For certain, what you read in your English Bibles is generally what the original language says.  However, it is not always possible to get the exact meaning across to today’s reader.  This is because the phrase could be an idiom, cultural reference/practice, or it just doesn’t make good English.  Let’s look at a few examples.

Shema

Perhaps the most fundamental passage in all of the Hebrew Bible is the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).  The NIV translates it as:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

–Deut 6:4-5

Sounds familiar, right?  However, the last phrase “all your strength” is in the hebrew:

This is pronounced (from right to left): oo-ve-KOL meh-oh-DEH-ka.  Translated literally this means “all of your very”.  All of my what?  How do I give all of my very?  It just doesn’t make good English.  The idea behind this, which I think is quite empowering, is God has already said he wants your heart, your soul, and now to make sure that He gets the point across, God finishes by saying He wants your very! The word can also be translated as exceedingly or every.  He wants to make sure you understand, He wants it all. But notice here, in order to properly translate the text, they had to make a choice and use the word “strength” which is not in the text at all.

Put Your Hand Where?

An even better example of this comes from Genesis 24.  Abraham wants a wife for his son Isaac to marry, but he doesn’t want her to be a Canaanite.  So he asks his servant to seek out a wife for him but it is here that we come to a very peculiar part of scripture.

¹ Abraham was now very old, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. ² He said to the senior servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. ³ I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, ⁴ but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”

–Gen 24:1-4 (NIV, 2010)

Abraham asks his servant to put his hand under his thigh?  What does that mean?  It sounds strange to us today, and one immediately wonders if there was some sort of cultural practice regarding swearing oaths and hands under thighs.  Here, your Bible translators have taken the “high road” in translation and tried to make it as culturally acceptable as possible for the modern reader.  The word translated in the NIV as “thigh” is:

This is pronounced (from right to left): yeh-RAY-key.  Transliterated, it might be written: yerekhi, or without the pronominal suffix (changing it from “thigh” to “my thigh”) it would just be yerekh.  This time the word does indeed mean thigh, but it also means the male genital region.  The renowned Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna puts it this way:

Holding the circumcised membrum, called the “sign of the covenant” in 17:11, may invoke the presence and power of God as the guarantor of the oath.¹

The medieval commentator Rashi also followed this line of logic, that the servant was called to hold Abraham’s circumcised penis when he made this oath, just like one today would put a hand on a Bible, a physical sign of the covenant with God.² But more than that, this gesture is aimed at the seed that comes from this covenant, the sign of which was the circumcision. Abraham had his servant swear to him on God’s promise of children but also on God’s promise of the messiah!³

Naturally, you can see why our translators decided to go with “thigh” rather than “circumcised penis”.  Not only is it more family friendly, but it’s not necessarily important to understand the true meaning of the text here.  What’s of the utmost importance is that the servant swore an oath and fulfilled it by bringing back Rebekah.  However, I do think that for the advanced (mature) reader, understanding the significance of such an oath is very powerful (if not a bit awkward).  The servant was so committed to the family, the covenant (which he participated in since he was circumcised), and to God, that he held in his hands the very sign of the covenant and swore to play a part in fulfilling it (because the line would have died with Isaac if he never married).

When was the last time you did something radical in order to play a part in God’s story of salvation?

Peace to you,

James

====================

Bibliography

1. Sarna, Nahum, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 162.

2. Rashi on Gen 24:2.

3. Mark, Elizabeth Wyner, The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite (Lebanon, New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 2003). “Wounds, Vows, Emanations,” p. 8-9.  (Note: This source interestingly deals with circumcision from a female perspective which is highly fascinating)

Slavery is discussed quite openly in Paul’s letters, and it’s something he doesn’t mind using as allegory.  First it’s important to realize that slavery in the ancient world was absolutely nothing like the American experience of slavery.  If you are American, when you come to slavery texts, you immediately think about how American slavery went down and this colors your reading of it.  We ask questions like, “Why didn’t Paul flat-out outlaw slavery?”  The answer is: it wasn’t always a terrible thing in the ancient world.  Yes, it is true that slavery is wrong.  In the ancient Roman world slaves as were thought of as “living property” and had zero control over their lives.  However, if you approach this form a 21st century (or even a 19th century!) perspective, you miss the picture.  In the ancient world, slaves were generally (there’s always exceptions) treated well.  They had food to eat, places to stay, honorable work to do, and (maybe most important of all) protection.  Slavery was also not typically a lifetime predicament, and it was not unusual for freed slaves to stay and work for their former masters.¹

