If Obama Were Pope

Ruth Gledhill, the Religion Correspondent for the Times Online has published a translation of an article published by Professor Hans Kung, the great Catholic theologian. The article, “If Obama Were Pope,” was published in German and was translated with Kung’s permission.

You must read this article. Here is an excerpt:

Whereas President Obama, with the support of the whole world, is looking forwards and is open to people and to the future, this Pope is orientating himself above all backwards, inspired by the ideal of the mediaeval church, sceptical about the Reformation, ambiguous about modern rights of freedom.

Whereas President Obama is concerned for new cooperation with partners and allies Pope Benedict XVI, like George.W Bush, is trapped in thinking in terms of friend and foe. He snubs fellow Christians in the Protestant churches by refusing to recognize these communities as churches. The dialogue with Muslims has not got beyond a lip confession of 'dialogue'. Relations with Judaism must be said to have been deeply damaged.

Whereas President Obama radiates hope, promotes civic activities and calls for a new 'era of responsibility', Pope Benedict is imprisoned in his fears and wants to limit human freedom as far as possible, in order to establish an 'age of restoration'.

Whereas President Obama is going on the offensive by using the constitution and the great tradition of his country as the basis for bold steps in reform, Pope Benedict is interpreting the decrees of the 1962 Reform Council in a backward direction, looking towards the conservative Council of 1870.

Read the article by visiting Ruth Gledhill’s blog.

It is difficult to judge Obama's Presidency after just ten days since his inauguration. Some Americans may disagree with some of Kung's evaluation of Obama's accomplishments as President, but Kung knows the Catholic Church and he knows this Pope and his criticism may be justified.

However, in the same way Americans may disagree with Kung's evaluation of Obama's performance as President, I am sure many Catholics will disagree with Kung's evaluation of the Pope's perfomance as the head of the Catholic Church.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Barack Obama, Hans Kung, Pope Benedict XVI

The Myth of British-Israelism

On August 9, 2006, I wrote a post, “America and Great Britain in Biblical Prophecy,” in which I explained the reasons the movement popularly known as British-Israelism finds no support in the Bible or in history, even though their proponents quote widely from the Bible and history to prove their point.

In response to my post, a proponent of British-Israelism who refuses to give his or her name and hides his or her identity under the label of “anonymous,” has criticized my post for not presenting a “scrap of evidence against Anglo-Saxon identity with the Ten Tribes.”

A careful reading of my original post will show that I cited several texts from the Old Testament to show that many Israelites from the Northern Kingdom were not deported to Assyria. In fact, after the Assyrians conquered Samaria, the territory of the Northern Kingdom was incorporated into the Assyrian empire and became the Assyrian province of Samerina.

The advocates of British-Israelism believe that the Anglo Saxon people, those living in Great Britain and the United States, are the descendants of the ten lost tribes of the Northern Kingdom that were taken into exile by the Assyrians. Thus, the Anglo Saxon people are the direct descendants of the children of Abraham and as such, they become the inheritors of the promises God made to Israel.

The basic argument for British-Israelism has been developed by many authors in England and in the United States. A forceful presentation of this view was presented by Herbert W. Armstrong in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Armstrong was the founder of the Church of God. These are some of the basic beliefs of British-Israelism:

1. The people living in Great Britain and the United States are the descendants of the lost tribes.
2. The British throne is a continuation of the throne of David.
3. The British Royal family are lineal descendants of David, King of Judah.
4. The stone of Scone is the one which Jacob anointed with oil.
5. The British Empire people are the covenant people.
6. The British people are chosen of God to dominate the world.

There are several issues that mitigate against the argument put forth by the proponents of British-Israelism, the view that Great Britain and the United States are the remnant of the lost tribes of Israel. I do not have the time nor the inclination to address every misinterpretation in Armstrong’s book. Suffice it to say that the interpretations are based on eisegesis, literalism, and texts interpreted out of context. In this post, I will address three issues raised by the adherents of British-Israelism.

The Tribes of Israel

Since my anonymous critic asked me to answer some of his questions, I asked him to make a list and name the ten tribes that were lost. Here is the list he provided:

The Southern Kingdom: Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin plus a few faithful Levites.

The Northern Kingdom: Reuben, Levi, Gad, Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Isaachar (sic), Napthali (sic), Zebulun, and Asher.

The list of the twelve tribes of Israel appears about twenty times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament. However, the names of the tribes that compose the twelve tribes of Israel vary from list to list.

The list of the tribes appears for the first time in Genesis 29:31-30:24 in the order in which the children were born. Since Benjamin was born in the land of Canaan, Dinah appears as the twelfth child of Jacob. This is the only time in the Old Testament in which the tribes are listed in the order of their birth. In the twenty lists where the names of the tribes appear, there are eighteen different orders in which the tribes are mentioned.

In some lists, Levi is counted as one of the twelve tribes, in some others Levi does not appear. When Levi is omitted, the tribe of Joseph appears as two tribes: Ephraim and Manasseh.

In Revelation 7:4-8 John provides a list “of every tribe of the sons of Israel”: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin. In this list, the tribes of Dan and Ephraim are missing. The tribe of Joseph represents the tribe of Ephraim.

In the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 36:6-29, the following tribes appear: Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh, Zebulun, Gad, Dan, Naphtali. This list contains only 10 tribes; the tribes of Simeon and Asher are missing.

In 1 Kings 11:31-32, only eleven tribes appear. In Judges 5:14-18 there are 11 tribes: Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Zebulun, Issachar, Reuben, Gilead, Dan, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. Manasseh is missing. Simeon, Judah, and Levi are also missing. It is possible that the Southern tribes (Simeon and Judah) were not yet part of the confederation of the tribes. In Ezekiel 48 the following tribes are listed: Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, Judah, Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun, and Gad. When the Levites are included, there are thirteen tribes.

All these variations in the listing of the tribes indicate that the number twelve was an artificial arrangement that was also found in other groups outside of Israel. There were the twelve tribes of Nahor (Genesis 22:20-24), the twelve tribes of Ishmael (Genesis 17:20; 25:13-16), and the twelve tribes of Esau (Genesis 36:9-14; 40-43).

The idea of ten tribes presupposes that the Southern Kingdom was composed of only two tribes. However, my reader acknowledges that the Southern Kingdom had three tribes.

In 1 Kings 12:20 we read: “And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.” This verse says that there were only eleven tribes (the ten tribes plus Judah), since only Judah followed the house of David. However, in 1 Kings 12:21 we read: “When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.” Since the tribe of Benjamin followed the tribe of Judah, then the Northern Kingdom had only nine tribes.

2 Chronicles 11:14, says: “For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest’s office unto the Lord.” Since the Levites left the Northern Kingdom to come to Judah, now the Northern Kingdom had only eight tribes.

In addition, 2 Chronicles 11:16 reads: “And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.” This means that many citizens of the North who were faithful Yahwist came to Judah rather than live in the North. In 2 Chronicles 15:8-9 we read about the existence of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. And Simeon is counted as a tribe from Israel.

The Population of the Northern Kingdom

The second factor is the number of people from the Northern Kingdom who were deported to Assyria. My anonymous critic says that the population of the Northern Kingdom was “5 million people” and “probably a lot more.” But this embellished number is contradicted by the archaeological evidence.

Adam Zertal, in his article “The Province of Samaria (Assyrian Samerina) in the Late Iron Age (Iron Age III),” published in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by Oded Lipschitz and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 385, wrote concerning the people from the North who came to worship in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 41:5):

The fact that organized communities of Israelites still saw Jerusalem as their holy place may be interpreted as evidence of the existence of the Yahwistic cult as the main faith in the North, some 150 years after the conquest of Samaria. The archaeological data seem to support this idea, that in spite of the population changes, most of the people remained Israelite in faith. Even if the number of exiled people from Samaria by the Assyrians (approximately 27,000) is reliable, it still did not exceed 20-25% of the Israelite population.

Zertal estimated the population of the Northern Kingdom at the time of the Assyrian conquest to be no more than 100,000, probably 70,000 people. Thus, the population of the Northern Kingdom was smaller than anonymous said it was. But the fact is that many of the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom remained behind. Some of them fled to the Southern Kingdom, as the archaeological evidence demonstrates. Some of them went to Egypt where they organized a large Jewish community, and some of them eventually became the Samaritan people.

There were never ten lost tribes so far as the Bible is concerned, only a dispersion of many Israelites throughout the whole ancient Near East. In fact the 27,000 people carried by the Assyrians into captivity represented only a small fraction of the total population at the time of the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C.

Under Ezra and Nehemiah about 50,000 people returned from Babylon. This is how the Chronicler described the settlement of the people who returned from exile: “Now the first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions in their cities were, the Israelites, the priests, Levites, and the Nethinims. And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim, and Manasseh” (1 Chronicles 9:2-3).

According to the Chronicler, among those tribes that returned from Babylon were people from Ephraim and Manasseh, and they lived in Jerusalem. In addition, the Chronicler makes a distinction between the Israelites and the Judeans who lived in Jerusalem. Thus, the Biblical record indicates that a remnant from all of the tribes returned. The reference to “all Israel” appears in Ezra 1:3; 2:70; 3:11; 6:17, 21; 7:6, 13, 28; 8:25, 35; 10:5 and in Nehemiah 7:73; 8:1, 17; 9:2; 10:33; 11:20; 12:47; 13:3, 18, 26. Thus, according to Ezra and Nehemiah, “all Israel” was not lost.

The Mission of Jeremiah

After the fall of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was taken by force to Egypt. According to the proponents of British-Israelism, Jeremiah, in carrying out his mission as assigned by God, left Egypt and took two princesses of Judah, the daughters of King Zedekiah, to Spain where the younger princess got married. Then, Jeremiah took Zedekiah’s older daughter to Ireland. In Ireland, the older daughter of Zedekiah married the ruler of Ireland. Thus, through Zedekiah’s daughter, the line of David on the throne of Judah was maintained and continues to this day through the British royal family.

This view is contradicted by the Biblical evidence. The line of David was continued through Jehoiachin and not through Zedekiah. Although Jehoiachin was a captive in Babylon, he was still recognized as the legitimate successor to the throne of David (cf. Jeremiah 52:31-34). According to the Weidner Tablets (ANET, 308), Jehoiachin lived in the Babylonian court and the Babylonian king made provisions “for Jehoiachin, the king of the land of Judah and for the five sons of the king of the land of Judah.”

According to the prophet Haggai, the post-exilic community considered making Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and Jehoiachin’s grandson, a king in Judah, before he was probably forced to return to Persia (Haggai 2:23). In addition, the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1:12-16 traces the royal line through Jehoiachin and not through Zedekiah’s daughter.

