Transcript
For all who believe in the righteousness of God. If you look in the RSV, it's got quite a different translation. Christ is the end of the law of, what is it? For whoever believes is justified by faith or something like that. But I think Paul was saying the other thing. Christ is the climax, meaning end in the sense of climax, of the Torah, meaning the whole of the story. We now have the final chapter of the
paradigm. And the excitement was to try to spread that news. He'd done it again. By golly, if you know the sorts of things he did in the past, you know he's done it again. But in a more intensive way, all the way, in a person, etc. And I still find that exciting. And I think I always shall. It's a theocentric view, you see. You start with God and stay with God. And whether you're in the Old
Testament or the New Testament, you say, what's he doing now? What's he up to now? And you find that it's a full divine, it's a full divine obviously. And it hangs together. And I firmly believe that the New Testament is biblical. That's the good news that I really had for you. Now some Jewish colleagues say mm-hmm. But I still say mm-hmm. And it's a valid debate. Then the prologue of John's gospel, or the climactic
parallel that you're hearing me talk about, if it was an early church hymn, and it builds to the confession in verse 14 of the Word and a collection, is the early church's confession that the climactic occurred in that one hymn. So the early Christian community, do you see John inputting that as an expression of the early church's faith in the climactic event? Yes, whether he composed it or borrowed it or improved on something he had learned.
All these are debated, as you know, because it's the most Old Testament-ish section of these gospels. And Fitz is a prologue. Well, it's not the most. But it's very Old Testament-ish. You can go there from what we're talking about and see what he's doing. And as you were saying earlier, Full Grace and Truth wants to say that it culminates here. Here's the proper last chapter. Are you looking for the last chapter? It is. I'm
having trouble with that in terms of story. The last chapter is not written as such, is it? You see, I'm glad you went to that, Ian, because one of the things I think that I'm not stressed because of a couple of questions that have come up is the ontology of the Bible in this view that I'm expounding for you, by centering in the idea of story, is that the Bible is paradigm. Paradigm. That's the crucial point,
which means that the story's never completed, never finished. But the paradigm is complete. We have the whole thing. That's my understanding of canon. Not that books that aren't in the Bible are not truth. God speaks through international wisdom. Remember the 25% that's in the Bible. The Bible insists that God speaks through the experiences of other peoples and so on. And Israel adapted those by a fourfold process, which we may get into or not. But the
Bible as paradigm means that it gets us away from the misunderstanding that somehow no, that God hasn't done anything since the first century. You know why God hasn't done anything since the first century? Jesus is sitting on his right hand. The question and the answer are dead wrong. It's just a mnemonic device. But you see, if it's understood as paradigm, then it means that you learn the paradigm and then we ought to be able, as believers,
to be able to conjugate the verbs of God's activity. We ought to be able, if we know the paradigm, and it's been ingrafted on our hearts, then we ought to be able to recognize the righteousness if we see one, because we know the paradigm. And then, by the way, in terms of our moving toward as we shall have to, after that has happened, and we then try to conjugate some verbs of our own righteousness. In other
words, get to ethics, right? Then we then know that that will help us to see what kind of verbs we can conjugate in our own lives. How to have programs of obedience that reflect that paradigm. We can't go and do likewise in the same sense that we can get up in heaven and come down the way Christ did. But that might give us a vision as to what we might do in a given situation, as it
did, I think, for Ananias in Acts chapter 9. Some of you have heard me talk about that. If Christ could leave the heavenly council and take on the human form and the form of the servant and go all the way to death on the cross, then Ananias could certainly go down to Judas' house. He couldn't get to heaven to go down to Chthonian regions, but he could at least go down to Judas' house. It's a paradigm
that suggested to him what he could do. Go down and call his enemy brother. So the idea that ontology of the Bible is principally a paradigm for the believing community is my answer to that. Far from it having stopped. And also, you see, this gets you away, well, what shall we add? Shouldn't we canonize something else? Well, the question's wrong again. But you see, we already have within the paradigm given of how Israel in the early
church adapted all kinds of wisdom of their ages so we can adapt the wisdom from science, from poetry, from other religions and so on, just as they did, if it's viewed as a dynamic paradigm. The paradigm is complete, but the verbal action will never be complete until the rapture or what was that that I saw on a beautiful thing on a Scottish grave in St. Andrews till the dawn break. Yes, he's tempted. Yes, he's tempted. He's
even Rubenstein, you know, my brother Paul, he says there's an appreciation. It's still strange, though, for any Jew who's really worth his salt or her salt, because Judaism, by definition, is that denomination of old Israel, which emphasizes Bible as ethos. Christianity is that denomination, which emphasizes Bible as mythos. We have always emphasized what God has done as primary, and they've emphasized what Israel should do. They had to narrow that down often because of being so limited
in their possibility of expression and so dominated by other governments and other people. Sometimes they just narrowed it down to how to set the table, how to arrange a ghetto. Often they didn't have more opportunity than that, but they were. But current rabbinic Judaism falls heir to those early Jewish denominations, which said don't speculate about what God's going to do. He'll do whatever he's going to do. You figure out what we should do here now. Whereas
the other denominations, the eschatological ones, especially Qumran and many others that produced Jubilees, Enoch, Testaments, and so on, were the ones that said, no, he will act as he has done before, but this time climatically, eschatologically, apocalyptically, and so on, and build upon the Torah story that we're talking about, but making it apocalyptically, or at least eschatological, and Christian denomination fell heir to that. We speak of two Israels in Rosenzweig and Gruber's terms, and I do.
Okay, let's turn to Amos and go into the sanctuary at Beth-El once more and hear this sermon. The sermon, give or take perhaps a line or two, extends from chapter one, verse three, through chapter three, verse two. And it is brilliant, what can I tell you? He does, as some good homileticians do, he holds his text until the end of the sermon. He starts out with an affirmation of a period of judgment by God upon
Israel and her neighbors, but he starts out by saying that it's upon the neighbors. So if you will imagine a map of Palestine in front of you, that's the Mediterranean sea line, Ian, and up here would be Damascus, down here the Philistine cities, there the Phoenician cities, here Edom, there Moab, or Ammon, here Moab, there Judah, and there Israel, approximately. And that's the order in which he says, for the three transgressions of the four, starting with
Damascus, I will not revoke the punishment. And then he gives the reason. In other words, gives the sentence, step five, the category five, then gives the category four. And it's in that cadence all through the recitation. And notice now the setting. It apparently, according to chapter seven, was a festival day, so that there were many in attendance. And not only so, but quite a few of the responsible folk. Apparently not the king, Jeroboam II, but the
high priest was there. Apparently the general staff of the army was there, as indicated in chapter five, and the responsible folk as well as the common folk. And Amos begins to speak. Professor Morgenstern used to say that he began at 6:29 AM on New Year's Day at the Fall Equinox, at the New Year in the Fall. And I don't know. Morgan knew, but I don't know. But it's possible. It was certainly a festival day.
And he affirms that God is appearing in judgment, but lists all of Israel's neighbors first. Now you know that from seminary training that we have in the prophets what's called the section of the oracles against the nations. It's like that. One of the things, one of the very important things to recognize about the prophets is that they spoke of God's universal sovereignty. In other words, as creator of all. And one expression of that was in saying
God judges others as well as Israel. He's the God of all. Now this is real monotheism. Now in Amos, however, it's not a section off to itself. The whole thing starts with oracles against the nations, but integrates it with his oracle against first Judah and then Israel. Now he's speaking in the north in Israel. And he goes through this whole thing. Oh, yes. And there's some indication that to piece together what we know about the kingdom
of Israel in that time, when Jeroboam II had done a very good job, there was one of those power shifts in the Near East when it was possible because of the Egyptian hegemony, which had been for centuries over Palestine, was weakening. And the Neo-Assyrian empire was just now rising. In other words, one of those shifts, those transition things, is taking place. So Jeroboam II flexed his muscles. And he was able to expand the borders in
the north as far as David had. Only Judah in the south prevented him from going further south. And this is the separate kingdoms at this time in terms of politics, in terms of political structure. And they apparently hoped that God was blessing them in such a way that they would be able to go even beyond their present borders and expand their borders. This was an expansionist. They run an expansionist policy. Of course, always with the with
the apologia of that, they would be taking the word of the Lord with them at Sordis Point. This is spreading the word by imperial power. And it's great hope that they had. And they had already made a foray into Transjordan and had taken Lodovar, a town over in Gilead, which means nothing. And Amos used that as a to chide them. You've taken Lodovar, you think you've taken something. And so on. So let us say that he
appears and at a time when they thought that God, the holy warrior, would appear in the oftening. And had the troops for the agenda that they had in mind for their foreign policy. And Amos then steps in. This is what this this is their agenda. This is their expectations. And this fellow steps up. He has a funny southern accent because he's from the core in the south. And but he nonetheless. Starts speaking the fifth vision. So
that Amos had so-called five visions or experiences of his call. Category one in Amos is chapter seven and then chapter eight, verse one, chapter nine, verse one. In the fifth one, nine, verse one, he had seen the altar. Sorry, seen the Lord standing beside the altar and heard him say, strike the capital so that the threshold shape, which means preach. Because the word has the power, as Jeremiah says, of a sledgehammer against rock. All right,
so he starts and he says, for the three transgressions of the four of Damascus, I'll not revoke the punishment. And then goes right on through the others all around Israel. And that I suspect that before he was halfway through, he had the attention of everyone. Why? Because he was speaking a precious word. He was giving what we call a devotional. It warms the heart. But at any rate, he was he was making it clear that God
was appearing to judge Israel's neighbors and there's no sweeter message on earth. Now, to say that he was going to judge the Syrians was, I mean, this was tasteful. To say he was going to judge the Philistines is endearing. To say he's going to judge the Phoenicians is simply strategic because we would get the ports of Tahr and Sidon for our expansionist policy. To say he was going to judge the Edomites would be the most precious
of all because of the longstanding enmity. To judge Ammon and Moab would get the breadbasket area over there where the wheat came from and the food supply. But the nicest of all was, of course, the three transgressions into the four of Judah. Oh, how sweet can it be? Imagine having that which obtained in the United Kingdom turned upside down. You remember those days when Solomon was king and the south was dominant and we in the north
had to had to go into corvée labor for those SOBs down there. Now, Amos apparently is saying that they will be judged by God. How sweet it is. Then the next in the same cadence without a break and the rhythm, he says, for the three transgressions and the four of Israel are not revoked. They're so wrapped in attention by now that they don't even know they've been shafted yet. And he goes on and gives the category
for he goes on and gives the indictment after giving the sentence, which is the style here. I will not wrote the punishment because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. They that trample the head of the poor in the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of afflicted man, his father going to the same maidens to the my holy name is profane. They lay themselves down beside every
altar of gone pun garments taken and pledged in the house of their God. They drink the wine of those who've been fine. Now, it starts out with a question of domestic. Well, if the whole thing is domestic policy, they are interested in important things, that is to say, foreign policy. But he brings up the fact that God is going to punish them because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes
and says, you trample the head of the poor in the dust. Now, when he is finished with this indictment of his own people, of the north of Israel, then he gives his text. And that is in chapters five, verses five to eleven or really five to twelve. You see the Torah story. This is then category two. God is speaking. He gives, in other words, the Torah gospel story beginning in chapter two, verse nine. I destroyed the
Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the Cedars, who was as strong as the Oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath, in other words, the conquest. Puts that first and then goes back to the basic, the beginning of the story of redemption. I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the emperor. There is the Torah story. Notice
it does not mention either creation or election, but rather stresses the doctrine of redemption and problems. But it is the Torah story. It is the gospel. That's his text. Now, in those days, it was not a frozen text, as it is for us, so that we have to have chapter and verse number. They were free to shape it as long as it was the basic substance. But there is his text. That's his authority for saying what
he just said. That is to say, that's the basic communal authority. His own personal authority for saying what he says is what we call category one. And that's in the five so-called visions that we mentioned earlier in chapter seven to nine. Now, what is the relationship between the story of God's deeds, which he records in verses nine to 11? Oh, and I also raised up some of your sons to prophets and others for Nazarites. That
is the continuing contact of God has with his people, through these spokespeople. Now, what is the relationship between the story of God's works in verses nine to 11 and the works of Israel, which he's indicting in verses six to eight? What is the relationship? Shall I ask the question again? The gospel is the story of God's works, right? And that he gives in verses nine to 11, what God has done. What is the relationship of that
to the works that they have done, which he lists in verses six to eight, which he indicts as sin? He has redeemed them and they are, in effect, enslaving the poor people. Exactly. Precisely. In other words, what did God do for you when your heads were in the dust of the earth in Egypt? Precisely. He raised you up out of that. He made you a people. He liberated you from it, guided you in the desert 40
years and brought you into the land of Ammon. Now, when you therefore have your own land, you have received the blessing, the gifts, in other words, of land and city and so on, and you have some power of your own. Did you go and do likewise? No. You followed, as Professor Meidenberg used to say, the indictment of the prophet was you followed the way of Pharaoh rather than following the way of Yahweh. Now, it's not that
they are God and they can go to some foreign country and liberate slaves. On the contrary, to pretend to do so would probably bring you into an imperialist power situation, which would be worse than ever. You can go and play God somewhere and get a prophetic indictment sharper than before, but that's not the point. The point is, however, to say, contemplate, understand, engraft the word, the story on your heart, have thus a biblical imagination, and ask
yourself in your situation where you have a little power, what are you doing with it? It should at least, at least, dimly reflect what God has done with his. It should be of the same order. Now, bless you, that seems awfully simple, doesn't it? To say, God, Mike, is that the relationship between gospel and law? Yes, that's practically, dearly beloved, the whole relationship. In fact, I am quite sure that what is intended by the editors of
the Pentateuch in putting the Torah together the way it is, that is the Torah in essence in those five books there, is to say, what God asks of you from Mount Sinai is congruous with what he has done for you in the whole story. And notice that the suggestions for lifestyle, which is laws, how to shape your society, are set in the heart of the gospel story. It's as though God's giving you that law was also
a gospel act, it was a righteousness itself, and that Judaism knows how to celebrate. Why? Ah, he did not leave us without a suggestion as to how we should do it. Now, however, there are many people writing in the Bible who don't know those laws, the prophets among them. We have very few passages that indicate any acquaintance with those specific laws in Exodus, Numbers, and the Bible. How about the Decalogue? Even the Decalogue. Are you referring
to Jeremiah 7? I mean, just in general, for what you said, they don't know that you were referring back to the Decalogue. Yes, well, I know, I meant mainly the Book of the Covenant, the laws from Hammurabi and Esh-Nunai, which are simply adapted into the Torah. That's what I mean principally. I think that the Decalogue was such a part of international wisdom that everybody knew that, but maybe not in the form we finally have it
in either Exodus or Deuteronomy. The prophets you see, Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, they never say, look, you disobeyed that law that was on the tablet that Moses got. Never do you have that. But what do they do? They will say, you have not followed the way of Yahweh, or, and just as frequently, you have not heeded the voice of Yahweh. That's what especially they say. It's as though God is dynamically in conversation with
these people at all times. And there's a hermeneutic there, you see. So as I can see, namely that for, what does that mean for us? It seems to me that it means dynamically, with the right hermeneutics, reading this, the Torah Gospel story in the light of the context in which we live, dynamically can see at least that. Then if you have some special communication system with the Holy Spirit in addition to that, well that's excellent. I
think that there are different psychic abilities among individuals. I'm sure of it. My wife has far more psychic abilities than I have. Among individuals, yes, but between periods in history, no. I don't think that people in biblical times were necessarily more psychically able than we are today. Between individuals, yes. But I certainly don't think that the Bible is available only to those who have visions, the sort that they can describe faster. It's available to all of
us. And that's how, by reading with biblically indicated invalid hermeneutics. Now, this is what the prophets will say pretty constantly. God showed you the way, but how did you do it? By what God himself did. Now that will, later on when the Sinai event is married with the basic Torah story, say, well he showed you by some pretty specific ways too. But these prophets don't know those. They do it this way. Now let's look now at
how he then appeals to the doctrine of creation, the god of the whole world. How does that come in? We have said that they do that. How does that come in? Well, first look, if you will, at chapter three, verses one and two. I would suggest to you that a colleague or somebody said something that is not recorded. Now, by the way, this exegetic technique is one of the most important that we have. It's in two
ways that we can use it. One is to work with the possibility in a given text that the verse there or the paragraph there is responding to something somebody said at the time, but what he said is not recorded. Secondly, that it is there because the prophet responded to a question which the disciple didn't record. And they're very closely related. Now these are exegetic techniques that all scholars use. They have to be careful in using them.
