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What is the Old Testament about?
In 1997, I sat in on an informal lecture/discussion by BYU religion professor David Seely, a really smart & approachable guy. As he was riffing on some topic or another, in an almost throwaway comment, Seeley mentioned that ancient Israel’s true crime wasn’t forsaking Jehovah; it was failing to care for the poor, the fatherless, and the orphan. The conversation rolled onto another topic and, although nobody at the time pressed him to elaborate, that little comment has stuck with me for the last 17 years. Since it’s an Old Testament year in LDS Sunday School, Old Testament topics seem more prevalent in my neighborhood and community. I’ve often thought of Seely’s remark and wanted to flesh it out. Recently, I finally broke down and spent some real time digging into it.
The Old Testament has been called a lot of things. It's scripture, literature, eschatology, history. It's poetic, annalistic, redundant, and repetitive. It's amazingly progressive (for its time), and amazingly reactionary (for our own time). Yet, over and over again I'm struck by how often one of the Old Testament's main points is shunted to the side or ignored altogether.
In my opinion, the biggest overall theme of the Old Testament is fairly simple and straightforward: to care for the vulnerable. The disabled, the needy, the poor, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan – all of these people were vulnerable in ancient Israelite society. The writings of the Old Testament go through great efforts to advocate on their behalf.
Life in the ancient Israelite world was beset by constant uncertainty. Fear of invasion, fear of disease, fear of crippling accident, fear of famine, fear of natural disasters – all of these things were equated with the gods, and ordinary human-folk were, more-or-less, unable to do much to avoid disasters. In the modern world, we are much less plagued by constant fears of disease, death, invasion, and famine. Modern medicine, diplomacy, military technology, and scientific agriculture have not only reduced the occurrence of disasters and minimized their impacts, they have reduced our fears of unavoidable ruin. We today (in the developed world) live comparatively terror-free lives.
Ancient peoples in the Levant looked to their gods for protection. In Ancient Near Eastern myth, the gods were fickle, capricious, and unlikely to care much about humans. Accordingly, humans sought to curry favor with the gods by worshiping them and offering sacrifices, essentially begging the gods to forestall or divert the impending terrifying calamities. Whether or not these sacrifices and rituals actually worked was under constant evaluation by the peoples and their priests. If one god was unreliable, or perhaps not powerful enough to protect a worshiping people, then it was time to find another god (or a host of them) for protection. If your god wasn’t strong enough to resist the god of the folks down-river, well then – you were hosed. Their god would vanquish your god, and their people would wipe out your people.
So, imagine the guts it took for Moses and the Israelites to agree that they would have no other gods before Jehovah. Jehovah was their champion, and that was it. It wasn’t a declaration that other gods didn’t exist (the opposite, in fact, since the language identifies the option of “other gods”). Nor was it a prohibition against worshiping other gods at all. However, Jehovah was the chief. There would be no hedging of the bets. The Israelites would have to throw in their lot with Jehovah, and hope that he would be strong enough to vanquish the gods of their enemies (Canaanites, Egyptians, etc.).
We take this for granted – that (in the narrative, at least) Jehovah was strong enough to lead the Israelites to victory & conquest. But the people of the time wouldn’t have known that. In fact, it was quite a risk. The consequences for choosing the wrong god were dire. Ask the inhabitants of Jericho (Joshua 6.21), or Ai (Joshua 8.24-26), or Makkedah (Joshua 10.28). Their gods were weaker than Jehovah, and every man, woman, and child was killed because of it.
It is no surprise, then, that when Gideon is approached by a heavenly “messenger” (or angel) of Jehovah, he is deliberate in testing the messenger’s bona fides. Of course, he’s going to ask for a sign (Judges 6.17) of a god’s power before he dares go out and destroy the sanctuary of another god (Judges 6.25). Of course, he’s going to ask for another sign of Jehovah’s power before he goes out to fight a war against the Midianites (Judges 6.36-37). Gods could be cruel, deceitful, and cunning. If Gideon was going to risk his life, and the life of his family, village, and everyone else he knew, he was going to be sure that he was indeed in alliance with Jehovah, a god that had already proved his great power in the conquest of Canaan.
