A Theological Reflection on Moses and the Law and Elisha and the Prophets:
I will consider the Old Testament lessons of the lectionary for the second through the eighth Sunday after the Epiphany. The emphasis of the texts divides nicely into a reflection on the law and the prophets. The arrangement begins with the Old Testament lesson, and I will intersperse the psalm that is consistent with the Old Testament I am considering. The psalm introduces an element of personal devotion and piety that I think is important as we consider these Old Testament lessons. In fact, these reflections may inspire a series of messages with such a theme.
I begin with the Old Testament readings and psalms that relate to the significance of the Law and the significance of Moses.
The Lord is holy and calls the people of the Lord to a holy life (Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, Year A Epiphany 7). The Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) originated among the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Another group of priests would insert it into the Priestly source during the exile. It seems to build upon the Covenant Code of Exodus 20:22-23:33. It also has affinities with the Deuteronomic Code of Deuteronomy 12-28. An accepted date is sometime in the seventh century BCE. This code is the way in which God binds people by rules of conduct that epitomizes the regulations needed to safeguard the fellowship that those who are related to God have both with God and with each other. The Code illustrates the comprehensiveness of the divine action for humanity. We find it difficult to understand that because God is good, holy, and love, God is also angry, chides, hurts, and casts into flames. The Lord meets us in zealous wrath as grace. Respect for the holiness of the Lord leads to contentment in the grateful acceptance of this grace. [1] The Code concerns the holiness of the Lord and the holiness of Israel, thereby containing one of the central theological concepts of the Old Testament. Texts can display such holiness in awe-inspiring and frightening natural phenomena, as on Mount Sinai. It demanded separation from the ordinary and profane. Anything associated with the Lord was holy by that association. The attributes of the Lord are holy (e.g., Leviticus 20:3; 22:2; 22:32; 1 Chronicles 16:10, 35; 29:16; Psalm 30:4; 33:21; 97:12; Ezekiel 20:39; Amos 2:7; etc.). The arm of God was also holy (Psalm 98:1; Isaiah 52:10), as were divine words (Jeremiah 23:9) and the divine habitation (Deuteronomy 26:15; Psalm 46:4; 68:5; Jeremiah 25:30). One of the most important objects made holy by the divine presence was the temple in Jerusalem, the earthly dwelling place of the God of Israel. We find this idea especially in the Psalms (Psalm 5:7; 11:4; 65:4; 79:1; 138:2; see also Jonah 2:4, 7; Micah 1:2; at least some of the Psalm references may be to the heavenly, rather than the earthly temple of the Divine, e.g., Psalm 11:4).
However, no object in ancient Israel was more important in its divinely bestowed holiness than Israel itself. “The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways” (Deuteronomy 28:9; see also Leviticus 11:44; 20:7; Isaiah 63:8; Exodus 19:6; 3 Maccabees 2:6). Concepts such as justice and righteousness figure prominently in the identity of Israel. Yet, the concept of Israel’s identity as a holy people, separated by that holiness from all other nations (Leviticus 20:26), and the continual failure of Israel to maintain its holy identity was the dynamic underlying the creation, preservation, and reapplication of Israel’s sacred Scripture. The Lord elects Israel so that it will participate in divine holiness. Incorporation into the sphere of divine holiness also means separation.[2] They are holy when they keep the statutes.[3] It represents “a democratizing element” in the theology of the priestly circles within Israel. Rather than limiting holiness to a special class within Israel, such as priests, the command receives broader application.[4] We find the command repeated in I Peter 1:16. The holiness of God demands and enforces the holiness of the people of God. It means divine confrontation with humanity that leads to a human correspondence to the divine.[5] In these verses, they are to practice charitable farming, they are not engage in (see the Ten Commandments) theft, deceitful business transactions, lying, or perjury, defrauding, reviling the deaf, or place an obstacle before the blind. They are to render just judgment. This includes not showing partiality to the poor (Exodus 23:3 as well). Those who were most vulnerable in ancient Israelite society — the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the resident alien — received protection by all members of society from the natural group abundance that provided more than a subsistence existence for its members. They are not to slander the neighbor or take advantage of a calamity that might come upon the neighbor. In one of the few times the Code prohibits an inward disposition, they are not to hate anyone to whom they are related. They have responsibility for their neighbor that may take the form of reproof, rebuke, confrontation, correction, and reasoning frankly with them. Such counsel was also part of the wisdom tradition. The idea draws a line between hate and offering correction. Given the context, one shows love to the neighbor by correcting and confronting the neighbor. Your silence may mean you become complicit in the sin. In Psalm 141:5, the writer invites the righteous person to strike him, for that would be kindness. He will not refuse the rebuke. Proverbs 9:8b says that wise people love those who offer them correction. Proverbs 19:25 says that if you correct people of understanding they will gain in knowledge. Proverbs 27:6 says the wounds from a friend are faithful. Luke 17:3, one is to rebuke the fellow disciple who sins. In Matthew 18:15, if a fellow disciple sins against you, you are to confront the person directly. In both cases, the goal is repentance and forgiveness. In Galatians 6:1, Paul urges a spirit of gentleness as the church restores one who has sinned. Yet, they should have care not to succumb to temptation. James 5:19 urges bringing back one who has wandered from truth. All of this is a reminder that those who live in covenant with the Lord are also in covenant with each other. To put it another way, if you see yourself doing something badly and nobody bothers to tell you anymore, that is an unbelievably bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care about you.[6]They are not to take vengeance or bear a grudge against their fellow Israelite. They are to love their neighbor as themselves. Jesus would generalize the command with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and with making it the second of two great commandments, neither of which are part of the Ten Commandments. Jesus has brought together the two passages of scripture, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18, in a way no other Jewish teacher had done.[7] Paul refers to this passage in Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14 as a summation of the Torah. The Letter of James may even be a sermon based on Leviticus 19:12-18. The basis for the commandment is simple and profound: I am the Lord. The Israelites have pledged loyalty to Yahweh. Their identity and the identity of Yahweh have bound together in a covenant relation. The holiness of this God demands and enforces the holiness of the people of God. It requires that the divine confrontation of the world and all humanity should find a human correspondence and copy in the mode of existence of this people. God is holy, and acts among them as such, and therefore make them holy, as your life and norm. The start for any such discussion is 20:8, the Lord is the one who sanctifies you.[8]
The covenant with the Lord had the pattern of contemporary treaties (Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Year A Epiphany 6). It stresses the necessity of choice. The choice is between life in the covenant and life not in the covenant. Life outside the covenant is death. The theme is the two ways. Some people will refer to this as the gospel of the Old Testament in the sense that it is simple and direct proclamation. The people hold their lives in their hands. The choice of life involves loving God, walking the ways of God, and observing the commandments. The simplicity of the proclamation ought never to blind us from the difficulties we as hearers have of making the choice Moses urges here. They hold their lives in their own hands. It becomes clear what the Lord requires for their choice to result in life. Obedience to what the Lord commanded in the covenant is one requirement. Obedience was no more popular then as it is today. Human instinct is to keep options open in ways that we think of as free. Yet, obedience and freedom do have a connection. Citizens of the United States are free, but they can lose that freedom if they move outside the Constitution and the laws of the land. Freedom without boundaries would lead to another form of slavery. The commands in Deuteronomy create the conditions for freedom to thrive. The command assumes the freedom to response. Loving of the Lord expresses itself in how one chooses to live. It becomes a call to action. The Lord is a faithful covenant partner, and the question is whether the people who enter the covenant will be loyal. This message of loving God alone came on the heels of a time of rebellion and misconduct during the reigns of Manasseh and Amon (687-640). Judah had grown increasingly lax about its monotheism. The traditions of Assyrians and Ba’al-type worshipers slowly sucked the people of God by the cultic lures they offered. There is evidence of syncretism, idolatry, child sacrifice, witchcraft, persecution of the prophets.[9] In 621, some ancient scholars rediscovered Deuteronomy during King Josiah's rule. King and people immediately recognized its words as divinely inspired. Under Josiah's leadership, Judah humbly renewed her covenantal relationship with God as established by the dictums of the Deuteronomic code. The text calls upon the people to adhere to the Code, observing the commandments, decrees, and ordinances. The result of idolatry will be extinction. They will experience enfeeblement and the opposite of a flourishing human life. This didactic use of the image and life and death shows influence from the wisdom tradition, where the one steadfast in righteousness will live while the one pursuing evil will die (Proverbs 11:19), the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life that helps one avoid the snares of death (Proverbs 14:27), and death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). In a comparable use of the image, Jeremiah says a remnant shall prefer death to life (8:3), and the Lord is setting before the people this day life and death (21:8). The possibility that the people of the covenant will forfeit their salvation is a new emphasis contained in the theological vision of Deuteronomy.
The poet can offer a testimony to the intimate communion between God and persons that focuses upon the steadfast love/hesed of God, and a testimony to the risk involved in faith. (Psalm 36:5-10, Year C Epiphany 2). Hesed is primarily the expression of God’s covenant-loyalty to his people. In correspondence with some ancient Near Eastern covenants, the Lord had made covenant with Israel and thereby made a personal obligation to be loyal to them.[10] It emphasizes the Lord as freely and mercifully choosing to have a loving relationship with Israel, to forgive them, and to deliver/help them.[11] Covenant-loyalty is part of how the Lord shows lovingkindness. The Lord has chosen Israel as a people holy to the Lord, for the Lord has chosen this people to be a treasured possession of the Lord, even though they are few. The Lord loved them because of the oath made to their ancestors, bringing them out of slavery and redeeming them, showing them that the Lord is one who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love the Lord and keep the commandments (Deuteronomy 7:6-9). The Lord will be a father and the king of Israel will be a son to the Lord, so that even whet the Lord punishes, the Lord will take the steadfast love of the Lord from the king (II Samuel 7:14-15). Goodness and mercy or kindness shall follow the poet throughout his life (Psalm 23:6). The poet has spoken of the faithfulness and saving help of the Lord and not concealed the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord, becoming the basis for the petition that the Lord be merciful and allow the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord keep the poet safe forever (Psalm 40:10-11). The poet asks for mercy according to the steadfast love of God and the abundant mercy of God that blots out transgression (Psalm 51:1). The poet exhorts the congregation to offer praise to the Lord, for the Lord is good and the steadfast love of the Lord lasts forever (Psalm 107:1 as a refrain throughout). The poet proclaims the awesome deeds, greatness, abundant goodness, righteousness, since the Lord is gracious and merciful to all, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 145:6-10). The Lord desires steadfast love rather than sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, referred to in Matthew 9:13, 12:7). Hesed is kindness and mercy (Micah 6:8). “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136, a refrain repeated 25 times!). Words cannot express such love. While the Lord receives worship in the temple, the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord has cosmic proportions. This pairing is common in the Old Testament. The servant of Abraham affirms that the Lord has not forsaken the steadfast love and faithfulness the Lord has for Abraham (Genesis 24:27). The Lord abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6). All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness (25:10). See Psalm 40:10-11 above. The steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lor extends to the heaves (Psalm 57:9-11). The Lord is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (86:14-17). The student is not to allow faithfulness and loyalty to forsake him (Proverbs 3:3). “Faithfulness,” also translated fidelity, steadfastness, and constancy, relates to the Hebrew word ’amen (pronounced ah-MAIN) — verily/truly. The Lord is trustworthy and human beings can depend firmly and reliably upon the Lord. The Lord’s steadfast love and faithfulness are all-embracing (Psalm 57:10). As often occurs in the Psalms, the psalmist extols the kindness and faithfulness of the Lord together. Thus, intricately connected with the righteousness of God is divine faithfulness. In both we have to do with the identity and consistency of the eternal God in turning in love toward those whom God has made.[12] Though we do not know the nature of the relationship between the Lord and the rest of creation, the poet suggests the Lord intends to save it as well. Such love is precious and thus of immense value, so we must not waste it, treating it carefully and wisely. The temple protects, and its sacrificial meals provide rich fare, the meat and fat eaten by the one bringing the offering. Such love has the benefit of illuminating our way as we navigate the uncharted and turbulent seas of life. The poet cannot believe his good fortune. Naturally, he does not want this fountain of blessing to dry up. He prays that it will continue. He prays that nothing will come between him and God’s knowledge of him. He is concerned that his heart will continue to be upright.
The person at prayer can express trust in the Lord that allows one to face the future calmly (Psalm 27:1, 4-9, Year A Epiphany 3). Such words can arise from an experience of difficult struggle that leads to experiencing the help of the Lord. The Lord is the light, help, and stronghold needed at this moment, and thus one has no need to face the future with fear or anxiety, despite how vulnerable we are to physical, economic, relational, and spiritual crises. Therefore, he can face new dangers. The Lord means everything to him, so he is free of dependence on the purely human. He longs to express his personal devotion and piety in the temple, where the beauty of the Lord will become clear. To recognize, however, that what we truly desire is beauty suggests a deeper reflection. Beauty has a way of subtly attracting us and gaining our attention. Beauty calls us out of ourselves and invites reflection simply for itself. Allow me to suggest that our lives are full of struggle and even ugliness. In the end, we want to believe that human life is more than the vast expanse of the universe in which life is so rare. We want to believe that human life is more than simply learning to do good things. The desire to see the beauty of the Lord looks beyond the evidence our lives present to us. Granted, if we have eyes to see, beauty is present all along our lives. Beauty is present every day. Yet, we must also admit that much falsity, evil, and ugliness are present as well. The longing to see the beauty of the Lord is a longing for an end that affirms the best of human life. He seeks guidance in the divine will, such as might occur in a dream, priestly counsel, or a prophetic oracle. He wants worship that centers upon the Lord. The gentleness, charm, and lifelike character of these words make the psalmist a hero of the faith, among the greatest in history.[13] The Lord has become the purpose of his life in a new way. Much of human life is a matter of wrestling with a reliable basis for our lives. Such wrestling generates a certain degree of anxiety just beneath the surface of our lives. Occasionally, the anxiety shouts at us. The reliable basis of life and the decision we make regarding it is our struggle with truth. The structure of the temple will give him cover, while the Lord will place him in secure place where he can see all he needs to see. Even while enemies surround him, a military reference, he will offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, shouting and singing to the Lord. He vows to give his entire life to the Lord in anticipation of answered prayer. His enemies and the family deserting him, he seeks the Lord as his only help. He expresses simple and sincere honesty. The prayer is out of a contrite heart. He seeks the Lord, worried that the Lord will abandon him. He longs for the Lord to hear his prayer. He prays for mercy, implying guilt that leads him to searching self-criticism, surrendering himself to the grace of God. The affliction torments him, in that he brought it on himself, but he seeks God in prayer anyway. Our experience of guilt is our recognition that we have fallen short of what we believe to be goodness. The psalmist had the Torah to teach him what is good. However, people without Torah, without knowledge of revelation from the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus of Nazareth, also experience guilt. It reflects the presence of conscience that involves our personal sense of right and wrong. In wanting the face of the Lord to turn toward him, and in referring to himself as a servant of the Lord who has angered the Lord, such anthropomorphic language is drawing from royal ideology, in which the sovereign granted initial royal favor merely by directing the royal visage in the supplicant’s general direction. This is the underlying image in the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 (“the Lord make his face to shine upon you … the Lord lift up his countenance upon you”). Guilt marks his entreaties. He faces the righteousness and power of the Lord, which put intense pressure on him. He turns to the Lord despite his sin, for there can be no help apart from the Lord.
Poets could unite the themes of creation and torah (Psalm 19, Year C Epiphany 3). The revelation of God in heaven unites with the revelation of God on the earth. It focuses on creation and especially the sun. Here, the focus is on the peculiar character of the revelation of God in nature. These verses join other passages of the Bible that speak of the creative work of God. The cosmos praises God. Creation testifies to the greatness of God. The contemplation of nature leads the author to see that it serves God. The works of the master reveal the master. The destiny of creatures is to praise and honor God and extol divine glory.[14] For the psalmist, while nature is an inanimate object, human beings still approach it with wonder. The wordless testimony of creation becomes a music of the spheres, an idea later associated with Pythagoras. An Ugaritic epic speaks of speech of tree and whisper of stone, converse of heaven and earth. It may even mean that the celestial bodies speak soundlessly. They convey their message through their being. Even though nature is speaking, people do not hear its voice. For that reason, then, we cannot read nature as a plain or obvious witness that leads to the praise of God. In the ancient Near East, the sun was typically associated with a major deity. Cylinder seals with winged sun disks have been found in Israel. Josiah removed objects fashioned as horses that had been dedicated to the sun (II Kings 23:11), providing evidence for solar worship in ancient Israel. In terms of the influence of this passage on theological reflection, we need to recognize that the claim that nature is the work of God is always debatable.[15] Yet, when we join the psalmist in such praise of God, we anticipate the eschatological praising of God. The wonders of the universe can reveal the excellence and beauty of God for those who have eyes to see.[16] For this poet, then, the contemplation of nature leads him to see that even nature serves God. The works of the master reveal the master. The destiny of all creatures is to offer praise and honor to God and extol divine glory.[17] The divine ordering of nature speaks in a language everyone can understand. Nature gives knowledge of God to the world. Many persons in the ancient world sing the praise of objects in nature. For this author, human beings approach nature, which includes many inanimate objects, with wonder. Many cultures in the ancient world worshipped sun and moon. Part of the myth of that world was the sun-god rested during the night and the day welcomed him into the arms of the beloved. Thus, we see the poet uses the myth to refer to the sun as a bridegroom and the coming daylight as his wedding canopy. While other peoples may praise the creation, the Psalmist declares that the creation sings the Creator’s praise. As in Genesis 1, God created sun, moon, and stars and their movement. The word “create” does not occur, but God “set a tent for the sun.” As powerful and pervasive as is the light and heat of the sun, it belongs to God. Creation is voiceless. Yet, it resonates universal praise back to its creator.
Nature is ambiguous as to empirical evidence. Nature is beautiful and ugly at the same time. We can observe a certain type of logic here. The movement of the objects we see in space can make us puzzle about how such movement began. Such reflections can lead us from the contingency of all finite things to the notion of a necessary Being, which we might call God, who is behind all that we see and study in nature. While many things have being, this would suggest the Greatest Being of all, which we would call God. Each part of creation seems uniquely fitted for its purpose. Each part of our bodies has their purpose that could not exist apart from its participation in the body. This fact may make it appear that an intelligent being designed it this way, which we would call God. The wonderfully complex diversity of creation seems to demand one who designed it.[18]Yet, evidence does not demand such a conclusion. For one thing, the knowledge of nature comes by looking at nature. Nature inflicts plenty of suffering upon us all, including the children. What kind of designer would design something that included so much evil and suffering? Yet, for many of us, the sight of a towering mountain or the beauty of the beach will make us wonder how anyone could refuse to believe that God is behind it. The best one might say, though, is that such reasoning may provide a hint of the divine, but the hint is ambiguous, given the resistance we see in suffering and evil. Even Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley described themselves as agnostic regarding the divine and ultimate matters.[19]
The hymn “All Creatures of our God and King” (which tracks the words of a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi) in its refrain of “Praise Him” and “Alleluia” summarizes well the spirit of these verses. It invites nature to lift its voice with us as believers as we offer this praise to God. It begins with inviting sun and moon to do so. It invites them to “find a voice” and “Make music for the Lord to hear.” Mother earth also unfolds blessings toward humanity, including flowers and fruits. It then invites human beings “of tender heart, forgiving others,” to take its part in offering such praise in song. Even those who bear “pain and sorrow” are to offer their praise to God on whom they case their care. Even Death is “kind and gentle” as it leads us home in the way Christ has led. All things worship the Creator with humbleness. I think of “How Great Thou Art,” which invites us to consider the worlds and stars the hand of God has made. They display the power of God. His soul sings of the greatness of God. “This Is My Father’s World” that to his “listening ears, All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” Rocks, trees, skies, and seas are wonders from the hand of God. Birds raise carols and lilies declare the praise of their Maker. He hears the Father pass “in the rustling grass” and “speaks to me everywhere.” “Morning Has Broken” offers praise for the singing and morning, “God’s recreation of the new day.” “Cantemos al Señor” (“Let’s Sing unto the Lord”) invites us to sing praise “at the new day’s fresh beginning.” God made sky, stars, sun, and oceans filled with beauty. The hymn of adoration is to show the love, faith, and hope of all creation. Through all the Lord has made, we praise the greatness of the Lord. Finally, the last verse of “Love Divine, all Loves Excelling” reminds us that creation is imperfect enough that we have the hope of a new creation, as we pray that God would finish the new creation so that we might see salvation and find our restoration in God.