Read now the words of Paul, as he discusses slavery to sin:

¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

–Romans 6:16-18

Paul talks to the church at Rome about offering yourselves to someone as a slave as if it was a common practice.  I find it interesting, therefore, that “some Roman Christians even sold themselves into temporary slavery in order to raise money for the poor in the church.”² This allows some of Paul’s writings regarding being “Slaves of Righteousness” or “Slaves of Christ” to take on new meaning.  I do not contend that Paul had in mind this one thing (Christians selling themselves into temporary slavery) when he wrote the above passage, but it may have at least crossed his mind, given his language about offering yourself to someone as a slave.

Slaves were owned by the rich, those in the highest ranks of Roman society (Equestrian and Senatorial).  In the first century, as Christianity began to spread, it took the longest to reach these upper echelons of society – those who had the most the lose by a change in the status quo.  By the late first century there were some in the higher strata of Roman society who had given their lives to Christ, but most of them were women, as Lampe puts it, “the higher we rise in the Roman social strata, the more Christian women and the fewer men we encounter.”³ This means that there were wealthy Christian women within the church who owned slaves.⁴

This may have been at least part of the reason behind Paul’s instructions to slaves and masters in the Ephesian church:

⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. ⁶ Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. ⁷ Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, ⁸ because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. ⁹ And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

–Eph 6:5-9

Those who had sold themselves into temporary slavery in order to raise money for the poor of the church may have felt they were not truly slaves, and therefore felt the rules didn’t apply.  Those selling themselves may have been doing so to the wealthy and socially high-ranking Christian women and it’s possible they felt that since their masters were also Christians that somehow they did not have to do a slave’s work.  Paul reassures these slaves: this slavery is slavery for Christ, therefore remember to obey your master and work diligently (James’ paraphrase).

Finally, I am overcome with amazement that early Christians would sell themselves into slavery in order to raise money for the poor of the church!  The lengths they would go to in order to help each other astounds me.  When was the last time I did anything out of my comfort zone (read: extreme) for a poor member of my community?  Maybe it’s time that changes.

Peace to you,

James

=================

Bibliography:

1. Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 59-61. (What is written above is a summary of a large amount of a material not just found in pages 59-61, since slavery is mentioned throughout the book)

2. Lampe, Peter. “Early Christians in the City of Rome.” Christians as Religious Minority in a Multicultural City, 24.

3. Ibid, 23.

4. To be fair, it has been noted in ancient sources that some slaves also had their own slaves, so it wasn’t only the rich, but it usually was the more well-off people who could afford to take care of the costs associated with having another person (or family) under your roof).

If anyone is brave enough to read it, I’d love to know your thoughts.

Peace,

James

Old Testament Eschatology – Ezek 40 – 48

P.S. Yes, I do know there are a few errors in the paper.  I missed them before I turned it in.

The second Summit class I went to was on Monday afternoon and it was a follow-up to the “Just 3 Questions” lecture from earlier in the day.  At the previous lecture, an Islamic scholar and a Christian scholar asked each other important questions that were relevant to the problems facing the modern world and the clash of its two largest religions.  The “Jesus and Muhammad” class was presented by a different Christian scholar (Dr. Lynn Mitchell) and the same Islamic scholar as earlier (Dr. Ibrahim Sumer) and was divided into two classes over two days: how Christians see Muhammad and how Muslims see Jesus.  Since the first lecture was about how Christians see Muhammad, Dr. Mitchell did most of the speaking.

The presentation itself was Dr. Mitchell’s attempt for Christians to rethink how they see Muhammad.  He opened with the statement that “Muhammad was not a child molester” which caught some people off-guard and perhaps made them a bit uncomfortable.  He pointed to a real myth that the prophet had been a child molester, briefly tried to show it was false, and then tried to get people to reevaluate their assumptions based off of things they may have heard someone say at one time.  After that he proceeded to present some factual information on Muhammad so that the Christians in the room would have a better idea of who he was – as a real person.  What did he stand for?  Why did he wage holy war?  And many other interested questions were raised.  I think this went very far towards reconciliation; spreading truth and dispelling falsities makes room for peace.

