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The Hidden God in Isaiah 45:15 — A Reflection from Holocaust Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Christine Pilkington
Christine Pilkington
Affiliation:
18 Bramshaw Road Canterbury Kent CT2 7HR
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Extract

‘Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Saviour’ is a verse which has long held a fascination for theologians. Aquinas, Luther, Brunner, and Barth all speak of a deus absconditus. They all, especially Barth, stress that the main characteristic of God is that he reveals himself. His hiddenness is, therefore, only a means to that end. Faith is necessary before anyone can gain knowledge of God. So Ulrich Simon in his commentary on Second Isaiah, a commentary with a markedly Barthian flavour, takes Isaiah 45:15 as the voice of the nations as they experience what he calls ‘Messianic action’. He writes:

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 1995 , pp. 285 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1995

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References

1 Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and verse numbers are as in the English text.

2 Simon, U.A Theology of Salvation (London: SPCK, 1961), p. 133.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 135.

4 Pensées, 585.

5 Carroll, R. P.Wolf in the Sheepfold (London: SPCK, 1991), p. 59.Google Scholar

6 R. Davidson (London: SCM, 1983). He pursues this interplay of faith and doubt in his Wisdom and Worship (London: SCM, 1990).Google Scholar

7 Balentine, S. E.The Hidden God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), P. 175.Google Scholar

8 Terrien, S.The Elusive Presence (London: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 321, 301.Google Scholar

9 E. Berkovits (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1973). See also his Crisis and Faith (1976) and With God in Hell (1979).

10 See Gelston, A., ‘Universalism in Second Isaiah’, Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 43, Pt. 2, (1992), pp. 377–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Faith after the Holocaust, p. 89.

12 Ibid., p. 90.

13 Ibid., pp. 99–101.

14 Ibid., pp. 102–104.

15 It is significant that the Hebrew words rendered ‘weal’ and ‘woe’ in the NRSV are and , respectively. What is suggested by here is clearly evil in the concrete form of misfortune rather than moral evil for which the opposite would be not but , ‘good’ (as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls at this point). Jewish liturgy is later nervous of suggesting that anything coming from God is in itself evil, and so changes ‘creates evil’ to ‘creates all things’. See The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed Hertz, J. H. (London: Soncino Press, Revised edition, 1976), p. 100.Google Scholar As Hertz there comments, however, the point remains the same as in Isaiah 45:7, viz., ‘God is the sole Source of everything.’

16 See the discussion of the Hebrew verbs used for ‘create’ in Isaiah 45 by Lee, S. ‘Power not Novelty: The Connotations of in the Hebrew Bible’, Understanding Poets and Prophets, ed. Auld, A. G. (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 200f.Google Scholar Also, R. P. Carroll, op. cit., pp. 45f.

17 R. P. Carroll, op. cit., p. 56.

18 Faith after the Holocaust, p. 107.

19 So, for example, Whybray, R. N.Isaiah 40–66. New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1975), pp. 109f.Google Scholar

20 Levy, R.Deutero-lsaiah (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 125.Google Scholar Not dissimilar argument appears in the commentaries of Whybray, op. cit. and North, C. R.Isaiah 40–55 (London: SCM, 1956).Google Scholar

21 cf the Septuagint rendering of 45:15: ‘For you are God and we did not know, the God of Israel, the Saviour.’

22 Ibn Ezra's comment on 45:15 is that to Israel God is Saviour, but from other nations he conceals himself.

23 cf. R. Davidson The Courage to Doubt, p. x.

24 Rashi on Isaiah 45:15, where, unlike Ibn Ezra, he things that God hides even from Israel.

25 Westermann, C.Isaiah 40–66. Old Testament Library. (London: SCM, 1969), pp. 170f.Google Scholar

26 Larkin, Katrina J. A.The Eschatology of Second Zechariah. A Study of the Formation of a Mantological Wisdom Anthology. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology, vol. 6 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994), pp. 215–217.Google Scholar

27 Lindblom, J.Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), p. 308.Google Scholar

28 R. P. Carroll, op. cit., p. 59.

29 Terrien maintains this of both Isaiah 45:15 and 8:17, op. cit., p. 321.

30 Balentine, S. E.Prayer in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 190.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 192.

32 Brueggemann, W. ‘The Formfulness of Grief’, Interpretation, 31, 1977, p. 265.Google Scholar

33 S. Terrien, op. cit., pp. 301, 325.

34 Balentine disputes the generally assumed connection between God's hiding and his anger in 64:5, The Hiddenness of God, pp. 78f. Even where this is assumed, however, there are scholars who stress that here we have not a confession of guilt but an accusation against God, a complaint about his apparent casting off of his people, notably in Blank, S. H.Prophetic Faith in Isaiah (London: A. and C. Black, 1958), pp. 187–195.Google Scholar Blank, reading the hithpael of verse 5 translates: ‘Behold, because you were angry we are presumed guilty. You hide yourself and we stand convicted.’ This passage lends support to Balentine's equating God's hiding himself with God's hiding his face, the phrase used in 64:7.

35 Balentine, S. E.The Hiddenness of God, p. 171.Google Scholar

36 S. Terrien stresses the use of the hithpael of in 45:15, the verbal reflexive rather than the passive which would suggest a ‘hidden God’, op. cit., pp. 1, 251, 321.

37 R. Davidson, op. cit., p. 164.

38 S. E. Balentine Prayer in the Hebrew Bible, p. 169.

39 Ibid., pp. 189. 197, 195.

40 Ibid., p. 287.

41 R. P. Carroll, op. cit., p. 36.

42 cf Katz, S. T.Post-Holocaust Dialogues (New York: New York University Press, 1983), pp. 281ff.Google Scholar