ISAIAH CHAPTER 21 - 31

ISAIAH 21

1 The vision of the wilderness.
As whirlwinds in the south address,
It comes up from the wilderness,
From horrors of a burdened land.
2 A hard vision’s declared to me:
The robber robs in robber band,
The spoiler spoils and grievously.
Go up, O Elam, and besiege,
O Media, all sighing’s liege
Have I made cease upon the sand.
3 Therefore my loins are filled with pain,
Pangs seize me as pangs of a lain
Woman in labour, I’m bowed down
To hear, dismayed to see the frown.
4 My heart is palpitating and
Fearful trembling takes by the hand,
The twilight of my hope He’s made
Caravan of fears on parade.
5 Set table and a watchman, eat
And drink, get up, princes and beat
Oil on the shields. 6 For so’s the Lord
Said to me, ”Go set with a sword
A watchman, let him tell aloud
What he can see beyond the crowd.
7 He saw a chariot with a few
Of horsemen, cart of asses’ crew,
A chariot that camels drew,
And listened carefully unbowed.

The life of Bedouin upon the sand
Is fraught with dangers always from the band
Of robbing neighbours set to distribute
The wealth that must be shared to keep in boot
Society upon the desert root.
I’ve seen the wastelands and bent down with care
To find the secret life the deserts share.
There is a parallel under the glare
Of tundra on my right hand where I stare
Across saw-toothed horizon stretched out bare
From here to eastward to Vladivostok.
The ptarmigan joins chorus of the roc.
Beloved, I set my table in the shade
Of logs instead of tent, and tightly laid.

8 He shouted with a lion’s voice,
“Sir, I stand always as the choice
Upon the watchtower in the day,
And I’m set in my ward to stay
Whole nights and looking out for prey.
9 “And see, here comes a chariot and
A few of horsemen in a band.”
And he replied and so he said
”Babylon’s fallen, fallen dread,
And all the graven images
Of her gods by the power of His
Hand has He shattered to the ground.
10 “O my threshing and my corn’s floor:
I’ve heard the YHWH of hosts deplore,
The Ælohim of Israel found,
I have declared to you the sound.”

The theory is that Bedouin estate
Is not a primitive form of the late,
But rather a rejection in the style
Of Abraham who left Ur with its guile
And went to invent on the desert sand
A planned culture and faith in desert band.
The concept was that Babylon the great
Was fallen because it did not succeed
In making a society sans greed.
Babylon is fallen became the cry
Over the centuries where some rely
On the simplicity of life instead
Of graven idols and monuments spread.
I flee from Babylon in desert led.

11 The vision of Dumah. He’s called
Me out of Seir, “Watchman appalled,
What of the night? Watchman appalled,
What of the night?” 12 The watchman said
“The morning comes, also the dread
Night. If you will enquire, enquire,
But come back once more from the dire.”
13 The vision on Arabia’s land.
You’ll stay in the forest in band
In Arabia, travelling ones
Of Dedanim hot on your buns.
14 The dwellers in Tema’s land brought
Water to the thirsty one caught,
And bread before the fugitive.
15 For they fled from the swords to live,
From the drawn sword, from the bent bow,
And from the grievous battle’s show.
16 For so has said the Lord to me,
“Within a year, as the rents be,
Shall falter all Kedar’s glory;
17 The bowmen left, the mighty men
Of the children of Kedar’s glen,
Shall be diminished, because YHWH
Israel’s Ælohim says it’s true.”

The glory that was Kedar and was built
On fallen Babylon for grace and silt
Has made its try over the centuries,
And I have seen the trial’s expertise
In the establishment of Islam’s ease,
And found the disappointment that arose
When that in human hearts that must oppose
Your law, Your messengers, Your books in rose,
Your sovereignty as Friday evening’s close.
Beloved, I take Islam, submission to
You in the peace that crushes the naf’s view,
And leave the institutions that retain
That of old Babylon in idol’s stain,
The thread of dawn in black and white in dew.

I fled the sweet Christian who placed the blade
Of his Gospel’s knife in my back and stayed
To hear the Sunnite message on parade.
I ate the good bread’s hospitality,
I drank the pure water and coke for free,
And found that this too was a company
Of violence just like the Christian spree.
The glory in a year’s departed, but
I find the secret chamber closed and shut
From all the world’s sin and iniquity.
There I commune in peace with hidden souls
Invisible to church and mosquely shoals,
Blessed by the presence of ascended men
Who represent Your will to earth again.

ISAIAH 22

1 The prophecy of vision’s vale.
What is it now that makes you ail,
Makes you go to the rooftops’ tale?
2 You city filled with shouting ones,
City of tumult, joy that stuns,
Your slain have not fallen by sword,
Have not died in the battle gored.
3 All your chiefs in band flee the bow,
Bound captive are all in your show,
Fleeing as far as they can go.
4 So I said “Look away from me;
And I shall weep most bitterly,
Do not try to comfort me now,
Since my folk’s daughter’s spoiled in row.”
5 For it’s a day of trouble, and
Of treading down upon the sand,
And of perplexity as ghosts
And beside the Lord YHWH of hosts
In the vale of vision to break
Down the walls and set up a stake
Of crying for the mountains’ sake.
6 And Elam’s borne a quiver set
In a chariot of horsemen met,
And Kir has raised a shield to let.
7 It shall take place your finest vales
Shall be full of chariots, like gales
The horsemen shall come in array
At the gate on that judgement day.

For weeping I cannot repeat Your words,
I hear the melodies like voice of birds,
But sink within the vision’s valley here
To curse the world around me without fear,
And bless the earth itself for quiet tear.
What glory to be human in this place!
What wealth of rage to know the human race!
What excellence of beauty in the grace
Of snowflake and of birchen branches dark
Against the shine of whiteness in the park!
Beloved, the wrenching pain of being makes
A joyful croak come from my throat for sakes
Of shouting in the city while the slain
Are without sword or bullet, without pain.

8 He took away the veil of Judah,
And you that day looked on the ruder
Armour of the house of the woods.
9 You’ve also seen the breach in goods
Of David’s city manifold,
And brought the waters deep and cold.
10 You’ve counted houses in the town
Jerusalem, and broken down
The houses to build up the wall.
11 A ditch also you did install
Between the two walls for the flow
Of water from the old pool’s stow;
But you’ve not looked unto its maker,
Nor had respect for him to shaker
Once long ago. 12 And in that day
Did Adonai YHWH call to sway
Of weeping and mourning and to
Baldness and wearing sackcloth too.
13 See joy and gladness, slaying oxen,
And killing sheep, eating the toxin
Of flesh and drinking wine to spue:
Let us eat and drink for tomorrow
We’ll all die with or without sorrow.
14 And it was revealed in my ears
By YHWH of hosts, for the arrears
Of this iniquity shall not
Be cleansed from you until you rot,
Says the Lord YHWH of hosts in lot.

The vasty world lays blame upon the Roman
Philosopher of early time for combing
His hair with pleasures of the day not thinking
Of what catastrophe lies by his blinking.
Fact is the blame if blame at all must fall
Upon the sweetly Christian in the stall
Who takes his bread and wine as due to call
The flesh of Christ so he’ll not die at all
With or without a sorrow on the pall.
Beloved, cleanse not indeed iniquity
That trumps by human sacrifice to see
The glories of celestial finity.
Let crumbs of breadly flesh all be congealed
With mould upon the wined and wondered field.

