192 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
once... distinction and radiation together [Absonderung und Ausstrahlung zu-
gleich/פרישה והקרנה כאחת].”^76 When Israel is commanded in Exodus to be a “holy
nation,” and when the later writers of Leviticus record the demand “You shall be
holy as I the Lord your God am holy,” the sense is that Israel must be distinct,
“not in order to withdraw itself from the world of nations, but in order to influ-
ence them by the radiance of its way of life.” This is the sense in which, in Amos,
Israel was to be the first fruit of God’s harvest. Imitation of God’s righteousness
and lovingkindness would influence the other nations to choose this path them-
selves. In Isaiah, holiness has the special political meaning of “keeping still.”^77
The root ש-ק-ט is rare in verb form. It occurs in four places in Isaiah, and these
instances constitute “the core of his theopolitical teaching.” When Isaiah and his
son first come to Ahaz, he tells him: “Be calm, and keep still, and fear not, neither
let your heart be faint because of these two tails of smoking firebrands,” namely
Aram-Damascus and Samaria (Isaiah 7:4). “Fear not” is the usual advice of court
prophets to kings, a common assurance of success for a kingdom that has God
on its side, but coupled with “keep still” and the silent presence of a boy named
Shear-Yashuv (which means “a remnant shall return”) it takes on a new meaning.
More than two decades later, in a different political situation (with Judah seek-
ing an alliance with Egypt against Assyria), Isaiah refines his earlier pronounce-
ment: “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” (30:15). Buber tersely comments: “This is a reliable political
program for the people living at the time in Canaan.” If the community life is
rightly ordered according to prophetic admonition, keeping still and refusing of
Great Power politics “lends the people a downright magnetic power.”^78 When this
advice goes unheeded, with the Assyrian host at the doorstep of Jerusalem, Isaiah
repeats these words of YHVH: “I will keep still, and look on my foundation place
like a clear heat above light, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest” (18:4).^79 This
means that YHVH does not intend to involve himself in the war; Israel should
keep still, as he does, rather than wage war in the hope that he will take their
side. If Israel imitates YHVH in holiness, righteousness, and lovingkindness, by
keeping still, by distinction and radiation, then “the work of righteousness shall
be peace, and the effect of righteousness keeping still and confidence forever”
(32:17).^80 The choice belongs to the people, and Isaiah says to the king of Judah
who acts in its name: “If you will not confide, you will not abide” (7:9).
All this is, for Buber, a matter of obedience to the will of YHVH as well as
of realist political thinking. In contrast to those moods in which he denies that
visible historical success is instructive, here Buber explains Isaiah’s aversion to
“covenant politics” as a matter of sound political judgment:
Covenant policy is not suitable for such a people from a religious point of view,
because it puts the people under obligations and in a position of dependence,