Half of [the chopped-down tree] he burns up in a fire; With that half he roasts the meat that he eats, and he is satisfied. He also warms himself and says: “Ah! I am warm as I watch the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, into his carved image. He bows down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says: “Save me, for you are my god.” (Isaiah 44:16-17)
That’s not too bright, is it? It’s part of a passage, verses 9-20, that circles around to reiterate, add details, and drive home the point of how dumb it is that his god, that he has made, should be made of the same stuff as fuels his stove. Three hundred years later, Diagoras of Melos showed just how dumb it was. His fuel running out while cooking lentils, he reached for a wood statue of Hercules. This was the god known for his mythical twelve labors. Diagoras broke it up, added it to the fire and quipped, Let Hercules perform his 13th labor. If Hercules truly was a god, stop him, do something about it. But as far as anyone knows, the god of wood instead performed his new assignment. Diagoras emerged well-fed.
Jehovah’s prophet bullies them around, too. He doesn’t go so far as to chop them up for the fire, but he does tell them to put up or shut up:
“Tell us what will happen in the future, So that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something, good or bad, So that we may be amazed when we see it.” (Isaiah 41:23)
He hauls them all into court two chapters later. Jehovah is there too and he makes them offer testimony that they are not just deadbeat gods in metal or wood form. That’s not entirely fair, since they can’t speak and Jehovah knows that. So, since they are mute, let them produce witnesses who will testify for them:
“Let them bring forth their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, ‘It is true.” (43:9)
Tell about past events? Future events? Got anything anywhere up their sleeves to prove god status? There they are in court, so there will be no undignified badmouthing as when Elijah called out Baal for maybe being in the crapper when he didn’t show to prove himself. (1 Kings 18:27) No. This setting, convened by Jehovah himself, is more formal. And, whereas the idol gods all hem and haw and pick their noses, Jehovah’s not sweating is as to having witnesses to testify:
“Let all the nations assemble in one place, And let the peoples be gathered together. Who among them can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear the first things? Let them present their witnesses to prove themselves right, Or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’” “You are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah, “Yes, my servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and have faith in me And understand that I am the same One. Before me no God was formed, And after me there has been none. I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.” “I am the One who declared and saved and made known When there was no foreign god among you. So you are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah, “and I am God. Also, I am always the same One; And no one can snatch anything out of my hand. When I act, who can prevent it?” (43:8-13)
Just try tossing him into the fire. He’s not in statue form to begin with, so you can’t grab hold of him. He also has plenty of witnesses to testify that you don’t want to mess with him. Jehovah has deeds to his credit, spectacular deeds. One of them is quite recent, within the memory of the court attendees. It’s not every day that you wipe out the enemy’s 185K Plan.
Sennacherib’s annals, preserved in various museums, boast of how he demolished town after town, showing no mercy, but Hezekiah in Jerusalem he let off with a stern warning and a fine.
“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity and conquered (them). . . . I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. . . . Hezekiah himself . . . did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver . . . all kinds of valuable treasures, his (own) daughters, concubines, male and female musicians. In order to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his (personal) messenger.”
The blustering is conspicuous, not for what it says, but for what it does not say. He didn’t take the city. One scholar, knowing how these blowhards operated, opined that when Sennacherib’s scribes say 200,150 captives, we can dismiss the 200,000 as scribal embellishment to keep the boss happy, and settle on the 150 as closer to the truth. He may have bunted his way on base but the inning ended without the grand slam home run he had planned upon.
My own people like passage for its courtroom theme. Maybe it’s because they get hauled in there from time to time. At any rate, they’ve adopted that 43:10-12 as their own: Jehovah’s witnesses have become Jehovah’s Witnesses. Critics are not so sure they like the idea. That passage just pertains to events back then, they fume, not to some modern-day preaching group. But that can also be said (and is by most Jews) about verses Isaiah applied to Jesus too, of which there are plenty. Beyond all question, Jesus’ disciples were to be active in preaching, in spreading a witness. Why not lift the Isaiah 43 passage as one’s own. Even the resurrected Jesus calls himself at Revelation 1:5 “the Faithful Witness.” Whose witness was he?
This might explain the Witnesses linkage of circle with the earth with “globe” (Isaiah 40:22) and “dynamic power” with E=mc2. (40:26) They are testifying to what God has done. Let the opposing counsel challenge them on that point if they must. While “globe” is not unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses, that application of Einstein’s formula to account for all creation pretty much is. It’s what you would expect a tenacious witness to do.
