The Hebrew Bible’s Prophets Answer Dystopia
Melissa A. Jackson
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
In the task of “answering dystopia”, the Hebrew Bible’s prophets emerge as a willing
and able respondent to the questions posed by society’s many expressions of the future as
dystopia, “bad place”.1 This “conversation”, in which the Hebrew Bible’s prophets respond to
dystopian imaginings, develops in this paper in two ways. The first way is through an
introduction of a group of foundational elements shared between dystopian imaginings and
prophetic literature. Those shared elements include a concern for the future that is rooted in
the present, a role as social critic, and a temporality that is layered. The second, and primary,
way this paper proposes to “answer” dystopia through the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic literature
is in an exploration of three dualities: (1) a dual vision of the future, (2) a dual agency of
humanity and God, and (3) a dual fidelity to God and to one another. Before concluding, the
paper will address three significant implications emerging from this discussion: both/and
over either/or, future as “potential”, and, finally, dystopia as perspectival.
ELEMENTS SHARED BY DYSTOPIA AND THE PROPHETS
One might initially register surprise at the suggestion that the Hebrew Bible’s
prophetic literature shares foundational elements with dystopia’s dark, desolate, and
The goal of this paper is to put the Hebrew Bible’s prophets in conversation with dystopian
expressions, as one encounters them in contemporary society. Two words of clarification are due
here. First, in this paper, “the prophets” are limited to those commonly labeled “the Latter Prophets”
or “the Classical Prophets”. Furthermore, the examples offered here are drawn largely from the books
of pre-exilic prophets. Second, this paper does not attempt to explore dystopia as a genre in prophetic
literature. However, Ehud Ben Zvi’s edited volume Utopia and Dystopian in Prophetic Literature
(Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society, 92, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006) does
explore this topic and has been an excellent resource for the writing of this paper.
1
2
devastated images. However, further reflection reveals that three significant aspects are
indeed shared between them.
First, the prophetic books share with dystopian visions an abiding concern for the
future and for society’s trajectory toward that future, a concern that is born out of a keen
awareness of the dangers lurking within society’s present proclivities. As dystopia imagines a
“world in which ominous tendencies of our present social, political, and technological order
are projected into a disastrous future culmination”,2 so the prophetic books also depict a
catastrophic future based upon the people’s unwillingness to alter the course along which
their present behavior is carrying them.
Second, both dystopian depictions and the prophetic writings are social critics. Their
visions are pictures of the future, but the intent of those future-pictures is to critique the
present, to expose society’s failings in the here and now, as they imagine how that “here and
now” will unfold into a “then”. They work to undermine the deficiencies of the status quo,
sounding long and loud alarms throughout the land. Steven Schweitzer states, “in the literary
depiction of a dystopian society, the failure of the community or a segment of it – often the
oppressive leadership – either to maintain fidelity to integral beliefs or practices or to
introduce new and improper ones is repeatedly emphasized.”3 The substance of the
indictments made by the prophets echoes precisely those of dystopia as described here by
Schweitzer: failure to maintain fidelity – to God and to one another – and, furthermore, these
charges are leveled against the leadership even more vehemently than against their people.
Micah 3, for example, accuses the “heads” of the house of Jacob and the “rulers” of the house of
Israel” (vv. 1, 9, 11), the false prophets (vv. 5, 11), and the priests (v. 11), and asserts that,
M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (London: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), p. 337.
Steven James Schweitzer, “Utopia and Utopian Literary Theory: Some Preliminary Observations”, in
Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature, pp. 13-26 (23).
2
3
3
“therefore, because of you (plural)”, Jerusalem will be a ruin (v. 12).4
Third, and importantly, both dystopia and the prophetic literature function via the
bringing together of (at least two) contexts. In dystopian works, the two vital contexts are the
“present”, in which the works are composed, and the “future”, into which the works project
their visions. The contexts of the prophetic books are layered – a product of the long process
of redaction prior to the books’ canonization. In their final form, the prophetic books contain
the words and the theological concerns not just of the prophets themselves, but also of
multiple generations following after them. These contexts of “past”, “present”, and “future”
are independently evident in the books, but are also intertwined, a feature discussed more
fully in the following section.
DYSTOPIA, THE PROPHETS, AND CONTEXT
Dystopia and the prophetic writings share subtly different, yet equally complex,
relationships to context.5 Most definitions or descriptions of “dystopia” are articulated in
relationship to “utopia”, a term and a form that preexisted it. Indeed, Roland Boer describes
the pair of “utopia” and “dystopia” as “closely entwined”, that they “feed on one another” and
See also, e.g., Isa 28.7-8 and Hos 4.4-10. The culpability of the leadership is a particular concern of
Jeremiah; cf. 2.26-28; 5.30-31; 6.13-15; 32.36-35, and ch. 23.
