Storms of Destruction and Streams of Peace
Isaiah’s Apocalypse and the End of the Anthropocene
The end of all things is near, the climate scientists say. Alternatively, the end of the Anthropocene, the era of human domination of the planet, is near. Or, as theologian Timothy Beal has written, "It may not be too late, but it probably is."[1] Since the 1960s or thereabouts, climate scientists have been emphatically warning humanity that the window to change our ways, lower emissions, and cease our reliance on Earth's natural resources to fuel our technological growth was closing quickly, and now, in 2023, many climate scientists believe it is too late. We have not heeded their warnings, we have not repented of our abuses of the Earth, and cataclysmic destruction is now inevitable.
As a pastor and scholar of the Bible, it is hard not to see the parallels between humanity's failure to heed the voices in the wilderness calling us to repent of our ecological sins or face judgment and the many apocalyptic warnings given throughout the Bible. For thousands of years, there have been prophetic voices calling out to stubborn people, warning them that their sin has real-world consequences, and many, many times, the people reject the prophets to their demise. In this paper, I will explore one such warning issued by the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 28 and 32, where the Prophet speaks of coming destruction due to Israel's unfaithfulness to God and the consequences of the destruction, which eerily parallel what many climate scientists believe will happen to our planet shortly due to our stubbornness.[2] I will explore the image of water in Isaiah as both a destructive force and a symbol of restoration and peace. I will also explore how Isaiah's words to Ancient Israel can speak to modern humans in our climate crisis.
“The Flooding Downpour” of God’s Judgement on Ephraim in Isaiah’s Apocalypse
Isaiah 24-27 is known among scholars as the "Apocalypse of Isaiah," containing similar styles and imagery to other Jewish Apocalyptic books such as Daniel and Enoch that describe God's judgment on the world and the emergence of a new world of justice and peace. This writing style is also found in many other ancient Near Eastern texts, specifically Canaanite mythology known as the Ugaritic texts, which describe the destruction of the world rendered by the God Baal.[3] The goal of these texts is to condemn the immorality of Israel's leaders for abandoning the ways of God and to ultimately use the fear of the destruction of the kingdoms to draw the people into repentance. Apocalyptic literature from the ancient world frequently uses natural imagery to describe divine judgment, and Isaiah does the same. In Isaiah 28, the author offers a traditional series of "woes."[4] to Israel, who is currently facing oppression at the hands of the Assyrian empire,[5] which is interpreted because of their sin, unfaithfulness to God, and poor leadership by their kings. As Isaiah describes the judgment of God, he presents a series of natural images to act as metaphors for God's justice:
See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong.
Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind,
like a driving rain and a flooding downpour,
he will throw it forcefully to the ground.
(Isaiah 28:2)
To demonstrate the power of God, Isaiah draws upon the imagery of a mighty storm, complete with hail, wind, and torrential downpours, which cause flooding that "throws [the drunkards of Ephraim] forcefully to the ground." Ephraim is the Northern Kingdom of Israel[6], which was known for its "anarchy and misrule."[7], constantly being led by failed immoral kings whom Isaiah refers to as "drunkards." This lack of moral leadership in Ephraim had thrown the Northern Kingdom into complete disarray. Isaiah draws on the image of a natural disaster to symbolize the inevitable attack that would soon be launched on the nation, bringing about its complete destruction. Scholar Jaap Dekker notes that while the language of the destructive storms of God is used here, the reference is to the Assyrian Empire, being used as an agent of God's judgment on the immoral and unstable leadership of the Northern Kingdom.[8]
Scholar Hyun Chul Paul Kim furthers this thinking by noting that the Hebrew words used in this section to describe God's instrument of judgment, who will bring about the torrential storm of God's wrath, were meant to conjure up the image of Hezekiah and Isaiah: “This agent is “strong” (hazaq) and “mighty” (’ammits). The sounds of the Hebrew terms recall the names "Hezekiah" (hizqiyahu) and Isaiah, son of "Amoz” (’amots).”[9] These words, Kim suggests, harken back to Hezekiah’s own warning to Israel in the face of an attack by a coming invader: “Be strong and of good courage” (2 Chronicles 32:7), but it is now the invader, the Assyrian Empire, who is an instrument of God’s justice is the strong and mighty one.
