Transcript
May I have your attention, please? We're in the final laps of the semester. This week, however, there will not be a class on Friday, but there will be a class on Friday next week, if you can keep that schedule straight. Pardon me? No class this Friday, but next week three times. And I think there's only one week beyond that as I look into the future. Now, I want to turn with you this afternoon to a familiar
passage from the 40th chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, which sounds the theme of creation, though in a new theological context. Isaiah 40, verses 27 and following. It would be relevant to read the whole chapter, but this is the climactic strophe. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hid from Yahweh, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Yahweh is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young people shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for Yahweh 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. Last
time, you remember we were discussing the theology of creation, though in the priestly covenant perspective, and we were taking up various dimensions of that creation theology as it is set forth in the overall covenant context of the Torah, which has its focal point in the everlasting covenant made between God and Abraham and through Abraham with the people of God. Remember, we were talking about such dimensions as the executive word of God. That is one way to
stress the absolute transcendence of God. God does not create with any kind of resistance or hindrance, but God speaks, and it is accomplished. And that is what we mean by the executive word of God. We also said that a very important dimension of priestly creation theology is the emphasis upon order. Of course, the priests were interested in order in the community, the order of the priesthood itself, the order of the sacred year, the order of sacrifice,
and so forth. But above all, the priests understand the whole cosmos to be under the order of God. And in some sense, the order of the cosmos then is to be reflected in human society, and especially in that community in which the holy God, Tabernacles, is in the midst of the people. It was in that connection that we said, thirdly, that a dominant note in priestly creation theology is the emphasis upon the supremacy of Avam in
God's creation, the supremacy of Avam consisting of male and female, zakar unakeva, equally. And it was in that connection that I submitted to you, remember, a translation which has arisen out of my work on a commentary on the Book of Genesis, the commentary which will appear ultimately in the Hermenea series, unless the atomic eschaton catches up with us. And I would invite any responses from any of you to this translation, not only in terms of its
theological intention, but in terms of its elegance in the English language. Or I would like to accomplish both in translation. Let me read it again to you, this time without resorting at all to the Hebrew. Then God said, let us make human beings in our image according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and the beasts, and over all wild animals, and over everything
that creeps upon the earth. So God created humanity in his image. In the image of God, he created it. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fertile, these are plural verbs, be fertile, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every animal that creeps upon the earth. We were saying in that connection
that the image of God is to be understood primarily in terms of role, in terms of function, not in terms of substance or essence, as has been done in the history of Christian theology, largely under Greek influence. Remember I turned to some analogous text from outside of the scripture in which the king, ex officio, is to perform as the image of God. And it's in that sense then, though democratized, that human beings consisting of male and
female together are to exercise their God-appointed role on earth. They are to image God. And the way they are to image God is to express through their lives, through their whole lifestyle, the sovereignty of God over the creation. Now if human beings fail in that divine assignment, that divine commission, that's another matter. That is dealt with in the supplementary story found in Genesis two and three, the story of Paradise Lost. But this is the divine
intention, according to priestly theology, that human beings standing at the very apex of God's creation should not rape and violate the earth, but rather should be those creatures through whom the rule of God is manifest in this world. We could pursue that further of course into the New Testament, where Jesus is given the title of the icon of God, the image of God, the one in whom the rule, the redemptive rule of God is made manifest,
and the one who therefore is the beginning of a new creation in which we are invited to participate. At the end of the hour last time, I adventured out into a fourth dimension of priestly creation theology, and I promised you that I would say a few further words on that most difficult subject of creation in the beginning. For this is something rather unique in priestly theology. In royal covenant theology, as we've discovered, there is to be
sure an emphasis upon the cosmic order, which is to be manifest in human society through the king, but there's not much emphasis upon what you might call the horizontal dimension, that dimension which reaches back temporarily to the very beginning, to the mystery of God's initiating and originating purpose. This has been very difficult for us to grasp and to deal with theologically in the last generation. You will find that the major theologians of the church who have