5 The term “context” implies both a time and a place. In this paper, discussion of the prophetic
literature is heavily skewed towards “time” (i.e. “past”, “present”, and “future”) and, along with
scholarly consensus, centers on the Babylonian exile as the pivotal event that divides the Israelite
nation’s existence into periods of time (i.e. “pre-exilic”, “exilic”, and “post-exilic”). On the other hand,
the English translation of the word “dystopia” positions it contextually in “place” (i.e. “bad place”); yet,
what I have read seems, by and large, to understand dystopia’s “future” more as time than place or
simply conflates the two. An exception to this practice is Roland Boer’s use of the term “uchronia”, the
“time” correspondent to utopia’s “place” (Roland Boer “Utopia, Dystopia and Uchronia in Chronicles”,
The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 9 [2009], pp. 10-14, <www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_113.pdf>
[accessed 28 Feb 2014] (p. 12); see Steven Schweitzer, “A Response” in the same, p. 18). Maybe best
put: visions of dystopia occur in many places, but (nearly?) always in a fixed time (i.e. the future). I
default to locating dystopia in time, but welcome discussion to correct and/or nuance this thinking.
4
4
are “never far away from each other”.6 “Utopia” was coined by Thomas More for his 1516
book entitled Utopia and derives its meaning from the Greek eutopia, “good place”. Kathleen
O’Connor states, “If utopias picture an ideal society to come, dystopias reverse that vision to
show an approaching broken social structure, a ‘bad place’ of terror and threat”.7 In this
sense, then, dystopia, defined as “bad place”, is an opposite to the utopian “good” place.
However, the relationship between dystopia and utopia is more than simply an
oppositional one. In addition to being eutopia, “good” place, utopia is also outopia, “no place”.
Thus the term “utopia” contains an ambiguous double meaning, one that includes notions of
both an idealized place that is based upon, yet better than, the present one and a place that
does not (can not?) exist.8 Dystopia, like utopia then, can also be a vision of a place that is
“not”, and, therefore, can also be accurately described, like utopia, as outopia, “no place”.
Continuing the ambiguity, then, dystopia is the opposite of utopia (eutopia), the “bad place” to
its “good place”, but dystopia is simultaneously also the same as utopia (outopia), “no place”.
Furthermore, the enmeshed relationship between dystopia and utopia continues with
respect to their common origin – each is firmly rooted in the “present place (and time)”, out of
which the vision of the “future place (and time)” emerges. Here again, however, their
oppositional “bad place”/”good place” nature is evident. After beginning from the shared
“present place”, utopia envisions a future that is much improved, while dystopia envisions one
that has greatly deteriorated.
The prophetic writings also have an intricate relationship to context, primarily with
respect to time, as demarcated in relationship to the Babylonian exile (i.e. pre-exilic, exilic,
Roland Boer, “Review of Ehud Ben Zvi (Ed.), Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature”, The Bible
and Critical Theory, 4 (2008), 07.1-073 (07.2).
7 Kathleen M O’Connor, “Jeremiah’s Two Visions of the Future”, in Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic
Literature, pp. 86-104 (87).
8 Schweitzer, “Utopia and Utopian Literary Theory”, p. 14.
6
5
post-exilic). Historically, the understanding of the relationship between the prophetic books
and “time” was that they were perpetually forward-looking: both prophet and prophetic book
“predict the future” and do so dependably and accurately. However, this understanding has
evolved over time, becoming more nuanced in terms of both “predicting” and “the future”.
First, with respect to the aspect of “predictions”, the prophetic books contain words of
the prophet, but also reflect the subsequent activity of redactors recording, compiling and
editing those words from a later context, a context in which the “future” of which the prophet
spoke has now transpired. Thus, any “original” prophetic words that might have “predicted”
future events were subsequently filtered, interpreted, and written down by ones who
experienced those events. Furthermore, endeavors to peel back the redactional layers so as to
identify conclusively what was “authentic” prophetic speech have proven unsuccessful.
Second, the understanding of prophets as “predictors of the future” has also changed
with respect to “the future”. The prophetic corpus has a multi-layered and complex
relationship to the “future”, existing as it does in (at least 2) time frames: the “present”, as it
existed for the “original” prophetic utterance, and then subsequently as it existed and exists
for the many “futures” that have followed and will follow.
Isaiah provides an example of this layering of time in the prophetic books. The book is
commonly sub-divided into three sections: First Isaiah (or Proto-Isaiah, chs 1-39), reflecting
the pre-exilic time of the Assyrian threat, Second Isaiah (or Deutero-Isaiah, chs 40-55),
reflecting the ending of the exile, anticipating a restoration of Jerusalem, and Third Isaiah (or
Trito-Isaiah, chs 56-66), reflecting an early post-exilic period. Furthermore, the sub-divisions
themselves do not constitute rigid barriers. For example, scholars debate whether chapters
34-35 have a closer relationship to Isaian texts outside of First Isaiah, and the “Isaiah
Apocalypse” (chs 24-27) is thought to be a late addition to the book. As well, evidence of
6
redaction across the divisions has created debates regarding the possibility that the author(s)
of Second and/or Third Isaiah could have undertaken that redactional work.
Thus, understanding of the prophetic books as “predictors of the future” recedes as the
“original” prophetic message is reshaped by later hands and becomes a message for a
subsequent community who will subsequently live into another future. In the immediate
sense, that “subsequent community” was the people living after the exile, the community who
heard the words of the prophets, did not heed them, suffered consequences for their actions,
but now needed a re-shaped, renewed message from their prophets. In the longer term, that
“subsequent community” has been all those readers in the proceeding centuries who have
adopted the prophetic books as authoritative for the life of faith, Jews and Christians alike.