Both creation and torah come from the Lord. It has a close relationship to Psalm 119. In fact, Psalm 119:73, ties together creation and Torah as coming from the Lord, as does this Psalm. We find they share many of the same words as synonyms for Torah: law, decrees, precepts, commandments or instruction. We also find this section suffused with wisdom terminology, including simple, wise, and the fear of the Lord, and wisdom or torah being compared to gold. It reminds us of the power of Torah to bring joy and purpose to a human life. We can see the delight in the Torah and the benefits of following it. It brings joy and blessing to those who obey it. Those who turn away from the way the Lord will receive the reverse, as we find in Psalm 1, 111-112, and Deuteronomy 30. Torah is a revelation of the will of the Lord. He has such a joyful confidence in the Torah that it has become higher than all earthly values. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (John 4:34). In Isaiah 55:1-3, the prophet invites those thirsty, even those who have no money, to come to the “waters,” and to “buy and eat” that which the Lord gives freely. He invites people not to spend money or labor on that which is not bread and does not satisfy. He invites us to eat what is good. He defines this as listening to the Lord so that we might live.
The psalm concludes with a petition to receive salvation from sin. The chief reward of holding the revelation of torah as precious is spiritual and focuses upon forgiveness. Human beings naturally detect error in self and others. We naturally develop a conscience through our interactions with others. The conscience detects right and wrong in our behavior and in the behavior of others. One brand of psychology calls this the “superego.” The point is, each culture detects varying behaviors as right and wrong, but human beings are naturally aware of the need to discern the difference between right and wrong. Thus, without Torah, yes, we would still detect error. Yet, we are also naturally aware of our capacity for self-deception. In this sense, revelation provides a reference point outside us by which we can detect right and wrong. To put the matter bluntly, we may wonder if God exists and whether we are to live lives accountable to God, but Torah does not wonder. Torah commands honor of God in our worship, speech, and use of our time. We may wonder if respecting parents, the property of others, telling the truth, faithfulness to a spouse or other matters, are right, good, and moral. Torah does not wonder. Torah says Yes, such behavior deserves respect and fulfillment in our lives. Torah will not tell us everything we are to do with our lives, and Torah will not tell unambiguously what to do in every situation. However, Torah will provide broad knowledge of the type of person we are to become and discern what that type of person would do in this situation. It concludes with a familiar verse that invites the Lord to give our inner talk scrutiny and correction. Welcoming this divine knowing and shaping of our inner talk deepens our vulnerability, which is a key step in our spiritual formation. His reference to the heart reminds us that obedience to Torah is not simply an outward matter. Obedience is a matter of the heart. In Deuteronomy 6:1-6, they are to teach the decrees and commandments so that they will fear the Lord and have a long life. In Deuteronomy 30:11-14, the commandments are not too hard for them and are not far away, but in their mouths and hearts. Jeremiah 31:31-34 will promise a new covenant with the law put within them, writing it on their hearts. His heart meditation is that the Lord will find in the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart an acceptable offering.[20] He regards the Lord as his rock and redeemer. The Lord is the one who protects and delivers him. Even today, preachers, poets, and musicians will wisely pray this portion of the psalm as they prepare and join their congregations in presenting the offering of this day to the Lord.
Psalm 111-112 is a hymn of praise to the Lord for the works of the Lord in nature and history. The psalm begins and ends with praise, and the reasons to offer up such praise to the Lord are the content of the psalm. It is not so much a prayer as it is a proclamation. We should note the repetition of "forever" in v. 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10. The psalm has a dual emphasis on the nature and the activity of the Lord in human life. One can discover who the Lord is by examining what the Lord has done, a theme consistent with the wisdom community. When we look at the two canonical poems as one poem, the psalmist proposes that we praise the Lord (112:1a) by becoming like the Lord we worship, in Righteousness, in Generosity, and in Deliverance. The parallelism between the two psalms is striking, with the attributes of the Lord in 111 becoming attributes of the godly in 112.
Psalm 111 Psalm 112
Righteousness stands firm forever Uprightness stands firm forever
Honor Blessings
Yahweh is mercy and tenderness Upright, generous, tender-hearted
The Lord gives food to all All goes well
The Lord delivers the people The upright give to the needy
His praise will continue forever Upright stand firm forever
When we reflect upon the works of the Lord in nature and in history, it can lead to praise (Psalm 111, Year B Epiphany 4). One can discover who the Lord is by examining what the Lord has done, a theme consistent with the wisdom community. After the invitation to offer praise to the Lord, the poet proclaims that he will give thanks to the Lord with his whole being, reminding us of the Shema to love the Lord with the whole heart. Whole-hearted devotion to Yahweh was the precondition of the covenantal obligations the people of Israel took upon themselves; without exclusive allegiance to Yahweh, little else mattered in the religious life of ancient Israel, as the prophets never ceased to remind their contemporaries. He will offer thanks in the presence of the congregation. The works of the Lord are great, so much so that those who delight in them will study them. The Lord is transcendent over the world, but is also imminent in history, affecting the divine purpose through divine acts. Israelite theologians made a point of insisting on study, and not mere acknowledgment, as an essential component of discerning divine activity in the world. Study of the religious tradition was a vital component of mainstream biblical thought, as it remains in Judaism today. The writers of the Bible never understood revelation simply as ecstatic possession. Revelation still calls those who see and hear to examine it rationally. Revelation must show itself to be a reasonable response to the hopes, fears, and questions of humanity. The poet contemplates the acts of God in the perspective of the saving history, especially in divine provision during the wilderness and the conquest of Canaan. To fear the Lord characteristically means to revere God and to hold God in awe. In a sizable number of passages, to fear the Lord means to obey the Lord by following the will and ways of the Lord, as expressed in the commandments. To do so is to live righteously before God and people. We can trust what the Lord has done and said, because the Lord is faithful to us and fair to us, just as the Lord has been faithful and fair to the people of the Lord in the past. Only the works of God are fully stable and trustworthy. The word of the Lord in the stipulations of the covenant are trustworthy. Those who want to have a firmly established life will do so within the covenant of the Lord, doing so with faithfulness and uprightness.[21] The covenant defines right living. Those who have wisdom follow the commandments of the Lord. Yes, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). Clearly, this does not mean mindless terror; it means the appropriate sense of mystery, awe, reverence, and respect that characterizes all genuine relationships between humans and the divine. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight (Proverbs 9:10). The Lord said to humanity that the fear of the Lord is wisdom (Job 28:28). Our wisdom begins when we look up to the Lord with awe and respect. A deep understanding of the Lord and humans begins when we put our trust in a faithful, just, trustworthy, and eternal God. When we are willing to trust, the Lord shapes us into people that are more faithful. Thus, divine wisdom is the meaning and ground of the creation and therefore of the sphere in which humanity can live. The art of living and understanding life consists in heeding divine wisdom. Such heeding and accepting consists in the fear of the Lord, which directs us to the creative and sustaining power of the Lord.[22]
To use an analogy, a well-known view is that Michelangelo could call forth a figure out of stone. The Lord is working with flesh and blood to bring us to life, freeing us from all that would block our experiencing of the fullness of the life the Lord has given us. If the Lord is artist bringing us to life, then the Lord seeks a fully living and authentic figure or person to emerge, fully capable of doing being the true, good, and beautiful presence the Lord intended. Such persons will bring life, truth, goodness, and beauty into the world. The works of the Lord in our history have the purpose of bringing such new possibilities into our lives and into the lives of others.
Praise and the reasons to offer such praise to the Lord are a regular theme (Psalm 112:1-10). Here is a proclamation that keeps repeating the word “forever.” We praise the Lord by becoming like the Lord we worship in that the Lord is righteous, generous, and in bringing deliverance. Those who revere or hold in awe the Lord find happiness as they delight in the commandments. We find this emphasis in other passages. Fear the Lord and keep the commandments and statutes (Deuteronomy 6:2). Fear the Lord and observe the laws and statutes (17:19). In hearing the Law read, people will fear the Lord and diligently observe its words (31:10-13). Fear and serve the Lord, not rebelling against the commandments (I Samuel 12:14-15). Psalm 119:7-11 places the fear of the Lord in parallel with the Law, decrees, precepts, commandments, and ordinances. Psalm 119:1-2, 16 declares happiness for those who walk in the law of the Lord, keep the decrees of the Lord, and delight in the statutes of the Lord. Happiness is for those who fear the Lord and walk in the ways of the Lord (Psalm 128:1). The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10, Sirach 1:14). All of this suggests that following the Torah was part of keeping covenant with the Lord, the devout taking delight in it as the gift of the Lord to the people of God. The psalm promises material benefits to the righteous. Those who delight in the Law will prosper in all they do (Psalm 1:1-3). The godly will pass through darkness but not be there forever. People will not soon forget such persons and their accomplishments. Biblical authors often pair justice (verse 5) and righteousness (verse 5). The Lord loves righteousness and justice (Psalm 33:5), happiness is for those who observe justice and do righteousness (Psalm 106:3), justice and righteousness will establish the kingdom (Isaiah 9:7), the Lord urges the people to maintain justice and do what is right (Isaiah 56:1), the Lord acts with justice and righteousness (Jeremiah 9:24), a descendant of David will execute justice and righteousness in the land (Jeremiah 33:15), woe upon those who pervert justice and righteousness (Amos 5:7), and let justice and righteousness flow (Amos 5:24). The righteous become like the Lord and live up to the standards of the morality and ethical behavior, conducting themselves in just ways before others in the community. The righteous rest confidently and safely in the Lord. They triumph over enemies.
The psalm offers some support for a “prosperity theology.” This viewpoint draws much of its inspiration from an uncritical appeal to such conventional-wisdom passages of the Bible, unbalanced by the also-very-biblical questioning of conventional wisdom in such books as Job and Ecclesiastes, in certain of the Psalms (as parts of Psalm 73) and in the words of Jesus (the quintessential righteous person), who said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Even so, conventional wisdom (both biblical and experience-based) does make a good point: When a person sets out to honor God and live right before people, things do tend to go much better than when one lives otherwise. Thus, Psalm 37:25-31 can say the Lord does not forsake the righteous, their children do not beg for bread, the Lord will keep the righteous safe, the righteous shall inherit the land, and their step does not slip. Approached from one angle, one can make a reasonable argument suggesting that life gives to us what we have given to it. What we send out into the world through our words fand deeds will come back. We run into problems, however, if we view this as a law of life, which much of the prosperity gospel suggests. Thus, just because one suffers does not mean one can trace such suffering back to a specific disobedient act. Life does not work that way. Good people still lose jobs, get a disease, have divorces, and raise children who turn their backs on them. Good people are still accidents that injure and kill. Good people are still part of war-torn countries or famines that devastate them and those they love. While it may be true that we reap what we sow in life if we travel the path of making it a law we will inevitably run into intellectual and experiential difficulties.
Psalm 112 also raises the important matter of the role of happiness and desire in the lives of the people of God. I want to raise this question without the distractions of either the prosperity gospel or the vindictive separation of what is good for the righteous and bad for the wicked. Frankly, most people have a touch of righteousness and a touch of wickedness in ways that the separation is not as sharp or distinct as some people would like to think.
Happiness, (’ashre, Μακάριοι) has a close connection to that which we truly desire. In Psalm 112, such happiness is the by-product of a life lived in reverence and awe of the Lord and taking genuine delight in being the kind of person who acts toward others the way the Lord intends as shown in the Torah. For Jesus, such happiness is the result of a life lived in genuine love of God with all that we are and have genuine love for the neighbor. We may believe in God, but if our belief is that God is severe and angry, we are keeping God at a distance. We may follow the rules of the commandments of God, but if that is all we are doing, and we do not take genuine delight in being that type of person, we are keeping the neighbor at a distance. Happiness will not flow from this type of life. I see the conclusion of the psalm as reminding us of the importance of our desire. The judgment upon the wicked is that their desire comes to nothing. When human desire evaporates into nothingness, this is clearly not a good thing. The reason such nothingness occurs is that desire is not in line with what God wants, of course. However, it highlights the importance of desire. It raises a matter for the life of prayer so that we may test our desire. Right desire will lead to happy life under normal circumstances. Of course, this does not mean a law is at work. It simply means that in general, what we sow in life is what we reap. More specifically, it means that we ought not to be afraid of happiness or of our desires. It is okay to figure out the kind of life we need to live to find genuine happiness. It is okay to pay attention to the desire of our hearts. In fact, we must do so, for our desire for sex, money, social acceptance, justice, having a good relationship with others, to feel special, to work hard, to play hard, to keep peace, to have power, to have knowledge, may be in alignment with the will and purpose of God or it may not be. The difference is crucial.
The statistic I am about to share remains true. It does not vary much from decade to decade. When offered a choice between describing their lives as very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy, religious people, defined as those who attended worship regularly, are significantly happier than those who attend occasionally, and even more than those who do not attend at all. The gap is not present because of money. People who are externally identical in other ways will show this difference.[23]
Something around 70 sermons of John Wesley include references to happiness. He devoted some of these sermons solely to the subject. Psalm 121 clearly links happiness with taking delight in the commandments of the Lord. In an analogous way, Wesley linked happiness with holiness. His concern was often with true religion, by which he meant that religion is not something for just outward show or to wear as an unearned military decoration. Such true religion includes gratitude and benevolence, that is, offering love to God with all that you are and loving your neighbor as yourself. Wesley would conclude that righteousness, peace, and joy are present in those who have true religion. In one of his sermons, Wesley maintained that God made us to be happy just as Adam and Eve were happy before they disobeyed God. When they turned away from him and sinned, they lost that happy state. If we do not live holy lives for which God made us, we will also not be able to enjoy a happy life. Happiness is not so much an intentional goal as it is the byproduct of a well-lived human life. Wesley distinguished happiness from merriment. Merriment is pleasure, as we might put it today, whereas happiness is a mood arising out of connecting with the view God has of right living. He granted that Christians would experience heaviness, the weight of difficult circumstances, sorrow, ill health, and similar life experiences that bring life down. Yet, for Wesley, trust in God sustains us through such times, even in the strange experience of rejoicing in sorrow. One may be poor, in mourning, or persecuted for one’s faith, but still be aware of the blessing of God upon one’s life. Life circumstances that induce feelings of heaviness do not threaten genuine happiness. When we properly connect with God and live in the way God intends, our lives will have an underlying balance that has a solid place to stand, even when life itself is rocky.[24]
Devotion to the torah was an important aspect of Israelite piety (Psalm 119:1-8). These verses are part of a psalm that becomes a sustained meditation on the role of the torah in the life of the person of faith. No matter what happens, the psalmist asserts, he will remain devoted to doing what God has instructed. His urging of both intellectual understanding and prayerful reflection is good guidance in reading the Bible for pastors and laity, but theologians and scholars as well. The law is the source of life, prosperity, security, dignity, and happiness. one could expect happiness from a life guided by Torah-wisdom. In a sense, following the ways of the Lord has its reward in happiness, even if one should love the Lord without regard to receiving this benefit.[25] The psalmist says one who lives within the law is “happy.” Finding the proper boundaries within which to live is like finding a delightful home that gives you feeling of contentment. The psalmist has found contentment within the boundaries, walls, and spaces of the torah. If the way of life provided in torah is simply following a rule, we can lose sight of the freedom that is the intent behind the way of life charted by God. Human beings need guidance in discovering the boundaries of a moral life. We do not know such guidance by instinct. We know them because we learn them through what others are willing to teach or through paying attention to life experience. He prays for the divine strength to keep the torah and live a life of integrity. The heart defines our affections and desires out of which our actions arise, for better or worse. Since he will observe the statutes of the Lord, his petition is that the Lord does not forsake him.
Devotion to torah includes the pious perspective of wanting the Lord to be the one who instructs the person (Psalm 119:33-40, Year A Epiphany 7). He wants understanding that will lead him to keep the torah with his whole heart, for his delight in this path. This instruction contains the way to life and peace. He wants to avoid the ways of the stressful world, rejecting selfish gain and vanity. He was to receive the promise of the Lord that those who live within the instruction of the Lord receive fullness of life and thereby escape the disgrace he dreads. The way of the Lord is all about right relationships. It is the key to experiencing inner calm.
The poet can offer devotional instructions on what it takes to live a holy life (Psalm 1, Year C Epiphany 6). Sometimes, people need to hear words of affirmation regarding the course they are following. This psalm reminds us of the happiness we can find in following the way God prescribed. It has a simplicity, but one that masks its difficulty. This psalm points us to the blessedness or the life of human flourishing that relies upon the Lord. Those who compiled the Psalter did not choose to begin with a psalm whose first words cited David as its author or gave instructions for musicians or singers. Rather, the whole Psalter begins with devotional instructions on what it takes to live a holy life, which will in turn lead to a happy and fruitful life. The Psalm assumes that each of us has a choice as to the kind of people we will be.
Character is the fruit of personal choice‑‑and exertion. We do not inherit it from parents. We do not have it as an appendage to our birth, to wealth, or station in life. Character is the result of our endeavors to respond to the challenges of life. Character is the result and reward of "good principles sown in the course of a lifetime of virtuous and honorable action" (J. Dawes). One way to think of character is by what you are willing to do when the spotlight is turned off what you are doing, the applause has died down, and no one is around to give you credit.
The psalm begins with a contrast of two ways. Its concern is to show how readers can be Happy (‘ashrei), fortunate, rich, blessed, and prosperous. Such a person has discovered what it means to live a life in harmony with God. However, becoming wise in this way takes more than a sheer acquisition of knowledge. Israelite wisdom tradition does not value knowledge for its own sake; it values wisdom, which combines piety, humility and a right reverence for God with a deep understanding and appreciation for how God intends the world to work. Think of Genesis 2, where a stream of water flows from the earth and provides for trees in the Garden of Eden. Think of Jeremiah 17, where the prophet contrasts the shrubs in the desert with the tree planted by life-giving water. John used the concept of “living water” to have Jesus describe the nurturing relationship of God to the Samaritan woman (John 4). Paul talks about living a life that is “rooted” in Christ (Colossians 2:6-7). Our willingness to root our lives in a relationship with God, a relationship characterized by obedience, is what yields true happiness and a life that yields “fruit.” Just as the wicked may offer their advice, and the sinner may offer leadership, the cynical and disrespectful may achieve prominent office in society. Such persons hold in contempt the value of wisdom and moral uprightness. They “know better” than what Israel has received in Torah. When we are full of self and our resources, we have no room for God. The person who is wise and hopes to become “happy” because of that wisdom will avoid such persons and associations. One way to think of this is our relationship to the culture that forms us. Today, we might need to think of our sub-culture or tribe. Some of its values may well be godly, even where it does not know it as such. Some of its values may not be so. Our happiness is in learning the difference. Wisdom develops a form of resistance when it needs to resist. Throughout the psalm, the image of traveling on the right path in life recurs. By both opening and closing the psalm with the image of the “way” the psalmist stresses that those who wish to live a life whose value will live on in the world after them must walk the life-path that God sanctions.
The focus upon Torah, or for the Christian, the Word of God as a faithful witness to the revelation of God in Israel and in Jesus Christ, is the path that helps us to maintain ourselves as the people of God in distinction from our tribe. Genuine flourishing, blessing, and joy are not in the values of the culture or tribe in which we find ourselves. Virtue is a state of character gained by repeatedly performing good actions.[26] Virtue is an acquired excellence of character that renders a person capable over the long haul of behaving in certain reliable ways.[27] Thus, the law is a source of joy for it reveals the will of the Lord. Without the event of revelation of Torah, which means God’s “teaching” (from the Hebrew verb yrh, “to teach”), one cannot be wise.
While the righteous have deep roots, the wicked are like chaff. A simple gust of wind can blow away chaff. Jeremiah 17:6-7 says they are like shrubs in the desert that do not see relief and no longer bear fruit. If their lives are on the surface, they will not withstand judgment from the Lord. What we need for human flourishing, happiness and blessedness is to have a life properly rooted and grounded. Like the roots of a tree, the source of such a life is real, but hidden below the surface. Such a life has its roots in a relationship with God in which we accept the guidance that God gives for the way we live. Such a life acknowledges its dependence upon the Lord. It will also not allow adverse circumstances or challenges to carry it away.
