In an article in VT from 1993, Jerome Walsh analyzes the strructure of Isaiah 41:8-9 as follows:
A. Israel
A’. My servant
B. Jacob
B’. You whom I have chosen
C. Seed of my beloved Abraham
C’. You whom I have held firm and called.
But then he notes that the cycle starts over: “the text has seduced us” (p. 361).
A”. You are my servant
B”. I have chosen you
C”. and have not rejected you.
He offers this commentary on the structure: ‘‘The effect of this textual seduction is double vision. We first read ‘my beloved’ in apposition to ‘seed of Abraham’; we are the seed, we are the beloved. Only later do we discover the second reading: Abraham is the beloved (note the triple alliteration that unifies the phrase Abraham ^ohabì ). The second reading does not cancel the first, but transforms it: our friendship with Yahweh is a reflex and continuation of Abraham’s. This double vision involves a second set of ambiguities in the verses, namely the relative clauses themselves. The content of the clauses is in each case appropriate to the patriarch named: Jacob was the chosen of the Lord; Abraham was brought from distant lands by God’s hand. But the second-person forms make it clear that the clauses refer to the addressee and not to the patriarchs. Our election is congruent with Jacob’s; our rescue from these lands where Abraham sojourned is as sure as his.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
