Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 22 warns that a specific sin will not be forgiven. The Aramaic translation in Targum Jonathan intensifies this by adding the idea of the “second death,” a later tradition about final judgment not found in the Hebrew version.
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Isaiah 22:14
Hebrew Bible
12 At that time the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies called for weeping and mourning, for shaved heads and sackcloth. 13 But look, there is outright celebration! You say, “Kill the ox and slaughter the sheep, eat meat and drink wine. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” 14 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies told me this: “Certainly this sin will not be forgiven as long as you live,” says the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 15 This is what the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:“Go visit this administrator, Shebna, who supervises the palace, and tell him:
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Jonathan Isaiah 22:14
Targum
12 And the prophet of the Lord, the God, the God of hosts, called in that day to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: 13 But, behold, joy and gladness; they say, Let us slay oxen, and kill sheep, we will eat flesh, ve will drink wine; let us eat, and drink, since we shall die, and not live. 14 The prophet said, with mine ears I was hearing when this was decreed from before the Lord of hosts, namely, that this your iniquity shall not be forgiven you till you die the second death, said the Lord, the God, the God of hosts. 15 Thus said the Lord, the God, the God of hosts. Come, go to this ruler, even to Shebna, who is appointed over the house.
Date: 200-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Repentance in Targum Isaiah 21:12 is also associated more with the eschatological judgment of individuals than with the restoration of the temple and the people, Israel’s intended end in the earlier framework ... Perhaps the closest approximation to the reading is to be found in Numbers Rabbah 16:23, which cites Isaiah 21:12 and observes (with particular reference to the term “morning” in the Hebrew), “when the time of the world to come arrives, which is called morning, we shall know in whom he delights.” The emphasis is quite different in chapter 22 of the Isaiah Targum, which focuses on the depredations of Jerusalem, the victories of the Romans, and the fate of the sanctuary, which are characteristic interests of the Tannaitic meturgeman. A particular threat is directed against those who feast in a time when the prophet calls for fasting (Targum Isaiah 22:12-13), and the threat, articulated at Targum Isaiah 22:14, is couched in language also found in the Revelation of John ... The fact that the same Theologoumenon appears in Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8, of course, does not alone settle the questions of the chronology and meaning of the phrase. Charles Perrot and Pierre-Maurice Bogaert cite the usage in various Targumim ... but at Isaiah 22:14 in particular, the rabbis from the second century onward regularly refer to death in the straightforward sense so that the earlier, communal eschatology of the Tannaitic meturgeman appears to be reflected here ..."
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