The Compositional Poetics of the Book of Isaiah’s Nations Cycle: Recursive Symmetry and Analogy in Isaiah 13–27

Abstract

In this dissertation, I seek to understand and elucidate the organizing principles and argument of the collection of prophecies about foreign nations in Isaiah 13–27. The study is oriented toward the compositional poetics of the collection, the way in which scribal tradents fashioned discrete and diverse oracles into a literary collection. The dissertation foregrounds the nature and function of literary structure in the collection. To signal this object of study, I propose a change in terminology from speaking of the Oracles against the Nations, which implies a focus on prophetic speech rather than prophetic literature, to the Nations Cycle. I argue that the book of Isaiah’s Nations Cycle is organized according to the principle of recursive symmetry, expressed particularly through concentric triads at multiple textual levels. The symmetrical patterning of the cycle’s structure invites a comparative reading strategy in which individual passages are read on analogy with others. This is essential for understanding the cycle’s arguments regarding the relationship between the past and the future and between Judah and the nations. In the introductory chapter, I survey the history of scholarship on the Oracles against the Nations in general. I then articulate my own approach by defining the object of study as the Nations Cycle and describing the methodology of compositional poetics. I conclude the introduction by surveying previous studies of the shape and/or shaping of Isaiah 13–27. Chapters 2–4 constitute a close reading of the three units that comprise Isaiah 13–20 (13–14, 15–18, 19–20). The fifth chapter builds on chapters 2–4 and explores concurrent macrostructures in an ever-widening scope, beginning with Isaiah 13–20, expanding to Isaiah 13–23, and concluding with Isaiah 13–27 as a whole. The structures and the reading strategies they imply are foundational for tracing the vision of the Nations Cycle of the book of Isaiah regarding the future of the nations and the analogical relationship between the Assyrian crisis and the day of Yhwh.