The poet can counter the indignation of those outraged by the success of the wicked with the teachings of the sages on earthly rewards and punishments (Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40, Year C Epiphany 7). The desires of our hearts are part of what makes up the uniqueness of each of us. Of course, we can wrongly desire. Yet, part of spirituality is learning our true desires that help us become the person the Lord has summoned us to be. Anger and anxiety is path toward evil. Matthew 5:5 frames this notion of the meek inheriting the land in the form of a beatitude.
The poet can offer thanksgiving for the occasion of one of the festivals (Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15, Year C Epiphany 8). The poet begins with a simple and profound religious expression that it is good to give thanks to the Lord, addressing the Lord with an ancient Canaanite divine epithet used for Baal and El, O Most High (Elyon). He offers such thanks of the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord always. The faithfulness of the Lord turns in love toward those whom God has made. Here, we find ‘emunah instead of the more common ‘emet.[28] Making a habit of praise keeps our eyes open to what the Lord is doing every day. He expresses a desire to remain in the temple, proximate to the Lord. Faithfulness to the Lord is productive to the end. One can keep on the growing edge throughout life.
The prophet has concerns that overlap with the wisdom school (Jeremiah 17:5-10, Year C Epiphany 6). The prophet can contrast trust in humanity and trust in God. It begins with a contrasting of the righteous and the wicked. A person who relies on idols is like a bush in a parched land that knows nothing. However, those who trust in the Lord are like well-watered trees that produce fruit. The warrior who trusts in mere human power will fail (and, with it, ignominy — the combination of which would constitute a curse). Jeremiah first removed the weeds (false trusts), so that there might be room for the good grain.[29] Unbelief turns life into a parched wasteland; faith makes it a fruitful orchard. The thought is similar in Psalm 1, where those who delight in and meditate upon the Torah are as trees planted by streams of water, yielding fruit and prospering, while the wicked are like chaff that the winds drive away (1:3-4). Soon, the Babylonian army would overrun the kingdom of Judah, and the land of milk and honey would become a wasteland.[30] Unbelief kept the people of Israel out of the Promised Land (Num. 13–14). Unbelief caused them to worship idols and invite the chastening of God during the time of the Judges. During the time of the kingdom, unbelief kept the leaders from repenting and turning to God for help, and they became entangled in the costly politics involving Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. However, we do not know our own hearts. The name of Jacob has a connection to deceiver, and thus the prophet seems to refer to their ancestor. Jeremiah uses an appropriate allusion to their ancestor, whose deceit they followed rather than the faith he would later show. They supplant trust in the Lord for trust in the armies of other nations. They think they can deceive the Lord and that what they are doing will escape the attention of the Lord. To trust in one’s own heart is as foolish as trust in the armies of other nations. Jesus would say that from the human heart arises evil intentions and that what comes from within is what defiles a person (Mark 7:21). Jesus would say that when the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father, he will repay everyone for what they have done (Matthew 16:27). Thus, while no human being can know the heart, the Lord, of course, does, and will judge human according to that knowledge. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart, and the human heart is deceitful and incurable. The Lord searches the heart and mind and knows exactly how to reward each person. If we want to know what our hearts are like, we must read the Word and let the Spirit teach us. The hearts of the Jewish leaders turned away from the Lord and divine truth. Consequently, they made unwise decisions and plunged the nation into ruin.
If we are secular, we locate sin in other places, such as capitalists, or the wealthy, and we think that if we could just rid the country of them we would be all right. In part, communism, Nazism, and Islamism have perpetrated great horrors upon humanity precisely because they located sin in something outside themselves that they thought they could remove. People seek a form of holiness that does not face honestly the deceptive quality of the human mind and heart.[31] We must learn another difficult truth concerning a human life. Some people are out to deceive us in order that they get what they want from us. This basic selfishness is twisting the legitimate concern we have for our lives into the need to put down others to make us appear better. We have the terrible capacity to lie to ourselves. We will lie over the smallest details of our lives, such as how much we ate today, or our actual height and weight. We may lie about how much alcohol we consume. We lie about the sexual thoughts we have at random moments of the day because such thoughts are not socially acceptable. We lie about our most important life choices. We do not have the internal strength to admit the truth and face the consequences. Therefore, we lie to ourselves.[32] In doing so, we lose respect for whatever truth we may have within us or whatever truth that may surrounds us. Losing respect for truth, we lose our love for self and others as well. Thus, I hope we can see the wisdom of the observation that if we find ourselves easily offended, it will because we are deep in self-deception.[33] Our minds have the incredibly capacity to find reasons to believe whatever we want to believe.[34] Psychologist might call such tendencies a reflection of the shadow side of our psyche. The tendency may not be sinful, but it allows us to participate in evil with justification. We cannot rid ourselves of the shadow. We can only become increasingly aware of its game and the signs that usually accompany its expression.[35] We do not know ourselves well. Consequently, we cannot even trust our judgment and wisdom completely.
Sin causing the poet to experience adversity and suffering, the poet can now testify to the enjoyment of the grace of God (Psalm 103:1-13, 22, Year B Epiphany 8). The psalm is a meditation on the goodness of God and the forgiving love of God. The hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” has its basis in this psalm. The poet experiences both the distance and holiness of God on the one hand and the nearness and love of God on the other. The exhortation to his own soul shows a desire to experience God directly. Since separation from the Lord was the worst that could happen, forgiveness is central to his experience. The Lord heals diseases, thereby redeeming the life of the sinner from the Pit. The poet reflects upon the saving history of the Lord, especially through Moses. Moses declares the righteous will of God and therefore sees that the catastrophes in its history are the effect and expression of divine judgment.[36] The history of the people is proof of the grace of God. See Exodus 34:6-7. The prayer of the biblical person cries out for the Lord to be gracious. Here is the basis of that prayer. The inclination of the Lord is good and favor toward humanity, even if we do not serve this favor, but deserve its opposite.[37] The theological question of the essence and attributes of God in this passage becomes that of the attributes that characterize the working of God.[38] The attributes of the essence of God disclose themselves in revelatory action as the attribute of divine love.[39] In the established formula with which ancient Israel summed up the divine attribute of patience has a fixed place alongside grace, mercy, and righteousness.[40] Since the Lord does deal with us as our sins would justify, grace shatters the experience of sin, even as the steadfast love of the Lord toward those in awe of the Lord remains constant in separating us from our transgressions. The Lord is a like a father having compassion upon his children, identifying those who are in awe of the Lord as children of the Lord. The works of the Lord in the infinite places of the dominion of the Lord, those special places within this space in which this dominion is reality and distinguished from other places,[41] are to praise the Lord.
The poet can offer a lament because of enemies (Psalm 71:1-6, Year C, Epiphany 4). These enemies are ruthless who use their power against him. They plot against him. They accuse him and seek his harm. He describes them variously as the wicked (the unrighteous), unjust and cruel (ruthless) people who would use their power (hand) against him (v. 4). The danger is of such magnitude that he cannot merely avoid them or parry their attacks by himself. He must rely upon his strong, protective God who has been with him all his long life. We learn later in this psalm that he is an old man. The older we become, the more vulnerable we become. The psalm reminds us that old age is not for sissies. He wants to sing the praises of God in his old age. These enemies are making that difficult. His prayer is simple. He wants the Lord to be his refuge and strong fortress. He recalls that the Lord was clearly the one whom he could trust while young. He wants to trust or rely on and hope in the sense of eagerly expecting help. The focus of his trust and hope is the Lord, and he wants to have this in his old age as well. He prays that God will not abandon him. His central idea is that the purpose of human life is to offer praise to God and that if one dies, that praise will cease. If praise for God is to continue, God must keep people alive and in good health. The psalm has several refrains that are like repetitions. Verses 1-3 with slight variations are also in Psalm 31: 1-3.
The conceptual world of the writer intimately relates the accumulated terms for rock-fortress and for rescue, in that a rock-fortress is a good place for escape/hiding and/or for protection against attacks by one's foes. The psalm-writer metaphorically uses synonyms for rock-fortress to describe God as his formidable protective strength against those who would harm him. Masada is a high, defensible rock plateau just west of the Dead Sea in Israel. It had been fortified even before several hundred Jews fled there by A.D. 70, coming from Jerusalem and environs after the Romans had brutally crushed a rebellion and destroyed the temple. The rebels held out against the Roman siege for three more years. “Masada” is closely akin to the Hebrew word metsudah, which is the second of the two words translated “fortress” in the NRSV of Psalm 71:3. When David was fleeing for his life from King Saul, “[he] remained in the strongholds [closely related to metsudah] in the wilderness … Saul sought him every day, but the LORD did not give him into his hand.” (I Samuel 23:14). David uses the word metsudah in II Samuel 22:2-3a (and its parallel Psalm 18:2a): “The LORD is my rock, my fortress [emphasis added], and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge. …” He affirms that he has trusted and hoped in the Lord since his youth. With the wisdom that comes to some in their later years, he realizes that the Lord has been with him from the very beginning of his life. He has depended on the Lord and has not yet been disappointed.
Joseph reveals himself to his brothers (Genesis 45:3-11, 15, Year C Epiphany 7). Joseph states to his brothers that they are not to be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you. The theological point of the Joseph story is ready to become explicit. He can make this statement considering the totality of the story. Except for the little eschatological material found in its later strata, the bulk of the Hebrew Bible has a concern, theologically, with the past, particularly the magnalia Dei, the mighty works of God in human (and especially Israelite) history. Such an emphasis meets the human need for truth. If we want to know truth, we will need to acknowledge the presence of the mighty works of God. Of course, the presence of prescriptions for human behavior is obvious for anyone paying attention to the Old Testament. With this emphasis, both testaments seek to address the natural human desire to be and do good. Yet, the ethical monotheism of both testaments rests on a foundation of God's self-disclosure in historical events of both a sweeping and, as here, an intimate scale. Thus, God, through the sin of his brothers, has sent Joseph to preserve life. The theme of preserving life runs prominently but not straightforwardly throughout the story of Jacob’s family. Even the account of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 — which many scholars regard as an intrusion into an otherwise coherent narrative sequence — turns on Tamar’s determination to preserve life through a male descendant, even if that means sleeping with her negligent father-in-law. In the Joseph story, worldwide famine threatens the theme of preserving life, becoming the occasion for Joseph’s rise to greatness, on the one hand, and his reunion with his family, on the other. The narrative expresses the concern to preserve life several times: 41:36; 42:2, 18, 20; 43:8. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth. This idea is a theme important throughout Genesis, as in the flood, Abraham's calling, Lot, and Joseph. God has taken the brother's hate and turned it into good. The providence of God operates in ways mysterious to us. Yet, some scholars find the "remnant" God has preserved through Joseph for his brothers, while clear in the narrative, is contextually unexpected. The concept of a remnant (righteous or otherwise) is common enough in later, especially prophetic literature (e.g., throughout the book of Isaiah), but this is the only occurrence of the word in the Pentateuch. Even more noteworthy is the fact that the author pairs the word with "survivors," as it is in Isaiah 10:20, 15:9, 37:32. This striking coincidence between this purportedly early material (the bulk of the Joseph story comes from the 10th-9th century B.C.) and late prophetic idiom has led some scholars to conclude that the verse is an insertion in an earlier novella.[42] It first achieves prominence in Israelite thought with the rise of classical prophecy, where the Hebrew word becomes a technical term (e.g., Isaiah 37:4, 32; Micah 2:12; 4:6, 5:7; 7:18; Jeremiah 23:3; 31:7; etc.). This is the first and only occurrence of the term in Genesis, although the idea is found, of course, in the story of Noah (Genesis 6:10). Like the idea of a hidden divine providence, the idea of a remnant requires a degree of historical consciousness not characteristic of earliest Israelite thought. Thus, God sent Joseph to preserve a remnant and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God. The idea of providence expressed in the story is not prominent in early Israelite religion. This view is an abstract view of divine activity in human affairs. It suggests that the human case is, in fact, not the case, but is, rather, a working out of a much grander hidden divine plan. However, such a view is more at home in the later stages of Israelite religion, when Israelite thought had been influenced by the wisdom tradition that flourished throughout the ancient Near East. Many scholars, in fact, consider the final form of the Joseph story to show extensive evidence of wisdom thought, and most scholars reckon the influence of the wisdom tradition to be a later rather than an earlier development in Israelite religion.
The prophet can invoke natural elements as patterns of divine or human action in a way that overlaps with wisdom literature (II Isaiah 55:10-13, Year C Epiphany 8). The prophet declares that those who thirst and have no money in verse 1 will find confirmation of the pledge of refreshment. The refreshment of melting snow and rain for the fruitfulness of the earth becomes metaphor for the fact that the commanding word of the Lord will not return to the Lord empty. The Word will be fruitful in the announcement of the restoration of Israel to the Promised Land and its happening in history. The Word becomes a personification of a messenger that has the purpose of restoring Israel. The speech and act of God merge so that the prophet proclaims the power of the Word to rule. The speech of God is divine action as well. The Word makes history is therefore also act. The Word is not empty but confronts humanity.[43] God does not speak the Word in vain. God has made time for humanity. Therefore, God is patient in granting time and space.[44] Thus, the final words from II Isaiah are an invitation to depart, which we also find in Isaiah 48:20 and 52:11-12. They will leave in joy and return in peace. Their captivity is finished. The ruin of Edom proclaimed in 34:13 will find its reversal. The Word gives life. The restoration of Israel will bring a response from nature. Of course, this is a metaphor. Yet, the theological point is significant in that the restoration of Israel has an impact upon nature. The same God who is the source of life and nature is also the God who guides history. Clearly God is judge in the exile, but also merciful in restoring Israel. God has a called a people to serve the purpose of bearing the Word or command of God among the peoples of the earth. God chose what would become a nation, Israel, out of grace. This grace is the origin of the forgiveness Israel experiences now. The exile, a time of judgment, is past. Forgiveness opens the door for a new possibility in the future.
The attraction of Zion and the instruction one can receive there become a theme of worship and prayer (Psalm 15, Year A Epiphany 4). The psalm has in common with much prophetic literature an emphasis upon general moral characteristics that it lists in groupings of positive and negative qualities, included among heart of the commandments. Referring to the temple as a tent continues recalling the wilderness sojourn of the people. The Lord is the one who makes Mount Zion holy, so one must approach with some care. We see this in several scriptures. The Lord has set the king on Zion, the holy hill of the Lord (Psalm 2:6). The Lord is to receive praise in the city of our God, on the holy mountain of God, in Mount Zion (Psalm 48:1-2). The scattered people of God will gather on the holy mountain of the Lord, Jerusalem (Isaiah 66:20). The Lord dwells in Zion, the holy mountain of the Lord, and Jerusalem shall be holy (Joel 3:17). Jews today refer to the area as “Temple Mount.” The “tent”/” holy place” signify the presence and glory of the Lord with the people because of the location of the Ark of the Covenant within that holy tent. All this is suggesting that one does not approach God or God’s holy place, even to worship him, without being ready to appear before God. The psalm describes fitness for entry to the holy hill/tent. It focuses upon moral requirements. Here are the ones who can dwell on Zion. We should note that the behaviors in these verses are those of people in relationship to family members and others of the community. How one relates to neighbors has a close connection to how one relates to God. Jesus juxtaposed loving God and loving neighbor (Luke 10:27), taken from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18b. We can also see this connection in other New Testament passages. The love of God does not abide in one who has the means to help a brother or sister in need and refuses to help (I John 3:17). Those who say they love God and hate their brother or sister are liars (I John 4:19-21). It does no good to say one has faith but does not have the works or way of life that reflects such faith (James 2:14-19). Thus, those who reveal their essential character in the way they live are fit for entry. They have integrity and do what is right, morally, and ethically, and to conduct oneself in a just way before others in the community. The speak truthfully. Truth and justice are the twin pillars of communal life. The psalm follows up such positive qualities with avoiding the negative qualities of engaging in slander, doing evil to friends, or do anything that insults the neighbor. They reject the wicked and honor those who revere the Lord. In contrast, Jesus advised his followers, however, not to resist the evildoer and to love the enemy (Matthew 5:38-48). In further qualification, they stand by their oath to their hurt and they do not lend money at interest. Israelites were not to exact any interest from fellow Israelites (see Exodus 22:25-27; Deuteronomy 23:19-20). Proverbs 28:8 (NIV) says: “He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.” They refuse to take a bribe against the innocent, referring to a legal situation, the background in the Law being Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 27:25, but also Ezekiel 22:12. The priestly blessing upon such persons is that they will find stability in their lives. We find similar thoughts elsewhere. Since the Lord is beside the psalmist, nothing shall move him (Psalm 16:8). No one shall move the king who trusts in the Lord (Psalm 21:7). The Lord is his rock, salvation, and fortress, and thus nothing can move him (Psalm 62:2, 6). No one shall move the righteous (Psalm 112:6). The Lord shall make such persons who do these things firm, giving moral strength to the person who does these things. Such persons were welcome to not only enter the Lord’s tent but also even to “abide” and “dwell” there. It is the quality of one’s heart and life that determines acceptability before God. We see the approach of this psalm in other passages. The boastful, evildoers, those who speak lies, the bloodthirsty, the deceitful, will not enter the house of the Lord (Psalm 5:4-7). One can make the Lord weary in presenting sacrifices until they wash themselves and make themselves clean by removing the evil of their doings, and learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow (Isaiah 1:11-17). Those who can live with the devouring fire are those who walk righteously, those who speak uprightly, who despise the gain through oppression, who refuse bribes, and who reject bloodshed and evil (Isaiah 33:14b-16). The Lord lives with the contrite and humble in spirit (Isaiah 57:15). The Lord will live with them if they amend their ways by acting justly toward each other, not oppress the alien, the orphan, or widow, or murder, do not go to other gods, steal, commit adultery, swear falsely, or make offerings to Baal (Jeremiah 7:1-15). The one who is righteous does not go to idols, does not commit adultery, approach a woman during her menstrual period, does not oppress, pays debts, does not steal, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, does not charge interest, does not commit iniquity, executes justice, follows the statutes and ordinances of the Lord, and acts faithfully (Ezekiel 18). One should not come to the Lord with the commanded sacrifices, but to do what the Lord requires in doing justice, loving kindness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:6-8). The New Testament has a similar interest. Faith and obedience are not mutually exclusive either. Paul emphasizes the importance of faith in Galatians and Romans, but both letters conclude with detailing the life of obedience that focuses upon love. Thus, Paul can focus upon justification by faith (Romans 3:21-28, 5:1-2), but also shows that fulfills the law (Romans 13:8-14). Since Jesus is the way, truth, and life, we have access to the Father (John 14:6). Those who have faith and witness will unite with the risen Lord in their resurrection, who will bring us into the divine presence (II Corinthians 4:13-15). God saves us by grace, through faith, creating us for good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). Through Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father, so that we are members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone, in a way that we become a dwelling place for God (Ephesians 2:17-22). We have access to God through Christ Jesus our Lord so that we can have confidence through faith in him (Ephesians 3:11-12). We have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, passing through the curtain (torn in Matthew 27:51a), having a great high priest, approaching with a sincere heart in the full assurance of faith, holding fast to our confession, and provoking each other to love and good works (Hebrews 10:19-24). With clean hands and pure hearts, we draw near to God and God draws near to us (James 4:8, Psalm 24:4). Jesus makes it clear that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). All this suggests that if we look at scripture holistically, the tension between faith and obedience, between private devotion and a way of life, ought not to be present. We need both to properly honor God.
