The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

J. J. M. ROBERTS 283
First of all, verse 21 begins with a clause, “a remnant will return”
(bw#y r)#), which is identical to the name of Isaiah’s first son, Shearjashub.
In 7:3, which first mentions this child, Isaiah is told to take the
child with him when, with his prophetic message, he goes to confront
Ahaz in response to the threatened attack on Jerusalem from Damascus
and Israel. There is no apparent reason for the presence of the child other
than as a visible embodiment of the prophet’s message, an embodiment
incorporated in the symbolic name the child bears. Surprisingly, however,
Isaiah 7 offers no interpretation of the meaning of the name Shearjashub,
though the immediate context explains the meaning of the
symbolic names of the other two children mentioned in chapters 7 and 8
(7:14; 8:3): Immanuel in 8:8b–10, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz in 8:4.
Unless 10:20–23 is understood as the explanation of the name Shearjashub,
there is no explanation for the name preserved in the book of
Isaiah. But if 10:20–23 was the original explanation for the name, its original
thrust, like that of Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, would have
been against the northern kingdom of Israel as the enemy of Judah. Such
an antinorthern polemic is still evident in 10:20–23. The expression “a
remnant will return” (bw#y r)#) is repeated in verse 22, and there is further
play on the expression in 10:20–21, where the “remnant” is specified
as the “remnant of Israel” (l)r#y r)#), “the survivors of the house of
Jacob” (bq(y-tyb t+ylpw), and “the remnant of Jacob” (bq(y r)#).
The designation “Israel” is ambiguous, but First Isaiah normally uses
“Jacob” to refer to the northern kingdom, and that here the text originally
meant the northern kingdom is underscored by the contrast the passage
draws between north and south. Note God’s contrasting use of the
personal pronoun between “your people, O Israel” in verse 22 and “my
people who dwell in Zion” in verse 24a.
In other words, Isa 10:16–24a appears to be prophetic material originally
intended to reassure Judah in the face of a threat from Syria and Israel
at the time of the Syro-Ephraimitic War (734–732 B.C.E.), but sometime
later when Assyria was the major threat to Judah, perhaps at the time of
Sennacherib’s invasion in 701 B.C.E., this material was slightly reworked
and put into a new context of an oracle against Assyria. Moreover, we must
say something similar of the final section of this chapter, 10:27b–34.
Verses 27b–32 describe the march of an enemy army against
Jerusalem until it stops just before the walls of Jerusalem and the enemy
waves his hand in a gesture of derision against the city. Given the preceding
context, the natural assumption is to identify this enemy with the
Assyrian foe mentioned in 10:24b–27a. There are serious difficulties with
that identification, however. No known Assyrian advance against