Comfort for Jerusalem: the second Isaiah as counselor to refugees.

Abstract

Analogies exist between psychological problems faced by contemporary populations of displaced persons (e.g., refugees) and those exiled by the Babylonian empire after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. The second-generation survivors of the Babylonian deportations inherited a shaming identity as defeated Israel, rejected by God. This traumatizing story was conveyed and reinforced by liturgies of lament. At the same time, the failure of Israel's laments to effect change led to a perception of unanswered prayer by a powerless or absent deity which further demoralized them. Their discouragement produced symptoms of the psychological harm called learned helplessness. The approach of the prophet who composed the poems and oracles found in Isaiah 40-55 is similar to some contemporary therapies. Through various genres of poetry, the Second Isaiah counseled the exiles to reframe their pessimism about Israel, YHWH, and their future.

**********

Persons who have been displaced by violent political processes often have psychological as well as physical and social problems. The Judeans deported by the Babylonians after the conquest of Jerusalem were victims of a government policy of forced movement for military and political goals. It is possible, therefore, that contemporary descriptions of psychological difficulties faced by displaced persons could apply to the victims of the Babylonian exile. To that end, this article will draw on the work of therapists who counsel victims of war, torture and political repression for clues to some of the symptoms exiled Israel might have suffered. It will argue that the exiles' psychological distress provided impetus for the poetry of one of early Judaism's most creative thinkers: the prophet known often as the "Second Isaiah" (Isaiah 40-55).

The Second Isaiah addressed a deported Judean population resident in Babylonia in the late 540s (Clifford: 492). At this moment in time, he (or is it she? see McEvenue) encountered a faith community with a collective identity reinforced by a story of trauma and rejection that left it with little hope for the future. This collective identity was "Israel." Among the purposes of the Second Isaiah was the desire to confront syndromes of psychological trauma and learned helplessness that affected the exiles' valuation of themselves as Israel.

The Babylonian Exiles as Refugees

Refugees in the conventional sense are persons who have fled their own country to escape persecution, armed conflict or violence. But in every part of the world governments, armies and rebel movements have also resorted to moving people by force in order to attain their political and military objectives. These displaced persons face problems closely related to those encountered by conventional refugees (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: 1-2). Therefore, in this paper I use the word refugee interchangeably with the term displaced person to designate victims of various processes of forced displacement.

COUNSELLING AND THERAPY WITH REFUGEES AND VICTIMS OF TRAUMA is written as a guide for mental health professionals and others involved in the care of refugees and those suffering similar kinds of trauma (van der Veer: ix). Van der Veer uses two categories to classify the causes of the psychological issues that such persons face: "traumatization" and "uprooting." Traumatization refers to experiences of repression, torture and other kinds of violence that are likely to result in psychological dysfunction both in the short and long term. Uprooting refers to experiences of separation from familiar surroundings, loss, attendant hardships and exile in an unfamiliar environment for an indefinite period. Stresses associated with uprooting can cause various long-term adjustment problems. Many refugees suffer from the results of both traumatization and uprooting (4-5).

Typically, refugees are people who have been subjected to potentially violent situations over an extended period of time (often years). This process reaches a climax in violent events that touch them personally and result in displacement. There are three phases to what van der Veer calls the traumatization process (9):

First, there is an increase of repression and persecution in the general environment of the native country.

Second, this is followed by a period of time in which the refugee personally becomes the victim of violence.

And third, escape from the violence leads to life in exile (displacement). Life in exile may itself be made difficult by forms of persecution or oppression. New stresses may arrive when return to the homeland becomes feasible as a result of political changes. Such a possibility may occasion recall of traumatic memories and feelings of loss and grief. It also confronts the refugee with a difficult and painful decision: the choice of giving up the new life made in exile, or giving up the illusion of going home. Treatment of displaced persons with psychological problems calls for a variety of therapeutic techniques. Approaches from such varied fields as psychiatry, developmental psychology, family therapy and learning theory may be used depending on the symptoms to be addressed (27-64).

