October 10th, 2020

The Old Testament text for the previous Sunday was in Isaiah 5, and for this coming Sunday it will be in Isaiah 25[:6-9]. And next Sunday will be Isaiah 45. Should so many weeks with such a book be so surprising? The book of Isaiah is amazing.
Last week’s writing focused on the alliteration and assonance at the end of the text, and the following translation was my first attempt:

…and he looked for a judgment order, but behold, disorder; for what is right, but behold, a riot (Isaiah 5:7b).

Very near the text for this Sunday is another example of the poetic potency of this Old Testament writer, and both of these examples are indicated in the Concordia Self-Study Bible (see pages 1051-1052). That work even includes some of the spellings in Hebrew that are given below:

Isaiah 24:16a:
I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me!
Razi li, razi li! Oy li!
Verse 16b
The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!
Bogedim bagadu! Ubeged bogedim bagadu!
Verse 17
Terror and pit and snare [await you, O people of the earth.]
Pahad wapahat wapah

Perhaps you can see that these last three words (terror, pit, snare) are very similar in Hebrew. (The ‘wa’ at the beginning of the second and third words is only the word ‘and’.) That similarity makes them very special, AND they were even special enough to be used by others (see Jeremiah 48:43).

So, what was attempted last week will also be attempted this week. Are there accurate English words that will adequately match these three similar Hebrew words? ‘Terror’, ‘pit’, and ‘snare’ are not too similar sounding.

A first step is to look at Holladay’s Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (published by Eerdmans in 1971, pages 290-291). Here is what is given: Trembling, terror’ for the first word; ‘pit’ for the second, and ‘bird trap’ for the third. The definitions are, as the title of the book says, certainly concise.

The simple definition of the third word does not leave us with many possibilities. Therefore, a good next step may be to look at The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (published by Hendrickson in 1996, page 809). It gives the same thing—‘bird-trap’, but it also makes this distinction: ‘1. Literally…. 2. Usually figuratively…. a. of calamities and plots…. b. source or agent of calamity….

We have somewhat-related words that start with ‘p’ for the second and third words (pit and plots). How about finding a word that starts with ‘p’ for the first word, ‘terror’? This would even make it similar to the Hebrew.

In desperation, I picked up The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form (published by the New American Library, 1958, page 365). Under ‘terror’ were these synonyms: FEAR, dread; fright, alarm; dismay, horror; panic.

You might say that the last word provided a ‘perfect’ answer (in an extremely imperfect world).

‘Panic and pit and plots await you….’

(Please share with me if you find a better solution.) And this is certainly not the entire picture that Isaiah portrays. In Isaiah 25:6-9, the text for this Sunday, the beautiful and concrete promise is that the LORD will wipe away tears from all the faces of his people. This action will be referenced in three Sundays from this Sunday, on All Saints’ Day with the first reading, from Revelation 7. This may be a good thing to cover in more detail when we arrive at that place in the church year.