Luke 6:39-49

Luke 6:39-49

³⁹ He also told them a parable: "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?

 ⁴⁰ A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher.

 ⁴¹ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?

 ⁴² Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

 ⁴³ "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit;

 ⁴⁴ for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.

 ⁴⁵ The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

 ⁴⁶ "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?

 ⁴⁷ I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.

 ⁴⁸ That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.

 ⁴⁹ But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house."

Luke 6:39-49 (Year C Epiphany 8) Jesus concludes his inaugural sermon in Galilee with a series of parabolic sayings urging his audience not only to listen but to really hear and obey his message. We may recognize a heightened concern with doing, that is, with the need for changed dispositions and commitments to manifest themselves in changed behavior. Jesus stresses his disciples need to value him as their teacher and build their lives upon what he taught. He strongly contrasts his teaching with other teachers.

³⁹ He also told them a parable (Matt 15:14b): "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?[1] Such a saying has the ring of a proverb and thus of common wisdom of the time. Yet, it also has an edge it to it that is typical of the sayings of Jesus. In the context Luke provides for this saying, the point is how can you set yourself up for a judge, since you are blind, for there is only one judicial authority, Jesus.[2] Jesus further insults the leaders by calling them "blind guides of the blind." This rub denies the Pharisees the privilege of claiming their celebrated title as "leaders of the blind." Because they themselves are blind, Jesus scoffs, these authority figures would only lead others into a pit with them.  Paul also refers to Jews in the congregation who are sure that they are sure guides for the blind, light to those in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, and a teacher of children (Rom 2:19-20).

⁴⁰ A disciple is not above the teacher. The saying finds a reflection in John 13:16 as well. Such a proverb reinforces the traditional superior and inferior relationship that Jesus usually sought to modify.[3] Everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher.

Part of the proclamation of the rule of God is that Jesus challenges us not to judge (6:41-42=Matthew 7:3-5). ⁴¹Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  ⁴² Alternatively, how can you say to your neighbor, 'Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye. The grotesque comparison of a speck or sliver and timber is an exaggeration we come to expect from the sayings of Jesus, designed to provoke thought. The image is vivid, exaggerated, and humorous that calls attention to faultfinding. Critics should concentrate on correcting themselves. This saying is consistent with the counsel to love enemies, forgive others, and imitate divine tolerance.

Verses 43-45 are best approached as individual sayings of Jesus. They are observations on life, rules of prudence and popular morality, a product of humor or skepticism. The sayings are concerned with the fruits of human sentiment whether in words or deeds. They are secular wisdom. They were used for moral exhortation.[4]

 ⁴³ "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.  ^44a For each tree is known by its own fruit (Matthew 7:16a, 20).[5] ^44bFigs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.[6]  We have here a quip about thorns and brambles.  It is striking, involving pairs not normally associated. They dramatize a point that the text leaves unexplained. The rhetorical question is provocative and absurd. It sounds like a retort ⁴⁵ The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.[7] This group of sayings is part of proverbial wisdom. 

Since the sermon on the plain has focused upon love for enemies, it would seem appropriate to discuss that love here. If we were to believe in nothing we cannot see, then we should have to give up believing in love. One might slip through life without love. Yet, from all that we know in the New Testament, eternity will not allow us to escape love. Without love we have lost everything. Love is the way we build eternity into our temporal lives. Yet, this love arises from within. The place from which love comes has a hidden quality. Yet, arising from hidden places within, it influences all we do and say. Hidden springs may feed the quiet lake. The love of God is the ground of all human love. Yet, we know this hidden life of love by its fruits. I John 3:18 reminds us that all too often we are content with speaking about love than allowing love to form our lives. True, love comes from the heart, but we also find it true that love forms the heart. We need to hear such a word addressed as a challenge to us. We must not think of the address and challenge for someone else. We need to fear ourselves at this point. Jesus has made us aware that we know each other by our fruits. Our sin is deep enough that such a saying will lead us to judge others. Part of the image here is that like knows like. One who has allowed eternity to shape the heart through love will recognize its fruits.^[8]

 

The final portion of the Sermon on the Plain begins with a rhetorical question. ⁴⁶ “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ (κύριε, a title that is more than a courtesy, showing the confidence in the goodness and compassion of Jesus[9]) and do not do what I tell you (Matt 7:21)?[10] The rejection of those who say Lord but do not do is a reflection of the prophetic self-consciousness with which Jesus speaks.[11] The test of qualifying as a follower of Jesus is doing what Jesus commands. This address of Jesus as Lord has its origin in the invocatory prayer of the first Christians.[12] It has a reference to the person of Jesus. It contrasts two responses to the teaching of Jesus, one that produces action and another that does not. This is a common complaint by teachers. Any teacher or sage could have said it. Becoming a faithful doer of the word is the only way to reflect a life ruled by God. Paul wonders if Jewish teachers practice what they preach and teachers others to do (Romans 2:21-23).