15 So says the Lord YHWH of His hosts,
“Flee to your treasurers of roasts,
To Shebna over the house boasts.
16 “Say then, ‘What have you here, and whom
Do you have here as though for doom
In sepulchre, one has cut out
Himself a sepulchre’s redoubt
On high and burrowed for himself
A dwelling place on the rock shelf?
17 “See, YHWH will carry you away
Into great captivity’s sway,
Cast up and down in every way.
18 “He’ll throw you up and throw you down,
And cast you out upon the town,
Where you will die and where the carts
Of your honour shall shame the parts
Of your master’s palace’s arts.
19 “And I will drive you from your station,
And from your state and from your nation
He shall pull you down from your ration.
20 “And it shall happen in that day,
That I will call My slave at bay,
Eliakim son of Hilkiah:
21 “I’ll dress him with your cloak’s attire,
And strengthen him up with your belt,
And give to his hand all the welt
Of your rule, and he’ll be a dad
To inhabitants of the sad
Jerusalem and Judah’s pad.
22 “The key of David’s house I’ll lay
Upon his shoulder for a ray,
So he shall open and none shut,
And he shall shut and none rebut.
23 “I’ll fasten him as with a nail
In a firm place, and in that pale
He’ll be for throne of honour there
To all his father’s house and share.
24 “And they shall hang on him the glory
Of all his father’s house in story,
The offspring and the issue too,
And all the vessels, though a few,
From vessels of cups even to
All vessels of flagons in view.
25 “'In that day,’ says the YHWH of hosts,
‘Shall the nail fastened to firm posts
Be drawn out and cut down and fall,
The burden there upon the wall
Shall be cut off, for YHWH speaks all.’”

When good St. John saw in the visions bold
That the key of David both hard and cold
Should be granted the victor from the hold,
He did not mention that his name was told.
Eliakim fulfils the prophecy
And leaves apocalyptic forgery
To fight for right to the death of the spree.
Beloved, is there no hope in this world now
That all the writs of ancient time and brow
Have turned to dust beneath the tells somehow?
The vessels are all taken in the wake
Of the invader long since sent to bake,
The morning dawns in silent glory where
You speak no more in audible sound’s share.

ISAIAH 23

1 The vision against Tyre. Howl, ships
Of Tarshish, it’s laid waste in slips,
So that there is no house nor gate,
From the land of Chittim the rate
Is revealed to them in stalemate.
2 Be still, you dwellers of the isle;
You whom Sidonian mercantile
Transported by ship pile on pile.
3 And by great waters Sihor’s seed
The harvest of the river breed
Is her revenue; she’s the mart
Of nations. 4 Then take shame to start,
O Sidon; for the sea has spoken,
The pounding of the sea and broken,
Saying “I do not go in labour
Nor bring forth children like the neighbour,
Nor do I nourish up young men,
Nor nurture virgins in my glen.”
5 As at the word of Egypt’s state,
So shall they fall to meet their fate
At the report out of Tyre’s gate.
6 Pass over to Tarshish and howl,
You inhabitants of the isle.
7 Is this your joyful town whose fame
Is of ancient days in its claim?
Her own feet shall carry her off
To sojourn in lands where they scoff.

Till Alexander came the city sat
Indeed upon an island autocrat.
I only wonder that Isaiah dares
To predict its demise as unawares.
By paying ransom Tyre survived the great
Attacks of Babylon to meet her fate
Under the Persians. Isaiah’s word’s late.
The house of Tyre is friend to David’s mate,
The builder of the temple and the rate
Of treasure cast up for Your honour here.
And yet the diatribe is raised for fear.
Beloved, the ships still ply the Middle Sea
To Tarshish, and the Hezbollah stands free
Above the rubble of far century.

8 Who’s taken this plan against Tyre,
The crowning town whose merchants dire
Are princes, and whose traffickers
Are honourable of all earth’s fers?
9 For YHWH of hosts has purposed it,
To stain the pride of glory fit,
And bring contempt on every wit
Honoured upon the earth to sit.
10 Pass throughout your land like a stream,
O daughter of Tarshish to dream,
There’s no more strength in what may seem.
11 He stretched his hand over the sea,
He shook the kingdoms in his spree,
YHWH’s given a command to be
Against the merchant town and free,
To break down its castles’ degree.
12 And He says “You’ll no more rejoice,
Oppressed virgin of Sidon’s choice,
Get up and go out to Chittim,
There too you’ll have no rest or vim.
13 Look out to the Chaldean’s land,
This folk did not exist in band
Till the Assyrian set them
To dwell in the wilderness’ hem,
They set up its towers and they raised
Up its palaces to be praised,
But he brought it to ruin razed.
14 So howl, ships of Tarshish, for your
Strength is laid waste upon the shore.

Oppression of the virgin of Zion came
Upon Jerusalem’s crusader fame,
And so the stain of honour is the chair
Where the archbishop used to sit and swear.
Archbishop of Tyre one in heart to be
With patriarch of Jerusalem’s see
Stands in an awful horror’s parody
Of David and of Hiram in the hall
Of cedars and of Solomon on call.
For that, if anything, let the ships howl,
Not for the Persians’, Greeks’ and Roman’s cowl,
But for the pagan stain on Your name set
By human sacrifice in wafer met,
By blood of grapes for blood of lambs to let.

15 And it shall happen in that day,
That Tyre in forgetfulness stay
For seventy years, as by the day
Of one king; at the end of time
Of seventy years shall Tyre in rhyme
Sing like a prostitute for crime.
16 Take a harp, go about the town,
You harlot of destroyed renown,
Make melody sweetly and sing
Many songs for remembering.
17 And it shall happen at the end
Of seventy years, that YHWH will fend
To visit Tyre, and she shall turn
To her rents and again shall burn
Committing fornication with
All the kingdoms of the earth stiff.
18 And her wares and her profits be
Forfeit to YHWH, it shall not be
Treasured nor stored up in the fee,
For her merchandise is for those
Who dwell before YHWH in their rows
To eat enough and have good clothes.

These words refer to mainland Tyre at best,
The city citadel stayed in her rest.
The seventy years that felled Jerusalem
Were felt also by Tyre’s purple and gem.
The world sees Tyre’s importance in the way
She sold to every country in the sway
Of Middle Sea, but Your prophetic say
Turns rather to her prostitution’s day,
Her worshiping the gods forever guessed
By human hearts who will not meet the test
Of Your ten laws to humankind that free
All beings from the waste of tyranny.
That is the thing that still goes unconfessed.

