Haftarot: How Prophecy Became Liturgy

What are haftarot? The short answer is that they are selections from the Former and Latter Prophets read in the synagogue on Sabbaths, festivals, and special fast days. The haftarot (sg. haftarah) are paired with weekly readings from the annual cycle of the Torah (parashiyot). Only about ten percent of the prophets appears in the haftarot lectionary cycle, with an outsized amount from the Latter Prophets and from Second Isaiah in particular.^[1]

Though the precise origins of haftarot are unclear, we can develop a deeper understanding of their development by considering the role of prophecy and its interpretation—from antiquity to the present—within the performative context of worship, as select texts are interpreted to create new meaning for contemporary life.

The first blessing following the reading of the haftarah, still recited today in synagogues, affirms that the divine word is active and potent in the world, deriving as it does from a trustworthy sovereign:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם. צוּר כָּל הָעוֹלָמִים. צַדִּיק בְּכָל הַדּוֹרוֹת. הָאֵל הַנֶּאֱמָן הָאוֹמֵר וְעוֹשֶׂה. הַמְדַבֵּר וּמְקַיֵּם שֶׁכָּל דְּבָרָיו אֱמֶת וָצֶדֶק.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, sovereign of the cosmos, rock of all the cosmos, righteous throughout all the generations, who speaks and does, who declares and fulfills: for all his words are true and just.

נֶאֱמָן אַתָּה הוּא יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְנֶאֱמָנִים דְּבָרֶיךָ. וְדָבָר אֶחָד מִדְּבָרֶיךָ אָחוֹר לֹא יָשׁוּב רֵיקָם. כִּי אֵל מֶלֶךְ נֶאֱמָן וְרַחֲמָן אָתָּה: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ־הֹוָה. הָאֵל הַנֶּאֱמָן בְּכָל דְּבָרָיו.

You are he, O Lord our God, who is reliable, and his words are trustworthy, and not one of your words shall return empty for you are a trustworthy and merciful sovereign. Blessed are you, O Lord, the God who is trustworthy in all his words.

The wording draws on a passage in Second Isaiah:

^{ישׁעיה נה:יא} כֵּן יִהְיֶה דְבָרִי אֲשֶׁר יֵצֵא מִפִּי לֹא יָשׁוּב אֵלַי רֵיקָם כִּי אִם עָשָׂה אֶת אֲשֶׁר חָפַצְתִּי וְהִצְלִיחַ אֲשֶׁר שְׁלַחְתִּיו.

^{Isa 55:11} So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.^[2]

The blessing expresses the expectation that the divine promises made in the prophets will be fulfilled. This raises certain questions: When will that be accomplished, or have events foretold by the prophets already occurred? Who decides which prophecies have or will be fulfilled, and when?

Jesus Reads Isaiah in the Synagogue

The earliest rabbinic reference to reading from the prophets as a haftarah appears in the Mishnah (Meg. 4:2; 2^nd–3^rd cent. C.E.).^[3] An even earlier story in the Gospel of Luke (1^st cent. C.E.) depicts Jesus, sometime after a 40-day fast (4:2), visiting the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath and reading from Isaiah:

^{Luke 4:16} When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ^4:17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

^4:18 “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ^4:19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^[4]

Jesus’ speech suggests that he read at least the opening of Isaiah 61:

‏^{ישׁעיה סא:א} רוּחַ אֲדֹנָי יְ־הוִה עָלָי יַעַן מָשַׁח יְ־הוָה אֹתִי לְבַשֵּׂר עֲנָוִים שְׁלָחַנִי לַחֲבֹשׁ לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי לֵב לִקְרֹא לִשְׁבוּיִם דְּרוֹר וְלַאֲסוּרִים פְּקַח קוֹחַ. ^סא:ב לִקְרֹא שְׁנַת רָצוֹן לַי־הוָה וְיוֹם נָקָם לֵאלֹהֵינוּ לְנַחֵם כָּל אֲבֵלִים.

^{Isa 61:1} The spirit of the Lord YHWH is upon me because YHWH has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, ^61:2 to proclaim the year of YHWH’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.

The NT does not match the Masoretic text,^[5] but it largely aligns with Second Isaiah’s declaration of a “Jubilee” (using phrasing from Lev 25:10) for Jerusalem. The reference to letting the oppressed go free (v. 18), however, is drawn from earlier in Isaiah,^[6] where YHWH declares that He wants more from the Judeans than just bodily fasting:

^{ישׁעיה נח:ו} הֲלוֹא זֶה צוֹם אֶבְחָרֵהוּ פַּתֵּחַ חַרְצֻבּוֹת רֶשַׁע הַתֵּר אֲגֻדּוֹת מוֹטָה וְשַׁלַּח רְצוּצִים חָפְשִׁים וְכָל מוֹטָה תְּנַתֵּקוּ.

