“Put a new and right spirit within me”, the psalmist sings (Ps 51:10), in the psalm that is offered by the lectionary for this coming Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, as a companion piece for the well-known Hebrew Scripture passage for this Sunday about the “new covenant” to be given to Israel and Judah (Jer 31:31–34).
Perhaps the key to this passage comes in the prophet’s words from God, “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer 31:33). For more on this passage, see
The prophet indicates that the promise God offers is that “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jer 31:34b), which is perhaps why the psalmist is confident to pray for God to have mercy: “blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” (v.2), then “purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (v.7), and still more, “hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities” (v.9).
Forgiveness of sin has been a characteristic of the Lord God throughout the narrative books which tell the saga of Israel. Abraham bargains with God about forgiving Sodom (Gen 18:22–33). Moses likewise pleads with God, after the people had built a Golden Calf, to forgive them—“but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written” (Exod 32:32).
Yet these narratives also make it clear that God’s forgiving nature needs to be balanced by an understanding of the vengeance that upholds divine justice. In the wilderness of Paran, after spies returned from Canaan and stirred up discontent amongst the people, Moses recognises this capacity for vengeance; he implores the Lord not to kill the people in retaliation, praying, “forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now”—to which the Lord God replied, “I have forgiven them, just as you have asked” (Num 14:19–20).
This story also indicates that divine forgiveness was conditional, for God immediately declared, “none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it” (Num 14:22–23).
Later in this same book, note is made that “the Lord will forgive” a woman who makes a vow that displeases her father (Num 30:5) or her husband (Num 30:8, 12). God clearly sided with the male who had positional authority in the patriarchal structures of society!
At the renewal of the covenant when the people are in the land of Canaan, Joshua reminds the people that “you cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good” (Josh 24:19–20).
When Solomon dedicates the temple, he recounts the saga of Israel and five times asks for God to “hear in heaven” and “forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you” (1 Kings 8:30, 34, 36, 39, 50). And when Ezra leads a ceremony of rededication for the people as they return to the land after exile, in his extended prayer he reminds God, “you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them” (Neh 9:17).
So the psalmists pray for God to forgive sins (Ps 25:18; 65:3; 79:9), confident that “there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered” (Ps 130:4). Amos prays to God, “O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” (Amos 7:2), Daniel likewise pleads, “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay!” (Dan 9:19).
Both Jeremiah (Jer 33:8; 36:3) and Ezekiel (Ezek 16:63) envisage that God will forgive, although Hosea reports the strident command of God when his wife bore a daughter: “name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them” (Hos 1:6). This is what we have come to expect from the prophetic word, which consistently berates the people and warns them of the judgement that God will bring upon them because of their sinfulness. See
By contrast, God continues, “I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God” (Hos 1:7). So forgiveness—limited, directed by divine decree—is indeed possible. Accordingly, we see in the psalm for this Sunday (Psalm 51:1–12) that the psalmist is confident to seek divine forgiveness, declaring “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (v.3), even going so far as to say “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” (v.5).
That’s a serious claim. Augustine would certainly agree, no doubt. Personally, I find this a hard view to agree with, however; see
It is in the spirit of seeking divine compassion for the sinfulness of humanity that the psalmist ends this section of the psalm with another petition for forgiveness: “restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit” (v.12). In forgiveness, there is joy at what God does and a willingness to continue to work with God into the future.
These ancient words, we can be confident, stand as relevant and nourishing for people of faith today, deep into this Lenten season. And so we hear this psalm this coming Sunday.
A sermon preached by the Rev. Elizabeth Raine in Sunday worship at the Dungog Uniting Church on 10 March 2024.
The passage from Numbers which the lectionary places before us this Sunday (Num 21:4–9) is a strange reading. It is included in the lectionary primarily because it is alluded to in the passage from the Gospel of John, where the lifting up of Christ on the cross is compared to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14–21).
For modern Western ears, this passage contains many unfamiliar or even superstitious concepts, concepts that do not fit with our Christian ideas of a God of love, compassion and forgiveness. Poisonous snakes biting the complaining people, bronze snakes on poles curing the bites – all of this seems to have stepped straight out of a myth.
I have always felt sorry for the Israelites in the story. The Hebrew text itself emphasises the psychological and physical predicament of the people. The Hebrew word translated as ‘impatient’ means a people who are utterly tired, completely discouraged and at the end of their tether – ‘impatient’ doesn’t begin to accurately describe their condition, and neatly lifts the blame for what follows from God onto the people.
And when the people begin to murmur against Moses and God, the retribution is swift. Instead of comforting the people, they are sent a plague of fiery serpents. Just imagine if you complained about the food at a restaurant and the chef’s response was to drop a red belly black on your table.
The punishment seems to be disproportionately harsh. Yet many of the commentators I looked at when preparing for this sermon took the line that Israel deserved to be punished. There seemed to be a calm acceptance that God’s action was good and necessary. I disagree, and the story needs some drastic reinterpreting to begin to make any sense, especially for us in a modern world.
The book of Numbers contains census, itineraries, statutes, rituals and priestly concerns, wilderness stories, and what is known as the ‘murmuring’ tradition.
Other peculiar things found in Numbers include a talking donkey, the earth opening to swallow up people, fiery creatures, an extremely vengeful God and quarrelling prophets. Perhaps as an antidote to some of the other things, Numbers also contains the beautiful and well-known Priestly Blessing (The Lord bless you and keep you, Num 7:24-26). The promise of land is ever present in the book of Numbers, and the journey, albeit a long and circuitous one, depicts a gradual process of getting to the edge of that land.
A lot of the material in Numbers is connected directly with the book of Exodus, especially in chapters 16 to 18, and the same journey of Israel in the wilderness is related somewhat differently. When the people’s complaint about the lack of food is heard in Exod 16–17, God provides them with meat, food and water. The God of Numbers is not quite so forgiving or generous.
In Exodus, God’s reaction was stern, but God heard and helped. But in Numbers, God responds to complaint by killing the Israelites off with a plague of fiery snakes.
I can understand the weariness of the Israelites but I can’t understand the divinely sanctioned plague of snakes. What has changed? Is it God? Is it the people? Is it the author, who perhaps has a nastier and more theologically vindictive imagination than the author of Exodus?
The rabbis in the Targumim believed that the snakes came to teach humility and patience to a people apparently lacking both. The problem with this idea is twofold. First, it is hard to understand what lessons a bitten, and therefore dead person, can actually learn. And the surviving members of his or her family may not be terribly inclined to worship a God who sends such a punishment.
Secondly snakes, particularly venomous ones, command our full attention. When someone mentions that a snake is nearby, I don’t stop to ask what lesson I can learn from its presence. Instead, I am much more inclined to climb a nearby tree or to run over the top of the nearest person to get away from it.
And what are these snakes? Numbers 21 does not use the common word for snake (nahash) but instead says the creatures are seraphs, a creature better known to us as the winged creatures around the throne of God in Isaiah’s vision:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory”. (Isa. 6:1-3, NRSV)
These winged fiery creatures were known for their supernatural powers, both destructive and constructive. The seraphs were the beings who carried the plagues and punishments decreed by the God. They were also agents of healing and purification, as in the story from Isaiah. These seraphs were seenas fiery, serpent-like creatures, hence their association with venomous snakes.
When the people pray for forgiveness, God does not stop the plague of divinely-sanctioned poisonous seraphs but instead commands Moses to craft a bronze seraph and raise it on a pole. When someone is bitten by a snaky seraph, they are to lift their eyes to the elevated bronze snake so as not to die from the bite.
Theologically, this is a problematic solution. At best, it appears as cheap grace: one glance at a serpent on a stick and all is restored. At worst, it reminds us of superstitious magic or of a healing idol of winged serpent, the type that was left behind in Egypt.