ISAIAH 24

1 See YHWH makes earth an empty place,
A waste and turns it on its face,
And scatters those who run the race.
2 And it shall be, as with the folk,
So with the priest, as under yoke
The servant as with master too,
As with the maid, so mistress too,
As with the buyer so with him
Who sells, as with the lender dim
So with the borrower in trim,
As with the one who takes the bribe
Of usury, so with the tribe
Who pay the usury to him.
3 The land shall be made desolate,
And utterly spoiled for its fate:
For YHWH has spoken this thing’s rate.
4 The earth mourns and it fades away,
The world languishes in its day,
The arrogant of earth astray.
5 The earth’s also defiled by those
Who live upon it in their rows,
Because they have transgressed the laws,
And changed the ordinance, their claws
Have broken the eternal pact.
6 So the curse has come in to act,
Devouring the earth and those sacked
To dwell upon its desolation,
And so the earth’s dwellers in station
Are burned and few remain intact.

From kingdoms in particular You turn
Your face in judgement on the worldly burn,
And take all nations under wrath and grace
To see the mercy of Your divine face
As well as the destruction of the race.
Sennacherib came in to slay the world,
A century after his flag unfurled
Came Nebuchadnezzar, the man of fate,
Who startled empires after him and late
With head of gold. So here begins the curse
Of empires of the world for bad and worse.
Beloved, as I look on transgression of
Your laws about me in the land of love,
May my hand wear obedience’s glove.

7 The grape juice mourns, the vine must wilt,
All merrymakers sigh in silt.
8 The joy of tabrets ends at last,
The sound of rejoicing is past,
The happy harp is done and cast.
9 They’ll not feast with a song and wine,
Strong drink shall be bitter in sign
To those who drink it while they pine.
10 The town confused is broken down,
Every house is shut with a frown
So no one can enter the line.
11 They shout in the streets lacking wine,
All joy is darkened, land’s mirth gone.
12 The city’s left without the dawn,
The gate is struck down by design.

The surplus of the fields in barley’s wake,
The doubled row of kernels at the stake,
Made possible the city and the town
Seen above fields of green, yellow and brown.
If power had stopped with city states and kings,
The world might have gone on in revellings
Of harvest innocence if such that be
That drinks a toast to Ashtoreth to see
If morning will be filled with the same glee
As afternoon beneath the wedding dance.
But no, the greed of kings takes up the lance
And changes earth from reeling in the trance
To rolling in the tribute under lash.
The wealth needed to survive’s kept in stash.

13 For so the land among the folk
Shall be like shaking at a stroke
Of olive tree, like gleaning grapes
When vintage is done down to scrapes.
14 They shall lift up their voice, they’ll sing
To the majesty of YHWH’s wing,
They’ll cry aloud from the sea’s sting.
15 So glorify YHWH with bright flame,
YHWH Ælohim of Israel’s name
In the sea islands’ wandering.

The land made barren by intensive care
To rob it for the royalty’s own share
Has long lain under sun and star to bare
A single eye to colonizers where
The earth can be despoiled without despair
Of local deities entwined to shake
A finger with ancestral voice’s take.
The land under the empires rattles with
The sound of dry pods and the stalks of myth,
And yet through centuries of blight and kith
Unnatural, there rises on the air
The secret hymns of David come to make
The murmurings of Torah where they dare
Like coltsfoot breaking pavement in a cake.

16 From all the earth we have heard songs,
Glory to the righteous in throngs.
But I said “My leanness, leanness,
Woe to me and to my address,
The treacherous deal out deceit,
In treachery they are complete.
17 “Fear and the pit and snare on you,
Inhabitants of earth in crew.
18 “It shall happen the one who flees
From fearful rumours’ panoplies
Shall fall into the pit, and he
That escapes from the pit once free
Shall be taken up in the snare,
For the windows above give share
And earth’s foundations shake and stare.
19 The earth is wholly broken down,
The earth dissolved and gone each town,
The land is moved out from its lair.
20 The earth shall reel about like those
Drunken, and be moved in its throws
Like a hut strewn, iniquity
Shall be heavy on its degree,
And it shall fall never to rise.
21 It is a day not to despise,
YHWH shall punish the high one’s host
Above, and the kings of their boast
Upon the earth below their cries.
22 They shall be gathered in a band,
As prisoners in a pit stand,
And they shall be shut up to stay,
Visited after many a day.
23 The moon shall be confounded, and
The sun ashamed, when YHWH of hosts
Shall reign in the mount Zion, and
Within Jerusalem for toasts
Before His elders come to stand.

The desecration laid upon the earth
In divine judgement seems beyond the worth
Of humankind, all fallen and destroyed
Beneath the guns and galleons employed
By Your servants who come to take their share
Before they too fall under the moon’s ware.
The devastation is a thing so vast,
That help and hope glimmer, smoulder, and cast
Upon the darkness fade and wither fast.
And yet the moon confounded shall look down
Upon peaceful Jerusalem, the town
Caught after centuries of pain and spoil
Within the joy of sun once shamed in coil
Now shining on the reign of peace compassed.

ISAIAH 25

1 O YHWH, You are my God. I will
Exalt You, I will praise Your name,
For You’ve done wonderful things still,
Your counsels in ancient time came
In faithfulness and truth. 2 For You
Have made a city ruined crew,
A fort a ruin, and palace
Of foreigners to be a place
No longer, it will never be
Rebuilt. 3 Therefore the strong decree
To glorify You, the city
Of horrid nations fears Your spree.
4 For You’ve been a strength to the poor,
Strength to the needy at Your door,
A refuge from the storm, a shade
From the heat, when the great parade
Of the attack is like a storm
Against the wall in battering form.
5 You shall bring down the strangers’ voice,
As the heat in a dry place’ choice,
Even the heat under the shade
Of the cloud; the branch that has made
Terrible ones shall be unstayed.

This great apocalypse and universal
Betrayed from frozen lips before dispersal
Of prophets from the sun and torrid night
Shines out upon my world in splendid light.
If David had sung sweeter melodies
Before the throne of Saul brought to his knees,
I might have looked with less wonder and spare
Upon the dancing alphabets that share
These syllables of sound upon the air.
But David’s song is just one strain among
The glories that the heavenly watchers sung
Beyond the sprinkled stars, beyond the late
Great symphonies of sparrows at the gate.
I praise You too, though hardly David’s mate.

6 In this mountain shall YHWH of hosts
Make for all folk a feast of roasts,
A banquet of fine things in store,
Fat in the marrow, refined more.
7 He’s swallowed up upon this mount
The face of wrapping in account
Over all nations tantamount.
8 He’ll swallow death in victory,
And the Lord YHWH will wipe away
Tears from off all faces that day,
And the rebuke of His folk He
Shall take away from off the earth,
For YHWH has spoken in His worth.

When good Isaiah wrote, if such he did,
These words upon a shard or cooking lid,
He hardly meant more than the hopeful bid
That small Jerusalem set out in toil
Against the monstrous empires out to spoil
Might one day get the chance to bring her corn
And oil and grape juice in without one warn
The coming of the armies on the morn.
But brave John of Apocalypse saw higher:
He thought the world would one day be on fire
And all destruction fall on each empire.
So earth would be renewed, and tears then gone
Before the glow of messianic dawn,
Before he quoted these words darkly drawn.