The prophet can proclaim the salvation of Zion (III Isaiah 62:1-5, Year C Epiphany 2). The prophet, the Anointed One, speaks of the promised salvation despite the incredulity of those he addresses. The setting is one of post-exilic Israel, soon after the return of a Jewish remnant from Babylonian exile. The Jewish people have experienced the devastation of an exile that meant physical, social, and political devastation. The exile is the desert. The destruction of Jerusalem, the loss of land, and the recognition that the exile was the judgment of God has shattered the soul of the chosen people. Rebuilding of people and land now needs to take place. The starting point for rebuilding is the recovery of righteousness. We start rebuilding from the inside out. No political solution alone will suffice for a people who have a covenant with the Lord. I am not sure how this applies to modern nations that do not claim to live under such a covenant, for modern nation states are secular in their intentionality of separating the political from the religious. When we view this text along with the preceding chapter’s message of the Messiah, we see that righteousness comes from being clothed with the garments of salvation. Ceaseless action and prayer have the objective of salvation. This work of salvation and redemption transforms Zion so thoroughly that it becomes a new creation. The Lord bestows the new name on Zion. The exile suggested that Zion could receive the name Forsaken and Desolate, but the nations will call it My Delight (Hephzibah) Is in Her, and your land Married (Beulah). The text refers to a remarriage. The theme of a new name is a favorite for these Zion poems. Thus, in 60:14, III Isaiah says the city shall have the name “City of the Lord” and “Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” In 60:18, the walls will have the name “Salvation” and the gates “Praise.”
III Isaiah promises rebuilding and renewal. One reason these words are so powerful is that many people in many situations long to hear such a promise. People hunger for renewal in personal lives and community. Sadly, the hunger can render one susceptible to false promises and false messiahs. In our era, commitment to a political ideology can become godlike in its all-embracing influence upon our lives. Such hunger can also make one open to a genuine word from the Lord. Like the Jewish people returning home, we long for spiritual renewal, but we may also long for renewal of a nation to its highest and best ideals. People as individuals and communities still go through times of forsakenness and abandonment. The power of this passage is the hunger, promise, and hope it expresses of a deeper connection, even the intimacy of marriage, to the Creator of all who has turned toward us with such grace and love that we can have the privilege of a new creation. If the journey has led us to a place of devastation and forsakenness, the journey does not have to be over. A new journey can begin.
The rebirth of Judaism occurs through the reading of the Law by Ezra and the observance of the feast of shelters (Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, Year C Epiphany 3). It follows Ezra 8:36, Ezra having arrived from Babylon to promulgate the Law. The Chronicler uses the report of Ezra at this point. It occurs in 428/7. I will pay special attention to Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10. It is part of the large section of material from Ezra 7 -- Nehemiah 13 that depicts the implementation of Mosaic law as the socio-religious foundation of the restored Jewish community centered around Jerusalem. It suggests the honor we need to the faithful witness to divine revelation in our sacred text, where our knowledge of that witness needs to lead to lives that honor that witness. The book of Nehemiah makes clear that people of faith also need access to the truth. The citizens of Judah lived in exile in Babylon for 70 years, cut off from their homeland and their temple in Jerusalem. They had little access to the news of Judah and were living as strangers in a strange land. Finally, they were allowed to return home. Their governor, Nehemiah, led them in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, and the priest-scribe Ezra read from Scripture while the people listened. For them, the truth came not through the Water Gate in the walls of Jerusalem. The Word of God really mattered to the people. The people of Jerusalem craved the truth that came through Scripture.
Ezra the scribe/priest brings the book of the Law of Moses (Torah, the first five books of the Bible), which the LORD had given to Israel. The assembly includes males, females, and older children. It occurred on a day that would eventually become Rosh Hashana or New Year’s Day, a fitting time for religious renewal. He unrolled the scroll in the presence of the people. The people stood and bowed out of profound respect. Everything described in the text lends significance to this occasion. Irrespective of the people's ability to comprehend biblical Hebrew, the Levites -- temple assistants during the extant temples, sacral assistants during other eras -- moved through the crowd "helping the people to understand the law" (v. 7). The Levites explained the Law to the people. This was why Ezra came to Judah. Ezra read in Hebrew and the Levites interpreted in Aramaic. Rabbis saw this as the beginning of the Targums. This passage, along with 12:26, 36, emphasize the wholehearted support of the people for the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, while other references to opposition to their reforms make it unlikely that the support was as earnest as this passage suggests. Since this was a festival day, the people were not supposed to weep. The Levites calmed the people down, telling them to be quiet. They are to dry their eyes and prepare to feast. They can conduct their first official celebration of their new covenant with the LORD considering the law that commands charity for the poor. The Chronicler applies the rule in Deuteronomy in an obvious way. During the festival of booths, they are to rejoice as males and female Israelites, slaves, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows, as the Lord will bless their produce (Deuteronomy 16:13-15). The connection with Joshua shows a relation to the Law and wilderness period rather than agricultural festivals. He then urges them not to have grief. They are not to mourn or weep. The people were in tears as they listened to the Law.
Giving honor and respect to God involves humbly receiving the Word of God. As Psalm 19 puts it, this Word revives the soul, gives wisdom, grants insight, warns us, and corrects us. This Word is more precious to the believer than any material wealth.
Fortunately, the Bible does not focus upon the original language, as if it constituted the precise words of God. The Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek languages cannot be the only vehicles for the Word of God. Ezra had to translate the Hebrew into Aramaic. The Gospel writers translated the Aramaic words of Jesus into Greek. The New Testament authors often used the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Consequently, the focus of the Bible is on the message of the Bible, not individual words. We honor that message, the Word of God. For that reason, the Christians have translated the Bible into many languages over the centuries. We can celebrate when we hear the Word of God in our own language.
The words of the Bible are not just words on a page. The Book that contains these words ought not to be gathering dust. We need the discipline of giving attention to the Bible daily. Whether we realize it or not, we need what the Bible teaches us. We can freely admit that we struggle to understand it. The historical difference between the text and us may make it difficult at times. We may struggle to understand the context of difficult sayings. Yet, amid struggles, the Spirit makes the words live.
Understanding the Bible properly means that we “stand under” the Bible, allowing it to shape our lives. It may cause us to weep out of our need to repent, to turn our lives away from obsession with self and toward what God wants in our lives. It may cause to celebrate, as we daily see that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
A few times in the Bible, it seems like the Bible itself became part of a time capsule, forgotten by people. II Kings 22 is an example. During the reign of King Josiah, someone finds the book of the Law during a time of the restoration of the Temple. The discovery led to be a brief period of reform. A culture once acquainted with the images, metaphors, and values of the Bible can lose that interest. Future generations will find the speeches of early Presidents quite strange, simply because they will not have heard of the biblical and Christian background of America. The community of believes is to stand as a witness to the validity of the biblical witness.
The Israelite model for prophecy would eventually become consistency with Moses and the covenant (Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Year B Epiphany 4). The prophet becomes the spokesperson of Torah and defines Moses as the paradigmatic prophet. It discusses the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Word of God.[45]The Israelites are to heed the prophet who is like Moses. This statement arises out of the concern from the people that the Lord address them as directly as the Lord through Moses. The point is that prophecy mediates the word of God to the people, which contrasts with the prophet as diviner, where the prophet is involved with other forms of supernatural communication about the future that bears no resemblance to the covenantal law. The continuity of prophecy is assured by means of divine election. Other offices achieve their continuity by means of professional training and appointment, as with judges or kings or tribal membership. The Lord alone appoints the prophet, making the prophet independent of all institutions, and able to challenge them. In later Jewish tradition that was accepted by the New Testament understood the verse to promise a single, messianic prophet at the end of time. In John 1:21, Jesus denies being “the Prophet”, Philip refers to finding the one about whom Moses wrote (1:45), the people after the feeding of the multitudes declare Jesus to be the Prophet is to come into the world (6:14), and after his message at the Feast of Tabernacles the people declare him to be the Prophet (7:40). Peter refers to this text as fulfilled in Jesus (Acts 3:22) and Stephen does as well (Acts 7:37). Hebrews 1:1-2 says God speaks in Jesus in a way that surpasses the prophet and even Moses (Hebrews 3). The magnificent work of Moses was his combination of political, military, and religious leadership. He brought exclusive worship and service to Yahweh. Given his prominence, it is natural in that culture that the later monarchy would also confer upon him the title of prophet. Yet, the primary point is not to look back to Sinai but to the future role of the prophet. In Deuteronomy's view of history, there is an unbroken line of prophets from Moses to the present. The prophetic office is the adaptation by God to the weakness of Israel. While the messages proclaimed by these prophets will change over the years, the typical characteristics of prophecy will remain the same. First, all the prophets who genuinely speak the word of the Lord will receive a personal call from the Lord to their positions. Becoming a prophet is not a position one can learn or an office one can earn. In fact, a mark of true prophets is to disclaim their worthiness. Their "chosen" quality surprises them as well as others. These mouthpieces of the Lord will be the ongoing connection Israel has to the will of the Lord and to warnings from the Lord. The Lord will raise up prophets not just once or twice, but periodically, and for as long as the people need to hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, since the people cannot bear to hear God face to face and since the days of Moses are ending, the passage now promises them a continuing gift of prophets. They should never surrender to the temptation to take up the magical ways of other nations because the Lord will always commission prophets. Second, prophets need not have a concern about "coming up" with a pertinent message for the people. The Lord will put the words of the Lord in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to the people everything that the Lord command. The Prophet has the word of the Lord. These oracles do not originate from other deities, from dead spirits, from skilled manipulation of objects, or from the personal reflections of the prophet. The prophet reiterates the word of the Lord. That metaphorical promise is reused in the call narrative of Jeremiah in 1:9, where the Lord put words into the mouth of the prophet, and then dramatically enacted in the call of Ezekiel, where the metaphor is taken literally in 2:9-3:3, as the prophet has a vision of eating the scroll of the word of the Lord. The prophet does not have armies or wealth. The prophet has words. This pledge suggests that the messages of future prophets the Lord may call to proclaim will not necessarily be cheerful news, or "politically correct" announcements. However, they will be the word of the Lord. The passage forbids the prophets the luxury of editorializing. The passage charges them with the assignment to the people everything the Lord commands. Prophecy is the supreme office through which God will carry out the relationship between Israel and God. The Jewish expectation of a Messiah, a Prophet, a second Moses, has its basis on this passage. The prophet is mediator between God and humanity, the recipient of revelation, and the proclaimer of what God has revealed. It may be the text looks forward to an eschatological prophet or mediator. The portrayal of Moses as a prophet is that of intercession, suffering, and death, like II Isaiah's suffering servant. To do this, Deuteronomy goes back to ancient tradition of Israel refusing to hear God's voice directly, and Moses becoming the mediator. We can see this emphasis in Deuteronomy 5:24-31, where the people are afraid to draw near to the Lord but ask Moses to do so. He stands beside the Lord, the Lord gives Moses the commands, and Moses teaches the commands to the people.
The text suggests the possibility of the corruption of the office itself. The prophet, as a mouthpiece of the Lord, has great authority. The first danger is resistance to the word of the Lord through the prophet. The prophet needs valid authorization. This statement creates something of a problem for Israelites who would seek to follow divine mandates and directives. These prophets, those who speak in the name of the Lord, are to receive a welcome from the people. The Lord will hold accountable those who refuse to do so. In addition, the prophet is under strict orders. First, reminding us of the seductive nature of idolatry. Second, and just as guilty, would be the prophet who takes a message that is from them and pawn it off as the word of the Lord. Jeremiah declares that the lies of the prophet Hananiah will bring his death within the year (28:12-17). We read here of condemning to death anyone who would misrepresent the Lord and engage in false prophesying. This death sentence extends to two kinds of false prophets. The counterpart of the resistance by the people is the seduction of the prophet. Thus, the text subjects the prophet to the authority of the word. The passage threatens prophets with death if they add to it. Uttering false prophecies of either sort is a capital crime. Such a punishment no doubt kept the people from hearing an endless stream of would-be mouthpieces of the Lord. Taking up the prophetic mantle was a serious, even life‑threatening move. Only those genuinely called by the voice of the Lord should dare present themselves for scrutiny before the people.
In terms of the validity of the prophetic word, the author makes it quite easy on himself. The problem is the time before the events happen. See the struggle of Jeremiah in 28:8-9, where the prophet suggests that those who proclaim peace receive recognition as true prophets and those who proclaim disaster do not. This mandate, of course, begs the question asked in verse 21 "How can we recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?" The people rightly question their ability to determine which prophets are genuinely speaking God's words in God's name, and which are hiding behind the guise of God's name to deliver their own messages. The answer in verse 22 is not entirely satisfactory; it would seem to be helpful only in certain types of prophetic pronouncements. When the prophet is of the Mosaic type, offering day‑to‑day leadership and advice, this "test" of the word's efficacy would be easy to judge. Either the events unfold as predicted or they would not. However, there was to arise in Hebrew history another "type" of prophet whose message, though genuinely from God, looked centuries ahead and described more generalized trends and fates. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Hosea all spoke the truth about God's will and nature rather than lay down itemized lists of future events. In the case of these prophetic witnesses, judging the genuine nature of the word they proclaimed required a more sophisticated litmus test than the one offered here in verse 22. This is where the fate of a false‑speaking prophet comes in. Yet, such a notion contradicts Jeremiah 23:22, 29, where the prophet asks whether the word of the Lord is not like a fire and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. This second criterion makes the fulfillment of the oracle the measure of its truth. That approach attempts to solve a critical problem. If two prophets claim to speak on behalf of the Lord while making mutually exclusive claims, how may one decide which prophet speaks the truth? An example is Jehoshaphat asking 400 prophets whether he should go to war and they proclaim victory, Micaiah proclaims defeat (I Kings 226, 17). Jeremiah prophecies that any nation that does not bow before Nebuchadnezzar will be destroyed but Hananiah prophesied that the Lord will break the yoke of Babylon (Jeremiah 27:8, 28:2). The solution offered has difficulties. If a false prophet is distinguished by the failure of his oracle to come true, then making a decision in the present about which prophet to obey becomes impossible. Nor can this criterion easily reconcile with 13:3, which concedes that the oracles of false prophets might come true. Finally, the prophets frequently threatened judgment, hoping to bring about repentance, as in Jeremiah 7, 26:1-6. If the prophet succeeds, and the people repent, thereby averting doom, as in Jonah 3-4, one would assume the prophet to be authentic, since he has accomplished the goal of the Lord in the repentance of the people. Yet, according to the criteria here, the prophet who accomplished repentance is nonetheless a false prophet, since the judgment oracle that was proclaimed remains unfulfilled. Jeremiah, in contrast, notes that only the prophet who proclaims peace will be recognized as a genuine prophet if his prediction comes true. All this reflects the vigorous debate that took place in Israel about prophecy. The promise proves its truth in the way in which it places the intellect of the hearer in an inadequate position. It has not yet found its answer, and therefore draws the mind to the future, to obedient and creative expectation, and brings it into opposition to the existing reality that has not the truth in it. The promise provokes incongruence with reality in its consciousness of hoping and trusting. It holds out the possibility the transformation of reality. The promise presses forward to the future of a new reality.[46]
This passage considers prophets. It leads me to offer a few reflections on the prophetic role for today. Most of us have an ambiguous relationship with the whole notion of a prophet. The genuine prophet has a lover’s quarrel with the way the world is. If they did not love the world, they would not bother with their warnings of judgment or promises of redemption. They would just let the world go on as it is.[47] The genuine prophet is more like an artist than a social critic. A social critic will often blind themselves to possibilities due to the commitment to an ideology or agenda. Prophets are more like dreamers than they are wide-awake analysts. Dreamers find their way by moonlight. The punishment for dreamers and artists alike is that they see the dawn before the rest of the world does.[48] We might even say the prophet engages in dreaming or painting a picture of a fantasy involving a future world. The prophet does not ask if the vision is practical. The prophet taps into the imagination. Competency will lead to implementation, but if we are not imagining a future world, what has our competency gained? Imagination is not so much a danger as that which keeps faith, hope, and love alive. The work of the prophet, therefore, is more like the work of the artist. That is why totalitarian regimes are so afraid of artists and religions alike. Genuine religion, true artists and prophets, tend to keep conjuring up and proposing alternative futures to the tensions revealed in the present cultural, political, and economic worldview.[49]
The prophet is at the edge of institutional life. During the sacral kingship period in the Old Testament, the Lord ordinarily spoke through the institutional leaders of king and priest. The Lord worked through institutional life. Yet, the prophet holds the difficult position structurally and personally, with wisdom and grace, at the edge of the institution. It might be easier to leave the system. It might be easier to go along with whatever game the system is playing. The difficult role of the genuine prophet is that of finding a way to love the institution while pushing it to its limits. The irony is that the prophet receives an education in the ways of the institutional life of a culture while experiencing the freedom to analyze it. One needs to know the rules of the institution to break them properly. To break the rules properly is to help people envision a future world that relieves the tensions obvious in the present. Jesus did that in the way he broke Sabbath law and purity rules. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi are examples of those who broke the rules of the system from within. The prophet calls those in the institution to adhere to their founding documents and the vision contained in them. Calling the institution to remember its documents and heroes and that for which they stand requires the prophet to know well the very institutions the prophet hopes will envision a new future for themselves.[50]
The poet can refer to a heavenly court that consists of the gods of the nations that is subordinate to the Lord and the kings of the nations shall praise the ways of the Lord (Psalm 138, Year C Epiphany 5). The poet gives thanks to the Lord with his whole heart, a theme consistent with the Deuteronomic emphasis upon seeking, loving, and obeying the Lord with the whole heart (Deuteronomy 4:29, 6:5-6, 10:12-13, 10:2, 6, 10, Joshua 22:5; Proverbs 3:5-6; Jeremiah 29:11-14; Joel 2:12; Zephaniah 3:14; Luke 10:27.
He offers such praise before the gods (Elohim, Psalm 82:1, 89:7-8, 95:3), a translation that suggests a henotheistic faith, in that while Yahweh is God of Israel exclusively, other nations may have other gods. Such a notion moves against the assumption of many of us that the Old Testament represents a unified picture of a monotheistic faith that denies the existence of the gods. Yet, the historical situations in the Old Testament suggest a complex picture. Exodus 20:3, in commanding the Israelites to have no other gods before Yahweh, suggests other gods exist, but Israel is to have Yahweh. Psalmists could affirm that there is no one like Yahweh among the gods (86:8). The Lord is a great God and King above all gods (95:3). The Lord is to receive praise above all gods (96:4). All gods shall bow before Yahweh, putting their worshippers to shame (97:7). Such a notion reminds us that Israel slowly came to a monotheistic faith only in the time of Hezekiah and Josiah. Joshua 24 suggests that early Israelites worshiped many gods and goddesses, either bringing them with them into the Promised Land or adopted them as such once they arrived. Some Israelites tried to have an eclectic form of religion in which they combined worship of Yahweh with other gods (I Kings 11:33). Prophet after prophet thundered against people with idolatrous beliefs and practices (comparing such unfaithful worship and practices to adultery) because many people were not faithful to the Lord God of Israel alone. Elijah urged the people to decide instead of limping through their lives holding two different opinions. He urges them to follow Yahweh or Baal (I Kings 18:21). II Isaiah was the prophet who most vigorously called Israel to a strict monotheistic, non-idolatrous faith and way of living. There is no other god beside Yahweh, so they are to turn to Yahweh, who is righteous and the Savior. If they turn to Yahweh, they will receive salvation. Yahweh is God, and there is no other (Isaiah 45:21-22). A psalmist ponders why the nations ask where the God of Israel is. God is in the heavens and does whatever what God pleases. In contrast, their idols are the work of human hands, with mouths that do not speak, eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, noses that do not smell, hands that do not feel, and feet that do not walk. Those who trust in gods like these become like them. The psalmist then urges Israel to trust in the Lord, who is their help and shield (Psalm 115:2-9). Of course, Jesus affirmed the basic creed of Israel, the Shema, which stated that the Lord is one, and beside the Lord is no other (Deuteronomy 6:4 and Mark 12:28-34). The Bible arose over several periods of Israelite and Jewish biblical and theological history. Paul wrestles with these matters as well. He is clear in his monotheism, affirming that no idol truly exits and there is no God but one. Yet, he also affirms many gods and lords claim the allegiance of their worshippers, while for us, we worship one God revealed in Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 8:4-6). To return to our passage, then, we also need to remember that elohim could also refer to divine beings, the heavenly assembly, divine council, or even angels. The Tanakh translates the word as divine beings. New English Translation has “heavenly assembly”; the LXX Greek has ἀγγέλων (“angels”), and the Latin Vulgate has angelorum (“angels”). In Psalm 8:5 ’elohim is translated variously as “God” (NRSV), “the angels” (KJV) or “the heavenly beings” (NIV and NET). Thus, one could understand elohim as referring the divine council, comprised of Yahweh and other heavenly beings around the throne of Yahweh. Isaiah 6:1-13 suggests the Lord invites the prophet to the divine counsel for him to receive his vision, calling, and mission. Psalmists could suggest encouraging heavenly beings to ascribe glory and strength to Yahweh (29:1). God assumes the throne among the heavenly beings, which we could also understand to be gods (82:1). None of the heavenly beings compares to Yahweh, whom the heavenly beings fear (89:5-8). I repeat the observation that the Israelite and Jewish views of Yahweh, viewed in the context of its biblical and theological history, are more complex than we sometimes realize.