^{Isa 58:6} Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

After the reading, Jesus speaks to the congregation:

^{Luke 4:21} Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”^[7]

Luke here portrays Jesus as a learned figure who can find his way around a scroll and make a discernment about the fulfillment of a prophecy in the pregnant “now” of the moment.^[8]

Baruch’s Prayer of Confession

The idea that prophetic scripture could be made relevant to contemporary times and included in liturgy is found even earlier. The book of Baruch (2^nd cent. B.C.E.) presents itself as a letter from Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, writing from Babylon to Jerusalem in the wake of the Temple’s destruction (6^th cent. B.C.E.).^[9] The letter includes a long confession—to be read in the Temple on festivals and appointed days:^[10]

^{Bar 1:14} And you shall read aloud this scroll that we are sending you, to make your confession in the house of the Lord on the days of the festivals and at appointed seasons.

The first part of Baruch was originally written in Hebrew and circulated in Greek translation as the closing section of the book of Jeremiah. The use of scripture in the confession of Baruch is just one example of the kind of interpretation evident in early Jewish prayers.

In the post-exilic period, long prayers that draw on scripture in various ways increasingly appear in the literature. This might be a capsule summary of Israel’s history, a listing of exemplary figures, a typology, or some other interpretive spin. Those saying the prayers are thus in a sense offering scripture back to God—but scripture that has been ingested and interpreted—words that do not return empty to their divine Sender, to paraphrase Isaiah (55:11, cited above).

By the rabbinic period, this “scripturalization of prayer” would become a literary convention without need of justification in the composition of liturgical prayers. It comes to full fruition in the inventive writing of piyyutim (liturgical hymns). The book of Baruch itself is thus scripturalized and is scripturalizing the confessional prayer.^[11]

Most significantly, at the end of a lengthy recitation of the Judeans’ sins and a request for God’s mercy (1:15–3:8), the confession promises that the people will continue to pray to God because God has put the fear of Him in their hearts:

^{Bar 3:7} For you have put the fear of you in our hearts so that we would call upon your name, and we will praise you in our exile, for we have put away from our hearts all the iniquity of our ancestors who sinned against you. ^3:8 See, we are today in our exile where you have scattered us, to be reproached and cursed and punished for all the iniquities of our ancestors, who forsook the Lord our God.

Here, the letter is declaring that a prophecy given by Jeremiah has been fulfilled:

^{ירמיה לב:מ} וְכָרַתִּי לָהֶם בְּרִית עוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא אָשׁוּב מֵאַחֲרֵיהֶם לְהֵיטִיבִי אוֹתָם וְאֶת יִרְאָתִי אֶתֵּן בִּלְבָבָם לְבִלְתִּי סוּר מֵעָלָי.

^{Jer 32:40} I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.

Stating that God has put fear in their hearts enables the current generation to claim Jeremiah’s promises of renewal for themselves.^[12] We might think then of the book of Baruch as effectively a scribal-authored and interpreted haftarah from antiquity.^[13]

The Qumran Community’s Consolations

The movement associated with the Qumran scrolls (2^nd cent. B.C.E.–1^st cent. C.E.) considered itself on the cusp of a spirit-filled age, which permitted distinctive understandings of prophecy. The scroll known as the Community Rule contains their beliefs, laws, and organizational structure, and describes their self-understanding that the separation of the elite and learned yaḥad (community) in the wilderness was a means of enacting the prophecy of Isaiah:

היאה מדרש התורה א̇[ש]ר̊ צוה ביד מושה לעשות ככול הנגלה עת בעת‎ כאשר כתוב במדבר פנו דרך ••••^[14] ישרו בערבה מסלה וכ̊אשר גלו הנביאים ברוח קודשו לאלוהינו‎

^{1QS 8:14–16a} As it is written, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God” (Isa 40:3). This means the interpretation of the Torah, commanded by God through Moses to do all that has been revealed for each age, and by what the prophets have revealed by his holy spirit.

Straightening Isaiah’s “highway” was understood as study of Mosaic Torah, which would yield revelations for their own time.

Consolations

Another Qumran composition, known as Tanḥumim (Consolations; 4Q176), suggests that that the movement conceived of itself as still living in some sense in the exile, mourning its estrangement from the Temple in Jerusalem, which was still standing.^[15] Tanḥumim’s genre is a puzzle. The work might best be considered a liturgical composition in the making or a “crib sheet” for writing further compositions—linking prayer to a working anthology of Isaianic passages, perhaps for liturgical performance.^[16]

The first preserved fragment begins with a petition for divine help:

ועשה פלאכה והצדק בעמכה והיו[ ] ‎ מקדשכה וריבה עם ממלכות על דם[ ] ‎ ירושלים וראה נבלת כ הניכה[ ] ‎ ואין קובר

^{4Q176 f1_2i:1} Perform your wonders and righteous deeds among your people and they will be […] ² your sanctuary, and strive with kingdoms over the blood of […] ³ Jerusalem, and look upon the corpses of your priests […] ⁴ And there is none to bury.

