the people. The priest also permitted the pilgrims to the Temple in Jerusalem to gaze at the Holy of Holies, specifically at the “throne” of God created by the outspread wings of the cherubim, where the presence of God was believed to alight when it entered the physical world. It was also in the Holy of Holies where the priests would repeat the ineffable or unpronounceable “name” of God on the awesome Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and it is they who may have converted the name YHWH into a 48- or 72-letter name of God whose letters were combined into unpronounceable and meaningless syllables as a way of transcending language. By concentrating on these names, the priests would have attempted to raise their consciousness to supernal realms. Thus the priests, through the performance of this ritual, brought a mystical dimension into the people’s lives.
Having a priestly messiah presumes the existence of a Temple where a high priest could officiate. And this presumes the political and religious independence that the people had been denied during their exile. In the late sixth century BCE, the Persian king allowed the exiled Judeans to return to Jerusalem and encouraged them to rebuild their Temple as a central place of worship. The prophet Zechariah also returned to Jerusalem with the exiles. He recounts a vision, received from an angel during his sleep, which establishes both the kingly and priestly messiahs as divinely mandated, supporting the prophet-messiah from either side. The vision is important in understanding the development of the concept of the messiah in both Judaism and Christianity.
And the angel who talked with me came again,
and waked me,
like a man who is wakened out of his sleep,
And he said to me, What do you see?
And I said, I have looked,
and behold a lampstand [menorah] all of gold,
with a bowl upon its top, and seven lamps on it,
and seven pipes to the seven lamps,
which are upon its top;
And there are two olive trees by it,
one upon the right side of the bowl,
and the other upon its left side.
saying,
What are these, my lord?
Then the angel who talked with me answered
and said to me,
Do you not know what these are?
And I said, No, my lord.
Then he answered and spoke to me, saying,
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel [the high priest],
saying,
Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit,
says the Lord of hosts.
ZECHARIAH 4:1–14
The menorah, the lampstand with its seven oil lamps, represents the Lord or the prophetic messiah, who is the source of spiritual illumination or light. The mystic teacher is often referred to as the illuminator in Jewish mysticism, the one who gives light, so this symbol is very apt. (Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, the legendary author of the Zohar, was referred to as “the holy lamp” by his disciples.) The seven lamps represent the seven realms or heavens of spiritual consciousness that the Jewish mystics alluded to. They also represent the various qualities of God, or the gradations of his power, which were symbolized by the seven lower sefirot (emanations) in the later mystic teachings of the Kabbalah. In this passage, Zechariah reminds the priest that it is this power – God’s holy spirit – that sustains everything in the physical world. Zechariah again asks God the significance of the two olive trees:
What are these two olive trees upon the right side
of the lampstand and upon its left side?
And I answered again, and said to him,
What are these two olive branches
which are beside the two golden spouts,
from which the golden oil is poured out?
And he answered me and said,
Do you not know what these are?
And I said, No, my lord.
And he said, These are the two anointed ones,
who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
ZECHARIAH 4:1–14
The two olive trees are the source of the divine oil or spiritual nourishment that flows into the menorah; mystically, this is a beautiful illustration of how the divine power or essence flows through the realm of duality into the realized or illumined soul, symbolized by the menorah, the lamp. The image seems to symbolize the transcendence of duality through divine knowledge, the unity that is God. On a literal level, Zechariah says that the trees represent the kingly messiah and the priestly messiah (the two anointed ones), both of whom would rule from the Temple, one as the worldly leader and the other as the priest, creating peace and harmony through their joint rule and support for the prophet’s mission.
It would appear, if the literal sense of this prophecy is authentic, that Zechariah is supporting the reconstruction of the Temple as a focus for the devotion and worship of the people, and he has woven the three concepts of the messiah (prophetic, priestly, and kingly) into his vision. We will see that later, in the writings of the Qumran sect in the first century BCE, all three concepts of the messiah merge into one.
In another passage, Zechariah uses the term tsemakh (plant, growth, branch) for God’s servant. It is not clear if he is referring to the prophetic or royal messiah – perhaps to both. This implies that the prophet is a branch or organic extension of God. If God is the tree, then the branch grows from it. Isaiah and Jeremiah had also called the future king the branch and the rod.58 Elsewhere, Zechariah returns to the imagery of the true shepherd for the master, and he calls those who mislead the people the false shepherds, with whom God is displeased. They gave “empty comfort,” and the people went astray, because “there was no (true) shepherd” (10:2). In the future, when God wishes to bring them back to him, he will call for them like a shepherd with his flock: “I will whistle for them and gather them: for I have redeemed them” (10:8). “I will strengthen them in the Lord,” and they shall “walk up in his name” (10:12). They will follow in God’s teachings, his path, and live according to the divine name or command.
Zechariah also contrasts the glory of the true spiritual king with his intrinsic humility by portraying him as entering the city on a donkey, a lowly animal, despite the fact that he is victorious and powerful. It is this image that became the model associated with all messianic figures in the future, from Jesus to other Jewish messianic figures in later centuries.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem;
Behold, your King comes to you; he is just, and victorious;
humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.
ZECHARIAH 9:9
After the destruction of the Second Temple and the conquest of Judea by Rome, there was no longer any possibility for a royal or priestly messiah to function. Thus all three roles of the messiah became inextricably merged, as the people had to combine their aspirations into the hope for a spiritual master or messiah who would redeem and save them on all levels at once. The aspiration for a messiah would now figure into almost all Jewish spiritual and mystical teachings from this time onwards.