JBL122/1 (2003) 145-55

CRITICAL NOTES
THE GRAMMAR OF RESURRECTION IN ISAIAH 26:19a-c

For more than a century, Isa 24-27 has been recognized as a distinct unit within the larger context of Isa 1-39. The features that distinguish these four chapters from their surroundings are readily noted: the absence of a plausible connection with the Neo-Assyrian period; distinctive vocabulary and syntax; themes and imagery generally associated with later periods in the history of Israel. Identifying the unifying characteristics of these chapters is more difficult. Similar to oracles against the nations, but with an eschatological perspective, these passages are nonetheless distinct from developed examples of biblical and Jewish apocalyptic. Commentators describe the internal structure of Isa 24-27 with little consistency or agreement and date these chapters with considerable variation.1 Isaiah 26:19 is a critical passage in the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse, because it describes a future reanimation of the dead. Over millennia, commentators have sought to discern the message of Isa 26:19, but consensus about its grammatical structure and its precise meaning has never formed.2 Close attention to the morphological and syntactic features of Isa 26:19 leads to resolution of its longstanding problematic character. I contend that there is a relatively simple and grammatically satisfying interpretation of the verse that accounts for the morphology of its words, the syntax of its sentences, and the structure of its poetic lines. Once the meaning of Isa 26:19 is clear, the logical sequence of its argument emerges. Otto Eissfeldt says, "From the exile onwards down to . . . the end of the second century B.C., every century has been proposed as the period of its composition" (The Old Testament: An Introduction [trans. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York: Harper & Row, 1965], 325). William R. Millar assesses earlier studies and argues for a historical setting in "the last half of the sixth century B.C.E." (Isaiah 24-27 and the Origin of Biblical Apocalyptic [HSM 11; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976], 120). Joseph Blenkinsopp notes that "the epigraphy [i.e., paleography] of the Qumran Isaiah material rules out assigning these chapters to the late second century or, a fortiori, the early first century B.C.E." (Isaiah 1-39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000], 348). Blenkinsopp favors "a time quite close to the composition of Isa 40-48" (ibid.). For a recent survey, see R. Scholl, Die Elenden in Gottes Thronrat: Stilistischkompositorische Untersuchungen zu Jesaja 24-27 (BZAW 274; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 1-35. Most recently, D. C. Polaski argues for the "late sixth century to the third quarter of thefifthcentury BCE" (Authorizing an End: The Isaiah Apocalypse and Intertextuality [Biblical Interpretation 50; Leiden: Brill, 2001], 58). Studies in Isaiah 24-27: The Isaiah WorkshopDe Jesaja Werkplaats (ed. Hendrik Jan Bosman and Harm van Grol; OtSt 43; Leiden: Brill, 2000) includes a "Select Bibliography," compiled by A. L. H. M. van Wieringen (pp. 252-65). 2 Scholl, Elenden, 141-45; Polaski, Authorizing an End, 238-42.
1

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Journal of Biblical Literature Isaiah 26 is verse. The lineation of v. 19a-c is set out below.
3

vrr 1S> 'DB TITTI 2

19a 19c
4

' Tpna 19b

The MT of Isa 26:19b has a difficult reading in the word T t a ] in v. 19b. The most ancient Greek translation does not help to explain the Hebrew, because the reading of 5 the LXX, , appears to be a Christian interpolation from John 5:28. The divergent syntax of the Greek in this verse further obscures the Hebrew Vorlage. The Vulgate interfecti mei partly follows the consonantal MT, but interprets the noun as 6 a collective and the suffix as first person singular. The Syriac version and the Targums 7 read as if the suffix were third person plural. Most recent translations accept the MT as the lectio difficilior but translate accord ing to either the Vulgate or the Syriac and Targum. The influence of the Vulgate is evi dent in, e.g., the AV: "Thy dead [men] shall live, [together with] my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." The translation "my dead body" interprets the suffix of T t a l as first person singular. Conjectural emendation of the suffix to third person plural, following the Syriac and Targums, is reflected in the RSV: "Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!" and in the NIV: "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy."8 The morphology of Tfa] is difficult to assess.9 The suffix " * - is widely understood