A further aspect of the prophets as “predictors of the future” that renders the phrase a
misnomer is that the prophets do not, in fact, speak of the future. The prophets instead speak
of a future, and the very purpose of the their prophecy is to point out that it need not become
the future. In warning of imminent disaster, the prophets (with the exception, it would seem,
of Jonah!) did not desire to predict the future, but rather to predict the future…to be averted.
Operating on more than one horizon is at the core of both the prophetic literature and
dystopian visions. Both are rooted in a “now” that looks ahead to “then”, harnessing the
realities of one to imagine the possibilities of the other. Ehud Ben Zvi, describing utopian
images in language applicable to dystopian ones as well, states that they are “a social product.
They arise within particular historical circumstances and reflect on them.”9 The prophetic
literature similarly reflects on circumstances both past and present, and, like dystopian
visions, examines those past and present realities in order to influence future ones.
Ehud Ben Zvi, “Utopias, Multiple Utopias, and Why Utopias at All? The Social Roles of Utopian Visions
in Prophetic Books within Their Historical Context”, in Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature, pp.
55-85 (56).
9
7
THREE DUALITIES
These three shared concerns of prophetic literature and dystopia – anticipating a
future rooted in the present, being a social critic, and having a layered temporality – creates a
basis from which the prophets may “answer” dystopia. The Hebrew Bible’s prophets offer
three significant responses to dystopia, and each of these responses is “dual” in nature: (1) a
dual vision of the future, that sees both destruction and restoration, judgment and salvation,
doom and hope (2) a dual agency of humanity and God, both parties sharing “responsibility”
for the future, and (3) a dual fidelity to God and to one another, commitment to covenant
enacted in everyday living. Each half of these three “dualities” is significant on its own; yet,
each duality’s full potency is realized when the halves are held together in tension. Despite
(or maybe, due to) this tension’s being more theologically challenging, holding the halves
together engenders a complexity and depth of meaning that is inaccessible otherwise.
DUAL VISION: DESTRUCTION/RESTORATION, JUDGMENT/SALAVATION, DOOM/HOPE
The first duality is a dual vision of the future, an outlook that holds in tension both
destruction and restoration, judgment and salvation, doom and hope. As discussed in the
previous section, the prophetic literature has a complex, layered relationship to “time”: past,
present, future. This layering of time horizons is reflected in the prophetic oracles of
judgment and of salvation. The prophet’s voice, speaking at an earlier point in time, warns of
imminent destruction, while the prophetic books, redacted by those who subsequently
experienced that destruction, are situated in a later time, and they look ahead to restoration,
anticipated at an even later time.
In broad terms, the messages of destruction, judgment, and doom are associated with
8
the pre-exilic time period. Initially, these messages are delivered in the face of Assyrian
dominance. Then, after the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to Assyria, destruction by
the Babylonians becomes the threat. Employing the recurring prophetic formula, “the day of
the LORD”, Zephaniah 1.14-16 describes the coming judgment in stark words:
14
15
16
The great day of the LORD is near,
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter,
the warrior cries aloud there.
That day will be a day of wrath,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities
and against the lofty battlements.10
In equally broad terms, the messages of restoration, salvation, and hope emerge after
the exile, as the now-displaced Israelites look toward a time when judgment ends and their
rebuilding, literal and metaphorical, commences. Micah 4.1 begins, “In days to come”,
employing a formula similar to Zephaniah above, but here Micah reverses it, introducing not
words of judgment, but ones of salvation instead:
3
4
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken (Mic 4.3-4).
While the contrasting prophetic messages, exemplified above, can be ordered in time as
first, oracles of judgment and, later, oracles of salvation, the prophetic books do not unfold
10
Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
9
“chronologically”. Instead, the redactional process has produced a structure in which the
oracles are interwoven just as the time periods are interwoven. The effect is a back and forth
movement: dire warnings of judgment and pending destruction ebb and flow with hopeful
expressions of salvation and subsequent restoration.
The various prophetic books reflect this general rhythm in their specific ways. The
message of the book of Amos is almost entirely one of the people’s impending destruction.
The only sustained expression of hope for restoration is appended to the end of the book
(9.11-15), widely thought to be a later redactional addition. In contrast to Amos, Hosea and
Micah are structured with a much more intertwined, back-and-forth relationship between
judgment and salvation. Words of judgment still comprise the majority of the message, but
words of a promising future are placed within the words of judgment, rather than their being
expressed in a final addendum only. Isaiah also reflects an interwoven message of judgment
and salvation; an example of this to-and-fro structure is evident in chapters 31-32:
31.1-3:
31.4-9:
32.1-8:
32.9-14:
32.15-20:
judgment for reliance upon Egypt, not YHWH;
salvation when the people turn back to YHWH and YHWH rescues them;
salvation when leaders are righteous and just, and the people are “noble”;
judgment is imminent; the city and the land will be a ruin;
salvation will follow in restoration for the land and peace for the people.11
In the prophetic books, the dual messages of destruction and restoration emerge from
different time periods in the life of the Israelite nation. However, the presentation of these
two distinct messages is intertwined – they are held together in perpetual tension. Several
implications follow from this prophetic judgment/salvation duality. First, it reflects, in part,
the nature of YHWH. As the Israelites understood their god, the power of YHWH is manifest in
both judgment and restoration. Because YHWH is “a God of justice for the oppressed and the
oppressor, a God of redemption and wrath, a God who delivers the poor and punishes the
11
For other examples of interwoven judgment and salvation, see Isa 10.33-11.9; Jer 1.6-10; 30.18-24.
