New Heavens and a New Earth

9. New Heavens and a New Earth

9."새 하늘과 새 땅"

- July 2001

- 2001년 7월


- About ‘the New Heavens and a New Earth’ in Isaiah 65, 66
- ‘The New Heavens and the New Earth,’ the Song of suffering righteous persons
- 이사야 65장, 66장의 ‘새 하늘과 새 땅’ 이란?
- 고난 받은 의인들의 노래 ‘새 하늘과 새 땅’

Isaiah 65: 17~25
17 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. 20 "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. 21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. 23 They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD.

October 1895, the intrigue by the Japanese Government made their hired Japanese men brutally assassinate the Empress Myeongseong, ‘Queen Min’ (The Eulmi Incident). In this precarious situation, what the incoming civilization-oriented pro-Japanese cabinet of Kim Hongjip first attempted was Danballyeong, or the Ordinance Prohibiting Traditional Topknots, or the Act of Short Haircut, which was proclaimed on November 15th of 1895, the 32rd year of the Emperor Gojong. The command was ‘Cut the hair topknots of adult men and discontinue wearing headbands.’

Under the influence of Confucianism, the Choseon Society at the time was where the folks considered ‘tying their long-grown hair in a topknot the symbol of filial piety to their parents, or the essence of human duties.’ The people subject adamantly opposed to the Danballyeong - the Bobbed Haircut Act - by taking it for not a simple cutoff of their hair but a serious molestation on their living bodies. Nationally pervaded by the recognition that the topknot-cutting act was an enforcement taken after Japan’s, it led to anti-Japanese sentiment. The anti-Japanese atmosphere incurred by the high-handed order prohibiting topknots gave rise to patriotic royal armies at various corners of the country, triggering a decisive detonator for royal army movement, as did the Eulmi Incident.

If it were today, it might not matter whether how short or how dyed their hair were in accordance to one’s personal freewill and taste. However, as back then as 1895, the very idea of having their precious hair and topknots cut off felt as shockingly shameful as the world turned towards opposite way.

As a result, the Kim Hongjip Cabinet’s coercion of people into obeying the regulation prohibiting topknots (Danballyeong) which was pronounced with no hard facts of the time taken into account was faced with resistance of the subjects and Confucian scholars, losing its public basis to carry out reforms of government affairs. Instead, the incoming pro-Russia cabinet of Yi Beomjin, Yi Wanyong, Yun Chiho, etc. withdrew the Haircut Act to win the disarrayed hearts of the people. With their hairdos trusted to their personal free will, the Danballyeong finally came to the end of the chapter.

In the process of modernization, the ‘forced short haircut’ was a common fate which East Asian countries had to suffer. With the Meiji Restoration, Japan cut their Chonmage(traditional Samurai topknot), a symbol of chivalry, and wore Western clothes. As a symbol of rejecting the style of Ch’ing dynasty in pursuit of modernization, China cut their traditional ‘Chinese queue(pigtail),’ a symbol of Ch’ing dynasty. Yet, different from ‘Chonmage’ and ‘Chinese queue,’ our ‘Danballyeong,’ the command ‘Joseon(the Korean Empire)’s topknot be cut,’ had a latent variable of ‘Japan’s invasion on Joseon.’ That’s why the ‘forced short hairdo’ left a scar in the history.

At ‘the Japanese annexation of Korea’ 1910, the Korean Empire(Joseon) lost its sovereignty to Japan and fell to a colony of Japan. Because of politicians’ blunders, the sovereignty of the country was lost, and yet the ‘patriotic spirit’ of Chosen people was the last to be lost.

At this time, what Japan did was enforcement of the ‘Danballyeong’ once again.

At the time, some of high-class officials, intellectuals and men of wealth in Old Seoul were sagacious(?) enough to quickly accept the colonial policies of the Japanese government and was changing their appearances to the conditions of those days. Although sovereignty was taken over, it was the same land, the same folks as yesterday.... According to what one thought, there would have been a lot of their ways to live on. Old Seoul turned into another name of Old Seoul, the name of Joseon turned into the Korean Empire, and Japan founded their government-general for colonial rule. Ironically and virtually, most of them survived in high government offices whose names only changed.

