Water and Spirit

Though the daughters of Zion are full of filth and blood, Adonai will wash and purge them, like sacrifices. So says Isaiah (4:4). Yahweh will cleanse by His Spirit of judgment and burning.

The purifying power of the Spirit is underscored by a wordplay. The word for “purge” or “rinse” in verse 4 is duach , used in some passages for washing in preparation for ascension offerings (2 Chronicles 4:6; Ezekiel 40:38). The agent of this duach is not water, but Spirit, which in Hebrew is the rhyming word ruach . The Branch of Yahweh is coming, Isaiah says, to baptize not with water but with the Spirit. The Branch is coming to duach with His ruach .