In Luke 6:47-49, we learn what genuine hearing means. It contrasts two responses to the teaching of Jesus and two eschatological consequences. The sermon closes with final judgment. Lady Wisdom builds human lives using the image of a house (Prov 9:1-6, 14:12). The emphatic use of the personal pronoun here stresses Jesus as the representative of God. The rabbis had a similar thought in saying that one who receives a scribe receives the divine glory.[13]

⁴⁷ I will show you what someone is like who comes to me (John 6:35), hears my words, and acts on them.  ⁴⁸ That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house, representing the tests that any human life will encounter, but could not shake it, because it had been well built. Such persons will be vindicated. ⁴⁹ However, the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, for these will encounter the same tests of life in this world, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house (Matt 7:24-27)." The image of the two foundations belongs to common Israelite, Judean, and rabbinic lore.  Several rabbis of the late first and early second centuries created similar parables to stress the need of putting teaching into practice. Those who recognize the eschatological moment in which they live are those who build their lives on the right foundation, for they hear the word of Jesus and act upon it, for everything depends on obedience.[14] Those who listen to Jesus’ teachings but do not act on them lay one kind of foundation; those who listen and then act build the other kind of foundation.  The first invites destruction in the deluge, the second will withstand the final test. One displays wisdom when one builds one’s life on being a faithful doer of the word of Jesus. Those who listen to Jesus’ teachings but do not act on them lay one kind of foundation; those who listen and then act build the other kind of foundation.  The first invites destruction in the deluge, the second will withstand the final test. One displays wisdom when one builds one’s life on being a faithful doer of the word of Jesus. re-read this sermon, realize the importance of these words to the point where you do not just read them as words on a page, but take them to heart and let them guide how you live.

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[1] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 93, where he suggests that the interrogative form is more original, since it better matches the argumentative character of the mashal.

[2] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 99, 169, although he thinks it unlikely it referred to religious leaders.

[3] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 150, where he considers this as referring to the person of Jesus.

[4] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 104, 169.

[5] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 83, an unattached saying

[6] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 74, where the interrogative form in Matt 7:16b is more original than the saying in Luke, which was an unattached saying.

[7] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 84, an originally unattached saying.

[8] Inspired by Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love, Chapter 1.

[9] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 163.

[10] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 116-7, where he considers the version here more original than in Matt 7:21.

[11] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 151.

[12] (Hahn, 1969), 91. 

[13] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 254.

[14] (Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 1972), 194.

I Corinthians 15:51-58

I Corinthians 15:51-58

⁵¹ Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." ⁵⁵ "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

            I Corinthians 15:51-58 has the theme of the eschatological transformation that awaits the people of God. This passage presents several challenges, in translation, theology and hermeneutics. The central question is whether one needs to buy into an apocalyptic mindset to understand fully this passage. Must one picture resurrected bodies leaping to life when a trumpet sounds on judgment day? The difficulties of apocalyptic images are that they need to be vivid enough to convey the reality of Christian hope - yet they are figurative and imprecise, leaving space for improvisations and situations that emerge over time. Paul seems compelled to reflect on these end-time issues because of the Corinthians' confusion of Jesus' resurrection and their own. In I Thessalonians 4:13-17, Paul has provided reassurance that those who "fall asleep" before the second coming would not be at a disadvantage: They would rise first. The Corinthian Christians have presented him with a different set of problems.

