Friday, September 30

1 Chronicles 4: We have already remarked that the genealogies in Chronicles are vastly more detailed for the tribes of Judah and Levi than for any of the others. The present chapter (verses 1-23) on the tribe of Judah illustrates the point.

To grasp the historical reason for this emphasis, it is sufficient to reflect that the southern kingdom, the realm of Judah, had an unbroken succession of a single dynasty (the six years of Athaliah’s usurpation being only a blip on the screen) from about 1000 to 587 before Christ. During more than four centuries, beginning in 993, it had its capital in a single city, Jerusalem. This stability and continuity of Judah contributed in no small measure to the better preservation of its historical memory through archived records.

In these respects Judah is to be contrasted with the Northern Kingdom—Israel— which was governed by a series of dynasties, some of them very short, over a period of only two centuries (922-722). Its capital, moreover, did not remain in a single place during that time. Israel’s instability and impermanence are reflected in the relative paucity of its preserved records. Sometimes, indeed, even the identity of individual Israelite kings was lost from the stories about their reigns. For example, 2 Kings 5 does not tell us the name of the Israelite king to whom the Syrian king sent Naaman in order to be cleansed of his leprosy.

In short, the final and dominating perspective of the Old Testament is that of Judah, not the Northern Kingdom. Judah’s own records, therefore, are far better preserved, Judah’s history being more immediate and proximate to the Bible’s composition. Judah, then, and not northern Israel, represents the true continuity of biblical history, and nowhere is this fact more evident than in Chronicles.

Some of the sources cited in this chapter appear to be very old, as the text itself claims (verse 22). Indeed, the expression “to this day” (verses 41,43) seems to refer, not to the time of the Chronicler, but to the period of these older sources that he is citing word-for-word. This is clear from the reference to the Amalekites, who were long gone by the time of the Chronicler.

With respect to Jabez we observe that his name involves a play on words. His mother, we read, bore him in “pain”—jozeb—so his name was derived from a switching around of letters. We also note that the prayer of Jabez, which the Lord heard, was concerned with the avoidance of future pain (verse 10).

The region of Judah contained the least fertile soil in all the Holy Land. Therefore, it does not surprise us that the tribe of Judah, where men may sometimes have felt absolutely desperate as farmers, produced so many craftsmen (verse 14), linen workers (verse 21), and potters. This last group was in the royal employ (verse 23).

Saturday, October 1

1 Chronicles 5: This chapter begins by explaining why Reuben, though Israel’s eldest son, did not inherit nor transmit the right of primogeniture. (In fact, however, throughout the Bible, God’s favorable choice most often seems to fall elsewhere than on the eldest son.) The reasons given here presume the narratives in Genesis 35:22 and 49:4.

Even while admitting the transferal of Israel’s birthright to Joseph, the Chronicler feels compelled to mention that Judah was the strong tribe that produced the leader (nagid) of God’s people (v. 2; the same word is used in 2 Samuel 7:8).

Dealing with Reuben’s settlements east of the Jordan and Dead Sea (v. 8) apparently prompts the author’s mind to remain in that general location and to discuss the tribe of Gad (vv. 11–17) and the half-tribe of Manasseh (vv. 23–24), which also settled in Gilead and Bashan. This sequence interrupts the author’s pattern of adhering to lists of the sons as they appear in Genesis 46:16 or Numbers 26:15–18.

The mention of Sharon in verse 16 is most mysterious, because the Plain of Sharon is nowhere near that area.

In verse 17 the author traces his source material to a census made in the mid-eighth century.

This chapter has two notices of wars against the Hagrites, Arabian groups living east of the Jordan, one in the late eleventh century (v. 10) and one at an apparently later period (vv. 19–20). The Hagrites, twice defeated, were hardly destroyed. We find them later in the Greek writers Strabo and Ptolemy and the Latin author Pliny.

Some elements in this account suggest a source as early as the ninth century. For example, we know the towns of Aroer, Baalmeon, and Nebo (v. 8) fell under Moabite control during that century.

The chapter’s closing verses (25–26) indicate the irony that these eastern tribes, victorious in war by God’s favor, nonetheless succumbed to the religion of those whom they defeated. This explains their massive deportation by Tiglath-Pileser in 734. (The material here is drawn from 2 Kings 15:19, 29; 17:6; 18:11.) Thus, an Assyrian emperor is portrayed as an instrument in the hand of the supreme Lord of history.

This chapter hints at God’s use of world history to chasten His own people. In biblical times He accomplished this through the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. In later times the Lord has done this through such instruments as the Huns, the Goths, the Saracens, the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and the Bolsheviks.

Sunday, October 2

1 Chronicles 6: As the previous chapter spoke of the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser as God’s historical instrument against the Northern Kingdom (5:26), so the present chapter once again sees the hand of God at work in Judah’s own exile to Babylon (v. 15). This perspective reveals the author’s theology of history.

In the section on the Levites (vv. 16–30) the most notable feature is the author’s inclusion of Elkanah and his son Samuel in the Levitical line (vv. 23–26). This section throws light on the beginning of 1 Samuel, which describes Elkanah’s family as Ephraimite. From the present text it is clear that Elkanah’s was a Levitical family living in the territory of Ephraim. Since the Levites were deliberately spread around among the various tribes, this is not surprising.

The listing of the Levitical singers (vv. 31–48) is unusually detailed, suggesting that the author had access to more ample source material for this section. It is not unreasonable, in fact, to think that the Chronicler may have had recourse to memories, and perhaps even written archives, handed down in his own family.

David, whom we otherwise know to have taken a particular interest in music (1?Samuel 16:18–23; 2?Samuel 1:17–27), is credited with the inspiration and organization of Israel’s program of liturgical music (v. 31).

The Chronicler comes back to this thesis repeatedly (15:16, 27; 25:1; 2?Chronicles 29:26; Nehemiah 12:46), and we might suspect as much from the Book of Psalms.

Although Korah was punished for rebellion against Aaron (Numbers 16:16), his descendants (v. 37) served as Levitical musicians and are credited with compiling some of the Book of Psalms (42—49, 84—88). The Asaph in verse 39 is also well known in the Psalms (73—83).

The Zadokites, the descendants of Zadok (v. 53), became the chief priestly family at the time of David, who is the true hero of the Books of Chronicles. Although it is clear in 2?Samuel that Zadok was the chief priest at that period, only Chronicles (vv. 49–53) provides us with his earlier lineage.

In the New Testament the Zadokites are called “Sadducees.” They were leaders among those who rejected David’s final Heir, a tragedy that clearly would have distressed the Chronicler.

The Levites were not given a special tribal portion of the Holy Land like the other tribes, but were dispersed throughout the tribes, so that the latter would benefit from their priestly ministry (vv. 54–81). In addition, the Levites were allotted specific cities among the tribes, the first being the ancient shrine of Hebron (v. 55), which was also appointed as a city of refuge (v. 57). Indeed, we observe that all the major cities of the Holy Land—except Jerusalem—were designated as priestly cities: Debir, Bethshemesh, Anathoth, Shechem, Gezer, Aijalon, Golan, Ramoth (both of them), Kadesh, Tabor, and so forth.

Monday, October 3

1 Chronicles 7: Although our author has no interest in the Northern Kingdom as a political entity, he does preserve for us a considerable record of the early history of the northern tribes, in which his interest is consistently sharp.

Indeed, even though the material available to him must have been sparse, the Chronicler seems to have used it all, because there are details in the present chapter not to be found elsewhere in Holy Scripture.

The Chronicler used what records he had. For some of these tribes (Naphtali, for instance) the author had hardly more at his disposal than the lists in Genesis 46 and Numbers 26. Many census records of the Northern Kingdom had perished at Israel’s fall to the Assyrians in 722.

The specific details of the tribe of Issachar (vv. 1–7) come from Genesis 46:13 and Numbers 26:23–25. The numbers given here, however, are quite a bit higher than those indicated in the census of Numbers 1 and 26.

After this outline of the northern tribes, the author is ready to speak of the tribe of Benjamin, situated on the border between the north and the south in the Holy Land. Since Benjamin is the tribe of Saul, Israel’s first king, the author will use this treatment to move from pure listing to a narrative of the kingdom, which David will assume in due course. The next chapter will begin, therefore, with the list of the Benjaminites.

Luke 10:38-42: Mary is contrasted with her (probably older) sister Martha, the latter being described as “distracted with much serving” and “worried and troubled about many things.” One of the reasons Martha was so busy—or at least Martha thought so—was that Mary was not helping her in the kitchen and at table. So she approached Jesus with the request, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And just what was Mary doing that Martha found so inadequate? Well, she “sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word.” It seems evident that Martha took her sister’s more quiet activity to be either a sign of, or an excuse for, laziness.

By way of response, Jesus corrected not Mary, but Martha. He even pointed to the superiority of Mary’s peaceful occupation, claiming that she “has chosen that better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Tuesday, October 4

1 Chronicles 8: The initial list given in the present text (vv. 1–28) is drawn partly from Genesis 46:21 and Numbers 26:38–40, but there are discrepancies. Indeed, no other part of Chronicles is so full of textual difficulties as this section. Someone has suggested—and the suggestion is plausible—that the ancient scribes, having copied out seven whole chapters containing almost nothing but names, were suffering from unusual fatigue and ennui! Hence, we have an unusual number of transcriptional errors. Perhaps so, but there is really nothing to be done about it. The various hypothetical emendations suggested by textual scholars seem rather shaky. We must resign ourselves to a bit of unavoidable obscurity in this chapter.

We recognize Ehud (v. 6) as the left-handed judge from this right-handed (ben-jamini) tribe (Judges 3:12–30).

Jerusalem, now introduced in verses 28 and 32, will be treated at length in the following chapter.

Although the author’s intent in verses 29–40 was to present Saul’s ancestry and lineage, the method is not direct or straightforward. After presenting Jeiel (cf. 9:5) and his progeny, he moves to Saul’s immediate family, which does not seem to be connected to Jeiel. Even the relationships portrayed here among Abner, Kish, Ner, and Saul are difficult to reconcile with 1?Samuel 14:50–51. We must bear in mind—for certainly the author of 1?Chronicles bore in mind—that this was the family that was ultimately rejected and replaced by David’s.

For all that, the Chronicler himself seems to have been faithful to very old sources here, sources independent of 2?Samuel. We may illustrate this by his retention of the name of the pagan god “Baal” in two of the names given here, Ethbaal and Meribbaal (vv. 33–34). This is curious and historically significant. In 2?Samuel (2:8; 9:2) these names were changed to Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth.

Why the change in 2 Samuel and not in 2 Chronicles? The answer tells us something of canonical history: Second Samuel is contained in the second section of the Hebrew Bible, the Nebiwim, or “Prophets.” These books were regularly read in the synagogue. Reluctant to use the name of a pagan god, Baal, in the synagogue, the reader customarily changed the name to bosheth, meaning “shame.” This practice led to the same change being made in the text itself. There was no need to make such a change in the Books of Chronicles, however, which are found in the third section of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Ketubim, or “Writings.” This section was not placed in the biblical canon until later, and Chronicles was not read publicly in the synagogue. Hence, Chronicles has preserved the old form of these two names.

Wednesday, October 5

1 Chronicles 9: We have now completed the genealogies of “all Israel.” For the Chronicler this expression is full of deep religious feeling, as when it serves to describe the religious reforms of King Hezekiah three centuries later (2?Chronicles 30:1, 5).

As we have seen, the author of Chronicles was careful to treat last the tribe of Benjamin and the house of Saul among the sons of Israel, because this sequence permitted him to move almost seamlessly from mere lists to real narrative. Likewise, this order makes it an easy step for him now to go to Jerusalem, which sat on the southern border of the tribe of Benjamin.

