Several texts encourage us to reflect upon who we are.
Psalm 51 (Ash Wednesday and Year B, Fifth Sunday in Lent) grasps the depth of sin and shows a path toward forgiveness that results in communion with God. The psalm is one of the seven penitential psalms. Along with Psalms 6, 32, 38, 102, 130 and 143, a special tone of penitence or contrition marked these psalms. It has a high degree of psychological realism. It yearns for forgiveness, restoration, and holiness. It teaches us to acknowledge our guilt, repent, ask for the mercy of God, receive forgiveness, and points us to joyful restoration and inner strength to live a holy life. We have made serious mistakes. Frankly, our hearts have committed sins that our hands have not yet gotten around to yet.[1] Pascal said that if everyone knew the innermost thoughts of everyone else, there would not be five friends left on Earth. Yet, our failure does not consist in falling down morally. Our failure consists in staying down. Each of us can have a fresh start.[2] It reminds us that human community, as private as within oneself and between two persons, and as public as relations between nations, cannot exist without forgiveness. We have need of forgiveness because we have done that which we ought not to have done, not loved God with all that we are, and not extended the of God toward the world as we could. We also need to learn to forgive. We hurt ourselves when we hold resentment in our hearts. Yes, we can lick our wounds. We can smack our lips over grievances long past. We can roll our tongues over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come. We can savor the last morsel of the pain we have received and given. We are feasting like a king. The chief drawback to such an approach to the hurts and wrongs experience in life is that we are consuming ourselves.[3] If we cannot forgive, we destroy the bridge over which each of us must pass to restore relationships that matter.[4] Such is the path toward healing.
The historicizing superscription is a later addition attempting to link the theme of private sin with the event in the life of the David and Bathsheba (II Samuel 12).
In our relationship with God, we can have confidence in the covenant loyalty (chesed), faithfulness, favor, and graciousness of God. With confidence in such qualities, we ask for mercy, acknowledging our rebellion, and can ask for cleansing our perversity and our tendency to miss the mark regarding fulfilling our covenant responsibility to God and to others. At some point in our lives, we will do something intolerable, and we need it gone. It remains in our thoughts, as much as we try to set it aside. We are aware of how deeply we have offended God. We become aware that the orientation of our lives is toward the self-destruction contained in our rebellion and our tendency to miss the mark. We join with the rest of humanity in this tendency. Thus, the problem is not simply an event, but a condition that plagues humanity. God desires authenticity, so we need to have the courage to face this reality of who we are. it requires courage because it can be painful. The goal of such acknowledgement of who we are, what we have done in our confession is health, but sometimes pain is part of the process of getting there. To use an analogy, we clean our homes regularly because of the dirt that accumulates. In a comparable way, we need to regularly build times into our lives when we acknowledge and confess the dirt that has accumulated in our thoughts and actions, anticipating that God will bring renewal. We can turn to God because God is faithful to the covenant and shows mercy. God will bring the cleansing and pardon we need. We need a renewal of our thoughts and inclinations that will orient us toward God. Since God has a covenant loyalty toward us, we can be sure that God does not cast us out of the presence of God and that the Spirit of God remains with us. Because of the forgiveness of God, we can also have joy and gladness in a renewed relationship. From the Christian perspective, salvation and redemption is a matter of human beings participating in the joyful, infinite life and glory of the Trinity. Christians invite people to be part of the community of infinite love and grace that is Trinitarian life. Therefore, we can see forgiveness as an aspect of the broad movement of God toward the redemption of humanity.
Psalm 130 (Year A, Fifth Sunday in Lent) is an individual lament. It is part of the collection of the Songs of Ascent. It is a plea for help, a cry for a divine hearing. It became one of the penitential psalms in the liturgy of the church. It reflects the psalmist’s awareness of the pervasive nature of human sinfulness in the face of the righteousness and justice of the Lord and the despair that such awareness can provoke. However, it is also a clear affirmation of the mercy of the Lord that overcomes human despair. The psalm is the confession of a devout person who was able to rise from the anguish caused by sin to assurance of forgiveness. The Psalm offers a succinct and powerful expression of the human predicament and the dependence of humanity upon divine grace to bring healing and wholeness. Genuine redemption includes not only freedom from guilt, but also freedom from the prison in which sin captures a human life. [5]
The poet opens with a reference to the underworld as a metaphor for being near death, referring to his condition as that of a pit, the depths, or despair. He refers to the figurative of emotional, spiritual, and psychological distress, chaotic forces that trouble human life. Such darkness surrounds us and invades our lives. Although the Lord (Adonai) is never far from any of us, a frame or snapshot of our lives may make it seems as if we are far from the divine presence. We may feel the need to shout out to the Lord when we feel distant, but when we feel divine closeness, we whisper like lovers may whisper to each other. The poet is unafraid of anthropomorphism, wanting the ears of the Lord to be attentive. If the Lord (Yah) would mark the corruption of the human heart, its iniquities that involve the act of sin, its guilt, and its penalty (‘ăwōnōwṯ), no one could remain standing, the poet recognizing the depth of the pit in which humanity resides. Isaiah 59:2 is relevant, where iniquity has put a barrier between the people and the Lord, so much so that the Lord does not look upon them. Further, if Yahweh should take note of all human iniquities, no one would have the right to remain upright before the Lord. People, by rights, should throw themselves on the mercy of the divine judge (by throwing themselves face down on the ground, exposing the back of the neck for crushing, as by the foot of a victorious warrior). The chasm between the human and the divine presented here is vast. Yet, what stimulates the feeling of reverence toward the Lord is the forgiving nature of the Lord. We must neither trivialize sin nor underestimate the love and grace of God. If you have ever been responsible for a division with a spouse, friend, or child, asked forgiveness, and the other person refuse to forgive, you know that forgiveness is truly a gift one can withhold from giving. Thus, this experience of the depths of sin makes it possible to see divine grace. God overcomes sin through forgiveness. This is what leads to repentance. His soul (נַפְשִׁ֥י, nephesh) waits for an oracle from the Lord, but does so realizing that his hope in a living word of deliverance from the Lord in the situation he now faces. He is eagerly awaiting, expecting, looking for, longing for, and hoping for, this word. His personal prayer becomes an invitation to the community to have confident anticipation or trust and place its hope I the Lord, who has steadfast love (hesed) that moves them toward redemption, ransom (יִפְדֶּ֣ה, padah). In Jeremiah 29:11, God offers “a future with hope.”[6] In the Lord’s Word, the psalmist hopes (see Psalm 119:74); thus, the Lord will do what the Lord promises about forgiveness and redeeming Israel from its iniquities (עֲוֺנֹתָֽיו, avon). Redemption arises from the experience in the ancient world of invading armies taking inhabitants of conquered land as slaves, but family members could raise money to buy back the prisoner, thereby gaining release from slavery and giving them their freedom. The term recognizes the plight of humanity due to its sin and the loyalty of the Lord toward us being such as to persist in gaining our freedom from the pit for which we have dug for ourselves, from the addition of fuel to the fire we have lit, and from pouring gasoline on the fire we have lit. The challenge in this passage today is that while we recognize we are far from perfect, we think of ourselves as good people. The feeling of shame or guilt passes quickly. While the tradition of the church recognizes the breadth and depth of sin as influencing our thoughts, words, and deeds, I am not sure if many persons have that experience beyond a fleeting moment. We do not see ourselves in such a desperate situation that we cannot save ourselves. When we experience the challenge and even desperation of our situation, the temptation is always present to give up. There may well be circumstances and persons that it would take a form of faith to give up and leap into something new. Yet too often our giving up arises from our despair. In either case, the poet invites us to use that moment as a doorway to life and to therefore wait/hope. Such a personal sense of sin, the sick soul (William James, Varieties of Religious Experience,1901-2) may well mean we are facing the unreality of our self-perception to which need to die if we are to find rebirth into true life. We may well need an honest look upon the sickness of human life and the sickness of our lives as we participate in it if we are to find new life. While self-improvement is a life-long project, we also need the insight that a power from beyond ourselves is what we need to find redemption and freedom.
Isaiah 58:1-12 reminds us that such heart-felt confession and desire for a restored relationship with God can descend into performing religious acts that have only the appearance of repentance. We are deceptive people like this. We willingly deceive others. We willfully deceive ourselves. An important aspect of our moral and spiritual health is the recognition of our capacity for self-deception. Even the little lies we tell ourselves about ourselves and tell others reveal our qualities. We may receive a psychological, emotional, or social satisfaction, but we have not deal truly with that which harms us in our relation to God and to others. One can acknowledge abstractly what is true and good, but if it does bring transformation to our lives, does our acknowledgment matter? Religious devotion that does not becoming godly living is a frustration to God and blocks our witness. Religious fetishism is an exaggerated devotion to the mechanics of worship while ignoring the ethical substance of the religion the worship dramatizes. 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 inward spiritual devotion. 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). For III Isaiah, those returning from exile have succumbed to mixing true and false worship. In inviting the prophet to shout and lift his voice like a trumpet or shofar (a ram’s horn), the Lord calls the prophet to war or to a religious ceremony, summoning people to repentance. In this case, he is announcing their rebellion. They regularly engage in religious practices but do so in a superficial way. A risk of all religious observance is that it can become perfunctory and seductive. The ritual drama and social standing satisfied many psychological, emotional, and social needs that become disconnected from individual and social righteousness. Their behavior was superficial sophistry and deeply contradictory of what true knowledge of God meant. Their ardent religious behavior coexisted with their lack of right living and justice. They ask God for righteous judgments, such as the practice of cleromancy, the casting of lots Urim and Thummim (e.g., Exodus 28:30; Numbers 27:12-23; Deuteronomy 33:8), providing answers to a variety of questions in a binary yes-no fashion. Other forms of such communication were dreams and visions. Direct revelation through a prophet was also an important dimension of learning the will of God. They delight in drawing near to God through their religious practices. Leviticus 16:29-31, 23:27-32 and Numbers 29:7 prescribe a fast on the Day of Atonement, but it was also 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 in order 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. Isaiah charges that they delight in fasting. Ordinarily, fasting (along with the wearing of sackcloth and ashes, v. 5) was exceptional behavior, occasioned by calamity or mourning. Many Israelites certainly understood the conditions of the exile — the destruction of the temple, the razing of Jerusalem, the people’s separation from the promised land — as grievous and they may have viewed them as meriting perpetual fasting. Similarly, the failure of the postexilic community to realize its exilic aspirations and hopes may have encouraged the continuation of this exilic practice. Their complaint is that they fast, but the God does not see or notice. They show that they engage in such practices for self-interest because they oppress their workers. Their fasting includes quarreling and fighting, such as how often, what sustenance one can receive (if any), and what accompanying practices might be. Fasting under such conditions will be a waste of time. Ritual fasting would include avoidance of work, which would mean the laborers would be out of work on fast days. Signs of humbling oneself, such as bowing the dead and putting on sackcloth and laying in ashes, but these acts are not a fast or a day acceptable to the Lord. 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. As III Isaiah puzzles over why restored Israel did not exhibit the moral regeneration envisioned in II Isaiah, the prophet calls them to a fast that breaks the bonds of injustice, undoes the yoke, lets the oppressed go free, and make sure their neighbors have the basics (food, home, clothes). The prophet stresses the personal nature of these actions, as the people are to give of their bread, clothes, and even invite those without a home into their homes. Embracing such a call to self-sacrificing and caring acts will lead to God hearing their prayer and healing them. Such actions are not magic either. Practicing justice in this world will not protect any nation from the ebb and flow of economic conditions or the forces of evil in this world. The prophet has invited the people to use fasting as a time give themselves a spiritual audit. Doing so by bringing one’s life into accord with the will of God, the Lord will hear their cry for help and be present for them, allowing their light to rise in the darkness and gloom as does the sun at noon. The Lord will guide them, their parched places receiving nourishment so that they become like a luscious garden. They will be known as those who repair the breach and restorer of places to live.
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17a is a lament that arose out of the occasion of a plague of locusts, which are like an invading army. Sounding the trumpet was used to raise an alarm, and this is one of the most common uses of the sound of the trumpet in prophetic literature (e.g., Jeremiah 4:19, 21; 6:1, etc.). A prophet who sees disaster coming and does not announce it in time for the people to save themselves bears the burden of guilt for the people's destruction (Ezekiel 33:6). The impending day of the Lord involves judgment against Israel and its leaders. Images of such judgment are darkness and gloom. The confidence of some among the people of God that the Day of the Lord would be to their benefit, this prophet stresses that it brings judgment. However, if they use this occasion to return to the Lord, with all their hearts, as the Shema of Israel puts it (Deuteronomy 6:5), doing so with fasting, weeping, and mourning, but rending their hearts, a sign of genuine repentance, rather than the external display of repentance of rending clothes. The Lord is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and thus will relent from judgment quickly. The prophet combines a message that involves dire consequences with one that assures the people of a warm welcome home for those who return to the Lord. His call to repent involves us in a decision to be different in the way we live, and not just have regret of what we have done. The Lord wants obedience more than good intentions.[7] As this text concludes the blowing of the shofar or trumpet in Zion is a summons of the people to the temple for a solemn assembly. In its list of those who gather, the lack of reference to the king suggests a post-exilic date for Joel. The ministers of the Lord, an appellation unique to Joel, are to act as mediators between the Lord and the gathered people, performing their role of interceding for the people, a significant role for the clergy in every generation and every nation.
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-17 (Year A, First Sunday in Lent) is part of the J account of the origin of humanity. It implies breaking of the first two of the Ten Commandments and becomes a profound reflection on the coveting prohibited in the tenth commandment. The story is tragic. Humanity, although set in paradise, quickly turns away from God, the source of life, and therefore begins to die. Humanity had authentic and open relationships with God and with each other. Yet, in the small act of eating forbidden fruit, humanity reveals its character. The temptation is the dilemma of maturity, and the moment of enlightenment becomes the moment of a sense of guilt and shame. The story connects sin and death. The story assumes that life comes from God. Since sin is turning from God, sinners separate themselves from the will of God and the source of their own lives. Death is the nature of sin and its consequences. As important as the appearance of the crafty snake is in this story, the focus is on human responsibility for choices. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of all of us. We think of the innocence and playfulness of children. Yet, at some point, we do something we know transgresses limits set by parents. We have shame and guilt. We hope no one discovers what we have done. The serpent asks the first question in the Bible. He questioned divine authority. He questioned whether humanity would be obedient. In wanting to be like God, humanity is denying recognition of its own limits. The irony is that the destiny of humanity is toward fellowship with God. The desire we have for the forbidden fruit means we think we have better knowledge for what will promote life. The serpent brings into the light the inclination to turn from will of God. The fact that they had to eat fruit to gain a certain kind of knowledge means they did not have perfect knowledge. The serpent suggests that they will find real life by transgressing the limits God set. Once they do so, they have shame. They hide from God. They wrestle with guilt. Disrupting the relation to God, humanity now experiences the sorrow of shame, fear, and tension between the genders. The story is a powerful and graphic example of temptation. We see a wonderful description of the process of sin, having its origin in the breaking of the Ten Commandments, especially the tenth commandment that one shall not covet. She “saw” and had “delight.” She then “desired” wisdom that would come in disobedience to God. The story begins with goodness and ends in the struggle with evil and death. As the story commences with the man placed in the Garden of Eden, he has work to do in tilling and keeping it. The man may enjoy the fruit of the Garden fully, except for that of the tree of all knowledge. The temptation to the man is that if he eats, he can become the judge of right and wrong, taking the place of the Lord. Such an act becomes turning from the source of life in the Lord, and thus begins the process of dying. A myth may well be something that never was but always is (Joseph Campbell). The story contains an insight into the power of human desire that can tempt us toward self-destructive behavior. The story puts everything into human terms. The serpent receives human qualities and Yahweh continues to have anthropomorphic characteristics. Yahweh speaks as father to child, evoking the childhood of humanity itself. Given the naked innocence of the man and woman, they contrast sharply with the shrewd and crafty serpent, the serpent also contrasting sharply with other animals. The implication is that sin is bound up in the nature of the creation of finite things. Temptation arises when the woman is alone, and in the separation from the man, she entertains the thought of doing what the Lord forbade. What the Lord forbade was the small act of eating fruit from a tree. This is genius, for we reveal our character in small events. An angry word, a selfish act, lustful meditations, inappropriate consumption of food and expenditure of wealth, and so on, can reveal who we are and what we value. The serpent says it knows the purposes of the Lord God better than the believing obedience of the woman. The woman adds that human beings are not to touch the tree, and I am not sure why she does so. The crafty serpent disagrees directly with what God said in saying that they would not die if they disobeyed. The temptation is that they might become like gods. The story reveals the rebellious way of humanity in relation to the command of God. The story traces the first sin to lack of affective agreement with the will of God. The serpent brings to light an inclination to turn aside from the will of God.[8] Rather than accept the command of God, they want to form their own commandments and issue their own judgments. They want freedom without limits. Refusing the limits of their finite life results in delivering them to death. Ironically, human destiny is fellowship with God, and yet, for this reason, it is a temptation for us. When humans snatch it as if it were prey, whether by way of religious activities or by emancipation from all religious ties, we miss it. We cannot achieve it by direct human action. We find the author’s exquisite story-crafting not in reporting the out-and-out lie but in preserving the ruinous half-truth.[9]Adam wants to be like God, while, in Christian teaching, the Son distinguishes himself from the Father and submits to the will of the Father.[10] The desire that orients itself to what the Lord has forbidden thinks it has a better knowledge of what will promote life. It forces us to think that the command has a tendency that is inimical to life, as though observing it would involve renouncing that which is part of riches of life.[11] If the man was with the woman during the conversation, and he remained silent, they unite in a small act of obedience that discover who they are. they want to lead lives independent of the Lord. They broke the familiar relationship they had with the Lord by hiding from the Lord. They surrendered the authenticity they had with each other, with the Lord, and with nature. Their decision disrupts such relationships to the point where authentic relationships remain a hope for human beings. The human beings eat of the fruit, while the crafty serpent is simply present. Human beings remain responsible, regardless of the nature of temptation. The fruit had practice usefulness as food, it appealed to the aesthetic sense, and offered the tantalizing promise of wisdom. The desire oriented to what God forbids means that humanity thinks it has a better knowledge that will promote life. We have tantalizing visions of what we might be, but the shadow of death torments us with our limits and weakness. Shame arises because of the vast difference between who they are who they have visions of becoming. This story suggests that all sorrow comes from the disrupted authenticity of the human relation to God, others, and nature.
Psalm 95 (Year A, Third Sunday in Lent) is an enthronement hymn, thematically like Psalm 81, and part of the fourth book of the psalter (90-106), a call to worship the God who is both the creator of the natural world and the one who graciously gave the covenant and thereby created a people. This connection of creation and covenant is an important theme of Old Testament theology. In form, the psalm is a composite of different genres that were originally separate. The Hebrew verbs convey its militaristic background, reminding us that the experience of Israel with the Lord included conflict between Israel and its neighbors, with the assistance of the Lord on behalf of Israel as the decisive factor in the victories of Israel, which Psalm 124 acknowledges. The Temple and the palace of the king were part of the same construction complex in Jerusalem, so issues of state and worship were interrelated. The military struggles of the king were brought into the supra-mundane reality of the Lord. Israel, like its neighbors, did not know of a separation of religion from government. Thus, 95:7a is a hymn celebrating the kingship of the Lord. As kings engaged in building projects, the Lord as king created the world and Israel. Verses 1-3 are a call to worship. The call to energy and enthusiasm in worship and extravagant celebration is only fitting for the Lord as king. They are to sing as in give a ringing cry of exultation and a shout as when acclaiming the new king at his enthronement. Such shouting is also a call to battle (Joshua 6:10,16,20; Judges 7:21; I Samuel 17:52; etc.). They come into the presence of the Lord with exuberance. They affirm the Lord as the rock of their salvation, an ancient affirmation of faith (Genesis 49:24, Deuteronomy 32: 4,15,18,30,31,37, but see also II Samuel 22:47; Psalm 89:26). The association of Yahweh with mountainous and rocky features in the salvation history of Israel is close. The revelation of the name Yahweh was on Mt. Horeb, Exodus 3; the appearance of life-giving water was at the rock of Massah and Meribah, Exodus 17; the giving of the Ten Commandments was on Mt. Sinai, Exodus 20; the revelation to Elijah was on Mt. Horeb, I Kings 19; and many other examples. Further, the image of strength is an obvious attribute of a protective deity. They urge each other to come before the face of the Lord with thanksgiving, shouting their songs of praise, encouraging exuberance and lively worship of the Lord with voice, and in some psalms with instrumentation. The reason for offering such worship is the Lord is incomparable, even while the psalm recognizes the existence of other lesser deities. As a great king and a great God (‘el), in verses 4-5, the Lord is creator of all that is, using contrasting parallel terms to refer to the entirety of what the Lord has created (a merism): the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains are in the hand of the Lord, the sea and dry land the Lord has formed/made, much a potter shapes the clay. The poet could be engaging in polemic here, as the neighbors of Israel thought Molech ruled the depths, Baal ruled the heights, and Tiamat ruled the sea. This author affirms the Lord created and rules it all.[12] The poet makes the significant connection between creation and covenant in verses 6-7. The language suggests one of the three annual festivals. They are to come or enter the Temple and worship by adopting the bodily posture of bowing down and kneeling before the Lord that denote respect and reverence before the one who has made/formed us as the pasture of the Lord and sheep of the hand of the Lord. Shepherd imagery is part of royal imagery as well. The summons to praise has its basis in the mighty works Yahweh has already done in creation and in the creation of this people by entering a covenant relationship with them. Coming to a house of worship to offer praise and thanksgiving is wise, for life is a gift and we tend to be blind to our blessings, often because of our sense of entitlement to the good things of life. Recognizing the gift quality of life, we feel joy and gratitude. Modern life surrounds us with so much of the good things of life that we think wealth and well-being are a right. Verses 7b-11 become a prophetic oracle spoken by a priest or prophet warning the congregation of disobedience to the laws of God. The rebuke is an abrupt turn from “we,” “our,” “us,” to “you” in the plural. Speaking on behalf of the Lord, the priest/prophet urges that they would listen (shama) to the voice of the Lord, using the negative example from the wilderness generation of Meribah and Massah, names that both mean testing or trial. These places became symbolic of the contentious relationship between Israel and the Lord due to their hard hearts or a stiff neck (Numbers 20:13, 24; Deuteronomy 6:16, 9:22, 33:8; Psalm 81:7, 106:32). The incident at these places became representative of the stubbornness, obtuseness, ingratitude, and fractiousness of the character of Israel. Despite seeing the mighty deeds of the Lord in deliverance from slavery, they tested the Lord. Thus, it has theological significance that Jesus refused to test God in his wilderness temptation (Matthew 4:7), directly contrasting the faithfulness of Jesus with the faithlessness of the people of God in the wilderness. Describing the Lord as loathing that generation for forty years is unique. They have hearts that turn toward apostasy, especially in the priestly sources in the Old Testament. Only scoundrels would lead inhabitants of a town astray to worship other gods (Deuteronomy 13:13). Jehoram led the people of Judah astray by building altars in the high places (II Chronicles 21:11). Happiness comes to those who do not go astray after false gods (Psalm 40:4). The Lord spurns all those who go astray from the statutes (Psalm 119:118). The Lord will punish in order that the people will no longer go astray from the Lord (Ezekiel 14:11). Will they defile themselves and go astray like their ancestors did (Ezekiel 20:30)? The descendants of Zadok kept the charge of the Lord and did not go astray as did the Levites (Ezekiel 48:11). They depart from the worship life as presented in the Temple. Thus, ending with noticeable abruptness, since the wilderness generation did not regard the ways of the Lord, they would not enter the Promised Land.
