Death Covenant & Refuge in Lies

"Made a Covenant with Death"

"Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, It will not come to us, For we have made lies our refuge, And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves. Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily. Also I will make justice the measuring line, And righteousness the plummet; The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, And the waters will overflow the hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled, And your agreement with Sheol will not stand; When the overflowing scourge passes through, Then you will be trampled down by it. As often as it goes out it will take you; For morning by morning it will pass over, And by day and by night; It will be a terror just to understand the report.”” (Isaiah 28: 14-19 nkjv)

This is one text among several that I have never fully grasped, even after fifty years of bible study. How did the people in Isaiah's day make a covenant with death and with Sheol? Why is it called by the Lord a "refuge of lies"? In previous years I put studying this question more deeply on the shelf for deeper study at a later date, when I could find more commentaries upon it. I had a general idea as to what it was talking about. I connected it with the Occult, with the idolatry of the paganism that often infected the Israelite people. It seems that I am right on that generally, but can now add some specificity thanks to a recent commentary I read on the text and on the question. I have just read through a synopsis of a book titled "The Covenant with Mut: A New Interpretation of Isaiah 28:1-22" by Christopher B. Hays (Preview here or get a download here or read here) and he gives an interpretation that seems right to me.  

So, let me cite from this excellent writing.

Said Hays (emphasis mine): 

"Many difficulties and perplexities in Isa 28:1-22 can be resolved by reading the text as a condemnation of the Judeans' seeking protection from Assyria by means of a covenant with one of Egypt's major deities, the mother goddess Mut. Her close association with the Egyptian throne would have given her the "right" to make a covenant; her protective aspect explains why those in distress would seek her; her motherhood explains why the Judeans who seek her are characterized as children; the prominence of drunkenness and flowers in her cult explains the appearance of those elements in Isaiah 28. She also was associated with the underworld as a protectress of the dead, and it is likely that her name sounded very much like the Hebrew word ‮תומ‬, "death", making Isaiah's double entendre a natural play on words. Other features of the text such as the overwhelming flood refer to the Neo-Assyrians; Isaiah warns that Egypt and Mut cannot protect Judah from their assault."

Not knowing how the Hebrew word for death was pronounced, and not knowing how the Egyptian word for the mother goddess "Mut" was pronounced, I can only take Hays' word for that. He believes that they sounded nearly alike and that the prophet (for God) makes use of that fact so that it becomes a "play on words." This play on words is something which other texts of scripture show has been used more than once in God's communications with men. Also not only the play on words but the words themselves seem to indicate that this covenant with death (with death personified) had to do with some deity that was particularly in charge of that power or realm. 

That Isaiah often warns Israel from depending upon alliances with Gentile nations (rather than upon Jehovah) is evident from his lengthy prophecies. He announced to the disobedient Israelites that God would judge and destroy them for their apostasies and would use foreign nations to execute his ordained destruction and that to think that deliverance would come from an alliance with Egypt or other Gentile nation would be of no help. 

If the goddess Mut was indeed "associated with the underworld as a protectress of the dead," then the text begins to make sense. Those who had made such a covenant with death come to believe that they are safe from disasters, even those calamities that the prophet Isaiah said were coming from Jehovah, saying to themselves as a result of their league with Mut (and any foreign god) "when the overflowing scourge passes through," we will not "be trampled down by it." 

Said Hays (read here)

"Isaiah 28:1–22 gathers together a number of the themes already discussed, such as the association of opponents with the dead, the condemnation of drunken cultic activity, and the assertion of the futility of death cults. Its interpretation hinges on the meaning of the prophet’s accusation that the Jerusalem leaders have made a “covenant with mut .” 

Most scholars would agree that at least Isa 28:7–22 is a response to Judah’s seeking Egyptian support under the Neo-Assyrian threat. The image of floodwaters strongly evokes the Assyrians, as we have had numerous occasions to observe already (Isa 8:7–8; 14:4; also Nah 1:8, etc.). Toward the end of the eighth century, with the seacoast and the former northern kingdom already firmly under Assyrian control, Judah would have had no nation to turn to for support but Egypt, specifically the Nubian Twenty-fifth Dynasty (732–653 bce) and perhaps the Saite Twenty-sixth Dynasty (672–525 bce). Indeed, it has long been observed that a treaty with Egypt underlies the image of the covenant with Death. However, as John Day remarked, “scholars are at a loss to explain satisfactorily why Egypt should be called Death or Sheol.” The fact that Isaiah was playing on the name of the Egyptian goddess Mut resolves this long-standing scholarly dilemma."

It is interesting that Hays mentions "death cults," for this links up the cultic language of the divine denunciation of the death covenant (pact with the devil, so to speak). This is what I have generally believed about the text but never saw the particular cult that the prophet had in view, being Mut (if Hays is right in his thesis). I have generally connected it with paganism, with occultism and idolatry, with those who sell their souls to the devil, those who make a pact with the devil, and of the rituals connected with such demonic religion. They all have their covenants with a god or goddess whereby they think they will be spared the torments of the afterlife. In other words, they have their tokens of the covenant that they have made with the imagined gods of the dead and afterlife. But, more on that shortly.

Said Hays:

"Although much of the work that has been done on this passage is helpful and basically accurate, the passage still seems at best a bit disjointed, due to its mixed imagery of torrential storms, drunkenness, flowers, and small children. This is commonly attributed to rather heavy redactional work in the text; instead, the key to the disparate images is the identity of mwt, a figure that, in addition to making sense of the mixed imagery, should meet certain criteria:

1. mwt should plausibly have been known to a Judean author in the period in which the text was composed; 

2. mwt should be capable of making a covenant, at least figuratively; 

3. mwt should be a figure known to offer protection; and 

4. mwt should have some connection to death or the underworld so that the play on Hebrew mut , “death,” makes sense."