Jerusalem had not been part of the land conquered by the twelve tribes at the time of Joshua. It remained a Canaanite (or, more specifically, a Jebusite) stronghold until taken by David’s forces in 992 BC and made the capital of the united kingdom (2?Samuel 5:6–7). This is why we find Jerusalem, unlike the other cities of the Promised Land, inhabited by Israelites from several of the tribes (v. 3).

Because the Ark of the Covenant was transferred to Jerusalem shortly after it became David’s capital, the city was quickly transformed into a religious center, a whole generation before Solomon’s construction of the temple there. Hence, it is scarcely surprising that the capital was home to a high number of priests, Levites, and other liturgical ministers (vv. 10–22).

The Chronicler describes their several responsibilities (vv. 23–34). In this inventory he gives special prominence to the temple’s musicians (vv. 14–16), who are listed immediately after the priests (vv. 10–13). The Chronicler leaves no doubt about his great respect for the ministry of the Jerusalem choir. Its leaders (6:39; 16:14) were Asaph (v. 15) and Jeduthun (v. 16).

The gatekeepers, especially delegated to preserve holiness within the temple, were to emulate that great champion of Israel’s holiness, the priest Phineas (v. 20).

All is now prepared for the narrative proper. The priests and Levites are in place; the Ark of the Covenant has been introduced; the choir is ready. It is time to start.

Thursday, October 6

1 Chronicles 10: The chapter opens abruptly. After all the genealogies, lists, rosters, and schedules of the previous nine chapters, the reader is suddenly confronted with a story of combat, in which the whole battle is over in one verse: “Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Gilboa.”

There is no need, however, to ascribe the first nine chapters to a different hand, as some have suggested. Indeed, there are two sound reasons to resist this hypothetical ascription. First, the ideas, themes, and preoccupations of those first nine chapters are identical to those in the rest of Chronicles. Second, if the opening of the present chapter seems abrupt, it would hardly appear less abrupt as the beginning of a book!

Following a pattern we have now come to expect, the Chronicler has nothing good to say for Saul. The latter’s sole significance was that his downfall prepared the way for David. Consequently, the book’s actual narrative commences with Saul’s downfall at the battle of Gilboa, bringing Saul’s twenty years’ of reign to an end. Although the wounded Saul died by his own hand, it was really the Lord who slew him (v. 14).

Saul is condemned for his “unfaithfulness” (v. 13). The Chronicler uses this same word (ma’al) to explain why the nation was deported to Babylon (9:1; 2?Chronicles 36:14), and he will employ it to describe the later reigns of Ahaz (28:19; 29:19) and Manasseh (33:19).

Thus, Saul’s unfaithfulness is, for the Chronicler, part of the larger theme of the nation’s unfaithfulness.

The assertion that all of Saul’s family perished (v. 7) must be understood in a sense compatible with the subsequent seven years’ reign of Ishbosheth in the north (2?Samuel 2—3) and the survival of Mephibosheth (9:7; 16:3). Perhaps the Chronicler intends to include here the deaths of those men years later. In fact, he has already listed other sons of Saul in 9:39–40.

Even though the Chronicler has nothing good to say for Saul, he does record the fact that some of Saul’s contemporaries took a different view (v. 12).

The Chronicler’s negative account of Saul is important to his history as a whole, because it serves as a contrast to the Lord’s choice of David. In the Bible there is no such thing as history without “election.”

It is the Lord’s “election” that gives structure and substance to history. Otherwise the deeds of men are simply an amorphous blob, of which they can make no reliable sense. Without the true Lord of History, a Lord who makes choices and assigns vocations, human history is as formless as a jungle.

Friday, October 7

1 Chronicles 11: The Chronicler greatly abbreviates the lengthy, difficult, and complicated story of David’s gaining control over all the tribes. We note that the material in the first four chapters of 2?Samuel is simply missing. There is no mention of the brief reign of Ishbosheth, the crisis of Abner, the subsequent negotiations, and Joab’s hand in Abner’s death.

Instead, the story skips immediately to the gathering of the tribes at Hebron (David’s first capital, prior the capture of Jerusalem) to make David the king. There is no suggestion that Israel was politically divided between north and south (a division that would reappear at Solomon’s death in 922). Indeed, in place of “all the tribes of Israel” in 2?Samuel 5:1, we now have simply “all Israel” in verse 1. That is to say, the nation is completely united; even the tribal distinctions are lost. Thus, Jerusalem is captured by “David and all Israel” (v. 4).

Having thus described David’s rise to power and the taking of Jerusalem in a bare nine verses of narrative, the Chronicler returns to what we have begun to suspect he does best: he provides more lists of names!

This time, however, the lists are in large part derived from 2?Samuel 23:8–39.

First, there are David’s “three mighty men” (vv. 10–14). Since only two names are given, however, we might suspect that Joab, treated in the previous verses, was to be understood as included among them. It is more plausible, however, to suspect a copyist’s omission, since the name given in 2?Samuel 23:11 is Shammah.

Second, there is a list of thirty other warriors of renown (vv. 20– 47). Whereas the corresponding list in 2?Samuel ends with Uriah the Hittite, the Chronicler adds several names more (vv. 41–47). Since these men appear to come predominantly from the east side of the Jordan, we may presume that the Chronicler received their names from a Transjordanian source not available to the author of Samuel.

Such lists of combatants reflect the period when much combat was hand to hand. In our own times, when weapons are employed from great distances, it is difficult to imagine the impression of ongoing hand-to-hand combat. Indeed, Shelby Foote, the preeminent historian of the Civil War, remarked that that war produced relatively few casualties from the bayonet; most wounds were inflicted by gunfire at a distance. In very ancient accounts of combat, however, such as that between David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 and many places in Homer, the reader sometimes has the impression that any given battle was just a series of private fights between individuals. These biblical lists of warriors reflect that same setting. In fact, even Josephus, writing during the period of the New Testament, saw no reason to include these lists.

Friday, September 23

Judges 18: The Danites migrated north to get away from the Philistines (verses 1-6). These men, we must understand, were quitters, unwilling to fight for their proper inheritance. They sought and accepted the counsel of a man unqualified to give counsel. They already knew what they were supposed to do, but they wanted a “second opinion.” The Lord had said, “Go, conquer the land that I will give you,” but they wanted an easy out, after finding that the task was more difficult than they supposed. Consequently, they sought out a teacher who would tell them what they wanted to hear.

This should not surprise us, because we already know that this Levite’s own ministry has already been based on compromise and half-measures. He was not, after all, even authorized for the ministry he has undertaken. He is a false teacher, who pretends to speak for God.

The Bible is full of criticism against false teachers and false prophets. They are chiefly to be recognizes by certain traits:

First, they like to please people. They have no authority beyond their ability to please people. Their authority is based entirely on their popularity.

Second, because they want to please people, they tend to say what people expect and want them to say.

Third, if challenged they appeal to their success.

The situation was described by the Apostle Paul: “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

The Danites, who had insufficient courage to fight the Philistines, are quite prepared to invade a small defenseless people, who lived in an unwalled city (verses 7-21).

The Danites, that is to say, in addition to their other shortcomings, believed in cheap grace. They wanted the blessings of the covenant without the cost of the covenant.

Just as the Danites robbed somebody else’s land, they absconded with somebody else’s gods. Indeed, they wanted only such gods as they could control. Those were gods worthy of their cowardice.

They also discovered a clergyman who was worthy of them, a quisling that would do their bidding and tell them what they wanted to hear. This nameless man was a nobody, a clerical non-entity, a hierarchical cipher. Because the price was right, he went along with them.

Man-made gods, however, tend not to be very loyal to their makers. They are disposed to take on a life of their own. They declare their independence, as it were. Micah learned this the hard way.

The city of Dan became a center of idol-worship. Jeroboam I would eventually erect there one of his two golden calves.

Saturday, September 24

Judges 19: We come now to a horror story, a nightmare. There is a growing sense of darkness, beginning with physical darkness and going to moral darkness. The unfortunate woman is thrown out into the dark, where she is gang raped all night long. After enduring unspeakable brutality, she dies at daybreak.

There is a great irony, of course, in the fact that the Levite did not want to spend the night among pagans. He wanted to sleep secure, surrounded by his fellow Israelites. He lengthened his journey for this very purpose.

We must bear in mind that this is not a story about pagans. All the characters in this account are children of the covenant.

Gibeah, however, has become as bad as Sodom. Indeed, there are striking parallels between this story and that in Genesis 19.

There is also the cruelty of the Levite himself, who abandons his wife (“concubine” in context means only a wife of inferior rank) to the cruelty of the mob. He has clearly not forgiven his wife for her infidelity. He is morally worse than she. This compromised individual is no man of God.

It is instructive that Hosea is the only prophet ever to mention this distressing incident at Gibeah, and he does so three times (5:8; 9:9; 10:9). Obviously Hosea, who also was married to an unfaithful wife, thought a great deal about this story and its potential lessons. Indeed, Hosea’s own treatment of his wife is a fruitful matter of contrast with the behavior of the Levite in this chapter.

Luke 9:1-9: When Jesus dispatched these Apostles, their ministry became an extension of his own, inasmuch as he “gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” They traveled light: “And he said to them, ‘Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece.’”

Exactly one chapter later, their number will be augmented, when Jesus “appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go (10:1).

In due course, the function and purpose of these missionaries changed, just as Jesus’ own ministry did. Originally summoned to assist the Savior in the spiritual renewal of Israel, they shared his rejection by Israel’s official leaders. Especially during the final year of this ministry, Jesus’ followers were reduced to a mere handful, a “little flock” (12:32).

Sunday, September 25

2 Corinthians 1:12—2:2: The lesson learned from his experience in Asia heightened Paul’s sense of the difference between divine grace and worldly wisdom (verse 12), a difference about which he had earlier written to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:20; 2:5). By means of the present epistle Paul’s readers will be taught this lesson also (verses 13-14). It is important that they be so, because they endure the same trials as Paul (verse 7). The sufferings endured are, in fact, “the sufferings of Christ” (verse 5).

Paul begins to correct a misunderstanding (verses 15-24). He had disappointed some of the Corinthians by failing to visit them at a time when he was expected. Indeed, he had announced plans for such a visit (1 Corinthians 16:5). In fact, he changed his plans more than once. Recently he had planned to stop for visits twice at Corinth, once going to Macedonia and once coming back (verses 15-16). Even these plans had been changed—to the chagrin of some of the folks at Corinth, who thought the Apostle a bit fickle and irresolute (verse 17).

St. Paul defends himself, insisting that these changes of travel plans did not indicate a deeper spiritual problem. In his proclamation of the Gospel to the Corinthians he was not fickle or irresolute (verse 18). His readers, therefore, should not interpret his recent behavior as a sign of irresolution.

Paul uses this occasion to teach a lesson: Steadfastness of purpose, he says, is what characterizes the word that God speaks to us in Christ. It is an enduring affirmation, indicated by the perfect tense of the verb (gegonen–verse 19). That word is the same as when Paul and his companions had first preached it among the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:11), because God’s promises are not subject to changes of plans (verse 20). They are always “Amen,” the same word that Christians speak back to God at the close of their prayers in Jesus’ name.

In fact, God has already sealed these promises in the hearts of the Corinthians at the time of their baptism (verses 21-22). This sealing is already a down payment or “earnest money” (arrabon) of their eternal inheritance (cf. 5:5; Romans 8:23).

Paul then returns to his disputed travel plans, saying that it was for the good of the Corinthians themselves that he had failed to show up when they expected him (verse 23; compare 13:2). Things were not yet right at Corinth.

Paul saw no value in returning yet again to Corinth while feeling distressed at the situation there. Such a visit, he felt, would only make things worse (2:1-2).

Monday, September 26

Judges 21: The governing motif of this chapter is rebirth for the tribe of Benjamin.