Exodus 17:1-7 (Year A, Third Sunday in Lent), is the account of Massah and Meribah. The point is the surprising and gracious provision of God. Yet, it also shows the discontent of the people in the desert. The congregation or mass of people journeys by stages through the wilderness under the providential care of the Lord. They do as the Lord commanded until they camp at Rephidim, near the western food of the Sinai Mountain range, where they complain that there is no water. The journey until now has been one of trust in the Lord, but now they think they have a quarrel with Moses when they are testing the Lord. The Lord has the right to test people and individuals, but people to not have the right to test the Lord, for it demonstrates lack of trust and obedience and exhibits rebellion. The theological problem underlying the complaint is their anxiety about the intent of Moses and, by implication, of the Lord, in bringing these slaves into the wilderness. As is typical of complaint, they put the one they complain against in the worst possible light, speculating that Moses brought them out of Egypt to kill them, their children, and their livestock with thirst. As can happen with a mob, they are ready to turn to violence, so Moses turns to the Lord in prayer, asking what he is to do with these people, since they are ready to stone him. An angry mob, as we find David fearing in I Samuel 30:6 and Adoram in I Kings 12:18, could choose stoning as their weapon of choice. Clearly, Moses fears this angry mob. Yet, the Lord seems sympathetic to the complaint. He has Moses bring elders with him, a sign that this story is part of the E document within the Torah, as it stresses that Moses shared his authority with the elders of the tribes. Elders had enough life experience from which they exhibited learning, so they earned the respect of those around them. The Lord tells Moses to take the staff he used at the Nile (Exodus 7:21, 24) and the Lord will be standing in front of him, an irregular situation, since it is usually the people who stand before the Lord. The Lord will stand on the rock at Horeb (Sinai), where Moses will strike the rock and water will come out of it so that the people may drink. The P tradition has a similar story in Numbers 20:2-13, as does J in Exodus 15:22-23. Even today, certain types of rock formations indicate that the sandstone has trapped rainwater beneath a thin layer of stone. Paul will spiritualize this moment, noting that the people drank from the same spiritual drink and rock, and the rock was Christ (I Corinthians 10:4). This moment of provision in the wilderness becomes a typology for the future spiritual enrichment Christ will bring.[13] Yet, the unusual way Jesus approached such matters is striking to me. He refused to validate his divine sending with a sign in Matthew 12:38-39 and 16:1-4.[14] When Moses struck the rock in the sight of the elders, the people had their water. We now learn the reason for this story, as Moses named the place Massah (test) and Meribah (quarrel), or “The Place of Testing and Quarreling.” This event will become a byword in the Bible for the lack of trust and disloyalty Israel exhibited there. The story concludes with the powerful question that also expresses the issue involved: Is the Lord among us or not? It suggests Israel questioned the presence and providence of the Lord. Such an accusation against their covenant-making/keeping Lord was serious. Yahweh as a name suggests something like “I will be there for you.” The Lord promised to be with them and guide them safely to their destination.
Part of the modern understanding of the Torah is the distinction of sources like J, E and P. This story, with its repetition in each of these traditions, presents a good opportunity to explore the theology behind the sources.
The story has parallels in the wilderness tradition. Exodus 15:22-23 (J) says they found some water at Marah, which received its name because of the bitterness of the water. In Numbers 20:1-13 (P), at Kadesh, the people gather against Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses. They wonder why Moses has led them to such a wretched place. Their response was to go to the tent of meeting, where they fell on their faces before the Lord. The glory of the Lord appeared to them. Again, Moses is to take his staff and command the rock to bring forth water, even as creation occurred through the divine word in Genesis 1. However, since Moses struck the rock twice, the Lord says Moses and Aaron did not trust the Lord. The story explains the place name of Meribah, where the people quarreled with the Lord. In this version, the name of the site is also Meribah, as in Exodus 17. But what distinguishes this version of the story from the other two is that it provides the explanation of the great sin that prevents Moses and Aaron from entering the Promised Land with the tribes. Here God orders Moses and Aaron to take a rod and “command” (literally “tell,” Hebrew dibartem) the rock to yield its water. However, Moses instead strikes the rock twice with the rod. Although God does not condemn the people for this fault, and does provide the needed water from the rock, God condemns Moses and Aaron to die in the wilderness for not trusting that God would fulfill the divine promise of water without Moses’ assistance with the rod (Numbers 20:12). In the Priestly story, one sees the most ideological differences with the other sources and their perspectives. Both J (Exodus 15:22-26) and E (Exodus 17:1-7) portray Moses as using a ritual object, a piece of wood and a staff respectively, to produce the water miracle. In fact, God commands the use of that object. However, P (the Priestly source) insists in Numbers 20:3-13 that God’s word is all that he needs. As in P’s version of the creation (Genesis 1), the Lord God needs no physical contact with the created world to bring forth life out of the void. J and E, however, tend to portray God as maintaining a closer, often physical, contact with the world.
Another feature of the source distinctions that is interesting here is the issue of who is with Moses in each account of his water miracles. In J (Exodus 15:22-26), Moses is alone. God shows his favorite leader the answer to the problem, and he solves it without assistance. Such intimate relationships between God and individual human beings are typical of J’s narrative. In P (Numbers 20:3-13), it is not surprising that God orders Moses to take Aaron, the ancestor of the P faction, with him when he performs the miracle. The relative authority of Moses as opposed to Aaron is a major issue for this source, for whom factional infighting between priestly castes seems to persist into the time of Christ and beyond. In E (Exodus 17:1-7), however, the Lord instructs Moses to take “the seventy elders of Israel” with him when he performs the miracle. This image of Moses sharing power with others in the nation is a clear message from the Northern author responsible for E that the Lord never intended any one individual or faction to own the religion of Israel. Just as the tribes shared the power of the monarchy in the North, with the most powerful winning the right to rule, the North distributed the power of the cult throughout the territory as well (I Kings 12:25-33). For this E version of the story, it is a central fact that even though Moses shared his authority with the elders of the tribes, the nation was no more respectful of him or any of them than had his authority been as monolithic as the later Aaronide temple caste or Davidic dynasts in Jerusalem.
The fact that all three major Pentateuchal sources tell some version of this story makes clear a basic memory of the wilderness wandering period — namely, that although God was faithful to sustain the people during this time, they were ungrateful. They complained. They rebelled against God’s chosen leaders. The text upholds Moses’ own leadership position by his response, for Moses reveals that picking a fight with him is the same as quarreling with the Lord. Challenging Moses is akin to testing the Lord. They forgot every kindness visited upon them by the Lord — a pattern that persisted until both Judah and Israel were destroyed.
Psalm 32 (Year A, First Sunday in Lent, Year C, Fourth Sunday in Lent) is an individual thanksgiving for healing. The tradition of the church identifies seven penitential psalms. It expresses the happiness of the sinner who receives forgiveness. The poet had tried to hide his sin from God. His conscience afflicted him, but the affliction removed when he confessed. He warns others not to hide their sins. Its theme is the spiritual, psychological, and physical dynamic of the consciousness of sin, the necessity of confession and the effects of forgiveness. Psalm 32 teaches a simple lesson: Trying to conceal one's sins from God is useless and brings needless (often physical) suffering. Confession of one's sin brings God's help and guidance toward the goal of a righteous life. The opening beatitudes come from the heart. Ordinary, everyday happiness was a subject that occupied much of the interest of wisdom circles in Israel. It presented happiness in the context of a moral life (which is why past translators of the Hebrew word used “blessed”). Experience suggested to the sages that happiness secured through immoral means was illusory or temporary at best. One could find true, lasting happiness, only through a relationship to its source. His experience testifies to the truth contained in these two beatitudes. One finds happiness as God forgives sin and puts it out of sight and receives acquittal from the divine judge of our actions. Such blessedness comes from one who knows the covenant faithfulness of the God of Israel.[15] Further, blessedness comes to those whose spirit (ruach) lack deceit. He then offers a testimony of a journey from a pained conscience to confession. He admits his silence in not confessing his sin brought on illness and acknowledgement of sin brought healing and forgiveness. The ill effects of living in the silence of denial and deceit stand in sharp contrast to the joy of forgiveness for those who can honestly confess their sin. This silence was an expression of the opposition to God. His silence about his past is the sinful thing he must face. His silence was the seed of death. His silence did him no good, as he thought. In fact, he was making himself insufferable. He withstood God, and God withstood him. He was at the point of wasting away because of the falseness and insincerity of his heart that revealed his conflict with God.[16] Our unwillingness to discuss sin may lead to our hiding it. We may pretend to hide it from God, but we really hide it from ourselves. Sin will find a way to exert its effect upon our bodies as well as soul. However, he had a conversation with himself, a notion not common in the Old Testament, that resulted in his confession. When he acknowledged and confessed his sin, the Lord forgave him. The sinful thing about the past falls away; his unruliness curbed. He can let God lead him.[17] Confession is the path toward freedom. The beauty of it, of course, is that God wants us to experience such liberation, and therefore we know that God is ready to forgive. Always. The only question is whether we are ready to stop hiding our sin. The psalm turns toward others, as we learn that what he has experienced from God is not his private affair. It concerns the community. He returns to the language of the wisdom community. He must not be silent. Here we learn about the nature of confession: it corresponds to a divine action that affects us personally and calls us to a decision. Anyone who has experienced such deliverance bears a responsibility before God for others.[18] The religion of Israel is teachable and learnable. He will conclude by contrasting the fate of the wicked with that of the upright.
Psalm 25:1-10 (Year B, First Sunday in Lent) is an individual lament, one of nine acrostic psalms in the Psalter, the other psalms being 9-10, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, and 145. This special literary form begins each line with a letter of the alphabet and progresses through all 22 Hebrew letters. Much of the Book of Lamentations is also in an acrostic form. It is not clear what purpose the acrostic form served. People may have considered it an artful way of constructing a poem. It may also have served to aid memorization of poetic units during the era of oral transmission of the biblical material. Due to the transmission process, however, not all biblical acrostics are complete, of which this psalm provides two examples.[19] The exceptions are that two letter are missing and two are doubled, reflecting changes that the psalm has undergone in its transmission.
The themes of Psalm 25 are those of wisdom literature because of its continuing theme of the instruction of humanity that the Lord provides. Its focus is learning and finding the right path, while it also expresses hope for forgiveness and for deliverance from distress. It has alternating petitions and expressions of trust. One might recite the psalm at the covenant festival. The Lord teaches the way of the covenant. Here is a prayer for the covenant mercies of the Lord when suffering affliction for sins. As much as one may want to love God and others, love may have to live in history as suffering love, since the power of sin makes a simple triumph of love impossible.[20] Here is a prayer for the covenant mercies of the Lord when enemies seize the occasion to attack, by trying to discredit the psalmist through false accusations. Here is a pensive and earnest soul. The psalmist composed it in the quiet of a lonely life. It speaks to others in that position. The psalmist closely relates all these themes. As we note the character of the Lord as expressed in here, it becomes inviting into the friendship with the Lord for which the psalmist hopes (verse 14).
The superscription, of David, is a later addition, as are all of them in the psalter.[21]
The poet has an honest, pensive, and earnest soul. He writes out of the experience of loneliness and speaks to others in that position. Words like shame, enemies without cause, foes, and wait, underscore the distressing situation the poet faces. While he faces external threats, an internal threat confronts him as well. He begs God not to remember sins sins or iniquities, but himself. He needs forgiveness. He needs relief from affliction. He also has some theological affirmations that keep him going during a confusing situation. Thus, the psalmist can pray like this because God's covenant faithfulness, God's chesed, is "from of old." It is forever. The Lord is good. The writer needs something from God in this area. He needs God to remember him out of mercy and compassion, for his own sins is on his mind. Therefore, amid external and internal threats, he is aware that if he is to find a way, it will be through the Torah and worship with the people of God.
“To you, Oh Lord, I lift up my soul" is the theme of the Psalm. The action of lifting one's soul/life up, however, need not indicate a noble desire in the right direction. One might also "lift one's life/soul" up to worthless things (Deuteronomy 24:15; Proverbs 19:18; Hosea 4:8; Psalm 24:4).
“In you, O God, I trust.” Christian hope rests on such trust. Hope in the Psalms is always in God, which means that the vitality we bring to hope is perishable. When our hope rests or grounds itself in God, the basis is outside us. [22]
Psalm 25:1-7 are a lament spoken to the Lord in prayer. Verses 1-3 have a basis in personal experience, the writer knowing that the soul can find edification and trust. Shame, enemies, foes in wait for you, underscore the hope of the psalmist. It begins with the poet presenting his life, his very self, to the lord in prayer. He sets his hope on the Lord and turns to the Lord for protection. It implies directing one's life toward a goal. It implies offering one's life and soul to God. Lamentations 3:41 mentions offering one's heart to God, which for the ancient Hebrews was the physical seat of thought and reason, rather than emotion. He relies upon God, so he asks God not to let him others shame (bosh, public humiliation or disgrace) him and deliver him from his enemies. Those who wait (qawah) for the Lord should not have circumstances that put them to shame, but rather, as occurs frequently in laments, shame should come to those who are wantonly treacherous. Shame reveals a conscience sensitive to moral issues, while guilt refers to a specific act that we know to be wrong, revealing we have a sense of what is right. However, shame is intricately connected to the community one values, which means it can inhibit the growth of the person. It can lead to embarrassment, self-consciousness, and fear of not conforming to a community and thereby inhibit personal expression. Since we lie to ourselves so well, since our defense mechanisms are strong and get stronger with education and experience, guilt does not come as easily as it should. In verses 4-6, the poet has the realization that the gracious action of the Lord to help him is necessary. We see the concern for the mercy and graciousness of the Lord, as well as the dominate thought of the sins of the writer. The writer goes on to pray for moral guidance in the will of the Lord, a theme of wisdom literature. He wants the Lord to give him enlightenment regarding the ways/paths of the covenant of the Lord. Consistent with wisdom literature, he wants the Lord to lead (darak) him in the truth ('emet, faithfulness, dependability) of the Lord, and teach him, for the Lord is the God of his salvation, so he waits (qawah) all day long for the Lord. Verses 6-7 are a prayer for divine mercy and forgiveness of sins. The author makes an appeal to the covenant benevolence of God, such as mercy (rahamim), love (chesed), goodness, uprightness, faithfulness, and grace. He does so because of a deep awareness of personal sin that has broken a relationship only God can heal. He can refer to sins and transgressions of youth, which he does not want the Lord to remember (zkr) for the sake of the goodness of the Lord. The Lord does not remember sins, and this brings eternal forgiveness, for the Lord will remember the poet, granting him eternal life. He is praying for the forgiveness of sin. He wants the Lord to remember divine mercy and not remember or consider the sins of the psalmist. The shame and guilt to which the poet refers are signs of health, but they can also overwhelm us and crush us if we do not experience them as on the way to God. Will the daylight come? The Christian faith has an odd response. We can repent. If we can be honest in such moments, then maybe we can be honest for the rest of our lives. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Because God does have mercy, we can be honest.
In 25:8-10, the poet stresses that one gains knowledge through the struggle of the soul, so that there is a universally valid religious truth. The Lord teaches the way of keeping covenant. The Lord has demands that meet in the lovingkindness of the Lord. He is praying for guidance in the will of the Lord. Wisdom in these matters involves Torah and keeping company with those who fear the Lord and bind themselves to the covenant. Let us be honest. It can be hard to find our way in life. The psalmist is praying, and that is one way to discern the way. He appeals to the covenant benevolence of the Lord, who instructs (yarah) sinners in the way. The Lord leads (darak) the humble and teaches them in the way that leads to righteousness. Jesus told his closest associates, "I am the way, and the truth and the life" (John 14:6a). Early followers of Jesus were commonly known as those who belonged to "the Way" (Acts 9:2; 18:25-26; 19:9, 23; 24:14, 22). All the paths of the Lord are in keeping with the covenant benevolence of the Lord for those are part of the intimate circle of confidants who keep the covenant (berit) of the Lord. This passage is important in providing part of the Old Testament background of combining grace and faithfulness or truth.[23] The Psalms constantly extol the kindness and faithfulness of the Lord together, a combination also found in John 1:14. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of the Lord has a close relation to faithfulness. [24] Abraham is called God's friend (II Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23). Jesus calls his followers his friends (John 15:12-15) if we do what he instructs/commands/commissions us to do. Jesus caringly sits in a close circle with us, confidently sharing his trust in God, as well as teaching us his wise insights and expectations. He offers us his ongoing guidance, forgiveness and the sometimes gentle, but always effective, power of God's Spirit.
The issues the psalm raises are complex. Yet, as human beings, we can make a certain kind of peace with complexity. Living a human life is complicated. Too often, we are the ones who make it so. We stir up the dust and complain we cannot see. We make our lives messy. Very simply, life is difficult. Thus, we may need to have some peace with loose ends. Frankly, I would give nothing for simplicity if it has not gone through the difficult waters of complexity. Yet, as we wrestle with the complex issues of a human life, we often find a hard-won simplicity.[25] The answers are not simple. Yet, we can live in peace amid complexity.
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 (Year C, First Sunday in Lent) is part of a psalm that is an individual lament, although some scholars think it might be a Royal psalm. God protects, shelters, is a refuge from harm those who have placed their trust in God. Deuteronomy 32 is an example of another “early” psalm. Psalm 46 has similar thoughts. The Psalm is a reminder of how much courage and strength one can receive in the house of worship. The writer of Psalm 91 marvelously heaps up several descriptive names and other appellations for God. I will make note of them as they occur. The dating of the psalm is difficult. Many scholars consider it an “early” Psalm. However, the use of ancient divine names does not indicate that this psalm is itself ancient; its language and concepts elsewhere suggest a composition from later in Israelite history. The psalm is not likely archaic but archaizing. In any case, its central message of finding our security in the presence and providence of God is also central throughout much of the traditions we find in the Old Testament text. Psalm 91 gives assurance that God walks with us through our fears and troubles; as we entrust our lives to God, we abide under God’s protective care. The New Testament sees the ultimate fulfillment of God’s providence in God’s present and future kindnesses to us in Jesus Christ.
A fair reading of the text raises the question of whether the psalm over-promises. The psalm is a good example of using care and wisdom in interpreting and applying a biblical passage.
Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-13 is part of a segment that is a promise of divine protection and human steadfastness. The poet encourages his audience to trust God so no harm will befall them. Those who live in the hiding-place or covering that the Most High (‘elyon) and the Almighty (Shaddai), which could refer to the form of the Temple, but also could be a metaphor for a spiritual state. In our time, some homes have a refuge room, and mines have a refuge room. Here is a reminder that human life is a perilous trip and has its share of dangers. Usually, the protection God offers is one that helps us stay engaged with the enemy and with the dangerous circumstances so that we can forge ahead. Fear and anxiety that the world will not have what we need to sustain us is a great lesson in our lives. Our fear and anxiety relates to that in which we place our trust. The poet is pointing us to find our security in God. Such persons will testify that the Lord (Yahweh) is their protection and fortress and God (‘Elohim) is their trust, securely confident in the capable hands of God. Such a declaration may have been an obligation on certain occasions for resident personnel of the Temple. He goes on to reinforce the idea that those entering or leaving the Temple may have sung it. Since the Lord (Yahweh) is their refuge and the Most High (‘elyon) is their dwelling place, no evil shall befall them, and they shall be safe. My argument with the poet would remind him that evil does come upon those who trust in God, the book of Job challenging the idea, as well as my own experience of life. A human life is full of danger, and the people of God are one with humanity in their exposure to those dangers. As Jesus noted, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). The Lord will command the angels to guard you, as we find in the early traditions of the Patriarchs, a notion that will develop into the idea of guardian angels. Such angels shall bear them up so that they will dash their feet against a stone. Satan uses these verses to tempt Jesus (Matthew 4:5-7 and Luke 4:9-12). Satan tempts Jesus to test God, to try to force God to act; Satan suggests that it is okay to engage in imprudent behavior. They shall defeat the lion and the snake. One might describe the later practice of handling poisonous snakes in worship as a form of Satan using scripture to tempt people down a path of imprudent behavior, claiming the life of a Kentucky pastor in 2014.
Psalm 91:14-16 shows that divine assurance confirms and reinforces the divine promise. God responds to the poet by giving assurance of the protection of God. Those who love/obey, those who know the name of the Lord by personal experience, are the ones the Lord will deliver, which is the condition one needs to provide to receive the promised protection. The Lord will answer when they call. At this point, I get the direction the poet is directing us. As the old gospel song, “Trust and Obey,” notices some of these ideas. We can grant that such prayer sustains communion with God. The psalmist pleads with God to answer him when he calls (4:1), calls upon God because God will answer (17:6), and asks the Lord to answer when the congregation calls to the Lord (20:9). The people called upon the Lord in distress and the Lord answered (Psalm 81:7). The psalmist called upon the Lord in the day of trouble and the Lord answered him (86:7). Moses, Aaron, and Samuel were among those who called upon the Lord and the Lord answered (Psalm 99:6). The Psalmist called upon the Lord in a time of distress the Lord answered (118:5) and on the day the psalmist called the Lord answered (138:3). The Lord will be with them when they are in trouble and will rescue and honor them. Yet, Jesus promised persecution will come to those who follow him (Matthew 5:10). Jesus notes his own homelessness (Luke 9:57-58). Since the usual pattern is for people to give honor to God, it is striking that God honors the trust and prayer exhibited by the poet. The Lord will satisfy them with long life, but wisdom reminds us that some who have been faithful to the Lord have their lives cut short. The Lord shows them the path toward salvation.