As Joseon turned into the name of the Korean Empire, the Western things began to enter in a degree. Very few persons who were called ‘men in Western clothes’ took the place of traditional dress into Western clothes and took the place of traditional topknots into glossily-oiled bobbed hairdos. But then it was in one’s voluntary accordance to a changing situation within and without the nation, not by enforcement of government (Note: the execution of haircut order by Kim Hongjip Cabinet was too mandatory, while the haircut issue in pro-Russia cabinet was rather voluntary).

However, to take away not only Joseon’s sovereignty but also the patriotic spirit after 1910 Japanese annexation of Korea, Japan shouted for ‘Naeseon Ilche (=Japan and Korea are One Entity)’ and began oppression over Joseon. ‘Danballyeong(=the Topknot Cutting Edict)’ too was out of the policy of elimination of patriotic spirit rather than modernization of Joseon. Modern society thinks little of how to wear their hair and clothes in fashion, but until early 1900, all the countries as well as Joseon had lived in the food, clothing and shelter of their own living styles and conditions. So, different from fashion of now, Joseonese outfit or dressing style of that time was inseparable from racial sentiments of Joseon. 1910 ‘Topknot Cutting Edict’ was ‘spiritual crackdown’ by Japan to change the sentiments the Korean had.

In the same area of Far East, China, Korea and Japan have each own individuality in dress and outfit. Topknots alone, the shape of Joseon is distinctly different from that of China and Japan. By cutting the topknots representative of racial trait and changing traditional clothes into Japanese common costume, they tried to forcibly unify Koreans’ outward appearance into the ‘Naeseon Ilche(=Japan and Korea are One Entity)’ Japan shouted for. It was an outrageous outlet of greed that outward appearance first be into one nation regardless of Japan or Joseon.

At this time, high officials and wealthy intellectuals of Old Seoul conformed easily to the current state of affairs. Namely, they sagaciously went for the current of the times. Yet, Confucian scholars in local provinces refused to compromise. Our country’s traditional sentiments has taken it that one of the last to be done was a child dying in front of his parents and killing themselves. The folks who had lived their entire lives in this way of thinking were faced with the ‘Danballyeong,’ or the Topknot Cutting Edict. Here and there were appeals and entreaties flying in. There were some cases where they even committed suicide.

In the eyes of the civilized gentlemen in Old Seoul at the time, they were merely ‘stupid, hardheaded, slow-witted and self-opinionated oldsters.’ Yet, those who best endeavored to truly keep the ‘Spirit of Joseon’ were these scrupulous, close-minded and self-principled elders.

Asked which persons are clever, one might refer to persons who chance what is going on and know how to change their appearances and ideology in accordance to the changing society. But then, asked who have been faithful to the Spirit of Korea, it is those rural Confucian scholars who lived in anonymity in the hinterland who died against the Japan’s colonial policy in the time of ‘Danballyeong’ edict.

The bible has much in common.

BC 597, Babylon invaded the Kingdom of Judah (Zedekiah, last king of Judah the South Kingdom, BC597~586). Babylon set fire on and destroyed buildings in Jerusalem, killed folks, and even demolished the castle and the Temple (see Jeremiah 52, Lamentations). When the Babylon army withdrew, they captured very important persons in the country such as the King of Israel, high officials in the government, Scribes and high priests (see 1 Kings 25, Jeremiah 52:24~30). Bible writers put emphasis on important characters of the government like King Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. 2 King 25:21 expresses this situation as ‘Judah went into captivity, away from her land.’

Now, there are numerous people remaining on the land of Judah.

