Category: Bible Books

If the ones who demanded signs of Jesus, and who couldn’t understand what the children could, and who sneered at Isaiah’s words as “Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah,” (Isaiah 28:10–Message version) were of a wicked and adulterous generation, just how wicked and adulterous were they? Adulterous is as adulterous does—plenty of the literal adultery going around, most likely, but sometimes the scriptures themselves assign a broader meaning to the word. It is not us suggesting the broader meaning; it is the scriptures themselves. 

Such as here: “Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is making himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4) Even though the ones James writes to are primarily men, they are “adulteresses” if they have “friendship with the world.” They are supposed to be faithful to God and his arrangements for ruling humankind, though the kingdom of the Lord’s Prayer. They are instead “adulteresses,” snuggling up to human governments for ruling humankind. The “world is passing away and all of its desires,” says John 2:17. That’s why they shouldn’t be friends with it. 

To be sure, God loved “the world” so much that he sent his only-begotten son into it, that some might be redeemed. (John 3:16) These are foreshadowed by the “remnant” who would be responsive to Isaiah, whereas the main body of “priests and prophets” and those following them would not. But in the end, only a relative few responded: “The true light [Jesus] that gives light to every sort of man was about to come into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into existence through him, but the world did not know him.” (John 1:9-10) The world is still slated to pass away.

“He came to his own home, but his own people did not accept him. However, to all who did receive him, he gave authority to become God’s children, because they were exercising faith in his name.” (John 1:11-12) Whereas, the world in general is still slated to pass away. That’s why you shouldn’t be friends with it.

However, theologians trained in the historical-critical method are, almost by definition, friends of the world. The only religious model their tools equip them to measure are the EFFECTS of religious faith upon a person. The TENETS of that faith are outside their purview. They have no way of knowing whether the world is slated for destruction or not. They can only (supposedly) measure the effects of believing that it is. Therefore, with the meat of God’s word forever outside their grasp, they diligently chew upon the grizzle. It’s an approach that all but guarantees one will miss the forest for the trees. Their default model becomes how to fix the world, to make it a better place. This effectively makes them its friend, the exact opposite of what scripture requires. 

When the wrecking ball is swinging, you really ought not be inside making renovations. When the Titanic is sinking (we’ve all heard it), you really ought not be rearranging the deck chairs.

Other words are also expanded in scripture for metaphorical use. They need not always be taken as literal. Such as the “vomit” from religious leaders (priests and prophets—Isaiah 28:8) that covers the tables so that “there is no place without it.” Puking all over the table is pretty gross but, as we have seen, that could happen when people of decadence reclined at the table to gorge themselves with food and drink. We have seen past religious leaders become decadent so, yes, a literal application is certainly possible. But something tells me a spiritual application fits the bill better. I mean, I can’t recall the last time I saw a religious leader puking all over the table. But I have seen them serving up what amounts to puke.

For example, Peter likens Christians of the first century  “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession, that you should declare abroad the excellencies” of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (2 Peter 2:9) They were [next verse] “once not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not been shown mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Not all remained, however. Some returned to where they came. Peter applies the v-word to them: ‘What the true proverb says has happened to them: ‘The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.’” (2 Peter 2:22) They’d made a lot of moral changes, given up on a lot of false dogmas to enter a relationship with God and Christ. They returned to them. It was like a dog returning to its own vomit. If you’ve ever seen a dog to that, even your beloved pet Samson—not the Samson who pushes the pillars apart, but the one who pees on them—it grosses you out. 

Then there was the quality of being lukewarm that Jesus likened to vomit. “Because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth,” Jesus rebuked the Laodiceans. (Revelation 3:16) He suggested what our common sense would suggest. Much of the problem that resulted in a constant hedging of bets, stemmed from being “friends of the word” with excessive concern over comfort in the here and now. He continued: “Because you say, ‘I am rich and have acquired riches and do not need anything at all,’ but you do not know that you are miserable and pitiful and poor and blind and naked,” he advised them to get their act together spiritually.