So what are we to do with this story of divine retribution, deadly angels and healing idols on sticks?
We have seen with covid lockdowns that the wilderness, especially if we find ourselves in it for too long, can become life-draining, not life-giving. We can become worn out and disillusioned, and unsure where our journey is leading us. Our energy sapped, our faith tested, like the Israelites we became prey to self-doubt.
We may find that deep spiritual and personal reflection spent in times ofwilderness has the downside of our own symbolic fiery seraphs returning to haunt us. Doubt, our past experiences and fears may get in the way as we attempt to move forward. Like the Israelites, we can tend to look downward to find mud and despair, and we miss seeing the stars of hope.
How do we prevent being stuck in the wilderness?
In John 3, we find a first-century Christian author recycling the myth of Moses’ bronze seraph as a prophecy of the crucified one; the dying victim on a cross who is also the source of new life for those who look to him in faith.
John’s gospel says the dreadful imagery of a crucified man achieves the same purpose. By looking toward the crucified Christ, the believer looks beyond it to the God who redeems. The symbol of the bronze serpent and the cross are signs of divine involvement in the people’s journey toward understanding, repentance and reconciliation.
In this case it will not just be ‘life’ given to the one who looks up to the Son of Man, but ‘eternal life’. John has taken the imagery of the bronze serpent and given it new meaning and power for the followers of Jesus.
Most of us will have been overpowered by painful bites in our lives. But the two lectionary stories today offer us comfort for those times. When we look up, we look to the face of the God who walks with us, who offers comfort to us, who helps restore us to equilibrium and who ultimately saves us.
To look up to Jesus as he is lifted up, is to see God’s healing presence in the world. Paradoxically, hidden in the crucifixion is the redemption and reconciliation of the Son of Man with God’s desire to heal the world.
May we continue to look up, to see the stars and find hope and redemptionfrom the one who was crucified. And may we experience the love and healing that God intends us to find when we do. Amen.
“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever” (Ps 107:1) is the opening sentence of the psalm that is proposed by the lectionary for this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent. The reference to “steadfast love” recurs in verses 8, 15, 21, and 31, as the psalmist recounts key moments in the long story of the people of Israel and invites those hearing their words, “let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love”, before the psalm concludes, “let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord” (v.43).
Elsewhere throughout the psalms there are many references to God’s steadfast love: an affirmation that “with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem” (Ps 130:7); a plea, “let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love” (Ps 31:16); a note of praise that “steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other” (Ps 85:10); and the recurring phrase, “his steadfast love endures forever”, throughout the song recalling the acts of God in Ps 136. (The phrase occurs in each of the 26 verses of this psalm, and then around 100 times in the other psalms.)
The English phrase “steadfast love” translates an important Hebrew word, חֶ֫סֶד (hesed). It signifies a love that is loyal, faithful, dependable, and on many occasions, unconditional. The word is applied both to human beings, as they exhibit “steadfast love” to one another, but also—and more often—to God, who shows “steadfast love” to the people of Israel, with whom God was bound in covenant. This is clear from the use of the word in the final verse of Micah’s prophetic words, affirming that God “will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty (hesed) to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old” (Mic 7:20).
Moses is reported as having told Israel that “the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty (hesed) with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations” (Deut 7:9). God, speaking through the prophet Nathan, offers assurance that “I will not take my steadfast love (hesed) from him [David], as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you” (2 Sam 7:15).
The unnamed prophet (by tradition, Jeremiah) who laments the destruction of Jerusalem and the ravaging of her people includes at the heart of their extended poems the ringing affirmation that “the steadfast love (hesed) of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end” (Lam 3:22). And then Nehemiah, when he hears about the damage in the city to which the exiles are returning, prays to the Lord, “God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love (hesed) with those who love him and keep his commandments” (Neh 1:5; also 9:32).
So the steadfast love of the Lord is celebrated in the foundational sagas of the Israelite people, where it is found in words attributed to key characters such as Jacob (Gen 32:9–10), Moses (Exod 15:13; Num 14:18–19), David (2 Sam 2:6; 15:19–20; 22:51; 1 Chron 16:34), Solomon (1 Ki 3:6; 8:23-24; 2 Chron 1:8; 6:14–15, 42), Ezra (Ezra 7:27–28; 9:9; Neh 9:32) and Nehemiah (Neh 1:5; 13:22).
The Chronicler reports that under David, a specific group was engaged in the Temple “to render thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever” (1 Chron 16:41); this continues under Solomon (2 Chron 7:4-6) and is reinstated after the Exile under Nehemiah (Ezra 3:10-11). So there is recurrent noting of the song which is regularly offered to God, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever” (1 Chron 16:34; 2 Chron 5:13; 7:3; 20:21; Ezra 3:11; Jer 33:10-11; in Ps 136 and in a number of other psalms).
Furthermore, God is affirmed as being “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation” in a number of books (Exod 34:6; 2 Chron 30:8–9; Neh 9:17, 32; Jonah 4:2; Joel 2:13; Ps 86:15; 103:8, 11; 111:4; 145:8–9).
The compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary have selected a psalm for each Sunday of the year, noting that this has normally been in order to provide a passage that complements the First Reading, which is most often a passage from Hebrew Scripture. In this instance, the portion of the psalm chosen (Ps 107:17-22) appears to match a story told in Numbers, when poisonous serpents are sent by God to punish the complaining Israelites (Num 21:4–9).
The psalm summarises the incident as a time when “some were sick through their sinful ways” (v.17) and “loathed any kind of food” (v.18); this only generally approximates the account of Numbers, in which the people complain that “there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food” (Num 21:5). There is no mention in the psalm of the “poisonous [or fiery] serpents” sent by God to punish the people (Num 21:6), simply that “they drew near to the gates of death” (v.18), presumably because they did not eat the “miserable food”, whereas in the narrative of Numbers “many Israelites died” from being bitten by the serpents (Num 21:6).
Certainly, in both the poetry of the psalm and the prose of the narrative account, the people seek relief from the Lord God. The psalmist reports that “they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress … he healed them, and delivered them from destruction” (v.19-20). The prayer has been effective, so the song continues with the refrain, “let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind” (v.21) and an encouragement to the people to offer sacrifices and joyful songs (v.21).
In Numbers, it is Moses who offers prayer (Num 21:7), but an additional element is included: the Lord instructs Moses to “make a poisonous [or fiery] serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live” (Num 21:8). Moses does as instructed, and so “whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live” (Num 21:9). Simply looking at the bronze figure was sufficient to effect healing! (And the narrative gives no indication of the response of the people to such healing, in contrast to the extended joyful response of the psalmist.)
On the language for “poisonous [or fiery] serpent” used in the story told in Numbers, see
As we hear this psalm this coming Sunday, we would do well to recall the joyful response to the way that God has acted, with a steadfast love that endures forever, that the psalmist reports. May this be our experience and our practice as we encounter difficulties in our lives and, through faith and persistence, surmount them and thrive.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind” (Deuteronomy 6:5). “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:8). These two commandments are cited in a story about Jesus engaging in a discussion with a scribe, a teacher of the Law, which ends with Jesus saying, “there is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31).
The Narrative Lectionary includes this story (Mark 12:28–34) as the opening section of a longer Gospel passage that is proposed for worship this coming Sunday (12:28–44). It’s a passage that takes us deep into the heart of Torah—those guidelines for living all of life in covenant faithfulness with God. Torah sits at the centre of Judaism. See more on this at
Of course, Jesus hasn’t answered the question precisely in the terms that it was asked; he doesn’t indicate what is “the first” commandment, but which two are “greatest”. It’s like a dead heat in an Olympic race: a race when even a finely-tuned system can’t differentiate between the two winners, even down to one thousandth of a second. Both love of God and love of neighbour are equally important. Joint winners—like that high jump competition a year or two back where the two leading jumpers just decided to share the gold medal, rather than keep competing—and risk not getting gold.
