Ep 120: Save Me!

00:00So God was like, "I need you to be naked for the next three years."

00:05And he's like, "Oh my gosh."

00:06- I need three years of nudity for a metaphor that I'm working on.

00:10- It's gonna pay off, don't worry, it'll pay off fine.

00:15- Trust me, you're gonna love this.

00:17Everybody's gonna be thrilled about this.

00:19- Yeah.

00:20(upbeat music)

00:22- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:26- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:28- And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:31where we increase public access to the academic study

00:34of the Bible and religion,

00:35and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:38How go things today, Dan?

00:40- It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a little too hot,

00:43but that's to be expected in June.

00:45- It is in the 90s, it is July, however.

00:49- July, that's fine, they both start with JU.

00:53So, you know, it's also to be expected in June,

00:56but July is even worse.

00:57- It's the summer months.

00:59- Yeah, how are you doing?

01:00- It's cooler here than I was in Italy though.

01:04- Oh, okay.

01:05- And I just got a text from a friend

01:07who was in Italy right now,

01:09and I was like, it was in the high 90s when I was there,

01:12what's it like now?

01:13And he's like, "Oh, it's low 80s, it's cooled off quite a bit."

01:16- Oh wow.

01:16- Yeah, he got lucky.

01:18- There was a joke on you.

01:19- Yeah, I was there for the heat wave and it was brutal,

01:22but came back to Utah and now, yeah, it's still in the 90s.

01:27- Not just more brutality.

01:30- Yeah, the sun feels closer in Utah than in many other places.

01:35- Like even though it is like drier here,

01:35- That's true.

01:38it just feels like the sun is more punishing here.

01:42- But that drier makes a lot of difference

01:45'cause when I was in Montreal recently

01:48and you know, Western or Eastern Canada,

01:51it was quite moist there and so even lower heat

01:56felt just so impressive.

01:59Anyway, you know, it's nothing compared to the fires of hell

02:04that we're all gonna be burning in.

02:06So--

02:07- Some of us are sooner than others.

02:09- Let's get to our show which involves the fires of hell,

02:13I guess, or rather the avoiding thereof

02:15because our first segment is going to be about salvation,

02:20which sounds great.

02:22And then in the second section, I'm kind of looking forward

02:27to this, you guys are gonna wanna stick around for it.

02:29We're going into Isaiah and we're gonna be talking about

02:32six winged angels and just--

02:37- Not angels, not angels.

02:38We'll get to that.

02:39- Hey, tradition says they are angels.

02:42The Bible itself doesn't, anyway, seraphim

02:45are gonna make an appearance and also a bunch

02:49of other stuff and Dan is going to explain to me

02:52what the heck I just read because I read that chapter

02:56and I was like me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, so.

02:58- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:59- That'll be, that'll be fun.

03:00But first, what's that?

03:03(upbeat music)

03:05And this week's what's that is being saved,

03:10the concept of being saved.

03:12- Yeah.

03:13- We talked a little bit about this with,

03:15when April of Joy was on the show and we talked about

03:20how she and her family used to go

03:22and ask their poor servers at restaurants

03:27if they would pray with them.

03:29And none of my religious background,

03:33none of the theology that I was raised with

03:37ever had a concept where one prayer

03:41with a family at a restaurant

03:43was enough for salvation period for forever.

03:47But that seemed to be their contention.

03:50Their contention was that if this waiter just humors us

03:55and prays with us, boom, they're saved.

04:00- Yeah.

04:01- So let's talk about salvation,

04:03let's talk about the concept of being saved.

04:06- Yeah, and the, I don't even know if they use the acronym

04:09but like O-S-A-S, once saved, always saved,

04:12goes along with that.

04:14But I wanted to go back to the beginning

04:19a very good place to start with the fact that

04:24in the Hebrew Bible, being saved was an entirely different

04:28concept from what it is in the New Testament

04:31but then particularly after the New Testament.

04:33- Ooh.

04:34- Because you've got the name Yeshua, which is Jesus,

04:39which is supposed to be related to salvation

04:44and it's Aramaic and it is either the clause,

04:49Adonai is salvation, or it's just the regular old

04:53Aramaic word for salvation.

04:55- Okay.

04:56- I happen to think it's just the word for salvation

04:58but it derives from the Hebrew Yeshua,

05:02which I think would better be interpreted as Adonai

05:05is salvation or Adonai saves.

05:09But the verbal root here, Yasha, Yod Shin,

05:14Ein is the verbal root that underlies the names

05:18in whether it's Hebrew or Aramaic

05:20or your Greek transliteration, Yesus.

05:24And this just means to like to help.

05:29It can be in the Nephal, which is the passive sense,

05:33means to receive help or to accept help

05:37in the Hifil or the causative sense.

05:40It means to help with the work or to help

05:44or to save, but it's overwhelmingly used

05:47in the Hebrew Bible to refer to saving someone

05:51from some kind of temporal distress.

05:53- Okay.

05:54- So, and by temporal, I don't mean having to do with time.

05:57- I was gonna say, yeah.

05:59- Oh no, I'm worried about, I'm going to be late.

06:03- Yes, yes, for a very important date.

06:05No, it means not having to do with spiritual.

06:08- Right.

06:09- It means the real material world.

06:12So, the first time the verbal occurs--

06:14- I'm stuck in quicksand, please help me get out of it.

06:17- Yeah, and it usually has to do with some kind of enemy

06:21or some kind of threat of violence.

06:23So, the very first occurrence of the verbal root Yashah

06:26in the Hebrew Bible comes in Exodus 2, 17.

06:30So, it doesn't even really occur in Genesis.

06:34But in Exodus 2, 17, you have, when Moses, he's run off

06:39and he sees the people who are harassing

06:44the folks at the well.

06:47It says Moses got up and came to their defense

06:51or saved them and watered their flock.

06:55So, Moses chased off some people who are harassing them.

06:59And that is the verbal root that underlies the name Jesus.

07:04And then you've got a lot of stories in Exodus of,

07:08Adonai, saving Israel and elsewhere.

07:12It's always he, God has saved them from their enemies.

07:17And so, the sense is very much deliverance

07:20from some kind of threat of danger.

07:23Usually having to do with an enemy and illness,

07:26some kind of accident, something like that.

07:29So, it's deliverance in a temporal sense,

07:32not in a spiritual sense.

07:34And that is what we have throughout the Hebrew Bible.