On the land of Palestine, poor peasants and low-class priests alone remained (Jeremiah 52:16). The petty farmers left behind on the land are Israelite people, and even if chief priests - mostly low priests left behind - did their best in their duties, the Bible has no record about their lives, or is negative about them if any. Bible writer writes Israel’s history stopped at 586 B.C.

The writer found the context of history not from farmers and low priests who were left on the land farming and serving God but from King Jehoiachin, and dignitaries, Scribes and chief priests who were tagged along to Babylon 597 B.C. (including prisoners 586 B.C.). Ezekiel was one of prisoners in 597 B.C. and Nehemiah and Ezra are descendants of these prisoners held to Babylon.

Look at the case of Korea as well.

Japan in colonial period of Korea tagged along the Crown Prince Yi Eun(posthumously King Yeong) to Japan at his age of 11, 1907, who were the son of King Gosong and who was supposed to be enthroned to the Korean Empire in succession to the last successor of Joseon king Emperor Sunsong. Afterward, out of three finally nominated Japanese Crown Princesses at the time, Japan intentionally forced him to marry Lady Yi Bangja who had been deprived of the right of Crown Princess after her being diagnosed ‘not capable of producing offspring, or her possible sterility,’ for the nominally plausible cause of so-called ‘Japan and Korea are One Entity.’

To stop the seed of Yi Dynasty was Japan’s policy of marriage.

By any chance if King Yeong(Yi Eun), the last Crown Prince of the Korean Empire and His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince ‘Yi Gu,’ the son of King Yeong and Lady Yi Bangja and the rightful successor to the Korean Empire had returned to his homeland at the age of 15 at 1945 liberation of Korea and if they the descendants of the Korean Empire in unison had shouted out ‘We are the legitimate descendants of Joseon,’ then, would the people, social leaders and fighters for national independence who would have been mutely endured in so many distresses and great suffering on their motherland, would they have passed it over?

Looking at the Bible, it reads: the returning homecoming people claim their legitimacy, holding their dominance over the existing people on the land of Judah.

Why don’t you too turn the table to think?

Like in the parable of the Return of the Prodigal Son, the older son who worked all along in the home, grumbles a lot of complaints. Say, if somebody comes back in a few decades of years before them who remained behind, taking great pains in farming, giving birth to children and serving God in their own way, and reproaches them in claims “Release the land,” “Stop now serving gods,” “You are not pure Israelites, so do not attend the restoration of the castle and the Temple” and “You so mixed with Samaria that you are unclean,” then who would like it (see Nehemiah, Ezrah)? While it felt bad and unfair, the existing settlers couldn’t but lose the dominance to the homecoming prisoners.

In Korea too, the men of yesterday who used to receive stipends from the Korean Empire acted themselves shrewdly as stipend-receivers from the Japanese Government, as soon as the sovereignty was turned over to Japan. Even though they too were Joseon people, were born in Joseon and lived in the realities of Joseon, even if they are sad about the situation of Joseon, considering they received stipends from Japan, were they as brokenhearted as the peasants in distresses on the native land? Or, were they treated as unfairly as those patriotic young ablaze with chivalrous spirit?

Also, when the Japan government systematically oppressed Joseon, the Joseonese high officials who received stipends under the Japanese Government, which side did they take? What side high officials was on was the Japanese Government. If they later made defenses of “It was against their will,” the history itself judges their opportunist behavior. Even if it had been for their livelihood, their behavior is none of pride to boast about. On the contrary, it is judged, the patriotic spirit of village seniors who had to kill themselves in full of lamentations to a fault is still greater.

In this sense, it is true, Ezekiel, Nehemiah and Esther in the Bible too received stipends and got help to a degree from the authorities of Babylon that ruled over Israel at the time.

If one get a stipend and help from another, he has no option but to understand the situation of the other to a degree. Under the help of ruling country, they attempted to restore the Temple and rituals in Israel. It was also their duty to leave racial spirit and ritual functions for God down to posterity. And it is written to have been endowed in the grace of Jehovah God.

Yes, it is.

