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Practice Exercises
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Linking
Themes to Later Authors of Torah
Passage B
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Deuteronomy 29:22-29
The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as
well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will
see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which
the LORD has afflicted it -- all its soil burned out by sulfur
and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support
any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his fierce anger
-- they and indeed all the nations will wonder, "Why has
the LORD done thus to this land? What caused this
great display of anger?" They will conclude,
"It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD,
the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he
brought them out of the land of Egypt. They turned
and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not
known and whom he had not allotted to them; so the anger of
the LORD was kindled against that land, bringing on it every
curse written in this book. The LORD uprooted them
from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them
into another land, as is now the case." The
secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things
belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the
words of this law. |
Date
The Deuteronomists were the scribes in the court of King Josiah in 622 C.E. At the time they were writing a national history of Israel to help Josiah unify the country he was gradually uniting through a military campaign. In their national history, they were attempting to explain why the northern kingdom, which Josiah was regaining, had been destroyed by the Assyrians a century before. At the same time, they were trying to reassure the remaining people that the same fate would not befall them, if only they remained faithful to the covenant.
Text & Link
Several themes are emphasized in this passage. The most prominent, because it is repeated, is that the land will be destroyed and the people sent into exile. This clearly is a work written in hindsight, reflecting on the destruction and exile of the Northern Kingdom and trying to explain why it happened.
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In
fact, this very question that so preoccupied the Deuteronomists is
twice placed on the lips of "all the nations," revealing just how
important it is to the Deuteronomists. The
answer for this significant question is a theme, because it is a teaching
that the passage is designed to convey: the north fell because (and
the land will always fall if) the people worship other gods,
rather than loving God with all their hearts (Deut 6:5). The
final added comment distinguishes between secret things and revealed
things, acknowledging that sometimes God's plans are not apparent
and the basic equation (fidelity leads to reward) does not work (such
as 35 years later when the South itself will be destroyed by Babylon). All of these themes are characteristic of the Deuteronomistic scribes working during and after Josiah's reign.
Passage C
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- Genesis 17:1-8
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- When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly." Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
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- The first thing you might notice in this passage is that there are several names of God used interchangeably: LORD, God Almighty, and God.
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- A second theme you will notice right away is the emphasis on God's desire that Abram "multiply greatly." This language of blessing through fertility and fruitfulness is familiar to us from the first creation story ("be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it," Gen 1:28) and from one of the two flood stories (when God blessed Noah and his sons after the flood, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," Gen 9:1).
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- The third and final theme that is relevant here is the emphasis on not just a covenant, but on an everlasting covenant.
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- The emphasis on an everlasting covenant is a tip that the author is post-exilic, writing after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple but at a time when that Temple and its covenant are being reestablished. The Priestly authors, writing some time after about 515 BCE, are concerned to emphasize the enduring nature of the people's relationship with God, just as they want to ground that relationship in the cycle of fertility that Temple offerings represent.
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