After about thirty minutes Dr. Mitchell stopped and opened it up for Q&A.  There were some genuinely good questions, such as asking about the divisions in Islam (Sunni, Shia, etc) and another question about Islamic spirituality.  However, the spirit of reconciliation was broken when a man took his turn.  He was sitting front and center and proceeded to stand up to address the speakers (no one else had done that, so already it was a belligerent move).  He started talking about something, and instead of asking a question just kept talking.  At several points he turned towards the audience to address us and then back to the speakers.  He would ask questions to the presenters but when they would try to answer he just keep talking and even raise his voice over theirs in order to keep talking.  And he talked, and talked.  He probably talked for about ten minutes, and after perhaps one minute, everyone in the audience was cringing, shaking their heads, and wondering when he would be quiet and sit down.  His point was something along the lines of this: “We Christians have gotten the idea of an eternal soul from pagans, and it’s wrong. [fill in some logic here] God doesn’t send souls to burn in Hell forever, that would be against his moral character. Muslims believe that ‘infidels’ burn in Hell forever, and so therefore their concept of God is absolutely wrong, and that’s why Isalm is wrong.”  He held in his hand, nearly the entire time, a Qur’an, and at one point started to quote from it.  To think that he had the audacity to quote the Qur’an to an Islamic scholar is baffling.  It would be like quoting the Old Testament out of context to Dr. Mark Hamilton or Dr. Geza Vermes or [fill in brilliant Christian scholar here] in order to make some convoluted and poorly supported point for purely belligerent reasons.  It was absurd!

The entire time that this man was speaking, Dr. Sumer patiently listened to his hateful rhetoric, tried to respond (and very politely too), and never once grew angry or upset over this man’s numerous offenses.  The most ironic thing about it all was that Dr. Sumer was more like Jesus than the supposed Christian who stood up and used the forum of reconciliation as his own personal soap box.  How is it that a non-Christian gets to be the most Jesus-like in the entire room?  It taught me a lesson about tolerance, peace, and patience.  Dr. Sumer, my hat is off to you for displaying the tenets of your faith in adversity, but also the tenets of mine.

The next day, this man apparently tried the same thing.  He stood up and starting talking before the Q&A even started, cutting off Dr. Sumer entirely.  He even asked a question, and since Dr. Sumer had done most of the talking that day he tried to answer it but the man cut him off saying, “I’d like Dr. Mitchell to answer this since he’s looked at both sides.”  Can you believe that?  Just how rude can you be?!  Thankfully, at this point several of the Bible faculty told him to sit down and be quiet.  He didn’t listen to the first person to tell him, so another spoke up which is when he finally sat down.  Afterwords, several people went up to him and confronted him about his belligerent behavior, but I doubt it did any good.

Frankly, I was shocked that such a thing would happen.  That someone would come to a forum on reconciliation and use it to blast the one of another religion is beyond me.  It’s not because I am naive enough to think that Christians all act like Jesus (ha!) but rather I’m lost as to what he hoped to accomplish.  No one in the room was looking into converting to Islam.  No one in the room was sacred about Islamic theology.  Furthermore, the Islamic scholar was not going to have a sudden conversion and ask to be baptized, nor was he going to apologize for a misrepresented view of his faith by an ignorant person.  I honestly fail to see what he hoped to accomplish by his actions, other than embarrass every other Christian in the room.  No, we’re not all like that, I promise.  A lot of us really do what to understand Islam and live in peace with our Muslim neighbors.  If we are ever to show the world what Jesus was like, it’s got to start in how we treat others, and that includes those of other faiths.  If you’re a Muslim, please let me apologize for people like that – that’s not what most of us are like.  If you’re a Christian, join me in making sure that the world sees Jesus in our lives.

Peace to you,

James

The Apostle Paul seemed to constantly be fighting an uphill battle in regard to his apostolic authority.  He writes in multiple letters about this topic because some doubted his authority, teaching, and even his motives.  One way for him to link his authority to Jesus, to the prophets, and to God was the retelling of his commission.  How did Paul use this true story to speak to the faithful?  Let’s dig in.

Paul’s commissioning story appears as narrative in Acts 9, which is quoted below, but I think it’s also useful to note that he used his story to appeal to both Jew and Gentile.  To the Jews it was in Acts 22 when he spoke before a crowd of them in Jerusalem.  To the Gentiles when he wrote to the Galatian church (Gal. 1:13-17).  But why does this conversion story add to his authority?  The typical answer has been: because he received a revelation directly from Jesus himself.  That is true, but there’s more to it than that.  Why did he frame his story differently those two times?  Let’s find out.