We have to be as judicious as possible. But I suggest that before chapter three, verse one, a colleague might have said to Amos, Amos, you got it all wrong. You don't understand. The Torah story you just recited is right, of course. But you don't understand. It can't be that way. You see, we are the only people that God saved in that way. We're the only one that he has entered into a covenant relationship with. Therefore, he
he has we have a special relationship with him. And when he makes a promise, he's going to keep it. And Amos would have responded. Right on. Thus says God, chapter three, verse one, you only of all the families in the earth have I known. Therefore, I will punish. Whereas you can be sure they would have said, God said, you only of all the families of the earth have I known. Therefore, I will protect you. I won't
let this rising neo Assyrian empire get to you. And many people did say that. And a number of those are recorded. And those are some passages we want to look at very carefully. Now, that's only an indication. Look at chapter nine, verse seven. We mentioned it last night. In chapter nine, Amos's disciples record the sum of the material that indicates Amos's reference to God, not only as redeemer, but also creator. And beginning in nine, two, he
speaks of those who try to hide from God in Sheol, even if they should dig down all the way to the Chthonian regions. There I can take them out. You mean he's got power in Sheol? You mean he can go down to Sheol and get you out? You mean I can't hide from him by, by, by sacrificing to Avadon or Mote or, or, or making a covenant with death, as Isaiah will say in chapter 28? And
Amos says, no, he can extradite you from there by going and doing it himself. How do you know he can? Well, he went down to Egypt and got you out of there, didn't he? And that wasn't his territory. But also he's God of all creation. They can climb up to heaven now, bring them down and so on. Then verse five, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, all who
rises like the Nile. Six who builds his upper chambers in the heaven, founds his vaults upon the earth. They are the true prophets only who make such references to God of all the world. Now you say, rightly. Yeah, but because of the canonical shape of the Bible, we don't know that we have a good full record of anything that a false prophet said. Right. That's true. But we, but what is very clear is all of these
prophets will sooner or later make some such reference and the false prophets apparently make none. So that he is able to say finally in verse seven, are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Kaffur and the Syrians from Kyr? He says, remember my sermon. There I affirm the universal sovereignty of God over all your neighbors saying that I am
judge of them as well. Now I simply affirm that I was God when they had their migrations too. In other words, the people would and led by the Amos his colleagues who we would call false prophets would would say, but Amos, Amos, look at the doctrine of redemption. The Yahweh who brought us from the land of Egypt and guided us in the wilderness and into this land can keep us here. He's powerful enough to do so.
You just you don't have faith enough. And Amos would respond, look, you keep reciting to me that God brought us up from Egypt. I've agreed. But are we the only ones that ever had a migration? The Philistines came up from Kaffur and the Syrians from Kyr and Israel from Egypt. Who do you think guided them? Are you a polytheist? You see, to monotheize at this point to insist that God is the creator of all peoples and
that was was their guide when they had their migration. Is an extremely important hermeneutic state. Immense one. Are you not like the Ethiopians to me? Now, that must be kept. If you if you just a minute rate, if you concentrate on nine verse seven and make a whole theology out of one verse, you become a universalist. And that is not indicated. It must be kept in tension with the particular risky Christological doctrine of redemption that God
brought us out of the land of Egypt. He brought us out of the land of Egypt and we have a particular paradigm. And kept in tension with. OK. Right. What do you mean by are you not like the Ethiopians? I don't know. He didn't mention the Ethiopians had a migration, but. Of. He's trying to affirm the. Godship of God over the Ethiopians as well as over Egypt. But but the affirmation being that God is the God
of all. Now, again, I say, you see, you say, if we have the hermeneutics that that even obtained through the Orthodox period. And and and obtains in most works, even still today, which was each paragraph in the Bible, if I just dig at it right and get the real meaning will actually be one that I can say is harmonized with all the rest. I just got to work at it and get it right. Even Barth still
has that attitude. I'm saying no. I'm saying we dig hard enough at a passage and hear what it said, but it may be in tension with another. Plural. And especially to keep intention, God is creator of all the world and also that same God as the particular redeemer. Now, there's anybody that's the door is not shut, but I don't think the police will come. Or committee on M .R. from Presbytery, if we just engage in a
little exercise here. Would anybody like to venture a dynamic? Analogously translate analogous translation for our congregation today of nine or seven. Take it that he's speaking to good, responsible Presbyterian or method or whoever. And they were good, responsible Israelite. Must not take them as bad guy. And but he wants to zap through with the hermeneutic point that the God who brought us out of land of Egypt is the God who brought others out of their Egypt's.
You deal with the energy crisis. And the Arab cartel was saying that, you know, for a while saying that we might be justified going to war and this will be just. And that. Are they are you not like the Arabs to me? So that they had a right to do that. So that they're not like it. But try to hold back from moralizing. That is to say from a specific program of international repairs right now and
remain on the theological level. Just remain on the hermeneutic level. Just just just to get it then could move to what the fallout would be in terms of specific. Yes. That would mean that would mean mainly Buddhists. Well, I was thinking about the tremendous change that is taking place in China since the war. And in a sense, the Chinese people see that as redemption. We would not. Would not. Right. Right. But again, not to have an
agenda whereby to approve of Chinese for some particular foreign policy, but rather to speak of God's being God in situations beyond the church. One thing you can do, at least it seems to me, is are you not like the Jews to me? That'll shock some Christian congregations who, for the most part, been trying to put down Jews for two thousand years out of a peak that they didn't recognize the Christianity superseded Judaism. Blast them. You know,
the theory of supersession. Could you also say then, are you not like the unification church? That might be that might be a sharper indictment than anything I was thinking of. Why? How can God speak to them if he is? Yes. Yes. And sometimes what happens in these things, if you stay away from a specific program of going and subscribing to the moon, but leave the point, say, can you affirm the sovereignty of God in something that
you don't like? Now it gets very difficult. It gets extremely difficult. This pluralism business. Very difficult. This loving your enemy. How far are you going to carry that stuff? It's very sensitive in relation to the Black community now. Yes. Or God working in there. Oh, it's very sensitive to what the Quebec kind of living in society. Yes, or you're not like the French to me. That would be pretty rough in your congregation. You get fired right
away. Now it seems distant enough to laugh a little bit. You see, but where he is, that is no laughing matter. Certainly, it seems to me that that in terms of of absolutizing this again, we have to be careful. Like, for instance, to love the enemy. Does that mean that we go and rehabilitate everything Hitler did? Now, certainly America can identify with some of the policies of Nazi Germany in the '30s and learn a lot by
identifying with those. We haven't got the train to move. We haven't got the train to move. That's one thing. So that we have to be careful even here. That we don't absolutize because we have to leave in this idea of pluralism. We have to leave the possibility of illness and sickness. Now, that has to remain intention, however, with the thrust to monotheism. In other words, you can so concentrate on, well, there are some sick people that
God's not going to approve of to the point of saying, well, everybody's not in my church is sick. You see, you can run that one all the way through. But keep it intention with the idea of saying, no, I cannot hold on to God. I don't have a handle on God. God is one. Truth is one. Reality is one. And keep it intention, however, with saying it doesn't mean that everything is kooky is true. You see
what I mean by tension? The business of really working out loving the enemy that is appreciating the hopes and fears of people who stand elsewhere is the biblical warrant for pluralism. I call it monotheistic pluralism. God is one and we are many. Even so, it has to be intention with going and approving of everything. OK. The word balance, would the word balance be as good as tension? No, because I maybe so in a few years. But
right now I find it better to say tension because I find so many people would rather get rid of tension. They don't want it. They want something that's resolved. So because they don't want it, of course, I say it. But but I mean that. That is to say, it seems to me it is it is better to say, no, I really I really find it hard to find a human category by which I can speak of
a God who is both universal creator and also particular redeemer. And I do. And I admit I do. Now, what about saying to an American Christian congregation, you are like the the white South Africans to me. That would be pretty interesting exercise. Because, by the way, we have the same very much the same Calvinist history in this country of this being God's true Zion, as they do the southern tip of Africa being God's true Zion. That
would be that would be an interesting mirror. But still first and strive as long as you can to theologize before worrying about whether it would be really a good foreign policy in terms of other things that you think of, you see, before working it out into a particular moral. Go as far as one can in theology. Affirm the sovereignty of God. It to monotheism stuff. In searching out and finding all these tensions in the scriptures, would
you have to say that an implication of that is that the day of writing a systematic theology is long dead. Oh, yes. In other words, what Barth was trying to do from his inception was was defeated before he even started to systematically explicate the scriptures because there's so many different levels and movements and tides. And as you call it tension. Yeah, I think I have to say that for the time being good Lord may provide us
something else in the next 10 years, but I think so. I just want to add this one child talks about using can he use the term access and polarity and looking for the corrective right? And trying to keep ourselves in our tension. That's right. Yes, he does. He does. And he does it so well between between the same traditions used in the Old Testament and used in the New Testament. I'm I'm not there. I'm very close.
It's a neighboring exercise. I'm looking for the for the theological hermeneutic in a particular circumstance where you have two colleagues speaking to the same context. Out of the same tradition. If you know that paper that's out there, hermeneutics true and false prophecy, the triangle so that we have text here. That'd be chapter two, verse nine to eleven. That's the Torah story, right? Context is 750 BC in the Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam the second with all the
hopes and expectations of those people. And Amos and his colleagues address that same context. But they have and they have the same text. They have the same gospel tradition applying it to that. That's different from childs is taking a tradition here and then seeing there in two entirely different contexts. But a neighboring exercise. Very I mean, he and I have a broad area of agreement then. But what I'm what what this does is to point up
there for whenever we know the words, what we're doing in scholarly language is we're we're going to be our time together now that we're into it. Our time together. I want us to be exploring as many disputatios vertus, the Germans call them. In other words, passages where we might see debates between two ancient prophetic colleagues in the same content. And we will find some more in especially in Micah. We'll find some in Isaiah and Jeremiah. So.
