Often, the children don’t choose the gifts, and are only told what these are after they are purchased. That the gift is from the child is a “legal fiction”—yet when Grandma opens it, she, the child, and everyone else take seriously this legal fiction.

She thanks the child.

The child says, “You’re welcome.”

Others praise the child for the gift.

I’m not suggesting that this is analagous to vicarious atonement; rather, I’m pointing out that the common intuition that vicarious atonement is unreasonable or unjust is unreflectively selective. (Indeed, we see vicarious legal fictions in many facets of civilization, including not just in presents, but especially in politics; e.g., the common intuition among staunch critics of Christianity that white people share some kind of guilt for the actions of their slave-owning or Maori-conquering forebears.)

To claim, therefore, that vicarious atonement is intrinsically unbelievable is not only to elevate one’s cultural conditioning to the status of moral fact, but ironically to also be blind to many aspects of that cultural conditioning which mimic the same vicarious mechanisms.

This is generally a clue that we’re missing something that scripture’s authors took for granted.

What might that be? Here are two relevant beliefs which were common to ancient peoples, and don’t enter our minds today:

1. Water was believed to be a natural barrier to spirits. This is most obviously demonstrated in the common motif of deceased spirits having to cross a river, like the Styx, to enter the land of the dead. The river functioned to keep the dead in their proper domain since they could not cross it unaided. The same motif appears in Greco-Roman stories of spirits which are defeated by driving them into the sea (e.g. Pausanias, Elis 6), and in the ancient attitude toward those who died at sea. For example, the Athenians erected cenotaphs on the seashore—empty tombs or monuments in honour of someone whose remains were elsewhere—and called the names of the dead three times, so they could return to land (Odyssey 9.62–66).

2. There was no clear distinction between ghosts and demons. In modern Christianity, everyone “just knows” that demons are fallen angels like Satan. But this idea only seems to become ubiquitous in the church somewhere around the fifth century; it is foreign to the text of scripture and to the worldview of those who wrote it. In Judaism, the widely-accepted view of demons was that they were the spirits of dead Nephilim; not fallen angels. Demons, in other words, were a particular kind of ghost. Angels are far more powerful beings, and would generally have no reason to want to get “inside” someone.

(This is a difficult topic to disentangle because the Greek term daimon is used very much like the Hebrew term elohim to refer to any spirit—which is probably where the confusion arose in the first place. There is also a connection in scripture between angels and ghosts.)

When we combine these beliefs about water, ghosts and demons, some interesting clues start to emerge:

Setting

Both Mark and Luke explicitly place the meeting between Legion and Jesus at the seashore. The confrontation is taking place at the boundary between earth and water—a dangerous place for spirits. Note also that the pigs demonstrate Jesus’ immediate audience to be Greco-Roman, not Jewish—Jews would never farm pigs, since they are unclean.

Legion’s worry

In Luke, Legion begs Jesus not to send him into the “abyss” (Gk. abussou). We tend to interpret that language in terms of Revelation 9:1; 11:7 etc, where abussou is often translated “bottomless pit.” But there is at least a double meaning likely here, because abussou is also how the LXX (Greek OT) translates the Hebrew tehom, the “great deep,” in places like Genesis 1:2 and 7:11.

In Mark’s account, most translations have Legion begging Jesus not to drive him out of the “country” or “region” (chora). But chora also simply means the land as opposed to the sea; for example, it is used this way in Acts 27:27. Given the explicitly seaside location, this makes sense—Legion doesn’t want to leave the land, because the alternative is the water. Indeed, although I can’t imagine Pausanias was familiar with Mark, he strikingly uses the same expression to describe how, in Euthymus’ defeat of the Hero, the ghost was “was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea” (Elis 6.6.10).

Legion’s affinity for the desert

Finally, there’s another small hint also included in Luke 8:29, where it observes about the demoniac:

He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

This connection between spirits and dry places is also drawn in other places like Matthew 12:43; Luke 11:24—further suggesting we’re on the right track in thinking that the sea is where Legion definitely does not want to go.

Putting the clues together

Combining these clues with the ancient presupposition that spirits were in some way bound or destroyed by water, it isn’t hard to see what is going on here: Jesus meets Legion by the sea, and Legion assumes Jesus is going to send him into the abyss to be bound or destroyed. Demons, of course, don’t have a physical form that can be harmed by water; yet at the same time there is a symbolic connection between physical geography and the “terrain” of the spirit world (cf. territorial spirits; Daniel 10:13, 20 etc). The water represents something in the cosmic geography, and Legion doesn’t want to go there. So he asks Jesus to instead go into the pigs.

Why Jesus allows this is straightforward: it serves his purpose extremely well. The demons thought the pigs were their out. After all, why should Jesus care if unclean animals were possessed? Maybe he’d just let that slide. They weren’t even in Jewish territory, after all.

But Jesus didn’t intend to let it slide; he intended to get rid of the demons permanently, and to use the pigs as physical vessels to demonstrate this. The pigs are very convenient to him: spirits are incorporeal (or perhaps semi-corporeal—who is to say), so if Jesus sends Legion out of the man and directly into the spiritual abyss, there will be no physical evidence. No ordinary human could witness such an event because we cannot see spirits or their realm. Thus, the power of the event is diminished. The demoniac is healed—but what happened to the demons? Perhaps they are looking for a new victim right now (cf. Matthew 12:44-45)!

By sending Legion into the pigs, and then over the cliff into the water, Jesus is able to demonstrate his power not just in expelling unclean spirits, but also in dealing to them permanently: in judging them, binding them, and destroying them. Whether the sea is really a “conduit” to the place that demons are bound in the spirit-world isn’t the issue. It represents that place—so by sending the demons into the sea, Jesus fully and incontrovertibly vindicates Legion’s own claim that he is the son of the Most High God.

On the morrow he was minded to go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip, and Jesus saith unto him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, “We have found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael said unto him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip saith unto him, “Come and see.”

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathanael saith unto him, “Whence knowest thou me?” Jesus answered and said unto him, “Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art King of Israel.” Jesus answered and said unto him, “Because I said unto thee, ‘I saw thee underneath the fig tree,’ believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.” And he saith unto him, “Amen, amen, I say unto you, ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (John 1:43–51)

The calling of Nathanael is one of the most opaque stories in all of scripture. Many of the more capable commentators note the various meanings and explanations that could be in view, and then say, “Well, there’s really no way to know for sure; anything I say would be speculation, so let’s move on.”

I want to suggest to you that this is precisely the opposite of what we should be doing. And by suggesting this, I am in no way endorsing casting about for fringe theories or being an edge-lord or thinking that we can crack the code which better men have not deciphered in two thousand years.

What I am suggesting is that if we are attentive to scripture itself, we will recognize a kind of hermeneutical principle here:

Confusion precedes insight.

Another way of saying this is that if something is puzzling, it might actually be a puzzle.

Consider how Proverbs 1:6 speaks of the need for the wise “to understand a proverb, and a figure, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” What are these dark sayings? Why are they dark? Isn’t wisdom better symbolized by light? Well, many of these dark sayings are recorded in Proverbs itself. People assume that Proverbs is just full of pithy statements designed to quickly convey truths in a manner that can be grasped immediately; that they are short to be easily understood.

Sometimes that is true. But consider a couple of examples from Proverbs 10:

Blessings are upon the head of the righteous; and violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. (Proverbs 10:6)

What is the connection between blessings being upon the head, and violence covering the mouth? It is not really so obvious at all. It requires you to reflect upon it and draw your own conclusions. Similarly:

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely; and he that perverteth his ways shall be known. (Proverbs 10:9)

Again, what is the connection between walking surely and being known? It is the glory of God to conceal the matter; we, as his royal priesthood, his nation of servant-kings, must make it our glory to uncover these dark sayings.

Consider also how the great bulk of the book of Job is not much liked by most people, who read the beginning and then skim all the way to the end, where God gives his awesome speech. What is in the middle? All of the debate between Job and his friends. It is hard to work through. We must carefully assess what each man says, and what we think of it. Often, we find that there is both truth and error in it—some of the most perplexing questions in Job come from the fact that both he and his friends make so many claims which seem to be true, yet we know or can infer must be mistaken in certain respects; or which seem to be mistaken, yet turn out to be true in some ways. There are many gray areas in Job that are difficult and troubling to work through.

