Reasoning Through the Prophetic: A Reading of
Isaiah 61, Leviticus 25 and Luke 4:16
Randi Rashkover,
York College of Pennsylvania
We live in an era of de-secularization. Religion
is being courted by two suitors in the our current
democratic climate. On the one hand, religion is the
cherished possession of the political right — its
rhetorical and ideological armor and source of
guidance. On the other hand, secular progressivists
of the past are now wondering how we might restore
its voice in America's democratic discourse. We are
now faced with the daunting challenge of discerning
how religion should function and contribute to the
democratic conversation. One compelling possibility
posed recently by Cornel West's Democracy
Matters searches into Judaism and Christianity's
prophetic traditions. West argues here that Judaism
and Christianity must retrieve their prophetic
voices. Appropriation of the prophetic voice requires
an investigation into this voice as it is proclaimed
and heard scripturally. Far too often, recourse to
the prophetic tradition has amounted to an implicit
endorsement of liberalism and its standards of
rationality — an endorsement that frequently dilutes
central religious claims, their rationality and an
authentic assessment of how those claims relate to a
democratic conversation. As a method whereby readers
may attend carefully to biblical texts in dialogical
and tri-logical encounters with other readers,
scriptural reasoning may contribute to an assessment
of the value of the prophetic voice as a contributor
to democratic discourse. What follows is an exercise
in reading a prophetic text through a co-reading with
a Levitical text on the one hand and a New Testament
text on the other with respect to a particular issue
of political concern, i.e. the character of territory
or land possession, that will provide a case study of
how scriptural reasoning permits religious traditions
to engage in a pluralistic conversation without
sacrificing their respective traditional commitments.
Once one begins via scriptural reasoning to move
beyond blanket applications of scripture, one begins
to question liberal (that is enlightenment-glossed)
readings or appropriations of these texts, thereby
unveiling the authentic religious doctrines at their
root. These doctrines, once exposed, help Judaism and
Christianity both to identify and to mutually reason
through their own positions, preparing them to better
present them at the democratic table. Scriptural
reasoning, therefore, permits the reasoned discourse
around scriptural texts to transpire through the
cross-readings in the traditions rather than through
the lens of the philosophical standard of the day. It
thereby offers an invaluable method for religious
participation in a democratic setting.
Here I would like to pay particular attention to
an analysis of
Isaiah 61 through a reading together with
Leviticus 25:1-35 and
Luke 4:16- 30. I will pose the following
question: What happens to the Jubilee when it is
proclaimed prophetically? In turn what happens to the
voice of prophecy when the subject is the Jubilee? An
investigation of these two questions leads to an
engagement between Judaism and Christianity's
readings of the prophetic tradition and its place
within a democratic political discourse. More
specifically, an engagement with these three texts
will lead readers to re-consider Leviticus 25's focus
on the theo-economy of the land, in a time when
neither Judaism nor Christianity present developed
theological discourse about the land. The failure to
provide such discourse helps to sustain a vacuum
regarding how to handle disputes over land ownership
and territory, which is then filled by secular
politics alone.
Leviticus 25: 1-35
My reading of the three texts sits against the
backdrop of the fact that rabbinic Judaism does not
commemorate the jubilee (yovel in Hebrew,
meaning either "rams horn" or "to bring forth") any
longer, because of its identification with the
holdings in the land. Both Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 do
re-invoke the jubilee. More significantly, their
re-invocation of the jubilee truncates its Levitical
dimensions. The jubilee concerns a return of property
holdings and not simply the liberation of the
enslaved or the poor.
And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of
years unto thee, seven times seven years and there
shall be unto thee the days of seven sabbaths of
years, even forty and nine years. Then shalt thou
make proclamation with the blast of the horn on the
tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of
atonement shall ye make proclamation with the horn
throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the
fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty through the land
unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a
jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto
his possession, and ye shall return every man unto
his family. (Leviticus 25: 8-10)
This return of property holdings is an essential
piece of the theo-economy of the text. The text
informs us of the liturgical-doxological significance
of property holding (that is, its 'holiness' ). We
are to 'hold property' in order to point to God as
the final owner. "And the land shall not be sold in
perpetuity; for the land is Mine; for ye are
strangers and settlers with Me." (Leviticus, 25:23) .
The condition of the possibility of the doxological
moment however is property holding (not negation). We
possess the land so that we may be servants of God.
