Seeing with Your Ears

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.  Isaiah 1:1  NASB

Vision – Today you’ll read this short analysis.  You will see it with your eyes.  But if I were to have a vision, you wouldn’t see it at all unless the vision were a communal experience.  I might write about it later, in which case you would see what I wrote, but what I write isn’t my seeing.  It’s a report about my seeing.  So, when the book of Isaiah opens with “the vision of Isaiah,” it really isn’t a vision at all.  It’s a report about his vision, a second-hand analysis of what he experienced first-hand, all the more so since there isn’t any video of the book of Isaiah.

One other slightly disturbing element shows up here.  According to the opening sentence, Isaiah had this vision during the reign of four different kings of Judah.  What does that mean?  Does it mean that he had the same vision on at least four different occasions, or does it mean that he had a continuous vision for more than forty years (that might be a bit difficult)?  The Hebrew noun (ḥāzôn) is singular leading us to imagine that he had but one vision spread over the forty year period.  What was that?  A sort of sequel series?  Episodes?  And if it were one vision spanning forty years, wouldn’t we expect it to be internally consistent?

All of these questions begin with a misunderstanding of the word ḥāzôn.  In Hebrew it doesn’t always mean visual reception.

Any word meaning to see with the eyes, the most vivid form of sensation, seems bound to be employed for almost any sensation (by eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin) as well as any mental or spiritual perception. Notice how at least two different senses are attributed to eyes in the prize mixed metaphor of all literature: The children of Israel complain to Moses and Aaron, “You have made our savor to stink in the eyes of Pharaoh” (Ex 5:21). In the case of ḥāzâ the bare literal sense is rare. Metaphorical and special senses are more common^[1]

In other words, our idea of “vision” involves sight whereas the Hebrew idea can involve any form of sensory reception.  And that raises another interesting question.  If Isaiah’s prophetic revelation occurs over a forty year period, then it stands to reason that it wasn’t all written down after the forty years ended.  It appears to have been written down progressively.  In fact, modern biblical scholarship suggests that the book of Isaiah is actually the compilation of more than one author appended to earlier records of visions.  “Isaiah” is just the name of the file that contains all these different “visions.”

Great, at least we’ve clear up that potential confusion.  But, why would we care?  The reason we care is that the flexibility of Hebrew words, especially in poetry and prophecy, have a special implication for orthodox Judaism today.  To put it as bluntly as possible, what happens with the prophetic books really doesn’t matter that much for orthodox beliefs.

Compared to the question of how the Torah took shape, the origins of the books of the Prophets and Writings is of only secondary importance in Jewish thought. The principal reason for this is that this question does not impinge on the basic tenets of traditional Jewish faith.[2]

What this means is that the believer’s paradigm is powerful enough to override any of these academic issues.  It doesn’t really matter if there is more than one author.  It doesn’t matter if the prophet(s) saw or heard or thought or meditated about this material.  What matters is that it is now incorporated into the Tanakh and accepted as God’s word.  Once that step has been taken, all the rest is just interesting discussion.  As the citation notes, none of these academic questions “impinge on the basic tenets.”

The reason I bring this to your attention is because this is the position of orthodox Judaism as well as orthodox Christianity.  Once inside the paradigm, the content is protected, sacrosanct, the basis for rule and practice.  Once canonized, the text is vouchsafed forever.  The only way these questions become serious concerns is if the paradigm starts to shake.  And anyone who does the shaking is a heretic.  But as you now know, heretics are incredibly important for without them the ruling party of the faith can and will propagate whatever interpretation of the text they wish.  The early communities of believers recognized the necessity of those with differing opinions.  By the time of Justin, those differing opinions were suppressed and they still are, on both sides of the aisle.

Topical Index: paradigm, ḥāzôn, vision, canon, heretic, Isaiah 1:1

^[1] Culver, R. D. (1999). 633 חָזָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 274). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] “Origins of the Books of the Prophets and Writings,” in The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible (Eds. Tova Ganzel, Yehudah Brandes, and Chayuta Deutsch, Academic Studies Press, 2019), p. 73.