Friday, August 26

Joshua 14: This chapter begins the section in which the land of Canaan is divided by allotment, in accordance with the command that Joshua received in the previous chapter (13:1,7).

We already know from Numbers 36:16-29 that Eleazar, Aaron’s son and heir in the priesthood (Numbers 3:32; Deuteronomy 10:6), is to assist Joshua in this allotment.

Prior to this allotment, however, the reader is again reminded that territory has already been set aside, east of the Jordan, for two and a half of these tribes (verse 3). The writer likewise mentions once again that special provision is to be made for the tribe of Levi (verse 4).

In addition, before any allotment to the remaining tribes can be made, provision must be made for Caleb, the other of the only two spies who had remained loyal, decades earlier, when Moses had dispatched them for an initial inventory of the Promised Land (Numbers 13—14; Deuteronomy 1:35-36). Caleb officially belonged to the tribe of Judah (Numbers 13:6; 34:19), and his inheritance will fall within that tribe.

Forty-five years have elapsed since Caleb, a mere lad of forty at the time, had received Moses’ promise that he would inherit property in the land of Canaan (verses 6-10). Except for Joshua, he was the only surviving adult of the multitude that had marched out of Egypt, so it was entirely fitting he should be the first to inherit real estate in the land that he had inspected nearly half a century earlier. Caleb stands forever in the Bible as the model of such perseverance as leads to a great reward.

Luke 3:7-20: “The kingdom of heaven,” asserted Jesus, “suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come” (11:12–14).

The “violence” associated with John was readily discerned in his asceticism, which prompted his enemies to say, “He has a demon” (11:18). Violence was also evident in his apocalyptic preaching, all about “the wrath to come,” with axes laid to the roots of trees and the burning of chaff with unquenchable fire (3:7–12). John’s hearers could never tell God that they had not been warned!

One of these was Herod Antipas, whom Herodias manipulated into beheading the violent John. Resenting the Baptist’s condemnation of her “meaningful and fulfilling,” albeit adulterous, relationship with Antipas, Herodias had longed for that day of vengeance. Indeed, in the New Testament triangle of the anemic Antipas, the hateful Herodias, and the relentless John, we have a striking parallel to the Old Testament triangle of the anemic Ahab, the hateful Jezebel, and, of course, the unrelenting Elijah.

Saturday, August 27

Luke 3:21-38: There are six comments to be made about Luke’s account of the Baptism of Jesus:

First, John the Baptist is not mentioned in the scene at all; Luke, having already spoken of John’s arrest (Luke 3:20), leaves him out of the baptismal story completely.

Second, the baptism itself is not Luke’s central concern. Indeed, it has already happened and is mentioned only in a subordinate expression: “having been baptized.” Luke’s focus is directed, not to the baptism, but to Jesus’ experience of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Third, Jesus’ baptism is not isolated from that of the other people: “. . . when all the people were baptized . . .” The evangelist’s stress on this point indicates Jesus’ solidarity with the rest of humanity.

This emphasis is important to Luke’s theology of the Incarnation. In the immediate context, Jesus’ organic solidarity with the human race is addressed by Luke’s inclusion—immediately after the baptism—of the Savior’s genealogy, in which his ancestry is traced all the way back to Adam (Luke 3:23-38). In other words, the mention of “the people,” in this baptismal scene, pertains to Luke’s larger interest in the humanity of Jesus: He is at one with the whole human race, descended from the fallen Adam.

Fourth, only Luke speaks of the Savior at prayer in the baptismal story: “. . . Jesus—having been baptized—was praying . . .” This is the first of many times Luke describes Jesus communing with God as other human beings commune with God—namely, by prayer.

Fifth, Luke emphasizes the visible way the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus: “. . . the Holy Spirit, in bodily form [somatiko eidei] like a dove, came down upon him . . .”

Although Luke has already made the activity of the Holy Spirit thematic in his version of the Gospel, a particular theological note attends the Spirit’s appearance here in the baptismal scene—namely, the baptism is portrayed as Jesus’ public anointing by the Holy Spirit. Jesus will soon speak of this “anointing,” when, in the first words of his public ministry—and quoting the Book of Isaiah—he announces, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, / Because He has anointed me” (4:16; Isaiah 61:1).

The Spirit’s baptismal anointing of Jesus is theologically decisive for Luke. It is, in fact, the chronological starting point of the apostolic message (cf. Acts 1:21-22). In respect to Jesus’ baptismal anointing, moreover, Luke will later quote St. Peter’s assertion that the Gospel itself

began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him (Acts 10:37-38 emphasis added).

Sixth, in Luke’s version of the baptism—as in Mark’s—the voice of the Father addresses Jesus directly. It does so twice: “You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.” We take note of the vigorously repeated I/you structure.

The proclamation of Jesus’ sonship hardly comes as “news” to Luke’s readers, of course, who recall the announcement of Gabriel to Mary:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

Let us insist that this experience of identification did not come to Jesus as “fresh information.” The Father’s word here should not be understood as Jesus’ “calling,” in the sense familiar to the Hebrew prophets. Jesus already knew he was called, and he already knew the identity of His Father. Eighteen years earlier, he had asked his parents, "Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about the things of my Father?" (Luke 2:49)

In the baptism, the Father’s voice expresses, rather, a heightened reassurance to Jesus, the sign that his ministry should now begin. As the Apostle Peter remarked of this scene, “God was with him” (Acts 10:38). The Father’s word is the encouraging answer to Jesus’ prayer at the baptism. It conveys the Father’s presence and loving approval. In short, Luke’s version of the baptism lays the accent on Jesus’ personal experience of communion with his Father, a communion sustained right up to the death scene, where Jesus twice invokes God as “Father” (Luke 23:43, 46).

Sunday, August 28

Luke 4:1-15: When the New Testament speaks of the eternal Son’s assumption of our humanity, the event is described in terms of a lessening, the embracing of limitation, even a self-emptying. In witness to this conviction, a primitive Christian hymn, partly preserved the Epistle to the Philippians, declared that Jesus Christ

being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself [heavton ekenosen], assuming the form of a bondservant (Philippians 2:6-7).

From the beginning, Christians believed that God’s Son “lessened” himself by becoming human. He “was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9). The act of becoming a human being necessarily imposed limits on his condition and experience. Paul described this “limitation”—consequent to the Word’s enfleshing—with a metaphor of wealth and poverty. Thus, he told the Corinthians:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Servanthood and poverty are metaphors of limitation. They assert that God’s Son really did become “one of us.” When we inquire what sorts of limitation God’s Son assumed in the Incarnation, it is clear to nearly all readers of the New Testament that certain physical limitations were included. That is to say, if Jesus did not grow tired, how was it he fell sound asleep in the boat? If he did not become thirsty and exhausted, what prompted him to sit down at a well and ask a Samaritan woman for a drink?

These limitations included a range of psychological discomforts. At the death of a beloved friend, for example, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Faced with the sustained and repeated infidelities of Jerusalem, “he saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Some experiences left him with the feelings of utter exasperation: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Mark 9:19). At the worst experience of all, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

If the eternal Word’s taking of our humanity made him vulnerable to emotional pain, it also rendered him susceptible to temptation. When, after fasting for forty days, he grew hungry, it is hardly surprising that an early first temptation was related to food (Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3). Adequate attention to Jesus in the flesh can hardly omit those temptations to which the flesh is heir. Holy Scripture, at least, does not omit them.

This aspect of the Incarnation was nowhere more emphatically asserted than in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which says of Jesus:

Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brothers, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things of God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:17-18 emphasis added).

For the earliest Christians, the temptations of Jesus were at once the expression of his full humanity and the encouraging evidence of his ability to sympathize with the trials faced by those who put their trust in him:

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in everything tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15 emphasis added).

Monday, August 29

Mark 6:14-29: It is remarkable that the Gospel of St. Mark provides the most complete detailed account of the martyrdom of John the Baptist.

If one seeks a reason for this, I suggest that the explanation lies in the central theme of Mark’s Gospel—namely, the mystery of the Cross. This theme is introduced very early in Mark, when Jesus is put on trial almost right away. At the beginning of the second chapter He is accused of blasphemy (2:7), and at the beginning of chapter three His enemies already plot to kill Him (3:6).

The Evangelist Mark inserts the murder of John the Baptist at a point where his literary structure requires him to suggest a passage of time between two events. Thus, right before the story of John, Jesus sends out evangelizing disciples (6:7-13). To indicate the passage of time during which these disciples were preaching, casting out demons, and anointing the sick, Mark tells the fairly lengthy story of the death of John the Baptist. Immediately after this account, Mark speaks of the return of the disciples from their preaching and healing mission (6:30).

This story of John’s death stands in Mark’s account as a foreshadowing, of sorts, of the trial and death of Jesus.

Indeed, in both stories the tragedy comes about through evil forces working on the weakness of certain political figures.

Thus, Herod orders the beheading of John the Baptist, much against his preference, when his hand is forced by the thoroughly corrupt Herodias. And Pilate, also against his preference, orders the crucifixion of Jesus, when the corrupt Jewish leaders force his hand.