To describe the might of the coming invader, Isaiah uses an image that many in the Ancient Near East would be familiar with a sudden, destructive tempest. As Ingrid Lilly notes, “At the metaphorical level, storms and powerful winds animate distress in biblical literature.”[10] There is a rich history of ancient storm gods and goddesses in the ancient Near East who were understood to be the cause of meteorological judgments poured out on various populations for their disobedience. Lilly suggests that the writers of the Hebrew Bible would have been familiar with these mythologies and attributed many of the characteristics of the storm deities to Yahweh, who from Genesis 1 is described as a wind (ruach), which parallels earlier pagan deities such as Baal.[11] In Isaiah, Yahweh is the God that controls the natural world and uses it to bring about judgment and to establish peace, as we will see. In the Northern Kingdom, God's judgment is soon to come crashing down in mighty winds, destructive hail, and raging waters that will destroy the immoral rulers of the Kingdom and set the stage for a new, righteous ruler to take the lead.
In the context of the entire Apocalypse of Isaiah, this is just one instance among many that draws on natural metaphors for God's judgment.[12], reflecting ancient peoples' fear and reverence of the natural world. Any time great storms, floods, or natural disasters took place, there was a period of introspection among many ancient peoples, wondering how they had angered their deities and a period of repentance or ritual reconciliation to bring themselves back into the right relationship with the divine to protect against more natural disasters that could threaten the survival of entire communities.
“The Flooding Downpour” of God’s Judgement on the Modern World
Again, the parallels between the “drunken” leaders of the Northern Kingdom and the “drunken” leaders of our modern world are plenty. In October 2023, a team of climate scientists released a report in the journal Biosciences where they plainly stated, “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.”[13] This warning is one of the most sobering given over the past thirty years by climate scientists who have been clear in their warnings and directives to world leaders to change how humans interact with our environment. The report concluded, "To address the overexploitation of our planet, we challenge the prevailing notion of endless growth and overconsumption by rich countries and individuals as unsustainable and unjust.”[14]
There could not be a more explicit message given: if we do not immediately cease our exploitation of the planet, there will continue to be an increase in global climate disasters, including flooding, cataclysmic storms, wildfires, droughts, and temperature increases. However, such warnings continue to be met with symbolic actions and promises by world leaders without any significant changes being made to the ways that wealthy nations, in particular, consume the Earth's natural resources. The result, then, is inevitable: "Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw [the nations] forcefully to the ground.” (Isaiah 28:2) There will be flooding downpours and destructive winds across the Earth that will bring devastation to billions of people, particularly those who live in coastal areas- including those of us who live in the New York metropolitan area- that will be the first to experience the devastation of sea level rise.
However, our "drunkenness" keeps us in our stupor. The threats remain far off despite scientists telling us they will be on our shores sometime this century. The Isaiahs of our generation continue to be ignored despite the sobering clarity of their warnings. We are no different or better than the ancient people to whom Isaiah is writing. In the same way that destruction came to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, destruction is sure to come to the entirety of the planet, possibly within our lifetimes.
What, then, are we to do?
Isaiah’s Poem of an Ideal World and the End of the Anthropocene
A few chapters after Isaiah’s apocalyptic warning to the Northern Kingdom of the torrential downfall of God's judgment, there is a vision of the world to come, introducing another shared Biblical vision of water, not as a destructive force but of peace. These texts are no longer in the style of apocalypse but in a complex string of metaphorical poetry and bring a sense of balance and beauty following the destructive apocalypse that Isaiah describes in chapters 24-27. Scholar Mark Hamilton notes that the goal of chapter 32 is to “solve a common Near Eastern intellectual problem, the morality of kingship."[15], providing a counterpoint to the immoral rulers whose downfall is predicted in Isaiah’s Apocalypse. Under a moral king, a new, idealized world emerges, where a peaceful river flows in what appears to be a vastly different way than the world that existed before the destructive downpouring of God's judgment. In the next section of writings attributed to Isaiah, in chapter 32:16-20 it is written:
Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abides in the fruitful field.
The effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and quiet resting-places.
The forest will disappear completely,
and the city will be utterly laid low.
Happy will you be who sow beside every stream,
who let the ox and the donkey range freely.
