Israel in The Book of Isaiah

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Vol 31.1 (2006): 103-128

© 2006 Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi)
DOI: 10.1177/0309089206068845
http://JSOT.sagepub.com
Israel in the Book of Isaiah*
REINHARD G. KRATZ
Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
Abstract
The name ‘Israel’ is employed by all sections of Isaiah in various ways and with various
meanings. As such, the book takes part in the fundamental transformation the name has
undergone both in the history of Israel and in the literary history of the Old and New
Testaments as it evolved from a political to a theological concept, from the Israel of
history to the Israel of faith. According to an insightful thesis proposed by Leonard Rost,
this development took its point of departure from the prophets of the eighth century BCE
and has left especially deep traces in First and Second Isaiah. The name Israel can thus
serve as a leitmotif that allows us to retrace the development of Isaianic prophecy as well
as the various stages of the book’s origins.
Keywords: Isaiah; Isaianic prophecy; Israel; transformation of name ‘Israel’; the Holy
One (of Israel); Jacob–Israel, Judah and Israel
PV HB@S QB OUFK PJ FD *TSBI M PV<UPJ *TSBI M: ‘For they are not all Israel that
are of Israel’ (Rom. 9.6). For the Apostle Paul and the New Testament,
the name ‘Israel’ had become ambiguous. What Israel means and who
belongs to Israel is no longer obvious. The only thing that is clear is that
descent from the people of Israel no longer suffices for belonging to the
people of God. Not descent, but rather faith in the death and resurrection
* I offer my sincere thanks to Dr Jacob Wright (Heidelberg) and Professor Philip

Davies (Sheffield) for their valuable help in preparing the English version of this article.
Downloaded from jot.sagepub.com at Univ of Illinois at Chicago Library on May 3, 2015

104 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31.1 (2006)
of Jesus Christ is the condition for membership to the people of God; it is

what constitutes the true ‘Israel’, which includes both people from Israel
and the nations. ‘Israel’ has here a double meaning: on the one hand, it is
the name of a nation or ethnic group, and on the other, it is the religious
symbol for the people of God. In contrast to the restriction to descent and
origin, this distinction permits an expansion of the group of elect ones so
that all nations can participate in the promise.
Paul and the early Christians were certainly not the first to differentiate
the meaning of the name ‘Israel’. Prior to them, the community at
Qumran had set themselves apart from the Israelites in general and the
Temple in Jerusalem; they understood themselves as the true Israel and
as the Temple of God. Their criterion was the Torah of Moses according
to the interpretation of the Teacher of Righteousness and his disciples.
Another predecessor is found in late Wisdom works, in which the dis-
tinction between sinners and the righteous marks the chief line of divi-
sion within Israel itself. On the other hand, there is the work of the
Chronicler with its genealogical as well as political concept revolving
around the idea of all Israel.1 The main predecessors, however, are the
prophetic writings.2 In them we notice a fundamental shift in the meaning
of the name ‘Israel’—namely, from the people as a nation to the people
of God, from the Israel of history to the Israel of faith.3
This shift has also left its traces in the book of Isaiah.4 More than
anywhere else, the name ‘Israel’ stands here at the end of a history that is
tightly knit to the history of the book itself and represents an important
chapter in the history of the Jewish tradition. The name ‘Israel’ appears
in each section of the book, with various meanings. Therefore it can serve
as a leitmotif with which we can understand the development of both
1. See H.G.M. Williamson, Israel in the Books of Chronicles (Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press, 1977).
2. See L. Rost, Israel bei den Propheten (BWANT, IV/19; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer,
1937); for the exilic and post-exilic period, see H.G.M. Williamson, ‘The Concept of
Israel in Transition’, in R.E. Clements (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological,
Anthropological and Political Perspectives (Essays by Members of the Society for Old
Testament Study; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 141-61.
3. See R.G. Kratz, ‘Israel als Staat und als Volk’, ZTK 97 (2000), pp. 1-17. The entire
Old Testament material is treated, from the perspective of the older presuppositions, by
G.A. Danell, Studies in the Name Israel in the Old Testament (Uppsala: Appelbergs
boktrykeri-a.-b., 1946).
4. See J. Høgenhaven, Gott und Volk bei Jesaja. Eine Untersuchung zur Biblischen
Theologie (AThD, 24; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988).

KRATZ Israel in the Book of Isaiah 105
Isaianic prophecy and the various stages in the composition of the book.
I shall attempt to facilitate just such an understanding in three steps by
examining (1) the divine title ‘The Holy One of Israel’, which is dispersed
throughout the entire book; then (2) the ethnic designation, ‘Jacob–Israel’,
which appears above all in Second Isaiah; and finally (3) the political use
of the name ‘Israel’ which we encounter mostly in First Isaiah.
1. The Holy One of Israel

‘The Holy One of Israel’ does not quite fit into the schema which
scholars have developed for the book of Isaiah. Because this title appears
both in chs. 1–395 and 40–66,6 it conflicts with the usual partition
between First and Second Isaiah. The title represents neither specifically
Proto-Isaianic nor Deutero-Isaianic usage, but rather the language of the
whole book in its present canonical form. Nevertheless, for linguistic and
historical reasons, there is no way around the literary partition between
First and Second Isaiah. One is thus forced to look more closely, and
draw literary-historical distinctions with regard to the use of the title.7
Ascertaining the meaning and origins is easiest in Isaiah 40–55 (and
60). Here the title stands consistently for the God of salvation. ‘The Holy
One of Israel’ is the Redeemer of Israel and Zion8 who glorifies his
people and Zion.9 Furthermore, he is the Creator and King of Israel who
made Israel and Zion from the womb and is also active as Creator in the
present work of redemption.10 As such, he is the ‘God of Israel’ and the
whole earthYhwh Sabaoth is his name.11
5. =CJ H5B: 1.4; 5.19, 24; 10.20; 12.6; 17.7; 29.19; 30.11, 12, 15; 31.1; 37.23;
3BJ H5B: 29.23 (par. =CJ J9=); with suffix: 10.17 (HH5B); cf. =CJ J9=: 17.6;
21.10, 17; 24.15; 29.23; 37.16, 21; =CJ CJ3: 1.24; =CJ CH (par. HH5B); 10.17.
Whether the ‘Rock of Israel’ in 30.29 represents a title for God seems rather unlikely.
6. =CJ H5B: 41.14, 16, 20; 43.3, 14; 45.11; 47.4; 48.17; 49.7; 54.5; 55.5; 60.9, 14;
with suffix: 43.15 ()<H5B); 49.7 (HH5B); cf. =CJ J9=: 41.17; 45.3, 15; 48.1, 2;
52.12.
7. See H.G.M. Williamson, ‘Isaiah and the Holy One of Israel’, in A. Rapoport-
Albert and G. Greenberg (eds.), Biblical Hebrews, Biblical Texts (Festschrift M.P. Weitz-
mann; JSOTSup, 333; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), pp. 22-38, who makes
the important observation that the title plays a role neither in Trito-Isaiah (only 60.9, 14)
nor in the so-called ‘Isaiah-apocalypse’ in Isa. 24–27 (see pp. 25-27).
8. Isa. 41.14; 43.14; 47.4; 48.17; 49.7; 54.5 (cf. 60.14).
9. Isa. 55.5 (cf. 49.7b); 60.9, 14.
10. Isa. 41.16, 20; 43.1, 3, 15 (cf. 41.21; 44.6); 54.5.
11. Isa. 41.17; 45.3, 15; 48.2; 52.12; 54.5.

