Using God's Resources Wisely: Isaiah and Urban Possibility

by Walter Brueggemann

shoot, sprout: new, unexpected, inexplicable, most welcomed growth. The claim of the poem is that a stump can become a shoot. It is not dead. It still by the mercy of God has potential for life, because God has called this authorized family of human agents to reemerge into the future to make a difference in this belated, lamented city. It must have been, in ancient Israel, a moment of staggering news to have “stump” renamed “shoot.” The failed human agent is revivified, given to try again, because the city depends upon these authorized, empowered, summoned human agents and because God still wills them to make a difference.

The Bible struggles to find adequate vocabulary to speak about and name this unutterable, irresistible, undomesticated force that surges into history to liberate, heal, remake, and transform. We are left with this code term, rûaḥ, to speak about what we know but cannot say. All the poets were studying “the force” as poets are wont to do, gripped and driven by it. One finally said, “Let’s call it rûaḥ,” the strange, invasive mystery of God that keeps the world loose, at least around the edges. And then, when this poet wants to talk about “stump” become “shoot,” he must use that same carefully chosen word, rûaḥ: “The spirit of Yahweh will rest upon him.”