Yes. Could I suggest what what what I do? Yes. And that is to for the most part in my preaching. Oh, I sometimes may celebrate this tension. But but for the which is, by the way, can be expressed a tension between affirmation of the freedom of God and affirmation of grace of God. That's that's an old traditional way of putting it under the freedom of God. God judges under the grace of God. God keeps his promise
as promises. We understand it and so on. Now, I for the most part. However, do not in the one in the same sermon, try to show the congregation the tension. Often in a sermon, I would just go right on through with the with the full celebration of God's grace in the midst of our sinfulness. And just that right on through with the whole thing, as many passages do. Just just, you know, move with it and joyously
celebrate. But on another Sunday and another context with the same people, preach the other thing. For me, let me give you just two little examples. These would just be a sort of mnemonic devices. When I'm on Genesis one, I'm on Genesis one. God is transcendent, majestic, august, awesome and so on. When I'm on Genesis two, God is a pastor. He calls on his parishioners in Eden. He pays a pastoral call on them. He asked them to
go on a trip with him and so on. And they're back to back. They're right there. Now, we in our sophisticated source, critical analysis, say one is P and one is J. But I say hallelujah. They're back to back. But sometimes I will say to the congregation to his congregation, let's appreciate that it is the august, majestic God who comes in finally after chapter two is the cradle. Right. And not only making a pastoral call, but
for Christians, the cradle. But sometimes I find it important to stress one or stress the other as indeed I think the Bible does. Now, second is Luke 14 and 15. And these are just give you two examples. In Luke 14, the banquet parable, the we had it earlier there. You have to understand battle and banquet go together and so on. The householder sends out the Herald and the Herald speaks to those who think they're elect. The
Keklaminoi that the that this great eschatological banquet is now ready. The household is, of course, God. And and they come and the those who consider themselves elect, they know Deuteronomy 20. They aren't fooled by the situation. And they say, oh, I fully understand that really what's involved here is this final battle. The banquet is it's it's not always true with the banquets before the battle or after the battle, but for the most part after the battle,
that prepares the table for me in the presence of my enemies generally would be after the battle, I think. But it may be before. But nonetheless, battle and banquet go together. They know this and they send in the excuses. Deuteronomy 20 says it's proper because they firmly believe God only needs a few people. Now, the householder hears that. And in Te Orge, in Rolf, he sends out the Herald again and says, go out and tell them,
go out and get the very ones that Leviticus 17, Leviticus 21 and the whole of the Dead Sea Scrolls says cannot come to the banquet or to the battle. The blemished ones, the main, the lame, the blind, the halt and fill up the place. And then the terrible statement on the part of the householder. None of the Keclemenoi, none of those who had thought they were elect will taste my banquet. And Luke ends it there. I
mean, you know, it just goes. And I said it doesn't take away from it. It doesn't say if you don't do such and such. It's unconditional. None of those who thought they were elect will taste the banquet. God is free when that moment comes to tell them they got the wrong hermeneutics to pull out the wrong chapter when they heard the Herald and so on and so forth. And in wrath, he says, on the contrary, bring
all the others in. And let's zip right through. But thank goodness there's Luke 15. Immediately, almost immediately after, of course, you have the business about the cost of discipleship coming. Then almost immediately you have Luke 15, another banquet, which is clearly an eschatological banquet also. And the householder who is the father, Parakaleo, urges the older brother who had been faithful, who did consider himself elect to attend the banquet as well. And our Lord or Luke or
whatever doesn't attempt to to to to take one away from the other. Sometimes the context apparently into which they spoke would indicate such a sharpness of prophetic word that between the context there and the prophetic word here, then a point was scored. Sometimes what we call in hyperbole, the Bible's full of hyperbole in this matter. And but in the next come along and say, but but those who remain faithful, though, who consider themselves elect will be
urged to attend. And they're both because sometimes we must encourage our people that that is the case. So my understanding is that we have to, by hermeneutics, also discern, as Martin Buber so beautifully put it, and Eva Oswald picked it up. Part of the job of the prophet is to discern the hour. As as as as Buber put it, to discern the hour, whether or not it is a time in the people's lives to hear the
word wheel or the word of woe. That's the way Buber put it. And I would say we must discern whether or not which which whether we stress the hermeneutic of the freedom of God and these judgments or the hermeneutic of the grace of God. I think, for instance, that I can and Jim Cone and I have talked now for five or six years. Often we're going to teach a course together next semester. You know, James Cone
in black theology. And I think you see that he is using a hermeneutics of the grace of God for black congregations. Without at any point yet using hermeneutic of the freedom of God in speaking to black congregations using this Torah gospel story. And I think perhaps that he's right in discerning the context. That is probably correct. I think the feminist movement is at the point that it needs the encouragement that the hermeneutic of the grace of
God. I think that white South Africans and white North Americans perhaps need more sermons on the freedom of God than they mainly hear. You know, actually, there's an old expression, David, that your problem is that you don't have the freedom of God. I admire David once used McClennan. The word of God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. That's an old expression. It's a very old one. And you say, well, God, can we reduce to the
slogan like that? Well, no, I don't think so. But it's indicative. It's a little mnemonic device. It does operate both. I would say this. I think we can put it negatively. I think that any hermeneutic that would permit an application, a rendering relevant of this Torah gospel story, that would, on this end, comfort cruel people is out. And at the other end, to quench a dimly burning wick is out. Those, it seems to me, are the
limits. But within that, the prophetic interpreter or the teaching elder or whatever the office discerns the context whereby to help the people to take another lap in the pilgrimage and other such comments. Let's take five. Arnold, I'm sorry. I got in late. I wasn't paying a bit of attention. And the. I would not I would want nine seven. I heard in the coffee hour some attempts to do that. That is not our point. Our point this
morning we I would keep just the way we said it. And that was that the so-called true prophets is over against the so-called false prophets kept the doctrine of redemption in the larger framework of doctrine of creation. I did not say kept it within Amos nine seven. Amos nine seven, of course, emphasizes freely the work of God in various communal stories and says he worked in other communal stories. I think with Calvin, we can
at least put it negatively, whether or not we generalize on it. We can at least put it negatively, which is after all ends up with a positive impact. We cannot deny the sovereignty of God in other communal stories. We just can't do it. You try to do it and you're going to fall on your face. But the main thing is the other that the true prophets, the so-called true prophets kept the doctrine of redemption in
tension with the doctrine of creation. Secondly, the conversations at coffee were helpful, too, in that I want to say that I really do think that it is one of the most difficult things for us and myself included, though I've been working at this for a long time. Is this business of tension? We we we would much prefer resolution. And but but I I it won't work because whatever we read, whatever resolution we come to will need
a prophetic critique within six months. Because God is God. I mean, I'm trying to see if it's possible. Some of you heard the lecture I give entitled All These Things, Tata Fanta, All These Things. Some of you have. I think so. It's an exploration to see, is it possible for us to affirm monotheistic pluralism, to affirm what we're here saying and not have to wait until the next generation to get clobbered? Do can we anticipate what
the criticisms of our children will be upon our best thinking? You say, oh, my God, you make my head dizzy. It's sufficient under one generation to celebrate what the Holy Spirit gives it to do. Right. Right. And maybe it's hubris, sheer hubris to suggest that we can take the one or two little points where Barth maybe slipped a cog and try not to slip a cog. That's a bad metaphor, but at any rate, to try to
improve upon Barth may be worse hubris in the world. All I know is that the Holy Spirit's kicking me to try to do so. And that would be in the two main things, namely to retain a theocentric Christology rather than his Christocentric theology. And secondly, to refrain from harmonizing the Bible and finding it the congruity everywhere, but rather keep the pluralism operative. I know it's difficult, but let's try. All right. Now let's turn to Micah. And
first of all, look at Chapter six. Now, here we have a we don't have a full disputation or debate, but we have a suggestion of it. This is, by the way, a beautiful Chapter six, one to eight is a beautiful example of a covenant lawsuit passage. It's just pristine. It's even better than some passages in Jeremiah or Deuteronomy 32 or some others. It's gorgeous. It starts out with saying, arise, plead your case before the mountains. Let
the hills hear your voice. The mountains and the hills will be the witnesses to this covenant lawsuit. The litigants are God and his people Israel. And the Lord has a you see the word controversy in verse two. That is the Hebrew word wreath, which is the word meaning covenant lawsuit. God is suing his people. He's appearing in the marketplace. Last night, we suggested that one of the functions of the prophet is that of court officer in
that covenant lawsuit situation. All right. Now, in this case, as in only two others in these covenant lawsuit passages in this one, Micah indicates that God says to the people, You bring your complaints against me first. Oh, my people, what have I done to you? And what have I wearied you? Answer me. In other words, says to the people, all right, what's your complaint against me? That occurs in only two other places. In the Song of
the Vineyard, Isaiah five and in Jeremiah two, the covenant lawsuit passage Jeremiah two. Now, it may have been understood to be general. I don't know, but those happen to be the only three where we definitely have it. Now, we don't get an answer from the people. The prophet carries on with his function, which is to say what? But what do we have in verses four and five? Torah story. How about that? Now, that's the text. That's
the gospel. That is the reference of authority. It's what we call category two in the seven categories. Now, it goes from brought you up the land of Egypt, redeem you of bondage, sent you Moses, Aaron, Miriam. Now, what did Balak, king of Moab devise? And what did Balaam, son of Or answer? That's interesting. That is the numbers 22 to 24 business on Balaam. It's interesting that it should interest. It's the only case where we have one
of these recitals where you get that brought in. It's quite interesting because it would certainly indicate at least this, that where your enemies are cursing you, it may be that through those curses, God is blessing you, which is the message of the Balaam pericope, it seems to me. Now, what happened from Shatim to Gilgal? Anybody know? No. Across the Jordan. Across the Jordan. Entered into the promised land. Shatim is the last campsite on the east side
and Gilgal and the first on the west side of the Jordan. That you may know what? The last phrase of verse five. Which means? Yes. The Torah story. The gospel. Now, he does not yet, he does not here cite specifically the creation. So we are not in a full blown controversy with the false prophet. Well, what's going on? What is the next question? With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on
high? In other words, we know what our identity is. We are the redeemed from Egyptian slavery people. We know who we are. Now we can ask the question, what are we to do? We've been itching for two days to get to moralizing. Here we go. Let's moralize. Now we can moralize thoroughly. Okay. Now let's see how he does it. See how he does it. He explores some programs of obedience. Some putative, some possible programs of obedience.
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? Look back to verses four and five. Any burnt offerings there? Nope. No burnt offerings. All right. Calves a year old? Look in verses four and five. Look at the Torah story. Any calves in there? No calves. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Look back at the text at the Gospel there. Four and five. Any rams? No rams. Ten thousands of rivers of oil. Look for oil.
Any oil? No oil. No, they went to the wrong place. Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, a fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Look back there for the sacrifice of the firstborn. No such indication. In other words, no indication despite the fact that the Torah story doesn't say anything about what God told you to do. What does the Torah story tell you? It does not in its basic Gospel aspect say
anything about what God wants you to do. It tells you what God has done. But that ought to indicate at least somehow what Israel can do. So, verse eight says, if you read it with the right hermeneutics, you will see what it suggests you can do. And he makes three points out of it. He showed you, O man, O humanity, Israel, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you. And they are, laszot mishpach. Any
justice back up there in verse four and five? Oh, you're d*** right. Got rid of slavery. Any kindness, any chesed? Ahavat chesed. Every bit of it was a chesed. Walking humbly, who walked humbly? Any walking back? Oh, no, it's all walking. For 40 years they walked. Why do we know we should walk humbly with God? Because he first walked humbly with us. Be condescending. Now, that's the way you found out what to do. You're going to
moralize, now moralize. It isn't, as Ernst Caseman so beautifully says, about the Carmen, Christie, and Philippians, too. That gorgeous two-stroke poem about the work of Christ, who, existing in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, humbled himself, being found in human form, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him, bestowed
upon him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is curious to the glory of God the Father. Now, as Ernst Caseman says, we can't get up there in the heavenly council to get on that track, to come down. But that ought to provide us an indication of what we can do. And I
have a theory. Ernst Lohmeier, about 60 years ago, a German scholar, showed that that two-stroke poem in Philippians 2 could be re-retroverted into its original Aramaic, or Hebrew, and went on to suggest that Paul had learned of the poem from a Palestinian Christian disciple soon after he was converted. I suggest that he learned it from Ananias, that Syrian Damascene disciple in the congregation, in the little house church there in Damascus, whom Saul had gone
over to persecute. But you remember something like scales fell from his eyes. I don't know from scales. But when he could see, what did he see? He saw a Christian. And he probably asked him, where did you get the courage to come down here and call me your brother? And Ananias probably... This is between the lines now, because all Luke says at that point is that Paul stayed with the people in Damascus for a while. Well,
you think he's just sitting around watching TV? I think he was as curious as hell as to what this outfit was about. And certainly an entree into their instructing him in the faith would have been for him to ask this lone little Christian, Ananias, where he got the guts to go to his enemy and call him brother. And I imagine that was the first question. Ananias probably said, you really want to know? Yeah. Pull up the
chair again, he sat by the bed, and he says, I tell you, I have a story. I have a story. And then he told it. He says, there's courage in Christ. Now, the way Paul puts it in Philippians is, is there any courage in Christ? I imagine Ananias says, you want to know where I got the courage? I tell you, it's in Christ. You want to know where I got the incentive to come down here? The
paramuthion? I got it in the love of God. I got paid. You want to know where I got the enabling power to come down here? It's in the Spirit. The affection and the sympathy. All of those are gifts of God available to me. How are they available to you? I can plug in. To what? To the story. And his head was full of it. Now, he was the only member of that congregation who went down there.
We're exegeting Micah, you understand? He was the only member of that little congregation that went down to Judas' house in enemy territory. The rest of us didn't go. I should hope that if I had gotten the news that the guy who was coming over to persecute us, at worst kill us, at best arrest us and take us back to Jerusalem as heretics and blasphemers. If I had gotten the news that he'd had an accident, I don't
know from life, from heaven, but I know he had an accident. He had an accident, he couldn't come, he's sick, and they brought him to town and he's down in Judas' house. Probably an elder in the synagogue. And if I'd heard that news, I think at best I would have slumped down to church and sung hymns of praise to God for justice. I would have hoped that I'd had the courage to do that. And I suppose,
I like to think most of us did, but it says that one member of the congregation heard that news a slightly different way. Not everybody, just one. Because he heard it with his Christian imagination, shaped by such a point as that which he instructed Saul about, said, look, if Christ could go all the way to the regions of death in humility, I can at least go down to Judas' house. It's maybe only a very dim reflection,
but you see, it's important to know that it was a combination of that story with a context of having gotten news that your enemy was sick. And the two together provided a suggestion to Ananias to what he could do. I don't put the rest of us in that little congregation down that we didn't go down there. Where are the things to do? There's a lot to do. We have numerous agendas. Anyway, the Bible is full of
these funny stories about when God really got something to do, he uses one person to great effect, starting with Abraham. And I understand the New Testament has something about that. Now, let us look, if you will, at Micah Chapter 4. This is the work of van der Waaldee, a Dutch scholar at the University of Groningen in Verus Testamentum 1969. There's my footnote. Now let's see what he did. He showed that we probably have in verses 9
to 13 a disputation paragraph, one in which what Micah said and what Micah's colleague said is both recorded, but we don't have the stage directions. This is another legitimate way, by the way, of working. And I think he's right about this. First of all, verse 9, he suggests would have been a so-called false prophet. In other words, one who, as it were, chided the people when the Assyrians were threatening, to say they didn't have enough
faith. If they really had faith, they would be confident that God would not let those Assyrians in the city. That, by the way, is also a challenge. Given the understanding of the hermeneutic, of the grace of God, God is going to take care of Jerusalem. He promised he would. You people don't believe it. Straighten up and believe it. See verse 9? Don't put it down. In some contexts, it is right and good. Let us say it
is a good theology. It is what is called a Zionist theology. God made a promise to Zion and he will keep it. Verse 10, from the value said, would have been then Micah's response by saying and addressing Zion thus, just go right ahead and rise and groan, O daughter of Zion. You are right to do so, like a woman in travail. For now you shall go forth from the city and dwell in the open country. You
should go all the way to Babylon. There you will be rescued. You will be rescued. I tell you where you will be rescued. You will be rescued in a foreign land. See how I like that. There the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. See his colleagues are saying, Micah, you just don't believe. God is a redeemer. He will redeem this situation. He will rescue us. He is a rescuer. He is a matziel.
