YHWH Will Restore Israel’s Borders: Isaiah 27 Responds to Psalm 80

Much discussion has been devoted to the structure and composition of Isaiah 27. Scholars are generally agreed that this chapter consists of several originally independent units, though disagreement exists regarding the identity and respective contents of each of these units. Not surprisingly, one’s position on this issue is affected, inter alia, by the understanding of the (historical) setting of the units. The arrangement of the masoretic tradition, as attested in both the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Aleppo codices, divides the chapter into five sections, to wit verse 1, verses 2–6, 7–11, 12, and 13.

Editor’s note: For other such prophecies in this genre, see Ehud Ben-Zvi, “Memories Evoked by Yom Shoah u-Meshoah,” TheTorah (2017).

Some modern commentaries have emended the text by moving the preposition מִן from שִׁבֹּלֶת, which may refer to a “current of water” or an “ear of grain,” to הַנָּהָר “the River.” שִׁבֹּלֶת thus becomes the object of חבט:

יחבט י־הוה שׁבלת מהנהר...

YHWH will beat out the grain from the River....

None of ancient versions—including the Isaiah scroll found at Qumran (1QIsa^a), the Targum, the Peshitta, and the Septuagint—support this emendation.

Even on the level of metaphor, the imagery is unclear. The agricultural term ח.ב.ט “beat out” can refer either to removing chaff from grains after they have been harvested (e.g., Ruth 2:17), or what is done to olive trees to ensure all the olives have been plucked (e.g., Deut 24:20). See Wilson de A. Cunha, “‘Kingship’ and ‘Kingdom’: A Discussion of Isaiah 24:21–23; 27:12–13,” in Formation and Intertextuality in Isaiah 24–27, ed. J. Todd Hibbard and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, AIL 17 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 61–75 [72–73].

For an overview of this and other common interpretations of Isa 27:12–13, see Cunha, “‘Kingship’ and ‘Kingdom,’” 69–75.

The verse appears in Jewish liturgy and popular songs.

While the Bible offers more than one vision or map of the territory of Israel (See discussion in Yigal Levin, “The Three Biblical Maps of Israel,” TheTorah [2015]), a number of texts make an expansive territorial claim, describing Israel’s reach as stretching from the border of Egypt in the southwest to the border of Mesopotamia in the northeast.

It is unclear whether the River of Egypt here means the same thing as the Brook of Egypt, i.e., Wadi El-Arish, or whether it means something even more expansive, namely the Nile itself.

A similar conception of the land of Israel also appears in the description of Solomon’s empire in 1 Kgs 5:1 (cf. 2Chr 9:26):

^{מלכים א ה:א} וּשְׁלֹמֹה הָיָה מוֹשֵׁל בְּכָל הַמַּמְלָכוֹת מִן הַנָּהָר אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים וְעַד גְּבוּל מִצְרָיִם.

^{1Kgs 5:1a} Solomon’s rule extended over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and the boundary of Egypt.

Rhinocorura is modern-day El-Arish. The translator thus replaces the reference to the brook with the city located at the point where the brook meets the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, despite the fact that some of the biblical sources refer to the southwestern border as the River/Brook of Egypt, it is clear that the Mediterranean forms part of this border. Given LXX’s identification of “the River/Brook of Egypt” in 27:12 as Rhinocorura, there is little doubt that the translator viewed as insignificant the distinction between biblical sources’ use of the Mediterranean versus the River/Brook of Egypt as geographic markers of Israel’s boundaries. For other views of the land of Israel’s boundaries in Second Temple sources see, e.g., Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen 21:15–22); and Tg. Neofiti and Tg. Ps.-Jon. to Num 34:5, where Israel’s southwestern border is taken to be the Nile (i.e., the Nile’s easternmost branch, identified with Greco-Roman Pelusium). Each of these texts presumably reflects the notion that the various geographical markers appearing in biblical sources are mutually reconcilable. For further discussion of the land’s boundaries and other concepts concerning Israel’s patrimony in Second Temple sources, see Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Between Borders: The Boundaries of Eretz Israel in the Consciousness of the Jewish People in the Time of the Second Temple Period and in the Mishnah and Talmud Period (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2013), 39–117 (Hebrew).

