Must Read/MUST OWN: Reuven Firestone – 3 – In the beginning …

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[First posted July 29, 2014, reposted February 2015—worth the review if you have  missed it, together with the other chapters featured to encourage our visitors to incude this in your library.  

This is revived to be part of the GENESIS commentary.  We are starting over the series focused on the books of the TORAH, starting with GENESIS of course.  Reuven Firestone has an interesting perspective to add to the commentaries we have featured; he not only provides an overview, a summary of this book of beginnings; best of all his insightful commentary makes us understand the Divine Mind and the Divine intent in forming the nation of Israel and choosing them to represent Him and His prescribed way of life for all humanity. We added in the title ‘MUST OWN’ because truly, this book should be part of the library of any serious student of the Hebrew Scriptures. Worth the purchase, as you will find out from this chapter as well as others we have featured.

 Here are ‘prequels’ to this chapter: Must Read: Who are the REAL Chosen People? – by Reuven Firestone and Must Read: Reuven Firestone – 2 – The Language of Chosenness.   Reformatted for post.—Admin1]

In the Beginning …

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).  

Divine creation did not privilege one set of objects or beings over another.  All were created on the sixth day, all things were “created equal” —the heavens and the earth and all that are in them.

The language of creation is consistent.  

“Let there be …And so it was!” 

The sound of the Hebrew words for these phrases is airy and breathy, with the accent on the last syllable: Yehi! …Vayehi! The very act of creation conveys a feeling of breath in Hebrew, of breathing.  Breath is life; when God said Yehi (Be!), God was breathing life into creation.  

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That very same Hebrew root for the act of creation is the root that forms the name of God, a name that Jews have not pronounced for thousands of years out of respect for the divine countenance.  The meaning of these unpronounceable sounds is “the One-Who-Is.”  The very name of God thus conveys the sense of the breath of life, the energy that powers the world and all that is in it.  Later, when Moses asked God to tell him the divine name, God answered, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh,“ which loosely translates to “I am the becoming,” or “I am what is.”

The language of creation continues through the creation of all aspects of life and the world.

 “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there  was light” (Gen.1:3),

 “God said, ‘Let there be a firmament between the waters … and so it was” (1:6-7).

This language continues through the creation of the two platforms for living things: the waters and the earth. God commands the waters and the earth to produce living things, and they do:

• first plants,
• then swarming things,
• flying things,
• swimming things,
• creeping things.

God makes all the various categories of animals.  Then the language of creation changes.

“God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness, to have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, all wild animals on land, and everything that creeps on the earth'” (Gen. 1:26).  

This verse has stimulated more commentary than perhaps any other verse in the entire Bible because it raises so many questions about the nature of God and the nature of humanity. Images for  We are concerned here with only a tiny piece of the mystery, and that is the narrowing of focus from all of creation to only one small piece of it:  humankind.

From that instant onward, the biblical epic history of the universe is focused only on one miniscule part of that universe.  Other parts of the world move in and out of focus only as they impact the history of humanity.  That point is made quite clearly in the very next chapter, when the details of God’s creation of humanity and the story of the Garden of Eden are prefaced with the words,

“This is the story of the heavens and the earth after their creation” (Gen. 2:4).

Surprisingly enough, “the story of the heavens and the earth after their creation” tells us virtually nothing about the heavens and the earth.  What it does tell us is all about the history of humanity,

• from Adam and Eve 
• and Cain and Abel
• to the generations leading to Noah and his family,
• the Tower of Babel,
• and finally, Abraham.

We think of the universal narrative of the Hebrew Bible like the beginning of some films that open with a wide-angle shot that takes in the world in which the story takes place.  That large picture soon narrows and eventually focuses on the heroes of the story.  But unlike films that use this technique (a technique that may have been borrowed unconsciously from the core narrative that the Bible represents for the West), the Bible does it twice.

• The first is the focus from creation to the story of humanity.
• The second is the focus from the story of all humanity to the story of one tiny family within it.