In his article on “British-Israelism and Pyramidology,” Interpretation 11 (1957), p. 318, Carl Howie wrote:

It is unfortunate that well-meaning people have become dupes of a chauvinistic egotism which substitutes an earthly throne for that which Christ alone can occupy and substitutes an earthly empire for the Kingdom of God. The thought that God’s Kingdom is coextensive with an earthly empire and that the throne of England is the seat of this rule, is abhorrent to all who are acquainted with the profundity of the kingdom and Messiah concepts. That the Kingdom of God is spiritual and not physical is axiomatic and that the church, as it is true to Christ by faith, is the Israel of faith is equally sure (cf. I Peter 2:9-10). To make God the servant and supporter of racism such as the Anglo-Israel movement does directly contradicts both the spirit and letter of the Bible. On the basis of overwhelming evidence we conclude that the British-Israel hypothesis has no basis in fact since no legitimate evidence has been found for its support.

In his article on “Anglo-Israelism,” published in the Jewish Encyclopedia, Joseph Jacobs wrote:

Altogether, by the application of wild guesswork about historical origins and philological analogies, and by a slavishly literal interpretation of selected phrases of prophecy, a case was made out for the identification of the British race with the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel sufficient to satisfy uncritical persons desirous of finding their pride of race confirmed by Holy Scripture. The whole theory rests upon an identification of the word "isles" in the English version of the Bible unjustified by modern philology, which identifies the original word with "coasts" or "distant lands" without any implication of their being surrounded by the sea. Modern ethnography does not confirm in any way the identification of the Irish with a Semitic people; while the English can be traced back to the Scandinavians, of whom there is no trace in Mesopotamia at any period of history. English is a branch of the Aryan stock of languages, and has no connection with Hebrew. The whole movement is chiefly interesting as a reductio ad absurdum of too literal an interpretation of the prophecies.

Although my anonymous reader many never agree with my conclusion, the fact is that British Israelism is based on a biased interpretation of the text, eisegesis, wishful thinking, and a lack of reliable historical evidence. The view that Great Britain and the United States of America are the lost tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh is just a myth.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: British-Israelism, Ephraim , Lost Tribes, Manasseh, Zedekiah

Hezekiah , King of Judah

Today I begin a series of studies on Hezekiah, king of Judah. Hezekiah ruled during a turbulent period in the history of the Southern Kingdom. In upcoming posts I will study the kingship of Hezekiah. The posts will deal with the historical situation in Judah at the time Hezekiah assumed the throne. The studies also will deal with his religious reforms, his attempt at political and economic reforms, his attempt at independence from Assyrian control and the crisis that ensued, his illness, and his relationship with the prophets Isaiah and Micah.

The editors of the Deuteronomic history, the biblical section that includes the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, wrote that Hezekiah, King of Judah, “trusted in the LORD the God of Israel; so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him” (2 Kings 18:5).

In fact, according to the Deuteronomic historians, from the division of the united monarchy in 922 B.C. to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., there were only four kings in Judah who were considered to be good kings, kings who upheld the religious traditions of the worship of Yahweh. Hezekiah is considered one of these four. No king of the Northern Kingdom was deemed to be a good and faithful king, not even Jehu, a faithful Yahwist.

Hezekiah (715-687 B.C.) became king of Judah at a time marked by religious and political crises. Inheriting the kingdom from his father Ahaz, Hezekiah attempted to overthrow Assyrian control and lead Judah back to freedom and independence. However, in the end, the attempt for independence failed.

Hezekiah’s Accession to the Throne

Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz, King of Judah. His mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began his reign and he reigned for twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2).

The precise date for Hezekiah’s accession to the throne is debated because of the conflicting information provided in the biblical record. For instance, 2 Kings 18:10 declares that Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, fell in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign: “In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.”

Samaria was conquered by Sargon II in 722 B.C. thus, the sixth year of Hezekiah and the beginning of his reign would be 728/7. However, 2 Kings 18:13 indicates that Sennacherib’s invasion of Jerusalem occurred during the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign: “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.”

Since Assyrian records indicate that Sennacherib’s invasion took place in 701 B.C., then the accession of Hezekiah to the throne took place in 715 B. C., a date which would place the fall of Samaria during the reign of King Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father. It is possible that Hezekiah ruled as co-regent with Ahaz for fourteen years before becoming king. The reference in 2 Kings 19:9 concerning the confrontation between Sennacherib and Tirhakah, the king of Egypt who ascended the throne in 690, confirms Hezekiah’s 29 years’ reign.

The political situation in the Ancient Near East at the time Hezekiah became king of Judah was very tense because of the presence of Assyria as an imperial power in the region.

Damascus, the capital of the Aramean state, was conquered by Tiglath-pileser III in 732 B.C. According to John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1981), p. 275, Tiglath-pileser ravaged the city, killed the leadership of the Aramean state, deported many of the city’s inhabitants to Kir, and the Aramean state was incorporated into the Assyrian empire and it was divided into four Assyrian provinces (see 2 Kings 16:9). The Northern Kingdom was also conquered by Assyria and had become an Assyrian province.

Because of the threat posed by Assyria, the population of Judah was divided between those who were pro-Assyria and those who were anti-Assyria. 2 Chronicles 28:7 suggests that an unsuccessful effort was made to assassinate Ahaz, either before or during the Syro-Ephraimite war.

The Syro-Ephraimite War (2 Kings 16:5-20; Isaiah 7:1-17), Judah’s war against Syria and Israel, forced Judah to request military help from Assyria, (2 Chronicles 28:6-8). Judah had to deplete the royal treasury in order to pay Assyria for help (2 Kings 16:8). Because of the policies of Ahaz during the Syro-Ephraimite War, Judah had become a vassal of Assyria and was required to pay an annual tribute which was a great burden on the nation’s economic resources. Thus, as a vassal, Judah was now within the sphere of influence of the Assyrian empire.

As a result of Ahaz’s struggle with the Israelite-Syrian coalition, the Edomites invaded Judean territory and recovered Elath. According to 2 Chronicles 28:17, some Judean captives were taken at the time of the invasion. The loss of the port of Ezion-geber was an additional economic burden on Judah because with the loss of the port, Judah lost an important trade route.

Additionally, the Philistines raided the Shephelah and the Negeb of Judah and conquered several cities, including Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo settled in them (2 Chronicles 28:18).

Another factor that made an impact on Hezekiah’s reign was the religious life of Judah. Since the days of Ahaz, the religious situation of Judah had deteriorated. As a vassal of Assyria, Judah probably was required to pay homage to the Assyrian gods.

Ahaz introduced a copy of the Assyrian altar into the temple of Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:10-20). Ahaz also introduced Assyrian pagan practices (2 Chronicles 28:23). According to the Biblical text, Ahaz practiced many other pagan rituals: child sacrifice (2 Kings 16:3), he worshiped on high places (2 Kings 16:4), and he also practiced solar worship (2 Kings 23:12; 20:8-11). So, when Hezekiah became king of Judah he recognized the need for political and religious reforms in Judah.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Assyria, Hezekiah

Transvestism in Ancient Israel

The psychological anomaly of transvestism refers to the desire of a person of one gender to dress in the garments of a person of the other gender. In cross-dressing, a man has the abnormal desire to dress like a woman, and a woman desires to dress like a man.

Transvestism tends to emphasize the increased comfort and the gratification that a person enjoys in the role of the other gender. The transvestite’s impulse to wear clothing appropriate to the opposite sex many times is defined as an artistic enjoyment in the appreciation of the beautiful, but often it is a manifestation of homosexuality.

Deuteronomy 22:5 is a law that prohibits transvestism in Israel. The text reads as follows:

“A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.”

Although this text has been used in many Christian churches as a justification to prohibit a woman from wearing pants in church, the text does not address how a woman should dress in church.

Joan of Arc was condemned by the Church for her refusal to submit to the authority of her inquisitors on the matter of her short hair and the clothes she wore. For this reason Joan of Arc was sent to her death for violating the Biblical law against a woman wearing men’s garments as stipulated in Deuteronomy 22:5.

Although the meaning of the verse seems to be clear when superficially read, the translation of the text is made difficult because of the unclear meaning of the word kelî geber. The versions differ in their translation of this Hebrew expression:

“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God” (ESV).

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God” (KJV).

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this” (NIV).

“A woman must not dress like a man, nor a man like a woman; anyone who does this is detestable to Yahweh your God” (NJB).

“A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God” (RSV).

Thus, the expression kelî geber has been translated as “man’s clothing,” “ a man’s garment,” “that which pertaineth unto a man,” “to dress like a man,” “anything that pertains to a man,” “man’s apparel,” “an article proper to a man.” This expression is different from the second expression in the text, the Hebrew expression śimlat ’iššāh which means “the garment of a woman.”

According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), p. 440, the word kelî has the following meanings: “armor,” “bag,” “carriage,” “furniture,” “instrument,” “jewels,” “sacks,” “stuff,” “things,” “tools,” “vessels,” and “weapons.”

Harold Vedeler, in his article “Reconstructing Meaning in Deuteronomy 22:5: Gender, Society, and Transvestitism in Israel and the Ancient Near East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 127 (2008) 459-476, based on the studies of Hittite society and culture by Harry Hoffner and on semantic studies in Akkadian, concluded that the word kelî in Deuteronomy 22:5 means a weapon, which was the symbol of a man’s power. Vedeler wrote:

He [Hoffner] concludes that Deut 22:5 was meant to prevent women from usurping masculine symbols and the power that went with them, but since clothing was not specifically identified with masculinity the way it was with femininity, the prevention of women taking on a male role was achieved not through a clothing ban but rather through a tool or weapon ban. Similarly, he argues that the ban on men wearing female clothing was designed not to prevent men from usurping female power, but to prevent that power from weakening them.

Although scholars have rejected the anti-transvestism law of Deuteronomy 22:5 to be a ban on Canaanite practices, I take the view that this Deuteronomic prohibition is a protest against the immoral practices of Canaanite fertility religion.

My view is based on the statement in the text that the practice of transvestism in ancient Israel was considered to be “an abomination to the Yahweh.” The expression “an abomination to the Yahweh” generally refers to cultic practices which endanger the purity of the religion of Yahweh. Since the reason offered by the Deuteronomic writer for the prohibition of transvestism in Israel uses the strong argument that it is an abomination to Yahweh, then, the practice of cross-dressing suggests some kind of cultic offense.

Richard D. Nelson, in his book Deuteronomy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), p. 264, suggests that the expression “a woman must not wear a man’s apparel” refers to an article appropriate to a man. He proposes that the Deuteronomic law is a prohibition of a woman wearing an artificial phallus.

In his commentary on Deuteronomy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1951), p. 250, S. R. Driver offered the following suggestion:

No doubt the prohibition is not intended as a mere rule of conventional propriety,—though, even as such, it would be an important safeguard against obvious moral dangers,—but is directed against the simulated changes of sex which occurred in Canaanite and Syrian heathenism, to the grave moral deterioration of those who adopted them.

There was in Cyprus a statue of a bearded Venus who was considered to be of both sexes and to whom sacrifice was offered by men dressed as women, and women dressed as men: and noisy processions of Galli, or eunuch-priests of Cybele, the mother of the gods, paraded the towns and villages of Syria, Asia Minor, and other parts, attired as women, and soliciting the populace to unholy rites.