Consider how Ecclesiastes, too, is a dark book—full of sayings that are difficult to interpret, offering us seemingly contradictory lines of thought.

Together, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes make up a significant part of scripture’s wisdom literature. Yet they are some of the least clear parts of the Bible. How can that be, if they are supposed to make us wise?

It actually could be no other way. Wisdom does not come merely by being told, but by figuring out. Wisdom, in scripture, is always something that can be applied, that must be lived. You cannot gain true wisdom by simply receiving an information dump. You gain it in the process of doing it. To get wisdom, you must do wisdom.

We generally think of scripture primarily in terms of narrative. We think of it as a story. But the more familiar you become with it, the more you start to think of it in terms of a riddle. Scripture is like an enormously complex puzzle that God has given us, in order to produce the skills and character in us that can only be produced through the process of figuring it out.

This is why Proverbs 25:5 says:

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. (Proverbs 25:2)

We also think of scripture in terms of perspicuity. We have a doctrine called the perspicuity of scripture, meaning the clarity of scripture—the ability for anyone to read it, and to know the important truths of salvation. This doctrine is true. Scripture really is clear enough for even a child to read it and grasp who Jesus is and what he has done. It is clear enough to save anyone. But that does not mean that every part of scripture is equally clear, nor especially that it is clear without considerable work. The water at the bottom of the sea is just as clear as at the surface, but if you think you can see all the way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench from a fishing boat, you do not understand how water works. It is the same with scripture.

When we have trouble reading scripture, when we struggle to understand why God wrote it the way he did, or why he said the things he said, it is not because God is a bad writer. It is because we are bad readers. As a young Christian, I sometimes struggled to accept the doctrine of inerrancy. I knew scripture must be true and without error because I believed that God had written it. But when I came to certain passages, it was an act of faith in every respect to accept that what the Bible said was right.

This was always because I either didn’t truly understand what it said, or I really didn’t like what it said. In both cases, the problem was me. My fleshly response to God’s word was, “I think this sounds dumb, therefore, it must be wrong.”

But it wasn’t wrong. I was wrong. It wasn’t dumb. I was dumb.

Let me give you an example that will help us to move toward solving the puzzle of Nathanael and the fig tree, and why Jesus seeing him there is such a revelation to him, and why because of his confession, Jesus promises that he will see greater things—even heaven opened and angels ascending and descending. I do not claim that we will fully solve this riddle, or that we can be certain about its meaning, but I do think we can make some progress in getting toward the general idea that John wants us to grasp.

The symbolic logic of high places

After the flood, as the population of the earth increased, the people gathered together and they said to each other:

“Come, let us build unto us a city and a tower, and its head in the heavens, and let us make unto us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of all the land.” … And Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one lip; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do.” (Genesis 11:4, 6)

When I was a fresh, newly-minted Christian, I disliked this passage very much. I read it like the people at Babel thought they could literally climb up to heaven by building a super-tall tower, and that God had to come down and put an end to it lest they succeed. And that is dumb, because heaven isn’t literally up there, and even if it was, modern skyscrapers can’t even break a thousand metres, and why would the Bible suggest that you can climb up to heaven anyway?

But it is not dumb. Of course ancient peoples thought that—and the Bible suggests it precisely because it is not only possible, but would have succeeded absent God’s intervention. The problem was not the Bible, but my dumb, materialistic worldview that I inherited from my days of being a dumb, materialistic atheist, which meant that the word “literally” meant “physically.” I had no conception—zero—of one of the most important hermeneutical principles of scripture, which is symbolic realism. I did not know that the physical world reflects the spiritual world, that the visible images the invisible. It wasn’t even on my radar that, as in John’s prologue, photons are just a physical representation of true light. And if it had been, I would still not have had a clue what it all meant for Babel.

But ancient peoples did. They intuited, they instinctively understood, that there was a connection between high places and divine presence.

They understood, for instance, that the tops of mountains are where heaven and earth meet. This is why religious worship was so often centered on mountains, or on high places more generally. If you want to connect with a god, you go to a mountain, where the earth provides the closest access to heaven. And if you don’t have a mountain handy, you pick the next highest place instead. In vast numbers of religions, high places are associated with the presence of gods. They are where gods reside; where they presence themselves on earth, where they may be sought and communed with. In the Bible and its thought-world alone, there are dozens and dozens of examples of this symbolic thinking:

• The transfiguration of Jesus happened on a mountain (Mt 17:1–8, Mk 9:2–8, Lk 9:28–36; 2 Pet 1:16–18).

• In Ugarit, just to the north of Israel, the high god El was thought to meet in the palace of his vice-regent, Ba’al, on Mount Tsaphon.

• In Greece, the gods met to hold council on Mount Olympus.

• In Israel, of course, Yahweh presenced himself first on Mount Horeb or Sinai (Ex 3:1; 19–31), and later in the temple on Mount Zion (Ps 9:11; 48:1–2; 74:2; 132:13; Joel 2:1; 3:17).

• The encounter between Elijah and the 450 priests of Ba’al, in which they are both calling upon their gods, takes place on Mount Carmel (1 Ki 18).

• The Samaritans believed God presenced himself on Mount Gerizim (Jn 4:20).

• And of course, throughout the Old Testament, we see altars routinely built to pagan gods in high places (Dt 12:2; 1 Ki 12:31–32).

Altars, in turn, are an extension of the symbolic logic of high places. Altars are a human effort to control and channel the symbolic meaning of mountains. What is an altar if not a miniature mountain? And by the same token, what is a pyramid, or a ziggurat, if not a massive altar? Pyramids and ziggurats are artificial mountains, which literally function as stairways to heaven. And they almost always have altars on top as the final stage of the ascent, where the sacrifice will be transformed into fire and smoke and continue to rise up into heaven.

This is why you find ziggurats in completely disconnected locations all around the world.

When I read Genesis 11, and interpreted it as if ancient people thought they could literally climb into heaven, ironically it was not ancient people that were so dumb, but me. I was too dumb to discern even the most fundamental symbolic realities in the world. I was too dumb to intuit what ancient people instinctively understood. The people of Babel were not dumb. God says as much in Genesis 11:6. He states outright that there is no limit to what they would be capable of, should they work together and put their minds to it. The people of Babel were smart—they understood symbolism, and they understood that there is a kind of natural law that God has built into the world, where certain symbols really are attached in some way to certain spiritual realities. It’s not a causal attachment, but it is a covenantal attachment.

If you set your intention, and your attention, on some spiritual reality, and if you reproduce that reality in a physical way, it is possible to invoke or perhaps influence or maybe even control that spiritual reality in some way.

This is why the Bible forbids magic—not because it does not work, but because it does (cf. Ex 8:7). This is why the witch of Endor, in her inverted-mountain necromancy pit, was able to summon Samuel from the underworld (1 Sam 28). This is why Paul says that those who partake of meat sacrificed to idols commune with demons (1 Cor 10:20). And in fact, this is why baptism saves us (1 Pet 3:21), and why eating the Lord’s supper is to partake in his body (1 Cor 10:16). The Christian sacraments are divinely-authorized and properly-ordered examples of the same creational principles, the same symbolic realism, the same covenantal attachment between visible and invisible, that—when unchecked by God’s law—leads into the chaos and confusion of pagan magic.

So the Tower of Babel really could have served as a conduit into the heavenly realms; as a way of communing with heavenly beings. The idea is really quite simple: if you are very devoted, and you want to exert human control over spiritual realities, if you want to make covenant with supernatural beings and worship them in a “safe” way that you can manage, then the natural thing to do is to build your own mountain. We have good reasons to think that the tower of Babel was in fact a ziggurat.

The symbolic logic of trees

Now that you understand the basic form of this symbolic logic, it becomes much easier to understand the symbolism of trees—and understanding that helps us to get some handle on what is happening with Nathanael and the fig tree.

And the sons of Israel did secretly things that were not right against Yahweh their God: and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; and they set them up pillars and Ashera poles upon every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them; and they wrought wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger; and they served idols, whereof Yahweh had said unto them, “Ye shall not do this thing.” (2 Kings 17:9–12)

Notice the connection between high places, pillars, poles, and trees. All of these things are connected with worship. Pillars are miniature high places. Trees are much like mountains, only living: in fact, they are conduits between all the realms, because they have their roots in the underworld, their tops in the heavens—and their trunks connect the two via the world of man. And of course poles are just pillars made out of trees.