Both commands are biblical commands, found within the foundational books of scripture within Judaism. They were texts that Jewish people, such as Jesus and his earliest followers would have known very well. Each command appears in a significant place within the books of Torah, the first five books of Hebrew Scriptures.
The command to “love God” sits at the head of a long section in Deuteronomy, which reports a speech by Moses allegedly given to the people of Israel (Deut 5:1–26:19). The speech rehearses many of the laws that are reported in Exodus and Leviticus, framing them in terms of the repeated phrases, “the statutes and ordinances for you to observe” (4:1,5,14; 5:1; 6:1; 12:1; 26:16–17), “the statutes and ordinances that the Lord your God has commanded you” (6:20; 7:11; 8:11).
After proclaiming the Ten Commandments which God gave to Israel through Moses (Deut 5:1–21; cf. Exod 20:1–17) and rehearsing the scene on Mount Sinai and amongst the people below (5:22–33; cf. Exod 19:1–25; 20:18–21). Moses then delivers the word which sits at the head of all that follows: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart” (Deut 6:4–6). This, it would seem, is the key commandment amongst all the statutes and ordinances.
These words are known in Jewish tradition as the Shema, a Hebrew word literally meaning “hear” or “listen”. It’s the first word in this key commandment; and more broadly than simply “hear” or “listen”, it caries a sense of “obey”. These words are important to Jews as the daily prayer, to be prayed twice a day—in keeping with the instruction to recite them “when you lie down and when you rise” (Deut 6:7). As these daily words, “love the Lord your God” with all of your being are said, they reinforce the centrality of God and the importance of commitment to God within the covenant people.
The command to “love your neighbour” in Leviticus 19 culminates a series of instructions regarding the way a person is to relate to their neighbours: “you shall not defraud your neighbour … with justice you shall judge your neighbour … you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbour … you shall not reprove your neighbour … you shall love your neighbour” (Lev 19:13–18).
These instructions sit within the section of the book which is often called The Holiness Code—a section which emphasises the word to Israel, that “you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev 19:2; also 20:7, 26). Being holy means treating others with respect. Loving your neighbour is a clear manifestation of that ethos. Loving your neighbour exemplifies the way to be a faithful person in covenant relationship with God.
So it is for very good reasons that Jesus extracts these two commandments from amongst the 613 commandments that are to be found within the pages of the Torah. (The rabbis counted them all up—there are 248 “positive commandments”, giving instructions to perform a particular act, and 365 “negative commandments”, requiring people to abstain from certain acts.)
Jesus, of course, was a Jew, instructed in the way of Torah. He knew his scriptures—he argued intensely with the teachers of the Law over a number of different issues. He frequented the synagogue, read from the scroll, prayed to God, and went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and into the Temple—where, once again, he offered a critique of the practices that were taking place in the courtyard of the Temple (11:15–17).
Then he engaged in debate and disputation with scribes and priests (11:27), Pharisees and Herodians (12:13), and Sadducees (12:18). Each of those groups came to Jesus with a trick question, which they expected would trap Jesus (12:13). Jesus inevitably bests them with his responses (11:33; 12:12, 17, 27). It was at this point that the particular scribe in our passage approached Jesus, perhaps intending to set yet another trap for him (12:28).
So Jesus, good Jew that he was, is well able to reach into his knowledge of Torah in his answer to the scribe. The commandments that he selects have been chosen with a purpose. They contain the essence of the Torah. His answer draws forth the agreement of the scribe—there will be no robust debate now! In fact, in affirming Jesus, the scribe reflects the prophetic perspective, that keeping the covenant in daily life is more important that following the liturgical rituals of sacrifice in the Temple (see Amos 5:21–24; Micah 6:6–8; Isaiah 1:10–17).
The scene is similar to a Jewish tale that is reported in the Babylonian Talmud, a 6th century CE work. In Shabbat 31a, within a tractate on the sabbath, we read: “It happened that a certain non-Jew came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a convert, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder’s cubit that was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, the rest is the commentary; go and learn it.’”
Hillel, of course, had provided the enquiring convert, not with one of the 613 commandments, but with one that summarised the intent of many of those commandments. We know it as the Golden Rule, and it appears in the Synoptic Gospels as a teaching of Jesus (Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).
Some Jewish teachers claim that the full text of Lev 19:18 is actually an expression of this rule: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.” Later Jewish writings closer to the time of Jesus reflect the Golden Rule in its negative form: “do to no one what you yourself dislike” (Tobit 4:15), and “recognise that your neighbour feels as you do, and keep in mind your own dislikes” (Sirach 31:15).
Paul clearly knows the command to love neighbours, for he quotes it to the Galatians: “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14), and James also cites it: “you do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (James 2:8). Both writers reflect the fact that this was an instruction that stuck in people’s minds!
And I wonder … perhaps there’s a hint, in these two letters, that the greater of these two equally-important commandments is actually the instruction to “love your neighbour”?
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I have provided a more detailed technical discussion of the words used in this passage, and its Synoptic parallels, in this blog:
The compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary have selected a psalm for each Sunday of the year, noting that this has normally been in order to provide a passage that complements the First Reading, which is most often a passage from Hebrew Scripture.
The psalm for this coming Sunday, Psalm 19, was obviously chosen as a companion reading alongside the Hebrew Scripture passage from Exodus 20, which recounts The Ten Words given to Israel, through Moses, when he met with the Lord on Mount Sinai (Exod 20:1–17). For that passage, see
Creation is the focus in the first six verses of the psalm, where the psalmist’s view is fixed on “the heavens”, which are “telling the glory of God” (v.1). In those heavens the Lord “has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy” (v.4–5)—clearly a description of the daily movement of the sun across the sky (from our perspective), from east to west, as verse 6 then elucidates.
However, at this point the focus changes to Torah. The psalmist expresses a consistently positive attitude towards Torah in verses 7–14. Those verses contain a ringing affirmation of the Torah as “perfect, reviving the soul … sure, making wise the simple … right, rejoicing the heart … clear enlightening the eyes … pure, enduring forever … true and righteous altogether … more to be desired than gold … sweeter also than honey” (Ps 19:7–14).
The terms used here in parallel to describe Torah (law, decrees, precepts, commandment, fear, ordinances) are found regularly in the narrative books to describe the collection of laws (Deut 8:11; 11:1; 1 Ki 2:3; 6:12; 8:58; 2 Ki 17:34–37; 1 Chron 22:13; 28:17; Neh 9:13; 10:29) as well as right throughout Psalm 119. See
Such affirmations of Torah sound out insistently throughout the majestically grand doublets of the longest psalm, Psalm 119. The 176 verses of this psalm, artistically arranged into acrostic stanzas of eight verses at a time, are bracketed by delight and confidence (“happy are those … who walk in the way of the Lord … I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight”, vv.1, 174). This psalm indicates that the Law shapes the way that the covenant is kept; and the covenant gives expression to the steadfast love and grace of God.
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So much is Torah valued, that it apparently offers perfection: “the law of the Lord is perfect” (Ps 19:7), which we might compare with “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad” (Ps 119:96). In this regard, the psalmist’s appreciation for Torah as perfection seems to reflect the priestly desire for people to offer perfect sacrifices, without blemish (Lev 22:21), and Solomon’s desire to build the Temple as a perfect house for God (1 Ki 6:22).
Indeed, such a conception of perfect Torah also resembles the sage’s musings regarding Wisdom: “to fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding” (Wisdom 6:15), and thoughts found in a prayer attributed to Solomon: “even one who is perfect among human beings will be regarded as nothing without the wisdom that comes from you” (Wisdom 9:6).