In the fertility cult of Baal and Asherah there were two groups of functionaries called qedēšim (קדשים) and qedēšot (קדשות). In Hebrew the two words literally mean “the holy ones.” Many English Bibles translate the word qed šim as “male cult prostitutes” (1 Kings 15:12) and the word qed šot as “female cult prostitutes” (Hosea 4:14).

Two texts in the book of Kings may explain the prohibition against transvestism in Deuteronomy 22:5. The first text, 2 Kings 23:7, reads as follows:

He [Josiah] tore down the apartments of the cult prostitutes which were in the temple of the LORD, and in which the women wove garments for the Asherah.

The second text, 2 Kings 10:22, reads as follows:

He [Jehu] said to him who was in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out the vestments for all the worshipers of Baal.”

It is clear from 2 Kings 10:22 that the temple personnel, both the male and the female sacred prostitutes wore special garments that identified them with the worship of Asherah. Since the practice of fertility religion involved the sexual act between the worshipers and the temple functionaries, such a practice was an abomination to Yahweh.

Thus, Deuteronomy 22:5 is more than just a prohibition on the wearing of everyday clothing. As Vedeler wrote (p. 474):

The verse is much more than a simple prohibition of particular wardrobes, and indeed in no way addresses the issue of women wearing masculine garments, since in the culture of ancient Israel the clothing of men was less associated with gender than was the clothing of women.

The law in Deuteronomy 22:5 is a prohibition against Israelite men and women wearing the garments that would identify them as worshipers of Asherah. Since those garments were dedicated to Asherah and since the servants of Asherah wore identical garments, any Israelite man or any Israelite woman who wore these garments would be committing an abomination against Yahweh.

Transvestism is a violation of the natural order and as such, it should not be practiced by the followers of Yahweh. Deuteronomy 22:5 is prohibiting a specific kind of transvestism, one in which men dressed as women and women dressed as men would identify themselves as servants of Asherah, prostitute themselves in the temple of Yahweh, and thus bring ritual impurity to the worship of the God of Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Asherah, Deuteronomy 26:5, Transvestism, Transvestite

Rereading Micah 6:8 “What the Lord Requires” - Part 2

In Part 1 of this study, I discussed how the prophet Micah presented the Lord’s case against Israel. In the present post I will discuss what the Lord requires of his followers. However, before reflecting on what God requires from his people, it becomes necessary to look at God’s case against Israel again.

The issue raised by Micah was that Israel had rejected the good. This was the same accusation brought by Hosea against the people of the Northern Kingdom: “Israel has rejected what is good” (Hosea 8:3). What Hosea and Micah were declaring to the people was that they had abandoned the requirements that Yahweh had imposed on the nation. These requirements involved the people’s social and moral responsibilities toward each other and toward God.

So, Micah rejected the suggestions made by the people that more sacrifices and offerings would please Yahweh. He also rebuked the people for their failure to understand what God demanded from his followers. Micah’s words are similar to Hosea’s exhortation to Israel: “So now, come back to your God! Act on the principles of love and justice, and always live in confident dependence on your God” (Hosea 12:6 NLT).

The first requirement refers to the moral obligation that existed among the members of the covenant community. The expression “O man” has been understood to have a universal application, that is, that it applies to people everywhere. But the prophet was not addressing humanity in general; he was exhorting people who followed God.

Justice was expected of those people who were joined together in a community bound by the bonds of the covenant. To do justice is to do what is right according to the demands stipulated in the covenant between God and Israel.

The third requirement, “To walk humbly with God” refers to a way of life in which an individual does not live independently of God but lives within the will and ways of God. This expression also means to live in a personal relationship with God. Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:22) and so did Noah (Genesis 6:9).

It is the second requirement that requires explanation. The Lord requires that his followers “love mercy.” But, what does it mean “to love mercy”? The English dictionary defines “mercy” as “the compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender,” “pity,” benevolence,” and “an act of kindness or compassion.” However, here Micah is not saying that the Lord is requiring”kindness” or “pity.” The Lord requires these things from his followers, but not in Micah 6:8.

The word “mercy” is a translation of the Hebrew hesed. The word hesed is used in the Old Testament to describe God’s faithful commitment to Israel even when the nation was unfaithful to God. The word is also used to describe the conduct God expected from each Israelite: “For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6).

In previous studies of the word hesed in the Old Testament (see below), I have shown that the word should be translated “commitment,” “faithfulness,” “loyalty.”

So, what God requires of his followers is not sacrifice or something material that can be quantified and understood as a way of bribing God. What God requires of his people is faithfulness and commitment to the relationship established by the covenant. He requires the giving of one’s life to him and to his way of life and that one rejoice in living that kind of life.

What God requires is not doing good for good’s sake. What God requires of his followers is that they be committed and love being committed to God.

If we take the word hesed in Micah 6:8 and translate it as “commitment” or “loyalty,” then Micah 6:8 would read as follow:

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love commitment [or “love being committed”] and to walk humbly with your God.

Loving being committed to God is what God requires of his followers.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Note: Other studies on the word hesed:

Rereading Isaiah 40:6

The Inconsistencies of the NIV - Part 2

Tags: Commitment, Faithfulness, Hesed, Loyalty, Micah 6:8

The Best of Biblia Hebraica

Biblia Hebraica is celebrating its first anniversary.

Douglas Mangum’s blog deals with the Hebrew Bible, Biblical interpretation, and topics related to the Ancient Near East, Syro-Palestinian archaeology, early Judaism, early Christianity, New Testament interpretation, and English Bible translations.

To celebrate the blog’s first anniversary, Douglas has prepared a list of what he considers his best posts from 2008. The posts are listed in chronological order and cover his best posts through July 2008. A future post will cover the rest of the year.

Look at Douglas’ list and you will discover that his posts are well written and cover a wide selection of topics.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blogging, Hebrew Bible,

Danube Delta Holds Answers to Noah’s Flood Debate

An article published by Insciences Organization says that there is no evidence for a catastrophic flood that wiped out Neolithic settlements near the Black Sea and inspired the story of Noah’s Ark. According to a geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers.

The article says:

In the late 1990s, Columbia University researchers Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman examined the geological evidence and estimated the Black Sea level at the time of the flood was approximately 80 meters lower than present day levels. They suggested that the impact of a Black Sea flood could have forced the movement of early agriculturist groups to central Europe and established the story of Noah and his ark.

However, Liviu Giosan, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, investigated core samples taken from the delta of the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea, and concluded that the core samples do not provide evidence for a catastrophic flood like the one described in the book of Genesis.

Read the article here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Flood, Noah’s Ark,

The Map of the Middle East Knowledge

How is your knowledge of the Middle East? How about Africa?

We often talk about the wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, and Iran. But, do we really know where these places are located on a map?

Visit the Map of the Middle East. Then, drag the names of the countries to their correct locations.

I have to confess that I struggled with Africa.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Geography, Middle East

Rereading Micah 6:8 “What the Lord Requires”

Part 1: The Presentation of the Lord’s Case

Micah 6:8 is a verse very familiar to students of the Bible because it describes what God requires of his followers.

The context of this verse, Micah 6:1-8, contains words that are connected with the court of law in ancient Israel. In the Old Testament, it was common for the elders of a city to come together and hold court in open places near the city gate (Amos 5:10; Ruth 4:1).

At these gatherings, the people came to the elders for legal decisions. In these local courts, legal procedure and language were used and the proceedings would be familiar to most people. When addressing the people of Judah, Micah used the language of the courts and his listeners understood the seriousness of the charges brought against them.

When Micah spoke to the people, he used the word rib. The verbal form of the word rib is used in Micah 6:1 and it is translated plead your case. The noun form of the word occurs twice in Micah 6:2 and it is translated controversy. With these words Micah is acting as Yahweh’s lawyer in a covenantal lawsuit, indicating that Yahweh had a legal case against his people.

The Lawyer Summons the People To Court:

“Now listen to what the LORD is saying: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Listen to the LORD’s lawsuit, you mountains and enduring foundations of the earth, because the LORD has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel” (Micah 6:1-2).

Yahweh Presents His Case:

“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD” (Micah 6:3-5).

The People Present Their Defense:

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:6-7).

The Lawyer Presents the Verdict:

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Micah begins the Lord’s case against Israel by calling the mountains to be witnesses in the legal proceedings. In the covenants known in the Ancient Near East, the gods were called as witnesses to verify a violation of the covenant. Since Israel was not allowed to have other gods before Yahweh, the everlasting foundations of the earth served as witnesses of God’s case against Israel.

Yahweh presents his case by reminding the people of how much he had done for them. He delivered them from the oppressive life they lived in Egypt; he delivered them from the house of slavery; he sent them three great leaders to help them on their journey from Egypt to Canaan; and he delivered them from the hands of Balak, king of Moab, and from the curses of Balaam, the false prophet. Yahweh did all these things so that the people might appreciate his mighty work.

After Yahweh presented his case, the people presented their defense.

In their minds the people believed they had already done enough. They had brought sacrifices to the temple and made their offerings to God. Now they asked the prophet what else they needed to do. “What else must I do to show proper respect to God?” The people wondered what else God was requiring of them: more offerings and more yearling calves? Do we need to give to God thousands of rams? Or olive oil in abundance? Or even the sacrifice of our firstborn child?

After both cases were presented, the prophet presented the decision of the court. What the Lord wanted was not more sacrifices nor elaborate rituals. Rather, Micah declared what the Lord required of his people:

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Tomorrow: Part 2 - "What the Lord Requires"

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Commitment, Faithfulness, Hesed, Loyalty, Micah 6:8

“The Time Has Come To Set Aside Childish Things”

The above statement was made by President Barack Obama in his inaugural address.

Cathleen Falsani, the Religion Columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, analyzes Obama’s use of 1 Corinthians 13: 11 in his inaugural address.

Falsani wrote:

How interesting that the Bible passage about growing up and putting away childish things (in the name of love) was chosen by our 47-year-old president and his 27-year-old chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau — perhaps the youngest team ever to craft a U.S. presidential inaugural address.

I wonder whether they chose the passage from 1 Corinthians in part to evoke another letter written by St. Paul. In 1 Timothy, the apostle Paul writes to his young friend Timothy, an evangelist in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor.

“Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young,” St. Paul told Timothy, “but be an example for other believers in your speech, behavior, love, faithfulness, and purity.”

As the American people begin to grasp the implications of the election of the first African-American to the Presidency of the United States, maybe the time has come to set aside childish things.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Barack Obama, Cathleen Falsani, Inaugural Address

Calling God Allah

My fellow blogger anthony at old testament passion has an interesting post on the struggle of the Catholic Church in Malaysia with the government’s ban on the use of the word “Allah” for God.

Here is an excerpt from anthony’s post:

Parishioners here have held all-night vigils the past two weekends to pray for a favorable outcome to a long-running battle between their Catholic weekly and the government on the use of the word Allah.

For the past few years, Herald has been engaged in a dispute with the government on the use of the Arabic word for God in the section of the weekly printed in Bahasa Malaysia, the national language. The Home Ministry has maintained that Allah refers exclusively to the God of Islam.