This is why trees, like mountains, are so central to worship in many religions. It is why a “world tree” appears in so many unconnected, independent faiths around the globe, and why that tree is so often conceived of as both a ladder to heaven, and an axis mundi—a central point about which the world turns. It is why Yahweh appears to Abraham at the oak of Moreh, and Abraham builds an altar there, and then goes on to the oaks of Mamre, and builds an altar there, and then Yahweh appeared at the oaks of Mamre, and then Abraham goes on to plant a tamarisk tree in Be’er-sheba and call on the name of Yahweh there. (Genesis 12:6–7; 13:18; 18:1; 21:33)

It is also why the inside of the temple was frescoed with trees, and the temple itself was built out of wood.

And it is why we see people holding judgment at trees. As a ladder to heaven, the base of the tree is the gate, and gates were the traditional place where courts were held and judgments were rendered. Deborah, a prophetess, set up her chair of judgment at the Palm Tree of Deborah (Jdg 4:4-5), a gate of heaven where she sat in the heavenly court. Joash held court and conducted false worship at an oak (Jdges 6:11, 12, 19, 21, 30-32). Saul held court at a pomegranate and at a tamarisk tree (1 Sam 14:2; 22:6).

There is much more that can be said about the symbolism of trees, especially with regard to their connection to men—but it would take us further afield than we need to go. The important thing to remember is that trees and pillars and poles and mountains all follow the pattern of high places. They are stairways to heaven, they are altars, they are places of divine encounter, and they are places of judgment. This is, if not the key to unlocking the riddle of Nathanael, at least a compass to point us in the general direction of a solution.

Let us now examine the very clear allusion that Jesus makes to Genesis 28, when he talks about Nathanael seeing heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

Jacob’s ladder

And Jacob went out from Be’er-sheba, and went toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed; and lo, a stair set up on the land, and its head reached to heaven; and lo, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13 And, lo, Yahweh stood above it, and said, “I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14 and thy seed shall be as the dirt of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee, whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”

16 And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place; and I knew it not.” 17 And he was afraid, and said, “How fearful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Yahweh will be my God, 22 then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” (Genesis 28:10–22)

At the risk of repeating myself, I have said that Nathanael’s calling is a puzzle. It is a dark saying—so I am not going to venture an iron-clad, specific solution to it, or say with certainty exactly what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree that provoked his reaction.

But in my opinion, we also don’t need to overthink this.

The connection between whatever he was doing, and Jesus’ statement about seeing heaven opened, is surely clear. Jesus is expanding on the symbolism of being under the fig tree when he says Nathanael will see greater things than these. It hardly seems coincidental that after confessing his faith because Jesus saw him under the fig tree, Nathanael is told he will see “greater things than these”—greater things which directly reflect the symbolism of trees as stairways to heaven.

I believe that what we are meant to infer is that Nathanael was praying beneath the tree. This was a common practice of the time. Jesus saw him there because, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus was the one standing at the other end of that stairway to heaven. And Nathanael’s prayer, we may also infer, was of such a nature, that when he perceived that Jesus had seen him, and combined that knowledge with the testimony of Phillip, there remained no doubt in his mind as to who Jesus truly was. It was, no doubt, a guileless prayer. Perhaps it was a prayer related to the judgment on Israel that is implied in the baptism of the Holy Spirit not much earlier in the chapter (Jn 1:33; cf. Mt 3:11; Lk 3:16). Or perhaps, more likely, it is a prayer for the fulfillment of Micah 4:

But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of Yahweh’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem… But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of Yahweh of hosts hath spoken it… In that day, saith Yahweh, will I assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted; and I will make that which was lame a remnant, and that which was cast far off a strong nation: and Yahweh will reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth even for ever. (Micah 4:1–2, 4, 6–7)

The extensive symbolism of high places in Micah 4, the specific reference to sitting under a fig tree, and the promise of Yahweh reigning, all line up with Nathanael’s exclamation: “Thou art the Son of God; thou art King of Israel.”

Whatever the specifics, he recognizes—at least sufficiently to confess in amazement—the identity of Jesus as the one he is seeking: the one who will usher in the last days, reign over the earth from Zion, and bring peace to mankind.

Jesus is the one who brings heaven down to earth. The Son of our Father in the heavens, made flesh as a man in the physical realm. The place where heaven and earth are joined, and God’s presence and rulership are established in the world.

What Nathanael did not see, but which will be revealed in John’s gospel, is that this union of heaven and earth is ultimately fulfilled in the cross—where, on a tree, on a pole, at a place of judgment, the divide between God and man was finally done away with.

Jesus is the true tree. Jesus is the true altar. Jesus is the true Babel, the true stairway to heaven. No one can come to the Father in the heavenly places, except through him.

Why was he in the tomb for four days? My pastor’s answer was that traditionally Jews thought the spirit of a dead person stayed around for 3 days. Since Lazarus was in the tomb 4 days, he was truly raised from the dead rather than his spirit just returning to his body because it had been hanging around. This doesn’t seem to be a sufficient answer. I know numbers are significant. What does it mean that he was in the tomb 4 days? John has so much to show about the spirit moving. Does that have to do with the 4 winds or 4 corners of the earth? John 2:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you do not hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Can you help me think through this?

I can certainly try.

I am not sure that this has to do with the Spirit moving; the connection is certainly very opaque if it is. While that is certainly an important theme in John’s gospel, I’m skeptical that we are supposed to find it here.

I am even more skeptical that a Jewish superstition about the spirits of the departed is in view. I have certainly not come across such a belief in any of the commentaries I’ve consulted. Even if it was something held at the time, it is obviously repudiated by scripture, and it seems very improbable to me that Jesus would use such a belief as the touchpoint for how long he waited to raise Lazarus. A more common interpretation is simply that he wanted the miracle to be more pronounced, since after four days, as Martha says, a body would be decomposing.

Like you, I agree this is unsatisfying, and unlikely to be the extent of the significance that John intended. However, I don’t know for sure what the answer is; often numbers are puzzles, designed to get us to ponder the text and see some possibilities, not necessarily to arrive at a certain conclusion. Here is what I think might be going on, from the most stretchy to the most plausible:

(1)

Four is in one sense a number of completion, or “cosmic totality” in the words of Seraphim Hamilton; there are four corners to the world or a house, four winds, four kingdoms and beasts before Christ, four living creatures, four faces to each, four horses and horsemen, four watches of the night, etc. Possibly we are therefore meant to intuit that Lazarus is “completely” dead, not just mostly dead as Westley was in The Princess Bride. Or, taking this further, possibly we are meant to see Lazarus as a cosmic archetype of all who die, and his resurrection therefore as the defeat of cosmic death rather than merely individual death.

(2)

It is also possible that we should detect here a “micro-wilderness” pattern. Lazarus is in the tomb four days, as Israel was in the wilderness 40 years, and Jesus 40 days. I wouldn’t discount this, but it seems like a bit of a stretch.

(3)

A more likely connection, not incompatible with those above, is that the number four is also an inflection-point, or turning-point. For instance, Samson’s enemies try three days to solve his riddle, then on the fourth switch to a more violent strategy (Jdg 14:14–15); the Levite stays three days, then tries to leave on the fourth (Jdg 19:4–5); Ezra waits three days in Jerusalem, then begins work on the fourth (Ezr 8:32–33). The idea here is that the third day is the half-sabbath (cf. Gen 40:20; 19:11; Num 19:12 etc), so it is appropriate to rest three days, then begin work again. This seems more likely to me, as it is a pattern that seems to fit naturally into the resurrection of Lazarus.

Related to this, we have Leviticus 19:23–25:

And when ye come in unto the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then ye have reckoned as uncircumcised its fruit; three years it is to you uncircumcised, it is not eaten, and in the fourth year all its fruit is holy—praises for Yahweh. And in the fifth year ye do eat its fruit—to add to you its increase (Leviticus 19:23–25)

This seems to take the pattern of the fourth “time” as a turning-point, and add an extra layer to it, such that if Lazarus’ resurrection is part of that pattern, there is a special significance given to his being raised on the fourth day, rather than the fifth—he is now holy to the Lord. This obviously has notable eschatological overtones. But it also leads into the final possibility:

(4)

John sets up the answer at the beginning of the story. Once Jesus decides to return to Judea and the disciples object, he makes this mysterious remark:

Are there not twelve hours in the day? if any one may walk in the day, he doth not stumble, because the light of this world he doth see; and if any one may walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him. (John 11:9–10)

This does not seem apropos of anything; it does not answer their objection, nor explain his actions. Its meaning, like the meaning of Lazarus being four days in the tomb, is dark.

