Rhetorical Reversal and Usurpation: Isaiah 10:5-34 and the Use of Neo-Assyrian Royal Idiom in the Construction of an Anti-Assyrian Theology

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) For Mark Throntveit, mentor and friend The self-aggrandizing speeches of an unnamed Neo-Assyrian monarch in Isa 10:5-34 (10:8-11, 13-14) have long piqued the curiosity of both biblical scholars and their colleagues working in Assyriology.1 Questions concerning the speeches' historical referentiality, redaction, and reuse in other portions of Isaiah (e.g., the ... of chs. 36-37) have justifiably been accorded a great deal of attention. For example, Peter Machinist has offered a penetrating comparative study, exploring the question: "How did that empire [Neo-Assyrian] appear to its contemporaries from their sources?"2 He concludes that several texts in First Isaiah, including some verses from the chapter examined here (10:6, 13), do seem to make reference to Assyrian propagandistic idiom and probably provide the historian with "an important witness to the official Assyrian perspective."3 More recently, William R. Gallagher, in his thoughtful study of Sennacherib's campaign against Judah, has proposed that 10:13-14 is a summary of Assyrian "ideology and propaganda."4 Additionally, scholars have drawn attention to the deeply polemical nature of these speeches, noting that they are intentionally designed to caricature negatively and misrepresent the Assyrian king, depicting him as a target worthy of divine judgment. 5 What seems to have been missed, however, is the observation that the wealth of language and rhetoric often associated with Assyrian monarchical ideology appears to be taken up in ch. 10 in a polemical and subversive fashion and used in the prophet's description of Yhwh's eventual judgment against the Assyrian monarch.6 That is to say, Yhwh, the true conferrer of divine weapons of wrath (not Assur, 10:5-6), the fiercest vineyard-slashing siege warrior (not the king, 10:16- 19), and the most awe-inspiring royal figure to have taken the western journey to Lebanon (again, not the king,10:33-34), is rhetorically and subversively clothed in the language and metaphor traditionally associated with Assyrian monarchial ideology and literature, with the result that the imminent judgment of the Assyrian king will appear, to him, strangely and ironically familiar. In addition, these three references-vv. 5-6, 16-19, 33-34-deeply color the surrounding context, and further sharpen the rhetoric to such a degree that we may be able to speak of the whole unit (10:5-34) as a chapter fashioned and redacted around the notion of usurpation and upheaval. This article, then, suggests that in 10:5-34, various prophetic oracles and speeches (10:5-6, 16-19, 33-34), whose roots can probably be traced to a historical familiarity with Assyrian royal idiom, have been gathered around the theme of divine judgment against the Assyrian monarch and rhetorically crafted in such a way that these oracles of judgment have adopted and adapted that selfsame Assyrian royal idiom into a theologically militant presentation of Yhwh's actions against the boundary-transgressing policies of the Assyrian king. This rhetorical reversal has been crafted in order to construct a counter-theology to the intimidating royal rhetoric showcased and caricatured in vv. 8-11, 13-14.7 The presentation of Yhwh in the rhetorical garb of royal idiom, then, is not only an ironic reversal-it is at least that!-but also a conscientious rhetorical assault on the bombastic claims of the unnamed king. It follows that the oracles in Isa 10:5-34 are effecting nothing less than the rhetorical usurpation of both Assur and his historical agent, the Assyrian king. In place of Assur and the Assyrian king, Yhwh is established as "king of the universe," who alone is worthy of the aggrandizing and propagandistic praise normally ascribed to the Assyrian kings in their inscriptions and annals.8 I. DETHRONING ASSUR AND CO-OPTING THE KING: ISAIAH 10:5-6 The first act of subversion occurs in vv. 5-6, which recollect Yhwh's commissioning of Assyria as an agent of divine wrath:9 (5) Woe, Assyria! …