Theological Poetics: Typology, Symbol, and the Christ

The Theory and Method of Biblical Typology

A modern introduction to biblical typology should begin inductively with several examples of certain shadows and types from Old Testament passages widely acknowledged to be prefigurative in character, seeking to understand those types as interpreted by the authors of the New Testament.  After a number of such passages are examined, an index of the “criteria of certainty” should be proposed to distinguish legitimate “types” from suspected “allegories.” Principles of interpretation should then be announced, along with the obligatory caveats necessarily qualifying tentative proposals, all of which should be rationally defensible and clearly recognizable to reputable scholarship in the field.   

Our approach will be quite different.  We explicitly reject the premise that we can fully understand an ancient and sacred book by modern secular means and methods.  We must begin by attempting to enter into the world of the Bible itself.[1]  This book is premised on the faith conviction, shared by the New Testament authors, that all the Scripture is about Jesus (John 5:39).  We will presuppose that Moses and all the prophets wrote about the sufferings and glory of Christ (Luke 24:25-27; Acts 28:23).  We will assume that the prophets of old were seeking to understand the person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was signifying the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow (1 Pet 1:10-12). We will therefore begin deductively.  We will turn the modernist project of typology on its head.  Instead of attempting to understand the reality by the shadows, we will seek to understand the shadows by the reality.  To adapt a classical metaphor, we will leave behind the skiagraphic images of the cave to gaze boldly at the radiance of the Son.  Having beheld the Light that extinguishes our blindness, we will better be able to see how all the Scripture speaks about Jesus.

So we begin with an attempt to reconstruct the apostolic understanding of Jesus.  Only when we have recovered sight of the Christ, when we have seen Him as the prophets, evangelists, and apostles saw Him, can we hope to recapture the biblical imagination that is the key to biblical typology. What was the apostolic understanding of Jesus?  How do we imagine Him apart from the skepticism and rationalism of modernity?  How do we recapture a pre-critical, pre-scientific vision of Jesus’ person and work, yet without abandoning our rational and critical categories and so slipping into mere mysticism?  Where do we begin?  Where else should we begin but at the ending!

The Apostolic Understanding of Jesus

The climactic vision of the New Testament is unquestionably the revelation[2] of Jesus Christ given to John of Patmos. The disciple whom Jesus loved was in the Spirit upon the Lord’s day. Jesus had sent the Comforter, as He had promised, and the Spirit of Truth had prepared John to receive the most wonderful divine visitation recorded in Scripture.  The vision is reported in Revelation 1:9-20.  Formally it is cast as a blazon, a figure of speech wherein a person is described from head to foot through a pattern of carefully chosen similes.[3] 

There is perhaps no better place to begin the investigation of biblical typology than with this vision of Jesus given to John upon Patmos.  The portrait the seer presents uniquely reveals the comprehensiveness of Jesus as understood by His most poetic disciple.  This capacious picture of the Savior, and the implication of the similitudes that sustain such a vision, justifies the possibility of biblical typology within the hermeneutical horizons of the biblical imagination.

John’s Vision of Jesus in Revelation 1:9-20

The vision is bounded by Christ’s claim, “I am the first and the last,” a self-disclosure stated twice, once at the beginning and again at the ending, thereby emblematically binding together the first and the last halves of the vision itself (Rev 1:11, 17).[4] 

The brilliance of light is the overwhelming metaphor of the vision, with Jesus standing in the midst of seven lampstands (Rev 1:13) as John turns to see the voice that is speaking.[5]  The face of Jesus is blazing like the sun shining in its strength (Rev 1:16).  His hair is white like snow (Rev 1:14), His eyes are like fire (Rev 1:14), His breast is golden (Rev 1:13), and His feet are glowing like molten bronze (Rev 1:15).  Moreover, the vision is full of sound as well as sight and color.  The speech of Jesus sounds like a trumpet (Rev 1:10), and His voice thunders like many waters (Rev 1:15).  Tactile imagery further enriches the vivid description of the heavenly Man, whose hair is coarse like wool (Rev 1:14) and whose word is sharp, like a two-edged sword (Rev 1:16). 

Now in the most dramatic action of the vision, the heavenly Man in humility stoops down to touch His servant, who in fear has fallen at His feet like a dead man (Rev 1:17).[6] But unlike the vision of God in the thunder and quaking of Sinai that brought fear and trembling and the longing for a mediator between God and man (Exod 20:18-21), this “touching” of a man by God represents the irruption of heavenly compassion into the tribulations of earth (Rev 1:9).   By high irony, this fearful theophany calms John’s fears (Rev 1:17).  In one sublime stroke this “touch” brings together God and man, heaven and earth, life and death. The detail of Jesus touching John with His nail-pierced hand assures us that God cares for mankind, that Jesus knows and shares in our suffering, and that Christ has a heart to calm our fears.  By the intimacy of this “touching” of John, we see how much greater is the mediatorial ministry of Jesus than that of Moses.[7] 

Many of the vision’s similes taken together construct merisms; they are stated as opposites in order to comprehend a totality.  For example, Jesus’ head is like wool; His feet are like burnished bronze.  That is, He completes the full stature of man from head to foot, from top to bottom (Rev 1:14, 15).  His hair is white like snow; His eyes are like a flame of fire.  That is, He comprehends both frozen cold and blazing heat (Rev 1:14).  His voice is like the sound of many waters; His feet are like bronze in a furnace. That is, He expresses the extremes of both wet and dry (Rev 1:15).  His breast is girded in gold; His feet are like glowing bronze. That is, He reconciles both the precious and the base (Rev 1:13, 15).  His right hand holds the seven stars; His voice is like many waters.  That is, His dominion spans heaven and earth (Rev 1:15-16).  He has the keys of death and Hades, but His mouth is like a double-edged sword.  That is, He has authority over life and death (Rev 1:16, 18). Finally, He holds the seven stars representing the seven churches in His right hand; but He reaches down to touch His disciple in order to comfort him with that same right hand (Rev 1:16-17).  That is, His person combines both transcendence and immanence.  His love reconciles the one and the many. And His strong right hand, that was pierced, combines strength and suffering, power and weakness, might as well as vulnerability (Rev 1:7).  

In John’s vision Jesus binds together all binaries, reconciling all contradictions in His one glorious person.  But like a Colossus, Jesus also strides over the triplicities of space and time.  Jesus is presented as the One who holds the stars of heaven, whose voice is like the waters of earth, and who has the keys of the underworld (Rev 1:15, 16, 18).  He knows and reveals the things that have been, the things that are, and the things which shall be hereafter (Rev 1:19).  He is the Living One, who was dead, and is alive forevermore (Rev 1:18). [8] 

Now John’s vision of Christ is constituted of a pastiche of biblical images drawn from a wide array of the Scriptures.  His portrait appears to be deliberately constituted so as to expand the image of the Savior to reach over the entire range of the canon.  Jesus is described as the Son of Man who occupies the throne of God (Rev 1:13, cf. Ezek 1:26; Dan 7:13, 10:16).  He is thus Theanthropos, the God-man.  His appearance is fearsome, with a garment of linen and a belt of gold, with eyes like flames and legs like burnished bronze and a voice like a sound of roaring (Rev 1:13-15, cf. Gen 41:42, Dan 10:5-6), yet he speaks peace to calm the fears of his servant who has fallen on his face to the ground (Rev 1:17, cf. Dan 10:12).  Jesus combines not only God and man, but He rules over past and future time, and has sway over life and death.  He is the first and the last (Rev 1:8, 17, cf. Isa 41:4, 44:6, 48:12), and His mouth is a sharp, two-edged sword (Rev 1:16, cf. Isa 49:2). 

Now John has already boldly claimed that even upon Patmos he is participating in the kingdom of Christ (Rev 1:9). But the most striking expansion of the understanding of Jesus in John’s vision is the application of the seven lampstands of the tabernacle/temple of Israel to the seven churches of Roman Asia (Rev 1:12-13, 20, cf. Exod 25:37, 37:23, Numb 8:2, 1 Kgs 7:49, Zech 4:2).  It is clear that John is already anticipating the universalization of the sanctuary of God, which will find its conclusion in his vision of the coextensiveness of the heavenly sanctuary with the new cosmos (Rev 21:22).

Consequently, in this opening vision of Revelation, Jesus is presented as a greater King than David, who builds a better temple than Solomon.  David ruled all Israel from Dan to Beersheba (2 Sam 3:10), but John tells us that Jesus is expanding the scepter of His kingdom into Roman Asia, and enlarging His rule from the river to the ends of the world (Psa 72:8).  Moreover, Solomon built the temple of God in Jerusalem, its lampstands illumining the Holy Place in the city of David.  But Jesus is trimming the wicks of the lampstands of His seven Asian churches,[9] thus bringing the light of God into all Anatolia.  Solomon lamented that his temple could not contain the immensity of God (1 Kgs 8:27).  But Jesus is building His temple as the new cosmos, where God will tabernacle among men forever (Rev 21:3).  And Solomon, after finishing all his work of wisdom, lamented, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc 1:9).  But Jesus comes to John with a wisdom greater than Solomon, declaring, “Behold! I make all things new!” (Rev 21:5).

The Plenitude of Christ as the Completed Vision of Biblical Typology

Genesis begins with God creating a binary world.  The account in Genesis 1-2 comprehends God and man, heaven and earth, man and woman, good and evil, life and death, the beginning and the end.[10]  Later in the Genesis record a final binary will be introduced, namely, Jew and Gentile (Gen 17).[11]  We can display the horizons of the binary world God created in the beginning in this manner:

It is fundamental to the Christology of the New Testament that all binaries find their unity in Christ, whose plenitude (plērōma) fills all things (Eph 1:23).[12]  The apostolic understanding of Christ as Creator-Redeemer is fundamental to any approach to biblical typology, for Christ’s fullness comprehends all of history, both natural and redemptive.  The plērōma doctrine explains the apostolic understanding of the plenitude of Christ, who fills every dimension of creation because all things were made by Him and for Him.  In Paul, perhaps most explicitly, all the cosmic binaries converge in the cross of Christ.  It is in Christ that all things in the natural realm hold together (Col 1:17), for the Father has been pleased to cause the fullness (plērōma) of all things to dwell in Him (Col 1:19) in whom is found our redemption (Col 1:14). 

The pleromatic unity centered in the cross of Christ is the great theme of Paul in Ephesians.  For example, Paul’s urgent prayer is for the church to understand the riches of the glory of Christ’s inheritance in the saints.  As he expounds this glory, he speaks of Christ raised again from the dead, which brings together in a meaningful way both death and life (Eph 1:20).  He states that Christ has been exalted to heaven, from thence to rule over the earth (Eph 1:20-22; 4:4-10), both in this age and the age to come (Eph 1:21).  By this we see that the cross unifies not only life and death, but also heaven and earth and the beginning and the end.  Moreover, the cross makes Christ, like Adam, the head of the church, His bride (Eph 1:22, cf. 5:23).[13]  Thus by a great mystery Christ makes His people to become His bride, unifying man and woman (Eph 1:23).  He teaches His people to overcome the darkness with light (Eph 5:8), following the example of His sacrifice (Eph 5:1-2), which makes men to walk in the image of God (Eph 5:1).  Thus Christ has comprehended good and evil and God and man.  Finally, it is in the cross that Christ abolished the ancient enmity between Jew and Gentile, making one new man by bringing the peace of Christian unity (Eph 1:11-18; 2:14-22).

A similar pleromatic unity is centered upon the cross of Christ in Colossians.  Paul tells us again that Christ has delivered His people from darkness to light (Col 1:12-13), giving pardon for sins, or good for evil (Col 1:14).  He tells us that Christ’s manhood is the image of the Godhead (Col 1:15).  Heaven and earth were created for Him (Col 1:16), and He is the beginning and the end (Col 1:17).  Christ is the head of the church, who unifies man and woman (Col 1:18), whose resurrection reconciles death and life (Col 1:18, 2:13), and whose cross ties all things to Himself, things in heaven and things on earth (Col 1:20), whether Jew or Gentile (Col 1:27). We can thus display the pleromatic unity of all things in this manner:

We should now consider how the apostles show Christ as the unifier of the cosmic binaries identified from Genesis.  Christ’s relationship to each of the several binaries will be examined in turn, beginning with Christ unifying God and man.  Taking our cue from the Emmaus Road narrative of Luke 24:13-32, we will consider the pattern of the human suffering and the divine glory of Jesus found in the accounts of Adam, Moses, Joshua, David, Jonah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.  These representational patterns show that Christ Jesus is presented in the New Testament as the antitype of each of the Old Testament characters.  But the New Testament reading of the Old Testament narratives further demonstrates that Jesus corresponds in His person and work to the Lord God of that original narrative as well.[14]  While many other types could have been presented, the following examples seem sufficient to demonstrate that the Chalcedonian divines correctly understood the apostles, who presented Christ as both fully God and fully man.

The Theanthropic Christ:  The Typology of Jesus as God and Man

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” John 1:1,14.

Jesus as the New Adam and Jesus as Adam’s God

The doctrine of Jesus as a New Adam is stated propositionally in Paul as the centerpiece of his federal theology (cf. Rom 5:14, 1 Cor 15:21-22).  John, however, presents the same doctrine emblematically.  Recalling Adam and the first garden, with its trees of death and life in the midst, the evangelist poetically places Jesus’ cross in the midst (John 19:18) of his account of the garden of Gethsemane (John 18:1) and the garden of the tomb (John 19:41).  It is upon the tree of the cross, then, that John presents Jesus as the New Adam, whose own tree of cursing and death becomes to us the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God (Rev 2:7). 

But how does John present Jesus as a New Adam? Genesis tells us that Adam’s humanity expressed itself in his need of a wife.  “It is not good for the man to be alone,” we are told (Gen 2:18).  And so God created a bride for the man.  But how did He do this?  God brought a deep sleep upon the man.  Although Adam was still innocent, having not yet committed any sin, nonetheless God wounded Adam in his side, taking the substance out of the wound from which He created a bride for the man.  God then healed Adam of his wound, and awakened him in the garden to receive his bride in all the beauty and purity of her creation (Gen 2:21-22).

Following the pattern of Genesis, John portrays Jesus as the New Adam who, once He had become authentic man, likewise came under the law that it is not good for a man to be alone (John 1:14, cf. Gen 2:18).[15]  John thus presents Jesus as a Bridegroom in search of a bride (cf. John 3:29).  But how did God provide a bride for Jesus?  God brought the sleep of death upon His Son upon the cross.  Although Jesus was likewise innocent, having committed no sin, nonetheless God wounded Him, permitting His side to be pierced by a Roman spear (John 19:34).  God took the substance out of the side of Jesus and created a bride for this New Adam, purchased with blood and washed with water.  God then healed Jesus of His wound, and awakened Him from the sleep of death in a garden (John 20:15), having given life to His bride, who will one day be presented to Him in all the beauty and purity of her new creation (cf. Rev 21:2).

But if Jesus is a New Adam, He is likewise presented in John’s Gospel as Adam’s God. In Genesis God completed all His work of creation on the sixth day, pronouncing it finished (Gen 2:1).  But in John’s Gospel Jesus finished all the world’s redemption on the sixth day; then He cried out from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).  And just as God rested on the first Sabbath of creation (Gen 2:2), so Jesus remained at rest in the tomb on the Sabbath day (John 19:31, 20:1).  Moreover, the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the ground and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so that Adam became a living soul (Gen 2:7).  Likewise, the resurrected Jesus met His disciples and breathed upon them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:19).  The first Adam had become a living soul; the Last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, creating through His disciples a new and a redeemed humanity (cf. 1 Cor 15:45).  After breathing the Holy Spirit upon His disciples, Jesus thereupon received the worship of Thomas, who having recognized the significance of the impartation of the Holy Spirit from the Son, confessed before all that Jesus is both Lord and God (John 20:28).   

Jesus as the New Moses and Jesus as Moses’ Lord

The humanity of Jesus is clearly expressed in the fact of His birth of a woman. While Jesus’ conception was supernatural, the birth itself appears to have been altogether quite natural, signifying that He participated fully in authentic humanity.[16]  But the circumstances surrounding His birth clearly recall the circumstances of the birth of Moses.

According to Exodus, Moses’ birth coincided with a covert plan of pharaoh, king of Egypt, to destroy the male seed of Israel by engaging the Hebrew midwives in his murderous scheme.  Out of a fear of God, however, the midwives deceived pharaoh and preserved the lives of the young boys.  After his covert plan was frustrated, pharaoh openly ordered the slaughter of the male seed of Israel.  Aaron, who was three years older than his brother, was not in jeopardy (Exod 1:15-22, 7:7).

Matthew reports that Herod the king had a covert plan to engage the Eastern magi in a scheme to destroy Israel’s promised Deliverer.  God warned the magi, however, and so they deceived Herod and departed the land by another route.  After his covert plan was frustrated, Herod openly ordered the slaughter of the male seed of Bethlehem, all who were two years old and younger (Matt 2:1-18).

But Matthew’s Jesus is clearly not exhausted in His humanity.  The evangelist presents Him as the Lord of the exodus as well.  In the account of the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus goes up on a mountain where He heals many sick, including the blind and the deaf and the dumb (Matt 15:29-31).  In this account of Jesus healing on the mountain the evangelist is prompting us to recall the Lord of Moses, who on the mountain reminded His prophet the He is the one who makes the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak (Exod 4:11). Matthew’s Jesus on the mountain is thus the Lord of Sinai.  Moreover, Moses asked God to give bread to Israel in the wilderness, and God gave the people manna and quail from heaven (Exod 16:1-36). But Jesus gave bread and fish to Israel in the wilderness, multiplying the meal to satisfy the company with food that He distributed from His own hands (Matt 15:32-38).[17]  In other words, the food for God’s people in the wilderness came from the hand of God in Exodus, but in Matthew such provision comes from the hand of Jesus.

Jesus as the New Joshua and Jesus as Joshua’s Lord

There is perhaps no figure of the Old Testament more typological of Jesus than Joshua.  This explains why the Joshua name of Jesus was so important a theme in early Christian preaching.[18] The many correspondences are often overlooked, however, because of the unfortunate circumstance that the name Jesus is derived from Greek and so obscures the fact that Jesus was in fact named Joshua.[19]  One of the consequences of this oversight, it appears, is the failure of so much of modern commentary to recognize that the dramatic narrative of John’s Revelation is a typological retelling of Joshua’s battle against Jericho.  The seer of Patmos adapts that battle as a template for the holy war of Jesus in the Apocalypse.  Jesus is presented as a New Joshua whose warfare causes a Great City to fall.

            In his battle against Jericho Joshua wages holy war against a great city walled up against God and His people (Deut 9:1).  In the city lives a whore identified by her scarlet (Josh 2:18).  Two spies are sent into the city prior to its fall (Josh 2:1).  Joshua causes seven trumpets to sound before the city (Josh 6:4-5).[20]  At the sounding of the seventh trumpet, all the camp shouts as the priests carry the ark of the covenant (Josh 6:13-16).  Jericho falls (Josh 6:20). But Joshua rescues the household of Rahab, which must come out of the city before it can be burned with fire (Josh 6:22-24).  After the city is destroyed by fire (Josh 6:24), the people of God receive their inheritance in the land of promise (Josh 23:4).

Similarly, the antagonist in Revelation is the Great City walled up against God and His people (Rev 18:5). Living in the city is a whore, who is identified by her scarlet (Rev 17:4).  Two witnesses are sent into the city prior to its fall (Rev 11:3-12).  Jesus causes seven trumpets to sound before the city (Rev 8:1-2).  At the sounding of the seventh trumpet, all of heaven shouts before the ark of the covenant (Rev 11:15-19).  The Great City falls (Rev 18:2).[21] But God’s voice summons His people to come out of the Great City before it is burned with fire (Rev 18:4).  After the city is destroyed by fire (Rev 18:18), the people of God receive their inheritance in the land of promise (Rev 21:12-14).

But Jesus is more than the New Joshua.  John likewise presents Jesus as the divine Captain of the Hosts of the Lord.  The seer introduces Jesus in Revelation as a Warrior coming from heaven with a sword proceeding out of His mouth (Rev 1:16).  John fell as one dead before the feet of the heavenly Man (Rev 1:17).  This description in its context before the holy war of Revelation recalls the appearance of the heavenly Warrior to Joshua prior to the Jericho campaign.  The heavenly Man likewise appeared with a sword drawn (Josh 5:13); and Joshua fell on his face and removed the sandals from his feet (Josh 5:15).  

Jesus as the New David and Jesus as David’s Lord

The first and greatest metaphor in the Bible for the history of redemption is the ancient enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.  This great drama entails the bruising of the head of the serpent and the bruising of the heel of the son of the woman (Gen 3:15).  But in this titanic struggle, man must finally rule over the beast, consistent with the dominion mandate (Gen 1:28).

This drama of redemption is emblematically enacted through David’s battle with Goliath, recorded in 1 Samuel 17.  The giant’s challenge to single combat makes David the representative of all Israel upon whose victory national liberty depends (1 Sam 17:9). The giant of Gath is portrayed as coming against David in heavily scaled armor (1 Sam 17:5), that is, his appearance is like a serpent.[22]  David’s youth is emphasized by the text, for he was too young for the battle (1 Sam 17:13-14) and was unable to fill the armor of a warrior (1 Sam 17:38-38).  Going against a serpentine Goliath, dressed merely as a youth without armor (1 Sam 17:33) and despised by his enemy (1 Sam 17:42), he is the proverbial “son of a woman.” David, however, had fought against and prevailed over the lion and the bear (1 Sam 34-35), and in fighting Goliath he is combating a “dog” (1 Sam 17:43). 

Appropriate to the drama of redemption, in prevailing over the bestial “serpent” David crushes his head, lodging a stone from his sling into Goliath’s skull (1 Sam 17:49).  David then beheads the giant, ironically using Goliath’s own sword against him (1 Sam 17:51).[23]

When John the Baptist saw the religious leaders of Jerusalem coming to him to the Jordan, Matthew tells us that he foresaw their judgment. “Now when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’” (Matt 3:7).  Through the Spirit of prophecy, John identified the religious leaders of Jerusalem, who would prove to be Christ’s most lethal opposition, as the seed of the serpent who would oppose the Seed of the woman.  Matthew had already identified Jesus as the son of the virgin (1:23), which made Jesus uniquely the Seed of the woman, according to the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15. In this manner the evangelist brings onto the stage Christ as the protagonist and the religious leadership of Israel as His antagonist in a drama that climaxes the prophetic expectation first given in the garden to Adam and Eve.[24]

Likewise, the centerpiece of Johannine theology is the victory of Jesus as the Seed of the woman over Satan, the serpent of old.  The literary center of John’s Gospel, between the accounts of Jesus’ public ministry to Israel and His private ministry to the disciples, is the account of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  In that account Jesus describes His being lifted up as the time of the casting down of the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31-32). Likewise, the center of John’s Revelation is the history of redemption told under the figure of a Child born of woman who is caught up to heaven while the serpent of old, that desired to devour the Child from birth, is cast down out of heaven (Rev 12:1-9).  Similarly, the center of 1 John is the doctrine that the Son of God appeared in order that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

The Johannine imagery of the Child, whom the serpent of old wanted to devour but who was caught up to heaven while the serpent was cast down from heaven, is derived from Genesis 3:15.  It is the cosmic drama of the Christ in His battle with the serpent that had been emblematically previewed in David’s battle with Goliath. David had likewise foreseen this contest, and had prophesied that God would ordain strength through the mouth of the nursing babe, for the infant born of woman would at last put all things under His feet, including the beast of the field (Psa 8:2-8; cf. John 8:44; Acts 13:10; Gal 4:4; Rom 16:20).

Just as David foresaw the triumph of the Seed of the woman over the beast, so he understood that his own Seed was to be his Lord.  Jesus Himself confounded the religious leadership of Jerusalem by demonstrating that David understood that his son would be greater than he, calling him “Lord” (Matt 22:41-46; cf. Psa 110:1).

Jesus as the New Jonah and Jesus as Jonah’s Lord

Jonah was the Lord’s sinful prophet who would rather forsake God’s presence than bring a message of repentance to the Ninevites.  As he fled in a ship to Tarshish, God brought a great storm upon the sea (Jon 1:4).  Although the ship was breaking, Jonah was asleep in the storm (Jon 1:5).  After the sailors awakened him, he told them to throw him overboard in order to still the storm (Jon 1:12).  After his symbolic “death” by being thrown into the waters, the wind and the storm were stilled, with the result that the sailors feared greatly (Jon 1:16). Jonah then underwent a symbolic burial, spending three days and nights in the belly of the great fish (Jon 1:17). Afterward he went through a symbolic resurrection and was vomited forth onto the shore.  Then he fulfilled his mission and the Gentiles of Nineveh repented and so found mercy (Jon 3:10).[25]

Jesus was greater than Jonah, but nonetheless He was forsaken of God when the sinfulness of His people was imputed to Him (Matt 27:46).  Jesus taught that He must spend three days and nights in the belly of the earth, even as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the fish (Matt 12:39-40).  But Jesus said that He would likewise be delivered on the third day (Matt 16:21), after which the nations would be given repentance and find mercy (Matt 28:19). Moreover, Jesus was asleep in a ship on the sea during a great storm, and the ship was breaking (Mark 4:37-38).  After His disciples awoke Him, He spoke peace to the wind and the waves and stilled the storm (Mark 4:39).  The disciples grew fearful and wondered what manner of man this could be, one who could command the wind and still the storm, like the Lord of Jonah (Mark 4:41).

Jesus as the New Isaiah and Jesus as Isaiah’s Lord

In a most remarkable vision, Isaiah the prophet was permitted to see the Lord of Hosts enthroned in glory before a heavenly altar (Isa 6:1-7).  After Isaiah saw this vision he was commissioned to go to God’s disobedient people and bring them a message of terrible judgment in order to confirm the people in unbelief (Isa 6:8-13). As Isaiah’s prophecy unfolds, a faithful remnant in Israel prophetically confesses such unbelief (cf. Isa 53:1), demonstrating that the servant of the Lord had been successful in his commission (cf. Isa 52:13).

The evangelist John juxtaposes the two passages from Isaiah 6 and 53 in a most striking way in his Gospel (12:38-41).[26]  Astonishingly, John tells us that when Isaiah saw the heavenly vision he was actually beholding the glory of Jesus enthroned, high and lifted up (John 12:41, citing Isa 6:1-3).  Further, John tells us that Isaiah’s rejection by Israel had been ordained to foreshadow the Lord’s own rejection by Israel (John 12:38, quoting Isa 53:1), for just as Isaiah had spoken to the hardening of Israel, so the Lord spoke to Israel’s hardening as well (John 12:40, quoting Isa 6:10).

John’s juxtaposition of quotations from Isaiah 6 and 53 demonstrates that the apostle understands Jesus to be both the incarnation of the Lord, who was enthroned in heavenly glory, and the antitype of Isaiah the prophet, who was sent to carry a message of judgment to Israel.

In the passage from Isaiah 6 that is cited by John, the prophet sees the throne of heaven and the Lord seated upon it, the Lord of Hosts whose robe fills all of heaven and whose glory fills the entire earth (John 12:39-40, cf. Isa 6:1-3).  The “glory” that Isaiah saw, John tells us, was the glory of Jesus (John 12:41),[27] the One who was with God in the beginning, the One who is God, and the One whose heavenly glory would likewise one day be seen by His own faithful remnant (John 1:1-2, 17:24). 

Moreover, Isaiah’s role as a prophet anticipating the prophetic ministry of Jesus is clearly emphasized in John 12:37-40.  In the commission text of Isaiah, the prophet is purged of sin by receiving the wounding of a burning coal from the altar of heaven (Isa 6:6), and when a messenger of judgment is required, the wounded prophet answers, “Behold I am (egō eimi), Send me!” (Isa 6:8).[28]  He thereupon enters into his ministry of the judicial hardening of Israel.  John’s identification of the final fulfillment of the hardening passage of Isaiah 6:10 in the rejection of Jesus by Israel (John 12:39-40) demonstrates that the apostle understood Isaiah the prophet to be a type of Jesus, who was Himself to be wounded by being lifted up on the altar of God, by which He would purge sin (John 12:32), and who had likewise been sent by God to harden the nation under judgment (John 12:39-49).

John’s teaching about Jesus, who is identified as both the Lord of Hosts seen by Isaiah and whose ministry answers as the antitype of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry, demonstrates the concurrence of the divinity and the humanity of Jesus, who is both Isaiah’s Lord and the True Isaiah.  This teaching is beautifully illustrated in the passage that follows immediately upon the climax of Jesus’ public ministry, where the Isaiah passages are cited, as described in John’s Gospel.

John tells us that Jesus, whom Isaiah had seen enrobed and enthroned in heaven, was now dressed and seated at supper with His disciples.  John reveals the mind of the Savior during supper who was recalling that He had come forth from God, who was considering that He was going back to God, and who was mindful that God had given all things into His hands (John 13:3). In the midst of such remarkable reverie, Jesus unexpectedly rose from supper and laid aside His garments and took a towel and girded Himself, then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded (John 13:4-5).[29] After Jesus had finished His work, He took His place again, and explained what He had done, that “I am” (John 13:13), in the role of a Servant (John 13:16), had washed their feet.

The drama of the foot washing was designed to teach a spiritual truth about Jesus which the disciples only later came to understand and record (John 13:7).  John deliberately depicts the scene through his use of seven verbs:  rose, laid aside, took, girded, poured, washed, and wiped. The evangelist describes Jesus enacting a parable portraying His entire ministry of salvation through this washing of the feet of the disciples.  The seven verbs of the foot washing become the seven verbs of salvation. Jesus, whose heavenly glory Isaiah had seen enthroned, rose from His glorious throne, laid aside the train of His robe, took upon Himself the array of a servant and girded Himself to the work of the service, poured out His own blood, washed His people from their sins, and wiped them dry from all uncleanness.[30] Through the simplicity and humility of the foot washing, Jesus depicted the perfect concurrence of His divine and human work on behalf of the salvation of His people. Who could have imagined the great I am of Isaiah, the heavenly Lord of Hosts whose robe of glory fills all of heaven, laying aside His robe of splendor, and arrayed simply as a servant, washing the feet of His disciples whom He loved![31]  But by His servanthood Jesus filled the earth with the glory of God (John 12:28) so that both heaven and earth could sing together of the wonder of the saving mercy of God!

Jesus as the New Jeremiah and Jesus as Jeremiah’s Lord

In Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession, the evangelist tells us that when the Lord asked His disciples who the people said He was, they replied,  “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets” (Matt 16:13-14). Clearly Jesus’ ministry evoked the remembrance of Jeremiah to the people that knew Him.  This recollection seems particularly to be noteworthy as Jeremiah’s struggle against the apostate temple and city of Jerusalem was expressed in his prophecy against the holy city.  Jeremiah charged that the temple of Jerusalem had become a “den of robbers” and a “house of desolation” (Jer 7:11 and 22:5).  Likewise Jesus accused the temple of Jerusalem of being a “den of robbers” that would be made a “house of desolation” (Matt 21:13 and 23:38).  And as Jeremiah had lamented the destruction of Jerusalem (Lam 1:16), so Jesus wept over the coming destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).

But Jeremiah was comforted in the midst of his ministry of condemnation by the assuring word from the Lord that He would make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer 31:31).  The Lord who promised the new covenant was the Lord of Sinai, who had made the former covenant with the fathers (Jer 31:31:32). Consequently, when Jesus instituted the memorial supper during the Passover by stating, “This is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20, cf. Heb 10:14-17, 1 Cor 11:23-25), He was claiming, as the initiator of the new covenant, to have likewise been the initiator of the old covenant given to Moses upon Sinai.  Consequently, the Lord who wept over the sins of Jerusalem is the same Lord who thundered forth the law at Sinai.

Jesus as God and Man

On the road to Emmaus on the morning of the resurrection, Jesus taught two of His disciples the pattern of Christ’s suffering and glory from the Old Testament, beginning with Moses and all the prophets.  The suffering of Christ demonstrates the participation of the Lord in our humanity. Moreover, His glory is the evidence of His full divinity.

 As we have seen, Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament as fully man.  As the New Adam, we see that He can be wounded, and that even Jesus is incomplete without His bride.  As the New Moses we see that He was born, and as the New Jonah we understand that He was buried.  As a New David He battles the beast, and as a New Joshua He rescues the oppressed woman.  As the New Isaiah He is a servant, and as the New Jeremiah He sympathizes with our sorrows by weeping.  In other words, Jesus knows and participates in the fullest range of all that human nature can express through being born, serving, fighting, suffering wounding, rescuing, weeping, and dying.

But Jesus portrayed by the evangelists and the apostles is not exhausted in His humanity.  The glory of Jesus demonstrates His complete participation in divinity. While Jesus can appear on the mount speaking with Moses and Elijah, there also comes a place and time when His glory must transcend that of mere mortals, and so He stands alone in the transfigured glory of His full divinity (Luke 9:28-36).  As Adam’s Lord, Jesus imparts the Holy Spirit to a new humanity.  As Isaiah’s Lord, He is enthroned in heaven.  As the Creator God of Moses, Jesus brings forth bread and fish by the fiat of His will.  As David’s Lord, David’s Son is David’s Sire.  As Jonah’s God, Jesus commands the storm and the sea.  As Joshua’s Commander of the Host, Jesus wages holy war.  And as Jeremiah’s Lord, Jesus inaugurates the new covenant.  And in all these things Jesus is shown to be both fully God and fully man, uncreated divinity enclosed in the clay of authentic humanity, two sublime natures united together in His one glorious person forever!

The Proteschatological Christ:  Jesus Uniting the Beginning and the End

“I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” Rev 22:13

The Christ-Event:  In Medias Res

The introduction to John’s Gospel opens up in epic time with the incarnation of the Son of God at the mid-point (John 1:14), as Hellenistic rhetoricians would have noted.  John begins with analepsis, a reflection back to the original creation recounted in the first book of Moses, telling us that in the beginning the Word created all things (John 1:1-3).  Revelation, the companion book paralleled to John’s Gospel, [32] ends with prolepsis, an anticipation of the Word creating all things new (Rev 21:5).  The two great books of John thus span the entire imagination of time,[33] from the creation of the heavens and earth in the beginning to the creation of the new heavens and earth to come.  Moreover, the events narrated in the Fourth Gospel take place almost entirely on earth while the events in Revelation take place largely in heaven.  The evangelist has therefore stretched out a wholly comprehensive canvas between his two great books, spanning all time and space.  He presents a composite picture, epic in scope and immortal in theme.

            Elaborate literary patterns between John’s companion books portray the marvel and mystery of the classic story of the heavenly Son of God who leaves the riches of His Father’s court in quest of an earthly bride and a heavenly kingdom (John 1:1, 14, 17:18, 24).  The Gospel opens with the Spirit descending out of heaven like a dove upon the Bridegroom Son of Man (John 1:32, 3:29).  Revelation ends with the bride of Christ descending out of heaven, made ready for her Groom, adorned in all the graces of the Spirit (Rev 21:2).

            As we study this cosmic canvas, we find that this bride has been won only by a great warfare involving all of heaven and earth.  We behold angels ascending and descending to carry forth the battle (John 1:52, 5:4; Rev 7:2, 10:1, 18:1, 20:1).  We hear the dread sound of fearful trumpets.  Terrible beasts emerge from the earth and sea to struggle in blood and death.  Angels pour out golden bowls of wrath upon the world below.  Thunder and storm in the heavens echo upon the earth, causing the earth dwellers to tremble (John 12:28-32; Rev 12:7-12)  This warfare takes place in a fiery fabric of love and treachery and forgiveness and death.  The great combat is finished at last with the final victory of the heroic Lamb (John 1:29) standing in triumph over the ancient Dragon, the serpent of old (Rev 20:1-3). 

            Consistent with the classical canons of epic literature, John opens His Gospel in the middle of things.  He describes the incarnation of the Word.  The very Word that was with God in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us.  The evangelist thus begins in the mid-point, or as the ancient rhetoricians would say, his Gospel begins in medias res.[34] It is the center of time, the krisis time that gives meaning to all kairos time.[35]  Jesus is the first and the last (Rev 1:17, 2:8, 22:13).  He is the summation of all prophecy (Heb 1:1-2).  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).  He is the Son who is at the center of time and He is the sum of all things in heaven and earth (Eph 1:9-10).  He holds all things together at the center of creation, for by Him all things were created, and thus He has first place in everything (Col 1:20).

            Now epic time is comprehensive time.  It includes the sudden movement of tragic time and the spacious expanse of comic time as well as lyric timelessness.[36] John’s two volume epic includes the Gospel, which climaxes in the death of Jesus, and Revelation, which climaxes in the wedding of the Lamb.  Johannine time is literary time.[37]  The tragic movement that ends in the cross is marked by the fearful “hour” of judgment that must come upon Christ for Him to fulfill His redemptive work (John 2:4, 7:30, 8:20, 12:23, 13:1, 16:32, 17:1).  The suddenness of tragic time is also expressed in the judgment to come upon great Babylon (Rev 18:10, 17, 19), and the suddenness of the judgment to come when Christ returns “quickly” (Rev 3:3, 10; cf. 22:20).  While there is the tragic movement within John’s epic that ends in death at the cross, there is also the resurrection in the garden (John 19:41, 20:15) and the corresponding promise in Revelation of the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7), which will take place within a renewed paradisal garden (Rev 22:1-3).  Marriage is the conventional conclusion of classical comedy, and this hieros gamos of the Lamb ushers in the lyrical timelessness of paradise where there will be no night to cause fear (Rev 21:23, 25) and all seasons will be alike in perpetual fruitfulness (Rev 22:2).

Typological Time:  Jerusalem Rehearsing All the Times of Judgment

Since the Messiah comes at the mid-point of all time, Jesus divides the epochs of redemptive history between the former days of the prophets and the latter days foreseen by the prophets.  For the NT writers, the coming of Christ inaugurated the beginning of eschatological time, the “last days” of the Scripture (Acts 2:17; 2 Tim 3:1; Heb 1:2; 1 Pet 1:20; 1 John 2:18), “the end” (telos) of all the ages (1 Cor 10:11; Heb 9:26; 1 Pet 4:7). These “last days” are recognized by their resemblance to the former days of the prophets; they are thus reckoned as “typological time,” the former times being typical of and fulfilled by the latter times (Isa 46:9-10).[38] For example, Peter anticipates an eschatological judgment that corresponds to the Noahic flood (2 Pet 3:6-7), a judgment Christ explicitly states would describe the coming judgment on Jerusalem as well (Matt 24:37).[39]

The NT uses the term fullness (plērōma) to describe the eschatological times ushered in with the coming of Christ into the world.  It was the “fullness of time” when God sent forth His Son (Gal 4:4), the “fullness of the times” when God purposed to recapitulate all things in Christ (Eph 1:10).  It was the time when all that was written in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms was to be fulfilled (plēroō, Luke 24:44). This eschatological vision of the last days as a time of prophetic fulfillment (plēroō) underlies the claim that Jesus’ advent fulfilled Moses (John 19:36), Isaiah (Matt 1:22, 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, 21:4; Luke 4:21; John 12:38), Hosea (Matt 2:15), Jeremiah (Matt 2:17, 27:9), and the Psalms (Matt 13:35, 27:35; John 13:18, 19:24).  The former days of the OT prophets were now being fulfilled in the “last days” inaugurated by Christ’s advent (Luke 24:44).

 This “typological time” of fulfillment required all the times and circumstances of the OT prophets to be recreated in Jerusalem in the days of Jesus. All of this temporal convergence was in order that Jesus might suffer after the pattern of the prophets who had been killed before Him, for as Jesus said, “It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).  When Jesus asked His disciples who men said that He was, they cited John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (Matt 16:14).  Moreover, Jesus himself taught that He was greater than Solomon and Jonah (Luke 11:31-32), and there was speculation that He was greater than Jacob (John 4:12) and Abraham (John 8:53). According to this typological time, Jesus was reenacting the entire OT prophetic tradition to show that in fact He was the Prophet who should come into the world (John 6:14).

It is likewise consistent with this perspective of the last days that Jesus justly charged Jerusalem with the blood of all the righteous, from Abel to Zechariah (Luke 11:51).[40]  This temporal recapitulation recreated the circumstances by which Jesus suffered after the pattern of all the prophets who had announced His coming beforehand (Luke 13:33-35; Acts 7:52).  The religious leaders of Jerusalem ratified and repeated the sins of all those who went before them in persecuting God’s righteous men and prophets, culminating all of the Scriptural record of wickedness in the opposition of that generation to the ministry of Christ (Acts 7:52). 

Typological Time and the Days of Vengeance Upon Jerusalem

In order to understand this reckoning of typological time, we should begin with John’s account of Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus.  How did Jesus instruct Nicodemus to tell the times?  Jesus taught the Pharisee from Jerusalem that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that men might have life (John 3:14).  Nicodemus would have recalled the account of the brazen serpent from Numbers 21.  It was the time when Israel was in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt.  God graciously gave the people bread out of heaven, but they grumbled against God and despised the gift of the manna (Numb 21:5). The Lord judged the people with venomous serpents so that many of them were dying.  Moses, however, was told to lift up a serpent on a pole so that whoever would look at the serpent would not perish but would have life (Numb 21:6-9). 

Now as John further develops his Gospel after the interview with Nicodemus, we learn that God has given Jesus to the people as a heavenly Manna (John 6:31-40), but that the Jews have grumbled among themselves (John 6:41-43), not finding God’s Manna to be savory (John 6:41).[41] The typological time is thus fulfilled when it will be necessary for God to cause another standard to be lifted up in order that all men might be drawn to Him for life (John 12:32-34).  By this teaching, however, Nicodemus is instructed that God has delegitimized Jerusalem’s temple and that Israel is regarded by Jesus not as settled in the land of promise under God’s blessing, but wandering in the “wilderness” of His judgment. It is therefore “wilderness time” in Jerusalem.

But there are other patterns that show us how the evangelists and apostles regarded the days of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus.  John tells us that the city that crucified Jesus was “spiritually” called Egypt (Rev 11:8).  In an elaborate development of the representation of Israel as the new land of bondage, Matthew reports that when Jesus was born, King Herod and Jerusalem tried to destroy the Deliverer by slaughtering the male infants of Bethlehem (Matt 2:3, 16-18), an act of cruelty that recalled the enmity of the pharaoh of Egypt and the Egyptians against the male infants of Israel in the days of the birth of Moses (Exod 1:15-22).  Ironically, Egypt, the ancient land of bondage, became the new Midian, the place that gave refuge to God’s prophet (Matt 2:15, cf. Matt 2:13).  Moreover, it was while the holy family was sojourning in Egypt that God’s angel announced that it was safe to return to Israel “since those who sought the young Child’s life are dead” (Matt 2:20), just as God had assured Moses in Midian that he could return to Egypt, “for all the men who were seeking your life are dead” (Exod 4:19).  A careful comparison of the Matthean texts with the original Exodus account demonstrates that the Hosea passage cited by the evangelist, “Out of Egypt have I called My Son” (Matt 1:15, cf. Hos 11:1), is regarded as fulfilled not when the holy family returns from Egypt to Israel, but rather when they flee from Israel for refuge in Egypt.  It is out of Israel, the “spiritual Egypt,” that God called forth His Son.

Moreover, just as Moses returned to Egypt to accomplish the deliverance of the people through the climactic sacrifice of the Passover lamb, even so Jesus returned to Israel, the “spiritual Egypt,” where He was to deliver His people by submitting to be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb.  Indeed the Apostle Paul teaches us that the true event that delivered from bondage was the death of the Passover Lamb which occurred in Jerusalem (1 Cor 5:7). In other words, to the evangelists and apostles, the time of Jesus’ death reconfigured the Holy City into a typological “Egypt,” where the people of God were held captive by another bitter bondage from which Christ was to free them (cf. Gal 4:25). In fact Luke’s comment about the transfiguration states that Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah about the “exodus” which He was to “fulfill” (plēroō) in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). By such teaching the NT writers regard Jerusalem to be the new Egypt, and the time of Jesus to correspond to the typological time of the Egyptian captivity wherein Israel awaited deliverance from bondage and death.  Consequently, the time of Jesus was a renewed “Egyptian captivity time” as well as a “wilderness time.”

But there were yet other “times” that were fulfilled in the days of Jesus.  For example, the Lord condemned the second temple of Jerusalem, making the same charge that Jeremiah had made against the first temple.  For example, Jeremiah condemned the religious leaders of Jerusalem for making the temple of God into a den of robbers (Jer 7:11).  Moreover, the prophet announced the coming destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, saying that the house and the city would be left desolate (Jer 22:5).  Finally, Jeremiah wept over the destruction of Jerusalem (Lam 2:11).  All of this was to foretell the days of vengeance that were to come in the time of Christ, whom the people regarded as a New Jeremiah (Matt 16:14).  Jesus also charged the religious leaders of Jerusalem with making the temple of God into a den of robbers (Matt 21:13).  Moreover, Jesus announced that the house and the city would again be left desolate (Matt 23:38).  Finally, once again the Prophet wept over the destruction of Jerusalem that was to come (Luke 19:41-46). Jerusalem in Jesus’ day sinned after the manner of their fathers in the days of Jeremiah, and so they faced the inevitability of a second judgment upon their temple and city.[42]  The time of Jesus was therefore a renewal of the “days of Jeremiah the prophet,” days that anticipated the imminent judgment of God. 

But the judgment Jesus prophesied against the city and the temple of Jerusalem was also to recall the prior judgments God had visited against the world of Noah and the city of Sodom.  In the Olivet Discourse Jesus announced that the second temple was to be taken down stone by stone in a devastating judgment coming against Jerusalem (Matt 24:2).  All of this punishment was to be visited upon the people in such a manner as to recall the days of Noah and the judgment of the flood (Matt 24:37-39, cf. Dan 9:26).[43]  Moreover, the same coming judgment against Jerusalem would recall the destruction of the wicked city of Sodom (Luke 17:28-30),[44] for indeed Jerusalem, where the Lord was crucified, had become a “spiritual Sodom” (Rev 11:8).  Consequently, the days of vengeance against the wicked and adulterous generation of Jesus were to be reckoned against Jerusalem as the “days of Noah” and the “days of Sodom,” when God used both flood and fire to work an utter devastation.

Another pattern to the prophetic judgment against Jerusalem and the temple was the Lord’s charge that the religious leaders had made the house of God into a “house of merchandise” (John 2:16).  This charge of Jesus is based upon the culminating prophecy of Zechariah, where the prophet anticipated the removal of all merchants from the house of the Lord (Zech 14:21).  Now the word “merchant” in the Hebrew text is the word “Canaanite,” a pagan people known for their commercial enterprise.[45]  By appealing to this verse against the religious leaders, Jesus charged the temple of Jerusalem with being a Canaanite fortress as far as its spiritual character was concerned.  Jerusalem had therefore once again returned to become a Jebusite fortress in the time of a New David, the true king of Israel who was to overcome another “Canaanite” city.[46]  It was therefore once again the “days of the Canaanite” in Jerusalem.

Moreover, Jerusalem in the days of Jesus was regarded as a new Jericho, the Canaanite city overcome by Joshua.  In the days of the conquest of old, Joshua sent two spies to reconnoiter the Canaanite city prior to its destruction (Josh 2:1).  He showed mercy to the harlot of the city, but Jericho was utterly destroyed, its walls falling down (Josh 6:15-25). Similarly, Jesus came to Jerusalem as a New Joshua, sending two of His disciples ahead of Him into the city (Mark 14:13), the city where He had rescued an adulterous woman (John 8:2-11), the same city which He announced would be utterly destroyed, not one stone remaining upon another (Matt 24:2).  It was once again the “days of Joshua and Jericho” in Jerusalem.

But there was another chaos city described in the OT that perhaps more than any other revealed the character of the religious leaders of Jerusalem in the days of Jesus.  That great city was Babylon.  There are three dispositive features that identify the great city of “Babylon” as the NT figure for Jerusalem.[47]  First, Babel (Gk. Babylon) was the original place of the division of the nations and the confusion of tongues.  In John’s Revelation, Babylon, the great city divided into three parts (Rev 16:19), corresponds to the Jerusalem of the Fourth Gospel, the city divided into three tongues representing the cosmopolitan city of confusion that crucified the King of the Jews (Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, cf. John 19:20).  Second, the first Babylon is the place where God came down in judgment to confuse tongues and scatter the nations (Gen 11:1-9), while Jerusalem as the “spiritual” Babylon is the place where God came down to reverse the judgment of tongues and to regather the nations (Acts 2:1-11).  Finally, and most decisive of all, Babylon is the great city notorious in the Scriptures for destroying the temple of God.  Jeremiah cried out against her, “Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers!  The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His temple” (Jer 51:11).  Indeed Babylon destroyed the first temple of the Lord, but Jerusalem destroyed the True Temple of the Lord (John 2:19).  In other words, the days of Jesus in Jerusalem were the “days of Babylon.”

Now we have seen that Jerusalem is depicted in the NT as the antitype of the chaos cities of the OT, that the generation of Jesus was charged with all the wickedness of the world in the days of Noah as well as the sin of Sodom in the days of Lot, that Jerusalem repeated the sins of Egypt and Jericho as well as Jebus, Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah, and Babylon.  The Revelation of John depicts Jerusalem as suffering the judgments of all these cities of chaos in the form of a literary montage.  The destruction of Jerusalem is portrayed in such a manner that her ruin, like the days of Noah, ushers in a new heavens and a new earth (cf. Gen 8:22 and Rev 21:1), while the smoke of her destruction goes up to heaven, like Sodom in the days of Lot (cf. Gen 19:28 and Rev 18:9).  Moreover, Jerusalem’s plagues are poured out like those upon Egypt (waters turned to blood, Exod 7:20-25 and Rev 8:8-11; cf. hail and fire, Exod 9:22-25 and Rev 8:7; devouring locusts, Exod 10:12-15 and Rev 9:1-11; and preternatural darkness on the land, Exod 10:21-23 and Rev 8:12, 9:2).  Jerusalem’s judgment recalls the judgment of Jericho (cf. the seven trumpets sound and the great city falls, Josh 6:13, 20 and Rev 8:2 and 18:2) and Jebus (cf. the Davidide king standing as victor in Zion, 2 Sam 5:7 and Rev 3:7, 14:1) and Babylon (cf. a golden cup to intoxicate the nations, Jer 51:7 and Rev 17:2, 4, 18:3; the command for God’s people to come out of the city, Jer 51:45 and Rev 18:4; the city suddenly falls, Jer 51:8 and Rev 18:2; the Lord treds the winepress of His wrath, Lam 1:15 and Rev 19:15, the city of destruction sits like a widow, Lam 1:1 and Rev 18:7).[48]   

However, because there has been so much confusion over the identity of Jerusalem as the target city for “the great city Babylon” in Revelation, it is best before proceeding to set forth this argument with more particularity.

What City is “Great Babylon” in Revelation?

Modern commentary on the Book of Revelation has overwhelmingly favored Rome as the target city intended by the figural depiction of “Great Babylon.” The Roman “city on the seven hills” has been the preferred interpretation, whether Rome is understood as the Latin city itself [49]or as a first-century figure for the evil commercial and political “world system,” perennially at enmity with the church, the people of God.[50]  There has recently, however, been renewed interest in the possibility that another city might be masquerading behind the image of whorish “Babylon,” namely, the “holy city,” Old Jerusalem.[51]  How do we approach the challenge of deciding between the two candidate cities, Rome and Jerusalem? 

We will address the issue of identifying “Great Babylon” by looking at Revelation and the other NT material from a literary critical perspective, interpreting the texts as we have received them simply and as we would any other text of literature.  In this light we will argue that “Great Babylon” is the figurative description of Old Jerusalem, the Jewish/Roman/Hellenistic city of the second temple.[52]  This conclusion is required by the parallelism between Great Babylon and the New Jerusalem, by the internal evidence of Revelation, and by the NT and OT evidence that informs the depiction of the whorish city of the Apocalypse.

            The use of the figurative description of “Great Babylon” in Revelation is intended to capture the depth of the wickedness of the city so described. Babylon, as the word is used figuratively, recalls the ecumenical rebellion of all the earth against God, recorded in the tower of Babel narrative in Genesis 11.[53]  In a terrible judgment God separated the family of mankind into nations and tongues (Gen 11:7).  Babylon’s culminating identification, however, is as the city that defiled and destroyed the temple of God (Jer 52:12-13). In retribution for such a sacrilege, the Lord swore vengeance, “Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of the Lord; vengeance for His temple” (Jer 51:11). Babylon, then, is chiefly identified as the destroyer of the temple of God.  Most modern commentary, focusing on AD 70, understands Rome to answer to this charge, Babylon having destroyed the first temple, and Rome, the second.  Rome is thus made the spiritual successor to Babylon, and thus enclosed in the figure of the “great city.” 

            But the NT understands Christ to be the True Temple of God.[54]  This doctrine arises explicitly when Jesus commanded the religious leaders to destroy the “temple” of His body (John 2:19-21).  The same doctrine informs the understanding that in the New Jerusalem no temple is necessary because the Lord is the Temple (Rev 21:22).  John’s depiction of Jerusalem, then, is that of the city that “destroyed” the Temple of God.  By defiling the Lord, and destroying His temple, Jerusalem became the antitype of “Babylon the Great.” Unlike both the historical Babylon and Rome, cities used by God to accomplish His purposes of judgment against His recalcitrant covenant people, Jerusalem was without excuse.  No city excelled her wickedness.  Jerusalem defiled the Sanctuary of the Lord, and thus became the abomination causing her own desolation.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her…Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt 23:37-38).

Moreover, Babylon the Great is depicted in Revelation as a whorish city through a pattern of figures that is deliberately corresponded, by way of antithetical parallelism, to the virginal city that is the New Jerusalem.[55]  There is a large history in the Bible as well as in other ancient literature whereby a call to make a moral choice is depicted through a syncritical comparison of two contrasting women.[56]  The contrasts of whore and virginal bride invite comparison.  The extensive parallelism between the two cities represented as whore and bride suggests that there is a connection between them in a most antithetical sense. Consequently, in Revelation the element that is the greatest clue to the identification of Great Babylon is the description of Jerusalem as “New” (Rev 21:2, 5).[57]  New Jerusalem is described as “holy,” to contrast with the “harlotry” of the Old (Rev 21:2 and 17:5). New Jerusalem knows no mourning or pain (Rev 21:4), while the Old is filled with mourning and death (Rev 18:7, 11). New Jerusalem is from above, descending from heaven (Rev 21:2).  Old Jerusalem is from below, constituted of a cacophony of peoples and tongues (Rev 17:3, 15). The simplest, and thus most probative, reading of this figure of speech would be to identify “Babylon” as the counterpart of the New Jerusalem, namely, the Old Jerusalem.   