In both stories, that is to say, we witness the inability of cowardly political leadership to guarantee the most fundamental political rights: to life and a fair trial. Both stories are indictments of moral weakness; both Herod and Pilate are cowards, unable to resist injustice, even though they bear the responsibility of maintaining justice. Each case—the beheading of John the Baptist and the crucifixion of Jesus—demonstrates the inability of human power to render even the most basic justice.

This lesson was particularly significant for Mark’s original readers: the Christians suffering persecution and death at the hands of the weak political leader Nero, who diverted to them the wrath of the Roman people for the burning of Rome.

This lesson is essential to believers in ever age, who might otherwise be disposed to put their trust in princes and to seek their security from a political order no stronger than the weak men appointed to maintain it.

This lesson is, finally, the lesson of the Cross.

Tuesday, August 30

Psalms 28: This is a psalm about the Resurrection: “My helper and protector is the Lord; in Him my heart hoped, and I was helped. And my flesh took life again, so I shall praise Him with ready will.”

This revival of the very flesh of Christ was not a simple return to a life in the flesh, for the risen body of our Lord is saturated with the transforming energies of the Holy Spirit. It is a spiritual and heavenly body—not in the sense of being immaterial, but in the sense that its material composition is itself completely filled with, and inwardly transformed by, God’s definitive outpouring of the divine life. The risen flesh of Christ is thus the first fruits of the new creation, the root and initial installment of that universal transformation by which God will make things new.

The Apostle Paul wrote of this sacred mystery of the Resurrection during the paschal season of the year 55. He was addressing the church at Corinth some time during the fifty-day interval between Pascha and Pentecost, and, even as he wrote, he referred to the extended paschal season that the Christians were observing: “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:7, 8). He wrote these words from Ephesus, where he was planning to stay until Pentecost, which would come presently (16:8).

Writing during that paschal season, St. Paul used the occasion to expound on the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus, particularly with respect to the new quality of the risen body. The resurrection of the dead, he insisted, is not a simple return to the corruptible life of the body that all men know. It is something marvelously different, analogous to the transformation that takes place when the sown seed rises to new life in the growing plant:

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body (soma physikon), and there is a spiritual body (pneumatikon) (15:42–44).

The spiritual body of the Resurrection is not some kind of “shade.” Jesus is no ghost. “Handle Me and see,” says the risen Christ, “for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). The risen body is still a body, which is to say that it is still composed of matter. To say that the risen body is spiritual does not mean that it is immaterial, but that it is incorruptible. Indeed, in order to emphasize the point that His risen body is still a reality composed of matter, the Lord insisted on actually eating a honeycomb and a piece of fish in the presence of the Church (24:42, 43).

Therefore, the contrast involved here is not one of matter and immateriality, but of two different states of matter: matter subject to corruption, or matter suffused with the Spirit-given dynamism of immortality—matter that is subject to death and corruption, or matter that can never again die.

Our corruptible bodies were descended from Adam; our new bodies are derived from Christ:

And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. . . . The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Corinthians 15:45–49).

Such is the divine mystery celebrated in our psalm. The resurrection of the Lord (“my flesh took life again”) is contrasted with the lot who simply go down unto death: “O my God, be not silent to me, for if you are silent to me, I shall be like unto those that descend unto Hades.”

Our psalm also teaches that the life of the Resurrection is a life of divine praise. Indeed, the Church’s praise of God is rooted in the Resurrection of Christ: “The Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector of His anointed one’s salvation.”

Wednesday, August 31

Luke 4:31-37: In their unsuccessful efforts to tempt Jesus, the demons learned something. Through those temptations, the premise of the hypothesis “If you are God’s Son” has now been established. Although the dark agencies are not really sure what this predication means, at least they do know it to be true.

Thus, when Jesus begins, very soon, to exorcize them from human souls, the demons have a clearer sense of what they are up against. They are the first to “confess” it:

Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!

Psalm 38 (Greek and Latin 37): With its heavy emphasis on sin and suffering, this psalm is one of the rougher parts of the Psalter, and its thematic conjunction of sin and suffering is also the manifest key to its meaning.

Suffering and death enter the world with sin. To humanity’s first sinners the Lord said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow,” and “Cursed is the ground for your sake” (Genesis 3:16, 17). So close is the Bible’s joining of suffering to sin that some biblical characters (such as Job’s friends and the questioning disciples in John 9:2) entertained the erroneous notion that each instance of suffering was brought about by certain specific sins.

Like Psalm 6, the present psalm commences with a prayer for deliverance from divine anger: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.” Already the poet feels overwhelming pain which he describes, whether literally or by way of metaphor, in the most physical terms: “Your arrows [thunder bolts?] pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down.” What he suffers comes from sin and the response of the divine wrath, from which he begs to be delivered: “There is no soundness in my flesh, because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin.”

Whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual—or all of them together—what we suffer in this life are the incursions of death, and death is simply sin becoming incarnate and dwelling among us, for “through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Such is the essential conviction of our prayer in this psalm: “For my iniquities are gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my folly.”

The proper response to sin and suffering? Confession of sins and the sustained cultivation of repentance, for “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Thus we pray in this psalm: “For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually (tamid ) before me. For I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin.” Notwithstanding a widespread heresy that says otherwise, repentance (metanoia) is not something done once, and all finished; according to one of the last petitions of the litany, it is something to be perfected (ektelesai) until the end of our lives. This sorrow for sin, says our psalm, is continual, ongoing (tamid ). Every suffering we are given in this life is a renewed call to repentance. Every pain is, as it were, the accusing finger of Nathan: “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Sin is also the great solvent of our relationships to one another. As is clear in the accounts of the first sins (Genesis 3:11–13; 4:12), sin means isolation and alienation. Sin separates us, not only from God, but also from one another. Our psalm speaks of this isolation: “My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague. And my relatives stand afar off.”

We are not talking about morbidity here. Contrition and sorrow in this psalm are accompanied by repeated sentiments of longing:

I groan because of the turmoil of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart pants, my strength fails me. . . . For in You, O Lord, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God.

Thursday, September 1

Psalms 37 (Greek and Latin 36): If we think of prayer as speaking to God, the present psalm appears at first to challenge the very notion of the psalms as prayers, inasmuch as not a single word of it is explicitly addressed to God. It speaks about God, of course, but never to Him, at least not overtly.

Psalm 37 is also strangely constructed, even if the construction is rather simple. It is one of those twelve psalms built on what is known as an alphabetic acrostic pattern—that is to say: starting with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, each new line (in this case, every other line) of the psalm begins with the next successive letter of the alphabet. Thus, if one looks for some sort of logical or thematic progression in the course of the psalm, he may be mightily disappointed. The arrangement of the psalm’s ideas is determined only by something so artificial and arbitrary as the sequence of the alphabet, so the meditation does not really progress. It is, on the other hand, insistent and repetitive.

It is obvious at once that this psalm has close ties to the Bible’s Wisdom tradition. If it were not part of the Psalter, we would expect to find it in Proverbs or one of the other Wisdom books. It appears to be a kind of discourse given by a parent to a child, or a wise man to a disciple. It is full of sound and godly counsel: “Fret not thyself because of evildoers . . . Trust in the Lord and do good . . . Cease from anger and forsake wrath . . . Wait on the Lord and keep His way,” and so forth. Such admonitions, along with the psalm’s allied warnings and promises, are stock material of the Wisdom literature.

So how does one pray such a psalm? To begin with, by respecting its tone, which is one of admonition, warning, and promise. Surely prayer is talking to God, but it also involves listening to God, and this is a psalm in which one will do more listening than talking. It is a psalm in which the believer prays by placing his heart open and receptive to God’s word of admonition, warning, and promise.

One may likewise think of Psalm 37 as the soul speaking to itself: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him . . . But the meek shall inherit the earth . . . The little that the righteous has is better than the riches of many wicked . . . The Lord knows the days of the upright . . . The Law of his God is in his heart,” and so on.

The human soul, after all, is not of simple construction. The great thinkers who have examined the soul over many centuries seem all to agree that it is composed of parts, and sometimes these parts are at odds one with another. This mixture of conflicting experiences in the soul leads one to utter such petitions as, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” It is one part of the soul praying for the other.

In this psalm, one part of the soul admonishes the other, reminds the other, cautions the other, encourages the other. And this inner conversation of the human spirit all takes place in the sight of God, the Giver of wisdom.

This inner discussion is rendered necessary because of frequent temptations to discouragement. As far as empirical evidence bears witness, the wicked do seem, on many occasions, to be better off than the just. By the standards of this world, they prosper.

Our psalm is at pains to insist, however, that this prosperity is only apparent, in the sense that it will certainly be short-lived. As regards the workers of iniquity

they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb . . . For evildoers shall be cut off . . . For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be . . . For the arms of the wicked shall be broken . . . The transgressors shall be cut off together.

The suffering lot of the just man is likewise temporary and of brief duration. He need only wait on the Lord in patience and trust:

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass . . . But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord will help them and deliver them; He will deliver them from the wicked and save them, because they trust in Him.

This, then, is a psalm of faith and confidence in God, without which there is no Christian prayer. It is also faith and hope under fire, exposed to struggle and the endurance that calls for patience. After all, “faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1), and “We were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope . . . But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Rom. 8:24, 25). Our psalm is a meditative lesson on not being deceived by appearances, and a summons to wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

Friday, September 2

Luke 5:1-11: Luke’s account of the calling of the Apostles is followed immediately by the story of the miraculous catch of fish. Christians have long seen in this juxtaposition a hint of the large crowds who would come to Christ through the preaching of the Apostles. This image ties the story to the large crowds of converts Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles.