Perhaps these two dark things shed light upon each other. Lazarus is no longer in the day; he has fallen into darkness. Jesus walks four days in the light in order to raise him back up. By the counting that Jesus himself gives us, that is 48 hours. Of course we are not counting the hours of darkness; he tells us to count only the hours of light—the “twelve hours in the day.”

I don’t mean to suggest that Jesus walked exactly 48 daylight hours, or alternatively that Lazarus was in the tomb exactly that amount of time, but rather that John uses the general timing of these events to set up a pattern where we can discern that Lazarus was numerologically in the tomb for 48 hours.

This would put the next event, his being raised and coming out of the tomb, at the 49th hour—a jubilee hour, a sabbath of sabbaths, and a prototype of both the rest and the holiness we have in the resurrection. This seems to mesh quite happily with Leviticus 19:23–25, depicting Lazarus as a first-fruits set apart for God.

It would also mesh very happily with a previous numerological connection that John makes in chapter 2:

The Jews, therefore, said, Forty and six years was this temple in the building, and wilt thou in three days raise it up? but he spoke concerning the temple of his body. (John 2:20–21)

Here, too, we have resurrection depicted as a jubilee—46 times + 3 times = 49. Thus Jesus’ resurrection is prefigured as the jubilee that grounds Lazarus’ own jubilee-resurrection, which in turn prefigures the great Jubilee of the eschaton.

Now, possibly there are problems with this interpretation; possibly it is not what John intended at all. But these are the sorts of connections that come to mind when I see puzzles like this in scripture.

(5)

With the numbers 1–7, the first question I tend to ask is whether there’s a connection to one of the days of creation. Here’s a possibility: the resurrection is how God consummates our position as the luminaries of the new creation. So perhaps we should see Lazarus being raised after four days, as a kind of prototype fourth day of the new creation we are now living in. He is a new luminary on a new fourth day, as a promise of our all being raised as luminaries in the general resurrection. This would mesh well with (1) above, referencing cosmic totality.

Psalm 1

1. Happy1 the man that goeth2 not in the counsel of the wicked,
   and in the way of the sinful3 taketh no stand,4
   and in the seat of the scoffing5 doth not6 dwell.7

2. Only8 in the direction of Yahweh,9 his pleasure,
   and in his direction, murmureth10 day and night.

3. And he is as a tree planted on channels11 of water
   that its fruit, ·it giveth12 in its time,13
   and its leaf, ·it shrivelleth not,
   and all that he doeth, it ·doth succeed.14

4. Not so are the wicked—
   only as chaff that is driven ‹away›15 by the spirit.16

5. Upon-so,17 no rising of the wicked in the judgement,18
   and the sinful in the assembly of the righteous.19

6. For Yahweh is knowing20 the way of the righteous,
   and the way of the wicked is lost.21

In view of this, many of our readers have expressed much interest in my theology (not philosophy) of translation. If the telos of Christian life is transformation into the image of Christ, and this is fundamentally achieved through receiving the mind of Christ, which is infallibly and supremely expressed in the word of Christ…then how we represent that word in English matters a great deal.

I made this point initially here:

(Since then I have made a number of posts that impinge on translation in various ways, which I leave to the eager reader to find.)

This is not a theoretical concern for me, as my chief ministry work is shepherding a small church. I have been preaching through Judges, and translating as I go, so my interest is highly practical. This translation of Judges is too large a project to be suited to Substack; at some point I will create a website for it. However, since I preached on Psalm 47 yesterday for the new year, and a single psalm is a much more managable chunk of content, I am sharing it here with the translation notes, for those who are interested in such things.

I have not included any comments about my overall approach to translation; I have 17,000 words on that in the “preface” (rapidly becoming a separate book) to my translation on Judges. It won’t fit here.

Psalm 47

1. For the director,1 by the sons of Qorah, a psalm.
   All ye peoples blast your palms2
   bellow3 unto God in voices ringing.4

2. For Yahweh most ascended5 is fearsome
   king of greatness over all the land.6

3. He subdueth peoples beneath us
   and countries7 beneath our feet.

4. He chooseth for us our inheritance
   the liftedness8 of Jacob that he loveth (selah).9

5. God ascendeth in a bellow
   Yahweh in a voice of ramshorns.10

6. Psalm ‹to him›—God—psalm ‹to him›
   psalm ‹to him›, unto our king, psalm ‹to him›.11

7. For king of all the land is God
   psalm to him a masterwork.12

8. King is God over the nations13
   God dwelleth on his throne of holiness.

9. Nobles of peoples are gathered
   with the people of the God of Abraham14
   for unto God are the shields15 of the land
   very ascended is he.16

And it came to be on the morrow, and the people went forth to the field, and they told it unto Avi-Melek.

On the surface, this presents a puzzle. Why would Avi-Melek’s allies in the city alert him to the people going out into the field? Why would he care? Is this not a perfectly normal and innocent thing for people to do? The word in Hebrew just means to “go forth,” “come forth,” or “bring forth,” depending on context — it is a common, even ubiquitous term in scripture, and does not suggest anything nefarious.

Here in Judges 9, however, it is used much more specifically. Scripture uses a curiously small number of words to say a great many things — and the initial occurrence of a word is very important for setting its meaning. I call this the “head” of the word, following scripture’s own way of speaking. For instance, the head of the word “head” in scripture, is actually the head of scripture itself: the first word of Genesis is b’reshiyt, “in the head.”

When we are trying to decipher a puzzle like the one here in Judges 9:42, knowing the head of the word is important for knowing what God means by it. Where it is first used, and how? And we must remember that what counts as the “first” use, the head of the word, depends on the body. Scripture is fractal as bodies are fractal, and so there can be multiple heads. You can have the first use of a word in the whole Bible, or the first use in a book, or the first use in a chapter or pericope or passage.

The head of “come forth” in scripture as a whole is Genesis 1:12, where the land brings forth plants. But we’re doing a study of this word in this story, here in Judges 9 — so we need to be alert to the possibility that it has a somewhat different head. And indeed, the first time it is used in this story “resets” its meaning for the story. I don’t mean it has a completely new meaning, but the word is filled with a very particular connotation that isn’t usually there in the rest of scripture.

Verses 15 and 20 are the head of this particular word — where Yotham is pronouncing his curse:

And said the bramble unto the trees, “If in trueness ye are anointing me to be king upon you, come, take refuge in my shadow; and if not, let fire come forth from the bramble and eat up the cedars of Lebanon… 20 Let fire come forth from Avi-Melek and eat up the masters of Shekhem and Beyt Millo, and let fire come forth from the masters of Shekhem and from Beyt Millo and eat up Avi-Melek!” (Judges 9:15, 20)

Does the initial use here set a certain connotation for this otherwise innocuous and ubiquitous term here in Judges 9? Has Yotham’s curse, as it were, cursed the “coming forth,” and made it something hostile, something under judgment, something leading to destruction, and something connected with idolatry (since the selection of Avi-Melek as king is actually a selection of Ba’al as god)? Perhaos, every time we read this phrase, “come forth” or “go forth,” we should read it as a hostile or cursed act.

This does indeed seem to be the case. Look at verses 26–27:

26 And Ga’al son of Eved came, and his brothers, and crossed into Shekhem, and in him the masters of Shekhem put their confidence, 27 and they went forth into the field and harvested their vineyards and trod and made praises and went to the house of their god and they ate and they drank and they reduced Avi-Melek (vv 26–27)

Going forth is here an act of idolatry followed by an act of cursing the man they crowned king. And during this boastful cursing, Ga’al then says, “I would say unto Avi-Melek, ‘Multiply thine army and come forth!’” (v. 29).

In response, Zevul instructs Avi-Melek in preparing an ambush, so that Ga’al “and the people that are with him shall come forth unto thee, and mayest thou do unto them as that thy hand finds” (v. 33). Clearly, coming forth here is envisaged as some kind of military act: a skirmish, a sortie.