³As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

⁵“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ⁶“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.

–Acts 9:3-7

This telling of the story is from the narrative version that Luke gives us.  Since there are 3 versions of his commission, I think the appropriate question is to ask: why would he tell it like this?  Why include certain details and leave others out?  There are important details to remember from Luke’s telling of the story: a vision of a man (Jesus), bright shining light, a voice, someone was speechless, and the men traveling with the main character do not see the vision.

Now let’s take a look at where I believe this story comes from originally in the text.  Once you see the connection between the two, it’s obvious that Luke was trying to build upon a previous encounter in the Tanakh.

⁵ I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. ⁶ His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.  ⁷ I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; the men with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves….¹⁵ While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless. ⁸ So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless.

–Daniel 10:5-7, 15

Notice any of the same details?  A vision of a man, a bright light (“face like lightning”), and a voice, someone (Daniel) was speechless, and the companions with the main character do not see the vision.

The details recorded in Luke’s telling were not incidental but were selected with purpose.  Luke is linking one of the most supernatural encounters in the entire Tanakh to Jesus and at the same time linking the legitimacy of Daniel as a prophet to Paul.  By knowing our Bibles so well that we can see this connection, we learn a wealth of things we had perhaps not seen before.

Who was the “man” in Daniel’s vision?  I believe Luke is making the case that it was Jesus.  This would mean Jesus not only existed before approx. 1 A.D., but also that he played a part in the Hebrew Bible!  In John 1, the writer makes the case that Jesus existed before creation and that all things were created through him.  As the living word, this is similar to the Jewish understanding (notice I said “similar”) where the world was created for the sake of the Torah (the Word) and using the Torah as a “blueprint” of sorts (Genesis Rabbah 1:1).  So why is there no description of Jesus in Luke’s telling of the vision?  I believe it’s more than just “Paul was blinded so he couldn’t see.”  I think there is no description because Daniel already described him!  Re-reading Paul’s vision with Daniel’s description in mind is very compelling, enthralling, and incredible.  Paul receives the call of the prophets.

My friend Brian pointed out to me that Daniel 10:8 sounds very much like Jesus on the cross, which I think helps bring out the similarities even more.  And there are many more similarities to be found.

When you read these two passages together, what is it you see that you had never seen before?

Peace to you,

James

P.S. There is more to discuss on this topic, but it will have to be a different post.  We have looked at Luke’s account and why he wrote what he did but I also want to look at Paul’s own account of it in his own words to both Jewish and Gentile audiences.

To fully understand certain texts, we need to understand the earlier ideas that they are building upon. In a study of David’s wife Michal, I came across a couple of related texts. I think they really shed a different light on a Hosea passage and it has become very evident in my study that we need to chew on these texts together to get a clearer meaning.

Hosea was an extremely radical prophet in an extremely critical time for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. God used vivid marriage imagery between Hosea and his wife Gomer to illustrate Israel’s adultery that she had committed against God by turning to other gods and ignoring his Law.

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

–Hosea 1:2

Israel had become what God did not want. Indeed Hosea’s whole message was about the impending destruction if they did not come to repentance. Hosea put his wife away and then came back to her, though she was with another man. This imagery is powerful when we consider that it also applies to us. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Romans 5:8). But what caught my eye was this:

1And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.”

–Hosea 3:1

The NIV renders the “Cakes of raisins” as “Sacred Raisin Cakes”. They add the word “sacred” to try and make sense of this verse by putting it in a pagan context, but this attempt falls far short of what I believe God wanted Hosea’s audience to understand.

There is another unfaithful wife in the text that closely parallels this story. The wife was David’s and her name was Michal. Michal was Saul’s daughter, and after earning her hand in marriage, David had to flee for his life (1 Samuel 19:11-18). During David’s absence, Saul gives Michal (an already married woman) to another man. The text does not record an objection to this marriage on Michal’s part, nor does it say she went along willingly. In either case (or combination of the two) According to the law, she is an unfaithful adulteress. Just as David is going to take the throne, he demands Michal back. Just like Hosea, David pays a price to take the unfaithful wife back (2 Samuel 3:12-15).

The next time we hear of Michal, the unfaithful wife, is when David is joyously bringing the Ark of God into Jerusalem.

