Friday, August 9
2 Peter 3:1-18: Peter begins this chapter with an oblique reference to his earlier epistle. In verse 2, read “your apostles” instead of “us apostles.” The singular significance of this verse is its juxtaposition of the New Testament apostles with the Old Testament prophets, an important step in recognizing the apostolic writings as inspired Holy Scripture. In 3:16, indeed, Peter does give such recognition to the letters of the apostle Paul. Both groups of men, Peter says, are being disregarded by those who scoff at the doctrine of the Lord’s return (verse 4).
Since so many of the earliest Christians were of the opinion that the Lord would return during their own lifetime, His not doing so became for some an excuse for unbelief. It was only an excuse, however, not a justification, and Peter judged such unbelief to be prompted, not by what are called “sincere intellectual difficulties,” but by the lustful desires of those who wanted an excuse for unbelief (verse 3). Later in the century, Clement of Rome would address that same problem when he wrote to the Corinthians (23.3).
That heresy, which asserted that the “integrity” of the natural order precluded its being invaded from without by divine influences, rather curiously resembles the modern ideology of Naturalism, with which contemporary apologists must contend.
Such a misinterpretation of the world, Peter wrote, is willful (verse 5); it is deliberately chosen, not on the basis of evidence, but in order to loose those who hold it from accounting to a final judgment by God. That misinterpretation was also based, Peter went on to say, on a misunderstanding of what is meant by “last times.” This designation “last” is qualitative, not quantitative. It is not concerned with “how much,” but “of what sort.” The “last times” are not quantified; their limit is not known to us, but that limit is irrelevant to their quality. The last times are always the last times, no matter how long they last. Since the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are always within the eleventh hour, and this designation means only that it is the hour before the twelfth; it can last as long as God intends it to.
Since only God knows the length of the eleventh hour, the Lord’s return will confound all human calculations of its timing. The simile of the thief in the night, for instance, must not be taken literally, because it is never nighttime everywhere at the same time, and the Bible contains no hint that the Lord will return to the earth by following the sequence of its appointed time zones!
This comparison with the thief’s nocturnal entrance was doubtless common among the early Christians (Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; Revelation 3:3; 16:5). It will all happen with a “rush,” this onomatopoeia corresponding to the Greek verb rhoizedon in verse 10. Watchfulness, therefore, and a holy life are the proper responses to our true situation in this world (verse 11; Matthew 24:42-51; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11). Both heaven and earth will be renewed (verse 13; Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1; cf. Romans 8:19-22).
The expression “without spot and without blame” in verse 14 (aspiloi kai amometoi) contains the negative forms of the adjectives describing the false teachers in 2: 13 (spiloi kai momoi). Peter’s reference to Paul indicates his familiarity with more than one Pauline epistle and probably suggests that Paul’s letters were already being gathered into collections and copied. Peter likewise testifies to the difficulties attendant on the understanding of Paul’s message. Christian history bears a similar witness, alas, in the modern divisions that have arisen among Christians over their differing interpretations of Paul. Paul himself was aware, even then, that some Christians were distorting his thought (Romans 3:8).
Saturday, August 10
First Kings 2: This chapter begins with David’s exhortation to Solomon, which includes some unsettled “family business” with respect to Joab and Shimei. (The former’s recent complicity in Adonijah’s plot seems to have settled David’s mind on this point.)
David’s death in 961 B.C. is told with the briefest notice.
In the previous chapter, the reader learned that David’s most recent wife, Abishag, is still a virgin. Adonijah, who has evidently taken a shine to the young lady, wants to marry her. Foolishly, he asks Bathsheba to intervene with Solomon on his behalf.
Bathsheba spots her chance; she has no doubt about how Solomon will respond to this request that David’s young “widow” be given in marriage to David’s own son. So she makes the request on his behalf, and that is the end of poor Adonijah.
Bathsheba is now the Queen Mother, the Gebirah. The true place of the Queen Mother in Holy Scripture is amply illustrated by comparing two scenes, in which Bathsheba is pictured as entering the throne room to speak to the king. In the first of these she is described as coming into the presence of her husband, King David: “And Bathsheba bowed and did homage to the king” (1:16). In the second instance, she comes into the presence of Solomon, her son: “And the king rose up to meet her and bowed down to her, and sat down on his throne and had a throne set for the king’s mother; so she sat at his right hand” (2:19). A simple comparison of these texts indicates clearly the deference and honor with which a Davidic king expects his mother to be treated. If the king bows down before her, how much more his subjects?
