THE APPEAL

This article is, more than anything else, an appeal to hermeneutic humility. It invites us to be still, to sit quietly in self-restraint and self-critical inquiry at the feet of our elders, Jewish and Christian, from whose deep well of biblical reflection many centuries ago we may draw and drink, but only if we are quick to listen and slow to speak. As concerns our subject, the Song of Songs, those who respond to this unusual appeal will gain a strangely different and, depending on their perspective, an immeasurably richer appreciation than has grown popular in the last two centuries.

So that readers may beware, I intend in what follows to reexamine and challenge those approaches to the Song which understand it primarily or exclusively as a manual of biblical guidance on godly love, sex, and marriage and which defend that interpretation on the claim of its superior literal or plain-sense approach over against nineteen centuries of allegorical or spiritual(ized) readings. I will contend that the popular view rests on flawed assumptions and careless generalizations that represent a serious misstep in the history of interpretation, with sobering implications for how interpreters perceive themselves, their material, and their task. I shall argue that this modern understanding and novel use of the Song is not only out of tune with most of Israel’s and the Church’s interpretive tradition, a point on which there is no debate at all, but that this situation calls for longer and more humble reflection than it usually receives.

I am not unaware of the risks involved in this undertaking or of the protests it may elicit from those who with elation have read a book or heard a talk on the Song and learned “how to do it” from the Good Creator himself. Many have been blessed that God in grace and wisdom saw fit to counsel his creatures on the intimate side of life, long before psychologists and sex manuals got around to doing it, and that his counsel coincides closely with the professionals’ advice about candles and scents and negliges and imagination and mutuality and positions. Perhaps it was in reading the Song that someone was prompted to pursue engagement and marriage in the first place, or it was the Song that reignited the flame of marital love gone cold. I can appreciate the objections; I once voiced them myself, confidently teaching and preaching in a direction I now consider grounds for repentance. No honorable purpose will be served in blaming the many sources to which I trustingly looked at that time; I assume responsibility for my own interpretive missteps. Slowly I am learning of the temptations and dangers of taking ourselves too seriously, especially those of us who preach sermons, or present lectures, or publish articles, or write commentaries, or conduct seminars.

My intent is not to judge those who persist in singing the Song of Songs, or Canticles, to use its Latin title, in what now sounds strangely off key to my ear; but I do appeal that much will be lost if we fail to adjust our ears and voices to the sense of the “music” in its “classical” arrangement, as earlier interpreters “performed” it. This puts demands on readers and recipients alike in the form of a less dismissive and more modest deference to those whose agendas were not constrained by the concerns of modernity. Hence my plea for humility–humility to admit that even our best attempts at interpretation may be hindered by our own tendency to stand in the light, casting shadows upon the scriptural page shaped by the outline of our own history and perceived needs. In this way the Song comes to sound very much like what we had hoped, but–and this is the disturbing part–very little like the message most of its interpreters through history heard when they read it. Of course, our progressive and triumphal culture has found ways to justify our ignoring almost all interpretive tradition as unenlightened, unsophisticated, and unscientific, the stuff that nourished personal and churchly needs in olden days, before folks learned how to do real exegesis (i.e., the way we do it). A humbler spirit, on the other hand, at least prompts in us the possibility that we may be the ones out of step and off key, that other voices in the interpretive choir, including our exegetical forebears, actually got it right. Deep suspicion about our own rightness can be a good thing; repentance of arrogance always is.

For those who are still with me, I intend in Part One to set forth a thesis in the context of a short discussion on ancient and modern approaches to the Song of Songs. Part Two will identify several lines of evidence that I think underwrite this thesis and will suggest some of the blessings of re-tuning our interpretive efforts accordingly.

THE CONTEXT

In broad strokes, prior to (a) the Renaissance of the 15th century, with its interest in historical origins; (b) the Reformation of the 16th century, with its emancipation of interpretation from ecclesial authority; (c) the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, with its elevated confidence in the critical powers of human reason to anchor the Bible’s meaning by “neutral” or “objective” (read: “scientific” or “historical”) canons of judgment rather than by a confessed “rule of faith”; (d) the modern advent of a sexually liberated culture, both churchly and worldly (if they are still different); and (e) the corresponding pressures felt by the Church to address the convulsive state of marriage and to withstand the tide of promiscuity with a corrective but positive word from God–prior to all of this the Song of Songs was heard in a different key from how it has come to be read and understood in most circles today. These factors, in other words, helped create a climate in which the near-unanimous readings of the Song well into the 19th century would be tested and largely discarded, to be replaced by updated approaches that assumed exegetical superiority and claimed a more relevant voice in addressing the current social situation in Church and world.

Specifically, before all these influences came to play, the Song was highly esteemed and exceedingly praised in both Synagogue and Church not because of how it expressed and taught God’s view of romance and intimacy, but principally (not secondarily) because of how it was understood to give expression, in descriptive language, to something both ideal and real about the bond of mutual love between the biblical Lord and his people, whether YHWH and Israel or Christ and the Church. There are even reasons to believe that among those responsible in God’s providence for the admission of books into the biblical canon, it was this consideration–the Song’s religious or theological value–that secured for it a place in Israel’s and the Church’s Scriptures. Responding to those who disputed the canonical holiness of the Song in his day, Rabbi Aqiba (d. AD 135) insisted that “the entire age is not so worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is holiest of all” (m. Yad. 3:5). Again, “Had not the Torah been given, Canticles would have sufficed to guide the world” (Midr. ’Ag. Shir).{en2} (These convictions led Marvin Pope to quip, “If Aqiba was concerned about secularization of the most holy song, he would be spinning in his grave at the present-day use. . . .”3) From early on (at least by the 8th century) the Song had become a part of the annual Passover liturgy, doubtless because of its understood associations with YHWH’s great love that liberated Israel from bondage (not merely, as some have suggested, because of its springtime poetry). And it makes complete sense that leading voices in the early Church, like Origen of Alexandria (AD 185-254), pronounced the benedictions they did on the Song, supported by a ten-volume commentary and several homilies; or that Jerome (AD 331-420) regarded the Song as an appropriate culmination to a mature Bible reading program, where it was less likely to be misunderstood, since, “though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal”{en4}; or that during the later patristic period and into the Middle Ages, Christian interpreters wrote more works on the Song of Songs than on any other biblical book, including Romans and Galatians. For example, over an eighteen-year period in the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153) wrote 86 sermons on mostly chapters 1 and 2, before death prevented his completing the task!{en5}

Behind this uncommon regard among the Synagogue’s rabbis and the Church’s fathers and among the later Jewish and Christian commentators lay a consensus in premodern exegesis: The Song of Songs speaks a message and depicts a reality that demands more of the interpreter than what is easily read off the page as a timeless celebration of human love and mutual desire. On the other hand, “The near-unanimous answer of interpreters in the modern period is that [finding anything other than sensuous poetry] is ‘allegorical exegesis’ and that such exegesis is a bad thing.”{en6} The attitude that we have advanced beyond the old approach and that we know better now is reflected in a widespread assumption that earlier interpreters both failed to understand literal interpretation and the importance of plain meaning (the way we understand these things) and lacked the tools for scientific and historical research (the way we do it); or at least their understanding of the Song was obviously faulty (compared to our correct view).

The usual narrative goes something like this: Indebted to the Jewish community and its allegorical practices (Philo is representative) and influenced by Platonic and Gnostic dualism (which polarized spirituality and sexuality), the Christian Fathers and their followers simply misread the Song. It was a case of letting Christian sensitivities, embarrassed by the Song’s physical content, get in the way of plain-sense reading. Failing to see that God loves his creatures as whole beings, not just as temporarily embodied spirits, and that the Song exists to affirm and celebrate the gifts of sensuality and sexuality, the Church suffered some 1800 years, deprived of God’s best secrets about these aspects of our creatureliness, until the modern period discovered what the Song really means and saved the day. If this overconfident caricature of earlier exegetes were not so far off the mark, both in how it construes their motives and methods and in how it assesses (or fails to assess) its own assumptions and procedures, we might be amused at its naivete and disregard it as absurd.{en7} But the widespread circulation of this tragic misrepresentation continues to define matters in both church and academy–equally shocking, for different reasons.

In any event, freed now from the bondage of faulty premises and procedures, by the mid-19th century and continuing to the present, interpreters have pompously proceeded on their liberated way, swiping any spiritual meaning from the text as “a kind of eccentric archaism” and taking swipes at any reading other than human love and desire as “incredibly arbitrary.”{en8} This now is the truly incredible part: In due course, modern exegetes were able to unleash an astonishing assortment of divergent views and approaches to the Song–dramatic, cultic, natural/physical, psychological, political, satirical, feminist, anthological–each modifying or replacing its predecessors by responding to their perceived shortcomings in accounting especially for the origin of the material and how it ought be read (now that we know better than those who used to read it). We can only wonder in amazement at the sundry proposals spawned by this objective hermeneutic and its confident conclusions, as expressed recently, in “the natural, ordinary and in my view self-evident meaning of the Song,”{en9} over against all those arbitrary approaches of earlier interpreters. The multiplicity of proposed alternatives renders illusory the promise of interpretive progress. The correct interpretation turns out to be whichever one the individual interpreter prefers.

There is no need now to rehearse these novel replacements, as surveys and discussions pose all too shamelessly in the corpulent front pages of virtually every commentary on the Song and in most volumes on Old Testament introduction. One does not have to look very long in such sources to see that approaches nowadays fall into three broad categories: (1) There are the few who think the earlier interpreters were on the right track in seeing the Song as essentially theological, but whose “eccentric archaism,” once it has been labeled “allegorical,” constitutes for that reason alone grounds for immediate dismissal by those in the next category. (2) There are the many who fancy themselves champions of the literal method and meaning, who are freed from earlier hangups and are now able to read the Song straight, for its plain sense, as God’s guide to celebrating a godly sexual relationship and experiencing marriage the way it should be. (3) There are the uneasy centrists who locate themselves safely in the second camp (job security may be at issue) but who wish also to salvage, perhaps in a footnote or an appendix, at least a whisper of something distantly metaphorical or illustrative of the Lord’s relationship with his people, something in the category of theological implication or analogy.

We cannot now review the history of interpretation and its complexities in more detail than we have done; but for reasons that will become increasingly clear, the situation we have described raises a number of disturbing concerns, with too much at stake simply to ignore.

THE THESIS

Here then is my thesis, in two parts:

(a) The Song exists first and foremost, not secondarily and illustratively, to advance the scriptural vision of the Lord’s eschatological oneness with his people, most ideally celebrated in the language of love and marriage. This is the Song’s canonical plain sense.

(b) Whatever the Song means to say about human love, sex, and marriage, that message is actually subordinate to and derivative from its primary theological function.

In Part Two of this discussion, I intend to set out various lines of evidence in support of this thesis. In what immediately follows I would like to sharpen our focus on several points at issue that, if God grants us the grace of humility to which I am appealing, could open up fresh and fruitful paths toward renewed readings of the Song. Those paths and those readings, I submit, will be more in tune with interpreters who pondered the Song long before modern exegetes had a go at it, which tune, I suggest, may still be capable of carrying an important message, however strange its sound to those who now sing in a key that would have sounded equally strange to the Song’s earlier interpreters. Moreover, in the end, all anxieties that the Song might not turn out to sponsor the interests of human romance and intimacy will in fact be offset by an even richer reward, now funded by a safer and sounder hermeneutic than the popular approaches are able to produce.

First, regarding part (a) of my thesis, it is entirely possible that so-called allegorical approaches did not all (or, not at all) gain popularity among earlier interpreters for the alleged reasons assumed and charged above, but because those interpreters operated with a certain conception of the material and of the Bible and of the nature and structure of the world and its history as a whole that simply was not afflicted with the worries that would later (after the developments outlined above) become distractions. Put more sharply, it may be the case that earlier interpreters have become the target of cheap shots fired by those who assume a more solid exegetical and metaphysical footing than their predecessors, but whose assumptions reflect nothing more than the philosophical mindset of modernism and its self-acclaimed superiority to premodern exegesis. The theological presuppositions and cultural assumptions of others are always more apparent than our own.

To illustrate my point, a recent commentary asserts, “The allegorical interpretation was kept alive by the force of tradition, and in the post-Enlightenment period, this was not adequate to sustain it.”{en10} When we inquire what it might be that counts in the post-Enlightened period as having more exegetical force than the Church’s interpretive tradition, the very next paragraph supplies an answer: Since it was discovered in the 19th century that love poems from the ancient Near East share many of the Song’s themes, poetic devices, and metaphors, and since these comparative texts were nonreligious, “this fact led many [including the author himself] to conclude that the Song of Songs was also human love poetry.”{en11} But what if the “force of tradition” reflects a certain reading strategy congruent with the peculiar construal of the material within its native context in the canon of Israel’s and the Church’s Scriptures, including a certain conception of the way Scripture is understood to function in terms of its theological relevance? Relocating the Song’s context of meaning to the secular love poetry of Mesopotamia and Egypt as preferred and superior to that context given it in Scripture, where early interpreters orientated their exposition, and redefining the Song’s function along lines analogous to that love poetry, is an illustration of what Samuel Sandmel once called, unsympathetically, “parallelomania.”{en12}

Second, regarding part (b) of my thesis, it is entirely possible that the Song does mean to instruct God’s people on what the wise Creator intends love and marriage to look like, but that its instructions are imparted to us in a manner exactly upside down from how they are popularly conceived and presented–not, in other words, as something direct or immediate, simply to be read off the page as a manual or guidebook (which represents a serious misunderstanding of the genre, as I will show in Part Two), but as something indirect and mediated, as a reflection of what runs beneath the surface and gives it shape. What the older interpreters seemed to grasp better than their modern counterparts is that a prior and grander metaphysical reality (the theological story of the Lord and his people) creates and controls the textual imagery (the overt story of human lovers).{en13} It is not that the story about human love and desire might perchance cause us to think of a story about God and his people, as an obligatory afterthought, but the other way around. The Song clothes the primary story about God and his people in the dress of human love and desire, which look a certain way because God is fitting them to resemble the “connotating form”{en14} of his very own relationship with his people. In that case, to read the Song as principally or exclusively about what is being fitted (the poetic dress) rather than what it is being fitted to (the shaping reality) is to constrain the interpretation in a manner that leaves a whole lot of things unaccounted for (as we shall see in Part Two). We could say that the visible “earthly” language of the Song focuses on the invisible “heavenly” reality that human love and desire are meant to figure, or at least this appears to be how the earlier interpreters saw things.

The idea at work here should be familiar to us from the way Paul declares his own focus in a famous passage where his explicit point goes regularly overlooked: “This mystery is great, and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32, italics mine). The literal or plain-sense reading of Ephesians 5, then, does not center on the attitudes and behavior of wives and husbands, but centrally, not secondarily, on the theological reality which God created and shaped marriage to fit and reflect. Or at least that is what Paul tells us he is talking about, as we should have discerned, even without his making the point explicit, from the way he developed his argument from chapter 1 onward. On this understanding, approaches to the Song which see nothing more than human love, sex, and marriage represent a serious hermeneutical confusion and a resultant superficial reading–akin to man’s looking on the outward appearance. Of course, once the exegetical task has been inverted in this way, the appending of theological implications to an otherwise nontheological text, on the back of an illustration or metaphor or analogy, shows itself arbitrary and contrived, which is ironic since these are precisely the criticisms brought by “literalists” against those they brand as “allegorists.”

Finally, a note of caution about this very matter of allegory. Discussions critical of so-called allegorical interpretation are not infrequently weakened by definitional imprecision, unacknowledged assumptions, sweeping generalizations, and popularized misinformation. It is entirely possible that the best way to talk about the Song is in fact as an allegory, that it functions the way allegories are meant to function, in the vein of other biblical allegories (e.g., Judg 9:7-21; Ezek 17:1-21; Gal 4:21-31; cf. Hos 1–3; 1 Cor 10:1-5, 11). In that case its plain-sense meaning would then be its effective allegorical meaning, its meaning as an allegory.{en15} Strictly speaking, literal and allegorical are not mutually exclusive categories. The problem arises when a text not meant to be an allegory (as a genre category) is read as though it were (allegorically, as an interpretive strategy), especially if such a reading seeks hidden spiritual meanings limited only by the interpreter’s ingenuity, notwithstanding the absence of any hint that the material means to function that way. That in the history of interpretation allegorical approaches did sometimes get out of hand I am not disputing, although it does occur to me that, as regards the Song, allegorists are not the only ones to whom this worry applies. Some of the currently popular literal(ist) teachings are equally, if not surpassingly, inventive and arbitrary, including those which ride the confident waves of post-Enlightened certitude and enjoy the enthusiastic backing of experience and expert counsel. The perceived excesses of allegorism are not overcome in literalism, and it is patently naive to assume that a case for literalistic reading finds traction in perceived allegorical excess. By carefully wielding the proverbial knife that cuts both ways, we will refrain from measuring the best expression of either approach against the worst expression of the other. It is largely the failure to observe this caution in a humbly informed and cautious way that occasions the present critique.

At the end of the day, the question to be answered on this matter is this: If the Song is an allegory, why would that be such a bad thing? In response to that question, it simply will not do to repeat dogmatic denials (“It is not an allegory.”{en16}) solely on the basis of (a) modern aversions to traditional understandings, (b) appeals to nonreligious love poetry in the ancient world, (c) the absence of any explicit allegorical signal within the Song, (d) worry that then interpretation would be thrown to the whims of imagination, beyond the controls of objective and verifiable criteria, or (e) the complaint that then the Bible would be bereft of its only full-scale celebration of love, sex, and marriage. On multiple counts, logical and otherwise, none of these amounts to any argument at all against the Song’s being an allegory; and yet these pretty well exhaust the grounds on which that conclusion is reached and advanced in both scholarly and popular treatments. Moreover, every one of these responses conveniently sidesteps the question with which we began, for which I am not certain any other answer exists than this: If the Song were an allegory, it would be a bad thing because then the criteria of interpretive certitude, the hallmark of historical criticism, would have failed us, which means also that some of our sermons and lectures and books anchored to the assured results of modern exegesis would have to be revised. To be found out as the one singing off key in any choir can be terribly embarrassing.

THE CHALLENGE

If this discussion has succeeded in raising doubts that allegory is a bad thing and that those who see in the Song first and foremost a message about human romance and intimacy are interpreting it literally while everyone else is interpreting it nonliterally, then I will consider it an important gain. This appraisal arises from concerns over the misunderstandings and misrepresentations, still propagated as established, that have bedeviled any hope of reading the Song the way it was once read–and the way it should continue to be read.

With that last line–the one in italics–I do fully intend to throw down an unsubtle gauntlet that will not be lost on those who look now for hope and reason amidst this plea for humility. They might well be asking: If, as you have suggested, the dominant approach to the Song through most of the Church’s history should not be so quickly abandoned and discarded, and if, as you assert, there is too much at stake for the Church simply to imbibe the hermeneutic of modernist criticism and the tottering premises on which it rests–if, in other words, the vast majority of interpreters until the 19th century were onto something when they read the Song as somehow descriptive of the Lord and his people–where then, someone will ask, is the hard evidence for such a reading within the biblical book itself? It is an important question, and a fair one, even if uttered naively, as if modern exegetes now patrol the pool of criteria on what counts as hard evidence once the long tradition of the Church has been judged inadmissible. In a style that would do the Reformers proud, with a Cartesian twist, we demand proof–the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text. This seems to be the conviction behind one recent commentator’s bombastic claim: “The book itself has no signals that it is to be read in any other way than as a [human] love song. No one can dispute this fact.”{en17} Especially the second sentence should be deeply troubling to us all, given the long and well-populated history of interpretation, with which the author is fully aware. It is never made clear to me exactly what would qualify as ‘signals’ in this author’s mind, although it seems doubtful that what I present next would meet his criteria. But with due respect, I think there are sufficient signals to regard both of his assertions as simply false.

Of course, it will not do for me now to claim that the burden of proof lies on the shoulders of others, although I do strenuously hold that position for reasons that should be obvious. It is time rather to take up the challenge and to deliver what has been assumed nonexistent and to contest what has been judged indisputable. I shall attempt to do so in Part Two, where readers can make up their own minds on whether or not I have finally succeeded.

PART TWO: SIGNALS AND SIGNIFICANCE

THE TASK

On the one hand, the task before us is straightforward: to supply data in support of the conviction that the Song means to be understood as expressing something about the love relationship between the Lord and his people, as it was read and heard almost without exception throughout the history of its interpretation until the modern period. On the other hand, our task is daunting, as it challenges the widespread assumptions and assertions of most recent interpreters, for whom no basis exists for the Song’s being understood as anything other than biblical love poetry in celebration of godly love, sex, and marriage. We are drawn to one side by nineteen centuries of interpretive tradition which sounds strange, arbitrary, archaic, and mystical to modern ears, and pulled to the other by a recent consensus that would have sounded equally strange, arbitrary, novel, and superficial to earlier readers.

Part One was an attempt to explain why I find the claims of modern interpreters pompous and presumptuous and their arguments unconvincing and overreaching. In that discussion it was not my intent to defend all the earlier interpreters and their understanding of specific lines in the Song or to imply that we cannot, through further study, gain new insights into the Song. My purpose there was simply to register an appeal for hermeneutic pause and humility and to set forth in historical context a twofold thesis. It will be my purpose here to present some of the indications that I think fund that thesis: (a) that the Song exists first and foremost, not secondarily and illustratively, to advance the scriptural vision of the Lord’s eschatological oneness with his people, most ideally celebrated in the language of love and marriage, and that this is the Song’s canonical plain sense; and (b) that whatever the Song means to say about human passions and desires, that message is actually subordinate to and derivative from its primary theological function. Against the heavy-handed and supposedly indisputable claim that the Song contains no signals at all that it should be read in any other way than as human love poetry, we now consider some of the opposing evidence as well as some of the blessings and benefits that are forfeited on this novel reading.

KEY SIGNALS

A considerable number of signals suggest a reading more in tune with the earlier interpretations than with their recent replacements–things unaccounted for if we read the Song chiefly or solely on the surface, as a story of human lovers rather than the theological reality that gives that story its shape.

1. The Genre of the Song

I agree with those who argue that “one’s interpretation of the text will be driven from beginning to end by what position one takes with regard to the book’s genre.”{en18} Indeed, there is not to my knowledge another biblical book in the interpretation of which one’s presupposition about what it is or what we should read it as factors more decisively in the outcome. This observation about the importance of the book’s genre is widely recognized among commentators, who almost uniformly go on to conclude that on this criterion the case is locked up in favor of the Song’s belonging to the genre human love poetry, widely represented in the ancient world.

My argument is not that the genre question is the wrong one–it is the right question–but that the discussion has already been framed much too narrowly when it focuses on the book, segregated from the wider genre category–the genre canon. Exiling the Song from its native hermeneutical home has the effect of relativizing definitive theological judgments that are rendered on the material by virtue of its canonical function. In other words, when modernism neutralizes the hermeneutic impact of the canon on grounds of form-critical criteria assumed informing, the outcomes are predictably more reflective of Enlightened interests and agendas than of earlier conceptions of the material. This illustrates the classic genre-category mistake of atomization. What needs to be stressed is that the Bible typically subordinates and takes over existing genres with parallels in the larger world (e.g., genealogies, law codes, proverbs, letters) and puts them to unique, not strictly equivalent, service in the interests of its own peculiar theological concerns. Simply put, the fact that the Song bears some resemblance to nonreligious love poetry in the ancient world does not make the biblical Song nonreligious.

The genre question that demands answering focuses on the definitive effect of the Song’s participation in the shape and fabric of Israel’s and the Church’s Scriptures. This question goes much deeper than the obligatory nod given canonical considerations in those many studies which eventually get around to acknowledging that, yes, the Song is in the canon, where it offers a book-length discussion on God’s view of love, sex, and marriage. This sort of unreflective concession simply fails to factor the hermeneutic impact of the canon as constraining a book’s context of meaning and ensuring its role in an overall thematic strategy introduced in the Bible’s earliest pages and concluded in its last. On this understanding, it might be debated whether love, sex, and marriage–or anything else for that matter–are ever presented in Scripture outside a larger theological context which defines their meaning. A reading strategy that comprehends the relevant issues appraises a book in terms of how it promotes the biblical vision of God and his people, not simply how it sanctions a point of special interest to humans (the celebration of romance and intimacy), even if this should qualify (which it does) as properly a matter of biblical concern. The position taken here then does not set spirituality and sexuality at odds. Rather, it focuses solely on the question: How does the Song participate in and contribute to the Bible’s overall narrative from creation to new creation? Almost no interpreter for nineteen hundred years answered that question skin-deep. The context of understanding (the canonical story) and performance (the Synagogue and Church) demanded a look beneath the surface.

So, then, have we arrived at the conclusion that the Song of Songs is an allegory–overtly talking about human love and desire but, in its canonical context, meaning to say something about the divine-human relationship dressed in that language and imagery? I do not see how an argument can be made against this possibility. Certainly none of those usually offered (see Part One) carries any conviction stronger than its own say-so. For example, if the simple observation that the Song nowhere claims to be an allegory qualifies as insurmountable evidence against its being such, then I am unsure what we shall do with a great many portions of Scripture which fail to identify themselves to us by formal literary labels. In this connection it is important to note–let the reader understand–that allegory was not rejected in the history of interpretation because it failed the text itself, but because it threatened the confidence with which historical criticism insisted on its ability to identify precise historical referents over against what it considered arbitrary “pious mystification.”{en19} Recalling an earlier doubt as well, were it not for the perception that so much stands to be lost if the book does not simply guide us, as a manual, in our love life, we could wonder if the attacks against allegory would ever have grown so shrill.

But have we then loosened or lost our grip on interpretive certitude? Perhaps we should ask why that would be such a bad thing, especially since modern alternative approaches, as we have seen, can hardly claim to make good on a better promise. Wisdom invites us to weigh carefully whether the larger fabric of Scripture is as deficient in illuminating its own meaning as many have hastily assumed, and whether different but non-incompatible understandings of the same line in the Song may not be as problematical to interpretation as modern interpreters insist, especially given the nature of poetic description (on which see next). For example, what really would be lost, other than doctrinal certitude, if the “sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts” in Song 1:13 represents the Shekinah between the two cherubim that stood over the Ark of the Covenant, or the fragrance of Christ between the two Testaments, or remembering Christ’s crucifixion in one’s heart (i.e., between one’s breasts), all represented in Jewish and Christian interpretation? Perhaps the Scriptures do not always mean to conjure up just one possibility, or to be anchored with as much confidence as pride demands.{en20} In this connection, I am forever amazed that even the most outspoken defenders of a single-correct-meaning hermeneutic find ways (under different terms, of course, like ‘application’) to make biblical texts say what clearly their surface language does not say. And I am puzzled that even the most ardent opponents of allegory wish to retain a theological message for the Song (under terms like ‘implication’ or ‘illustration’), having severed the hermeneutic limb on which that conviction safely perched for nineteen centuries.

2. Poetry and the Song

Closely related to the issue of genre, the Song of Songs consists in lush Hebrew love poetry that oozes with all the finery that makes poetry so delightfully poetic.{en21} This too is generally acknowledged in the commentary literature, where very often crucial differentiations are more carefully spelled out than popular treatments reflect. One of the issues variously handled in technical studies but almost everywhere confused in nonspecialist uses focuses on the nature of poetic textual depiction, with far-reaching implications on how the Song means to function. It is part of the genius of poetic imagery to offer a textual depiction of something beyond the image itself. John Sailhamer gets at this issue succinctly and clearly:

[T]he book is poetic and, as such, much of its visual imagery is intended to portray themes and ideas that lie outside the range of the poetic images themselves. There is no question that the book is a poetic drama of a lover’s longing for his beloved and of her willing complicity. To suggest, however, that this drama of two lovers is, in fact, the intent of the book is to confuse the poetic imagery with the purpose of the poem.{en22}

There is nothing particularly complicated, exceptional, or controversial about this matter; but it is lost from view whenever the Song’s imagery is applied immediately and directly–guidebook style–back upon the image itself. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the function of poetic imagery. To be sure, the Song’s imagery is that of human love and longing. But what is the reality which the Song means thereby to image? To leave matters at the level of imagery would be somewhat akin to interpreting the psalmic depiction of trees–“Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD” (Pss 96:12-13)–as material for an arborist’s training seminar. This is not the way of poetic imagery. The Song’s imagery (human love and longing) images a reality other than itself (love and longing on another plain), in the form of which reality the imagery is made to conform.

3. God in the Song

It is sometimes argued that like Esther the Song never mentions God. The opinion of one recent commentator is shared by many: “To be sure, God is not named or even alluded to within the book.”{en23} This observation seems to support the idea that the Song really is not about God, or, in any event, that we should not be surprised with the absence of God in love poetry that means only to speak of human lovers.

On the other hand, R. M. Davidson has argued in a carefully reasoned study that “God is clearly present in the Song–and he is not silent!”{en24} God’s presence, according to Davidson, shows up in at least three clear and striking ways: (a) by means of allusion and wordplay in the threefold adjuration of 2:7; 3:5; and 8:4 (far more apparent in Hebrew than in English); (b) in the climactic last line of the Song’s structural/symmetrical center (4:16–5:1), where it is probably the voice of YHWH himself, or the narrator/poet on YHWH’s behalf, who says, “Eat, O friends! Drink, and be drunk, O beloved ones!” (5:1b); and (c) the explicit appearance of the divine name in the Song’s thematic climax and conclusion, where we read of the lovers’ love as “the flame of Yah(weh)” (8:6b). The last-mentioned is most impressive and instructive, and most problematic to translators and commentators, who seem to have a difficult time rendering the term in question in its most likely sense. For if the love of which this Song speaks is in fact “the flame of Yah(weh),” then clearly the overt story points to something beyond itself, namely, to the Lord of love and the love of the Lord.

The inference of personal absence based on verbal paucity is likewise mistaken. It is widely recognized in studies on biblical characterization that the veiling or absenting of God’s presence is one way for a writer actually to highlight divine presence–the presence of absence. Reading the Song in this light, evident also in books like Ruth, Esther, and Daniel, each in different ways, enables a depth of understanding otherwise completely missed.

4. Solomon, wisdom, and the Song

However we are to translate the titular first line, “The Song of Songs which is by/to/for/concerning/in the tradition of Solomon” (all grammatically possible), it is clear that the Song is somehow related to Solomon (in addition to 1:1, also 1:5; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11, 12). Most scholars conclude that in this way the Song is brought within the biblical wisdom tradition associated with Solomon, but rarely are the implications of that observation discussed and drawn out along lines of their messianic connotation. When, however, the role of Solomon and the biblical conception of wisdom are pursued along their messianic trajectory,{en25} it is not hard to see that the Song likewise gets swept up into larger-than-life significance, as participating in a grand messianic stream across the Testaments.{en26}

5. Intertextuality and the Song

That the Song enjoys many interpretive connections with other biblical passages is not surprising, but once again the full implications of those intertextual links are not always teased out along the contextual grain of the passages involved. To observe, for example, that the Song offers a commentary of sorts on Eden’s garden wedding (Gen 1–3) invites further reflection on how this story, like that, means then to image a reality greater than itself (cf. Gen 1:26-28), or how the Song (see 7:11; 8:5) might shed helpful light on the notoriously difficult Genesis 3:16, which itself must be understood somehow in relation to the promise of verse 15 (cf. 1 Tim 2:8-15). Other examples include an impressive correspondence between Hosea 14 and the Song,{en27} and between Psalms 45 and the Song (e.g., Pss 45:2/Song 5:13; Pss 45:8/Song 4:14; and many others)–each in its own way reinforcing the messianic-eschatological associations of the Song’s language and imagery.

6. Canonical location of the Song

The issues here are related to #1 above, but now with the Song’s more immediate context in view. There is general recognition in canon research that the formation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanak) reflects a time and a community that looked eagerly toward the coming of the messiah, which anticipation appears to have impacted both the selection and the arrangement of the books. The Old Testament, in other words, is an intentionally shaped canon, reflective of a thematic strategy (only partially preserved in the English Bible order of books).{en28} Attention is often drawn to the Hebrew Bible’s locating Ruth immediately after Proverbs and the almost certain intention (based on verbal and thematic links) of associating Ruth with the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31:10-31 (we could say that Ruth embodies such a woman). It is equally possible that the Ruth-Song juxtaposition (in the Hebrew Bible) reflects a desire to celebrate in the Song an “ideal” marriage such as that of Ruth and Boaz immediately preceding. It is entirely conceivable that this association influenced the traditional reading which understood the Song to depict the love relationship between YHWH and Israel, since the Ruth story so graphically shapes human love in the form of YHWH’s love (e.g., Ruth 1:8; 2:20). It is possible that in the marriage of Boaz and Ruth and its role in bringing David into the world (and David’s son, Jesus; Ruth 4:17-22; Matt 1:1, 5-6), lie factors that contributed to the Song’s messianic interpretation in the early Church.

7. Language of the Song

We are often reminded that the language of the Song does not speak of anything other than the love between a man and a woman. By now it should be clear that this perspective on the Song’s language and imagery is much too superficial and prejudicial, with the conclusion deeply embedded in the premise. If that is all one determines to see, then that is all one will see. But words like ‘king’ (5x: 1:4, 12; 3:9, 11; 7:6), ‘Jerusalem’ (8x: 1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10; 5:8, 16; 6:4; 8:4), ‘Zion’ (1x: 3:11), ‘bride’ (6x: 4:8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 5:1), ‘David’ (1x: 4:4; but the cognate ‘beloved’ 39x!), and many others (e.g., ‘garden’, ‘flock’, ‘vineyard’) certainly belong to a rich biblical vocabulary stock with imaginative potential. Why, for example, is the chorus of onlookers consistently referred to as “the daughters of Jerusalem/Zion” (8x) and not simply “the women”?

8. The New Testament and the Song

There are not, to my knowledge, any direct quotations of or unambiguous allusions to the Song in the New Testament. This fact puts the Song in a category by itself, since the same can probably not be said of any other Old Testament book. But then, this is not the only feature that sets the Song off from the others. Referenced or not, on the conviction that every book of both Testaments exists for the very purpose–its raison d’être–of bearing witness to the one God revealed in Christ, the Song takes its place within those Scriptures of “Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms” which speak of him (Lk 24:44-45). And recalling earlier remarks about Ephesians 5, this should not be hard at all to understand. The nuptial figure is made to fit the relationship of God/Christ and his people. But that is to say that the Song does much more than tell us about love, sex, and marriage. It figures a profound mystery.

BLESSINGS AND BENEFITS

If the proof of the proverbial pudding is in its eating, then it should be the case that the reading we have proposed, consistent with a long interpretive history, will recover important blessings and benefits otherwise forfeited in novel readings, however popular. It is also the case that these blessings and benefits will have to await fleshing out in another setting. I limit my remarks to just two.

First, as regards what the Song means to say about the relationship between the Lord and his people, apparently it is the case that language of this sort is not only appropriate but positively necessary to get at certain dimensions. A cerebral faith, filled with theological formulations and fueled by propositions and exhortations, is wholly deficient for experiencing and expressing the kind of mutual love God envisions with his people. Second, as regards what the Song means to say about the love of woman and man, apparently it is the case that this wonderful gift, paradoxically, is not to be understood solely in terms of “what works”–there is no manual or guidebook here–but in terms of something infinitely larger, as the clothing in which God comes to be dressed. The transforming power bound up in this twofold message goes a long way toward explaining the esteem in which the Song was held until recently, when other impulses pushed their way to the fore.

Let me borrow a line from the conclusion to Martin Luther’s work on the Song and not be judged presumptuous for doing so: “If I am wrong about this [understanding of the book], a first effort deserves lenience.”{en29}

So long “the orphan of Israelite theology,”{en2} the wisdom literature of the Old Testament,3 and Proverbs in particular, has in recent years become the recipient of a well-deserved surge of focused attention, both exegetical and theological. Between 1997 and 2000 alone, for example, no fewer than five full-length, serious-level commentaries appeared on Proverbs; and the publishing stream continues to flow with at least ten important works since then. Certainly it is not the case that this book had been completely overlooked prior to the 1990s, but specialized attention to Proverbs was beset with an array of critical concerns that hindered its being heard as a theological message demanding the Church’s ear.

I suspect that a corresponding neglect had long taken its toll on Christian use generally. To be sure, there were always the occasional odd references to this proverb or that at the popular level, especially among those looking for a financial principle or grasping for a biblical whip to crack on errant children. But who of us has ever experienced or ourselves developed a serious and sustained study, as in a preaching or teaching series, through the book of Proverbs the way many of us have through at least portions of Genesis or Jonah or Romans or Ephesians?

Not all the reasons for pushing Proverbs to the perimeter of the Church’s diet or the academy’s interests over the past centuries are the same. But common to both are troubling and sometimes crippling issues relative to how Proverbs goes about mediating the will of God and whether or not whatever it is Proverbs has to say is all that important for Christians to believe and obey. We can get to the heart of things by posing two related questions, both of which have befuddled specialist interpreters and generalist readers alike. One concerns the source of the wisdom Proverbs imparts; the other concerns the normativeness of the book’s teaching and the seriousness with which its prescriptions and promises ought be taken. Both require thoughtful engagement, and this in turn will determine in large measure how we go about reading this book and responding to the voice of wisdom that speaks there, or whether such an exercise is even worth our trouble.

1. THE QUESTION OF SOURCE: IS THE WISDOM OF PROVERBS ROOTED IN REFLECTION AND INVESTIGATION OR IN REVELATION AND INSPIRATION?

Three interrelated observations make this an especially interesting question. First, there is in Proverbs a general paucity of explicit God-talk or content normally regarded as religious or theologically significant. With its focus on how to cope with life’s “practical” realities, at least on the surface, Proverbs tends to say relatively little about some of the things that occupy the interests of other OT scriptures, including Israel’s history, covenants, exodus deliverance, laws, religious activities, major institutions, or great personalities. The book seems largely concerned with “secular” matters. Second, Proverbs appears to be more friendly toward Israel’s neighbors than one expects the Bible to sanction. Specifically, there are obvious and remarkable literary and conceptual similarities to the wisdom texts of other ancient Near Eastern peoples, most notably Egyptian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian. Third, Proverbs draws heavily for its teaching on what seems like common sense from real life. One does not need any special instruction from God to know that laziness leads to poverty or a loose mouth to social trouble or sexual unfaithfulness to marital calamity or bad table manners to disaster in the king’s presence. It appears that observation and experience–what works in life–may be as fertile soil for the wisdom of Proverbs as anything that resembles divine revelation.

But we must be careful to factor these considerations critically lest we distort the true nature and function of Proverbs. I have discussed these and related issues elsewhere,{en4} and it is not possible to review that material here; but let me summarize the direction a critical response to each of the three points above might take. First, the Bible does not know anything of the sacred-secular dualism implicit in the objection. Money, mouth, manners, morals, marriage, and other matters of which Proverbs speaks are not hereby set off as secular; but, grounded in yir’at yhwh (“the fear of YHWH”) and by virtue of their inclusion in the word of YHWH, they are given full sacred status. These are as defining of what it means to live in the Creator’s world on the Creator’s terms as are the covenants, the exodus, the laws, and the other more religious sounding institutions of which the Scriptures speak.

Second, it is true that there are transparent points of contact between Proverbs and the wisdom writings of Israel’s ancient neighbors, even as there are between Proverbs and what the Church’s present neighbors sometimes believe and practice. But there is a danger of overstating the commonalities and understating the contrasts. The truth is, there are far-reaching differences as well. Duane Garrett maintains that “the Book of Proverbs does not simply attach the caboose of Yahwism to the train of secular, international wisdom. . . . On the contrary, the Lord and the precepts of Israelite faith dominate biblical wisdom as the explicit fount of true understanding and the rule by which all is judged.”{en5} In this connection, Bruce Waltke has demonstrated that the fundamental theological convictions of biblical wisdom are substantially the same as those of the Pentateuch and Prophets: the same Lord, the same religious system, the same inspiration, the same authority, the same anthropology, the same epistemology, the same spiritual demand, the same ethical demands, the same hope, the same faith.{en6} If Solomon and his fellow sages trafficked in the wider sapiential traditions of their day, which doubtless they did, they obviously filtered the intellectual heritage, removing any traces that were incompatible with the fear of YHWH. Moreover, to whatever extent Israel’s arm-chairing with her pagan neighbors may have contributed to her own wisdom material, her canonizing that material in a biblical book self-evidently oriented to the early chapters of Genesis shows that the roots of true wisdom ultimately lie in a wise Creator. In this way Proverbs effectively retells the wisdom of pagan sages, showing there to lie behind its true insights a foundational heritage that is not at all pagan in the first place because it is begotten of the wisdom of the Creator.{en7}

Third, and related, it is true that a certain form of wisdom exists that is not the exclusive property of those who know God or read the Bible. Some people achieve a measure of wisdom, a being good at the craft of life, by observing the present universe, drawing lessons from what works and does not work, and living in harmony with these insights and observations. By this brand of wisdom, drawn on reflection and investigation, many people find a way to get along reasonably or even admirably well in this world, with upright lives, exemplary marriages, decent kids, well-managed finances, and social grace. On superficial reflection the wisdom of Proverbs may not look appreciably different from this, but here we must be on guard against dangerous assumptions with large implications. The correspondence between what works in life “under the sun” and what Proverbs tells us about living there only underscores what we should expect since the Creator of the former is the Author of the latter. But such correspondence does not collapse the categories into an equation or synonymy whereby the former effectively renders the latter complemental but inessential. The biblical conception of wisdom is textually mediated and context-dependent, by virtue of which it contains plus factors that vastly supersede any observations one might make on life “under the sun,” including the centrality and essentiality of the fear of YHWH, the criteria by which God measures success and failure or good and not good, and the provision of divine insight amidst life’s mysteries and reversals. Biblical wisdom does not consist merely in living generally in sync with what exists and what works (the created order), but in living in harmony with what the Scriptures say about life in that created order (the Creator’s perspective and plan). Responding to the third point above, then, it is a misconstrual of enormous consequence to credit common sense as the source of Proverbs. It is true that one does not need any special instruction from God to know many of the things taught in Proverbs, but to think that success can be measured in these terms and that Proverbs has nothing more in mind than this is a serious misunderstanding. These principles work, but that is not the point. Without the divine word of Proverbs, it is impossible to know how or that these realities factor into God’s vision of the world and the purposes he has in mind in its making. We can be more blunt about it: To become wise in all ways accessible through reflection and investigation while ignoring what God actually says about life in his world, is to remain thoroughly fooled. One can be worldly wise and biblically foolish. The reverse–biblically wise and worldly foolish–is not possible. Let the wise ponder and not be fooled.

2. THE QUESTION OF NORMATIVENESS: DOES PROVERBS COMMAND TOO FREELY AND PROMISE TOO MUCH?

We may sharpen the question: How authoritative are the instructions of Proverbs, and are its promises true? Do the commands of Proverbs reduce to good but optional advice–general principles in a category different from, say, Exodus or Isaiah or Matthew or Romans? After all, “Listen, son, to your dad’s advice” hardly compares with “And YHWH spoke to Moses” or “Thus says YHWH” or “The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand.” And do the assurances of Proverbs reduce to that which may be regarded as more or less typical–what generally happens as observed in the realities of life but nothing you should count on? In short, is this a book of human counsel and inflated hope, or a book of divine mandate and confident expectation? How we resolve these issues will have significant bearing on how we go about pondering and performing and preaching Proverbs.

It has been fashionable, and suspiciously convenient, in both scholarly and popular circles to demote Proverbs to a secondary level of authority, primarily on the basis of its apparent exceptions (e.g., 3:9-10; 22:6), contradictions (e.g., 26:4-5), appeal to experience or tradition (e.g., 4:1ff.; 24:30-34), and use of such expressions as ‘counsel’ or ‘advice’ (e.g., 1:25; 8:14). In addition to our discussion above, several other points challenge this notion and call for a revision.

First, it is noteworthy that the voice of wisdom speaks in Proverbs with the very authority of God (e.g., 1:20-33; 8:22-36) and is not shy in referring to its own teaching by the same term Moses used in identifying his–torah (e.g., 1:8; 3:1; 13:14; et al.).

Second, Proverbs appears in the Ketubim or Writings of the biblical canon alongside the Pentateuch and the Prophets, to which it is hermeneutically and theologically related as exegetical reflection and normative tradition. In other words, biblical proverbs are not merely to be understood as general principles drawn from life “under the sun,” but as canonized reflections on life as it is meant to be lived in the Creator’s world on the Creator’s terms, consistent with the perspective of Torah and the Nebi’im. One cannot affirm the authority of Moses and the Prophets and dismiss the authority of Proverbs. The imperatives are to be heeded and the blessings anticipated. What might be construed as exceptions to the rules and the promises do not demonstrate the weakness of Proverbs or of wisdom but the mystery of faith in a personal, sovereign, good, but inscrutable God, not unlike other promises in Scripture (e.g., the prayer promises of the Gospels).

