📙 [EN] 2. Pre-reading2: Gerhard von Rad "The Message of the Prophets"

3. The separate units consisting of oracles or songs were very soon gathered together into little complexes. Whether such 'divans' were arranged by the prophet himself or by his disciples, is for the most part unknown. Although our information about such possible disciples is limited, present-day criticism is certainly right in crediting them with an important part in the collection and transmission of the prophets' teaching. Thus Isaiah 5.8-24 consists of a series of oracles each beginning with the words 'Woe to', which we may be sure were no more delivered consecutively than were those in Matthew 23.13ff. — the connection is editorial. The same is true of Jeremiah's oracles agamst the false prophets (Jer. 23-9ff.), or the royal house (Jer. 21.11—23.8). In the complex made up of Isaiah 6.9— 9.6 the editor grouped on chronological grounds, for, apart from the prophet's call which stands at the beginning, the oracles and the incidents dealt with date from the time of the Syro-Ephraimitic war. Ezekiel 4—5 is a collection of the prophet's so-called symbolic actions.   In many cases, however, there is no recognizable principle of arrangement. This is particularly true of the formation of more elaborate complexes, that is to say, where it is a case of the collection of collections. Almost all the help we have towards insight into how this redactional process progressed are a few headings within the prophetic books.

For all the immense range of the prophetic tradition, there are really only three passages, two in Isaiah (8.16-18; 30.8-17) and one in Jeremiah (36), which describe in somewhat greater detail how the prophet's message was put into written form and handed on. Yet, so many are the conclusions which they allow concerning the nature of the prophets' teaching in general, and of the prophets' own conception of that teaching, that they must be considered here, however briefly. 

'I will bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples, and will wait for Yahweh, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are signs and portents from Yahweh of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion' (Isa. 8.16-18).

Isaiah 6.1—9.6 deals with the stirring events of the SyroEphraimitic war, and records the threats, warnings, and promises which Isaiah delivered at that time. To our surprise, however, right in the middle of these, the prophet suddenly speaks of himself, and directs the reader's thoughts to his own person and to a group of people gathered round him. But the particular situation revealed in the passage at once makes the whole thing clear. The prophet is to 'seal' and 'bind up' his 'teaching' in just the same way as we record something in the minutes and then have the document officially put into safe keeping. The words can therefore only mean that at the time when Isaiah wrote them down, he thought of himself as discharged from office. The glimpse here given of his thoughts and expectations on his withdrawal from his first public activity makes the passage unique indeed. He has delivered the message that was given him. The rest lies in the hands of Yahweh who — as Isaiah is perfectly sure — will follow what his ambassador has revealed by word with his own revelation in action. The message tore open a deep gulf in the nation. It made it obdurate (Isa. 6.9f.), and made Yahweh himself a snare to his people (Isa. 8.14); and yet, by a tremendous paradox, it is on this very God who has hidden his face from the house of Israel that Isaiah sets his hope. 

What confidence in face of the absence of faith! But the surprise is rather that the message actually brought faith forth, even if only within a very narrow circle. Thus, even when Isaiah withdraws into the anonymity of civil life, he still remains of importance as a sign — the narrow circle of the faithful is the surety that Yahweh is still at work and that he has not abandoned his purpose in history. Significantly enough, these purposes Isaiah regarded as, in the last analysis, good: otherwise, how could he have 'placed his hope' in the coming revelation of Yahweh in person? In this connection, although the prophet's words about 'binding' and 'sealing' his message are only figurative and allusive, Isaiah presumably did in actual fact go on to make a written record of all he had said up to the time when he was relieved of office, and — also presumably — this record forms the first point of crystallization of the book of Isaiah.

'Now go and write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for a time to come as a witness for ever, for they are a rebellious people, lying sons who will not hear the instruction of Yahweh. . Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, "Because you have despised this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on them; therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a break in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant." . For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength". But you would not . . . ' (Isa. 30.8-15).