The use of the title and its semantic range indicate that the name
‘Israel’ refers to the people of God as a whole without any distinctions.12
Especially the references to the Creator of Israel suggest a close relation-
ship between God and his people. The metaphor belongs to the repertoire
of election terminology in the ancient Near Eastern ruler-oracles.13 In
Second Isaiah, this metaphor has been transferred from the elected king
to the chosen people and, in Isaiah 49 (vv. 1-6, 7), to the chosen Servant
of the Lord.14
Corresponding to these developments, the role of the divine king has
undergone a change. According to the ancient Near Eastern (especially
the Northwest Semitic) conception, this deity rules the entire world and
maintains its order by controlling chaos and providing rain.15 In Second
Isaiah, this divine ruler has become the King of Israel who allows
Babylon and the Chaldeans to sink into chaos (43.14-15). He also proves
himself to be the only God by challenging the divine status of other gods
(41.21), and in this dispute, calling the redeemed Israel to serve as a
witness (44.6). The Holy One of Israel is the Creator and King insofar
as at the beginning of time he took Israel for his own possession and
continues to do the same by presenting himself as the Redeemer and
Saviour: Yhwh is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of Yhwh, as
expressed in the so-called Covenant Formula and echoed in the title ‘the
God of Israel’. The salvation that Israel receives from the Holy One of
Israel brings an end to a situation of desolation and despair and renews
the broken relationship with God. All this distinguishes the promises of
Deutero-Isaiah from the message of the classical, ancient Near Eastern
(and Israelite) prophecies of salvation. While only those prophecies of
salvation still make their presence felt in several of Deutero-Isaiah’s
genres and expressions, they are fully transformed and have been
supplied with different contents.
12. I cannot share the view of Rost, Israel, p. 91, that the divine title does not assist
us in defining the meaning of ‘Israel’ in Deutero-Isaiah. De facto ‘nur die Nachkommen
Judas’, ‘Juda und die jüdische Gola’ in Deutero-Isaiah (p. 92 on the basis of Isa. 48.1 and
46.13), ‘nur die Gemeinde der jüdischen Rückwanderer’ in Trito-Isaiah (p. 93 on the
basis of Isa. 60.16 and 59.20) or a different group may be in view, yet they intend to
represent all Israel.
13. R.G. Kratz, Kyros im Deuterojesaja-Buch (FAT, 1; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1991), pp. 110-12.
14. After a gloss in Isa. 49.3, it refers to ‘Israel’.
15. See R.G. Kratz, ‘Der Mythos vom Königtum Gottes in Kanaan und Israel’, ZTK
100 (2003), pp. 147-62.

Something unique is the occasional juxtaposition of ‘the Holy One of

Israel’ and ‘Zion’. There is, nevertheless, a simple explanation for it: the
literary stratification in Deutero-Isaiah. The transferral and restriction of
the promise and salvation declarations to Zion (in 54.5; 60.9, 14) sup-
ports the conjecture that not all statements in Isaiah 40–55 come from
one and the same author. Moreover, Zion represents the people of God
(that explains the use of the title), but other associations are intended:
Israel is the wandering people of God on the way to the land, while Zion
is the place of the resident people of God.16 These aspects are not mutu-
ally exclusive. However, they do not express the same thing, but rather
supplement each other. Incidentally, several other passages in which the
title refers to the wandering people of God have also been supplemented
secondarily in later redactions.
Either way, the overall picture remains the same. Already the primary
layer in Isaiah 40–48 employs the divine title in question and the epi-
thets17 related to it, and indeed, just as in the literary replicas, predomi-
nantly in formal language. This raises the question of the origins of the
title, for which two solutions are possible: either the title is based on an
older cultic tradition or it originates in the literary dependence of the
texts both within and beyond the book of Isaiah.
As for the cultic tradition, we may probably rule it out. Of the three
passages where the title appears in the Psalms, which have been
identified as the source,18 two (Pss. 78.41; 89.19) are certainly, and one
(71.22) is very likely, so late that we may draw on them only for specula-
tion, not for convincing argumentation. It does not help much that the
attribute of holiness was applied from the beginning to the Ugaritic deity
El and likely also to the Israelite–Judaean Yhwh.19 From the West-Semitic
16. See O.H. Steck, ‘Israel und Zion. Zum Problem konzeptioneller Einheit und
literarischer Schichtung in Deuterojesaja’, in idem, Gottesknecht und Zion. Gesammelte
Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja (FAT, 4; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1992), pp.
173-207. For a different view, see H.-J. Hermisson, ‘Jakob und Zion, Schöpfung und
Heil. Zur Einheit der Theologie Deuterojesajas’ (1990), in idem, Studien zu Prophetie
und Weisheit (ed. J. Barthel et al.; FAT, 23; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), pp. 117-31;
idem, ‘Einheit und Komplexität Deuterojesajas. Probleme der Redaktionsgeschichte von
Jes 40–55’ (1989), ibid., pp. 132-57.
17. The possibilities are Isa. 41.20; 43.3, 14-15; 47.4.
18. See H.G.M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Com-
position and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 42; idem, Isaiah, pp. 32-33.
19. See W.H. Schmidt, Königtum Gottes in Ugarit und Israel (BZAW, 80; Berlin:
Alfred Töpelmann, 2nd edn, 1966), pp. 28-29.

tradition one cannot explain why God’s holiness is focused on Israel

even less so when Israel is confined to the people of God in Judah.20 It
is here that we find a point of distinction, which rather than belonging to
the beginnings of Israel, as many claim,21 gradually developed and is
already very advanced within Deutero-Isaiah. Thus, a literary depend-
ence suggests itself more than an ancient cultic tradition.
The nearest literary parallel is found not in Isaiah, but rather in the
book of Jeremiah, namely, in the large oracle against Babylon in
Jeremiah 50–51 (specifically 50.29; 51.5). With this text, Deutero-Isaiah
has a number of points in common.22 As in Jeremiah 50–51, the title ‘the
Holy One of Israel’ occurs often in a context of statements concerning
Babylon and other nations.23 Just as Israel suffered at the hands of Baby-
lon and other nations, Israel will now triumph over them. Yet the literary
relationship is not easy to define, although much of the evidence indicates
that Jeremiah has influenced Deutero-Isaiah. However, both Jeremiah
50–51 and Isaiah 40–55 are obviously not the first witnesses to the title.
They both presuppose the prophecy of doom, which in Isaiah 1–39 is
connected to the Holy One of Israel, and present the prophecy of restora-
tion as an alternative. With or without further discussion of Jeremiah
50–51, this fact confirms the supposition of Hugh Williamson and others
that the formulation of Second Isaiah has been influenced by First
Isaiah.24 That the usage in both parts of the book of Isaiah should not be
assigned to the same literary level seems quite clear. Whether Second
Isaiah was composed merely with an acquaintance of First Isaiah or from
the beginning as its continuation, is however a different matter.
The origins of the title ‘the Holy One of Israel’ are thus to be sought
neither in Second Isaiah nor in Jeremiah but rather in First Isaiah
20. A. van Selms, ‘The Expression “The Holy One of Israel” ’, in W.C. Delsman et
al. (eds.), Von Kanaan bis Kerala (Festscrift J.P.M. van der Ploeg; AOAT, 211;
Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982), pp. 257-69 (261), expresses this point
aptly: ‘something has to happen in history before God can be called the God of Israel’.
21. See, e.g., H. Wildberger, Jesaja (BK, X/1; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener
Verlag 1972), pp. 2324; van Selms, Expression, p. 268. Høgenhaven also favours an
older cultic tradition (Gott, pp. 15-26, 17-28), but, against C. Westermann, without the
contrast to Canaanite prehistory (pp. 197-98).
22. See Williamson, Book, pp. 41-42; R.G. Kratz, ‘Der Anfang des Zweiten Jesaja in
Jes 40,1f und das Jeremiabuch’, ZAW 106 (1994), pp. 243-61.
23. Isa. 43.14-15 and 47.4; further 41.14-16; 43.3-4; 45.11a, 12-13; 49.7; 55.5; 60.9,
14.
24. Williamson, Book, p. 45; cf. also Rost, Israel, p. 91.

(chs. 1–39). Yet this statement does not apply for all occurrences.25 The
title is not original in the prophecies of salvation in First Isaiah; these
either agree with the view of Second Isaiah or develop it.26 Here it is
Assyria (instead of Babylon as in Jeremiah and Second Isaiah) to which
the retaliation applies, yet the grateful jubilation with regard to Israel’s
and Zion’s Creator and Redeemer alludes clearly to the formulations of
Deutero-Isaiah. Usually, the people as a whole is in view. But as in the
subsequent section of Second Isaiah, in the so-called Trito-Isaiah (Isa.
55–66), repentance, salvation and jubilation are sometimes confined to
the group of the poor (29.19) or a remnant of Israel (10.20-23) that are
accepted pars pro toto by the Holy One of Israel:27 PV HB@S QB OUFK PJ FD
*TSBI M PV<UPJ *TSBI M.
If there were only these texts, one would have to assume that the title
‘the Holy One of Israel’ has seeped into First Isaiah from Second Isaiah.
However, that is not the case. As I pointed out before, the promise always
presupposes Isaiah’s message of judgment, which also speaks of ‘the
Holy One of Israel’. Here the Holy One does not announce salvation, but
rather doom, because he (1.4; 30.11) or his word (5.24; 30.12) has been
scorned (#? piel) and rejected (D>), and because his will was not
heeded (30.15) and they did not look to him (31.1). Yhwh proves himself
to be holy when Israel is accused of a sin against God which he punishes
rather than forgets about.
In this use of the divine title, the traditional attribute of holiness as
well as the name ‘Israel’ assumes a very special importance. The holi-
ness which the heavenly beings, the seraphim in Isa. 6.3, attribute to
25. For a differentiated analysis, see also Rost, Israel, pp. 36-40; Høgenhaven, Gott,
pp. 14-15.
26. Isa. 10.17, 20-23; 12.1-6; 17.7-8; 29.19, 22-23; 37.23; ‘the God of Israel’ appears
in 17.6; 21.10, 17; 24.15; 29.23; 37.16, 21. For the redactional character of these
passages, see H. Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit. Israel und Assur als Thema
einer produktiven Neuinterpretation der Jesajaüberlieferung (WMANT, 48, Neukirchen–
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977), pp. 28-34 (10.17), pp. 35-41 (10.20-23), p. 90 (17.7-
8), pp. 292-94 (29.19, 22-23); U. Becker, Jesaja—von der Botschaft zum Buch (FRLANT,
178; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), p. 234 (29.19, 22-23); for 12.1-6, see
O.H. Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr. Jesaja 35 als redaktionelle Brücke zwischen dem Ersten
und dem Zweiten Jesaja (SBS, 121; Stuttgart:Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), pp.
75, 80, and, in detail, idem, Studien zu Tritojesaja (BZAW, 203; Berlin: W. de Gruyter,
1991), pp. 22-24, 42-43, 229-30, 241, 243; for the Deutero-Isaianic influence in 12.1-6
and Isa. 36–39, see especially Williamson, Book, pp. 118-23, 189-211.
27. ‘The God of Israel’ appears in 17.6; ‘the Mighty One of Israel’, in the framework
of the (secondary) purifying judgment of Zion–Jerusalem, appears in 1.24.

