Violence, Otherness and Identity in Isaiah 63:1-6: The Trampling One Coming from Edom

Violence disturbs. And violent depictions, when encountered in the biblical texts, are all the more disconcerting.

Isaiah 63:1-6 is an illustrative instance. The prophetic text presents the "Arriving One" in gory details ('trampling down people'; 'pouring out their lifeblood' v.6).

Further, the introductory note that the Arriving One is "coming from Edom? (cf. v.1) may suggest Israel's unrelenting animosity towards Edom.

These two themes: the "gory depiction" and "coming from Edom" are addressed in this book.Irudayaraj uses a social identity reading to show how Edom is consistently pictured as Israel's proximate and yet 'other'-ed entity.

Approaching Edom as such thus helps situate the animosity within a larger prophetic vision of identity construction in the postexilic Third Isaian context.

By adopting an iconographic reading of Isaiah 63:1-6, Irudayaraj shows how the prophetic portrayal of the 'Arriving One' in descriptions where it is clear that the 'Arriving One' is a marginalised identity correlates with the experiences of the "stooped" exiles (cf 51:14).

He also demonstrates that the text leaves behind emphatic affirmations ('mighty' and 'splendidly robed' cf. v.1; "alone? cf. v.3), by which the relegated voice of the divine reasserts itself.

It is in this divine reassertion that the hope of the Isaian community's reclamation of its own identity rests.