It begins with a problem: The other Israelites have taken a vow not to let their daughters marry Benjaminites. This is the problem. No one had instructed them to make that vow, and now the vow has created a serious difficulty. They had taken the vow before they offered the sacrifice of reconciliation. They had acted with a split mind, doing things that were mutually opposed. This is an example of a rash vow, of the sort that Jephthe made. Such vows often enough create bigger problems than those they were supposed to solve. Anyway, this is the problem governing the present chapter, and the Israelites themselves caused it.

The story is full of irony, of course. For example, it ends at the shrine city of Shiloh, one of the ancient words for “peace.” The scene, however, is anything but peaceful.

How do we explain all this contradiction and activity at cross-purposes? The chapter’s final verse does the best it can to provide an explanation. Namely, everybody was following his own inclination and preference. “Everybody do what you want,” though a slogan not without popular appeal in our own times, is a formula for chaos, and what we have here toward the end of Judges is a chaotic situation.

Still, the Book of Judges finishes with an act of deliverance and a new birth. Benjamin is spared. It does not disappear from history, as did Simeon and Reuben. From the tribe of Benjamin, in fact, would come, in due course, the Apostle Paul. This final chapter, then, is about God’s fidelity even in the midst of irony and chaos.

2 Corinthians 2:3-17: Instead of traveling to see the Corinthians, Paul sent them a letter—the “letter of tears”—which seems not to have survived (verse 3). Paul’s decision not to go to Corinth had at least not added further grief to those with whom he ought to share a common joy, and his letter had manifested his love and concern for the Corinthians (verse 4).

These references to their shared distress point to some troublemaker whom Paul had encountered in Corinth on a previous visit (verse 5). The Apostle here presumes his readers’ familiarity with the case, the particulars of which are, of course, unknown to us. Paul is confident that the Corinthians have adequately dealt with the problem (verse 6), inspired by his “letter of tears” and a recent visit by Titus (cf. 7:6-7).

Indeed, Paul has now become concerned for the offender, with whom the congregation had dealt somewhat severely (verses 7-8). In any case, the Corinthians have properly met the trial posed by the troublemaker (verse 9), and now it is time to move on (verses 10-1).

Paul proceeds to tell of his recent missionary trip to Troas (on the western coast of Asia, the region of ancient Troy), thus taking up the narrative broken off at the beginning of this chapter. He had hoped to meet Titus at Troas, to learn from Titus what had transpired in Corinth. Paul’s disappointment at failing to find Titus at Troas caused him, reluctantly, to abandon his ministry there and to sail over to Macedonia (verses 12-13). We readers find Paul’s distress understandable. Until he should meet Titus and learn what had transpired at Corinth, Paul would be distracted, uncertain how the congregation reacted to his “letter of tears.”

But why did Paul go over to Macedonia? This is not difficult to discover. If we think of him languishing at Troas for some days—perhaps even weeks—it would have been natural for him to sail over to Macedonia, from which, after all, Titus was expected. We should bear in mind that the currents and wind patterns between Troas and Macedonia made an eastward voyage longer and more difficult than a westward voyage. Because the Black Sea is normally colder than the Mediterranean Basin (on the average of ten degrees), the faster evaporation in the latter causes a strong southwest current to run through the Dardanelles, seriously influencing the speed of travel between Asia and Macedonia. A trip from Troas required only two days (Acts 16:11), whereas the reverse might take more than twice that long (20:6).

Paul proceeds to bless God for this fortunate outcome (verse 14), typical of the divine solicitude for man’s salvation. That is to say, in the recent difficulties at Corinth, the Lord had displayed the power of the Gospel itself (verses 15-17). For both Paul and the Corinthians the Gospel had become a matter of empirical evidence and concrete experience. God had “triumphed over” them (thriambevonti hemas–verse 14). This note touches the epistle’s major theme: God’s power made perfect in man’s weakness. Paul will speak incessantly of this “manifestation” (phaneroein—verse 14; 3:3; 4:10,11; 5:10,11 [bis]; 7:12; 11:6).

Tuesday, September 27

1 Chronicles 1: First Chronicles, when it treats the pre-monarchical part of human history, is reduced to hardly more than an outline, or even a simple name list (Chapters 1-9). By leaving out all details of human history prior to Israel’s kingship, Chronicles conveys the impression that everything that happened before David was a preparation for the divine covenant with David. Indeed, in Chronicles, all the earlier covenants (with Noah, with Abraham, and even with Moses) appear diminished by comparison.

In First Chronicles the pre-monarchical part of human history (that is, prior to the reign of David, which began about 1000 B.C.) is reduced to hardly more than an outline, in some places simply a name list (Chapters 1—9). By leaving out the details of human history prior to David’s monarchy, the Chronicler conveys the impression that everything that happened prior to David was a preparation for the covenant that God made with David. Indeed, the real covenant of the Lord is that with David. In Chronicles all the earlier covenants (with Noah, with Abraham, and even with Moses) appear diminished by comparison. If the Chronicler would not regard the founding of the Northern Kingdom—the schismatic Kingdom of Israel—with so much as an explicit mention, it was because that kingdom was founded in opposition to the Davidic covenant.

The genealogies of this first chapter are concentrated on the descendents of Abraham, who dominate the Arabian Peninsula and the western part of the Fertile Crescent (verses 27-54).

Still, the Chronicler places the history of Israel with human history. Thus, he commences with Adam, the single father of the human race, and his extensive genealogies of early man demonstrate what one historian calls “evidence of an ecumenical concern.” Israel’s history is regarded as the high point of human history. The New Testament will later extend this perspective by tracing the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam (Luke 3:23-38).

Somewhat in contrast to this “ecumenical interest,” however, the genealogical lists in this first chapter also reflect a concern of the Chronicler for the purity of Israel’s own bloodline. Religious leaders in post-exilic Judaism (that is, after 539 B.C.)—and no one more than Ezra himself—were very much preoccupied with this bloodline purity, out of a need to maintain the nation’s ethnic integrity. This is why we find, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah—works following the theological traits of Chronicles—a solidly negative attitude toward the Samaritans or any marriage with non-Israelites.

Wednesday, September 28

1 Chronicles 2: Now we begin the genealogies of the “Israelites.” Indeed, we here observe, for the first time, that Chronicles habitually refers to Jacob by the name “Israel,” the name he received after his famous wrestling match at Peniel (verse 1). Whereas the name Jacob denotes that very interesting historical character to whom so many interesting things happened, the name Israel denotes more especially the patriarch of the twelve tribes, the man who gave his name to the twelve tribes.

In the genealogies of Chronicles, beginning with this chapter, we also observe that far greater prominence and elaboration are accorded the tribes of Judah and Levi, the kingly and priestly households. Taking Chronicles as a whole, Judah will get 102 verses and Levi 81 verses, whereas all the other tribes together will receive only 126 verses. For the Chronicler, writing long after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., only Judah and Levi were of immediate moment, and he was very eager to demonstrate the support of the priestly tribe for the covenanted royal house of David. Hence, this dominance of Levi and Judah in his genealogies.

This chapter also provides the Bible’s only list of the Jerahmeelites (verses 25-41), David’s “country cousins” mentioned in 1 Samuel (27:10; 30:29). As usual, the Chronicler is interested in this family solely because of its relationship to David.

This pronounced accent on the genealogy of Judah will be of even more importance to the Christian, of course, because this is the genealogy of the Incarnation itself: “For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah” (Hebrews 7:14).

Within the genealogy of Judah, special prominence is given to the ancestors of David’s father, Jesse (verses 10-12), for obvious reasons, and then to his descendents (verses 13-15). Here we learn that Jesse had seven sons, which is a problem if we recall that 1 Samuel (16:6-11) mentions eight sons of Jesse. Perhaps the rabbis were correct in their speculation that one of the eight sons, having died childless, is intentionally left out of this genealogy.

Because of Caleb’s prominence within the territory of Judah, a great deal of this chapter concerns his family (verses 18-24,42-50). There is, however, another reason given for this attention given to Caleb. It provides some background for the character of Bezaleel, who will be introduced in 2 Chronicles 1:5. This Bezaleel was of interest to the Chronicler, because he was the craftsman credited with the proper embellishment of the Tabernacle (Exodus 31:35-38). In this genealogy of Caleb, then, we see another sign of the Chronicler’s concern for all things associated with worship.

Since the word kenite means “smith,” we have in verses 50-55 the world’s first genealogy of . . . , well, “The Smith Family.”

Thursday, September 29

1 Chronicles 3: We now begin the royal line of David, which this chapter extends to at least the beginning of the fourth century before Christ. This latter fact does not necessarily prove anything about the date of the composition of Chronicles, because it is very conceivable that a later editor or copyist of Chronicles may have extended this list of the Davidic descendents. In this respect one does well to bear in mind that Chronicles was “canonized” into the Old Testament rather late in Jewish history, so that no earlier editor or copyist would have scrupled to augment the text. In fact, the ancient Greek translation (Septuagint) of this chapter extends the list all the way to about 250, exactly the period in which the Septuagint translation was being made.

The Sacred Text names the mothers of the six sons that David fathered in Hebron before the removal of his capital to Jerusalem in 993 (verses 1-4). This detail is curious, because Chronicles otherwise omits the fact that David’s reign was not recognized by the northern tribes for the first seven years (cf. 2 Samuel 5:5). This omission, in turn, is consistent with the Chronicler’s general disregard for the politics of the northern tribes.

Did the birth of these first six sons at Hebron diminish their claims to succeed David on the throne? Perhaps, but we must bear in mind that the rules for royal succession in Israel—kingship being a completely new thing for the nation—were not yet established, so there is no reason to suppose that the royal succession was expected to follow the principle of primogeniture.

The Bathshua of verse 5 is, of course, Bathsheba. (In accordance with Chronicles’ sustained effort to edify, on which we have already commented, the lady’s adultery with David is not mentioned.) The reference to three sons of Bathsheba older than Solomon is unexpected. In the light of 2 Samuel 2:24 (“Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon”—ESV) we would not have anticipated such a detail.

The passage of the royal line to Solomon and his descendents is recorded in verse 10. Through verse 16 these Davidic kings are listed up until the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587.

The exilic and post-exilic descendents of the royal household, listed here so thoroughly (verses 17-24), bear witness to the careful maintenance of records among the Jews of the sixth and fifth centuries. The Book of Ezra will further testify to this care.

The later names in this list, especially after Zerubbabel (verse 19), are difficult to reconcile with the genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. The present writer is happy to leave this difficulty to the investigation of those with the interest and patience to resolve it.

Friday, September 30

1 Chronicles 4: We have already remarked that the genealogies in Chronicles are vastly more detailed for the tribes of Judah and Levi than for any of the others. The present chapter (verses 1-23) on the tribe of Judah illustrates the point.

To grasp the historical reason for this emphasis, it is sufficient to reflect that the southern kingdom, the realm of Judah, had an unbroken succession of a single dynasty (the six years of Athaliah’s usurpation being only a blip on the screen) from about 1000 to 587 before Christ. During more than four centuries, beginning in 993, it had its capital in a single city, Jerusalem. This stability and continuity of Judah contributed in no small measure to the better preservation of its historical memory through archived records.

In these respects Judah is to be contrasted with the Northern Kingdom, Israel, which was governed by a series of dynasties, some of them very short, over a period of only two centuries (922-722). Its capital, moreover, did not remain in a single place during that time. Israel’s instability and impermanence are reflected in the relative paucity of its preserved records. Sometimes, indeed, even the identity of individual Israelite kings was lost from the stories about their reigns. For example, 2 Kings 5 does not tell us the name of the Israelite king to whom the Syrian king sent Naaman in order to be cleansed of his leprosy.