There is a reference to this scene in an ancient hymn of Pentecost: “Blessed art Thou, Christ our God, Who didst make the fishermen wise by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit, and through them didst draw the world into Thy net.”

A similar story is found in John 21:1-6, evidently conveying the same symbolism. In the final arrangement of the New Testament books, John’s story of the miraculous catch immediately precedes the mission of the Apostles in the book of Acts.

Psalms 35 (Greek and Latin 34): This psalm, a prayer descriptive of this spiritual struggle, is much concerned that the ignorance and hatred of God not ultimately prevail. In line after line it is a prayer for vindication: “Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my life! Let them be turned back and confounded who devise evil against me!” In all such lines it is important to remember that it is the voice of Christ. It is Christ who prays, “Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on! Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!” The prayer of Christ here is a battle prayer, for He wages war on the forces of sin, darkness, and destruction: “Let ruin come upon them unawares.”

The vindication sought by this psalm is not some sort of petty revenge. This is the prayer of Christ doing battle with the forces of sin and death, looking forward to the hour of His victory, when His very body, brought down to the grave, will rise again in the paschal victory: “And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in His salvation. All my bones shall say, ‘Lord, who is like You, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him.’”

Salvation, as understood by Christians, is attained by God’s vindication of His own righteousness in the Resurrection of Christ, “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25).

This truth is the key to our psalm. It is the prayer of those, in Christ, still struggling as they fill up in their flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ (Colossians 1:24). In Christ theirs is this prayer for victory over sinful ignorance, hatred, and death: “Do not keep silence. O Lord, do not be far from me. Stir up Yourself, and awake to my vindication, to my cause, my God and my Lord. . . . And my tongue shall speak of Your righteousness and of Your praise all the day long.”

Friday, August 19

Mark 15:1-15: In handing Jesus over to the authority of the Gentiles, the Jewish leaders were explicitly rejecting Jesus and His messianic claims. In due course, the Jewish people as such, represented in the crowd that gathered before Pilate, consent to that rejection. That action in Pilate’s presence was a decisive turning point in salvation history. It represented what St. Paul described as the cutting off of branches from the ancient tree of Israel (Romans 11:16-24).

Even from a secular view of Jewish history, moreover, that repudiation of Jesus was decisive. From that hour, the history of the Jewish people took a different and profoundly altered direction. Even though theology insists that the Jews have never ceased to be God’s people (Romans 9:11), the historical condition of their calling was changed beyond anything imaginable prior to that time. Within the space of a few years the Jews lost their temple and the worship associated with that temple. That loss, which would have bewildered all the prophets and sages of the Hebrew Bible, has now lasted almost two millennia.

The altered state of the Jewish religion became a major theological problem for the early Christians, who saw in it a fulfillment of the sixth chapter of Isaiah. That problem prompted St. Paul to regard the structure of salvation history as dialectical, as we see in Romans 9—11.

Pilate’s first question to Jesus, according to all four Evangelists, was “Are You the King of the Jews?” According to the three Synoptics, Jesus’ answer is positive but ironical. He does not say “no,” but He avoids saying “yes.” There is a reason for this: Pilate saw in the title, “King of the Jews,” only a political meaning, and this presupposition determined the meaning of the question. This presupposition is clearer in Luke, where Jesus’ Jewish accusers fill in the political meaning of “King of the Jews” (23:2).

Jesus could not answer with a straight “yes,” because the very presupposition of the question was wrong. In fact, the answer of Jesus was something closer to “Prove it,” an answer that preserves His right to remain silent. He knows, after all, that there is no evidence on which he can be charged with leading a political movement. Indeed, all through His ministry the Lord has endeavored to quell the political impulses of His followers.

Saturday, August 20

Mark 15:16-32: Although we know on the authority of Plutarch that every criminal condemned to crucifixion by a Roman court was obliged to carry his own cross to the place of execution, those soldiers charged with crucifying Jesus evidently believed that His weakened state would not permit him to do so. Consequently, they obliged a “certain man . . . passing by” to carry Jesus’ cross to the place of crucifixion. That man was returning to the city “from the country,” perhaps for his midday repast. His name was Simon of Cyrene.

A descendant of certain Jews who had settled on the north coast of Africa (in modern Libya) about 300 BC, Simon doubtless belonged to that synagogue in Jerusalem particularly frequented by Cyrenian Jews who had moved back to the Holy Land (Acts 6:9). These were among the Jews responsible for the stoning of Stephen.

Bearing the cross of Jesus was not Simon’s idea. He was “compelled.” We are surely right, however, in thinking that the event proved to be a moment of providential grace for Simon, because he certainly became a Christian. Indeed, about forty years after the event, Mark mentioned him as the father of two Christians well known to the Roman church for whom he was writing: “Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross.”

Simon’s family was cherished by the Apostle Paul, who evidently had known them a generation earlier at Jerusalem. Some of them were living in Rome when Mark and Paul wrote. Very early in 58, about seven years before Mark’s Gospel was written, Paul sent Rufus and his mother greetings in Rome: “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine” (Romans 16:13).

Joshua 8: Although the Lord had delivered Jericho to Israel’s armies in a miraculous fashion, this seems not to have been the case with the city of Ai. The present chapter describes the fall of Ai, rather, in terms of regular military tactics. That is to say, it is sometimes the case that the Lord—to demonstrate the sovereignty of His grace—uses extraordinary and unexpected means to accomplish His purposes. At other times, He acts through means that are more obviously human. The present chapter illustrates such an instance.

Sunday, August 21

Mark 15:33-41: The anguished cry of the Savior on the Cross has been variously interpreted. In particular, there has arisen, in recent times, the notion that God the Father actually did forsake His Son hanging on the Cross. Jesus’ abandonment by his Father—his experience of damnation—is sometimes understood, indeed, to be the very price of salvation.

This theory is to be interpreted with a certain measure of caution, I believe. I suggest that the following points should be considered with respect to this caution:

First, the Christian faith firmly holds—as a doctrine not subject to contradiction—that the true God never abandons those who call upon Him in faith.

Second, whatever Jesus’ experience was—as expressed in this cry—it was still an experience. That is to say, it was existential; it pertained to Jesus’ existence, not his being, or essence. In being, or essence, Jesus remained God’s eternal and beloved Son. Consequently, it was not possible that his cry of dereliction declared, as a fact, that God had abandoned him.

For those who follow the doctrinal guidance of Ephesus and Chalcedon, it was not possible for God the Father to forsake His Son in any real—factual—sense, because the Father and the Son are of “one being” (homoousios). The godhead is indivisible.

Therefore, Jesus’ cry conveyed, not an objective, reified condition of his, but, rather, his human experience of distance from God. The abandonment was psychological, not ontological.

God does not abandon His friends and loyal servants—much less His Son. Nonetheless, it often happens that God’s friends and servants feel abandoned, and they feel it very keenly. And when they do, they often enough have recourse to the Book of Psalms . . . . as Jesus does in the present case.

When the Savior expressed this painful experience in prayer, the opening line of Psalm 22 arose to his lips—in Hebrew, ’Eli, ’Eli, lamah ‘azavtani—“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He could hardly have prayed this line of the Psalter unless he knew the Father was still “my God.”

In making this prayer his own, Jesus was hardly expressing a sentiment unique to himself. He was, rather, identifying himself with every human being who has ever felt alienated from God, abandoned by God, estranged from God. Perhaps this prayer best expresses what we mean when we speak of “the days of his flesh” (Hebrews 5:7). It was in this deep sense of dereliction that we perceive, most truly, that “the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (John 1:14).

Monday, August 22

Joshua 10: This chapter, in which attention is directed to the southern campaign of Joshua’s invasion, begins with an alliance formed to resist that invasion. This alliance, alarmed at the capitulation of the Gibeonites, recorded in the previous chapter, determines to attack Gibeon itself rather than Joshua’s invading force (verse 4). This procedure made military sense. If the alliance could punish the Gibeonites for their treaty with Joshua, it was reasoned, other Canaanite cities would think twice about following suit. If the attack on Gibeon proved successful, other cities would be disposed, rather, to join the coalition against Joshua.

This alliance of five Canaanite city-states, under the leadership of Jerusalem, had another reason for conquering Gibeon as a way of resisting Joshua’s advance. In fact, this second reason rendered the control of Gibeon imperative to the resistance—namely, Gibeon’s strategic position guarding the route through the Ajalon Valley—a route that would enable Joshua to divide and isolate the southern cities. After Joshua’s defeat of the alliance, his campaign pursued its remnant forces southward through that valley (verses 10-13).

Understanding the political situation throughout Canaan, Joshua resolves to make an example of the five kings involved in the alliance (verses 16-27). His ruthless tactics were extended to the citizens of Makkedah (verse 28), Libnah (verse 30), Lachish (verse 32), and elsewhere (verse 39). We may want to bear in mind that these descriptions are common in the language of battle, where they bear what we may call a “poetic sense.” That is to say, if ALL the citizens of all of these cities really did perish under Joshua’s sword, we readers of Holy Scripture will be hard pressed to explain why they continued to pose problems for Israel in the very near future.