dealt with the subject of creation have either considered it in terms of existential dependence or perhaps in terms of cosmic dependence, that is to say contingency. But the Bible, I believe, invites us to go beyond what you might call the vertical dimension of creaturely dependence upon the creator to that mysterious originating event which we can hardly speak about. We certainly cannot conceptualize it in human language. We cannot even deal with it scientifically, and yet there it
is at the very beginning of scripture that everything that is has been given its existence by the originating executive command of the word of God. I was drawing your attention to the fact that there's some uncertainty today about the translation of the first sentence of the book of Genesis, and I challenged you to look at various translations such as the New English Bible, the Jewish Torah, the Jerusalem Bible, and so forth. You will find that there
are some following a rabbinical tradition from the Middle Ages who want to downplay the emphasis upon beginning and to translate in a circumstantial sentence in the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth. Maybe you've had a chance to check that out. Those of you who have delved a bit into Hebrew may be interested here in the grammatical problem. Bereshith, the second word is Barah, and the third word Elohim. That is to say, in
the traditional translation, in beginning created God, the heavens and the earth. Now the question is whether this verb is to be taken as a finite verb. That is to say, a verb of action, created. In the beginning, God created. Or whether alternatively, it's to be taken as an infinitive, in which case you would repoint it. The Hebraists in this class would repoint it from Barah to Berol. Same consonants, but different vowels. And we have to consider
the fact that the original Hebrew texts were all unvocalized. They had no vowels. It's true in Israeli texts today, Israeli newspapers. So you have to supply the vowels on your own. The question is then, do we supply vowels which make this a finite verb or an infinitive? Now if you translate it as an infinitive, it would be in the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth. You're referring more to a process, are you
not? Creation, as it were, is a process. Whereas if you translate this as a finite verb, as does the Revised Standard Version, the Jerusalem Bible and others, then you are placing the emphasis upon beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, in which case then you're pointing to that originating event and therefore the absolute beginning of time. God does not create in time, in a process, but rather creation is the beginning of time.
You see how difficult, how cryptic, how mysterious this kind of thinking is. We cannot think of a beginning outside of the temporal process, can we? I brought along with me today a book by Robert Jastrow called God and the Astronomers. Maybe you're familiar with this book. Robert Jastrow was the director of the Goddard Institute, the NASA Space Studies Institute, and some years ago wrote a flamboyant essay which appeared in the New York Times Magazine on the
subject, Have Astronomers Found God? He drew attention to the Big Bang Theory, which now seems to have the center of the stage as far as scientists are concerned. And raised the question as to whether this scientific development, this scientific horizon perhaps brings us a bit closer to the biblical story which says that everything originated in that executive word of God and therefore in a tremendous flash of light, like the flash of a cosmic hydrogen explosion in
the beginning, God, and God said, let there be light, cosmic light, not the light of day and night, you see, but that originating light out of darkness. It's a very intriguing discussion which you'll want to turn to. There's one passage here I always delight to read because it brings, it has brought smiles and laughter to many. He says here at the very end, it's not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement or
another theory. At this moment, it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation because he points out that the evidence was destroyed in that initiating explosion. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, and Einstein opposed this whole notion, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance. He's about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls
himself up over the final rock, he's greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. Well, we are living in a postmodern world, as my colleague Diogenes Allen reminds us, and it may well be that there can be a greater relationship in our time between the scientist and the theologian. It's another question though, as to whether the scientist and the theologian are speaking the truth or not. They are speaking about exactly the
same thing when they say in the beginning. For we are aware of the fact that this is language, scriptural language, which has originated out of the context of worship and is not so much concerned with the technical and scientific questions of how, as with the question of who and the question of purpose. And what the biblical doctrine of creation wants us to say is that this is a meaningful universe. You see, if you talk only in
terms of a big bang, who's to say whether this is just a series, one in a series of big bangs going on infinitely without meaning, without rhyme or reason. But scripture wants us to understand that in the beginning, God's originating word created a meaningful cosmos, a cosmos in which we find our home within divine concern and therefore a world in which we are called to fulfill a meaningful task. Well, I must not pursue this subject further