Then verse 35, Ga’al goes forth from the gate in the morning. This is where the puzzle begins, however. It isn’t clear that he is really prepared for combat. It does not seem that he is on the offensive — or even on the defensive. This puzzle is solved by referring back to verse 25, where the masters of Shekhem are being depicted as going forth to prey on the people of the land. This is what Ga’al has been commissioned to do; the masters (lit: ba’als) of Shekhem “put their confidence” in him. They are sending Ga’al and his brothers out to lie in wait on the heads of the mountains, and rob all who cross them, and hopefully waylay Avi-Melek. This time however, in verse 35, the heads of the mountains are swarming with people who are coming down to prey on them — an ironic reversal they are completely unprepared for. The Shekhemites are “going forth” as unto hyenas or jackals, not lions or wolves; they are scavengers, no match for the predator that awaits them. Nonetheless, they are forced into battle, and we read in verse 38, Zevul challenges Ga’al, “Go thee forth now, pray, and war with him.” And so he does in verse 39 — upon which he is routed.

This sets up what happens in verse 42:

And it came to be on the morrow, and the people went forth to the field, and they told it unto Avi-Melek…

Essentially, this is the Shekhemites up to their old tricks again. They haven’t learned a thing. Look at how verse 42 echoes verse 25 — they rhyme:

25 And the masters of Shekhem set for him lyings-in-wait upon the heads of the mountains [a hostile action]… and it was told unto Avi-Melek.

42 And it came to be on the morrow, and the people went forth to the field [a hostile action], and they told it unto Avi-Melek…

They are going forth to do more robbing. As the king — so-called; he is not really king — Avi-Melek cannot wink at this kind of thing. It is his job to make sure the highways are safe, and that bandits are brought to justice. More importantly, it is his job to make sure that traitors are caught and insurrections are put down. He can’t have the Shekhemites going forth, defying him, harrassing his subjects, and lurking in ambush to destroy him. So when it is told to him that Shekhem have not learned their lesson, but are still up to the same old tricks, he has to come back the next day to deal to them more severely.

References

The sermon on the sabbath as a celebration:

Redwood Reformation Church

Vocation, part 13: the call to rest

Although God calls man primarily to participate in his work of dominion, his most blessed calling is the call to participate in his rest. Yet the sabbath pattern, too, is sacrificial: a giving up of our work to us, so that we may enjoy it with God.Subscribe to get new sermons in your mailbox…

Listen now

2 years ago · Bnonn Tennant

The article on fasting:

Discipleship & Dominion

Fasting: scripture’s answer to consumerism

We are becoming partakers of the divine nature. But as we saw last time, this is not something that happens automatically; rather, God has given us the power to choose — to do or not do — so we may participate in what we are becoming; so we may work together with the Holy Spirit to partake of the divine nature more and more as we grow in faith and holiness…

Read more

6 months ago · 16 likes · Bnonn Tennant

Other articles:

• Jon Herr, The Minister’s Uniform

• D. Bnonn Tennant, Not enough faith to worship

• Jeffrey Meyers, Why Does the Pastor Wear a Robe?

The Narnian

Blaspheming Glorious Ones

Introduction…

Read more

6 months ago · 23 likes · 3 comments · J.M. Robinson

Josh rightly points out that when Christ triumphed over the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, he put them to open shame, leading them in triumphal procession (Eph 4:8; Ps 68:18; Col 2:15).

And the church, as the earthly body of Christ and the instrument of his gospel — the message of his triumph — cannot help but participate in this event.

Moreover, our participation is especially by remembrance — memorial is a key concept and practice in scripture; and not an intellectual or spiritual one, but a sacramental and material one: “Do this unto my remembrance” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24).

Redwood Reformation Church

How should we worship? Part 8: the Lord's Supper as covenant remembrance

Although the Lord’s Supper is a deep mystery, Christ’s words of institution make it plain that it is a mystery of remembrance. When we trace the use of such language throughout scripture, it becomes clear that the Eucharist gathers up all of the feasts and sacrifices of the Old Testament into a single sacrament that brings God’s covenant to his remembra…

Listen now

3 years ago · Bnonn Tennant

The church is thus more than authorized to commemorate Christ’s victory-procession, parading the shame of the despoiled principalities and demons before the world — she is all but mandated to do it.

Thus far, so good.

My question, however, is whether any of this really speaks to modern Halloween practices.

I know Josh will not mind a friendly challenge. It is also only fair me to note that his article is speaking about general principles, not specific practices. I don’t know how he celebrates Halloween, or how he counsels his church to celebrate it.

But at the same time, he does seem to be trying to satisfy the objections and appease the consciences of Christians who are considering how Halloween is typically celebrated.

The paradigm model for that is Trick-or-Treat.

But Trick-or-Treat obviously looks nothing like a commemorative victory parade led by the church.

There is no clear way, symbolically speaking, in which it draws from Christian doctrine or history at all.

But there are many plain ways in which it draws from historical, cross-cultural pagan practices associated with the Day of the Dead — without doing much to redeem them.

Dressing up as evil and abominable things is not the same as mocking those things. It can show that you don’t fear them; but that is seldom what imitation does mean. Usually it is a form of symbolic participation in them.

Neither does having those demons running free, extorting offerings from those who fear their retribution, seem like a perspicuous way to celebrate how they can no longer run free extorting offerings from those who fear them.

I am not saying there is no logic to it. I see how you can say, “We are re-enacting the world that was, in celebration of how it is no longer the world that is. We have turned what was then a bad reality into what is now a good game.”

But it rings hollow — because it is indistinguishable from what the pagans are doing (and have always done in some form); and it does not synchronize with the actual model of scripture, which is a victory parade in which those demons are obviously captives.

If you were to have a great festival where Trick-or-Treat was interrupted by fireworks, and then all the people in houses turned upon the trick-or-treaters and chased them away, or captured them and dragged them into a procession up to the local church, after which the gifts they had stolen were shared among the congregation and the poor, that would be quite a different matter.

But tell me about a place where that happens!

Indeed, a chief problem with Trick-or-Treat is that the church is not present at all. Individual members may be; but the body is not.

Josh made the case well that the pageantry of Halloween belongs to the church. The celebration of Halloween is the church putting on her victory.

But church members doing whatever the rest of their culture is doing…that is not the church.

In this way, it seems to me that Christians participating in Trick-or-Treat (without serious modification to the practice) are, in fact, blaspheming glorious ones through irreverent mockery, and overturning the hierarchy of creation, by making the devices of their own minds—and the minds of their pagan neighbors—the standard for their liturgical practices; rather than Christ’s word, mediated through his body.

This is confusion.

Carnivalesque pageantry is clearly an appropriate way for the church to liturgically participate in Christ’s victory-march out of Hades.

So let’s see the church doing this.

Trick-or-Treat ain’t it.

Update

Josh responds here:

The Narnian

Trick-or-Triumph

Introduction…

Read more

6 months ago · 7 likes · 3 comments · J.M. Robinson

What this response reveals is that the difference between us seems to be caused by speaking in general principles, rather than getting into specific practices.

I am somewhat ignorant, because Halloween is not celebrated here in NZ like it is in the US; however, it is my impression that All Hallows does not have any kind of formal celebration, following Hallows’ Eve.

Fortunately, in response to my encouragement, Josh lays out how the liturgy of the two days actually works for his church — and it’s well worth reading:

The Narnian

From Carnival to Cathedral

Introduction…

Read more

6 months ago · 6 likes · J.M. Robinson

And Gideon ascended the way of the abiders in tents from the east unto Novach and Yogbahah and smote the camp; and the camp was confident. (Judges 8:11)

Why are we told the way Gideon goes before he smites the camp? Three details seem significant:

1. He ascends from (or to) the east

2. The ascent is the way of the abiders in tents

3. The direction is toward Novach and Yogbahah

These are peculiar details. What the author could have said is that Gideon took a nomad caravan route around to the east, to outflank Midian and meet them coming the other way.

That is, in essence, what he tells us; but he says it in this cryptic, almost encoded “format” — full of details that mean nearly nothing to us in terms of geography or strategy. No one knows for sure where these places are any more; and the Holy Spirit certainly knew that their locations would be forgotten — yet he carefully preserved their names. By the same token, what difference does it make if Gideon is going uphill or downhill? And why the odd description of the tent-dwellers?