Van der Veer is not a biblical scholar. His typology of traumatization is drawn from clinical observation and experience. But this same model can by mapped onto the experiences of the Babylonian exiles.

Phase one will refer to the predations of the Neo-Babylonian empire as it sought to quell the Judean rebellions in 597 and between 589-587 BCE. Violence increased dramatically in the general environment of Judah and Jerusalem as a result of these invasions. The first Babylonian conquest took place in March of 597 BCE. The Babylonian Chronicle suggests that after a short siege the city was captured, heavily plundered and its monarch exiled. A second rebellion under the substitute king, Zedekiah, led to a two year siege of Jerusalem in the late 580s. By its end, there was famine in the city. A few weeks after Jerusalem was captured, the temple, royal palace and homes of the aristocracy were burned to the ground. The city walls were torn down. Some surviving royal and temple officials, military commanders and provincial leaders were rounded up and summarily executed. There was also wide-ranging destruction in the countryside, particularly affecting the fortress towns, which were pillaged and despoiled. There is no way to estimate the casualties, but it is safe to assume that a fair percentage of Judah's manpower and leadership was killed off (Miller & Hayes: 408-16).

Phase two will refer to personal experiences of violence while the deportees were still in their country of origin. This will include their dramatic decline in social status, their forced march out of Judah, and loss of loved ones through violent death and separation. In the case of the second exile in 587, many undoubtedly also suffered through famine conditions. Indications of the devastations of the second Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem can be gleaned from the desperate imagery of Lamentations 2 and 5, which may have been written shortly after the events portrayed (Emmendorffer: 66).

Portions of the population of Judah and Jerusalem were forcibly deported by the Babylonian empire in order to suppress the country's capacity to rebel. There are discrepancies in the biblical sources about the number of deportations, their dates and the size of the populace affected. Conflicting accounts are found in 2 Kings 24:8-25:21 and Jeremiah 52:1-30. Jeremiah lists three separate deportations with a total figure of 4,600 persons. According to 2 Kings 24:14, 10,000 people were deported in the first exile of 597 alone; it gives no figure for the second exile in 587 nor any hint of a third deportation in 582, contrary to Jeremiah. Various attempts have been made to harmonize these figures, but none are satisfactory. It may be concluded that, by any account, a sizable number of elite citizens, temple and military officials, and artisans was involved (Miller and Hayes: 419-20). Scholars suggest that 5% (Gottwald: 423), 10% (Purvis: 202), or perhaps more (Lemche: 175) of the total populace was carried off into the Mesopotamian interior. Estimates vary as one must also guess about the total size of Judah and Jerusalem at this time. The resulting social chaos also led to an increase in Judean refugees seeking asylum outside of the Babylonian sphere of influence, notably in Egypt (Lemche: 177).

Phase three will refer to experiences of forced displacement among those deported to Babylon. We are not well informed about the conditions encountered by the Judean exiles. It appears that most became peasants who farmed plots of land assigned to them by the state. Their status was not as slaves or as prisoners of war, but rather as clients of the state employed to form a colony. They seem to have been settled on uncultivated agricultural land, perhaps as part of a deliberate policy to develop unused land or previously abandoned sites (Lemche: 179-80). The exiles were placed in various locales in lower Mesopotamia (Yamauchi: 365); later records from the fifth century (the Murashu archive) suggest a concentration around the city of Nippur, southeast of Babylon (Purvis: 207).

There are no indications that the exiles were under coercion to abandon their traditional cultural ways or social organization. They had some institutions of religious observances, including public prayers and fasts (Purvis: 212). Persons with Jewish names appear in the Murashu documents as small landholders and petty officials (Stolper: 928). So it does not seem that the exiles were restricted from improving their lot economically in the decades following their deportation. Nevertheless, there are indications that the violence of the Babylonian conquest and deportation affected the exiles' self-image and that continuing captivity considerably dimmed their hopes for Israel's future.