now. I want to open it up with you and above all, to invite you to think through the difference between religious language, which uses the language of poetry and imagination and art and scientific language, which is much more exact and mathematical. The Bible begins, as it were, by leading us in imagination to a beginning which lies beyond our conceptuality and even, according to this scientist, beyond all scientific evidence. And the Bible likewise, as we know, invites
us to extend our horizon to the very consummation, which again lies beyond our experience, beyond our conceptuality. So see what a terrific drama we are caught up then, imaginatively, a drama which sweeps from the very beginning, described poetically and liturgically in the first chapter of Genesis, to the very consummation portrayed once again poetically and imaginatively in the apocalypse of John in the New Testament and in between the decisive event of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. So
much then for the priestly covenant perspective. I am tempted to pause and have a big discussion right now, but perhaps we could arrange some special time to pursue these questions in smaller groups if that would be profitable to you. Well, we have concluded our exposition of the priestly covenant perspective. Our explorations have led us into a priestly expanse of the Torah, which has usually been off limits for Protestants, a kind of theological wasteland where it is
easy to perish. Yet surprisingly, and I hope this has dawned upon you as we've gone along, when one digs into this desert, water seems to gush forth. Now and then, providing a rich theology of God's tabernacling presence in the midst of a people, a theology of priesthood, of sacrifice, of atonement and reconciliation, and above all, a theology of creation. Now in the Old Testament, as I've already indicated, we have one major example of prophecy within the
priestly tradition, and that is the Book of Ezekiel. But we're going to have to bypass Ezekiel and move on into our final and third part of our exposition of the faith of the believing and worshiping community as reflected explicitly or implicitly in the literature of the Old Testament. And that is the whole period which is known as biblical Judaism, a period which I have put under the caption, trials of faith and horizons of hope. We shall
discover in the days ahead that all of Israel's covenant symbolizations were put under the greatest strain owing to the terrible impact of that fateful event of the year 587 BC, the fall of Jerusalem, the exile of the people. If we think of the Exodus event as a crucial event in the past, that event which symbolizes and represents the root experiences of Israel, then we're going to have to recognize also that another crucial event, though very ominous
in its proportions, was the event of the fall of the nation and the exile of the people. It's not surprising then that this event seems to be an incisive event. It cuts an incision, as it were, right into the heart of the people of God and in its own way makes a distinction between before and after. We say that when we use the language pre -exilic and post -exilic. So we're going to have to see what
has happened to the covenant symbolizations of ancient Israel under the tragic impact of that event. And we're going to have to consider how there were certain developments in the post -exilic period, which were very important for the theology of the New Testament. I refer especially to the increasing emphasis upon Torah in its halakhic sense, in its legal sense, not its narrative sense. Torah in its halakhic sense, which leads in the direction of wisdom. And then another
movement, just as important, apocalyptic, represented by the Apocalypse of Daniel and other writings in the late Old Testament period. So these are very important movements theologically within the period of biblical Judaism and under the impact of the problem of evil. As represented and as experienced in that event of 587 BC and all that. Now we must not suppose that the problem of evil suddenly emerged into attention just because of this fateful event. Not at all. If
we trace Israel's covenant symbolizations back to the very beginning, we will find that even in the root experience itself, the problem of evil is already incipient. For remember now, there was a band of slaves, a band of slaves who suffered, who were oppressed, who were pushed down by the powerful and the mighty. And that band of slaves was liberated from power with some demonstration of violence. For the Egyptians, remember, perished in the sea. So if we're
going to speak then about the manifestation of the Holy God in the midst of a people with redemptive interest and ethical demand, we're going to have to recognize that from the very outset, that historical experience of the presence of God carries within it incipiently the problem of evil. And if that was true with that event, which lies at the very formative hour of Israel's life, it certainly is true with Israel, which stands under the shadow, the
very dark shadow of that event of 587 BC. For this is the time above all when Israel experienced massively the impact of the problem of evil, so much so that every one of the covenant symbolizations, which had given expression to the Holy presence of God in the midst of the people seemed to crack. It's strained, they strained, and even seemed to break under the impact of tragedy. So that in this period, we find that more and