3 I am using "line" in the sense argued by M. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1980; rev. ed., 1997). W. L. Holladay prefers colon to O'Connor's "line" ("Hebrew Verse Structure Revisited (I): Which Words 'Count?"/BL 118 [1999]: 21-23). 4 Also lQIsaa xxi 1. The enhanced digitized image of col. xxi in D. W. Parry and E. Qimron, The Great Isaiah Scroll (lQIsaa): A New Edition (STDJ 32; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 42, shows the reading clearly. 5 D. Barthlmy et al., Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament: 2, Isae, Jremie, Lamentations (OBO 50/2; Fribourg: ditions universitaires; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 187. "[T]extual corruption seems to be the fate of passages deemed to be religiously controversial" (Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39, 370). 6 Barthlmy, Critique textuelle, 187. 7 Peshitta nibltm. On the Targums, see A. van der Kooij, Die Alten Textzeugen desjesajabuches (OBO 35; Freiburg: Universittsverlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 179, 302; Barthlmy, Critique textuelle, 186-87; H. Sysling, Tehiyyat Ha-Metim: The Resurrection of the Dead in the Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch and Parallel Traditions in Classical Rabbin Literature (TSAJ 57; Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), 72-73. On conjectural emendations, see H.-J. Fabry, "nebela," TDOT 9:156. 8 Barthlmy provides additional discussion of translations (Critique textuelle, 186). 9 "The textual note to the translation "corpses" in Isa 26:19 of the JPS Tanakh says, "Grammar of Heb unclear" (Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures. The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 5748/1988], 669); R. Martin-Achard, "Resurrection (Old Testament)," ABD 5:684. On the noun rta: in Isa 26:19, see Fabry, "nbl," 156; note the rhetorical analysis proposed. HALOT (p. 664) considers Isa 26:19 an uncertain occurrence of the noun.

Ctical Notes

147

as a first person pronominal suffix.10 Another analysis was proposed by Japheth ben cAli ha-Levi, a tenth-century Karaite scholar from Jerusalem: the suffix is a connecting vowel (hreq compaginis) without semantic value.11 The paragogic vowel is most often found affixed to the first substantive of a construct chain, but this is not the syntactic environment in Isa 26:19a.12 Hence a paragogic interpretation of the suffix faces syntactic difficulties. According to the MT vocalization, the substantiverf?I13is feminine singular and in the absolute state. There is a lack of gender and number concord with the verb )lQTp\ These features indicate that Tita] is not the subject of the verb pD1p\ To explain the verse line, we must abandon the common interpretation of the suffix as a personal pronoun and the less common interpretation of the suffix as a paragogic element. I suggest that the * - suffix is not a personal pronoun or paragogic, but a gentilic.13 Syntactically, Tbll is an accusative of state; as a substantive, it is indefinite and refers to the subject of the clause.14 An adverbial adjunct, Tta3 specifies the state in which the dead are resurrected: "(as) a corpse they [sc. 'your dead'] shall rise." A similar use of the gentilic to indicate an accusative of state can be found at Gen 25:25: "The first came out red" (Heb. ^IDTK). With the substantive described as an adverbial accusative, the syntax of Isa 26:19a-b becomes evident. The constituent structure of v. 19a is V(erb)-S(ubject); the constituent structure of v. 19b is A(dverbial)-V(erb). The S(ubject) constituent of v. 19a (Heb. "["TO) is deleted or "gapped" in v. 19b. Typologically, Isa 26:19b is a single independent clause line of two constituents of the type A-V.15 The gentilic analysis of the suffix of Tfa] leads to a translation of Isa 26:19a-c in the following manner:
10 See the previous paragraphs. Examples of the difficulties raised by this interpretation for rhetorical analysis are F. J. Helfmeyer, "'Deine Toten-meine Leichen': Heilszusage und Annahme in Jes 26:19," in Bausteine biblischer Theologie- Festschrift B. J. Botterweck (ed. H.-J. Fabry; BBB 50; Cologne: Peter Hanstein, 1977), 254; and A. L. H. M. van Wieringen, "T and We' before 'Your' Face: A Communication Analysis of Isaiah 26:7-21," in Studies in Isaiah 24-27, ed. Bosman and van Grol, 246. Polaski assumes a first-person suffix without discussion (Authorizing an End, 240). 11 Details of his life are unknown, but Japheth ben cAli was active ca. 950-980 CE. (A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Jephet ibn Ali the Karaite [ed. and trans. J. L. Margoliouth; Oxford: Clarendon, 1889], v-vi;/E 7:72-73; Encjud 9:1, 286). His Judeo-Arabic commentaries on Tanakh are well preserved. The same explanation of the suffix was advanced, apparently independently, by E. F. C. Rosenmller, Scholia in Vetus Testamentum, pt. 3, Iesaiae vaticinia (Leipzig: I. A. Barth, 1793) [not seen]; see Barthlmy, Critique textuelle, 187. The paragogic explanation of the suffix is not mentioned in TDOT 9:156. On the paragogic suffix in general, see B. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 127-28 (8.2). 12 P. Joiion, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (rev. and trans, by T. Muraoka; Rome: Pontifcio Istituto Biblico, 1993), 282 (93m); Barthlmy, Critique textuelle, 187. 13 On constructions employing gentilics, see Waltke and O'Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 92-93 (5.7c). 14 Ibid., 171-72 (10.2.2d). The noun Tta] is not in apposition to "[Tift, as alleged by van Wieringen (" and We' before 'Your' Face," 246). 15 O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, 329. This is a rare line type; there are only three exam ples in the corpus studied by O'Connor: Ps 106:43a; Deut 33:23d; Zeph 2:3.

