Isaiah 4

Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Happy St. Joseph's Day!

Isaiah 4

Again, I feel I am probably reading this wrong, but I can't help seeing a little prophecy for an Biblical approval of women's liberation in the first verse of this chapter.

1 Seven women will take hold of one man on that day saying "We will eat our own food and wear our own clothing Only let your name be given us, put an end to our disgrace!"

I realize I'm perverting it, but I read it several times the first time through just...wondering on that.

Because it feels like the shadow of something.  A small acknowledgement that women don't need men to support them, even way back when.  It's saying, as the footnote tells me, that the ratio of men and women will be so dramatic that women will do anything to avoid the shame of being childless.

This actually doesn't sound quite right to me.  It sounds like they want marriage, not just children, and the creepy polyamory stuff I will not indulge because they don't say that all seven get what they want or that they want a group rate, just that seven of these women who are quite capable of taking care of themselves will all be clamoring just for the propriety of being married.  Just for the cultural approval of a man's protection.

How messed up is that?  How apocalyptically sad is that?

To think we've shamed women sufficiently that they neither need nor love the man they beg to be their husband - but they are so disgraced for being single they will all set upon him and beg him to make them whole and wholly accepted into society?

So, there's a lot there.  Evidence women don't need men, and a sad reminder that they've been made to feel they do by society's standards.