During the coming weeks of Advent, Sr Patricia Rumsey will examine some of the great scriptural texts which the lectionary puts before us during the season. She begins with the Book of Isaiah

The book attributed to the prophet Isaiah is a patchwork of texts from different periods in Israelite history. How much it reflects actual historical situations is problematic, but it is still a text we can value and with which we can interact.

The era in which the first part of the book is situated was a time of great political unrest; the tiny nation of Judah was threatened by its northern neighbour, Samaria, allied with the even more powerful Syria. In the background lurked the might of Assyria.

When the armies of Samaria and Syria reached the borders of Judah, “the heart of the king and the hearts of the people shuddered as the trees of the forest shudder before the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). At this moment, the prophet is presented as delivering a divine message for a weak and vacillating king: “Keep calm, have no fear, do not let your heart sink because of these two smouldering stumps of firebrands”(Isaiah 7:4), the kings of Syria and Samaria.