Trito-Isaiah

Trito-Isaiah is the third part of the book of Isaiah, chapters 56 to 66. It addresses the people returned from exile: Babylon has fallen, the deportees are back in Jerusalem. The city remains half-rebuilt, poor and divided, and the glory promised by Deutero-Isaiah is slow to appear. To this disappointed community, Isaiah recalls the conditions of salvation, justice and true worship, and lifts his eyes towards the final glory of Zion and towards a new creation.

The house of prayer for all peoples

The book opens by widening salvation beyond Israel. The foreigner and the eunuch, whom the old law kept at the margin of the assembly, receive a place in the house of God if they keep the covenant and the sabbath. The eunuch is the extreme case: with no children to carry his name after him, he seemed bound to vanish without leaving a trace. To him first, God promises better than descendants. “I will give in my house, within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that will never be blotted out.” Isaiah 56:5 The one who keeps him is God: he counts him among his own and holds him before him for ever, there where the memory of men would have died out. The foreigner who attaches himself to the Lord is admitted to his worship as well, for the Temple is open to all. “I will lead them to my holy mountain, I will fill them with joy in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Isaiah 56:7 Jesus will take up this word when driving the merchants from the Temple, restoring to his Father’s house its vocation of prayer for all the nations.

The fast that pleases God

God declares where he dwells. “I dwell in a high and holy place, but I am also with the crushed and humble, to give life to the spirit of the humble, to give life to the heart of the crushed.” Isaiah 57:15 The people fast and complain that God pays no heed; Isaiah shows them the fast that pleases God, the one that reaches the neighbour rather than putting itself on display. “The fast that I prefer, is it not rather this: to loose the chains of injustice… to share your bread with the hungry, to welcome into your home the poor without shelter, to clothe the one you see naked?” Isaiah 58:6-7 To this worship lived out in justice, God attaches the light. “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, your wound will quickly heal.” Isaiah 58:8

The sin that separates and the arm that saves

God’s arm keeps all its strength to save; the sin of the people stands in the way. “but your faults have dug a gulf between you and your God; your sins have hidden his face from you.” Isaiah 59:2 Isaiah draws the picture of a people locked in injustice, where truth stumbles in the public square. God looks for a man who would set the wrong right and finds none; since no human arm is capable of it, he works salvation by his own. “He saw that there was no one, he was astonished that no one intervened; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.” Isaiah 59:16 For this combat, God clothes himself like a warrior. “He put on righteousness like a breastplate, set the helmet of salvation on his head.” Isaiah 59:17 This armour of God, Paul will hand to Christians for the combat of faith. And it is towards Zion that the one who redeems comes, to tear his own away from the sin that had separated them from God. “He will come as Redeemer for Zion, for those of Jacob who turn from their rebellion.” Isaiah 59:20

Arise, shine: the glory of Zion

At the centre of the book bursts the vision of Zion lit up. Night covers the earth; over the city rises the glory of God. “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!” Isaiah 60:1 Towards this brightness flow the peoples and their kings, and the caravans bring the gifts of the distant nations. “all those of Sheba will come, laden with gold and incense, proclaiming the praises of the Lord.” Isaiah 60:6 The gold and frankincense brought to Zion by the nations, the Magi will lay before the child of Bethlehem, in whom the true light rises. At the last, God himself takes the place of the sun for his people. “The sun will no longer be your light by day, nor the moon give you its glow: the Lord will be for you an everlasting light.” Isaiah 60:19

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

The envoy speaks and tells his mission, sealed by the anointing of the Spirit. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has consecrated me by anointing. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal those who are brokenhearted, to announce release to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.” Isaiah 61:1-2 This year of grace takes up the jubilee. “You shall sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be for you a jubilee: each of you shall return to his property and return to his family.” Leviticus 25:10 What the jubilee granted at intervals, the envoy announces for all and without return. In the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus reads this passage of Isaiah, closes it and declares that it is fulfilled that very day in him: he is the anointed one of whom the prophet speaks, and the year of grace opens with him. One detail of this reading carries the whole sense. Isaiah’s verse continues: “to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord, a day of vengeance from our God” Isaiah 61:2. Yet at Nazareth Jesus stops at “the year of favor,” rolls up the scroll and sits down, leaving the day of vengeance unread. His first coming opens the time of salvation offered; the day of judgment, which Isaiah joined to the same sentence, belongs to his return.