Psalm 27 (Year C, Second Sunday in Lent) contains a psalm of trust (verses 1-6) and of lament (verses 7-11). The superscription suggests a connection to King David, and its themes of refuge, reference to enemies, war, sacrifices, tents, singing, making melody, and the faithful servant relate to him. It suggests the person at prayer can express trust in the Lord that allows one to face the future calmly. Such words can arise from an experience of difficult struggle that leads to experiencing the help of the Lord. The Lord is the light, a beacon of safety, help, and stronghold needed at this moment, and thus one has no need to face the future with fear or anxiety, despite how vulnerable one is to physical, economic, relational, and spiritual crises. We have a choice as well between faith and fear. His testimony, arising of the experience of difficult struggle, allows him to face the future calmly. He has had a mature walk of faith. We do not have to range very far in our thoughts to things that can give rise to fear. Therefore, he can face new dangers. The Lord means everything to him, so he is free of dependence on the purely human. People are engaging in slander against him, but his adversaries will stumble and fall. Although fear is the natural response to such enemies that surround him, he will not allow his heart to fear and encourages himself to be confident. However, his desire is to live in communion with the Lord. 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.[26] 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. The lament begins in verse 7, 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. If his parents forsake him, believing his present affliction is from God, the Lord will take him up like a parent, protecting him and instructing him. The final verses become a prayer for guidance and protection. Human nature being what it is, he knows the temptation is present to relapse into error and sin, so he asks the Lord to teach him the way. Although the Lord is his light, the way seems more like twilight than a brightly lit day. Since enemies will place obstacles in the way that will make it easy for him to stumble, he asks the Lord to make his way in life level. His adversaries give false witness concerning him, breaking the ninth commandment, and speak of violence, reminding us that deception and violence are far too prevalent in all human societies. His faith gives him the confidence that he will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, as opposed to the land of the dead, where there is no access to the Lord. The Psalms constantly extol the kindness and faithfulness of the Lord together. We deal here with the identity and consistency of the eternal God in the divine turning in love to the creatures God has made.[27] Observing the cruelty and moral evil of life, we justly wonder about the good in life. Yet, most of us have some view of goodness that we want to see in our lives and in our world. Confidence in such goodness is a matter of faith. It involves taking a step beyond what we can observe in our experience. The poet turns to others, expecting to see the deliverance for which he asks, and urges others wait for or hope it the Lord, to have strength, and encourage their hearts to have courage. Learning the virtue of waiting is difficult. Since learning is a process, it will require patience. Learning that making demands of life for immediate gratification is not the path to happiness is an important virtue to learn. Further, it does take courage to lead a human life. Most of us have phases in our lives when it took great courage to simply get up in the morning and continue our day. It takes the development of internal strength to live a human life. We learn the disciplines of such a life, some of us more slowly than others do.
Psalm 63:1-8 (Year C, Third Sunday in Lent) is an individual lament. The poet writes from the sanctuary, seeing a revelation of the majesty of God. It reflects a deep spiritual and almost mystical sense. It has themes and vocabulary like Psalm 42-3, 73, and 84. The superscription of the psalm identifies it as a Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. The setting refers to where in the days before David ruled as king, he led a large roving band of soldiers (see such passages as 1 Samuel 23:13-15). His life was threatened by King Saul, with whom he had a complicated relationship. In his time of affliction, he affirms that the Lord is his God. Therefore, he seeks God, his soul is thirsty and he is physically spent in his search. He remembers experiencing the glorious and powerful presence of God in the sanctuary. He owes everything to the steadfast love (hesed) of God, which is better than life. Note the bodily references as he offers praise. His lips offer praise, he lifts his hands to God in prayer, and calls on the name of God. His communion with God is a necessity of life, leading to a rich feast for the soul, joining prayer with the communion sacrifice he offers. His mouth offers praise and lips are joyful. He meditates upon God in prayerful meditation on his bed. The reason is that God has been his help, using the image of the God a large protective bird that gathers him under its wings. He sings for joy. His soul clings to God as the right hand of God upholds him.
Psalm 23 (Year A, Fourth Sunday in Lent) is a beautiful expression of trust, confidence, and intimacy. This psalm is among the best known and most inexhaustible of all the Psalms. We might even think of it as a summary of the whole Psalter, explaining the clear songs of triumph with which the book closes in Psalm 145ff.[28] Even the most biblically impaired have heard somewhere, sometime, "The LORD is my shepherd." Coupled with its familiarity is its continuing ability to offer deep comfort, solace, and strength to a great diversity of people in all sorts of situations. If Psalm 23 suggests a simplicity of trust, it is a trust that lies on the other side of a life spent dealing with the complexities of conflict and fear. The presence of the Lord is something we can trust equally in "green pastures" and "still waters" or in "the valley of the death-shadow." Here is the tender soul enjoying perfect peace of mind, flowing from a confident trust in God, even when the trials of life threaten the person’s life.
The Psalm uses two images that illustrate the care of the Lord for the upright. Some scholars interpret the psalm as an exilic or post-exilic portrait of a new exodus, the exodus being a common exilic image for the return. Such an interpretation helps to see the two parts of the psalm as a unity. The Lord guides the people through the difficult journey from Babylonia and then hosts them at the table of the Lord, in the rebuilt temple.
First, the image of shepherd is in verses 1-4. The Lord leads the people to nourishment and safety, keeping them alive and protecting them. The shepherd-sheep metaphor for the relationship between the Lord and Israel is common. The shepherd leads the sheep to pasture, to water, and through the difficult terrain. Royalty is often referred to in this ancient culture as shepherds. This is the case with David and Moses. The Babylonian king Hammurabi is called the shepherd as well. The poet begins with an affirmation of personal faith that the Lord is my shepherd. In contrast to the shepherding by human kings, which could be unbelievably bad, the Lord is a good shepherd. Since human existence is not safe or painless, we will need shepherding. The Lord promises to be at our side. Theologically, the Lord is self-sufficient, able to provide for the sheep. Without the attention of the shepherd, the sheep would soon find themselves in trouble. Since the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, which is an expression of faith in the Lord is a trustworthy shepherd. If we feel lack in the journey of human life, it is the result of a failure to trust. The poet does not refer to the extermination of desire, as the Buddhist suggest, but affirms that we lack nothing we really need and should focus gratefully on what we have. If we perceive and hear the truth of who the Lord is, the only possible answer is that we shall lack nothing. Any lack can consist only in the fact that we have closed our eyes to the glory of the Lord and that we therefore resist the divine rule over us as our Shepherd. The divine glory is always a way of light. The glory of the Lord is the love of the Lord for us. Since I lack nothing because the Lord is my shepherd, I do not have to be obtuse and rebellious. Yet, the fact that it remains so much in our lives makes sin even more frightful. Sin seems incomprehensible from the standpoint of the affirmation of the shepherd rule of the Lord.[29] The shepherding of the Lord involves making me lie down in green pastures, a reminder that nature provides restful escape from the over-stimulation of a human life, as busy as it is with work, family, and community involvements. The shepherding of the Lord leads me beside still waters. Such waters are not turbulent and therefore to drink from them is easy. The water often signified chaos as well as quenching of thirst. The psalmist thanks the Lord that the waters of his own emotion, are under control. Such shepherding by the Lord, leading as it does to green pastures and still waters, leads to the internal result that it restores my soul. The external demands of life, which are many, ought not to consume us. Rest on the Sabbath day. Ask the Lord to replenish our humanness when we tire of doing good. The shepherding of the Lord guides or leads me in righteous or right paths for the sake of the name of the Lord. Some would re-translate as roundabout ways that end up in the right direction. In the context of the worship life of Israel, such guidance derives from knowledge of Torah, especially adherence to the Ten Commandments. In the context of Proverbs, such guidance involves taking the path of wisdom. The shepherding of the Lord recognizes that a shadow hovers over human life. We come to the structural and theological center of the psalm. The psalm reminds us that even in the most life-threatening situation, the provision of the Lord is sufficient. If we think of our lives as a circle, the Shepherd is at the center. Everything, even the darkness, revolves around it. Thus, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, or the darkest valley, meditating upon the reality that death casts its shadow over us all. Such a recognition should help us make the most of our days. Tough times can lead to people to abandon faith and hope, and most disastrously, love. Yet, tough times can also lead to people deepening their faith, expanding hope, and restoring their love. Our divine shepherd knows that on the other side of the valley are things the sheep need. The shepherd knows the threats in the journey of a human life. The shepherd also knows what the sheep need for them to handle the tough moments of the journey. This psalm is for the times when the path of our lives takes a sharp turn and leads through the darkness. We cannot avoid the darkest valleys of our lives. We cannot take a detour around them. We will have to travel this way. Even we thought we could avoid or escape, we find the arms of the Lord ready to embrace us there. The Lord is determined to be our shepherd even in the darkest and most troubling circumstances we face. The psalm promises, however, that we never have to go through the darkest valley alone. Like a good shepherd who cares for the sheep, like a loving parent who holds the hand of a child, the Lord promises to be with us on the way through our moment of darkness.[30] Thus, we honor the deceased by remembering them without surrendering to despair. Walking through the tough places in life will require perseverance. The valleys of our lives, the tough places of struggle and suffering, become the fertilizer for the roots of character. The valley represents the extreme conditions of our lives. They will be an important part of shaping our character. They will disclose our values.[31] The Lord will not remove the dark, shadowy moments of human life, but I will fear no evil; for you are with me. The dark, shadowy times are simply there, and the poet feels no need to explain why or even explain the Lord. By analogy, when those who know go through their dark times, our role is to be with them. Our presence is the comfort they need. Awareness of the presence of the Lord is the comfort we need. In fact, your rod and your staff, implements that prod and guide the sheep—they comfort me. The staff of the shepherd helps straying or fallen sheep. The rod guides and punishes. True comfort from the Lord means we will need both.
The second image is that of the Lord as the host of the Messianic banquet in verses 5-6. The poet hopes to remain the presence of the Lord all his life, suggesting an experience that has brought home the truth of the happiness and blessing of communion with the Lord. He has experienced divine protection through the troubling and threatening experiences of his life. Although we face threats to our physical, emotional, and spiritual health, the shepherd at the center of our lives gives us the assurance that goodness and mercy shall follow us. Stumbling through dark valleys, goodness and mercy pursue us. Worrying about our daily needs, the Lord sets a table of food and pours an overflowing cup. Unsure about our futures, the Lord invites us to dwell in the Lord's house for as long as we live. The luxurious quality of the Lord as host is symbolized by the spreading of the table and the oil on the head. As the host of a banquet, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, for the Lord will nurture in adversity and when friends or enemies fail us. Further, you anoint my head with oil, as wealthy hosts often did to their guests at banquets and my cup overflows, signifying abundance. The metaphor suggests we are the vessel, the Lord has set the table and is serving, and the blessings that the Lord pours into and over us just do not stop. It suggests a spirit of gratitude rather than a feeling of entitlement regarding the good things of life. Surely goodness and mercy (hesed, faith love or love that never quits, a love that pursues us, referring to covenant blessings), shall follow me all the days of my life,for we have received things in life that we have not earned and do not deserve. We live every moment under the watchful eye of the Lord. Such awareness provides for us reassurance and challenge. The promise is that I will dwell in Yahweh’s house forever. The poet hopes to be in the presence of the Lord at the Jerusalem Temple and thereby have access to the Lord throughout his long life. He refers to his natural life, for to have a long life was a blessing. This would be the most natural reading of the text. However, the possibility that it refers to the heavenly dwelling of the Lord is there, in which case the poet anticipates dwelling with the Lord throughout his natural life and in eternity as well.
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 (Year B, Fourth Sunday in Lent) is a portion of a communal thanksgiving hymn. In alluding to earlier traditions, it belongs with Psalms 103-107, which means the division of the psalms into five books, the fifth beginning here, is late and is wrong to separate this psalm from those preceding. Some scholars suggest that worshippers recited it before the sacrifice at the festival of thanksgiving. This psalm reflects similar themes as that of II Isaiah, primarily Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah. The refrain shows a strong international theme. The psalm shows a liturgical and responsorial character. The rabbis used the psalm as the basis for requiring a special blessing thanking the Lord from those who survived the desert, those released from prison, seafarers, and those who were seriously.
Psalm 107:1-3 are an introduction to the whole Psalm. It calls those the Lord has redeemed from their distressing circumstances to give thankful praise to God and to speak up about what God has done for them. Verses 1-2 reflect influence from Isaiah 62:12 and 43:5 and is like Psalm 118:1-2 in its encouragement to give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good, the basis of Jewish piety in its summons to praise the Lord in prayer.[32] Steadfast love (hesed) is the most significant thematic word in Psalm 107. In its combination with the goodness of the Lord we have a phrase used often in the Old Testament. We see it in Psalms 100:5; 106:1; 118:1-4, 29; 136 (all); Jeremiah 33:11; I Chronicles 16:34; II Chronicles 5:13; Ezra 3:11. Further, Psalm 23:6 combines the goodness and mercy of the Lord, words we find here as well. Steadfast love signifies the persistent protective loyalty of the Lord to the people with whom the Lord has established a covenant. It reveals the character of the Lord. The Lord acts faithfully in keeping promises. The Lord will show such loyal love, even when the people do not show such loyalty to the Lord. It shows its importance in the Psalm as it begins and ends with the word. We see the word in verses 8, 15, 21, and 31. The Lord works actively for our well-being. Thus, the Psalm opens with offering good reasons to offer thanks to the Lord. Verses 2-3 refer to the return from the Babylonian exile, referring to the redeemed (ga’al) as giving praise for their deliverance from trouble. Kinsfolk had the obligation and privilege of rescuing their kin from precarious circumstances. We see this in Leviticus 25:23-55 and the little book of Ruth. The Lord took redemption of the covenant people seriously. For example, the Lord will redeem them “with an outstretched arm” in Exodus 6:6-7. The Lord has redeemed them and called them by name, so they belong to the Lord in Isaiah 43:1-7. The Lord has redeemed Jacob “from hands too strong” for him in Jeremiah 31:11. The introduction ends by declaring that the Lord gathered them from a widespread diaspora, and the poet composed it 538 BC. The theme is common. Out of compassion, the Lord will restore their fortunes, gathering them from among the peoples to whom the Lord has scattered them (Deuteronomy 30:1-5). They pray for the Lord to gather them “from among the nations” (Psalm 106:47-48). The Lord will gather the people “from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). The Lord will bring the people from north and south (Isaiah 43:5-7). The Lord will gather them “from all the nations and all the places where” where the Lord has driven them (Jeremiah 29:10:14). The Lord is going “to bring them from the land of the north” and “gather them from the farthest parts of the earth” (Jeremiah 31:8). The Lord will gather them from the lands to which they have scattered (Ezekiel 11:14-20). Thus, the Lord has taken responsibility for redeeming the people from their trouble, gathering them in and bringing them home from all points of the compass.
The rest of the psalm is a series of vignettes that are accounts of redemption. Each of these redemption stories has the same fourfold structure:
1) a description of the nature of the distress;
2) a prayer of desperation;
3) an account of the deliverance; and
4) an expression of thanks.
Each of these mini liturgies of redemption includes two identical refrains. The first is, "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress." A few verses later, an expression of gratitude follows, "Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind." It is a two-step dance of redemption: the people cry out in anguish, then -- after the Lord rescues them -- they voice their thanksgiving for deliverance. Such thanksgiving remembers the past action of the Lord, but even more gives testimony to the character of the Lord.
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." (Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance). This psalm makes it clear that the Lord acts redemptively toward those who have gone astray. Suffering and judgment are not the final word. Saints lose their tempers, get hungry, scold God, get egotistical, testy, or impatient, make mistakes and regret them. still, they are persistently blundering toward heaven.[33]
Psalm 107:17-22 offers two general descriptions of those who are being punished for misdeeds, who also be forgiven. It identifies the redeemed as those who were foolish through their disobedience. Their affliction is a consequence of the people's own behavior, not some contagion, as the NRSV would have it. The author describes the prayer for deliverance or even of desperation. The first step in the dance of redemption is that the people cry out in anguish. He describes the merciful response of the Lord that brings deliverance. He then offers an expression of thanks that describes the need for an appropriate sacrifice of thanksgiving. In offering thanks for the wonderful deeds of the Lord toward humanity, the Lord is actively working toward the wellbeing of humanity. The redeemed offer thanksgiving sacrifices and testify to the deeds of the Lord with songs of joy, tracing a dramatic cycle familiar to the faith-community. Men and women sin and inevitably experience the consequences of their sin: great suffering. However, it places the story of human suffering within a redemptive perspective. The final word is not our suffering, but divine mercy.
All of this raises the question is whether our story of suffering is also a redemptive story. In his Journal, Søren Kierkegaard observed that the fact that God creates out of nothing is wonderful. What is still more wonderful is that the Lord makes saints out of sinners.[34] We sing about such redemption. A song that early affected me profoundly was the following:
Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life
If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life's best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of life
And laid it at the cross.[35]
From the rousing gospel song "Diamonds," recorded by Hawk Nelson, I share these words. However, the song is joyful and well worth hearing as well.
Here and now I'm in the fire, in above my head,
Being held under the pressure, don't know what will be left.
But it's here in the ashes,
I'm finding treasure.
He's making diamonds,
Making diamonds,
He's making diamonds out of dust.
He is refining,
And in his timing,
He's making diamonds out of us.
Numbers 21:4-9 (Year B, Fourth Sunday in Lent), part of the set of travel of travels in the JE account in verses 1-35, is the story of Moses and the serpent in the wilderness. It is the final recurrence of wilderness murmuring. This motif emphasizes the faithlessness of the Israelites and the resulting conflict between them and their divine and human leaders. Complaints center around a lack of water and poor food. Mount Hor receives mention in Numbers and in Deuteronomy 32:50. The detour around Edom leads to the people becoming impatient, a weariness with which we can identify when we face the various challenges of life and relationships. This impatience is a sign of a larger problem when we want others and even God to conform to our desires and expectations. Their impatience leads them to speak against God (Elohim) and Moses, wondering why they have brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. They have no water, and the manna is detestable. Paul advised that the church should do everything without complaining or arguing (Philippians 2:14). It suggests we think we know better than anyone around us does. Sometimes, it suggests we know better than God does. Characteristically, in this unhappy situation, reinforced by the romanticized memory of how good it used to be, they quarreled, accused God of infidelity, and accused Moses of poor, failed leadership. The judgment of the Lord (Yahweh) was to send poisonous serpents among them. Snakes are mentioned frequently in the Hebrew Bible, always with disapproval, in contrast to several of Israel’s ancient Near Eastern neighbors (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, Canaan), where serpents were regarded with a mixture of fear and admiration or even veneration. Biblical references to literal serpents include a warning of the dangers of their bite (Ecclesiastes 10:8; Amos 5:19), a description of their unnerving locomotion (Proverbs 30:19), and the hazards of encountering them in number, as recounted here. Mythologically, serpents represented the forces of opposition against the creative power of Yahweh (Isaiah 27:1; Amos 9:3; Psalm 140:3), as well as the personification of destructive craft and guile (Genesis 3:1). Moses prayed for the people, the primary function of future prophets. The response of the Lord is not to remove the serpents but to provide a remedy for their bites. The mere act of looking upon the bronze image being sufficient for healing is unique in this context. Ordinarily, healing required more elaborate rituals, such as we find in the healing of Naaman in II Kings 5:1-19. The bronze serpent is an apotropaic (evil-averting) symbol seems to be an etiological account for the bronze serpent, Nebushtan, which was worshipped in Jerusalem until Hezekiah destroyed it. In the canonical context, however, Moses’ bronze serpent would acquire a name — Nehushtan — and would be placed in the temple in Jerusalem as a cult object for the healing (or preventing) of snakebite. As commonly happens with cult objects, the object itself, rather than the miraculous divine reality it represents, becomes the object of worship (i.e., an idol), and for this reason King Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent as part of his reforms of worship in II Kings 18:4. This story in Numbers is an etiology to explain the origins of that cult object. Winged serpents associated with the divine are attested in Isaiah 6:6-7 and 14:20-30, as well as other ancient texts. In Egypt, the uraeus, an amulet of an upreared cobra, symbolized kingship and divinity. It was worn on the forehead of pharaoh and was believed to protect him with its fiery saliva. A serpent attached to a staff recalls the caduceus symbol of the modern medical profession. The incident forms the background of the statement in John 3:14, that just as Moses lifted the serpent up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. This suggests that looking upon the bronze serpent, far from being magic for healing, is a sign of their faith in the Lord to effect healing.
Psalm 126 (Year C, Fifth Sunday in Lent) is a wisdom psalm among the Songs of Ascents collected in the time of Josiah. The psalm combines profound piety with noble simplicity. The psalmist gains deep strength from the hope of the people. The psalmist offers a plea for help. What the Lord has done becomes a paradigm for the help for which the community now pleads. It makes its point that those who undertake their work in the Lord will receive reward in a succinct way. The psalm may well view the cause of celebration as looking forward to the day when the Lord permanently the fortunes of Israel in the new thing envisioned by such prophets as II Isaiah (43:19). Verses 1-3 a supreme moment of the past. The singer cannot believe that after so much misfortune (shuv) the fortunes of Zion. The mood of the people is one in which the present situation is too good to be true. They have a childlike delight in hoped for happiness. A Yiddish proverb says that what soap is for the body, so laughter is to the soul. It is worth pondering how laughter cleanses the soul. Even those outside the people of God recognize the revelation of the Lord that has occurred in Israel. The reaction of Israel's neighbors to Israel's fortunes or misfortunes was a recurring matter of concern at various stages of the canonical text. The Lord delivered the people out of Egypt in the sight of the nations (Leviticus 26:45). Moses says to the Lord that if the Lord kills the people, the nations will see it and claim the Lord was able to able to help them (Numbers 14:15-16). The nations will wonder what has caused this great display of anger (Deuteronomy 29:24). The Lord has made them a laughingstock among the nations (Psalm 44:14). The people should walk in the fear of God to prevent the taunt from the nations (Nehemiah 5:9). Pre-exilic Israel had various faiths, the Northern Kingdom representing a major reflection of the diversity, symbolized by various attempts to syncretize acceptance of the covenant with the Lord with various features of Baal, then the Assyrian and the Babylonian religious systems. However, there were always some, represented by the prophets and the Deuteronomic History, who believed in full devotion to the covenant of the Lord, believing that failure to do so would result in judgment. Yahweh was their divine patron. In an analogous way, Marduk became the divine patron of Babylon and Baal the divine patron of Canaan for the same reason. This version of the faith of Israel would survive exile. The nations will proclaim that the Lord is king (I Chronicles 16:31, Psalm 96:10). The ends of the earth will see that the Lord has redeemed his people his servant Jacob (Isaiah 48:10). Not to do marvelous things for the chosen people would have meant that Yahweh was either (a) unable or (b) unwilling, and Israel's theologians chose to interpret the nation's adversities as the latter, resulting from Israel's unfaithfulness, and the nation's prosperity — or here, the restoration of fortunes — as a sign of divine favor. Joel 2:20-23 also emphasizes the wonderful things the Lord has done, so Zion can rejoice and be glad. Verses 4-6 shift to a prayer of supplication, suggesting a crisis has occurred, the prayer becoming restoration of the fortunes of Israel. It uses the analogy of the watercourses in the Negev during the rainy season, which fill suddenly, transforming arid regions into lush growth. It uses agricultural imagery ins asking that those who sow in tears today will reap with shouts of joy. One can imagine ancient farmers during time of drought, crop failure, or pestilence, giving their last seed, sowing with tears often. The point of the image is the relief of a bountiful harvest. This psalm recognizes that the tides of life constantly shift. The Lord has a long story to which the person at prayer can refer. Amos 9:11-15 also uses agricultural images with the restoration of the fortunes of Israel.