Why the double focus?  That narrowing technique makes you come away from the biblical story of humankind with the impression that it was a failed experiment.  The narrative structure of the first chapter of Genesis reveals that God’s primary concern with creation was the formation of that set of creatures that is referenced as being constructed somehow in the divine image.  Exactly what “divine image” means is open to interpretation, but the first four stories of the Bible that follow creation demonstrate the consistent failure of humanity to live up to that image and God’s expectation.

• Adam and Eve failed God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).
• Cain committed the unforgivable crime of fratricide (Gen. 4:1-16).
• Noah’s entire generation was deeply steeped in violence (Gen. 6:9-13),
• and the builders of the Tower of Babel conspired to build a structure that would reach the heavens only for the purpose of self-aggrandizement (Gen. 11:1-90).

In each story, humanity was left alone to fend for itself in the new and glorious world that God had created.  Each time, humanity failed, and in every case God articulated heavenly disapproval through words and punishments.  Why did humanity always fail when it had all the privileges?  Humans were given dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, all wild animals on land, and everything that creeps on the earth.  And yet they failed repeatedly to realize their potential represented by that mysterious likeness of God.

God’s last act of disapproval resulted in the dispersion of humanity after the fiasco of the Tower of Babel.  From that point on, the divine modus operandi changes radically.  God would no longer simply leave humanity to go it alone.  From that moment onward in the Bible’s narrative history of humankind, God would intervene in human history and not wait for another failure.  God would henceforth engage personally with humanity—but not with all of humanity.  The scale would be narrowed down to one individual and that individual’s family.

It was almost as if God took one small sample from the whole and conducted an experiment.  What would happen if God personally engaged in a relationship with one person from that mass of problematic creation called humankind?  How would things fare if God informed and instructed that person and encouraged the behavior that humankind proved incapable of doing on its own? The experiment was conducted with Abraham and with his immediate family.  God chose Abraham.

A New Modus Operandi

God’s choice of Abraham is mysterious in the Hebrew Bible.  No reason is provided for that fateful call when God suddenly spoke and said,

“Leave your country, your kin, and your father’s house, and go to a land that I will show you” (Gen. 12;1).  

God establishes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17.  A covenant is like a contract or an agreement, and in the agreement established in Gen. 17 God promises to fulfill the promises made to him earlier: that Abraham would be a great nation (Gen. 12:2); in Gen. 17 God promises that Abraham would be the father of many nations) and that he would possess the land of Canaan.   For his part, Abraham was required to “live always in [God’s] presence.” 

The Hebrew original of this phrase is very important:  

“Hithalekh lefanay veheyeh tamim” (Gen. 17:1).  

This short phrase is often translated in a way that does not quite capture its essence.

“Live always in My presence and be blameless” (RSV), and

“Walk in My ways and be blameless” (New JPS),

—-do not convey the conditional sense of the phrase.  

A better translation would be,

“If you walk in my ways, you will be blameless,” or,

“Walk in my ways in order to be blameless.”

What’s the difference?  

The conditional sense of the phrase is critical because it conveys that God is promising a reward for human engagement with the Divine.  Life in the semidesert environment of the ancient Near East was always precarious.  Drought, famine, disease, enemy attack, accidents, infertility, and a host of other incidents would easily spell disaster for a man and his family.  In the ancient world, adverse incidents such as these were often understood as punishments brought on by the gods.  Reward and punishment in the ancient Near East occurred in this world.

There is no evidence until the last chapter of the book of Daniel, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible, that biblical people believed in an afterlife in which the righteous would be rewarded or the sinful would be punished.  In the worldview conveyed by the Hebrew Bible, reward and punishment were meted out entirely in this world.  God was therefore giving Abraham the following message:  

“If you live in my presence by walking in my ways and living according to my will, you will be innocent of any kinds of sins or errors that would bring on divine punishment in the form of famine or accidents or infertility.”  