In short, the final and dominating perspective of the Old Testament is that of Judah, not the Northern Kingdom. Judah’s own records, therefore, are far better preserved, Judah’s history being more immediate and proximate to the Bible’s composition. Judah, then, and not northern Israel, represents the true continuity of biblical history, and nowhere is this fact more evident than in Chronicles.

Some of the sources cited in this chapter appear to be very old, as the text itself claims (verse 22). Indeed, the expression “to this day” (verses 41,43) seems to refer, not to the time of the Chronicler, but to the period of these older sources that he is citing word-for-word. This is clear from the reference to the Amalekites, who were long gone by the time of the Chronicler.

With respect to Jabez we observe that his name involves a play on words. His mother, we read, bore him in “pain”—jozeb—so his name was derived from a switching around of letters. We also note that the prayer of Jabez, which the Lord heard, was concerned with the avoidance of future pain (verse 10).

The region of Judah contained the least fertile soil in all the Holy Land. Therefore, it does not surprise us that the tribe of Judah, where men may sometimes have felt absolutely desperate as farmers, produced so many craftsmen (verse 14), linen workers (verse 21), and potters. This last group was in the royal employ (verse 23).

Friday, September 16

Judges 11: By way of preparing us for the establishment of Israel’s monarchy near the end of the eleventh century BC, the Book of Judges ends with a discouraging analysis of the moral climate of the period prior to that of the kings: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25). Since the identical words appear earlier, at the beginning of the account of Micah and the Danites (17:6), we are likely correct in thinking that this melancholy assessment pertains especially to the wild and, frankly, disedifying stories that lie between those two verses: the migration of the Danites and their kidnapping of Micah, the gory account of Gibeah and the Levite’s concubine, Israel’s war with Benjamin, and the abduction of the virgins of Jabesh Gilead.

Earlier accounts in the Book of Judges, however, also indicate a considerable lack of moral direction throughout Israel during that early period. The stories of Jephthah, for example. Did the Bible not explicitly tell us that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah” (Judges 11:29), some of us might really wonder. Even so, quite a number of students of Holy Scripture, over the years, must have shaken their heads in bewilderment at the behavior of Jephthah.

Most conspicuous in this respect, surely, is the story of Jephthah’s sacrifice of his own daughter (11:29–40). Although various commentators have endeavored to “explain away” the obvious meaning of this story, such explanations will not stand up to literary and historical scrutiny. However uncomfortable it makes us, Jephthah really did offer his daughter in sacrifice.

Other writers, perhaps taking their cue from the story of Herod Antipas and John the Baptist (cf. Mark 6:22–29), have spoken of a “rash oath” on the part of Jephthah. Dante, for example, read the text this way (cf. Paradiso 5:64–68).

However, there is nothing in the account of Jephthah to suggest that the vow was incautious on his part, except in its unexpected result. It is portrayed, rather, as his deliberate pledge to sacrifice a precious human life, an oath that Jephthah apparently believed he would fulfill by sacrificing a slave or some other person less significant than his own daughter. The literal meaning of the narrative is very plain.

It is also conspicuous for its lack of moral comment, the author using a restraint markedly in contrast to other places where the Holy Scripture speaks of human sacrifice (cf. 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; Jeremiah 7:31; Micah 6:7). Likewise, the tragedy of Jephthah and his daughter is told in the starkest terms, with emphasis on his own grief and on the daughter’s bravery in accepting her allotted fate and her compassion for the dereliction of her father. There is no doubt or hesitation in the mind of either of them.

Unlike the case of Abraham, God does not intervene to save the situation. Nor would Jephthah be long in following his daughter in death (Judges 12:7). A great sense of irony and doom hangs over this whole story, told as an unmitigated tragedy.

The oath of Jephthah, once he makes it, seems to carry an iron-like inevitability which, from a purely literary perspective, may put one in mind of the Greek tragedies. Indeed, readers have often remarked on the thematic similarity between the stories of Jephthah and Agamemnon, who also sacrificed a daughter in connection with a military operation. Dante (Paradiso 5:64–72), for instance, believed that the stories would always be remembered together.

Arguably more prominent, however, are the ways in which these two accounts stand in contrast. First, unlike Jephthah, Agamemnon is not struck by a misfortune unforeseen; his sacrifice of Iphigeneia is planned and very deliberate. Second, unlike the bloody details in Aeschylus’s portrayal of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the Bible’s narrative is very sober and subdued; there is no direct mention of the sacrifice itself. Indeed, from a strictly dramatic (as distinct from theological) point of view, it may be argued that the sense of inevitable doom in the biblical story of Jephthah is even more “Greek” than the Greek tragedy.

Saturday, September 17

Judges 12: Jephthe is not the first Judge to have trouble with the Ephraemites (verses 1-7). We recall Gideon’s earlier difficulties with them.

Here they threaten to burn down Jephthe’s house, the very house from which he recently saw exit his now mourned daughter. This threat was not a proposition crafted to bring out the gentleman in Jephthe. It showed bad judgment.

It was also bad timing. Not having gone to battle before, the Ephraemites are ready to fight after the fight is over. The Lord had given victory anyway, and the Ephraemites had not been part of the victory. Now they threaten the very man through whom the Lord gave the victory. They are the classical troublemakers, itching for a fight after the fighting is done.

Ever the man peace, by preference, Jephthe endeavored to reason with these fools, as he had earlier attempted with the Ammonites. The Ephraemites, however, under the impulse of an irrational jealousy, refuse to act moderately or listen to reason.

The Jordan River, which divides the Ephraemites from most of Israel, is also the place of a linguistic divide, which will prove to make it, in the present context, a place of judgment. It is as a place of judgment that the Jordan River will later be the site of the preaching of John the Baptist.

Ephraem never learned its lesson. Never. Having resisted Gideon and Jephthe, it would resist David and rebel against Solomon. The Lord would later use the Assyrian army, under Sargon II, to take care of the problem.

And then Jephthe dies (verses 8-15). Why does Holy Scripture tell us that he died? Obviously it is not something that we doubt, so why mention it? Indeed, of some of the Judges we know precious little more than the fact that they died, so why bother with saying so?

The reason is theological. Each of these men was a deliverer of his people. Yet each of them died. Their deliverance, therefore, was temporary. In each case, death got the last word. That is to say, death still ruled. The mortality brought into the world by Adam’s offense still prevailed. Of not a single one of these men was it said that they rose again. In every instance, death was finally victorious over life. That is the real difference between the New Testament and the Old.

It is also the reason why burial sites are mentioned. Tombs are memorials. Men look upon them and are reminded of that supreme humiliation called death. This is why tombs are prominent in the Bible. They stand in eloquent testimony that something is very wrong in human life. Tombstones are the standing reminders of, the perpetual witnesses to, the fall of Adam. This is why, like the Ten Commandments, they are normally made of stone. They are stone because they testify to a hard fact, a fact you can lean on, and it will not give way.

But tombstones are also witnesses to man’s hope. Besides the past to which they refer, they point to the future and the Resurrection.

Sunday, September 18

Judges 13: We now come to Samson, whose great physical strength made him one of the most memorable characters in Holy Scripture. If (as I have argued elsewhere) Jacob is the Semitic equivalent of the classical Odysseus, we may think of Samson as the Semitic parallel to the classical Hercules. In both cases, their stories form a series of “feats.” Indeed, St. Augustine testifies how easy it was for his contemporaries to confuse the two: “. . . there was also the Judge of the Hebrews, Samson, who, because he was so marvelously strong, has been thought to be Hercules”— erat et Hebraeorum judex Samson, qui cum mirabiliter fortis esset, putatus est Hercules (The City of God, 18:19).

Up till now, whenever the Book of Judges spoke of the political oppression of the Israelites, the text invariably went on to say that Israel repented and turned to the Lord. Not here, however. There is no mention of repenting or turning to the Lord. Israel no longer has the ability even to repent. Israel has hit rock bottom, and all human hope is gone (verse 1).

In this chapter we observe that God speaks to the woman first, not Manoah (verses 2-7). Earlier, we recall, God spoke first to Rebekah, not Isaac (Genesis 25).

The message of the angel to Manoah’s wife touches on the biblical theme of the barren woman (cf. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, et aliae). The introduction of this theme continues the note of despair with which the chapter began.

We bear in mind that all three of the “permanent Nazirites” in the Bible (Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist) were born of seemingly barren women. Each of these mothers is a kind of new Eve, receiving God’s promise in the midst of her own sense of inadequacy.

The second visitation (verses 9-10) reinforces the fact that the message was for the woman. The angel ‘deliberately’ appears when Manoah is absent. When questioned by Manoah (verse 12), the angel responds that he has already said all he has to say—to the woman! (verse 13) Manoah is the nervous questioner, but all the needful information had already been conveyed in the first apparition. There is nothing to add. The angel simply repeats what he had said before, and this time with less detail (verse 14).

The angel is not going to explain himself. He was sent to earth to convey a promise and a command, not to give a news flash. He was proclaiming God’s plan of redemption and man’s place in that plan. The salvific initiative is God’s. The proper response to the message is obedience, not curiosity for more details.

Manoah, that is to say, is like the rest of the Israelites. None of them have been serving God and seeking His will. But now that God proposes a plan for deliverance, Manoah is full of questions and curiosity. He wants a more active role in the plan. There isn’t one. God does not need Manoah. God is not interested in Manoah’s questions and curiosities.

Manoah is a curious combination of audacious, inquisitive, controlling, and superstitious. Only such a man will get out of line with an archangel. (Compare Zachary in Luke 1.)

Manoah is also not a quick learner (verses 15-23). Having heard the Lord’s message, he now wants to deal with the Lord’s messenger. Manoah is spiritually insensitive. Indeed, given how dangerous it can be to deal with the biblical God, Manoah is let off pretty easy. He is not struck dead like Uzzah!

But what does Manoah accomplish? At the end of the scene he knows no more than he did at the beginning. God had given as much information as was required. This second apparition of the angel served only to point out Manoah’s limitations more clearly.

Manoah’s attitude was not unique. On the contrary, he was typical of his own culture, which was shallow, audacious, recklessly inquisitive, and deeply superstitious.

In these respects, Manoah’s inherited religious culture was a great deal like our own. Our own culture, too, knows very little of the biblical God. It is highly subjective, pretentious, and insensitive to the presence of holiness. It craves quick and easy answers to deep and impossibly complex questions. It is a generation disposed to wear its shoes at the Burning Bush. And what does God do with such a generation? He sends someone like Samson to knock some heads together.

The name Samson (verse 24) is a derivative of shemesh, meaning “sun.” Indeed, Samson resembles the sun as described in Psalm 19: “as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; he rejoices as a giant to run his course.” The very next chapter will describe Samson as a bridegroom. In fact, after strong man, bridegroom is the description of Samson most easily remembered.

Monday, September 19

Judges 14: It is significant, surely, that all three stories about Samson have to do with women. His addiction to women is Samson’s tragic flaw. It would be easy enough to blame the women, I suppose, but that would be missing the point. The problem is Samson’s.

This first story about Samson (verses 1-4) concerns his projected marriage to a Philistine woman, and we recall that the previous chapter began by describing Israel’s bondage to the Philistines. Samson’s fascination with this Philistine woman, then, symbolizes Israel’s fascination with the surrounding paganism, a fascination that in each case leads to blindness and death.

As a consecrated Nazirite, Samson represents Israel’s higher calling and dedication to the true God in true worship. His failure to live according to that higher calling is symbolic of Israel’s failure.

Samson’s parents mention that Israelites are not supposed to marry pagans, but the inspired author speaks of God’s own plan, even in this deviation from the Law. All of Samson’s career, including his sins, will be under the influence of Divine Providence. Through all of it, God will bring good out of evil.

A strong man, but also a very weak man, Samson is an ironical figure. Ultimately his victory over the Philistines will involve both his weakness and his strength.

