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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
Throughout the Pentateuch and into Joshua, the land of promise is a land “flowing with milk and honey.” After that, the phrase virtually disappears. It is used in the prophets to describe the land given to Israel after the exodus (Jeremiah 11:5; 32:22; Ezekiel 20:6, 15; the partial exception is the “curds and honey” in Isaiah 7:22). Why?
Hippolytus may give us a clue. He describes an oblation of milk and honey alongside the oblation of wine; the milk and honey is a reminder of the land promised to “the Fathers” but also a reference to the land that Christ gave, that is, His flesh, “whereby they who believe are nourished like little children.”
Milk and honey are the foods of childhood, as Isaiah 7:15 suggests. In her infancy, Israel was given a land of baby food.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, April 13, 2009 at 3:16 pm
NT Wright has long argued that first-century Jews considered themselves to be in a continuing exile. The canon of the Hebrew Bible suggests as much.
If we take our arrangement (the LXX arrangement), the Hebrew Bible ends with Malachi, who certainly doesn’t see a gloriously restored Israel when he looks around him.
If we take the MT arrangement, the Hebrew Bible ends with the decree of Cyrus; it’s as if the return has never happened.
Either way, the canonical arrangement supports Wright’s contention.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 4:11 am
The first time the Hebrew verb “be wrathful” (qatzaf) occurs with Yahweh as subject is in Leviticus 10:6. The related noun occurs for the first time in Numbers 1:53. Both, importantly, have to do with the tabernacle. Yahweh warns that His wrath might break out against Aaron’s family if they mourn for Nadab and Abihu, and in Numbers 1 the priests and Levites encircle the tabernacle to prevent wrath from breaking out against the rest of Israel.
Yahweh is grieved at the sins of the sons of God (Genesis 6:6), His nose burns against Pharaoh (Exodus 4:14), and His burning consumes His enemies (Exodus 15:7). But something new happens when Yahweh sets up the tabernacle: Yahweh’s wrath becomes an issue when He comes close to live in Israel’s camp. Wrath seems to be reserved for post-Sinai Israel; wrath is an expression of Yahweh’s offended love, His jealousy for the bride with whom he covenanted at Sinai.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 10:31 am
The English verb “keep” often translates the Hebrew shamar, “guard,” often used to describe the temple ministry of priests and Levites. Priests and Levites guarded the house of Yahweh, and also, literally, guarded the commandments, written on tablets and placed in the ark of the covenant.
When the OT speaks of “keeping commandments,” then, it is imagining the Israelite as priest, guarding the commandments in the heart of the temple and guarding the commandments taught in Israel. When the new covenant comes, the law is written on tablets of the human heart, and keeping commandments is another way of speaking of guarding the Spirit’s deposit in the treasure house at the heart of the human temple.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 5:59 am
After the flood, Noah releases a dove, which finds no rest (manoach; Gen 8:9). The ark finds rest (nuach) on Ararat (8:4). It is one of a dozen puns on the name of Noah in the flood story.
Centuries later, the ark of the covenant (not the same Hebrew word as the ark of Noah) finds rest in Jerusalem, in the ark-tent pitched by David (manoach; 1 Chron 6:31).
Between Genesis 8 and 1 Chronicles 6, the word manoach is used only twice (Deut 28:65; Ruth 3:1). It is not a common word. And the fact that it’s used in 1 Chronicles 6 hints at a connection with the flood narrative.
The mountains of Jerusalem are like the mountains of Ararat. As the fortunes and future of the human race was in the ark on Ararat, so the future and fortunes of humanity are housed in the tent of David on Zion, in the ark of the covenant. As the renewed remnant of the old creation streamed from Ararat to fill and subdue the earth, so a renewed creation streams from the temple.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 6:08 am
James Rogers of Texas A&M writes with some notes on the charity of the law, which I reflected on earlier this week with a post on Matthew Levering’s book on Aquinas:
“For this age, I suspect that we have most difficulty thinking of the Mosaic laws on sex as having any charitable telos, but consider the following. (I should add that I think the OT laws regulating sex need to be taken just as Christologically as the laws on sacrifice & etc.):
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 7, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Jewish biblical scholar Jon Levenson notices the discrepancies between Exodus and Deuteronomy, specifically regarding the length of time for eating unleavened bread (Exodus 12:18; Deuteronomy 16:8). The Rabbis noticed them too. Instead of concluding that this is a signal of multiple sources, he follows the rabbis in suggesting that (in Matthew Levering’s summary) “the operative law is to be discovered by taking both passages into account. The unity of the Mosaic Torah requires that all data be considered.”