Isaiah 32 begins with the introduction of a messianic ruler often prophesied about in the Hebrew Bible. He is described as a king who “reigns in righteousness” (32:1), a stark contrast to the drunken and immoral rulers of Ephraim in chapter 28. This righteous king is described as a “hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry place.” (32:2). Isaiah can be seen drawing a parallel to the rulers who bring about the tempest of God's judgment- the invasion of the nation- and those who can protect and defend the people such a tempest. Here, water is no longer perceived as a threat to the nation but a hydrating and rejuvenating force, a gentle "stream in a dry place." (32:2). This agricultural imagery is meant to conjure up the image of an oasis in the desert, a lush and fertile place with stable food, shelter, and water in the middle of a "desert" of nations, who, because of the immorality of their leaders, struggle to survive. The imagery of the stream is one of stability and abundance- economic and political- for the people who have been metaphorically left wandering in the inhospitable deserts of God's judgment, straining towards provision and stability, just like their Hebrew ancestors of old. The motif of a stream in the desert is common throughout the Hebrew Bible, a reminder of God's power to meet the needs of the people even in the most unlikely circumstances if they walk according to his laws.
Kim notes that Isaiah 32 is a turning point in the prophecy, moving from the "woes" that begin Isaiah 28 to a "wow" or "behold."[16] After the unjust rulers of the nations are destroyed, a new era of justice and peace will be inaugurated in which all the people can flourish. After spending most of this chapter describing the reversals that will take place under the just leadership of the righteous kings, Isaiah ends with another natural image to describe the post-judgment flourishing of the nation. On the other side of judgment, "the forest will completely disappear, and the city will be utterly laid low." (32:19). In other words, there will be destruction- the efforts of the drunkard kings will be decimated. The natural resources they drew upon to build their cities will be eradicated. Isaiah is communicating the natural consequences of their disobedience- God will not spare them from the impact of their actions on their world, even as God promises to bring about a new era of peace and flourishing.
This is the trajectory that humanity is currently on. As we approach the latter years of the Anthropocene, the destruction of our forests and cities is already beginning. No matter our course of action or the sincerity of our future repentance, judgment has already been set into motion, and the storm of God is already raging. We are left without a king to protect us from the tempest. In yet another eerie parallel to the stories of judgment and destruction found throughout the Bible, it turns out that humanity's idolatry of ourselves has led us to this threshold of judgment. Timothy Beal notes that we have made ourselves our gods, "we have begun to realize our divine power…we have yet to take on divine responsibility.”[17]In our drunken stupor and self-interested greed, we have made ourselves the gods of the Anthropocene, closing our eyes to the reality that we do not and cannot rule the natural world without the natural world fighting back to rule us. Beal continues, "Wouldn't it be something if, just as we begin to assume our divinity, we also bring about our end, our own extinction? We are gods now. Gods of the Anthropocene. Gods of our undoing."[18]
No truer words have been written. Humanities quest for dominion has, indeed, reached its pinnacle. Like the Israelites of old, we are refusing to heed the calls of the humble prophets in our midst to remember that, despite all that we have built and accomplished, we are not God. Moreover, destruction is coming. Our cities, our forests, our reefs, our wetlands- all will be destroyed, and most of us along with them. Our idolatry of ourselves is indeed bringing our downfall, and it is almost too late for repentance.
Still, some humans will likely survive the climate disasters on our horizon. If the Hebrew Bible and human history tell us anything, humans may finally wake up after disaster strikes and make the necessary changes to prevent our complete extinction. Large swaths of the population will be destroyed, but indeed, "Happy will [they] be who sow beside every stream, who let the ox and the donkey range freely.” (32:20). This prophetic word seems to suggest that humans who are brought back into right relationship with God and Creation. Humans who have learned to respect the Earth, not as it is rulers, but as partners, who "sow beside the stream," return to a reciprocal relationship with the natural world, and who "let the of and donkey range freely," which seems to suggest giving up our domination over animals, allowing them to live with their natural God-given freedom. The result, according to the Prophet, will be "peace" (32:17), or in Hebrew, literally, שָׁלוֹם (shalom), denoting welfare, prosperity, and tranquility.[19]
The image of a stream in this passage shows another metaphor for how water is often used in Scripture; it is not a destructive force of God's judgment but a symbol of renewal, tranquility, and peace. Indeed, in the New Testaments apocalypse, the new Earth that emerges after the world is cleansed by fire (another apt metaphor for climate change) includes "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1), which is an allusion to the rivers of Eden.[20] Moreover, it is similar to the river that flows from the Temple in Ezekiel 47:1-12: "Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes." (47:9) Here, the river becomes not a force of death but life. Rather than living in a tumultuous relationship with the Earth's waters, humans now live in peace and rely on the Earth's waters for hydration and food. The relationship between humanity and the waters is restored- there is balance and order on the Earth.
