Today the devastation of
Jerusalem, over which Isaiah weeps. Image of a world where relationships are upset, where young people ask for authoritative teachers, but find none
by Rosanna Virgili
Nn the book of the prophet Isaiah, a period of power vacuum in Jerusalem is portrayed, a condition of anarchy that upsets the city, extending its devastating effects throughout Judea. The strong colors of a society now completely destructured and enervated reach their expressive peak in a scene of desperation: «Seven women will grab a single man, on that day, and will say: We will feed on our own bread and wear our own clothes; only, let us bear your name. Take away our shame" (Is 4, 1).
Evidently the country is in the throes of absolute disintegration, so that even the families and the names of the women in question are missing, so much so that they can no longer find men who can "take away their shame", that is, marry them and give them children. It is an emblematic scene that alludes to a country at war, for which men have become rare, and with their shortage even the birth rate, social life and the political community are put at risk.
The picture of a war which, however, will be lost (!) is confirmed by the last verses of the third chapter: «Your brave men will fall by the sword, your warriors in battle; there will be wailing and wailing at its gates and it will lie on the ground uninhabited” (Is 3, 25-26). All this will happen because the wise leaders of society and the leaders rich in experience and wisdom will be removed from Jerusalem, to replace them with inexperienced boys and capricious women: this is the result of the bad conduct of Jerusalem which has turned its tongue and its works against the Sir. And here's what the near future will be:
«Yes, behold, the Lord, God of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and Judah every kind of resource, every resource of bread and every resource of water (...). I will put boys as their leaders, brats will dominate them. The people will use violence: against each other, individual against individual; the young will treat the elderly with arrogance, the despicable the noble (...) Surely, Jerusalem will fall to ruin and Judah will fall" (Is 3, 1.4-8).
And again: «My people! A boy tyrannizes him and women dominate him. My people! Your guides lead you astray, they upset the path you follow. The Lord stands up to bring a cause, he presents himself to judge his people. The Lord begins the judgment with the elders and leaders of his people: You have devastated the vineyard; the things taken from the poor are in your homes. What right do you have to oppress my people, to crush the faces of the poor? Oracle of the Lord, God of hosts" (Is 3, 12-15).
The image of Jerusalem that emerges is that of a building that is collapsing due to the collapse of its cornerstones. This building immediately takes on a metaphorical value and indicates not only the city made up of houses and walls, but above all the ethical building of the nation which crumbles, gives in and falls into ruin, since it no longer has institutional, ethical and political references .
The passage announces God's impoverishment of "every kind of support", in this case of those who are responsible for protecting and giving stability to a city. A ruling class which includes those who guide political life (judges, leaders, notables, elders), those who defend its integrity (the brave, security workers) and those who safeguard its intelligence and freedom (the prophet and the soothsayer). The lack and corruption of these safeguards generates a power vacuum, from which all sorts of disorder, upheaval and role reversal arise.
The image that develops – at this point – is not just that of a building that is tottering and, instead of coagulating, given the moment of extreme need, one fights against the other; instead of listening and obeying the wise words of the elder, the boy crushes him and despises him; instead of having authority due to his dignity, the noble is mocked by the villain.
Isaiah presents the plastic scene of a moment of absolute confusion, when the entire social fabric, the hierarchical apparatus and the ethical innervations of common coexistence are missing and a reality of illegality and subversion of values appears. Even the elderly have turned into oppressors. And it is precisely because of this original upheaval that the whole city collapses. We can see a comparison between the elderly and the foundations of a house: if they are uprooted from the earth and become a heavy pall over it, it will have no choice but to collapse. The comparison between elderly people and children is scandalous: the latter should be the part of the house that can look upwards, by virtue of being rooted in the support of the elderly. Unfortunately, in Jerusalem, this geometry was overturned due to the perversion of its foundations. This perversion consists in grabbing the people's goods with an arbitrary and selfish operation that devastates the vineyard, a metaphor preferred by the prophets to indicate Jerusalem.
This too is a picture of rare relevance: the young people who today protest in the streets against the massacre of innocents in Gaza and who look to the "elders" for guidance and support in this cause, find themselves completely unheard and even repressed for justice and the peace they demand, instead of finding in them those who are the first to seek and work for both one and the other.