Third, the Book of Proverbs itself addresses these very issues. According to the book’s introduction, one purpose of Proverbs is to enable the timely and appropriate application of proverbs (so 1:2-6). In other words, the proverbs of Proverbs teach their own limitations and appropriate applications. They do not reduce life to a set of formulas; rather, they place wisdom in a manifestly theological context (so the function of chs. 1-9 relative to chs. 10ff.) where the fear of YHWH and submission to his sometimes inscrutable will transcend all such mechanical systems (e.g., 3:5-6; 16:1, 2, 9; 19:21; 20:24; 21:30-31; 27:1). Gerhard von Rad hits very close to this mark:

Reduced to its bare essentials, these regulations of theirs for a fruitful life seem determined by a remarkable dialectic. Do not hesitate to summon up all your powers in order to familiarize yourself with all the rules which might somehow be effective in life. Ignorance in any form will be detrimental to you; only the ‘fool’ thinks he can shut his eyes to this. Experience, on the other hand, teaches that you can never be certain. You must always remain open for a completely new experience. You will never become really wise, for, in the last resort, this life of yours is determined not by rules but by God.{en8}

Biblical proverbs permit mystery. They are grounded in and built on the fear of the LORD, and that implies a submission to a personal and inscrutable God whose will and ways do not always conform to tight boxes and stiff formulas. Applying proverbs requires and assumes a prior submission to YHWH and a timely application. On this latter, “Look before you leap” and “He who hesitates is lost” are equally true; but one must discern the situation of the moment to know which to apply. Alas, so-called exceptions to the rule turn out to be more a problem with untimely and inappropriate application than with the rule itself. What I wish to stress is that the Book of Proverbs itself acknowledges these limitations and teaches that it is in the pondering of Proverbs that one acquires the requisite discernment. Frustration over the commands and promises of Proverbs, in other words, calls for more attentive study of the book, not less.

The familiar domain of English grammar provides a helpful, if imperfect, illustration of this point.

Rules: In English, verbs form their past tense by adding ‘-ed’ and nouns form their plural by adding ‘s.’
Examples. ‘I walk’ and ‘I walked.’ ‘Book’ and ‘books.’
Evaluation: These are good rules. They are accurate. They are true.
Question: Do these rules always apply?
Response: No. We say, “I go” but not “I goed,” “I see” but not “I seeed.” We say “mouse” but not “mouses” (although we do say “houses”!), “woman” but not “womans.”
Analysis: Even good, accurate, true rules do not always apply because certain verbs and nouns require a different set of rules. We might say that the problem is not with the rules, but with the situation (i.e., with the verb or noun).
Solution: We must know the rules, we must know the verbs and nouns, and we must know which rules apply in which situation. This requires our living in the English language long enough to gain the requisite knowledge.
Analogy: It is by living in Proverbs that we gain such insight into the performance or proper application of wisdom.

Raymond Van Leeuwen captures the point well:

What is the upshot of all this? To use proverbs wisely, whether from the Bible or the sayings of contemporary America, one must have a proverb repertoire adequate to handle the complexities of life. If you know only, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and not also, “It’s never too late to learn,” you might commit a faux pas by using the wrong proverb! Goethe said of languages, “He who knows one, knows none” (Wer nur eine Sprache kennt, kennt keine). The maxim applies even more forcefully to Proverbs. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents sayings that on one level or another present conflicting advice (cf. Matt. 7:1 and 7:6, which require the reader to make judgments; cf. also 6:1 and 5:14-16). Rather than forcing us to erase or “harmonize” the ambiguities and “contradictions,” biblical wisdom invites us to ponder the nuances and complexities of life; it invites us to become wise.{en9}

CONCLUSION

Of the many conclusions and applications which flow from this discussion, I choose to highlight the most obvious. The Book of Proverbs speaks to us the word and will of our Lord. Its instructions are binding and its promises true. It tells us how to go in life, and it assures us of the blessing of God when we do. Of course, it does so in the context of the fear of YHWH, where personal relationship, worshiping submission, and dynamic faith are never negated by mechanical positivism, cold certitude, and fixed formulas. The former leads to “wisdom that comes down from above”; the latter to a less desirable but more familiar prospect (Jas 3:13-18).

The question posed by the subtitle connects to the italicized word left of the colon–not simply have we read the Book of Psalms, but have we read it as a book? In other words, have we read Psalms as a thoughtfully authored composition with a beginning and an ending and a cohesive progression between, complete with true chapters or groups of chapters, not isolated and independent poems from hither and yon dropped helter-skelter onto the page in a manner comparable to the proverbial pebbles on a beach? The implications of such a question should be obvious: If Psalms is a book with thematic unity or a “story line” that runs from 1 to 150, then most of us have habitually and repeatedly done more than exercise wanton literary license, we have gotten away with murder–murder of the author of record who, although anonymous, composed this work to communicate a coherent message of divine-human intention. Moreover, if Psalms is a book, then we may be certain that reading and proclaiming its parts in light of the authored strategy of the whole will not lessen, but enhance, its value immeasurably, with the added blessing that the meaning and message so enhanced will actually be the word of the Lord, not merely the warm, appreciative sentiments of the reader.

In what follows I intend to survey some of the more noteworthy indications that the Book of Psalms actually is such a book. There will be a sequel to this article in the form of a lecture entitled “Psalms as the Church’s Book: From Meditation to Proclamation” at the July 27 MIQRA seminar. There I plan to develop the thesis (that Psalms is a unitary composition) by exhibiting its payoff in terms of structural contours and thematic progression and by illustrating its effect on how we read, live, and proclaim any of the constituent psalm-chapters from 1 to 150.

DEVELOPMENT: SELECTED INDICATIONS

Several years ago I received a phone call from a physician friend in Chicago. As was his practice with biblical books, Dr. Dunlop had just completed a six-month “residency” in the Book of Psalms. Before moving on to another canonical location for six months, he was calling to inquire on the state of psalmic studies among biblical scholars relative to his own tentative conclusion. To the eye of this fine physician and faithful layman, Psalms appeared to be more than a disjointed collection. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that well over 50 studies in some way support the conclusion to which his own observations had pointed. That bibliography has continued to grow, as exegetical evidence continues to pour forth in support of the conviction that by taking the Book of Psalms seriously as a book we have entered “a quite new season in Psalms studies”{en2} and “we now stand at the borders of the promised land.”{en3} In what follows I intend to show that this is more than mere threshold rhetoric.

The evidence for compositional shaping of Psalms is impressive. Here I simply identify seven such indications, the development of which deserves a full-length study.

1. The Book of Psalms has a discernible introduction, body, and conclusion. Psalms 1-2 provides a two-part hermeneutic introduction to the book: Meditation on YHWH’s Torah defines the way of the righteous, the true path to blessing (1), and YHWH’s Torah points ultimately to trusting and obeying YHWH’s Messiah-Son-King, who will judge all peoples (2). Psalms 3-145 comprises the body of the book in five parts or books, each ending with a doxological refrain (41:13; 72:18-19; 89:52; 106:48; Eng. verse numbers), climaxing in the fivefold crescendo of praise (146-150) which, accordingly, concludes both Book 5and the fivefold book itself. Generally the body develops around the theme of Messiah’s promised and awaited rule. The wide range of life’s experiences and emotions all find their true meaning in the anticipation of YHWH’s coming King and Kingdom in fulfillment of his promises in covenant to David. The fivefold conclusion extols YHWH alone as worthy to be praised–generally for all his glorious attributes, specifically for his messianic promise.

2. The five books are marked not only by echoing doxologies, but by other indications at the seams. For example, Books 1-3 display a “royal covenantal framework” (cf. 2, 72, 89), and books 4-5 a dominant “wisdom framework” (cf. 90-91, 106, 145). The author-compositor of inspired record apparently had in mind to highlight the convergence of kingdom and wisdom themes, pointing ultimately to a divine king who would be a wise man.

3. Obviously the Book of Psalms represents a selection of OT psalms, from which we may reasonably infer that these and not others were included by design and decision. The exclusion of many extant psalms (e.g., Exod 15:1-18; Num 10:35-36; Num 23-24; Deut 32; 33; Judg 5:1-31; 1 Sam 2:1-10; Isa 38:10-20; Jer 20:7-18; Jon 2:2-9; Hab 3; Lam) raises the question of what should account for the inclusion of just these psalms. Moreover, while many existent psalms are omitted, a few within the book are actually duplicated (compare 14 and 53; 40:13-17 and 70). These and related phenomena render extremely unlikely the conception of Psalms as a random anthology of Israel’s praises.

4. One of the most coercive indications of “the impress of one ordering mind”{en4} consists in the remarkable number of verbal and thematic links in neighboring psalms where the connections count for something. As J. P. Brennan noted, “a consecutive reading of the Hebrew Psalter leads to the conclusion that one of the principles governing the compilation of the collection was that of juxtaposing Psalms in such a way that various key words and expressions in one pick up and develop a theme already enunciated in another.”{en5} There are many examples, but none more impressive than those links consisting in two occurrences of a term or line in contiguous psalms which occurs only there in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., the refrain in 42:5, 11; 43:5) or only there in Psalms (e.g., ‘the angel of the LORD’, many times elsewhere in the OT but only in the adjacent 34:7 and 35:5-6 within Psalms). Among other factors, the verbal and thematic details binding psalms 1 and 2 are many and compelling, rendering their function as a two-part introduction to the book unmistakable.

5. Because we typically begin our reading of a particular psalm with v. 1, we sometimes overlook the fact that all but 34 of the 150 psalms are in fact introduced by a prefaced title or superscript that precedes v. 1 in English translation. That being the case, most readers are not likely to consider the relevance of these prefatory notations to compositional unity and thematic interests. Hebrew readers have a decided advantage here since what appears in English versions as a mere title typically comprises v. 1 (or a portion of v. 1, and in some cases vv. 1-2) in the Hebrew psalm. In other words, most of our public and private reading of 116 of the psalms omits part of the content of the actual psalm. We cannot now engage this matter further except to point out that very often these introductory lines contain editorial details that signal important thematic (not merely historical) interests. For example, the superscripts in psalms 3-9 help advance an emerging ‘son’ theme in the early part of the book; the notice ‘of David’ in 73 psalms does far more to promote a “Davidization” theme for the whole than merely identify original authorship{en6}; and ‘To the Choirmaster’ or ‘For the Chief Musician’ in 55 psalm titles almost certainly reflects a mistranslation of a term that has no unambiguous reference to music at all. On lexical, exegetical, and traditional grounds, this last-mentioned, like the previous two, probably directs attention to an eschatological messianic figure who will be victorious in the end of time, not to a leader of temple worship as is regularly assumed.

6. The Book of Psalms shows considerable evidence of subgroups or micro-collections which are not likely accidental or coincidental. Examples include the Davidic collection (3-41, 51-72 => 72:20); the Korahite collection (42-49, 84-85, 87-88); the Asaphite collection (50, 73-83); and the Songs of the Ascents (120-134).

7. The Book of Psalms displays a discernible thematic progression from lament to praise, from the individual to the community, from Torah to Messiah, from kinglessness to kingship. The details are too involved to develop here; but as an example, it is remarkable that all three sharply focused Torah-psalms are immediately followed by highly concentrated Messiah-psalms (so 1 => 2; 19 => 20-25; 119 => 120-134), as if to indicate that the author-compositor had a particular agenda in mind: Torah points to Messiah!

CONCLUSION: SELECTED IMPLICATIONS

We have already hinted at some of the implications which follow on from the observation that a divine-human intention appears to have been operative in the composition of the Book of Psalms. Let me highlight three of the most informing.

First, thematic cohesion. The Book of Psalms is a cohesive theological-thematic unity, not a haphazard collection of independent poems. When once we abandon age-old bad habits of grab-bagging a psalm “for every occasion” and with more readerly respect determine to follow the author’s lead–like we know we should elsewhere in Scripture–then a new world of meaning and relevance opens before our eyes. It will assuredly affect how we hear, heed, and herald this favorite of all biblical books.

Second, messianic orientation. Many readers of the NT puzzle over the manner in which Jesus and the apostles regularly find Christ in psalms where the rest of us do not (e.g., a prophecy of Jesus’ resurrection in Pss 16; cf. Acts 2:25-33). When compositional features are carefully factored, the NT understanding of Psalms as messianic actually turns out to be more in line with the shaped message of the book than our popular approach has permitted us to see. Moreover, NT writers who discern in Psalms a rich prophetic and messianic well from which to draw may in fact be plumbing the depths of the book at a considerably deeper level of responsible exegesis than their critics, who see only history, sometimes acknowledge.

Third, contextual interpretation. Once the notion has been dislodged that Psalms should be regarded as an exception to the hermeneutic axiom of interpreting in context, the world of the book becomes an exceedingly better place to live for both the devotional reader and the preacher (even if some sermons will have to be revised!). Informed by its context in the book, the ever-popular Shepherd Psalm, for example, embodies a meaning and message much deeper and richer than stand-alone readings are able to hear (alas, the most loved psalm may not be the best understood). In this connection, setting a psalm in the context of history (e.g., ancient sheep and shepherding practices) leads to a quite different construal from setting it in the context of canon. However well the former may preach, the latter will preach even better. And for those who in the spirit of hermeneutic pluralism insist on having it both ways–history as context and book as context–it is worth pondering whether the psalm, functioning now in the fabric of the shaped composition, means to preserve and convey both resultant meanings.

This article is headed in directions some readers of the title will not expect it to go. First, there will be no listing of lessons on leadership from the life of Samuel. This is not a book about that. Rather, from one end to the other, 1-2 Samuel unfolds an understanding of kingship from a certain theological perspective which the Church needs desperately to hear in fresh ways today.

Putting matters this way requires a second clarification. There will be no facile drawing of any direct correspondence between monarchy and Church or between kingship and pastorate, notwithstanding those churches and leaders who never quite get the differentiations straight. I intend to engage something more profound than this.

Third, the subtitle hints that thinking about some of these issues may be disturbing, in which connection W. A. Kort voices a penetrating question: “Why should anyone want to read scripture, when to read scripture is first of all to allow one’s location and world to be disconfirmed and destabilized?”{en1} Readers proceed from this point at their own risk.

GOD’S KIND OF KING

The story of Israel’s kingship begins much earlier than the people’s demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8. In fact, it begins in the Pentateuch, where as early as Genesis the message is clear that God’s plans for Israel included the office of kingship. From the very beginning God had promised kings to Abraham (Gen 17:6,16; cf. 35:11), which promise would come to fulfillment in a scepter that would not depart from Judah (Gen 49:8-12; cf. Num 24:3-9, 15-24). Later, Deuteronomy 17:14-20 explicates with marvelous clarity the fourfold ideals for God’s kind of king: (a) he must be chosen by the Lord (v. 15a); (b) he must be a brother Israelite rather than a foreigner (v. 15b); (c) he must practice restraint in war horses, wives, and wealth (vv. 16-17); and most highlighted of all, (d) he must lead God’s people in the will of the Lord:

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel (vv. 18-20).

Significantly, the will of God could be learned in only one way, by reading the “authorized version” of the written Torah. It was there the king would learn to fear and obey and maintain a heart of humility that befits a leader who is under authority and who serves rather than lords.

“GIVE US A KING”

Fast forward to 1 Samuel 8. It was a sad day in the life of God’s people, but not for the reasons many readers have assumed. Some have supposed, on the basis of the people’s demand “now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (v. 5b), that Israel’s failure consisted in her looking around, seeing that all her neighbors had kings, and so concluding that it would be a good idea if she had one as well. On this understanding, Israel is faulted for imitating a socio-cultural norm: The people want a governance like the surrounding nations. Others appeal to the Lord’s words to Samuel, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (v. 7b), from which the conclusion is drawn that Israel’s sin lay in her insistence on a human king in place of God. On this understanding, Israel is blamed for discontentment with God as king, for rejecting God’s exclusive sovereignty. In fact, neither of these explanations for what went wrong in Israel’s “give us a king” quite gets at the problem or at the point of the passage. Moreover, each in its own way mutes a message the Church and all its ministries cannot afford to miss.

The latter interpretation–that Israel failed in wanting any king but God–can be called into question in light of those passages in the Pentateuch (above), the Prophets (e.g., 2 Sam 7; Isa 9), and the Psalms (e.g., 2; 89) where God’s own plans for Israel obviously included human kings. Kingship is a matter of divine imprimatur. In the context of our passage, the Lord’s clarification to Samuel that “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (v. 7b) should not be construed to mean that Israel’s requesting a human king meant per se that she was rejecting the Lord’s kingship. The immediately following verse clarifies what God is driving at in his response to Samuel: “According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you” (v. 8). Israel’s rejection of God’s kingship long predated her present demand for a king. Something lies behind Israel’s request for a human king that reflects a spirit of rebellion against the Lord, but the request itself is neither invalid nor necessarily the signal of Israel’s rejecting God’s kingship. In the larger story of Scripture, accepting God’s kingship would in fact entail accepting the human rulership of God’s messiah-king. To put this in other words, in God’s world divine kingship is mediated through human leadership, so that Israel’s living properly under the rule of God would be defined in her living properly under the rule of God’s anointed.

We shall not linger here long, as this point lies more in the background than the foreground of our passage. Still, we should not dash away so quickly that we miss the obvious: On at least this issue, nothing has changed theologically in the move from monarchy to Church. Those who continue to babble pious-sounding nonsense about reporting only to God, with no duty of submission to God’s appointed leaders, certainly stand on shaky ground when they make impertinent appeal to passages like ours. There is no haven in this prooftext for any pretense of loyalty directly and exclusively to God that does not also imply a submission to those whom God appoints over us. Those who have no authority but God really have no authority at all. The god to whom they report is the one they see in the mirror.

But let us return to the former interpretation, that Israel’s failure consisted in her conformist impulses in wanting a king because kingship was the rule of the day. This explanation appears to gain support from the people’s expressed request, “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (v. 5b), which clearly echoes Moses’ earlier words, “When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me’” (Deut 17:14). But these lines can be misread and important details missed. There is no indictment of any kind, neither explicit nor implicit, in Moses’ (and the Lord’s) earlier acknowledgment that the people may request a king to be set over them, “like all the nations that are around.” Nor does v. 5 in our passage hint of anything inappropriate in their simply wanting a king “like all the nations.” On one reading, their request has Deuteronomy “written all over it”; we might even say that they are thinking biblically. Samuel’s advanced age and reprobate sons had occasioned a leadership crisis, in response to which the elders of Israel looked around at nearby nations, observed that each had its own king, and concluded that a similar governing structure would be desirable for them. Nothing in the text suggests that Israel’s representative leaders did anything wrong in assessing the present circumstances and presenting to Samuel their request for a king. Moreover, a concluding refrain in the book immediately preceding–“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg 17:6; 21:25; cf. 18:1; 19:1)–reminds readers of just how desirable an alternative to that situation might be.

But all of this does not get Israel off the hook. Important details in the wording of their request suggest that Israel’s desire for a king was not prompted merely by the observation that all the surrounding nations had kings, which is what Deuteronomy 17:14 envisioned. The infinitive phrase “to judge us” is crucial here, as it focuses their request on a particular role for the king they envisioned–judging or governing by means of decisions. So far so good, especially in light of the sorry failure of Samuel’s delinquent sons in fulfilling that role (vv. 2-3), notwithstanding Samuel’s interpreting the elders’ request personally, as an attack on his own earlier judging role (vv. 6-8; cf. 7:6,15-17).{en2} For a few moments we are left wondering about the precise meaning of the entire phrase “to judge us like all the nations,” which conjures up more than one possibility, as we shall see. The issue of likeness to the nations fades from the page temporarily, as the narrative spotlight focuses on Samuel’s displeasure at their request (v. 6), the Lord’s clarification about the larger issues (vv. 7-8), Samuel’s commission from the Lord to listen and solemnly warn (v. 9), and Samuel’s recitation of what they are in for (vv. 10-18).

Specifically, Samuel is called upon to warn the people about “the ways of the king who shall reign over them” (v. 9, 11), which he proceeds to do in no uncertain terms. However the first part of this line in vv. 9 and 11 is translated, an important point will be missed if we fail to see the connection between “the ways (mspt) of the king” and their seeking a king “to judge (spt) us.” This is crucial: As a successor to Samuel and his crooked judge-sons, they want a king to judge them; and it falls to Samuel to announce in prophetic detail, by the word of the Lord, what the king’s judging will look like. In short, the kind of king they would choose (v. 18; cf. “our king” in v. 20) will initiate a policy of injustice in every imaginable way–one characterized by the abuse of royal privilege in the form of grasping (see “take” in vv. 11, 13, 14, 16; and “confiscating a tenth” in vv. 15 and 17) and ultimate reduction of the people to slavery (vv. 11-17). The kingship they have in mind, Samuel threatens, would undo everything God had done in the exodus! Or as B. C. Birch puts it, “The fate Samuel described would undercut the very identity of Israel as God’s delivered people. For the security of a king, the people would surrender their freedom.”{en3} The cost of kingship will be dreadful, Samuel warns, culminating in the threat that “in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (v. 18). Here is the frightening part: What they want they will get, as God sometimes permits what he does not approve; but what they end up getting will not be what they want! Human history, from the desire in the Garden to the narcissism of the present, reveals how little we actually learn from our tragic past on this matter.

But we have yet to understand what exactly is so wrong in Israel’s wanting a king “to judge us like all the other nations.” The people’s response to the catalogue of dangers that await reveals more than simply a refusal to be dissuaded, and herein lies the key to their failure in the matter of kingship:

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles” (vv. 19-20).

Every line is telling. First, in their refusal to obey Samuel’s voice they are rejecting the Lord, whose word the prophet speaks (cf. v. 10; also 10:19; 15:23, 26; 16:1). It is now clear that their insisting on a king in fact stands in rebellion against the Lord–not because the desire itself is prompted by the contemporary model, nor because having a king in itself constitutes the rejection of God’s sovereignty, but because their desire and determination will override anything God has to say on the subject through his prophet. Second, “that we ourselves may be like all the nations,” as the next line should read, adds an important clarifying emphasis to their earlier request for “a king to judge us like all the nations” (v. 5b). Their real motive is now out in the open: They are not simply requesting a king because each of the surrounding nations has one, but because in their having a king they see the prospect of their becoming like their neighbors. The difference is subtle but crucial. The drive to conform extends beyond simply emulating the nations in having a king; it entails the underlying hope that by having a king they themselves will become like their neighbors–no longer the distinctive, separated community of God’s people fulfilling their covenant vocation in the world, but blended into the cultural patterns of those all around. Third, in addition to having a leader who will facilitate their world-likeness, they outline three specific expectations for their king: that he will judge or govern them (by standards respectable in the eyes of the nations), that he will lead them (in the manner that other kings lead their nations), and that he will fight their battles (in the event of conflict with the nations)–everything but what YHWH had in mind for Israel’s king!

As we have noted, Deuteronomy 17:14-20 spelled out in detail what God envisioned in a king. There is none of that here. God’s qualifications were clear and straightforward. The king must be (a) chosen by the Lord, but they will choose their own (1 Sam 8:10; significantly, the name “Saul” means “the one asked for”!; cf. Hos 8:4); (b) a brother Israelite rather than a foreigner; but they want a king who, even if he is an Israelite, might as well not be; (c) not a hoarder of war horses, wives, and wealth; but the king they envision will make taking his royal policy; and (d) above all, a reader and doer of the written Torah–the Pentateuch’s “arch-reader”{en4}–but they have their own reading list on leadership, their own criteria by which kingship will be defined and measured. The initial idea for having a king seems to have come from Torah (it is likely that they had read Deut 17:14), precipitated now in the present circumstances by internal pressures (Samuel’s near-retirement and unfit successors) and external culture (the surrounding nations). From there, they write their own profile and position description on what they seek in a king.

CONCLUSION: SOME DISQUIETING REFLECTIONS

It would be possible, and doubtless a whole lot safer, to conclude this discussion right here. The effects would be benign. Readers could draw their own inferences on what could possibly be so disquieting, or in Kort’s words, so disconfirming and destabilizing, about these reflections and any relevance they might have to leadership and the Church. I shall indeed leave to readers the business of pressing on toward specific conclusions, but let me at least extend an invitation to linger for a few moments within earshot of what the Spirit says to the churches from this passage.

First, I find it disquieting that God’s people may want a good thing, even something God endorses–leadership, for example–but define its function and measure its performance in ways God does not, in ways that arise from their own criteria or from the ideals set forth in the surrounding culture (including Church culture). The Church and its leaders are in trouble when the best or preferred or most effective model for “doing church” is found by looking around for the latest summit or seminar or simulcast or strategy or success story on how to “make it happen,” where 'it', oddly, is supposed to be God’s work.

Second, I find it disquieting that God’s people are sometimes ready to abandon the only thing that makes them really special in this world–their distinctive identity as God’s covenant community–in order to imitate that from which they have been graciously delivered. The Church and its leaders are in trouble when the lure of cultural conformity, justified on any grounds (including ones with a spiritual ring, like ‘relevance’), becomes a higher value than the call to authentic holiness and lordship, when internal crises or worldly pressures are met with compromise and accommodation, when the answer to every challenge is found in an organizational fix that misses the heart of the matter. In the path of becoming “like all the nations” the Church ceases to be the Church.

Third, I find it disquieting that God’s people and their leaders may become so consumed and distracted by their own agendas of many good things that they sometimes lose sight of that which most marks a leader as God’s kind of leader–one who reads and listens to and obeys the written word of the Lord. Nothing seems to have changed in the theology between the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Pastorals on this point. The Church and its leaders are in trouble when any modus operandi threatens to displace that of faithfully listening to God’s say.

Fourth, I find it terribly disquieting that God’s people and their leaders may want something so badly that God, against his own better judgment, does not veto but gives them what they want–a “grudging grant”{en5} (cf. 8:7, 9, 22). Sometimes they wholeheartedly awaken and discover that what they got is not really what they wanted, and God in mercy grants repentance. Other times they halfheartedly awaken, regret the consequences of their choice, though not the choice itself, and God in judgment says, “Grace is more than a game.” Sometimes they remain forever in their slumber. It may be too early to say in which category the Church and its leaders fall today.

Let the one who has an ear hear whatever the Spirit says to the Church from 1 Samuel 8.

Readers of the Old Testament in due course land upon a group of books known by the classification label ‘Latter Prophets’. These are the books that begin with Isaiah and end with Malachi.{en1}  They are Latter, obviously, because they follow another group of books called ‘Former Prophets’ (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings). The Latter Prophets are subdivided into two groups, known to most Bible readers by the designations ‘Major’ and ‘Minor’–terms that were based strictly on size considerations, not relative importance, from the 4th or 5th century in the Latin/Roman Church, with the first known reference to “the Minor Prophets” in Augustine’s De civitate dei, xviii, 29. This differentiation “stuck,” for reasons completely understandable, since the Minor Prophets are rather smallish in size when they stand next to their intimidatingly large prophetic colleagues Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Obadiah’s two pages up against Jeremiah’s sixty pages in a standard English Bible illustrates the point remarkably well.

But this entire discussion about relative size assumes that we are reading the books of Hosea through Malachi separately, as stand-alone volumes. Things take an interesting turn and the ‘Major’ and ‘Minor’ labels lose their relevance when we leave the familiarity of our Sunday school heritage, where many Christians were taught how many books are in the Old Testament (39, of course), and we venture into Hebrew or Jewish tradition where the Minor Prophets have always been known as ‘The Book of the Twelve’ or simply ‘The Twelve’. More significant than their number, they have been viewed throughout their native existence not as twelve individual and independent books, but as a twelvefold book with the thematically cohesive internal character of a single prophetic composition (rather like the Pentateuch as a fivefold book instead of five separate books).{en2}  Then when the words are counted, the Book of the Twelve, with 14,338 Hebrew words, holds its own alongside Isaiah’s 16,920, Jeremiah’s 21,673, and Ezekiel’s 19,123.{en3}  Suddenly, these Prophets are not so minor, and our predisposition to reading them as little things that probably do not carry the same weight as their bigger neighbors has to be rethought and revised.

My purpose in this essay is fourfold: to offer a brief survey of the renewed interest in the Twelve as a single composition, to summarize some of the supporting data for this conviction, to comment on the arrangement of the Twelve, and to suggest some implications for interpreting and proclaiming the message of the Twelve in a manner that respects its internal structure. My rationale for engaging this discussion in an issue featuring Hosea should be obvious: If Hosea serves a larger purpose and function than simply that of a free-standing book (cf. Genesis relative to the Pentateuch), surely that larger significance deserves our interest in appreciating Hosea on the Bible’s own terms. We will return to this point later on.

RENEWED INTEREST IN THE TWELVE AS A SINGLE COMPOSITION

In an important recent study Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets, Christopher Seitz remarks:

The Twelve are getting a lot of attention today. Or, I should say, the Twelve is getting a good deal of attention. The comparison with Isaiah is helpful. That book was pulled apart and made into three or more separate collections. The sense that something was lost in reading the book as a whole in time returned and captured the attention of the field. Renewed interest in the larger book meant a spate of publications and fresh approaches. The Twelve is now a similar case.{en4}

Thirteen years earlier, Barry Jones began his The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon with the following observation:

Scholarly interest in the Book of the Twelve as a literary unit has ebbed and flowed over the course of the last century. Currently, interest in the Scroll of the Minor Prophets is again on the rise and at a level approaching flood tide. As evidence one may cite the inaugural meeting of the Book of the Twelve Consultation at the 1994 SBL Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, which attracted a standing-room-only audience of scholars from widely divergent areas of specialization in the field of biblical studies.{en5}

In testimony to the “lot of attention” and “approaching flood tide” interest in this topic, over the past decade or so I have attended a number of study sessions at the Society of Biblical Literature annual conferences where scholars from around the world have convened to promote research on the formation of the Twelve. The publishing stream from this symposium and from other researchers and commentators tells the story. Here is a small sampling of representative titles: “The Editing of the Book of the Twelve” (R. E. Wolfe; Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1933); “The Unity of the Book of the Twelve” (D. A. Schneider; Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1979); “The Canonical Unity of the Scroll of the Minor Prophets” (A. Y. Lee; Ph.D. diss., Baylor University, 1985); The Unity of the Twelve (P. R. House; Sheffield, 1990); “Redactional Layers and Intentions: Uniting the Writings of the Book of the Twelve” (J. D. Nogalski; Ph.D. diss., University of Zürich, 1991); Redactional Processes in the Book of the Twelve (J. D. Nogalski; de Gruyter, 1993); The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon (B. A. Jones; Scholars Press, 1995); Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve (13 essays supporting the single corpus thesis; ed. J. D. Nogalski & M. A. Sweeney; SBL, 2000); The Book of the Twelve Prophets (M. A. Sweeney; Liturgical Press, 2000); Thematic Threads in the Book of the Twelve (ed. P. L. Redditt & A. Schart; de Gruyter, 2003); and the list continues.

The upsurge of interest in this question coincides, of course, with a large-scale revival of attention generally to the phenomenon of the biblical canon, as a point of both historical inquiry (how, when, where, why, and by whom these and only these books were selected for a home in the Bible–canon as collection) and hermeneutical inquiry (the resultant interpretive setting within which these biblical books are best read–canon as context). At long last the question of the Twelve is receiving the attention it has deserved, with a near consensus in the academy that the Minor Prophets represent more than a loose collection of independent little books, that in fact the Twelve exists as the product of definite intentional shaping.

SUPPORTING DATA FOR THIS CONVICTION

What sorts of evidence are put forth for this thesis?  To be clear, there is no suggestion here that the Twelve were originally written as one book. It is entirely possible, and equally unprovable, that these “books” circulated independently at an earlier stage (as did individual psalms that now make up the book of Psalms). At some point in their compositional history Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and all the others were edited into a twelve-part final form, which is their present shape in the scriptural canon. Moreover, to be completely accurate, this final canonical shape is the only historical context in which these “books” exist. The Twelve in its given formation represents a piece of prophetic history writing in its own integrity. Seitz gets at this point with characteristic sharpness:

My more contentious point is that those who claim that their reading is more historically appropriate–a reading in which the individual prophets are isolated from one another, recast according to date, and placed in a reconstructed temporal context–are actually the ones who are not reading the prophets sufficiently historically, for final canonical form is also a piece of history, belonging to decisions made in the past about how an ancient prophetic witness is finally to be heard.{en6}

There are four lines of evidence in support of this conviction. First, the earliest testimonies to the Hebrew canon uniformly number the books as 24 (or 22) instead of 39, which works only if Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are treated as one book each and the Twelve as one book. So the evidence from Sirach, various pseudepigraphal works, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, and the Targumim. Second, throughout all the manuscript and early translation tradition (MT, LXX, 4QXIIa), the Twelve uniformly circulate as one book. There are no attested departures in any known scribal practices. It is always a single manuscript, with a smaller space between the “books” than between other biblical books. Moreover, the customary Masoretic scribal notation at the end of Malachi totals the number of verses not only for Malachi, but for all Twelve. Third, and most significantly, the internal evidence of compositional integrity testifies to a thoughtful strategy (see further below). Finally, the New Testament evidence, though scant, leans favorably in this direction. Granted, only three times do New Testament authors cite texts from the Twelve by name of the individual prophet (Acts 2:17; Rom 9:25, 26); but Acts 7:42-43 introduces a quotation of Amos 5:25-27 with “as it is written in the book of the prophets”; Acts 15:15 cites Amos 9:11-12 as “the words of the prophets”; and Acts 13:40-41 cites Habakkuk 1:5 as “what the prophets said” (Jones, 10).

Accordingly, it is not too much to say with C. F. Keil more than a century ago, “On the completion of the canon these twelve writings were put together, so as to form one prophetic book, ”{en7} and with Jones more recently, “The ancient manuscript remains of the Minor Prophets and the ancient references to them in extra-biblical literature are nearly unanimous in their attestation of the transmission of these twelve prophetical writings as a single compendious volume, the Book of the Twelve Prophets”; or again, “All of the ancient literary attestations of the Minor Prophets confirm the evidence of the ancient manuscripts concerning the antiquity of the literary unity and sacred status of the Book of the Twelve” (pp. 1, 8). Moreover, the overwhelming and one-sided nature of the evidence underscores the importance of keeping the discussion in proper perspective. Renewed interest in this topic should not be construed in terms of a new position or a novel view. Indeed, the charge of novelty goes precisely the opposite direction. History and tradition in this case are decidedly on the side of those who wish to move away from a fragmented view of twelve individual and independent Minor Prophets to a more unitary view of the Book (singular) of the Twelve.

THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE TWELVE

When it comes to the arrangement of the Twelve, we encounter a situation in which the evidence for is more ready to hand than the explanation of, whether in terms of how the Twelve came to be so arranged (i.e., their compositional history) or why they are so arranged (i.e., the basis for the present formation). This is not unusual in matters biblical, of course, where the existence of a phenomenon (e.g., miracles, the incarnation, the reality of God) is more apparent than its explanation. As to the resultant achievement in terms of the meaning/message of the Twelve, we shall have more to say in a few moments.

What we can say with reasonable confidence in this regard, although some have disputed this point, is that the traditional arrangement of the Hebrew (Masoretic) text–followed, happily, in all English versions–is to be preferred over the only notable exception.{en8}  For reasons unknown, the Septuagint (LXX) shows a departure from this positioning of the twelve “books,” affecting the positioning of Joel, Obadiah, and Micah–Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah instead of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. Otherwise, the order is identical to that in the Hebrew and English arrangement.{en9}

Returning for a moment to a point raised just above, scholars have long wondered about possible factors that might account for the arrangement. Four main proposals have been offered. (1) Some have suggested that the order is mere coincidence, that the Twelve are a random collection without any real influencing factors on their respective location at all. “Books” simply landed in their present place by chance. This view fails to account for any of the data rehearsed above, which probably explains why no scholar of my acquaintance holds it. (2) Others have proposed that the books are arranged in chronological order, or at least in chronological groupings: Hosea-Micah (8th century), Nahum-Zephaniah (7th century), Haggai-Malachi (6th/5th century). This view (a) collapses the important differentiation between the dating of prophets (when they lived and ministered) and the dating of books written about (note: not necessarily by) them; (b) overlooks the implications of the Book of the Twelve and its author-compositor(s) who must have lived long after some of the prophets, and with different purposes in mind for the whole than for each of its constituent parts (compare the similar situation in Psalms); (c) assumes relative dating when in fact no certain historical data exist for Joel, Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi (see the commentary discussions); and (d) leaves unexplained why the Hebrew tradition did not follow the same chronology as the LXX presumably did.{en10}  (3) Still others suggest that the books are arranged in order of comparative length (i.e., longest to shortest), which simply does not work, since this would require the order Zechariah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Malachi, Zephaniah, Jonah, Habakkuk, Haggai, Nahum, Obadiah–an order completely without witness in the tradition. (4) By far the best proposal considers the internal coherence and logic of the twelve in their present position as reflective of an overall thematic intentionality with theological significance. This view deserves a little fuller explanation.

Whether by observing and examining literary/lexical “catchwords” that link adjoining “books,” or by exploring thematic/theological trajectories achieved by positioning “books” in a particular sequence, or a combination of the two (my view), this reckoning assumes an intentional strategy at the final authorial-editorial level,{en11} as it does in approaching every other biblical book. Its goal is not to prove anything, but to explain the meaning and significance of the present order as it is. Or as Paul House puts it, “the question is not how the books came to be arranged as they are, but is how they are to be understood as they now appear.”{en12}  In other words, it could be argued that catchword associations (as illustrated below) are equally apparent in the LXX order (so Jones). This may or may not be the case (the relative merits of MT vs. LXX have to be argued on other grounds; see endnote 8), but what has to be acknowledged is that a different arrangement would yield a different outcome for the whole. The message of the book would be different.{en13}

Space permits just a few selected and perhaps titillating illustrations of the kinds of catchword-thematic links that bind the Twelve into a whole. When we inquire, for example, why Hosea occupies first place in the Twelve, we should consider its close associations with Ezekiel (which immediately precedes in the Hebrew canon), as, for example, their shared language and imagery of “whoredom” (using the same root znh more often than any other biblical books) in both its literal and metaphorical sense and their common theme of “knowing YHWH” (more than 70x in Ezekiel and prominent in Hosea; cf. 4:1, 6; 6:6); the precise manner in which Hosea is itself introduced as “The beginning of ‘YHWH spoke’ [was] with Hosea” (v. 2., lit.), marking Hosea’s first position in a series of prophetic messages;{en14} and the inclusio formed with Malachi at the far end of the Twelve on the very note of marriage, infidelity, and divorce with which Hosea begins (cf. Hos 1-3; Mal 2:10-16), among many others.{en15}

As for Joel-Amos-Obadiah-Jonah, “Just as the LORD’s roaring from Zion ends Joel and begins Amos, Amos ends with a promise of Edom’s demise (9:12), and Obadiah unhesitatingly describes it” (Seitz, 237). Of course, God can be merciful toward evildoers who repent, like Nineveh in the Jonah story, while YHWH’s prophet acts, tragically, like the Edomites who are condemned in Obadiah for proudly preferring the destruction of others over their salvation!  So, like Edom in Obadiah, God has to “bring Jonah down” (yrd in Obad 3, 4; and Jon 1:3, 3, 5; 2:7). Again, if both Obadiah and Jonah show what happens to those who exalt themselves, like the Edomites and the disgruntled prophet, Jonah also shows what happens to those who humble themselves, like the Ninevites. Alas, the sailors, the king, and the repentant people of Nineveh, perhaps even the obedient fish, the plant, the worm, and the scorching east wind–all prove to be more compliant than YHWH’s prophet, and so a foil against which to see the tragedy of Jonah’s pathetic perspective. This is the Jonah who in 2 Kings 14:25 (his only other mention in the Old Testament) is called YHWH’s ‘ebed, “servant,” and now in the Twelve Jonah follows Obadiah, “servant of YHWH,” inviting the question: Will Jonah live up to that expectation?  Obadiah concludes on the universalistic note “The kingdom belongs to YHWH!” and Jonah proclaims “Salvation belongs to YHWH!”  One wonders if even the people of Nineveh might come within the reach of YHWH’s kingdom and salvation, a prospect Jonah finds completely insufferable.{en16}

Many similar examples could be noted throughout the Twelve. This is the kind of study on which whole books have been written, literally. Hopefully these few examples are sufficient to illustrate what rich dividends reward the study of the twelve as the Twelve, that is, as an intentionally shaped complex but single book.

SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERPRETATION

The main implications of such an approach will already have been anticipated in the preceding discussion and illustrations. Still it may be helpful to gather them up in three summary statements.

First, reading and respecting the twelve as the Book of the Twelve locates the primary informing context of interpretation in the composition’s own rendering of its material rather than in a retrieved and reconstructed socio-historical situation (Sitz im Leben) unique to each prophet’s life and times. It is true, of course, that six of the twelve begin with a titular verse that locates the prophet and his ministry relative to named kings and/or events in Israel’s/Judah’s history (Hos 1:1; Am 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1), not unlike some of the psalm headings that associate the psalm with certain events in David’s life. These historical notices signal that at least these particular “books” are to be read in some respects against the background supplied by the relevant material in especially Kings. But–and this is crucial–the message of a “book” drawn on the background understanding supplied from elsewhere has now been subordinated to the specific concerns of the author-compositor of the Twelve. The former functions in the service of the latter, so that the context provided by the Twelve in its own configuration, with internal cohesion among its twelve members, provides for each the primary interpretive setting. To put this differently, whatever may be gained by hearing a prophet’s words in its time (diachronic reading), that message now comes to bear in a subservient way on the projection or trajectory of meaning shaped in the Book of the Twelve (synchronic reading). In this way also, prophecies which lack historical notices, like Joel, Obadiah, and Malachi, all notoriously difficult to pin down in terms of temporal locatedness, are not dependent on the interpreter’s supplying what inspiration has left out, but on attending to precisely that which inspiration has foregrounded–their given context in the dynamic composition of the Twelve. And so, in addition to the examples already cited, Joel provides “a concrete occasion for hearing the call to repentance at the end of Hosea” (Seitz, 233) and projects the imagery of blessing at the end of Hosea into a promise of eschatological blessing dependent upon that true repentance. It does not matter to the interpretation of Joel that we settle matters of date and place, and nothing will be gained–this should be completely obvious–by speculating on these matters and constructing and supplying an “external scaffolding” (Seitz, 196) for its understanding. This is not a matter of dehistoricizing the prophets, as some have needlessly worried and errantly charged; it is precisely a matter of hearing them in the only historical setting they have been given–in the Book of the Twelve.

Second, reading and respecting the twelve as the Book of the Twelve raises the question of thematic progression and integrity. What exactly does the authored-composed shape of the Twelve intend to say?  One would think that with all the attention given to this topic, an answer that commands a consensus among interpreters would have been produced by now. That this is not the case should not be construed as a flaw in the basic thesis (unless the lack of unanimity on any book of the Bible calls its integrity into question). Proposals have been offered for the dominant thematic scheme of the Twelve, of which I mention two. In a book-length study of this topic, Paul House finds thematic structure to the Twelve in the threefold prophetic message of sin, punishment, and restoration, along the following lines: Hosea-Micah focus on sin, covenant and cosmic; Nahum-Zephaniah focus on punishment, covenant and cosmic; and Haggai-Malachi focus on restoration, covenant and cosmic. House’s proposal has been questioned on grounds of its adequacy, as being a little too neat and somewhat oversimplified–a critique which I believe he has received, leading to some revision in the years since his 1990 publication. More recently, Paul Redditt has discerned the following plot in the Book of the Twelve:

Hosea, Joel, Amos–Warnings of Impending Divorce from Israel
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah–Punishment for Judah and Others
Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah–Punishment to Restoration
Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi–Restoration, Renewal, and God’s Eternal Love{en17}

Now is not the time to settle this matter, nor am I settled in my own mind, although I do find Redditt’s proposal to hold considerable promise. What I do wish to stress is that among the Twelve–on this point all agree–Hosea is most admirably suited for its position at the head, with discernible effects on how we are to read the whole.{en18}

Third, reading and respecting the Twelve as the Book of the Twelve requires a post-exilic dating for the whole. If the Twelve is an organic compositional unit, then the actual author of record is not each original prophet but the compositor of the Book of the Twelve, with the interpretive context shifted accordingly from the setting of the individual prophet to that of the post-exile community, at a time of surging hope for the Messiah. (In this way, interpreting each Prophet in the Twelve is analogous to interpreting a psalm in the post-exilic Book of Psalms, irrespective of when each poem was first written.)  The actual addressees of the Twelve are not those identified by name in some of the prophetic oracles (Israel, Judah, the nations, et al.), but readers of the Book, including us today who sit before its pages and ponder its message as Scripture. Abiding relevance of the word of the Lord, we could say, is a functional achievement of the canonical shaping process.

CONCLUSION

Returning now to Hosea, it may be the case that the story of Hosea’s/YHWH’s tumultuous marriage to Gomer/Israel recounted in Hosea 1–3 serves double duty, with a twofold structural-thematic function–as both the exordium to Hosea 4–14 (i.e., “the exegetical key in the framework from which the entire book [of Hosea] is to be read”{en19}), and the thematic microcosm of the Twelve. Highlighted thereby in both Hosea and the Twelve are (a) YHWH’s suffering and steadfast devotion to his covenant people; (b) their persistent rebellion, both internal and external, both national and international; (c) YHWH’s punishment of his wayward people in a period of separation and desolation (exile); (d) their repentance and restoration after this period of separation and desolation; and (e) YHWH’s plans fulfilled through a messianic figure in a future day (cf. Hos 3 and Mal 3–4 [MT, 3:1-24]).