^{Isa 27:12} καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ συμφράξει κύριος ἀπὸ τῆς διώρυγος τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἕως Ῥινοκορούρων, ὑμεῖς δὲ συναγάγετε τοὺς υἱοὺς Ισραηλ κατὰ ἕνα ἕνα.

Another example is in 1 Samuel 14:32, in which the ketiv (written text) reads ויעש “to make” but the qeri (what should be read out loud according to the Masoretes) reads ויעט “to fly upon.” This example is noted in Friedrich Delitzsch, The Reading and Writing Errors in the Old Testament; In Addition to the Marginal Notes Incorporated into the Text [Die Lese- und Schreibfehler im Alten Testament; nebst den dem Schrifttexte einverleibten Randnoten klassifiziert] (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1920), 119. The former reading, which makes no sense in context—the Israelites did not make the spoils but pounce upon them—seems to be a scribal error, misreading the uncommon word ויעט and replacing it with the common word ויעש.

A noun patterned on this root bears the meaning “leather straps or lugs.” (I discuss this approach more fully in a forthcoming essay.) Should this approach prove correct, it may indicate that MT, which has so far eluded any satisfactory explanation, is to be understood along the same lines.

See, e.g., David Baer, When We all Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 223, citing J. Fischer, In welcher Schrift lag das Buch Isaias den LXX vor?, BZAW 56 (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann, 1930), 43; also, Johan Lust, Karin Hauspie, Erik Eynikel, Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003) s.v. συμφράσσω. Others suggest that the Greek has been corrupted. See Richard R. Ottley, The Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus): Text and Notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), 2:236. I hope to address the philological aspects of the LXX translation in a forthcoming essay.

The provenance of Isaiah 27, as well as the entire collection of passages constituting 24–27, is debated, as is its very nature. Many scholars refer to these chapters as the “Isaiah Apocalypse” and date these chapters to the postexilic period. Some go even further, assigning sections within this collection—among them, parts of Isaiah 27—to the time of the Hasmonean monarchy. Other scholars maintain that these chapters are of pre-exilic origin, more specifically, the Assyrian period, and reflect contemporary concerns facing Judah and the northern tribes, rather than a future (possibly eschatological) setting. For recent discussion of these issues, see Christopher B. Hays, Origins of Isaiah 24–27: Josiah’s Festival Scroll for the Fall of Assyria (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2019).

The provenance of this psalm, like that of Isaiah 27, is the subject of diverse views. Some scholars maintain that this psalm, at least in its earliest form, is a product of pre-exilic Northern Israel, as suggested by the names of the tribes appearing in. v. 2; others, however, view it as having undergone Judahite reworking, possibly during the period of Josiah. Still others argue in favor of the psalm’s postexilic provenance. For an overview and critique of these positions, see Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100, Word Biblical Commentary 20 (1991), 308-13. At the same time, how precisely, the scribes responsible for Isa 27 (and, possibly, the scribes responsible for their Hebrew Vorlage) understood the chronological relationship between this chapter and Ps 80 remains unknown.

Even though LXX Isaiah 27:12 describes the south-western border as the city of El-Arish, while Psalm 80 refers to the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek translators of Isaiah would have interpreted the two geographical descriptors as referring to the same location. Note that the Brook of Egypt (Wadi el-Arish) flows in the the Mediterranean at El-Arish, i.e., the LXX’s Rhinocorura. In fact, it is possible that the inner-biblical exegesis here is exactly the factor that inspired the translator to change the toponyn from the Brook to the neighboring city, since it clarifies that the text is speaking about the place where the brook meets the sea. LXX’s rendering of Israel’s southwestern boundary shows a good deal of variation in throughout the biblical corpus, a point that warrants a separate discussion. For the present, it may be noted that when describing the precise location of all of Israel’s boundaries LXX renders “Brook of Egypt” in literal fashion, as in Num 34:5. Nevertheless, it is likely that LXX’s translators (here and elsewhere) understood the different biblical formulations employed in connection with the western-southwestern boundary of Israel as all denoting the same place. This is almost certainly the understanding of traditional Jewish sources and exegetes, as well. See, for example, the reference to Num 34:5 in the commentary of Rashi ad Ps 80:12, which concerns the Brook of Egypt in connection with the boundary line. The explanation for this state of affairs is most likely due to the fact that the very next verse, Num 34:6, refers to the Sea as the end point of the Brook of Egypt.