16 As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart…18And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts 19and distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed, each to his house.  20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”… 22[David replied,] “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

–2 Samuel 6:16,17-20,22

David humbles himself before the LORD. He takes off his royal robe, he dances, he gives away expensive raisin cakes to the whole assembly (including the women). David acts as a servant to the people. The unfaithful wife rebukes David for humbling himself though he was a king. Michal’s only example of kingly conduct was her father Saul and Saul never acted as a servant. And again, where we see the unfaithful wife who has been taken back, we see a link to the raisin cakes. So, what do raisin cakes have to do with humbling yourself or being a servant. I believe the answer lies earlier in the life of David, the first time raisin cakes are mentioned in the Text.

David and his men have dealt kindly with Nabal (fool in Hebrew). Nabal was a wealthy man who had a huge flock. David sent a messenger asked for some sustenance in return for the protection he provided for Nabal’s flocks. Nabal refused rudely saying “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?” (1 Samuel 25:10-11) David hears of this and sets off to punish Nabal. But Nabal’s wife is a bit smarter than Nabal. Look at what she does.

18 Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 19 Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal….24 She fell at his feet and said: “My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. 25 May my lord pay no attention to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name is Fool, and folly goes with him. But as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my master sent…30 When the LORD has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel, 31 my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the LORD has brought my master success, remember your servant.”…35 Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

–1 Samuel 25:18-19, 24-25, 30-31, 35

The raisin cakes of Abigal were given to show total humility. They were among the best things she could possibly give. She was completely at David’s mercy and she gave her best to win his favor.

When you apply that to the story of the Ark coming into Jerusalem, David’s most humbling act wasn’t disrobing, but giving raisin cakes to even the lowliest peasant. David was giving the people the best gifts and the same respect that Abigail showed David as she pleaded for her life. David could have kept the raisin cakes for himself. But instead he decided that the poor deserved them. No wonder Michal was astonished at how David acted.

David, as a man after God’s own heart, not only takes back his unfaithful Bride, but gives the greatest gift to the people who don’t deserve it.

Now let’s apply what we’ve learned about raisin cakes’ meanings to Hosea. Hosea accuses Israel of “Loving raisin cakes”. Hosea isn’t saying they are an abomination for enjoying baked goods. In fact, they do sound good and I could go for some cake right about now, but the textual implications, according what we learned are that Hosea is condemning them for keeping the best gifts for themselves unlike David who freely gave them to anyone who would receive them.

Indeed, Israel’s unfaithfulness in Hosea’s day was not limited to just idolatry. It included withholding their best from those who needed it; for loving their wealth rather than giving it away like David. God destroys Israel for these sins through Assyria. This is a sobering thought.  How many times have we (myself included) passed by a homeless person on the street and did nothing for them? How many of us have spent money on ourselves for a new car or gadget rather than caring for the less fortunate around us?

“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”

–James 4:17

I don’t know about you, but Israel and I are in deep trouble. We see the needs that surround us, but we have decided to love our wealth. We love our raisin cakes. God challenges us to give our best to those around us. This is radical. It is so radically different than what people expect that Michal cursed David for doing so. So radical that Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35). Let’s give our raisin cakes away joyously. Let’s learn the lessons from Abigail, David, and Hosea. In the Kingdom of heaven, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Shalom,

Bryan

Bryan Nix is an undergraduate in Biblical Studies at Oklahoma Christian University where he’s focusing in Old Testament and Biblical Languages. He currently plans to continue academic development through graduate studies, working toward a Ph.D. in order to teach Bible at the college level.

The blog post that follows is almost all of the text of part 1, but much more in-depth.

Scratching the Surface

We start in the gospels with a story about one of Jesus’ disciples, John, telling Jesus about something he (and some other disciples) did.

³⁸“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

³⁹“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, ⁴⁰for whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

–Mark 9:38-41

Notice the general layout of the story: someone is doing something miraculous, disciples tell them to stop, disciples are rebuked by their master. There’s much more going on here than meets the eye anyway, as this saying of Jesus’ in verse 40 is extremely close to something that Hillel said, but that’s an entirely different post (one which has been sitting, unfinished, in my “drafts” section for around 9 months…sorry).  It’s an important detail (for later) to note that the disciple who tells this to Jesus, John, was probably around age 10 to 12 at the time of this story.

So, what’s going on in this passage?  Where is this story coming from in the text?  I believe the answer comes from the Book of Numbers.

²⁴ So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. ²⁵ Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again.

