MIDWESTERN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

Vol. 12 Spring 2013 No. 1

CONTENTS
Editorial iv

Articles

THEME: SIZEMORE LECTURES (27-28 Nov 2012)

SIZEMORE LECTURE I: Isaiah and Social Justice

PETER J. GENRY 1-16

SIZEMORE LECTURE II: “No One Holy

Like the Lord”
PETER J. GENRY 17-38

Contextualization in Missions: The Limits of

Christian Liberty
ROBIN DALE HADAWAY 39-55

The State of Islamic Textual Criticism

KIRK R. MACGREGOR 56-73

Seeing the Father in the Face of the Son

JERRY SUTTON 74-90

“The Honour of the Spirit’s Work”: Andrew Fuller,

Dan Taylor, and an Eighteenth-century Baptist
Debate over Regeneration
MICHAEL A. G. HAYKIN 91-103

6 Things Christians Should Just Keep On Saying

RONALD V. HUGGINS 104-15
Winston Churchill: Some Agnostic! Some Atheist!
JERRY A. JOHNSON 116-30

BOOK REVIEWS

Daniel K. Finn, ed. The Moral Dynamics of Economic

Life: An Extension and Critique of
Caritas in Veritate.
(Reviewed by Matthew Arbo) 131-32
 ii
Gareth L. Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews.
(Reviewed by Todd R. Chipman) 132-35

Leroy Huizenga, The New Isaac: Tradition and

Intertextuality in the Gospel of Matthew.
(Reviewed by Samuel Emadi) 135-37

Peter J. Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of

Reading Scripture.
(Reviewed by Samuel Emadi) 138-40

Dean B. Deppe All Roads Lead to the Text:

Eight Methods of Inquiry into the Bible.
(Reviewed by Russell L. Meek) 140-43
iii
 iv

EDITORIAL:

Welcome to the Spring 2013 Midwestern Journal of Theology. This is

the first issue to appear under our new Seminary President, Dr. Jason K.
Allen. This issue features the published versions of our annual Sizemore
Lectures, which were delivered in the Midwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary Chapel on November 27-28, 2012, by Dr. Peter Gentry, Pro-
fessor of Old Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary. Dr. Gentry’s first lecture brings a timely message on Isaiah
and Social Justice. His second discusses the concept of holiness in the
Book of Isaiah. Dr. Gentry did a third lecture as well delving into ques-
tions of the Septuagint and Textual Criticism, which we look forward to
publishing in a future issue.
Next on the agenda is Midwestern’s own Professor of Missions, Dr.
Robin Hadaway, exploring the sometimes complicated issue of exercis-
ing Christian Liberty on the mission field. Dr. Hadaway’s article draws
upon his extensive experience of communicating the gospel in Islamic
contexts. Continuing with the theme of Islam, Dr. Kirk MacGregor con-
tributes a very interesting article on the current state of Islamic textual
criticism.
Next, Midwestern’s Academic Dean, Dr. Jerry Sutton, takes us
through the Gospels on the subject of what we can learn about the love of
the Father by looking into the face of the Son.
Following Dr. Sutton’s contribution we have Michael A. G. Haykin,
Professor of Church History & Biblical Spirituality and Director of the
Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary investigating the eighteenth-century Baptist debate over regen-
eration. Dr. Haykin’s study features especially the interaction between
the moderate Calvinist Andrew Fuller and his Arminian Baptist counter-
part, Dan Taylor.
The managing editor contributes next a small piece on six things
Biblical Christians must continue to stress even though the broader cul-
ture keeps on telling them they would be better received if they did not.
Finally, Dr. Jerry A. Johnson, President of Criswell College, ex-
plores how Churchill biographer Paul Reid’s personal bias against reli-
gion causes him to badly misrepresent Winston Churchill’s views on the
subject.
As usual we conclude with several relevant book reviews.

Good Reading!
 Midwestern Journal of Theology 12.1 (2013): 1-16

SIZEMORE LECTURES I:
Isaiah and Social Justice

PETER J. GENTRY
Professor of Old Testament Interpretation
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, KY
[email protected]

Reading and studying the Bible may not be so straightforward for

readers with a modern and western background in culture and language.
The biblical texts in origin are ancient and eastern: they come from a
different culture and a different time.
The normal pattern in Hebrew literature is to consider topics in a re-
cursive manner. This approach seems monotonous and repetitive to those
who do not know and understand how these texts communicate. Nor-
mally a Hebrew author begins a discourse on a particular topic, develops
it from a particular perspective and ends, shutting down that conversa-
tion. Next he begins another conversation, taking up the same topic
again from a different point of view. When these two conversations or
discourses on the same topic are heard in succession, they are like the left
and right speakers of a stereo system. Do the speakers of a stereo system
give the same music or do they give different music? The answer is both
different and the same. In one sense the music from the left speaker is
identical to that of the right, yet in another way it is slightly different, so
that the effect is stereo instead of just one dimensional. Just so, in He-
brew literature, the ideas being discussed can be experienced like 3D
IMAX photography with Dolby Surround Sound, or like considering
holographic ideas.
This pattern in Hebrew literature functions both on the macro as well
as on the micro level. Individual sentences are placed back to back like
left and right speakers. Also paragraphs and even larger sections of texts
are treated the same way. If a speaker or writer has several topics in mind
2 Midwestern Journal of Theology
and plans to treat each one at least twice, then one can arrange them in
what is called a chiastic fashion. For example, if I have topics A and B,
and I will present each one twice, I have A and A', B and B'. However
instead of using the order A B A' B', I can present them in the order A B
B' A'. In this way the two topics are arranged so that the second para-
graph is a mirror image of the first. This is called a chiastic pattern be-
cause when one looks at the Greek letter chi (χ), the bottom half is a per-
fect mirror image of the top half. A nice example is in Isaiah 6 where
Yahweh explains to Isaiah what will happen during his long ministry of
preaching:

Make the heart of this people dull,

and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed. (Isa. 6:10, ESV)

In the first half we have the order heart, ears, and eyes; in the second
half we have the order eyes, ears, and heart: A B C :: C' B' A'. In just a
moment we will see how important it is to grasp these literary patterns in
the Hebrew Bible.
Few scholars today treat the book of Isaiah as a literary unity. Meth-
ods of studying the text are heavily influenced by the rationalism of the
Enlightenment Period and focus on modern and western literary ap-
proaches instead of ancient and eastern methods of literary analysis. As a
result, most of the commentaries are focused on grammatical and lexical
details of individual words and phrases with the result that no larger pic-
ture of the whole book emerges from their labors.
In my approach to the text I have asked the question, “What were the
Hebrews’ own methods and rules for telling stories? And how did the
authors of that culture and time construct their works?” Based on this
approach, it is possible to discern a central theme for the book of Isaiah
as a whole and to divide the book into seven separate sections where
Isaiah goes around the same topic like a kaleidoscope, looking at it from
different perspectives.
Barry Webb is one scholar who has taken the unity of Isaiah serious-
ly and has argued persuasively that the book as a whole centers around
the theme of corruption and social injustice in the City of Zion in the 8th
century B.C. leading to divine judgment, and a vision of a future re-
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 3
1
newed Zion. Chapter 1 details the idolatrous worldview gripping Jerusa-
lem and the corruption in society resulting from it. The covenant made
between God and Israel at Sinai and Moab describes curses and judge-
ment for the covenant violation on the part of the people. After the
judgement, however, God will remake, renew, restore, and transform
Zion and Chapter 2 envisions this future Zion as a mountain dwarfing all
others to which all the nations will stream to receive instruction (tôrâ)
from Yahweh on behavior and lifestyle. Then in Chapters 3 and 4 Isaiah
goes around the same topic again, indicting Jerusalem for social injustice
and ending with a glorious vision of the future Zion. He depicts the road
from judgment to a future City of Zion characterized by righteousness in
the language of a New Exodus. Just as God brought his people out of
bondage in Egypt after 430 years, so he will bring them out of their slav-
ery to sin and chronic covenant infidelity into a new covenant communi-
ty and creation. This New Exodus will be bigger and better than the first.
The next section runs from Chapter 5 to 12 and begins to develop the
same themes a third time in the context of a military and political crisis
in Judah. Assyria, the sleeping giant, had awakened and was expanding
west towards Syria and then south into Palestine. The countries of Syria
with its capital in Damascus and the Northern Kingdom of Israel with its
capital in Samaria were putting pressure on the little Kingdom of Judah
in the South to join them in an anti-Assyrian coalition. The plan of King
Ahaz of Judah was to become a vassal or client-king of Tiglath Pileser
III of Assyria (called Pul in the Bible) and appeal to Assyria to fend off
his Israelite and Aramaean enemies to the North. This section also ends
by focusing on a future Messiah—a coming King—and the New Exodus,
giving us a glorious vision of the new world and his rule there.
As we might expect, this third section—chapters 5–12—begins by
developing further the accusations of the loss of social justice. We might
also expect that by this time Isaiah’s audience would have had enough of
his message. So this time, in order to make sure his audience participates,
Isaiah presents his message in the form of a parable. The approach to his
audience is similar to how Nathan the prophet approached King David
when the Lord sent him to the King to confront him about his adultery
with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah. There too, Nathan
used a parable to get audience participation from the king and have Da-
vid condemn himself with his own righteous anger.

1
Barry G. Webb, “Zion in Transformation: A Literary Approach to Isaiah.”
In The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Bib-
lical Studies in the University of Sheffield edited by D. J. A. Clines, Stephen E.
Fowl, and Stanley E. Porter, 65-84 (JSOT Supplement Series 87. Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1990).
4 Midwestern Journal of Theology
As we focus our attention on chapter 5, it is extremely important to
observe the literary structure. Here we want to ask the question: what is
the form in which this message is given to us? What is the shape of the
text? This question is as important as the music that is composed to go
along with the lyrics. Lyrics alone do not convey the entire message; the
message is also conveyed by the music that is written for the lyrics.

