Biblical
material – Deuteronomic History
Summary
of prophecy in the Babylonian and early Persian period
Post-exilic
Persian Period, 540-333
Biblical
material – Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah.
THE
GREEK OR HELLENISTIC PERIOD WENT FROM 333 TO 167 BC and Hasmonaean Period (167
BC-63 BC)
Wisdom
of Ben Sira, Sirach, Ecclesiasticus
Roman
Period, 63 BC to 300’s AD
Martyrdom
of Isaiah (0-100 AD)
Testament
of Abraham (0-100 AD)
Life
of Adam and Eve (65-70 AD)
Apocalypse
of Abraham 9-32 (70-100 AD)
The Exiles
settled on the
During the period of Exile, Ezekiel seems to have assumed a leading role. His house was the center of a gathering where they kept the fires of religion burning. He addressed the exiles as the House of Israel.
Other
Exiles settled in
Cyrus established
himself as king of
II Isaiah
was a zealous supporter of Cyrus. For him, the conquests of Cyrus were due to
Yahweh, though he did not know him. His successors were all part of the plan of
Yahweh.
The biblical account provides no
direct information about
Conditions in
Exile as a theological theme
becomes clear in later writings. Thus, the sins for which the Exile is
punishment are variously assessed and theologically justified; and various
preconditions are given for the termination of the Exile, like divine grace,
human repentance, or a combination of the two (cf. Jer.
24; 31; Ezek. 18; Lam. 5). In Jer. 25:11-12 and 29:10
(cf. Zech. 1:12) a seventy-year figure is used for the Exile; Ezek. 4:5-6 has a
forty-year scheme, as well as 390 (or 150 or 190) for the Northern Kingdom.
Dan. 9:2, 24-27 reinterprets the seventy-year period as 490 years, seeing the
end of Exile as sequel to the desecration of the
The fires
of religion were at first fanned by Ezekiel and later by II Isaiah. The latter
prophet combined universalism and nationalism. The exiles acquired a new slant
on religion away from the sacrificial system. They also had a fresh zeal for
The biblical work completed during this period was substantial, including the Deuteronomic history, involving Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, Proverbs 31:10-31 and 22:17-24-34 the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomic history were likely combined at this time, and possibly the Book of Job. This literary activity was undoubtedly motivate by those living in exile desiring to keep alive the traditions which held them together, as well as to understand what happened to their people. It represents the work of a community of faith fully under the oppressive rule of a foreign power. It was another form of passive resistance to them, so that they could maintain their identity, even if now in the lower class.
The
historical books are, in the end, the work of the author of Deuteronomy, edited
in the post-exilic period. Deuteronomy
may have had the first edition during the reign of Hezekiah in 716-687 BC and
the second edition during the reign of Josiah in 640-609 BC. The scribes from the family of Shaphan in Mizpah may have done
it after the dedication of
The Deuteronomic history becomes a confession of guilt. How had
the disasters of 721 and 587 taken place? The fault did not belong to Yahweh.
The Deuteronomist developed the idea that the conquest was
through war. He made the boundaries of the Promised Land extend far beyond the
area indicated by the lists. He makes it reach from the belt of the steppe land
in the south and east as far as
The period of judges ended in disaster as well. However, the Deuteronomist does judge the judges with the same standard as the kings.
Joshua 4:21-24 (NRSV)
21 saying to the Israelites, “When your children
ask their parents in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 then
you shall let your children know, ‘
Joshua 21:43-45 (NRSV)
43 Thus the Lord
gave to
Joshua 23:1-16 (NRSV)
Joshua Exhorts the People
23 A long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all
their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, 2
Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and heads, their judges and
officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years; 3 and
you have seen all that the Lord
your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. 4
I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations
that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the
14 “And now I am about to go the way of all the
earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one thing
has failed of all the good things that the Lord
your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you, not one of
them has failed. 15 But just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you
have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord
will bring upon you all the bad things, until he has destroyed you from this
good land that the Lord your God
has given you. 16 If you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which he enjoined on
you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and
you shall perish quickly from the good land that he has given to you.”
Joshua 24:14-24 (NRSV)
14 “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in
faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and
in
16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us
that we should forsake the Lord
to serve other gods; 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the
19 But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve
the Lord, for he is a holy God.
He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20
If you forsake the Lord and
serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after
having done you good.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, we
will serve the Lord!” 22 Then
Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have
chosen the Lord, to serve him.”
And they said, “We are witnesses.” 23 He said, “Then put away the
foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 The
people said to Joshua, “The Lord
our God we will serve, and him we will obey.”
Judges 2:1-5 (NRSV)
Israel’s Disobedience
2 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, “I brought you up from
Judges 2:10-3:6 (NRSV)
10 Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to
their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know
the Lord or the work that he had
done for
Israel’s Unfaithfulness
11 Then the Israelites did what was evil in the
sight of the Lord and worshiped
the Baals; 12 and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who
had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among
the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and bowed down to them; and
they provoked the Lord to anger. 13
They abandoned the Lord,
and worshiped Baal and the Astartes. 14 So
the anger of the Lord was kindled
against
16 Then the Lord
raised up judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered
them. 17 Yet they did not listen even to their judges; for they
lusted after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the
way in which their ancestors had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the
Lord; they did not follow their
example. 18 Whenever the Lord
raised up judges for them, the Lord
was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all
the days of the judge; for the Lord
would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and
oppressed them. 19 But whenever the judge died, they would relapse
and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods, worshiping them
and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or their
stubborn ways. 20 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Nations Remaining in the Land
3 Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test all those in Israel
who had no experience of any war in Canaan 2 (it was only that
successive generations of Israelites might know war, to teach those who had no
experience of it before): 3 the five lords of the Philistines, and
all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. 4
They were for the testing of
Judges 10:6-7 (NRSV)
Oppression by the Ammonites
6 The Israelites again did what was evil in the
sight of the Lord, worshiping the
Baals and the Astartes, the
gods of
Judges 10:13-16 (NRSV)
13 Yet you have abandoned me and worshiped other
gods; therefore I will deliver you no more. 14 Go and cry to the
gods whom you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress.” 15
And the Israelites said to the Lord,
“We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you; but deliver us this day!”
16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and worshiped
the Lord; and he could no longer
bear to see
We find another significant expression of the theology of this writer in the books of Samuel.
1 Samuel 2:27-36 (NRSV)
27 A man of God came to Eli
and said to him, “Thus the Lord
has said, ‘I revealed myself to the family of your ancestor in
1 Samuel 3:10-14 (NRSV)
10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as
before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is
listening.” 11 Then the Lord
said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in
1 Samuel 7:2-4 (NRSV)
2 From the day that the
ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed,
some twenty years, and all the house of
3 Then Samuel said to all
the house of
1 Samuel 7:13-14 (NRSV)
13 So the Philistines were
subdued and did not again enter the
1 Samuel 12:6-15 (NRSV)
6 Samuel
said to the people, “The Lord is
witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your ancestors up out of the
This writer organizes the material of the history of the rise of David to power in such a way as to offer divine authorization for the rise of this king. First, he places the origin of the anointing of David as king into the hands of Samuel in I Samuel 16:1-13. The author uses these words:
1 Samuel 16:7, 13 (NRSV)
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on
his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him;
for the Lord does not see as
mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 13 Then
Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers;
and the spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to
Ramah.
The author also uses the occasion of the death of David to offer his theology.
1 Kings 2:1-4 (NRSV)
David’s Instruction to Solomon
2 When David’s time to die drew near, he charged
his son Solomon, saying: 2 “I am about to go the way of all the
earth. Be strong, be courageous, 3 and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and
keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as
it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do
and wherever you turn. 4 Then the Lord
will establish his word that he spoke concerning me: ‘If your heirs take heed
to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with
all their soul, there shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.’
The occasion of the rise of Solomon provided the author some
opportunities to express his theology. Although Solomon loved Yahweh, he
offered sacrifices on the high places. He goes on to use Solomon as a vehicle for
his theology. He pursues this course with the building of the
1 Kings 6:7 (NRSV)
7 The house was built with stone finished at the
quarry, so that neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron was heard in the
temple while it was being built.
1 Kings 6:11-13 (NRSV)
11 Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, 12 “Concerning this house
that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and
keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise
with you, which I made to your father David. 13 I will dwell among
the children of
1 Kings 8:22-61 (NRSV)
Solomon’s Prayer of Dedication
(2 Chr 6.12—39)
22 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the
assembly of
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even
heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I
have built! 28 Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the
prayer that your servant prays to you today; 29 that your eyes may
be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, ‘My name
shall be there,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward
this place. 30 Hear the plea of your servant and of your people
31 “If someone sins against a neighbor and is given
an oath to swear, and comes and swears before your altar in this house, 32
then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the
guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the
righteous by rewarding them according to their righteousness.
33 “When your people Israel, having sinned against
you, are defeated before an enemy but turn again to you, confess your name,
pray and plead with you in this house, 34 then hear in heaven,
forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that
you gave to their ancestors.
35 “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain
because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place,
confess your name, and turn from their sin, because you punish them, 36 then
hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when
you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your
land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.
37 “If there is famine in the land, if there is
plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in
any of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; 38 whatever
prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people
Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch
out their hands toward this house; 39 then hear in heaven your
dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know—according
to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart— 40 so
that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to
our ancestors.
41 “Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your
people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name 42 —for
they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched
arm—when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, 43 then hear
in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls
to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you,
as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been
invoked on this house that I have built.
44 “If your people go out to battle against their
enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have
chosen and the house that I have built for your name, 45 then hear
in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.
46 “If they sin against you—for there is no one who
does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that
they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; 47
yet if they come to their senses in the land to which they have been
taken captive, and repent, and plead with you in the land of their captors,
saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done wrong; we have acted wickedly’; 48 if
they repent with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies, who
took them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their
ancestors, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for
your name; 49 then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer
and their plea, maintain their cause 50 and forgive your people who
have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed
against you; and grant them compassion in the sight of their captors, so that
they may have compassion on them 51 (for they are your people and
heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron-smelter). 52
Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant, and to the plea of
your people
Solomon Blesses the Assembly
(2 Chr 6.40—42)
54 Now when Solomon finished offering all this
prayer and this plea to the Lord,
he arose from facing the altar of the Lord,
where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven; 55 he stood
and blessed all the assembly of
56 “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to
all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he
spoke through his servant Moses. 57 The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors; may he
not leave us or abandon us, 58 but incline our hearts to him, to
walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his
ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors. 59 Let these words of
mine, with which I pleaded before the Lord,
be near to the Lord our God day
and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his
people Israel, as each day requires; 60 so that all the peoples of
the earth may know that the Lord
is God; there is no other. 61 Therefore devote yourselves completely
to the Lord our God, walking in
his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”
1 Kings 9:1-9 (NRSV)
God Appears Again to Solomon
(2 Chr 7.11—22)
9 When Solomon had finished building the house of
the Lord and the king’s house and
all that Solomon desired to build, 2 the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to
him at
6 “If you turn aside from following me, you or
your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set
before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I
will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them; and the house that I
have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will
become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples. 8 This house will
become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will
hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord
done such a thing to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will
say, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord
their God, who brought their ancestors out of the
The writer also provides an explanation for the source of the division of the kingdom in the reign of Solomon.
1 Kings 11:1-13 (NRSV)
Solomon’s Errors
11 King Solomon loved many
foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite
women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the Israelites, “You
shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they
will surely incline your heart to follow their gods”; Solomon clung to these in
love. 3 Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three
hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when
Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his
heart was not true to the Lord
his God, as was the heart of his father David. 5 For Solomon
followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the
abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the
sight of the Lord, and did not
completely follow the Lord, as
his father David had done. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of
9 Then the Lord was angry with Solomon, because
his heart had turned away from the Lord,
the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10 and had
commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other gods; but
he did not observe what the Lord
commanded. 11 Therefore the Lord
said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my
covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the
kingdom from you and give it to your servant. 12 Yet for the sake of
your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the
hand of your son. 13 I will not, however, tear away the entire
kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of my servant David
and for the sake of
Consequently, in the judgment of the author, Yahweh raised up Hadad of Edom and Rezon of Damascus to bring judgment upon Solomon. He also provides an expansion upon the reason for the revolt of Jeroboam.
I Kings
33 This is because he has
forsaken me, worshiped Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of
The author offers this judgment upon the reign of Jeroboam
I, 931-910. It becomes the pattern for the judgment upon the kings of the
1 Kings 13:33-34 (NRSV)
33 Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from
his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the
people; any who wanted to be priests he consecrated for the high places. 34
This matter became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and
to destroy it from the face of the earth.
The author offers judgment upon the reign of Rehoboam, 931 to 913.
1 Kings 14:22-24 (NRSV)
22
The author offers judgment upon Abijam, 913 to 911.
1
Kings 15:3-5 (NRSV)
3 He
committed all the sins that his father did before him; his heart was not true
to the Lord his God, like the
heart of his father David. 4 Nevertheless for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in
Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem; 5 because
David did what was right in the sight of the Lord,
and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his
life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
Only Jehoash, who reigned from 835 to 796, was viewed as doing what was right.
After the
death of Elisha to the fall of
The author
offers several observations concerning the fall of
2 Kings 17:7-23 (NRSV)
7 This occurred because the people of
19
21 When he had torn
2 Kings 17:34-41 (NRSV)
34 To this day they continue to practice their
former customs.
They do not worship the Lord and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or
the law or the commandment that the Lord
commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named
41 So these nations worshiped the Lord, but also served their carved
images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do
as their ancestors did.
2 Kings
12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his
covenant—all that Moses the servant of the Lord
had commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.
This author also evaluated Hezekiah quite highly.
2 Kings 18:5-7 (NRSV)
5 He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel; so that there
was no one like him among all the kings of
The author had a strong evaluation of Josiah, even though
the Lord maintained anger with
2 Kings 23:25-27 (NRSV)
25 Before him there was no king like him, who
turned to the Lord with all his
heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of
Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
26 Still the Lord
did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, by which his anger was
kindled against
The priestly material has a majestic view of God that we find reflected in the following verses. We particularly note this as a difference from the second account of creation in Genesis 2:4ff.
Genesis 1:1-6, 9, 11,
14-15, 20, 24, 26-31, 2:1-4a (NRSV)
In the
beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth
was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from
God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there
be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was
good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called
the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and
there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst
of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
9 And God said, “Let the
waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land
appear.” And it was so.
11 Then God said, “Let the
earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind
on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so.
14 And God said, “Let there
be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let
them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let
them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was
so.
20 And God said, “Let the
waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the
earth across the dome of the sky.”
24 And God said, “Let the
earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things
and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so.
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our
image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the
earth.”
27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing
that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you
every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to
every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that
creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every
green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he
had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was
morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1-4 (NRSV)
Thus the
heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And
on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the
seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the
seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he
had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the
earth when they were created.
The
priestly account gives a list of the children of Adam and Eve before the flood.
It details the building of the
Genesis 9:1-17 (NRSV)
God
blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you shall rest on every
animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on
the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave
you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 Only, you shall not
eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 For your own lifeblood
I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from
human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for
human life.
6 Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind.
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the
earth and multiply in it.”
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9
“As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants
after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the
birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as
came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never
again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again
shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is
the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living
creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set
my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the
earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in
the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and
you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the
clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God
said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between
me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
The document continues with an account of a covenant with Abraham.
Genesis 17:1-27 (NRSV)
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him,
“I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will
make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” 3
Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 “As for
me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of
nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall
be Abraham;for I have made you the ancestor of a
multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I
will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will
establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you
throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and
to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your
offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the
9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep
my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10
This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your
offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You
shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the
covenant between me and you. 12 Throughout your generations every
male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the
slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner
who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house
and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be
in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who
is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his
people; he has broken my covenant.”
15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai
your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah
shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you
a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of
peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and
laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred
years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” 18 And
Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!” 19 God
said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him
Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his
offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will
bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the
father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But
my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this
season next year.” 22 And when he had finished talking with him, God
went up from Abraham.
23 Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the
slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of
Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day,
as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he
was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 And his son Ishmael
was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26
That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised; 27 and
all the men of his house, slaves born in the house and those bought with money
from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
The priestly document continues with a primary interest in
maintaining a genealogy of the nations and in particular of
The P
document continues with its version of the story of Moses and liberation from
Psalm 69 (NRSV)
1 Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
3 I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.
4 More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
many are those who would destroy me,
my enemies who accuse me falsely.
What I did not steal
must I now restore?
5 O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
6 Do not let those who hope in you be put
to shame because of me,
O Lord God
of hosts;
do not let those who seek you be dishonored
because of me,
O God of
7 It is for your sake that I have borne
reproach,
that shame has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my kindred,
an alien to my mother’s children.
9 It is zeal for your house that has
consumed me;
the insults of those who insult you have fallen
on me.
10 When I humbled my soul with fasting,
they insulted me for doing so.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.
12 I am the subject of gossip for those who
sit in the gate,
and the drunkards make songs about me.
13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer
me.
With your faithful help14 rescue me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15 Do not let the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the Pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
17 Do not hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
18 Draw near to me, redeem me,
set me free because of my enemies.
19 You know the insults I receive,
and my shame and dishonor;
my foes are all known to you.
20 Insults have broken my heart,
so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none;
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They gave me poison for food,
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table be a trap for them,
a snare for their allies.
23 Let their eyes be darkened so that they
cannot see,
and make their loins tremble continually.
24 Pour out your indignation upon them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
25 May their camp be a desolation;
let no one live in their tents.
26 For they persecute those whom you have
struck down,
and those whom you have wounded, they attack
still more.
27 Add guilt to their guilt;
may they have no acquittal from you.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of
the living;
let them not be enrolled among the righteous.
29 But I am lowly and in pain;
let your salvation, O God, protect me.
30 I will praise the name of God with a
song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This will please the Lord more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
32 Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
33 For the Lord
hears the needy,
and does not despise his own that are in bonds.
34 Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
35 For God will save
and rebuild the cities of
and his servants shall live there and possess
it;
36 the
children of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall live in it.
Psalm 102 (NRSV)
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you.
2 Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call.
3 For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
4 My heart is stricken and withered like
grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
5 Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my skin.
6 I am like an owl of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.
7 I lie awake;
I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
8 All day long my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
9 For I eat ashes like bread,
and mingle tears with my drink,
10 because of your indignation and anger;
for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.
11 My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
your name endures to all generations.
13 You will rise up and have compassion on
for it is time to favor it;
the appointed time has come.
14 For your servants hold its stones dear,
and have pity on its dust.
15 The nations will fear the name of the Lord,
and all the kings of the earth your glory.
16 For the Lord
will build up
he will appear in his glory.
17 He will regard the prayer of the
destitute,
and will not despise their prayer.
18 Let this be recorded for a generation to
come,
so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord:
19 that he looked down from his holy height,
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die;
21 so that the name of the Lord may be declared in
and his praise in
22 when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.
23 He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.
24 “O my God,” I say, “do not take me away
at the midpoint of my life,
you whose years endure
throughout all generations.”
25 Long ago you laid the foundation of the
earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you endure;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like clothing, and they pass
away;
27 but you are
the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall live
secure;
their offspring shall be established in your
presence.
Psalm 103 (NRSV)
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good as long as
you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord
works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of
8 The Lord
is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our
sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heavens are high above the
earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who
fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion for his
children,
so the Lord
has compassion for those who fear him.
14 For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for mortals, their days are like
grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is
gone,
and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord
has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers that do his will.
22 Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord,
O my soul.
Psalm 106 (NRSV)
1 Praise the Lord!
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord,
or declare all his praise?
3 Happy are those who observe justice,
who do righteousness at all times.
4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people;
help me when you deliver them;
5 that I may see the prosperity of your
chosen ones,
that I may rejoice in the gladness of your
nation,
that I may glory in your heritage.
6 Both we and our ancestors have sinned;
we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.
7 Our ancestors, when they were in
did not consider your wonderful works;
they did not remember the abundance of your
steadfast love,
but rebelled against the Most High at the
8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
so that he might make known his mighty power.
9 He rebuked the
he led them through the deep as through a
desert.
10 So he saved them from the hand of the
foe,
and delivered them from the hand of the enemy.
11 The waters covered their adversaries;
not one of them was left.
12 Then they believed his words;
they sang his praise.
13 But they soon forgot his works;
they did not wait for his counsel.
14 But they had a wanton craving in the
wilderness,
and put God to the test in the desert;
15 he gave them what they asked,
but sent a wasting disease among them.
16 They were jealous of Moses in the camp,
and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.
17 The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,
and covered the faction of Abiram.
18 Fire also broke out in their company;
the flame burned up the wicked.
19 They made a calf at Horeb
and worshiped a cast image.
20 They exchanged the glory of God
for the image of an ox that eats grass.
21 They forgot God, their Savior,
who had done great things in
22 wondrous works in the
and awesome deeds by the
23 Therefore he said he would destroy them—
had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him,
to turn away his wrath from destroying them.
24 Then they despised the pleasant land,
having no faith in his promise.
25 They grumbled in their tents,
and did not obey the voice of the Lord.
26 Therefore he raised his hand and swore to
them
that he would make them fall in the wilderness,
27 and would disperse their descendants
among the nations,
scattering them over the lands.
28 Then they attached themselves to the Baal
of Peor,
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.
30 Then Phinehas
stood up and interceded,
and the plague was stopped.
31 And that has been reckoned to him as
righteousness
from generation to generation forever.
32 They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah,
and it went ill with Moses on their account;
33 for they made his spirit bitter,
and he spoke words that were rash.
34 They did not destroy the peoples,
as the Lord
commanded them,
35 but they mingled with the nations
and learned to do as they did.
36 They served their idols,
which became a snare to them.
37 They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons;
38 they poured out innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of
and the land was polluted with blood.
39 Thus they became unclean by their acts,
and prostituted themselves in their doings.
40 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,
and he abhorred his heritage;
41 he gave them into the hand of the
nations,
so that those who hated them ruled over them.
42 Their enemies oppressed them,
and they were brought into subjection under
their power.
43 Many times he delivered them,
but they were rebellious in their purposes,
and were brought low through their iniquity.
44 Nevertheless he regarded their distress
when he heard their cry.
45 For their sake he remembered his covenant,
and showed compassion according to the abundance
of his steadfast love.
46 He caused them to be pitied
by all who held them captive.
47 Save us, O Lord our God,
and gather us from among the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
and glory in your praise.
48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
And let all the people say, “Amen.”
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 137 (NRSV)
1 By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my
mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!”
8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
9 Happy shall they be who take your little
ones
and dash them against the rock!
Psalm 147 (NRSV)
1 Praise the Lord!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is
fitting.
2 The Lord
builds up
he gathers the outcasts of
3 He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The Lord
lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre.
8 He covers the heavens with clouds,
prepares rain for the earth,
makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.
10 His delight is not in the strength of the
horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
11 but the Lord
takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
12 Praise the Lord, O
Praise your God, O
13 For he strengthens the bars of your
gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down hail like crumbs—
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to
20 He has not dealt thus with any other
nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!
The prophets keep alive the hope of a new community of faith based upon God’s gracious activity. This new community would be established as the exiles are allowed to go back to home. In the process, they gather their traditions and begin discovering better who they are, the vision for the new nation, and hope is kept alive.
Jeremiah
experienced exile in
Jeremiah Advises Survivors Not to Migrate
42 Then all the commanders of the forces, and Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, and all
the people from the least to the greatest, approached 2 the prophet
Jeremiah and said, “Be good enough to listen to our plea, and pray to the Lord your God for us—for all this
remnant. For there are only a few of us left out of many, as your eyes can see.
3 Let the Lord your
God show us where we should go and what we should do.” 4 The prophet
Jeremiah said to them, “Very well: I am going to pray to the Lord your God as you request, and
whatever the Lord answers you I
will tell you; I will keep nothing back from you.” 5 They in their
turn said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord
be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to
everything that the Lord your God
sends us through you. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the
voice of the Lord our God to whom
we are sending you, in order that it may go well with us when we obey the voice
of the Lord our God.”
