Day 40 -- Summation

Day 40 – Saturday

Looking Back

We have been on a journey through the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible (in the order of the Protestant Bible). This journey has taken us up mountains, down into the valleys, through desserts, storms, plagues, famine, pestilence, and human tragedy. And God was everywhere (though hidden and out of sight in Esther and the Song of Songs).


Relationship
The Bible is not a book of ideas; it is a story. I have suggested along the way that the Hebrew Scriptures (and the Christian Scriptures) are a Romance. What I have called the “core statement about God,” found several times in the Hebrew Scriptures, is about relationship. It says:

…you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing (this is the version that appears in Jonah 4.2). 

Gracious, merciful, and steadfast love are not philosophical concepts. This is a description of how someone relates to others. The narrative of the Bible expresses the relational nature of ultimate reality.

Even though anthropomorphic portrayals of God are the vehicle for describing ultimate reality, let it be clear that modern people of faith by in large do not actually believe in some Big Man in the Sky or the Man Upstairs. Poetic language points beyond crude images of God to a category of “person” that is beyond our limited way of picturing it. The personal language connotes some type of transcendent Personhood.

Praying to God and loving God are possible because God is a responsive kind of being. The relationship is described as covenantal. It is analogous to marriage. It is a relationship of union, partnership, and faithfulness. And everything depends on the fact that God is faithful. The phrase that is repeated over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures (and continues in the Christian Scriptures) is something like a marriage vow: I am yours, and you are mine. We belong to each other. It is usually worded something like this: I will be your God, and you will be my people.


Making Distinctions
Modern people are either put off by, or embarrassed by, some aspects of the Biblical story, such as a wrathful God, a judgmental God, a cruel God, a God who permits evil or even commands evil acts. My way of dealings with these embarrassing aspects of the Bible is twofold.


Progression
First, I accept the idea that there is a progression of truth as the Biblical story unfolds. As time moves forward the people have a clearer understanding of God. Older ideas drop out of the picture or become minor parts of the story. The Bible “matures” as it gets older because the human race matures. As we grow older we give up childish notions. So does the Bible. But it’s not a straight line. Some of the more immature ideas linger as time goes on.

Language
Second, I accept the fact that the Biblical writers use poetic license and metaphorical language, as well as anthropomorphic analogies. I will go as far as to say that nothing in the Bible should be taken absolutely literally.

Today is the last day of Lent, which we call Holy Saturday. It is that day between Good Friday and Easter. A weird day, liturgically speaking. It’s No Man’s Land. It’s the twilight  zone of Christian theology. We are caught between death and life. Between despair and hope. Holy Saturday is the Day of Ambiguity. But that’s where we all live in this earthly existence. And I think it is symbolic of the task of Biblical interpretation.

Human language and human thought leaves us somewhere between the distortion of the truth and the truth. The Bible story gives us the truth; but not the unvarnished truth. It is the truth refracted through human finitude. So, it is not the literal truth; but it is truth nonetheless.


Justice
In the Hebrew Scriptures we find the source of the belief, first articulated by the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, and later repeated by Martin Luther King, Jr., that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” The terms justice and righteousness appear together more than 80 times. Both words refer to a type of justice: one is the personal treatment of individuals with fairness and respect; the other is the justice that comes through court decisions and legislatures—the systemic care for the powerless and the marginalized.

The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is the champion of justice. In virtually every book of the Jewish Bible the imperative for justice is found.

Peace
A vision of peace is also a central concern of the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets frequently offer an imagined future golden age of total peace. Although Joel lived in a time when he wanted the people to turn plows into swords and make war, both Isaiah and Micah urge the opposite: to turn swords into ploughshares. The two-to-one ratio toward peace is perhaps symbolic of how the thrust toward peace trumps all the urging of war in the Jewish Scriptures.

There are both negative and positive aspects in the 39 books. But the positive aspects rise to the top like cream comes to the top in the churning process. The more healthy and mature elements of Jewish thought overcome the less healthy and immature elements if you allow them to.

