Israel's journey from the sacred mountain of Sinai leads into the long years of the wilderness and toward the land of the promise. The wilderness is a place of paradox where, in settings of hardship and trial, Israel learns to trust in God's providence. "God knows your going through this great wilderness; these forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing" (Deuteronomy 2:7). Ironically it will be in the land of promise, where hardship seemingly has been left behind, that Israel will be most tempted to forget God's providence. The sojourner and wanderer becomes the dweller and the possessor.
The land is an important Old Testament symbol embodying both promise and danger for the people of God. Those summoned by God's call away from preoccupation with securing a place in the world are promised the gift of place through God's grace. For Israel that place was the land into which they came by crossing the Jordan River.
It is unfortunate that this experience of coming into the land is so frequently referred to in scholarly and church literature as "the conquest." The dominant witness in the Old Testament is to the land as a gift of grace, not as the spoils of violence. Much of the book of Deuteronomy is a speech on the eve of entry into the land in which Moses stresses the character of the land as an opportunity to continue the receiving of life as God's gift. Much as Israel had learned to trust God's gift in the manna and quail of the wilderness, they were to trust that their needs would be provided for in the land to which God had brought them.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. (Deuteronomy 8:7-10)
But the land is not just the gift of the promise. It is also the source of danger and temptation. Those called to receive are tempted to seize and grasp. What has come from God is claimed as human accomplishment.
Many of the most troublesome traditions of Joshua and Judges reflect the telling of Israel's story for this period from the perspective of those who have given in to the temptations of exclusivism, pride, and nationalism. The first 11 chapters of Joshua describe the entry into the land in terms of heroes and conquest in which all of the Canaanites were destroyed (Joshua 10:40-43,11:21-23). But this was not historically the case. We know from later biblical stories that many Canaanite cities were scattered among Israel. We know from Joshua 12 to 24, where much detailed information on early Israelite settlement is recorded, that many tribes did not come into possession of their land by conquest.
The battle stories of Joshua and some portions of Judges reflect the attitude that "the only good Canaanite is a dead Canaanite." This is distressingly like the attitude of some in our early American history. But it is not the dominant biblical attitude toward the gift of land. Exclusivism, pride, and nationalism are considered the dangers to avoid when land tempts Israel to forget its reliance on God's grace.
Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God, ... lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, ... and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ... who led you through the great and terrible wilderness ... Beware lest you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." (Deuteronomy 8:11-17)
It was because of the temptations of land that Israel was called to remember Exodus for the sake of humility in the face of God's grace. "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you" (Deuteronomy 15:15). Unfortunately, the experience of Israel in the land is one that amply testifies to the dangers as well as the promise. It is to the story of Israel in the land that we turn.
Make Us a King
For almost 200 years after settlement in the land (approximately 1225-1020 B.C.), Israel lived as a tribal federation. The period reflected in the Book of Judges is one in which we see glimpses of Israel attempting to live out its life in accordance with the covenantal understanding described in the previous article in this series (see "You Shall Be My People," Sojourners, May 1984). Although the tribes cooperated in maintaining a central sanctuary and a priesthood to serve it, they resisted the creation of centralized political structures and roles and maintained a non-hierarchical system of tribal cooperation that tended more to "grassroots up" functioning.
The period of the judges was not, however, an easy time. Threats from external enemies (for example, the Midianites in Judges 6-8) and intertribal conflict (Judges 20) threatened the security and stability of the covenant league. In times of danger, leaders came to the fore to meet the crisis, and Israel's storytellers understand these "judges" (as they were called) to be agents of God's deliverance. Ideally all the tribes would respond to give aid when any were threatened with danger. In practice the response was often more limited to the immediate area of the threat.
Thus even in the time of the judges, some began to question the covenantal system for its lack of centralized political authority. In Judges 8:22-23 the men of Israel ask Gideon to become a king over them, and his sons to follow. Gideon refuses, saying that only Yahweh is to rule over Israel. An earthly ruler is seen as conflicting with God's sovereignty. One of Gideon's sons tries to make himself king (Abimelech in Judges 9), but the attempt is abortive and he meets a tragic end.