Outline of Isaiah 5:1-30

I. Song of the Vineyard 5:1-7

A. A Story of a Vineyard and Its Fruit 1-2

B. The Listeners Asked for a Verdict 3-4

C. The Decision of the Owner 5-6

D. The Application to Judah 7

II. Bad Grapes: Indictment of God’s People 5:8-24

A. Round # 1 (5:8-17)

1. Woe: Land-Grabbing (8-10)

2. Woe: Partying and Revelry (11-12)

a. Therefore # 1 (13)

b. Therefore # 2 (14-17)

B. Round # 2 (5:18-24)

3. Woe: Mocking Divine Justice (18-19)

4. Woe: Inverting God’s Standards (20)

5. Woe: Self-Approved Wisdom (21)

6. Woe: Partying and Inverting Social Justice (22-23)

a. Therefore # 3 (24)
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 5
III. The Vineyard Ravaged: Announcement of Punishment (5:25-30)

A. The Final Therefore (5:25)

Chapter five is divided into three sections. The first is a parable or

song about a vineyard in verses 1 – 7. The second section goes from
verses 8 – 24 and applies the parable to the people of Judah and Jerusa-
lem in Isaiah’s time. The last section describes the coming judgment:
God will bring a distant nation to conquer and destroy them and their
way of life.
The Song of the Vineyard in the opening section can be briefly
summarised. The parable is divided into four stanzas. The first stanza
relates in song a story of a farmer preparing a vineyard and expecting
good vintage. Instead, he is met by rotten, stunted grapes.2 In the second
stanza, the listeners are asked for a verdict. The third part confirms the
rhetorical question posed in the second stanza by relating the decision of
the owner of the vineyard. He will do exactly as the listeners expect him
to do: he will destroy this useless fruit orchard. Then comes the punch
line of the parable and what a great shock it is. The parable is applied to
Judah and Jerusalem in the last stanza: they are the bad grapes!
Verses 8 – 24, which I have entitled “Bad Grapes,” constitute a
damning indictment of the people of God. A series of six woes detail and
specify the bad grapes indicated in verses 2 and 4 of the parable. The
literary structure is the clue to the meaning of the text. The key words are
‘woe’ and ‘therefore’. ‘Woe’ is a key word used to describe and identify
the sins for which the people will be punished. ‘Therefore’ is a key word
used to detail the divine punishment for these specific sins. The punish-
ment is based squarely upon retributive justice since this is the main
principle of the Torah. Notice, however, how these woes are presented.
First there are two ‘woes’ in v. 8 and v. 11 which are followed by two
‘therefores’ in verses 13 and 14. Then there are a series of four more
‘woes’ in verses 18, 20, 21, and 22 given in staccato fashion like rapid
gun shots. This is followed by another ‘therefore’ in v. 24. The word
therefore divides the woes into two groups: here Isaiah in typical Hebrew
literary style is going around the topic twice from two different angles or
points of view.

2
Nogah Hareuveni explains beushim (bad grapes) as a specific stage of de-
velopment in the growth of the grapes when they cease being embryonic but
have not yet ripened. A disease called zoteret strikes vineyards and prevents
grapes from ripening, leaving them in the stunted stage of beushim. This expla-
nation is from Mishna Ma’asrot 1.2 and the Jerusalem Talmud. See N.
Hareuveni, Tree and Shrub in our Biblical Heritage, 70-73.
6 Midwestern Journal of Theology
The section indicting the people of God is then followed by an an-
nouncement of imminent punishment. This last paragraph is introduced
by a conjunction which also means ‘therefore’, but the word in Hebrew
is different because this is the big “therefore” (‫ )עַל־כֵּן‬which takes up the
three little “therefores” (‫ ) ָלכֵּן‬in the previous verses (13, 14, 24).
Consequently the six woes are divided into two groups: two in the
first group and four in the second. At the heart of all of them is the viola-
tion of social justice as is indicated by the last line of verse 7—the punch
line of the parable—where we have the word pair justice and right-
eousness.
Now according to the Hebrew poetry—which is based upon placing
lines in parallel pairs—justice is matched in the first line by righteous-
ness in the second. Normally in prose when the words justice and right-
eousness are coordinated, they form a single concept or idea: best ex-
pressed in English by the term social justice. This is a figure of speech
known as a hendiadys, one concept expressed through two words. The
word-pair becomes an idiom expressing a single thought that is both dif-
ferent and greater than just putting the two words together. Just as one
cannot analyse ‘butterfly’ in English by studying ‘butter’ and ‘fly’, so
one cannot determine the meaning of this expression by analysing ‘jus-
tice’ and righteousness’ separately. Hebrew poetry, however, allows such
a word-pair to be split so that half is in one line of the couplet and half in
the parallel line. The word pair justice and righteousness is central to the
discourse of Isaiah and occurs some eighteen times, always at key points
in the discourse.3
Just like the bible scholars and religious leaders who came to Jesus
and asked him “which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” so al-
ready in the Old Testament, many years earlier, as Isaiah and the other
prophets sought to apply the covenant with Moses and Israel to their
situation and times, they found new ways to condense and summarise in
a single sentence or even phrase the apparently unwieldy mass of com-
mands and instructions in the Torah.4 Even the Ten Words / Command-
ments upon which some six hundred or so instructions are based could be

3
Some 18 or 19 instances of the word-pair ‘justice–righteousness’, fre-
quently split over poetic parallelism, occur in Isaiah: 1:21, 1:27, 5:07, 5:16,
9:06(7), 11:04, 16:05, 26:09, 28:17, 32:01, 32:16, 33:05, 51:05, 56:01,
58:02(2x), 59:04, 59:09, 59:14. In 11:04, 51:05 and 59:04, verbal forms of the
root šāphat are employed instead of the noun mišpāṭ; the instance in 51:05 is not
listed in the rather exhaustive and excellent study of Leclerc although it appears
as valid as the instance in 11:04. See Thomas L. Leclerc, Yahweh is Exalted in
Justice: Solidarity and Conflict in Isaiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), esp. pp.
10-13, 88, 157.
4
See Matthew 22:36–40.
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 7
further condensed and summarised. An example is the famous passage in
Micah 6:8, “what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
The heart of Isaiah’s message is that the covenant between God and
Israel given by Moses at Sinai is broken. He summarises this covenant,
consisting of the Ten Commandments and the Judgments in Exodus 20-
23, using expressions or idioms for social justice and faithful loyal love,
or being truthful in love. This can be described and illustrated from
Isaiah’s prophecy in 16:5:

In love a throne will be established;

in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
one from the house of David—
one who in judging seeks justice
and speeds the cause of righteousness. (NIV)

In contrast to the regime of the kings of Isaiah’s time, a future king is

promised who will rule in justice and righteousness. Again, like verse 7
of chapter 5, we have the word-pair split so that half is in one line of the
couplet and half in the parallel line. Similarly, in the first half of the
verse, we have ‘love’ (ḥesed) in the first half of the couplet and ‘faithful-
ness’ (ʼĕmet) in the second half. This is another word-pair which is fo-
cused on fulfilling one’s obligations and doing what is right in a cove-
nant relationship (such as marriage).
Now, Isaiah’s promise of a future king in 16:5 is based upon Deuter-
onomy 17. Verses 16–20 of Deuteronomy 17 describe the manner in
which the future king of Israel is to fulfill his responsibilities. Three neg-
ative commands in verses 16 – 17 are followed by three positive com-
mands in verses 18 – 20—all relating to Torah: (1) the king shall copy
the Torah; (2) the king shall have the Torah with him; and (3) the king
shall read the Torah.5 In other words, the only positive requirement is
that the king embodies Torah as a model citizen. This is exactly what
Isaiah is saying in 16:5, only he employs the concept “social justice,”
expressed by the broken word pair “justice-righteousness” as a summary
for the Torah. Deuteronomy calls for a king who implements the Torah

5
I am indebted to Daniel I. Block for the privilege of consulting a prelimi-
nary version of his new commentary, Deuteronomy, NIV Application Commen-
tary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012). Part of his research is available in
Daniel I. Block, “The Burden of Leadership: The Mosaic Paradigm of Kingship
(Deut. 17:14–20),” in How I Love Your Torah, O LORD! Studies in the Book of
Deuteronomy (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), 118–139 (originally published in
Bibliotheca Sacra 162 [2005]: 259–278).
8 Midwestern Journal of Theology
in his regime, and Isaiah predicts a king who will deliver social justice in
his rule. They are saying the same thing.
We should note in passing that the word Torah is poorly translated
by the English word ‘law’. Many Christians think of Torah mainly as
Law, i.e. the Law of Moses. Two important facts should shape our think-
ing about Torah: first, the Hebrew word tôrâ means ‘direction’ or ‘in-
struction’, not law; second, these ‘instructions’ are given in the form of a
covenant, not a law treatise. The Torah, then, is unlike any law code in
the ancient Near East. It is a set of directions for living in the context and
framework of a covenant relationship. The Torah is God instructing his
children as a father in a family or as a husband in a marriage relation-
ship—a relationship of faithfulness, loyalty, love, trust, and obedience. It
is not a code of laws or requirements that are imposed generally upon
human society by an impersonal authority. Here I use the word ‘instruc-
tion’ and ‘Torah’ interchangeably to try and keep these truths in focus.
The meaning of the word pair “justice-righteousness” both as an ex-
pression for social justice and as a summary of the instruction in the cov-
enant is clearly illustrated, in particular in chapter 5, in the series of six
woes divided into two separate conversations or groups. In verse 7, the
word pair “justice-righteousness” broken or split over parallel lines is not
only the punch-line for the parable, it is also the headline for the next
section, showing that the violation of social justice is at the heart of all
six woes. In the first woe the prophet thunders about land-grabbing:
“Woe to those who add house to house and field to field” (5:8). The se-
cond woe (5:11) condemns the partying of the nouveaux riches, because
the money for these parties came from mistreating the poor and vulnera-
ble. The final four woes are all ways of elaborating the original charge of
perverting social justice. The last woe is the climax and summarizes by
combining the two original charges of gaining wealth by social injustice
and living a life of pleasure to spend that wealth. Between the two groups
of woes Isaiah announces punishments based upon the retributive justice
of the covenant / Torah.
In the first round, as we have seen, the woe of v. 8 has to do with
greedy grabbing of land while the woe of v. 11 has to do with partying
and revelry. Partying and revelry occupied the leisure time of the rich
and resulted from the wealth generated by mistreating the poor and vul-
nerable.
In the second round, the last four woes are actually a repetition of the
first two in recursive development of the topic. The third woe talks about
the upper classes carrying a burden of sin bound by big ropes of deceit
and mocking God by calling upon him to hurry up with the judgment
which he has promised. The fourth woe shows that the system of virtue
and vice, of right and wrong, is completely inverted in this society. The
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 9
fifth woe accuses the people of depending on self-approved knowledge
and skill. They are confidant in and relying on their technology and mas-
tery of the powers of nature. I remember well when we first heard of
AIDS around 1979. In the early 1980s, the attitude in North America
was, just give us enough time and a better technology and we will beat
this—an example of relying on our own technology.
The woes, then, are all ways of elaborating the original charge of
perverting social justice. The last woe is the climax and summarizes by
combining the two original charges of gaining wealth by social injustice
and living a life of pleasure to spend that wealth. In this way the last four
woes elaborate the original two indictments. These indictments and the
punishments that result are based entirely upon the retributive justice of
the Torah, the Covenant made at Sinai. The penalty always matches ex-
actly the crime. The wrong-doer must repay as much as but no more than
the wrong done.
The economic and social situation addressed by Isaiah in Chapter 5
signals the breakdown of conventions governing ownership of property. 6
Prior to the monarchic period, Israelite economy was based on farming
and shepherding. Property was inherited and preserved within clans—a
kin group between the extended family and the tribe. Diverse instructions
in the Mosaic Covenant were given to preserve economic equilibrium in
ownership of property and protect the poor and powerless, e.g. laws con-
cerning boundary markers,7 the inheritance rights of females,8 levirate
marriage,9 gō’ēl responsibilities,10 and jubilee / sabbatical years.11 Two
factors brought changes to this social system: monarchy and urbaniza-
tion. With the advent of kingship, land could be acquired by the crown:
sometimes corruptly as in the case of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21)
and sometimes legally through the confiscation of the estates of criminals
and traitors. Thus, a family inheritance could be enlarged by a royal
grant. Samuel warned about this in 1 Sam 8:14-15. Recipients of such
royal largesse would live in the capital city and eat every day at the
king’s table, all the while enjoying the revenue of their amassed hold-
ings. In this way, important nobles and officials, especially those who in-