The blindness of Samson, however, begins very early in the story. In a sense, indeed, Samson starts out blind, long before the Philistines gouge out his eyes. Through this whole account Samson seems to be walking in the darkness. No matter. God knows where the story is going.

The story of the lion invites a comparison between Samson and David, both of whom fought against Philistines. The latter are symbolized in the lion. David, before he killed the Philistine Goliath, first killed the lion. Samson, before he takes on the Philistines, kills a lion with his bare hands.

This is why the Spirit of the Lord came down on Samson, as the Spirit of the Lord will descend on him in the next chapter. The roaring of the lion will be matched by the shouting of the Philistines. Samson will tear the binding cords apart, just as he tore the lion apart.

The killing of the lion, then, symbolizes Samson’s vocation. Indeed, Samson’s own tribe, Dan, was liked to a lion: “Dan is a lion’s whelp that leaps forth from Bashan” (Deuteronomy 33:22).

Once the lion is dead, the bees build their hive in its carcass. This symbolizes the Holy Land itself, flowing with milk and honey. What is this honey? It is the tasting of God’s Law, which the Psalter describes as sweeter than honey. This honey is the fruit of Samson’s victory over the lion. It is the result of his combat with the lion.

Samson will use this incident to stump the Philistines. That is to say, he perceives the incident to involve a riddle, or mystery. There is a mystery in the lion and the honey that lies beyond the comprehension of his enemies.

The honey in the carcass is symbolic also of Samson himself, who will be victorious in his defeat. Sweetness will come from his death.

Samson’s first contest with the Philistines (verses 12-14) will not be a test of muscles but of brains. He will attempt to outwit them, as Moses had done with the Philistines.

Alas, Samson the riddler does something not very bright. He is deceived by the woman, and this is Samson’s first experience of betrayal. The real treachery, on the other hand, comes from Samson’s own emotions. He loses control. He is betrayed by his feelings. Had he maintained control over his emotions, the woman would never have deceived him. The man who cannot control himself can hope to control nothing else.

The wedding feast ends badly.

Tuesday, September 20

Judges 15: To put the era of Samson into perspective, it is useful to consider him along with two other biblical characters, Samuel and Obed. According to Judges 13:1, Israel was in bondage to the Philistines for forty years, a bondage that ended at the Battle of Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7. In that chapter we learn that the Battle of Mizpah was twenty years after the Battle of Aphek, when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and briefly held it. It was right after the Battle of Aphek, we recall, that Eli died. These facts give us a basic chronology with which to work.

If Samson was born at the beginning of the Philistine enslavement, and if we put his marriage at about age twenty, then the marriage of Samson took place about the time of the Battle of Aphek and the death of Eli.

It was while Samuel was growing up, then, that Samson judged the tribe of Dan, and it was Samson’s weakening of the Philistines that prepared for Saul’s victory over them at the Battle of Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7.

Someone else born during the lifetime of Samson was Obed, the grandfather of David. Obed himself, we recall, was something of a “miracle baby,” in the sense that God used a special providence to arrange for his birth.

During the period of Samson, then, the Lord was already mightily at work to provide for Israel’s future. He did this by sending the world three special babies in rapid succession: Samson, Obed, and Samuel.

Even as Israel was on the point of death and annihilation, the Lord of History was providing three little babies to oversee its renewal and rebirth. Resurrection would come out of death and judgment. Blind Samson and blind Eli, but God sees the future.

With respect to Samson’s own decline, the present chapter encourages us to trace it through a succession of animals: from lions, to foxes, to asses.

Wednesday, September 21

Judges 16: Two facts, recorded in the first three verses of this chapter, prepare for the rest of the drama, in which Samson will be forced to fight to the death.

The first concerns Samson’s strength. Samson is unwilling to press the advantage he has by reason of his superior strength. He toys with the men of Gaza, but ultimately he simply leaves them alone. He will learn that the Philistines are not an enemy to be tolerated.

The second concerns Samson’s weakness, which is his addiction to the company of women. This weakness will lead finally to his downfall.

In all the previous judges we read that So-and-so judged Israel for X number of years, and then, after his death, Israel went a-whoring after false gods. In Samson’s case, however, we are told that he judged Israel for twenty years and then he went a-whoring. That is to say, Samson has become the symbol of Israel itself.

The men of Gaza presumed that they had Samson trapped. The city gates were locked, and they could deal with him in the morning. Samson not only opened the gates, he carried them a great distance, uphill all the way, leaving Gaza open to attack.

The time of Samson’s deliverance and exploit comes at midnight, a time that may remind us of Pharaoh, Moses, Egypt, and the Exodus. There is also a parallel with the opening of the Book of Joshua, where there was also an incident involving the city gates and the residence of whore.

Samson has become careless in his declining years. He has begun to play with danger. He no long flees evil, as God would have us do. He teases his own soul, as it were, even as he teases Delilah and the Philistines. Every time he plays around, however, there is a lurking danger. His attackers are just out of sight, concealed in the inner room. He should remember the Lord’s warning to Cain with respect to temptation: “Sin lieth at the door.” Like Cain, Samson is within the reach of danger, but he continues to act unwisely, trusting too much in himself, as though his own memory no longer contains the record of his past failures. Samson acts blindly, even before the loss of his eyes.

In his whole relationship to Delilah, Samson was playing with death. The one thing Samson never did in his life was to flee. There is a proper time to flee, however. In the hour of temptation, flight is the proper path. Samson was blind, not recognizing the presence of temptation. He treated the whole thing as a game.

In fact, however, Samson was a dead man from the hour he entered the prostitute’s house. He was already walking in blindness. Delilah “annoyed him to death,” says the Sacred Text, in a rich ironical expression. Proverbs 2 says of the adulterous woman that “her house sinks down to death, and her tracks lead to the dead.”

The free man has foolishly handed himself over to bondage. Samson will spend the rest of his miserable existence grinding the grain of a false and foreign god.

The return of Samson’s hair signifies the growth of repentance in his mind. Having lost his eyes, Samson must find a new light in his heart. This discovery will lead him to death unto self.

The Philistines never knew when to quit (verses 21-31). We must not fail to observe here the parallel between the capture of Samson and the capture of the Ark in 1 Samuel 5. In both cases, the stories describe a battle between Israel’s God and the Philistine god, Dagan. In each case Dagan is humiliated by capturing more than he can handle. In both cases his apparent victory is the condition and cause of his defeat. Dagan captures more than he can hold.

Both of these instances are types and foreshadowings of the Christian salvation, in which Death takes captive the Victim on the Cross but cannot hold Him. The apparent victory of Death is the cause and condition of the overthrow of Death. Dagan and Death are the same thing.

Samson is also a type of Christ, of course. Both are sold for silver, both are betrayed with a kiss, both die with a prayer on their lips, both are mocked in their blindness: “And having blindfolded Him, they struck Him on the face and asked Him, saying, ‘Prophesy! Who is the one who struck You?’ And many other things they blasphemously spoke against Him” (Luke 22:64).

Thursday, September 22

Judges 17: The final five chapters of Judges form a sort of appendix, to show how bad things had become just prior to the rise of the monarchy. It was a period of great decline, and these stories serve to explain why Israel at last decided to want a king to rule over them. Israel’s lack of a king is mentioned five times in these five chapters.

Indeed, we perceive a decline even in the quality of the judges themselves. The list had started with the heights represented by Ehud, Deborah, and Gideon, declining gradually to the depths of Jephthah and Samson.

The present chapter begins an account of the failure of the Levites, on whose ministry the spiritual life of Israel depended so much. These were the spiritual guardians of the people. The apostate Levite introduced in this chapter was, in fact, a descendent of Moses!

We also see in this chapter the moral failure of a mother. When we began with the book with Deborah, “a mother in Israel,” we hardly expected things to end so badly.

If we compare this story with the Bible’s earlier idolatry of the Golden Calf, we see a decline from gold to silver. Even the idolatry is cheaper. Everything is declining!

The Levite described here is very typical of a certain kind of clergyman, who fails in his duties as a pastor because he finds it more profitable to become the domestic chaplain of a wealthy family. It happens all the time. We may contrast this Levite with the zealous Phineas.

Luke 8:40-56: The likelihood of chronological precision is particularly strong in the sequence of the storm scene and the episode involving the demons and the pigs. Since the latter event was remembered to have taken place in Gentile territory (Jews not being permitted to tend pigs) on the east bank of the Sea of Galilee, we naturally find it preceded by a boat trip to arrive at the place. Beyond simple historical sequence, however, the two narratives are appropriately juxtaposed for two other reasons.

First, both stories are concerned with the mysterious identity of Jesus in a context symbolic of baptism. First, the marveling Apostles raise the question of Jesus’ identity in reaction to His manifest authority over the storm (Matthew 8:27; Mark 4:41; Luke 8:25), and then the demons address Him as “Son of God” (Matthew 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28): “Who is this? The Son of God.” This combination of query and response, found in all three Synoptics, suggests that the demons themselves are answering the question that the Apostles have just asked: “Who?” The joining of this specific doctrinal question and this specific dogmatic answer, given at the waterside, follows the ancient interrogation of the Sacrament of Baptism (cf. Acts 8:36–37, for example), which in the Church has always been prefaced by an exorcism. To this very day, when someone is presented for baptism, that person is first exorcised of demons, who are explicitly rejected, and is then asked to confess Jesus as Son of God, Savior, and Lord.

Second, the juxtaposition of these two stories suggests an imaginative analogy between the outer, physical storm on the lake and the inner, spiritual storm afflicting a tortured soul.

Both of these storms—the outer and the inner—have a “before and after.” Thus, of the first one we read, “a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat,” and then, “the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:37, 39). Of the second storm we are told, “he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones,” and then, they “saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind” (Mark 5:5, 15). In both cases, it is the encounter with Jesus that produces the calm. In each instance, Jesus’ command is inexorable: “Even the wind and the sea obey Him” and “Send us to the swine” (4:41; 5:12).

Prior to meeting Jesus, this poor demoniac is the very type of the lost soul, his heart and mind fractured and fragmented into thousands of warring parts. (There were six thousand foot soldiers in a Roman legion, besides cavalry. Now, if six thousand demons entered into two thousand pigs, that would mean . . . well, you can do the math.) This meeting with Christ is baptismal; the demons perish in those same deluge waters from which the Church has just been delivered.

Friday, September 23

Judges 18: The Danites migrated north to get away from the Philistines (verses 1-6). These men, we must understand, were quitters, unwilling to fight for their proper inheritance. They sought and accepted the counsel of a man that was not qualified to give counsel. They already knew what they were supposed to do, but they wanted a “second opinion.” The Lord had said, “Go, conquer the land that I will give you,” but they wanted an easy out, after finding that the task was more difficult than they supposed. Consequently, they sought out a teacher who would tell them what they wanted to hear.

This should not surprise us, because we already know that this Levite’s own ministry has already been based on compromise and half-measures. He was not, after all, even authorized for the ministry he has undertaken. He is a false teacher, who pretends to speak for God.

The Bible is full of criticism against false teachers and false prophets. They are chiefly to be recognizes by certain traits:

First, they like to please people. They have no authority beyond their ability to please people. Their authority is based entirely on their popularity.

Second, because they want to please people, they tend to say what people expect and want them to say.

Third, if challenged they appeal to their success.

The situation was described by the Apostle Paul: “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

The Danites, who had insufficient courage to fight the Philistines, are quite prepared to invade a small defenseless people, who lived in an unwalled city (verses 7-21).

The Danites, that is to say, in addition to their other shortcomings, believed in cheap grace. They wanted the blessings of the covenant without the cost of the covenant.

Just as the Danites robbed somebody else’s land, they absconded with somebody else’s gods. Indeed, they wanted only such gods as they could control. Those were gods worthy of their cowardice.

