The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780830866083
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Preaching's Preacher's Guide to the Best Bible ReferenceHow can we account for the "Book of the Law" suddenly being discovered during Josiah's renovation of the temple (2 Chron 34: 14)? We know from Egypt and Mesopotamia that it was common to seal important documents--including theological documents--in the masonry or foundations of a palace or temple in order to inform a future king who might undertake restoration of the building.What might the psalmist have had in mind when praising God for removing our transgressions "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps 103: 12)? In an Egyptian hymn to Amun-Re, the deity is praised for his judgment of the guilty. As a result of the god's discernment the guilty are assigned to the east and the righteous to the west.What is meant by God "weighing the heart" (Prov 21: 2)? In Egyptian religious tradition we find the notion of the dead being judged before the gods. As the soul is examined, the dead person's heart is weighed in a scale against a feather symbolizing Truth. If the answers are correct and the heart does not outweigh the feather, the soul may enter the realm of everlasting life.The narratives, genealogies, laws, poetry, proverbs and prophecies of the Old Testament are deeply rooted in history. Archaeologists, historians and social scientists have greatly advanced our knowledge of the ancient world of the Bible. When we illuminate the stories of Abraham or David, the imagery of the Psalms or Proverbs, or the prophecies of Isaiah or Jeremiah with this backlight of culture and history, these texts spring to new life. The unique commentary joins The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament in providing historical, social and cultural background for each passage of the Old Testament. From Genesis through Malachi, this single volume gathers and condenses an abundance of specialized knowledge--making it available and accessible to ordinary readers of the Old Testament. Expert scholars John Walton, Victor Matthews and Mark Chavalas have included along with the fruits of their research and collaboration- a glossary of historical terms, ancient peoples, texts and inscriptions- maps and charts of important historical resources- expanded explanations of significant background issues- introductory essays on each book of the Old TestamentThe IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament will enrich your experience of the Old Testament--and your teaching and preaching from Scripture--in a way that no other commentary can do.

HISTORICAL LITERATURE

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Introduction

We find a wealth of ancient Near Eastern material to illuminate the historical literature of the Old Testament – far more than for other genres of Old Testament literature. Among these ancient resources are items we may classify as royal inscriptions, chronographic texts and historical literary texts. Royal inscriptions preserve an account of the achievements of kings, particularly their military exploits and their building projects. Chronographic texts delineate a sequence of historical events ranging from simple lists of kings to court chronicles or military annals. Historical literary texts are mostly poetic, epic narratives that recount the experiences of kings. These texts are occasionally carved in stone (on cliff faces or on stone reliefs or statues) but are more often inscribed on clay tablets. Some chroniclers kept records on small rectangular shaped tablets, while others used large slabs or even barrel, cylinder or brick-shaped clay polygons.

If a record of events is to be preserved for future generations, it must at some point become part of a text. But writing that record as a text requires the compiler, whether consciously or subconsciously, to work under a set of guiding principles. We call this set of guiding principles historiography, and it will vary from culture to culture, even from historian to historian. How history writers feel about the appropriate form, content and structure for preserving a record of events contributes to this historiography, but these are only surface issues. What is important about the events of the past? Why is the account being compiled? How do events come to pass? What causes or forces drive history? Are there patterns in history? Is there design in history? The answers to these questions play a significant role in determining how history is written. It goes without saying that different individuals, different cultures, will answer such questions in different ways. Thus any given historical record represents a particular perspective about the events of the past. The shape of any given historiography is determined by the questions the compiler seeks to answer. We cannot legitimately speak of “right” perspectives or “wrong” perspectives concerning history. To do so would assume a commonly accepted absolute criterion. Perspectives, perceptions and feelings exist or do not exist. It is rarely a simple matter to label them right or wrong. In this light any historiography should be referred to as “perspectives on history.” Any historiography must in some sense be viewed as an editorial column.