7 At the end of ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. 8 Then
he summoned Johanan son of Kareah
and all the commanders of the forces who were with him, and all the people from
the least to the greatest, 9 and said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you
sent me to present your plea before him: 10 If you will only remain
in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you,
and not pluck you up; for I am sorry for the disaster that I have brought upon
you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of
18 “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Just as my anger and my
wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be
poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You shall become an object of
execration and horror, of cursing and ridicule. You shall see this place no
more. 19 The Lord has
said to you, O remnant of Judah, Do not go to Egypt. Be well aware that I have
warned you today 20 that you have made a fatal mistake. For you
yourselves sent me to the Lord
your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the Lord
our God, and whatever the Lord
our God says, tell us and we will do it.’ 21 So I have told you
today, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything that he sent me to tell you. 22
Be well aware, then, that you shall die by the sword, by famine, and by
pestilence in the place where you desire to go and settle.”
Taken to Egypt, Jeremiah Warns of Judgment
43 When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the
people all these words of the Lord
their God, with which the Lord
their God had sent him to them, 2 Azariah
son of Hoshaiah and Johanan
son of Kareah and all the other insolent men said to
Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The Lord
our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to settle there’; 3 but
Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us, to
hand us over to the Chaldeans, in order that they may
kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” 4 So Johanan
son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces
and all the people did not obey the voice of the Lord, to stay in the
After the
exile, Jeremiah encourages the exiles to settle in and make their homes in
foreign lands. Further, he prophecies that they will return, although without
miraculous events. They will seem return to the land and start again. He does,
however, look forward to a time when the people have a new heart to serve God,
thereby suggesting the new covenant. He does not want to re-establish
Jeremiah 23:1-6 (NRSV)
Restoration after Exile
23 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter
the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord.
2 Therefore thus says the Lord,
the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you
who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not
attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. 3 Then I myself will
gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them,
and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and
multiply. 4 I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd
them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be
missing, says the Lord.
5 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a
righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute
justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be
saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be
called: “The Lord is our
righteousness.”
He looks forward to new institutions.
Jeremiah 33:14-16 (NRSV)
The Righteous Branch and the Covenant with David
14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I
made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days
and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he
shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those
days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the
name by which it will be called: “The Lord
is our righteousness.”
We find prophecies of restoration.
Jeremiah 31:1-14 (NRSV)
The Joyful Return of the Exiles
31 At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and
they shall be my people.
2 Thus says the Lord:
The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
3 the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to
you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
O virgin Israel!
Again you shall take your tambourines,
and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.
5 Again you shall plant vineyards
on the mountains of Samaria;
the planters shall plant,
and shall enjoy the fruit.
6 For there shall be a day when sentinels will call
in the hill country of Ephraim:
“Come, let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord
our God.”
7 For thus says the Lord:
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
“Save, O Lord,
your people,
the remnant of Israel.”
8 See, I am going to bring them from the land of
the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the
earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
9 With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not
stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
and declare it in the coastlands far away;
say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”
11 For the Lord
has ransomed Jacob,
and has redeemed him from hands too strong for
him.
12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of
Zion,
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of
the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the young of the flock and the herd;
their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
13 Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for
sorrow.
14 I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty,
says the Lord.
He offers the hope of a new covenant, which suggests the
inadequacy of the Old Covenant, including the Mosaic Law, the promise of land,
and the
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)
A New Covenant
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of
Ezekiel, preaching from 593-571,
was among the priests who were taken away from
One challenge that Ezekiel presents the reader is that several prophecies did not come true: Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre; Egypt remained independent until 525, and did not experience exile of 40 years as predicted in 29:8-12; Babylon did not have a bloody end, as predicted in 21:36-37; Persia is auxiliary to Tyre in 27:10 and of Gog in 38:5; Program of restoration in 34-48 is entirely out of line with events after 538, with no Davidic kingdom, temple not rebuilt, Zadokite priests not installed, no sacred calendar and its sacrifices, all as Ezekiel envisioned.
Ezekiel followed events on the
political scene with a keen interest. He shows wide intellectual horizons and
high culture. He gives dissertations and produces high literary quality, rather
than the short pronouncements of previous prophets. He finds a place for
rational reflection beside the visionary and inspired elements of his book. The
visions of Ezekiel may have their source in a mysticism that used them as channels
of communication which were not open to most prophets. While some believed their stay in
In Ezekiel 18, he starts by
opposing to the contention that evil works on throughout the generations the
counter-thesis that each individual life belongs to Yahweh. Each person relates
directly to Yahweh. If one turns to righteousness, all previous evil no longer
incriminates. The way of Yahweh and to life always stands open. He understands
righteousness and evil as one’s basic decision for or against Yahweh. He values
the keeping of the commandments as the sign of a commitment to Yahweh. Yahweh
just does not judge as people do, and does not draw up a final balance as
people do, and then says that this is precisely the way to save people. Herein
lies the theological grandeur of the chapter. Enlightened understanding now
became aware of the load and the chains with which the individual was burdened
and which scorned any rational explanation. In view of the catastrophe of 587,
the question emerged as to what meaning and part of the fortunes of the
individual were to have in the whole complex of events now beginning. Note
14:1-20, where even if the three exemplary righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and
Job, lived in this land, it would only be they whom Yahweh would save. They
could not save even their sons and daughters in virtue of their own
righteousness. Note the contrast with the story in Genesis 18 and the petition
of Abraham to save
Several passages of continuing significance.
One emphasis is on the glory of the Lord.
Ezekiel
18 Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the
house and stopped above the cherubim.
Ezekiel
23 And the glory of the Lord ascended from the middle of the
city, and stopped on the mountain east of the city.
A second emphasis is the promise of new life.
Ezekiel 11:17-21 (NRSV)
17 Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the
peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered,
and I will give you the
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NRSV)
The
The hand
of the Lord came upon me, and he
brought me out by the spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He
led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were
very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I
answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O
dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
5 Thus says the Lord God
to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I
will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I
am the Lord.”
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as
I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came
together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on
them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no
breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath,
prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10
I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they
lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the
whole house of
Ezekiel has
a strong emphasis upon
Ezekiel 18 (NRSV)
Individual Retribution
18 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 What do you mean by repeating
this proverb concerning the
5 If a man is righteous and does what is lawful
and right— 6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his
eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife
or approach a woman during her menstrual period, 7 does not oppress
anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his
bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 8 does not
take advance or accrued interest, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes
true justice between contending parties, 9 follows my statutes, and
is careful to observe my ordinances, acting faithfully—such a one is righteous;
he shall surely live, says the Lord God.
10 If he has a son who is violent, a shedder of
blood, 11 who does any of these things (though his father does none
of them), who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, 12 oppresses
the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his
eyes to the idols, commits abomination, 13 takes advance or accrued
interest; shall he then live? He shall not. He has done all these abominable
things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
14 But if this man has a son who sees all the sins
that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise, 15 who
does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house
of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, 16 does not wrong
anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry
and covers the naked with a garment, 17 withholds his hand from
iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and
follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall
surely live. 18 As for his father, because he practiced extortion,
robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, he dies for his
iniquity.
19 Yet you say, “Why should not the son suffer for
the iniquity of the father?” When the son has done what is lawful and right,
and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. 20 The
person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a
parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of
the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his
own.
21 But if the wicked turn away from all their sins
that they have committed and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and
right, they shall surely live; they shall not die. 22 None of the
transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them; for the
righteousness that they have done they shall live. 23 Have I any
pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and
live? 24 But when the righteous turn away from their righteousness
and commit iniquity and do the same abominable things that the wicked do, shall
they live? None of the righteous deeds that they have done shall be remembered;
for the treachery of which they are guilty and the sin they have committed,
they shall die.
25 Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.”
Hear now, O house of
30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of
Ezekiel
provides an important allegorical history of
Ezekiel 16 (NRSV)
God’s Faithless Bride
16 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, make known to
6 I passed by you, and saw
you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you,
“Live! 7 and grow up like a plant of the field.” You grew up and
became tall and arrived at full womanhood;your
breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
8 I passed by you again
and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak
over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into
a covenant with you, says the Lord God,
and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off
the blood from you, and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you with
embroidered cloth and with sandals of fine leather; I bound you in fine linen
and covered you with rich fabric. 11 I adorned you with ornaments: I
put bracelets on your arms, a chain on your neck, 12 a ring on your
nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. 13 You
were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, rich
fabric, and embroidered cloth. You had choice flour and honey and oil for food.
You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. 14 Your fame
spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because
of my splendor that I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.
15 But you trusted in your
beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your whorings on any passer-by. 16 You took some of
your garments, and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the
whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be. 17 You also
took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and
made for yourself male images, and with them played the whore; 18 and
you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense
before them. 19 Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with choice
flour and oil and honey—you set it before them as a pleasing odor; and so it
was, says the Lord God. 20 You
took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you
sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your whorings
were not enough! 21 You slaughtered my children and delivered them
up as an offering to them. 22 And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when
you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.
23 After all your
wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord God),
24 you built yourself a platform and made yourself a lofty place in
every square; 25 at the head of every street you built your lofty
place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to every passer-by, and
multiplying your whoring. 26 You played the whore with the Egyptians,
your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. 27
Therefore I stretched out my hand against you, reduced your rations, and
gave you up to the will of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who
were ashamed of your lewd behavior. 28 You played the whore with the
Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with them, and
still you were not satisfied. 29 You multiplied your whoring with
30 How sick is your heart,
says the Lord God, that you did
all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore; 31 building your
platform at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every
square! Yet you were not like a whore, because you scorned payment. 32 Adulterous
wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Gifts are
given to all whores; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them
to come to you from all around for your whorings. 34
So you were different from other women in your whorings:
no one solicited you to play the whore; and you gave payment, while no payment
was given to you; you were different.
35 Therefore, O whore, hear
the word of the Lord: 36 Thus
says the Lord God, Because your
lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whoring with your
lovers, and because of all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of
your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, I will gather all
your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you
hated; I will gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your
nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness. 38 I
will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and
bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy. 39 I will deliver you
into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your
lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful
objects and leave you naked and bare. 40 They shall bring up a mob
against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. 41
They shall burn your houses and execute judgments on you in the sight of
many women; I will stop you from playing the whore, and you shall also make no more
payments. 42 So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall
turn away from you; I will be calm, and will be angry no longer. 43 Because
you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all
these things; therefore, I have returned your deeds upon your head, says the
Lord God.
Have you not committed
lewdness beyond all your abominations? 44 See, everyone who uses
proverbs will use this proverb about you, “Like mother, like daughter.” 45
You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her
children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands
and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46
Your elder sister is
53 I will restore their
fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria
and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs, 54
in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you
have done, becoming a consolation to them. 55 As for your sisters,
An Everlasting Covenant
59 Yes, thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have
done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant; 60 yet
I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will
establish with you an everlasting covenant. 61 Then you will
remember your ways, and be ashamed when I take your sisters, both your elder
and your younger, and give them to you as daughters, but not on account of mycovenant with you. 62 I will establish my
covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 in order that you may remember and be
confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I
forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God.
Ezekiel 20 (NRSV)
Israel’s Continuing Rebellion
20
In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, certain
elders of
Then I thought I would pour out my
wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the
Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end of them. 14 But I acted for the sake of my name, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. 15 Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands, 16 because they rejected my ordinances and did not observe my statutes, and profaned my sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols. 17 Nevertheless my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make an end of them in the wilderness.
18 I said to their children in the wilderness, Do not follow the statutes of your parents, nor observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols. 19 I the Lord am your God; follow my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances, 20 and hallow my sabbaths that they may be a sign between me and you, so that you may know that I the Lord am your God. 21 But the children rebelled against me; they did not follow my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live; they profaned my sabbaths.
Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. 22 But I withheld my hand, and acted for the sake of my name, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. 23 Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, 24 because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their ancestors’ idols. 25 Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. 26 I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the Lord.
27 Therefore, mortal,
speak to the house of
32 What is in your mind shall never happen—the thought, “Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone.”
God Will Restore Israel
33 As I live, says the
Lord God, surely with a mighty
hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over
you. 34 I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of
the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm, and with wrath poured out; 35 and I will bring you into the
wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face
to face. 36 As I entered into judgment with your ancestors in the
wilderness of the
39 As for you, O house of
40 For on my holy
mountain, the mountain height of Israel, says the Lord God, there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve
me in the land; there I will accept them, and there I will require your
contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your sacred things. 41
As a pleasing odor I will accept you, when I bring you out from the
peoples, and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered; and
I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations. 42 You
shall know that I am the Lord,
when I bring you into the
A Prophecy against the Negeb
45 The word of the Lord came to me: 46 Mortal, set your face toward the south, preach against the south, and prophesy against the forest land in the Negeb; 47 say to the forest of the Negeb, Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, I will kindle a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree in you and every dry tree; the blazing flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from south to north shall be scorched by it. 48 All flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it; it shall not be quenched. 49 Then I said, “Ah Lord God! they are saying of me, ‘Is he not a maker of allegories?’ ”
Ezekiel 23 (NRSV)
Oholah and Oholibah
23 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, there were two women,
the daughters of one mother; 3 they played the whore in
5 Oholah played the whore while
she was mine; she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors 6 clothed
in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome young men, mounted
horsemen. 7 She bestowed her favors upon them, the choicest men of
11 Her sister Oholibah
saw this, yet she was more corrupt than she in her lusting and in her whorings, which were worse than those of her sister. 12
She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors
clothed in full armor, mounted horsemen, all of them handsome young men. 13
And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. 14 But
she carried her whorings further; she saw male
figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans
portrayed in vermilion, 15 with belts around their waists, with
flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers—a picture of
Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. 16 When
she saw them she lusted after them, and sent messengers to them in
22 Therefore, O Oholibah,
thus says the Lord God: I will
rouse against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring
them against you from every side: 23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, handsome
young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and warriors, all of
them riding on horses. 24 They shall come against you from the north
with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples; they shall set themselves
against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet, and I will commit
the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their ordinances. 25
I will direct my indignation against you, in order that they may deal
with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your
survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your
daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. 26 They
shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your fine jewels. 27 So
I will put an end to your lewdness and your whoring brought from the
You shall drink your sister’s cup,
deep and wide;
you shall be scorned and derided,
it holds so much.
33 You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation
is the cup of your sister
34 you shall drink it and drain it out,
and gnaw its sherds,
and tear out your breasts;
for I have spoken, says the Lord God. 35 Therefore thus says
the Lord God: Because you have
forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of
your lewdness and whorings.
36 The Lord
said to me: Mortal, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds. 37
For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; with their
idols they have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for
food the children whom they had borne to me. 38 Moreover this they
have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my
sabbaths. 39 For when they had slaughtered
their children for their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to
profane it. This is what they did in my house.
40 They even sent for men to come from far away, to
whom a messenger was sent, and they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted
your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments; 41 you sat on a
stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense
and my oil. 42 The sound of a raucous multitude was around her, with
many of the rabble brought in drunken from the wilderness; and they put bracelets
on the arms of the women, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.
43 Then I said, Ah, she is worn out with
adulteries, but they carry on their sexual acts with her. 44 For
they have gone in to her, as one goes in to a whore. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, wanton
women. 45 But righteous judges shall declare them guilty of adultery
and of bloodshed; because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.
46 For thus says the Lord God: Bring up an assembly against them, and make them an object
of terror and of plunder. 47 The assembly shall stone them and with
their swords they shall cut them down; they shall kill their sons and their
daughters, and burn up their houses. 48 Thus will I put an end to
lewdness in the land, so that all women may take warning and not commit
lewdness as you have done. 49 They shall repay you for your
lewdness, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry; and you
shall know that I am the Lord God.
He offers
prophecies against
Ezekiel 26-28:19 (NRSV)
Proclamation against
26 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the
month, the word of the Lord came
to me: 2 Mortal, because
“Aha, broken is the gateway of the peoples;
it has swung open to me;
I shall be replenished,
now that it is wasted,”
3 therefore, thus says the Lord God:
See, I am against you, O Tyre!
I will hurl many nations against you,
as the sea hurls its waves.
4 They shall destroy the walls of
and break down its towers.
I will scrape its soil from it
and make it a bare rock.
5 It shall become, in the midst of the sea,
a place for spreading nets.
I have spoken, says the Lord God.
It shall become plunder for the nations,
6 and its
daughter-towns in the country
shall be killed by the sword.
Then they shall know that I am the Lord.
7 For thus says the Lord God: I will bring against
8 Your daughter-towns in the country
he shall put to the sword.
He shall set up a siege wall against you,
cast up a ramp against you,
and raise a roof of shields against you.
9 He shall direct the shock of his battering rams
against your walls
and break down your towers with his axes.
10 His horses shall be so many
that their dust shall cover you.
At the noise of cavalry, wheels, and chariots
your very walls shall shake,
when he enters your gates
like those entering a breached city.
11 With the hoofs of his horses
he shall trample all your streets.
He shall put your people to the sword,
and your strong pillars shall fall to the
ground.
12 They will plunder your riches
and loot your merchandise;
they shall break down your walls
and destroy your fine houses.
Your stones and timber and soil
they shall cast into the water.
13 I will silence the music of your songs;
the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more.
14 I will make you a bare rock;
you shall be a place for spreading nets.
You shall never again be rebuilt,
for I the Lord
have spoken,
says the Lord God.
15 Thus says the Lord God to
How you have vanished from the seas,
O city renowned,
once mighty on the sea,
you and your inhabitants,
who imposed your terror
on all the mainland!
18 Now the coastlands tremble
on the day of your fall;
the coastlands by the sea
are dismayed at your passing.
19 For thus says the Lord God: When I make you a city laid waste, like cities that are
not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you, and the great waters cover
you, 20 then I will thrust you down with those who descend into the
Pit, to the people of long ago, and I will make you live in the world below,
among primeval ruins, with those who go down to the Pit, so that you will not
be inhabited or have a place in the land of the living. 21 I will
bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more; though sought for, you
will never be found again, says the Lord God.
Lamentation over
27 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Now you, mortal, raise a
lamentation over Tyre, 3 and say to Tyre, which sits at the entrance to the sea, merchant of
the peoples on many coastlands, Thus says the Lord God:
O Tyre, you have said,
“I am perfect in beauty.”
4 Your borders are in the heart of the seas;
your builders made perfect your beauty.
5 They made all your planks
of fir trees from Senir;
they took a cedar from
to make a mast for you.
6 From oaks of
they made your oars;
they made your deck of pines
from the coasts of
inlaid with ivory.
7 Of fine embroidered linen from
was your sail,
serving as your ensign;
blue and purple from the coasts of Elishah
was your awning.
8 The inhabitants of
were your rowers;
skilled men of Zemer
were within you,
they were your pilots.
9 The elders of Gebal
and its artisans were within you,
caulking your seams;
all the ships of the sea with their mariners
were within you,
to barter for your wares.
10 Paras and Lud
and Put
were in your army,
your mighty warriors;
they hung shield and helmet in you;
they gave you splendor.
11 Men of Arvad and Helech
were on your walls all around;
men of Gamad were at
your towers.
They hung their quivers all around your walls;
they made perfect your beauty.
12 Tarshish did business with you
out of the abundance of your great wealth; silver, iron, tin, and lead they
exchanged for your wares. 13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded with
you; they exchanged human beings and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. 14
Beth-togarmah exchanged for your wares horses,
war horses, and mules. 15 The Rhodians
traded with you; many coastlands were your own special markets; they brought
you in payment ivory tusks and ebony. 16
So you were filled and heavily laden
in the heart of the seas.
26 Your rowers have brought you
into the high seas.
The east wind has wrecked you
in the heart of the seas.
27 Your riches, your wares, your merchandise,
your mariners and your pilots,
your caulkers, your dealers in merchandise,
and all your warriors within you,
with all the company
that is with you,
sink into the heart of the seas
on the day of your ruin.
28 At the sound of the cry of your pilots
the countryside shakes,
29 and down from their ships
come all that handle the oar.
The mariners and all the pilots of the sea
stand on the shore
30 and wail aloud over you,
and cry bitterly.
They throw dust on their heads
and wallow in ashes;
31 they make themselves bald for you,
and put on sackcloth,
and they weep over you in bitterness of soul,
with bitter mourning.
32 In their wailing they raise a lamentation for
you,
and lament over you:
“Who was ever destroyed like
in the midst of the sea?
33 When your wares came from the seas,
you satisfied many peoples;
with your abundant wealth and merchandise
you enriched the kings of the earth.
34 Now you are wrecked by the seas,
in the depths of the waters;
your merchandise and all your crew
have sunk with you.
35 All the inhabitants of the coastlands
are appalled at you;
and their kings are horribly afraid,
their faces are convulsed.
36 The merchants among the peoples hiss at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
and shall be no more forever.”
Proclamation against the King of
28 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, say to the prince of
Because your heart is proud
and you have said, “I am a god;
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,”
yet you are but a mortal, and no god,
though you compare your mind
with the mind of a god.
3 You are indeed wiser than Daniel;
no secret is hidden from you;
4 by your wisdom and your understanding
you have amassed wealth for yourself,
and have gathered gold and silver
into your treasuries.
5 By your great wisdom in trade
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart has become proud in your wealth.
6 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
Because you compare your mind
with the mind of a god,
7 therefore, I will bring strangers against you,
the most terrible of the nations;
they shall draw their swords against the beauty
of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
8 They shall thrust you down to the Pit,
and you shall die a violent death
in the heart of the seas.
9 Will you still say, “I am a god,”
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a mortal, and no god,
in the hands of those who wound you?
10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, says the Lord God.
Lamentation over the King of
11 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me: 12 Mortal, raise a lamentation
over the king of
You were the signet of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in
every precious stone was your covering,
carnelian, chrysolite,
and moonstone,
beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, turquoise, and emerald;
and worked in gold were your settings
and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
they were prepared.
14 With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed
you;
you were on the holy
you walked among the stones of fire.
15 You were blameless in your ways
from the day that you were created,
until iniquity was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the
and the guardian cherub drove you out
from among the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your
splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I exposed you before kings,
to feast their eyes on you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities,
in the unrighteousness of your trade,
you profaned your sanctuaries.
So I brought out fire from within you;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
in the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who know you among the peoples
are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
and shall be no more forever.
Ezekiel had a vision of his role as prophet.
Ezekiel 33:1-11 (NRSV)
Ezekiel Israel’s Sentry
33 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 O Mortal, speak to your people
and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land
take one of their number as their sentinel; 3 and if the sentinel
sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people;
4 then if any who hear the sound of the trumpet do not take warning,
and the sword comes and takes them away, their blood shall be upon their own
heads. 5 They heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take
warning; their blood shall be upon themselves. But if they had taken warning,
they would have saved their lives. 6 But if the sentinel sees the
sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned,
and the sword comes and takes any of them, they are taken away in their
iniquity, but their blood I will require at the sentinel’s hand.
7 So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the
house of
God’s Justice and Mercy
10 Now you, mortal, say to the house of
Ezekiel
criticizes the leaders of
Ezekiel 34 (NRSV)
Israel’s False Shepherds
34 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, prophesy against the
shepherds of
7 Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As I live, says the
Lord God, because my sheep have
become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since
there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep,
but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; 9 therefore,
you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
10 Thus says the Lord God,
I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand, and put a
stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves.
I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for
them.
God, the True Shepherd
11 For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them
out. 12 As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their
scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the
places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.
13 I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the
countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the
mountains of
17 As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and
sheep, between rams and goats: 18 Is it not enough for you to feed
on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your
pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? 19
And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink
what you have fouled with your feet?
20 Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge
between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you pushed with
flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until
you scattered them far and wide, 22 I will save my flock, and they
shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
23 I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant
David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24
And I, the Lord, will be
their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.