Therefore, the account of the fish that catches the prophet who (seemingly) got away and the other “oddnesses of the story do not mean, in themselves, that Jonah is unhistorical,” any more than can be said of 1-2 Kings.{en6} At the same time, “like Elijah’s ravens (1 Kings 17:6), Balaam’s ass (Num 22), and Eden’s snake (Gen 3:1-15),” the unique activity of nature in Jonah is historically unverifiable, if not likely also unrepeatable, as is the case with so many miracles throughout Scripture.{en7} What is on display in such episodes is the exceptional intervention of the Creator via his creatures for the accomplishment of his cosmic purposes through a rightly ruling humanity. 

The similarities between Jonah and the Elijah-Elisha narrative run deeper still. Consider the following parallels between Elijah and Jonah: “both flee, both are faced with death, both fall asleep into a deep sleep, both sit under a tree and ask to die, and both are associated with a forty-day activity.”{en8} Like Elijah-Elisha, Jonah not only prophesies concerning the king of Israel, but also on foreign soil concerning its king/kingdom (1 Kgs 19:15; 2 Kgs 8:7-15; Jonah 3:1-4). Interestingly, Elisha proclaims the desired recovery of the deathly ill king of Syria, while knowing that God’s plan ultimately entails the king’s death (2 Kgs 8:10). Sadly, this outcome will extend the divine discipline of Israel, which evil comes through the hands of the usurper who murders the Syrian king on the day after the announcement of the favorable prophecy (2 Kgs 8:11-15; cf. 10:32-33). Similarly, Jonah reluctantly announces his desired ruin of the royal city of Assyria, while knowing that God would rather extend mercy to a repentant Nineveh (Jonah 3:4; 4:2). Shockingly, the entire city repents and turns from its evil way on the very day of the unfavorable oracle, which results in the Lord turning from the evil he was going to bring upon it.

This elicits the anger of Jonah, who prays for his own death and presumably knows of the evil that Assyria will continue to bring upon Israel. Such Assyrian aggression is narrated in the chapter immediately following the mention of Jonah in 2 Kings 14:25, and extends through the Assyrian conquest and exile of Israel (2 Kgs 15-18). The narrative then recounts Assyria’s aspiration to do the same to Judah (2 Kgs 18-20). As it was with the Syrian king, so it is with the Assyrian; a prophecy is declared that is overruled, which soon leads to the suffering of Israel at the hands of the neighboring nation. At the same time, just as Nineveh is mercifully delivered from the fiery anger of the Lord on the day of the oracle, so also Jonah is delivered from the burning heat of the sun and of his own anger through the shade of a divinely appointed plant (Jonah 4:6). Likewise, the Assyrian repentance surely proves favorable for Israel and all neighboring nations, at least for a season. But the merciful episode ends for Jonah on the next day, when the plant dies after being attacked by a worm, and the Syrian king is murdered the day after the prediction of his restoration (Jonah 4:7-8). Even if the favorable relations with Assyria last only for a spell, the healing/forgiveness of those—including enemy nations—who request such from God will surely be granted. After all, the Lord desires to bless all nations. Therefore, the death wish in Jonah’s anger is at odds with the life-giving intentions of God’s action among the nations. To be sure, an Assyria that then curses the people of God will face the curse of its own destruction, but that too reflects the mysterious ways of the divine work in the midst of Israel and the nations to secure blessing for all (cf. Gen 12:1-3).

The prophecy of Jonah that announces the overturning of Nineveh is itself overturned, which, by a legalistic interpretation of Deuteronomy 18:21-22 in isolation from the rest of Scripture, would render Jonah a false prophet. However, “the Book of Jonah makes sure we know that Jonah was a true prophet, by telling how God compelled him to give the message he sent him to give.”{en9} Moreover, Jonah does not understand prophecy as forcing the hand of God, as if God has to execute every threat he issues.{en10} On the contrary, Jonah sees the possibility of mercy rather than judgment, blessing rather than cursing, in the declaration of doom (Jonah 4:2). No doubt the stated inclusion of a designated period before the hammer of judgment falls invites reflection on the possibility that something might be done in the meantime to avert the disaster. The King of Nineveh apparently recognizes this opening, which explains why he risks the course of radical repentance in the uncertain attempt to secure peace with an enemy of superior, indeed supernatural, strength (3:6-9).

The fact that it works perhaps should not surprise readers. After all, the potter-and-the clay prophecy of Jeremiah declares just such an aversion of prophesied destruction for any wicked nation who turns from its wickedness (Jer 18:7-8). Immediately after this, Jeremiah declares the opposite to be true as well. Any nation who becomes evil will forfeit the growth and development previously “promised” it by God (18:9-10). The latter is the message of Jeremiah concerning Judah (18:11; cf. 25:1-7; 35:15-17).{en11} As 2 Kings 17:13 explains, this is also the word given previously to Israel. The refusal of Israel to repent reaches a boiling point when Elijah announces the impending annihilation of the house of the notoriously wicked King Ahab (1 Kgs 21:20-26; 2 Kgs 9:8, 36-37; 10:17). The fulfillment of this oracle approaches the obliteration of the name of Israel (not just Ahab), which is why the prophecy of Elijah is clarified amid the narrated reestablishment of Israel through the evil King, Jeroboam II, in accord with the prophecy of Jonah (2 Kgs 14:25-27). Amazingly, nothing is said about the repentance of the evil king of Israel, unlike what occurs in the book of Jonah (Jonah 3:6-9).

Thus, the result of the prophetic ministry of Jonah in Jeroboam’s kingdom is at least as amazing as what comes of his oracle in Nineveh. Although Israel and Judah eventually go the way of the unrepentant, the God of Israel remains a merciful God who is steadfastly loyal and loving toward all he has created (Jonah 4:2). It seems Jonah had no problem with the extension of divine mercy toward a habitually unrepentant Israel, but could not even stomach the possibility of the same concerning a repentant Assyria. All of this invites further reflection on where Jonah sits within the Scriptures.

CANONICAL PLACEMENT

Jonah is the fifth installment within the book of the Twelve (Minor Prophets).{en12} This locates Jonah among the first six books, which “alternately place their primary (not exclusive) focus on the Northern or Southern kingdoms (Hosea – N, Joel – S, Amos – N, Obadiah – S, Jonah – N, Micah – S).”{en13} These volumes consist of prophetic messages associated with the days of the decline of both kingdoms of God’s people, when repeated warnings of disciplinary doom typically went unheeded as the kings and their people remained unrepentant. The defeat and exile of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians is then skipped over (cf. 2 Kgs 17),{en14} as the following books of Nahum and Habakkuk foresee the impending fall of Assyria and the rise of Babylon, who will not only conquer Assyria but also Judah. Zephaniah then zooms ahead to the Judean reign of Josiah, whose repentance and reformation of Judah would stay the execution of exile for little more than his lifetime (2 Kgs 22-23).{en15} As with Israel, so with Judah, the defeat and exile is then passed over. Haggai and Zechariah pick up with the post-exilic rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple by the returned people of God. Finally, Malachi closes the Twelve with the call to repentance for a corrupt people and priesthood, who once again have violated the covenant of the Lord and polluted his temple.{en16} Thus, the overall arrangement of the Twelve “parallels the story of Israel and Judah,”{en17} a story which looks forward to the coming Elijah who will usher in the desired repentance of the people of God that will ward off the divine threat of destruction (Mal 4:5-6 [3:23-24]).

Jonah makes a unique contribution to the overall quest for repentance that permeates the Twelve. Not only is Jonah the only book occupied with the messenger more so than the message he proclaims, but it also distinguished by its absence of reference to the ruin and the restoration of the holy kingdom. Instead of warnings of impending doom against Israel or Judah, the book of Jonah is concerned about a threat of judgment against a single foreign kingdom. This breaks with the pattern set by the three Major Prophets and Amos of employing oracles against/concerning the nations as part of a larger message which focuses on the chosen nation (cf. Isa 13-23; Jer 46-51; Ezek 25-32; Amos 1-2). Likewise, Obadiah is self-labeled as an oracle concerning the nation of Edom, yet expands into a prophecy about all nations and the return of Israel from exile. Similarly, Nahum and Habakkuk are oracles concerning individual kingdoms (Assyria and Babylonia), whose plundering of the nations elicits divine discipline that results in the deliverance of Israel and the other nations.

This pattern serves to emphasize that neither the chosen nation nor any other nation can “claim that God was being unfair, as if they had been divinely singled out for judgment and held to a higher standard of behavior than other nations.”{en18} Nevertheless, “the particularity of God’s work in and through Israel remains intact amid the universality of God’s work among the nations.”{en19} The Creator of all peoples covenants with Israel for the sake of all nations. This means the favored-nation status of Israel is to serve the blessing of all nations and elicit a response in kind, so that rebellion against mutual blessing results in the threat of discipline for Israel as well as for the nations. Jonah’s perspective stands in stark contrast with this. He is an Israelite who wishes to withhold a word of warning from a wicked neighboring nation and would rather die than witness their repentance with its resultant divine favor.{en20} However, there will come another prophet who will preach repentance on Gentile soil and who also finds a favorable hearing (cf. Isa 9:1-2; Matt 4:12-17; Luke 1:79; Eph 5:8),{en21} but he will display the nature of God when he willingly suffers the judgment of death in order to secure the divine favor for Jew and Gentile alike. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth are realized the divine character and the human contrition required for the restoration of the dwelling of deity with humanity on the earth. In a similar way, the drumbeat of repentance in the Twelve is joined by an emphasis on the reputation of God as loving and just in both mercy and judgment.

Jonah serves in the chorus of the Twelve which sings of the experience of Israel and the nations with the God whose nature is summarized in the creed of Exodus 34:6-7. The God of the exodus who loves Israel and covenants with them to be his people announces in Hosea his plan to reverse this course and begin again. This is reflected in the sign children whose names are “God scatters/sows,” “She is not pitied/loved,” and “Not my people,” which is followed by the prophesied renewal of Israel on “the day God scatters/sows” when they will be called “My people” and “She is pitied/loved” (Hos 1-2). This prophecy of wrath and mercy is echoed in Joel, where the removal of Judah from the Promised Land and their return through a new exodus are associated with “the day of YHWH.” Judah experiences a foretaste of this wrath and mercy when the people fearfully repent on the basis of the character of God as revealed in Exodus 34:6 (quoted in Joel 2:13). However, such repentance and aversion of disaster should not lead to the misguided notion that the day of the Lord will bring judgment exclusively upon the surrounding nations. Surprisingly, Israel held such a perspective, as well as a false sense of security through a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election (Amos 5:18-20), perhaps because of the restoration of its borders during the reign of Jeroboam II.

In any case, no repentance is mentioned in Amos, and Israel is identified as just another kingdom on the multinational menu of the divine lion, the king of beasts who comes to discipline the rebellious rulers who are under his rule. Obadiah then applies the coming day of judgment to Edom, the nation whose roots identify it as the brother of Israel, although at another level, all nations are. This concern not only for Israel but for all nations is then reflected in Jonah, where, to the chagrin of the prophet, even the oppressive Assyrians are granted the opportunity to repent, in accordance with Exodus 34:6 (quoted in Jonah 4:2). As with Judah in Joel, so with Assyria in Jonah, repentance averts the disaster that represents a foretaste of the ultimate day of the Lord. Each does what Israel did not. Thus, Micah threatens the fall of Israel, as well as that of Judah, whose repentance does not last. In accordance with Exodus 34:6-7, God exercises great patience before visiting his people with judgment. And yet, his loyal love will outlast his judgment, as will be evinced through a restored remnant (cf. Mic 2:7; 7:18-20).

Just as the absence of repentance in Israel eventually results in the invasion by the Assyrians, so Nahum expresses that the slowly angered God will not clear the guilty Assyrians whose own repentance wears off (Nah 1:3 uses Exod 34:6). Habakkuk foresees the rise of the Chaldeans/Babylonians as the rod of this divine discipline of Assyria (and Judah), who, like the Assyrians, become an abusive discipliner. But they in turn will be disciplined according to a vision which speaks of the slowly coming anger of the Lord (cf. Hab 2:3). Zephaniah then announces the nearness of the day of YHWH (Zeph 1:7-18), “the day of the anger/wrath of the Lord” (2:1, 3), which is wrapped by the inclusion of Judah in a list of the nations who are about to face judgment, much like Israel is in Amos. This finds fulfillment in the exile of Judah, which gives way to a new exodus, reflected in the thrice repeated call, “Be strong!” and the divine  promise to be “with you” that are addressed to another Joshua and the rest of the returnees in Haggai (Hag 2:2-4; cf. Josh 1:5-9). Zechariah also chimes in with a call to repentance, lest they repeat the history of their unrepentant forefathers that elicited the anger of the Lord (Zech 1:2-6).

This narrated repentance amazingly becomes “the only place in the Book of the Twelve where the call for God’s people to repent is explicitly reported as having met with a positive response.”{en22} Nevertheless, the people return to the sins of their ancestors, so that not even the rebuilt temple can safeguard the people of God from the eschatological day of the Lord, which will bring both judgment and deliverance (Zech 14; Mal 4:1-6 [3:19-24]). Malachi sums up this story of the faithfulness of God to his character and the faithlessness of Israel to his covenant through the opening reminder that God has loved Jacob/Israel not only in their establishment, but also in their reestablishment, as well as the closing reference to the prophesied repentance that will prevent the divine visitation of destruction once again on the fathers and the children of Israel (Mal 1:2-5; 4:6 [3:24]). The reader of Jonah is best able to understand both its shape and meaning when the book is set within this account of God and Israel in the Twelve.

COMPOSITIONAL SHAPE OF JONAH

The book of Jonah divides into two main parts, which are largely parallel. Each begins with the commission of the prophet to proclaim judgment against the city of Nineveh (1:1-2; 3:1-2). Each charge is followed by the response of Jonah, who flees in the first instance and follows through in the second (1:3; 3:3-4a). A great wind confronts Jonah in the former, while Jonah confronts a great city in the latter (1:4a; 3:3b-4a). Destruction is threatened, first by the personified ship in the storm-tossed sea, and second by the prophet in the sinful city (1:4b; 3:4b). Every sailor petitions the help of his god, but the entire city believes Jonah’s God (1:5a; 3:5a). The seamen cast off the cargo, but each resident puts on sackcloth (1:5b; 3:5b). The captain of the ship commands Jonah to pray to his deity as one among many possible sources of salvation, but the king of the city charges every citizen and creature to fast and to cry out to God who might change his mind and let them live (1:6; 3:6-9). The mariners separate themselves from the source of the evil that has come upon them by casting Jonah into the sea to perish, just as every urbanite turns from his evil ways which include violent acts such as murder (1:7-15a; 3:10a; cf. 3:8b). The sea calms and the sailors worship the God who saves, just as God calls off the overthrow of Nineveh whose response remains unreported (1:15b-16; 3:10b).

Each of the deliverances of Gentiles is accompanied by a surprise with regard to Jonah (1:17 [2:1]; 4:1). First, the disobedient prophet is not swallowed up by death, but by a great fish that serves as a divinely appointed life preserver. Second, the obedient prophet views it as a great evil when the prophesied judgment of an enemy nation is averted because they repent of their evil. Jonah then prays in response to each inversion of his expectation (2:1-9 [2:2-10]; 4:2-3). The first prayer celebrates the loyal love of YHWH, which brings Jonah down toward death in discipline, but then brings him back up in response to his cry for deliverance. The second prayer complains about the loyal love of YHWH, which threatens the destruction of the Ninevites but then relents in response to their repentance. Each prayer is followed by divine speech, which addresses an obedient servant of the Lord in the form of the fish and the formerly fleeing prophet (2:10a [2:11a]; 4:4). Although no words to the fish are recorded, the message to the prophet who was delivered from deadly discipline calls into question his anger over the deliverance of the Ninevites from disciplinary doom. Next comes the response of each minister to the address of the Lord (2:10b [2:11b]; 4:5-11). The fish that swallows Jonah now vomits him out safely on dry land, which completes his deliverance from disobedience and death. However, the angry prophet whose declaration of doom yields the divinely desired repentance and deliverance simply exits the city to see what really will become of it. As a fish was appointed to deliver Jonah from his disobedience to the word of the Lord, so a plant, a worm, and a scorching wind are appointed as an object lesson to deliver Jonah from his disapproval of the way of the Lord. Instead, Jonah once again requests death, which again elicits a question about the legitimacy of his anger. This time Jonah talks back, declaring that his anger with the divine behavior is so fully justified that life is no longer worth living. The Lord then explains the object lesson, which reflects his concern for the whole cosmos. The Creator desires to extend mercy not only to the covenant people, who have received the revelation whereby to discern right from wrong, but also to the nations and to the rest of his creatures.

1. The First Commission and the Salvation of the Sailors, 1:1-16

A divine word comes to Jonah, whose name means “dove,” which is “a symbol of purity and peace.”{en23} Additionally, he is identified as a descendant of Amittai, which name means “faithfulness” or “security.” Ironically, the prophet will first prove unfaithful to the Lord and then hostile toward a foreign nation. The only peace and security he seeks is that of the chosen people, whose borders he prophesies militaristic expansion and whose enemies he prophesies violent overthrow (2 Kgs 14:25; Jonah 3:4). The divine commission here concerns Nineveh, which is labeled “the great city,” not only for its significance in the world and in God’s eyes, but also to signify its status as the “sinful city par excellence” (Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 3; 4:11; cf. Gen 10:11-12; Josh 10:2; Jer 22:8; Rev 11:8; 16:19; 17:18; 18:10, 16, 18, 19, 21).{en24} Indeed, its “wickedness has come up before God as the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah once did (Gen 18.20f).”{en25} However, Jonah will not intercede for Nineveh as Abraham does for Sodom. Worse yet, Jonah runs away, rather than simply express reluctance to the Lord concerning the prophetic call as Moses and others do (Jonah 1:3; cf. Exod 3:11; 4:1, 10, 13; Judg 6:15; Jer 1:6). The author emphasizes this shocking breach of prophetic protocol by twice stating that Jonah flees “from YHWH” and thrice declaring that he heads “toward Tarshish” instead of Nineveh. Why does Jonah flee? What will God do when his prophet goes A.W.O.L.? What will become of Nineveh? Instead of quick and easy answers, the narrator takes readers on a journey of discovery with Jonah on the sea, as he later will on the land.

The Lord remains in control as he again initiates the action in what becomes the recall of his faulty prophet, sending a wind to confront Jonah as he had sent a word to call him. This episode is narrated in a concentric structure, where the beginning parallels the ending, and likewise in the subsequent corresponding units, in a movement inward that draws attention to the central two sections.{en26} The account begins when YHWH hurls a wind upon the sea, which starts a life-threatening storm, which evokes the fearful prayers of the sailors to their gods (Jon 1:4-5a). It ends when the sailors hurl Jonah into the sea, which stops the life-threatening storm, which elicits the fear of YHWH and the offering of sacrifices to him (vv. 15-16).

Moving in a step, the sailors seek to help the ship stay afloat by hurling the cargo into the sea, while the sleeping Jonah is questioned for his apathy, which is followed by the exhortation to cry out to his deity, who might care and so they all might not perish (vv. 5b-6). In the parallel, the sailors strive to help the ship reach land by digging their oars into the sea, while the sea rages against them all the more in their attempt to save Jonah and themselves, which issues in their prayer to YHWH, who might not make them perish with the prophet in what they recognize is the carrying out of the divine purpose (vv. 13-14).

Moving in again, the sailors cast lots in order to determine who is guilty of bringing this evil upon them, whereby the lot falls to Jonah (v. 7). Jonah echoes this understanding in his instruction for the sailors to hurl him into the sea to calm the storm that started when the Lord hurled a wind at Jonah, which is accompanied by his explicit admission that the storm has come upon them because of him (v. 12).

Moving in further, the sailors ask Jonah who he is who brings this disaster upon them, which is paralleled when they ask him what they should do to him in order that the sea might become calm for them (vv. 8, 11). And making the final step, the response of Jonah to the question of the sailors is a confession that he fears YHWH, who created (and controls) the sea and the land, which evokes the corresponding fear of the sailors who knew Jonah was fleeing from a deity from whom they now know no one can flee (vv. 9, 10). Jonah has fled from the Lord, the land, and the labor of his commission, yet somehow “Jonah’s disobedience, in fact, became the very means whereby God’s grace was extended to the Gentiles,” as would prove true for the nation of Israel as well.{en27} However, is this end of the prophet? And what about his undelivered oracle?

2. The Deliverance of the Disobedient Jonah, 1:17-2:10 [2:1-11]

The Lord who commissions Jonah to prophesy against a wicked nation, now appoints a fish to preserve a wayward prophet (1:17 [2:1]). As the Creator uses inanimate creation in the form of a great wind to confront his disobedient prophet, so he uses animate creation in the form of a great fish to capture him. Although Jonah refuses to pray in the bowels of the ship in the face of death during the threatening storm, he prays in the belly of the fish in the place of death after the threat of judgment (2:1 [2:2]). Instead of a prayer of repentance, a psalm follows which assumingly celebrates that the plea of Jonah for deliverance has reached YHWH in his temple so that Jonah will see the temple again (2:2-9 [2:3-10]). This reflects the temple-dedication prayer of Solomon, which asks God to hear and to heal when his people or others call to him in his temple, when they suffer defeat, drought, or deportation for their sins (1 Kgs 8:22ff.). Also, this thanksgiving uses, “as many of the psalms do, water imagery and references to the threat of drowning as vivid metaphors for peril of any kind, but for the first time in history such a psalm is actually sung under water.”{en28} Thus, Jonah is portrayed as praying a standard prayer of Israel, as the storm episode presents him confessing a common creed of Israel that their God is the Creator of all.

The prayer also resembles what the proud Pharisee prays at the temple in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, where only the latter goes home justified (Luke 18:9-14). As the Pharisee gives thanks for his religiosity over against that of the tax collector, so the thanksgiving hymn of Jonah contrasts himself with those (like the sailors) who hopelessly call on idols (Jonah 2:8 [2:9]). Ironically, each of these stories engages the first of the possible proposed prayers that Solomon asks God to answer, wherein God will condemn the guilty and vindicate the righteous when the witness of a man and his neighbor are in disagreement (1 Kgs 8:31-32; cf. v. 39). This would not seem to bode well for Jonah, whose prior testimony stated the attempt to move away from YHWH, which is at odds with the profession of faith Jonah makes only when confronted as the responsible party for the judgment faced by the sailors.

By contrast, the sailors have moved in the opposite direction, turning from idols to YHWH, to whom they pray, offer sacrifices, and make vows. It would seem that Jonah is the false witness, who should be condemned. Yet God has mercy on Jonah, as he does on the sailors. So Jonah likewise prays to YHWH and promises to offer a sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill the vows he has made to him. Somewhat ironically, the prayer ends with “Salvation belongs to YHWH!” Although it belongs to the Lord, Jonah and the Pharisee seem to think they have dibs on it. On the contrary, God is just as willing to save idolatrous sailors and sinful tax collectors. As the ship gave up Jonah so that the sailors might rightly worship YHWH, so the seagoing vessel of the Creator is directed to disgorge Jonah back on the land so that he might carry out his liturgical commitments (2:10 [2:11]). Will this renewed resolve to move toward YHWH also be coupled with an attempt to fulfill the commission to go to Nineveh?

3. The Second Commission and the Salvation of the Ninevites, 3:1-10

God remains the initiator of the action, as the move toward the realization of the mission to Nineveh comes through another divine call (3:1). This second commission basically reiterates the first (3:2). However, Jonah follows the itinerary this time (3:3). When he reaches the city, Jonah announces a ticking time bomb of doom (3:4). God will “overthrow” Nineveh, as he did Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Gen 19:24-25, 29; Deut 29:22; Jer 20:16; 49:18; Amos 4:11; Lam 4:6). Although the sailors ignorantly cry out to their gods when the ship threatens to be destroyed, the Ninevites know to trust in the Lord when the prophet forecasts their fall (Jonah 3:5). The statement “the men of Nineveh believed in God” echoes Genesis 15:6, “where Abraham, the father of the people of Israel, ‘believed God’ and was thereby counted as righteous.”{en29} This amazing parallel is then coupled with “the perfect sequence for repentance,” wherein the Ninevites not only believe in the Lord and what he says about them but also “humble themselves (3:5-8), change their wicked ways (3:8) and place themselves under God’s mercy (3:9).”{en30}

Although Israel has refused to heed the threats of generations of prophets, the enemy of Israel here repents right away in response to a single prophet, which only adds to this wonder work of God. Moreover, the king plays the part of a prophet, when he declares to Nineveh that God might relent if they repent, which echoes what Joel said to Jerusalem and Judah (Joel 2:12-14). As in the case of Jerusalem there, so in the case of Nineveh here, God takes pity on the people (Joel 2:18; Jonah 3:10; cf. 2 Sam 12:22-23 where judgment is not averted despite a strikingly similar course of actions). As the hope of the captain and the sailors not to perish is fulfilled, so is the same hope of the King and the Ninevites. Similarly, the Lord, who relents from his plan to execute the Israelites after the golden-calf incident in response to the intercession of Moses, also turns from the devastation of the Ninevites who, like the sailors, benefit from no intercession of Jonah (Exod 32, note v. 14). As becomes clear in what follows, Jonah neither asks God for their forgiveness, nor agrees with its actualization. Like the rescue of the sailors, the salvation of the Ninevites comes in response to prayer. The former is then followed by the deliverance of Jonah in response to his petition concerning himself. Will Jonah pray once more? And what might Jonah need to be delivered from this time?

4. The Disapproval of the Obedient Jonah, 4:1-11

Jonah obeys the second commission from the Lord concerning Nineveh, which the Lord rewards with the repentance of the entire city. This meets with the disapproval of Jonah. Indeed, the salvation of Nineveh is “a great evil” to him, as the sin of the city was an evil that came up before the Lord (Jonah 4:1). Whereas God turns from his anger over Nineveh in response to their repentance (3:9), Jonah becomes angry over it. Thus, God and Jonah come at Nineveh differently, and keep moving in opposite directions. Instead of praying a hymn of thanksgiving with the anticipation of future worship as he does at his own deliverance, Jonah offers a prayer of protest which calls into question the character of the Lord whom he would rather not continue to serve after the salvation of the Ninevites (4:2-3). As Jonah employs a common Jewish confession in his opening run away from the Lord, so here Jonah expresses a creed about the divine nature as he rails at the Lord.

Ironically, the divine description here comes from the account of the golden-calf idolatry of the exodus people, where the gracious character of God is displayed in the deliverance of the Israelites from destruction through the intercession of Moses. It is perhaps not surprising then that the Lord challenges the anger of Jonah over the deliverance of the city of Nineveh from doom, just as the captain confronts the apathy of Jonah over the delivery of the ship toward destruction (4:4). Jonah then exits the city for a shelter of his own construction to see what destruction might yet befall Nineveh, just as he “escapes” from the Lord for a manmade ship in order not to see what deliverance might come to the city (4:5). As the Creator appoints one of his own “ships” to save Jonah from his disobedience and the divine anger at sea, so here the Creator employs a plant, an animal, and the wind to teach Jonah a lesson whereby to save him from his own anger and disapproval of the Lord on the land (4:6-8). Instead of discerning the meaning of the tutorial, Jonah seeks death for a third time.

But just as God repeatedly sends prophets to confront Israel, so also he repeats the confrontation of his prophet (4:9). And just as there is hope for the sailors and the Ninevites, so there remains hope for Jonah and the Israelites despite the threat (and eventual execution) of exile. Nevertheless, Jonah remains unrepentant, as Israel so often does. So God finally explains the lesson to Jonah (4:10-11). If Jonah feels remorse over the loss of a plant that he did not cultivate, why shouldn’t God exhibit remorse over the destruction of a city full of people and animals that he did create (4:10-11)? Will Jonah let God, be God? Will Israel? Will the reader of Jonah?

The title “Obadiah” is a reduced form of the heading found in the opening line, “The vision of Obadiah.” This longer title supplies the reader with a twofold orientation to the material that follows. First, it identifies the volume as a “vision,” as in the case of Isaiah and Nahum (cf. Isa 1:1; Nah 1:1). What follows is thereby understood to be a revelatory message from God as to how he sees things in the world and what he is going to do about it. The next line then reiterates the point, “Thus says the Lord YHWH” (Obad 1b). Second, the human messenger of the divine message is identified as “Obadiah,” which means “servant of YHWH.” This is a fitting name for a prophet sent by God, since Scripture repeatedly refers to the covenant mediator, Moses, as “the servant of the LORD” (Deut 34:5; Josh 1:1, 13, 15; 8:31, 33; 11:12; 12:6 [2x]; 13:8; 14:7; 18:7; 22:2, 4, 5; 24:29; Judg 2:8; 2 Kgs 18:12; 2 Chron 1:3; 24:6),{en1} as well as his successor, Joshua (Josh 24:29; Judg 2:8), and cites the divine identification of subsequent successors as “my servants the prophets” (2 Kgs 9:7; 17:13; Jer 7:25; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15; 44:4; Ezek 38:17; Zech 1:6).{en2} A dozen individuals bear the name Obadiah in the Old Testament. However, the namesake of the book of Obadiah apparently is referenced in no other Scriptural text. Moreover, the volume that bears his name tells readers nothing more about the man. Instead, the sole focus is on his message.

The prophecy of Obadiah begins “Thus says the Lord YHWH concerning Edom” (Obad 1b). This identifies the text as part of a literary genre referred to as “Oracles Against/Concerning the Nations” (hereafter OAN). Such passages announce impending judgment against the nations that neighbor Israel, where the reason indicated is their wicked national and international practices and policies. Usually the OANs appear within larger narratives (cf. Isa 13-23; Jer 46-51; Ezek 25-32; Amos 1-2), where the dark discipline is tempered somewhat by the surrounding message that such trauma serves to refashion Israel and the nations into mutually blessing entities who will enjoy the divine favor that comes through God’s servant Israel. What is unusual about Obadiah (and Nahum) is that it consists entirely of an OAN. However, Obadiah (and Nahum) need not be viewed as stand-alone OAN, if we accept the recognition of the Hebrew Scriptures that such books serve the larger “narrative” of the Book of the Twelve (Minor Prophets). In any case, the vision of Obadiah itself includes the restoration of exiled Israelites and Jerusalemites (Obad 15-21). Why then is this not an oracle against Babylonia, the nation responsible for the destruction of the kingdom of Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 25; 2 Chron 36:15-21)? If not Babylonia, why, of all the other nations who brought suffering upon God’s servant Israel, is Edom singled out for such special attention?

Edom is unique among the surrounding aggressors in that its people originate from Esau/Edom, the twin brother of Jacob/Israel from whom the Israelites descend. The struggle between these two peoples goes all the way back to the birth of these twins, wherein the privileged position of the firstborn is contested when the second child comes out of the womb clutching the heel of the first (cf. Gen 25:24-26). It is for this reason that the second child is named Jacob, which means “He grasps the heel” and reflects his grasping for the power and the privilege that goes to the firstborn son. The rivalry between these brothers only intensifies when each parent later chooses one as a favorite (Gen 25:28). Relations break down further when Jacob purchases the rights of the firstborn from Esau for a pot of red stew, which reflects the desire of the former and the disdain of the latter not only for the rights but also the responsibilities that go with the title (25:29-34; cf. Heb 12:16). It is in connection with this episode that the name Edom (“Red”) is applied to the older brother, despite the fact that redness is associated with his looks at birth, where the name Esau (“Hairy”?) is given to him due to his hairiness (25:25; cf. 27:11, 23).{en3} As if to add insult to injury, Jacob, with the help of their mother Rebecca, deceptively secures the parting blessing from their declining father Isaac, who had intended to give it to Esau (Gen 27; cf. Heb 12:17). Esau then plots fratricide, but his plans are thwarted by the departure of Jacob. On the eve of his return to face his murderous brother, Jacob contends against another person and seeks another blessing, which episode turns out to be an angelic encounter and earns Jacob the name ‘Israel’, which means “Strives with God” (Gen 32). God grants Jacob favor in the eyes of Esau, after which the brothers once again part ways (Gen 33). The two reappear together only to bury their father (Gen 35:29). However, this family feud would be far from over.

The peoples of Israel and Edom square off during Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. In a celebration of the exodus out of Egypt, a song is sung which declares that the nations, among whom Edom is specifically mentioned, will hear of this great deliverance and fearfully permit Israel passage through their lands as Israel travels toward Canaan (cf. Exod 15:13-15). However, Edom refuses their brother Israel such transit when the time comes (cf. Num 20:14-21; Judg 11:17-18). Nevertheless, a generation later, the Israelites pass through a now fearful land of Edom, whose inhabitants are referred to as “your brothers the descendants of Esau” (cf. Deut 2:1-8). Although divinely directed not to provoke Edom to war in this passage, the earlier prophet Balaam foresaw a time when a ruler from the tribe of Jacob would conquer Edom (cf. Num 24:15-19, esp. v. 18). Saul, the first Israelite king, battles against the traditional enemies of Israel, including Edom (1 Sam 14:47).{en4} However, it is his successor, David, who comes from the tribe of Judah, who subdues Edom (2 Sam 8:11-14; 1 Kgs 11:15-16; 1 Chron 18:11-13).

Edom then revolts against Israel during the reign of Solomon (1 Kgs 11:14ff.), yet remains a vassal of Judah (cf. 1 Kgs 22:47). Edom even later cooperates with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah against a common enemy (2 Kgs 3). Finally, Edom severs its longstanding alliance with Judah during the reign of Jehoram (2 Kgs 8:20-22; 2 Chron 21:8-10). Eventually, King Amaziah inflicts severe casualties on Edom, but is not able to restore their complete subjection to Judah (2 Kgs 14:7, 10; 2 Chron 25:11, 14, 19). During the reign of Ahaz, the Edomites invade Judah and carry some into captivity (2 Kgs 16:6-8; 2 Chron 28:17). However, this up-and-down relationship between the brothers Israel and Edom takes a back seat to the role of the disciplinary overlord from Babylon when it comes to the narration of the demise of Judah and the deportation of its inhabitants in Kings and Chronicles. It is only through the Latter Prophets and the Writings that readers learn of the activity of Edom in the dark days of Judah’s destruction, which invites further reflection on the location of Obadiah in the scriptural story.

CANONICAL PLACEMENT

Obadiah is the fourth installment within the “Book” of the Twelve, which consists of “books” (e.g. Nahum 1:1b begins “The book of the vision of Nahum”). This twofold understanding, “the Twelve is a collection; the Twelve are individual books,”{en5} is reflected in the New Testament. Acts 7:42 introduces a quotation from Amos 5:25-27 with the words “as it is written in the book of the prophets.” The referent seems to be the book of the Twelve,{en6} rather than to the entire canonical division of the Prophets,{en7} since the consistent pattern for referencing the latter is to do so in conjunction with reference to the Law, as in “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12; 22:40; Luke 16:16; Acts 13:15; Rom 3:21).{en8} It might be helpful to compare this with the introduction to a citation from Isaiah 40:3-5, “as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah” (Luke 3:4).{en9} These two citation formulas seem to imply a differentiation between the book of Isaiah and the book of the prophets. Moreover, Acts 13:40 introduces a quotation of Habakkuk 1:5 with “the thing having been spoken in the prophets,” while Acts 15:15 transitions into a citation of Amos 9:11-12 with “the words of the prophets.”{en10} As with Acts 7:42, each of these examples quotes a single book from within the Twelve, while the citation seems to emphasize that the text is drawn either from the multi-volume collection of the Twelve prophets or the corpus of the Prophets. By contrast, Acts 2:16 simply emphasizes either the prophetic spokesperson or the book of Joel, when it introduces a quotation from Joel 2:28-32 [3:1-5] with “the thing having been spoken through the prophet Joel.” In this way, readers are instructed to read Obadiah both as a book and as a member of the twelvefold volume.

Obadiah is one of six volumes in the Twelve that are devoid of the expected superscript reference to a king(s) as the means to locate the historical period of the prophet’s message (cf. also Joel, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi), a pattern established by each of the three Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel). The other six texts are arranged in a chronological order (Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah),{en11} although a possible exception appears in the placement of Amos after Hosea despite the fact that the superscription of Hosea lists subsequent Judean kings beyond the one shared with that of Amos. This order holds for both the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint. However, the “undated” works were inserted into this chronological collection in two different sequences,{en12} which calls for explanation.

The Hebrew Bible inserts Joel between Hosea and Amos. Hosea’s concluding call for the repentance of Israel (Hos 14:1-9 [14:2-10]) is thereby complemented by Joel’s opening call for the repentance of Jerusalem and Judah (Joel 1:1-2:17). Similarly, the end of Joel contains material that is duplicated near the beginning and ending of the words of Amos concerning Israel (cf. Joel 3:16, 18 [4:16, 18]; Amos 1:2; 9:13), which stitches these books together. Amos also concludes with an emphasis on the eschatological restoration of God’s people when they will possess “the remnant of Edom” (Amos 9:12), which anticipates the vision of Obadiah concerning Edom that comes next. As a result, “the placement (and some would argue the compilation) of Joel and Obadiah dovetails with their literary surrounding in order to meld their message, directed toward Judah and Edom respectively, with the message of Hosea and Amos, which is directed toward the northern kingdom.”{en13}

The damning verdict against Edom is then extended to include all nations at the end of Obadiah (Obad 15-21), which anticipates the story of judgment announced yet (temporarily) avoided with regard to the nation of Assyria (synechdochically referenced by its capitol Nineveh) in the subsequent book of Jonah. Ironically, the prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, is previously referenced in Scripture as prophesying a restoration of lost land to Israel that occurs during the reign of Jeroboam II (2 Kgs 14:25). Nevertheless, the summary evaluation of Jeroboam is that he did evil in the sight of God (2 Kgs 14:24), so that despite a restoration of their borders in the days of Jeroboam, the nation of Israel would eventually be removed from their land. The literature’s turn to this prophet serves to set the stage for the surprising deliverance of another evil king and kingdom whose wickedness likewise eventually will end in the death of a nation.

The book of Micah follows with a prophecy of judgment against Assyria (Mic 5:5-6; cf. 7:8-10), which is set in the midst of its verdict concerning Israel and Judah and anticipates the announcement in Nahum that the day of the destruction of Assyria has arrived. The message of Micah perhaps summarizes the Twelve so far, where just as Israel and Judah have had their chances to repent and to avert disaster, so also have the nations, whose destiny is bound up with the people through whom blessing will come to all the families of the earth. Significantly, the first king in relation to whom Micah is contextualized is Jotham, whose reign over Judah succeeds that of Uzziah/Azariah (referenced in Amos) and begins after the death of the Israelite King, Jeroboam (referenced in Amos and with respect to Jonah in Kings) (Amos 1:1; Mic 1:1; 2 Kgs 14:25). So is preserved the largely chronological substructure of the Twelve.

The last Judean king referenced in the superscript of Micah is Hezekiah, whose reign begins just prior to the Assyrian exile of the northern kingdom (2 Kgs 18:1, 9-12; cf. 2 Kgs 17:6ff.). Hezekiah rebels against the Assyrians by whom his father Ahaz had sought deliverance from the armies of Israel and Syria, and whereby Judah had become subject to Assyria (2 Kgs 16:5-8; 18:7; Isa 7:1-6; 2 Chron 28:5-7). As might be expected, Judah eventually faces Assyrian invasion, only to be divinely delivered from the blasphemous invader (2 Kgs 18:13-19:37; Isa 36:1-37:8; 2 Chron 32:1-22). Nevertheless, Assyrian dominance continues, with the assistance of Egypt, until Babylonia rises to defeat them (2 Kgs 23:29-30, 34; 24:7; 2 Chron 33:11; 35:20-24; 36:3-4, 6-7). This demise of the Assyrians is declared in Nahum, which is fittingly inserted after Micah.

Soon, Judah rebels against Babylonian/Chaldean dominance and is carried into exile in waves, which invasion is prophesied by Habakkuk and so explains the insertion of his namesake volume after Nahum (2 Kgs 24; 2 Chron 36:6ff.; Nah 1:6; cf Jer 5:15). Since Josiah is the last Judean king to reign in freedom, the prophecy of Habakkuk likely occurred prior to or during the reign of Josiah, who is the king referenced in the subsequent book of Zephaniah (2 Kgs 22:1-23:30; 2 Chron 34-35; Zeph 1:1). The painful experience of exile is then skipped, as the next two volumes pick up in the sixth and eighth month of the second year of the Persian King, Darius I (Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1), who renewed the edict of Cyrus for the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple (Ezra 1:1-4; 4:24; 6:1-12; 2 Chron 36:22-23). Haggai and Zechariah are remembered for the pivotal role they played in the completion of the second temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 5:1; 6:14). But the sanctuary becomes defiled through the corruption of the priesthood and the people against whom Malachi prophesies in the final installment of the Twelve. The book of Malachi closes with the exhortation to obey Moses and the expectation of a coming Elijah, and so upholds the ongoing significance of the Law and the Prophets (Mal 4:4-6 [3:22-24]).

The Septuagint inserts Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah immediately after the three volumes whose superscripts context them by referring to the reigns of the Judean kings Uzziah/Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Hosea, Amos, and Micah). In this way, the three explicitly “dated” volumes appear side by side, balanced by three volumes devoid of such obvious chronological tagging. Although the Hebrew Scriptures do not share this partition into two groups, each three-book unit of the Septuagint is arranged in the same order as the books are found in the Hebrew arrangement (Hebrew: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah; Greek: Hosea, Amos, Micah; Joel, Obadiah, Jonah).{en14} Interestingly, the Septuagint preserves precisely the same arrangement as the Hebrew Bible for the remaining six books, despite the continued presence of both dated and undated books. By whatever arrangement, the emphasis of Obadiah on the contribution of Edom to the demise and destruction of Judah reflects similar sentiments that are sprinkled throughout the Latter Prophets and the Writings (Jer 49:7-22; Ezek 25:12-14; 35:1-15; Pss 137:7; Lam 4:21-22). What needs to be considered now is how this confrontation of the fraternal abuse of Judah by Edom serves the overall shape of the volume known as Obadiah.

COMPOSITIONAL SHAPE OF OBADIAH

The book of Obadiah takes its name from the heading that appears in the opening line (Obad 1a). The next phrase introduces the word of the Lord concerning Edom, which occupies the remainder of the volume and divides in two parts. First, accusations of arrogance and pronouncements of punishment are leveled against Edom (vv. 1b-14). Edom is confronted for its blind and foolish confidence in its military might and alliances, which is the primary reason for its impending doom “on that day” (vv. 1b-9). A particularly offensive example of this pride is then cited—mockingly celebrating, as well as aiding and abetting, the abuse of their brother nation, Jacob, “on the day” of its divine discipline (vv. 10-14). Second, “the day of distress” in Judah (v. 14) will finds its counterpart in the “the day of the LORD,” when Esau and all nations will drink the cup of judgment while Jacob drinks once again the cup of blessing (vv. 15-21). This overall shape then can be viewed chiastically. As Edom is falsely secure in its borders (vv. 1b-9) and faithlessly serves in the destruction of Judah (vv. 10-14), so Jacob will faithfully serve in the destruction of Edom and the nations (vv. 15-18) and become truly secure in the Promised Land (vv. 19-21).

1. The Title, v. 1a

The shortest superscription to appear in the Latter Prophets reveals simply the identification of the material as prophetic and the name of the prophet. The employment of the label “vision” cinches Obadiah closely with the preceding book of Amos, whose final chapters report five visions regarding the increasingly unavoidable destruction of the northern kingdom Israel (Amos 7:1-3, 4-6, 7-9; 8:1-4; 9:1-10). Thus, Obadiah extends the visions of national demise in order to include another kingdom with a long-lasting familial connection to Judah. Surprisingly, the revelatory messenger “is not identified by patronymic or given any place of origin, as is common in other prophetic books.”{en15} Neither is a king named whereby to secure a historical context, nor is the location where the revelation occurred identified so as to establish a geographical setting. Instead, the sole focus is on “the powerfully evocative language with which the prophet issues his judgment against Edom,” in order to “paint a powerfully compelling picture that draws the reader into a fuller understanding of God’s majestic sovereignty over the world” that encourages trust in God to right the world in the end.{en16}

2. The Destruction of Edom and the Ruin of Judah, vv. 1b-14

The opening messenger formula establishes the divine authority for the entire prophecy (“Thus says the Lord YHWH”) and the target of the disciplinary action (“concerning Edom,” cf. Jer 49:7). However, what immediately follows is not the direct speech of YHWH. Instead, the report of another prophetic message is mentioned, which stirs one envoy to issue a summons for an international military alliance against Edom that is summarily quoted (ref. Obad 1c). Then appears the direct address of the Lord, who repudiates the pride of Edom over its seemingly insurmountable defenses and assures this lofty nation that it will be brought despicably low (vv. 2-4). In this way, the nations are portrayed as agents, whether knowingly or not, in the exercise of the dominion of the sovereign Lord, whose universal rule in Mount Zion will be recognized when the nations yield to a restored Israel as the final verse of the book expresses. A concluding messenger formula (“declares YHWH”) sets apart these opening verses, whose language, like that of the next verse, echoes part of the oracle concerning Edom in Jeremiah 49:7-22 (cf. Jer 49:14-16 and Obad 1c-4; Jer 49:9 and Obad 5). Additional connections appear in the inability to hide anyone/anything from invaders (Jer 49:10a and Obad 6), the debasing of Edom’s wisdom (Jer 49:7 and Obad 8), the virtually total depopulation of the nation (Jer 49:10b-11 and Obad 9, 18), and the certainty that it will drink the cup of judgment (Jer 49:12 and Obad 16).