Mark 15:42-47: This elaborate burial arrangement suggests that Joseph of Arimathea was a man of some means. Indeed, Matthew explicitly records that he was rich. This detail is, furthermore, of theological significance, because God’s Suffering Servant, according to prophecy, was to be buried “with the rich” (Isaiah 53:9).

Tuesday, August 23

Mark 16:1-8: Among the figures with whom Christians gather round the empty Tomb, there is a special prominence pertaining to the Myrrhbearers, those women disciples who shouldered their newly purchased spices and came to anoint the body of Jesus. They formed the first “women’s guild” of the Church, one might say, and they had just done duty a couple of days earlier at the foot of the Cross.

Excluded from the public “official list” of the Resurrection eyewitnesses (preserved in 1 Corinthians 15:5–8), these women are, nonetheless, featured with distinction in the narratives of Pascha morning in all four canonical Gospels. Only a few of them we know by name: Mary Magdalene, “the other Mary” (manifestly a kinswoman of the Mother of Jesus, because she is “the mother of James and Joses”—Matthew 27:56; 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10), Salome (Zebedee’s wife), Joanna.

Prominent in the midst of the Church, then, are those Myrrhbearers who came that morning loaded down with their spices and without the foggiest idea how they were going to enter a sealed tomb guarded by a massive stone. What an exercise in inefficiency, lack of cost analysis, and failure in planning. As it turned out, they could not even find a body to anoint. All that myrrh, just going to waste.

Joshua 11: This is the sort of story that causes many modern people to wince and squirm—so much violence!

Well, this is true, but let me mention why such texts do not bother me. I liken these darker parts of the Hebrew Scriptures to shadows cast on the earth by the earliest appearance of the light. The Latin Psalter says to the Lord, "Thou hast crafted the dawning and the sun"—Tu fabricatus es auroram et solem (Psalm 73:16). We observe the order: Dawn-then-sun. Strictly speaking there could be no dawn unless the sun already existed. The Psalmist's sequence of dawn-then-sun describes how things appear, not how they exist. The early light comes to us on a curve and then an angle. The daylight is presented to us in stages, the full sun itself being the final stage.

The angularity of the early morning light seems to hurl long lines of darkness on the earth. This is only an impression, nonetheless. What sort of logic would blame the light for the shadows? Who among us does not recognize that the shadows were already there, long before the light appeared? Indeed, it is the gradually emerging light that reveals the dark places. These shadows, they shorten, bit-by-bit, and they will vanish in the fullness of time, when the sun increases to full strength.

I am no more offended, then, by the darker parts of the Bible than by the shades thrown forward by the slanting daylight. To me, the dark recesses of the Book of Joshua resemble the somber drama of the Grand Canyon, as myriad silhouettes take shape down its walls, just before the sunrise.

Wednesday, August 24

Mark 16:9-20: Today we finish our annual reading of the Gospel according to Mark.

Because these final verses of the canonical text of Mark are found neither in the more reliable manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) nor in other ancient versions (Armenian, Georgian, etc.), it is reasonably conjectured that we have received them from someone later than Mark himself. It would appear that they were added by a copyist who felt that Mark 16:8 was too abrupt an ending, so he added these post-Resurrection appearances in order to make the ending of Mark more closely resemble the endings of the other gospels.

In fact, the components of this material are largely drawn from those sources: The story of Mary Magdalene (verses 9-11) is drawn from John and Luke; the account of the two journeying disciples (verses 12-13) is taken from Luke; the Great Commission (verses 14-18) is adapted from Matthew, Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles; and the Lord’s Ascension comes from Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

These considerations, however, have to do solely with literary history, not theology. They impugn neither the divine inspiration nor the canonical authority of Mark 16:9-20, inasmuch as the Church has received this text as Holy Scripture.

Joshua 12: This chapter interrupts the biblical narrative in order to summarize Israel’s military achievements up to the present point. This summary, which begins with scenes from the Pentateuch, links the victories of Joshua with those of an earlier period. If we recall the importance of Joshua in Moses’ own army, we understand why that earlier material is included in the present summary.

Thursday, August 25

Luke 3:1-6: According to the chronology suggested in the earliest apostolic preaching (Acts 1:22), the most ancient accounts of Jesus’ public life began with the story of his baptism, perhaps two months or so before the miraculous sign at Cana.

Unlike the accounts of his childhood in Matthew and Luke, the story of Jesus’ baptism was part of the earliest apostolic preaching. We are certain of this, because that preaching was based on a defined narrative structure, which invariably began with John the Baptist.

We discern that established structure and sequence in the preaching patterns in the Acts of the Apostles. Thus, when the Apostle Peter began to evangelize Cornelius and his friends at Caesarea, he commenced his story by speaking of the ministry of John the Baptist:

That word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10:36-37).

The same starting point of Jesus’ ministry is discerned in the Apostle Paul's evangelization of Pisidian Antioch. To tell his audience of Jesus, Paul began by linking Him directly to the ministry of John:

God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus—after John had first preached, before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel (Acts 13:23-24).

In short, the "evangelical narrative"—the narrative form in which the apostles first proclaimed the Gospel—embraced the events of Jesus’ life, beginning with the baptism by John the Baptist. Now this is exactly what we should expect, from the earlier directive Peter gave to the assembled Apostles prior to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When they determined, at that time, to choose some person to take the place of Judas Iscariot to fill up the number of the Twelve Witnesses, Peter specified the time period concerning which the chosen person would have to bear witness. He must be selected, said Peter, from among

these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism by John to the day that he was taken up from us (Acts 1:21-22 emphasis added).

That period of time, beginning with John's ministry, defined the specified limits of the original apostolic narrative, the primitive story structure of the Gospel. As we see in today’s text, the significance of John’s ministry with respect to the Gospel prompted Luke to introduce the Baptist’s appearance with considerable solemnity, fixing its setting within general history.

Friday, August 26

Joshua 14: This chapter begins the section in which the land of Canaan is divided by allotment, in accordance with the command that Joshua received in the previous chapter (13:1,7).

We already know from Numbers 36:16-29 that Eleazar, Aaron’s son and heir in the priesthood (Numbers 3:32; Deuteronomy 10:6), is to assist Joshua in this allotment.

Prior to this allotment, however, the reader is again reminded that territory has already been set aside, east of the Jordan, for two and a half of these tribes (verse 3). The writer likewise mentions once again that special provision is to be made for the tribe of Levi (verse 4).

In addition, before any allotment to the remaining tribes can be made, provision must be made for Caleb, the other of the only two spies who had remained loyal, decades earlier, when Moses had dispatched them for an initial inventory of the Promised Land (Numbers 13—14; Deuteronomy 1:35-36). Caleb officially belonged to the tribe of Judah (Numbers 13:6; 34:19), and his inheritance will fall within that tribe.

Forty-five years have elapsed since Caleb, a mere lad of forty at the time, had received Moses’ promise that he would inherit property in the land of Canaan (verses 6-10). Except for Joshua, he was the only surviving adult of the multitude that had marched out of Egypt, so it was entirely fitting he should be the first to inherit real estate in the land that he had inspected nearly half a century earlier. Caleb stands forever in the Bible as the model of such perseverance as leads to a great reward.

Luke 3:7-20: “The kingdom of heaven,” asserted Jesus, “suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come” (11:12–14).

The “violence” associated with John was readily discerned in his asceticism, which prompted his enemies to say, “He has a demon” (11:18). Violence was also evident in his apocalyptic preaching, all about “the wrath to come,” with axes laid to the roots of trees and the burning of chaff with unquenchable fire (3:7–12). John’s hearers could never tell God that they had not been warned!

One of these was Herod Antipas, whom Herodias manipulated into beheading the violent John. Resenting the Baptist’s condemnation of her “meaningful and fulfilling,” albeit adulterous, relationship with Antipas, Herodias had longed for that day of vengeance.

Indeed, in the New Testament triangle of the anemic Antipas, the hateful Herodias, and the relentless John, we have a striking parallel to the Old Testament triangle of the anemic Ahab, the hateful Jezebel, and, of course, the unrelenting Elijah.

Friday, August 12

Numbers 36: The Book of Numbers ends with a final determination about the property of five heiresses, the topic of an earlier discussion (27:1-11). The question raised in this chapter is directed to the inheritance of this property in the event that the inheriting heiress marries outside of her own tribe (verse 3). That is to say, what is needed is a further clarification of the earlier ruling, and Moses perceives the need for this clarification (verse 5).

The solution to the difficulty is a prohibition against these heiresses—if they do claim their inheritance—marrying outside their own tribe, lest the inherited property be lost to that tribe (verse 7). This solution is consistent with the intention of the earlier disposition—namely, to preserve in integrity the inheritance of each tribe and family (verse 8).

These heiresses dutifully conform to the prescribed arrangement (verses 10-13).

The last verse of this book asserts divine sanction for the decisions and judgments made throughout chapters 22-36, raising them to the same level of authority as the commandments received on Mount Sinai.