In this respect choseness or covenantal life is a
life of possession, whereby our possessions are
themselves a testimony to God's holdings. To be
chosen is not to forgo one's property but rather to
render it holy — that is, to recognize its holiness
by virtue of its ultimate owner. The jubilee
commemorates the sanctification of land in this
liturgical function.
The Levitical theo-economy now noted, we can more
fully appreciate the theological crisis of exile. If
Israelite holdings are a condition of the
proclamation of divine sovereignty, the demise of
these holdings results in a liturgical crisis wherein
the Israelites cannot proclaim divine sovereignty in
this way. How, one may even ask, is it possible to
guard against idolatry or the belief that the land is
'ours' if we no longer possess the land that is
God's? How do we avoid the dominant attitude of
ancient and contemporary political reality that all
land is ours without limit? Moreover, how do we guard
against the disordering of our economic environment
in general, when the land's doxological value is a
reminder of the character of all our possessions —
land and otherwise? The loss of the jubilee, in other
words, is highly disruptive to the overall
theo-economic order reflected directly in the very
character of Israelite election.
It is noteworthy then that both the Isaiah text
and the Luke text re-invoke the jubilee in efforts to
disrupt the disruption — with the jubilee as the
'interruption' like the blast of the shofar. Both the
Isaiah and Luke texts are post-exilic texts (Isaiah
61 arguably a post first exilic text and Luke
arguably written after the second exile in 70 CE)
Both may be understood as responses to the
theological crisis of exile. Both texts may be read
as 'restoration' texts, broadly speaking. It is not
surprising, then, that both re-invoke the jubilee as
part and parcel of their hope for restoration of a
pre-exilic condition. Still, when they do so both
stress the liberation of the poor to the neglect of
the restoration of property holdings.
Isaiah 61:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me: he has sent me to
bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of
the Lord's favor.
The Levitical references here to the jubilee are
both the citation of the literal 'proclaim liberty to
the captives' and the invocation of the year of the
Lord's favor.
In Luke we have the repetition of this Isaiah text
as read by Jesus, with the important addition,
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to
the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the
synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to
them, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in
your hearing.' All spoke well of him and were amazed
at the gracious words . . . He said to them
'doubtless you will quote me this proverb, "Doctor,
cure yourself!" . . .When they heard this, all in the
synagogue were filled with rage. (Luke
4:18-29).
Both leave out "It shall be a jubilee for you: you
shall return, every one of you, to your property and
every one of you to your family . . . " (Leviticus
25:10 — immediately following the above cited
material from the same Leviticus text.) This
'neglect', if you will, is a neglect not only of a
circumstantial element resulting from exile but also
a neglect of the whole theo/covenantal economy and of
the jubilee.
According to Leviticus 25, the jubilee
acknowledges the divine sovereignty by identifying
God as the possessor of the land that we possess. The
proclamation of divine sovereignty is predicated on
our holding the land — our possession of the land —
and this proclamation takes place according to the
calendrical ordering of the year determined by a
litany of sabbaths: "seven weeks of years, seven
times seven years, so that [ultimately] the period of
seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you
shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day
of the seventh month — on the day of atonement . .
.And you shall hallow the fiftieth year . . ." We see
here a calendrical ordering that links the cycles of
the land itself to the liturgical practices of the
covenantal life.
Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 take the jubilee out of the
Jewish liturgical calendar and, even more
significantly, trans-value the jubilee, rendering it
a commemoration of the 'good news of the poor' rather
than a celebration of property holding. In contrast
to the Levitical emphasis on the calendrical and
natural cycle, Isaiah 61 is immediately preceded by
Isaiah 60 which identifies the year of the Lord's
favor — or 'redemption' (literally) with a time when
"the sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor
for brightness shall the moon give light to you by
night — but the Lord will be your everlasting light".
This text suggests the elimination of liturgical
time, as set out in Genesis 1 ("Let there be lights
in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the
night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and
for days and years . . ."(Genesis 1: 14))
Luke also dislocates the jubilee from its
Levitical origins. Luke 4:16 cites directly from
Isaiah 61 and thereby appropriates Isaiah's landless
invocation of the jubilee. Also like Isaiah, Luke
severs the connection between the jubilee and the
calendrical cycle that derives out of and re-shapes
the natural cycles of the land. This is evident in
the 'amazement' and then anger of the Jews listening
to Jesus' reading of the text. Shocking to the
listeners is Jesus' proclamation re: Isaiah's jubilee
announcement "today this scripture has been fulfilled
in your hearing" (Luke 4: 21). In one fell swoop,
Jesus identifies himself as the calendrical authority
— the one who determines literally 'what time it is'
and the liturgical and religious significance of this
time. No longer does God decide that the jubilee
transpires in the 5th year after the seven cycles of
sabbatical years. Jesus assumes this position — his
authority overrides the Levitical calendar. (Note
Jesus' frequent re-definitions of the 'sabbath'
itself in other Lukan texts e.g. Luke 6:5: "The Son
of Man is Lord of the sabbath.")
