By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Posts Tagged ‘Hebrews’

In Defense of Jephthah, Sort Of

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“Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions.” – Judges 11:37

He was the son of a prostitute and so he was thrown out of the house by his father’s wife when she had kids of her own. He moved away and fell in with a bad crowd but he was great in a fight. You learn to be good with your hands when you have that kind of a background. But when things got bad back in his home town, the leaders came to him for help. After reminding them of how they treated him he agreed to help only if they themselves would escort him back. They agreed. He fought hard and won but his promise before the battle cost his only child her life.

Sounds like Western, doesn’t it? It is however, as the title of this post implies, the story of Jephthah, a judge of Israel as told in the book of Judges, chapter 11. Jephthah vowed that if he returned victorious after fighting the Ammonites, the first thing to come out his front door to meet him would be offered as a sacrifice. It wasn’t uncommon for sheep and goats to be kept in homes back then so perhaps he was expecting livestock but it was his only child, his daughter, who was first to rush out the front door to welcome him home.

I have heard this called “Jephthah’s rash” or “foolish vow” and people are puzzled over it. Did God accept this sacrifice even though he refused human sacrifices? Why didn’t God intervene and stop this madness? Isn’t the Old Testament simply barbaric?

I don’t want to defend the practice of anyone offering any of their children nor any other human being as a sacrifice to any God, god, or gods. However, the issue with Jephthah is more complicated than I’ve just made it sound. First, right before he made his vow, “the Spirit of the LORD was upon Jephthah” (Judges 11:29). So it isn’t like he was a hot headed pagan vowing the blood of his foes to his warrior god. Furthermore, “it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year” (Judges 11:39-40). The thing that really puzzles some Christians is how Jephthah winds up being praised for his faith in Hebrews 11. The whole thing seems messed up all around.

But is it? Is it any more messed up than the fact that I have done some rash, foolish, and sinful things that God would in no way accept, and yet he continues to use me and work through my strengths and my weaknesses?

We focus on the tragic part of his story but what the Bible remembers Jephthah for is something very different. The Hebrews passage isn’t much help because the author admits that he can’t go into more detail right then: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets” (Hebrews 11:32). Yet, that isn’t all the Scriptures have to say about him.

The author of Hebrews seems to pick up the idea that Jephthah is praise-worthy from none other than the prophet Samuel. When Samuel is installing Saul as king, he recounts Israel’s history. He reminds them that “the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety” (1 Samuel 12:11). It is pretty clear that the author of Hebrews is just echoing what Samuel said, after all, Jerubbaal is the other name for Gideon (Judges 6:32). Personally, I’m more confused as to why Sampson is in there than Jephthah is. That guy was a jerk right up till the end.

And don’t forget that Samuel was chronologically closer to the events of Judges 11 than we are; even closer than the author of Hebrews was. What they remember Jephthah for, in both the Old and New Testament, is not the sacrifice of his daughter but for his faith when he delivered Israel. Though he’d been rejected by his people for being born to the “wrong” woman, he called on the LORD and God used him to defeat the Ammonites. And the Bible doesn’t celebrate the sacrifice of his daughter. Jephthah, his daughter, and the daughters of Israel lamented it. God is silent about it. Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our bad decisions (Psalm 15).

Inventory Issues

arkofthecovenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt. (2 Chron 5:10)

[T]he ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. (Hebrews 9:4)

This has got to be one of the many contradictions in the Bible we hear about, right? Not really. It is a contradiction only if you read the Bible flatly. By ‘flatly’ I mean if you read it as if it were one book written at one time by one author. That is, if you expect it to be written the way humans tend to write. The reason this is not a contradiction is because there are two different authors writing at two different times, in two different languages, relating actual history from two different time periods. That describes writing that is much less flat, much more nuanced, don’t you think?

The chronicler, writing in Hebrew probably around 400BC, is telling about when Solomon built the first temple and brought the ark into it. The author of Hebrews, writing in Greek probably around 60AD, is talking about the tabernacle just after it was completed. The time difference between these two events is about 500 years and an awful lot happened in those 400 and something years. To understand the inventory problem with the ark, we need to look at its history with an emphasis on what went inside it.

IMAGE-Ten-Commandments-Tablet-Movie-Prop-Christies-2001It all starts in Exodus 25 where God tells Moses how to build the ark. In verse 16, God says, “And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you.” The “testimony” here is the Ten Commandments that God wrote on tables of stone. They were placed inside the ark once it was constructed.

URNThe first thing listed in Hebrews is the urn of manna. In Exodus 16 God gave Israel manna six days a week. It was a miraculous food that formed on the ground overnight. Any manna that was kept overnight spoiled except on Friday since Saturday is the Sabbath and none was given. In verse 33 Aaron is told, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations.” Now, at this point, the ark hasn’t been constructed yet; as a matter of fact, God hadn’t even told Moses that an ark is to be constructed. Exodus 16 is about six weeks before Mount Sinai where God verbally gives Israel the Ten Commandments and another month of so after that till he gives the instructions for the ark. At this point, the jar was kept but not in the ark.

53271_almond_tree_smThe next thing in the list from Hebrews is the rod of Aaron that budded. In Numbers 16, the sons of Korah challenged Moses’ and Aaron’s authority. God’s response was to send a fire to consume the rebels who stood before him and to open the earth under their tents. It wasn’t Moses and Aaron they were ultimately challenging, it was God and the rebellion didn’t stop once Korah’s children were gone. The next day the people complained along the same lines, “You have killed the people of the LORD.” (Num 16:41) In order to authenticate who God had chosen to lead Israel, Moses took a staff from the leader of every tribe and he put them in the tabernacle. The next morning they found that Aaron’s staff had budded and sprouted almonds. In Numbers 17:10 God directed Moses that to put “the staff of Aaron before the testimony”.