more Israel is in a posture of lament. Remind you again, that one third of all of the Psalms in the Psalter are laments, which began with the cry, my God, why? Or which issue in a cry, oh, Yahweh, how long must this be? So you see, we are now moving into a very important dimension of Old Testament theology, and I submit to you a dimension which perhaps is very close to our modern experience. However, despite the
inadequacy of all of these covenant symbolizations as evidenced in this fateful and tragic event, there is one thing to which they all bore witness, and that is the electing purpose of God. Or let me phrase it a little bit differently, perhaps not so much in Presbyterian language. The initiating purpose of the Holy God who becomes a part of the human world, who becomes involved, and therefore the God who is known and whose presence is symbolized in
these various ways is God with us. God who is redemptively at work in the human situation and particularly through the people of God known as Israel. Now, I think that one of the things that has puzzled some of you as we've moved along is how it is possible to speak of the coherence or even the unity of the Old Testament when I have been speaking so forcefully about two or three major patterns of symbolization. We've talked
about the mosaic, we've talked about the royal, we've talked about the priestly, and in each case as I've moved into that pattern of symbolization or linguistic universe, I've tried to speak as persuasively as I can. And I'm sure that many of you have wondered how it is possible then to speak about the unity or the coherence of Israel's faith when there are these various theological manifestations. Well, I know that's a problem to a lot of you
because you've come up afterward and I've tried to put the question back to you, remember? Well, don't you find a similar situation in the New Testament where, for instance, you have a pattern of theological expression in the synoptic gospels or maybe in the Johannine tradition or perhaps in the Pauline literature? Here, likewise, I think we find ourselves in an analogous situation. And the problem is, though, that so many who find themselves confronted with these powerful theological
perspectives feel that this means, therefore, that we have to consider the Bible as a kind of a miscellaneous collection. Not so. Not so if you take seriously the revelation of God, the electing purpose of God, the mystery of God's ways in the midst of this people, only partially apprehended and expressed by particular patterns of covenant symbolization. So in the last analysis, it's necessary for us to say, as did the writer at the beginning of the epistle
to the Hebrews, that in times past, God spoke in many and diverse manners through the prophets and through the whole Israelite tradition. Though in these times, God has spoken consummately through the Son, Jesus Christ. Well, we have tried to survey, then, these patterns of covenant symbolization. And I'm now trying to suggest that since no theology can capture God, we should not be surprised, then, if any one of these perspectives, these covenant perspectives, proves to be inadequate
at some point. Remember, we've got certain theological problems to deal with when we were considering the root experience. And here again, I go back to Fackenheim. Remember, transcendence and immanence, divine sovereignty and human responsibility, universalism and particularism. How on earth can any theology possibly bring together what seems to be so paradoxical? And if then there are tensions between these covenant symbolizations in the Old Testament, we ought to be willing to trace those tensions, not to the
historical process itself, in the manner of Hegel or process theologians, but rather to the basic root experience to that revelatory disclosure of the holy God in the human world. One thing that is observable as you begin to look at these covenant symbolizations is that they interact with one another. They don't stand in sealed compartments, as it were, but rather they react with one another, and at times there are attempts to synthesize or to blend together these
covenant patterns of symbolization. Well, that would be understandable, would it not? The ancient Israelite society was a very small society comparatively, much smaller than the society of the United States, where various traditions are constantly interacting and moving back and forth. So why should it be strange then that a little society like Israel should be composed of circles, covenant circles of symbolization, which are not in sealed compartments, but which begin to interact with one another? And if
we had the time, this would, I think, engage our attention to take up a particular symbolization, like the mosaic, and to see how it's been influenced in the course of time by some other theological perspective. I want to use two or three illustrations to show what I mean. Take, for instance, the Deuteronomistic history. We have found that the theological perspective of this historian, that is the literature which extends from Joshua through Second Kings, is fundamentally anchored
in the mosaic tradition. That's very clear from the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is dominated by Moses. In fact, a lot of that literature purports to be sermons given by Moses. So the Deuteronomistic history then is basically in that perspective, which emphasizes the contingency of human freedom and therefore the fateful human situation of being caught, as it were, between two ways, one leading to life and the other to death, and thus the possibility of the blessing or
