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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
James Jordan offers this argument to conclude that only firstborn between the ages of one month and five years died at Passover:
1. The redemption payment for the excess number of firstborn, when the Levites replaced them, was five shekels apiece (Numbers 3:46-48.
2. In the redemption schedule in Leviticus 27, five shekels is the redemption price for a male “from a month even up to five years old” (Leviticus 27:6).
3. He also makes the commonsensical statistical argument that the number of firstborn would have been far larger than 22,273 if every firstborn child were counted. If there were 600,000 men 20 years old and upward, and assuming half were married with children, and that half of them had firstborn sons, we’re talking 150,000 firstborn.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, December 19, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Land of Pharaohs and pyramids, Egypt is about stasis. Israel leaves Egypt and builds a mobile sanctuary. They don’t even remain camped at the Mountain of theophany. They remain the people of Abraham, called ahead to a land they haven’t yet seen.
Because Yahweh is a living God.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Exodus 20:8: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
We live in a world of total labor. All time and space is valued by its use, its productivity, its function. There is no place that, in principle, withdrawn from productive use. There is no time “set aside from working hours and days, specially marked off . . . from all merely utilitarian ends” (Pieper).
Work has become a cult, a religion, complete with its own holidays. Americans celebrate a feast day called Labor Day! Paradoxically, a world of total labor deprives labor of meaning: “work itself becomes inhuman: whether endured brutishly or ‘heroically’ work is naked toil and effort without hope – it can only be compared to the labours of Sisyphus, that mythical symbol of the ‘worker’ chained to his function, never pausing in his work, and never gathering any fruit from his labours” (Pieper).
A world of total labor has no room for genuine rest or leisure, no time for Sabbath.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 7:24 am
Sabbath-keeping is more than just putting aside our work one day in seven. It is a way of life. Even that is too narrow. Sabbath is a way of being human, a way of being human together. God commands us to be a Sabbatical people.
That sounds grand, but what does it mean? It’s easiest to begin by pointing to the pattern of our anti-Sabbatical society: The 24/7 businesses, the bombardment of news, the frantic pace. Even leisure is frenetic. And we Christians are little better. We are as frantic as anyone.
Our disorder goes deeper even than this.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 6:53 am
Defending the historicity of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt and the exodus, GE Wright pointed to the prevalence of non-Semitic Egyptian names in the early history of Israel: “Moses, an abbreviation of a longer name, is from an Egyptian verb meaning ‘to bear, beget.’ The same verbal element occurs in such Egyptian names as Thutmose and Rameses, the first syllables of which are god-names while the remainder indicates that the god is the begetter of the person named. Other Levite names apparently acquired from the Egyptian language are Phinehas, Hophni, Pashuer, and perhaps Hur and Merari.”
This is important historical evidence, but it is also theologically significant. In life, Moses may well have been named “Begotten-by-Nile.” In the Bible, he is simply Moses – the begotten one, the true son of Yahweh, the true Israelite, type of the Only-Begotten. Also Moses is simply Moses, not Moses/begotten of Thoth or Ram or Horus, but Moses/begotten of the unnamed.
And, once again, it seems that in the early story of Moses, Yahweh already mocks Egypt and her gods.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 8:25 am
On the far side of the Red Sea, Israel sings the Song of Moses, praising the God who “does wonders (Heb. pele’)” (Exodus 15:11). It’s the first time the word is used, and from that point on praise of Yahweh’s “wonders” always evokes the exodus story.
The exodus connection is explicit in Psalm 77:11, 14, and even more so in Psalm 78:12: “He wrought wonders before their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.” Psalm 89 extends the exodus praise to the Davidic covenant: Yahweh has performed an exodus-like wonder if exalting David from the sheepfolds and giving him an everlasting covenant. The Davidic child of Isaiah 9:6 is a “wonder,” leader of a new exodus.
Echoes of exodus are less evident in other places, but hearing them helps us catch the overtones of some passages. Depressing Psalm 88:10, 12 asks whether Yahweh can do “wonders” for the dead in the land of the dark, but in the light of the exodus story that question has already been answered affirmatively. When David celebrates the “wonder” of the testimonies of Yahweh (Psalm 119:129), he recognizes that Torah institutionalizes exodus in that it embodies justice, mercy, and truth in the laws and statutes of Israel. Keep the wonderful testimonies, and your life is one of repeated exodus.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 6:06 am
Hebrew has two main words for “south.” The first, negev, refers to the south country of Israel (Exodus 12:9; 13:1, 3, 14; etc.). The other word, teyman, is related to the word yamin, “right hand,” and means “right” as well as “south.” When it means the latter, of course, it assumes someone facing east, so that the south is on the right.