25 I will make with them a covenant of peace and
banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep
in the woods securely. 26 I will make them and the region around my
hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall
be showers of blessing. 27 The trees of the field shall yield their
fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their
soil; and they shall know that I am the Lord,
when I break the bars of their yoke, and save them from the hands of those who
enslaved them. 28 They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor
shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no
one shall make them afraid. 29 I will provide for them a splendid
vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and
no longer suffer the insults of the nations. 30 They shall know that
I, the Lord their God, am with
them, and that they, the house of
II Isaiah preached from 550-538 and is found in Isaiah 40-55. He probably spoke in the worshipping community, and may have edited and revised his own preaching. There is a great unity to the whole work theologically, but individual units can be identified which are best understood as being spoken to an audience.
The prophet
uses the election traditions of exodus, David, and
He refers
to the new saving event of the coming of the Lord as imminent, a theophany for the whole world. The new turn in world
history is through Cyrus. Just as God in the past used
He also prophesied a new servant. The servant
songs suggest how he was treated. The
servant songs are themselves just the opposite to Cyrus. The function of this
servant of Yahweh must be either that of king or prophet, and the most likely
possibility is that of prophet. The theme of the songs is that of proclamation
and suffering rather than ruling. Since the prophet applies to
Some passages from II Isaiah are prior to Isaiah 40.
Isaiah 13:17-22 (NRSV)
17 See, I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who have no regard for silver
and do not delight in gold.
18 Their bows will slaughter the young men;
they will have no mercy on the fruit of the
womb;
their eyes will not pity children.
19 And
the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans,
will be like
when God overthrew them.
20 It will never be inhabited
or lived in for all generations;
Arabs will not pitch their tents there,
shepherds will not make their flocks lie down
there.
21 But wild animals will lie down there,
and its houses will be full of howling
creatures;
there ostriches will live,
and there goat-demons will dance.
22 Hyenas will cry in its towers,
and jackals in the pleasant palaces;
its time is close at hand,
and its days will not be prolonged.
Isaiah 21:1-10 (NRSV)
The
oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea.
As whirlwinds in the Negeb
sweep on,
it comes from the desert,
from a terrible land.
2 A stern vision is told to me;
the betrayer betrays,
and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, O Elam,
lay siege, O Media;
all the sighing she has caused
I bring to an end.
3 Therefore my loins are filled with anguish;
pangs have seized me,
like the pangs of a woman in labor;
I am bowed down so that I cannot hear,
I am dismayed so that I cannot see.
4 My mind reels, horror has appalled me;
the twilight I longed for
has been turned for me into trembling.
5 They prepare the table,
they spread the rugs,
they eat, they drink.
Rise up, commanders,
oil the shield!
6 For thus the Lord said to me:
“Go, post a lookout,
let him announce what he sees.
7 When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs,
riders on donkeys, riders on camels,
let him listen diligently,
very diligently.”
8 Then the watcher called out:
“Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,
continually by day,
and at my post I am stationed
throughout the night.
9 Look, there they come, riders,
horsemen in pairs!”
Then he responded,
“Fallen, fallen is
and all the images of her gods
lie shattered on the ground.”
10 O my threshed and winnowed one,
what I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel, I announce to you.
The prophet wanted to offer comfort to a people devastated by exile.
Isaiah 40 (NRSV)
God’s People Are Comforted
(Cp Lk 3.4—6)
40 Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.
9 Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the
cities of
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the spirit of the Lord,
or as his counselor has instructed him?
14 Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
and who taught him the path of justice?
Who taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
15 Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as dust on the scales;
see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
16
nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as nothing before him;
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol? —A workman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.
20 As a gift one chooses mulberry wood
—wood that will not rot—
then seeks out a skilled artisan
to set up an image that will not topple.
21 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
23 who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
The prophet has several references to the servant of the Lord.
Isaiah 41:8-20 (NRSV)
8 But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
9 you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
10 do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
11 Yes, all who are incensed against you
shall be ashamed and disgraced;
those who strive against you
shall be as nothing and shall perish.
12 You shall seek those who contend with you,
but you shall not find them;
those who war against you
shall be as nothing at all.
13 For I, the Lord your God,
hold your right hand;
it is I who say to you, “Do not fear,
I will help you.”
14 Do not fear, you worm Jacob,
you insect Israel!
I will help you, says the Lord;
your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15 Now, I will make of you a threshing sledge,
sharp, new, and having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,
and you shall make the hills like chaff.
16 You shall winnow them and the wind shall carry them away,
and the tempest shall scatter them.
Then you shall rejoice in the Lord;
in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.
17 When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them,
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;
I will set in the desert the cypress,
the plane and the pine together,
20 so that all may see and know,
all may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Isaiah 42:1-9 (NRSV)
The Servant, a Light to the Nations
42 Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
5 Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the Lord, that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to idols.
9 See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
I tell you of them.
Isaiah 49:1-7 (NRSV)
The Servant’s Mission
49 Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.”
5 And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
6 he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
7 Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
Isaiah 50:4-11 (NRSV)
The Servant’s Humiliation and Vindication
4 The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I did not turn backward.
6 I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.
7 The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
8 he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
9 It is the Lord God who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the voice of his servant,
who walks in darkness
and has no light,
yet trusts in the name of the Lord
and relies upon his God?
11 But all of you are kindlers of fire,
lighters of firebrands.
Walk in the flame of your fire,
and among the brands that you have kindled!
This is what you shall have from my hand:
you shall lie down in torment.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (NRSV)
The Suffering Servant
13 See, my servant shall prosper;
he shall be exalted and lifted up,
and shall be very high.
14 Just as there were many who were astonished at him
—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of mortals—
15 so he shall startle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which had not been told them they shall see,
and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.
53 Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
The prophet preached of the miracles
to accompany of the new exodus.
Isaiah 43:6-25 (NRSV)
6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth—
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
8 Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes,
who are deaf, yet have ears!
9 Let all the nations gather together,
and let the peoples assemble.
Who among them declared this,
and foretold to us the former things?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,
and let them hear and say, “It is true.”
10 You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.
11 I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.
12 I declared and saved and proclaimed,
when there was no strange god among you;
and you are my witnesses, says the Lord.
13 I am God, and also henceforth I am He;
there is no one who can deliver from my hand;
I work and who can hinder it?
14 Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
For your sake I will send to Babylon
and break down all the bars,
and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation.
15 I am the Lord, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King.
16 Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
17 who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18 Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
22 Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob;
but you have been weary of me, O Israel!
23 You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings,
or honored me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with offerings,
or wearied you with frankincense.
24 You have not bought me sweet cane with money,
or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your sins;
you have wearied me with your iniquities.
25 I, I am He
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
The prophet predicts the fall of
Isaiah 46-47 (NRSV)
46 Bel bows down, Nebo stoops,
their idols are on beasts and cattle;
these things you carry are loaded
as burdens on weary animals.
2 They stoop, they bow down together;
they cannot save the burden,
but themselves go into captivity.
3 Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from your birth,
carried from the womb;
4 even to your old age I am he,
even when you turn gray I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
I will carry and will save.
5 To whom will you liken me and make me equal,
and compare me, as though we were alike?
6 Those who lavish gold from the purse,
and weigh out silver in the scales—
they hire a goldsmith, who makes it into a god;
then they fall down and worship!
7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,
they set it in its place, and it stands there;
it cannot move from its place.
If one cries out to it, it does not answer
or save anyone from trouble.
8 Remember this and consider,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9 remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My purpose shall stand,
and I will fulfill my intention,”
11 calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man for my purpose from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have planned, and I will do it.
12 Listen to me, you stubborn of heart,
you who are far from deliverance:
13 I bring near my deliverance, it is not far off,
and my salvation will not tarry;
I will put salvation in Zion,
for Israel my glory.
The Humiliation of Babylon
47 Come down and sit in the dust,
virgin daughter Babylon!
Sit on the ground without a throne,
daughter Chaldea!
For you shall no more be called
tender and delicate.
2 Take the millstones and grind meal,
remove your veil,
strip off your robe, uncover your legs,
pass through the rivers.
3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
and your shame shall be seen.
I will take vengeance,
and I will spare no one.
4 Our Redeemer—the Lord of hosts is his name—
is the Holy One of Israel.
5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
daughter Chaldea!
For you shall no more be called
the mistress of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my people,
I profaned my heritage;
I gave them into your hand,
you showed them no mercy;
on the aged you made your yoke
exceedingly heavy.
7 You said, “I shall be mistress forever,”
so that you did not lay these things to heart
or remember their end.
8 Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures,
who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow
or know the loss of children”—
9 both these things shall come upon you
in a moment, in one day:
the loss of children and widowhood
shall come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
and the great power of your enchantments.
10 You felt secure in your wickedness;
you said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and your knowledge
led you astray,
and you said in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me.”
11 But evil shall come upon you,
which you cannot charm away;
disaster shall fall upon you,
which you will not be able to ward off;
and ruin shall come on you suddenly,
of which you know nothing.
12 Stand fast in your enchantments
and your many sorceries,
with which you have labored from your youth;
perhaps you may be able to succeed,
perhaps you may inspire terror.
13 You are wearied with your many consultations;
let those who study the heavens
stand up and save you,
those who gaze at the stars,
and at each new moon predict
what shall befall you.
14 See, they are like stubble,
the fire consumes them;
they cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame.
No coal for warming oneself is this,
no fire to sit before!
15 Such to you are those with whom you have labored,
who have trafficked with you from your youth;
they all wander about in their own paths;
there is no one to save you.
The prophet is a strong supporter of
Cyrus coming from the east.
Isaiah 45:1-7 (NRSV)
Cyrus, God’s Instrument
45 Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped
to subdue nations before him
and strip kings of their robes,
to open doors before him—
and the gates shall not be closed:
2 I will go before you
and level the mountains,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I surname you, though you do not know me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
besides me there is no god.
I arm you, though you do not know me,
6 so that they may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is no one besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things.
Isaiah 48:12-15 (NRSV)
12 Listen to me, O Jacob,
and
I am He; I am the first,
and I am the last.
13 My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them,
they stand at attention.
14 Assemble, all of you, and hear!
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him;
he shall
perform his purpose on
and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken and called him,
I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.
The prophet promises the eventual
return of the Jewish people to their home.
Isaiah 49:8-13 (NRSV)
Zion’s Children to Be Brought Home
8 Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
9 saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways,
on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.
11 And I will turn all my mountains into a road,
and my highways shall be raised up.
12 Lo, these shall come from far away,
and lo, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the
13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
Isaiah 52:7-10 (NRSV)
7 How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
8 Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see
the return of the Lord to Zion.
9 Break forth together into singing,
you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.
Isaiah 55:1-13 (NRSV)
An Invitation to Abundant Life
55 Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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.
Several editions of the canonical prophets have what many scholars consider as exilic updating of their prophecies.
In Amos, we
find several references to the restoration of
Amos 1:11-12 (NRSV)
11 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because he pursued his brother with the sword
and cast off all pity;
he maintained his anger perpetually,
and kept his wrath forever.
12 So I will send a fire on Teman,
and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah.
Amos 2:4-5 (NRSV)
4 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because they have rejected the law of the Lord,
and have not kept his statutes,
but they have been led astray by the same lies
after which their ancestors walked.
5 So I will send a fire on
and it shall devour the strongholds of
Amos
13 For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates
the wind,
reveals his thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the Lord,
the God of hosts, is his name!
Amos 9:11-15 (NRSV)
11 On that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen,
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old;
12 in order that they may possess the remnant of
and all the nations who are called by my name,
says the Lord
who does this.
13 The time is surely coming, says the Lord,
when the one who plows shall overtake the one
who reaps,
and the treader of
grapes the one who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and
inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them upon their land,
and they shall never again be plucked up
out of the land that I have given them,
says the Lord your God.
In Micah, we find references to the scattering that exile will bring, and the return of the exiles.
Micah 4:6-10 (NRSV)
6 In that day, says the Lord,
I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away,
and those whom I have afflicted.
7 The lame I will make the remnant,
and those who were cast off, a strong nation;
and the Lord
will reign over them in
now and forevermore.
8 And you, O tower of the flock,
hill of daughter
to you it shall come,
the former dominion shall come,
the sovereignty of daughter
9 Now why do you cry aloud?
Is there no king in you?
Has your counselor perished,
that pangs have seized you like a woman in
labor?
10 Writhe and groan, O daughter
like a woman in labor;
for now you shall go forth from the city
and camp in the open country;
you shall go to
There you shall be rescued,
there the Lord
will redeem you
from the hands of your enemies.
Micah 7:8-20 (NRSV)
8 Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord
will be a light to me.
9 I must bear the indignation of the Lord,
because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall see his vindication.
10 Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
“Where is the Lord
your God?”
My eyes will see her downfall;
now she will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.
A Prophecy of Restoration
11 A day for the building of your walls!
In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
12 In that day they will come to you
from
and from
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their doings.
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you,
which lives alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in
as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the
show us marvelous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed
of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;
17 they shall lick dust like a snake,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their
fortresses;
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall stand in fear of you.
God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over the transgression
of the remnant of your possession?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and unswerving loyalty to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
from the days of old.
Isaiah had a rather extensive updating of his prophesies in the exile. Some seem focused upon the event of 587 BC.
Isaiah 1:9 (NRSV)
9 If the Lord
of hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we would have been like
and become like
Isaiah 1:27-30 (NRSV)
27
and those in her who repent, by righteousness.
28 But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed
together,
and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
29 For you shall be ashamed of the oaks
in which you delighted;
and you shall blush for the gardens
that you have chosen.
30 For you shall be like an oak
whose leaf withers,
and like a garden without water.
Isaiah 2:18-19 (NRSV)
18 The idols shall utterly pass away.
19 Enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from the terror of the Lord,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
Isaiah 5:14-17 (NRSV)
14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
and opened its mouth beyond measure;
the nobility of
her throng and all who exult in her.
15 People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,
and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.
16 But the Lord
of hosts is exalted by justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy by
righteousness.
17 Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,
fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.
Isaiah 6:12-13 (NRSV)
12 until the Lord
sends everyone far away,
and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the
land.
13 Even if a tenth part remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an
oak
whose stump remains standing
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
Isaiah 13:6-8 (NRSV)
6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty!
7 Therefore all hands will be feeble,
and every human heart will melt,
8 and they will be
dismayed.
Pangs and agony will seize them;
they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at one another;
their faces will be aflame.
Isaiah
15 Whoever is found will be thrust through,
and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
Isaiah 22:4-11 (NRSV)
4 Therefore I said:
Look away from me,
let me weep bitter tears;
do not try to comfort me
for the destruction of my beloved people.
5 For the Lord God
of hosts has a day
of tumult and trampling and confusion
in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
and a cry for help to the mountains.
6
with chariots and cavalry,
and Kir uncovered the
shield.
7 Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the cavalry took their stand at the gates.
8 He has taken away the covering of
On that day you looked to the weapons of the
House of the
Isaiah 23:15-18 (NRSV)
15 From that day
16 Take a harp,
go about the city,
you forgotten prostitute!
Make sweet melody,
sing many songs,
that you may be remembered.
17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit
Isaiah 30:18 (NRSV)
God’s Promise to Zion
18 Therefore the Lord
waits to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord
is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 32:9-14 (NRSV)
Complacent Women Warned of Disaster
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my
voice;
you complacent daughters, listen to my speech.
10 In little more than a year
you will shudder, you complacent ones;
for the vintage will fail,
the fruit harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease,
shudder, you complacent ones;
strip, and make yourselves bare,
and put sackcloth on your loins.
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
for the fruitful vine,
13 for the soil of my people
growing up in thorns and briers;
yes, for all the joyous houses
in the jubilant city.
14 For the palace will be forsaken,
the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
will become dens forever,
the joy of wild asses,
a pasture for flocks;
Other editorial updates are from the exilic period.
Isaiah 2:20-22 (NRSV)
20 On that day people will throw away
to the moles and to the bats
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts in the crags,
from the terror of the Lord,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
22 Turn away from mortals,
who have only breath in their nostrils,
for of what account are they?
Isaiah 4:2-6 (NRSV)
2 On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious,
and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of
Isaiah 8:19-22 (NRSV)
19 Now if people say to you, “Consult the ghosts
and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter; should not a people consult
their gods, the dead on behalf of the living, 20 for teaching and
for instruction?” surely, those who speak like this will have no dawn! 21 They
will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry; when they are hungry,
they will be enraged and will cursetheir king and
their gods. They will turn their faces upward, 22 or they will look
to the earth, but will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish;
and they will be thrust into thick darkness.
Isaiah 10:1-4 (NRSV)
Ah, you
who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
2 to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,
and that you may make the orphans your prey!
3 What will you do on the day of punishment,
in the calamity that will come from far away?
To whom will you flee for help,
and where will you leave your wealth,
4 so as not to crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain?
For all this his anger has not turned away;
his hand is stretched out still.
Isaiah 10:10-12 (NRSV)
10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the
idols
whose images were greater than those of
11 shall I not do to
what I have done to
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on
Isaiah 18:7 (NRSV)
7 At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and
smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering,
whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.
Isaiah 21:11-15 (NRSV)
11 The oracle concerning Dumah.
One is calling to me from Seir,
“Sentinel, what of the night?
Sentinel, what of the night?”
12 The sentinel says:
“Morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
come back again.”
13 The oracle concerning the desert plain.
In the scrub of the desert plain you will lodge,
O caravans of Dedanites.
14 Bring water to the thirsty,
meet the fugitive with bread,
O inhabitants of the
15 For they have fled from the swords,
from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow,
and from the stress of battle.
Isaiah 31:6-7 (NRSV)
6 Turn back to him whom you have deeply betrayed,
O people of
One unique update is from Judah during the exile.
Isaiah 33:1-23 (NRSV)
Ah, you
destroyer,
who yourself have not been destroyed;
you treacherous one,
with whom no one has dealt treacherously!
When you have ceased to destroy,
you will be destroyed;
and when you have stopped dealing treacherously,
you will be dealt with treacherously.
2 O Lord,
be gracious to us; we wait for you.
Be our arm every morning,
our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;
before your majesty, nations scattered.
4 Spoil was gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
as locusts leap, they leaped upon it.
5 The Lord
is exalted, he dwells on high;
he filled Zion with justice and righteousness;
6 he will be the stability of your times,
abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.
7 Listen! the valiant cry in the streets;
the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways are deserted,
travelers have quit the road.
The treaty is broken,
its oaths are despised,
its obligation is disregarded.
9 The land mourns and languishes;
Lebanon is confounded and withers away;
Sharon is like a desert;
and Bashan and Carmel
shake off their leaves.
10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
“now I will lift myself up;
now I will be exalted.
11 You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble;
your breath is a fire that will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
like thorns cut down, that are burned in the
fire.”
13 Hear, you who are far away, what I have done;
and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who among us can live with the devouring fire?
Who among us can live with everlasting flames?”
15 Those who walk righteously and speak uprightly,
who despise the gain of oppression,
who wave away a bribe instead of accepting it,
who stop their ears from hearing of bloodshed
and shut their eyes from looking on evil,
16 they will live on the heights;
their refuge will be the fortresses of rocks;
their food will be supplied, their water assured.
The Land of the Majestic King
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will behold a land that stretches far away.
18 Your mind will muse on the terror:
“Where is the one who counted?
Where is the one who weighed the tribute?
Where is the one who counted the towers?”
19 No longer will you see the insolent people,
the people of an obscure speech that you cannot
comprehend,
stammering in a language that you cannot
understand.
20 Look on Zion, the city of our appointed
festivals!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a quiet habitation, an immovable tent,
whose stakes will never be pulled up,
and none of whose ropes will be broken.
21 But there the Lord
in majesty will be for us
a place of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go,
nor stately ship can pass.
22 For the Lord
is our judge, the Lord is our
ruler,
the Lord
is our king; he will save us.
23 Your rigging hangs loose;
it cannot hold the mast firm in its place,
or keep the sail spread out.
Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;
even the lame will fall to plundering.
Jeremiah had some updating during the exilic period.
Jeremiah 5:18-19 (NRSV)
18 But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not make a full end of
you. 19 And when your people say, “Why has the Lord our God done all these things to
us?” you shall say to them, “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in
your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
Jeremiah 9:11-15 (NRSV)
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
a lair of jackals;
and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation,
without inhabitant.
12 Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom
has the mouth of the Lord spoken,
so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a
wilderness, so that no one passes through? 13 And the Lord says: Because they have forsaken
my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in
accordance with it, 14 but have stubbornly followed their own hearts
and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors
taught them. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am feeding this people
with wormwood, and giving them poisonous water to drink.
We
also find an extensive prophecy against Babylon, possibly from 562-550 BC.
Jeremiah 50-51:14, 20-58 (NRSV)
Judgment on Babylon
50 The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by the prophet Jeremiah:
2 Declare among the nations and proclaim,
set up a banner and proclaim,
do not conceal it, say:
Babylon is taken,
Bel is put to shame,
Merodach is dismayed.
Her images are put to shame,
her idols are dismayed.
3 For out of the north a nation has come up against her; it shall make her land a desolation, and no one shall live in it; both human beings and animals shall flee away.
4 In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God. 5 They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, and they shall come and join themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold. 7 All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, “We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.”
8 Flee from Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be like male goats leading the flock. 9 For I am going to stir up and bring against Babylon a company of great nations from the land of the north; and they shall array themselves against her; from there she shall be taken. Their arrows are like the arrows of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed. 10 Chaldea shall be plundered; all who plunder her shall be sated, says the Lord.
11 Though you rejoice, though you exult,
O plunderers of my heritage,
though you frisk about like a heifer on the grass,
and neigh like stallions,
12 your mother shall be utterly shamed,
and she who bore you shall be disgraced.
Lo, she shall be the last of the nations,
a wilderness, dry land, and a desert.
13 Because of the wrath of the Lord she shall not be inhabited,
but shall be an utter desolation;
everyone who passes by Babylon shall be appalled
and hiss because of all her wounds.
14 Take up your positions around Babylon,
all you that bend the bow;
shoot at her, spare no arrows,
for she has sinned against the Lord.
15 Raise a shout against her from all sides,
“She has surrendered;
her bulwarks have fallen,
her walls are thrown down.”
For this is the vengeance of the Lord:
take vengeance on her,
do to her as she has done.
16 Cut off from Babylon the sower,
and the wielder of the sickle in time of harvest;
because of the destroying sword
all of them shall return to their own people,
and all of them shall flee to their own land.
17 Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured it, and now at the end King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has gnawed its bones. 18 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria. 19 I will restore Israel to its pasture, and it shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead its hunger shall be satisfied. 20 In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon the remnant that I have spared.
21 Go up to the land of Merathaim;
go up against her,
and attack the inhabitants of Pekod
and utterly destroy the last of them,
says the Lord;
do all that I have commanded you.
22 The noise of battle is in the land,
and great destruction!
23 How the hammer of the whole earth
is cut down and broken!
How
a horror among the nations!
24 You set a snare for yourself and you were caught, O Babylon,
but you did not know it;
you were discovered and seized,
because you challenged the Lord.
25 The Lord has opened his armory,
and brought out the weapons of his wrath,
for the Lord God of hosts has a task to do
in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come against her from every quarter;
open her granaries;
pile her up like heaps of grain, and destroy her utterly;
let nothing be left of her.
27 Kill all her bulls,
let them go down to the slaughter.
Alas for them, their day has come,
the time of their punishment!
28 Listen! Fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon are coming to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, vengeance for his temple.
29 Summon archers against Babylon, all who bend the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; just as she has done, do to her—for she has arrogantly defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. 30 Therefore her young men shall fall in her squares, and all her soldiers shall be destroyed on that day, says the Lord.
31 I am against you, O arrogant one,
says the Lord God of hosts;
for your day has come,
the time when I will punish you.
32 The arrogant one shall stumble and fall,
with no one to raise him up,
and I will kindle a fire in his cities,
and it will devour everything around him.
33 Thus says the Lord of hosts: The people of
35 A sword against the Chaldeans, says the Lord,
and against the inhabitants of
and against her officials and her sages!
36 A sword against the diviners,
so that they may become fools!
A sword against her warriors,
so that they may be destroyed!
37 A sword against her horses and against herchariots,
and against all the foreign troops in her midst,
so that they may become women!
A sword against all her treasures,
that they may be plundered!
38 A drought against her waters,
that they may be dried up!
