In scholarly and theological circles, Deutero-Isaiah is famous for the world-embracing transcendence of its vision. The heaven is My throne, the earth My footstool, a new heaven, a new earth, etc. (66:1, 22). But the focus of the text, chapter 66, read today in the synagogue, is more red and raw than all that.

The affects that drive the text are shame before and rage against the foe, joy and comfort, the birth pangs of a nation born all at once, the consolation of the breast, limbs that flourish like grass, God’s revelation of power. כל בשר, all flesh comes before God.

Deutero-Isaiah 66 is more meat than transcendence. Horror is its closing picture.

“They shall go out and gaze

On the corpse of the men who rebelled against Me;

Their worms shall not die,

Nor their fire be quenched;

They shall be a horror

To all flesh.”

—-Isaiah 66:24