148 19a 19b 19c

,

Journal of Biblical Literature TTT IIQIp Tltaa "IDI? DtD 1]31 "ETpH
1

Your dead shall live. (As) a corpse they shall rise. the dust! 1 7
16

Awake and shout for joy, you who dwell in

The passage envisions a political revival of the battered Judahite realm metaphori cally, by analogy to the popular idea of personal eschatology referred to in the later Hebrew phrase thiyyat h-mtm, "revival of the dead."18 The moribund nation, like the deceased at the end of days, will be reconstituted (v. 19a), at first insensate and lifeless (v. 19b), but then revivified, active and joyful (v. 19c). Note the conceptual similarity of Ezek 37:1-14. In the process of resurrection as explained to Ezekiel in a vision (37:1-3), the bodies of the dead are first reconstituted (w. 4-5); 19 then spirit (Hebrew ) is infused in them, and they Uve again (v. 6). After Ezekiel's first prophetic utterance (v. 7), the dry bones reassemble and become enfleshed; the newly reconstituted corpses are not yet alive, however, because "spirit [] is not in them" (v. 8). A second divine commissioning (v. 9) and a second prophetic utterance (v. 10) are necessary to revive and revitalize the corpses. Oral tradition (h. Sanh. 92b) completes the parallel: the dead revived by Ezekiel's intervention chanted a song of praise to God as soon as they came to life.20 The third Une of the passage, v. 19c, expresses the dawning awareness of the reviv ified dead (representing the nation) through a conjoined pair of imperatives: "Wpn. The earliest witness to the text, lQIsa a xxi 1, reads 12Tp'' 1]] at this point. The impera tives have been assimilated to prefixing forms, imitating the usage of the previous two lines: VIT in v. 19a and pulp 1 in v. 19b. The MT, supported by Vg, once again gives the more difficult reading. 21 The verb ]T\ is appropriate to represent the joy of the future life. Used 52 times in the MT, ] appears 25 times in Psalms, 13 times in Isaiah, 3 times each in Proverbs and Jeremiah, twice in Job, and once each in six other books. 22 Precisely one-fourth of its uses are in the Isaian corpus. Thus ]D is a characteristic lexical choice for this semantic domain in the book of Isaiah.
16 On the word pair DIp/ATTl, see M. L. Barr, "New Light on the Interpretation of Hosea VI 2," VT 28 (1978): 129-35. 17 Or "dirt"; see D. Hillers, "Dust: Some Aspects of Old Testament Imagery," in Love and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. J. H. Martin and R. M. Good; Guilford, CT: Four Quarters, 1987), 107. 18 On the meaning and development of the phrase, see Sysling, Tehiyyat Ha-Metim, 1-2. 19 By means of the dew of heaven (L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 4, From Joshua to Esther [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 5713/1954], 333). 20 L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 6, Notes to Volumes III and TV: From Moses in the Wilderness to Esther (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 5719/1959), 422 n. 95. 21 Barthlmy, Critique textuelle, 188. 22 HALOT, 1247-48. The verb rnn is found once in Ugaritic: arnn (M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartn, eds., The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ihn Hani and Other Places [ALASP 8; Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995], 99 [1.82:6]). On the morphology, see J. Trapper, Vgaritische Grammatik (AOAT 273; Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000), 579,678.