6
This description of the background to the social situation in Isaiah 5 is
adapted from and based upon Thomas L. Leclerc, Yahweh is Exalted in Justice:
Solidarity and Conflict in Isaiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 59-60, who
brings together many seminal studies on the topic.
7
Deut. 19:14, 27:17.
8
Num. 26:33, 27:1-11, 36:1-13.
9
Deut. 25:5-10, Ruth 4:5, 10.
10
Redemption of property (Lev. 25:23-28), of persons (25:47-55), of blood
(Num. 35), levirate marriage (Ruth 4:5, 10) by the nearest relative.
11
Leviticus 25.
10 Midwestern Journal of Theology
gratiated themselves to the king and his henchmen, were in a position to
acquire by legal and illegal means the property of those vulnerable to
oppression.
On the other hand, the development and growth of cities created new
ties between peasant farmers and a new class of merchants who usually
lived in the towns and influenced public affairs. When a farmer suffered
economic setbacks from crop failure due to drought or locusts, for exam-
ple, he would turn to a merchant or moneylender in town. He would ei-
ther be charged interest for a loan or be forced to cultivate land belong-
ing to others on a share-cropping or tenant basis. We have documents
from the Jewish community in Elephantine (Aswan), Egypt from the
fifth-century B.C. that mention Jews who had to pay interest rates of 5
percent per month. When unpaid interest is added to the capital, the aver-
age annual rate is sixty percent.12
As agricultural plots become the property of a single owner (perhaps
an absentee landlord who is a city dweller), as peasants become inden-
tured serfs or even slaves, and as their goods and services are received as
payments on loans, the gap between the rich and poor widens. Since land
ownership translates into economic and political power, issues of proper-
ty rights and taxes, as well as laws concerning bankruptcy, foreclosures
and loans, fall into the hands of the rich, thus aiding and abetting a gap in
power as well.
The situation which Isaiah condemns is graphically portrayed: large
estates amassed by adding field to field on which sit “large and beautiful
homes” (5:9b). The acquisition of land comes as debts are foreclosed and
the property is expropriated. Since all of this is done according to the
laws of the marketplace and by statute, it is all strictly legal—but utterly
immoral and violates the social justice of the Torah. This is a powerful
demonstration of the parable of the vineyard at work: everything looks
legal and proper on the outside, but on closer inspection shows that the
grapes are rotten, stinking and stunted. The image of a landowner dwell-
ing all alone in the midst of the country is a picture of great horror. While
American society idolizes and praises rugged individualism, ancient Is-
rael valued the community over the individual. The interests of the group
were more important than those of a single individual, no matter how
clever or skilled and talented the entrepreneur. It is difficult, therefore,
for us to feel the horror of ending up as a society of one.
And so the rich and luxuriant lifestyle of the upper class grows even
as the poor get poorer. The punishment therefore fits the crime: the fine
homes will become desolate and uninhabited (5:9), and the fields so rav-

12
If one considers compounded (or unpaid) interest, the rate would be high-
er.
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 11
enously acquired will be blighted (5:10). The same retribution is ex-
pressed in v. 17 when the prophet goes round the topic a second time.
The second woe describes the lifestyle of the growing upper class.
The accumulated wealth frees the gentry, landowners, from the necessity
of working and allows them to enjoy a carefree and self-indulgent life.
After the property and fine homes, the most conspicuous sign of this de-
tached and carefree life is feasting and drinking—drinking literally from
morning to night—is twice decried (5:11, 22). Their fine feasts are ac-
companied by small orchestras—lyre and lute, tambourine and flute.
Again, the punishment is directly matched to the offense. V. 13 says,
“their nobility are poor wretches famished with hunger and their multi-
tude are parched with thirst.”
The chapter ends without a shred of hope. In the last paragraph, God
whistles to summon a distant nation who then brings a war machine
across the desert that is so disciplined and powerful that there will be no
escape. It reminds one of the troops of Sauron at the Gates of Mordor in
Lord of the Rings.
The literary structure is key to correct interpretation. The last four
woes and following ‘therefore’ are an expansion upon the first two woes
and the two climactic ‘therefores’ that follow them. The literary struc-
ture, then, shows that vv. 15-16 are both climactic and central as sum-
maries of the condition of Israel and her situation before God:

So humanity is humbled and mankind is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty will be brought low,
but the Lord of Hosts is exalted in justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.13

Although the elite in Israel are enjoying the high life, they will be
brought low and brought to recognize one who is truly exalted and high:
Yahweh of Armies. He is exalted because he shows himself holy in jus-
tice and righteousness. The word-pair for social justice split over parallel
lines is found once more at this crucial juncture in the text, just as it was
found in v. 7, the punch-line of the parable.
What does it mean for God to show himself holy in justice and right-
eousness? This is the topic for Part II and so we end on a cliff-hanger.
Nonetheless, we need to apply this teaching on social justice. There
is a debate among Christians today about how the message of social jus-
tice relates to the gospel. Is social justice at the heart of the gospel mes-
sage or is it related to it in some secondary way?

13
Translation that of H. G. M. Williamson, A Critical and Exegetical Com-
mentary on Isaiah 1-27 (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 1:356-357.
12 Midwestern Journal of Theology
Three important perspectives will give us balance in our thinking on
this topic. First, I am using the term social justice in a different way from
the way it is commonly used in America. A renowned professor of Ethics
wrote an article recently published in Time Magazine.14 He described
how divided America has become and how this is especially seen in the
recent election (2012). Americans are divided on how they define ‘fair’
and ‘just’. For some Americans, ‘fair’ means proportionality, which
means that people are getting benefits in proportion to their contribu-
tions. For others fairness means equality: everyone gets the same. The
third major definition of fairness is procedural fairness, which means that
honest, open and impartial rules are used to determine who gets what.
People and politicians in America, then, use the term social justice today
in a wide variety of ways.
What we can see in the Bible, and in particular in Isaiah, is that God
is bound to the nation of Israel by a covenant relationship. This covenant,
made at Sinai, shows the people how to have a right relationship to God,
how to treat each other in genuinely human ways, and how to be good
stewards of the earth’s resources.15 Social justice is a term used by Isaiah
and other prophets as a way of summarizing all the diverse instructions
in the covenant. So here, the term social justice is defined by the detailed
instructions in the covenant for treating other people in a genuinely hu-
man way.
Israel was a nation in covenant relationship with God and governed
directly by God through her king, her prophets and her priests. America
is not a Christian state in any sense of the word. This text in Isaiah does
not apply directly to our state or our nation; it applies directly, first and
foremost to the Church as the people of God. As we consider the heritage
of America, however, we would hope for social justice in our country.
Nonetheless, there are signs of the same corruption in our society even in
Louisville.16 Recently I visited jails, the Main Jail in the City of Louis-
ville and the Luther Luckett Correctional Facility out in La Grange. The
room for visitors to the downtown jail holds about forty chairs. The day I
was there I counted four men and the rest were women and children. All
but one or two were from the lowest class of society. Is this because the
rich in Louisville are not guilty of the same offenses? Hardly! One of-

14
Jonathan Haidt, “Romney, Obama and the New Culture War over Fair-
ness,” Time Magazine October 8, 2012.
15
See Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant:
A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton: Crossway,
2012), passim.
16
I can only speak knowledgeably about the city where I live.
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 13
17
fense is drunk driving. Surely, if a person drives a car under the influ-
ence of alcohol, this is tantamount to murder. One is almost certain to
have an accident which results in the deaths of innocent people. Yet if a
person gets a DUI in Louisville and they are wealthy or well-connected,
they may have their license taken away for thirty days and a fine of
$100.00. Yet if they are from the lower classes, or have no connections
with powerful lawyers, they may have their license suspended for up to a
year and pay a fine of $700.00. Are we really implementing justice or are
we using laws to oppress the powerless? Another example is when our
businesses target young people for credit cards and educational loans.
Then we develop laws on interest payments, credit ratings, bankruptcy
and foreclosure that enslave them. Mortgage rates are dropping again.
Yet even at 5% a person who borrows $115,000.00 will end up paying
$250,000.00 over a period of 30 years. Is it really the right of one indi-
vidual to treat others in the society this way? Finally, an example from
the health industry. Recently I had back problems while residing in Ger-
many. I had to pay up front for an MRI and the cost was $950.00 (US
Dollars). A year later, I had another MRI done in Louisville. The cost
was $3,500.00 but the Explanation of Benefits Statement showed that in
the end, the medical people only received $950.00 from the insurance
company. This means that the medical people know that they will be
docked by the insurance people and charge accordingly so they will end
up with the cost of their labors. Fair enough! But this penalizes the poor
in society who have to pay $3,500.00 for the procedure.
Second, social justice is also at the heart of the new covenant. We
can say that Christians are people who are bound to God by faith in Jesus
Christ, whose death and resurrection have inaugurated a new covenant.
Those bound to God by faith in Jesus Christ belong to the new covenant
community. Our relationship to God is not based on the Old Covenant
made at Sinai, but rather on the New Covenant made at the cross. None-
theless, the righteousness of God has not changed. Loving God and lov-
ing our neighbour as ourselves has been replaced by loving Jesus and
loving others, those in the new covenant community and those outside in
the world in general. Earlier we saw from Isaiah 16:5 that the prophets
attempted to express this in a single sound bite. One expression was “jus-
tice and righteousness” and another was “faithfulness and love.” In the
book titled Kingdom Through Covenant by myself and S. J. Wellum
there is an entire chapter on Ephesians 4:15 where I show that when Paul
calls believers in Jesus Christ to act truthfully in love or speak the truth

17
In 2010, about 75 people were killed on the highways of the city of To-
ronto and 1000 in the entire state of Kentucky. There are also more people in
Toronto than in the entire state of Kentucky. A high percentage of deaths on the
road in Kentucky are due to drunk driving.
14 Midwestern Journal of Theology
in love, he is showing that social justice is at the centre, the heart of the
new covenant just as it was in the Old.18

The claim that social justice sums up the requirements of the stipula-
tions for the new creation / new covenant community must be considered
in context. These instructions are given to a people who are already justi-
fied and forgiven so that they may know how to live and treat each other
in a community which models for the rest of the world life in the new
creation. In Eph 1:13-14, Paul equates “the word of truth” with “the gos-
pel of your salvation.” Nonetheless, the gospel that Paul preached in-
cluded justification, daily growth in holiness both individually and in
relationships in the covenant community, and final redemption. Thus
there is no conflict between “speaking the truth” as social justice and
“the word of truth” in terms of believing the gospel and being saved. In
addition, since the character and righteousness of God expressed in the
old covenant is not different from that expressed in the new covenant—
although doubtless brought to fuller light and greater fullness in the new
covenant—there is continuity between the social justice we see in the
Old Testament and the teaching of Paul in the New.

