Tag: Assyria

Problematic acts of violence in the Old Testament

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 11 – The Kingdom Enters

Problematic acts of violence in the Old Testament

[Bible references: Genesis 4:26; 6:5-22; 9:1-1; Exodus 15:1-21; 17:16; 20:5:34:6-7; 14:18-19; Deuteronomy 5:9-10; 33:27; Joshua 6:15-19; 8:1-2; 10:20, 40-43; 11:16-23; 13:1; 15:63; 16:10; 17:16; 21:43-45; Judges 3:1-7; 1 Samuel 17:45-47; 25:28; 1 Chronicles 21; Isaiah 28:21; Jeremiah 6:23; 42:11-12; Ezekiel 8:17; 23:19; Habakkuk 1:6-7]

The Flood

Human violence made God grieved[1] that he had made humans and He was filled with pain. God sent a flood as a judgment on the violence and evil of humanity, but in His mercy, God spared Noah and his family. In addition to that, after the flood God imposed a penalty for murder and gave the rainbow as a sign of his covenant to never flood the earth again.

The conquering of Canaan

God’s instructions to Joshua for conquering the land of Canaan along with and the language that summarized some of results can make is seem genocidal, like all the Canaanites were wiped out. However, reading more carefully, we can see that the language is being used hyperbolically. For example, at the end of Joshua and the beginning of Judges we still see all the Canaanite tribes still exist, that there was still Canaanite land waiting to be possessed and that there were still many Canaanites around that God intended to remain in order to bother the Israelites. Also, as we look at the language God used for driving out the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 33:17, it indicates that Yahweh had a prior relationship with the Canaanites just like He had in primeval times with Adam’s son, Seth, and Seth’s descendants.[2] What is not often linked to the demise of the Canaanites is the curse that Noah placed on Canaan (Genesis 9:18-25).[3]

Intergenerational violence

Many people are disturbed by the statement made in a few locations in the Old Testament, about punishing the children for sins of the fathers to the 3rd and 4th generation. Some clarifications need to be addressed in this statement.

  1. Some translations use the term “punish” but other versions use the better translation “visit,” That is to say that God will witness the effects of the sins of one generation on the following generations. Since family structures in Old Testament times included up to four generations living in one location, it would be natural to see the effect of the oldest generation affecting the others.
  2. Setting the effect of sin to just 3rd and 4th generations also needs to be seen in contrast to the mercy shown to thousands of generations. Yahweh’s mercy is greater than sin.
  3. This statement also needs to be set in contrast to Ezekiel’s statement that the penalty for sin would only be applied directly to the sinner.

Yahweh’s abandonment of Israel

Just as Yahweh had disciplined Assyria, Babylon, and other nations for their excessive violence towards Israel, Israel’s continued practice of violence and evil warranted the same violent discipline. Yahweh allowed the capture and exile of Israel and Judah by Assyrians and Babylonians. This violence by Yahweh towards Israel was in contrast to the continued mercy shown by God to Israel in the past. For that reason, this abandoning Israel to the violence of Assyria and Babylon would be referred to as his “strange” work (Isaiah 28).

During that abandonment, much of the suffering Israel and Judah experienced, including extreme starvation that led to cannibalism, was due to their failure to surrender during the siege of the cities. Of course, if Israel and Judah had been obedient from the beginning, Yahweh would not have brought in the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

When Israel successfully evaded the Egyptians during their exodus, a song was created in which Yahweh received the title, “the Warrior God.” After that, Yahweh was described as a warrior fighting for Israel. But that sentiment disappeared after Israel went into exile because Yahweh turned the tables and fought against Israel.

[1] From Genesis 6:6. Some Bible translations use “regret” or “repent” to translate the Hebrew nacham which also encompasses grief or sorrow.

[2] Mariottini, Claude. Divine Violence and the Character of God, Wipf & Stock, 2022 (p.329-330)

[3] Fischer, Bryan. “What did Ham do when he ‘saw the nakedness of his father”’” American Family Radio www.afa.net/the-stand/family/2014/08/what-did-ham-do-when-he-saw-the-nakedness-of-his-father/ This curse has been misused by Europeans and Americans who wanted to justify enslaving the Africans by insisting that the curse was put on Ham from whom the Africans were descended.

Observe

Read 1 Chronicles 21. Would you prefer to be disciplined directly by God or by image-bearers commissioned by God to discipline you?

Samaritans

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed– Chapter 10 – The Class of Apparitions

Samaritans

[Bible references: Matthew 10:5; Luke 9:51-55; 10:25-37; 17:11-19; 10:25-37; John 4:1-43]

King Omri made the city of Samaria the capital of the Northern Kingdom in the 9th century BC. The Assyrians conquered most of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC and forced most people of the Northern into exile, never to be heard from again in history – and at the same time, Assyria repopulated the area with its own people who then intermarried with the remaining Israelites. Considered to be impure because of their intermarriage with the Assyrians, the Samaritans[1] were rejected as foreigners by the Jews returning from captivity in Babylon. This isolated the Samaritans who wanted to cling to the teachings of Moses but then consequently rejecting the further developments in the writings of the Jews and then developing their own customs, even claiming that their priests were the true descendants of the Levitical priesthood.

