Vol. 37:1

Angel examines the consolatory passages embedded within Isaiah 1-12, arguing that these chapters interweave doom and hope in a deliberate pattern. He contends that Isaiah's promises of redemption are conditional prophecies — dependent on repentance — and that reading them within their literary context reveals a sophisticated theology of potential: redemption is always possible but never automatic. The consolations thus function not as unconditional guarantees but as urgent invitations.

Spero investigates the relationship between Psalm 67 and the Temple menorah, noting that the psalm's seven verses and fifty words mirror the menorah's seven branches. Drawing on Kabbalistic and Zoharic sources, he argues that the psalm was liturgically associated with the menorah and that its imagery of light and divine blessing encodes a theology of Israel as a light to the nations.

In the second installment of his study of Ecclesiastes, Dor-Shav probes the book's central term hevel — conventionally rendered 'vanity' — arguing that it means something closer to 'breath' or 'vapor,' gesturing at the ephemeral rather than the worthless. He traces how Kohelet's cyclical worldview and his repeated confrontation with death yield not nihilism but a disciplined embrace of the present moment as the locus of meaning.

Vogel examines Byron's Hebrew Melodies as a form of literary midrash, analyzing how the poet imaginatively elaborates biblical characters and scenes beyond the scriptural text. Focusing on the Saul poems alongside treatments of Job, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and the Psalms, he argues that Byron's empathetic re-readings of the Hebrew Bible engage Jewish interpretive traditions even when the poet was likely unaware of them, producing a body of work that illuminates the biblical originals through a Romantic lens.

Schreiber re-examines Isaiah 53 and the identity of the 'Suffering Servant,' surveying classical Jewish and Christian interpretations before arguing for a reading that identifies the servant with the prophet Jeremiah. He contends that the verbal and biographical parallels between Isaiah 53 and the book of Jeremiah are too precise to be coincidental, and that locating the passage within its historical context dissolves the christological reading while restoring the text's original polemical force.

Shuchat draws on biblical and rabbinic sources to reconstruct the character of Jonah ben Amittai, arguing that his flight from God reflects not cowardice but a principled theological protest rooted in his concern for Israel's standing among the nations. Situating Jonah within the political context of the Northern Kingdom's relationship with Assyria, Shuchat shows how the prophet's rebellion and subsequent repentance illuminate the rabbinic understanding of teshuvah and divine mercy.

Chinitz argues that the Bible consistently values spiritual kinship over biological kinship, tracing a thematic thread from Joseph's treatment of his brothers through the stories of the Judges and into the moral vision of Samuel. He contends that the recurring motif of brothers who fail each other — and strangers or rivals who succeed — encodes a biblical preference for covenant loyalty over family loyalty, a preference exemplified in the Maccabean period by the willingness to fight against fellow Jews who had abandoned the covenant.

Chinitz responds to Malcolm E. Schrader's article "Creation" (Vol. 36:3), questioning whether creation ex nihilo is a physical or logical impossibility and arguing that if it is a logical impossibility then even divine omnipotence cannot bring Something from Nothing.

Reiss examines the troubling story of Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11), situating it within the broader pattern of vows and their consequences in the Hebrew Bible. He argues that the text neither endorses nor glosses over the human sacrifice implied by Jephthah's vow, but rather uses the daughter's dignified acceptance and the narrator's pointed silence to indict a society in which a leader's rash oath could cost an innocent life. Comparative readings from Genesis, Joshua, and Samuel illuminate the uniqueness and tragedy of this episode.