“Come let us reason together,” Isaiah says. An exhortation to logical deduction with the help of syllogism?
Certainly, logic and syllogisms are involved, but the verb “reason” ( yakach ) is commonly translated as “argue” (Job 13:15) or “dispute” (Job 13:3; 22:4) or “judge” (Isaiah 11:3) or “reprove” (Job 6:25)) even “punish” (Job 5:17). Reasoning for Isaiah is reasoning together ; it is a personal, social activity, not synapses firing in an individual’s isolated brain.
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