The poet bows toward the holy temple, the name of the Lord residing in the temple and where humans of ritual contact with the Lord, defining his giving thanks further in saying it is to your name for your steadfast love (hesed) and your faithfulness (‘emet), referring to the identity and and consistency of the eternal God in divine love turning toward those whom God has made.[51]
The spirit of praise and thanksgiving is one that anticipates victory and divine response. The only place to live our lives truly is out of gratitude. The longer we live in gratitude, the more we live a life of gratitude. We enjoy our neighbors more. Gratitude arises out of humility. It acknowledges the debt we owe to God and to other people. Gratitude admits that we would have nothing if it were not for what others have already given to us. We need to express this gratitude as often as we can, both to God and to others.[52] Unexpressed gratitude is plain, old-fashioned ingratitude. Genuine happiness will arise out of our cultivation of gratitude. People we intentionally thank will also experience increased happiness. Expressing gratitude is the stone thrown into the flat water. It creates a ripple that affects everything around it.[53]
The poet turns to the hope that others shall offer praise to the Lord. Human kings praise the Lord because they have seen how the Lord protects those who call upon the Lord. The only way this hope becomes true is the faithful witness of the people of the Lord throughout the earth. The Israelite king plans to publish abroad what the Lord has said. Even Paul had the confidence that faith comes from what one hears (Romans 10:17). However, this could mean in an eschatological sense. However, one could take the meaning here in an eschatological sense. Beyond the end of our human time, human beings shall offer praise.
The exalted Lord regards the lowly, a reversal reminiscent of the Song of Hannah (I Samuel 2:1-10) and the Magnificat of Mary (Luke 1:46-55). The Lord attends to the needs of the humble and pulls down the proud from miles away.
The occasion of this psalm is the confidence the poet has that the steadfast and loving (hesed) purposes of the Lord will not be thwarted. He refers to himself as the work of the hands of the Lord and asks the Lord to not forsake him. The Lord will bring the redemptive work of God to completion. The psalmist shares the confidence of the prophet that the word of the Lord shall accomplish the purpose the Lord intended and succeed in the matter of which the Lord sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11). This psalmist shares the confidence of Paul, who could remind his readers that the one who began a good work among them will bring that work to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
The rise of the prophet in Israel had a major influence upon the development Old Testament views of the Lord, the covenant with the Lord, and the ethical obligations of that covenant. They had challenging views regarding the king and foreign alliances.
Discerning the call of God upon our lives can be a challenging task (I Samuel 3:1-20, Year B Epiphany 2). The Lord addressed Samuel at a transitional moment in early Israel as it emerges out of the failure of the loose confederation of tribes led by occasional judges to deal with the challenge of the Philistines and toward the establishment of the Davidic Dynasty. The House of Eli is the culmination of that failure among the priestly class. Samuel will represent the best of the old prophets, religious leaders, and judges. He will also be the transitional figure to the prolonged period of sacral kingship. His birth and his call highlight his importance in the initial period of the history of Israel. Samuel has become obedient and dedicated to his position as he works with Eli at the shrine. The call Samuel is to hear from the Lord is unexpected because it had not happened in such a long time. The moral state of the family of Eli and the degeneration of spiritual life at Shiloh makes this result understandable. The writer presents Samuel as innocent and separate from such spiritual sickness. Further, the word of the Lord is not a reality in the same way that an object of sense perception is a reality. Matters quantifiable by math or science, even psychological explorations of the psyche, are real in the sense that they have a universal quality. In contrast, the word of the Lord is an event connected to a specific time, place, and people. This explains why it can become rare. In good Israelite tradition, the guiding of Samuel by the Lord begins with an event of the word.[54] Eli is growing old as a new generation is getting ready to replace him. The call of Samuel comes from the Ark, which was near to the place he slept. The summons is direct and personal, urgently calling him by name. It does not frighten him. He assumes a familiar source. Thus, since no one has had a divine communication for a long time, Samuel does not recognize the origin of the voice. Samuel does not know the voice when he responds Here I am! We see another example of the obedience and faithfulness of Samuel. He declares his eagerness to serve. Samuel does not know the Lord now in the way he shall know the Lord. The Lord is the author of the content of the prophetic word Samuel shall receive. Here, the word goes out from the Lord, with the coming disclosure or revelation in a way that shows the indirectness of revelation. What we have in this call is not so much self-disclosure as a content or message that comes from the Lord.[55] Eli still knows the proper way to respond to a call from the Lord and can help Samuel do so. His guidance, along with the faithful and obedient service Samuel renders, will become a pattern that many who hope to hear a call from the Lord will follow. Eli shows that the first step in becoming a prophet is a listening ear. One will need to become quiet, a difficult practice for many of us. Samuel is becoming open to his unique encounter with the Lord, even as each of us has our unique encounter with the Lord. Samuel identifies himself as a servant of the Lord. The message involves judgment upon the House of Eli. Eli seems dull here, in contrast to the guileless responsiveness of Samuel. In Chapter 1, Eli could not tell the difference between prayer and drunkenness. In this chapter, he does not recognize the voice of the Lord. He becomes a tragic-comic dramatic figure. The divine assertion marks the delegitimation of the dominant priestly family, and with it, the delegitimation of the entire symbolic sacrificial system on which Israel relied. The account begins and ends with reference to the word of the Lord.
A call from the Lord can seem strange. I think of several movies that have this theme, such as Field of Dreams, O God, Bruce Almighty, and Evan Almighty. In a humorous way, such movies make a serious point. As philosophers like Martin Buber would put it, human reality is dialogical. We are always people whom a preceding Thou addresses. This Thou, someone other than ourselves, some external other whose presence and address to us summons us forth, forms us into beings who are more human than we would have been without the address. This Other is different from us, but also inescapable; in conversation with us, yet free from us. We are not alone. This is the greatest divine gift, our greatest human attribute, and always our great problem.
Responding to a call from the Lord is a matter of responding to the “Thou” who addresses us, but in a way that walks a line between being excessively submissive and excessively resistant.[56] It will always require some time in discernment. In fact, much of life is a process of knowing when to assert and when to yield to the Other who gives our lives significance. If we do not know when to assert, we will submit to the Thou of the crowd and thus to harried conformity. Yet, not knowing when to submit will lead to arrogant self-indulgence and graceless self-sufficiency that never receives the gifts of life. The growth of our sense of self, who we are and why we are, depends upon the unsettling nature of our encounter with the Thou. The persistent work of humanity is between our desire for a protective embrace and a desire for heroic self-assertion.[57] I am not sure, but this entire sense of calling is a sense of the poignant rightness of our lives. Due to the inevitable call from Thou, we intuitively sense that Thou and I must find each other. In the finding is our peace and harmony. Until they find each other, we might also sense that the disharmony we experience must be temporary. This encounter will penetrate us in a loving way. Some will find the surprise that the encounter is far more about joy than fear. Our sense of incompletion, frustration, purposelessness, and wandering, will give way to completion, harmony, and home.[58]
Jeremiah shared his experience of the calling of the Lord upon his life (Jeremiah 1:4-10, Year C Epiphany 4). The calling of Jeremiah is like that of Moses in that the Lord calls him into familiarity with God and the counsel of the Lord,[59] both reflecting reluctances to receive the call. Other call narratives involve Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1-3, each account reflecting the role and personality of the prophet.
Like most Old Testament "call" narratives, Jeremiah's personal experience involves six steps. First, he records a divine confrontation. We do not receive an indication of the form of this word, which can mean a spoken word, “report,” “thing,” “matter,” “affair” or “business.” In this case, it refers to a direct auditory revelation to Jeremiah. One utters this word to a particular historical context. This word points to his dependence upon the Lord, suggesting that he would have to abandon himself if he were to abandon this task.[60] This view of the consecration is unusual, but Isaiah 49:1, where the Lord appointed him before he was born, is similar. The idea of being set apart for the task of serving the Lord, without regard to demonstrated qualifications, is rooted in the idea of the consecration of the firstborn as the Lord’s portion (Exodus 13:2, 12; 34:19). After the confrontation with the Lord, Jeremiah receives a commission. The prophet explains his inability to do anything else but follow his call. His response is to offer reservations regarding his ability, like those of Moses (Exodus 4:10-15), as well as those of Solomon (I Kings 3:7). It is a weak argument even if he had not made it to the Divine. At the time of his call (627), Jeremiah is approximately 18 years old - young, but according to the cultural standards, hardly a "boy." What is more, it is fitting that, at the time the religious reforms undertaken by the boy-king Josiah are restoring Yahweh's honor, the Word of the Lord should come to boy-prophet, Jeremiah. Self-knowledge comes about when confronted by the mission and call of God. We might have here an answer to the dominant question of philosophical anthropology: Who am I? The answer of the prophetic call narratives is that the answer arises out of a divine mission, charge, and appointment that transcends the bounds of the humanly possible. Confronted by his call, he recognizes what he is and was. Self-knowledge comes about when confronted by the mission and call of God, which demand impossibilities of humanity. It is knowledge of self, humanity, guilt, and the impossibility of one’s own existence when confronted with the possibilities demanded by the divine mission. One attains knowledge of oneself by discovering the discrepancy between the divine mission and one’s own being, by learning what one is and what one is to be, yet what one cannot be in one’s own strength. The call becomes the prospect of a new ability to be. One learns who one is not from within oneself but from the future to which the divine mission leads one. We learn who we are only by the history to which the missionary hope leads one. In this history of missionary possibilities, one recognizes that we are open to the future and therefore hope for new possibilities of being. This means our future is hidden from us in the present and will be revealed to us in the projects that open up to us as we fulfill the mission.[61] The Lord overcomes the reluctance by a promise of divine presence in the process of fulfilling the commission. Finally, the Lord seals the call with a sign, focusing upon his mouth as the instrument of divine speech through him, the hand of the Lord touching his mouth. The narration assumes Jeremiah is worthy of receiving the call and he survives the hand of the Lrod touching him. He is describing a level of intimacy deeper than either Isaiah or Ezekiel could comprehend. With his prophetic words, Jeremiah is to pluck up, to break down, to destroy, to overthrow, thus four verbs related to destruction, to build and to plant, two verbs related to restoration. His primary theme will be destruction.
The prophet can relate a vision of the Lord in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-13, Year C, Epiphany 5). It occurs in 742, the year King Uzziah died. It relates the call of Isaiah or a new stage in his prophetic career. If it relates his calling, it is odd that we do not find it at the beginning of the book. The passage bears strong similarity with Exodus 3-4, 6, Jeremiah 1, and Ezekiel 1-3. This passage is an example of the multiplicity of biblical ideas of revelation. Here, while worshipping in the temple at Jerusalem, Isaiah becomes part of the counsel of the Lord and receives his commission. [62] Many scholars think the specific setting for chapter 6 to be an annual religious drama conducted in the temple. This drama, known as the Enthronement Celebration (see Psalms 47, 93 and 96-99), depicted the return of the Divine King to the temple as victor over the forces of evil to receive the crown as king, creator, and judge of his people. The call of Isaiah to become a prophet of God is the best-known event in Isaiah's life. If the vision recorded in 6:1 marks the start of Isaiah’s ministry. His words to Ahaz were uttered not long after his ministry in Jerusalem began and may have propelled him from the ranks of ordinary court prophets to pre—eminent status. Isaiah was a part of the privileged class within Jerusalem as indicated by his ease of access to the centers of power. His presence around the temple normally restricted to priests might place Isaiah within that class. Might he have been among the 80 priests of valor who confronted King Uzziah on his ill-fated attempt to offer a sacrifice within the temple precinct (II Chronicles 26:16-21)? Certainly, uppermost in Isaiah's affections was his love for the city of Jerusalem and his interest in the special relationship between YHWH and the Davidic dynasty.[63]
When the nation is going through a difficult transition from a popular and effective ruler to his unproven and less popular son, Jotham. I hope I am not reading too much into this, but it sounds like Isaiah is worried about the future. Without Uzziah at the top, what is to happen? He knew that the next king would not be like Uzziah. After all the good that Uzziah accomplished, the new king could wipe it all away. Isaiah needed the reminder that it is not good to place too much trust human beings in general and in political leaders. They often disappoint us. Those whom we think of as leaders, as celebrities, and lift far above ourselves as idols, often turn out to be too much like us. They are weak. They have feet of clay. Yet, we find it easy for fame, beauty, intellect, wealth, and power to impress us. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Many passages in the Bible conceive of the Lord as a physical being whom a few can see, as in Exodus 24:11, 33:11, and Numbers 12:8. The vision occurs in the temple, during an act of worship. Thus, on one Sabbath day, Isaiah entered the temple. Isaiah was dejected, anxious, yet hopeful that the Lord would give him a sign. He offered his prayers. The priests performed their duties. All went on as before. However, this time Isaiah saw the Lord. A dejected prophet caught a vision of the real king. He had been so impressed with the accomplishments of a human king. He needed a reminder that not all was lost. The real king was still in charge. He caught a vision of who the Lord really was. This was no ordinary Sabbath day. Everything had changed. Isaiah would not be the same after this. Throughout much of his ministry, Isaiah tried to persuade the king not to put his trust in foreign alliances. Rather, amid the complicated politics of that period, he needed to place his trust in the Lord. The king simply did not listen. His vision included the presence of Seraphs mixed creatures popular in Egyptian symbolism as guardian deities, other visions of the heavenly court being I Kings 22:19-23 and Job 1-2. They sing an antiphon, thrice repeating holy, indicating the surpassing holiness of YHWH. As for the Christian reader, wise counsel suggests a need to avoid taking the threefold "Holy" of verse 3 or the "us" of verse 8 in any Trinitarian sense. The former is for emphasis; the latter is YHWH addressing those attending his throne. Yet, the hymn by Reginald Heber (1826) has part of its imagery from this verse. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” the hymn begins, who is merciful and mighty, “God in three persons blessed Trinity.”
Isaiah reacts to this vision with recognizing his need for cleansing if he is to commence his life as a prophet. His guilt is overwhelming. He feels unfit to be the mouthpiece of the Lord. The point of the cultic separation of what is holy, of what is dedicated to the Lord or related to the Lord, and especially of the deity and the places and times of the divine presence, is not just to protect the holy against defilement by contact with the profane. The separation has the design of protecting the world of the profane from the threat of the holy. This explains why Isaiah in this verse responds to a vision of the holy Lord with terror.[64] However, one wonders if we might not have here an answer to the dominant question of philosophical anthropology: Who am I? The answer of the prophetic call narratives is that the answer arises out of a divine mission, charge, and appointment that transcends the bounds of the humanly possible. Confronted by his call, Isaiah recognizes himself to be personally full of guilt. Self-knowledge comes about when confronted by the mission and call of God, which demand impossibilities of humanity. It is knowledge of self, humanity, guilt, and the impossibility of one’s own existence when confronted with the possibilities demand by the divine mission. One attains knowledge of oneself by discovering the discrepancy between the divine mission and one’s own being, by learning what one is and what one is to be, yet what one cannot be in one’s own strength. The call becomes the prospect of a new ability to be. One learns who one is not from within oneself but from the future to which the divine mission leads one. We learn who we are only by the history to which the missionary hope leads one. In this history of missionary possibilities, one recognizes that we are open to the future and therefore hope for new possibilities of being. This means our future is hidden from his in the present and will be revealed to us in the projects that open up to us as we fulfill the mission.[65] He is also aware of the guilt of the people of the Lord. Their “unclean” lips could not stand before the eternal King and therefore they have fallen victim to death. The judgment of God upon the people of God confirmed this verdict.[66] Part of discipleship may be this confession and anguish over what we have done before the Lord. The suggestion from Carl Jung was that a patient spend time along with himself, and the response of the patient was that he would not think of worse company, to which Jung replied that this is the self you inflict on other people every day.[67] Thus, part of the Christian tradition is the promising idea of daily confession. Granted, some persons can spend their day with a “woe is me” attitude, forgetting that the Lord comes to unworthy people. Thus, despite the unworthiness of Isaiah and the people to which he would offer his prophetic ministry, the Lord appeared to him, going through an act of ritual cleansing that displays unimaginable grace as a seraph touches his mouth, an act that cleanses his whole being.
Few things are as self-evident as the sinfulness of us as individuals and our collective experience as human beings (Reinhold Niebuhr). Yet, our notion of self-fulfillment sets aside moral codes as impediments to our self-fulfillment. It denies that a basic struggle in growing a soul and making us increasingly humane is learning the difference between right and wrong. If learning such a difference develops the heart, we live in a time when the leaders of the self-fulfillment model want to remove the heart and still demand that the heart function.[68] Instead of self-fulfillment and the removal of moral categories being an advance over previous generation, it may well be that we have become dishonest about the human condition. We are sick rather than sinful. If so, it may well be that apart from an encounter with God, sin is a sickness or slipup we can easily dismiss. In that sense, genuine knowledge of God brings a genuine sense of human impoverishment. False knowledge of God can bring arrogance.[69] Christians can have such honesty regarding their condition because of a prior confidence a forgiving and gracious God. The human heart is a great battleground between good and evil, between certain natural human inclinations, and the good that God intends for us. With the awareness of the great gap between God and us is also the awareness that the grace of God overcomes us. Thus, while Peter may urge Jesus to depart from him because is a sinful man (Luke 5:1-11), the good news is that he never does.
Isaiah will receive a divine commission. Grace becomes obvious as the broken and sinful Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord. The Lord comes with forgiveness and grace, and therefore a mission. Isaiah identifies himself before the Lord with faith, trust, and courage. He wants to do what needs to be done. He has no authority outside this commission. His commission involves recognition of that the people will reject the message. Isaiah wants this period of rejection to have an end, but only the wars to come and their devastation will signal the end.
The final two verses derive from 587 BC, where if they think they have received enough judgment, they will receive more. The Lord will send them far away so that only a stump remains, a small remnant. The renewal of the nation will arise from this stump.
The story of Naaman's healing by the prophet Elisha is one of several examples of the "foreigner-aided-by-Yahweh's-agent" type of tale (II Kings 5:1-14, Year B Epiphany 6). Other examples include Abraham's healing of Abimelech's barren household (told by E in Genesis 20:17-18, the only occasion, significantly in this context, of the author calling Abraham a "prophet," v. 7). We also have two post-exilic tales, one of Joseph's protection of Egypt against famine (Genesis 41:37-57), and the other of Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:24-45). Naaman is the noble pagan upon whom the Lord looks favorably in granting them success. In this case, it includes the Lord granting military success to Aram over Israel. His leprosy, a generic term for many skin diseases, places him in a select group of Old Testament characters who received healing of it. The only other characters that are healed of leprosy in the Old Testament are Moses (who is both afflicted in an instant by God, and healed just as quickly in a display of divine power Exodus 4:6-7), and Miriam (whom Moses cures through prayer but who nonetheless must submit to a seven-day quarantine, Numbers 12:1-15). God strikes Azariah, also known as Uzziah, with leprosy but God does not heal him of the disease. He remained in quarantine in the royal precinct and his son ruled under his regency until his death after 52 years as king (II Kings 15:5; II Chronicles 26:16-23). This means that Naaman is only the fourth named character the Old Testament describes as a leper (four unnamed lepers appear in II Kings 7), and he is the only one whose condition the text does not describe as God directly inflicting it and healing it.