²⁶ However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. ²⁷ A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸ Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”

²⁹ But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

–Numbers 11:24-29

Joshua was “[Moses'] young aide” (Ex. 33:11) and as we saw in this passage had been Moses’ aide since youth.  So notice the same general layout of the story: someone is doing something miraculous, a young disciple tells them to stop, disciple(s) are rebuked by their master.  What is the writer of Mark saying by including this story and framing it in this manner?  I believe the main point is this:  Jesus came to be a prophet like Moses, a leader who would set his people free from slavery and bondage.  So it’s natural to think that the writers of the New Testament would frame him in such a manner, but unless you dig into the text, you don’t see it.  And that’s just the surface level.  Let’s dig deeper.

The Spirit on the Nations

Because these two stories are so heavily linked, we can dig into the Moses story and mine out meaning for the New Testament story.  The first thing that jumped out at me is that Moses took 70 elders to the tent.  Moses had earlier appointed 70 elders to help him in his work, and this is where the rabbis derive rabbinic authority from, passed down from generation to generation.  But numbers to a Jew (rabbinically speaking) are not primarily quantity.  I have learned from two different rabbis that the number 70 always stands for the Gentile nations because in Genesis 10 (the Table of Nations) the number of nations adds up to 70.  So the number 70 became a picture for them.  Here’s an example:

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

–Exodus 15:27

Do you think they actually ran around and counted the number of palm trees so that they could faithfully report the number to future generations?  I doubt it.  Now…do I believe that there were 70 palm trees?  Of course.  But the quantity is not the focus.  The point here is that the 12 (tribes of Israel) water and give life to the 70 (nations).  Israel’s mission, from the beginning was to be water in the desert for the world.  Pretty cool, huh?

So what’s going on with the 70 in Numbers 11?  Here is the explanation we arrived at:  the 70 at the tent represent the nations of the world and the 2 who stayed in the camp represent the 2 nations of God’s people, Judah and Israel.  This is a very real foreshadowing of the Spirit of God being poured out on the nations (Acts 2) while Judah and Israel stayed behind “in the camp”.  When Joshua tells Moses to make them stop, Moses asks Joshua: “Are you jealous for my sake?”  Much later, Paul would write, speaking of Israel’s failure to accept the Messiah:

¹³Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry ¹⁴in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.

–Romans 11:13-14

Speaking specifically to Gentiles, Paul writes that he is hoping to incite his fellow Jews and make them jealous.  Jealous of what?  For one, the Spirit which was poured out on the nations.  Do not read me wrong – I am not saying that Judah and Israel did not receive the Spirit, because scholars such as Flusser make an excellent case that there were tens of thousands of Jewish followers of Jesus in the first century.  What I am saying, however, is two-fold.  The first is that the Spirit would be poured out on the Gentiles which is foreshadowed in the Numbers passage.  The second is that the Spirit would be poured out on the Jews and it would be different than for the Gentiles – and that difference is okay.  Today many Christians are bothered when they learn that Jews who accept Jesus retain their love for the Torah and still endeavor to keep it.  Just because the Spirit rested on us Gentiles in a different way we have no right to tell them to stop.

Further supporting this idea is that in the Markan narrative, John says that the one who was driving out demons was “not one of us.”  Some scholars think that this means the person was a Gentile.  So we have a reversal: in Mark, this time it’s the 2 (figuratively speaking) who are telling the 70 (figuratively speaking) to stop.

Like Children

In the Numbers passage that parallel’s the Markan narrative, Moses says:

“I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

–Numbers 11:29b

In the Numbers passage, the LORD’s spirit on someone caused them to prophecy.  This really sounds like what Paul writes:

⁵I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified….I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.  ²⁰Brothers, stop thinking like children.

–1 Corinthians 14:5-6, 18-20

In the Jesus story in Mark, John qualifies as a child if he is as young as 10, which some scholars have suggested and we’ve already made a link to Joshua being young (though we do not know just how young).  So we see another connection here about prophecy and acting like children.

The Meaning of Names

In the Numbers story we are told specifically the names of the two elders who stayed behind in the camp.  The average Westerner reads over this and thinks “okay, thank you for that random bit of useless  knowledge.”  The Jew (rabbinically speaking) reads those names and asks “Why are those names given?  Why not the names of the seventy elders at the tent?  Why not the name of the young man who ran to tell Moses?”  The answer may surprise you.