Much of the Old Testament can be viewed through this paradigm of vulnerability. Jehovah repeatedly agrees to forestall disasters and to take care of his people with respect to those (otherwise) unavoidable, unpreventable terrors that plagued this area of the ancient world. As pelagius has noted, many of the Old Testament stories feature sudden reversals and surprising outcomes. At times, these are the counter-intuitive triumphs of the weaker over the stronger (e.g., David & Goliath; Joseph in Egypt; a bronze serpent curing illness; Samson – as both the strong and the weak party; Hezekiah & Jerusalem over Sennacherib).
Although, early on, Abraham had covenanted with Jehovah in becoming the chosen ancestor of the Israelite people, the hard-and-fast covenanting occurred later, with Jacob at Bethel, as recounted in Genesis 28. Bethel, which means “house of God” became an important holy site for covenanting for the rest of Israel’s history. At this spot, Jacob saw the “ladder” to heaven, Jehovah introduced himself, and promised the same promise that he made to Abraham (Gen. 22.17-18 and elsewhere). In addition, Jehovah here promised Jacob that he would accompany Jacob (and his family) always. A few verses later, Jacob demonstrates what he really wants from Jehovah. He asks for this god to protect him, to give him food to eat, clothes to wear, and a safe return home. If he can have those things, then Jehovah will be his god (28.20).
Protection from harm. Protection from disease. Food. Clothing. The basics of life that the vulnerable lack are the things that Jacob required from Jehovah. If Jehovah could deliver those things, then he would be assuaging the omnipresent fear and uncertainty that afflicted ancient society. Exodus records a promise that if Israel worships Jehovah, he will bless its bread and water, will take away sickness, protect and enable childbearing, grant long lifespans, and send the enemies of Israel fleeing in terror (Ex. 23.25-27). In Leviticus 26.2-12 Jehovah assures Israel that, provided they conform to his statues & commandments, he will be its protector. He will give rain in the proper season. The land will yield food, and the trees fruit. The people will have sufficient food and will live securely. They will have peace, and will sleep at night free from terror. They will not be afflicted by beasts of prey, nor by invading armies. Jehovah will be ever present among them, will live among them, and will never forsake them.
Isn’t that essentially what we all want? As Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed, two of humanity’s basic freedoms should be “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” (offered, incidentally, at a moment of intense worldwide insecurity and fear as the world grappled with the effects of the Great Depression and the fascist-sparked world war). Just as Jehovah promised to give “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” to the people of Israel, it is incumbent upon the people of Israel to enact those same freedoms in their own societies. In other words, just as Jehovah cares for a vulnerable nation, so must the people of Israel care for their own vulnerable members.
This is clear in the Law, as laid out in Leviticus. Leviticus 19 offers many admonitions to care for the vulnerable. Specifically, the chapter warns the stronger party to have compassion on (or, at least to deal fairly with) the weak. It requires those harvesting crops to leave some on the edges for the poor to gather (verses 9-10). There are prohibitions against employers delaying payments to employees, treating the deaf with contempt, placing obstacles in the way of the blind (19.13-14). The chapter also commands Israel to honor the elderly and not to oppress the foreigner (19.32-34). Deuteronomy 15 goes even further in reminding Israel to care for the poor. Debts are to be forgiven every seven years, and Jehovah commands Israel to be “open-handed towards any of your countrymen there who are in poverty and need” (Deut. 15.11). Indeed, Job seems puzzled by the calamities that have befallen him, and he laments that he saved the poor who appealed for help, and saved the fatherless, and those who had no protector, and he made the widow’s heart sing for joy, was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, father to the needy, took up the foreigner’s cause, and broke the teeth of the miscreant (Job 29.12-17). Job fulfilled his end of the bargain, hence his bewilderment at why Jehovah has not fulfilled his obligation.