Finally, we must not forget my own fictional character Vic Vomodog—originally Vomidog, but I modified it after someone found it disgusting. Vic and I used to pull together in the work! We were best buds. However, after he went south on us, he got to the point of walking into hospital emergency rooms, pulling up his sleeve, and saying “Fill ‘er up!” just to show Jehovah’s Witnesses what he thought of them! I wrote him up a lot in my first book, ‘Tom Irregardless and Me,’ where he presents as sort of a perpetually scheming, yet perennially thwarted Wily E. Coyote,

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“When they have their music on, you can’t touch em.” Mattie would say that about Pentecostals she’d meet in her ministry.

What are other scenarios where “you can’t touch em?” How about, ‘When they’re roaring drunk?’ Isaiah had no success with that bunch. They were a sorry lot, and it was not the common people spoken of. It is the religious leaders:

“And these also go astray because of wine; Their alcoholic beverages make them stagger.  Priest and prophet go astray because of alcohol; The wine confuses them, And they stagger from their alcohol; Their vision makes them go astray, And they stumble in judgment.” (28:7)

It’s pretty bad drunk, too, to the point where “their tables are full of filthy vomit —There is no place without it.” (vs 8) That’s hard to picture today when, if you must puke due to drunkenness, it’s not all over the table. Rarely does one lose the instinct to wretch on the ground. But, recall the eating style back then, when people “reclined at the table.” Low to the ground feasting they were, food and drink to the limit, till it just exploded and covered everything!

Isaiah’s warning to the elites of the 10-tribes “drunkards of Ephahim” of 28:1, including if not especially their priests and prophets, a group in danger of losing their “crown,” and who did lose it to the invading Assyrians? That group imagined themselves having made a “covenant with Death” (vs 18) as though to protect them from the unpleasant experience, just as music would protect the Pentecostals. His message to them was straightforward, in line with what he usually prophesied: 

“Look! Jehovah has someone strong and mighty. Like a thundering hailstorm, a destructive windstorm, Like a thunderstorm of powerful floodwaters, He will forcefully hurl it down to the earth. The showy crowns of the drunkards of Eʹphra·im Will be trampled underfoot. And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, Which is on the head of the fertile valley, Will become like the early fig before summer.  When someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it is in his hand.” (2-4)

And with regard to a remnant who would be responsive: “In that day Jehovah of armies will become a glorious crown and a beautiful garland to those left of his people. And he will become a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment and a source of mightiness to those who repel the attack at the gate.”

What would be the response of those drunken priests and house prophets to that? They mocked him! ‘What! Do you think you’re talking to babies?’ they sneered. Their response was:

“To whom will one impart knowledge, And to whom will one explain the message?  To those who have just been weaned from milk, those just taken away from the breasts?  For it is “command after command, command after command, Line by line, line by line, A little here, a little there.” (9-10) Be obedient? Trust in God? Far too simplistic for sophisticated adults as themselves.

One picks it up better in the original Hebrew, where vs 10 is: “ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw, qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw, zěʿîr šām zěʿîr šām.” It’s like repetitive baby talk, nonsense syllables, mocking Isaiah’s style. Less childish, a bit more nuanced is what the learned ones would prefer. More sophistication, if you please.

Some translations (NIV, NLT, ESV. NET, CSB) put those mocking words in quotes, so that no one mistakes them for Isaiah’s own words. Doing this helps make the passage coherent. Others do not (KJV, RSV, RSV). NABRE and NWT formats and, via footnotes, explains it as quoted ridicule. The Message Version, going where no translation goes, (because it is not a translation, but a paraphrase), nails the ridicule with: “Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah…”

Jehovah is not putting up with this at all. You want to make yourself dense? It’s not on him. Therefore, “da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah” is what it will have to be for them. Anyone else knows what he’s talking about. He’s not changing it.

As verse 13 says: “So to them the word of Jehovah will be: “Command after command, command after command, Line by line, line by line, A little here, a little there,”  So that when they walk, They will stumble and fall backward And be broken and ensnared and caught.” They won’t have a clue.