07:37And I think one of the reasons is that

07:39the notion of a spiritual salvation

07:43has mostly to do with the afterlife.

07:46- Right.

07:47- And particularly avoiding enemies or threats

07:51in the afterlife.

07:53But in the Hebrew Bible, everybody had the same afterlife.

07:56Everybody went to the same place.

07:58Everybody went to shawl, which was just the abode of the dead,

08:02this murky existence that we didn't know a lot about.

08:06But there was no other afterlife existence

08:10other than shawl.

08:11- Yeah, we've talked a bit about the sort of evolving idea

08:15of what happens after death.

08:17- Yeah.

08:18And so, you do have some references to being saved

08:22from shawl in the Hebrew Bible.

08:25But I think the idea there is not that you're going

08:29to be resurrected or you're gonna have eternal life

08:31or anything like that.

08:32I think the idea is just you're being saved

08:34from an early death.

08:36So if you're sick and you're on your deathbed

08:39and somebody cures you, you have been saved from shawl,

08:42not in the sense that you go to heaven,

08:46but in the sense that you narrowly avoided death.

08:50- Right, you were saved from shawl for now.

08:52- Yeah, because shawl also just means the grave or death.

08:56And so the idea isn't some kind of eternal spiritual salvation.

09:01It just means deliverance from death.

09:03It's the idea that like you saved my life

09:05doesn't mean you saved my life forever.

09:07It means you saved my life this time.

09:10- Yeah, yeah.

09:11And I am in your debt, but again, not forever.

09:14- Right. (laughs)

09:15- Well, try to come and collect after I die,

09:17see what happens.

09:18- I love those movies from the 80s and 90s

09:21where somebody would always be in someone else's debt

09:24for saving their life and then they would do something

09:26and then be like, my debt is paid, goodbye.

09:31- Which is always fun, that was a movie trope

09:34that I don't think you see very frequently anymore.

09:36- Yeah.

09:38- And then once we get into the Greco-Roman period,

09:40then you have this, you begin to develop concepts

09:43of post-mortem divine punishment

09:45and post-mortem divine reward.

09:47And this is where now suddenly your afterlife

09:52can go in one of two directions.

09:54And I think this is where we begin to lean into the notion

09:59that salvation has an eternal implication.

10:03- Right.

10:04- That salvation means taking the correct turn

10:08once we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

10:11- Yeah.

10:12- That we are gonna be on the good side

10:14of the smooth places that are described in first Enoch

10:18as we've talked about in episodes past.

10:22- One doesn't want a non-smooth afterlife.

10:24(laughs)

10:26The bumpy afterlife is the less pleasant one.

10:29- Yeah, you don't want that turbulence going on

10:32in your afterlife.

10:34And so by the time you get to the New Testament,

10:38you've got one, the New Testament is written in Greek.

10:41So you've got an entirely different word

10:45that means to save.

10:48Sozo is the word in Greek.

10:50And it can mean to preserve a rescue

10:53from natural dangers and afflictions,

10:55to keep from harm, to preserve, to rescue,

10:58again, to save from death.

10:59So there's a lot of conceptual overlap

11:02with what we are finding in the Hebrew Bible.

11:06And so for instance,

11:08the first time it occurs in the New Testament is Matthew 121

11:12where the idea is you will name him Jesus,

11:15why he will save people from their sins.

11:19And so here's where it's no longer enemies.

11:23It's no longer some kind of immediate danger.

11:27It's no longer an illness or something like that.

11:28It's sin.

11:30And sin kind of metaphorically becomes the enemy.

11:35And so you have this, I think, slow transition

11:39from the enemy being temporal threats

11:44to the enemy being these spiritual threats that is sins.

11:49But it can also mean to be healed or to be made whole.

11:54You have some uses like that.

12:00So for instance, the woman with the issue of blood,

12:03she says, if I only touch his cloak,

12:06so thesis may, which would mean I will be saved,

12:12made whole, healed, something like that.

12:15So you still have the sense of salvation

12:18as something temporal,

12:19but I think you're also adding on to it the idea of sins.

12:24And there's another interesting development going on.

12:28And this is the origins of evil.

12:31And I think this has a lot to do

12:33with how Christians understand salvation today.

12:36Because we've talked about first Enoch,

12:39this very, very influential Greco-Roman period Jewish text,

12:43which is responsible for an awful lot related to ideas

12:46of post-mortem divine punishment and reward,

12:49ideas about Satan, ideas about demons,

12:51all this kind of stuff.

12:53And one of the points of the Enochic literature

12:55is to account for the origins of evil.

12:58And so according to the Enochic literature,

13:01evil is introduced to humanity into the world

13:04when the angels decide to rebel,

13:07to come down onto Mount Hermon,

13:09to share all this knowledge about weaponry,

13:14about war, about how to cause abortions, about makeup.

13:17Like that is what introduces evil to humanity.

13:22But you've got another account that takes over

13:25for early Christianity.

13:27And that is Genesis three.

13:29That is the story that becomes the fall.

13:32Right.

13:33See in the Hebrew Bible, there's no such thing as the fall.

13:36Like the story of Adam and Eve is just a story of,

13:40basically it's an etiology for how humanity

13:43spread out and populated the earth.

13:46Yeah, not much is made of it other than like,

13:50you know, oh, you ate the fruit,

13:53it looks like you're gonna have pain-bearing children

13:56for the rest of your life,

13:57for the rest of eternity or whatever.

14:00And then it doesn't make a big deal about like,

14:03this has implications forever or whatever.

14:05It's just kind of this is, this is what happened to you.

14:10Yeah, it's like an Aesop's fable.

14:14It's like, why is it that that pregnancy,

14:16which seems like it's such a good thing hurts so much?

14:19Well, there was this lady.

14:22And you know, why--

14:23You wouldn't believe what she ate.

14:24And then there's the, you know, the,

14:29he will bruise your, what is it?

14:32You will bruise his heel and he will crush your head.

14:34This is the Protevin gallium.

14:36This is the proto gospel,

14:38which is understood as this grand significant prophecy

14:43about how Jesus will destroy Satan.

14:47In reality, it's, why do snakes hate us so much?

14:51Why do we hate snakes?

14:53Well, see, there was this lady and it's the same thing.

14:57It's an etiology for why we hate snakes.

14:59Right.

15:00But, and you know, you look throughout the rest

15:03of the Hebrew Bible, the name Adam is mentioned once

15:08in a genealogy in first chronicles somewhere.