This trans-valuation in Isaiah 61 is further
bolstered by Isaiah's re-definition of Jewish
election in terms of the Suffering Servant motif.
Isaiah inverts the Jewish doctrine of election, from
one wherein the Jews are elect by virtue of their
holdings and the doxological significance of this
holding, to one in which the Jews are elect by virtue
not of their property but rather of their suffering —
that is to say, their being without holdings.
Thus Isaiah 52: 3-14:
For thus says the Lord: You were sold for
nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money . .
. long ago my people went down into Egypt . . . to
reside there as aliens, the Assyrian too has
oppressed them without cause . . . See my servant . .
. shall be exalted . . . so marred was his appearance
beyond human semblance . . .
In 53: 4-10 we read,
. . . surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried out diseases . . . like a sheep that
before its shearers is silent . . . for he was cut
off from the land of the living . . . they
made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the
rich . . . yet it was the will of
the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his
life an offering for sin . . .
To read the jubilee as the celebration of the
poor, to repair the exile through a thematic of the
Suffering Servant, is to not only truncate the
jubilee but to invert its meaning altogether. On the
one hand, we have election premised upon the right
for me to hold property as a tribute to God's
ultimate holding; on the other, election premised
upon — my impoverishment as a testimony to God's
long-suffering mercy.[1] Such an inversion of
the doctrine of Jewish election results in
significant theopolitical fall-out, evident in
ancient and contemporary Jewish and Christian
thought. On the Jewish front, The tendency in
rabbinic Judaism to either dismiss the yovel or
spiritualize its meaning in connection with Yom
Kippur's emphasis on 'return' or teshuvah can result
in a de-politicization of Judaism in the face of
political abuses. The jubilee offers a theology of
the land that if sustained could grant rabbinic
Judaism a position from which to credibly critique
political-territorial abuses.
Potentially more problematic, however, than the
rabbinic spiritualization of the jubilee is the
prophetic description of the jubilee found in Isaiah
61 as it has been read and interpreted by strands
inmodern Jewish thought. Modern Jews anxious to
assimilate into European society quickly associated
with the Suffering Servant motif in the Isaianic
presentation.
Hermann Cohen's reading of Leviticus 25 indicates
exactly the extent to which modern Jews read the
Levitical text backwards through Second and Third
Isaiah, thereby arguing that Jewish life in the
non-Jewish environment must involve 'suffering'
servanthood for the sake of the universal human
community. In Religion of Reason Out of the
Sources of Judaism, Cohen admits the link between
Jewish property and the covenantal notion of election
and says, "It is not sufficiently considered that the
idea of Israel's election as God's property is
stressed mainly in Deuteronomy."[2] Then, however,
Cohen goes on to describe the theological history of
the Jews in the context of Cohen's messianism. He
argues that the Jews do and should function as those
who suffer - those who have of course 'lost their
land' but whose loss of the land factors into their
relation to God as the poor whose unique position it
is to stimulate the affect of pity in the nations
thereby providing the condition of the possibility of
universal human compassion (Cohen's ethics stresses
that we are moved to ethical action towards the
stranger when stimulated first by the pity we feel
for her poverty).
Said more simply, Cohen sacrifices the
jubilee-linked doctrine of covenant or election for
the Isaianic model of the suffering servant.
Subsequently he reads Leviticus 25 through the lens
of the universal mission to the nations — a mission
that undermines the very character of Jewish holiness
with the land and in the liturgical calendar. While
the Leviticus text establishes laws regarding
redemption for property once held by 'brothers' in
the group who are now poor, "If thy brother be waxen
poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his
kinsman that is net unto him come, and shall redeem
that which his brother hat sold" (Lev. 25: 25),
Cohen's reading of Leviticus 25:25-35 focuses less on
the text's concern to restore Israelite property and
more on the social identification between the poor
'brother' and the 'resident alien' thereby evidencing
an implicit toraitic concern with the welfare of the
non-Israelite. "If your brother grows poor and his
hand falters with you, you shall support him, as
though he is a resident alien, so that he shall live
with you." (Lev. 25:35). Reading Leviticus 1-25
through the lens of 25:35 Cohen says, "Almost more
important than the prohibition of taking interest
from the stranger is this recognition of him as
brother."[3]
Taken as a whole, the tragedy of Cohen's
perspective is nothing less than the claim that Jews
must sacrifice — that is to say, negate themselves
for the sake of the human family. Jews, in other
words, must deny their Sinaitic election in order to
fit into the larger universal European community — a
community that by and large did not welcome these
efforts.