Yhwh becomes the criterion by which the sins of the people are meas-
ured and appear particularly grave: the more holy God is, the greater the
sins are against God. On the other hand, this allows the name ‘Israel’ in
the divine title to be qualified in a special way. As nomen rectum in the
construct, ‘Israel’ is related directly to the nomen regens and assigned to
the Holy One as his people: the tighter the connection, the greater the
obligations on Israel toward the Holy One. In this title, Yhwh and Israel
have entered into an unsurpassable, but also fateful, relationship. Israel is
the people of God condemned to desolation because of the holiness of
Yhwh. The aspect of fear which is associated with holiness and tradi-
tionally directed against Israel’s enemies turns now against the people of
Israel itself.
Should one, after all, attribute the origins of the divine title to the
prophet, Isaiah of Jerusalem himself? Scholars agree to a great extent
that the use of the title in the context of announcements of judgment is
authentic, and with a few exceptions (1.4; 5.19, 24),28 there is no reason
to ascribe it to an editorial hand.29 Yet whether the title is authentic or not
does not (solely) depend on the integrity of the texts, but rather on the
authenticity of these texts themselves. The divine title is authentic (and
Isaianic) only when one assumes that Isaiah of Jerusalem was a prophet
of doom and that the words of judgment can be traced more or less back
to him. Recently, however, scholars have voiced important reasons for
viewing this assumption with suspicion.30
28. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 140-41, 142-43, 188; also Williamson, Isaiah, pp. 28-29;
Barth, Jesaja-Worte, pp. 115-16.
29. A different approach has been taken by O. Loretz, Der Prolog des Jesaja-Buches
(1,1–2,5). Ugaritologische und kolometrische Studien zum Jesaja-Buch (UBL, 1;
Altenberge: CIS Verlag, 1984), pp. 97-110. Against it, cf. Williamson, Book, pp. 43-45.
30. See above all Becker, Jesaja, and in his own way, also Høgenhaven, Gott, pp.
77-113. See R.G. Kratz, Die Propheten Israels (Munich: Beck, 2003), pp. 54-55, 57-63.
The differences between the words of Isaiah and their writing down are recognized also
by J. Barthel, Prophetenwort und Geschichte. Die Jesajaüberlieferung in Jes 6–8 und
28–31 (FAT, 19; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), pp. 456-59, for the detailed analysis
see pp. 152-53, 191, 192-93. Yet he does not draw any conclusions, or at least only
wrong ones, from these findings. For example, Barthel shows his predicament when he
argues that the expression ‘this people’ in Isa. 6–8 (originally) only referred to that part
of the Judean population ‘that sympathized with anti-Assyrian politics and with the plans
for revolt of Rezin and Pekah, and thus stood in opposition to the Davidic dynasty’
(pp. 201-202) in order to both connect the prophecies against the enemies in the North
with those against Judah and to be able to treat the Denkschrift as authentic. Yet Barthel
refutes himself inasmuch as he concedes that the ‘Endgestalt der Denkschrift’, together
with other passages, refers primarily to the ‘entire population of Judah or at least of

The title itself feeds this suspicion. Both the concept of holiness as a
background for Yhwh’s judgment of Israel as well as the use of the name
‘Israel’ as a symbol for the people of God are rather unexpected, if not
astonishing, for a Judean prophet of the eighth century BCE. Both are
unique and without any historical analogy. And for both one lacks a his-
torical basis before the downfall of the kingdom of Israel.31 Incidentally,
the same problem presents itself also when one, on the basis of the evi-
dence of the Psalms, proposes an older cultic tradition, since the use of
the name ‘Israel’ for the people of God in Judah demands an explanation.
Whether the title ‘the Holy One of Israel’ within the context of Isaiah’s
prophecies of doom comes from the prophet himself is thus a matter that
cannot be decided without further analysis, yet there can be no doubt that
it is integral to these texts. The construct expression applies the tra-
ditional attribute of God’s holiness, as it is used in Isa. 6.3, explicitly to
Israel and in this manner calls Israel as the people of God to account for
their actions before God. Against this backdrop, the later prophecies of
promise for Israel and against the nations in both First and Second Isaiah
(and in Jer. 50–51) make use of the title. The question of how and when
the title entered First Isaiah thus depends upon the further question of
who is responsible for the prophecy of doom and the introduction of the
name ‘Israel’ into the book of Isaiah.
2. Jacob–Israel
Because the divine titles comprise almost half of the occurrences of the
word ‘Israel’ in the book of Isaiah, one may draw the preliminary con-
clusion that in this book ‘Israel’ does not represent primarily a historical,
but rather a theological entity. This impression is confirmed when we
turn to the names ‘Jacob’ and ‘Israel’ themselves, which, just as the
divine title, appear throughout the whole of Isaiah. Both names are used
either individually or parallel to each other, and when the contexts do not
relate to the monarchies of Israel (Ephraim) and Judah or their respective
Jerusalem’ and that ‘if one bears in mind the all-Israel perspective of the announcements
of doom in Isa. 8 (cf. esp. Isa. 8,14f)’the expression 9K9 )9 ‘includes the population
of the northern kingdom’ (pp. 107-108; cf. pp. 222-23).
31. See Rost, Israel, pp. 41-43, as well as R.G. Kratz, ‘Das Neue in der Prophetie des
Alten Testaments’, in I. Fischer et al. (eds.), Prophetie in Israel. Beiträge des Symposi-
ums »Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne« anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags
Gerhard von Rads (1901–1971), Heidelberg, 18.–21. Oktober 2001 (ATM, 11; Munster:
LIT Press, 2003), pp. 1-22; idem, Propheten.

capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem (Zion), these names designate the people
of God.
Once again, the evidence in Second Isaiah is the easiest to interpret.
Apart from severalalmost all latepassages in which ‘Israel’ and
‘Jacob’ appear individually,32 the double name ‘Jacob–Israel’ predomi-
nates.33 Its distribution is quite revealing: the name occurs exclusively in
the first section of Second Isaiah, in chs. 40–48 and 49.1-6, while Zion–
Jerusalem, which is occasionally identified with the nation Israel or
Jacob, stands in the forefront in the passages that follow. These findings
again seem to be related to the composition of Second Isaiah.34 Here we
notice that the division between Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah,35 which
Bernhard Duhm introduced, does not suffice. In addition to the signifi-
cant distribution of the names, there are other reasons for isolating the
literary nucleus of Deutero-Isaiah to chs. 40–48. Various continuations in
chs. 49–54 and 60–62 that treat the subject of Zion–Jerusalem have
grown out of this nucleus. Further supplements are found in chs. 40–66
that favour (once again) the entire nation of Israel, a special group in
Israel or a handful from Israel and the nations: PV HB@S QB OUFK PJ FD
*TSBI M PV<UPJ *TSBI M.
Yet what can one say about the double name ‘Jacob–Israel’ itself?
Jacob brings the patriarchal narratives to mind, and the combination with
Israel directs us to the renaming of Jacob in Gen. 32.29 and 35.10. It is
apparent that the use of the name ‘Jacob’ for Israel in the Prophets and
other works of the Old Testament is directly related to this tradition.36
32. Israel: 45.17, 25; 46.13 (par. Zion); 49.3; 56.8; 63.7, 16; 66.20; Jacob: 41.21 (the
divine title ‘King of Jacob’); 45.19; 48.20; 49.26 (the divine title ‘the Mighty One of
Jacob’); 58.1, 14; 59.20 (par. Zion); 60.16 (= 49.26).
33. 40.27; 41.8, 14; 42.24; 43.1, 22, 28; 44.1, 5, 21, 23; 45.4; 46.3; 48.1, 12; 49.5, 6.
Also 45.19, 25 (in the framework of the paragraph 45.18-25) can, with a certain amount
of effort, be fitted within this category.
34. See Kratz, Kyros. See, further, K. Kiesow, Exodustexte im Jesajabuch. Literarkri-
tische und motivgeschichtliche Analysen (OBO, 24; Freiburg: Editions Universitaires,
1979); J. van Oorschot, Von Babel zum Zion. Eine literarkritische und redaktions-
geschichtliche Untersuchung (BZAW, 206; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1993).
35. Williamson, Concept, pp. 145-53, differentiates the texts according to this divi-
sion. The identification of Jacob–Israel in Isa. 40–48 with the Babylonian golah (p. 145),
just as earlier in the work of Rost (Israel, p. 92), is not convincing (cf. above, n. 12).
36. See H.-J. Zobel, ‘3(H+)B;J" ja!aq(ô)’, ThWAT, III, cols. 752-77; further, Chr.
Jeremias, ‘Die Erzväter in der Verkündigung der Propheten’, in H. Donner et al. (eds.),
Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie (Festschrift W. Zimmerli; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 206-22.

For Second Isaiah, this makes good sense. Jacob–Israel, the ancestor of
the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen. 29–30), is called the chosen servant who
is elected like a king in the promise-oracle and, making use of the
Creation and Exodus traditions, is assured of God’s help.37 The reference
to the royally elected patriarch is part of the theological concept. It
focuses the spotlight on the formation and re-formation of Israel as the
people of God. After the catastrophe of 587 BCE in which the kingdom
and the temple were destroyed, and consequently also the relationship
which these institutions secured to Yhwh, as the God of Israel and Judah,
Jacob represents a new beginning. Thus, the promised future presents
itself as a repetition of the positive beginnings under different circum-
stances, and by this means the rupture is presupposed and theologically
reflected upon.
More difficult is the question of the prehistory of the patriarchal tradi-
tions in the book of Isaiah. First Isaiah also knows the name ‘Jacob’38 and
employs it, like the name ‘Israel’,39 as a designation of the peopleand
sometimes parallel to it.40 Just as in the case of the divine title, some of
these texts are clearly not Isaianic and are more similar to Second Isaiah
or other theological concepts of the same time.41 They are by and large
prophecies of promise,42 and several prophecies of doom have also
clearly been added.43
37. See Kratz, Kyros, pp. 161-63; on this subject, cf. also K. Schmid, Erzväter und
Exodus. Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der
Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testamentes (WMANT, 81; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirch-
ener Verlag, 1999), pp. 266-70.
38. Isa. 2.3, 5, 6; 8.17; 9.7; 10.20-22; 14.1; 17.4; 27.9; 29.22.
39. Isa. 1.3; 4.2; 8.18; 11.16; 17.9; 19.24-25; 27.12; 30.29; 31.6; with a distinction
between the two kingdoms, see also 5.7; 7.1; 8.14; 11.12; 17.3; perhaps 9.7, 11, 13 (see
below).
40. Isa. 9.7; 10.20; 14.1; 27.6; cf. also 8.17, 18; 17.3, 4.
41. For a differentiated analysis, see Rost, Israel, pp. 32-40; Høgenhaven, Gott,
pp. 8-19.
42. Isa. 2.2-5; 4.2; 10.20-22; 11.16; 14.1-2; 19.24-25; 27.6, 9, 12; 29.22-23; 31.6. For
these texts, see Barth, Jesaja-Worte, pp. 35-41 (on 10.20-23), p. 39 (on 4.2), pp. 91-92
(on 31.6), pp. 292-94 (on 29.22-23); Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr, esp. pp. 62-64; idem,
Studien, pp. 20-27 (on 11.16; 27.12); idem, Der Abschluß der Prophetie im Alten Testa-
ment. Ein Versuch zur Frage der Vorgeschichte des Kanons (BThSt, 17; Neukirchen–
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), pp. 30, 71, 98-99 (19.24-25); Williamson, Book,
pp. 125-27, 144-55, 157-83 (2.2-5; 11.16; 14.1-2; 27.6, 9, 12).
43. Isa. 2.6; 17.4, 9. For these passages, see Barth, Jesaja-Worte, p. 207 n. 26 (17.9),
pp. 222-23, 287-88 (2.6); Becker, Jesaja, pp. 274-75 (17.1-6).

Although it may be surprising, the remaining references to Israel and

Jacob in First Isaiah (apart from these clear additions) are not exactly
numerous. There are two occurrences of ‘Israel’ as a designation for the
people (1.3; 8.18), and for ‘Jacob’ or ‘Jacob–Israel’ also two at the most
(8.17 as well as 9.7 with 9.11, 13). They are said to be authentic and are
ascribed to the prophet of the end of the eighth century. Once again, that
is quite astonishing. The question arises here as it does for the divine
title: Why would Isaiah of Jerusalem in the name of Yhwh speak of
Israel as ‘my people’ (1.3), wait upon the hidden God of the house of
Jacob (8.17), understand himself and his children as signs of the God of
the mountain Zion in Israel (8.18) or subsume the fate of both kingdoms,
Ephraim (Manasseh) and Judah (9.20), under the divine judgment of
Jacob–Israel (9.7, 11, 13)? This evidence creates not only historical
problems. It demands above all that one explain how Isaiah from the 8th
century knew about the parallel Jacob–Israel and why he applies, even
though quite subtly, the name of the Northern Kingdom, which he
regarded as an enemy (cf. Isa. 6–8), to Judah.
As far as I can see, scholars have rarely considered this problem,
probably because it is thought safe to assume that First Isaiah already
knew the patriarchal narratives and the story of the renaming of Jacob as
Israel at least in their most primitive (Yahwistic) forms. Here the
renaming (Gen. 32.29) makes Jacob–Israel the father of Judah (Gen.
29.35), and in this way both monarchies, Israel and Judah, related
nations. In the earliest Exodus story, ‘Israel’ is designated, without any
further differentiation, as the people of Yhwh (‘my people’ in Exod. 3.7).
From here it was only a small step to recognize Jacob–Israel, the father
of Judah, as the people of God that includes both Israel and Judah, and
with this step Israel became, so to speak, a transcendent entity. The
political concept developed thus into a religious one.
Yet should one presume that this change of meaning was already
known in the eighth century? With regard to the age of the Yahwist, that
is, the oldest literary stratum of the patriarchal and Exodus narrative,
scholars have not reached any consensus. Therefore I would like to offer
a diplomatic solution: not too early and not too late, neither before nor
after the monarchy, but ratherlet us saythe middle or late monarchy,
thus roughly the seventh century.44 Given these premises, Isaiah cannot
44. For more detailed reasons, cf. R.G. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden
Bücher des Alten Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 269, 279,
294-95, 310-11, and the summary on pp. 319-23.