15:12The reference to Eden,

15:14I think Eden is mentioned in Ezekiel 28.

15:17And the story is completely different

15:19from what we have in Genesis two and three.

15:21It's, it's like you were the, you know,

15:23the covered angel and you walked among the onyx stone

15:26and you had the covering in the mountain of God.

15:29And Genesis two and three never mentioned a mountain anywhere.

15:33Like it's the story as understood

15:36by the author of Ezekiel 28 does not seem to come directly

15:39from what we have in Genesis two and three.

15:42It's some other tradition.

15:44But you never have anybody else referring to,

15:47oh, you know, when I shake my fist at Adam

15:50for eating the fruit and causing all of this trouble,

15:54none of that happens till the New Testament.

15:56Right.

15:56We should do that Ezekiel story, by the way.

15:59Oh, yeah, yeah, we definitely have to do that because it is.

16:01Somebody remind us to do that.

16:04That'd be a good one.

16:05Because there are, there are textual issues,

16:06there are interpretive issues.

16:08It gets to a lot of people think it's Lucifer

16:11that is talking about and it's not.

16:14So, so yeah, that's a fun one.

16:16But like that is just not a salient story

16:21about the origin of evil and tell the New Testament.

16:24So you really had two competing accounts

16:26from where evil came from.

16:28And in, in Greco-Roman period Judaism,

16:31the, the rebellious angels introducing evil

16:34is kind of the leading account.

16:36And it's not until you get into Paul

16:39and you get in and you get to Augustine

16:41that the thing changes and it's no longer about the angels

16:45introducing evil to humanity.

16:47It's about humanity shooting itself in the foot

16:50or stepping itself on the head as it were with the fall.

16:55And that is a way to account for how we get from

17:01everything is good and perfect to where we are now,

17:05where everything sucks and, you know,

17:09and Epstein didn't kill himself.

17:11And tell, until it became expedient to say

17:14that it turns out he did kill himself.

17:16- Right, right.

17:17(upbeat music)

17:20- So you have this, this interesting conflict,

17:25this interesting competition between these two accounts

17:28of where evil comes from.

17:29And Christianity ends up picking and choosing

17:33what it's gonna do.

17:34It's gonna take the ideas of heaven and hell

17:38and things like that from the anochic tradition

17:40in Greco-Roman period Judaism.

17:42But it's then going to reject the authenticity,

17:47the inspired nature of First Enoch

17:49and like the third century CE is when they begin to go,

17:53"You know what, I don't think this is real."

17:56And give preference to the account in the book of Genesis

18:00for the origin of evil.

18:02So it's kind of a mishmash of these Jewish influences.

18:07But we get down to Christianity

18:09and suddenly salvation is not just about

18:13temporal salvation, it's now about eternal spiritual salvation.

18:18And we go from the idea of the Messiah

18:22as the one who's supposed to show up

18:24and deliver us from our oppressors

18:27and reestablish the independent kingdom of Israel to,

18:32oh, it turns out we're just gonna have crappy lives forever.

18:38But then once we die, then we'll go to heaven.

18:40That's how we enter into the kingdom of God.

18:44And I think you see some,

18:45I think you see some conflict in the Gospels

18:48where the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven

18:51is something initially kind of perceived

18:54to be an earthly kingdom,

18:56but also represented as not of this world

18:59and something that's gonna be located somewhere else.

19:02I think you probably have a little bit of conflict there

19:06because I imagine that Jesus followers initially understood

19:10Jesus according to a traditional understanding of the Messiah

19:13as someone who was gonna come deliver them from their yoke,

19:18deliver them from subjugation to Rome

19:21and lead to an independent Judean kingdom.

19:26And when that didn't happen,

19:28when they're all looking up at him hanging on the cross

19:31going, oh, crap, what, I don't think-

19:34- Excuse me, we weren't done.

19:36- I think that's when you had a bunch of people

19:41returning to the drawing board

19:44in a quite literal way to figure out how to renegotiate

19:49their understanding, not only of the identity

19:51and the mission of the Messiah,

19:52but the nature of salvation.

19:55So I think Jesus is where salvation pivots

19:59and particularly the death of Jesus

20:00is where salvation pivots and they're like,

20:03now we gotta adopt the thousand yard stare,

20:07the eternal perspective.

20:09It's not just about Rome, now it's about the afterlife.

20:13And that is where we're going to be placing all our eggs.

20:18That's the basket that is gonna hold all our eggs

20:20from now on.

20:21And so I think that really gets firmed up

20:26in the early Christian literature

20:28and Tertullian and Irenaeus and Augustine

20:31and these others develop concepts of original sin,

20:35develop this notion that sin is the big baddie.

20:38That's the enemy.

20:39It's no longer temporal enemies.

20:41It's no longer human enemies.

20:43It's no longer illness.

20:44It is now sin because that is what causes death.

20:48That is what separates us from God.

20:51And so salvation is ultimately overcoming

20:53of that particular enemy that returns us to communion

20:58with God and returns us to that happy blessed state

21:02that we were in when it was just Adam and Eve

21:05in the garden.

21:06Right.

21:08And yeah, now when it comes to salvation

21:13as it's represented in like Paul

21:16and particularly among the solagratia,

21:19the grace alone folks.

21:21This is something that I've been,

21:22I'm contemplating doing a video on this

21:25because I just saw last night I was poking around on,

21:28I think Instagram or TikTok and saw a video

21:31where somebody was talking about how God is,

21:36you don't have to do anything to be saved

21:38except all this stuff.

21:42Right.

21:43And then it's like, but it's not,

21:44but you don't have to do anything to be saved.

21:47'Cause some, what is it?

21:48Oh yeah, they were watching a Sarah Silverman

21:51stand up special where she was like telling a joke

21:54about how there's all this, you know, Christianity says

21:57But as long as you say you're sorry,

21:57there's all this stuff.

22:00then it all goes away.

22:01And the person was like, how dare you?

22:03It's not just a matter of doing it.

22:04You also have to repent of everything

22:07and change your life and other,

22:08and just kind of is like, but wait a minute,

22:12you don't actually have to do all of that.

22:14Right.

22:15You really just have to have faith,

22:17but you have to do all of that

22:19because that's the fruit of your faith.

22:21And the argument was basically that the good works,

22:26they're not a requirement.

22:29You don't have to do the good works,

22:31but if you're not saved, then you won't do the good works.

22:34And if you're saved, then you will do the good works.

22:37And so they said it's the evidence of your faith.