The issue in Israelite legislation regarding was not healing but becoming ritually clean so that one can participate in the worship life of Israel. The victim simply shaved and burned his or her clothes and submitted to quarantine until the priests declared him clean (Numbers 5:2-3; Leviticus 13:1-14:3). Once the priest declared one clean, however, there was a very elaborate ritual to finalize the victim’s reentry into the community (Leviticus 14:3-32). The first stage in the ritual involved dipping a live bird, a scarlet string, some cedar wood, and some hyssop in a solution made from running water and the blood of a sacrificial bird. The priest sprinkles the victim of leprosy seven times and releases the live bird to go free (Leviticus 14:4-7). Following this first ritual, the one needing cleansing submitted to more shaving, burning of clothes, bathing and seven more ritual days of separation before the eighth day, on which a series of involved sacrifices of both animals and grain began. At one stage the former leper received anointing, and eventually the priest performed many of the same rituals on the leper’s house to cleanse it as well (Leviticus 14:8-57).
One motif of the story is that people of higher social status depend upon people of lower status. God seems to work through simple things and unimpressive things. We discover this pattern frequently in our lives. Simple things, like sitting on a log and examining the flowers and creeping things around it, can become life-changing experiences as they help us appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. Naaman depends on counsel from his wife reporting information from an Israelite slave girl. The king of Aram depends on the king of Israel. The king of Israel depends on Elisha. He is unaware of the healing powers of Elisha while a servant girl in Aram is aware of them. Confronted with a diplomatic issue, he never thinks of turning to the Lord or to a prophet. Naaman depends on the advice of his servants and Elisha. Naaman’s healing and conversion to Yahwism combines both the emphasis on the extraordinary, characteristic of the Elijah-Elisha stories (1 Kings 16:29-2 Kings 13:21), and the theological concern for Israel’s neighbors characteristic of the Deuteronomic history, of which the story is a small part (cf 1 Kings 8). The characters that we find scattered throughout the plot of the Naaman story seem to lie at opposite ends of the power spectrum. On one end, there are two ruling kings, a great warrior/commander, and a respected prophet. On the other end, there are a captured slave girl and common servants of a powerful man. Yet as the story unfolds, those who are in a position of servitude constantly direct Naaman in the right direction. The lowest, least, and last make it possible for healing to take place. The story contrasts the hiddenness of the ways of God and the insignificance of the means that Yahweh employs.
Luke 4:27 refers to this story as an example of God's care for non-Israelites. Jesus refers to the healing of Naaman as an example of a foreigner's faith working wonders impossible among the chosen, but superficial, people. In the Lucan context, the reference is a judgment against the faithlessness of the Israelites. In Its original context, the story has a less negative connotation: It signifies God's care not only for the chosen people, but for outsiders as well, a theme found elsewhere in the Deuteronomic History, and articulated most eloquently in Solomon's great prayer of dedication of the Jerusalem temple (I Kings 8:30, 34, 36, 39, 50, and especially vv. 41-43).
We see the personal and pastoral side of the prophetic service of Elisha. Since Naaman was an official of Syria and was a righteous man, the Lord blessed him and Syria. The story emphasizes the hiddenness of the ways of the Lord and the and the insignificance of the means the Lord uses to accomplish those ways. Such ways of the Lord stand in sharp contrast to the Syrian king, who makes the entire matter an affair of the State. Naaman appears with his large contingent of soldiers and servants to the abode of the prophet, no doubt expecting to receive the honor due to him. Instead, Elisha sends out his servant with a message. Elisha refuses to comply with a miracle. He gives Naaman the option of learning obedience. Of note is that the prescription of Elisha does not involve divine guidance or prayer. The healing is almost incidental to the two interactions between Elisha and Naaman. The anger of Naaman suggests pride, even though his actual setting is simply that of a person in need. In restoring his flesh to that of a young boy, we have a unique description of purity. His obedience is a lesson in humility. After the healing, Naaman wants to take home some earth from Israel and to worship the Lord in Syria. The original readers of the story would be touched by the desire of this man to worship the God of Israel on foreign soil. He would have a sacramental attachment to the Lord through this earth. In asking to bow at the side of his king when he worshipped Rimmon back home, the original readers are in suspense, since they are aware of the first of the ten commandments. Elisha has profound pastoral insight. He imposes no law upon Naaman. In inviting him to go in peace, Elisha is commending his future faith to the Lord. The initial response of the prophet to Naaman was harsh, but in the end he is generous. Naaman stands in sharp contrast to the greedy servant of Elisha, Gehazi.[70]
The Lord delivers retribution in the context of reconciliation and renewal (Hosea 2:14-20, Year B Epiphany 8). The movement from condemnation to mercy is striking. Divine grace is opposed is opposed to what the human recipients deserve. Grace will come, even if it means flying in the face of all rhyme and reason, which is why grace is amazing. This speaks of restored relationships. The leading of Israel into the wilderness could mean either the enterprise of making a special people had failed or that there will be a new beginning. The idea is that of speaking intimately is that of courtship. A powerful image is that Valley of Achor, the site of the sin of Achor (Joshua 7:24-26), and a boundary for Judah (Joshua 15:7), and which will become fertile (III Isaiah 65:10) will become a door of hope. The promises here have no relationship to any change in Israel. The husband will bring the wife, Israel, back. The wife will be faithful forever and the husband, the Lord, will restore the fertility of the land. Nature participates in the renewal of the marital covenant. While II Samuel 5:20 and I Chronicles 14:11 refer to the Lord as a baal, Hosea clearly disapproves of the practice. He envisions the future rejection of the worship practices surrounding Baal and the acceptance by Israel of the Lord as her husband. Using an eschatological formula, the covenant the Lord will make “on the day” with nature and humanity will mean universal harmony. The prophet speaks of the covenant of peace. The beneficiaries of the covenant are the children. A covenant like this has its nearest account in Gen 9:8-11. Verses 19-20, 21-22 in the Hebrew Bible, are well known in Jewish liturgy. The literal translation is that I will betroth you, Israel, to Me forever, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in kindness and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. The tradition involves saying these verses when winding the straps of the tefillin or phylacteries three times round the middle finger.
An important promise is that the Lord will push back the darkness with the coming of light (Isaiah 9:1-4, Year A Epiphany 3). While now in darkness, gloom, and anguish, “in the latter time,” an apocalyptic reference, glory will return to the northern parts of Israel. A sign for Ahaz is the coming of light. Darkness never sleeps. It is always open for business. Darkness entices its victims with whispers of illicit pleasure, then springs the trap. Darkness has swallowed up far too many lives and devoured them whole. It is against the darkness of his historical period that Isaiah foresees a great light. Note that the voice of this poem is in the past tense, as though these events have already taken place. The prophet can look back and tell the people with confidence what has already occurred. Against the dismal present that traps the people, the prophet sees that the light has come. They live in deep darkness or in the shadow of death, a palpable malevolence that frightens. People of every age and culture know this darkness. A personal darkness comes from depression, disillusionment, or doubt. It originates in discouraging work or a deteriorating relationship. It comes from having nothing to look forward to, no contribution to make, or no one to love. Yet, on such persons the light of the Lord has shined. Matthew 4:14-16 quotes this passage. The point Matthew makes is a good one. As Jesus begins his ministry in the region surrounding Galilee, the territory that once belonged to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, he fulfills the hope contained in this prophecy by Isaiah. Future well-being depends on the defeat of the enemy. The scenes of liberation Isaiah recalls are classic. As slaves in Egypt, the burdens of their oppressors had become their yoke. Nevertheless, the Lord miraculously broke the unmerciful rod of Egypt and freed the people.
The Lord had a controversy with Israel (Micah 6:1-8, Year A Epiphany 4). Human beings often have a controversy with the Lord due to the depth and breadth of suffering, but here, the Lord brings a legal lawsuit against the Israelites because of how they treat each other. The Lord rises to plead the case before the created order. Israel had no reason to abandon the Lord, for the Lord had done no wrong. The Lord was gracious to Israel. The Lord has the right to be weary of the disobedience. Isaiah 43:24 refers to the disobedience of Israel as a burden and making the Lord weary. Malachi 2:17 also speaks of Israel making the Lord weary through their disobedience. Instead of admitting growing weariness over Israel's disobedience, Yahweh offers a case history of the divine steadfastness and salvation visited upon Israel over the centuries. The gracious acts mentioned relate to the exodus from Egypt, the period of wandering in the desert, including the Balak-Balaam story in Numbers 22-24, and the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3-4. The Lord sent impressive leaders like Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, treating the sister equally with her brothers, which contrasts with the narrative we have in the Torah. The Lord protected them and brought them into the Promised Land. All this was so that they would know the savings acts of the Lord. The text changes course. As Israel wonders what it can do to earn back acceptance from the Lord, it offers a list of cultic activities whose purpose is to put God and the people back into a right relationship. The list of sacrificial actions that they might take grows in fervor and flamboyance, raising the religious question of that in which true worship consists of? They can bow before the Lord, they can offer the costly and highly prized yearling calf, they can make an outrageously lavish demonstration of sacrifice available only to the king of many rams and a large amount of oil, or even the forbidden sacrifice of the first born, and the Lord will not forgive their transgression. Torah had long outlawed child sacrifice but continued as a sporadic practice throughout the ancient Near East. Genesis 22 and the King of Moab II Kings 3:27 and the horror it brought upon Israel relate to this. Further, Micah was not alone in his concern about the animal sacrifices required by Torah. His contemporary in Isaiah 1:11-17 also says the multitude of sacrifices of animals mean nothing. Another contemporary, in Amos 5:21-24, says the Lord hates their festivals and solemn assembling’s in which they make burnt and grain offerings. Psalm 40:6-8 says the Lord does not desire sacrifice and offering. Psalms 40:6 says the Lord has not required of the poet sacrifice, burnt offering, or sin offering. Psalm 50:7-11 says every animal already belongs to the Lord, so sacrifice and offering do not make sense. Psalm 51:16-17 says the Lord finds no delight in sacrifice and burn offering. Deuteronomy 10:12-13 very closely parallels Micah 6:8: “So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear [revere] 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 of the LORD your God. …” A strong part of the tradition is to guide people away from dependence upon sacrifices and offerings, as if they replace a life of obedience. Although Micah knows that sacrifice is a necessary part of a right relationship with God, which Mosaic Law commanded and carefully detailed in Leviticus 1-6, these actions in themselves are still not enough. Historically, Israel in Canaan at first made modest use of sacrifice. However, as the religion of Canaan influenced Israel, it became more elaborate. Amos accepted the lower view of sacrifice, and earlier in I Samuel 15:22, where obedience is better than sacrifice. Hosea and Isaiah shared reservations about sacrifice. Hosea 6:6 (cited by Jesus in Matthew 9:13; 12:7), “For I desire mercy [hesed], not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Jeremiah had some challenging words in this regard: frankincense and burnt offerings are not acceptable (6:19-20). They need to amend their ways, act justly, and refuse to oppress (7:5-7). In the period of the exodus the Lord did not command them to present burnt offerings, but to walk in obedience to what the Lord commanded (7:21-26). One can properly boast only in knowing and understanding the Lord with love, justice, and righteousness (9:23-24). The wisdom teachers were consistent with this emphasis: the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination while the prayer of the upright brings delight to the Lord (Proverbs 15:8), which while true, even more so is the sacrifice of those with evil intent (21:27), while the doing righteousness and justice is more acceptable than sacrifice (21:3). Even in NT times, there were rabbis who did not value sacrifice highly. Jesus has an analogous concern when he said the Pharisees counsel tithe on the smallest thing while neglecting the weightier matters of the torah, such as justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23) and when he said that loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor is greater than observing the law regarding burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:28-34). The writer of Hebrews takes it further, saying that we are wise not to interpret such reservations as a rejection of Temple offerings. Some NT passages follow certain OT passages’ lead in spiritualizing sacrifice. Thus, since the sacrifice of animals cannot take away sin, the Son told the Father that he would offer his body so that the sacrifice of animals is abolished, thereby establishing the priority of doing of the will of the Father (Hebrews 10:4-10), continually offering the sacrifice of praise, doing good, and sharing with others, which are the sacrifices that please the Father (Hebrews 13:15-16), offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to the Father through Jesus as the Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Such notions in the Old Testament expresses the common concept of the primacy of morality over sacrifices. Thus, we need not find such counsel mystifying. We may resolve the issue by seeing a combination of ironic and/or spiritualizing language and a corresponding call to return to a form of religious practice that does not use even proper religious observances as a cover-up for disobedience to God and unrighteousness, especially injustice. A religion of the heart will lead its observers not only to observe ceremonial practices, but also to live a righteous and just life in a society that shows love for God and neighbor.
The climax of the text is the response of the prophet to the list of ritual responses. They can make things right with the Lord by following a threefold path. He addresses them as mortals (adam), stressing their creatureliness, but also the universality of the expectations of these spiritual attitudes and attributes. Humanity is to follow the path of what is good, which is to act human-to-human with justice and kindness, and toward the divine to live in communion with God by living humbly, modestly, and wisely, as did Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24). Such actions outweigh ritual. While Israel faced a crisis, Micah simplifies by focusing upon the purpose of the existence of Israel. This suggests that we show who we are by the commitments we make, for better or worse. We are creating who we are through the experiences of our lives, the relationships we form, and the choices we make. As we do so, we are in the process of expressing what is important to us and what truly matters to us.
One common metaphor for the experience of the believer is to wait upon the Lord (Psalm 40:1-11, Year A Epiphany 2). It suggests that the person at prayer is waiting for the Lord to become aware of the situation and act. Even the metaphor of the Lord inclining toward the one praying suggests the image that the Lord needs to focus, pay attention, and listen carefully. Description of the condition in which the person at prayer is in find expression in images related to the abode of the dead, such as a desolate pit or a miry bog or slimy clay, a place in which one would have a difficulty finding a secure place to stand. It would be difficult to find safety without help from someone else. These were descriptions of the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia. No one is supposed to escape. The metaphor refers to a grave illness that has created a death-like situation, given it could refer to a soldier who has escaped death (gever in verse 4 usually refers to a fighting male). Thus, to experience rescue is to find that the Lord provides the one at prayer a secure place upon which to stand, returning to normal life, but doing so by giving the one at prayer a new song, which finds expression in this psalm. The funeral dirge that had described his life in the past has become a hymn of praise. Along with many other human beings in history, the brush with death, the greatest challenge any of us faces, has led to a new experience with life. The way he faces this experience reveals who he is. He is confident that his experience and his witness to that experience will encourage others to trust the Lord. Such trust will bring genuine happiness and good fortune, reflecting the influence of the wisdom tradition. The experience may have tempted him to respond in a way different from that of trust. Such persons will find happiness because they turn from the proud and boisterous who find false gods to worship. In contrast, the wondrous, mighty deeds of the Lord that one can recount from the past have multiplied in the present. Even the divine thoughts toward the one who trusts in the Lord have multiplied, reflecting a wisdom understanding. Gratitude for this rescue by the Lord leads to a reflection upon the fact that animal offering and meal offering is not what the Lord desires, nor does the Lord require the animal sacrifice that requires its consumption in the fire, nor the purification offering. In this case, the proper gratitude is obedience. Such a notion is not common in the priestly community of Israel, but is common in the wisdom and prophetic tradition, both of which had a concern for how people could think they have pleased the Lord by fulfilling the ritual when they are only camouflaging their moral failings. He brings the scroll of his life before the Lord, for his delight is to do the will of the Lord, for the law upon which he meditates is within his heart. He testifies to the congregation his renewed dedication to the Lord who has saved him. He asks the Lord to grant mercy, steadfast love, and faithfulness, which will keep him safe forever.
When friends forsake and persecute, it can lead to a reflection on human malice (Psalm 62:5-12, Year B Epiphany 3). In such a setting, only God brings stillness to the soul. Silence is often the occasion of our souls waiting for God to respond. Elijah will finally hear a sound of sheer silence (I Kings 19:12), quietness and trust shall be your strength (Isaiah 30:15), and it is good for one to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord (Lamentations 3:26). The period of waiting "in silence" is an attentive one. It is not total silence: the poet actively verbalizes encouraging words to people about God and words of praise to God. The "silence" is more a quiet inner confidence in God when fears arise. The poet waits expectantly for and is in eager anticipation of (tiqwah) the derives for God. In an analogous way, those who wait in this way will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31) and has hope (yahal) in the word of the Lord (Psalm 130:5), and the Lord plans to give them a future worth such eager anticipation (Jeremiah 29:11). Hope in the prayers of the Psalms is always in God. Only that hope is sustainable that does not derive from our own vitality or depend on what is perishable but directs itself toward God and grounds itself in God.[71] God is his rock, his salvation, and his fortress, so nothing can shake him. His deliverance and honor rests on God. He then encourages the community to trust (batah) in God, reflecting the need for security and safety, placing themselves in the capable hands of God, and therefore not to concern themselves too much with their present circumstances. He urges them to pour out their hearts to God, since God is a refuge for the community. He is confident God will act in his behalf against the battering of his tormenters. Regardless of the present economic and social status, they last as long as a breath and are as light as breath. This leads to the ethical exhortation not to place hope in extortion or robbery. Even if riches increase, one must not set the heart upon them. The basis of his trust is the word God has spoken to him that affirms that power and steadfast love belongs to the Lord, for the Lor repays everyone according to their work, a notion we find in Matthew 16:27; Romans 2:6-8; II Corinthians 5:10; and Revelation 22:11-12.
Trust is important, but it is also dangerous. It is important because it allows us to form relationships with others and to depend on others -- for love, for advice, for help with our plumbing, or what have you -- especially when we know that no outside force compels them to give us such things. However, trust also involves the risk that people we trust will not pull through for us; for, if there were some guarantees that they would pull through, then we would have no need to trust them. Thus, trust is also dangerous. What we risk while trusting is the loss of the things that we entrust to others, including our self-respect which the betrayal of our trust can shatter. Because trust is risky, the question of when something or someone outside us deserves our trust is of particular importance. I am referring to that which justifies our trust, as in a trustworthy person. When the object deserves our trust, it minimizes our risk in trust. We could also ponder whether trust becomes plausible in certain circumstances.[72]
We have so many choices. Most of us like to keep options open. As the number of options increases, the cost in terms of time and effort of making good choices increases. Our level of uncertainty about our final choice rises. The more choices we have, the more anxiety we feel about someday regretting the choice we have made. Studies have shown that increased choices lead to some depression. One can develop increased pessimism about the future, since one never truly chooses. The surprising result is that constraints on choice could lead to a sense of control over your life.[73] The point made here is that, when you have clear boundaries and constraints, you are more likely to be at peace with yourself. Therefore, you discover one of the keys to happiness when you place yourself within a trustworthy framework of belief and life. Reducing your choices in a reasonable and justifiable way will lead to increased happiness. Too often we are aimlessly floating with random currents of the moment. We need to rediscover the blessing of purposefully walking within determinate places. If we have lost a vision of the good life and that which constitutes such a life, our lives will feel more like aimless floating from one thing to the next.[74]
The Lord is creator and savior (II Isaiah 40:21-31, Year B Epiphany 5). Viewing the Lord as creator allows this prophet to anticipate a new saving action that demonstrate afresh divine power.[75] The first knowledge of God is general or natural revelation, appealing to the natural world as the sign of the presence of the Lord with Israel. He affirms divine transcendence, using the ancient cosmology of a dome spread above the earth and the Lord observing the earth from that distance. This creator brings rulers of the earth to nothing, for their rule is temporary while the presence of the Lord is enduring. The creator remains invested in creation, especially concerned and involved with the ongoing struggles of Israel. The Lord is the Holy One, and therefore without equal, becoming the hope of redemption for the exiles.[76] The Lord names the hosts of astral beings and numbers them, signifying the power the Lord has over them. As the creator, the Lord is tireless and full of vitality, being exactly what the weak and faint exiles need. They shall renew their strength with divinely given vigor.
Life can wear us down. We, too, have a journey through life that can be exhausting and sapping, for there is no shortage of things that wear us down. To wait on the Lord is a challenge and a puzzle. How do we wait on the Lord? If we wait on the Lord, we are making time and creating space for the exploration of the meaning of our lives and the resources for the journey. No matter what happens, our lives are in the hands of the Lord, and they are hands bearing great love.