What primarily distinguishes the oracle against Edom that is Obadiah from the one in Jeremiah is the emphasis on Edom’s mistreatment of Judah when it drank the cup of judgment (Obad 10-14), only the early days of which were endured by Jeremiah. If Jeremiah expresses the embodied voice of God concerning all nations as Judah journeys into exile, Obadiah extracts the breath spent specifically on Edom and extends it to include the guilt incurred throughout the entire destruction and deportation of Judah. Of course, the cup of judgment given to Edom in Jeremiah is extended to a host of nations (Jer 25:15-38), which explains why the oracle against Edom is but one in a series of oracles concerning the nations (Jer 46-51). Obadiah expresses the same thing when it extends the verdict against Edom to include all nations in the eschatological day of the Lord, when God will right the wrongs done to his chosen servant Israel (Obad 15-21). This is also in keeping with the preceding book of Amos, which opens with its own set of oracles concerning the nations (Amos 1:3-2:16) and closes with an emphasis on the ability of YHWH to bring Israel down even should they climb to the heavens (9:2; cf. the metaphor of Edom as an eagle who nests among the stars and questions who could possibly bring it low in Obad 3-4) and an expectation of the reversal of the ruin of Israel and Judah (Amos 9:11-15). Therefore, Amos and Obadiah pronounce parallel judgments against “the two ‘brother’ kingdoms of Judah,”{en17} which follow the judgment declared against Judah in Joel and issue in the hope of a restored and reunited holy nation.

3. The Destruction of the Nations and the Restoration of Israel, vv. 15-21

The judgment against Edom is extended to all nations on the eschatological day of the Lord (Obad 15a), which is followed by a statement of the retributive justice whereby unjust actions are revisited upon their perpetrator (15b). The latter has just been applied to Edom in the preceding verses, while the former is taken up in the remainder of the book. In this way, verse 15 serves to stitch together both major sections of the oracle. Moreover, the fault (the arrogant abuse of God’s servant Israel) and the fate of Edom (the eschatological retribution via the hands of the abused servant) are thereby established as the pattern that holds for the other countries as well. The principle of recompense is then reiterated in the reverse order from the perspective of the victim, when Judah is apparently addressed as having drunk the cup of judgment, which will be passed to their abusers (16). This turning of the tables will be executed through a restored remnant from both Judah (“the house of Jacob”) and Israel (“the house of Joseph”; cf. Zech 10:6; Pss 77:15 [77:16]; 80:1 [80:2]; 81:4-5 [81:5-6]), who realize on Mount Zion the holy life with the Lord for which humanity was created that will fill the earth (17-18).{en18} The attribution formula “for YHWH has spoken” sets this metaphorical portrayal of the reversal of role and fortune (Obad 16-18) apart from the subsequent depiction of the same in more concrete geographical terminology (19-21). The Israelite and Judean exiles will repossess the Promised Land, which will extend the borders of the renewed kingdom out from Mount Zion “to its ideal extreme limits,” which were “achieved only in David’s reign” (19-20).{en19} When the people of Mount Zion go forth, the first people to be overcome is Mount Esau (19). This dispossession of Edom will mark the “fulfillment of the prophecy of Balaam in Nu 24:18 and thus will signal the coming of the messianic age."{en20}

The reference to “saviors” (a cognate term to the names Joshua and Jesus) who ascend Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau recalls the period of the judges, when God repeatedly raised up military leaders who delivered the rebellious-turned-repentant people of God from their oppressive enemies (Obad 21; cf. Judg 3:9, 15). As God was ultimately the Savior who sent saviors during the period of the judges, so also he was ultimately the King over God’s people who fulfilled their request for a human king during the era of the monarchy. Although the Lord will still employ human leaders in the new conquest, judging, and kingdom, there should be no misunderstanding that “the royal reign will be YHWH’s” (Obad 21). Therefore, the “climactic note of the coming of God’s kingdom … interprets Edom’s defeat not as a boastful achievement of Israel against its arch-rival but as a sure demonstration of God’s rule over all the nations.”{en21} At the same time, this proves God faithful to his covenant promise to curse those countries that curse his servant Israel, and to bless those who bless them (cf. Gen 12:1-3). Although Edom rightly faces judgment as a curser of God and his people, what if a nation might repent of such actions? Will cursing or blessing win out? Jonah presents a perhaps surprising answer.

Those of us who devote our lives to studying and teaching the Scriptures are sometimes justly criticized for dwelling overly much on details, even for drawing more out of a scriptural passage than its author put into it. There may be cause for suspicion, for example, when a German professor lectures steadily on Isaiah more than 20 years, finally reaching the middle of chapter 2; or when the 12th-century French monk Bernard of Clairvaux produces 86 sermons on the first two chapters of the Song of Songs; or when a pastor preaches a 12-year series of sermons on the letter to Titus. I’ve often wondered how the Lord responds when listening to some of our expatiations on the Scriptures: “I said that?!” I am certain that on at least a few occasions throughout my career I too have managed to squeeze more from the biblical text than it contained.

But there are times when the details are important. To be more precise, all the details in a biblical passage are always important, always there for a reason; but the use to which we put them has to be measured carefully, with an eye on the whole. It matters, for example, that the God of Scripture is introduced exactly as he is in the Bible’s first chapters; and to miss the details there, as I tried to highlight in a previous article,{en1} is to proceed through the rest of Scripture with a skewed vision of God, world, life, marriage, salvation, mission, and everything. Again, the precise description of the tree from which our first parents ate carries a significance for that story that simply cannot be captured in the popular but too-generic answer to the question of what went wrong in the Garden: “Adam and Eve sinned when they disobeyed God by eating from the tree.” That the text makes so much of the precise identity of the tree as “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” should supply the first clue that a vaguely general identification won’t suffice. The test in the Garden centers on what is tob and ra‘, “good and bad,” and on whose prerogative it is to make those determinations and by what criteria. These details inform the precise nature of the Fall and the significance of the first humans’ becoming “like God, knowers of good and evil” (3:5, lit; cf. v. 22). They also clarify how this story profoundly explains human history.

So it is when we arrive at the book of Jonah. Among the many questions that accompany this famous story about a disobedient and bad-tempered prophet, a violent storm at sea, a submarine-like fish, and a sweeping revival in Nineveh, two will illustrate the point I am making:

     Question 1: Why was Jonah swallowed by the big fish?
          Generic answer: Because he disobeyed God by fleeing to Tarshish.

     Question 2: Why did Jonah disobey God by fleeing to Tarshish?
           Generic answer: Because he hated (or was afraid of) the wicked people of Nineveh and didn’t want to go there.

Popular readers and storytellers can kick and scream at the technicalities coming up, but it won’t change the fact that the first answer completely misses the target, and the second is entirely made up. Regarding the first, it is true that Jonah disobeyed God by fleeing to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh as God had commanded him, but the big fish functions in the story not as an agent of discipline, but as an instrument of deliverance. The fish did not swallow Jonah to teach him the lesson that you can’t run from God and get away with it (the storm at sea and Jonah’s getting tossed into it had already registered that message), but to transport him to dry ground for a second go at YHWH’s commission. And regarding question 2, the story offers no hint at all that Jonah disliked the Ninevites or that he found them particularly detestable, or as some have suggested, fierce and frightful.{en2} In fact, the prophet’s confessed reason for disobeying the Lord centers on something (and someone) else entirely, with no mention of any vendetta against the people of Nineveh.

In what follows I intend to illustrate that more is at stake in attending to the details than simply getting the facts straight. To miss the details in this case is to miss the message of the book. And to miss the message of the book is to deprive it of its power and to leave us unrepentant and unchanged. It is to miss an opportunity to see ourselves as God sees us and to hear ourselves addressed in the pages of Scripture. Details matter.

In this piece we will focus especially on the second of these two questions: Why did Jonah flee to Tarshish instead of obeying the Lord and going to Nineveh? And for our discussion, I am assuming a general familiarity with the story line of the book. Our attention will fix on the details of two key verses: Jonah 1:3 (what Jonah did) and 4:2 (why he did it).

WHAT JONAH DID (JONAH 1:3)

Following the opening commission of vv. 1-2, v. 3 is stunning in terms of what it says and how. The Bible is filled with examples of God’s commanding someone to do thus and so, followed by a report using the same terms (i.e., the person did thus and so). Consider these:

Then God said to Noah. . . , “Make yourself an ark. . . . And Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him” (Gen 6:14, 22; ‘make’ and ‘did’ are forms of the same Hebrew verb).

Then the word of the LORD came to [Elijah], “Arise, go to Zarephath, . . .” So he arose and went to Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:9-10).

And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, “Take the loincloth that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it (Jer 13:3-7).

So normal is this pattern in Hebrew narrative that it creates a formulaic expectation: Whenever YHWH commands, the one so commanded does exactly as YHWH says as reported in the very words of the command itself. Indeed, in every Old Testament occurrence of the precise collocation qum lek, “Arise, go,” as in Jonah 1:2, the person so commanded “gets up and goes”! (Gen 28:2; Num 22:20; Deut 10:11; 1 Sam 9:3; 1 Kgs 17:9; Jer 13:4, 6; cf. 2 Sam 13:15; 1 Kgs 14:12; 2 Kgs 8:1).

Not so Jonah. Instead of the anticipated “So he got up and went and called out against Nineveh” in response to the staccato like commands of v. 2 (“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, . . .”), v. 3 presents a long, wordy report of Jonah’s alternate plans. He starts off well (“And Jonah arose”), that is, he got up and got going; but there his obedience ends. Everything goes downhill from here, literally:

     And Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of YHWH.
          And he went down to Joppa,
               and he found a boat going to Tarshish,
          and he paid the fare,
     and he went down in it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of YHWH.

Every detail is important. More evident in Hebrew than in English, the verse consists in five clauses, each beginning with an identical conjunction ‘and’ followed by an identically shaped verb (reflected in the English past tense). ‘Tarshish’ occurs in the first, middle, and last lines, and “from the presence of YHWH” occurs at the end of the first and last lines. Both the literary structure and the word count per clause draw unmistakable attention to the first, last, and center lines. It would be difficult to imagine how a writer might have made his main point more emphatic or unmistakable: Jonah is determined to escape the presence of YHWH by going to Tarshish instead.{en3}

And so the story begins with a hard jolt, and a reader’s gasp. No one expects a divinely commissioned person–least of all a prophet of YHWH–to act in this way. The details of how Jonah’s behavior is reported inform us that the storyteller intends to rivet our interest to the stunningly unexpected. As good story readers, endowed with inquisitive imaginations and trained by the normal patterns of reportage, we cannot help but wonder: Why did Jonah do such a thing? The question is not simply: Why, having been told by YHWH to go to Nineveh, did he get up and get out of there and run the other way toward Tarshish instead? The text answers this question unequivocally: Jonah fled to Tarshish to escape YHWH’s presence.{en4} The question is rather: Why does he wish to flee from YHWH? Why, instead of obeying his prophetic commission, does he prefer alienation to obedience? How different is Jonah from Jeremiah, who said concerning the message of the LORD: “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer 20:9). Or from Amos: “The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8) Why is Jonah not like them? And we might be asking other questions, too: Will Jonah get away with it? Can one really run from the divine presence, as if the farther one gets from the transmitter the fainter the signal, or will God track him down even in “roam”? How will the Lord handle his disobedient prophet? Will God’s message ever get to the people of Nineveh, and if so, how?

As readers familiar with the story know, many of our questions are soon answered within the book itself. By the end of chapter 1, for example, we know that Jonah’s flight is futile; he has not succeeded in escaping YHWH’s presence. We also know that it is not the main purpose of the book simply to make this point; otherwise, the story would have ended here, with no need for chs. 2–4. By the end of chapter 2, we learn that somewhere between being tossed overboard by the sailors and being expectorated onto dry ground by the fish, Jonah has had a change of heart. By the end of chapter 3, we discover that the word of the LORD does reach the people of Nineveh–through the re-commissioned prophet no less. But what about the main and most pressing question of all: Why did Jonah flee in the first place? Of course, as Adele Berlin observes, “It is the reader’s question; Jonah had the answer all along.” For him, as we eventually learn, “the reason was clear from the start.”{en5} But until the prophet offers his own climactic exclamation, which we do not hear until ch. 4, readers are forced to wait and wonder, patiently: Will he ever ’fess up and explain himself? Those in a hurry to fill in the gap prematurely{en6} not only rob the story of its fun and the main punch of its power, but by supplying their own answer based on speculation,{en7} they risk misreading the story entirely.

Before proceeding to ch. 4, let’s recap what we know. First, it is true that Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire, is not presented in Scripture in the nicest or friendliest of terms (see esp. 2 Kings 17–19; Nahum), and this larger canonical characterization might factor at some level in the Jonah story. But it is noteworthy that neither here in v. 3 nor anywhere else in the book does either Jonah or the narrator actually express any disfavor toward the city of Nineveh or its inhabitants. On the contrary, Nineveh is regarded as “the great city” (1:2; 3:2; 4:11), even a “great city to God” (3:3).{en8} Indeed, unlike Israel during much of its history, the people of Nineveh actually repent and turn from their evil ways (3:5-10). Second, we are twice told by the narrator in v. 3 that Jonah fled to Tarshish to escape the LORD (lit., “away from the presence of YHWH”), not to escape the Ninevites. Whatever issues he might have with Nineveh or its people, it appears that his real contention is with God. Something in his conception of or relationship with YHWH overshadows everything else. This comes to explicit expression in our second key verse.

WHY JONAH DID IT (JONAH 4:2)

Before considering the details of this verse, it will be helpful to review the immediately preceding events in the story. Upon Jonah’s proclamation in Nineveh in obedience to the word of YHWH (3:1-4), the Ninevites repent from greatest to least; even the cattle participate in the proclaimed fast and sackcloth (vv. 5-9). Whereupon God in mercy withholds the judgment which he had threatened on the city (v. 10; cf. Jer 18:1-11). For reasons not yet clear, this unexpected dispensation of divine grace seems ‘evil’ to the prophet, arousing his indignation: “And it was evil to Jonah a great evil, and it was infuriating to him” (4:1, lit.). In a manner all but obscured in translation but stunningly apparent in Hebrew, God has turned from his ‘anger’ and from sending ‘evil’ on the Ninevites (3:9-10), while Jonah, completely out of sync with God, is characterized by both. Then for the first time since 3:4, Jonah’s voice reenters the story; and finally, at long last, we are informed of the reason–assuming Jonah’s explanation can be trusted–for his earlier and present strange behavior:

2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (4:2-3)

It might be the case that v. 2 raises as many questions as it answers, but it is precisely here that we must focus if any answers at all are to be found in response to the main question of the book: Why did Jonah flee from the presence of the LORD? Here he explains himself, sort of–in the form of a prayer, if it can be called that.

To get at what Jonah is saying and, importantly, what he is not saying, we must consider the details, three in particular: First, what is the antecedent of ‘this’ in the line “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was in my country?” Second, when did he say ‘this’? And third, how does Jonah alter a formulaic description of the LORD to make it fit his present attitude and experience? The first two questions are so closely related that we can handle them together. To overlook these details is to risk misunderstanding the man Jonah and the message of his book.

Assuming that ‘this’ refers to the outcome recorded in 3:10 (Nineveh’s repentance and God’s calling off the threatened judgment), as seems obvious in the context, we are still left with the question of when Jonah said this and whether he is referring to (a) a specific previous prediction that this would happen or (b) an earlier message related generally to these matters but not in the form of a specific prediction. It is often assumed that Jonah has in mind an earlier remark he had made when he fled his divine commission to go to Nineveh back in ch. 1–a word not recorded, and so one we never hear. Or it might be the case that Jonah is simply unreliable here, as Cary proposes: “surely one thing we ought to be thinking about is whether the reason we never heard of Jonah saying this back in his own country is that he didn’t. . . . The best way to interpret Jonah’s story about his own motivation, his self-interpretation, is to call it a lie” (130).

Cary may be right, but another proposal, with textual support in its favor, treats Jonah a little more charitably,{en9} giving him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it is the case that Jonah is not referring to something he said in his homeland at the time of his original commission in 1:3, but to something he said even farther back, longer ago–something recorded in connection with an earlier episode entirely. I am referring to the only other appearance of Jonah in the pages of the Old Testament–the short episode in 2 Kings 14:23-27.{en10} Here in Jonah 4:2 and elsewhere in the book (esp. 1:1, 9), there are multiple indicators that the Jonah story presupposes that earlier reference, consistent with how the Latter Prophets typically assume the historical context of the Former. The passage reads:

23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. 26 For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. 27 But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

There are other verbal and thematic ties linking this passage and the book of Jonah, but three correspondences in particular draw an almost unmistakable association between this earlier account and Jonah’s speech in Jonah 4:2. In the first place, only 2 Kings 14:25 gives Jonah’s homeland; there is no mention of such in 1:3. In the second place, Jonah identifies the outcome which so upsets him as “my word [debari] while I was in my country” (Jon 4:2a, lit.). There is no mention of his speaking or saying anything in 1:3, but debari echoes the same root (dbr) which occurs three times in 2 Kings 14:25 and 27 (‘word’, ‘spoke’, ‘said’). On that occasion YHWH’s “servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet,” did in fact speak a message; and that message, in the third place, turns out to be relevant to the present situation. There we learn that “Jonah, while in his homeland, prophesies the expansion of Israel’s borders under Jeroboam II in spite of that king’s wickedness. This divine blessing is explicitly due to Yahweh’s sorrow at the thought of the complete destruction of Israel” (Bolin, 151). Bolin continues:

Thus, in Jon. 4.2 reference is made to a word concerning divine forgiveness made while Jonah was still in Israel, and in 2 Kgs 14.23-25, the only extant text in which Jonah speaks on his homeland, there is an oracle which highlights Yahweh’s temporary forgiveness of a wicked Israelite king. This exact correspondence cannot easily be attributed to coincidence, but rather is an indication that the book of Jonah both draws upon and makes reference to the story of Jonah found in 2 Kings. (151)

So it was that, at a time of utter helplessness, YHWH had stepped in and preserved undeserving Israel. On that occasion, YHWH’s message through his prophet Jonah was one of divine mercy, precisely upon a people for whom judgment was in order. Jonah knows that his God, YHWH, does this kind of thing. He did it then, but that was for Jonah’s people; it’s an entirely different matter to do it now, for the undeserving people of Nineveh. Apparently the climactic shout Jonah had earlier uttered while in the fish–yeshu‘atah layhwh, “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (2:9 [MT 10])–applies only where and when and on whom Jonah determines! And so, the outcome of 3:10 is precisely what Jonah feared YHWH might do, precisely because Jonah knows YHWH is that kind of God{en11}; and for precisely this reason he fled to Tarshish “from the presence of YHWH” back at his first commission. He did not want YHWH to be soft on sinners–not this time and not these sinners. To put it sharply, in language we sometimes utter ourselves, Jonah has a problem letting God be God. His outrage, in other words, was at God, not Nineveh, or at least the story nowhere says anything about that.

But we are not quite finished with the details of Jonah 4:2. We have yet to consider the formulaic description of the LORD in the second half of the verse and how Jonah alters this to make it fit his present attitude and experience. It is widely recognized that Jonah’s “I told you so” speech in v. 2 echoes YHWH’s revelation to Moses as recorded in Exodus 34:6-7:

6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”{en12}

In their original setting, these words offer covenant assurances in a context where God’s people run the risk of being wiped out on account of the incident of the golden calf. Jonah knows Torah; he can even quote it. He prays like Moses, but he’s no Moses. In Jonah 4:2, these words from Exodus are recited by the disgruntled prophet in disapproval of the fact that YHWH has extended such kindness to the people of Nineveh. In other words, Jonah quotes the part about YHWH’s being gracious and merciful “because he wants to complain about it” (Cary, 133). More to the point, Jonah seems pleased to accept God’s mercy for himself, but peeved when God grants that same mercy to others. Presumably he regards himself as worth saving from drowning–we heard no complaint at the end of ch. 2–but the same does not apply to the great city of Nineveh.{en13} The irony consists in his fleeing precisely because he was afraid that YHWH would live up to his name and prove to be the sort of God he claims to be–“merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”–exactly as Jonah (ch. 2) and his countrymen (2 Kgs 14) had earlier experienced. We might expect someone to flee from an angry God, not from a God who is loving and merciful. But judgment he had preached, and judgment he wanted to see. The very mercy which had previously restored him to life now irritates him to death (4:3, 8). He resents that his fears about God have come true. YHWH’s deliverance is not in this instance a cause for praise, but a ground of complaint. In citing this ancient theological formulation, then, Jonah was “digging his own grave verbally,” inasmuch as “he was actually expecting God to suppress his own natural inclination to show mercy wherever possible. It was not simply the case that Jonah could not bring himself to appreciate Nineveh. Rather, to a shocking extent, he could not stand God!” (Stuart, 503)–exactly as we suspicioned back at 1:3. This is the inherent contradiction of anyone, including any of us, who gladly accepts God’s mercy for oneself while denying it to others, or who presumes that God must be on our side rather than on the opposing side, or who would rather see justice served and the evildoer destroyed than to see God “repent of evil,” turn the wicked heart into something new, and so “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21) as he did in the case of Nineveh.

There’s more, and it is found in the details. There are minor variations between Exodus 34:6 and Jonah 4:2,{en14} but two alterations in particular are noteworthy. First, Jonah adds the line “and relenting from disaster,” presumably in place of, or as an interpretive gloss of, Exodus 34:7a (“keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”). Second, he omits v. 7b entirely, with its threat of punishment on the guilty (“but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation”). Beyond the observation that Jonah will not be the last person to adjust Scripture in accommodating directions, these details are worth pursuing.

In the first place, the addition or interpretive gloss “and relenting from disaster” obviously echoes Jonah 3:10b: “and God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” From Jonah’s perspective, we may venture, God’s “relenting from disaster” offers a more palatable theological conception than God’s “keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” especially when the ‘thousands’ who are forgiven include non-Israelites. Moreover, since 3:10b is an almost verbatim echo of Exodus 32:14 (“And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people”{en15}), within close proximity to Exodus 34, it appears that Jonah may have found a prooftext ready to hand–a line conveniently borrowed from Scripture to fit his present experience.

In the second place, Jonah’s complete omission of Exodus 34:7b, in which YHWH threatens punishment on the guilty, looks suspiciously like a case of adapting the text to fit his circumstances.{en16} At least in his experience, centered in Nineveh’s recent “turnabout” (cf. 3:4),{en17} YHWH fails (as Jonah sees it) to live up to his threat. He just knew YHWH was this kind of God–merciful instead of judging when (in Jonah’s mind) the situation called for the latter. But the author of The Twelve does not leave matters here.{en18} As if to supply what Jonah omits, Nahum, two books later, includes the missing line verbatim from Exodus 34:7b: “and he will by no means clear the guilty” (Nah 1:3a)–spoken concerning Nineveh! And so there, in a later “chapter” in the prophetic story, God does finally punish Nineveh–precisely what he refrained from doing when Nineveh had earlier repented upon hearing Jonah’s message. YHWH lives up to his word after all, but not on Jonah’s terms and not in Jonah’s time. Nahum, not Jonah, gets the last word on Nineveh.

CONCLUSION

What Jonah did and why he did it runs counter to YHWH, “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Here is a prophet who “would, if he could, prevent this loving-kindness of the LORD from abounding so much. He would, if he could, prevent the LORD from being who he is” (Cary, 133). While YHWH’s inclination is to save his enemies rather than destroy them, Jonah, on the other hand, prefers the destruction of evildoers to their salvation. What makes Jonah’s attitude, and ours when we play his part, so egregious, then, is both the fact that it asks too much of God–that YHWH not live up to his name–and that it runs precisely against Israel’s calling and election as the agent of God’s blessing to the nations (cf. Gen 12:1-3; Exod 19:3-6; Isa 40–66). Jonah represents Israel seeking God’s blessing for itself, displeased when God repents of evil and overcomes it in the abundance of his mercy. In this way, Jonah provides a foil against which to see Jesus, who is “the LORD eternally repenting of the evil he spoke of doing to evildoers, the Jew who is the absolute fulfillment of Israel’s election to be a blessing for all nations” (Cary, 135). Of course, as in the case of Egypt (Exod 7–15), Moab (Num 22–24), and Edom (Obadiah), so too with Nineveh: God’s mercy, grace, and steadfast love should never be construed to mean that he will “clear the guilty” (Nah 1:3a). Nor does God’s love expressed in Jesus mean that finally all will be accepted no matter what; or at least the Bible’s final word does not seem to indicate that (Revelation). Where Jonah got it wrong is not in his expectation that Nineveh deserved judgment (they did), but in his presumption that he did not (he did) and in his indictment against God for abounding too much in mercy, grace, and love without consulting him on who should be the recipients of these things.

Ten years ago a bright graduate student by the name of Abraham Wai-Yan Yeung submitted a thesis proposal to the faculty of the seminary where I was teaching. It began with these words: “In this thesis I plan to demonstrate that the Book of Judges is Messianic in nature.” It was a daring proposal. Judges–Messianic? Every reader of the OT knows that Judges is historical, that it recounts some of the key events and persons in the darkest and dreariest days of Israel’s history. How could this book possibly be prophetic–Messianic no less?

Abraham was intrigued with Judges’ location in and contribution to the Former Prophets of the Hebrew Bible.{en1} What implications might this hold for a genuinely prophetic role for the book that exceeded merely historic interests? In the end, the proposal was approved, a faculty committee was formed, and I was appointed supervisor. Together Abraham and I set out on a ten-month journey where clearly the professor would learn at least as much as the student.

Nearly a decade later, I take enormous delight in dedicating this short article to a former student, faithful T.A., and good friend, Abraham Yeung, now Principal and Professor at Macau Bible Institute in the Republic of China, not far from Hong Kong, to whom I remain indebted for many of the insights that follow.{en2}

JUDGES AMONG THE PROPHETS

In the tradition which shaped our Hebrew Bible, Judges takes its place after Joshua and before Samuel and Kings in the Nebi’im Ri’shonim, or Former Prophets–books that on the surface do not appear to be “very promising territory in which to hunt for messianic secrets.”{en3} We expect to find such things in real Prophets, like Isaiah or Micah or Zechariah, but surely not in a book like Judges, the least likely of all fields in which to learn about the future Messiah. Judges consists in the sorts of gory, gloomy, grisly stories nightmares are made of–like cutting off toes and thumbs, plunging a dagger into a corpulent belly, nailing a sleeping general’s head to the ground, aiming a millstone at a human target, lethal rape, slicing and dicing a concubine and mailing her parts to twelve addresses! This is chilling and ghastly stuff, with which modern television hardly competes. Many readers, understandably embarrassed, wonder why such savagery has to show up in the Christian Bible. How does one read this to children, or teach it to adults?

When we look more closely, however, giving special attention to the literary and thematic strategies at work in the book, Judges gives evidence of an author’s having far more in mind than merely spooking us with some of the most hideous events in Israel’s history or stocking our homiletic story bank with moralistic lessons on life, leaders, and licentiousness. In fact, the shape of Judges as a composition and the manner in which it functions in the biblical canon reveal that its retrospective evaluation of this dark and deplorable period is calculated to register one compelling message: All would be different if Israel had a king–make that, a certain kind of king. In this connection the book achieves a twofold purpose: (a) It sharpens the description of what a leader-king must be like if he would fulfill what God’s people desperately need, both in relation to the world and with each other; and (b) it creates in readers a forceful forward expectation of his appearance. There should be no mistaking his identity or what it means to be properly related to him when he emerges gradually in the pages that follow and arrives finally on the horizon of human history.

Before pursuing that point further, we pause momentarily to reflect on the book’s first verse and its last. Sometimes extremely important interpretive keys congregate at such places. In the case of Judges, the narrative begins without Joshua (1:1, “after the death of Joshua”) and ends without a king (21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel”). Brain surgeons and rocket scientists have no advantage here. Any thinking reader is able to ponder: What kind of leader-king can possibly fill the godly shoes vacated by Joshua, worn imperfectly and temporarily by twelve “judges,” and so badly needed to remedy the sorry situation of everyone’s doing evil in his own eyes? As readers turn the page from Judges to Samuel, the next “chapter” in the biblical story (Ruth comes elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible), we fully expect the needed figure to show up. Alas, there we are introduced to David, who does establish and advance the paradigm, but whose own shortcomings ultimately fail some of the fundamental criteria for such a king laid down in Judges. David would not be that ideal leader-king. Clearly the agenda set by Judges demands a figure like David yet one who surpasses him in several important ways. But now we are getting ahead of ourselves, anticipating places for which we need Judges to provide many more road signs.

MESSIANIC SECRETS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

The supporting data for reading Judges as intentionally messianic are impressive. Unfortunately, they are also too numerous and involved to detail here. So we content ourselves with just the broadest summary of a few selected key points, with the anticipation of a fuller development and clarification in a forthcoming seminar lecture (see elsewhere in this issue).

It will not be necessary here to survey the book generally.{en}4 Sufficient for our purposes is the widespread observation that as a literary composition Judges displays one of tidiest structures of any book in the OT:

     I. The Twofold Prologue/Introduction (1:1–3:6), where 1:1–2:5 introduces the book as a whole, and 2:6–3:6 serves as a programmatic summary to the main body;

     II. Israel’s Apostasy and God’s Provision of Judges/Deliverers (3:7–16:31), with repeating cycles of a leader’s death and the nation’s resultant apostasy, God’s discipline in the form of oppression, the nation’s desperation or call for help, and God’s deliverance through a new leader; and

     III. The Twofold Epilogue/Conclusion (17:1–21:25).

At least two observations will be more or less obvious as one follows the repetitive designs in the narrative fabric. First, the central narratives (3:7–16:31) are thematically punctuated at the outset of each of the six main cycles with a stereotypic refrain that echoes 2:11 in the summary introduction: “Then the people of Israel did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD” (3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). Second, in a similar way the twofold epilogue (17:1–21:25) is punctuated with a thematic refrain: “In those days there was no king in Israel” (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). Significantly, the first and last of these closing refrains include a second line: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6; 21:25).

By means of this narrative strategy the book displays an unmistakable orientation that is crucial to understanding its message and role in the canon. We may summarize in two statements. First, the epilogue line “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” is the obverse of “they did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD” which punctuated the middle section. Second, more than a mere commentary on the unbridled individualism of the period, this problem of doing what is right in one’s own eyes is explicitly linked to the fact that in those days Israel had no king. The overall effect is that readers are compelled to look forward to a time after those days when Israel will have a king to remedy this situation. In other words, the retrospective evaluation “In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes” implies that things would be different if Israel had a king and did what was right in his eyes. Of course, as everyone knows, “not any king will do, but only a king who will set to right wrongs such as these.”{en5} From the perspective of Judges, such a leader is nowhere in sight. Gideon has the right idea: “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you” (8:23); but his own concubine’s son, Abimelech, the only king mentioned in the book, makes a wretched mess of kingship and meets his Maker when an unnamed woman unleashes a millstone that finds its target (ch. 9).

And so the pressing question: To what kind of ideal leader-king does Judges point? What will he be like? First, almost identical lines in the prologue and the epilogue (1:1; 20:18) place Judah in a position of prominence. From these passages we are led to expect that the one God’s people need to face and conquer their formidable foes both outside (1:1) and especially within (20:18) will come by way of that tribe, once promised a worthy and victorious lion-king (Gen 49:8-12). Perhaps he will be someone like an Othniel (Judg 3:7-11), the exemplary judge from Judah.

Second, prophets in whose mouths are the words of the Lord appear only twice in Judges: in the case of Deborah the “prophetess” (4:4) and a certain unnamed “prophet” (6:8). Otherwise, the voice of the Lord, heard sparingly in Judges, occurs most frequently in connection with mal’ak ’adonay, “the messenger of the LORD” (18x; “the messenger of God” 3x). This is interesting in itself; but what makes the observation especially titillating for our purposes is the fact that this intermediary or representative not only speaks on God’s behalf and holds intended hearers accountable to the word of the Lord thus spoken (2:1-5), but, as elsewhere in Scripture, he actually instantiates God himself in appearance as a man (6:11-24; 13:1-25; cf. Gen 16). We might say that in the mal’ak ’adonay “the word becomes flesh.” Further, when asked on one occasion to identify himself by name, the messenger announced, “It is ‘Wonderful’” (13:18; Isa 9:6 should come to mind). While our wait for the prophet like Moses (Deut 18; 34) continues, Judges adds considerably to the expectation that the one who finally mediates the word of the Lord and brings it to full disclosure and effect will be a prophet-figure who is himself a deity in manly form.

Third, in the book of Judges even the religious institutions go amuck. Those who are supposed to be the good guys–the priests, responsible for modeling and maintaining holiness–fail terribly. With rotten spiritual leaders like those described in chapters 17-19, who needs the Canaanites! This is not Israel as a kingdom of priests (Exod 19:3-6), but Israel in desperate need for a priest–a certain kind, to be sure, one who practices and promotes what it means to be YHWH’s holy people. No priest or Levite fits that description in Judges. Not even close. We must look in pages beyond for king, prophet, and priest.

Fourth, it is clear from Judges that God accomplishes his will and work through human agents who are supernaturally empowered for their task by God’s word and the gift of God’s Spirit (3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14, 19; cf. 3:19ff.; 4:4ff.). The ideal leader envisioned in Judges will be one filled with the word of God and the Spirit of God for the work of God. This much is crucial: Those who hunt through the characters of the narrative for moralistic principles will be disappointed and left to make arbitrary decisions. The point of the book is not to hold up the judges as paradigms of virtue, whether moral or spiritual, but to show what can happen when God does the empowering. In fact, most of his chosen agents in Judges fall short of stereotypic criteria–whether biblical or worldly–for leadership roles. God’s heroes are an odd and irregular sort, “made strong from weakness” (Heb 11:34), like stealthy Ehud the left-handed misfit (3:15, lit. “handicapped in his right hand”), Deborah the leader among men, Gideon the cowardly weakling, Jephthah the son of a prostitute, Samson the pathetic ascetic and blind prisoner, and a half-dozen others with minuscule mention and majuscule ministries who, like Shamgar with ox goad in hand (3:31), just do God’s business without fame, fortune, or fanfare. With so little that is truly exemplary, we might ask, What’s the point? What can this possibly tell us about the ideal leader-king? Mainly this: We should hardly expect God to depart from his modus operandi and provide a “normal” deliverer in the latter days! Moreover, if God’s Spirit can fit even unfit “savior-deliverers” (as judges are regularly identified; 3:9,15; 6:36; 12:3) for supernatural exploits, we can only imagine what he will do through the Savior-Deliverer upon whom the Spirit of the Lord properly rests (Isa 11:2; Luke 3:22)–even a king of unlikely birth, a good Israelite from Nazareth, a godly “fool” who confounds the wise, a crucified Lord whose cross offends the world.

The best is yet to come, but we can now only scope the tip of this iceberg. I refer to a pervasive “leader-died” motif in our book. Some form of “die/death” appears about 43 times (e.g., “The he died,” 14x), with an unmistakable crescendo in the case of Samson, the last judge in Judges (“die/death” 13x in chs. 13-16 alone, including 5x in a single verse! [16:30]). All the leaders in Judges bite the dust (among the major ones, only Deborah’s death goes unnoticed), and no worthy heir appears on the horizon. Succeeding sons who do come to power perpetuate the pattern: They die. So while the situation demands a leader who can bring permanent victory, none is found. The book plants a hope it fails to deliver. Moreover, in this connection the story of Judges presents a subtle but sharp difference in viewpoint between the characters and the narrator who represents God’s perspective. The people cannot think beyond a military deliverer “like the other nations” (cf. 1 Sam 8:4ff.), that is, a strictly human solution, whereas the narrator who speaks/writes on God’s behalf has other ideas entirely. The leader-king God’s people need will be one who can guide them to do what is right in YHWH’s eyes. Israel is concerned about national-military victory, deliverance from foreign oppressors; the narrator is concerned about spiritual-moral victory, deliverance from Israel’s greatest threat to covenant blessing–itself.{en6} (Parenthetically, to readers of the NT who wonder why Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries rejected their Messiah, this should begin to sound familiar.) For such a leader-king, one not subject to death and fit to perpetuate godliness–or in other words, a savior-deliverer characterized by immortality and righteousness–readers will have to read beyond the borders of Judges. Those who press on will arrive finally at the answer they are seeking. But more on that theme, and on the biblical confirmation of this understanding of Judges, at the spring MIQRA seminar.

If Joachim Becker’s postulation of “a subterranean stream of messianic expectation” in Judges is an accurate depiction,7 we are reminded that even subterranean streams can be forceful! Alas, the book of Judges is shaped by such a stream, and it does indeed belong on the shelf of the Former Prophets, preparing the way for the Latter Prophets to follow. Moreover, it helps confirm that the Old Testament, even in its most unlikely places, does after all speak of Christ. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27; cf. vv. 44-45). The book of Judges is doubly included here, in both ‘all’s’. Abraham Yeung was absolutely right!

With that bit of “prophetic” insight a physician friend of mine once sized up pastors during a lunch table conversation. This man did not attend our church, nor did he have any foreknowledge that at the time I was preaching the Minor Prophets. It stands among the highest compliments I have ever received!

Whether preaching the Prophets is an index of pastoral excellence or an indication of something less remarkable (rushing in where angels fear to tread?) remains open to discussion. My own pastor, a brave soul, recently completed a series of sermons on Malachi. It was one of the few serious and sustained attempts at engaging any of the Prophets I have heard from a church pulpit, where there rests weekly an open Bible containing six pages of Prophet-material for every
single page of Paul-material.{en1}

There are reasons, of course, why the pages of the Prophets remain, like Leviticus and Lamentations, among the whitest in our Bibles. In identifying some of the main ones I hope also to show that when the difficulties, dangers, and potential discouragements are put in perspective, the blessings of reading and proclaiming these books more than offset the obstacles.

Obstacle #1: The Bulk of the Material

As a canonical group, the books of the Former and Latter Prophets comprise about 45% of the Old Testament word count, cover some 35% of the total biblical pages, and exceed the New Testament in volume by one and one-half times. In terms of individual books, the Prophets are among the mightiest. The two-volume composition of Kings, with some 25,300 words, is the longest book in the Bible; Samuel is second (c. 24,200). Jeremiah (c. 22,000) is the longest single book. Genesis and Psalms follow, but then come Ezekiel (c. 19,100) and Isaiah (c. 16,900).{en2} Compare these figures with the longest New Testament book, viz., Luke, intimidating in its own right,{en3} and an obvious conclusion follows: Reading and proclaiming any of the Prophets takes time, perhaps more time than most people can sit still or are willing to listen. (The “Minor Prophets” individually present an exception; however, when these are read not as separate books but as a twelve-part composition, which properly they are, then even “The Book of the Twelve” contains some 14,300 words.) My response to the obstacle of intimidating length: Listeners willing to let God control the conversation gladly grow their attention spans as an act of worship.

Obstacle #2: The Nature of the Literature

Many readers of especially the Latter Prophets resonate with Luther’s famous complaint: “[The prophets] have a queer way of talking, like people who, instead of proceeding in an orderly manner, ramble off from one thing to the next, so that you cannot make head or tail of them or see what they are getting at.”{en4} These books are not written as we would write, or as we might prefer they had been written. But that is a nonissue in the nature of the case; God did not consult us on the matter. Moreover, it is possible to exaggerate the difficulty factor, a point penetrated deeply into my memory a number of years ago in an encounter with my daughter. She was nine at the time; I was a doctoral student in Biblical Studies. One day I happened into her room as she sat reading her Bible–Zechariah of all places! “Zechariah,” I said smartly. “Isn’t that a little hard to understand?” (This is how not to encourage your children!) Her response was immediate and confident: “Not to me, Dad.” It was a painfully priceless reminder that sometimes we complicate what God did not. We might do so because of our own literary incompetence, since we are not naturally good readers of God’s Book, or because of hangups with issues we need to overcome. As an illustration of this latter, I once heard of a scholar who devoted more than three decades of his academic career trying to locate the date of origin of each of the Minor Prophets, apparently missing what to many of us seems like an obvious cue: Inspiration saw to it that those tracks were covered, presumably because God had other interests. (Robert Alter’s image of unscrambling the omelette to figure out when the original eggs were laid and by which hens seems fitting!{en5}) Still, there are legitimate challenges that face the reader-proclaimer of the Prophets, challenges encountered in the unique character of the literature itself. Several of the volumes featured in the Sepharim reviews covering the Prophets provide help. My response to this obstacle: We learn to read by reading, which, when it comes to God’s Book, transposes reading from hobby to holy exercise.

Obstacle #3: The Constraints of Theological Boxes

The issues here are especially difficult and delicate, but nothing of value will be gained by blunting the point: Some pages of the Prophets remain white because they resist the tidy containers of preformed theological structures. These pages may even be torn and tattered though white as ever–evidence that they have been forced to fit, not read and heard on their own terms. Theological systems have their place, of course; but no confession or creed, however ancient or revered, must ever be permitted to roam outside appropriate boundaries where it ends up heavy-handing the hermeneutic enterprise{en6} or controlling the conversation. Orthodox confessions affirm that biblically authored texts speak with sovereign say; but sometimes exposition yields to imposition, exegesis to eisegesis, and letting texts have their say to telling texts what to say. I know the details are more complex than this, and that the dangers of individualistic interpretation and hermeneutic neo-iconoclasm are ever lurking.{en7} Still, the point under discussion helps explain why some interpreters are able to find dispensationalism or covenantalism or premillennialism or amillennialism in texts where other readers scratch their heads and wonder, “Where does the text say that?” In fact, when the voice of the text is properly differentiated from one’s own (or that of one’s school of thought), it is entirely possible that it might not be saying that. My response to this obstacle: Read elsewhere in this issue “Reading Failures: When Texts Do Not Get Their Say,” and be especially wary of casting the first stone.

Obstacle #4: The Condensing of Canon (or “Mono-testamental Christianity”)

I do not know where the expression “New Testament Christianity” began or what folks have in mind who use it, but I must confess to wishing for its sudden extinction–not the New Testament or Christianity, of course, but New Testament Christianity as distinct from biblical Christianity. The issues are larger than this, but one reason the pages of the Prophets remain unsmudged is because of their ill-fated location: They are in the Old Testament, in that part of God’s disclosure suppressed by those who think it their prerogative to put asunder what God has joined together and to circulate the ending of the story without the story itself–the New Testament divorced from the Old (except perhaps for Psalms or Proverbs, but never Nahum or Zephaniah!). I have probably heard all the arguments surrounding this issue, including those proffered by pastors, Bible translators, missionaries, and others who should know better; and I continue to find the reasoning astonishingly weak and downright offensive. For the record, my reactions are precisely the same toward the educational breakdown in those colleges and seminaries that continue to perpetuate lopsided pastoral training that heavily favors the New Testament, leaving those called to lead the Church to maturity ill-prepared to proclaim responsibly and confidently what God is saying most of the time, or at least in the longest “breaths.”{en8} There are reasons–not good reasons, but ones modified by other adjectives–why large numbers of church-goers rarely hear what God is saying the majority of the time, and why at least a few of their pastors and teachers entrusted with the oracles of God would give their right arm to change the situation if only they knew how to listen themselves. My response to this obstacle (Brace yourself): Take advantage of every opportunity MIQRA offers! God has raised up this Institute to help cure the malady, not to perpetuate it.

Obstacle #5: The Confusion of Context

One of the most paralyzing problems in reading and proclaiming the Prophets and another reason for their pages remaining unturned focuses on a widespread confusion over the most appropriate context for their understanding. Most conscientious biblical hosts know the importance of respecting the context of a particular passage within its composition (book), and they consider it irreverent and irresponsible to dislocate a passage, removing it from its informing position in the textual fabric. What many fail to grasp, however, thanks to some unfortunate turns in the history of interpretation, is that whole compositions (books) also enjoy an informing context within the larger strategy of canon, on which setting their proper understanding depends. For compelling reasons exegetical and historical, the best access to a book’s place in the hermeneutic strategy of canon is that found in the Hebrew Bible.{en9} Of course, the books are the same even "out of position"; but like expecting all the right players on a football team to fulfill their roles from other locations (say, the center from a wide receiver position, the quarterback from the left guard position, and so on), the outcome can be at best disappointing and at worst disastrous.{en10} By way of positive illustration, a bright seminarian who was preparing for my upcoming course in Isaiah once expressed with great joy that finally this prophetic book made sense to him. His secret? He read Isaiah directly on the heels of the two Former Prophets which immediately precede (i.e., Samuel and Kings), and against that informing canonical context was able at long last to discern the movements and message of Isaiah. My response to this obstacle: Simply remove it.{en11}

There are other obstacles which I will only mention: (6) a preoccupation with prediction and the sometimes accompanying idiosyncratic obsession with charts, dates, and personages, perhaps gratifying the curiosity of the sensational but invariably eclipsing the message of the text (not to mention embarrassing the cause of Christ with sudden book sales and sermon revisions that misidentify the antichrist); (7) the challenge of relevance, which usually betrays a too narrow and naive conception of how God speaks to us in Scripture and a subtle arrogance that assumes the right to define and determine what is relevant and what is not; (8) and the unpopularity of the sometimes violent God associated with the Prophets (Nahum can induce nightmares, though it doesnÕt hold a candle to Revelation!) and the embarrassment it occasions among Christians who prefer to tout a positive and unoffensive gospel of a kind and merciful Savior, regardless of how that Savior wishes to be revealed.