Perhaps the entire message of the law is summed up in Leviticus 25.17-19. These verses prohibit victimizing one another and command Israel to fear Jehovah. That is, rather than instilling fear in one another, they should remember that they must care for one another as Jehovah cares for them. As a reminder, verses 18-19 state that, if Israel observes the laws and performs the rituals, its people will live without any fear in the land. They will have food and security.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But Israel consistently seems to have struggled to care for its vulnerable members. Isaiah 10.1-3 condemns the government for enacting unjust laws, issuing oppressive edicts, and depriving the poor and the weakest of their rights. Instead of protecting the vulnerable, the government plunders the widow, despoils the fatherless. It is doing the opposite of what Jehovah has commanded. Jeremiah warns Israel that it must dispense justice, rescue the victim from the oppressor, or face the fire of Jehovah’s fury (Jer 21.12). Ezekiel 22.7 criticizes Israel, particularly the rulers, for allowing mothers and fathers to be treated contemptuously, foreigners to be oppressed, for wronging the fatherless and the widow, breaking the laws, raping & assaulting, accepting bribes, and exploiting others financially. In short, they have preyed upon and victimized the vulnerable. Amos tells a similar story: Israel has sold honest folk for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They grind the heads of the helpless into the dust and push the humble out of their way (Amos 2.6-7). Micah decries the false business practices and deceit of Jehovah’s people, criticizing the rich for being “steeped in violence” (6.10-12). Malachi 3.5, at the end of the Old Testament, warns that someday Jehovah will appear in court to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, employers who cheat their employees, those who wrong the widow and the fatherless, and who neglect the foreigner. Over and over again, the Old Testament condemns Israel for its negligence in caring for the vulnerable among them.
If Israel will care for the vulnerable among them, Jehovah will defuse the dangers and terror and uncertainty that constantly threaten. He can take a dangerous threat and make it benign, allowing the wolf to live with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the goat, the calf and the young lion to feed together, the cow and the bear to be friends, and the infant to play over the cobra’s hole (Isaiah 11.6-9). In other words, Jehovah will nullify all threats, and provide safety and security.
I suspect that this is coming across as a sermon, but I don’t intend it in that spirit. I have heard people praise bullying in a dog-eat-dog world. I have neighbors who claim that poor people are really just lazy people. I don’t have all that much to say about the political policy answers, but It often strikes me that, although we have a much safer, more secure outlook on the world than the folks of the ancient world, we all are just one diagnosis, one misstep, one tornado, one hurricane, one epidemic, one flood, one earthquake, one distracted driver away from disaster. We are all vulnerable, and we have an obligation to protect those who are even more vulnerable than we.
The law of the Old Testament has been characterized as a harsher, more exacting version than that in the New Testament. The “eye-for-an-eye” dictum (Ex 21.23-25) has been viewed as cruel and vengeful. Perhaps this is the case. On the other hand, the codification of laws, especially written laws, was an important step towards establishing stable legal structures and ensuring that all citizens, rich and poor, were treated equally under the law. The Jehovah of the Old Testament was vengeful, jealous, and cruel to non-Israelites, to be sure, but he was also concerned with the well-being of the poor, the oppressed, and the vulnerable. As recorded in the very next chapter of Exodus, Jehovah declared, “If he appeals to me, I shall listen, for I am full of compassion” (Exodus 22.27).
I’m sure we could all benefit from Isaiah’s commandment to cease to do evil, learn to do good, pursue justice, guide the oppressed, uphold the rights of the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause (Isa 1.17). In sum, to care for the needy, the weak, and the vulnerable in society.
So this (IMO) is the overall strongest theme in the Old Testament. Sure, there are myriad other things in there, but this – to me – is the linchpin of understanding the relationship between Israel and its god, Israel and its neighbors, and Israel among themselves. This is interesting for its own sake, but I suggest that this approach to society could be useful today. There isn’t much in the Old Testament that really works in today’s society, but this lesson certainly resonates with Christians, Jews, and with many other faiths. Indeed, most Jewish and Catholic congregations have a highly developed sense of social justice. As I see it, it's pretty much one of the main points of the Old Testament story: Jehovah cares for vulnerable Israel as long as Israel cares for its vulnerable members.
Anyway, just some thoughts I wanted to unload.
I am interested to read your thoughts as well (well, the thoughts of some of you).
N.B.: The quotations are from the Revised English translation found in the Oxford Study Bible.
