Broken The Permanent Treaty (part 1 of 2)

The earth is defiled by its inhabitants, for they have violated laws, disregarded the regulation, and broken the permanent treaty. – Isaiah 24:5  (NET)

Before one reaches the verse above, one also encounters the verses which state that “The earth will be completely devastated and thoroughly ransacked.  For the Lord has decreed this judgment.  The earth dries up and withers; the prominent people of the earth fade away” (24:3-4).  Though this was clearly not the Creator God’s intention for His good creation, this is the situation wrought by man’s rebellion in the garden.  Man was able to have this impact on the earth because He is the creature made in God’s image (the divine image-bearer).  Man was specifically tasked by God and was given the responsibility to steward the creation---to steward it wisely as the vice-regent of the Creator God---and failed to do so, introducing evil and its effects into the world. 

In the Scriptural narrative, it is Adam’s faithlessness to what were his God-given responsibilities and limitations by which the earth becomes defiled.  The narrative insists that Adam willfully and egregiously violated the law that had been given to him by his Creator.  Tying this together with what is offered by Isaiah, it can be said that he most certainly disregarded the regulation.  The covenant God of Israel had designed His creation to be permanently good, and for man to tend His good creation in perpetuity, but that permanence proved to be fleeting.  As Isaiah writes, mankind broke “the permanent treaty.” 

Another rendering of the Hebrew that is here translated “permanent treaty” would be “the everlasting covenant.”  Adam, representing all mankind, violated the everlasting covenant of the Creator God.  Naturally, any talk of covenant would immediately call to mind the covenant governing the relationship between Israel and its God.  What was the result of this defiling, violation, disregarding, and breaking?  “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children.  You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you’.  But to Adam He said, ‘Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,” cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat of the grain of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return’.” (Genesis 3:16-19) 

Yes, the Lord decreed this judgment.  The earth would be devastated and ransacked by thorns and thistles and pain and hostility.  Though the earth had produced bountifully, in effect it would now be dried up and withered.  Man would indeed fade away into dust.  It is in the stream of identity that flows from this understanding of their story that begins with Adam in which Isaiah would write, “So a treaty curse devours the earth; its inhabitants pay for their guilt.  This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, and are reduced to just a handful of people” (24:6).  Isaiah, whose worldview is shaped by the Adam story and all that flows from it, appears to indicate that Israel is effectively recapitulating the fall of Adam, failing in their stewarding responsibilities and their everlasting covenant.  

Thus, as one continues to focus in on what occurred with Adam, so as to read or hear Isaiah from within the sweep of the Scriptural narrative, it can be seen that God cursed the earth because of the broken treaty, the ignored agreement, the disregarded covenant.  As a result, man has continually suffered from death and decay and all that goes with man stepping outside of the bounds of God’s covenant.  

Faithfully Turned Over & Overwhelmed (part 1 of 2)

The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord turned them over to Midian for several years.  The Midianites overwhelmed Israel. – Judges 6:1-2a  (NET)

Along with many other things, including being something of a story or script that the people of the covenant are expected to understand and use to guide their actions in and for this world, the Bible can certainly be understood as the record of the covenant faithfulness of the Creator God of Israel.  The Hebrew Scriptures reflect the way that Israel understood and came to understand their God.  With the composition and collection of these writings, Israel would possess something that served as a constant reminder and evidence of His faithfulness to His covenant, of His faithfulness to His covenant people, and of His faithfulness to His covenant promises.  The idea of a covenant-making-and-keeping-God would be top of mind for a member of the Israelite people, so that even though a modern reader may miss it at first glance, what is to be found in this verse points back to the covenant and faithfulness of Israel’s God. 

What is to be understood when we read that “The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight”?  As we comb through the book of Judges, we find a highly representative example that “The Israelites did evil before the Lord by worshiping the Baals.  They abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors Who brought them out of the land of Egypt.  They followed other gods…  They worshiped them and made the Lord angry.  They abandoned the Lord and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths.” (2:11-13).  This made the Lord “furious with Israel” (2:14a).  We also find that “they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them” (2:17b).  We read this while remembering that this narrative will be compiled after the fact, as part of the story by which later generations would define themselves.  

It is said that “When a leader died, the next generation would again act more wickedly than the previous one.  They would follow after other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them” (2:19a).  To drive the point home further, the writer repeats himself, saying “The Lord was furious with Israel” (2:20a).  What was the basis for the fury?  Naturally, it can be presumed that it was the idolatry, but more specifically, it is said that it was because “This nation has violated the terms of the agreement I made with their ancestors by disobeying Me” (2:20b).  This is covenant language.  We can take these words from the second chapter, safely apply them to the sixth chapter, surmise that Israel’s doing of evil was something along these lines, and rightly understand the coming execution of the Lord’s fury. 

