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Caveats

June 19, 2009 in Book Recs, Kings with 0 Comments

The nature of Leithart’s theological commentary varies. At times he is connecting the passage to redemptive history (as with the introduction, noted previously). Other times he demonstrates how a passage sheds light on a theological issue (e.g., a discussion about the rightness of prophetic declarations of judgment concludes with a reflection on the justice of eternal punishment in Hell). Most often, Leithart identifies various typological connections between Scripture texts. Some of these typologies are probably legitimate (i.e., though I don’t see a Moses-Elijah typology as Leithart does, I do think that the text presents parallels between Moses and Elijah for the purpose of demonstrating that even the great prophet Elijah is not the Prophet like Moses that the people are to anticipate),in many cases the parallels are more dependent on Leithart’s imagination and clever phasing than on the text (e.g., taking the three year drought during Ahab’s reign to foreshadow the three days that Christ, “the true Israel,” was in the tomb [133]).

So while I enjoyed Leithart’s introduction (especially after having a read a number of non-evangelicals on theological interpretation), I’m not inclined to actually buy this volume.

Leithart on Kings

June 19, 2009 in Book Recs, Kings with 0 Comments

Peter Leithart’s contribution to the “Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible” is clearly evangelical.

By contrast, Stanley Hauerwas in his BTCB contribution interprets Matthew according to his political paradigm.

Matthew’s gopspel is about ‘the politics of Jesus,’ which entails an alternative to the power politics of reading the gospel. a right reading of the gospel requires a people who are shaped by the ‘oblation familiar to the faithful,’ that is, a community whose fundamental political act is the sacrifice of the altar—an alternative to Herodian power politics. A theological reading of Matthew, therefore, reaffirms that the church be an alternative politics to the politics of the world. [28]

Leithart, however, interprets Kings according to the evangel.

He notes that in the Hebrew canon Kings is one of the Former Prophets. According to Leithart,

The message of the prophets is not, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die.’ The message is, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel must die, and its only hope is to entrust itself to God who will give it new life on the far side of death.’ Or even, ‘Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to God who raises the dead.’ [18]

Leithart also relates Kings to the wisdom books:

After Solomon, wisdom simply disappears from 1-2 Kings. The words ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’ occur twenty-one times in 1 Kgs. 1-11, but never again after those chapters. Never again does Israel or Judah have a philosopher-king, a sage on the throne. Royal wisdom, touted so heavily at the opening of the book, fails to deliver, showing that Israel’s hope for restoration, blessing, and life does not lie in human wisdom, no matter what heights it attains. [18f.]

And to the Torah. He notes that Joshua 1:8 promises success to the one who obeys the Torah,

Yet, the only king connected to Torah in 1-2 Kings is Josiah, and we are no sooner assured that he keeps Torah to perfection (2 Kings 23:25) than we learn that Yahweh still intends to destroy Judah" (1 Kings 23:26). "Once Israel sins, wisdom cannot save Israel and Judah; nor can Torah obedience. [20]

The Temple plays a similar role. The Temple is the place to which Israel can pray when facing the curses (1 Kings 9:3).

But no Davidic king ever prays in or toward the temple until Hezekiah is threatened by the Assyrians (19:1), and in the following generation Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, defiles the sanctuary more than any other king of Judah when he places a sacred pole for Asherah in the temple precincts. After a history of neglect and abuse, 2 Kings ends with an account of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the house. [20]

Leithart then relates all of this to the gospel:

Wisdom cannot save Israel from division; Torah cannot save Judah from destruction; and the last refuge of hope, the temple, is torn apart and burned by a Babylonian king. All that made Israel Israel—king and priest, Torah and temple—is destroyed. As a prophetic narrative, 1-2 Kings makes it clear that there is no salvation for Israel within Israel. Having broken covenant, it faces the curse of the covenant: in the day you eat, you will be driven from the garden. Dying, you shall die. [20]

Against this dark backdrop Leithart turns to discuss the longsuffering of God in Kings which points to the hope of the gospel.

I would like to see the gospel developed in terms of Jesus, the king who accomplished what Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah could not; the prophet who faithfully declares God’s word and turns people’s hearts as Elijah could not; the priest and sacrifice who fulfilled God’s Torah; the builder and sanctifier of a temple of living stones; and the Wisdom who will instruct those who fear him how to be like him.