While some scholars argue that the psalmist’s use of this formulation represents mythic formulation, expressive of world-wide political hegemony, it is not clear that ancient interpreters of the text would have drawn (or been cognizant of) a distinction between the “mythic” and “concrete” political boundaries. See Nili Wazana, All the Boundaries of the Land: The Promised Land in Biblical Thought in Light of the Ancient Near East, trans. Liat Qeren (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 127–167; trans. from כל גבולות ארץ (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2007). After all, virtually all medieval Jewish exegetes maintained, as do many modern students of Psalms, that the geographic markers of Ps 80:12 represent the (actual) boundaries of Israel. See, e.g., Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Qimhi, Ha-Meiri, ad loc. Among moderns, see, e.g., Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–100, Word Biblical Commentary 20 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 315; and Samuel Terrien, The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003), 577. This is also the position of Mitchell Dahood, whose commentary to Psalms contains numerous observations and textual emendations informed by Ugaritic (and other ANE) sources. See Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 51–100, Anchor Bible 17 (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1968), 259.

For another instance of disagreement regarding the mythic-versus-literal use of the “sea and river” see Wazana, All the Boundaries, 118 [n 82], who rejects Moshe Anbar’s position (in “The Covenant between the Pieces,” Shnaton 3 [1979], 49 [Hebrew]) that the plural form “rivers” in Ps 89:26 suggests that the verse refers to the historical “reality” of David’s sovereignty between the Euphrates and the River of Egypt.

καὶ ἐπίσκεψαι τὴν ἄμπελον ταύτην καὶ κατάρτισαι αὐτήν, ἣν ἐφύτευσεν ἡ δεξιά σου,

See Tg. Jonathan as well as the medieval and modern commentaries for further discussion.

Some caution is, of course, apposite, since we cannot establish with any certainty what Vorlage of Ps 80 lay before the Greek translators of LXX Isaiah.

The situation differs somewhat in LXX, wherein vv. 3-5 recapitulate Israel’s suffering, with vv. 2 and 6 alone addressing Israel’s restoration.

The patent similarities obtaining between Isaiah 5 and Psalm 80 were not lost upon the translators responsible for the Syriac Peshitta, which renders of Psalm 80:13 in language that corresponds precisely to the formulation of Isaiah 5:5.

Note how this final phrase about trampling appears in the Peshitta translation of Psalm 80:13 in place of the “plucking” we have in the MT:

It remains unclear whether this reading is the result of a different Vorlage (perhaps רמשוה instead of ארוה), purposeful literary borrowing or, rather, the result of the translators’ unconscious replacement of their Vorlage with a formulation known to them from a parallel passage.

Given the move from singular to plural, interpreters are divided with regard to the identity of the object(s) referenced in the second half of the verse and, accordingly, regarding the relationship between the two halves of the verse. This issue notwithstanding, the opening words of this verse in both MT and LXX certainly describe the vineyard’s condition. See, further, Tate, Psalms 51-100, 306-7.

ἐμπεπυρισμένη πυρὶ καὶ ἀνεσκαμμένη· ἀπὸ ἐπιτιμήσεως τοῦ προσώπου σου ἀπολοῦνται. The numbering system in LXX is different than MT here.

See NJPS, 817, note “a.”

To be sure, the case for establishing a nexus between LXX Ps 80 and Isaiah 27:12 would be bolstered by clear verbal links connecting the two passages, but such are not to be found. Indeed, were such links appear to exist one must recall the rendering of the biblical text into Greek was performed by numerous translators over a lengthy period of time, such that one must bear in mind the limitations imposed by compositions that are not known to have been translated by the same author(s). See, e.g., Myrto Theocharous, Lexical Dependence and Intertextual Allusion in the Septuagint of the Twelve Prophets: Studies in Hosea, Amos and Micah, LHBOTS 570 (London: T. & T. Clark, 2012).