22:42And my thought was evidence for whom?

22:46Yeah.

22:47Like for God, God's the one who saved you.

22:49God doesn't need evidence that they have saved you.

22:53Even if they didn't, even if they weren't the one who did it,

22:56they were like, I was on vacation.

22:57This is a subordinate who did this.

22:59They ostensibly have all knowledge.

23:02So they already know you're saved.

23:04They don't need to be given evidence of this.

23:08So for whom is the evidence, it can only be for other Christians?

23:13Right.

23:14In other words, they're--

23:15Or other non-Christians.

23:16Or other non-Christians.

23:17But I think the main, the primary target audience

23:21is other Christians because what is evidence of faith for

23:26if not to demonstrate to other Christians

23:29that you're one of the good ones, that you are saved?

23:32That you belong, that you're one of the, yeah.

23:36Yeah, it's costly signaling.

23:38It's a way to show you're a member

23:40of, you're a faithful member of the in-group,

23:43which kind of makes the whole project sound an awful lot

23:48like just a social club.

23:51Yeah.

23:53And this is something that baffles me

23:56because even, I think even Paul was kind of struggling with this

23:59in the New Testament.

24:00Paul is like, we're not under the law.

24:03We're not under the law.

24:03We don't have to do anything.

24:04But does that mean we let sin to bound?

24:07Of course not.

24:08We're still kind of, you know,

24:10you still got to do the stuff,

24:11but not because we have to do the stuff.

24:13Right.

24:14And like trying to square that circle.

24:18Yeah.

24:19It's always baffled me.

24:20This has always been a really difficult theology

24:24for me to wrap my head around.

24:25Because the logical conclusion,

24:28if you follow any of the trails

24:29to their logical conclusion,

24:31they don't lead where these people,

24:33where the people that I've talked to say they lead.

24:37Like for instance, I as an atheist, I'm not saved.

24:42But if you get saved and then you become an atheist,

24:47there's the whole one saved, always saved.

24:50You can't unsave yourself.

24:53So then if you stop believing after you were saved,

24:57do you lose your salvation?

24:58Well, I mean, most people say no.

25:01You don't lose yourself.

25:02So like why, if I was never saved,

25:06but I'm still believing exactly the same way

25:09as someone who was saved,

25:11why don't I get to go?

25:12What's happening in there?

25:13Like what's, why am I excluded from this?

25:17And if good works are just evidence of faith or salvation,

25:22if there are atheists out there who are better people,

25:28just do good works.

25:30Who do good works, who are just do better

25:34than people who claim to be saved.

25:36Like what does that mean?

25:38It's like your salvation ends up being inferior

25:42to someone's non-salvation.

25:45And again, I'm gonna come back to this endlessly

25:45Right.

25:49because this is the part that I think people

25:52don't think critically about.

25:54If you tell someone, once you're saved,

25:57that's it, you're good, it doesn't matter what you do,

26:00but we still demand you do the right thing.

26:05Right.

26:06Because that is how you put on display

26:09the reality of your salvation.

26:12All you're doing is incentivizing people

26:14to try to do good works,

26:18which is really just saying you need to earn your salvation,

26:22at least in the most relevant sense,

26:25in the sense that we all believe you are saved.

26:29Like the focus of it all is putting on display

26:34to other members of the in-group

26:37that you have passed the test.

26:40And so for people to talk about how there's,

26:43it's a free gift,

26:45but once you're given the gift, you will pay for it.

26:50Right.

26:50Not because you have to,

26:52but because you haven't, you know, you will just be compelled

26:56to buy the free gift.

26:58Like that's nonsensical.

27:01And it all comes down to the costly signaling.

27:05They're hard to fake signals to others

27:08that you are towing the line,

27:11that you will honor the standards and the mores

27:16and the expectations of the social group.

27:19And so if dancing is a sin according to your tradition,

27:24that's how you incur the costs

27:27of showing everybody that you're saved.

27:29You don't dance.

27:30And it's not going to be because you have suddenly

27:34been divested of any urge or desire to dance.

27:37It's because you're going to go through the effort

27:41of preventing yourself from dancing.

27:43And I think everybody understands that.

27:45You know, I've been on some, you know,

27:47I've been sort of researching for this segment.

27:50I went on some forums of people asking about like, you know,

27:53I'm new, I'm, I just got saved,

27:56but I don't fully understand how this works.

27:59I'm still, I still feel the impulse to sin.

28:01I still do sin sometimes.

28:04Am I not saved?

28:06Am I still saved?

28:07And everybody understand, like the whole comment section

28:10is just like, no, no, no, no, no, don't worry.

28:12We're all sinners.

28:13This hat, you can't avoid it.

28:15Yeah, just, you know, try to be better,

28:18try to be a good person.

28:19And it's like, well, you're not supposed to try.

28:21But if we all understand that, then what?

28:24Yeah, it feels like it feels very circular to me.

28:29It feels like it keeps rolling back on itself.

28:34Yeah, and it's because it's the, the ideology,

28:38the expectation does not align with reality.

28:41Right.

28:42And so I think it's one of the things

28:43that everybody just kind of winks at.

28:45When it, when it comes to how we represent things

28:48to the public and how we engage in, you know,

28:50online discourse and all that kind of stuff,

28:52we're gonna say this, oh yeah, no, no, it's a free gift.

28:55You don't earn it at all.

28:56But what about the fact that you have to do all this stuff?

28:58Well, you'll just do it anyway, because--

29:02Don't you just want to now that you're filled

29:04with the spirit or whatever?

29:06And then, and then they can turn around to their own group

29:08and be like, hey, I do struggle with stuff still.

29:12And, you know, according to the rules as they're represented,

29:15that would mean you're not actually saved,

29:20but when it comes to internally,

29:22they're gonna be like, no, no, we're a support group.

29:25We're here to help you through this.

29:26Everybody struggles with this, nobody.

29:28And, you know, they recognize that, no, you have to earn this.

29:33You have to work hard in order to put on display

29:38that you are saved.

29:40And I think it's, yeah, I need to come up with a way

29:44to kind of, I need to distill this down

29:46so I can put it in a three minute video

29:49and point this out, because I think it,

29:51'cause I see more and more, like this person

29:54mocking Sarah Silverman for saying all the bad stuff

29:57that you're doing that condemns you to an eternity

29:59of punishment, as long as you say, I'm sorry and believe it,

30:03it all goes away and they're like,

30:04(laughing)

30:05"That's not how it works."