In response to being rejected by the main body of the Jews, around 400 BC the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim near Shechem, the place where the tabernacle was placed after Israel entered the Promised Land. The Samaritans consider only the Torah, the five books of Moses, to be scripture, rejecting the writings or the prophets and others that the Pharisees incorporated into their scripture. Because of their close-knit community and their isolation, there is still a small community of Samaritans in existence today worshipping on Mt Gerizim.[2]

Although Jesus specified that he was sent ‘only to the lost sheep of Israel,’ he did interact a few times with others, Samaritans, and Gentiles. Samaritans and Jews normally avoided each other as they looked down on each other. When Jesus sent out the twelve apostles on an outreach mission, he specifically told them to avoid the Jews and Gentiles. Near the end of his earthly ministry as headed from Galilee, through Samaria to Jerusalem, Samaritans rebuffed his messengers. And yet on one trip from Jerusalem to Galilee he had an encounter with a Samaritan woman who was trying to draw water in the middle of the day and ended up spending two days in town. Another time the barrier also seemed to disappear when Jesus healed ten lepers and only the Samaritan leper came back to thank Jesus. When speaking to a Jewish lawyer who was trying to justify himself, Jesus shared a parable about loving neighbors and chose to show that it was a Samaritan who demonstrated love of neighbor.

[1] Riches, John. “The Word of Jesus: First -century Judaism in crisis” Chapter 1. The Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Context of First-Century Palestinian Judaism Cambridge University Press, 1990 (p.17-18); NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible eBook “Samaria and Samaritans” Zondervan 2016 (loc. 239865)

[2] UNESCO World Heritage Convention. “Mount Gerizim and the Samaritans” whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5706

Reflect

How do you express love toward your neighbor?

Observe

Read John 4:1-43. What are the surprising things in this story?

Return and Remembrances

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 9 – The Prophets and writings

Return and Remembrances

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 34:10; 2 Chronicles 36:23; Ezra 1, 2; 6; 7; 9-10; Nehemiah 1-2; Haggai; Zechariah 8; Malachi 1:6-14; 2:10-16; 3:6-9; 4:1-6]

Assyria scattered the Northern Kingdom throughout their empire. Then the Babylonians overran Assyria but also captured Jerusalem and took the prominent citizens into exile. After the 70 years in captivity prescribed by God had passed, the Persians overran Babylonia, and they allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. The first batch of returnees went back with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. A second batch would go back to Jerusalem with Ezra who confronted the Jews about their failure to keep separate from the nations around them. A while later, Nehemiah would go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. And yet, with all the returnees, the majority of the Jews chose to remain in Babylonia – and even today, most Jews live outside the Promised Land.[1]

Only a remnant of Israel returned to the Land of the Promise, but the land was ruled by foreigners.  The temple was rebuilt but was only a remnant of the temple built by Solomon – which caused the people old enough to remember the former temple to weep. On the face of it, the Promise did not look promising. There must be something more. God had promised to bless the world through Abraham, but this remnant of the Davidic kingdom did not look poised to bring that promise. Israel was still waiting for the prophet “like Moses” to arrive.

But God did not choose Israel because it was the strongest kingdom. And Israel’s history is full of examples of God choosing to guide His people with the one who was thought weaker or the one who was younger. And there always seemed to be reminders that God was working in spite of Israel’s failures:

  • In a reminder of God’s provision, in all the returns to Jerusalem, the rulers of the Persian empire strongly supported the returns of the Jews who were given what they needed. God even provided prophets to encourage the Jews.
  • In a reminder of the times when contributions were needed to build the tabernacle, those who did choose to return to the Promised Land with Zerubbabel willingly contributed from the provisions given to them by the Persians to the rebuilding of the temple.
  • In a reminder of their own abilities to follow Yahweh, when the Jews first returned to the Promised Land they ended up once more intermarrying with the non-Jews and practicing their idol worship. So, when Ezra came to Jerusalem, he had to lead the Jews to repentance and to put away their foreign wives.

In the time of exile, the people of Israel compiled the writings of the prophets to serve as their scripture and discovered how to follow God without a system of animal sacrifice. In the time of their return to the promised land the people of Israel listened to that scripture and repented of their ways. And as the people of Israel waited for a prophet like Moses, God was still moving, working to fulfill His plan and His promises.

[1] Jewish Virtual Library “Vital Statistics: Jewish Population of the World (1882 – Present)” )” Jewish Virtual Library www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world

Observe

Read Malachi 4:1-6. This is the last passage written by the last prophet before Jesus would come. Even now at Passover celebrations, a place is set at the table for “Elijah.” In the Christian understanding, who is the “Elijah” that was prophesied to come?