(tomsheepandgoats*com)
Half of [the chopped-down tree] he burns up in a fire; With that half he roasts the meat that he eats, and he is satisfied. He also warms himself and says: “Ah! I am warm as I watch the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, into his carved image. He bows down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says: “Save me, for you are my god.” (Isaiah 44:16-17)
That’s not too bright, is it? It’s part of a passage, verses 9-20, that circles around to reiterate, add details, and drive home the point of how dumb it is that his god, that he has made, should be made of the same stuff as fuels his stove. Three hundred years later, Diagoras of Melos showed just how dumb it was. His fuel running out while cooking lentils, he reached for a wood statue of Hercules. This was the god known for his mythical twelve labors. Diagoras broke it up, added it to the fire and quipped, Let Hercules perform his 13th labor. If Hercules truly was a god, stop him, do something about it. But as far as anyone knows, the god of wood instead performed his new assignment. Diagoras emerged well-fed.
Jehovah’s prophet bullies them around, too. He doesn’t go so far as to chop them up for the fire, but he does tell them to put up or shut up:
“Tell us what will happen in the future, So that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something, good or bad, So that we may be amazed when we see it.” (Isaiah 41:23)
He hauls them all into court two chapters later. Jehovah is there too and he makes them offer testimony that they are not just deadbeat gods in metal or wood form. That’s not entirely fair, since they can’t speak and Jehovah knows that. So, since they are mute, let them produce witnesses who will testify for them:
“Let them bring forth their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, ‘It is true.” (43:9)
Tell about past events? Future events? Got anything anywhere up their sleeves to prove god status? There they are in court, so there will be no undignified badmouthing as when Elijah called out Baal for maybe being in the crapper when he didn’t show to prove himself. (1 Kings 18:27) No. This setting, convened by Jehovah himself, is more formal. And, whereas the idol gods all hem and haw and pick their noses, Jehovah’s not sweating is as to having witnesses to testify:
“Let all the nations assemble in one place, And let the peoples be gathered together. Who among them can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear the first things? Let them present their witnesses to prove themselves right, Or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’” “You are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah, “Yes, my servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and have faith in me And understand that I am the same One. Before me no God was formed, And after me there has been none. I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.” “I am the One who declared and saved and made known When there was no foreign god among you. So you are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah, “and I am God. Also, I am always the same One; And no one can snatch anything out of my hand. When I act, who can prevent it?” (43:8-13)
Just try tossing him into the fire. He’s not in statue form to begin with, so you can’t grab hold of him. He also has plenty of witnesses to testify that you don’t want to mess with him. Jehovah has deeds to his credit, spectacular deeds. One of them is quite recent, within the memory of the court attendees. It’s not every day that you wipe out the enemy’s 185K Plan.
Sennacherib’s annals, preserved in various museums, boast of how he demolished town after town, showing no mercy, but Hezekiah in Jerusalem he let off with a stern warning and a fine.
“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity and conquered (them). . . . I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. . . . Hezekiah himself . . . did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver . . . all kinds of valuable treasures, his (own) daughters, concubines, male and female musicians. In order to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his (personal) messenger.”
The blustering is conspicuous, not for what it says, but for what it does not say. He didn’t take the city. One scholar, knowing how these blowhards operated, opined that when Sennacherib’s scribes say 200,150 captives, we can dismiss the 200,000 as scribal embellishment to keep the boss happy, and settle on the 150 as closer to the truth. He may have bunted his way on base but the inning ended without the grand slam home run he had planned upon.
My own people like passage for its courtroom theme. Maybe it’s because they get hauled in there from time to time. At any rate, they’ve adopted that 43:10-12 as their own: Jehovah’s witnesses have become Jehovah’s Witnesses. Critics are not so sure they like the idea. That passage just pertains to events back then, they fume, not to some modern-day preaching group. But that can also be said (and is by most Jews) about verses Isaiah applied to Jesus too, of which there are plenty. Beyond all question, Jesus’ disciples were to be active in preaching, in spreading a witness. Why not lift the Isaiah 43 passage as one’s own. Even the resurrected Jesus calls himself at Revelation 1:5 “the Faithful Witness.” Whose witness was he?
This might explain the Witnesses linkage of circle with the earth with “globe” (Isaiah 40:22) and “dynamic power” with E=mc2. (40:26) They are testifying to what God has done. Let the opposing counsel challenge them on that point if they must. While “globe” is not unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses, that application of Einstein’s formula to account for all creation pretty much is. It’s what you would expect a tenacious witness to do.
****** The bookstore
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