the curse. Well, that's the dominant perspective of the Deuteronomistic history we've seen, but you have also noticed how this historian subsumes under the mosaic covenant the Davidic covenant. Remember Second Samuel seven and all of that. That's right in the heart of the Deuteronomistic history. So you can see how this historian does not ignore that circle, that royal covenant circle, but is concerned somehow to bring that theology into meaningful relationship with mosaic covenant theology. And so at
the very end of the Deuteronomistic history, we have the portrayal of King Josiah, good King Josiah, a Davidic king who sponsors a reformation in the spirit of Moses. So in the Deuteronomistic history then, the royal covenant and any Davidic king is seen primarily within the perspective of the mosaic covenant. So much so that we are told that the task of the king is to be guided by the mosaic Torah. That's the picture which is given of
the good king in Deuteronomy 17. Well, this only illustrates how then there is an attempt to bring these two symbolizations into some sort of relationship. Though in this case, you see, the royal covenant symbolization is subordinated to the dominant perspective of mosaic tradition. Take another illustration. The priestly Torah or the tetra too, because we've been calling it sometimes, that material which extends from Genesis through the book of Numbers with some reference to the death of Moses
at the very conclusion of the book of Deuteronomy. Here, the basic covenant is the unconditional covenant with Abraham, Genesis 17 and all that. That is to say, this theologian understands that God has made an unconditional covenant, a bereith olam with Abraham and through Abraham with the descendants of Israel. We've gone into various dimensions of that, remember. But this perspective certainly does not ignore the mosaic covenant tradition. And matter of fact, the priestly writers save, they preserve
for us a lot of the material from the old epic tradition, such as that material in Exodus 24, you know, about the covenant ceremony at the base of the mountain, that blood ceremony in which God and people are bound together. And the people say in a pledge of allegiance, all that Yahweh has commanded of us, that we will do and be obedient. So this perspective then does not get rid of the mosaic tradition, but it does
subsume the mosaic covenant under the Abrahamic covenant. You see, the mosaic covenant is not understood any longer in this circle to be a conditional covenant. On the contrary, the priestly writers want us to understand that the covenant at Sinai was a bereith olam. And being a bereith olam, an everlasting covenant, it was a fulfillment and ratification of the covenant made with Abraham. Paul in the New Testament is quite right, therefore, in following this priestly lead that
we have to go back beyond Mount Sinai, beyond the Torah given at Mount Sinai, to the call of Abraham and the promises of God, the electing purpose and promises of God made known through Abraham. Well, this shows you again how this theological circle is trying to deal with these traditions in a meaningful way, not to get rid of the mosaic covenant at all, but to understand it anew as the fulfillment and the ratification of the covenant
made with Abraham in Genesis 17. Or take another illustration. We've spent some time previously, remember, on the chronicler's history. We've seen that the chronicler reverses the theological priorities of the Deuteronomic history. That is to say, the chronicler wants to place the supreme emphasis upon God's covenant with David, the everlasting covenant, the Bereith Olam made with David, and thus the importance of the sanctuary of Zion, those two institutions of David, the monarchy and the temple. And yet,
this theologian also wants to concentrate in some degree upon the mosaic Torah, though, remember, we said that the mosaic Torah, according to the chronicler, is now subordinated to the Davidic covenant in such a way that the mosaic Torah is understood only in its halakhic sense, that is to say, the sense of those prescriptions and ordinances which God has given to the people. Well, various things then could be said to indicate that these covenant symbolizations which persist
in parallel fashion through the Israelite history are not to be regarded as sealed compartments, but rather as creatively interactive theological perspectives. Now, I want to conclude this aspect of our discussion by using one supreme illustration of the attempt to synthesize or to blend together covenant theologies. And I turn now to one of my favorite portions of scripture, that part of scripture, which is often called the second Isaiah, found in Isaiah 40 through 55. It has occurred
to me, though, across the years that it is wrong to just read Isaiah 40 through 55 by itself. Actually, this is a part of a whole scriptural context Isaiah 1 through 39, the Prophecy of Isaiah of Jerusalem, then 40:55, and beyond that, of course, so-called the latter part of the book of Isaiah 56 through 66. The theological question is how we are to understand the symphony which goes on in this whole book and especially
which resounds in chapters 40 through 55. For this prophet believes that he stands in the tradition of Isaiah of Jerusalem and is therefore going to use the theological leadership and perspective of Isaiah of Jerusalem in his own way creatively. The question is, how is that done? Let me make a few suggestions as to how the prophet of the exile has masterfully interwoven theological traditions. The premise of the proclamation which resounds in these chapters is the cosmic