It is clear from historical and archaeological evidence that the threat of the Philistines finally forced Israel into establishing a kingship. The Philistines were a non-Semitic people who settled on the coastal plain about the same time the Israelites were settling in the land. They were an aggressive, military-minded people with ambitions for a wider kingdom, and around 1050 B.C. they attacked the Israelites in an apparent effort to take over the land.
Israel's loosely structured tribal organization proved unable to meet this concerted threat. In a disastrous series of reversals, Israelite non-professional troops were defeated, the ark of the covenant was captured, and the central sanctuary at Shiloh was destroyed (1 Samuel 4-6). Philistine garrisons were established throughout the land. Ironworking was made a Philistine monopoly (1 Samuel 13:19-23). Israel was on the verge of extinction.
It was the remarkable figure of Samuel, perhaps the first of the true prophets, who seems to have kept the traditions and identity of Israel alive in this crisis period (see 1 Samuel 1-15). It is he who acts as the agent of God in anointing Saul to be the first of Israel's kings, to "save my people from the hand of the Philistines" (1 Samuel 9:16).
Kingship, however, is not seen in the biblical story as a purely positive development. Historians say the Philistines made kingship necessary, but theologically the Scripture in its final form sees the people's request for a king as a sinful rejection of God's rule over them—a violation of covenant trust. When the people come to Samuel to ask for a king in 1 Samuel 8, they ask that they become "like the other nations" (1 Samuel 8:5, 20). They ask not just for the resources to meet the crisis, but they are willing to give up their alternative pattern of peoplehood for the sake of security. Israel's calling as a covenant people is threatened in an effort to seek the security of kingship, because this is the way of other nations.
Saul becomes Israel's first king (1 Samuel 9-11). He is anointed by God's prophet Samuel as the chosen one, but the people are warned of the dangers kingship brings (1 Samuel 8:10-18). The king can serve Israel's covenant God, but the temptations will be great to give in to the desire to be "like the nations."
Saul is a man caught between two worlds. He falls into conflict with Samuel and the covenant tradition as he tries to develop new patterns of royal institution (1 Samuel 13:8-15, 15:1-35). He is rejected by Samuel. He becomes a haunted and at times demented man. As it becomes clear that David will be God's choice as Saul's successor, Saul becomes obsessed with jealousy. Finally and tragically, Saul takes his own life after seeing his army defeated by the Philistines and his son Jonathan killed in the battle (1 Samuel 31).
Kingship is now a reality in Israel, but it has brought a tension into the heart of Israel's faith. Can kingship serve the covenant ideal? It remains for the reign of David and his son Solomon to show both the rich possibilities and the grave dangers to Israel's faith.
Royal Ideal and Royal Reality
In spite of the sinful desire to be like the nations, kingship is viewed in much of the Old Testament tradition as capable of serving the covenant faith of Israel. Prophets anointed the kings and held them accountable to God's will. There developed a royal ideal of the king as defender and champion of the covenant and its God.
In Deuteronomy 17:14-20 the covenant-based law code of the Deuteronomist includes a law of the king. It provides that one from among the covenant community, "a brother" whom God chooses, may become king (Deuteronomy 17:15), but the king is not to exploit his position by accumulating horses, wives, or wealth (Deuteronomy 17:16-17). However, most importantly,
He shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law ... and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them; that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment ... (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)
Thus the royal ideal is of a king who is not a center of authority unto himself, but who derives authority from the covenant law of God.
Such a hope for an ideal covenant king is richly reflected in royal psalms such as 72:
Give the king thy justice, O God,
and thy righteousness to the royal son!
May he judge thy people with righteousness,
and thy poor with justice! ...
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor!
(Psalm 72:1-2, 4)
This royal ideal is also the source of hope for an eschatological anointed one (messiah) who will someday establish God's kingdom of peace:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots ...
with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist,
and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.
(Isaiah 11:1, 4-5)
In Israel's story it is David who first embodies this ideal. He is not pictured as an artificially perfect king (as we see in the well-known episode of his sin with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12), but he is seen as one who strove for faithfulness to the covenant and repented when called to account by the prophets. In later Israelite tradition, the name of David is used to represent the royal ideal. The importance of Jesus as the son of David in New Testament tradition points to Jesus' own claim to fulfill that royal ideal of the kingly figure as the servant of God's kingdom.