9 And it shall be said in that day,
“Look, this is our Ælohim’s way,
We’ve waited for him, He will save;
This is YHWH, we attend like slave
Expecting Him, so we’ll be glad
Rejoicing in salvation had.”
10 For in this mountain shall the hand
Of YHWH repose, and Moab stand
To be crushed under Him like straw
Trodden down for the dunghill’s draw.
11 And He’ll extend His hands among
Them, as a swimmer’s reach and rung,
He shall bring down their pride and all
The spoils of their hands in the stall.
12 And the fortress of the high fort
Of your walls He’ll bring strike in sport
And lay them low down to the ground,
And to the dust with crash and sound.

Those who were born after the holocaust
Are used to finding earth ground and up-tossed
As though there were no justice to be found
Beyond imagination on the ground.
And yet Your prophet centuries ago
Pretends a day will come when You will show
Again the rate of Exodus and know
Your folk obedient and make the glow
Of their prosperity run overflow.
If that should happen here upon this earth
Or in the pie sky of some greater berth,
I’m ready with this hymn to praise Your name
After the wait of centuries in game.
I wait with flicker now sometimes a flame.

ISAIAH 26

1 In that day shall be sung this song
In Judah’s land: “We have a strong
City, salvation He has made
The wall and bulwark hard and stayed.
2 “Open the gates so that the just
Nation of truth enter as must.
3 “You will keep him in perfect peace,
Mind firm as he trusts in Your lease.

If You, Beloved, keep any man within
Perfect Islam, that one will find his bin
A lonely place, for no one in this world
Seems to take up Islam’s true flag unfurled.
The name is on the lips of those who fight
In violence and trust in working might,
Of those who forget that You one time chose
The Sabbath day to keep men on their toes,
Of some who steal and some who think the rows
Of bowing in good Makkah will atone
For all sins unrepented of like stone.
The perfect peace is well enough spelled out
In Bible and Qur’an and without doubt
In human hearts though buried by the shout.

4 “Trust in YHWH then eternally,
For in Yah YHWH is guarantee.
5 “He brings down those who dwell on high,
The lofty city He will cry
Low, and He lays it low indeed,
To the ground and to dusty reed.
6 “Trodden down by a foot, the feet
Of the poor, the weak from retreat.
7 “The path for the just is upright,
O upright One, the path in sight
Of the righteous You hold to light.
8 “Indeed in Your judgements’ way, YHWH,
We have waited expecting You,
Desire of soul is to Your name,
And Your remembrance for our fame.

The true service of every faith on earth
That pays the toll and is a faith of worth,
Is the remembrance of Your name that’s sung
In syllables of exultation’s rung,
In melodies of lamentation stung,
In penance and petition’s prophecy.
Indeed, Beloved, I come here faithfully
To prophesy with harp in harmony
With angel fowl behind the glass to see
If You are One above the manied glare
Of blight and sound that I find everywhere.
Your justice is a matter of faith’s hope,
I pray it fall on president and pope,
But still I take remembrance as my rope.

9 “My soul desires You in the night,
I seek You in the morning light,
Your justice when its on the earth
Teaches its dwellers righteous worth.

As my breath turns toward the sleep at last
After the day of light and overcast,
As my thoughts quiet from the storm and blast
Of rush and the oppression at the mast,
As my eyes close before the darkness where
I meet the sullen night come everywhere,
My soul turns to You in the blessèd word
Inscribed in Hebrew syllable and heard
To strike upon the fading mind and blurred,
I go to sleep with Your word on my lip,
And find the ancient message is still hip.
My service of remembrance has no crowd,
But is a mental turning, nothing loud,
As I am rocked to sleep as in a ship.

10 “Show grace to wicked people and
They will not learn the upright stand,
They’ll still do evil in the land
Of the upright, and not behold
YHWH’s majesty as it’s untold.
11 “YHWH, Your hand’s raised, they will not see,
But they’ll see shame for their envy
Of the folk, and fire of Your foes
Shall consume them from head to toes.

You have indeed shown grace to humankind,
You’ve sent Your prophets to the deaf and blind
In soul and justice, those who trow they see
And understand, and yet iniquity
Is in their hands who listen to lobby.
You have established synagogue and church
And mosque and temple not to leave in lurch
The masses who come day by day to search
Survival on the earth barren and green.
You have provided grace upon the scene.
And yet when I but mention that Your law
Is above all the thing to keep in awe,
I find the eyes turn from me and the hand
Goes out to take the wicked contraband.

12 “YHWH, You will order peace on us,
For You have worked our works in us.
13 “O Lord our Ælohim, such lords
Besides You have bound us with cords,
By You alone we come to make
Remembrance and for Your name’s sake.

Beloved, the first faith that You sent mankind,
To Adam and to Eve watcher-designed
Was the remembrance of the Sabbath day
To mention Your good name in every way.
You ordered peace on them and true Islam,
The sharing of the earth without a qualm
At peace with every bird and beast and fish,
With fruit and grain and nut upon the dish.
Beloved, the last faith that You came to show
To humankind was Islam on the go,
The message to the Jew to take the man
Jesus as witness to Your law and span,
The message to the Christian not to take
Him as a god almighty for Your sake.

14 “Deceased they shall not live, and dead
They shall not rise up in their stead,
For You have come to destroy them,
And all their memory from Your hem.
15 “You’ve increased the nation, O YHWH,
You have increased the nation due,
And You are glorified, for You
Have spread them to earth’s ends in view.
16 “YHWH, in trouble they visit You,
They pour out prayer upon Your rue.
17 “Like a pregnant woman come near
The time of her bearing in fear
Of pain, she cries out in her toil,
YHWH, You have seen us for Your spoil.
18 “We’ve been with child, we’ve been in pain,
But only borne flatulence’ gain,
We’ve brought salvation not a whit
Upon the earth, nor come to sit
Upon the world’s dwellers as fit.

Isaiah is a wit to speak of such
Things in the middle of the Psalm to touch
The heart with exultation and uplift
The mind with every glorious fine gift.
I too have been given the chiding lip
For mixing vulgar words with refined clip,
And I too have ignored the gentle flame
Of such correction to further my fame.
But I have hardly come to face the crowd
In worship to sing or to shout aloud
That we have all been farting in the mass.
I am not like Isaiah, not so crass.
I let mine quietly like lad and wench
Who look surprised and wonder at the stench.

19 “Your dead shall live, my body too
From death shall arise with that crew.
Awake and sing, you in the dust,
Your dew as like the dew in lust
Upon the herbs, and earth shall cast
Out the dead alive come at last.

Perhaps for this word one who wrote the spell
Of rhyme and unreason called the Gospel
Reported that the graves opened when shut
Before the glory of the death and glut
Of righteousness that Jesus when he died
Upon the cross released in living tide.
I trust the story’s true, though none can tell
The history before the passing bell,
But whether so or not, I seek the well
Of fervent resurrection on my plate.
Be it the body as Isaiah’s great
To come with pageantry and so relate,
Or be it of the soul to do Your will,
Beloved, I take the rising to the fill.

20 “Come, My folk, enter in your room,
And shut your doors about the gloom,
Hide for a moment till the doom
Has gone past and turned from the tomb.
21 “For see, YHWH comes out of His place
To punish the earth’s wicked race,
The earth also reveals her blood,
And no more cover her slain’s flood.”

