The Diocese of Southeast Florida
The Bible Challenge 2013
Day 24, Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Exodus 10-12; Psalm 20; Matthew 21
Exodus 10 opens with a troubling verse: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I might show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them – so that you may know that I am the Lord’” What’s troubling is God’s agency in this and other verses in this section of Exodus (7:3, 9:12). God is the actor. God does the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart. Why? Why not just say, “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened?” as the text says in several places (7:13,14,22; 8:19) or stick with Pharaoh hardening his own heart as the text indicates in elsewhere (e.g. 8:15, 32,34)? After all, most of us understand that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Pharaoh is clearly portrayed as a tyrant and tyrants by definition have “hardened hearts” through their own hubris. Why is Exodus so insistent that God is the agent of the hardening? In a note about this verse, The Oxford Bible Commentary observes “We may well wonder about why YHWH’s demonstrations of his power must be so violent and destructive. And why do they have to be repeated so often, with increasing destructiveness? The answer is right there at the end of every episode. Pharaoh fails to draw the right conclusion from his experience, so it needs to be repeated…” Okay, but if one accepts Exodus 10:1 (and 7:3 and 9:12) at face value, one has to ask how Pharaoh could possibly have drawn the right conclusion? After all, his heart was hardened by God! You see the problem. I’ve searched commentaries for a reasonable answer to this conundrum and I haven’t found one. My conclusion? The ancient writers were stuck with a rigid understanding of God’s omnipotence (God as “all powerful”), and had to account for this while at the same time accounting for Pharaoh’s tyranny. If God is absolutely omnipotent, then Pharaoh would not be able to resist God’s will if God didn’t want him to. Therefore, Pharaoh’s heart must have been hardened by God so that God could display his great power before the Egyptians and before the Hebrews. I don’t like it, but there it is. I would much prefer human free-will to be preserved and for God to have been portrayed as loving and increasingly persistent, hoping against hope that Pharaoh would do the right thing, even if that is rarely the case with tyrants (just look at Syria today!). But that’s not what Exodus says. Oh well, a more sophisticated theology will have to come later! Of course, if we identify with the oppressed Israelites, (or the oppressed of any age!) we have little problem with this partisan portrayal of God. Meanwhile, chapter 12 does include the great saving event for Israel, the Passover, in which God’s “destroyer” delivers death to the first born of Egypt and saves the Hebrews whose doors were marked with blood. As Old Testament scholar Terrence Fretheim notes in his commentary on Exodus, this account is a much a liturgy of the people designed for reenacting, repeating and remembering in later generations , as it is an attempt to provide an historical account of the events it portrays. It is the central liturgy and remembering of Jewish identity still today. As Fretheim writes, “In and through this ritual every generation of Israelites was the recipient of God’s exodus-shaped redemption. In every era, Israel confessed: God delivered us” (Fretheim, Terrence E. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991, p. 135.)
Psalm 20 is, as The Oxford Annotated Bible – Third Edition notes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 see Note for Psalm 20)), “a prayer for the king’s victory in battle.” Like the Exodus passage above, it is unapologetically partisan. The psalm is clear, the king may go into battle with all the arms and armor he wants, but if victory is to be realized, it will come because the Lord wills it, and not for any other reason.
Chapter 21 of Matthew is a complex of material: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the so-called “cleansing of the Temple,” the strange incident of the fig tree, and a heated exchange with the Temple authorities that includes the telling of a provocative and inflammatory parable. The entire chapter is summed up pretty simply. It portrays a clash. Jesus enters the city as a victorious king, humbly, riding on a donkey (two animals if we are to take Matthew literally, which would be a little silly). Despite the fact that the entrance is peaceful and marked by the humility of a colt or a donkey rather than a steed, Jesus is in the position of a triumphant king. This will not endear him either to the Roman authorities or even to the Temple authorities who have brokered a tenuous peace with Rome that they do not wish to see upset by some Galilean troublemaker. Jesus is, however, moving forward with a different vision of God’s kingdom – one that is more concerned about the blind and the lame, about sinners, prostitutes and tax-collectors than it is about the self-righteous religious. If in the Exodus reading above, God’s saving activity is marked by exhibits of power and might, in this passage from Matthew, God’s saving ways are marked by a decided and determined procession to the Calvary and the cross. It is a quite a stirring contrast. How do you believe God saves?
The Rev. Canon Chip Stokes is Rector of St. Paul’s, Delray Beach.