A main concern throughout the first 39 books of the Christian Bible is safety and security. Enemies are everywhere. People feel threatened. Food is scarce. Life is fragile. Violence is a way of life. Military power matters. Yet shining through the story is the belief that trusting in God is the most important thing. A non-violent perspective is also present in the story. Something is struggling to be born. Namely, a broader vision of humanity.


The Fount of Modernity
The Hebrew Scriptures present humanity’s push toward justice, peace, wholeness, and compassion. It is a narrative that has helped shape Western Culture. The humane ideas of the Enlightenment and the development of democracies have their impetus from Genesis and Exodus and Isaiah, etc. The notions of freedom, liberty, human dignity, creativity, and scientific investigation come from the core message of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The mythological and philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman culture have contributed too. The other Middle Eastern cultures such as the Persian and Egyptian, etc., have also fed into the Hebrew and Christian streams. The Asian or Eastern ways of thought and life have their own unique gifts for our modern world. But the core values of my culture (America) have direct links to the Hebrew Scriptures. (And even the movement of Postmodernism echoes the prophetic critique of the Hebrew Scriptures.)


Transcendent
The story found in Genesis through Malachi presents us with an eternal, transcendent power which gives life and governs the universe. It is a power that is personal. It is dialogical. It can be felt. It is a Who. All Is-ness comes from It. It calls itself “I Am.” And from the I-Am flows the gifts of purpose and meaning.

Of course the Hebrew Scriptures do not purport to give a scientific description of reality. We can easily merge our scientific perspective with the drama of Scripture. I could refer to God as the Great Evolver—as that power which initiated the universe and moves within it at all times. Science can tell us the How of the universe. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us the Why of the universe. Without the Sacred Story there is literally no purpose or meaning to anything.

Atheists are people who haven’t yet come to understand the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. They may actually live by the values and assertions of these Scriptures, but they haven’t been taught to recognize them in the story.

Jews and Christians share the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Christian story expands upon it. But without the Hebrew Scriptures there would be no Christian Scriptures (new testament). Of course Christians and Jews see the Jewish man Jesus differently. Nevertheless, many Christians and Jews feel that we have the same basic mission: to bring the Light into the world; and as communities of faith, to be a light in the world.

Everyone lives by some story. As a person who was raised in the Christian tradition, I live by the Christian Story (which includes the Jewish Story). My way of reading the Story has changed over the years. I have come to read the Story as one of justice, peacemaking, compassion, love, and inclusion. I have had to reinterpret the Story as I have matured. The Jewish and Christian stories now speak to me of living a humane life. Moses said, “Choose life.” Jesus said, “I have come to give life, an abundant life.”



Epilogue

The 40th day of Lent brings us only to Holy Saturday. But Lent has no meaning apart from Easter.

On the Third Day something happened. No one witnessed the resurrection of Jesus. But the early Christians report that they witnessed the result of the resurrection. They write about encountering Jesus alive again—not resuscitated, not walking around as a zombie—but new form of being. It was the same Jesus they met, but a transformed Jesus. He had a body, a physical body. But it was a different kind of physicality. His body materialized and dematerialized.

It sounds like science fiction. Of course science fiction has made a habit of showing us things that can’t be done—until they can be done. What was once merely science fiction is now part of our everyday world. It is possible that something happened in the first century in the one we call the Christ that we simply don’t understand yet.

The one thing that is historically a fact is that after a historical person—a Jew named Jesus—was executed by the Romans, a religious movement began that seems to have no rational explanation without something like a resurrection. That movement grew and expanded even through the threats of death and through many actual executions. The members of this movement seemed to have no fear of death. They introduced into the world the love of enemies. These followers of Jesus helped the needy, resisted tyranny, eventually set up hospitals, invented universities, and supported scientific discovery.

The record says that it all started after their executed leader came back to them, instructed them, ate meals with them, and then disappeared into another dimension so that his Spirit could indwell them everywhere.

Easter gives us a glimpse of the golden age that the prophets spoke of. We are called to work toward that harmonious and peaceful existence. It is a realistic ideal without which humanity has no purpose for being.

