Imaginative boldness or courage of desperation?
Isaiah 2:1-5 - Monday, December 4, 2023
The vision of a universal peace recorded in Isaiah 2:1-5 and also Micah 4:1-4 is described by a recent translator of the Jewish Bible into English, Robert Alter as "imaginative boldness" or "the courage of desperation". Isaiah lived in turbulent times witnessing the rise of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires that through the art of war conquered and destroyed neighbouring nations, including Israel. His call to repentance and trust in God failed on deaf ears of Israel's kings who preferred to trust in alliances with powerful nations that possessed the latest weapons.
Isaiah places his vision in future days but the scholars cannot agree whether it is a future within our world or the prophet speaks about the eschatological future of "the end of days". Nearly 2700 years later, humanity has not "beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks" (Is 2:4). On the contrary, we have kept raising swords against each other and learning the art of war. Now, with a press of a button, we are capable of destroying humanity and the earth.
Most commentators take Isaiah's vision of universal peace as "imaginative boldness". In their interpretation, the prophet envisions a world with Jerusalem at its centre and God issuing from its temple just decrees and resolving conflicts between the nations in peaceful ways. From a Christian perspective, the beginning of the fulfilment of that prophecy would be the proclamation of the Gospel to the whole world that started at Jerusalem. The problem is that even after two thousand years of preaching the Gospel we are no near the universal peace envisioned in the prophecy of Isaiah. Even more disturbing is the fact that many so-called Christians participated in armed conflicts and wars and some theologians of the Church came up with the concept of "just war".
Perhaps, together with Robert Alter, we should see in this poem "the courage of desperation". War is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. One of the articles in AlJazeer was titled "Weapons trade booms as profits hit a record $531bn in 2020" and according to "USAToday" the 20 top companies that benefit from war are located in the USA, Russia, Great Britain, France, and Italy.
On December 7, 1965, Paul VI issued the famous Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. In chapter five, which tackles the problem of peace in the world, we find not only the condemnation of wars but a perplexing statement that unless we repent from our violence and hatred the only peace that the future generations will know will be "the dreadful peace of death" (Gaudium et Spes, 82). We may not be far from this possibility.