Clash of empires

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Clash of empires

[Bible references:1, 2 and 3 Maccabees; Lamentations 3; Matthew 3:1-12]                                      

As the era of the Old Testament ends

  • the Assyrian Empire took the tribes of Northern Kingdom into exile where they were never to be heard from again in history,
  • the Babylonian Empire conquered the Assyrian empire and then took the best and brightest of the Southern Kingdom to Babylon,
  • the Persian empire overtook the Babylonian empire and allowed those Jews to not only return to their homeland but gave them the resources to begin the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the temple.
  • the Greek Empire overtook much of the world, including the Persian Empire, then imposed its culture and language on all its territories. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greek Empire split up.
  • Israel is first controlled by the Egyptian remnant of the Greek empire where some Jews were deported to Egypt where the Greek Septuagint version of scripture was written.
  • Then Israel came under control of the Syrian remnant of the Greek Empire whose general desecrated the temple, which invoked a successful rebellion led by the Hasmonean family and Israel become independent for a few years. The Maccabee books were written in this time.
  • the Roman Empire overtook the Greek Empire but kept Greek as the common language of the Empire, which in later years would become the language the church would use to write the New Testament texts as well as many of the texts that were written by the early church Fathers.

At the time the New Testament begins, the “king of Israel” installed by the Roman Empire was King Herod the Great. All the tumult of the times created an atmosphere where there was much speculation about the end of times and the coming of the Messiah. In fact, around the time of Jesus, there were many who claimed to be the Messiah.[1]

There are up to 400 prophecies concerning Jesus that were written in the Old Testament.[2] All the way back in the third chapter of Genesis, when Adam and Eve rejected God’s authority, God started to lay out His plan to have his image-bearing creatures restored to fellowship with Him. The New Testament introduces us to John the Baptist who could be said to be last of the Old Testament style prophets. He is the one who, as foretold by the Old Testament, was sent to prepare the way for Jesus’ ministry.

The New Testament Gospels, which are biographies of Jesus, emphasize the years of Jesus’ ministry leading up to his death and resurrection.

[1] Tabor, James. “Messiahs in the Time of Jesus” This page lists 12 Messiah-claimants between 47 BC to AD 66. Taborblog, jamestabor.com/messiahs-in-the-time-of-jesus/

[2] Appendix D – Prophecies about Jesus

Observe

Read Lamentations 3. In times of silence and grief, what is a cause for hope?

Exile and return

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Exile and return

[Bible references: Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah]                                     

When Assyria captured the Northern kingdom, they took most of the inhabitants and scattered them throughout the empire and replaced them with people from elsewhere in the empire. The result was that the 10 northern tribes were integrated into the Assyrian empire and were never heard from again as a people group.

Babylon overran the Assyrians and also captured the Southern kingdom. The practice of the Babylonians was to take the best and brightest, bring them to their capital and train them to work for the Babylonian empire. A couple of the prominent people taken were Daniel and Ezekiel. 

Since it was primarily the people of Judah that were captured and the other kingdoms had essentially disappeared, the people of Israel now became known as Jews. It was while in captivity, that the Jews got serious about preserving their culture. It was while in captivity that they worked on 1) identifying which writings they had would be considered as scripture and 2) developing cultural patterns that would allow them to preserve their identity. It was in captivity that synagogues developed as a way of continuing to worship without the availability of the temple. Interestingly, it also showed how they knew that they could function under the Law of Moses without a temple and therefore without the system of animal sacrifices.

The Babylonian kingdom was then overrun by the Persian empire. The policy of the Persian empire was to allow the captured peoples that were exiled to Babylonia, to return to their homeland. The first returnees rebuilt the temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians, although the new temple was not as grand as it had been before. Later, Ezra would return to re-establish the Law and then Nehemiah would return to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.

Observe

Read Jeremiah 18:1-10. How does God interact with our decisions?

Earthly kings and the rejection of God as king

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Earthly kings and the rejection of God as king

[Bible references:1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings; 1 and 2 Chronicles]               

The last of judges was Samuel, who also functioned as a priest. By this point in time, Israel was convinced that their continuing problems were, of course, not themselves. They thought that their problem was that they didn’t have a king like everyone else. Actually, God was their king and Samuel was His representative. But the Israelites were not satisfied with God choosing prophets who would speak for Him. So, God gave them a king, like everyone else, Saul. While it did not take Saul a long time to turn from God so completely that God rejected him, Saul was able to reign for 40 years. David, who was described as someone after God’s own heart, replaced Saul. David expanded the kingdom from the Orontes River in the north to the Sinai peninsula in the south.[1] Solomon, building off of David’s legacy, did not focus on expanding the kingdom as much as building its wealth. Solomon’s wealth increased not only in riches of gold and silver, but also in wives and concubines. His love towards his wives and concubines overrode his love for God, so at Solomon’s death, the kingdom split in two parts.

Ten tribes who rebelled against Solomon’s son, aligned with the northern kingdom, which became named Israel.  Of the other 2 tribes, the tribe of Judah was most prominent. Both kingdoms were eventually conquered by neighboring empires: the northern kingdom by Assyria and the southern kingdom by Babylon.

[1] Archaeologists have had difficulty locating evidence of the kingdoms of David and Solomon. That is due, in part, to the Israelites tendency to adopt the customs of the Palestinian nations, making their artifacts indistinguishable from the nations they displaced.

Reflect

From what we see in the world around us, how often do people take responsibility for their own problems?

Observe

Read 1 Samuel 15:15. What’s the clue that Saul was no longer following God?