yet know anything about the renaming of Jacob as Israel and the cor-
responding transformation of the name ‘Israel’ into a designation for the
people. One would have to presuppose the existence of an oral prede-
cessor containing everything that characterizes the oldest (Yahwistic)
redaction of the patriarchal and Exodus traditions. That is possible, but
also speculative and thus not very cogent. The Israelite qualities of the
material are clearly the work of redactors. And even if one wishes not to
accept my diplomatic proposal and to date the work differently, it must
be recognized that in the end all proposals lack complete cogency.
We come to the same conclusion in examining other evidence. Out-
side the patriarchal stories, the name ‘Jacob’ appears quite rarely in the
narrative works of the Old Testament. In most cases, it occurs in the
patriarchal triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and in the reviews of the
patriarchal history.45 Otherwise, the renaming as Israel (Gen. 32.29;
35.10) is either presupposed46 or explicitly mentioned.47 For the Psalms,
Hermann Spieckermann has demonstrated that the reminiscences of the
national history and thus also the explicit references to Israel and Jacob
belong to a very late stage of the tradition. With the exception of Exodus
15, he has found no pre-exilic evidence.48
Therefore, only the prophetic works remain, especially those that
precede or are contemporary with Isaiah: Amos, Hosea and Micah.
Scholars agree that ‘Israel’ in Amos and Hosea refers primarily to the
Northern Kingdom and includes both the people of Israel and Judah only
in exceptional cases or in redactional passages, as it usually does in
Micah.49 In some cases, however, it is difficult to differentiate neatly
between the two. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that a shift from the
political to the religious designation takes place in the framework of the
books of Amos and Hosea as well as Isaiah and Micah. That means that
45. Exod. 2.24; 3.6, 15, 16; 4.5; 6.3, 8; 33.1; Lev. 26.12; Num. 32.11; Deut. 1.8;
6.10; 9.5, 27; 29.12; 30.20; 34.4; Josh. 24.4, 32; 1 Sam. 12.5; 2 Kgs 13.23.
46. With the name ‘Israel’ for Jacob in Gen. 34.7; 35.21, 22; 37.3, 13 etc. in Gen.
37–50; Exod. 1.1-5, with Jacob for the people Israel in Num. 24.19; Deut. 32.9, with the
double name Jacob–Israel in Exod. 19.3; 2 Sam. 23.1 and the poetic passages in Gen.
49.2, 7, 24; Num. 23.7, 10, 21, 23; 24.5, 17; Deut. 33.1 (Israel), 4-5 (Jacob).
47. 1 Kgs 18.31; 2 Kgs 17.34.
48. H. Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart. Eine Theologie der Psalmen (FRLANT, 148;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), pp. 159-64.
49. See O. Seesemann, Israel und Juda bei Amos und Hosea nebst einem Exkurs über
Hos. 1–3 (Habilitationsschrift; Leipzig: Dieterich, 1898), as well as Rost, Israel, pp. 6-32,
48-54; Danell, Studies, pp. 110ff., 136ff.; Høgenhaven, Gott, pp. 5-22.

the prophets did not simply presuppose the use of ‘Israel’ as a religious
term for the people of God from both Israel and Judah; rather, they must
have created it themselves, or later authors have introduced it from
foreign contexts. However, some late texts still use the name genuinely;
that is, ‘Israel’ functioned as a political concept and designation for the
Northern Kingdom.
The situation is somewhat different with regard to the name ‘Jacob’.
We do not know whether it was ever employed outside and independ-
ently of the patriarchal stories as a political or geographical designation.
Within the patriarchal stories, it represents geographically the Northern
Kingdom and genealogically all twelve tribes (including Judah). In the
prophetic works, one discovers both, yet the geographical and political
aspects play a much less significant role.
That is also already the situation in the earliest prophets. The book of
Hosea speaks of the ancestor Jacob–Israel (Hos. 12.13, perhaps also
12.3) and identifies him with both Ephraim (10.11) and Judah (10.11;
12.1). The patriarch symbolizes the beginning of the guilt for which
Yhwh punishes Israel.50 Amos also oscillates in his usage of the name
Jacob.51 The context of the book makes it quite likely that the Northern
Kingdom of Israel and its capital Samaria are always the addressees. Yet
that does not preclude the possibility that the ‘little Jacob’ and ‘my
people Israel’, whose end Amos sees coming in his visions (Amos 7.2, 5
[Jacob]; and 7.8; 8.2 [Israel])‘certainly in a second or third respect’, as
Jörg Jeremias expressed it also means the Southern Kingdom and thus
the people of God as a whole.52 With regard to ‘Jacob’s pride’ that Yhwh
hates (6.8) and by which he swears (8.7), these passages appear to con-
stitute additions that generalize the faults of Israel and Samaria that are
deplored in the respective contexts. This process, which already mani-
fests signs of Hosea’s influence,53 allows, moreover, for the possibility
that the declarations refer to Judah and all Israel. Finally, Amos speaks
50. See Chr. Jeremias, Erzväter, pp. 213-15.

51. See J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’ (1989), in idem, Hosea und Amos. Studien
zu den Anfängen des Dodekapropheton (FAT, 13; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1996),
pp. 257-71.
52. J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’, p. 270: ‘gewiß in zweiter oder gar dritter
Hinsicht’. See also U. Becker, ‘Der Prophet als Fürbitter. Zum literarhistorischen Ort der
Amos-Visionen’, VT 51 (2001), pp. 141-65; R.G. Kratz, ‘Die Worte des Amos von
Tekoa’, in M. Köckert and M. Nissinen (eds.), Prophetie in Mari, Assyrien und Israel
(FRLANT, 201; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), pp. 54-89 (68-70, 85).
53. J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’, p. 264.

twice of the ‘house of Jacob’ (3.13; 9.8). In both passages, a group is

addressed that will survive the downfall of Israel because it heeds the
word of God. As Jörg Jeremias has once again demonstrated, these texts
probably refer to Judah, ‘without one being able to say for certain that
the Northern Kingdom is fundamentally excluded from it’.54 In short,
what H.-J. Zobel writes with regard to all the Prophets is confirmed for
Amos and Hosea: ‘The name Jacob in the Old Testament prophets
unambiguously Israel as the people of God, as Yhwh’s community’.55
The material desperately needs a detailed investigation, which cannot
be provided here. But it seems nevertheless obvious that the use of the
name ‘Israel’ oscillates, meaning either the Northern Kingdom or the
people of God from Israel and Judah. On the other hand, the name
‘Jacob’ appears to refer solely to the people of God, or Israel as a whole.
This usage is not conceivable without a knowledge of the patriarchal
stories and the renaming of Jacob as Israel. Thus, Amos, Hosea and
Micah fail to provide independent witnesses to an old tradition preceding
First Isaiah. Their use of these terms demands an explanation just as
urgently as First Isaiah’s does.
In order to assist in providing this explanation, I propose that we
ignore the dogma of Isaianic authenticity and turn our attention to the lit-
erary situation within the book of Isaiah. And, as expected, this decision
leads us to several interesting discoveries. Once again, I cannot enter into
the details here and must confine myself only to a few observations.
Thus, it is probably not merely coincidental that the first mention of
Israel occurs in the very first logion after the heading in Isa. 1.2-3. As in
the announcement of the escape from Egypt in Exod. 3.7 and in the
visions of Amos, the name runs parallel to the designation of Israel as
‘my people’. The logion serves as a foreword not only to ch. 1, but also
to the whole of First Isaiah, if not to the entire book of Isaiah. Heaven
and earth are called upon as witnesses that Israel does not know him who
brought them up and made them his people. In very dense poetry and
with great thoroughness, Israel is accused of having sinned against Yhwh
and of not having known their Lord: ‘Hear, O heavens and give ear,
O earth, for Yhwh has spoken: I have nourished and brought up chil-
dren, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and
the ass his master’s crib, yet Israel does not know, my people do not
54. J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’, p. 270.

55. Zobel, ‘3(H+)B;J" ja!aq(ô)’, col. 772; see also J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’,
p. 270.

understand.’ Everything that follows serves as evidence for this one

accusation that makes the fundamentally disturbed relationship between
Yhwh and Israel the general subject of the book of Isaiah. The authentic-
ity of this word, which has often been disputed with good reason,56 is an
issue in itself. Yet even the redactional position suggests strongly not that
just one prophetical logion among others has been transmitted here, but
rather that the message of Isaiah as a whole has been placed under a
prominent and comprehensive motto.
The second of the two original references to the people of Israel does
not recur until Isa. 8.18. It has also been placed at a central point,
namely, at the end of the so-called Denkschrift (Memoir) in Isaiah 6–8
and the colophon in 8.16-18: ‘Behold, I and the children whom Yhwh
has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel for Yhwh Sabaoth
who dwells in Mount Zion’. The verse is extremely complicated and full
of more or less obvious allusions. The children (plural!) refer back to the
sons with names pregnant with meaning: Maher-shalal-hash-baz (‘Swift-
plunder-hastening-booty’) in the first-person account of the prophet in
Isaiah 8, and Shear-jashub (‘A remnant will return’) and Immanuel
(‘God is with us’) in the third-person report of Isaiah 7 (cf. esp. vv. 11,
14). That the prophet himself is a sign, as well as the children, is a new
development in comparison with Isaiah 6–8. It has, however, an analogy
in the narrative of Isaiah 20 (v. 3) in which Isaiah is a ‘sign and wonder’
against Egypt. The echo of the (at the earliest, deuteronomistic) designa-
tion for the Egyptian plagues as ‘signs and wonders’ is here as audible as
it is in Isa. 8; the only difference is that in Isaiah 8 the plagues are against
Israel itself. That Yhwh is the God dwelling on Zion recalls the image of
the divine throne in 6.1 and with it the image of God’s presence.
Although he has hidden his face (8.17), he is still dwelling on Mount
Zion and present in Israel, namely, in the person of the prophet and his
children. All this indicates that Israel as a whole is in view. What is said
in Isaiah 6–8 with regard to the distinction between Israel and Judah
relates to Israel as a whole. Expressed differently, and more genetically:
in the concluding word of 8.18, two things are unified that in the Denk-
schrift of Isaiah 6–8 gradually grew together. It is therefore not surprising
that even the more conservative exegetes view this verse as a secondary
formulation inserted in the process of the redaction of Isaiah 6–8.57
56. See Barth, Jesaja-Worte, pp. 219-20; Becker, Jesaja, pp. 176-92 (passim).
57. See Barthel, Prophetenwort, pp. 232-33; further, Becker, Jesaja, pp. 119-20.