That’s an important lesson, for Christian interpreters no less than rabbinic ones.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 8:49 am
First Things has put up an article of mine on prophecy on their web site:http://www.firstthings.com.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 4:22 am
With papyrological evidence, there’s some grounds for saying that there’s considerable overlap between the vocabulary and syntax of NT Greek and “street Greek.” Barr, though, thinks the same about Hebrew: “In Israel at any rate much of the biblical language is unspecialized, for the religious structure is roughly coincident with the linguistic group and the nation as a whole.” The argument of the last clause is intriguing. One could put it this way: Because the whole nation was covenantally formed, he concludes that the language of the covenant documents and the language of normal life overlapped. But isn’t it possible that the OT contains a specialized language for common life, just as lawyers speak a specialized language for things that non-lawyers talk about in non-specialized ways?
In any case, in the absence of comparative evidence, there is simply no way to know for sure whether the Hebrew of the Hebrew Bible is street Hebrew or not. Barr’s main concerns are lexical and semantic, and in that regard it’s likely that there’s considerable overlap. There’s no reason why traders in the market would not have talked about the latest news about the melek, and no reason to think there was another word for “walk” than halak.
Given the intricate literary form of the Hebrew Bible, and the frequent focus on specialized priestly concerns, however, there’s a good bit of evidence that it’s not street Hebrew in every respect.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 1:51 pm
In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan suggests that the modern notion that Josiah and his priests wrote “the book of the law” they claimed to discover in the temple was likely shared by people of Josiah’s time: “The image-users of the high places had always resented the official, God-given worship at the temple, and they doubtless saw the ‘discovery’ of this book as just another ‘protestant ploy’ to destroy their ‘holy traditions.’ The callous rich, while happy with the ornate cathedral-worship style of the Jerusalem Temple, no doubt regarded the laws in the Book of the Covenant as having been fabricated to despoil them of their wealth. These two groups would accuse Josiah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah of trying to centralize religious power in the Remnant.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 5:33 am
Idols have mouths, but don’t speak. But the fear of the prophets is that Yahweh might be the same. Evil abounds in Israel and the nations, yet Yahweh does nothing and says nothing. If Yahweh is silent in the face of evil, how does he differ from the gods of the nations? The problem of evil in the prophets is the problem of God’s silence, which is really a question of theology proper: Is Yahweh any different from Baal or Molech?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 6:43 am
Why grasp the horns of the altar when you’re a fugitive in the temple? How is it legitimate to touch the horns, when the altar as a whole is forbidden to all but the priests? The answer to the first is found in the premise of the second: The altar is holy, and communicates holiness to anyone who touches it (if they aren’t holy already). When a fugitive grasps the horns of the altar, he becomes sanctified and hence inviolable. If found guilty, he will be killed (like Joab) because of a sacrilege; but if he is innocent, he protects himself with a taboo of holiness.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 3:04 pm
For Protestants, one of the best pieces of news in the past century has been the revival of biblical studies among Catholics. It’s been said (by Mark Noll, of all people!) that, with the new Catholic lectionary, more Scripture is read in Catholic worship than in most Protestant denominations.
As prolific Catholic theologian Aidan Nichols points out in the Prface of his recent overview of the Old Testament, Lovely Like Jerusalem (Ignatius), Catholics often have problems getting a sense of the overall shape of the OT, and understanding its purpose in the church.
Not only Catholics: As Nichols rightly argues early in the book, Protestant scholarship, and hence Protestant church life, have been ruined by neo-Marcionite hostility to the OT (Nichols names Schleiermacher, Harnack, and Bultmann as culprits).
Drawing on recent OT scholarship, recent Catholic thought, as well as on the church fathers, Nichols’s book attempts to guide average Christians in a Christian reading of the OT. He succeeds very nicely.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, June 8, 2007 at 1:20 pm
“Yahweh” is often thought to be a purely modern rendering of the Hebrew name, but Smalley finds a medieval glossator who writes the name as “Iahave.” She goes on: “The ‘monstrous form’ Jehoveh was already known to Christians in the late thirteenth century. Henry Crossy seems to compromise between Jehoveh and Jahweh by writing Iehave. . . . St. Jerome used IHAO; the IABE of the Greek Father, Theodoret, was probably unknown to him; nor was he likely to have been in contact with the Samaritans, who until quite recent times pronounced ‘Jahweh.’”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 at 6:54 pm
In Num 14:22, Yahweh charges that Israel has tested Him “these ten times.” Ronald Allen offers this list of 10 rebellions in his Expositor’s Bible Commentary:
1. Israel’s fear that Pharaoh would destroy them, Ex 14:10-12
2. Marah, Ex 15:22-24
3. Hunger in the wilderness, Ex 16:1-3
4. Disobedience to Moses concerning saving manna overnight, Ex 16:19-20
5. Disobedience to Moses concerning gathering manna on Sabbath, Ex 16:27-30
6. Rephidim, Ex 17:1-4. . . .
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Nicole Ruane offered an intriguing discussion of the red heifer purification law (Num 19) as an “anti-sacrifice” or “inverted sacrifice.” At a number of points, the actions and concerns of Num 19 overlap with those of the sacrificial texts. The heifer is called a HATTAT (purification offering), and the animal is killed, burned, and its remnants distributed as in a normal sacrifice. (This is in contract to the non-sacrificial procedures for the animal in Deut 21.)