Easter is the revelation of the enduring meaning of life. Heaven is not somewhere we go. It is something we bring to earth by our best human behavior. God is in the mix. We are partners with God. We live within a Covenant relationship. United with God we live joyfully in the midst of the continuing struggle. We receive the gift of hope from the Story of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a Christian I fully embrace the Hebrew Scriptures in continuity with the experiences of the early Christians, which I find to be true in my own life.

Our mission is this: Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6.8).

Day 39 – Friday -- The Book of Malachi

Day 39 – Friday

The Book of Malachi

Here is the time line:

• Exiles return from Babylon.
• The temple has been rebuilt.
• Malachi speaks his message.
• Ezra and Nehemiah return.


Love
Bible is a love letter from our Creator. There is romance in the air. And Malachi will address some of the issues of romance in the last chapter.

Clergy
Malachi has harsh words for the clergy. They aren’t doing their job. They don’t have a sense of the Sacred. They tell people what they want to hear. God says, “You are insulting me.”

Offenses
Malachi points out other sins. The people practice witchcraft; they cheat their spouses; they tell lies in court; they mistreat windows and orphans (the helpless); they steal the property of foreigners. Men are divorcing their wives. (Where did the romance go?) This reminds me of the Covenant/Marriage theme throughout Scripture—referring to the union and partnership of God and God’s people.

Percentage
They are robbing God by not bringing their tithes (ten percent of their harvest, flocks, and herds) to the storehouse. God challenges them to put Him to the test. Bring your tithes and God will “open the windows of heaven” and pour out blessings. (The Christian Scriptures do not mandate tithing.)

Empty Seat
Malachi (his name means “messenger”) says that God will send a messenger to “prepare the way” for his coming (3.1). In the penultimate verse he names him: Elijah. (This is why at the Seder Meal, Jews leave an empty seat for Elijah.) The New Testament writers see John the Baptizer as this “Elijah.”


Consistency
There is a verse that is quoted a lot: Malachi 3.6: I am the Lord; I do not change. Perhaps the hint is in the next phrase: That’s why you haven’t been wiped out.

I think the meaning is not some philosophical idea of an “immutable Being.” Rather, the verse is declaring that God is faithful to Her promises; that He keeps His covenant agreement; She does not go back on Her word. Her character is one of consistency and faithfulness.

The Hebrew Scriptures do not portray God in philosophical terms. God is not an idea or static Being. God is personal and “emotionally” responsive. Everyone should read Abraham Joshua Heschel’s two volume work titled, The Prophets. Heschel takes the reader through dozens of passages and shows the Hebraic understanding of God as a passionate, personal being. The Hebrew Scripture’s use of anthropomorphic language in regard to God is partly out of human limitations; but also says something about the very nature of Israel’s God.


Family
The family theme is important in Malachi. God says He hates divorce. God criticizes men who are unfaithful to their wives. At the end of the book the prophets says that when Elijah comes he will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. And God reminds the Jewish community of the extended family of Israel—their ancestors—who made a covenant with God.

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? (2.10)

“Our Father who art in heaven” is not just a Christian prayer, it is a Jewish prayer too. The Oneness of God—monotheism—is one of the main affirmations of Jewish theology. This verse only encompasses the Jewish context. But in the Book of Acts Paul extends it to all humanity:

From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…we are God’s offspring (Acts 17.25-29).

One Creator. One race: the human race. We are all sisters and brothers. There is still a strain of Evangelicalism that teaches people to believe that only Christians can claim God as their Father. This traditional exclusive framework for the Gospel is gradually disappearing, thank God.

By the term “father” the Bible means “source.” God is also our Mother. It’s true that the phrase God our Mother never appears in Scripture, but God is imagined as a mother figure in Isaiah, Exodus, and the Psalms. When some Christian brother or sister insists to me that God is actually our Father and not our Mother, I am always tempted to ask, “You mean God has a penis?” Very few people will admit to such crude literalism. We use human analogies when speaking about God, who is beyond the limits of our human language. Our analogical language for God contains some truth, but not complete, perfect truth.