Parishioners of the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Petaling Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur, have prayed overnight in the church on Saturdays, from 7.45 p.m. until 6 a.m., starting on Jan. 10.
One parishioner, who requested anonymity, told UCA News their action intends to show not only the government but also Catholics that all people have the constitutional right to call God Allah.

According to anthony, it is not only the Catholic Church in Malaysia that is using the word Allah, but all Christian churches use Allah to name their God. However, the government says that only Muslims can use the name of God. Anthony said that the word “Allah” has been used for long time in Malaysia as the proper Malay translation for “God.”

If you decide to read the article, I also recommend that you read the comments made to anthony’s post. In the comments, anthony provides some additional information about this controversy.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Allah, God,Malaysia

George Bush Was Not the Antichrist

Yesterday at noon, just as required by the Constitution of the United States, Barack Obama took the oath of office and officially became the 44th President of the United States. The peaceful transition of power between George Bush and Barack Obama is a proof that George W. Bush was not the Anticrist, the False Prophet, or the Beast.

I make the statement above aware that many people firmly believed that George Bush was the Antichrist. On June 6, 2006 (06-06-06 or 666 for short), a day called “The Day of the Antichrist,” I wrote a post, “Is George Bush the 666 (the Antichrist)?”

My post was written in response to a post written by Stephen Hanchett who developed a theory based on the letters in the name George Bush and concluded that when the letters are added up, the name in Hebrew comes out to 666.

In his post, Hanchett wrote:

“I submit to you that George Walker Bush is the ANTI-CHRIST. The violence and destruction that began when Bush first entered office, is now certain to culminate in the apocalypse, as predicted in the Bible over 2,000 years ago.”

My post on George Bush generated almost one hundred comments. Some readers agreed with my conclusions, while the majority agreed with Hanchett and declared in many different ways that George Bush was the Antichrist. I got so tired of debating with Bush haters that I promised that on January 21, 2009 I would write again on this subject.

I am not a prophet, but the peaceful transition of power proved that my interpretation of the Bible was right and that those who said that Bush was the Antichrist were wrong. Below, I have selected a sample of the comments of those who believed that Bush was the Devil incarnate.

Stephen Hanchett wrote:

“It’s obvious that the horns represent the powerful men who have come to successively rule over this American empire. Daniel even says so quite explicitly Dan 7: 24 >the ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones. (the Antichrist) America acquired superpower status and gained the reach of a world class Empire when it acquired the nuclear bomb, at the very end of WWII. Since then there have been exactly ten >kings= or post war presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, BushSr, and Clinton. The prophecy from Daniel says that after these ten presidents, there will appear another one, an arrogant ‘little horn’, which is the Antichrist, George W Bush Jr. It says this ‘little horn’ is unlike any of the other ten presidents, and this is an obvious reference to the fact that Bush has no popular mandate, that he lost the popular vote, and was appointed to the office by five un elected judges on the Supreme Court. This has never happened before in American history, and that’s what makes him so different from all his presidential predecessors - that and his arrogance, dishonesty and lust for world power.”

My response:

Anyone familiar with the interpretation of the book of Daniel realizes that most of the interpretation above is nonsense. The book of Daniel is an apocalyptic book that was written to inspire the Jewish community to endure the hardships the community was facing because of the oppressive policies of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Anonymous wrote:

I have read Hatchett's book and have found it to be extremely accurate. I am also a Baptist. Although, W is not Mabus (because Mabus first dies, then the antichrist is revealed) I do believe W is the antichrist. He will fool even the elect, so stay on guard at all times. Pray for everything. Believe in God above all else.

My response:

If you believe that Hatchett’s book is extremely accurate, then, you either misread what he wrote or else you want to believe what he wrote. You say that you believe W is the Antichrist. When January 2009 comes, you will discover how wrong you are.

Anonymous wrote:

george walker busche(actual spelling of his name, in english, numerically is: 666) is the antichrist. he has turned nation against nation, regular american people against each other, he has killed countless people and small animals. He talks peace out of one side of his mouth, and death and war out of the other. MABUS(Suddam, anagram for MABUS) has been hung, now or shortly, the antichrist will show his true colors and you will all know what I have suspected all along. Pray and be alert all you elect.

My response:

You and all those who say that George Bush is the Antichrist need to study your Bible a little bit more. Two years from now when Bush leaves the White House and becomes just another ex-President, you and all those who believe that he is the 666 will have a lot of explaining to do. It is because of people who misinterpret the Bible that the world laughs at the church and Christianity.

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe Bush intends to make himself the King of Iraq, who knows? Just keep a watch and be on guard.

My response:

In response to this comment I wrote a post entitled George W. Bush, King of Iraq


A reader wrote:

When I first saw the world famous film Conan The Barbarian, I knew then, based on my years of research on The Bible, the occult/satanists/secret societies, and all the other banned texts from The Bible, that The Biblical Antichrist was a man named Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger.

George W. Bush is The Biblical False Prophet. The most vile and evil liar I have ever seen. He will implement the 666. He is the leader of the Great Beast (USA) or what the Muslims call "The Great Satan." He will give power and authority over to Arnold. Exactly what Bush is, is Satan in human form.

Another reader wrote:

I accept that bush is the Anti-Christ. He is on the team with those who commit terror against their own people, and then blame it on a foreign power. 9/11 was a clear example of this.

Anonymous wrote:

The global reach of Bush is most certainly open for the possibility of him being an antichrist. In a way I could see this being a real possibility. He (with our military has subdued 2 kings and the bible states that the antichrist will subdue 3 kings. Bush has authorized and congress has already passed the real ID to be issued in 2008 which of course is not far off from an implantable chip. With the power grab Bush has created, it wouldn't take anything more than another imagined terrorist attack for him to stay in power.

A reader wrote:

A nuclear war or other giant catastrophe, such as the nuclear destruction of an American city by terrorism, could easily enable Bush to continue for another 4 years. This would then put the final apocalypse near the famous doomsday date, 2012.

A reader who calls himself “The Second Coming of Christ” wrote:

As the Second Coming of Christ....I can say with ALL “certainty” that George W. Bush IS INDEED the 3rd AntiChrist. When a person is the President of the United States ..... you aren't just supposed to do what you "think is best for America."

Anonymous wrote:

Beware of bush and the fascist government he has established in the U.S. bush may actually be the antichrist with Pat Robertson as his false prophet.

My response to several readers:

To all of you who posted comments to this post:

Thank you for your comments, opinions, and observations. Some of your ideas and views are too far out for me to respond.

In a few months the man will be out of office and at that time, all of you who believe George Bush is the Beast, the Antichrist, the False Prophet, Azazel, and a few other evil characters of history will have to confess that you were wrong.

An Anonymous who disagreed with my view that George Bush was not the Antichrist wrote:

Dr. Mariottini you are stupid, deluded, blind and arrogant.

My Response:

I may be all these things, but at least I know the Bible.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: 666, Antichrist, George Bush

The Death of Oscar Romo

The Baptist Press is reporting that Oscar Romo, the former Director of Ethnic Evangelism for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, died on January 16, 2009, at the age of 79.

The following is an excerpt of the press release published by the Baptist Press:

CUMMING, Ga. (BP)--Oscar I. Romo, a pioneer in ethnic evangelism and church planting for the Home Mission Board (now the North American Mission Board), died Friday, Jan. 16, of pneumonia related to Parkinson's disease.

A memorial service for Romo, who was two weeks shy of his 80th birthday, was held at John's Creek Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Ga., on Monday, Jan. 19. Featured speakers included Fermin Whittaker, executive director of the California Southern Baptist Convention.

Two years ago, during the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio, Romo was honored by Hispanic Southern Baptists for his nearly 50 years of strategy development and work with ethnic groups, dating back to his first pastorate in 1948 until his retirement from the mission board in 1995.

I worked with Oscar Romo while I served as pastor of Spanish-speaking churches in California and as a missionary with the Portuguese and Brazilians in San Francisco. My association with Romo dates back to 1966 when I began working with the Home Mission Board; it lasted until 1978 when I moved to Kentucky to attend The Southern Baptist Seminary.

Romo was a visionary leader who opened the doors to hundreds of young leaders to study, to be trained, and to serve in ethnic ministries. With Romo’s help, I was able to finish my college and seminary education while serving as a pastor and as a missionary.

Oscar Romo had a vision for ethnic evangelism and he believed that educated leaders could make a difference in the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1968, when the Southern Baptist Convention met in Houston, Texas, I made a motion from the floor of the Convention, that the Southern Baptist Convention elect more ethnic pastors and leaders to serve on the Boards and Committees of the Convention.

The motion was defeated, but Romo told me that the motion alone would move the Convention to elect more ethnic pastors and leaders to its Boards and Conventions. He was right; today many ethnic leaders serve in various positions within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Oscar Romo leaves a great legacy behind. This legacy is present in the lives of leaders he trained and in the ministries of the many churches he helped organize.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Oscar Romo

From Text to Sermon: Isaiah 9:1-7

This study of Isaiah 9:1-7 is a continuation of a series of studies on preaching from the Old Testament. These studies are derived from a series of Advent sermons preached at Trinity Baptist Church of Chicago, the church where I have served as pastor since 1989.

The Text

1 But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness -- on them light has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. 4 For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Historical Background

In 734 B.C. Assyria invaded the Northern Kingdom and conquered several cities in Israel (2 Kings 15:29). As a result, many people were deported to Assyria and Israel became a vassal state.

The deportation of the Northern tribes produced a crisis of faith in which the people were confronted with the possibilities that God might have abandoned them. This was the worst of times and the best of times. However, the worst of times, a time of “gloom,” of “anguish,” and of “contempt” became the best of times, a time of joy and rejoicing.

During this crisis in their lives, many Israelites doubted God’s goodness and God’s power to save. Some wondered if God’s people would ever again find peace and unity, while others believed that some day God would bring the restoration of the nation under the leadership of a new ruler, a ruler who would be a descendant of David.

The words of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 9:1-7) are a confession of faith in God and in the future of God’s people. According to the prophet, God would fulfill his promise to David and raise another leader who would bring redemption to Israel. This new king would bring salvation to a hopeless people and liberate them from their enemies and Israel would forever live in peace under the leadership of this new David.

Exegesis

V. 1. The people of Zebulun and Naphtali who lived in the region of Galilee were the first ones to suffer the oppression of the enemy and they would be the first ones to experience the salvation of God.

Galilee of the nations. This region was called “Galilee of the nations” because of the many non-Jews who lived in the area. The prophet uses the words gloom, anguish, and contempt to describe the feelings of the people. These were the people who needed the good news the prophet was proclaiming. These same words also reflect the needs of people today who need the good news of Christ’s birth. He was born and died to save people who face this kind of despondency in their lives.

V. 2. The people’s oppressive experience produced a “darkness of the soul.” The people are pictured as walking in darkness because they were deprived of the worship God in their native country. God is light and those who live without him are in darkness (1 John 1:5-6). Some people were forced to worship Assyrian gods; others were influenced by the non-Jews who lived among them. The expression “deep darkness” is the same word used in Psalm 23:4: the valley of the shadow of death (ESV). The experience of the people in Galilee could be compared to a person who faces the anguish of death.