But if David represents the royal ideal and its faithful possibilities, his son Solomon brings into full view a royal reality that in practice produces kings who subvert the covenant for their own purposes of power and wealth. With Solomon we see the emergence of a royal pattern that is the enemy of the covenant pattern discussed in the previous article of this series. Even Israel's own historians in assessing the kings find only four who can be judged positively when measured by covenant standards. The history of kingship in Israel is largely a journey away from covenant which begins with Solomon.
The pattern of royal reality emerges first of all in the realm of economics. To replace the economics of equality, Solomon and subsequent kings introduce an economics of privilege. Privilege entered the picture as an outgrowth of the unprecedented affluence and well-being enjoyed by Israel in the Solomonic period—"Solomon's provision for one day was 30 cors of fine flour, 60 cors of meal, 10 fat oxen, and 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep, besides harts, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl" (1 Kings 4:22-23). This is hardly the provision of the average Israelite. For the first time on a large and continuous scale in Israel, resources are being distributed not on the basis of need but of privileged position.
In the previous periods of Israel's life, the Mosaic covenant had governed the equitable distribution of scarce resources. Now with abundant resources, distribution becomes increasingly unequal with a privileged few enjoying a disproportionate share of the wealth. From this point on, a clear growth of radical class distinctions can be traced in Israel. King, royal court, nobility, and landowners form the wealthy class at the top. Much more numerous and separated from the wealthy by a great economic and social gulf were the peasants of the land. By the time of Amos these class divisions have hardened. The classical prophets, beginning with Amos in the eighth century, direct a large portion of their message of judgment at those who profit, actively or passively, from economic exploitation (see Amos 6:4-7, 8:4-6; Micah 2:1-2; Jeremiah 22:13-17).
The economics of privilege made necessary the replacement of a politics of justice with a politics of oppression. Listen to 1 Kings 5:13-14: "King Solomon raised the levy of forced labor out of all Israel and the levy numbered 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon 10,000 a month in relays, a month in Lebanon and two months at home." Look also at 1 Kings 9:15: "And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord and his own house."
Since the resources and benefits of Solomonic greatness were not shared equitably, royal power was introduced to maintain privilege and to deal with discontent. Although the use of forced labor is the most flagrant example, Solomon also used excessive and inequitable taxation, and he dismantled the tribal system of participatory government. The tribal system was replaced with administrative districts, cutting across tribal lines and administered by governors appointed by and accountable to the king alone (1 Kings 4:7-19).
Evidence of growing discontent appears with the emergence for the first time of revolution within Israel because of the tyranny of its own king. 1 Kings 11:26 and the following verses tell of an attempt at rebellion led by a young royal official named Jeroboam. Although his revolt fails, he escapes into Egypt and returns after the death of Solomon to lead the elders of the 10 northern tribes in their demands for relief from oppression.
Solomon's foolish son, Rehoboam, replies that he intends to be even more oppressive (1 Kings 12), and the northern kingdom splits off to form a nation apart from the southern tribe of Judah (the tribe of the Davidic kings). The unity of the covenant people is permanently divided as a result of the politics of oppression.
The politics of oppression continue to be a pattern of royal power. The period of monarchy is filled with the stories of flagrant greed and oppressive power used by the kings to subvert the intention of the Mosaic covenant for their own gain. The story of Naboth's vineyard and Elijah's confrontation of Ahab and Jezebel is a prime example (1 Kings 21).
Some of Israel's kings, unlike Solomon or Ahab or Manesseh, are not as flagrant in their misuse of power, but they do not act to restore or defend covenant equity and justice. The prophets are quite clear that the politics of oppression can express itself in managerial fashion as well as in overt shows of naked force.
Amos is forced to condemn those who do not use their positions of power to help the needy. He describes them in the same harsh terms as those who actively oppress others: "Woe to those who lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp ... but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph" (Amos 6:4-6). Oppression can be the oppression of disregard in a society that is divided along power and privilege lines.
