Image from www.christianbooks.co.za

[First posted in 2015.  Marriage is one of the metaphors used for the relationship of YHWH with Israel.  As the faithful Husband, YHWH remains loyal to His chosen people and when the latter continued to worship other gods, He referred to their unfaithfulness as ‘harlotry’.  

This is Chapter 10 of our MUST READ/MUST OWN feature Sinai and Zion  by Jon D. Levenson. We are posting only select chapters from this great resource, to encourage our readers to add it to your library.  The ebook form is downloadable from amazon.com.  Reformatting and highlights added. Admin1.]

———————————-

We have seen that the relationship of Israel to her God was conceived in the covenant theology along the lines of a contract between states and that one stipulation of such a contract was the requirement to love the Lord in covenant. At the heart of Israel’s relationship with YHWH lay a dialogue of love. There was another realm in the life of ancient Israel in which one finds a relationship of love sealed by contract, the realm of marriage.

In the ancient Semitic world, marriage was a matter of contractual obligation; a trace of this remains in the Jewish wedding ceremony, in which the Ketubbah, or marriage contract, is still read.  Unfortunately, no ketubbot are preserved in the Hebrew Bible. But we do have Jewish marriage contracts from late biblical times preserved in scrolls. The structure of these ketubbot is not that of the covenant formulary that applied to international contracts. Nonetheless, the two types of relationship, the international and the marital, were sufficiently similar that the language of covenant could be applied to both:

You ask, “Because of what?”

Because YHWH is a witness between you

and the wife of your youth,

with whom you have broken faith,

even though she is your partner

and the woman with whom you are in covenant.

(Mal 2:14)

Image from stonedcampbelldisciple.com

Here, the prophet views the institution of marriage as an instance of covenant.  YHWH is the witness, and divorce is a form of treason.

In fact, so great was the overlap between the two realms that prophets often presented Israel’s relationship with YHWH as a marriage.

The prophet Hosea, for example, a man of the eighth century B.C.E., believed that YHWH had commanded him to marry a prostitute in order to exemplify the apostasy and promiscuity of Israel.  Gomer, the prostitute, bore Hosea children with such names as “Unloved,” to signify that God no longer loved Israel (Hos 1:6), and “Not-my-people,” a name that indicated that the bonds of covenant had been severed, “for you are not my people, and I will not be your God” (v 9). The career of Hosea testifies to a tradition in Israel to the effect that what happened on the mountain in ancient days was the consummation of a romance, a marriage in which YHWH was the groom and Israel (although a man’s name) was the bride. Thus, a book like Deuteronomy, which is saturated with the idiom of covenant, sees in the selection of Israel to be YHWH’s treasured possession, the fruit of a passionate affair (Deut 7:6-8). The special statues of Israel rests not upon her merits, her strength or numbers or intelligence or honesty, but upon something irrational, a passion, an affair of the heart, not the mind, in short a love. All the efforts to explain the special destiny of Israel in rational terms only dissolve its power.

For Israel is singled out by and for the love of God:

12  And now, what does YHWH your God demand of you?

Only this: to hold YHWH your God in awe, to walk in all his paths,

to love him, and to serve YHWH your God

with all your heart and all your soul,

13  to observe YHWH’s commandments and his laws,

which I enjoin upon you this day, for your own benefit.

14  Mark well, the heavens to their uttermost reaches

belong to YHWH your God, the earth and everything on it!

15  Yet it was only for your forefathers

that YHWH took a passion, loving them, s

o that he chose their descendants after them—you!—

from among all the peoples, as is the case today.

(Deut 10:12-15)

This passage makes it clear that at the core of the covenant relationship lies a twofold love, the mysterious love of YHWH for Israel and the less baffling love of Israel for YHWH, her benefactor.

Image from www.pinterest.com

Covenant-love is mutual; it distinguishes a relationship of reciprocity.

• On God’s side lies an obligation to fulfill the oath he swore to the Patriarchs, to grant their descendants the promised land, to be their God.
• Israel, for her part, is to realize her love in the form of observance of her master’s stipulations, the Mitsvot, for they are the words of the language of love, the fit medium in which to respond to the passionate advances of the divine suzerain.