Why am I reminded of Jesus’ words that the wise and intellectual do not get the sense of it, but the children do? (Matthew 11:25) What is it with this continual demand for more sophistication and nuance? Isn’t it because unless you do that, you are left to explain why you are not heeding the straightforward words? If you don’t want to do what’s required, you will prefer a more “enlightened” interpretation. You will go for a higher meaning. Barring that, you’ll demand an added “sign” to prove that that the more straightforward words are indeed true. However, Jesus said: “A wicked and adulterous generation keeps seeking a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” And after that, “he went away, leaving them behind.” (Matthew 16:4) So did Jehovah, speaking through Isaiah; he went away, leaving them behind. The problem wasn’t the lack of signs or of simplicity. The problem was that they were a “wicked and adulterous generation.”

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“For when there are judgments from you for the earth, The inhabitants of the land learn about righteousness.” (Isaiah 26:9)

This is a very helpful verse to get our heads around John 5:28-29, which doesn’t make a lot of sense otherwise:

Says Jesus: “The hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”

Those who did good things arriving at a “resurrection of life” is a slam-dunk. It takes no imagination at all. Not so with “those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.” What’s that all about? You’re going to raise them up from the dead just to pronounce them guilty? Who would do such a crazy thing?

Not Jehovah, it would appear. 26:9 says what he will do. There will be “judgments from [him] for the earth, [and] the inhabitants of the land learn about righteousness.” (Isaiah 26:9) They will. Maybe not all of them. The very next verse of Isaiah (26:10) convinces us that we are on the right track: 

“Even if the wicked is shown favor, He will not learn righteousness.  Even in the land of uprightness he will act wickedly.” 

Yeah, what if they “practiced vile things” not through ignorance but because they are wicked through and through? If they really are wicked, a second chance won’t help. But it’s not really a second chance. Most of them never had a first chance. They lived at a time when knowledge of God was so distorted as to not even count as a first chance. Their second chance is really their first. And if they blow through it as though it is nothing—something much easier to do in this compromised world, so that it’s good not to get into the habit of judging—but if they do it when “there are judgments from [Jehovah] for the earth” and they should be “learn[ing] about righteousness,” then they find themselves enmeshed in the last verse of the chapter:

“For look! Jehovah is coming from his place To call the inhabitants of the land to account for their error, And the land will expose her bloodshed And will no longer cover over her slain.” (26:21)

It’s only God’s standards that work. Everything else results in the mess of the world presently seen. When the doomed experiment of human self-rule at last comes to its deserved conclusion, and there might be little interval of hiding out in the interior rooms, just like 26:20 says, then at last is realized the 24-27 “Isaianic apocalypse.”

“Go, my people, enter your inner rooms, And shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a brief moment Until the wrath has passed by.” (26:20) It’s sort of like that Lord’s Prayer verse: “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” If you want to be delivered from evil, don’t make a beeline to where it hangs out.

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William R Millar, the author of ‘Isaiah 24-27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic’ (1979) argues, not for the first time, but he puts major flesh on the bones, that those four chapters are those of the prophet, or whoever wrote as though the prophet, attempting to rustle up a little “proto-apocalyptic” stew in the kitchen. Chefs of later centuries, such as Daniel and John, would enhance the recipe more fully. His book, in effect, applies the theory of evolution, always a fact, to them, to biblical development. In this case, it is how prophetic writings evolved to eventually include apocalyptic writings. Isaiah 24-27 is a missing link; well, not so much “missing,” because there it is, but a connecting link. It is the land animal that became a porpoise on its way to becoming a man. 

He also includes a detailed study of the books’ poetic form. This point was made, too, at the Witnesses mid-week meeting—that the chapters are poetic. Whereas previous editions of the New World Translation presented them as prose, the 2013 revision took to presenting them in verse fashion. You never quite know what “gem” the second portion of that meeting will present for discussion. It is seldom the most monumental topic, but that is likely because it exists to get the ball rolling. The first “gem” is fixed and specific. The second “gem” is wide open to the congregation. What gems did they notice and want to talk about. 