Psalm 121 (Year A, Second Sunday in Lent) is a pilgrim song. It invites us to reflect upon life as a journey. It has simplicity and directness of thought. It expresses great confidence in the Lord as guardian, the Hebrew root (sh-m-r) occurring six times. Jewish communities recite it in times of trouble to give comfort and assurance. It is possible that Psalm 121 was originally used in a leave-taking ceremony at a local shrine (or even a private home), from which pilgrims departed for Jerusalem with a “liturgy of blessing.”[36] The question that begins this psalm could be the anxious question of a pilgrim, but it could also be a rhetorical question. Thus, as the poet turns his gaze toward the hills, he affirms the obvious answer that his help comes from the Lord, who made all that is. This suggests a gaze toward the hills in appreciation for what the Lord has made. He trusts because the Lord is the maker of all things. Regardless of the reason, the gaze upon the hills leads the poet to a meditative reflection upon providential care. The question is an important one. It hints at an inner dialogue the poet has with himself. The question receives a quick reply in affirming that his help comes from the Lord, who made all that is. He removes any questionable sources of help and places himself upon the firm foundation of trust in the Lord. This creedal affirmation arises from confidence the communal affirmation of faith. We next see the possibility that the occasion for the psalm was prior to the admission of pilgrims into the Temple court, as the priest responds by pronouncing the divine blessing. It assures the pilgrims to Mount Zion of the constant protection provided by the Lord. It offers quiet assurance of the presence and unconditional protection of God. The priest or choir answers from within the sacred space with a series of reassurances that proceed in stair-like parallelism. This progressive construction will move the thought of the psalm. The answer begins with affirming that the Lord will set the individual in a firm and reliable place, with the Lord taking care, watching over, guarding, and protecting (shamar) the pilgrim. The Lord has accepted responsibility for the care of the pilgrims. As in the priestly blessing, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” (Numbers 24-26). The poet offers a polemic in affirming that the Lord will not slumber or sleep, reminding many of us as readers of the Old Testament of I Kings 18:27, where Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal with the idea that Baal was asleep. The poet moves from an affirmation of trust in the one who made all things to an affirmation of trust in the one who keeps Israel as well. The poet trusts the Lord because of creation and because of the saving history of the people of the Lord. As the one who protects them, the Lord will provide shade for their journey, important as the make their way through the desert, and the Lord will remain close to them. In their journey, the Lord will provide shade from sunstroke and protect them from the harmful powers of the moon, which was believed to be the source of seizures and even insanity (moonstruck). Thus, the Lord will be the one who watches over their lives in all times and places of their daily lives.
Recognizing who we are leads to a reflection on the covenant with the Lord.
Genesis 9:8-17 (Year B, First Sunday in Lent), from the P document, recounts the covenant God made through Noah, which simply guarantees the continuation of earthly orders. The story of the flood is a reminder of the delicate balance in the divine-human relationship. God creates and blesses, judges and re-creates. We are invited to respond worshipfully and responsibly. When we read of the covenant with Abraham, we will find a personal approach. In this covenant, God wills to preserve the world God has made.[37] Some covenants are conditional: God graciously offers to do something, upon the condition of God’s leader or people acting in a certain way that keeps their end of the stipulations of the covenant. Other covenants are unconditional: God promises to do such and such, without any stipulations for humans to meet. The covenant here is unconditional: The Creator makes a promise to the creation. God already told Noah that after destruction through the flood, God would make a covenant with Noah and the rest of creation (Genesis 6:17-19). God promises to establish a covenant with Noah, his family, and their descendants, along with every living creature. God has judged the earth, but now promises never again to destroy the earth by means of a flood (Genesis 8:21-22).
God formalizes the relationship with Noah, his sons, and with every living thing, with a covenant (berit). This emphasizes personal responsibility that includes obligations and consequences for failing to adhere to them. This covenant is distinctive in including creation. Noah represented the rest of us as recipients of the marvelous promise of God. Divine love embraces even the small creatures of this world. Paul (Romans 8) will build upon this covenant is asserting that he deliverance of all creation is associated with God’s anticipated final redemption of the children of God in Jesus Christ. All of creation has such a close link that all together can and will praise God. Every creature in heaven and earth will sing praise to God and the Lamb (Revelation 4:11, 5:13). “All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky and sea.” (Reginald Heber, “Holy, Holy, Holy”). The will of God is for creation to endure. [38] There will be new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; II Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). Even within and beyond judgment, God promises to be with us.[39] A distinctive feature of this covenant is that God makes this covenant with all future generations of humanity. The covenant with Noah, the sign of which is the bow (qéshet, used both for the bow of a warrior and for the rainbow), involves the whole creation. The covenant with Abraham had the sign of circumcision and was with Abraham's descendants, and the covenant through Moses was the Law and its obligations and was with the nation of Israel. God gave the rainbow as a sign of the covenant. The rainbow becomes a reminder that no matter how transient the individual, the race shall endure. The bow is an invitation to basic trust, for the world, as the creation of God, is an utterly safe place. This is not necessarily the world as God intended it to be, but the world as God continues to work with the reality of human violence and sin. In solemn language, God makes a covenant and gives the rainbow as a sign, a seal of the new covenant that God has made with all humanity. Another distinctive feature of this covenant is that the only speaker is God. The other party has no response to make. Thus, God gives this covenant freely and graciously on behalf of a world that did not have to ask for it or earn it, or even respond to it. "Never again" defines the content of this covenant. One can count on the stability of nature. The repeated promise of God is never again to respond to human sin with such devastating judgment. the earth will never again face this threat from God. Nature, the great killer through the flood, becomes stable, predictable, and benign because God has promised. The story has to do with the response of God to the human condition. It takes for granted the sinful nature of the human creature. The response from God is to take the initiative, to make a covenant, and to provide the stable conditions for all life on the earth. The alternative to chaos is the covenant God has made with creation. Thus, the story of the flood does not end in our terrible sin and the terrible judgment of God. The waters recede, the clouds fade, the sun comes out, and a rainbow arches over the entire muddy mess. The last word will not be our sin, but the Creator’s awesome love. Humanity receives forgiveness, the human saga begins again, and God offers a rainbow as a sign of God’s promise that the flood will be “never again.” The story ends in good news because God is determined to have the last word in our story. Our sin, our chaotic wickedness that made such a mess of the good world, this is not the last word. God continues the conversation, resumes the journey with us, all under the rainbow. The bow of God now stays resting in the clouds. The resting bow means that God is not against us, despite sin and judgment. Some have said that it means something like this: “God isn’t mad at you anymore.” It means, worded positively, that God is for us, in promise and hope. We now have a renewed relationship with God. The rainbow can be part of a theophany of the glory/presence of God (Ezekiel 1:28 and Revelation 4:2-3; 10:1).
Genesis 12:1-4 (Year A, Second Sunday in Lent), is the J account of the call of Abraham, continuing the invitation to reflect upon life as a journey. In the grand narrative of this document, it began with the Lord as maker and shaper of humanity. Humanity has shown itself to be deficient in its love for God and for each other through its rebellion and pride. The saving history of Israel begins with the call of Abraham, the Mesopotamian ancestor who embarked upon a journey from modern-day Iraq to the land that would become Israel. J has painted history in the broadest possible strokes. He has taken a universal view, showing humanity has failed in relation to the Lord and to each other. Adam and Eve were unable to obey one simple command. They experienced exile, the woman would have pain in childbirth, and produce from the land would be difficult. Humanity would continue its course of wickedness to which the Lord will respond with judgment. Most recently, the expression of arrogance in building the tower of Babel resulted in the judgment of the confusion of human language and separation into nations. Was such judgment the final word from the Lord? The story of human origins to this point in J wants to present us with the urgency of this question.[40] From this point on, J will view and interpret history through the slim opening of a single social line, the seed of Abram, chosen by the Lord to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. The point of the call of Abram is to heal the breach between the Lord and the nations. In a mere four verses, we have described the creation of an entire people and the establishment of a radically new kind of relationship between humanity and divinity. The “call of Abram” does more than separate a lone herdsman from his ancestral family. This “call” separates the old animistic, anthropocentric notions of the universe from a remarkably new way of viewing the divine/human or creator/creation relationship. Abram’s family was from Ur, a large city and a major center for the worship of the moon-god Sin. The Lord promises to Abram that which we all seek: a place, family, and fullness of life. In the promise that a nation shall arise out of him, a nation not named in the previous list of the nations, we find the Lord willing to do something new. The text does not yet suggest the reason for the choice of Abram. The Lord has decided by grace to work with a family that will be the beginning of a people and eventually a nation. What would have happened if Abram had stayed home? That would have been natural in his culture. Typically, one stayed with the clan and the religion of the clan. Abram, in letting go of his home, liberated himself to create a new home. He became free to worship and serve the Lord in his own way.
In this divine summons upon Abram, direct divine-human communication is matter of fact, as it is in much of the Old Testament. Despite its dramatic effect, the call itself comes naturally, as if Abram has known the Lord throughout his life. [41] The call relies upon what Abram already knew of the Lord. In this summons, the Lord is creating something new. The Lord is summoning Abram to surrender his identity as the member of an extended family (bet ‘ab) as a decisive and deliberate symbol of his commitment to be in relation to the Lord. The ancient household was the basic domestic unit of the agricultural and nomadic economy. It was a cooperative unit of uncles, aunts, nephews, slaves, and their families. The large group was the primary way they could provide enough food and money for each other. Thus, we can see the dramatic nature of this call to leave the home of the father.[42] This call suggests that to establish his identity and find his place in the plan of the Lord, he had to leave his familiar surroundings. He must deliberately “Go” to fulfill the call of the Lord upon his life.[43] Abram awakens to the call of the Lord. He must pass from a well-known past to a future that is only just opening to him. We can properly look upon this text as analogous to the spiritual journey from the old self to the new self. [44] The land to which the Lord will bring Abram will become a major theme of the Torah. The journey of the Old Testament involves growing awareness of the need for detachment, not only from the ancient household, but from the land of promise as well, as future generations will wrestle with the significance of exile. The Lord promises to make of Abram a great nation, a nation not yet mentioned in the J narrative. This will begin with progeny for Abram, a major theme of the narrative of the patriarchs. The promise to bless him and make his name great come unexpectedly as an act of grace. In the story of the Tower of Babel, the people wanted to make their name great by making a tower to challenge the Lord. Here, the Lord will make the name of Abram great as he fulfills his divine calling. In II Samuel 7:9, the Lord says David will have a great name. Psalm 71:17 refers to the name of the king enduring forever. The elect community is an anticipation of the future of human fellowship with God and with each other. The full significance of the passing notation of Sarai's barrenness in 11:31 now becomes clear, as Abram is promised not only land, but descendants to fill it. The purpose of the Lord blessing Abram in this way is that he will bless others by becoming a witness to the Lord as he moves toward the goal. He is this as he lives in obedience to his calling. He represents and reveals by way of anticipation what the Lord has chosen to do. [45] The Lord will bless those who bless him, curse those who curse him, and bless the families of the earth through him. A chasm has opened between the Lord and the nations that the Lord is starting to bridge in the calling of Abram. Significantly, Abram hears the summons and obeys it. His like Noah, but unlike many others in the biblical narrative who hear a summons from the Lord and offer objections. The simplicity of his obedience is attractive to us as readers, even as it adds to the mystery that surrounds Abram. With this emigration begins his great alien existence and that of his descendants.[46] Despite his willingness to go where the Lord told him to go, fight whom he had to fight; despite his faithful altar-building activities and his sacrificial devotion to the Lord, whom he was only beginning to know, Abram could not help but notice that his life lacked a crucial component necessary for him to become the father of this promised "great nation." He had no son, no heir, no one to whom to pass on any inheritance.
This small account of Abram inspires reflection upon the significance of the divine summons that rests upon each of us, our hearing of that summons, and our response to it. It suggests the image of life as a journey with the Lord. An aspect of that journey is movement from childish concern for oneself to the maturity of the calling we receive to meet a need in the world. The DNA of the call of Abram is in the Jewish and Christian people as the Lord calls, we respond, the Lord blesses, and through that blessing we bless others. Every occupation becomes sacred work when it is part of the fulfillment of the divine summons or vocation. When we do what we do for the Lord, we have changed the nature of that activity.
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 (Year C, Second Sunday in Lent) is the J account of the reaffirmation of the election of Abram related in in Chapter 12. In context, verses 1-6 take up the matter of who will follow Abram as head of the family and verses 7-24 show that an heir to Abram goes beyond his personal considerations and to the plan of God.[47] Abram experiences yet another vision-visit from the Lord. Once again, the Lord promises great rewards, having obediently turned down the gifts offered by the king of Sodom (14:22). In a common experience of prophetic literature, the word of the Lord comes to Abram in a vision for him not to fear, for the Lord is his shield and his reward shall be great. Abram will clearly express his doubt and anxiety. Abram asks questions after the Lord makes promises to him. His doubt and question relate to the reality of his continued childlessness and that Eliezer of Damascus will be his heir. This is how the conversation between Abram and the Lord begin. The good news is that the Lord loves conversations with his people. You might argue, based on the Genesis creation account, that the sole reason for the very existence of human beings is that they provided the potential for conversation. That did not work out so well with Adam and Eve, but it is working with Abram. This conversation begins with doubt regarding the promise of the Lord. Asking questions is part of human nature, the perennial “why” of children showing how natural it is. We want to know. Such questioning early in life makes some of us weary of asking them when we mature into adults. However, a better approach is to keep that childlike wonderment about life and keep asking questions of ourselves, others, and life. All the success Abram had in life seems pointless to him without an heir. The word of the Lord comes to him in the form of a promise that his heir shall be his biological son. The Lord brings him outside and shows him that the small thing of providing him an heir is part of a vast plan, informing us as readers of the theological importance of the story. Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
With nothing more than an extravagant reiteration of the promise of offspring, Abram drops his question and trusts in the Lord. J asserts faith but does not explain it. Faith is silent listening and looking. The question of Abram leads to a powerful experience of the Lord. Did you notice what happened to him? He does not receive all the intellectual answers he might have asked for. He still just had the promise of the Lord to create a people. The Lord does not answer all his questions concerning how this would happen. However, he does receive the gift of an experience of the Lord. The deepest issues of life do not particularly have intellectual answers. If we are open at all to what the Lord is doing in our lives, such an experiential encounter with the Lord can be transforming. Note that the righteousness of Abram comes from his relationship to God, not obedience or the cult. With this, the call of Abram concludes. In verse 6, one small, unembellished act Abram takes determines the entire future of the relationship between Israel and the Lord is. Abram "believed the Lord." Not "believed in the Lord," but "believed the Lord." This single act becomes the springboard from which an even more amazing divine response leaps: "and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness." Abram's naive trust in the divine word, in the extravagant promise the Lord makes to this yet childless father of a nation, is all that stands on the human side of the unconditional covenant commitment the Lord now extends toward Abram. One act of faith, which the Lord “reckoned ... as righteousness”, became the bedrock of a unique and everlasting relationship with the divine. Paul will use this act of faith in the promise of the Lord as a way of showing that his view of faith is not alien to the Jewish tradition, especially in Romans 3:31, 4:3, and Galatians 3:6. When Abram believed the promise, he did so because he believed the Lord, who with the promise guaranteed its fulfillment. Thus, the prophetic word has a special reference to predicted events, so that its quality as a word from the Lord depends on its fulfillment. This view, which Pannenberg has espoused, encountered much criticism. He did not believe anyone had refuted him. For him, even the truth of the promises made to the patriarchs has the character of promise and fulfillment.[48] Faith has a higher estimation in Israel as compared to knowledge. Knowledge has an orientation to the present or to what one already experiences. Faith directs itself to the future as trust. If the future alone will teach us what finally stands, then the decisive thing in the relation to truth is faith rather than knowledge. The presupposition is that something new has bound itself up with the future, something that we cannot know in advance. Therefore, knowledge as a way toward truth has a limit, while faith ventures beyond this boundary. Of course, what is knowable matters to faith. Faith needs knowledge as an initial acquaintance with the truth. The faith of Israel included knowledge, for it presupposes coming to know the Lord and the works of the Lord. The reality of the Lord is not something one grasps first or solely in an act of faith. Even the patriarchs saw the Lord in dreams and visions. Yet, this seeing did not itself already mediate true knowledge of the Lord. They already relied upon God and became open to experience divine power by historical leading. These experiences would become a new basis for trust in this God. This verse becomes an example of the open dimension of the historicity of the relation to divine truth in which the concept of faith finds its central function.[49] Paul refers to faith as a personal act of trust in God alone. Yet, this personal relation of faith to God comes through the historical self-revelation of God and through our knowledge of it. Even here, for Paul, Abram was already righteous before the Lord by his faith, but the promise that he believed refers to coming of Christ, as Paul puts in Galatians 3:8 and Romans 4:11. In Romans 4:19-21, Paul will intricately connect this faith of Abram to hope as well.[50]
How many of us today could make the same leap of faith that Abram took? How many of us today could disregard our own voice of reason and listen to the astounding voice of promise from the Lord? We live in a time when our culture would encourage us to keep looking always, never to make commitments. We live in a time when we are supposed to keep all our options open. We expect to always have choices, and for our society to give us as many choices as possible. Yet, it may well be that true joy in life is discovering that we are part of a grand and mighty purpose. We spend our lives in the confidence of this purpose before we come to the known end of death.
The self-identification by the Lord, like that of Exodus 20:2, is that the Lord is the one who brought Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans, reinforcing that the life of Abram foreshadows his descendants, even in the promise of land. Faith is willingness to journey forth, just as Abram had to journey forth, not knowing exactly about the destination. Although he believes, Abram wants to know with certainty the validity of this promise. He receives no answer, but he does receive instructions for an act of covenant that includes a three-year-old heifer, goat, and ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Excluding the birds, he cut them in two, laying each half over against the other. A binding covenant had to be "cut." Without the shedding of blood, there could be no covenant. Blood symbolized the awesome life-and-death solemnity of the occasion. Blood sealed the sanctity of the promise. Abram would chase away the birds of prey, hinting at evil powers that seek to interfere with the covenant. Suggesting a magical practice behind this text, a deep sleep falls upon him and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. It suggests a feeling of awe and mystery. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass, symbols of the Lord, between the pieces. In human-to-human covenants, it was typical for both covenanting parties to walk between the sacrifices, declaring in effect, "May it happen to me as to these animals if I do not keep the promises of this covenant" (see Jeremiah 34:18-20). Nevertheless, Abram does not join in this covenant pledge. The divine presence makes the self-curse an unconditional promise to Abram. He will have land and progeny. The covenant Yahweh makes here with Abram is unilateral. All the specified requirements, all the blessings and benefits to derive from this covenant relationship, are the responsibility of the Lord alone. The Lord does not pledge Abram to any special acts or works of obedience at this time. Only divine promises occur at this covenant ceremony. This election and covenant is foundational to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As the Lord has judged human sin in the story of Noah, flood, and the Tower of Babel, the Lord is now making a provision for that sin in providing a way out. Instead of making a name for himself, as occurred at the Tower of Babel, Abram will accept the name the Lord gives to him. The text concludes with the promise of land, the extent of which equals that of the rule of King Solomon.
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 (Year B, Second Sunday in Lent) is the P version of the covenant with Abraham, with the innovation that the sign of the covenant is circumcision and that Sarah shall bear the promised son. It is a close parallel with the covenant with Noah in 9:1-17. One can see the interest of the priestly writer in genealogy in these verses.[51] The covenant is God centered. We can see that the priestly account is aware of the difference between the faith of the Patriarchs and the later belief in Yahweh. The Lord appeared to Abram when he was 99 years old. Such an appearance to the Patriarchs provides Christian theologians with an analogy to the appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples.[52] The depiction of divine communication throughout the OT makes it clear that the numinous character of revelation does not lend itself to easy categorization into one of our five senses. The same word of the Lord may be both auditory and visionary at the same time. The covenant begins, as many covenants in the ancient Near East begin, with the announcement of the identity of the granter of the covenant. The Lord is El Shaddai (God, and in Akkadian it would refer to the One of the Mountain or God Almighty, in Latin Vulgate Deus omnipotens Παντοκράτωρ or All-powerful God in Revelation 11:17). This divine name is ancient. It is rare outside the Torah, but it occurs often in Job. Revelation 11:17 has God Almighty (or the All-powerful God). For the P tradition, the form found here was the name of the God of Israel known to the patriarchs. El Shaddai tells Abram to walk continually or stroll with a sense of completion and wholeness in the divine presence, and thus has a moral component. El Shaddai announces the covenant, the root meaning of which is to bind or fetter into a relationship based upon a commitment that includes promise and obligation, having the quality of reliability and durability.[53] People have covenants between each other, such as Abraham and Abimelech (Genesis 21:25-32), Ahab and Ben-hadad (I Kings 20:34), and David and the elders of Israel (I Chronicles 11:3). Theologically, three covenants dominate the literature of the OT. One is the covenant with Abra(ha)m in this passage. A second is the covenant with the Israelites mediated through Moses at Sinai (Exodus 20). A third is the covenant with David and the royal dynasty he founded (II Samuel 7 and Psalm 78:67-72). The first and third are grace and favor covenants, that is, they are a type of everlasting covenant (berit `olam) that depends entirely on the faithfulness of the deity. The Mosaic covenant, on the other hand, was conditional and could be (and frequently was) disrupted by the faithlessness of the Israelites (Exodus 19:5; Leviticus 26:15; Deuteronomy 31:16). The covenant with Abra(ha)m, although containing a sign and a stipulation, was not conditional on either for its efficacy. At this point in classical Hittite treaty formulas (which many scholars believe may have influenced the covenant language in the OT), the granter of the treaty would ordinarily list the attributes or accomplishments which justify the granting of the treaty to the less powerful party;[54] there is no such elaboration of divine attributes or activities here. We can see that God in the Bible is in covenantal relation that maintains the freedom of God. One cannot locate God to a predictable place or posture. As an analogy, if two partners dance, they stay on the dance floor with each other if they are serious. They will have many postures and locations, but the constant is that they take each other seriously on the dance floor.[55] The history of covenant in the Bible is like a dance in that way. His name will receive honor, becoming the ancestor of a multitude of nations, and his name shall change to Abraham, signifying a change of his destiny. From that single covenant, three of the most populous and venerable religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, comprising some 3.5 billion people' trace their identity. This covenant is everlasting as El Shaddai shall be God to him and his ancestors. The J version in Chapter 15 mentions land, but the covenant here does not. Further God changes the name of his wife and designates Sarah as the mother of the promised son, which makes her indispensable to the fulfillment of the promise to her husband.