Now, when we read about terms of agreement with ancestors in conjunction with references to being brought out of the land of Egypt, we should be mindful of what it was that their God was said to have demanded of His people following the exodus, which was the ultimate defining event for the nation.  In the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus (26:1-2), which may very well have been composed after the time period of the stories of the book of Judges (the Israelites of that period may not have had a written Leviticus as a guide, but written accounts of both, all understood together and instrumental in the self-definition of the covenant people and their relationship with their God, would certainly have been available to Israel at the time of Jesus, along with the earliest members of renewed Israel that is the people of the covenant through belief in Jesus as Lord,), we find Israel’s God insisting that His people refrain from idolatry, that they keep His Sabbaths, and that they reverence His sanctuary (the place of His presence).  Thus, even if there was not a composed Leviticus at the time of the Judges, the author of the Judges assesses the behavior of the people according to the basic principles of honoring their God that are offered therein, thereby suggesting at least a strong oral tradition. 

If they were to have success in these areas, then they would experience the blessings that are to be found outlined in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, which is another text, possibly composed later than Judges, but which offers thoughts of which the author of Judges seems to be aware.  On the other hand, failure in these areas would bring the curses that are to be found in the same chapter.  Regardless of the time of composition, it seems obvious that Israel’s actions in the Judges time period are to be judged against the ideals of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Additionally, their experience is explained as the response of their God, with that response understood in accordance with those same ideals. 

This Is My Covenant With You (part 1 of 2)

As for me, this is My covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. – Genesis 17:4  (NET)

The person speaking is the Creator God (of Israel), and the person to which that God speaks is the man whose name was here, in the verses surrounding our text, is being changed from “Abram” to “Abraham.”  It is quite useful to look at Abraham, and to look at these times in which God speaks to Abraham, in the context of His covenant with Abraham.  This is especially helpful for those that understand themselves, as Christians, to be the sons and daughters of Abraham by faith in the universal Lordship of Jesus of Nazareth. 

It is made clear, in both the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament, that the basis for Abraham being brought into covenant with God was faith.  This was the requirement of that covenant, and that which brought him into covenant with the Creator God.  This was the way that Israel, through its history, understood the relationship between God and Abraham, and this went a very long way towards the way that they defined and understood themselves and their relationship to that same God.  It is possible to see that this was the understanding also held by the Apostle Paul who writes, in quoting from Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3b).  The idea of that being credited to him as righteousness is probably best understood by saying that the belief in the word and command of God was what brought Abraham to an understanding and experience of God’s covenant faithfulness. 

Christians are to experience God’s covenant faithfulness in the same way, that being the faith that shows itself forth through the belief that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the Messiah and King of all, and that He is presently reigning in the inaugurated but not yet consummated kingdom of heaven (constantly breaking in whenever the Gospel is preached in word and deed) that God has established, and is establishing and extending, right here on this earth.  When an individual agrees with and makes that proclamation (again, in both word and deed---speaking and acting as if Jesus is truly King), that individual is also credited with righteousness, enjoying and expressing that which represents the ultimate fruition of God’s covenant faithfulness to Abraham.    

God informed Abraham that His covenant faithfulness would be expressed in him becoming the “father of a multitude of nations” (17:4b & 17:5b), in being made “extremely fruitful” (17:6b), in “making nations” (17:6c) of him, and making it so that “kings will descend from” (17:6d) him.  As he continues to listen, Abraham goes on to hear God say, “I will confirm My covenant as a perpetual covenant between Me and you” (17:7a).  Because the providential Creator God is the maker and the confirmer and the perpetuator of the covenant, Abraham is assured that the covenant “will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations” (17:7b). 

In that extension, which those of the household of faith find extended to all that respond to the gracious acts of God in the same manner as Abraham , which is of trusting in that same God and in the message of the Gospel, God tells Abraham, “I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (17:7c).  In all of this, we clearly find that God is the Actor and the Mover in this area of covenant.  According to the record of Scripture, which reveals the way that Israel understood its God and is therefore quite important for those that lay claim to being the renewed Israel, that God took steps to reveal Himself to Abraham and to position Himself as Abraham’s God (becoming Abraham’s patron?), and seemingly continues to operate in the same mode with the same types of expectations. 