Happiness (‘ashr’ and Makarios, blessedness) consists in pursuing the good life through a life of righteousness (Psalm 41, Year B Epiphany 7). Those who give to the poor have such blessedness. The Lord protects such persons. The Lord sustains them while ill and heals their infirmities. The prayer begins and ends as a petition for the grace of God because the psalmist perceives illness is due to sin. The illness gave rise to speculation about sin, which have added more suffering to the experience. His concern for the perishing of his name would suggest that, if married, he has no children. It may suggest that he has not yet married. His enemies whispering together suggests a curse or spell in their imagining the worst for him. The poet describes his social isolation, as enemies abandon him, but even a close friend has done so. Jesus in John 13:18 refers to this verse in the context of Judas betraying him. For the poet, justice is a matter of equalizing the scales of justice. If his enemies have done him wrong, then right is a matter of addressing the lack of balance. His prayer is a plea for the doing of the righteous will of God. Such a hope to repay the enemies for what they have done is not in accord with the New Testament. The statement is jarring, but congruous in the overall context of this psalm. Like several psalms (Psalm 137, for example) this psalm's understanding of righteousness includes a sense of retributive justice. God rights the wrongs of the world by inversion: Evil inflicted becomes punishment upon the perpetrator, and the agent of that punishment may very well be -- indeed, ideally should be -- the erstwhile victim. In the moral universe in which the writing of much of the Hebrew Bible and other sacred literature from the ancient Near East, God restores balance when God equalized suffering in kind. The psalmist prays, in this verse, for recovery from illness to wreak vengeance on those who have aggravated the psalmist's suffering. The poet is confident that he will be healed and readmitted to the presence of the Lord. This would suggest communion with the Lord in the temple, which would be a sign of the blessing of the Lord. Yes, even a close friend has abandoned him, but the Lord has not given up on him.
A helpful image of prayer is a conversation that occurs in the presence of God. Sometimes, we have a battle with ourselves, but we do so in the presence of God. When we have this conversation with a conscious acknowledgement of being in the presence of God, we become different. Therefore, when we leave the moment of prayer, we are different persons because of that experience.[77] Prayer involves us in growing a faith that truly hopes for the unseen. Idolatry is demanding the beatific vision. Idolatry demands a direct encounter with the deity. Idolatry demands that God make me happy or holy here and now. Genuine prayer of faith develops patience in the one who prayers. Faith grasps the promise of the word of God. Too often, we emotionally attach ourselves to what we can feel, experience, and see.[78] When we talk in the presence of God and open ourselves to growth, we become different. We become people who trust God more fully and love our neighbors more intensely. Thus, prayer is not about getting us in control of our circumstances. Prayer is about giving up control. Prayer is less about asking for the things we have allowed to attach themselves to us. Rather, prayer is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. For that reason, prayer becomes a transformational experience. We change, and we leave in the hands of God how much else is going to change.
An important theme of prophesy during the exile was the promise of the return of the Jewish people from captivity in Babylon by the miraculous activity of the Lord (II Isaiah 43:18-25, Year B Epiphany 7). The model of this return is the exodus from Egypt and orients the Jewish people toward the eschatological future of God’s redeeming work and Israel’s future life. The prophet quotes the Lord as being disgusted with the hearers for their shortcomings in the matter of worship and ritual sacrifice. Nonetheless, the Lord will care for them. The promise is that the Lord is always faithful, even when we fall short, whether in worship, in service, or in our lives. He offers assurance that the Lord will never turn from us, even when we turn from the Lord. If we turn from the Lord the consequences may be severe, not by the Lord’s doing, but by our own.
In urging his hearers to forget former things or the things of old, he offers an unusual word. The usual prophetic call is to remember the past. Often, Israel’s failure to remember those things constitutes its departure from the ways of the Lord. Some Bible passages do encourage us to cherish the old. Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it. ...” Other passages urge us to look forward to the new. These concepts of the value of both the old and the new are not mutually exclusive. For example, the Lord God made historic covenant(s) with Israel — the Lord God would be their God, and they would be the people of the Lord God. Israel sometimes fondly remembers and follows the Lord’s covenant(s), but frequently forgets their relationship with the Lord and breaks the covenantal stipulations. Later, in association with repentance, they sometimes seek to renew their ancient covenant with the Lord. For example, the Davidic King Josiah (c. 640-609 B.C.), after hearing from the prophet Huldah, led his people in renewing the Deuteronomic covenant and performing acts of repentance (II Kings 22−23:3). Jeremiah 31:31-34 promises a new covenant, some features of which transcend even the best of the former covenants. The writer of the NT book of Hebrews cites the Jeremiah 31:31-34 passage in 8:8b-11 as part of the writer’s argumentation of 8:6-13. The real reason for the call not to remember lies not with the past, but with the future.
The prophet is warning his hearers not to romanticize the past, a perennial temptation of all people and groups. This verse finds reflection in II Corinthians 5:17, Romans 8:10, and Revelation 21:4-5. II Isaiah expects the consummation of history. This future event will show that the God of Israel is the God of all peoples. Attention turns away from the past saving deeds of the Lord in the exodus and the conquest to the future of a new and definitive event of salvation and a related universalizing of the understanding of God in monotheism. The prophetic turn toward the eschatological future of world history remains the presupposition of Christian monotheism and its missionary proclamation. What happens is that the prophet here no longer views the self-demonstration of Yahweh by the exodus as the sole and ultimate self-revelation of the Lord. The ultimate acts of the deity of Yahweh are eschatological. Here, we find that Israel is not to remember or regard the past, for God is doing a new thing.[79] II Isaiah speaks of the creative power of the Lord in using the concept of divine creating for the bringing forth of what is historically new, whether the event be good or bad. Even when the author speaks of the Lord creating Jacob or Israel, we are to think of the act of the Lord in historical election. The new things that take place in nature he also regards as creative acts of the Lord.[80]The past is useful only by way of contrast with what the future holds for Israel by virtue of God’s intervention. In II Isaiah, belief in creation becomes an argument for the expectation of a new saving action on the part of the Lord that will demonstrate afresh the divine power over the course of history.[81]
In an analogous way, fixing your gaze upon the infinite beauty of the Lord, you constantly discover the Lord in a new way. What you discover will always be something new and strange in comparison with what you have previously understood.[82] We need to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.[83] It may well be that the Lord is instructing the Jewish people here that a generous approach to the future is in giving our all to the present.[84] The future arises out of the same stuff as the present.[85] If so, the past is the beginning of a beginning. All that is and has been is the twilight of the dawn. Everything the human has ever accomplished is only a dream before the awakening of humanity to its fullness.[86]
In this case, the prophet re-enacts the passage of Israel through the desert. The prophet presents the oracle in classic Hebrew poetic parallelism, but the richness of the imagery sometimes takes priority over strict parallelism.[87] The poet is echoing the Exodus/wilderness tradition of God providing water in the wilderness by shifting the emphasis from movement (“way”) to providential care, thereby keeping the focus of the oracle on the divine and miraculous rather than on the human. The prophet pointedly elaborates Israel’s status as the chosen people. The Lord formed (yatsar) this people deliberately out of disparate elements, against the odds, for a divinely ordained purpose, and Israel as God’s chosen people could not simply be identified as coterminous with the historical geopolitical entities that self-identified as Israel, Jacob, Ephraim, Judah, etc. This theological dictum, which runs throughout the Hebrew Bible, was in constant tension with the perennial temptation on Israel’s part to take its chosen status for granted or as deserved.
The theological notion of the transcendence of God gives rise to meditation (Psalm 147:1-11, 20, Year B Epiphany 5). Focusing upon the power of the Lord and the weakness of humanity, it has a theme like that of II Isaiah. To accept this power is to accept the dependence upon the creator and sustainer of life. The poet is exuberant in offering reasons to praise the Lord. The relationship the Lord has with nature is analogous to the relationship the Lord has with Israel, thereby combining the theological themes of creation and election. Among the reasons for praise is the building of Jerusalem and the gathering of the outcasts, making the psalm post-exilic. Another reason is that the Lord heals the brokenhearted, where in other psalms, the broken heart parallels the contrite heart (Psalm 51:17) and the Lord is a companion to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18). This confidence has its grounding in the affirmation of the Lord as creator, symbolized by naming the stars, expressing intimate sovereignty and matchless compassion.
Creator of the stars of night,
your people's everlasting light,
O Christ, redeemer of us all,
we pray you, hear us when we call.
When this old world drew on toward night,
you came; but not in splendor bright,
not as a monarch, but the child
of Mary, blameless mother mild.[88]
Thus, the Lord is great and abundant in power, and the wisdom of the Lord is beyond measure. Another reason for praise is that the Lord lifts the downtrodden and brings down the wicked. The poet urges the congregation to sing with thanksgiving, referring to the lyre. He returns to creation and the care of the Lord for all the creatures of the earth, bringing fertility. What brings delight to the Lord are those who fear the Lord and hope in the steadfast love of the Lord, bringing the transcendence and immanence of the Lord together. The poet ends with offering praise for the ordinances of the Lord, and thus the poet moves quickly from praise of the Lord as creator to the special revelation of the Lord through Moses.
The brush with death enables the poet to see the false foundation upon which his life rested (Psalm 30, Year B Epiphany 6). He did have pride for that which he should have simply been humbly grateful. All of life comes from God, just as the eventual deliverance is from God. The people of God are moving with God when they move against any of the physical diseases that can attack humanity and one has a degree of health in the desire to do so. [89] The experience of deliverance leads to encouraging himself to give an account of it. The Lord has drawn him out of Sheol like one draws water out of well, not allowing his enemies to rejoice over his defeat. The Lord healed him of a physical disease that, his recovery becoming a metaphor for how the Lord helped him to think differently about his life. The Lord brought up his soul (nephesh), referring to his life or self, that which is essential to his identity, from Sheol and the pit, shifting his sense of his mode of existence from the land of the living to the abode of the dead. Sheol is the destination of all the living, a realm beneath the earth, for who can live and never die and escape the power of Sheol (Psalm 89:48)? Sheol, for most of its history in the OT, was the dark, dusty place you went to when you died (see Job 17:13, 16). However, in the period during which our psalm was likely composed, when biblical writers speak of being in anguish or distress in Sheol (as, for example, in Psalm 116:3), the issue is not death, but premature death. As ample evidence attests (e.g., Genesis 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33, etc.), death was the entirely expected end to a good, long life, and people met that end without fear or resentment. Only when struck down violently, dying young or dying without descendants did the ancient Israelite fear and seek to avoid death. In contemporary thinking, life and death are mutually exclusive -- one is either alive or one is dead. However, to the ancient writers of the Bible, including the writer of this psalm, life and death are engaged in an interplay based on the continuum that makes up the former. One can experience death and live to tell the tale, which is what has happened to the psalmist here. His enemies were hoping to get the psalmist out of the way for good, and they almost got their wish.
The poet shifts attention to the congregation, urging the faithful ones to sing praise and give thanks, since the anger of the Lord is for a moment while divine favor is for a lifetime. This suggests that his brush with death and recovery brought a correction in his thinking, for he had thought the anger of the Lord was for a lifetime. The Lord taught him that the purpose of the anger of the Lord is to educate rather than destroy. Patience is an expression of the love of the Lord, the Lord constantly turning back to patience with the people of the Lord.[90] Thus, anger from the Lord will never last. He thought that weeping would be 24/7. For some persons, we need to admit, this is their experience in that divine wrath is the constant, while the divine patience is temporary.[91] If we move forward to Christian thinking on this, Jesus has received the outburst of divine anger on the cross, and thus, belief in the word of God means we do not have to suffer divine anger for even a moment.[92] The Lord helped the poet change his thinking, reminding him that life contains both suffering and joy. One must be willing to take the journey through the night, through the valley of grief, to move through a time of great struggle that will lead to a re-created life. One may well need to lay aside destructive thinking about oneself to embrace something healthier. The joy that comes in the morning does not come without cost, but it will come as we realize that the Lord is our help through the process. The night has long been a source of fear for human beings, and rightly so. The poet refers to suffering from segmented sleep. One may weep at night due to wrestling with some issues in our lives.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i'the centre, and enjoy bright day;
but he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.[93]
Yet, we might also ponder why the night is so difficult for so many of us.
Why fear the dark?
How can we help but love it
when it is the darkness
that brings the stars to us?
What's more: Who does not know
that it is on the darkest nights
that the stars acquire
their greatest splendor?[94]
His testimony regards the alteration in the way thinks about his life. The poet had much self-confidence, charting the wrong course for his life. Now, the poet realizes that all he had was a gift of God, and thus that he had no room for pride. His life depends upon the Lord. Only the experience of suffering sensitized him to the condition of his soul. He recounts a Job-like life lived by the psalmist that doubtless many hearers of the psalm could understand and appreciate: The psalmist, secure in his prosperity, says to himself that his comfortable existence would be his life forever. However, the sudden onset of calamity (perceived as divine displeasure, v. 5) deprived the psalmist of all those graces and favors that constitute the good life. His supplications and prayers questioned the value of the Lord allowing this experience to take his life now that he has come to a fresh experience of the Lord. Among the graces of the good life was the ability to participate in the worshipping community in the temple. The victory of death at this moment will deny to the Lord such praise. In Sheol was no participation in those activities that characterize the life of the living (cf. Psalm 6:5, "For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?"). The psalmist had tasted death and found it not to his liking, and he pours out his gratitude to Yahweh for having delivered him from premature death. The Lord is the focus. He commits himself to the Lord, indicating the change of heart has taken place.
Facing the reality of human need and the human condition, the focus shifts from mourning to dancing and the joy is the Lord,[95] meaning that his soul (nephesh) may reject silence and offer praise. His change of heart and thinking about his life means that nothing will stop the gratitude of the psalmist. The Lord gave him new life to witness, and that is what he will do.
The poet has used his experience to put his troubles in perspective. Today, much of therapy devotes itself to learning how to think differently about our lives in a way that leads to needed changes in behavior. Grief often leads people down the path of thinking that the rest of their lives will consist only in grief and suffering. The thinking in which a depressed person engages is often the illogical and distorted thinking that perpetuates depression. It becomes difficult to envision life without it. Yet, such thinking is a mental trap from which people need liberation. The psalmist allowed the Lord to teach him that joy would come in the morning. The battle we fight here is that unwanted feelings and irrational thoughts will come. However, as this psalmist illustrates, we may be able to modulate how long they affect the way we live. Shakespeare had an insight into this process.
Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself.[96]
The servant of the Lord in II Isaiah 49:1-7, 8-16a, (Year A Epiphany 2 and 3) the second of the songs related to the servant, is a description of his mission as a light to the nations. The return of the exile to their home has the purpose of drawing the nations to the Lord. His prophetic call occurred while he was still in the womb. The poet of Psalm 139:13-16 beautifully says it was the Lord who formed him in his inward parts and knit him together in the womb of his mother. The idea of a pre-natal prophetic call is found not only in this passage, but also in Jeremiah (“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” 1:5), in II Isaiah (“who formed you (Jacob/Israel as the chosen one) in the womb” II Isaiah 44:1-4), and in the NT (e.g., Galatians 1:15-16, where Paul defends the divine origins of his understanding of the gospel by saying, “But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me … I did not confer with any human being …”). The idea of the divine election of Israel pervades the OT, and through that election it understood its divine mission. However, as they learned from experience, kings and people would not be faithful to Torah or to the divinely prophetic word. This experience opened the door for reflection upon a righteous remnant who would fulfill the calling of Israel. He will accomplish his mission by the prophetic word. It will be a discerning, penetrating word that distinguishes the path that leads to life or death. This servant might be Israel, but this interpretation has its problems. The servant will be the means through which the Lord will win glory. The servant doubts the calling, given the ineffectiveness of the fulfillment of the mission as evidenced in exile, voicing what must have been common objections by many Israelites in exile, who felt that Israel’s mission and travails had both come to an ignominious end at the hands of the Babylonians. How could a defeated, destroyed, exiled, and scattered people possibly fulfill a divine mandate? The question was pressing during the period in which the prophet uttered this oracle. All of this fits the prophetic word that failed to divert the judgment of 587. Some people think such musings could not refer to historical Israel. Yet, as the religious leaders of Judah have been living in exile for a generation, as they have been gathering their sacred traditions into what we know as Torah, the prophetic interpretation of the history of Israel in the Deuteronomic History, the psalter, and preserving the prophetic word and action of the classical prophets, at least this writer can imagine historical Israel through such leaders offering such musings concerning their history. I can imagine a prophet as creative as II Isaiah having such musings himself and knowing that other exiles had such feelings, even if they did not have such eloquent words for them. I can imagine a church, a pastor, and any believer, having that feeling of failure. Yet, the Lord reaffirms the calling. His calling has a universal perspective, a reactivation of the calling of Abraham, through whom the families of the earth shall receive blessing (Genesis 12:3). The Lord chose Israel for the benefit of the entire world. At this point, the servant of the Lord is different from historical Jacob/Israel. Israel bringing Israel back seems a difficult interpretation. If it refers to the righteous remnant, then the mission is to bring the rest of Israel back to the Lord and to be a light to the nations. The righteous remnant become the servant of the Lord who as the elect have the responsibility of bringing light to of all peoples. Despite the apparent failure expressed in exile, the prophet sees the potential contained in the remnant. In this way, the destiny of the people of Israel and its special relation to God have a relation to all the peoples of the world, but now in connection with the thought of election. The point here is that the lesser mission of the servant is to restore Israel to its historical identity. The greater mission is to be a light to the nations.[97] The difficulty they face is recovering their national identity and readiness to fulfill the mission to the world. The mission of the prophet challenges us as readers to consider the ways in which our lives reflect a calling that we have fulfilled. As a covenant people, they invite prisoners to come out and those covered by the darkness to come out. The Lord shall provide for them on their journey and protect them. Zion shall receive consolation and restoration, as the city is repopulated, and the walls rebuilt. Even while the people of Zion think the Lord (Adonai) has abandoned them, the reality is that the Lord will not forget them, just as a mother cannot forget her child or have no compassion toward her child.
An important aspect of devotion is the expression of trust (Psalm 131, Year A Epiphany 8). Some scholars think the imagery suggests a female author here, and just for fun, let say it was. Here is a too-little know psalm of tenderness and intimacy, full of childlike warmth. It expresses a mature faith that has come after years of struggle and in which she finds peace in communion with the Lord. The poet expresses his struggle, for time was when she battled pride and ambitious desire. It has been a struggle, but she has achieved calmness and self-control. She uses the metaphor of the restfulness of a weaned child with mother to describe her relationship with the Lord. How many years of struggle lay behind this experience? The writer has found peace in the presence of God. The heart of the writer found rest there. The mother gradually weans the away from her. The center of gravity shifted from self to God. It offers a striking picture of the faith of a person who wishes to remain in the background, avoiding all pride, all anxious desire to please, and all inappropriate ambition. The primary desire is to bring calm and quiet to her soul, thereby appearing before God with love, devotion, and trust. Her personal experience becomes an invitation for Israel to hope or trust in the Lord.