It is not a question of law or love, but law conceived in love, love expressed in law. The two are a unity. To speak of one apart from the other is to produce a parody of the religion of Israel. The love of God moves Israel to embrace the norms of Sinai.

In the book of Hosea, the great divorce is never finalized. The impassioned groom cannot endure without his bride, although she had whored with his Canaanite competitor Baal (2:15). Unable to tolerate her being in the arms of his rival, YHWH reinitiates the romance and coaxes his wayward spouse back to the spot where their first love was consummated, the desert (2:16-25). In vv 16-19, YHWH restores his relationship with Israel to the point at which it stood when he first impressed his claim upon her with his redemption of her from Egypt, when she had not yet broken faith to chase after the god of fertility, Baal. And so, in the desert, the marriage is reinstituted (vv 21-22), only this time without mention of the word “Baal,” which also served as one of two terms for husband (v 18).

Now, to make things clear, only the other term will be licit. The word “know” in v 22 is, of course, a double entendre; the term is both covenantal and sexual. We have already seen the covenantal context of the verb. The vassal is to “know” (i.e., recognize) only one suzerain. But the term also indicates sexual union, as in the statement that Adam “knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived” (Gen 4:1).

To us, the two meanings seem distinct, but in Israel’s vocabulary, they pertain to either kind of passionate relationship, that of suzerain and vassal or that of groom and bride. The romance of God and Israel is tempered by lawfulness and animated by eros, love purified in law, law impelled by love.

In Hos 2:20, YHWH makes a new covenant, not one between himself and Israel, but between Israel and the beasts and birds and creeping things. In  other words, God assumes the Mosaic office of covenant mediator, in order to extend the peace and security of the covenant relationship beyond the confines of the divine-human dialogue.  Now even nature will participate.  All threats, whether from nature or from war, will vanish.  

Lurking behind these great promises are the blessings of the covenant formulary.  But we hear nothing of the curses, for the vision is one of redemption through covenant, and the assumption seems to be that, where God mediates and thus guarantees covenant, that stipulations will be fulfilled as a matter of course.

In the last stanza of Hosea’s prophecy (vv 23-25), all creation joins in the wedding ceremony. Sky responds to earth, and earth responds by bringing forth her bounty.  What happens here is that the covenant with the living God comes to account for fertility, displacing the worship of the dying-and-rising deity, Baal.  The real source of bounty lies in faithfulness and obedience to the God who redeemed Israel from Egypt.  Baal has been bested on his own soil. And thus, in accordance with this vision of cosmic renewal, the three children of Hosea—Jezreel (“God-will-sow”), Unloved, and Not-my-people—are restored together with the covenant/marriage contract whose revocation their names symbolized.

In Hos 2:16-25, the making of a covenant moves beyond the limits of the juridical function in which it originated and becomes the stuff and substance of a vision of cosmic renewal. The entire universe takes part in the sacred remarriage of YHWH and Israel.  

• Covenant is not only something lived, but something hoped for, the teleological end of creation and of history.  
• Sinai is the model of cosmic harmony, and the relationship of Israel and YHWH, the prototype of redeemed life.  
• Redemption is not “liberation” from law; that would be, in Hosea’s eyes, relapse into licentiousness.  
• Rather, redemption involves the gracious offer to Israel to reenter the legal/erotic relationship and the renewed willingness of Israel to do so.

The third paragraph of this passage, Hos 2:21-22, has entered the daily liturgy of Jewry. It is recited on weekday mornings as the male adult Jew finishes putting on his tefillin, the two little boxes containing scrolls of passages from the Torah, which are strapped to the arm and the head in conformity to the ordinance that these things “shall be a sign on your hand and frontlets between your eyes” (Exod 13:16). The implication is clear. By putting on tefillin, the Jew becomes engaged to God. He renews each weekday morning his fidelity to the ancient romance consummated on Mount Sinai.  In an instant, the mitzvah of tefillin takes us back to the putative etymology of the word “religion,” from the Latin verb ligare, “to bind,” “to tie.” “Religion,” from ligare, “to tie again” or “to tie back,” is to restore the bond, to tie oneself to the root that nourishes.  

In Judaism, the bond or band that ties man to God is a covenant. The Jew wakes each day to an old love affair beckoning to be renewed.

