Focusing on the distinctive use of the term for "idols" in Isaiah 1-39, the book offers a fresh analysis of First Isaiah's rhetorical strategies. Matthew J. Lynch highlights a more pronounced monotheizing rhetoric, suggesting that the text's treatment of idolatry underscores a significant theological message. This examination not only sheds light on the text's linguistic features but also enhances the understanding of its broader implications in the context of ancient Israelite religion.
Matthew Lynch examines ways that the one God became known and experienced through institutions according to the book of Chronicles. Chronicles recasts Israel's earlier histories from the vantage point of vigorous commitments to the temple and its supporting institutions (the priesthood and royal house), and draws out the numerous ways that those institutions mediate divine power and inspire national unity. By understanding and participating in the reestablishment of these institutions, Chronicles suggests that post-exilic Judeans could reconnect to the powerful God of the past despite the appallingly impoverished state of post-exilic life. However, Chronicles contends that God was not beholden by those participating in the temple system. As such, it constitutes a via media between two regnant perspectives on the relationship between biblical monotheism and particularism, one which sees in monotheism an inherent move beyond particularism, and another which sees a problematic appeal to monotheism to legitimate powerful institutions. While Chronicles gives expression to the profound resonances between institutional and divine greatness, it is also careful to resist linking divine power and institutional power in absolute terms.