The change in the economic and political patterns is accompanied by a change in the religious consciousness of Israel as well. An economics of privilege and a politics of oppression cannot coexist with the religion of a radically free God, especially if that God has already sided with the dispossessed and against the powerful as in the exodus from Egypt. In place of the religion of God's radical freedom, there begins in the Solomonic period the development of a religion of God's domestication. God ceases to be seen as radically free and is instead made institutionally accessible and subservient to nationalistic sentiment and privileged power.
The domestication of God in Israelite religion can be seen in two forms: idolatry and nationalistic religion. Idolatry is an obvious form of the domestication of God. It limits and controls the presence of God by confining it to an object. To have the divine presence constantly available and dependent on human care is very tempting to Israel and its kings. King Solomon became a flagrant worshiper of idols and is judged very harshly for it in 1 Kings 11. Many of the subsequent kings allowed idolatry even to the extent of permitting idols in the temple in Jerusalem.
The temple itself became a chief symbol of nationalized religion. It was built with forced labor as part of Solomon's monumental building program. Access to God in the temple was controlled by a priesthood that served under the patronage of the king. Zadok and his family are installed as permanent hereditary priests of the Jerusalem temple as a reward to Zadok for his support of Solomon over Adonijah in the struggle for succession to David's throne (1 Kings 2). Thus the priesthood itself owes its position to the king's patronage.
The temple represents a religion of God's accessibility and domestication in a way not seen before in Israel. God is now said to dwell in the temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem (Psalms 132:13-14). Access to God's presence was controlled by the priesthood and an elaborate sacrificial system. Regulations of cleanness and uncleanness as well as necessary payments and sacrifices begin to exclude some from the presence of God in the temple. Eventually priests and shrines outside of Jerusalem are declared illegitimate and closed (2 Kings 23:8-9).
In Judah the royal theology also included the notion that God had permanently blessed a single royal dynasty, the house of David (2 Samuel 8:16). Like Egypt and other ancient cultures, the favor of God is now linked with the fortunes of a particular national dynasty.
For the first time, Israel had a God who was in danger of being defined in nationalistic and institutional terms. The dangers of acculturated religion became reality in much of the monarchy period. Once again the prophets are forced to oppose this corruption of covenant, often by dangerously opposing the king himself or the temple. A classic example is Jeremiah's famous temple sermon in which he denounces those who cry "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord," as if the presence of the temple will magically relieve them of the consequences of national pride and arrogance or the responsibilities of covenant obedience (Jeremiah 7:1 and following).
Messengers to the Nation
Throughout our discussion of Israel's experience with kingship, we have had occasion to mention the prophets. The role of the prophet from biblical times to the present has been the proclaiming of God's judgment and hope. To be a prophet is to be called by God to speak the divine Word. It is an audacious role. In the Old Testament, this role was taken by individuals who seemed to function in a distinct office, although those who were prophets were drawn from widely different circumstances of life.
Prophets appear in the Bible at the same time as kings, almost as if the dangers of kingship and nationhood required the prophets as guardians and champions of covenantal faith. They appear as the messengers of God, often speaking God's word in first person oracles after the style of ancient messengers. "Thus saith the Lord ..." is their frequent beginning.
The early prophets appear as characters in the history of Israel in the books of Samuel and Kings. We know little of their message, but we see them courageously confronting kings with their breaking of covenant, opposing idolatry and championing the worship of Yahweh. Some of these prophets are insiders in the royal court, yet they even pronounce judgment on the king when it is warranted (for example Nathan in 2 Samuel 11-12). Others, such as Elijah, operate outside of the royal structures, are often considered enemies rather than advisers of the king, and must sometimes run the risk of losing their lives (1 Kings 18-19).
In the eighth century, the preaching of some individual prophets began to be preserved and passed on. This prophetic preaching has come down to us in the books of the Old Testament that bear the names of the prophets, and we refer to these as the classical prophets. Among them are Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah in the eighth century; Jeremiah in the period immediately prior to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.; and Ezekiel and an anonymous prophet we call Second Isaiah who preached during the time of exile.
The prophetic literature is very rich, and much has been written about the prophets in modern times. We can only scratch the surface in the limited space of this series, so we will confine comments to some general observations on the prophets and slight the richness of each prophet's individual message.
