Judgment Postponed

“Come now, and let us debate your case,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.”  Isaiah 1:18  NASB

Though – The problem with Hebrew conjunctions is their implicit ambiguity.  Unlike Greek (or English), Hebrew conjunctions cover a very wide range of contextual meanings.  A simple word like ʾim can mean “if,” or “not,” or “whether,” or “when,” or “since,” or “even though.”  The reader must decide from the tone and context of the text—and that isn’t always easy to do.

You’ll notice this problem when you consider Robert Alter’s translation of this part of the verse:

“If your offenses be like scarlet, like snow shall they turn white, if they be red as dyed cloth, they shall become like pure wool.”

Alter renders the conjunction as “if” rather than “though.”  The meaning isn’t quite the same.  “If” suggests a possibility; “though” implies an actuality.  The theological condition of the NASB portrays Israel as already under judgment.  The theological condition of Alter’s translation leaves that determination up in the air.  Perhaps Israel’s sins are not yet scarlet or red.  They could be, but we’ll have to wait to see.  The difference between these two translations is significant.  How can you decide?

Perhaps it depends on your theological paradigm.  Can I suggest that if you see God as Judge over Israel, and you view Israel as terminally disobedient, then you’ll be inclined to render ʾim as actual.  Israel’s state before God is guilty.  There can be no doubt about it.  But if you realize that this entire section is about how God feels under the circumstances, then you’ll view Israel’s disobedience is redeemable, not inevitable, and render the conjunction “if.”  Either way, God offers a means of pardon.  It’s just that most Christian interpretations tend to view Isaiah’s text as a judgment rather than a condition.

You might not think that there’s a lot of theological assumption packed into such “incidental” words like conjunctions (and prepositions, by the way), but you’d be mistaken.  Remember that Hebrew is a sparce language.  It uses a single word for many different meanings.  Its linguistic umbrellas are broad.  So the reader has to determine a more precise meaning from the tone of the passage, all the more so when the reader is the one who provides the vowels.  Unlike Western theological ideas based in the preciseness of a Greco-Roman paradigm, Hebrew is, as Avivah Kushner says, “messy.”  Keep that in mind whenever you’re tempted to produce an “exact” meaning of a Hebrew text.  Oh, and by the way, just because the apostles wrote in Greek doesn’t mean their conceptual formations aren’t just as messy.

Topical Index: ʾim, conjunctions, actual, possible, Isaiah 1:18