⁵¹ Listen, a word not often used by Paul, I will tell you a mystery! Paul refers to a secret truth that God has revealed to and through Paul about what is to happen at the second coming. We (Paul and his readers) will not all (believers or all humanity) die, but God will change us all, ⁵² in a moment (atomos), an indivisible fragment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, a split-second of transformation combined at the last trumpet.[1] Paul speaks of the "last trumpet," a familiar image from the Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah 27:13 speaks of the trumpet blown for return of the exiles; Leviticus 23:24 describes a blowing of a trumpet to usher in the civil New Year as a penitential season that will conclude in the Day of Atonement. The last trumpet does not equal the last in a series of trumpets. It is simply the trumpet call that accompanies the End. The question that Paul is not attempting to address, but one that has attracted the attention of modern readers further complicates this. Paul is talking about believers: Living and dead that God will change to conform to conditions of the resurrection age. Modern readers have focused on "all." All believers? All humanity? Does this say anything about the fate of the wicked? Again, we see the challenge of the difficulty that these apocalyptic images have presented across the ages. Paul does not give us the details of how all this will happen, just that it will happen quickly. This provides Paul's audience with a standard feature of the Day of the Lord in Jewish literature (cf. Zephaniah 1:16; Joel 2:1). Paul also indicates that he expects that he will not be among those who are dead, for he speaks of them in the third person. He believes he will be among the living, whom he speaks of in the first person. This was a challenge in early Christian eschatology. John deals with this issue differently than does Paul by holding the present and the future in tension with each other, with more attention given to the present. For Paul, the focus here is on the future, the Parousia. Whether Paul changes his belief remains disputed by scholars, however; it seems likely that if Paul's perspective changes, it is because Paul found his death nearer, rather than that he saw the second coming further off. Another significance of this passage is that it clearly envisions a finite life without death. This life in fellowship with God does not involve total absorption of our creaturely existence in God. Rather, it expects its renewal and definitive establishment. Participation in divine life will not set aside the finite quality of creaturely life. The significance of this point is that death and finite life do not have a necessary connection.[2] For the trumpet will sound, and God will raise the dead as imperishable, and God will change us. What is important in this passage is not the last trumpet or the rising of the sleeping dead, but the confidence of Christians in the power of God who raised Jesus. It is crucial that readers neither severely isolate these images in an unyielding timetable, nor simply dismiss them as primitive fantasy. The work of the Spirit is fundamental for the eschatological salvation event of the resurrection of the dead. Resurrection means change into a new life resulting in a relation between the work of the Spirit and theme of judgment. This mortal cannot acquire immortality without a change. The whole notion of this “change” has a link to judgment as well.[3] ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Now, in contrast to his emphasis in dealing with the problem presented to him by the congregation in Thessalonica, Paul is saying that the dead in Christ will rise with spiritual bodies and those who are still alive will have their mortal bodies changed. The finite quality of the perfected life toward which God is bringing us, when this corruptible will have put on incorruption, will no longer have the form of a sequence of separated moments of time. Rather, it will represent the totality of our earthly existence. The totality toward which we now move will become reality, in a moment, in a change. [4] Nothing will be put in place of this present life. No matter how pitiable, this finite existence will share in eternal salvation. Rebirth to a very different existence can accomplish this. Such a rebirth would not redeem this earthly existence. It would have been left behind.[5] ⁵⁴ When this perishable body puts on imperishability and this mortal body puts on immortality. Plato taught that the soul was immortal. It never died. Such is not the case in this passage. Mortal must “put on” immortality. The mortal must pass through genuine death before “immortality” becomes a gift of grace. Then the saying that we find written in Isaiah 25:7 finds its fulfillment, "Death has been swallowed up in victory." If the interpretation offered is correct, Gordon D. Kaufman[6] is quite unfair to the traditional interpretation of Christian hope. It has never suggested that the resurrection of the body of Jesus means for us everlasting continuation of this finite life. He rightly uses the comment of Paul Tillich[7]  to the effect that such “an infinity of the finite could be a symbol for hell.” What Kaufman wants to do is place Christian hope in creativity and freedom in such a way that it swallows up death in victory, that there is victory over despair. The difficulty with this belief is that one could come to such an optimistic notion without reliance upon the specificity of faith in Jesus Christ. Of course, this is precisely what Kaufman wants to do. He wants to separate Christian hope from Christ, placing in a “theocentric” notion of the love and mercy of God. As he puts it, “it is no longer necessary for Christians to concern themselves with old myths purporting to have special gnosis in regard to life beyond the grave.” In Paul's emphasis on God changing mortal bodies, Paul concludes that if flesh and blood were appropriate for this world, it would be inappropriate for the world to come. Once God clothes the believers in immortality, death can no longer touch them. Further, in Hosea 13:14 we read, ⁵⁵ "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"  The point of these passages from the Hebrew Scriptures is that they invite Death and Sheol to bring forth their terrors and apply them. Here we have Paul mocking these powers as already defeated. God has swallowed up death. He states this in the past aorist tense, which translates into the present perfect in English. Paul's emphasis is on what happened rather than the time of its happening. Paul uses these words as a taunt. He is putting himself at the end of time and he mocks a powerless death, as one might a fallen dictator. ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Death remains an enemy for Paul, as it does for us. The hard fact is that death is not "natural"; it is not a process eased by therapy. As humans, we live for life and the sting of having to die is sin. Death is our enemy. ⁵⁷ Nevertheless, thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In Paul, gratitude for the saving action of God in Jesus Christ forms the starting point and context of all Christian prayer.[8] Death is now a disabled enemy. When Christians die, they are no longer prisoners of death, but sleeping in the certainness of waking in the resurrection. The reign of death rests on the power of sin, but since sin has been overcome in Jesus' death and resurrection, it loses its power to terrorize (cf. Romans 5:12, 21). Paul does not allow his eschatology to carry him away into unreality.  He recognizes that Death is the last enemy God will overthrow. Death still prevails between us and still has a sting. Paul does not come to the end of chapter-long discussion of resurrection with the type of optimism that some personalities simply possess. His optimism arises from an event that has given him knowledge of a victory already won.  The victory of Jesus the Christ was a victory over sin, because he died to sin, a death to which this life summons all human beings to share (cf. Romans 6:10f). The sting of death is now, but in Christ, it will become a victory. Christian faith does not deny death, but rather celebrates a Living God, a God that is greater than death.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Paul tempers his euphoria somewhat by the reminder that the return of Christ is still in the future. In the end, however, Paul does not emphasize "good behavior" as we await Christ's return. He emphasizes ministry. No timetable, no lame excuses, no attempt to second-guess God. Instead, Paul leaves us with instructions to serve the Lord by spreading the good news of Christ's resurrection and ours and a reminder that such labor will never be in vain.