18
Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A
Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton, IL: Crossway,
2012).
 GENTRY: Isaiah & Social Justice 15

Third, and this final point flows out of the fact that social justice is
an expression for summing up how to behave in both the Old and New
Covenant communities, social justice is at the heart of who God is. The
central statement of Isaiah Chapter 5—according to the literary struc-
ture—is verse 16:

but the Lord of Hosts is exalted in justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness

This verse is telling us that God wants social justice in the way we
treat each other because this is who he is in himself. This is possible, as
the New Testament shows, because God is a triune being—three persons
in one. How can you have social justice or faithful loyal love unless there
is more than one person?
For a long time in the western world, there has been a tendency to
treat the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as a problem rather than as en-
capsulating the heart of the Christian Gospel. A recent writer put it this
way: “It is as if one had to establish one’s Christian orthodoxy by facing
a series of mathematical and logical difficulties rather than by glorying in
the being of a God whose reality as a communion of persons is the basis
of a rational universe in which personal life may take shape.”19 Do you
see the situation? Our problems arise because we come to this teaching
with our ideas of god, human life and personality. And then we say this
teaching is illogical or puzzling. What we need to do is to start the other
way round. It is only if and when we begin with this teaching that we can
understand God and ourselves and the world in which we live. Let me
illustrate. Only the Christian God explains communication, love, and
social justice. For a moment we’ll talk about this in a human family.
How can a child understand love or social justice if the definition of this
is based entirely and totally upon the relationship of the child to the par-
ent and the parent to the child. This is a very insecure and unstable basis
for love, because the child knows that he or she may disappoint or fail
father or mother. And when that happens, the love is imperfect. If, how-
ever, love is defined in a relationship outside the child-parent relation-
ship, in the love of husband and wife, then the child knows that world of
love won’t fall apart when they disobey dad or mom. There is a secure
foundation for love because love is defined in a relationship outside of
the child-parent relationship. The same is true of our relation to God. If
faithful love or social justice depends on our relationship to God, then
this love or justice is not perfect. But faithful love and social justice is
19
Colin Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1991), 31-32.
16 Midwestern Journal of Theology
found within the being of God. Because there are personal distinctions
within God himself, the eternal love of the Father for the Son and the
Son for the Father, we have a basis for love and social justice. The Mus-
lim has 99 names for God, but love is not one of them. Only the Chris-
tian faith has a basis for love in human relationships because love is
based in God himself independently of our relation to him.

Two LXX enthusiasts: Southern’s Dr. Peter Gentry and

Midwestern’s Dr. Radu Gheorghita
 Midwestern Journal of Theology 12.1 (2013):17-38

SIZEMORE LECTURES II:

“No One Holy Like the Lord”

PETER J. GENTRY
Professor of Old Testament Interpretation
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, KY
[email protected]

“No one holy like Yahweh” is Hannah’s bold praise when God
granted her request for a child (1 Sam 2:2). Hannah’s praise is based not
only on her own experience, but also on the revelation given at the Exo-
dus. Moses’ Song at the Sea rang out, “Who is like you among the gods,
Yahweh? Who is like you—majestic in holiness!” (Exod 15:11). As we
shall see, the revelation of God as holy and the creation of a covenant
people who are holy are connected specifically with the events of the
Exodus. ‘Saint’ is, in fact, an Exodus word and indeed Paul’s use in the
New Testament is in view of the work of Jesus Christ as bringing about a
new Exodus.1
Unfortunately, the church of Jesus Christ, at least in the western
world, has not understood very well the meaning of the word holy, nor
what it means to worship a holy God. We can quickly survey our sys-
tematic theologians from the Reformation to the present time. Richard
Muller, describing the Reformed orthodox doctrine of the divine holiness
notes that:

holiness, has, moreover, two implications, both of which are

typically stated in relation or in contrast to creatures. First, it can
indicate the absolute “moral purity” of God and stand, therefore,
in relation to his justice or righteousness. … Second, “the word

1
The connection between the term “holy” and the events of the Exodus will
be explored in the calling of Moses in Exodus 3 and the calling of Israel in Exo-
dus 19.
18 Midwestern Journal of Theology
is also employed to denote God’s infinite excellence above all
that is low and created.”2

Thus holiness is roughly equivalent to ‘purity’ and ‘transcendence’.

Herman Bavinck builds on this tradition. He states, “the stem ‫קדׁש‬, relat-
ed to ‫חדׁש‬, is usually traced to the root ‫קד‬, meaning “to cut, separate.”3
He claims that the “sanctification of persons and things by the Lord oc-
curs in two ways: negatively, by choosing a people, person, place, day,
or object and setting it apart from all others; and positively, by consecrat-
ing these persons or things and causing them to live in accordance with
specific rules.”4 When applied to God, he denies that Yahweh is called
holy “because of an immediately conspicuous attribute,” but rather “in a
comprehensive sense in connection with every revelation that impresses
humans with his deity.”5
Bavinck’s derivation of the root ‫ קדׁש‬is based upon the work of W.
W. Baudissin, “Der Begriff der Heiligkeit im AT,” published in 1878.6
Baudissin influenced more than a century of ecclesiastical thought, for
recent systematic theologians continue to rely on the etymology adduced
by him.
For example, J. R. Williams in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theol-
ogy edited by Walter A. Elwell states, “Holiness then denotes the sepa-
rateness, or otherness, of God from all his creation. The Hebrew word for
holy, qādôš, in its fundamental meaning contains the note of that which
is separate or apart.”7 Millard Erickson, in his Christian Theology, states,
“the Hebrew word for ‘holy’ (‫— ָקדֹוׁש‬qadosh) means ‘marked off’ or
‘withdrawn from common, ordinary use.’ The verb from which it is de-
rived suggests ‘to cut off’ or ‘to separate.’”8 Although John Frame’s
enormous work The Doctrine of God does not really discuss the divine

2
Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and
Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. Volume 3: The Di-
vine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 499.
3
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Volume 2: God and Creation ed-
ited by John Bolt and translated by John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
2004), 217.
4
Ibid., 218.
5
Ibid., 220.
6
W. W. Baudissin, “Der Begriff der Heiligkeit im AT,” Studien zur
semitischen Religionsgeschichte, II (Leipzig: F. W. Grunow, 1878).
7
J. R. Williams, “Holiness,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology edited
by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), 515.
8
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983),
1:284.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 19
9
attributes, I had the opportunity to ask him in person when he visited
Southern Seminary a few years ago. He responded by affirming that the
basic meaning of the word was “separate.”
Not only is this etymology entirely uncertain,10 but Christian schol-
ars, whether biblical exegetes or systematic theologians, have been
warned for over half a century of the dangers of etymological approaches
to semantics. As an example, “nice” in English comes from the Latin
word nescius, meaning ignorant. Thus the history or origin of a word
may be interesting, but totally irrelevant for determining its meaning.
John S. Feinberg, in his massive work, No One Like Him, says that
the main verb qādaš “means to be holy or sanctified and to consecrate or
sanctify.”11 For the related noun qōdeš he gives “apartness,” “holiness,”
and “sacredness” as equivalents.12 He avers that Scripture offers a two-
fold picture of divine holiness: one is majesty and the other is moral puri-
ty and perfection.13 Feinberg avoids the dangers of etymologically based
lexical study, but does not substantially advance discussion beyond the
reformers, and especially the magisterial treatment of Stephen
Charnock’s The Existence and Attributes of God who devotes a hundred
pages to the holiness of God. Charnock’s focus, in sum, is also upon the
majesty and moral excellence and purity of God.14
Charles Hodge teaches that holiness “is a general term for the moral
excellence of God.”15 He explains: “to sanctify is to cleanse; to be holy is
to be clean.”16 Furthermore, God’s infinite purity is the object of rever-
ence. “Hence the Hebrew word ‫ ָקדֹוׁש‬, as used in Scripture, is often
equivalent to venerandus.”17

9
John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing,
2002).
10
McComiskey states, “The suggestion that the root qdsh is derived from an
original biliteral qd (“cut”) is attractive but tenuous…The meaning “to separate”
is favored by many scholars, but the fact that qdsh rarely, if ever, occurs in a
secular sense makes any positive conclusion in this regard difficult because of
the limited evidence on which to base philological comparison.” See T. E.
McComiskey, “‫( קָדַ ׁש‬qādash)” TWOT II:786-7.
11
John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him. Foundations of Evangelical Theolo-
gy: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 339.
12
Ibid., 340.
13
Ibid., 340-45.
14
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker, 1853, 1996), 108-208.
15
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, (3 vols.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd-
mans, 1982 [orig. 1870]), 1:413.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
20 Midwestern Journal of Theology
Rudolf Otto, in a major work entitled The Idea of the Holy opposes
the sense of moral purity. He avers, “When once it has been grasped that
qādôsh or sanctus is not originally a moral category at all, the most ob-
vious rendering of the words is ‘transcendent’ (‘supramundane’, über-
weltlich)” [italics his].18 He is right when he says holy is not a moral
category, but wrong in affirming the meaning transcendent.
As we will see from careful exegesis of scripture, neither “moral pu-
rity” nor “transcendence” are fundamental to the meaning of holy either
in Greek or in Hebrew. The best approach to semantic analysis is an ex-
haustive study of all available usage, not only for the literature in ques-
tion, but also for contemporary documents in the cultures surrounding
the original texts of the Bible. This kind of study was performed already
in 1986 by a French evangelical, Claude Bernard Costecalde.19 Coste-
calde analysed the respective terms in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Northwest
Semitic Inscriptions in addition to the usage in the Hebrew Bible. His
exhaustive research was so well recognised by scholars that he was in-
vited to contribute the article on holiness in the famous Catholic Diction-
ary known as Suppléments aux Dictionnaire de la Bible.20 Although it
was published a quarter of a century ago, this research has not penetrated
the church in North America, probably because Costecalde’s work is in
French. My own exegesis over the last twenty-five years has been greatly
stimulated by the work of Costecalde. Thus I am presenting his work as
well as my own.
The meaning of the word holy can be expounded by focusing largely
on three texts: Exodus 3, Exodus 19, and Isaiah 6.

