This morning we have hearty Hebrew scripture text and I am going to invite us to dig into it.   I suggest that you have it in your hands.  This is a text from which I suggest we can make a dynamic analogy.   We can recognize some elements in the context of that biblical time that resemble our own.  And therefore, we can harvest some insights forward to our own day.

What is the context?

This is part of the book of Isaiah referred to as Third Isaiah—potentially the third writer voice.  The period is “post-exilic,” meaning the time that the Israelite people were returning after their exile in Babylon (following the Fall of Jerusalem).  What we have come to understand is that it wasn’t all the people that were exiled.  The exiled ones were essentially the religious and political elites—scribes, managers, political leaders, religious leaders.  The peasants–they actually remained in the land, scraping out a living. 

So—those on the right, you are the religious and political elites.  You on the left, you are the peasants who stayed and tried to survive. 

The elites then return.  They have big dreams of what Isaiah often refers to as the “new thing,” but they also come back with anxieties.  Was exile a punishment for their sins? In their return, the elites are intending to establish their claims to land, and social, political and religious status.