A gem I could have offered, but didn’t because it really wouldn’t have been a gem, is that if much of the book is poetic, not all of it is, or if it is, it becomes downright clunky in parts. Take, for example, 24:16, in the King James Bible:

“The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.”

Four treacherouses! it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Try to say it fast ten times. Twenty-six English translations displayed at Biblegateway*com all include the four, so it’s clearly well-based and not going anywhere. Still, you’d think that someone would try to clean them up a little.

Yikes! Although the 2013 New World Translation often does simplify, in this case they’ve thrown in a firth treacherous! “Woe to me! The treacherous have acted treacherously; With treachery the treacherous have acted treacherously.” Yeah. Woe to me, too. You get the impression that it’s more precise to the original Hebrew—I mean, “very treacherous” is probably the treacherous acting treacherously with treacherousness—but a little easing up on the precision might be just the thing, here. Ah, well, there is nothing for it except to exclaim at whatever presents that it is exactly the right food needed at exactly the right time. Five may be more accurate but, it’s sort of like Pharaoh told his magic-practicing priests after they duplicated a few of the early plagues: “So! Moses is not so clever after all, is he! But we don’t know MORE frogs.” Get rid of these things. (Hop to it!)

This is why, though I usually just stick with the NWT as my house Bible, there is value in monitoring them all. Here, AI makes a pretty good research assistant, too. When one Bible differs from another, and you don’t quite know why, simply run the question past AI. Ask it neutrally. Don’t try to prejudice it. Don’t say, for example, if you don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Why is the New World Translation lying as usual in translating this verse?” No. Just ask it to account for the differences. You’ll find it makes a pretty good pocket theologian and you’ll learn a lot of the choices and challenges facing translators. Of course, AI does not believe in God, but that is often true of theologians as well. Theology is not the study of God, as the casual observer supposes. It is a study of man. Specifically, it is a study of man’s interaction with the concept of the divine. As such, it doesn’t even assume there is a divine. It is the concept that counts for them. It is not so much straining the gnat to swallow the camel as it is dining on the gnats and ignoring the camel.

Some translations have tried to cut down on the treacheries, and do not appear to have suffered for it. CEB says: “I waste away; I waste away; I’m doomed! Betrayers betray; treacherously betrayers betray.” Just one ‘treacherous’—-though it appears to be at the expense of ‘betrays,’ which balloons to four.

Some have made the mess worse—or at least, they’ve just traded devils. Such as “My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe is me: the prevaricators have prevaricated, and with the prevarication of transgressors they have prevaricated.” (DRA)

Others, such as ERV, I kind of like: “But I say, “Enough! I have had enough. What I see is terrible. Traitors are turning against people and hurting them.”

Then, there is the Message version—not a translation, but a paraphrase—which must sit on ones bookshelf like a battleship, saying: “But I said, “That’s all well and good for somebody, but all I can see is doom, doom, and more doom.” All of them at one another’s throats, yes, all of them at one another’s throats. Terror and pits and booby traps are everywhere, whoever you are. If you run from the terror, you’ll fall into the pit. If you climb out of the pit, you’ll get caught in the trap. Chaos pours out of the skies. The foundations of earth are crumbling. Earth is smashed to pieces, earth is ripped to shreds, earth is wobbling out of control, Earth staggers like a drunk, sways like a shack in a high wind. Its piled-up sins are too much for it. It collapses and won’t get up again.”

Did I tell you that times were rough back then?

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Then there was Joe, who in this early days of being a Witness, would decline vacations, saying he as awaiting the Big Vacation.

This is plainly what Isaiah 25 is: the big vacation. After that formidable banquet of all the choicest dishes, the real treats roll out

“On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. (25:7-8)

Death, the great swallower, that swallows us all, is itself swallowed and becomes no more. Despite all the clerical representations that it is somehow a friend, since (if you’re good) it means promotion to the heavenly choir—and especially if a baby dies and the preacher says it is God picking flowers for his most beautiful garden that is only lacking one: yours! then, you can believe that death is always presented as a friend. 