Yet, the rite for the red heifer diverges at significant points from the sacrificial rite. The heifer is not killed at the altar, and its blood is not removed – the text explicitly and uniquely speaks about the burning of the animals blood. The animal is not brought into the holy place, but taken outside the camp, and the portion that is brought into the camp is the portion that is normally excluded – the waste ashes.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 2:56 pm
In today’s sermon, we’ll learn about Joshua’s zeal for fighting the enemies of Yahweh in order to conquer the land of promise. While he is fighting five kings, the sun begins to go down. He could easily have said, “Enough for today. We can take care of them tomorrow.” Instead, he asked Yahweh to lengthen the day, so that he could finish the battle and gain the victory.
Zeal in battle is not optional. At the end of Judges is a story about the sin of the Benjamite city of Gibeah. A traveling Levite stops for the night and is accosted by sodomites, who rape and kill
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 8:28 am
Here’s a PhD thesis: What is going on, philosophically and theologically, in the transition from viewing Joshua-2 Kings as Former Prophets (Jewish tradition) to seeing them as Historical Books (evangelical) to seeing them as Deuteronomistic History (contemporary academic consensus). There’s a story to unpack there similar to the story that Milbank tells (all too briefly) about how Wellhausen inscribed the liberal Protestant metanarrative into the history of ancient Israel, thus turning the OT (circularly) into a warrant for liberal Protestantism. Perhaps someone’s already done this. If so, I’d like to know.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, July 11, 2005 at 5:46 pm
Zechariah 8:4-5: “Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. And the squares of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in the squares.”
Zechariah prophesied in Jerusalem after the people of Judah had returned from exile in Babylon. His prophecy was an encouragement to the people of the restoration to continue their work on the temple, confident that Yahweh would bless them. “I will return to Zion,” the Lord says, “and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth and the mountain of Yahweh of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.” Yahweh promised to restore Israel to life, full life and prosperity in the land.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, July 3, 2005 at 8:46 am
Robert Alter reviews Mary Douglas’s latest book, Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation, in the March 3 issue of the London Review of Books. Douglas’s book deals with two main areas, the first historical and the second anthropological.
Alter finds the first section unpersuasive; from his description, it sounds unfortunate as well. Douglas attempts to show how the Pentateuch fits into the post-exilic history of Israel, specifically how it arose from a conflict between the “separatists” like Ezra and Nehemiah and the “unifiers,” enlightened priestly intellectuals who wanted the returnees to embrace the people of the land. She sees everything in the Pentateuch “as a direct and pointedly political reflection of the division among the Judeans she has posited.” For example: “Jacob’s deathbed curse of Simeon and Levi for massacring the male population of Shechem ‘was inserted into Genesis to represent the editor’s case against the government of Judah’s foreign policy.’ Balaam’s practice in his poetic oracles in Numbers of setting the names of Jacob and Israel in apposition is said to be an affirmation that Israel is an integral part of the nation . . . Balaam himself is described here as ‘a brilliant pastiche of a colonial governor.’” Oh my. Douglas’s contributions to biblical studies have largely come from her ability to see the texts without the distorting screen of critical scholarship, but alas she has become a critical scholar. Alter notes that “Douglas plays the ingenious but arbitrary game of more conventional biblical scholars, which is to date any given text, or at least its purportedly determinative redaction, to the period that interests you, and then to read all its details as a reflex of a particular ideological trent in that period.”
Fortunately, the book also includes some of Douglas’s trademark anthropologically-inspired discussions of the Pentateuch. For Douglas, Leviticus in particular is not centrally about regulations for sacrifice, laws of uncleanness, or rules for sanctuary maintenance, but “an articulation of the tripartite sacred architecture of creation.” Sinai serves as the model, and Douglas finds echoes of the triple structure of Sinai in three areas: in the structure of the tabernacle sanctuary; in the various parts of a sacrifices animal (“a pyramid shape, with the head and the meal, the parts available to be eaten by the priests and people, at the bottom; above that the midriff area with the fat covering the kidneys, which is to be burnt entirely on the altar; and on the top, the entrails, the liver lobe and the genitals”); and in the structure of Leviticus itself (three sections separated by brief narratives in chapters 10 and 24). Addressing the question of why this tripartite structures of Leviticus has not been observed before (she calls Leviticus a “book planned as a projection of a building”), Douglas reverts to her historical argument: “beginning with the separatist party of Ezra and Nehemiah, who became the conservators of the new scriptural canon, readers of the priestly literary achievement were able to see it only from the perspective of their own preoccupation with fencing themselves off from the surrounding peoples and preserving themselves from external contamination.” Thus, “this generation would not recognise a cosmogram if it was staring straight at them.” Alter is not entirely persuaded, but he appreciates Douglas’s challenge to “ponder whether these ancient regulations bearing on the conduct of the cult and the preservation of the sanctuary’s purity might have a larger metaphysical purpose.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 1:44 pm
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