Joshua, Fulfilled Promises, and the Abrahamic Covenant

January 24, 2009 in Joshua, Kings with 0 Comments

One reader sent an e-mail in response to the post on the fulfillment of God’s promises: “You should deal . . . with whether or not that part of the Abrahamic covenant is still in force if Joshua says the land was given to the people.”

This actually raises a fairly big issue within Joshua itself. Some passages in Joshua seem to say that the entire land had been conquered (Josh 10:40-42; 11:16-23; 21:43-45). Other passages seem to say that there was more land to conquer (Josh 13:1; 18:3).

This seeming discrepancy should not be blown out of proportion. For instance, Joshua 11:23 reads, “So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses,” immediately after noting that there remained land to conquer in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (Josh 11:22).

It is important to remember exactly what God spoke when he promised the land to Moses (Josh 11:21; 21:45). In Deuteronomy 7:22, God said, “The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will become too numerous for you” (HCSB).

In other words, God had given to Israel the land as a whole, but, just as he had said, there still remained land to conquer little by little: the border lands and pocks of resistance within each tribe’s territory.

As to the Abrahamic covenant being fully fulfilled, this becomes more of an issue in 1 Kings 4:20-21. That passages says Solomon ruled all the land by the Abrahamic Covenant according to the specified boundries (Gen. 15:18). It is important to note, however that this land was promised to Israel as an “everlasting possession” (Gen. 17:8). That was not fulfilled either in Joshua’s day or in Solomon’s.

The Threefold Office of Christ – Part 7

August 5, 2008 in Biblical Theology, Christology, Kings with 0 Comments

With the failure of the king to right Israel’s (and the world’s) sin problem, the focus turns to the prophets. The book of Kings contains more references to the prophet or the man of God than any other book of the Bible. Kings emphasizes the sure fulfillment of the prophetic word, and this emphasis should have reminded the people that God would fulfill the covenant curses prophesied by Moses if they continued in their disobedience.

The account of Elijah, the greatest of the prophets during the time of the divided kingdom, echoes in many ways the ministry of Moses. It is possible that attentive Israelites looking for a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:18) thought Elijah was that man.

Just as Yahweh demonstrated through Moses that the gods of Egypt were no gods, through Elijah Yahweh demonstrated Baal was no god. The three year drought challenged the belief that Baal brought fertility to the land, and the miraculous provision of food in Sidon, Jezebel’s homeland, demonstrated that Yahweh could do what Baal was supposed to be able to do. In Baal mythology, during the dry season the god Mot held Baal captive in the world of the dead. Each year Anath rescued Baal and together they would restore fertility to the land. By raising the widow’s son from the dead during the drought, Yahweh demonstrated that even though Baal could not rise from the dead, as it were, Yahweh had power to raise people from the dead.

This contest climaxed on Mount Carmel. Elijah’s prayer was the same as the oft repeated purpose of God in the Exodus (Ex 6:7; 10:1; 16:6, 12; 29:46): “that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back” (1.18:37). The last part of the prayer is a request for the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30:1-10.

Elijah may have realized the many ways in which his ministry was like Moses’, but after the climatic confrontation on Mount Carmel he saw that Jezebel was going to kill him just as she had killed Yahweh’s other prophets. [It is better to read וַיַּרְא with the KJV rather than repointing to וַיִּרָא. Keil perceptively notes, “For it is obvious that Elijah did not flee from any fear of the vain threat of Jezebel, from the fact that he did not merely withdrawn into the kingdom of Judah, where he would have been safe under Jehoshaphat from all the persecutions of Jezebel, but went to Beersheba, and thence onwards into the desert” C. F. Keil, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, (Reprint, Hendrickson, 1996), 178. Note also Ronald B. Allen, "Elijah, the Broken Prophet," JETS 22 (Sep. 1979): 198-99.] So despite the fiery response from God and the immediate confession of the people, in the next chapter Elijah is found taking a forty-day journey to Mount Sinai. But Elijah realized that instead of being a prophet like Moses, he was “no better than [his] fathers” (1.19:4). He was not about to let Jezebel kill him, but he would be happy if God would simply take his life (like he did with Moses?). God did not take his life, but, interestingly, before Elijah is taken from earth he crossed the Jordan in a manner reminiscent of Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea.

In some ways Elijah surpassed Moses since, unlike Moses, who died and was buried by the Lord, Elijah was caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot. [Interestingly, it is Moses and Elijah who appear with Christ at the Transfiguration.] Even so, Elijah was not the prophet like Moses. That Prophet was still to come.