For it is a land of images,
and they go mad over idols.
39 Therefore wild animals
shall live with hyenas in
41 Look, a people is coming from the north;
a mighty nation and many kings
are stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.
42 They wield bow and spear,
they are cruel and have no mercy.
The sound of them is like the roaring sea;
they ride upon horses,
set in array as a warrior for battle,
against you, O daughter Babylon!
43 The king of Babylon heard news of them,
and his hands fell helpless;
anguish seized him,
pain like that of a woman in labor.
44 Like a lion coming up
from the thickets of the
51 Thus says the Lord:
I am going to stir up a destructive wind
against
and against the inhabitants of Leb-qamai;
2 and I will send
winnowers to
and they shall winnow her.
They shall empty her land
when they come against her from every side
on the day of trouble.
3 Let not the archer bend his bow,
and let him not array himself in his coat of mail.
Do not spare her young men;
utterly destroy her entire army.
4 They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,
and wounded in her streets.
5
by their God, the Lord of hosts,
though their land is full of guilt
before the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from the midst of Babylon,
save your lives, each of you!
Do not perish because of her guilt,
for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance;
he is repaying her what is due.
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
making all the earth drunken;
the nations drank of her wine,
and so the nations went mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered;
wail for her!
Bring balm for her wound;
perhaps she may be healed.
9 We tried to heal Babylon,
but she could not be healed.
Forsake her, and let each of us go
to our own country;
for her judgment has reached up to heaven
and has been lifted up even to the skies.
10 The Lord has brought forth our vindication;
come, let us declare in Zion
the work of the Lord our God.
11 Sharpen the arrows!
Fill the quivers!
The Lord
has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose
concerning
12 Raise a standard
against the walls of
make the watch strong;
post sentinels;
prepare the ambushes;
for the Lord has both planned and done
what he spoke concerning the
inhabitants of
13 You who live by mighty waters,
rich in treasures,
your end has come,
the thread of your life is cut.
14 The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself:
Surely I will fill you with troops like a swarm of locusts,
and they shall raise a shout of victory over you.
Israel the Creator’s Instrument
20 You are my war club, my weapon of battle:
with you I smash nations;
with you I destroy kingdoms;
21 with you I smash the horse and its rider;
with you I smash the chariot and the charioteer;
22 with you I smash man and woman;
with you I smash the old man and the boy;
with you I smash the young man and the girl;
23 with you I smash shepherds and their flocks;
with you I smash farmers and their teams;
with you I smash governors and deputies.
The Doom of Babylon
24 I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the wrong that they have done in Zion, says the Lord.
25 I am against you, O destroying mountain,
says the Lord,
that destroys the whole earth;
I will stretch out my hand against you,
and roll you down from the crags,
and make you a burned-out mountain.
26 No stone shall be taken from you for a corner
and no stone for a foundation,
but you shall be a perpetual waste,
says the Lord.
27 Raise a standard in the land,
blow the trumpet among the nations;
prepare the nations for war against her,
summon against her the kingdoms,
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;
appoint a marshal against her,
bring up horses like bristling locusts.
28 Prepare the nations for war against her,
the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies,
and every land under their dominion.
29 The land trembles and writhes,
for the Lord’s purposes against Babylon stand,
to make the land of Babylon a desolation,
without inhabitant.
30 The warriors of Babylon have given up fighting,
they remain in their strongholds;
their strength has failed,
they have become women;
her buildings are set on fire,
her bars are broken.
31 One runner runs to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another,
to tell the king of Babylon
that his city is taken from end to end:
32 the fords have been seized,
the marshes have been burned with fire,
and the soldiers are in panic.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time when it is trodden;
yet a little while
and the time of her harvest will come.
34 “King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has devoured me,
he has crushed me;
he has made me an empty vessel,
he has swallowed me like a monster;
he has filled his belly with my delicacies,
he has spewed me out.
35 May my torn flesh be avenged on Babylon,”
the inhabitants of Zion shall say.
“May my blood be avenged on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem shall say.
36 Therefore thus says the Lord:
I am going to defend your cause
and take vengeance for you.
I will dry up her sea
and make her fountain dry;
37 and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins,
a den of jackals,
an object of horror and of hissing,
without inhabitant.
38 Like lions they shall roar together;
they shall growl like lions’ whelps.
39 When they are inflamed, I will set out their drink
and make them drunk, until they become merry
and then sleep a perpetual sleep
and never wake, says the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats.
41 How Sheshach is taken,
the pride of the whole earth seized!
How Babylon has become
an object of horror among the nations!
42 The sea has risen over Babylon;
she has been covered by its tumultuous waves.
43 Her cities have become an object of horror,
a land of drought and a desert,
a land in which no one lives,
and through which no mortal passes.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and make him disgorge what he has swallowed.
The nations shall no longer stream to him;
the wall of Babylon has fallen.
45 Come out of her, my people!
Save your lives, each of you,
from the fierce anger of the Lord!
46 Do not be fainthearted or fearful
at the rumors heard in the land—
one year one rumor comes,
the next year another,
rumors of violence in the land
and of ruler against ruler.
47 Assuredly, the days are coming
when I will punish the images of Babylon;
her whole land shall be put to shame,
and all her slain shall fall in her midst.
48 Then the heavens and the earth,
and all that is in them,
shall shout for joy over Babylon;
for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north,
says the Lord.
49 Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel,
as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.
50 You survivors of the sword,
go, do not linger!
Remember the Lord in a distant land,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind:
51 We are put to shame, for we have heard insults;
dishonor has covered our face,
for aliens have come
into the holy places of the Lord’s house.
52 Therefore the time is surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will punish her idols,
and through all her land
the wounded shall groan.
53 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
and though she should fortify her strong height,
from me destroyers would come upon her,
says the Lord.
54 Listen!—a cry from Babylon!
A great crashing from the land of the Chaldeans!
55 For the Lord is laying Babylon waste,
and stilling her loud clamor.
Their waves roar like mighty waters,
the sound of their clamor resounds;
56 for a destroyer has come against her,
against Babylon;
her warriors are taken,
their bows are broken;
for the Lord is a God of recompense,
he will repay in full.
57 I will make her officials and her sages drunk,
also her governors, her deputies, and her warriors;
they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake,
says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.
58 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The broad wall of Babylon
shall be leveled to the ground,
and her high gates
shall be burned with fire.
The peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,
and the nations weary themselves only for fire.
Jeremiah’s Command to Seraiah
59 The word that the
prophet Jeremiah commanded Seraiah son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, when he
went with King Zedekiah of
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Zephaniah has a brief exilic addition.
Zephaniah 3:18-20 (NRSV)
18 as on a day of
festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19 I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20 At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
The
prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and II Isaiah have a loose relationship to
priestly traditions. They travel far down the road of becoming quite
individual. Their preaching stands on a much broader basis than did that of
earlier prophets. The picture they pain has more colors. The prophetic “I”
becomes prominent. They are distinct personalities and detached from
surroundings and from tradition. They are free to in choice of expressions and
forms in which they clothe their message. They came to Yahweh with complaints
and reproaches. They have versatility as individuals. Their relationship with
the people has become intense. Their message pursue the people, suggesting a
debate at a much deeper level.
They dealt
with the question of the justice of God in the context of how Yahweh could
remain faithful to the covenant. The righteousness of Yahweh had become a
problem to the people of exile. Many people wondered whether it was possible
for the human side of the covenant to maintain the covenant Yahweh offered. The
history in Deuteronomy is a confession of the failure of
The
prophetic office had become the subject of theological reflection. The servant
songs give expression of this movement to some degree. Their office
increasingly invaded their personal and spiritual lives. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
II Isaiah all suffer. One might also note the role of Moses in Deuteronomy as
intercessor for the people. Moses even takes the wrath of God upon himself for
the sake of the people. This suggests that the ideas of II Isaiah about the
nature of the prophetic office were in circulation with the people of the
exile. However, what he says in Isaiah 53 suggests depth and comprehensiveness
of this prophetic suffering beyond previous writers. He also goes beyond the
past in suggesting the readiness to suffer and confidence of safety in God. The
text also suggests a realm beyond suffering where Yahweh will glorify the
servant before the world. The people also overcome their initial blindness and
acknowledge him. The significance of the servant extends beyond
II Isaiah has one similar text in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 51:15-19
15 It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the
heavens.
16 When he utters his voice there is a tumult of
waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the
earth.
He makes lightnings
for the rain,
and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.
17 Everyone is stupid and without knowledge;
goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols;
for their images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
18 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their punishment they shall
perish.
19 Not like these is the Lord, the portion of Jacob,
for he is the one who formed all things,
and
the Lord
of hosts is his name.
After Cyrus (550-530),
The period
of writing was quiet politically. The
The people
were enthusiastic about Cyrus, the Persian who conquered
Cyrus in
the first year of his reign issued a decree permitting the reconstruction of
the
Those who
returned set up a minimal altar and religious system. They rebuilt an altar
rather than use the one made by the people who stayed in
In 520 BC,
Haggai and Zechariah agitated for the resumption of work on the
We know
little about the condition of the Jewish community during the reign of Xerxes
(485-465). Esther tells the story of a persecution story that may well refer to
this period. Mordecai may well have been a high-placed Jewish official who
provided the means for the Jewish people to defend themselves from forces
within government led by Haman that wanted to
eliminate them. Such thoroughgoing slaughter was possible. Herodotus tells us of
massacres by the Persians against the Scythians and the Magi,
Fifty years
later, news of the discouraged Jews around
The
official activity of Ezra began in 428 BC. With the help of Nehemiah, Ezra
receives official authority from Artaxerxes and he
goes to
Ezra came
after Nehemiah. The activity of Nehemiah centered in political aspects of the
community. Nehemiah could not all that
The story
of Ezra and Nehemiah is one of thanksgiving for the gracious guidance God gave
them, as well as for the inspiration God gave Persian officials.
It was during the Persian or Post-exilic period that issues concerning the temple, law, and Davidic kingship became important again. For the Chronicler, the succession from David to Solomon had the religious purpose of making sure the temple would be built. The faith and obedience emphasis of the Law now centers on the holy people. This people become the foundation for the universal dominion of God. The narrow, restricted sphere within which the service of God was carried on corresponds too easily to a narrow and anxiety-ridden working out of this service.
All independent thought and action was excluded in favor of faithfulness to the Law in its minutest detail. There was no new goal of conduct beyond the path marked out so exactly, but only a more precise fashioning of life within the prescribed limits. Claims were put forward for a reward form God for obedience. We also find an anxiety-state, a compulsive self-inspection that did not attain to the maturity of unconditional faith and trust. The effects of this attitude showed themselves in a harsh separation of the pious from the godless, which in part was dictated by the anxiety of the faithful adherent of the Law at the thought of possible contamination from his opponent’s obliviousness of God. In part, the period was inspired by the self-satisfaction that checked its own piety and that of its enemies against quite external standards. The natural expression of this faith was an attitude of patient endurance that held fast to the truth of the prophetic hope.
The direct relationship with God becomes less important than obedience to the records of revelation. The fear the individual felt at this time was a rationally justified anxiety in the presence of the omnipresent, omniscient divine judge, who watches strictly over the fulfillment of the law, and promises reward only to impeccable obedience. In the religion of the Law, the orientation is toward the preservation of the individual in the presence of divine wrath. This community of Law presents the ideal of the holy congregation as the condition that people establish, with the help of the legal system. As such, holiness is no longer a directional indication for the historical task of the people. Nor is holiness an exhortation to be prepared for the consummation that God will bring into history. The laws clearly become particularist in intention. A community intent on holiness was bound to be anxiety-ridden about contamination by anything heathen. The nations became objects of judgment by God. This segregation led to a self-conscious concentration of all life on the Law. The result was to move toward a rigid set of imposed laws. It led to innumerable external rules and lacked a firm orientation toward the development of moral consciousness. The uncertainty of whether one had perfectly fulfilled the will of God was natural when the letter of the Law defined the sphere of ethical obligation.
"The
Words of Ahiqar," is an Aramaic writing of 500
BC.
Wisdom
provides security for those who follow it.
People of becoming conduct whose hearts are good are
like mighty cities which are situated upon mountains. There is not that which can bring them down.
All that
comes in contact with the righteous are on their side. A city of the wicked shall on a gusty day be
pulled apart, and in (?) its gates be brought low; for the spoil of the
righteous are they.
Bend not thy bow and shoot
not thine arrow at the righteous, lest God come to
help and turn it back upon thee.
Wisdom values humility.
If you would be exalted, my
child, humble yourself before thy God, who humbles an exalted person and exalts
a lowly person.
Wisdom values appropriate use of speech.
My son, chatter not overmuch
so that you speak out every word that comes to you mind, for people's eyes and
ears are everywhere trained upon your mouth.
Beware lest it be your undoing....For a word is a bird: once released no
person can recapture it. First count the
secrets of your mouth; then bring out your words by number. My son, hearken not
with your ears to a lying person. For a
person's charm is truthfulness; repulsiveness, the lies of the lips.
Wisdom offers guidance for the family.
Withhold not your son from the rod, else you will
not be able to save him from wickedness.
If I smite you, my child, you will not die, but if I
leave you to your own heart you will not live.
Whoever takes no pride in the names of father and
mother, may the sun no shine upon them; for they are wicked.
A blow for a bondman, a rebuke for a bondwoman, and
for all your slaves discipline.
Wisdom
values work and appropriate riches.
If you be hungry, my child, take every trouble and
do every labor, then will you eat and be satisfied and give to your children.
Multiply not riches and make not great your heart.
Wisdom
offers guidance in the presence of the king.
A king is like the Merciful; his voice is loud: who
is there that can stand before him, except one with who is God? Beautiful is a king to behold, and noble is
his majesty to them that walk on the earth as free people.
Look before you: a hard look on the face of a king
means "Delay not!" His wrath
is swift as lightening: do not take heed unto yourself that he display it not
against your utterances and you perish before your time. The wrath of the king, if you be commanded,
is a burning fire. obey it at once. Let it not be kindled against you...
Chronicles
and Ezra and Nehemiah present a different perspective on the history of
The title
Chronicles in Hebrew refers to a chronicle of events. In the Greek and Latin
versions, it refers to things left over or omitted, as if from the histories of
Samuel and Kings. The Chronicler built up a copious body of edifying narrative
material from a late date. It represents an exercise in midrash
upon the history of
Contrary to
the Deuteronmist, the Chronicler thought of judgment
occurring within each generation. The appeal and program of the Deuteronomist failed to save the nation, as one can see in
the results of the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. Even in exile and return, the
author is guided by the belief that God is active in the affairs of the people.
A new situation confronted those who endeavored later to pick up the pieces and
begin all over again. The promises of the Lord were valid, but a new situation
had arisen that demanded even more heroic efforts than any required earlier. The
author rewrites the history of
The religious leaders had skepticism for the
religion of the
The whole
outlook of the Chronicler is religious. Everything serves this purpose.
Repeatedly, the author calls attention to the consequences of religious
compromise. He regarded the unfavorable conditions prevalent in 500-450 BC, as
arising from the gradual and effective, though tragic, influx among the people
of the land of the descendents of the exiles. The author has concern for the
re-establishment of the pure community of the Lord, which meant complete
independence from the people of the land and the religious sanctification of
the community. The author says little about maidens marrying foreigners, though
it occurred. The purpose was to guard the faithful from apostasy. Hence, what
appears as ruthless and heartless procedure was simply a stern measure to save
the religion of Yahweh from serious contamination and possible extinction. The
author wants to hold the returnees to nationalistic purity. The author
visualized a Jewish national state with its center of worship in
Worship is
to be in the one central sanctuary led by the Levites rather than the
"sons of Aaron," as well as an emphasis upon the temple servants and
offerings. God’s presence is not so much
the law book as in the practice of worship, which reveals its priestly
interest. The Chronicler wrote to
legitimate cultic offices David founded. The text credits David with extensive
plans for the building of the
The Torah is emphasized as a book and as the standard for the community.
The author has
a messianic interest in David, the temple, and prophetic orders. The continued existence of the exilic
community, as over against the disappearance of the northern kingdom, showed
the finality of God's judgment upon the north and God's continuing covenant
with David. David is spotless. The
Chronicler, living in a time without kings, guards the messianic tradition. The
political dimension of the Davidic line ended. The only hope for
One of the
chief purposes of the Chronicler was to demonstrate that the true
Another
purpose of the Chronicler is to draw out the meaning of being true
A third purpose of the Chronicler was the necessity for an institutional structure such as that envisioned in Ezra-Nehemiah because of the manifest political and social pressures exerted upon the new community. We often fail to grasp the importance of institutions that are strong and vigorous enough to offset those pressures in difficult times. We might draw a parallel with medieval monasticism and the separatist movement of Ezra and Nehemiah.
What might seem to us an unreasonable demand, forcing the divorce of foreign wives married by the upper classes, can be understood in the light of the emphasis on purity in the Hebrew conception of the family. Had the practice continued, Judaism may have evaporated. However, this identity by heredity rather than faith had a permanent effect upon the Jewish community.
In terms of theology, the Chronicler is in most respects quite consistent with the rest of the Old Testament.
In terms of a conception of God, the Lord is an active God, vitally interested in the affairs of the people of God. The author stresses God as the God of the ancients in order to stress continuity from Genesis to his post-exilic time. God dwells among the people, as well as transcends them. Given how the author describes the temple and its objects, we learn that God is a holy God. The author emphasizes prayer. God has dealt with the people of God through love, who then respond to God with love. We see the author’s monotheism in the way God is outsiders like Pharaoh and Cyrus to accomplish the purpose of God.
In terms of
worship, the Chronicler emphasized that the God who dwelt among them, and yet
lived in heaved, inspired in the people a sense of awe, respect, reverence, and
worship. The God who gave so lavishly evoked from them response in worship.
Thus, the sanctuary in
In terms of
In terms of
prophets and Torah, the Chronicler has a profound respect to both. The author
relied upon prophetic books and records for this history. However, when the
author quotes prophetic oracles, the focus is matters related to worship in
In terms of
Messianic themes, the author understood the close relationship between the Lord
and David as placing David in a unique position in
A few passages are worth comment.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NRSV)
9 Jabez was honored more than his brothers;
and his mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I
bore him in pain.” 10 Jabez called on the
God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and
that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and
harm!” And God granted what he asked.
This text considers prayer as a way to change the fortunes of life.
I Chronicles
This text is a significant conception of inspiration in the Old Testament. It may even anticipate the idea of incarnation.
II Chronicles 13:12, “God is on our side, at our head …”
These texts are good reminders of the cultural difference
between the modern reader and the ancient. Such a statement by Abijah, encouraging war by
II Chronicles 16:9, “the eyes of the Lord move to and fro through all the earth to support those who are wholeheartedly committed to him.
This is a devotional way of reminding the reader of the benefits of living faithfully rather taking one’s life into one’s own hands.
II Chronicles
Physicians in this context may mean magical arts. However, the point is that relying solely upon human means of healing without openness to the healing God can bring shows lack of confidence in God.
Ezra
21 the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by all who had joined them and separated themselves from the pollutions of the nations of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.
Ezra
8:21-23 (NRSV)
21 Then I proclaimed a fast
there, at the river Ahava, that we might deny
ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our
children, and all our possessions. 22 For I was ashamed to ask the
king for a band of soldiers and cavalry to protect us against the enemy on our
way, since we had told the king that the hand of our God is gracious to all who
seek him, but his power and his wrath are against all who forsake him. 23 So
we fasted and petitioned our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
This text reminds us of the spiritual center of the post-exilic community. The focus of Ezra was the worship life of the community.
Nehemiah
17 you
are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding
in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.
This is the classic statement concerning the character of God. It is a theme throughout the Old Testament.
Ezra 9:2 (NRSV)
2 For they have taken some
of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons. Thus the holy
seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and in this faithlessness
the officials and leaders have led the way.”
Ezra 10:3 (NRSV)
3 So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.
Nehemiah
23 In those days also I saw Jews who had married
women of
Nehemiah
25 And I contended with them
and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made
them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your
daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for
yourselves.
This text seems harsh. It commands divorce. One can justify this step, however. The future of the Jewish community rested upon faithfulness to its Torah and worship. Intermarriage in this case meant that Jews took their beliefs and values with less seriousness than the times demanded. At the same time, we can also see the beginning of the ethnic separation that Jesus opposed.
I Esdras is a translation of the 100’s BC, but is largely a reproduction of the work of the Chronicler. Although it has some additional material, its primary value is that it lends support to either to the Septuagint or the Hebrew text as the best text for the canonical works for which it parallels.
Prophetic
work during this period includes III Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 in the early
part of this period, Obadiah, Joel, Malachi, Daniel 1-6, and Zechariah 9-12
during the latter part of this period. Other biblical material from this period
includes Nehemiah, Ezra, the Chronicles history, Esther, and Proverbs 1-9 and
30:1-9. The Book of Proverbs was likely
completed during this time. Portions of
the apocrypha were completed, such as Susanna, the additions to Daniel, Bel and the Dragon, the Hebrew version of the Epistle of
Jeremiah. Ezra 1-3 is from 537 BC, as
the exiles return. 4:1-5 is from 536 BC, as opposition from the Samaritans is
mentioned, while 4:7-23 is from 448, and chapter 5 with the rebuilding of the
temple from 536 BC. Chapter 7-8 dealing with Ezra and his arrival is from 428.
Marriages with foreigners are promptly dissolved through his influence in
chapter 9-10. Although this seems rather
harsh, a good marriage includes harmony in beliefs and values. The
intermarriage with people who believed differently generally meant that
distinctively Jewish beliefs had become comparatively of little importance to
the community. Nehemiah, the first governor, is in 1:1-7:3 from 445-433 BC,
having the goal of rebuilding the walls around
Esther was
written around 350 BC, but says it is a story about events in 485-465 BC. The story of Mordecai may well have some
basis in history, while the story of Vashti is based
upon popular accounts of intrigue in the harem, and the story of Esther herself
is simple story about a young Jewess who saves her people from
persecution. The community at
One can understand these doubts. From the Jewish perspective, it does not mention Yahweh or God, Law or Covenant, angels or afterlife, or the virtues of love, kindness, mercy, and forgiveness. Instead, it emphasizes a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and chauvinistic spirit. From the Christian perspective, it is not connected to any Christian purpose, and indeed it seems to be motivated by the desire to tell a story in which the Jews are able to carry out violence against Gentiles. Martin Luther said, “I am so hostile to this book (II Maccabees) and to Esther that I could wish they did not exist at all; for they judaize too greatly and have much pagan impropriety.”
Yet, one need not dismiss the book too quickly. The characters in Esther are typical stereotypes found in Wisdom literature. The author did not emphasize the usual elements of Jewish piety, such as dietary laws, covenant, and the immanent God who is easily accessible in prayer and acts in Jewish history. In that sense, it is more like Ecclesiastes, Job, and Proverbs.
The story
concerns court intrigue and ethnic prejudice during the reign of Xerxes
(486-465). The primary task of Xerxes left by his father Darius was to conquer
The hero of the story is actually Mordecai, for he provided the brains while Esther follows his direction. The story reads more like a historical novel. There are interesting novelistic twists. The author was more interested in plot and action, telling an interesting and lively story that would provide the basis for the festival of Purim. In chapter 1, that which was planned to establish male supremacy in the choosing of a queen ended in the king being controlled by his new queen, Esther. It is unique that the book does not mention God. The text does refer to prayer and fasting at a critical moment in the development of Esther’s plan. Even if God is not mentioned, God is in the background. We might wonder if providence does not guide the story. Did God help matters along by making Esther so well liked? When Mordecai says that if Esther does not help, there will be assistance from "another quarter," one wonders if this does not refer to God. The reason in chapter 4 that Esther did not know about the plot to kill Jews is that the author wishes to tell an interesting and fast-moving story, ignoring minor details from time to time. We do not need to look for historical answers. In chapter 6, Haman concealed the identity of the people he wanted killed, while the king conceals the identity of the one he hopes to honor. In chapter 7, Esther asked Haman to come. She unveils the culprit who would bring about the death of her people, but she also discloses herself and her heritage for the first time. Esther identifies with the Jewish people. Haman appeals to a Jewess for help, even though he issued a decree for them to be exterminated. He shows himself as either stupid or vain. Mordecai is given Haman's wealth and position. Chapter 10 shows why there are two different dates for the festival called Purim. The author makes it clear that the people, not God, brought about the victory against those who hated them.
