A Voice Beyond Our Own
By Walter Brueggemann
The powerful usually prefer to live in a self-contained social environment where “never is heard a discouraging word.” Very often the powerless, beguiled by the powerful, collude in such a self-contained social system, and so live without hope. The powerful and the powerless conspire to make sure nothing is said except by the former.
I. It was not different in ancient Israel. For reasons we do not understand, that ancient social system of “haves” and “have-nots” in Israel was never completely shut-down into a permanent status quo. The evidence that it could not be shut down is the sporadic appearance of eloquent, outrageous, non-credentialed speakers (termed “prophets”) who here and there appeared in a variety of social contexts to speak a word from outside the system. They spoke mostly in poetic cadences; they utilized remarkable and often affrontive imagery. In doing so, they redescribed the world as though it were held by and accountable to the God of all creation, the one who had freed the slaves in Egypt. They spoke amazing human words; but their words had a kind of freighted authenticity to them, so that their listeners-some of their listeners-judged that in these words there was a Holy Speaking through but beyond human speaking. Thus in Israel there was this strange speaking, taken to be God’s own utterance, an utterance from God that is not easily silenced or finally disregarded.
More amazing still, these ancient utterances, in a time and place quite unlike our own, made it into Holy Scripture; as a result they continue to occupy-in Judaism and in Christianity-a place of importance and urgency. What began as occasional poetic utterance by non-credentialed voices has become-in these communities of listening-a voice so credited that it must be heeded, even belatedly, among us. Ancient voices summon to contemporary obedience, because the ancient voices bear a kind of authority that is not present in most of the contemporary chatter that we commonly term “communication.”
II. These poetic voices speak a hard, demanding word that is designed to break open our best practices of denial. I cite only one case, Isaiah 10:1-4. This brief poem begins with “woe,” a term that is a summons to death (v. 1). The poem divides in to three parts. First, the poem condemns “decrees and statutes” that abuse and exploit the needy, the poor, orphans and widows (vv. 1-2). The poem addresses the manipulation of socio-economic, political, and judicial power exercised by the ruling elite that takes advantage of the powerless and the marginal. Note well that the abuse is not direct; it is rather done through the “paper flow” of management and administration, the governance of taxes, credits, loans, and mortgages.
Second, the poem anticipates coming trouble that remains unspecified (vv. 3-4a). It is only evident that the coming trouble will be fierce and that there will be no place to escape, not even in a prison or in a cemetery. There will be no place to hide wealth that has been ill gotten from the poor and needy. Clearly we may infer that the punishment of verses 3-4a is a result of the abuse of verses 1-2, but that connection is never explicitly detailed. The poets imagine connections between affront and punishing trouble that they do not articulate.
Third, the final verse indicates that the power elite are now in profound jeopardy, because they have ignored the God who is not named but referred to only by pronouns (v. 4b). The effect of the poem, lacking all specificity, is to bring public life and all its mechanizations into the purview of God’s will and presence.
III. In a quite different voice, the prophets speak a word of assurance about coming transformations to be given by God that are designed to override despair. In Ezekiel 37:11-14, the promise of the prophet announces God’s good resolve to open a future for Israel in exile where there seemed to be no way to find a future. The prophetic utterance utilizes the well-known imagery of the “valley of dry bones,” an image of lifeless, hopeless Israel in exile. The imagery intends to characterize Israel as being completely without energy, strength, or vitality, and therefore completely hopeless. The hopelessness is succinctly sounded in verse 11: “We are cut off.”
God’s utterance in verses 12-13 sharply contradicts the hopelessness and assures a return to the homeland where Israel will undertake a new future. The imagery of newness bespeaks resurrection, so that the homecoming of Israel is an Easter event that defies all despair and that can only happen by the new resolve of God’s gift. The utterance does not directly issue an imperative to Israel in exile. But clearly one is implied. The utterance intends not only a willingness to go home in the future, but also a decision to act in the present with hope, conceding nothing to the circumstance of despair that the host empire tries to impose upon the exiles.
IV. Both candor against denial about social jeopardy and hope against despair in exile are jarring announcements that intend to counter common assumptions. The text of Isaiah 10 is addressed to a complacent society that, by hidden administrative procedures, manages to keep the poor oppressed. Such a prophetic poem jars because it tells the truth against the power elite. The text of Ezekiel 37 is addressed to a community displaced and in despair, in order to assert that there is ground for hope. Both utterances contradict presumed circumstances, on the one hand complacency, on the other hand despair. When the prophetic utterance rings true, those who hear and who know they are addressed “from beyond” must respond in new ways to a world given in new ways by prophetic utterance. Those who hear Isaiah 10:1-4 as God’s truth-telling must resist the “paper chase” that harms the poor. Those who hear Ezekiel 37:11-14 as God’s truth-telling must decide against despair and enact a new vitality. In both cases, the prophetic utterance insists that the world perceived without reference to YHWH is a world wrongly perceived.
· In Isaiah 10, the world perceived without YHWH is a world in which the powerful are completely free to abuse the powerless, because where God is not, “everything is possible.”
· In Ezekiel 37, the world perceived without YHWH is a world closed down without a future.
And now in both cases, Israel can act differently in confidence of the utterance when it is heard as a true characterization of reality under the governance of YHWH.
If the prophetic word was jarring and disconcerting in ancient contexts, how much more when we hear these words from across the centuries, still as a word from the Lord! When such words are heard as “Scripture,” as disclosing God’s own voice, we are jarred out of our world-taken-for-granted. If in our own context we hear Isaiah 10:1-4, we may freshly notice the manipulative ways in which the economy is managed for the sake of the powerful. If we are addressed by Ezekiel 37:1-14, we may be energized to commit acts of hope that both heal the present and open doors to the future.
Obviously poems do not give “instruction.” Ancient poems, moreover, do not connect directly to contemporary conditions. One part of hearing is to listen with enough imagination to make connections beyond the actual statement of the text. Old poems require much imagination. When heard imaginatively, these old prophetic poems may utter us out of denial and beyond despair. Such poems insist upon hard listening, so that when the words touch us we may be dispatched in fresh and new ways. Israel’s poetic tradition of the prophets knows that on our own we sink into denial and/or despair. But these poets also know that we are never unaddressed, never left alone in denial, never left hopeless in despair. We are always jarred, invited, and summoned into obedience in a newly voice world presided over by the God who haunts in old poems heard new.