Eikha and the Prophecies of Consolation in Isaiah
BY DR. YAEL ZIEGLER
Eikha is a book of suffering, filled with enormous pain, bewilderment, despair and outrage. It offers no hope and no guidance for rehabilitation; the final verse trails off with a sigh of despair: “For You have surely rejected us, You have been greatly wrathful against us.”
However, Eikha does not exist in a vacuum. Surprisingly, the biblical narrative, and the story of the nation of Israel, do not conclude with exile. Cyrus allows the Judeans to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple and community. While some of the biblical books of this period (such as Ezra-Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah) record both great excitement and great disappointment, these events imbue the nation with unanticipated potential for success. As the biblical story marches forward past exile, Israel’s optimistic outlook takes shape: redemption can follow exile, dispersion and loss of autonomy do not spell the end of the nation.
The “prophecies of consolation” in the book of Isaiah (chapters 40–66) focus on the period of the return to Zion.1 These prophecies present Cyrus as G-d’s messenger (44:28–45:2) and urge the Judeans to leave Babylonia (48:20). Other prophecies address a personified Jerusalem, advising her that G-d is returning to the city along with her children (namely, her exiled populace), and promising Jerusalem a glorious future. These chapters pulse with jubilation and excitement; redemption is at hand, and Israel will return to a dazzling city. These prophecies maintain a special relationship with the book of Eikha, creating a dialogue between the book of destruction and the biblical passages that mark its reversal.
Hazal recognize the remarkable linguistic exchange between the books.2 Noting that the prophet Isaiah lived long before the redemptive events, they explain that Isaiah preempts Jeremiah’s harsh composition of rebuke by providing prophecies that offer a remedy in advance of the calamity:3
R. Nehemia said: Even though Jeremiah cursed them using an alphabetic structure [in] Eikha [chapter 1], Isaiah preempted and cured them for each verse until [the final one]. (Eikha Rabbah, Petihta 1:21)
The Midrash cites an alphabetical catalogue of suffering in Eikha chapter 1 (attributing authorship to Jeremiah), following the opening of each verse with a corresponding prophecy in which Isaiah rectifies the situation. These are some selected examples from the Midrash:
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:2): “She surely cries in the night.” Isaiah said (30:19):4 “She shall surely not cry.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:4), “The roads to Zion mourn.” Isaiah said (40:3): “A voice calls: Clear the road for the L-rd in the wilderness.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:5), “Her adversaries were at the head.” Isaiah said (60:4), “Those who tormented you will come to you bowed.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:6), “Departed from the daughter of Zion is all her glory.”
Isaiah said (59:20), “And to Zion will come a redeemer.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:8), “Jerusalem has surely sinned.”
Isaiah said (44:22), “I have erased her sins like a cloud.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:10), “Her entire nation groans, they seek bread.”
Isaiah said (49:10), “They will not be hungry, and they will not be thirsty.”
Jeremiah [in Eikha] said (1:17), “Zion spreads out with her hands, there is no comforter for her.”
Isaiah said (51:12): “I, I am your comforter.”
(Eikha Rabbah, 1:23)
This literary Midrash lays the groundwork for viewing Eikha alongside the book of Isaiah. It turns out that the destruction of Jerusalem does not spell the nation’s end; Isaiah’s prophecies direct the biblical reader to the next stage of biblical history, in which G-d reverses Eikha’s dismal situation. Exile is followed by return, just as consolation follows grief.
· This article is an excerpt from “Eikha and the Prophecies of Consolation in Isaiah”, in Lamentations: Faith in a Turbulent World (Jerusalem: Maggid, 2021), 475–78.
1 Not all these prophecies of consolation console, some of these chapters offer harsh rebuke, over both past and present misdemeanors. Nevertheless, overall, these chapters offer optimistic messages, designed to launch and maintain a hopeful period of the return to Zion.
2 Biblical scholars also observe the various ways in which Lamentations correlates with the prophecies of consolation in Isaiah. See, for example, P. T. Willey, Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (Scholars Press, 1997); B. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Isaiah: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); T. Linafelt, “Living Beyond Lamentations: The Rhetoric of Survival in Second Isaiah,” in Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe Lament and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 62–79.
3 This Midrash indirectly relates to the question of when chapters 40–66 of Isaiah were composed. The first chapters in Isaiah (1–12) relate to events that took place during the mid-eighth century BCE, while the chapters at its end (40–66) relate to events that took place in the sixth century BCE. The Midrash assumes that Isaiah wrote these chapters prophetically, in advance of the event. Ibn Ezra (Is. 40:1) seems to suggest (in a typically cryptic fashion) that these chapters were not written by Isaiah, but presumably by a later prophet. For further discussion of this topic, see Amnon Bazak, To This Very Day: Fundamental Questions in Bible Study (Jerusalem: Maggid, 2020), 149–59.
4 In its search for corrective verses, the Midrash does not distinguish between the earlier and later prophecies of the book of Isaiah (although most of its examples are drawn from the “prophecies of consolation” at the end of Isaiah).
Dr. Yael Ziegler is an Assistant Professor of Tanakh at Herzog College and the director of the Kitvuni Writing Fellowship at Matan. She received her Ph.D. in Tanakh at Bar Ilan University. Dr. Ziegler has lectured widely on various Bible topics in Israel, the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Europe. Dr. Ziegler is the author of Promises to Keep: The Oath in Biblical Narrative and Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy, and Lamentations: Faith in a Turbulent World, both of which have been translated into Hebrew. She is currently working on a book on Yetziat Mitzrayim in the book of Shemot.