In Exodus, “right” is the position of the lampstand (Exodus 26:18, 35; 27:9; 36:23; 38:9). It is also the placement of the standard of the tribe of Reuben (Numbers 2:10; 3:29). (negev is used in Exodus 40:24).
The context indicates that the right-hand is Yahweh’s right hand, since in the tabernacle He is the only One facing East. The lampstand is the right hand of God, the lampstand that is the seven Spirits. Cherubically, the right hand/south is the direct of the man-face, so that the right-hand side of Yahweh’s throne is the man-face with seven burning eyes that are the seven Spirits of God.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, September 24, 2011 at 8:52 am
I’m sure I’ve been told this before, but, as Chesterton realized, there’s a certain joy in discovering what you’ve known as if for the first time.
Every commentators nowadays notes that the description of the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31 is laid out in seven speeches of Yahweh that mimic the days of creation. But Moses’ actual construction of the tabernacle, narrated in Exodus 40, also follows the creation week:
Day 1: Tabernacle with boards and pillars, tent, covering over tent, Ex 40:18-19: Heaven and earth
Day 2: Ark taken into the sanctuary and screened by a veil, Ex 40:20-21: Firmament screen
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 2:13 pm
The men of Babel set out to make a great name for themselves, and after them Achilles, Alexander, Caesar, and countless others sought an everlasting name on the battlefield, by sexual conquests, or by political success. Making a name is what ancient heroism was all about.
We have not outgrown this impulse. What used to be the cult of the warrior is now the cult of celebrity, and many of us aspire to become celebrities or, failing that, to bathe in their glow.
At bottom, the desire for a name is good.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 28, 2011 at 6:08 am
Matthew 18:5: Whoever receives one such child in my Name receives Me.
Here at Trinity, we baptize infants, a lot of them. Most churches throughout the centuries have done the same. We also believe that the Lord’s Supper is open to baptized children who are capable of sharing it. That is more unusual, especially among Reformed Protestants.
One of the reasons we baptize infants and invite children to this meal has to do with the character of names. Names are not merely words. Names are not just spoken to convey information or describe. Names are not labels. When someone speaks our name, we take notice. Names lay a claim. A name is a promise. A name projects us out into a future. A name places us in a community.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 6:35 am
One of God’s great acts of grace is to reveal His Name. The gods of the nations often had secret names, known only to priests and used only for occult spells. The gods hid to shield themselves from the demands of needy humans.
Yahweh doesn’t hide His Name, doesn’t reserve it to a tiny elite, doesn’t leave us to figure it out for ourselves. He tells us His Name, and in doing that allows us to claim His attention. When He discloses His Name, the Creator makes Himself accessible and vulnerable to creatures.
This is why the name of God is connected with worship. Worship is “calling on the Name of the Lord,” the sanctuaries of Israel are places where Yahweh chose to set His name, and in Jesus the Name becomes flesh. Yahweh took an earthly address because He wants us to draw near to pester Him.
A name is also a reputation, and so Yahweh reveals His Name in His works of power. Yahweh’s reputation as the God of Abraham, the God of the Exodus, the God of David assures us that He will deliver us from sin and death. And because we are called by the same Name, He will listen and act when we cry to Him: “Whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 6:12 am
1 Corinthians 10:16-17: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.
For centuries in the Western church, this meal was an iconic moment in the liturgy. The high point of the medieval mass was not the common meal but the elevation of the consecrated host. Someone would ring a bell, and everyone would strain for a glimpse of Jesus, bread transformed into the body of God. The consecrated Host was an object of veneration and devotion.
The Reformers denounced these practices, rightly, as idolatrous violations of the First and Second Commandments. We are not to bow to any image constructed by our hands, and bread is a human product.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at 6:11 am
Idols look like living beings, but, as the Psalms point out, they cannot do anything with the equipment they have. They cannot see and judge, cannot hear and act, cannot smell the soothing aroma of sacrifice, cannot stretch out a hand against Egypt, cannot walk alongside Israel through the wilderness.
And, especially, they cannot speak. The living God talks and talks and talks until He’s written a large book, and He’s just getting started, because then He sends His living Word, who talks and talks.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at 5:44 am
Reading the biblical account of the exodus, we think of it as a local conflict between Egypt and Israel, Yahweh v. Pharaoh and his gods. It was not. It was Yahweh’s massive intervention in the ancient world, and remade the whole religio-political landscape.