EXODUS 3 – HOLY GROUND

Noteworthy is the passage in Exodus 3 where Moses encounters

Yahweh in the burning bush and is asked to remove his sandals because
he is standing on “holy ground.” This is the first instance in the Old Tes-
tament of the root qdš in either an adjectival or noun form. Indeed, only
one instance of the related verb is found prior to this text (Genesis 2:3),
so Exodus 3 is foundational to our thinking about the word. As Coste-
calde observes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was not called by
them a “Holy God” nor was he worshipped by them at a holy place. God
waited until he called Moses and revealed himself to him to announce to

18
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Trans. John W. Harvey (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1958), 52.
19
Claude Bernard Costecalde, Aux origines du sacré biblique (Paris :
Letouzey & Ané, 1986).
20
Claude Bernard Costecalde, “Sacré” in Dictionnaire de la Bible,
Supplément 10 (Paris : Letouzey & Ané, 1985), col. 1346-1415.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 21
this shepherd that “the mountain of God” is a holy place: ’admat qodeš,
normally translated “holy ground” (cf. EVV).
Why does God designate the mountain as a qodeš place? One reason
generally given is as follows: the “holiness” of the place is a barrier
which prevented Moses, and later the people, from approaching. The
mountain is “taboo” or “a forbidden place.” The presence of God as “the
totally other” upon the mountain makes the place inaccessible and pro-
vokes fear in Moses because of the “holy” character of the mountain.
Muilenburg, for example, in the Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible
expresses this view. He states:

The consciousness of the radical cleavage between the human

and the divine is rooted in taboo, and is illustrated in the law of
the h.érem (‫)חרם‬, in which man is forbidden to appropriate what
belongs to God, and in the frequent prohibitions against profana-
tion. The holy is unapproachable; man must not “come near”
(‫ )קרב‬to it. Thus Moses must not come near, for the place on
which he stands is ‫( קדש‬Exod. 3:5 J; cf. Josh. 5:15).21

This explanation does not account for all the facts given in the text.
God does not forbid Moses from approaching the holy ground but only
from coming near the bush—the place from which he speaks. The
ground designated as holy includes the precise place where Moses
stands, not just the bush where Yahweh speaks. In the narrative of Exo-
dus 3:1-6 Moses is given two distinct and separate commands: (1)
“Don’t come near here!” and (2) “Remove your sandals because the
place where you are standing is holy ground.”22 The holy ground, then, is
much larger than the bush where Yahweh speaks. It follows that the
command which forbids him to approach does not apply to the ground
declared “holy,” but only to the precise spot where Yahweh speaks. The
causal clause informing Moses that he is standing on holy ground is the
reason for removing his sandals and is not connected to the command to
stay away from the bush.
The “holy ground” (3:5), then, encompasses a larger space than just
the bush from which God speaks and is, in fact, equivalent to the area
designated as “the mountain of God” in Exod 3:1. Moses is standing
upon a qdš place; there is nothing inaccessible or restricted about ap-
proaching there. The mountain of God is not ‘taboo’ or a ‘forbidden
place.’ Moreover, it does not inspire fear any more than the bush, which

21
J. Muilenburg, “Holiness,” Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Nash-
ville, TN: Abingdon, 1962), 2:618.
22
The sentences are asyndetic rather than connected by waw.
22 Midwestern Journal of Theology
rather provokes curiosity. The fear which seizes Moses in the narrative
does not spring from the “sacrosanct” character of the mountain; it is
provoked by the shock of the vision of God. This unexpected meeting
with God seizes him with fright. Verse six shows clearly the difference
between fear and holy, because the fear is not inspired by the holy moun-
tain, but only by the vision of God. It is therefore improper to speak of
“holy fear” if our language is to be genuinely true to Scripture.
As already noted, “holy ground” appears as a synonym of the
“mountain of God.” From the culture of that time there is nothing aston-
ishing about this because we know already in the 14th century before
Jesus Christ at Ugarit that Baal dwells on a mountain and that “the
mountain of Baal” is also called a place qdš.23 By contrast, however, the
mountain in Exodus 3:1 is called “qdš” because of the presence of God
upon it and not because of a holy character inherent or proper to the
place where Moses stands. In the course of Moses’ vision, it is not so
much the place as such which is valued, but the presence of God upon it.
This is when it becomes remarkable: the mountain is qdš because it is the
mountain of God.
We can recognize then, in Exodus 3, a meaning of a derivative of the
root qdš current in the 14th century before Jesus Christ, where the qdš
ground is not the place of distance or radical separation, but of meeting
and of presence, the meeting of God and man. In standing on the ground
which belongs to God, Moses is not called qādōš, but to be allowed to
walk there he must submit to the practice of a rite or ritual: remove his
sandals. Is this an innovation? Undoubtedly not. The act of removing
one’s sandals, like the act of the nearest relative in Deut 25:9 or Ruth 4:7,
is a ceremony or rite of de-possession well-known in the culture of that
time. The gō’ēl, i.e. nearest relative, removes his sandal to show that he
is relinquishing his rights of purchase. Thus Moses must acknowledge
that this ground belongs to God and enter into an attitude of consecra-
tion. Rather than marking an item as set apart, then, ‘holy’ ground is
ground consecrated, devoted or prepared for the meeting of God and
man.
In speaking from the middle of the bush, God manifests his desire to
be present in the midst of men. But he presents himself progressively.
First of all to Moses, who would not dare to look at him and who is sur-
prised at the time and seized with fear. It is God, in the text, who takes
the initiative in meeting men; he is the one who declares the mountain to
be ground qdš. It is not man who decides to meet the God of the patri-

23
See G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartín, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic
Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (Handbook of Oriental Studies 67; Lei-
den: Brill, 2003), 695 where qdš is attributed to the citadel of Baal = “the moun-
tain of Baal” in KTU 1.16.I:7, 1.16.II:46.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 23
archs, it is not he who consecrates to this invisible God a particular place.
The narrator insists on the divine initiative. It seems that the most suit-
able translation of qdš in Exod 3 must be something like “consecrated”
or “devoted ground”. God has chosen the place of the meeting; he waits
for Moses, and after having “prepared the ground” he presents himself to
the shepherd and makes him part of his project of salvation.

EXODUS 19 – HOLY NATION

In Exodus 19 we come to the next stage in God’s progressive revela-

tion and also in the extension of holiness. Israel has come out of Egypt
and is now camped before the mountain in the desert of Sinai. In the nar-
rative of this episode, the Lord speaks to Moses and commands him to
“consecrate” the people in verse 10. In verse 14, Moses obeys: he comes
down the mountain where he has met God and received this communica-
tion from him and “consecrates” the people. In fact, five forms of the
root qdš are found in Exodus 19 (19:6, 10, 14, 22, 23) making this an im-
portant development from Exodus 3.
Several different translations of the verb qaddēš have been proposed:
sanctify (TOB), cause to sanctify oneself (New Jerusalem Bible 1973),
consecrate (É. Dhorme24), cause to be holy (M. Gilbert25), and declare
holy (F.-J. Leenhardt26). We can agree here with the position of Gilbert
against that of Leenhardt. Since the form is in the Piel stem, the meaning
is essentially Intensive-Factitive.27 This has to do with the causation or
bringing about of a state: Moses brings the people to a consecrated or
holy status.
At this point the notion of “sanctification” is overcharged with a
moral sense in many expositions. Such a meaning cannot be justified by
reason of the context. In other respects, the translation “sanctify” the
people, the priests, or the mountain, does not help to understand the

24
E. Dhorme, L’Évolution Religieuse d’Israël. Vol. 1 La Religion des
Hébreux Nomades (Brussels: Nouvelle Société d’Éditions, 1937), 309.
25
Maurice Gilbert, “Le Sacré dans l’Ancien Testament,” in L’Expression du
Sacré dans les Grandes Religions (ed. Julien Ries, Herbert Sauren et al.; Lou-
vain-la-Neuve, 1983), 1:210-211.
26
Franz-J. Leenhardt, La Notion de Sainteté dans l’Ancien Testament (Par-
is: Librairie Fischbacher, 1929), 44.
27
See E. Jenni, Das hebräische Pi‛el: Syntaktisch-semasiologische
Untersuchung einer Verbalform im Alten Testament (Zürich: EVZ-Verlag,
1968), and idem “Aktionsarten und Stammformen im Althebräischen: Das Pi‛el
in verbesserter Sicht,” Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 13/1 (2000): 67-90 and Bruce
K. Waltke, and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990).
24 Midwestern Journal of Theology
sense of the command given by God to Moses. The notion of conse-
cration—more neutral in the first place—is more suitable.
What does God desire? He wants to get ready or prepare a meeting
with the people of Israel under certain conditions. He presents himself
first to Moses in a spectacular manner. Before receiving the divine call,
Moses must accomplish a rite. Now in Exodus 19, it is Moses who plays
the role of intermediary between God and the people. Likewise, in 19:23,
Moses receives the order to consecrate (qaddēš Piel) the mountain which
has been “delimited” or “marked off.”
Gilbert believes that “the notion of the holy” in verses 22-23 “is
closer to the idea of taboo than that which appears in Ex 19:2-13.”28 The
verb qaddēš, however, in relation to the mountain is in the same stem as
in verses 10-14 where it is used in relation to the people. It is difficult to
discover a semantic difference between two identical uses of the verb.
Furthermore, if one examines the context, one notes that the “ban / inter-
diction / prohibition” (or the taboo) is not equivalent to consecration: “a
consecrated mountain” is not “a forbidden mountain.” It is because the
mountain is consecrated that its access is forbidden to the people. The
interdiction is a consequence or result of the consecration, it does not
define consecration itself. Consecrating the mountain is preparing this
place for the coming of God. To do this, Moses must place boundaries
there and order the people not to approach it.
Unlike Exodus 3 where God orders the fulfilment of a ritual on a
consecrated place, here in Exodus 19 it is Moses who “consecrates” the
people (19:10). Thus there is in this text a progression in comparison
with the passage in Exodus 3. Moses is no longer a witness of consecra-
tion; he actively participates in this consecration. He does not just touch
consecrated ground; he consecrates the people in the one case, and the
delimited mountain in the other.
The meaning of this consecration is defined by the context. In Exo-
dus 3, the “consecrated mountain” appears as a place prepared, having
become for a time a divine possession. Here, a consecrated people are a
people ready to meet God. Verse 11 states, “that they may be ready for
the third day” (Exod 19:11). The consecration of the people is a prepara-
tion. For Moses—who is clearly the subject of the verb qaddēš—
consecrating the people is “to put them in a state to approach God” ac-
cording to G. Auzou.29 This preparation is effected by the practice of a