This reading of the climax of Revelation as contrasting the New Jerusalem with the Old is consistent with the apostolic teaching in the climax of Galatians and Hebrews.  In Galatians 4, Paul contrasts the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem by a syncritical comparison of the two cities under the figure of two women, Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4:22-31).  The Old Jerusalem, called the “present Jerusalem,” is compared to the “Jerusalem above” (Gal 4:25-26), and the apostle tells us that the earthly Jerusalem is persecuting the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:29). Similarly, the same comparison constitutes the climax of Hebrews, where the contrast between the two cities is made between the earthly “Sinai” and the heavenly “Zion” (Heb 12:18-29, cf. 11:16).  It is abundantly clear that a primary center of apostolic teaching was the contrast between the claims of the earthly and the heavenly cities of Jerusalem.  This is certainly the most natural contemporary context for understanding the contrast between the two cities in Revelation.  In light of the antithetical parallelism between New Jerusalem and “Great Babylon,” and the corresponding teaching adduced from Galatians and Hebrews, it would seem that the burden of proof should be upon those who would claim that “Great Babylon” in Revelation is not targeting Old Jerusalem, the city above all others that was “drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6, cf. Luke 13:33).    

Typological Time: Jerusalem Reversing All the Times of Judgment

            Jesus’ challenge to the religious leaders of the second temple was direct: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).  The resurrection thus represented the raising up of the True Temple and the final end of Israel’s exile.  Jesus reversed the judgment of Jerusalem dating back to the days of Jeremiah, turning the lamentations of Zion into rejoicing.  A greater King than Solomon (Matt 12:42) had now raised up a better Temple with a better sacrifice (Heb 9:23) and a better priesthood (Heb 7:24).  Moreover, the resurrection also resulted in the raising of the fallen tabernacle of David (Amos 9:12)[58] that the message of welcome to all the nations might go forth from the apostles and elders in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-16). The Son of David now expanded the dominion of His scepter by the sword of the word instead of the sword of blood.

            After Jesus’ victory over death and the grave, the dynamic of judgment in the biblical account of redemptive history appears to go into reverse. This effect is seen clearly in reading through Revelation.  We begin with the Lord Jesus waging warfare against a great city by causing seven trumpets to sound (Rev 8:6), a battle which recalls the warfare against Jericho and the conquest of Joshua. We see the redeemed standing on the sea of glass and we hear them singing the Song of Moses (Rev 15:2-3), which reminds us of the exodus deliverance of God’s people at the Red Sea. Finally, we come to a new garden of God with its river, tree of life, and virginal bride (Rev 21:2; 22:1-2).  It is a new creation untouched by the curse or by death (Rev 21:4; 22:3), which recalls the pristine innocence of Eden’s garden.[59]  In other words, as we read forward through the Book of Revelation we actually have the sense that we are retracing our steps backward in time through the judgments pronounced in Joshua, Exodus, and Genesis.  But at the end of our return we have not simply arrived at the first Eden again.  We have come to something far greater than paradise restored.  We have come to the New Jerusalem, the Edenic city of the Son of Man, where there is no serpent to defile the city’s pleasant gardens (Rev 21:27) and no enemy to disturb the city’s ever opened gates (Rev 21:25).  Unlike the diurnal darkness of Eden, the New Jerusalem is made golden by the eternal light of her Lamb (Rev 21:23). Death has been swallowed up in victory, and darkness has been extinguished by eternal light.[60]

            The notion that Christ’s resurrection has reversed the judgments of Genesis is given similar expression by the evangelist Luke in the Book of Acts.  The blessings of Jesus’ resurrection are to go forth into all the world, beginning in Jerusalem and continuing throughout Judea and Samaria, extending at last to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).  In order to trace the progression of the gospel of blessing going forth from Jerusalem, the evangelist reports three “road narratives,” each of which recounts a remarkable salvation unto joy.[61]  These narratives are strategically chosen to instruct us about the progress of the gospel into all the earth.  The first narrative reports about the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:26), upon which the Ethiopian eunuch finds faith.  The second narrative describes the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3).  The third narrative is the road from Joppa to Caesarea (Acts 10:23-24), which brings the good news to Cornelius.  These three conversion narratives show that the gospel is going out from Jerusalem to all the nations, represented by descendants of the three sons of Noah.  According to tradition, the Ethiopian is a son of Ham, Paul, a Jew, is a son of Shem, and Cornelius, a Roman centurion, is a son of Japheth.  The judgment upon the nations of Babel is being reversed as the gospel gathers together the people once scattered by the judgment of confusion.

            Moreover, the specific judgment of Babel is itself reversed, according to Luke, as seen by comparing the confusion of tongues at Babel with the gift of tongues in Jerusalem.  The Genesis account states that the whole world originally had only one language and one speech.  The Babel builders revolted against God, however, and God came down in judgment and confused their language that they might be scattered over the face of the earth.  A table of these nations is given in the context of the Babel judgment (Gen 10).  On Pentecost, however, the judgment of Babel is reversed as Jews from all the world, as set forth in a new table of the nations, are gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:8-11).  The believing community was assembled together with one accord in one place (Acts 2:1). God once again came down, but this time in mercy to reverse the confusion of languages so that representatives from all the nations could hear the mighty works of God in their own tongues (Acts 2:11).  From Jerusalem, then, this great company was scattered into all the earth, proclaiming the saving grace of God (Acts 8:1, 4).

            Further examples of the apostolic understanding that the resurrection had caused a reversal of judgment is suggested in Paul’s claim that the earth, which was the original womb of Adam, would once again enter into the travail of labor to bring forth the sons of God (Rom 8:22-23), delivering the earth from the vanity of the curse upon creation (Rom 8:18-23).[62] All of this was in order that Satan would at last be crushed under the foot of the church (Rom 16:20), fulfilling the prophecy set forth in the beginning (Gen 3:15).  Moreover, Peter foresaw a new heavens and a new earth, a world where sin and death would be replaced by an everlasting righteousness (2 Pet 3:13).

Christ’s Death Once for All Time

            Time in the Scripture is given moment by the mid-point “once for all” death and resurrection of Jesus.  The sempiternal character of Christ’s redemption is made meaningful because He is the eternal Lamb.  He is the Lamb who was foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 Pet 1:20-21).  He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 Cor 5:7).  He is the Lamb whose redemption will be the lamp of the eternal city (Rev 21:3).  He is the living Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:6) and who lives again to rule over all (Rev 22:1-3).  He is Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).

            All time is thus defined from Jesus’ death and resurrection. Redemptive history anticipates God’s Lamb with continual cycles of sacrifices and generations of priests all continuing until the Lamb came whose once and for all time sacrifice put an end to the motion of the cycles and symbols of redemption and brought in everlasting rest, replacing suffering with glory (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27, 9:12, 10:10).[63]

            The Genesis creation account is so stated as to anticipate both cyclical and non-cyclical time.  The six days of creation are constituted of the diurnal cycle of evening and morning (Gen 1: 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31).  On the Sabbath day, however, this motion is not described.  Rather, the character of the Sabbath day is given as blessing, sanctification, and rest (Gen 2:1).  The letter to the Hebrews similarly describes the cycle of sacrifice and the generation of the Aaronic priests coming to an end at the time of the “once for all” sacrifice of Jesus, whose better priesthood ushered in His royal rest as He took His seat on the throne of heaven (Heb 10:12).  This eschatological rest is suggested in the contrast between the Aaronic priests who stood (Heb 10:11) and Christ, who sits upon the throne of heaven (Heb 10:12).

The Resurrection and the Re-imagination of Time

            For the evangelists and apostles, Christ’s death and resurrection opened the door into entirely new dimensions of reality, a new world of both space and time.[64]  The altogether appropriate symbol of this brave new world is “the open door,” an entryway into a heretofore unimaginable world  The first impassable door that was unexpectedly opened up was the veil of the temple, which was suddenly rent asunder from top to bottom (Matt 27:51).  The temple veil symbolized the separation of God and man. The Holy of Holies, protected behind the veil, represented the Edenic garden of the presence of God, and the cherubim woven onto the veil (Exod 26:31-33) recalled the angels who barred Adam’s reentry into the paradise of the pleasant garden (Gen 3:23-24).  The rending of the veil opened “a new and living way” (Heb 10: 19-22) for man to reenter the presence of God and to partake of the fruit of the tree of life (Rev 2:7).  In other words, the door was opened that had for so long separated God and man.  In addition to the temple’s torn veil, the middle wall that had partitioned the temple and divided God’s people was likewise taken down (Eph 2:14-22), opening up the way for the Jew and the Gentile to be reconciled as one body to God, the new mystery now brought to light (Eph 2:16, 3:3-6). 

These remarkable new ways were opened in the temple only because—most miraculous of all—the stone door that sealed the tomb was rolled away (Matt 27:66-28:2), opening up the way from death to life (Matt 28:5-6). Jesus’ resurrection thus clarified His claim to be “the door” (John 10:7),[65] for His resurrection directly opened the once impassable barriers separating God and man, Jew and Gentile, and life and death.  As a consequence, an entirely new world—full of wonders—opened up. 

Emblems of this new world are seen in the eternal city with its gates that are never shut (Rev 21:25) and the open door that could not be closed which Jesus sets before His people (Rev 3:8).  Locked doors in this present world miraculously open, according to this new dimension of reality, as Christ appears and stands in the midst of His disciples, who had previously barred the doors shut (John 20:19, 26).  Prison doors incarcerating God’s people are likewise miraculously made to open of their own accord, releasing the apostles from their prisons (Acts 5:19, 12:10).  The iron gate automatically opens before Peter (Acts12: 16), and Paul and Silas are released as the doors of the Philippian jail open up before them (Acts 16:26).  Moreover, God opened a wide door of opportunity for His apostle (1 Cor 16:9), an open door of the word (Col 4:3) an open door of faith (Acts 14:27), and an open door for the gospel to be made accessible to the Gentiles (2 Cor 2:12).  In short, a new and wonderful new world opened up, filled with heretofore unimaginably free and open access for the people of God.  The resurrection represents the dawn of a new and wondrous day.

Now the resurrection inaugurated this new aeon by the raising of the new and eternal temple of Christ’s body (John 2:19).  The raising of the final temple marked the end of Israel’s exile with a greater and more perfect priesthood (Heb 9:11-12) and the simultaneous raising of the fallen tabernacle of David’s royal kingdom (Acts 15:16).  Jesus comes with the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:18) to inaugurate the last days foreseen by all the prophets (Acts 2:17, 3:24).  By introducing eschatological time, Jesus’ resurrection thus opens the way to unite the beginning and the end, as well as the other binaries which we have already seen were reconciled by the resurrection.

The Scripture opened with the divine command for man to be fruitful and multiply and likewise for man to rule over the beast.  This command represents the telos, the end or purpose of God to be accomplished in time.  This goal is the largest and most expansive linear motion in all of Scripture.  It anticipates the end foretold in the beginning, namely, that the earth should be filled with mankind and that the beast should be subdued (Gen 1:28). For the apostle Paul, history will find its culmination in the resurrection of the last day, the great event that will simultaneously fill the earth with godly men and women while destroying death, the sting of the serpentine beast (1 Cor 15:22-26, 55-56).

This linear direction to history, set in motion in the beginning (Gen 1:28), is interrupted, however, by the serpent ruling over the man in the garden.  The great revolt brings about death and reduces human life to the vanity of the cycle that describes man as created out of dust only to be made into dust again (Gen 3:19).  The natural order was thus subjected to vanity, and man’s experience was made to move inexorably from life to death in an endless and fatal cycle of futility.  One generation goes and another generation comes.  Like the natural order, the sun rises and the sun sets.  The wind blows northward and then southward again in a circular course.  There was nothing new under the sun.  The natural horizons bounded the imagination of man, consigning all ephemeral life to vanity, obliterating the memory of the former things, and causing the latter things to be forgotten.  As Solomon lamented, “All is vanity! There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:1-15). 

But then a greater than Solomon comes, saying, “Behold, I make all things new!” (Rev 21:5).  Jesus comes forth in resurrection power with the keys of death and the grave as the Living One who was dead but now is alive forevermore (Rev 1:18).  The resurrection thus breaks the endless cycles of the vanity of life and death by establishing the linear trajectory of life to death to life again.  Jesus’ resurrection thus changes the very character of time itself, expanding the horizons of man’s imagination from the natural to the supernatural.[66] The apostle therefore speaks of the proper sequence of time, with everything in its own order.  Christ becomes the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming.  After this comes the end (1 Cor 15:24), when all creation is delivered from vanity (Rom 8:18-21).  It is the resurrection that gives hope (Rom 8:20, 24-25), delivering us from the fear of death (Heb 2:14-15) by promising that mortality will one day put on immortality, teaching us that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor 15:53-58).

The Birth, Baptism, Death, and Resurrection of Christ

and the Recapitulation of Cosmic Time

            The clearest apostolic statement regarding the progression of all the ages of time is set forth in 2 Peter 3.  In this largely non-figurative passage, the apostle describes the entire creation within three aeons of time, that is, three cosmic arrangements of the heavens and the earth.  First of all he recalls the “heavens and earth of old,” created out of the deep waters of the original creation, recounted in Genesis 1 (2 Pet 3:5).  This original cosmic order was destroyed by the waters of the flood in the days of Noah, recounted in Genesis 6-8 (2 Pet 3:6).  What followed was a new cosmic order, “the present heavens and the earth,” likewise born out of water but reserved for the fire of judgment at the end of the age (2 Pet 3:7).  Out of the cataclysmic fire of the “day of God” (2 Pet 3:12) will come the third and final cosmic order, the “new heavens and new earth,” in which righteousness dwells and, because it is not subject to the motions of sin and judgment,  will be everlasting (2 Pet 3:13).  In sum, there are three aeons or ages of time described in the Scriptures.  They are the “old heavens and earth,”  or the world between Adam and Noah, the “present heavens and earth,” or the world created out of Noah’s flood and continuing to the coming judgment of fire, and the “new heavens and earth,” or the everlasting cosmic order promised to the people of God (Isa 66:22, Rev 21:1). 

            Now the two world aeons subject to sin and judgment, as described by Peter, are bounded by the purifying agents of water and fire.[67]  The original creation, which was “formed out of water and by water,” perished by being “flooded with water.”  The present creation is “reserved for fire” (2 Pet 3:5-7).  The new creation, formed out of fire (2 Thess 1:7; 2 Pet 3:10-12) will be established at Christ’s coming (2 Pet 3:4, 9, 10, 13). Theologically, these ages of time are all recapitulated in the career of Christ between His birth, baptism, death and resurrection.  In order to see how this is accomplished, that is, that the macrocosm time is recapitulated in the microcosm of the Christ-event, we should begin by rehearsing the familiar facts of the temporal judgments set forth in Genesis as understood by Peter.

            The first Scriptural aeon of time begins with the Holy Spirit hovering over the deep, at last bringing forth Adam from the watery womb of the earth (Gen 1:2, 27).[68]  The creation of man thus emerges between the unrest of God’s Spirit (Gen 1:2) and the rest of God in a completed cosmic order (Gen 2:2).  This first aeon ended in the judgment of the earth when the household of Noah was “baptized” through the waters of judgment (1 Pet 3:20-21). Once again God sent His Spirit over the waters of the deep (Gen 8:1) until the present cosmos was completed and God received the sacrifice of rest (Gen 8:20-21).[69]  The dove of Noah figures prominently in the account of the flood as an emblem of the Spirit’s restlessness, hovering over the waters of wickedness and returning to Noah for rest until the waters were abated entirely and the present cosmic order was established (Gen 8:8-12).  The present aeon is reserved for a cataclysmic conflagration, wherein the earth and its works will be wholly burned up (1 Thess 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10-12).  But a new and everlasting creation will be resurrected out of the fiery consummation of the present world.  This new creation is reserved for all those who “love His appearing” (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 4:1, 8; Tit 2:13; 1 Pet 1:7).

            Now it is altogether necessary that Jesus should redeem the entire history of the world and its ages, taking upon Himself all the judgments and accomplishing all that was promised by the prophets.  Adam was constituted a microcosm by his creation, fashioned out of the dust of the earth and yet constituted a living soul by the breath of heaven itself (Gen 2:7).  Similarly, Jesus came from heaven to be born of an earthly maid, a fully divine and spiritual glory concealed in the clay of authentic humanity (John 1:1, 14). Now the birth of Jesus was after this manner.  The Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of Mary until Jesus was born into the world as the Son of God, the Last Adam (Luke 1:35, 1 Cor 15:45).  In order to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus identified with the waters of the baptism of repentance.  As He came up from the waters, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove.  Jesus is thus the New Noah (Luke 4:21-22, cf. Gen 8:9).   Through Jesus’ suffering He fulfilled the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, a burnt offering to the Lord suffering the “fire” of God’s wrath (Exod 12:8-10; 1 Cor 5:7, 1 Pet 1:19).[70]  In His resurrection, however, Jesus arose to a restored paradisal garden and He promised to share the New Jerusalem with all who overcome, the city He has prepared as the new heavens and earth, the everlasting inheritance of His people (Rev 21:1-4).[71]

The Temple-House and the Cycles of Time

            Certainly the most fundamental and perhaps even the most pervasive metaphor in Scripture is the temple or the tabernacle “house” of God.[72]  The figure is adaptable enough to comprehend a remarkable array of unique applications.  Among these are the individual believer, the community of Israel, the church both local and universal, Christ Himself, and the cosmos of the heavens and the earth. 

Consistent with this metaphorical construction, Paul admonishes the believers in Corinth to remember that their body is set apart as the temple (house) of God the Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).  John taught that Christ’s body was also a temple (John 2:21).  The local church in Ephesus is regarded as the “house of God” (1 Tim 3:15), as were the local churches in Roman Asia (1 Pet 4:17).  The universal church is also called the house or temple of God (Eph 2:19-22; Heb 3:6; 1 Pet 2:5). Moreover, there was also the tabernacle-house built by Moses in the wilderness (Acts 7:44).  Likewise, the history of Israel is divided into the times of the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 8:27) and the temple of Herod (John 2:20).  Finally, even the cosmos itself is made after the fashion of the sanctuary of God (Psa 78:69), for He stretched out the heavens like a tabernacle, and spread them out like a tent to dwell in (Isa 40:22).   

            The idea common to these various “houses” is that of the place God has chosen to dwell among men through His Spirit.  God creates Adam with a house of clay and then breathes His Spirit into him so that the man becomes a living soul (Gen 2:7). If respiration is the sign of life, expiration is the universal sign of death, the spirit having abandoned the human house.  The various tabernacle-temple “houses” of God all express the breathing rhythm of life, the coming of the spirit corresponding to birth and the abandonment of the spirit representing death.

This life rhythm of the spirit is observed when God creates the cosmic order.  The creation in Genesis begins when God’s Spirit moves upon the surface of the deep (Gen 1:2).  The announcement that God’s Spirit will no longer strive with man represents the death of the first cosmic order (Gen 6:3).  The new cosmos once again begins with the motion of the Spirit of God upon the deep (Gen 8:1). The withdrawal of God’s striving Spirit will presage the end of the present cosmic order as well (2 Thess 2:7).   Jesus, too, participates in humanity when the Spirit overshadows the womb of His mother (Luke 1:35).  His death is marked when He breathes out His Spirit (Luke 23:46).  Moreover, the glory cloud of God’s Spirit comes down to inhabit the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod 40:34-38), and the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 8:10-13).  Yet in the day of judgment Ezekiel sees the Spirit abandon the temple of Solomon (Ezek 11:22-24) and Jesus overturns the dovecotes so that emblematically the Spirit abandons the temple of Herod (Matt 21:12; Mark 11:15; John 2:16).[73]  Finally, the Spirit comes upon the church as a living temple (Acts 2:2-4) and the church in Ephesus is encouraged to persevere by not grieving the Spirit (Eph 4:30) and giving heed to what the Spirit says lest her lamp be removed (Rev 2:5-7).[74]       

            The organic nature of the temple “house of God” expresses itself in an identifiable life-cycle, a course of development that moves from life to death.[75]  With the individual this is most evident, of course, but it is likewise metaphorically true of the other temple “houses.”  The temples of Israel move from exodus (birth) to exile (death).  And the cosmic “temple” moves from creation (birth) to dissolution (death).  This developmental course describes the dispensation or the economy of the “house” (Eph 1:10, 3:2; Col 1:25), a stewardship that is marked by five identifiable and successive stages.  These stages constitute the time-line of the temple “house.”

            The first stage is the foundation, when the house is established.  The Hebrews epistle speaks of God as the “builder of the house” (Heb 3:4), and Christ as the “Son over His own house” (Heb 3:6).  After the house is founded, it must be presided over by a steward.  This second stage is the administration of the house (Matt 24:45; Luke 12:42, 16:2). [76]  Paul, in the authority of his apostolic office, gives instructions regarding the administration of the “house of God” (1 Tim 3:15), and directs that overseers should be appointed lest the houses of the church be overturned (Tit 1:5, 11).  The third stage is the appearance of an abomination that causes desolation (Matt 24:15). The desolation of the house is caused by an exodus as some of the household flee before impending judgment (Matt 24:16).[77]  The fourth stage is this exodus which leaves the house divided (“which cannot stand,” Matt 12:25; Luke 11:17) and desolate (Matt 23:38; Luke 13:35; Rev 17:16, 18:19).  This division brings about the fifth and final stage, which causes the house to fall (Matt 12:25; Luke 11:17).[78] The house is thus consumed and is no more (John 2:16; cf. Psa 69:9).[79] 

The Macrocosmic Time-Line: The History of the World

            We have argued that the cosmos, that is, the ordered arrangement of the heavens and the earth, is itself a temple “house.”  As such we would expect that the cosmos would express the life-cycle of the dispensation of God’s stewardship over His creation.  Moreover, we have also considered the aeons of the cosmos as they are developed in 2 Peter 3.  We have stated that there are two macrocosmic ages that are subject to the cycle of life and death, moving from creation to dissolution and then reconstitution.  The first age is the world that was, the world born of water (2 Pet 3:5, cf. Gen 1) that was dissolved by water (2 Pet 3:6, cf. Gen 7).  The second age is the present world, born of water and reserved for fire (2 Pet 3:7, cf. Gen 8:1). The death of the present cosmic “house” will issue into the everlasting aeon of the new heavens and earth (2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1), a new world no longer subject to the cycle of life and death (2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:27).

            It is instructive to compare the two aeons of the cosmic “house” that end in judgment, to see how their courses coincide to display the same dispensational development. Each cosmic order unfolds through the five narrative stages we have identified, namely, the founding, the stewardship, the abomination, the desolation, and the fall.  It should be noted that these five narratives express the five most fundamental theological categories as well.[80]  For example, the first of these theological narratives is the original foundation of the world out of the waters of chaos, a story fundamental to theology proper, and paralleled in postdiluvian history in the recreation of the world out of the waters of Noah.  The second narrative concerns the stewardship of Adam, a record fundamental to anthropology, and paralleled in the new stewardship commission to Noah.  The third narrative is the sin of Adam, an abomination that introduces the curse and finds hamartiological parallel in the sin of Noah.  The fourth parallel concerns the relationship between the descendents of Adam, namely, the Cainites of the wicked city of Enoch and the Yahweh worshipers in the family of Seth, those who are looking for the heavenly city.  This chronicle of redemptive import finds parallel in the postdiluvian juxtaposition of the descendents of Noah, namely, the inhabitants of the wicked city of Babel and the Yahweh worshipers in the family of Abraham.  Finally, the fifth parallel narrative concerns the sons of God and the daughters of man whose intermarriage brings about the fall of the ancient world.  This record has profound eschatological significance as it projects the expectations of apostasy and cosmic catastrophe upon the biblical understanding of postdiluvian history.[81]  

            The task of this section of the study is to demonstrate that the record of postdiluvian history is stylized so as to essentially reduplicate the chronicle of antediluvian history.[82]  Accordingly, the five narrative models isolated and identified in the statement regarding the life-cycle of the Biblical “houses” will be examined in turn and appeal will be made to the consecutive structural and literary correspondence of the postdiluvian to the prediluvian cosmic “houses.” The literary correspondences to which we will appeal show that the five parallel narratives sustain a logical as well as a chronological development (i.e., God, man, sin, redemption and judgment).

            It should be recognized that the primary goal of this survey is to articulate the thesis directively and not exhaustively.  It is freely acknowledged that individual correspondences may be challenged while other parallels may be suggested.  Nevertheless it is hoped that the aggregate of the evidence presented is sufficient to sustain the broader profile of the thesis.

Genesis 8: The New Creation

The ordering of the present heavens and earth out of the chaotic overthrow of the ancient world recorded in Genesis 8 parallels the original creation account of Genesis 1.[83]   In both chapters the theological narrative moves from the display of divine work to the account of divine rest.  According to Genesis 8:1 God brings about a wind to pass over the waters of the flood which, like the waters of original chaos (Gen 1:2), cover the earth (Gen 7:18-19).  The emergence of the dry land and the bringing forth of vegetation (Gen 1:12) find a mirror image in the olive leaf brought to Noah, which is taken as a token of the emergence of dry land (Gen 8:11).  Noah's sabbatical pattern in the sending of the dove[84] suggests that God alone, who created the first world in six days, can deliver the earth from such a catastrophe.  The sabbath rest of God at the conclusion of the original creation ("and He rested," Gen 2:2) finds correspondence in the sacrificial rest of God after the new creation is completed ("and the Lord smelled the aroma of [lit.] rest," Gen 8:21; cf. Exod 20:11 in which the rest of God on the seventh day of creation is described by the same verb).  The literary correspondence between both accounts is readily evident through the extent and frequency of shared vocabulary: “spirit” (wind), “deep,” “day/night,” “dry/ dry land,” “after its kind,” and “sabbath.”[85]

Genesis 9: The New Adam

            The divine commission and blessing bestowed upon Noah finds precise parallel in the record of Adam.[86]  The anthropologically fundamental doctrine of the divine image in man occurs in the Adam narrative as the basis of man’s dignity and in the Noah narrative as the basis of man’s protection, being wholly unique in Genesis to the Adam and Noah stories (Gen 1:27; 5:1, 3; 9:6).  Surely it also has anthropological significance that man in his relationship to the other animate life is a point central to both the Adam and Noah records.[87]  God brings the “breathing” animals to Adam to be named.  He brings them once again to Noah to be protected (cf. Gen 2:19; 7:15).[88]  Finally, the blessing of fruitfulness given to Adam and again to Noah finds virtually identical expression, signifying the fatherhood of Adam and Noah to the prediluvian and postdiluvian worlds respectively (cf. the isocolic parallels of Genesis 9:1: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” and Genesis 1:28a: “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’”).

Genesis 9:20-27: The Fall Renewed

            The structural and literary correspondence between the story of Noah's sin and the record of Adam's Fall is striking.[89]  Noah's transgression[90] begins with a vineyard (Gen 9:20) while Adam's sin is set in a garden (Gen 3:1).  Noah drank of the fruit of the vine while Adam ate of the fruit of the tree (Gen 9:20; 3:2), both being acts of deliberate disobedience resulting in the sinner's awareness of shameful nakedness (Gen 9:21; 3:7).  While Noah's nakedness was covered by his eldest sons (Gen 9:23), Adam's nakedness was covered by God (Gen 3:32).  Both the sin of Noah and the sin of Adam created an abomination that brought forth a fearful curse and an enduring division in their respective seed (Gen 9:25; 3:15).  In both accounts the narrative moves from the sin of the father to the resulting blessing and cursing of the seed and finally to the genealogical development (Genesis 10 and 5).  The authorial intention to relate the story of Noah’s sin to Adam’s Fall is literarily evident in the word-play in Genesis 9:20, where Noah is called a “man of the earth,” using the two names for Adam found in Genesis 2:7, and 2:23, and the parallel of Genesis 9:24, “Noah awoke,” that is, by metonymy, his “eyes were opened,” as in Genesis Gen 3:7a.

Genesis 11-12:  Renewed Conflict of the Seed

            The cursing and blessing oracle concerning Adam’s seed (Gen 3:15) divides the ancient world into Cainites and Sethites, according to the thematic development of Genesis 4-5.  Cain, condemned to wander in the earth, founds the wicked city of Enoch to the east of Eden (Gen 7:17), an antediluvian cosmopolis finding correspondence in postdiluvian history with the wicked city of Babel, on the east of the mountains of Ararat, a new cosmopolis which Noah’s sons founded to avoid wandering in the earth (Gen 11:2, 4).  The godly descendants of Adam are represented in the line of Seth as the community “calling upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4:26). The structural correspondence in postdiluvian Genesis is unavoidably directed toward Abram, who with his family “calls upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 12:8). By this precise correspondence the conclusion is irresistible that the author would have us discern the identifying continuity of Israel's patriarch with the godly Sethite community of the antediluvian world. 

            This juxtaposition of Israel and the nations as reflective of the renewed conflict of the spiritual seed[91] in postdiluvian history sets the broader context for understanding the OT distinction between the elect nation and the heathen, later spiritualized as Zion and Babel.  The character of the conflict between these seed had been the subject of the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4, that is, the conflict is to the death (cf. again Gen 3:15), and it was the neglect of this principle in the intermarriage of the Sethites and the Cainites[92] that brought the entire race under the curse and caused the overthrow of the antediluvian world.[93]

            The conflict between Zion and Babel becomes a major unifying theme throughout the entire postdiluvian scriptural record.  The building of an earthly Babel by the postdiluvian faithless brings to mind the wicked city of Cain.[94]  By contrast the hope of the heavenly city among the postdiluvian faithful brings to remembrance the heavenly expectation of Abel (cf. Heb 11:4, l3-l6).[95]

Eschatological Expectation: The New Judgment

            The task of this study was to demonstrate that the Genesis record of postdiluvian history is so constructed as to be essentially a reduplicative chronicle of antediluvian history.  Now this reduplication in Genesis carries through historically only to the fourth narrative (creation, man, sin, and the beginnings of renewed conflict of the seed), the conflict between Babel and Zion constituting the rest of the scriptural drama.  But the implication of the pattern of historical presentation in Genesis requires the projection of general apostasy and cosmic judgment into postdiluvian prophecy to satisfy the pattern of parallel narratives.[96]  Explicit confirmation of these expectations is found in the NT in Christ's speaking specifically about the “days of Noah" reappearing upon the earth,[97] and the Apostle Peter writing of the Noahic deluge as an adumbration of the eschatological fiery catastrophe.[98]   The destruction of the ancient world ushered in the present heavens and earth.  Similarly the present world will pass away before the new heavens and earth.[99]

The Microcosmic Time-Line: The History of Israel

            Just as we have seen that the cosmos itself expresses the life-cycle of the dispensation of God’s stewardship, we may also discern the same arrangement in the history of Israel.[100] There are two “tabernacle” or “temple-houses” that constitute the corporate identity of Israel.  The tabernacle of Moses is erected after the exodus, and the temple of Solomon, its mature expression, is destroyed at the Babylonian exile.  Similarly, the temple that is reconstituted after the exodus from the Babylonian captivity is destroyed at the Roman exile.  Both of these temple-houses display the same dispensational life-cycle that we observe in the macrocosmic history of the world.  They develop from exodus (life) to exile (death).

The First (Tabernacle) Temple:  The Creation of the House

            God, who created the world, likewise “created” Israel (Isa 40:28, cf. 43:1, 15); He commanded Moses to raise the cosmic house of the tabernacle in the wilderness after the heavenly pattern he had seen in the mount (Exod 25:40; Heb 8:5). Israel was thus created out of the chaos of Egypt, for it was out of Egypt that God called forth His son (Hos 11:1).  God ruled over the preternatural darkness of Egypt (Exod 10:21-23) and caused His Spirit to move upon the deep of the Red Sea to deliver His people (Exod 14:21, 15:5, 8).  All of this was to show that the covenant Lord of the fathers was the same God who created the heavens and earth in the beginning, the God who brought forth Adam as His son.  God indeed reenacted the order of the original creation in His redemption of Israel by the sea.  He brought light into darkness (Exod 14:20, cf. the first day of creation of Gen 1:3), He divided the waters (Exod 14:21, cf. the second day of creation of Gen 1:6),  and He brought forth the dry land from the sea (Exod 14:22, cf. the third day of creation of Gen 1:9).  Through all of this darkness and deep God brought forth His people with their flocks and herds to establish a camp like the garden of God (Numb 24:5-6), settled in a paradisal land where they would enjoy the rest of God (Deut 12:9; Psa 95:11; cf. the Sabbath conclusion to the creation, Gen 2:1-3).

The First (Tabernacle) Temple: The Stewardship of the House

            Just as the creation of Israel is patterned after the creation of the world, so the administration of Israel recalls Adam’s stewardship responsibility in the garden of God.  Indeed a major metaphor for Israel’s settlement in Canaan is that God planted His people in the paradisal land of promise (Pss 44:2, 80:8, 15; Isa 5:2; Jer 2:21) just as He had originally planted a garden for Adam in Eden (Gen 2:8).  Moreover, just as God originally blessed Adam and his wife and made them fruitful to multiply upon the earth (Gen 1:28), so He likewise blessed His people Israel to make them fruitful that they might multiply in the land (Exod 1:7).  Similarly, just as Adam was to subdue the beast and rule over the earth (Gen 1:28), so Israel’s king was to subdue the nations (Psa 110:2) and rule over the earth (Pss 2:8, 72:8). And just as Adam was confronted with the choice between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, whose violation threatened death (Gen 2:9, 17), so Israel was confronted with life and good and death and evil (Deut 30:15), and charged to choose life by obeying the voice of God (Deut 30:19-20).  For the disobedience of Adam had been justly punished with his banishment from the pleasant land of the garden (Gen 3:24), and the disobedience of Israel would likewise require exile from the pleasant land given by the Lord (Deut 30:17-18).[101]

The First (Tabernacle) Temple: The Abomination in the House

            The great pivot in the history of Israel is the sin of David the king with the wife of Uriah.  Just as Moses had written, the sin of the king of Israel would be decisive for Israel with respect to the continuance of the kingdom (Deut 17:20).  Expositing this theology, the author of 2 Samuel structures his book as a bifed turning on the sin of David with Bathsheba.  The first ten chapters describe the ascendancy of David and his kingdom, the central chapters 11 and 12 narrate David’s sin and its imputation to the royal house, and the remaining chapters 13-24 describe the disastrous consequences of that sin for David’s kingdom.  Matthew’s genealogy takes a yet broader perspective on the centrality of David to the history of Israel.  The evangelist describes fourteen generations of ascendancy from Abraham to David and then fourteen generations of decline from David to the Babylonian captivity (Matt 1:17).  The historiography is unmistakable, demonstrating that David’s disobedience was crucial to the history of Israel.  Indeed, David himself, in his confessional psalm, seemed to appreciate that his status as the federal representative of Israel magnified the consequences of his sin against his people (Psa 51:18).[102]

            In this light the sin of David deserves special consideration, for it appears to qualify as the abomination that was to require the ultimate desolation and fall of the temple-house of God in Israel.  The significance of David’s sin is seen when it is compared to Adam’s fall in the garden, a similar federal sin that likewise brought expulsion and death in its wake. The similarity of David’s sin to Adam’s fall is astonishing. 

            David is anointed king over the twelve tribes of Israel whose elders come to him representing themselves as “your bone and flesh,”  that is, the elders use the language of Adam celebrating his bride (Gen 2:23) to announce the nuptial character of their federal submission to David, who is to rule over them (2 Sam 5:1).  Moreover, David has so intimate a walk with God that he is charged with dancing in a manner that recalled Adam’s shameless nakedness (2 Sam 6:12-22), even as Bathsheba is not charged for her own nakedness at her bath when David took notice of her (2 Sam 11:2; cf. Gen 2:24).[103]  Like Adam, David is tempted by a woman, seeing her beauty, taking her, and “knowing” her contrary to the law of God (Exod 20:14).  Fearing the shameful exposure of his adultery, David resorts to lying and murder, a type of fig-leaf covering for his iniquity (2 Sam 12:12-13, cf. Gen 3:7).  David, under the just judgment of death, is graciously pardoned by God in a manner that recalls God’s mercy to Adam (2 Sam 12:5, cf. Gen 2:17), although the prophet Nathan charges him using the very name of Adam, “you are the man (ish)!” (2 Sam 12:13, cf. Gen 2:23).  As a consequence of David’s sin he, like Adam, is driven eastward from the paradisal city (2 Sam 15:23, cf. Gen 3:24).  Moreover, David, like Adam, learns the terror of a sword that cannot be removed from his house (2 Sam 12:10, cf. Gen 3:24) and the sorrow of a father whose son lies in wait to murder his own brother (2 Sam 13:23-29, cf. Gen 4:8).

The First (Tabernacle) Temple: The Desolation of the House

            The setting of brother against brother in Israel, foreshadowed in Absalom’s murder of Amnon that recalled Cain’s murder of Abel, previews the moral decline of God’s covenant people.  And just as the antediluvian sons of God had taken to themselves wives, whomsoever they chose, so the pagan marriages of Solomon (1 Kgs 11:1-13; Neh 13:26; cf. Gen 6:2) foreshadowed the spiritual apostasy of the kingdom against which the Spirit, through the prophets, would strive with the people (Neh 9:30, cf. Gen 6:3).  The apostasy of Israel during the divided monarchy made political Jerusalem the city of chaos, the prophets judging her sin as comparable to that of Sodom and Egypt (Amos 4:10-11; Ezek 16:23).  The prophets, who are continually persecuted by political Jerusalem (Matt 5:12; 23:37, cf. Jude 14-15),[104] nevertheless direct the hope of the faithful remnant to spiritual Jerusalem, the city of true worship (Ps 48; Isa 2:2-4).  But at last the land of Judah was corrupt and filled, like the antediluvian world, with violence (hamas, Hab 1:2,3; 2:8,17; Gen 6:11), whereupon the prophet Habbakuk was warned that the Chaldeans would come upon Judah like a flood.[105]

The (Tabernacle) Temple: The Fall of the House

            The armies of Assyria that assailed Judah were compared by Isaiah to a great flood of waters (Isa 8:7-8; 17:12-13; cf. Amos 8:8; 9:5).  The Chaldeans, who conquered Jerusalem, would be compared to the waters of Noah (cf. Isa 54:9).[106]  The destruction of Jerusalem recalls the judgment of Sodom (Isa 1:9; Lam 4:6), while Jeremiah used the language of chaos to color this destruction (Jer 4:23-26).  The flood of judgment coming upon Jerusalem is described as wrath poured out of the windows of heaven (Isa 24:18; cf. Gen 7:11; 8:2),[107] overturning the entire cosmic order (Isa 24:19). Wrath is poured out upon Zion as a consuming fire (Lam 4:11; cf. 2 Chron 36:19), like Sodom's overthrow (cf. Deut 29:21-23).  The covenant faithfulness of God that spared a remnant through the flood of Noah likewise preserves a faithful remnant of Israel, however (Isa 54:9-11).  The righteous are called upon to return to their chambers to seek shelter behind the door of safety (Isa 26:20; cf. Exod 12:21-23 and Gen 7:16) until the Lord brings the remnant back in a new exodus (Isa 51:10-11) to His holy mountain (Isa 27:13).

The Second Temple: The New Creation of the House

            The second exodus from Babylon is represented as a new creation.  Isaiah’s song of comfort to the captives of Judah (Isa 51:9-11) summons the arm of the Lord, which had been displayed so powerfully in the original creation and in the Egyptian exodus, to intervene once again to turn the captivity of Zion.  The imagery suggests another battle with the chaos waters that prepares a way for the people of God to return dryshod (cf. similar comfort to Israel in Isa 11:15-16).  The captives who would return to Zion would be given the Spirit (Hag 2:5; cf. Isa 63:11-13).  They would be encouraged regarding the promise of God to make of the wilderness a garden of Eden (Isa 51:3; cf. Num 24:5-6), they would again erect the temple (representing cosmic order, cf. Ezra 8:13),[108] and God, as He had after the flood, would once again accept a sacrifice of rest (Ezek. 20:41; Gen. 8:21).  As the original creation had been celebrated in song (cf. Job 38:4-7), and the exodus from Egypt had been celebrated by hymn (cf. Exod 15:1-8), it was appropriate that the exiles of the second exodus, as a new creation, should return to Zion with singing (cf. Isa 51:11; Ps 126).

The Second Temple: The Renewed Stewardship of the House

            The second exodus prophecy of Hosea (11:1-12) encourages the faithful remnant that God, who called his son out of Egyptian bondage, will call His son out of Assyrian captivity as well.  Jeremiah's second exodus prophecy (23:3-8) contains the promise of a restoration of Israel's commission to be fruitful and multiply (Jer 23:3; cf. Exod 1:7; Gen 1:28), as well as a confirmation of the promise that a Davidic king will yet subdue the earth (Jer 23:5-6; cf. Pss 2:8; 72:8; 110:2, 6; Gen 1:28).

The Second Temple: The Renewed Abomination in the House

            The parallels with Israel's sin in rejecting the Messiah and the record of Adam's Fall are striking.  Christ was made prisoner in a garden (John 18:1-2; cf. Gen 3:1). He who “knew” no sin was made sin (1 Cor 5:21; cf. Gen 3:7) being made shamefully naked (John 19:23-24; cf. Gen 3:7).[109]  Sweating blood, crowned with thorns, and hung upon a tree (Acts 10:39; cf. Gen 3:3), Christ was made a curse (Gal 3:13; cf. Gen 3:17-19), His death bringing a sword into His house (cf. Luke 2:35; 22:36; Matt l0:34).[110]

The Second Temple: The Renewed Desolation of the House

            Physical Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Christ once again became the city of chaos, the apostles comparing her to Sodom (Matt 11:24) and Egypt (Matt 2:13-18; cf. Rev 11:8).  Nevertheless the hope of the faithful remnant is directed to spiritual Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; John 4:21-24; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:10).  While Jerusalem below persecutes Jerusalem above (Gal 4:29; 1 Thess 2:15), Christ had warned that His remnant should flee (Matt 24:15-20), for Jerusalem’s house was to be left desolate (Matt 23: 37-38).

The Second Temple: The Fall of the House Renewed

            The destruction of the city and the temple of Jerusalem prophesied by Christ (Matt 24:1-2) is described as being comparable to the final destruction of the world at the end of the age, paralleling the days of Noah (Matt 25:37-39) and the days of Lot (Luke 17:28-32).  The abomination causing desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, that destroys the city and the sanctuary, was to come with a flood (LXX, kataklusmo, Dan 9:26-27).  The abomination in the temple was to be the sign for the faithful remnant, like Lot, to escape to the mountains (Matt 24:15-20; Gen 19:17). The promise of a remnant of Israel again escaping wrath is that which distinguished the judgment of Jerusalem from that of Sodom (Rom 9:29; Isa 1:9). All those who escaped were to find refuge in the eternal temple, that is, Christ Himself, the true Temple-House which was raised on the third day, as He said (John 2:19).

The Cosmographic Christ: The Typology of Jesus Uniting Heaven and Earth

“And he said unto him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’” John 1:51

              One of the theologically richest words of Jesus recorded in the New Testament is the promise made to Nathanael that, as a true Israelite, he would be permitted to see the vision given originally to Jacob (or Israel) at Bethel. The Genesis account records that in a dream Jacob had seen a great ladder of stairs set on the earth with its top reaching into heaven.  The angels of God were ascending and descending upon this stairway that connected heaven and earth, with God Himself standing above the stairway in heaven (Gen 28:10-13).  Jesus’ promise is that Nathanael will likewise see Jacob’s vision with the angels of God ascending and descending, but that he would have a greater revelation, namely, that he would understand Jesus to be the stairway uniting heaven and earth (John 1:51).[111]

            Now the plural form of the verb in Jesus’ statement to Nathanael (Gk.: “you (pl.) shall see”) makes it clear that the vision is open to all who, like Nathanael, are true Israelites, that is, the vision is for all who are guileless (John 1:51).  But how are we to recognize Jacob’s Bethel vision if we are permitted to behold it?    Taking our clues from the text, Jesus indicates that we will recognize the vision by its three characteristics: first, we will “see the heavens opened,” second, there will be “the angels of God ascending and descending,” and, third, they will be attending “the Son of Man” (John 1:51). In light of the specificity of Jesus’ description of this vision, it is remarkable that modern Johannine commentary has abandoned the quest to discover where and how the promise to Nathanael was fulfilled.  As we will see, however, the vision is elaborately described for us in the Scripture in all its particulars, demonstrating the remarkable expansiveness of the apostolic understanding of Jesus as the bridge between heaven and earth.

            Before we identify the biblical vision that satisfies the Lord’s description, we should set the account of Nathanael in its immediate context within the Jacob typology of the first four chapters of John’s Gospel.  This will enable us to understand why the Lord invoked Jacob’s vision at Bethel in His interview with Nathanael.  We will begin by rehearsing the account of Jacob from Genesis 28 and 29 to show how the narrative of Jacob’s journey to a far country in search of a bride is elaborately undergirding the Johannine typology of Jesus as a Bridegroom (John 3:29), likewise in search of His bride in a far country (John 1-4).

Jesus as the New Jacob and Jesus as Jacob’s God

Jacob left his father’s house and the enmity of his brother (Gen 27:41) to travel to a far country where his father sent him to find a bride (Gen 28:2).  On his journey, he stopped for the night and slept in the open (Gen 28:11).  He took a stone and used it as a pillow (Gen 28:11).  As he slept, he dreamed of a ladder or stairway, extending from earth to heaven, on which he saw the angels of God ascending and descending (Gen 28:12).  The Lord God stood in heaven at the top of the stairway and promised blessing to Jacob and his descendants and ultimately all the families of the earth (Gen 28:12-15).  When Jacob awoke, he took the stone on which he slept and set it up as a pillar of witness, anointing it with oil, and naming the place “Bethel,” which means “the house of God” (Gen 28:16-19). 

         Continuing on his journey, Jacob arrived in Haran where he found a well (Gen 29:2).  As Jacob waited by the well, the beautiful maiden daughter of Laban, Rachel, came out of the city to the well at “high day” (Gen 29:7-9). When Jacob saw her, he gave her water from the well (Gen 29:10). Rachel then left the well and ran into the city to tell her father that their kinsman Jacob had come (Gen 29:12).  At her word, Laban came out of the city to the well to greet Jacob and to welcome him into his own house.  Then Jacob agreed to stay with Laban for a short while (Gen 29:13).

         As John’s Gospel opens, Jesus has left His Father’s house in heaven (cf. John 14:2-3, 17:5) to seek His bride upon the earth (John 1:14, 3:29).  He is immediately confronted with the rejection of His brethren (John 1:11, 7:5).  John introduces Jesus in his Gospel as He calls out His disciples.  The nation Israel consisted of twelve tribes, descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.  By selecting twelve disciples, Jesus identifies Himself as a New Jacob, the founder of the new Israel.  Jesus appears to be staying in the open, having no place to lay His head (John 1:38, cf. 7:53, Matt 8:20).  As Jesus calls forth the twelve, John singles out His selection of Peter and Nathanael[112] to link Jesus specifically to the story of Jacob at Bethel. 

         John focuses attention on the new name given to Peter, one of the twelve disciples.  Jesus renames Simon “Cephas,” meaning stone.  In light of the Matthean understanding of this naming, Jesus is announcing that upon this stone He who is the True Jacob would build His church, which is the true house of God, the true Bethel (Matt 16:18, cf. John 1:42). [113]  When Jesus gives Peter a name meaning “stone,” He is figuratively setting up a stone pillar of witness in the house of God, as Jacob did at Bethel.

         The most striking connection of Jesus with Jacob at Bethel, however, comes in the story of Nathanael.  After describing Nathanael as a “true Israelite in whom is no guile,”[114] Jesus promises that he will see Jacob’s vision of Bethel.  “Hereafter you will see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51). 

         As the Gospel continues, John the Baptist hears the voice of the Bridegroom (John 3:29).  Then Jesus comes to the well of Jacob (John 4:6), which Jacob had given to Rachel’s son (John 4:5).  Both the text and the context are prompting us to recall the well in Haran where Jacob met Rachel, who was to be his bride. As Jesus waits by the well we expect a new Rachel to come, one to represent the bride of Christ.  But it is a Samaritan woman who comes out of the city at “high day” (John 4:6).  Unlike Rachel, she is hardly beautiful; neither is she a virgin.  Nonetheless, when Jesus sees her, He speaks lovingly to her, and offers her “living water” (John 4:10).  The woman then leaves the well and runs into the city to tell her people that one related to their father Jacob has come (John 4:12).  At her word, the men of Sychar[115] come out of the city to the well to greet Jesus and to welcome Him into their city (John 4:30, 40).  Then Jesus agrees to stay with the Samaritans for a short while (John 4:40).

            Now when Jesus was sitting at the well of Jacob, the Samaritan woman had asked Him whether He was a prophet.  “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?”  The question is left unanswered by the Lord, who simply offers to give her better water, a well springing up to eternal life (John 4:13-14).  But the evangelist leaves the final answer to her question open in order to prompt the reader to consider how Jesus is greater than Jacob. In the immediate context, Jesus is greater for another reason.  Jacob had met his bride at a well.  But Jacob could only love one who was beautiful.  He was never able to love the unlovely Leah (Gen 29:17, 31).  But Jesus shows a heart ready to love a Samaritan, one who had long lost her beauty and purity.  John has framed his account in order for us to understand that this Samaritan woman, who had had five husbands and was now living in open and notorious sin, is the antitype of Rachel, the virgin daughter of Laban (John 4:18).  Jesus knows she is not pure.  But He loves her anyway.  And His love restores both her purity and her beauty.  All of this Jacob could not do.

But there is a more remote context that is relevant to John’s answer to the Samaritan’s question as to whether Jesus is greater than Jacob.  That context is found in John’s vision of the heavenly Jesus recorded in Revelation 19:11-16.  Once again John presents Jesus through the figure of a blazon, especially seen in the metaphors that describe the face of Jesus (Rev 19:12, 15).  But the relevant Jacobite typology is his description of Jesus (the Word of God) who has a name which no one knows except Himself and who has a banner written upon His thigh, reading, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:12, 16).  Both descriptions recall Jacob’s wrestling with God at Peniel (Gen 32:24-32).  In that nighttime encounter, the divine Man is asked but does not disclose His name (Gen 32:29).  This divine encryption corresponds to the representation of Jesus as the Lord whose name no one knows (Rev 19:12).

 But John’s vision also shows Jesus as greater than Jacob by noting that the thigh of the Savior carries the banner of His great strength (Rev 19:15), in contrast to Jacob, whose thigh represented the weakness of his infirmity (Gen 32:25, 31).[116] This pattern of predicates suggests that John the evangelist has begun his Gospel with a typology of Jesus as the New Jacob at a new Bethel and has ended the Revelation with a typology of Jesus as the New Jacob at a new Peniel.  In the beginning of the Gospel, Jesus, like Jacob, has left His father’s house to seek His bride.  At the end of the Revelation, Jesus, like Jacob, has returned to His Father’s house.  There He receives His bride.[117]

Nathanael’s Vision and the Typology of Jesus Corresponded to Jacob’s Ladder

            Having seen the Jacob typology underlying the climactic vision of Jesus in Revelation, we are now prepared to look for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise that Nathanael, and those who are true Israel like him, will see Jacob’s vision.  As the Lord said, we should look to “see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51).

In Revelation 14 John narrates a vision of the hundred and forty-four thousand standing upon Mount Zion with the Lamb, whom they follow (14:1,4).  This great company, with twelve thousand taken from each tribe (Rev 7:4-9), represents “true Israel.”  Like the twelve disciples in the beginning of John’s Gospel, they follow the Lamb (John 1:36-37, cf. Rev 14:4).  And like Nathanael, the true Israelite, this true Israel has no guile (Rev 14:5, cf. John 1:47). [118] 

Now after John describes the true Israel standing upon Mount Zion, he sees three angels flying in mid-heaven (Rev 14:6-9).  Two angels then come forth from the temple in heaven to bring about the harvest of the earth (Rev 14:15,17).  Next we are told that seven angels come forth from the temple in heaven with bowls of judgment to pour out upon the earth (Rev 15:1-8).  In Revelation 16 the seven angels pour out their judgments.  Beginning with chapter 17 and through the rest of the book, John describes the seven angels from heaven with the bowls of judgment and how they are variously deployed on earth, in mid-heaven and in heaven to minister their warfare against the deceit of the nations.

It will be instructive to consider the relationship of these seven last angels, for as Nils Lund observed, they are arrayed in a clearly chiastic pattern.[119]  Consequently we will consider the angels in their corresponding pairs: the first and seventh, the second and sixth, the third and fifth, and the climactic fourth angel, the pivot in the chiastic sequence.  We will especially give attention to the physical location of the angels as they are marshaled between heaven and earth.

 The first and most salient observation to note in the account of the seven last angels is the correspondence between Revelation 17:1-3,8 and Revelation 21:9-10, the introductions of the first and the last angels in the heptad of heavenly angels introduced in Revelation 16:1. The following boxes compare the text introducing the first (17:1) and the last (21:9) angels in the vision.[120]

In his excellent study on the Book of Revelation, Richard Bauckham notes the “clearly parallel openings” of the two angels, claiming that they  “are so clear that it is astonishing that so many attempts to discern the structure of Revelation have ignored them.”[121]  Bauckham further observes that several thematic correspondences between the two angels circumscribe the material between them, bracketing a single section of the book.  He notes that the two angels deal respectively with Babylon and Jerusalem, the two cities that John depicts under the figure of two women.  Bauckham continues, “In 17:1-19:10 he (John) sees the harlot Babylon and her fall; in 21:9-22:9 he sees the bride of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven.  Together these two sections form the climax towards which the whole book has aimed: the destruction of Babylon and her replacement by the New Jerusalem.”[122]

            Bauckham noted the inclusive correspondences between the first and the last angels of the last vision.  But inclusio patterns often alert the reader to chiastic correspondence as well.[123]  Nils Lund has undertaken an elaborate comparison of the angels in a study that arranges them in a chiastic pattern.  According to Lund’s arrangement, the first angel corresponds to the seventh, as Bauckham also observes.  But Lund likewise corresponds the second to the sixth, and the third to the fifth angels, with the vision of Christ in heaven taking the central place of the fourth “angel.”[124] 

Our own study substantiates this chiastic correspondence through the observation that John arranges the angels according to a spatial pattern that conforms to the chiastic pattern.  The first and seventh angels are stationed upon the earth (“in a wilderness”, 17:3 and “upon a mountain”, 21:10).  The second and the sixth angels descend to midheaven (“descending from heaven” in 18:1 and 20:1), and the third and fifth angels occupy a place in heaven (“throwing a millstone into the sea,” 18:21 and “standing in the sun,” 19:17).[125]  The central scene of the fourth “angel” is the vision of Christ in heaven (19:11).  The spatial location markers accompanying the seven angels suggest that the evangelist is employing an elaborate ecphrasis to depict a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with the vision of Christ at the top of the stairway (19:11).

The base of the stairway was indicated by the first and seventh angels.  If we “ascend the stairway” with John, we may compare the second and the sixth angels in the vision, both deployed for battle in midheaven (18:1 and 20:1).

John describes both the second and the sixth angels as “descending” from heaven.  The second has “great authority,” and the sixth has a “great chain” and a “key,” the symbols of authority.  Just as we observed with the first and last angels, the second and the sixth angels in the series execute comparable missions of judgment.  Each acts by incarcerating evil spirits in order to restrain the deception of the nations (figuratively, their “intoxication”).[127] 

            If we “ascend the stairway” with John once again, we move from the second and sixth angels in the midheaven to the third and the fifth angels, who are situated in heaven on either side of the central vision of the exalted Lord Christ (19:11).