“Our Father who art in heaven, Thou art our Mother too.”



Finish this: When I think of my relationship with God as a romance, I…

Day 38 – Thursday -- The Book of Zechariah

Day 38 – Thursday

The Book of Zechariah

This book, the longest and most complex of the minor prophets, is commonly referred to as “the Revelation of the Old Testament.” It is full of visionary writing, what we might call “fantasy.” Visionary writing suspends the ordinary rules of our normal approach to reality. Visionary and apocalyptic writings usually have a cosmic setting. They putatively “see the future.” There is sometimes a vision of a golden age of peace. So, we must read this book as poetry and symbolism.


Zechariah is really two books: 

First Zechariah – chapters 1-8
   written contemporary with Haggai – ca. 520 BCE
   eight visions
   seven oracles of restoration
   three oracles of hope

Second Zechariah – chapters 9-14
   written a century later, perhaps 325 BCE
   a mosaic of fragments
   poems, narratives, oracles, and parables
   eschatological restoration
   vision of a golden age of peace


On February 15, 519 BCE Zechariah had eight night visions (dreams?):

1.   An army of angels mounted on horses (1.7-17)
2.   Four animal horns and four blacksmiths (1.18-21)
3.   A man with a tape measure to measure Jerusalem (2.1-5)
4.   An angel gives clean clothes to a high priest (3.1-10)
5.   A golden lampstand, seven smaller lamps fueled by olive oil (4.1-14)
6.   A huge, flying scroll (5.1-4)
7.   A woman sitting inside a grain basket that is carried off (5.5-11)
8.   Four chariots (6.1-8)


Satan
For the third and last time in the Hebrew Scriptures Satan is mentioned (see 1 Chron. 21.1; Job 1.6-12, 2.1-7). Some translations say “the adversary” because that is the meaning of “satan.” Here, like in Job, Satan is part of the heavenly court; he functions as the prosecuting attorney, accusing Jerusalem of offenses. But the Lord has decided to acquit Jerusalem “as a brand plucked from the fire” (Zech. 3.1-2).


HOLY WEEK TEXTS:

Palm Sunday – Zechariah 9.9 

Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  [quoted in Matt. 21.4-5; John 12.14-15]

Wednesday of Holy Week – Zechariah 11.12-13

12 I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. 13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the Lord. [alluded to in regard to Judas; Matt. 26.14-16; 27.5]

Maundy Thursday – Zechariah 13.7

Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered… [Jesus quotes this verse: Matt. 26.31]

Good Friday – Zechariah 12.10

when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child…[the side of Jesus was pierced; quoted by John in Revelation: John 19.37; Rev. 1.7]

Covenant/Marriage language:

Zechariah 8.8 – They will be my people, and I will be their God, faithful to bring about justice.

Zechariah 13.9 – I will say, “You are my people,” and they will reply, “You, Lord are our God!”

When Doubting Thomas was invited by the Risen Christ to touch his wounds (see John 20), his exclamation, “My Lord and my God,” is not about the divinity of Christ, but Thomas’ marriage vow spoken to God. In raising Jesus from the dead, God had kept the covenant with Israel and with the world. The death of Jesus did not mean that the marriage was off. The resurrection declared that the marriage could not be stopped. God is saying through the Risen Christ, “I will be your God.” And Thomas is responding, “You are my Lord and my God.” The vows are affirmed, and Thomas acknowledged his union with God.


Peace on earth
The last part of Zechariah presents a vision of a golden age of peace. Jerusalem will have fresh water flowing through it. There will be continuous day (darkness is gone). A remnant of the Jews will come through the final crises. There will be perfect peace. And “the Lord will be King over the whole earth” (14.9). Much of this imagery is used by the Book of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22.


“Prisoners of hope”

From chapter 9 according to the NRSV:

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
    today I declare that I will restore to you double (9.11-12).