They also discovered a clergyman who was worthy of them, a quisling that would do their bidding and tell them what they wanted to hear. This nameless man was a nobody, a clerical non-entity, a hierarchical cipher. Because the price was right, he went along with them.

Man-made gods, however, tend not to be very loyal to their makers. They are disposed to take on a life of their own. They declare their independence, as it were. Micah learned this the hard way.

The city of Dan became a center of idol-worship. Jeroboam I would eventually erect there one of his two golden calves.

Friday, September 9

Judges 4: The story of Deborah is chiefly preoccupied with two themes: soteriology and the moral life.

First, soteriology. The Deborah story is mainly an account of God’s deliverance of Israel from her oppressing enemies (“And the LORD routed Sisera”—Judges 4:15), and it stands within a lengthy series of such stories united mainly by this common theme. Indeed, if the several traditions within Judges, drawn from quite diverse local settings and tribal traditions, are joined by any element beyond mere chronology, the motif of God’s deliverance is certainly that element. The Book of Judges is essentially a detailed account of God’s repeated deliverance of His people through the agency of charismatic figures prior to the rise of the monarchy. The key to understanding Deborah, surely, is through that general consideration.

With regard to the theme of the moral life, on the other hand, one readily admits that this consideration is of far less importance to the purposes of the Book of Judges. Truly, if the inculcating of moral example ranked very high among those purposes, it would be difficult to explain how some of the juicier stories in Judges ever managed to find their place at all!

In the Deborah account, nonetheless, such a moral interest is certainly present, at least in a minor key, and it is to be discovered chiefly in the accented contrast between Deborah and the timid Barak.

Thus, St. Jerome observed that, if Barak had been a brave and decisive man to begin with, Deborah’s intervention in the battle with Sisera would not have been necessary. Jerome went on to compare her to Mary Magdalene, whom the Gospels likewise show to have been a courageous woman at the time of the Lord’s death and burial, in conspicuous contrast to the intimidated, bewildered, and discouraged Apostles.

Luke 6:20-26: Luke’s list of the dominical Beatitudes is marked by the way they are contrasted to a list of “woes.” This style is very common in Luke, whose message is so often conveyed through contrast: the two thieves on Calvary, the rich man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican praying in the Temple, the Good Samaritan and Israel’s two priestly leaders, the two servants who await their master’s return, the two sons, and so forth.

Saturday, September 10

Luke 6:27-36: During the heyday of Deism, some Christians went to great lengths to demonstrate that the moral requirements of their faith were rational. According to this line of thought, Christ our Lord gave us moral commandments that have a solid foundation in reason, so that, in keeping his commandments, we are behaving rationally.

This line of thinking breaks down completely, however, in the dominical mandate to love our enemies. No amount of moral reasoning would ever have led us to such a conclusion. This command to love our enemies is based entirely on the authority of the person who gave it to us. Forgiveness of offenses and love of enemies makes absolutely no sense apart from him. That is to say, in commanding forgiveness of offenses and love of enemies, Jesus is not teaching a universal moral truth—something true apart from Jesus himself.

It is imperative to consider this matter seriously. Otherwise, there is the distinct temptation to employ forgiveness and love as political devices. Although forgiveness and love of one’s enemies may, in fact, turn out to be useful political tactics, political advantage is not why we love and forgive.

That is to say, it may happen that the man who slaps me on one cheek will be converted when I turn the other cheek, but this is not the reason I turn the other cheek. I do not turn the other cheek in order to score a political point.

If the person who slaps me is brought to repentance by my turning the other cheek, then God be praised. However, we are to love our enemies and forgive the undeserving even when there is not the slightest chance of their conversion. We must do this for one reason only—to be like Jesus, to be transformed in Christ.

If we want to know what forgiveness and love of enemies looks like, we must gaze at the Cross and listen to Jesus pray to his Father for the forgiveness of his murderers. In doing this, Jesus did exactly what he saw the Father do. Jesus loved and forgave the undeserving because he thereby revealed the Father who is rab-chesed, “rich in mercy.”

Sunday, September 11

Judges 6: By his overthrow of the powerful Canaanite kings, Barak had removed a formidable military presence which prevented various tribes of Bedouin nomads, notably the Midianites and their confederates, from ravaging the cultivated fields, orchards, vineyards, and granaries of the Promised Land. Now, with the elimination of that impediment, those marauders could ride in on their camels and pillage the countryside at will.

Fearsome and unscrupulous predators, the Midianites were also cunning, for they habitually scheduled their invasions at harvest times, causing economic disaster, even famine, among the Israelites (cf. Ruth 1:1). Judges 6 describes how the Lord raised up Gideon as a champion to meet this crisis.

Gideon’s task, however, would be more than merely political and military, because the crisis itself was more than political and military. In the Bible’s analysis, the theological root of the problem was Israel’s infidelity to the Covenant of Mount Sinai. Beyond the political aspects of their plight, it was clear to Gideon that God was punishing the Israelites for their involvement in the worship of Canaanite gods, whose chief was Baal. Indeed, Gideon’s own father was a worshipper of Baal. The success of Gideon’s mission would depend, therefore, on his first addressing that theological root of the difficulty.

He did so at once, taking ten men to assist him in the overthrow of the Baal shrine maintained by his father. From that point on, events began to unroll pretty rapidly, for a large invasion force of Midianites and others suddenly arrived from the east, crossed the Jordan River, and camped in the fertile valley of Jezreel. Probably impressed by the sheer boldness of Gideon, manifest in his attack on the worship of Baal, his countrymen spontaneously accepted his leadership to meet the impending attack.

It was clear to everyone, anyway, that Gideon was in charge of the situation, for the Spirit of the Lord took decisive hold of him (Judges 6:34). The Hebrew verb used to describe this transformation is especially striking, for it literally says that the Spirit “clothed itself” (labshah) with Gideon. This expression, sometimes used for the putting on of armor, indicates that Gideon would serve as the instrument of God’s Spirit in the events to come.

The transformation of Gideon was evident to all. Whereas fear had prompted him to use the cover of night in destroying Baal’s shrine (6:27), Gideon now began to act with open, executive boldness, sending out messengers to the other Israelites to seek their assistance in the impending battle.

Next, there was a consultation of the Lord by means of “putting out a fleece” (6:36–40). The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether Gideon’s resolve was truly of God, and not simply a human impulse for glory and vengeance. Just as Israel’s crisis was radically spiritual, its resolution would have to be radically spiritual, so Gideon wanted to be quite certain that the new strength he felt was truly of the Holy Spirit, and not just a burst of what we today call adrenaline. It is most important not to confuse the flesh and the Spirit, especially during a crisis.

Monday September 12

Judges 7: This chapter records the curious exercise by which, at the Lord’s bidding, Gideon reduced the size of his gathered army. Indeed, the reduction was of ridiculous proportions—from thirty-two thousand to three hundred (7:1–8)! If this victory was to be truly of God, it was important that no human being could take credit for it, because the Spirit of God is not to be identified with any human force or fleshly impulse.

There follows the account of Gideon’s victory over the Midianites by the singularly improbable means of the breaking of jars and the blowing of trumpets (7:15–23). This latter action is, of course, reminiscent of Joshua’s overthrow of the walls of Jericho and conveys the identical message; namely, that God, alone victorious over His enemies, alone deserves the praise—a truth to which Gideon himself bore witness by his subsequent refusal to become king (8:22–23). This was a lesson God’s humbled people needed to learn, and their defeat of the Midianites would be in vain if they did not learn it.

Hosea 6:1-11: Hosea calls for a “return.” In the context of his whole message, he has in mind Israel’s desert years, which he thinks of as a sort of honeymoon, following the Lord’s espousals with the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

Hosea hoped for a renewal of that time, a sort of second honeymoon: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, / Will bring her into the wilderness, / And speak comfort to her. / I will give her her vineyards from there, / And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; / She shall sing there, / As in the days of her youth, / As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:14-15).

Hosea knew perfectly well, of course, that “with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). Nonetheless, this prophet chose not to dwell on those sad thoughts. He deliberately turned his attention to the brighter and happier days, prior to the incident of the Golden Calf. To maintain the Lord’s marriage to His people, he knew, it was important to remember the good times and try not to dwell on the bad.

One suspects that Hosea’s decision in this matter was determined by the circumstances of his own vocation. Like the Lord of the Exodus, Hosea, too, had married a whore, a loose woman who would prove consistently unfaithful. Rather than dwell on those many infidelities, however, the prophet determined to fix his mind on the happier days, when the Lord commanded him, not only to marry that woman (1:2), but also to love her (3:1). Like the Lord with unfaithful Israel, Hosea kept those better times in mind, no matter how short they were.

Tuesday, September 13

Luke 7:1-16: As an account of a person beseeching the Lord on behalf of someone else, this story resembles other stories in the Gospels, such as Jairus and the Syro-Phoenician woman praying for their daughters (Mark 5:23; 7:24–30), another man and a centurion pleading for their sons (9:17; John 4:46–53), Martha and Mary of Bethany interceding for their brother (11:3). These are all accounts of petitionary prayer on behalf of loved ones.

Such stories surely had a great influence on the patterns of Christian intercessory prayer. We note, for instance, that the petitions in these accounts are addressed to Jesus. Although in Jesus’ specific teaching about prayer, the normal emphasis was on prayer addressed to the heavenly Father (Luke 11:2) in Jesus’ name (John 15:16), the perspective is different in these particular Gospel stories. One of their singular values is that they unambiguously answer a practical question that might arise among Christians; namely, “If one of your loved ones gets sick, is there some special Trinitarian protocol to follow, or is it all right just to take the problem right to Jesus?”

However, the idea of taking one’s problems “right to Jesus” is surely not to be understood in the sense of forgoing the mediating prayer of others. It is not as though the unique mediation of Jesus our Lord (1 Timothy 2:5) excludes certain saints from mediating on behalf of other saints, and these various Gospel stories are the proof of it. In fact, it is the entire point and the whole business of the foregoing stories to validate such mediation. This is called intercessory prayer.

To see how this works out, let us regard the story of the centurion pleading on behalf of his servant, as Luke tells it:

First, the centurion himself does not approach Jesus directly. He sends some friends who will speak for him. Now this is interesting, because it introduces a second level of mediation. The friends are interceding for the centurion, who is in turn interceding for his servant. We have here the beginnings of a prayer chain, as it were.

Then, when Jesus starts moving towards the centurion’s home, the latter dispatches another group of friends, who will speak the famous words that characterize this story: “I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof” (7:6). It is surely significant that the centurion does not speak these words, deeply personal as they are, to Jesus directly. Others say them to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf. In Luke’s version of the story, in fact, there is no face-to-face encounter of the centurion with Jesus at all. The centurion’s faith is conveyed by those he chooses to intercede for him.

Wednesday, September 14

Numbers 21:4-9: The second part of this chapter (verses 4-9) begins when the Israelites move further east and south to skirt the territory of the uncooperative Edomites. Their recent discouragement leads to the incident of the Brazen Serpent (verses 5-9). The “fiery” (saraph, the root of the word Seraphim, by the way) serpents are so called by the effects of their bite, whether a fever or a painful inflammation.

It is curious that this incident took place near Punon (33:42), where there were large copper mines at the time (Late Bronze Age), and it is certainly worth remarking that the excavations at Lachish, to the west, uncovered a bronze image of a snake dating from exactly this period!

In due course, King Hezekiah was obliged to destroy this copper image, because the Israelites of the 8th century had started to treat it like an idol (2 Kings 18:4).

The true significance of the Brazen Serpent is explained in two later biblical passages.

The first is Wisdom 16:5-1:

For when the fierce rage of beasts came upon these, they were destroyed with the biting of crooked serpents. But thy wrath endured not for ever, but they were troubled for a short time for their correction, having a sign of salvation to put them in remembrance of the commandment of thy law. For he that turned to it, was not healed by that which he saw, but by thee the Savior of all.