In 8.17, part of the conclusion of the Denkschrift, the name ‘Jacob’

appears for the first time after the secondary reference in Isaiah 2. In
contrast to 8.18, the prophet does not consider himself to be a sign, but
rather turns to the hidden God with a personal confession: ‘And I wait
upon Yhwh who hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will look
for him’. This conceptual shift creates difficulties. Some relate the verse
to the divine judgment, the arrival of which the prophet awaits. Others
find in it a ray of hope for Israel in the time after the judgment, whose
end the prophet desires to know in Isaiah 6 (v. 11). Both interpretations
are simultaneously correct and false. The fate of the prophet reflects the
disturbed relationship between Yhwh and Israel. In contrast to the
people, the prophet is aware of this disruption (cf. Isa. 6); yet he cannot,
nor does he even desire to, change it. He hopes and waits not only upon
the arrival of the judgment, but also upon a future thereafternot
necessarily for the people, but rather for his own person. In his person,
the reader and those who, with the prophet, place their hope in Yhwh can
discover themselveseven, and indeed especially, when Yhwh hides his
face from the people as well as the prophet and those who belong to him.
The ‘house of Jacob’ from which Yhwh hides his face can accordingly
represent two things: the people of Israel (including Judah) whose down-
fall the prophet announces, andas in the book of Amos (3.13; 9.8)
the group that survives the judgment. Just like the following one (Isa.
8.18), this verse (Isa. 8.17) refers back to the prophecies in the Denk-
schrift and develops a new perspective from them. Given the relecture
that this verse provides and its connection with v. 16 that poses a syntac-
tic problem, we should probably view it a post-Isaianic supplement.58
However, one may read the imperative in v. 16 (‘Bind up the testimony,
seal the law among my disciples’) as an infinitive (‘I will bind up the
testimony…among my disciples’) and thus consider the context with the
personal confession of the prophet in v. 17 as original.59 Either way, this
verse constitutes a résumé that both relinquishes the national differentia-
tion of the Denkschrift and presents the fate of Israel and Judah in which
the prophet is involved as the fate of the house of Jacob.
The fourth instance, the double name ‘Jacob–Israel’ in Isa. 9.7, may
have previously been connected directly to the Denkschrift in Isaiah 6–8
and the conclusion in 8.16-18.60 The choice of the name could have been
58. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 117-19; Barthel, Prophetenwort, pp. 235-36.
59. See Barthel, Prophetenwort, pp. 228-29.
60. For the secondary character of 8.19–9.6, see Barth, Jesaja-Worte, pp. 152-56,
170-72.

inspired by the mention of Jacob and Israel in 8.17, 18.61 The question,
‘To whom does Jacob–Israel refer?’, cannot be answered with certainty.
The following passage, the so-called Kehrversgedicht, the poetic piece in
9.7-20, speaks not only of Ephraim and Samaria, that is, the Northern
Kingdom (v. 8), and of Israel, surrounded by Aram on one side and the
Philistines on the other (v. 11) and whose ‘head and tail’ Yhwh has cut
off (v. 13). The text also speaks of the war of the fraternal nations Manas-
seh and Ephraim and of both against Judah, that is, a war of the Northern
Kingdom against the Southern Kingdom. Normally, commentators have
interpreted ‘Jacob–Israel’ as meaning the Northern Kingdom, which
is mentioned directly thereafter, in contrast to the South, which is men-
tioned in 9.20. However, in order to recognize that the name ‘Jacob–
Israel’ in 9.7 relates to more than only the Northern Kingdom, one does
not need first to assign the explicit references to the Northern Kingdom
to a redactional hand and confine the subject of the poem solely to the
destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.62 With Ephraim and Samaria began
what continued in Judah and Jerusalem, as it is explicitly stated not only
in 9.20, but also before in 5.25-29 and thereafter in 10.28-32. From this,
it seems more likely to me that 9.7 serves as a sort of heading in which
‘Jacob–Israel’ designates the people consisting of Ephraim and Judah,
both sons of Jacob–Israel. Whether ‘Israel’ in vv. 11 and 13 refers merely
to the Northern Kingdom or also Israel as a whole depends upon how
precisely we think we can pinpoint the place of these very general and
unspecific formulations in the history of Israel.
The use of this comprehensive and rather ambiguous designation for
the people can be explained on the basis of the literary position of the
Kehrversgedicht. Just like the conclusion in 8.16-18, this poem refers the
reader back to the Denkschrift in Isaiah 6–8 as well as the introductory
passage in ch. 5. The poem in ch. 9 and its counterpart in ch. 5 (vv. 25-29)
encircle the Denkschrift like a ring, and they are likewise surrounded by
the woe-passages in ch. 5 (vv. 1-24) and ch. 10 (vv. 1-4). Whereas older
scholarship considered these passages to be connected and thought that
this combination represents independent word-units or collections of the
prophet Isaiah,63 a fresh insight is winning the day in recent scholarship.
61. For a different opinion, see Becker, Jesaja, pp. 120, 154, who connects 9.7-20 to
8.17 (without v. 18). Accordingly, the choice of the name ‘Israel’ in 8.18 has been
occasioned by 9.7.
62. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 148-49.
63. See the commentaries, and for 9.7-20/5.25-29, especially Barth, Jesaja-Worte,
p. 31 n. 90, pp. 109-17.

According to this, both of these concentric rings, instead of originating

arbitrarily at the hands of later redactors, were consciously formed for
their contexts64 or successively as an expansion (Fortschreibung) of the
Denkschrift.65 In this way, the Kehrversgedicht functions as a commen-
tary on the Denkschrift. While the latter treats primarily the judgment
upon Judah and equates it with fate of the enemies from the north,
including Israel, the Kehrversgedicht elaborates on this equation and inter-
prets the events as a judgment upon Israel as a whole. This interpretation
draws upon the multifaceted allusions to both Isaiah 5–8 and the book of
Amos. They are intended to clarify that the word of the one God, spoken
by his prophets and rejected by his people (5.24; 9.7), lends unity to a
catastrophic history of Israel as the one people of God.66 The Kehrversge-
dicht expresses theologically what the Denkschrift in Isaiah 6–8 and its
secondary preface, the Vineyard Song in 5.1-7, convey in political
categories.
Thus, in analyzing the few instances in First Isaiah where the names
‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob’ designate the people of God as a whole and are gen-
erally considered authentic, one notices that they are positioned at very
key points in the book: at the start of the prologue in ch. 1 (v. 3), at the
end of the Denkschrift in chs. 6–8 in the concluding words (8.16-18) as
well as at the head of the Kehrversgedicht in 9.7-20 (10.28-32), which
once was directly connected to the Denkschrift. These texts do not
represent just any parts of the Isaianic prophecies; rather, they review
and theologically reflect upon them. In this context, the use of the names
‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob’ also functions in a particularly special manner. It
reorients the Isaianic prophecies, which address Judah and Jerusalem and
view the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Ephraim and Samaria) primarily
as an inimical power, to the higher entity of the people of God from both
Israel and Judah.
The problem, whether this usage, which is rather rare in First Isaiah,
stems from the prophet himself, although hotly debated, is not particu-
larly important. What is decisive is the insight that the usage is anything
64. E. Blum, ‘Jesajas prophetisches Testament. Beobachtungen zu Jes 1–11 (Teil I)’,
ZAW 108 (1996), pp. 547-68 (555-57).
65. Becker, Jesaja, pp. 124-60.
66. See E. Blum, ‘Jesajas prophetisches Testament. Beobachtungen zu Jes 1–11 (Teil
II)’, ZAW 109 (1997), pp. 12-29; the connections with Amos were already noticed by
R. Fey, Amos und Jesaja. Abhängigkeit und Eigenständigkeit des Jesaja (WMANT, 12;
Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1963); on the composition, see also Barthel,
Prophetenwort, pp. 43-56.

