Christopher M. Hays and Richard J. Ounsworth OP
In chapter 2, we grappled with Jeremiah’s prophecy about Babylon’s seventy years (Jer. 29:10–14), meeting head-on the problem of deferred prophetic fulfillment illustrated in the afterlife of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Entitled “Prophecy: A History of Failure?”, that chapter adopted a highly critical, even hostile, posture, and offered an uncharitable assessment of Jeremiah’s veracity. Indeed, we pointed out that Ezra and Nehemiah contain ample information to demonstrate that everything did not occur as Jeremiah had expected, and we shone a harsh light on the way Daniel radically extended Jeremiah’s timeline into a far distant future, an extension which nevertheless did not result in harmony between rhetoric and events. In the same spirit, chapter 2 questioned Paul and the Synoptics. They claimed that in Jesus’ ministry and second coming, there would transpire the fulfillment of all that Jeremiah and Daniel (inter alios) had foretold. Yet, the second coming receded beyond their grasp.
In chapter 3, we began to take back lost territory. There, we demonstrated that historical critics are frequently premature in pronouncing the failure of Old Testament prophecy because their negative assessments fail to appreciate the conditional character of prophetic speech. With that context now established, it is possible for us to offer a defense of the Christian belief in the Parousia, delay included.
Our argument will unfold across the next two chapters by fusing together two interpretative and theological insights. These arguments are mutually balancing, rather than free-standing; yet, for clarity, we have chosen to elaborate them over the course of two chapters, allowing a metaphorical “deep breath” between steps in our argument.
The first strategy, elaborated here in chapter four, is traditional: we stress the ways in which the Old and New Testaments recognize partial fulfillments of prophecies, even when the progress of history does not yield all that the prophet had proclaimed. These partial fulfillments, we explain, act as redemptive-historical “stepping-stones” that support the hopes of God’s people and provoke their penitence throughout history.
The second strategy applies the historical-critical insights regarding the conditional nature of prophecy, articulated in chapter 3, to Jesus’ prophecies about the timing of the Parousia. Thus, in chapter 5, our argument is straightforward: because Jesus’ statements concerning the consummation of the kingdom of God are prophecies, they must be understood as conditioned by peoples’ responses to those prophecies. Not only is there strong historical precedent for this from the ancient world, but we will show that the New Testament also advocates this view of the timing of Jesus’ Parousia.
The separation and sequencing of the arguments across chapters 4 and 5 correspond to the division of material in chapters 2 and 3. Whereas it was necessary to outline rigorously the “failures” of the prophetic predictions in the Old and New Testaments prior to reframing the concept of what predictive prophecy is, it is likewise necessary to examine the positive contribution of the traditional approach to adducing partial fulfillments of prophetic proclamations before building upon the crucial, but nevertheless limited, explanatory power of that approach to explaining the delay of the Parousia. The context of partial fulfillments—which sustain hope, exhibit God’s mercy, and yet do not resolve the dilemma of prolonged delay—is essential to understanding the innovative interpretive move to read various New Testament passages through the lens of prophetic conditionality.
Through all of this, the theologically astute reader will recognize that our exegesis inherently raises doctrinal questions on the nature of God and God’s interaction with the world. Chapters 6 through 8 will demonstrate how historical and systematic theology reinforce and vindicate the exegetical moves made in these chapters. For now, however, we must ask for patience regarding those matters. The perceived problem of the Parousia’s delay is, in the first place, biblical, so the epicenter of our solution is exegetical, though we strive never to disregard the equally important radiations from that epicenter that necessitate the discussions of hermeneutics and doctrine in the latter half of this book.
Partial Fulfillments as Redemptive-Historical Stepping Stones in the Old Testament
As we begin to make something of a defense of the biblical prophecies, let us emphasize that we have not the slightest desire to downplay the ways in which the putative prophetic fulfillments fell short of what the prophets foretold. We quite understand why this disparity between what was prophesied and what transpired has caused many other critical scholars to view these prophecies as some combination of failed and fraudulent. And yet, for all of the common ground we share with other critical scholars in our assessment of the degree to which actual history failed to align with prophetic hopes, we do not share the common negative critical assessment of the veracity of these prophecies.
Partial Fulfillment is Not Failure
The dominant critical construal of these prophecies as “failures” falters insofar as it focuses excessively on what did not occur as prophesied, while dismissing what did transpire in accordance with what the prophet foretold. People tend to treat prophecy’s legitimacy in an all-or-nothing fashion: either the prophet is vindicated by the complete fulfillment of the prophecy, or he is proved false by any degree of non-fulfillment. This binary approach, however, skews the evaluation of a prophecy’s truthfulness in favor of the nay-sayer, insofar as it does not countenance the value of partial fulfillments of prophecy.
