How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament

Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology

Jason S. DeRouchie

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781629952468
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Anyone can learn how to study and teach the Hebrew Old Testament faithfully by following this logical twelve-step interpretive process that moves from text to observation, context, meaning, and application.

PART 1

TEXT—“WHAT IS THE MAKEUP OF THE PASSAGE?”

1

GENRE

Goal: Determine the literary form, subject matter, and function of the passage, compare it to similar genres, and consider the implications for interpretation.

Fig. 1.1. Trail Guide to Chapter 1

Defining Genre

My oldest daughter is a master of “genre” analysis. I see it most after her daily trip to the mailbox, as she pushes aside the bills and advertisements to select the letters from friends or family. With every new piece of literary composition, we almost always identify genre. We decide (consciously or unconsciously, rightly or wrongly) whether a text is a research paper or poem, a factual history or a fairy tale. We look for clues in format, presentation, introductory or closing statements, and content. We seek the author’s signals as to whether something is satire, fiction, or nonfiction.

These markers point to a document’s genre. Genre refers to an identifiable category of literary composition that usually demands its own exegetical rules. Accordingly, a misunderstanding of a work’s genre can lead to skewed interpretation. Our decisions at this point will color the rest of the exegetical process. This first chapter is the longest chapter of the book, and the overview will set trajectories for the remaining eleven steps of interpretation. Every reader will benefit from this material, despite your level of exposure to biblical Hebrew.

Genre analysis is concerned not only with grammatical makeup but also with the patterns, content, and function in context. It examines the shape, subject matter, and purpose of a particular unit. It asks whether these elements are defined enough and typical enough for us to classify and interpret a passage as belonging to a particular genre. If the form, content, and function are sufficiently comparable to other texts, and if we can establish definite criteria for identifying the pattern’s occurrence, the unit may be said to belong to a given genre. Knowing the genre of a text helps us know what types of questions we should ask of the material. Assigning the wrong genre to a text can lead our biblical interpretation astray.

We discern a text’s genre by carefully noting literary details and authorial comments that clarify how we should read it. Are we reading a blessing or curse, a court annal or exhortation, a doxology or genealogy, a proverb or prayerful petition, a love song or a lament, or any number of other possibilities?¹

The sages, seers, singers, and sovereigns that God used to produce our Bible sometimes sought to convey information and to stir thoughts. Laws and historical narratives are mostly of this type. Through other genres they intended to affect and effect certain behaviors , beliefs, and feelings—to awaken emotions and to arouse affections. Here we would place most of the psalms and books such as Song of Songs. Some genres served to blend both of these purposes, such as much prophecy and some proverbs.

Every genre has its own interpretive rules. Some allow for high use of hyperbole and figurative language, but others do not. Signals in the text distinguish parables from history writing. Each demands a very different reading, but both can come to us in a similar form. The biblical authors picked different genres in order to communicate their intended truths in the most effective way. They consciously submitted themselves to the rules of a given genre, and they expected their readers to do the same. Grasping how the various genres work will help us better interpret Scripture.

Putting Genre within Its Biblical Context

The Jewish Bible that Jesus and the apostles used appears to have been structured differently from our English Bible. While the Jewish Scriptures are limited to the same thirty-nine books found in our English Old Testament, they pair some of the books into single volumes (e.g., 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Ezra-Nehemiah, 1–2 Chronicles)² and arrange the whole in a different order and in three main divisions: the Law (

tôrâ), the Prophets (

něbî^?îm), and the Writings (or “the other Scriptures,”

kětûbîm).³ Many refer to the Jewish arrangement as the TaNaK, which is an acronym derived from the first Hebrew letters of each of the three major section titles. We see potential evidence of this three-part structure in Luke 24:44, when Jesus declared after his resurrection, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” In most reckonings, Psalms is the first main book in the Writings (though prefaced by Ruth), and Jesus here seems to treat it as a title for the whole third division.

The biblical evidence also suggests that Jesus’ Bible began with Genesis and ended with Chronicles. We see this in one of Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees, in which he spoke of the martyrdom of the Old Testament prophets “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah” (Luke 11:51; cf. Matt. 23:35). This is not a simple “A to Z” statement, for Zechariah’s name does not begin with the last letter of any biblical-language alphabet. Also, it is not strictly a chronological statement, for while Abel was clearly the first martyr (Gen. 4:4, 8), the Old Testament’s last martyr with respect to time was Uriah the son of Shemaiah, who died during the reign of Jehoiakim (609–598 B.C.; see Jer. 26:20–23). Instead, Jesus appears to have been speaking canonically, mentioning the first and last martyr in his Bible’s literary structure. Specifically, just as Genesis records Abel’s murder, the end of Chronicles highlights a certain Zechariah who was killed in the temple court during the reign of Joash (835–796 B.C.; see 2 Chron. 24:20–21).

Stephen Dempster has observed how the Hebrew Old Testament’s three-part structure distinguishes the “narrative” of God’s redemptive story from the “commentary” sections and does so in a way that the former frames the latter.⁴ The canonical arrangement I am following here is not that of the standard critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, BHS) but is found in the most ancient listing of the Jewish canonical books in Baba Bathra 14b.⁵ The guiding principles for the structure appear to be both literary and rational, in that the majority of the narrative books are chronological, whereas the commentary books are generally patterned longest to shortest.

As is evident in figure 1.2, the major prophets are out of chronological order (i.e., not Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel), Ruth is totally separated from its temporal context after Judges, Daniel is not among the Prophets, and Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are placed in reverse chronological order. The narrative runs chronologically from Genesis to Kings, pauses from Jeremiah to Lamentations, and then resumes from Daniel to Ezra-Nehemiah. Chronicles then recalls the story from Adam to Cyrus’s decree that Israel can return. As for the commentary, the Latter Prophets structure the four books largest to smallest, and the Former Writings follow the same pattern, except that Ruth prefaces the Psalter and the longer Lamentations follows Song of Songs. The former shift places the Psalter in the context of Davidic hope, and the latter switch (1) allows Jeremiah’s writings to frame the whole commentary unit, (2) allows Solomon’...