Page - 29 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02

Comfort the Waste Places, Defend the Violated Earth | 29www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/2, 21–33 Similes and metaphors of creation and human alternate throughout the passage in depicting one another, creating a fluid movement. First, exiles are reminded they are “cut from the rock” (51:1) and hewn from the “quarry”, ge- ological imagery depicting ancestral connection to their father Abraham. Birth language links them to Sarah as presumed mother, not to the World as in Chap- man’s song. In 51:3 the imagery of Zion’s ruins, deserts, and waste places (the destroyed city, as well as other locations in Judah) will be turned to be like Eden and gardens.35 The islands or coastlands are personified, told to “wait” in 51:5. Then we are taken back to the people’s direct point of view as they are implored to look to the heavens, depicted in a simile as vanishing like smoke, and the earth, which will wear out like a garment, taking a human form of clothing. The clothing motif extends throughout this chapter into both Zion’s and YHWH’s depictions. The people are equated with flies and creatures, assuming fragility. In verse 8 another insect is referenced, the moth, which, despite its small size, is destructive to the garment. The garment previously related to the earth’s being worn out now represents people being eaten, picked up in the idea of the worm eating the wool. By verse 12 people are depicted as grass. The Creator YHWH, who made these feeble humans, has power over creation. Rhetorical persuasion asserts that logically people are not to be afraid of other humans be- cause of their fragility, which is in contrast to YHWH’s power and deliverance. The earth as creation is both demeaned and elevated in these passages, spoken about, spoken to, or used. Isaiah 51–52 presents creation as powerful and valu- able, violated but also a tool. YHWH as creator-redeemer, combined in unique formations in Deutero-Isaiah, is portrayed as in control of chaos (Isa. 51:9; cf. Gen. 2).36 The depiction taps into the Exodus story, with the monster Rahab, representing Egypt, cut down and the sea overpowered by the arm of the Lord. Isaiah 51–52 continues Deutero-Isaiah’s development of the portrayal of Zi- on’s journey with her presentation as a mother and daughter in various guises, drunken, bereaved, rape victim, and queen. Zion is a multifaceted symbolic po- etic representation of an exiled people, an idea as well as a geographic location that has been destroyed by invasion and war.37 In Isaiah 51:17–52:2 Zion’s per- sonification is more sharply drawn, with her depiction as a bride who has been 35 Other Eden references in the Hebrew Bible make similar comparisons between the lush Eden and the desert (cf. Joel 2:3; Ezek. 36:35; Isa. 5:6; Lev. 26:31). 36 Stuhlmueller 1970. 37 On the background of Zion in the Hebrew Bible representing geographic location, symbol, and ideology see Levenson 1985; Ollenburger 1987. Regarding Deutero-Isaiah’s varied representations of Zion see Sawyer 1989, 89–107; O’Connor 1999, 281–294.