{"id":64979,"date":"2019-10-30T17:32:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T15:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64979"},"modified":"2023-05-25T12:39:41","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T09:39:41","slug":"the-overeager-prophet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-overeager-prophet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Overeager Prophet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[940,506],"acf":{"old_id":"64979","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64468,"related_cahpter":"340","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Pick me, God, pick me!","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the first qualification for being a prophet? Not wanting to be one at all. Moses is the clearest example of this. Standing beside a curiously inflamed shrub in the wilderness of Horeb, he repeatedly tries to evade God\u2019s task, at one point exclaiming, \u201cPlease, O Lord, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue\u201d (Exod 4:10). Generations later, Jeremiah would echo this objection: \u201cAh, Lord God! I don\u2019t know how to speak, For I am still a boy\u201d (Jer 1:6).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Isaiah 6, in which the prophet is commissioned, appears at first to fit this paradigm to a T. Standing before the divine throne, Isaiah declares, \u201cWoe is me; I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips And I live among a people Of unclean lips; Yet my own eyes have beheld The King LORD of Hosts\u201d (Isa 6:5). An angel takes a live coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah\u2019s lips, pronouncing him clean (Isa 6:6\u20137). Then, God asks, \u201cWhom shall I send? Who will go for us?\u201d (Isa 6:8).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We know how this story goes. Moses and Jeremiah, after all, would have run, screaming, in the opposite direction. But Isaiah surprises us: \u201cHere am I; send me\u201d (Isa 6:8)\u2014a Hebrew phrase that, in my opinion, is better translated, \u201cPick me! Pick me!\u201d Isaiah is positively thrilled at the prospect of being a prophet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to understand this about-face, we should follow several recent commentators (and some pre-modern ones) in reading \u201cI am lost\u201d to instead mean \u201cI am silent.\u201d This fits the context much better. Isaiah does not fear for his life, as do other prophets. Rather, he wants nothing more than to shout his divine encounter from the rooftops. However, as part of an impure people, his impure lips are unfitting to describe God in his purity and holiness: \u201cWoe is me, for I must be silent.\u201d When the angel purifies his lips, this obstacle is removed. It is quite appropriate, then, that at that very moment, Isaiah eagerly steps forward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unfortunately for both the prophet and his people, the excitement ends there. Isaiah is immediately told to deliver a terrifying prophecy of doom, and not to stop \u201ctill towns lie waste without inhabitants And houses without people, And the ground lies waste and desolate\u201d (Isa 6:11). Whereas Moses resisted a prophetic commission of redemption, Isaiah jumps headlong into a prophetic commission of destruction. Isaiah 6 therefore offers a cautionary note: overeager prophets are bound to get more than they bargained for.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64980,"id":64980,"title":"is6-eager student","filename":"is6-eager-student.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is6-eager-student.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-overeager-prophet\/is6-eager-student\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is6-eager-student","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64979,"date":"2019-10-30 15:29:35","modified":"2019-10-30 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