10
powerful”,12 YHWH will respond to humanity both with judgment and with salvation.
This revelation of the nature of God has further implications for both God’s saving and
God’s judging action as they are inter-related. First, no matter the magnitude of anticipated
doom, the promise of restoration also remains. Hope is never fully extinguished – and indeed
may only be as far away as the next verse. William Holladay proposes that those final hopeful
verses of Amos (9.11-14) are “like the hot pad by which we are able to take a casserole out of
the oven…the Israelites, having heard words of judgment from God, needed to hear hope as
well. Without the last five verses, the words of Amos would have been too hot to handle”.13
What Holladay’s metaphor lacks in elegance, it makes up for with vividness. While God holds
the Israelites accountable for their actions, including meting out consequences for those
actions, an end to the suffering of those consequences remains embedded in the judgment:
after this “day of the LORD” has passed, another “day of the LORD”, a day of quite another sort, is
sure to come. Israel’s future is not to be an eternal hell.
On the flipside of this assurance of salvation, however, is the implied warning that
reckless hope, hope without attention to the nature of God’s judgment, will be disappointed
and unfulfilled. Focus on God’s redemptive nature alone is dangerous and profane. With the
book of Hosea as his example, Philip Davies writes that the book is:
poised between punishment and restoration for Judah – punishment is not
future, but has already taken place, and has been to some extent revoked; but
either restoration has not been fully achieved, or it can still be overturned.
The reading and rewriting of the book on this view, derives its tension from
this unfinished agenda and from the accompanying uncertainty over the
direction of the future.14
The prophetic books are witnesses of a people who have experienced the ebb and flow of
James D. Nogalski, The Book of the Twelve: Hosea–Jonah, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary, 18a
(Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2011), p. 350.
13 William L. Holladay, Long Ago God Spoke: How Christians May Hear the Old Testament Today
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 192.
14 Philip R. Davies, “The Wilderness Years: Utopia and Dystopia in the Book of Hosea”, in Utopia and
Dystopia in Prophetic Literature, pp. 160-74 (162).
12
11
God’s judgment and God’s salvation. The exilic community, like those wandering in the desert
between Egypt and Canaan, is situated between destruction and restoration, and the future
still holds the possibility of either or even both. What the prophetic voices testify to is that
affirming the “day of the LORD” has come and “God is with us” can be an event to welcome, an
event to rue, or both. Neither judgment nor salvation is ultimately released in favor of the
other. The tension remains.
A final implication of holding judgment and salvation in tension, one that follows on
from those previously observed, is the possibility that judgment and salvation do not only
unfold at differing points in time, but that they also unfold amongst differing groups at a single
point in time. As stated earlier, God’s justice is justice for the oppressed and the oppressor.
This assertion has been popularly articulated in the description of a God who “comforts the
afflicted and afflicts the comfortable”.15 The nature of true justice in the Hebrew Bible is all
equally receiving “what they deserve”. Again, the tension abides: salvation for one is
judgment for another.
DUAL AGENCY: HUMANITY AND GOD
The second way in which the prophetic books “answer” dystopia is through the
assertion of a dual agency of humanity and God. In the aftermath of exile, as the Israelites
worked to make sense of their experience, they consistently affirmed that “we did this” and
“God did this”. Amos 6.11-14 reflects this concurrent divine/human agency in chiastic form,
as verses 11 and 14 reflect God’s activity and verses 12-13 the human:
The origin of this phrase is not actually religious in nature. It was first “uttered” in 1902 by “Misther
Dooley”, a character invented by the writer Finley Peter Dunne, to describe one of several social roles
of the modern newspaper. In 1987, Martin Marty adapted the phrase for Religion and Republic: The
American Circumstance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), but incorrectly attributed it to Joseph Pulitzer,
pp. 82-3. See Holladay, Long Ago God Spoke, p. 192, citing John K. Winkler, W.R. Hearst, An American
Phenomenon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928), p. 12.
15
12
11
12
13
14
See, the LORD commands,
and the great house shall be shattered to bits,
and the little house to pieces.
Do horses run on rocks?
Does one plow the sea with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood –
you who rejoice in Lo-debar,
who say, “Have we not by our own strength
taken Karnaim for ourselves?”
Indeed, I am raising up against you a nation,
O house of Israel, says the LORD, the God of hosts,
and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath
to the Wadi Arabah.
The prophetic literature holds that – simultaneously – humanity is responsible for
determining its future and the power of God is at work to determine that same future. The
ancient Israelites did not conclude that the devastation they experienced happened merely
because God “did it” to them; they affirmed that their own actions were pivotal in bringing
about that devastation as well. As Micah 2.1-3 attests, for example, those who are devising
evil plans bring about YHWH’s devising of similar plans:
1
2
3
Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.