[Originally posted in 2013.  This concludes Chapter 5, “THE WAY” of the book we have been featuring in this series:  James Tabor, Restoring Abrahamic Faith.  

We consider this book a “wake-up call” not only for ourselves but our Christian colleagues with whom we attempted to share its contents.  

Our former messianic teacher called this book “demonic” . . . if he ever reached Chapter 5, this would explain that reaction.  Unfortunately,  typical of  Christian thinking,  everything that does not conform with Christocentric belief is immediately labeled as “demonic.”  

———————————————————

 “Until the whole world turns to the principles of the TORAH,

we will continue to suffer all of our collective ills and horrors.  

It is a demonstrable statistical fact that those societies that have incorporated into their laws, their judicial systems, and their general societal values, that basic ethical principles of the Bible, have been more prosperous, inventive, and advanced in areas of human rights.

They also are rated the lowest in the areas of economic and governmental corruption.”

———————————————————–

Applying the TORAH to one’s personal and community life in our modern secular setting requires spiritual insight and sensitivity for both Jew and non-Jew that involves a lifetime of deep study and meditation on these principles. However, much instructive help is available.

The Jewish commentary and discussion of these Laws is fascinating and exhaustive. Various conceptual categories have been developed such as-

• “Repairing the World,”
• “Caring for the Poor,”
• “Guarding the Tongue,”
• “Hospitality,” and
• “Love of Zion,”

—around which extensive discussions have developed. The Rabbis have worked through many of the important issues over the centuries and the benefit to the non-Jew of these millennia of accumulated Jewish wisdom is considerable.

But beyond formal study, the ultimate goal is “to write the TORAH on the heart” (Deuteronomy 6:6; Jeremiah 31:33).

When one deeply seeks the principles of TORAH, delighting in it and meditating on it day and night, the essential WAY of TORAH begins to unfold (Psalm 1:2).

The TEN WORDS, the cycle of annual Holy Days (Leviticus 23), the dietary laws (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14:3-21), and many other areas of God’s Law are immediately applicable to our lives and bring great blessings and benefits. Since the TORAH addresses all aspects of human life: social relations; economic justice; health and hygiene; criminal justice; sexual conduct; as well as compassion and care for animals and our planet—it can be seen as a kind of blueprint, framed in an ancient Israelite setting, of the WAY of justice and righteousness for humanity.

Jerusalem vs. Athens

There are really only two compelling visions of human life and its purposes that come down to us from Western antiquity—the early philosophical quest of the ancient Greeks, and the Torah inspired vision of the Hebrews. Scholars refer to this dichotomy as “Athens and Jerusalem.”

And yet, when you add it all up, despite the commendable emphasis on rationality found in Greek philosophy, ancient Greek society falls woefully short with its emphasis on—-

• divinizing and worshipping the forces of nature,
• its class-restricted ethics,
• its obsession with the occult and the superstitious,
• and its focus on astrology and the world beyond.

In contrast, within the Torah, one finds a rather remarkable emphasis on the ONE God as the ultimately rational Being beyond nature—

• a rejection of the occult and astrological forces,
• an emphasis on caring for
  •  the poor,
  • the disenfranchised
  • and the “stranger,”
• as well as virtually no emphasis on life after death.

The Torah comes across as a rational system, completely oriented to this world, and amazingly grounded in the practical matters of human living. This includes a remarkable emphasis upon health and sanitation that seem to predate, or at least anticipate, the modern post-Enlightenment world.

Until the whole world turns to the principles of the TORAH, we will continue to suffer all of our collective ills and horrors. It is a demonstrable statistical fact that those societies that have incorporated into their laws, their judicial systems, and their general societal values, that basic ethical principles of the Bible, have been more prosperous, inventive, and advanced in areas of human rights. They also are rated the lowest in the areas of economic and governmental corruption.

The Prophets make it clear that the coming collapse of our human societies, and the judgment that comes upon all nations on the “Great Day of YHVH,” will come as a consequence of our flouting of the WAY revealed in TORAH (see Isaiah 24; chapters 59-66).

Also, the TORAH contains much more than commandments (mitzvot). It also contains a fundamental unfolding narrative. It is from that core foundational story that we learn the fundamentals of the ABRAHAMIC FAITH—

• who God is,
• what the WAY of God essentially is all about,
• and the contours of the historic PLAN of God for the redemption of the world.

