The book begins by concisely summarizing what is known about death in the Ancient Near East during the Iron Age II, covering beliefs and practices in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, and Judah/Israel.
Images of death are repeatedly used by the prophet and his earliest tradents.
Isaiah 49:6 has long been understood to employ the same word as 65:4, and it may well reflect an intentional wordplay on the meanings “returning the survivors” and “restoring the corpses.” Finally, the Aramaic term nqr in Deir ʿAlla II.5, 12, 14 has frequently been connected to the Isaianic texts, and a reference to a divinized dead person in makes better sense in the context than a word related to “detached flesh.”ĭeath is one of the major themes of ‘First Isaiah,’ although it has not generally been recognized as such. In Isa 65:4 it avoids an emendation and reveals a far better parallelism (graves/corpses) than other proposed solutions. In Isa 14 it is perfectly suited to mock the king’s divine aspirations it commonly refers to the deceased king and to the mummified corpse in Egyptian it requires a strong negative modifier such as נתעב and it is no great stretch to think that Isaiah knew such common Egyptian vocabulary. The Egyptian noun nṯr, “god,” provides a plausible explanation for Hebrew נצר in Isa 14:19 and נצורים in 65:4, both of which have thus far defied positive explanation.
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