All of these potential obstacles and others beside deserve fuller attention than we can offer here, but then there is an April 27 seminar coming. Meanwhile, let us remember that hospitable hosts honor even those textual guests whose written voice, though perhaps harder to hear, deserves its full say just the same. They eschew favoritism as unbecoming, even if some of their biblical visitors are a little more demanding than others.

It is a conviction of those who ascribe to a “literal” interpretive paradigm (IP) that biblical texts always contain more than one meaning, if they believe both a) that those texts refer to historically factual situations; and b) that they also intend to apply to our contemporary situations. This is admittedly a provocative way to put the matter, since a literal IP is normally understood to emphasize the singular focus of any given text. Most literal IP adherents would prefer to draw a distinction between “meaning” and “application,” for instance. In such a view, a text presents only one meaning with multiple applications. But the distance between “meaning” and “application” disappears when we consider a text like the Flood narrative. Is it about Noah’s salvation or ours? (Could it even be the latter without first being the former?) The same could be asked of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, consequent upon which our Savior was able to come in flesh. In these cases (if not in all cases), we are supposing that a text means to direct meaning toward more than one destination, and we must assume this to the degree that we include ourselves among those addressed by words like ‘church’, ‘faithful’, or ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’. Thus, texts can rightly be said to mean more than one thing, though this is not to make the dangerous claim that they can mean any thing.

One might expect such observations to refer more naturally to those who adopt a “figural” (or “figurative”) IP, for which the possibility that a text has multiple meanings is actually expected. In his summary of John Keble (1792-1886), Ephraim Radner sets up the distinction between the two IPs in a helpful way:

[F]igurative exegesis strikes a sensibility . . . of literal explications as an affront to “common sense and practical utility” . . . because it seems untethered to a common and universally accessible reason that can limit the reach of scriptural texts to agreed-upon usage.
     For his own part, Keble sees this constricted sensibility as almost a denial of what is in fact the divinely inspired character of the Scriptures. . . . [A] divine word can reveal its origin and character only through its disclosure of a breadth of signification that expresses the reach of divine power at work through human history and the natural world itself, not to mention the many levels of the human soul’s health and disease. If Scripture, in any given text, cannot give up to the faithful reader a range of figurative meanings that apply to history, nature, and spirit, this is to limit its connection with the God that Christians claim to be its author, the author of the world in which they live and move.{en1}

Two recent articles by V. Steiner raised this dynamic for consideration,{en2} and I drew attention to related interpretive issues in an earlier piece which introduced several new terms and emphasized the hermeneutical discussion.{en3} In this article I would like to skip past the more theoretical side of things, assume that biblical texts naturally present a depth of interpretive possibility, and move directly to explore an intriguing example that connects a passage in Amos with one in Acts. The overall purpose of this short study is to suggest again (but in a different way) that biblical texts do (and do intend to) host a variety of figural meanings, and that literal IP adherents do not need to be nervous about this. The kind of figural interpretation one might find among the Early Church Fathers (hereafter, the Fathers) is required in order to hear all that a text intends to say. The two at the center of this article (one in Amos and one in Acts) display a disjointedness because of the clear intention Acts has of quoting Amos, despite using different words and rearranging their order. Because of its fixation on the singular, a literal IP must struggle over an inherent difficulty in order to make sense of two such texts. A figural IP, because of the depth of its understanding of “meaning,” is poised to have an easier go. Let me explain.

1. AMOS AND ACTS

First, what has ‘Edom’ to do with ‘mankind’, and how are Amos and Acts involved? In order to answer these questions, it will help matters especially to have the two texts in front of us for reference, and then to point to the way different IPs have handled what appears to be St. James misquoting the Hebrew of Amos. (Not to worry, the discussion will be carried out strictly in English.) Here then is the text as we find it in the book of Amos:

Amos 9:11 “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; 12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” says the LORD who does this. (RSV; emphasis added)

In Acts, Luke recounts the scene of the Jerusalem council, where James stands up and, as part of his testimony, quotes from the text above:

Acts 15:16 “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, 17 that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, 18 says the Lord, who has made these things known from of old.’ ” (RSV; emphasis added)

It is in the second verse of each of these passages—Amos 9:12 and Acts 15:17—where an apparent discrepancy appears. In Amos 9:12, the prophet explains the purpose behind Yhwh’s (i.e. the LORD’s) decision to raise up the booth of David and restore its former glory: it is apparently so that the house of David will be able once again to possess Edom (characteristically antagonistic toward Israel) and all the other nations called by the name of Yhwh.{en4} It is unclear whether this is a positive or negative outcome, and that represents part of the conundrum between these two texts, because in Acts, James trades ‘possess’ for a different word entirely. In fact, there are actually three main differences between James’ quotation of Amos in the book of Acts, and what Amos is recorded to have said in the book of Amos. So let’s get it all out in front of us, using the two texts above as a base station for quick reference. While there are some very minor differences between Amos 9:11 and Acts 15:16, we will concentrate on the second verse in each text (in italics, above), where the real tension seems to lie. In order to navigate as simply as possible through the various observations, I will refer principally to Amos and James rather than to Amos and Acts (or to Luke, who wrote Acts).

The most obvious three differences between the two verses have to do with 1) the action—what is being done; 2) the characters—who is being discussed; and 3) the arrangement—who is doing what to whom. First, as we noted above, the main verb in Amos 9:12 is ‘possess’, though when James quotes Amos, he uses ‘seek’ instead. So, in connection with 1), the action seems to be different. Second, Amos talks about “the remnant of Edom and all the nations,” though when James quotes Amos, he refers to “the rest of men . . . and all the Gentiles.” Now, when James says “rest,” as in “the rest of men,” it is the Greek equivalent to what Amos calls “remnant” in Hebrew. Similarly, the people James calls “Gentiles” in Greek are the same people Amos calls “nations” in Hebrew. So these are nothing more than translational equivalents between the two languages. However, whereas Amos is focused on “the remnant of Edom,” James says instead “the rest of men.” In connection with 2), then, some of the characters seem to be different. Finally, there is a third oddity in the movement from Amos to Acts. Amos describes the house of David possessing the remnant of Edom and the nations. In this arrangement, the house of David is the subject (the “who”) and the remnant of Edom and the nations is the object (the “whom”). But James has the arrangement reversed, and switches the object! As he declares to the rest of those in attendance at the Jerusalem council, it is now the rest of men and the Gentiles (the “subject”) who seek (the “action”) the Lord (the "object"), apparently because of what the Lord has done with the house of David (Acts 15:16). In connection with 3), then, the arrangement of the action of the characters has been reversed. Whereas Amos had the house of David acting toward the remnant of Edom and the nations, James has the remnant of mankind and the Gentiles acting toward the Lord.

How might we work our way through these three inconsistencies? Is there a key that will unlock the explanation for this apparent discontinuity? Is James simply misquoting Amos? Or, since Luke wrote Acts and is the one recounting the details of the Jerusalem council, perhaps he is misquoting James, who initially quoted Amos correctly. In any case, how can we trust the quotation—regardless of who said it—when it so clearly appears to conflict with the original? The quotation in Acts seems to be treating the verses in Amos in a figurative manner—attributing meanings that are not obviously present on a plain sense reading. One biblical text, purporting to quote another, simply does not appear to be doing so literally.

Now that we have the issues out in front of us, our next step is to see how they have been handled by both a more literal IP and a more figural IP. Our cross-section will be admittedly small (one each!) and hardly satisfactory for any academic discussion. But since that is not what this is, we won’t feel bad about it. Instead, we’ll take the following two examples as simply provisional starting points that represent two widely divergent ways of approaching the same intertextual riddle.

2. WHAT THE SCHOLARS SAY
2.1. A MODERN EXAMPLE

In their enormous, 979-page commentary, Francis Andersen and David Freedman are concerned to be as precise as possible in the way they handle the book of Amos.{en5} Every character must be assigned a historical referent and the direction of each part of the book’s message must be established (what was meant by the author and how it would have been received). Each text unit must be examined thoroughly. This includes an analysis of the style, tone, and coherence of each unit in relation to others within the book, so as to determine whether the writing came from Amos or from a later editor who recorded his preaching (and if the latter, how this may affect the meaning). It is a muscular effort, and Andersen and Freedman exert it impressively.

However, this is also where the distinction between a literal IP and a figural IP becomes more apparent. Many folks who want to read the Bible seriously, and who have an idea that this means they should probably read it as literally as possible, may not realize that this kind of “bondage to the local” is where that IP most naturally goes. Meaning, especially in narratives (but in other genres as well), becomes simply what is being referenced most immediately in the text’s phrasing. So if Amos mentions “Edom,” then Edom and probably only Edom is what he means, so it is thought. That would be the most literal interpretation of Amos’ message regarding “Edom.” What alternative can be suggested? Just consider how Andersen and Freedman discuss this very matter:

The second general point to be made about the epilogue as a reaffirmation of divine hope at the end of the book is its primitive this-worldly character. It is not at all like the elaborate and fantastic otherworldly apocalypses that came to the fore in the last stages of OT times. It is no more than a restoration of the old way of life for Israel and Edom(!) and of the old monarchy with all of the best features of city and country life. (865, emphasis added)

To conclude that the epilogue to Amos—and our verses within it (9:11-2)—can have “no more than” the “old way of life” in view is to constrain the text from meaning what James passes it off to mean at the Jerusalem council. In James’ rendition of Amos, the emphasis has apparently shifted from Edom and the nations as “possessions,” to mankind and the nations as proactive applicants for citizenship! But Andersen and Freedman don’t appear to see the words of Amos in this light at all. Edom and the nations are instead more like the future spoils of Davidic conquest—a reversal of the present historical situation (judgment upon Israel) to what it was before (victory for Israel), when the house of David ruled over the characters named in Amos 9:12 (see especially p. 890 in the commentary).

Because of this literal-esque constraint Andersen and Freedman place on the text, the text’s field of reference is narrowed, and the scope of possible meanings beyond Amos—i.e. what things will actually look like “in that day” (v. 11) when what Amos predicts finally unfolds—are in fact dictated by Israel’s past. So then, if we in this small study grant that the word ‘Edom’ may mean more than the country or citizens named by that word, we are either required to expand the definition of ‘literal’, or to make an interpretive move that is not properly part of a literal IP. Where then does this leave James, when he quotes the words of Amos and trades ‘Edom’ for ‘mankind’?

2.2. AN EARLIER WAY

If modern IPs tend toward literalism, what is striking by contrast is how unbothered about variations in wording the Fathers often were as they read OT texts in light of God’s mission toward the world in Christ. Equally striking is how “literally” they often understood themselves to be handling the various texts they were reading, despite the freedom with which they saw multiple meanings in a given text. In the following example from his magnum opus City of God,{en6} St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) charts the parallel histories of the city of God and the city of the world, on their way toward their destinies. Of special interest to him is the way the prophets speak of Christ directly as the intersection between these two cities, and he appeals to Hosea and Amos together in order to explain how the Gospel reaches the nations. First, he reads the book of Hosea as a development of Judah and Israel, which stand both for themselves and for the relationship between Israel (represented by Judah) and humanity at large (represented by Israel). Both meanings are intended by the book (375). Following this, it is Augustine’s understanding of Hosea’s missional posture toward the nations which then shapes (in a very “Jamesian” kind of way) his reading of Amos 9:11-12:

And in another place [Amos] says, “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and build up the breaches thereof: and I will raise up his ruins, and will build them up again as in the days of old: that the residue of men may inquire for me, and all the nations upon whom my name is invoked, saith the Lord that doeth this.” (Augustine, City of God, 376)

On the face of it, Augustine’s quotation appears to have adopted the same three points of distinction that mark James’ version in Acts, and it may occur to us that Augustine has simply quoted James rather than Amos. But that is not what he has done. In addition to his own explanation that this section is devoted to the prophets (and not to the NT), there are two exterior structural markers that reinforce that his quotation above in particular is from Amos and not from James. First, he opens his quotation with the words, “In that day,” which is how Amos 9:11 has it, though this introduction is completely absent from Acts 15:16. Second, he includes the phrase, “. . . as in the days of old” at the end of the first verse of the quote (where Amos has it) rather than at the end of the second (where James puts it).

However, this is only part of the answer to why Augustine’s reading of Amos looks like Acts. There are also several observations about the two texts themselves that we have not yet made. One thing that will be interesting to consider as we make these observations is whether there is anything in them that might justify Augustine’s figural IP next to the more literal approach of Andersen and Freedman.

3. THE EXPANSION OF MEANING

In this concluding section, we return to the three exegetical “problems” we noted above between Amos and Acts: the difference in action; the difference in characters; and the difference in the direction, or, who is doing what to whom. Over against the strict “conquest of Edom” line taken by Andersen and Freedman, I will try to show that Augustine’s figural assumption is better suited to capture the connection between Amos and Acts. Not without some irony, we’ll find that a close reading of the texts (which may smack to some of literalism rather than the figural IP I have been trying to justify) is what in fact demonstrates the legitimacy of Augustine’s own loose-appearing quotation against the tighter historical analysis of Andersen and Freedman. Let’s take each of the three discrepancies in turn. Fair warning: this is where the discussion turns to Hebrew and Greek, though our analysis will be in English, as promised.

Possess (Amos) vs. Seek (Acts)  If we take the Hebrew word Amos uses for ‘possess’ and spell it in English, its basic form would look something like this: yrsh. Now, obviously the word James uses in Acts 15:17 for ‘seek’ is a Greek word. But, if we put that Greek word into Hebrew, it would look like this: drsh, which is quite similar! Going a step further, the Hebrew letter for the y in yrsh is quite close in shape—though smaller, and raised (almost like a superscript)—to the Hebrew letter for d in drsh. This leaves the difference between these two words quite minimal, both in appearance and in sound. (Notice the absence of vowels. Put simply, the relationship between vowels and consonants in Hebrew is not as egalitarian as it is in English. In Hebrew, consonants occupy the main line of script, and vowel “points,” represented by tiny dots and lines, are written beneath the letters, rather than between them as in English. In Hebrew, the consonants adjudicate the wordplays.) What is more, the message that James is espousing by rewording Amos is very basically this: outsiders are “seeking” to be received—i.e. possessed—by the Lord of the insiders. Clearly there is a wordplay lurking that can be defended on at least lexical (the word as spelled) and semantic (the word as meant) grounds. The social context would certainly be conducive for it as well. Hebrew is especially fond of puns, and those in attendance at the council when James uttered his quotation were Jews—including teachers and Pharisees (for whom the study of Torah required proficiency in Hebrew). James’ pun would have been recognized immediately, or, it would have been most unexpected if it wasn’t. We may suggest that the actions represented by the word ‘possess’ in Amos and the word ‘seek’ in Acts are not meant to be distinguished as strictly as they may first have seemed. But what of the characters?

Edom (Amos) vs. Man(kind) (Acts)  James is not finished with his wordplays. ‘Edom’ and ‘man’, once viewed in Hebrew, form a similar pairing to ‘possess’ and ‘seek’ above, though it is even tighter here than there. In this case, putting the Hebrew word ‘Edom’ into English letters would yield ’dm, while the Hebrew word for men (or mankind) would also be spelled ’dm! Identical consonants. We can even see it in English clearly if we remember something probably most of us know: ‘Adam’ means ‘man’ in Hebrew. ‘Edom’ and ‘Adam’ are separated only by vowels, which as I explained above, is a very small thing when Hebrew wants to forge a connection between two words. As it turns out, James is once again not saying something quite as distinct as it initially appears. While the Greek (and in our case, English) hides it, transposing everything to Hebrew makes it clear (putting in a shameless plug for enrollment in our grammar courses next Fall). To sum up this far: both Amos and James are saying, in effect, that the house of David is being restored in order to host (possess) those of mankind/Edom and the Gentiles who seek to be hosted.

Does such a reading varnish over the historical particularity of Edom? No, once we remember that back in Genesis 25:30, Edom began life as ‘Esau’, the brother of Jacob, who would become ‘Israel’. The brotherly dispute that arose between them would become iconic for the struggle between Israel, as God’s initially favored people, and the rest of mankind, who would come into their own fullness of favor by way of the Israelite, Jesus. But there is still the matter of the arrangement of the characters and the actions they are performing.

David’s house (Amos) vs. the remnant (Acts)  Some of the potential awkwardness of the directional shift that seems to occur moving from Amos (where David’s house acts toward the remnant) to Acts (where the remnant acts toward the Lord, which involves David’s house) is alleviated by the observations we have made above. Essentially, it is as if James is quoting the fullness of what Amos meant in 9:11-12, though Amos says it in fewer words. “That the Lord, through us, may possess the remnant of mankind and all the nations who seek him because they have been called by his name,” is the point of Amos 9:12 as James understands it in Acts 15:17. The wording of Amos is not disregarded, but subsumed into James’ presentation of it, which recasts it in order to draw out the full implications of what Amos has said now for the early Church. We might even say it is precisely in James’ alternative quotation that he most accurately captures the message of Amos as Amos stands within the context of the Twelve—especially in relation to Hosea. If all we have is Amos without James at the Jerusalem council, we may never put together that the message Amos contains means to send us in both directions: the house of David will possess those that had been their enemies because those enemies will seek David’s Lord.

4. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

What we have in a reading like St. Augustine’s is one which gets at the various meanings of a given OT text (instead of a single, literal referent) because of an understanding of how God’s work unites disparate moments in history. So he is able to arrive at an interpretation of Amos that looks very much like St. James’ interpretation without recourse to the book of Acts. Interpretation that makes use of a highly figural or figurative strategy is warranted not only or even principally by the various examples of it within the Scriptures, but because Jesus has bequeathed a traditional way of reading the Old Testament as a text that witnesses to him, even before the NT was present to portray it. As Christopher Seitz explains:

Figural interpretation has assumed there is a surplus of intended meaning in every divine revelation. This assumption has a basic theological grounding, involving a doctrine of providence and sovereignty. God remains custodian of the word he speaks and can by the Holy Spirit effect things through a word delivered once upon a time, heeded and unheeded, at yet a later time.{en7}

Figural interprtation is something the Fathers do without recourse to the NT because they were working with an IP they had inherited from Jesus, who bequeathed it to them through the apostles. To be sure, a heightened level of trust in God’s custodial work is required. On the other hand, my hope is that by explaining above how St. Augustine’s interpretation makes sense, we have established that such trust can be proven well-placed. Right within our very Bibles themselves, we see the same kind of looser-than-literal quotation being understaken in a variety of places, and the way St. James reads the prophet Amos is a prime example. What we have in the Fathers is a continuing application of this way of reading the Scriptures. And we should remember that it is a way that boasts a long and established tradition, beginning with the apostles, who were taught how to read the OT figurally by Jesus himself. And this should be for us an especially comforting thought.

INTRODUCTION

Let me begin on an uncharacteristically personal note. Most of my formal training is in biblical and theological studies, not in leadership per se. Still, over the years the Lord has managed to thrust me into leadership positions, almost none of which, I can truthfully say, as the result of my seeking such. This began at least as early as high school, and it has continued to the present, in various academic and church settings. During these years I have led children’s, youth, college, and adult ministries; pastored one church and served as an elder in three or four others; conducted seminars, conferences, and retreats for ministry leaders; been a personal mentor to pastors and prospective pastors; taught seminary courses specifically aimed at preparing people for leadership roles; supervised thirty classes of seminary pastoral interns; chaired a seminary faculty; and started an institute in biblical studies that focuses on the Church, its leaders, and its mission.

None of this makes me an expert; and I am quick to acknowledge, genuinely, that many other people, including several former colleagues with doctorates in leadership theory and practice, know much more about aspects of leading than I. What it does suggest, I hope, is that as an academic and a churchman, in need of all the help I can get, I have had reason and occasion to develop an interest in how the Lord views the character and conduct of those who are called and commissioned to lead his people. And although I am not one enthralled with bibliographies that extol the feats of great leaders, there are occasions when my desire to be a better and more faithful leader has fueled an inquiry into what makes God’s kind of leaders tick. By ‘God’s kind of leaders’ I much prefer those we read about within the Bible’s own pages to those who for whatever reasons make the headlines in the religious or secular media of our day. Moses is one such figure.

In his admirable essay “The Composition of the Pentateuch,” Rolf Knierim has proposed that “the Pentateuch is not the story or history of Israel’s beginnings but the story of the life of Moses which is fundamental for the beginnings of Israel’s history; . . . it is the vita, or the biography, of Moses.”{en1} According to Knierim’s Pentateuch-as-biography thesis,{en2} Exodus through Deuteronomy highlights the life and role of Moses, from his birth (Exod 1) to his death (Deut 34). “Genesis, the time before Moses,” serves as “the introduction, the prelude, the preparation, or the prehistory . . . to the time of Moses and receives its meaning from Exodus-Deuteronomy” (354). This may help to explain why the Scriptures refer regularly to the Pentateuch as “the Torah (or Law) of Moses.”{en3} More than a mere statement about authorship, as it is regularly understood, we are reminded that “throughout [the Pentateuch] is pervaded by and based upon the central importance of Moses” and “represents the legacy of Moses” (Knierim, 376, 369).

There is more potential in these penetrating observations than first meets the eye, with more at stake than an answer to the question: What is the genre of the Pentateuch? Knierim’s suggestion that the Pentateuch is best understood as the Vita Mosis invites a further twofold question: Specifically how does the biography of Moses in Exodus-Deuteronomy relate to the cosmic or all-creation vision of Genesis, and how does the biography of Moses inform the calling and mission of Israel? Knierim’s insights are breathtaking:

[T]he relationship between Genesis and Exodus-Deuteronomy means that in the work of Moses for Israel, especially in Moses’ mediation of the revelation at Sinai and in his testament [i.e., Deuteronomy], the program is laid down by which Israel is called to be the paradigm for humanity in God’s/Yahweh’s creation. The decisive person for mediating this revelatory paradigm is Moses. Thus, just as Moses is seen as the single most decisive person for Israel’s history and existence, so is he the decisive person for all humanity’s history and existence (378).

We may rephrase Knierim’s thought as follows: Israel’s vocation in the world is to be the agent of new creation–the medium of God’s answer to the crisis set out in the early chapters of Genesis, that is, the means of God’s reclaiming and restoring his cosmos. And the pivotal figure in setting Israel’s existence on this path is Moses, which he does both in his mediating the divine revelation at Sinai (Exodus-Numbers) and in his proclaiming his “last will and testament” (Deuteronomy). To put this still more sharply: If we are to look anywhere in Scripture for a portrait of the kind of person God uses to lead a people to become truly God’s people in the world, Moses stands out as perhaps the most likely candidate, second only to our Lord himself.

We cannot now explore this thesis further, or even the hermeneutical and theological warrant for viewing Moses as a model at all.{en4} Nor can we venture a complete biographical study of Moses, who dominates the pages of the Old Testament more than any other single figure.{en5} For myself–and this might say more about my age than anything else–what draws me to Moses is not so much the way he started (although there is plenty about his initial reluctance with which I can identify; cf. Exod 4), but the manner in which he ended. And that brings us to Deuteronomy, “the testament of Moses, [and] a distinctly biographical element of the whole Moses story. Here, for the last time, he functions, as in the older parts, as the executor and interpreter of Yahweh’s instructions and as the dispenser of his public responsibility” (Knierim, 376). Surely it will be here, in the account of Moses’ mature years and farewell messages to Israel, that we will gain a perspective on leadership from one who grasped, arguably better than any other leader in biblical history (excepting our Lord), both the mission of God’s people in the world and what kind of leadership best serves that goal.{en6}

Two final considerations add to the importance of viewing the Deuteronomic Moses as a paradigm of leadership: Deuteronomy’s self-designation as torah, the only biblical book making this claim (4:8, 44; 32:46; et al.), and Deuteronomy’s function as a record of Moses’ farewell discourses or departure speeches.{en7} The former highlights the book’s role in Scripture as “a program of ‘catechesis’,” that is, an instructional document to preserve and perpetuate the faith from generation to generation{en8}; the latter highlights its particular significance as the record of Moses’ last words, in keeping with how farewell or parting speeches typically encapsulate a person’s most famous and lasting message.{en9} Together these factors draw attention to Deuteronomy as depicting a teaching moment of special gravity in the life and career of Moses. If ever we listened to what he had to say, let it be here, in Deuteronomy.

Following is a selection of vignettes or snapshots drawn on passages, mostly near the beginning and ending of Deuteronomy, which open a window on Moses’ model and message to leaders. For this discussion my interest lies more in his character than in his specific leadership roles per se (i.e., as interpreter/expositor and prophet). Further, although Deuteronomy has more to say about leadership than can be gained by looking at the life of one individual (e.g., the roles of judges, prophets, priests, and kings), I am inviting us to sit at the feet of Moses, learning what it means to be one who leads the people of our Lord, from one who did so. As I will not be including the biblical text here, it will be necessary to read each passage alongside the discussion that follows.

SCENE 1: MOSES AND THE APPOINTMENT OF LEADERS (1:9-18): ON HANDLING TESTS THAT ARISE AMIDST BLESSING

The story echoes an occasion years earlier (cf. Exod 18; Num 11), at the time when Israel was preparing to leave Sinai/Horeb (vv. 6-8), which recollection, Moses perceives, will be important now for what lies ahead as Israel stands at the threshold of the Promised Land. The narrative of Moses’ appointing leaders “at that time” (vv. 9, 16, 18) raises several points of special interest and importance.

First, the blessing of God as promised (vv. 10-11; cf. Gen 12; 15; Exod 1; Num 23) encourages God’s people to press forward even as it presents them with trials, demands, and burdens that call for wise and faithful response. The “problem” in this instance–“How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife?” (v. 12)–is actually a result of blessing, not an indication of failure.{en10} Israel’s fruitfulness in fulfillment of God’s promise is precisely that which creates the need for a complex judicial system. Organization and leadership, it turns out, are as necessary to manage the challenges that accompany success as to contend with the troubles resulting from sin.

Second, Moses here models how to handle tests that arise amidst God’s blessing–with humility and a genuine sense of human inadequacy, with righteousness and wisdom, and with community responsibility and organization–all in the interest of obedience to YHWH’s will, which seems to be the point of v. 18. In other words, “the administrative arrangements just outlined are meant to implement the commands of God in Israel’s daily life” (McConville, 67), not merely to organize and manage the internal affairs so they roll along more smoothly. This point seems often to escape the attention of leaders and leadership theorists today.

Third, speaking of humility and human inadequacy, we are here served early notice of the theme of Moses’ “dying to self,” which so pervades this book that Dennis Olson could devote an entire volume, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses, to its development. Says Olson: “The last story in the book of Deuteronomy is the story of the death and burial of Moses. The first story in Deuteronomy is the story of another kind of dying by Moses. It is a dying to exclusive claim on authority, a dying to self-glorification, a dying to hoarding power for oneself rather than sharing and trusting others with it” (24). And, we should add, a dying to the need for recognition when things go well. Deuteronomy 1:9-18 is strategically placed, then, to shed light on Moses personally as leader and to signal one of the principal qualities that will mark his career as leader of God’s people: Moses renounces personal sovereignty in the face of God’s.

Finally, the spy narrative that follows will recount a sad contrast–leaders of another sort and their influence among a people in rebellion against the kind of leadership Moses exemplifies. And it will be costly, both for them and for him–as it always is when people follow contra- leaders, and true leaders are forced to contend with the havoc wreaked. (Jeremiah and the pseudo-prophets of his day provides another example; cf. Jer 23–29.)

SCENE 2: MOSES, THE UNBELIEF OF ISRAEL, AND THE ANGER OF YHWH (1:19-46): ON AVERTING GOD’S ANGER BY ABSORBING IT ONESELF

The account of the spying-out-the-land mission recalls the familiar story of Numbers 13–14, in which twelve tribal representatives are sent on a scouting mission to scope out the land of Canaan. Ten return with a bad report that strikes terror and unbelief in the hearts of their fellow Israelites (Giants inhabit those haunted hills!); Joshua and Caleb “wholly followed the Lord” in confidence and faith. This section generally echoes the earlier story, but with important differences that shed light both on Moses’ reworking of previous material and on his role as leader. One of those differences, in two parts, sheds important light on our inquiry.

The twofold difference is this: If YHWH was angry with Moses in the incident of the spies, as Moses now declares in v. 37, why does the earlier story not tell us so? Numbers 13–14 says nothing about YHWH’s being upset with Moses. And if it was because of Moses’ intercession that YHWH did not disinherit Israel over their rebellion, as Numbers 14:11-20 reports, why does Moses say nothing about that here? Deuteronomy makes no mention of Moses’ intercession.

In response, it is entirely possible that the highlighted detail about YHWH’s anger with Moses (v. 37) and the curious omission of Moses’ intercession, including YHWH’s promise to make from him a great nation, like a new Abraham (Num 14:12b), are related. In the Numbers 14 story, God’s promise will come to fulfillment through Moses’ act of intercession for the people (vv. 13-20). As Moses pleads for YHWH’s pardoning mercy toward his people, he averts the threatened judgment and so in effect bears their punishment.{en11} Reflecting back on this incident, Moses now declares, “Even with me YHWH was angry on your account” (Deut 1:37, italics mine). In other words, Moses the intercessor becomes the target of YHWH’s anger for the sake of the people. Unlike the spies and all those who caved to their influence, “Moses is not charged with faithlessness but is contaminated by the community of unfaith, and so suffers exclusion along with the others”{en12}–contamination and exclusion in this case by virtue of his “bearing their sins.” It is true that Moses does later sin by his own unbelief and failure to uphold YHWH’s holiness in the episode at the waters of Meribah (Num 20:10-13), for which he must ultimately die outside the land on their behalf (cf. Deut 3:26-28; 4:21; 32:51; Num 20:12-13; 27:14; Pss 106:32), but that is not the point in focus here. The divine anger of YHWH toward Moses of which Deuteronomy 1:37 speaks is bound in context to the spy incident, which can only refer to the manner in which Moses implicitly absorbs that anger in his own intercessory role. From this the glorious vision of Numbers 14:21 will be realized: “But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. . . .”{en13}

In the narrative strategy of the Pentateuch, then, Moses’ intercession has the effect of averting YHWH’s anger, as Moses takes it upon himself. Readers may hear in this a distant anticipation of passages like Isaiah 53 or 2 Corinthians 5:21. They might also ponder deeply what it means for leaders to lay down their lives for the sake of or on account of the sheep they are called to shepherd. That it may cost us our lives–dying to self, in the humility of self-abasement and sacrifice–is no reason to calculate the cost as too high, but opportunity to lead the way Moses did, and one greater than Moses.

SCENE 3: MOSES’ CHARGE TO JOSHUA, AND PERSONAL REJECTION (3:21-29): ON SUFFERING UNFAIRLY IN THE ROLE OF A SERVANT

As in scene 1 (1:9-18) above, Moses will relinquish his leadership to another, which both informs and anticipates the book of Joshua (3:21-22 => 31:1-8 => Josh 1:1-9). But in the present case the transfer of the mantle of leadership is explicitly associated with YHWH’s anger with Moses, on which account YHWH would not listen to him. And so, having encouraged Joshua, whose bright future lies ahead of him (vv. 21-22), Moses faces the disappointing prospect that he himself will not live to see the fruition of his own life’s labor–to lead God’s people into the good land beyond the Jordan–intensified by the painful realization that his exclusion owes to YHWH’s anger directed unfairly (!) at him “because of” or “on account of” Israel (v. 26).

It is true that at one point late in the book YHWH’s disallowing Moses to enter the Promised Land is attributed to his own breach of faith (32:51-52, see further below). Clearly that was not at issue in 1:37 (above), however, nor is that the point in focus here in 3:21-29 or in 4:21-22. In at least these three instances YHWH’s anger is directed at Moses somehow in his role as “a suffering servant.” He dies outside the promise in connection with YHWH’s judgment on the sin of the people, with whom he identifies and whose existence–not their rebellion–he shares. He dies as their representative, as one “prohibited from entering the land on account of the sin of the people who are allowed to enter” (Miller 1990, 43). Gordon Wenham develops the point:

In this way Deuteronomy portrays Moses’ death as a necessary prerequisite for the fulfilment of the promise of the land. He dies so that the people may enter the land. Indeed it is because of the people’s sin that he must die. Though his coming death is barely referred to again until the closing chapters of the book, we should remember that every reference to the entry to Canaan carries as its corollary the non-entry of Moses. Not until his death will the gates of the land be unlocked for Israel.{en14}

In a similar vein, Christopher Wright observes: “Though not without fault himself, Moses was bearing the punishment of his own generation (that of the exodus) along with them, and bearing the punishment that even the following generation should have had. . . . Moses will die, but the people will live. Judgment and grace are interwoven.”{en15}

Of course, here and in the preceding scene it is not quite correct to suggest that Moses suffered “vicariously.” He did not exactly “die for” the rebellious generation, inasmuch as they also died in the wilderness, nor does the text explicitly say that “Moses’ death outside the land was in order that the people might live in the land, [although] 4:21-22 especially puts these two realities close together” (Miller 1990, 43). Again, “[w]e do not have here a full-blown notion of the salvation and forgiveness of the many brought by the punishment of the one, but we are on the way to that. It is in the line of that innocent suffering one who is designated the Lord’s servant and of whom it is said, as the people could have said of Moses:

     Surely he has borne our sicknesses
         and carried our pains. . . .
     He was wounded for our transgressions,
         bruised for our iniquities. . . .
     The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6; Miller 1987, 253-54).

To be sure, Moses was not an innocent victim. Still, “in some sense Moses was bearing more of the suffering of his people than was his personal due.” He bears the judgment “because of” the people, for a sin that he had not directly committed, even if, on occasion, as at the waters of Meribah, their sin had “somehow induced his own failure” (Wright, 42).

And so Moses will die outside the land–disappointed, short of the promise, a leader who serves and a servant who suffers, whose mission consisted in passing the baton safely to another without himself experiencing the joy of crossing the finish line, making it possible for others to realize the goal and to reach their destination. The character of leaders is measured by their willingness to fill this “unfair” role of a suffering servant, taking the heat that belongs rightly to others, whether or not the others ever come to appreciate fully the effect of the sacrifice endured, or to credit properly the agent of their blessing. Which brings us to. . . .

SCENE 4: MOSES AS MEDIATOR (5:22-27): ON TAKING THE HEAT FOR UNAPPRECIATIVE OTHERS

This passage recalls Exodus 19:18-21 and 20:18-21, where the people, fearful of hearing YHWH’s voice at Sinai and wishing to avoid more of the same, opt for safety by asking Moses to be their mediator. The irony is this: If in fact they have seen that God speaks with man and yet man lives (v. 24), why should they fear death if God speaks directly to them? (v. 25). In any event, their insisting that Moses go near and hear and then tell them what God says (v. 27) is in effect a wish for his risking his own death in place of theirs (cf. v. 26). Olson gets at the issue here: “Moses becomes the mediator and interpreter of God’s word to the people, but in so doing becomes susceptible to the death that must come to a human who comes face to face with God’s holiness. . . . The office of mediator carries with it the price of premature death, a death Moses will experience while still strong and vigorous in Deuteronomy 34” (47). When in ch. 18 (vv. 15-22) we read of a future prophet “like Moses,” we are to understand these words as something of a “commentary on 5:23-27” (McConville, 302; cf. esp. 18:16-17 and 5:25-28). It is true that the future prophet would mediate God’s word to the people (v. 18b). But Olson goes further: “Moses is commissioned to stand in for the people, to ‘take the heat’ on their behalf, and to mediate between God and the people. The clear implication is unspoken but inescapable: the prophet like Moses will die” (85).

Now I should hope that no leader reading this article will be called upon to mediate and intercede to the point of actual death. But two points are registered here. First, it may be the case that those we lead will little comprehend what price their waywardness demands, what leaders must pay at many levels as they “take the heat” in the form of time, energy, emotional drain, frustration, self-control. Indeed, no trial may be more difficult for leaders to bear than the sometimes unappreciated assumption that leaders exist for the very purpose of fixing the messes created by others and bearing the expenses (in terms of time and energy) they foolishly incur. Those who sit at Moses’ feet to learn about leading come to realize that no other motivation will sustain–not ease, not wealth, not convenience–than the deep call of God to promote his purposes and program through their leading, whatever the cost and however much “heat” they must selflessly, and sometimes senselessly, endure.

Second and related, by the time Moses recalls this story to the new generation, he has experienced the fickle devotion of God’s people whose fear of death merely by being in God’s presence had prompted their confident pledge of obedience to the Lord (v. 27b), but who many times over ended up rebelling against the Lord with no apparent fear at all! More than mere irony, this is the kind of contradictory reality with which Moses and all leaders must cope, compounded by the sure word of the Lord that by simple obedience it would “go well with them and with their descendants forever” (v. 29). How many times Moses must have wondered, as leaders continue to wonder, “Why do these people prefer misery to blessing?”

And with that we make our way toward the end of the book. En route, given space, we could drop in at chs. 16–18, and gain a great many insights from the laws on leadership pertaining to theocratic officials–judges, kings, priests, and prophets. Insights like these: (a) that like parents, theocratic authority figures are both to be honored and to be worthy of the honor they receive; (b) that ruling authority is both derivative (and therefore subordinate, not absolute and arbitrary) and distributive (and therefore not vested in one person or office); (c) that leaders are to maintain confidence in and singular devotion to YHWH rather than drawing on worldly resources from which God’s people have been delivered and over against which they have a distinct identity (17:16-17); (d) that leaders are principally readers and doers of Torah, thereby leading God’s people above all to obey the will of YHWH (17:18-20), in which capacity leaders are under authority, as those who serve rather than “lord it over”; and (e) that leaders are to model what dependence on God looks like, and what success looks like when measured by Torah rather than the administrative agendas and management criteria of the world. Alas, the focus of our present discussion is exclusively on Moses as leader. And so we conclude with. . .

SCENE 5: MOSES AS LEADER AND THE CONTINUITY OF BLESSING (chs. 31–34): ON DYING SHORT OF THE GOAL AND REDEFINING SUCCESS

Much of the material in chs. 31–34 revolves around the imminence and aftermath of Moses’ death: What happens when Moses is gone? Then who will speak and lead in his place? We can barely survey the high points.

First, the need occasioned by Moses’ impending death, according to chs. 31–32, will not be met simply and solely by finding a replacement for Moses, who cannot really be replaced, but by (a) a new leader who will trust and obey (31:1-8), (b) faithfulness to the written Torah (vv. 9-13; Moses’ “role as the mouthpiece of God gives way to a book”; Olson, 135); and (c) a creedal anthem or catechetical song of witness, shaped in unforgettable lyrics, with power to move and transform and to keep God’s people from straying (vv. 16-22). We could say that continued blessing among God’s people requires leaders, Law (Torah=instruction), and lyrics–not leaders only, but leaders, Law, and lyrics (songs that confess the faith). Leaders have their place in this scheme of things, but it’s not the only place.

Second, while in earlier passages the reason given for Moses’ death focused on the people’s sins, the punishment for which Moses bears in some sense for them (cf. 1:37; 3:23-29; 4:21; 5:24-27; 9:1-29, esp. vv. 18-21; 18:15-22), in 32:48-52 the explanation offered concerns his own disobedience/violation (cf. Num 20:1-13; 27:12-14). It is both. Moses will die both for the sake of others and as the “inevitable condition of his human mortality, limitation, and sin” (Olson, 150). This is the real tension in which all who lead live: We serve and suffer for others, even “bearing” their sins, while all along we have our own with which to deal! And we are reminded that however much leaders may be provoked to sin by the attitudes and actions of others, they are responsible for their own attitudes and actions.

Third, it is not insignificant that the blessing of ch. 33 falls between the announcement of Moses’ death (32:48-52) and the report (34:1-8), thereby associating ultimate blessing not with Moses’ life and victory and successes, but, as if to anticipate his great Successor, strategically with his death. The implications are worth pondering, even if unpopular. In this connection, it is probably safe to say that God’s kind of leaders rarely if ever live to see the real fruit of their labors; which is to say that true success, as God defines it, is not measured in present time, not even by statistics, but in lasting fruit produced in and for the kingdom, which, obviously, can only be assessed in succeeding generations. Of course, leaders need not see the fruit of their efforts, or the goal achieved, if they have been faithful in leading God’s people in the word and way of the Lord. Miller summarizes it this way:

Moses’ work is truly done. The people have now the word of the Lord which Moses taught. . . . Israel is to live now by the Torah that Moses has taught them and in a very real sense does not need Moses. The “closing” of the Torah is coincidental with the death of Moses in a real sense. He now moves off the scene, and Israel henceforth will not be led by a great authority figure but by the living word of the Torah that Moses taught and that goes always with the people in the ark (10:1-5), God’s word in the midst of the people. . . . There may be figures “like” Moses, but no new Moses. One sees, therefore, the significance of the portrayal of Jesus as in some sense a new Moses whose word claims to stand with all the authority of Moses’ words and indeed even to transcend tem (which, of course, is quite different from contradicting or negating them as is often presumed) (1987, 254-55).

Fourth, Moses does not die of natural causes–spent, tuckered out, weary, exhausted. “Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated” (34:7). Rather, God tells Moses to die (32:50), which he does in the end “at YHWH’s command” (34:5). His dying, in other words, is not presented as a reluctant concession to physical shut-down, but as an ultimate act of obedience. Obedient in life, obedient in death–there is a common theme on display in this leader!

Finally, while Moses does not actually die as Israel’s substitute–“He does not die instead of the people but rather ahead of them” (Olson, 165-66)–he is disallowed entrance to the Promised Land while the new generation of Israelites will enter. “In some strange way,” says Stephen Dempster, “he receives his wish. He is cursed so that Israel can be blessed (cf. Exod. 32:32).”{en16} McConville expresses the point more fully:

The death of Moses is therefore an essential theme of the book. . . . His greatness lies in the fact that he has brought them to this point [of life in the land]. In doing so, he has exhibited the great prophetic characteristics not only of faithfully proclaiming the word of God, but of investing his own life totally in the servant role. This is why he is the servant par excellence. His life is lived on behalf of others; he himself is denied precisely that which is promised to them, into which he has led them. The topic of Yahweh’s anger with Moses is (oddly) never fully explained, least of all in Deuteronomy. This only strengthens the impression that the punishment of Moses has something vicarious about it (478-79).

As we have already noted, most Bible readers will not have a difficult time drawing lines from here to the Servant Songs of Isaiah and further from there to the One in whose form Isaiah’s Servant is configured. While both Moses and his immediate successor Joshua would bear the sins of others and intercede on their behalf in their provisionary role as leaders, neither would satisfy the ultimate expectation of “the prophet like Moses” who remains yet on the distant horizon as Deuteronomy comes to a close. Leaders lead and sometimes suffer, even die, that others may live. In their leading and suffering and dying, they refract the likeness of him who leads as Lord and suffers as Savior and who dies that others might live.

CONCLUSION

The portrait of leadership Moses and Deuteronomy offer us is one of dying to self–a calling to suffer, in some sense because of and for the benefit of others. Those who lead God’s people should not be surprised at the high cost of their calling. Moses modeled it, One greater than Moses fulfilled it, and Paul, who bore on his body “the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17), wrote the following about it: “. . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:10-12). Who knows, maybe our effectiveness as leaders of the Lord’s people will be better measured by our sacrifice and death than by our success and winning. Moreover, in just this way–taking our place on the cross, so to speak–we lead the Church in a path that proclaims the cross, not our own personal or theological or political triumphalism, as God’s answer to the world’s need. What God will make of our efforts we cannot say, and need not know.

In Moses we learn that leaders are not called finally to be effective, but to be faithful unto death; or better, that effectiveness in leadership, as God counts effectiveness, can only be quantified in terms of faithfulness unto death. Of course, faithfulness does not excuse ignorance or incompetence–no one could accuse Moses of either!–but it prescribes a different set of criteria from those that normally pass as markers of achievement, and it does so with eyes fixed on a greater, if delayed, prospect. This is the hope of leadership we might imagine Moses having as he finished the race, having kept the faith:

The prospect from Pisgah was not merely geographical. Moses had already envisaged with the eyes of faith the people he had led out of Egypt living in that land for generations to come, with ultimate consequences for all the nations included in the scope of God’s great purpose. He would never set foot in the land, but his prophetic vision was doubtless as clear as his physical eyesight. And as Moses’ undimmed eyes scanned the northern mountains, perhaps one may be allowed to imagine a twinkle in the eyes of the LORD God, looking forward to that day when Moses, the servant of God, would stand at last on another mountain in the land, conversing with the Son of God [the future prophet like Moses] about the even greater “exodus” that he would accomplish in Jerusalem for Israel and for the world (Luke 9:28-31) (Wright, 313-14).

In his Transfiguration appearance with the Lord of glory, we are reminded that the servant’s condescension, even to death, never goes unrewarded. Someone must model the attitude of Philippians 2. It may as well be those who, like Moses, are called to lead.

And one of the scribes . . . asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk 12:28-31).

The Bible is reticent to offer valuations of the variety “this is most important” or “this is more important than that.” Typically it enjoins its scale of values in more subtle ways, with the result that readers likewise are invited to exercise caution in ordering God’s priorities. Lists of what God values most, second, third, and so on usually derive from somewhere other than the Bible itself. For example, the Scriptures never say that praying is more vital to spirituality than studying, or winning the lost than caring for the poor, or preaching a sermon than washing another’s feet. The Bible says nothing about Ephesians being more relevant to the Christian than Ezekiel. It is not even from the Gospels that we learn to call Jesus’ final instructions the “Great Commission,” as if Matthew 28 expressed a greater charge to Jesus’ followers than Matthew 5. Arbitrary claims of this nature always remain subject to revision.

