The creator’s capacity to work a newness, unencumbered by conditionality and unassisted by any other power, becomes a joyous assertion that YHWH will work a newness right in the midst of Israel’s most dire circumstance of grief. That newness is articulated in many images; the important point, however, is that it is freely and singularly enacted by YHWH without respect to the “qualification” of Israel or the assistance of other gods.