The people who lived in the time of Christ had nothing good to say about this region: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46; see also Matthew 26:69; Mark 14:70). However, it was in this area where Jesus lived and grew up. Jesus was born among people who were despised and who had no hope. Jesus is the hope of the hopeless.

The light that was shining upon the people was a symbol of life, salvation, and joy. Something happened in those days that produced hope in the lives of people, and that hope was reflected in their great joy (v.3). The light that was shining upon them was the presence of God among his people.

V. 3. The first part of the verse probably speaks of the increased Gentile population in Galilee. All of them rejoiced in what God was doing. You have increased its joy. The reading of the King James Version should be rejected here: not increased the joy. The reading of the KJV is based on a secondary reading of the text.

God is the one doing the work: The word You appears three times in the text. The salvation of men and women is not accomplished by human work, but by the direct intervention of God.

V. 4. After the Assyrian conquest, the people of Israel were placed under the burden of tribute and forced labor. The word oppressor refers to the economic oppression and the servitude imposed upon the people. All these burdens will be removed in the same way burdens were removed in the days of Gideon (Judges 6:1-8:35).

V. 5. God’s intervention will eliminate the threat of war. In one great battle the enemies of God’s people will be conquered and the soldier’s equipment used in war will be destroyed or made irrelevant.

V. 6. The reason for the great joy among the people was the birth of a child. The reference to the son that was born is a reference to the enthronement of a new king, probably Hezekiah. The day of the ascension of David’s descendant upon the throne was the day the king became the son of God by adoption (see Psalm 2:7).

The titles given to the new king are the ideals to be achieved by any son of David. However, no human king ever attained these ideals. So, these ideals were taken from the human king and transferred to a future king of Israel, God’s anointed, Jesus Christ.

Wonderful Counselor. This title expresses the wisdom required of the king to guide and direct his people.

Mighty God (or “Mighty Warrior”). This title refers to the power and the fullness of God the king needed to defend and protect his people.

Everlasting Father. This title refers to the king as the one who guided his people with fatherly love in the same way God loves and cares for his people.

Prince of Peace. This title reflects the king as the one who brought wholeness to everyone, leading them to find their destiny in the fullness of God.

V. 7. The new king would be a good king like David and rule his people as the ideal king (see Psalm 72).

Application

In preparing a sermon from this passage, the text should be coupled with either John 1:1-5 or John 8:12-20 or both.

In preparing a sermon from this text, the following titles are possible:

Advent: The Worst of Times and the Best of Times

Advent: Deep Darkness and Wonderful Light

Introduce the text by familiarizing the congregation with the Assyrian invasion and the aftermath of the war: deportation to Assyria, death of thousands, destruction of property. Explain the consequences of exile and deportation.

The first section of the sermon should introduce both the worst of times and the best of times for Israel. The worst of times (or deep darkness): the experience of gloom, anguish, and contempt people feel when they are suffering, when they are rejected. Speak about the oppression people faced then and now: spiritual, economic, and physical oppression. Describe what it means to live without hope.

Israel’s “best of times” was the arrival of the new king. Discuss the hopes people had for a good king. Explain his titles and what was expected of the king according to Psalm 72. Although Hezekiah was a good king, he was only human, unable to rule in justice and righteousness. The light people saw was only a prelude to a great eclipse. Soon darkness was over the land again until the true light that enlightens every person came into the world (John 1:9).

The second section of the sermon should introduce both the worst of times and the best of times for people today. Speak of the anguish, the loneliness, the gloom, the oppression of people today. Compare this with walking in darkness, with living without hope, with being alone. Then introduce the best of times: Jesus Christ, the light of the world that came to provide light to those who live in darkness. Here you should emphasize walking in darkness in Isaiah 9:1 and Jesus’ promise in John 8:12. Jesus said: “I am the light of the world- whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Also, use the play on light and darkness in John 1:1-5. Tell the congregation what happens when Jesus becomes the light of our lives. Paul said: “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

The third section or the conclusion of the sermon should be an invitation for people to come and enjoy the best of times: life in Christ. Or the conclusion could be an invitation for people to abandon darkness, anguish, gloom, and despair and walk in the light and enjoy the fulness of life in Christ.

Jesus came to dispel darkness. Whatever problems might be casting deep darkness in the hearts and minds of the people in your congregation, the true light that enlightens every person can transform their darkness into light.

Other studies in this series:

1. Preaching from the Old Testament

2. Preaching on the Messianic Prophecies

3. Preaching from Jeremiah 23:5-6

4. From Text to Sermon: Micah 5:2-4

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hezekiah, Isaiah 9, Messiah

Studying the Torah

I am glad to help my Jewish friends promote the reading and the studying of the Torah.

Watch this video.






Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Torah

The Sin of Judgmentalism

Rabbi Yonason Goldson, writing in an article entitled “When prejudices become principles,” said that we live “in the kind of lobotomized society where there is no greater sin than judgmentalism.”

The following is an excerpt from his article:

“We must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.”

This concise jewel of wisdom, from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, may eventually take its place as either the standard or the epitaph of Western Civilization. While the evolution of social sensitivity can claim an impressive record of civil rights legislation, we have now to question whether our collective obsession with personal privilege threatens the very foundations of the legal system that protects us.

For his inauguration this Tuesday, soon-to-be President Barak Obama has chosen evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation. Instantaneously, the politically correct Left launched its blitzkrieg, excoriating Reverend Warren for the unpardonable sin of supporting Proposition 8, California's recent gay-marriage ban. Because he used his First Amendment rights to speak his conscience, and because he recognizes his obligation as a representative of religious conviction to defend religious doctrine, Reverend Warren finds himself where almost all defenders of moral integrity now find themselves: under attack by the zealots of moral anarchy.

The offensive against Reverend Warren may not rank among the most disturbing examples in the aftermath of California's Proposition 8 referendum. In Riverside, California, 40 to 50 signs supporting Proposition 8 were found arranged in the form of a swastika on the front lawn of a Roman Catholic church. Mormon temples in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, along with a Catholic Knights of Columbus printing press in Connecticut, received packages containing white powder presumably intended to imitate the 2001 anthrax scare. Reports from around the country include harassment, vandalism, and disruption of church services.

What would Justice Brandeis say?

The answer to this question can be found by reading this excellent article here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Anarchy, Judgmentalism, Morality

Natural Gas Discovered in Israel

News report published in Israel Today:

Natural gas find could transform Israeli economy

Noble Energy Inc. announced on Sunday that one of its exploratory wells off the coast of Israel had discovered three enormous underwater gas reservoirs.

The reservoirs are about 50 miles off the coast of the northern Israel port city of Haifa, and could mark the largest natural gas find in history, according to Yitzhak Tshuva, whose Delek Group Ltd. is one of the owners of the well.

Tshuva told Army Radio that the find could transform the Israeli economy.

"We will no longer be dependent [on foreign sources] for our gas, and will even export," said Tshuva. "We are dealing with inconceivably huge quantities; Israel now has a solution for the future generations."

Israeli Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer described the discovery as "historic."

This is good news for Israel. Until now, Israel was dependent on foreign sources for their supply of natural gas. Now they can become independent of foreign sources and become suppliers of natural gas.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Israel, Natural Gas,

British Driver Refuses to Drive the “Godless Bus”

J. P. van de Giessen has informed me that the Dutch paper Reformatorisch Dagblad is reporting that a Christian bus driver from the city of Southampton last weekend refused to drive a bus carrying the advertisement promoting atheism. The bus carrying the promotion has been called “The Godless Bus.”

According to the Dutch newspaper, the driver said that when he first saw the slogan, he was shocked and appalled. So, he felt that he could not drive the bus. When his bosses said they had no other bus available, he went home. The bus company has promised him that he could drive a bus without the atheist message.

It seems that in a secular society like the one in Great Britain, some Christians have made a decision to stand for their faith.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God

Mesopotamia and Paris Hilton

What did ancient Mesopotamians had in common with Paris Hilton today?

Well, you will have to read this article to find out what the Mesopotamians of 5,000 years ago had in common with Paris Hilton today.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Mesopotamia, Paris Hilton,

“So Help Me God”: Atheists Lost Their Case

The Washington Post is reporting that a federal judge has cleared the way for government officials and ministers to pray and make references to God during the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday.

According to the Post,

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton refused to grant an injunction preventing such references in a lawsuit brought by a group of atheists. The atheists had argued that the use of prayer and the words “so help me God” by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. while administering the oath of office violated their Constitutional rights. Walton ruled that he did not have the power to prevent Obama from making such references or inviting ministers on stage to offer prayers.

The group of atheists, led by Californian Michael A. Newdow, sued Roberts, several officials in charge of inaugural festivities, the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery and megachurch pastor Rick Warren.

They filed the complaint in U.S. District Court. Newdow failed in similar lawsuits to remove prayer from President Bush’s swearing-in ceremonies in 2001 and 2005.

Roberts will administer the oath of office to Obama at the Jan. 20 ceremony. Warren and Lowery are scheduled to deliver the invocation and benediction, respectively.

Newdow and others urged Walton to prevent Roberst from using the phrase "so help me God” in the inaugural oath. They said those words have no place in the Constitution and had been used only “intermittantly” in the oath until 1933 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. They called the use of “so help me God” an “unauthorized alteration” by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who administers the oath.

The decision of the court reflects the sentiment of the majority of the American people.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God,

The Atheist Bus and the God Question

The Christian Science Monitor has published an interesting article on The Atheist Bus Campaign going on in Britain.

The Atheist Bus Campaign is the first effort at mass marketing atheism in Britain. The sign was placed on more than 800 British buses with the slogan: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

When The Atheist Bus Campaign was organized, Richard Dawkins, the leading British atheist and author of The God Delusion predicted that Christians would be offended by the campaign. He said: “They have to take offense, it is the only weapons they’ve got. They’ve got no arguments.”

But, according to the article in The Christian Science Monitor, the response by most Christian leaders was not what the atheist community expected.

“Religious institutes, church pastors, and divinity school professors have not treated the ads with Old Testament wrath, but with a relatively open mind and even embrace of so important an issue,” the article said.

The article gives the reaction of several religious leaders in London:

“The campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life,” says the Rev. Jenny Ellis, Spirituality and Discipleship Officer of Britain’s Methodist church.

“Many people simply never think about God or religion as a serious question, and if this prods them a little bit, then that’s great,” says the Rev. Stephen Wang, of the Westminster diocese of the Roman Catholic church.

The article also mentioned Karl Barth and his endorsement of Feuerbach’s book:

The Lutheran Karl Barth, a leading 20th-century European theologian, wrote the forward to the English language version of Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach’s prominent atheist critique, “The Essence of Christianity.” Barth wasn’t worried about the atheism, says Herman Waetjen, professor emeritus of New Testament studies at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, because Barth felt Feuerbach exposed many fault lines, mistakes, social and collective projections, and other falsifications of Christianity that had arisen around the 19th-century church.