In the last pairing of angels, the adjective “one” introduces each angel and each is associated with natural imagery, the sea or the sun.  Moreover, one angel is described as “mighty,” and the other speaks a taunt against “mighty” men.  The metaphoric hurling of the millstone into the sea by the third angel foreshadows the hurling of the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire under the authority of the fifth angel.

            As we pass the third and the fifth angels, we have “ascended” to the top of John’s literary stairway connecting earth to heaven.  The Seer now describes a truly remarkable aspect of his vision.  He introduces the climax of his literary ladder with an astonishing testimony that, when read in light of his Gospel, is designed to resonate with the reader like the sound of thunder.  Consider the central apex of the grand vision spanning Rev 17:1-22:6, as the Seer reports it:

At the summit of the stairway of ascending and descending angels set on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, John sees the heavens opened and he beholds the Lord Jesus, called “The Word of God,” astride a white horse and dressed in battle array at the head of the heavenly army.  It had been the Lord Himself, the God of Abraham and Isaac who stood at the top of the ladder in Jacob’s vision at Bethel (Gen 28:13).  But in John’s vision it is Jesus, called the Word of God, who is seen at the top of the ladder of angels (Rev 19:11).  There could be no greater affirmation of Jesus’ identity as the Lord God of Abraham and Isaac than this identification seen by John on Patmos.  Moreover, the Bethel descriptions of Jesus are conflated to recall the God of Peniel, as well, with the encrypted name and the banner of strength on the thigh of the Lord Jesus.  This recollection of Peniel underlies John’s description of Jesus’ eyes, head, and mouth (Rev 19:12, 15).  In other words, John is describing the features of the face of Jesus in a context that prompts us to recall Peniel, the place where Jacob memorialized the “face of God” (Gen 32:30).  Jesus is thus presented as the God-man as well as the One who unites heaven and earth.  For He must wage warfare from heaven to establish His kingdom on earth until at last God’s will is done on earth, even as it is in heaven.

Now before we proceed we should make the observation that the ecphrastic or iconic character of John’s climactic vision of the seven last angels of Revelation dischronologizes the entire vision.  It requires an achronistic or transtemporal understanding of the end of Revelation.  The ladder originally seen by Jacob is identified as the ladder revealed to John and the true Israel of the hundred and forty four thousand.  It is likewise the vision promised to Nathanael and those comprehended by the plural “you” in John 1:51.  At this point we should step back from the details of the text and observe a graphic structure of the vision as a whole.  The following diagram displays the pyramidal or “stairway” structure of John’s climactic vision in Revelation 17:1-22:6.

  John’s Great Vision of the Seven Last Angels (Rev 17:1-22:6)

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Excursus:  The Literary Interleaving of the Fourth Gospel and Revelation

Modern commentary generally dismisses the possibility that the Apocalypse could have interpretive relevance to the Fourth Gospel, and vice versa.  Affinities of language between the two books are regularly parsed away, and alleged theological differences are emphasized.  Nonetheless, the virtually unanimous testimony of the church fathers from the second to the fourth centuries of the Christian era insists that both books came from the pen of John the son of Zebedee.  This probative historical evidence, buttressed by a pattern of unique literary patterns shared between the two books, suggests that modern Johannine commentary is predicated upon fundamental error.  The question of authorship is decisive to the exegesis of both books.  But once the commonality of authorship is conceded, no one seriously trained in literary critical theory would imagine that either book could ever be interpreted fully without the other.  This paper will proceed on the assumption that the Fourth Gospel and Revelation are in fact, as the early fathers testified, from a single author.  In this light it would be helpful to note some of the evidence that supports the claim of literary interleaving between these two large books by the evangelist John.  For a more complete demonstration of the extensive interleaving between the Fourth Gospel and Revelation, see Warren Austin Gage, St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

            A pattern of unique inclusios tie together the beginning of the Fourth Gospel and the ending of Revelation.  For example, the names and titles of Jesus constitute the “bookends” of the entire Johannine enterprise.  The evangelist introduces Jesus as the Word of God in John 1:1, a unique title that he only elsewhere uses to describe the Christ in the vision he relates in Revelation 19:13, where Christ is called the Word of God. The evangelist introduces the One through whom all things came into being in John 1:3.  In Revelation 21:5, however, Christ claims, “Behold, I make all things new.” So the opening of the Fourth Gospel is a reflection upon the original creation while the ending of the Revelation is an anticipation of the new creation.  The One who was in the beginning with God is now the One who is both the beginning and the end (John 1:1 and Rev 22:13). Moreover, John tells us that the divine Word tabernacled among us in the beginning of the Gospel (John 1:14).  He reports at the end of Revelation that God will tabernacle among men forever (Revelation 21:3).  And he tells us that Jesus commanded the Jews to destroy the temple, but that they did not understand that He was the Temple (John 2:19,21). But in the eschaton John tells us that he saw no temple, for the Lamb is the Temple (Rev 21:22).

            Likewise, the major themes introduced in the beginning of the Gospel of John are only resolved at the end of Revelation.  The evangelist opens his Gospel with an account of a quarrel between light and darkness (John 1:5,9).  Only at the end of the Apocalypse, however, does John assure us that the light triumphs over the darkness (Rev 22:5).  Similarly, the evangelist reports that the prophet John identified Christ as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  At the climax of the Apocalypse, John reports that there will be no more curse, for the throne of God and the Lamb is there (Rev 22:3). 

It is noteworthy that the evangelist records that Jesus said “Come and see!” and that Philip who heard Him, likewise says “Come and see!” (John 1:39, 46).  The double invitation at the beginning of the Gospel is matched by a double invitation at the end of Revelation.  The seer reports that the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” and “let him who hears say, ‘Come!’” (Rev 22:17). Likewise, the Gospel opens with John the Baptist seeing the Spirit descending out of heaven upon Jesus, whom he would call the Bridegroom (John 1:32, 3:29).  Revelation ends with the holy city descending out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride for the Son of Man (Rev 21:2). In other words, the Gospel opens with a Bridegroom who has come to earth from His Father in heaven (John 1:14, 3:29), and Revelation ends with a bride who has come to earth from the Father in heaven (Rev 21:2).  Thus the Gospel introduces the bridegroom.  Revelation presents the bride.  Like a husband and wife, these two books must not be set asunder and read separately. The two great works of John are thus made “one flesh and bone” with each other. 

            Moreover, the Gospel account of the wedding at Cana is clearly written with Revelation’s marriage supper of the Lamb in view.  The extent of overlapping vocabulary and the conjunction of theme is unmistakable.  Both accounts speak of those called to the wedding (John 2:2, Rev 19:9). Both accounts speak of the coming of an hour of judgment (John 2:4, Rev 18:8, 10). In the Gospel Jesus has the waterpots for purification filled with water that becomes wine (John 2:4). In Revelation, the great whore, the imposture bride, has a cup filled with abomination (Rev 17:1-2,4,6). Jesus makes wine for both weddings (John 2:3, Rev 19:15).  After the whore and her paramours are drunk, the Lord serves the wine of the wrath of God (Rev 19:15, cf. Rev 17:1-2). Having served the better wine of grace in the Gospel, Jesus serves the worse wine of wrath in Revelation, after the unrepentant are drunk.  Thus Jesus has respected the wedding custom announced in John 2:10.  

    Similarly, the account of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, reported in the Gospel, reflects the warfare of heaven against the temple in Revelation 16-22. Jesus pours out the coins of the moneychangers in the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:15), emblematically anticipating the angels of heaven who pour out the vials of judgment upon the earthly temple (Revelation16:1-17). Jesus laments that His Father’s house has been made a house of merchandise as He overturns the tables of the astonished merchants (John 2:16).  At the judgment of Great Babylon, the merchants of the earth stand in dismay as the torment of her city begins (Rev 18:3,11,15).  Consequently, it should be clear that the evangelist has arranged his Gospel thematically to reflect the opening conflict between the heavenly Temple and its earthly imposture in Jerusalem’s second temple (John 2:21) so as to juxtapose it to the final conflict of the heavenly and earthly temples that constitutes the dénouement of his Apocalypse.  There is no need to posit a second temple cleansing, based upon literary grounds.  The beginning of the Gospel of John is written in a ring structure to correspond to the end of Revelation.  We conclude, therefore, that the Gospel’s temple cleansing episode is presented chiastically rather than chronologically.  Moreover, the ring structure to John/Revelation suggests that the context for fulfilling the vision promised to Nathanael at the beginning of the Fourth Gospel is most likely, as we have seen, the end of Revelation.

The Mystery Christ:  The Typology of Christ and His Bride

“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is great, but I am speaking of Christ and the church” Ephesians 5:31-32

            It is surely significant that the Bible both begins and ends with the celebration of a wedding.  Genesis opens with Adam and his bride in the pleasant garden.  We are told of a paradisal river giving drink to the tree of life.  The bride and groom, in perfect innocence, enjoy the sweet delight of fulfilling each other as the two are made one.  Moreover, their joy is made complete as they dwell together in perfect unity with God in the garden.  Revelation ends with the New Adam and His bride restored to a pleasant garden.  There is once again a paradisal river giving drink to the tree of life.  The new bride and Groom, in perfect innocence, enjoy the sweet delight of fulfilling each other and dwelling together with God.  Christ, who unites God and man in one Person, Spirit and flesh in one body, will join perfect Man and perfected woman through His marriage union with His chosen bride.[129]

This wedding frame to the whole biblical narrative makes the history of redemption into a great romance.  The grand Scriptural metanarrative that began once upon a time in Eden will end as the Bridegroom-God at last rescues His bride and takes her to His Father’s paradisal palace to live with her happily ever after.  The mystery of the incarnation was the bringing together of God and man.  The incarnation created yet another mystery, however, for the incarnate God would bring together not just God and man but also man and woman (Eph 5:31-32).  Jesus as the divine Man was born under the law and, therefore, it was not good that He should be alone (Gen 2:18).  Even Christ, is seems, must have a bride.  John the Baptist, speaking in the spirit of prophecy, understood the necessity of a companion for the Christ and rejoiced to hear the voice of the Bridegroom (John 3:29)  Jesus too understood His mission as one of preparing for a wedding celebration, and He spoke often of His kingdom destiny as corresponding to a wedding supper (Matt 9:14-15, 22:1-14, 25:1-12; Mark 2:18-19; Luke 5:33-35, 12:36-37; John 2:1-4).  The Apostles Paul (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:22-32) and John (Rev 19:7-9, 21:2-3) likewise understood Jesus’ relationship to His people through the bridal metaphor.  This mystery is great, but so we understand the unity of man and woman in Christ and His church (Eph 5:31-32).

There could be no greater hope of heavenly glory than to consider the destiny of the Christian believer, however sorely afflicted with sin today, one day to be made ready as a bride to be presented by Father God as His greatest gift to His beloved Son (Rev 21:2).  Man is incomplete alone. He requires a helper suitable for him to complete his true humanity (Gen 2:18).  Therefore what was true of the first Adam is likewise true of the last Adam, once He is made flesh.  Christ must have a bride.  But He cannot be unequally yoked (2 Cor 6:14).  Jesus must have a helper “suitable for Him” (Gen 2:18).  What a destiny is projected for the church by those words! Because Christ is perfect, His bride must therefore be perfected.  His bride must be made ready for that day (Rev 21:2).  She will have her purity so perfectly restored that she will stir every passion in the heart of her Bridegroom.  Israel’s ancient prophet comforted the troubled remnant of faith with the bright prospect of their nuptial destiny, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isa 62:5). 

In that great day Christ’s beloved will be arrayed for her Lord in raiment of fine needlework, all in royal robes, embroidered in jewels of joy and golden with the glow of redemption’s glory (Psa 45:13-14).  This bride will delight in her Groom alone, for as an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is her Beloved among all the sons of men.  With delight she will sit in the shade of His tree, and His fruit will be sweet to her taste.  He will bring her to His banqueting house, for His banner over her is love (Song 2:3-4).  Truly these are the blessed ones: all those who have been called to the wedding (Rev 19:9).

What will be the bliss of the bride on the day of her Lamb’s supper, on that great day of her desire when the Son of Man displays the love of His heart for His chosen bride!  Her Groom called the world into being with the whisper of His will.  He set the galaxies in motion with the word of His power.  But with the song of His heart He will sing righteousness and beauty over His beloved!  His light will be her love.  She is already by her creation made bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.  But by her redemption she will be made blood of His blood!  And her finite joy in His infinite grace will only ever deepen as He in turn is ravished by her never ceasing and ever increasing radiance and joy.

Male and Female, Metaphor, and Theology Proper

            Genesis declares that when God made mankind, He made both male and female in the image of God (Gen 1:27).  Both complementary principles expressed in human sexuality therefore derive an unsubordinated dignity from the nature of God Himself. [130]  Moses’ metaphor is consistent with this original divine androgyny, for he describes the process of the creation wherein God “gave birth” (yalad) to the mountains and “writhed in labor” (hul)to bring forth the earth and its habitation (Psa 90:2, cf. also Deut 32:18).  Similarly, Moses speaks of the entire heavens and earth as the “generations” (toledot) of God (Gen 2:4) and suggests that God “conceived and begot”(harah / yalad)  Israel (Numb 11:12). One of the chief attributes of God in the Psalms is His tender mercy, a word originally describing the maternal yearning toward the offspring of the womb (rehemim) (Pss 25:6, 103:4, 145:9).  It is the applicability of feminine metaphor to God that makes meaningful the simile of Jesus, who speaks of Himself like a mother hen who longs to gather her chicks under her wing (Matt 23:37).[131]

            But set alongside these female metaphors applied to God are the more characteristic male metaphors, wherein God is both the Husband of His people (Isa 62:5, Hos 2:16)[132] and the Father to the house of David (2 Sam 7:14).  And once again it is Christ who is the Mediator between these metaphoric relationships, both as the Bridegroom to His people (John 3: 29) and as the Davidic Son to God the Father (Rom 1:3).  According to the Pauline “mystery” (Eph 5:31-23), Jesus in the humanity of His incarnation left His Father in order to cleave to His wife, the church.  The story of His heroic quest to secure His bride is the grand metanarrative of the Bible.  Similarly, the generic imitations (mimesis) of His quest in the dynamic of male and female requires a Christian theory of the monomyth.[133] 

Metanarrative and Monomyth

            The world described by the apostles of the Lord is a world where Christ created all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, the creation being made through Him and for Him (Col 1:16-17).  All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made (John 1:3). He made all things in the beginning (John 1:1-3) and will make all things new at the end (Rev 21:5). All things will converge in Him – things in heaven and things in earth (Eph 1:10), for all things are for Him and by Him (Heb 2: 10), for He created all things, and by His will they exist and were created (Rev 4:11).  In sum,

Christ is the True Vitruvian Man,[134] the convergence of the invisible and the visible, the heavens and the earth, the old creation and the new creation, Spirit and matter, the one Creator God and the many created things. He is the head of all creation, and the great mystery of His purpose is to unite all things to Him through His church, He being the head of the body (Eph 5:23-32, cf. 1:9-10, 22-23, 3:9). 

            Now the cosmology which the New Testament affirms is inconceivable to the constricted modern, and especially the post-modern, imagination. Yet if we are to understand the Bible, we must enter into the horizons of the Bible’s own imagination, a fact that is true regardless of the exegete’s personal faith commitment.  This biblical world takes place within the cosmogonic temporal and spatial horizons of a beginning in the old heavens and earth and an ending in the new heavens and earth.  There is likewise a telos to the creation, wherein God announces that the world is to be filled with human images of the divine Creator and that evil will be subdued, represented by the rule of man and woman over the beast (Gen 1:28).  Such a world is to be realized at the great day of the resurrection of the just, for then the righteous redeemed will fill the earth and the death sting of the ancient serpent will be crushed forever (Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 15:50-58).  All that was commanded of the first Adam will at last be realized through the Last Adam, and so God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:25-28).[135]

            Now these effects presuppose a cause, and the Bible makes it clear that the whole of redemptive history is worked out according to the rational principle expressed in the Person of Jesus, the Logos (John 1:1), who makes His creation according to the order prescribed in the Word, the Graphe, which cannot be broken (John 10:35) and must be fulfilled (John 19:24,28,36).  Christ is both the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End (Rev 1:8,11, 21:6, 22:13).  There is thus a poetry to all things (Rom 1:20, Eph 2:10), creating the convergence of both the rational and the poetic visions of final truth.[136] And such a poetic foundation to all created things makes possible the search for a grammar of types and an inventory of symbols. [137] We are invited to seek evidence supporting a doctrine expressing the total consummation of all things in Christ, a classification of concepts wherein Jesus is both the tragic Protagonist and the comic Poneros of all historical and redemptive drama.  His story, then, is the great metanarrative of both natural and redemptive history.

            Now a plot (mythos) should have a recognizable beginning, middle, and end.[138] The story thus reveals the poet’s compositional intention as well as the generic approach that most comports with his theme.  The Bible begins with Moses’ account of God arranging a marriage for Adam, presenting a bride to the man and bestowing His blessing for their mutual delight in a delectable garden (Gen 2:18-25).  The Bible ends with John’s vision of the bride of Christ descending out of heaven to the Father and being presented to the Son of Man (Rev 21:2, cf. also John 20:17).  In between these scriptural stories is Solomon’s Song, wherein the love of the son of David for his beautiful betrothed is sung within a garden of delight under the superintending blessing of the Songwriter.  The center of the Song, which is a beautifully composed chiastic duet of the couple singing their love to one another, is the remarkable intrusion of a couplet spoken by the poet who has orchestrated the love duet of the couple, the Songwriter Himself.  Rejoicing in the love He has composed and arranged for the couple, the Songwriter says, “Eat, O darling companions, Drink, and be intoxicated with love!” (Song 5:1b).[139] 

Truly, as Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven is like a father who prepared a wedding feast for his son” (Matt 22:2).  And the greatest token of the communion of love between the Son of God and His eternal companion is the wedding feast when the Bridegroom says to His beloved, “Take, eat,” and “drink,” for this is the remembrance of His love for His chosen bride.  Now the narrative of the Bible sets the pattern of the classical quest of the ancient heroes.  The telos of the story is the sacred marriage, or hieros gamos.  This holy marriage is the “great mystery” in the Scripture, for only the wisdom of God could bring together as one the finite and the Infinite, the created and the Creator, the utterly defiled with the wholly Perfect One.  The efficient cause of this sacred history is the romantic heart of the Songwriter.  The wedding supper of the Lamb and His bride is the final cause of all redemptive things, celebrated after the dragon is at last vanquished for all time.  The Edenic bliss of Adam and his bride had been the formal or eidetic cause, and the material cause of the human drama is the dynamic interplay of male and female, both in their mystical combat against the dragon and in the mystery of their uniting in love. 

            The largest contours of the metanarrative are given by John the Beloved in his interleaved composition found in the Fourth Gospel and Revelation.[140]  The framework of these Johannine books is cosmogonic, the beginning of the Gospel reflecting upon the first creation (John 1:1-3) and the ending of Revelation anticipating the new creation (Rev 21:1).  Upon this wholly comprehensive canvas of all space and all time, John opens his epic by introducing the New Adam (John 1:14) as a Bridegroom (John 3:29).  He closes his Apocalypse with the vision of the bride of the New Adam (Rev 21:2).  The beginning of John’s epic evangel takes place in medias res of redemptive history, when the Word becomes flesh and tabernacles among us.[141] The grand drama begins with Christ’s separation from His Father and ends with His return to His Father.  This separation and return is the classic framework of the quest of heroes.[142]  During His adventure the Hero undergoes a “road of trials”[143] culminating in a great battle wherein the Hero slays the dragon (Rev 20:2)[144] and so rescues the one who is to be His bride (Rev 12:3,9, 13-17).[145]  He encounters a mystic tree “in the midst” of a sacred wood, where the dead (John 19:17-18) is made to come alive again (Rev 22:2).[146]  But at last the sacred Warrior and dragon-Slayer, becomes the heroic Lover and the world Redeemer.[147]  The end of all His trials is made into a new beginning of hope through the sacred wedding of the Warrior-Lover and his rescued-beloved (Rev 19:9).

Now the cosmogonic actions of the hero of the metanarrative find imitative (mimetic) correspondence in the poetic imagination.  Aristotle observed that the imaginative horizon was constituted of four generic possibilities, namely, the epic, the lyric (dithyrambic), the tragic, and the comic (Poetics 1447a).[148]  The epic is cosmopoeisis, the making of worlds or the founding of cities. It corresponds to the springtime blossoms of new beginnings.  The lyric is life in the pleasant garden.  It is unspoiled, reveling in the sun of summer.  Tragedy is the great fall of a heroic house; its emblem is autumn’s ebbing of life.  Comedy, however, is the seed asleep under the snow, the hope of life’s renewal that defies the frozen night of winter.[149] 

Now the genres so defined are all expressed in the biblical account of Eden, at least in seed form, in the opening chapters of Genesis.[150]  Epic is the creation of the world (Gen 1:1-2:3).[151]  The lyric is the romance of the garden, the undisturbed communion between God and man and man and woman (Gen 2:4-25).[152] Tragedy is the account of the fall of Adam’s house and the curse upon the Edenic creation (Gen 3:1-19).[153] And comedy is expressed in the hope of redemption, ironically announced to the serpent in the garden (Gen 3:15).[154]

When the account of Eden is read generically, the character of the dynamic relationship of man and woman is revealed in a new light.  In the epic of creation, man and woman sustain an equilibrium, both sexes being required in order adequately to express the fullness of the imago dei (Gen 1:27).  The dynamic of male and female is set in motion in Eden’s garden, where the couple dwell together in a lyrical bliss, wholly without fear and shame (Gen 2:24).  The fall, however, introduces the victimization of the woman,[155] the tragic upsetting of the creational and natural equilibrium.  Its expression results in a punitive subordination, where the woman is told, “your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16). It will be left to another garden, to the delightful garden of the lovers in Solomon’s Song, for the Son of David to dream of woman’s comedic restoration.  For there the Beloved of the Son of David will sing, “I am my Beloved’s, and His desire is for me!” (Song 7:10).  In that blessed garden and in that joyous day the woman, who was black but lovely (Song 1:5) will be fully restored and royally received as a co-heir with her Beloved (1 Pet 3:7, Rev 21:2).  The restoration of the woman is the great drama of redemption, the biblical metanarrative told according to the conventions of the nuptial customs of the ancient Near East.

The Ancient Near Eastern Wedding as the Pattern of Redemption

The pattern for the biblical story of redemption is the eastern wedding.  The Lord Jesus made this comparison in His parables of the wedding feast and the wise and foolish virgins.  For example, Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Matt 22:2).  In the ancient East it was the father who chose the bride for his son, a bride who would be both an appropriate daughter for the family and a suitable spouse for his son, one who would fulfill every desire of his son’s heart.  Once the bride was betrothed to his son, however, the couple waited for a year apart from each other for the bride to prove her probity.  This was the circumstance encountered by Joseph, for example, when he suspected impurity on the part of his espoused bride, Mary (Matt 1:18).  If the bride was proven to have been impure, a divorce was justly permitted in law to the aggrieved groom (Matt 1:19).  If the bride proved faithful, a bridal price was paid by the groom to the bride’s family (the “mohar,” Gen 34:12, Exod 22:17, 1 Sam 18:25).  Upon the appointed day, the groom came for the bride, as recounted in the parable of the wise virgins (Matt 25:1-13).  The bride went with her groom to the marriage feast which the groom’s father had prepared for the invited guests (Matt 22:4).  The groom then took his bride to his own house, and she became his wife and he became her husband (Rev 19:6-9, 21:2). 

It is against the background of these marriage customs that we are enabled to understand the history of redemption in the Bible.  This is especially so in that we are able to contextualize the defection of the bride during her period of probation as a kind of whoredom expressed against her espousals (Hos 1:2).  In light of the right of her betrothed husband to divorce her, and yet his determination to love her back to her original faithfulness (Hos 2:14-23), we enter into the biblical depictions of the bride as both virgin and whore.  And it is through this metaphor that we understand redemption as the reconciliation of these opposite images as the whore becomes the virgin once again. 

In this light the account of biblical redemption began with the choice of Father God of a bride for His Son.  He chose an elect bride who would be the great delight of His Son’s heart.  But this bride, so favored of heaven, fell into great immorality and lost her purity.  She who had been betrothed as a virgin became a whore.  As a consequence, the Son could have justly divorced her.  But in a remarkable and wholly unexpected turn, the Father having chosen the bride for the Son, the Son loved her for that choice.  And so He paid an enormous sum as her dowry price, a price so great that this whorish bride was loved back to a sincere fidelity to her first espousals, and turned from harlotry to holiness.  Now this bride, having made herself ready for her wedding day, her purity being perfectly restored, awaits the Son of heaven.  And He will surely come for her on the day when Father God presents His greatest gift to His Son, a bride whose redeemed beauty will yet stir every passion of His Son’s heart.  And she will be His bride, and He will be her Husband, and they will receive each other as heirs of life forever.

The Metaphoric Potentiality of Woman in Scripture

It is the fecund nature of woman that largely identifies the feminine in the Scripture. After the sin of man and the judgment pronounced by God in the garden, Adam named his wife “Eve,” because she was to be “the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20).  Feminine collectivity is seen at the last when all the redeemed of all the ages are described as a new Eve prepared for the New Adam, the New Jerusalem that descends from heaven as a city suited for a new paradise (Rev 21:2), the community of all the just made perfect (Heb 12:23).[156] In other words, the potentiality of Eve in Genesis is made into actuality in the case of the new Eve in Revelation. 

This “feminization” of human society once again metaphorically transcends human sexuality in the Bible.  The Scripture speaks of the cities of Judah under the figure of the “daughters of Zion” (Psa 48:11), and of Jerusalem as the “mother” of sons of Jacob (Psa 87:5), a text informing Paul’s claim that the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of the sons of liberty (Gal 4:26).[157]  Human society, therefore, is metaphorically “feminized” in the Scripture.  By such a means the entire collectivity of the New Testament church is regarded by the apostles as the “bride of Christ” (Eph 5:24-27; Rev 21:2).[158]

Now the metaphoric “feminization” of human society in the Bible is especially noteworthy in conjunction with the relationship of the covenant people of Israel to the house of David. When David is anointed king over all Israel, the elders of the people identify themselves in their relationship to David as “your bone and your flesh” (2 Sam 5:1), a claim that metaphorically makes David the “husband” of his people just as Adam identified his wife as “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). It is an easy extension of this metaphor to see how the apostles understood Christ, as the true Davidic King, to be the Husband of His people (Eph 5:24-27; Rev 21:2). It is particularly in this sense that Jesus unites male and female as He becomes one with His bride, the chosen of God. But the drama of redemption, of Christ taking the community of faith as His spouse, is heightened by the necessity of redeeming a bride who has fallen.  This aspect of redemption accounts for the ambiguity in the characterization of the church in the Bible.

The Metaphoric Ambiguity of the Bride of Christ: Virgin and Whore

Now there is another aspect to the “feminization” of the people of God in the Scripture, once again showing the expansive possibility of woman as “metaphor.”  This is the ambiguity posed by the dual representation of the bride of Christ as both the “virgin” and the “whore.”  The Scripture presents many christological figures, and their characters are largely developed through their associations with women.  In a common “type scene,” the virginal brides of the patriarchs are discovered at a well in a far country.[159]  Abraham sent his servant to the east to seek a bride for Isaac.  The lovely and virginal Rebekah came out of the city to the well of Nahor, where the servant met her (Gen 24:10-16). Jacob saw and fell in love with the beautiful maiden Rachel after he fled to Paddan Aram to the well of Haran (Gen 29:1-14).  Moses, too, fled to Midian and sat down by the well where he met Zipporah, the daughter of the priest (Exod 2:15).

But there is likewise a counter theme in Scripture of the figure that is a type of Christ who has an encounter with a whorish woman.[160] Judah has the famous liaison with Tamar, whom he takes for a prostitute (Gen 38:1-30).  Joseph is betrayed by the whorish wife of Potiphar (Gen 39:1-20).  Joshua rescues Rahab, the whore of Jericho (Josh 6:22-25), even as Hosea seeks to rescue the harlot Gomer (Hos 1-3).  The chronicler deems it significant that Jephthah was the son of a whore (Judg 11:1), and Samson has his dalliance with the whore of Gaza (Judg 16:1-3).  David treats Bathsheba like a whore (2 Sam 11:2-4).  Similarly, Isaiah (Isa 1:21), Jeremiah (Jer 2-3), and Ezekiel (Ezek16, 23) charge Judah and Jerusalem with harlotry against the Lord, the Husband of the covenant people.  

The type scenes of virgin and whore collide in John’s Gospel at the well of Sychar in Samaria (John 4:1-30).  Jesus has come to a well in a foreign country, where the patriarchal pattern would cause us to expect Him to meet a figure to represent the bride of Christ, one who is both beautiful and a virgin.  But the one who comes to Jacob’s well is a woman who has had five husbands and who is presently living with a man in open and notorious sin (John 4:18).  Nonetheless the Lord offers her living water, so she leaves behind her past appetitive “thirsting,” symbolized by the forgotten waterpot (John 4:28), and goes back into the city to call out any who likewise “thirst” for living water.  In other words, John portrays the Samaritan woman who came to the well as a “whore” but who returns to the city as a “virgin,” like the bride of Christ depicted at the end of Revelation, calling out, “Come!  Let the one who is thirsty come!” (John 4:28-29, cf. Rev 22:17).

The reconciliation of these two radically opposed images is perhaps the greatest movement in the redemptive drama of Scripture.  For as it is necessary for Christ to reconcile the binary of man and woman in His nuptial participation with the church, so He must first reconcile the ambiguity expressed by the church as “virgin” and “whore.”  These antipodal images once again demonstrate the richness of the metaphoric understanding of woman in the texts of Scripture.[161]  In fact it is the metamorphosis of the whore into the virgin within the bridal story of Jesus that accounts for the great redemptive metanarrative of the Bible. 

     The Typology of the Bride of Christ as Virgin and as Whore:

              The Ambiguity Illustrated by Rebekah and Gomer

Consistent with the biblical anthropology we have so far set forth, it should be evident that no typological theory of Christ could be complete without the articulation of a typology of His bride. In other words, if Christ is understood to be the antitype of variously anointed precursory figures of the Old Testament, then surely the church as Christ’s bride must be the antitype of the wives of these men.  Furthermore, just as we have observed a moral ambiguity in the characterization of these women as virgin or whore, so we must understand how these opposing aspects are reconciled in the dramatic typology of the ecclesiastical community as Christ’s bride.

This discussion will examine two women from the Old Testament with respect to their typological significance for the church as Christ’s bride.  We will first look at Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, as an example of the virginal bride of Christ.  We will then consider Gomer, the wife of Hosea, as a picture of the bride of Christ wooed from her harlotry back to her espousals.

Isaac, as the son of Abraham’s covenant promise, is one of the most evident types of Christ in the Old Testament (Gen 22:12, cf. Rom 8:32). Remarkably, the Genesis account of Isaac’s betrothal to Rebekah is twice as long as the account of the creation itself (Gen 24:1-67).  Clearly this engagement is crucial to the theology of man and his wife.  How is this remarkable romance developed, and what is it intended to teach about the espousal of Jesus, the True Isaac, to His church, the true Rebekah?

We observe first of all that the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah is not initiated by the couple but by the choice of the father to secure a bride for his beloved son (Gen 24:1-3).  Abraham’s enterprise is conditioned upon the destiny of his son alone. Trusting in God’s superintending providence (Gen 24:7), Abraham sent his servant into a far country to call the bride God had appointed for his son (Gen 24:12-14).  Now the bride so identified was Rebekah, the beautiful and virginal daughter of Bethuel.  Once she was chosen, a royal price was paid to her family for her redemption (Gen 24:53).  Although there was an overwhelming providence in the divine destiny that selected her, nonetheless Rebekah was not deprived of the dignity of giving her consent (Gen 24:5-8, 55-58). The chosen bride thereupon followed in the faith of Abraham, leaving her natural family and the land of her birth to undertake a great pilgrimage to a land she did not know in order to marry a man she had not seen.  She set out in hope of an inheritance she would share with her betrothed (Gen 24:61).

Now as Rebekah journeyed to this far country, she would have come to understand much about this family into which she was to marry.  She would learn that she had been betrothed to a young man who had a most remarkable birth.  The Lord God had previously announced his birth (Gen 17:19), for his conception was so contrary to nature that it was nothing less than a miracle, his mother being utterly unable to bear children (Gen 17:17).  But his birth was just as had been foretold, and it was the occasion of much joy (Gen 21:6).  Great prophecies attended his birth, for this family was to be the one through whom God was to bring good news of blessing to all the nations of all the earth (Gen 12:3).  Although this son was rejected by his brother (Gen 21:9), he was nonetheless the great delight of his father, who was well pleased with his son (Gen 22:2).

But Rebekah would also hear a terrible story about this son she was to marry.  There came a dread day when his father was told to offer this beloved son up as a sacrifice upon an altar.  And so his grieving father took his son on a three days’ journey to a place afterward to be known as Jerusalem.  There the father told his son that though he was the hope of the world, nonetheless God required his life that day (Gen 22:2).  In obedience to God and his father, the son submitted to being bound and placed upon the wood of the sacrifice, wood he himself had carried up the mountain (Gen 22:6).  But unexpectedly the son was delivered from a bloody death. On the third day (Gen 22:4) he was received again by his father as if he had been raised from the dead (Gen 22:4-5, cf. Heb 11:17-19).

How perfectly congruent is the typology of Rebekah to the circumstances of the pilgrim church, the community of faith that has been espoused by the Father to His beloved Son!  Father God unconditionally chose the church as the elect bride for His beloved Son,[162] although the believers were likewise given the dignity of giving their consent (Rev 19:9).  And a great price was then paid for her particular redemption, in order to seal her espousals (1 Cor 6:19-20).  Then the bride, irresistibly drawn by so powerful a love (John 6:44) , is purified and caused to persevere through a long journey to come to the Man she has betrothed (2 Cor 11:2), waiting for the day that Father God will present her in all her beauty and purity to His Son for His everlasting delight (Rev 21:2).  But in her journey to Him in faith, she learns the circumstances of His oath and covenant, and how His miraculous birth (Luke 1:34) had likewise been announced by heaven (Luke 1:30-31), and how great joy and marvelous prophecies attended His birth (Luke 2:29-32).  She learns that He was rejected by his brethren (John 1:11), although He was the great delight of His Father (Luke 3:22).  And she also hears about a dread day when God, who spared Isaac, spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up to death on a cross He Himself bore up the mountain all in order to bring blessing to the whole world (Rom 8:32).  But she learns that Jesus was victorious over death, and He too was restored to His Father on the third day (1 Cor 15:4), and that He will be her portion forever.  He will delight in her beauty and purity, even as a Bridegroom rejoices over His beloved bride (Isa 62:5).

Now if Rebekah represents the virginal bride, Gomer is her counterpart as the whorish bride.  To show His broken heart toward His errant people, God commanded His holy prophet Hosea to marry a “wife of whoredom” and to have “children of whoredom” (Hos 1:2).  What a surprising account found in Holy Scripture! Why would God ever do such a thing?[163] 

Both Jewish and Christian commentary have struggled with this command to Hosea, many finding the notion so distasteful that they have reinterpreted the text to suggest that Gomer had only formerly been a prostitute or that she only had wayward tendencies.  Among the church fathers Irenaeus understood Hosea’s marriage to have been historical, but Origen took it to be a vision, and Jerome, an allegory.  Medieval Jewish commentary frequently spoke of it as a prophetic vision.[164]  But literary attempts to ameliorate the status of Gomer as Hosea’s adulterous wife lose sight of the biblical theological theme of the book, closely related as it is to the account of Rahab, the harlot of Jericho.  Both books speak of the rescue of a whore by Joshua (Hosea),[165]  and both names suggest a “savior.” Joshua saves Rahab the whore of Jericho from a fiery death.  Hosea’s mission is to save Israel, represented by Gomer, his adulterous wife, from a fiery judgment (cf. Hos 7:6, 8:14).  Hosea’s strategy is to woo his wife by setting before her “the door of Achor” (Hos 2:14-15).  This identification further ties the Hosea account to the Joshua account, for the valley of Achor is cited in Joshua 7:26 as the place where Achan’s family was “cut off,” even as Rahab’s family had been “grafted in.” In other words, Hosea’s exhortation to Gomer is to cite the case of Achan, the natural branch of Abraham’s tree that was “cut off” for lusting after gold, silver, and the fine garments of Shinar (Josh 7:21), even as she had lusted after gold, silver, and fine raiment (Hos 2:8-9).[166]  The same example invokes the parallel case of Rahab, who left behind the wages of her harlotry to be rescued and “grafted into” the root and richness of the tree of Abraham.  In other words, the prophetic message of Hosea to Gomer, as a representative of the covenant people who have played the harlot with allegiances to foreign gods, is that the Lord God will yet overcome the harlotry of His people by a love that will allure them back to their first espousals (Hos 2:14-20).

If the marriage of Hosea was intended to set forth the broken heart of God toward His people, then the child named “Not My People” who is afterward renamed “My People” is a key to the heart of God’s compassion.  It emphasizes the kindness of God, which is intended to lead the people to repentance.  The adoption of those not God’s people by calling them “My people” is an expression of the remnant theology as it is developed by Paul in Romans.  After describing the remnant of Israel that is to be saved (Rom 9:1-24, 27), Paul cites the prophet Hosea to support the idea that God will adopt the children of harlotry, calling them “beloved” and “My people” (Rom 9:25-26).  John uses the same “My people” reference with respect to those who come out of the whorish city of Babylon.  The Seer tells us that before the city suffers a fiery judgment (Rev 18:9), a voice from heaven says, “Come out of her (the whorish city), My people” (Rev 18:4).  In other words, the remnant leaving Babylon is like the household of Rahab, rescued from a fiery judgment, and like the children of Gomer, adopted into the family of God (Hos 1:9-10), so as to be rescued from a fiery death (Hos 8:14).[167]

The New Testament Church as Both Whore and Virgin

            It was the heart of Paul to take the church community at Corinth, so beset by the immorality of harlotry (1Cor 6:15-16) and present them as a pure virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). This sequence suggests that the apostle clearly had in mind the transformation of the Christian community from whoredom to holiness, consistent with the bridal understanding of their espousal to Christ and the purity that implied.  Matthew reports that Jesus spoke of the harlots who underwent the baptism of repentance and so came into the kingdom of God to learn a righteousness that exceeded the righteousness of the chief priests of the temple and the elders of the people (Matt 21:23, 31-32).  James spoke of the faith of Abraham, and then juxtaposed the faith of Abraham with the faith that occasioned the repentance of Rahab, the whore of Jericho (James 2:23-25).  Clearly the apostles of the Lord understood the church community to be constituted of those who had renounced notorious sin and immorality and were seeking a restored purity through repentance.[168] The origin of the church community in the unbelief of immorality contrasted radically with her call to the purity of faith in her bridal destiny with the Son of Man.  As a consequence, to the apostles the church constituted a “mixed multitude,” like the assembly in the wilderness, and had aspects of both a lingering harlotry as well as aspects of an incipient purity.  The church was therefore a community with both whorish and virginal attributes. This ambiguity is reflected most clearly in the portraits of the seven churches of Roman Asia found at the beginning of Revelation.

The Relationship of the Seven Churches (Rev 2:1-3:22) to the Vision of the Whore and the Bride (Rev 17:1-22:6)

            Nowhere in the Bible is the contrast between the whore and the bride more graphic than in the climax and conclusion of the Revelation to St. John. Unquestionably the most hideous figure in Scripture is whorish Babylon, her scarlet complexion made more graphic by the contrast with the purity of the visage of the virginal New Jerusalem.  One of the features often overlooked, however, is the striking similarity of several descriptions of these two women, features that invite the reader to reflect upon their subtle similarities as well as their evident differences.  For example, Lady Babylon wears precious stones and she is filled with names of blasphemy (Rev 17:3-4).  She is arrayed in gold and pearl (Rev 17:4) and commits fornication with the kings of the earth (Rev 17:2).  Similarly, Lady Jerusalem has her foundations in precious stones, and she is filled with the names of the apostles and patriarchs (Rev 21:11-12,14).  She has a golden glory and gates of pearl (Rev 21:18,21).  And the kings of the earth bring her honor and glory (Rev 21:24).

            While the contrastive imagery between the whore and the bride is emphasized in virtually all modern commentary on Revelation, the similarities are often overlooked.  But they are both striking and clearly depicted, and the question thus raised is why did John so describe them?  What are we to surmise by these comparisons? 

            The first observation that we should make is that John’s description of the seven churches given in the seven letters is that of a strikingly mixed community.  In fact, contrary to all expectation, the Thyatiran church, the fourth or central church of the seven, is charged with hosting the whorish Jezebel, who seduces believers through her immorality (Rev 2:20-24).  And the church in Pergamum tolerates false prophets in her midst (Rev 2:14-16).  In short, the church as the espoused bride of the Lamb is charged by her Betrothed with shocking infidelity and threatened with certain judgment unless she repents.  The seven churches of Asia, identified by their seven acropolitan hills or tells, are noteworthy for having the whore ensconced on the acropolis of the central city of seven cities.[169] In short, the whore and the false prophet, as they are represented by the figures of Jezebel and Balaam (Rev 2:14,20), are internal rather than external threats to the purity of the churches of Asia.

            Moreover, the letters to the seven churches are generally constituted of charges made by the Lord Jesus against His churches followed by threats made for refusal to repent and promises made based upon true repentance. It is striking how the pattern of threats made against the unrepentant churches correspond with the judgments against whorish Babylon while the promises made to encourage repentance correspond to the glory to be shared in the virginal New Jerusalem.

            The seven churches of Roman Asia are represented by their respective seven angels, who receive the epistles of Christ which the Lord gave to His servant on Patmos.  These letters to the seven angels of the churches correspond to the portraits of Lady Babylon and Lady Jerusalem, the two ladies whose portraits are likewise given through a vision of seven angels at the conclusion of the book.   This pattern of inclusions connecting the letters to the seven churches to the vision of the whore and the bride is striking and pervasive.  We begin by comparing the seven promises given to “the one who overcomes,” that is, the one who resists temptation and endures suffering (Rev 2:7; 11; 17; 26-28; 3:5; 12; 21).  As we will see, the promises all anticipate the privileges secured in the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb.

The Bridal Destiny of the Seven Churches

The Lord of the seven churches encourages His faithful ones to purity and patient endurance by describing the hope that they have of participating in the New Jerusalem, the virginal and serene bridal city of the Lamb (Rev 21:2).[170]  Consider the following chart of references from Revelation that compare the promises given to the overcomers with their eschatological fulfillment:

| !! Ephesus

| 2:7 “I will give to him to eat of the tree of life”  | 22:2 “in the midst of its (New Jerusalem’s) street – the tree of life” |

| !! Smyrna

| 2:11 “he shall not be hurt by the second death” | 20:6  “on these the second death has no power”  |

| !! Pergamos

| 2:17  “I will give to him a stone, and on the stone a new name written” | 21:14,19 “the city has twelve foundations, and on them the names of the twelve apostles…the foundation was of every precious stone”  |

| !! Sardis

| 3:5 “he will be clothed in white…his name in the Book of Life” | 19:14; 20:12  “the armies in heaven …dressed in fine white linen…and another book was opened, the Book of Life”  |

It should be noted that all the promises to the seven churches are precisely fulfilled in the New Jerusalem.[171] 

            The effect of this literary interconnection within the entire Revelation is to set before the believers of the churches of Roman Asia the hope that is assured by their destiny as the chosen bride of the Lamb.  Indeed, much that describes the seven churches, especially their zeal for purity (Rev 3:19), previews the bridal hope expressed at the conclusion of Revelation in the vision of the New Jerusalem.

But the seven letters are also filled with severe admonishment and the threat of terrible sanctions from the Lord.[172]  Jesus warns the churches about an immoral woman who dwells in their midst, one who leads the church into fornication (Rev 2:20).  Further, He warns the church about a false prophet who seeks to deceive them (Rev 2:14).  Moreover, Satan dwells among them (Rev 2:9 and 3:9).  Each of the warnings stated in the seven letters to the churches has literary and thematic correspondence in the vision of the last seven angels.  The portrait that emerges when we match the warnings with their parallel correspondence is generally less flattering than the bridal imagery:

The Seven Churches and the Whore

| !! Ephesus

| 2:5 “Repent…but if not…I will remove your lampstand” | 18:23 “And the light of a lamp shall not shine in you (Babylon)”  |

| !! Pergamos

| 2:13-14 “Antipas, My faithful martyr, who was killed among you…you have there some holding the teaching of Balaam so that they would…eat food sacrificed to idols”  | 17:6, 19:20 “the woman (Babylon) was drunk with the blood… of the martyrs…the false prophet who had performed signs of deceit…to make them worship the beast” |

The first pattern that emerges from a comparison of the two charts is that the seven churches anticipate the bride, the New Jerusalem.  In fact, two churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia, are not reproved at all.  They are simply encouraged to persevere.  But each of the other five churches has a feature or features that conform to the portrait of whorish Babylon.  In fact, two churches, Thyatira and Laodicea, are in great moral jeopardy, their portrait striking for its similarity to the whore, while Ephesus, Pergamum, and Sardis are generally more composite in their association with both the bride and the whore.

The seven letters convey the message that the whoredoms of Babylon are not, at least primarily, an external threat.  Contrary to the settled opinion among modern critical commentary on Revelation, John’s “Babylon” is not to be identified primarily with Rome and imperial persecution.   Indeed, the choice between the two cities, which the Apocalypse presents, is fundamentally ethical.  The intent is to promote repentance, and only secondarily is endurance in view.

We conclude by observing that the immoral woman and the false prophet are at work within the church, which establishes the need for the churches to repent.[173]  The dramatic portrait of the church as bride and whore is a fundamental conclusion drawn from the verbal and thematic intertextuality between the letters to the seven churches and the vision of the seven last angels.  It is this radical juxtaposition, set against the antithetical portraits of the alternative destinies of the bride and the whore, which characterizes Revelation as a hortatory address to the people of God.  The jeopardy of partaking in the judgment of the whore rather than the wedding of the bride is the basis for the parenetic exhortation to believers.

                          The Drama of Christian Redemption:

               The Metamorphosis of the Whore into the Virgin

It is the imagination of the gospel that resolves the ambiguity of the bride of Christ as both virgin and whore.  The whore becomes a virgin through a redemptive metamorphosis,[174] a transformation that is not unlike the resurrection itself. For only in this brave new world where life comes forth from death can anyone conceive of virginity coming forth from whoredom. It is the resurrection of Jesus that redefines the imagination of all things, making possible an ethic where the Christian can love his enemies that they might become his friends, where he can bless those who curse him, return good for evil, rejoice in suffering, and shine as a light in darkness (Matt 5:1-16).  It is a world where the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15) can become the apostle to the nations (Rom 11:13), where thieves can be made into almsgivers (Eph 4:28), the barren can be made to bear (Gal 4:27), and the adulterous woman can be forgiven and empowered to go and sin no more (John 8:11).

Nowhere is this brave new mundus imaginalis more evident than in John’s account of the miracles of resurrection morning (John 20:1-18).  Perhaps more than any other passage of sacred Scripture, John’s record of the resurrection of Jesus as witnessed by Mary Magdalene is a text that itself enlarges the dimensions of the world of faith, opening new vistas previously unimagined and defining new horizons of the Christian cosmos. It is a text that has accomplished nothing less than the transforming of the world.  The open tomb of Jesus reconfigures not merely the imagination of faith, but the entire cosmos of space and time. 

John depicts the scene through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, after the apostles Peter and John have left the tomb.  Mary is the least likely of all those who loved the Lord to be entrusted with the greatest news of all time by witnessing the greatest miracle ever seen.  Mary was judged by her time to be utterly incompetent to testify in court, yet she is made the witness to testify to the resurrection to the disciples.  She had been possessed by demons, a condition associated with concomitant madness, yet she was entrusted with the first evangel of the risen Lord.[175]

Mary Magdalene, as the evangelist reports it, this bereft and weeping woman, stoops to peer into the tomb, where the body of Jesus had last lain.  The tomb was a place of corruption and the defilement of death.  But Mary looks into the tomb and beholds two angels, one at the head and the other at the foot of the place where Jesus’ blood sprinkled grave clothes remained.  By this vivid and iconic image John suggests that Mary beholds the living Ark of the Covenant.  He describes a scene based upon the most sacred space in the temple, where carved images of angels sat one at the head and the other at the foot over the place where Israel’s high priest sprinkled the blood of the atonement that put away the sin of the people.  The defiled space of the tomb of Jesus has been transformed into nothing less than the sacred space of the holy of holies.  The Ark represents the throne of God, and the living Ark that Mary witnesses represents the sacred place where the Lord Jesus reigns over death and sin.[176] 

Likewise, the scene of Mary’s first encounter with her Living Lord is portrayed as transpiring within the garden of the New Adam.  The garden of the tomb has been metamorphosed into the garden of God, like the pristine paradise of the first Eden.  Christ, like Adam, has come forth from the earth.  On His side He bears the scar that recalls the wounded side of Adam that gave life to his bride (John 19:34, 20:27).  Jesus calls Mary by the name of honor Adam first gave to his bride, calling her “Woman” (John 20:15).  Mary Magdalene, the woman who had been defiled by seven demons and who traditionally was regarded as having been a whore,[177] is now so purified that she is made to resemble the virginal bride of Adam in this new world so filled with wonders.  And as Jesus’ resurrection takes away her tears, the imagination of faith recalls that the promise of the new Eden is that God Himself will wipe away the tears of His bride (Rev 21:4).  In that great day there shall be a new heavens and earth, the entire cosmos having been made to become sacred space (Rev 21:1-22:5).

Moreover, the open tomb of Jesus transforms the imagination of time as well as space.  The ceaseless cycle of nature represented by birth and efflorescence followed by inevitable decay and death – the vanity of time subjected to the curse (Rom 11:18-25) – is reversed as the darkness of the morning is made to yield to the light of resurrection day in a renewed encounter of God and man in a new beginning.  The resurrection of Jesus breaks open the vanity of cyclical time (birth to death), creating the imagination of linear time (birth to death to rebirth), giving hope in the place of despair (Rom 8:24-24), love in the place of fear (Heb 2:15), and faith in the power of God.  The resurrection changes everything not by generation but by regeneration.  It is a world fashioned by God who could see through Mary Magdalene’s defilement by seven demons to a renewal of holiness like that of the high priest of Israel, and a renewal of purity like that of Adam’s bride.  It is a new world that promised bridal and virginal purity to one who would wait for her Groom to ascend to His Father (John 20:17), and for the day when she would descend from the Father (Rev 21:2) to be given in a sacred marriage to the Son of Glory, to enjoy Him forever in a new creation made especially for her.

In all of these portraits of Mary Magdalene we see the comedic imagination of God who works all things wonderfully together for the good of those who love Him.  Mary, who knew the defilement of seven demons, is given a vision of holiness that the high priests of Israel had ever only longed to see.  And the most grief stricken disciple of the Savior was made the first to understand the death of death that Jesus’ resurrection implied.  Mary was appointed by the good providence of God to represent the bride of Christ, the one chosen to inherit this new world where nothing would defile again and where time and the curse would be no more.  Mary, the one who traditionally was regarded as a whore, was given a glimpse of a new world created by the imagination of Jesus, a world where no one need despair of the love of God, a world where even the whore can renounce her harlotry and be born again as a virgin beloved.

     Her Name is Mystery:  Who is the Whore of Babylon?

            The New Testament attributes mystery to the understanding of both the church as Christ’s bride (Eph 5:31-32) and to the recognition of the wicked under the figure of the great whore (Rev 17:5).[178]  Indeed the climactic vision of the Book of Revelation is the vivid contrast, and yet subtle complementarity, sustained between the portraits of Lady Babylon arrayed in scarlet and thirsty for the blood of the saints (Rev 17:6), and Lady New Jerusalem dressed in white and offering the water of life freely to all who will come (Rev 22:17). [179] Now John tells us that the true identification of Babylon’s Great Whore will require wisdom, meaning that her identification can only be truly understood by those to whom God grants the grace to understand (Rev 17:9, cf. Jas 1:5). 

            Where then do we seek this wisdom to identify Lady Babylon?  We observe first of all that Revelation’s climactic vision presents us with graphic portraits of two women, the whore and the bride. While we are told explicitly that the bride is the church, the New Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb (Rev 21:2, 19:7), the identification of the whore is left to the reader who understands the mystery with the discernment of wisdom (Rev 17:9).  What then can wisdom tell us in making the choice between these two women, in discerning the identity of the unknown whore from the known identity of the bride? Why would John ask us to seek wisdom in order to understand the identity of Lady Babylon?  Where can wisdom be found?

Biblical Wisdom:  The Choice Between Two Women

            A surprisingly large number of biblical writers employ a figure of speech known as syncrisis, whereby a protagonist makes a comparative judgment between two radically alternative possibilities.  One particular application of this trope, which is also quite common in other ancient hortatory literature,[180] portrays the choice options through two representative women, one of whom is marked and the other unmarked.  The “marking” is of two primary kinds.  Quite often there is a moral flaw in one of the women that distinguishes her from the purity of the other.  Sometimes the choice is between one woman who is foreign and one who is native born. [181]  In other words, there is something to mar the attractiveness of one woman as compared to the other.  The choice is sometimes complicated, however, in that the “marked” woman may have an unusually attractive feature, such as great beauty.  Consequently, the protagonist’s choice between the women reveals his own heart of wisdom or folly.  This syncritical figuration of two women is a surprisingly central as well as pervasive theme in biblical wisdom narrative.