Part of what Paul may be saying here is that the crucifixion of Jesus is the end of our time, while the resurrection of Jesus ushers in the last day. The believer in Jesus lives a life hidden with Christ in God. Beyond this end, Paul can see only one other prospect. God will be all in all (verse 28). The end is a historical and temporal event. Yet, it is a present without a future. We have no more information or promise, other than the sounding of the last trumpet in verse 52. This moment is when corruption becomes incorruption, dishonor becomes honor, and weakness becomes power. Time will be no more, as Revelation 10:6 put it. There is no question of the continuation into the indefinite future of a somewhat altered life. The New Testament hope for the other side of death looks forward to the Eternal. God will divest this corruptible and mortal life of its character as “flesh and blood.” It will then be eternal life in God and in fellowship with Christ. Our time will undergo a transition and transformation by participating in the eternal life of God. This transition and transformation is the unveiling and glorifying of the life that in its time humanity has already in Christ. Whatever happens in a twinkling of an eye is an unveiling of the eschatological life already present throughout our lives. It is the resurrection of the dead, which according to the indication given after the resurrection of Jesus is our participation in His future revelation. This is our hope in the time that we still have.[9]

An indication of the validity of this approach is the struggle we find in the New Testament regarding these matters. In the first-century church, Christians believed that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. Paul certainly believed it. The Church described in the book of Acts believed it to the point that they sold their houses and everything in their houses without regret because they believed to their toenails that Jesus was coming back almost immediately to retrieve them. Who needed jewelry, silverware, and real estate if they were leaving to join Jesus in heaven in a matter of days or months or even years? This was Paul's message to the first Christians in Corinth, Greece, in the first century. "We will not all die," he wrote, "But we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." Eventually, of course, all those who first received Paul's letter did die. Jesus did not return in their lifetime. In addition, while most of us are not assuming that Jesus will return today or tomorrow, there are many Christians, usually pre-millennialists, who urge us to consider the possibility as a reality. What would happen if Jesus comes again in our lifetime? Are we ready? Some Christians still hang on to the first-century notion that, if Jesus could return at any moment, we may as well sell our possessions to those faithless folks who will need them after we are enraptured up to heaven with the Lord.