Exodus 12:1-14 is part of the Priestly account of the Passover (12:1-20, 28, 40-51, 13:1-2, 20). The festival is like the Canaanite New Year Spring Festival. It relates to the semi-nomadic life of the area. Yet, the specificity of the Hebrew rite at its most essential levels does not reduce to these festivals. Further, the P Document has united it with the plague tradition that was an early part of the story of the liberation from Egypt with the Passover. The larger narrative context for the institution of Passover is the struggle of Moses and Aaron to free the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 1:8-22; 3:7-12; 6:28–7:7) and into the liberation represented by entry into the Promised Land. The climax of that struggle is a series of plagues inflicted on the Egyptian people, livestock, grain, land, and water, culminating in the 10th and most horrific plague, the death of Egypt’s firstborn children and livestock (11:4-5). The Passover is both the apotropaic (evil-averting) and commemorative ritual of that grim event. I will discuss both aspects. Passover recalls the way the Lord saved a particular people. Interestingly, Jewish exegesis focused upon how this account of the Passover was different from how Jews came to practice it in their homes. One could also suggest that too much emphasis upon Passover would lead to an overemphasis upon liberation as only political. Human beings also need liberation from evil and sin, and thus need a transformed human life. In the New Testament, both John and Paul connect the crucifixion with Passover themes. There was also the Quartodeciman controversy in the history of the church, in which the churches divided over the date to celebrate Easter. Some (Orthodox churches) wanted to connect it closely to the Jewish celebration of Passover; others wanted it celebrated on a different calendar so that Easter was always Sunday. Church rites through the Reformation continued to use the Passover as an allegory of Christian teaching on baptism, Eucharist, and the death and resurrection of Jesus.[56]
The Lord gives direction to Moses the liberator and Aaron the leader of worship life, giving them instructions regarding the observance of the Passover. They receive these instructions while still in Egypt. The Jewish calendar will begin in March-April in the Gregorian calendar because of the event of the coming redemption of Israel, Abib in Hebrew, and Nisan in the ancient Babylonian calendar. Even today, the Jewish calendar begins the new year on this date, although that fact does not receive emphasis. The congregation of Israel suggests application to adult male heads of households, the core of Israel as a religious entity. A lamb from each household, or if a household is too small it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one, this act of sharing such a meal is to remind them of the costliness of this sacrifice. The lamb will come from the flock they have and be divided among the number of people who share the meal. As is standard for a sacrificial animal, it will be without blemish, a year-old male sheep or goat. Keeping it with them for four days verifies it is without blemish. The logic of sacrifice to deity demands one offers the best of what one has. The firstborn of the year from the flock was the healthiest, fittest, and strongest. A healthy year-old lamb, sheep, goat, or even calf in Deuteronomy 16:2 was a considerable investment of labor and resources on the part of the shepherd. The logic of sacrifice to deity would not settle for “sacrifice” of surplus or leftovers, but only a sacrifice that represented its cost to the one who sacrifices. The congregation will slaughter the animal at twilight. They will sprinkle some of the blood on the two doorposts and the lintel of the home. At this point, Passover becomes an apotropaic (evil-averting) ritual. Using a blood marker to ward off evil appears elsewhere in the Bible. Exodus 4:24-26 relates the strange incident of the Lord attacking the son of Moses, and Zipporah using the severed foreskin of the son to protect him. Blood was the life force of living creatures in Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11, and 14. One was to return the blood to the deity from whence it came. They shall eat the roasted lamb that night, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. If any of the meat remains it shall be burned. This act avoids any possibility of profaning the elements of the sacrifice. In contrast to other sacrifices in which families were to share with the priests, the family is to consume the Passover sacrifice completely. They will eat it prepared for a journey. They are to eat it with loins girded, sandals on the feet, with staff in hand, and quickly. The Pesach or Passover, which does mean “pass over,” but also “to protect” and “to have compassion.” Even in times of danger and haste, there is a place for ritual. The Lord is careful to give specific instructions on how families are to celebrate the first Passover. The symbols of the common objects have divine significance. We now come to the painful reason for all of this. The first-born in Egypt, both human and animal, will die. We see the value of the firstborn here as well. It makes this event so devastating. For example, the depleted and scarce resources of most families made them focus on the thriving and surviving firstborn. The image is disturbing. It causes us to wonder who the Lord is and to what lengths the Lord will go. How do we understand one who has brought about one disaster after the other, wounding people, animals, and earth? The Israelites will also wonder who the Lord is. One cannot take the Lord for granted. We then learn that the Lord will judge the gods of Egypt in this plague. If we are reading the entire plague tradition contained in Exodus, this statement might surprise us. This severe judgment is not on Pharaoh or the people of Egypt. This severe judgment is upon the gods they worship. The exodus is a matter of theology, the defeat of the deities of Egypt by the newly revealed Yahweh of the Hebrew people. If a modern reporter were present, the news account would look vastly different from the account in the Bible. A newspaper account would describe the human resources involved. The biblical account focuses upon the divine battle that is taking place. The Lord will pass over homes with the blood sprinkled upon them. It is a day of remembrance for the Jewish people. It is a festival to the Lord. However, Tractate Pesachim in the Mishnah, ca. 200, reminded Israelites of the enormous suffering that they commemorated alongside Israel’s deliverance, and instructed Passover participants departing at the conclusion of the meal not to join in revelry.[57] The festival or remembrance itself is a powerful way for the Jewish people to cultivate its relationship with the Lord. We are not to think of simply recalling the fact of a past event, but to actualize its liberating power in the present.[58]
It is significant that God chooses to save Israel. Israel does not earn this salvation, for the Lord had already promised Abraham descendants with whom the Lord would work, and the Lord is fulfilling that promise. The whole miracle is that such a tiny, insignificant people became the beneficiaries of a great miracle: liberation from slavery to the most powerful empire then on earth. For the rest of Israelite history, this special covenant between Israel and God was invoked to bind the 12 tribes together into a nation; and in these invocations of the covenant, God's saving act in the exodus is always mentioned as the primary action through which God demonstrated faithfulness to the Israelites and worthiness to be worshiped (Joshua 24:5-7; 1 Samuel 12:6-8; 1 Kings 8:44-54).
What do I do with my past? What do I do with this moment? I am creating a future self. What do I want him or her to be like? Will my future self be satisfied with what I do today? Why do we need reminders? Some memories require repetition. We make the commitment on our wedding day to love one another. Yet, it is not enough. We need to hear it repeatedly. Memories of the heart require constant repetition. This might remind us of two common ways we think of connecting remembering with the past. We can remember that something happened. This would mark time (chronos). God created such marking of time in creation, so we are to value it. Yet, what we remember is an external fact. We have some horror of the “same old thing,” (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters). Day after day, time marches on, regardless of the date. We will do anything to break the monotony. Yes, idle hands are the worship of the devil. Boredom provides a warehouse of raw materials for construction. When time holds no meaning for us, we can waste our time on trivial and self-destructive pursuits. When we experience time like this, we do not even realize that our time is passing away. We do not have to experience time like this. The Lord formed us to experience our brief chronological time with fullness and meaning (kairos). Passover is a day of remembrance in this sense. Passover “remembers” the divine act of liberation from slavery. Human flourishing, meaning, and significance derive from the divine presence breaking into “chronos” and making it “kairos.” We have an open mind and heart to the divine in this moment. “Kairos” is the moment of the visitation and intervention of the Lord. A “kairos” moment can offer such significance well beyond its chronological location. Thus, the Passover remembrance contains within it the desire to actualize the liberation brought by the divine presence in communal and personal life. The “kairos” of that event in the past becomes our “kairos” today. Such a time is no longer external to us. We have internalized the “kairos” of that event of that event in the past in such a way that it becomes our “kairos” of today.
We can discover a great beauty in the ironic tragedy by which Christ's crucifixion took place during the Jewish festival of Passover. The central feast of the Jewish faith, their affirmation of God's gracious choice for them over all others, their most holy reminder of God's saving power now forever coincides with the central feast of the Christian faith, with our affirmation of God's gracious choice for humanity, our most holy reminder of God's saving power. It is no wonder that the early church found the image of the Lamb of God an irresistible title for our Christ. The blood that saved the Israelites, celebrated during Passover, for us has forever given way to the blood that saved the world. The symbolism of the sacrificial victim, the presence of whose blood diverts the angel of death from the homes of the faithful, has forever become the mystical truth behind our dependence upon Christ and his willingness to forfeit his life to save ours.
Psalm 19:7-14 (Year B, Third Sunday in Lent) is a portion of a hymn that unites its meditation upon creation with a meditation upon the torah, ending with a petition to hear the prayer. Verses 7-10 are a hymn focusing on torah. 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. The stylized and repetitive form of this section is striking. They revive the soul, make the simple wise, make the heart rejoice, and enlighten the eyes. Parallel to such thoughts is that the fear of the Lord is pure and the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous. The torah brings delight, joy, and blessing to those who obey it. 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. Such a revelation by Lord is to be desired more than gold and is sweeter than honey. “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. Verses 11-14 are a prayer of petition to be saved from sin and the Lord to hear the prayers of the poet. We learn that the chief reward of holding the revelation of Torah as precious is spiritual and focuses upon forgiveness. It warns the servant of the Lord and reward those who keep it. We do not have such wisdom on our own to detect our errors. Torah points them out. In reality, though, 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. Thus, his prayer is that the Lord would free him from hidden faults, something which only the Lord can do. Viewing himself as a servant of the Lord, he wants the Lord to keep him from those of proud thought and they not have dominion over him. Then he will be blameless and innocent of great transgression.
The poet closes with the familiar prayer that his words and that upon which he meditates would be acceptable to the Lord, his rock and redeemer. It 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.[59] 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.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (Year C, First Sunday in Lent) discuss the liturgy for the presentation of first fruits (vv. 1-11), which is part of the legislation introduced in chapter 12 concerning the centralization of worship in the Jerusalem temple. The context is the Festival of Weeks. Israel is to make an annual pilgrimage to the Temple, bringing the first fruits of the harvest and that the Lord for the bounty of the land. The passage links material blessings with Israel’s history with its God on the one hand, and, on the other, the ethical obligation to share those blessings with the vulnerable, dependent, and unfortunate. Israel was never permitted the luxury of believing that its material security was a product of its own doing or that such security came without responsibility. In many ways, Israel’s understanding of its relation to its material prosperity was more complex, more subtle, and healthier than the understanding of that relationship held by many secular societies today.
The text begins with statement of promise and affirmation of salvation in its confidence that the people will come into the land that the Lord is giving them as an inheritance or gift from the Lord. after they possess and settle in it, they shall take some of the first of the fruit of the ground, because the first and best belongs to the Lord, who is the rightful owner of the land its produce. Israel was a tenant of land owned by their patron deity. The Lord dwells in the heavens, while the temple enshrined the manifestation of the divine presence signified by the name of the Lord. It then offers some liturgical instruction. They shall go to the priest, affirming their faith that they have come into the land promised to their ancestors, the priest taking the basket from their hands and setting it before the altar. The gesture of presenting the offering testifies to the Lord faithfully fulfilling the promise made to the ancestors. They will offer a confession of faith with a recitation of the great works of God on behalf of Israel. They acknowledge their north Syrian ancestry, referring to Jacob as a wandering ancestor, who went to Egypt and became a great nation. This affirmation of faith begins with a humble admission that they descend from a fugitive Aramean, only a few going to Egypt. They acknowledge the harsh treatment of their ancestors by the Egyptians, imposing forced labor on them. They cried out in pray to the Lord, and the Lord heard them, saw their affliction and oppression, bringing them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, a favorite expression in Deuteronomy, with displays of power through signs and wonders. They express their faith in the providence of their God. Omitting the difficulties of the wilderness and the revelation at Sinai, the Lord brought them to this land flowing with milk and honey, speaking of the beauty of the land. The confession they offer confines itself to objective facts. It is an old confession. While some make much of the failure to mention Sinai/Horeb, this act of thanksgiving commemorates the wondrous transformation of Israel from a single, landless, persecuted family into a populous nation, secure and at home in its land. The inclusion of the journey to Sinai and reception of the law would have been disruptive in the context of a celebration by an individual of becoming part of a nation that has a home, and the celebration of those who now harvest crops from their land. The text concludes with the ethical implications of the offering and the affirmation of faith as they shall set it down before the Lord and bow before the Lord. Then together, with the Levites and the resident aliens, they shall celebrate with all the bounty the Lord has given. They are to enjoy/celebrate in a shared meal. In early Israel, this celebration would occur at the local sanctuary, but later, it would have occurred in the Temple.
Joshua 5:9-12 (Year C, Fourth Sunday in Lent) gives an account of the first Passover celebrated in the new land. It is a reminder that the Passover is an ancient remembrance, designed for protection, and then incorporating a remembrance of deliverance. The Deuteronomist Historian wants to resurrect or to remember pre-monarchial traditions concerning Gilgal. In the canonical context, the passage is part of the mobilization theme that began in Chapter 1. They had experienced shame in Egypt and expressed lack of faith during the wilderness period. Thus, the text connects with moments of our disgrace, shame, guilt, and regret. The text offers a folk-etymology for the place of this event, Gilgal (gll, roll away), just west of the Jordan River and just east of Jericho. Saul would be acclaimed king here (I Samuel 11:5). Amos (5:5) and Hosea (9:15) would enounce the religious observances there. However, this day they observed the Passover by eating the produce of the land, unleavened cakes, eaten after the lamb, and parched grain. Manna, the gracious provision of the Lord during the wilderness, ceased, marking the beginning of settled agrarian life. The providential care of the Lord would come in a different form. Saint Augustine had it right when he said, “God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.”
I Samuel 16:1-13 (Year A, Fourth Sunday in Lent) is a story of Samuel bringing oil for the anointing of a new king. It serves as a transition in the story of the decline of Saul and the rise of David. It arises from prophetic legend regarding Samuel and David, stressing that David did not become king by actions arising from personal ambition, but by divine appointment. David becomes part of an Old Testament theme of the Lord choosing an unexpected person to be the vehicle through the purposes of the Lord will reach their fulfillment. In the process, the text suggests that grief can be immoderate. Samuel has reluctantly anointed Saul as king, but he witnesses the Lord steadily disclosing displeasure with Saul. His investment of prophetic and priestly powers toward Saul seems to have been wasted. It is taking him time to get over it. Although the Lord is initiating a change, Samuel is grieving over the loss. The Lord tells Samuel to get over it and adopt a different plan. Grieving has a suitable period, and then, one needs to have the courage to stop and re-mobilize one’s life. Courage suggests facing the fearful moment and walk through the fear. Our fear signifies our response to danger, but courage is a decision to act despite the fear, refusing to allow the danger and fear to control what we do. In rejecting Saul, the Lord is amending the earlier and obvious choice of Saul. Chapters 13-15 present the reasons for the rejection of Saul, in his illegal sacrifice, his impetuous proclamation of a mandatory fast that threatens his son Jonathan, and his breaking of the rules regarding holy war. The form that moving on for Samuel will take is to go to Jesse, a man with eight sons, one of whom will be king. Jesse was of the house of Perez and grandson of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4:17-22, I Chronicles 2:3-12). The problem with this plan is that Saul will kill him if he becomes aware of the plan. The cover for him is the deception that he is to pretend fulfilling a ritual obligation to sacrifice. Anointing was the primary ritual associated with the designation of kings in the ancient Near East, which in Israel meant a special relationship with the Lord. Thus, Jacob anoints a pillar at Bethel (Genesis 28:18), the anointing of the Tabernacle and its furnishings (Exodus 29:36), David refuses to harm Saul because he is the anointed of the Lord (I Samuel 24:6, 10). The anointment as king also meant a responsibility to administer justice befitting of his adoption by the Lord into a special and familial relationship with the Lord (Psalm 2:7). As he arrives in Bethlehem, his presence inspires fear, needing reassurance that his intentions are peaceful, a reassurance he provides. They are to sanctify themselves and come with him to offer the sacrifice, and among them are Jesse and his sons. While Samuel thinks the eldest son, Eliab, looks the part of a king, the Lord told him through the casting of lots to not look upon his appearance. Like Saul, he was tall. Human beings are impressed with appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart. First impressions, image, and appearance can be deceptive. Jesse realizes why Samuel is present and thinks Abinadab, then Shammah (Shimea in I Chronicles 2:13, 20:7, II Samuel 21:21), and four more sons, the Lord making it clear through the casting of lots that none of them is the choice of the Lord. Jesse dismisses the possibility that his youngest son, David, could be the one. He is tending sheep. His father had not even invited David to this important sacrificial ceremony for the town. Samuel will not begin the feasting ritual until they bring him the boy. He had a fragile beauty and was the youngest son, divine favor falling upon the least likely by cultural standards of the time. David is still good to look upon, the beauty of kings and queens being a common expression of the area and period. It remains the case that natural beauty will open doors, especially when one is young. We instinctively sense the unfairness of evaluations, but most of us have been at the giving and receiving end of such evaluations. The text is a reminder that while appearance changes as we age, our inward character remains as the true test of who we are and what we have made of ourselves. Through the casting of lots, the Lord chooses David for anointing as king, and the role of the anointing by the prophet/priest Samuel is significant. Both Saul and David were unexpected choices, reflecting the self-perception Israel had of its underdog status. The prophetic anointing will occur only in the presence of the immediate family, replacing the public acclamation of the charismatic leader in the tribal federation period. The free divine election of a shepherd boy from Judah replaces the popular election of the handsome, from a wealthy nobleman's family. Divine choices have no necessity attached to them. The Lord is free to choose, something that clearly confused both Samuel and Jesse. The text suggests that we need to be alert to the ways in which the Lord may be at work in unlikely places. This text is an important example of the thought that the election traditions of Israel always connect with an historical act on the part of the Lord that forms the starting point and basis of salvation history with the people of the Lord. Related to this concept are statements about the election of individuals, especially King David. The point is that the election of individuals has a close attachment to the social relation on behalf of the people. [60] Further, the breath of life given to all of us at creation becomes a special endowment with the Spirit of the Lord coming mightily upon David then and throughout his life. This abiding Spirit makes possible the Davidic covenant theology that establishes David's house forever. [61] The notion of this divine presence that accompanied David for the rest of his life was the theological construal later generations, around 750-721 BC. It explained his phenomenal success in establishing a monarchy that lasted half a millennium. Samuel returns to Ramah.
Isaiah 55:1-9 (Year C, Third Sunday in Lent) offers a reinterpretation of the covenant with King David and applies it to the Judeans who return home from exile. It is an invitation to redemption. II Isaiah culminates in a great summons to the exiles to give up all of its fascination with Babylon and return to the free, gracious, and compassionate gift of the Lord, who will bring them home. The chapter forms an inclusio with chapter 40, repeating important key themes and ideas found in that chapter, as in the new exodus in 40:1-11 and 55:12-13, heaven and earth in 40:12 and 55:8-11, and forgiveness in 40:2 and 55:6-7.[62]
Isaiah 55: 1-5 is an invitation from God. The appeal to Judeans is implied in verses 3-5, 12. Verses 1-2 might remind one of Proverbs 9:1-6, in which Wisdom has sent out servant-girls, inviting the simple to turn in here and to come and eat of her bread and drink of her wine. In both cases, we find the invitation to a banquet. She also invites them to lay aside immaturity and live, walking in the way of insight. Both passages have a definite concern for people who listen to turn from what they are doing. In turning away and thus toward the banquet, listeners will attain life. For some scholars, this oracle speaks of a new social and moral order for the returned exiles that is the result of the gracious transforming power of the Lord. The prophet suggests the incredible generosity of the Lord. “Why waste your industry, your wealth and your life’s work in a place which will never be your home?” If you are thirsty, if you are hungry, all you must do is return to the place the Lord has set aside for you and there, even if you are poor and have no money with which to make a living, the Lord will sustain you. The Lord will provide you with the necessities of life from the land, just as in olden times. The Lord will make with them as a people an everlasting covenant (berit `olam, appearing only here in II Isaiah). This theme of unbroken divine faithfulness the prophet here both takes up and expands. The prophet now applies the everlasting covenant to Israel. The covenant formerly made only with the royal line now applies to the entire nation of Israel. The restored Judean commonwealth will have no one human king, for all its members will have a royal status. II Isaiah transforms the older Davidic covenant by democratizing it. The prophet also saves the Davidic promise by means of this transformation, for the more natural reading of II Samuel 7 and Psalm 89 proved incorrect considering the fall of the Davidic dynasty to the Babylonians in 586 BC. The idea of Israel as prince and ruler applies titles that the Lord gave to David to restored Israel. A psalmist looks to a time when kings from Tarshish, Sheba, and Seba will render tribute to the king of Israel (72:9-11). Another psalmist envisions a time when the king will call the Lord “Father” and become the first-born of all kings (89:24-27). This rule of Israel consists of being a mediator between the Lord and the nations. The Lord reminds the Israelites that they once lived in the land in a covenant relationship with the Lord, and therefore they could have that relationship again. Just as the Lord established an eternal covenant with David, signified by divine chesed, or “steadfast sure love” for David (II Samuel 7), the Lord will now fulfill that covenant by restoring exiled Israel to its land and glorifying the fallen nation once again. The mission of Israel is that it become a witness to the peoples of the world. Israel becomes a mediator of the grace of God to the nations. The royal status of Israel yields benefits for all humanity, who come to recognize, because of its redemption, the one true God. In all of this, we can see the basis in the New Testament for Jesus replacing Israel as mediator of the grace of God to all people, Jew and Gentile alike, and the importance of the mission of the people of God to bear witness to what God has now done in Christ.
In verses 6-7, is a call to repentance as the prophet urges the people to change their ways and seek the Lord. Isaiah 40:2, the beginning of II Isaiah, says Jerusalem has served her penalty for her sins. The prophet concludes with the assurance that God will pardon. Thus, to seek the Lord in this context means to seek forgiveness and to abandon a way of life. The people have not learned their lesson from judgment. The dominant school of theological thought during the biblical period understood the exile, like all of Israel’s misfortunes to be the result of Israel’s wicked and unrighteous behavior, from which the prophet again urges the nation as individuals, the substantives and verbs in v. 7 being singular. The people were in exile because of their wickedness. In exile, the people continued in their wickedness. They needed to repent and to turn to the Lord. The vision of restoration in this passage has as its foundation the one thing that Israel seemed unable to accomplish in the days just prior to their exile. They must turn to God with all their hearts. They must repent of their wickedness. Only then will God be able to pardon them and show them mercy. Now is the time, declares the prophet. A door is open. God is near and inviting the Israelites to return. God is allowing Israel to find God; God is coming near to restore Israel. Now is the time to turn to God and expect restoration.
