The First Rule
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. 2 Kings 22:11 NASB
The book of the law – We certainly aren’t confused about which book King Josiah heard. The text reads sepher hat-torah. Josiah heard the revelation of YHVH to Moses and it was so distressing that he tore his royal robes. This was a king who came to the throne at age eight and for eighteen years had been restoring Israel to God’s ways. But then the Book was discovered and what he heard, even after all his efforts, still left him feeling spiritually bankrupt. The impact on the people was just as great. When the Book was read to the people, they responded with weeping and joy, a mixture of emotions that overwhelmed them. Torah was life, and life had returned.
Now let’s examine another factor in this story, a factor that should be present in every attempt to understand biblical stories. We’ve thought about it many times, but perhaps we haven’t understood its full implications. This is a good place to take another look.
The first principle of biblical exegesis is to understand the original audience. That means knowing what was happening to the people who first heard the text. We have a tendency to think that biblical stories are about the characters in the story, but that usually isn’t the case. Biblical stories are about characters who relate in some way to the audience. In other words, biblical stories are purposeful history, not necessarily event history. What’s the difference? We know what event history is. It’s the retelling of the chronology sequence. Yes, it has bias (all histories do), but its goal is accurate reporting of “facts,” the things that happened in some logical progression through time. Purposeful history may use the same “facts,” but its goal is different. Its goal is to provide some lesson, some insight, some transformation to the audience. Therefore, it may rearrange the chronology, embellish some parts of the story, emphasize one thing over another, even leave out things that don’t matter too much to the goal in order to transform the audience. We see a clear example of this in the genealogy of Matthew.[1] What this implies is that we can’t really understand the meaning of the story unless we understand how it affected the original audience. And in this case, the affect was significant.
What we often overlook in our closed-in exegesis is the social/political world of the audience. Josiah (whose Hebrew names, Yoshiyyahu, means “healed by Yah” or “supported by Yah”) was considered on par with the Messiah, especially since he moved the country toward spiritual reform. He was the golden child. Everyone expected him to prevail over the powers of Egypt and the coming Babylonians, especially since he was righteous and favored by the Lord. These political expectations are essential components for understanding what happened to the prophets during this time and why the discovery of the book was so significant. When Josiah was killed by the Egyptian Pharaoh, the hopes of the people were dashed. Cultural despair set in. The story of the book is part of this story.
My guess is that few of us knew the political/social structure of the people of Israel at this time. Our ignorance interferes with an appreciation of the impact of this scroll. But this lesson isn’t just about the discovery of the sepher hat’ torah. It is a lesson about the psychological state of Israel as a people. And this isn’t the first time Israel goes through political psychological trauma. Babylon comes next. Jeremiah’s story is a part of that trauma. Then there’s Rome. Paul’s story is part of that trauma. Then there’s the Church, the Holocaust, and today’s political anti-Semitism. From the biblical perspective, these events and many more like them are purposeful history. Purposeful history is all tied up in what God is doing and why. Purposeful history explains what happened and what will happen with regard to the will of God and the sins of the people.
Try reading the text differently and see what happens.
Topical Index: history, Josiah, sefer hat’ torah, the book of the law, 2 Kings 22:11
If you want to see how much of the historical setting affects the exegesis of the text, read Binyamin Lau, Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet (Maggid, 2013).
[1] For a full discussion of Matthew’s deliberate alteration of the sequence, see R. T. France’s commentary on Matthew in the NICNT series.
When I read these stories I read about YHVH’s people, His interaction with them and His love for them. The question then becomes; how do I fit in this story? What is YHVH’s expectation of those of us from the nations? For me, the best response is humble service. The scriptures are replete with examples of gentiles not just joining the Jewish people but doing so through kindness (chesed). Today that translates for me as helping them escape the diaspora by making aliyah to Israel. Once there, like in the story of Josiah, He will once again make Himself known to them.
Bible stories sure are different. We like stories that are human centered. We want resolution, glory and happily ever after all within one lifetime. We want the guy to get the girl and the battle to restore the kingdom and the choice to be correct. We want it from our frame of reference, of course. When I read secular stories, this is what I expect, and what I get. Stories like this put the rewards of the good stuff down where they are accessible to me. I can put myself in that story and get my ego stroked and my expectations met, too, or at least my worst fears confirmed and my emotions massaged. Bible stories, however, tend to run off the page in every direction. Weird things happen, too, that are inexplicable to my intelligence (facts of my experience), and so much of it seems to be either pointless from the human reference point or a big fat fail. For a long time, I just could not relate.
As I lived my life, however, the way I read the stories and how I related, too, started to change. So much of my life seemed so pointless and I seemed to just fail and fail, too. In the story of my life, my ego got dashed a whole lot more than it ever got stroked, and my fears got confirmed only because they limited my faith to the point that the good stuff was thwarted. I slowly began to see myself, not as my own hero, but as my worst enemy. I buried all my best loves or watched them walk out on me, and I always lost the battles. None of it made any sense, ultimately, and it slowly began to dawn on me that my life may not even be exactly about me, after all. I found less and less in myself to be proud of. I found myself under Jonah’s squash vine pouting about major predictions that you could have set your clock by getting dashed at the last moment by the different choices of others. Reality seemed stranger and stranger. Then there were the miracles; the inexplicable saves and averted doom, too. Salvation did not work ANYTHING like I thought it should, either. Even that has been unpredictable and in a different way than I could have imagined. There came a day when I just threw my human reference point in the trash because it had served me so ill to deal with reality. That was the day that I started to pick up the Book again. Sure enough, I WAS in there!
~ Now [all] these things happened to them as an example and warning [to us]; they were written for our instruction [to admonish and equip us], upon whom the ends of the ages have come…~
The best way to teach or instruct is by example. Yes, please. “Show me.” Demonstrate unto me “how” — how to get things done.
Max Lucado is absolutely correct when he avers: “the One who spoke still speaks..” ??
The word of the LORD unto ________ (them) is the same word of the LORD unto ________ us.
God’s instructions unto Moses (yes! – write these things down!) “applies” to who? Those who lived millennia ago? or are these eternal, infallible, instructive, life-giving words also for “we” modern-day folks?
Our Bible is the Book of the Ages. ALL (yes Bill, “all” means “all.”) ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God — ALL scripture is “God-breathed.” And?
~ All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage]; so that the [a]man of God may be complete and proficient, outfitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work.. ~
(2 Timothy 3:16-17)Amplified Bible (AMP)
May we “shema” the admonition of James: “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls”
I was first going to comment that we went from the end of education back into the centet of it. Thank you Carl for bringing us around to the heart of it.
Hello Skip and Others,
I hope you or someone may comment on this reflection though it is from the previous day. A friend raised the question about understanding Genesis chapters 1 and 2 from the standpoint of purposeful history vs. event history. I suggested becoming familiar with the character of YHVH, how he ordered creation, roles given or assigned created, arrangement of created things, humanity’s place and role in creation etc. Would that be a good starting point to approach a purposeful history orientation?
Sincere Thanks,
David Russell
Yes, good place to start, but then keep asking “Who is the audience? What would they think about this? What are their assumptions?”
I have a non
-related question. Does anyone know why (or if it is true) that the book of Daniel was not included in the original “Hebrew” cannon? I found this comment in an OT study I am going through. I found it rather strange.
Morning Trish
Tektonic.org discuss this topic with the view that it was part of the writings and not the prophetic books…