• God promises to protect Abraham and make him into a great nation (Gen. 12:2);
• indeed, Abraham will be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5).  
• Abraham’s offspring will be greater than the sands on the seashore (Gen. 22:17)
• or the stars in heaven (Gen. 12:2).  
• All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves through him (Gen. 12:3).

“Just respond to my intervention,” God is telling Abraham.  

“I will be there for you, but you must also be there for me!”  

This, then, is God’s new modus operandi.  No longer aloof as in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, God begins in chapter 12 to engage personally with Abraham and the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs.  God guides this Abrahamic family, gives warnings and blessings, and provides a sense of purpose and design to human life.  In short, God commands and the Abrahamic family obeys.

There is, of course, room for maneuver.  God expects obedience but does not demand that Abraham give up free will.  The human party to the covenant always retains his own freedom to choose, so Abraham and his family continue to struggle in the world, even under the protection of God.  Sarah and Hagar struggle over their status as rival wives to Abraham, each with her own son contending for primary (or chosen) status that would result in greater inheritance and blessing in the next generation.  Abraham naturally becomes involved in these conflicts (Genesis 16,17,21), and eventually needs to make a decision about how they will be resolved.

Abraham demonstrates his own personal initiative when he argues with God over the fate of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:20-32).  The stories of Abraham exemplify the patriarchal narratives of the Hebrew Bible, which display humans making decisions, and the sometimes questionable results of those decisions.  But they also portray God as available for guidance when necessary and sometimes directly intervening.

The Bible’s narrowing of the focus to Abraham is forceful and clear.  Abraham represents God’s new operating method, a new possibility of human relationship with God and the divine blessing.  The new method is covenantal and total, and it brought Abraham enormous benefit.  Abraham, therefore, becomes symbolic in the Bible for that most elite existential position: being God’s chosen one. Abraham was the first monotheist.  He was the recipient of God’s repeated blessing.  And God loved Abraham as God loved no other.  In the entire Bible, Abraham is the only person represented as God’s love, God’s friend; he is called avraham ohavi (Abraham, My love) (Isa. 41;8).

What about the rest of humanity? Where are they once the camera has focused on the family of Abraham?  From the end of the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 onward, the Bible rarely references humanity as a whole.  Parts of humanity enter into the picture only as they come in contact with the Abrahamic family and its offspring.  After the narrowing of the story to the choice of Abraham, the great history that began as the story of humanity becomes a history of humanity through the story of the Abrahamic family.  But that tiny family grows and becomes more significant in its relations with the rest of the world, expanding over a few generations from a nuclear family to an extended family, a clan, a tribe, and then a nation.

The Mystery of the Divine Choice

God’s choice of Abraham was neither the first nor the last time that God made a mysterious choice.  The first was when God accepted Abel’s offering from his flocks but did not accept Cain’s offering from his cultivation (Genesis 4).  No reason for that fateful choice is given.  Despite the brief intervention of warning Cain about his anger and resentment, God does not engage in any consistent relationship with that generation.  God simply favored one brother over the other in a mysterious manner that remains open to interpretation to this day.

In the generation after Abraham, God chose only one o the patriarchs two sons to be the bearer of the divine covenant (Gen. 17:15-21).  The reason for the divine choice of Isaac is again mysterious, although Ishmael was not rejected entirely.  He received a divine blessing that was not insignificant, but he was also removed from the ongoing history of humanity as narrated in the Bible (Gen. 17:19-21).

In the following generation, Jacob becomes the chosen one.  The choice is less obvious but also less mysterious because Jacob demonstrates his own initiative in obtaining the birthright that was due to be given to his older brother, Esau (Gen. 25:29-34).  He is also maneuvered into position to receive his father’s blessing through the initiative of his mother (Gen. 27:1-40).  But the decision of who will be God’s chosen is not left only to human actions; God blesses only Jacob (Gen. 28:10-15; 35:9-12), who then fathers twelve sons who will represent the twelve tribes of Israel.  Like Ishmael, his uncle (and father-in-law!) before him, Esau drops out of human history, and his descendants enter and exit the scene only when they have an impact on the history of the tribes of Israel.