Some texts that I find interesting include the following.
Esther 2:15b (NRSV)
15 Now Esther was admired by all who
saw her.
Esther
17 the king loved Esther more than all
the other women; of all the virgins she won his favor and devotion, so that he
set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.
What I find interesting here is that, while many beautiful women rely only on their beauty, Esther also won the favor of all who encountered her. For this to occur, she would have had to eat, dress, and live like a Persian rather than an observant Jewess. Note the contrast with the story of Daniel. She wanted to be queen. She realized that goal because of the support and counsel of others. She appears as a Jew, but one wonders if she was not more like the modern “secular” Jew, where her religion was quite in the background. Yet, one also wonders if this concealment of her identity was not more for the purpose of the plot, rather than to make us think of history.
Esther 4:13-16 (NRSV)
13 Mordecai told them to reply to
Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than
all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silence at such a time as
this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but
you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to
royal dignity for just such a time as this.” 15 Then Esther said in
reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in
Although some people speculate that “another quarter” may refer to Nehemiah, the suggestion that it refers to God is attractive. Further, the story reinforces that Esther might have some temptation to keep her Jewish identity a secret even at this critical time. The reference to fasting and the suggestion of prayer is important, suggesting some guidance from God at a critical moment in the story. With this impending tragedy ready to fall upon the Jews, God stands in the wings, following the play and encouraging the actors, as references to sackcloth, ashes, and fasting suggest.
Esther 9:5 (NRSV)
5 So the Jews struck down all their
enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and did as they
pleased to those who hated them.
Esther
16 Now the other Jews who were in the
king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and gained relief from
their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them; but
they laid no hands on the plunder.
Such verses in the bible puzzle modern readers. We see here the beginning of ethnic hatred as it relates to Judaism. The text does not say that God commanded the people to do this. Rather, the people simply act, even though their action occurs after much prayer and fasting.
Daniel was
a well-known legendary figure of this time. Many stories started to gather
around him. The absence of a genealogy makes one suspect that Daniel here is
not an historical person. The book has literary links that suggest one author
who has brought together this material. Every section of the book lays special
emphasis on the belief that God is master and guide of human history. God knows
the future and reveals its secrets to the chosen ones. A peculiar feature of
Daniel is its bilingual character, with 1:1-2:4a, 8:1-12:13 is Hebrew and
2:4b-7:28 is Aramaic. Texts discovered in
Daniel has
several historical mistakes. In 5:2, 11, 18, 22, the text says that Belshazzar was son of Nebuchadnezzar, when he was the son
of the usurper Nabonidus, the last king of
Isaiah
17 See, I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who have no regard for silver
and do not delight in gold.
Isaiah 21:2 (NRSV)
2 A stern vision is told to me;
the betrayer betrays,
and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, O Elam,
lay siege, O Media;
all the sighing she has caused
I bring to an end.
Jeremiah 51:11 (NRSV)
11 Sharpen the arrows!
Fill the quivers!
The Lord
has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose concerning
Jeremiah 51:28-29 (NRSV)
28 Prepare the nations for war against her,
the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies,
and every land under their dominion.
29 The land trembles and writhes,
for the Lord’s purposes against
to make
the
without inhabitant.
The reference to “Darius the Mede” is unidentifiable. Most
likely, he is a literary fiction based upon Cyrus I of
Daniel is not an historical account. The apparently historical framework sought to avoid censorship on the part of the agents of Antiochus. It also gave authority to the stories and apocalyptic material. The book is part of the resistance literature that occurred during the Hellenization of the area. The text encourages the faithful to rise above the suffering and temptations of the present and choose suffering and death rather than convenience or apostasy. The book reminds Jews that their monotheistic religion is a glorious heritage infinitely superior to paganism with its gross idol worship. It encourages the Jews to remain loyal to that heritage like the outstanding protagonists of the book who were willing to risk their social, economic, and political status and even their lives by steadfastly refusing to compromise their faith. It shows dramatically and imaginatively that the God of Israel comes to the rescue and delivers those who believe in him despite even the severest reverses, including death by martyrdom.
For some readers of the bible, such historical mistakes, and even errors in the details of prophecy, become reason for discrediting the text. In my view, this approach, shared by skeptics and by fundamentalists, approaches the text in an inappropriate way. The world of the text generates a sense of the direction God is moving that then influences the way people live and the way history develops. With Daniel, the question the world in which the author lives is whether remaining faithful to God in the midst of persecution is worthy. If so, the question remains as to the manner in which the Jewish people live that faithfulness. The text encourages obedience to the Torah, even when political leaders persecute Jews for doing so. The text also encourages a peaceful approach. The pacifist approach of Daniel, II Maccabees, Pharisees, Essenes, and ultimately of Jesus of Nazareth, was an approach to this bloody period that might have proved more successful than the military approach of Esther, Hasmonaeans and Zealots, an approach that end with destruction of temple in 70 AD. Daniel also predicts the end of the Seleucid Empire, which, even if the end did not come exactly as expected, still came. The biblical text is still a human text, even if some of us come to believe that it reflects God coming to humanity and addressing humanity. Further, the demand for historical precision is not something even modern historians can achieve, for that is not the nature of historical research. History always remains open to further development and understanding in light of new events.
Daniel 1-6 is
a series of midrashic or edifying stories. They
dramatize that obedience and loyalty to God are more important on a deep and
personal level than prolonging life at the expense of compromise. It includes
simple, easily remembered and repeatable stories about Daniel. The stories have
their source in the romance of the successful courtier: Joseph, Esther, Tobit, and Judith. These chapters have a secondary motif of
the witness or martyr story. Such stories face the problem of Jews living in a
pagan environment. The intention of the authors is to dramatize the truth that
the almighty and omniscient God of the Fathers will protect and rescue the
current
Chapter 1 may suggest that Daniel and his friends were Nazarites. The intent of the author is encourage faithfulness to dietary laws, regardless of the consequences.
The apocalyptic section in chapter 2 has a connection with chapter 7. The motif of the enigmatic dream and its interpretation were common in antiquity. The original date of composition may be between 400 and 200. The written form pre-dates 164 BC and the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The oral form may go back to the Persian period in the 300’s, given its relatively accurate knowledge of the Persian court. The author of Daniel included it because of its affirmation of the God of Israel as the Lord of history. The text may have built upon prophetic statements about Nebuchadnezzar:
Jeremiah 25:9 (NRSV)
9 I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the Lord, even for King Nebuchadrezzar
of
Jeremiah 27:6 (NRSV)
6 Now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of
Jeremiah 43:10 (NRSV)
10 and say to them, Thus says the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to send and take my servant King Nebuchadrezzar of
Legend could then develop that the Babylonian king actually converted to a worshipper of Yahweh.
In chapter three, the account of the three Jewish men who refused to worship the idolatrous statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected and whose loyalty to the God of their fathers was rewarded by a miracle that saved their lives was once an independent story that originally had no connection with the Daniel cycle of stories. The text has several Persian influences that suggest that period for the development of the story. The story suggests that in the Persian period, there was some recognition of the unique place Jews would have. It became established in custom and law. The story of Esther suggests a Secretary of Jewish Affairs during the Persian period.
For chapter
four, note its similarity with chapter two. It may have a basis in Nabonidus and his history, see Nabonidus
Chronicle in ANET and
Chapter
five has its foundation in a common legend that the Persians overtook
Chapter six has the well known story of Daniel in the den of lions. Similar to chapter three, it is part of the witness or martyr stories of the period. It shows the importance of faithfulness, that God will intervene, and that their enemies will suffer the fate they intended for the faithful.
Daniel
24 The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.
Such a commendation by the author shows some joy at the
revenge given out to the enemies of Daniel. The story originated in the Persian
period. Daniel at prayer shows the custom of praying toward
Psalm 1 (NRSV)
1 Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in
the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the
righteous;
6 for the Lord
watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 8 (NRSV)
1 O Lord,
our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the
mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of
your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have
established;
4 what are human beings that you are
mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower
than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the
works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the
sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord,
our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 37 (NRSV)
1 Do not fret because of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
2 for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy
security.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will make your vindication shine like
the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
7 Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath.
Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For the wicked shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
10 Yet a little while, and the wicked will
be no more;
though you look diligently for their place, they
will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land,
and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous,
and gnash their teeth at them;
13 but the Lord
laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming.
14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their
bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to kill those who walk uprightly;
15 their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.
16 Better is a little that the righteous
person has
than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord
upholds the righteous.
18 The Lord
knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will abide forever;
19 they are not put to shame in evil times,
in the days of famine they have abundance.
20 But the wicked perish,
and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.
21 The wicked borrow, and do not pay back,
but the righteous are generous and keep giving;
22 for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
but those cursed by him shall be cut off.
23 Our steps are made firm by the Lord,
when he delights in our way;
24 though we stumble, weshall
not fall headlong,
for the Lord
holds us by the hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
26 They are ever giving liberally and
lending,
and their children become a blessing.
27 Depart from evil, and do good;
so you shall abide forever.
28 For the Lord
loves justice;
he will not forsake his faithful ones.
The righteous shall be kept safe forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land,
and live in it forever.
30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom,
and their tongues speak justice.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts;
their steps do not slip.
32 The wicked watch for the righteous,
and seek to kill them.
33 The Lord
will not abandon them to their power,
or let them be condemned when they are brought
to trial.
34 Wait for the Lord, and keep to his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.
35 I have seen the wicked oppressing,
and towering like a cedar of Lebanon.
36 Again I passed by, and they were no more;
though I sought them, they could not be found.
37 Mark the blameless, and behold the
upright,
for there is posterity for the peaceable.
38 But transgressors shall be altogether
destroyed;
the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off.
39 The salvation of the righteous is from
the Lord;
he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
40 The Lord
helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.
Psalm 47 (NRSV)
1 Clap your hands, all you peoples;
shout to God with loud songs of joy.
2 For the Lord,
the Most High, is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us,
and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our heritage for us,
the pride of Jacob whom he
loves. Selah
5 God has gone up with a shout,
the Lord
with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7 For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm.
8 God is king over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
9 The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted.
Psalm 51 (NRSV)
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your
ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your
deliverance.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would
not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a
broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not
despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
19 then you will delight in right
sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Psalm 73 (NRSV)
1 Truly God is good to the upright,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost
stumbled;
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pain;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not plagued like other people.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them like a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out with fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against heaven,
and their tongues range over the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise
them,
and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Such are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain I have kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all day long I have been plagued,
and am punished every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will talk on in this
way,”
I would have been untrue to the circle of your
children.
16 But when I thought how to understand
this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I perceived their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes;
on awaking you despise their phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was stupid and ignorant;
I was like a brute beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me with honor.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire
other than you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my
portion forever.
27 Indeed, those who are far from you will
perish;
you put an end to those who are false to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
to tell of all your works.
Psalm 74 (NRSV)
1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of
your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you
acquired long ago,
which you redeemed to be the tribe of your
heritage.
Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.
3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the
sanctuary.
4 Your foes have roared within your holy
place;
they set up their emblems there.
5 At the upper entrance they hacked
the wooden trellis with axes.
6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,
they smashed all its carved work.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire;
they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it to the ground.
8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly
subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the
land.
9 We do not see our emblems;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is no one among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand;
why do you keep your hand in your bosom?
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the dragons in the
waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the
wilderness.
15 You cut openings for springs and
torrents;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you established the luminaries and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the bounds of the
earth;
you made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
and an impious people reviles your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to
the wild animals;
do not forget the life of your poor forever.
20 Have regard for your covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the
haunts of violence.
21 Do not let the downtrodden be put to
shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
remember how the impious scoff at you all day
long.
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of your adversaries that goes up
continually.
Psalm 79 (NRSV)
1 O God, the nations have come into your
inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
2 They have given the bodies of your
servants
to the birds of the air for food,
the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals
of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like
water
all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those around us.
5 How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?
6 Pour out your anger on the nations
that do not know you,
and on the kingdoms
that do not call on your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his habitation.
8 Do not remember against us the iniquities
of our ancestors;
let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins,
for your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your
servants
be known among the nations before our eyes.
11 Let the groans of the prisoners come
before you;
according to your great power preserve those
doomed to die.
12 Return sevenfold into the bosom of our
neighbors
the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord!
13 Then we your people, the flock of your
pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
from generation to generation we will recount
your praise.
Psalm 98 (NRSV)
1 O sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have gotten him victory.
2 The Lord
has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication in the sight of
the nations.
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and
faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.
4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.
7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
8 Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
9 at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
Psalm 107 (NRSV)
1 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
those he redeemed from trouble
3 and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.
4 Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to an inhabited town;
5 hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress;
7 he led them by a straight way,
until they reached an inhabited town.
8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
9 For he satisfies the thirsty,
and the hungry he fills with good things.
10 Some sat in darkness and in gloom,
prisoners in misery and in irons,
11 for they had rebelled against the words
of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12 Their hearts were bowed down with hard
labor;
they fell down, with no one to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress;
14 he brought them out of darkness and
gloom,
and broke their bonds asunder.
15 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
16 For he shatters the doors of bronze,
and cuts in two the bars of iron.
17 Some were sick through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities endured
affliction;
18 they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress;
20 he sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from destruction.
21 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
22 And let them offer thanksgiving
sacrifices,
and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.
23 Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the mighty waters;
24 they saw the deeds of the Lord,
his wondrous works in the deep.
25 For he commanded and raised the stormy
wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They mounted up to heaven, they went down
to the depths;
their courage melted away in their calamity;
27 they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
and were at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out from their distress;
29 he made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad because they had
quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
31 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
32 Let them extol him in the congregation of
the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.
33 He turns rivers into a desert,
springs of water into thirsty ground,
34 a fruitful land into a salty waste,
because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
35 He turns a desert into pools of water,
a parched land into springs of water.
36 And there he lets the hungry live,
and they establish a town to live in;
37 they sow fields, and plant vineyards,
and get a fruitful yield.
38 By his blessing they multiply greatly,
and he does not let their cattle decrease.
39 When they are diminished and brought low
through oppression, trouble, and sorrow,
40 he pours contempt on princes
and makes them wander in trackless wastes;
41 but he raises up the needy out of
distress,
and makes their families like flocks.
42 The upright see it and are glad;
and all wickedness stops its mouth.
43 Let those who are wise give heed to these
things,
and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
Psalm 115 (NRSV)
1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your
faithfulness.
2 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in the heavens;
he does whatever he pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
5 They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
6 They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
7 They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
they make no sound in their throats.
8 Those who make them are like them;
so are all who trust in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
10 O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
12 The Lord
has been mindful of us; he will bless us;
he will bless the house of Israel;
he will bless the house of Aaron;
13 he will bless those who fear the Lord,
both small and great.
14 May the Lord
give you increase,
both you and your children.
15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
16 The heavens are the Lord’s heavens,
but the earth he has given to human beings.
17 The dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do any that go down into silence.
18 But we will bless the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.
Praise the Lord!
One wonders
if eschatological expectations had become extinct. One might think that
psychological exhaustion becomes part of the mix, though something more than
that seems to be happening. One might consider how
The prophets believed that they stood at the turning point of history for the people of God. They shared a common certainty that the new thing they expected was prefigured in the old, and that the old would be present in the new in perfect form.
Isaiah had rather extensive post-exilic additions. A rather extensive addition from the 400’s BC is in 24-27. It contains the promise of a divine banquet.
Isaiah 25:6-9 (NRSV)
6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged
wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged
wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8
he will swallow up death forever.Then
the Lord God will wipe away the
tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away
from all the earth,
for the Lord
has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so
that he might save us.
This is the Lord
for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Another addition from after 520 BC is the Little Apocalypse
of 34-35. It contains the promise of the victory of
Isaiah 35 (NRSV)
The
wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus2 it shall blossom
abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of
the majesty of
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
the majesty of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
8 A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
9 No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
A post-exilic addition includes a prophecy concerning a descendant of David.
Isaiah 11:1-9 (NRSV)
A shoot
shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the
earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his
mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill
the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of
the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the
adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of
the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Shorter additions from the post-exilic period are the following.
Isaiah 1:29-31 (NRSV)
29 For you shall be ashamed of the oaks
in which you delighted;
and you shall blush for the gardens
that you have chosen.
30 For you shall be like an oak
whose leaf withers,
and like a garden without water.
31 The strong shall become like tinder,
and their work like a spark;
they and their work shall burn together,
with no one to quench them.
Isaiah 2:1-5 (NRSV)
The word
that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning
2 In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the
mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
3 Many peoples shall
come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of
and the word of the Lord from
4 He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!
Isaiah 2:20-22 (NRSV)
20 On that day people will throw away
to the moles and to the bats
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts in the crags,
from the terror of the Lord,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
22 Turn away from mortals,
who have only breath in their nostrils,
for of what account are they?
Isaiah 4:2-6 (NRSV)
2 On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious,
and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of
Israel. 3 Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be
called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, 4 once
the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the
bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit
of burning. 5 Then the Lord
will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a
cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed over
all the glory there will be a canopy. 6 It will serve as a pavilion,
a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and
rain.
Isaiah 11:10-12:6 (NRSV)
10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a
signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall
be glorious.
11 On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a
second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria,
from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam,
from Shinar, from Hamath,
and from the coastlands of the sea.
12 He will raise a signal for the nations,
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.
13 The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart,
the hostility of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,
and Judah shall not be hostile towards Ephraim.
14 But they shall swoop down on the backs of the
Philistines in the west,
together they shall plunder the people of the
east.
They shall put forth their hand against Edom and
Moab,
and the Ammonites shall obey them.
15 And the Lord
will utterly destroy
the tongue of the sea of Egypt;
and will wave his hand over the River
with his scorching wind;
and will split it into seven channels,
and make a way to cross on foot;
16 so there shall be a highway from Assyria
for the remnant that is left of his people,
as there was for Israel
when they came up from the land of Egypt.
Thanksgiving and Praise
12 You will say in that day:
I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
and you comforted me.
2 Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord
God is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation. 4 And you will say in that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.
5 Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of
Israel.
Isaiah 13:9-14 (NRSV)
9 See, the day of the Lord comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the earth a desolation,
and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their
constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
and lay low the insolence of tyrants.
12 I will make mortals more rare than fine gold,
and humans than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the Lord of hosts
in the day of his fierce anger.
14 Like a hunted gazelle,
or like sheep with no one to gather them,
all will turn to their own people,
and all will flee to their own lands.
Isaiah 14:1-2 (NRSV)
Restoration of Judah
14 But the Lord
will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them
in their own land; and aliens will join them and attach themselves to the house
of Jacob. 2 And the nations will take them and bring them to their
place, and the house of Israel will possess the nations as male and female
slaves in the Lord’s land; they will
take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed
them.
Isaiah 16:1-6 (NRSV)
16 Send lambs
to the ruler of the land,
from Sela, by way of
the desert,
to the mount of daughter Zion.
2 Like fluttering birds,
like scattered nestlings,
so are the daughters of Moab
at the fords of the Arnon.
3 “Give counsel,
grant justice;
make your shade like night
at the height of noon;
hide the outcasts,
do not betray the fugitive;
4 let the outcasts of Moab
settle among you;
be a refuge to them
from the destroyer.”
When the oppressor is no more,
and destruction has ceased,
and marauders have vanished from the land,
5 then a throne shall be established in steadfast
love
in the tent of David,
and on it shall sit in faithfulness
a ruler who seeks justice
and is swift to do what is right.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab
—how proud he is!—
of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence;
his boasts are false.
Isaiah 18:7 (NRSV)
7 At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and
smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering,
whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.
Isaiah 19:16-23 (NRSV)
16 On that day the Egyptians will be like women,
and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts raises against them. 17 And the land
of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom it is
mentioned will fear because of the plan that the Lord of hosts is planning against them.
Egypt, Assyria, and Israel Blessed
18 On that day there will be five cities in the
land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts. One of these will be
called the City of the Sun.
19 On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the center of the land of
Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord
at its border. 20 It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt;
when they cry to the Lord because
of oppressors, he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them. 21
The Lord will make himself
known to the Egyptians; and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day, and will worship with sacrifice and burnt
offering, and they will make vows to the Lord
and perform them. 22 The Lord
will strike Egypt, striking and healing; they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their
supplications and heal them.
23 On that day there will be a highway from Egypt
to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into
Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
Isaiah 28:5-6 (NRSV)
5 In that day the Lord of hosts will be a garland of glory,
and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his
people;
6 and a spirit of justice to the one who sits in
judgment,
and strength to those who turn back the battle
at the gate.
Isaiah 29:8 (NRSV)
8 Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating
and wakes up still hungry,
or a thirsty person dreams of drinking
and wakes up faint, still thirsty,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
Isaiah 29:11-12 (NRSV)
11 The vision of all this has become for you like
the words of a sealed document. If it is given to those who can read, with the
command, “Read this,” they say, “We cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 And
if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” they say, “We
cannot read.”
Isaiah 29:17-24 (NRSV)
Hope for the Future
17 Shall not Lebanon in a very little while
become a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?
18 On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a scroll,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy
One of Israel.
20 For the tyrant shall be no more,
and the scoffer shall cease to be;
all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—
21 those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
and without grounds deny justice to the one in
the right.
22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
No longer shall Jacob be ashamed,
no longer shall his face grow pale.
23 For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 And those who err in spirit will come to
understanding,
and those who grumble will accept instruction.
Isaiah 30:19-26 (NRSV)
19 Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of
Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the
sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. 20 Though
the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet
your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your
Teacher. 21 And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the
left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in
it.” 22 Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your
gold-plated images. You will scatter them like filthy rags; you will say to
them, “Away with you!”
23 He will give rain for the seed with which you
sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and
plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures; 24 and
the oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat silage, which has been
winnowed with shovel and fork. 25 On every lofty mountain and every
high hill there will be brooks running with water—on a day of the great
slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 Moreover the light of the moon
will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold,
like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the
wounds inflicted by his blow.
Isaiah 31:6-7 (NRSV)
6 Turn back to him whom you have deeply betrayed,
O people of Israel. 7 For on that day all of you shall throw away
your idols of silver and idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for
you.
Isaiah 32:6-8 (NRSV)
6 For fools speak folly,
and their minds plot iniquity:
to practice ungodliness,
to utter error concerning the Lord,
to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
7 The villainies of villains are evil;
they devise wicked devices
to ruin the poor with lying words,
even when the plea of the needy is right.
8 But those who are noble plan noble things,
and by noble things they stand.
Jeremiah had some post-exilic additions. One addition has a basis in Psalm 79:6-7.
Jeremiah 10:25 (NRSV)
25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not
know you,
and on the peoples that do not call on your
name;
for they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him and consumed him,
and have laid waste his habitation.
We find another post-exilic addition.
Jeremiah 48:29-39 (NRSV)
29 We have heard of the pride of Moab—
he is very proud—
of his loftiness, his pride, and his arrogance,
and the haughtiness of his heart.
30 I myself know his insolence, says the Lord;
his boasts are false,
his deeds are false.
31 Therefore I wail for Moab;
I cry out for all Moab;
for the people of Kir-heres
I mourn.
32 More than for Jazer I
weep for you,
O vine of Sibmah!
Your branches crossed over the sea,
reached as far as Jazer;
upon your summer fruits and your vintage
the destroyer has fallen.
33 Gladness and joy have been taken away
from the fruitful land of Moab;
I have stopped the wine from the wine presses;
no one treads them with shouts of joy;
the shouting is not the shout of joy.
34 Heshbon and Elealeh
cry out; as far as Jahaz they utter their voice, from
Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah. For even the waters of Nimrim have become desolate. 35 And I will bring
to an end in Moab, says the Lord,
those who offer sacrifice at a high place and make offerings to their gods. 36
Therefore my heart moans for Moab like a flute, and my heart moans like a
flute for the people of Kir-heres; for the riches
they gained have perished.
