Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, . . .” Genesis 8:15-16 NASB
Go out – How do you interpret the Bible? When you read the text, what process do you use in order to understand the meaning? Some believers use the “meditate, pray and wait for illumination” technique. They believe that the Spirit will interact directly with their souls and provide them with the meaning. “God revealed to me” is the common expression of these believers. Other believers who have been taught or influenced by critical scholarship approach Scripture with a different technique. They ask questions like, “What do these words mean in the context of the culture and time they were written?” or “What is the linguistic environment of this sentence?” or “How does this sentence fit into our understanding of theology?” There are other approaches as well, but one we Christians rarely consider is the approach most often used by the rabbis. Since Christian exegesis doesn’t recognize rabbinic techniques, we often cannot follow the train of thought in Scripture itself because important parts of the Bible were written using these rabbinic techniques. Therefore, it seems critical to have an example of a common rabbinic technique in mind when we try to understand how New Testament authors actually use Scripture.
One of these techniques is the midrash. Midrash is the technique of investigating connections, drawing conclusions and elucidating circumstances from many different verses in order to reveal deeper meanings. On the surface, midrash appears to tie together unrelated, incidental and sometimes apparently random elements of the text. For this reason, midrash seems completely arbitrary to the Western mind. We often read a midrash and wonder how in the world someone could even think like this. But we must remember that this was a common exegetical process of the rabbis and therefore a crucial factor in how they understood Scripture. When we read Paul, John, James or Peter, we cannot apply our exegetical standards to the way that they as rabbis applied their standards. An example will help you see the radical difference. Here is a midrash from Tanhuma Noah 11:
“Come out of the ark.” David said, “Free my soul from prison.” When Noah was in the ark, he prayed constantly, “Free my soul from prison,” as it is said, “Therefore let every faithful man pray to You, in a time when You may be found, that the rushing mighty waters [shetef mayim rabbim] not overtake him” [Psalms 32:6]. God said to Noah, “It is decreed before Me that you shall not leave this prison [closed condition] till twelve months are up.” So we find in Isaiah 49:8, “in an hour of favor I answer you . . . saying to the prisoners, ‘Go free.’” For they [the people of the ark] were forbidden [lit., imprisoned] to have sexual relations. Why? Because when the world is in trouble and destruction, human beings are forbidden to procreate; so that there should not be a situation in which man is building while God is destroying.[1]
Does this exegesis of the Genesis passage, “Go out of the ark,” seem strange? Does it seem contrived? Do you find it difficult to understand how Psalms and Isaiah can be used to elucidate something God said to Noah thousands of years earlier? Do you find it nearly impossible to connect a prohibition of sexual intercourse with a statement about leaving the ark? If you do, you aren’t alone. Nearly all Western interpretation of this text would be stunned at such “arbitrary” exegesis. But the rabbis considered it perfectly normal, in fact, even genius.
Why should we care about such odd exegesis? Ah, the point is that when we read much of the New Testament we are reading the work of rabbis. In order to understand what they are writing and how they connect their thoughts, we must remember that they do not handle the text like we handle the text. We cannot apply our models to their methods.
Just one observation will suffice to underscore this point. Did you notice that this midrash treats all of the Tanakh as if it were written contemporaneously? It assumes that David, Isaiah and Moses all wrote from the same perspective at the same time. It completely ignores the temporal and cultural differences. Why? Because the midrash assumes that since it is all God’s word, it is all immediately available to exegetical analysis. It is as if the whole Bible were written yesterday.
Now when you read Paul you might ask yourself if you read the Tanakh like he reads the Tanakh – and does it make a difference in your understanding of Paul’s use of the Tanakh?
Topical Index: midrash, Genesis 8:16, Tanhuma Noah 11
You can see more about the Tanhuma here.


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