Other translations have, “prisoners with hope.” But the Hebrew is: הַתִּקְוָ֑ה (hat·tiq·wāh; of hope). The text is speaking of those who are now prisoners who will be set free. They are more literally “prisoners who have hope” of their freedom. But the NRSV translation, which is a literal rendering of the Hebrew as far as I can ascertain, gives us an interesting phrase.

Let me be personal. I struggle with my Christian faith. I go through periods of doubt. I wonder if it is all true. Yet, I can’t get away from the Biblical message. It is as if I am a prisoner of Hope. I can’t set myself free of hope. I am bound by a hopeful attitude. As Paul says in Romans eight, we are “saved by hope.” Perhaps hope is a deeper name for faith. At least that’s how I experience it.

This came home to me in a sermon by Sid Burgess at Edgewood Presbyterian Church (Homewood, AL). He helped me see “hope” (tikvah) as a different way of experiencing faith and grace. It is easier for me to say, “I have hope,” than to say, “I believe.” I am a prisoner of hope.


One of the most quoted verses in Zechariah is 4.6:

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

This verse is part of the Fifth Vision: a lampstand and two olive trees. There had been many obstacles in the way of rebuilding the temple. The people were discouraged. It was as if a mountain stood in their way. Zechariah is telling Zerubbabel that neither the might of the military nor mere human strength were going to be enough to complete the temple. They would need the power of God’s Spirit to accomplish the task. In verse seven the prophet says that “the mountain will be leveled to the ground.” 

God is our bulldozer. Only She can move mountains, or motivate the faith to move mountains. There is a transcendent power that we may call upon. Some people envision this power coming from outside us (upon us); others understand that power to be within each of us. The point is that there is transcendence in the midst of immanence. There are some things we cannot do ourselves. We need God’s help.


Finish this: The mountain in front of me right now is…

Day 37 – Wednesday -- The Book of Haggai

Day 37 – Wednesday

The Book of Haggai

Why did I grow up saying “Haggyai”? I don’t know. The main message is simple:
Stop procrastinating! Build a new temple!

Unlike other prophets’ books, this one is address to an individual. Well, two. God has a message for Zerubbabel and Joshua. (No, not that Joshua.) Zerubbabel is the Governor of Jerusalem after the exile; and Joshua is the High Priest. God tells them to get with it. Build a new temple! Haggai delivers these prophecies during a four month period. To be more exact, from August 29 to December 18 in the year 520 BCE.

About 50,000 Jews had returned from exile in Babylon. A foundation had been built for a new temple, but was halted for 18 years. A whole generation or two had no knowledge of a temple because it was destroyed 66 years before by the Babylonians.

It’s sort of a Stewardship Campaign. “The money will be there,” says God. “There is plenty of money all around you, and I’m going to turn nations upside down and shake all the money out of their pockets.”

Here is the “shaking” passage:

7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (2.7-9).

There’s a lot of shakin’ going on:

 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth… (2.21).

God is shaking things up.



FYI here is a temple time line:

967 BCE – Solomon starts building the first temple

960 BCE – the temple is completed

622 BCE – King Josiah repairs the aging temple

586 BCE – the Babylonians destroy the temple

536 BCE – returned exiles build the foundation for a new temple

520 BCE – Haggai tells the Jews to finish the temple

515 BCE – the Second Temple is completed

20 BCE – King Herod starts expanding the temple

64 CE – Herod’s renovation is completed

70 CE – the Romans destroy the Second Temple

691 CE – Muslims build the Dome of the Rock on the temple mount

Herod expanded the hilltop and shored it up with retaining walls, one of which survives today. It is the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.


Finish this: Something that has begun in my life that I need to finish is…

Day 36 – Tuesday -- The Book of Zephaniah

Day 36 – Tuesday

The Book of Zephaniah

We don’t hear many sermons from Zephaniah. It’s only 53 verses, but they pack a lot of gloom. The book’s message can be summed up rather quickly. This is from the ERV (Easy-to-Read Version)*:

The Lord says, “I will destroy everything on earth.  I will destroy all the people and all the animals. I will destroy the birds in the air and the fish in the sea. I will destroy the evil people and everything that makes them sin. I will remove all people from the earth.” This is what the Lord said (1.2-3).

