Former Prophets

Waiting for the Rest That Still Remains, Arie C. Leder. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021.

Summary: A consideration of the theology of the former prophets, including the Book of Ruth, considered through the lens of rest.

The books known as the former prophets, including the Book of Ruth, constitute both a significant amount of material in the Old Testament, and cover the history from Joshua preparing to cross Jordan to the heights of the reigns of David and Solomon, the divided kingdom, apostasy, and conquest of first Israel and then Judah, with the people in exile in Babylon–seven centuries.

Is there a theological thread that ties it all together? Arie C. Leder proposes that the thread is one of rest. The center point is Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8:56 in which Solomon praises God “who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised.” This book explores this theological theme, connecting this back to Genesis through Deuteronomy, considering the echoes of this theme in the New Testament as well as implications for the church today.

After four chapters laying the groundwork, Leder devotes a chapter each to Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel and Kings. In Joshua we witness the Lord giving the land of Canaan into their hands but at the end, not completely at rest from their enemies. Rest would hinge on their faithfulness to their covenant vows at Shechem. Sadly, Judges reveals a nation that chooses to do what is right in its own eyes rather than keep covenant. They rob themselves of rest as God abandons them to their enemies, and their own internal conflicts. Amid the chaos, we focus in on Naomi, Boaz, and Ruth. Naomi returns to the land of promise bereft, except for Ruth who has abandoned her family, home, and gods to embrace those of Naomi. But most of all, Boaz shows the covenant faithfulness in extending his wings of protection over Ruth, and Naomi, establishing the line of kings. They find rest, and so much more.

The land who lacked a king finally receives one in the books of Samuel–first Saul, who fails to obey the word of God wholeheartedly, and then David, the man after God’s own heart. This doesn’t mean sinlessness, and results in unrest in his own house, but his humbling himself in repentance means not only pardon but rest from his enemies all about, a gift to his son Solomon, who builds the temple where the ark of the covenant rests. Leder unpacks the prayer, noting six petitions in the promised land, and a seventh that prays toward the land, recognizing the possibility of exile. Then, beginning with his own reign and the gods of his foreign wives, Solomon sets the precedent interrupted only by Hezekiah and Josiah of following foreign gods and leading Israel astray both in worship and covenant obedience. And they no longer find rest in the land but must pray from Babylon.

While a remnant returns, there is a sense in which exile has not ended and rest still remains to be found. Yet, there is a kind of rest even in exile, whether for Israel or for the church, found in remaining in the promise, the covenant of God. Leder draws upon this covenant framework as a guide to what may be appropriated from these ancient texts. Often, the former prophets are neglected, apart from a few selective texts often subjected to moralizing sermons. Leder helps us connect these books to the rest lost in Eden to the sabbath rest for the people of God in Hebrews and the new garden city of Revelation. This is good biblical theology that invites us to look at these books with new eyes and recognize afresh the wonder of a collection of so many works that weave together into one story.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Including the Stranger (New Studies in Biblical Theology), David G. Firth. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: A study of the former prophets that makes the case that God was not an exclusivist who hated foreigners, but that God welcomed the stranger who believed and excluded the Israelite who repudiated him.

Many people have the idea that in the Old Testament, God hates foreigners. At worst, some have called him a genocidal monster. David G. Firth argues from the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings) for something far different. He believes that these books reveal a picture of a God who includes the foreigner who believes, works through such people for the benefit of Israel, and that ultimately, the people of God were defined not by ethnicity but by faith.

In Joshua, he contrasts the faith of Rahab the Canaanite prostitute (and ancestor of David and Christ), with Achan, who takes for himself what was to be devoted to destruction, to the destruction of his fellow Israelites and his own family. Firth also points to the inclusion of the Gibeonites and their subsequent role. In Judges, he contrasts Othniel the Kenite (an outsider), the paradigm judge who saves Israel from the invading nations, with the nation itself, divided by tribal rivalries and becoming more like the surrounding nations.

The books of Samuel contrast Israel who wants to be like other nations and Saul, whose kingship is shaped more by his responses to foreign adversaries than obedience to God, with David, the man after God’s heart, who slays Goliath who dares to taunt against Yahweh. Later, we see David the unfaithful adulterer and murderer of the faithful Hittite soldier Uriah. And when David’s actions bring a plague ln Israel, it is Araunah, the Jebusite, whose threshing floor becomes the site of an altar to Yahweh at the point where the plague stops.

In the books of the Kings, once again, it is the vindication of the greatness of Yahweh over the nations that results in the defeat of the Assyrians confronting Hezekiah. Often, as in Judges, the incursions of the nations are a judgment for Israel’s faithlessness. When Yahweh acts, it is that the nations may know him (2 Kings 19:19). Perhaps the height of this expression of concern for the foreigner is in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple:

As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name—for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. (I Kings 8:41-43, NIV).

Later, Naaman is a striking example of one who finds healing through faith in Israel’s God. Firth then concludes his treatment by tracing this trajectory of concern for including the stranger into the New Testament, and makes application to the church.

Firth’s point in all this is to show that the people of God may include foreigners, and exclude unfaithful Israelites. Foreigner nations face judgment not because they are foreigners, but when they embrace rivals to the living God and represent a threat to lure Israel into the same. Sometimes, these nations are instruments to draw Israel back to God through invasions.

Firth does a service in calling our attention to the numerous instances of the inclusion of the foreigner in the Former Prophets, and God’s revealed intentions, material overlooked by those who attack these books. In so doing he demonstrates that there is a greater continuity in the two testaments than may be thought. Some may find his inference that the people were destroyed or driven out not because of their ethnicity but because of the rival gods they believed in inadequate to justify this destruction. To fully address this would require a much longer book. What Firth does is show us that the actual case is far more nuanced than is popularly portrayed. While we cannot get away from violence against the nations, there is also an ongoing thread of the inclusion of foreigners from Rahab, to the paradigm judge, Othniel, to Naaman and many others that reveal God’s over-riding concern for his glory among the nations and the inclusion of all who believe into the people of God.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.