The Hebrew Prophets go hand in hand with the TORAH. They too come to us in their ancient dress, reflecting the conditions of Israel and Judah from the 8^th through 5^th centuries B.C.E. But they preserved for us an eternally valid commentary, more often than not cast in the 1^st person voice of YHVH Himself.

Anyone who has deeply studied Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, or any of the Hebrew Prophets, comes away with the impression that the Prophets speak with a voice that is perpetually relevant, indeed, as up to date than the morning papers. Furthermore, large sections of the Prophets directly address the “last days,” as they are called. In that sense important sections of these writings are more for our time and our peoples than for ancient Israel.

In my experience, growing up in a Christian church, the riches that come from a deep study of the TORAH and the Prophets were largely missing. One is reminded of the chilling words of the Nazarene: “Whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments [of TORAH and Prophets] and teaches men so, will be called ‘least’ by those in the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:19).

And yet Christian tradition ended up teaching that the TORAH was abrogated and replaced by a New Covenant. This meant that the Bible that Jesus and all his earthly followers used, subsequently called the Old Testament, was seen as a largely obsolete precursor to the New.

The result was that the TORAH as a definitive revelation of God’s WAY was forgotten and in some cases even repudiated. And yet, Jesus, quoting the TORAH, had declared: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of YHVH!” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3).

The deeply spiritual nurture that comes from a lifetime of study and meditation on the direct words of TORAH and Prophets, has unfortunately been lost to so many in our culture. It is worth noting that none of the writers of the New Testament actually had a New Testament. They were Jews and looked to their Holy Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, preserved by the people of Israel.

In contrast, the “Christian message” that most hear Sunday after Sunday from their pulpits does not focus on the TORAH  or the Prophets. In the more evangelical churches at least, the single emphasis is on salvation in heaven through “accepting” Christ as Savior.

There is a richness, depth, spiritual insight, and practical knowledge of the Hebrew language preserved in the classical Jewish sources. Devout Jews throughout the world follow a weekly cycle of readings and study of the TORAH and Prophets.

Ironically, the early followers of the historical Jesus, unlike modern Christians, were thoroughly familiar with this practice and, as Jews, participated therein. Jesus himself attended the synagogue regularly on the Sabbath and was even called up to read the sacred Scrolls (Luke 4:16-17). He was thoroughly a part of this Jewish world of TORAH learning and discussion.

James (Ya’akov), the brother of Jesus, and leader of the messianic  community, assumed that the Gentiles drawn to TORAH FAITH would attend synagogue and hear the TORAH and Prophets read each Sabbath (Acts 15:21). An incredible wealth of commentary, both profound and practical, has developed around these TORAH portions. They are the lifeblood of the disciplined study of TORAH and are readily available for interested non-Jews.

When it comes to the matter of non-Jews being drawn toward the TORAH and/or Judaism, there is another important factor that I alluded to above. The Prophets state repeatedly and clearly that those known as Jews from the 5^th century B.C.E. onward do not make up all of Israel. In other words, the so-called “Lost Tribes of Israel,” usually spoken of in the Prophets as “the house of Israel” (Joseph/Ephraim), in contrast to “the house of Judah” (the Jews), have lost their Israelite identity and consider themselves Gentiles. Yet, all the Prophets declare that in the “last days” these descendants of Jacob or Israel will return to YHVH the ONE GOD, and to TORAH Faith, recover their identity and unite with Judah (see Hosea 1:10-11; 3:4-5; Jeremiah 3:11-18). Their very birthright and Covenant goes back to Sinai and the revelation of YHVH through His Prophet Moses. The implications of these teachings in the Hebrew Prophets regarding the “Lost Tribes” are explored in [another] chapter.

This may well account for the reason so many thousands of Gentiles in the past few decades have experienced a turning toward TORAH Faith. It is possible that we are witnessing the beginning stages of a significant turn in Jewish history. These peoples tend to come from biblically oriented traditions within Christianity and they sense a connection, through their attachment to the Bible, toward the Jewish people and the Hebraic Faith. Accordingly, many who feel deeply drawn in these directions might very well be sensing the stirrings of their ancient Israelite connections in some mystical way that is beyond our ken.