Micah says, he is a redeemer. I believe it. I am with you. He will redeem you in Babylon. Then verse 11. Now verse 11. Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, let her be, now this would be the so-called false prophet again, the one who really firmly believes that God can keep the promise. He is going to protect Jerusalem. So they say, now verse 11, how many nations, now many nations are assembled against you,
saying, let her be profaned and let our eyes gaze upon Zion. Verse 12 continues it, but they do not know the thoughts of the Lord. They do not understand his plan, say these prophets. What is that? He has gathered them, that is to say, those Assyrian forces and the rest outside the gates of Jerusalem, as sheaves to the threshing floor, rise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron and your hoofs
bronze, you shall beat in peace as many people, and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. That is pure Zionist theology. It went like this. God's commitment to protect the inviolate city is so complete that suppose we do come to such a pass as this, that the foreign armies are outside the city gates besieging the holy city. Worry not. Wherefore do the nations rage? Psalm 2 is exactly
such a situation. Wherefore do the nations rage? Don't worry about it. The reason God has let it come so far and gathered them right out there outside the city gate is so that he can throw one atom bomb on them and do away with them right away, namely his Israel, that's his atom bomb. They will come out of those gates and thresh those people who are gathered out there. How about that? That's faith. They'll get right
up to the neck, as Isaiah said, the flood has reached the neck, as Micah said, it has reached right to the gate of Jerusalem. But don't worry, say these prophets. Worry not. That's okay. God knows what he's doing. He's got his plans. He's let them gather out there so he can, one fell swooping, do away with them. Micah says, mm-mm, they're coming in. I think that that is helpful to see and would help us also
to understand Micah chapter two. Would you turn there? Verse six. These colleagues say to Micah, do not preach, thus they preach. One should not preach of such things. Micah, you know, disgrace will not overtake us. Not, not by the way, because we're so strong. Oh, no, but because God is. And he will take care of us. Disgrace will not overtake us. Should be this be said, O house of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord short
or impatient? Are these his doings? Do not my words do good to those who walk uprightly? Micah interjects. The ethical condition. But you rise against my people as an enemy. You strip the road from the peaceful and those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war and so on. And the debate goes on. It's a little difficult, I think, to determine exactly where verses eight to ten fit in. But verse eleven is pretty clear. Micah
speaks about the so-called false prophets. If a man should go about another wind and lies, saying, I'll preach to you of wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for this people. Now let's look at, if you will, a situation where context makes a difference. We are concentrating on where you have two theologians, one called true prophet, one called false prophet, in the same context. But in order to get a perspective, let's, for our
closing, let's look at a situation in which you have the same message, but in two different contexts. Let's try that one. Would you look at Ezekiel 33? Now the situation, look at verse 21. The situation is in Ezekiel's refugee or deportee camp in Babylon. He's been taken up there with others. And they have been, despite what Jeremiah has been saying and what Ezekiel has been saying to them, they much prefer, of course, to believe the message
of Hananiah, which we will look at tomorrow. Namely, that God can keep a promise and will do so, and interpreting the Torah Gospel story in their context through the hermeneutics of the grace of God. Namely, they are up there in Babylon, but they're not unpacking their bags. Remember the letter of Jeremiah 22 to Babylon. They don't want to settle down because they're keeping the faith, let's put it in their terms, that this thing will get sorted
out, as Hananiah said in Jeremiah 28, in a couple of years, and we're not going to settle down and build a life up here. We're going to be going home, and it will be pretty soon, because God's in control of the situation, that means He's doing what we know He ought to do, and we'll be back home pretty soon. Now, with that in mind, they get the awful news, the messenger comes, chapter 33, verse 21, the
city has fallen. The last thing they wanted to hear, and the most crushing blow you can imagine, knock, knock, hot air. God can't keep a promise. This would certainly be the point at which you'd hang your harps on the trees and say, we're not going to sing the Yahweh songs anymore. Now, in that situation, some elders come to Ezekiel, and they're trying their best to save what they can out of the situation. I don't know how
many days later, I don't know exactly the timing, we're not given that, but they come to Ezekiel and they say, but you know Ezekiel, wait a minute now, Abraham, see it in verse 24, Abraham was only one person, yet he got possession of the land. We are many, therefore the land is surely given to us to possess. Now, that's beautiful. To begin with, notice that what tradition do they call upon? They call upon an old Bronze
Age tradition. They call upon one that you hardly have, well, this is the first time Abraham is called upon in the prophets, by the way. You have Isaac called upon in Hosea once, you have the twins Jacob and Esau called upon once in Hosea. But when do you get a renaissance of interest in the Bronze Age traditions? That is to say, what we call the Genesis tradition, Genesis 12. When do you get that, as Frank Cross
says, precisely in the sixth century? Why? It's very clear. Those are stories about their ancestors who, like them, were in Mesopotamia, rounding around. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. So, they would become quite meaningful. Was there ever a time when, in our communal story, we were wandering around, sort of lost individuals, scattered up here in Mesopotamia? Oh yeah, don't you remember those stories they used to have down in Hebron? Anybody hear from Hebron? Tell us a story about Abraham.
They began to share. After all, these deportee camps didn't separate them according to tribes. No indication of that. So, they began to share these stories. And so, they come to Ezekiel and said, Ezekiel, we've got to figure it out. Our ancestor, our father, Abraham, who, eponymically, of course, Ezekiel represents us, our father Abraham was but one person wandering around up here like us. He got the land. We are many, cal the homer, argumentum a fortiori. We'll
all the more so get the land back. How's that? Not bad, huh? You know what Ezekiel says in the whole following paragraph? Go to hell. It takes him about eight verses to do it, but he sure tells them how to get there. He utterly rejects it. Utterly rejects this interpretation. He says, no. Okay, keep your finger there and turn back to Isaiah 51. Second Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 51. Verse one. Harken to me, you who pursue deliverance,
who seek the Lord. Here's the way you do it, Isaiah says. This is Isaiah of the exile. Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were digged. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah. He was a feminist, so he mentioned, but to Sarah, who bore you. For when he was but one, I called him, blessed him, and made him many. And the Lord will comfort Zion. It is
precisely, exactly to the letter, the same argument, that those inhabitants, those of that Tedipotican, came to Ezekiel with. And Ezekiel, rejected, is now advanced by the second Isaiah as the word of the Lord. What is the difference? Fifty years. Fifty years, exactly. Different context. Otherwise, the same gospel passage, same part of the gospel story, namely the Abraham part, same text, in other words, both applied by the hermeneutics of grace, God will keep his promise, both on
the part of the elders coming to Ezekiel, and second Isaiah. But the third factor down here, if you remember the triangle, the third factor, historical context, totally different, totally different. That is one of your contradictions that you have to watch and explore fully. Namely, that the self-same message in 586, which Ezekiel rightly rejected, is by the second Isaiah presented as the word of God for his time. We can, I think, make some suggestions as to
what the big difference would be. Surely, in the time of Ezekiel, to come up with that would have been to say the same thing the Samarians had in 722 after Sargon II had destroyed Samaria. Oh, the bricks have fallen, but we'll build with dressed stone. The sycamores have fallen or been hewn down, but we will plant oaks in their place. That's beautiful. What's wrong with that? I don't find anything wrong with that. That's the buoyancy of
the human spirit. That's excellent. But the first Isaiah said no, and Ezekiel said no. It was timing, it was context into which such was spoken, namely, that to say such a thing at that moment would have been to daub the wounds that God has inflicted with the balm of Gilead, superficial and no effect. It would have been, in fact, as Ezekiel says, to daub with whitewash. It would have been to dismiss the possibility of God the
Great Physician affecting the operation. It would have been to shield oneself from the transformation that is attempted to take place. So that Ezekiel and the second Isaiah had to say no, settle down, unpack your bags. Have the experience of living under a foreign government, in a foreign land, knowing that Yahweh is God. Why? Because you have confused your government with his and your power with his. And the only solution, apparently, is to live under a foreign
government. Now Jeremiah, as you will see tomorrow, goes so far as to call Nebuchadnezzar, the king of that foreign government, Yahweh's servant. But right away says that he too, in due course, will know God's judgments. Whenever the axe vaunts itself over Henry Hughes with it, the axe will itself be judged. Isaiah 10, you know your passage. Isaiah 29, a similar thing. So also here. So I wanted us to look at this, at this case. This, so
far as I know, this comparison of Ezekiel 33 and Isaiah 51 has never been interjected into the discussions of true and false prophecy. And I imagine that the only reason is that there is no suggestion that the inhabitants of Judah or of that deportee camp in Ezekiel 33 are false prophets, or even prophets. So all it says is inhabitants. But it doesn't say they weren't prophets. We can assume that they were spokesmen for the best thinking
of the people at that time. And Ezekiel says no. And then the second Isaiah to the very, very same message says yes. But the timing is totally different. Now we should see tomorrow morning that in the famous debate between our, between Jeremiah, I sometimes get them confused, and between Jeremiah and Hananiah, that Hananiah's message was very much the same as those elders that came to Ezekiel. Same time in history. The only difference was that Hananiah was
with Jeremiah down in Jerusalem and those elders were with Ezekiel up in Babylonia. But the same, approximately the same message. And Jeremiah had to say the same thing to him, eventually, after he went away and thought about it, as Ezekiel said to the elders and the camp. It's interesting to have three such instances of the very same message. And the two that are given where it occurs immediately before the effect of the category six, right, can
take place, before a transformation can take place, before something can happen, before the heart transplant takes effect, or whatever you want to call it, category six. The prophets say no. When it comes time for the second Isaiah to come on the scene, then to the self-saying message you'll say, it's time. That idea, it's time has arrived. Now we can celebrate it. But tomorrow, I want us to start. Now, if you would, we may be jumping
too fast. Now, we will start in the morning with an easy case, a fairly easy one, of back where we have been, namely of a dispute, a debate between two theological positions in the same context. And we'll do that as Isaiah 28. So if you would, read as much as you can of Isaiah 28, beginning at verse nine through verse 22 of Isaiah 28. And we will explore that. And I think we will be able to
see in it a reflection at any rate of the debate that took place between two theological positions in the same historical context. Then, if you would, read Jeremiah chapters 27 to 29. That, of course, is the heart, the locus classicus of all discussions of true and false prophecies. Jeremiah 27 to 29. Three chapters. What? Good morning, dear friends. Good morning. Well, you're all well-trained. Do you say that every Sunday? How is your holiness? I don't
know how it feels. I've asked Jack Van End to please be kind enough to offer prayer as we begin our session this morning. Well, let me tell you, God, we thank you that as a group we can approach you and come to you because you have seized the initiative and first come to us. We ask that, through all of our pursuits and our exchange of ideas, that you may come to us as a hard wind to
shake us out of our complacency. Also, for some of us, come to us as a gentle zephyr to refresh us and stimulate us. And for those of us who are working through wounds and hurt, come as a healing ointment. We ask also that you may freshen up our minds, that we may not have a smugness thinking that we are the true prophets or that we know all about it and that we have nothing more to learn.
May we always be impressed that in this discussion, in our life, that faith is adventure. It's a journey, a striving. With Christ, thank you and pray. Amen. Thank you, Jack, and thank you, Jack. Well, if we want to tackle Isaiah this morning and look at some of what he has to say, I think it's best first to suggest the setting for this prophet of Davidic theology. In terms of category two in Isaiah, I find no evidence,
whatever, of any reference to Mosaic traditions, only to Davidic. That puts me over against some who have suggested that later in life, they agree, everybody agrees with that, apparently concerning Isaiah's early ministry, but some have suggested with respect to his later ministry that he infused the Davidic theology with Mosaic traditions. I do not see that. I see no reference anywhere in any passage to the Exodus wandering's entrance bracket. By contrast, there are numerous references to what
God did for David. God chose David and worked through the royal household. And there are a number of traditions in that regard. Would you look, for instance, in chapter one at the basic category two passage of this prophet, beginning in verse 21. How the established city, the affirmed city, please not faithful in the sense that they had faith. That is a bad translation. It is ir ne 'emana, which is a technical expression from Davidic traditions. You
can see it in 2 Samuel 7 in the famous call of David. It means that by God's commitment, something is established. By God's commitment, something is established. In 2 Samuel 7, it is used concerning the Davidic dynasty. It is a bayit ne 'emana. The kingship is ne 'emana. It is exactly the same word as here. And remember that engrafted onto the basic Davidic theology, a tradition that God had guaranteed, unconditionally guaranteed, the Davidic dynasty. In other
words, it was largely a dynastic theology. Engrafted onto that was the idea that he had also guaranteed the city in which the Davidic dynasty reigned. And it is that old Jebusite, that old Jebusite Zionism coming from the Canaanites. This has been shown by Samuel Terrian and others. There's a great deal of feed-in to Davidic theology from the Canaanites. We have to be very grateful to the Canaanites for a number of points in the Bible. And
one of them is certainly the idea of the inviolate city. That is the old idea of Jebus, the Jebusites. Mind you when, please don't moralize, but when you don't commit kerem and kill all the Amalekites, then what happens? You do what David did. You assimilate, you mix with the Canaanite population of Jerusalem. Remember David took Jerusalem without firing a shot. And we shall look at that passage a little in a moment with regards to chapter 28.