The rabbis have commented that Eldad and Medad hold more significance than merely being mentioned as two guys bucking the trend.  According to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Numbers 11:26, they also predicted a war with Gog and Magog who would be defeated by the Messiah.  Even early Christians recognized their significance by mentioning the pair in the deutero-canonical book Shepherd of Hermas (Visions) 2:30.

In the Tanakh (Old Testament), names are almost always an indicator of who the person will be.  So in one sense, you can read the name of an individual and know what they are going to do before you read the stories about them.  Examples: Jacob means “he grasps the heal” or more figuratively, “usurper”.  Jacob usurped his brother’s birthright and blessings through trickery and lies and never once is recorded to feel guilt or repentance over it.  Suddenly we know what sort of a person Jacob would grow up to be.  Even the name Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua which means “God’s salvation” and so from the moment the angel appears and says that Mary will have a son and will name him Jesus, we know what Jesus will do.  There are many more examples of this.

So what do Eldad and Medad mean?  Eldad means “Loved by God” and Medad means “Loved”.  This immediately struck me as being in relation to a different portion in scripture.

Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. ⁷ Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God.”

–Hosea 1:6-7

The name Lo-Ruhamah means “not loved” and we see a stark contrast to the two, Eldad and Medad who represent Israel and Judah.  Notice, however, the messianic overtones of the quote from Hosea.  God will save them, but not by force or military power, but “by the LORD their God,” which again brings us back to Jesus.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s up to you to decide what you think of all of this.  However, whether or not there is any hard connections to the other passages I have brought up in this post isn’t the point.  The point of the study is this: there are heavy themes running through both of these stories and lead to, point to, and connect with other Biblical passages.  The Bible is not a document that was meant to be read (blandly), closed, and then put on a shelf.  It’s a book that you are meant to hunger over and devour every single word.  Sure, the “big picture” stuff is important to get and let’s not miss that by studying minutiae, but there’s power in the small details too.  The Bible, as it was meant to be studied, should start you off in a passage of scripture and lead you from scripture to scripture to scripture as quotations and echoes of other passages come to you.  Each verse is not isolated, and the Bible does a remarkable job of building upon itself over and over again.  This article is just one example of that.

I hope you enjoyed reading this study as much as I enjoyed hagahing over it. :)

Peace to you,

James

Today’s hagah comes from Mark 9 where Jesus’ disciples observe someone who is not one of them driving out demons in the name of Jesus.  Come on, let’s dig into the text together.

The setting in Mark is as follows:

³⁸“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

³⁹“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, ⁴⁰for whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

–Mark 9:38-41

Notice the general layout of the story: someone is doing something miraculous, disciples tell them to stop, disciples are rebuked by their master.  There’s much more going on here than meets the eye anyway, as this saying of Jesus’ in verse 40 is extremely close to something that Hillel said, but that’s an entirely different post.  So, what’s going on in this passage?  Where is this story coming from in the text?  I believe the answer comes from the Book of Numbers.

²⁴ So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. ²⁵ Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again.

²⁶ However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. ²⁷ A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸ Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”

²⁹ But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

–Numbers 11:24-29

Notice the same general layout of the story: someone is doing something miraculous, disciples (Joshua is Moses’ disciple according to rabbinic tradition) tell them to stop, disciples are rebuked by their master.  What is the writer of Mark saying by including this story and framing it in this manner?  Jesus came to be a prophet like Moses, a leader who would set his people free from slavery and bondage.  So it’s natural to think that the writers of the New Testament would frame him in such a manner, but unless you dig into the text, you don’t see it.  Isn’t hagahing fun?

There’s even more digging to be done between these two passages of scripture, such as: were Jesus’ disciples jealous of the one driving out demons?  Given Moses’ reply to Joshua (Numbers 11:29), it sure seems implied in Mark.  Or what about: does Jesus have the same wish for his disciples, that they “were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them”?  By paralleling the Moses story, it’s almost as if Jesus had spoken these words to his disciples, a blunt wake-up call to them for sure!  And there’s much more.  What do you see in these two stories when you devour the text?

Peace to you,

James

P.S. Want to go deeper with these stories?  I couldn’t help myself and posted an “extended edition” of the same post.  Click here to read it.

• Lyrics: James Prather
• Melody: Bryan Nix
• Original a cappella arrangement: Robert Nix
• Instrumental Arrangement: Bryan Nix
• Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals: Bryan Nix.
• Percussion: Ed (don’t know his last name).