Makes sense to me. Hays shows how his interpretation meets these requirements. Just as Israel at times worshiped this god or that god or goddess, so we can add "Mut" to that list, which list includes these: Baal, the one most known by bible students, Ashtoreth (Astarte) the female deity, Chemosh, Dagon, Marduk, Milcom, Molech, etc. 

Hays continued:

"There is in fact a figure who fits the entire profile: the Egyptian goddess Mut, whose name in Egyptian (Mwt) apparently provided the prophet with an irresistible opportunity for double entendre. Indeed, this would be only one of a number of bilingual wordplays in the Bible, including one in Isa 10:8. The phonology of Egyptian Mwt and Hebrew mwt seems to allow for a wordplay on “Mut” and “death.”" 

I find that very revealing.

Said Hays:

"Mut was also known and worshiped in Isaiah’s Judah. As I have shown elsewhere in greater detail, Mut is well-represented in amuletic iconography in the Iron-Age Levant, with dozens of amulets portraying her having been discovered in Israel and Judah (Fig. 5.4). These are tiny statuettes, just a few centimeters in their largest dimensions, which were either worn on the body or laid atop the corpse at burial (a significant percentage of the Levantine examples were discovered in burial contexts). This indicates that she was sought out by Israelites, Judeans, and others for blessings and protection, much as she was during the same period in Egypt, and that her cult almost certainly had a mortuary aspect as it did in Egypt (see below). She also appears in personal and geographical names such as aximut (“Brother of Mut”; 1 Chr 6:10), ynmut (“Eye of Mut”; CAI 44, an Ammonite seal), yzmut (“Mut is refuge”; 2 Sam 23:31; 1 Chr 11:33; 12:3; 27:35), and hcrmut (“Settlement of Mut”; Gen 10:26). The limited number of names that has survived in biblical texts and inscriptions is in keeping with the religiously conservative naming practices that obtained in that world, but there is enough data to indicate that there existed an active cult of Mut in Isaiah’s time that would have been just as tempting as it was to rely on the Egyptians for horses and military support (cf. Isa 20:1–6; 30:1–7; etc.). There is no doubt that a religious “expert” in the region, such as Isaiah, would have been familiar with Mut. Despite all this, I know of only one other attempt to relate Mut to the Hebrew Bible, that of Manfred Görg, who theorized a quarter-century ago that the references to the “mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting” (Exod 38:8) were an Israelite reflection of the Kushite-Saite cult of Mut, and suggested that Mut or another Egyptian goddess could even have been the “Queen of Heaven” alluded to in Jeremiah 7 and 44. The relationship of Mut to the “Queen of Heaven” cannot be pursued in a thorough way here, but deserves further investigation."

Many people have since the beginning believed in lucky charms, in good luck pieces, in rabbit's feet. I am sure that the people who had made a covenant with death and sheol (grave and with the land of the dead, or what is called in Greek - Hades) had their little totems or amulets which they believed brought them good luck or "fortune." 

The Amulets (lucky charms)

Hays also wrote: "All of this helps explain the common presence of Mut amulets in burials, both in Egypt and Palestine...Details such as the flower garlands and heavy drinking related in Isa 28 were also part of the worship of Mut."

The covenant with death involved putting trust in "lies," in false ideas about how to escape adversities and how to find salvation in the afterlife. And, there are many false religions, false remedies for escaping torment in the afterlife. Many of these adherents of such false religions trust in some rite or ceremony or some magical incantation, or some totem or charm, for escaping the evils of the realm of the dead. Such no doubt is part of what the Lord is condemning in Isaiah 28.

Said one writer on the ancient practice of having good luck charms:

"Amulets are magic charms worn by people to protect themselves from negative energies, evil and injury, and also to bring good luck." (See here)

Nearly all false religions have such good luck charms. There are many among the pagan religions, including Egypt and the nations surrounding Israel. Even some professing Christians (Catholic) wear "St. Christopher necklaces" in order to give them good luck in travel. Some Christians even wear crucifixes for the same reason, they functioning to ward off evil spirits as garlic on the windows wards off vampires. 

"What does God say about people who use amulets? “They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans” (Isaiah 2:6, NIV). The Bible further warns us, “In that day, the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, headbands, crescent ornaments, dangling earrings, bracelets, veils, headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes [and] amulets” (Isaiah 3:18-20, NAS)."

I am sure that those who had made a covenant with death and Hell, with the goddess Mut or some other pagan god carried their little charms and amulets with them and put trust in them to keep them safe in this life and be a ticket for them to escape the ills of the afterlife or of Hell.

"During times of apostasy and idolatry, the Israelites copied the superstitions of the pagan people around them, including the practice of wearing amulets and magic charms. God issued a stern warning to the false prophetesses of Israel who wore amulets. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own? . . . I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare people like birds and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds. I will tear off your veils and save my people from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power” (Ezekiel 13:18, 20, 21, NIV)."

"In addition to wearing amulets, pagan peoples also possessed larger talismans called “teraphim,” or household idols. These miniature images were kept in the home or would be taken along on journeys. The use of these figurines infiltrated Israel, and God was opposed to them. “Moreover, Josiah removed the mediums and the spirits and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book” (2 Kings 23:24, NAS)."

In the next and concluding posting on this passage, we will speak of the ways people deal with the fear of death and how they take "refuge in lies" for relief from such fear, much as they did in Isaiah's day.