28
Maurice Gilbert, “Le Sacré dans l’Ancien Testament,” in L’Expression du
Sacré dans les Grandes Religions edited by Julien Ries, Herbert Sauren et al.
(Louvain-la-Neuve, 1983), 1:263.
29
Georges Auzou, De La Servitude au Service: Étude du Livre de L’Exode
(Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, 1961), 254. Auzou’s words in the original are as
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 25
ritual: washing the cloaks, which takes two days (vv. 10-11 and 15). Ac-
cording to the sequence of volitives the washing follows the consecration
and appears as a result. An element of purification is certainly present in
this text, but one cannot equate consecration and purification in strict
terms and the word ‫ ָטהֵּר‬is not used.
Are the people consecrated in the same manner as the consecrated
mountain (qōdeš)? A consecrated people—are they a people who belong
to God? It seems that the context confirms this, likewise that the element
of preparation predominates. Moses must declare to the people: “Be
ready in three days. Don’t come near your wives” (verse 15). This order
is certainly given for a precise reason. In “not coming near” their wives
the Israelites are ready “to come near” God. God wants to prepare the
people for a very special meeting. Certainly, Moses is not establishing a
taboo; the text does not say that to have sexual relations with your wife is
to move away from God. But God desires, for a special occasion, a spe-
cial consecration. This abstinence is found in 1 Sam 21:5 and in the his-
tory of religions.
One discovers in fact the idea of belonging and devotion connected
to the notion of consecration at the beginning of Chapter 19 where verses
5-6 affirm clearly the purpose of God, less evident perhaps in verses 10-
15 and 22-24: “You will be my personal treasure (sglh, Amorite term)
among all the peoples—since all the earth belongs to me—and you will
be for me a royal priesthood and a holy nation.” Without rehearsing here
the details and exegetical issues fully treated in a monograph entitled
Kingdom Through Covenant, priests are persons devoted solely to the
service of the deity.30 Israel as a nation qadôš is a nation given access to
the presence of Yahweh and devoted solely to the service and worship of
the Lord. Moreover the statements in verses 5 and 6 are double. First, the
call to be a holy nation is parallel to the call to be a royal priesthod, and
second, the two designations “royal priesthood” and “holy nation” to-
gether constitute an explanation of what it means to be Yahweh’s per-
sonal treasure. The idea of belonging and that of consecration are closely
related in these verses; they are also in the verses which follow.
A holy nation, then, is one prepared and consecrated for fellowship
with God and one completely devoted to him. Instruction (‫ּתֹורה‬ ָ ) in the
Covenant is often supported by the statement from Yahweh, “for I am
holy.” Such statements show that complete devotion to God on the part
of Israel would show itself in two ways: (1) identifying with his ethics
and morality, and (2) sharing his concern for the broken in the commu-

follows: “«Sanctifier» ou «consacrer», v. 10, c’est mettre en état d’approcher

Dieu.”
30
Peter J. Gentry and Steven Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).
26 Midwestern Journal of Theology
nity. The commands and instructions in Leviticus 19 and 20 are bounded
by the claim that Yahweh is holy (19:2, 20:26) and include concern
against mistreating the alien and the poor, the blind and the deaf. In the
‘Judgments’ of the Book of the Covenant, some instructions relate to the
oppression of orphans and widows (Exod 22:23). God was concerned
about the rights of the slave (e.g. Exod 21:2-11) and the disenfranchised
in society. Over the past forty years we have heard the strident voice of
the feminist, of the anti-nuclear protest, and of the gay rights movement.
But God hears the voice of those who are broken in body, in economy,
and in spirit. If we are in covenant relationship with Him, we must, like
Him, hear the voice that is too weak to cry out.
In consequence of our study of Exodus 19, we cannot speak of
“separation” as some like F.-J. Leenhardt31 and F. Michaeli32 do, or of an
impassable gulf as A. Lefevre does, for whom “holiness is the im-
passable gulf which makes God inaccessible to the creature.”33 Such
meanings are not appropriate to the use of forms of qdš in this text.
The ban on going up on the mountain does not imply a separation be-
tween the people and the mountain. On the contrary, the people are in-
vited to participate in the theophany, not simply as spectators, but as con-
secrated: the place and the people are ready to receive God because they
belong to him. If Moses must fix the impassable limits—as God himself
must do for Moses at the time of the burning bush—this is not to estab-
lish a radical separation between the people and God, but to indicate the
distance which further remains between the people and God and to pro-
tect in a certain manner, the Israelites. There is a gradation: the people
are consecrated; they may approach and see, but only Moses and several
privileged ones may be enveloped by the cloud. So then, the greater the
consecration, the greater is the distance noticeably diminished: con-
secration appears correctly, in Exodus 19 as the opposite of separation.
In notes to Exodus 19:9-25 in the HCSB Study Bible, Coover-Cox
observes that the covenant-making at Sinai is compared to a suzerain-
vassal treaty in the Ancient Near East. He states:

The preparations for a meeting between the LORD and the Israel-
ites continue the extended metaphor that compares the LORD to a

31
Franz-J. Leenhardt, La Notion de Sainteté dans l’Ancien Testament (Par-
is: Librairie Fischbacher, 1929), 19-23.
32
Frank Michaeli, Le Livre de l’Exode (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé,
1974), 166.
33
A. Lefèvre, “Saint est le Seigneur,” in Grands Thèmes Bibliques edited
by M. E. Boismard, et al. (Paris: Éditions de Feu Nouveau, 1958), 52. Lefèvre’s
own words are as follows: “La sainteté est l’abîme infranchissable qui rend Dieu
inaccessible à la créature.”
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 27
great king issuing a covenant to his vassal. The LORD had chosen
to come to Mount Sinai in a way designed to reveal His presence
and to communicate with the Israelites, making it “private prop-
erty,” where no one should expect to wander in and out oblivious
to the wishes of the owner. For as long as the LORD visited that
place, it was holy ground, an extension of His royal court. Com-
ing there required a royal summons. It was not a casual meeting
of equals.34

ISAIAH 6 – YAHWEH AS HOLY

We now turn to Isaiah 6 to address the question arising naturally in

our minds: if holy means essentially ‘consecrated’ or ‘devoted’, what
then does it mean to apply this adjective to God? How is he consecrated
or devoted?

Outline of Isaiah 6:1-13

I. Vision of Yahweh 6:1-4

II. Response of Isaiah 6:5-7

III. Commission of the Prophet 6:8-13

God is Awesome

Certain aspects of this text depict God as awesome and transcendent.

Isaiah begins by telling us that he saw the Lord (‫)אֲדֹנָי‬, sitting upon a
throne high and lifted up. God is exalted; he is the high King. We are
told that the edges of his robe filled the Temple. This is not only an ex-
pression of the awesome greatness of God but clearly indicates that
Isaiah was prostrate on the ground: this is why he could only see the
edges or hem of his robe. This vision of God is similar to the theophany
granted to the nobles of Israel when the Covenant with Israel was ratified
on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24. There, too, they saw the God of Israel, but
all that they report seeing are the bright blue lapis lazuli bricks under his
feet. They, too, were flat out on the ground and they were so awe-struck
that their eyes were raised no higher than the paving stones under God’s
feet. We are further told in v. 3 that the glory of the Lord fills the earth.
When the Tabernacle was built in Exodus 40, a bright cloud designated
as the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (vv. 34-35). Likewise,

34
Dorian G. Coover-Cox, “Exodus,” in HCSB Study Bible (eds. Edwin A.
Blum and Jeremy Royal Howard; Nashville, TN: Holman, 2010), 131.
28 Midwestern Journal of Theology
when Solomon built and dedicated the Temple in 1 Kings 8, the glory of
the Lord filled the Temple. Here in Isaiah’s vision, the glory of the Lord
fills the earth. This indicates that the entire earth is his sanctuary or tem-
ple and that he rules the whole world. Later on we will consider the sera-
phim, but already we can say at the start, that whatever they are, the
word means “burning ones”. They are beings of fire. In addition, the
foundations of the door-posts shake and the place is filled with smoke.
Earthquake, fire and smoke clearly speak of the God of Sinai. In
Abram’s vision in Genesis 15:17 God reveals himself as a smoking fire-
pot and blazing torch. In Exodus 3:2, which is a foretaste and precursor
to Sinai, he reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush. According to
Exodus 19:16-19 God came on Mount Sinai accompanied by earthquake,
fire, and smoke. He appeared similarly to Ezekiel in Chapter 1 in clouds
and fire. In Daniel 7:9, 10 “His throne was flaming with fire and its
wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from be-
fore him”. There is no question that the lord whom Isaiah sees is the God
who made the covenant with Israel at Sinai.

God is Holy

The concept that God is holy is not new. This idea is found before
Isaiah’s time. Nonetheless, Isaiah’s favorite term for God is the Holy
One of Israel/Jacob. He uses this term some 26 times; outside of the
Book of Isaiah it is found only six times. The vision of God given to
Isaiah at the beginning of his life and ministry as a prophet profoundly
affected his life and radically shaped his message and ministry. Thus the
vision of Yahweh as a Holy God is not new. What is new is the particular
message which God gives to Isaiah in verses 8-13.
In the text of Isaiah 6 it is when God appears to the prophet that
Isaiah hears the voice of the seraphim proclaiming the ‘holiness’ of the
Lord. This declaration accompanies the coming of God among men in
the temple and attests his presence in the place of consecration. God ap-
pears in the place which belongs to him, the sanctuary, but he does not
stay in the Holy of Holies, the place that is most consecrated. Instead he
lets himself be seen by men in the front room of the Temple, the great
hall. This is clearly evident from two or three facts in the text. The He-
brew word used here is ‫הֵּיכָל‬. In 1 Kings 6-8, the passage describing the
construction of the temple, the word ‫ ַבי ִת‬or ‘house’ is used for the Tem-
ple as a whole which is divided into two rooms: the front room or great
hall is called the ‫ הֵּיכָל‬and elsewhere the Holy Place; the back room is
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 29
called the ‫ דְּ בִיר‬and later the Holy of Holies. In Isaiah 6 the Lord is not
35

in the ‫ דְּ בִיר‬or Holy of Holies, he is in the ‫הֵּיכָל‬, the front room, the great
hall of his palace. Note that the standard term for the Temple as a whole,
‫ ַבי ִת‬, is used in v. 4 and clearly contrasts with ‫ הֵּיכָל‬in v. 1. Secondly,
Isaiah says that the bases of the door-posts shook. This makes it abso-
lutely clear that the Lord is in the front room, because Isaiah is at the
doorway and would not have been able to see into the back room from
the doorway. So while God is awesome in his majesty, his holiness does
not mean that he is the “Totally Other,” nor does it speak of his separa-
tion. In fact, we see just the opposite here: we see that God is coming to
meet man (just as in Exodus 3); we see already the central theme of this
new section of Isaiah: Immanuel, i.e. “God with us.”