In the sovereignty that is already taken away, it is important to maintain somehow nation’s specific racial ceremonies as God-chosen people.

However, the farmers and low chief priests having remained on the land who disregarded the homecoming folks, calling them dirty, who are they? This way, when there occurred people who were ignored out of dominance, there were many words to say. Moreover, it was at the time the situation under colonial rule of another nation. How did they express what they had in their hearts? Examples of our poets’ under 36 years of colonial rule:

- Yi Yuksa
1) And thus after numberless years have passed again.
A superman may come to this wilderness
On the back of a white horse.
Gladly I will let him cry out with abandon.

- Yi Sanghwa
2) The land no longer our own -
Does spring come just the same
to the stolen fields?
Along the paddy path like the part in my hair
Where blue sky and green fields meet and touch
I walk and walk as if in a dream.
....
However, now -
The land no longer our own,
I am afraid even spring might be stolen.

- Han Yongwun
3) Thou art gone.
Ah, thou art gone, whom I love.
....
Ah, even though thou art gone,
I have not sent thee away.
The song of love that cannot resist its own rhythms
Whirls around thy silence.

- Yun Dongju
4) Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or on a pleasant day
I also have to keep another line of confession in the book.
- At that time, at so young age
How did I make such a shameful confession?

The above poets are The Wilderness, Does Spring Come To The Stolen Fields, The Silence Of My Beloved and The Book of Confessions, what we learned in our middle and high school textbooks.

These writers of poems are not the people who received stipends from Japan Government under the colonial days. Just, they were poets and pioneers. They were not guaranteed positions of high. They were not chasing for snobbish success. Just because feeling sorry for the realities of their own country, they put the hurt emotions into ‘poetic language.’ More than emitting, they tried to inspire the racial spirit and cherished prayer for independence into the minds of Joseon’s rising generation.

Look, however! They are poems that sang like the sovereignty of stolen country, racial spirit and cherished prayer for independence. But they are avoiding direct expressions. The reason was, the days they worked and lived in was where they have been being repressed under the oppression of Japan colonial rule. While they tried to enlighten racial spirit and shouted for Joseon folks to stand together one another till the very day of independence, what speech they used is the words like the wilderness, the stolen fields, spring, my beloved, the book of confessions and such.

Taking lessons of them in middle and high school, our national citizens looked into what truly the poets wished to speak through these poems as well as subjects and materials. In the study of a poem of 70~80 years ago, even the persons of the same country cannot tell the linguistic lines of the poem until they learn such as the situation of the poem-written days and the thought of the poet. Even collegians, doctors and poets of foreign countries reading these poems, yet without learning the contemporary history the poems belonged to, they cannot discuss the true meaning of the poems and the spirit of the poets they wished to express in poetry.

The characteristic of my sermon is, by analyzing the times and circumstances of the text, and by getting at what the text intended to say, that I am letting you know. You know the word ‘grace’ you use often? When a certain minister on the pulpit touches you listner’s feeling by adjusting his speech of words eloquently, you say ‘you’ve got grace.’ Yet, ‘grace’ the Bible says is used, while ‘God’s words are descending’ in the times and circumstances different on each text, and according those words when the believer of Him repents, change one’s past behavior, refreshes one’s lost will, thanks God, and so forth. Among others, when one listens to God’s words, repents his past sins and returns to God, right this amazing occasion the person has got grace in the words, it can be judged (see Ezra 10).

Today’s text Isaiah 65:17~22, 66:22~24 must be interpreted under the premise that the oppressed people expressed their feelings through poetic language according to their specific times and circumstances. King and high officials of the government, Scribes, high priests were said to be drawn to Babylon. After the fall of Babylon, and as soon as Cyrus the Great of Persian authorities emerged, things were turned. He released displaced citizens from Israel and other countries, giving freedom to the realm of religion (see Isaiah 44:28). Among the homecomers from Persia were the descendants of high chief officials.

