The Beginning of Replacement Theology

When God heard them, He ^[ac]was filled with wrath and He utterly rejected Israel;  Psalm 78:59  NASB

Utterly rejected – If God “utterly rejected” Israel because of their disobedience in the wilderness, then why couldn’t He do it again when they rejected the Messiah?  Seems logical, doesn’t it?  Even if the Jews claim an “eternal covenant” with God, doesn’t Asaph absolutely dismiss that claim?  “Utterly rejected” is as strong as it gets.  And if God could do this over an attitude of the people redeemed from slavery, then He certainly could do it over the execution of His chosen Messiah.  So the Church must be right.  Israel is out; the Church is in.

Except.  Except “utterly rejected” seems to be a theologically motivated translation.  The Hebrew is yim’as’ mĕʾōd.  mĕʾōdmeans “greatly, exceedingly, with much force,” and is quite familiar from its occurrence in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:5).  It’s about intensity and strength, as if there were exclamation points following the referenced word.  That referenced word is the verb māʾas.  Used seventy-three times in the Tanakh, it is most often rendered “despise,” that is, something that creates a feeling of contempt and repugnance.  That’s not quite the same as total rejection, is it?  God despises the wicked (the same verb is used when Hebrew mentions this fact), but that does not entail that He utterly rejects them.  In fact, He does everything possible to redeem them.  According to the prophets, God despises religious acts without heartfelt contrition:

“Especially reprehensible in God’s eyes is Israel’s externalized religious practice. God hates and despises their feast days and offerings since they come to him without any genuine affection (Amos 5:21).”^[1]

But He tells Hosea that the people are still His own.  And Isaiah 40 makes this abundantly clear.  Punishment and chastisement are used to bring them back, not cast them off forever.  It makes a tremendous difference if we translate this verse, “When God heard them, He was filled with wrath and He intensely despised Israel.”  And, by the way, there’s something unusual about the end of the verse.  The Hebrew doesn’t read “despised Israel.”  It reads, “despised בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל  (“in” or “at” or “among” or “upon” Israel).  It seems to me we could easily make the case that God’s anger was directed to those “in” Israel, or “among” Israel who displayed contempt for His sovereignty.  In fact, this is precisely what happened.  Israel still enters the Promised Land.  Israel as a unit is not rejected, and never has been.  Individuals within Israel have been found guilty.  Individuals within Israel have been punished, even killed, but Israel went forward with God.   And still does.  Asaph’s point is about those who rejected God, not about God rejecting all Israel.  It takes an unquestioned commitment to Christian triumphalism to read this as “utterly rejected.”  But, of course, that’s how it has been read for thousands of years.

Topical Index:  utterly rejected, yim’as’ mĕʾōd, māʾas, replacement theology, Psalm 78:59

^[1] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1139 מָאַס. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 488). Chicago: Moody Press.