# Isaiah - The Prophet of Silwan # Contents - [[#Introduction|Introduction]] - [[#Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden|Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden]] - [[#Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden#Isaiah on Unjust Laws|Isaiah on Unjust Laws]] - [[#Isaiah on Unjust Laws#Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)|Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)]] - [[#Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden#YHVH Sues the City's Elite|YHVH Sues the City's Elite]] - [[#YHVH Sues the City's Elite#Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)|Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)]] - [[#Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden#Isaiah on Family Evictions|Isaiah on Family Evictions]] - [[#Isaiah on Family Evictions#[Rashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashi)|Rashi]] - [[#Isaiah on Family Evictions#[Radak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kimhi)|Radak]] - [[#Isaiah on Family Evictions#Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)|Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp)]] - [[#Isaiah on Family Evictions#Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer)|Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer)]] - [[#Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden#The Vision of the End of Days|The Vision of the End of Days]] - [[#The Vision of the End of Days#Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer)|Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer)]] - [[#Part Two: The Persecution of Palestinians in Silwan|Part Two: The Persecution of Palestinians in Silwan]] - [[#Part Two: The Persecution of Palestinians in Silwan#Introduction|Introduction]] - Why Witness Silwan? - Home Demolitions and Family Evictions - Batan Al-Hawa - Wadi Hilweh - Al-Bustan - [[#Notes|Notes]] ## Introduction The prophet Isaiah lived in ancient Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE, and was active circa 740-700.[^1] He lived at a time of urbanization, gentrification and increasing social inequity. While voices in Kings and Chronicles celebrate this period as one of economic, political and military progress, Isaiah believed that Y-H-V-H was not interested in those accomplishments, but rather focused on how social changes were impacting on those at the bottom of the social hierarchy in the holy city. Isaiah spoke out against how increasingly rich social elites expanded their estates by driving out poorer families who engaged in subsistence farming on inherited family plots. The newly destitute Jerusalemites might then be put to work farming the same land but now as laborers for their new overlords, sometimes absentee landholders who lived in other cities such as Samaria. All of this went down in ancient Jerusalem, the heart of which is today's Palestinian village of Silwan. If identifying Silwan as ancient Jerusalem gives you a chill, then you are probably aware of the State of Israel's systematic persecution of the Palestinian population there. This persecution is justified in Jewish discourse by reference to the importance of our connection to ancient Jerusalem. So referring to Silwan as ancient Jerusalem should give you a chill. However, that is because our dominant mode of discourse is that of the City of David [^2] , Israel's settler compound come archeological site dedicated to uncovering the ancient Jerusalem of King David. Israel's City-of-David policy is one of Jewish supremacism, persecution of an ethnic minority, and cruelty towards Jerusalemite families. This might authentically reflect David who is depicted in the Bible as pious, but also as self-rightously militaristic, domineering, sometimes murderous and exploitative. And even if we adopt a more charitable reading of David, we must admit that voices of supremacism and oppression abound in the Hebrew Bible. But David is not the only representative of the ancient Israelite spirit in the Bible. Isaiah, too, lived in today's Silwan. There is good reason to think that the City of the Prophet Isaiah would be quite unlike the City of David. I believe that in Isaiah's Jerusalem, Palestinian families would flourish in a city that guarantees them security and equality and invests in their well being. They would live just underneath הר בית יהו"ה – the Mountain of the House of Y-H-V-H – and that mountain would radiate life and protection, not dehumanization and dispossession. There would be no settler overlords, and no racist government ministers wielding the state's police like personal militia. The chaotic violence and macho militarism of Israel's City-of-David could have no place in a city in whose center rises up the Mountain of YHVH's House. Below are passages from Isaiah and background material that I hope will make the City of the prophet Isaiah more visible. ## Part One: YHVH – The God of the Downtrodden ### Isaiah on Unjust Laws ![[Isaiah 10 1-4]] #### Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp) ![[Blenkinsopp on Isaiah 10 1-4]] ### YHVH Sues the City's Elite ![[Isaiah 3 13-15]] #### Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp) ![[Blenkinsopp on Isaiah 3 13-15]] ### Isaiah on Family Evictions ![[Isaiah 5 8-10]] #### Anchor Bible Commentary (Blenkinsopp) ![[Blenkinsopp on Isaiah 5 8-10]] #### Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer) ![[JSB on Isaiah 5 8-10]] #### [Rashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashi) ![[Rashi on Isaiah 5 8-10]] #### [Radak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kimhi) ![[Radak on Isaiah 5 8-10]] ### Commentary by Moshe Weinfeld ![[Moshe Weinfeld on Isaiah 10 and 5]] ### The Vision of the End of Days ![[Isaiah's Vision]] #### Illustration of Plowshares and Pruning Hooks ![[Plowshares and Pruning Hooks]] #### Jewish Study Bible Commentary (Sommer) ![[Sommer on Isaiah 2]] ## Part Two: The Persecution of Palestinians in Silwan ### Introduction ![[We Witness Silwan]] --- ## Notes [^1]: It is important to emphasize that any telling of Isaiah's life and his prophecy involves some amount of historical fiction. According to scholars, it is clear that the Book of Isaiah contains prophesies from at least three different historical periods. Many scholars believe that most of the first 39 chapters of the Book were composed by a prophet who lived during the second half of the 8th century BCE. The narrative in the text that briefly describes Isaiah's life might be an accurate portrayal of that prophet, or might reflect somebody's agenda, or might be a fictional account written in a later period. However, I think that to meaningfully connect with this material, and to integrate it into a living perspective, we need to put the pieces together into a narrative. And so in our study of this material I'm assuming that the man Isaiah described in the text produced most of the prophecies in Isaiah 1-39. I might also be useful to imagine it in other ways. For example, in *Essays on Isaiah*, Blenkinsopp points out that Isaiah of the narrative is much friendlier to the kings than you would expect from what he says in his prophecies. Perhaps the real Isaiah(s) were radically critical of royal authority, and whoever wrote the narrative tried to soften things up. [^2]: Throughout this text, when I refer to the City of David, I mean the State of Israel's "City-of-David policy" as I describe it above. I am not referring to the NGO Elad, which does not possess the authority to legislate discriminatory laws, issue court rulings based on those laws, or wield armed forces to expel Palestinian families. The crimes involved in the City of David policy are committed by the State of Israel.