While it may be argued, of course, that the
existence of the state of Israel is an out and out
rejection of Modern Judaism's appropriation of the
suffering servant model, it too lacks an appropriate
theology of the land wherein the land — our holding
if you will, is of doxological significance. Jews
have much to gain from re-reading Isaiah and Luke's
re-invocations of the jubilee. Appreciating the
urgency for such a restoration may help Jews
recognize the need for a fully-fledged
teshuvah around this Levitical category.
Without so doing Jews will either sacrifice their own
doctrine of Sinaitic election — that is the very
theo-economy of holiness and sanctification
biblically described, for the sake of political
survival in non-Jewish nations, or Jews will dwell in
their own political environments idolatrously — also
divorced from their covenantal status. I am not
advocating that Jews actively campaign to restore the
land, the temple and the monarchy. I am advocating
that Jewish text readers pay attention to Leviticus
25 in the hopes of considering a viable theology of
the land in the time of exile.
The encounter between Leviticus 25, Isaiah 61 and
Luke 4 also impacts greatly on Christianity. While it
is the case that the Lukan text (following Isaiah)
invokes the jubilee — the dislocation of the jubilee
from the liturgical calendar and from the restoration
of property holdings drastically reduces the
possibilities of Christian theopolitics.
Certainly the celebration of the good news for the
poor has doxological significance.The classically
prophetic advance of the rights of the poor and the
critique of the abuse of power has granted Christian
theopolitics, at times, vibrant theopolitical
position (note of course the history of Christian
political critique all the way from the early martyrs
to the dialectical theology of Barth and up until the
pacifism of Yoder and Merton). However, radical
'prophetic' critique cannot offer a way through the
storm — it can only call out and warn folks of the
danger.
Christianity needs a theology of the land — a
theology that does more than negate the powers that
be in the name of divine sovereignty — but a theology
that restores the earth as the place of the glory of
God. It needs a re-reading of Leviticus 25. Arguably,
without this re-reading, Christianity runs the risk
of assuming realpolitik's own politics of land. Even
given the dialectical theology mentioned above, a
vacuum remains concerning the character of right
possession, right holding, right materiality, the
restoration of the created order as God's order. All
too frequently, this vacuum is filled with the rules
of realpolitik, given the lack of attention to
the earth that we find in post-prophetic dialectical
theology.
How may Christians re-till the land? In a recent
essay, "Holy Seeds: The Trisagion and the Liturgical
Untilling of Time", written as a contribution to a
volume co-edited by myself and Chad Pecknold,
Liturgy, Time and the Politics of Redemption,
Ben Quash offers an exquisite reading of the role of
the trisagion in the eucharistic commemoration. Here
Quash suggests that the three fold repetition of the
sanctus affords a liturgical re-tilling — or
re-planting of the earth — what in the context of
this discussion might be read as a eucharistic return
to the land. In his essay, Quash appreciates the need
for such a re-tilling in the face of political and
economic idolatry and hubris. Quash's inquiry into
the sanctus, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,
heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to
thee, O Lord most High', links the text back to its
textual roots in Revelation and Isaiah. His
liturgical reading of Revelation and Isaiah
re-interprets these two texts through the liturgical
function of the eucharist. Said daily and repeated
thrice, the trisagion implicates the 'holy, holy,
holy' — the holiness of Leviticus — back into the
Christian dwelling in our time and in our place.
Reading early Isaiah 6 through the trisagion 'holy,
holy, holy' opens up Quash's powerful suggestion
that, "In Isaiah 6, alongside the uncleanness of the
people, we are confronted with burning holiness; and
alongside the images of extraordinary emptiness
('vast . . . in the midst of the land') we are
confronted with images of extraordinary fullness
('the whole earth is full of his glory'; 'his
train filled the temple')."[4]
To read early Isaiah through the sanctus helps
illuminate how early Isaiah suggests that amidst the
very emptying abandon of the land there remains a
glory in the land, a residue of holiness that
requires attention — tilling, we might say.Of note
here is how Quash's eucharistic illumination of early
Isaiah helps to challenge the dislocation of later
Isaiah 61 away from the land (thereby helping as well
to recover a Christian appreciation for the Levitical
notion of Israelite covenant over against the
suffering servant motif characteristic of Second and
Third Isaiah).