I agree with both Rev. Ellis and Rev. Wang: People in Britain are thinking and talking about God.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God, Karl Barth

Martin Luther King’s Views on the Bible and Christ

Don Boys, a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives and the author of 13 books, has written an exposé of Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christ.

Boys did a study of King’s seminary papers preserved in King’s archives and kept by the King family. What he discovered was that, in many places, King’s view of the Bible and Christian doctrines departs from what could be considered orthodox Christianity.

Below are a few excerpts from Boys’ article. All the quotations are the words of Martin Luther King, taken verbatim from his seminary papers.

King’s views on the Old Testament:

“If we accept the Old Testament as being `true' we will find it full of errors, contradictions, and obvious impossibilities-as that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.”

“To my mind, many of the works of this period were infinitely more valuable than those that received canonicity. The materials to justify such statements are found mainly in the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. These works, although presented pseudonymously, are of lasting significance to the Biblical student.”

King’s views on the person of Christ:

“But if we delve into the deeper meaning of these doctrines, [Christ’s deity, virgin birth, and physical resurrection] and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation, we will find that they are based on a profound foundation. Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically [sic] untenable.”

“It seems downright improbable and even impossible for anyone to be born without a human father.”

“First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to [sic] shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth.”

“From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine [the resurrection] raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting.”

After reading Boys’ article, I have mixed feelings about his conclusions concerning Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christ.

First, since I am unable to read King’s paper personally, it is difficult to know whether the quotes were taken out of context. A closer reading of how Boys uses King’s quotes seems to indicate that some of the quotes may be rhetorical statements of what other people believe about these doctrines. Frankly, based on these and the other quotes, it is hard to come to a definite conclusion about King’s doctrinal views because I have not read the original papers.

Second, it is clear that Boys writes from a very conservative perspective and it is possible that this conservative bent influenced the way he interpreted what King wrote. Again, only a review of the original statements can reveal whether Boys’ interpretation of what Martin Luther King wrote is correct.

I invite you to read Boys’ article. You can read the article here. After reading this article, you will have to make your own decision about Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christian doctrines.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Christian Doctrines, Don Boys, Martin Luther King

Mario Liverani and the History of Ancient Israel

Israel’s History and the History of Israel by Mario Liverani. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2003. xx + 427 pp. $60.00. ISBN 1-904768-76-8.

Until recently, most pastors and seminary students were exposed to the history of Israel through books that described and summarized the biblical events as they appear in the Bible. One good example is John Bright’s, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1980), a classical work which summarizes the history of Israel from the period of the patriarchs to the rise of Judaism.

In the past two or three decades, the method of writing a history of Israel has shifted from using the biblical text as a basic outline to develop a history of Israel to an approach that begins with the premise that the biblical text has been highly influenced by an ideology of the post-exilic community of the Persian period.

This volume by Mario Liverani, professor of ancient-Near-East history at the University of Rome, summarizes the views and perspectives of this new approach to understanding Israel’s history. Liverani believes that most of the history of Israel found in the Old Testament is a creation of the post-exilic community written to justify the resettlement of the people who returned from the exile in Babylon during the Persian period.

Liverani’s book is divided into two major parts, with an intermezzo. Part I, which is composed of nine chapters, deals with “The Normal History” of Israel. This section uses the results of archaeology to discuss what was actually happening in Israel and in the nations surrounding Israel during the Iron Age. The Intermezzo discusses “The Axial Age,” “The Diaspora,” and “The Abandoned Landscape.” The Axial Age is his discussion of several events in the sixth century that contributed to the formation of Israel’s basic religious traditions.

Part II of the book deals with what Liverani calls “The Invented History of Israel.” The history of Israel from the days of the patriarchs to the end of the United Monarchy was invented to justify the occupation of the land by the “returnees,” the people who returned from exile after the decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, in 537 BCE.

According to Liverani, the biblical text is not actual history, but it is historiography, an ideological rereading of the past in order to under gird political realities in post-exilic Judah. This invented history served as a strategy to implement a program of national recovery at the end of the exile. The result of this process of national recovery was the rewriting of the history of Israel based on the text of the Deuteronomic history that begins with the exodus and the conquest and includes the period of the monarchy.

Liverani believes that the first section of this history, from the conquest under Joshua up to the united monarchy under Solomon, is mostly folkloristic and legendary, chronologically vague, and historically not very reliable. Then, from the divided monarchy after the death of Solomon until the deportation of Judah in 587 BCE, the historians had official documentation at their disposal which proved to be reliable sources of information.

The returnees are called “Zionists.” They were the elite who had been deported while the remainees were the poor people who were left behind to cultivate the land after the fall of Jerusalem. The returnees called the remainees “the people of the land” and used this pejorative term to define the people who had neither been deported nor emigrated as well as the non-deported Israelites from the North.

According to Liverani, the biblical stories are foundational myths written to justify the legal possession of the land: the returnees had property rights but the remainees actually occupied the land. Since the returnees did not have a justification to take possession of the land from those who occupied it, they needed authoritative traditions assigning possession of Canaan to the tribes of Israel and identifying the returnees, not the remainees, as the legitimate heirs of those tribes and of the promises to the patriarchs.

The foundational myth most appropriate to show the rights of the returnees were the promise made to the patriarchs and the conquest of the land. Thus, the archetypical migration of Abraham from Babylon illustrates the plight of the returnees from Babylon. The migration of Abraham reflects the situation the returnees would encounter as they returned to Canaan. The promise Yahweh made to Abraham represents God’s legitimation of the returnees to take possession of the land of Canaan, as discussed in Chapter 13: “Returnees and Remainees: The Invention of the Patriarchs.”

Although the returnees had rights to the land, for them to actually acquire the land in its totality, they needed another model. The Exodus from Egypt serves as the foundational myth that provides legitimation of the possession of Canaan by the arrival of a group of people from the outside that seek to conquer the land in fulfillment of the divine promise. The conquest of Canaan serves as the foundational myth for the occupation of the land by the returnees during the Persian period. Joshua becomes the archetypical leader in the post-exilic community. (See Chapter 14: “Returnees and Aliens: The Invention of the Conquest.”)

Liverani’s history of Israel is a typical example of the minimalist approach to the biblical text, understanding that the Bible does not provide any reliable historical information for the reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel. Rather, Israel’s history was an invention of the post-exilic Jewish community. They also believe that since the biblical narratives do not provide reliable information for reconstructing the history of ancient Israel, scholars must rely on evidence provided by archaeological discoveries and on information derived from anthropological and sociological models.

Liverani’s book provides valuable information synthesizing the work of archaeologists, but it is a book for scholars who are interested in the academic discussion of the origins of ancient Israel and the formation of the biblical traditions. The minimalist view may be an acceptable issue for discussion in academic circles, but their views have nothing to say to pastors and seminary students who accept as a matter of fact that God has entered human history and made his presence known in the historical events that gave birth to biblical Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Note: This book review was published in the Review and Expositor 105 (Summer 2008), 511-513.

To subscribe to the Review and Expositor, visit R&E Home Page.

Tags: Ancient Israel, Mario Liverani, Minimalists

Injuries and the Old Testament

The Daily Star is reporting that Manchester United’s soccer star Wayne Rooney has been healed from his injuries by reading the Old Testament. According to the report, Rooney injured himself after falling over a piece of equipment.

The report says that Rooney hoped that reading “passages from the 3,000-year-old fire-and-brimstone texts” of the Old Testament would help him recover from his injuries. The Daily Star report says that his right ankle was twisted and badly bruised and he was ruled out for four weeks until he made a miraculous recovery by reading the stories of Moses, David, Solomon and Samson.

The lesson: If soccer players in England can become better players by reading the Old Testament, then baseball players in the United States need to learn a very important lesson: they don’t need steroids in order to become better players; they need to read the Old Testament.

NOTE: This post was originally written on December 17, 2007. The post was saved as a draft and never published.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Baseball, Soccer, Steroids, Wayne Rooney

Top 100 Theology Blogs

Jessica Merritt has prepared a list of the top 100 Theology Blogs for students of Christian colleges. She said that this list is a selection of top notch theology blogs that will help students gain a better and deeper understanding of religious studies.

Merritt divides her list into eight categories: General Theology, Criticism, Politics, History, Academic, Clergy, Society & Culture, and Writings.

My blog was one of those 100 blogs selected for the list. As I have written before, the purpose of my blog is to help pastors, students, and other Christians who love the Lord and want to develop a better understanding of the Old Testament.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

You can find the list of the Top 100 Theology Blogs here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blog,Blogging

From Text to Sermon: Micah 5:2-4

This study of Micah 5:2-4 is a continuation of a series of studies on preaching from the Old Testament. These studies are derived from a series of Advent sermons preached at Trinity Baptist Church of Chicago, the church where I have served as pastor since 1989.

Text

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. 3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. 4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth” (Micah 5:2-4).

Historical Background

Micah was a rural prophet who was born in a small village in Judah. Called by God, Micah went to Jerusalem to preach against the oppression of the poor and the destitute. This oppressive situation was perpetrated by those who lived in their luxurious houses in the capital city of Judah. The probable historical background of this oracle is the Assyrian invasion at the time of the war with Israel in 734 B.C.

At the time Micah spoke these words, kingship in Judah was facing a great crisis. Ahaz, the ruling king, had done much evil by violating the demands of the covenant. To Micah, a man from the country, the present political system was condemned because of its failure to live according to God's ideal. Only new leadership could avoid the final disaster, which for Micah, was in the immediate future.

Micah was remembered one hundred years later as a prophet who proclaimed the total destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. According to the elders who lived in Jeremiah’s day, the only reason the judgment was averted was because King Hezekiah repented and God averted the catastrophe (Jeremiah 26:18-19).

In Micah’s vision of the future, he does not use the traditional word for king, melek, but he uses the word “ruler,” moshel, a word that was widely used in the early days of kingship, the days of David, before the king and his court were corrupted by evil practices. His reference to the days of old is an allusion to the glorious days of David. What Micah was doing with these revolutionary words was to call for the reestablishment of the monarchy as it was in the days when David was king.

This is the reason, according to Micah’s words, that the new king would not to be born in Jerusalem, the seat of power. The royal house was in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was the cause of the oppression of the poor and of the nation’s rebellion against God. Micah spoke of a return to Bethlehem Ephrathah, the place where David was born and lived for many years. From Bethlehem a new David would rise up again to stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord as the good shepherd of Israel.

The implication of a return to Bethlehem is far-reaching. The hope of Micah was for a new beginning and for a new king who would understand the heart of the poor and lowly individuals. He hoped for someone who could identify himself with those who suffered. Micah died, unable to see his hope becoming reality. But his dream did not die. In Advent, the deepest hopes of human beings find fulfillment, challenging each one of us to accept the One who knows and understands our needs and who has carried our pains.

Exegesis

V. 2. Bethlehem Ephrathah was the birth place of David. It means “the house of bread.” Bethlehem was a very small village in the small district of Ephrathah. According to Micah, from this humble place God would raise another David, one who would be a ruler over all Israel.