Much value is accorded to these words of Torah. As well as calling the law “perfect”, we hear that “the decrees of the Lord are sure” (Ps 19:7), a claim echoed in another psalm (Ps 93:5). The precepts of the Lord that are right (Ps 19:8; see also 119:75, 137, 172) means that one who is faithful and obedient will be led “in right paths” (Ps 23:3) as they pray “put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps 51:10). “The commandment of the Lord is clear” (Ps 19:8) is a claim that informs the later portrayal of those who trace the course of Wisdom “from the beginning of creation … [who] make knowledge of her clear” (Wisd Sol 6:22).
The psalmist extends the adoration of the Law, declaring that “the fear of the Lord is pure” (Ps 19:9), a claim extended in another statement found in wisdom texts, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Sir 1:18, 27; 19:20). A further elaboration, “the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps 19:9), is the way that Ezra describes the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Neh 9:13). They are righteous (Ps 119:7, 62, 106, 160, 164), good (119:39), the basis of hope (119:43) and comfort (119:52).
The closing affirmation in this shorter psalm, “more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps 19:10), is echoed in the longest psalms, “how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Ps 119:103).
By contrast, when Job asks, “where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?”, he proposes that “gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold” (Job 28:12–19), and concludes, “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28:28).
Wisdom, love, the fear of the Lord, enlightenment, and rejoicing—these are the fruits of Torah, as the psalmist sings. These are the benefits of the law which are to be valued even into our own times, as this Sunday we hear again the words of this ancient psalm and affirm its relevance and importance in the contemporary world.
In the psalm that is set for the Second Sunday in Lent (a section of Psalm 22), the psalmist exults the worldwide dominion of the Lord God and sings that “to [the Lord], indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him” (Ps 22:29).
This psalm is best known for its opening line, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1a), as this is the last word of Jesus as he dies on the cross, at least according to two evangelists (Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46). The psalm is one of the psalms of individual lament, as the psalmist reflects the wretched condition of a person who is suffering unjustly, as the psalmist cries, “why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? … I am a worm, and not a human … all who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads …. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.” (Ps 22:1, 6, 14–15).
The other psalms usually considered to express individual lament reflect similar ideas: Ps 3 (“O Lord, how many are my foes! many are rising against me), Ps 6 (“be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing”, Ps 13 (“how long will you hide your face from me?), Ps 25 (“I am lonely and afflicted; relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress”), Ps 31 (“my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also; for my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing”), Ps 71 (“in your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me”), Ps 77 (“I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints”), Ps 86 (“O God, the insolent rise up against me; a band of ruffians seeks my life, and they do not set you before them”), and Ps 142 (“with my voice I cry to the Lord; with my voice I make supplication to the Lord”).
However, the section of the psalm that is offered for this coming Sunday (Ps 22:23–31) comes from the second half of the psalm, where—as is typical of many psalms of lament—the mood turns from internal personal introspection, to an external offering of praise and adoration to God. In each psalm the undergirding assumption is that God does care, God will act, and the trials of the present will be swept away. They are psalms imbued both with the sober reality of the human condition, and an unswerving optimism that faith in God will ensure an ultimate condition of salvation, deliverance, redemption.
Although the psalms offered by the lectionary are chosen each Sunday to provide a companion piece to the Hebrew Scripture passage, this element of this psalm makes it a most fitting accompaniment to the Gospel passage offered this coming Sunday in Lent, as the path that Jesus walks towards the cross is in view during this season.
So the psalmist rejoices. God has dominion over the whole earth: “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before him; for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations” (vv.27–28). This affirmation reflects other parts of Hebrew Scripture where the global reach of God is asserted.
One psalmist calls the ends of the earth “the possession of the Lord” (Ps 2:8), for they “have seen the victory of our God” (Ps 98:3). Both the name and the praise of the Lord “reaches to the ends of the earth” (Ps 48:10), for when God acts to judge the nations, “the it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob” (Ps 59:13). One psalmist declares that God is “the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas” (Ps 65:5) and another prays, “may God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him” (Ps 67:7).
But in this psalm, the dominion of God reaches beyond this life, to humans who lie in the realm of those who have died. “To him shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (v.29). A number of other psalms indicate that “in the dust” is where the dead rest (Ps 7:5; 30:9; 90:3; 104:29; likewise Job 10:9; 17:16; 20:11; 21:23–26; 40:12–13).
In Daniel’s grand vision “at the time of the end” (11:40–12:13) he refers to “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2). This is a key Hebrew Scripture text which is used in discussions of the resurrection as reported in the New Testament. Clearly, those who “sleep in the dust” are dead.
In the archetypal story that opens Hebrew Scripture, “the dust of the ground” is identified as the source for God’s creation of humanity (Gen 2:7)—and as the place where people’s bodies go when they die. The man Adam is told, “you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
God, indeed, “knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103:14), and in the end, “all go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Eccles 3:20). The Preacher wistfully observes that at the end, “when the years draw near … the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it”, before drawing his inevitable and well-known conclusion, “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity” (Eccles 12:1, 6–7).
In other passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, those who are dead are located, not in the dust, but in Sheol, in The Pit. These terms each describe the state of the nephesh (the essence of being) of those whose bodies have died. In one psalm, the pit that is dug for “the wicked” describes this place as “the land of silence” (Ps 94:17), while the prophet Ezekiel imagines it as the place where the dead, the “people of long ago” lie “among primeval ruins” (Ezek 26:20).
In Psalm 88, when the psalmist laments “my soul is full of troubles”, they use these and other terms in poetic parallelism to describe their fate: “my life draws near to Sheol; I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken amongthe dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand; you have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep” (Ps 88:3–6).
In this state, people simply lie in darkness, not living, with no future in view, no hope in store. Job laments, “if I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope?” (Job 17:13-15). Job also equates entering the Pit with “traversing the River” (Job 33:18), in words that seem to reflect the River Hubur (in Sumerian cosmology) or the River Styx (in Greek cosmology), the place where the souls of the dead cross over into the netherworld.
Other words for Sheol in Hebrew Scripture include Abaddon, meaning ruin (Ps 88:11; Job 28:22; Prov 15:11) and Shakhat, meaning corruption (Isa 38:17; Ezek 28:8). These terms indicate the forlorn, lost, irretrievable nature of this state of being. This is the fate in store for all human beings, whether righteous or wicked; there is no sense of judgement or punishment associated with this state. It is simply a state of non-being.
And yet, even in this state—this state where “my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (Ps 22:15)—the psalmist finds hope. They are confident that the Lord God “raises up the needy out of distress” (Ps 107:41) and “lifts up the downtrodden” (Ps 147:5). In like manner, Hannah has sung that the Lord “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (1 Sam 2:8; also Ps 113:7).
And so the psalmist bursts into praise for what, they are confident, God will do. Calling for their listeners to “praise [the Lord] … glorify him … stand in awe of him” (Ps 22:23), they affirm that God “did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him” (v.24) and rejoice that “the poor shall eat and be satisfied” (v.26).
The psalmist is certain not only that “the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before him” (v.27), but also that “posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it” (vv.30–31).
And so, they offer this resounding declaration of hope: “to him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (v.29). It is that hope which we hear, and affirm, when these closing verses of this psalm (vv.23–31) are read or sung during this coming Sunday’s worship.
The passage proposed for this coming Sunday, the Fifth Sunday after Epiohany (Isa 40:21–31) is from a section of the book of Isaiah which is very well known. It reaches it climax with the well-known acclamation that “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isa 40:31).
Words earlier in this oracle tell of the voice which cries out “in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord” (Isa 40:3). We know these words as they are applied directly to John the baptiser early in the Gospels (Mark 1:2–4 and parallels; John 1:19–23). In that context, these words of the prophet invite us to look forward, in anticipation to the story of Jesus, which will follow.