30:07Well, yeah, it is how it works.

30:09Isn't it? Yeah.

30:11You're saying it's how it works,

30:12but then you're also saying on the other side of your mouth,

30:14that's not how it works.

30:16Which one is it?

30:17Is it, once I have faith, that's it?

30:20I'm saved, I cannot be unsaved?

30:22Or is it, my salvation is something

30:25that I have to work out?

30:28To be clear, I am very much in support of any theology

30:32or any sort of social construct

30:35that gets people to be better to each other.

30:38And that gets people to do good and kind things

30:41in the world. Yes.

30:42So, great. And this is great.

30:44If you have found a way to motivate yourself

30:49to be a better person,

30:51like if you're really being a better person,

30:53not just talking about it.

30:55Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

30:57I think that that makes for a better world

30:59and this raises another point.

31:01What it means to be a better person is--

31:04That's a trick. That's--

31:05Is relative, is subjective. Yeah.

31:08Because in, you know, for Paul,

31:10a better person was somebody who didn't beat

31:14their slaves arbitrarily.

31:16You beat them with a reason.

31:19Yeah, you don't, you know, you don't discipline them

31:22unless you have a good reason to. Right.

31:24And, you know, you can go to, you can go to Augustine.

31:27Somebody who's widely considered one of the most influential

31:30and best Christians around who said,

31:33hey, you need to whip your slaves.

31:35God is mad at you if you do not whip your slaves.

31:39But you have to whip them with a heart full of love,

31:42not hate. That's a good loving weapon

31:46that you need to divvy out.

31:48So in 400 CE, that was the good work.

31:52Right. To whip your slaves with a heart full of love.

31:55That is no longer a good work. No.

31:59Not because something changed about

32:00the actual inherent morality or immorality

32:04of whipping your slaves with a smile on your face.

32:07But because we decided that that was no longer a good thing.

32:11Because we have grown, we have outgrown the idea

32:14of both slavery and whipping, hopefully, in general.

32:18Yeah. Well, although, according to Grok,

32:20maybe it sounds like there might be backsliding a little bit.

32:24Yeah, Grok is a terrifying sort of bellwether

32:29of humanity's backsliding.

32:31We don't know exactly what the situation

32:34is going to be when this episode comes out.

32:35But as of recording, yesterday Grok started claiming

32:40to be Hitler literally cheering on Hitler

32:47because somebody evidently took the governor off of Grok

32:52and was like, "Hey, stop being woke."

32:54And they were like, "All right, well, this is the alternative."

32:57Yeah, welcome to non-woke Grok.

33:00Yeah, but I know I just totally lost my train.

33:05Okay, so, but the, you know, what we think is righteous today

33:10is entirely different.

33:11And even among Christians today, one Christian might be like,

33:15"Hey, you know, going and picketing outside

33:18an abortion clinic or bombing an abortion clinic,

33:22that might be a way to put your faith on display."

33:24Right.

33:25Or someone else might be like, "Well, I actually think

33:28that maybe protecting women's rights

33:30would be a better way to put my faith on display."

33:33Which demonstrates that ultimately it all goes back

33:37to whatever your particular social in-group

33:40determines is good for it.

33:43Yeah.

33:44And so having faith is not where God suddenly takes over

33:48as the puppet master and manipulates you like a marionette

33:52to go and do this, that or the other

33:55or not do this, that or the other.

33:56It's just you learning what your social group expects of you

34:01and then you going out and incurring the cost to do that.

34:04Yeah.

34:05Which, yeah, I think puts the lie to a lot of the rhetoric

34:10that we see these days about faith on social media.

34:14Yep, well, there you go.

34:16All right, I don't know that we've cracked anything

34:19that we've solved anything here, but it just find it

34:23such a fascinating discussion.

34:24Maybe we'll get deeper into it at some point.

34:27Yeah.

34:28'Cause I found so many different

34:31scriptures that say things that I don't understand

34:36why this scripture says this and that scripture says that,

34:39but we didn't even get to that, that's fine.

34:41We did the overview and I think that will suffice.

34:46So let's move on to our chapter and verse.

34:50(upbeat music)

34:53And this week's chapter and verse is Isaiah six.

34:57And boy, let me tell you something.

35:00If you want to read something that you will not

35:03immediately understand what the heck is going on,

35:06that's a great place to start.

35:08Just to lock everybody into our setting.

35:15This is the year that King Uzziah died.

35:17So everybody understands that.

35:19We all know who that dude is.

35:23Now that we've got our bearings.

35:25Yeah, I have no idea who King Uzziah is

35:27or when that places us, but where are we?

35:32Tell me about Isaiah and like,

35:35Yeah.

35:36So Isaiah was an eighth century prophet.

35:39He was mainly probably a court prophet,

35:42probably one of the prophets that was under the employ

35:46of the king in Judah.

35:48And Isaiah was a one of the kings.

35:53So the eighth century was a big century

35:56for both Judah and Israel,

35:58because mainly because they had two kings.

36:01Judah had Uzziah and Israel had another king

36:04that reigned for like 40 to 50 years each,

36:07which allowed them to gain a lot of traction.

36:12They established a lot of treaties.

36:14They did a lot of trade.

36:15And this is the period of the most significant growth

36:18in the history of not just Northern,

36:20the Northern Kingdom of Israel,

36:21but also the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

36:23Okay.

36:24So Uzziah reigned for 52 years,

36:27according to the biblical text.

36:28And you have different estimates

36:31about when exactly that was,

36:33but it puts Isaiah or it puts Uzziah's reign

36:37from somewhere around 790 to 780 BCE

36:41down to somewhere around 750 or 740 BCE.

36:45So the year of King Uzziah's death

36:47is somewhere around 740 to 750 BCE.

36:51Okay.

36:52So the very beginning of the second half

36:54of the eighth century BCE.

36:57And this puts us 20ish to 30ish years away

37:02from the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

37:08So that's gonna happen in 722 BCE.

37:11Okay.

37:12And Judah is going to be safe, however.

37:16So yeah.

37:18And at this point,

37:19so at this point that has not yet happened,

37:21that has not yet indicated here.

37:23Right.

37:24Okay.

37:25But in that year,

37:28Isaiah has something funky happen to him.

37:30Right.

37:31How do we get through this?

37:34What do we do?

37:35First of all, there's a dream.

37:37Or is it a dream?

37:39Or is it maybe it's just a vision?

37:42Yeah, let's just say it's a vision.