(It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Bible-believing Christians cultivate the deepest, most affectionate reverence for her of whose Son the angel said: “The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David” [Luke 1:32]. She has from the beginning been invoked as “the mother of my Lord” [1:43], and in their time of need believers have ever sought her intercession with her Son [John 2:1–11]. Among Christians there can be no doubt that in the kingdom of heaven she reigns as Queen and sovereign Lady in glory in the presence of great David’s greater Son.)
The chapter includes Solomon’s fulfillment of David’s instructions relative to Joab and Shimei. Since the former has recently joined an attempted coup in the realm, he is regarded as a continuing threat to Solomon’s throne. His life is forfeit immediately, notwithstanding his attempt to gain asylum in the sanctuary.
Shimei, who does not represent an immediate threat, is treated more leniently, until he provokes Solomon further. Then he is executed, as well.
Sunday, August 11
First Kings 3: Certain unpleasant executions out of the way, Solomon turns his mind to governing.
First mentioned is his marriage to an Egyptian princess (verses 1-2), which forestalls any problems from that part of the world. The wedding is expensive; to supply the bride’s dowry, her father–something of a cheapskate, it appears—destroys a Philistine city (cf. 9:16).
This unnamed pharaoh reigns toward the end of the XXIst Dynasty. It will be replaced by the much stronger XXIInd Dynasty toward the end of Solomon’s time on the throne.
Next comes the account of Solomon’s prayer and mystic dream at Gibeon (verses 3-15), a city and shrine (cf. First Chronicles 16:39) six miles northwest of Jerusalem. (Josephus speaks of two such dreams of Solomon [Antiquities 8.4.6].) Egyptologists mention similar stories of dream-revelations made to various pharaohs, and Holy Scripture gives other examples (Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, et alii). Especially pertinent are the dreams of the pharaoh in the Joseph story and of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel; these, like Solomon’s, are “royal dreams.”
The wisdom sought by Solomon is, literally translated, “a hearing heart to judge.” That is to say, it is a practical wisdom, which makes prudent decisions in governing and deciding both policies and cases. A first example of the latter is the famous episode of the two women and the one living baby in verses 16-28.
Solomon’s wisdom, the answer to his prayer, causes him to stand at the beginning of Israel’s Wisdom Literature. He is credited with the earliest collection of Wisdom sayings that came to fullness in the Book of Proverbs.
Prayer is the first step in the attainment of Wisdom: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). In the scene at Gibeon, Solomon may be regarded as the living embodiment of the quest described in the Book of Proverbs:
Yes, if you cry out for discernment, / ?And lift up your voice for understanding, / If you seek her as silver,? / And search for her as for hidden treasures; / Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,? / And find the knowledge of God. / For the Lord gives wisdom;? / From His mouth come knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 2:3-6).
Monday, August 12
First Kings 4: In this chapter the reader discerns a variety of “voices” in the description of Solomon’s reign. There is a voice of satisfaction, for example, in the description of the king’s wisdom in verses 29-34. There is also, however, a hint of dissatisfaction in the voice in several other verses that speak of the imposition of compelled labor and services on the people (cf. also 5:13-18).
There are two major differences between the political apparatus of the reigns of David and Solomon. First, that of Solomon is more complex; there are new offices, which reflect the more extensive commercial and geopolitical activities of a new order.
Second, the government of Solomon’s reign is more centralized. Whereas David had relied on the traditional tribal arrangement, Solomon imposes geographical divisions less reliant on tribal borders, and over the sundry territories established by these divisions he appoints royal representatives answerable to the central government at Jerusalem. Thus, the largely amphictyonic kingdom governed by David is replaced by a highly unified political system. That is to say, Solomon replaces a political tradition with a political theory.
Thus, taxes in support of the monarch—and the monarch’s growing interest in public works—are no longer collected from the tribes; they are paid to tax collectors who operate outside of tribal authority and control. Extensive levies of goods and services—forced labor!—are directly laid on the population by district governors appointed from Jerusalem. The function of these governors is largely fiscal.