In 1997, I sat in on an informal lecture/discussion by BYU religion professor David Seely, a really smart & approachable guy. As he was riffing on some topic or another, in an almost throwaway comment, Seeley mentioned that ancient Israel’s true crime wasn’t forsaking Jehovah; it was failing to care for the poor, the fatherless, and the orphan. The conversation rolled onto another topic and, although nobody at the time pressed him to elaborate, that little comment has stuck with me for the last 17 years. Since it’s an Old Testament year in LDS Sunday School, Old Testament topics seem more prevalent in my neighborhood and community. I’ve often thought of Seely’s remark and wanted to flesh it out. Recently, I finally broke down and spent some real time digging into it.
The Old Testament has been called a lot of things. It's scripture, literature, eschatology, history. It's poetic, annalistic, redundant, and repetitive. It's amazingly progressive (for its time), and amazingly reactionary (for our own time). Yet, over and over again I'm struck by how often one of the Old Testament's main points is shunted to the side or ignored altogether.
In my opinion, the biggest overall theme of the Old Testament is fairly simple and straightforward: to care for the vulnerable. The disabled, the needy, the poor, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan – all of these people were vulnerable in ancient Israelite society. The writings of the Old Testament go through great efforts to advocate on their behalf.
Life in the ancient Israelite world was beset by constant uncertainty. Fear of invasion, fear of disease, fear of crippling accident, fear of famine, fear of natural disasters – all of these things were equated with the gods, and ordinary human-folk were, more-or-less, unable to do much to avoid disasters. In the modern world, we are much less plagued by constant fears of disease, death, invasion, and famine. Modern medicine, diplomacy, military technology, and scientific agriculture have not only reduced the occurrence of disasters and minimized their impacts, they have reduced our fears of unavoidable ruin. We today (in the developed world) live comparatively terror-free lives.
Ancient peoples in the Levant looked to their gods for protection. In Ancient Near Eastern myth, the gods were fickle, capricious, and unlikely to care much about humans. Accordingly, humans sought to curry favor with the gods by worshiping them and offering sacrifices, essentially begging the gods to forestall or divert the impending terrifying calamities. Whether or not these sacrifices and rituals actually worked was under constant evaluation by the peoples and their priests. If one god was unreliable, or perhaps not powerful enough to protect a worshiping people, then it was time to find another god (or a host of them) for protection. If your god wasn’t strong enough to resist the god of the folks down-river, well then – you were hosed. Their god would vanquish your god, and their people would wipe out your people.
So, imagine the guts it took for Moses and the Israelites to agree that they would have no other gods before Jehovah. Jehovah was their champion, and that was it. It wasn’t a declaration that other gods didn’t exist (the opposite, in fact, since the language identifies the option of “other gods”). Nor was it a prohibition against worshiping other gods at all. However, Jehovah was the chief. There would be no hedging of the bets. The Israelites would have to throw in their lot with Jehovah, and hope that he would be strong enough to vanquish the gods of their enemies (Canaanites, Egyptians, etc.).
We take this for granted – that (in the narrative, at least) Jehovah was strong enough to lead the Israelites to victory & conquest. But the people of the time wouldn’t have known that. In fact, it was quite a risk. The consequences for choosing the wrong god were dire. Ask the inhabitants of Jericho (Joshua 6.21), or Ai (Joshua 8.24-26), or Makkedah (Joshua 10.28). Their gods were weaker than Jehovah, and every man, woman, and child was killed because of it.
It is no surprise, then, that when Gideon is approached by a heavenly “messenger” (or angel) of Jehovah, he is deliberate in testing the messenger’s bona fides. Of course, he’s going to ask for a sign (Judges 6.17) of a god’s power before he dares go out and destroy the sanctuary of another god (Judges 6.25). Of course, he’s going to ask for another sign of Jehovah’s power before he goes out to fight a war against the Midianites (Judges 6.36-37). Gods could be cruel, deceitful, and cunning. If Gideon was going to risk his life, and the life of his family, village, and everyone else he knew, he was going to be sure that he was indeed in alliance with Jehovah, a god that had already proved his great power in the conquest of Canaan.