The legal determination in this chapter was consistent with an overriding preoccupation in the allotment of the Promised Land among Israel’s tribes: A concern to distribute the available real estate evenly, so that no one family or group should gain—at least initially—an undue prominence or advantage over the others.

This concern was the reason why, when the land was apportioned, the task fell to representatives of all the tribes (34:16-29). These men were to guarantee an equitable distribution, based on an elementary principle: “And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; everyone’s shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers” (33:54).

This arrangement, bolstered by Israel’s jubilee rule (cf. Leviticus 25:10-34), encouraged a rough equality of resources in Israel, not only among the tribes, but also among individual households. The inspiration for this system may be described as a benign egalitarianism. It would distinguish Israel from the money-grubbing nations round about.

This egalitarianism, on the whole, lasted for centuries. Even as late as the reign of Solomon (961-922), it could be said, “Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

Afterwards, this benign egalitarianism was corroded by Israel’s commercial dealings with Israel’s neighbors, chiefly the Phoenicians. We detect an early example of this corrosion in the ninth century, in the case of the seizure of Naboth’s vineyard by Ahab and Jezebel. It is worth observing that the outspoken critic of this seizure was the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 21).

Saturday, August 13

Mark 14:22-31: The early tradition of Jesus’ Church cherished a special narrative of those events that transpired on the night of his betrayal by Judas Iscariot:

I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed . . . (1 Corinthians 11:23).

Paul then goes on to tell the story of the Last Supper, a rite the early Christians—obeying Jesus’ injunction to “do this”—repeated each Sunday as the central service of their worship. The telling of the story of the Last Supper was a common feature of that common weekly service. Local variations in the wording of the service apparently account for the slight differences we find among the New Testament authors, when they describe the historical event (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25).

The Synoptic Gospels explicitly identify the original supper as the Passover meal, the Seder (Matthew 26:17-20; Mark 14:12-17; Luke 22:7-15).

At that supper, all the evangelists agree, Jesus quietly confronted his betrayer, who then left the supper and went out to make arrangements for the betrayal. John, arguably, described it best: “Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately. And it was night” (John 13:30).

All the evangelists, likewise, record Jesus’ prediction of Simon Peter’s denial of him.

Other details of the supper are found among the four gospels: John describes how the Savior washed the feet of the disciples and spoke to them about service to one another (John 13:3-17). Luke also records his exhortation to mutual service in humility (Luke 22:24-27). Only Luke speaks of further instructions about the coming apostolic mission (22:35-38).

Matthew (26:30) and Mark (14:26) both mention the Hallel (Psalms 113—118), customarily chanted near the end of the Seder. One of the most significant lines of the Hallel is Psalm 116:12-13—

What shall I render to the Lord / For all His benefits toward me? / I will take up the cup of salvation, / And call upon the name of the Lord (emphasis added).

Jesus’ resolve to drink the “cup of salvation” would be sorely tried during the hours immediately to come (Matthew 26:39, 42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42).

Sunday, August 14

Mark 14:32-42: Quoting select Bible verses to prove a point of theology is usually, at best, a risky business, because what the Bible may say on a given subject is, as often as not, difficult to reduce to a single proposition. Let me cite the example of petitionary prayer in order to illustrate this risk and also to initiate a reflection on the subject of such prayer.

Times out of mind I have been told by sincere Christians that the promise given by Jesus—the promise of His Father’s granting us whatsoever we ask in His name (John 16:23-24)—is absolute and “allows of no exceptions.” Some folks, citing this text, go on to remark that even the addition of “according to Thy will” bespeaks a want of sufficient faith, inasmuch as it suggests that the person making the prayer is failing in confidence that his prayer will be answered. That is to say, a prayer containing an “if,” because it is ipso facto hypothetical, expresses an inadequate faith. What the believer should do, I have been told, is simply “name it and claim it.”

In fact, what the Bible has to say about petitionary prayer, is contained in many biblical verses, all of them worthy of careful regard. For example, should we say that the Apostle Paul, when he prayed three times that the Lord would remove from him the thorn in his flesh, the angel of Satan sent to buffet him (2 Corinthians 12:8), was wanting in faith because this severe affliction was not taken away?

If this was the case—if the Apostle to the Gentiles really was so deficient in personal faith—it is no wonder that he was obliged to leave Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20). Poor ailing Trophimus, languishing there on his sickbed; he should have been prayed over by a person with a sounder, fuller, more unfailing faith, not that slacker Paul, a man apparently deficient in the art of naming it and claiming it.

The truth of the subject, however, is quite different. The addition, “according to thy will,” is neither a limitation imposed on our confidence nor a restriction laid on our prayer. It expresses, rather, a constitutive feature of true prayer and an essential component of faith. The real purpose of prayer, after all, is not to inform God what we want, but to hand ourselves over more completely, in faith, to what God wants. The purpose of prayer, after all—even the prayer of petition—is living communion with God. The man who tells God, then, “Thy will be done,” does not thereby show himself a weaker believer but a stronger one.

After all, was Jesus, “the author and perfecter of our faith,” weak in faith when He added the “Thy will be done” to the petition “Take this cup from Me”? Did He not, rather, give us in this form of His petition the very essence of true prayer?

“According to Thy will,” then, is not a limit on our trust, but an expansion of it. It does not denote a restriction of our confidence but an elevation of it. It is an elevation, because through such a prayer—“Thy will be done”—we grow in personal trust in the One who has deigned, in His love, to become our Father. Indeed, when Jesus makes this prayer in the Garden, the evangelists are careful to note exactly how He addressed God—namely, as “Father.” Indeed, they even preserve the more intimate Semitic form, “Abba.”

The “will of God” in which we place the trust of our petition is not a blind, arbitrary, or predetermined will. It is, rather, the will of a Father whose sole motive (if this word be allowed) in hearing our prayer is to provide loving direction and protection to His children. “According to Thy will” is spoken to a Father who loves us because in Christ we have become His children.

All of this theology was contained in Jesus’ prayer in the Garden, by which His own human will was united with the will of God. Jesus, in praying for the doing of God’s will, modeled for us the petition contained in the prayer that He gave us in the Sermon on the Mount. This prayer, which significantly begins with “Our Father,” goes on to plead that His will may be done.

Monday, August 15

Psalm 45 (Greek and Latin 44): This psalm anticipates and most descriptively foretells that future royal wedding proclaimed in the parables of Jesus. Its lines describe the “bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2): “The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors; the virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; they shall enter the King’s palace.”

There is even more description of the King’s Son, however, that Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world: “You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured out upon Your lips. Therefore God has blessed You forever. Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride victorious because of truth, humility and righteousness.”

This Son’s riding forth in victory is similarly described in the Bible’s final book: “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. . . . And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: King of Kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:11, 12, 16).

We need not guess at the identity of this Bridegroom nor be in doubt of His divine dignity, for the New Testament quotes our psalm when it speaks of the Son’s anointing by His Father: “But to the Son He says: / ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; / A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. / You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; / Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You / With the oil of gladness more than Your companions’” (Heb. 1:8, 9). This ‘anointed one’ (for such is the meaning of the name Messiah, or Christ) is Jesus, of whom the Apostles preached: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38).

Inasmuch as “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31), then, a certain measure of detachment is necessary to prepare ourselves for the wedding feast of the King’s Son, a certain using of this world as though not using it, a refusal to take seriously its unwarranted claims on our final loyalty. So our psalm once again warns us: “Listen, O daughter. Consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father’s house. So the King will greatly desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, worship Him.”

Tuesday, August 16

Mark 13:43-52: Simon Peter was once again awakened by the voice of Jesus, having fallen asleep three times in as many hours, even as he listened to the prayer of Jesus. Weak in flesh, Simon had utterly failed in the Master’s command to watch and pray with him.

For Simon Peter, what a night! At the Passover Seder, just a few hours before, Jesus had disclosed the presence of a traitor among them and had foretold that the rest of the little group would fail him in his coming hour of trial. Simon himself had been singled out for a special warning, as the Lord predicted his triple denial before that very night should run its course. It was all entirely too much for a man to bear, so Simon had slept there on the ground, under the olive trees.

But now he was awakened by the Lord’s voice: “Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.” And here they were, a band of armed men already on the scene. Simon leapt up, holding a sword that he had brought along to make good his promise of loyalty in the face of danger. He recognized Judas Iscariot, who came forward and kissed the hand of his rabbi. Just what was this all about?

The response of Jesus explained it all: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

Simon waited no further. In the reflected glare of the torches, Malchus saw the flashing sword coming at him swiftly from the right—apparently a back-hand swing aimed at his throat—and he ducked to his left to avoid decapitation. Even so, the blow glanced along his helmet, so that his right ear was partly severed by the tip of the blade. As for Peter, he reluctantly followed the Jesus’ directive to put away the sword. This was the last time Peter was to show much courage that night.

In Mark’s account, there is yet another witness to the event:

Now a certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked (Mark 14:51–52).

There is considerable merit in the view that that young man was the author of this gospel, Mark himself. Not much older than a boy at the time, Mark was the son of a woman named Mary, in whose home the earliest Christians in Jerusalem were accustomed to meet for their common worship (Acts 12:12).