Therefore thus says the LORD:
Now, I am devising against this family an evil
from which you cannot remove your necks;
and you shall not walk haughtily,
for it will be an evil time. 16
The Israelites understood that their situation was one of their creation. Blaming God for their
circumstances was possible only insofar as they knew God to be acting according to the
16
For other examples of linked divine/human agency, see Jer 2.17-19; Amos 5.8-13; Mic 7.8-9.
13
bounds of their covenantal relationship. Torah was their instruction for how to maintain
faithful relationships with God and within their community, and God was reliable to respond
to the people according to their behavior: violation of torah brings justice in the form of
punishment and judgment, while faithfulness to torah brings justice in the form of blessing
and salvation. This belief included both the promise of God’s judgment when relationship was
breached and the promise of God’s mercy to enable the restoration of relationship.
YHWH’s self-revelation in Exodus 34.6-7 informs this Israelite understanding of God:
The LORD passed before [Moses], and proclaimed,
“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”17
6
Unlike some depictions of the deity, positing a “God of the Old Testament”18 who towers
menacingly over the earth hurling lightning bolts of judgment capriciously into humanity’s
midst, the “God of Exodus 34” abounds in faithfulness and does not anger easily or quickly.
Described in hyperbolic terms, this God is one whose steadfast love and forgiveness outlive
judgment by approximately 996 generations. However, alongside side a deep inclination to
mercy and grace, God is also “one who articulates a desire to hold the guilty accountable.
None of these attributes [in Exodus 34.6-7] reflects mechanical processes, for God, and only
God, decides whether to exercise grace or punish the guilty.”19 God’s commitment to
This Exodus passage is reflected in the prophets in Joel 2.13; Jon 4.2; and Nah 1.3.
It pains me simply to type that misguided phrase.
19 Nogalski, The Book of the Twelve, p. 349.
17
18
14
demonstrating steadfast love in relationship with the people is infinite. However, this
commitment does not mean that God must continue infinitely to withhold the consequences of
disobedience to the foundational principles upon which the relationship is constructed.
This dual agency, a “responsibility” shared by humanity and God has implications for
understanding the agency of each party individually, but also the pair in combination. First, in
this duality, human agency is elevated and an amount of self-determination is possible. “If
[the Israelites] caused their suffering by their sinful life, they can also escape from it by means
of their repentance.”20 The Israelite people had a role in determining their future, for the ill,
but also for the good. Their actions now mattered in directing the time to come.
Second, in this duality, God’s “will” is not a fixed course of action. Out of an abiding
desire to extend mercy and exercise forgiveness, God is willing to reverse a destructive course
of action when the people’s repentance is evident:
Thus says the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD’s house, and speak to all the
cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the LORD; speak to them all
the words that I command you; do not hold back a word. It may be that they will
listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind
about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings (Jer
26.2-3).
God does indeed change God’s mind. “God responds to the responses human beings make,
and the future unfolds accordingly.”21 The future is one of possibility in which God acts, but
also reacts.
The most potent implication for this dual agency concerns not their agency
individually, however, but their agency in combination. With two parties in relationship, both
assuming responsibility for that relationship, the potential exists for a future in which the two
are working in concert. Micah 4.5-8 offers a preview of how extraordinary that synchronized
20
21
O’Connor, “Jeremiah’s Two Visions”, p. 97.
Nogalski, The Book of the Twelve, p. 350.
15
endeavor would be:
5
6
7
8
For all the peoples walk,
each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God
forever and ever.
In that day, says the LORD,
I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away,
and those whom I have afflicted.
The lame I will make the remnant,
and those who were cast off, a strong nation;
and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion
now and forevermore.
And you, O tower of the flock,
hill of daughter Zion,
to you it shall come,
the former dominion shall come,
the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem.
DUAL FIDELITY: RELATIONSHIP TO YHWH AND TO ONE ANOTHER
The third way in which the prophetic literature “answers” dystopia is through the
expectation of a dual fidelity on the part of the people: faithfulness to God and to one another,
a commitment to covenant that is to be enacted in everyday living. Covenant, as codified in
torah, is the mode of relationship in the Hebrew Bible, and for the prophets, fidelity to that
covenant – or not – shaped how the communal life of Israel unfolded. In this covenantal
relationship, YHWH alone is revered and the needs of others are equal to the needs of oneself,
along with the desire to meet those needs. When embodied in everyday living, faithfulness to
God was manifest in the exclusive worship of YHWH alone and faithfulness to one another
was manifest in acts of justice and righteousness for those in need of them.
Even as the Israelite people move in their theology from henotheism to monotheism,
what remains constant is that the Israelites are to worship YHWH and YHWH only. What also
seems to remain constant, however, is the inability of the Israelites to adhere to YHWH-
16
exclusive worship, and this unfaithfulness becomes a pervasive theme of prophetic speech.
Hosea condemns Israelite inconstancy to YHWH in harsh, unvarnished language using familial
metaphors, both the husband/wife relationship22 and the parent/child relationship:
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for
yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land
commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD” (1.2).