Much of the Old Testament can be viewed through this paradigm of vulnerability. Jehovah repeatedly agrees to forestall disasters and to take care of his people with respect to those (otherwise) unavoidable, unpreventable terrors that plagued this area of the ancient world. As pelagius has noted, many of the Old Testament stories feature sudden reversals and surprising outcomes. At times, these are the counter-intuitive triumphs of the weaker over the stronger (e.g., David & Goliath; Joseph in Egypt; a bronze serpent curing illness; Samson – as both the strong and the weak party; Hezekiah & Jerusalem over Sennacherib).
Although, early on, Abraham had covenanted with Jehovah in becoming the chosen ancestor of the Israelite people, the hard-and-fast covenanting occurred later, with Jacob at Bethel, as recounted in Genesis 28. Bethel, which means “house of God” became an important holy site for covenanting for the rest of Israel’s history. At this spot, Jacob saw the “ladder” to heaven, Jehovah introduced himself, and promised the same promise that he made to Abraham (Gen. 22.17-18 and elsewhere). In addition, Jehovah here promised Jacob that he would accompany Jacob (and his family) always. A few verses later, Jacob demonstrates what he really wants from Jehovah. He asks for this god to protect him, to give him food to eat, clothes to wear, and a safe return home. If he can have those things, then Jehovah will be his god (28.20).
Protection from harm. Protection from disease. Food. Clothing. The basics of life that the vulnerable lack are the things that Jacob required from Jehovah. If Jehovah could deliver those things, then he would be assuaging the omnipresent fear and uncertainty that afflicted ancient society. Exodus records a promise that if Israel worships Jehovah, he will bless its bread and water, will take away sickness, protect and enable childbearing, grant long lifespans, and send the enemies of Israel fleeing in terror (Ex. 23.25-27). In Leviticus 26.2-12 Jehovah assures Israel that, provided they conform to his statues & commandments, he will be its protector. He will give rain in the proper season. The land will yield food, and the trees fruit. The people will have sufficient food and will live securely. They will have peace, and will sleep at night free from terror. They will not be afflicted by beasts of prey, nor by invading armies. Jehovah will be ever present among them, will live among them, and will never forsake them.
Isn’t that essentially what we all want? As Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed, two of humanity’s basic freedoms should be “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” (offered, incidentally, at a moment of intense worldwide insecurity and fear as the world grappled with the effects of the Great Depression and the fascist-sparked world war). Just as Jehovah promised to give “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” to the people of Israel, it is incumbent upon the people of Israel to enact those same freedoms in their own societies. In other words, just as Jehovah cares for a vulnerable nation, so must the people of Israel care for their own vulnerable members.
This is clear in the Law, as laid out in Leviticus. Leviticus 19 offers many admonitions to care for the vulnerable. Specifically, the chapter warns the stronger party to have compassion on (or, at least to deal fairly with) the weak. It requires those harvesting crops to leave some on the edges for the poor to gather (verses 9-10). There are prohibitions against employers delaying payments to employees, treating the deaf with contempt, placing obstacles in the way of the blind (19.13-14). The chapter also commands Israel to honor the elderly and not to oppress the foreigner (19.32-34). Deuteronomy 15 goes even further in reminding Israel to care for the poor. Debts are to be forgiven every seven years, and Jehovah commands Israel to be “open-handed towards any of your countrymen there who are in poverty and need” (Deut. 15.11). Indeed, Job seems puzzled by the calamities that have befallen him, and he laments that he saved the poor who appealed for help, and saved the fatherless, and those who had no protector, and he made the widow’s heart sing for joy, was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, father to the needy, took up the foreigner’s cause, and broke the teeth of the miscreant (Job 29.12-17). Job fulfilled his end of the bargain, hence his bewilderment at why Jehovah has not fulfilled his obligation.
