Nov. 17-Is. 12-I do want to direct attention to Patricia Tull's fine commentary on Isaiah 1. It seems to be a hymn, but I do not have a sense of its placement in the material at this point. Indeed might, zimrat, could also be a song, and the hymn has language used in a number of psalms. It does give us yet another place where Isaiah oscillates between doom and restoration, renewal, and rejoicing.



 In TOT Breuggemann (468) notes with the great psychologist Erik Erikson that we face the crisis of trust and mistrust from the earliest stage of existence. For a religious person, that trust is centered on God. In Hebrew trust/security in relationship is emeth, and its variant is amen, thus a link to Luther's notion of faith being a trusting relationship to divine promise and character.

We just had a baptism at a church where I help out a bit. Water is a redolent symbol, as it is here.

Zion of course is Dame Zion,  focal point for God's relationship with all-recall the temple is a point of contact for heaven and earth.

With Thanksgiving nearing, this could be a template for thanks in 2019.