Ontologically Fragile

Leave off from man, who has breath in his nostrils.  For of what account is he?  Isaiah 2:22  Robert Alter

Of what – כִּֽי־בַמֶּ֥ה ki-va me(h).  Stringing together ki (for, but, thus, because, when, . . .), ba (in, at, with, away from, among, upon . . .), and me(h) (what, which, that, how), the Hebrew text implores us to think about the fragility of life.  Man is nothing more than animated dust, and if God should decide to recall the enlivening breath, everything else returns to the earth.

Of course, we all know this.  We know we can’t take it with us.  We know we all expire.  We know we have no guarantees when it comes to life itself.  Death and taxes, as the saying goes, and if you’re really clever, you might avoid taxes, but there is no way at all to avoid the other.  We all know this; we just choose not to think about it too much until an event like what happened on 9-11 just a few years ago reminds us.  In fact, most of the time we act as if the inevitable isn’t certain.  Perhaps that’s why God has to send a prophet to make it clear.

I find it interesting that a statement about our utterly fragile existence is constructed from utterly insignificant words.  I mean ki and ba and me are just an unexceptional conjunction, a preposition, and a pronoun.  Nothing spectacular like raḥûm or ḥannûn or ḥesed, those mighty words that characterize God Himself.  Even at the creation, Man is just compacted ʿāpār .  Just as the verse suggests—piling up a conjunction, a preposition, and a pronoun.

What happens if we look at the Paleo-Hebrew construction of this phrase.  Kaf-Yod becomes “work open hand.”  Beth Mem Hey becomes “house chaos behold.”  If I were being creative, I’d suggest that the whole phrase tells us that Man is the one whose welcoming work reveals the house of chaos.  In other words, it is our task, and our identity, to bring openness (revelation) to the world of chaos where we reside, to finish what God started.  So, maybe those insignificant little Hebrew words aren’t quite so mundane as we thought.  Of course, that doesn’t relieve us from the fragility of life.  We are, after all is said and done, extensions of the spirit of the Lord acting in His creation.  But it does tell us what we’re supposed to be about.  Order from chaos, revelation out of the dark, open-handed involvement.  That’s what counts.

Topical Index: ki, ba, me(h), of what, ʿāpār, dust, Man, purpose, Isaiah 2:22