What is it about?

Israel’s God does not only cast down arrogant superpowers such as Assyria (cf. Isa 10) and Egypt (cf. Ex 1–15) but also haughty Israelite leaders (cf. Isa 1–12). This invites a comparison between the fates of Egypt in Ex 1–15 and the Judean political stakeholders in Isa 1–12. The comparison reveals a number of specific and theologically important similarities. Both protagonists turn into oppressors of God’s chosen people, whose cry YHWH hears. In response, he calls a prophet and commissions him to harden the oppressors’ heart. By consequence, the latter ones ignore the announcements of doom proclaimed to them until YHWH’s judgement fully hits them. In the macrocontext, a bridge from Exodus to Isaiah is provided by the call narratives which follow the pattern of the call of Moses (Jud 6:11–14; 1 Sam 9:1–10:16). They mark Israel’s gradual development from a community suffering under foreign oppressors towards a society where Pharao-like tyrants have taken lead to the detriment of the poor. The fact that Micah contains no comparable narrative structure characterizes him as a different type of prophet.

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Why is it important?

The essay shows that there is a theological dialogue between the opening of the Book of Isaiah and the Exodus story. The self-critical prophetic application of the paradigm of the Exodus story to the Judean society can be fruitfully read as an invitation to self-critical reflexion of our own lives. This may motivate to identify and give up oppressive ideological structures and mechanisms in current societies.

Perspectives

This article is the result of an inspiring conference about "Voices of Israel - Isaiah and Micah: Intersections in Judean Prophecy during the Eighth Century BCE" organized by Richard Bautch at Austin, TX, in November 2016. It gave me the opportunity to study in depth observations of analogies between Isaiah and the Exodus story which I made when elaborating my dissertation on "Jesaja 1" (BZAW 473).

Prof Dr Joachim Eck
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen

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This page is a summary of: Divine Strategies against Abuse of Power in the Opening of the Book of Isaiah and the Exodus Story. Some Aspects where Micah is not Similar to Isaiah, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, March 2018, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/zaw-2018-1001.
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