Wednesday, August 17

Psalm 128 (Greek and Latin 127): There are passages in the Gospels which, were they to be interpreted in isolation, would seem to suggest a relatively unenthusiastic, or at least very qualified, view of marriage and the family. In St. Luke’s Gospel we are warned, for example, that marriage itself may prove to be an impediment to one’s entry into the Kingdom (14:20). Another passage in Luke speaks about leaving one’s father and mother, and even one’s wife, for the sake of the Kingdom of God (18:29), hardly a strong endorsement of the family. In the Gospel of St. Matthew, there is a recommendation about making oneself a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom (19:12). While this expression is to be understood as a metaphor, it still does not reflect especially well on the married state. After all, eunuchs tend not to be solid family types.

Moreover, in St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, the high level of eschatological expectancy among the early Christians was the context in which he argued for the preference of celibacy over the state of marriage (7:25–38). Perhaps more than one reader of the New Testament over the centuries has felt obliged to ask if it really has anything encouraging to say about marriage except for its symbolic, sacramental application (cf. Eph. 5:32).

We should not reach any hasty conclusions on the basis solely of the foregoing evidence, however. On the contrary, the New Testament indicates in a number of places that the experience of the Church is very much joined to the experience of the household. Indeed, entire households adopted the Christian faith of the heads of the household, as in the cases of a centurion at Capernaum (John 4:53), another centurion at Caesarea (Acts 11:14), a businesswoman and a jailer at Philippi (Acts 16:15, 31), and a synagogue leader at Corinth (Acts 18:8).

It was in such “core families,” doubtless, that the great majority of the second, or at least the third, and later generations of Christians were born. That is to say, in spite of the many obvious exceptions, whether because of monastic dedication or the plain circumstance that a person has remained single, for most Christians the Gospel life has meant being a member of a Christian household. In other words, most Christians have been sanctified—made holy—through the varied relationships and obligations established by the sacrament of marriage and the begetting of children.

In this connection, the theme of the believer’s family, so prominent in Psalm 127, is even more dominant in Psalm 128. This psalm, which begins with a beatitude and ends with a blessing, is modest in its hopes. It does not wish for wealth, or power, or prestige. There is nothing here about “getting ahead.” The psalm speaks, rather, of eating the fruits of one’s own labors (in idiom, literally, the labors of one’s fruits). It is not a wish for easy money, but for such resources as come from hard employment. Indeed, the word used here is not the usual one designating work; it is, rather, the plural form of ponos, which means labor in the sense of very arduous tasks, even pain. In fact, in most versions of Revelation 16:10 and 21:4, ponos is translated as “sorrow.” Once again, as in the previous psalm, the image evoked here is that of the fallen Adam, bending over his hoe to deal with the uncooperative soil. Yes, this is the blessing of our psalm, the simple joy of maintaining one’s own life, even at subsistence level.

And also the life of one’s family. A man’s wife and his children are blessings from God, here described with the metaphors of fruitful plants. The blessing of this psalm is the happiness found in the life of work and the circle of the family, all the way to old age and the vision of grandchildren. God, says our psalm, blesses His reverent (“all who fear the Lord”) and obedient (“those who walk in His ways”) servants with these benedictions. Such things pertain to the peace of Jerusalem. Thursday, August 18 Mark 14:66-72: Among the Savior’s deepest disappointments, even during the course of his trial before the Sanhedrin, was Simon Peter’s threefold denial of even knowing him. Peter’s prominence and leadership among the disciples rendered this denial especially painful.

Unlike Peter’s attempt to walk on water—recorded only in Matthew (14:28-32)—his denials of Jesus are chronicled in all four Gospel accounts. Essentially the same in outline, the four versions of the story differ in certain details, some subtle, some indicating perspectives peculiar to an individual evangelist.

Only John, for example, breaks up the sequence of the denials, mixing them into other features of the Passion account instead of telling them all at once. Thus, after Peter’s first denial (John 18:17), the narrator leaves Peter and returns to Jesus’ interrogation by Annas (18:19-23). Then, when Jesus is sent to Caiaphas (18:24), the narrator goes back to Peter and continues with the next two denials.

Mark, for his part, is alone among the evangelists by including the detail that the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30, 68, 72). In fact, the first and second cockcrows refer to two different times during the night, hours apart, the second one around dawn. This is Mark’s way of making the same point as John: Peter’s was not a momentary lapse, but a sustained and repeated offense.

Surrounded by a crowd, Peter denies the allegation in a voice loud enough to be heard by everybody. The more Peter protests his unfamiliarity with Jesus, the more occasions he provides for the bystanders to detect the Galilean inflections in his speech: “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you.” Thus, Peter is driven to greater desperation and begins completely to lose control.

The evidence of this breakdown is found in Peter’s recourse to an oath in the second denial and to a curse in the third: “But again he denied with an oath, ‘I do not know the man!’ . . . Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’ Immediately after Peter’s third denial, the rooster crows, prompting the Apostle to remember what Jesus predicted. He remembers, leaves the place, and breaks into tears, now aware that he has added his own failure to the tragedy of the night: “So he went out and wept bitterly.”

Friday, August 19

Mark 15:1-15: In handing Jesus over to the authority of the Gentiles, the Jewish leaders were explicitly rejecting Jesus and His messianic claims. In due course, the Jewish people as such, represented in the crowd that gathered before Pilate, consents to that rejection. That action in Pilate’s presence was a decisive turning point in salvation history. It represented what St. Paul described as the cutting off of branches from the ancient tree of Israel (Romans 11:16-24).

Even from a secular view of Jewish history, moreover, that repudiation of Jesus was decisive. From that hour, the history of the Jewish people took a different and profoundly altered direction. Even though theology insists that the Jews have never ceased to be God’s people (Romans 9:11), the historical condition of their calling was changed beyond anything imaginable prior to that time. Within the space of a few years the Jews lost their temple and the worship associated with that temple. That loss, which would have bewildered all the prophets and sages of the Hebrew Bible, has now lasted almost two millennia.

The altered state of the Jewish religion became a major theological problem for the early Christians, who saw in it a fulfillment of the sixth chapter of Isaiah. That problem prompted St. Paul to regard the structure of salvation history as dialectical, as we see in Romans 9—11.

Pilate’s first question to Jesus, according to all four Evangelists, was “Are You the King of the Jews?” According to the three Synoptics, Jesus’ answer is positive but ironical. He does not say “no,” but He avoids saying “yes.” There is a reason for this: Pilate saw in the title, “King of the Jews,” only a political meaning, and this presupposition determined the meaning of the question. This presupposition is clearer in Luke, where Jesus’ Jewish accusers fill in the political meaning of “King of the Jews” (23:2).

Jesus could not answer with a straight “yes,” because the very presupposition of the question was wrong. In fact, the answer of Jesus was something closer to “Prove it,” an answer that preserves His right to remain silent. He knows, after all, that there is no evidence on which he can be charged with leading a political movement. Indeed, all through His ministry the Lord has endeavored to quell the political impulses of His followers.

Friday, August 5

Numbers 29: This chapter, continuing the theme of the sanctification of time, moves from spring to autumn.

In Israel's ancient calendar, as reflected in this and the previous chapter, we observe a concentration of focus on the spring and the autumn, the two “transitional” seasons, moving from cold to warm and from warm to cold, from darkness to light and from light to darkness. These seasons, then, serve as the annual representations of each day's morning and evening. The sundry feasts associated with these two seasons become a kind of annual Matins and Vespers.

The autumnal “seventh month” (Tishri) is the exact correspondent to our own word “September” (from the Latin septem, meaning “seven.”) In fact, the ancient month Tishri overlaps September and October.

As the “seventh” month, Tishri is the most important and sacred month. As we see in the present chapter, there are three feasts associated with it:

The first is the feast of the trumpet, which heralds the month itself (verse 1). In later days, this trumpet announced the new year; the day was then called Rosh Hashanah, “the head of the year”—that is, New Year’s Day. In addition to the daily, weekly, and monthly sacrifices, there are special sacrifices associated with this feast itself (verses 2-6).

It is worth remarking that the Orthodox Church still begins the liturgical year on the first day of the seventh month—September—and calls it “the crown of the year.” Obviously, neither Jews nor Christians see a discrepancy with beginning the new year in the seventh month!

The prescribed blowing of the trumpet is reminiscent of the blowing of the trumpet associated with Joshua’s storming of Jericho, to begin the conquest of the Holy Land. It is passing curious that the Orthodox Church also celebrates Joshua’s feast on September 1.

Because this beginning of autumn falls on the first day of the seventh month (verse 1), its prescriptions specify that the appointed sacrifices be done in addition to the regular sacrifices designated for each month (verse 6).

The autumnal season goes on to include Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (verses 7-11), which always falls on the tenth day of Tishri (cf. Acts 27:9 – If, as we are justified in suspecting, this was the year A.D. 59, then the Day of Atonement was October 5.) Requiring an extra day of rest, this feast has a Sabbath quality.

Finally comes the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkoth (verses 12-40), which lasts an entire week and requires more detailed instructions. This feast, always occurring in the seventh month, also has about it a kind of Sabbath character, in the sense that it involves a time of rest (verses 12,35).

During the course of the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles, there is a gradual diminishing of the number of bullocks sacrificed on each day. There are thirteen on the first day (verse 13), twelve on the second day (verse 17), eleven on the third day (verse 20), and so on (verses 23,26,29,32), finishing with only one bullock on the eighth day (verse 36). That is to say, this feast has about it a quality of “winding down,” as it were.