This is not the whole story! Jesus is coming again. But we do not have a clue about when or how that will happen, and in spite of all the cool predictions we might glean from biblical prophecy, Scripture repeatedly warns us that no one knows exactly when Jesus will return - not even the Son of Man himself (see Mark 13:32). Granted, the descriptions of the transfiguration of Jesus spark our imaginations, but ours is a God of boundless creativity, and God good dazzle us with the sight of our glorious Savior in countless ways. 

In the meantime, God left us behind 2000 years ago, not to scare each other about The End Times, not to judge each other, but to serve in the likeness of Christ. Jesus left us with several warnings about watchfulness, about readiness in the course of human life. He left us with many instructions, and they did not include scaring our neighbors with hellfire and brimstone. They include not only listening to God's living Word through Jesus Christ, but living that Word ourselves and sharing the Good News with others.

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[1] There are several textual problems and variants in verse 51. This is largely due to the number and position of the negatives in the sentence.

[2] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, p. 271)

[3] (ibid., Volume 3, p. 623)

[4] (ibid., Volume 3, p. 561)

[5] (ibid., Volume 3, p. 574)

[6] (Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective, p. 465-474)

[7] (“Frontiers,” Journal of Bile and Religion, 1965, 33:22)

[8] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 3, p. 207)

[9] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.2, p. 624 [47.5])

Isaiah 55:10-13

Isaiah 55:10-13

¹⁰ For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

 ¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 ¹² For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 ¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial,

for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

           The theme of Isaiah 55:1-13 is the eternal covenant of the Lord. It is an invitation to redemption. It has a general language, couching its description of the upcoming redemption in broad terms. The phrasing is toward that which could apply to any historical era. It includes a plea for the people to abandon sinful behavior. II Isaiah culminates in a great summons to the exiles to give up all its fascination with Babylon and return to the free, gracious, and compassionate gift of the Lord, who will bring them home. 

In Isaiah 55: 10-13, invoking natural elements as patterns or exemplars of divine or human action is typical of wisdom literature, and may be additional evidence here of the influence of that tradition on II Isaiah. I will offer a summary and then provide a more detailed exposition. The prophet declares that those who thirst and have no money in verse 1 will find confirmation of the pledge of refreshment. The refreshment of melting snow and rain for the fruitfulness of the earth becomes metaphor for the fact that the commanding word of the Lord will not return to the Lord empty. The Word will be fruitful in the announcement of the restoration of Israel to the Promised Land and its happening in history. The Word becomes a personification of a messenger that has the purpose of restoring Israel. The speech and act of God merge so that the prophet proclaims the power of the Word to rule. The speech of God is divine action as well. The Word makes history is therefore also act. The Word is not empty but confronts humanity.[1] God does not speak the Word in vain. God has made time for humanity. Therefore, God is patient in granting time and space.[2] Thus, the final words from II Isaiah are an invitation to depart, which we also find in Isaiah 48:20 and 52:11-12. They will leave in joy and return in peace. Their captivity is finished. The ruin of Edom proclaimed in 34:13 will find its reversal. The Word gives life. The restoration of Israel will bring a response from nature. Of course, this is a metaphor. Yet, the theological point is significant in that the restoration of Israel has an impact upon nature. The same God who is the source of life and nature is also the God who guides history. Clearly God is judge in the exile, but also merciful in restoring Israel. God has a called a people to serve the purpose of bearing the Word or command of God among the peoples of the earth. God chose what would become a nation, Israel, out of grace. This grace is the origin of the forgiveness Israel experiences now. The exile, a time of judgment, is past. Forgiveness opens the door for a new possibility in the future.