These words, however, have a different reference in their original context. The words of the exilic prophet whose work forms the second section of Isaiah (chs. 40—55) are oriented towards the appearance of God to the people of Israel as they wait and hope for the end of their exile in Babylon. The prophet says that God will comfort the people (v.1), speaking tenderly to Jerusalem, declaring that “her penalty is paid” (v.2)—and then, that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (v.5).
The promise of God is clear; the prophet states that God declares, “I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars, and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation” (43:14; 48:14; and see the extended oracle of 47:1–15). He specifically nominates Cyrus of Persia as the one chosen (or anointed) by God to bring the exiles home (Isa 44:28—45:1; 45:13). We know from 2 Chron 36:22–23, and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, that this did indeed take place.
The prophet describes the way out of exile and back to the land once promised, ages before, to the ancestors of Israel, in terms which evoke the miraculous liberation from slavery in Egypt—at least in terms of the story that is told in Exodus. Whilst evidence to support the Exodus narrative as “historical” is strikingly missing, the story developed in the Exodus narrative is powerful.
So as the prophet describes the journey leaving Babylon and returning to Jerusalem he evokes that narrative escape from Egypt, indicating that the Lord God “will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys … [he] will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water” (41:17–20; see also 43:16–17; 49:9–10; 50:2).
Because it was the Lord who “dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep [and] made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to cross over” (cf. Exod 14:19–22, 30–31), the prophet declares exultantly, “the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing” (Isa 51:10–11). In order to facilitate this return, in the opening oracle of this section, the prophet declares that “every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain” (40:4).
The particular part of this opening oracle that the lectionary offers for this Sunday (Isa 40:21–31) is a song of praise to God, for the power that “the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” exercises in the world. In the foundational saga of Israel, “Everlasting God” is the name given to the Lord by Abraham at Beersheba (Gen 21:33).
In contrast to the eternally-enduring deity, whose word will “stand forever” (40:8), the prophet observes that humans are like grass; “the grass withers, the flower fades”, he twice states (40:7, 8). In this, the prophet echoes other passages where the same observation is made. One psalmist laments that “my days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass” (Ps 102:11), in contrast to the Lord, who is “enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations” (Ps 102:12).
Job, similarly, bemoans the reality that “a mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last” (Job 14:1–2). This fleeting character is linked with evildoers in another psalm; they “will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb” (Ps 37:2).
Yet another psalm includes a prayer that the wicked will “vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither; let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun” (Ps 58:7–8). The prophet Jeremiah links the withering of grass to the wickedness of those in the land (Jer 12:1–4), while the prophet Isaiah had noted that the withering of the whole world was a curse that signalled the impending judgement on the world (Isa 24; see v.4).
In the context of this understanding of God, the eternal one, and human beings, whose lives are fleeting, the prophet has announced good tidings (40:9), that the Lord God “comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him” (40:10). God will not leave people bereft. God comes to “feed his flock like a shepherd … gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep” (40:11). The eternal God is a caring, compassionate being.
Alongside this comforting image of the deity, the prophet shares a vision of the God who “sits above the circle of the earth … stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in” (40:22). God is described as residing “above” in narrative texts (Josh 2:11; 1 Ki 8:23; 2 Ki 19:15) and prophets (Isa 37:16; Ezek 10:19; 11:22). Job recognises “God above” (Job 3:4; 31:2, 28); psalmists praise “God above the heavens” (Ps 57:5, 11; 108:5).
God above is not remote; God above descends to intervene—as the prophet says, the Lord God “brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing” (Isa 40:23). This resonates with the words that Hannah sings, that the Lord “kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up … [he] makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts; he raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour” (1 Sam 2:6–8).
This also correlates with words of the psalmist, singing that when the hungry “are diminished and brought low through oppression, trouble, and sorrow, he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; but he raises up the needy out of distress, and makes their families like flocks” (Ps 107:39–41), and that “the Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down” (Ps 145:14). Similar thoughts, of course, are also,expressed in the pregnant Mary’s song of praise (Luke 1:51–53).
Extolling this God as above all and eternal means that the existence of other entities with a claim to divinity need to be explained. “To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?”, the prophet enquires (40:25). Only the Lord God is creator (40:26, 28). Surely, in the mind of the prophet, this places this God in a distinct and unique place.
So it is within these oracles of promise and hope that the theological understanding of monotheism is clearly articulated for the first time in the history of Israel. “Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one” (44:8). The phrase, “there is no other (god)”, recurs a number of times in this section (42:8; 45:5, 14, 21, 22; 46:9). This echoes the refrain in Deuteronomy, that “the Lord is God; there is no other besides him” (Deut 4:35, 39; 5:7; 6:14; 7:4; 8:19; 11:16, 28; 13:6–7, 13; 17:3; 18:20; 28:14, 36, 64; 29:26; 30:17–20). Deuteronomy in the form that we know it is to be dated to the exile or return—the same time as the unnamed prophet in Second Isaiah is active.
This claim that the Lord God is the only god is in contrast to the way that the God of Israel had previously been portrayed, as “among the gods” (Exod 15:11; Judg 2:12; Ps 86:8), with the commandment to have “no other gods before me” (Exod 20:3; Deut 5:7) distinguishing this God from those other gods whom Israel was clearly forbidden to worship (Deut 6:14; 7:4; 8:19; 11:16; 13:1–18; 17:2–5; 18:20).
Before the Exile, the possibility of other gods had been entertained. After the experience of exile, the singularity of the Lord God becomes a central claim. And this, in turn, leads into the monotheistic strand that shapes the movement that Jesus initiated.
The prophet concludes this particular oracle with words of inspiration (40:28–31). Two rhetorical questions set the scene: “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” (40:28a). A foundational theological affirmation in the prophet’s worldview follows: “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (40:28b).
Elsewhere in Hebrew Scripture, we find statements that God “looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens” (Job 28:24), that God’s name “reaches to the ends of the earth” (Ps 48:10), that God is “the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas” (Ps 65:5), and that “all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God” (Ps 98:3).
Prophets also affirm that “from the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One” (Isa 24:16), that “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isa 52:10), and that to the Lord “shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Can mortals make for themselves gods? Such are no gods!” (Jer 16:19).
And so the rhetoric of the prophet rises up into a grand poetic affirmation about this world-encompassing God, who “does not faint or grow weary” (40:28c), as the prophet repeats the earlier affirmation (40:23) that God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless” (40:29). This picks up the earlier affirmation that God “brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing” (40:23), folded into the declaration that this same God “gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless” (40:29).
Springboarding off the imagery of fainting/strengthening, the prophet then contrasts “youths [who] will faint and be weary and young [who] will fall exhausted” (40:30) with “those who wait for the Lord [who] shall renew their strength” (40:31a). This imagery, which closes the oracle, is used to portray this renewal of strength—that of an eagle rising up into the sky. It has caught the imagination of people of faith over many centuries. The rising eagle depicts the way that believers “shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (40:31b).
The eagle is known in Christian symbolism as the symbol of the evangelist John, because of the “high Christology” his Gospel contains, reflecting the divinity of Jesus in traditional interpretation. The four symbols (man, lion, ox, and eagle) are in turn derived from the striking vision that opens the book of Ezekiel, who saw “fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber; in the middle of it was something like four living creatures … the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle” (Ezek 1:4–10).
“The way of an eagle in the sky” is included amongst the “three things too wonderful for me” that the sage ponders (Prov 30:18–19), while the prophet Obadiah warns Moab, “though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord” (Obad 1:4).