Symptoms of Psychological Trauma among the Babylonian Exiles

Van der Veer's work describes techniques of therapeutic intervention with contemporary victims of processes of forced displacement who are manifesting psychological problems. Application of such concepts to an ancient population has its pitfalls. The usefulness of applying approaches derived from Western psychology to persons in other societies has been called into question (Pilch: 114). Another concern is that a majority of those addressed by the Second Isaiah must have been second-generation exiles. The mid-540s places the first exile about fifty-five years prior and post-dates the second exile by more than forty years. Since the average life-span of persons in ancient Israel cannot have been much more than forty (Wolff: 119), those able to remember life in pre-exilic Jerusalem or Judah were probably few.

These objections can be answered. First, while certain psychological constructs may be culture-specific, there is evidence that abuse and violence have similar consequences across cultures. For example, child abuse and neglect appear to have consistent effects across race, ethnicity, culture and time period (Erkman: 384). According to van der Veer, "The way people react to psychological trauma does not seem to be very dependent on cultural background" (76). Moreover, these symptoms can be documented in literary forms. Comparisons have been made, e.g., between the contemporary diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Pepys' description of the reactions of London's citizens after the Great Fire in 1666 (Meichenbaum: 41). There are also convincing analogies between the PTSD symptoms of modern combat veterans and literary figures such as Hotspur in HENRY IV Part 1 (Shay: 165-69) and Achilles in the ILIAD (3-99).

Second, there is evidence that the transmission of a traumatic story to the children of survivors can affect their sense of identity. Imparting a collective identity to the next generation as heirs of a story of trauma may convey secondary victimization and stigmatization. Documented cases appear in families of survivors of the Holocaust, the nuclear attacks on Japan, combat veterans and victims of terrorists. In these cases, it is not the experience of the traumatic event, but the narrative constructed around it that influences adaptive processes (Meichenbaum: 19).

The second-generation exiles in Babylon possessed a narrative that allowed for secondary victimization and stigmatization in terms of their collective identity. This was their shared story as defeated Israel, rejected by God. How was this collective trauma story transmitted? Memories of the first two phases of their ancestors' traumatization were continually reinforced by liturgies of lament (complaint psalms) in the exilic community.

Community liturgies appealing for help in the face of national distress appear in poems such as Psalms 44, 74, 79, 80, 83 and in the book of Lamentations. Quotations or allusions to this liturgical tradition can be found in passages such as Isa 40:27; 49:14; 50:1 and 51:9-11 (Schoors: 124). A particularly full engagement with the poems of Lamentations occurs in Isa 51:17-23. There are allusions to Lamentations 2:13-19 (Sommer: 128-30) and also Lamentations 4:1 (Schoors: 129).

We may infer that exiled Israel's trauma story loomed large in its religious consciousness because the engagement of the Second Isaiah with the literature and liturgies of lament is extensive. This function is discernible in all the major genres of the prophet's poetry. Poetic genres promising deliverance include "oracles of salvation" (41:8-13, 14-16; 43:1-7; 44:1-5 and 54:4-6) and "proclamations of salvation" (41:17-20; 42:14-17; 43:16-21; 49:7-13, 14-26; 51:9-16, 17-23; 54:7-10, 11-17 and 55:1-5). The oracles of salvation are addressed to Israel as a personified singular and presuppose an individual complaint psalm; the proclamations of salvation are formulated as responses to collective laments voiced by the people (Gottwald: 493). The interaction between these poems and Israel's liturgies of complaint is evident from the large amount of shared vocabulary and imagery (Schoors: 45-46).

The Second Isaiah's poetry also includes argumentative genres meant to defend the validity of the prophet's message. They comprise "trial speeches" (41:1-5, 21-19; 42:18-25; 43:8-13, 22-28; 44:6-8; 45:18-25 and 50:1-3) and "disputations" (40:12-31; 44:24-28; 45:9-13; 46:5-11; 48:1-11, 12-15 and 55:8-13). The prophet's need to reject accusations against God (a traditional motif of the lament tradition) is prominent in both (Gottwald: 494). The preoccupation with Israel's complaints throughout the poetry of the Second Isaiah suggests the presence of a powerful trauma story that stigmatized the exiles and brought them considerable despair about their future as YHWH's people.