So argues Egyptologist Jan Assmann (Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism
The social and political extraction of Israel, in short, cut a chasm in the religious imagination of antiquity.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 7:31 am
Exodus 20:3: You shall have no other gods before Me.
In the explanation of the Second Word, God declares that He is a jealous God, but His jealousy is already implicit in the First Word. Among the gods of the ancient world, Yahweh alone is jealous. Ancient temples teemed with images of gods. Baal didn’t mind if you worshiped Molech and Ashtoreth, as long as you gave Baal his due. Not Yahweh: He demands exclusive worship.
In Scripture, jealousy is not covetousness or envy. God does not covet what He doesn’t have, because everything is His. He doesn’t destroy others because they have something He doesn’t. Covetousness and envy come from pride, and God is not proud.
Jealousy is an aspect of love.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 7:13 am
All of the Ten Words assume one basic commandment, summarized in the shema, Israel’s confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.” The prophets echo the shema again and again: “Hear the Word of Yahweh.” So does Solomon: “Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way.” “Hear”: That is God’s fundamental demand.
But we don’t listen. We have hearts of stone, like Pharaoh. “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he did not listen” is a recurring refrain in Exodus. Once Israel gets into the wilderness, they turn to idols and become a nation of Pharaohs. Idols cannot hear, and have hearts of iron or stone. And all who worship them go deaf.
Still, Yahweh speaks and speaks to Israel, and finally speaks to them in His living Word, Jesus, God’s own human voice. And fortunately Jesus gives hearing hearts (cf. 1 Kings 3:9). Jesus proclaims the miraculous and paradoxical gospel of the open ear, “Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see!”
Even when Jesus opens our ears, we need to cultivate a taste for God’s word. Voices clamor for our attention, and it takes effort and time to tune our ears to His voice. But God has not been silent, and He has not been secretive. Hear Him and live, because your heart is directed by what you hear.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 6:43 am
When the book of Exodus opens, the Hebrews are subjected to “hard” bondage (1:14; 6:9). Yahweh sees it, and graciously delivers them from the bondage, but hardness returns. Four times in Exodus, Yahweh charges that Israel, though delivered from the hard bondage of hard-hearted Pharaoh, has become “hard” of heart themselves (Exodus 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9). They haven’t fully been delivered from their hard bondage until they are delivered from hardness of heart.
In Isaiah 19:4, the prophet warns that Israel is going to suffer the same hardness. When Yahweh comes to judge Egypt, He is going to turn them over to the kind of bondage that they once imposed on Israel: “I will give the Egyptians into the hands of a cruel masters” (the plural is in the Hebrew text). Ultimately, this is good news, since the God who gives into hard bondage also delivers from all manner of hardness.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 4:11 am
Exodus 18:12: Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
When Abram returned from defeating the kings who had taken Lot captive, Melchizedek met him with bread and wine. A Gentile God-fearer, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, brings food for the Abram.
Jethro is a new Melchizedek. He is also a Gentile priest, but one who worships the God of Israel. And after Moses has led Israel in the defeat of the Amalekites, Jethro brings out an ascension offering and sacrifices and prepares a meal for Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel. (Significantly, Genesis 14, the chapter that mentions Melchizedek, is also the first place in Scripture that refers to the Amalekites).
This is not the first time Moses has eaten bread with his father-in-law.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 7:16 am
Israel complained about conditions in the wilderness.
Some in Israel wanted to return to Egypt.
In Egypt, they worshiped Egypt’s gods.
Therefore: The complaint in the wilderness was a complaint against Yahweh, and conversely a call to turn back to the gods of the fathers.
The logic is identical to that of the worshipers of the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah’s time: “we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine” (Jeremiah 44:17-18).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 4:41 am
First Pharaoh attacks Israel. Then the Amalekites attack, an attack from a fraternal enemy, a descendant of Esau (Genesis 36). Finally, Moses gets attacked by various rebels within Israel. Israel gets attacked by the Gentiles, by the brother Amalekites, by nearer brothers within Israel. And Moses has to lead Israel from all three forms of bondage.
These, of course, are identical to the three courts that try Jesus: Pilate the Roman, Herod the Idumean/Edomite, and the Jewish Sanhedrin.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, February 21, 2011 at 8:42 am
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