 To illustrate this figure from the Scriptures, let’s begin with Solomon, the proverbial “wise man” of the Bible.  The chronicler of Israel records that the son of David, who as the new king of Israel sought and was granted divine wisdom to judge the people of God, first engaged his new prudential capacity in his judicial choice between two harlots.[182]  The challenge to Solomon’s wisdom was to differentiate the harlot who was the true and loving mother from the jealous harlot who would consent to the child’s death.  It was this judgment between two women that caused all Israel to fear the king, because they saw that “the wisdom of God was in him to rule in justice.”  (1 Kgs 3:5-28). Moreover, the biblical chronicler’s record of Solomon’s paradigmatic wisdom in judgment is artfully paralleled in the proverbial literature ascribed to Solomon. The sage of the Proverbs exhorts the young man who would seek the wisdom that comes from God to turn away from the seductive voice of the adulterous and alien woman whose door is the door to death (Pro 2:16-19, 5:1-23).  Rather, he should choose to “marry” the wisdom personified by the excellent wife who fears the Covenant Lord (Pro 31:10-31).[183]

            The choice between two women in the sapiential literature calls to mind the patriarchal narratives[184] that similarly reveal the inner soul of the male as he veers between two females.  Abraham is portrayed as vacillating between flesh and promise through his tortuous relationship with Hagar and Sarah. Likewise, Jacob is described as a superficial lover rather passively tossed between the uncomely and the comely as represented by Leah and Rachel.[185] On the other hand, Joseph’s steadfast wisdom is revealed as he adamantly refuses the illicit love of Potiphar’s wife while accepting as wife the lawfully given daughter of Potiphera.  Moreover, there is a graphic syncritical juxtaposition of Moses between his Cushite wife and his leprous sister.  In a remarkable divine vindication of Moses’ choice, in the face of Miriam’s opposition, to marry a black woman who is likewise foreign, Moses’ sister is turned white with leprosy, for which she must be separated from the camp of Israel. [186]

            The pattern of the choice between two women in the Old Testament calls for a more subtle wisdom when we consider the judgment of the man whose choice is not between two women but between the same woman who finds herself in two alternative circumstances.  In each case, however, the choice of the male as he relates to the female exposes his innermost heart.  For example, Adam freely and gratefully accepts his wife in her innocence, but he refuses and rejects her in her fallen state of sin (Gen 3:12).  Judah mistakes Tamar for a prostitute, unable in his self-righteousness to see in her one “more righteous than I” (Gen 38:15, 26).  Eli the priest observes the sublingual utterances of Hannah, but his constricted imagination can only see a drunken woman rather than a pious woman at prayer (1 Sam 1:12-14).  And David’s great sin virtually cleaves in two the chronicler’s portrait of Bathsheba.  We first see her as the innocent wife of one of David’s mighty men.  But the wicked choice of David’s heart transforms her into a defiled widow bereft of her son (2 Sam 11:3, 24).

            Now the New Testament develops this theme of the choice between two women as Abraham’s choice between Hagar and Sarah is made into an allegory by the Apostle Paul to represent the incompatibility of law and grace configured in the covenants of Sinai and Zion (Gal 4:21-31).[187]  This syncritical allegory functions as an exhortation to the Galatian Christians to encourage their choice to continue in the freedom of the spirit and to refuse the bondage of the flesh.  In other words, the Christian believer is admonished to choose between two women, according to the pattern of biblical wisdom, and to live in freedom by casting out the temptress of the law.  Similarly, the Apostle John climaxes Revelation with the syncritical portraits of whorish Babylon and virginal New Jerusalem.  By juxtaposing these two contrasting visions of final destiny, the apostle urges his Christian readers to persevere by a wisdom that chooses to renounce the whoredoms of this world and to live in the hope of the purity of the world to come. [188]

A Wisdom Greater than Solomon’s

            The pattern of wisdom revealed through the choice between two women appears to have a number of recurring motifs.  On first examination the choice to be avoided is clearly the woman representing the “immoral” and/or the “foreign.”  One could adduce the early example of Joseph’s rejection of the seductions of an Egyptian wife.  And there is also the late example of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Both post-exilic books climax with commands to reject the unbelieving and foreign wives that had been taken by the returned exiles (Ezra 10:1-44 and Neh 13:23-30).  Indeed Nehemiah exhorts the people to marriage purity by citing the sin of Solomon, who had defiled his kingdom by marriage to idolatrous and foreign women (Neh 13:26).

            But the naïve understanding of wisdom as the polarity of refusing evil and choosing good does not do full justice to the biblical record.[189] Something greater is intimated, for clearly only the most elementary wisdom is required to reject a whore from Babylon and to choose the virginal New Jerusalem.  What is then the wisdom that the apostle requires when he tells us that our minds must have wisdom to choose between these two women (Rev 17:9)?  Are we somehow to understand these radically opposite portraits of foreign whore and native virgin dialectically or dynamically?  And what is the greater wisdom of Jesus that should instruct our understanding?

            The prophet Isaiah foresaw that the messianic age would be characterized by remarkable transformations that would constitute complete reversals.[190]  The prophet expresses these utter reversals and transformations that would characterize the Christ in poetic terms.  The appearance of the Lord would see the desert blossom like the rose.[191]  Weak hands would be made strong and feeble knees strengthened.  In the vision of the prophet the lame would leap like the deer, and the tongue of the dumb would sing.  In other words, the lame would not merely walk.  He would leap in his joy.  And the dumb would not merely speak. He would sing of his healing.  And the unclean multitudes of the nations would be so transformed by their salvation that they would come to Zion with singing; in joy and gladness making pilgrimage upon a highway of holiness (Isa 35:1-10).

            It is this glorious redemption that so characterizes the messianic kingdom of Jesus – the very aspect of his kingdom that the Lord expressed to John the Baptist as proof of his messianic claim.[192]  The uniqueness of the kingdom of Christ, according to the prophet Isaiah, would be the imagination of enantiodromia.  It would be the capacity of the Lord to teach us to love our enemies in order that they might become our friends (Matt 5:44), to show us how to return blessing for cursing (Luke 6:28), and to learn how to make the unclean clean (Acts 10:9-15).  It would be the imagination to instruct the thief to steal no more, but to labor that he might become one who could give alms to the poor (Eph 4:28).  It is the vision that could take the chief of sinners and appoint him to be the apostle to the nations (1 Tim 1:15).  It is the capacity to take a woman once defiled by seven demons (Luke 8:2) and to create in her the faithful love we see in Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18).    

            In light of the messianic imagination foretold by the prophets and its fulfillment in the example of Jesus, perhaps a re-reading of the Old Testament examples of various choices might be instructive regarding this new wisdom.  Let’s begin with Adam.  What different choice might Adam have made?  After his wife was discovered in sin, Adam rejected and blamed the woman for his own failure before God.  His behavior causes us to imagine a better Adam.  We envision an Adam who would not have joined his wife in her sin, but in love would have petitioned God on her behalf and offered himself a sacrifice to take her place in judgment that she might live. Let’s likewise consider Abraham, and his choice between Hagar and Sarah.  Is there a better Wisdom by which a fleshly nature like Hagar could be transformed into one that is spiritual like Sarah?  What about Jacob and his rejection of the unattractive Leah and favor for the beautiful Rachel?  Is there a greater wisdom by which that which is uncomely could be made comely? 

And what of Judah? Judah’s hypocrisy and cruelty toward Tamar cause us to imagine a prince of Judah with a better vision, one who could see through the garb of a prostitute to envision a woman of great faith who longed to be the chosen mother of promise. We can also imagine a better wisdom than Joseph’s. We imagine a wisdom that would understand how to reform a foreign temptress, making her into a wife both faithful and true to her own husband.  We envision a prophet greater than Moses, whose grace in taking a bride would occasion purity instead of uncleanness.  We picture a priest greater than Eli, who could see a truly drunken woman and imagine her as woman of authentic piety.  Likewise we dream of a greater king than David.  We imagine a king who would rather suffer himself to be slain if he might thereby restore purity to the bride of a Gentile. And we can imagine a wisdom greater than Solomon’s, which, instead of simply rejecting the foreign and immoral woman could envision her transformation from harlotry to holiness (1 Cor 6:9-11) in such a fashion that she who had been a stranger is at last “brought nigh” to the covenants of promise (Eph 2:11-13).

            The prophetic preview of the gospel age anticipates a wisdom that transcends the judgmental wisdom of the Old Testament.  Paradigmatic wisdom will no longer be merely the ability to discern the truth represented by a choice between two women, eschewing the evil and holding fast to the good.  While discerning the truth that differentiates good and evil is still fundamental to gospel wisdom, a better wisdom will include the imagination to understand how evil can be transformed into good. It is the nature of this wisdom that we should now consider.  What are the realms and regions of the imagination that should inform the Christian’s understanding of wisdom?

            The Old Testament understanding of wisdom is that one’s choice reveals the capacity of his soul, particularly in judgment.[193]  But the gospel understanding of wisdom, as we have said, appears to be capable of something better.  It appears to require a capacity for an imagination that can transform that which is “marked,” envisioning a redemption into something remarkably and wonderfully new. 

                                  John’s Indictment of the Great Whore

            There can be no question that the most hideous figure presented in all of Scripture is the Great Whore, Lady Babylon (Rev 17:1-18).  She both incites to fornication and is herself drunk with abomination and immorality (Rev 17:2, 6).  She is supported for a season by a hideous beast with seven heads and ten horns (Rev 17:7).  She is hussied up in a garish array of gold and jewels, bedecked in pearls and veiled in purple and scarlet (Rev 17:4).  Her brazen forehead proclaims that her great city, Babylon, is the mother of harlots and sinners, of whom she is chief (Rev 17:4).[194]  In her hand she holds a cup of abomination; she drinks greedily of the blood of the saints, breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.  She is thus a blasphemer, and persecutes the church of God.  The wicked of the earth mourn and lament the judgment of her city (Rev 18:15-19), but the righteous, who had heard how many wicked things she has done against the saints, rejoice to see the great fall of her great city (Rev 18:20).

                                    The Accusers of the Great Whore

            Because the apostle describes the whore in the flagrancy of the very act of fornication (Rev 17:2), almost all interpreters of Revelation have taken up stones to cast at her.[195]  She has been condemned by identification with the many and various political and ecclesiastical enemies of the Christian sects throughout the history of the church and throughout the history of the interpretation of Revelation.  Many of the protestant reformers saw the papacy in Babylon’s Whore, for since at least Tertullian there had been a tradition identifying John’s “Babylon” with Rome,[196] the city situated upon seven hills that persecuted the early church (Rev 19:9). Modern protestant commentary has tended toward a far more figurative understanding of “Babylon,” many identifying the great persecutor of the people of God with the worldly system of economic and political oppression of the church.[197]

            Most Christian commentary, sensing the highly syncritical character of the contrasting visions of Babylon the whore and New Jerusalem the virgin, has identified Babylon as the city cursed by God even as New Jerusalem is the city blessed by God.  All of this in spite of the fact that at least one passage of Old Testament prophecy promises Babylon a saving mercy (Psa 87:1-4) and many prophetic passages charge Jerusalem with whoredom and so threaten divine judgment (Isa 1:4, 9, 21; Jer 2:20, 5:7; Ezek 16, 22; Hos 2:5, 3:3, 4:15; Mic 1:7).  In light of Holy Scripture, then, a naïve reading of Revelation that only conceives of Babylon the wicked and Jerusalem the righteous may be understating the imaginative possibilities represented by Babylon and her famous Whore. It prompts the question, could it be possible that John intends us to judge between the figures of these two women in such a manner that we may actually require a divine wisdom to understand them?[198]  Clearly Revelation assures us that Babylon, the idolatrous, meretricious, violent, debauched, and venal will at last be supplanted by Jerusalem, the beloved, virginal, peaceful, festive, and free.  But we may justly ask, who will constitute the redeemed enrolled in the Lamb’s book of life, all those who have made themselves ready for the city of the Bridegroom-God (Rev 21:2)?  Let’s take a second look, then, at the portrait John gives us of Babylon’s Great Whore, and the several clues he gives us to understand her identity.  We must not forget, however, that only God can grant the wisdom to recognize who the whore is in truth (Rev 17:9).

                                         The Apology of Lady Babylon

            While the seer of Patmos does not identify the Whore of Babylon explicitly, he does present her within a narration that enables us to recognize who she must be by her typological role within Revelation.  Additionally, John also gives us three remarkable literary clues which enable us to know when we have made the proper identification of this most mysterious woman.  First, he tells us that she is arrayed in scarlet and drinks from a cup full of abomination.[199]  Second, he tells us that wisdom will be given when we understand her relationship with seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is, and the last has not yet come, but when he (the seventh) comes he will abide a little while (Rev 17:10).  Third, John suggests the response a believer should expect in his soul when he recognizes the identity of the Great Whore, for he reports that when he saw the woman he marveled[200]greatly (Rev 17:6).

            The narrative panorama of Revelation is a vision of the victory of the Lord Jesus over the Great City expressed through a retelling of Joshua’s victory over Jericho. The Apocalypse is a war scroll depicting a great battle against a wicked city walled up against God.  Dwelling in the great city is a whore who wears a scarlet garment from Shinar (Rev 17:4, cf. Josh 2:1-2, 15-21, 7:20). Two witnesses enter the city before it is destroyed (Rev 11:3, 7-8, cf. Josh 2:1).  During the siege of the wicked city, seven trumpets are sounded (Rev 8:6, cf. Josh 6:4) followed by a great shout (Rev 11:15, cf. Josh 6:20).  At the sounding of the seventh trumpet and the loud shout, the great city falls (Rev 14:8, 18:2, cf. Josh 6:20) and is burned with fire (Rev 18:8, cf. Josh 6:24).

            Now before Jericho was burned with fire, Joshua ordered that the whore of the city was to be rescued.  He gave command that Rahab and her house were to be brought out of the city, according to the oath they had sworn, lest they suffer the judgment of the city devoted to destruction (Josh 6:22-25).  Rahab, the whore of Jericho who had been delivered by the sign of her scarlet, dwelt thereafter among the people of God (Josh 6:25).  In fact, the erstwhile whore became a bride, and was wed to the heir of the royal house of Judah (Matt 1:3-6), of the very house that was to beget David the king and Jesus the Christ.  All of this narrative set up is to prompt the question, if Joshua is the type of Jesus, and Jericho is the type of Jerusalem, then how are we to understand the Great Whore of John’s Babylon?  Of whom is Babylon’s Whore the antitype?

            There is yet another typological context by which we may gather a clue to the identity of the Great Whore.  In the Old Testament God commanded Hosea, His holy prophet, to marry a wife of whoredom and to beget children of whoredom (Hos 1:2).  All of this was to show God’s great love for His people, although they were even then a wicked and adulterous generation. God charged His people with great wickedness (Hos 2:1-15), nonetheless He promised them a deliverance that He had formerly denied to Achan after the whore Rahab had been delivered from Jericho (Hos 2:15, cf. Josh 7:24-26).  Consequently, Hosea promised that the Lord’s love would woo again the former affections of God’s people and they would forsake their Baals and renew their espousals to the Lord, calling their covenant God “My Husband” (Hos 2:16-20).  God even promised that He would adopt the children of whoredom, calling those who had not been His people “My people” and “the children of the Living God” (Hos 1:8-10).  John’s Revelation likewise charges God’s people with whoredom (Rev 2:20-23), but before the Great City was burned with the fire of destruction, a voice from heaven calls out before Great Babylon, the city of the Whore, saying, “Come out of her, My people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues” (Rev 18:4).  All of this is to prompt the question, if Babylon’s children were once not God’s people but they are called out of the whorish city with the promise that they will be called, “My people,” they who had once been called “Not My people,” of whom then is the Great Whore of John’s Babylon the antitype?  

            Moreover, John’s depiction of the Great Whore is striking, for he tells us that she wears a scarlet robe and drinks from a cup full of loathsomeness (Rev 17:4), although in one hour her judgment has come (Rev 18:16-17).  Remarkably, only one other figure in all of John’s writings is described like this, wearing a scarlet robe (John 19:2) and drinking a cup of loathsomeness (Rev 18:11), all when His great hour of judgment had come (John17:1).  It seems very clear that in his passion account the evangelist is depicting the Savior as taking upon Himself the reproach of Babylon’s Whore.  By this description John prompts the question, for whom, then, does Christ suffer such great judgment?[201]

             Finally, we have observed that the beloved John has interwoven his two great books, the Gospel and the Apocalypse, by means of elaborate intertextual patterns, among which is a ring-structure that makes the Fourth Gospel and Revelation sustain a kind of chiastic correspondence with one another.[202]  By this patterning, John’s Gospel portrait of the Samaritan woman awakens our attention, for by such a chiastic pattern she is clearly paralleled to the Great Whore of Babylon in John’s Revelation.  The Samaritan, an immoral woman from Sychar, comes forth to meet Jesus who is sitting upon a well of waters (John 4:6, cf. Rev 17:1).  She comes to the well because she is thirsty (John 4:15, cf. Rev 17:4); yet Jesus refuses to give her drink until He confronts her with her sinful past.  For He tells her that she has had five husbands, and the one with whom she is now living is not her husband (John 4:18, cf. Rev 17:10).  But Jesus, the seventh love she finds, was to abide with her two days (John 4:40, cf. Rev 17:10). Now when the disciples returned from the city to the well, and saw Jesus speaking with the woman, they marveled (John 4:27, cf. Rev 17:6).  But after meeting Jesus, the Samaritan[203] left her water jar behind and went back into the city to call all those who like her were thirsting to come and drink freely from the water of life (John 4:28-30, cf. Rev 22:17). By such a description of the Samaritan woman are we not prompted to recall Lady Babylon, who sat on many waters and had a relationship with seven kings, of whom five had fallen, one is, and the Last had not yet come (Rev 17:10)?  But when He came, was He not to abide a little while?  If this is so, who then is the bride depicted at the climax of John’s Revelation, the virginal one who calls all who are thirsty to come forth and drink of the waters of life freely?  Blessed are all those who, seeing the woman, marvel greatly, for these are the ones who have been invited to the wedding (Rev 19:9).

The Asklepian Christ: The Typology of Jesus Knowing Good and Evil

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life” John 3:14-15.

            When Jesus confronted Nicodemus the Pharisee with His claim to be Israel’s Messiah, He did so through the shocking typology of the Christ of God as a serpent on a pole (John 3:14). If the Lord Himself had not taught this doctrine, no one would have imagined that the brazen image of a venomous serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness was a type of the Lord Jesus.  What a strange strategy of the Savior for evangelizing Nicodemus, it would seem, for from Eve’s first encounter with the serpent by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the serpent in the Bible is the very emblem of evil.[204]  What could the Lord possibly intend by so subtle yet striking a typology?[205]

As Christians we are accustomed to esteeming our precious Savior as “holy, harmless, and undefiled” (Heb 7:6), and so it is difficult for us to take the full measure of the apostolic teaching that on the cross, Jesus, who knew no sin was made sin (2 Cor 5:21); He was set forth as a propitiation (Rom 3:25); indeed, He became a curse (Gal 3:13).

If we are fully to appreciate the teaching of the apostles, however, we must consider how Christ, through the imputation of our sin, became Himself both sin and a curse, justly suffering the wrath of God.  He who was wholly good was made to know the entirety of evil. 

As John develops his Gospel, it is apparent that Christ lifted up on the cross is the fulfillment of the brazen serpent typology taught to Nicodemus (John 3:14).  The evangelist demonstrates this by reporting that Nicodemus actually saw the lifting up of the Savior when he accompanied Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body of Jesus from the cross (John 19:38-40).

Nicodemus, as the teacher of Israel, would have recognized that the “standard” Moses used to lift up the bronze serpent was the same “standard” Isaiah had said would be lifted up for the nations, the “root of Jesse” that would likewise be an emblem of the restoration of Israel (Isa 11:10, cf. John 12:32).[206] In other words, the cross of Christ was both a tree of death and a tree of life, a tree of God’s cursing made into a tree of God’s blessing. Upon this tree Jesus would know our evil in order that we might know His good.    

Jesus, the Knowledge of Evil, and the Tree

            A fully developed theory of biblical typology demands that we understand the implications of the imputation of our sin to Christ on the cross.  As Peter states, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Pet 2:24).  In other words, the “tree” of Christ’s cross is a tree of double destiny, a tree of cursing to the Lord and a tree of blessing to the people of God.  The tree of cursing and death, however, is authentically Christ’s own by the doctrine of imputation.  Therefore Jesus on the cross becomes the antitype of sin and death. This terrible truth certainly underlies the significance of Genesis 3:22, “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’”

            Now the tree of death is described in the law of Moses, “And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance” (Deut 21:22-23).[207]

            The typology of the tree of death foreshadowing Christ’s cross is extensive in the Bible.  We will examine these emblematic trees in the cases of pharaoh’s baker, the king of Ai, the five kings of Canaan, Absalom, Haman, and Judas. As we will see, there always appears to be a substitution of some kind and a memorial of remembrance associated with these trees of death.  Thus understood, each of the ones hung thereon, as the accursed of God, is a type of Christ upon His cross.

            The first occasion of a tree of death in Scripture is found in the Joseph narrative. Pharaoh’s two ministers, who gave the king his wine and bread,[208] offended pharaoh (Heb. “sinned against their lord,” Gen 40:1).  While in prison each had a prophetic dream.  Joseph interpreted the dreams to depict a double destiny.  After three days the minister of wine would be restored to his office, but the minister of bread would be hanged upon a tree.  In other words, while both “sinned” against pharaoh, one lives and the other dies. [209] 

As the narrative unfolds, Joseph is substituted for the minister of bread to pharaoh as he is given a high office to prepare Egypt for the famine so that they will have bread (Gen 41:42).  Moreover, Joseph, while he was himself condemned among two criminals, had pled with the wine minister, saying “remember me” (Gen 40:14), but the minister did not “remember” him to pharaoh until God likewise gave prophetic dreams to pharaoh (Gen 40:23).  Then the minister of wine “remembered” Joseph in the jail (Gen 40:9), whereupon Joseph was taken out of the subterranean dungeon (Heb. “bor,” Gen 40:15), which represented figurative death, and exalted to the right hand of pharaoh (Gen 41:40).

            The narrative’s substitution of pharaoh’s minister of bread with Joseph, as God caused him to be remembered before the king, is at the heart of the typological significance of the tree of death upon which the minister of bread perished because of his “sin” against the king.  The passage is rich in the typology of the cross of Jesus, who had Himself pled to be remembered (1 Cor 11:25), and who was condemned between two criminals, one of whom likewise pled to be remembered (Luke 23:42), while the other perished upon a tree of death.  Moreover, Jesus retraced the trajectory of Joseph’s deliverance as after three days He was raised out of the tomb and exalted to the right hand of God (Acts 2:32-33).

            The second occurrence of the tree of death in Scripture is found in the account of Joshua’s slaughter of the king of Ai.  After Israel had destroyed all the Canaanites[210] from Ai and Bethel (Josh 8:17),[211] Joshua burned Ai and took her king and hung him on a tree until evening.  At sunset, Joshua had the king’s corpse taken down from the tree and discarded outside the city gate, where it was buried under a large heap of stones (Josh 8:29).  Clearly Joshua is following the stipulations of Moses in his representative hanging of the king upon a tree until sunset (Deut 21:22-23) and his burial of the king outside the gate, lest the land be defiled by uncleanness (Exod 29:14, Lev 4:11-12, Numb 19:2-7).   The doctrine of corporate solidarity, wherein the people are one with their king, certainly informs the symbolic death Joshua metes out to the king of Ai.  By such symbolism, Joshua is stating that all the Canaanites of Ai, as the accursed of God, are worthy of such a death (Gen 9:25, Deut 20:16-18, Deut 21:22-23).  The king of Ai is thus substituted for his people, and the stones that cover his body become a memorial that is preserved in Israel, according to the chronicler, “to this day” (Josh 8:29). 

            The cursing of the king of Ai upon the tree of death, as he was made to represent his people, clearly anticipates Christ becoming a curse (Gal 3:13) as a representative of His people upon the tree (1 Pet 2:24).  Moreover, Joshua slaughtered Ai’s king and put his body outside the city at the entrance to the gate (Josh 8:29).  This unique feature highlighting the defiling nature of the king likewise anticipates Jesus, who “suffered outside the gate” that He might sanctify His people (Heb 13:12), being likewise buried in a grave covered by a stone (Matt 27:66).

            The third instance of the tree of death occurs in the case of Joshua’s slaughter of the five kings of the Canaanite confederacy, led by the king of Jerusalem (Josh 10:16-27).  After defeating them in battle, Joshua struck each of the kings and hung them upon five trees. By such symbolism Joshua was suggesting that all the subjects of these kings were worthy of the same kind of judgment.  Once again the kings of Canaan suffered a symbolic fate that in justice should have belonged to all their subjects.  And once again, at sunset Joshua took the bodies of the kings down from the trees and put them in a cave that he covered over with stones, a mound as a memorial that “is there to this day” (Josh 10:27).

            The disgraceful death of the Canaanite kings, under both the curse of Noah (Gen 9:25) and the condemnation of Moses (Deut 20:16-17), is likewise a type of Christ on His cross.  Ironically, the chief of the opposition to Joshua was the king of Jerusalem.  Jesus, as the True Joshua, would likewise be resisted most formidably by the religious regime in Jerusalem.[212]  But on His cross He is the antitype of the Canaanites under judgment, once their iniquity was full (Gen 15:16). And as the true King of Jerusalem, Jesus suffered death upon a tree like the kings of Canaan, and was likewise buried in the earth and His grave covered by a stone (Matt 27:66). 

            The fourth tree of death in the Bible occurs in the narrative of the rebellion of Absalom against his father David.  This evil yet nonetheless beloved son of his father (2 Sam 18:33),[213] rode a mule under an oak and his head was caught in the tree as the mule rode out from under him.  Absalom was thus left hanging in the tree (2 Sam 18:9-10).  Hearing a report about Absalom’s jeopardy, Joab took three spears and pierced Absalom in the heart while he hung upon the tree (2 Sam 18:14).  After his death, Absalom was buried under a great heap of stones (2 Sam 18:17).  Now the text tells us that Absalom had erected a pillar to cause his name to be remembered, and it is called Absalom’s monument “to this day” (2 Sam 18:18). When David heard of the death of his son, he grieved greatly, and wished that he could have substituted his own life for the life of Absalom (2 Sam 18:33).

            The death of Absalom was a prefiguration of the death of Jesus, who was also a son of David and greatly beloved of His heavenly Father. Jesus humbled Himself even to the death of a cross, and He was likewise pierced in His side by a soldier (John 19:34). Jesus, too, was taken down from His tree of death and placed in a grave covered over by a stone (John 20:1).

              The fifth occasion of a tree of death occurs in the Book of Esther as Haman built a high gallows in order to have Mordecai the Jew hung upon it (Est 5:14).  Mordecai represented the Jews scattered among the kingdom of the Persians, and Haman persuaded the king to issue an edict to slaughter the Jews and their children (Est 3 :8-15).[214]  As the scene unfolded, however, Haman’s treachery was exposed at the King’s banquet and so the Jews were delivered from death (Est 7:1-17).  Moreover, Haman himself was substituted for Mordecai, and hung upon the gallows he had intended for the Jew.  Likewise Haman, who wanted to slaughter the children of the Jews, had his own ten sons hung upon his gallows (Est 9:25). Thereafter the day of deliverance from Haman was made a day of annual celebration of remembrance (Est 9:28) among the Jews throughout the provinces of the kingdom, a day of feasting and celebration of their deliverance from death.

            Haman upon his gallows, ironically substituted for Mordecai and dying in his place a death that delivered the Jews, becomes a type of Christ upon the cross.  Jesus likewise became a substitute for His people, whereby we with our children were given a promise to be delivered from death.  And Christ’s death is celebrated everywhere in His kingdom as a day of release for the people of God, a day of feasting and joy and gladness.

            The sixth instance of the tree of death in Scripture occurs in the hanging of Judas.

Judas had his hand in the dish with Jesus at the table, a last supper for both the Lord and His disciple before each of them was to find his own tree of death.   By his own confession, Judas betrayed innocent blood, and so he cast his silver coins into the temple of the Jews to defile their sanctuary (Matt 27:5). Then Judas went out and hanged himself (Matt 27:5).  While Judas was hanging upon his tree his bowels gushed out, emblematic of his lack of all compassion (Acts 1:18, cf. Phil 1:8, Col 3:12).  Thereafter the blood price of his treachery was used to buy a potter’s field, which was dedicated to the advantage of the Gentile strangers (Matt 27:6-10).

            What a remarkable pass we come to when we see in Judas’ death a type of the cross of Christ!  Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, likewise defiling the sanctuary of the Jews (Matt 21:12).  While Jesus was hanging upon His cross His side was opened by a spear and blood and water poured forth, the emblems of His compassion which purchased redemption and purity for His own (John 19: 34).  Finally, Jesus’ death was the purchase price that redeemed those who had been strangers to the covenant of grace, all of us who were far off, but have now been brought near at the price of His blood (Eph 2:11-22).

        Jesus, the Knowledge of Good, and the Tree

            If Jesus knew evil upon the tree of death, it was that we might be made to know His good from the tree of life.  This remarkable property of the transformation of evil to good is the nature of His tree.  It is the character of His cross. It becomes the tree, to use C. S. Lewis’ wonderful phrase, “of a deeper magic.”  The cross is a tree of healing; a tree of marvelous transformations.

            One typological emblem of this tree is found in the account of the exodus of Israel from Egypt, when the people came to the bitter waters of the wilderness at Marah. In the distress of His people, God shows Moses a tree.[215]  Moses throws the tree into the waters and they become sweet.  Thus Israel’s thirst in the wilderness is satisfied, and the people then come to Elim, where there are twelve springs of water and seventy date palms (Exod 15:22-27).

            A further emblem of this tree is found in the Song of Songs. Solomon’s Shulamite beloved, whose beauty had been marred by the blazing heat of the sun (Song 1:5-6), finds her beloved like a lovely apple tree among the trees of the forest.  His fruit is a delight to her taste, and she finds shelter from the sun in his shade, a protection that restores her beauty and causes her beloved to desire her (Song 2:3-6).

            Another foreshadowing of the tree of life occurs in the account of Ezekiel’s eschatological temple, where water flowing from the sanctuary, that itself has the property to heal the salty waters of the sea and make them sweet, gives drink to the trees that bring forth their fruit every month and whose leaves are for healing (Ezek 47:1-12).[216] This passage informs John’s vision of the tree of life in the new heavens and earth, where all the cosmos has become the new sanctuary of God and the Lamb, and where the river of crystal waters gives drink to the tree of life that bears abundantly and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:1-2).

            The tree of life is also set forth symbolically in the New Testament.  Zacchaeus the publican, disfigured and unjust, climbs up into a tree to see Jesus.  When he comes down from the tree, he is healed of his sin, and makes restitution of all that he had unjustly taken (Luke 19:1-10). Likewise, Nathanael the skeptic, like Adam in his sin, sat under a fig tree.[217]  But Jesus saw him there.  And at that revelation all Nathanael’s doubts dissolve and he confesses that Jesus is in truth the Son of God and the King of Israel (John 1:45-49).

            Moreover, the evangelist tells us of a eunuch who was going through a desert upon a road near Gaza.  The eunuch, in the metaphor of the Bible, is called a “dry tree” for his barrenness (Isa 56:3).  But the Spirit of the Lord brought Philip alongside the eunuch, and Philip went up into his chariot to tell the eunuch about Jesus. As the eunuch came to faith, his chariot draws near to a place of water.  The eunuch, once a “dry tree,” is made new in the waters of baptism, and so he goes on his way rejoicing, reading the promise in Isaiah that he would have a name and a memorial that would never be cut off (Acts 8:26-39, cf. Isa 56:3-5).  In other words, the eunuch, once a “dry tree,” would be made anew into a “tree of life.”

            And so it is with all who look to the tree of Jesus, the place where He knew our evil in order that we might know His good; the place where He took our judgment as a substitute for our sins; the place where we remember Him and His so great love for us, He who removed the stone covering over our tomb forever.  For as He so graciously invites us: “To him who overcomes, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7).  And we who have tasted have found that His fruit is sweet to our taste, making us to forget the bitterness of all our sin!

The Anastasian Christ:  The Typology of Jesus Knowing Death and Life

“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”   1 Cor 15:3-4

The New Testament insists that the resurrection of Christ from death on the third day is pervasively taught in the Old Testament. Paul’s great statement on the resurrection of the Lord teaches clearly that the Hebrew Scriptures foresaw that the Lord would be raised from death on the third day (1 Cor 15:4).  Jesus likewise claimed that Moses and the prophets and the psalms all testify that the Christ should suffer and rise again from death on the third day (Luke 24:44-46).[218]  No Christian hermeneutic is satisfactory, it must be conceded, which is unable to demonstrate the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death on the third day, according to the Scriptures.  Modern evangelical exegesis, however, frankly confesses an inability to set forth such a demonstration.[219]  Clearly there is a wide discrepancy between the claims of Jesus and His apostles and modern conservative commentary on the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures to the necessity of Christ’s death, burial, and third day resurrection.

But where should we begin our quest to discover how the early church understood the Old Testament to teach so pervasively the doctrine of the third day resurrection?  Perhaps we should begin by observing (with a clear-eyed sobriety) that there is a way of reading the Old Testament that seems to miss the resurrection altogether.  The Sadducees in fact did that very thing, even as they appealed to the authority of Moses (Mark 12:18-19).  But the Lord severely rebuked the Sadducees, saying that those who denied the resurrection in the Old Testament knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Mark 12:24). Apparently when we overlook the resurrection in the Hebrew Bible, we have missed the whole point.  We are somehow disabled from understanding the power of God.  And, according to the Lord, our hermeneutic is wholly deficient to understand the Old Testament Scriptures.

One of the most penetrating comments on the significance of the resurrection to the proper understanding of the Old Testament was written by Richard B. Hays, who stated, “We interpret Scripture rightly only when we read it in light of the resurrection, and we begin to comprehend the resurrection only when we see it as the climax of the scriptural story of God’s gracious deliverance of Israel.”[220]  But if such is the case, how is it that not only the Sadducees, but even the disciples of the Lord apparently missed the resurrection theme in the Scriptures?  Once again Dr. Hays helps us.  Regarding the bewilderment of Cleopas and his companion on resurrection morning, he writes:

The puzzled Emmaus disciples have all the facts but lack the pattern, the integrative interpretation, that makes them meaningful.  Luke’s tantalizingly brief summary of the meaning-pattern is offered in [Luke 24] v. 26: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (For Luke, entering “into his glory” refers to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.) Somehow, Jesus’ exposition of Israel’s Scripture will have to show the pervasive presence of this theme – which had never been perceived by anyone in Israel prior to the crucifixion and the resurrection.[221]

How then are we to discover the “integrative” interpretation that makes meaningful the Old Testament in a distinctively Christian way, demonstrating the resurrection as the “pervasive presence,” the central claim of an authentically Christian hermeneutic that promises to “open our minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

 Our approach in this study is to begin with the New Testament understanding of the figural meaning of “resurrection.” In that light we will then revisit those passages in the Old Testament that set forth the pattern of Christ bringing forth life from death, showing the fulfillment of these figures in the New Testament as well.  Finally, we will look at those Old Testament passages that specifically pertain to the third day resurrection.

            We begin by observing that the New Testament application of “resurrection” imagery is quite pervasive.[222]  For example, the author of Hebrews notes the remarkable faith of both Abraham and Sarah in the matter of Isaac’s birth.  Sarah was both barren and beyond the proper time of life. Nonetheless she conceived by Abraham, whose own fertility was likewise “dead” (Heb 11:12).  As Paul affirmed, Isaac was born of Abraham’s body, which was “as good as dead,” and from the “deadness” of Sarah’s womb (Rom 4:19).  Consequently, the pattern of birth from barrenness, that is, of life from “death,” is one that demonstrates resurrection power to the apostles of the New Testament.

Similarly, the author of Hebrews suggests that Abraham received his son Isaac back from the sacrificial death to which God had appointed him, and that this deliverance was intended as a “figure” of the resurrection (Heb 11:17-19).  Consequently, deliverance to life from an appointed death is a pattern of “resurrection” in the New Testament understanding of the term.

Likewise exile and return is given “resurrection” imagery.  The parable of the prodigal describes the return of the wastrel son from a far country.  The father rejoices, stating that his son, “who was dead is alive again” (Luke 15:32).[223] 

Deliverance through the waters is also made emblematic of “resurrection” in the New Testament.  The apostle teaches that the church was “buried” with Christ through baptism unto death and “raised” from the waters of death to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3-10). So Peter understood that the eight souls delivered from death were “baptized” unto Noah in the ark (1 Pet 3:20-21), and so Paul regards Israel, delivered from death at the hand of pharaoh, to have been “baptized” unto Moses at the sea (1 Cor 10:2).  

Moreover, being revived after being famished by hunger or thirst is described as “resurrection” (Mark 8:2-3), as is restoration from sickness or physical suffering to health a pattern of deliverance from death to life (2 Cor 4:10-11). 

The pattern of Peter’s deliverance from the condemnation of death and the “grave” of the dungeon is presented as emblematic of the “resurrection” (Acts 12:1-17), as is Paul’s deliverance from the venom of the viper (Acts 28:1-8). 

Finally, perhaps the greatest figure of “resurrection” to the evangelists and apostles is found in the idea of raising a fallen tabernacle or temple.[224]  Jesus teaches this explicitly when He states, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).  After Christ’s resurrection the disciples understood that Jesus was speaking about His body being raised from death (John 2:21-22). Similarly, Paul speaks of the resurrection of the believer using the same image.  He challenges the Corinthian Christians to remember that the mortal body, which he calls an earthly “tabernacle,” will be torn down and that they should anticipate their own personal resurrection, when they will be “tabernacled” upon with an immortal body from above (2 Cor 5:1-4). Similarly, James cites the prophet Amos, who foresaw that the Lord would “raise up” the fallen tabernacle of David (Amos 9:11).  This restoration constituted the “resurrection” of David’s kingdom according to Peter (Acts 2:24-36), and the settlement of the scepter of Judah and Jesse upon Christ after His own resurrection was foreseen by David himself, according to Paul (Acts 13:33-37).[225]  Consequently we may conclude that tabernacle and temple rebuilding were emblematic of resurrection to the writers of the New Testament.  We will now examine each of these patterns in turn, selecting several of the most salient examples from each type of figural resurrection in the Old Testament and demonstrating their culmination in the theology of the resurrection found in the New Testament.

The Gospel Pattern of Suffering (Death and Burial) Followed by Glory (Resurrection)

The Resurrection Pattern in Birth from Barrenness

The first pattern we consider is the “resurrection from death” implicit in a birth from barrenness.  This characteristic of the history of redemption is first set forth in seed form in the Oracle of Destiny recorded in Genesis 3:14-19.  In what is justly called the protevangelium, or the first foreshadowing of the gospel, the woman is told that she will have a seed that will manifest resurrection power by a birth that overcomes the pain of the mother (Gen 3:16) and the enmity of the serpent (Gen 3:15).[226]  In other words, the promised seed would prosper in spite of the pain of his mother’s childbirth, which should be understood to include the reproach of her barrenness as well as the travail of her labor, and the enmity of his brothers, under the figure of a terrible beast.  These two themes dominate the “promised seed” narratives of the patriarchal accounts of Genesis. First, barrenness afflicts each of the families of Israel’s patriarchs.  Sarah suffers a long and bitter barrenness (Gen 11:30, 18:11).  Rebekah is barren, too, and suffers a great wrestling in her womb (Gen 25:21-22).  And Rachel cries out against Jacob because of the reproach of her barrenness (Gen 29:31).  Second, the sons born to these desperately infertile women each suffer the enmity of a bestial brother.  Isaac is mocked by Ishmael, who is described as a “wild ass” of a man (Gen 16:12).  Jacob is hated by Esau, whose skin is “hairy”[227] like a goat (Gen 27:16, 23).  Similarly, Joseph is hated by his brethren, whose murderous enmity is like that of an “evil beast” (Gen 37:20).[228] 

Nonetheless the promised seed, which in each case is delayed, cannot at last be denied. Each of these instantiations of the “seed of the woman” overcomes the barrenness of his mother’s womb and the lethal enmity of his brothers, prevailing over them.  The irony of this prevailing of life and victory over death and defeat, which is a theme of the Oracle of Destiny in Genesis 3:14-16,[229] is emblematic of the resurrection of the Seed of the Woman (Luke 1:34) who will crush the head of the serpent (Rom 16:20). 

Barrenness similarly afflicts the unnamed wife of Manoah, the mother of Samson (Judg 13:2).  An angelic annunciation foretold the birth of her son, who was to be a deliverer of God’s people from the enmity of the Philistines (Judg 13:5).  This was in spite of the treachery of his own brethren, who refused to recognize the power of God working in him and so delivered him over to the uncircumcised (Judg 15:11-13).[230]  Moreover, barrenness afflicts Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who suffers the enmity of Elkanah’s other wife (1 Sam 1:2-10).  Nonetheless Samuel was born of this barrenness and prevailed over Agag, the Amalekite king, whom Samuel “hewed into pieces” (1 Sam 15:33-37).[231]

The next great barrenness to birth pattern in the Bible is the prophecy about the desolation of Lady Zion.  Isaiah the prophet foretold that after the Servant of the Lord was cut off out of the land of the living, with no one to tell His generation (Isa 53:8), resurrection power would be manifest in Him as He prolonged His days to see His seed (Isa 53:11).  As a consequence, Lady Zion, who had suffered a great barrenness, would shout for joy for the multitude of her begetting (Isa 54:1-3).  This prophecy of the barren made fertile is taken by the Apostle Paul to contain a great gospel truth, anticipating the New Testament community of faith that would correspond to the new Isaac, even as the gospel of promise was like a new Sarah (Gal 4:24-28).  Just as Isaac, the son of promise, was mocked by Ishmael, the son of a bondwoman, so the church would be persecuted by unbelieving Israel, according to Christ’s apostle (Gal 4:29).  But the very resurrection power that manifested itself in the birth of the church would likewise prevail over the persecution of unbelieving Israel, the new Ishmael mocking the afterborn community of promise (Gal 4:30-31).

Of course the greatest pattern of resurrection power manifesting itself in a supernatural birth followed by a supernatural victory is found in the account of Jesus, the True Seed of the Woman, who is born of a virgin’s womb and who prevails over the great dragon, the serpent of old (Matt 23:33, Rom: 16:20, Rev 20:2). The evangelists recognized that the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus were themselves ordained to foretell the gospel in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord.  The nativity narrative foreshadows the resurrection in the great fact that Jesus, who was miraculously born of a virgin’s womb which had known no man (Luke 1:34), would just as miraculously come forth from a tomb where no man had lain (Luke 23:53).  The accounts of both the nativity and the resurrection[232] are told through the eyes of a Mary (of Nazareth and of Madgala)[233] and a Joseph (of Bethlehem and of Arimathea).  In both events the body of Jesus is prepared by wrapping (the swaddling bands and the linen grave clothes).[234] Both the birth and the resurrection narratives are marked by the appearance of heavenly angels announcing good news to man that he should no longer fear (Matt 1:20-21 and Matt 28:5-6). In both narratives burial spices are brought as offerings to Jesus (Matt 2:11 and Mark 16:1), shepherds come in haste to see the sign and believe (Luke 2:12-18 and John 20:3-8), and the sorrow of a Mary (of the travail of labor in birth and of a profound grief in death) is suddenly turned into great joy (John 16:20-22 and John 20:15-16).

The Resurrection Pattern of a Release from a Death Decree

The next pattern we will consider is the “resurrection” implicit in the deliverance from a death decreed by the highest sovereign, by God or the king.[235]  Representative stories relevant under this category begin with the narrative of the binding of Isaac.  God required Abraham to offer his promised son as a sacrifice upon one of the mountains of Moriah.  Abraham fully intended to do so, nonetheless believing that God would raise Isaac from the dead after his sacrifice (Gen 22:5 and Heb 11:17-19).  But God spared Abraham’s son, so Isaac was delivered from death on the third day (Gen 22:4). 

Moses, too, was under a decree of death by the king of Egypt (Exod 1:22).  He was delivered from death in his third month, however,[236] and was received into the house of the king as the son of pharaoh’s daughter (Exod 2:10).[237] 

Moreover, the two spies of Joshua were under a decree of death from Jericho’s king (Josh 2:3, 14), but Rahab the harlot emblematically buried them under stalks of flax (Josh 2:6) and then spared their lives and hers by a covenant of peace (Josh 2:12-13).  After they hid from the king in the mountains for three days, they returned to the camp of the Hebrews.  Thus they were delivered from the decree of the king (Josh 2:16, 22-23). 

Again, David served King Saul, even after the king wanted to pierce him with a spear (1 Sam 19:10).[238]  Jonathan, the son of the king, determined that his father wanted to kill David, however, and so he met him on the third day to warn David to flee; thus Jonathan spared David’s life from the decree of the king (1 Sam 20: 9-13). 

Much later Hezekiah the king became mortally ill, and he was told by God’s prophet that it had been decreed that he should “die and not live” (2 Kgs 20:1).  But Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and was granted a lengthening of days.  He was told that he would be spared, and go up with thanksgiving to the house of the Lord on the third day (2 Kings 20:5, 8). 

Again, during the captivity in Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar decreed death for Daniel’s three friends.  Although they were appointed to the fire, nonetheless, God delivered them from death (Dan 3:19-30), and they were made to prosper in the province of Babylon (Dan 3:30).

  Finally, Esther chose to intercede before the king for her people, who were under a death decree.  She herself dared the sentence of death for any who entered before the king without being summoned (Est 4:11).  On the third day Esther approached the king and she was granted favor in his sight, thus delivering both herself and her people from death (Est 5:1).    

Among all of these examples of a divine or royal decree of death and release, however, the greatest pattern of resurrection power is displayed in the victory of the Lord Jesus over death.  God, who spared Abraham’s son, spared not His own, but decreed His sacrifice and then delivered Him from death through resurrection (Rom 8:32).  Herod the Great sought to destroy the Lord Jesus, just as pharaoh had determined death for Moses.  But God delivered His Son from death, even as He delivered Moses (Matt 2:13-16).  Herod Antipas sought to kill Jesus, but Jesus sent word to Herod that He would achieve His goal on the third day (Luke 13:31-32).[239]  Like David, Jesus suffered the spear as a result of the command of Pilate (John 19:34); nonetheless He too was delivered on the third day (John 20:1).  Just as Hezekiah was spared death by the decree of God (Isa 38:5), so Jesus “prolonged His days” and raised up a temple on the third day (Isa 53:10; cf. Heb 5:7 and John 2:19). And just as Daniel’s friends were delivered from the wrath of the king and made to rule (Dan 3:30), so Jesus was delivered from death intended for Him by Herod and Pilate (Acts 4:27) and given dominion over all things (Acts 2:32-36).  And just as Esther jeopardized her life before the king for her people, so Jesus delivered His own by an appeal to the King of Heaven, who likewise granted Him favor on the third day.

The Resurrection Pattern of a Return after Exile

The first biblical example of exile representing death occurs when Adam and Eve are driven out from the abundant garden and its tree of life.  Adam was made of the dust of the ground and brought into the garden of life (Gen 2:7, 15).  After his disobedience, however, he was driven out of the garden, lest he partake of the tree of life, that he might return to dust (Gen 3:19, 22-24).  The cherubim with flaming sword barred his reentry to the abundant life he had known with God in the garden.  Adam knew that he was to return to the earth, the original womb from which he had come forth.  His hope was that God would one day again cause the earth, the ancient womb of man (cf. Job 1:21, Psa 139:13-15), to suffer the travail of birth pangs in order to bring forth the sons of God (Rom 8:21-22).  Consequently, Adam lived in hope of being raised in a resurrection from dust just as he had originally been created of dust. Thus Adam’s creation is made a type of his resurrection, when man will at last be restored to the Tree of Life again and returned to the pleasant paradise of God (Rev 2:7).

            We continue with the resurrection theme implicit in several examples of return from exile, beginning with Jacob’s return from Paddan Aram and his escape from Laban.  Jacob’s exile begins with Esau’s murderous enmity against his brother that causes Jacob’s flight into a far country (Gen 27:41-43).[240]  After many years Jacob returns “to the land of (his) fathers” (Gen 31:3), however, Laban discovers Jacob’s flight on the third day (Gen 31:22).  As Jacob comes home he experiences a spiritual transformation and is reborn as Israel (Gen 32:24-30).  Nonetheless, on his return he anticipates the hostility of his brother (Gen 33:1). The story of Jacob returning home from exile in a far country, encountering and yet overcoming the hostility of his elder brother, is quite similar in structure to the parable of the prodigal son, whose return, according to the Lord, was like one who “was dead” now being found “alive” (Luke 15:32). It is the paradigmatic return from exile account in the Scripture.[241]

Another pattern of exile and return as a figure of resurrection occurs in the Joseph narrative.  The account begins with the brothers dwelling in the land of promise, but they are divided by their murderous envy, particularly expressed in the enmity of Judah for Joseph (Gen 37:26-27).  As a consequence, all the brothers eventually lose the land of promise for exile in Egypt, the land that is figuratively associated with death and the grave (Gen 37:25, 35, cf. Exod 14:11).  Joseph at last is embalmed in Egypt, but gives instruction concerning his bones that the brothers who had betrayed him to Egypt should carry his bones back to the land of promise to be gathered to his fathers (Gen 50:24-26, cf. Heb 11:22).  In the exodus, when Israel departs the land of death for the paradisal land of promise, the brothers, including Judah, carry Joseph’s bones back with them in a grand emblem of resurrection (Exod 13:19).[242]  But once again there would be a new expression of enmity in the land of promise, especially seen in a new eruption of the ancient rivalry between Joseph’s son Ephraim (representing Israel) and Judah.  As a consequence, the covenant community will once again lose the land of promise for exile, this time in Mesopotamia.  But in the exile of Babylon Ezekiel will foretell how God will cause a second exodus for His people to bring them to the land of promise.  Israel’s dry bones will be awakened from the sleep of death (Ezek 37:1-14) to be brought back into the land where God will make Joseph one with Judah again.  And Joseph and Judah will dwell together forever in the mountain of the Lord, where a New Jerusalem will be built and God’s once destroyed temple will be raised again, the raising of which is the greatest emblem of resurrection, as the Lord said (Ezekiel 40:1-5; cf. John 2:19).

Another example of exile and return occurs in the capture and release of the Ark of God by the uncircumcised Philistines after the battle of Aphek. The Ark represented God Himself (1 Sam 4:7), and its capture caused dismay among the Philistines (1 Sam 4:8) and despair in Israel (1 Sam 4:21).  This capture represented the glory departing from Israel as an apostate priesthood was judged (1 Sam 3:12-14). The consequences of the Ark being delivered over to the Gentiles are instructive for the equivalence of the judgment that befalls both Israel and the Philistines:  Eli the priest has two sons, who are both killed.  Then Eli himself falls over and breaks his neck (1 Sam 4:17-18).  Thereafter the Ark is brought as a trophy into the temple of Dagon and set before the idol god. But on the morning of the third day[243] the idol god, like Eli, falls over and breaks his head and again, like Eli, loses his two hands (1 Sam 5:1-5).[244] At last the Ark is given up by the Philistines, who are made to acknowledge the power of the God of Israel (1 Sam 5:7), and it is restored to the land of promise (1 Sam 6:12).  In the fullness of time Israel’s Glory, who tabernacled among His people (John 1:14) and who had been typically represented by the Ark of God, would Himself be delivered over to the Gentiles.  And as Jesus was delivered up to the uncircumcised, the Glory departed from Israel, bringing about the fall of another apostate priesthood (Matt 27:51, cf. Luke 2:34).[245]  But on the third day Jesus would be restored to Israel, and idol temples everywhere would be made to fall before His resurrection power.

Another pattern of return from exile occurs in the history of Manasseh, king of Judah.  Once again there is a thematic overlay of the desecration and subsequent consecration of the temple of Jerusalem, itself a key resurrection pattern, as the Lord suggested (John 2:19).  Manasseh defiled the temple of God by setting up an idol in the sanctuary (2 Chron 33:7).  This abomination caused the desolation of his kingdom, and Manasseh was taken with a hook and chains[246] into the captivity of exile in Babylon (2 Chron 33:11). In his captivity, however, Manasseh cried out in repentance to the Lord, and God had pity upon His anointed king and turned his captivity, restoring Manasseh to his kingdom (2 Chron 33:13).  Thereupon Manasseh removed the idol from the sanctuary of God and reconsecrated the temple (2 Chron 33:15).  Then he built the walls of Jerusalem (2 Chron 33:14-16).[247]  In the fullness of time Jesus too would take to Himself the sin of His people, causing the temple of His body to be defiled and destroyed as He was carried away in bonds to the Jews and delivered over to the Gentiles.  But the Lord God would likewise reverse His death, and raise His body to reconsecrate a new temple, and thus the New Jerusalem would be built (Rev 21:2).

We see two yet further examples of exile and return in Ezra and Nehemiah.  Ezra reports the exile and return around the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the order to raise the temple again issued by Cyrus (Ezra 5:12-15). God brings the captivity back with Ezra, who comes to Jerusalem and remains there for three days (Ezra 8:32).  Similarly, Nehemiah returns from exile to Jerusalem, where he remains for three days (Neh 2:11).  After the exile Ezra and Nehemiah build the temple and the walls of Jerusalem.

The Resurrection Pattern in Deliverance through the Waters of Judgment

The first pattern of deliverance through water occurs when Noah’s family of eight souls is “baptized” in the waters of the flood of judgment.  Peter directly corresponds Noah’s “baptism” in the ark to the resurrection of Jesus (1 Pet 3:18-21).  For the apostles, water baptism emblematically reenacted the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Rom 6:3-11).  In like manner God condemned the world of Noah (Gen 6:13), but He delivered Noah and his three sons’ households through the waters of judgment to find a new life in a recreated heavens and earth (cf. 2 Pet 3:5-7). 

Perhaps the greatest emblem of resurrection in the Old Testament is the deliverance of the children of Israel from death at the hand of pharaoh as they passed through the waters of the Red Sea to return to the land promised to their fathers.[248]  Israel went down into the deep and passed through the sea to the promise of a new life in the paradisal land of promise. Moreover, the deliverance at the sea was a reenactment of the creation.   First, the pillar of cloud brings light into the camp out of darkness (Exod 13:21, cf. the mark of the first day of creation).  Second, the waters are divided (Exod 14:21, cf. the mark of the second day of creation).  But the greatest miracle of the exodus occurs when God brings the dry land out of the deep, permitting Israel to pass through the sea to safety.  This is the signature miracle of the Red Sea deliverance, and is emphasized in the context (Exod 14:16, 22, 29; 15:19; cf. also Psalm 66:6). It is also the mark of the third day of creation, when God first brought forth the dry land from the deep (Gen 1:9).

Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea under the authority of Moses is reenacted at the Jordan under Joshua.  The Lord assured Joshua that just as He had been with Moses, so He would be with him (Josh 3:7; 4:23).  So Israel crossed the liminal threshold of the Jordan in a time of flood (Josh 3:15) in order to receive the “rest” of the inheritance.  The crossing represented the emergence into a new life after entering into an emblematic death, just like the “baptism” of the people unto Moses at the sea.  But there is a major difference in Israel’s crossing the Jordan and Israel’s crossing the Red Sea.  The Ark of God, representing the Lord’s presence among His people (Josh 3:8-11), crossed over the Jordan with Israel. Consequently, God Himself was “baptized” with His people as they passed together through the waters that betokened baptismal death.  And just as at the Red Sea where God brought the dry land out of the flood, the miracle that recalled the work of the third day of creation (Josh 3:17, cf. Gen 1:9), both God and His people together emerged from emblematic death in the waters of the Jordan to enter into emblematic “rest” in the land of Canaan.  And once again God brought the dry land out of the waters, just as He had in the beginning, on the third day. What a striking Old Testament picture of the resurrection this is!  The Ark of God passing through the waters of the Jordan represented the Lord of Glory going through death with His people.  Even so in the fullness of time the true Joshua would come to the Jordan to receive the baptism of John, and Jesus would submit to the waters representing death in order “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15), that is, in order to complete all that had been typically foreshadowed when the Ark had accompanied Israel through the waters of the Jordan. 