There are several images of the community in the poetry of the Second Isaiah that may be interpreted as metaphors of the chronic injuries experienced by survivors of severe trauma. Violence typically alters a sense of both self and world (van der Veer: 57). Self-esteem is reduced and the world is perceived as less safe and less meaningful (McCann & Pearlman: 61). The loss of meaning can result in a syndrome called "abandonment despair" in which the victim feels chronically alone and spiritually bereft (McBride & Armstrong: 8). The perception of divine abandonment is strongly conveyed in citations from the complaints of the community (e.g., 40:27 and 49:14).

Violence also leads to chronic shame and doubt symptomatic of damaged self-concept (Herman: 52-56). Israel's self-image was evidently that of a "worm" (41:14), a people plundered and despoiled, trapped and imprisoned (42:22) and far from victory (46:12). Yehezkel Kaufmann points out with respect to 53:2-3: "[The servant] is without form or comeliness, ill and in pain, and remote from the society of men ... these are metaphors for contrition and heartbreak and permanent melancholy" (158).

This last citation must be justified by a collective interpretation of the Second Isaiah's servant imagery. Interpretation of the so-called "servant songs" (42:1-6; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13 53:12) is fraught with difficulties. In fact, the servant has often received individual and collective interpretations of various permutations (Kaufmann: 130-49). My opinion follows suggestions that even if the servant songs are about an individual, they point to a prophetic personage who was recapitulating or representing Israel's collective experience (Gottwald: 497; Kraemer: 24). Evidence for such a point of view includes the fact that outside the servant songs, it is the community named Jacob/Israel that is often called "servant" (e.g., 41:8; 44:1; 45:4 and 48:21). Although the collective identity of the servant is emphasized here, I do not dispute the probability that the Second Isaiah's servant motif also devolved onto a single person. Demanding simple choices regarding collective or individual interpretation betrays ambiguities inherent in the symbolism of the servant songs.

Another indicator of poor self-esteem in the faith community can be derived from the observation that the Second Isaiah's poetry often alludes to material found in the book of Jeremiah (Sommer: 32-72). Of particular relevance are passages in which Jeremiah's oracles of doom against Judah and Jerusalem are reversed, including 42:10-16 (cf. Jer 14:2-9) and 54:1-5 (cf. Jer 10:17-25). Both are allusions to community complaints that YHWH, through Jeremiah, declined to answer (Sommer: 38-40, 43-45). These allusions would make little sense unless the community also knew of Jeremiah's prophecies and was thereby conscious of itself as the object of YHWH's wrath because positive intervention was refused.

It was necessary for the prophet to challenge syndromes of self-contempt and self-loathing that had become connected with the collective identity of Israel. It appears that the exilic community was in risk of losing a positive identification with Israel because it was overwhelmed with its self-knowledge as the rejected and disobedient one. As an antidote for this kind of internal pessimism, the Second Isaiah repeatedly addressed Israel as YHWH's servant. This is an epithet of honor and special status (Schoors: 49). In fact, a goal of the prophet's poetry throughout is to get Jacob/Israel to appreciate its destiny as God's servant (42:1-12): one whom God has the power to forgive, redeem (44:21-22) and reward (53:11-12).

Symptoms of Learned Helplessness among the Babylonian Exiles

The stigma of divine judgment and memories of past violation and defeat were not the only sources of Israel's religious distress. The captive community also showed signs of despair because its prayers were not being answered. Basically, the liturgy of lament is a call for help (Miller: 55). But considerable pessimism about the efficacy of this traditional appeal to Israel's deity seems to have developed. We can infer this by noting the main themes of the genre of the Second Isaiah's poems called disputations. They point to those aspects of the prophet's message most resisted by a discouraged Israel (Schoors: 295).

