Torah reading: Numbers 16-18
Second Torah reading: Numbers 28:9-15
Haftarah: Isaiah 66
Today I'm going to focus on the Haftarah reading, and in particular the second half of Isaiah 66 (verses 12-24). Coming from a Christian tradition as I do, the first thing that stood out to me was the final verse of Isaiah, gruesomely depicting the fate of God's "enemies":
“And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all humankind.”
This verse is, of course, commonly quoted as a "proof text" for the existence of Hell. (Though the Seventh-Day Adventist church that I grew up did not recognize the idea of "eternal conscious torment", they did teach that the wicked would be destroyed for all time in a lake of fire, and I believe this was one of the verses they quoted.) Yet -- though I've read most of the Bible at one point or another -- I don't think I'd actually ever read this entire chapter. When I did, it was quite a contrast, as I'll describe below.
Reading all of Isaiah 66, I found it pretty obvious that verse 24 can only be interpreted as a depiction of "Hell" if you're prepared to totally rip it out of context -- and even then, it's a tenuous connection. The "bodies" it mentions are, after all, dead and being devoured by worms (something not generally seen in Christian depictions of Hell!) The worst part of their punishment seems to be that they'll be posthumously exposed to humiliation, mockery and disgust by all who see them -- they will be "loathsome to all humankind", in the same way we revile someone like Hitler or Pol Pot. But there's no suggestion here of eternal conscious torment, and unless we'll be strolling past maggot-eaten dead corpses in Heaven, not much hint of an afterlife either.
In fact, the whole passage is very "earthly". Depicting an ideal future, yes -- but a future that is situated in the "here" and very nearly "now" of the book's writing. After the "judgment" of verses 14-17 -- not a heavenly judgement but a war involving chariots, sword and fire -- the survivors will return via "horses, chariots, wagons, mules and camels". "Descendants" of the survivors and typical measurements of time (Sabbaths and New Moons -- i.e. weeks and months) are mentioned, as are various nations the Israelites would have known (Greece, Tubal, Libya, Tarshish, etc). There's nothing ethereal or timeless about the society described here.
Turning to various Jewish commentaries I found, one point that is repeatedly emphasized is the inclusion of foreigners. God's glory is to be proclaimed to "people of all nations and languages", and when the survivors return to Jerusalem, they will bring "all your people, from all the nations" along with them. Verse 21 implies that even some of these non-Israelites, foreigners, will be selected "to be priests and Levites"! This is further reinforced by the symbol of the New Moon; as many commentators have pointed out, the lunar month is a unit of time that is marked by nearly every culture on Earth, while the Sabbath is a uniquely Jewish unit of time. God, it seems, is willing to reach out to people of all nations and ethnicities using their own symbols and their own language.
This is a wonderful counterpart to the exclusivity found in books such as Deuteronomy and Joshua, where the Israelites are commanded -- by divine decree, no less! -- to slaughter entire ethnic groups, essentially committing the first recorded genocide. Symbolically, too, Isaiah acts as a reversal of the division seen in the story of the Tower of Babel. Here God's promise to Abraham is finally to be fulfilled: not only that he and his tribe would be blessed, but that all nations on earth would be blessed through him. (Genesis 12:2-3).
In this light, then, it is ironic and sad that the inclusive and restorative aspects of this chapter have been so often ignored, within Christianity at least. Instead, that Isaiah's words have been used to reinforce an "us vs. them", "convert or be eternally damned" mentality -- the exact opposite of what Isaiah intended here! There is no hint in the text that the Jewish exiles will "convert" the people of the nations by force, threat, or other coercive measures. Rather, it is by seeing God's mercy, tolerance, love and glory reflected in the Israelites that the people of the nations will come to know and respect the Lord. This is a lesson that people of all religions would do well to keep in mind.
Shabbat Shalom!