As God had selected David to be his king from among the sons of Jesse (1 Samuel 16:1), so now God declares that from the family of David God himself will raise up another king, one who will represent God’s righteousness and justice, just as David did.

Whose origin is from of old. The lineage of the new king goes back to the distant past. The time period mentioned by Micah should not be understood as eternity (as does the KJV), but to a time within history (see Micah 7:14). This is a reference to the days of David, for the king who is to come shall be a descendant of David. The birth of the new king will again fulfill the promise God made to David: “Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His line shall continue forever and his throne will endure before me like the sun” (Psalm 89:35-36). God is renewing his promise to David. Once again God will visit his people to bless and save
them.

V. 3. He shall give them up. This statement is a reference to the exile of the Northern tribes. God has allowed them to be deported to Assyria as a punishment for their sins. But the punishment will not last long. It will last a brief time, as brief as the time of the one who is about to give birth. The question of who is about to give birth is obscure. Micah 4:10 speaks of the cities of Judah, but it could be a reference to the mother of the future king.

When the new king comes he will restore his brethren, the Israelites from the Northern kingdom who were taken into exile. Thus, the new king not only brings deliverance but also restoration.

V. 4. He shall stand. This expression means to become king. When the royal prince was crowned king of the nation, he stood by the pillar in the temple and was anointed before God and was acclaimed by the people.

He shall feed his flock. The king was the shepherd of his people (Ezekiel 37:24). When God spoke of a good ruler, he said: “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:23). The words of the prophet Ezekiel are a reference to the early life of David, who was taken from leading the flock to lead God’s people. Micah is saying that the new king will be like the first David. Many kings who sat on the throne in Jerusalem were evil, but the new king will rule over God's people in the strength of the Lord. He will not succumb to human weakness for he will be endowed with divine fortitude.

Because of the authority and power of the new king, God’s people will live in security. This security that the new king grants to the people is another fulfillment of the promise of God to David: “And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more" (2 Samuel 7:10). So majestic will be the kingship of the new king that his fame will be spread to the ends of the earth.

Application

In preparing a sermon for this passage, the text should be coupled with Matthew 2:1-12.
Two possible titles for the sermon:

Advent: God's New Beginning
Advent: Back to the Beginning

Introduce the text by providing an overview of Micah and his ministry. Micah was a rural prophet who had seen much oppression and suffering. He believed that the sins of the present leadership in Jerusalem could not be redeemed. He hoped for the days of old and for a new king who would be like David. God gave him a message that spoke of a new beginning.

The first section of the sermon should introduce Micah 5:2-4 by giving an exegesis of the three verses. Explain the reason the new king was going to be born in Bethlehem. Emphasize that Micah’s words lead one to think about the past: the first David, the shepherd idea, the avoidance of the word “king,” the expression “ancient days.”

The second section of the sermon should deal with the passage in Matthew. Emphasize that the new son of David was born not in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem. Note also the two kings: One king was in the palace and the other one was in a manger. One king was sitting upon a throne and the other was lying on straw. One king was rich and the other was poor. One king was famous while the other was unknown. Emphasize how Jesus fulfilled the hopes and dreams of Micah: Jesus was from the house of David, he was born in Bethlehem, he was of humble origin. He was also a shepherd (John 10:11) and he provided security and protection for his flock (John 10:1-5).

The third section of the sermon then should relate the message of Micah to the ministry of Christ: The hope expressed in the message of Micah 5:2-4 is for the kind of king that would minister to people in the name of God rather than to a king who would oppress them by the power of the sword. Micah hoped for a king that would humble himself and identify with the lowly rather than a king who would be triumphant and enjoy his success with the mighty of this earth. The prophet spoke of a king who would accomplish his work through personal sacrifice rather than seeking vengeance over those causing his suffering.

The announcement of Micah that the new David would not be born in a palace in Jerusalem reflects the character of God’s Messiah. Micah’s oracle found fulfillment in the birth of a lowly infant born in a stable and lying in a manger. This humble king was destined by God to save the world, not by the might of the sword but by the humble acceptance of suffering which ended in his own death. Thus, God chose to come and save his people not by might nor by sword but by the lowly and humble child of Bethlehem.

Conclude the sermon by inviting the congregation to accept God’s salvation and to commit themselves to the newborn king.

Other studies in this series:

1. Preaching from the Old Testament

2. Preaching on the Messianic Prophecies

3. Preaching from Jeremiah 23:5-6

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Advent Sermon, Bethlehem, Messiah, Micah 5, New David

The King and the Gods

Brown University is sponsoring a symposium in Assyriology on Monday, April 27, 2009. The theme of the symposium is “The King and the Gods: The Interplay of Power, Propaganda, Scholarly Learning, and Religion in Ancient Assyria.”

The blog of the Joukowsky Institute has posted the following information about the symposium:

Abstract:

The departments of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies, Judaic Studies, and Religious Studies will host for one afternoon three internationally known scholars in the study of the history, culture, languages, and religions of Ancient West Asia: Eckart Frahm (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University), Grant Frame (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania), and Beate Pongratz-Leisten (Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University). The papers will examine from the vast corpus of extant Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform texts selected aspects of Assyria's contribution to the Mesopotamian cultural heritage in the modern manner of interdisciplinary studies, combining history, art, linguistics, and political/religious ideology. Emphasis is placed on the interplay of power, propaganda, scholarly learning, and religion in ancient Assyria. Brown Professors John Steele and Jamie Novotny will provide responses that take into account Assyria's history, culture, literary and scholarly traditions, and cultic and divinatory practices.

Conference:

The conference will take place at Brown University (Providence, RI, USA) on April 27, 2009. It will be held in the single session from 12:00 noon until 5:00 PM and will consist of three scholarly papers (45 min.) and two responses (20 min.); there will be approximately 15 minutes between papers for questions and discussion.

Papers and Abstracts:

Eckart Frahm (Yale University): “The Many Faces of an Assyrian Royal Advisor: Observations on the Scientific, Literary, and Political Texts of Nabû-zuqup-kenu.”

This lecture will investigate the numerous texts written by Nabû-zuqup-kenu one of Assyria's most important scribes during the reigns of Sargon II (722-705 BCE) and Sennacherib (704-681 BCE), when Assyria ruled all of Western Asia. An attempt will be made to outline Nabû-zuqup-kenu's scholarly duties and to link some of the texts he produced to specific political events.

Grant Frame (University of Pennsylvania): “Politics and Divination in the Neo-Assyrian Period.”

Assyrian monarchs of the first millennium BCE used the widespread belief in? omens and divination--in particular the practices of astrology and extispicy--?to help justify and maintain control of their empire. On the one hand, rulers ?allowed their actions to be influenced by omens and divination, although at? times they clearly attempted to control the influence of the diviners in their court. On ?the other hand, Assyrian monarchs also made use of omens and divination to justify their own? actions, particularly when those actions might have be considered controversial.

Beate Pongratz-Leisten (Princeton University): “Sacred Topography of the Empire: Assyrian State Rituals.”

A problem that larger territorial states, such as the Ur III state and large-scale empires such as Assyria had to face, was to integrate local communities into their central organizational system. In addition to political and economic strategies that tied the periphery to the political and religious center of the city of Assur, the Assyrian rulers relied on the creation of state rituals to stabilize their empire and reinforce the acceptance of their power. The cultic performance of these state rituals required the active participation of the Assyrian king in his role as high priest of the god Ashur. In his effort to integrate the vast territories of his empire, the king's ritual performance was not just a reflection of political power but an active shaping of social bonds and spatial relationships. In addition to the creation of their provincial system, the Assyrian kings used cultic ritual as a further means to build cultural unification and turn intercultural space into intracultural space. The history of the ritual thereby reflects the dynamics of the back and forth of the political frontiers that are pushed towards the borders of the cosmos.

For more information visit of the web page of the Joukowsky Institute.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Assyria, Assyriology

There Probably Is a God

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent for The Times of London has a very interesting post in her blog in which she reports that Clifford Longley, former Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Times, is complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority about the atheist bus.

In his complaint, Longley wrote:

'The statement “There’s probably no God”, as currently seen on the side of London buses, is untrue and dishonest, in so far as the word “probably” completely fails to reflect the true state of the scientific argument. In fact it would be honest and true to say the opposite - “There probably is a God.” A fair reading of the material below could lead to no other conclusion.

To read Clifford Longley’s complaint in full, visit Ruth Gledhill’s blog and read his statement. Both theists and atheists need to read the arguments Longley presents. After you finish reading his statement, you will have to say: “There Probably Is a God.”

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, God, Clifford Longley, Science, Theism

God and Politics

David Waters, in his column Under God, is reporting that Democrat Roland Burris believes that he was ordained by God to become the next senator from Illinois, Burris is the person appointed by Rod Blagojevich, the almost-impeached governor of Illinois, to fill the seat vacated by President-Elect Obama.

Waters wrote:

Democrat Roland Burris said this at church last Sunday as he prepared to fly to Washington and take his righteous place as the new junior senator from Illinois: “Friends, we're going to have to have some powerful prayer. . . . They can’t deny what the Lord has ordained.”

He wasn’t referring to the Lord Rod Blagojevich, the indicted Illinois governor who appointed Burris to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat. He was referring to the God of Abraham, George and Sarah. Bush and Palin caught holy hell when they suggested divine endorsement of their actions and ideas. Not a peep about Burris.

Remember the furor over Palin’s suggestion that the Iraq war is “a task that is from God”?
Just imagine the eruption if she had gone to church during her controversial campaign for vice president and said: “Friends, we’re going to have to have some powerful prayer. . . . They can’t deny what the Lord has ordained.”

Or if President Bush -- who has made several statements suggesting that he believes he’s on a divine mission -- had said that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Double standard for Republicans and Democrats?

Only Klingons would not know the answer to this question (no offense to Klingons).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Politics, Roland Burris,

Queen Shesheti’s Mummy

Photo: Queen Shesheti’s grave in Saqqara




According to a news report published by Reuters, Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of King Teti, the Pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt. King Teti ruled Egypt around the year 2300 BC. He ruled Egypt for at least 10 years.

Read more about the discovery by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, King Teti, Queen Seshestet

Urban Archaeology

Stephen Crowley, the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, has a collection of photographs online. One of the series in the collection is entitled “Urban Archaeology.”

“Urban Archaeology” is an interesting collection of photographs of lost items Crowley has found stuck in the tar of city streets.

Visit Stephen Crowley’s“Urban Archaeology” by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Urban Archaeology,

The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter

A reader sent an email asking me to discuss the passage in Judges 11:29-40 dealing with the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.

I have already written three posts on this subject. I refer the reader and those interested in this subject to read those posts:

1. Rereading Judges 11:31: The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter

2. Judges 11:39: The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter

3. Judges 11:39: The Virginity of Jephthah’s Daughter

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Child Sacrifice, Jephthah, Judges 11

Southern Baptists, Evangelism, and Money

In the section “On Faith,” published by the Washington Post, editor David Waters wrote a post entitled “Southern Baptist Decline and God's Bottom Line” in which he discussed some of the problems facing the Southern Baptist Convention today.

