Bible Review

See Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “On The Road and on the Sea With St. Paul,” BR 01:02.

James B. Pritchard, ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 284–285.

Isaiah 8:21 starts a new speech concerning the new reality, that is, the period that follows the Syro-Ephraimite war. The division of the speeches does not follow the division of chapters. The division into chapters to which we accustomed was first taken over in the 14th century. For the scholarly methods of determining Isaiah’s speeches, consult my article “Reflections on the Study of the Prophetic Discourse,” Vetus Testamentum 33 (1983), pp. 207–221.

Indeed, it is doubtful whether Isaiah himself is the author of the alarming description of the siege of Jerusalem in Isaiah 7:1–6. This is narrative, third person prose—Isaiah himself is not speaking. Hence, it lacks a critical characteristic of prophetic utterance.

J and P designate two of the four sources into which most scholars divide the Pentateuch (J = Yahwist, E = Elohist, P = Priestly, D = Deuteronomist). For those who wish to find out more, see Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987).

The Anabasis (“march up country”) tells the story of over 10,000 Greek mercenaries who were recruited by Cyrus the Younger in 401 B.C., in his unsuccessful attempt to overthrow his Persian brother Artaxerxes II. When in the battle Cyrus was killed, Xenophon was one of the commanders elected by the 10,000 troops to lead the army safely out of Babylon to the Black Sea, on to the Aegean Sea, and eventually to their Greek homeland.

In other words, verses 1–18 in Hebrew and verses 1–21 in English.

The golden spikes are mentioned by Josephus. In construct, there is a suggestion in the Gemarah (Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 90a; Menahot 107b) that the “scarecrow” consisted of iron plates.