This all-or-nothing view of prophetic truth, which fails to consider the ways in which prophecies are partially fulfilled, bespeaks the degree to which critical scholars are influenced by a Mosaic understanding of prophecy, which emphasizes only the roles of God and the prophet. If the prophecy does not come true, then they conclude that the prophet must not speak for God. If, however, our view of prophecy is informed also by the Jeremianic construal of prophecy, our evaluation of a prophecy’s truthfulness needs to account for more factors, insofar as Jeremiah emphasizes not only the role of God and the prophet, but also the agency of the addressees of the prophecy, in evaluating a prophecy’s veracity. Since prophecy can be conditional, its outcome depends in character and degree on the response of the people; a prophecy’s fulfillment might well be partial, or indeed, not even transpire, without the prophecy itself being falsified. If the prophet foretells blessing for the people, conditional on their piety, and the people respond with rebellion, the only way in which God’s truthfulness in the prophecy can be vindicated is by the non-occurrence of the prophesied blessing. If, however, only some of the people respond with holiness and justice, then the only way in which God’s truthfulness in the prophecy can be vindicated is by the partial occurrence of the prophesied blessing. In other words, the Jeremianic account of prophecy, which attends to the role of the prophecy’s human addressees more than does the Mosaic account of prophecy, legitimates and requires attention to the partial fulfillment or non-fulfillment of prophecy as evidence of God’s truthfulness in that prophecy. Our evaluation of conditional prophecies must take into account varieties and degrees of fulfillment and non-fulfillment if we are to maintain a belief in God’s integrity and the role of human agency in history.
Our previously dim verdict on Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years needs, thus, to be re-examined in this light. So, let us consider that history once more.
The Partial Fulfillment of Jeremiah’s Seventy Years
As we already saw, Jer. 29:10–14 prophesied that God would restore Israel from exile after the seventy years of Babylon’s dominion over them was complete. “In the second year of Darius” (Zech. 1:7)—i.e. around 520/519 bce, sixty-eight years after the invasion of Judah and destruction of the Jerusalem Temple—Zechariah predicted the imminent fulfillment of this prophecy (Zech. 1:7–17). This prediction is repeated and intensified in chapters 7–8 of Zechariah, set two years later. Ezra and the Chronicler fall in line and identify the restoration of Israel with the rebuilding of the Temple (Ezra 1:1–3; cf. 2 Chron. 36:20–23); that work was completed “in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius” (ca. 515 bce), about 72 years after the exile (Ezra 6:15). Frankly, that initial fulfillment is rather remarkable, especially when one bears in mind that a number such as “seventy years” should certainly be taken as a round figure.
To be sure, the Israelites’ homecoming was not easy, nor did it transpire immediately for all the people (Ezra 8:1–20; Neh. 2:1–10), as we noted in chapter 1. And yet, both Ezra and Nehemiah explain that those who returned from exile were still transgressing God’s law in a variety of ways. Upon arriving in Jerusalem sixty years after the Temple had been rebuilt, Ezra finds that the Israelites had been intermarrying with foreigners in great numbers (Ezra 9–10), which was a great affront to Ezra’s ethno-centric sensitivities. The book ends on a deeply ambivalent note, listing ca. 100 names of those who had married foreign women, but agreed to put them away; this does not include the names of those who refused to divorce their wives and send away their children (10:7–8)! It is not clear from Ezra whether this guilty remnant will escape God’s renewed wrath (Ezra 9:10–15).
Nehemiah gives an even less heartening account of the Israelite’s response to being delivered from exile. The rebuilding of the walls coincided with a season of famine, during which many Israelites had to borrow money to buy food and to pay taxes; in order to secure those loans, they put up their homes and fields as deposits. Unfortunately, the bad yield of crops meant that they were incapable of repaying their debts, such that they were losing their land and being forced to surrender their children as slaves to the creditors. This was precisely the sort of economic oppression that got the Israelites and Judaeans kicked out of the land decades earlier. Nehemiah 9 is an extended account of the people’s confession of sin and expression of resolution to reform themselves. Nonetheless, this confession and resolution seems to have availed for little, since Nehemiah 13 reveals a litany of continuing sins: the people were still intermixed with foreigners (13:1–3); the priest in charge of the Temple chambers had turned one of the sacred rooms into an apartment for a relative (13:4–9); the Israelites had failed to tithe and the Levites had abandoned their ministry because they were being deprived of their provisions (13:10–14); people were working on the Sabbath (13:14–22); and the Jews (even one descendent of the high priest!) were still intermarrying with foreigners (13:23–29). By ending the book with this catena of violations, the author expresses his own grave misgivings about the future fate of Israel. And insofar as it was the transgression of the Law that first brought God’s judgment upon the Israelites, it should not be surprising that persistent rebellion would radically slow their restoration from exile.
In short, Ezra and Nehemiah identify the return of exiles from Babylon and Persia, as well as the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and wall, as partial fulfillments of Jeremiah’s prophecy, demonstrating God’s faithfulness to Israel. Nonetheless, the books detail persistent sin and intransigence amidst the people—transgressions of the sort that might not only slow, but even reverse God’s restoration and require their renewed castigation.
Writing some generations later, the author of Daniel 9 confirms the worst fears of Ezra and Nehemiah. Daniel calls out to God for mercy, for an end to exile (Dan. 9:1–19), in spite of the fact that the current generation has followed in the steps of their forefathers in iniquity (Dan. 9:16). But God sends Gabriel to deliver disappointing news to Daniel. Because of the people’s unflagging rebellion, even after the experience of divine castigation and exile, God is obliged to extend their time of subjugation. The angel explains that the duration of Jeremiah’s seventy-year exile is to be multiplied by a factor of seven; the exile is now fated to persist seventy weeks of years, 490 years (Dan. 9:20–27). This is not, however, simply an arbitrary extension of Israel’s punishment. Leviticus 26:14–26 warns the Israelites that, if they do not hearken to the castigations God brings upon them in response to their wickedness, God will multiply his puni...