Verses 8-9 often receive the interpretation that the ways of God are incomprehensible. 8 For my thoughts (plans, intentions) are not your thoughts (in exile), nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. They are not in exile in perpetuity and without hope. There is another plan that will mean homecoming. There is a divine intention that transcends human plans. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. II Isaiah began with the Lord marking off the heavens with a span and enclosing the dust of the earth in a measure (Isaiah 40:12). The prophet concludes with further evidence of the vast difference between the Lord and human beings. While the point is that the thoughts of the Lord are higher than are human beings, they are still manifest to human beings. The incomprehensibility of the divine will may refer to God’s decision to rescue Israel from exile, despite the evidence of continued unrighteousness referred to in verse 7.[63] For those who think it is foolish to believe that God would restore Israel after all of their failures of faithfulness in the past, the prophet insists that God does not decide on such issues the way human beings do. Ezekiel ponders a similar issue when he notes that people were saying the Lord is unfair when the Lord forgives the wicked who repent, while the Lord asks Israel if it is not its ways that are unfair (Ezekiel 18:25-29). God’s ways are higher than human ways. It is not logical that God would forgive Israel. At least, it is not logical from a human point of view. However, the prophet reminds us, God is a higher order of being who is capable of a greater degree of compassion. People cannot grasp the saving purpose of the Lord totally, nor can revelation disclose everything. The prophets do not know the providence of God. The way the Lord restored Israel is not the way Israel expected the Lord to act.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Year A, Fifth Sunday in Lent) concerns a vision the prophet receives a valley of dry bones and what it says concerning the spiritual condition of Israel in the exile. The vision symbolizes the restoration of the people of Israel. He speaks metaphorically of these bones. Ezekiel may well have seen the area around Jerusalem littered with bodies of the dead with the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. Every generation of the people of God needs to consider whether its present experience is that of a judgment upon its breaking of the covenant with God. Would we have enough courage to see ourselves as we are if we have broken covenant? The vision occurred sometime between 33:21 in 576 BC and 40:1 in 562 BC in Babylon. No end to exile is in sight. The loss suffered in exile was not only its national life, but also its hope. This vision will address both losses. The vision promises the resurrection or rebirth of a spiritually dead Israel as the people of God. The people of God no longer possessed the land, their temple for almost 500 years is gone, and they no longer have a king. However, one thing not destroyed, as Ezekiel makes clear, is the prophetic spirit. The same Spirit who came upon Moses, the Judges of Israel, the kings of Israel, and the prophets of Israel and Judah, still came upon prophets in Babylon. The prophetic spirit looked into the future and saw that the breath of life would once again fill the presently dead people of God.[64] We will see the intimate relation between the divine Spirit and the presence life on this earth. This message comes through in a macabre and harrowing vision of the future activity of the power of God to bring to life what has been dead. The prophet refers to the hand of the Lord coming on him, suggesting divine providence and divine will. In picturing the people of God as a valley of dry bones, the prophet is looking upon Israel as dis-spirited. They wonder if God has abandoned them, if they could survive in a foreign land, and if they could ever return home. The prophet will walk among the dry bones, making him ritually unclean. Yahweh identifies the bones as the house of Israel, based on the Israelites' lament, which he quotes. The lamentation of dried-up bones may have become proverbial by the time of Ezekiel, as the application of heat and aridity to bones is a common biblical expression of distress. Job complains that his bones have become moist (21:24) and burn with heat (30:30). The bones of the psalmist burn like a furnace (Psalm 102:3). A downcast spirit dries up the bones (Proverbs 17:22). Jeremiah has a shut up in his bones that longs to come out (Jeremiah 20:9). The lament of the defeated city of Jerusalem is that the Lord sent fire that went deep within its bones (Lamentations 1:13). In the context of the languishing Israelites, the prophet brings into close connection their dried bones to the abandonment of hope and their utter annihilation. The Lord showed Ezekiel total death before he saw the possibility of new life. God will take us as we are. God does not want to leave us that way. The prophet stresses that their hope is the activity of God rather than their ability to put themselves together. The Lord will give them the breath of life (ruach chayyim). The Lord is sovereign over the forces of life and death. He dramatically portrays the Jewish notion of the relation between the divine Spirit and life, with the Spirit being life-giving. [65] The presence of the divine Spirit means that emptiness and death are not the goal of human history. With the rebirth of the people of God, they shall know who their Lord is. [66] He looks forward to new deliverance as a form of self-declaration and revelation of God as new knowledge of God.[67] They will become covenant partners with the Lord again. The Lord controls their destiny in restoring them to their land. His vision is about a restored geopolitical Israel in the wake of a specific historical disaster. The connection we see between people and land still controls much of the thinking in the Middle East today. This passage reminds us that God can achieve the impossible. At the heart of this passage from Ezekiel is the message “God is able.” When we are lost, God can find us. When guilt crushes us, God can lift this burden. When we are without vision, God can inspire us. When events overwhelm us, God can calm us. When the events of life attack us, God can deliver us. When we are feeling disconnected, desiccated, and discouraged, God can reconnect us, refresh us and revive us.
The idea of a bodily resurrection in Israel first appears in this prophecy. He delivered a series of oracles of hope that included visions of a gloriously rebuilt Jerusalem with a magnificent temple. A plain with dried bones is reminiscent of a Zoroastrian funeral ground where the bodies of the dead remained unburied. Worshippers of Ahura Mazda the creator allowed the bodies to be in the sun for a year until the rains turned the flesh into carrion and the bords devoured it, leaving only the bones. At a later resurrection the creator would reassemble the scattered parts of the body. Ezekiel adapted the Zoroastrian resurrection to the religious and political outlook of Jews. He linked the idea of resurrection to national concerns rather than to universal cosmological expectations. Instead of a vision of the end of human history, it becomes in Ezekiel a vision of a new beginning of the national life of Israel. He expected a new national life free of foreign oppression rather than a new universe.[68]
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (Year B, Fifth Sunday in Lent) part of the Book of Consolations, has the theme of Jeremiah promising a new covenant.
I open with a brief reflection.
Prophets have the self-perception that they have become the emissary or mouthpiece of the divine. When people hear them speak, they have a decision to make. Do they trust this word? Do they reject it? A covenant is a formal agreement between God and a group of people, bestowing both privilege and responsibility on those chosen. One way that the Old Testament organizes the work of God with humanity through Israel is through an understanding of covenant. One of the most remarkable and unique characteristics of the over-arching narrative we find in the Bible is the bonded relationship God voluntarily establishes with human beings. These special relationships receive legal standing by God through formal covenants between God and humans. The story of God’s “cutting a covenant” with us is the basic plot line of the Scriptures. Thus, God had a covenant with humanity after the flood through Noah. God established a covenant with Abraham and his family. God made a covenant with Israel at Sinai that they renewed in their assemblies during the period of the Judges. God made a covenant with the family of David. The result of this accumulation of covenants was that God gave gifts to Israel. God gave the gift of land. God gave the gift of law, establishing moral law, laws of purity, sacrificial laws, and dietary laws. God gave the gift of a city (Jerusalem), a Temple, and a king. Yet, instead of responding with thankful obedience, Israel broke each covenant. The experience of Israel was that it profoundly violated the covenant it had with God. So much so, in fact, that in the experience of exile God took away land, city, Temple, and king. Thus, the words of the prophet begin to introduce a new idea that will eventually have new covenant ramifications. Unlike the Mosaic covenant engraved upon stone tablets, God will put the law within them and upon their hearts. Life’s most problematic organ, the one that most betrayed the human condition, is the heart. The fatal coronary disease of which Jeremiah often speaks can be remedied only by the radical heart surgery God performs on Israel through the “cutting” of a new covenant. The final line of this passage is crucial, for it makes possible the establishment of this new covenant: The slate must be wiped clean, in an act of pure grace and mercy. The dire consequences of their sinfulness now erased, the cause of their sinfulness — an evil heart — now transformed, the new covenant is firmly established.
Now, I am sure that for some, if God wanted to reform Israel, a renewal of the covenant with Moses was the way to go. A new nation that enforced the obligations of the covenant at Sinai and its external demands would, one might argue, bring renewal to the nation. In fact, when people returned from exile, they sought the re-building of the Temple, they tried to re-institute the Davidic line as ruler, and they brought a strict adherence to the Mosaic Law.
Yet, what if God wanted to do something new? God had already shown a willingness to enter new covenants as situations changed. What if God saw the series of broken covenants, saw a new situation that demanded a new covenant, and wanted to shift focus? What would happen if God wanted to go to the root of the problem presented by disobedience, namely, the human heart? The heart is where the people had engraved sin and disobedience. In this case, God would want internal transformation of desire. The promise of God gives a look into the future of what God wants for the people of God. If God wants to offer a new covenant, it suggests a revelation of something new that God wants to tell us about the future. The old was not sufficient. The old will need to give way to the new.
For the new to come, God will need to forgive the disobedience of the past. This is an act of pure, divine grace and mercy toward the people. God looks at the ruined relationship of the previous covenants and forgives. This new covenant still involves a law, only now written on the heart. This will truly be a new time when the Lord will teach the Law directly to the people. This new covenant will become an intimate part of who the people are. Their knowledge of each other will be more like that of a good relationship between husband and wife. The new intimacy of this changed situation is what makes the new covenant possible.
Now, one who believes himself to be the mouthpiece of the divine says something like this. Those of us who hear and read will need to trust this word or reject it.
Although some scholars have suggested that the biblical presentation of the covenant at Sinai played a much smaller role in the religious history of Israel prior to the period of the Deuteronomistic reforms of the 7th-6th centuries B.C. than the biblical record indicates, Sinai’s importance as a template of subsequent Jewish identity remains significant. A careful examination and dating of the biblical texts in which the Sinai covenant appears suggests that the reforming king Josiah recast Israelite religious identity in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The theologians who supported his reforms took the idea of Sinai as the terminus a quo of the Israelite covenant came into greatest prominence through careful editing of received texts by the Deuteronomistic theologians. These theologians were the so-called “Deuteronomistic theologians,” so named because of their understanding of Deuteronomy as the core of Israelite belief. At the same time, based on such texts as this one and other passages that speak of a “new covenant” with Israel,[69] there was, competing with the essentially conservative Deuteronomistic reforms, a counter-reform movement that spoke of a “new covenant.”
31 The days are surely coming, the prophet opening with apocalyptic language.[70] He then offers the introductory messenger formula, says the Lord. He then states the message: when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Jeremiah does not attempt to re-establish Israel on the old basis. The content of the Sinai covenant was the revelation of the Torah that focuses upon the election of Israel and the expression of the will of the Lord in the law. At Sinai, the Lord had spoken from the mountain top, while the new thing is that is that the older alien form of address of the Lord speaking and human beings listening is dropped and the Lord will place the will the divine will in the heart. Jeremiah goes beyond Deuteronomy at this point. The people of God will have the will of God in their heart and thus will the will of God. He offers a new picture of humanity. He will focus upon the anthropological side of the work of salvation the Lord performs.[71] It refers to the restoration of Israel after the exile and the reconstruction of the Temple. The content of the new covenant remains, but how it is learned has changed. In II Corinthians 3, the apostle Paul distinguishes between the old covenant and the new covenant. Two passages (Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25) cite the words of Jesus at the Last Supper as representing “the new covenant in my blood.” We need to think of this in the context of Exodus 24:5-8 and the sealing of covenants with blood sacrifice. Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 do not have the word “new” with covenant. The writer of the book of Hebrews frequently connects the shedding of the blood of Jesus with the establishment of a new covenant and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus: See Hebrews 9:13-22; 10:29; 12:24; 13:20-21. In addition, Hebrews frequently asserts the superiority of several new things God is doing through Jesus Christ compared to what God had done formerly. It is within this context that the writer uses the long citation of Jeremiah 31:31-34 as part of his promises, along with pleas/warnings to the listener to take care to continue to follow in the ways of the new covenant, and not go back to the old ways. Jesus will refer to the theme of a new covenant in the context of the last supper, as Paul relates it in I Corinthians 11:25. The covenant is new in the sense that it is individualized, internalized, and democratized. It does not seem to have updated content.
The nature of the Old Testament covenant is that it seems capable of radical change in structure, particularly when it encounters the event or moment of the last days.[72] God had been establishing and renewing covenants since ancient times. God established a covenant with humanity and all creation in Genesis 9. God established covenants with Abraham and his descendants. Moreover, God established a conditional covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai/Horeb: God would be their God and they would be the people of God. This covenant formula is frequent in Scripture. God had delivered Israel out of slavery and through the sea, but God expected Israel to follow the stipulations (laws and commandments) that God associated with the covenant. God would bless them for keeping the terms of the covenant, but it would be to their peril to break them. Of course, they did break the covenant. The Deuteronomic History, read carefully, is a record of Israel braking covenant that made the punishment of exile justified. More than once God punished Israel then later restored/forgave them. Periodically there was a renewal of the covenant between Israel and the Lord (as at Shechem, in Joshua 24). So, what distinguishes the Jeremiah 31 new covenant from previous renewed ones?
If you want to get philosophical, here is the “Ship of Theseus” problem. In ancient times, there was a ship, called the “Theseus.” As the years wore on, the Theseus started getting weak and creaky. They removed the old boards, put them into a warehouse, and replaced with new ones. Then, the masts started tottering, and soon the owners warehoused and replaced them. In this way, after 50 years, this ship now has all new boards, masts, and everything. The question then arises: Is the ship in the harbor, now called S2, the same ship as the ship that was in the harbor 50 years ago (S1, for convenience)? In other words, is S2 really the “Theseus”? Applied to the Old Testament, the assumption is that with all the changes from Abraham through the post-exilic period, the answer is affirmative. The New Testament will also give an affirmative answer in the sense that the same divine being who called Abraham, who revealed the covenantal name Yahweh, who guided Israel, also offered a new revelation and covenant in Jesus Christ.
We also need to have a moment of clarification. The promise of a new covenant is to Israel, and not to another people. God has not abandoned the former covenant with Moses. The new covenant continues by virtue of its relation to the Mosaic covenant. The church must not look at itself as a “new” people of God. The Lord promises a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah, a phrase almost unique to Jeremiah.[73]
32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. If we go back to the Mosaic, Joshua, and Judges period, we can see the importance of this covenant in the Ten Commandments, the Shechemite Twelve commandments and the covenant renewal ceremony during the Judges period, and the Book of the Covenant in Exodus. The willful covenant-breaking behavior of the people wronged Yahweh (referred to here as the "husband" of the nation just as Israel had been the bride). It would be difficult to isolate a more prominent or more important idea in biblical literature than the idea of the covenant. Whether in the form of the chosen people of Israel or, much later, in the form of the Christian church as the body of Christ, the idea of a solemn, formal agreement between God and a group of people, which bestows both privilege and responsibility on the chosen ones, lies at the core of biblical thought. Pre-eminent among the several forms of biblical covenant agreements is the covenant at Sinai (Exodus 19-20), which included not only Israel’s encounter with the LORD at Sinai, but, as indicated, here, the entire exodus experience
33 However, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. The Lord places the Torah in the inmost being of the people so that they cannot break the covenant again. This is the old covenant drastically renewed. Israel has broken the old covenant of Sinai so decisively that God must nullify it, but this new or renewed covenant will be keepable. In Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua the commandments are written on stone. What is new is the way the law is appropriated. Behind this entire text stands the conviction that it lies beyond the powers of human beings to prepare themselves for the fulfillment for the will of God and to render oneself virtuous. This initiative issues exclusively from God. What is involved here is a gift and not the result of any human striving, even the loftiest and most devout striving. It involves a total renewal of the relation of humanity to God and it becomes an eschatological event. The writing of the will of God on the depths of human being will mean that nothing other than the will of God will be done.[74] We will learn that this new covenant has four themes.
First, the Torah, that is, the commands, will be central and authoritative as at Sinai, but now the people will intensely embrace them, unlike the Sinai economy of covenant. They will be intimately familiar and readily embraced. Here is the difference with the previous covenant that Jeremiah envisions. Life's most problematic organ, the one that most betrayed the human condition, is the heart. Jeremiah is already thick with assertions about the wickedness and weakness of this deceitful organ (see Jeremiah 3:17; 4:14; 5:23; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12). Most famous of all of Jeremiah's "heart" insights is his reference to Judah's sin being “written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts" (Jeremiah 17:1). The image is unique to Jeremiah. The point seems to be that reforms of Josiah, which were external, clearly did not get into the hearts of the officials or the people, which has been the focus of the reforms. Remember, Deuteronomy itself focuses on turning to the Lord with the whole heart and fearing the Lord with one’s whole heart. Now, however, Jeremiah envisions a time when the obligations of the Sinai covenant find transformed internal desires so that people will experiences transformation from the inside. Yet, this thought is not unique to Jeremiah. Thus, in an analogous way, Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6 refer to the circumcision of the heart, which would also refer to a new covenant of renewed devotion to the covenant God had with Israel. Further, the notion of covenant, while it begins with Moses, as noted above, becomes a theological theme for J, as that author goes back to the Patriarchs having a covenant, and traces it through the time of Moses. Then, we find prophetic circles emphasizing the covenant with David and the bond established with sacral kingship. The point here is that the theme of covenant runs throughout the various schools within Israel and throughout its history. The idea of a solemn, formal agreement between God and a group of people that bestows both privilege and responsibility on the chosen ones seems like it became a theme throughout the Bible.
Jeremiah is in the stream of tradition of the book of Deuteronomy and other books that emphasize heart-religion as well as outward obedience. In Hebrew, the primary words for “heart” also mean mind, understanding and will. Deuteronomy 6:5-6 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.” Deuteronomy 30:6 says, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.” Psalm 40:8 says, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” In Ezekiel 36:26-28 the Lord says, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” (See also Ezekiel 11:14-20.) Further, see Jeremiah 29:11-14 (“a future with hope”) and 32:37-42.
Many New Testament passages also emphasize God’s Spirit-given heart/will as the source of true obedience and true life with God. Among others, see John 3 and its reference to birth from above or new birth. Similarly, see such Pauline passages as significant portions of Galatians (e.g., 5:13 ff.) and Romans (e.g., see 6:17 ff. and 8:1-4), as well as Philippians 2:12b-13. See also Ephesians 2:1-10. Further, see II Peter 1:1 ff.
Second, we learn that the standard covenant formula of mutuality in relationship marks this covenant. We hear the covenantal language: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Third, the newly formed community of Israel will be full of the knowledge of God. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. Inscribed in this way, it will have no need of anyone teaching it. The people heard themselves addressed as a people who had violated the covenant. The context seems to imply that the sin of Israel is so great until God must intervene in a mighty way. Now the covenant is to become so deeply a part of each person that there will no longer be a need for teaching. To "know" is both to grasp intellectually and to have an intimate personal relationship -- as do a husband and a wife. The transformed people will "know God" and God's law with this kind of intimate association. The idea continues the thought of the entire passage, which is individual responsibility. The individual Israelite of the redeemed future will no longer be able to claim ignorance of the law or a deficient priesthood teaching a corrupt version of the law as an excuse for the disobedience first manifest in the wilderness generation and persistent in subsequent generations of the chosen people. Every Israelite will know the law and every Israelite will bear the responsibility of obeying it. The Mosaic covenant (“my law,” v. 33) remains unchanged in content; what is new is its internalized, individualized, democratized form.
As a result of this creative grafting of the will of the Lord on the hearts of people all theological offices become unnecessary and there is no further need for admonition. This is the way Jeremiah writes of a future outpouring of the Spirit upon the people of God, for what he thinks of is nothing other than a spiritual knowledge and observance of the will of the Lord. He addresses attention to the full and final return of Israel to God even while contemporary Israel is not returning to the Lord. His emphasis is upon the human side in the divine saving work. He will often reflect upon whether the disposition of humanity can change. His negative judgment on the possibility of Israel setting its relationship to the Lord straight by its own efforts is the background that helps us understand what he offers in the new covenant. Jeremiah gained increasing insight into the condition of humanity, and for this reason he did not demand that humanity should follow a road that will inevitably bring failure. His appeals emanate from the decision of the Lord to save this people. He reflected on the problem of humanity and what must come about in humanity if God is to receive humanity into a new communion with God and with each other. The answer was the promise that God would change the human heart and bring obedience.[75]
A self-evident fact about the church is that we take the Bible seriously. When we gather for worship, we read from it. Many of us read it daily as individuals, couples, and families. This is one way we can be sure that God has not left us to our own devices. We have this constant check to our lives. The church today has accountability to the apostolic church and to the church of the centuries. We believe it faithfully communicates the will and purpose of God. The Bible takes time, patience, perseverance, and courage to read. It is difficult to understand at times, in part because the Bible is ancient and from a culture different from ours. Yet, we trust the witness of this text: God has shown us what God is like and what God wants of humanity in Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah then affirms, says the Lord, a concluding messenger formula.
Fourth, the culminating feature of the new or renewed covenant becomes possible not by repentance or conversion on the part of Israel, but by the unilateral action of God, who will forgive and forget. The oracle concludes the Lord looking at the ruined relation of Israel with the covenant and pronounces, in act of pure grace and mercy: for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. That new locus for the law is the result of a restored relationship that comes from forgiveness. One of Jeremiah’s singular contributions to the theology of the OT is the psychological and emotional insight that forgiveness is key to a right relationship between the human and the divine, and the foundation for appropriate covenantal behavior by both parties. It is incumbent upon the divine to forgive fallen human covenant partners, and it is incumbent upon the human party to accept that forgiveness with sincerity of heart (i.e., with firm resolve not to sin again) to re-enter the restored relationship. Forgiveness is the divine initiation of restoration and redemption. Christians must guard against individualism since God directs the promises to a community; not overly stress the new element; not allow a new covenant to be antinomian. This line is so crucial because it makes possible the establishment of this new covenant. Before God can replace the brokenness of the old covenant relationship by the new, God must wipe the slate clean. The dire consequences of their sinfulness now erased; the cause of their sinfulness -- an evil heart -- now transformed. God firmly establishes the new covenant. Such a notion envisions a time when God must take control in human hearts so that we may accept each other, forgive each other, and help each other. Until then, only a formulation and execution of law that can meet legitimate claims can establish a lasting stable order in human relationships.[76] Clearly, forgiveness in this new covenant is important.
Isaiah 43:16-21 (Year C, Fifth Sunday in Lent) contains 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. 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. One of the noteworthy accomplishments of the author is the skillful blending of mythological imagery, historical critique and eschatological (end-time) promise. We find all these themes within the space of a few verses. The event depicted in this passage is, as one scholar has described it, “An Isaian Exodus.”