I enter in my secret chambered room,
The stony heart within where still may bloom
The flame of love to You, Beloved, and see
The hopes and helps of Your eternity.
I enter in the night-work that You cast
Upon my pilgrimage briefly to last,
And busy myself with the way You set
Before me on Mount Sinai when we met.
And when I come forth from the earthen house
Where none spoke to me other than the mouse
And You, Beloved, whose spirit shadowed me,
I shall find that You’ve played an awful spree
Upon the earth and cleansed it of sin’s fee,
Of every wicked folk’s iniquity.

ISAIAH 27

1 In that day YHWH with His great sword,
The strong and thrusting, shall have gored
Leviathan that squirming snake,
Leviathan crooked at stake,
And He shall slay the dragon that
Is in the sea. 2 In that day yet
A charming vineyard, sing her met.
3 I YHWH keep it, each moment set
Her waters, lest any hurt come,
Night and day I guard it in sum.

A charming vineyard, vineyard of red wine,
The vineyard of Muhammad and the sign
Of all things fair, desired above the whine
Of dragons crouching in the deep of mine,
I see the words untrembled, and I hear
Their cantillation falling on my ear.
You guard the secret fact, Beloved, and I
Rush in to tell the whole world at a try.
No wonder angels hold the pagan eye
From reading what I write. I fail to keep
The mysteries of charm and dragons’ deep.
Forgive the shrill cry of my sema and
Look condescending on me where I stand,
Bewildered not to enter in the band.

4 Fury’s not in Me, who would give
Me briers or thorn combative?
I’d pass through them and I would burn
Them all together as I spurn.
5 O let him take hold of My strength,
Let him make peace with Me at length,
And he’ll make peace with Me and learn.
6 He shall cause those who come of Jacob
To take root; Israel shall wake up
To blossom and bud and to fill
The face of the world with fruit still.

Isaiah quotes the famous book that wrote
Enoch when he takes sea dragon in note.
Or then the opposite may be the truth,
Unless they both quote Job read in their youth.
Leviathan lays one wing on the sand
Of Ireland and the other on the strand
Of Labrador and when he turns to flee
He makes a living caldron of the sea.
Beloved, if You destroy the fairest yet
Of creatures You have made not to be pet,
What shall be left for earth in weal and bane?
Exchange the mammoth beast for coach and train
Is comfort to the human soul I guess,
But wildness has its nobler found address.

The figure of the vineyard that You plant
And cherish is a common one, I grant,
Because it speaks an accuracy where
The human heart is raised up once to bear
The fruit of righteousness in equal share.
The figure never takes into account
Vicissitudes of weather on the mount,
The vagueries of wind and sun and rain,
The joys of human harvest and their pain.
It only will address the multitude
Of mercies that You give to human brood
And wonders that we fail and are so crude
When You had in mind sweeter wine than this,
A quicker heart, and impulse to the kiss.

If reproduction is best strategy
For filling earth with those who faithfully
Follow Your will, that is, Your law I see
Writ on the stony tables of my heart,
Then failure is the pass. First thing the art
Of Israel has taken idols’ part
More oft than not, and second in the cart
Is that the pogrom and the holocaust
Come regularly so that most are lost.
Alternative in conversion is tried
By Christianity in armies’ stride,
And shows that numbers may be gained indeed
Through violence or paying off their greed,
But in each case Your law remains in need.

7 As striking of the smiter He
Has struck him, has He not freely?
As slaughter of his slain does He
Not slay them all and joyfully?
8 In measure in sending it out,
You strive with it, and without doubt
He’s taken away by sharp wind,
As in the day of an east wind.
9 So by this Jacob’s actions sinned
Are covered, and this makes the fruit,
To take away his sin to boot,
In His setting all altar stones,
As chalkstones beaten down like bones,
They do not get up, neither shrine
Nor images lying supine.
10 For the fenced city’s desolate,
Forsaken habitation’s rate,
Left like a wilderness in state,
Where the calf shall pasture of late,
And lie down there consuming all
Its branches as though in the stall.
11 When its boughs are withered and wilted,
They shall be broken off and tilted,
The women come to set the fire,
For it’s a folk without desire
Of knowledge, so no pity takes
Its Maker on it for their sakes,
And He who formed them will not show
Them any mercy where they go.
12 It shall come to pass in that day,
YHWH shall beat off channel of clay
In the river down to the stream
Of Egypt, and you shall in scheme
Be gathered one by one again,
O you children of Israel’s den.
13 And it shall come to pass that day,
The great trumpet shall sound its lay,
And they shall come who in the way
Were ready to perish and fail
In land of the Assyrian pale,
And the outcasts in Egypt’s land,
And they shall worship YHWH and stand
In the holy mountain and gem
Discovered at Jerusalem.

All men in church and synagogue today
Turn toward the sunly eastern sky to pray,
And none turn toward the temple wall that stands
Beneath Jerusalem upon the sands.
All men turn in the worship of the sun
Toward its morning rays when they’ve begun,
And only by an accident of dearth
Turn toward Your city by Moroccan birth.
And yet You promise that a hopeful time
Will come upon the world in every clime
When men and women stop in their address
And turn toward Your temple to confess
Their frauds and murders and unholy streak
Of Sabbath breaking to oppress the meek.

ISAIAH 28

1 Woe to the crown of pride and to
The drunkards of Ephraim’s pew,
Whose glorious beauty’s fading bloom
At the head of fat valley’s room
Of those who lie in wine’s fell doom.
2 See how mighty and strong a hand
Has the Lord, like a tempest’s stand
Of hail and a destroying storm,
As floods of waters raging swarm
Are poured out by hand on the land.
3 The crown of pride, the drunkard’s treat
Of Ephraim trodden under feet,
4 And the beauty and glory at
The head of the valley and fat
Shall be a fading flower and more,
And quickly ripened fruit before
The summer; which when looked upon
Is all devoured before the dawn.
5 In that day then shall YHWH of hosts
Be for a crown of glory’s boasts,
And for a beauty’s diadem,
To the remnant of folk for gem,
6 And for a spirit of judgement
To him that sits in judgement sent,
And for strength to those who shall turn
The battle to the gate to spurn.
7 But they also have erred through wine,
And through strong drink out of design,
The priest and prophet also err
Through liquor, they swallow the stir
Of wine, and they go from the way
Through strong drink; from the vision’s sway
They stumble in judgement’s incline.
8 For all tables are covered by
Vomit, such filth in all the sty!

The excuse I have never heard priest make
Is that the ten commandments in Your wake
Do not prohibit drinking wine and ale
Or even liquor full, hearty and hale.
One might mind Timothy and stomach’s sake,
Another might mind Torah, come to take
The tithes for strong drink on the golden mael,
And slumber in Jerusalem for tale.
But some things are simply not spoken there
Where You appear on Sinai for Your share:
Some things are matters of reason to spare.
The vomit on the table makes one think
The righteous man should avoid the strong drink.
The ten commandments merely show the brink.

9 Whom shall He teach knowledge and by
Whom does He show doctrine in sky
Weaned from the milk and from the breast?
10 For precept on precept is best,
And precept on precept and line
On line and line on line, so here
A little and there to appear.
11 With hesitating lips and tongue
Of foreigners will His speech wrung
Come to this people and unsung.