But even for regular people, it is as overenthusiastic Don would say: “Now, weren’t we always told that there are more bad people than good people? That the world is the way it is because bad people ruin it , but, not to worry: they will all get their comeuppance in hell? Weren’t we always told that?” And, when I would at last admit yes because it was the only way to stop him, he’d go on: “When was the last time you ever saw a preacher pack someone off to hell?!” Death, in clerical terms, is always a friend.

But, in the Bible, it is an enemy—the very last enemy, which is swallowed up forever. “Next, the end, when he hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power. For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing,” says 1 Corinthians 15:24-26. It is, at long last, “swallowed up forever.” (verse 54)

It’s not just death, though, but it includes all that leads to it, in verse seven called a ‘shroud that enfolds all peoples.” It represents mourning, separation, or the pall of death covering humanity. But, it is also the sin inherited from Adam is itself, a shroud that muddles our paths through life. All must come to grips with a vague sense of unease that invariably accompanies this sin. Everyone identifies at some level with a Kafkaesque trial in which guilt is assumed—there would not be a trial, otherwise, but the charges are never laid out, and the fact that one may think themselves innocent is irrelevant. 

This shroud that enfolds all peoples is destroyed. It is through jesus, who dies to offset the condemnation to sin brought about through Adam’s rebellion against God. Put faith in that arrangement, do nothing to sabotage it, and you’re golden. It is —again, from 1 Corinthians 15–“The first man Adam became a living person.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (verse 45)

John echoes it in Revelation 7:17 and 21:4 (God wiping away tears in the new heaven and earth).

This death to be swallowed up is not limited to death from war, sickness, or violence (though those are included as causes of death); it encompasses death in its totality—the cessation of physical life due to the curse of sin, from Genesis 3.

Isaiah 26 continues along the same line, but with an addition: “But your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise—let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy—your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.”* (verse 19)

Of course. It’s all very nice for death to be swallowed up, but that does nothing for those who have already died. So, to complete the picture, there has to be a provision for those people, too, and here it is found in the resurrection. The verse is widely regarded as one of the clearest Old Testament references to bodily resurrection.

When the boss realizes he has signed off on your vacation, he begins to regret letting his people go. He tries to walk back the action. Maybe he can make you do work through emails or teleconferencing. However, your answer to him can be the same as that from Isaiah, who observes that “the blast of the tyrants is like a rainstorm against a wall.” (25:4)

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Always there are public officials, it doesn’t matter where you go, who, during their tenure, amass far more wealth than you would think possible given their salaries. Who can say how they do it? Let me count the ways, but they do it. 

These people all regard Shebna as their patron saint. They are his antitypes. Where the homes of God-fearing people will post some favorite scripture, like maybe the Lord’s prayer, their homes post Isaiah 22:15-18, the mission statement of their hero. Not the penalty part—where he is wadded up like a ball to be tossed into the wastebasket. That’s not an outcome they figure will happen. The mission statement part is where they focus:

“Go in to this steward, to Shebna, who is in charge of the house, and say, ‘What is your interest here, and who is there of interest to you here, that you hewed out a burial place here for yourself?’ He is hewing out his burial place in a high place; he is cutting out a resting-place for himself in a crag. ‘Look! Jehovah will hurl you down violently, O man, and seize you forcibly. He will certainly wrap you up tightly and hurl you like a ball into a wide land. There you will die, and there your glorious chariots will be, a disgrace to your master’s house.” (22:15-18)

Shebna is the only individual specifically rebuked in these many chapters of Isaiah. We’ have seen Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Etheopia, Egypt, Edom, Arabia, Tyre, and Sidon all chewed out in previous chapters, but no individual people. Then there are groups of people: rulers and princes (3:1–15), elders and dignitaries (3:2–3), women of Zion (3:16–4:1), priests and prophets (28:7–13), scribes and wise men who rely on human counsel (29:14–15, 30:1), but no individuals. A few individuals are named, such as Ahaz, but they are not rebuked. So, Shebna must have been pretty bad to be disfavored so. And yet, it doesn’t seem that way when compared to the corruption of our time. The guy wants a fancy burial place? There are worse things than that.

