Conditionals (1)
If you assent and listen, the land’s bounty you shall eat. But if you refuse and rebel, by the sword you shall be eaten, for the Lord’s mouth has spoken. Isaiah 1:19-20 Robert Alter
If – Do you remember the examination of the previous verse? The conjunction ʾim? Remember that the NASB rendered ʾim as “though” in Isaiah 1:18, while Alter used “if.” Alter is consistent in these next verses which once again begin with ʾim. But here the NASB (and others) shift from “though” to “if”:
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land; (NASB).
The same thing happens in the next verse. This is a problem—a problem that Alter discusses in his book on the art of translation:
“ . . . the Bible itself does not generally exhibit the clarity to which its modern translators aspire: the Hebrew writers reveled in the proliferation of meanings, the cultivation of ambiguities, the playing of one sense of a term against another, and this richness is erased in the deceptive antiseptic clarity of the modern versions.”[1]
“One manifestation of this tendency . . . is the practice of repeatedly assigning the same Hebrew term different English equivalents . . . Another consequence of the impulse for clarification is to represent legal, medical, architectural, and other terms from specific realms of experience in purportedly precise modern technical language when the Hebrew by and large hews to general terms . . .”[2]
To this warning we must add the architecture of Hebrew poetry, for that is what Isaiah’s prophecy is. Alter continues:
“What needs to be kept in mind in regard to the considerations [of rhythm] is that both in biblical poetry and in prose the carefully crafted cadences are inseparable not only from the beauty of the writing but also from its nuanced meanings. The dimension of sound would have been all the more urgent for the first audience to whom these texts were addressed, who would of course not have read them silently but rather would have listened to them.”[3]
We notice another smaller issue. From the NASB translations of verses 18, 19 and 20 you would never know that the same Hebrew word is used in all three verses. You would assume that God’s statement in 18 (“though”) does not carry the same conditional nuance that is found in 19 and 20. But this is mistaken. If 19 and 20 are nuanced conditionals, why isn’t 18? The NASB translators haven’t just chosen a synonym, they’ve subtly altered the poetic context. And because the translation in English is different, you can’t use it to refer to the actual Hebrew text.
Topical Index: translation, ʾim, if, though, Isaiah 1:19-20
[1] Robert Alter, The Art of Bible Translation (Princeton University Press, 2019), p. 10.
[2] Ibid., p. 11.
[3] Ibid., p. 102.
Great clarification, Skip… thank you!
The expected response to God’s “speaking” is “hearing,” yet this expected response to that spoken is conveyed as well through Israel’s poetic quality of speech, a character not typically conveyed apart from the communal context of Israel, for it is in this particular communal context that what we (the “nations”/ethnos) have received as text was spoken for those hearing. And yes, in that communal context of Israel, the people of God, the expected response of this people of God was the fellowship of obedience demonstrated by acts and actions employing that spoken— that is to say, the completed act of hearing that spoken was to be demonstrated in the fellowship of obedience.
The Christian community of faith is also to be a living testimony which bears witness to the redemptive act and work of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. That can only be true communally within in the community of faith through the fellowship of obedience. We, who are not sons of Israel by birth, would do well to harken to the Word of God spoken with an understanding that is enhanced by those who are the Sons of Israel by birth. We need to acquire not only “eyes that see” but also “ears that hear.” Thanks be to God who is the Creator of all things, and the Word that “was in the beginning with God.” “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”
NOTE: the communal sense of relationship in the fellowship of obedience may be summarized by the term “covenant.” It is what takes place in BETWEEN redeemed mankind in response to the surpassing love of God. Covent is a relational, NOT a forensic issue. Nevertheless, it may be used rightly (legally) to serve justice when the covenant is violated.
The model that God provides us of what he reveals of himself is a model of activity (toward us and on our behalf) by which he assures us that he really and eternally is that he is in himself, i.e., as he actually is in his own being. This is the model set before us— that is, as human being made in his image— that we are to mirror by our activity (within the space and time of our earthly existence) in the fellowship of obedience. It is by such activity, by our living testimony of faith— that is, faith lived out faithfully in the fellowship of obedience— whereby we serve to bear witness that we, too, are as we actually are in our being— that is, being that is created anew (or “born again”— “from above”) through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. This is the model of biblical faith, in which the order of knowledge and the order of being may not be separated from one another, for (as T.F. Torrance rightly says) “they arise together, interpenetrate each other and regulate each other.”