It is important to underline the prophetic task as the proclaiming of judgment and hope. The prophets are often pictured incorrectly as sayers of doom only. In reality the prophetic message of hope is as rich as their message of judgment is jarring. Judgment and hope in the prophetic material are two sides of the same divine message, for judgment without hope is barren, and hope without judgment is hollow. In this article we will focus comment on the themes of judgment. In the next article in this series, we will discuss prophetic hope because it comes so strongly to the fore in relation to the experience of exile.
Several aspects of prophetic judgment are noteworthy. First, the judgment that the prophet announces is always God's judgment. The prophet is a messenger and not simply a commentator. The prophets are deeply steeped in the traditions of Israel's faith so that discernment of what God is doing always takes place out of a consciousness of what God has done.
Those in the modern church who would speak in prophetic judgment must do so only after carefully weighing their speaking against what we know of God through the tradition and experience of the community of faith. We must be careful not to lend the authority of God's name to our own opinions, however worthy, if we have not sought out their relationship to God's word.
Second, prophetic judgment is internal as well as external. The covenant community itself was the recipient of prophetic judgment as were its external enemies. Israel often failed to understand this and turned against prophets who dared to speak the truth about the covenant disobedience of their own people. Amos' oracles against the nations end by including among them an oracle against Israel as well (Amos 1-2).
Whatever opposes God's intention for the world and creates brokenness is deserving of God's judgment. When the community of faith participates in brokenness, it is especially judged, because it was charged with the missional task of enabling and promoting justice and wholeness. The implication for the modern church is that we cannot simply point to the brokenness of the world but must confront the brokenness of our own lives and communities.
Finally, we can briefly summarize the content of the prophetic message of judgment as an indictment of self-interest, self-righteousness, and self-delusion. The prophets constantly point to the abuses that come from the placing of one's self-interest above the interests of all others, even to the extent of exploiting the weaker members of the society. Social class consciousness, economic exploitation, judicial corruption, political oppression, and exclusivism are all condemned by the prophets as antithetical to God's desire for full life and wholeness for all (Amos 2:6-8; Isaiah 5:1-10, 58:3-7; Hosea 4:1-3).
It is the covenant qualities of justice and righteousness that are to guide the community of faith away from self-interested action. The Hebrew word for justice (mishpat) can be translated either justice or judgment. It means to seek after full integrity for the life of every person, acting as the advocate of those in need of support (justice), and to confront those who would exploit others to their own advantage (judgment). Thus justice in the prophetic meaning is pastoral and confrontational at the same time. If the prophet's words seem harsh to the privileged, they must seem as music to the dispossessed.
Righteousness (tsadeqah) points to the relational quality of covenant obedience. One achieves righteousness not by obeying some abstract standard or set of rules (see the story of Tamar in Genesis 38 where she is pronounced righteous), but by caring for the welfare of those with whom we are in relationship, seeking their wholeness and integrity.
When the qualities of justice and righteousness are absent, Israel's worship becomes self-righteous and hypocritical. Pious religious observance without concern for the neighbor becomes blasphemous in the eyes of God. Religious relationship to God in worship and prayer is not possible apart from God's mission to heal a broken world.
I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings,
I will not accept them ...
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
(Amos 5:21-24)
Equally false is the worship of idols, for it reduces God to a thing that can be controlled, and the purpose is usually to seek materialistic guarantees for the fertility and richness of the land. "My people inquire of a thing of wood, and their staff gives them oracles" (Hosea 4:12).
Less commonly observed, the prophets also had a word of judgment for two forms of self-delusion. On the one hand are those who, because they have not explicitly exploited the poor and the weak, imagine themselves without guilt or responsibility. But to the prophets those who stand by and do nothing are held equally accountable (see Amos 6:4-6).
Another form of self-delusion is that indulged in by those who simply fail to acknowledge the brokenness of the world in general. They say things are fine while thousands of suffering faces become invisible around them. It seems to be the kings and others in positions of authority who are most often singled out for prophetic words on this matter, such as this passage from Jeremiah 6:14: "They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace."
The prophetic preaching not only judges but calls hearers to repentance and restoration of covenant obedience. Perhaps the best summary verse is Micah 6:8, which gives the title to this series: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Bruce C. Birch was professor of Old Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C. when this article appeared. This is part four of a six-part series on the Old Testament roots of our faith, published regularly in 1984.
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