The power of the eagle, soaring high into the sky and spreading wide its wings, features in oracles by Jeremiah (Jer 48:40; 49:22) and Ezekiel (Ezek 17:3), and is used to describe how the Lord God guided “his people Jacob”: “as an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him” (Deut 32:11–12). It’s a powerful and inspiring image to conclude this opening oracle of the prophet as he looks for the exile of his people to end.
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command” (Deut 18:18). These words are the heart of the Hebrew Scripture passage which the Revised Common Lectionary proposes for this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.
Here, Moses informs the people that, just as he spoke words placed into his mouth by God, so there will be later individuals who also will speak words given to them by God. And so, Israel is assured of the presence of a prophet in their midst throughout the centuries.
Indeed, a number of the prophets of Israel remind us that they speak forth “the voice of the Lord” (Isa 66:6; Jer 42:5–6; Dan 9:9–10; Mic 6:9; Hag 1:12; Zech 6:15). Jesus stands in this tradition, offering words of guidance, challenge, and judgement. In traditional Christian understanding, he is the way by which, “in these last days, God … has spoken to us” (Heb 1:1–2).
What will the prophet speak? In so many reports of prophetic activity, it is justice which is the heart of their message—God’s justice; the justice which God desires for the people of God; the justice which God speaks through the voice of the prophets; the justice that God calls for in Israel; the justice that provides the measure against which Israel will be judged, and saved, or condemned.
Moses himself was charged with ensuring that justice was in place in Israelite society. One story told of the time after the Israelites had escaped from Egypt places Moses as a judge. Whilst in the wilderness of Sin, being visited by his father-in-law Jethro, we learn that “Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening” (Exod 18:13).
Noticing that Moses was overwhelmed by the volume of matters requiring adjudgment, Jethro suggested—and Moses adopted—a system whereby appointed men who “judged the people at all times; hard cases they brought to Moses, but any minor case they decided themselves” (Exod 18:14–16). The charge given to these men is clear: they are to give a fair hearing to every member of the community, and they “must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; [do] not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s” (Deut 1:16–17).
Prophets coming after Moses thus inherited this responsibility to ensure that justice was upheld within society. Amos calls for “justice and righteousness” (Amos 5:22). Micah asks the question, “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice?” (Mic 6:8), while through the prophet Hosea, the Lord God promises to Israel, “I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy” (Hos 2:19).
Isaiah ends his famous love-song of of the vineyard by declaring that God “expected justice” (Isa 5:7); Jeremiah notes the need to “not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow” (Jer 7:5–7). Second Isaiah foresees that the coming Servant “will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isa 42:1) while Third Isaiah begins his words with a direct declaration, “maintain justice, and do what is right” (Isa 56:1), for “I the Lord love justice” (Isa 62:8).
This commitment resonates with the psalmist, who praises “the God of Jacob … who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry … [who] sets the prisoners free, [who] opens the eyes of the blind, [who] lifts up those who are bowed down [and] loves the righteous, [who] watches over the strangers [and] upholds the orphan and the widow” (Ps 146:5, 7–9). See
It may be significant that, in this year when Mark’s Gospel is featured in the lectionary, the Hebrew Scripture passages offered during the short season of Epiphany are drawn from the books of the prophets: 1 Samuel, Jonah, this passage from Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and then the story of Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kings. These passages help us to see in clear focus the way that Jesus operates like a prophet in Mark’s narrative. See
So the offering of the Deuteronomy passage this week particularly pushes us to consider how Jesus might be seen as a prophet, one whom God raised up to be like Moses (Deut 18:15-18). There are three key features of Mark’s portrayal of Jesus which depict him in a prophetic vein: words and deeds, a kingdom focus, and the importance of repentance.
I Words and deeds
Words, of course, are important, both for the prophets, and for Jesus. “Thus says the Lord”, a commonplace of prophetic rhetoric, is reflected in the comments of the Markan narrator that Jesus “went about all the villages teaching” (Mark 6:6), proclaiming his message (1:14–15, 38) and speaking of the kingdom of God in parables (4:11, 26–32; 12:1–12), in sayings (9:1, 47; 10:14–15, 23–25; 12:34), and in an extended apocalyptic discourse (13:3-37). Words were central to his public and private activity.
Jesus is remembered, however, as “a prophet mighty in deed and word” (Luke 24:19), so the deeds he performed are equally as important as the words he spoke. Indeed, this was always the case for prophets; God gave Moses words to speak and signs to perform (Exod 4:28–30), and the prophets that followed him accompany their message with acts that manifest the truth of what is proclaimed: Ahijah tearing his garment into twelve pieces (1 Ki 11), Isaiah walking naked for three years (Isa 20), Jeremiah buying and then breaking an earthenware jug (Jer 19), Ezekiel eating a scroll (Ezek 3), Ezekiel shaving his head and slashing the hair with a sword (Ezek 5), and many more.
In like manner, Jesus sent out his followers to proclaim his message, but also to “cast out many demons and anoint with oil many who were sick and cure them” (Mark 6:12–13). Word and deed belong together. So Mark reports, alongside the parables and sayings of Jesus, numerous instances when Jesus healed people (2:1–12; 3:1–6; 3:22; 5:21–43; 6:5, 53–56; 7:31–37: 8:22–26; 10:46–52), cast out demons and unclean spirits (1:21–28, 32–34, 39; 3:11; 5:1–20; 7:24–30; 9:14–29), as well as miraculously fed multitudes (6:30–44; 8:1–10), cleansed a leper (1:40–45), stilled a storm (4:35–41), and walked on water (6:45–52).
II The coming kingdom
Another way in which Jesus reflects his prophetic calling was through the kingdom focus in his teaching. That the imminence of the kingdom is a key note for Jesus is reflected both in his opening words in Mark (“the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near”, 1:15a) and in some of his final words to his closest followers (“I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”, 14:25).
Jesus has so shaped the expectations of his followers that they anticipate this coming with intensity. “There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power”, he told them (9:1); to one enquirer, he affirmed, “you are not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34), and after his death, another follower who was “waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God ensured that the body of Jesus was cared for (15:43).
When some of his disciples hindered children wanting to come to him, Jesus chided them, saying, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (10:15); a little later, to his disciples, he warned, “how hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (10:23).
The final extended discourse of Jesus that Mark reports (13:4–37) provides reassurance of the sovereignty of God in the midst of crises and calamities. These events are but “the beginning of the birth pangs” (13:8). Jesus affirms that those enduring will be saved by divine action (13:13, 20), culminating in the appearance of “‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory” (13:26) and the gathering of the elect by the angels of God (13:27).
The kingdom is the realm in which God will act decisively. In the words of the prophets, the kingdom of David and his successors was the realm in which God was seen to be active; after that kingdom was conquered and its people taken captive, the prophetic voices of Israel began to develop a notion that, at some time in the future, there would indeed be a kingdom which would be the realm in which God would be active. The prophetic hope in The Day when God would act came to full, dramatic expression in the apocalyptic portrayals of The End that was anticipated.
Proclaiming that repentance, metanoia, is the essential prerequisite for entry into that kingdom in order to fulfil God’s justice is a third feature of Mark’s portrayal of Jesus in the manner of a prophet. The first word of Jesus in Mark’s early account is clear: “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent (metanoeite) and believe (pisteuete) in the good news” (1:15).
In this programmatic Markan announcement, the two statements (in the indicative mood) about “the time” and “the kingdom” are followed by two commands (in the imperative mood) to “repent” and “believe”. The imminence of the kingdom is the motivation for the call to repent and believe.
This call to repent is evident in the activity of the followers of Jesus who are sent out in pairs with “authority over the unclean spirits”; as they cast out demons and cured the sick, so they also “they proclaimed that all should repent” (6:7–13). Beyond that, the explicit call to repent is not repeated by Jesus, but its presence is evident throughout the narrative.