Role of the Seraphim

Thirdly, Isaiah sees the seraphim in his vision. It is as important to

note what he does not see as much as what he sees. He sees the seraphim
and not the cherubim. Normally images of the cherubim guarded access
to the presence of God in the Garden and the Temple. Their wings pro-
tected the mercy seat of the ark and they were on the curtains guarding
the Holy of Holies. What, we may ask, is intended by the fact that Isaiah
sees seraphim instead of cherubim? Our English word ‘seraphim’ is, in
fact, not of English origin, but rather a loanword from Hebrew based on
a rough transliteration of the plural form of the word saraph (śārāp;
‫ש ֹ ָרף‬
ָ ).

35
For ‫כל‬
ֵָ ‫ ֵֵּהי‬see 1 Kgs 6:5, 17, 7:50 = ‫ ֵֵּהי ַכֵלֵ ֵַה ֵַבֵי ִת‬1 Kgs 6:3. For ‫ דְֵּ ִֵביר‬see 1
Kgs 6:5, 16, 19, 23, 31; 7:49, 8:6, 8. The term for the whole, ‫בֵי ִת‬ ֵַ , occurs approx-
imately 46 times in 1 Kgs 6-8. The ‫ביר‬ ִֵ ְֵּ‫ ד‬is also designated as the “Holy of Ho-
lies” in 1 Kgs 6:16, 8:6. The ‫ הֵּיכָל‬is designated as the “Holy Place” in 1 Kgs
8:8, 10.
30 Midwestern Journal of Theology
The word saraph is quite rare in the Hebrew Bible. The same word oc-
curs in Numbers 21:6, 8 and refers to the fiery snakes or serpents which
struck the Israelites. It also refers to
a fiery snake in Deut 8:15, Isaiah
14:29 and 30:6. In the occurrences
in Isaiah 14 and 30 the seraphim are
specifically designated as winged
serpents which clearly connects
them to the instances in Isaiah 6. It
is interesting that we have annals
from King Esarhaddon of Assyria
describing his journey across the
desert and in exactly the same spot
where Israel encountered the fiery
snakes he mentions strange creatures
with batting wings.36 Finally we
have the two occurrences in Isaiah 6
for a total of seven instances in the
entire Hebrew Bible. Probably the
word was transliterated instead of translated because the translators did
not see how the seraphim here could be connected to the other occur-
rences where the word refers to snakes. Just because they have feet,
hands, and faces, however, does not mean that they cannot be snakes.37
We have pictures of winged snakes from both Egypt and Syria and they
have feet, hands, and faces. According to Isaiah 14:29, a winged seraph
is a symbol of a future Hebrew king. We have, in fact, Hebrew seals,
some of them royal, with winged snakes on them.38 Two are displayed

36
James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts: Relating to the Old
Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 292b.
37
Out of respect the seraphim cover their faces with one of their six pairs
wings and their feet with another pair. It is possible that the context may require
the meaning pudenda for feet here (see HALOT, s.v. ‫) ֶרגֶל‬, so that covering the
feet means “covering their genitals.” According to Exod 20:26, 28:42, Israelite
priests contrasted with priests in the ancient Near East in that they were not to
expose themselves in the worship of Yahweh. The action of the seraphim may
be similar to this.
38
For interpretation of the seraphim as snakes, see K. R. Joines, “Winged
Serpents in Isaiah’s Inaugural Vision,” JBL 86 (1967): 410-415, J. J. M. Rob-
erts, “Solomon’s Jerusalem and Zion Tradition,” in Jerusalem in Bible and Ar-
chaeology edited by A. G. Vaughn and A. E. Killebrew (Atlanta: SBL, 2003),
165-166, and esp. H. Cazelles, “La Vocation d’Isaie (Ch. 6) et let Rites Royaux”
in Homenaje a Juan Prado edited by L. Alvarez Verdes and E. J. Alonso Her-
nandez (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1975) 89-108 and Othmar Keel, Jahwe-Visionen und
Siegelkunst: Eine neue Deutung der Majestätsschilderungen in Jes 6, Ez 1 und
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 31
below, and the first of these two definitely belonged to a royal personage
in Israel.39

Hebrew Seals with Winged Snakes

If this interpretation is regarded as far-fetched, recall 2 Kings 18:4, a

passage which describes King Hezekiah’s efforts to rid the Temple wor-
ship of idols and idolatrous objects. One item mentioned is the bronze
snake, i.e. the ‘saraph’ made by Moses, which by this time had become
an object of idolatrous worship and the Israelites burned incense to it.
Since Hezekiah became king in 715, this bronze snake was actually in
the Temple at the time of King Uzziah’s death in 740 when Isaiah was
given this vision.
The seraphim constitute a direct allusion to Numbers 21:6, 8. Their
purpose and role in the vision is to remind Isaiah and us of the journey
out of Egypt to the Promised Land when they complained in the desert
about God’s great provisions in food and water. By complaining about
his provision for them, the people were in reality saying that God was not

10 und Sach 4 (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 84/85; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches

Bibelwerk, 1977).
39
Images are numbers 11 and 127 respectively in Nahman Avigad, Corpus
of West Semitic Stamp Seals, revised and completed by Benjamin Sass (Jerusa-
lem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1997). See also Benjamin
Sass and Christoph Uehlinger, eds., Studies in the Iconography of Northwest
Semitic Inscribed Seals (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 125; Fribourg/Göttingen:
University Press Fribourg / Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1993).
32 Midwestern Journal of Theology
completely devoted, and so they impugned his holiness. The people of
Isaiah’s time were promoting a society full of social injustice and saying
that God should hurry up and bring the day of judgment that he prom-
ised. In this way they were saying he was not devoted to his justice and
so impugned his holiness. Thus there is a clear parallel between the peo-
ple of Isaiah’s time and the people who journeyed through the desert.
Such a meaning for ‘holy’ is entirely consonant with uses of the
word connected to the journey through the desert in Numbers. Numbers
20:9-13 is an example:

So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he

commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together
in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels,
must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses
raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water
gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did
not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the
Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give
them.”
These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quar-
relled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among
them. (NIV)

The verb occurs in the Hiphil in v. 12 and in the Niphal stem in v.

13, adequately rendered in the NIV. Moses’ and Aaron’s act of disobedi-
ence did not treat Yahweh as holy, i.e. as completely devoted to the job
of bringing the people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. He was
not behind the project 100%. Even so, the actions of Yahweh did
demonstrate precisely the fact that he was fully consecrated and devoted
to his promise and task.
Another example similar to this is Isaiah 63:10 where we read that
during the journey through the wilderness the people of Israel grieved
God’s holy spirit. The term spirit speaks of someone as they are empow-
ered40 and in the context, it is the messenger of his Presence that medi-
ates God’s care for the people in providing protection from cold and heat
through the cloud and also food and water. Yet the people constantly
questioned that God was devoted to his promise to bring them through
and complained about his care and provisions for them.

40
See Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelph-
ia, PA: Fortress Press, 1974), 32-39, James M. Hamilton, Jr., God’s Indwelling
Presence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2006), 39-40, and idem, “God With
Men in the Torah,” WTJ 65 (2003): 113-133.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 33
In the vision of Isaiah, the seraphim cover themselves as a sign of re-
spect and submission and Isaiah is conscious of his impurity. He is not
ready to meet God: he is a man of unclean lips and he dwells in the midst
of a people of unclean lips; he ought not to see the King, the Lord of
Armies. Notice that the fear which inspires Isaiah is not a fear of holi-
ness. He does not say, “my eyes have seen the Holy One,” but rather “my
eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies.” As in Exodus 3, it is not
the holiness of God which inspires fear, but the vision of God himself. In
seeing God, the prophet dreads to be crushed by the majesty of the Sov-
ereign King, and once purified, he does not hesitate to meet God in verse
8.
The fact that the word holy is repeated three times is not related to
the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity; it is only a form of extreme
emphasis in the Hebrew language (cf. Jer 7:4, ‘Temple’, Jer 22:29
‘Land’, Ezek 21:32 ‘Ruin’ and Isaiah 6 ‘Holy’).
What does it mean for Yahweh to be called holy? Hermeneutics re-
quires, surely, that above all, we consider the context. And the context
that is determinative for Isaiah 6 is found in Chapter 5. Expositions of
Isaiah 6 that I have heard have not in general considered this context suf-
ficiently. Literary analysis of Chapter 5 demonstrated the centrality of
verse 16:41

So humanity is humbled and mankind is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty will be brought low,
but the Lord of Hosts is exalted in justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.42

Now in Isaiah 6:3, the repetition of the word three times means that
God is absolutely holy. Holy means that He is completely devoted and in
this particular context, devoted to his justice and righteousness which
characterizes his instruction of people of Israel in the Covenant, showing
them not only what it means to be devoted to him but also what it means
to treat each other in a genuinely human way, in a word social justice.
The holiness of God is clearly seen in Isaiah 5:16.
Isaiah’s response confirms the understanding that the basic meaning
of holiness is being devoted. Holiness is not identical with moral purity,
although there is a connection. Holiness should not be defined as moral
purity, but rather purity is the result of being completely devoted to God
as defined by the Covenant. When he sees the vision of the Lord and

41
See Peter J. Gentry, “Isaiah and Social Justice,” Journal of Midwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary.
42
Translation that of H. G. M. Williamson, A Critical and Exegetical Com-
mentary on Isaiah 1-27 (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 1:356-357.
34 Midwestern Journal of Theology
hears the chorus of the seraphim, Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me, I am a
man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
Isaiah does not say that he is impure or that the people are impure. He
says that his lips and the lips of the people are impure. This refers to all
his words and to all the words of the people. These words stand in con-
trast to the words of the seraphim. Isaiah and the people cannot partici-
pate in the worship led by the seraphim. The confession of unclean lips is
the reason for the cry, “Woe is me for I am ruined / I am undone.” The
verb which is translated undone can also be translated, “Woe is me for I
am silenced.”43 Because his lips and the lips of the covenant people are
filled with words challenging God’s justice and impugning his holiness,
they are unclean and not able to join in the chorus of worship with the
seraphim. They have been silenced and may not join the true worship of
God. We can and ought to apply this to the church today. Do we consider
that the church’s failure to implement God’s righteous standards as we
find them in the New Testament will silence our worship?
An action from one of the seraphim brings about cleansing of his
speech and atonement. One of the seraphim takes a burning coal from the
altar using tongs and brings it to Isaiah and causes it to touch his lips. Let
us notice at once that what is used to purify Isaiah is exactly what is
promised to the people of Judah as a whole in 1:31, 5:5, and 6:13: fire.
Thus, the purification of Isaiah is a forecast or harbinger of the coming
judgment which will purify the people as a whole. The atonement is also
an act of divine grace. The fire comes from the altar. This indicates that
atonement is made by sacrifice and not by achievements on the part of
Isaiah.