37:45It just says in the year that King Uzziah died,

37:48I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lofty

37:53and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

37:55You want to talk about that?

37:56Yeah.

37:59So the vision is it's a throne theophany.

38:02That's the $2 word for what's going on here

38:04where you have a vision of God sitting upon a throne.

38:08And Isaiah is not the only one who has this.

38:10Matter of fact, the main character

38:12in the new Wes Anderson movie,

38:15the Phoenician prophecy has one of these.

38:17Oh, really?

38:18Yeah.

38:19Is that movie out already?

38:20Have you seen it?

38:21The Phoenician scheme is what it's called.

38:23Yeah.

38:24I saw the ads for that.

38:25It looks pretty.

38:26I went and saw it just the other day.

38:28Oh, very cool.

38:29It looks like an interesting movie.

38:31I like many of the actors.

38:32Exactly like a Wes Anderson movie.

38:34Well, yeah.

38:35That's exactly what it is.

38:38You know what you're getting.

38:40So you have the,

38:42he sees the Lord sitting on a throne high in lofty.

38:44And then the traditional understanding is that

38:46the hem of his robe or his train filled the temple.

38:51And the Hebrew there is shul,

38:53which I mean, for lack of a better way to define it,

38:58it means hanger downs.

39:01It is something that hangs down from something.

39:05And so you have two different main uses.

39:10There is a sense that we find primarily in Exodus

39:13where it is the seams of the garment of the priest.

39:18Sure.

39:21And the other use is genitals.

39:25And so you have that in places like Jeremiah

39:30and Nahum and Lamentations and things like that,

39:33where it's primarily talking about shame associated

39:37with the exposure of these parts of the body.

39:40So there have been scholars who have argued that,

39:44no, this just means the hem of the robe.

39:46There are other scholars who argue, no,

39:48this means Isaiah is hanging dong in this vision.

39:53There are others who say the author is,

39:56might be toying with the ambiguity of this term

40:00and might be intentionally kind of being unclear about it.

40:04Is it his robe or is it his junk?

40:07Right.

40:08That's up for you to decide.

40:09But the NRSVUE does not have a note there.

40:13A note about this particular thing.

40:16So just for the sake of argument,

40:18imagine that the Lord's garment

40:21or the Lord's something is filling the temple.

40:24Yes.

40:24It's full.

40:25The temple's full.

40:26We'll just say that.

40:27Yeah.

40:28(upbeat music)

40:30This is where the serifs come in.

40:34It says this verse two,

40:35"Serifs were in attendance above him.

40:37Each had six wings with two, they covered their faces

40:41and with two, they covered their feet

40:43and with two, they flew.

40:44Why do their faces and feet need to be covered?

40:49That's nobody's business but the Turks.

40:52Well, and there's the beginning of the verse.

40:57The first two words are serifim, om deem,

41:01which the NRSVUE has rendered

41:03were in attendance above him.

41:05But that's the verbal root for to stand.

41:09Oh.

41:10So it would better be translated.

41:12The serifim were standing above him.

41:17It just said that they were flying.

41:19So.

41:20But yeah.

41:20And then by the end of the verse,

41:22it says, "covered their faces and with two,

41:25covered their feet and feet here could be a euphemism."

41:29This is an argument made by the folks who think

41:31that Shul is referring to genitals.

41:35The serifim are embarrassed.

41:37They're put to shame by the divine junk.

41:41And so they are covering their own wedding tackle

41:46and then also covering their faces because they are--

41:51Genitals all the way down, all right.

41:53Because of how bashful they are.

41:55(laughing)

41:57That's one way to read this.

41:59Don't look at me.

42:00Don't look at me.

42:02And the notion that these are angels is not biblical.

42:04That is a post-biblical kind of systematization

42:09of the characters that inhabit the heavens.

42:12The sort of--

42:13The heavenly host as it were.

42:15Yeah, they all get reduced to angelic status,

42:18even though the word angel is never used to refer

42:22to serifim or ophanim or cherubim

42:26or anything like that anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.

42:29All right.

42:30And so we've got these winged creatures

42:32and there's an argument to make that the idea here

42:36is not to kind of literally represent something,

42:40but to just kind of symbolically talk

42:43about what's intended here.

42:45These are entities who can, they have a bunch of wings,

42:49which means they are mobile.

42:50They can fly anywhere they want.

42:52They can do what they need to do,

42:54but here they are being reserved

42:57and they are covering things up,

43:00but they're going to act in just a moment here.

43:02Okay.

43:03First one of them says to the other,

43:06"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

43:08"The whole earth is full of his glory,

43:11"and the whole temple is full of his, never mind."

43:14(laughing)

43:17So, I don't know what this, there is a note here

43:20that I neglected to check it out.

43:22Oh, okay.

43:23It says not, I'm moving on to verse four.

43:26The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices

43:30of those who called us.

43:31Does that mean like the pivots?

43:33Does that mean the hinges or?

43:35What is the word here, I mean a note?

43:40It says the meaning of heb is uncertain.

43:43The meaning of heb, Amah is probably what they're...

43:47- That's the...

43:52- I don't see heb anywhere.

43:53Oh, Hebrew, the meaning of the Hebrew.

43:55- Oh, okay.

43:56(laughing)

43:58- Okay, yeah.

44:00- Okay, so it looks like it can mean forearm,

44:05it can mean qubit.

44:06So it's some kind of,

44:09I think probably frame or post or something like that.

44:13- Something's rattling, something's shaking

44:16as these voices are, they're powerful voices,

44:18I think is what we're meant to understand.

44:20- Yeah, and the house filled with smoke.

44:22So here we have the smoke from the incense,

44:26which is supposed to obscure the vision of the arc

44:29of the covenant when the high priest goes in

44:31on the day of atonement and all this kind of stuff.

44:33- Oh, I've never heard that.

44:34- Yes.

44:35- That's what the smoke is for,

44:36that's what the incense is meant to do.

44:38- Yes, half reveal, half discloses.

44:43According to the great poet.

44:44So it is, the idea is to kind of mask the divine

44:51a little bit, but also represent the presence of the divine.

44:55And then we have Isaiah who is just seeing all this stuff,

45:01things are shaking them around them,

45:02there's dong everywhere.

45:04And he goes, "Woe is me, I am lost,

45:06"for I am a man of unclean lips,

45:08"and I live among a people of unclean lips,

45:10"yet my eyes have seen the king, the lord of hosts."

