Yahweh threatens to “visit on the world evil and on the wicked their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11). When Yahweh comes for a visit, things get sorted.
And things get shut down. The next clause of 13:11 says that the Lord will “cause to cease” the arrogance of the proud. The verb is the hiphil of shabat : The day of Yahweh is a “Sabbath” visitation, a day of ceasing.
This is Yahweh’s form of Sabbath-keeping: Putting down the proud. No wonder Jesus didn’t think the Pharisees were genuinely keeping Sabbath.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…
