Don’t Wait for It

Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.  Isaiah 2:2  NASB

In the last days – Oh how the “end times” people love verses like this!  God is going to wipe out all the bad guys, Torah will stream from Zion, Israel will rule the world’s governments, and the Messiah will reign supreme over all.  Just hang on a bit longer and all good things will come to us, the righteous ones.

Except . . . except that the phrase “in the last days” isn’t what the text clearly says.  Robert Alter notes: “Older translations represent this Hebrew phrase as ‘in the end of days,’ giving it an emphatically eschatological meaning it does not have.  The Hebrew ʾaḥărît, derived from the word that means ‘after,’ refers to an indefinite time after the present.”[1]  But this isn’t all.  ʾaḥărît is used both of the indefinite future and the past.  It’s the same root we find in that very odd passage in Exodus where Moses sees the “back parts” of God (for the real story behind this verse, CLICK HERE and HERE and HERE.

As is clear from other derivatives, the general meaning of the root is after, later, behind, following. H. W. Wolff has likened the Hebrew conception of time to the view a man has when he is rowing a boat. He sees where he has been and backs into the future (lecture notes). It is true that qedem means “before” as well as “ancient times.” So the root ʾāḥar refers to what is “behind” as well as to “future things.”^[2]

You might reconsider Yeshua’s parable about the man plowing a field who looks “back.”  If Yeshua is using Hebrew expressions, it’s much more likely that this man is trying to see his future rather than his past.

Harris offers a nuanced Christian view of ʾaḥărît when he writes:

It is possible to use this phrase both for the eschaton and for the general future because obviously all eschatology is future, but not all future is eschatology. It does seem clear that Isa 2:2ff. (= Mic 4:1 ff.) refers to the eschaton (“last days” KJV, NASB, NIV), but that the reviving of Moab and Edom are simply prophesied for some future day (Jer 48:47; 49:39; cf. the Ammonites, 44:6). The above-cited article suggests that the corresponding nt phrase also often refers to the general future, not to the final segment of time.^[3]

He obviously considers Isaiah 2:2 as an eschatological prophecy.  Alter doesn’t.  What are we to conclude?  Well, once again messy Hebrew forces the reader to decide.  There’s just enough ambiguity to allow different interpretations.  The conclusions will be based on the paradigm, not the language in the text.

So, what do you think?  Oh, yes, and why do you think that?

Topical Index: ʾaḥărît, behind, after, Exodus 33:23, last days, Isaiah 2:2

[1] Robert Alter, Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible Volume 2 Prophets, p. 626, fn. 2.

^[2] Harris, R. L. (1999). 68 אָחַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 34). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[3] Ibid.