The Bible Challenge 2013
Day 24, Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Exodus 10-12; Psalm 20; Matthew 21
Exodus 10 opens with a troubling verse: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I might show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them – so that you may know that I am the Lord’” What’s troubling is God’s agency in this and other verses in this section of Exodus (7:3, 9:12). God is the actor. God does the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart. Why? Why not just say, “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened?” as the text says in several places (7:13,14,22; 8:19) or stick with Pharaoh hardening his own heart as the text indicates in elsewhere (e.g. 8:15, 32,34)? After all, most of us understand that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Pharaoh is clearly portrayed as a tyrant and tyrants by definition have “hardened hearts” through their own hubris. Why is Exodus so insistent that God is the agent of the hardening? In a note about this verse, The Oxford Bible Commentary observes “We may well wonder about why YHWH’s demonstrations of his power must be so violent and destructive. And why do they have to be repeated so often, with increasing destructiveness? The answer is right there at the end of every episode. Pharaoh fails to draw the right conclusion from his experience, so it needs to be repeated…” Okay, but if one accepts Exodus 10:1 (and 7:3 and 9:12) at face value, one has to ask how Pharaoh could possibly have drawn the right conclusion? After all, his heart was hardened by God! You see the problem. I’ve searched commentaries for a reasonable answer to this conundrum and I haven’t found one. My conclusion? The ancient writers were stuck with a rigid understanding of God’s omnipotence (God as “all powerful”), and had to account for this while at the same time accounting for Pharaoh’s tyranny. If God is absolutely omnipotent, then Pharaoh would not be able to resist God’s will if God didn’t want him to. Therefore, Pharaoh’s heart must have been hardened by God so that God could display his great power before the Egyptians and before the Hebrews. I don’t like it, but there it is. I would much prefer human free-will to be preserved and for God to have been portrayed as loving and increasingly persistent, hoping against hope that Pharaoh would do the right thing, even if that is rarely the case with tyrants (just look at Syria today!). But that’s not what Exodus says. Oh well, a more sophisticated theology will have to come later! Of course, if we identify with the oppressed Israelites, (or the oppressed of any age!) we have little problem with this partisan portrayal of God. Meanwhile, chapter 12 does include the great saving event for Israel, the Passover, in which God’s “destroyer” delivers death to the first born of Egypt and saves the Hebrews whose doors were marked with blood. As Old Testament scholar Terrence Fretheim notes in his commentary on Exodus, this account is a much a liturgy of the people designed for reenacting, repeating and remembering in later generations , as it is an attempt to provide an historical account of the events it portrays. It is the central liturgy and remembering of Jewish identity still today. As Fretheim writes, “In and through this ritual every generation of Israelites was the recipient of God’s exodus-shaped redemption. In every era, Israel confessed: God delivered us” (Fretheim, Terrence E. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991, p. 135.)
Psalm 20 is, as The Oxford Annotated Bible – Third Edition notes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 see Note for Psalm 20)), “a prayer for the king’s victory in battle.” Like the Exodus passage above, it is unapologetically partisan. The psalm is clear, the king may go into battle with all the arms and armor he wants, but if victory is to be realized, it will come because the Lord wills it, and not for any other reason.
Chapter 21 of Matthew is a complex of material: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the so-called “cleansing of the Temple,” the strange incident of the fig tree, and a heated exchange with the Temple authorities that includes the telling of a provocative and inflammatory parable. The entire chapter is summed up pretty simply. It portrays a clash. Jesus enters the city as a victorious king, humbly, riding on a donkey (two animals if we are to take Matthew literally, which would be a little silly). Despite the fact that the entrance is peaceful and marked by the humility of a colt or a donkey rather than a steed, Jesus is in the position of a triumphant king. This will not endear him either to the Roman authorities or even to the Temple authorities who have brokered a tenuous peace with Rome that they do not wish to see upset by some Galilean troublemaker. Jesus is, however, moving forward with a different vision of God’s kingdom – one that is more concerned about the blind and the lame, about sinners, prostitutes and tax-collectors than it is about the self-righteous religious. If in the Exodus reading above, God’s saving activity is marked by exhibits of power and might, in this passage from Matthew, God’s saving ways are marked by a decided and determined procession to the Calvary and the cross. It is a quite a stirring contrast. How do you believe God saves?
The Rev. Canon Chip Stokes is Rector of St. Paul’s, Delray Beach.
RSS Feed