The espousals of Zion

To the city long forsaken, God gives new names that tell the covenant regained. “No longer will you be called Forsaken, no longer will your land be called Devastated; but you will be called My-Delight-Is-in-Her, and your land, Espoused. For the Lord will take his delight in you, and your land will have a husband.” Isaiah 62:4 These names make of Zion a betrothed whom God takes back as bride. “as the bride is the joy of the bridegroom, so you will be the joy of your God.” Isaiah 62:5 The covenant here takes on the face of a wedding, which Paul will recognise in the union of Christ and the Church, and the Apocalypse in the wedding of the Lamb.

The winepress of wrath

A vision follows, that of a warrior returning alone from battle, his garments spattered with red. A watchman questions him, and he himself answers. “Who is this who comes from Edom, from Bozrah, in crimson garments?… It is I, who speak with righteousness, I, the mighty one who saves.” Isaiah 63:1 It is the Lord, and the red that covers him is that of the oppressors he has crushed as one crushes the grape in the vat; he struck them alone. “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples not one was with me.” Isaiah 63:3 This judgment borne upon injustice is at the same time the day of salvation: by striking down the oppressor, God raises up the oppressed. “For a day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my deliverance had come.” Isaiah 63:4

This warrior, alone and mighty to save, the Church recognises in Christ, and the winepress of wrath becomes the last judgment. Revelation takes up the vision of Isaiah: a horseman whose robe is dipped in blood, and who bears the name Word of God. “He treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.” Revelation 19:15 What the prophecy said of God’s judgment upon the nations is fulfilled in the judgment that Christ will bear upon evil on the last day, when he renders to each according to his works.

Tradition has contemplated the Passion in the same image, and the image then turns about. The red is no longer the blood of the enemies, but that of Christ; the winepress is no longer the vat where the oppressor is crushed, but the cross where the Saviour is crushed; and “I have trodden alone, none was with me” tells the solitude of the one who saves alone, abandoned by his own at the hour of suffering. The warrior who crushes becomes the crushed grape, and the blood that covers him is the blood he pours out to redeem. The two readings hold together: the one who judges evil is the one who gave himself up to save.

You are our Father

Before the glory promised and the ruin present, the people turn to God in supplication. They recall the kindnesses of old, confess their fault, and call God their Father. “For you are our father. Abraham does not know us, Israel does not acknowledge us; but you, Lord, you are our father, our Redeemer: that is your name from all time.” Isaiah 63:16 Then rises the cry of a people who await their salvation only from on high. “Ah, if only you would tear open the heavens, if only you would come down, the mountains would melt away before you!” Isaiah 63:19 And they put themselves into God’s hands like clay in the potter’s. “And yet, Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and you the potter: we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:7 This cry towards the torn heavens, the Church takes up in Advent, the liturgical season in which she awaits the coming of the Saviour.

New heavens and a new earth

To the prayer of the people, God answers by separating his servants from the rebels, then he unveils what he is preparing. The dwelling he seeks is a humble heart. “Heaven is my throne, the earth the footstool of my feet. What house could you build me, what place for my rest?… This is the one to whom I look: the humble, the one who has a broken heart and who trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:1-2 Stephen will repeat these words before the Sanhedrin, against those who confined God to a temple built by human hands: “Heaven is my throne… What house will you build me, says the Lord?” Acts 7:49-50 And the consolation announced at the threshold of Deutero-Isaiah here receives its tenderest image: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” Isaiah 66:13 At the last appears a creation made new, where the evil of old is wiped away. “See: I create new heavens and a new earth; the past will be remembered no more, it will rise no longer to the heart.” Isaiah 65:17 Peace reaches even the beasts, as the beginning of the book had already glimpsed. “The wolf and the lamb will graze together, the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the serpent will feed on dust. No longer will they do evil or ravage on all my holy mountain.” Isaiah 65:25 All the nations are gathered there to see the glory of God and to adore him. “all flesh will come to bow down before me, says the Lord.” Isaiah 66:23 The book closes on the opposite fate of those who have rebelled, whose image Jesus will take up to speak of Gehenna. Thus the book of Isaiah, opened on the judgment of Judah, ends on the new creation and the adoration of all the nations, the horizon that the Apocalypse will contemplate in its turn.