Dave and Isaiah

In the mornings I read Isaiah and during the day I hear Dave Matthews. I found it interesting to compare Dave's "When The World Ends" with Isaiah's eschatological thoughts in chapter 2,1-5:

When the world ends Collect your thing You’re coming with me When the world ends You tuckle up yourself with me Watch it as the stars disappear to nothing The day the world is over We’ll be lying in bed I’m gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall We will rise as the building’s crumble Float there and watch it all Amidst the burning, we’ll be churning You know, love will be our wings The passion rises up from the ashes When the world ends When the world ends You’re gonna come with me We’re going to be crazy Like a river bends We’re going to float Through the criss cross of the mountains Watch them fade to nothing When the world ends You know that’s what’s happening now I’m going to be there with you somehow, oh... I’m going to tie you up like a baby in a carriage car Your legs won’t work cause you want me so You just lie spread to the wall The love you got is surely All the love that I would ever need I’m going to take you by my side And love you tall, ‘til the world ends Oh, but don’t you worry about a thing No, 'cause I got you here with me Don’t you worry about a Just you and me Floating through the empty, empty Just you and me Oh, graces Oh, grace Oh, when the world ends We’ll be burning one When the world ends We’ll be sweet makin’ love Oh, you know when the world ends I’m going to take you aside and say Let’s watch it fade away, fade away And the world’s done Ours just begun It's done Ours just begun We’re gonna dive into the emptiness We'll be swimming I’m going to walk you through the pathless roads I’m going to take you to the top of the mountain that’s no longer there I’m going to take you to bed and love you, I swear Like the end is here I’m going to take you up to I’m going to take you down on you I’m going to hold you like an angel, angel I’m going to love you I’m going to love you When the world ends I’m going to hold you When the world is over We’ll just be beginning...

Isaiah 2:1-5 1 The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. 5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The parallels are astonishing:
Both are caught in an eschatological context - the world has come to an end, and both firmly know it. The calm acceptance is almost bewildering while the reader/listener perceives the situation out of the perspective of a narrator who communicates to a second person. Great mountains are for both Dave and Isaiah signs and symbols for the great power that will shake the earth. The world is changed forever, never to find it's original setting again. The laws of nature are broken, once and for all.

However, where the parallels are striking, the discrepancies are awesome:
For Dave there is no greater 'entity' controlling the disaster. Mountains fade to nothing, whereas for Isaiah the great mount is the point of desire, for the One reigns there. For Isaiah the point of knowledge begins - he seeks to go to the mountain to learn. For Dave, all knowledge is worthless, as it will soon surpass. Where Yahwe is the one to whom all flow and who leads all nations, Dave is the one who leads his beloved through absolute demolition. Where Isaiah see as a result of the end, peace and harmony, Dave sees destruction and it seems, relief of nothingness.

We see two different perspectives on the end of the world. One found in the context of the biblical canon of the Christians, the other in the context of post-Enlightenment and post-Modernism. Man has taken the seat of God and watches the world's end, before he is eaten up himself; 'Agape' has turned into 'eros'; light has turned into darkness; a new beginning has turned into destructive annihilation. I am not saying this in a pejorative sense but rather in a descriptive one.

The end of the world has in my eyes both components: day of destruction and creation, separation and reunion.