The next prevailing over the waters of death occurs in the account of Jonah.  God’s prophet begrudged a mission of mercy to the Gentile city and so fled from the Lord in disobedience.  When God sent a storm upon the sea against his ship of passage to the west, Jonah was sleeping in the ship, an emblematic death.  Afterward he was cast overboard and swallowed by a great fish, emblematic of a burial (Jon 1:15).  Thereafter, the storm was stilled and the sailors feared the Lord (Jon 1:16). In the belly of the fish, however, Jonah cried out for deliverance from the “depth of Sheol,” a figure representing the death of the prophet (Jon 2:2).  Jonah was delivered from “death” on the third day (Jon 1:17), and as a consequence of his message the great city of the east, Nineveh, was given repentance.  In the fullness of time Israel would once again begrudge the mercy of the Lord to the Gentiles when a greater Prophet than Jonah came teaching that many would come from east and west to sit at supper with father Abraham (Matt 8:11).  Jesus taught that like Jonah in the belly of the fish so the Son of Man would be buried in the earth and raised on the third day (Matt 12:40).  After Christ’s resurrection from the belly of the earth, the Gentiles would find a great repentance, the “sign of Jonah” that would discomfit many in Israel, those who like Jonah before them begrudged God’s mercy to the Gentiles (Matt 12:39).

Similarly, all the evangelists report a striking reenactment of the storm of Jonah in the storm upon the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus, like Jonah, was sleeping deep within the ship while the men in the boat with Him desperately contended with the wind and the waves, fearing they would perish. But after Jesus was awakened,[249] He caused a peace that calmed the sea and delivered His disciples from death (Mark 4:35-41, Matt 8:23-27, Luke 8:22-25).  The Lord awakening from sleep to deliver His disciples is certainly a prefiguring of His resurrection from death, whereby He destroyed the power of death. 

Finally, the other gospel account of Jesus rescuing the disciples on the sea is likewise stylized to constitute a broad narrative preview of the passion and the resurrection of Jesus.[250]  The account found in Matthew 14:19-33 describes the following sequence of events.  During the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus breaks bread and gives it to His disciples.  He then seeks out a private place to pray as He sends the disciples in a boat across the sea.  In the fourth watch of the night Jesus comes to the disciples walking upon the sea.  The disciples are struggling with a great storm. The disciples see Jesus, but fear that He is a ghost, that is, one returned from the dead.  However Jesus assures them that it is He and that they should not fear.  Peter asks to come to Jesus upon the sea, but experiences a great fall through a lack of faith, and so Jesus must save him.  Finally, Jesus comes bodily into the boat and the storm is calmed.  The disciples then worship Jesus.

This Matthean narrative appears to be foretelling the passion and the resurrection account of Jesus.  In this passage Jesus breaks bread and gives it to His disciples to distribute to the multitudes (Matt 14:19).  This breaking of bread foreshadows the Lord breaking bread at the Last Supper (Matt 26:26).  Jesus then goes apart privately to pray (Matt 14:23), which foreshadows His private prayer in Gethsemane (Matt 26:44).  Jesus comes walking on the sea in the early morning,[251] but the disciples take Him to be a ghost and so are fearful (Matt 14:26).  This anticipates the incredulous reaction of the disciples to the first reports after the crucifixion that Jesus has been seen alive (Luke 24:37). Jesus greets the disciples cheerfully, telling them, “Fear not!” (Matt 14:27)  This prefigures the encouragement Jesus will announce after the resurrection (Matt 28:10).  Peter, who is a spectacular failure on the sea, is rescued by Jesus from his fall (Matt 14:30-31)  This anticipates Peter’s desperate fall in his denials of the Savior, and his need to be restored by Jesus, who does so once again by the sea (Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:14-17).  Likewise, the physical proof that Jesus is not a ghost (Matt 14:32) anticipates Thomas’ demand for physical evidence that Jesus is not a spirit (Matt 28:9 and John 20:25-28).[252]  Finally, Jesus is worshipped by the disciples who recognize that only the Son of God could do the works of God, rescuing them from the Sea of Galilee (Matt 14:33)  This is the same recognition that underlies the worship of the disciples given to Jesus upon the mountain in Galilee (Matt 28:9).

The Resurrection Pattern of Revival from Hunger, Thirst, or Sickness

            Israel’s “resurrection” at the Red Sea was quickly followed by a thirsting unto death in the wilderness of Shur.  Moses led the people into the wilderness where they found no water (Exod 15:22). At Marah they found bitter water,[253] and the people grumbled against God’s prophet.  Moses nonetheless interceded for the people, and the Lord pointed out[254] a tree. When Moses threw the tree into the bitter waters, they became sweet (Exod 15:25), and so after three days the people were revived (Exod 15:22), and their grumbling was changed to gratitude.  So the Lord who healed Marah’s bitter waters delivered His people from death by means of a tree (Exod 15:26, cf. Gen 2:9), bringing them at last to a place of fruit laden palm trees and springs flowing with abundant waters (Exod 15:27).

            Now it is Jesus who promises the one who overcomes that he will eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God (Rev 2:7), the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev 21:2) and whose sweet waters give a healing drink to the sea (Rev 21:1, cf. Ezek 47:8, 12).  For when these waters quench the thirst of the tongue parched with sin, that fountain once flowing with bitterness flows anew with sweetness (Jas 3:8-12).  Moreover, Jesus’ tree changes our cursing into blessing (Gal 3:13-14), our sin unto death into righteousness unto life (1 Pet 2:24).  For its healing properties instruct the fountains that are our mouths, teaching us to put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander in order that we might rather be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has also forgiven us (Eph 4:29-32).

            On two further occasions Israel knew a thirsting unto death in the wilderness of Sinai.  At Rephidim Israel quarreled with Moses, and the Lord told him to take his staff of judgment and strike the rock at Horeb that water might flow forth to satisfy the thirst of the people (Exod 17:1-7).  Similarly, at Meribah Israel suffered a thirsting unto death and the Lord told Moses to speak to the rock to bring forth waters, yet Moses in disobedience struck the rock twice (Numb 20:2-13). By such means the author of Hebrews tells us that the gospel was preached to the people in the wilderness (Heb 4:1-11), for the “Rock of our salvation” (Psa 95:1, 8) that was struck three times was Christ (1 Cor 10:4), whose wounding brings forth water that satisfies our thirst and delivers us from death (John 4:10, 7:37, and 19:34).[255]

            Moreover, soon after Samson was delivered over in bonds by his brethren from Judah to the uncircumcised, he suffered a terrible thirst unto death (Judg 15:11-18).  He called out to the Lord, however, and God split the hollow place and brought forth water so that he drank of it and “his spirit returned and he lived” (Judg 15:19).  Similarly, Jesus was delivered over to the uncircumcised after He was given over by Judas.  And Jesus too suffered a terrible thirst unto death (John 19:28) before water was brought forth (John 20:34) to revive any who thirsts (John 4:14, Rev 22:1, 17).

            Again, David lamented a thirsting unto death (Psa 22:14-15) even as he suffered the bestial enmity of enemies under the figure of the bull, the dog, the lion, and the wild ox (Psa 22: 12, 20-21).  Nonetheless in his psalm of death the son of Jesse expressed his confidence that he would yet give thanksgiving for his deliverance in the great assembly of those who fear the Lord (Psa 22:25).  Clearly this psalm of David is typical of the suffering and thirst of the Son of David (Matt 27:46), who rejected the wine mixed with gall (Matt 27:34, cf. Psa 69:21), yet in spite of death knew that he would render thanksgiving to His God (Psa 29-31),[256] drinking new wine with His own in the kingdom of God (Luke 22:18).

            Now while David was being pursued by the Philistines, he was in the cave of Adullum when he suffered a thirst for the waters of the well of Bethlehem (2 Sam 23:13-15).  Three of David’s mighty men broke through enemy lines to bring him a drink of the well. But David declined to drink the “blood” of those who had jeopardized their lives. So he poured out the water as an offering to the Lord (2 Sam 23:16-17).  The Son of David likewise suffered thirst (John 4:7, 19:28), pouring Himself out as a drink offering in order to become Bethlehem’s well of Living Waters (John 4:14).

            Likewise, the prophet Hosea composes a poem of repentance for the remnant who have been torn and wounded by God in judgment for their apostasy. It is to the Lord who heals they should return, the poet/prophet encourages, for “He has torn us, but He will heal us, He has wounded us, but He will bind us up.  He will revive us after two days, and He will raise us up on the third day” (Hos 6:1-2).      

            Moreover, Jerusalem was threatened with death by hunger and thirst during the siege of Sennacherib during the days of Hezekiah (2 Chron 32:11).  Nonetheless the angel of the Lord destroyed the armies of Assyria, and the king and his city were delivered from death (2 Chron 32:22) so that Jerusalem’s king was exalted in the sight of all the nations (2 Chron 32:23). And in the fullness of time Jerusalem herself, like the Assyrian before her, threatened the Lord who was the True Sanctuary and who represented the True People of God.  Jesus likewise was delivered from His thirst and hunger unto death (John 4:7, 32) and raised up by angels (Matt 28:2), after which He was exalted in the sight of all the nations (Matt 28:28).

            Again, Hezekiah the king became mortally ill and was told by God’s prophet that he would die and not live (2 Kgs 20:1). However, the king prayed with tears, asking God to remember him in mercy.  God heard his prayer and sent His prophet to tell the son of David that he would be healed of his disease on the third day and that he would go up to the temple to give thanks for being delivered from death (2 Kgs 20:2-5).  In the fullness of time Jesus was to suffer the mortality of the destruction of His body.  But He too would be heard by God for His prayers and tears to be remembered (Heb 5:7), and so God raised up the temple of His body that thanks may be given for the Son of David, who was delivered from death on the third day (John 2:19).

            Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, came to Israel for healing in the days of Elisha the prophet, for he suffered from the lethal disease of leprosy (2 Kgs 5:1-17).  Now the Syrians had come to Israel, taking captives in bonds to Damascus (2 Kgs 5:2). Naaman heard from one of the captives that there was a prophet in Israel who could heal his leprosy.  So he secured a letter of authority from the king of Aram to seek out the prophet (2 Kgs 5:5).  Naaman, however, was highly offended by God’s prophet who rejected the waters of Damascus and told him rather to wash in the waters of the Jordan (2 Kgs 5:12).  So Naaman turned in a fury to travel toward Damascus (2 Kgs 5:11-12). He was interrupted on the Damascus road, however, and persuaded to wash in the waters of the Jordan (2 Kgs 5:13). He was thus healed of his leprosy, and thereupon swore a wholehearted devotion to the God of Israel, abandoning his idols (2 Kgs 5:14, 17). Naaman was thus delivered from physical death. 

Afterwards Saul of Tarsus made plans to travel from Israel to Damascus of Syria, for he suffered from the spiritually lethal disease of the Pharisees.  As a zealot against the Christian church, Saul secured a letter of authority from the high priest to take captives in bonds from Damascus to Israel (Acts 9:1-3). Saul was highly incensed against the disciples of the Lord, and was traveling toward Damascus in a fury (Acts 9:1). He was interrupted on the Damascus road, however, but told to continue on into the city (Acts 9:3-6); where Saul was healed of the scales (Gk. lepides) of his blindness (Acts 9:18),[257] washed in the waters of baptism and made clean (Acts 9:18).[258]  Saul was thus delivered from spiritual death.

In the days of Elijah God’s prophet found safety and provision of bread from the hand of a Gentile widow of Sidon (1 Kgs 17:13).  Upon a day her son became mortally ill, however, and his breath left him (1 Kgs 17:17).  Elijah took the boy’s lifeless body into his upper room[259] and stretched out over him three times, and the child was made to live.  As a consequence the boy’s mother confessed her faith in the word of the Lord spoken by His prophet (1 Kgs 17:18-24).

Similarly, the Lord Jesus journeyed toward Sidon and was found by a widow who had a deranged daughter.  The widow asked continually for her daughter to be healed.  The Lord prompted a confession of faith from her by saying that it was not right to take the children’s bread and give it to dogs (Mark 7:27).  He said this even though He would shortly show His compassion by not wanting to send away any who hungered on the third day (Mark 8:2-3). The widow spoke humbly, and the Lord was moved in His heart to heal her daughter.  And so she was healed on the very bed the demon had thrown her upon (Mark 7:28-30).

The Resurrection Pattern in Release after Imprisonment

            Joseph’s deliverance from his imprisonment in Egypt was foreshadowed by the destiny of pharaoh’s cupbearer, who was given into his charge.  Pharaoh was angry at his cupbearer and baker and he had them imprisoned. Each of them had a dream in the same night, and Joseph offered to interpret the dream for them (Gen 40:1-8).  The interpretation described a death after three days for the baker and a deliverance after three days for the cupbearer (Gen 40:9-19).  Joseph, an innocent prisoner in the company of two criminals, appealed to the cupbearer to “remember me” when he was restored (Gen 40:14). Joseph was himself afterwards to be remembered to pharaoh when the king had two dreams in one night (Gen 41:9-12).  Hearing that Joseph could interpret dreams, the pharaoh sent for Joseph and had him lifted out of the dungeon (Gen 41:14).  Joseph then changed his clothes and was arrayed in white and gold (Gen 41:42), although he had formerly been thought dead because of his robe dipped in blood (Gen 37:31-33).  Joseph was then given a place at the right hand of pharaoh’s throne (Gen 41:40).  In the fullness of time the Lord Jesus was to ask to be remembered as He gave the cup and the bread to His disciples (Luke 22:19-20).  And He too was innocent, although He was kept in bonds in the company of two criminals (Luke 23:32), one of whom was delivered from death to paradise and the other of whom perished (Luke 23:39-43).  But after three days the Lord Jesus was delivered from the tomb, although He too had a robe dipped in blood for He had been thought dead (Rev 19:13).  But now He was arrayed in white and gold (Rev 1:13) and He was given a place at the right hand of God’s throne (Acts 7:56).

The book of Jeremiah, like the Joseph narrative of Genesis, similarly depicts the theological and typical significance of confinement through the contrast between two prisoners appointed to death and life.  This contrast is depicted through the destinies of King Zedekiah and King Jehoiachin.  Both portraits are given at the end of the book to emphasize their climactic importance.  Nebuchadnezzar imprisoned Zedekiah until the day of his death (Jer 52:11).  But Jehoiachin, king of Judah, was imprisoned until a new king arose over Babylon.  Then he was released from prison, changed his clothes, and was exalted above the other captured kings in the empire upon a throne where he took his meals with the king of Babylon until the day of his death (Jer 52:31-34).[260] Zedekiah thus traced the trajectory of death.  But Jehoiachin’s rescue from the dungeon and exaltation above all others seated upon thrones before the king anticipated Christ being rescued from the tomb and exalted to the right hand of the throne of God in heaven (Acts 2:31-35).

Moreover, Jeremiah himself had been unjustly beaten and condemned to prison by Jerusalem’s king because he had prophesied that Jerusalem would fall to her enemies (Jer 37:14-18). So the king permitted Jeremiah to be cast into a well so that he might sink into the mire (Jer 38:6).  But an Ethiopian eunuch interceded with the king and was given permission to take thirty men to rescue Jeremiah (Jer 38:7-10). So the prophet was lifted up out of the pit of death (Jer 38:11-13).  He was then brought to the third entrance to the temple (Jer 38:14). And after Jeremiah was released, God commanded him to bring a word of good news to the Ethiopian eunuch, who was to be assured that God would reward him because he had trusted in the Lord (Jer 39:15-18). Likewise, in the fullness of time many would see Jesus as a new Jeremiah (Matt 16:14).  For Jesus too would be beaten and condemned by Jerusalem to bonds.  And for having prophesied that the city was to fall to her enemies (Matt 24:1-2, 27:40), Jesus would be killed and placed in a grave (Matt 27:62-66).  But on the third day Christ was released from the grave and so raised the third temple (John 2:19). Afterwards Jesus sent a message of good news to an Ethiopian eunuch, that God would accept him because he had trusted in the Lord (Acts 8:26-39).

Daniel, too, was imprisoned during the exile in Babylon.  The 120 satraps of Babylon’s empire grew envious of Daniel, and reported to the king that Daniel violated his law by praying three times a day to the God of Israel (Dan 6:1-13).  The king knew that for envy they had delivered Daniel to death, and so he sought to have Daniel released, laboring in vain until sunset (Dan 6:14-15).  But the king was constrained by an unalterable law, and so on the next day Daniel was thrown into a dungeon of lions that he might be devoured.  The king then put his seal upon the stone placed over the lion’s den (Dan 6:16-18).  Very early in the morning of the third day, however, the king came to the lion’s den and Daniel reported that God had delivered him from death by sending an angel, for he was innocent of any crime (Dan 6:19-23).  The king then had Daniel taken up and his enemies thrown into the den of death instead (Dan 6:24).[261]  Thereupon the name of Daniel’s God was exalted in all the nations of the empire, and the decree of the king said that Daniel’s God was able to deliver His servant from death (Dan 6:25-28).

Likewise, the Lord Jesus was imprisoned due to the envy of the religious leaders of the twelve tribes of Jacob, and they reported to Pilate that Jesus had broken the law of Caesar (Matt 27:2, 18). Pilate sought to have Jesus released (Acts 3:13), but he was constrained by a higher law (Acts 4:27). And so Jesus was placed in a tomb of death and a seal was put upon the stone that covered the grave (Matt 27:66).  Very early in the morning of the third day, however, an angel came and rolled away the stone and Jesus came forth unharmed from the tomb (Matt 28:2-4) while the guards who had watched the tomb were themselves under the threat of death (Matt 28:4, 14). But thereafter the name of Jesus was proclaimed in all the nations of the empire, telling that God had delivered His Servant from death (Matt 28:28).

Luke’s account of Peter’s personal narrative of “death and resurrection” begins with Peter’s arrest by Herod at Passover (Acts 12:1-2).  The governor unjustly appointed Peter for death and so he was bound between two soldiers[262] in the prison (Acts 12:6).  While Peter was sleeping an angel came to him and struck him in the side (Acts 12:7)[263]  Peter thus awoke from his sleep and escaped the dungeon (Acts 12:8-10).[264]  Afterwards Peter appeared to the disciples, but Rhoda, the woman who brought the report that Peter was alive, was regarded as mad (Acts 12:15).  Likewise, Jesus was brought in bonds to Herod during Passover (Luke 22:1, 23:7).  The innocent Jesus hung between two criminals (John 19:18), and He too was wounded in the side (John 19:34). Jesus was then awakened from the sleep of death and escaped the tomb (Matt 28:2-6). Afterwards the women reported the resurrection of Jesus to the disciples, but these women were regarded as mad (Luke 24:11).

The Resurrection Pattern in Deliverance from the Sting of the Viper

            When Israel was in the wilderness of Sinai, the people grumbled against God and His prophet because they despised the bread which God had given them from heaven, calling it “accursed” (Numb 21:5).  So the Lord sent fiery vipers into the camp, and many were dying of the venom of the serpents.  But Moses interceded for the people, and God made a provision to deliver Israel from death.  God told Moses to make a brazen serpent and erect it on a pole.  Anyone who was bitten and dying but who simply looked at the serpent on the standard would not perish, but have life restored to him (Numb 21:6-9).

            In the fullness of time God sent Israel a heavenly Manna that would give life to the world.  Jesus was this Bread come down from heaven (John 6:31-40).  But the Jews grumbled against this New Manna, for they did not find the Bread that God had given them to be savory (John 6:41).  And so the Lord sent a brood of scribes and Pharisees amongst the people, vipers whose mouths spoke a venomous doctrine of death (Matt 12:24, 34, 23:33; Luke 3:7) and who poisoned many in Israel. But God in mercy caused another standard to be lifted up to save the people, for just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man was lifted up on a cross, that whoever believed in Him might not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:14-16).[265]

Similarly, Paul underwent a symbolic “death and resurrection” when he was delivered from the venom of the viper upon his sea journey to Rome.  Having escaped the shipwreck, Paul found himself upon the island of Malta. While the apostle was gathering wood for a fire a deadly viper came forth and bit Paul’s hand.[266] The natives of the place regarded Paul as a criminal, whom justice would not permit to escape death (Acts 28:4). But when Paul did not die from this mortal wounding, the natives of Malta imagined that he must be a god (Acts 28:6).  Finally, on the third day after he escaped the death of the viper,[267] Paul healed the father of the governor of the island along with many others who were sick (Acts 28:7-9). 

Just as Paul was delivered from death, so too Jesus had suffered the venom of the religious leaders of Jerusalem, the brood of vipers John the Baptist had said were themselves to be cast into the fire (Luke 3:7-9).  But Jesus too was kept in the company of thieves and so regarded as a criminal (Luke 23:32).  But on the third day Jesus escaped death, and was therefore regarded as God (John 20:28).  After He had escaped the death of the sting of the viper, Jesus began His great ministry of healing.

The Resurrection Pattern in Raising Up a Fallen Tabernacle

            The tent is a temporary dwelling; it is made to be struck down and raised up again (cf. Heb 11:9; 2 Pet 1:13-14).  It is this feature that makes the tabernacle so appropriate a figure to describe death and resurrection.  Just as Paul says, in this present bodily “tabernacle” we groan, longing to be “tabernacled” again from above (2 Cor 5:4). Now the tabernacle is symbolically related to the temple in the Old Testament imagination because they share an identity of purpose and furnishings.  Both the tabernacle and the temple represented the house where God dwelt in the Spirit among men.  The tabernacle was mobile, while the temple was fixed.  While the tabernacle could be taken down and raised up again, the temple building too could be destroyed and rebuilt.[268]  This feature was likewise a figure of death and resurrection.  Jesus brought both of these ideas together when He commanded the religious leaders to “destroy this temple, and I will raise it up again in three days” (John 2:19).[269]  Consequently the temple becomes the metaphor to describe the cycles in the history of Israel.  We speak of two “temple” periods.  Both begin in exodus and end in exile, with the destruction of the temple and the promise of its rebuilding constituting the hope of “resurrection.”

The Pattern of Resurrection on the Third Day

            It should not be surprising that the signature act of salvation in the Old Testament, namely the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and into the inheritance of Canaan, is replete with illustrations of deliverance on the third day.  Egypt represented the land of the grave to the Hebrew imagination; it is even identified with Sheol in the prophetic utterance of Jacob (Gen 37:35).[270]  Consequently, for Israel to be liberated from Egypt and to be gathered to the patriarchs in the land of promise is surely the greatest emblem of resurrection in the Old Testament. The exodus from Egypt and entry into Canaan is God’s grand story of life called out of death for His people, Israel.[271] 

As we have seen, figural resurrection is manifold in the Bible, and the exodus/eisodus of Israel incorporates many of these representations of resurrection, including a return from exile, a release from a death decree, a release from the prison house of bondage, a passing through the waters of death, a deliverance from thirst, a deliverance from the sting of the viper, and the lifting up of a tabernacle of witness.  In the expression of all of these themes, a deliverance on the third day occurs in the three demands made upon pharaoh to offer sacrifice to the Lord (Exod 3:18, 5:3, 8:27), in the bringing forth of the dry land from the sea to make a way for the people (i.e., the sign of the third day, Exod 14:21), in the deliverance from the thirst of Marah (Exod 15:22), in the seeking of rest for the camp (Numb 10:33), in the deliverance of the two spies from the death decree of the king of Jericho (Josh 2:16, 22), and in the crossing of the Jordan in order to receive the inheritance of the land of promise (Josh 1:11, 3:2). Taken together, deliverance on the third day is expressed no less than ten times in the account of Israel’s exodus and entry.

It is noteworthy, too, that the central event of the exodus narrative is the theophany at Sinai, where the third day is likewise crucial to the account.  God warned the people to sanctify themselves, for in three days He would appear before them and they would hear His voice in power (Exod 19:9-11, 15-16). Early in the morning of the third day the Lord came down from heaven upon the mountain, with thunder and lightning flashes and earthquake. These phenomena caused the people to tremble as they heard the voice of the Lord upon the mountain that spoke the commandments convicting all of death (Exod 19:16-18).  All of this is to make meaningful the significance of the exodus accomplished by Christ’s death (Luke 9:31), for once again early in the morning of the third day there was an earthquake (Matt 28:2) with angels flashing like lightning (Matt 28:3) such that the guards over the tomb trembled (Matt 28:4). But the disciples were commanded by the voice of the Lord to meet Him upon a mountain in Galilee (Matt 28:10), where they would be given the commandment to bring the gospel of life into all the earth (Matt 28:18-20).[272]

A second cluster of third day occurrences appears in the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah. First, both Saul (1 Sam 9:16, 20) and David (1 Chron 12:38-39) are anointed to the christological office of king over all Israel on the third day.[273]  Moreover, the third day is decisive in the history of the Davidic kingdom.[274] Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was asked by an embassy to lighten the heavy yoke of the people that they had suffered under during the days of his father the king.  Rehoboam asked the people’s representatives to return to him in three days for his judgment in the matter.  The king then consulted with the elders, who urged him to relent, and with the youths, who counseled severity. The son of Solomon then met with the people on the third day and rebuffed their petitions, saying that he would prove more severe than had his father, that he would make their yoke heavier still (1 Kings 12:1-15).  When all Israel saw that the king would not hear them, they deserted their portion with David, and claimed no inheritance in the son of Jesse (1 Kings 12:16).  Thus on the third day Israel rebelled against the house of David “to this day” (1 Kings 12:19).  Likewise in the fullness of time the Son of David met the people saying, “Come unto Me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me… for My yoke is easy” (Matt 11:28-29).  But Israel rejected the kindness of their King on the third day (Matt 27:62-64), and so Israel has been in rebellion against the house of the Son of David to this day.

Finally, a third cluster of passages in the Scriptures describes the third day as a day of great victory for the Davidide kings, always it seems in the context of the sacred temple.[275]  First, after his sin in the matter of the census, David and the people of Israel suffered three days of pestilence as seventy thousand in Israel died upon the sword of the Angel of the Lord. But after the three days David built an altar upon the sacred ground of the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and the sword of the Angel against the people was sheathed (1 Chron 21:1-30).  Second, during the days of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, the inveterate enemies of Judah joined together to assail Jerusalem.  The Moabites, Ammonites, Arameans and Edomites marched together against Judah’s king (2 Chron 20:1-4).  Jehoshaphat, however,  turned to the Lord in the temple and invoked His covenant faithfulness upon His people (2 Chron 20:5-13).  Now the prophet of the Lord instructed Jehoshapat to go out from Jerusalem against the enemies with minstrels before his army to sing and to praise the Lord (2 Chron 20:14-21).  As the people praised the Lord, the enemies fell into a great confusion, and they destroyed themselves completely before Jehoshaphat and the army of Judah. The slaughter of the enemy was so great that the Judeans had difficulty collecting all the spoil; and so they took the plunder over three days because it was so plenteous (1 Chron 20:22-25).   Finally, Hezekiah the king suffered a sickness unto death and so he cried out to the Lord.  The prayers of the king were heard in heaven, and the Lord sent His prophet to tell King Hezekiah that he would recover from his sickness and that he would go up to the temple to give thanksgiving for his healing on the third day (2 Kgs 20:1-5).[276]

What then are we to make of these patterns of the death, burial, and third day resurrection foreshadowed in the Old Testament and found to be so prevalent even in the New?  Could we possibly be detecting the contours of a distinctively Christian kerygma, a message of gospel hope that permeates both Testaments of the Scriptures?  Is the long despised typological method perhaps the neglected key necessary to deliver the Christian pulpit from what is far too often merely moralistic preaching?  Can the church be thereby delivered from a proclamation of the Old Testament that could be as well received in the synagogue as the church? It is the preaching of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus that constitutes the power of God in the gospel.  May we reaffirm our conviction with Paul and the other apostles to know nothing save Christ crucified and risen again! 

“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”   1 Cor 15:3-4

The Cosmopolitan Christ: The Typology of Jesus Unifying Jew and Gentile

“For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of the commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace”  Eph 2:14-15

The Ecumenical Christ: Israel’s Covenant Blessing to All Nations

“May He also rule from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth” Psa 72:8

            There is a particularity to the promises to Abraham, namely, that God would make of this man of faith the father of a nation distinct from all others in the world and that his seed would possess the land of Canaan out of all the earth.  But from the beginning of the Lord’s particular work with Abraham, God informs the father of the faith that the purpose of His covenant was that all the families of the earth were to bless themselves in Abraham’s seed (Gen 12:3).  This promise of universal or ecumenical blessing is made the frame of the entire narrative of Abraham, for the same universal promise to all the families of the earth stated at the beginning of the Abrahamic narrative is restated at the end, after the triumph of Abraham’s faith when his son Isaac was delivered from death upon the mountain of Moriah; once again God promised Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would bless themselves (Gen 22:18). 

Now the word “seed” is capable of an ambiguity of number in Hebrew just like it is in English.  It is most commonly construed as a collective plural denoting many offspring (Gen 13:15-16; 15:5; 16:10; 22:17-18).  But “seed” is properly a singular noun in Hebrew, denoting a particular seed (Gen 3:15; Gen 21:12, 22:17).  This distinction is theologically important, since Paul makes the explicit point that Abraham’s promise was not to his “seeds” but to his “seed,” that is Christ (Gal 3:17).  The clearest textual reference supporting Paul’s exegesis of the application of the “seed” to Christ from the Abraham narrative is the Aqedah account in Genesis 22.  Isaac is distinguished out from Abraham’s other seed as the elect or “called” seed in Genesis 21:12.  But in the passage about the binding of Isaac,[277] Abraham is again promised a seed that cannot be numbered (Gen 22:16-17a) along with a particular “seed” who would possess the gates of his enemies (Gen 22:17b).[278] This reference to a particular seed creates continuity within Genesis to the “seed of the woman” first announced in Genesis 3:15.[279]  Consequently, while Abraham is promised that he will be the father of many nations and that kings would issue from his loins (Gen 17:6), nonetheless there was to be a particular seed who would manifest himself in a victory over the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15) and who would rule over all his enemies (Gen 22:17). That seed, we are told, is Christ (Gal 3:16).[280]

Now Paul teaches us that Christ was to inherit not merely Canaan but the world (kosmos), a promise fully known and understood by Abraham (Rom 4:13). Indeed the universal dominion belonging to Abraham’s seed is implied by the cosmic metaphors of God’s promise that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of the sky (of heaven) and the sand of the sea (of earth); that is, Abraham’s seed would fill the heavens and the earth and rule over the gates of all his enemies, thus obtaining universal dominion (Gen 22:17). Consistent with this claim of cosmic dominion in Genesis is the scepter promise given through the spirit of prophecy by Jacob to Judah, namely, that his son would command the obedience of the peoples, foreseeing the ultimate reversal of the centrifugal judgment of Babel in the blessing promise to Abraham upon the nations of all the earth (Gen 49:10). This promise to the Shiloh son of the royal line of Judah underlies the claim of universal dominion ascribed to the scepter of David in Psalms 2:8, 72:8, 87:4, and 117.[281]

Now just as there is a claim of universal dominion ascribed to the royal line of Judah, so is there a claim of universal dominion ascribed to the priesthood associated with David’s royal son.  This universal priesthood is clearly demonstrated through the person and work of the greatest figure revealed in the Abrahamic narrative–Melchizedek, the priest of El Elyon, the Most High God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.[282] This king of Salem appears juxtaposed to the king of Sodom, respective representatives of the heavenly and the earthly cities known to Abraham (Heb 11:8-10 and Gen 14:21-24). Although Moses allocates but three verses to Abraham’s encounter with this mysterious priest-king (Gen 14:18-20), he tells us that Melchizedek represented the Creator of the heavens and the earth who disposes judgment among the nations (Gen 14:19-20). 

David later describes his own Son and Sire as ruling over all the earth from the throne of God as a Melchizedekian King-Priest, judging the nations and victorious over all His enemies (Psa 110:1-7).  The author of Hebrews makes Christ’s Melchizedekian priesthood the central theme of his covenant kerygma, the priest without genealogy (thus without beginning or ending, the universalization of time) who received the spoils of the nations as a tithe from Abraham, by which the father of Israel acknowledged the dominion of Melchizedek over the realms of the five eastern and four western kings (the universalization of space).[283] The author of Hebrews clearly recognized Christ in Melchizedek, the Mediator of the eternal covenant (Heb 7:24), whose theophany in Genesis is made complete by the bread and wine emblems of His new covenant (Gen 14:18). Thus Christ, the seed of Abraham, has a ministry of cosmic dimensions.  As a Priest, through His Melchizedekian office, He mediates heavenly justice.  And as a Davidic King, by wisdom He receives the tribute of the nations, unifying and ruling over all the earth.

 The Seminal Christ: The One Seed of Israel Blessing the Many Gentiles

“Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.  He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to Your seed,” that is, Christ” Gal 3:16

The question of Abraham’s legitimate lineage became a central conflict between the early Christian church and the Jewish synagogue. The synagogue of the first century boasted in the physical descent of a literal “seed,” claiming “we have Abraham for our father” (Luke 3:8).  John the Baptist summarily dismissed the literal interpretation, stating “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8). The Apostle Paul moreover insisted upon a spiritual interpretation of Abraham’s “seed,” claiming “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom 9:6).  In fact, Paul expressly interpreted the “seed” to whom Abraham’s promises were given to refer to Christ alone (Gal 3:16).  The apostle stated that all who have the faith of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile, are blessed with Abraham and are regarded as heirs because they are in Christ, the true “Seed” of Abraham (Gal 3:7-9). 

That the true Israel is a spiritual rather than a physical community is a consistent teaching in the Old Testament as well as the New.  We are taught this from the very beginning of Abraham’s covenantal promise.  The circumcision sign of Abraham’s covenant was given to everyone in his household, whether born of Abraham or purchased for money (Gen 17:12-14). Thus from the beginning we are taught that the sign of the covenant has a broader application than the physical lineage of Abraham alone. Moreover, neither Abraham’s son Ishmael nor his grandson Esau, who are counted among Abraham’s physical descendants, partook in the particular blessings of Abraham’s covenant.[284]  Therefore the covenantal promises to Abraham are at once both broader and narrower than the literal lineage of Abraham, making a strictly literal understanding of the “seed” promise untenable, just as the Apostle Paul reasoned.[285]

Moreover, the spiritual constitution of the true Israel (Psa 73:1, 1 Kings 19:18, Isa 10:20-22) is demonstrated many times in the Old Testament. No one could presume upon an Abrahamic lineage to guarantee covenantal entitlement, nor did anyone outside of Abraham’s family need to despair of God’s gospel mercy.  Physical Israel stumbled upon the Stone that God had appointed (1 Pet 2:7-8).  But God was able to raise up children to Abraham from stones (Luke 3:8), and the Lord has done so, fashioning His true and ecumenical temple of living stones chosen from those throughout the world who had once not been His people, but now, by a gospel grace, have been made His people (1 Pet 2:4-10), all who by faith are made sons of Abraham through the blessing promise of the Seed of Abraham (Gal 3:7).[286] 

The Arboreal Christ: Israel’s Cosmic Tree Giving Rest to the Gentiles

“Then it will come about in that day that the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand for a signal to the peoples, and his resting place will be glorious” Isa 11:10

            One of the most common ecumenical symbols, both in Scripture and in the literature of the ancient Near East, is the figure of the world as the cosmic tree. [287]  The tree is an apt universal figure because it participates in all the regions of the cosmos.  The roots of the tree reach to the underworld, its shade gives rest upon the earth, and its branches reach to the heavens.  In other words, the cosmic tree reaches to the limits of the heavens and the earth. Moreover, the tree is useful not only as a symbol of the cosmos but also for the ecumenical variety of life it sustains.  This remarkable diversity is represented through the various animals and birds drawn to the restful protection provided by the tree.  Man and beast from every quarter find its bowers suitable for shade and all the fowl of the air find a nesting place in its branches.

            Ezekiel deploys the figure of a cosmic tree to describe the Assyrian world empire.  The branches of the Assyrian tree reach to the clouds.  All the birds of the heavens nest in its boughs, all the nations of the earth gather under its shade, and its roots reach down to the many waters of the cosmic deep.  But God’s prophet charges Assyria with pride, symbolized by her branches reaching upward without limit to the clouds, and he warns of a coming judgment that will see the Assyrian imperial tree laid low, its branches cut down and its boughs all broken (Ezek 31:1-14).

            Similarly the prophet Daniel records the dream of the king of Babylon, whose world empire was represented by a tree which reached into the heavens and was visible throughout the earth.  Its fruit and foliage were abundant.  The beasts of the field dwelt in its shade and the fowl of the air nested in its branches.  But again the great Babylonian tree, for all its pride, was cut down, its branches broken and its foliage stripped off, leaving only a stump in the ground where once the great imperial tree had grown (Dan 4:1-27).

            While the felling of the cosmic tree can portray God’s judgment on the empires of the earth, it is not necessary to the figure.  In fact the Scripture uses the trope of the cosmic tree to describe the organic nature of the ecumenical kingdom of heaven.  Jesus tells us that although the origin of this tree is almost unnoticeably small, like the mustard seed, its growth will be continual until it constitutes the greatest of all trees.  Moreover, the ecumenicity of the kingdom is described as the great tree of God becomes a resting place for all the fowl of the heavens, even from the remotest regions, namely, all those drawn to the tree as it is lifted up before them.  The cosmic tree of the kingdom of heaven thus represents the company of the righteous, all the nations who have come to find rest in its shade (Matt 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19).

While the cosmic “tree” of the kingdom of Christ is not subject to a final judgment, its temporal expression in earthly “trees” does receive “pruning.”  God, like a vinedresser, cuts away those branches which bear no fruit while likewise pruning profitable branches that they may be still more fruitful (John 15:1-2).  While the trees of the kingdom are pruned, those trees that only appear to be authentic expressions of the kingdom are destroyed root and branch.  For example, God despises the unfruitful fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21), but is patient in judgment, and gives room for digging and fertilizing before expecting the mature tree to bear its seasonable fruit. He will not, however, delay his judgment forever and so He sets a season for even His own tree to be cut down if it does not bear fruit (Luke 13:6-9).

            Now these figures borrowed from arboriculture are broadly applied to the kingdom of David in the Old Testament. The prophetic picture of the judgment of God on Assyria and Babylon, in felling the great trees of their empires, is likewise justly applied to the “tree” of David’s kingdom (Psa 52:8), which for disobedience is cut down and all its branches declared unfruitful (Jer 11:14-17).  In the midst of such terrible judgment on the kingdom of David, however, the prophets preserve the promise of a stump to Jesse (Isa 11:1), a root to David (Isa 53:2), and the hope of restoration to a Branch to come (Isa 4:2; Jer 23:5, 33:15; Zech 3:8, 6:12). What a humble new beginning was ordained for the shoot that would appear out of dry ground (Isa 53:2), the stem that was to sprout from the root of Jesse!  But what sweet fruit this promised Branch would bear when grafted into the bitter Tree that gives life to all the world (1 Pet 2:24)!

Christ as the Cosmic Tree: the Family Tree of Abraham and the Gentiles

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”

Matt 1:1.

            The tree is a strikingly apt figure of a family because the oldest part is buried under the ground and the newest growth occurs on the youngest branches.  All of the tree, however, whether root or branch, is part of one organic whole descended from one seed.  Paul the apostle likens the family of faith to a great olive tree.[288]  The culture of this tree, Paul tells us, is a picture of the gospel as the natural (or physical) branches of Israel’s tree are cut off due to unfruitfulness while the unnatural (or spiritual) branches of the Gentiles are grafted in (Rom 11:16-32).  In this biblical metaphor of the family tree of Israel, beginning with Abraham (cf. Rom 9:6-8), Paul describes the engrafting of unnatural branches into the tree where the natural branches were cut off.  The greatest gospel illustration of this apostolic doctrine of the process of pruning, cutting off, and engrafting is given in the genealogy of Matthew, the depiction of the “family tree” of Christ through the seed of Abraham and David (Matt.1:1-17). 

            Matthew’s stylized genealogy of Jesus recalls the prophetic portrait of David’s house as a tree that has been subjected to many “cuttings” (Psa 52:8; Isa 11:1, 53:2; Jer 23:5, 33:15; Zech 3:8, 6:12). As we trace Matthew’s genealogy of Christ from the seed of Abraham and David, we observe that Ishmael and Esau were cut off in favor of Isaac and Jacob (Matt 1:2, cf. Rom 9:7-13).  Then Judah’s sons Er and Onan were cut off (Gen 38:7, 10) and replaced by Perez and Zerah (27-30), the two sons born of Tamar, an Amorite (Matt 1:3).[289]  In the time of the Judges, Achan and his household, who were of the royal line Zerah, Judah’s son marked with the scarlet cord, were likewise cut off (Josh 7:16-26, cf. Gen 38:24-30). In the place of this family Rahab and her Canaanite household, whose sign was also the scarlet cord, were engrafted into the very Judahite branch of royalty from which Achan had been cut off  (Josh 2:18-21; cf. Matt 1:3-5). In other words, a natural branch was cut off and an unnatural branch was engrafted.

            Moreover, Boaz, Rahab’s son (Matt 1:5), detected Abrahamic faith in the Moabite Ruth when he was told how she had left her father and mother and the land of her birth to come to a people she had not known before (Ruth 2:11; cf. Gen 12 :1).[290] By this marriage Ruth and Boaz become the parents of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, the “father” of Christ. Once again, an unnatural branch replaces a natural branch as Ruth replaces the nearest kinsman of Elimelech. By the principle of a faith that was both broader and narrower than the literal descendants of Abraham, David descended from Ruth the Moabitess and Boaz, a Hebrew whose mother was a Canaanite.  In sum, David’s paternal grandfather, Obed, was three-quarters Amorite.  And Obed’s Abrahamic line is even more attenuated when Tamar, the Canaanite mother of Judah’s son Perez, is reckoned in the royal genealogy. 

            Moreover, Matthew reminds us that Solomon was born of the wife of a Hittite (Matt.1:6).[291]  And Solomon begat Rehoboam, whose mother, we should recall, was a daughter of Ammon (1 Kings 14:31).  Matthew likewise cuts off the remembrance of the Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, apparently because God ordained their deaths (2 Chron 22:1-9, 24:1-25, 25:15-28),[292] and shapes and trims the family tree of Jesus to conform to his pattern of fourteen generations according to a literary concinnity informed by a theological purpose, namely, to show forth both the particularity of God’s grace and the universality of His mercy in bringing forth the promised Seed of Abraham, that through a Jewish Seed the gospel was to come to all the Gentile nations under heaven (Matt 28:19-20). 

The Evangelical Christ: Justice and Mercy to Israel and the Gentiles

“I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations”  Isa 42:6

David reminds us  that God’s evangelical purpose toward the peoples of all the earth can be understood from the heavens whose sidereal spheres tell about the glory of God in a speech that is accessible to every tongue (Psa 19:1-6).  Similarly, the apostles instruct us that God’s eternal power and divine person are understood by every rational creature through the things that the Creator has made (Rom 1:20), all so we may justly infer that the things of the visible realm imply an origin in the invisible realm, a beginning that summons all people to faith (Heb 1:3).  But the special revelation of the covenant mercies of God comes through verbal revelation mediated through God’s prophets.  And first among these prophets is Abraham, the father of the faith for both Israel and the world. 

Now the outworking of Abraham’s covenant that promised blessing to the nations of the Gentiles began immediately upon the patriarch’s arrival in the land of Canaan.  God said that He would use covenantal blessing and cursing to distinguish Abraham and his seed from the nations among whom they should dwell, blessing those nations who blessed Abraham’s seed and cursing those who cursed him (Gen 12:3).  We observe this program operating from the beginning.  A famine caused Abraham to sojourn in Egypt, and it is pestilence and plague that God used against pharaoh to awaken the Egyptians to God’s unique covenantal relationship to Abraham.

Moreover, Abraham’s miraculous victory in war, namely, his little battalion of householders and Canaanite confederates who overcame the five eastern kings, published Abraham’s unique covenantal protection throughout the east, including Shinar and the nations (Gen 14:1).  Again, God protected Abraham during his sojourn in Gerar so that the Canaanite king learned by direct revelation that God was protecting Abraham’s house and that Abraham as a prophet could intercede and restore blessing to Gerar (Gen 20:1-18).  Finally, God’s deliverance of Abraham’s son Isaac from the decree of death promised mercy to the nations of all the earth in Abraham’s seed (Gen 22:16-18).  In other words, the evangelical message of Abraham’s covenant blessing was published throughout the Fertile Crescent already in Abraham’s day, albeit by the remarkable means of the judgments of war, famine, pestilence, and death (cf. Rev 6:1-9:12). By blessing Abraham and cursing those opposed to him, God proclaimed His sovereignty over both the family that was to become Israel and the nations among whom Israel was to dwell.

            In a similar fashion the patriarch Isaac dwelt in the land of Canaan among the Amorite nations, and God so remarkably blessed Isaac that the Gentile kings and nations recognized that Isaac’s prosperity of blessing in reaping a hundred-fold could only be because the Lord God alone was favoring his tent (Gen 26:12-33).  Similarly, Jacob was superlatively and uniquely blessed among the people of the east when he sojourned with his father-in-law Laban (Gen 30:25-30).  And God’s blessing remained upon Jacob until he was summoned to return to Canaan, the land of the inheritance of his fathers Abraham and Isaac (Gen 31:3).[293]

            Moreover, Jacob’s son Joseph was given a divine wisdom which was evident to pharaoh and all the wise men of Egypt (Gen 41:37-38).  Joseph undertook a massive program of preparation in all of Egypt through seven years of plenty for seven years of famine, which followed one upon the other just as he had said (Gen 41:53-54).  And because the famine was in “all the earth,” Joseph sold grain to all the nations who came to Egypt to receive bread from his hand (Gen 42:6).  By these means was published the account of the covenant Lord, the God of Jacob (cf. Gen 43:23) to all the earth through the great famine.

            Now God remarkably blessed Israel in the midst of the Egyptians in the days of Moses (Exod 1:7).  God’s blessing provoked the enmity of the Egyptians, who began to oppress the people of God.  Therefore, consistent with His covenant promises to Abraham (Gen 12:3), God visited great plagues upon the Egyptians while making a distinction so that the plagues did not afflict His covenant people.  There were plagues of insects in Egypt, but not in Goshen (Exod 8:22).  There was no blain upon the cattle of the Hebrews, while the cattle of Egypt were afflicted (Exod 9:4, 6). There was hail in Egypt, but not in Goshen (Exod 9:25-26), that the pharaoh might learn that the earth is the Lord’s (Exod 9:25, cf. Exod 19:5).  Moreover, there was darkness throughout Egypt, but light in Goshen (Exod 10:23).  And there was a death cry throughout all the land of Egypt, but there was safety in the homes of the Hebrews (Exod 11:4-7).  In sum, God waged war against all the gods of the Egyptians (Exod 12:12) that they might know that the Lord is God (Exod 7:5).  As a consequence, a mixed multitude went up with Moses and Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38, cf. Neh 13:3). 

And because of God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt, the gospel of His covenant mercies to Israel was published among all the inhabitants of Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Canaan (Exod 15:14-15), inviting faith among even those nations appointed to be supplanted by Israel according to the promises to the fathers, to all who would seek the mercy of the covenant (cf. Josh 2:9-13).  For the Lord would give Israel victory over nations greater and mightier than they (Deut 11:23), that all nations might be invited to rejoice with His people (Deut 32:43, Rom 15:10).

            Moreover, God gave Israel commandments and statutes that were so wondrous for justice and equity that the wisdom of Israel’s law would be celebrated in all the earth and all people would marvel that God was so near His people and would answer their petitions whenever they called upon Him (Deut 4:7-8).  Moreover, God established His covenant people in the land of Canaan, and foretold that He would use both blessing and cursing to instruct the nations concerning His covenant righteousness, just as He had sworn to Abraham.  He promised to bless His people for their obedience such that they would prosper and lend to many nations and not borrow and rule over many nations and not be ruled by them (Deut 15:6, 28:12-13).  All this so that Israel would be exalted in the sight of the nations for praise, fame, and honor (Deut 26:19). But if His covenant people sinned against Him, God would nonetheless publish His righteousness among the nations among whom He would scatter His covenant people (Deut 28:49-68), yet with the serendipitous consequence that Moses would be preached in every city (Acts 15:21).

            In the days of Israel’s kingdom God gave King Solomon wisdom to rule such that his fame spread throughout the earth, for he excelled all the kings of the earth in wisdom and riches and so all people sought after Solomon, to hear the wisdom God had given him (1 Kgs 10:23-24). King Hiram of Tyre blessed the Lord who had given so wise a son to David (1 Kgs 5:7).  And the queen of Sheba celebrated the Lord who had given such wisdom to Israel’s king that the report of his glory had reached the remote regions of the south (1 Kgs 10:6-9).  Likewise in the days of Israel’s exile God gave understanding to Daniel such that for wisdom he excelled all the wise men of Babylon (Dan 1:20).  Moreover, Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream for him, which in its fulfillment caused the king of Babylon to humble himself and praise the Most High God, and to write an acknowledgment to be sent to all the peoples and nations and languages and tongues in all the earth to testify that God alone has dominion in the earth, and that His kingdom endures from generation to generation (Dan 4:1-37).

            Moreover, God sent his prophets among the nations to evangelize His mercy.  Elijah was sent to a widow in Sidon (1 Kgs 17:9) and Jonah was sent to bring repentance to Nineveh (Jon 1:2).  Likewise Mordecai the Jew published the gospel among all the provinces of Persia (Est 9:30), for God had so preserved Israel from their enemies that they had light and gladness and joy and honor such that many among the peoples of the land became Jews (Est 8:17).  And Cyrus the Mede likewise made a publication throughout all the provinces of his kingdom to acknowledge the God of heaven, who had commanded him to build His temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-4). For as David had sung, “All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and they shall glorify Your name.  For You are great and do wondrous deeds, You alone are God” (Psa 86:9-10).

The Melchizedekian Christ: 

Building the Temple as a House of Prayer for All Nations

“Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise...for He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one…in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord”  Eph 2:12-21

            The most radical contrast between the New Testament Scriptures and the traditions of second temple Judaism is the Christian claim that the temple was to be an eschatological house of prayer for all nations. In order to discover why this quarrel was decisive, and how the apostles reasoned that the originally largely Jewish church which afterwards welcomed Gentiles was in fact the eschatological temple of the Old Testament prophets, we must look at the theological background to the tabernacle-temple itself.  We will begin by considering the universal implications of the pattern of the holy sanctuary which was revealed to Moses upon Mount Sinai.  We will then consider how the portable tabernacle became localized as Jerusalem’s sacred sanctuary without losing its universal significance.  And finally, we will consider how it is that the temple itself is the key to understanding the evangelical mission of the apostles, how the temple becomes the key principle of universalization so critical to the gospel mission of the evangelists.

One of the richest words in the Hebrew Scriptures is misphāt, commonly translated “justice,” “measure,” or “plan.”[294]  The idea of justice presupposes a standard or plan by which deviation may be measured, whether of excess or deficiency.  Now the Scriptures assume that there is a universal standard of justice imposed by the Creator God upon all men.  Abraham reasons accordingly that God will not act unjustly by destroying the righteous with the wicked.  In fact he affirms the contrary, asking rhetorically, “Shall not the God of all the earth do justice?” (misphāt, Gen 18:25).

            Now if there is a universal or cosmic standard of justice to be applied to all the earth, where does such a standard originate?  The answer is suggested by Moses, who tells us that God instructed him to build the tabernacle of Israel’s sanctuary, “after the pattern” (misphāt) God showed him on the mount where he saw the courts of heaven (Exod 16:30).[295]  In other words, the holy sanctuary in the wilderness was a type[296] of the heavens made upon the earth. It represented the irruption of God’s kingdom onto the earth. This foundation of the central sanctuary of Israel’s cultus was understood to be dynamic, not static, and from this holy ground God’s kingdom would spread over all the earth, just as it comprehended all the heavens. [297] The tabernacle sanctuary of the Sinaitic wilderness was thus a microscopic replication of the macrocosmic heavenly court, complete with its ark of the covenant, corresponding to the throne of heaven (Pss 80:1; 99:1).  From this most humble beginning at Sinai, God’s dominion was to subdue the earth unto conformity to the heavenly standard of justice.[298]  The arrangement of the tabernacle furnishings and the dress of the priest were carefully designed to reflect the heavenly pattern that was universalized to bring the Gentile nations of the earth under the suzerainty of the Creator-Redeemer God of Israel.      

            The same characteristics of the construction of Israel’s sacred sanctuary obtained when Solomon erected the temple in Israel to make permanent the place where God’s name would dwell (1 Kgs 8:29).  The temple of Solomon was likewise carefully built after the pattern (misphāt) of the sanctuary of the tabernacle, first given to Moses in the mount (1 Kgs 6:38).  The temple in Israel was thus constituted a house for God even though Solomon noted the impossibility of the transcendent God of heaven dwelling in such an immanent house upon the earth when not even the highest heaven could contain Him (1 Kgs 8:27).[299]  And so Solomon anticipated that the nations of the Gentiles would come to pray to the God of Israel in such a house, that all the Gentiles with Israel would know to hallow the name of the Lord God of Israel who caused His name to dwell in the sanctuary in Israel (1 Kgs 8:41-43).

            The temple, then, represented the broad universal within the narrow walls of the particular.  It was the heavenly “standard” applicable not just to Israel, but to all the Gentiles, not just to heaven, but to all the earth.  Israel’s temple was the house of prayer for all peoples (1 Kgs 8:41-42; Mark 11:17).  The mission of Israel’s Messiah, according to Isaiah, was to bring justice (misphāt) to the Gentiles (Isa 42:1, 3, 4). Christ was to complete the priestly work of Moses by mediating earthly justice according to the paradigm of heaven, and to fulfill the royal work of Solomon, by making the temple universal, where God’s name would be hallowed and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven (Psa 72:2; Luke 11:2).  The pandemic ills of the cities of the nations were to be remedied by Israel’s Messiah, a salvation that was to establish justice in the earth (Isa 40:1). [300] And Israel’s Messiah was likewise to be the King-Priest of the Gentiles, a remedy more precisely acknowledging the moral ills of the cities, a recognition that the good city required more than the rational wisdom of a philosopher-king. [301]

            Now the New Testament understanding of the capacity of the Jewish temple to be universalized is based upon the Old Testament understanding that the temple represented the cosmic house of the Creator, a dwelling place for God upon the earth. [302]  It is this universal understanding that we observe at work most especially in the New Testament.  John’s Gospel, for example, opens with Jesus, who is the true Temple, beginning His work of judgment upon the particular temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-22). At the conclusion of Jesus’ work, John tells us that the temple of Jerusalem has been universalized, and that the holy city has no temple, for all the new cosmos has been made a New Jerusalem.  All is now sacred space where there is nothing that is unclean or that defiles (Rev 21:22-27). Similarly, Paul teaches that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall so that those who were formerly strangers and aliens are now made one with the saints of God’s house, growing into a holy (and cosmic) temple in the Lord (Eph 2:13-22),[303] as everyone, everywhere in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, is properly called a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19). Moreover, Peter writes that already in his day the cosmic temple of God was being fashioned out of believers from as far away as Roman Asia, even those who as living stones were being incorporated into a spiritual house whose cornerstone is Christ Himself (1 Pet 2:4-10).  