The Creator God put a requirement upon Abraham as a symbol of the covenant---a symbol that He would expect His people (His clients?) to bear as a response of gratitude to His grace and as a reminder of His covenant faithfulness and their subsequent obligations to Him.  God said, “As for you, you must keep the covenantal requirement I am imposing on you and your descendants after you throughout your generations.  This is My requirement that you and your descendants after you must keep: Every male among you must be circumcised” (17:9-10).  Abraham quickly acceded to this requirement, and it would be faithfully carried out through successive generations.  That is, until we meet up with the descendants of Abraham, that being the nation of Israel, after their deliverance from the exilic bondage of their sojourn in Egypt.  

Isaac's Life Of Exodus (part 5 of 6)

Not only did Isaac re-open the wells (sources of water and therefore life in a desert environment---crucial for Israel’s wilderness experience) that were dug by his father, “Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well with fresh flowing water there” (Genesis 26:19).  This became yet another point of contention (just as water was a point of contention for Israel and Moses), “the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, ‘The water belongs to us!’” (26:20a)  Rather than going to war over the well, “His servants dug another well, but they quarreled over it too” (26:21a).  With this, and though it does not appear that there is a strong analogy to be drawn, are we wrong to think about the multiple times in which Israel complained about water (or the lack thereof) following their exodus?  Israel, in a sense, struggled with their trust in God (quarreling with Him if you will) when it came to water in the desert.  Again, rather than go to war with these people, “he moved away from there and dug another well.  They did not quarrel over it” (26:22a).  Isaac responded to this lack of tension by positing that “now the Lord has made room for us, and we will prosper in the land” (26:22c).  This is the attitude that would later be taken up by Israel when it came time to enter in to that which had been long promised to them.  Yet again, this incident from the life of Isaac is a re-enactment of a scene from the life of Abraham. 

Do all of these repetitions indicate that these stories are not true?  Though we must be prepared to admit that such may be the case, that is not a necessary (or even necessarily reasonable) conclusion to be drawn, especially considering the widely held and relatively easily observable axiom that history can be observed to be cyclical.  Beyond that, and most importantly, if we take this Book as the self-revelation of a covenant God that has a plan and purpose for the world that He created, then the repetitions and similarities (whether precisely factual in every detail or not) can be understood as that God going to great lengths to reveal Himself and His nature, so that we might be able to understand Him and thereby understand what it is that He desires from His image-bearing creations.  If Jesus is the embodiment of that same God, then the repetitions to be found in the very same Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus clearly accepts as authoritative and deterministic within His life and mission, are highly instructive in our attempts to comprehend Jesus as well. 

Of course, the weight that Jesus gives to these repetitive stories, and the fact that He takes the Hebrews Scriptures with seriousness and reverence, attaching His identity to the history presented therein, is reason for a high degree of confidence in their relative (generally if not in precise detail) historical accuracy.  Of course, it is the Resurrection of Jesus (as the exclamation point on a variety of reasons related to Jesus) that causes us to put stock in Jesus’ position towards these Scriptures and their stories, which happily returns us to the foundation of the Christian faith (which is a return trip that we should make quite often).  That foundation of the faith, which the Apostle Paul will say is the basis for all of our hope, and therefore all that we do and think as we function in this world as revelations of the covenant faithfulness of God who point towards a resurrection to come, is itself a grand tale of exile and exodus inside the even grander tale of exile and exodus. 

As we have been looking at the life of Isaac, is it not of interest to note that the examination of the events of his life continually point us backwards to Abraham and forward to Israel?  When we consider the Abraham and Isaac relationship of father to son, and the fact that God tells Abraham that it would be through his son that he would have a multitude of descendants (with specific reference to Israel), we should not be surprised at this occurrence.  We also note that this is the case even though the story of Isaac takes up a relatively small amount of Scripture when compared to Abraham and Israel.  So yes, even though we are looking at Isaac, we have spent more time looking at and considering Abraham, and from that we have been making applications to Israel. 

For purposes of narrative symmetry within the recorded history of Israel, this can also be said of David and Solomon.  Even though Solomon takes up a small amount of Scripture in comparison to his father, looking at Solomon’s life will cause us to learn even more about David.  In addition to that, Solomon’s life and reign, and the idolatry into which he falls, will be highly determinative for Israel’s subsequent history.  So just as Isaac’s life can shed light on Israel itself, the events of Solomon’s reign are foundational for the life of the divided kingdom of Israel that followed.  As for Isaac and Solomon, so too for Jesus.  The story of Jesus takes up a small portion of the Bible---quite small if we consider that the Gospels provide multiple tellings of one story.  Yet it is in examining and unpacking the life of Jesus that we are constantly pointed to God (like Isaac to Abraham and Solomon to David), and by which we comprehend the history of Jesus’ Israel to come, which would be His church (multitude of descendants).  So the repetition occurs at the level of history and in the overall narrative sense that is conveyed by the Scriptures.