Isaiah hopes his method will prevail,
The study of the Scriptures not as tale,
But to compare each line with others met
That complement the subject firm and set.
Isaiah knows the way to find the truth
Of Your will, my Belovèd, from one’s youth
Is to inspect the written Word above
With introspection and the look of love.
Isaiah looks backward to see the time
When Moses came from Midian with his rhyme
Of broken speech and stuttering to climb.
Isaiah looks forward to hear the note
Of good Muhammad recited in rote
Almost but yet unlike the tongue he wrote.

12 To whom He said “This is the rest
That you may give the weary best,
And this is the refreshing word,”
And yet they would not hear as stirred.
13 But the word of YHWH came to them
Precept on precept, gem on gem,
And line on line and line on line,
A little here, and there design,
That they might go and then fall back,
Be broken, snared, and taken slack.

As I look through the layered shining leaves
Of Your fair Scriptures where my donned heart grieves,
In line on line the precepts mount up high
From century to century to spy
The Sabbath still remembered and forgot
By priest and people in the sacred plot.
You give that rest in every prophet’s word,
Down to the Seer on Patmos to be stirred,
And yet if I just mention to the bishop
Oppression of the poor might find in his ship
A boon and rest if he would once proclaim
The blessing and the grace of Your law’s flame,
He turns about and says nailed to the cross
Is every word of God counted in loss.

14 So hear now the word come from YHWH,
You scornful men and all the crew
That rule this people in their pew,
And in Jerusalem in view.
15 Because you have said “We have made
A covenant with and have paid
Our dues to hell, so we agree,
When the grand scourge shall pass through free,
It shall not come to us, for we
Have made our lies our refuge, and
Under our falsehood we can stand.”

The Qur’an quotes this word in compliment
Or not to the Jews of Medina spent,
Who claimed the fire would touch them for a scent
And leave them after intervals, relent.
And yet the Jewish crew is nothing yet
In piling up iniquities I’ve met
Among the grander Roman armies set
In priest and commerce men of colony
Who spew the global market with their fee.
The threat of last destruction on the world
Is just a theme for conference uncurled,
And then a bath in luxury hotel
And the visit of call-girl for a spell.
A moment only is destruction’s spree.

16 So says the Lord YHWH, “See, I lay
In the fortress foundation’s stay,
A tried stone and a precious one
Upon the corner, sure and done,
Believers shall not hurry way.
17 “The judgement also will I lay
To the line and the righteousness
To the plummet, and hail shall sweep
Away the refuge that you keep
Of lies, and the waters’ address
Shall overflow the hiding place.
18 “So your covenant with death’s face
Shall be annulled and your fond trace
With hell shall not stand; when the great
Scourge shall pass through then you shall be
Trodden down by it futilely.
19 “From the time that it goes forth it
Shall take you, for morning by fit
Morning it shall pass over you,
By day and by night shall its view
Be a vexation only to
Understand the report’s review.
20 “For shorter is the bed than length
Of a man to lie in his strength
Upon it, and the covering
Is narrower than needed spring
To wrap oneself up in the thing.
21 “For YHWH shall rise up as in mount
Perazim, he shall in wrath count
As in Gibeon’s valley’s fount,
That He may do His work that’s strange,
And bring to pass His act in range
Unwonted and unseen in grange.”
22 So do not now mock, lest your chains
Be made the stronger for your pains,
For I have heard from the Lord YHWH
Of hosts a consumption in view
Determined on the whole world’s crew.

The reason that destruction of the kind
Must come upon the grossly deaf and blind,
Is simply that the bed’s too short for wined,
And there’s no blanket that will cover all
The population of the shrinking ball.
It does not do to turn over and sleep,
And snore about the way darkness may creep.
The fact is, whether help is near or far,
The feet stick out below the falling bar
Where blankets of well-being reach the knee
At best and whistle at eternity.
Beloved, You may rise up and come to stare
Upon the wreaking of Your vengeance there,
Or join the sleep and let Your feet show bare.

23 Lend ear to hear my voice, attend
And listen to me to the end.
24 The whole day does the ploughman take
To sow, does he open and break
The clods of his ground for their sake?
25 When he has made it smooth, does he
Not cast abroad the fitches free,
And scatter cumin on the lee,
And sow the wheat and the barley,
And the rye in appointed stake?
26 Teaching discretion Ælohim
Comes to him to direct his dream.
27 For fitches are not threshed abroad
With threshing instrument on sod,
Neither is a car wheel turned round
Upon the cumin on the ground.
But fitches are drawn with a staff,
And cumin with a rod in raff.
28 The flour for bread is ground up small,
Because he does not stay the stall
To thresh it always, nor to crush
It with a cart wheel in the rush,
Nor do his hoofs beat it down small.
29 This too comes out from YHWH of hosts,
In counsel wonderful of boasts,
And excellent in working toasts.

It’s not clear what Isaiah wants to say
When he says ploughing is not here to stay,
But goes on into planting and that too
Ends with the growing and the harvest view.
Perhaps he means the status quo I see
Around the world is not permanent spree,
But that a harvest time is coming fast
When wheat from chaff will be made clear at last.
Until then, though, I make my daily round
Of sun and snow or rain upon the ground
And touch the same earth as I walk the bound
Of forest and hear twittering the sound
Of angels flitting here from tree to tree,
Both summer and in winter faithfully.

ISAIAH 29

1 Alas for Ariel, alas!
For Ariel, city of class
Of David! Add then year to year,
And let the sacrifice appear.
2 And I have sent distress upon
Ariel, and it has been drawn
In lamentation and in grief,
And it shall be to me in feoff
As of a great lion in chief.
3 I’ll camp against you round about,
And lay siege against your redoubt,
And raise up forts against your clout.
4 And you shall be brought down to speak
Out of the ground, and your speech meek
Out of the dust, your voice shall be
As of one with spirit to see
Out of the ground and so your speech
Shall whisper from the dust to reach.
5 The crowd of foreigners in you
Shall be like the small dust in view,
The multitude of horrid ones
Like blowing chaff come in its tons,
And suddenly shall come the cue.
6 YHWH of hosts shall come into view
With thunder and an earthquake too,
A great crash, hurricane and storm,
And fire consuming not to warm.
7 And the crowd of all nations that
Fight against Ariel and vat,
That is all that fight against her
And her stores, and that distress her,
Shall be as a night vision’s stir.
8 It’s like when a hungry man dreams,
And sees himself devouring creams,
But when he wakes up to the void,
Or as when a man in thirsts dreams
That he is drinking, it’s destroyed
Upon awaking, see then he
Is faint and he desires the spree,
So shall the multitude of all
The nations be, that follow call
To fight against mount Zion’s wall.

Isaiah rides on his good luck when he
Predicted the fall of Assyrian spree
Without the intervention of army.
He quotes in chapter seven and makes free
To gloat in chapter twenty-two, and now
I’ll bet a two-pence this chapter somehow
Harks back to the same glorified retreat.
He hopes to play the same trick on the feet
Of Babylon and Persia come the mill
Of empires upon earth to fit the bill.
Beloved, I turn to You no matter what
Storms of troops come to Quds to ram the shut
Gates of Messiah prince. I bow in prayer
Alone with in the mosque above the stair.