In the disputations, the Second Isaiah asserts YHWH's creative power and his dominion over history (e.g., 40:12-14, 22-23; 44:24-26 and 48:12-14). Other deities are powerless (e.g., 46:5-11 and 48:34) as are the national leaders who trust in them (e.g., 40:15-17, 23-24). Moreover, YHWH's coming salvation (e.g., 55:8-13) will be realized by Cyrus (e.g., 45:9-13; 46:5-11 and 48:12-15) who is described in messianic terms (Schoors: 294-95).

The presence of such arguments implies that the exiles were losing faith in YHWH's capacity to control either nature or history. Moreover, they could not discern in the changing political scene evidence of YHWH's hand. There was, therefore, a double reason for the Second Isaiah to be engaged so extensively with the deported community's traditions of complaint prayer. He had to defend the validity of the genre as well as refer to it as a chief source of the people's disappointment with their God.

From a psychological point of view, it appears that the Babylonian exiles were displaying symptoms of learned helplessness when the Second Isaiah arrived on the scene. Learned helplessness describes a psychological state in which a pessimistic explanatory style interacts with bad experiences to produce difficulties in problem solving (Peterson et al.: 170-71). These difficulties impair persons' ability to effect change in a variety of spheres of psychological functioning: motivation, emotion, cognition and behavior (178). Examples of symptoms of learned helplessness include depression (motivational), low self-esteem (emotional), difficulties in task completion (cognitive) and passivity (behavioral). Some psychological problems faced by displaced persons can be described on the model of learned helplessness (van der Veer: 59-63). It is syndrome that affects groups of people as well as individuals (Peterson et al.: 112-13).

Diagnosing learned helplessness as the cause of various social problems requires that the behaviors it designates must really be learned, and not arise as a result of other causes. Trauma induced helplessness, e.g., is not of the learned variety (Peterson et al.: 228-29). Therefore, it must be argued that additional factors were at work in the community of exiled Israel besides inherited memories of Jerusalem's destruction.

In applying this concept to the Babylonian captivity, one must be careful not to overstate the case. For example, the fifth century Murashu archive shows that the Judean deportees were able to improve their physical and financial conditions over time. What is meant here by the community's learned helplessness has to do with behavioral developments as a result of chronic disappointment with its liturgical practices of lament. A major symptom of the faith community's learned helplessness was reduced motivation to hold onto traditional religious practices and beliefs. This was manifested both in resistance to the prophet's message and fascination with Babylonian religion.

A satisfactory diagnosis of learned helplessness must account for three components. These may be classified under the categories of uncontrollable situations, explanatory style and behavior (Peterson et al.: 8).

Uncontrollable Situations

Situations that cannot be changed by personal actions are said to possess "random contingency." That is, future outcomes do not appear to be affected by any particular course of action that can be undertaken (Peterson et al.: 8). In the case of captive Israel, the uncontrollable situation is to be found in the failure of the complaint psalm tradition to change Israel's reality. As a result, the prophet was called upon to defend his message to a hostile and dispirited community. The exiles both doubted YHWH's power to redeem them and objected to the redemptive role being accorded to the pagan ruler Cyrus (Schoors: 295).

In other words, the crisis arose because of a perception of chronically unanswered prayer. The lack of a visible response by YHWH to the exiles' liturgies of lament left the faith community with the sense that Israel had no control over its destiny: YHWH was either no match for Babylon and its deities or determined to permanently reject them. This perception was not altered in their eyes by a changing political reality that suggested an imminent collapse of Babylonian rule through the agency of Cyrus. The replacement of one foreign ruler by another would hardly have been perceived as evidence of YHWH's hand. Jerusalem's theological traditions are attested in the hymnic genres of Zion and enthronement psalms, both of which clearly connect liberation for the people of God with a Davidic figure (Anderson: 562-66). The proclamation of Cyrus as YHWH's anointed one (messiah) would have seemed ridiculous and no cause for hope.

Explanatory Style

A major indicator of learned helplessness is the presence of a certain kind of explanatory style among those who suffer from it. This manifests itself as a preference for explaining the uncontrollable situation as a result of internal, stable and global causes (Peterson et al: 148-50). Displaced persons showing symptoms of learned helplessness use these same patterns of rationalization (van der Veer: 61).

