Isaiah 28–39

“ ‘Mon’ Esaie ... est devenu en réalité l’oeuvre de ma vie.” C’est ainsi que H. Wildberger qualifie son monumental commentaire en trois volumes (1–12, 13–27 et 28–39) sur les chs. 1–39 du livre d’Esaie dont la dernère partie complète la traduction anglaise de ce commentaire. Dernier volume et fruit de recherches de plus de trois décennies, Es 28–39 se présente comme le couronnement de ce travail assidu, passionné et d’écoute attentive du livre d’Esaie. L’écoute du livre comme un tout est l’attitude que H. Wilberger conseille aux lecteurs et lectrices de ce livre, constitué à la fois du matériau primitif provenant d’Esaie, prophète du VIIIè S. et des sections secondaires postérieures. En attribuant le maximum des textes à Esaie, fils d’Amots, d’une part et en décrivant un portrait maginifique de la personnalité de ce prophète, d’autre part, H. Wildberger se démarque de l’opinion représentée par O. Kaiser (1960–81) qui réduit à l’extrême les textes authentiques et remet en cause l’authenticité ésaienne des recueils d’où étaient souvent extraits la personnalité et le message d’Esaie, notamment le mémorial d’Esaie (6.1–9.6) et les chs. 28–31. En rejetant les conclusions de O. [Full Review]

Hans Wildberger’s final installment on Isaiah of Jerusalem is here translated by Thomas Trapp. For a strictly English-speaking audience or even for those for whom German is a second language, this book will make a most worthwhile addition to the collection of tools necessary to understand the often arcane book of Isaiah. In addition to a general translation from the German, Trapp has also glossed almost all of the additional foreign-language words and phrases in the book. The translation is careful and flowing even if at times the register seems a little informal for the tone of the book. And Trapp humbly admits that “[o]ne can never be completely sure that one has caught the nuance of a sentence” (xv). Trapp has also updated the bibliography through 2001. But there was also an update done through 1979. These updates occur at the beginnings of each of the pericopes and the larger bibliography at the end. One drawback, however, is the way the updates are successively tacked on to one another. Thus one has three separate blocks of material to work through to look over other scholarship at the head of each pericope and two blocks in the “Selected Recent Literature” in the back. (The update to 1980 had already been incorporated). This makes facile reviewing of the materials very cumbersome and important data easily missed. Anther drawback is that each page of the body of the commentary is headed by “Isaiah 29–35.” Thus one is forced into the text to ascertain exactly which pericope one is reading about. [Full Review]