God is King

It is extremely important to remember that behind the human king in

Israel stands the real king, Yahweh himself. In 1 Sam 8:7, the people
desire a king like the nations surrounding them. This is a human wielding
absolute power for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. The Lord tells
Samuel, “it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as
their king.” When God makes the covenant with David in 2 Sam 7, it is
clear that the purpose of this covenant is for the king to fulfill the earlier
plan prescribed by Moses in Deut 17. The Israelite King must represent
the divine King. And that is precisely the point in both v. 1 and v. 5 of
Isaiah 6. In v. 1 we are told that Isaiah was given this vision in the year
that King Uzziah died. At such a time there would be a change of regime.
43
See, e.g. L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Hebräisches und Aramäisches
Lexikon zum Alten Testament, 3rd ed. by W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm and B.
Hartmann (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967-1995), s.v. I ‫ דמם‬and III ‫דמם‬.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 35
It might be an opportunity for those falsely imprisoned to be retried and
released under the dawning of a new era of social justice. The title given
in v. 5 to Yahweh is not simply a statement that Yahweh is king. In fact
the Lord is referred to in the usual way in which the human kings in Isra-
el are referred to in 1 and 2 Kings. It is like saying, “in the year that Pres-
ident Obama finished his second term of office I saw the real president,
the Lord of Armies.”

COMMISSION

In v. 8 Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord saying “Whom shall I send?
And who will go for us?” Why does the Lord use the plural? Why does
he say, “Who will go for us?” What does this mean? This does not mean
that the faith of Israel is in many gods, nor is it a remnant of an old poly-
theism. It is not even an indication of the Trinity, which is not clearly
revealed until the coming of Jesus Christ. It is an expression which
would have been understood in the ancient Near East to refer to the fact
that the heavenly King is speaking in the divine court or council and
Isaiah the prophet is given access to that council. It indicates that Isaiah
is an authorised agent who really does know the mind and will of God
and is commissioned to bring it to the people.
The commission he is given seems extremely strange. The people
will really hear but not gain insight. They will really see but not know at
all. Their heart, centre of the place where they feel, think, and make deci-
sions will not be granted insight or understanding. It seems crazy to send
a person on a mission that will fail. It seems to be cold and hard-hearted
to prevent repentance and restoration. Yet we must not misunderstand
the text. Yahweh is describing for Isaiah not the content of his message
but (by way of metonymy) the effect and results of his preaching. In vv.
9-10 we see that it will harden hearts and in vv. 11-12 it will lead to the
devastation of the land and the people. The reason for this is clear. The
people have already rejected the divine message. We have already seen
in the first five chapters their arrogance and indifference. The result of
Isaiah’s preaching will be to confirm the response they have already
made and to bring about the judgment which has already been predicted.
These verses, then, show that judgment is certain and inevitable and
there will be no situation like Jonah’s preaching to Nineveh where the
people repented and God reversed the judgment. These verses are also a
reminder that the results of our preaching and our witness are in God’s
hands, and not in our own.
It is now possible to explain why the vision begins or opens with a
vision of God’s transcendence. Why is it that at the beginning Isaiah sees
Yahweh as exalted and awesome? He sees Yahweh as high and exalted
36 Midwestern Journal of Theology
because he is beyond manipulation. He sees Yahweh sitting on his throne
for judgment and there will be no possibility for influencing this to our
own advantage. If you go to a court situation and the judge is your friend
or you have a lawyer who is best pals with the judge, then you do not
really fear the outcome. It is clear from the outset that we are not in a
palsy-walsy situation with the judge and have no means of our own to
reach him and influence his mind on the verdict. We can only await his
sentence. He is truly above and beyond us. Sentence has been passed on
the nation in heaven; Isaiah’s preaching will put it into effect on earth.
And yet there is a hope, even though it is extremely slender. This is
expressed in v. 13. At first the picture of judgment is bleak. After the
devastation and death only a tenth will remain. And even this surviving
tenth will be subjected to further judgment. There are a number of prob-
lems in v. 13 and scholars differ greatly on the details.44 The general pic-
ture, however, is roughly the same. It may refer to two great trees just
outside one of the gates of Jerusalem which were burned. All that was
left was the blackened trunk and branches stripped bare. It seemed that
the tree was dead and could only be cut down and the stump taken out.
And yet there was life and new growth came. In the Old Testament kings
or kingdoms were pictured as majestic, tall, stately trees. The Davidic
dynasty seems to be a tree that is dead. And yet, somehow, out of this
trunk will spring new life and the promises of God will be fulfilled. We
see here the messianic hope of Isaiah. It may be that true Israel will be
reduced to one faithful person before the rebuilding process begins.
This is only the beginnings of a fresh study of the word ‘holy’ in the
Old Testament. Interestingly, if one begins to analyse the counterpart in
Greek, the word ἅγιος, the basic meaning given in LSJ is also “de-
voted.”45 New Testament scholars should pay closer attention to this.
Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology states that “God’s holi-
ness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own
honor.”46 Further reading yields a discussion that is traditional so that the
use of the word ‘devoted’ in his opening sentence is confused with the
notion of separation. Indeed, the systematic theologians of the last five
hundred years have not been helpful in explaining what scripture teaches
on this topic due to reliance on doubtful etymologies and connection of

44
For a thorough treatment of the problems in the text, see See Dominique
Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, 2, Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamen-
tations (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 50/2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1986), 41-44.
45
H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed.
with revised Supplement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. ἅγιος.
46
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doc-
trine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 203.
 GENTRY: No one Holy like the Lord 37
the term with moral purity and divine transcendence. As we have seen,
purity is the result of being holy in the biblical sense, but is not the mean-
ing of the word. Nor is the word connected with divine transcendence
however much this idea is otherwise made plain in Scripture.47 The basic
meaning of the word is “consecrated” or “devoted.” In scripture it oper-
ates within the context of covenant relationships and expresses commit-
ment. The notion of divine transcendence in Isaiah 6 is there to demon-
strate that the holiness of Yahweh, i.e. his dedication to social justice in
this particular situation, cannot be manipulated and judgment is certain.
That explains the coincidence of holiness and divine transcendence in
this text.
One day in the barnyard, the hen and the pig were discussing the dif-
ference in meaning between the words “involvement” and “commit-
ment.” The pig told the hen, “When the farmer comes for breakfast to-
morrow, you’re only involved, but I’m committed.” The cross is a reve-
lation of the divine holiness.

CONCLUSION

This short study should not only illuminate clearly and simply the
meaning of holy and what it means for God to be holy, but also provide a
warning that every generation needs to test theological traditions by
means of fresh study of the Bible in the original texts. We cannot simply
rely on our systematic theologies for an understanding of Christian teach-
ing. Luke commended believers in Berea as more noble than those in
Thessalonica because they daily examined the scriptures to see if what
they were taught was true (Acts 17:11). Around 600, a Scotch-Irish mis-
sion led by Columbanus appeared in the Frankish kingdom. For the first
time the Franks became acquainted with a Christianity which made ex-
traordinary high demands—but not on others, rather on itself. They saw
clerics who were godly shepherds, whose learning surpassed anything
found in the Frankish Kingdom. Kurt Aland says, “We hear about a con-
flict between the Scotch-Irish Columbanus and a papal legate who con-
fronted him with the old tradition of the continental church, to which
Columbanus retorted: The truth which drives out error is older than every
tradition.”48

47
Although “holy” and “transcendence” are both in the context of Isaiah 6,
it is false to assume that they are equivalent. They are connected or related in
that the one who is devoted to social justice is the supreme judge and cannot be
bribed, bought out, or overpowered.
48
Kurt Aland, A History of Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1980),
1:240.
38 Midwestern Journal of Theology
We are in a unique position today to make advances in our grasp and
understanding of the scriptures. Historically, Christian theology was de-
veloped almost entirely from the Latin or Greek versions of the Bible for
the first fifteen hundred years. Although the reformers stressed the im-
portance of studying the original texts we have been more eager to study
their works than heed their cry, “ad fontes.” The last three hundred years
have been marred by a scholarship which imposes modern western no-
tions of literary analysis on ancient eastern texts. At the same time,
huge advances have been made in the last 150 years in the knowledge of
the cultural backdrop of the text and its linguistic data. In the last forty
years, literary structures, especially in the Old Testament, have been elu-
cidated. There is also, now, after two hundred years a new willingness to
construct a metanarrative based on Scripture itself and not simply upon
systems which owe more to modern philosophy than the Bible for their
larger story. Unfortunately, when biblical studies went awry, systematic
theologians struggled on continuing to defend truth, but have been woe-
fully lacking in exegesis. Put succinctly, the problem has been that sys-
tematic theologians, (1) do not give sufficient attention to the shape of
the text, (2) do not perceive the communicative and literary modes in the
text, and (3) employ a framework of reasoning which throttles the direc-
tion and focus of the text.
Compartmentalising study of the Bible into Old and New Testa-
ments, Historical and Systematic Theology does not always help. It fre-
quently aids in predetermining what questions we can ask of the text and
hence the answers we receive. This amounts to a low view of scripture
no matter how loudly we proclaim inerrancy.
As a young pastor serving in the boondocks and hinterlands of On-
tario in Canada, I heard that Carl F. H. Henry would be giving a lecture
in Montreal, six hours drive from my town. The following statement
made a deep impression on me:

Activism today so hurries evangelical worship, prayer, and Bible

reading, theological study and reflection, that we risk becoming
practical atheists steeped in this-worldly priorities. Theological
renewal is a farce apart from time for God in his Word. Is it too
much to ask Christians in favored North America, in their strug-
gle to be evangelically authentic, to do their theological home-
work once again, to feast on mighty truths that can rebuff the
blows of an ungodly age, to learn biblical lessons before the
sword and dungeons overtake them? 49
49
Carl F. H. Henry, “The Christian Mindset in A Secular Society: Promot-
ing Evangelical Renewal & National Righteousness (Portland, OR: Multnomah,
1978), 28.