The prophet is a messenger of the Lord, making him as incidental as possible to focus the attention of hearers upon the message. The Lord making a way in the sea recalls the exodus from Egypt, the pre-eminent liberating event in Israel’s history and foundational to its self-understanding and its understanding of its covenantal relationship with God. The author frequently draws on historical events in Israel’s past to remind his hearers that the God in whose name he speaks is not without a history of saving acts on Israel’s behalf, and that this history of salvation — Heilsgeschichte in scholarly language — forms the basis of the trust the prophet now urges the people to place in their God. However, the prophet’s use of language does more than simply recall past events. By using such techniques as active participles, he extends the effect of the saving events of the past into both the present and the future, so that he understands the drama of salvation, in which the Lord is the principal actor, to be an on-going reality in which Israel can participate if it chooses. The prophet opens up not only history, but also possibility. To open a way in the sea for landlocked captives, separated from their homeland more by sand than by water, obviously takes the language from mere historical referent to the realm of metaphor and mythology. In the mythology of the ancient Near East, of which Israel’s creation and salvation narratives were a part, the sea was often personified as a monstrous force of chaos and hostility to the will of a supreme, benevolent deity. Creation, in numerous accounts, was not infrequently portrayed as the result of the triumph of a people’s patron deity over the destructive forces of the sea. A vestige of this cosmic struggle remains, in vastly subdued form, in the opening verses of Genesis, where the wind or spirit of God brooded (or, probably better, swooped) over the watery deep at creation’s inception. This mythological imagery is part of the background of Isaiah’s language. II Isaiah continues with exodus imagery to identify who the Lord is as the one who destroys the armies that oppose Israel.
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.[77] 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 takes place in nature he also regards as creative acts of the Lord.[78]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.[79]
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.[80] We need to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.[81] 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.[82] The future arises out of the same stuff as the present.[83] 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.[84]
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.[85] 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.
Several Old Testament texts focus upon a unique servant of the Lord who suffers.
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 (Palm Sunday, Service of the Palms) is an individual thanksgiving. This psalm provides the conclusion to the Hallel portion of the psalter that began with Psalm 113. It is a powerful testimony to the direct help of God and joyful surrender to God who can overcome all afflictions. Death is a formidable power, which wants to take control; but the Lord will not let it happen. The day of rescue is a day for joy. The Talmud says worship leaders read it antiphonally in the liturgy. Proselytes are part of the service. Jewish tradition relates the psalm to the feast of tabernacles, while many moderns relate it to the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, since neither Ezra 6:15-16, Nehemiah 8 (although some think verses 13-18 suggest use of the psalm in this post-exilic celebration of the festival of booths, where the people were to gather branches and construct booths on their roofs and courtyards), nor I Maccabees 4:54ff refer to it. Worship leaders recited these psalms at the great Jewish feasts, including the Passover. See Ezra 3:4, Zechariah 14:16 and Exodus 23:14 for the observances of festivals. The reference to the nations and the battle imagery of verses 10-16 suggests a victory song. Dahood sees a king giving thanks for deliverance from death and military victory. He also sees associations with the ancient hymn of Exodus 15, thus being pre-exilic.
The abiding goodness of the Lord is the theme of the psalm. He holds the Lord in highest esteem, as one whose qualities worshippers ought to desire. Jewish piety had the thought of the goodness of the Lord underlying the summons to praise and offer thanks in prayer.[86] One can understand hesed as covenant loyalty, faithful love, graciousness, and kindness. The Lord honors covenants made with us human beings, even when we breach them. The poet alludes to an entrance ritual whereby the righteous gain admittance to the temple, as in Psalm 15 and 24. The king may be at the gates of victory/saving justice.[87] The king wants the gatekeepers to let him enter after his military victory and his brush with death. Verses 22-29 become the testimony of the congregation. It becomes a confession of faith in the Lord. The deliverance beat the odds, rescuing and honoring the unlikely. Thus, a metaphor of the reversal of expectations. Someone once rejected has become prominent and irreplaceable. If the king, he had been near defeat and death, but the Lord granted him victory and success. It could refer to Israel as the one rejected by the great empires. Later Judaism applied this verse to the Messiah as well. This was the interpretation adopted by the church: Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, and I Peter 2:7. [88] In either case, the rejected has now the keystone, linking with the architectural images of the previous verses. From NT times, Christians have seen connections between Psalm 18:22-23 and the initial rejection and suffering of Jesus, followed by his subsequent vindication when God raised him from the dead. Ephesians 2:19-22 calls Jesus Christ ἀκρογωνιαίου (v. 20: the corner, cornerstone, capstone, or keystone). A popular hymn from the 600s and translated from the Latin by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) begins with the notion that God has made Christ the sure foundation, head, and cornerstone, the chosen one, and precious, binding all the church in one. Returning to the psalm, the assembled worshippers recognize the action of the Lord and find it marvelous. The Lord making this day and this moment one of victory, the call is to rejoice in the Lord who made the day possible. The worshippers pronounce a blessing upon the king, who comes in the name of the Lord. Later Judaism understood the expression in a messianic way. All four gospels cite this verse (Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:8-9, Luke 19:37-38, John 12:13). The poet ended the psalm as he began it, giving thanks to the Lord, who is good whose covenant loyalty endures.
Psalm 31:9-16 (Palm/Passion Sunday, Service of the Word) is a personal lament, bearing some resemblance to the confessions of Jeremiah and to Jonah 2. The poem is an anthology psalm, drawing on verses from other psalms and Jeremiah. It calls on the Lord for help and affirms the trust of the poet in the Lord. A person has suffered from a prolonged illness, persecuted by enemies, and been shunned by friends. The poet seeks God in the face of the threat of a violent death. It expresses quiet trust in the unfailing care of God, even if the poet takes a difficult journey toward it. The poet wonders if his life has meaning or value. This portion of the psalm begins with the poet unburdening himself, laying out his hurt before the Lord to alleviate his suffering. The crisis he faces is causing pain in psyche and body. His life has been little more than sorrow and sighing. As in Psalm 6:3, he is physically wasting away, either by illness or as a metaphor for the distress of the poet. His shame increases as enemies, neighbors, and friends react to his distress by distancing themselves from him. Scorn is a concern of Psalm 22:6, where the poet is a reproach to others and despised by others, as well as Job 19:19, where his friends abhor him, and Jeremiah 23:40, where the Lord will bring shame and reproach to Jerusalem. It can seem precarious to trust in the Lord, especially when the culture shames us. Shame suggests that who you are does not measure up to the standards of those who shame you. You have not just done something the other dislikes, but who you are is not sufficient to be included in their group. Such moments disclose our priorities. Have we made an idol out of the group so that acceptance by the group becomes our all-consuming concern? He faints and is not useful for anything. As in Jeremiah 20:10, he feels the terror all around, which could be the result of paranoia, but it is also quite possible such plots are real, given the harsh era in which he lived. The poet shifts to reflecting on the way of the Lord in a form that contrasts sharply with the distress we have just considered, as he proclaims his trust (batah) in the Lord. This affirmation contrasts with his enemies, who pay regard to worthless idols (verse 6). Such trust makes people feel safe and secure, placing himself confidently into God’s caring hands, relying assuredly on him in threatening times. Hope in the prayers of the psalms is always in the Lord, and thus rests on faith in the Lord. He wants deliverance from enemies and persecutors.[89] Regardless of the shame and exclusion he has experienced, the Lord is his God, and that is enough. His destiny, future, fate, and every moment of his life are in the refuge God ahs provided. What happens in his life depends on the Lord. He entrusts his precarious life in the trustworthy, providential care of the Lord. He asks deliverance from his enemies/persecutors. Reminiscent of Numbers 6:24-26 and Psalm 4:6, he wants the face of the Lord to shine upon him, since he is a servant of the Lord, and save him by the loyal, covenant-love, unfailing love, faithfulness, faithful care (hesed) of the Lord.
Psalm 116:12-19 (Maundy Thursday), a hymn of thanksgiving for recovery from serious illness, are the part of the psalm in which the poet becomes a transformed being. Instead of focusing upon personal weakness, the poet focuses upon faithfulness. He must face his recent suffering and impending death, but he relies upon the Lord for help and deliverance. He can rely upon the Lord because the Lord is gracious, righteous, and merciful. The poet places himself before the Lord as a servant, offering thanks to the Lord. He vows a public thanksgiving offering if the Lord will help him. The Lord has been good to him, and he wants to express his gratitude. He will lift the cup of the saving help of the Lord and call upon the name of the Lord, this phrase becoming significant for Christian liturgy regarding Holy Communion. The cup is a libation celebrating the deliverance of the poet that often accompanies the thank offering, although it could be a simple metaphor as if offering a toast to the Lord that he will publicize the great deeds of the Lord. He will also pay his vows to the Lord in the presence of all the people in gratitude for the deliverance he has received. Such a thank offering is a token of this payment, fulfilling a vow made in the time of trouble that he can now pay. He then stresses that death is costly and therefore, the death of the faithful is grievous (yakar, some translations say “precious”) in the sight of the Lord. Death is costly because it breaks off all relationship between the Lord and the people. The psalmist gives voice to a sentiment that has become one of the most used phrases at funerals. The Lord does not wish those who adhere to the Lord to die. Therefore, the poet is assured that the Lord keep him alive. He identifies himself with an epithet of extreme humility as a servant of the Lord, even the child of your serving your serving girl. Here is the best the psalmist can offer in gratitude for the good the Lord has brought into his life. He will become the servant of the Lord for the rest of his life. The Lord has loosed his bonds, referring to his illness or to the constriction caused by the situation in which he finds himself. He comes back to the saving help the Lord has demonstrated in his life, offering to the Lord a thanksgiving sacrifice, calling on the name of the Lord, paying his vows to the Lord in the presence of the people, in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem. He concludes with the affirmation to praise the Lord.
Isaiah 50:4-9a (Palm/Passion Sunday, Service of the Word) describes the servant of the Lord as one who accomplishes his mission by speech, suggesting his prophetic role. This passage presents the cost of the commitment by this Servant. It will also stress the suffering of the Servant, as well as the obedience of the Servant despite the suffering. The prophet endures suffering for the sake of the specific mission the Lord has given him. All suffering is not of such a nature. Some suffering one needs do all one can to avoid, resist, or escape. Thus, a situation of domestic violence is one from which one needs to escape, for failure to do so only emboldens the abuser. Even on a national scale, displaying oneself as a weak nation will only embolden the aggressive nation. However, the people of the Lord need to reflect upon the reality that anyone can expect opposition and criticism if one remains dedicated to a mission to which the Lord has called. In this case, the people of the Lord in every generation and culture have a prophetic role which will lead to opposition and suffering. Receiving a divine summons, divine power will be present to fulfill the divinely given mission. This prophet will teach with words, but he will also teach with his life. If that is true of the people of the Lord, the life of Jesus bears witness to its truth as well. One who enters the school of Christ will not have done so in vain. The servant is a teacher, always listening to what the Lord God (‘adonai Yahweh) teaches him. The purpose of this word is to sustain the weary, a favorite theme in Isaiah. Those whom the Lord calls from the ends of the earth will not grow weary (5:27). The Lord invited the people of God who are weary to rest, but they would not do so (28:12). Hezekiah admits his eyes grow weary in looking upward (38:14). The Lord does no grow weary (40:28). Youths will grow weary but those who wait upon the Lord will not (40:30-31). Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30 lifted the burdens of the weary. One who seeks to teach others must be willing to receive instruction, a quality of every good teacher in every culture and historical period. In this case, if one desires to teach others of God one must first learn from God. Yet, this teacher experiences opposition. The Servant gives his back: where his enemies can freely strike without hope of protecting himself. The Servant offers his cheeks: allowing his enemies to pluck out his beard, a badge of maturity and virility. The Servant does not even turn his face to avoid the ultimate sign of distaste and disrespect -- a spit in the face. In all of this, see the allusions by the writers of the gospel to this passage with reference to the time of the torment of Jesus, as in Matthew 16:21; 26:67; 27:26, 30; Mark 10:34; 14:65; 15:15, 19; Luke 18:32-33; 22:63-65. He has refused the disgrace and shame people have heaped upon him and remained firm when he could have surrendered to anxiety, fear, or anger. He displays quiet strength, the source of which is the confidence that the Lord has instructed him what to say. In a comparable way, Ezekiel, also a prophet in the exile, endured opposition, and persecution, received the assurance that the Lord made his face hard against the faces of his opponents and his forehead hard against their foreheads. In fact, the Lord has made Ezekiel like the hardest stone, harder than flint, so he ought not to fear them or have dismay at their looks, since they are the ones who have rebelled against the Lord (Ezekiel 3:8-9). People do not have the power.to shame him because he has received his strength from the Lord to be a witness, and in doing so, the Lord will uphold his honor. Ancient Israel was what the sociologists call an "honor-shame society." In modern societies, honor and shame refer to psychological states. It refers to the internal moral character of a person or to the actions that reflect that character. In ancient societies, however, some of which continue to exist in remotes part of the world today, honor and shame are social values determinative of the identity and social status of a person. Honor is a claim a person has to self-worth and social acknowledgement of that claim. Honor is the public reputation that constitutes personal identity. Shame is the concern a person has for reputation. Shame is a positive value by which one seeks to maintain or protect honor. Failure to maintain honor, or if peers do not acknowledge the claim to personal self-worth, one has shame, dishonor, or disgrace. A person with no concern for honor or reputation is shameless. Thus, in ancient Israel, honor and shame have both individual and collective dimensions. The individual makes a claim to honor that social peers affirm or deny in accord with present or past behavior. Yet, the individual shares any individual honor with the collective honor of family, class, state, or other group to which one belongs. The honor and shame group behavior exhibits reverberate upon the individuals who are part of the group.[90] If this servant is shamed, his entire clan will be shamed with him. If he does not remain firm, he will bring dishonor upon himself and upon the Lord. This section concludes with important judicial language. The Lord vindicates or acquits the prophet, showing that the servant-prophet is righteous and has endured suffered as an innocent. The image is that of a next of kin who stands at his side during legal proceedings. The Servant challenges his opponents (or is willing to accept their challenge) to a court battle. The Servant will not allow anyone to thwart him from his God-given task due to the disgrace that such horrific opposition would usually engender in a tight-knit community; nor will he have to face the shame of defeat due to failure to complete his God-given task. With God, he can withstand those withering attacks. If the Lord acquits him, then no one else can bring a charge of guilt. The rhetoric recurs in Romans 8:33-34, where Paul asserts that God justifies, and therefore no one can condemn. Nothing can overturn the decision of God to set free by legal acquittal. With the Lord God standing in this court of judgment as the Servant's next of kin, how can there be any doubt about which way the judgment of a righteous court will go? The servant-prophet can count on the Lord God to testify for them in the only court that matters.
Christian minds have long seen this Servant Song as evoking the passion of Jesus. The Lord's decision, at the crucial turning point in Luke's gospel, to "set his face to go to Jerusalem" -- knowing what sort of opposition he is likely to encounter there -- may have been the moment when he first assumed a face like flint. Later, when Jesus stands before Pilate, giving only the tersest of answers to his questions, he is by his very silence declaring himself to be the equal -- no, more than the equal -- of the scheming procurator. Pilate's subsequent failure to break the Galilean's resolve backfires, bringing shame not upon his bedraggled prisoner, but upon him. As with Isaiah's Suffering Servant, Jesus' deliverance, too, is near. As humiliating and shaming as his experience in Pilate's courtyard and on the cross may be, that will soon be forgotten on Easter morning. His triumph over his persecutors will be complete.
Regardless of his situation, the writer has assurance of the divine presence. Horatio G. Spafford (1873) wrote a favorite hymn of mine that sings of situations of peace and sorrow. Yet, whatever my lot, the Lord has taught him to say that it is well with his soul. Even if Satan attacks and trials come, his assurance is that Christ has regarded his helpless condition and shed his blood for his soul. Therefore, it is well with my soul.
Psalm 22 (Good Friday and verses 23-31, Year B, Second Sunday in Lent) is an individual lament. The date of this psalm is pre-exilic. The theme of Psalm 22 is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Matthew has used it as a messianic prophecy. The mood is one of alternate fear and a desire to seek God in the first part and in the second part a contemplation of the providential rule of God. The poetic images move our hearts, though we cannot know details. The psalm expresses the spiritual anguish brought on by religious conflict. The writer is in shock to the point of expressing itself in physical symptoms due to the lack of response from God and the scorn of non-believers. Throughout the psalm, the writer portrays himself as a faithful worshiper of Yahweh. This faithfulness is the ground of his appeal to God for help. For this reason, one cannot see the psalmist as one who has fully despaired. He genuinely believes that an appeal to the power and justice of God will be efficacious. It opens with a person in a crisis from a serious illness but ends in in his prayers receiving an answer as he brings the offerings he vowed to make and gives public acclaim to the Lord as he promised.
If you want to know why the question of theodicy will never have a definitive answer for us, here is the fundamental reason. If you want to know why atheism will always be a valid response to our experience of life on this planet, meditate upon this psalm. Suppose you have an experience in which you want God to speak or to act so much that it hurts. Suppose you look at an historical event, such as the Holocaust, and ponder why God did not stop that. In other words, the silence of God becomes deafening. If God is silent during the horrors of personal life and human history, then the silence can say a great deal. Belief in God is an affirmation that life triumphs over death, that hope triumphs over despair, that light triumphs over darkness, and that love triumphs over apathy. Yet, what would happen if the silence of God amid tragedy means that death, despair, darkness, and apathy are the final word this universe has to say to humanity?
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn, a musical term that may indicate the melody to which the words were sung. A Psalm of David. The superscription of the Psalm is unique and unclear; it may refer to a musical setting for the psalm or to a now lost collection of psalms. According to the Masoretic Hebrew text (which is v. 1 in the Hebrew), the title is “The Deer of the Dawn.” According to the Greek translation of Symmachus, and the Aramaic Targum, however, the title reads “My help of the Dawn,” translating the Hebrew word ‘eyaluti as “my help,” which appears in verse 19, rather than ‘ayelet, or “deer,” which appears in the Hebrew verse 1. It is fascinating that this psalm, known for its despairing opening, should have such a hopeful name in these two traditions. One should keep in mind that since Mark quotes Jesus as citing the psalm in the Aramaic, he knew its title in Aramaic as well — a title that points to the belief that the help of the Lord will come to the faithful like the dawn. The verses in the psalm alternate between the complaint of the psalmist and the affirmation of the reasons he believes God will answer his complaint.
Psalm 22: 1-21 are a prayer of supplication. Verses 1-11 ask God, who cared for the ancestors and the psalmist in the past, does not do so now. Verses 1-2 are a cry of despair, total aloneness, seeing only separation between himself and God. Doubt is an important experience in going deeper with God. The religion arising out of Judaism and Christianity encourages examination of one’s faith and life. The opposite of faith is certainty. Faith includes noticing the mess, emptiness, and discomfort but also the faith that light will return. The fact that Mark records Jesus as quoting from the opening line of this Psalm gives us an opportunity to reflect upon an important event in the spiritual life of most saints. How do you deal with your life with God when God is silent? You have come to a point in your life when you want clarity, you want God to speak and act, but God is silent. Jesus, in the closing hours of his life, had that experience. Through his parables, sayings, and stories of healing and casting out demons, he affirmed the presence and reality of God. Yet, in the last hours of his life, his heavenly Father encountered him with silence. As one of Jesus’ words from the cross, recounted in Aramaic by Matthew and Mark (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34), the first line of Psalm 22 has become the quintessential cry of despair for the Christian tradition. More of Psalm 22 than simply the first verse figures in the passion narratives, however. While only Matthew and Mark relate Jesus’ quotation, all four evangelists draw parallels from the psalm to Jesus’ execution in some way, which we will see as the Psalm progresses. However, this line has had the heaviest influence on Christian teaching. The fact that Christ, in his suffering, would utter this cry, has signified to Christian theologians throughout history that Christ was indeed fully human. The fact that he could feel the thoroughly human emotion of despair, despite his divine nature, is both a scandal and a miracle by which Christians affirm the dual nature of Christ. Even as the Son of the Father, he experienced the silence of God. In fact, in the closing hours of his life, the silencing of his Father is deafening. Jesus no doubt knew the entire psalm whose first line he is citing, and therefore we can understand his quote of the Psalm to the understood to possess not only the human emotion of despair, but also the paradoxically human emotion of hope despite despair that is evident in the rest of the psalm. In v. 1b-2, while experiencing the silence of God at a critical moment in his life. He wants God to help and hear. He wants God to speak and act. God is silent. He is not blaming God. He is not asking why God did or did not do something. He is asking what God is amid his suffering. In his suffering, there is little evidence that is God with him. The poet continues to trust that God will speak and act.
Suffering reaches to the depth of all living things. After living things come to life, they mature and die. In human beings, an important part of maturing is the struggle toward adult life, as we move through the various stages of life, facing the challenges problems present, learning lessons, and moving on to the next stage is an important part of our maturity.
Yet, sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the problems surround us in a way that makes us feel overwhelmed. We want help. We extend a hand to someone, a friend, an organization for which we have worked, a church, and to God, and it seems as if no one is listening. No one, it seems, will be there.
“Why” is a common question for people to ask. We keep pushing the boundaries and limits of reasoning. We want to know. It seems as if some of our questions reach a limit. A rational explanation, especially in suffering, does seem to address the question. Somehow, we think life ought to be easier than this.
True, some of the obstacles and challenges in life we have put there. We need to have the strength to make the personal changes we need to make. Yet, sometimes, life throws so much at us, more than we think we can bear. We can have the faith that God is here. We can have faith that God will give us strength. We can have faith that these obstacles and challenges will be part of forming us into the people God intended. Of course, sometimes, such faith is difficult to have.
A message concerning suffering can be tough, both for the listener and for the one who gives it. Both of us know we will find no answers. Fear of experiencing suffering can lead us to hold back and fail to take the risks that are part of a human life. It can lead you to retreat from people. Yet, the people you need to accompany you through life are there. The only genuinely meaningless suffering is when you let suffering make you retreat into loneliness and despair. Suffering becomes meaningful when you let it open you to people in such a way that you become a source of inspiration to others. Human life is full of risk. Do not let the risk hold you back from engaging life fully and confidently. Yes, suffering is part of it, but life has far more positive to offer if we engage it.