Solomon makes a slight effort to disguise this new political format by maintaining a division of the kingdom into twelve regions. Since this was the traditional number of Israel’s tribes, the king hopes, perhaps. no one will notice the new arrangement! Any careful observer, however, may observe that the new territorial precincts do not coincide with the traditional tribal boundaries. In addition, it is instructive to observe that two of these governors are sons-in-law to the king (verses 11 and 15).
In his imposition of forced labor on the population, particularly with respect to his extensive building projects, Solomon resembles no one so much as the pharaoh encountered by Moses in the Book of Exodus. And the reader recalls Samuel’s prophecy that such an imposition would be the lot of Israel if ever they established a monarchy.
Because of the feeble political systems at either end of the Fertile Crescent (Egypt and Babylon), Solomon enjoyed the freedom to extend his influence, largely through commerce, eastward toward the Euphrates and southward through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. His father, David, had subdued all the kingdoms in the region that might otherwise have challenged Solomon’s hegemony over much of the Fertile Crescent.
Monday, August 13
First Kings 5: We come now to several chapters descriptive of the Solomonic prosperity of Israel in the mid-tenth century. David, Solomon’s father, taking advantage of the decline of Babylon at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent and the geopolitical vacuum created by the lackluster Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt at its western end, had carved out a small empire for himself, subduing the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians, and making mercantile arrangements with the seagoing Phoenicians to the north.
To all of this fortune Solomon falls heir when David dies in 961. It is possible that in all of history Solomon has no equal in his ability to read both maps and ledgers. His father having incorporated the Edomites to the south, Solomon controls the port and Gulf of Aqaba (Elath) and the Red Sea. This extensive waterway affords access to ports along the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula, the east of Africa, and, through the Indian Ocean, a thousand other places. To the north Israel is bordered by the Phoenicians, whose shipping merchants are delivering and picking up cargo at ports all around the Mediterranean basin.
Looking at this picture, Solomon decides to go into business, serving as the middleman between the Phoenician markets in the Mediterranean and the sundry mercantile opportunities around the Red Sea. It proves to be a time of booming material affluence.
Besides the favorable geopolitical situation, several other recent developments aid the prosperity attendant on Solomon’s reign: First is the beginning of the Iron Age in that part of the world, with its greatly improved axes, hoes, scythes, plowshares, and other tools and farming implements, leading to less labor and increased productivity.
Second is the greater use of calcium oxide to seal cisterns and wells allowing for improved water conservation and, in turn, greatly increasing agricultural yields.
Third is the adoption of a common alphabet in the eastern Mediterranean world, permitting more efficient bookkeeping, uniform bills of lading, invoices, and other forms of written communication essential to commerce.
Fourth is the greater use of the camel. This animal, already important in the economy of the Fertile Crescent, serves as Solomon’s chief vehicle of commerce along the overland trade routes extending north-south between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon. Solomon’s reign is, therefore, a period of enormous prosperity, in describing which the Bible speaks repeatedly of gold.
Besides being a time of economic prosperity, however, Solomon’s reign is also a period of several attendant social changes that will prove significant, though not invariably beneficent, as time goes on. First, the prosperity itself, especially the agricultural productivity, enhances the people’s diet, lengthening the average life expectancy, lowering the age of puberty and menarche, and thus increasing the population.
Second, the need for labor in the commercial sector draws many farmers from the land to enjoy the less onerous life of merchants, caravan drivers, and so forth.
Third, this means fewer and larger farms, now rendered more productive by better tools and a greater water supply. At the same time, with fewer farms, fewer people are now able to control the food market—and prices. These higher prices, along with the lower wages inevitably prompted by the swelling of the urban labor force, become subjects on which the prophets of the coming centuries will venture a remark or two, consistently negative.
Fourth, the centralization of commerce under Solomon’s political control leads to higher taxes and a breakdown of local tribal loyalties that have served, up to this point, to provide traditional stability to the people.
Fifth, and related to the higher taxes, among the northern tribes there will be a growing discontent with the south, especially the royal and priestly establishment at Jerusalem. The better farmland and the bulk of the nation’s wealth are found in the north; yet the king and his capital are in the south, at Jerusalem.