Just how fancy a burial place are we talking about? For what was he ignoring his official duties to prepare? Was he going the way of the Egyptian kings, scheming out a lavish pyramid for himself? No. Much more modest than that. I mean, his offense seems not too much more than reaching for a luxury sedan when an econobox would do just fine. He can’t hold a candle to his modern-day antitypes. If his example of pride and self-aggrandizement got God going, what are we to say of modern figures who outdo him twentyfold? If you hold public office, you’re not supposed to abuse it.

We know for sure that his proposed burial place was no pyramid because it has been found. No one ever said that the tomb would not be built. They just said he would not be around to die in it. He’d be wadded up and tossed like a ball. But, the tomb was built, and it is one of the more elaborate tombs in the area: a rock-cut tomb with finely dressed stonework, chambers, and a monumental inscribed lintel over the entrance bearing the words: “This is [the sepulcher of …]yahu who is over the house. There is no silver or gold here but [his bones] and the bones of his maidservant with him. Cursed be the man who will open this.” It is widely acknowledged as his.

It’s in the town of Silwan, just across the Kidron Valley from ancient Jerusalem. In 1870, French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau caught wind of it and paid the place a visit. it was occupied!—long ago turned into a private dwelling in the densely packed town! Today, it’s even more densely packed. It’s mostly working-class Palestinian families living in a crowded urban neighborhood of East Jerusalem—concrete houses, narrow streets, kids playing football, satellite dishes, the usual city-suburb mix.

There is no word on whether the current resident experienced the curse warned about. Maybe that terrible experience commenced with the visit of the archeologist himself. He knocked on the fellows door, or rang the doorbell, or something, and talked him into letting him chisel out the inscription, so he could spirit it off to the British Museum, where it rests today.

Roving archaeologists are always pestering me, too. They are incessantly ringing my doorbell—or at least you never know when they may start—to abscond with my “Home Sweet Home” banner just over the support beams, or if not that, then the welcome mat that says “Don’t Bug Me.” Here I’ll be tilting back in my easy chair watching TV, when someone pounds on the door. Another archeologist! I am inclined to tell him to take a hike. He doesn’t have to know everything. But it is an archeologist, after all, from the university, and I don’t want to appear disdainful of education. I say, “Don’t I know you from the archeologists’ party?” He replies: “Who are you to blow against the wind?” I let him in and he and his cohorts strips the house bare. 

It’s not such a rare thing as it might at first seem, for people to build and live over, around, or even inside the tombs. It is known as a “necropolis,” a city build among the dead. It has happened in far more modern times than Shebna’s. Colonial Cemetery, for example, in Savannah, Georgia, might, at first glance, seem one of the many town squares that dot the city, though a much enlarged one, but it is not counted as one. It has not even been a complete cemetery since Civil War times, because the Union soldiers camping out one cold overnight took to burrowing into the tombs for warmth and threw all the remains outside. The city has been the setting for many battles through the years as to be described a necropolis. Our tour guide told us of one church in which the preacher preached long to the Confederate troops, and then the following Sunday, the very same sermon to the Union troops who had killed off the Confederate ones during the intervening week.

So it is with Silwan. There’s about fifty tombs in the area. It’s choice property. Those dead were placed there centuries ago. Might as well recondition the place for more modern use. They don’t all make for homes, and when they do, they might just be a section of the home, or the modern home might sit atop the ancient structure. Maybe it serves as the garage or basement or pool room. But some old tombs would serve as livestock enclosures, water cisterns, storage spaces, or even sewage dumps. (The latter would have been the ultimate put-down of Shebna, but his foretold abasement was not to that degree).

