Greatly to be Praised

The Old Testament and Worship

Michael E. W. Thompson

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781498234122
• eBook ISBN: 9781498234139
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Worship is a dominant theme in the Old Testament. It is spoken about not only to provide words for worship, guidance about its leadership, or to express censure for its inadequacies, but also to depict places for worship and their significance, and to speak of the high calling of those who had particular roles and responsibilities in worship. Worship for the Old Testament authors has a vital place in the covenantal relationship between the Lord and his people.Michael Thompson considers Israel's worship under a series of themes and aspects--the place of worship (holy places, temples, and homes); the various people at worship (the people, priests and Levites, and kings); the liturgy of worship (prayers, psalms, sacrifices, feasts, festivals, and calendars); and visions of worship (in the proclamations of prophets, wisdom writers, theologians, and Israelite priests). These and many other matters relating to worship in the Hebrew Bible are presented in this fresh and wide-ranging study.

part i

The Place of Worship

I was glad when they said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the LORD!”

—Psalm 122:1

Fifteen psalms bear the title “A song of the ascents,” and perhaps the “ascending” is the going up of the worshipper to the temple in Jerusalem. What joy indeed was experienced by the psalmist merely by the thought of making this ascent; perhaps this person was a pilgrim to Jerusalem, so that the going up was something special, in no way a routine experience. The psalm follows the worshipper’s progress, and at v. 2 there is the realization, as if of a group of them, “Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem,” which could mean either that they have just arrived, or else that they are about to depart. If the latter, then—so it has been suggested—vv. 6–9 could be the prayer the pilgrims make on their departure.

Yet temples are not the only places of worship spoken about in the Hebrew Bible. The book of Genesis speaks of worship taking place without temple or other building, though in Judges there is talk of shrines, and in Samuel of temples, but not yet in Jerusalem. The talk in the book of Exodus of tent and tabernacle in the wilderness requires particular treatment, for while tent is surely appropriate for desert conditions, tabernacle would seem to be in some manner a retrojection of the later Jerusalem temple.

Further, we must pay attention to family homes as places of worship, and for the period after the destruction of Solomon’s temple, the rise of a later temple, the so-called Second Temple, and then also, and from a later and indeterminate period, the rise and ministry of the synagogue. These various and varied places of worship make up the subject of this part of the present study.

1

Holy Places

There are parts of the Hebrew Scriptures that portray the worship of God as taking place without the benefit of temple or formal priesthood. Thus it is in Genesis and in parts of Exodus. These books portray a series of historical events that will eventuate in the establishment of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan, and where in the fullness of time buildings will be established, buildings where in particular ways the Lord may be sought and worship be offered. There are in connection with both of these books serious questions that have been asked about their portrayed historical backgrounds, this being particularly the case with the book of Genesis, and to this we first turn.

While chapters 1–11 of Genesis speak of primeval times, and with one exception do not mention the matter of worship, they do not lend themselves to be treated as historical literature, but rather in terms of myth,35 the historical background of Genesis 12–50 having in recent decades been much discussed with differing views being presented. On the one hand there are those who argue that what we read about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and others in Gen 12–50 reflects what was happening to the ancestors of Israel in antiquity, others argue that this is later material that has been given the form and appearance of coming from antiquity.36 What, however, is clear is that within these chapters there is portrayed a religious belief and practice that in a number of ways is distinctively different from what we might call classical Yahwism, what we read in the Old Testament as prevailing from the time of the entry into the land of Canaan, and that developed there until the occurrence of the event that was so radically to change Israelite life and religious practices, the defeat of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonian army and the destruction and burning of the temple on Mount Zion.

What is portrayed in Gen 12–50 as being that earlier period when the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, were in the land, is a religion that had some distinctive characteristics. In the first place, there is what comes over as a real sense of openness in belief, and in particular towards other deities and the worship offered by their devotees. While the deity worshipped by the patriarchs appears to go by various names—for example, El, El Elyon, El Shaddai, El Bethel, El Roi, El Olam—equally other deities are mentioned (see for example Gen 31:42, 53) and there is no great concern expressed about this, but rather a real sense of tolerance. Such a level of tolerance is a far cry from what we find in, for example, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic writings. Further, there seems to be no perceived problem with Canaanite religion, its followers and their worship practices, there being no hint of such non-Yahwistic worship rejection as we read about in the Deuteronomistic History and in the books of Hebrew prophets like Hosea.37 Moreover, intermarriage seems to be acceptable with Canaanite people, there being no mention of issues that so agitated the authors involved in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.38

So to the matter of worship, and first we must consider what is said in Gen 4:26, “At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.” Similar statements regarding the patriarchs occur in Gen 12:8; 13:4; 21:33; 26:25, and the expression “call on the name of the Lord” could, in the words of Gordon Wenham, be “an umbrella phrase for worship, most obviously prayer and sacrifice. On this view Gen 4:26 is noting the origin of regular divine worship, just as the preceding verses have noted the origins of farming, music, and metallurgy.”39 This, however, leaves us with the statements in Exod 6:3 and 3:14–15 which say that this worship of the Lord (yhwh, Yahweh) did not take place until the days of Moses. Perhaps all that we can say with any measure of assurance is that in these early parts of the Hebrew Bible there are different understandings of when the worship of Israel’s God Yahweh began. What nevertheless we can say is that whatever may be the historical facts of the matter, these particular traditions that came to be incorporated into the Old Testament were intended to affirm the early commencement of the worship of the Lord God of Israel.

Genesis 12–50 speak about the patriarchs building their altars in a wide range of places. Further, trees and pillars in connection with worship are mentioned, again without words of judgment. Nor do sabbath and food ...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: The Place of Worship
• Part II: The People at Worship
• Part III: The Liturgy of Worship
• Part IV: Visions and Warnings
• Part V: Worship in the Hebrew Bible
• Bibliography