The Sacred Text specifies that these “set feasts” (verse 39) do not exhaust the potential for Israel's piety as represented in the appointed sacrifices. There could and should be further “freewill offering” as the fervor of the people would dictate.

Nor does this list of the feast days preclude the addition of others at later times, such as Purim during the Persian era and Hanukah during the Greek period.

Saturday, August 6

Numbers 30: From the “freewill offerings” mentioned in the previous chapter (29:39) there is a reasonable transition to the vows treated in the present chapter.

Because the Israelites shared, with most other religious people, a positive view of vows (cf. Genesis 28:20-22), the subject of vows did not require a systematic or philosophical treatment. Nor would it require much legislation except for those occasions when a vow is impossible, unadvisable, or even harmful to keep. The present chapter considers such cases.

That is to say, the substance of this chapter is casuistry, or case law. It also presumes the earlier biblical legislation about vows (cf. Leviticus 5:4; 7:16-18; 22:17-25; 27:1-31; Numbers 6:2-21; 15:1-10) and then goes on to look at specific cases.

The major principle about vows is enunciated at once: Vows are morally binding (verse 1). More particularly, they are binding on a man, a male person ('ish) who is socially and politically free to observe it. A woman, however, who is normally under male authority, represents a different set of cases.

The first case is the unmarried woman who is still under paternal authority. She is bound by such vows as her father permits (verses 3-4). Otherwise she is not (verse 5).

Similarly, a married woman, living under the authority of a husband, must observe such vows as he approves (verses 6-7; cf. 1 Samuel 1:11). Otherwise, no (verse 8).

In the case of a widow or divorced woman, who is under no male authority, her vows are treated exactly like those of a man (verse 9), unless the husband had formerly determined otherwise (verses 10-15).

The general line of reasoning in this chapter is clear: Of their very nature, vows involve supererogation—they are added on to the existing and presupposed order of things. If they are found to be in conflict with the social order, those responsible for that order—husbands and fathers—have the authority to abrogate them.

Vows are to be observed, therefore, except in those cases where they may threaten the stability of order. This line of reasoning has always guided the Christian Church's own discipline of vows.

Sunday, August 7

Numbers 31: Except for a recent skirmish with the Amorites a few chapters ago, the armies of Israel have not been involved in much fighting for a long time. The recent oracles of Balaam, however, indicate that Israel is now a significant military power, and we know that its armies will soon cross the Jordan to conquer Canaan. Hence, it is time to review some of the rules for warfare, specifically as they pertain to prisoners and spoils. Such is the burden of the present chapter, in which, once again, a prompting narrative precedes the rules.

Moses, before his death, must oversee Israel's vengeance on the Midianites (verse 2). This task, which involves only a fraction of Israel's forces (verses 3-6), is explained by Numbers 25:18, where we learned of collusion between Moab and Midian in the moral seduction of young Israelites. That collusion also explains why Balaam is one of the casualties of the present conflict (verse 8).

Israel's force of twelve thousand is accompanied by Phineas, the warlike priest who is charged with blowing the trumpet (verse 6).

The reported execution of every Midianite male (verse 7) should be understood with something less than mathematical exactness, since we know that the Midianites in the next generation will be stronger than ever (cf. Judges 6).

This successful exercise in warfare brought certain practical problems attendant on military victory, chiefly what to do with the surviving captives and their possessions (verses 9-12). Moses is upset that ANY enemies survived the battle (verse 14). After all, were not these the very women who had corrupted Israel's youth just a few chapters back (verse 16)? In the end he permits only the virgins to be spared, in order to become wives for the Israelites (verse 18).

The ensuing slaughter of the women and little boys rightly offends our moral sense. If it did not, we would be in sorry shape, I think; it might suggest that the Sermon on the Mount has not taken sufficient hold on our conscience.

The Bible’s report of this event also cautions us, however, against elevating our moral sense in an absolute way that would challenge the holiness of God. This incident of the Moabites and Midianites was an attack on the holiness of God, and therefore it involved something more than a merely human offense. Although we correctly disapprove of killing women and children in the context of war, and more especially when the war is already over, our correct moral disapprobation is not the last word on the subject. Even when our moral judgment is correct, it is still inadequate to deal with the holiness and righteous judgments of God.

In the execution of the Midianites we touch on the holiness and righteousness of God, which so transcends the moral sense of man that its activity—as exemplified here—may strike man's moral sense in offensive ways. It is imperative that we ever bear in mind that God is holier than even the most moral of moral men. This is all to say that man's morality is one thing—and a very good thing—but the holiness and righteousness of God is something infinitely more.

All killing of human beings, even when blood is justly shed in combat, defiles and requires cleansing (verses 19-20). This does not mean that the shedding of blood in these circumstances is morally wrong. On the contrary, the shedding of blood in a just war is morally correct and may even qualify as an act of charity. (What else but genuine charity for our countrymen, including our own families and immediate neighbors, would prompt us, at the extreme risk to our own lives, to kill our enemies in combat? This perception explains why the Christian Church has always provided blessings and other prayers for the armed forces of our nations.)

Still, such bloodshed falls infinitely short of the purity necessary for entering into God's presence in worship. This is the reason why a prescribed purification process is necessary. Indeed, this is another example in which the holiness of God stands infinitely above even the highest morality of man. (The Christian Church, therefore, has always placed certain canonical, sacramental restraints on those who take the enemy’s life in warfare—not because such shedding of blood is morally wrong, but because it does not adequately reflect the holiness and righteousness of God’s house.) Following this narrative comes the rules for the disposition of persons and booty captured in war (verses 22-40). A percentage of these spoils was dedicated to divine service, very much like the fruits of labor (verses 41-54).

This chapter's final section displays the same concern for numerical exactness and tabulation that we have elsewhere seen in this book appropriately called Numbers.

Monday, August 8

Numbers 32: Life is soon to change for the Chosen People. They have never been sedentary, not even in Egypt, where they lived as semi-nomadic shepherds. Now, however, they are to become farmers, the very type of people most tied to the land.

The differences between these two ways of life (exemplified as far back as Cain and Abel) are not reducible simply to their sources of livelihood. The differences extend, rather, to the entire social structure, particularly government and systems of loyalty.

Not all the Israelites are equally keen on making this transition to agriculture and vine-growing, especially those tribes that have been most successful in raising herds. These included, especially, the tribes of Reuben and Gad, which now announce their preference to remain in the good grazing land east of the Jordan (verses 1-5).

Moses' immediate objection to this suggestion concerns Israel's diminished military strength, if its forces were to be reduced by two tribes. He likens the request of these two tribes to the earlier incident when the twelve spies brought back a discouraging word from their inspection of the Holy Land. Indeed, this discouragement is the point of the comparison (verses 6-15; compare Judges 5:16-17). The tribes of Gad and Reuben, by way of response, declare their intention (after securing their own families on land east of the Jordan) to remain with the invading force until all the Promised Land is conquered (verses 16-19).

Moses agrees to this arrangement (verses 20-24), and the two tribes repeatedly pledge their cooperation (verses 25-27,31-32). Moses announces the compromise to the rest of Israel's leadership (verses 28-30).

Half the tribe of Manasseh, whose recent significant growth we have already had occasion to observe, is added to the two tribes inheriting land east of the Jordan (verse 33), and the chapter ends with a list of new Israelite villages and strongholds in that territory (verses 34-42).

In this chapter the “compromise” between Moses and the petitioning tribes is recorded, with no explicit comment on its moral and theological ambivalence. This approach permits the Bible-reader to reflect on it freely, in the light of the biblical story as a whole. Was this a good compromise, or was it simply the accommodation accorded to an infidelity? That is to say, was Moses’ decision in this case similar to the Old Testament provision for divorce?—“Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce” (Matthew 19:8).

An initial impression suggests comparing Moses’ accommodation on this point with the accommodation Samuel later makes to the Israelites’ request for a king. That is to say, just as the Lord, through His servant Samuel, permitted Israel to adopt the monarchy—in spite of the infidelity involved in that request—so the Lord, through His servant Moses, permitted these petitioning tribes to settle east of the Jordan.

Closer inspection of the text, however, indicates a problem with this parallel. In the case of the monarchy, the Lord is seen to incorporate the infidelity of the Israelites into His larger historical plan: the Messiah would be born in the lineage of Israel’s second king. We find nothing of this sort in the eastern expansion of Israel’s geography: It simply happens; the event never takes on a larger theological significance. Indeed, the Lord Himself is not even consulted in this chapter!

A more modest, and even cautionary, approach to this question seems warranted: From patristic times, as evidenced in Origen’s Homilies on Numbers, it has been common to regard those Israelites who settled east of the Jordan as something less than fully committed believers: they belonged to the people of God, but they failed to measure up to a full commitment. They are the oligopistoi—“those of little faith.”

Two facts support this interpretation:

First, these tribes received their inheritance, not from the Lord, but from Moses (verse 33). Settling in the land of Gilead was never regarded as something God had in mind. It was their idea, and Moses, near the end of his life, did not believe it worthwhile to deny their request.

