In the last post, I discussed most of the significant challenges we face when reading a prophetic book like Isaiah. There is one element of Biblical prophecy that I skipped over, however, because the difficulties it has presented in the history of interpretation make it a worthy candidate for its own discussion. Ironically, of all the characteristics of prophecy, this one should be least problematic for modern readers, because it is as much a part of our world as it was the world of Ancient Israel. But for various reasons – ranging from a desire to honor the Scriptures as the word of God (that can lead to an unnecessary insistence on overly literal interpretation), to our human fascination with trauma and drama – we are conspicuously blind to this most basic property of Biblical prophecy. Our dilemma can be solved by recognizing that prophecy comes to us as poetry.

Poetry involves dramatic figures of speech: metaphor, analogies, allegory, personification, and hyperbole. In English we have poetic expressions that we use in every day conversation. You take a nap, and you say, “I feel like a new man.” Your friend gets so frustrated with her boyfriend that she says, “I’m going to kill him.” You share the news that you’re going to be a grandfather and you tell your son, “I’m on cloud nine right now.” No one takes these expressions literally. If you were a new man, you wouldn't know the person you were talking to (or where you were when you woke up from your nap, for that matter). If your friend were going to kill her boyfriend, the appropriate response would be to call 911. If you are really on cloud nine right now… well, I hope you have a parachute strapped on.

Carl Sandburg wrote the following lines that visitors to San Francisco are often introduced to in their visitors’ guides: “The fog comes on little cat feet.” If you’re familiar with San Francisco fog, those 7 words instantly communicate the accumulated experiences of a thousand mesmerized gazes at the fog (we call him Karl here). Like a cat’s approach, the fog comes in silently and swiftly. If you’re watching it come over the coastal mountains across the Golden Gate Bridge, the shape of its wisps arching over the ridges look like giant cat paws (whether I see this because I’ve heard the poem, or the poet actually saw it and thought the same thing, I’ll never know.) In any event, Sandburg’s 7 words have so much more impact and descriptive power than my much longer explanation of the reality described by his word-picture. This happens all of the time in the Bible. The prophet speaks in word-pictures that would have exactly this kind of effect on his listeners, for whom the poet’s linguistic imagery would have called up familiar elements of their world .

As just illustrated, two of the basic properties of poetry are: 1) condensing complex images down to a very few number of words, and 2) packing as much meaning as possible into each of those words in order to create potent imagery that immerses the listener in another world – in short, to try to give words the same captivating power that modern movies have. When you add the literary devices mentioned above into this recipe, the results can be as challenging to the interpreter as they are stimulating to the imagination. For example, just what are we supposed to think the writer means when he says that, “The stars fought from heaven; the stars fought from their orbits against Sisera” (Judg 5:20). The meaning, from a poetic standpoint, is immediately clear: Sisera’s defeat was spectacularly brutal. The poet does have every intention of implying that God Himself was fighting on Israel’s behalf. But it’s not at all likely that he is attempting to present an accurate accounting of a cosmological component to the battle (at least not according to our standards.)

Further, the sun, moon, and stars were seen to possess tremendous power, and, as a result, were often worshiped by ancient peoples (and, all to often, by God’s people as well.) So when we come across a passage that speaks of the sun and moon no longer giving their light, or the stars falling from the sky, the likelihood is that we are dealing with a poetic declaration that the gods of other nations have been shown to be false; or, that when the glory of the Lord is fully revealed, His brightness will so outshine every other object in the heavens that there will no longer be any possibility of temptation to worship them or confuse them with the true God. Or, to return to poor Sisera, we are to understand that his army was so powerless in battle that it seemed even the mightiest powers in the heavens were fighting against him.

Another place the heavens – including the sun, moon, and stars – play a significant role is in the story of Creation in Genesis 1-2. Light is the first created thing, and the light overcomes darkness – an overcoming that is parallel with order triumphing over chaos. This story of light and order climaxes with God creating human beings and dwelling with them within His creation. When the prophets speak of the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple, they describe it as a time when the sun will no longer shine, when the moon will turn to blood, and the stars will no longer give their light. The references to these specific signs are not meant to be a prediction about actual occurrences in the skies. They are a poetic indicator of the terrible significance with respect to God’s redemptive purpose that the destruction of the Temple means. If the Temple is destroyed, that can only mean that God no longer lives among His people. And if God no longer lives among His people, then it is as though creation itself is being reversed - that the world is being uncreated, destroyed.

Passages that mention either apocalyptic changes and/or the disappearance of the sun, moon, and stars are scattered throughout the Bible, and even show up in other ancient texts that aren’t in the Bible. They refer to actual historical events as diverse as the destruction of Egypt (Ezek 32:7-8), Edom (Isa 34:4), Babylon (Isa 13:9-10), Samaria (Amos 8:9) and Jerusalem (Jer 4:23-28). At least one of these references, (Joel 2:31) is quoted by Jesus in the Gospels (Matt 24:49) and is almost certainly a double reference to the imminent destruction of Jerusalem, and to the ultimate judgment of the world at the end of this age. I want to be clear that I am not saying that the multiple occurrences of descriptions of this sort mean that nothing like this will actually ever happen. But it doesn’t help us develop a reverence for the Word of God if we find ourselves asking why the destruction of the universe was predicted so many times and in relation to so many different historical events without it ever having come to pass. What I am saying is that when the prophets used this kind of language, their primary purpose was to make sure their listeners understood that they were warning about catastrophes of the most devastating kind. So devastating, that it was appropriate to speak of them as though they were “the end of the world.” And the purpose for speaking this way (as unpopular then as it is now) was to encourage people in the strongest possible terms: you need to take God much more seriously.

So today I pray the prayer that I so often write in the margin of my Bible as I read the prophets:

God, arise and reveal Your glory. Send a Spirit of awakening upon the Earth, that people everywhere would turn to You.  …turn away from their destructive paths that they might know You, know peace, know eternal life. Expose the shallowness of our counterfeits, and teach us that only You will ever satisfy our deepest desires.