But what happens is that you have all kinds of mixing and mingling of ideas. And in the early days of the settlement of Jerusalem, only about 10% of the population were transplanted from Hebron, David's old administrative officers, and their families. 90% were still the old Jebusites. And David engaged in a number of compromises with the Jebusites, the old Canaanites. And one of them, of course, was to take on Zadok as his principal priest. Zadok
had been the priest at the Canaanite sanctuary of Ein Rogel. And so this idea here expressed in verse 21 of the established city is by extension saying, God has guaranteed not only the dynasty, but the city in which it reigns. That is the sense of ir ne'emana, not faithful, in the sense that it was somehow a faithful city, which would really make much sense. Has become a harlot. That is to say, the city that God
has guaranteed is in its own conduct and morality has actually gone seeking other gods. That's what harlot means, of course, with regard to a people or a city or a country. She that was full of justice. Now, mishpat is a word that, mishpat and zadok are two words that are very, very common in the Davidic theology. They're also, of course, used in Mosaic theology. But mishpat, justice, is in Davidic theology a gift of God. God gives
this justice to the people to whom he makes these promises. And she was full of justice means God had attributed that. God had given that to the city that he had made firm and established and guaranteed. But the people did not take it as a gift, did not develop it, did not practice it, and so on. Righteousness, the other word of the Davidic pair that we just mentioned, zadaka, lodged in her. Why? Because God gave it
to Jerusalem. But now, not meaning that she was righteous of her own merit and now not, but rather that she simply drifted away from the gift that God had given her of righteousness. The idea, by the way, of righteousness being a gift of God is rampant in the Bible. I understand Paul picks it up and uses it. Now, he goes on then with the category four about the indictments, which is already suggested here, that is to
say they're not living like. They really believe that Jerusalem is something special, you see, and has received these gifts. The silver has become dross. Wine is mixed with water. There are a number of metaphors that indicate that they have not worked out that gift with fear and trembling, or in any other way, as Paul might put it. Well, the city itself is almost personified then, isn't it? Yes, often the city will be personified and addressed in
apostrophe in poetry and so on, viewed again as a communal unit, as so much you have in the Old Testament of the whole people being viewed as one person. People in the land? Yes, the city is almost a corporate personality in the sense that Jacob is a corporate personality of all Israelans. Does that sum up the nation too, Jerusalem, Zion, and so on? Yes, in Isaiah, often he will refer to one of these and mean the
whole, and that, of course, is not only common in Hebrew poetry, it's common in the world. For instance, in the Song of the Vineyard, I'm convinced that that is not the land, it is the city, and the tower and the wine vat refer to the temple and the palace metaphorically. But that he is talking about the whole people, sure, of course. Another thing in Davidic theology about corporate personality is that David is often, the king, the
king, whoever, David's heir or David, is often spoken of, and you mean the whole people. You mean David and the people seen in David. The idea that a whole people could be understood as having their identity in one person is also picked up in the New Testament, in the In Christo formula. I meant it when I said I really think that the New Testament is biblical. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a
bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the fatherless and the widow's cause do not come to them. And these are among the indictments that he brings that the city does not act like what it should act like. Therefore, now you have a category five coming. The Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel says, I will vent my wrath on my enemies. Now here's the holy war terminology. God is holy war,
but his enemies are his own people. Jeremiah will use that same expression in chapter one. We've noted it several times. The prophets will say to their colleagues who have another view, that is what we unfortunately call false prophets, will say, yes, we believe God's holy warrior, but he's at the head of the enemy troops and we are his enemy. We have met the enemy and they is us or whatever the expression that comes straight out of
prophets. And the vengeance of my foes, I turn my hand against you, smelt away your dross. Now here is a category six simply expressed. You've known it all your lives and here it is. What I am, God is punishing the people, going to conduct holy war against his own people because of their sins, which are well explained in verse 22 and 23. That's right. And the category five is the expression of his, of the sentence going
to do it. But six says, but there is a purpose beyond just punishing for the sins. It is that it would smelt out the dross. You see, that is a pure category six. Hold on to it. It is a form of transformation, something purposeful beyond the reason for the punishment. Remove all the alloy. Restore your judges is the first. Your counselor says at the beginning and afterwards you shall be called now the city of righteousness. And
ending with the same phrase, it started with the ear. What I made you at the beginning and you will be like it, not because you've had a reformation and gotten rid of it, but God is going to come and conduct this operation and himself get rid of the dross. So that is the operations to take place. And there you have a beautiful inclusio versus 21 to 26 for this program. And that is the basic statement of
the message of the first Isaiah. It's caught up in those verses 21 to 26. In other words, you have the first Isaiah, and Rietzen by the way, Charles Rietzen of Holland in the Meilenberg festrift of 1962 or whatever, an article on the essential theology of Isaiah, I think has got it right. That's in a book edited by Barney Anderson who teaches here. Essays, the prophetic heritage of Israel or something like that. And Driezen, D-R-I
-E-Z-E-N. And I think that he has understood Isaiah better than Van Rad or many others. Isaiah is a stumbling block for a lot of people. So I just want to make that clear as to my position on that. Namely that Isaiah has, like Amos, Hosea, Micah and so on, and Jeremiah, a message of judgment, a purposive judgment to reform, transform people and so on. But it is based upon Davidic theology, Davidic vocabulary, and
the whole Torah story of David. Now, why isn't the Davidic Torah story in the Torah, in the Pentateuch? Well, you see, I think that whatever we meant in scholarship in the 19th century by the Yahvist tradition, the Yahvist document, this probably was a full-blown Davidic theology, the Davidic gospel. Because it went, if you recall, from a story of creation, Chapter 2 of Genesis, through some of the patriarchal materials about Abraham, included the Egyptian materials and
so on, but culminated in 1 and 2 Samuel with the wonderful stories about the selection of David. In other words, it climaxed, it did not stop with the entrance into the land as the old basic Mosaic theology does in all of those recitals that we've seen so many of. On the contrary, it went on and said, God continued different accompaniment, different generations and so on coming and going, but God continued and not only gave the people
his land, and mind you, in this theology, it is God's land, and he can do with it what he d*** well pleases. It is never Israel's land in any part of the partner, underscore that point. And also the city is, and God gives them the city, it was his to give, and that culminates, you see, in the royal view, the great culmination is this establishment of the city. And it's on that basis that Isaiah brings a
message of judgment. Now you say, rightly you'd have to say, well gee, that was an unconditioned promise. What kind of hermeneutic is he going to get to apply that, Davidic theology for judgment? My teacher told me Davidic theology was unconditioned, and it was bad. That is, if you went to a teacher who was of the Albright School, he told you it was bad. Or if you read the article by Noah Friedman in the Interpreter's Dictionary on
covenant, you will see that it's put down. There's only one real one for the Albright School, McCormick, Baltimore, or Harvard, and somewhat in Princeton. But I say that no more. It just ain't so. It's a different theology, and how is it that it is not the theology that determines the message. It's the hermeneutic used applying that theology. I've said that now 19 times since Monday night. I'll say it 19 more if you want me to. It's
the hermeneutic and not the theology. And most people, of course, just as they would read, no person cometh unto the Father save through me, would read it with one single hermeneutic because they can't imagine another one being applied to it, saying that's exclusivistic. But believe you me, another hermeneutic can be applied to it. If you want to, we'll discuss that. But it isn't that theology makes that much difference. Isaiah applied a theology of the freedom of
God even to the Davidic traditions so that he was able to say what he's just now said in verses 21 and 26. Whereas his colleagues would say, but Isaiah, you don't even know what you're talking about. That was an unconditioned promise. Can't you hear plain Hebrew? It's an unconditioned promise. And God makes a promise that he is no Indian giver, sorry, Canaanite giver or whatever. He keeps a promise and so on because they can only think
in the one hermeneutic, you see. But Isaiah can then say, on the contrary, the freedom of God says, sure, there will be a Jerusalem. He's going to have himself a Jerusalem. But the route from here to there may be hell for you and you may not make it. Well Isaiah, that's blasphemy. And they didn't throw Isaiah out. He may have been of the noble family or not, or the like, but they sure gave him a rough
time. You keep saying it's the hermeneutic and not the theology, but since you're on this point, let me ask you to show the common theology that leads to Isaiah and this other hermeneutic because you first talked about, he talked about the freedom of God and they talked about the promise of God. Where is the grace of God? Can you pick their common starting point and show where they go differently? 2 Samuel 7 is as good and
early a passage as we have on that. You know, Nathan's statement today is about not building a house. Is that what you mean? No. I'm trying to pick up this very point is where the so-called false prophets are saying God has chosen us and we're going to stay here and everything's going to be fine. On the basis of this very story that God established the city and the dynasty in the city, yes. Okay, and I'm
trying to find the point. You keep saying it's the hermeneutic that's different. And I'm trying to find a common point where there's, and I don't hear the common point. You mean the basic God, David, Davidic gospel? The common point that Isaiah and the so-called false prophets share. Is the basic tradition. God did indeed select David and did indeed guarantee the dynasty. And apparently Isaiah will go on to say and even guarantee the city. Read on
that. That's what he did in the past. I think it's become clearer after chapter 28, but I don't want to appear at all to be fudging because we're going to hit it face on in chapter 28. But let's look at it here. That is the common gospel. That's where they both have the same text. They both got John 3 .16 or whatever. But to use that under the hermeneutic of the grace of God would be to
emphasize that God will keep the promise and his prevenient grace and grace will operate in the midst of our sinfulness no matter how sinful we are. The freedom of God would say, yes, God did indeed establish this city. He made the promise that he would have one and there will be one category seven future. But the root from here to there may be a tortuous one of smelting dross out of our Lord. Whereas for them the
root from here to there will be nice. It's the same Davidic mythos. In other words, I don't see that any of the Albrightians, either John Bright or Ernest Wright, and I love them dearly and I've talked with them many times, I don't think they've made their point. They haven't shown me a passage anywhere in the First Isaiah that shows that they had to go over to the Mosaic tradition and combine them with the division. They say
that, but they don't prove it. That's what I'm starting out with is our category two business, which is precisely that common mythos. Now, I think that verses 27 and following belong here. It's not the original pithy article of 21 to 26. That has a beautiful inclusio of the established city in verse 21, established city in verse 26. But in 27, notice it says, Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those who repent by righteousness, but rebels
and sinners shall be destroyed together and those who forsake the Lord be consumed. Which is a later attempt to work out what it means that the dross will be smelted out of the aloe. Whether Isaiah actually said that or not, I don't know. But it belongs here as a gloss, at least as a gloss. Maybe he did later, I don't know. But you see, it is an affirmation of the Zion shall be redeemed. Oh, yes. I
agree with you, he would say to his colleagues. Zion shall be redeemed, but the route from here to there may be very tortuous. Okay, now, and you should not presuppose who are the rebels and sinners, you see. What Isaiah does is to turn to those who think that they are elect and say, no, you're the rebels and sinners. Because naturally, if you ever say, well, that some of us are going to survive, then naturally all of
your congregation will be in the 10 % of them survive. Psychologically, it can't be helped. So Isaiah insists on this remnant business. He says, no, but it will be a judged and operated upon remnant. Sheldon Blank's work in that regard seems to me absolutely right. It is not a remnant that escapes. Chapter 2 doesn't permit any escape. Nobody does. Chapter 6, you remember, says, how long, O Lord, is this going to go on until all the
cities lie waste? The whole oak is cut down, and even if 10 % of it remains, that's going to be burnt. 100%. Well, that's a way of saying, I think hyperbolically, but let's have an escape hatch here. God is going to judge the whole body politic. Every one of us will experience that operation. Every one of us will experience it. All of us will experience it. And out of it, rebellion and sin will be taken out.
And to say simply that rebels and sinners will be taken out in the wrong context prior to when it happens will simply make some people, most people say, oh, but I'm not the rebel and sinner they're talking about. So he says 100% in Chapter 2 and Chapter 6, 100% judgment. Everybody, everything. So he clarifies that. All right, now that's just to get us clear on my position on Category 2. What is the reference of
authority of this prophet in terms of the communal story? It is the Davidic story. And that he shows numerous times, numerous times. Not just in Chapter 1, but that pericope is very indicative. Now, what is his Category 1? In other words, what is his reference authority of his personal story? Well, where is that? Anybody can tell me that. Six and eight. So let's look at that quickly. Six and eight. Now, we already have looked at six
and 29. I think I better say that quickly. Chapter 29 is one passage there. So we have a Micaiah ben Emla type vision. He attends the heavenly council meeting. He gives us the picture of the Seraphim, and he gives us a report of the conversation in the meeting of the council. And the deity, and you have, of course, the Trizagian. Holy, holy, holy. And his mouth is touched. Mind you, that moves that point of a Category
1 in Jeremiah's Category 1, Chapter 1. Jeremiah says the mouth is involved, but God's words were put in his mouth. Then he says that he ate them in Chapter 15, and in Jeremiah, Chapter 20, he says that they became pent up in his bones like marrow in his bones. So Jeremiah was truly the word incarnate. Small letters, please, not capital. One of the wonderful things about the Old Testament is that the Church, in its terrible penchant
to raise metaphors to the level of doctrine, did not do so with much of the Old Testament so that we're free. One of the unfortunate things about studying the New Testament is that one of the major jobs of the exegetes is to reduce all those doctrines back to the level of the first powerful metaphor before they got frozen in the doctrines, so that we fortunately don't have a doctrine that Jeremiah was the word incarnate. But all
the material is there if they'd wanted to, thank God they didn't do it. But that's simply his expression. Ezekiel carries it one further, and not only did Ezekiel eat the words, he ate the whole scroll in which the words were written, Ezekiel will always take one of these things and run away with it. But that here is expressed by the coal on his lips and his confession, and then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Now we know that us is heavenly counsel and not just plural majesty. And then Isaiah, who's attending the council meeting, audaciously steps forward and says that he will go. And then he is given the commission, All right, then your ministry must be such. I think it really means in your early ministry, you must so preach to them, blessed assurance, that they will be all the more deceived,
and all the more lacking in understanding, and to the point that they will not repent. Because Isaiah, I'm going to send you with the false prophets a message of blessed assurance in the wrong context, so that I shall have to conduct the operation. I don't want them to repent. I'm not having problems here. Well, you should. I'm doing it in such a way that you would speak at the end. Go ahead. And then Isaiah, was aware
of being a false prophet? No. I think that this is like the introduction to your best paper in seminary. You wrote the introduction after you'd written the paper. Now that's my opinion, and I think that it's right. That is to say, I think that at a point of sheer agony after his conversion, which we should look at after his second call in chapter 8, that he looked back and said, well, my God, what did I do
all that time that I was saying to them, as I did to Ehad, you remember, in 734? Don't worry. Everything will be all right. You just have to have faith in God. And he asked himself, what in the world was I doing? Well, that has to be in the plan of God, too. How am I going to affirm? How am I going to monotheize on that one? Well, God must have somehow wanted me to do that
in order that the people would all stumble, be snared, and taken. This business of monotheizing is rough. If you moralize on that, I hear you sitting there wondering about what program of obedience you're going to do. Don't do it, please. Try not to. Try, on the contrary, to pursue the integrity of God. Try to affirm the oneness of God. That's what Isaiah is trying to do, is saying, that in that early ministry of mine, when I
preached Blessed Assurance in a context where they ought to, where I ought to have tried to raise their consciousness about what was going on with the shift of power under Sargon I, I didn't do it. I can't say to him, Sefi, because he didn't know. So that I think that that is a reflection, you see, after his second call, which I will point out in a moment in general. So every prophet has the conviction against the
true prophet? Yeah, I would be very suspicious of a prophet that came along and said, oh, I know I'm a false prophet. That I don't think would be reality. Is that all right? Yeah, we're all operating under that conviction. We do have the truth. Oh, I think that's reality. I mean, we would have to say at some point, look, I'm standing where I'm standing because it's a reflected position. I mean, it's a considered position, at least
even pluralism would demand that. But we have some interesting things in Isaiah's saying here at this point. But God called me to be, I mean, you could put it this way, God called me in my early ministry to be a false prophet. Just in Micaiah's vision, he sent that lying spirit because of the need for the people to fall and stumble and be taken, which is an Isaiahan phrase, you know, he uses that several times, fall,
stumble and be taken, be taken by God, through the instrument of sargon and synaptic. This is rough stuff. The whole Bible is rough stuff. If you thought the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh was rough, just think about this one. This is not easy. It's almost as difficult as Paul's agonizing over trying to affirm the sovereignty of God over Jews not accepting Christ, Romans 9-11. And he uses many of these same passages from Isaiah to
help himself try to figure that out. Now, the question then, of course, arises. You didn't want them then to repent or turn or be healed. In other words, you didn't want, see verse 10, you didn't want a category three to operate. Think about that, please. You didn't want, in other words, them to be able to respond to a plea for repentance. So you sent me giving that blessed assurance business, which they loved very much, so that
there would be no repentance. You didn't want a category three. You didn't want that. Why? You wanted to make a new creation. You wanted to, through the adversity, to smelt out the draws. There's a terrible lot of absolution in that theology. Absolution? Yeah, in the sense that it relieved Isaiah of any guilt of past follies of having been a false prophet, really. Ah, that. Well, I think, I don't think we can attribute... I think it's for
many of us to go back in our past to figure out we had been a little wiser, we would have done it a little differently. Oh, you're identifying with Isaiah again. Try not to, try not to. Oh, I forgot that. Get me off of this then. Yes, try not to. Please don't, because I think it would be difficult for us to psychologize and say Isaiah had no guilt feelings or something like that. Try not to, please
try not to, okay. Identify with the thing. All right. I know it's hard, it is. Now then the question comes, well, how long will that have to go on? Not how long did he have to have that early ministry of blessed assurance, but rather how long will the judgment, will the category five take place? And the answer is complete. It's going to have to be the whole body politic. Cities lie waste, houses without people, land utterly
desolate, moves them far away, exile, and even if they think that a remnant remain, a tenth, verse 13, that like a stump will be pulled up and burned. So it's really complete. Complete judgment. Yes, John? Whenever we talk about Israel or Jerusalem, I would just kind of re-church it. The way that it is contemporary with the evangelical strength they have and the battle they have back and forth, do you see any parallel between what's going
on here and the contemporary thing that they have? Oh, yes. Of course I do, but I don't want to mention, I'd rather you did that yourself. By the way, my students get very angry with me periodically because I will not do that part. I am so convinced of the immediate relevance of this material that I think each of us must do it for his and her own content, his and her own mind and imagination. I'm sometimes
really castigated by the students on that point, but I had a beautiful experience once after I preached in chapel. A student ran to my office and said, now I get it, now I get it. You want us to write the sermon with you, weave the sermon with you, and that's correct. So I'd rather just not do it, but I would trust your doing it. That's out of a conviction that this is immediately relevant. There isn't even
a leap to take in my opinion. Let's look now, if you will, at the record that some disciple or another preacher made of his change, and that is in verse 11 of chapter 8. The Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me and warned me not to walk. Really, by the way, we now, I think, by text criticism, are fairly sure that that is not warned, that that is turned me from walking in
the way of the people. In other words, it's from the verb sewer and not from the verb yassar, if that means anything to you. Dead Sea Scrolls is from sewer, Septuagint is sewer, and so on and so forth, and I think the Masoretic text made the mistake in this case. We don't generally do that. We generally go with the Masoretic text in text criticism. I'll read it once more. With his strong hand upon me and turned
me from walking in the way of this people saying. Yes, yes, Jerusalem has got it. With his hands he's told me to turn me from walking. I believe this is correct. I'm generally very conservative with respect to the Masoretic text, so don't generalize on that. It's the only change we've made, right, suggested. Okay, but I think that's correct. But never mind, it doesn't change it all that much. I mean the thrust of it. Now, God says
to him on this occasion, do not call Kesher all that this people call Kesher. That means religion, not conspiracy. Kesher can mean conspiracy, plot, but its basic meaning is bind, to bind. Don't call binding what this people call binding. Now binding first in the sense of the muthos of the people that gives them their identity and their selfhood, their personhood as a people. But binding in the second sense of also indicating their lifestyle. Binding religio in
Latin means what? Anybody? Right. Thank you. We don't have any Roman Catholics here, do we? They're the ones in class who generally pop up right away with those. Thank you, that's it. So I think that is it and not plot. Don't call religion what this people call religion. Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread of what they're in dread of. In other words, they got the wrong religion, because religion indicates to you where
to direct your fear. Fear is normal human emotion. Religion helps you to know where to direct it, and the biblical faith says directed toward God. And God is saying don't fear what they fear, and don't dread what they dread. They are dreading the wrong things. And he goes on, But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, let him be your dread, and he will be a sanctuary, and a
stone of our fence, and a rock of stumbling, to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many shall stumble thereon, they shall fall and be broken, shall be snared and taken. That is what must happen. God is indeed your rock of salvation. You're going to stumble over it. Okay? This is Isaiah. And this is the... Did you use the word sanctuary? Aye, mikdash, sanctuary. God is both judgment and
salvation, both judge and savior. He's both. And the sanctuary aspect, you see, because in the Davidic theology, with the heminutic of the grace of God, then they would say, ah, Jerusalem is our sanctuary. God is guaranteed he's going to protect this city, why birds could hover and lions could attack, and he's going to save it, you know, and so that Jerusalem is our sanctuary. Isaiah said, mm-mm, God is your sanctuary. And your rock of stumbling.
