Rhetorical Devices In Isaiah 58

187 intention of the prophet seems not to provide the exact historical or social backdrop; rather, the major concern of the prophet is a theological one: the problem within the community that hinders the coming salvation of God. The prophet presents the nearness of God’s salvation (the new age), which has already been anticipated from Isaiah 40-55 (cf. 56:1). The promise of God is still valid to the community in whatever situation. The prophet intends to further develop and enrich the theme of God’s restoration by emphasizing the ethical and ritual responsibility of the community as the necessary condition for it. Scullion recapitulates that God’s pleasure is found in the performance of true justice and true religious observation: that is, …show more content…
One of the prominent devices in Isaiah 58 is the numerous repetition of words that sustain the coherency of the literary unit: bqoß[]y: (1d, 14c); ~Ayð (2a, 3c, 4c, 5b, 5f, 13b); %r,D, (2b, 13e); #pex' (2b, 2f, 3c, 13b, 13f); hf'[' (2c, 13b, 13e); ~Ac (3a, 3c, 4a, 4c, 5a, 5e, 6a); vp,n< (3b, 5b, 10a, 10b, 11b), hn"[' (3b, 5b, 10b). Polan says,
Not only does repetition focus the themes and motifs of the poem, but it also builds and expands them to provide a fuller appreciation of what the world of the text has to say; the recurrence of a word gathers a thought or idea which was preciously expressed and brings it into dialogue with new aspects of corresponding thought. Seemingly different and unrelated segments of a poem are linked together by means of a common word which carries a special nuance in its literary setting.152
The repetition and chiasm are rhetorically combined together in order to highlight the crescendoofthemessagebetweenv.10band11b:a.vp,nb.[:yBi_f.T;b’[:yBiÛf.hiw>a’^v,êp.n.: The prophet promises that if the Israelites satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then the Lord will satisfy their