The Book of Job poised the certainties of good and evil on the edge of a moral abyss. The writer of Ecclesiates took personal delight in spinning those certainties into the nothingness he saw yawning before us all. The Preacher’s diatribe would have to await the more cynical meditations of the 20th century to find something of its equal.

Incentives and prohibitions facilitate social order and the dictates of law. World events can force revision of contracts formerly held... The questions of Job were posed by Jews who believe the punishment of their exile incommensurate with their sins. Ecclesiastes formulated an answer that denied the validity of the question. The writings of 2nd Isaiah embraced the question in a heretofore-unsuspected way.

The exilic Isaiah knew that the covenants had lost their force of contract. A warrior-god only makes sense when the victory of his warriors is a possibility. The Assyrians, Babylonians and now the hordes of Cyrus, had done much to deflate the realistic pretensions of the Lord of Hosts and his chosen people. What had been seen formerly as defeat in consequence of sin was now metamorphosed into an offering of sacrifice. God now consoles his people for their suffering. Yahweh was now to become a God of loving-kindness. He admonishes with compassion. He is loath to raise his sword. Israel was to bear the sins of the world in much the same way another Jew would shoulder that same imponderable weight. Fear of God is replaced by love of God and the same vastness of imagery employed in Job to affirm unbridgeable gulfs is utilized to close dimensional chasms. The Promised Land becomes internalized. Sovereignty of soul more important than that of nation.

"Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, And are counted as the small dust of the balance: AIl nations before him are as nothing; And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity… And the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble." (9)

The whirlwind of Job and the vanity of Ecclesiastes are synthesized in what is the Bible’s loftiest depiction of an ever-evolving God. In Isaiah he has come off the heights of Sinai to burn in the secret places of man’s heart: The heretofore, heavy weight of sin need not await a crucifixion to mitigate its burden:

"0 Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, And as a cloud, thy sins: Return unto me; for I have redeemed thee (11)

This same love that a defeated Israel could quietly savor is the legacy that Christ would extend to the defeated and meek of the earth. The world first receives his message in 2nd Isaiah 5 centuries before his birth. The Persian duality of good and evil is of little note to a God who take responsibility for them both

"I am the Lord, and there is none else… .I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (12)

The imagery that Christianity would deploy in depicting its savior is prefigured by the prophet to embody the suffering of his chosen people for the enlightenment of all mankind. In 2nd Isaiah, the nourishment and sacrifice of those that follow God’s word is given poignancy that only the suffering of a lowly carpenter will come close to rival:

"He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And with his stripes we are healed… He was numbered with the transgressors; And he bore the sin of many."

The redemption and sacrifice of the Jews is the redemption of their God. What earlier had been a demand of obedience from a jealous god has been transformed into a sacrifice of love, from man to god and god to man. (15)

"Thy sun shall no more go down, Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, And the days of thy mourning shall be ended." (16)

The good and evil that God accepts as his own is reflected in the manner that his people have regarded him down the many centuries of which they make record. If the morals of his people demanded that their god be as unmerciful as they themselves are depicted in the Book of Judges, then their god would accommodate this desire with a sharpness of word that would desolate the worlds with which it came in conflict.

If in the course of our own development we can approach the vision of 2nd Isaiah, then perhaps, what has been seen as a story of one people can be viewed as a metaphor for all. In the end, if we can "preach good tidings unto the meek" and "bind up the brokenhearted," we might find within our own hearts the strength to forgive he from whom we seek forgiveness. We might come to understand that the record of the Bible is more a measure of our own shortcomings than it is a judgment of a fearful god. If we can come to say of the Father, what he came to say of his children:

"Surely they are my people, Children that will not lie… In all their affliction he was afflicted, And the angel of his presence saved them: In his love and in his pity he redeemed them; And he bore them, and carried them all the days of old;" (17)

then perhaps, what was once an ancient voice whose words have lost their meaning, will live again for those whose hearts will claim the old as if anew.