Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah (review)

Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 373 Reviews literary form, transmission history, and intertextuality of the Scripture’s prophetic and apocalyptic literature. Stephen L. Cook Virginia Theological Seminary Alexandria, VA 22304 SCook@vts.edu MIXING METAPHORS: GOD AS MOTHER AND FATHER IN DEUTERO-ISAIAH. By Sarah J. Dille. JSOTSup 398. Pp. xiii + 200. New York: Continuum, 2004. Cloth, $105.00. In her published dissertation, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah, Sarah J. Dille brings a fresh perspective to the study of metaphors in the Hebrew Bible. Because the Hebrew Bible is filled with an immense variety of metaphors, many studies analyze only one particular metaphor (e.g., God as king) in a given corpus. Although some studies may consider more than one particular metaphor in their study, they, nevertheless, for the most part evaluate those particular metaphors in isolation . Dille, however, recognizes that metaphors do not exist in a vacuum and often are intertwined with other metaphors. She proposes that a metaphor cannot be understood without considering the other metaphors with which it is inextricably joined. Dille introduces her methodology in chapter 1 and explores the ancient Israelite background for kinship and birthright metaphors in chapter 2. In chapters 3 through 7, she presents her analyses of five sets of mixed metaphors for God from five passages from Deutero-Isaiah: the woman in labor and warrior (Isa 42:8–17, chap. 3), the redeemer and father (Isa 43:1–7, chap. 4), the artisan and parent (Isa 45:9–13, chap. 5), and the mother and husband (Isa 49:13–21, chap. 6), and the husband and father (Isa 50:1–3, chap. 7). In chapter 8, Dille provides a summary of her analyses and thoughts on the future of the study of metaphors. Dille, along with many of the recent studies of metaphors in the Hebrew Bible, primarily utilizes George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s theory of conceptual based metaphor (Metaphors We Live By [Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 2003]) because it has become arguably the leading method for understanding metaphors. In contrast to older and classical theories, they propose that metaphorical expressions are to be understood through the metaphorical concepts underlying them. Dille employs their concept of coherence in her analyses to show how mixed metaphors convey their messages. She explains coherence as the semantic overlap between two Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 374 Reviews different metaphors. She also notes that these areas of coherence are significant because they are the highlighted (salient) points of the metaphors’ meaning. Because metaphors are semantically multivalent, Dille’s use of coherence theory is an extremely helpful tool for determining a metaphor’s meaning. Although Dille’s main goal in this study is to explore the coherence (similarities) between disparate metaphors, she also spends considerable time showing how metaphors interact synergistically in their differences to produce more complex metaphors. For each of Dille’s selected passages, she provides translation and commentary to explain the form, poetic structure, literary context, and message. Dille analyzes the individual metaphors in each of her passages by examining these metaphors in their occurrences in the Hebrew Bible and (when possible) in other ancient Near Eastern texts. Scholars will not have problems with the majority of Dille’s analyses of the individual metaphors; many of these analyses are comprehensive and insightful. Her analysis of the warrior and woman in labor metaphors (Isa 42:8–17) demonstrates some of her best and most intriguing results based upon her focus on how metaphors cohere and interact synergistically. She identifies these two metaphors as cohering in their notions of power and strength. Although the image of a laboring woman is not a prototypical image of power, she argues that this image may be used iconoclastically to portray power (e.g., Mic 4:9–10, 13; pp. 64–66). As a result of the coherence, this passage’s image of a birthing woman in her wailing pains no longer conveys the conventional elements of weakness and subduing pain, but instead, it focuses upon the strength that God musters (i.e., the blowing and gasping; Isa 42:14) in order to give birth to a new era (pp. 68–73...