Isaiah 55: 10-13 form the confirming conclusion of the entire pledge of refreshment for "everyone who thirsts" and those "that have no money" (v. 1). Verse 10 continues a series of "For" clauses that begins in verse 8 and extends through verse 12.  The force in each case, as the Hebrew particle ki often indicates, is "Because . . ."^[3]10 For (ki), a word that signals the natural relationship between verses 10-13 and the preceding verses, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, a parallelism is not common, though rain and snow do occur together (Job 37:6; Proverbs 26:1; Wisdom of Solomon 16:22).  The metaphor is significant. God sends rain, which inevitably falls to the ground and is absorbed by the soil and nourishes vegetation. Humans in turn harvest the vegetation and transform it into food. Similarly, the word of God is sure to have a series of effects the most important of which are indirect and involve human input. It suggests the life-giving gentleness and unobtrusiveness of the ways of the Lord. The natural phenomenon of snow was not an image with widespread currency in most of Israel's climate. The exception being is the northern mountains, in which context it is not accidental that a fifth of all the references to snow in the Hebrew Bible are found in the book of Job, which some scholars have suggested has a northern provenance. However, the property of snow most commonly referenced in the Hebrew Bible was not its coldness but its whiteness, either in a negative comparison (e.g., denoting leprosy, Exodus 4:6; Numbers 12:10; II Kings 5:27), or in a positive comparison (e.g., having had one's sins purged away, leaving the individual as white as snow, Psalm 51:7 and, significantly, Isaiah 1:18). Here, interestingly, the property of snow the prophet values is neither its temperature nor its color but its humidity. Thus, the rain and snow do not return there (evaporate to heaven) until they have watered the earth. The melting snow, like the rain, is a source of refreshment to the earth that does not evaporate until it has accomplished the life-giving purpose for which the benevolent Yahweh has sent it, for Yahweh is master of natural as well as historical forces. The parallel expression for fructifying the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, is unique to this passage.  Far more common is the expression "to be fruitful and multiply," which the Bible can use not only of animals that reproduce but also of plants. The melting snow and rain are giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. The image of sowing, surprisingly (given Israel's agricultural society), occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible; an image more common in the New Testament (e.g., Luke 8:5; II Corinthians 9:10).  Its poetic parallel, "bread to the eater," is an example of an extending or intensifying "And what is more . . .” poetic parallelism, of which the Hebrew Bible abounds.^[4] Thus, ¹¹ so shall my word, an expression that denotes the command of Yahweh. It occurs infrequently in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Numbers 11:23; 27:14; Job 29:22; Isaiah 66:2; and especially in Jeremiah, 1:12; 23:28; 23:29), overshadowed by the much more frequent impersonal form, "word of the LORD."  The appearance of the form in Job, coincidentally, also includes reference to liquid refreshment ("and my word dropped upon them like dew").  The Hebrew Bible also uses the expression of human commands or purposes (e.g., Genesis 27:8, 13). This word will be like the melting snow and rain, for as it goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty. Concretization of imagery reaches one of its high-water marks in the Hebrew Bible with this image, which occurs only here. The prophet may borrow the image from military imagery, where the Bible sometimes describes arrows and swords as not returning empty to their wielders (e.g., II Samuel 1:22; Jeremiah 50:9). The emphasis in the current context is on the efficacy of Yahweh's word, which not only announces Israel's imminent restoration but also has the power to bring that restoration to pass. Rather, it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. The prophet personifies the word of the Lord as his messenger and agent.  The dynamic word of the Lord, which created and governed history, is the theme. It is like a messenger that must accomplish its purpose.  Isaiah closely ties together word and act.  Thus, the word of the Lord is the most meaningful and the most mysterious of words.  In this sense, the speech of God is the act of God. This implies the power of the Word to rule. The speech of God is divine action in relation to those to whom God speaks. As a divine action, it is also ruling action. Recognition of the power of the Word of the Lord to rule has the implication that we need to speak of its power, might, effects, and the changes it brings. It makes history, and therefore is also act. The promise of the Word is not an empty pledge that always stands confronting humanity. The Word is the transposing of humanity into a new state of one who has accepted and appropriated the promise. One must say all of this because the Word of God is Jesus Christ. With this Word, the church has something serious to say and the world will take it seriously.^[5] The Lord does not speak this Word in vain. The Lord has made time for humanity. Therefore, the Lord is patient in granting time and space.^[6] In verses 12-13, the final words of the Lord from II Isaiah, is an invitation to depart.  The invitation has other parallels. The prophet invites the people to go out from Babylon and Chaldea with shouts of joy and proclaim to the end of the earth that the Lord has redeemed Jacob (48:20). He encourages them to depart from there for the Lord will go in front of them and will be their rear guard (52:11-12). Verses 12-13 refer to the exodus from Babylonia. He calls on the exiles to leave Babylonia. The promise of the Lord of glorious restoration will be fulfilled, but as the preceding verses imply, the nature of their fulfillment may be indirect and will depend on human response to the invitation from God. The prophet may be responding to the failure of most Judeans to move back to Zion after the Persian king Cyrus allowed them to do so. ¹² For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace. The prophet exemplifies Hebrew poetic parallelism with almost crystalline clarity in the first stich (a/a', b/b', c/c'). The imagery signifies movement in only one direction (not out and back), and describes Israel's imminent release from captivity. Thus, the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. ¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle. Nature applauds the display of saving power by the Lord.  The Lord will reverse the ruin of Edom described in 34:13, and life will come forth, for the word of the Lord gives life. The response of nature to Israel's restoration continues an important theme found elsewhere in Isaiah, namely, the close interrelationship between the historical and the natural (e.g., 41:18-19; 51:3).  Although the imagery (41:18-19; 51:3) is metaphoric, the underlying reality is quite literal:  it relates Israel's historical fortunes to its environmental fortunes, and vice versa.  His theology, again under the influence of the wisdom tradition, has its roots in a cosmic creation theology that united historical and supra-historical reality in a single divine plan, at the center of which is Israel, the chosen people of God. While such an idea would seem obvious to any who had experienced the environmental degradation of warfare and other human-instigated catastrophes, in the present context the point is theological: The same God who controls nature controls Israel's past, present, and future, and the reality to which that God calls Israel is a unified whole. Few passages in the Hebrew Bible make the point as eloquently as this one. It shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign, which may refer to a memorial stone or tablet. Israel, the people the Lord created and restored, that shall not be cut off. 

