Later text
Isaiah 28:21BSB
For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim. He will rouse Himself as in the Valley of Gibeon, to do His work, His strange work, and to perform His task, His disturbing task.
Intertextuality Pair
Isaiah 28:21 → 2 Samuel 5:20
Allusion
Earlier text
So David went to Baal-perazim, where he defeated the Philistines and said, "Like a bursting flood, the LORD has burst out against my enemies before me." So he called that place Baal-perazim.
Significance
Isaiah 28:21 names "Mount Perazim" (הַר־פְּרָצִים, har-Peratzim), directly recalling 2 Samuel 5:20 where David defeated the Philistines at Baal-perazim and declared "Like a bursting flood, the LORD has burst out (פָּרַץ, parats) against my enemies before me." However, Isaiah shockingly reverses the direction of divine intervention: the LORD will now rise up against His own people in His "strange work" (מַעֲשֵׂהוּ זָר, ma'asehu zar) and "disturbing task." What was once a celebrated victory for Israel (God fighting for David) becomes a template for God fighting against a disobedient Jerusalem. The passage calls judgment on God's own people "alien" precisely because it inverts the expected pattern of divine warfare on Israel's behalf. The "alien task" clause is rendered in Hebrew as עֲבֹדָתוֹ נָכְרִיָּה (avodato nokhriyyah), doubling the estrangement — this act is as foreign to God's normal dealings with Israel as Perazim's victory was intimate.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Contrast
Linked Mentions 1