6 The Battle for YHVH

The Prophetic Faith

Thus has YHVH, the Holy One of Israel, spoken:

In turning away and in rest you will be saved,

In keeping still and in confidence will be your strength.

But you would not.

—Isaiah 30:15

This is a reliable political program for the people living at the time in Canaan.

—Martin Buber

I give thee a king in Mine anger, and take him away in My wrath.

—Hosea 13:11

Introduction: A Theopolitical History of Israel

Of Buber’s biblical studies, The Prophetic Faith receives the most attention.^1
Harold Bloom called it Buber’s “finest single book,” and Gershom Scholem said
that in it Buber “seems to me to have reached the high point of his efforts to
understand the Bible as a great dialogue.”^2 Its section on Isaiah, “The Theopo-
litical Hour,” has been the subject of recent treatments by Nitzan Lebovic and
Christoph Schmidt.^3 Nonetheless, there are relatively few studies of the work as
a whole, its place in Buber’s corpus, and its contribution to his theopolitics when
considered with his other biblical studies. Here I argue that it is a deeply con-
flicted work. It is the capstone to the theopolitical history of Israel that begins
with Moses, continues with the rise of the monarchy, and concludes with the
Babylonian Exile (Buber virtually ignores the Second Commonwealth), yet it is
riven by the tension Buber finds in the development of the messianic idea over
time.^4 According to the original plan of Das Kommende, this should be the point
at which the origin of the doctrine of messianism in Israel emerges with greater
clarity. An ideal has been presented, and the departure from that ideal—indeed,
the failure ever to fully realize it—has been painstakingly charted; what follows
is the adaptation to new circumstances and the transformation of the ideal in the
new situation. What was only touched on in Kingship of God and Moses is here