but natural and owes itself to a secondary interpretation of the Isaianic

prophecies. As far as Jacob is concerned, it presupposes the patriarchal
stories and the renaming of the ancestor as Israel in the book of Genesis.
Yet the book of Isaiah itself also furnished an important point of depar-
ture with respect to this use of ‘Israel’—namely, the unification of both
kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Ephraim and Samaria) and
the Southern Kingdom of Judah (Jerusalem and Zion), as the object of
divine judgment.
3. Israel and Judah

As I pointed out in the introduction to this study, the name ‘Israel’
appears in the book of Isaiah with many different meanings and func-
tions, and for the sake of clarity I have arranged them in larger categories
and touched upon them only briefly. However, one should not be content
simply to reduce the differences into such categories. In addition to the
use of this name in the divine title ‘the Holy One of Israel’ and the
designation of all the people as a whole as ‘Jacob–Israel’, there is also
the political meaning: Israel as the Northern Kingdom alongside the
Southern Kingdom of Judah.
The clearest instance is the beginning of the prophetic legend relating
to the Syro-Ephraimite war in Isa. 7.1: ‘And it came to pass in the days
of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uziah, the king of Judah, that Rezin, the
king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up
toward Jerusalem to wage war against it’. Here we observe the same
usage that predominates in 1 and 2 Kings, which is not surprising since
Isa. 7.1 corresponds exactly to 2 Kgs 16.1, 5. In the remainder of Isaiah
7, the terminology varies: the Northern Kingdom of Israel is represented
by the geographical designation ‘Ephraim’ and the name of the capi-
tal ‘Samaria’.67 Corresponding to this usage, the inhabitants of Ephraim
are called the ‘sons of Israel’ in Isa. 17.3. In the famous Vineyard Song
in Isaiah 5 (v. 7) as well as in the prophecies in 11.12-13, ‘Israel’
(‘Ephraim’) and ‘Judah’ appear parallel to each other; the same goes for
‘Jacob’(‘-Israel’) and ‘Judah’ in Isa. 48.1 and 65.9. Isaiah 8.14 speaks of
the ‘two houses of Israel’.
Leonhard Rost advanced the influential thesis that Isaiah of Jerusalem
spoke of Israel as a state from his early period until the Syro-Ephraimite
67. Ephraim: 7.2, 5, 8, 9, 17, also 9.8, 20; 11.13; 17.3; 28.1, 3; Samaria: 7.9, also 8.4;
9.8; 10.9-11; 36.19.

War and that only after thisand ‘determined by religious insights’

(‘bestimmt durch religiöse Erkenntnisse’)did he make the transition to
including his own people in the name ‘Israel’.68 Jesper Høgenhaven con-
firmed this thesis, while endeavouring to add precision to it by denying
that the semantic innovation took place with the Syro-Ephraimite War.
According to Høgenhaven, the downfall of the nation of Israel in the year
722 BCE was the time when the name would have become available to be
appropriated by Judah.69 The thesis agrees with my observations that the
use of the names ‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob’ reflects upon the Isaianic prophe-
cies and interprets the fate of both kingdoms as the history of one and the
same people of God. The question remains: Where did the semantic
development begin? In contrast to Rost and Høgenhaven, I do not see the
beginning coinciding with the appearance of the terms for the people or
the divine titles, whenever one wants to date them. The point of depar-
ture, I suggest, is the way First Isaiah uses the geographical and political
designations for Israel and Judah and places both kingdoms into relation-
ship to each other. Moreover, the geographical and political designations
in First Isaiah did not simply cease with the discovery of the people of
God as consisting of both Israel and Judah; rather, they still have a role
to play.
We may begin with the latter point: Second Isaiah is still fully aware
that a difference exists between Israel and Judah. He says explicitly in
Isa. 48.1 that only the Judeans who ‘come out of the waters of Judah’ are
called by the name of Israel. Not least for this reason, he addresses them
with the overarching designation ‘the house of Jacob’, which levels out
the geographical and political differences. This passage seems to be
presupposed in 65.9, where the parallelismus membrorum identifies
Jacob and Judah with each other. In this way, the distinction between
both nations is denied. In its place is the distinction between the ‘chosen’
and ‘servants’ of Yhwh among the people of God, on the one hand, and
the rejected, on the other (65.11-16).
We encounter the distinction as well as its denial in First Isaiah also,
namely, in the prophecy of 11.11-14 that promises the reconciliation and
reunification of the Kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah. Isaiah 11.11-12
promises that Yhwh will buy back the remnant of his people from Assyria
and Egypt. Initially, one waivers between two alternatives: whether the
‘outcasts of Israel’ and the ‘dispersed of Judah’ who are mentioned in the
68. Rost, Israel, p. 48.

69. Høgenhaven, Gott, p. 17; cf. Williamson, Isaiah, pp. 37-38.

following parallelismus membrorum, the worldwide diaspora, refer to

one and the same group of the one people (cf. v. 16), or if the two terms
refer respectively to returnees of the former kingdoms. All doubt is sub-
sequently removed when Ephraim and Judah, in the immediately follow-
ing promise in vv. 13-14, refer plainly to both kingdoms, whose jealousy
and enmity will come to an end one day.70 Both promises represent
Fortschreibungen of the messianic prophecy in 11.1-5, which itself has
been supplemented in vv. 6-9, 10. In order to perfect the image, these
promises describe of the repatriation of the land and the future dynastic
realm of the new David from the root of Jesse. The attestations are late
and belong to a stage after Second Isaiah.71 They state that the inclusion
of both nations in the one people of God is a matter of course that does
not require any defence and needs only to be reiterated.
A defence of the inclusion of both nations is provided in the older
attestations in First Isaiah. These are not yet aware of Israel as the people
of God, or of Jacob–Israel. Their starting point is the coexistence and
competition of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as most clearly
expressed in Isa. 7.1. (The dating of the third-person narrative in Isa. 7,
which is stylistically unexpected in the framework of the Denkschrift in
Isa. 6–8, is admittedly a matter of debate.72) The most cogent evidence
is furnished by those passages that according to the general consensus
belong to the oldest texts in First Isaiah: the prophecies from the Syro-
Ephraimite War in 7.4, 7-9 and 8.1-4. Here the coalition of Aram–
Damascus and Ephraim–Samaria, on the one hand, and Judah, on the
other, stand over against each other as inimical powers. The prophet
Isaiah of Jerusalem takes a stance in the name of Yhwh and announces to
the enemies in the north that they are doomed to defeat and to his own
people in Judah that they are destined for victory. The two kingdoms
could not differ more from each other than they do here. There are many
reasons to believe that these words represent the few authentic sayings of
the prophet that have found their way into the tradition. Aside from the
70. According to v. 13a, this will occur by force, with the removal of the ‘envy of
Ephraim’ and the ‘enemies of Judah’ (in Ephraim), but according to the explanatory
gloss, v. 13b, through reconciliation. This has been seen by B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia
übersetzt und erklärt (HK, III/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 5th edn, 1968),
pp. 109-10. One can avoid this literary-critical differentiation only by arbitrarily altering
the text to harmonize with the gloss in v. 13b (see Wildberger, Jesaja, pp. 464, 471).
71. On 11.11-16, see above n. 42.
72. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 21-60, and Barthel, Prophetenwort, pp. 118-83, who are
in much more agreement as it appears at first glance.

passage in Isaiah 7 and 8, other sayings may be found in the inimical

oracle against Aram-Damascus in 17.1-373 and the woe oracle spoken
over Samaria and the proud crown of the drunken Ephraim, in 28.1-3,
though these texts could also constitute literary replicas of authentic
sayings.
However, the redactional compilation of oracles against the Northern
Kingdom in the framework of the Denkschrift already imputes to them a
new and somewhat different meaning.74 The words of promise in Isaiah 7
have been augmented in v. 9b by a condition and in vv. 10-17 by a
demand from king Ahaz for a sign. And in Isaiah 8, the oracle of doom
against the hostile Syrian–Ephraimite coalition has been supplemented in
vv. 5-8 with an oracle of doom against Judah itself. In both cases, the
doom that Yhwh brings to the enemies in the north overcomes his own
people in Judah also. For Judah, just as much as for its enemies, the
destruction is a divine judgment for past sins, sins against God. Accord-
ingly, one and the same God punishes both kingdoms for one and the
same reason. The anger of God falls on both of them and unifies them
into a community of fellow sufferersthe one people of the one God.
Yet the unification remains at first only implicit. Initially, the opening
vision of the Denkschrift using the expression ‘this people’ in 6.9-10 for
the ‘people of unclean lips’ (v. 4) seems to have referred primarily to
Judah, just as in 8.6. It intends nothing other than to provide a theological
explanation of why Judah experiences the same fate as the enemies in the
north, Aram and Israel. In the strange commission to harden the hearts of
the people, the events are justified with recourse to the will of God,
which does not give the people in whose midst the prophet lives another
chance. Indeed, it gambled away long ago the chance it once had.
The Vineyard Song in 5.1-7 goes a step further. Together with the
following woe passages (vv. 8-24), it exhibits what this chance consisted
of and provides a justification for God’s intention to destroy his own
people. It takes advantage of the ambiguous expression ‘this people’ and
expands its spectrum of meaning to include Israel. Verse 3 addresses the
73. The ‘sons of Israel’ in v. 3 also presuppose perhaps the later usage; the exposition
of the ‘remnant of Aram’ may be secondary. See Becker, Jesaja, p. 274 n. 13.
74. See the three standard studies by O.H. Steck in Wahrnehmungen Gottes.
Gesammelte Studien (ThB, 70; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1982): ‘Bemerkungen zu
Jesaja 6’ (1972), pp. 149-70; ‘Rettung und Verstockung. Exegetische Bemerkungen zu
Jesaja 7,3-9’ (1973), pp. 171-86, ‘Beiträge zum Verstaendnis von Jesaja 7:10-17 und
8:1-4’ (1973), pp. 187-203. In addition, see Becker, Jesaja, pp. 21-123; Barthel,
Prophetenwort, pp. 37-242.

