Doorposts

As the Angel of death went through Egypt, Israelites were protected because of the blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses (Exodus 12:7, 22-23). Once Israel settled in the land, they were to post the Torah on their doorposts, not only a memorial of Sinai but a permanent memorial of Passover (Deuteronomy 6:9; 11:20), even a permanent Passover. As the house was protected under blood, so it was safe under Torah.

But in Isaiah’s time, Judah was ignoring Torah. Instead of posting the law on the doorposts of their houses and the frontals of their heads, they posted memorials of idolatry (Isaiah 57:8). The context even suggests that the doorposts were marked to identify Judah as a house of ill repute, a signal Judah was uncovered and laid in a wide bed, waiting for lovers other than Yahweh.

On that bed, Judah “cuts” with “them.” The verb “cut” implies “covenant,” since “cut a covenant” is idiomatic in Hebrew. As Israel cut covenant with Yahweh at Passover and Sinai, so she is cutting a new covenant with new gods. But the absence of berith (covenant) is noteworthy. Literally, Isaiah charges Judah with “cutting for them,” and in that expression he may be shading away from the notion of “cutting a covenant” to the more literal notion of “cutting the body” (as in 1 Kings 18). The two seem to be linked: The prophets of Baal cut themselves as memorials of the covenant they had cut with Baal. And so too Judah, though already “cut” in circumcision, continues to cut herself before her new lovers.