45:14And yeah, here we just have,

45:18this is a throwback to the idea that no one can see God and live.

45:23What we find in Exodus 33 where Moses says,

45:25"Show me your glory."

45:26And God says, "I'm gonna walk by you,

45:28"I'm gonna put my hand in front of your face,

45:30"and go by and then take my hand away.

45:32"And you'll see my nalgas, you'll see my backside,

45:36"but you won't see my face because no one can see me and live."

45:39And so Isaiah in the classic motif,

45:44sees God and is like, "Oh crap, now I'm gonna die."

45:49- You care to talk a little bit about what unclean lips might

45:54be referencing, 'cause I've said I've spoken bad things,

45:59or I don't know what unclean lips might be.

46:02- Timesh, if I time, yeah, it's pretty literal,

46:05just unclean or yeah, impure lips.

46:10And I think the idea is just that the mouth

46:15is one of the sources of of sin.

46:18And so if a sinful people will be a people

46:22that have spoken sin, so are of unclean lips.

46:25He's just saying, "I'm a sinful man,

46:27"I live among a sinful people."

46:29Yes, which is not to be confused with a simple man,

46:34the Leonard Skynard song, but then one of the seraphs

46:39flew to me holding a live coal

46:41that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

46:44The seraph touched my mouth with it and said,

46:46"Now that this has touched your lips,

46:47"your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

46:52So we got fire as a cleansing agent.

46:55This is a coal from the altar in the Holy of Holies.

47:00It would have been an incense altar and this allows

47:05the uncleanness of Isaiah's lips to be purged.

47:08And that allows him to then be commissioned by

47:12the divine council 'cause what we're looking at here

47:14is a divine council scene and the seraphs are the attendance

47:19in the divine council and Isaiah is about to be given

47:24an assignment by the divine council.

47:26Okay.

47:28Yes.

47:30Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,

47:32"Whom shall I send and who will go for us?"

47:35And I said, "Here am I, send me."

47:38And this is somewhat reminiscent of a vision

47:42that Makiah has in, I believe it as 1 Kings 22,

47:47where A has is deciding whether or not he's gonna go up

47:52to remote Gilead to fight against the Philistines

47:55and he calls in his prophets and he's like,

47:57"What does the Lord say?"

47:58And they all say, "Oh yes, you should go up.

48:01"God will deliver them into your hands."

48:03And then he says, "You are a bunch of yes, man.

48:06"Why don't you bring me?"

48:07Or somebody says, "Let's get Makiah in here."

48:09And he's like, "Makiah always says bad things about me.

48:11"I hate Makiah.

48:12"Makiah sucks."

48:13And Makiah's like, "What do you want?"

48:15And he's, "Should I go up?"

48:17And he goes, "Yeah, sure, you go up.

48:19"God will deliver him into your hands."

48:21And the king's like, "You're lying to me."

48:23And he's like, "Yeah, I am."

48:27And proceeds to prophesy that if he goes up, he will die.

48:32But then says, "I saw the Lord sitting on the throne

48:36"surrounded by all of the host of heaven

48:38"and the Lord calls out for a volunteer

48:41"who will go entice the king to go up

48:44"so he can be killed."

48:46And then he says, "The spirit came forth and said,

48:51"I will be a lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets

48:54"and I will get him to go up."

48:56And God says, "Ooh, I like it.

48:58"Yeah, let's make that happen."

49:00And then he does go up and he does get killed.

49:03So that's where God lies to king through his prophets

49:08in order to get him killed.

49:10But we have something similar going on here.

49:12We're asking for a volunteer only here

49:15instead of a member of the divine council,

49:17another deity being the one who's commissioned.

49:20It is Isaiah who volunteers.

49:23And I wanted to bring this up.

49:25This is not the reason I wanted to do this chapter,

49:28but just yesterday, the Department of Homeland Services

49:33put a video on X or Twitter or whatever.

49:38Did you happen to see this video?

49:39- No, I missed it.

49:41- It is, it shows a bunch of footage of border control,

49:46patrolling around in helicopters and night vision goggles

49:50in the middle of the night, patrolling the border

49:52and showing menacing looking grandmothers,

49:55trying to cross the border as they do.

49:58But they had two things, two pieces of audio

50:02that were being played over this video.

50:04And one of them was a clip from the 2014 movie Fury.

50:07Did you ever see that movie?

50:08- I don't remember, yeah, I did.

50:10I just don't remember it well.

50:12- World War II, Brad Pitt, running a tank.

50:16And so you've got Shia LaBeouf, plays a character

50:19whose name was Boyd Bible Swan.

50:23And there's a part where he's, they're sitting in the tank,

50:27they know the deaths coming, fighting against the Nazis.

50:32And he says, this is a righteous act here, gentlemen.

50:37And he says, there's a scripture, I think, of sometimes,

50:41many times, and then he quotes this,

50:43"Whom shall I send and who will go for us?"

50:46And I said, "Here, am I, send me."

50:48And, you know, he's on the verge of tears here

50:50and Brad Pitt is like, I say, chapter six.

50:52And it's kind of a bonding moment for these men

50:55right before almost all of them are killed.

50:58But they're playing this over this footage

51:01of like Homeland Security border control.

51:06And then they begin to play God's gonna cut you down.

51:11Not the Johnny Cash version, but some contemporary

51:16bro country version of God's gonna cut you down.

51:19And like, I'm just baffled by all of this

51:22as I watch this video, because, well,

51:27I think the appeal to Isaiah 6 is grotesque.

51:31- Yeah.

51:32- And we'll talk about what exactly the message

51:34that Isaiah is offering here or is supposed to share here.

51:39But yeah, the appeal to a song that was made famous

51:44primarily by Johnny Cash,

51:46who was someone who routinely criticized the government

51:49for spending too much money on the military

51:51and not spending enough money on education

51:53and on welfare and on children and on the elderly

51:56and stuff like that.

51:57And who also sang a protest song written by Woody Guthrie

52:01called Deportee, condemning the US

52:05for their dehumanization of undocumented immigrants

52:10and asylum seekers.

52:11But yeah, I, I saw that video and was like,

52:15holy crap, this is bad.

52:19But I guess, I guess we don't have an excuse

52:22for being surprised anymore, the, no, we should not be,

52:26we should not be surprised that the--

52:28- And more is coming.

52:29- Oh yeah, no doubt.

52:31- We can rest assured that more and worse

52:34is coming down the pike.