The rule makes the exception the more remarkable. In the above exchange between our Lord and a teacher of the law, Jesus explicitly avers that when it comes to what the Bible demands of its subscribers, one commandment stands first and another second among the many hundreds of other imperatives that define the will of God. There is a first or most important, and there is a second or next in importance. Indeed, “no other commandment is greater than these.”

But why and on what basis did Jesus assign one of the biblical commandments first place? We might reason, correctly, that Jesus had divine prerogative to order up God’s mandates as he wished; but that explanation neither fits the details of the story nor corresponds to Jesus’ typical way of revering his Father’s will. Jesus clearly intended to draw his answer to the scribe’s question from the Old Testament Scriptures themselves (from which we learn that the ethic of Jesus and the New Testament does not stand as distant from the ethic of Israel and the Old Testament as many imagine), which, according to the following verses, the scribe fully acknowledged. We must assume that the Old Testament provides the clues to Jesus’ response. This designating of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 as “the great and first commandment” (Matt 22:38) and the implications that follow on from that valuation invite our further exploration.

THE SHEMA‘ IN JUDAISM

Of course, Jesus is not alone in exalting the Shema‘ (from the first Hebrew word in v. 4: shema‘ = “Hear!”) to a place of prominence. From the 2nd century, the Mishnah, which, together with the Hebrew Bible, forms the basis of Judaism, begins its formulation of rabbinic teachings with several pages of detailed instructions on the proper recitation of this most revered of all scriptures. There are guidelines on when these verses should be recited, how often, by whom, under what circumstances (atop a ladder? on one’s wedding night?), in what posture, with what volume of voice, and so on. Respect and preservation would be more appropriate descriptors here than ritual and legalism. So should it be of the rabbinic tradition which tells the story of one Rabbi Akiba, who, while being tortured to death, recited the Shema‘. When asked by his Roman executioner why he did so, Akiba replied: “All my life I have been waiting for the moment when I might truly fulfill this commandment. I have always loved the Lord with all my might, and with all my heart; now I know that I love him with all my life.” And, repeating the verse again, he died as he reached the words, “YHWH is one” (b. Berakoth 14b). Today the Shema‘ is recited twice daily among faithful and practicing Jews–witness to the fact that within Judaism past and present Deuteronomy 6:4-5 continues to maintain its status as the most defining passage in the Bible.

But there is more to Jesus’ “most important” than the prominence and centrality of the Shema‘ in the Judaism of his day or ours. There are indicators within Deuteronomy itself which suggest why it might be difficult to put our finger on any passage in the Bible which gets closer to the heart of authentic biblical faith than this one.

A CLOSER LOOK

Deuteronomy consists in a series of scripted sermons which Moses delivered to Israel on the plains of Moab at the threshold of their entry into the promised land. Like all good sermons, Moses’ messages are a faithful exposition on scriptural texts, in this case, selected portions of Genesis through Numbers. This means that the Shema‘ is actually part of an expository sermon, specifically, a sermon about some of the implications of the Ten Commandments, which Moses has just reiterated in the preceding chapter (Deut 5:6-21). If we are surprised that Jesus did not cite one of the Ten in his answer to the scribe’s question, the reason may be that the Shema‘ actually serves the role of a concise summation of what God is driving at in the Decalogue. Consider the following.

First, in the narrative structure of Deuteronomy, that portion of Moses’ sermon which encompasses chapters 6-11 focuses specifically on the first commandment in the Decalogue. Dennis Olson expresses this point as follows: “The Ten Commandments of chapter 5 are terse and compressed statements, begging for further interpretation and elaboration. Chapters 6-11 are an interpretation and expansion of the first and most important of the commandments, ‘you shall have no other gods.’”{en1} Of course, there is a certain transparent logic about the foundational role of the first commandment to the whole: By excluding all other gods from Israel’s life and worship, every would-be enticement to disobeying any of the remaining commandments is thereby removed. In other words, the strategic placement of the first commandment defines its role as the basis for the remaining nine, which then expound in one way or another on this fundamental requirement. That the Shema‘ intends to interpret and elaborate on this commandment is reflected in an almost certain wordplay whereby “one” (Heb. ’ehad) at the end of v. 4 signals that YHWH stands over against every “other” (’aher) god prohibited in the first commandment.{en2} To confess that “YHWH is one” is to confess YHWH as opposed to all the “other gods” (18x in Deuteronomy alone) who pose a threat to Israel’s singular allegiance.{en3} And, obviously, to love YHWH with the singular and inclusive love of v. 5 leaves no room to love other gods. In other words, loving the God of v. 4 in the manner of v. 5 defines what it means to keep the first commandment in the Decalogue, which is the fundamental commandment to all the others that follow. This means further that hearing and loving God–not loving only, but hearing and loving–is the most important commandment in the Bible.

Second, there is an important clue embedded in what may at first appear as a minor grammatical detail, plainly evident in the Hebrew text and in most English versions. It concerns the singular “commandment” (not “commandments”) in v. 1: “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, . . .” Striking is the numerical discord between the word “commandment” and the words “statutes” and “rules” which continue the sequence. What makes this little detail so intriguing is the fact that the identical phenomenon occurs in 5:31 preceding the Shema‘ and in 6:24-25 following the Shema‘. These verses read, respectively:

“But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.” (emphasis added)

“And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.” (emphasis added)

When the details of context, structure, grammar, and cross-references are factored–all more involved than we can venture here–the following conclusion emerges: There exists a singular commandment which in fact encompasses all of YHWH’s statutes and rules. In other words, all the particular laws of the Lord can be subsumed under or gathered up in one primary law. Given (a) the comprehensive summary promises in vv. 1-3, anticipating vv. 4-5; (b) the inclusiveness of v. 5 (“with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”); and (c) the further development that follows on in vv. 6-25 (below), a further conclusion becomes almost unmistakable: The singular commandment which subsumes all others is the commandment expressed precisely in the Shema‘ of vv. 4-5: “Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one. And you shall love YHWH your God. . . .” It is entirely possible that Jesus reflected this understanding of the matter in his response to the scribe. Embedded within the details of the very passage he was citing, one particular command is singled out amidst all the other commandments: Hear and love! This is the most important commandment because in obeying it God’s people actually fulfill all the statutes and rules which give it shape and definition.{en4}

Third, the love command at the heart of the Shema‘ echoes and reechoes throughout Deuteronomy, as, for example, in the following passages:

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?” (10:12-13; emphasis added).

“You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. . . . And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, . . . For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, . . . (11:1, 13, 22; emphasis added).

“For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (13:3; emphasis added).

“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. . . . If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it” (30:6, 16; emphasis added).

It is not only the frequency of mention that establishes loving God as the central commandment (see also 7:9; 19:9; 30:20), but the “company it keeps.” Often it is the case that we discover the meanings of words and the importance of concepts in the Bible by paying close attention to the other words and concepts around them. We can learn a great deal about what loving God entails by observing its close association with other expressions like fearing, walking, serving, keeping, obeying, being careful to do, and so on. It soon becomes apparent that loving God is a much more robust thing than internal sentiment or private emotion, much more than simply having warm, pleasant feelings whenever one thinks about God. Love is the wellspring of obedience, and obedience the concrete demonstration of love. Jesus reflected the same conviction and drew the equation explicitly and repeatedly: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15; also 14:21, 23-24, 31; 15:10; cf., 1 Jn 2:5; 5:3). There is no loving God without obeying what God commands. Disobedience is unloving. The conclusion is transparent: Hearing what God says and loving God completely is the first and greatest commandment.

FURTHER REFLECTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

If Deuteronomy, from which Jesus quoted, informs his conclusion on which is the first and greatest commandment, the same book also spells out some of the implications of loving God and some of the ways to develop and maintain such love. Knowing that loving God is the first and most important commandment is one thing, knowing what that looks like and how to protect and preserve it from erosion is quite another. Most of us need a great deal of help here, and the very chapter from which Jesus cited his response to the scribe supplies it.

We cannot, of course, embark on a full exposition of Deuteronomy 6, but the following summary will get at the heart of the matter and will chart a course for many fruitful hours of further meditation and reflection. At this point, a Bible opened to Deuteronomy 6 will be especially helpful.

Preface to the Shema‘ (vv. 1-3). These verses set forth an introductory motivation, with the effect that when readers arrive at vv. 4ff. they are predisposed to listen and respond the more intently. A four- or fivefold “(so) that” underscores that the stakes are high, the blessings are large, and obedience is key. It is not that obedience would force the reward or coerce the hand of God, since, according to v. 3, blessing is a matter of God’s promise and gift. The role of obedience is to condition and position recipients to receive what God has promised.

The Shema‘ (vv. 4-5). The Shema‘ says something about God (v. 4) and something about a proper response to God (v. 5). But first, God’s people are called to hear–a favorite form of address in Deuteronomy (cf., 5:1; 9:1; 20:3), a reminder that hearing what God says is a defining activity and a pure form of worship. What we are to hear is that “YHWH (who is) our God, (this) YHWH is one” (v. 4). YHWH is one as opposed to the many gods of the peoples, and, accordingly, the only one as opposed to others. There are not many gods in any way that rings true with what “god” means. So it is that v. 4 restates the first commandment “You shall have no other gods . . .” in positive terms. Moreover, there is no room here for a vague higher power, as expressed nowadays in polite and political religiosity, “We all worship the same god,” as if the category “one” were left nameless, generic, or inclusive.{en5} Israel’s God YHWH is the singular and exclusive God in reference. With that conviction clearly in focus, v. 5 becomes completely comprehensible. The only proper response to a singular and exclusive God is a singular and exclusive love–“with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”–Deuteronomic language for unqualified and unreserved devotion (cf., 2 Kgs 23:25 in context). The progression of thought is not to be missed: the one love of v. 5 follows as the obvious correspondent to the one Lord of v. 4.

Two questions invite attention at this point: (1) How is singular and exclusive love manifested? (What does it look like?) and (2) How is singular and exclusive love maintained? (How does one sustain it?). Verses 6-9 respond to the former and verses 10-19 to the latter. In light of the supreme status of this commandment, these are extremely important questions.

The Shema‘ Manifested (vv. 6-9). These verses clarify that the summation of God’s will is not a substitute for specifics in God’s will, as if loving God were an amorphous concept, without definition and content. In fact, singular and exclusive love manifests itself in three specific and unmistakable spheres: personal, parental, and public.

(1) On a personal level, loving God means taking God’s word to heart (v. 6). It is instructive that the entirety of vv. 6-9 is taken up with this matter of God’s word, as if to stress that internalizing and performing Scripture is not one of many ways to manifest love for God, but the most defining activity and proper context within which loving God is lived out. Psalms would reiterate this conviction (e.g., Pss 119), and, as we have seen, Jesus would make explicit the connection between loving God and doing what God says (so Jn 14:15 and the passages cited above). The totality of God’s will is summarized in the one commandment not to have any other gods, or positively, to love God singularly and exclusively; and that one command is fulfilled in taking God’s word to heart and letting the divine say have its way with us.

(2) Since we parent according to who we are, those who respond to the God of v. 4 in the manner of v. 5 will manifest that personally in the manner of v. 6 and parentally in the manner of v. 7.  In other words, parenting is fundamentally a theological affair; it is rooted in our view of God (v. 4), grows out of our love for God (v. 5), takes shape in our devotion to the word of God (v. 6), and bears fruit in our perpetuating all of this in the next generation (v. 7). This is parenting’s highest calling and goal. We could say that if Genesis 1 tells us that we are to fill the earth with image-bearers (what having children is all about), Deuteronomy 6 tells us how. And it does so, helpfully, in terms of what (living and speaking God’s word), where (at home and away from home–everywhere), and when (at the end of the day and the start of day–all the time). In short, the Shema‘ envisions the role of Scripture in parenting not merely as a complement or supplement to a life otherwise defined by the present culture, but as that which defines and shapes all of life according to its values and views. This is neither extreme nor overzealous; it is the manifestation of singular and exclusive love lived out in the home. We can sharpen this point considerably: Parents who fail to train up their children in the word of the Lord (v. 7) show how little that word has settled in their own hearts (v. 6), how little they really love the Lord (v. 5), and how little they comprehend what God’s people confess (v. 4).

(3) Loving God singularly and exclusively goes public in verses 8-9, where almost certainly the intent extends beyond mere personal reminders for daily meditation. Armbands, headbands, and doorframe signs display something for others to see. They give public notice that I, my family, and my believing community love God by living all of life as he defines life to be lived (cf., Deut 11:13-21; Num 15:37-41). There is nothing wrong with literalizing these instructions, of course, provided–and the proviso is crucial–the public display reflects a personal reality (cf., Jesus’ rebuke of hypocrisy in Matt 23). Those who post Joshua 24:15b (“As for me and my house”) on their door frame had best live as those who “serve the Lord.”

The Shema‘ Maintained, vv. 10-19. While it is true that nothing can separate us from God’s love (cf., Pss 136; Rom 8:35-39), there is much, unfortunately, that can separate God from ours. Deuteronomy 6:10-19 warns of three potentially deadly perils, each of which can undo love.

(1) Materialism–the danger of forgetting God in the face of plenty (vv. 10-12). Be careful that fullness does not lead to forgetfulness, that the gift never eclipses the giver. The solution is for God’s people to remember who is the giver, and therefore the owner, and so from where they have been brought by grace. Singular and exclusive love for God is guarded by a profound sense of the grace and gifts of God. When these latter are taken for granted, loving God soon yields to self-sufficiency, or to the idols of “me and mine.”

(2) Polytheism–the danger of forsaking God in the face of pluralism (vv. 13-15). Be careful when as God’s people you live among those for whom vv. 4-5 are not a reality, who say things like “we all worship the same god,” or “one religion is as good as another if it helps you actualize your full potential,” or 101 equally fatuous things. Be careful that the objects of their devotion do not become recipients of yours. It was this passage (v. 13) which Jesus cited, refusing to bow to Satan for what he promised in return, viz., all the kingdoms of this world and their this-worldly splendor (Matt 4:8-10).

(3) Skepticism–the danger of faulting God in the face of perplexities (vv. 16-19). These verses refer back to Exodus 17:1-7 and the story of the shortage of water in the wilderness. Recalling that tragic episode, God’s people are urged to watch that they do not blame God in the midst of trials, doubting his presence and good promises, rationalizing their unbelief and disobedience on disappointment with God. Jesus cited this passage as well (v. 16; Matt 4:5-7), refusing to doubt God’s goodness or to apply alternate measures for relieving his own great trial, thereby confirming that, as the song says, “there’s no other way” to enjoy God’s blessings than “to trust and obey.”

Postscript to the Shema‘ (vv. 20-25). These verses, which wrap back around to verses 1-3, set the Shema‘ and the will of God which it encompasses in the context of perpetuated tradition–in the retelling of the exodus story. In short, singular and exclusive love and the obedience which it implies find meaning and motivation in the context of redemption and response. And with “all this commandment” (v. 25; cf., v. 1) we are reminded that God’s entire will is summed up in what Jesus would call the “first and greatest commandment”–the response of one love to the one Lord as the requisite manifestation of righteousness.{en6}

When I conducted a seminar session on “The Theology of Leviticus and Why the Church Cannot Survive Without It” almost five years ago, I was unaware that no fewer than six new commentaries on Leviticus were in preparation and would soon appear.{en1} I have not read all the way through these fine works, but the parts I have been able to peruse have contributed richly to my understanding by opening my eyes to insights I had not seen on my own. Then, being encouraged recently to resurrect my earlier seminar presentation and to reshape it into an article for a wider readership, the idea gained appeal as an opportunity to interact more fully with my new commentary friends, passing along some of the blessings to others and modeling in the process one of the points we stress in our courses concerning the nature of biblical interpretation as a community exercise rather than an individualistic one where “I can do it myself.”

But returning to the 2004 seminar, how well I remember the puzzlement expressed over my chosen title, especially the part about the Church’s inability to survive without Leviticus. I recall encouraging one attendee moments before the seminar to pay special attention to some of my opening remarks, where a few minutes later he would hear the following: “Those who neglect Leviticus cripple their understanding of the Bible as a whole and impoverish their walk with the Lord. Without Leviticus, the rest of Scripture remains out of focus, the God of Scripture remains out of focus, worship remains out of focus, holiness remains out of focus, the accomplishments of Christ remain out of focus, and the mission of God’s people in this world remains out of focus. High stakes indeed!” There I noted as well the reading failures which assign the Old Testament to Israel and the New Testament to the Church, or which assume that the New Testament is more relevant to the Christian than the Old Testament, and I shared Iain Provan’s conviction that “It is impossible to see how we can be followers of Jesus and not regard his Scriptures as our own.”{en2} I also stressed that “failure . . . to hear the message of Leviticus, goes a long way toward explaining why the Church remains confused and divided on what worship is and how to go about it, why the Church so closely resembles the world and its values, why salvation no longer has much to do with eradicating sin, why leaders find ways of divorcing personal ethics from professional life, why knowing the command to love our neighbors as ourselves does not produce a transformed society, and more.” Whether or not my puzzled friend and others in attendance were ever convinced that the Church cannot survive without Leviticus, or at least not survive looking much like the Church, I remain more committed to that belief now than I was five years ago. Had Ephraim Radner’s commentary appeared in advance of the seminar, I might have sealed the case with a quotation like this: “Jesus is a ‘thinner’ figure in contemporary understanding than is the dense personal reality he represented for Origen, in part because a book like Leviticus in particular no longer traces the outlines of his being.”{en3} Or like this:

Scripture is difficult, Pascal insisted, and no more so than when we attempt to decipher the true meaning of the law and the sacrifices. If that difficulty is avoided–by simplifying literalisms that, through their embrace or rejection, dispense us from grappling with the Scripture’s obscurity–then the full depth of God’s character, work, and vocation in Christ will be pushed aside as well.{en4}

And so, in this piece, I intend to revisit my bold and daring thesis that the Church needs Leviticus in order to survive, looking like the Church, with a somewhat homiletical and accessible summary of my presentation made at that time, now improved, I trust, through interaction with a few newly formed friends who speak from my library shelves.

THE THEOLOGY OF LEVITICUS: A SUMMARY

Before we embark on our survey, let me try to establish our bearings by clarifying some terms. By ‘theology’ I mean discourse about God, and by ‘theology of Leviticus’ I mean to ask “What is on God’s mind here?” or “What does this book talk about (subject), and what does it say (message)?” My conviction that this is the right question to be asking of Leviticus (or any biblical book) has been strengthened tenfold by Radner’s Leviticus volume in the Brazos Theological Commentary of the Bible series. For Radner and the series editor, R. R. Reno, not only must interpretation at some point get around to addressing theological concerns; but, contra much of the modern and postmodern consciousness, “doctrine provides the clarifying principles that guide exegetical judgment toward a coherent overall reading of Scripture as a unified witness.” It is, in other words, “the schematic drawing that will allow the reader to organize the vast heterogeneity of the words, images, and stories of the Bible into a readable, coherent whole.” Doctrine, we could say, “provides structure and cogency to scriptural interpretation.”{en5}

By ‘theology’ or ‘doctrine’, of course, Radner and Reno (and I) do not have in mind systematic formulations that germinated and sprang up especially from the post-Reformation soil of Protestant division, the kind of theology or doctrine that separates Christian from Christian and church from church and that suspends the true kingdom on a decision about who’s “got it right” theologically or doctrinally. By ‘theology’ or ‘doctrine’, they (and I) mean a rule of faith or canon of truth that has functioned as a confession of faith from the early centuries of the Church, expressed helpfully in the Nicene trinitarian theology, which, “in all its diversity and controversy, provides the proper basis for the interpretation of the Bible as Christian Scripture” (11). That creed, for those who need a reminder, centers in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made and who, for our sake, suffered and died and rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who, together with the Father and the Son, is worshiped and glorified; and in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, consisting in the baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

This is the lens through which interpretation that is properly called Christian reads Leviticus or any other part of Scripture. So read, all of Scripture will shed its revelatory light on the Triune God, which, accordingly, provides a starting off point for our short summary of the theology of Leviticus, of what it is Leviticus talks about. This means further that what Leviticus says, theologically speaking, it is saying in what we might call the revelatory now. Put simply, in its present form and function as biblical Scripture, Leviticus is not addressing the ancient Israelites at Sinai, but readers whose eyes fall on the pages or whose ears are open to its message. What Leviticus says, when its storied framework and narrative function are properly factored (the speeches of YHWH and Moses within the book are addressing ancient Israel, but the book is addressing readers), is as relevant to the Church as anything Romans or Ephesians says. What, then, does this book talk about (subject), and what does it say (message)?

1. Leviticus talks about YHWH/God.

In fact, once we get beyond some of the grammatical particles like ‘and’ and ‘the’, the most frequent word by far is the proper name of God, YHWH (311x), not to mention some 50 mentions of ‘God’ and countless pronominal references to the Lord (‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’, ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’). But how does Leviticus reveal YHWH, or in other words, what does it say about God?

(a) The word of YHWH: Revelation. YHWH is the speaking God. This is so obvious that it is easy to miss, as, for example, in three speaking words in the very first verse, or 35 occurrences of “Then YHWH spoke,” or 31 reminders “as YHWH commanded.” In fact, Leviticus consists almost exclusively in divine monologue to Moses, and through Moses to the people. In Leviticus the word of YHWH and the worship of YHWH are inextricably linked, as are hearing and holiness. Leviticus reinforces the conviction that before God’s people are anything else, they are a listening community. This may be the first message the Church needs to hear from Leviticus, with many reminders until the message sinks in.

(b) The holiness of YHWH: Removal. YHWH is the distinct God. Some form of the ‘holy’ root (Heb. qds) occurs at least 150x in Leviticus. It conjures up notions of something or someone being removed, separated, withdrawn, and so distinct, special, uncommon, not ordinary. As a descriptor of God, holiness draws attention to the fact that YHWH occupies a category all his own, which in turn makes his people distinct in the world. This theme forms something of a motto for Leviticus (see 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:26; 21:8; cf. 20:3; 22:2, 32). YHWH alone is intrinsically or absolutely holy, of course, making all other manifestations of holiness relative and derivative, a reflection of God-likeness and a result of God’s sanctifying (“holifying”) work.

(c) The grace of YHWH: Redemption. YHWH is the saving God. Redemption, atonement, forgiveness–these are prominent themes in Leviticus (e.g., 11:45; 19:36; 22:33; 23:43; 25:38, 42, 55; 26:13, 45; cf. 18:3; 19:34). This is remarkable, for more reasons than simply that Leviticus actually features a message of gift and grace long before the New Testament tells us about Jesus on this side of his coming. It is remarkable because it is by this means that a removed God (b above) can be a resident God (d below). This emphatically does not mean that YHWH ever ceases to be holy; there is no turning or twisting of YHWH’s reluctant holiness into obligatory grace, not by sacrifice or by any other means. YHWH does not undergo a “conversion” experience (a pagan notion). Rather, atonement proves to be as much a vindication of YHWH’s offended holiness as it is a demonstration of his incredible love; or as Walter Brueggemann puts it, “the complicated sacrificial ‘system’ . . . is a gift of God to make interaction with the holy God possible and affirmative. The sacrificial system is presented as a gift of God’s grace that makes a relationship possible.”{en6} And behind this gift of grace is a prior gift of grace, since the laws of Leviticus everywhere presuppose the election and deliverance of God’s people. There is no do-it-yourself concept of salvation here. That idea had its origin somewhere, but no one ever found it in Scripture, certainly not in Leviticus.

(d) The presence of YHWH: Residence. As if redemption were not enough, YHWH is the God who dwells among his people. The God of (a) revelation and (b) removal is the God of (c) redemption by means of which he becomes the God of (d) residence. Thomas Mann summarizes it succinctly: “Leviticus is a book about being in the presence of God.”{en7} We are tipped that way by the transition from the closing verses of Exodus (40:33b-38) to Leviticus. In worship, in special visible judgment and glory, at all times and in all affairs, according to Leviticus the whole of life is to be lived in YHWH’s presence. Leviticus 26:11-13 offers a splendid description, and the theme is marked throughout in specific phrases like “tent of meeting” (43x; what Gordon Wenham calls the “rendezvous tent”{en8}), “before [in the presence of] YHWH” (59x), and “I am YHWH” (c. 52x, almost certainly echoing Exodus 3, where personal presence is on display in the revelation of God’s proper name).

(e) The lordship of YHWH: Rulership. YHWH is God over all. The God of (a) revelation and (b) removal is the God of (c) redemption, by means of which he is the God of (d) residence, in which proximity he is the God of (e) rulership. Universal rulership is, of course, implicit in creation itself; but Leviticus brings the lordship of the Lord to bear at a more personal and communal level, as descriptive of YHWH’s position and activity in/among his people. It is everywhere apparent that rulership is corollary to residence, and residence the essential effect of redemption, which means, among other things, that God’s people do not pick and choose the domains of their own control over against God’s (the essence of idolatry). As Creator and Covenant Lord, YHWH details the implications of his holiness for his people, defining all the dimensions of living as a covenant people in relationship with himself, with each other, with the peoples of the nations, and with creation itself. It is probably here that Leviticus hands us the hardest pill to swallow–and the most needed–since no area falls outside the reach of that holy rule. But how could anyone have thought otherwise, since Leviticus follows Genesis? The right of rulership, after all, follows on from creatorship? Or is it that humans imagine themselves to have made the world, and so have decided where God fits into their scheme of things? The listening Church will get an ear full in Leviticus, deserved and timely.

2. Leviticus talks about worship.

This follows on from the preceding. Leviticus is fundamentally a book about worship. In fact, Leviticus contains as rich a theology of worship as any book in Scripture, except possibly Revelation, and this despite the absence of the actual term ‘worship’ from its pages! (Of course, ‘self-control’ never appears in Proverbs, nor ‘God’ in Esther, nor ‘Trinity’ anywhere in the Bible.) The idea of worship permeates Leviticus, if by this we mean something like recognition of God’s rightful worthiness and appropriate response to that worthiness in attitude and/or action. Worship by that definition becomes an appropriate rubric under which to subsume all of life, and that concern is not far from the center of Leviticus. We can attempt to gather up the main emphases in four concise statements as regards the object of worship, the objective in worship, the offerings of worship, and the offerer of worship. Worship leaders are invited to develop this further, and I should think that those who take their calling and title seriously will.

(a) The object of worship: God. No surprises here. But the God worthy of worship is not just any old god. The worshiped God of Leviticus is precisely the YHWH of revelation, removal, redemption, residence, and rulership. Wherever essence precedes experience (or entertainment), these will be sufficient foci for God’s people to center their worship, now and forever. Or at least that is where the worship scenes in Revelation seem to end up.

(b) The objective in worship: God-pleasing. In Leviticus the goal of worship is to please or to delight the heart of God. Concerns over personal preference come second, or last, or never. It is not that these considerations are in themselves bad or wrong; it is rather that they quite miss the point of worship. Specifically, sacrifices of worship are described in Leviticus as “to the LORD,” or more graphically as a “soothing aroma to the LORD” (cf. 1:9, 13, 17; 2:2, 9, 12; 3:5, 16; 4:31; 6:15, 21–17x in all). Whatever enjoyment or entertainment worship offers, it comes by way of worshipers submitting and adjusting their interests to God’s, not the reverse; and in that, we should add, worship can be refreshingly enjoyable. To put this differently, it is true that worship is less in the interest of our tastes than of God’s, but tastes can be acquired. When worshipers get this right, their thoughts turn from wondering if they will enjoy worship to wondering if God will enjoy worship, and their conversation turns from the question “Did you have a good morning and are you glad you came to church?” to “Did God have a good morning and is God glad we came to church?” Someone will wonder, “Isn’t that obvious? Isn’t God always pleased with the worship of his people?” Nein. The string of passages is painfully long and the descriptions depressingly graphic where the Scriptures talk about “soothing aromas” turning to “disgusting odors,” or in other words, when the theology of Leviticus on this matter is unheeded (e.g., 1 Sam 15:22-23; Isa 1:10-20; 29:13; Jer 7:22-23; Hos 6:6; Amos 5:21-24; Mic 6:6-8; Mal 1:6–2:9; Pss 40:6-8; 50:16-23; 51:16-17; Prov 21:3).{en9} Which brings us to . . .

(c) The offerings of worship: God-befitting. Leviticus consistently stresses that the standard of offerings brought to the Lord in worship is set by the worthiness of the One worshiped, not by the whims of the worshiper. There is nothing comparable here to “Just come as you are and worship however you feel most comfortable.” Or, “Come to First Celebration Church. You will love our style of worship.” Or, “Are you looking for a church where the worship is just the way you like it?” Or, “Come enjoy our casual worship service with down home folks just like yourself.” These are deformed sentiments, culturally appealing but foreign to the theology of Leviticus (or as far as I can tell, any other scriptural passage). In most cases, suitable offerings are defined as those “without defect” (9x in chs. 1-7), or those that are choice or costly (cf. 22:17-22, 31-33). Later passages in the Bible (e.g., Malachi) will uncoil piercing rebukes on the evil of making our own evaluations on such matters, as, for example, tossing God the scraps or giving God the leftovers in the name of worship, thereby depriving God of his due and forcing God to vie for whatever does receive our first and our finest. (The scraps and leftovers present day worshipers toss to God may exist in the form of tired bodies and unrested minds on Sunday morning, token offerings from a paycheck all but used up on the necessary things, limited time and availability to serve because of the really important commitments in our lives–all self-explanatory and self-incriminating.) There is a direct correlation between the quality of a worshiper’s offering and the worth that a worshiper ascribes to God. Of course, what defines that quality is not competition or comparison. The issue is not whose offering is the best because it is better than someone else’s, but whether every offering is the best that it can be so as to befit the Best–God. Indeed, this very book which sets the standard high is also careful to set it within reach of those who happen to be less blessed. An inexpensive bird will be as acceptable as a pricey young bull, if a bird is the best one has to offer (e.g., 1:14-17; 5:7-13; 12:8)–not because a bird is all that remains after one has consumed all the bulls for other purposes, but because a bird is all one has. All to say that when God has to compete for our first and finest, we force him to vie with other gods–not a good situation.

(d) The offerer of worship: God-reflecting. Whether by explicit statement (“You shall be holy because I the LORD am holy”) or otherwise, Leviticus emphasizes that the worshipers God desires are those who worship in every aspect of life, not merely those who engage in an official ceremony one time per week in a public gathering place. Worshipers who fail to ascribe worthiness to the Lord the other six days disqualify themselves as fit worshipers on the seventh. Specifically, what God desires and deserves, according to Leviticus, is a life of growing personal and practical holiness in reflection of God’s holiness, a life that, like a mirror finely polished, reflects increasingly the character of God whose image we bear. So the larger part of the book (chs. 8-27; e.g., 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26). Robert Davidson captures the conviction well: “If worship does not lead us to ask searching questions about ourselves, then it is little more than a harmless hobby.”{en10} According to Leviticus, offerers of worship “ask searching questions” about whether or not they are God-reflecting, or in other words, holy. They ask questions like, “LORD, who may sojourn in your tent, who may dwell on your holy hill?” (Pss 15:1), and they listen to the answer (in that case a sixfold test, highly reminiscent of the worship theology of Leviticus).

3. Leviticus talks about sacrifice.

We have already visited this matter under the rubric of worship, but we must say a little more about the theology of sacrifice more broadly. The centrality of sacrifice in Leviticus is suggested by its immediate prominence (chs. 1-7), proportion (more than 25% of the book’s word count), and attention to detailed regulations and strict specification, as well as the manner in which it informs the larger scope of Scripture (as, e.g., the Prophets and Hebrews). The five principal sacrifices are described in chapters 1-7:

     The burnt or whole offering  1:3-17; 6:8-13

     The grain or gratitude offering 2:1-16; 6:14-23

     The peace or well-being offering 3:1-17; 7:11-21, 28-36

     The sin or purification offering 4:1–5:13; 6:24-30

     The guilt or compensation offering 5:14–6:7; 7:1-10

Time and space limitations will not permit our considering these separately. Even summarizing the theology in broad strokes presents no small challenge since the book does not explicitly articulate the ideology underlying the sacrificial system. Readers are required to derive that from the narrative–from such observations as what it includes and what it leaves unmentioned, what it foregrounds and what it backgrounds, and the manner in which it depicts various details and from which angle. Gerhard von Rad was certainly correct in suggesting, “There is a realm of silence and secrecy in respect to what God works in sacrifice.”{en11} But attending to what Leviticus does reveal, we may propose a threefold summary of the purpose and value of sacrifices

(a) Sacrifice as an expression of worship. Further to a point we have already made, the sacrificial offerings were part of an organized worship system “that in every way was in harmony with [YHWH’s] holy nature. . . . The rituals performed at the sanctuary were the formal side of worship [including tabernacle, furnishings, priests, sacrifices, seasons] designed to promote spiritual communion between God and the community.”{en12} This seems to be the principal point of the grain/gratitude and peace/well-being offerings, as these are not uniquely sin-related, but tangible expressions of celebration and consecration. Yet even the uniquely sin-related offerings (burnt, sin, and guilt offerings) are “gifts” in the sense that they are offered or brought to YHWH in recognition of YHWH’s worthiness and requirement (so ‘offer’/‘bring near’ some 126x, ‘offering'/'what is brought near’ 40x, and the costliness of a “male without defect”). Of course, these are not technically “gifts” in the usual sense of the term, for God owns it all anyway (e.g., Pss 50:9-11; 1 Chron 29:14); rather, they expressions of gratitude, devotion, surrender, and allegiance–expressions of worship, in other words. Further, these offerings do not provide “food” for God in the pagan sense (cf. Pss 50:12-13), although, interestingly, some are explicitly called lehem (‘food’/‘bread’) for YHWH, presumably without fear of pagan association (e.g., 3:11, 16; 21:6, 8, 17ff.; 22:25; cf. Num 28:2; Ezek 44:7). We should note as well that these sacrifices do not exhaust the formal side of worship, as Israel’s life of worship would include, in addition to weekly Sabbath, a number of sacred festivals throughout the year (Lev 23; cf. Num 28; Deut 16)–Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), Feast of Trumpets (Ingathering), Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Sabbath and Jubilee Year–each with typological significance rich with Christian relevance.{en13} David Peterson is surely on target:

The fact that the year was marked by a whole series of festivals is a reminder of the extent to which celebration, praise, and thanksgiving were at the heart of Israelite religion. It would thus be wrong to think of people in Old Testament times being wholly occupied with the business of atonement for sins and to regard their worship as a sombre and dreary necessity.{en14}

In fact, when the element of worship is properly factored and we are relieved momentarily from popular allergies to stable traditions and practices by which faith survives and thrives, not even the five main sacrificial offerings of Leviticus 1–7 should be caricatured as “sombre and dreary.” Or at least God’s people in previous generations did not seem to be overly afflicted with that worry.

(b) Sacrifice as an expiation of sin and expunging of uncleanness. Whether or not terms like ‘atone’ and ‘expiate’, loaded now with theological baggage inherited from centuries-old discourse and debate, best capture the essence of what Leviticus is driving at, this much seems unambiguous: at least three of the sacrifices (burnt, sin, and guilt) are calculated to address the obstacle that sin presents in the relationship of people to their God. Probably it is the case that three sacrifices are required, not one, by the “complex pattern of consequences” or “web of complications” caused by sin, that is, by sin’s multiple effects personally, relationally, and otherwise. “The offering of the appropriate sacrifice was the way Israelites addressed these multiple consequences resulting from sin.”{en15} Sacrifice provided a necessary means whereby God’s people could remain in harmonious fellowship with God–undoing the effects of sin and enabling restored contact between the holy and the unclean by cleansing the unclean.

Three crucial clarifications are necessary in this connection. First, as regards the reality of forgiveness (Are people under this system actually forgiven?), discussion continues on the precise meaning of kpr (c. 60x)–whether it signifies “wiping, purging, cleansing” or “ransom, paying a ransom price, atonement” or perhaps both. Completely clear is the message that through sacrifice God does indeed offer real forgiveness, the removal of guilt. Sacrifice does not serve merely to “cover (over)” (or “conceal”) sins, as some have suggested, but “cover” in the sense of a payment that covers the cost of something (so 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7).

Second, as regards the extent of forgiveness (Are all sins under this system forgivable, or only certain ones?), the description of the yom kippur or Day of Atonement (ch. 16) explicitly extends to “all the people” (v. 33) and “all their sins” (vv. 16, 21, 22, 30, 34). According to Leviticus, forgiveness does not extend merely to “inadvertent” or “unintentional” or “unwitting” sins (e.g., 4:2, 13, 22, 27; 5:14, 15, 18; 22:14), but to conscious acts of disobedience when they are properly acknowledged (cf. 5:14–6:7; also the serious term ‘transgression’ in 16:16, 21). Of course, offerings had to be accompanied by repentance and full restitution (cf. 6:4-5; Num 5:5-10; Matt 5:23-24), by means of which almost any sin, even so-called “willful” ones, could be forgiven. Numbers 15:27-31 speaks of a “high-handed sin” (probably a clenched fist of open defiance and determined unrepentance) as the exception–sin which carries the “cut-off” or banishment penalty, since it is beyond the power of sacrifice to remedy sins for which there is no contrition or repentance. According to Mark Rooker:

It is important to understand that all sins could be atoned for in the Old Testament period. This fact is illustrated particularly in the Day of Atonement ritual, where it is stated that all sins, including pš‘ (“transgressions”), the most severe form of sin in the Bible, were atoned for on this day. Otherwise inadvertent sins could be forgiven through the appropriate sin or guilt offering, and deliberate sins were placed in this same category when accompanied by repentance and confession (Lev 5:5; 16:21; 26:40; Num 5:5-10). Only high-handed sins, equivalent to sinning against the Holy Spirit, were not atoned (Num 15:27-31; Heb 10:26-31).{en16}

From this it is plain that the laws of Leviticus are through and through a manifestation and provision of grace. Forgiveness is God’s gracious gift.

Third, as regards the ritual and the reality (On what basis are sins forgiven?), Leviticus is explicit on the necessity of the elective, forgiving, and cleansing grace of God. Neither the act of offering a sacrifice nor the sacrifice itself is ever depicted as saving, forgiving, or cleansing. So the “passive” language, “He will be forgiven” or “It shall be forgiven him” (4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13, 16, 18, 26; 19:22), which is to say that YHWH, “the one sanctifying” (20:7-8; 21:8, 15, 23; 22:9, 16, 32; et al.), does the forgiving. This point is underscored in a passage like 17:11, which spells out that blood (i.e., life), which alone has the power to atone for sin, is precisely what YHWH alone gives. “I, I have given it. . . .” Only the Creator gives blood/life, which is to say that when a person brings the appropriate blood offering, that person is simply bearing a gift from God. Indeed, “Offerings were not magically conceived, as if they inevitably effected divine favor toward the worshiper. Their efficacy was not inherent in the performance of the ritual.”{en17} To put this differently, sacrifice is a necessary condition for forgiveness (prerequisite), but not a sufficient condition (cause). The latter resides solely in YHWH’s sovereign and gracious will. The notion of self-salvation or works-righteousness, in other words, is completely foreign and contrary to the theology of Leviticus. God provides the sacrifices in the first place and freely chooses to recognize sacrifices as a means of grace. To suggest, as readers of the two-Testament Christian Scriptures must, that the efficacy of Israel’s sacrifices actually depended on the validation of Jesus’ yet-future sacrifice to which they pointed as types and shadows, should not be construed to mean that sin was only temporarily forgiven or not forgiven at all until Christ. Although the sacrifices did not possess intrinsic forgiving power–“the importance of the offerings was entirely in their value as symbols”{en18}–the benefits were just as real for faithful and repentant offerers at Israel’s altar as for Christians on this side of the cross. The theology of Leviticus is as timeless as the benefits of Christ’s death, whichever side of the cross one lives historically. In this light, the “superiority” of which Hebrews speaks should not be construed to elevate the New Testament over the Old Testament, but the fulfillment over the foreshadow. In other words, Hebrews does not warn against reading and relying too heavily on the Old Testament, but against persisting in the old covenant when the new has come to which the Old Testament itself emphatically points! To reject or to turn back from Christ is to run against the very current of the Old (and, of course, the New) Testament.

(c) Sacrifice as an experience of fellowship. In addition to the above, some sacrifices involved a meal in which the offerer, the priests, and members of the community joined in a “fellowship banquet.” The primary sacrifice in this regard is the peace/well-being offering, in which the majority of the meat is returned to the offerer (3:1-17; 7:11-21). “The participants knew Yahweh to be invisibly present as the guest of honour,”{en19} which explains, at least in part, the frequent reference to the food/bread as belonging to YHWH (recall 3.(a) above). Not only does such food supply the priestly leadership (so in effect “feeding” God by feeding God’s representatives; cf. 6:6), but the associating of bread and wine in a fellowship meal in the larger context of sacrificial offerings invites the anticipation of such an association in a later context with reference to that communion which we now know as the Lord’s Supper, where, too, it is the bread of the Lord (“My body”).

From this survey it will be obvious that Leviticus does not merely lie in the distant background or backwaters of the New Testament, but defines and shapes the very theology which Jesus fulfills and which comes to expression in the New Testament. Those who enter the biblical story at the birth of Jesus are like those who walk in on a movie well into its final scenes. Little wonder their comprehension and appreciation of worship, the cross, and fellowship remain thin and often distorted. It is an even worse deception when the Church pretends that this does not matter.

4. Leviticus talks about holiness.

Does it ever! As we noted earlier (see 1.(a). above), some form of the ‘holy’ root (Heb. qds) occurs at least 150x in the book. There we introduced the concept in its intrinsic or absolute sense as an attribute of YHWH. Here we explore it a little more fully in terms of its relative or derivative sense as a quality of God’s people, that is, as a reflection of God-likeness and a result of God’s sanctifying (“holifying”) work.

(a) The meaning of holiness. The concept of holiness in Leviticus is complex and wide-ranging, but fundamentally it draws attention to the fact that YHWH occupies a category all his own, which in turn makes his people distinct in the world. In the language of Leviticus, to be holy is to belong to God and to be like God–separated or unique, with implications both negative (set apart from something) and positive (set apart for something). This is especially evident in a motto verse like 20:26: “You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine” (cf. 11:44, 45; 19:2). Ellen Davis captures the essence of holiness from the inside by asking:

What constitutes a holy people? In other words, what is the nature and discipline of a community capable of hosting the presence of God in its midst (cf. Lev 9:6)? For that is what holiness is. It is hospitality toward God, living in such a way that God may feel at home in our midst.{en20}

From the outside, so to speak, holiness answers a corresponding question relative to “the nature and discipline of a community” that, by virtue of “the presence of God in its midst,” exists differently and distinctly in the world, to which it bears witness as the embodying agency of YHWH’s purposes in heaven and earth.

(b) The measure of holiness. Striking about holiness in Leviticus is its all-encompassing extent. Holiness reaches everywhere and touches everything, whether public or private, formal or informal. Its scope permeates all spheres and dimensions–spatial (holy places; 4:6; 10:4, 17, 18; 16:33; et al.), ritual (holy offerings; 2:3, 10; 7:1; et al.), temporal (holy times and seasons; 23:2; 25:12; et al.), priestly (holy servants and facilitators of worship; 10:1-3; 21:6; et al.), and personal (holy people; 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26; et al.). Focusing on the last-mentioned, all of life is to be lived in relationship to YHWH, as the embodiment of covenant holiness in every domain of human experience and behavior. This comprises much of the material of chapters 11–27 (esp. the “Holiness Code” of chapters 17–25). To illustrate, the reason for loving one’s brother and neighbor–yes, Jesus draws his love command from Leviticus!–is because love is a manifestation of holiness (cf. 19:2 => 18, 34), which is to say, a reflection of what God is like. Allen Ross summarizes the vast law of Leviticus along these lines:

Holiness is its goal. Holiness is its character: the LORD is holy; his sanctuary is holy; its vessels are holy; the garments of the priests are holy; the sacrifices are most holy to the LORD; and all who approach him whose name is “Holy”–whether the priests who minister or the people who worship–must themselves be holy. It is as if throughout Israel’s holy place was the earthly echo of that seraphic song in the courts above that never ceases to proclaim “holy, holy, holy.”{en21}

(c) The motivations for holiness. According to Leviticus, three principal incentives should impel God’s people toward holiness: acknowledgment of who YHWH is (“because I [YHWH] am holy”; e.g., 19:2; 20:7, 26); gratitude for what YHWH has done (“because I brought you out of Egypt”; e.g., 11:44-45; 22:31-33; 26:13); and consideration of what YHWH promises and threatens (because “blessings” or “curses” await; e.g., ch. 26). Motivational theory, even in the modern era, has not improved on these. Indeed, Christians will find sufficient reasons to be God’s distinct and obedient people in the world precisely on these counts; or they will show themselves idolatrous, ungrateful, or presumptuous–as those who do not care who YHWH is, what YHWH has done, or what YHWH says. The alternatives need to be faced this squarely, since, as far as I can see, Leviticus offers no other possibilities.