Finally, Solomon’s economic and political ties with Phoenicia eventually lead to the deep religious and moral infidelities symbolically associated with the most famous of these Phoenicians, a lady named Jezebel.
The present chapter makes clear the mutual dependence of Israel and Phoenicia. Until the reign of David, the Philistines (known in Egyptian sources as “the sea peoples”) were able sharply to curtail the mercantile enterprises of the Phoenicians. Once David quelled the Philistines, however, Phoenician trade regained its strength in the eastern Mediterranean. As long as Israel controls the coasts of the Levant, the Phoenicians are free to rule the seas.
Moreover, Israel is the necessary link between Phoenicia and the further markets south of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. That is to say, the Phoenicians need Israel and are glad to be part of a large mercantile alliance that has Solomon at its center.
A pact between the Phoenician king, Hiram, and King Solomon makes possible the construction of the temple at Jerusalem. The Phoenicians have the building materials and the engineering talent Solomon needs for this project, and Solomon has the money to pay for it.
Wednesday, August 14
First Kings 6: The account of the temple’s construction, which occupies the next two chapters, includes a section that speaks of other building projects: Solomon’s palace, the judgment hall (the particularly important “hall of pillars,” where the king also oversees forensic cases), and a palace for the daughter of pharaoh, the king’s chief wife.
The construction of the temple begins in April of 957 B.C., identified as the 480th year after the Exodus (verse 1). In its general layout, Solomon’s temple consists of two inner rooms that form the sanctuary, and a vestibule, or porch. On three sides, it is surrounded by auxiliary chambers. The central room of the structure is the sanctuary, or holy place.
The farther, inner room, cubic in shape, is the most holy place (“holy of holies”), the throne room of God. It is overlaid with gold (verse 20). Within it are placed two images of angelic guardians, which are called the Cherubim. These are winged figures resembling the Egyptian sphinx. From what we know of other such figures archeology has uncovered in the region, they often serve as the supporting parts of a throne. Hence, they apparently represent the throne of God, who “thrones upon the Cherubim.” These figures are about fifteen feet high; their wings spread from wall to wall on a north-south axis.
In front of this inner sanctuary stands an altar of cedar wood, overlaid with gold. Although the temple is constructed of stone, no stone is visible within it, being overlaid with paneling of cedar wood, on which there are intricate carvings of gourds and open flowers.
Corresponding to the seven days of Creation, the temple’s construction requires seven years. In this respect it is instructive to note how often these two chapters use the verb “finish” (kalah—6:9,14,38; 7:1,40), the very word used in Genesis 2:1 to speak of the completion of God’s creative work.
The temple has other features associated with the original garden in which the first man was placed and over which he was appointed as caretaker and vice-regent. These features include the images of vegetation and animals on the interior wooden paneling (verses 14-18).
A parallel account in Second Chronicles 3 specifies that the temple is constructed on Mount Moriah, the scene where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
Thursday, August 15
First Kings 7: The material in this chapter is disparate, with interruptions in the narrative of the temple’s construction.
First, there are eight verses that speak of the two royal palaces (for the king and his chief consort) and the hall of judgment.
As the Lord’s son (verse 14), Solomon wants his own house close to the Lord’s. This physical proximity of the two “dwellings” is sustained throughout the successive generations of monarchy, when the precincts of the temple are extended to the royal palace and other official buildings of the realm. That is to say, the Lord’s own kingship over the people—the principle that made them, in fact, His own people—includes the king as the Lord’s viceroy.
The political effect of this inclusion is two-fold. It enhances the legitimacy of the royal house, established by the Lord’s covenant with David, and it serves as a reminder to the king that his occupation of the throne is a matter of stewardship; he is answerable to the judgment of the One who inaugurated that covenant.
Second, there is a description of the masonry (verses 9-12) in the temple. Before the narrator goes on to describe the metal work in the temple, however, he wants to speak of the chief artisan of this work.
Third, he introduces a second Hiram (called Huram in Chronicles), an expert sheet metal worker, who is probably named after Solomon’s collaborator, the king of Tyre. His mother is described as the “widow of the tribe of Naphtali.” This perhaps means she is the widow of a member the tribe of Naphtali, since we are elsewhere told that the lady herself is a Danite (Second Chronicles 2:14). (Josephus claims that this artisan is a full-blooded Israelite—cf. Antiquities 8.3.4). In respect to this Hiram, the reader recalls that Moses, in the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, made use of another charismatic artist, Bezalel (cf. Exodus 31:2-5).