Jesus calls people to follow him; fishermen Peter and Andrew “left their nets and followed him” (1:18), fishermen James and John “left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him” (1:20), and tax collector Levi son of Alphaeus, “got up and followed him” (2:14). Leaving behind signals the complete transformation undertaken by following Jesus.
Following Jesus is akin to taking up the cross, a sign of social rejection and alienation as well as personal denial (8:34). Jesus delivers a sequence of three sayings that reflect the complete turnaround that is required to effect metanoia. First, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (8:35). Next, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (9:35).
And then, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (10:43–44). Jesus himself provides the foundational model for this way of living; as the Son of Man, he came “to give his life a ransom for many” (10:45).
This persistent demand for complete life transformation—metanoia—resonates with Isaiah’s signal declaration that “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness” (Isa 1:27), and regular prophetic calls to “return to me, says the Lord of hosts … return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds” (Zech 1:3–4); “repent and turn away from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Ezek 14:6; also 18:30), “return to me … remove your abominations from my presence and do not waver” (Jer 4:1); “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning” (Joel 2:12).
The recurring refrain of Amos, lamenting, “yet you did not return to me, says the Lord” (Amos 4:6,8,9,10,11), leads the prophet to assure Israel that “I will do this to you; prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (Amos 4:12)—words akin to what the psalmist says, “if one does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and strung his bow; he has prepared his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts” (Ps 7:12–13).
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command” (Deut 18:18). In the way that Mark presents Jesus in his narrative, we can see how Jesus speaks and acts in the manner of a prophet like Moses, the archetype of prophetic leadership.
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Please Note: in the above comments, I am not seeking to “ prove” that Jesus “fulfils prophecy”. Rather, I am interested to explore the ways that an understanding of Hebrew Scripture can inform the way we read and understand the Gospel narratives about Jesus. For further thoughts on how we read prophetic texts in a Christian context, see
“Follow me and I will make you fish for people”, Jesus tells some fishermen, in the Gospel offered by the lectionary for this coming Sunday (Mark 1:14–20, the Third Sunday after Epiphany). Perhaps because of the fishing theme, the lectionary pairs with it an excerpt from what must be the best-known fish story of Hebrew Scripture—that of Jonah.
Although, curiously, in what the lectionary offers, we don’t get the actual fish scene (Jonah 1:17—2:10). What we have is the “second chance” that Jonah has, to act as a real prophet. Rather than running away to sea (1:3), in the opposite direction from where he had been commanded to go, Jonah this time accepts the call from God, “get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you” (3:2).
What we hear in this chapter is the simple report of Jonah’s fiery message—“forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”—and the immediate response, “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth” (3:4–5).
The book of Jonah, of course, is one great comic burlesque from beginning to end. In the midst of the accounts of prophets who heard the call of God, hesitated, and then accede to the divine pressure to take up the challenge and declare the judgement of the Lord to a sinful people, we have Jonah.
We have Jonah, who when he is commanded to go northeast to Nineveh, immediately flees in the opposite direction, boarding a ship that was headed west across the Mediterranean Sea, to Tarshish, “away from the presence of the Lord” (Jon 1:3).
We have Jonah, escaping from the command of the Lord, only to find that “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea”—so all the cargo on the ship is thrown overboard. We have Jonah, blissfully sleeping, apparently unaware of the great storm (as if!), interrogated by the sailors, eventually offering himself as a sacrifice to save the boat (1:12). A comic hero, indeed.
Jonah, by Albert Pinkham Ryder (1885)
So the sailors try in vain to save the ship; but realising that this is futile, they throw Jonah into the sea—and immediately “the sea ceased from its raging” (1:15). Then, adding further incredulity to the unbelievable narrative, “the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah” (1:17). The three days and three nights that he spends “in the belly of the fish” before he is vomited onto dry land (2:10) add to the comic exaggeration. You can just imagine the ancient audiences rolling with laughter.
The psalm that Jonah prays from inside the fish (2:1–9) and the successful venture to Nineveh, where even the king “removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (3:1–10) apparently demonstrate that Jonah should have obeyed the command of the Lord in the first place. However, Jonah’s response continues the exaggerated response of a burlesque character; “this was displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry” (4:1).
Jonah’s resentment and his plea for God to take his life (4:2–4) and his patient waiting for God to act (4:5) lead to yet another comic-book scene, as a bush grows and then is eaten by a worm and Jonah is assaulted by “a sultry east wind” (4:6–8). The closing words of the book pose a rhetorical question to Jonah (4:9–11) which infers that God has every right to be concerned about the lives of pagans in Nineveh. The last laugh is on Jonah; indeed, he has given his readers many good laughs throughout the whole story!
However, the section offered by the lectionary does provide us with a matter warranting serious thought. In the midst of the comedy, the narrator reports that when God saw the repentance of the people of Nineveh, “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (3:10).
God changed God’s mind. That is a striking statement! If we read from the perspective of classic Christian theology, then we read with the expectation that God knows everything (and thus would have known of Jonah’s initial resistance and subsequent obedience); that God is in control of everything (and thus would have engineered the vomiting fish and the sheepishly-repentant prophet); and that God has sovereign power to determine the course of events (and thus would have planned well in advance the repentance of the Ninevites).
So a classic theological approach is somewhat stymied, I would have thought, by the comment that “God changed God’s mind”. By contrast, reading the story as part of Hebrew Scripture (rather than from the lens of systematic theological thinking) means that we can recognise that there is a vigorous “debate” being undertaken amongst the various authors of different parts of scripture on precisely this issue.
On the one hand, some texts make it quite clear that God was understood to have been averse to any change of mind; once God had decided, that was the end of the matter. M
In the historical narrative of the story of Israel, when Samuel informs Saul that David will be anointed as king, he asserts that “the Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind” (1 Sam 15:29). In an earlier book in that extended narrative, Balaam tells Barak that “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it” (Num 23:19).
And in a well-known royal psalm (which Jesus was said to have quoted), the psalmist declares that “the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’” (Ps 110:4, quoted at Heb 7:21). This idea of the unchanging deity whose mind remains resolutely fixed is also reflected in the oft-quoted line from Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8).
On the other hand, other biblical authors recount stories in which God is, indeed, capable of changing God’s mind. God has a change of mind in the story of Moses and the Golden Calf, narrated in Exodus 32. Moses is appalled when he discovers that the Israelites, in his absence, have created an idol—a Golden Calf—and have thereby breached one of the Ten Words that are at the heart of the covenant he has made with God. Moses mounts a passionate plea to God, asking for the divine fury to be turned away from the sinful people.
Invoking the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses implores God to “turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people” (Exod 32:12–13). So the Lord repented (v.14), and Moses took revenge on the people (vv.19–20); he burned the idol and ground it into water, and made the people drink it. God clearly has a change of mind in this story.
God also has a change of mind in Genesis. Abraham is instructed to take his son, Isaac, and “offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you” (Gen 22:2). Abraham is obedient, and “reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son”; but an angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and restrained him (Gen 22:11–12), providing instead “a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns” as the sacrificial victim (Gen 22:13). Clearly, God changed God’s mind.
The prophet Amos speaks two short oracles in which God was planning to judge the people, sending a plague of locusts (Amos 7:1) and then a shower of fire (Amos 7:4). In both instances, after petitions from the prophet, “the Lord relented concerning this; ‘it shall not be,’ said the Lord” (Amos 7:3, 6).
And how many psalms contain petitions to the Lord, from faithful people, imploring God to change God’s mind? “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath” (Ps 6:1); “rise up, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; do not forget the oppressed” (Ps 10:12); “do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me” (Ps 51:11); “hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry” (Ps 17:1).
