Living Like Trees

A fascinating, but often overlooked, prophecy of the future that the living God is preparing for God’s people is Isaiah 65:17-25. This prophecy is a part of the book of Isaiah written at the time of the advent of Cyrus, the Persian conqueror, and the return of Jews to Jerusalem from their long exile in Babylon (Isaiah 40-66).

Eschatological prophecies in the Old Testament generally can be classified as being promises either of a messianic age in history or of an apocalyptic new age beyond history. Isaiah 65:17-25 seems to depict a future beyond history since it begins with a promise of “new heavens and a new earth” (65:17), and it ends with an allusion to the messianic prophecy of Isaiah of Jerusalem of the future of a new age in which “the wolf and the lion shall feed together” (65:25; 11:1-9). However, in between these statements, the prophecy of Isaiah 65:17-25 seems to be about a future in history with promises of a city at peace (65:18-19), good health and long life (65:20), and people enjoying the work of their hands building houses and vineyards (65:21-22).

In the church, Old Testament prophecies are read under the intense pressure of subsequent divine revelation in the coming of Jesus Christ, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the message of the apostles. Hence the promises of the future at the end of the book of Isaiah are understood by Christian readers as being ultimately about “the world to come” (Nicene Creed) whose future is secured by what God has already done through Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord.

In his main reference to Isaiah 65:17-25 in Church Dogmatics, IV. 1, Karl Barth states that the “New Testament community” knows what this vision of the future means because Christians have turned away from the old things before Christ and turned toward the new things in Christ, for “in His death its own death and that of the world is, in fact, already past, and in His life its own life and that of the future world is before it.”

In his commentary on this text in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VI, Christopher R. Seitz observes how “Genesis language and context are pivotal in the construction of this unit.” The main thrust of the divine promise of this new future is that “blessing stands (65:23) where curse–over ground, creation, procreation, and human labor–ruled before.” In his theological reflections on the text Seitz says that the vision here “may strike us as wishful thinking or as the prophet’s rhetorical excess” until “we consider the work of God in Christ.” As St. Irenaeus of Lyons had taught, Christ came to recapitulate “the entire story of God’s dealing with the chosen people” until finally there is a “transformation of all created things.” 

Given the Christian tradition of interpretation of the future envisaged in Isaiah 65:17-25 as a new age beyond history, much of the this-worldly imagery in this text is viewed as metaphorical. Talk about the joy of Jerusalem (65:18) would point toward “the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:2 NRSV). All infants living a full life and old people living to at least one hundred years (65:20) would be seen as a gesture toward hope in everlasting life from ages to ages affirmed in the New Testament. The building of houses and planting of vineyards and the long enjoyment of labor (65:21-23) would indicate the everlasting satisfaction of abundant life in the new Jerusalem beyond history. The promise of the wolf and the lamb feeding together, the lion eating straw like the ox, and the removal of all hurt and destruction (65:24-25), which evokes the messianic prophecy of Isaiah of Jerusalem (11:1-9), would symbolize the consummation of God’s creation in the transformation of all things in the coming again of Jesus Christ and the final outpouring of the Holy Spirit by the will of God the Father.

One of the most interesting statements in Isaiah 65:17-25 is the clause in verse 22:  “…for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be…(NRSV); “For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people…” (NIV). The Septuagint (LXX) scholars judged that this statement was an allusion to the “tree of life” in Genesis 3:22, which gave the first humans the power to “live forever,” and therefore they translated the clause in Isaiah 65:22 as follows:  “For according to the days of the tree of life, so shall be the days of My people…” (English translation of the LXX in The Orthodox Study Bible). The interpretation of this statement by the Greek translators long before the coming of Jesus Christ shows how Isaiah 65:17-25 was understood by many Jews as a promise of a future beyond history in an everlasting new age, and naturally it fit with the later interpretation of Christians in light of divine revelation in Christ by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. 

While Christians understand Isaiah 65:17-25 from the perspective of later divine revelation as being about the future God is preparing for God’s people beyond history, even the original presentation of this text was probably meant to be understood as a vision of a new age beyond history since the text depicts the establishment of a blessed new creation of paradise which overcomes the curses upon humankind in the old creation according to the narratives about God’s creation in the book of Genesis. Therefore those statements in Isaiah 65:17-25 which, if taken literally, depict blessed conditions in history–in this world, in the present age–most probably were originally intended to be heard as symbolic images of life in a new world. 

Yet there is still a message in Isaiah 65:17-25 about God’s purposes for our life here and now in this life. Granted that the images of life in the text are intended to be interpreted as metaphors about everlasting life in a new world, it is still important to pay attention to the literal meaning of the images themselves. After all, if these images are intended to symbolize a blessed future life, then they also represent a vision of the best of life that this world has to offer now.

What are the primary concerns of the vision of Isaiah 65:17-25? They are happiness, health, long life, building houses, planting vineyards, and civil peace and order.

These are the kinds of concerns which matter to ordinary people in every time and place. They do not matter so much to revolutionaries, activists, and social agitators of various types–all of whom are obsessed with radical agendas which can never be implemented in the real world of the here and now.

One is reminded of Paul’s counsel to his co-worker Timothy: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4 NRSV). Intellectuals have often sneered that this statement demonstrates a bourgeoisie, domesticated spirituality of a post-Pauline church, but ordinary people who have more sense than intellectuals know how precious it is when we can live “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” and be free “to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Even understood literally, there is something beautiful about our days being like “the days of a tree.” In many ways, trees are among the most amazing creatures on earth. They probably evolved from stick-like creatures in the ocean that were thrown by waves upon the shore where they developed roots in the soil and then spread inland. The roots of trees are intertwined with one another so that they provide mutual support in storms, share nutrients, and mutually convey information. They are rooted in one place where they live slow, long lives. To the superficial and uninformed, trees may seem boring, but to those who know and understand them, trees are our majestic companions on the good earth. And we too are blessed when, in this life, we may live slow, long lives rooted in one place so that our days are like “the days of a tree.”

Timothy W. Whitaker is a Retired United Methodist Church bishop who served the Florida Area.