(d) A brief note on clean and unclean. One of the most present themes in the book (‘clean’ c. 74x, and ‘unclean’ c. 145x) is also one of its most puzzling. There is a near consensus among interpreters that Leviticus envisions two broad “ritual states” in which everything is either holy or common, with the second subdivided into clean and unclean. Whatever is unclean is incompatible with whatever is holy, and any contact between the two will result in the unclean being burned up (10:1ff.) or cut off (7:20-21; 22:3). What is unclean must first be cleansed before it comes into contact with the holy. The more difficult question focuses on what determines one state or the other, which question is complicated by the fact that Leviticus does not explicate the underlying ideology, leaving readers to draw their conclusions from how the book “tells its story,” that is, from the narrative details themselves. Several points are clear. First, clean and unclean are divinely prescribed/designated states designed to ensure that no one or thing unclean enters the courtyard of the sanctuary, where strict regulations apply. Second, ‘clean’ does not mean spic and span or ‘unclean’ gross and dirty; nor does ‘clean’ refer necessarily to what is righteous and good, ‘unclean’ to what is sinful and bad. The situation is more complex than this, since (a) some things are designated permanently clean/unclean by God’s creative plan (e.g., certain animals, although created “good,” are pronounced ‘unclean’; Gen 7; Lev 11); (b) some things become temporarily and unavoidably unclean by natural causes (e.g., accident, illness, certain body functions; chs. 12-15), which things are not sinful per se so long as prescribed boundaries are not violated (e.g., by failing to wait a designated period of time or failure to wash); and (c) some things become unclean through stain/defilement caused by sin (ch. 18). Third, there appears to be a continuum according to “the severity of their effects,” from (a) natural uncleanness (no cleansing needed), to (b) uncleanness dealt with by washing, to (c) uncleanness requiring sacrifices, to (d) uncleanness countered only by the death of the offender and the day of atonement ceremonies (e.g., idolatry, murder, illicit sex).{en22}

Most discussions bog down in trying to define the rationale for the designations ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’. One approach to the principle behind these prescriptions looks outside or behind the biblical text at various features of the animals, diseases, discharges, and conditions that might earn for them the designation ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’. This approach asks the question, for example, “What does God have against pigs?” or, “What is wrong with making camel stew?” And from here various proposals have emerged along such lines as symbolic (chewing the cud suggests meditating on Torah), hygienic (pigs are dirty and pork might be contaminated), cultic (abstain from things associated with idolatry), or natural (avoid conditions connected with death), none of which offers an adequate rationale (e.g., Why does having a baby render a mother unclean, and why is her period of uncleanness twice as long if she delivers a daughter?; ch. 12), and all of which miss the narrative point and sidestep the function of the text.

Looking, rather, within the biblical text in order to discern the use to which Leviticus puts such differentiations, that is, the point in the overall strategy of the narrative relative to the message being communicated thereby, it is clear that the rationale or principle behind the designations is of little if any concern to the book, which focuses rather on the symbolic or analogical significance such differentiations were meant to convey in the life of God’s people.{en23} In Leviticus itself, the designations ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ function somehow to represent or to conceptualize larger thematic/theological concerns. A recollection of Genesis 1 will be helpful here, since separations/differentiations of various kinds are radically ingrained in creation by the Creator God (e.g., heaven/earth, light/darkness, waters above/below, land/sea, animals/humans, male/female, good/evil, trees permitted/prohibited, offerings accepted/rejected). So also the Covenant LORD makes separations of various kinds as part of the covenant plan, which come to be represented or symbolized in various everyday and household ways in a kind of “this-do-in-remembrance-of-that” sort of way–as “active participation in ‘embodied’ theological reflection.”{en24} It is not important to the biblical message that we understand why God made the differentiations, or at least that is not the point Leviticus makes. What is important is that God’s people learn to live in respect of them, thereby participating in their imaging potential. Specifically, by such means “Leviticus sustains the liturgy of covenant”{en25} around such themes as: (a) the holiness of YHWH–a reminder that YHWH sets apart such people, places, times, and things as he chooses, defining who/what is holy and fit for worship and fellowship with him just because he is YHWH; (b) the chosenness (election) of Israel–a reminder that YHWH has elected Israel from among the nations as the agency of blessing to the nations; (c) the sacredness of life–a reminder of the means (life) through which God’s blessing-plan would be fulfilled; (d) the orderliness of community–a reminder of fitness/unfitness for priestly service and so of the ideal paradigm for Israel’s calling as a “kingdom of priests” (Exod 19:6); and (e) the completeness of YHWH’s rule–a reminder that the whole of life is defined by Creator God and Covenant Lord, and that apparently arbitrary differentiations are tests of submission to YHWH’s lordship.{en26}

These are the kinds of things imaged in the clean/unclean classifications, and so we could say that these are the literal meanings which readers are to understand as they read through these sections. Moreover, if these are the point in the book, then holiness must refer to the intended ideal relative to such. For example, it is not simply a matter of Israel’s having been chosen by YHWH, but of Israel’s living in a manner consistent with election, embodying YHWH’s life and mission. To put this differently, the function of the clean/unclean regulations in the book is to produce and to preserve God-likeness, that is, holiness. To ask the question, “Why did God pronounce this clean and that unclean?” is to ask a question the author of Leviticus does not seem to be concerned to answer. The appropriate question is rather: “What are the clean and unclean regulations driving at relative to the concerns of the book and the larger interests of the scriptural message?”

Speaking of that larger scriptural message, according to the New Testament Jesus abolished the particulars of clean/unclean laws (regulatory manifestations) and did things like breaking down the wall between Jew and Gentile (Acts 10–11; 15; Gal 2; Eph 2) and declaring all foods “clean” (Mk 7). But Jesus did nothing to abrogate the Law (revelatory meaning) which these laws were intended to convey. In other words, the essential theology (what Leviticus is teaching) has not changed, that is, unless YHWH’s holiness, Israel’s election, the sanctity of life, community orderliness, and YHWH’s rule have lost their relevance. Moreover, according to the New Testament revelation (a) uncleanness is not an issue of what goes in, but of what comes out, of how one lives (Matt 15; Mk 7); (b) the intent of Torah is godliness from the heart, not minute aspects of ritual purity (a point the Pharisees and teachers of the law failed to appreciate; Matt 23; Lk 11); (c) it is the comprehensive work of God in salvation through Jesus to make a people that are pure and holy (Eph 1; 1 Pet 1); (d) Jesus has all power over anything unclean (disease, death, demons; Matt 8; 9; 18; Mk 1; 5; Lk 5; 7; 8); and most striking of all, (e) in the cross of Jesus, God reconciles the previous factions that divided creation, separated ‘clean’ from ‘unclean’, and alienated Jew from Gentile by taking up the distinctions in his own flesh and, in a marvelous act of the radically ‘clean’ dying for the profoundly ‘unclean’, making them one (Acts 10–11; Eph 2).

CONCLUSION

This short survey has not even remotely exhausted the theology of Leviticus. Space does not permit our venturing further, into what Leviticus says, for example, about priesthood (see the article by J. Gerdes elsewhere in this issue), mission, ethics, vows, and more. Nor can we develop here all the ways in which Leviticus sheds its figural light, through type and antitype, on Christ, and so functions as what we properly call Christian Scripture.{en27}

The limitations of this discussion notwithstanding, there is plenty to commend a thesis that goes something like this: The Church needs to sit up and listen when Leviticus speaks because of all that depends on her doing so–her conception of God, her theology and practice of worship, her comprehension of the cross, her life as God’s holy people in this world. In short, the Church was never meant to live on bread alone, or on anything less nutritious than “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3; Matt 4:4), which is precisely where most of Leviticus comes from. Nor, we should underscore, is it becoming the Church to remain unschooled by the very tutor–Torah, including Leviticus–God has appointed to lead us to Christ (Gal 3:24). Again, if we would let the Scriptures script what holiness entails, “without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14), we would soon find ourselves in the pages of Leviticus, where the book from which that citation comes so often derives its message. And finally, for all the talk about our Lord’s Great Commission as defining the Church’s marching mandate, it is difficult to see how “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:20) can exclude what Leviticus enjoins, especially when this line is heard to echo some earlier ones by the same Lord in the same Gospel which sternly warn against relaxing the requirements of Torah and teaching others to do the same (see Matt 5:17-20).

INTRODUCTION

Spiritual leadership has always been a costly calling; it is not for the faint of heart. By ‘cost’ I do not refer merely to increased demands of responsibility, time, and training. I have in mind the pricier and more painful costs of criticism, jealousy, and mistrust. Sometimes those in leadership “have it coming”; they pay dearly for their own folly and failures. At other times the resistance they experience is simply a reflection of a cultural attitude conditioned by deep socio-political suspicions and the unease we feel when we sense that we may be at the mercy of someone else’s agenda. Nowadays, for example, much of the free West is dominated by a doctrine of the egalitarian ideal, the advocates of which regard any form of particularism or exclusion as self-evidently bad and proclaim equality (confused as inclusivism) as the ultimate virtue, the new moral absolute. In the public opinion, since god loves all equally and accepts all people alike, any notion that one person is different in status from another must be suppressed. It is an insult for any human to stand above others, especially if ‘above’ implies not merely talents, but authority which in any way restricts the absolute freedom of another.

How we got to where we are in our distrust of leadership and in our confusion over equality and liberty lies deep in our cultural and religious history, with roots as far back as the American Revolution, the Enlightenment project, and the Protestant Reformation. How could it be otherwise when to be an American, for example, is to hold “these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”; or to be a Christian (of the Protestant variety) is to regard all Christians equally as “believer-priests,” each individually (the operative word) having direct access to God without any need for human intermediaries. Given this heritage, deportment that is culturally acceptable when it comes to how we think and speak about those in authority is sometimes mistaken as deportment that is Christian. When the Church aligns itself with the kingdoms of the world, embracing the values that define what it means to be an American, for example, it is understandable that Christians living in this country should come to assume it their right, if not their duty, to resist those in leadership when they do not agree with their decisions and policies and to do so in the name of “equality” (no one is above us) and “liberty” (it’s a democratic privilege). It does not seem to matter that in this respect, to borrow a line from Stanley Hauerwas, “as Christians in America we are more American than Christian.”{en1} Nor does it occur to us that while equality and liberty, in the popular sense, may be our democratic birthright, biblical virtues cut across these values and bring them under the scrutiny and judgment of lordship. If leaders exist, in the public perception, simply to make and to carry out decisions we the people have already decided are best, that clearly is not the way the Church has been designed to operate. Autonomy may be a democratic privilege and grumbling our national pastime, but neither is a Christian freedom, or at least not one that is founded in the teaching and example of our Lord, for whom self-abasement, suffering, and persecution are preferable to self-will and insubordination.

But the roots of this confusion lie deeper than the Declaration of Independence or the Protest-ant Reformation. It was present in Israel long before. The exodus generation, for example, recently liberated from bondage by the mighty salvation of YHWH, soon turned into a nation of grumblers against both their saving LORD and his appointed leaders. And like Christians today, Israel’s grumblers were presumptuous opinion-holders who, in the name of equality and liberty, felt their opinions counted as much as anyone else’s, including the decisions rendered by their accredited leaders.{en2} Numbers 12 narrates one such incident in the life of Israel and its leadership, an account both uniquely intriguing and profoundly instructive, not least because of the principals involved–YHWH, Moses, and Moses’ two siblings, Miriam and Aaron–and the issue at stake, namely, who stands qualified to lead Israel, especially as those who mediate the word of the LORD.

Although we cannot in the space of this article explore the story in detail, a summary exposition sheds light on many important points for further theological and practical reflection. As I will not be including the biblical text here, it will be best to proceed with a Bible opened to our passage. But first a few words on the relationship of chapter 12 to what immediately precedes.

THE CONTEXT

The story of Miriam and Aaron’s challenging the credibility and authority of Moses continues the theme of rebellion against proper leadership begun in the previous chapter. But whereas the conflict in ch. 11 originated in problems on the fringes of the camp, in the people’s complaint against their leaders, in ch. 12 problems surface at the heart of the leadership, indeed, among Moses’ own siblings.

Chapters 11 and 12 are linked, then, by a common concern about Moses’ leadership role, or more specifically, by a concern about the uniqueness of Moses vis-à-vis the Spirit-endowed elders (ch. 11), and the prophetess Miriam and high priest Aaron who, on the basis of their own leadership gifts (cf. Exod 4:10-17; 15:20-21; Mic 6:4), contest Moses’ qualification and special position (ch. 12). It is possible that “Miriam and Aaron summon the courage to challenge Moses from the example of Eldad and Medad (11:26-29), who also have received their prophetic gift directly from God, prophesying independently of Moses and with the latter’s encouragement.”{en3} In other words, built into YHWH’s endowing seventy elders with the Spirit (11:16-25) and Moses’ own wish for YHWH’s Spirit to come upon all his people so that all might share in prophecy (v. 29), lies the very real possibility that such an initiation of other forms of leadership might be construed as negating Moses’ unique role and status as YHWH’s prophet and leader par excellence. In this way, ch. 11 raises interesting questions relative to whether the “inclusion” of others in Spirit-endowed leadership and their recognition as genuine channels of God’s revelation translate into an implicit “equality” that invalidates differentiation. Perhaps the kind of leadership exemplified in Moses does not entail a unique status after all, as Miriam and Aaron will contend in ch. 12.{en4}

THE ATTACK ON MOSES, AND THE DIVINE RESPONSE (vv. 1-9)

The story begins abruptly with two issues brought up by Miriam and Aaron in complicity, as concerns Moses’ marriage to a foreigner (v. 1) and Moses’ status as sole interpreter of God’s words (v. 2). That Miriam is the chief instigator of the gossip is evident both in her first-position mention and in the unambiguous feminine singular form of the verb ‘spoke’. This detail will factor later in the story.

Aside from the fact that their grumbling somehow centers on an ethnic objection, the exact nature or precise point of Miriam and Aaron’s complaint that Moses had married a Cushite{en5} is not clear from the text. Significantly, although the issue of Moses’ choice of a wife may have occasioned his siblings’ criticism, it quickly drops from the story in v. 2, where their charge takes an unexpected turn. Apparently Miriam and Aaron’s complaint about Moses’ marriage to an outsider was little more than a pretext or “surface issue that concealed the deeper problem of jealousy over their brother’s unique status before God in the community.”{en6} Of course, it is often the case that the real underlying issues in the personal attacks and criticisms people bring against their leaders surface only later. Or as one of my pastor friends observes, “The reason people give for leaving a church is almost never the real reason.”

The real issue focuses on Miriam and Aaron’s concern about Moses’ unique status and authority relative to the fact that God also spoke with and through them, which, of course, is completely true. As often happens in criticism, their language is exaggerated: “Does YHWH speak exclusively [lit., only and solely] with Moses?” Not content that God did indeed speak to and through them as prophetess and priest, as well as through the Spirit-endowed elders of ch. 11, their real objection centered on an intolerable differentiation between Moses’ status and their own. Why should Moses be God’s favorite, or what gives him an advantage? In other words, jealousy, “the desire to be on the inside or at the top,”{en7} and the presumption of equality when it came to speaking on the LORD’s behalf lay truly at the root of their complaint. It is clear from what follows that God’s economy would operate on a different set of values and expectations from theirs, an economy in which shared ministry did not require a collapse of all positional distinctions. Meanwhile, v. 2 ends on a frighteningly ominous note, forgotten by most who murmur against their leaders–“And YHWH heard.” God was listening!

Whether “the man Moses was very humble, more so than any man [’adam] who was upon the surface of the ground [’adamah],” or rather “. . . very afflicted/miserable” or “. . . very dependent,” the precise translation of the narrator’s parenthetical comment in v. 3 does not obscure the essential point: However great he might appear in others’ eyes (cf. Exod 11:3), in his own eyes Moses was no more than a mere man. His qualities are hereby implicitly contrasted with the complaints of Miriam and Aaron (Bellinger, 225), even more so with the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day who sat in Moses’ seat but fell far short of his model! (Matt 23:1-12). For Moses, unlike Miriam and Aaron, leadership was not about social position or self-assertion or something to be exploited for personal gain (cf. Phil 2:5-8; 2 Cor 10:1, 12; 11:30; 12:9). Accordingly, like all humble leaders, who feel no “need to fight for the right to bear a towel” (Duguid, 162), he had nothing of his own to defend, no reason to open his mouth against his accusers (cf. Isa 53:7; 1 Pet 2:23). Called of the Lord to serve, the burden was on the Lord to vindicate his appointment. Specifically in the context of Miriam and Aaron’s criticism, “The narrator wishes the reader to know that Moses himself would probably have let this challenge go unanswered. It was Yahweh who heard it and who took it upon himself to answer it” (Ashley, 224). Moses will leave the defense to God.

Suddenly,{en8} as if to nip this complaint in the bud, YHWH summoned the three sibling leaders: “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting” (v. 4). Frightful things were known to happen there (cf. 16:16-18, 19-35), and we anticipate that more than a little family confab may ensue. “Then YHWH came down [this too can be frightening (cf. Gen 11:5; Exod 19:20; 34:5; Num 11:25)] in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent; and he called Aaron and Miriam, and the two of them came forward” (v. 5). The suspense intensifies as YHWH prepares to address Aaron and Miriam, separated now from Moses their brother, who is left out of the matter.

The highly poetic divine speech opens with an attention-getting “Now, you listen to me!” (lit., “Hear now my words”), after which three points are registered in defense of Moses. First, visions and dreams are the customary media by which YHWH communicates his revelation with authentic but “ordinary” prophets (v. 6).{en9} Second, Moses, being no ordinary prophet, is set apart from the others as the recipient of more direct or less veiled revelation, which point is spelled out in a fivefold differentiation in vv. 7-8: (a) Moses is called “[YHWH’s] “servant” (v. 7a); (b) Moses is uniquely “entrusted with [YHWH’s] whole house” (v. 7b); (c) YHWH speaks with Moses “mouth to mouth” (v. 8a, lit.), (d) “clearly, and not in riddles” (v. 8a); and (e) Moses “beholds the form of YHWH” (v. 8a).{en10} In all these ways, “God emphasizes the role of Moses as the unique and supreme vehicle of divine revelation” (Olson, 71). Third, it should be a terrifying thing to speak against YHWH’s servant Moses! (v. 8b). “God’s speech ends using the same vocabulary (dibber be) as Miriam and Aaron did in their charge (v. 2) but with boomerang effect: God speaks to Moses (2) but Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses (8, cf. v. 1)” (Milgrom, 96). The point could not be clearer: Not all of God’s people, not even all of God’s prophets, see and hear God equally. “On the basis of the contrast here, [Aaron and Miriam] have overstepped themselves in issuing a challenge to Moses’ unique status by claiming parity with him” (Ashley, 226). They have attacked the man Moses, who sees himself as only a man, and in so doing have attacked YHWH’s special servant, whose authority resides solely in the One with whom he communes “mouth to mouth.”

The suspense of our passage grows most intense at the narrative conclusion in v. 9: “And YHWH’s anger burned against them, and he left.” (The image of someone’s being sorely upset and stomping out comes to mind, although it is hard to imagine of God.) Everything about this line is frightening! Elsewhere in Numbers, to be the target of YHWH’s burning anger spells disaster (cf. 11:1, 33; 25:3; 32:10, 13). “So when we read that God’s anger is kindled and then God departs, we expect dead bodies to be left after the dust settles” (Olson, 73). Moreover, the delay of this line–surely YHWH was incensed from the moment he “heard” (v. 2)–prompts Milgrom’s observation that “God’s anger did not abate but only mounted during the confrontation” (97). Will YHWH’s angry withdrawal bring severe punishment in its wake? We wait and wonder.

THE PUNISHMENT OF MIRIAM, AND AARON’S RESPONSE (vv. 10-12)

Readers are both relieved and perplexed by what transpires when the cloud departs over the tent: “Miriam was skin-diseased like snow” (v. 10a). Interpreters differ on the precise nature of her affliction, whether it was leprosy in the technical sense or simply a rash, and whether the comparison to snow refers to the color of her skin or to its flakiness.{en11} Without minimizing the discomfort and shame associated with Miriam’s condition, we are relieved that her punishment was not more severe (i.e., death). As readers sensitized to gender issues and ideological agendas in the current cultural climate, we are perplexed, however, that Miriam alone is afflicted. Why she and not he? Was not Aaron guilty as well? Indeed he was, but v. 1 (see above) had already cast Miriam in the primary role in the complaint against Moses. She alone is shamed through skin disease; as we shall see, “Aaron is humbled in a different way” (Stubbs, 124). In any event, modern concerns over discrimination are not in view, and it is best not to draw gender-charged points from a text that has no apparent interest in making one.

Aaron’s response, as he turns and sees in horror what has happened to his sister (v. 10b), is both ironic and instructive. He pleads with Moses who, in turn, pleads with YHWH for Miriam’s restoration (vv. 11-12). The irony–or is it evidence that YHWH’s rebuke has taken effect?–consists in his addressing Moses, whose credentials and unique status he and Miriam had earlier questioned, as “my lord.” Presumably, “Only he whom Miriam and Aaron have wronged can help them” (Milgrom, 97; cf. Gen 20:7, 17; Job 42:7-8). Ashley captures the point: “Aaron, who had wanted to be able to be like his brother in the latter’s role as a speaker for Yahweh, is forced to intercede with Moses who intercedes with God. . . . Yahweh is right–Moses is special!” (227). It is instructive that in his apology to Moses, Aaron confesses both their sin and calls it such: “O my lord, do not, I beg you, lay upon us the [penalty of the] sin that we have foolishly committed” (v. 11). Then follows his gut-wrenching petition for Miriam’s preservation from the decay of death (v. 12). How will Moses respond, and will YHWH answer?

THE INTERCESSION OF MOSES, AND THE DIVINE RESPONSE (vv. 13-14)

As elsewhere in crisis situations (cf. Exod 15:25; 17:4), humble Moses cries out for those who have sinned against him, here “with a great emotive entreaty”{en12}: ’el na’ refa’ na’ lah, “O God, please heal her, please” (NLT: “Heal her, O God, I beg you!”) (v. 13). Chrysostom notes the contrast from our sometimes hard hearts: “Miriam and her company spoke evil of Moses, and he immediately begged them off from their punishment. No, he would not so much as let it be known that his cause was avenged. But not so we. On the contrary, this is what we most desire; to have everyone know that they have not passed unpunished.”{en13} Instead of responding angrily and defensively to the murmurings of Miriam and Aaron, Moses embodies and pleads for grace.

Miriam’s cleansing, however, would be neither automatic nor without condition (v. 14). Drawing on a hypothetical precedent not detailed in the Bible (but cf. Deut 25:9; Isa 50:6; Job 30:10), YHWH responds to Moses’ intercession by pointing out that if seven days are required to reinstate one in whose face his or her father had spat, then surely this would be the minimal period of isolation for Miriam in the present circumstance. The reason for this analogy is unclear, although it may suggest that her “affront to Moses’ spiritual authority is as gross as if her father had spat in her face.”{en14} In any event, Miriam’s humiliation requires her exclusion from the camp for a full week, not in this instance to fulfill the laws of infectious skin disease (cf. Lev 13–14; Num 5:2-4), but to serve as a reminder of the shame that befits those who speak wrongly against YHWH’s appointed and anointed leader (Milgrom, 98). After Miriam’s seven-day banishment, she is to be “gathered in,” that is, restored to the community (v. 14b; cf. 2 Cor 2:5-11).

THE POSTLUDE (vv. 15-16)

And so it was. Miriam “was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again” (v. 15). One person’s sin affects the entire community. All of Israel, we could say, paid a price for Miriam’s sin, as they must wait in the camp, delaying their march to the Promised Land until she has served out the designated time for her shame. In this way, “the people” (2x in vv. 15-16) are reminded of the serious consequences of insubordination, of the value of the individual (they cannot journey on without her), and of the necessity of forgiving and restoring grace (she is not permanently barred from the community).

SOME FINAL REFLECTIONS ON LEADERSHIP

In addition to the occasional points of application already noted, and among the many others that might be offered, two stand out in particular as regards the larger theological interests of our chapter relative to leadership. The first concerns the seriousness of disregarding proper lines of authority and accountability. This is precisely the point which the divine response to Miriam and Aaron in vv. 6-8 seeks to clarify. There the accent falls, to be sure, on the peculiar status of Moses vis-à-vis other prophets of YHWH,{en15} and caution should be exercised in too-hastily drawing correlations to present-day Church leaders. Still, inasmuch as Moses’ siblings are held to account on the basis of YHWH’s speaking most directly to Moses, we might infer that greater responsibility of subordination is owed to those who are most intimate with the Lord. Or as a former pastor of mine used to stress, we must listen to all God’s people, but especially to those who listen most to God. And the criterion which best determines who listens most to God and is therefore made privy to the oracles of the Lord is not defined by everyone else’s opinion on the matter. It consists in the compelling call of God and in the faithful discharge of the responsibilities commensurate with that call (v. 7).

Second and related, what makes insubordination so offensive–and this is true whatever its form or justifying label–is that it violates the designated status of YHWH’s leader as servant. Since the status of a servant is relative to that of his master, authority and respect are especially due YHWH’s servant, who in lowliness utters the words and carries out the wishes of his Master, even if imperfectly. To disregard YHWH’s servant-leader, then, is tantamount to disregarding YHWH himself. The implications for the Church today are far-reaching, especially given the world’s insistence on undifferentiated equality, where no one’s say matters more than anyone else’s.

One of the more interesting features of biblical narrative is what specialists in this genre call the camera eye. “Biblical narrative . . . narrates like film,” says Adele Berlin. “The narrator is the camera eye; we ‘see’ the story through what he presents. The biblical narrator is omniscient in that everything is at his disposal; but he selects carefully what he will include and what he will omit.”{en1} Similarly, Yairah Amit imagines the narrator as a movie director with a film crew. “The director decides what is to be filmed, for how long, where, and how. He or she is the final authority, and we the viewers depend on it and on the work of the film crew. The final product reflects the director’s interpretation, viewpoint, and preferences.”{en2} Since we are completely at the mercy of the narrated details and perspective on the Bible’s characters, places, and events, recognizing the narrator’s point of view, or from which angle the camera is shooting, is, according to Berlin, “the first step in discovering the meaning and purpose of the story.”{en3}

Of special significance is multiple viewpoint, where, within the same story, the narrator’s camera “shoots” from several different angles. Says Berlin, “The Bible excels in the technique of presenting many points of view and it is this, perhaps more than anything else, that lends drama to its narratives and makes its characters come alive.”{en4} Examples abound: the intensifying suspense effected by the shifting camera lens among all the family members (Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Esau) in tension in the deathbed blessing episode of Genesis 27; the dramatic suspense that mounts in Genesis 42–50 over the identity of the Egyptian savior who delivers Joseph’s brothers from famine, culminating in the explicit contrasting of human and divine perspectives: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. . .” (50:20); the contrasting viewpoint between Israel, reposed on the plains of Moab, and the king of Moab frantically scurrying about for an international super-prophet to zap a people who have no intention of lifting so much as a finger against his territory (Num 22–24; cf. Deut 2:9); the difference between what the disobedient prophet and we the readers know about the storm and what the sailors do not know and are desperate to find out in the Jonah story; and the deliciously entertaining variations in viewpoint between the Persian king, the Jewish queen, and pitiful Haman in the Esther story. Sometimes this feature of multiple camera angles resolves large interpretive conundrums, as in the conflicting accounts of Saul’s death in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1.

I do not know of a finer illustration of this feature of biblical narrative than the way in which the Exodus story depicts the confrontation of viewpoints shared by YHWH, Moses, Aaron, and the readers on the one hand and Pharaoh of Egypt on the other concerning the thriving throng in his midst and why it is that his measures of population control do not work (chs. 1–6) or his kingdom is suddenly plagued my misery (chs. 7–12). As hilarious as it is tragic, even Pharaoh’s hardened heart turns out to be incurable; he thinks he can oppose Moses and his God at will, when in fact not even his own willful resistance is his to control! However readers go about sorting out the theology here, one thing is certain: The sovereignty of YHWH, God of creation and Lord of covenant, overrides the power of Egypt and the Egyptian king. But rather than bringing down the mighty monarch and his magicians in one crushing blow, they are teased along, almost as if by “power magic,”{en5} through plague after plague–ten in all–with sufficient “success” to bolster their self-confidence, until the wavering pharaoh and his wise men are brought finally and tragically to their knees. The switching camera lens through the plague cycles–now focused on YHWH and his servants, now on Pharaoh and his–effects a marvelous tension between YHWH’s irresistible will and the king’s failed resistance. From the get-go, readers know who will finally prevail in this mismatch, that YHWH will flex his muscle if need be to fulfill his promise to Abraham; but they have no idea how it will come about–that Pharaoh and his army, engaged in a contest they had no chance of winning, will be fatally dunked in the Yam Suph! There would have been other ways to record such an event, but none more effective in registering the point of view expressed in Exodus 9:14: “there is none like [YHWH] in all the earth” and exclaimed in 15:11: “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”

But contained in this familiar and fantastic story is a whole lot more than mere fun with biblical “photography.” It is at once both profoundly humorous and deadly serious. On one hand, narrator and readers have a good time, largely at Pharaoh’ expense, “who in the end turns out to be a pitiful character–indecisive, foolish, and self-destructive.”{en6} On another hand, the stakes are high, for both Israel and Pharaoh. Especially mindful of the camera lens, my intent in what follows is to get at some of these more serious elements in the plagues narrative of Exodus by way of some fresh reflections on two important questions: If YHWH hardened Pharaoh’s heart, why is Pharaoh held responsible? And, if YHWH intended simply to rescue his people Israel from the Egyptians, why did he use such a drawn-out procedure to get the job done, and why does the Pentateuch go to such lengths in telling us about it?

PHARAOH’S HARD HEART: WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?

This has long been a theological-philosophical conundrum, posed in terms of conflict between divine determinism and human freedom. Specifically, does God determine Pharaoh’s behavior by maintaining total control of the events from beginning to end, or does Pharaoh maintain and exercise a freedom of will to the end, or is it neither or both? Apparently this problem in biblical theology is not just a modern concern, as it surfaces in Romans 9:14-29 as part of Paul’s discussion there on divine sovereignty and salvation. My intent here is not to resolve this problem, which even the apostle apparently saw no need finally to resolve, but to offer a few observations of a linguistic and textual nature in the interest of reading this story a little more attentively than we might otherwise read it.

To begin, the vocabulary of ‘hardening’ in the plagues narrative involves three primary terms which occur a combined total of 20 times with specific reference to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Chazaq (12x; Exod 4:21; 7:13, 22; 8:19 [MT, 15]; 9:12, 35; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17) depicts Pharaoh (or his heart) as strong, firm, or tough, or as being made such (in the sense of ‘strengthened’ or ‘firmed up’ or ‘toughened’). So we read in 7:13, “Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said”; or in 9:12, “But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.” Kabed (6x; Exod 7:14; 8:15, 32 [MT, 11, 28]; 9:7, 34; 10:1) graphically describes Pharaoh (or his heart) as heavy, dull, or unresponsive. For example, “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go’” (7:14); or “But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go” (8:32 [MT, 28]). Qasha (2x) connotes being or making difficult or obstinate, akin to what we mean when we say that someone is pig-headed. “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you” (7:3-4a). Again, “For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals” (13:15a). While these terms are used somewhat interchangeably in the plagues narrative, they are not for that reason synonymous or merely redundant. Sometimes it takes more than one word to communicate various facets of the same basic idea, such as ‘praise’ in Psalms (also ‘laud’, ‘extol’, ‘bless’, and so on), or ‘wisdom’ in Proverbs (also ‘prudence’, ‘insight’, ‘discretion’, and so on), or, in the case of Pharaoh, ‘hard-heartedness’ (also ‘tough’, ‘unresponsive’, or ‘obstinate’).

There are a few additional observations we should make on the use of these terms. First, it is significant that neither chazaq nor kabed is intrinsically negative; and, as we shall soon see, both the positive and negative potential of these terms will be exploited with powerful effect in the plagues narrative. Second, in ten of the twenty occurrences of these three terms YHWH is depicted as the subject or active agent. Two of these ten are predictive or future referring, before the plagues begin (what YHWH will do; 4:21; 7:3), and the remaining eight occur well along in the story in association with plagues 6-10 and in the incident at the sea (13:15; 14:4, 8,17). Third, of the remaining ten occurrences, four depict Pharaoh as the subject or the active agent (Pharaoh hardened his heart); six do not specify an agent, but simply describe Pharaoh’s heart as ‘hard’. Of these latter ten, seven fall in plagues 1-5, two in plagues 6-10, and one in the overall summary of 13:15.

Although more is involved in such a study than mere word usage and occurrence, some interesting points relative to Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness do begin to emerge simply from close attention to the vocabulary we have surveyed. First, the entire narrative is written in such a way as to highlight that both YHWH and Pharaoh are active agents in the hardening, so that neither a mutually exclusive nor equally valid alternative explanation will do. “Thus it was,” according to Augustine, “that both God and Pharaoh caused this hardening of the heart: God, by his just judgments, Pharaoh, by his free will.”{en7} But within the larger pentateuchal story, the plagues narrative is told from YHWH’s perspective–history as his story. YHWH is in control, and recalcitrant Pharaoh is at fault for refusing to acknowledge YHWH’s rule and for mistreating YHWH’s “firstborn son” (4:22; cf. Acts 2:23). Of course, as concerns YHWH’s victory over Pharaoh, there is no glory here if it is only a matter of his “outwitting a windup toy. If Pharaoh is an automaton, a ‘puppet in the hands of God,’ then God is not shown to be much of a God at all.”{en8} Hence the significance of Pharaoh’s hardening his own heart. The conflict in delivering a people from bondage to freedom is a genuine one, at the heart of which is a very real power struggle over who rules the world and governs the earth, including Egypt.

Second, the first two terms above, the ones with both positive and negative nuances, set up a major irony with enormous dramatic effect. The ‘strengthening’ of Pharaoh’s heart enables the display of God’s ‘strong’ hand (13:3, 9, 14, 16); and the ‘heaviness’ of Pharaoh’s heart displays the ‘weight’ of YHWH’s ‘glory’ (14:4, 17-18).{en9} Alas, Pharaoh’s hardening leads to God’s honoring!

Third, it is clear from 3:19 that YHWH knows he will have to strong-arm the resistant Pharaoh, and from 4:21 and 7:3 that YHWH will toughen or make Pharaoh’s resolve more difficult in the process. But in the actual plagues narrative, Pharaoh first hardens his own heart before YHWH actively hardens it. In fact, Pharaoh was given at least five chances (plagues 1-5) to “soften” before YHWH acted on the state of his already hardened condition (plagues 6-10). It appears that YHWH’s hardening activity further intensifies Pharaoh’s own obduracy as the confrontation escalates. The narrated sequence is as follows:

     YHWH predicts that he will harden the king’s heart (4:21; 7:3).

     Pharaoh hardens his own heart (plagues 1-5–7:13, 14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32 [MT, 11, 15, 28]; 9:7).

     YHWH hardens the king’s heart (plague 6–9:12).

     Pharaoh continues to harden his own heart (plague 7–9:34-35).

     YHWH further hardens Pharaoh’s heart (plagues 8-10–10:1, 20, 27; 11:10).

We are reminded throughout that everything is coming to pass according to YHWH’s word (7:6, 13, 22; 8:13, 15, 19, 31 [MT, 8:9, 11, 15, 27]; 9:12, 35; cf. 9:20-21, 35), that YHWH’s prediction is being fulfilled; but we are never explicitly told that YHWH caused this state of affairs, that Pharaoh weighed down his heart because YHWH made him do it. He hardened his own heart in defiance of the activity and word of YHWH. In this connection, there is a fourth term ma’en, ‘refuse’, worth mentioning for its six occurrences (4:23; 7:14; 8:2 [MT, 7:27]; 9:2; 10:3, 4), three of which use conditional (‘if’) language, as in 8:2 [MT, 7:27]: “But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs” (also 9:2; 10:4; cf. 8:21 [MT, 17]). Clearly these conditional statements place responsibility on Pharaoh’s shoulders, while preserving YHWH’s providential control to the end.

Fourth, it is noteworthy in this connection that hardening does not always function as the direct cause of the plagues. In fact, sometimes “the hardening appears as a reaction to the plagues, or more specifically, to the removal of the plagues,”{en10} as in 8:15 [MT, 11]: “But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.” To put this in the context of the main function of the plagues as revealing the knowledge of YHWH, sometimes Pharaoh’s hardness describes his downright refusal to hear and heed; the state of his resistant heart, in other words, prevents his reacting positively to the wonders, and so explains the failure of the plagues to achieve their assigned task or intended effect. And because Pharaoh does not ‘get it’, YHWH multiplies the plagues as signs of judgment.{en11} We will return to these points below.

Fifth, it is important to remember that ‘to harden’ does not necessarily mean ‘to make evil’. Obviously it is evil of Pharaoh to exalt himself against YHWH’s people (9:17) and to harden his heart against YHWH’s rule and YHWH’s command to let his people go (so ‘sin’ in 9:27, 34; 10:16); but just as obviously YHWH cannot be charged with evil on the basis of his activities here. YHWH remains righteous in all his ways, regardless of our full comprehension (cf. Rom 9:14-29). When YHWH’s actions are judged unjust or unfair or unrighteous by humans, it is evident that the distance between Creator and created has collapsed, or rather, that the roles have been effectively reversed.

Sixth, the story of God’s dealings with Pharaoh does not finally exist to inform our theological boxes or to test our ability to solve ethical puzzles, but to display YHWH’s glory and irresistible will at the very center of the entire biblical presentation of salvation. Read within the larger canonical story, the plagues narrative stresses that YHWH is the one who saves, and nothing can thwart his plans and purposes. In this way the entire operation displays YHWH’s power and glory. If theological and ethical mysteries remain, it is best that we simply live with them in holy wonder and humble worship. John Goldingay gets to the heart of things:

In the course of events as a whole, then, Yhwh’s decision stands as the background to what happens, yet it does not force people to take a path they would not otherwise have taken. Even if Yhwh had done nothing, the opening of Exodus suggests that the king likely had quite enough stupidity to resist a change of policy. So Pharaoh is responsible for his acts, yet they take place within Yhwh’s purpose. . . . [W]hile declaring the intent to toughen the king’s resolve, Yhwh does not implement this intention until after the king weighs down his own mind. . . . In understanding the relationship of divine sovereignty and governmental sovereignty, the narrative invites us to let each have its own integrity and not pretend to resolve the relationship between them. . . . The genius of the narrative is to do that in such a way as to imply some comment on the interrelationship of key factors without implying a claim to tie everything together neatly but oversimply.{en12}

In sum, whatever strain may be put on our theological systems by the hardening-of-Pharaoh’s-heart story is relieved by looking at things from the perspective of God’s view of the world, including those things not intended for our understanding from a vantage point outside that vision of reality.

THE MIGHTY PLAGUES: WHAT’S THE POINT?

A long time ago one of my professors noted that while skeptical minds often raise the could question (How could God do such and such?), the more interesting, and interpretively enlightening, question is the would question (Why would God do such and such?). There is no problem, in a worldview where God is welcome, acknowledging that YHWH could perform the ten mighty acts against Egypt and her hard-hearted king. YHWH of the exodus is, after all, the God of creation; so the sorts of feats he performed with water, frogs, gnats, flies, cattle, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death are not problematic from the standpoint of ability. YHWH can mobilize all creation to effect the deliverance of his “firstborn son” if he so wishes. But why would God act in this way? More specifically, why is it such a drawn-out affair instead of a single blow, and why are we told about it in such a long-winded fashion? These are not the same question, and the second is not answered simply in saying that, well, because that is how it happened. That it did I am not disputing. But biblical narratives do not function that way; they are never merely history-informing. They are theology-shaped and theology-shaping.

At least four functions are served in the wonder-signs of YHWH against Egypt, and these have further implications for why they are recorded in the way they are for later generations of readers like us.

First, even before the plagues cycle begins, YHWH gives Moses two powerful signs to establish his credentials for leadership (staff to snake and back again, hand to leprous and healthy again), the promise of a third (water from the Nile turned to blood) (4:1-9), and the further commission, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power” (v. 21). One of the purposes for the mighty acts of YHWH, in other words, is to prove Moses’ calling as YHWH’s appointed deliverer (so 4:30-31; 7:8-24), not unlike the way miracles function to authenticate messianic and apostolic claims in the Gospels and Acts stories. If this were the only intent, however, we might judge YHWH’s method as overkill and only partly successful–an extreme measure of heavy-handedness on the one hand, and a largely ineffective remedy of the people’s doubts and complaints on the other. For subsequent readers, in any event, the miracle stories associated with Moses’ role in the exodus are instructive for the light they shed on how divine actions are accomplished through human agency.

Second, YHWH acted this way, keeping a confrontation underway which he might have ended in a flash, in order to persuade obstreperous Pharaoh, through many ways and over a period of time, to let his people go. “It is not just a matter of the liberation of Israel; rather, the ever-worsening ‘plagues’ that overcome the Egyptians . . . are a response to Pharaoh’s arrogant challenge of Yhwh.”{en13} This seems to be the point in such passages as Exodus 3:20 and 6:1. Of course, YHWH could have intimidated Pharaoh and accomplished Israel’s deliverance by means of fewer plagues, in a shorter period of time, or through other means entirely. But he prevents Pharaoh from giving in too easily and too early for a reason. Brueggemann explains: “If Yahweh were to quit hardening the heart of Pharaoh (stop propping him up as an agent of resistance), Pharaoh would immediately collapse and the story would end with an uncontested triumph for Yahweh. The reason for continuing to keep this fragile, dependent character afloat is to give Yahweh more opportunities to enact signs and to commit powerful gestures of solidarity with the Hebrews.”{en14} Moreover, in this way Israel then and we now are given a glimpse of YHWH’s manner of dealing with those who stand initially outside and against the covenant. Here is the patience of YHWH on display, albeit not in this instance with a view to Pharaoh’s or Egypt’s “salvation” (cf. 2 Pet 3:9), but divine patience all the same. Still, if this were the only intent, we would again have to judge YHWH’s method only partly successful, as Pharaoh remains hardened and resistant to the end.

Third, and most centrally, the plagues and the story written about them are meant to function as a revelation of the knowledge of YHWH, the means by which both Israel (6:7; 9:16; 10:1-2; 11:7) and the Egyptians (5:2; 7:5, 17; 8:10, 22 [MT, 6, 18]; 9:14-16, 29; 14:4, 18) and future generations of readers come to acknowledge who YHWH is. It is he, rather than the Egyptian gods, represented in the anti-God Pharaoh himself (12:12; 18:10-11; cf. 15:1-17, esp. v. 11; Num 33:4), who rules the universe as its Creator, whose dominion extends over Israel and the nations, who is able to move heaven and earth to redeem his people. The witness of the text is unmistakable: The recognition of YHWH is the main goal of the plagues. This is as much a story about the manifestation of Israel’s God (“that you may know that I am YHWH”) as it is about the emancipation of Israel (“let my people go”). In one sense these mighty wonders aim at supplying what Pharaoh self-confessedly lacks–the knowledge of YHWH (5:2; so 7:5, et al.). But, as Brueggemann explains, this “is only the penultimate intent of the narrative. Behind that is the hope that the children and grandchildren should come to know . . . that ‘I am Yahweh.’ . . . The purpose, astonishingly enough, is not to convert Pharaoh or to liberate the slaves, but to recruit the next generation of Israelites into this daring scenario of courage and confidence, passion and faith.”{en15} This point is stated explicitly in 10:1-2:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

It is in the context of the exodus/deliverance, or more specifically, of the exodus/deliverance story, that God most fully makes himself known as YHWH (cf. Exod 3 and 6; and see the article by C. Steiner elsewhere in this issue). And this no doubt explains why the plagues narrative receives so much space in Exodus, because the knowledge of YHWH is at stake–not just for the Israelites and the Egyptians who were alive at the time and who witnessed these mighty acts, but for later readers and hearers. And that makes all the more tragic the fact that, while hundreds of years later the Philistines are still talking about these events (1 Sam 4:1-11; 6:1-9), as were the people of Jericho earlier on (Josh 2:8-14), a generation of Israelites had arisen “who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judg 2:10). That tragedy is matched when present generations of readers are able to read the exodus story and miss the compelling implications of creation theology (“that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s,” 9:29; cf. 19:5; Pss 24), or redemption theology (“that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel,” 11:7; cf. 8:22 [MT, 18]; 9:4), or mission theology (“so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth,” 9:16; cf. v. 14).

Fourth, the plagues narrative is written to show that blessing comes by way of obedience to the word of YHWH (7:6, 13, 22; 8:13, 15, 19, 31 [MT, 9, 11, 15, 27 ]; 9:12, 35; 9:20-21) and through the chosen people of YHWH. In connection with the latter, we could say that the plagues narrative has Genesis 12 written all over it: Moses prays for Pharaoh (8:8, 9, 28, 29, 30 [MT, 4, 5, 24, 25, 26]; 9:28; 10:17, 18; cf. Isa 19:16-25); Pharaoh curses God’s people; he bids Moses “bless me also!” (12:32), thereby acknowledging that Moses and Aaron are the key to blessing; and he effectively commits himself and his people to the final curse at the Red Sea.{en16} In these respects the plagues narrative presents YHWH’s and Pharaoh’s relative activities in a manner that closely resembles and perhaps anticipates YHWH’s and Israel’s later activities, as reflected, for example, in the Prophets or in Psalms (e.g., Isa 6; Jer 5; 18; Zech 7; Pss 81:11-12). When God’s people behave like Egypt or Canaan, by refusing to do the will of the Lord, they will be treated like Egypt or Canaan.{en17} Perhaps it was here that Augustine found a lesson for us all: “God makes good use of bad hearts for what he wishes to show those who are good or those he is going to make good.”{en18} From bad-hearted Pharaoh and how YHWH dealt with him, we can learn how not to be as those who would experience the good heart of our Lord.