Critical Notes
Isaiah 12 6a strongly parallels 26 19c in syntax as well as vocabulary Loc Part Imp Imp Isa 12 6a Isa 26 19c ]T2* rOT ^ ' D 1) 12

149

In both cases, ]3 is conjoined as t h e second of two imperativessingular m Isa 12 6 a 23 followed by a vocative whose constituents are a participle and a locative noun The only other use of ]3 in the Isaiah Apocalypse, in Isa 24 14, has no direct bearing on the passage we are considering Interpreted as I have argued above, Isa 26 19b is a statement concerning the con dition in which t h e newly reconstituted dead begin their transition to life again T h e dead anse as corpses, awaken, and shout for joy Ezekiel 37 1-14 implies similar staging of the ranimation process, and postbibhcal descriptions of resurrection elaborate individual steps in the sequence 2 4 T h e Isaian image is an adumbration of a mental representation already well formed but sparsely articulated in early Judaism 2 5 Philip C Schmitz phihp schmitz@emich edu Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197

23 The syntactic matching further supports the textual argument favonng the MT over the Qumran text of Isa 26 19c 24 G W E Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26, Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, London Oxford University Press, 1972), 17-23, idem, "Resurrection," in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed L H Schiffman and J C VanderKam, Oxford Oxford University Press, 2000), 1 764-67, idem, "Judgment, Lifeafter-Death, and Resurrection in the Apocrypha and the non-Apocalyptic Pseudepigrapha," in Judaism m Late Antiquity Part 4, Death, Life-after-Death, Resurrection and the World-to-Come m the Judaisms of Antiquity (ed A J Avery-Peck and J Neusner, HO 1/49, Leiden Brill, 2000), 145 I have been unable to obtain E Puech, La croyance des Essniens en la vie future Immortalit, resurrection, vie ternelle? Histoire d'une croyance dans le Judasme ancien (2 vols , Pans Gabalda, 1993), but its argument is summarized in idem, "Immortality and Life after Death," in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20-25, 1997 (ed L H Schiffman, , and J C VanderKam, Jerusalem Israel Exploration Society in cooperation with The Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2000), 512-20 On the Palestinian Tar gums, see Sysling, Tehiyyat Ha-Metim, 180-84, and V M Flesher, "The Resurrection of the Dead and the Sources of the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch," m Judaism in Late Antiquity Part 4, ed Avery-Peck and Neusner, 311-31 25 Boyer demonstrates the foundational role of mental representations m religious dis course (The Naturalness of Religious Ideas A Cognitive Theory of Religion [Berkeley University of California Press, 1994]) In my judgment, R E Fnedman and S Dolansky Overton are prop erly skeptical of "scholarly models of linear progressions" according to which eschatological belief undergoes a development from an Israelite "complete rejection" of afterlife beliefs to a full and complex belief in afterlife, including resurrection and final judgment, in early Judaism ("Death and Afterlife The Biblical Silence," in Judaism in Late Antiquity Part 4, ed Avery-Peck and Neusner, 55)

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