Jacob’s name is changed to Israel when he receives his own divine blessings (first in Gen. 23:29 and again in Gen. 35:10).  Human history in the Bible then becomes the history of a clan of brothers whose numbers of offspring grow into a loose tribal confederation after moving to Egypt.  Finally, after experiencing a population explosion under Egyptian slavery (Exodus 1) and redemption from slavery and oppression through God’s power and grace (Exod. 3-15), the tribal confederation becomes unified into a nation by the experience of a renewed covenant with God at the foot of Mount Sinai.

On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt . . . Moses went up to God.  The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying: “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel:  ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me.  Now then, if you will obey Me conscientiously and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'” (Exod. 19:1,3-6).

This renewed covenant marks another change in the mode of divine engagement with God’s chosen people.  The book of Exodus counts the number of those who marched out of Egypt by tallying the men of fighting age.  The number given in Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 11:21 is six hundred thousand men of fighting age.  Adjusting for gender and age, that would equal a total of some two million Israelites who came together to receive the renewed covenant at Mount Sinai.

We must add to this number a mixed multitude of other oppressed peoples who escaped with the Israelites from Egypt (Exod. 12:37-38).  The total number would have been simply too many people for personal, individual engagement with God, so the model of covenant used with the patriarchs and matriarchs was updated.

Now the system would be one of divine intervention through the enactment of clear rules of behavior established by God.  Henceforth, God’s chosen human experiment would be governed by the rule of law:

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” Moses then wrote down all the commands of the Lord.  Early in the morning, he set up an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.  He designated some young men among the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as offerings of well-being to the Lord.  Moses took one part of the blood and put it in basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against he altar.  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people.  And they said, “All that the lord has spoken, we will conscientiously do!”  Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord now makes with you concerning all these commands.” (Exod. 24:3-8)

The dashing of the blood of the covenant on the people was both a ritual and a legal act.  It was a way for the people in a preliterate society to commit publicly in a manner that parallels large numbers of people signing a petition today.  This act, along with their open declaration of acceptance (“All that the Lord has spoken, we will conscientiously do!”), was a formal public pronouncement that Israel would try to abide by the terms of the covenant now defined by a code of behavior.  From that moment onward, the chosen nature of the divine relationship would apply not simply to an individual or a family, but to a nation.  Comprised of a combination of ethnic kin through Jacob’s genealogical line and a mix of fellow escapees representing various ethnic histories, this new covenanted, chosen people would henceforth be called “Israel.”

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The Hebrew Bible subsequently would not mince words in its depiction of Israel’s uniqueness and chosen relationship with God:

• And you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine (Lev. 20:26).
• For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples of the earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people (Deut. 7:6).
• For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God:  the Lord your God chose you fro among all other peoples on earth to be His treasured people (Deut. 14:2).
• I the Lord, in My grace, have summoned you, and I have grasped you by the hand.  I created you, and appointed you a covenant people, a light of nations (Isa. 42;6).
• Hear now, O Jacob My servant, Israel whom I have chosen (Isa. 44:1).
• You alone have I singled out [known] of all the families of the earth (Amos 3:2).
• Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen to be His own (Ps. 33:12).
• For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel, as His treasured possession (Ps. 135:4).

Here we face one of the greatest conundrums to challenge those who count the Hebrew Bible to be divine (or divinely inspired) scripture.  Although God created all humanity in the divine likeness, why is one community of God’s loving creatures privileged over all the others?  Even with humanity’s repeated failures to live up to that likeness without ongoing heavenly intervention, why would a loving God not find a way to allow all of humankind to benefit directly from engagement with the Divine?  We can uncover some important information about this by examining the biblical notion of chosenness as it fits into the ancient Near Eastern world out of which biblical religion emerged.

Next:  Chosenness in the Ancient Near East