37 For every head is shaved and every beard cut
off; on all the hands there are gashes, and on the loins sackcloth. 38 On
all the housetops of Moab and in the squares there is nothing but lamentation;
for I have broken Moab like a vessel that no one wants, says the Lord. 39 How it is broken!
How they wail! How Moab has turned his back in shame! So Moab has become a
derision and a horror to all his neighbors.
Jeremiah 48:43-44 (NRSV)
43 Terror, pit, and trap
are before you, O inhabitants of Moab!
says the Lord.
44 Everyone who flees from the terror
shall fall into the pit,
and everyone who climbs out of the pit
shall be caught in the trap.
For I will bring these things upon Moab
in the year of their punishment,
says the Lord.
The
prophecies of miraculous events surrounding the return to the homeland did not
materialize. We know of no great celebration in the return home. In particular,
we have no record of interpreting the return as the fulfillment of prophecy.
Yet, the situation of
It was during this period that
III Isaiah
preached from 538-516 and is found in Isaiah 56-66. It shows the situation of
the community in
One text in Jeremiah resembles III Isaiah.
Jeremiah 10:1-16 (NRSV)
Idolatry Has Brought Ruin on Israel
10 Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. 2 Thus says
the Lord:
Do not learn the way of the nations,
or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens;
for the nations are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the peoples are false:
a tree from the forest is cut down,
and worked with an ax by the hands of an
artisan;
4 people deck it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber
field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
for they cannot do evil,
nor is it in them to do good.
6 There is none like you, O Lord;
you are great, and your name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?
For that is your due;
among all the wise ones of the nations
and in all their kingdoms
there is no one like you.
8 They are both stupid and foolish;
the instruction given by idols
is no better than wood!
9 Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Uphaz.
They are the work of the artisan and of the
hands of the goldsmith;
their clothing is blue and purple;
they are all the product of skilled workers.
10 But the Lord
is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
and the nations cannot endure his indignation.
11 Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not
make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the
heavens.
12 It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the
heavens.
13 When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of
waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the
earth.
He makes lightnings
for the rain,
and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.
14 Everyone is stupid and without knowledge;
goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols;
for their images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their punishment they shall
perish.
16 Not like these is the Lord, the portion of Jacob,
for he is the one who formed all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the Lord
of hosts is his name.
This prophet offers promises to
foreigners and eunuchs.
Isaiah 56:1-9 (NRSV)
The Covenant Extended to All Who Obey
56 Thus says the Lord:
Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,
and my deliverance be revealed.
2 Happy is the mortal who does this,
the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it,
and refrains from doing any evil.
3 Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.
6 And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
and hold fast my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
8 Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered.
The Corruption of Israel’s Rulers
9 All you wild animals,
all you wild animals in the forest, come to devour!
The prophet encourages fasting that
pleases God.
Isaiah 58:1-12 (NRSV)
False and True Worship
58 Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
The prophet offers a Zion poem
concerning the light Jerusalem will become to the nations.
Isaiah 60:1-6 (NRSV)
The Ingathering of the Dispersed
60 Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
3 Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 Lift up your eyes and look around;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.
5 Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6 A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
Isaiah 62:1-12 (NRSV)
The Vindication and Salvation of Zion
62 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
6 Upon your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have posted sentinels;
all day and all night
they shall never be silent.
You who remind the Lord,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it renowned throughout the earth.
8 The Lord has sworn by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies,
and foreigners shall not drink the wine
for which you have labored;
9 but those who garner it shall eat it
and praise the Lord,
and those who gather it shall drink it
in my holy courts.
10 Go through, go through the gates,
prepare the way for the people;
build up, build up the highway,
clear it of stones,
lift up an ensign over the peoples.
11 The Lord has proclaimed
to the end of the earth:
Say to daughter Zion,
“See, your salvation comes;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.”
12 They shall be called, “The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the Lord”;
and you shall be called, “Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.”
The prophet describes his mission.
Isaiah 61:1-11 (NRSV)
The Good News of Deliverance
61 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
5 Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines;
6 but you shall be called priests of the Lord,
you shall be named ministers of our God;
you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations,
and in their riches you shall glory.
7 Because their shame was double,
and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot,
therefore they shall possess a double portion;
everlasting joy shall be theirs.
8 For I the Lord love justice,
I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.
The prophet offers a powerful lament
or reflection upon the history of Israel.
Isaiah 63:7-64:12 (NRSV)
God’s Mercy Remembered
7 I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord,
the praiseworthy acts of the Lord,
because of all that the Lord has done for us,
and the great favor to the house of Israel
that he has shown them according to his mercy,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
8 For he said, “Surely they are my people,
children who will not deal falsely”;
and he became their savior
9 in all their distress.
It was no messenger or angel
but his presence that saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
10 But they rebelled
and grieved his holy spirit;
therefore he became their enemy;
he himself fought against them.
11 Then they remembered the days of old,
of Moses his servant.
Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea
with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is the one who put within them
his holy spirit,
12 who caused his glorious arm
to march at the right hand of Moses,
who divided the waters before them
to make for himself an everlasting name,
13 who led them through the depths?
Like a horse in the desert,
they did not stumble.
14 Like cattle that go down into the valley,
the spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
Thus you led your people,
to make for yourself a glorious name.
A Prayer of Penitence
15 Look down from heaven and see,
from your holy and glorious habitation.
Where are your zeal and your might?
The yearning of your heart and your compassion?
They are withheld from me.
16 For you are our father,
though Abraham does not know us
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our father;
our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways
and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?
Turn back for the sake of your servants,
for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.
18 Your holy people took possession for a little while;
but now our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We have long been like those whom you do not rule,
like those not called by your name.
64 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
2 as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
5 You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness,
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful house,
where our ancestors praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?
The prophet promises a new heaven
and earth.
Isaiah 65:17-25 (NRSV)
The Glorious New Creation
17 For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
Prophets
like Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the people to rebuild the temple, and this
was done around 515 BC, though this did not accomplish all that the people had
hoped. Their messages culminate in the approaching coming of Yahweh and the
imminent establishment of the kingdom linked to the rebuilding of the temple.
Haggai preached from
Haggai offers a prophecy of the future glory of the temple.
Haggai 2:1-9 (NRSV)
The Future Glory of the Temple
2 In the second year of King Darius, 1 in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 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.
Obadiah preached in 450. The temple was built in 515 BC. There are connections with Jeremiah 49:7-22
and with Joel 2:32. The theme is the
punishment of
Joel is difficult to date, possibly any time between 445 and 343. The balance of the book suggests it may be a literary piece rather than a collection of speeches. After studying previous prophecies, he came to believe in a new act of God. The major concern is the day of the Lord. 1:2-2:27 has a lament because of a plague of locusts, calling forth a religious ceremony and prayer.
Joel 2:1-2 (NRSV)
2 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
nor will be again after them
in ages to come.
Joel 2:12-17 (NRSV)
12 Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for the Lord, your God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
16 gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
assemble the aged;
gather the children,
even infants at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her canopy.
17 Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and do not make your heritage a mockery,
a byword among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’ ”
The Lord replies by promising a cessation of the plague and
return to prosperity. 3-4 is a judgment on the nations and final triumph of the
Lord and
Malachi,
which could be by an anonymous prophet, with the title of the book being 'my
messenger", could have been preached at a variety of times, 468, 445, or
433. Though related to the times of Ezra
and Nehemiah, it is difficult to know where he fits in. He writes after the revival under Haggai and
Zechariah and the completion of the temple. He is mostly concerned with the
covenant. He criticizes the way worship
is practiced in the rebuilt temple. II
Isaiah's prophecies were unfulfilled, but they became open to
re-interpretation. He makes the conduct
of worship the decisive standard of behavior that is faithful to the
community. The world vision of previous
prophets is given up in favor of the smaller, everyday concerns of the little
community in
Malachi offers prophecy concerning the Day of the Lord.
Malachi 2:17-3:5 (NRSV)
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
The Coming Messenger
3 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 4:1-6 (NRSV)
The Great Day of the Lord
4 See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
4 Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.
Jonah may
have been written any time between 537 and 428 BC. It goes against the exclusive approach of
Ezra and Nehemiah. Jonah spends half of
the book on the ship and half of the book in
First, note that God never takes Jonah into his confidence. Jonah must guess from events how to interpret the motives and purpose of God. Second, Jonah does want to allow heaven to dictate moves on earth in disregard to his dignity. Third, wherever Jonah goes, he brings bedlam and calamity. Fourth, Jonah remains aloof from other human beings. Fifth, Jonah keeps his distance from God. There is not an easy relationship or an intimate rapport that might be suspected with other prophets. Sixth, Jonah and God have a conflict of wills. Seventh, whether he resists or obeys the will of God, he finds no satisfaction.
The issue
is how merciful God can be. That is the
scandal to Jonah. By the end of the
book, we discover the real reason for the disobedience of Jonah. He had
foreseen that God would ensure the triumph of grace, and so he casts back the
gracious words with which
Zechariah
9-14 was written in 350 BC. It shows the
inevitability of God's victory over the nations. Use is made of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel.
Zechariah 11:4-17 (NRSV)
Two Kinds of Shepherds
4 Thus said the Lord my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. 5 Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, “Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich”; and their own shepherds have no pity on them. 6 For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor, and each into the hand of the king; and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.
7 So, on behalf of the sheep merchants, I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep. 8 In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another!” 10 I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. 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 treasuryin the house of the Lord. 14 Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the Lord said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd. 16 For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy,but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.
17 Oh, my worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be completely withered,
his right eye utterly blinded!
12-14 is an apocalyptic description of
Zechariah 9:9-10 (NRSV)
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
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.
10 He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war-horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
The text has an obscure prophecy about one who is pierced,
Zechariah 12:10 (NRSV)
10 And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
The Epistle of Jeremiah may have come from the 300’s, given that it has no allusions to events in the second or first centuries BC. Its concern is for the rejection of Babylonian idolatry. It contains little that we do not find in other canonical texts.
The Wisdom
tradition contains a wide variety of reflections upon life as experienced in
Proverbs 1:7 (NRSV)
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:20-23 (NRSV)
20 Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
I will make my words known to you.
Proverbs 3:5-8 (NRSV)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be a healing for your flesh
and a refreshment for your body.
Proverbs 3:13-18 (NRSV)
13 Happy are those who find wisdom,
and those who get understanding,
14 for her income is better than silver,
and her revenue better than gold.
15 She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy.
Proverbs 4:6 (NRSV)
6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
Proverbs 4:8-9 (NRSV)
8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head a fair garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”
Proverbs
22 The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
26 when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
27 When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.
34 Happy is the one who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting beside my doors.
35 For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord;
Proverbs 8
says that wisdom is the first-born of the works of God in creation. Ben Sirach completely identifies wisdom with Torah. Wisdom is
the dearest child of God and played with creation and with people. Wisdom
exists before creation. In particular, the relationship between it and the
thing created is one of play. Wisdom was the constructive principle by which
Yahweh created the world. What a difference with the Priestly Document and its
account in Genesis 1. Wisdom stood before the world as creation, and its task
was to find a connection from there with the saving history in which Yahweh
turned toward
The final
years of the monarchy, with its political catastrophes, must have been a time
of dangerous disintegration for the faith. A generation grew up who in their
religious resentment took the offensive against the prophets. They suggested
that the way of the Lord was not just, as in Ezekiel 18:25, 29. A generation capable
of raising this possibility had forsaken the foundations of the faith. Yahweh
was righteous and faithful to the covenant; the people departed from the
covenant. Such traditional theology underwent questions, for now people
willingly question God through their suffering. “Why” is an ancient question.
It acquired a new right when posed on the basis of a definite skepticism and
religious detachment. Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to address themselves to the
question: “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, but it is only the children’s
teeth that are set on edge,” as in Jeremiah 31:29 and Ezekiel 18: 2, and
Lamentations 5:7. The problem was how there could be a relationship with Yahweh
at all. The question became real for
We cannot
help but note the difficulty
Alexander the Great ruled from
336-323. His dream was to replace the tolerant rule of
The Ptolemies were: Ptolemy I Lagi (323-285), II Philadelphus (285-246), III Euergetes (246-221), IV Philopator (221-203), V Epiphanes (203-181), VI Philometor (181-146).
The Seleucids were: Seleucus I (312/11-280), Antiochus I (280-261), Antiochus
II (261-246), Seleucus II (246-226), Seleucus III (226-223), Antiochus III the Great (223-187), Seleucus IV (187-175), Antiochus IV Epiphanes
(175-164). This last leaders figures prominently as the archvillain
in Daniel 7-12. He was a despot, eccentric, unpredictable, ferocious, and
tyrannical.
This period
brought in a terrible time in the history of
The time
between the testaments is not as known even to many good students of the
Bible. The Greek period ended in 167
BC. Before it did, the Seleucids, a
family that ruled
The Hasmonaeans were ready to kill apostate Jews, who had no choice but to oppose them. Other loyal and pious Jews opposed the Hasmonaeans. The Hasidim were quietists who believed that the heathen kings who ruled over them did so by the grace of God, and thus to rebel was to sin. They were ready to lay down their lives in their belief in the promises of the prophets, that God would come to the rescue of faithful Sabbath-observers. If they were then massacred, they turned to their faith in resurrection.
Daniel 12:2-3 (NRSV)
2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those
who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead
many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
2 Maccabees 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29, 36 (NRSV)
9 And when he was at his last breath, he said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.”
11 and said nobly, “I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I
disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.”
14 When he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!”
23 Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.”
29 Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.”
36 For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of
ever-flowing life, under God’s covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will
receive just punishment for your arrogance.
In contrast, Mattathias dared to rebel and fight on the Sabbath, and probably condemned as false belief in the resurrection. Large numbers of Hasidim eventually joined Mattathias. Yet, many continued to believe his teachings impious and actions sinful. Judas’ victories brought many Hasidim to his side, even though Daniel 12:7 predicts his defeat.
Daniel 12:7 (NRSV)
7 The man clothed in linen, who was upstream, raised his right hand and
his left hand toward heaven. And I heard him swear by the one who lives forever
that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time, and that when the
shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things
would be accomplished.
The Hasmonean period, from 167 To 63 BC, was the time when the Maccabean family led the Jews in revolt against the
Seleucids and was victorious. Mattathias led the community seventeen miles northwest of
After 63
BC, Essene opposition to the Hasmonaean dynasty began
early, but the Essenes withdrew into exile or into closed settlements and
rarely if ever took to open warfare, waiting for God to act. All politically
important factions agreed that the dynasty had been legitimate.
Tobit (250-175 BC) has errors of fact lead most modern scholars to suggest that the story is fiction. However, this does not detract from the potential truth the story seeks to convey. The plot of Isaac searching for his wife forms the background of this story. It is largely a secular folk tale. We see elements of a romance story combined with wisdom stories. However, we might best understand it as short Jewish romance story. The text encourages readers to remain faithful to the Lord and to Torah, even in tough Hellenistic times. The text has an ironic character. When Tobit tries to give a respectful burial, which should bring good fortune, he receives blindness and poverty. The names of the characters, except for the supernatural ones, are also ironic. The text also represents a major transformation of the role of angels and the supernatural beings. We can say little more about the author than that he was an observant Jew.
The author is quite clear about the demands of his religion.
Tobit 1:3-8 (NRSV)
3 I, Tobit,
walked in the ways of truth and righteousness all the days of my life. I
performed many acts of charity for my kindred and my people who had gone with
me in exile to
5 All my kindred and our
ancestral house of Naphtali sacrificed to the calf
that King Jeroboam of
Burying someone was one the more charitable acts one could do for another.
Tobit 1:16-17 (NRSV)
16 In the days of Shalmaneser I performed many acts of charity to my kindred,
those of my tribe. 17 I would give my food to the hungry and my
clothing to the naked; and if I saw the dead body of any of my people thrown
out behind the wall of
His charity in burying another led to his blindness due to bird droppings in his eyes. Another ridiculed him: “Where are your charitable acts? Where are your righteous deeds? Look where they’ve got you.” He offers a prayer in his distress.
Tobit 3:1-6 (NRSV)
Then with much grief and anguish of heart I wept, and with groaning began to pray:
2 “You are righteous, O Lord,
and all your deeds are just;
all your ways are mercy and truth;
you judge the world.
3 And now, O Lord, remember me
and look favorably upon me.
Do not punish me for my sins
and for my unwitting offenses
and those that my ancestors committed before you.
They sinned against you,
4 and disobeyed your commandments.
So you gave us over to plunder, exile, and death,
to become the talk, the byword, and an object of reproach
among all the nations among whom you have dispersed us.
5 And now your many judgments are true
in exacting penalty from me for my sins.
For we have not kept your commandments
and have not walked in accordance with truth before you.
6 So now deal with me as you will;
command my spirit to be taken from me,
so that I may be released from the face of the earth and become dust.
For it is better for me to die than to live,
because I have had to listen to undeserved insults,
and great is the sorrow within me.
Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress;
release me to go to the eternal home,
and do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me.
For it is better for me to die
than to see so much distress in my life
and to listen to insults.”
Another
character, Sarah, prays for death to come, for her husbands died before they
could consummate the marriage. God sends the angel Raphael to assist in
bringing together Tobit’s son Tobiah
and Sarah. The demon Asmodeus had to be exorcized, a
practice unknown in the Jewish bible. Eventually, Tobit
has his sight and wealth restored. He then offers to Israelites and
Tobit 13:1-8 (NRSV)
Then Tobit said:
“Blessed be God who lives forever,
because his kingdom lasts throughout all ages.
2 For he afflicts, and he shows mercy;
he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth,
and he brings up from the great abyss,
and there is nothing that can escape his hand.
3 Acknowledge him before
the nations, O children of
for he has scattered you among them.
4 He has shown you his greatness even there.
Exalt him in the presence of every living being,
because he is our Lord and he is our God;
he is our Father and he is God forever.
5 He will afflict you for your iniquities,
but he will again show mercy on all of you.
He will gather you from all the nations
among whom you have been scattered.
6 If you turn to him with all your heart and with all your soul,
to do what is true before him,
then he will turn to you
and will no longer hide his face from you.
So now see what he has done for you;
acknowledge him at the top of your voice.
Bless the Lord of righteousness,
and exalt the King of the ages.
In the land of my exile I acknowledge him,
and show his power and majesty to a nation of sinners:
‘Turn back, you sinners, and do what is right before him;
perhaps he may look with favor upon you and show you mercy.’
7 As for me, I exalt my God,
and my soul rejoices in the King of heaven.
8 Let all people speak of his majesty,
and acknowledge him in
I would
like to discuss briefly the additions to Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah. They are
insertions into the text that Jews accept as canonical. The additions breathe
of the spirit of Judaism, as we know it in the period from 200-0 BC. This
period was an especially trying one for the Jews living in
The additions to Daniel are insertions into the text that Jews accept as canonical. These additions add little to the general theme, tone, and theology of the book. The additions have a date between 164 and 100 BC.
The prayer of Azariah and the Hymn of the Three Young Men shifts the spotlight from the pagan king to the faith of the three martyrs and the greatness of their God. The persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes seem close to the author.
6 For we have sinned and broken your law in turning away from you;
in all matters we have sinned grievously.
7 We have not obeyed your commandments,
we have not kept them or done what you have commanded us for our own good.
8 So all that you have brought upon us,
and all that you have done to us,
you have done by a true judgment.
The problem with these verses in the prayer is
that the reason these three persons are precisely because they obeyed Torah.
The prayer continues in a beautiful way:
16 Yet with a contrite heart and a humble spirit may we be accepted,
17 as though it were with burnt offerings of rams and bulls,
or with tens of thousands of fat lambs;
such may our sacrifice be in your sight today,
and may we unreservedly follow you,
for no shame will come to those who trust in you.
18 And now with all our heart we follow you;
we fear you and seek your presence.
The Ode of the three
young men has a section that inspired early liturgies of the church.
29 “Blessed are you, O Lord, God of our ancestors,
and to be praised and highly exalted forever;
30 And blessed is your glorious, holy name,
and to be highly praised and highly exalted forever.
Susanna introduces readers to the young Daniel and his spiritual wisdom. Along the way, it questions hasty judicial decisions by Jewish elders and encourages pious women to trust God. The story may have an origin as early as 350-300 BC. The story concerns a brief, but terrifying, experience in the life of a very good and lovely Jewess, Susanna, daughter of Hilkiah. Though the story is brief, the plot is simple and direct, with mounting suspense and sudden resolution. The story is a skillful admixture of three of the most basic and universal fascinations of humanity: God, sex, and death. It may be an example of literary genre that involved the wise child who intervenes and corrects an unjust decision by adults. It also contains another strong literary theme of the chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor. In that sense, it is a secular story. An unusual aspect of the story is that Jewish community appears unthreatened and can carry out capital punishment on its own. Bel and the Snake illustrates the fulfillment of the predictions of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 51:34-35, 44 (NRSV)
34 “King Nebuchadrezzar of
he has crushed me;
he has made me an empty vessel,
he has swallowed me like a monster;
he has filled his belly with my delicacies,
he has spewed me out.
35 May my torn flesh be
avenged on
the inhabitants of
“May my blood be
avenged on the inhabitants of
44 I will punish Bel in
and make him disgorge what he has swallowed.
The nations shall no longer stream to him;
the wall of
This addition has its origin in the period between 164 and
100 BC. The text focuses on mocking idolatry and having God protect Daniel from
his enemies. It ridicules paganism. It probably originated in
I do not revere idols made with hands, but the living God, who created heaven and earth and has dominion over all living creatures.
The additions to Esther are insertions into the text that Jews accept as canonical. When one reads Esther with the additions, the text is clear that God is the hero, rather than either Esther or Mordecai. The word “God” occurs over 50 times in these additions. They articulate God’s providential care for the people of God, the miraculous intervention of God in a specific moment of history, an anti-Gentile attitude, the efficacy of prayer and fasting, and concern for the right foods, marriage, and temple. The additions tend to correct what many readers might consider as deficiencies of the original text. In fact, these deficiencies are the reasons why even Jews had difficult time with accepting Esther into the canon. They strengthen the religious character of the book. They also strengthen authenticity by including decrees by the king. Such additions strengthen the idea that Esther had a difficult time finding acceptance as canon. Addition A (150-93 BC) and Addition F (150-93) concern a dream Mordecai has in which God discloses the conspiracy to kill the king to Mordecai. Addition B (soon after 114 BC) is the text of the first royal letter. Addition C (150-93 BC) is the prayer of Mordecai, reflecting accurately the needs of Mordecai and his fellow Jews:
Additions to Esther 13:8-17 (NRSV)
8 Then Mordecai prayed to the Lord, calling to remembrance all the works of the Lord.
9 He said, “O Lord, Lord,
you rule as King over all things, for the universe is in your power and there
is no one who can oppose you when it is your will to save
Addition C (150-93 BC) is the prayer of Queen Esther, where she
seeks divine assistance to fulfill her mission. She also asked for help for her
people. We also discover that the fulfillment of her royal role was distasteful
to her. Addition D (150-93 BC) has Esther appearing before the king and
receiving his attention by fainting. Addition E (soon after 114 BC) is the text
of the second royal letter. The final addition refers to fourth year of the
reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, when Dositheus
brought Esther with at least several of the additions to
The
additions to Jeremiah are insertions into the writings that Jews accept as
canonical. The additions do nothing to add to the reputation of Jeremiah. I
Baruch is a collection of material that came together before 168 BC. It has had
little influence in either Jewish or Christian traditions. 1:1-14 is an
introduction and covering letter from
Baruch 3:10-14 (NRSV)
10 Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies,
that you are growing old in a foreign country,
that you are defiled with the dead,
11 that you are counted among those in Hades?
12 You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
13 If you had walked in the way of God,
you would be living in peace forever.
14 Learn where there is wisdom,
where there is strength,
where there is understanding,
so that you may at the same time discern
where there is length of days, and life,
where there is light for the eyes, and peace.