kingship of Yahweh. That's the premise. Yahweh is king, Yahweh is creator and Lord of history. That's the note that sounds in that passage with which I began our class session today. So Yahweh is king over all peoples, over the whole creation, yet Yahweh's kingly power has been manifest particularly in Israel's history. And this leads our poet and prophet then to take another look at the whole tradition in which he stands. This prophet is concerned to say
that Yahweh demonstrated his kingly power by delivering Israel from bondage, Egyptian bondage, and by creating, by forming this community as a people. You'll find that this poet again and again uses verbs of creation, but those verbs of creation are intended to say that Yahweh's act in forming Israel as a people at the time of the Exodus was an act of both creation and redemption. Let's turn to one passage and let this prophet speak in his own
way. Chapter 51, verses nine and 10. Chapter 51, verses nine and 10. Here the poet is using the old myth of chaos, the myth of how the creator God fought the monster of chaos, in this case named Rahab, but the victory of God over chaos is not a mythical victory, it's a historical victory which occurred at the time of the Exodus. For we read, we read, by the way in the Hebrew, these verbs are addressed to
the arm of Yahweh, not to Yahweh, but to the arm, which happens to be feminine in Hebrew. So these initial imperatives are feminine singular, addressed to the arm of Yahweh, awake, awake, put on strength, oh arm of Yahweh, awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the dragon? Was it not thou that didst dry up the sea, the waters of the
great deep to home Rahabah in Hebrew? That's not just the Red Sea or the Reed Sea. No, we're now talking about the abyss itself, the cosmic abyss upon which the earth is founded, that didst make the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over. And then this poet understands that event of creation to be a typological anticipation of a new exodus of salvation, a new creation, for we read, the ransomed of Yahweh
shall return and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Now notice what has happened in this instance. The first Isaiah, Isaiah of Jerusalem, as we've already discovered, makes not a single significant reference to the exodus, not a single one, but rather is concerned with the cosmic manifestation of Yahweh's kingship through the reigning Davidic king or through the temple at
Zion. Here is a prophet now who wants to take the theme of the kingship of Yahweh inherited from his Isaiah tradition, but to bring it into connection with the Mosaic tradition, though in such a way as to emphasize how at the very beginning of Israel's history, it was the cosmic king that was at work redemptively, as though it was a time when the creator was sweeping back the waters of the deep, the waters of chaos and
making a way for the redeemed to pass through. So this event of old then in this new interpretation is regarded as a foreshadowing of a new exodus of salvation that will be more glorious, more wonderful than anything ever known before. In fact, that is the excitement that runs through these chapters. You have very good chapters to turn to in this respect for preaching purposes because what this prophet wants to say is that God is about to
do something new, radically new, and yet it has been anticipated and portrayed poetically. You might say the paradigm for God's liberating work has already been given to us in the Exodus. That's the paradigm, that's the type, that's the poetic symbol for what God is on the verge of doing in liberating a people anew from bondage, from darkness, from oppression, and leading them into the future. Turn in this connection to chapter 43, verses 16 and following, 43,
where we read, "Thus says Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 'who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior, they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick. Remember not the former things. Well, those were the former things, just described poetically. Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing 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." So that event of creation and redemption in the past is just a type, it is just a paradigm of that marvelous new thing which God is on the verge of doing. It's no wonder. By the way, that early Christian evangelists turned to this part of the Book of Isaiah to describe that marvelous new act of redemption, the ushering in of the kingdom, which is sounded out in
the preaching and the ministry of Jesus. One other thing, not only does this prophet boldly blend the Exodus and Zion traditions together, but this prophet wants us to understand that the promises of grace were not really given to David, but they were given to the people of David. So this prophet democratizes the whole royal tradition. He's not only going to use now the Exodus tradition in a new way, but he's going also to use the royal
tradition. So turn now to Isaiah 55, verses three and following, where we read, this is a passage very familiar to Christian people. Incline your ear, this is a passage about the eschatological banquet. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live and I will make with you, the Hebrew at this point is plural, not singular, not referring to David. I will make with you, you people of God, an everlasting covenant, my promises
of grace to David. So you see now the people are bound under the unconditional promises of grace which God has made to David, but those promises as it were have been transferred to them so that now there's the basis for consolation and above all the basis for hope. Thank you.