What does your translation have, David? Remember that I, the Lord Almighty, am holy. I am the one you must fear. Right. Because of my awesome holiness, I am like a stone that people stumble over. Oh, then they've amended the text and taken the memmah off of mikdash and made it kodish, and that's not kosher. There's no ancient manuscript like that. Sorry, I didn't intend that pun. But I'll let it stay there. You see, keshir, I hadn't
even thought of that. Damn, this is good. Really, hey, keshir, the one that means religion, is the verb that is used in Judaism later on to mean kashir, kosher. I never thought of that. Well, all right. Thank you, David. But that translation is lousy. Forget it. I don't know where it is. Don't tell me. Yes. In my notes from the Jerusalem Bible, in my notes from the Jerusalem Bible, it's got, in quotes, the sanctuary, and it's
got possibly ascribable error. Yes, but you see, all they can say, thank God, is possibly it's ascribable error, but there's no manuscript evidence to say that. They want it, in other words, they want the passage to be consistent. How can it be sanctuary? He's talking about stumbling and talking about a rock over a fence. But you see, that's Isaiah. Look, if you will, at Isaiah 33 quickly. Now, this isn't the only place, but here's a beautiful
one. This is a beautiful one. This is Isaiah 33, verse 22. Yahweh is our judge. Yahweh is our ruler. Yahweh is our king. He will save us. Yahweh is both judge and saviour. That's monotheism. You can't have one as judge, one God as judge and another as saviour. And that consistency that they want is nothing. But there's no manuscript evidence for that. And that's the reason they, at least in honesty, have to say possibly. That's just
a conjecture. Okay, now, let's look at 28 then, with eight in mind. Now, this scene beginning, I ask you to begin reading at verse 9. This scene is 701 BC. If you would picture, Sennacherib with these armies outside the gate and the sieges in progress. And Isaiah speaks here about those who reel with drink and stagger with strong drink and so on. They're confused. And the rest, he doesn't mean actually, by the way. He's not a,
he doesn't belong to the women's temperament. These are figures about erring in vision and stumbling and giving judgment. They've got the wrong hermeneutics. That's what they're drunk on. All right. Now then, verse 9. And whom will he teach knowledge? Isaiah says in exasperation. Whom will God teach knowledge? And to whom will he explain the message? How can I do it when they're all going around with the wrong hermeneutic head on? They can't hear it. Then he
says in exasperation, those weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast, in other words, babies, nursery school children. For it is, just like a nursery school exercise, A upon A, A upon A, B upon B, C upon C. In other words, a kind of song that they would have talked of an abasidery in nursery school. The brave efforts to translate these words, precepts and line and little are just absolutely impossible. It is an abasidery. Is
there anyone that gives the abasidery, any translation? Yes, yes. The Jerusalem Bible gives it, and with the letters of the alphabet, tzav, which is the letter tzavi, tzavi, la tzav, tzav, la tzav, kav, la kav, kav, la kav, zersham, zersham. It's a ditty that you teach. Like, for instance, 30 days, half September, April, June, and November, all the rest of 31, say February, and then the thing collapses and says, and then in leap year it has
29. In other words, the rhythm breaks. But at any rate, the kids know it, right? All right, whatever it is, it's a ditty, because he's talking about whom you're going to teach, how you're going to do it. Oh, hell, I don't even know the ABCs of hermeneutics. It's like I teach children. Okay, then he says, and they, they're going to learn it, but not from a nursery school teacher. They're going to learn it from the Assyrians
out there who are speaking Neo-Arcadian, by men of, verse 11, by men of strange lips and with an alien tongue, the Lord will speak to this people, to whom he has said. And here you have, in a manner of speaking, Isaiah trying to give what he has said, the message in a nutshell. He's trying to say, how can I tell them what I've been trying to say all this time they don't listen, they don't know,
they can't hear. And this is, he says, this is what I'm really trying to say. You want rest, you want salvation. And he says, this is salvation. Manuha, rest means salvation. As you know in the Book of Joshua, do it on a cabinet or in a phone. Give rest to the weary. You want salvation, give it away first, and you get it. That's a very ancient wisdom idea, by the way, something that you really want badly.
You give it first, and you will get greatly in return. I understand there was a first century sage who said something like that on a number of occasions. But Isaiah is saying, all right, put it that way. You can put it that way. That's what I've been trying to say. You want salvation, practice giving it. Then you'll see what salvation is, and you'll get it in return. This is repose. But they wouldn't hear. They couldn't hear.
Therefore, the word of the Lord will be to them like, now he uses the same Abbasidiri stuff, but in the sense of gibberish. Namely, they'll be hearing Akkadian when those soldiers come in this city. And then they'll get the point. Then they get the point. Because now they're confident that God won't let them in. God is like a wonderful hovering bird protecting this city. Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap. Therefore, verse 14, hear the word of
the Lord, you scoffers who rule the city in Jerusalem, because you've said we have made a covenant with death and wish, oh, we have an agreement. Now, you can be sure they didn't say that. They would say we've made a covenant with God or we've made a covenant maybe also underneath. He's referring to covenant with Egypt, because most everybody was pro-Egyptian. They couldn't imagine that the Egyptians would let them down. You see, up to this
point, Palestine had been under Egypt's hegemony for centuries. Egypt had always taken care of them. I mean, you just couldn't imagine they're not doing so. And Isaiah put engraved doubts upon Egypt's ability to do so. And if you remember, he is the one that has the phrase, you lean upon Egypt as upon a broken reed. Isaiah knows the international scene. He knows the international scene. Now... With this covenant with death, have I anything to do with
the position of preoccupation with death? It might be a reference to that. I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't thought of it. I was just in a mess when I saw that book of the dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible. Where belief in the afterlife is so great that this life is denigrated. And by the way, it's where such beliefs have taken place that you could have a real split and a very, very rich straight-along society
and then the rest very poor and so on. But I don't know, maybe so. I do think that a thrust involved in this is Isaiah saying, you think that death won't touch you. That's having an agreement with death. Like Dr. Faust's pact with Mephistopheles of a much later legend. All right. You've said we've made a covenant with death and with show and agreement. When the overwhelming courage passes through, it won't touch us. You remember Micah last
night, Chapter 2? Yes, for the afternoon. Disgrace will not overtake us. This is the belief, you see, really firm belief that God can take care of us. Is this the reference to the Exodus? No. No, I don't see any reference to Mosaic traditions at all anywhere in Isaiah. None? That's what I was saying earlier on when we were talking about Category 2. I've seen none. If you could convince me, I'd be pleased, but I can't find
any. I find only such references to the different traditions. Now, they go on to say we've made, he puts it in their mind, we've made lies our refuge and if also we've taken shelter. Well, I'm quite sure that they say something like we have made mishpat our refuge and in righteousness we've taken shelter. That's something like that. But he says, well, it's just as well. You really, in effect, you're saying this other thing. Then you have
the precious verse 16. Here then is Isaiah's faith. Behold, I'm laying in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. And that is in the phrase, ha'mamin lo yachish, he who believes has faith that God is God in this situation will not be in a frenzy. Now, that is truly Davidic theology. Watch it carefully now. If you have, however, the hermeneutics of the grace of God with that, then
with Isaiah's colleagues, what you will say is, ah, he who believes need not be in a frenzy means that he who really believes that God will correct Jerusalem will not be in a frenzy, that they will come in here. Those are a series. Now, watch Isaiah's interpretation. He who really has faith will not be in a frenzy means they will come in. They are, as he says in chapter 10, the instrument of God's wrath, but they
will not be in a frenzy even though every gift he's given us is taken back, even though Isaac lies on the altar and the knife is over his body, will not be in a frenzy because God's plan is working out a transformation, even though it hurts. The hermeneutics of the freedom of God on the same frame. That is to say, the stone, the tested stone, the precious cornerstone, where is it going to come from? There it
is. The seed stone from an Assyrian catapult. That one, maybe. The one that's destroying will perhaps be the new foundation. How can the crucified one hanging on that Roman cross be the exalted Lord? Who can do that? Now, then it goes on and says, then Mishpat will be the line and Tzedekah the plummet. Remember those in chapter one? Justice and righteous. These are Isianic terms. These are the two pillars, let's say, of the faith. And Hale
will sweep away the refuge of lies and waters will overwhelm the shelter. God's using this Assyrian scourge, which will enter this city, as a cleansing. So the metaphor here is altered a little bit. It's no longer smelting draws out of alloy, but the overwhelming scourge will be the cleansing waters. Verse 18, then your covenant with death will be annulled. Your agreement with Sho 'o will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten
down by it. And as often as it passes through, it will take you. Boker by boker, Yavoris, morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night. And it will be, Sheer terror. When you finally learn the ABC, you get the message. Yes, God will have himself paid truth, but the root to it will be one of cleansing action and death. Getting born again is a painful process. All right. Now, he then in verse
20, uses an old proverb. The bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap up in. And he applies it to their understanding of God and their hermeneutic, to their understanding of the covenant. It's too short to stretch out in and too narrow to roll up in. Because when Assyrians start coming in, what are you going to do with that old cloth? Remember, Jeremiah put it in the river Euphrates,
so it shrank. Just a variation of the metaphor. Euphrates there is probably not in Babylonia, but that's Jeremiah 11, you remember. Now, here we are. Somebody says to Isaiah, Isaiah, like always, you got it all wrong. You didn't when you were younger. Even when you were younger, you were right. But now you just got it all fouled up. You got the thing on his head. Look, don't you know, don't you remember that when David was in
trouble with those Philistines, remember? Remember he rose up on Mount Perotstein? Verse 21. Remember? What did he do, Isaiah, when he rose up on Mount Perotstein? He helped David. He got him out of that situation right. That's exactly what you do again, don't you know? Trouble is, Isaiah, as you keep forgetting, you keep forgetting the Gospel, because the Gospel is very clear. When David was in trouble, God rose up and helped him. And not only on
Mount Perotstein, he also did it later on, read on Isaiah in 2nd Channel 5, there in the Valley of Gilead, did the same thing. Now, Isaiah, I just wish you would stop preaching this way. Do not preach thus they preach. You should not say such words. You better just stop. So what does Isaiah say? He says, write on. I absolutely agree with you. I have that text in common with you, in 2nd Channel 5. Oh, indeedy
do. The Lord's going to rise up on Mount Perotstein. You're going to see him. And he will be wrought as in the Valley of Gilead, but this time at the head of the enemy troops. The freedom of God to be the holy warrior on the other side and not just on our side. Same text, same tradition. Now, therefore, do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong, for I have heard a decree of destruction from the
Lord of the hosts upon the whole land. The word khala, complete destruction. That is to say, the understanding of the 100% judgment. He does this several times. He'll do it in the next chapter. He does it in the next chapter and so on. But I wanted us to look at this. And let's have a question. Any questions now? Or do you want to break them? Yes? I have a question, but a comment. Isaiah reminds me
of a cartoon in which the two guys are in the dungeon spread equal medical against the wall. One of them says, the other one, listen, I have this plan. That's, I hadn't seen that. But you see, this kind of theology goes to the wall. Well, the other theology, when it did happen, led the people to assimilate to the Assyrian culture or later to the Babylonian. Why? Because for them, after the Assyrians had come in or the
Babylonians had come in, the only alternative they had was to say, God let us down. A few said, no, we had the wrong hermeneutics. Isaiah was right. A few, and they were called remnant. They were the ones who retained identity. And they were the ones who later when they got to the prison camp said, let's get that disciple of Isaiah's that irritated us so much. You remember that guy that went around talking that stuff? Let's hear
it again now, here in prison. And then they'd hear this stuff and they'd say, you know, that's our only hope. To believe that God was in charge of the adversity and had not gone to sleep or gone off like the Tyrian veil on a picnic to the fourth pillar of the universe, but was in charge of an operation. He had a plan. I think it's been about a few years to stay behind in Babylon and have
this long understanding about the body of Israel, the fact that they didn't go back. Did that mean that they didn't understand it that way? Or could they have shared the understanding? I think some must have in the crucial existential period of the exile understood it this way. Why? They saved this stuff. You see, that's canonical criticism. That's what I mean by canonical criticism. The awareness that this was what they saved and not the messages of the
colleagues. But it would have been an affirmation of faith, really, to say God is our sanctuary and not to go back. And that Jerusalem... Most of them did not go back, of course. I mean, this was not a denial of the faith that they did not go back. Oh, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. From here, you see, Judaism became a diaspora religion. Now, that's what I had to say in Torah and Canon, and many of
my Jewish colleagues didn't like it. But you see, the Judaism that is practiced even in Israel today is a diaspora religion. It's just transplanted back to Palestine. But it grew up in Babylonia. And in fact, some of the most orthodox expressions of it grew up in Eastern Europe. It's interesting, a lot of Christians are waiting to rebuild the Temple land in Jerusalem. That would be sheer hell. That would be the... I think that would be the
end of everything. There would be holy war for sure. Isn't the... When we were talking about it in the Canon about how the Jew doesn't carry Torah, but Torah carries the Jew, and they no longer need the place. And they no longer need the Temple. But you see, there I was again not moralized. I wasn't working out a program for modern Near Eastern foreign policy. I really wasn't. I was a historian and a theologian asking the
question, why could these people last 2,000 years without a place? I just wanted to know. And I found out, and to me it was the same answer as the Christians, because the Christians came up with the idea after the destruction of Palestine. You remember the early Christian hope was to meet at the Mount of Olives. The land was important in the early beginning. But you see, after that they had to say, no, it's not important.