            Now the apostles taught that the individual believer had been constituted a living temple where God Himself abode (1 Cor 6:19). [304]  They further understood that the church community was being built together into the larger cosmic house of God, universalizing the sacred precincts of the old covenant sanctuary and filling all the earth (Eph 2:19-22, Rom 12:1, 2 Cor 3:3, Heb 13:15, 1 Pet 2:5).  Consistent with the concept of the universalization of the holy place is the Pauline teaching that the new covenant believer wears the garments of the priesthood of Christ.  Now clothing is the most conventional of all distinctions between ethnic groups.  In Christ, all are called upon to set aside the old garments and to wear the “garments of salvation” (Isa 61:10).  All Christians, from whatever ethnic or cultural background, are commanded to take Christ’s clothing, having laid aside all former cultural traditions, and to be rehabituated unto the righteousness of Christ. 

Paul teaches that it is this conformity to Christ’s righteousness, under the figure of all believers putting on Christ’s priestly robes, which transcends the distinctions between the Jew and the Greek and makes the cosmopolis of Christ possible. [305]  It is noteworthy that the apostle appeals to the common habit or virtuous raiment[306] of the Christian in both contexts in which he claims that Christ has transcended all ancient distinctions so manifest in outward dress.  He writes, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:27-28a).  Similarly, the apostle instructs the Colossians, “Do not lie to one another, since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed according to the image of the One who created him—a renewal in which there is neither Greek nor Jew” (Col 3:9-11a).

         The Cosmopolitan Christ:

Building the City of God as a Community of Jews and Gentiles

“There is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all” Col 3:11

            Saint John’s vision of the heavenly city is described through three metaphors, each of which depicts an ecumenical city constituted of Jews and Gentiles.  The New Jerusalem is a mountain city with twelve foundations and twelve gates.  She is like a bride for the beauty of her community.  And her garden is graced by the tree of life.[307] The first part of this discussion will consider how John depicts the community of Israel and the nations dwelling together in this indivisible city.  The second part will consider the role of poetry—the poema or workmanship of God—whereby the cosmopolitan city is made possible in the redemptive imagination of the authors of the Scriptures.

            At the climax of his prophecy, John tells us that he saw the New Jerusalem descending from heaven to rest upon a high mountain on the earth, a beautiful city having the very glory of God.  The city had twelve foundations, named for the twelve apostles to the nations (Rev 21:14).  And the city had twelve gates, named for the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel (Rev 21:12). The city is composite, yet one and indivisible.  It represents the elect community constituted of Jews and Gentiles, dwelling together as one in one city

Moreover, the city is like a bride made ready for Christ, the heavenly bridegroom.  Now John gives us a picture of the bride of Christ in his Gospel.  He sets the drama by presenting Jesus as the New Jacob through an elaborate typology.[308] Just like Jacob, Jesus left His Father’s house (Gen 27:43, cf. John 1:1, 14) and the enmity of His brethren (Gen 27:42, cf. John 1:11) to come into a far country where He sought refreshment at a well (John 4:5-6, cf. Gen 29:1-2).[309]  At high day (John 4:6, cf. Gen 29:7) a Samaritan woman came forth who was to be the new Rachel (John 4:7, cf. Gen 29:9).  When Jesus identified Himself as a near relative, the woman left Him at the well and ran to tell her kinsmen (John 4:12, 25-26, cf. Gen 29:12).  The townspeople then came out to the well to welcome Jesus into their city (John 4:28-30, cf. Gen 29:12-13).  By so structuring his typology as to make a Samaritan woman a picture of the bride of Christ, John boldly illustrated the ecumenicity of the heavenly city, which is likewise a picture of Christ’s bride.  This Samaritan woman is perfectly suited to set forth the composite character of the New Jerusalem, for Samaritans were a mixed race of Jews and Gentiles.[310]

Moreover, the New Jerusalem has a Lamb upon the throne (Rev 22:1), representing the Passover sacrifice of Israel but which also takes away the sins of the world, just as John the Baptist had proclaimed (John 1:21).  And its tree of life bears twelve kind of fruit during twelve months of the year,[311] all appointed for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2).

Now the New Jerusalem is juxtaposed to Babylon in the book of Revelation, inviting a careful syncritical comparison.[312]  Babel (LXX Babylon) is noteworthy as the great city of rebellion, a city built up to heaven yet made out of the most earthy elements of brick and bitumen, a city whose sin caused the confusion of tongues (Gen 11:1-9). Moreover, it was the archetypical city of chaos, the city whose warfare climaxed in the destruction of God’s holy temple (Dan 1:1-2). New Jerusalem, by contrast, is the city that comes down in grace from heaven (Rev 21:10), the city made of golden glass and precious jewels (Rev 21:18-21), the city where every nation and tongue sings the same new song of redemption (Rev 4:9-10).  Moreover, it is the city that is coterminous with the new temple, for the Lord God and the Lamb, are its temple (Rev 21:22).

Finally, it is through the poetic vision of the garden city of New Jerusalem that the redemption of mankind, Jew and Gentile, is reported.  This seems altogether appropriate, for the first and fatal sin of man in the Edenic garden was the embrace of a defective poetry. The temptation for man, created in the “image of God” (Gen 1:26-27) to “be like God” (Gen 3:5, cf. 22) represented an illicit divinization through the collapse of simile into metaphor.[313] 

Christ’s redemption is, poetically considered, the reverse of Adam’s sin.  The Lord Jesus was “in the form of God,” Paul tells us, and “it was not robbery to be equal to God” (Phil 2:6), that is, Christ possessed the very autotheotic divinity Adam sinfully sought. Nonetheless Christ took on man’s mortality and deliberately chose the very death Adam and his bride thought they would escape when they dared the wrath of God (Gen 3:4). All of this was ordained that Christ, who is the express image of God (Heb 1:3), might conform all of His people, whether Greek, Jew, Barbarian, or Scythian, to His own glorious image (Col 3:11).[314]  This transcendence of both natural and conventional particulars is realized through the indwelling of the same divine Spirit.  Redeemed man, though never divine in himself, nonetheless becomes a holy temple, that is, the dwelling place of God Himself (1 Cor 6:19). 

By this glorious mystery among the Gentiles, Paul assures us, the promise is made real of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).  And through this heavenly poetry, all things are being conformed anew into the image of the Son of God (Rom 8:29). So Christ has made Jew and Gentile “both one” (Eph 2:14), a redeemed community sharing “one body and one spirit, even …one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all” (Eph 4:4-6).  The elect assembly of Jews and Gentiles shares one dress, arrayed in Christ’s virtue (Col 3:9-10), one supper, symbolized in the bread and the wine (Acts 15:13-21), and praises the One God with one tongue (Rom 14:11).  All of this is so God might reconcile the world to Himself in Christ, whether things in heaven or things on earth (Col 1:20), that in all things Christ might have the preeminence (Col 1:18), for He is before all things, and by Him all things consist (Col 1:17).  Amen.

The Analogical Imagination and Biblical Typology

            In the modern period we are witnessing the production of an abundance of excellent scholarship in many fields of biblical study, albeit with the remarkable exception of biblical typology. Alleged abuse of the typological method by the church fathers and the medievalists has combined with contemporary conservative literalism[315] and modern critical skepticism[316] to produce what is surely the slenderest bibliography of any major department of biblical interpretation.  Moreover, scholarly dubiety of anything typological is reinforced by dogmatic alarm.[317] Conservative commentary largely neglects typology, fearing the loss of the historicity of the biblical narrative to allegory.[318] Critical scholarship denies the possibility of typology, rejecting what the post-structuralists would call the metanarrative[319] of the Bible.

A Statement on Method

What should then be our point of departure?  What method shall we undertake to investigate biblical typology, which has been called “the central and distinctive NT way of understanding the Scripture,”[320] yet concerning which there has not yet emerged a clear consensus regarding either the character of typology or the method by which we should recognize it?[321]

            We begin by deriving our method from certain presuppositions about the Bible, the Word of God.  If we take seriously the Bible’s own claim to be inspired by the Spirit of God working through the prophets and apostles (2 Tim 3:16, 2 Pet 1:21; cf. WCF 1:4), then it follows that the entirety of the Bible should reflect the markings of an authorial unity transcending the particular contributions of the individual human authors.  In other words, we should be able to discern a metanarrative to the entire Bible, complete with the themes, motifs, foreshadowings, and climactic fulfillments customary to other serious literary works.  This implies that typology is not fundamentally a question of the NT understanding of the OT.  On the contrary, typology must be hermeneutically the same in principle in both Testaments if we are to take seriously the Bible’s own claim to divine inspiration (2 Tim 3:16).  This understanding follows from the conviction that the NT is organically related to the OT.  It is not mechanically appended to it, requiring its own unique system of biblical interpretation.

Our point of departure will be to approach the canonical Scripture as we would customarily interpret any other single work of literature.[322]  It is our personal faith conviction that the Scripture is the infallible Word of God, and that biblical typology will partake of the same elegant simplicity and beauty of God’s self-disclosure that is observable in the coherence and design of the natural world.  In other words, we will interpret the Scripture to see the pattern and design suggested by a synoptic perspective of the entire canon.  While not obliterating the unique marks and features of the individual authors of the sacred texts, by typology we mean to explore the Scriptural story as a whole.  In our attempt to read the various books of the Bible in such a manner we are like a churchgoer gazing upon a stained glass window.  The same light is streaming through each constituent piece of glass, which viewed individually is markedly different in shape and color.  But viewed together, the pattern of the whole emerges, reflecting the design of the artist.  The lovely pattern of the window is observable to all who can see.  The Christian sees and delights in the same pattern as any other careful observer,[323] but afterwards he will give thanks for the Light that has enabled him to see.

Toward a Definition of Typology: The Poetics of Analogy

            Modern biblical commentary is almost exclusively characterized by a method E. Fiorenza has called “linear-logical” or “linear-temporal” reading.[324]  This widely practiced analysis is invited by the structure of the text itself, which we may illustrate by considering the account of the creation in Genesis 1.  The story, both in its substance and its form, invites a logical and chronological examination.  Through words arranged syntactically in narrative form, we may logically follow an orderly creative process moving from chaos to cosmos.  We also note the clear chronology of two triads of three days (complementing the work of forming and filling), and concluding with a day of rest.[325]

            But the text itself suggests a further capacity for interpretation that we should not overlook.  All theological discourse, namely, the expression of the transcendent within the language capacities of the imminent, is necessarily analogical. Theology takes place in the realm of metaphor.  The origin of this faculty of thought, it would seem, is our creation in the “image and likeness” of God (Gen 1:26).  Such a creation implies that the recognition of the distinction between the original and its image, the essence of metaphoric awareness, is a fundamental competence given to all. [326]  This capacity, as presented in Genesis, has an ethical as well as an intellectual quality.  It becomes the basis for the ethical choice that underlies our first defection in the “fall of man,” namely, the temptation to deny the distinction between the original and the image implied in the serpent’s suggestion, “you shall be like God” (Gen 3:5).  

The Bible is written to appeal to this analogical imagination; that is, it assumes our ability to discover the identity of God’s action in the different particulars of logical and chronological circumstance.  For example, the signature of God’s creative activity in Genesis 1 is the Spirit hovering over the waters of chaos, the word of God bringing forth the light and the dry land as symbols of salvation from the darkness and the deep, and God establishing the rest of the sabbath.  That is, in its broadest gesture, creation is the motion of God from a state of unrest to a state of rest.

These essential elements in the record of the initial creation are woven into subsequent biblical accounts, albeit with different contextual (logical and chronological) circumstances.  For example, the flood of Noah once again depicts the world covered with the waters of chaos.  Noah judges the extent of the cosmic overthrow to correspond to the original chaos.  This judgment justifies the sabbath pattern of sending out the dove, which hovers symbolically over the waters.  The waters prevail until God sends forth His Spirit upon them (Gen 8:1).  The dove at last returns to Noah with an olive branch, the evidence of the emergence of dry land.  Once the dove finds rest for the sole of her foot, and the ark finds rest upon Ararat, then Noah (whose name signifies “rest,” Gen 5:29) disembarks onto the new earth of a new creation, offering a sacrifice of rest (Gen 8:21) to the Lord.[327]

            In a similar fashion we observe the signature of the God of creation in the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea.[328] God sends His wind (Spirit) over the waters of darkness, bringing forth the dry land and leading His people forth by the cloud that brings light into the darkness.  In this manner He will bring them into Canaan, the paradisiacal land of promise, which represents His rest (Deut 12:9, Psa 95:11).[329] 

            In Israel’s subsequent history the Lord God delivers His people from the devastation of the land in the days of the Assyrian and the Babylonian.  The invasions from the north are “like the waters of Noah” flooding Israel (Isa 54:9), which undo the first creation of Israel, making the land a desolation (complete with the return of the “formless and void,” Jer 4:23-28 and the darkness, Isa 42:7).  But the Spirit will once again be given to Israel (Hag 2:5), the land will be restored to the likeness of Eden’s garden (Isa 51:3), and God will receive a sacrifice of rest (Eze 20:41).[330] 

            Now we should also compare the Genesis creation account to the record of the new creation represented in the manifestation of Jesus to Israel at His baptism, particularly as recorded in the John’s Gospel.  The evangelist opens “in the beginning” of the new creation, when the Spirit moved through John the Baptist, the word was spoken by his testimony, and the Light of the World appeared (John 1:1-9).  Just as the Lord emerged from the waters of baptism, which represented His death (Mark 10:38-39, Rom 6:4), the dove of the Spirit of God descended from heaven, finding rest upon Him (Matt 3:16, Luke 3: 22, John 1:31-34).

            Moreover, the paradigm of the Christian believer’s salvation, as described in the NT, is that we who were in darkness have seen the Light of the glory of God shine into our hearts (2 Cor 4:6), delivering us through the waters of baptism (Rom 6:3, 1 Cor 12:13), sealing us with the Spirit of God (Eph 1:13), making us a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), and promising us the rest to come (Heb 4: 9).[331] 

Such, then, are several of the recurring thematic patterns of God’s creative and redemptive work.[332]  They are recognized by their lexical concordance and chronological similarities, which together constitute the form of their analogical correspondence. The consistency of these and many other similar patterns through both Testaments justifies, we believe, our attempt to explore the Bible as a metanarrative.

The Terrain of Analogy

            According to the ethical theory we derived from the Genesis statement of the imago dei, all of us should be capable of understanding metaphor; in fact, a robust spirituality will seek to cultivate the poetic art itself.[333]  This capacity becomes crucial once we consider that Biblical typology is first of all a poetic phenomenon.  Poetry requires the habit of analogy or metaphor, a capacity for perceiving similarities-in-difference.[334]

There are several aspects to the poetic imagination that we should understand. In order to enter this wonderful and rewarding mundus imaginalis,[335] we should be aware of the following inventory of the most basic poetic skills.[336]  The primary attribute necessary for understanding the metaphoric basis of typology appears to be the capacity for analogy, a feature of the imagination.[337]  But we will also need to have an awareness of form, the sense of symbol.[338]  We will require a receptivity to archetypes, an envisioning of the iconic.[339]  And there must be a sensitivity to the generic (i.e. genre) patterns of the soul (psyche),[340] which will give us the structure of the various images.

We will proceed by considering several examples of analogical exegesis in the Bible, using the poetic skills we have enumerated.  Clearly there are a number of questions about typology proper that we will need to address. Among the more pertinent are: What hermeneutic controls typology, if we abandon a biblical literalism?  What are the distinguishing features of biblical typology as compared to analogy?  How is typology different from allegory?[341]  What is the relationship of typology to history?[342]  What does the widely recognized capacity of poetry to conceal as well as reveal suggest about its knowability?[343]

While all of these issues are worthy of consideration, the most significant precondition to a theory of biblical typology, we believe, is an awareness of analogical interpretation.  It is to this subject that we now turn, examining two typological case studies: Abraham in Egypt and Mary Magdalene at the tomb.

Part I: The Typology of Abraham’s Sojourn in Egypt

We have suggested that the essence of analogy is the recognition of identity-in-difference.  We will now illustrate this principle by examining Genesis 12:10-20, the account of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt, and projections of this patterned account upon three different OT narrative passages.

We begin by rehearsing the prototypical passage, which is quite brief (Gen 12:10-20).  The elements of the story are as follows.  After God announced His gracious covenant with Abraham, the patriarch came into the land of Canaan during a severe famine.  The famine caused him to seek refuge as a sojourner in Egypt.  Knowing that Sarah was very beautiful, Abraham undertook a deception, asking his wife to represent herself as his sister, fearing that if the king knew that Abraham was truly Sarah’s husband, he would kill Abraham in order to take Sarah for his wife.  Abraham’s wife was thereby placed in jeopardy.  God intervened by sending plagues upon pharaoh, protecting Sarah and disclosing Abraham’s deception.  The pharaoh then rebuked Abraham, protesting that had he known the truth he would never have taken Sarah as a wife.[344]  The pharaoh had blessed Abraham with great treasure, but at last he drove him out of Egypt.  

Now this great sin of Abraham should be understood against the background of the covenant (12:1-3), wherein God promised the patriarch a seed, a land, and that he would be a blessing to the nations (12:1-3).  In an egregious derogation of his wife, Abraham both ventured Sarah’s purity and disregarded her promise, for it was by Sarah, too, that “the seed of the woman” should be called (17:15-16).  Moreover, in the face of the challenge of a famine, Abraham deserted his covenanted land for Egypt.[345]  Finally, rather than Abraham being an occasion for blessing, the unbelief of the father of faith brought great plagues upon the Egyptians.

The First Projection of the Abraham in Egypt Account:                                       The Patriarchal “Wife-Sister” Narratives

The sojourn of Abraham in Egypt (Gen 12:10-20) becomes the well recognized pattern for two subsequent episodes of patriarchal sojourning among the Philistines of Gerar, namely, those of Abraham (Gen 20:1-18) and Isaac (Gen 26:1, 6-16).  The triplicity of this pattern in Genesis suggests the significance of the themes that are being introduced.  The text is inviting us to give close attention to these patriarchal patterns. D. Garrett has analyzed the three sojourner episodes and determined that they all participate in the same form, namely, the account of the migration and deception of the patriarch, the abduction and subsequent deliverance of his wife, the rebuke of the patriarch by a pagan king, and the concluding blessing given to the patriarch.[346]  Let’s begin by comparing the first two episodes, which are accounts of Abraham.

The first pattern we note, according to the method we have suggested, is to observe the lexical[347] and sequential[348] commonality of the two Abrahamic stories.  Both stories build an inclusio that constitutes part of a larger chiastic form governing the account of Abraham.  D. Dorsey has set forth the complete pattern of this chiasm.  Instructively, he observes that the central focus of the Abrahamic account is the statement of the covenant to both Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17:1-21.[349]  Consequently, we observe that the first Abrahamic wife-sister narrative follows the original statement of the Abrahamic covenant, a juxtaposition that emphasizes Abraham’s failure of faith.                                                                                    Similarly, the arrangement of both wife-sister narratives so that they frame the Lord’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, serves to highlight the unbelief of Abraham. We conclude that the double deception of the patriarch emphasizes his weakness of faith, leading in each instance to an ironic rebuke of the man of faith by a pagan king. Dorsey writes, “the repetition of the scenario of Abraham’s lying about Sarah draws attention to the weakness of Israel’s ancestors and the contrasting power of Yahweh, who is able, even in foreign lands like Egypt and Philistia, to protect his people.”[350] 

The second pattern we note is the account of Isaac’s sojourn in Gerar, a record similarly connected with the Abrahamic wife-sister narratives by a web of clear lexical[351] and sequential[352] borrowing.  Once again the wife-sister narrative of Isaac is a part of a larger chiastic structure controlling the account of Isaac, as Dorsey has demonstrated.[353]  The pivotal and most crucial theme of the Isaac chiastic structure is the account of the Lord’s selection of Rebekkah to be the chosen matriarch as Isaac’s wife (24:1-67).  But once again we observe the pattern of the patriarchal disregard of the purity and promise of the woman.[354] 

In sum, the three wife-sister narratives in the accounts of Abraham and Isaac demonstrate the faithfulness of God and His ability to protect His people.  But they also serve to highlight the fickleness of these great men of faith.  The Scripture is no mere hagiography.  While the account of the submission of Isaac to the sacrifice of Abraham upon Moriah represents perhaps the summit of faith in the OT, nonetheless, even these patriarchs were men of great failure.  Their greatest lapses of faith appear in their disregard of the covenanted promises of their wives.  These failures are stated explicitly in the text.  Moreover, their repetition aggravates the moral failure.  As a result, the longing is aroused among the faithful for a greater Abraham and a greater Isaac.  We are prompted to imagine one who would show the same faith as Isaac on Moriah, who submitted to the bonds of death, and Abraham, who in faith lifted the knife against his only begotten son.  Yet we long for one who would also esteem the covenant promises of the woman, and who would accord her the dignity of respecting her purity.  And we would likewise hope for one who would not put the nations into a place of moral jeopardy, but rather would seek their blessing, according to the covenant of peace.

The Second Projection of the Wife-Sister Narratives:A Preview of the Exodus

The Lord God, who appeared to Moses upon Sinai in order to deliver His people from the bondage of pharaoh, identified Himself as the “God of the Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exod 3:15). It was by this name that the Lord had saved Abraham by bringing plagues upon pharaoh, had delivered Abraham and Isaac from Amorite kings, and had preserved Jacob from Esau upon his return to the covenanted land.[355]  It was by this name that through Moses God would deliver Israel from plagues against pharaoh, would deliver the Amorite kings into their hands, and would protect them from the Edomites on their journey to the promised land.

The narrative of Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt is carefully composed to anticipate the exodus deliverance of Israel from Egypt.[356]  This “narrative typology”[357] in the Abrahamic tradition served to encourage the faith of Israel during the bondage in Egypt.  The Lord, who promised to deliver them with great possessions after four hundred years (Gen 15:13-14) had already demonstrated His power over pharaoh, delivering their father Abraham with great possessions (Gen 12:10-20). The correspondences between the Abraham narrative and the exodus deliverance from Egypt are best compared by means of a chart.  The following correspondences are the most compelling.

The three “wife-sister” narratives participate in the same pattern of the patriarch jeopardizing the promise followed by the Lord’s deliverance, as we have seen.  Consequently, we should not overlook correspondences to the exodus of Israel from Egypt anticipated in the second Abrahamic sojourn narrative as well as the parallel Isaac narrative. Consider the following two examples from the second Abrahamic “wife-sister” narrative. 

Abraham’s second defection took place in Gerar near Kadesh, a failure of faith that was aggravated by the Egyptian deliverance he had already witnessed at the intervention of the Lord.  The same pattern will be evident in the history of Israel, for the very generation that had witnessed the deliverance from Egyptian bondage stumbled in their faith when the spies returned to Kadesh to report that the nations of Canaan were too powerful for Israel (Numb 13:26-29).  Moreover, the second failure of Abraham, after he dwelt in Kadesh, was the failure of a prophet (Gen 20:7).  The great failure of Moses, Israel’s greatest prophet, likewise took place in the region of Kadesh, afterwards known as Meribah (Numb 20:1-13).

One of the most remarkable patterns projected upon the exodus account from the “wife-sister” sojourn of Abraham in Gerar derives from comparing these passages.  Remarkably, a Philistine king’s rebuking the deception of Abraham anticipates Moses’ reproving Aaron over the idolatry of the golden calf.  This juxtaposition of texts is highly instructive.  It contextualizes the sin of Abraham in his second defection, making his deception regarding Sarah the moral equivalent to the idolatry of Israel at Sinai.  Moreover, it makes Abimelech’s censure a type of Moses’ denunciation of Aaron.  And the ironic rationalization of both Abraham and Aaron deprecates equally both the “godless” Philistines and “evil” Israelites.

The “wife-sister” narratives and their projection upon the exodus account underscore the failure of Israel’s greatest prophets, Abraham and Moses.  Moreover, the second “wife-sister” narrative of Abraham foreshadows the great sin of Aaron, whose first presiding over public worship in Israel is the pollution of the people in the worship of the golden calf.

The failures of Israel’s prophets and priests arouse the longing among the people of God for a better prophet and a better priesthood. Abraham was a man of great faith, but he ventured the promise of the seed by endangering the purity of his wife.  Moreover, he betrayed the promise that the nations would find a blessing in him, for he brought plagues and judgment upon Egypt and Philistia. Isaac, too, endangered the covenant of his father Abraham when his failure of faith jeopardized both Rebekkah and the house of Abimelech. 

Moreover, Abraham’s defection near Kadesh, after his exodus from Egypt, anticipated the disobedience of Moses at Kadesh-Meribah, after the exodus from Egypt.  Consequently, Kadesh would always memorialize the failure of the prophets, just as it also recalled the disbelief of the people (Numb 32:8-13).  Similarly, the failure of God’s prophet Abraham foreshadowed the failure of Aaron, God’s priest.  Aaron, who had witnessed the mysteries of the Lord God upon Sinai (Exod 19:24), thereafter offered sacrifice and a fellowship supper to a god of gold, afterwards justifying his idolatry by blaming the very nation he was appointed to uphold through the holiness of intercession (Exod 32:22-24).[359]  Consequently, the great failures of Israel’s patriarchs, prophets, and priests underscore the unilateral faithfulness of the Lord God to His covenant of promise.  Moreover, they arouse the hope among the people of God for a better prophet and a better priesthood.

The Third Projection of the Wife-Sister Narratives:                                            The Pharaoh of Egypt and the Kings of the Philistines as Types of David

The “wife-sister” narratives take place because Abraham and Isaac imagined that they were subject to a godless king who would disregard the hospitality due to the sojourner and who would kill the husband in order to take for himself the beautiful wife of another.  When the deception of the patriarchs was discovered, both the pharaoh and the kings of Gerar protested their unwillingness to have committed such a crime, fearing to bring the judgment of God upon their people. 

It is this very crime which the pagan kings refused to do that David does against the house of Uriah, the Hittite sojourner.  The Scripture, as we have noted, is no mere hagiography.  Consider the following correspondences between the “wife-sister” narratives, and how they are adapted by Israel’s chronicler to portray the defection of Israel’s greatest king.

The chronicler of Israel’s kings, writing in the spirit of prophecy, retains the prophetic skepticism that Samuel had so long and yet unsuccessfully urged against the demand of the people for a king.[360]  The anonymous writer of the record of David’s sin against Bathsheba and the house of Uriah recounts the rebuke of David by the prophet Nathan, who reproved David with the parable about a man who although he had many flocks, nonetheless stole another man’s one little lamb.[361]  By means of this parable Nathan charged David with being that very “man.”[362]  And by means of the pattern of allusions to the “wife-sister” narratives of Genesis, the prophetic chronicler of David’s crimes of adultery and murder has charged David with possessing a tyrannous heart that surpassed for wickedness the pharaoh of Egypt[363] and the kings of Gerar. [364] 

It is a sobering and terrible irony that this same royal David, the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart, could commit such crime and nonetheless become the standard by which the prophets would afterwards measure the latter kings of Israel, whether they followed in the ways of their father David or no.   But all the kings of Israel leave us longing for some greater king, some more faithful shepherd of God’s people.  We long for a nobler Lion to come from Judah’s royal blood, One who would heroically suffer death Himself, if need be, to restore purity to women and to bring grace to Gentiles who, like good Uriah, had made the Lord their Light. 

Part II: The Typology of Mary Magdalene

The Bride of Adam as a Type of Mary Magdalene

“My beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices”  Song of Songs 6:2

“And they took the body of Jesus, and bound it with linen strips and spices…Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid…Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb”  John 19:40-20:1

John’s Gospel offers a panoramic retelling of the Genesis creation account.  Opening with the unmistakable allusion to the first creation, the evangelist describes a time “in the beginning” of the new creation (J 1:1).  As the Spirit moves through John the Baptist, the Word is spoken, and the Light of the World appears.  But that same Word was now made flesh, and was presented to Israel as True Man, as the New Adam. 

Just as it was not good for the first Adam to be alone, so also once the Word of God became authentically Man, it was not good that He should be alone.  Even though Jesus was the wholly perfect Son of God, once He was made flesh, even He must have a bride.  John the Baptist so understood the coming of Jesus, and therefore he called himself the “friend of the Bridegroom” (J 3:28-29).  By the evangelist’s presentation of Jesus as the New Adam we are challenged to wonder who she will be – who will be the chosen bride “made suitable” for the Son of Glory and the Prince of Heaven?  Who could excel Eve for loveliness as much as Jesus excels Adam in splendor? 

Our expectancy over the identity of the bride of Jesus is aroused to even greater heights as we watch the pattern of the presentation of the bride to Adam replay itself in the Gospel.  Moses had described the wisdom of the Lord God in the creation of the woman through the most tender and sacred of pictures. Father God’s heart was to present the woman as the greatest of all His wonderful gifts to Adam.  So in the mystery of divine wisdom God brought a deep sleep upon Adam.  Although Adam was as yet still innocent, God wounded him, taking from his bloody side the substance from which He would create the woman.  Afterwards God healed Adam’s wound, and awakened His son in the garden to receive his bride in all the purity and beauty of her creation. And so Adam took her to himself and called her “woman,” giving her a name of great dignity.

In a similar fashion the beloved evangelist John describes the deep sleep that Father God brought upon His own Son upon the cross.  As Jesus bowed His head in death, He knew that although He too was innocent, nonetheless Father God must wound His side in order that the water and the blood of His body might purchase and purify His bride.  John’s Gospel thus tells us of a New Adam.[365]  Here is One who has left His Father and committed the care of His mother to the beloved disciple, all in order that through the sleep of death He might dream of the beauteous bride that only His loving Father could prepare for Him  – she who would stir all the passions of His heart, she whose love would satisfy His soul, and she who was to know the intimacy of His matchless love for her, like the bride of Adam, by beholding the scars He bore for her (cf. John 20:24-28).[366]

And so we all wait in expectancy, as certainly all of heaven waited in wonder early on that first resurrection morning.  Who will she be?  Who is the chosen one who will represent the Lord’s beloved?  Who will be the lovely one of whom Moses wrote and Solomon sung and all the prophets and apostles were to honor as the new Eve for this New Adam?

In the good providence of Father God, when the New Adam comes forth like the first Adam from the womb of the earth, He beholds the tearful Mary Magdalene waiting by the garden tomb.  His heart is moved in tender mercy, and He speaks comfort to her, saying, “Woman,[367] why are you weeping?”

 The evangelist has us behold this new couple in a pleasant garden.  The first Adam had made a grave of his garden, but the Last Adam has made a garden of His grave.[368]  The evangelist portrays the new Eve through this weeping and forsaken woman of Galilee–she who had known the desperation and defilement of the affliction of seven demons.  She who so uniquely knew the great love that could come from great forgiveness.  She who was now so desperate in her sense of loss–it is this tearful Mary who is chosen by Father God to represent the royal and betrothed bride of Jesus, the regal Lord of heaven, and earth’s King of Kings.[369]   Mary has come with her tears and with her spices, offering all that she has.  But her New Adam has no need of spices!  And His beloved Mary will soon recognize her Beloved, and realize that she no longer has need of tears![370]        

Mary of Nazareth as a Type of Mary Magdalene[371]

When we compare the Lord’s first birth in the incarnation with His “second birth” in the resurrection,[372] a beautiful symmetry emerges to frame the earthly life of the Lord.  Although, as we observed, John does not record the facts of Jesus’ first birth, his account of Jesus’ resurrection recalls a number of the circumstances of the incarnation and nativity of the Savior depicted in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, showing that Jesus’ birth had been prophetic of His resurrection.[373]  Let’s rehearse the account of our Lord’s nativity.

The Lord was born to Joseph of Bethlehem and Mary of Nazareth in Galilee.  He was born of a virgin’s womb, for Mary had “known no man” (Luke 1:34). While the conception of Jesus was altogether supernatural, the actual birth of Mary’s Son appears to have been completely natural.  We may justly infer that the sorrow of travail came upon Mary after the manner of women, but that her anguish was remembered no more for joy once this Child was born into the world (cf. John 16:21).  We can imagine that Mary and Joseph would have washed Jesus’ body of the blood of His birth, and we are told that the infant Jesus was bound in swaddling bands.  Then they laid Him in a manger (Luke 2:7).[374]  Suddenly angels appeared from heaven announcing the good news that would foretell peace on earth among men (Luke 2:13-14).

            Now John records the tender words of Jesus spoken to the disciples in the Upper Room Discourse (John 13-16). Jesus anticipates their grief over His death, comparing their coming sorrow to the travail of a woman in birth.  So to comfort them Jesus said, “Whenever a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more, for joy that a child has been born into the world.  Therefore you too now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you” (John 16:21-22).[375] With this in mind, let’s reconsider the resurrection account of the Gospels through an analogical imagination.

The resurrection story centers on a new Mary and Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea and Mary of Magdala in Galilee.[376]  We are told that Jesus was buried after the “custom of the Jews” (John 19:40), so we know that Joseph washed Jesus’ body of the blood of His crucifixion before He was bound in linen bands.  In the background, at a respectful distance, Mary watched[377] as Joseph placed the body of Jesus in a “virgin” tomb cut out of rock, one wherein no man had lain (John 19:41, cf. Luke 23:55).  Mary’s sorrow was deep, not unlike labor pains.  As John relates the story, Mary’s heart was contracting with waves of anguish over her fear that she would no longer see Jesus.  But then suddenly angels appeared from heaven to tell her good news, and her sorrow became indescribable joy as her eyes beheld her precious Lord (John 20:18).[378]  The reminiscences of the birth narrative and Mary of Nazareth are unmistakable.  The redeeming love of heaven had appointed the virgin mother of Jesus to be a type of the restored purity of Mary Magdalene, she whose sorrow was turned into great joy!

The Aaronic Priest as a Type of Mary Magdalene:

Gazing Upon the Beauty of God through the Tears of Mary

It was the special privilege of Israel’s high priest on the day of atonement to enter the most holy place of the tabernacle.  Although the ceremony was quite elaborate, once a year the holiest man in Israel was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies.  This was the sacred place where the ark of the covenant was kept behind the veil.  The holy ark itself was a golden box, two and a half cubits long – about the length of a man.  Seated over the ark were the figures of two golden cherubim angels.  They sat facing each other, one at the head and the other at the foot upon the cover of the ark.   The cherubim stretched out their wings toward each other over the ark, with their heads bowed as if in wonder at the cover of the ark–the place where God had promised to meet man. (Exod 25:17-22). The ark represented the throne of God who dwelt between the cherubim (Psa 80:1).  Upon the lid of the ark, which was called the mercy seat, the high priest would sprinkle the blood of the atonement, covering the sins of the people.

As the evangelist John describes the morning of the resurrection, he shows us Mary Magdalene weeping before the tomb of Jesus.  Peter and John have come to the tomb already and having seen that it is empty, they returned home.  But Mary’s love will not let Him go.  So she stays behind, weeping because they have taken away her Lord.  As she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, to the last place where her precious Jesus had rested in death.  Mary sees the grave clothes of Jesus lying there before her, about the length of a man, all sprinkled in blood.  Suddenly she sees “two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the foot, where the body of Jesus had been laid” (J 20:12).  The angels ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping? You are seeking Jesus.  He is not here.  He is risen!”  And stretching out their hands over the grave clothes, they say in wonderment, “Behold where He lay!” (cf. Matt 28:6). 

Imagine the scene.  The grave where Jesus had lain has become the ark of the covenant.  Here is the heavenly mercy seat, with the angels at the head and the foot.  The grave clothes of Jesus, sprinkled with blood, are the place of propitiation.  In other words, Jesus has made the grave, the place of the corruption of sin and death, into the throne of His glory, having triumphed over sin and the grave.  Mary alone is chosen to behold the reality of that which Aaron and the high priests of Israel only saw by shadow.  She is standing in the True Holy of Holies. She is standing before the throne of God, her vision veiled only by her tears. 

In this simple picture of Mary looking into the tomb, the evangelist John gives Mary Magdalene equal dignity with the twenty-four elders who sit around the throne of God in heaven (Rev 4:4).  He compares her privileges to the high priest of Israel, who alone was permitted access to the ark of the covenant, to the place where God had promised to meet man. Surely as Mary Magdalene looked into the tomb, all the redeemed hosts of heaven were singing together in wonder, “You have made us to be a kingdom of priests to our God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.” 

! Joshua Typology and the Iconic Imagination of the NT[379]

            The conviction that Jesus (Yeshua)[380] is the True Joshua was one of the most powerful themes in early Christian preaching.[381]  The church fathers attributed profound typological significance to the fact that Jesus was named for the successor of Moses, the warrior-conqueror of Canaan who led the twelve tribes of Israel into their promised inheritance.[382]

            The preeminence of the Joshua typology in the life of Jesus has been largely overlooked by modern Christian commentary, however.[383]  Many have noted Paul’s presentation of Jesus as the new Adam (Rom 5:12-14, 1 Cor 15:22, 45-49) or the typology of Hebrews, which identifies Jesus as the true Melchizedek (5:6-7:17).  Other commentators have seen Jesus as One greater than Abraham (John 8:53) and greater than Jacob (John 4:12).  Much has been written on the glory of Jesus that surpassed the glory of Moses (2 Cor 3:3-18), or the identification of Jesus by His contemporaries as the Son of David (Matt 9:27).  Jesus referred to Himself as One greater than both Solomon and Jonah (Luke 11:31-32), while the disciples reported that the people saw in Jesus another Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (Matt 16:14).  But where, we may justly ask, does the NT present a typology commensurate with the others we have identified that would explain the naming of Jesus, not after Adam or Abraham or David or even Moses, but after Joshua? [384] 

What did the church fathers recognize in that precious yet mysterious name that we, apparently, have long forgotten?       We observe first of all that the significance of the “Joshua” name given to the Christchild was so important that no less than the angel Gabriel directed Mary to name her Son “Jesus” (Luke 1:31).  The same name was afterward confirmed to Joseph in a dream by the angel of the Lord (Matt 1:21).  But why was the name of Moses’ successor so significant that heaven mandated this particular name for the Son of God?

            Rather than begin with some particular NT text or texts that support a Joshua typology, let’s step back from the individual Gospels and take a panoramic view of the ministry of Jesus in light of the life of Joshua.[385]  Observe first that each of the four evangelists opens his account of Jesus’ public ministry in the Trans-Jordan by Jericho, where Joshua had begun the conquest of Canaan (Matt 3:13, Mark 1:9, and Luke 3:3, 21, John 1:28-29).[386] Just as the king of Jerusalem had led the inhabitants of Canaan in opposing Joshua (Josh 10:1-4), the Gospels uniformly attest to Israel’s hostility to Jesus.  And just as the walls of the wicked city of Jericho fell down in Joshua’s climactic battle, so Jerusalem, the city that opposes Jesus, will be left desolate, “not one stone remaining upon another” (Matt 24:1-2, Mark 13:1-2, Luke 21:5-6, 20-24).  Moreover, Joshua rescued a harlot from Jericho contrary to the letter of the law of Moses (Deut 20:16-17), while Jesus rescued an adulteress from Jerusalem contrary to the letter of the law of Moses (John 8:1-11). [387]  The evangelists’ consistency in patterning the ministry of Jesus after the conquest under Joshua suggests the significance of Joshua’s Jericho battle to the typological understanding of the early church.

The Typological Prominence of Rahab in the NT

            Having traced the outermost frame of the Joshua typology, we now have the perspective from which to observe the separate figures that constitute the NT portraiture of the True Joshua.  It is from this standpoint that the remarkable honor accorded to Rahab, the whore of Jericho spared by Joshua, arrests our attention.  No less than three NT books (Matthew, Hebrews, and James) bestow exceptional honor upon this most unusual heroine of Joshua’s victory at Jericho.[388] 

                                                Rahab in Matthew’s Genealogy

            Rahab first appears in the NT in Matthew’s royal genealogy of Jesus.  Contravening customary protocol and princely convention, the evangelist lists by name the whore of Jericho as an ancestress of Jesus, the Savior who is unashamed of sinners who seek His mercy. The four women listed in Matthew’s genealogy share a reputation (at least) of immorality,[389] underscoring the evangelist’s encouragement that Jesus will deliver the repentant from judgment, just as Joshua had spared Rahab. Taken together, the stories of these women from Matthew’s genealogy prefigure a royal prince of Judah who will take a bride with an “irregular” history.  Thematically, Matthew presents the gospel of the True Joshua, who rescues Rahab, and what is greater,[390] takes her for a bride!

            The first woman mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy is Tamar (1:3), who shares with Rahab several remarkable features.  Both women had the appearance and the attire of a Canaanite prostitute (Gen 38:13-15 and Josh 2:1).  Each begot a son for Judah (Gen 38:27 and Matt 1:5).  For each there was a command to “bring her out” and each was delivered from a fiery judgment (Gen 38:24 and Josh 6:22-24).  And, most strikingly, the women shared the unique symbolism of the scarlet cord (Gen 38:28-30 and Josh 2:17).[391]

            The “scarlet cord” ties together the accounts of Tamar and Rahab.[392] In the account of the birth of Tamar’s twin sons, the scarlet cord was used to mark the hand of Zerah, the firstborn according to convention, who had been the first to “show” in the birth.  Zerah as the firstborn was thereby given the dignity of election over his brother Perez (Gen 38:27-30). 

            The scarlet cord appears again in the account of the battle at Jericho.  Joshua shows mercy to Rahab, whose window was marked by the scarlet cord, but he destroys Achan in the valley of Achor.  Achan was the scion of the royal line, descended from Zerah, the firstborn son of Judah by Tamar, who had worn the scarlet cord of election (Josh 7:16-18).  While Achan’s family alone in Israel received the fiery judgment of Jericho (Josh7:25), Rahab’s family alone of Jericho was delivered from fiery judgment (Josh 6:22-25).  Moreover, according to Matthew’s genealogy, it was Rahab who became the wife of Salmon, descended from Perez, the after born brother of Zerah and son of Judah. Putting all these pieces together, we can now understand the significance of the scarlet cord. While the midwife of Tamar tied the scarlet cord of election upon Zerah, God’s marvelous providence overrode the convention of the midwife, tying the scarlet cord of election upon Rahab![393] 

            Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus thus registers the lineage of promise, naming the whore of Jericho who left her harlotries and became the bride of Salmon, of the royal line of Judah.  Thereafter Rahab became the mother of Boaz, who was the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David the king.  And through David, Rahab of Jericho became the ancestress of Jesus, the True Joshua.

Rahab in Hebrews and James

            If Matthew looks to the physical lineage of Rahab to give her the honor of royal descendants, the sacred authors of Hebrews and James arguably give her the highest place of honor among all the women mentioned in the NT.  They regard Rahab’s faith as equal to that of Abraham and Sarah.  In the register of the biblical faithful found in Hebrews 11, Rahab is the only woman besides Sarah cited by name (11:31).  And in the epistle of James, Rahab is comparable in her faith only to Abraham (2:21-25).

Rahab exemplifies the faith that saves in Hebrews and the faith that works in James.  As though the dignity of comparability to Sarah were insufficient honor, the author of Hebrews lists “Rahab the prostitute” as the climax of his review of the history of God-pleasing faith (11:31)![394]  And the apostle James, who preached a radical equality of dignity in the church (2:1-13), exemplified this principle by choosing Rahab to stand with Abraham as the chief examples of those whose works justified their faith (2:21-26). And to show that there is no disagreement between the soteriology of grace in Hebrews and James, both writers point to Rahab’s receiving Joshua’s two spies,[395] Hebrews stating that she welcomed them in peace,[396] and James commenting that she sent them out by another way (Heb 11:31 and James 2:25).

Summary of the Rahab Typology in the NT[397]

            It is evident that both the NT and the fathers of the church delighted to honor Rahab as an example of the overwhelming mercy of God freely available to any who seek Him. And what an example Rahab provides!  She was a Canaanite, and thus an heir to the generational curse of Noah (Gen 9:25).  She dwelt among an idolatrous people[398] devoted to destruction and justly under the sentence of death according to the law of Moses (Deut 20:16-18).  She was a prostitute, whose very livelihood was an abomination to the holiness of God (Lev 19:29). And she was a woman, whose only appeal must be to the God of the Fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  What a hope she represents, that no one need despair of the mercy and love of God![399]

            And yet, although Joshua faithfully showed Rahab mercy, the True Joshua offers what is better, showing His “Rahabs” mercy and honor.[400]  Repeatedly in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus disregards His own reputation in the eyes of the religious leaders of Jerusalem, keeping familiar company with women of no reputation.  Matthew shows the Lord Christ at supper with a fellowship of publicans and sinners (9:10). Luke gives us the unforgettable picture of the Lord’s love for the woman of shame who washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair – with that which was her glory (7:36-50).[401] Who can forget the tender regard of Jesus in offering living water to the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands, who now lived openly in notorious sin (John 4:1-30)? Or how could we overlook the Lord’s defense of the woman caught in adultery and accused by the religious leaders in the temple (John 8:1-11)? [402]

In all of these tender mercies to broken women do we not see the merciful spirit of the True Joshua?  And can we not hear His call for repentant sinners to come forth from the city of destruction (Rev 18:4), making His seven trumpets, an omen of frightful judgment to the world (Rev 8:2), sound but a happy jubilee to all those who desire rescue from the bondage of sin, to all who long to hear Him say, “Neither do I accuse you.  Go and sin no more!”

                        The Bloody Sword of Joshua: The Typology of Holy War

            The most challenging aspect of a Joshua typology for Jesus lies in the OT portrait of Joshua as the warrior of the Lord. In light of this bloody campaign of conquest in the biblical record, we must face squarely some difficult questions that confront anyone who would defend the truth and justice of the scriptural account. How can Joshua the warrior, who challenged the heavenly Man, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” (Josh 5:13), prefigure the Lord Jesus, who teaches us to love our enemies?

The Joshua account records a bloody war that slaughtered the seven nations of Canaan, man woman and child,[403] all executed without mercy (Lev 27:28-29, Deut 20:16-18), at the direct command of God.[404]  In order to approach the typological significance of this account, we will first rehearse the history of Joshua’s warfare.

            The OT portrays Joshua as the mighty warrior of God.  Obedient to the law and command of Moses, Joshua marched without pity throughout the land of Canaan. With his terrible sword of justice Joshua cut down entire cities and cut off whole nations.  He attempted to utterly destroy the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite (Deut 20:17 and Josh 6:21).

            Nothing shows more clearly the terrible justice exacted by Joshua than the death he appointed for the kings of Canaan.  According to the ancient doctrine of corporate solidarity, the nations were represented in their kings.  Joshua’s punishment of the Canaanite nobility, therefore, demonstrates the justice due to the nations of Canaan. Two great examples of this justice have been recorded for us to consider. Joshua arose early in the morning to war against Ai (Josh 8:10).[405] Defeating the city, he took the king of Ai and hung him upon a tree until evening, making him a public spectacle as a thing accursed and worthy of death according to the law of Moses (Deut 22:23).  At evening, Joshua took the body down and removed it outside the gate of the city, where he covered it with stones (Josh 8:29). Joshua dealt a similar justice to the five Amorite kings led by the king of Jerusalem.[406] Joshua smote them and then displayed their bodies on five trees upon which they hung until evening. At sunset, Joshua took the kings, including the king of Jerusalem, down from the trees and placed their bodies in a cave, setting a large stone against the mouth of the cave (Josh 10:16-27).[407]  Such was the measure of Joshua’s justice for the Canaanite royalty, once the cup of the iniquity of the Amorite was full (Gen 15:17).

            The law came by Moses, and Joshua enforced its righteous commandments.  But grace and truth came by Jesus, whose obedience satisfied all the righteous requirements of Moses.  In the True Joshua justice broke its bonds, came forth as mercy, and embraced all the world as love.  The True Joshua drank away the full cup of our iniquity (John 18:11), and on our behalf was hung upon a tree of death until evening (Matt 27:33-34, 57-59), being made for us a curse under the law (Gal 3:13).  For us He lay in a grave sealed with a large stone (Matt 27:60), outside the gate of the city (Heb 13:12).  Having suffered the punishment which condemned all peoples in the law of Moses, the True Joshua now sends forth His armies not with a bloody sword of iron, but with the better sword of the Word of God, speaking peace to all the nations,[408] and making enemies into friends (Matt 28:19).[409] And in the place of the ban of Joshua, which required the death of the families of the nations, man, woman, and child, the New Joshua has given us baptism, the emblematic yet merciful application of the sign of Christ’s death to families entering into the rest of the gospel of liberty.

    The Kerygmatic Imagination of St John:

                                      Joshua Typology in the Book of Revelation

            John’s Revelation is a masterful collage of typological portraits depicting Jesus in a cosmogonic conflict with draconic Babylon, a figure representing the whorish and worldly cities of chaos. [410]  The warfare concludes with Christ’s victory over darkness and His building the temple-city of the new creation, the city of light, the virginal New Jerusalem.[411]  Revelation offers a mimetic portrayal of the heavenly significance of Christ’s earthly ministry in conflict with the Old Jerusalem, the history described for us in the Fourth Gospel. 

John the Beloved weaves together his two great books using elaborate parallel, chiastic, and typological patterns.[412]  The two great works thus interpret and complete one another.  Together the Fourth Gospel and Revelation constitute a literary diptych, a picture whose temporal framework spans the beginning of the first creation (J 1:1) all the way to the vision of the new creation at the beginning of eternity future (R 21:1).  Moreover, the two books of John offer a spatial horizon depicting the creative struggle of Jesus both from the perspective of earth (J) and of heaven (R). Upon this wholly comprehensive canvas, John depicts Jesus’ epic struggle as the typological fulfillment of all of the major figures in the OT.

            The Fourth Gospel’s Joshua typology largely tracks the account of the conquest of Canaan, beginning with the crossing of the Jordan and depicting two campaigns, one in the south (Judea) and one in the north (Galilee).  The climactic battle involves the struggle of Jesus as the True Joshua against the confederated enemies of God, led by Jerusalem.  This epic struggle occurs, from one perspective, on earth, depicted in the Gospel of John.  Revelation portrays the same struggle from the perspective of heaven.[413]

            We begin our discussion of the typological patterns connecting the Book of Joshua and the Book of Revelation by recounting the warfare of Joshua as recorded in the OT.  We will then consider the restatement of that conflict in the Apocalypse.  In order to show the pattern of verbal concordance between the books of Joshua and Revelation, we will use bold type to identify significant words that share the same Greek root in the LXX and in the Greek NT.[414] Words that are related thematically, but not lexically, will be shown in italic type.  The reader should note the striking detail and elaborate comprehensiveness of these correspondence patterns between the two books.

                                               Joshua’s Battle against Jericho:

               The Story of a Whore who becomes a Bride

The name of the great city “Jericho” brings to mind the greatest single battle recorded in the Old Testament.  After crossing the Jordan and entering the land of promise, Joshua and all Israel camped in Gilgal.[415]  Joshua erected twelve stones taken from the riverbed as a memorial to represent the twelve tribes of Israel who crossed the river in safety.  The Jordan crossing reminded the Israelites of their fathers, those who crossed the Red Sea after they were delivered from pharaoh, whereupon they sang the song of Moses (Exod 15:1-19, Josh 4:19-24).

But the great city Jericho was walled up to heaven (Deut 9:1), defying Joshua and the armies of Israel.  This impassable city represented the decisive struggle of the people of God against the nations of Canaan.  In order to inherit the paradisiacal land flowing with milk and honey, and to receive their inheritance by their tribes (Josh 18:3-10), as promised in the seven part book (Josh 18:9), Israel would have to destroy Jericho.  But what was this inviolable city to Joshua, who could command the sun and the moon to cease in their courses that the day of slaughter might not end (Josh 10:12-14), and whose God could rain giant hailstones from heaven upon the armies of the Canaanite kings (Josh 10:11)? 

This fortress city of Jericho, in the plain of the Jordan, was filled with great wealth.  Her treasures included silver and gold, articles of bronze and iron (Josh 6:19), linen (Josh 2:6), and scarlet (Josh 2:18).  Jericho evidently sustained a commercial relationship with Shinar. Among her many treasures was the beautiful Babylonian garment[416] that was to prove so tempting to Achan (Josh 7:21).  Jericho was an impregnable fortress town, whose fall before Joshua would cause the kings of Canaan to fear the God of the armies of Israel (Josh 9:1-3, 24;10:1-4).

            Joshua initiated the conquest of Jericho by sending two spies to view the land and the city (Josh 2:1).  But the presence of the spies was reported to the king of Jericho, who sought to kill them (Josh 2:2, 14).  Attempting to escape the king, the spies turned into the house of Rahab, a whore of Jericho identified by her scarlet (Josh 2:18), whose house was evidently open to strangers (Josh 2:1). Rahab protected the spies, whom she could have delivered over to death (Josh 2:14).[417]

            The battle of Jericho began with Joshua’s unexpected vision of a divine Man.  Having sanctified all Israel from uncleanness caused by their neglect of covenant circumcision, Joshua was contemplating holy war against Jericho (Josh 5:1-12).  As he lifted up his eyes, he saw a divine Man standing with His sword drawn for battle.  Joshua fell before the Man and was told to remove his sandals from his feet (Josh 5:14-15).

            The battle began.  Joshua directed the campaign against Jericho.  He commanded the people to circle the city once a day for seven days and seven times upon the seventh day (Josh 6:3-4). [418]  On the seventh day, Joshua arose early in the morning (Josh 6:12).  He caused the priests carrying the ark of the covenant to sound seven trumpets of judgment before the city.  Then he commanded all the people to shout out against her (Josh 6:8, 20).  Suddenly the walls of the wicked city fell (Josh 6:20).  All those who remained in Jericho were put to the sword, and the city was burned with fire (Josh 6:21, 24).

But Rahab the whore was delivered along with all her house.  She came out of the city in safety because she had obeyed the word of the two spies (Josh 6:25).  According to Matthew, Rahab became the bride of Salmon, who was of the royal tribe of Judah.  Through this marriage the Gentile whore of Jericho became an ancestress of Jesus the Messiah, the True Joshua (Matt 1:5-16)!                            

Jesus’ Battle against Babylon in Revelation:

The Story of the True Joshua, and a Whore who becomes a Bride

            The name of the great city “Babylon” brings to mind the greatest battle depicted in the New Testament.  The sins of Great Babylon reached up to heaven (Rev 18:5), an affront to the God of all the earth.  This mighty city represented the decisive struggle of the Lord Jesus against the unrepentant of earth.  Babylon must be destroyed for the people of God to inherit the paradise of God (Rev 21:1-5), and receive their distribution by their tribes (Rev 21:12), as the fulfillment of the book of seven seals (Rev 5:1). But what is this great city to Jesus, the True Joshua, whose own light causes the sun and the moon to cease (Rev 21:23), and whose God will rain great hailstones from heaven down upon Babylon (Rev 16:19-21)?