The great irony of the serpent is this: The serpent was our tempter. The serpent, then, symbolizes man’s fall. God, as the “Savior of all,” assumes an image associated with sin itself. The brazen serpent, then, became a type or prophecy of the Incarnation, in which God’s Son assumed the likeness of our sinful flesh in order to redeem us. The Jews, then, in looking at the serpent in faith, were in fact, looking forward to Christ, who was symbolized in that image.

The second text is John 3:14-16, our Gospel reading for today.

The expression “be lifted up,” used by our Lord in His discourse with Nicodemus, is repeated halfway through John’s Gospel, again with reference to the Crucifixion: “‘And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (12:32–33).

In addition to being a reference to the Crucifixion, the expression “lifted up” also alludes to a prophecy of God’s Suffering Servant: “Behold, My Servant will prosper; He shall be lifted up and glorified exceedingly” (Isaiah 52:13, LXX). As this text makes clear, the Lord’s lifting up refers not only to His crucifixion but also to His exaltation in glory.

Thursday, September 15

Psalm 74 (Greek and Latin 73): Asaph the Seer, as he contemplates the works of Creation, perceives both conflict and covenant. In the poem that he devotes to this double consideration, he moves back and forth between these two themes, but my analysis of the poem is better served, I believe, by taking them in sequence. I propose to start where Asaph starts: with conflict. The current state of Creation, Asaph perceives, is a constant fight against chaos. He begins his meditation, then, by wondering out loud whether God has cast off—in anger and forever—the sheep of His pasture. The poet returns to this theme repeatedly, distressed that those who hate God are glorified. He is bewildered that the sanctuary is destroyed, and he is scandalized that blasphemy walks the earth unchecked. Chaos prevails without reprieve, with neither sign nor prophet to contradict it. What can the just man do but lament and pray for deliverance? As he laments, however, Asaph reflects that the very act of Creation was a deed of deliverance. Making things from nothing, the Lord did battle.

Nothingness was not neutral. Existence is not natural to nothingness. The creating God, therefore, conquered a force perverse to His purpose. Centuries before parting the Red Sea, He divided the more primitive waters, cleaving the fountains and the flood, cracking open the multiple heads of the sea monster in order to feed, with their meat, the peoples of Ethiopia. Creation, that is to say, was the initial Exodus, a deliverance from bondage, a redemption from the deep dungeon of non-being. The Lord smote that more ancient Pharaoh and fed him to His hungry creatures. Creation, then, was a both moral and metaphysical act. The Lord imposed a moral order in the very act of conferring a metaphysical form. When the Lord took hold on the tohu wabohu and invoked His light over the darkness of the abyss, He wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. He did this in the sense that in the very heart of Creation, its arche or principle, there is a deed of redemption, the world's deliverance from the oppression of primeval chaos. Consequently, it is to that very ancient deliverance that Asaph appeals when He prays God to rise once more in vindication of His cause against the wicked and the daily blasphemer. In making this prayer, the poet explicitly invokes a covenant implicit in the act of Creation. Respice in testamentum Tuum, he pleads, "Look upon Your covenant." He means the covenant which man, when he entered the world on Creation's sixth day, found already in place.

This covenant's preamble had been composed on the second day, when the Lord, with a firmament, divided the waters. The first article of the covenant was composed on the third day when the dry land appeared and began to grow food for those who were to live upon it. This covenant of Creation, necessary for all the subsequent covenants of salvation history, was formulated for the sake of man. It gave initial shape to the congregation that God possessed from of old, the rod of the inheritance that He redeemed, even as He dried up the rivers of Ethan and destroyed the demon of the deep. By reason of this covenant, Asaph reflects, God is our king before the ages. On the fourth day, the Lord inscribed into His covenant the possibility of history, by placing a chronometer into the composition of the universe: "Yours is the day, and Yours the night. You have crafted—Tu fabricatus es—the dawn and the sun." This chronological shape of existence, too, was intended for the sake of man, the only creature able to reflect on the measure and meaning of time. In the covenant of Creation, then, God formed both space and time, consecrating the first by His sanctuary and the second by the liturgical calendar. Of all the evils lamented by Asaph, therefore, the worst are the desecrations of sacred space and sacred time. God's enemies destroyed the first with ax and fire, the second by the suppression of feast days. Man becomes the Lord's enemy in the space dedicated for worship and glorifies himself in the sacred time set aside to glorify God. Both space and time are thus defiled. Rebellious man, by this desecration of his life, returns Creation to the primeval chaos. Living outside the covenant inherent in the structure of the world, he endeavors to undo what God has done.

Friday, September 16

Judges 11: By way of preparing us for the establishment of Israel’s monarchy near the end of the eleventh century BC, the Book of Judges ends with a discouraging analysis of the moral climate of the period prior to that of the kings: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25). Since the identical words appear earlier, at the beginning of the account of Micah and the Danites (17:6), we are likely correct in thinking that this melancholy assessment pertains especially to the wild and, frankly, disedifying stories that lie between those two verses: the migration of the Danites and their kidnapping of Micah, the gory account of Gibeah and the Levite’s concubine, Israel’s war with Benjamin, and the abduction of the virgins of Jabesh Gilead.

Earlier accounts in the Book of Judges, however, also indicate a considerable lack of moral direction throughout Israel during that early period. The stories of Jephthah come to mind. Did the Bible not explicitly tell us that “the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah” (Judges 11:29), some of us might really wonder. Even so, quite a number of students of Holy Scripture, over the years, must have shaken their heads in bewilderment at the behavior of Jephthah.

Most conspicuous in this respect, surely, is the story of Jephthah’s sacrifice of his own daughter (11:29–40). Although various commentators have endeavored to “explain away” the obvious meaning of this story, such explanations will not stand up to literary and historical scrutiny. However uncomfortable it makes us, Jephthah really did offer his daughter in sacrifice.

Other writers, perhaps taking their cue from the story of Herod Antipas and John the Baptist (cf. Mark 6:22–29), have spoken of a “rash oath” on the part of Jephthah. Dante, for example, read the text this way (cf. Paradiso 5:64–68).

However, there is nothing in the account of Jephthah to suggest that the vow was incautious on his part, except in its unexpected result. It is portrayed, rather, as his deliberate pledge to sacrifice a precious human life, an oath that Jephthah apparently believed he would fulfill by sacrificing a slave or some other person less significant than his own daughter. The literal meaning of the narrative is very plain.

It is also conspicuous for its lack of moral comment, the author using a restraint markedly in contrast to other places where the Holy Scripture speaks of human sacrifice (cf. 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; Jeremiah 7:31; Micah 6:7). Likewise, the tragedy of Jephthah and his daughter is told in the starkest terms, with emphasis on his own grief and on the daughter’s bravery in accepting her allotted fate and her compassion for the dereliction of her father. There is no doubt or hesitation in the mind of either of them.

Unlike the case of Abraham, God does not intervene to save the situation. Nor would Jephthah be long in following his daughter in death (Judges 12:7). A great sense of irony and doom hangs over this whole story, told as an unmitigated tragedy.

The oath of Jephthah, once he makes it, seems to carry an iron-like inevitability which, from a purely literary perspective, may put one in mind of the Greek tragedies. Indeed, readers have often remarked on the thematic similarity between the stories of Jephthah and Agamemnon, who also sacrificed a daughter in connection with a military operation. Dante (Paradiso 5:64–72), for instance, believed that the stories would always be remembered together.

Arguably more prominent, however, are the ways in which these two accounts stand in contrast. First, unlike Jephthah, Agamemnon is not struck by a misfortune unforeseen; his sacrifice of Iphigeneia is planned and very deliberate. Second, unlike the bloody details in Aeschylus’s portrayal of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the Bible’s narrative is very sober and subdued; there is no direct mention of the sacrifice itself. Indeed, from a strictly dramatic (as distinct from theological) point of view, it may be argued that the sense of inevitable doom in the biblical story of Jephthah is even more “Greek” than the Greek tragedy.

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 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.”

Saturday, September 3

Joshua 22: After wandering in the Sinai and Negev deserts for most of a generation, the people of Israel had now arrived at a place called Shittim, just east of the Jordan River and only about ten miles from Jericho. Then came a new crisis.

It was a moral crisis, involving some Israelite men of slack discipline with certain Moabite women of relaxed virtue. Fornication was the problem, that term understood both literally and in the figurative sense of their falling prey to the idolatrous worship of the Moabite god, Baal of Peor (Numbers 25:1-3).

The seduction of these Israelites, moreover, was not a mere boy-meets-girl happenstance. It resulted, rather, from a deliberate machination on the part of the Moabites, plotting to weaken the military resolve and moral will of the Israelites. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the scheme had been concocted in the mind of the religious philosopher Balaam, who was at that time in the service of the Moabite king (cf. Revelation 2:14).

Seeing it happen, the young priest Phineas discerned the peril of the hour, for an earlier experience had taught him the hazards of moral compromise. If he was sure of anything at all, Phineas was certain that God’s punishment of sin was invariably decisive and might very well be swift.

Phineas had been hardly more than a child when he saw the divine retribution visited on two of his priestly uncles, Nadab and Abihu, for a single offense in the service of God. Nor had those been insignificant men who were thus punished. On the contrary, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron and his heirs in the priesthood, were men of stature and respect among the people. They had accompanied Moses, their very uncle, as he began his climb of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:1), and had partly shared in his vision of the divine glory (24:9-10). Nonetheless, Nadab and Abihu had been instantly struck dead, devoured by a fire from the divine presence for just one moral lapse (Leviticus 10:1-3). The memory of that swift retribution had seared itself into the memory of young Phineas. He knew by experience that Israel’s Lord was a morally serious God, not some feather of a deity to be brushed away at one’s convenience.

At the time of the Moabite crisis, then, the reaction of Phineas was utterly decisive and equally swift. Responding to the Lord’s decree to punish the offenders (Numbers 25:4-6), he resolutely took the matter in hand and thus put an end to the divine wrath already plaguing the people (25:7-15). For his part in averting the evil, Phineas came to enjoy great respect in Israel. Not long afterwards, for instance, he was the priest chosen to accompany the army advancing against the Midianites (Numbers 31:6). After the Conquest, Phineas inherited land among the Ephraemites (cf. Joshua 24:33) and continued to be consulted by Israel, especially in times of crisis (cf. Judges 20:28). He would be remembered throughout the rest of biblical history, furthermore, as the very model of zeal in God’s service (cf. Psalms 105 [106]:30; 1 Chronicles 9:20; Sirach 45:23).

If we knew only of Phineas's decisive action at the time of the Moabite trouble, it might be easy to think of him solely as an energetic, resolute, executive sort of man, but this would be an incomplete perspective. Phineas was also a thoughtful person, able to consider a delicate question in its fully nuanced complexities.

This latter trait of his character was revealed in the crisis later created by the construction of an altar to the east of the Jordan River by the Israelites who lived in that region (Joshua 22:10). Regarded as a rival altar outside of the strict confines of the Holy Land, this construction proved so provocative to the rest of Israel that there arose the real danger of civil war (22:12). Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the decision was made to establish an eleven-member committee of inquiry to investigate the matter. Phineas was the head of that committee (22:13-14).

Probing into the construction of that altar, Phineas’s committee concluded that it was not intended to be used as such, but would serve merely as a monument to remind all the Israelites of their solidarity in the worship of their one God. Civil war was thus averted, and Phineas, once so swift unto bloodshed, was thus in large measure responsible for preventing it (22:21-34).

Sunday, September 4

Luke 5:17-26: In all three Synoptic Gospels, the healing of the paralytic (Matthew 9:1–8; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26) is followed immediately by the calling of the tax collector and the Lord’s eating with sinners (Matthew 9:9–13; Mark 2:13–17; Luke 5:27–32).

