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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 11

1 A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, a bud will sprout from his roots.⁠ 2 The Lord’s Spirit will rest on him—a⁠ Spirit that gives extraordinary wisdom, a Spirit that provides the ability to execute plans,⁠ a Spirit that produces absolute loyalty to the Lord.⁠ 3 His smelling is in the fear of the Lord7.⁠ He will not judge by mere appearances or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. 4 He will treat the poor fairly and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth.⁠ He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and order the wicked to be executed.⁠ 5 Justice will be like a belt around his waist, integrity will be like a belt around his hips. 6 A wolf will reside with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a young goat; an ox and a young lion will graze together, as a small child leads them along.⁠ 7 A cow and a bear will graze together, their young will lie down together. A lion, like an ox, will eat straw. 8 A baby will play over the hole of a snake; over the nest of a serpent an infant will put his hand.⁠ 9 They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea.⁠ 10 At that time a root from Jesse will stand like a signal flag for the nations.⁠ Nations will look to him for guidance, and his residence will be majestic. 11 At that time the Lord will again lift his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the seacoasts.⁠ 12 He will lift a signal flag for the nations; he will gather Israel’s dispersed people and assemble Judah’s scattered people from the four corners of the earth. 13 Ephraim’s jealousy will end, and Judah’s hostility will be eliminated. Ephraim will no longer be jealous of Judah, and Judah will no longer be hostile toward Ephraim. 14 They will swoop down on the Philistine hills to the west; together they will loot the people of the east. They will take over Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be their subjects. 15 The Lord will divide the gulf of the Egyptian Sea; he will wave his hand over the Euphrates River and send a strong wind; he will turn it into seven dried-up streams and enable them to walk across in their sandals.⁠ 16 There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people,⁠ just as there was for Israel, when they went up from the land of Egypt.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 8:21 and Isaiah 11:3

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Genesis 8 describes God responding to the smell of Noah’s offering, and Isaiah 11 uses smell as a way of discerning rather than sight or hearing, reflecting an ancient Near Eastern view of smell as a form of perception also tied to temple incense.

Passages

Genesis 8:21

Hebrew Bible
19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups. 20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done. 22 “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Isaiah 11:3

Hebrew Bible
1 A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, a bud will sprout from his roots. 2 The Lord’s Spirit will rest on him—a Spirit that gives extraordinary wisdom, a Spirit that provides the ability to execute plans, a Spirit that produces absolute loyalty to the Lord. 3 His smelling is in the fear of the Lord7. He will not judge by mere appearances or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. 4 He will treat the poor fairly and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and order the wicked to be executed. 5 Justice will be like a belt around his waist, integrity will be like a belt around his hips.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

References

"... What is of interest to this thesis is the fact that the sense of smell is seen as so far superior to sight and hearing that it renders them unnecessary. Admittedly metaphor is being used, but it is the choice of metaphor that is striking to us in our culture ... Indeed, it could be argued that the "strangeness' of the metaphor accounts for much of the textual debate among scholars over this clause. The sense of smell was clearly understood by the Rabbis to be the referent in the text ... Although the historicity of this last statement is open to question, it is, nevertheless, a reflection of the Rabbinic understanding of Isaiah 11:3 ... Though 'smell' is not normally seen in our culture as a primary means of discernment, to the culture of the Bible and much of the world there was a recognition of its precision. As noted in chapter one, olfaction may be regarded in certain contexts as more discerning than either sight or sound and that, of all the senses, it is the most closely connected with memory. Thus, to a culture existing before or outside of the 'olfactory revolution' the sense of smell would carry a much greater metaphoric significance than in our own. In the Pentateuch, as it now stands, the first reference to the divine sense of smell is found in the conclusion of the Flood Narrative. This is actually the only reference in Genesis to the divine sense of smell. It introduces, however, some terminology which makes a frequent appearance in the Hebrew Bible ..."
Francis Humphrey, “Sensory Language and the Divine-Human Relationship in the TENAK” (PhD diss., McGill University, 1994), 65–68.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 8:21 and Isaiah 11:3

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