A distinction between external and internal causation amounts to the degree to which the cause of the problem is ascribed to personal deficiency, rather than the result of some outside influence. Examples of explanations involving internal causes are found in expressions of self-blame and recrimination (Peterson et al.: 154). In the case of the Judean deportees, Israel's lack of salvation was ascribed to the fact that the faith community had a shameful identity (cf. Isa 53:1-3).

Stable causes refer to those perceived as long-term conditions; unstable causes are considered to be valid only in the short-term. Perceptions of stability in the causes of Israel's distress can be found in citations of its complaints: God has ignored Jacob (40:27); forsaken Zion (49:14) and divorced her (50:1). These are motifs of permanent abandonment. By contrast, the prophet portrayed the previous history of trauma as due to circumstances now past. The destruction was necessary because of the sinfulness of the people (e.g., 42:24-25; 43:27-28; 44:22; 47:6; 48:8-10 and 54:74). But the recent past was not the predictor of the future; YHWH was about to do something new (e.g., 43:16-21). Even the old story of the Exodus was to be eclipsed by a new drama of liberation across the desert (Clifford: 498).

Global explanations affect a variety of outcomes and situations while specific explanations affect only a few outcomes and situations. A global explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem would be that YHWH, the God of Israel, was rendered powerless by the Babylonian conquest. In this respect, the prophet was at great pains to affirm the incomparability of Israel's deity (e.g., 40:12-31). It was not Babylon that had global power but the very deity whose power over both history and nature was being called into doubt. A frequent assertion of YHWH's incomparability has to do with his power to predict the course of Israel's history (e.g., 41:4, 21-24, 26; 42:9; 43:9-12; 44:7-8; 45:20-23 and 46:10). By the same token, this power is denied to the gods and idols of Babylon (e.g., 44:24-25 and 47:12-13). Moreover, the conditions of destruction are to be reversed: now Babylon will fall (47:1-15) and drink the cup of judgment that Israel will never have to drink again (51:17-23).

Behaviors

A prominent behavioral symptom of learned helplessness is passivity with regard to one's ability to avoid or change a bad outcome in the future. In this respect, one of the groups known to be prone to learned helplessness are long-term captives who become resigned to chronic loss of hope and freedom (Herman: 74-95). Captive Israel's passive behavior towards its own future was predicated on its doubts about the power of YHWH, its inability to appropriate a positive identity as a faith community and fascination with the religion of its captors. Since these first two traits have already been described, this last factor will be elaborated here.

Attraction to Babylonian religion can be regarded as the other side of the faith community's pessimism about its own practices and beliefs. It was a symptom of exiled Israel's resignation to permanent Babylonian hegemony. The Second Isaiah's poetry devotes considerable space to discrediting Babylonian religious practices. This material often contrasts the ineffectiveness of the conqueror's rites and deities with the power of YHWH. Such arguments may taken as an indicators that members of the exilic community were resorting to Babylonian religious practices in order to compensate for perceived inadequacies in the faith of Israel.

The Second Isaiah's approach to the worship of Babylonian gods and religious practices is well known. Babylon is regarded as a place of servitude to non-gods; YHWH is the sole existing deity (Clifford: 498-99). Despite the extensive lore of Babylonian divination, the utility of its diviners and augurers is rejected (e.g., 44:24-25 and 47:12-13). Only Israel's God has the capacity to predict the future (e.g., 46:9-13). Moreover, YHWH is bringing to pass a defeat of Babylon that its deities do not foresee (e.g., 47:8-14).

The poetry of the Second Isaiah contains a number of polemics against idol worship and manufacture. According to the Second Isaiah, the statues of the Babylonian gods are only pieces of decorated wood and metal which are the products of human workmanship (e.g., 40:18-20, 44:9-22, and 46:5-13). In fact, the Babylonians themselves seem to have had some anxiety about the human origins of their divine statues and attempted to allay such reservations in their ceremonies for "washing the mouth" when the divine image was inaugurated. The Second Isaiah may have perceived this uneasiness underlying Babylonian rituals for the installation of a cult statue and sought to dispute their efficacy (Horovitz: 346-47).