            At the heart of Israelite theology is the struggle between the belief in the Lord as a judge who rules by divine law, and the belief in the Lord as a God of compassion and mercy, who routinely violates the demands of divine justice to have mercy on his wayward creation. It is not logical for a God of justice to waive the punishment that Israel justly deserves. No human judge would set aside his own laws in such a cavalier fashion. However, God is God and not a human being, and so can do as God pleases.

            Another common theme in Israelite theology is that the Lord grants favored status to Israel. The Lord has chosen Israel as a peculiar possession, not because of any merit of their own but because it pleased the Lord to choose them (Deuteronomy 8). Therefore, although the Lord insists on faithfulness and righteousness as the norms of behavior, Israel does not really “earn” the favor of the Lord through practicing these virtues. The Lord grants favor to Israel as a form of grace, because it pleases the Lord to grant it. In keeping with this idea, in spite of all the past offenses of Israel, the time had come when the Lord declared their debt paid and their sins forgiven (Isaiah 40:2). The prophet urges those who wished to return to their rightful place in the created order to rise up and return to the Lord at once! For Israel, this was a call to a physical as well as a spiritual return, but the call is no less urgent for those of us who seek to end our own personal exiles from the Lord today.

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[1] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), I.1 [5.3], 149-56.

[2] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67)I.2 [30.3] 417.

[3] (on which see further B.K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 640).

[4] (See James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981.)

[5] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), I.1 [5.3], 149-56.

[6] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67)I.2 [30.3] 417.

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

It is good to give thanks to the LORD,

to sing praises to your name, O Most High;

 ² to declare your steadfast love in the morning,

and your faithfulness by night,

 ³ to the music of the lute and the harp,

to the melody of the lyre.

 ⁴ For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work;

at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

¹² The righteous flourish like the palm tree,

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

 ¹³ They are planted in the house of the LORD;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

 ¹⁴ In old age they still produce fruit;

they are always green and full of sap,

 ¹⁵ showing that the LORD is upright;

he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Psalm 92 is an individual thanksgiving, or possibly a royal thanksgiving. The date is uncertain. The psalm has its origin in a worship setting, probably the occasion of one of the festivals.

Psalm 92: 1-4 are an introduction that reflects the joy of the festival, joy in God sustaining true piety.   It is good to give thanks to the LORD,  to sing praises to your name, O Most High;  ² to declare your steadfast love in the morning,  and your faithfulness by night. This connection of love and faithfulness is noteworthy. The faithfulness of the Lord turns in love toward those whom God has made. Here, we find ‘emunah instead of the more common ‘emet.[1] He will offer thanks, praise, and declaration ³ to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.  ⁴ For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

Psalm 92: 12-15 reflect the celebration of the feast urging a sign of new hope and life. The daily renewal of communion with God leads to new life. ¹² The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  ¹³ They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.  ¹⁴ In old age, they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap. I like this image. Faithfulness to the Lord is productive to the end. One can keep on the growing edge throughout life.   ¹⁵ Showing that the LORD is upright; the Lord is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in the Lord.

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[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 436.