It may be the case that the restoration of the
jubilee and its economy must transpire through
liturgical re-shaping of our land — of our place — of
our earth. Liturgy may in both traditions have the
unique ability to restore our earth to its
doxological significance. In Christian terms, if
Christ is understood as the agency of divine
post-exilic redemption, a close reading of Christian
liturgy may hold the key to appreciating how Christ's
redemption affects — that is, restores — the land/our
land in a manner that exceeds (or in Sam Wells'
words, 'overaccepts') both the exile and the
Christian bodily sacrifice. Liturgy — in Quash's
essay, the sanctus — offers a re-tilling of the earth
as God's via a new liturgical counting here
specifically the thrice stated 'Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy
glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High' — a new
calendrical connection that re-plants God's glory
into our earth.[5] Are there, we may
ask,ways to fill out the redemptive meaning of
Christ's sacrifice as something other than an
absolute emptying in the name of divine fullness but
as a creaturely restoration that points to the value
of our land — that is a Levitical re-reading of the
passion and the resurrection through the lens of
temple sacrifice?
If Christians may re-till the land by reading Luke
4 forward through the lens of liturgical language,
one possibility that Jews can explore may involve
reading Isaiah 61 back through a reading of Leviticus
25. Quash's reading of the trisagion is instructive
here for Jews so far as it points to how Jewish
readers may consult other passages in Isaiah that
speak about restoration in terms that match the
celebration of the poor with hopes for the
re-possession of the land.We may seek to read late
Isaiah through early Isaiah, and thereby re-establish
the link to the Levitical emphasis on the
theo-economy of the land. Isaiah 4:2-6 invokes the
covenantal theology of Leviticus 25 replete with
reference to the holiness of the land — its ability
to bear fruit (its property value, we might say —
understood here as its ability to house those who
stand obediently to God within it):
On that day the branch of the Lord shall be
beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the land
shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of
Israel. Whoever is left in Zion and remains in
Jerusalem will be called holy . . .
coupled with the other pole of covenantal life —
divine care of unconditional love:
the Lord will create over the whole site of
Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by
day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by
night. Indeed over all the glory there will be a
canopy. It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day
from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the
storm and rain.
To conclude therefore, if, as Scott Bader-Saye and
others have argued, Christianity must come to terms
with the carnal body of Israel in order to affect its
own post-Constantianian political life, it is also
the case that Christianity must come to terms with
the land of Israel (and its doctrine of Jewish
election) in order to develop a post-Constantianian
political life. At the same time, Jews can and ought
to use recent trends in de-secularization to develop
theological perspectives on a host of political
issues, such as 'land' or 'territory', which they may
bring to the democratic table.
As here demonstrated, scriptural reasoning can
play a significant role in unveiling and discerning
these theological positions.The unique contribution
of scriptural reasoning rests not only in the careful
attention to text here provided, but more in the
reasoning process that transpires when text readings
from the variant traditions are imported as agents of
rational challenge or inquiry. The encounter between
the texts and readings of the variant traditions
brings about a rational encounter that offers a
philosophical alternative to the apologetic tradition
that sought commensurability with the governing
philosophical views of the day. Scriptural reasoning
offers an invaluable tool for those interested in
discerning how religious traditions may participate
boldly in the democratic conversation in an era of
increasing de-secularization.
ENDNOTES
[1] Note the use of the
suffering servant motif inpost-Holocaust thought, see
Eliezar Berkovitz, Faith After the Holocaust
(New York: Ktav, 1973).
[2] Herman Cohen, Religion of
Reasong Within the Sources of Judaism, trans. Sion
Kaplan (NY: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.), 1972, p.
148.
[3]Cohen, Religion, p.
126.
[4]Ben Quash, "Holy Seeds: The
Trisagion and the Liturgical Untilling of Time",
Liturgy Time and the Politics of Redemption
ed. Chad Pecknold and Randi Rashkover (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans), 2006, forthcoming.
[5]It is worth noting that
Quash does emphasize the temporality of delay that is
a necessary feature in any liturgical
re-tilling.Quash hereby offsets any possibility of
human over-determination of territorial
restoration.
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