inhabitants and the men of Judah to whom the prophet recites the song of
his friend and his vineyard. With the first direct address to the Judeans in
v. 3, the prophet secretly assumes the role of the friend. The Judeans
remain onlookers from outside and are only requested to give their ver-
dict: ‘What could have been done for my vineyard that I have not done?
Why did I expect it to bring forth good grapes, and it brought forth bad
ones?’ Yet in v. 7, the direction of address changes again. Here it is once
more the prophet who speaks about his friend and his vineyard and
discloses the secret: ‘For the vineyard of Yhwh is the house of Israel’.
The men of Judah also appear in a different role. No longer merely the
onlookers and the judges, they are now involved: ‘…and the men of
Judah are the plant of his pleasure’. Both groups, the house of Israel and
the men of Judah, are the defendants in the indictment raised against the
vineyard: ‘And he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for
righteousness, but behold a cry’.
Scholars have suspected that the Vineyard Song is not homogenous,
and in this respect one should certainly consider the change in address in
vv. 4-6.75 Yet even (and especially) without this centrepiece, the Song (in
vv. 1-2, 7) is pivotal to the investigation. The parallelism of the ‘house of
Israel’ and ‘the men of Judah’ explicitly connects for the first time both
political designations for the Northern and Southern Kingdoms into a
unity, the unity of the people of Israel from Israel and Judah, for which
later on within the book of Isaiah the terms ‘the house of Israel’ or ‘the
house of Jacob’ suffice. In this way, 5.7 makes explicit what the
composition of the Denkschrift in Isaiah 6–8 only implies: the unification
of both kingdoms into one complete people of God under the sign of
divine indictment and judgment.
The Vineyard Song serves as an exposition of the following woes in
Isaiah 5, which simultaneously accuse and condemn the people of God.
Both prepare the reader for the Denkschrift, which anchors the verdict of
‘this people’ in the divine will and metes out the punishment. After Isaiah
5 and the Vineyard Song, the reader is inclined to relate the expression
‘this people’ in Isaiah 6 and 8 equally to Israel and Judah.76 And that is
what the author (or editor) of 8.11-14 has done.77 In order to express
75. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 127-34.

76. On this question, see Barthel, Prophetenwort, pp. 107-108, esp. n. 192, pp. 222-
23.
77. For an analysis of this paragraph and above all on the question whether it
originally belonged to the Denkschrift, see Becker, Jesaja, pp. 110-14.

better the unification of both kingdoms under divine judgment, which is

announced with a glance back at the commission to harden the people’s
hearts in Isaiah 6, he invented the unique formulation ‘the two houses of
Israel’. Therefore, it should not be surprising when we encounter the
comprehensive designation for the people, ‘house of Jacob’ and ‘Israel’,
in the concluding notice of the Denkschrift (8.16-18) and the double
name ‘Jacob–Israel’ (cf. also 17.3, 4) in the following Kehrversgedicht in
9.7-20. As we have seen, in these passages, one cannot always be certain
whether the names refer, as the context suggests, only to the Northern
Kingdom or to the people as a whole. However, after it has been shown
that the semantic shift runs hand in hand with the redaction history of the
Denkschrift and the prelude in Isaiah 5, the reasons for this uncertainty
should be clear. The occurrences in Isaiah 8–9 are to an extent the final
stages in Israel’s journey from a nation to the people of God in the book
of Isaiah.78
4. Results
The results of our investigation of the name ‘Israel’ in the book of Isaiah
may be summarized as follows: the oldest oracles of the prophet Isaiah of
Jerusalem, instead of speaking of Israel, employ the geographical and
political designations ‘Ephraim’ and ‘Samaria’. Not only do they there-
fore refer to the Northern Kingdom of Israel; they also present this nation
as the enemy. By drawing upon the oracles in the composition of Isaiah’s
Denkschrift, the author imparts a new meaning to them. After prophesy-
ing against the enemy, Isaiah announces the doom of Judah itself, which
according to the will of Yhwh must suffer the same fate which Ephraim
and Samaria had undergone earlier. The texts surrounding the Denk-
schrift in Isaiah 5 and Isaiah 9 express this point more clearly and unite
both kingdoms, the ‘two houses of Israel’, into ‘Israel’ as the one people
78. This permits us to draw several (preliminary) redaction-historical conclusions. It

appears, as has often been assumed, that the Denkschrift in Isa. 6–8 constitutes the core of
the Isaiah tradition. Various expansions have grown around it: first, the Vineyard Song
and the woe-passages in Isa. 5; second, the Kehrversgedicht 9.7-20 (+ 10.27b-32); third
and fourth, the passages that presuppose these texts in Isa. 5.25-30 as well as 10.1-4.
Further expansions, which increase the number of concentric rings, are related directly to
the addition of the so-called ‘Assyrian Cycle’ in Isa. 28–32. The composition of Isa. 1–12
is therefore not unified (as Blum argues, ‘Jesajas prophetisches Testament [Teil II]’), but
has matured over a long period of time, as one would naturally presume from the
diversity of the material.

of God, consisting of Ephraim (Samaria) and Judah (Jerusalem). On this

basis, as well as the foundations laid by the simultaneously maturing
patriarchal traditions, a theological usage evolved during the transmis-
sion history of the book, in First as well as Second Isaiah: the names
‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob’ are employed interchangeably and the divine title
‘the Holy One of Israel’ emerged. Only as a result of these developments
do the prophet Isaiah and his book have the form and theological signi-
ficance that they have maintained until the present day, last but not least
regarding the different meanings of ‘Israel’: PV HB@S QB OUFK PJ FD *TSBI M
PV<UPJ *TSBI M.

Israel in The Book of Isaiah

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Israel in The Book of Isaiah

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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Vol 31.1 (2006): 103-128

Israel in the Book of Isaiah*

* I offer my sincere thanks to Dr Jacob Wright (Heidelberg) and Professor Philip

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of Jesus Christ is the condition for membership to the people of God; it is

1. See H.G.M. Williamson, Israel in the Books of Chronicles (Cambridge: Cam-

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1. The Holy One of Israel

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Something unique is the occasional juxtaposition of ‘the Holy One of

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tradition one cannot explain why God’s holiness is focused on Israel

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Although it may be surprising, the remaining references to Israel and

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50. See Chr. Jeremias, Erzväter, pp. 213-15.

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twice of the ‘house of Jacob’ (3.13; 9.8). In both passages, a group is

54. J. Jeremias, ‘Jakob im Amosbuch’, p. 270.

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understand.’ Everything that follows serves as evidence for this one

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In 8.17, part of the conclusion of the Denkschrift, the name ‘Jacob’

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According to this, both of these concentric rings, instead of originating

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but natural and owes itself to a secondary interpretation of the Isaianic

3. Israel and Judah

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War and that only after thisand ‘determined by religious insights’

68. Rost, Israel, p. 48.

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following parallelismus membrorum, the worldwide diaspora, refer to

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passage in Isaiah 7 and 8, other sayings may be found in the inimical

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75. See Becker, Jesaja, pp. 127-34.

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better the uniﬁcation of both kingdoms under divine judgment, which is

78. This permits us to draw several (preliminary) redaction-historical conclusions. It

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of God, consisting of Ephraim (Samaria) and Judah (Jerusalem). On this

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War and that only after thisand ‘determined by religious insights’