            Babylon was a city filled with great wealth.  Her treasures included gold and silver, bronze, iron, linen, and scarlet (Rev 18:12-13).  In the city lived a woman arrayed in an alluring Babylonian garment of scarlet and purple (Rev 17:4).[419]  The fall of this great city before Jesus would cause the kings of the earth to fear and mourn (Rev 18:9-10). [420]

            Now the Lord sent two witnesses into the wicked city (Rev 11:3-12), but the nations sought to kill them (Rev 11:7).  Nevertheless, they were delivered from death in the sight of their enemies (Rev 11:12).  Dwelling in the great city was a whore identified by her scarlet (Rev 17:3-5), who committed fornication with the kings of the earth (Rev 18:3).  The whore had the power of death over the saints of God (Rev 17:6).

            Jesus’ battle against Babylon began with John the Apostle’s unexpected vision of a divine Man (Rev 1:12-19).  The True Joshua appeared with a sword proceeding out of His mouth (Rev 1:16).  He commanded John to write seven letters to His churches, calling them to purity for holy war (Rev 2:1-3:22).  John fell before the feet of the Man as though dead (Rev 1:17).

            The battle began and Jesus directed the campaign against Babylon.  He opened the book of seven seals (Rev 5:1), the seventh seal becoming seven trumpets of judgment (Rev 8:1-2). As the seventh trumpet sounded (Rev 11:15), the ark of the covenant appeared in heaven (Rev 11:19), and there were loud voices in heaven crying out, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ!” (Rev 11:15). In one hour Great Babylon, the wicked city fell (Rev 18:2). All the city was burned with fire (Rev 18:8).

            But a voice had cried out before Babylon, “Come out of her my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you partake of her plagues.” (Rev 18:4).[421]  And so some of those who had belonged to the whorish city were delivered from death, even those who had obeyed the word of the two witnesses.

          And all of those who were delivered from their fornications and adultery became a part of the city of the true Israel of God, the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Royal Lion of Judah, Yeshua, the True Joshua (Rev 21:2). [422]  And to memorialize their safe passage to the paradise of their inheritance, Jesus gave them a city of twelve precious stones by the river of crystal waters, even to all of those who had been delivered from the beast and had come safely across the sea of glass, all who sang the Song of Moses and the Lamb (Rev 15:1-4).

                                  The Iconic Imagination of St John and St Matthew:

                                              Joshua Prefiguring the Lord Jesus

            The NT sometimes addresses typological themes expressly, as when Paul meditates upon parallels and contrasts between the First Adam and the Last Adam.[423]  But the literary art of the NT frequently expresses a typological theme through a vivid and visionary mimesis, what might be called an iconograph.  The power of such literary portrayal enables the reader (or hearer) to visualize the scene described.  As E. F. Scott has written about John, the evangelist was “able to turn everything into a picture, and the pictures are so vividly drawn that we seem to be seeing the thing itself.”[424]

The aural culture of antiquity understood the visual power of the written word.  In order better to appreciate the literary art of the NT, we must accommodate ourselves to an iconic imagination.  The comments of Charles Lock on the visual possibility of writing are instructive here:

Linearity of reading is the fundamental principle by which the text is established in modernity as a text.  That is to say, when we read a text we do not see an image: the type and size of font, the disposition of words on the page, the very look of the page, are entirely accidental features.  A text might be defined as that which, while being visual, is entirely independent of image, scale and perspective.  Yet texts were not always thus.  We have learnt to speak of the interaction between text and image in medieval illuminated manuscripts.  It might, however, be more accurate to say that before modernity — and especially before the development of printing — there was no fixed distinction between text and image.  Both text and image were to be read, as they were likewise each to be written: the Greek verb graphein exemplifies the unity of what we now take to be separate activities of writing and drawing, the one pictorial, the other textual.[425]

            In a number of NT passages, iconographic writing allows us to visualize the Lord Jesus as the True Joshua.  We will examine four verbal portraits of Jesus, three from the writings of John and one from Matthew.  They will be considered in the order that they occur in the career of Joshua.

         Joshua Commands the Armies of God at Rephidim

            The Bible introduces Joshua as a victorious warrior at the head of the armies of Israel (Exod 17:8-16).  To meet an attack by Amalek, Moses went up on a hill and stretched forth his hands in prayer, while Joshua led the fight against the enemies of God.  Aaron, the high priest, and Hur helped support the weary hands of Moses, represented in his weakness.  Moses’ hands were thus extended until sunset.  While Moses prayed, Joshua went forth with the sword and with the chosen armies of Israel against the enemies of God.[426]  As long as Moses remained in the posture of intercession, Joshua and the armies of Israel prevailed over the Amalekites.  Moses celebrated Joshua’s victory, ascribing praise to God, “The Lord is My Banner” (Exod 17:8-16).

John the evangelist shows us Jesus as the True Moses, who, on Golgotha’s hill, in the weakness of His suffering, stretched forth His hands until evening (John 19:16-19).[427]  But John has written his Gospel and Revelation to be read together, and parallel to the Lord’s hands uplifted on the cross in the Gospel is the portrait in Revelation of the Lord Jesus as the True Joshua, leading the armies of God (Rev 19:11-16).  The True Joshua goes forth with His sword and His army of the chosen, winning a greater victory (Rev 19:15).  Astride His white horse of victory, the True Joshua wears a banner on His thigh, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:16).  The victory of the True Joshua in Revelation is made effectual by the True Moses in the Gospel, who stretched forth His hands to heaven, interceding on His cross for the people of God.

     The Memorial Stones by the Jordan

            It was Joshua, rather than Moses, who led Israel over the Jordan into the land God had promised to the fathers.  When all Israel had passed safely through the waters of the Jordan, Joshua called out twelve men, one from each of the tribes of Israel.  He commanded each of them to take a stone from the riverbed of the Jordan for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.  The sons of Israel took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan and brought them into the camp of the people in Gilgal.  Joshua set up the stones as a memorial to the faithfulness of God, who brought Israel safely through the waters of the Jordan into the paradisiacal land of their inheritance (Josh 4:1-9). [428]  It was then that Israel first ate from the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain (Josh 5:11).  

            John the seer of Revelation correspondingly depicts the True Joshua, who has brought all of True Israel safely to the crystal waters of the river of life in the paradise of God (Rev 22:1).[429]  By the banks of this river He has prepared for them a city of twelve precious stones.  The city is set upon foundations naming the twelve apostles of the Lamb, in courses of glittering jewels of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst.[430]   Twelve gates memorialize the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev 21:13-20).  The people of God partake of the fruit of the tree of life, bearing its twelve manner of fruit (Rev 22:2).

        The Blessings and Cursings upon Gerizim and Ebal

            The law of Moses instructed the people, when Joshua led them into the good land promised to the fathers, to assemble before the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal for a ceremony reaffirming their fidelity to the Lord and the law of the covenant (Deut 27-28).[431]  The entire nation of Israel was to be arranged in ranks by their tribes in the valley between the slopes of the two mountains. Six tribes stood upon the skirts of Ebal, and six tribes stood upon the skirts of Gerizim.  Joshua spoke all the law of Moses in the hearing of the twelve tribes of Israel (Josh 8:30-35). The six tribes upon Gerizim spoke the blessings that would be poured out as long as the nation obeyed the law and the covenant (Deut 28:1-14).  The six tribes upon Ebal spoke the curses that would come upon the nation if they disobeyed the law (Deut 27:15-28).  All the tribes affirmed that, upon their disobedience, a nation from afar would come upon them like the eagle, besieging the fortified walls of Israel (Deut 28:49-52) and driving all the people into exile among the nations (Deut 28:64-68). As each group of six tribes spoke the blessings and the cursings of the law, the six tribes opposite answered with an antiphonal avowal of their fidelity to the covenant and their imprecatory oath of obedience to the Lord.  

            In the NT, Matthew’s Gospel portrays Jesus as the True Joshua presiding over a new ceremony of blessing and cursing.  To recognize this portrayal, we must understand something of the structure of the first Gospel.  Matthew arranges his Gospel around seven mountains.  These mountains are 1) the mountain of the temptation (Matt 4:8),  2) the mountain of the beatitudes (Matt 5:1), 3) the mountain of the separation (Matt 14:23), 4) the mountain of the feeding in the wilderness (Matt 15:29), 5) the mountain of the transfiguration (Matt 17:1), 6) the mountain of the Olivet discourse (Matt 24:3), and 7) the mountain of the commissioning (Matt 28:16).

            The seven Matthean mountains are arranged chiastically, with corresponding pairs arrayed around the central mountain of the wilderness feeding. The mountains relevant to the Joshua typology are the second mountain and the sixth, which frame Matthew’s five discourses.  The second mountain is the mountain of the beatitudes in Galilee, the site of the first discourse called the “Sermon on the Mount” (5:1-8:28).  The corresponding sixth mountain, the site of the last or “Olivet Discourse,” is the mountain before Jerusalem (24:3-26:1).[432]

            Matthew’s typology of the True Joshua is built around the relationship between the blessings pronounced upon the mount of the beatitudes in Galilee and the woes (or curses) spoken against the Pharisees in Jerusalem.  By juxtaposing these mountains, Matthew anticipates the blessings to descend upon the mountain of the Gentiles, which has become Gerizim, and the destruction to come upon Jerusalem, which has become Ebal. Jesus solemnly pronounces nine beatitudes upon the mountain in Galilee (Matt 5:3-12).[433]  Eight corresponding woes or curses are enumerated against Jerusalem, framed as antiphonal responses to the beatitudes spoken in Galilee. The juxtaposition of Matthew’s two mountains constitutes the restatement of the solemn ceremony at Shechem, and darkly foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people for their disobedience to the law of Moses in rejecting the Prophet of whom Moses spoke (Matt 24:2).

                     Joshua’s Valediction at Shechem

            In his last appearance in the Bible, Joshua assembled all the people by their tribes at Shechem.  In a solemn exhortation, Joshua admonished the nation to choose between two alternative visions of their destiny.  On the one hand, they could follow the idolatry of their fathers, which Terah had practiced in the east, beyond the river Euphrates.  But on the other hand, they could follow the Lord God, who had faithfully fulfilled all the promises made to Abraham, bringing the people safely through many pilgrim trials and establishing them securely in the paradisiacal land.  In a ringing climax, the victorious warrior cried out, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15).     

            Surely the greatest vision of Jesus in the Bible is the last vision of the last book of the canon, found in Revelation 19:11-16.  This final portrait of Jesus occurs in the center of John’s vision of the seven last angels in the book. The first angel shows John the whore of Babylon, identified by all the eastern idolatries that were so alluring to the people of God (Rev 17:1-13).  But the last angel shows John the virginal New Jerusalem, identified by her purity and her devotion to the Lord of the covenant (Rev 21:9-27).  The Lord Jesus, stands between these two alternative visions of the destiny of the people of God (Rev 19:11-16), with fiery eyes set upon the deliverance of His people from all their oppressors, and their establishment in the purity of their holy inheritance in the paradise of God (Rev 22:14-15).  It is the last appeal of the Lord Jesus (whom we have already identified as typologically presented in this vision as the True Joshua) encouraging His people to consider the alternative destinies of the whore of Babylon and the bride of the Lamb,[434] and so to pursue the covenant faithfulness that will secure their inheritance in the paradise of God. [435] 

            Thus, the NT portrait of Jesus as the True Joshua begins in the first Gospel with the baptism of Jesus by the Jordan and ends at the conclusion of Revelation with Jesus admonishing His people to choose between two destinies.  By such means the entire canon of the NT is indelibly stamped (typos) with the portrait of the precious Lord Jesus as the True Joshua, who promises to rescue the hopeless from all their whoredoms, and to bring them safely into the paradise of God, even to all those who will choose this day to serve the Lord.

The Pattern of All Prophecy:

The Typology of Moses and the Exodus in Genesis

            The exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses is the great paradigm of biblical redemption.  Israel was called out of the land of bondage and brought up to a paradisal land flowing with milk and honey. The covenant community is always a “called out” people, like the ekklesia[436] in the wilderness (Acts 7:38).  The pattern of the faithful is that they, like father Abraham, are called out of an earthly city, like Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:31), and become pilgrims in this life, envisioned as a journey to the heavenly city of Salem (Gen 14:18-20).  To use the language of the author of Hebrews, by faith “the men of old” set out for a new inheritance (Heb 11:8), regarding themselves as aliens and pilgrims on earth, looking for the heavenly city that God set before them (Heb 11:13-16), the “city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the ekklesia of the firstborn of those enrolled in heaven” (Heb 12:22-24).

            Just as Noah was called out of the old world, so Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees.  Similarly, Lot was called out of Sodom, Israel was called out of Egypt, Rahab was called out of Jericho, and the Christian community was called out of the Old Jerusalem (Matt 24:16; Acts 22:17-18, Gal 4:25-26). In Revelation the heavenly Redeemer stands before Great Babylon and cries out, “Come out of her My people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues!” (Rev 18:4). The gospel is thus an invitation to leave Old Babylon and so begin a pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem.  Our God is a Redeemer, and the One who called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the One who calls us out of “the city of destruction,” as Bunyan described it, to pursue our hope of “the celestial city.”

            The NT envisions the Christian community as constituted of those who have participated in an exodus from Old Jerusalem, a mixed company of Jews and Gentiles who have fled from the “great city” that is figuratively called “Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified” (Rev 11:8).  Like Lot, the church has fled Jerusalem, the New Sodom that was to be destroyed for her wickedness (Luke 10:10-12, 17:28-36).  And like Israel under Moses, the church has left Jerusalem, the New Egypt, the city of bondage, where the True Paschal Lamb was slain (1 Cor 5:7).  The sacramental waters of Christian baptism thus correspond to the deliverance at the Red Sea.  And the sacramental meal of the church, as a spiritual bread and drink, corresponds to the manna from heaven and the water from the rock that nourished the fathers in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:1-11). 

            The cruciality of the exodus from Egypt in the biblical story of redemption accounts for the centrality of Moses as the pattern of the redeemer of God’s people (Deut 18:18).  Most recently Dale C. Allison. Jr. has offered the best[437] exploration of the significance of Moses as a type of the redeemer in the Bible. His book is entitled The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis, Mn: Fortress Press, 1993).  In a creative tour de force, highly controlled, however, by lexical and thematic criteria, Allison traces the elaborate Mosaic typology that informs the biblical accounts of Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Elijah, Josiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Ezra, Jesus, Peter, and Paul.  It is noteworthy that he is able to demonstrate the pattern of Mosaic typology by a method applied consistently through both testaments.  His work will, hopefully, help to shatter the interpretive fallacy that focuses on the use of the OT in the NT by showing a consistency of his hermeneutical application throughout the entire Word of God. Although Allison clearly represents a critical approach in his method, his work demonstrates that the NT can be explored as it is in truth, organically related to the entire canon of Scripture and not merely a mechanical appendage to the OT.

            Allison’s work is not exhaustive, but nonetheless it is highly useful to demonstrate the rich prospect of an exegetical typology of Holy Scripture.  His work is theoretically limited, however, in that the typology he explores is prospective only.  He limits his examination of Moses as a type of the great biblical figures to those who come after him.  This paper is intended to supplement Allison’s work by exploring the biblical figures in Genesis insofar as they are prototypical of Moses, and the redemptive work of God in Genesis insofar as it prefigures the deliverance of Israel from Egypt recounted in Exodus. We will begin our exploration of Moses and the exodus as prefigured in Genesis by examining the patterns of deliverance represented in the lives of Israel’s three federal patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The God of the Fathers and the Exodus from Egypt

‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’  Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.  Exodus 3:6

Abraham’s Sojourn in Egypt Foretelling Moses and the Exodus

            One of the clearest prophetic previews in Genesis of the exodus of Israel from Egypt occurs in the Egyptian sojourn of Abraham (Gen 12:10-13:7).  This brief account includes no less than eight particulars that constitute the intertextual correspondence:  1) there is a famine in the land of promise; 2) the covenant family flees to Egypt to sojourn there; 3) the covenant seed is in jeopardy in the land of their sojourn; 4) God sends plagues on pharaoh; 5) pharaoh summons the covenant representative and then drives the covenant family out of Egypt; 6) the covenant family is blessed in Egypt, leaving with great wealth; 7) there is an encounter with the LORD after leaving Egypt; 8) upon reentry to the land of promise there is strife with Lot (by prolepsis, Moab and Ammon) and a separation from him into distinct inheritances.  We will begin by comparing the accounts of Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt and the record of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt.[438]

            Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn because the famine was severe in the land of Canaan (Gen 12:10).  As he approached Egypt, Abraham planned to deceive the Egyptians, saying to Sarah his wife, “the Egyptians will kill me (Abraham), but you (Sarah) they will keep alive…please say that you are my sister, that they may deal well with me” (Gen 12:12-13).  And so pharaoh dealt well with Abraham for Sarah’s sake, because she was taken into pharaoh’s house (Gen 12:16).  But the Lord struck pharaoh with great plagues (Gen 12:17).  And pharaoh called for Abraham and said, “behold your wife, take her and go!”  And they drove him out of Egypt” (Gen 12:18-20).  And Abraham went up from Egypt with silver and gold and very much livestock (Gen 13:1-2).  As Abraham returned to the land of promise he built an altar between Bethel and Ai and called upon the name of the LORD (Gen 13:4, the “I am” name). But after returning to the land of promise, Abraham’s herdsmen began to strive with the herdsmen of Lot (Gen 13:7), who was afterwards the father of Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:36-38). So Abraham and Lot parted to take separate inheritances in the land (Gen 13:8-11).

            Now afterwards, during the time of Joseph, the covenant family went down to sojourn in Egypt during the severe famine in the land of Canaan (Gen 47:4).  While in Egypt, pharaoh’s decree put the male seed of the covenant family in jeopardy of death, while sparing the female children (Exod 1:16).  The deception of the Hebrew midwives kept the male seed alive, however, and so the Lord dealt well with the midwives (Exod 1:20).  At last the Lord struck great plagues upon pharaoh (Exod 11:1), and so pharaoh called for Moses and said, “take both your flocks and herds…and go!” So the Egyptians drove them out of Egypt (Exod 12:31-33).  Then Israel went up from Egypt with silver and gold and very much livestock (Exod 12:35, 38).  As Israel returned to the land of promise, they met the LORD at Sinai and worshipped Him (Exod 3:12-14, 19:20-20:2, the “I am” name).  But upon their return to the land of promise they were warned by God to avoid strife with the descendants of Lot, Moab and Ammon, who had been given separate inheritances in the land (Deut 2:9, 19).

Abraham’s Sojourn in Gerar Foretelling Moses and the Exodus

            A second preview of God’s redemptive mercy toward Abraham, which anticipates the exodus from Egypt, occurs as God protects Abraham and Sarah during their sojourn in Gerar.  There are six points of comparison with the exodus from Egypt under Moses: 1) Abraham sojourns in Gerar; 2) the covenant seed is in jeopardy in the city of their sojourn; 3) God intervenes to save the covenant seed; 4) covenant family given great wealth; 5) The covenant representative is summoned by the king; 6) strife with Gerar and separation from the Philistines.

            Abraham journeyed toward the wilderness and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur when he sojourned in Gerar (Gen 20:1).  He told the men of that place that his wife was his sister, for he feared they would kill him and keep her alive (Gen 20:2, 11-12).  Abimelech the king took Sarah to be his wife (Gen 20:2).  God intervened to reveal to the king that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and that he should not touch her (Gen 20:3-7).  Abimelech reproved Abraham, saying, “What have you done to us…that you have brought on me and on my kingdom great sin?” (Gen 20:9).  Abimelech then asked Abraham to pray for him, and he gave Abraham flocks and herds; moreover, he gave silver to Sarah (Gen 20: 14, 16).[439] 

            Israel sojourned in Egypt, where the decree of pharaoh commanded his people to kill the male seed while preserving the female children (Exod 1:16).  God intervened to save Israel by sending plagues upon pharaoh, king of Egypt (Exod 11:1).  Pharaoh asked Moses to pray for him (Exod 10:17). And Israel was given silver and flocks and herds (Exod 12:35, 38). On the return to the land of promise, Aaron made an idol for the people at Sinai.  But Moses reproved him, saying, “What has this people done to you, that you have brought on them great sin?” (Exod 32:21)[440]. This was before the people journeyed from Horeb and came to Kadesh on their way back to the land of promise (Deut 1:19).

Isaac’s Sojourn in Gerar Foretelling Moses and the Exodus

            The third “wife-sister” narrative occurs with Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar.  Just as God’s deliverance of Abraham from Egypt and Gerar previewed the deliverance of the exodus from Egypt, so also is God’s deliverance of Isaac a foretelling of His deliverance to come under Moses.  There are at least eight points of correspondence in the Isaac story conforming to the patterns we observed with his father Abraham: 1) A bride is found for Isaac at a well in a far country; 2) there is a famine in the land of promise; 3) the covenant seed is in jeopardy in the land of their sojourn; 4) The king of Gerar commands Isaac to leave; 5) the covenant family experiences enormous blessing in the land of their sojourn; 6) there is strife at the wells with the Philistines and separation from them to distinct inheritances; 7) Isaac is summoned by the king and the covenant family is driven out; 8) the LORD, the God of Father Abraham, appears to Isaac at Beersheba (Gen 26:24).

            Abraham sent his servant into Mesopotamia to secure a bride for Isaac (Gen 24:2-4, 10).  The servant came to a well in the far country (Gen 24:11). There he met Rebekah, a relative of Abraham (Gen 24:12). Rebekah drew water for the servant and his camels (Gen 24:19). Rebekah ran home to report to her father (Gen 24:28).  Abraham’s servant was extended the hospitality of Laban’s tent (Gen 24:31).  Laban gave his daughter Rebekah to Isaac as a wife (Gen 24:51). Now there was a great famine in the land, but God told Isaac not to go down to Egypt, but to sojourn in Gerar (Gen 26:1-3).  For God promised Isaac, “I will be with you and bless you” (Gen 26:3). Isaac claimed that Rebekah was his sister because he feared that the men of Gerar would kill him for his wife (Gen 26:7-10). The king of Gerar commanded Isaac to go away because he had become more and mightier than his own people (Gen 26:16).  Nonetheless, Isaac increased mightily in the land of his sojourn.  He was fruitful in the land (Gen 26:22) and owned flocks and herds (Gen 26:14). Isaac suffered great contention with the Amorites over the wells that he dug in Gerar (Gen 26:18-33).[441] Isaac was driven out of Gerar by Abimelech the king (Gen 26:26-27).  After leaving Gerar, the LORD appeared to Isaac in Beersheba saying, “I am the God of your father Abraham” (Gen 26:24).

Likewise, Moses went into Midian in flight from pharaoh, and sat down by a well (Exod 2:15).  There he met the daughters of Reuel, a Midianite relative of Abraham (Gen 25:1-2).  Moses delivered the daughters of Reuel from their oppressors at the well of Midian (Exod 2:15-19). Moses drew water at the well for the daughters of Reuel and his flocks (Exod 2:17).  The daughters of Reuel hurried home to report to their father (Exod 2:18).  Moses was given the hospitality of Reuel’s tent (Exod 2:20).  Reuel gave his daughter to Moses as a wife (Exod 2:21). Now before all this there had been a famine in the land, and God told Jacob to go down to Egypt, for He said, “I will go down with you, and will make a great nation of you there” (Gen 46:3-4). In the time of the birth of Moses, pharaoh decreed that the male seed of Israel should be killed and the female children spared (Exod 1:16). Afterwards the pharaoh of Egypt would command Moses to go away (Exod 12:31), for Israel had become more and mightier than the Egyptians (Exod 1:9).  Israel grew mighty in Egypt, was fruitful in the land (Exod 1:7), and possessed great flocks and herds (Exod 12:32).  Moreover, Israel was driven out of Egypt by pharaoh (Exod 13:17). After Moses left Egypt, the LORD appeared to him in Sinai saying. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac” (Exod 3:6, 14).

Jacob’s Sojourn in Paddan Aram Foretelling Moses and the Exodus

            Of the three federal patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the account of Jacob and his family in Paddan Aram displays the most elaborate pattern of correspondences with the account of Moses and Israel in Egypt.  There are no less than eleven major points of correspondence.[442]  Jacob’s history is a preview of Moses and the exodus in the following particulars:  1) Jacob flees to avoid being killed, after rejection by a brother; 2) he meets his future wife at a well in a far country; 3) a friendly reception in the land of sojourn afterwards is turned into bondage; 4) God remarkably blesses the covenant family during their oppression and servitude; 5) the Lord appears to give Jacob the commission to return; 6) the covenant seed is in jeopardy; 7) there is an escape from bondage in haste and with great wealth; 8) God intervenes to save the covenant family; 9) Jacob encountered God face to face and asked His Name; 10) there is idolatry in the camp; 11) there is a confrontation with Esau upon the return to the land promised to the fathers and a separation from him to distinct inheritances.  We will now consider each of these elements in the pattern of correspondences whereby Jacob anticipates Moses.  Because the articulation of these patterns is so extensive, we will juxtapose each element of that part of the Jacob narrative with the Mosaic account of the exodus that it previews.

1) Flight into a Far Country

            Jacob fled from his brother (Gen 27:42-43), who had threatened to kill him (Gen 27:41). After he came into a far country, he tended the flocks of his father-in law (Gen 30:31).[443] 

Similarly, Moses fled from pharaoh (Exod 2:15), who sought to kill him (Exod 2:15), after he had been rejected by one of his brethren (Exod 2:11, 14).  Moses fled to a far country where he tended the flocks of his father-in-law (Exod 3:1).

2) Meeting a Bride at the Well

            Jacob met his bride at a well in a far country (Gen 29:1-2),[444] where he watered the flock of Laban from the well (Gen 29:10).  Rachel returned from the well to report the encounter to her father (Gen 29:12). Jacob was then invited into the home of Laban, who was to be his father-in-law (Gen 29:13).  Laban then gave his daughter Rachel to Jacob (Gen 29:28). 

Likewise Moses met his bride at a well in a far country (Exod 2:15). Moses watered the flock of Reuel from the well (Exod 2:16).  The daughters of Reuel returned to report their meeting with Moses to their father (Exod 2:12). Moses was then welcomed into the home of Reuel, who was to be his father-in-law (Exod 2:20). Reuel then gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses (Exod 2:21).

3) Hospitality Changes into Oppression

Now the sojourn of Jacob in Paddan Aram began with a hospitable reception that later turned into bondage.  Jacob was welcomed by Laban, but afterward was made to serve him (Gen 29:13-15, 25; 31:41).  Laban had a change of heart, which threatened Jacob (Gen 31:2).  So Laban displayed a pattern of deception toward Jacob (Gen 31:7).

Likewise Israel began their sojourn in Egypt with a welcome that later turned into

bondage.  A new pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph, and he sought to persecute Israel by making them serve him (Exod 1:14).  So pharaoh had displayed pattern of deception toward Moses (Exod 8:29 [25]).

4) God’s Blessing In Spite of Bondage

            Now the Lord prospered Jacob in Paddan Aram, blessing the house of Laban for Jacob’s sake (Gen 30:27).  But afterwards, when Laban began to oppress Jacob, the God of his father, the God of Abraham and Isaac, saw the affliction of Jacob (Gen 31:42), and demonstrated the particularity of His blessing, multiplying the flocks of Jacob and diminishing the flocks of Laban (Gen 30:42).  Thus Jacob was fruitful and increased exceedingly (Gen 28:3), and had sons, and wives, and livestock (Gen 31:17-18).  For Jacob had come to Paddan Aram with only a staff in his hand.  But he returned to the land of his fathers with two companies (Gen 32:10). 

Similarly, the Lord prospered Israel as His covenant people entered Egypt, blessing the house of Potiphar for Joseph’s sake (Gen 39:5). But afterwards, when pharaoh began to oppress Israel, the God of their father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob saw the affliction of Israel (Exod 3:6-7), so He demonstrated the particularity of His blessing, sparing the flocks of Israel during the plague upon the flocks of the Egyptians (Exod 9:3-4).  Thus Israel was fruitful and increased exceedingly (Exod 1:7), and had sons, and daughters, and livestock (Exod 10:9). For Moses went into Egypt with only a staff in his hand (Exod 4:20).  But he returned to the land of his fathers at the head of a mixed multitude (Exod 12:37-38).

5) Commission to Return to the Land of Promise

            Now the Lord had said to Jacob that He would go with him into Paddan Aram, and that He would surely bring him back to the land of his fathers (Gen 28:15). And so God was faithful to bless Jacob through ten confrontations with Laban, who sought to disadvantage Jacob in the land of his sojourning (Gen 31:41). At the appointed time, the LORD appeared to Jacob to tell him that he should leave Paddan Aram and return to the land of promise (Gen 31:3).  And God promised to give Jacob bread to eat and clothing to wear during all his journey, until God brought him home in safety (Gen 28:20-21).

Likewise the Lord had said to Jacob that He would go down with him into Egypt, and that He would surely bring his people back to the land of their fathers (Gen 46:3-4).  And so God was faithful to bless the children of Israel through ten confrontations with pharaoh, who sought to disadvantage Israel in the land of their sojourning (Exod 7:19-25, 8:1-14, 8:16-19, 8:20-21, 9:1-7, 9:8-12, 9:17-35, 10:1-20, 10:21, 11:1-12:30). For at the appointed time, the LORD had appeared to Moses to tell him to call upon the elders of Israel to leave Egypt and return to the land of promise (Exod 3:2, 16-18). And God was faithful to give Israel bread to eat and clothing to wear during all their journey, until God brought Israel home in safety (Deut 8:3-4).

6) The Covenant Family is in Jeopardy

            Laban claimed that Jacob’s daughters and sons and flocks were his (Gen 31:43).

Likewise, pharaoh resisted Moses’ demand to leave with Israel’s sons and daughters and flocks (Exod 10:9).

7) Escape from Bondage with Great Wealth

            Now Jacob asked Laban to let him go with his wives and children to his own land (Gen 30:25-26).  Nonetheless Laban resisted Jacob.  But afterwards Jacob fled from Laban with all that was his, passing over the river (Gen 31:21).  When it was told to Laban that Jacob had fled, Laban pursued Jacob and overtook him (Gen 31:23).  Laban had intended to send Jacob away empty (Gen 31:42, 41:33), and pursued Jacob to do him harm (Gen 31:29), for Laban charged him with stealing his gods (Gen 31:30).  But God intervened to prevent Laban from doing harm to Jacob (Gen 31:24).  So Laban reproved Jacob, saying that he would have otherwise sent Jacob away with song and timbrel (Gen 31:27).  Thereafter Jacob erected a memorial of stones as a witness, and called it Galeed (Gen 31:46-47). 

Now Moses asked pharaoh to let him go with all the people of Israel, their wives and children, to their own land (Exod 5:1). Nonetheless pharaoh resisted Moses.  But afterwards Moses led all the people, passing over the sea (Exod 15:16).  For it was told to pharaoh that Israel had fled, and so pharaoh pursued Israel and overtook them (Exod 14:9, 15:9).  Pharaoh had intended to send Israel away empty (Exod 10:24), and pursued Israel to do them harm (Exod 15:9), for God through Moses had judged the gods of Egypt (Exod 12:12).[445] So God intervened to prevent pharaoh from doing harm to Israel (Exod 14:19).  And so Miriam with the women went forth with timbrels to sing to the Lord who had delivered them (Exod 15:20-21).  Afterwards the children of Israel erected a memorial of stones as a witness, and set it up in Gilgal[446] (Josh 5:20-24).

8) God Intervenes to Save the Covenant Family

God visited Laban in a dream[447] by night and warned him not to speak good or bad to Jacob (Gen 31:29). 

God delivered His people from pharaoh through the sea by night (Exod 14:21).

9) Meeting With God upon Release from Bondage

            As Jacob returned to the land of his fathers, he met God face to face.  And he asked God, “What is Your name?” (Gen 32:29). 

As the Lord commissioned Moses to bring His people out of Egypt, Moses asked God, “What is Your name?” (Exod 3:13).

10) Idolatry in the Camp upon Return to the Land

            Now there was idolatry in the camp of Jacob as he returned to the land of his fathers.  And so he took the earrings and the gods away from his people to remove them from the camp (Gen 35:4). 

Likewise there was idolatry in the camp of Israel as they returned to the land of their fathers.  For Aaron took the earrings[448] of the people and he fashioned them into a god of gold (Exod 32:2-3). 

11) Confrontation with Esau upon Return to the Land

As Jacob returned from Paddan Aram and came toward the land of his father Isaac, he sent messengers to Esau his brother in the land of Edom (Gen 32:3 [4]).  When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said that they had gone to Jacob’s brother and now he was coming out to meet him with four hundred men (Gen 32:6 [7]).  But Esau separated from Jacob (Gen 36:6-8). 

Likewise, upon Israel’s return to the land of their fathers after their sojourn in Egypt, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Thus says Israel your brother” (Numb 20:14).  Then Edom came out to meet Israel with a large company of mighty men (Numb 20:20, Deut 2:12).[449] But Edom was separated from Israel (Deut 2:12).

We have now examined previews of the exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses suggested by patterns in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob during the periods of their sojourning outside the land of promise as recorded in Genesis.  There are other typically significant aspects of the patriarchal record that we will explore later.  But it should already be apparent why the revelation of the divine name to Moses at Sinai was so significant.  The God who appeared to Moses to promise deliverance from Egyptian bondage was the God of the fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:6).  The revelation of God through His name as the God of the fathers should have been sufficient to assure captive Israel that the Lord was able to deliver them from Egypt, for He had already manifested power commensurate to such a salvation by His faithfulness expressed in His previous deliverances of their federal fathers. 

But what would that deliverance look like, based upon the history of God’s interventions on behalf of the covenant fathers?  We are now able to abstract out of the patriarchal accounts ten themes that appear to define the contours of God’s “exodus” deliverance, and two that directly anticipate the deliverer.  These elements are listed as follows, beginning with the “exodus event”:

1.   The covenant family suffers a famine in the land of promise

2.   The covenant family sojourns in a far country; initial welcome turns hostile

3.   The covenant family is in jeopardy in the land of their sojourn

4.   The covenant family is nonetheless blessed in the land of oppression

5.   The covenant family is called out of oppression to return to land of promise

6.   The covenant family is saved by God’s intervention

7.   The covenant family is driven out with great wealth

8.   The covenant family leaves and encounters the Lord; there is a covenant renewal

9.   The covenant family commits idolatry on the return to land of promise

10. The covenant family has strife with the nations (often at the well) and separates to different inheritances

And there are likewise two points of correspondence that anticipate the deliverer of God’s covenant people.  These are as follows:

1.  Deliverer is rejected by a brother and flees to a land of refuge

2.  Deliverer meets a bride at a well

The God of Joseph and the Exodus from Egypt

And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you, and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”  Genesis 50:24

            The typology of the federal fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, comprehends the entire history of Israel.  They foreshadow both Israel in Egypt as well as Moses, the deliverer from the tribe of Levi.  This principle is exposited by the author of Hebrews, who understands Levi to have given obeisance to Melchizedek because Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he paid tithes to the king of Salem (Heb 7:9-10, cf. Gen 14:18-20). But Joseph is not a federal figure, for he is himself a son of Jacob and one of the twelve sons that constitute the covenant community. His story does, however, have typical application to the deliverance from Egypt under Moses, for God purposed to deliver the covenant family from the famine by means of their Egyptian sojourn during the days of Joseph.  Consequently, there are several particulars of correspondence whereby Joseph is presented in the text as a type of Moses. We will begin by showing those patters of correspondence based upon the elements we derived from the patriarchal narratives. 

            The account of Joseph overlaps with the beginning of the exodus event proper.  The Joseph narrative tells us about the famine in the land of Canaan that was the occasion for the covenant family sojourning in the land of Egypt (Gen 45:4-11).  We are told that Joseph was able to arrange a friendly reception for his family (Gen 47:1-6)[450], which only afterwards grew oppressive after a new pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph (Exod 1:8). And we are told that God began to bless the covenant family through Jacob (Gen 49:28), a blessing that would grow into fantastic dimensions by the time of Moses (Exod 1:7).

            It is, however, Joseph’s role as the deliverer of Israel wherein we find the foreshadowing of Moses.  And there are several particulars of striking correspondence between their accounts: 1) Joseph, who is appointed by God to be the deliverer of the covenant family, is rejected by his brethren, 2) Joseph suffers imprisonment in Egypt, but he is raised in one day from an emblematic death to a position of great authority in the royal household of pharaoh, 3) Joseph has a unique portion of the Spirit of God, 4) Joseph’s wisdom confounds the Egyptian magicians and wise men, 5) all the covenant family bows down to Joseph, and 6) God uses Joseph to feed the covenant family in a time of severe hunger. We will examine these points of correspondence below:

1) God’s Deliverer rejected by his Brethren

Joseph dreamed a prophetic dream and told it to his brothers, although he had brought an evil report about his brothers to his father (Gen 37:2).  His brothers responded to his dream by saying, “Shall you indeed reign or rule over us?” (Gen 37:5-8).  And so Joseph was brought in bonds to Egypt.  And they rejected the one who was to be the deliverer of his brothers.

Now Moses came of age and went out to his brothers (Exod 2:11).  And he saw two Hebrews quarreling, so he rebuked the one who was wicked (Exod 2:13).  But the man said, “Who made you a prince or judge over us?” (Exod 2:14).  And so Moses fled to Midian (Exod 2:15).  Although he was to be the deliverer of God’s covenant family, they rejected him.

2) An Emblematic Death Followed by Exaltation to the Royal House

Joseph was taken to a far country and after being condemned by an officer of pharaoh was put in a dungeon[451] in Egypt (Gen 39:20; 40:15). But upon a day the Hebrew youth (Gen 41:12) was taken up out of the pit and came to pharaoh (Gen 41:14) and was raised to an authority second only to the king; he was given dominion over all Egypt (Gen 41:40-44).

Now Moses was a Hebrew youth (Exod 2:6) under the condemnation of pharaoh’s decree that he should be cast into the river, but his mother placed him in a basket on the Nile (Exod 1:22, 2:3).  But upon a day he was lifted up out of the water and brought to pharaoh’s daughter, and he became a son to her (Exod 2:5-10).[452]

3) A Unique Portion of the Spirit of God

Pharaoh recognized that there was no one like Joseph, in whom was the Spirit of God (Gen 41:38).

The Lord took from the Spirit upon Moses and distributed it to seventy of the elders of Israel (Numb 11:16-17, 24-25).

4) Deliverer Confounds the Wisdom of the Wise

Pharaoh dreamed a dream and called the magicians and all the wise men of Egypt, but they were not able to interpret it to pharaoh as Joseph did (Gen 41:8, 24).

And pharaoh called the wise men and all the magicians of Egypt (Exod 7:11, 22), but they were not able to stand before Moses (Exod 9:11).

5) All Men Bow Down before God’s Deliverer

Two dreams of Joseph prophesied that his brothers would bow down to him (Gen 37:7, 9).  In fact, his brothers did bow down twice (Gen 42:6; 43:26); likewise all Egypt bowed down to him as well (Gen 41:43).

Moses came before pharaoh and prophesied that all the servants of pharaoh would come down to him and bow down to him (Exod 11:8).

6) Deliverer Feeds the Multitudes in a Time of Great Hunger

Now in the years of famine all Egypt was famished and they cried out to pharaoh (Gen 41:55) and Joseph gave them bread (Gen 47:13, 19-20).  Likewise Joseph gave bread to the family of Jacob when they were famished (Gen 47:12).

Now in the days of Israel’s deliverance the Egyptians cried out to pharaoh (Exod 5:15).  And after their exodus Israel was famished (Exod 16:3) and Moses gave them bread (Exod 16:15).

Now taking account of the five points of comparison between Joseph and Moses, the two deliverers of Israel in Genesis and Exodus, as well as the two comparison points we identified between Isaac and Jacob that anticipate Moses, the profile of the deliverer of God’s people in the “exodus event” would conform to the following pattern:

1.   Deliverer is rejected by a brother and flees to a land of refuge

2.      Deliverer meets a bride at a well

3.      Deliverer has a unique portion of the Spirit of God

4.      Deliverer confounds the wisdom of the wise

5.      Deliverer suffers a figurative death; but afterwards an elevation to great authority

6.      Deliverer sees all men bowing down before him

7.      Deliverer provides bread to the covenant family in a time of great hunger

Excursus

The New Moses: A Johannine Typology

            The Pentateuch evokes the expectation that a greater deliverance than that of the exodus of Israel was one day to come for the covenant community, a salvation to be wrought by a prophet, Moses writes, “like unto me” (Deut 18:15,18). The detection of the prophet to come would be made possible by recognizing a deliverance “like” that of Moses. Moses was his type, and the patriarchs of Israel, insofar as they anticipated Moses’ deliverance, his prototypes. It is thus the pattern of correspondence (the “likeness”) between the patriarchs of Israel and Moses, as they relate to the deliverance of the covenant community, whereby the eschatological prophet was to be recognized.

            As we have examined the patriarchal types of Moses, we have detected seven major themes constituting the concept of the deliverer of Israel.  These themes establish the broadest contours to the person and work of the prophet Moses instructed the covenant community to expect.  As we survey that list, it clearly has informed the four Gospels, but especially so with respect to the Fourth Gospel of John.  Because Moses has been identified as the “pattern of all prophecy” in the title of this paper, it should not be too remote a departure from our subject to explore the method by which the evangelist John makes application of these very themes to the person and work of Jesus, the New Moses.  We will now examine each of these subject areas in turn.

1. Jesus is rejected by a brother and flees to a land of refuge

John summarizes the ministry of Jesus in his prologue by stating that the Lord “came unto His own, but His own received Him not, but to as many as did receive Him, to them He gave the authority to be called the children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:11-12).  Jesus was likewise the prophet without honor in His own country (John 4:44), who was, however, received in Samaria (John 4:40).  Moreover, Jesus, like Joseph, was hated by his own brothers because he likewise testified that their deeds were evil (John 7:7, cf. Gen 37:2, 4).  For He bore witness that they hated Him without cause (John 15:25).  Nonetheless, Jesus’ love was greater, for He laid down His own life for His brothers (John 15:13).[453]

2. Jesus meets a (figurative) bride at a well

Jesus found it necessary, John writes, to go through Samaria (John 4:4), where he came to a well (John 4:6).  A woman from Samaria came forth to draw water, and she met Jesus as the well (John 4:7).  Jesus offered water to the woman, a better water, a living water (John 4:10).  Hearing that Jesus was a near kinsman (John 4:9, cf. 4:12), the woman in haste left her water pot, and hurried back into the city to announce that a Stranger had come (John 4:28-29).  At this point the men of the city went out to Him, and offered Him the hospitality of their city (John 4:39).  And many of the Samaritans believed in Him, that Jesus was the Savior of the world (John 4:40-42).[454]  

3.  Jesus has a unique portion of the Spirit of God

Jesus was so imbued with the Spirit of God that He promised to provide the Spirit to all His people in such abundance that He would flow from their innermost being like rivers of living water (John 7:37-40). Because the Spirit was to be taken from Jesus and put upon His people, many in Israel recognized that Jesus was thus like Moses, whose spirit had been distributed upon the elders of Israel, and so they said, “Surely this is the Prophet” (John 7:40), the One of whom Moses had spoken.[455]  

4. Jesus confounds the wisdom of the wise[456]

Jesus confronted the wisdom of the scribes and Pharisees in the temple when they sought to accuse Him about the law regarding a woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-5).  Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger,[457] and so confounded the wise that they abandoned their entrapment and departed from Him (John 8:9).

5. Jesus suffers (actual) death, but afterwards an elevation to great authority

Jesus suffers a greater humiliation by an actual death (John 19:30), a fact that makes greater His ascension to His Father’s throne (John 20:17).[458]

6.  Jesus sees all men bowing down before Him

            The beloved evangelist reports that John the Baptist, the greatest man born of woman, said that he was not worthy to loosen the thong of the sandal of Jesus (John 1:27).[459]  But Jesus is greater than Joseph or Moses, for Jesus taught a greater humility in His exaltation.  Jesus taught that the servant is not greater than his Master, who Himself loosened the thongs of the sandals of His disciples, that the “I am” might wash the feet of His beloved disciples (John 13:5, 13). Truly Jesus is greater than all, and one day all will bow before Him (Phil 2:10)! 

7. Jesus gives bread to the covenant family in a time of great hunger

Joseph sold bread to the Egyptians (Gen 47:14), giving bread only to the household of Jacob (Gen 47:12).  But Jesus shows a greater charity, for He freely gives His heavenly bread to all who hunger, whether Jew or Gentile (John 6:51).  Moreover, God gave a daily bread from heaven to Israel through Moses in order to satisfy the hunger of the people in the wilderness (Exod 16:4).  But Jesus gives a better bread, for all who partake of it will never die (John 6:48-50).

The Typology of the Exodus in Pre-Patriarchal Genesis

We have seen that the accounts of Israel’s patriarchs and Joseph are structured typologically to foretell the deliverance of Israel by the covenant Lord.[460]  But the beginning of Genesis is likewise structured to show forth the Creator of the world as Israel’s Redeemer.  We will consider several of the more salient comparisons.[461]

The Creation Account and the Exodus Narrative

The fertility of the land of Egypt is likened by Moses to the “garden of the Lord” (Gen 13:10).  In this new Eden God blesses His people after the creation blessing such that they were “fruitful and multiplied and filled the land” (Exod 1:7 and Gen 1:28).  But a new pharaoh arose over Egypt, who in the mythopoeic language of Scripture is compared to a draconic beast oppressing the people of God (Psa 89:10; Isa 51:9) and showing hostility to the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15, cf. Exod 1:22).  It is Moses, the son of the woman, who will destroy the serpentine pharaoh (Exod 2:1-2).

In a demonstration of the identity of the Lord of Israel with the Creator of the world, God, who separated light from darkness in the beginning (Gen 1:4) similarly separated light from darkness in Egypt, sending darkness throughout the two realms of Ra, but giving light to His people in Goshen (Exod 10:23).

Perhaps the most direct typology between the creation account and the exodus is the pattern of the original creation reenacted at the Red Sea.  God, who in the beginning created the world (Gen 1:1) likewise created Israel (Isa 43:1). In the beginning God sent His Spirit (wind) over the surface of the deep (Gen 1:2), and light shinned out of darkness (Gen 1:3), the waters were divided (Gen 1:6), and the dry land emerged from the sea (Gen 1:9).  The conclusion of the creation was the Sabbath gift of God to man and all the creatures God had made (Gen 2:1-3, cf. Exod 20:10). Similarly, the Lord caused His Spirit (wind) to go over the deep of the Red Sea (Exod 14:21), light shinned out of darkness into the camp (Exod 14:19-20), the waters of the sea were divided (Exod 14:21), and the dry land emerged from the sea (Exod 14:21).  At the end of their journey out of Egypt and through the sea, God set before Israel His gift of rest in the paradisal land (Psa 95:11).

The Account of Noah and Deliverance through the Waters of Judgment

The typology of Noah and Moses is compelling due to the unique use of the Hebrew word for “ark” in these accounts (Gen 6-9 and Exod 2:3, 5). Noah and his house are delivered through the waters of judgment that destroy the wicked (Gen 7:23).  Likewise, Moses and the house of Israel are delivered through the waters that destroy the hosts of Egypt (Exod 14:27-28). God, who rained down His wrath against the world of Noah (Gen 7:4) likewise rained down judgment against Egypt (Exod 9:23).  Nonetheless God remembered His covenant with Noah (Gen 8:1) and with Moses (Exod 2:24).  Noah was delivered from a world of wickedness to a new world as the dry land emerged from the waters of the seas (Gen 8:13-14).  Similarly, Moses and Israel were delivered from the land of bondage to a new world through the dry land that made a pathway through the waters of the sea (Exod 14:22).[462]

The Pharaoh of Exodus and His Anti-Kingdom Precursors in Genesis

            The enmity of the pharaoh toward the sons of Israel expressed in the decree that the male children of Israel should be thrown into the river (Exod 1:22) is a reflection of the contest first announced in Genesis 3:15 whereby there was to be an enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.  In the mythopoeic language of Scripture, the pharaoh and Egypt are equated with Rahab, the “twisting serpent” of ancient Near Eastern theology (Job 26:12-13; Isa 51:9; cf. also Enuma Elish 1:105-107).

            A further correspondence is seen in the presentation of pharaoh as a city builder (Exod 1:11).  Pharaoh, who murders the sons of Israel and erects the cities of Pithom and Raamses, is thus likened to Cain, who murdered his brother and then built the first city (Gen 4:17).  Moreover, pharaoh says “Come, let us deal wisely…lest they multiply…” (Exod 1:10) and then he builds his city with mortar and brick (Exod 1:14). This recalls the builders of Babel who said “Come, let us build…lest we be scattered…”[463] (Gen 11:4) and then they built their city of mortar and brick (Gen 11:3-4).

The Disobedience of Israel Against God’s Prophet Foreshadowed in Genesis

“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope”  John 5:45

            The generation of the exodus is charged by Moses with having a rebellious heart from the very beginning (Deut 9:7) which culminated in the revolt of the golden calf at Sinai and which caused the Lord to threaten to destroy Israel (Exod 32:7-10; Deut 9:8).  Moses contextualizes the account of the rebellion of Israel in Exodus by describing their disobedience in such a manner as to recall the disobedience of those who had gone before them in wickedness.  Through all of this Moses is teaching the same theology as Isaiah after him, who wrote that although Israel was to be as numerous as the sand of the sea, nonetheless it would be a remnant that would be saved (Isa 10:22).  Those who rebelled against God would themselves suffer a like condemnation to the nations they should dispossess.  We will consider several of the patterns of Israel’s disobedience as foreshadowed in Genesis.

Israel Divided Like Cain and Abel

            When Moses went out among his brethren to see their labors, he found a Hebrew wickedly striking a brother Hebrew (Exod 2:13).  This division among the covenant people was foreshadowed by that first enmity between brothers when Cain killed Abel (Gen 4:8) and again when Joseph’s brothers plotted to kill their brother (Gen 37:20).  Moreover, the earth, which had opened its mouth to receive the righteous blood of Abel after Cain killed him, again opened its mouth to receive the unrighteous blood of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, after they spoke against Moses (Numb 16:23-33).  In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son Jesus, who went unto His own, but was likewise killed by His brethren (John 1:11; Acts 2:22-23). Nonetheless His blood speaks better that that of Abel (Heb 12:24), for Abel’s blood cried out for justice against his brother (Gen 4:10), but Jesus’ blood pleas for His brother’s pardon (Luke 23:34).

Israel Judged Like the Babel Builders

            Israel in bondage was forced to build treasure cities for pharaoh, cities made of brick and mortar (Exod 1:11, 14).  These cities recalled the building of Babel, a city also made of brick and mortar (Gen 11:3). In both cases God came down to judge the cities (Gen 11:7; Exod 3:8), and the city builders were scattered throughout the land (Gen 11:9; Exod 5:12).  During the kingdom period of Israel, Solomon, like the pharaoh of Egypt, enslaved the people to have them build treasure cities and the temple (1 Kgs 9:15-19).  In the latter days of the kingdom, God judged Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple and the people were scattered into all the earth (Jer 9:12-16), even as afterward God judged the temple of Herod, and the people were once again scattered among the nations.  But the temple of Jesus’ body was raised on the third day (John 2:19), and as the prophet had foretold, the Lord would become the Sanctuary for the ingathering once again of His scattered people (Ezek 11:14-20; cf. 2 Cor 3:3).

Israel Judged Like Sodom

            Just as the Sodomites had challenged righteous Lot, saying, “This one came as a sojourner and he is acting as a judge” (Gen 19:9), so likewise the unrighteous Hebrew against whom Moses intervened said to him, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us?” (Exod 2:14). This beginning of Israel’s revolt against God’s prophet was decisive in the history of the covenant people, according to Stephen (Acts 7:27) and became the pattern for the continual rebellion of Israel against God’s prophets (Acts 7:35, 51-53). From this small revolt against Moses that recalled the rebellion of Sodom (cf. Deut 29:22-23), the sin of Sodom came to full maturity in the days of the judges as the Benjaminites reenacted the very crime of the cities of the plain (Judg 19).[464]  Moreover, the prophets of Israel continually charged the people with sin like Sodom.  Isaiah lamented that but for the remnant, the people had altogether become like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa 1:9). Jeremiah saw that Jerusalem had become like Sodom before God’s judgment fell upon the city (Jer 23:14; Lam 4:6).  Ezekiel made the bold comparison of the rulers of Israel with the rulers of Sodom (Ezek 16:46-49), while Amos compared the judgment of the peoples to the judgments of Sodom and Egypt (Amos 4:10-11).  In all of this the NT elaborates upon the OT that Israel’s rejection of the Prophet of God represented a rebellion more culpable than Sodom. Jesus saw the cities of Galilee as excelling the rebellion of Sodom (Matt 10:15, 11:23-24; Luke 10:12).  Finally the Apostle John states that Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, had become “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev 11:8).    But in all of this Jesus promised that there was still to be a way of escape, even as there had been an escape from Sodom for Lot (Luke 17:29).

Israel Judged Like Ishmael

            The character of Ishmael, who was rejected from the blessings of the covenant of promise even though he was a circumcised son of Abraham (Gen 21:10-12), was revealed after Isaac was born to Sarah, and Ishmael mocked (tshaq) the after born son of promise (Gen 21:9).[465]  In this light it is highly instructive that Israel’s rebellion against Moses at Sinai is likewise described as a mocking (tshaq in Exod 32:6), a verbal choice that equates Israel’s worship of an Egyptian god at Sinai with the disobedience of the son of Hagar the Egyptian, who was to be “cast out’ (Gen 21:10).  The Apostle Paul establishes the doctrine of the allegorical contrast between Zion and Sinai, or promise and flesh, from the disobedience of Israel at Sinai.  He teaches that the Jerusalem that crucified Christ and persecuted His people had shown themselves to be the spiritual sons of Ishmael, not Isaac (Gal 4:21-31), and that they were “mocking” the church, which represented the sons of long barren Zion, they antitype of Sarah (Gal 4:26-28; cf. Isa 54:1).  In this manner Paul dispossessed the Jerusalem that rejected Jesus, even though they, like Ishmael, were also the circumcised sons of Abraham. 

Israel Judged Like Esau

            Moses’ description of the rebellion of Israel at Sinai is highly prophetic.  He writes that the people demanded an idol to worship and that Aaron himself presided over their idolatrous festival.[466] The people “rose early and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to mock” (Exod 32:6).  We have already seen the prophetic significance of the people “mocking.”  But Moses further states that they “sat down to eat and drink and rose up to mock.”  This account is so stated as to recall Esau’s despising of his birthright.  When Esau, the firstborn, came in from the field and was famished, he sold his birthright to Jacob for a mere meal of lentils.  Moses characterizes this pivotal transference of blessing in the history of the patriarchal family by saying Esau “ate and drank and rose up and went, thus he despised his birthright” (Gen 25:34).[467]

Israel’s Idolatry at Sinai Foreshadowed by Jacob’s Household

            When God directed Jacob to move to Bethel, Jacob purified his house.  He required his household to put away the foreign gods they had brought from Paddan Aram (Gen 31:30-34).  So the people gave over all their idols and the earrings, which they wore, and thus Jacob purified the camp (Gen 35:1-4). This idolatry in the house of Jacob foreshadowed the rebellion of Israel at Sinai, when the people broke off their earrings to make their idol god of gold (Exod 32:2-4). 