In the verses that follow, these “children of whoredom” become “sign children”, given names
that signify the coming judgment for Israel: Jezreel (“God sows”, 1.4), Lo-ruhamah (“no
compassion, mercy”, 1.6), and Lo-ammi (“Not my people”, 1.9). The oracle of judgment
continues and extends the metaphor of unfaithful wife, weaving the metaphorical language
with language describing the actual Israelite sin of worshipping other gods:
I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
when she offered incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the LORD (2.13).23
Alongside exclusive worship of YHWH, Israel’s fidelity was to be expressed in their
relationship with others, a relationship characterized by acts of justice and righteousness. For
ancient Israelites, “justice” and “righteousness” were not internal states of being, but were
outward acts undertaken for the benefit of others. A person is “just” or “righteous” only
The imagery of Israel as unfaithful wife and “whore” (employed also in Jer 2&3 and Ezek 16&23) has
proven problematic for interpreters who are sensitive to the dangers of how the “woman as unfaithful
whore” metaphor in which Israel is the party unfaithful to her God can morph into an inclusive
“women are unfaithful whores” understanding of the female gender. It is clearly beyond the scope of
this paper to address this interpretive challenge fully. However, besides admonishing any biblical
interpreters reading this paper to be rigorous and conscientious in their interpretive methods, I
suggest that the accessibility of the metaphor leads both to its misuse in interpretation but also to its
power as an image of Israel and its relationship to God. O’Connor (“Jeremiah’s Two Visions”, p. 95) is
helpful: “No matter how thoroughly these texts about God’s failed marriages to Israel and Judah offend
contemporary western sensibilities with their gender biases and their portrait of a violent, punishing
deity, they also provide a culturally appropriate explanation of the disaster that builds upon Judah’s
traditional self-understandings.”
23 See also Hosea 11 for use of a loving parent/disobedient child metaphor for infidelity.
22
17
insofar as she performs just and righteous acts. Being in a covenantal relationship requires
tangible, concrete expression. To withhold that expression or to subvert it for one’s own gain
is to violate torah. Calling again and again upon the pair of “justice and righteousness”, the
prophets spoke words of harsh condemnation for those who did not act on behalf of others or,
worse, exploited others for personal gain. Amos 6.11-14, previously cited, offers one instance
of judgment uttered on those who have perverted justice and righteousness. Isaiah 5.7
similarly proclaims:
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!
The prophets’ condemnation is often for those who set out to oppress society’s marginalized –
the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, the aliens. Malachi 3.5 lists many who will be
judged for violating their covenantal relationships with others:
Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against
the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those
who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against
those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
The examples cited in this section are a sampling of the numerous passages in which the
prophets indict the people with violating the two components of this duality of fidelity. From
the place of exile, the prophetic literature continuously identifies worshipping other gods and
adopting oppressive practices towards the marginalized of society as the reasons why the
Israelites now find themselves deported from their own land.
With respect to faithfulness to YHWH and justice and righteousness for one another, as
with previous dualities discussed, the true forcefulness of this pair is not in either individually,
18
but instead is in the pair’s being held together in tension. Numerous prophetic passages unite
these two as the substance of covenantal relationship. More precisely, the prophets
repeatedly assert that God will reject acts of worship if they are accompanied by acts of social
oppression. Expressed inversely, behaving in an oppressive manner towards others
invalidates one’s worship of YHWH. Two oft-quoted verses, Amos 5.24 and Micah 6.8, address
this issue; however, they are often quoted without their fuller context, so that the relationship
between worship and social behavior is severed. Adding verses 21-23, Amos 5.21-24 reads:
21
22
23
24
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream;
and adding verses 6-7, Micah 6.6-8 reads:
6
7
8
“With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?24
Writing specifically of the Amos 5 passage, but asserting what can be said in general of
this duality that entails fidelity to God and to others, James Nogalski states:
For other examples of the intertwining of cultic practice and social practice, see Isa 1.12-17; Jer 7.57; Hos 6.4-6; Amos 2.6-8; 8.4-6.
24
19
YHWH rejects the worship elements because they do not result in
righteousness and justice – those relational terms signifying the combination
of religious belief with the actions by which one demonstrates that belief.
Genuine worship affects one’s behavior toward others. Any other type of
worship deludes the practitioner.25
In this quote, Nogalski encapsulates the primary implication of fidelity to God plus fidelity to
others. The prophetic literature so intertwines cultic practice and social practice as to make
them nearly into a single act. Belief begets action; actions testifies to belief. One continuously
prompts the other until they become unified as a mode of covenantal life together. For the
people of Israel, the way to assure for themselves a secure future was laid out for them in
torah, a way marked by fidelity in relationship to YHWH through worship and in relationship
with one another through acts of justice and righteousness. The beginning of Hosea uses a
troubling metaphor to paint a bleak picture. However, consistent with the prophetic
literature’s capacity to set judgment and salvation alongside each other, those beginning
verses of Hosea are powerfully inverted at the end of chapter 2, painting a spectacularly
reversed picture of a relationship restored through fidelity:
16
21
22
23
25
On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will
you call me, “My Baal.” 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her
mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18 I will make for you a
covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the
creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war
from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will take you for
my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in
steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and
you shall know the LORD.