Fourth, the story proceeds to tell of Hiram’s work on the brazen pillars (verses 15-22), the molten sea (verses 23-26), the various stands and lavers (verses 26-29), and the other utensils (verses 40-47) and vessels (verses 48-51) needed for the appointment of Israel’s prescribed services of worship.
Friday, August 16
The Book of Obadiah: Convinced that God speaks at specific points in history, the canonical editors of the Holy Scriptures often ascribe particular time frames to the messages of the prophets. Frequently, they specify these occasions by reference to the reigns of certain kings. Thus, we are informed that Isaiah was called “in the year that King Uzziah died” (Isaiah 6:1), that Zechariah heard God’s voice “in the eighth month of the second year of Darius” (Zechariah 1:1), and that John the Baptist began his ministry “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar” (Luke 3:1). Such time references may be determined in other ways; thus, we learn that Jeremiah received a prophetic word immediately after the fall of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 40:1) and that Amos began to preach “two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1:1). This kind of information is so standard in Holy Scripture that, in those cases where it is missing, we should presume that it simply was not available to the biblical editors.
One such case is the prophecy of Obadiah. Though a dozen or so men in the Bible bore that name, the absence of a genealogical reference at the beginning of the Book of Obadiah makes it difficult to identify our prophet with any of them. Was he the Obadiah known to Elijah in 1 Kings 18? This identification, favored in some Jewish sources and in standard works of Christian hagiography, is obviously attractive, but it collapses under the book’s internal evidence. The author of the Book of Obadiah was clearly from Judah, not the Northern Kingdom, and the past events to which he refers occurred much later than the ninth century before Christ.
The one thing we do know for certain about the author of the Book of Obadiah is that he took a decidedly dim view of the Edomites. Nor was Obadiah alone in that respect, for there is reason to believe that more than one Israelite was somewhat tried by Deuteronomy’s injunction not to despise the Edomite (23:7). Those descendants of Esau, after all, had obstructed the Chosen People’s way to the Promised Land in the days of Moses (Numbers 20:21), and according to the prophet Amos in the eighth century, the Edomites, having “cast off all pity” (Amos 1:11), were involved in international slave trade (1:6,9).
Edom’s most memorable offenses, however, occurred when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587. At that time, they rejoiced at the city’s downfall (Lamentations 4:21), exploiting its misfortune in a vengeful way (Ezekiel 25:12). Most serious of all was the vile complicity of the Edomites in the demolition of Solomon’s temple, an outrage for which they are explicitly blamed in 1 Esdras 4:45.
This final offense likewise inspired a line of Psalm 136 (137), a
lament composed in captivity “by the rivers of Babylon” (v. 1), where the exiles sat and wept, remembering Zion. Reflecting on the holy city’s recent, ruthless destruction, the psalmist bitterly recalled Edom’s share in the matter: “Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom / The day of Jerusalem, / Who said, ‘Raze it, raze it, / To its very foundation!’”
(v. 7).
Obadiah’s prophecy testifies that his own rancor toward the Edomites was prompted by the identical recollection. He particularly blames them for rejoicing at Jerusalem’s downfall, despoiling the city, blocking the path of escape against those who fled, and handing the refugees over to their captors (vv. 12–14). He can scarcely forget that the descendants of Esau were, in fact, blood relatives of the Israelites. Like Amos, who had earlier accused Edom of pursuing “his brother with the sword” (Amos 1:11), Obadiah speaks of “violence against your brother Jacob” (v. 10). His words stand forever in Holy Scripture as a warning to those who rejoice at or take advantage of the tribulations of others, or who neglect the ancestral ties that should prompt a readier compassion.
The prophetic doom pronounced by the Bible against the Edomites was vindicated in their displacement by the Nabateans in the fourth century B.C. Forced to migrate to southern Palestine, they were eventually subjugated by John Hyrcanus (134–104 B.C.). From that point on, they were simply assimilated into Judaism. One of them, named Herod, even became a king of the Jews, but he always sensed that someday a real descendant of David might appear on the scene and challenge his claim to the throne. It made him very nervous and unreasonable.