insight is crucial to the way in which von Rad has structured the two volumes of his Old Testament Theology, with the hinge coming out of Isa. 43:18–19: Do not remember former things. Behold, I am doing a new thing.3 Up until this point in the faith and history of Israel, the poets and prophets had continually turned back to the old traditions and articulated their enduring relevance.4 Von Rad has seen that these three poets, more than any others, do not base their appeal on the continuing power