On that day I will answer, says the LORD,
I will answer the heavens
and they shall answer the earth;
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel;
and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,
and I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people”;
Nogalski, The Book of the Twelve, p. 322.
20
and he shall say, “You are my God (Hos 2.16-23).”
ANSWERING DYSTOPIA
So then, how does this discussion of prophetic literature’s interlinking dualities begin
to “answer” dystopia? Taken together in their complexity, these dualities offer several
interrelating and overlapping responses to dystopian visions of humanity’s future.
NOT EITHER/OR, BUT BOTH/AND
One of the most significant strengths of these three “dualities” as a response to
dystopia resides in holding them together as both/and, rather than either/or. Both/and allows
for a more nuanced worldview that is necessary to experiencing the fullness of life lived
alongside others. Revealed in its name, dystopia depicts a place marked singularly by
destruction. Its inhabitants have arrived there along a single-track that leads to a
unidimensional future, the way there some kind of pockmarked yellow brick road, and once
embarked upon, it cannot be deviated from. However, in reading the prophets, the way
towards the future unfolds differently, as the people move not in lockstep along a single path,
but instead in a rhythm that transports them into, out of, and between both judgment
predicted and salvation anticipated.
One might argue compellingly that Christian hope ought to be abandoned in the face of
humanity’s repeated and spectacular failures. Evidence that things do not, will not, can not
change piles up against the assertion that the future holds better decisions and better days.26
However, the prophetic witness to both/and will not release the hope that any future
continues to be possible. The Israelite prophets hold the reality of judgment in tension with
Philip R. Davies explores this idea in his article, “The Bible: Utopian, Dystopian, or Neither? Or:
Northrop Frye Meets Monty Python”, Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception, 2 (2012), 91-107.
26
21
the promise of salvation. Christianity likewise knows that doom and hope exist alongside one
another. Christians sit in the destruction of Holy Saturday, even as their hope remains in the
restoration of Easter Sunday. Christianity resides in dejection at the foot of a cross but also in
exuberance at the entrance to an empty tomb. To hold both events together as a single
experience is to reject dystopia’s insistence that the future lies along a single path, and indeed
that the path has already been laid and now only awaits the inevitable sounds of humanity’s
footsteps upon it, marching steadily onward to a bad place. Dystopian depictions allow only
one possible future. In the prophetic literature, both/and means the future remains open.
NOT THE FUTURE, BUT A FUTURE
As argued previously, when the prophets speak of “the future”, this future is not “the
future” after all, but is instead only “a potential future”. In the midst of their numerous oracles
of doom regarding what lies ahead for Israel, the prophets never fully withdraw the option
that this future is actually only a future. Even the book of Amos with its nearly unqualified
message of judgment and destruction suggests, in snippets, another future possibility:
For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live (Amos 5.4).
In prophesying destruction to come, the prophets speak of “the future” in order to avert this
very future of which they speak. Their words are to warn and to induce change. “[Prophetic
utterances] speak in images and metaphors that aim to disrupt, destabilize, and invite to
alternative perceptions of reality.”27
To warn and to induce change are traits shared between the prophetic literature and
dystopian imaginings; they form part of their role as social critic. They offer graphic
Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 625.
27
22
depictions of “then”, a future into which those living “now” might peer and, upon seeing that
reflection, find inspiration to enact the change necessary to forestall that glimpsed
manifestation of “then”.
Where the prophets diverge from dystopian visions on this point relates to the layering
of time periods present in the prophetic literature. Dystopia’s relationship to time periods is
usually straightforward: the work is created at a fixed point in time and it depicts a single
sketch of the future. For the prophetic books, multiple hands have been involved in their
creation and at various points, so that the boundary between discrete time periods of past,
present, and future is blurred. The both/and understanding that allows the interweaving of
judgment and salvation is situated in a present where the future destruction is already in the
past. As such, the Israelites need not imagine a future destruction – they have already
experienced it. Yet, as destruction and restoration exist in tension together, the Israelites are
testimony to the truth that “judgment does not endure for ever; rather than bringing death, it
carries in itself, through its imagery and very working the seed of a new, ideal future”.28 In
language that echoes that of the Christian season of Advent: the Israelite future is “already”
and “not yet”, and oracles that lean toward either restoration or destruction are possibilities,
even probabilities, but they are never certainties. This existence holds within it both the
realized and the potential. A future that has already been need not be again. A different
future is always possible.
Another way dystopian ideas and the prophetic literature diverge with respect to the
future is in how they understand the means by which humanity arrives at that future. Like
utopia, dystopia is a thought-experiment, “often with particular, observed social trends
28
Ben Zvi, “Utopias, Multiple Utopias, and Why Utopias at All?”, p. 71.
23
amplified or taken to a logical conclusion”.29 That which is created to improve human life
expands to uncontrolled proportions or is drawn out to its natural end and, thereby, becomes
the means through which human life is destroyed: business, government, technology,
medicine, weaponry, energy. Humans, thus, become the primary agents in their own
destruction, until the point at which the created subjugates the creator, human control yields,
and fate takes over, carrying its victims to their end. Dystopia places responsibility with
humanity, but dystopia is also imbued with fatalism.