In addition, the text has an interesting reflection on the universe as the house of God:
Baruch 3:22-24 (NRSV)
22 She has not been heard
of in
or seen in Teman;
23 the descendants of Hagar, who seek for understanding on the earth,
the merchants of Merran and Teman,
the story-tellers and the seekers for understanding,
have not learned the way to wisdom,
or given thought to her paths.
24 O
how vast the territory that he possesses!
Christians also took one portion of this text as foreshadowing the Incarnation:
Baruch 3:36-4:1 (NRSV)
36 He found the whole way to knowledge,
and gave her to his servant Jacob
and to
37 Afterward she appeared on earth
and lived with humankind.
She is the book of the commandments of God,
the law that endures forever.
All who hold her fast will live,
and those who forsake her will die.
4:5-5:9 has a similarity with the Psalm of Solomon 11. It could come from 150 BC to 50 BC. It is a psalm of encouragement. It advances the position of the Hasidim and its pacifist confidence:
Baruch
25 My children, endure with patience the wrath that has come upon you from God.
Your enemy has overtaken you,
but you will soon see their destruction
and will tread upon their necks.
Judith presents the story of a saint who assassinates a political leader. It presents a story from among the Pharisees that joined with Hasmonaeans. The author wrote it during the reign of John Hycranus I (135-104). Judith was a Samaritan and a faithful Jew. Since both Jewish and Christian saints are generally those who suffer and die for others, this story presents an unusual story. The story is a masterpiece of irony and fast action. The character and personality of both the heroine and the villain are drawn effectively. The story with its skillful use of prayers, speeches, and plot is an effective means of expressing the author’s own theological concerns and religious ideas. The book has a number of glaring historical errors. Of course, the theology and values of the book are a question in the minds of many. The religious views of the book, while essentially those of early Pharisaism, are not belligerently sectarian in character. Like Esther and I Maccabees, it has a noticeable lack of the supernatural. The story has many consistencies with Judas Maccabeus. It could be a narrative romance where material from the Babylonian Diaspora is used with strong nationalistic coloring inspired by the Maccabean war of liberation. Chapters 1-7 are a foil to the chapters 8-16. in the first part, Nebuchadnezzar and Holofernes won all the battles. In the second part, Judith and Israelites win. Raw masculine power prevailed in the first part. Soft feminine beauty and wiles prevail in the second. All the Israelite males hid behind the safety of their town walls. Judith and her slave left the security of their city to go out and meet the enemy. In chapter 5, Achior was honest, straightforward, and unsuccessful in convincing Holofernes of the truth, while Judith in her dealings with Holofernes was deceitful, dishonest, and successful. It is a folktale in which its author, a Pharisee who liked irony, offered an example story featuring the least likely of models, a pious widow, who by courageously taking matters into her own hands, defeated the enemy and won lasting fame for herself. The book stresses the importance of piety in order to avert national disaster.
Judith 5:20-21 (NRSV)
20 “So now, my master and lord, if there is any oversight in this people and they sin against their God and we find out their offense, then we can go up and defeat them. 21 But if they are not a guilty nation, then let my lord pass them by; for their Lord and God will defend them, and we shall become the laughingstock of the whole world.”
Judith did more than explain the crisis. She acted on the nature of the crisis. Instead of waiting for God to do something for them, the people themselves should act, calling upon God to help them help themselves.
Judith 8:16-17 (NRSV)
16 Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God; for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading. 17 Therefore, while we wait for his deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice, if it pleases him.
The description of the assassination by Judith is worth noting.
Judith 13:6-10 (NRSV)
6 She went up to the
bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his
sword that hung there. 7 She came close to his bed, took hold of the
hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O Lord God of
I Esdras has a story of the bodyguards of the king that reflects this time period. The story is an insertion into the text, a text that largely repeats the work of the Chronicler. The portion that I find interesting connects with the ancient quest for truth. In context, the author simply wants to introduce Zerubbabel as a wise man in the court of Persian king.
1 Esdras 3:1-4:41 (NRSV)
Now King Darius gave a great banquet for all that were under him, all that were born in his house, and all the nobles of Media and Persia, 2 and all the satraps and generals and governors that were under him in the hundred twenty-seven satrapies from India to Ethiopia. 3 They ate and drank, and when they were satisfied they went away, and King Darius went to his bedroom; he went to sleep, but woke up again.
4 Then the three young men of the bodyguard, who kept guard over the person of the king, said to one another, 5 “Let each of us state what one thing is strongest; and to the one whose statement seems wisest, King Darius will give rich gifts and great honors of victory. 6 He shall be clothed in purple, and drink from gold cups, and sleep on a gold bed, and have a chariot with gold bridles, and a turban of fine linen, and a necklace around his neck; 7 and because of his wisdom he shall sit next to Darius and shall be called Kinsman of Darius.”
8 Then each wrote his own statement, and they sealed them and put them under the pillow of King Darius, 9 and said, “When the king wakes, they will give him the writing; and to the one whose statement the king and the three nobles of Persia judge to be wisest the victory shall be given according to what is written.” 10 The first wrote, “Wine is strongest.” 11 The second wrote, “The king is strongest.” 12 The third wrote, “Women are strongest, but above all things truth is victor.”
13 When the king awoke,
they took the writing and gave it to him, and he read it. 14 Then he
sent and summoned all the nobles of
The Speech about Wine
Then the first, who had spoken of the strength of wine, began and said: 18 “Gentlemen, how is wine the strongest? It leads astray the minds of all who drink it. 19 It makes equal the mind of the king and the orphan, of the slave and the free, of the poor and the rich. 20 It turns every thought to feasting and mirth, and forgets all sorrow and debt. 21 It makes all hearts feel rich, forgets kings and satraps, and makes everyone talk in millions. 22 When people drink they forget to be friendly with friends and kindred, and before long they draw their swords. 23 And when they recover from the wine, they do not remember what they have done. 24 Gentlemen, is not wine the strongest, since it forces people to do these things?” When he had said this, he stopped speaking.
The Speech about the King
Then the second, who had spoken of the strength of the king, began to speak: 2 “Gentlemen, are not men strongest, who rule over land and sea and all that is in them? 3 But the king is stronger; he is their lord and master, and whatever he says to them they obey. 4 If he tells them to make war on one another, they do it; and if he sends them out against the enemy, they go, and conquer mountains, walls, and towers. 5 They kill and are killed, and do not disobey the king’s command; if they win the victory, they bring everything to the king—whatever spoil they take and everything else. 6 Likewise those who do not serve in the army or make war but till the soil; whenever they sow and reap, they bring some to the king; and they compel one another to pay taxes to the king. 7 And yet he is only one man! If he tells them to kill, they kill; if he tells them to release, they release; 8 if he tells them to attack, they attack; if he tells them to lay waste, they lay waste; if he tells them to build, they build; 9 if he tells them to cut down, they cut down; if he tells them to plant, they plant. 10 All his people and his armies obey him. Furthermore, he reclines, he eats and drinks and sleeps, 11 but they keep watch around him, and no one may go away to attend to his own affairs, nor do they disobey him. 12 Gentlemen, why is not the king the strongest, since he is to be obeyed in this fashion?” And he stopped speaking.
The Speech about Women
13 Then the third, who had spoken of women and truth (and this was Zerubbabel), began to speak: 14 “Gentlemen, is not the king great, and are not men many, and is not wine strong? Who is it, then, that rules them, or has the mastery over them? Is it not women? 15 Women gave birth to the king and to every people that rules over sea and land. 16 From women they came; and women brought up the very men who plant the vineyards from which comes wine. 17 Women make men’s clothes; they bring men glory; men cannot exist without women. 18 If men gather gold and silver or any other beautiful thing, and then see a woman lovely in appearance and beauty, 19 they let all those things go, and gape at her, and with open mouths stare at her, and all prefer her to gold or silver or any other beautiful thing. 20 A man leaves his own father, who brought him up, and his own country, and clings to his wife. 21 With his wife he ends his days, with no thought of his father or his mother or his country. 22 Therefore you must realize that women rule over you!
“Do you not labor and toil, and bring everything and give it to women? 23 A man takes his sword, and goes out to travel and rob and steal and to sail the sea and rivers; 24 he faces lions, and he walks in darkness, and when he steals and robs and plunders, he brings it back to the woman he loves. 25 A man loves his wife more than his father or his mother. 26 Many men have lost their minds because of women, and have become slaves because of them. 27 Many have perished, or stumbled, or sinned because of women. 28 And now do you not believe me?
“Is not the king great in his power? Do not all lands fear to touch him? 29 Yet I have seen him with Apame, the king’s concubine, the daughter of the illustrious Bartacus; she would sit at the king’s right hand 30 and take the crown from the king’s head and put it on her own, and slap the king with her left hand. 31 At this the king would gaze at her with mouth agape. If she smiles at him, he laughs; if she loses her temper with him, he flatters her, so that she may be reconciled to him. 32 Gentlemen, why are not women strong, since they do such things?”
The Speech about Truth
33 Then the king and the nobles looked at one another; and he began to speak about truth: 34 “Gentlemen, are not women strong? The earth is vast, and heaven is high, and the sun is swift in its course, for it makes the circuit of the heavens and returns to its place in one day. 35 Is not the one who does these things great? But truth is great, and stronger than all things. 36 The whole earth calls upon truth, and heaven blesses it. All God’s works quake and tremble, and with him there is nothing unrighteous. 37 Wine is unrighteous, the king is unrighteous, women are unrighteous, all human beings are unrighteous, all their works are unrighteous, and all such things. There is no truth in them and in their unrighteousness they will perish. 38 But truth endures and is strong forever, and lives and prevails forever and ever. 39 With it there is no partiality or preference, but it does what is righteous instead of anything that is unrighteous or wicked. Everyone approves its deeds, 40 and there is nothing unrighteous in its judgment. To it belongs the strength and the kingship and the power and the majesty of all the ages. Blessed be the God of truth!” 41 When he stopped speaking, all the people shouted and said, “Great is truth, and strongest of all!”
Onias IV published a work between 131 and 129 with several
purposes. One was that Jews could rightfully collaborate with Greeks, but only
with the Ptolemaic empire rather than the wicked Seleucids. Two was that his
righteous father, Onias III, had won great benefits
for the Jews through his friendly relations with the Greeks. Three is that his
own Tobiad kinsmen, Joseph and Hyrcannus
and Jason, had pursued similar pro-Hellenic and pro-Ptolemaic policy, to the
great advantage of the Jews. Four is that the last surviving link to
I Maccabees and II Maccabees represent the struggle of the Jewish people to deal with the Seleucid Antiochus IV from 167 to 164. I Maccabees was written before 90 BC. II Maccabees was written shortly after 78/7 BC. Their sources include The Testament of Moses (166 or early 165 BC) and Enoch 85-90 (shortly before Judas’ death in the spring of 160 BC). The Pharisees and Essenes accepted the apocalyptic visions of Daniel 7-12. They were hostile to the Hasmonaeans. I Maccabees refers to incidents in chapters 1-6, and so the silence on the rest of the book says much. In particular, I Maccabees seems pleased to contradict Daniel 11:30-32.
Daniel 11:30-32 (NRSV)
30 For ships of Kittim shall come against him,
and he shall lose heart and withdraw. He shall be enraged and take action
against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and pay heed to those who forsake
the holy covenant. 31 Forces sent by him shall occupy and profane
the temple and fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set
up the abomination that makes desolate. 32 He shall seduce with
intrigue those who violate the covenant; but the people who are loyal to their
God shall stand firm and take action.
I Maccabees informs readers that the Mysarch came in 167, two years after the sack of 169, and that the Mysarch’s expedition and the desecration were two separate events. On the other hand, II Maccabees wrote obscurely on this incident to protect the veracity of the text.
I Maccabees
rejected belief in immortality or resurrection. The author is silent on the
value of martyrdom. Piety itself is not enough to bring salvation to the Jews.
They must also obey the Hosmonaeans, the stock chosen
by God to save them. If I Maccabees is propaganda showing the divinely ordered
legitimacy of the Hasmonaean line through John Hyrcanus, it could only have been written during the reign
of Alexander Jannaeus. This purpose of denying
legitimacy to the Hellenistic kings goes far to explain the absence from I
Maccabees of any effort to explain why God allowed those kings to rule. In
common with the patriotic propagandists of the other subject peoples our author
sees the Gree-speaking exploiters as evil usurpers.
We can read I Maccabees as turning to assert the illegitimacy of the Hellenic Oniad high priests and Menelaus. The text implies that Mattathias acted like David in the wilderness and that the
Hasidim were like the priests of Nob. The victories
of Judas were sufficient proof of his divine election. He died because of the
cowardice of people, and possibly Hasidim who deserted him and because of his
own heroic obstinacy in the face of good advice to withdraw and live to fight
another day. With the death of Judas, the author had to prove the legitimacy of
Jonathan’s succession and does so with great care. In fact, he highlights a
time when Jonathan escaped by fighting and swimming across the
II Maccabees
begins with two letters. The first letter is an authentic festal letter
announcing the Feast of Dedication sent out by Jewish authorities in
2 Maccabees 1:2-5 (NRSV)
2 May God do good to you, and may he remember his covenant with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, his faithful servants. 3 May he give you all a
heart to worship him and to do his will with a strong heart and a willing
spirit. 4 May he open your heart to his law and his commandments,
and may he bring peace. 5 May he hear your prayers and be reconciled
to you, and may he not forsake you in time of evil.
It quotes an earlier festal letter sent by the Jews of Jerusalem
and
2 Maccabees 2:19-32 (NRSV)
19 The story of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, and the purification of the great temple, and the dedication of the altar, 20 and further the wars against Antiochus Epiphanes and his son Eupator, 21 and the appearances that came from heaven to those who fought bravely for Judaism, so that though few in number they seized the whole land and pursued the barbarian hordes, 22 and regained possession of the temple famous throughout the world, and liberated the city, and re-established the laws that were about to be abolished, while the Lord with great kindness became gracious to them— 23 all this, which has been set forth by Jason of Cyrene in five volumes, we shall attempt to condense into a single book. 24 For considering the flood of statistics involved and the difficulty there is for those who wish to enter upon the narratives of history because of the mass of material, 25 we have aimed to please those who wish to read, to make it easy for those who are inclined to memorize, and to profit all readers. 26 For us who have undertaken the toil of abbreviating, it is no light matter but calls for sweat and loss of sleep, 27 just as it is not easy for one who prepares a banquet and seeks the benefit of others. Nevertheless, to secure the gratitude of many we will gladly endure the uncomfortable toil, 28 leaving the responsibility for exact details to the compiler, while devoting our effort to arriving at the outlines of the condensation. 29 For as the master builder of a new house must be concerned with the whole construction, while the one who undertakes its painting and decoration has to consider only what is suitable for its adornment, such in my judgment is the case with us. 30 It is the duty of the original historian to occupy the ground, to discuss matters from every side, and to take trouble with details, 31 but the one who recasts the narrative should be allowed to strive for brevity of expression and to forego exhaustive treatment. 32 At this point therefore let us begin our narrative, without adding any more to what has already been said; for it would be foolish to lengthen the preface while cutting short the history itself.
Both letters contradict the content of the book. The fact that the book has many miracles distinguishes it from I Maccabees. Jason insists that martyrdom is not in vain.
Jason makes every effort to show that Judas’ brothers were at best ineffective and at worst tainted by treason and sin. Jason asserts belief in the resurrection. Jason makes even the victories of Judas a result of divine favor won by the martyrs.
2 Maccabees 6:4-6, 10-12, 16 (NRSV)
4 For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles, who dallied with prostitutes and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit. 5 The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws. 6 People could neither keep the sabbath, nor observe the festivals of their ancestors, nor so much as confess themselves to be Jews.
10 For example, two women were brought in for having circumcised their children. They publicly paraded them around the city, with their babies hanging at their breasts, and then hurled them down headlong from the wall. 11 Others who had assembled in the caves nearby, in order to observe the seventh day secretly, were betrayed to Philip and were all burned together, because their piety kept them from defending themselves, in view of their regard for that most holy day.
12 Now I urge those who read this book not to be depressed by such calamities, but to recognize that these punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people.
16 Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Although he disciplines
us with calamities, he does not forsake his own people.
2 Maccabees 7:1, 3-5 (NRSV)
It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. 3 The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4 These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. 5 When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan.
Jason emphasizes the Feast of Dedication and the Day of Nicanor and the threat to the temple. The book is a clear attempt to refute I Maccabees.
Josephus wrote a history of this period. He had several presuppositions that guided his writing. One is that he was a proud descendant of Jonathan, the Hasmonaean, and a defender of the honor of the Hasmonaean line through the reign of John Hyrcanus and even of later members. He recognized the serious failings of Alexander Jannaeus and his successors. Two is that he was a convinced Pharisee with some sympathies for the Essenes. He believed in immortality and resurrection. Three is that he accepted the veracity of Daniel 7-12. Four is that he was proud of the martyrs and believed in the value of martyrdom. He was a proud Jew writing to win admiration for his people from Greek and Roman readers. Joseph wanted to give a rebuttal to II Maccabees. He presented a pro-Hasmonaean work that sought to prove that all of the later Zadokite-Oniad high priests, including Onias III, were insignificant or contemptible men. Josephus thought he could show that the work by Onias he could shown have no relationship to the facts, and that he could discredit the work of II Maccabees in favor of I Maccabees.
Ecclesiastes
is another book that has an argument with the traditional wisdom and theology
of
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NRSV)
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
The author gives advice about religion.
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 (NRSV)
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil. 2 Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few.
3 For dreams come with many cares, and a fool’s voice with many words.
4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulfilling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfill it. 6 Do not let your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake; why should God be angry at your words, and destroy the work of your hands?
7 With many dreams come vanities and a multitude of words; but fear God.
The author gives counsel concerning right use of wealth.
Ecclesiastes 5:9-19 (NRSV)
9 But all things considered, this is an advantage for a land: a king for a plowed field.
10 The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity.
11 When goods increase, those who eat them increase; and what gain has their owner but to see them with his eyes?
12 Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much; but the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep.
13 There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. 15 As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands. 16 This also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go; and what gain do they have from toiling for the wind? 17 Besides, all their days they eat in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment.
18 This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. 19 Likewise all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God.
The author also gives counsel that contentment is the highest good in life.
Ecclesiastes 6:6 (NRSV)
6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to one place?
Ecclesiastes 6:8 (NRSV)
8 For what advantage have the wise over fools? And what do the poor have
who know how to conduct themselves before the living?
The author counsels against exhausting yourself in the pursuit of perfection.
Ecclesiastes 7:15-22 (NRSV)
15 In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing. 16 Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself? 17 Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time? 18 It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.
19 Wisdom gives strength to the wise more than ten rulers that are in a city.
20 Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning.
21 Do not give heed to everything that people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you; 22 your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others.
It is frustrating to focus on wisdom, kings should be obeyed because of their power, and wickedness goes unpunished in this life. The only happiness one can expect is enjoyment in daily living. God's decrees are arbitrary. God knows the beginning and end, but God has not allowed humanity in on the secret.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11-13 (NRSV)
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a
sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God
has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is
nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they
live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink
and take pleasure in all their toil.
The original ending was simply "everything is
futile." However, another wisdom teacher thought this too pessimistic and
added that wisdom is found in fearing the Lord, 12:9-14.
The hidden character of the action of God in daily life, which wisdom accepted, can lead to skepticism as to whether God is present active at all. One can note this hidden quality of divine action in the story of Joseph, in the traditional maxims of Proverbs, and in the theological portion of Proverbs, chapters 1-8.
Ecclesiastes 2:22-26 (NRSV)
22 What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? 23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
24 There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Ecclesiastes 5:13-20 (NRSV)
13 There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. 15 As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands. 16 This also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go; and what gain do they have from toiling for the wind? 17 Besides, all their days they eat in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment.
18 This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. 19 Likewise all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God. 20 For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts.
Ecclesiastes 8:14-17 (NRSV)
14 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. 15 So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.
16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night, 17 then I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out.
Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 (NRSV)
7 Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do. 8 Let your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head. 9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
For
Ecclesiastes, the action of God has become so hidden that the author cannot see
it. The point where contact with the action of Yahweh in history tended to be
lost was the point when faith experienced its gravest danger. A form of
skepticism arose unique to
Ben Sira (250-175 BC) saw the effects of Hellenization
on the Jewish people. He met many Jews whose faith was shaken by the questions
and doubts that Greek philosophy and religion had raised. These Jews had a
gnawing, unexpressed fear that the religion of their ancestors was inadequate
to cope with the needs of social and political structures that had changed
enormously. He published this book around 180 BC to bolster their faith. He
wanted to convince Jews and well-disposed Gentiles that true wisdom is to be
found primarily in
Part I (1:1-4:10) has the general theme of wisdom as the fear of the Lord in its various manifestations.
Sirach
10 Be a father to orphans,
and be like a husband to their mother;
you will then be like a son of the Most High,
and he will love you more than does your mother.
Part II (
Sirach 4:20-24 (NRSV)
20 Watch for the opportune time, and beware of evil,
and do not be ashamed to be yourself.
21 For there is a shame that leads to sin,
and there is a shame that is glory and favor.
22 Do not show partiality, to your own harm,
or deference, to your downfall.
23 Do not refrain from speaking at the proper moment,
and do not hide your wisdom.
24 For wisdom becomes known through speech,
and education through the words of the tongue.
Sirach 6:6-9 (NRSV)
6 Let those who are friendly with you be many,
but let your advisers be one in a thousand.
7 When you gain friends, gain them through testing,
and do not trust them hastily.
8 For there are friends who are such when it suits them,
but they will not stand by you in time of trouble.
9 And there are friends who change into enemies,
and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace.
Sirach 6:14-16 (NRSV)
14 Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter:
whoever finds one has found a treasure.
15 Faithful friends are beyond price;
no amount can balance their worth.
16 Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
and those who fear the Lord will find them.
Part III (
Sirach 11:18-19 (NRSV)
18 One becomes rich through diligence and self-denial,
and the reward allotted to him is this:
19 when he says, “I have found rest,
and now I shall feast on my goods!”
he does not know how long it will be
until he leaves them to others and dies.
Sirach 12:8-9 (NRSV)
8 A friend is not known in prosperity,
nor is an enemy hidden in adversity.
9 One’s enemies are friendly when one prospers,
but in adversity even one’s friend disappears.
Part IV (
Sirach 15:11-15 (NRSV)
11 Do not say, “It was the Lord’s doing that I fell away”;
for he does not do what he hates.
12 Do not say, “It was he who led me astray”;
for he has no need of the sinful.
13 The Lord hates all abominations;
such things are not loved by those who fear him.
14 It was he who created humankind in the beginning,
and he left them in the power of their own free choice.
15 If you choose, you can keep the commandments,
and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
Sirach 15:17-20 (NRSV)
17 Before each person are life and death,
and whichever one chooses will be given.
18 For great is the wisdom of the Lord;
he is mighty in power and sees everything;
19 his eyes are on those who fear him,
and he knows every human action.
20 He has not commanded anyone to be wicked,
and he has not given anyone permission to sin.
Part V (24:1-33:18) has an interesting comment about forgiveness.
Sirach 28:2-5 (NRSV)
2 Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done,
and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.
3 Does anyone harbor anger against another,
and expect healing from the Lord?
4 If one has no mercy toward another like himself,
can he then seek pardon for his own sins?
5 If a mere mortal harbors wrath,
who will make an atoning sacrifice for his sins?
Part VI (33:19-38:23) has an interesting comment about physical illness.
Sirach 38:9-14 (NRSV)
9 My child, when you are ill, do not delay,
but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.
10 Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly,
and cleanse your heart from all sin.
11 Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of choice flour,
and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford.
12 Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;
do not let him leave you, for you need him.
13 There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,
14 for they too pray to the Lord
that he grant them success in diagnosis
and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.
Part VII (38:24-43:33) gives several comments on wisdom.
Sirach 41:14-15 (NRSV)
14 My children, be true to your training and be at peace;
hidden wisdom and unseen treasure—
of what value is either?
15 Better are those who hide their folly
than those who hide their wisdom.
Sirach 42:15-17 (NRSV)
15 I will now call to mind the works of the Lord,
and will declare what I have seen.