Clermont-Ganneau had it easy. These days, homeowners are more likely to chase archaeologists away with pitchforks. They’ll zero in on some ancient rock-cut tomb currently embedded in or under modern houses. they may be completely inside private properties, with deeds going back generations. Let them in and you may find yourself ensnared in property claims, eviction risks, or ideological disputes. You never know when politics might be involved, where nobody trusts anybody, and what you buy as “research” is actually some resettlement scam. It’s almost like picking up your phone today for an unknown caller. Horrible things can happen. Who would do such a thing?

They come in with their hi-fullutin’ super educated ways and make your life a living hell. There have been digs so undermining foundations or triggering structural damage as to render homes unsafe or uninhabitable—say, when they conduct excavations just three or four meters under the structure, so that families have no choice but to leave. File damage claims filed in court and it might be honored, but other times you might be told that you should just suck it up for science. They all but claim squatters rights on your house, throwing wild, archaeological parties and chipping away at your infrastructure in the process, college-kid interns peeing in the corners of your basement. It is easier not the let them get a toehold in the first place. They are usually turned away.

Thus, Shebna’s friend Bob has a tomb that remains unexcavated to this day. Following his mentor, only one step better, he too was raiding the public till. This fellow is unmentioned in the Bible record, unmentioned anywhere, in fact. It’s only I that I know of him. But he too, was planning for the high death with his own blinged-out rock-cut condo. He too earned a rebuke, but not before he had finished his tomb. There is an Archie Bunker type who lives in it now. Every time archaeologists come calling, he chases them away with a shotgun.

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When your enemy pops off, don’t jump for joy. His replacement may be worse. That’s the message for Philistia after Ahaz dies:

In the year that King Ahaz died, this pronouncement was made: “Do not rejoice, Philistia, any of you, Just because the staff of the one striking you has been broken.  For from the root of the serpent will come a poisonous snake, And its offspring will be a flying fiery snake.” (Isaiah 14:28-29)

You can call Philistia the house villain of the Israelites. Enemies come and enemies go, but Philistia is a constant. They are the ones who captured the Ark and so Jehovah struck them with piles (hemorrhoids!) to persuade them to give it back. Only they couldn’t just hand it over. Since they loved to make idols, they had to forge golden images of those piles. You have to admit, that’s a pretty deft touch if the goal is to humiliate those who think deliverance lies in idols.

They are also the ones on whom blinded Samson brought the house down, stationed between two major support pillars. David, at a time of lessened tensions, felt obliged to disguise his sanity among the Philistines, so that their king would later mutter to his advisors: “Here you see a man behaving crazy. Why should you bring him to me?  Am I in need of people driven crazy, so that you have brought this one to behave crazy by me?” An excellent point. Not too different from when two of us were out in the ministry and the weather very abruptly shifted and a woman answered the door and said, “Are you crazy?” “You know, she raises a pretty good point,” I said to my companion.

So, it’s just constant trouble between the Israelites and the Philistines. They’re the ones who sent huge Goliath to taunt Israel. I knew they were the perennial villains even before I took up Bible study with the Witnesses. They came in from the West, from Crete across the Mediterranean Sea, before the Israelites began settling in Canaan from the other direction. Jehovah had his people leaving Egypt steer clear of them initially: He “did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although it was near. For God said: ‘The people may change their minds when they are confronted by war and will return to Egypt.’ So God made the people go around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.” (Exodus 13:17-18)

Now, back to: “For from the root of the serpent will come a poisonous snake, And its offspring will be a flying fiery snake.” (14:28-29) If they thought Ahaz was bad, he would be a creampuff next to his successor, Hezekiah. The first, divided in his loyalties between Assyria and Jehovah, would be an ineffectual force against them. The latter, standing in the face of Assyria and steadfast toward Jehovah, would not be. Then there would be the Assyrians themselves who would devastate Philistia. Maybe that works better with the “poisonous” and “flying fiery snake” comparison.

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