The prophetic literature would spurn the notion that future belongs, even in part, to
fate. As discussed previously, the prophetic literature certainly elevates and values human
agency; however, the power of God is the ultimate factor that determines the future. While
the idea that God “controls” events, shaping them in ways completely independent of nature’s
or humanity’s workings, does not sit easily with contemporary Western belief systems, the
idea that humanity is in control sits equally uneasily. O’Connor recognizes the importance of
human agency in that “If they caused their suffering by their sinful life, they can also escape
from it by means of their repentance.” She also recognizes, however, that this offers “an
inadequate explanation of historical disaster because it employs a simplistic understanding of
historical causality”.30 However contemporary theologians might nuance this component of
ancient Israelite theology, the dual agency of humanity and God remains integral to prophetic
literature. The prophets speak of a world in which God is always at work. This could be good
news or it could be bad news or it could be a mixture of both In any case, fate has no part as
God works in and with humanity to shape the future.
Mark J. Boda and Matthew Forrest Lowe, “Encountering an Alternative Reality: Schweitzer and the
Utopian Turn”, The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 9 (2009), pp. 4-9,
<www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_113.pdf> [accessed 28 Feb 2014] (p. 5).
30 O’Connor, “Jeremiah’s Two Visions”, p. 97.
29
24
ONE PERSON’S DYSTOPIA IS ANOTHER’S UTOPIA
Simply put, dystopia is perspectival. From the pigs in Animal Farm to the Commander
and his class in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to Tina Turner’s “Aunty” in Mad Max
beyond Thunderdome to The Governor and his Woodbury community in The Walking Dead,
even in the midst of dystopia, someone, some group, or some entity will be able to manipulate
the situation for their own elevation and benefit. As Roland Boer points out, “When speaking
of utopia we always need to ask: utopia for whom? Dystopia for whom?…One person’s utopia
is another’s dystopia”.31 Even for the Israelites, as in Micah 7.9-10, their glorious future
victory is flaunted as being contemporaneous with the inglorious defeat of their enemies.
9
10
I must bear the indignation of the LORD,
because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall see his vindication.
Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
“Where is the LORD your God?”
My eyes will see her downfall;
now she will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.
However, the imagined future of Israel did not include only the destruction of their
enemies. In considering Israel’s relationship to “all the nations”, the prophets speak
ambiguously. The power of YHWH could be experienced seemingly to the detriment of “all the
nations”:
For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the
heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the
nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house
with splendor, says the LORD of hosts (Hag 2.6-7);
Boer “Utopia, Dystopia and Uchronia in Chronicles”, p. 13; see Steven Schweitzer, “A Response”, p.
19.
31
25
yet, it could also be experienced seemingly for their benefit:
In days to come
the mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it (Isa 2.2).
This message regarding how Israel is to relate to other nations remains ambiguous and
unresolved in the prophetic literature. Yet, two important points emerge. The first is that the
ubiquitous presence of other nations in the prophetic literature compels the reader, at the
very least, to stop and consider the non-Israelites whose future was bound up with Israel’s.
Even though the prophets press the reader to “choose sides”, in so doing, they do not permit
the reader to gloss over the reality that Israel’s is not the only “side”. As the notion of
community becomes more global in the contemporary world, developing this awareness is
crucial for modern readers and interpreters.
Secondly, as the notion of community does become more global, the prophets have a
very specific, unambiguous message for how relationships in community are to be conducted.
In a society where human relationships are modeled after God’s relationship with humanity,
the foundation of right relationship is justice and righteousness enacted, on a larger scale
through systems constructed to provide for all and on a smaller scale through personal
expressions of care and provision.
This view of relationships repudiates the dystopian vision of a dog-eat-dog, survivalist
mode of living, on either an individual or collective level. Rather than social constructs such
as individualism, consumerism, privatization, capitalism – constructs that form the basis for
many dystopias – society for Israel is to be based in sacrifice of self to God and to others.
Torah is rooted in mutual submission to mutual provision and mutual protection. The
prophetic literature teaches that community is not a product of human mechanisms and
26
machinations that benefits a few and destroys a multitude. Instead community is a product of
human relationship that benefits one because it benefits all.
CONCLUSION
Readers, film-goers, watchers-of-television all seem drawn to dystopian imaginings of
the future. Surely, this is due in part to the fact that dystopia makes for good books, films, and
television programming. However, even the best, most compelling, most revelatory dystopian
depictions ultimately fail people of faith – maybe all people – because their pessimism, in the
end, does not yield. Dystopia is a society constructed as “bad place” and, as such, can never
fully escape it. The faith of the Israelites and that of Christians, as well, is constructed as a
different place – not the equally unyielding “good place” of utopia, but instead a place of
both/and. This is a place where restoration is found in the midst of destruction; a place where
human initiative and action are valued, but where the people submit themselves in awe and
wonder to the power of God; a place where fidelity in worship to God and in just acts towards
others comprise the substance of a life lived in communal relationship.
The prophetic literature answers dystopia by holding disparate experiences and
understandings in tension together. It engages the defects in society without succumbing to
them. It participates in the present broken reality without ever losing hope in a future
redeemed one.