By the word of the Lord his works are made;
and all his creatures do his will.
16 The sun looks down on everything with its light,
and the work of the Lord is full of his glory.
17 The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones
to recount all his marvelous works,
which the Lord the Almighty has established
so that the universe may stand firm in his glory.
Sirach 43:27-33 (NRSV)
27 We could say more but could never say enough;
let the final word be: “He is the all.”
28 Where can we find the strength to praise him?
For he is greater than all his works.
29 Awesome is the Lord and very great,
and marvelous is his power.
30 Glorify the Lord and exalt him as much as you can,
for he surpasses even that.
When you exalt him, summon all your strength,
and do not grow weary, for you cannot praise him enough.
31 Who has seen him and can describe him?
Or who can extol him as he is?
32 Many things greater than these lie hidden,
for I have seen but few of his works.
33 For the Lord has made all things,
and to the godly he has given wisdom.
Part VIII
(44:1-50:24) forms a unit involving praise of the ancestors of the old, that
rehearses the history of the Old Testament.
Apocalyptic
revolves around three basic ideas: historical dualism, universal and cosmic
expectation, and the approaching end of the world. It claims to know the inner plan of God who
is Lord of history and vindicator of
This
literature has dualism as a primary feature of its eschatology, a clear
division between the present age and the one to come. The writers of this
literature have profound awareness of the difference between what is in the
world and what in fact should be. The
more darkly looms the immediate future, the higher rises certainty that human
opposition can thwart the establishment of the
Another
characteristic is its transcendentalism, in that the coming age comes down from
the world above to the earth.
Among the
methods of apocalyptic literature is the attempt to reduce to a few basic,
primal forces, represented in symbolic figures. They veil their own perspective
in time, for what they a offer is a survey of history in which everything turns
upon predetermined ages of world history. This may suggest a connection with
the wisdom tradition, which also concerns itself with the timeless.
They also
feel the tension between faithfulness to the law on the one hand, and the
apparent futility of such faithfulness on the other.
The authors
are motivated by a hope that takes them
beyond present reality.
That final events were determined far back in the
past and foretold in detail to certain chosen person is another primary
characteristic. This is why the writings are pseudonymous. They give the
impression of prophecy, but in reality are prophecy from after the event. They
report revelation to sages of long ago before the decisive moment at which the
two ages coincide. They wrote down exact historical and cosmic course of
events. They did not publicize their knowledge. They kept everything in secret,
for it was something did not fully understand, since it would only come into
effect at a much later date. This suggests an esoteric and Gnostic tendency.
One can know and calculate last things, but only the initiated can understand
it.
It is not the literature of the academic
world. Rather, it is under the pressure
of martyrdom, persecution, the temptation to abandon morality, and the desire
to find some meaning in the midst of suffering.
That is where the expectation for the transformation of the present age
into a new age has such a strong impact.
This literature inspired messianic resistance to foreign rule, most
particularly in 66-70, at which
The
difference with the prophetic message is that prophets grounded their message
in saving history and the traditions of election. Apocalyptic does not attempt
such grounding, for they do not have a theological grasp of the history of
In Daniel
7-12, is apocalyptic material precipitated by the religious crisis faced by
Jews living during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
These four revelations have as their purpose to console, strengthen, and exhort
their coreligionists. The unflinching faith of these people had its ground in
divine power and will to rescue all who trusted in God and in the providence of
God. The conviction is that at the appropriate time, God will right all wrongs.
If things are to be set right, this life and this history are not often the
place where that reconciliation takes place. Believers have hope in the power
of God, who takes human sin seriously and will restore justice in an often
unjust world. These people persevered in this conviction despite all
appearances that God was silent and not at work. The point of the final visions
is that the fourth kingdom is the final kingdom of world history. For believers,
all prophesies of Daniel unfulfilled by the end of the sabbatical year in early
autumn 163 BC were prophesies God will fulfill in the distant future, when God
should see fit to bring the end. The Son of Man as initially presented is a
Messianic figure. The individual comes from the heavenly world. God authorizes
the individual to rule the world. It receives a collective interpretation as
the saints of
Jeremiah 25:11-12 (NRSV)
11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall
serve the king of
Jeremiah 29:10 (NRSV)
10 For thus says the Lord:
Only when
Ezra and Nehemiah interpret the prophecy as referring to the
rebuilding of the
Portions of II Isaiah are apocalyptic
Portions of Ezekiel are apocalyptic
Zechariah 9-14 are apocalyptic
Portions of III Isaiah are apocalyptic
Joel is apocalyptic
Daniel 2:13-45 and 7-12 are apocalyptic
The book of Revelation is apocalyptic
Mark 13 is apocalyptic
I Enoch, written from 164 BC onward is apocalyptic
The book of Jubilees, written around 150 BC, is apocalyptic
Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, written from 150 BC onward, is apocalyptic
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (125-100 BC)
Psalms of Solomon (48 BC)
Assumption of Moses (6-30 AD)
Sibylline Oracles, Book IV (80 AD)
II Baruch – Apocalypse of Baruch (95 AD)
III Baruch (100-200 AD)
Sibylline Oracles, Book V (100-200 AD)
Several
documents in
The variety of traditions discovered in the Old Testament
does suggest a broad based concept of unity.
There is no reason for believing that the various schools that
created these traditions did not
have tensions between them. For example, J and E have clear differences,
as does "P." Yet, they were brought together in the Exilic period
because it was recognized they had a common witness to what God was doing in
their community. We can say the same for
the Deuteronomic history, also brought together in
the exilic period. It was itself an
attempt to combine stories from the tribal federation and court records with
prophetic legend and prophetic interpretation of events that often ran counter
to the historical records available. The
later history of the chronicler gave another view to the history of the nation
more in line with the emerging consensus of the post-exilic community. The prophetic writings, often standing in
judgment of what was happening officially at the court and in religious
circles, provide a contrary opinion to the court records and to wisdom
tradition, the latter being a product of the ruling classes. Apocalyptic, with its emphasis on the critical
battle between good and evil, that God is moving history toward a soon arrival
of the end, runs counter to much of the old Testament teaching about creation
and the political and religious world.
The worshipping community, with its emphasis upon the experience of God
in the community, at a variety of points finds expression in these materials as
well. These materials, in spite of their
variety, were brought together because they share a common witness to God's
activity in
This text offers its purpose as the following.
The words of the righteous .. and the words concerning the eternal judgments, and the torments of Gehenna, and the prince of this world, and his angels, and his authorites, and his powers, and the words concerning faith in the Beloved which he himself had seen … concerning the judgment of the angels, and concerning the destruction of this world, and concerning the robes of the saints and their going out, and concerning their transformation and the persecution and ascension of the Beloved. 1:3-5
The author speaks under divine inspiration.
As the Lord lives whose name has both been transmitted to this world, and as the Beloved of my Lord lives, and as the Spirit which speaks in me lives … 1:7-9
In the sixth heaven everyone sings praises.
And there they all named the primal Father and his Beloved, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, all with one voice. … 8:18
The text refers to the Incarnation.
Christ, who is to be called in the world Jesus … 9:5
The Lord will indeed descend into the world in the last days, he who is to be called Christ after he has descended and become like you in form, and they will think that he is flesh and a man. And the god of that world will stretch out his hand against the Son, and they will lay their hands upon him and hang him upon a tree, not knowing who he is. … And when he has plundered the angel of death, he will rise on the third day and will remain in that world for five hundred and forty-five days. 9:13-14
And I saw a woman of the family of
David the prophet whose name was Mary, and she was a virgin and was betrothed
to a man whose name was Joseph, a carpenter, and he also was of the seed and
family of the righteous David of Bethlehem in
The text refers to those people in the seventh heaven. They receive robes.
As for these robes, there are many from that world who will receive them through believing in the words of that one who will be named as I have told you and they will keep them, and believe in them, and believe in his cross … 9:26
The text encourages piety.
Do not turn away from God.
Walk before his face,
And keep his commandments.
Do not abhor the prayers of your salvation …
And do not be ungenerous with the Lord’s gifts …
And bless the Lord with the firstborn of your herds …
And do not turn away from the Lord … 2:2
And may God make your hearts true in reverence for him. 2:3
The text emphasizes the role of ethics.
This place, Enough, has become prepared for the righteous,
Who suffer every kind of calamity in their life
And who afflict their souls,
And who avert their eyes from injustice,
And who carry out righteous judgment,
And who give bread to the hungry,
And who cover the naked with clothing, and who lift up the fallen.
And who help the injured and the orphans,
And who walk without a defect before the face of the Lord,
And who worship him only. 9:2
They showed me there a very frightful lace; and all kinds of torture and torment are in that place. … This place, Enough, has been prepared for those who do not glorify God, who practice on the earth the sin which is against nature, which is child corruption in the anus in the manner of Sodom, of witchcraft, enchantments, divinations, trafficking with demons, who boast about their evil deeds – stealing, lying insulting, coveting, resentment, fornication, murder – and who steal the souls of people secretly, securing the poor by the throat, taking away their possessions, enriching themselves from the possessions of others, defrauding them; who, when they are able to provide sustenance, bring about the death of the hungry by starvation; and when they are able to provide clothing, take away the last garment of the naked, who do not acknowledge their Creator, but how down to idols which have no souls, which can neither see nor hear, vain gods; constructing images, and bowing down to vile things made by hands – for all these this place has been prepared as an eternal reward. (selections from Chapter 10)
Happy is the person who reverences the name of the Lord. …
Happy is he who carries out righteous judgment.
Happy is he who clothes the naked with his garment. Happy is he who judges righteous judgment for orphans and widow.
Happy is he who turns aside from the secular path of this vain world.
Happy is the he who sows right sdded.
Happy is he in whom is the truth.
Happy ishe who has compassion on his lips and gentleness in his heart!
Happy is he who understands all the works of the Lord. 42:6-14
There is no one better than he who fears God. He will be the most glorious in that age. 43:3
And whoever insults a person’s face, insults the face of a king, and treates the face of the Lord with repugnance.
He who treats with contempt the face of any person treats the face of the Lord with contempt.
Happy is the person who does not direct his heart with malice toward any person, but who helps the offended and the condemned, and lifts up those who have been crushed, and shows compassion on the needy. 44:2-4
Stretch out your hands to the needy in accordance with your strength … Help a believer in affliction, and then affliction will not find you, in your treasures and in the time of your work. 51:1-2
Happy is the person who opens his lips for praise of the God of Sabaoth, and praises the Lord with his whole heart.
Happy is he who opens his lips, both blessing and praising God.
Hearts – who blesses all the works of the Lord.
Happy who looks carefully to the raising up of the works of his own hand.
Happy who preserves the foundations of his most ancient fathers, made firm from the beginning.
Happy who cultivates the love of peace.
Happy is he who even though he does not speak peace with hiss tongue nevertheless in his heart there is peace toward all. 52:1-7
He who does harm to a human soul creates harm for his own soul, and there is for him no healing of his flesh, nor any forgiveness for enemy. 60:1
A person, when he clothes the naked or gives his bread to the hungry, then he will obtain a reward from God. 63:1
Walk, my children,
In long-suffering
In meekness honesty,
In affliction,
In gluttony
In faithlessness
In truth,
In hope,
In weakness
In derision
In assaults,
In temptation
In deprivation,
In nakedness.
Having love for one another, until you go out from this age of suffering, to that you may become inheritors of the never-ending age. 66:6
The text offers this song in prayer:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord Sabaoth,
Heaven and earth are full of his glory. 21:2
The text protects the mystery of God in a vision of the 10th heaven.
Thus even I saw the face of the Lord. But the face of the Lord is not be talked about, it is so very marvelous and supremely awesome and supremely frightening. 22:2
The text offers this reflection upon death.
And just as every person has as nature the darkness of the present life, so also he has his conception and birth and departure from this life. In the hour in which he was conceived, in that hour also he is born and in that also he departs. 68:4
The text interprets the presence of Eve in this way.
And I created for him a wife, so that death might come to him by for his wife. 30:17
The text suggests the person does not have intercessor in heaven.
So now, my children do not say, Our
father is with God, and to he will stand as from of God for us, and he will
pray for us concerning our sins,” for there is no helper there – not even for
any one person who has sinned. See how I have written down all the deeds of
every person before the creation, ad I am wring down what is done among all
persons forever. And on no one can contradict my handwriting: because the Lord
sees all the evil thoughts of humanity, how vain they are, where they lie in
the treasuries of the heart. 53
The text describes the Abraham in terms of Jewish piety.
Abraham … lived in quietness, gentleness, and righteousness, and the righteous was very hospitable. For he pitched his tent at the crossroads of the oak of Mamre and welcomed everyone – rich and poor, kings, and rulers, the crippled and the helpless, friends and strangers, neighbors and passerby – all on equal terms did the pious, entirely holy, righteous, and hospitable Abraham welcome. (1:1-3)
I have not seen upon earth a man like him – merciful, hospitable, righteous, truthful, God-fearing, refraining from every evil deed. (4:6)
Yet, the text also finds Abraham proclaiming his unworthiness.
You have thought it altogether worthy yourself to come to me, a sinner and your completely worthless servant. (9:3)
Abraham wants to know the future.
While I am yet in this body I wish to see all the inhabited world and all the created things which you established, master, through one world, and when I have seen these things, then, if I depart from life, I shall have no sorrow. (9:6)
The text expresses the nature of the path toward salvation.
The first way was strait and narrow and the other broad and spacios. … And they saw many souls from being driven by angels and being led through the broad gate, and they saw a few other souls and they were being brought by angels through the narrow gate. (11:2, 5)
And interesting dialogue occurs in Chapter 14, in which Abraham inquires about the judgment of a soul. The soul had an equal balance of righteous and sinful deeds. Abraham discovers that to be saved, one needed to find a righteous deed. Abraham prays. God listens to the prayer and delivers the soul. In chapter 15, Abraham refuses to follow an angle that intends to lead him to his death.
This text begins with the repentance of Adam and Eve. Eve takes full responsibility for what has happened. She also accuses Satan of attacking “the image of God,” referring to Adam.
Adam: Let us repent with a great penitence, perhaps the Lord God will be forbearing and pity us and provide for us that we might live.
Eve: My Lord, how much did you intend to repent, since I have brought toil and tribulation on you.
Adam: You are not able to do so much as I; but do as much as you have strength for. I will spend forty days fasting. 4-6
And do not let three words come out of your mouth, for we are unworthy and our lips are not clean. but cry silently in God saying, “O God, be gracious to me.” … and all the angels and all the creatures of God surrounded Adam as a wall around him, weeping and praying to God on behalf of Adam, so that God gave ear to them. Apocalyptic 29:12, 14
Satan: Because of you (Adam) I am expelled and deprived of my glory which I had in the heaven in the midst of angels, and because of you I was cast out onto the earth. 12:1
Adam: “O Lord, my God, my life is in your hands. Remove far from me this my opponent, who seeks to destroy my soul, and give me his glory which he himself has forfeited.” 17
Eve: “My lord, give me a portion of your pain, for this guilt has come to you from me.” 35 “My lord Adam, rise, give me half of your illness and let me bear it, because this has happened to you through me; because of me you suffer troubles and pain.” Apocalyptic 9
Eve: “Cursed beast! How is it that you were not afraid to throw yourself at the image of God, but have dared to attack it? 37 “Woe is me! for when I come to the day of resurrection, all who have sinned will curse me, saying that Eve did not keep the command of God.” Apocalyptic 10
Seth: “Shut your mouth and be silent, and keep away from the image of God until the day of judgment.” Apocalyptic 12
The text defines covetousness as the origin of every sin (Apocalyptic 19:3). Adam describes the Fall.
I knew that I was naked of the righteousness with which I had been clothed. (20:1) And I took the leaves of the fig tree and made for myself skirts; they were from the same plants of which I ate. (20:5) You (Eve) have estranged me from the glory of God. (21:6) All Apocalyptic texts.
They receive the promise of resurrection.
But when you come out of Paradise, if you guard yourself from all evil, preferring death to it, at the time of the resurrection I will raise you again, and then there shall be given to you from the tree of life, and you shall be immortal forever. (Apocalyptic 28:4)
God called Adam and said … “Now I promise to you the resurrection; I shall raise you on the last day in the resurrection with every person of your seed.” (Apocalyptic 41:3)
Adam warns his children.
I have shown you the way in which we were deceived. But you watch yourselves so that you do not forsake the good. (Apocalyptic 30
Eve offers her final words.
God of all, receive my spirit. And immediately she gave up her spirit to God. (Apocalyptic 42:8)
I will announce to you guarded things and you will see great things which you have not seen, because you desired to search for me, and I called you my beloved. … And there I will show you the things which were made by the ages and by my word, and affirmed, created, and renewed. And I will announce to you in them what will come upon those who have done evil and just things in the race of humanity. (9:6, 9-10)
Know from this that the Eternal One whom you have loved has chosen you. (14:2)
And I saw there the earth and its fruit, and its moving things and its things that had souls, and its host of people and the impiety of their souls and their justification, and their pursuit of their works and the abyss and its torments, and its lower depths and the prediction in it. … And I saw there the garden of Eden and its fruits. (21:3)
The text addresses the matter of theodicy.
And I said, “Eternal, Mighty One, why then did you adjudge him such dominion that through his works he could ruin humankind on earth? … And I answered and said, “Eternal, Mighty One! Why did it please you to bring it about that evil should be desired in the heart of people, because you are angered at what was chosen by you … him who does useless things in your light. (23:12, 14)
The text describes the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
And I looked and I saw, and behold the picture swayed. And from its left side a crowd of heathens ran out and they captured the men, women, and children who were on its right side. And some slaughtered and others they kept with them. Behold, I saw them runner to them by way of four ascents and they burned the Temple with fire, and they plundered the holy things that were in it. And I said, “Eternal One, the people you received from me are being robbed by thehordes of the heathen. They are killing some and holding others as aliens, and they burned the Temple with fire and they are stealing and destroying the beautiful things which are in it. Eternal, Might One! If this is so, why now have you afflicted my heart and why will it be so? And he said to me, “Listen, Abraham, afflicted my heart and why will it be so? And he said to me, “Listen, Abraham, all that you have seen will happen on account of your seed who will continually provoke me because of the body which you saw and the murder in what was depicted in the Temple of jealousy, and everything you saw will be so. And I said, “Eternal, Mighty One! Let the evil works done in iniquity now pass by, and make commandments in them more than his just works. For you can do this. And he said to me, “Again the time of justice will come uupon them, at first through the holiness of kings. And I will judge with justice those whom I created earlier, to rule from them in them. And from these same ones will come people who will have regard for them, as I announced to you and you saw. (27)
II Esdras = IV Ezra 3-14 (90 AD) was composed originally in
Hebrew or Aramaic. It stresses God as creator, and especially that God was
alone. It also emphasizes that God has one people. It is a book of lamentation,
in which the author complains about the oppressions, sufferings, and torments
of the people of God. Written in the last decade of the first century, it
received its main thrust from events in the Vespasian
and Domitian period, 69-96. Christianity claimed to
be a new
The author wrestles with the reality of sin and the fact of corruption, and endeavors to comprehend the will of God for the world and the people of God. Esdras realizes that the misfortunes suffered by the people of God were due to the evil heart in humanity. That is why the wants to know why the evil heart was allowed to remain in humanity so that the law had no apparent effect on the transformation of humanity. That was the besetting problem of the rabbis in the first century AD. A good example is the following set of reflections from the first vision.
2 Esdras
13 And when they were committing iniquity in your sight, you chose for
yourself one of them, whose name was Abraham;
2 Esdras 3:20-22 (NRSV)
20 “Yet you did not take away their evil heart from them, so that your law
might produce fruit in them. 21 For the first Adam, burdened with an
evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended
from him. 22 Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the
hearts of the people along with the evil root; but what was good departed, and
the evil remained.
2 Esdras 3:30-31 (NRSV)
30 because I have seen how you endure those who sin, and have spared those
who act wickedly, and have destroyed your people, and protected your enemies, 31
and have not shown to anyone how your way may be comprehended. Are the
deeds of
2 Esdras 3:34-36 (NRSV)
34 Now therefore weigh in a balance our iniquities and those of the inhabitants of the world; and it will be found which way the turn of the scale will incline. 35 When have the inhabitants of the earth not sinned in your sight? Or what nation has kept your commandments so well? 36 You may indeed find individuals who have kept your commandments, but nations you will not find.”
2 Esdras
12 and said to him, “It would have been better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness, and to suffer and not understand why.”
2 Esdras 4:22-25 (NRSV)
22 Then I answered and said, “I implore you, my lord, why have I been endowed with the power of understanding? 23 For I did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things that we daily experience: why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles in disgrace; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes, and the law of our ancestors has been brought to destruction and the written covenants no longer exist. 24 We pass from the world like locusts, and our life is like a mist, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy. 25 But what will he do for his name that is invoked over us? It is about these things that I have asked.”
We find the same kind of challenging questions in the second vision.
2 Esdras 5:29-30 (NRSV)
29 And those who opposed your promises have trampled on those who believed your covenants. 30 If you really hate your people, they should be punished at your own hands.”
2 Esdras 5:33-34 (NRSV)
33 Then I said, “Speak, my
lord.” And he said to me, “Are you greatly disturbed in mind over
34 I said, “No, my lord, but because of my grief I have spoken; for every hour I suffer agonies of heart, while I strive to understand the way of the Most High and to search out some part of his judgment.”
2 Esdras
38 I said, “O sovereign Lord, who is able to know these things except him
whose dwelling is not with mortals?
2 Esdras
43 Then I answered and said, “Could you not have created at one time those who have been and those who are and those who will be, so that you might show your judgment the sooner?”
2 Esdras 5:48-49 (NRSV)
48 He said to me, “Even so I have given the womb of the earth to those who from time to time are sown in it. 49 For as an infant does not bring forth, and a woman who has become old does not bring forth any longer, so I have made the same rule for the world that I created.”
The third vision also puzzles about the power of sin.
2 Esdras 7:116-117 (NRSV)
46 116 I answered and said, “This is my first and last comment: it would have been better if the earth had not produced Adam, or else, when it had produced him, had restrained him from sinning. 47 117 For what good is it to all that they live in sorrow now and expect punishment after death? 48
The eagle vision concerns the
The Wisdom
of Solomon (220 BC – 50 AD, but more narrowly, possibly during the reign of Gaius Caligula in 37-41 AD) has a mystical Middle Platonism
background, developed in
Chapter 1 – 6:21 has the theme of the gift of wisdom of immortality.
Wisdom of Solomon 1:1-2 (NRSV)
Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth,
think of the Lord in goodness
and seek him with sincerity of heart;
2 because he is found by those who do not put him to the test,
and manifests himself to those who do not distrust him.
Wisdom of Solomon 1:7 (NRSV)
7 Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world,
and that which holds all things together knows what is said,
Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15 (NRSV)
13 because God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.
14 For he created all things so that they might exist;
the generative forces of the world are wholesome,
and there is no destructive poison in them,
and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.
15 For righteousness is immortal.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-8 (NRSV)
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
“Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
2 For we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been,
for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;
3 when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
4 Our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
5 For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.
6 “Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
7 Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass us by.
8 Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:10-11 (NRSV)
10 Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
or regard the gray hairs of the aged.
11 But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:21-23 (NRSV)
21 Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
22 and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls;
23 for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity,
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-5 (NRSV)
But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
3 and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
4 For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
5 Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
Wisdom of Solomon 4:7-9 (NRSV)
7 But the righteous, though they die early, will be at rest.
8 For old age is not honored for length of time,
or measured by number of years;
9 but understanding is gray hair for anyone,
and a blameless life is ripe old age.
Wisdom of Solomon 6:11-17 (NRSV)
11 Therefore set your desire on my words;
long for them, and you will be instructed.
12 Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.
13 She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.
14 One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.
15 To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,
16 because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought.
17 The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction,
and concern for instruction is love of her,
Chapter
6:22-10:21 has the theme of the nature and power of wisdom and Solomon’s quest
for it. Chapter 11-19 have the theme of divine wisdom or justice in the exodus.
[1]Achtemeier, P. J. (1985). Harper's
Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.) (Pages 287-288).