So perhaps the specific terms here are important for more than merely conveying geographical and strategical details. It seems to me there is some clear theological signaling and even humor going on here.

The use of the specific term “abiders in tents” to describe the nomads of the eastern desert is surely calculated to evoke an extra layer of meaning beyond the obvious: although this is a common root word in scripture, its first use is in Genesis 3:24, where God makes cherubs (angelic palace-guardians) to “abide” at the east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life. After this, while abide does have mundane meanings, it is overwhelmingly used in the books of Moses and Joshua — the books leading up to Judges — of The “Abode” — or, traditionally translated, the tabernacle.

(In fact, it is a word so significant in this regard that it has been received into English, in a somewhat odd form, as Shekhinah.)

Thus the word “abide” has a very strong connotation in scripture; a connotation, in fact, of the mystery of God’s own presence among us. We refer to this mystery every time we take the Lord’s supper at : we quote Deuteronomy 12, 14, 16 and 26, which all say basically the same thing: “You shall eat and rejoice before Yahweh your God, in the place which he has chosen, to make his name abide there.” And then we all respond: “Abide in us Lord, as we abide in you;” for we ourselves, of course, are the abodes of God now — the tabernacles in which he settles and dwells.

So it seems to me that there is more in this turn of phrase, “abiders in tents,” than merely a quaint description of nomads. What is the “way of the abiders in tents?” It is the way of God and his people.

This way is also an easterly ascent. Of course it is — an ascent of Eden, the mountain of God. Gideon is not just depicted as taking a geographical journey, but a spiritual one; the word choices in the text make this to be a spiritual pursuit as well as a physical one; and a religious victory as well as a military one.

What about Novach and Yogbahah? Why are they included? I believe partly for humor.

Gideon’s way is the ascent of those who God abides in (and who abide in God) — but it is also the way of barking (Novach), and exaltation (Yogbahah). A comical juxtaposition — but of course, hardly an unexpected one: Gideon is pursuing with his 300 dog-soldiers, the men who lapped like dogs. More on that another time.

And he said unto Zevah and Tsalmunna, “Where are the men that ye slew in Tavor?” And they said, “As that thee, as that they; each was as the form of the sons of the king.” And he said, “My brothers, the sons of my mother they. Living Yahweh! Would ye have kept them alive, I would not slay you.” (Judges 8:19)

As a rule, we should see the judges as saviors, sent by God to teach about the Savior (cf. Gal 3:24). They are models for us — though often mysterious ones — rather than rogues and bounders. Gideon himself just the day before was “clothed” with the Spirit of Yawheh (Jdg 6:34).

But how can his actions here be fair? How can they reflect this spiritual anointing? Even if his treatment of Sukot and Penuel is justified on account of their treachery, he is now showing more favor to his unbelieving enemies — idolatrous heathen who have preyed on God’s own people — than to the Israelites who were terrorized by them.

The only reason he seems to have to kill Zevah and Tsalmunna is personal vengeance. Surely this is a miscarriage of justice.

Even James Jordan, from whom I learned the right way to interpret the character of the judges, cannot see that Gideon is right in this case.

But he is.

Firstly, remember what 2 Kings 6 indicates about killing a prisoner of war in cold blood: it is not justice, but murder. When the chariots of fire struck the Syrian army blind, so that Elisha could capture them at Samaria,

the king of Israel said unto Elisha, at his seeing them, “Shall I smite, shall I smite, my father?” And he said, “Thou shalt not smite; those whom thou hadst taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow, would thou smite?” (2 Kings 6:21–22)

In other words, the king would not execute prisoners that he had captured by regular warfare — that would be wicked. So why would he think it just to execute ones that were delivered to him by spiritual warfare?

Israel was not authorized to kill whomever they wanted of their enemies: only the seven nations of the land were to be utterly devoted to destruction (the Canaanites); and only enemies who would not surrender were to be killed (because that’s how war works). But Zevah and Tsalmunna were not of those Canaanite tribes, being sons of the East; and they were no longer a threat, having surrendered. The justness of killing in war is an application of the principle of self-defense — and we can hardly justify killing an unarmed man in self-defense.

But, there is another just reason to kill someone. It is spelled out in Numbers 35, which requires that a murderer be put to death by what is generally translated the “avenger of blood.” A better translation would be the payer-back of the blood, because this same word is most often translated redeem (i.e., to pay back in order to reclaim someone or something), and even kinsman-redeemer (i.e., the payer-back for someone’s freedom or land).

The payer-back of the blood himself shall put the murderer to death; in his meeting upon him he shall put him to death. And if in hatred he [the killer] thrust him [the victim] through, or cast anything at him by lying in wait, and he died; or in enmity he smote him with his hand, and he died; the smiter shall certainly be put to death; he is a murderer; the payer-back of the blood shall put the murderer to death in his meeting upon him. (Numbers 35:19–21)

Gideon is acting in accordance with this law; he is the lawful payer-back of the blood of his brothers. It is actually his job to execute these two kings as a matter of civil justice, for their murder of his brothers. This is made especially obvious in the text itself, by the somewhat unusual choice of words from Zevah and Tsalmunna: “Rise thou and meet upon us.” This is very specific term is used twice in Numbers 35: “The payer-back of the blood himself shall put the murderer to death; in his meeting upon him he shall put him to death…the payer-back of the blood shall put the murderer to death in his meeting upon him.”

Well, here Zevah and Tsalmunna invite Gideon to meet upon them — and so he does.

But…why does he try to get his son to do it?

And he said unto Yeter, his firstborn, “Rise, slay thou them.” And the youngster drew not his sword, in that he feared, in that he was yet a youngster. (Judges 8:20)

Gideon is being trained for war, so that Israel may be trained for war. God left the nations in the land to teach them holy war (Jdg 3:2). They must learn the trade of their Father in heaven: the trade of crushing serpent heads.

This is central to understanding Israel at all. Consider where it comes from as a nation: Israel is Jacob. As a nation, it follows the same pattern as Jacob the man. God raised up enemies against Jacob — but not because he was angry with him. It is true that God has been angry with Israel — but even in these cases, the enemies he raises up are not ultimately punitive, but rather instructive and restorative. They are not to make Israel suffer unnecessarily, but for the purpose of bringing them to repentance, and especially of training them for war (cf. Ps 144:1). When Jacob wrestled against Esau and Laban, it was not because he had done something wrong and needed to be taught a lesson; it was because God was training him as his son. And in fact, Jacob did so well that when God raised up a third enemy, the “final boss,” there was no one suitable but God himself! Maturing and training through conflict is at the heart of Jacob’s story, so it is at the heart of Israel’s story — and in particular, it is very obviously at the heart of Gideon’s story, as a fractal reflection of this great pattern.

Israel is God’s firstborn son, who must learn their Father’s ways. God has been trying to teach his son to war against evil, to strike the head of the serpent — and he has now successfully trained Gideon. But this is not the work of one man, or one generation — so who will carry on the work when Gideon is gone? Obviously Gideon’s firstborn son. Again, this is a fractal pattern. As the firstborn, Yeter is by rights God’s possession according to Exodus 13:2, 15. So while it seems shocking, maybe even foolish and cruel to us, that Gideon tries to have his son execute these kings, in fact he is doing with Yeter exactly what God has been doing with himself, and with Israel as a whole. Gideon is seeking to teach his son holy war, as God has taught Israel, embodied in Gideon himself.

Sadly, Yeter fails. In Judges 7:10, we learned that Gideon feared to descend into the camp; fear has been a repeated motif in his story — and here we see that the son is not greater than the father. Gideon’s son fails to take up his work, because he is too immature and fearful. And this darkly foreshadows what is to come in the book of Judges, as Israel itself continues to fail to take up God’s work, because they are too immature and faithful.

References

The sermon on sacrifice as a creational pattern:

Redwood Reformation Church

Vocation, part 11: the calling to sacrifice

Although we tend to think of sacrifice in terms of atonement, it is actually built into the nature of creation before the fall. The pattern of giving something up to a higher thing is found in everything from seeds to offerings.Subscribe to get new sermons in your mailbox…

Listen now

3 years ago · Bnonn Tennant

Two other essays developing these ideas in more detail:

Ye have not hearkened unto my voice — what is this ye have done? (Judges 2:2)

He then pronounces three judgments, the second of which in the Hebrew reads literally that the Canaanites “shall be unto your sides” (v. 3).