9 Stand and wonder, look and cry out,
They are drunken through no wine’s bout,
They stagger but not with strong drink.
10 For YHWH’s poured on to make you sink
In the spirit of a deep sleep,
And has closed your eyes not to peep:
Your prophets and your presidents
And scientists He hid in tents.
11 The vision of all has become
To you as a book’s words in sum
And sealed, which is brought to the one
Who’s educated as to stun,
“Read this, please!” and he says “I can’t,
For it is sealed with wax and rant.”
12 And the book’s shown to ignorant,
“Read this, please!” and he says “I can’t,
In learning I’m a debutant.”
13 So says the Lord, “Because this folk
Come near with their mouth and the stroke
Of lips to honour Me, but yet
Remove their heart far from My set,
And their fear toward Me has been taught
By the precept of men in plot,
14 “Therefore, see, I will add again
A marvellous work among men,
A marvellous work and a wonder;
The wisdom of their wise shall blunder,
Prudent understanding in den.
15 “Woe to those going deep to hide
Their plans from YHWH, whose acts abide
In darkness. And they say now, 'Who
Sees us and who knows what we do?’
16 “Surely your turning upside down
Shall be seen as potter’s clay’s crown;
For shall the pot say to the man
Who made it, ‘You made not from plan?’
Or shall the thing framed say of him
That framed it, ‘His thoughts are but dim?’

My tardema is centuries past that
Of Adam in the garden where he sat,
And with each massing century I see
The vision dim and fail of the glory.
If in the time of good Isaiah then
The vision was sealed from the best of men,
Then what is my sight now that truth is lost
Among the rubbled ruins of the bossed?
I honour You with lip, indeed I do,
As some of the words here appeal in cue,
(While others seem to question Your estate,
Ignore the ignorance about my pate).
I pray my actions might be poetry
Superior to what I write in spe.

17 “Is it not yet a little while,
And Lebanon shall turn in pile
A fruitful field, and fruitful field
Shall grow into a forest’s yield?
18 “And in that day shall the deaf hear
The words of the book and appear
The eyes of the blind then to see
Out of the dark obscurity.
19 “The meek also increase their joy
In YHWH, and the poor men employ
Praises of Israel’s Holy One.
20 “For the horror is brought to nought,
The scorner is consumed in plot,
And all that wait iniquity
Are cut of from the shore and sea.
21 “Such ones make a man out as guilty
For a word spoken, and lay silty
A snare for the one who cries out
Justice in the gate, turn about
To remove what is just and take
A worthless thing instead at stake.
23 “But when he sees his spawn, the work
Of My hand where he does not shirk,
They’ll sanctify My name and make
Holy Jacob’s Holy One, shake
With fear of Israel’s Ælohim.
24 “They also who erred in the mind
Shall come to understanding’s rind,
And those who murmured shall learn cream
Of teaching’s doctrine on the beam.”

Prediction that someone will learn the true,
The tables of the heart and stone in view,
The thunder and the lightning on the crew
Of Sinai, and words above all that You
Spoke on a day when freedom was at hand
Is something that at least I have found grand.
Psychology of making families
Is something like to fail or else to please:
When people see their spawn, they stop to think
What thing is leading them up to the brink.
And then Your teaching, my Beloved, will sink
Into the heart and show the way to go,
The right to do, and whether any show
Can save the children from nuclear glow.

ISAIAH 30

1 “Woe to rebellious sons,” says YHWH,
“Who make plans, but do not in view
Of Me, but cover with a veil,
Not of My spirit to curtail,
To add wickedness to sin’s pail,
2 “Who walk down into Egypt’s bane,
Not asking at My mouth for gain,
To strengthen themselves in the power
Of Pharaoh, and to trust the hour
Of Egypt’s shadow in the lane.
3 “So Pharaoh’s strength shall be your shame,
Trust in Egyptian shadow vain.
4 “In Zoan was his princes’ fame,
His messengers to Hanes came.
5 “They were all ashamed of a folk
That profit not nor help a stroke,
Nor benefit beyond a shame
And also a reproach in name.”

The trust in Egypt is not meant to be
The faith in Egyptian idolatry,
But rather calculation to survive
The politics of Middle East alive.
Isaiah is portrayed to be a book
Of lovely faith and spiritual hook,
But in fact is a record of the struggle
Between the faction of Egyptian tuggle
And those who thought Egypt had seen its day
And keeping company with it when stronger
Was no reason to trust it any longer.
The language is so beautiful the mind
Imagines it a spiritual kind.
But politics is all that is enshrined.

6 The vision of the southern beasts:
Into a land of troubled priests
And anguish, lions young and old,
Where vipers and the burning bold
Flying serpent is, they will bear
Their wealth upon the shoulders bare
Of young donkeys, their treasures on
The camels’ humps, to folk withdrawn
From benefit and profit there.
7 Egyptian help shall be in vain,
And to no purpose on the wane;
That’s why I shout about this thing,
“Their strength’s to sit still while they sing.”

The sense political Isaiah brings
Is that Egypt is ancient in the wings,
Inert before the youthful empires’ birth
That wait on east and north for what they’re worth.
It’s too decrepit to boast military,
It’s strength is in its sitting down to sherry.
The real alternatives are two: to act
Within the budding empire with a pact
Contributing to culture and to race
In exchange for the freedom and the grace
To follow law of God, or then rebel
Against the civilized and live in hell
And frost of desert, nomadic and spent
In wineless nights beneath the stars in tent.

8 “Go write for them on tablet sure,
And note it in a book secure,
That it may be for future time,
For ever and ever in rhyme.
9 “This is a folk rebellious and
Lying children, spawn on the sand
Not hearing the law come from YHWH,
10 “That say to seers, ‘Do not see’,
And to the prophets come in crew,
‘o not bring up a prophecy
To tell us to do right, but speak
To us smooth things, for such we seek,
And prophesy deceit on cue.
11 “Get out of the way, turn aside
Out of the path, let not abide
The Holy One of Israel
In front of us to stay a spell.’”
12 That’s why Israel’s Holy One speaks:
“Because you despise this word’s streaks,
And trust in oppression perverse,
And dwell upon it for the worse:
13 “Therefore this wickedness shall be
To you a breach ready to fall,
And swelling out in a high wall,
Whose breaking out comes suddenly.
14 “And He shall break it as the crash
Of potters’ vessel in the smash;
He shall not spare, it’s not found there
In bursting of it any chip
To take fire from the hearth in clip,
Or take water upon the hip.”
15 For so says the Lord YHWH, the One
Holy of Israel when done,
“Return to rest is your salvation,
In quiet and confident station
Shall be your strength,” but you instead
Wanted to keep Sunday in bed.
16 And you said “No, we’ll take to horse.”
And so then you will flee perforce.
“We’ll ride away upon the swift.”
So those who pursue you will lift
A faster foot upon the course.
17 A thousand flee at one’s rebuke,
You’ll run away before the fluke
Of five; till you are left alone
Like a lighthouse upon a stone,
A single flag for a hill’s duke.