One psalm presses the point with intensity: “do not let the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the Pit close its mouth over me; answer me, O Lord … turn to me; do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress—make haste to answer me” (Ps 69:15, 17). Another reflects on their situation with pathos, pleading, “do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent” (Ps 71:9; see also vv.12, 18).
And in the longest psalm of all, Psalm 119, even though the psalmist notes that they are consistently faithful to Torah, yet the plea comes: “do not utterly forsake me” (v.8), “turn away the disgrace that I dread” (v.39), “I implore your favour with all my heart” (v.58), “how long must your servant endure? when will you judge those who persecute me?” (v.84), “look on my misery and rescue me … plead my cause and redeem me” (vv.153–54). This psalm, like so many psalms, is premised on the understanding that God will hear the passionate prayer of the psalmist and have a change of mind.
The prophet Jeremiah considers the possibility, and then affirms the actuality of God changing God’s mind. “At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it”, he says, in the name of the Lord; “but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.” (Jer 17:7–10). The capacity for a change of mind is crystal clear here (and see also Jer 26:3, 13).
Later, Jeremiah tells of the prophet Micah of Moresheth, from the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, who threatened destruction for the city in his oracle. Jeremiah comments, “did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favour of the Lord, and did not the Lord change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced against them?” (Jer 26:18–19).
So while the systematicians want to locate our knowledge of God and our relationship with God within the constraints of doctrines and structures and systems, those attending carefully to the biblical text will know that the witness of scripture is diverse and varied, and also that there are different points of view put forward within the pages of the Bible, about important matters—including, as we have seen, the capacity of God to have a change of mind. Some authors consider God can do this; others reject the possibility.
Next Sunday is the second Sunday in the season of Epiphany. The word epiphany refers to the manifesting of light, the shining forth of revelation. It is applied to this season, which follows on from Christmas, and is initiated by the story of “the star in the east” told in Matthew 2:1-12.
The birth of Jesus, and the story of the Magi following the star, signals the early Christian belief that God was acting in a new way through this child. The Magi come from the east, following the star, to pay homage to the infant Jesus. Light is of symbolic significance in this story, as is the theological claim that the child Jesus provides a revelation of God.
Throughout the five Sundays of Epiphany, as indeed throughout much of the year, we hear and read the stories contained in the earliest account of Jesus, the beginning of the good news of Jesus, which we know more typically as the Gospel according to Mark. During these five Sundays, we will hear and read most of the opening chapter of this Gospel (with a detour this coming Sunday to the first chapter of John’s Gospel).
Alongside these Gospel excerpts, the passages set by the lectionary from the Hebrew Scriptures for the season of Epiphany have been carefully chosen. These passages illuminate the message of the Gospel which we hear each week from the New Testament, as we celebrate Christ as the light that comes into the world, illuminating and enlightening.
This week, we hear the story of the call of Samuel to be a prophet of the Lord (1 Sam 3:1–20). We may think of prophets as loud and assertive, boldly proclaiming their “word of the Lord” in the marketplace; but today we learn that Samuel was different. In this story, he is marked by obedience and an openness to listen.
Young Samuel was in the temple, where the elderly Eli was priest. In the evening, while the lamp was still burning, Samuel hears a voice. The voice simply calls his name. “Here I am”, Samuel responds when he hears that voice. He is sure that it is Samuel,speaking to him—there is nobody else around. Three times, he hears “Samuel”; and three times, he responds “here I am” (vv.4,6,8).
Samuel had been thinking that it was Eli speaking to him; but it was not the priest, it was the voice of the Lord. The story conveys a sense of confusion and unknowing. This reflects something of the uncertainty that people of faith often have with regard to “hearing the voice of the Lord”.
Indeed, the fragility of living by faith without clear and obvious demonstration of he presence of God is signalled in the opening verse: “the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread” (v.1). The poor vision of the elderly priest, Eli (v.2), is a second signal of this uncertainty. The priest cannot see; the child hears but does not understand.
Paying attention to the voice of the Lord is a persistent refrain in Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, the psalmist rejoices in the clarity of God’s voice: “the voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters; the voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty” (Ps 29:3–4). Yet another psalmist recalls the time, in the wilderness, when the people of Israel “grumbled in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the Lord” (Ps 106:25). The people were not always faithful, even though the voice sounded with clarity. They needed reminders of that voice.
In the foundational saga of Israel, Moses is called by the voice of God while tending sheep on Mount Horeb (Exod 3:4). In obedience, he leads the people to freedom—and then informs the people, “if you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes”, then God promises not to inflict them with disease (Exod 15:26). Later, when Moses has delivered to them “all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances”, the response of the people is an affirmative “all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exod 24:3).
A number of the prophets indicate that they are impelled to declare “the word of the Lord” to a sinful people because they have heard, and are obedient to, “the voice of the Lord”. Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord calling him: “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (Isa 6:8). Isaiah is given words of woe to pronounce over the people (Isa 6:9–13); he warns the leaders of Israel, “listen, and hear my voice; pay attention, and hear my speech” (Isa 28:23).
His fellow-southerner, the shepherd Amos, opens his words with the bold declaration, “the Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem” (Amos 1:2), before he launches into his long series of oracles against the surrounding nations (Amos 1:3—2:3) and then against Judah and Israel (Amos 2:4–16).
The image of the Lord God as a roaring lion is used also by Joel, “the Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake” (Joel 3:16), while in another oracle he says, “the Lord utters his voice at the head of his army; how vast is his host!” (Joel 2:11).
Joel’s words of judgement penetrate to the heart of the evil of the people: the coming day will be “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” (Joel 2:2), and so he calls the people to “return to [the Lord] with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing” (Joel 2:12–13).
Micah also declares, “the voice of the Lord cries to the city (it is sound wisdom to fear your name)” (Mic 6:9) before he lambasts the people for their wickedness: “your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in their mouths” (Mic 6:12; the whole damning oracle is 6:9–16).
Called as a youth by “the word of the Lord” (Jer 1:4–8), Jeremiah hears the assurance, “I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer 1:9); the prophet later instructs the people, “amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you” (Jer 26:13). Again, he tells them, “obey the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall go well with you, and your life shall be spared” (Jer 38:20). Eventually, the people affirm, “whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, in order that it may go well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God” (Jer 42:6).
In the return from exile, both Haggai (Hag 1:12) and Zechariah (Zech 6:15) rejoice that Israel “obeyed the voice of the Lord their God”; but Daniel laments that his people “have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by following his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets; Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice” (Dan 9:10).
And yet, various prophets had hesitated when first hearing “the voice of the Lord”. The initial response of Moses is “who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exod 3:11), followed by a series of further objections that he raises (Exod 3:13; 4:1; 4:10). Amos explains to the priest Amaziah how his call had surprised him: ““I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees” (Amos 7:14).
Isaiah seeks to excuse himself from the prophetic task: “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5). Jeremiah objects, “truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (Jer 1:6). A number of the prophets are, initially at least, reluctant spokespersons for the Lord God.
By contrast, in the story told in 1 Sam 3, after hearing his name spoken by the Lord for a third time, Samuel responds with a declaration of obedience: “speak, for your servant is listening” (v.10). This was just as the priest Eli had instructed him (v.9). Here, Samuel demonstrates careful listening, patience, openness to what he encounters, and complete obedience to that voice.
His response is similar to that of Mary when she is given startling news: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Soon after that, she produced an amazing prophetic oracle, which we know as the Magnificat, declaring that God has “scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts … brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly … filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:51–53). Like Samuel, she proves to be an important prophetic voice.
This story from the early years of Samuel’s life is remembered and retold because it instructs those who hear it in later generations, to listen, and to obey. It is a reminder that being “guided by God” is not always clear and obvious. It is also a reminder of the need to respond with faith and openness; to be obedient. It is a story worth hearing, and pondering.
An Informed Faith 