Verses 3-5 sense the vast difference between God and persons, as well as God's continued silence. Typical of the lament, the poet appeals to the faithfulness of God as a confession of trust and a reason to hope. Abandonment is not the last word. Remembering Exodus 15:11, the poet affirms the beautiful image that God is holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. One reason the absence of God seems so unfair to the poet is knowing that God has rescued faithful ancestors in the past. Why is the poet not experiencing salvation from the hand of God? Verses 6-8 shows the real strain is on his faith, his mind overcome with sorrow and grief. He describes his desperate situation. He feels less than human, The author experiences the desertion of other people. They mock his attempt to commit his cause to the Lord. He receives scorn from those who think that God will not help him. The crowd at the execution of Jesus mocks him with these words (Psalm 22: 7-8 compared with Matthew 27: 43; Mark 15: 29-31; Luke 23: 35). Verses 9-11 shows that, though his faith is under attack, he finds renewed strength. He hopes that God who was with him since conception will not abandon him now. He can look upon his life and see the faith of his mother nurturing him. If no one else helps him in his time of trouble, he wants God to help him. We need to have confidence of the presence of God in our pain. Some of us need to offer a simple prayer: “Be as near to me as my troubles are.” Our prayer may not be so much to ask God to lighten our load as to give us a stronger back.[91]
Psalm 22: 12-21 paint the opponents of the psalmist as animal predators. The mixing of metaphors and similes of diverse types is common in the psalms. Verses 12-13 shows the strong emotion that fear of enemies brings him. In referring to the bulls of Bashan surrounding him, he refers to the territory ruled by the Syrian city-states, such as Damascus, who were frequently enemies who threatened the northern border of Israel. The area was famous for its fat, strong cattle, which are predators here, who have their mouths open wide like a ravening and roaring lion, the icon of the Assyrian empire, whose rise to power spelled the end of the northern kingdom and contributed to the fall of Judah as well. Such images may be military images drawn from the history of the struggles of Israel with its neighbors. Here is a reminder that the obstacles we face are our lives. They shape our character and personality. They shape our destiny.[92] Some of the bulls of Bashan that surround us and threaten us are the results of choices we have made. They represent internal battles with desires and wishes that distract us from doing what God has called us to do. Can the struggles, obstacles, and suffering that are part of a human life have any positive effect? I am not ignoring the genuine pain we experience. Yet, if we assume the significance of this space and time we inhabit, if we look honestly at our experience, do we not have to agree that some of our times of greatest personal growth have been through some of the struggles we have had? Suffering and pain increase our awareness of life. Suffering becomes meaningful to the extent that it calls for protection and healing in those attacked by pain. It can show to us our limits and potential. Suffering can become meaningful because of how others respond to this suffering and how the one who suffers responds to it.[93] Verses 14-18 may refer to the result of distress, a graphic description of a mortal illness. This event has caused profound distress to the point of affecting him physically. It feels like death. The poet senses his body stop working and disintegrating. He sees himself die; his body so dried up that it turns to dust. The scorners are like dogs hunting prey. They gloat at his death and are eager to take his possessions, dividing his clothes among themselves by casting lots, recalling Isaiah 53:5, and all four gospels relate the fact that soldiers divided his clothes among the executioners of Jesus (Matthew 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; Luke 23: 34; John 19: 24).
Psalm 22:19-31 begins the movement from lamentation to hope. The turmoil of life, the struggles of life, may lay us low for a time, but upon further reflection, we can discover deeper levels of devotion. Giving time to reflect can make room for the ambiguity that is part of well-lived human life. The theme of the psalm is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Yet, one should not miss that the passage of hope that follows this extended passage of complaint is more than twice as many verses long. It is hard to hear the painful description of the plight of the psalmist without letting that become the most salient image of this psalm. Verses 19-21a, at this lowest point, he asks the Lord to help. Verses 21b-31 express praise for the ultimate deliverance the Lord brings, when the Lord will have heard and responded to the cry for help by the writer. These verses voice the fervent belief that the entire world will, step-by-step, turn to the Lord and worship the Lord. Notice the widening circles of praise. Verses 21b-24 is an extended declaration of the Lord’s sovereign grace and power to save. We note the transition from imperative to past tense. The Lord has already rescued the poet. He will gladly witness to the deliverance of the Lord. He invites a widening circle of people to unite with him in praise. The recovery of the psalmist is a sign of the power and mercy of the Lord, as example for all, and an occasion for praise. With his reintegration into the community, all Israel is invited to join him in praise. He begins with his kin, and then invites his fellow worshippers in the congregation to offer their praise, glorifying, and stand in awe, for the Lord has not ignored the suffering poet. Verses 25-31 become a psalm of thanksgiving. They continue the hopeful end of the psalm that begins as a powerful lament. The anguish and doubt of the lament give way to the hope we find at the end. Thanksgiving is a typical part of the lament. The darkness of the soul has vanished. The Lord has answered the prayer. The congregation receives an assurance of an answer. The Lord has granted glorious deliverance. The grace of the Lord is sovereign and has power to save. The widening circle extends to all the earth (goyim, the nations, heathen, or Gentiles). Psalm 86:9 reminds us that the Lord has made all the nations, so they shall bow down and glorify the Lord. Isaiah 56:1-8 promises that the eunuch and foreigner will not be separate from the people of the Lord. Rather, they will become ministers before the Lord and love the name of the Lord. Malachi 1:11 anticipates a time when the name of the Lord shall be great among the nations. The nations will realize the power of the Lord and worship the Lord. Not even death can stop the kingly rule of the Lord over all creation. He will fulfill his vow, like Leviticus 7:16, were people bring offerings that the male priests were to eat, and Numbers 15:3, where they were to make an offering before the Lord to fulfill a vow. Psalm 47:6-9 affirms that God is the king of all the earth and nations, so that the princes of the nations shall gather as the people of the God of Abraham, for even the shields of the earth belong to God. Zechariah 14:9 prophesies that the Lord will become king over all the earth. Revelation 11:15 has the voices in heaven singing that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and the Messiah, who will reign forever. Even the dead shall offer praise, saying in a poetic way that everyone in every time and in every place will praise the Lord. All human beings are dust-to-dust mortals, including those who are currently dying (and even those who are already dead). Moreover, all, both the vigorous and the dying, will bow down to Yahweh. See such passages as Isaiah 45:23 (cited by Romans 14:11 and alluded to in Philippians 2:10, affirms that every knee shall bend, and every tongue confess. Revelation 5:13 looks forward to a time when every creature in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, will sing praise, honor, and glory to God and the Lamb. the Psalm seems to conclude with the hope of the messianic universal rule of the Lord. Finally, the invitation to praise extends to generations unborn as they proclaim the power of the Lord to save. John 17:20 has a similar concern for those who will believe through the word of the apostles.
The poet invites us to embrace the ambiguity of a human life, the multi-layered reality in which human life consists of. Thus, this Psalm, beginning with so much anguish, ends with an ever-widening circle of praise to the Lord. We need to embrace both the threat of nothingness and the fullness of being both the abyss and the promise of life. Some hymns come to mind. “It is well with my soul” (1876) refers to sorrows like sea billows roll, and that the devil will try to ruin, and trials may come, it is well with my soul. “Jesus, lover of my soul” (Charles Wesley 1740) refers to the nearer waters rolling and the tempest still high, that one sinks, faints, and falls, and that the Lord is the one who raises the fallen, cheers the faint, heals the sick, and leads the blind.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the fourth servant poem, describing the Servant in victory. The first and second Servant poems have the Servant have a mission to the nations. The speaker identifies with the Servant. The Servant speaks for Israel as a group. We rightly ponder why God is silent amid suffering and evil (Psalm 22). However, this prophet invites us to ponder our role in inflicting suffering and evil upon the Servant. I stress that "we," the people of God, have our role in perpetuating violence against the Servant, and therefore with the continuation of suffering and evil. The text shows who God is, but it also shows who humanity is as well. The fact is, this poem is deliberately obscure and mysterious. Its expressions remain uncertain. In keeping with the mysterious style of the passage, one must not do a disservice to the text and make it precise and sharply focused.[94]
In a Christian reading of the Old Testament, this passage receives reading every Good Friday. Acts 8:32-33 has the evangelist Phillip applying the imagery of Isaiah 53:7-8 to Jesus. It causes the Christian to ponder again the suffering of Jesus for us and for our sins. What value can we receive out of reading and re-reading this passage? Soren Kierkegaard authored a book on repetition. He said that which one repeats what has been, otherwise one could not repeat. The fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new. Frankly, this is a difficult book. For most of us, if we were going to understand it, it would be through reading it repeatedly. Yet, if we receive new insights in each reading and gain in our understanding, have we repeated? Has not the book become something new to us? Do we truly repeat the reading? The same can be true in other categories of repetition. We develop habits, such as running and exercise. An addiction can reveal a bad habit, for its repetition becomes destructive. We may have rituals we repeat because they have become symbolic and expressive of certain values and beliefs. We choose the ritual precisely because of its symbolic meaning. Yet, its repetition can reveal something new. People tend to stick with the status quo, an act of repetition as well, because a new decision of thinking or acting can become exhausting. We stick with the boring job because looking for a new one requires too much from us. We grow accustomed to certain political views we no longer question or to certain stores at which we also shop. We may repeat because we like it. Repetition can breed affection. We repeat because we feel like we have come home to that which is comfortable and familiar. Repetition can reinforce something for which we feel nostalgic. We have some fondness for the way things were. Like an old song from our youth, it simply brings back some good memories of our past. Repetition can be therapeutic as one repeats the journey. You go back home. A pastor visits each of the churches of which he or she was pastor. Such a journey can bring healthy reconciliation with the journey one has travelled thus far. Re-reading certain books or re-viewing certain movies can have the same effect. In all of this, re-engaging with the past allows us to re-work the past as we ponder our present and anticipate a potential future. An old memory gains a new perspective.[95]
This passage is well worth repetition on our reading list for the year, especially Good Friday.
The passage is a difficult and contested one. Fifteen verses have attracted enormous attention. The identity of the servant is of primary concern. Some argue that the servant symbolizes the Jewish people. If so, it describes the unjust tribulations of the nation at the hands of the Babylonians and later oppressors as a well as the salvific role of the nation in the world. It could also portray a pious minority with the Jewish people that suffers because of the sins committed by the nation. In II Isaiah, “servant” refers to the nation or an idealized representation of the nation in 42:1-9, 18-23, 49:1-13. Like 50:4-11, it could refer to an individual. In the Targum and midrashim, the servant is the Messiah. The significance for interpretation is that this notion is part of the Jewish tradition of interpretation. The interpretive issue here is whether II Isaiah addresses the messianic themes we find in Isaiah in this passage. Given that Jeremiah describes himself in similar ways in 10:18-24 and 11:19, II Isaiah could refer to that prophet. The Talmud (b. sot. 14a) records the opinion that it describes Moses. The call of Isaiah (6) has some impressive parallels with this servant. In addition, he ponders why Israel should be beaten and revolt more, with sick and faint head and heart, with wounds, welts, and open sores throughout the body (1:5-6). The Day of the Lord of armies will address the proud and arrogant (2:12-14). Further, a descendant of Jesse, the father of King David, will bring peace (11:1-10). The poet says the Lord will call on him, and he will answer, the Lord promising to be with him in trouble, delivering him and honoring him, satisfying him with long life and show him salvation from the Lord (Psalm 91:15-16). The suggestion that Jeremiah would serve as a model for the nation or for the pious remnant is a strong possibility. I can testify to the experience of studying the biblical texts in an historical way and moving from Jeremiah to later authors in the Babylonian exile, that this explanation makes the most sense.
The idea that II Isaiah predicts the suffering of Jesus is unlikely. At the same time, the idea that the suffering of Jesus intersects with the servant of II Isaiah, just as the intersect with Jeremiah, is a reasonable one. Why, if in the course of its history God intended Israel to play the part of the Suffering Servant here to witness to its God among the nations, it could not see itself again in the picture of the crucified Messiah. Jewish messianic hope oriented itself to an overcoming of the experience of suffering.[96] Jesus saw himself as the servant of the Lord along these lines.[97]
In 52:13-15, the Lord speaks, beginning with the end of the poem, which is the exaltation and glorification of the servant before the world. One can comprehend all that happens here only from the perspective of its divine telos or purpose. Only from the event of the glorification does the crucial light fall upon what has preceded it. The text stands between the suffering that belongs to the past and the exaltation that one anticipates.[98] The fact that the Lord prospers and exalts the servant presents a sharp contrast with the Israelites were astonished at him because of his suffering that has brought physical disfiguration beyond that any of any other person. Previous servant songs, in 42:6 and 49:6, have described the servant as a light to the nations, so in this song, the servant shall startle many nations. He does not win honor because of his affliction. The wrath of God has touched this person. He receives divine punishment for sin, as the theology went. Job has a similar concern (Job 19:1-22). Job addresses his friends by saying that they torment him and crush him with words. They reproach and attack him. God has wronged him since he has done no wrong. He cries for help and receives no justice. God has blocked his path and he sees no path out of darkness. God has stripped him of honor. God tears him down and removes him from all hope. God treats him like an enemy to the point where the armies of God have laid siege to his life. God alienates him from his family and friends. Relatives and closes friends have forgotten him. They treat him like a foreigner and stranger. His servants do not listen to him. His breath is offensive to his wife. His family loathes him. Children scorn hm. His close friends detest him. He has lost weight to the point of sickliness he asks for pity from friends since the hand of God has struck him. Instead, his friends pursue him as God does. They have taken so much of his flesh and still they are not satisfied. However, the prophet says the Servant may not suffer for his own sins but may take on the sins of others. The curse that lies upon others has become the curse God places on the Servant.
In 53:1-10a, an unidentified speaker expresses shock at the career of the servant. If they are Judeans, the servant is either a pious minority, the ideal Israel, or some individual within the Israelite community. Isaiah 53:1 declares the work of salvation is a mysterious and incredible one. It has the form of funeral dirge.[99]Verses 2-6 see an innocent servant, a fellow Israelite, rescuing other Israelites from suffering by bearing the suffering himself. He grew up like a scrub growth in the desert. The lack of beauty is the result of mistreatment. Someone who was the object of divine anger was dangerous to look upon. The servant suffered on behalf of the speakers, suggesting he vicariously suffered for the guilty so that they could escape punishment. Thus, although he bore their infirmities and diseases, they considered him as an object of divine wrath. The speakers were like the friends of Job, looking upon the suffering of Job and considering that God has struck him down. “We” have done this to the servant of the Lord. They did not realize that his wounds were for their transgressions, that God crushed him for their iniquities, but that through his punishment and bruises they received healing. All this is significant for a theological understanding of the death of Jesus. While the speakers were typical sheep who have gone astray and turned to their own way, the Lord has placed their iniquity upon the servant. The prophet points to the righteous one who suffers, offering salvation, liberation, and healing through that suffering. This passage had an enormous influence on primitive Christian ideas of the vicarious expiatory meaning of the death of Jesus “for many,” but in each case, we still must seek the material basis for this kind of understanding in the distinctive constellation of the event itself. Jesus died as one rejected by his people. In the Jewish tradition, one can find support for the understanding of his death as an expiation for his people only in this passage. The circumstances of the death of Jesus provided a reason to go back to this prophetic passage since his people despised and rejected Jesus while God justified him with his resurrection.[100] Verses 7-10a refer to the perversion of justice in human courts as the servant remains silent, a lamb led to the slaughter. His silence is in sharp contrast to our wordiness, inviting us to ponder the alternating power and impotence of words. As important as witness can be, silence at the right moment can contain even more power. [101] With justice perverted, they lead him to his death, struck down for the transgression of the people of God. They bury him with the condemned criminals who do not receive an honorable burial. His tomb was with the rich. He received this judgment, even though he had done no violence and spoke truthfully. The question here is whether the prophet is referring to the poetic presence of the servant in Sheol or to the servant undergoing such judgment in his life. The will of the Lord was to crush him. These verses show the suffering of the Servant ending in death, whether by illness or violence. Someone may have charged him with the crimes of the wicked. Authorities bury him with them, showing the low regard with which others held him.
Yet, in 53: 10b-12, the servant receives vindication in the paradox of resurrection. The Lord becomes the speaker. To go through all of this, the Servant has learned that he could endure any of the tragedies and horrors of a human life, as long as he remained clear on the reason or “why” of his life.[102] Out of the anguish he has experienced the servant shall see light and find satisfaction by his "knowledge," meaning the will of the Lord, something like the renewal of Israel that Ezekiel 37 envisions. The recovery and wellbeing of the servant is significant. The dramatic movement of the poem is to move into the abyss and then out of it into wellbeing and triumph. Such a movement is adaptable for to the Christian message. The righteous servant shall make many righteous by bearing their iniquities. The prophet compares the death of the Servant to the victim of an atonement sacrifice, as the guilt offering. The Lord delivers the Servant from death and from the charge of guilt because he made himself a guilt-offering. He takes on himself the guilt of others and accepts the treatment due the guilty. Servant bore the sin of fellow Israelites and made intercession for transgressors. However, the ambiguity of this context as the expiatory efficacy being either for all the Jewish people or for all humanity.[103]The prophet believes the Servant cannot end in the total defeat death brings. He will restore Israel as an enduring reality. The prophet envisions the Servant surviving and experiencing vindication and success.
This song is the best known of all the Servant Songs. We can properly discuss it the context of the work of God as the one who reconciles, and specifically in the context of the covenant as a presupposition of reconciliation. It is now the nations, understood as an eschatological event, who acknowledge that they have at last understood the meaning of the existence of Israel among them, especially its historical role as a mediator and the message that it has addressed to the nations. The background of this song is a time and situation of the last, deepest, and most hopeless abasement either of the people of the covenant or of its kingly or prophetic representative. In the last days, the nations will acknowledge the witness of this servant even in the historical form of its witness.[104] The figure in this song is a shadow of the one Lamb of God that has taken away the sin of the world. Yet, what takes place in Jesus is infinitely more than the shadow could project.[105] The history of Israel is at work in this prophetic office of the Servant who suffers.[106] This song has a quite different notion of honor than the world does. God honors what the world does not.[107]
[1] Michael Horton, president of Christians United for Reformation, National & International Religion Report 10 (29 April 1996), 8.
[2] Mary Pickford inspired this thought.
[3] Inspired by Frederick Buechner.
[4] George Herbert (1593-1633), poet and cleric.
[5] James L. Mays, Psalms, in the Interpretation commentary series, 405, 407.
[6] Using the noun-form of the Hebrew root.
[7] Søren Kierkegaard, Spiritual Writings: A New Translation and Selection (Harper Collins, 2010).
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12] McCaw and Motyer point out in “Psalms,” in The New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 512.
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19] Some scholars think that, although very flawed and illusive, Nahum 1:1-8 forms a half-acrostic that ends at the mid-point of the alphabet. Psalms 9 and 10 have to be read together to see the whole acrostic - Psalm 9 having the first half of the alphabet and Psalm 10 the second half. Others, including Psalm 25, have certain letters of the sequence missing.
[20] Reinhold Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny of Man, II,(New York: C. Scribners Sons, 1941-43), 209.
[21] Here the Greek begins the psalm in the same manner as Psalm 24 begins - not simply with the attribution "Of David," but with the addition of the term "mizmor," indicating the song type of the composition. There is no compelling reason to think the Hebrew is corrupted, however.
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25] Oliver Wendell Holmes
[26] Weiser
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30] James Limburg, Psalms for Sojourners: Strength and Hope for Today From the Treasury of Old Testament Prayer.
[31] Austin Phelps.
[32] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 432.
[33] McGinley, Phyllis. "Running to paradise." Saint-Watching. Viking, 1969.
[34]Søren Kierkegaard, The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from His Journals (Courier, 2012), 59.
[35] Bill Gaither, "Something Beautiful, Something Good." 1975.
[36] As Dahood describes this psalm (Mitchell Dahood, S. J., Psalms II: 51-100 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970], 199).
[37]
[38]
[39] pp. 73-88 in Walter Brueggeman’s Interpretation-series commentary on Genesis
[40]
[41]
[42] (For one of the most complete discussions of the Israelite family to date, see L.E. Stager, "The archaeology of the family in ancient Israel," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 (1985), 18-23.)
[43] According to T. Muraoka, it "[S]erves to convey the impression on the part of the speaker or author that the subject establishes his own identity, recovering or finding his own place by determinedly dissociating himself from his familiar surrounding." (quoted in B.K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 208, and note their example, 34).
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47] Textual history by some scholars has some variety. Von Rad thinks it unlikely that the E source begins in verses 1-6. Others think that the passage is a blend of J and E. Others conclude that the passage is all J.
[48]
[49]
[50]
[51] Speiser, Genesis commentary in Anchor Bible series.
[52]
[53] (Bernhard W. Anderson, "Covenant," The Oxford Companion to the Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 138).
[54] (see, for example, the Introduction to the treaty between Suppiluliuma I of Hatti and Huqqana of Hayasa translated by Gary Beckman in Hittite Diplomatic Texts [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996], 22-30)
[55] Walter Brueggemann, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Fortress, 1995), 136.
[56] Another issue related to this is whether the "Feast of Unleavened Bread" was originally separate from the springtime holiday, such that redefining the spring holiday happened specifically because the Feast of Unleavened Bread was combined with it. Most biblical law, however, treats the Passover season as if it always contained both events: the sacrifice of the lamb in remembrance of God passing over the homes of the Israelites, and the eating of unleavened bread in remembrance of the flight from Egypt (Exodus 12:15-20; Deuteronomy 16:1-8; Ezekiel 45:21-25). Another tradition which may have a connection to the Passover story is the practice of putting a mezuzah, or prayer scroll, on the doorposts of one's home. Just as the lamb's blood marked the doorways into Israelite houses on the night God slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, mezuzahs now mark the doorways into Jewish homes as a sign that those inside worship the one God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
[57] (Pesach. 10.1-8; cf. J. H. Hayes, “Passover,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 573).
[58]
[59] [James L. Mays, Psalms Interpretation commentary, 100].
[60]
[61]
[62] See further Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., "Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah," The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. R.E. Brown, et al., [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990], 343.
[63]
[64] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.3] 248.
[65]
[66]
[67]
[68] Bernard Lang, “Afterlife: Ancient Israel’s Changing Vision of the World Beyond,” Bible Review (February 1988), 19-20
[69] (e.g., Isaiah 55:3; 59:21; Jeremiah 32:37-41; Ezekiel 16:60; 37:26; Hosea 2:18 [Hebrew 20]).
[70] (cf Jeremiah 51:47; Luke 17:22; and especially the apocalypse of II Esdras: 5:1; 6:18; 12:13; 13:29)
[71]
[72]
[73] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 473, 477.
[74]
[75]
[76]
[77] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 246.
[78] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 41.
[79] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 12.
[80] --Gregory of Nyssa, cited by Elizabeth Newman, Untamed Hospitality (Brazos, 2007), 58.
[81] G. K. Chesterton
[82] -Albert Camus
[83] Simone Weil
[84] H. G. Wells
[85] 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.
[86]
[87] If righteousness, it refers to right living by the standards the Lord has set forth in the covenant, which includes mercy for the needy and helpless, along with equal justice for all in legal matters
[88] Bratcher and Reyburn (A Handbook on Psalms, 993)
[89] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 174.
[90] Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, R.A. Simkins.
[91] Phillips Brooks
[92] Alfred D’Souza
[93] Paul Tillich (Systematic Theology, Part III, I, D3c)
[94]
[95] The research of Cristel Antonia Russell and Sidney Levy is helpful here.
[96] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 314.
[97] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 335.
[98]
[99]
[100] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 423, 425.
[101] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [70.1] 408.
[102] Victor Frankel Man's Search for Meaning
[103] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 425.
[104] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [57.2] 29-30.
[105] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.1] 172.
[106] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.2] 58.
[107] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [56.3] 675.
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