This reading is obscured by most Bibles, because they try to “make sense” of this. They do this one of two ways:

1. By reinterpreting the Hebrew along the lines of “they shall be a snare to you;”

2. By assuming that the word “thorns” has been accidentally left out.

The NET’s translation note is representative (emphasis added):

The meaning of the Hebrew word צִדִּים (tsiddim) is uncertain in this context. It may be related to an Akkadian cognate meaning “snare.” If so, a more literal translation would be “they will become snares to you.” Normally the term in question means “sides,” but this makes no sense here. On the basis of Num 33:55 some suggest the word for “thorns” has been accidentally omitted. If this word is added, the text would read, “they will become [thorns] in your sides” (cf. NASB, NIV, NLT).

But is it true that “they shall be unto your sides” makes no sense here, as the NET boldly claims? Numbers 33:55-56 reads:

And if ye do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be, those whom ye let remain of them, shall be for pricks in your eyes, and for thorns in your sides, and they shall distress you on the land in which ye are dwelling, and it shall be, as I thought to do unto them—I shall do unto you. (Nu 33:55–56)

In Numbers, the emphasis is on the Canaanites being a curse; pricks and thorns, which are what God caused to grow out of the ground on account of Adam’s disobedience. Israel, the new Adam — if it fails to properly guard and serve the new garden that God is giving them — will also find thorns and thistles springing up from the land. But here in Judges, the language is abbreviated, and says that the Canaanites will be “unto their sides.”

To see this as a corruption of the text, however, strikes me as highly unimaginative. Surely there is a superior explanation: this is a holographic use of language.

As hologram stickers capture more than one perspective of an image, so this sentence, through careful word selection, captures more than one idea. By omitting the word thorns, we are forced to slow down and ask what it means to be “unto the sides.” Like much of scripture, the angel’s judgment is not supposed to be a clear “lens” — it is supposed to a prism, revealing multiple meanings through a single fittingly-shaped component.

In this case, it reveals at least four meanings:

1. Most obviously, as mentioned above, the Canaanites will be a curse like thorns, per Numbers 33:55.

2. Another answer is that the Canaanites will be a kind of helpmeet: a corrupted Eve at the side of this new Adam. Not only is this implicit in the pattern of Israel and the promised land as a recapitulation of Adam and Eden, but the explicit judgment of the angel is with regard to illicit covenantal unions — which, we learn in Judges 3:6, especially involves marriage alliances.

3. These illicit covenantal unions are also a kind of unequal yoking contrary to the law (Dt 22:10; 2 Cor 6:14) — and having chosen to be so yoked, Israel will not be able to break free as the Caananites lead them astray.

4. Finally, the Canaanites are presented as a kind of parasite, like worms that might be found in the sides of an animal — an idea already expressly evoked four times in the immediately preceding text, where it speaks of them living “in the inwards” of Israel — the same term used for the innards of an animal (Jdg 1:29, 30, 32, 33; cf. e.g. Lev 1:9).

It is not always the case that a difficult reading is a result of textual corruption or lost cognates. In fact, it may more often be that a difficult reading is a result of a lack of appreciation for the imaginative way that God communicates — and a lack of willingness to submit ourselves to it.

And king David was old, entering into days, and they covered him with garments, and he had no heat, 2 and his servants said to him, “Let them seek for my lord the king a youngster, a virgin, and let her stand before the king, and be unto him a steward, and lie in thy bosom, and my lord the king shall have heat.” 3 And they sought a beautiful youngster in all the border of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her in to the king, 4 and the young woman was really very beautiful, and she was to the king a companion, and served him, and the king knew her not. (1 Kings 1:1–4)

What is going on here? A few rough thoughts that move toward an answer…

The story of Abishag really revolves around Adoniyah, rather than David. It introduces Adoniyah’s attempted coup in chapter 1, and when this fails, Adoniyah apparently thinks he can play a longer game, starting by asking for Abishag as his wife in chapter 2. Solomon interprets this as a move to take the kingdom, akin to asking for his military commander or high priest — “ask the kingdom also” (vv. 22–23).

Solomon’s response to Adoniyah’s request only makes sense if Abishag is actually (at least optically) David’s youngest wife or concubine; to take one’s father’s woman is a means of usurpation repeatedly employed by wicked sons in scripture: Ham, Reuben, Absalom, and here Adoniyah.

Since this story revolves around Adoniyah’s insurrection, the purpose of telling us that David knew Abishag not, seems to be therefore to emphasize his impotence, rather than his virtue. In fact, what this passage is showing is — at least in part — is David receiving back the treatment he gave to Uriah the Hittite.

To see this, consider first that Abishag “lies in David’s bosom” — the same expression used by Nathan of Bath-sheba in relation to Uriah, in his analogy of the poor man with the ewe-lamb:

And it grew up with him, and with his sons together; of his morsel it ate, and from his cup it drank, and in his bosom it lay, and it was to him as a daughter. (2 Sam 12:3)

In verse 8, the phrase is repeated, as Uriah’s one wife is compared with all of Saul’s wives, who God “gave into David’s bosom” (again, showing the significance of taking possession of a patriarch’s women in order to replace him).

To see the connection between Bath-sheba and Abishag, it is helpful to know that, by James Jordan’s calculations, Bath-sheba was only 19 or 20 when David took her from her husband — while he was 49 or 50. Hence, while not a virgin like Abishag, Bath-sheba was certainly a “youngster.” And, like Abishag, she was very beautiful (1 Sam 11:2).

A further connection is made — and through it to Adoniyah again — by the mention of David’s bed. The reason that David sees Bath-sheba in the first place is because he is lazing about on his bed, instead of going to war (2 Sam 11:1). And when he sees her, which instigates an existential threat to the kingdom, it is on account of rising from his bed:

and it came to be, at evening time, that David arose from off his bed, and walked up and down on the roof of the king’s house, and saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was of very good appearance. (2 Sam 11:2)

By contrast, in the passage describing Abishag, we see David bowing himself on his bed (1 Ki 1:47); and of course we read that Abishag lies in his bosom. So there is an ironic reversal going on: in 2 Samuel 11, at the height of his strength and potency, David is on his bed illegitimately. He arises from it to use that strength and potency, not to war against his enemies, but to war against one of his chief warriors by stealing his young wife back to that bed. But in 1 Kings 1, at the height of his weakness and impotency, David is on his bed legitimately. He is unable to rise from it — and though they bring a young woman right to his bed, he is still unable to take her. Again, I don’t think the text is lionizing him when it notes that he knew her not; it is rather noting the shameful end to which he has been brought in fitting parallel to how he misused his bed before.

Yet whereas David’s taking Bath-sheba to bed created an existential threat to the kingdom before, now, his inability to take Abishag to bed creates another existential threat. Adoniyah is ready to take the kingdom from him.

Threats to kings and kingship and kingdoms are frequently associated with beds. In the kingdom era, the bed is connected with kings and death in various ways, almost exclusively (i.e., there are very few mentions of beds where this pattern does not appear):

• King Saul tries to assassinate his rival, David, in bed — and is thwarted by Michal replacing him with an idol (1 Sam 19:13–15).

• Later, after the dead Samuel “ascends” from the earth to deliver his oracle of Saul’s death, Saul himself “arises” from the earth to “dwell” on a bed and eat (1 Sam 28:23).

• Ish-bosheth, the son of a king, is assassinated in bed (2 Sam 4:7), as Joash later is also (2 Chr 24:25).

• King David “arises” from his bed to see Bath-sheba bathing, leading to a whole story of death: Uriah’s and the baby’s (another son of a king) — plus of course symbolically David’s, since he deserves to die for his sin, and must have his kingship resurrected.

• Uriah himself goes to lie on his bed, rather than going to his house — thus thwarting David’s initial plan, and leading to his murder (2 Sam 11:13).

• Later, Amnon, the son of a king, feigns illness in bed to trap and rape Tamar.

• King Ahab lies on his bed and turns away his face after being rebuffed by Naboth, which leads to Jezebel’s plot and Naboth’s murder.

• King Ahaziah goes up onto his bed to die (2 Ki 1:16); and we see the same pattern with King Hezekiah; although a bed is not explicitly mentioned, he combines Ahaziah and Ahab, in that after learning he will die, he “turns his face to the wall” (Isa 38:2).