When we study historiography, we must discover what purposes authors have in writing their documents. Otherwise we will not know how to use their work as we reconstruct the history of a period. It is important not to assume that their ideas of writing history were the same as current western ideas. When history is written in Western culture, it is often understood to be history for history’s sake (even though that is sometimes not the case). One of the values of contemporary society is the belief that it is essential to record, evaluate and thereby preserve the events of the past – just for the record. Along with that comes a desire to reconstruct “what really happened” and to identify cause and effect.

In most ancient historiography “what really happened” appears to be far less important. A large majority of the documents that supply us with historical information are generated through the sponsorship of the royal house. These documents are designed to serve the king, not the objective interests of the historian. Royal reputation is a far greater value than reliability. Our modern terminology calls this propaganda. The historiography of the ancient Near East, whether represented in royal inscriptions or chronicles, king lists or annals, has by all accounts a propagandistic agenda. As with campaign speeches of our day, truth can be useful to the royal house, but it is not its prime objective. Propaganda is greatly enhanced when it has truth in its favor; but if it only has statistics or other random “facts” it will make do. The perspective on truth that these texts take will present the king in the best light. The recorder is trying to provide answers to the question “Why should the king be considered good and successful?” In most cases it cannot be determined whether concealment or disinformation are part of the strategy, but negative information is uniformly lacking. When accounts of a particular battle are available from both sides, it is not odd for each to claim victory. It was common practice for a king to alter inscriptions by putting his own name in place of his predecessor’s (even if it was his father). An ancient king would rarely admit to a defeat, and negative assessments of a reign come rather from later kings who may be seeking only to legitimate their own rule. Historiography among ancient cultures was largely a self-serving enterprise.

Israel’s historical literature has features similar to chronographic texts and contains a few isolated examples that can be compared to royal inscriptions or historical literary texts. But the purpose of Israel’s literature is theological. It is selective, as all historical writing must be, and it has an agenda. It is not interested in preserving events for history’s sake. Its purpose is to document Yahweh’s action in history and his control of the flow of events. In these documents the nation is more important than the king, and God is the main focus. Israel’s identity and function as Yahweh’s covenant people is the backbone of the entire historical corpus. Thus we could say that whereas the objective of much of ancient historiography is to offer the desired understanding of the accomplishments of the king, the objective of Israelite historiography is to offer the desired understanding of the accomplishments of God.

It is also important to realize that the ancient world had a different view of deity’s role in history than is common in Western culture. Until the Enlightenment it was common for a person’s worldview to be thoroughly supernaturalistic. The role of deity was admitted, and the belief in occurrences that defied natural explanation was commonplace. With the Enlightenment a significant shift occurred. The resulting historical-critical method suggested that we should accept as true only that which can be empirically proven. The new historiography was concerned only with natural cause and effect in history. This is largely the view adopted by our contemporary Western culture.

The worldview of society around us thus differs dramatically from the worldview of the ancient historians. The way in which history is written today would seem quite foreign to ancient authors. The simple recital of facts and events would be meaningless to them unless the information was put to some use. While the ancients would not deny the existence of natural cause and effect in history, they were much more interested in the divine role in history. A modern historian’s response to Israelite historiography might be “it has not provided information that is reliable”; the Israelite historian’s response to modern historiography might be “it has not provided information that is worthwhile.”

When we study the historiography of a pre-Enlightenment culture, then, it is important to recognize the worldview that drives that historiography and to respect the integrity of it. The worldview represented in Israel’s historiography is one in which the directive activity of God is of primary importance. This view extends far beyond the recognition of occasional supernatural interventions to see God’s activity in natural occurrences as well. In fact, it insists that all events are woven into the plan of God, which is the driving force of history.

Israel’s historiography holds much in common with neighboring ancient cultures. Historical records in Mesopotamia, while not claiming to be revelation from deity, nonetheless show great interest in discerning the activities of the gods. The polytheistic nature of Mesopotamian religion, however, impedes the development of any concept of a singular divine plan encompassing all of history. At best the reigning dynasty may identify a divine plan in establishing and sustaining that dynasty. Some documents look back into the distant past to see a pattern that led to the present (e.g., the Weidner and the Akitu Chronicles). These typically concern not what the deity has done but what has been done to the deity. In Mesopotamia it is assumed that deity plays an active part in the cause and effect process that makes up history. The gods are capable of intervention and are expected to intervene. The causation of the gods and the intervention of the gods are understood to be ad hoc rather than in accordance with any overarching plan or grand design. As in the Mesopotamian view, Israel counted God as the cause of every effect and as actively intervening to shape events. Israel’s record of history was not intended to be a record of events but a record of the ways in which God had acted in history. There is no secular Israelite historiography.