So each item that Hebrews mentioned was associated with the “testimony” in some way. Does that mean it was inside the ark? Clearly the tablets of the Ten Commandments were in there, they were called “the testimony” to begin with. Aaron’s rod was to be “before the testimony” which could mean that it sat in front of the ark but that seems a bit odd. There wasn’t a table in there to set the rod on and “the testimony” (i.e. the tablets) were inside the ark. If the rod was before the testimony it could have easily been inside the ark. Why not?

Likewise, the jar of manna was to be “before the LORD“. God’s presence was between the cherubim on top of the ark so the best place for the jar would be there. Again, there was no table to keep this stuff on so placing it inside the ark makes sense. Also, consider that they had to pack all this stuff up and move it around quite a bit before they came to the Promised Land. It would just make sense to put it in the ark.

But that leaves us with an inventory problem when we get to Second Chronicles since “there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there.” We don’t know for sure what happened to the other things since the Bible doesn’t say anything about them but there are hints. If we track the history of the ark in the Bible we see some opportunities for things to get lost.

"Could someone set up Dagon the all powerful again?"

“Could someone set up Dagon the all powerful again?”

Surprisingly, there is no mention of the ark being lost in Judges. The people were so superstitious at that time that you’d figure they’d would have drug it out all the time. Nope, they were able to hold off losing it till 1 Samuel 4. When the Philistines came out against them, they pulled out the ark like it was an idol or something. The Philistines captured it in battle. However, things didn’t go so well for the Philistines. They put the ark in the temple of their god Dagon who kept falling over in front of it. Then the people broke out in boils so they decided it would be best to return the ark to Israel. When they did, some Israelites decided to take look inside (1 Sam 6:19 NIV, KJV, ASV). If Israel decided to take a peek, I’ll bet the Philistines did too. After all, for the Philistines it was the spoils of war. When the Philistines consulted their priests and diviners to try to figure out what to do with the ark, their wisemen told them, “do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering” (1 Sam 6:3). That could mean “empty” as in “without a guilt offering” or it could mean “we took stuff out and it has become obvious that we’re guilty and need to make an offering.” A golden urn? There’s some cash value. A stick that budded (assuming it was still spouting)? Sounds like magic! Keep that! Big old stone tablets with Hebrew writing on them? Yeah, leave that.

Years later David would split up the articles of the tabernacle. The tent was at a high place in Gibeon with the bronze alter but David moved the ark to Jerusalem (2 Chr 1:4-5) and he put it in a tent he’d had built for it (1 Chr 15:1). When the contents are mentioned in 2 Chronicles 5, we’re down to just the tablets. And it is interesting that the author would mention specifically that there was nothing else in there but the tablets. He might do that in order to confirm, yes, there was nothing else in there, just as it was supposed to be. On the other hand, he could also be commenting that the other stuff had gone missing and all that was left was the tablets.

Do you see how bumpy and nubbley a reading of the Bible has to be? Nothing flat about it! The Bible spans a great deal of time and so you can’t read it like a column in a magazine where all the pertinent history is gathered together for you. You have to take a lot more into consideration. God is bigger than a magazine editor and his story spans generations. Expect his writing, both in history and in the Bible to be huge.

Hebrews the Evangelical Epistle

Hebrews Bulletin

I’ve been preaching through Hebrews and though we’re only up to the third chapter, I have been repeatedly impressed with how the author treats the scriptures he quotes. Right off the bat the author says “God spoke…by the prophets.” Now, you could read that and think that, sure, he believed that God spoke by certain people but that, in and of itself, doesn’t necessarily say anything about the Bible. But the way that he introduces scripture quotes from there on out shows that he didn’t have only the prophets’ verbal pronouncements in mind but their written communication even more so. For example, in the rest of chapter 1 he quotes various passages, mostly from the Psalms, to support his contention that Jesus is greater than the angels. He doesn’t quote a Psalm and say “As David said” but rather “God said.”

In chapter 2 he does something even more interesting. In verse 11 he attributes the words of Psalm 22 to Jesus when he says, “This is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying…” Now really this makes a lot of sense because the way Psalm 22 begins is with Jesus’ dying words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The church has seen Psalm 22 as messianic for a very long time so she has long heard that Psalm as Jesus’ words.

Then in chapter 3 the author involves the third member of the Trinity in authoring the scriptures by explicitly bringing in the Holy Spirit. In verse 7 he quotes Psalm 95 and introduces it by saying “as the Holy Spirit says…” When he cites the beginning of that quote again in chapter 4 verse 7 he introduces it with “saying through David…” That’s pretty interesting but how is it Trinitarian? Because of what the author says right after that, “If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day.” So who authored Psalm 95? God spoke it, the Holy Spirit said it through David. Ah, so God spoke by the prophets just like our author said!

So where do evangelicals get such a high view of scripture? From the Reformers? Sure. From the Church Fathers? You bet. But ultimately we get it from the scriptures themselves. We need to learn how to read the Bible from the Apostles since they learned how to read it from Jesus. Though we don’t know who the author of Hebrews was, we do know that he learned from those who listened to Jesus (Heb. 2:3) and so he is a faithful example of how to understand the Bible. The author of Hebrews was, essentially, evangelical.