Perhaps the entire message of the law is summed up in Leviticus 25.17-19. These verses prohibit victimizing one another and command Israel to fear Jehovah. That is, rather than instilling fear in one another, they should remember that they must care for one another as Jehovah cares for them. As a reminder, verses 18-19 state that, if Israel observes the laws and performs the rituals, its people will live without any fear in the land. They will have food and security.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But Israel consistently seems to have struggled to care for its vulnerable members. Isaiah 10.1-3 condemns the government for enacting unjust laws, issuing oppressive edicts, and depriving the poor and the weakest of their rights. Instead of protecting the vulnerable, the government plunders the widow, despoils the fatherless. It is doing the opposite of what Jehovah has commanded. Jeremiah warns Israel that it must dispense justice, rescue the victim from the oppressor, or face the fire of Jehovah’s fury (Jer 21.12). Ezekiel 22.7 criticizes Israel, particularly the rulers, for allowing mothers and fathers to be treated contemptuously, foreigners to be oppressed, for wronging the fatherless and the widow, breaking the laws, raping & assaulting, accepting bribes, and exploiting others financially. In short, they have preyed upon and victimized the vulnerable. Amos tells a similar story: Israel has sold honest folk for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They grind the heads of the helpless into the dust and push the humble out of their way (Amos 2.6-7). Micah decries the false business practices and deceit of Jehovah’s people, criticizing the rich for being “steeped in violence” (6.10-12). Malachi 3.5, at the end of the Old Testament, warns that someday Jehovah will appear in court to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, employers who cheat their employees, those who wrong the widow and the fatherless, and who neglect the foreigner. Over and over again, the Old Testament condemns Israel for its negligence in caring for the vulnerable among them.
If Israel will care for the vulnerable among them, Jehovah will defuse the dangers and terror and uncertainty that constantly threaten. He can take a dangerous threat and make it benign, allowing the wolf to live with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the goat, the calf and the young lion to feed together, the cow and the bear to be friends, and the infant to play over the cobra’s hole (Isaiah 11.6-9). In other words, Jehovah will nullify all threats, and provide safety and security.
I suspect that this is coming across as a sermon, but I don’t intend it in that spirit. I have heard people praise bullying in a dog-eat-dog world. I have neighbors who claim that poor people are really just lazy people. I don’t have all that much to say about the political policy answers, but It often strikes me that, although we have a much safer, more secure outlook on the world than the folks of the ancient world, we all are just one diagnosis, one misstep, one tornado, one hurricane, one epidemic, one flood, one earthquake, one distracted driver away from disaster. We are all vulnerable, and we have an obligation to protect those who are even more vulnerable than we.
The law of the Old Testament has been characterized as a harsher, more exacting version than that in the New Testament. The “eye-for-an-eye” dictum (Ex 21.23-25) has been viewed as cruel and vengeful. Perhaps this is the case. On the other hand, the codification of laws, especially written laws, was an important step towards establishing stable legal structures and ensuring that all citizens, rich and poor, were treated equally under the law. The Jehovah of the Old Testament was vengeful, jealous, and cruel to non-Israelites, to be sure, but he was also concerned with the well-being of the poor, the oppressed, and the vulnerable. As recorded in the very next chapter of Exodus, Jehovah declared, “If he appeals to me, I shall listen, for I am full of compassion” (Exodus 22.27).
I’m sure we could all benefit from Isaiah’s commandment to cease to do evil, learn to do good, pursue justice, guide the oppressed, uphold the rights of the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause (Isa 1.17). In sum, to care for the needy, the weak, and the vulnerable in society.
So this (IMO) is the overall strongest theme in the Old Testament. Sure, there are myriad other things in there, but this – to me – is the linchpin of understanding the relationship between Israel and its god, Israel and its neighbors, and Israel among themselves. This is interesting for its own sake, but I suggest that this approach to society could be useful today. There isn’t much in the Old Testament that really works in today’s society, but this lesson certainly resonates with Christians, Jews, and with many other faiths. Indeed, most Jewish and Catholic congregations have a highly developed sense of social justice. As I see it, it's pretty much one of the main points of the Old Testament story: Jehovah cares for vulnerable Israel as long as Israel cares for its vulnerable members.
Anyway, just some thoughts I wanted to unload.
I am interested to read your thoughts as well (well, the thoughts of some of you).
N.B.: The quotations are from the Revised English translation found in the Oxford Study Bible.
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