The text incorporates the language of Psalm 79, in which disaster has overtaken the Temple, its priests, and people:^[17]

‏^{תהלים עט:א} מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף אֱלֹהִים בָּאוּ גוֹיִם בְּנַחֲלָתֶךָ טִמְּאוּ אֶת הֵיכַל קָדְשֶׁךָ שָׂמוּ אֶת יְרוּשָׁלִַם לְעִיִּים. ^עט:ב נָתְנוּ אֶת נִבְלַת עֲבָדֶיךָ מַאֲכָל לְעוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם בְּשַׂר חֲסִידֶיךָ לְחַיְתוֹ אָרֶץ. ^עט:ג שָׁפְכוּ דָמָם כַּמַּיִם סְבִיבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם וְאֵין קוֹבֵר.

^{Ps 79:1} O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. ^79:2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. ^79:3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.

Tanḥumim thus evokes the trauma of exile, death and destruction. Its petition is then followed by a sequence of consolations from Second Isaiah:

ומן ספר ישעיה תנח̇ומים̇[ נחמו נחמו עמי ] ‎ יומר אלוהיכם דברו על לב ירושלים וק̇[ראו אליה ]כ̊[יא מלאה צבא]ה כיא ‎ נרצה עוונה כיא לקחה מיד • • • •^[18] כפ̇לים בכול ח[ ]ט̇ותיהא קול קורה ‎

^{4Q176 f1_2i:4} And from the scroll of Isaiah, consolations (tanhumim): [… “Comfort, comfort my people,] ⁵ says your God. Speak gently to Jerusalem, and proclaim [to her that her punishment is over,] for ⁶ her sin is forgiven, that she has received from the Lord double for all her sins. A voice cries...” [Isa 40:1].

Altogether, Tanḥumim includes quotations from seven chapters of Second Isaiah (chs. 40, 41, 43, 44, 51, 52, and 54). The text gives voice to three figures: God, who speaks words of comfort and promises future restoration to Israel, an implicit “we” of a congregation addressing God, and the third figure of Zion, Jerusalem.

The painful memory of the Babylonian exile was etched deep in the consciousness of Jews in the Second Temple period. Even though a second temple had been built in Jerusalem, the trauma of temple destruction, death, and dispersion haunted the present, even over the centuries.^[19] Second Isaiah, which was written in the late exilic period (mid-6^th cent. B.C.E.) in anticipation of an imminent return of exiles to the land, played an important role as restorative balm, providing a literary and theological answer to the despair and lament over death found in Jeremiah and Lamentations.

Paul Reinterprets Torah through the Prophets

Paul’s letters to early Christian communities (1^st cent. C.E.) again and again preserve a citation of a verse from the Torah which is then interpreted through a prophetic passage. Like Baruch, they represent interpretation of scripture that becomes scripturalized (in the New Testament). For example, in his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul contrasts the old covenant of Moses and the new covenant:^[20]

^{2 Cor 3:3} And you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.^[21]

Here Paul makes allusive contrast between the stone tablets of Sinai (Exod 20) and the internalized new covenant envisioned by Jeremiah:

‏^{ירמיה לא:לב} לֹא כַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַתִּי אֶת אֲבוֹתָם בְּיוֹם הֶחֱזִיקִי בְיָדָם לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲשֶׁר הֵמָּה הֵפֵרוּ אֶת בְּרִיתִי וְאָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם נְאֻם יְ־הוָה. ^לא:לג כִּי זֹאת הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת אֶת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחֲרֵי הַיָּמִים הָהֵם נְאֻם יְ־הוָה נָתַתִּי אֶת תּוֹרָתִי בְּקִרְבָּם וְעַל לִבָּם אֶכְתֲּבֶנָּה וְהָיִיתִי לָהֶם לֵאלֹהִים וְהֵמָּה יִהְיוּ לִי לְעָם.

^{Jer 31:32} It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says YHWH. ^31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says YHWH: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Like Jeremiah, Paul expands on the Torah.

Paul further enacts the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy through his “spiritual” leadership of the community:

^{2 Cor 3:5} Not that we are qualified of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our qualification is from God, ^3:6 who has made us qualified to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.^[22]

For Paul, the Mosaic Torah alone does not suffice.^[23] Throughout his letters, he regularly draws on the Torah of Moses but also highlights its augmentation, using prophetic texts to amplify and actualize parts of Israel’s past inheritance, renewing the covenants of old. He credits his own revelatory discernment in the transformative “spirit-filled” age in which he thought he was living.^[24]

Paul’s letters would be read in the context of congregational worship, thus modelling in their exposition of torah-plus-prophet an incipient form of the torah-haftarah that would later be formalized in Jewish lectionaries.

The Dynamism of Textual Traditions

The exact origins of the haftarot in the lectionary cycle remain obscure. It seems clear, however, from antiquity to the present, that the ability of a learned sage to make the texts live in the present has always been vital to transmitting tradition. Moreover, the performative context of worship has provided a crucial space in which the dynamism of textual traditions could be juxtaposed and reengaged, prayers voiced, and the vitality of Judaism maintained.