In the supernaturalistic view of the ancient world, events were revelation, the result of divine activity. Unfortunately, those events required interpretation to discern why the gods were doing what they did. Such interpretation was not provided in the polytheistic cultures surrounding Israel. Mesopotamians were left to their own devices to discern what the gods were up to. In Israel’s view, not only events but historiography was revelation. That is, God took it upon himself not only to act but to provide an interpretation of his acts, communicating why they were done and what purposes they served. In this way Yahweh was both the cause of the events and the source of the interpretation of the events. In theological terms we would say that the general revelation of history was supplemented by the special revelation of historiography.

In summary then, Israel shared with the ancient world the idea that events are revelation – the evidence that the gods were at work. This approach stands in contrast to Western historiography. But Israel distinctively believed that its historiography was also revelation, a novel view in contrast to both modern and other ancient historiography.

JOSHUA

1:1-18

Joshua’s Commission

1:4. territory of the promised land. The “wilderness” circumscribes the southern and eastern boundaries of the land. The Lebanon and the Euphrates are the northern boundaries on both east and west. The Euphrates in similar descriptions of the boundaries of the land (see comment on Deut 1:7) refers to the area where the river turns north in the region of Emar. The Great Sea, the Mediterranean, marks the western boundary. The Hittite country most likely refers to Syria, where many Hittite groups settled after the fall of the Hittite empire about 1200 B.C.

1:8. Book of the Law. We tend to think of a book as having pages, a binding and a cover. Books of that sort did not exist in the ancient world. The term used here can refer to any document: from inscription to scroll, from papyrus to clay tablet to stone. The Book of the Law is the copy of instructions given to Moses in Deuteronomy and put in front of the ark (see comment on Deut 31:26).

1:16-18. pledge of loyalty. In international relations as they are known from the documents of the ancient Near East, when a new king came to the throne, vassals of the previous king were asked to subscribe to loyalty oaths professing their allegiance to the new king. This practice is attested between the pharaohs of Egypt and the city-state kings of Palestine during this period.

2:1-24

Spies in Jericho

2:1. Shittim. The full name of this site was Abel Shittim (Num 33:49), and it was the jumping-off point for Joshua’s spies and for the Israelites’ entrance into Canaan (Josh 2:1; 3:1; Mic 6:5). Josephus places it seven miles from the Jordan River. Its actual location is uncertain, but it may be Tell el-Hammam on the Wadi Kefrein.

2:1. Jericho. Jericho is located by an oasis (er-Riha) about five miles west of the Jordan River along the Wadi Kelt and six miles north of the Dead Sea. It guards the strategic passageway between the Jordan valley and the central hill country to the west (including Jerusalem, about fifteen miles west-southwest, and Bethel, about the same distance west-northwest), as well as the major ford between the Jabbok and the Dead Sea. Though it averages only four to six inches of rain per year, Jericho is supplied with ample water from the spring system today called Ain es Sultan. The tell of the ancient city is Tell es Sultan. It is 825 feet below sea level, the lowest city in the world. The oblong-shaped mound covers an area of about ten acres, with a circumference of about half a mile. A city of that size would have housed perhaps as many as two thousand people, though more would have lived in surrounding farms and villages. See comment on 6:1 for archaeological information.

2:2. spies in the ancient Near East. Spies in the ancient Near East regularly collected information about enemy movements and troop sizes. It would not be unusual for spies to infiltrate the enemy forces by posing as deserters or refugees. In reconnoitering a city they would be interested in defenses, food and water supply, number of fighting men and general preparedness for attack or siege. Most important was to find out what they could about the source of the water supply. If that could be cu...