| Like the rest of the HB, the book of Isaiah is replete with linguistic and thematic puns. These puns may have functioned to provide mnemonic tools, literary artistry, or plain fun for oral performance. However, in many cases, they also allude to subtle double meanings, as though the author/redactor is both pronouncing explicit messages and hinting at secret codes. If that is the case, then readers are invited not only to comprehend that which is plain and obvious but also to decipher those hidden notions and thereby discover surprising and subsurface messages. The present study thus intends to explore instances of literary puns (e.g., Isa 1:3-4; 21:1; 22:1, 5; 40:1-5; 42:6; 46:1-2; 49:6-8; 55:3; 60:19-20; 61:7-9) and to expound their complex meanings, which suggest new, alternative, or even opposite implications in the text. It is further hoped that these select examples of puns may illustrate notable redactional and intertextual tendencies within the book of Isaiah as a unified whole. |