The order of destruction in 1.2-3 is: people, animals, birds, fish. Which is the reverse of the creation story in Genesis where God creates: fish, birds, animals, people. So God is going to reverse creation!

The Lord is in a bad mood. It sounds like pre-Noah days. But there is an escape clause. If the Jews repent, their nation will not be destroyed; a new generation will be raised up to carry on.

The devastating picture of God’s judgment may be “prophetic exaggeration.” Jesus did this sort of thing. When he spoke of “the end” (Matt. 24.14), it sounded like the end of the world. But he was most likely speaking of what happened to Jerusalem in 70 CE when General Titus and the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Therefore, Zephaniah’s talk about God destroying everything may be poetic license. Sort of like a revival preacher painting the darkest picture possible in order to get people “down the aisle.”

Zephaniah was writing during the reign of King Josiah (640-609). Israel had already been conquered. Judah would fall in 586. Either Zephaniah supernaturally predicts the return of the exiles (see 3.19), or he simply imagines a hopeful future somewhere down the line, or a later editor adds those verses after the fact. He is writing at the same time as Jeremiah’s early writings.

The sins of Judah are: the worshiping of foreign gods (1.4-9) and having an unjust and abusive leadership (3.1-4). The stock phrase “the day of the Lord” is used by Zephaniah as other prophets had done.

According to Stephen Winward, artists of the medieval era show Zephaniah as a man going through the city carrying a lamp, which reflects chapter one, verse twelve:

I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those people who sit there unworried while thinking, “The Lord won’t do anything, good or bad” (CEV).

But as noted above, the small book ends with a more positive light:

The Lord has promised: Your sorrow has ended, and you can celebrate…I will lead you home (3.18, 20, CEV).

Each of the three chapters of Zephaniah contains a verb in the imperative that has relevance for us at various times: Quiet! Seek! Wait!

Be silent before the Lord God! (1.7)

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land… (2.3).

Therefore wait for me, says the Lord… (3.8).

 

If I were preaching from Zephaniah, the three verses above might be my outline.

 

Finish this: The way I seek the Lord is…

*I’m not kidding. There is a translation called The ERV.

Day 35 – Monday -- The Book of Habakkuk

Day 35 – Monday

The Book of Habakkuk

How long? How long?? Why? Why? Why? Thus begins Habakkuk’s prophecy, not spoken to the people as prophets normally do, but spoken to God. Habakkuk has the same questions we have. And we can be thankful that he questions God on our behalf. He wants to know why there isn’t justice. He questions God’s goodness.

God answers, telling the prophet that God is going to bring justice to Judah by bringing in the Babylonians to punish them.

But that’s not fair, complains Habakkuk, because the Babylonians are even worse sinners than Judah. God answers: Yes, but after they are finished with Judah I will punish them also.

The last chapter is a prayer of praise by Habakkuk.

This little book contains theodicy and theophany. Theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the goodness of God with the evils of the world. The dialogue between Habakkuk and God deals with this conundrum (though theodicies never really find a solution to the problem). The theophany (an appearance of God) takes place in chapter three. It is an imagined appearance of God on earth. Similar visions are found in Psalm 18.7-19 and Psalm 97.1-5.

At the end of Habakkuk’s prayer of praise in chapter three there is an amazing affirmation of faith:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
    and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
    and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
    and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    and makes me tread upon the heights.
To the leader: with stringed instruments. (3.17-19)

The great “yet” connotes a strong faith. It sounds like Job: “Though God slay me, I will trust in God.” And notice the instruction about music at the end. This is obviously meant to be sung with accompaniment.

One more thing. This little book has one verse that has been revolutionary. It changed the course of history. Look at 2.4:

Look at the proud!
    Their spirit is not right in them,
    but the righteous live by their faith.

That last phrase—the righteous live by their faith—was picked up by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (1.17). Centuries later, Paul’s verse was picked up by a priest named Martin Luther, and the Church was revolutionized.

By faith, not by works.