Listen to the song: My Eyes Are Forever On The Lord

This song is entirely rooted in scripture, so bonus points to anyone who can figure out where it’s from (there are at least 3 different places).  What do you think?

Peace,

James

Join us as we discover what it means to “Hagah”!

In November of 2009 I had the unbelievable opportunity to learn from Ray Vander Laan at a small conference in Birmingham. RVL’s teachings have been one of the greatest influences on my life and my understanding of discipleship. He shared over 8 hours worth of amazing things and I left so encouraged and even more hungry for God’s Word. There are so many things I could reflect upon here but let me share one of my favorites.

If you’re like me, you really don’t want to hear one more lecture or sermon (or blog entry in this case), to “be a good boy or girl and read your Bible more.” But RVL shared an onomatopoeia with us that will change my understanding of this forever. I know, you learned onomatopoeia somewhere back in Elementary school but need to be reminded of what it means. So did I. Here’s your refresher. An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like its meaning. For example, the word “splash” sounds like what it actually describes. So imagine you’ve just thrown a rock into a pond and you hear, “Splas-s-s-h-h-h.” Make sense? Okay good. Let’s go further. In the Hebrew language there are a lot of these. One of them is the Hebrew word, “Hagah.” Unfortunately, when the word as it is used in the Old Testament got translated into English, translators decided to go with it’s literal meaning – “meditate.” But this only slightly captures it’s original intent when written by the Hebrew writers. Look with me at Joshua 1:8 :

Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

The word “meditate” here is “hagah.” Typically we think of meditate as a quiet reflection. So here we get the idea that we should quietly reflect on God’s law day and night, which is of course a wonderful thing. But the original idea was even more powerful! So what did it mean? “Hagah” is an onomatopoeia for what a hungry lion does when he’s seeking food. Imagine that lion in your mind and hear his roar as he passionately and even desperately seeks after something to eat – “Hagaaahhhhhhh!” Does that sound like meditation to you, at least as we’ve defined it? Joshua 1:9 is about focusing on God’s Word but maybe not as quietly and passively as we might think. It’s about being HUNGRY for God’s Word day and night! And not just a little bit hungry for a snack. We’re to desire God’s Word like a starving lion. ”Hagaaahhhhhhh!”

I would suggest that most Christians treat God’s Word more like a snack, if that. No wonder it has “departed from our mouths” and we aren’t careful to “do everything written in it” as God declares boldly in Text. But there’s more. God goes on to say in Joshua 1:8 that our hunger and obedience to His Word is directly related to our “success” in life. Obviously it’s not being implied here that if you read God’s Word that everything will always go well. But no matter what you face in life, if you have been “Hagaaahhhhhhhing” on God’s Word then you’re going to be able to follow God through that moment. Why? Because His Word is not only our guide, it’s the way to live life fully. Somehow we’ve reduced it to a set of rules and obligations. But God’s Word is LIFE as it’s meant to be LIVED! The laws and “rules” are there but not to merely restrict us – they are there to give us LIFE! Of course there are things there about what NOT to do. But that’s because those things that we’re being told to avoid will DESTROY us! We have to really believe God’s Word is life if we’re going to hunger for them.

Listen to the “Hagaaahhhhhhh!” used again in Psalm 1:1-2

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates (hagah) day and night.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as our Rabbi and truly be “covered in His dust” then we must know Him. And the way we know Him is by immersing ourselves in His Word. I want to wake up every morning hungry. I want to “Hagaaahhhhhhh!” all day for His Words so that I can be more like Him, so I can do what He does, and so I can go where He goes.

It’s time to work up an appetite and then to devour God’s Word . Day and night, I can’t get enough. ”Hagaaahhhhhhh!” God’s Word is my food and I want it more than anything! ”Hagaaahhhhhhh!” God’s Word is LIFE and to live it I have to know it. ”Hagaaahhhhhhh!”

Hmmmmm. Maybe the more we “Hagaaahhhhhhh!” the more we can be like Jesus, the LION of Judah.

Grace and Peace,

Rob Touchstone

Rob Touchstone is the Youth Minister at Tusculum Church of Christ in Nashville, TN.  He is actively pursuing a Master of Divinity at Lipscomb University and also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Bible there.  Rob’s ministry reaches far beyond the youth group as he was recently appointed by the elders at Tusculum to create a talmidim (discipleship) program for adults.  Rob posts the weekly podcast of this new talmidim class online weekly on his blog at: robtouchstone.com.