Our address is in Christo, in Christ, not in Palestine. And that could get you in a catacomb, that could take you to Germany, that could take you into Teutonic paganism. I mean, you're ready to go. How do the Mormons feel about this? I don't really know. I think I must try to talk with them about that. Now, however, please mind yourselves that the Bible is pluralistic. And there are passages that one can call upon for resettlement
in the land. We're trying now to talk about this kind of material, which is there and strongly enough there to permit Jews to live outside the land for 2,000 years. And it also helps me to understand how the Judaism that even today is in Israel is a diaspora Judaism. There is no, as you pointed out by saying they want to build a temple, the point that you were making is there is no temple. And there
is no Sanhedrin. I mean, there can't be. The moment they start that, Judaism will be split asunder, and the next day the Arab armies will all be there. And I'm not going to send my son to fight either one of them. Why? I told them that it's state purpose. Why is it going to be split asunder? That's because already the political and religious parties are so far away. Oh, it would be absolutely a disaster, and they
know it. This is discussed in the literature. If you can read modern Hebrew, it's discussed. They discuss it openly. They don't think any Goy is going to read it. But there is a full realization that if there was any attempt to build a temple, even if they didn't have to put it on Moriah, even if they didn't have to put it where the Dome of the Rock is, suppose that they could put it up next to
the new Hilton on the Mount of Olives. Even so, it would just tear Judaism asunder. You would have to reinstitute animal sacrifices. The stench would go throughout the world. You would have to reinstitute a priesthood to do that. How are you going to do it? Who is going to agree on it? Judaism is so already pluralistic within its own narrow bounds that there is the old expression, there's only one thing on which two Jews will agree,
and that's what a third should give to Israeli bonds. They will give the Israeli bond drive, be sure about that. But once you get to Israel and discuss things, there are one thousand and one opinions, because the time you finish hearing the thousands when the first one thinks is mine. But these are all Yiddish expressions. But at any rate, I'm not talking about that when doing this. I don't want to say to you that I can
build securely these comments about modern Near Eastern foreign policy on what we're reading here. You must do that. I must do that individually. And if you want to form a group for yourselves to do it, do so. But I would not, myself, I refuse to draw up a single order of obedience to this material in what must go on in modern foreign policy. Yes. Yes, the third factor is context. Yes, that's exactly right. You see, the
commitment of God, the hermeneutic of the grace of God is very important. These so-called false prophets are right. Please remember they're right. Correct. Isaiah would say, but they have the wrong period, the time moment is wrong to talk that way, to use that hermeneutic. Okay, but they're still right. They're both right. They're pluralistic. Let's try to be a pluralist on it and hear that. What exactly? Perfect question. You see, to understand tension and not resolution
to resolve them somehow in a nice mixture, but tension, is to understand that about the time we really appreciate the freedom of God and you isolate that out and focus on that, then you say, my God, it could be a God of Wednesday. He can unelect any day He wants to. He'll elect one day and unelect the next day and all, you know. Is that because of the grace of God and the commitment of God? Which,
however, if you focus on that only, you'll say, ah, he shackled, he can't do a d*** thing. Far from being whimsical, he ain't got any movement. So keep them in tension and they both become unvalued and positive. That's what I mean by tension. Thank you very much. That's exactly what I mean by tension. And not resolved anywhere, but applicable if we remember the triangle and the three factors. You're agreeing with me. I don't know if I'm
quite agreeing with you. I can see the tension, but the natural conclusion that I would draw if I try to hold these intentions, is that God is so unpredictable, He is the preacher. You don't know where... Well, then emphasize, I think that's because you've just finished Isaiah. Emphasize God's grace and remember the false prophets are right. There will come a context particularly, note that of 545 or 540 BC in which a second Isaiah can come
and absolutely celebrate the commitment of God. The book of Genesis will be shaped on that idea. That God can keep a promise even though we fall apart and will do so and emphasize the commitment of God. The false prophets are right. Is there a better way of saying false proof? My pardon? The false prophets are right. Oh, I don't know. I just tried to say, as you've heard, I've tried to say colleagues, contemporary colleagues and so
on. I've been trying to move us away from the prejudicial true and false. But by the way, there is no such expression as false prophet in the Hebrew Old Testament. That's in the Greek translation that you begin to get pseudo-prophetic. You do not have it in the Hebrew Old Testament. What about the New Testament? Oh yes, of course. Because the New Testament writers quote mostly the Septuagint. But you do not have it in the Hebrew
Old Testament. I think what you were saying yesterday, the idea of how God talks to the Israelites about how he brought them into the whole Torah story. And then when they get located in their own country and you start stepping on the floor and so forth, they still hear the message and promise of how God's going to bless them and so forth. And in that context, when they begin to lose sight of what he's called and
what they're called to do, then at that point, that message, then God becomes a free God. And as I see, there's a real monetizing process. But in the context of what's happening with people, both are right, but one is right in that context. Yes, I think that's right. The struggle with God being a capricious God, I think it's all through the Bible. In the Ephesian letter, whether you agree with it, Paul, or not, the Ephesian letter
is suggesting there is a plan under all of this. A lot of people just don't see it. And so from that, I would infer that the question of the capriciousness of God must have been a constant struggle. There is no purpose, there is no plan. That's right. But I don't think any greater, in taking up any more space, than the struggle against the assumption that we know exactly what God's going to do. Most part, that was
what the struggle was. Some of these New Testament responses are probably to relieve the tension. Yes. See, my point about tension is if you relieve it, then you meet a context and you have some resolved phrase or doctrine, then you meet a context which really needs a tough challenge, a really sharp challenge, you're going to take this soft little resolution to it. No. On the time period, the Bible will take to it a very sharp hyperbolic
statement of the freedom of God or a sharp hyperbolic statement of the grace and commitment of God. But they have to keep intention with each other, one over against the other, to keep each one valid and available. Or another conclusion drawn, I suppose you could say that God is Itsoi, which is impossible, therefore you become a polytheist, as there are at least two gods operating. Right. And polytheism has always been an option and throughout biblical times.
The wonderful thing about this stuff and the amazing thing to me, and if I have, if I, if I, as a historian, feel that there is an unanswerable question, it is precisely on that point, namely, why, when polytheism was such an option and such a rational option and so available, does this stuff canonically monotheize? Because historically Israel probably did polytheize most of the time. Look at the prophets in their, in their category four indictments, it says
they did all the time. So that we know that they were good rational people to comfort us. But, but canonically, canonically, this stuff, there is nothing in that Bible that contradicts the constant process of monotheism. Now some of it does it harder and faster and sharper than other parts. Like, like for instance, you remember that in, at the end of Second Samuel, David takes a census and it says that Yahweh incited him to take the census
and Yahweh punished him to take the census. Well, that's monotheizing right on down the road. That's going all the way. Whereas the chronicler written two or three centuries later has some Persian idioms available and can say the Satan incited David to take the census and Yahweh punished him, backing away a little bit from monotheism. But still the Satan there is, is under the aegis of God and has no power other than with God. But, but it,
but it does not do, it does not do that irritating full monotheizing that the old, the old source in Samuel did. David? Yeah, I was just wondering whether you could say something about the Hebrew understanding of time. Yeah, when, after we've had coffee, I'll try. Well, in chapter 29, verses 9 and following. Where he says, the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, the prophet, and covered your
ears, your heads, the seers. I know that that is generally Isaiah's saying that that is where the false prophets, what's wrong with the false prophets, that they are, they are in a ruach tardema. They have ruach all right, but it's a ruach of deep sleep. And that they, their eyes are closed and their heads are covered and so on. They can't see the situation they're in or whatever. But I all wonder if it is not possible
that he's referring even to his early ministry there because, you know, he in effect suggests that he too had the same ministry. I don't know, but I leave that with you. Now, verses 13 and 14 have to do with the sort of debates that he's in. This people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and their fear of me is commandment of men loaned by rote.
Therefore, behold, I will again do marvelous things with this people, wonderful and marvelous, and the wisdom of their wise men will perish and the discernment of their learning men will be hidden. Like in chapter 28 when he says, oh, right enough, God will rise up and be the holy warrior, but alien and strange the work that he will do. It's the same, same kind of, of him. Then verse 15 and 16 are the really interesting ones
here. Woe to those who hide deep from the Lord their counsel, whose deeds are in the dark and who say, who sees us, who knows us? And then that is God cannot see these things. And he says to them, you turn things upside down, shall the potter be regarded as the clay that the thing made should say of its maker he did not make me or the thing formed say of him the form that he has
no understanding. Again, the affirmation of God is creator in Isaiah's thinking in addition to being redeemer. And also the business of turning things upside down. Then let us, I think that, let's leave Isaiah at that now and go to Jeremiah. There's so much we could do in Isaiah, but we got to move on. Now, in the case of Jeremiah, the category two of Jeremiah is the opposite of Isaiah. For Jeremiah, the category two or the references
to communal epic history or Torah gospel story is only to the Egyptian mosaic traditions. That is to say, it does not refer to the Davidic. There is no reference there. You have in the in the book of Jeremiah in two instances, reference that would be in our analysis of category seven references to David, but but nowhere in the category two. And I suspect that those are late editions by late disciples of Jeremiah attempting to resolve what
he had to say and put it in harmony with what was happening. It was a rubble, but then it fell apart anyway. But they're only in two passages. So Jeremiah is the opposite of Isaiah, first Isaiah. Second Isaiah, by the way, you know, refers to both happily and beautifully weaving both all the time. Second Isaiah, constantly. The Davidic traditions and the Egyptian tradition all the time. Jeremiah, however, only that look, for instance, at Jeremiah, Chapter two
is a famous one. Chapter two, verse two is a category two. That is to say, a reference to the authoritative traditions, the Torah gospel story of the escape from Egypt and the subsequent marriage with Yahweh. I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord. The first fruits of his harvest, all who ate of it became guilty.
Evil came upon them. That is the protection of God against foreign invaders and intruders. Incidentally, one of the interesting things, canonically speaking, in the shape of the canon is that only in Hosea and Jeremiah, is there any suggestion at all that Israel was faithful in this sense in the Torah story period? Only Hosea and Jeremiah. All the rest insists that they were sinful from the beginning. All of them. You name it, they do. And of course,
that is the official position of the Torah. The Torah has a sinning, the moment we got out of Egypt, making golden calf and everything. And then you remember all the great prayers. We have sinned, we and all our fathers before us, etc. This is the official, this is the canonical shape of the Bible, is insisting that Israel was never at any point really devoted, never at any point completely obedient, with two exceptions only, Hosea and Jeremiah.
Would that be because the other prophets were insisting on the same point, and so you can see the point to get to the real thrust, so that you go over the same scripture, the same one? So that, I mean, you've got the triangle, so that one corner of the triangle is, you don't discuss, you know, you go agree on the same text, and then you go on to the context which I'm doing. This has to do
with text, isn't it? This is a really basic, this agreement, only on one point, on all of the points they agree. It's just that one point. See, they would all, following this Torah story, would all agree on, let's say, creation, election of patriarchs, escape from Egypt, wandering the wilderness, and entrance to the land. But they, this, Hosea and Jeremiah are subscribing to what was a variant position, I imagine, a genuinely variant position, and namely that the
sinning didn't begin until they crossed the Jordan. What I'm saying, though, is that the prophets that are also alive in the time of Jeremiah, that we probably don't have in the canon, that we would now call false prophets, looking back, could they have been insisting upon the faithfulness of Israel at the very beginning? So you just conclude the point in the law. Could have, could have, yeah, yes, yes, yes, very good, could have, could be, could
be. But here is a genuine disagreement in a point on the, of the triangle, of the three elements, a genuine disagreement on text, on the tradition. It's only this, all the other points in it, they agree with. But both of them, you see, do it with great, a clock, both of them do it, they've got, there's a real point involved. I think that, by the way, they're simply subscribing to a different viewpoint, the way Methodists have
a second, different viewpoint from Episcopalians on the 25 Articles or something like that. Forget that, that may be a bad analogy. But there would have been, in the different sections of the country, slightly different variations, and this would have been one. And Jose and Jeremiah subscribe to this idea that sinning didn't begin until they entered into the promise, until their gift was received, which is a very powerful theological point, that the real sinning didn't begin, as
Jose would say, until they, until they reached Gilgal, until they crossed the Jordan, until they entered into the promise, until they received a gift. And then immediately, of course, what started, they started doing is making that gift into an idol or confusing the gift and the giver. But in the early days before the gift was received, that there was devotion. And that's the point Jeremiah was making. He goes on the next six chapters making that, developing
that point. And so does Jose. I just want to point that out. It does not end up making a much difference in terms of the debate between true and false prophecy, which was what I thought I heard you saying. But the point you make is well taken. It is possible that this would have been a point of agreement with the so-called false prophecy. But we don't have any text in the case. It's quite possible that's
the case. Now, Jeremiah will time again. Well, no, let's one more on category two. Look at Jeremiah chapter seven, the famous temple address. This is the Mark 13 of Jeremiah, in which he says, Do not believe in these deceptive words, temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord, or these. In other words, those are gifts, but you're taking them as sometimes somehow symbols of guarantee, which they are not. And you may remember
he really takes them and he says, God is free enough to destroy this temple the way he destroyed the temple of Eli at Shiloh. And if you'd like, he says, we'll charter a bus and go up there and I'll I'll be your tour guide to show you the ruins of that temple. One Jerusalem can look just like it. Now, they didn't like that hermeneutic. You see, they both they would both agree that the temple was a
gift of God and so and so forth. That's all right. That's fine. But but his hermeneutic was of the freedom of God, that God can take that temple back, have it destroyed by the Babylonians. And the other said, No, he would not. We cannot. Now, then he goes on and and and make several points. But let's look at now chapter twenty one concerning the sacerdotal system. The question arises, is the sacerdotal system, the sacrificial system, authorized
and legitimized from the gospel story? Is it indicated? Can you read it out of that? And Jeremiah and nearly all the prophets say no. There is a consistency here among the prophets. And and again, let's now use the hermeneutic pluralism and not try to harmonize. You remember in the orthodoxy, there was the attempt in the high New Orthodox period that is the teachers of all of us attempting to say, Oh, but the prophets really didn't mean
this. They really, really approved of the sacerdotal system if they had conducted up ethical lives otherwise. This was the some result of the New Orthodox hermeneutic. I, on the contrary, want to ask you to use pluralistic hermeneutic and to say no. Once more, you have a disagreement even then. And and that a large portion of the people would say, no, it was authorized, was legitimized. This can go back and can be seen as coming out of
the constitutional period, coming out of the Torah story period. It is authorized by Jeremiah and most of the prophets say no, simply wasn't. It was not. And that's there's an end to it. They're very quite clear about that. And he makes it very clear in verse twenty two for in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt. There, in other words, is a reference to the Torah story. Seven twenty two. What? Oh, I
meant verse twenty one. Sorry. Still in seven, still in the temple address. Yeah. Seven twenty one and twenty two. Look at twenty two for in the day that I brought you out of the land of Egypt. There's your reference, you see, to the authoritative period, to the Torah story. I did not speak to your fathers or commend them concerning burned offerings and sacrifices. Now, please let that stand as a variant opinion over what the Torah says.
