Sermon Tone Analysis

Jude part 5

Summary

One of the oddest verses in the short epistle of Jude is Jude 9, which describes some sort of struggle between Michael the archangel and the Devil (Satan).

Many commentators see an allusion to Zechariah 3, but in this episode we take a different perspective about the meaning of this verse.

Rather than Zechariah 3, certain features of Old Testament cosmic geography are a better backdrop to this odd passage.

I’m going to read Jude 8-10.

Our focus for this part, this

episode on Jude, is going to be verses 9 and 10, but 8 gives us a little bit more of the context.

So let me read that.

And I’m reading from ESV.

So that’s kind of weird.

I mean, the first issue that you have to kind of get over the hump for is that the source for this idea (this conflict between Michael and the devil) is not found in the Old Testament, and most commentators are going to point that out.

So they’re going to sort of end the story right there.

But my view is, okay, the Old Testament isn’t the source for the conflict (for the reference here),

but it is the inspiration for it.

So that little bit (that little sort of transition) is going to separate what you’re going to hear here from what you would get in the commentaries, because I think commentators (typically New Testament scholars) are missing some things here that really help shed a light on what’s going on here with this conflict and why it would even be here and what its meaning is.

Let me give you a “for instance” here.

Gene Green in his commentary on Jude writes this:

For instance

The story of the dispute between Michael the archangel and the devil over the body of Moses is not part of the Old Testament narrative, as diligent readers of scripture know.

Instead of appealing to the Old Testament, Jude’s “text” is a book called The Assumption of Moses.

Considerable confusion has existed from ancient times regarding whether or not this is the same book referred to as The Testament of Moses.

Were these “two distinct works, a single work consisting of two sections, or two separate works which were subsequently joint together?”

And he is quoting The Anchor Bible Dictionary, J.F. Priest.

Then Green continues:

Whatever their relationship, the source Jude depended on was known by Clement of Alexandria as well as Gelasius Cyzicenus as the Assumption or Testament of Moses of the Ascension of Moses.

Quarreling between good and evil supernatural powers over the fate of a human being also has its antecedent in 4Q’Amram [ that’s a Dead Sea Scroll also known as 4Q543-548], where the text records a dispute over Amram.

Amram was Moses’ father in the Old Testament story.

And here’s what the text says:

And behold, two were quarreling over me and they said: [text missing] and they entered into a great debate over me.

And I asked them: You, why are you [text missing] over me?

And they replied and said: We have received control and control all the sons of Adam.

So that’s that Dead Sea Scroll fragment.

Green continues and says:

This particular text may or may not have been the source of the notion of a dispute over Moses’ body.

But Jude is embedded in a tapestry of tradition that weaves in Zechariah 3:1-2 as well.

Jude’s quotation of The Assumption or the Testament of Moses includes a very clear echo of Zechariah’s account of a dispute between the Lord and the devil.

And I’m actually going to disagree with that, but Green continues with his notion that Zechariah’s account is a dispute between the Lord and the devil and in this case over Joshua, the high priest.

The Septuagint version of Zechariah 3:2 reads, “And the Lord said to the devil,

‘The Lord rebuke you, devil, even the Lord who chose Jerusalem rebuke you.’”

Now, where does this Zechariah 3 idea come from?

Well, it comes from the Septuagint.

Green just told us how the Septuagint handles Zechariah 3, where we have the satan in the divine council and he is accusing Joshua, the high priest, in that scene.

(And also the angel of the Lord is there.

You can go back and read Zechariah 3 if you like.)

But we know from Hebrew… We have the satan here, but the word “satan” is prefixed with a definitive article—ha satan— which means it’s not a proper personal name.

So it’s not the devil of later New

Testament or even intertestamental literature.

But again, Green either does not know that or somehow disputes it or whatever, but he is going with the

Septuagint anyway.

The Septuagint translator uses the word “devil” there and so that’s where it comes from.

So could Jude be referring to that?

Well, again, maybe, but I tend to doubt it because I think (again, under inspiration) that the New Testament writers are going to know what’s going on in the Old Testament a little bit better than that.

Most commentators, though, will wind up saying something about Zechariah 3 here, again, where we have ha satan accusing Joshua, the high priest.

Bauckham, for instance… His thoughts are representative.

He writes in his commentary on the Jude passage:

The devil in his ancient role as accuser tried to establish Moses’ guilt in order to prove him unworthy of honorable burial and to claim the body for himself.

Now there are, as I’ve already hinted at, problems with this, and I’m going to give you three of them.

And these are problems with any trajectory that has Zechariah 3 as the backdrop to Jude 9 (which, again, no matter what academic commentary you pick up on Jude, they’re going to mention Zechariah 3).

First Problem

The first problem is the text of Jude never says any of it.

The text never has the devil accusing Moses of anything.

If you go back and look at Jude (we read it at the beginning of the episode—Jude 8-10), it only says the devil was contending with Michael over the body of Moses.

It does not say Moses is accused of anything.

It just isn’t there.

So that sort of ruins any parallel with Zechariah 3.

Second Problem

Secondly, there is absolutely no comment about Moses’ guilt.

Again, that’s absent from the text of Jude.

So the analogy to ha satan in Zechariah 3 and Joshua the high priest is flawed.

The reasoning is that Michael, as an archangel, is an opponent of Satan.

Well, okay, I understand that reasoning.

And Satan seeks to accuse the brethren.

Again, that’s understandable as well.

It’s all well and good, but the passage says nothing about Mosaic guilt.

Again, that’s just read into it by New Testament commentators

Third Problem

The third problem is the one I’ve already mentioned.

The idea is also untenable because associating Zechariah 3 with the devil depends on violating Hebrew grammar.

The satan of Zechariah 3 is not the devil, and so all such appeals to Zechariah 3 are misguided.

However, I think it’s possible that Jude could have been thinking of the devil—not because of Zechariah 3 though, but because of cosmic geography.

And this is where I’m going depart here.

I’m going to explain this as we go on.

I take ha satan in Zechariah 3 as an unidentified spiritual adversary rather than the devil of the later literature, but by the time of Jude a struggle between Michael and the devil was part of the Jewish tradition.

So if it didn’t come from Zechariah 3, where did it come from?

Where did it come from?

Again, remember, Moses isn’t blamed for anything in Jude 9.

There is no accusation in the text.

And again, I repeat this because that absence makes an identification with Zechariah 3 really unlikely.

A better suggestion (as I’ve already suggested) is that the tradition arises from cosmic geography.

And I think the key to understanding what is going on here and with the tradition more generally is where Moses dies and where he is buried by God.

And that is in the

Transjordan—the territory on the other side of the Jordan.

It is not in Canaan.

I think to understand this, we need to recognize a couple of terms.

You need to understand a couple of terms going into it.

One is the Old Testament place name Oboth.

It’s a place name and it’s also a term for “underworld spirits”—the oboth.

Oboth and oboth.

It’s spelled the same way.