Summary and Conclusions

There is evidence that the Babylonian exiles exhibited psychological symptoms known among groups of persons displaced by violent processes. Trauma symptoms associated with the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem were transmitted vicariously to second-generation survivors through the continued rehearsal of this catastrophe in liturgies of lament. The exiles were burdened with low esteem for the faith community called Israel to which they and the previous generation, which had actually suffered through the violence of the Babylonian conquest and deportation, belonged. The children of the survivors continued to carry their parents' shame as those judged and rejected by YHWH.

As time went on, hopes for divine redemption diminished. This led to syndromes of learned helplessness among the faithful. Both the prophet and the people seem to agree that Israel's future was uncontrollable from the point of view of their own actions. They disagreed whether the future of Israel was therefore without remedy. The faith community adopted an explanatory style that was internal (self-blaming), stable (perceived the problem as chronic) and global (the result of unchallengeable Babylonian domination). As a result, captives were passive with regard to the possibility of a different future for Israel, resigned to permanent Babylonian hegemony (including fascination with the religion of their conquerors) and resistant to the prophet's message.

Symptoms of trauma and learned helplessness can be challenged by counseling strategies that attempt to reframe beliefs related to self-image and world-view (van der Veer: 57). Analogous attempts at reframing are visible in the poetry of the Second Isaiah. Indeed, it can be claimed that one of the primary impulses of the prophet's ministry is to offer the captives a new sense of self and a new vision of Israel's God. Throughout the various genres of poetry, deliverance with more than adequate forgiveness (e.g., 40:1-2) by a universally powerful deity (e.g. 45:54) is promised to servant Israel who has an exalted destiny in the divine economy (e.g., 41:8-13; 42:1-4). As a result, displaced persons from Judah and Jerusalem were called upon to embrace the opportunity of a new Exodus (e.g., 43:1-8). Babylon will be defeated (e.g., 47:1-15); a political messiah is at hand (e.g., 45:1-6) and the journey home will not be arduous (e.g., 42:12-20). Positive aspects of being God's servant people are brought to the fore. The time for punishment is past, and a glorious future is promised (e.g., 52:1-12).

Works Cited

Anderson, Bernhard W. 1986. UNDERSTANDING THE OLD TESTAMENT, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Clifford, Richard J. 1992. ISAIAH, BOOK OF (SECOND ISAIAH). Anchor Bible Dictionary 3: 490-501.

Emmendorfer, Michael. 1998. DER FERNE GOTT. EINE UNTERSUCHUNG DER ALTTESTAMENTLICHE VOLKSKLAGLIEDER VOR DEM HINTERGRUND DER MESOPOTAMISCHEN LITERATUR. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 21. Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck.

Erkman, Fatos. 1992. Support for Rohner's Parental Acceptance-Rejection Theory as a Psychological Abuse Theory in Turkey. Pp. 384-95 in INNOVATIONS IN CROSS-CULTRUAL PSYCHOLOGY. SELECTED PAPERS FROM THE TENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY HELD AT NARA, JAPAN, edited by S. Iwawaki, Y. Kashima & K. Leung. Amsterdam/Berwyn, PA: Swets & Zeitlinger.

Gottwald, Norman K. 1985. THE HEBREW BIBLE--A SOCIO-LITERARY INTRODUCTION. Philadelphia, PA : Fortress.

Herman, Judith. 1997. TRAUMA AND RECOVERY. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Horovitz, A. V. 1995. Make for Yourself an Idol [Modern Hebrew]. BEIT MIQRA 143: 337-47.

Kaufmann, Yehezkel. 1970. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY AND DEUTERO-ISAIAH. History of the Religion of Israel 4/1-2. New York, NY: Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Kraemer, David. 1995. RESPONSES TO SUFFERING IN CLASSICAL RABBINIC LITERATURE. New York, NY/Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Lemche, N. P. 1988. ANCIENT ISRAEL. A NEW HISTORY OF ISRAELITE SOCIETY. The Biblical Seminar. Sheffield, UK: JSOT.