It just is a contradiction. It just is a group who says that and let it be. By the way, it's because he said that. I can assure you that is one of the nineteen reasons Jeremiah would have been read and read again and therefore preserved. See, one of the observations canonical criticism is about why the why these books are in here and others aren't because these are the ones that people would pick up again and find
value in and help in and according to the needs of the communities later on. And I'm quite sure that it was in part because they could say, Look, we're up here. We don't have a temple. We can't make sacrifices. But look, these guys said that after all, it wasn't authoritative. Not construct a big thing on it, but that at least gave them a right to say we can still be Jews. We can continue identity even though
we can't do it, because they at least had that opinion. I don't know that he would have met of any of any. Oh, I see what you mean. No, I take this as a symbol as a as just a shorthand that he does so many other places saying the whole Torah story period. I see what you mean. That after they had gotten out of there and got down to the Sinai, maybe he didn't know that he
would have said it. I mean, that would if he had permit that he would have wouldn't have an argument. Now, he really is against the system, not only this passage for them. As you know, Isaiah is my code. No, that would then take it away entirely. Yes. Oh, I don't know. It's just just an opinion. It's just it's a tradition. Is it because of corruption? I don't know. I have no idea. He just just is against
it. I don't know. He just is not authorized. He doesn't he doesn't really give us any passage that I know of any really super reason why he's against it. I think on the contrary, for him, it was an inherited position that it wasn't. I think you see, too, that the northern tradition, remember, he's from Benjamin, like a later New Testament guy. And he he that is mainly northern in in in traditions. And I think the the
northern groups in large measure were were would be ones who would say, as in the Samuel, one of the Samuel traditions, obedience is better than sacrifice. General traditions like that. But I think even in the north, there was struggle because they had sacrifices that they had sacrifices there. You'd still would have a good national debate generation and generation on the matter. But to find a secure category for with regard to it is not available. So far
as I know, in Germany, Oh, yes, but I don't think you can attribute it to his private and individual wisdom. I think it's a tradition he subscribes to the way a must subscribe to the same tradition. And I think it is one of the 19 reasons. Again, I'll point out that later on in the deportee camps and and in Babylonia and in Persia that the people would pick it up and read it again because it would
say to them it would soothe them. It would comfort them saying it's OK that we don't have an altar because at least this tradition said it was all right. Yes. Yes. And even so, you see, my answer concerning the Torah, which one or two of you're asking your kids, I can hear it. Well, then how did the Torah stand, which insists upon these sacrifices? Remember, my answer there, if you read Torah and Canon is that the
shape of the Torah was to leave Joshua out so that the whole of the Torah is outside the land. Genesis through to do run. It's all outside the land, just the patriarchs passing through the Egypt. And therefore it can be saying when you enter in as to run when you and then they would hear it as when you get back. You see, but but with Joshua left out of the essential identity giving Torah, but made the
first book of the first book of the whole. Then then you were all right. The Torah could command sacrifices, which it does. And also the Torah is for subscribes to the tradition that they were sinful from the very beginning. But it could command sacrifice and that's all. But it's when you get that it's when you get in there so that that holds that way to you. It's I made a mistake and it seems to me there
are implications in Jeremiah a little bit further. For instance, when he's speaking to people who are in exile and he speaks of the way they worship or at least they had somewhere in the back of my mind the idea of inwardness that he almost is commanding them to pray. Oh, yes, oh, yes. Oh, rather than as a community, would that fit in? It will fit in. It absolutely does fit in. And that's just let's move on
a little bit more. Thank you for reminding me. Now, you see, but I just want to stress it just a little bit further now because hermeneutics comes in. But this command I gave them, verse 23, obey my voice and I will be your God and you'll be my people and walk in the way that I command you to be well. In other words, it's almost as though he said to look, I didn't give you any stone
tablets. What's this with stone tablets? I told you I'm going to give you my voice. I give it to you every morning. Now, it doesn't say that precisely, but that also, you see, would be a tremendous modus vivendi in diaspora, namely that you can hear the voice of God even though you don't have the laws which were so adapted to that nation back there. Also, it gives you a dynamic understanding that God will be will will
will speak to us. We can be in conversation with God wherever we are. That would be a tremendous also a tremendous program for our modus vivendi. But I think also you see that it it is a way of saying there is more than one hermeneutic and remain dynamic about it. Discern. Obeying the voice of God would be would be saying in certain context, the voice of God will be saying one thing and another would be saying
another. Jeremiah was is a good example of this because right up until the day that Nebuchadnezzar came into the city with the troops right up to the very day that the Babylonians entered into the city. Jeremiah said defect slip out of the city. Go surrender to the troops outside who are who are besieging the city. The moment that zebras are done comes into the city. He says state state where you say, well, there's nobody out there
to defect to you say, but it but you could say, well, he's very inconsistent. One day says get out and one day says they in you see, but it isn't because the context has changed dramatically. Now the Babylonians are in. And he remains very consistent at that point, namely the good figs or the hope for Israel comes in those who submit to the government of God's servant, Nebuchadnezzar. Then they will learn that they confused their government
with God's government. They confuse their power and God's power. And once they get that sorted out in their heads and in their hearts and where the seed of their thinking, then they can be the once more beautiful Israel. So I think that this is a point that is important. Second point involved in it, of course, is verse twenty five. From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt against once more of the
reference to the period of authority, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them day by day. So that that, of course, would sue Jeremiah said when you somebody says, well, well, how do I how am I going to hear the voice of the Lord? Jeremiah said, well, listen to me or what we call the goodly fellowship of the prophets that God provides. As Hosea says, the Lord brought Israel up by the word of
a prophet and sustains Israel by the word of the prophet. And and you can say, well, that's got a little political flavor in their love. All right. So it does. The prophets never blushed about has been having political implications for their messages. But they would be pretty clear. You want to know what it was. Then you acquire the profit. But there is no indication here. You see that you that you have a safer breach that you
have a Book of the Covenant, that you have laws like Hammurabi. Nowhere do you do they suggest that there's that that you can refer to nowhere, nowhere. Yes. What does that mean? I mean, that that is to say that they can't turn. They can't repent. It just it be shoe shoe. Yes, I think that's all it means. I have heard that it means something something else about. Well, it wasn't convincing. I can't remember. Would you look
now at Chapter one? We're not going to have time to do much more now than to look at Jeremiah's category one. We have tried now so far since eleven thirty since we got back to look at Jeremiah's category two as we did earlier for Jeremiah for Isaiah looked at category two in category one. Now we've looked at category two in Jeremiah and we've seen it to the liberation from Egypt traditions that gospel and how much he
appeals to it. We haven't even seen one tenth of the times that he appeals to it when he wants to make a point. So you'll say yes. But can you can you read what you're doing out of that authority? No, you can't. So it frequently does. Now, however, of course, like all the other prophets, he has another reference of authority. And that's what we call category one, namely his own story, his own call, just as he
has so far been referring to his call. And let's look at that in the moment that we have left the verse four of Chapter one. The word of the Lord came to him and said, God speaks to Jeremiah. Now, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I consecrate you appointed your prophet to the nations. If we had time, we would enjoy this thoroughly. How many of you with me in
July? Well, here is the argument you see for the pre-existence of Jeremiah. But thank God we don't capitalize it either P or J or E. That is to say, he was an object of God's knowing even before God formed him in the womb. So he must have been pre-existent. But don't, you know, don't tell people about it. And for God's sake, don't make a doctrine out of it. Then also you see that God is
the former. The verb used is Yotser from the verb Yatsar, which means to form as a potter does a clay. It's the verb that is used in Genesis two for creation. It's the verb that's used in Genesis and Jeremiah 18 for the potter. God is the potter. And how do we know that? Because it's the same verb. The potter is a Yotser and God is a Yotser. And so that is the word used for form. You
see the word form there? I formed you, that's the word Yatsar, in the womb. And I consecrated you to be a prophet to the nations. I think that minimally it means that Jeremiah's priesthood, because he was a priest of the line of Abiathar, remember? He was from Anathoth and was a priest of the line of Abiathar. His father was Hilkiah, but of the land of Abiathar, not of the line of Zadok, the Hilkiah that found the
scroll in the temple. Totally different one, a different lineage altogether. You remember Abiathar was David's other priest. Abiathar was the, you remember David had two priests, the old, old line who was Abiathar, who was in charge of the Ark of the Covenant in the old traditions. Zadok was the new priest from the Canaanites, the Jebusite priests. And David had to have both in his big compromise. But Solomon got rid of Abiathar and kept Zadok, kept the
old Canaanite priest and got rid of the Ark of the Covenant priest. And first Kings one and two and banished, banished Abiathar to the town of Anathoth or Anathah. And Jeremiah's of that line comes from Benjamin. Now, what I think he wants to say is that his prophethood takes priority over anything you want to say about his priesthood, namely that it is for now. Don't worry about the fact that he's of the line of Abiathar. Then
he makes the protest of reluctance as it is sometimes called. I don't know how to speak, I'm only a youth. He's quite young and the Lord says don't worry about that. I will, wherever you, wherever I want you to go, I will send you and whatever I command you, you will speak. And it will be dynamic, immediate, according to the context that you need. That's the word that I will provide for you at that time. This,
by the way, is of course part of that tension that we were talking about the first night together, namely the relationship of message and messenger. And it is a very interesting thing because you want to be able to say that the message is right even if the messenger goofs. But on the other hand, you know psychologically that some of the personality of the messenger is in the message. We know that, I mean, as historians you can't
deny it at all. But what they want over against that, what Jeremiah certainly wants to say, is don't take this as my personal opinion of what I would have said. On the contrary, as we can see in the debate with Hananiah, he really would like to say what Hananiah is saying. But he has to say this other thing. That also brings pathos. Now, then he gives his direct reference of authority. That is, the Lord put his
hand on his mouth and said, I put my words in your mouth. And in chapter 15, as we've already noted, Jeremiah says, thy words were found and I ate them. And in chapter 20 it says, thy words are in my bones, pent up like fire in my bones, and so on. And therefore, Jeremiah is the word incarnate. But it was already said, don't capitalize it. Then in verse 10, he has the scope of the mission given,
namely over nations and kingdoms. And then the six verbs of Jeremiah, the famous ones, four indicating category five, and two indicating category seven, to pluck up, break down, destroy, and throw, and then to build and to plant. And he will spend the rest of the book engaging in category six, showing the relationship between the two. But chapters two to six are by and large heavily categories three, four, and five. There are pleas for repentance, a number
of indictments, of course, and the sentence that falls is the foe from the law. Then chapter seven, the temple address, and then chapters eight to 13, largely against the Deuteronomist, some other material as well, where he had a change of ministry as well. I think I agree with those, by the way, who have said that Jeremiah supported the Deuteronomist reformation in his youth, but had a change of heart and saw that it was deceptive, just as
Isaiah had had a change, and that later on he scatingly indicted the Deuteronomist because he found out that what it had done to the people was say, look, we've had enough of a reformation. If that doesn't please God, what nothing will, you know, and so on and so forth. It tends to deceive. So he had to be against it. And then the rest of the book will, by and large, establish the relationship between judgment and hope.
And along the way we have the very precious material in chapters 27 to 29, which we will look at directly tonight. I don't know if I mentioned to you or not also chapter 23. That also has to do with false prophets. But tonight we will look at chapters 27 to 29. I'm sorry we've held over time. Yes? If these prophets knew that, or in the context that they were in, figured that the new Israel was coming
through judgment, through fire, you know, just occasional, whatever, how did they continue to have this tremendous emphasis on repent, repent? Exactly at that point that people like Sheldon Blank and Abraham Heschel speak of the irrationality of the prophets. And I think it is just plain human. That they had the message that they didn't like the message. He just now said, don't think this is my opinion. Therefore he would still say, please repent. Please try to throw
yourself on the mercy of the court before it happens. I mean he was a human, he couldn't help it. Jeremiah especially, but the prophets generally, but Jeremiah especially, because we have so much category one from Jeremiah, namely in the confession, Jeremiah especially was the alienated person in his society. And largely because of that he identified with God because God's hand was upon him. He certainly would have done this if God hadn't impressed himself upon him. But
his identity was also with the people completely. So that he was really torn. And I think that Heschel is probably, has expressed it as well as, I've seen it expressed, that irrationality enters in. He just kept hoping that they would somehow be able to pull through. But because you see in part, in part these prophets don't have a myth of the fall of Adam or the angels. In other words, they don't have a mythos to refer
to, to explain why we're so sinful. Why we really goof up. Why we have a reformation that makes us more deceived than before. Why we aren't able to repent. Why we really can't come through and change ourselves. They don't have a fall of Adam or a fall of angels. In other words, there's no way for them to say, oh I really quite understand why we can't because of course Adam fell and the nature of humanity changed.
They have no such thing. That does not arise until the New Testament period. The New Testament has it, fully available. But not these prophets, not the Old Testament. So that Jeremiah can say, the stupid of heart. I mean, you know, my children are so stupid. What's wrong? And the irrationality comes in. Please try, please try. Even though his message is that God is entering into this operation to make a new creation. He will use the idea,
as we've already said, of a heart to know God. In other words, there will be a really, how shall I say, the original creation will be improved upon. But God himself will do it. He will engraft the Torah on the heart or Ezekiel says he'll transplant a heart or whatever. There's got to be an improvement. But it's by the same creator. They insist on that. So it's a tough thing to do. Naturally, they don't want this to happen.