• Finally, King Asa is laid on a bed of spices in his tomb (2 Chr 16:14).

There are, however, also two intriguing non-kingly connections (as far as I can tell) that seem to reverse the pattern of death: the two widows who receive their sons back from the dead.

The bed here is still associated with the grave, but in these cases, the grave is defeated. The widow of Zarephath’s son is laid on Elijah’s bed, and resurrected (1 Ki 17:19) — notably, after Elijah takes him “out of her bosom.” Similarly, the Shunammite woman lays her dead son on Elisha’s bed, where he is resurrected (2 Ki 4:21, 32). When we combine these two accounts, there is a striking resonance with Abishag, the Shunammite virgin, who keeps David warm by lying in his bosom. Is there some kind of symbolic reversal or inversion between the two passages that would shed light on the meaning of 1 Kings 1:1–4…or 1 Kings 1:1–4 on them?

Perhaps. The Shunammite’s son is clearly a type of Isaac. He is promised in the same way that Isaac is promised to Sarah, and he dies and is received back from the dead just like Isaac symbolically is (cf. Heb 11:19). In the same way, David’s kingdom dies and is resurrected in connection to both Bath-sheba and Abishag — through his own son of promise. Solomon is born through Bath-sheba, and crowned in connection with Abishag.

Perhaps someone with sharper eyes or better perspective can fill out the connections here for me.

There is also something, I think, in Leithart’s idea that David is reverting to a “pre-Eve” state. He is cold like the earth (adamah), and his servants seek to “fire him up” with a woman — the Hebrew ish (man), and issah (woman) are related to the word fire (esh). This does fit with the emphasis on her beauty: I have translated it as, “really very beautiful,” but the Hebrew suggests something that dynamically could be taken as, “she was beautiful to the max.”

If we combine these various threads, the pattern that emerges points to something like David descending into the cold grave of his bed. This bodes ill, for as the king goes, so goes his kingdom: the story that follows is a story of Israel nearly falling into the chill hand of Adoniyah, and thus death. David’s servants seek to solve the problem by bringing him the hottest woman they can find, hoping to restore him to a kind of Adamic glory. But David’s kingdom is reborn through Solomon instead, who becomes the new Adam (1 Ki 4:33).

Firstly, we must observe the sabbath. This is because God hallowed the sabbath in creation, and commanded it in the Ten Words. The creation order and the moral law are both abiding patterns that bind all people in all times and places — therefore, all people in all times and places must observe the pattern of the sabbath.

Secondly, we do this by resting and worshiping on the first day, not the seventh. This is because Christ established a new creation — and thus a new creation order — in rising from the grave: a new heavens and a new earth. These have already broken into the world through him, the first-fruit; and they are coming down from God upon this world through the work of his body, the church. This is clear in Revelation 21:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth did pass away, and the sea is no more; 2 and I, John, saw the holy city—new Jerusalem—coming down from God out of the heaven, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband; 3 and I heard a great voice out of the heaven, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will tabernacle with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them—their God, 4 and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor shall there be any more pain, because the first things did go away.” 5 And he who is sitting upon the throne said, “Lo, I make all things new.” (Rev 21:1–5)

Unfortunately, people read this as referring only to the end of the world — but this is impossible. Elements of it are clearly prophetic of the eternal state: no more death or sorrow or pain. But the account itself also tells us how this eternal state is being brought into being. This is a description of the new covenant world from beginning to end. We know that the tabernacle of God is presently with men (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21; 1 Tim 3:15; Heb 3:6; 1 Pet 2:5). We know that we are presently God’s people — this is a formulaic expression in the Old Testament of the new covenant era (Jer 31:33; Hos 2:23; Zech 8:8; 13:9). Thus, we are living in the new heavens and the new earth now; it is an inaugurated, but not yet consummated, reality. And there is correspondingly a new sabbath day — the first day of the week — for Christ’s rest in the grave overflowed into a new day of rest in his being raised glorified from it, never to work under the old creation again. Adam and Israel failed to enter God’s rest; the new Adam and the true Israel did not. We enter into, and share of, and participate in his victorious rest through being made new creations ourselves (2 Cor 5:17). It would be perverse — a retrograde step — to mark this rest on the seventh day, when it was inaugurated on the first.

Similarly, Christ has established a new covenant — and thus a new covenantal order — through his blood. The old covenant corresponded to the old creation order: the day of the Lord, which was the day of worship and judgment, was the seventh. But the new covenant corresponds to the new creation order: thus the inspired record of scripture reveals that the day of the Lord is now the first (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10).

For more on the day of the Lord specifically, see:

Redwood Reformation Church

How should we worship? Part 13: the Lord's Day as the Day of the Lord

From the voice of God walking in the garden in “the spirit of the day,” to John hearing the same voice when in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, the pattern of the Sabbath has always included the fear of judgment to those who are unfaithful. Despite the obfuscation of English translations, scripture uses the same term for “the Day of the Lord” and “the Lord…

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3 years ago · 1 like · Bnonn Tennant

That this logic is not laid out explicitly in scripture should be no surprise to us, because we are no longer little children, under a schoolmaster, but grown sons, entering into our Father’s business. We are no longer priests, but kings; no longer under the lordship of the luminaries, but ourselves lords of time under Christ. For more on this point, see:

The alternative to accepting the Lord’s Day as the new sabbath is to believe that the universal practice of the church from the time of the apostles onward does not reflect the will of God; the Spirit failed to lead his church into truth on this matter. Note that this is not an argument from history, or an argument from silence; it is a theological argument.

Moreover, if the Lord’s Day is a separate day to the sabbath (Old Testament evidence notwithstanding), then we inevitably end up breaking from God’s ways. Either we will end up going back to Saturday worship — breaking fellowship with the New Testament church itself — or we will require both Saturday and Sunday worship — breaking the scripture, which says, “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Yahweh thy God” (Ex 20:9–10).

There is only one day of rest and worship — and in the new covenant creation, it is the first day of the week.

Like fire, salt in excess represents judgment or barrenness — but in proper proportion it seasons and cultivates. You see this dual use in the parable of the salt:

Salt is good, but if the salt becometh tasteless, with what shall it be seasoned? It is fit neither for land nor for dunghill — they cast it out. (Lk 14:34–35)

A small amount of salt would fertilize the soil; a larger amount would sterilize a dunghill. Since we ourselves are dirt (Gen 2:7) — some of us good soil, and some of us worthless (cf. the parable of the sower) — so in Mark’s telling, Jesus speaks of our being “salted with fire”:

And if thine eye may cause thee to stumble, cast it out; it is better for thee one-eyed to enter into the kingdom of God, than having two eyes, to be cast to the hell of fire — where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched; for all with fire shall be salted. (Mk 9:47–49)

Here, as I take it, “all” really does mean all: the choice is this:

• You can be kindled into bearing fruit in this life, through the purification and “fertilizer” of suffering loss — and thus enter the kingdom of heaven;

• You can be seared and made “sterile” in hell — becoming eternally fruitless and unable to bring forth anything of value — through the scorching of God’s eternal judgement.

This also explains why Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt: she became a physical manifestation of the judgment poured out on Sodom when she “looked back” (Gen 19:26). We go where we look, and we become what we worship.1

The connection between salt and soil is also why you would rub salt on a newborn (Ezek 16:4); while the connection between salt and purity is why sacrifices had to be salted (Lev 2:13; Ezek 43:24), and why it was added to the temple incense to make it pure and holy (Ex 30:35).

Meanwhile, our speech should be seasoned with salt (Col 4:6) — and we ourselves are salt (Mt 5:13) — in that all these images are gathered up in the Christian, and one more added: savor.

Just as fire transforms an inedible mixture of ground seed and water into tasty bread; or an unappetizing chunk of cow muscle into delicious steak (you even want a sear on it)…so salt, as earthy fire, adds enhancement on top of transformation. We are to be transformed by the fire of the Holy Spirit working on us through the fiery Word of God — and then we, as “fire men,”2 cleanse and add savor to the world through the salt of our own words.

Having learned the pattern in the sanctuary, we are to go out and serve the land as purifiers, fertilizers, and flavor-enhancers: cleaning, cultivating, and transforming it until the raw ingredients which God gave us are worthy to be returned to him as a well-cooked meal — a sweet savor unto the Lord.