There is a certain intended ambiguity about the title I have assigned to this article. In one direction, we might research the life and times of Abraham in the late-3rd/early-2nd millennium B.C. so as to locate Abraham “in context.” On previous occasions I have done that sort of study and found it fascinating at many points. Some of the details we read in the Abraham narrative of Genesis, for example, fit remarkably well in the social and cultural milieu of the Ancient Near East as best we are able to interpret the historical data. In this way we learn about the world Abraham knew and we discover possible insights, including ones the Bible does not tell us, into Abraham as a person living in that world. Adding those insights to the relevant data in the biblical account, we might produce a meaningful biography of our “reconstructed” Abraham, including lessons on how to live in our world by observing the way he probably lived in his.

Following this path, however, we would have reason to wonder if the character of our study and the lessons learned actually reflect the biblical Abraham and the scriptural lessons. An Abraham figure reconstructed from all the available historical data will not necessarily end up looking like God’s Abraham, shaped and defined by the Bible’s own narrative. And principles for life drawn on such an Abraham may not be ones the scriptural account actually exists to supply. These differentiations invite some unpacking.

In her exceptionally insightful work, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, Adele Berlin gets at the issues by asserting, “Abraham in Genesis is not a real person any more than a painting of an apple is a real fruit.”{en1} Of course, the same could be said of any other biblical character. When one thinks about it, this is only stating the obvious. There are no real characters in the Bible. If there were, they would be flat indeed, rather like dried rose petals or ribbon bookmarks! A textual depiction is not identical to the real flesh-and-blood person depicted but is a literary representation of that person. The text mediates a version of that which it references, but it does not consist in those things. Moreover, the version it mediates is particular and purposeful. So it is that learning about the person Abraham by means of whatever data we are able to pull together and understanding the biblical version of Abraham are closely related but nonidentical enterprises, in much the same way that examining a real apple and studying an artist’s drawing of an apple are not the same.{en2}

The biblical Abraham is the one we encounter in the biblical portrayal, and nowhere else. This requires a certain respect for which details the biblical author selected and which ones he omitted; from which angle, in what sequence, and for what purpose those details are told; and especially how the narrative so crafted fits into and serves the interests of the larger biblical story and not some other story. All of these are put at risk if our study of the biblical Abraham is not allowed to speak over our interest in the historical Abraham (in much the same way that the biblical Jesus and the so-called historical Jesus in recent reconstructions appear either to have been conflated, or to have little more in common than the name ‘Jesus’).

These considerations point us in another direction for our study of Abraham in context. It entails our looking into the narrative function of Abraham as a biblical character, that is, the actual characterization of Abraham in Scripture. If we want a portrait of the biblical Abraham–God’s Abraham–we will have to pay special attention to how the Genesis account situates Abraham in the larger narrative and so defines him and his role relative to that context. In this way our perspective on Abraham will be shaped by the scriptural presentation itself, and the lessons learned will be those the Bible means to teach.

ENCOUNTERING THE BIBLICAL ABRAHAM IN BIBLICAL CONTEXT

We begin with the largest possible framework. The whole-Bible message, as I have suggested elsewhere, centers in the Creator’s universal blessing plan and its fulfillment in and through Abraham and his special seed or descendant(s).{en3} Universal blessing plan commends itself as a thematic focus by (a) the frequency, strategic location, and verbal associations of the root brk (“bless/blessing”) in the Pentateuch (166x), including its conspicuous linkage to creation and covenant;{en4} (b) the way in which the Bible progresses toward a blessed ending that echoes its beginning (Revelation, esp. chs. 19-22); and (c) the relationship between Genesis 1–11 and the rest of the Bible (Gen 12–Rev 22), with Genesis 12:1-3 and its focus on cosmic blessing to be realized through Abraham as the pivotal hinge. God’s purpose for creation will be effected in a defining covenant with Abraham and its vision of new creation through Abraham’s promised descendant(s).

The main contribution of the material leading up to Abram/Abraham (Gen 1–11), then, lies in its marking out the initial episodes in this grand thematic story. This means that in order to appreciate the biblical Abraham in context, it will be necessary for us to hear the Abraham narrative of Genesis 12-25 against the background of chapters 1–11. God’s Abraham is a specially versioned Abraham, whose role in God’s universal blessing plan occupies a central place in the scriptural drama. This also, it turns out, is the Abraham of Paul and James and the other biblical writers, who refer to Abraham by name about 100 times.{en5}

Since it will not be possible here to offer a detailed exposition of the Bible’s first eleven chapters, I propose in what follows to sketch a broad literary-thematic summary of the main movements and to focus special attention on two special features at that precise point in the narrative where Abra[ha]m steps onto the biblical stage.

Literary-Thematic Summary of Genesis 1–11

It is widely recognized that Genesis unfolds along ten seams that are stitched by the Hebrew term toledot (“what is brought forth,” hence, “generations of,” “family history of,” “the ongoing account of,” or simply “what became of”). Genesis 1:1–2:3 precedes the first toledot and so functions as a prologue to the ten sections that follow (2:4–4:26; 5:1–6:8; 6:9–9:29; 10:1–11:9; 11:10-26; 11:27–25:11; 25:12-18; 25:19–35:29; 36:1–37:1; 37:2–50:26), and in fact as a prologue to the whole Pentateuch and the whole Bible. These toledot sections consist in two pentads or sets of five panels which define the structural contours of 2:4–11:26 and 11:27–50:26.

Besides its role as a structural catchphrase, the toledot formulary serves as a thematic marker that advances the narrative focus and intensifies its anticipation. Working in tandem with the genealogies (chs. 4, 5, 10, 11) and the zera‘ (“seed/offspring”) trail in Genesis (59x), the toledot superscripts set the entire Pentateuch in motion by focusing on “the ongoing account of” an elect line of promise with a providentially preserved “seed” which will play a vital role in mediating God’s blessing to all the nations. This “seed” will be linked to a royal dynasty descended from Abraham through Judah, and this “seed” will rule the nations in majesty (cf. Gen 49:8-12). This “seed,” of course, fulfills the hope of a special son promised to the first woman (Gen 3:15); or as Bruce Waltke explains, “The ten tôledôt sections function as cycles in Genesis, marking the book’s major divisions in tracing God’s program of bringing the seed of the Serpent under the dominion of the elect seed of the woman.”{en6} And so the toledot framing device renders a programmatic focus and forward-directed orientation to the whole, fixing the reader’s perspective on what became of so-and-so, and who comes next.

The introduction to the early story of God’s universal blessing plan unfolds then as follows:

     A. Prologue. First Things: Creation (1:1–2:3)

          1. The Creator and his creation: A summary introduction (1:1)

          2. The creative week: Preparation for blessing (1:2–2:3)

     B. From Creation to Terah/Abram (2:4–11:26)

          1. The account (Toledot) of the heavens and the earth (2:4–4:26)

          2. The account (Toledot) of Adam (5:1–6:8)

          3. The account (Toledot) of Noah (6:9–9:29)

          4. The account (Toledot) of Noah’s sons (10:1–11:9)

          5. The account (Toledot) of Shem (11:10-26)

The biblical presentation of God’s universal blessing plan begins with the account of creation and its preparation for blessing. It proceeds to explain how the Creator’s vision for his newly fashioned heavens and earth will be realized through an elect people that traces back to Adam but comes ultimately to center in a particular descendant of Noah’s son Shem by the name of Abram, who is introduced onto the biblical page in Genesis 11:27. The body of the Pentateuch will be taken up with the election and preservation of this Abram and his descendants as God’s agents of blessing the world (Gen 11:27–Exod 18:27), together with the provisions necessary for and the prospect of their divine mission (Exod 19–Num 36). Deuteronomy concludes the Pentateuch with a retrospective recapitulation and open-ended segue to the unfolding biblical story that extends all the way to the apocalyptic vision of the new heavens and the new earth. But let us return to Abraham and his role in this grand biblical story by observing how he is introduced onto the biblical page.

Enter Abram/Abraham

Following the Noah toledot and the story of the flood (6:9–9:29), two strategic features lead up to the introduction of Abram in 11:27. First, in tracing the origin and the extent of the people groups which dispersed throughout the earth following the flood, the so-called Table of Nations in 10:1-32 shows how far God intended his blessing plan to reach. This is the world of God’s concern–the world he had made, now populated with people groups who stand to be blessed through God’s elect agent Abram (12:3). Of course, the possibility of a yet-future unified humanity rests also upon Abram. In due course, ‘Abram’ (“exalted father”) will become ‘Abraham’ (“father of many”), for he will be the father of a multitude of nations (17:5), or as Paul puts it, the “father of us all” (Rom 4:16-18; cf. Gal 3:6-8). And by the seed of Abraham, Christ, there would yet be one new humanity (Eph 2:14-18).{en7} To rephrase a familiar New Testament verse: For God so loved the world that he chose Abraham and his posterity! Worth noting in this connection, ‘Israel’ or ‘am (the covenant people) is conspicuously absent in the catalogue of Genesis 10. Granted, Jacob had not yet been born and Israel was not yet a nation at the time represented by this list of nations, but the absence reinforces more than an obvious chronological point: Israel, it turns out, would fulfill the role of a means to a very large end in God’s program–God’s agent for accomplishing his blessing plan among the nations. In this light we could say that the Old Testament is about God’s grand purposes for all the nations of chapter 10 which God will realize through Israel as the elected seed of Abraham (introduced in ch. 11) and through the true children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile, who become the agents of God’s new creation (cf. Matt 28:16-20; Rom 4:16-18; Gal 3:6-9).

The second strategic feature in the narrative leading up to Abraham’s introduction involves the Tower of Babel episode (11:1-9). Among the many fascinating and important details in this crucial story, three are especially relevant to our concerns.

(a) The manner in which the Tower story links back to Genesis 1:1–2:3 and generally wraps together all of chapters 1–10{en8} strongly suggests that God’s intent for humans as announced in 1:26-28 remains fully intact and centrally at issue. Humans exist to fill the earth (not congregate in one place) as those who bear God’s image (not preserve their own). YHWH’s action in dispersing the Babelites “over the face of all the earth” (11:1, 4, 8, 9), and so disrupting the wicked aims that a unified but defiant and autonomous humanity might achieve (11:6), responds to both of these. Here is God acting in the interest of fulfilling that for which humans were created in the first place–filling the earth full with image-bearers who reflect and represent their Creator.

(b) Abraham will be the Creator’s agent of blessing and so the positive means by which the earth will be filled with image-bearers. In place of humanity’s congregating in one place, set on self-preservation through the work of their own hands and determined to make a name for themselves (v. 4), “all the earth” was to be filled with God’s name. That would happen through God’s making of Abraham “a great name” (12:2), a name obtained by becoming the appointed recipient and transmitter of the promised blessing. Accordingly, following the Tower story Abraham will shortly be introduced by means of Shem’s genealogy (11:10-26), whose name, not incidentally, means “name.” Abraham, the descendant of Shem (“name”), will be given “a great name” by which to fill the earth with God’s name.

(c) Whatever unity would obtain among the blessed “children of Abraham,” it would consist in something not threatened by the necessary and divinely implemented diversity and distribution of peoples as noted in chapters 10 and 11. In God’s grand program, community would be a good thing if pursued God’s way.{en9} Unity centered in God’s universal blessing plan implemented through Abraham and lived out in fulfillment of God’s image-bearing mission is one thing; the goal of unity founded on common human aspiration or shared political ideology quite another. The biblical perspective envisions a non-homogeneous spiritual nation of God’s people whose linguistic and ethnic diversity is not suppressed but who enjoy a unity achieved through the universal kingdom of God (Isa 2; Acts 2), made possible in the cross of Christ (Eph 2), and celebrated with “a great multitude . . . from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, . . . crying. . . , ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Rev 7:9-10).

Positioned where it is, then, the divine call of Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 marks a new stage in God’s relationship with humanity. YHWH vests his cosmic plan in the obedient faith of Abraham and his family-to-be. The shift of attention to Abraham and his descendants does not signal a shift from YHWH’s dealing with the whole of creation or a different objective for it. God’s plan remains the same–universal blessing on a world full of the glory of his name. “But we now have a clearer view of the divine strategy for moving toward this goal. The story does not say why God chose Abraham and his family rather than another, but it does make clear that God chose them for the purpose of reclaiming the creation. The election of this family is to serve the mission of God.”{en10} Abraham becomes as it were a kind of new Adam. It will be through Abraham that blessing is made available to all the peoples and nations dispersed in chapters 10 and 11. Even those originally outside can be included if they adopt a certain attitude toward God’s chosen way of blessing. “The way of life and blessing, which was once marked by the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (2:17) and then by the ark (7:23b), is now marked by identification with Abraham and his seed.”{en11} It is in harmony with God’s chosen medium of blessing that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:3).

SOME IMPLICATIONS

Narrative characterization refers to the presentation of characters who carry out the action of the plot and thereby serve the author’s purpose. Accordingly, the kind of biblical character study that avoids arbitrariness and pays richest dividends focuses on the actual function of character representation within the narrative world. In the present case, many important implications flow from our respecting the way Father Abraham is introduced and portrayed in Genesis, including the selection and shaping of material leading up to where he appears on the scriptural page and on the biblical stage. I have chosen three implications for brief comment, relative to Abraham as a model of faith, an example of righteousness, and a medium of blessing.

First, a study of Abraham in biblical context sheds important light on the nature and meaning of biblical faith. In the most famous passage in this regard, Abram is said to have “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6, italics mine). In its immediate context, the expression “he believed [or trusted] in YHWH” expresses Abram’s confidence in God to fulfill his promise of a son-heir and an innumerable seed/offspring (vv. 1-5). Both the grammar and the larger context highlight that Abram’s trusting in YHWH for this promised son-heir and seed/offspring is just one instance of his ongoing alignment with YHWH’s blessing plan for the world. Earlier in faith he had left his homeland, and later in faith he would offer up his son Isaac–both in submission to YHWH’s plan to bless the world through him and his offspring (12:1-3; 22:1-19, esp. vv. 15-18). This is exactly the point Hebrews 11 draws from Genesis in presenting Abraham as the most celebrated model of faith (vv. 8-19; cf. Jas 2:21-24). Abraham’s faith, it is clear, did not consist in the passive means by which he became the recipient of the personal and privatized blessing of “salvation.” In the case of Abraham, faith and obedience cannot be severed, so that any depiction of the former as passive trust and the latter as active works represents an alien imposition on Genesis and its New Testament interpreters. Abraham’s faith, rather than being something systematically separated off from his obedience, is actually defined by (or as) that obedience. “‘Yahweh said . . . Abram went.’ Yahweh commands, Abram obeys. This is the way the world, and the Torah, began, and now we begin to see the new way of faith which will become the way of Torah.”{en12} But the main point I wish to stress here is that Abraham’s faith does not center on what he personally stood to gain now as an individual “believer”–what God through faith would do for him–but on his coming into alignment with the cosmic purposes and covenant promises of the electing God.

Second, and related, a study of Abraham in context sheds important light on the biblical conception of righteousness and justification. The instructive value of the declaration that Abram “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6, italics mine) does not consist solely, or even primarily, in our learning how to “get saved” the way Abraham did. Or at least that concern does not occupy the interest of Genesis. Rather, as we have noted, Abraham is presented as an example of one whose trusting in YHWH is regarded or considered as righteousness precisely because his faith tuned him to YHWH’s will. By faith Abram comes into conformity and continuity with the Creator’s plan to bless the nations and thereby reclaim his creation and set it right. We are probably to understand the New Testament citation of Abraham as the premier example of justification by faith in much the same way. When Paul appeals to Abraham as one who was justified by faith apart from works of the law (Rom 4; Gal 3-4; cf. Jas 2), it is unlikely that his focus is how Abraham got to go to heaven when he died, or how God’s righteousness was legally imputed to Abraham’s safe deposit. Rather, the focus is on how Abraham was put in harmony with Creator YHWH’s program to bless the world through him and his descendant(s). Of course, this means that the business of being related to Abraham by faith involves a whole lot more than henceforth referring to ourselves as “saved.” We become children of Abraham by trusting in God’s chosen way of reclaiming his creation and setting it to right through his (and Abraham’s) Son, and by submitting ourselves to being his agents of new creation. And this privilege is open, Paul insists, irrespective of circumcision, which is to say that initiation into God’s new creation project does not depend on our first becoming Jews, but, like Abraham, on our believing in such a way that our faith allies us with God’s way of blessing the world. The context of usage, in other words, defines righteousness as something much larger than individual “salvation,” something more akin to being an instrument of God’s blessing according to God’s norms. There are great dangers in extracting terms like ‘believed’ and ‘credited’ and ‘righteousness’ from their context of usage and compressing them into the shape of theological systems by which to bolster agendas they are not meant to serve. Abram trustingly submitted to YHWH’s blessing plan through his promised offspring; and to this, YHWH assigns the value of righteousness since it was precisely his doing so that brought him into harmony with God’s plans and purposes for blessing the whole world.

Third, a study of Abraham in context sheds important light on how the Church comes to participate in the blessings of salvation. We do so by allying ourselves, corporately and individually, with God’s cosmic and covenant plan introduced in Genesis 1-11, centered in Abraham, and realized in Abraham’s Son, Jesus. The Church does not get in on God’s blessing directly and immediately, as we errantly assume, but indirectly and derivatively, as those wholly dependent upon God’s choice of Abraham, as those who live now in continuity with Abraham through faith, as those grafted into Abraham’s Son–Israel and Israel’s Messiah. To go directly and individually to Jesus (“just believe in Jesus”), ignoring the connection which Jesus bears to the biblical Abraham and so bypassing the plan which Jesus came to fulfill, is to end up with a tenuous share in God’s blessing. If we are not children of Abraham, meaningfully so, how can we consider ourselves children of God?

Two years ago I was invited to teach a short intensive course during the week between Christmas and the New Year to a group of mostly Chinese pastors, professionals, and students gathered at a conference center nestled in the lush, mountainous forests of the Pacific Northwest. Months in advance of the event, the organizing committee had selected Leviticus from among the options I had presented. My memory returned to the disappointment I had experienced a few years earlier when a “practical” minded administrator vetoed my proposal to offer an elective in Leviticus at the seminary where I was teaching on grounds that the course probably would not market well (meaning he feared an insufficient number of interested students would register to support the seminary budget). Now, during the week between two major holidays when most people gorge themselves on food, football, and finding bargains, over 100 eager learners gathered to study Leviticus. I was doubly surprised when in the early sessions the planning committee adjusted the daily schedule to reduce free time in order to expand the teaching time. One evening, near the end of a three-hour session, the coordinator of the event insisted that I continue my lecture. No one moved until I had finished, somewhere between 10:00 and 10:30 that night. Many remained to continue in prayer, singing, and deep discussion into the early morning hours. Exhausted and immeasurably richer, I returned home at the conclusion of the week asking the Lord to hasten the day when more of his people would overcome obstacles and objections to reading and studying Leviticus.

WHITE PAGES, HELICOPTERS, AND LITE BIBLES: THE TURN-OFF OF LEVITICUS

I am fond of saying that my favorite book in the Bible happens to be the one I am studying at the moment, which means that right now Leviticus is my favorite. The edge-of-the-page test reveals, sadly, that for many Christians, Leviticus is located in the “white pages” of Scripture, in places unsoiled by human touch. This is territory over which, it is probably safe to say, more proverbial helicopters fly than any other, manned with would-be readers looking for places to land where the terrain appears more interesting and enjoyable. Then there was a certain condensed version of the Bible published a few years ago which reportedly shrank Leviticus from 27 chapters to 2 1/2 pages on grounds that hardly anything relevant could be found there.

The supreme irony here consists in the fact that, as Mark Rooker has noted recently, Leviticus has had “more impact on Judaism than any other book of the Old Testament. Traditionally it was the first book taught to Jewish children, and over half the commentary of the Talmud is concerned with understanding its contents.”{en1} Moreover, as the Sepharim section of this issue indicates, it is not that commentary attention on Leviticus has waned, leaving a vacuum in available study material. Indeed, one of the works featured there extends to a full 2,714 pages in three volumes–obviously the product of someone not afflicted by popular value judgments. Why then do so many Christians struggle to appreciate this book? I can think of at least four reasons.

First, there are problems associated with the book itself. We can be blunt about it. Leviticus is the problem because it is tedious, boring, and sometimes downright strange. Or so it seems, in any case, to many readers. Thomas Mann gets at the issue:

Many a pious vow to read straight through the Bible from cover to cover has foundered in the shoals of Leviticus. It is difficult to think of a book in the Bible that is less inviting to twentieth-century readers. This collection of ritual customs is not only soporific (two chapters one quarter hour before bedtime), but often seems utterly primitive as well. Consider the ritual in which a living bird, cedar wood, scarlet stuff, and hyssop are dipped in the blood of a slaughtered bird and then sprinkled on a person as a remedy for “leprosy” (14:4-7). Such passages conjure up the witches chant in Macbeth: “Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing;/For a charm of pow’rful trouble/Like a hell-broth boil and bubble” (IV.i.16-19).{en2}

Readers of chapters 1-7, 11-15, 18, 21-22, and 27 may especially raise this objection, as here we encounter apparently endless, wearisomely detailed, and sometimes repetitive laws on sacrifices, uncleanness and purification, forbidden sexual relations, priests and their duties, and vows.

Second, there are problems associated with Leviticus where the onus actually lies on the rest of Scripture, especially the Prophets, Psalms, and NT books. These are the guilty parties, for it is here we read what seems like a counter voice to that of Leviticus. The Lord, we learn, delights more in such things as obedience, love, and knowledge than in burnt offerings and sacrifices (1 Sam 15:22; Hos 6:6; Pss 40:6-8; Matt 9:13); gets downright fed up with rams and the fat of beasts and the blood of bulls or lambs or goats (Isa 1:10-20); sometimes actually hates solemn assemblies and the various activities that go on there (Amos 5:21-24); requires the doing of what is good rather than the offering of great sacrifices (Mic 6:6-8; Pss 51:16-17); and can actually grow weary of the sorts of things Leviticus seems to require (Mal 1:6-2:9). Then there is the book of Hebrews, which insists that Jesus actually provides a superior priesthood, a better sacrifice, and a more permanent tabernacle than anything Leviticus has to offer. It seems that Leviticus is silenced, or at least seriously qualified, by the other canonical voices.

Third, there are problems associated with critical scholarship. Particularly culpable here is the 19th-century “history of Israel’s religion” school, with Julius Wellhausen as its most famous representative. Although not the inventor of the idea, Wellhausen gave wide currency to the notion that Israelite religion evolved from the primitivism of animal worship and polytheism to a more refined monotheism, for which latter development the prophets are to be credited. On this understanding, Amos might be considered the first monotheist. This more advanced religion of the prophets, however, was subsequently falsified and corrupted by excessively ritual-oriented priests who took over the reigns of religion in the post-exilic period, at which time not only Leviticus but other aspects of pentateuchal minutiae (e.g., genealogical lists) are dated (note the reversal of prophets and Pentateuch). Says Wellhausen of this priestly deadening of Israel’s religion: “Yet it is a thing which is likely to occur, that a body of traditional practice should only be written down when it is threatening to die out, and that a book should be, as it were, the ghost of a life which is closed.” Again, “Worship no longer springs from an inner impulse, it has come to be an exercise of religiosity.”{en3} Concerning the giving of the law generally, Wellhausen wrote:

The Creator of heaven and earth becomes the manager of a petty scheme of salvation; the living God descends from His throne to make way for the law. The law thrusts itself in everywhere; it commands and blocks up the access to heaven; it regulates and sets limits to the understanding of the divine working on earth. As far as it can, it takes the soul out of religion and spoils morality. It demands a service of God, which, though revealed, may yet with truth be called a self-chosen and unnatural one, the sense and use of which are apparent neither to the understanding nor the heart. The labour is done for the sake of the exercise; it does no one any good, and rejoices neither God nor man. It has no inner aim after which it spontaneously strives and which it hopes to attain by itself, but only an outward one, namely, the reward attached to it, which might as well be attached to other and possibly even more curious conditions. The ideal is a negative one, to keep one’s self from sin, not a positive one, to do good upon the earth; the morality is one which scarcely requires for its exercise the existence of fellow-creatures.{en4}

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the influence of such thinking on generation after generation of scholars to the present, not to mention those in the church who may never have heard of Wellhausen. When friends of the Bible speak in these ways, books like Leviticus need no enemies.

Fourth, there are problems associated with theological systems. Sometimes the belief structures we have inherited or otherwise imbibed get in the way. For example, one tradition is well known for its polarizing of law and gospel, whereby the former is restricted to the soteriological function of pointing out sin, condemning the sinner, and driving a convicted person to Christ. As part of the OT law, the contribution of Leviticus to positive holiness is minimal (classic Lutheranism). Another system typically categorizes OT laws into three divisions–moral, civil, ceremonial–and affirms abiding value of only the first of these. In this schema, the Ten Commandments, for example, do apply to Christians today because these laws are regarded as part of God’s moral law, whereas the sacrificial laws of Leviticus obviously do not apply since they belong to ancient Israel’s religious or ceremonial system that has been fulfilled and superseded in Christ (classic Reformed tradition). Yet another school of thought is distinguished by the sharp discontinuity it finds between Israel and the church, with an accompanying divide between the Scriptures that apply to Israel (the OT) and those that apply to the church (the NT). Only those OT laws which reappear in the NT (e.g., most of the Ten Commandments) can apply to the church–relevant if repeated, irrelevant if not (classic Dispensationalism). With theological orientations such as these standing in the light, it is little wonder that Leviticus remains in the dark.

OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES

We will not respond to all the obstacles and objections individually, nor will it be necessary to do so. It is apparent that each in its own way amounts to a reading error of one kind or another. Before we pursue a better path, let me offer an impassioned appeal: Those who neglect Leviticus cripple their understanding of the Bible as a whole and impoverish their walk with the Lord. Without Leviticus, the rest of Scripture remains out of focus, the God of Scripture remains out of focus, worship remains out of focus, holiness remains out of focus, the accomplishments of Christ remain out of focus, and the mission of God’s people in this world remains out of focus. High stakes indeed!

We begin to overcome the obstacles to reading Leviticus when we remember that everything in this book is set squarely within a narrative framework by such passages as 7:38; 26:46; 27:34 and the introductory formula “Then YHWH spoke/called to Moses,” which occurs no fewer than 34 times (e.g., 1:1; 4:1; 5:14; 6:1, 12, 17; 7:22, 28; 8:1; 11:1). Clearly the laws of Leviticus are narratively inset. In other words, while Leviticus contains material from the Sinai covenant, as a literary composition it is fundamentally different from being a mere document of the Sinai covenant. Leviticus stands back, so to speak, and looks at the Sinai covenant between YHWH and Israel as a topic of discussion. Enormous and far-reaching implications follow on from this observation, affecting both how we read and how we apply the material in Leviticus.

In terms of how we should go about reading Leviticus, the narrative framework reminds us, for example, that we are in the midst of a story written for us, not an instruction manual directed to us. The laws themselves were addressed to the people of Israel at the foot of Sinai, but these recipients clearly are not the intended readers of the book. The book is written for readers who are able to look back on that covenant arrangement in the light of the larger biblical story. Leviticus informs us about the worship exacted in ancient Israel, not how to reconstruct the worship exacted. Whatever Leviticus means to say, it does not tell its readers to sacrifice these things, wear these things, eat these things, and so on; rather, it recounts how God told Israel at Sinai to do all of these. In stressing this differentiation we are not driving a wedge between law and gospel, ceremonial and moral, Israel and the church. We are simply highlighting what should be an obvious narrative observation: Leviticus will instruct readers by way of a story about YHWH and the way he once directed his people. The normative message will have to be ferreted out of storied material, where a direct “Reader, do this” will be disastrous.

In this connection, it is entirely possible that we will be able to understand what Leviticus means to say (its message) without understanding all that the exodus generation of Israel might have understood. Indeed, it is entirely possible that the book as written does not expect us to know all that they knew. It is interesting to observe, for example, how incomplete the stipulations are, perhaps representing only a fraction of all that God said to/through Moses at Sinai. For example, chapters 1–7 say almost nothing about the origin or exact occasion of sacrifices. They offer no details at all on the instruments for slaughtering and skinning and cutting up the animals, and no instructions on where to stand or what to say (liturgy). They focus almost exclusively on description. Such questions as when, who, how often, which sins, and the like are not covered. Obviously this is not a priestly service manual. Similarly, chapters 11–15 offer no reasons at all for the clean/unclean regulations. We may assume that ancient Israel had more detail than we on many of these matters; but clearly the narrator intends to communicate a certain perspective and message about them, to tell us something relative to the larger biblical story. In other words, the focus of interpretive attention does not fall on how to reenact such a system of worship or even on what these various regulations and institutions may originally have meant to the ancient
Israelites; nor are health and hygiene anywhere made the issue in chapters 11–15, as many have suggested. The interpretive question everywhere focuses on the authored point of including such material in Leviticus and on the role it serves in the larger biblical story, which is a different question entirely from inquiring about the reasons for this or that regulation in its original setting. And so, for example, to ask what God has against certain animals or how a mother felt about being “unclean” just because she had a baby may be the wrong question entirely. The right question always focuses on the point the author is making by referring to these matters in the larger fabric of his text in the still larger story of Scripture.

We shall have more to say on these things at the winter seminar (see details elsewhere in this issue), but for now we can begin to anticipate the outcome relative to applying the message of Leviticus. The question of relevance does not depend on a selection process whereby we make arbitrary decisions on which laws in Leviticus apply today and which ones do not, but on discerning the meaning/message of this material and its part in the larger biblical story. Whereas we are not “under” the laws of Leviticus as were the people who received the laws described in this book, we are most assuredly under what this book means to say to its readers. This is the critical differentiation between regulatory manifestation and revelatory meaning to which I referred elsewhere in this issue. Reading failures at this point result in assigning the OT to Israel and the NT to the church, or in assuming that the NT is more relevant to the Christian than the OT. A correct approach to reading will both qualify the application of Leviticus and magnify its real value immeasurably. I should note that failure to understand these points, and so to hear the message of Leviticus, goes a long way toward explaining why the church remains confused and divided on what worship is and how to go about it, why the church so closely resembles the world and its values, why salvation no longer has much to do with eradicating sin, why leaders
find ways of divorcing personal ethics from professional life, why knowing the command to love our neighbors as ourselves does not produce a transformed society, and more.

Let me repeat what I said earlier. Those who neglect Leviticus cripple their understanding of the Bible as a whole and impoverish their walk with the Lord. Without Leviticus, the rest of Scripture remains out of focus, the God of Scripture remains out of focus, worship remains out of focus, holiness remains out of focus, the accomplishments of Christ remain out of focus, and the mission of God’s people in this world remains out of focus. There is a great deal at stake here–sufficient reason, I should think, for a seminar devoted fully to the study of Leviticus. 

This series of articles began three years ago (2002 issues) with four pieces in which I attempted to clarify what reading the Bible is and what it is not in terms of general reading theory. That project in site-location and ground-clearing prepared the way to a fourfold discussion the following year (2003 issues) on reading the Bible in a manner consistent with what the Bible is, much like the biblical writers themselves, our Lord, and the early church read their Scriptures. Having laid out the more or less theoretical aspects of such an enterprise, I attempted last year (2004 issues) to press beyond theory into practice, with a series of articles that outlined a fourfold approach to the actual business of reading and studying the Bible. All of these back issues are available for new subscribers who may wish to benefit from the entire discussion to this point.

We now move in a related but different direction. In the 2005 issues I intend to take up the important question of tools for the trade–a question that comes our way from Bible readers and students and teachers of all types with considerable frequency in all the following variations:

Which version of the Bible is the most literal? After the Bible, what study tools should I add to my library? What is the best commentary on [a particular biblical book]? Should I even read commentaries, or is it preferable just to read the Bible for myself and let the Holy Spirit tell me what it means? If even the experts don’t agree on the meaning of a given passage, why should I trust their interpretation over my own? How important are Hebrew and Greek? Can a person be a good Bible student and teacher without them?

These are good questions, and they deserve thoughtful answers. Of course, we are aware that our opinions may not always be the correct ones; but as a specialized resource ministry in biblical studies, we do our best to stay on top of the current issues and discussions and in touch with the finest resources available. In this aspect of our work, MIQRA seeks to serve in a manner analogous to physicians who bring their expertise to the clinic or surgical table where reliable medical knowledge can benefit those who need it. It is an enormous privilege to offer help in matters of biblical concern to the church and its mission in the world.

With this issue, then, I am introducing a series of discussions which I hope will be both profitable and provocative–in fact, profitable in some measure because it is provocative. To press further on the medical analogy, I do not intend in these pieces to be like those doctors who simply offer another prescription to fix whatever ails you. There will be no magical biblical elixir in what follows. My approach is a little more holistic than that, in some cases requiring attitudinal and lifestyle adjustments that may be necessary for spiritual health. More to the point, my principal interest has almost nothing to do with simply stocking tool shops with the “top picks” or the “best tools” (where the criteria of personal preference are too much on display), although I suppose some of that will be unavoidable. Rather, I intend to engage such issues as how to think responsibly about tools, how to use (and avoid misusing) tools, how to evaluate tools, how to appreciate someone else’s tools (avoiding either envy or pride in the process), and so on. To anticipate, when we come to the question of selecting and using Bible versions (next issue), for example, I will be far more concerned that we understand why translations of the Bible differ from one another, what are their various strengths and weaknesses, to what extent their contents can be trusted as genuine, and how to cope with marginal notations like “This verse is absent in some early manuscripts” than I will be to offer my opinion on the ever illusive “best” or “most accurate” or “most literal” translation.

The path ahead is subject to change (reader response may have some bearing); but at this writing my plan is to engage the question of who needs tools in the present issue, followed by discussions on the use of Bible versions (spring issue), concordances and dictionaries (summer issue), and commentaries (fall issue).

There is just one more point I need to add by way of introduction. In each article I intend to draw an illustration or two from the canonical book featured in the respective issue, which for 2005 will be Numbers (winter), 1-2 Kings (spring), Ruth (summer), and Romans (fall).

“I CAN DO IT MYSELF!”

We expect these words to be uttered by determined three-year-olds, when the lessons of healthy independence are first being learned. We do not expect to hear them, or at least not with such vehemence, from a group of evangelical pastors who once took issue with my suggestion that well-chosen Bible study tools have their place in the pastor’s library. I had inadvertently touched a sensitive nerve, and the discussion reflexed with obvious intensity. To my surprise, some of those in attendance objected to any use of language aids, commentaries, and the like on grounds that the Spirit and the Word are sufficient and that anything besides these is of human origin, potentially corrupted, and therefore to be shunned. That was two decades ago. But in the space of just one recent week, I found myself engaged in three conversations with individuals of a similar mind who, apparently thinking it pious, offered a confident mantra which went something like this: “I do not interpret the Bible or rely on what others say about it. I just read the Bible for myself and do what it says.”

If only the real conviction being expressed here signaled a reaction against the currently popular activity of substituting thoughts about the Bible for the Bible itself–where so-called “Bible study” never gets around to studying the Bible! Unfortunately, that is not the case. The underlying assumption in the earlier mantra hides both a staggering naivete and a subtle arrogance fueled by centuries of bad theology that has crippled especially Protestant evangelicalism. Besides the fact that reading does not exist without interpreting (these people are interpreting, even if they do not call it that), the naive and arrogant parts are readily exposed with reminders that the very English Bible these people read is the product of others’ interpretive activity (hundreds of thousands of interpretive decisions having already been made by the time the Bible arrives in English{en1}) and that the Spirit’s enlightening grace is less domesticated than they imagine.

It is the part about bad theology in evangelical Protestantism that deserves fuller comment, for here perhaps more than anywhere else lie the roots of very much impaired thinking about Bible reading and study these days, where “I can do it myself” is neither cute nor clever, but thoroughly confused. A little review of history will help clarify.

REFORMATION GONE AWRY

Ask almost any Protestant evangelical whether or not the Reformation was a good thing, and you will be reminded that the Reformers recovered many lost aspects of biblical faith from the broken and drifting Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages and so preserved the faith for generations to follow. True. What this triumphal spirit often fails to acknowledge, however, is the extent to which the Reformation, in considerable measure against the real wishes of the Reformers themselves, also effected a dramatic shift in the context in which Scripture would be read and interpreted–a shift from the church to the individual. It could hardly be otherwise, given the deep distrust that had come to characterize especially Luther and his followers toward the established church and its authority. In due course, Enlightenment impulses would lead this social and theological reposition to forge a new alliance with the academy in opposition to the classical models and methods of Bible study that had long prevailed among the church’s faithful. On the ecclesial side of things, in its retrieval of the lost doctrine of the “priesthood of the believer,” the Reformation would, in the minds of many, level the interpretive playing field and give license for any and all to undertake Bible reading and confident pontification about what God says. This severing of individual priesthood from stable tradition was further reinforced on the academic side by a growing confidence in human reason, loosed from the church and its dogmas, to ferret out matters spiritual and to discern truth from error.

I am not unmindful of the risks involved in oversimplifying historical movements and complex issues, but this much serves to inform an important point which remains largely overlooked among those in the so-called “Free Church” or “believers’ church” tradition (vis-à-vis the institutional and magisterial Roman Church). In due course, the celebrated freedom of believers to follow the faith in accord with their own conscience, bound to no other authority than the Bible and the Holy Spirit, would become a pretense for a wide array of privatized and too-frequently idiosyncratic interpretations. On this understanding, the individual, however unlearned in the disciplines of careful biblical reading, under the pretext of being led by the Spirit and under no obligation at all to an authoritative tradition other than the one of the individual’s own choosing, became a more confident arbiter of truth than the church. One consequence of the Reformation criterion of sola scriptura, in other words, was that the notion that private judgment on matters biblical is a divinely granted gift to all Christians alike became embedded within the religious consciousness of Protestantism. That the Reformers themselves had nothing like this in mind{en2} should both soften our criticism of their inherent confusion (replacing the authority of the church with the authority of individual conscience–all in the name of maintaining the authority of Scripture) and caution our confidence that in the exercise of interpretive independence we are somehow basking in the blessings of the newly discovered Reformation faith.

Now for the really crucial point that needs to be stressed: It is one thing to warn against ecclesial and theological error that afflicted the church during some of its darker days and quite another to imagine that we can free and guard ourselves from such error by privatizing and domesticating the interpretive activity. Besides the glaring arrogance on full display, surely it is the case that the multiplicity of post-Reformation protestants, madly obsessed with independence, ecclesial consumerism (church the way I like it), and a thousand versions of only- I’m-rightism, hardly commend the cry “No creed but the Bible” as a ground for anything that ends up resembling the scriptural bride of Christ or displaying the compelling witness of Christian unity before the confused eyes of a fractured and fragmented world. In this respect at least there are serious reasons to wonder whether Protestantism may have replaced one tyranny for another–Catholicism’s ecclesiastical hierarchy and restricted priesthood with that of independence and “spiritual democracy”{en3}–and if so, whether this substitution actually resulted in an improved situation.

This is neither an appeal for a return to Rome nor a dismissing of Catholicism’s errors. And it certainly is not a criticism of “personal devotions” or a plea for lessening the Spirit’s role in interpretation. I am pleading a case for humility in learning the lessons of history. The Reformation theme of sola scriptura has never–not then, not now–actually resulted in a situation where the Bible is truly the only authority (even the most ardent anti-traditionalists have their own authoritative traditions, which they conveniently call biblical). Moreover, as D. H. Williams observes, “appealing to the Bible alone and the personal enabling of the Holy Spirit, however central these are, do not insure orthodoxy (they never have!), since these cannot function in isolation from their reception and development within the ongoing life of the church.”{en4} In other words, the notion that all a person needs is the Bible and the Holy Spirit and that these alone equip an individual, directly and independently, to hear God more purely and confidently than in conversation with the community which together listens to the Spirit and the Scriptures, or that these alone underwrite a person’s authority to pronounce “The Bible says,” is historically naive. The roots of this way of thinking lie not in the finer contributions of the Reformation, but in the baser effects of an ecclesiastical division that would ultimately splinter into a thousand conflicting versions of the faith. Moreover, for all of its accomplishments, the great Reformation would, in this respect at least, hasten the secularization of Europe through the abandonment of any authority other than the individual’s own right to decide matters biblical and theological.{en5}

IN THE BEGINNING IT WAS NOT SO

Those who spend any time at all in the pages of the early church soon discover how very far removed are the Scripture-reading convictions and practices of many Christians today from those that characterized the fathers (men like Athanasius, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great). Among other important points, there is an unmistakable emphasis in the written legacy of those who pondered the Scriptures, freshly inherited from Israel’s prophets and Jesus’ apostles, that biblical interpretation is an ecclesial and participatory activity, best carried on by a community of belief in conversation with itself. Early Christians, not least early Christian leaders, did not envision the interpretive task as one fulfilled by lonely individuals working in isolation, arriving at private judgments on what the Bible “certainly” means, even less at understandings of “what the Bible means to me.” Biblical interpreters take their place within the life and worship of God’s people. They expect their interpretations to be pondered and understood and embraced by God’s people in communion with the Spirit, and they render their labors in the interest of God and his purposes for his people. There is an unswerving conviction that the Bible does not belong in the hands of individuals, but in the hands of the church. To read Scripture primarily as a document given to individuals for their guidance in matters spiritual would be to commit an elementary category error since the Bible is the church’s book. Readings that count for anything at all are readings that emerge within and promote the church under a rule of faith, where the faithful memory of a community wholly devoted to the two-Testament Christian Bible and its witness to Christ guided and guarded what could rightly be called legitimate interpretation.

What this means simply and plainly is that in the early church, autonomy and private judgment on matters biblical were not heralded as manifestations of piety and priestly freedom but condemned as alien threats to the faith once-for-all delivered. Readers and interpreters took their point of standing within the community of faith and of the Spirit, which provided the context for Scripture’s correct understanding. In that community there was room for discussion, even debate, on points of disagreement; but there was no room for the primacy of individual readings dismissive of the church and its voice as mediated through its thinkers and teachers, as Marcion and many others had to learn the hard way. The canon of Scripture alone defined the rule of faith; and the community, with its leaders, was judged a better arbiter of what it said than the individual operating under the pretense of illumination.

LONE RANGER READERS AND SOME LESSONS FROM NUMBERS

The historical discussion could continue much longer, but it is time to press the issue to matters at hand by way of some conclusions. The real point I have been trying to make is that since the Scriptures, as God’s gift, exist by and for the church, it is incumbent upon God’s people to reconsider “the work of the Holy Spirit in the life history of the church no less than in the life of the individual believer.”{en6} Still more to the point, since the private judgment practiced and defended by many Christians today in the name of priesthood theology (now fueled, we should add, by postmodern impulses) represents a departure from the convictions of the historic church, we should regard it as neither pious nor praiseworthy to dismiss or disregard the larger community of faith past and present–including the tools they have bequeathed to us–in the interest simply of reading the Bible for ourselves and just doing what it says. The lessons of history teach us that we rely best on the Holy Spirit’s teaching authority when we locate both ourselves and the activity of being taught within the listening community–including that community that speaks to us from our library shelves–where accountability and humility and mutual blessing and insight not our own are built into the nature of the thing. This does not mean that we refrain from reading the Bible in private or with nothing in front of us but the open Bible. It means that we do so as consciously interdependent, not independent, members of Christ’s body, which, under its Head, ministers the gifts and all attending graces entrusted to it for the fullness of all in all and for the fulfillment of its mission (Rom 12; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4).

There is no risk-free or foolproof way of doing what I am advocating here–no guarantee that translations and commentaries and sermons and all the other tools will always get it right. This is not a bad thing, but a reminder that the church is a mutually ministering community of responsible submission, where both terms in that expression get their due. It should also remind us that theological certitude, in the modernist-positivist sense, might not after all register at the very top on God’s scale of values, that something might actually count as more important than simply getting it right. The Center of Theological Inquiry puts it this way: “Scriptural interpretation is properly an ecclesial activity whose goal is to participate in the reality of which the text speaks by bending the knee to worship the God revealed in Jesus Christ.”{en7} This, it seems to me, identifies that higher value.

And all of this has something to do with Numbers? Well, yes, and with every biblical book. For starters, without a faithful author who wrote these words there would not be a book of Numbers. Without a faithful community who received this book, it would not show up in the canon. Without faithful scribes who preserved and transmitted this book, it would never have reached the hands of translators. Without faithful translators with a knowledge of Hebrew, it would not appear in English. And, I am arguing, without a faithful community of readers, past and present, and the tools we receive from that community, it will not be heard in the way the God who speaks there desires to be heard. We need each other in this business of reading and studying the Scriptures. It is ignorant and it is arrogant to approach Bible reading as a lone ranger.

Let me conclude with a caution. The independent sort who wish to have their own go at authoritative reading in the name of controlling their own interpretive destiny might wish to reconsider their popular democratic outlook against several accounts in Numbers. The stories of Miriam and Aaron’s opposition of Moses (ch. 12) and Korah and his followers’ rebellion against Moses and Aaron (ch. 16), for example, remind us that freedom of individual choice is not always a happy prospect in the light of God’s obvious commitment to submission within the context of an ordered spiritual community.

This column is a selection of sepharim 'al Genesis, which is the focus of this winter quarter here at the Institute.