Towards the low priests who had remained home doing services in the Palestine, there is a conflict that the returners come and say like: “Now that we are come, you duties are done. From now on, the services for God is to be done by us. And you are confined to simply errands.” (see Nehemiah 10:38~39, 13:22, Ezra 8) If it is you that had been the low priests who remained serving God earnestly, how would you have felt?

In Isaiah 55~66 and Zechariah 11~14, as low priests got treated poorly and harshly in that situation, there are many parts that sang their desperate and bewildered sentiments into ‘eschatology’ of future.

Though so were our country’s poets, the prayer lines of the low priests (Levites), pushed aside through abuse by the other same priests, who are wishing that the colonial ruling nation must be perished and the ugly high priests receiving stipends from their ruling nation brag themselves of their own being self-righteous and lofty must also be perished if ‘the very day of the Lord’ comes, these same prayer lines are the contents of today’s text.

Instead, there contain expressions of will and yearning for the future that ‘those who rely hope only upon Jehovah,’ or ‘faithfully upright persons’ wish to live with their spirit heightened and forever along in the presence of the Lord almighty, if only the day of Jehovah comes.

Isaiah 65:17~25 is the ‘song of faithfully upright persons’ who are yearning for this reign of God the Supreme. To analyze the contents, it means such as Jerusalem that never be invaded, people of joyfulness, the place where knows neither wail nor cry, where everybody lives till 100, where no one has their home taken away, where one can eat their own growing grapes, where no grape of their own is looted, where one’s own pains is returned to oneself, where one lives with their next generations, where God is responding even before them looking for God, and furthermore beasts don’t hurt each other. These are the contents of the Chapter 65:17~25.

What is associated with these words is the opposite situation, that is, the society of such as folks who underwent any dreadful war, people that are defeated in war, the vineyards that are looted, families who died young and got scattered, the place where one’s pains are not returned, where no response of God is met, and where one has to struggle against another to survive.

To analyze more rightly, it should be surmised these hard facts lie in the historical background of the text. The world opposite to these realities, namely, the place where justice, compassion and reign of Jehovah are present, such world is ‘the New Heavens and the New Earth,’ says the text.

Look at Isaiah 66:5. If you look at verse 5 ‘Your brothers who hate you, and exclude you for My holy name ... Yet they will be put to shame,’ it will help you understand ‘Those (high priests) who make believe holy and the opportunists who are arrogantly snobbish accepting Gentile offers shall fall to the ground (verse 17).’ And along comes the futuristic word of proclamation, those who have relied only upon Jehovah, shall God choose them and make them heavenly chief priests (verse 21). Only these celestial beings shall qualify for worshiping in the presence of Jehovah, says the Bible.

That is to say, in the place Jehovah alone reigns, the place where the persons that are worshiping only Jehovah do divine services to Jehovah shall be ‘the New Heavens and the New Earth,’ it is written (Isaiah 66:22~24).

So much so, ‘the New Heavens and the New Earth’ in the text of Isaiah is the song of their aspiring new world in which, the realities where the singing poets are carrying on are now despised, distressed and plundered by power nations, the people who are looking at their children dying in the ravages of war, and the ‘lives of folks who are weary on the land,’ such gloomy things don’t be repeated and fundamental human rights be guaranteed.

Here are now conclusions:

‘The New Heavens and the New Earth’ in Isaiah 65:17~25 and 66:22~24 is, it is the place all variety of absurdities in the mortals’ world - especially, the world in which the faithful are abused while merely some time-serving opportunists who came to terms with Persian authorities take the leadership - shall perish on ‘the Day of God Almighty,’ and where all the tears of the faithful who have been looking only up to God shall be wiped away to their comfort, says the Bible (Revelation 21:4).

The harder the realities are, the more hardships there are in realities and the more disrespected the faithful are in realities, truly the more ‘righteous’ is the one who waits only for God’s justice, compassion and His reigning, says today’s text down to us.

Dear everybody too, may thou have this faith of the faithful.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” (Isaiah 65:17)

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