The Prophet Isaiah urges the people to “beat their swords into plowshares” and learn war no more (700s BC)
About this Quotation:
The prophet raises two very interesting problems. The first is the economic problem of how to convert the capital goods needed for the production of war materiel (“swords”) into the capital goods which are needed to produce consumer goods (“ploughshares”). The second is the moral and political problem of getting the will power and the political constituencies to do so.
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: David Hume argues that “love of liberty” in some individuals often attracts the religious inquisitor to persecute them and thereby drive society into a state of “ignorance, corruption, and bondage” (1757)
- 2008: John Locke believed that the magistrate should not punish sin but only violations of natural rights and public peace (1689)
- 2007: Frédéric Bastiat and the state as “la grande fiction à travers laquelle Tout Le Monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de Tout Le Monde (1848)
- 2006: A.V. Dicey noted that a key change in public thinking during the 19thC was the move away from the early close association between “peace and retrenchment” in the size of the government (1905)
- 2005: Adam Ferguson notes that “implicit submission to any leader, or the uncontrouled exercise of any power” leads to a form of military government and ultimately despotism (1767)
Other quotes about Religion & Toleration:
- 2009: Noah Webster on the resilience of common religious practices in the face of attempts by the state to radically change them (1794)
- 2009: David Hume argues that “love of liberty” in some individuals often attracts the religious inquisitor to persecute them and thereby drive society into a state of “ignorance, corruption, and bondage” (1757)
- 2009: St. John, private property, and the Parable of the Wolf and the Good Shepherd (2ndC AD)
- 2008: John Locke believed that the magistrate should not punish sin but only violations of natural rights and public peace (1689)
- 2008: Job rightly wants to know why he, “the just upright man is laughed to scorn” while robbers prosper (6thC BC)
- 2008: William Findlay wants to maintain the separation of church and state and therefore sees no role for the “ecclesiastical branch” in government (1812)
- 2006: In Ecclesiastes there is the call to plant, to love, to live, and to work and then to enjoy the fruits of all one’s labors (3rdC BC)
- 2006: Pierre Bayle begins his defence of religious toleration with this appeal that the light of nature, or Reason, should be used to settle religious differences and not coercion (1708)
- 2006: Voltaire argued that religious intolerance was against the law of nature and was worse than the “right of the tiger” (1763)
- 2004: Voltaire notes that where Commerce and Toleration predominate, a Multiplicity of Faiths can live together in Peace and Happiness (1764)
- 2004: Samuel warns his people that if they desire a King they will inevitably have conscription, requisitioning of their property, and taxation (7th century BC)
- 2004: The Psalmist laments that he lives in a Society which “hateth peace” and cries out “I am for peace: but when I speak they are for war” (1000 BC)
27 September, 2004
 | The Prophet Isaiah urges the people to “beat their swords into plowshares” and learn war no more (700s BC) |
The Gospels draw heavily on the Book of Isaiah for a utopic view of the world. The famous "swords to plowshares" quote (Isaiah 2:4) is but one of its famous proclamations:
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4).
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
- The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah andJerusalem.
- And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
- And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
- And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
- O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
- Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.
- Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:
- Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
- And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.
- Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
- The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
- For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
- And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,
- And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,
- And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,
- And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
- And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
- And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
- And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
- In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
- To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
- Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?