The following is an excerpt from that post:

Times are tough, even in the salvation market. After decades of growth, the nation's largest group of Protestants, the Southern Baptist Convention, is reporting losses (in church membership and recorded baptisms) for the third year in a row. Baptisms are at a 20-year low, a figure liable to put an eternity-conscious church into a severe depression.

Cutbacks at Southern Baptist seminaries and agencies are even hitting the denomination's bold, new marketing strategy designed to spread the gospel (and increase the flock) to every soul in North America by 2020. The campaign, called "God's Plan for Sharing" (Yes, GPS), includes a new image media campaign, "We Are Southern Baptists."

But some SBC leaders are concerned that the strategy will fail. The 2009 budget includes zero funding for GPS. "You can't have a vision that doesn't have a funded budget," John Avant, former vice president of evangelization at the mission board, told Bob Smietana of The Tennessean.

Where there is no funded vision, the people perish. It's hard for me to believe there might be a single soul in North America who hasn't heard about Jesus. But I suppose if a church is going to measures its success by cultural standards -- in a market economy, that means statistical gains and losses -- then it's going to look for culturally-appropriate ways to assess its product and improve its market share. But isn't there a more faithful way to measure the church's success?

David Waters finished his post by asking the following questions:

"Shouldn't the church find more faithful ways of measuring its success? Mercy instead of membership? Forgiveness instead of financial contributions? Baptisms lived in the world instead of baptisms recorded in a book? Justice instead of just stats?"

Malcolm B. Yarnell III, director of the Center for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Fort Worth, Texas, in a guest editorial, responds to Waters’s questions from a Southern Baptist perspective.

Read Yarnell’s response to Waters’s questions by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: David Waters, Evangelism, Malcolm Yarnell, Southern Baptists

Medicine in the Ancient World

Sarah Yeomans, who is the Biblical Archaeological Society’s Managing Web Editor, has written a very interesting article on “Medicine in the Ancient World.” Yeomans, who is also an archaeologist and historian, wrote the article for the Biblical Archaeological Review’s e-feature section of the magazine.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

In many societies, the gods played an integral role in human health. In the Greek world, the god Asklepios was dedicated exclusively to healing. Sanctuaries called Asklepions drew the ill and injured, who would often travel for days to seek the healing that they believed these ancient sanitariums could provide. Similar in some ways to the modern spa, Asklepions provided baths, healthy foods and sanctuary rooms intended specifically for sleep and meditation. Most Asklepions were located in remote and beautiful areas, such as the famous sanctuaries of Epidauros in Greece and Pergamum in northwest Turkey. Animal sacrifices and votive offerings were made at altars and temples to the god. Excavations at Asklepions have uncovered “anatomical votives,” so named because they represent the body part that was injured or affected by illness.

The article is illustrated with several pictures. Read the article by visiting BAR’s e-feature section by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Ancient Medicine, Asklepions, Asklepios, Archaeology, Medicine

'The New Covenant

I have been reading John Stott’s Through the Bible Through the Year: Daily Reflections from Genesis to Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006). As the subtitle indicates, the book is a collection of readings covering every book of the Bible.

The following is a reading taken from the book of Jeremiah:

“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31).

It is important to grasp that there is only one covenant of grace throughout the Bible, namely the promise God made to Abraham some four thousand years ago to bless him and his posterity and through them to bless the world. It is this covenant that Jesus ratified (“This cup is the new covenant in my blood” [1 Cor. 11:25]). It is new only in relation to Mount Sinai (see Jeremiah 31:32); it is not new in itself, for it is as old as Abraham. Consider now the terms of the new covenant.

Firstly, in the new covenant the law of God is internal: “I will put my law in their mind and write it on their hearts” (v. 33). As a result, we understand it, love it, and obey it. There is strange teaching around today that Christians are no longer under obligation to keep God’s moral law. But, on the contrary, God writes his law in our hearts in order that we may obey it.

Secondly, in the new covenant the knowledge of God is universal: “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (v. 34). This universality includes the Gentiles and the "priesthood of all believers.” That is, in the covenantal community of Jesus Christ, there is no hierarchy of privilege but rather an equal access of all to God through Christ.

Thirdly, in the new covenant the forgiveness of God is eternal: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (v. 34). Of course, there was forgiveness in the Old Testament (cf. Psalm 32:1-2). Yet the sacrifices continued to be offered repeatedly and interminably. But the Lord Jesus Christ offered one sacrifice for sins forever, and on the ground of his finished work God remembers our sins no more.

So these are the priceless blessings of the new covenant-an internal law, a universal knowledge of God, and an eternal forgiveness.

I enjoy reading John Stott’s books. This book of daily reading will allow me to read his writings every day in 2009. It is a good book and you will probably also enjoy reading this collection of daily readings.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Jeremiah 31, New Covenant

The Sky in Motion

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. To celebrate the IYA, NASA has released a video of the Sky in Motion. The video below is a 4-minute, time-lapse video composed from a series of 7,000 images highlighting much of what you could see in the sky. The video shows the sky in a stately reflection of planet Earth's own rotation, the moon, the sun and the stars. The video also features satellites and meteors streaking overhead, clouds moving along the horizon changing in a beautiful iridescence, and beaming crepuscular rays.

The Video was produced by Till Credner and it can be seen at The Sky in Motion.com. As you watch the video, experience, learn, and enjoy the changing sky.









Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: NASA

Preaching from Jeremiah 23:5-6

In two previous posts I discussed how to use the Old Testament in preaching. My first post dealt with the importance of preaching from the Old Testament. In my second post I discussed how to preach on the Messianic passages of the Old Testament. In this post, I will provide an example how to use a Messianic text and preach a sermon that takes into consideration the historical background that gave impetus to the prophetic message.

I have selected Jeremiah 23:5-6 as the basis for the sermon. It is true that every pastor approaches the text in different ways. When a minister is preparing a sermon, the preacher must take into consideration several factors that influence how the text is proclaimed.

The suggestions I present in this post reflect the way I preach in my own church. If my suggestions do not appeal to your style of preaching, at least they may provide a few ideas on how to approach this important text from the book of Jeremiah.

Text

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 23:5-6).

Historical Background

Jeremiah proclaimed his message during the historical crisis confronting the people of Judah and Jerusalem in the last days of the kingdom David had established. This crisis culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple in 587 B.C.

The destruction of the temple and the cessation of worship and kingship evoked a crisis of faith that permeates most of the literature of the Old Testament. Jeremiah was called to the prophetic ministry a few years before the destruction of Judah. The mission he received from God was to proclaim the advent of God who would visit his people to judge them for their unfaithfulness.

Israel had abandoned God (Jeremiah 2:11,13). They had become worthless by worshiping idols (Jeremiah 2:4). They had profaned the temple (Jeremiah 7:1-15) and violated the covenant that bound Israel to God (Jeremiah 11:1-8). Now Jeremiah was sent by God “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10).

Because Israel violated the covenant by their rejection of and rebellion against God, Jeremiah now proclaimed that God would establish a New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). God would make all things new and different, but before God acted, Jeremiah had to preach a message of plucking up and pulling down, for these are the necessary ingredients for building up and planting again.

Exegesis

V. 5. Days are coming. This expression does not specify the time of God’s action. It could be the near or the distant future. The expression generally introduces a hope for the future, a time when God will come to save his people.

I will raise for David. God makes a reference to his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:16 to preserve the throne and the kingdom of David forever. The salvation of God’s people comes through a son of David whom God will send.

A Righteous Branch. The Branch is a reference to the dynasty of David. Although the tree is fallen (a reference to the judgment of God and the exile of Judah in Babylon), the tree is not dead.

The king of Judah in the days of Jeremiah was Zedekiah. He was a descendant of David and he became the last king to sit on the throne of David. His name means “The Lord is Righteous.” Zedekiah did not live up to his name. He was a weak king who did evil in the sight of the Lord. Although he was God’s anointed (Messiah), he could not save God’s people.

The new king whom God was sending would have all the qualifications of the ideal king. For this reason God would use him mightily to save his people. These are the qualifications of the new king:

a. He will deal wisely. This means that the king will have divine wisdom and will fulfill the laws of God.

b. He shall execute justice. Justice means the order of rights and duties that come out of the relationship established by the covenant.

c. He shall execute righteousness. Righteousness means to do that which is right. Thus, the new king will deal justly and will do what is correct when he decides a case for someone needing vindication. The new king will bring wholeness and set right that which has been broken.

V. 6. The name of the new king, The Lord is our Righteousness is very significant because it is almost identical with the name of Zedekiah (“The Lord is Righteous”). The name of the new son of David creates a contrast between the present king, whose life and actions so desperately belies his name, and the one true king who will come some day. The new king will reflect the righteousness of God and impart it to his people. The apostle Paul probably had this promise in mind when he declared that Jesus Christ is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5: 21).

The new king will save his people. Jeremiah spoke of a day when Judah will be free again from all its trouble, when the problems and the tensions will go away and the people will live in safety.

Application

In preparing a sermon from this passage, the text could be coupled with Matthew 21:1-9. Two possible titles for the sermon:

“The Coming of a New King” or
“The Manifestation of God’s Righteousness”

Introduce the text by describing the advent of God in Jeremiah’s time. God came to judge his people because of their rebellion and sins. They broke the covenant, they defiled the temple and abandoned God. But emphasize that the coming of God for destruction is only the beginning of God’s coming for salvation.

Thus, the prophet saw beyond the coming destruction. He saw God’s future when God will visit his people again, this time for salvation. Thus, the time of Advent looks at a message of hope and promise. The hope was that the original plan of God could not be destroyed by the rebellion of God’s people nor by the sins of his creation. The promise was that out of destruction God himself will rebuild again through his servant who represents the righteousness of God. Thus the advent of God to bring judgment upon his people is only a prelude to the advent of God in Christ to save and redeem his people.

The first section of the sermon should introduce the king of Judah. Most of the kings of Judah were evil; some like David and Josiah were good. The present king, Zedekiah did not live up to his name. The ideal king in Judah was David and the new king will be a branch of David, a second David.

The second section of the sermon should introduce the new king and his work: he shall deal wisely with his people, he shall execute justice, he shall execute righteousness, and he shall save his people.

The third section of the sermon should declare that Jesus Christ is this new king: (a) Jesus was proclaimed king by the people (Matthew 21:5); (b) Jesus came to save God’s people (Matthew 21:9). Hosanna means “save us now”; (c) Jesus was sent by God to accomplish God’s plan of redemption and salvation; (d) Paul said that Jesus is our righteousness.

The conclusion of the sermon should emphasize that the coming of Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise. Jesus Christ has come to rebuild lives that have been destroyed by drugs and . . . (and any other problem facing your people). Jesus came to save those who are willing to accept his rule as a righteous king. Jesus came for all. Invite people to accept Jesus as their Lord and King.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Jeremiah 23, Messianic Prophecy, New David, Zedekiah