Texts in Conversation
Hosea portrays priests and people facing the same punishment, erasing social distinction in the face of judgment. Isaiah later develops this idea, expanding the same formula into a detailed vision where every social rank, from priest to servant, is judged similarly.
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Hosea 4:9
Hebrew Bible
7 The more the priests increased in numbers, the more they rebelled against me. They have turned their glorious calling into a shameful disgrace! 8 They feed on the sin offerings of my people; their appetites long for their iniquity! 9 I will deal with the people and priests together: I will punish them both for their ways, and I will repay them for their deeds. 10 They will eat, but not be satisfied; they will engage in prostitution, but not increase in numbers because they have abandoned the Lordby pursuing other gods. 11 Old and new wine take away the understanding of my people.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Isaiah 24:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth and leave it in ruins; he will mar its surface and scatter its inhabitants. 2 Everyone will suffer—the priest as well as the people, the master as well as the servant, the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, the seller as well as the buyer, the borrower as well as the lender, the creditor as well as the debtor. 3 The earth will be completely devastated and thoroughly ransacked. For the Lord has decreed this judgment. 4 The earth dries up and withers, the world shrivels up and withers; the prominent people of the earth fade away.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Isaiah 24 begins with the state of affairs prophesied in Hosea 4. Hosea observed that with injustices committed in Israel (Hosea 4:12), “the land mourns, and all who live in it languish” (Hosea 4:3). Using much of the same terminology, Isaiah 24 reports that the initial situation is analogous more than a century later. “The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth” (Isaiah 24:4), and the inhabitants have suffered long for transgressing the laws and statutes of the covenant (Isaiah 24:5–6). Hosea 4:9 alluded to the divine erasure of social distinctions, prophesying, “it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest”, while Isaiah 24:2 spins out the same formulation in much more detail ... The divine judgment that Hosea said would be brought against Israel (Isaiah 4:9) is now brought against the whole known world (Isaiah 24:21–22; compare 26:14, 16, 21; 27:1, 3) ..."
Hays, Christopher B.
The Origins of Isaiah 24-27: Josiah’s Festival Scroll for the Fall of Assyria
(pp. 218-219) Cambridge University Press, 2019
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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