Theological concepts like divine omnipresence and omniscience stimulate profound meditation (Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, Year B, Epiphany 2). Arising out of the wisdom tradition is the thought in Jeremiah that the Lord tests the mind and searches the heart to give to all according to their ways and the fruit of their actions (17:10). The psalm is one of the theological and literary treasures of the Bible. One of the most familiar and beautiful of the Hebrew Psalms, the psalm stresses two main theological points: God's omniscient omnipresence and God's role as creator, not only of the created universe, but also as the divine parent of every human being. The Psalm addresses the first of these topics in verses 1-12 and the second in verses 13-18. It challenges human thought and experience, often disorienting even as it profoundly discloses truth. Since one of the provocative questions of human existence concerns how a woman or a man may find a place in an often-hostile universe, the enthusiasm with which readers over the generations have responded to Psalm 139 is understandable. This wonderful hymn of Israel sings not just of a God who cares, but also of a God whose being has such an intimate connection with our own being that God forms part of the fabric of each of us. The Lord has intimate knowledge of the everyday activities of the poet, as well as inner thoughts and not-yet-uttered words. His point is that we stand naked before the Lord. We can conceal nothing from the Lord. He finds it difficult to fathom, comprehend, or grasp the possibility of such knowledge. We sense that the author finds amazement that God has such intimate knowledge of him as an individual. Yet, we also wonder if he has some fear that God knows him so well. We see more clearly the fearful side of these matters in Job 7:17-21. Job wants the Lord to look away from him for a while because the Lord is paying too much attention! His little sin does nothing to the majesty of God. He wants pardon. Yet, he shall be in Sheol, where the Lord will seek him but not find him. The searching and examining that God performs on him, and on us, is not always welcome. We are naked before God, but we may want to conceal some things. We do conceal some things from others and even from ourselves. God has an all-embracing knowledge of us as individuals that rests upon the presence of God with all creation. There is nowhere to hide from the Lord. In other words, the omnipresence of God is the basis for the omniscience of God.[98] Given that the Lord was present with the formation of each of us in the womb, we can praise the Lord, since we know the works of the Lord in creation are wonderful and we art part of that creation. Suggesting that we were being made secretly, intricately woven in the depths of the earth is unusual, for the image usually refers to Sheol (Job 40:13 and Isaiah 45:19). Suggesting that our creation is in the abode of the dead would be unusual. Our beginning as unformed substance parallels formless mass present in creation (Genesis 1:2), and in an analogous way, the Lord brought a beautiful canopy with the orderly account of creation (Genesis 1:3-2:4a). such actions imply unrestricted freedom in the divine creation action that is behind the traditional notion of creation out of nothing.[99] Behind this notion is the teleology of the divine action of the Spirit bring order to the origin of cosmos.[100]The Lord has a book that keeps extended data, as the Lord knows everything about us before we live out our lives. The poet would want us as readers to reflect upon how the Lord has personally and caringly fashioned us and intended for us to be here. In fact, the Lord continues to fashion us after the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28-29, II Corinthians 3:18, Colossians 3:10), so that we might become “a new creation” (II Corinthians 5:17). Immanuel, God is with us, is a central affirmation of both testaments. The biblical intent is that we respond with a correspondingly strong affirmation: We are with God.
The beautiful Hindu text Atharva Veda Book IV, Hymn 16, from 1200-1000 BC. The Hindu hymn offers a praise to the gods, who beholds the worlds as though nearby. It warns that one who thinks he or she acts by stealth, the gods see and know. The gods know what we whisper or do in secret. King Varuna is like the secret presence of another in all that we do. King Varuna possesses all we see to the furthest regions. He beholds all that is between the heavens and the earth and what is beyond them. Yet, he also sees how often we blink. He is the watcher of humanity. He lays snares and the hymn prays that they will catch the liar. He sends disease and drives it away. He is like one native to the land and one who is a stranger. He is celestial and human. We find a similar spirit binds these two hymns together.
Paul Tillich wrote of the grace to “accept that you are accepted.” Most of us struggle to know ourselves and to accept ourselves. We will struggle with our sense of personal identity and worth. Most of us have had the experience of feeling quite strange and alone, out of place. The universe is so large. The infrequency of life in the universe makes the universe appear hostile to life. Human relationships can often make us feel quite isolated and alone. Our individual lives seem quite insignificant. Who Am I? It is the question of a poem Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. Who am I, he asks. “They often tell me,” he says. Yet am I really whom others tell me? As he authors this poem from his Nazi cell, soon to die, he writes of his feelings of restlessness and powerlessness. He concludes with the words, “Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!” if we ask, “Who am I?” Many people choose to fill their minds with negative images. The battle is on for our future. They may be thoughts from our past. They may be thoughts from the people with whom we have chosen to hang out. We can even play the victim, blaming other people for these thoughts. The weight of such thoughts can bring us down. Many Psalms refer to the soul that is depressed. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” (Psalm 43:5). Discouragement destroys hope. The Bible tells us not to be discouraged or dismayed, precisely because we as human beings so easily go there. If we have a depressing answer to the question, “Who am I,” we need to examine what we are thinking. Thoughts we have about ourselves cause us to become discouraged. We can carry on this internal conversation, in which we wonder about our value. The soul sags, just as the body sags.[101]
We are not accidents. We are not mistakes. We have a reason to be here. The breath of God has given life to us. In the song by Casting Crowns, we have this reminder about our lives.
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours
Yes, life is so very brief. The older I become, the briefer it seems. Yet, God has an interest in this briefly existing flower, this little wave in the ocean of history. I have every reason to lift up my soul.
In what does genuine seeking for God consist of (III Isaiah 58:1-12, Year A Epiphany 5)? They could insist that they had been fasting and humbling themselves before God, but that God did not appear to be paying attention. They may have received some psychological, emotional, and social satisfaction with these gatherings for worship and contrition. They could devote themselves thoroughly to the form of mourning, sacrifices, and fasting, only to promptly forget that God expected the substance of their religion to affect their lives. Religious practices had become a fetish, offering exaggerated devotion to the mechanics of piety while ignoring the ethical substance of the covenant. In this way, one may formally and abstractly acknowledge what is true and good, but if one does not allow what is true and good to transform one’s life, does it really matter? It was not enough to go through the motions. God expressed frustration that religious devotion did not become an expansion of godly living. They were wasting their time. They thought that the things they did in the ritual showed that they knew God. However, their lives did not give evidence of it. The prophet links himself to an active debate within ancient Israelite circles over the merits of outward religious practice when the people did not couple such actions with ethical action. Amos, for example, believes that there can be no value in religious activities such as pilgrimages, festivals and even sacrifices if those who engage in such practices do not live a life fully in accordance with the rest of covenant law. That law enjoins care for the poor, the proper administration of social and economic justice and right living before God (Amos 2:6-16; 4:1-5:24). Similar passages, pointing out Israel’s juxtaposition of extraordinary sacrifice and religious observance with idolatry or social injustice, one can find in the other prophetic books. The northern kingdom heard a prophet who warned them that their offerings and sacrifices were worthless for they needed to sow justice to reap steadfast love, thereby showing they were seeking the Lord (Hosea 9:1-10:15). Another prophet warned that the rulers did not know justice, for the hate the good and love the evil, and therefore Jerusalem will see its destruction (Micah 3:1-12). Further, coming to the Lord with burnt offerings will mean nothing unless they do what is good by doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:1-8). Religious practices in post-exilic Israel were attractive to many people and satisfied many of them. A perennial risk of all religious observance is that it becomes not merely perfunctory but seductive, and the ritual, drama and social standing associated with postexilic Yahwism may have satisfied many psychological, emotional, and social needs that were wholly or in part unrelated to individual and social righteousness. The denunciation by the prophet here suggests that such knowledge was, at best, superficial sophistry and deeply contradictory of what true knowledge meant. Their ardent religious behavior coexists with their lack of justice. Leviticus 16:29-31, 23:27-32, and Numbers 29:7 prescribe a fast on the Day of Atonement. Fasting was not a requirement of the covenant. Rather, it was a sign of mourning and repentance (II Samuel 12:16; I Kings 21:9, Esther 9:31; Jonah 3:5). Fasting was never a substitute for proper observance of the law. The ancient Israelites obviously fasted to signal to God that they repented of their sins, but as the prophets continually pointed out, if they did not also practice right observance of the law after repenting, then their repentance meant nothing. Given the post-exilic setting, some may have believed a perpetual fast was necessary as the mourned the destruction of the temple, the city, and the loss of the Davidic dynasty. They may have expected God to notice their ardent ritual practices and act for them. The fast included the presence of quarreling and fighting, such as how often, what sustenance one may have during it, and other practices that must accompany it. They are wasting their time. The fasting undertaken by the Israelites has degenerated into a form of Jewish self-interest. Ritual fasting would naturally include the avoidance of work, which would mean that the laborers employed by fasters on a per diem basis would be out of work on their employers’ fast days. Not only would this deprive subsistence laborers of essential income, but it would also result over time in significant savings for those who could afford the luxury of such religious observance. The prophet denounces such hidden motives as corrupting true worship. Opposed to such hollow piety is the true worship contained in correcting injustice and providing for the needs of the hungry, homeless, and naked. Restored to their homeland, they did not exhibit the moral regeneration to which the II Isaiah called the community. God desires charity to the poor through self-sacrificing action on behalf of justice. If one wants God to hear one’s voice from on high, fasting is not the way to make that happen. Once the Jewish people embrace the call of God to act in accord with justice, God will notice them, heal them, protect them from their enemies and restore their society. If this generation of Jews, seeking to restore their nation after exile, wishes that God would hear, they must learn to hear the cry of the needy. God will raise them up only to the extent to which they raise up the least among them. Such genuine “fasting” will be the source of healing. Fasting concerns our spiritual condition, heightening our attention to God and the needs of others. There needs to be no compartmentalization between worship, devotion, and piety on the one hand and the doing of the will of God toward the neighbor on the other. One needs to integrate with the other. Although compartmentalization has the advantage of isolating a matter so that we can deal with it, integration is a consistently arduous process that runs the risk of something not matching up to moral and spiritual ideals. The compartmentalization of something that does not match our public persona or ideals can lead to guilt and other symptoms that will disturb other parts of our lives. Mental, emotional, and spiritual health will require the challenging work of integration. Rev. John Hunter (1848-1917) wrote the confessional hymn “Dear Jesus, in Whose Life I See,” often used before observing the Lord’s Supper. Some considered it liberal in its day because of its emphasis upon experience. It expresses the desire for the type of integration needed in our lives:
Dear Jesus, in whose life I see
All that I would, but fail to be,
Let Thy clear light forever shine,
To shame and guide this life of mine.
Though what I dream and what I do
In my weak days are always two,
Help me, oppressed by things undone,
O Thou whose deeds and dreams were one!
The calling of God can lead us to some unexpected messages about the ways of God with the people of God and with the world (Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Year B Epiphany 3). Since the first time Jonah received his calling from the Lord he went the opposite direction, the word of the Lord must come a second time, revealing the patience of the Lord with the prophet. Since the Lord does not confide in the prophet as to the nature of this mission, we can understand his reluctance. In commanding him to go to Nineveh, he enters the territory of the capitol city of the enemy of Israel. Jonah obeys this time. Even here, we do not get a sense that Jonah has an intimate relationship with either other people or even with the Lord. He will find no satisfaction, whether he disobeys or obeys. This prophet needs to learn of the concern the Lord has for the healing of the nations, as the hymn of the church put it. After walking a day in a city that would take three days to walk across, he utters the shortest prophet oracle that in forty days Nineveh the Lord shall overthrow the city, as the Lord did Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25, Deuteronomy 29:23). He does not call for repentance. Yet, we miss the point if we do not see the humor even in this. Could such a brief message bring such a large response? This response would not come in the real world, but in the world of legend, it could happen to get across a point. If God could use Jonah to say a few words and have the while city convert, God could have used anybody. Jonah wants this cruel foreign city to get what it has coming with no warning or mercy. The writer makes his point through farce, humor, satire, and playfulness, intending to reveal the readers to themselves. The writer believes God is God of all the world, and not just Israel. God cares about other nations as much as God cares for Israel. Israel has received mercy. Jonah has received mercy. They ought to want other nations to receive mercy! In fact, this conversion may be the true conversion the author seeks. The point is not so much the conversion of the Ninevites, a symbol of the concern God has for the nations, but rather, the conversion of the Jewish people to a concern for the nations. Thus, the success of the prophet is surprising. In fact, his preaching has a fantasy aura to it, a farce, and a humorous trick on Jonah, to have such success after such few words. The people believed God, showing their sincerity by proclaiming a fast in which those of high and low in the cultural order participated. The people react to the gloomy message of the reluctant prophet. Yet, the true lampoon begins here. The theological heart of the book rests on this reaction of Jonah that Chapter 4 will reveal. The exemplary conversion of the Ninevites has its dramatic and humorous contrast in the incredulity and misery of the prophet of God we find in Chapter 4. The people of the city, these sinful Gentiles who exist outside the special covenant with the Lord that the Hebrews proudly claim, respond with an urgency, authenticity and unanimity that is remarkable. The Ninevites, while appearing entrenched in their corrupt ways, were parched yet fertile soil for the redeeming word of God. It took only the feeble, watery preaching of a reluctant prophet such as Jonah to cause this spiritually slumbering city to burst into the full flower of repentance. To emphasize again, the prophet represents a narrow form of Judaism at which the writer is poking fun. I invite the reader to re-read Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah 1-8 considering this story. They called for the ouster of foreigners. They seem to present the Lord as interested only in Israel. The writer of this little book is making his point, not through serious logic but through humor and playfulness. Jonah lampoons the incredible narrowness of his fellow Israelites through humor. What would happen if a prophet brought the message of the Lord to a city as wicked as Nineveh. Would it not be wonderful if it repented? Would it not be wonderful to see the mercy, compassion, and forgiveness of Yahweh? With humor, of course, the prophet will respond in Chapter 4 with misery at the repentance of Gentiles. The writer is asking readers to consider what their response would be if such an event occurred among the nations. What would happen if Gentiles believed in the Lord and repented? How would you, my Israelite friends, respond to that? The author, through humor, has suggested that they might be as miserable as Jonah will be in Chapter 4.
Jonah's worst fear comes true. Moved by their genuine spirit of repentance and prayers for forgiveness, Israel's own God spares the pagan Ninevites rather than destroying them. The story shows that powers of divine compassion and transformation know no national boundaries. The God of the Hebrews proves all creation to be under the same watchful, judging, yet loving eye.
This turn away from evil by the Lord, this repentance, exemplifies a surprisingly frequent concept in the OT, that of the Lord’s relenting (having a change of mind) from punishing the evil or wickedness of the people with corresponding “evil” (the same word ra’ah in Hebrew, often translated calamity, disaster, destruction or punishment). Due to the prayer of Moses for their sin of making the golden calf, the Lord relented of the disaster the Lord had threatened (Exodus 32:14). After David made the Lord angry for enrolling the fighting men, the Lord sent a plague, but the Lord relented of bringing the plague to Jerusalem (II Samuel 24:16 and I Chronicles 21:15). The Lord may announce the uprooting, tearing down, and destruction of a nation, but if the nation repents, then the Lord will relent and not inflict the disaster the Lord planned. However, if the Lord plans to build up a nation and it does evil, then the Lord will reconsider the good the Lord intended to do (Jeremiah 18:8-10). In this regard, Jeremiah 26:3 is of particular interest, in that the Lord tells Jeremiah that perhaps the city of Jerusalem will listen, each person turn from their evil ways, and then the Lord will relent, not inflicting on them the disaster the Lord was planning because of the evil they have done. This message took place September 609-April 608 BC. Further, if they reform their ways, the Lord will relent (Jeremiah 26:13). Hezekiah sought the Lord and therefore the Lord relented of the disaster the Lord had planned (Jeremiah 26:19). If the people turn to the Lord, the Lord may relent of the planned destruction and leave a blessing (Joel 2:11-14). This notion, that human repentance brings divine repentance, is one the prophet does not accept. He believes evil must receive divine punishment. It may offend our sensibilities to think that God would bring “evil” upon evildoers, but that is what the biblical texts say, even though interpreters generally understand such divine “evil” does not refer to be moral evil. Should it not matter to God what a people (or individual persons) do against God or against other peoples/persons? Should the Lord God just give a jovial “timeout” instead of something stronger? Nevertheless, God did respond favorably to genuine repentance (turning away from sinful behavior and toward God) by relenting/”changing the mind.” (The LXX translates the Hebrew verb naham as metanoew; this same word in NT Greek frequently receives the translation in English as “to repent,” “to feel remorse,” or “to change one’s mind,” depending on the context.) Jesus uses the message of Jonah to call upon his contemporaries (and us) to repent, just as the Ninevites did (see Luke 11:29-32 and Matthew 12:41). The king was right. God is free to respond graciously, thus avoiding the terrible judgment that Jonah announced. Such freedom and responsiveness create important possibilities for those who collaborate with God. As the Lord was patient and merciful to the prophet, the Lord is patient and merciful to Nineveh. The prophet will be slow to see these qualities.[102]
[1] (Church Dogmatics III.2 [30.1], 364-368)
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 398.
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 491.
[4] (J. G. Gammie, Holiness in Israel [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989], 32).
[5] Barth (Church Dogmatics II.2 [66.1], 501)
[6] Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 78.
[8] (Church Dogmatics II.2 [66.1], 501)
[9] Elizabeth Achtemeier, "Plumbing the Riches, Deuteronomy for the Preacher," Interpretation 41 [1987], 273.
[10] Nelson Glueck
[11] Katharine D. Sakenfeld
[12]
[13] Weiser
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18] Aquinas’ Five Proofs (or Arguments) for the Existence of God
[19] Lyanda Lynn Haupt, writing in the journal Image.
[20] [James L. Mays, Psalms Interpretation commentary, 100].
[21] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 136.
[22] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 430.
[23] Brooks, Arthur C. “The ennui of Saint Teresa.” The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2007, A18.
[24] Lancaster, Sarah Heaner. “Happiness: A word for our time.” Journal of Theology, Summer 2005.
[25] (As Bernard of Clairvaux would put it centuries after Psalm 119 [On Loving God, chapter 7], “God is not loved without a reward, although He should be loved without regard for one.”)
[26] Aristotle
[27] Thomas Hibbs
[28]
[29] John Calvin.
[30]Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1995). Be decisive. An Old testament study. (Je 17:1). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.
[31] Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy. HarperCollins, 2009, 11, 36.
[32] —Cortney Warren, “Honest liars — the psychology of self-deception,” TED talk delivered at TEDx. University of Nevada Las Vegas, May 2, 2014. youtube.com. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
[33] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Macmillan, 1922), 40.
[34] Voltaire
[35] —Richard Rohr, “Seeing Our Shadow,” Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation for March 6, 2015. cac.org. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
[36] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 495.
[37] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.1] 356.
[38] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 360.
[39] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 432.
[40] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 439.
[41] Church Dogmatics II.1 [31.1] 479.
[42] (See Roland E. Murphy in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland E. Murphy [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990], 40).
[43] Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.1 [5.3], 149-56.
[44] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2 [30.3] 417.
[45]
[46]
[47] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (Harper & Row, 1973), 73-75.
[48] Oscar Wilde, "The critic as artist," in The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (Wordsworth Editions, 2007), 1016.
[49] Inspired by Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress, 2001), 40.
[50] Richard Rohr, "Who would want to be a prophet?" Daily Meditation for Thursday, February 19, 2015. cac.org. Retrieved August 13, 2017.
[51]
[52] Inspired by —Ellsworth Kalas, “Lessons learned,” Asbury Theological Seminary Alumni Link, Summer 2009, 8.
[53] Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.
[54] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 [5.3] 158.
[55] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 202.
[56] (Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999], p. 2).
[57] D. W. Winnicott and his object relations theory.
[58] - Leslie Weatherhead, "The Inevitable Encounter," Steady in an Unsteady World: Sermons by Leslie Weatherhead, Stephen A. Odom, ed., Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1936, pp. 103-105
[59]
[60]
[61]
[62]
[63]
[64]
[65]
[66]
[67] Parker Palmer, "Borne Again: The Monastic Way to Church Renewal," Weavings, Se-Oc 1986, 14.
[68] The image is from C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man.
[69] Pascal, Pensees (527).
[70]
[71] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 174.
[72] --"Trust," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Website. First published Monday, February 20, 2006; substantive revision Monday, February 7, 2011. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trust. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
[73] Sheena Iyengar New America Media (December 26, 2010).
[74] Miroslav Volf, "Floating along," (Christian Century, April 5, 2000).
[75] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 12.
[76] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 399.
[77] (Harold Kushner, "What Good is Prayer?" Questions of Faith [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990], 10).
[78] Michael Horton, interviewed by Jamie Lee Rake, "Door Interview: Mike Horton," The Door, March-April 1999, 22.
[79] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 246.
[80] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 41.
[81] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 12.
[82] --Gregory of Nyssa, cited by Elizabeth Newman, Untamed Hospitality (Brazos, 2007), 58.
[83] G. K. Chesterton
[84] -Albert Camus
[85] Simone Weil
[86] H. G. Wells
[87] for instance, the expected parallel for the A-clause “I will make a way in the wilderness” would be something like “highway in the desert” for the B-clause. However, the poet instead has paralleled “way” with “rivers,” hardly a poetic parallel.
[88] --Latin hymn, ninth century, trans. John Mason Neale, 1851
[89] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [55.1] 369.
[90] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 440.
[91] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 415
[92] Barth, Church Dogmatics, 421.
[93] John Milton, Paradise Lost.
[94] Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.
[95] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [31.3] 654.
[96] --William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3.
[97]
[98] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 379.
[99] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 17.
[100] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 386.
[101] Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind (1995).
[102] Barth Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 413-4.
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