52:35So anyway, let's get into what Isaiah

52:38was actually sent to do.

52:40- Okay, and this is kind of the baffling part

52:42for a lot of people, the next two verses.

52:44- Oh, this is the baffling, listen,

52:46every part of this is the baffling part for me.

52:49- Oh, okay, so-- - But yes.

52:51- Nine and 10.

52:52And he said, go and say to this people,

52:54keep listening, but do not comprehend.

52:57Keep looking, but do not understand.

52:59Make the mind of this people dull and stop their ears

53:02and shut their eyes so that they may not look with their eyes

53:05and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds

53:08and turn and be healed.

53:11So it sounds like God is like, I need a volunteer

53:17to go and preach deliverance and also prevent

53:21the people from receiving this.

53:26And why, what's going on here?

53:30And I think there's been a lot of scholarship on this

53:33and I think the best argument is that

53:36this is being written after the exile.

53:38So after 722 BCE when the Northern Kingdom

53:43has been destroyed, probably even after the, or maybe,

53:47even after the Babylonian exile.

53:50So they know what's coming and, but they know Isaiah

53:55was also actually prophesying in this time period.

53:59And so I think what's most likely going on here is

54:03they're trying to craft the message that God gives to Isaiah

54:07in a way that allows the failure of the society

54:11to save themselves, to be the fulfillment of the prophecy,

54:16of the assignment.

54:18So God is like, it's kind of the same thing that we had

54:21with, oh, what was the story where God was like,

54:24go do this, but it's not gonna work.

54:26Oh, with Moses.

54:27- It was the Exodus, yeah.

54:29- Where he's like, go and, and, you know, do all the miracles

54:33and I'm gonna stop Pharaoh from listening to you.

54:35- Right.

54:36- It's kind of like God wants this to happen.

54:39And so God is going to, or the authors are going

54:43to represent God as telling the servant to go do this

54:48and it's not gonna work.

54:49- Make sure it doesn't work.

54:50See to it that this doesn't work.

54:52It does feel like, just to clarify.

54:55So this, the history, the time period that you gave us

54:59at the beginning of this segment was when this was meant

55:03to have been taking place, but not likely

55:05when it was actually written.

55:07- Right, so the, the king, the year that King Isaiah died

55:11would have been 18 to 28 years, or 18 to, yeah, 18 to 28 years

55:16before the destruction of the Northern Kingdom.

55:19And then there would have been another 100 in some years

55:23until the Babylonian exile.

55:27- So you're saying this was not written by Isaiah?

55:30- Oh no, probably this is the, there are portions

55:34of Isaiah one through 39 that are agreed to have been written

55:38by Isaiah.

55:39I think that scholars probably understand at least chapter six

55:44and probably the majority of the chapters that came before

55:50were probably written later on as part of kind of an introduction

55:54to the book of Isaiah, but probably not something written

55:59by the actual historical Isaiah.

56:01But most scholars agree there was probably a court prophet

56:04in the 8th century BCE who was named Isaiah

56:07and was prophesied and some of whose writings are preserved

56:11in the modern book of Isaiah.

56:13And then so we have, we have, what, three more verses.

56:18And then I said, how long, oh Lord?

56:21And he said, until cities lie waste without inhabitant

56:24and houses without people and the land is utterly desolate

56:28until the Lord sends everyone far away

56:30and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land,

56:33even if a 10th part remain in it, it will be burned again

56:37like a terabenth or an oak whose stump remains standing

56:41when it is felled.

56:42The holy seed is its stump.

56:45And so there are a couple of different ways to interpret this.

56:47If this is about the Northern Kingdom,

56:49then this would have been fulfilled in just a couple of decades

56:52when "Take the Laugh" policeor comes through

56:55and routes the Northern Kingdom and sends them away packing.

57:02So if this is about the Northern Kingdom,

57:05that would have been fulfilled very soon if this is,

57:09but this could also be interpreted as about the Babylonian

57:12exile and it could be referring to the Southern Kingdom

57:14to the forced migration of the people

57:17of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

57:20So it's unclear which exactly I think is in view.

57:25I think scholars have argued about this for many years.

57:31But the idea is basically, yeah,

57:34Isaiah is being sent out to preach something,

57:37but mainly just to make sure that nothing works

57:40and that the land is desolate.

57:42- Just confuse the crap out of everybody

57:45so that they're all too dumb to actually defend themselves

57:49when the time comes for us to just wreck everything.

57:52- Yeah.

57:53- Is that a fair assessment?

57:55- I think so.

57:56- Yeah, okay, keep listening, but do not comprehend.

58:00I know that when I was reading this,

58:01I felt like I was listening, but not comprehending.

58:04(laughing)

58:05So it works.

58:07- And I'm sure if there was a historical Isaiah

58:10who was out there like, so here's the deal.

58:14There were an awful lot of people who were listening,

58:16but not comprehending.

58:17- Yeah, maybe he was speaking in pig Latin.

58:22- Well, I wonder, I'm curious if,

58:24don't remember when exactly it is,

58:27but there were two years during which Isaiah was nude

58:31when he was in when he was doing his itinerant profiting.

58:36- Well, if it's good enough for the Lord in the temple,

58:40it's good enough for him.

58:41(laughing)

58:43- It looks like it's Isaiah verse 20,

58:48and that time the Lord spoke to, yeah.

58:5120 verse two, at that time,

58:53the Lord had spoken to Isaiah, son of Amos,

58:55saying go and loose the sack cloth from your loins

58:58and take your sandals off your feet,

59:00and he had done so walking naked and barefoot.

59:03- Wow.

59:04- Then the Lord said, just as my servant Isaiah

59:06has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign

59:09and a portant against Egypt and Kush,

59:12so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians

59:14as captives and the Kushites as exile.

59:16So God was like, I need you to be naked

59:19for the next three years.

59:20- I need three years of nudity for a metaphor

59:24that I'm working on.

59:25- Yeah, it's a. (laughing)

59:29- It's gonna pay off, don't worry, it'll pay off.

59:30- Trust me, you're gonna love this.

59:32Everybody's gonna be thrilled about this.

59:34- Yeah. (laughing)

59:36- Oh man, all right, well that,

59:39what a fascinating and weird book Isaiah is.

59:43We should probably dive into more of it,

59:45'cause I'm guessing that it doesn't get less weird.

59:49I mean, you just brought teased the naked parts,

59:54so we'll get more Isaiah in the future.

59:59But for now, thank you so much for joining us.

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