This common sequence of the two narratives probably reflects an early preaching pattern, explained by the fact that both stories deal with the same theme: Jesus’ relationship to sin and sinners. The paralytic was healed, after all, “that you may know that the Son of Man has power [authority] on earth to forgive sins,” and the point of the second story is that “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Thus, the most significant thing about the paralytic is not his paralysis, but his “sins,” so this is what Jesus addresses first. Indeed, even when He heals the paralysis, Jesus does so in order to demonstrate His authority over the man’s sins. In what He does in this scene, then, Jesus inserts Himself between God and the man, speaking to the man with God’s authority. It is not without significance that all three versions of the story also include the detail that Jesus could, like God, read His accusers’ inner thoughts.

In each of the three Synoptic Gospels, moreover, the Lord’s claim to authority over sin here becomes the first occasion on which His enemies accuse Him of blasphemy. This is significant, too, because at His judicial process before the Sanhedrin, blasphemy will be the crime of which He is accused. In a sense, then, Jesus’ trial begins with His healing of the paralytic, because even His enemies recognize this scene as the occasion on which He forcefully claims divine authority.

This more dramatic aspect of the account is perhaps clearest in the versions of Mark and Luke, where it is the first of five conflict stories that cast an ominous cloud over Jesus’ activity through the rest of those Gospels (Mark 2:1—3:5; Luke 5:17—6:11).

In all three Synoptic Gospels, the paralytic becomes the “type” of the sinner. He is helpless, carried by others because he cannot carry himself. He is utterly in need of mercy above all things. Indeed, even his forgiveness and his cure are not credited to his own faith. All three accounts mention that the Lord sees the faith, not of the paralytic, but of the men who support him.

Monday, September 5

Luke 5:17-32: It is much more significant, however, that all three Synoptic Gospels treat the call of the tax collector as a centerpiece bracketed between two stories about sinners: the paralytic being forgiven his sins and Jesus having dinner with notorious sinners. Thus set between these two events, the call of the tax collector represents above all the evangelical summons to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

The dialogue connected with the meal at his house illustrates this meaning of the tax collector’s call. Jesus, criticized for his association with sinners on this occasion, explains that “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” In thus addressing sin through the metaphor of sickness, the Lord strikes again the note recently sounded by His healing the paralytic as proof of His authority to forgive the man’s sins.

Furthermore, summoning sinners to repentance and salvation is not just one of the things Jesus happens to do. There is a sense in which this is the defining thing that Jesus does, the very reason He came into this world. This truth is affirmed at the meal at the tax collector’s house, where He proclaims, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Luke 5:32; cf. Matthew 9:13; Mark 2:17). Again, it is in the context of the call of yet another tax collector, Zacchaeus, that Jesus says, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Christ can call sinners, only because He can really do something about their sins. And He can forgive their sins precisely because He has paid the price of those sins. Therefore, Jesus’ forgiveness of sins is theologically inseparable from His dying for sinners. Correct repentance, then, brings the sinner to the foot of the Cross.

As the initial effect of grace, repentance is not of an order different from holiness. This needs emphatically to be said, because a fallacious theory that God’s act by which we are justified remains external to us. This theory effectively separates repentance from holiness—as though God would declare a man righteous without actually making him righteous, pronounce him to be just without causing him to be a “saint,” and convert him but without giving him a new heart. Against this theory, the Bible indicates that the conversion of repentance is not just an act of God; it is also an act of man’s free will under the accepted influence of God’s grace. Man’s heart, his interior, is altered by repentance.

Tuesday, September 6

Luke 5:33-39: Whereas the Lord’s enemies had earlier complained of His eating with sinners, in this story they are bothered by the fact that His disciples are failing to keep the Jewish weekly fast days.

In response, Jesus does not denigrate the importance of fasting but directs the structure of the fasting observance to His own person, explaining that His presence with the disciples is sufficient warrant for their not observing the fast. Then, aware what His enemies are even now plotting against Him, He foretells His coming death, “when the Bridegroom will be taken away.” Then, says Jesus, fasting will be appropriate. “They will fast in those days.” The absolution of the apostles from the duty of fasting pertained only to the period prior to the Lord's Passion.

Christians are given no discretion on whether or not to fast. It is when you fast, not if you fast, and the early Christian would have been astounded at any notion that fasting was not required of him. Indeed, the Christian was certain he was expected to fast no less frequently than did the devout Jew.

The Jew at that time, as we know, fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. These two days, equally distant from the Sabbath, marked the first and last days of the forty-days fast of Moses on Mount Sinai. The twice weekly fast, therefore, served to honor the Torah, on which all of Jewish piety was based.

The early Christians, on the other hand, not to be mistaken for Jews, but certainly determined to fast no less often, the changed those days to Wednesday, the day the Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver, and Friday, the day that the Bridegroom was taken away. This discipline was common and in place well before the year 100 and possibly several decades earlier. Unlike the weekly fast days of the Jews, therefore, the two Christian fast days were concentrated on the Passion and Death of Christ. Their observance was a way of honoring the mystery of the Cross.

Psalm 45 (Greek and Latin 44): In today’s reading from Luke, Jesus refers to himself as the Bridegroom. This image of the Messiah comes from several places in the Hebrew Scriptures, among which Psalm 5 (assigned for Morning Prayer today) is notable.

This psalm anticipates and descriptively foretells that future royal wedding. Its lines describe the “bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 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.

Wednesday, September 7

Luke 6:1-11: Walking with Jesus through a field of standing grain on a Sabbath day, the disciples reach out and pick ripe kernels from the stalks that have grown up to about the level of their hands. They rub the kernels between their fingers to remove the residual chaff and begin eating them. Most of us would probably not think of such activity as “harvesting a crop,” but to the scrupulous, supercilious minds of Jesus’ enemies it amounts to nothing less than a violation of the Sabbath by “laboring.” As in the previous story Jesus assessed the value of fasting solely in terms of His own identity (“Bridegroom”), in the present account He does the same with respect to the Sabbath (“Lord of the Sabbath”). In both cases He is once again teaching “as one having authority.”

Each of these recent conflict stories is reducible to a Christological content; each serves to illustrate some property or aspect of Jesus’ identity. Through them all the animosity of the Lord’s enemies is mounting, as the self-assured claims of Jesus progressively challenge the religious hold of His opponents. They feel threatened for much the same reasons that the demons feel threatened. Furthermore, it may even appear that the Lord is “rubbing it in”; a distinct measure of sarcasm attends His question to the scribal authorities, “Have you never read . . .?”

In all His dealings with these men, we never find Jesus conciliatory or even subtle; He is invariably blunt and uncompromising. After all, He reads their hearts.

The second story in today’s reading from Luke 6 records the incident most exasperating to Jesus’ enemies. Now that He already declared Himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” they are watching Him closely as He enters the synagogue. In the earlier narrative of Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath, there had been a very dramatic expulsion of demonic forces from a possessed man. On that occasion, however, no one had thought to raise an objection to any alleged violation of the Sabbath. Perhaps everyone had simply been too astounded even to consider the question.

All is different now. Jesus has already asserted His supreme authority, not only in regard to the Jewish calendar (fast days and the Sabbath), but even to sin itself. In this story everything has to do with Jesus’ authority. His enemies have come to accuse Him. But in the end it is Jesus who does the accusing, and with manifest anger. He heals the man with the withered hand, but without any outward word or gesture. That is to say, He cannot be accused of violating the Sabbath! The crippled man simply extends his hand and is instantly healed. Although Jesus gives them no evidence by which they can accuse Him, the critics are not deterred. They promptly conspire to kill Him.

Thursday, September 8

Judges 3: This chapter recounts the exploits of Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar. That of Ehud is arguably the most unforgettable among them. The present story is certainly one of the most violent, dramatic, and memorable narratives in all of Holy Scripture. Ehud was the Benjaminite leader charged to carry Israel’s tribute to Moab’s big, fat king, Eglon, under whom Israel was oppressed for eighteen years.

Raised up by God, Ehud resolved to set the Israelites free, and Judges 3 tells how he did it. His first step was to procure what the King James Bible calls a “dagger.” This blade, however, specifically identified as double-edged, was longer than most daggers; its length was a cubit, the distance between a man’s elbow and the tip of his little finger. Ehud concealed this cumbersome weapon under his clothing, attached along his right thigh, for he was, you see, a left-handed man. (This detail is ironic, because Ehud belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, a name meaning “son of my right hand.”) Why, then, a weapon so large and therefore easier to detect? Ehud had a plan.

After dismissing his delegation, which had delivered the annual tribute to the Moabites, Ehud asked to speak to Eglon in private, mentioning that he had a message from God for the king. The private message from God is, of course, “die, fool!”

Eglon suspected nothing amiss; after all, the tribute had just been paid, and Ehud’s retinue had been sent away, nor did the man appear to be armed. The unsuspecting Eglon, therefore, took his visitor to the privacy of a cool apartment on his roof. When they were alone, Ehud’s left hand quickly reached under the garment covering his right leg and drew forth the long twin-edged blade.

Suddenly, as hard as he could, he rammed it into the immense stomach of Eglon. He drove the point so forcefully that the entire length of the blade became buried in Eglon’s copious flesh. Indeed, the king’s flab oozed out around the haft and covered it, so that the weapon could not be extracted.

Then, taking the king’s key and locking the door to the apartment, Ehud went out to rally the troops that he had placed on the road to Moab. Eglon’s astonished courtiers had barely discovered his corpse when Ehud returned with an army and took the Moabites by surprise at the fords of the Jordan. There he “killed about ten thousand men of Moab, all stout men of valor; not a man escaped” (Judges 3:29). Thus did Ehud deliver Israel from the oppressor.

Whom does Ehud represent? Surely, Christ our Savior, from whose mouth issues the sharp, two-edged sword of His holy Word (Revelation 19:15), in whose hand are the keys that lock so that no man may open (20:1; 3:7), whose forces are rallied at the Baptismal fords of the Jordan, and whose Israelites are delivered from their oppressor.

Friday, September 9

Judges 4: The story of Deborah is chiefly preoccupied with two themes: soteriology and the moral life.

First, soteriology. The Deborah story is mainly an account of God’s deliverance of Israel from her oppressing enemies (“And the LORD routed Sisera”—Judges 4:15), and it stands within a lengthy series of such stories united mainly by this common theme. Indeed, if the several traditions within Judges, drawn from quite diverse local settings and tribal traditions, are joined by any element beyond mere chronology, the motif of God’s deliverance is certainly that element. The Book of Judges is essentially a detailed account of God’s repeated deliverance of His people through the agency of charismatic figures prior to the rise of the monarchy. The key to understanding Deborah, surely, is through that general consideration.

With regard to the theme of the moral life, on the other hand, one readily admits that this consideration is of far less importance to the purposes of the Book of Judges. Truly, if the inculcating of moral example ranked very high among those purposes, it would be difficult to explain how some of the juicier stories in Judges ever managed to find their place at all!

In the Deborah account, nonetheless, such a moral interest is certainly present, at least in a minor key, and it is to be discovered chiefly in the accented contrast between Deborah and the timid Barak.

Thus, St. Jerome observed that, if Barak had been a brave and decisive man to begin with, Deborah’s intervention in the battle with Sisera would not have been necessary. Jerome went on to compare her to Mary Magdalene, whom the Gospels likewise show to have been a courageous woman at the time of the Lord’s death and burial, in conspicuous contrast to the intimidated, bewildered, and discouraged Apostles.

Luke 6:20-26: Luke’s list of the dominical Beatitudes is marked by the way they are contrasted to a list of “woes.” This style is very common in Luke, whose message is so often conveyed through contrast: the two thieves on Calvary, the rich man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican praying in the Temple, the Good Samaritan and Israel’s two priestly leaders, the two servants who await their master’s return, the two sons, and so forth.