However, the Hebrew word translated “faith” in some translations can be translated as “faithfulness,” which would make Luther’s case harder to support from this one verse. Usually these days an English translation will put the alternative in a footnote. Even the ESV has a footnote for “faithfulness.” (The English Standard Version is a favorite translation of very conservative Protestant institutions.


Finish this: When I try to make sense of injustice and evil in the world, I …..

Day 34 – Saturday -- The Book of Nahum

Day 34 – Saturday

The Book of Nahum

Worse than Obadiah when it comes to vengeance. The last two Hebrew words in this short book are רָעָתְךָ תָּמִיד (ra’ateka tamid), translated, “your endless cruelty.” English translations end with words like suffering…pain…cruelty…malice. Nahum is angry at the city of Nineveh (capitol of Assyria) for its cruelty toward other nations. The source of the cruelty must be wiped out! Can we at least join the author in wishing evil to be stamped out?

We need to understand that Assyria had been exploiting and terrorizing its smaller and weaker neighbors for three centuries. It was the bully of the Middle East who knew no mercy and was savage in its invasions.

King Ashurnasirpal bragged, “I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms and hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops.” King Shalmaneser III bragged about building a pyramid of chopped-off heads. King Ashurnasirpal hung the heads on trees around the conquered town. Commanders often made a show of the enemy body count, stacking corpses like firewood at the city gate. King Sennacherib, who destroyed 46 Jewish cities, said after filling a plain with enemy corpses, “I cut off their testicles, and tore out their privates like seeds of a cucumber.” Sometimes captives were fed to the dogs or pigs. A king put a dog chain on one captured leader and imprisoned him “in a kennel at the eastern gate of Nineveh.” Travelers would stop and gawk. Palace art from Nineveh shows Assyrian soldiers peeling skin off captives. King Ashurnasirpal bragged, “I skinned all the nobles who rebelled against me and hung their skins on the walls.”

Nahum says toward the end of his little tract, every nation would stand and cheer when Assyria/Nineveh finally met its match in the Lord of the universe in 612 BCE.

God is pictured as the Holy Warrior. It’s doesn’t sound politically correct to talk about holy war or a Warrior God. But it is politically correct if we have a sanctified imagination. Military language is used metaphorically in the Second (new) Testament to describe our spiritual battles. Paul tells followers of Jesus to put on military garb: the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, and the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6.10-17).

To the Corinthians Paul makes it clear that “our warfare” is not carried out with actual weapons or military force. Followers of Jesus engage the “enemy” with words and thoughts and ideas:

Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10.3-5).

We’re mature enough to make the distinction, aren’t we? Can’t we use militaristic language in a metaphorical way to denote the spiritual struggle that is part of reality? I think we can as long as we are clear about the poetic nature of the language; and as long as we continually condemn the unnecessary use of real military violence in our world. There is no way of getting around the fact that life is a battle. We fight cancer. We battle against ignorance. We have the war on poverty. We should be mature enough to make distinctions.

The whole Book of Revelation is about the cosmic war between Good and Evil. The violent apocalyptic language is necessary to paint the picture of a reality too deep for words. Yet, in our explanations and interpretations of any book of apocalyptic images, we need to be clear about the nature of the genre.



Back to the question of vengeance in Nahum:

 J.J.M. Roberts of the Princeton Theological Seminary forcefully rejects the idea that Nahum itself is un-Christian, and turns the argument back on the critics:

One should beware of any bogus morality that dismisses vengeance as both inappropriate to humans and unworthy of God. . . . While the desire to see vengeance done can be twisted and corrupted like any other human desire, it arises out of a sense of justice, and vengeance cannot be discarded without discarding the concern for justice as well. . . . [W]ithout this frightening side . . . , one could misread the portrait of the loving God as that of a passionless, doting, and undemanding dispenser of cheap grace. 

The other point to remember is that both Nahum and Jonah sit near each other in the Hebrew Bible. The dialectic of these two books make for a balanced approach to our hearts and our actions.


Finish this: What I’m battling right now is…..