{"id":76966,"date":"2020-07-06T13:13:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T10:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=76966"},"modified":"2020-07-06T13:13:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T10:13:18","slug":"joel-vs-isaiah-whose-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/joel-vs-isaiah-whose-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel vs. Isaiah: Whose Vision?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/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":[],"acf":{"old_id":"76966","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":76889,"related_cahpter":"518","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Shouldn't peace be preferable?\r\n\r\n","content":"

Thus spoke Isaiah, the son of Amotz: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks\u2026” (2:4). And thus spoke Joel, the son of Petuel: “Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears” (4:10). Joel and Isaiah. Two images. Two prophets. Two periods. Two melodies. Contradictory? Complementary? One thing is clear: they are talking to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah is one of the most influential prophets in the history of Israelite prophecy; Joel less so. Joel is also more puzzling from a historical point of view. But this dialogue of theirs, whether it is theirs or whether the biblical editor created it, affords us the readers a moment of reflection on the end times.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can imagine the two different workshops. Both of them have ironmongers and blacksmiths, wrapped in leather aprons, making tools out of other tools. One group is taking swords and making work implements; joyously, I would hope. The other, working more quietly, with serious faces and furrowed brows, are taking the tools for harvesting and are making of them weapons of destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which do you prefer? It should be clear, no? Between war and peace, isn’t peace preferable?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes \u2013 peace is preferable. But precisely because of that, it’s not clear which of the two pictures is more appropriate. “One who wants peace should prepare for war,” the 4<\/span>th<\/span> century Roman sage Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus taught us. And it’s no wonder that Israeli army commanders throughout the generations found this slogan fitting to decorate the walls of army training bases throughout the country. This of course fits in with what we have learned from the elderly Kohelet: “A time for weeping, a time for laughing\u2026 a time for war and a time for peace.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And here, even though neither of these pictures is absolutely more worthy, since everything is dependent on context and time, I feel that it is imperative that we promote Isaiah’s vision, and push Joel to the background. War can be a necessity, at times indispensable; at times there is nothing more just or moral; we must be ready for it, ready to give our lives, otherwise these are all empty words. But there is no glory on the fields of slaughter. War is never an end in itself. It is evil even if its results are good.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my opinion, this is the daily complexity of those engaged in the act of defending the State of Israel. The IDF is the blacksmith in both pictures. It spills the blood of people, and it also defends them. It must prepare tools of war, train its soldiers to use them, engage in combat, win battles, but since it is dealing with human beings \u2013 its own people and the people on the other side of the rifle sights \u2013 it must realize that not only the spear, but also the pruning hook possesses power.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prophets Joel and Isaiah have given us the building blocks. The house is up to us to build.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64797,"id":64797,"title":"is2-mural","filename":"is2-mural.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/swords-into-plowshares\/is2-mural\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is2-mural","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64796,"date":"2019-10-26 08:36:55","modified":"2020-07-29 15:58:24","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":500,"height":374,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural-300x224.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":224,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","medium_large-width":500,"medium_large-height":374,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","large-width":500,"large-height":374,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","1536x1536-width":500,"1536x1536-height":374,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","2048x2048-width":500,"2048x2048-height":374,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","post_full_size-width":500,"post_full_size-height":374,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","home_baner-width":500,"home_baner-height":374}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Joel vs. Isaiah: Whose Vision?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Shouldn't peace be preferable?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":64797,"id":64797,"title":"is2-mural","filename":"is2-mural.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/swords-into-plowshares\/is2-mural\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is2-mural","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64796,"date":"2019-10-26 08:36:55","modified":"2020-07-29 15:58:24","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":500,"height":374,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural-300x224.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":224,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","medium_large-width":500,"medium_large-height":374,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","large-width":500,"large-height":374,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","1536x1536-width":500,"1536x1536-height":374,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","2048x2048-width":500,"2048x2048-height":374,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","post_full_size-width":500,"post_full_size-height":374,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is2-mural.jpg","home_baner-width":500,"home_baner-height":374}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76967,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76966\/revisions\/76967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}