Scholar Ehud Ben Zvi also notes that the image of streams of water does not merely refer to literal water but is often a metaphor for wisdom in Scripture, “a wisdom that is necessary for the maintenance of the proper world in the cosmos.”[21] The peaceful streams of water that humanity settles beside in Isaiah 32 likely have a double meaning in the minds of the early readers of the text, referring to listening to and receiving nourishment from the wisdom of God. It is often willful ignorance that leads the people of Israel out of alignment with God's will throughout the Hebrew Bible, an amnesia of sorts to the dictates of God on how to live rightly in the world. It is modern humanity's willful ignorance of the very evident impact and cost of our exploitation of the planet that has led us out of alignment with a proper relationship to Creation. We desperately need hydration from the wisdom of God spoken through Isaiah and from the mouths of climate scientists today.
These words of Isaiah describe a post-Anthropocene era- when human technology slows down, and we return to the ways of our ancestors who lived in a relatively symbiotic relationship with the created world. This is precisely what climate scientists are urging- the dawn of a new era of mutualism with the created world.[22] After the raging storms of climate disaster dish out the judgment of Creation (and Creator) on humanity, a new era for life on Earth will emerge, and the remaining humans will be invited to a renewed relationship with God and the world. Ched Meyer notes, "These prophetic visions represent profound articulations of social and environmental restorative justice for an ancient people for whom dehydration was a daily reality. They speak equally sharply to our own time, hostage as we are to widespread degradation and commodification of this primary gift of life."[23]
Modern Lessons from Isaiah’s Apocalypse
Many interpreters of the Bible throughout the ages have believed that the prophecies of Scripture were literal- that these ancient words are predicting, through divine revelation, the future of humanity. While many of the literal prophecies of the Bible have proven not to come to pass in the time frame that the authors presented, the prophetic words of Scripture have a remarkable ability to speak a unique warning to each generation that has read them. I believe this is a testament to humanity's stubbornness, a reminder that we continue to repeat the sins of our ancestors and rarely, if ever, truly learn our lesson and remain on the "straight and narrow" path. Nevertheless, the words of Isaiah (among other prophetic writings in the Bible) that speak of the end of the world as we know it seems remarkable in their accuracy- whether this is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy or divine revelation, we may never know.
We know that the general thrust of Isaiah's apocalypse is right. Judgment is inevitable- in the form of destructive storms and cataclysmic floods- and yet humanity continues to fail to heed the warnings of the prophets of old or our modern scientific prophets. In this era, it is incumbent upon all Christians, primarily clergy, to lift the warnings of ancient and modern prophets to call the faithful to immediate action and prepare us for the coming judgment of Creation. Our sinful abuse of the planet's resources and our idolatry of technology and ourselves have led us into an era of willful ignorance and blindness to the destruction we are heaping upon ourselves as a species.
What makes this worse is that the destruction is not caused by most of humanity but by the most wealthy, powerful, and privileged nations, such as the United States and China, who share the overwhelming burden of responsibility for the destruction of the Earth's environment over the past fifty years.[24] These very nations will likely fare the best in the face of future climate disasters because they have the resources to build infrastructure, for instance, to protect coastal cities like New York from rising sea levels and hurricanes.[25] It is this knowledge that has led many of the leaders of these first-world nations to continue their abuse of the planet, knowing that the impact will not be born primarily by their population but by the peoples and nations that they view as inherently less valuable- a modern manifestation of the cruelest racism and classism.
However, not even the best barriers and most substantial buildings will be able to escape the worst effects of global climate change. Despite our continued attempts to assert ourselves as gods over the natural world, nature will have the final word- no one can escape this "judgment of God." Moreover, all those who care about justice have a moral responsibility to demand action to try to prevent the worst of the "storms" of climate disasters from occurring. As Kathleen Nadeau and Jojo M. Fung note, "Humankind needs to hear the cries of the poor and act in collaboration with them for a more dignified and resilient life."[26] in the face of global climate change.
