Page - 30 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02

30 | Angela Sue Sawyer www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/2, 21–33 violated and language and imagery of her ruin and desolation. The use of moth- er and child imagery in 51:18–20 may have spoken directly to the acute pain of the loss of children in the exilic community. Zion’s powerlessness and victim state are challenged in Isaiah 51:23–52:2, where she is urged to free herself from her slavery, whereas in Chapman’s song the hearer is to act on their mother’s behalf. Zion’s personification as a woman at once separates her from and iden- tifies her with creation, allowing the people in exile to identify Zion’s suffering with their own suffering.38 Chapman’s line “Mother of us all … place of our birth” likewise makes earth both object and subject, identifying us intimately with her. In Deutero-Isaiah, the slippery representation of Zion provides an op- portunity to read Zion in diverse ways. We could imaginatively reconstruct the narrative, seeing the story perhaps through Zion’s eyes, as Peter Trudinger has demonstrated in his ecological reading of Zion in Lamentations.39 Zion’s journey of redemption is wrapped up with the restoration of crea- tion.40 John Barton reminds us, “Peace and harmony on earth, for the great classical prophets, are achieved through justice and righteousness, and though these terms (mishpat and sedaqah) have definite cosmic overtones, they are still to be encountered primarily in the way that humans behave towards each other.”41 In this framework, cessation of violence is necessary for ecological harmony.42 Rape as a domineering act of power implicitly breaks relationship, demonstrating disharmony and power imbalance, between humans, creation, and God. Creation’s uprising as well as the call to stand up/rise up and over- come the violation in Isaiah 51:17 and 52:1–2 represents a rebalancing. The trajectory of Zion’s story in Isaiah 51–52 is of comfort, renewal, and overcom- ing the victimhood of rape. Likewise, ecological destruction evidenced in the passage is not an inevitable in a nihilistic depiction but rather a threatened end, and the passage is presented as an oracle of hope and re-creation. Deute- ro-Isaiah innovatively re-uses ancient traditions of creation, chaos motifs, and the Exodus for new contexts and purposes. Modern musicians take the tapes- try of inherited traditions and symbols for new purposes, as in the example of Chapman’s use of a rape metaphor and contemporary socio-political action. Just as Deutero-Isaiah reshapes a previously utilised marriage metaphor and 38 Habel 2008, 5. 39 Trudinger 2008, 41–52. 40 Dempsey 1989, 273. 41 Barton 2010, 54. 42 Dempsey 1989, 269–284.