Second, the tribes that settled in the land of Gilead were subject to unusually difficult pressures in the centuries that followed, as various peoples east of the Jordan, such as Nahash the Ammonite (1 Samuel 11), looked upon that rich grazing land with a covetous eye. The plight of the “easterners” became particularly acute with the ascendancy of Syria in the mid-eighth century.

It is worth remarking that the Jews laid no claim on the land east of the Jordan in either of their two historical “restorations”—neither at the end of the Babylonian Captivity nor at the foundation of the modern state of Israel. This land, so attractive to Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh, was not within the borders of the land of promise. As with Moses’ concession with respect to divorce, it was proper to assert, “from the beginning it was not so.”

Tuesday, August 9

Numbers 33: As Israel's long journey draws nigh to its end, the inspired author of this book thinks it an opportune time to recount the stages, since Egypt, that the Chosen People have traveled (verse 1). This list is based on Moses’ own “log” of the trip, but the Lord Himself directed this recording of it (verse 2).

For us readers, nonetheless, identifying each of these places is a far from certain exercise. When the desert is called a “trackless waste,” full consideration should be given to that description. Deserts and their shifting sands are notoriously deficient in stable landmarks, and this record antedates by far the art of calculating one's precise geographical position by reference to the stars. In addition, archeology has not been able, in every instance, to identify the place names listed in this chapter. If it did, we could confidently map out the entire period of Israel's desert wandering.

An illustration of our difficulty is immediately provided by the name “Sukkoth,” which means tents or booths. It may be the case that this place received its name for no other reason than the fact that Israel pitched its tents there. Thus, when the tents were moved, it was more difficult to find the place!

The place names in the list in verses 5-15 correspond very closely to the account in Exodus 12:37-19:2. Dophkah (12-13), a name not included in Exodus, seems to be what is now called Serabit el Khadem, a site of turquoise mining in the south of the Sinai Peninsula. One suspects that Alush, also missing from Exodus, gave its name to Wadi el'esh, just south of Dophkah.

Kadesh, which Israel reaches by verse 36, is not desert at all. It is a lush valley with abundant spring water. The major spring was Ain el-Qudeirat, twelve miles from which is found Ain Qudeis, an Arabic name that still preserves the name “Kadesh.”

Wednesday, August 10

Numbers 34: The present chapter may be read as a contrast with the chapter we have just finished, and this contrast pertains to both time and place. Having looked backwards in the previous chapter, the inspired writer now turns his attention to the future, and as the former chapter took the measure of the desert, the present chapter will measure the Promised Land.

The large territory considered in the first half of this chapter (verses 2-15) was not all conquered during Joshua's period of conquest. Not until the monarchy in the tenth century before Christ did Israel occupy such a large area.

Nonetheless, the territory outlined here really does correspond very closely to the “Canaan” over which earlier Egyptian pharaohs exercised dominion until the close of the fourteenth century before Christ. In this sense it would have seemed normal to Moses and his contemporaries to think of Canaan (verse 2) in these same dimensions. Having come up from the south, Moses first considered Canaan's southern border. Under Israel's occupation this southern border will be the land of Edom (verse 3)-that is, a line running westward from the border of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean (cf. Joshua 15”3-4; Ezekiel 47:19). The Wadi el-Arish (“river of Egypt”—verse 5) serves as a kind of natural division of the Negev from the Sinai Peninsula.

The “sea” (verse 5) and “great sea” (verse 6) are references to the Mediterranean, Israel's natural western border.

On the north a line running eastward from the Mediterranean, somewhat north of Byblos, to the desert beyond Damascus, will border Israel. Zedad is northeast of Mount Hermon (verse 7-9).

Respecting the eastern border of Canaan, its northeastern corner will be Benaias (a later name, derived from the Greek god, Pan), the major source of the Jordan River. Then the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea will roughly form the natural eastern border (verses 11-12).

We note that these boundaries completely exclude the land recently claimed by Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh. These latter tribes, therefore, are not considered in the division of the land just circumscribed (verse 13-15).

The chapter ends by listing the names of the men charged with the division of the Holy Land (verse 16-29).

Thursday, August 11

Numbers 35: Part of the disposition of the Promised Land, a theme now continued from the previous chapter, is the arrangement for regional “cities of refuge.” These were special places of sanctuary for those whose lives were endangered by families seeking blood vengeance.

Since these assigned cities of refuge were all priestly cities, however, the chapter begins with the disposition of the priestly cities (cf. also Leviticus 25:32-34; Joshua 21:1-40). The tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, was to inherit forty-eight cities, including the six cities of refuge, dispersed throughout the whole Promised Land (verses 6-7). Attached to this inheritance is pastureland in the vicinity of the priestly cities (verses 2-5).

Most of this chapter, however, is devoted to the cities of refuge themselves (verses 10-34). Because they were priestly cities, these cities of refuge had shrines and altars that would serve as precincts of sanctuary (cf. Exodus 21:14; 1 Kings 1:51).

Three were assigned to Canaan, three to Transjordania (verse 14).

These assigned cities served two discrete purposes: first, to guarantee that no retributive action would be taken against an accused killer until a fair trial could determine whether or not his offense was intentional; and second, to provide a haven for such a one, after the trial, against those still disposed to take vengeance on him anyway. In both cases, the function of the “city of refuge” was to place rational and political restraints on the exercise of revenge.

While the more obvious category involved in the institution of sanctuary is spatial (that is, the setting apart of a measured precinct), it has another dimension that may be called “temporal” (that is, the setting apart of a measured time). The institution implies an “until.” Thus, the accused could not be harmed until he was properly tried (verse 12). If granted further asylum at that trial, the accused person was safe until the death of the high priest (Joshua 20:6). In regard to the heat of avenging passion, the biblical text shows here a conspicuous respect for the therapeutic influence of time. It recognizes that time is not on the side of passion but of reason. Thus, these cities of refuge, beyond the political and judicial significance conveyed in their literal and historical sense, are also possessed of a moral and ascetical meaning. As institutions of restraint, they represent a healthy distrust of impetuosity. They stand for the rational mind's control over the passions, especially an avenging anger that feels itself to be righteous. This institution embodies the truth that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).

Experience indicates that the passions, if not deliberately fueled and stoked, are marked by a native entropy. They resemble, in this respect, the flames often invoked to describe them. Left to themselves, the passions tend to diminish over time. Thus, wrath must act quickly, as it were, because it knows that its time is short (Revelation 12:12). Generally speaking, time is no friend to the passions.

Time is on the other side—that of reason. Reason, therefore, unlike the passions, knows how to wait. Reason is the realm of thought, and thought, unlike passion, requires the discipline of time. Consequently, properly cultivated reason is “slow to anger” (Proverbs 16:32; James 1:19).

Furthermore, reason is a bulwark of assured self-possession. Indeed, reason is slow precisely because it is confident. Reason can “take its time,” because, unlike the passions, reason deliberately invests in time. Time is one of reason's most interest-bearing endowments, its long-term investment.

The true city of refuge, then, is the mind godly cultivated in the art of patience, cautious of the impromptu, wary of impulse, and suspicious of “quick returns.” Its manner is slow, deliberate. As a result, no blood is shed within its precincts; the avenger is restrained and sternly reprimanded at its gates.

Friday, August 12

Numbers 36: The Book of Numbers ends with a final determination about the property of five heiresses, the topic of an earlier discussion (27:1-11). The question raised in this chapter is directed to the inheritance of this property in the event that the inheriting heiress marries outside of her own tribe (verse 3). That is to say, what is needed is a further clarification of the earlier ruling, and Moses perceives the need for this clarification (verse 5).

The solution to the difficulty is a prohibition against these heiresses—if they do claim their inheritance—marrying outside their own tribe, lest the inherited property be lost to that tribe (verse 7). This solution is consistent with the intention of the earlier disposition—namely, to preserve in integrity the inheritance of each tribe and family (verse 8).

These heiresses dutifully conform to the prescribed arrangement (verses 10-13).

The last verse of this book asserts divine sanction for the decisions and judgments made throughout chapters 22-36, raising them to the same level of authority as the commandments received on Mount Sinai.

The legal determination in this chapter was consistent with an overriding preoccupation in the allotment of the Promised Land among Israel’s tribes: A concern to distribute the available real estate evenly, so that no one family or group should gain—at least initially—an undue prominence or advantage over the others.

This concern was the reason why, when the land was apportioned, the task fell to representatives of all the tribes (34:16-29). These men were to guarantee an equitable distribution, based on an elementary principle: “And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; everyone’s shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers” (33:54).

This arrangement, bolstered by Israel’s jubilee rule (cf. Leviticus 25:10-34), encouraged a rough equality of resources in Israel, not only among the tribes, but also among individual households. The inspiration for this system may be described as a benign egalitarianism. It would distinguish Israel from the money-grubbing nations round about.

This egalitarianism, on the whole, lasted for centuries. Even as late as the reign of Solomon (961-922), it could be said, “Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

Afterwards, this benign egalitarianism was corroded by Israel’s commercial dealings with Israel’s neighbors, chiefly the Phoenicians. We detect an early example of this corrosion in the ninth century, in the case of the seizure of Naboth’s vineyard by Ahab and Jezebel. It is worth observing that the outspoken critic of this seizure was the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 21).