We have a responsibility to do all that we can to heed the voices of our modern prophets, repent of our sins, and resist the judgment of climate change to avoid the "disappearance of the forests and the cities being laid low" (Isaiah 32:20) not just for ourselves, but for those who are being subjected to destruction because of our sins. Our repentance in the West must be not only towards those who will face destruction if we do not change our course but towards the natural world itself. Now is a time for humanity to join in solidarity and repent. As Barbara Rossing notes, “Living creatures and human communities suffer together and cry out for justice. The cosmology of Revelation and other apocalypses assumes a strong solidarity between humans and the natural world and between visible and invisible powers.”[27]
In this post, we have explored how water is used in the writings of Isaiah as both a symbol of judgment and destruction as well as one of stability and peace. This is not a mere literary and theological metaphor but speaks to the nature of water itself. It is the substance from which all life on Earth comes, necessary to sustain human civilization and society. It also has the tremendous power to bring destruction and end life in an instant. As much as modern humans have come to believe that we have dominated the natural world, we are just as reliant on and should be as reverent of water as our ancestors because every aspect of our existence relies upon it. Yet in this moment of profound human greed and arrogance, through our exploitation and abuse of the planet and our unrighteous leadership, we have provoked the Earth's waters, inviting them to unleash their destructive forces upon humanity to end our abuse of the Earth.
As the Anthropocene ends, a choice has been set before humanity. To set aside our divisions and our domination of the created world and seek to heal the Earth, or to continue our current trajectory and all but guarantee global destruction. There has never been a more dire situation for humankind, and I pray that we will awaken to the urgency of this moment, repent of our sins, and work to create the new Earth that the prophets of old longed for. (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1)
[1] Timothy Beal, When Time Is Short (Beacon Press, 2022), 15.
[2] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050: The Consequences of Inaction,” OECD, 2012, https://www.oecd.org/env/indicators-modelling-outlooks/oecdenvironmentaloutlookto2050theconsequencesofinaction-keyfactsandfigures.htm.
[3] Richard Clifford, “The Roots of Apocalypticism in near Eastern Myth,” in Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (Continuum, March 1, 2000).
[4] Marvin Sweeney, “Notes on Isaiah,” in New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha : New Revised Standard Version., ed. Michael Coogan (Oxford University Press, 2018), 1015.
[5] Ibid 1015
[6] Hyun Kim, Reading Isaiah: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2016), 134.
[7] David Stacey, Isaiah 1-39 (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018), 168.
[8] Jaap Dekker, “Exegesis of Individual Pericopes within Isaiah 28 and Their Reciprocal Relationships,” in Zion’s Rock-Solid Foundations (Brill, 2007), 209.
[9] Hyun Kim, Reading Isaiah: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2016), 135.
[10] Ingrid Lilly, “Conceptualizing Spirit: Supernatural Meteorology and Winds of Distress in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient near East,” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls, ed. Joel Baden and Hindy Najman (Brill, 2016), 22.
[11] Ibid. 3.
[12] Isaiah 27, for instance, includes references to the Leviathan, a sea monster, being a tool of God's judgment on Israel.
[13] William J Ripple et al., “The 2023 State of the Climate Report: Entering Uncharted Territory,” BioScience, October 24, 2023, 9.
[14] Ibid pg. 8
[15] Hamilton, Mark. “Isaiah 32 as Literature and Political Meditation.” Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012): 664.
[16] Hyun Kim. Reading Isaiah: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2016), 152.
[17] Timothy Beal, When Time Is Short (Beacon Press, 2022), 43.
[18] Timothy Beal, When Time Is Short (Beacon Press, 2022), 54.
[19] James Strong, Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2009), 7965, “shalom."
[20] Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Annotated New Testament : New Revised Standard Version Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 574.
[21] Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin, Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period (De Gruyter , 2014), 19.
[22] Diana L. Six, “Climate Change and Mutualism,” Nature Reviews Microbiology 7, no. 10 (October 1, 2009): 686–86.
[23] Ched Myers, “‘Everything Will Live Where the River Goes,’” Sojourners, April 1, 2012, https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2012/everything-will-live-where-river-goes.
[24] Lisa Friedman, “U.S. And China on Climate: How the World’s Two Largest Polluters Stack Up,” The New York Times, July 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/climate/us-china-climate-issues.html.
[25] Helmore, Edward. “Property over People? New York City’s $52bn Plan to Save Itself from the Sea.” The Guardian, September 19, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/new-york-hurricane-sandy-flooding-plan
[26] Kathleen Nadeau and Jojo Fung, “Indigenous Liberation Theology and Spirituality: Looking to the Past for Answers in the Present,” Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture XXII, no. 3 (2019): 52.
[27] Barbara Rossing , “Waters Cry out Water Protectors, Watershed Justice, and the Voice of Waters in Revelation 16:4-6, 21:6 and 22:17,” Currents in Theology and Mission 47, no. 1 (2020): 41.
Humbling read. Thank you, Brandan.