McBride, L. LeBron, & Gloria Armstrong. 1995. The Spiritual Dynamics of Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND HEALTH 43:5-16.

McCann, I. Lisa, & Laurie Anne Pearlman. 1990. PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA AND THE ADULT SURVIVOR: THEORY, THERAPY AND TRANSFORMATION. Brunner/Mazel Psychosocial Stress Series 21. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel.

McEvenue, Sean. 1997. Who Was the Second Isaiah? Pp. 213-22 in STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. W. A. M. BEUKEN FESTSCHRIFT, edited by J. T. van Ruiten & M. Vervenne. Louvain, Belgium: Leuven University Press.

Miller, Patrick. 1994. THEY CRIED TO THE LORD. THE FORM AND THEOLOGY OF BIBLICAL PRAYER. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Meichenbaum, Donald. 1994. A CLINICAL HANDBOOK/ PRACTICAL THERAPIST MANUAL FOR ASSESSING AND TREATING ADULTS WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD). Waterloo, ON: Institute Press.

Miller, J. Maxwell, & John H. Hayes. 1986. A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL AND JUDAH. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster.

Peterson, Christopher, Steven F. Mater, & Martin E. P. Seligman. 1993. LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. A THEORY FOR THE AGE OF PERSONAL CONTROL. New York, NY/Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Pilch, John J. 1997. Psychological and Psychoanalytical Approaches to Interpreting the Bible in Social-Scientific Context. BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BULLETIN 27/3:112-16.

Purvis, James D. 1999. Exile and Return. From the Babylonian Destruction to the Reconstruction of the Jewish State, revised by Eric M. Meyers. Pp. 200-29 in ANCIENT ISRAEL. FROM ABRAHAM TO THE ROMAN DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE, edited by H. Shanks. Washington DC: Biblical Archaeology Society.

Schoors, Antoon. 1973. I AM GOD YOUR SAVIOR. A FORM-CRITICAL STUDY OF THE MAIN GENRES IN IS. XL-LV. Vetus Testamentum Supplement Series 24. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Shay, Jonathan. 1994. ACHILLES IN VIETNAM. COMBAT TRAUMA AND THE UNDOING OF CHARACTER. New York, NY: Atheneum.

Sommer, Benjamin S. 1998. A PROPHET READS SCRIPTURE. ALLUSION IN ISAIAH 4666. Contraversions, Jews and Other Differences. Stanford, CA: University Press.

Stolper, Matthew W. 1992. Muroshu, Archive of. ANCHOR BIBLE DICTIONARY 4: 927-28.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 1997. THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S REFUGEES 1997-1998. A HUMANITARIAN AGENDA. Oxford, UK: University Press.

van der Veer, Guus. 1998. COUNSELLING AND THERAPY WITH REFUGEES AND VICTIMS OF TRAUMA. PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF VICTIMS OF WAR, TORTURE AND REPRESSION. 2nd ed. Chichester, UK/New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Wolff, Hans W. 1981. ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress.

Yamauchi, Edwin. The Eastern Jewish Diaspora under the Babylonians. Pp. 356-77 in MESOPOTAMIA AND THE BIBLE. COMPARATIVE EXPLORATIONS, edited by Mark W. Chavalas & K. Lawson Younger. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

William S. Morrow, Ph.D. (University of Toronto) is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Hebrew Scriptures at Queen's Theological College, Kingston ON, K7L 3N6, Canada (e-mail: morroww @post.queensu.ca). He is the author of SCRIBING THE CENTER. ORGANIZATION AND REDACTION IN DEUTERONOMY 14:1-17:1 (Scholars Press, 1995) and various articles related to the composition of biblical law. He also engages in psychological biblical criticism. Previous publication in this area includes Toxic religion and the daughters of Job (STUDIES IN RELIGION 27 [1998] 263-76).