The fault of ancient Judah was that they
Saw neither good alternative in sway,
But wanted to go on in the old way
Of dependence on the Nile and its pay.
The weakness of Egyptians was the chip
That turned around the Jewish sort of ship.
The choice was made by conquest come not late
To turn out kings and people to their fate.
A better deal could have been cut with just
Diplomacy to set them up in trust.
Prophetic message is that ruin comes
From trusting in Egyptian sort of sums,
But after that when Babylon grows old
And falls, then it too will be in the cold.

16 And therefore YHWH will wait, so He
May be gracious to you and be
Exalted, and may have mercy
On you, for YHWH’s an Ælohim
Of judgement: blessed are all the team
Who wait for Him to come and see.
19 And so the folk shall come to dwell
In Zion at Jerusalem’s well:
You shall not weep anymore there:
He’ll be so gracious in your share
To hear the voice you raise in pew;
When He hears it, He’ll answer you.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread
Of trouble and water instead
Of your affliction, still those who
Teach you will not be put from view
Into a corner any more,
But your eyes shall see in their score
Your teachers coming out in crew.
21 Your ears shall hear a word behind,
Saying “This is the way assigned,
Walk in it, when you turn to right
And when you turn to left in sight.
22 “You also shall defile the veil
Of your graven image in sale
Of silver, and the ornament
Of your molten images spent
Of gold, and you shall cast them out
As a rag covered with the spout
Of woman’s monthly flow, and you
Shall say to it, ‘Away and phew!’”
23 Then He shall give rain to your seed,
That you shall sow instead of weed,
And bread of earth’s increase, and it
Shall be both fat and prospered fit.
In that day shall your cattle feed
In wide pastures to fill their greed.
24 The oxen likewise and the young
Donkeys beneath the service tongue
Fermented provender shall eat,
Winnowed with shovel and fan’s treat.
25 And there’ll be on every high hill,
Upon each mountain and to fill
Rivers and streams of water in
The day of the great slaughter din,
When ramparts fall down and are still.
26 Moreover the light of the moon
Shall be like light of the sun soon,
And the light of the sun shall be
Seven times brighter and in fee
Of seven days of light the day
That YHWH binds up the breach to stay
Of His folk and comes in to heal
Their stricken wounds at their appeal.

Although Isaiah wrote a book to be
The outline of good royal policy,
It does have an element set in faith,
The high-toned call to turn away from wraith
And cast down every pagan sort of thing
And worship You alone and not the king.
That is a corollary to the way
He turns the hearts of people from the fray,
From loyalty to Egypt when its pay
Is too weak to resist the younger sway.
To get along with diplomatic share
Requires a firm decision to beware
Of pagan influences on the stair.
Beloved, I follow You here, if I may.

27 See the name of YHWH comes from far,
Burning in His wrath and the star
Is heavy, His lips full of wrath,
And His tongue fire’s consuming path:
28 His breath an overflowing stream
Shall reach up to the neck in beam
To sift the nations with the sieve
Of vanity, and so shall give
A bridle to the people’s jaws
To make them err from common laws.
29 You’ll have a song, as in the night
When solemn assembly is right,
And gladness of the heart, as when
One goes with a flute in the glen
To come to the mountain of YHWH,
The mighty One in Israel’s view.
30 And YHWH shall make His glorious voice
Heard and show striking arm for choice,
With anger of wrath and the flame
Of fire devouring, scattered claim,
And tempest and hailstones of ice.
31 For from the voice of YHWH breaks down
Assyrian struck both rod and crown.
32 And in each place the staff shall pass,
That YHWH shall lay upon his ass,
Shall be with tabrets and the harp,
In shaking battles he will carp.
33 For Tophet is ordained of old,
The king’s prepared it, he was bold
To make it deep and wide, the pile
Of it is fire and firewood’s guile;
The breath of YHWH in rush and stream
Like brimstone kindles it on beam.

The choice of fair Jerusalem between
The two empires set on a rushing stream
Is based on predicting which of the two
Has more power to control all things in view.
Foundation of the power may seem to be
An absolute and still determine free,
But here Isaiah looks toward a time
When human powers must fail before divine.
Beloved, I seek Your justice from all crime
Of government and political mine.
I seek Your wrath to fall in flame and fire,
I seek the coming of Your judgement dire.
The kingdom of Your law remains in me
The hope of life and of eternity.

ISAIAH 31

1 Woe to those who go to Egypt
For help, stay on horses equipped,
And trust in tanks for multitude,
And cavalry for strength imbued;
But they do not look to the Saint
Of Israel or seek YHWH’s restraint.
2 He’s also wise, and will bring down
Catastrophe upon the town,
And not call back His prophecy,
But rise against the wicked spree,
Against the help of those who do
Iniquity in sacred pew.
3 Egyptians are men and not God;
Their horses flesh, not spirit’s pod.
When YHWH shall stretch out His hand there,
Both the helper shall fall from stair
And the one helped fall down, and they
Shall all fail together that day.
4 For so has YHWH spoken to me,
“Like the lion and the young lion free
Roar on their prey when a crowd’s sway
Of shepherds is called out to prey,
He’ll not be afraid of their voice,
Nor crouch in hiding for their choice,
So shall YHWH of hosts come to fight
For mountain fortress on hill’s site.”
5 As birds fly so does YHWH of hosts
Cover Jerusalem from ghosts,
Covering and delivering,
Passing over upon the wing,
And causing to escape the sting.

As Judah erred in days of old to look
To Egypt for salvation from the crook
Of the Assyrians, so on a year
That I remember without pain or fear,
Although the six days of that week remain
A touchstone to many for current pain,
The folk that dwelt in old Jerusalem
Looked to Egypt for help and hope pro tem.
They joke that the debacle then that came
Was reading Russian tank gears for their fame
From right to left, and so instead of moving
Forward they went backward into the grooving
Of Sinai’s desert to meet their mishap.
All faith in guns leads to some travelled trap.

6 Turn back, you Israelites, to Him
Against whom you’ve revolted grim.
7 For in that day each man shall cast
Away his silver idols last,
And his idols of gold which your
Own hands have made to fill sin’s store.
8 Then shall Assyrian fall with sword,
Not of a mighty man restored,
And the sword not of a mere man
Shall consume him, but as in plan
He’ll flee from the sword and his young
Men shall be troubled to the dung.
9 “He’ll pass to his redoubt for fear,
And his princes when flags appear
Shall be afraid,” says YHWH, whose fire
Is in the fortress and His pyre
Is in Jerusalem for dire.

The Israelites upon that fateful year
Came on Jerusalem as with their gear
Assyrians to Ahaz without fear.
This time the gross invader took the tent
Of Quds and spread out under a sun spent
To enjoy hegemony on the bent.
How many times has that lost city known
The conquest of new faces on the throne!
One hardly knows to applaud anymore,
But rather breathes a prayer that on the shore
The bleeding will stop somewhere and peace come
To narrow streets abiding in the hum
Of selling and of waiting for the crew
That comes each year to temple mount and view.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

To purchase the books, please go to:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/thomas-mcelwain/the-beloved-and-i-genesis-to-maccabees/paperback/product-20136835.html

http://www.lulu.com/shop/thomas-mcelwain/the-beloved-and-i-job-to-revelation/paperback/product-20050862.html