Comfort for Jerusalem: the second Isaiah as counselor to refugees

A distinction between external and internal causation amounts to the degree to which the cause of the problem is ascribed to personal deficiency, rather than the result of some outside influence. Examples of explanations involving internal causes are found in expressions of self-blame and recrimination (Peterson et al.: 154). In the case of the Judean deportees, Israel's lack of salvation was ascribed to the fact that the faith community had a shameful identity (cf. Isa 53:1-3).

Stable causes refer to those perceived as long-term conditions; unstable causes are considered to be valid only in the short-term. Perceptions of stability in the causes of Israel's distress can be found in citations of its complaints: God has ignored Jacob (40:27); forsaken Zion (49:14) and divorced her (50:1). These are motifs of permanent abandonment. By contrast, the prophet portrayed the previous history of trauma as due to circumstances now past. The destruction was necessary because of the sinfulness of the people (e.g., 42:24-25; 43:27-28; 44:22; 47:6; 48:8-10 and 54:74). But the recent past was not the predictor of the future; YHWH was about to do something new (e.g., 43:16-21). Even the old story of the Exodus was to be eclipsed by a new drama of liberation across the desert (Clifford: 498).

Global explanations affect a variety of outcomes and situations while specific explanations affect only a few outcomes and situations. A global explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem would be that YHWH, the God of Israel, was rendered powerless by the Babylonian conquest. In this respect, the prophet was at great pains to affirm the incomparability of Israel's deity (e.g., 40:12-31). It was not Babylon that had global power but the very deity whose power over both history and nature was being called into doubt. A frequent assertion of YHWH's incomparability has to do with his power to predict the course of Israel's history (e.g., 41:4, 21-24, 26; 42:9; 43:9-12; 44:7-8; 45:20-23 and 46:10). By the same token, this power is denied to the gods and idols of Babylon (e.g., 44:24-25 and 47:12-13). Moreover, the conditions of destruction are to be reversed: now Babylon will fall (47:1-15) and drink the cup of judgment that Israel will never have to drink again (51:17-23).

Behaviors

A prominent behavioral symptom of learned helplessness is passivity with regard to one's ability to avoid or change a bad outcome in the future. In this respect, one of the groups known to be prone to learned helplessness are long-term captives who become resigned to chronic loss of hope and freedom (Herman: 74-95). Captive Israel's passive behavior towards its own future was predicated on its doubts about the power of YHWH, its inability to appropriate a positive identity as a faith community and fascination with the religion of its captors. Since these first two traits have already been described, this last factor will be elaborated here.

Attraction to Babylonian religion can be regarded as the other side of the faith community's pessimism about its own practices and beliefs. It was a symptom of exiled Israel's resignation to permanent Babylonian hegemony. The Second Isaiah's poetry devotes considerable space to discrediting Babylonian religious practices. This material often contrasts the ineffectiveness of the conqueror's rites and deities with the power of YHWH. Such arguments may taken as an indicators that members of the exilic community were resorting to Babylonian religious practices in order to compensate for perceived inadequacies in the faith of Israel.