Israel’s Rebellion Against Jesus Foreshadowed by Jacob’s Weakness

            After Jacob’s wrestling with the divine man at the Jabbok, the heavenly man touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh, disabling the wrestler who was to be renamed Israel (Gen 32:24-31).  Thereafter the Jews refused to eat the flesh of the thigh, which represented the weakness of Jacob (Gen 32:32).  In the fullness of time the Lord Jesus came as True Israel, and written on the banner of His thigh was the claim that He is King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev 19:16).  In other words, the thigh, which represented the weakness of Jacob, is made to represent the great strength of Jesus, who is greater than Jacob.  Jesus taught the Jews that unless they should eat His flesh they would have no eternal life in themselves (John 6:52-58).  But nonetheless the Jews refused to acknowledge the kingdom of Jesus (John 19:12), that is, to this day “the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is the socket of the thigh” (Gen 32:32).   

The Occluded Radiance of Samson:

A Typology of Comedy

In spite of the consternation of much conservative commentary, the author of Hebrews unashamedly celebrates the faith of Samson, the judge of Israel noteworthy as a manslayer and whoremonger (11:32, cf. 11:6). In according such unexpectedly high esteem to Samson, the NT agrees with the OT estimation of this most irascible and yet righteous of men.  The author of Judges records that on seven separate occasions the Spirit of the Lord came upon different judges to empower them to deliver the oppressed people of God. He came once upon Othniel (3:10), Gideon (6:34), and Jephthah (11:29).  But the chronicler records that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson no less than four times (13:25, 14:6, 14:19, and 15:14), marking Samson’s ministry as the most charismatic of all of Israel’s judges.[468]  How are we to reconcile the characterization of this clearly dissolute judge with such splendid attributes as a man of faith who was filled with the Spirit of the Lord?

The question of Samson as a hero of faith becomes even more pertinent when we consider the unique company that Samson keeps within the Scripture considered as a whole.  Samson shares only with Isaac and Ishmael, in the OT, the dignity of an angelic annunciation to his mother foretelling a miracle birth.[469]  This singular honor marks the typicality of Samson’s birth, for only John the Baptist and Jesus are accorded the same dignity in the NT.  Moreover, Samson shares the nobility implied in a Nazirite calling from the womb only with Samuel and John the Baptist, men of remarkable rectitude. When we combine these two features of the angelic annunciation and the Nazirite calling from the womb, Samson appears to be a type of the most righteous of all men born of women, John the Baptist.[470]

 Now we should acknowledge that if the chronicler of Israel tells us that Samson does not act as we think he should, we must also admit that God does not behave as we would expect of Him either. Samson’s penchant for the Philistine Timnite woman, which his parents recognize is a violation of the covenant of circumcision, is attributed to God seeking an occasion to annihilate Israel’s oppressors (14:1-4). And even more to our surprise, the Spirit of the Lord does not forsake Samson upon the bed of Gaza’s whore, rather, when he is under the razor, during his dalliance with Delilah.  

            How are we to understand the strange record of Samson’s judgeship? What are we to make of his checkered career? [471]  It appears as though the darkness of Samson’s blindness, a disablement utterly ironic for a man named for the sun,[472] is emblematic of the character of the man.  He seems to veer between darkness and light.[473]  He is a man of unbridled passion and fervent prayer.  He slaughters men and celebrates his triumph in poetry.  He can defy the ranks of Philistine men and yet is lovesick and rendered helpless by Philistine women.  Due to his sin and its consequence, Samson is traditionally regarded as a tragic hero.[474]  But what if we were to look at Samson through different spectacles and view him as a comic hero?  Would our perspective be more in accord with the biblical assessment that portrays a strange yet wonderful judge who surely brought peels of laughter to heaven[475] as God used Samson to confound his own disobedient people while simultaneously making sport with their enemies?  Was God thereby causing the wrath of men to praise Him, taking those things meant for evil and turning them into a glorious good?  This essay will explore the thesis that Samson is simultaneously both a lovesick warrior and a type of Christ, at once both anti-hero and comic hero.

Part One: The Christology of Samson’s Name and Titles

                Ancient Near Eastern divinities and royals had a titulary of sacred names and titles.  The Canaanite Baal was known as Baal Hadad, Baal Zaphon, and Baal Hanan, among others.  The God of the Bible was known as El Elyon, El Shaddai, and El Hai.  The Israelite covenant Lord was variously known as Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom, and Jehovah Shammah.  Similarly, the royal titles of the kings of Egypt, beginning with the Middle Kingdom, included five “great names,” two of which, the nomen and prenomen, were especially sacred to the sun god.[476] 

                These various names and titles were employed to memorialize notable places, to celebrate divine attributes, and to remember particular providences.  The titulary of sacred names appears to have a particular application in biblical typology, revealing the rich tapestry of the intertextual fabric of the biblical narrative.  We often see that a particular biblical figure will be associated with a number of his predecessors by verbal concordance and thematic correspondence, and he will likewise similarly anticipate his successors, culminating in the Christ.  Thus Jesus’ own christological titulary will show him to be not merely the incarnation of Elohim[477] and Yahweh,[478] but the True Adam, the True Noah, the True Abraham, the True Moses, the True David, and so forth.  In other words, each of Christ’s typological predecessors serves as a foil to articulate the divine splendor of the True God-man, Jesus Christ. These predecessor names constitute Jesus’ royal titulary.[479]

            Now a number of biblical characters also share in a typological titulary.  There are at least four names and titles attributed to Samson that appear to have christological significance.   There is his personal name, “Samson” (Judg 13:24, his “Jacob” name), his title as the one who would begin to be the “Deliverer” of the people (Judg 13:5, his “Joshua” name), his title as “Judge of Israel” (Judg 15:20; 16:21, his “Moses” name), and the prophecy of Jacob regarding Dan that seems particularly appropriate to the Danite Samson, namely the “serpent in the way that bites the heel,” causing a great “fall” (Gen 49:16-18, his “serpent” name).  We will see that there is a typological as well as a comic aspect to each of these names as we consider them in turn.

“Samson”: The Jacob Name

            The “Samson” name, whereby his primary appellation recalls the “sun,” expresses a poignant irony in view of the hero’s notable blindness.  Moreover, Samson’s name, which in the metaphorical imagery of Psalm 19 signifies the “strongman” and the “bridegroom,” speaks to a comic irony that describes a hero who at last prevails neither in battle nor in bed.  This brief consideration of his proper name will look first at the probable origin and significance of the name given by his mother.  We will then explore the symbolism the name assumes when juxtaposed to Samson’s blindness.

            In the ancient Near Eastern biblical culture, it was understood that the sun was created to rule the day (Gen 1:16).  As the “greater light,” the sun was regarded as a “bridegroom”[480] and a “strong man” capable of running a race of heroes (Psa 19: 4-6).  Consequently, a “solar name” would suggest the dual aspect of biblical blessing, promising both fertility and dominion. 

Samson’s mother named her son after she witnessed a theophany that recalled Jacob’s divine visitation at Peniel, the place where Jacob marveled that he had seen God and yet his life had been spared, just as the sun rose upon him (Judg 13:17-24, cf. Gen 32: 30-31).  By naming her son Samson, the wife of Manoah memorialized her own deliverance at the new theophany of the God of Jacob, while likewise invoking the benediction of Jacob’s solar name,[481] prophetically anticipating the character of her son as warrior and lover.  

            Samson’s blindness introduces an element of dark comedy into his account.  The irony of a sightless hero named for the sun is deepened in that the hero, at the point of his greatest weakness, is given his greatest strength.[482] Moreover, the narrative of Samson’s blindness as he stands between the two pillars of the idolatrous temple creates a striking symbolism as it anticipates the ruin of the sanctuary of Dagon, the sacred temple of Philistine Gaza.  Thematically, blindness foreshadows the return of the darkness of original chaos.  Samson’s blindness is thus an emblem of judgment upon the idolatrous cosmic house represented by the temple of Dagon. 

Blindness is a recurring motif of imminent judgment upon ungodly cities and regimes. We should cite the examples of the Sodomites struck with blindness prior to their overthrow in judgment (Gen 19:11-13); the solar darkness that foreshadowed the judgment upon the Egyptians (Exod 10:21-23, Deut 28:29); and the ironic appeal to the blind to defend the Jebusite citadel prior to its capture by David (2 Sam 4:6-7).[483]

            Blindness is likewise associated with the judgment that befalls each of Israel’s sacred sanctuaries.  The blindness and death of the aged priest Eli anticipates the “Ichabod” removal of the glory of the Lord from the sanctuary at Shiloh (1 Sam 4:15-22).  The blindness and imprisonment unto death of King Zedekiah mark the end of the first temple of Israel, the temple of Solomon (Jer 52:8-13).[484]  The blindness of the religious leaders of Israel, the Pharisees especially, anticipates the judgment to befall the second temple of Israel, the temple of Herod (Matt 23:16-24:2).[485]  Finally, the blindfold placed upon Jesus, the True Samson, adumbrates the destruction of “the temple of His body,” and the solar blindness that was its consequence was emblematic of the cosmic and catastrophic judgment coincident with the veil of the temple being rent in two (Mark 14:65; Luke 22:64, 23:44-45).

            Now the occluded radiance of Samson’s sun name contrasts with the uneclipsed splendor of Christ Jesus, the True Samson, for if God can thus splendidly show forth His might in so defiled a vessel, what will be the brilliance of His power displayed in a vessel altogether holy – the Sun of Righteousness!  The psalmist celebrated the Lord God as a mighty Warrior to His people, as our “sun and shield” (84:11).  And the Heir of David was to have a solar name that would endure forever (Psa 72:16-17).  Thus Jesus’ face shines like the sun while He is contemplating the great victory He would achieve in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31).  And He appears in a theophany brighter than the sun to Paul (Acts 26:13) in order to defend His bride on behalf of whom He speaks as though one flesh with her (Acts 9:4).  Moreover, John sees Him with a face like the sun shining in full strength (Rev 1:16).  And John sees a vision of His bride, the New Jerusalem, reflecting the radiance of His redemption.  She will no longer have need of the sun, for the Lamb will be her light (Rev 21:23; 22:5).  And the bride of the Lamb, redeemed from all her whoredom as the New Jerusalem, will know night no more, for the glory of her Sun will forever shine upon the gates of her golden city.  Moreover, her True Samson’s splendor will never be eclipsed, for in His bright city there will be no more darkness (Rev 22:5). 

“He will Begin to Deliver”:  Samson’s Joshua Name

The angel announcing the birth of Samson prophesies that he will begin to “deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (13:5).[486] The verb describing Samson’s “deliverance” (עישׁוֹה) is derived from the same root as the name Joshua (orig. עשׁוֹה, in Num 13:8, 16 the name is changed to עשׁוֹהי), and is likewise related to the name of the prophet Hosea (עשׁוֹה, Hos 1:1,2), the Greek form of the Joshua name being Jesus. The Joshua name, in its most fundamental meaning as developed within the biblical canon, describes a christological officer who rescues a whore from a fiery death.  Joshua commands the spies to bring forth the whore Rahab from Jericho before it is burned on its tell (6:22-24).  Hosea, the holy prophet of God, is commanded to marry a whore and to woo her into faithfulness by his love, lest she be appointed to a fiery death in her cities (Hos 8:14).  Similarly Jesus, the True Joshua, rescues a remnant from the whorish city Babylon.  Like Joshua, Jesus commands her to come forth from the city lest she be burned with fire (Rev 18:4, 8).  Like Hosea, Jesus calls the remnant from whorish Babylon “My people,” signifying the full rescue of those who were once “not My people” (Rev 18:4, cf. Hos 1:9, 2:1; Rom 9:25).     

The “Joshua” name is an appropriate appellation for Samson because his despoiling of Gaza recalls Joshua’s battle against Jericho.  In both accounts there is an Amorite city opposed to God (Josh 5:2; Judg 14:4, 16:1).  There is also a whore in each city whose house is open to the Israelite stranger (Josh 2:1; Judg 16:1). The people of both Jericho and Gaza are told of the presence of an enemy in the house of the harlot (Josh 2:2; Judg 16:2).  They watch at the gate of the city during the night (Josh 2:5; Judg 16:2).  We note a series of heptads preceding a calamity in each city (seven marches, seven days, seven trumpets, Josh 6:2-5; seven cords tied, seven locks woven, seven locks shaved,[487] Judg 16:7, 13, 19).  Jericho’s walls collapse, rendering the city vulnerable.  Similarly, Gaza’s gates are removed and her temple falls (Josh 6:20; Judg 16:30).  In each instance there is a great slaughter of both men and women (Josh 6:21; Judg 16:27).

  Notably absent from the Samson story in this pattern of parallels, however, is the rescue of the whore, the most striking “deliverance” of the Joshua and Jericho narrative. In fact, far from rescuing the whore of Gaza, Samson engages her in immorality by “going into her” (Judg 16:1, cf. Gen 38:16). Framing Samson’s escapade with Gaza’s whore are his disastrous relationships with his Timnite bride and Delilah.  Samson’s bride betrays her husband’s riddle to the Philistines.  The text appears to suggest that such a betrayal is a kind of harlotry, for Samson accuses the wedding guests of “plowing with my heifer” (14:18), and the Timnite and her father subsequently suffer death by burning (15:6). Similarly, Delilah tells the secret of Samson’s strength to the Philistines, betraying him for money to a cruel servitude (16:18).  Samson is clearly a failure at rescuing both his Timnite bride and Delilah from such moral failure.  And Samson certainly has no rescue in mind for the Gaza whore.  It is in these instances that we require a particular comic vision to look beyond Samson’s failure with the Timnite girl and Delilah, and especially to look beyond his romp with the whore of Gaza, in order to recognize in the Samson narrative an account pregnant with prophecy of the Christ.

            How then are we to understand the gross failure and notorious immorality of Samson, a judge so clearly a type of Christ?  Let’s begin by noting the manner by which the author of Judges gives us a clue by prompting us to consider another account of a christological officer engaged in immorality with a “whore.”  That affair is the record of Judah’s sin against Tamar, found in Genesis 38.  The passages are clearly tied together by unmistakable verbal concordance and clear thematic correspondence, based upon the identities of place and circumstance.  We should recount the story of Judah to highlight its intertextuality with the Samson narrative and to demonstrate that the author of Judges has clearly made the connection.

            Both accounts of Judah and Samson take place on the road to Timnah (Gen 38:12-14 and Judg 14:1-3).[488]  Judah, like Samson, has a penchant for the daughters of the Canaanites (Gen 38:1-2 and Judg 14:2, 16:1).  Both accounts narrate a father’s refusal to yield to a marriage.  Judah refuses to give Tamar to his son (Gen 38:14), and the father of the Timnite girl refuses to give his daughter to Samson (Judg 15:1).  Judah turns aside to Tamar, thinking she is a whore (Gen 38:15), and offers her a kid of the goats (Gen 38:17, 20, 23).  Samson turns aside to the whore in Gaza (Judg 16:1) after having brought a kid of the goats to his estranged bride (Judg 15:1).  In neither account is the goat received by the one for whom it is intended (Gen 38:20, Judg 15:1).  Both accounts describe the threat to burn the daughter/bride (Gen 38:24, Judg 14:15, 15:6).  Finally, both accounts involve Judah giving up his brother to the enemy while claiming that he is sparing his life (Gen 37:26-27 and Judg 15:11-13).[489]

            Why then does the author of Judges so carefully highlight those aspects of the Samson narrative that recall Judah’s relationship with Tamar?  The most evident ground for such careful verbal and thematic intertextuality in the Bible is the presence of a metanarrative in the Word of God.  The inspired authors are gesturing toward some greater theme, some more noble vision that will take such diverse narratives, like multicolored mosaic pieces, and fashion them into a greater whole.  One of the most unexpected themes to emerge in the OT is the illicit relationship of the christological officer to the whore, a liaison most often seen in the context of a foreign affair that brings judgment upon the nations.[490] 

Such a striking theme is capable of much complexity.  In the account of Judah and Tamar, for example, the roles of the whore and the righteous are reversed.  Tamar is forced to dress as a whore in order to secure her right to be the mother of the son of promise.[491]  The narrative in fact tells us Judah recognizes Tamar is “more righteous than me,” an acknowledgment that betrays Judah as the true “whore” in the story, the one whose conduct has been manifestly shameful.  Tamar has disguised herself as a whore, but it is Judah who, by attempting to disguise his immoral escapade, demonstrates that his was the true harlotry (Gen 38:23).[492] In a striking scene Judah insists upon the fiery judgment of the whore against Tamar,[493] only to acknowledge at last that he has thereby judged himself (Gen 38:24-26).[494]  A further irony of the text is that Tamar’s strategy apparently delivers Judah from his wickedness, the redemptive reversal of the “whore” as “deliverer.”[495]  The pattern of Judah’s betrayal of his brother Joseph and his immoral adventuring with the Canaanites is stopped suddenly as Judah recognizes his sin and refuses to take further advantage of Tamar (Gen 38:26).  Thereafter Judah is able to offer himself and his own liberty for the deliverance of his brother (Gen 44:33), a redemption that is at last worthy of one who should bear the scepter in Israel (Gen 49:10).

But how is it that Judah, the patriarch of Israel’s royal family, and Samson, the mighty judge of Israel, each have escapades with a “whore,” yet are nonetheless typical of the Israel’s most regal and most just Messiah?  Neither Judah nor Samson rescues the whore. Consequently, how do they correspond to Joshua’s deliverance of Rahab and Hosea’s marriage to Gomer?  In what sense do Judah and Samson nonetheless portend the ministry of Jesus?

It is the capacity of the biblical record to depict the frankly anti-heroic in the christological types that serves the metanarrative theme of articulating the richness of the Redeemer of Israel, the Lord Jesus who shows such tenderness to his whorish bride that He is able to restore her purity, and whose wonderful wisdom is able to restore her role in bringing blessing to the nations, according to the great promise of the covenant of Abraham.  It is the anti-heroic in the christological officers that causes us to long for that which is “better,” to imagine a Messiah who would take no advantage of a fallen woman, but who could love a whore into covenantal purity.  We are thereby prompted by the Samson narrative to imagine a hero who could transform harlotry into holiness, and cursing into blessing.

            Samson’s liaison with the whore of Gaza ends in his abandonment of her in the middle of the night as he escapes the watch set around her house.  Unlike the spies of Joshua, who “turned in to the house” of Rahab for lodging and entered into a covenant of redemption with her (Josh 2:1), Samson “goes into” the whore only to abandon her in his escape from the city.  Later he turns all his affections to Delilah.  Knowing the fiery fate of his Timnite bride (Judg 15:6-7), Samson is apparently capable of utterly abandoning his Gaza mistress to her fate.  In all of this we see a flawed image of the “Joshua” deliverance.

How different is the Lord Jesus, the True Samson!  For our True Deliverer will never abandon His betrothed, for He loves us with an everlasting love.   As the True Joshua, He calls us forth from the harlotry that dares the wrath of God, and so He delivers us from a fiery death unto a new life by His eternal covenant.  As the True Hosea, His love woos us from all wickedness, and teaches us to find all our delight in Him alone.  So great a deliverance displays a mightier strength than Samson, for Samson began the deliverance of God’s people, but the True Samson is of that deliverance the Beginning and the End.  And unlike the Timnite or Delilah, we need no assurance of the love of our Bridegroom.  Jesus has no need of slaughter to give us wedding garments, for having laid aside our scarlet, He gives us the linen of His righteousness, bright and clean.  He freely tells us all His riddles, and illumines to our hearts all His dark sayings.  For to us there is no sweeter honey than that gathered from the slain body of Judah’s Lion.  Neither is there any strength greater than that of our True Samson, whose love to us is stronger than death! 

“He Judged Israel”: Samson’s Moses Name

            Moses is called a “judge” in Exodus 18:13,16.  This name becomes the characteristic title given to the pre-monarchic deliverers of Israel, whose accounts are narrated in the Book of Judges.  The sacred chronicler of Israel identifies a historiographical pattern marked by the disobedience of the covenant people followed by the Lord raising up oppressors to afflict them.  The people cry out in their distress, and the Lord raises up a deliverer, who is called a “judge” (Judg 2:11-23).[496] In other words, the period of the judges was a time of several reenactments of the exodus by men (and a woman) who delivered the people, just as had Moses.

            The Moses name is attributed twice to Samson.  In both cases the remembrance is after a great triumph that recalls a mighty work of Moses.  Samson is first called “judge” after his victory at Ramath-Lehi, when he cried out to the Lord and God brought forth water from the rock (Judg 15:19), just as He had previously done for Moses (Numb 20:11).  The second time when the chronicler gives Samson the Moses name is after the account of his destruction of the temple of Dagon and his slaughter of the Philistines (16:31). This great triumph of Samson recalls the Mosaic polemic against the gods of Egypt (Exod 12:12, 18:11, Numb 33:4) and his destruction of the Egyptian hosts at the sea (Exod 14:30).

            There is a remembrance of Moses in the Samson birth narrative as well.  The “Angel of the Lord” appears in a fiery theophany to Samson’s parents (Judg 13:20), just as He had to Moses at Sinai (Exod 3:2).[497] Moreover, the Angel of the Lord “works wonders” before Manoah and his wife (Judg 13:19), a remarkable phrase that prophesies a new exodus through Samson by recalling Moses’ celebration of the God who “works wonders” in the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:11).

            Moreover, Samson, like Moses, found refuge in the “cleft of the rock” (Exod 33:21 and Judg 15:8, cf. Isa 2:21).  Just as Israel rejected Moses’ judgeship (Exod 2:14), so they rejected the judgeship of Samson (Judg 15:11).  Samson, like Moses, took a foreign wife, who was rejected by his family (Judg 14:3, cf. Numb 12:1).[498]  Finally, Samson’s judgeship is according to the Mosaic legal principle of the talion (Exod 21:23-25). After his destruction of the Philistine fields with foxes tied to torches, Samson announces, “As they have done to me, so I have done to them” (Judg 15:11).

            What an irony that Samson, a judge of Israel like Moses, was himself such a law-breaker!  In choosing his bride, Samson did what was right in his own eyes (Judg 14:3), like his own rebellious people (Judg 17:6, 21:25). Our True Samson has likewise sought out a bride among the uncircumcised; even though His own people, too, would reject Him.  But He has wooed us by His everlasting love to a love of the everlasting covenant. And He has taught us to bless the nations, rather than to curse them.  For He would take Samson’s standard of justice for the Philistines, “as they have done to me, so I have done to them,” and teach us rather to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  He thereby takes Samson’s iron law of justice, and through a gospel alchemy, makes it golden with mercy!

“The Serpent that Bites the Heel”:  Samson’s Serpent Name

Certainly the most shocking utterance in Jacob’s prophetic oracle pronounced upon his sons is the blessing given to Dan.  “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.  Dan will be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path that bites the heels so that the rider falls backwards.” (Gen 49:16-17).  Now this remarkable prophecy seems especially appropriate to Samson, who was in fact a judge in Israel, and whose unexpected “strike” from below did cause the proud Philistine temple to fall upon the lords of Gaza (Judg 16:30-31).  But Jacob’s prophecy describes Dan as a “serpent that bites the heel,” clearly an attribution based upon the oracle of destiny in Genesis 3:15.  This oracular fountainhead of all prophecy describes the grand redemptive struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Two types of wounding characterize the struggle between the opposed seed.  The seed of the woman bruises the head of the serpent.  And the serpent bruises the heel of the seed of the woman.  But why is it that Jacob’s prophecy employs the language of the seed of the serpent, that is, the descriptive characteristics of the anti-kingdom enemies of God, to characterize the redemptive role of one of his own sons, one of “the tribes of Israel?”  Why should Samson, a man of celebrated faith and through whom the Spirit of the Lord operated so mightily, be given a serpent name?  We have already noted the moral failure of Samson as depicted in Judges.  Consequently, we have called Samson an “anti-hero.”  But how is it appropriate for the chronicler of Israel to attribute a serpent name to this champion of the faith?

The question is heightened as we consider the thematic outworking of the oracle of destiny (Gen 3:15) by the author of the Book of Judges.  The chronicler tells us that the hosts of the Lord defeated Sisera, the commander of the Canaanites and thus a champion of the anti-kingdom (Judg 5:20).  As Sisera fled his defeat in battle, he sought refuge in the tent of Jael.  After he fell into a sleep between her feet, Jael took a tent pin (yatad) and drove it into his temple, fastening (taqa) his head to the ground by crushing his skull (4:17-21, 5:26-27).  Clearly the celebrated death of Sisera is an outworking of the oracle of destiny, which anticipates the crushing of the head of the serpent. [499]  But in a shocking juxtaposition, the author of Judges takes the pattern of Sisera’s wounding and uses it to describe the wounding of Samson, who likewise seeks refuge in Delilah’s tent, sleeping between her knees as she pins (yatad) his hair and fastens (taqa) it to her loom (Judg 16:9-14). As a final consequence of Delilah’s treachery, the Philistines wound Samson in the head, blinding him.[500]  The question is thus drawn into bolder relief.  Why is the pattern of the judgment of the serpent’s head wound applied to Samson?  Why does the author of Judges draw our attention to the correspondence between Samson, the deliverer of Israel, and Sisera, the anti-kingdom oppressor of Israel? How can it be appropriate to describe Samson as a serpent biting the heel and suffering a wound to his head, both attributes characteristic of the anti-kingdom seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15)? 

While it is surprising, to say the least, for a christological officer to be given a serpent name in Scripture, it is nothing less than astonishing to recognize that the Scripture makes the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness into an emblem of the suffering of the Lord Christ Himself.  Jesus Himself takes the serpent name when He compares His death on the cross to the serpent being lifted up in the wilderness (John 3:14). We have now come to a crucial pass in our understanding of Biblical typology.  The die is cast by the text of John 3:14, but we should cross this Jordan only with great reverence and in a spirit of much prayer. For it is certain that the Scripture attributes the serpent name to Jesus Himself, who was wholly without sin.  If we were perplexed at the attribution of the serpent name to Samson, what is our perplexity at the attribution of the serpent name to Jesus?  We must conclude that the text is prompting us to expand our typological theory both of Christ and of those who, like Samson, were types of Christ. Let’s examine first of all the serpent name as applied to Jesus, afterwards comparing it to the serpent name applied to Samson.  

The Serpent Name of Jesus

Jesus speaks of His serpent name when He is addressing the purpose of God in sending the Son into the world.  In His interview with Nicodemus, Jesus claims that the brazen serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness for the healing of Israel was emblematic of the Son of Man being “lifted up” on the cross for the healing of the world.[501]  In order to crush the head of the serpent of old, the Seed of the Woman Himself became “a serpent lifted up,” suffering His heel to be bruised upon the tree.[502] We have now come to that great mystery Paul called God’s “hidden wisdom,” the wisdom that, “had the rulers of the present age understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory” (1 Cor 2:6-8).  This “hidden wisdom” of Paul, or, in C.S. Lewis’ wonderful phrase, this “deeper magic,” is the means by which the True Samson brought down the temple of darkness, crushing the head of the serpent of old.  Satan’s heart was lifted up, desiring to be like the Most High God (cf. Isa 14:13-14, Eze 28:17), and so he became a serpent (cf. Rev 20:2).  How ironic, then, that the Most High God should descend to become the Son of Man, who through the emblem of a Serpent would destroy the work of Satan (Luke 10:19, Rev 12:9), “that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14).

The cross then, is the place and time when our sinless Savior became a “Serpent lifted up” for us.  By taking the sin of His people upon Him, Jesus, by an imputation of sin, became the True Serpent.  He who knew no sin became sin (2 Cor 5:21). The doctrine of imputation, which underlies the typology of the serpent name of Jesus, reconciles a systematic with a biblical theological understanding of the cross.  It preserves our understanding of the sinless Savior, while deepening our understanding of the previews of His atoning suffering on our behalf.  It permits us to see the character of Jesus’ cross in the judgment upon anti-kingdom representatives in the OT.

For example, one of the clearest previews of the cross in the OT may be seen in the manner of the death of Absalom, the wicked son of David. Let’s rehearse the facts of Absalom’s death in light of the death of Jesus.  Absalom is the son of David, beloved of his father (2 Sam 18:5, 33).  Claiming the kingdom, he was mounted upon a mule,[503] the royal mount of David (2 Sam 18: 9, cf. 1 Kgs 1:33, 38, 44).  As he was riding, his head was caught in the branches of an oak tree as his mule rode away from him, leaving him hanging upon the tree (2 Sam 18:9), which made him accursed according to the law (Deut 21:23).  Joab, the military commander, pierced his side with darts while he was hanging upon the tree (2 Sam 18:14).  Absalom was taken down and his body was cast into a pit in a forest and covered over by exceedingly large stones (2 Sam 18:17). Absalom was thus cut off from the living without seed (2 Sam 18:18).

Are we not able to see in Absalom’s manner of death a preview of the death of Jesus, the True Son of David (Matt 1:1) and beloved of His Father (Matt 3:17, 12:18, 17:5)?  Jesus entered Jerusalem mounted upon a donkey shortly before His kingdom was taken from Him (Matt 21:4-9, 27:11, 37).  Jesus, like Absalom, was hung upon a tree (Acts 5:30), and so made a curse (Gal 3:13). A soldier likewise pierced His side with a spear (John 19:34).  Finally, Jesus was taken down and buried in a garden tomb sealed with an exceedingly large stone (John 19:41, 20:1; Mark 16:4).  And thus Jesus, like Absalom, was cut off without a physical seed to memorialize His name (Isa 53:8).

Clearly our hesitation to see a preview of the cross in the death of Absalom is grounded in our reluctance to see the reprobate son of David as a type of the sinless Son of David.  Such reluctance is understandable for any Christian believer.  But if the text is prompting us to see such emblems, are we not then permitted to pursue them?  If the serpent lifted up by Moses is emblematic of the Son of Man, are we not then able to see in Absalom’s death a prefiguring of the cross of Jesus?  And if so, are we not then enabled to understand through David’s grief something precious about the heart of Father God?  For if David was inconsolable about the death of so wicked a son, what was the heart of Father God who so loved us that He gave a Son altogether sinless, that we might not perish but have everlasting life?[504] 

Once we are willing to acknowledge all that is signified by the serpent name of Jesus, we will be enabled to see more deeply the resplendence of the so great love of God in giving His only begotten Son that we might have everlasting life (John 3:16).  And the richness of our redemption, anticipated in the wisdom of God revealed in the typology of the OT, will open up new realms of revelation.[505]

For example, one of the great themes of biblical theology is the mourning of a covenant mediatorial father for a son.  The church has long recognized Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (the beloved son spared by a ram) as typical of the death of Jesus.  But there is a much broader pattern of the covenant mediators “losing a son.”  Adam mourns for his innocent yet slain son, Abel (Gen 4:25).   Noah mourns for Canaan, his grandson, who must bear a terrible curse (Gen 9:24).  Abraham mourns for his beloved son Isaac, whose life is required in a bloody sacrifice by God (Gen 22:2).  Isaac trembles greatly for Esau, who was irretrievably deprived of the covenant blessing (Gen 27:33).  And Jacob refuses to be comforted in grieving for Joseph, whom he thought to have been devoured by a wild beast (Gen 37:33-35).  Clearly we can see a preview of the death of Jesus in Abel, Isaac, and Joseph.  But what are we to think of Canaan and Esau?  Is Canaan a picture of the imputation of the curse upon Jesus on the cross?  Is Esau a preview of the wrath of God against the sin imputed to His favored Son? All of these covenant mediators, it seems, anticipate the heart of Father God, who in the fullness of time must also yield the life of His only begotten and beloved Son.  But none of these bereaved mediators shows us the heart of Father God like David, whose mourning for Absalom is one of utter loss and despair.  Christian, can you not hear the anguish of Father God over the cross of His Son in the inconsolable cry of David, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam 18:33)?

      The Serpent Name of Samson

            We have already identified Samson as anti-heroic in his typological relationship to Jesus.  All christological officers are anti-heroes in the sense that all participate in the fallen nature of sinful man.  Samson bears a number of christological titles.  We have identified his Jacob, his Moses, and his Joshua names.  In each of these, Samson previews Christ in his heroic character.  But Samson also bears a serpent name, justly reflecting his anti-heroic character as well.  As a “serpent” he foreshadows the Lord Jesus as He was lifted up on the cross.  In all of this we are enabled to see the full range of the possibility of biblical typology.[506]  The Lord Jesus claimed that the Scriptures “testify about Me” (John 5:39).  How wonderful is the wisdom of God, who would thereby make the sin of the antecedents of Christ to find anti-typical fulfillment in the cross of the Savior, while anticipating the splendor of His salvation in the heroic words and works of His typological predecessors!  Samson as a “serpent” caused the “fall” of the idol temple of Gaza, according to the prophecy of Jacob.  But Jesus, when He was lifted up “like the serpent,” would cause the fall of idol temples throughout the world!  And by being “lifted up as a serpent” (John 3:14), the Lord Jesus would cause the “serpent of old” to be cast down from heaven, and crushed under the feet of His people (Rev 12:9, Rom 16:20), the “living stones” of the True Temple (1 Pet 2:5).  A great fall indeed! (Gen 49:17).
 

Part Two: The Typology of the Birth and Death Narratives of Samson

            The Samson narrative is strikingly structured as a proto-Gospel, having the familiar contours of the evangelists’ narrative framework of the life of Jesus.  The Judges account begins with an angelic announcement of a miracle birth (Judg 13:3).  It records very little about the Samson’s youth, saying simply, “the child grew and the Lord blessed him” (13:24). The Spirit of the Lord came upon him when he began his public ministry to Israel as an adult (13:25). After a series of journeys and struggles, Samson had a climactic encounter with his enemies in an idolatrous temple, a conflict that resulted in his death (16:30).  Finally, those who loved him took his body and provided him with an honorable burial as he was returned to the resting place of his father (16:31).

While there is, of course, no account of a resurrection, there is a display of resurrection power in the Samson account on two occasions.  The first is after his triumphant struggle with the Philistines at Ramath-lehi.  Samson suffered a terrible thirst, and cried out to the Lord for refreshment, lest he die.  The Lord brought forth water from a rock, and “His spirit returned and he revived” (Judg 15:19).[507]   

Similarly, the chronicler anticipates the power of resurrection in the Samson narrative when he describes Samson’s deliverance over to the Philistines, after the seven locks of his hair were shaved, by saying, “And he did not know that the Lord had left him,” juxtaposed with the comment, “but the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved” (Judg 16:20, 22).[508]

To fill in the narrative framework of the Samson typology, we will now survey the birth and death narratives more closely, noting the remarkable complexity and yet striking specificity of the preview of the birth, passion, and death of Jesus in the birth, suffering, and death of Samson.

In one of the most familiar type-scenes of the OT,[509] the chronicler of Judges tells us that the mother of Samson was barren, noting thereby the supernatural character of the child’s conception.  We are told that the angel of the Lord came to the wife of Manoah and said, “Behold… you will conceive in your womb and will bring forth a son…and he will begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines” (Judg 13:3-7).  Likewise, the angel appeared to the espoused, yet virginal, wife of Joseph to tell her “You will conceive in your womb and will bring forth a Son and will call His name Jesus” (Luke 1:26-31).

Just as the Gospel writers preview the death and resurrection of Jesus in His birth narrative,[510] so the Samson narrative foresees the day of his death in the account of his birth (Judg 13:7).  Moreover, there is a remarkably emblematic preview of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the birth account of Samson’s annunciation.  We are told that the Angel of the Lord, whose name is Wonderful,[511] works wonders before Manoah and his wife.  As Manoah and his wife offer their burnt offering to the Lord, the flame of the sacrifice goes up toward heaven, and the Angel of the Lord enters into the sacrifice and ascends to heaven out of their sight (Judg 13:17-21, cf. Eph 4:9-10). 

The suffering and death of Samson anticipates many striking details of the passion of Jesus. Samson’s death is caused by treachery in the context of his great love (Judg 16:4-5).  Israel is under the bonds of a foreign captor, and her leaders fear the consequences of rebellion (Judg 15:11, cf. John 11:48-51). One who pretends affection betrays Samson for silver (16:5, cf. Matt 26:15).  He is betrayed (15:13, cf. Matt 26:48) and led away to the Gentiles in bonds (15:13, cf. Matt 27:2) by Judah (15:12, cf. Matt 27:3).  He is mocked (16:25, cf. Matt 27:29), slapped with fists (16:25 LXX, cf. Matt 26:67), and blinded by his captors (16:21, cf. Mark 14:65).

The account of Samson’s death is likewise striking in its pictorial preview of the cross of Jesus.  Samson is positioned in the midst (16:25, cf. John 19:18) of two pillars, one on his right and one on his left (16:29), a scene that recalls the crucifixion of Jesus in the midst of two thieves on crosses, one on His right and one on His left (Luke 23:33).[512]  While between the columns, Samson cries out “Remember me!” in prayer to the Lord (16:28), recalling the same words spoken by the thief addressing the Lord for mercy, “Jesus, remember me!” (Luke 23:42).  The death of Samson occurred when the Lord abandoned him (16:20), anticipating the Lord Jesus being forsaken by God (Mark 15:34).  After his death, Samson’s body was taken for burial by those who loved him (16:31), just as the Lord’s body was received for burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (John 19:38-40).

As with Samson in the temple of Dagon, the Lord’s death upon the cross represented His greatest victory (16:30).  But the triumph of Jesus is greater than the victory of Samson.  Samson’s last prayer is a cry for vengeance upon his enemies (16:28).  But Jesus’ prayer on the cross is a cry that God might forgive His enemies (Luke 23:34).  And Samson’s death was the occasion of the death of three thousand in the temple (16:27-30).  But Jesus’ death became the occasion of giving life to three thousand in the temple (Acts 2:41, 46).  Truly Jesus is greater than Samson!

Excursus:  The Theme of the Whore in the Book of Judges

To appreciate the pervasiveness of this metanarrative theme within the context of the Book of Judges, consider the extensiveness of the author’s use of the whore figure.  The word “whore” occurs as a noun or a verb in connection with the accounts of Jephthah, Gideon, Samson, and the unnamed Levite who seeks his concubine.[513]  We have already considered the account of Samson’s relationship to the whore of Gaza.  But we should also examine the theme of the whore in the book of Judges in order to contextualize the comedic character of the metanarrative of the Samson saga within redemptive history,[514] that is, to understand how such a surprising theme foretells various aspects of the ministry of the Christ.

 Jephthah, the Gileadite warrior, is the son of a whore (Judg 11:2).  His “irregular” genealogy causes his brethren to reject him (Judg 11:2-3).  Nonetheless, Jephthah is chosen of God to be the deliverer of Gilead from the Ammonites (Judg 11:32). Now Jephthah’s victory is celebrated as a new exodus, his daughter, like Miriam, coming out to sing of his victory with tambourines (Judg 11:34, cf. Exod 15:20).  But Jephthah’s blood oath of sacrifice becomes a curse to cut off his own seed, and the daughters of Israel are made to weep perpetually after his death in an annual ritual of mourning (Judg 11:40). 

In all of this we see an anticipation of the “irregular” genealogy of Jesus, the son of Rahab, a whore (Matt 1:5).  Jesus was likewise accused of being born of fornication (John 8:41) by his brethren who rejected him (John 1:11).  Nonetheless, Jesus was appointed by God to be the deliverer of his people (Matt 1:21). Now the true Jephthah is also a cause of weeping for the daughters of Jerusalem, whom Jesus admonished to “weep not for Me but for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:27-28).[515]  But the better Jephthah has made a better oath in a better blood, and so he offers the promise of perpetual repentance unto Israel, claiming, “the promise is to you and to your children…even to as many as the Lord God shall call” (Acts 2:39).[516]  In this manner Jesus has turned the weeping of the daughters of Israel into rejoicing, for the daughters of Zion who had bewailed their barrenness have brought forth a multitude of children, like Isaac, and laughter has replaced mourning in Israel (Gal 4:26-28).[517]  

            Gideon is the judge who is appointed to deliver the people from the Midianite oppression and to bring peace to the people (Judg 8:28).  But Gideon, like Aaron before him, takes the golden earrings and the purple of the people and fashions an ephod as an object of idolatry (Judg 8:26-27, cf. Exod 28: 6, 32:2-4).  Gideon thus causes the nation to stumble by “playing the whore,” his ephod becoming a snare even to his own house (Judg 8:27). Earrings in the Bible are often associated with idolatry, which is regarded as spiritual harlotry.  The connection of golden earrings and idolatry is made as early as the Jacob narrative (Gen 35:4). We see the same adornment as a mark of the harlotry of the Lord’s espoused wife, who accessorizes her Baal worship with earrings and jewelry (Hos 2:13).  In all of this we see prefigurations of the Whore of Babylon, arrayed in her scarlet and purple and golden jewelry (Rev 17:4).   

            How different is the array of the bride of the Lamb, for having been rescued from harlotry her adornment is no longer in “braided hair or gold or pearls or costly garments” (1 Tim 2:9).[518]  Rather, her clothing is modesty and discretion, as befits a virgin daughter of Israel (1 Tim 2:9-10).  Moreover her fine linen is her good works wrought in righteousness, bright and clean (1 Tim 2:10, Rev 19:8).  How much better is the deliverance of the true Gideon, who both rescues his people and arrays them in the white garments of a holy priesthood!

            Finally, Judges records the chronicle of the concubine of the Levite who “played the whore” against him (Judg 19:1-2).  Although the Levite journeyed to Bethlehem and sought her out to speak kindly to her heart (Judg 19:3), the “rescue” of his concubine was marred when he placed her in a terrible jeopardy during the night in Gibeah, and he slept while she was cruelly violated unto death (Judg 19:22-30). Thereupon the Levite carved up the body of his concubine into twelve pieces and distributed them among the tribes of Israel (Judg 19:29).

            How different is the priestly love of the Lord Jesus!  For like the Levite, He too seeks us in our harlotry,[519] and speaks to our hearts to woo us back to faithfulness.  But He does not abandon us in our distress.  Rather, to protect His betrothed He suffers Himself to be cruelly violated unto death.   And He suffers His own body to be broken and given to the twelve disciples, who represent the twelve tribes of the New Israel.  How much better is the love of the Lord Jesus, who offers a better priesthood! 

The Centripetal Dynamic of the House of David:

A Typology of Tragedy

The great fall of David’s royal house began quite inconspicuously on an evening in springtime, with a walk on the roof of the royal palace in Jerusalem.[520] David the king arose from lying upon his bed and while walking he happened to see the wife of Uriah, who lived close to the royal palace (2 Sam 11:2). The woman was very beautiful, but she was another man’s wife.  Nonetheless David sent for her and she came to him (2 Sam 11:4).  After she became pregnant by David, he summoned her husband back from battle.  But Uriah refused the request of the king to go down to his house (2 Sam 11:10). So David wrote a letter concerning Uriah, and sent it to Joab, the commander over the siege of Rabbah (2 Sam11:14).  And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the front of the battle…that he might be struck down that he might die” (2 Sam 11:15).  Thus Uriah was struck down outside the city (2 Sam 11:23-24), and he died (2 Sam11:24). Then David took the wife of Uriah to himself (2 Sam11:27). But what David did was evil in the eyes of the Lord (2 Sam11:27, 12:9). So the Lord sent His prophet to rebuke David, and to charge him with killing Uriah and taking possession of his wife (2 Sam12:9). Then the prophet told David that God would judge his house (2 Sam12:10-11), a judgment that caused David to fast and humble himself before the Lord (2 Sam12:16).           

David’s sin against Uriah is similar to the sin of another king in Israel nearly two centuries later.  The chronicler of the kings borrows from the language and the pattern used in the account of David’s sin to describe the wickedness of Ahab in the matter of Naboth’s vineyard.  Compare the following account of Ahab to that of David.

Ahab, the king of Samaria, wanted the vineyard of Naboth, which was close to the royal palace (1 Kgs 21:1).  Naboth refused the request of the king to buy or exchange the property, stating that the vineyard was the inheritance of his fathers (1 Kgs 21:3).  When Queen Jezebel came to him and found Ahab sulking in his bed, she rebuked him, reminding him that he was king over Israel, and assuring him that she would secure the vineyard (1 Kgs 21:7).  And so Jezebel wrote letters concerning Naboth, and sent them to the elders of the city (1 Kgs 21:8).  And she wrote in the letters, saying, “Set Naboth at the head of the people…and then stone him that he might die” (1 Kgs 21:9-10).  And they did so, and took Naboth outside the city and stoned him and he died (1 Kgs 21:13).  Then Ahab arose from his bed and went down to take Naboth’s vineyard to himself (1 Kgs 21:16).  But what he had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord (1 Kgs 21:20).  So the Lord sent His prophet to rebuke Ahab, and to charge him with killing Naboth and taking possession of his vineyard (1 Kgs 21:19). And the prophet told Ahab that God would judge his house (1 Kgs 21:22), a judgment that caused Ahab to fast and humble himself before the Lord (1 Kgs 21:27-29).  

It is astonishing to see that the sin of David was recognized by the sacred chronicler as providing the prophetic pattern for interpreting the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel.  But there is still another pattern we should consider.  Let’s begin by viewing the familiar facts of David’s sin from a slightly different angle, in order to appreciate the multifarious nature of his sin in the matter of Uriah’s wife, and how it typifies yet another royal house that received a prophetic rebuke. 

            The story of David’s sin is an account of royal adultery and murder.  King David sent for and took the wife of Uriah (2 Sam 11:1,4). After she became pregnant, David recalled her husband from battle and made a feast so that Uriah would eat and drink and be made drunk (2 Sam 11:13). But Uriah would not go down to his house, and swore an oath by the life of the king not to do so (2 Sam 11:11).  So David sent a letter to have Uriah killed (2 Sam 11:14-15). Joab reported to the king that Uriah was dead, and that the manner of his death recalled Abimelech of Thebez, who was killed by a woman crushing his head (2 Sam 11:21). But the Lord sent His prophet to remind the king of God’s goodness in giving him the two-fold kingdom of Israel and Judah (2 Sam 12:8) and to rebuke David for violating the commandment by taking another man’s wife as his wife (2 Sam 12:9).

            The Gospels of Matthew and Mark likewise record an account of royal adultery and murder, a thousand years after David.  King Herod sent and seized John the Baptist and put him in prison (Mark 6:17, cf. Matt 14:1-12).  He did this because John had told him that it was not lawful for him to have the wife of his brother (Mark 6:17-18). [521]  Now during a great feast Herod swore an oath and promised his wife’s daughter to give her whatever she should want, up to half his kingdom (Mark 6:22). But she chose rather to have John killed, for her mother had wanted John’s severed head to be given to her on a platter (Mark 6:24-25).  So Herod sent word (Mark 6:27), and God’s prophet (Mark 11:32) was killed (Mark 6:19).

The pattern of royal sin, prophetic rebuke, and divine judgment that we are observing from the books of 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Matthew and Mark suggests the possibility that we may move inductively toward an archetype of biblical tragedy, thereby identifying a significant aspect of the contours of the biblical metanarrative.  This prospect is reinforced when we notice another feature of the pattern we have identified embedded in the accounts of the tyrannical sins of David, Ahab, and Herod.  The innocent victim of the crime of the king is, in each case, a type of Christ in His suffering and death.  Let’s examine this pattern expressed in the accounts of the murders of Uriah, Naboth, and John the Baptist.

Uriah the Hittite was innocent yet delivered over to death at the hands of the Gentiles by the betrayal of David, Israel’s king.[522]  He was pierced by arrows outside the gate of the city (2 Sam 11:23-24).  In all of this we can see a type of Christ, who was likewise innocent yet delivered over to the Gentiles by the treachery of His own people (Acts 3:13), and who was pierced with a spear outside the gate of Jerusalem (John 19:34, Heb 13:12).

Naboth refused to yield over his vineyard, the inheritance of his fathers, to Ahab.  The king and queen of Samaria determined to kill the owner of the vineyard in order to take it as their own (1 Kgs 21:6-7). Consequently, on an appointed holy day, two false witnesses were set before Naboth to charge him with cursing God and the king (1 Kgs 21:9-10).  Although he was innocent, Naboth was taken outside the city and stoned to death (1 Kgs 21:13).  In all of this we can see a type of Christ, who was likewise zealous of His inheritance, the vineyard of His Father (Mark 12:1-12).  The religious leaders of Jerusalem, however, determined to kill Him in order to take the vineyard for themselves (Mark 12:7, 12).  False witnesses were summoned against Jesus upon a holy day, witnesses who charged Him with blasphemy against God (Mark 14:60, 64) and the king (John 19:12).  Although Jesus was likewise innocent, nonetheless He was taken outside the city, killed, and buried in a tomb sealed with a great stone (John 19:20, Mark 15:46).

John the Baptist was taken and bound by Herod because he had challenged the lawfulness of Herod’s marriage (Mark 6:17-18).  Herod wanted to kill him, but was afraid because he knew John was a just man (Mark 6:19-20).  But Herod’s wife demanded the death of John.  So Herod, perplexed but bound by the opinion of his guests, had John beheaded in the prison (Mark 6:24-27).  Afterwards John’s body was given to his disciples, who took it away and laid it in a tomb (Mark 6:29).  In all of this we can see a type of Christ, who was likewise taken in bonds (Mark 14:1, 15:1).  The chief priests and the scribes wanted to kill Him (Mark 14:1), but they were fearful of a riot of the people (Mark 14:2).  Pilate likewise knew that Jesus was a just Man (Matt 27:19,24).  He was perplexed but bound by the opinion of the crowds, and so he delivered Jesus over to be crucified (Mark 15:15, cf. 12:4).  Afterwards Jesus’ body was given to His disciples, who took it away and laid it in a tomb (John 19:38, Mark 15:45-46).

We have seen how the story of David’s sin is used as the pattern for the tragic fall of a royal house by the illicit murder of an innocent subject. [523]  But David’s sin also provides the pattern of the pride that anticipates a royal fall.  Once again let’s consider the sin of David from a slightly different perspective.  We will then be able to see how the prophet relates David to another king who paralleled his rise and fall.

David the king was at the height of his reign, enjoying rest from all his enemies.  Emblematic of the height to which he had come was his bed, where he was at ease in his kingdom (2 Sam 7:1, 11:1-2).[524] At the turning of the season, David rose from his sleep and was walking upon the roof of his palace (2 Sam 11:2).  As he walked that night, he forgot that the Most High rules over all the earth, and so he committed great sin (Psa 51:4).  Nathan the prophet was sent to David to tell and interpret a parable for the king.  In responding to the prophet, David ironically judged his own sin as one of showing no compassion to the poor (2 Sam 12:2,6).  Dramatically, the prophet announced to the king, “You are the man!” (2 Sam 12:7) As a consequence of his sin, David was told that he would be judged severely for having despised the Lord God (2 Sam 12:9, Psa 51:4).  He would be driven out of Jerusalem (2 Sam 15:14), and his royal house would be cut down, like the fall of a great tree, leaving only a stump and its roots in the earth as a promise of the restoration of his kingdom (Isa 11:1).

Four centuries after David another oriental monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was at ease in his house and flourishing in his palace (Dan 4:4).  While resting upon his bed, he dreamed of a great tree that grew and filled the earth (Dan 4:5).  But the great tree was suddenly cut down, leaving only the stump with its roots in the ground to give hope of restoration (Dan 4:10-17, 26).  Daniel the prophet was summoned by the king to interpret the dream for him (Dan 4:8).  Dramatically, the prophet announced to the king, “You are the tree!” (Dan 4:22). Daniel told the king that his sin was to be judged severely so that he might learn to acknowledge that the Most High reigns over the earth, and so show mercy to the afflicted (Dan 4:27).  And so at the turning of the year, the king was walking upon the roof of his palace in Babylon (Dan 4:29).  The king had forgotten the word of the prophet, and was considering all the power of his glory and majesty in the city he had built.  While he was so contemplating, word of his great fall came, telling him that he would be driven out of Babylon, and reduced and humbled until he acknowledged the Most High (Dan 4:31-32).  Thereupon his kingdom would be restored to him (Dan 4:36-37).[525]

We have observed the pattern of David’s sin in the matter of the wife of Uriah, and its typicality with regard to several other crimes of royal houses.  The universality of David’s disobedience, however, suggests that it is paradigmatic of moral rebellion in a far more general sense.  This aspect of the account is best understood as David’s sin is articulated into its various parts.  Let’s consider the chronicler’s account of David’s sin analytically, comparing his crime to the Ten Commandments of the law of Moses.

David’s Sin and the Ten Commandments

The account takes place in the springtime, when kings should go forth to battle (2 Sam 11:2).[526]  The chronicler charges David with neglecting this royal responsibility by contrasting his sense of duty with that of Uriah, who foregoes the restful pleasures of his bed while the captain and the armies of Israel, as well as the sacred ark, are camped in the open field of battle (2 Sam 11:11). David’s dalliance in Jerusalem itself contrasts with his leadership in the open field during an earlier phase of the Ammonite campaign, described in 2 Samuel 10:17-19.  It is clear contextually that Israel was not at rest from enemies, yet David had appointed his own sabbath season. 

The account of the fall of David begins with a violation of the sabbath duty to labor in the season of work (Exod 20:6, cf. 2 Sam 11:1).  David sees the daughter of Eliam in her bath and covets her, even after learning that she is also the wife of Uriah (Exod 20:17, cf. 2 Sam 11:3).  The character of covetousness is idolatry (Exod 20:4-5, cf. Col 3:5), but David nonetheless sends for the woman and brings her up from Uriah’s house.  In doing this he despises the word of God, and sins against the only Lord God (Exod 20:3, cf. Psa 51:4).  He steals the wife of his neighbor (Exod 20:15, cf. 2 Sam 12:4,9) and commits adultery with her (Exod 20:14, cf. 2 Sam 11:4).  In doing so David dishonors his father and mother, who had put the mark of the covenant of Abraham upon his own flesh (Exod 20:12, cf. 1 Sam 17:26).  After the woman is found with child, David plots to have her husband sleep with her in order to disguise the child’s true paternity by false witness (Exod 20:16, cf. 2 Sam 11:8). When his plan fails, David kills Uriah by the sword of the Ammonite (Exod 20:13, cf. 2 Sam 12: 9).  In all of this the prophet Nathan charges David with having given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme the name of the Lord (Exod 20:7, cf. 2 Sam 12:14).[527] 

David’s sin, considered analytically, illustrates the apostle’s teaching that “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). The same doctrine is evident when David’s sin is considered synthetically as well.  Moses required the future king of Israel to make a copy of the law and to keep it before him all the days of his life (Deut 17:18-29).  It is instructive to consider the sin of David in the matter of Uriah’s wife as it is contextualized for David out of the books of Moses. Let’s begin by rehearsing the account of the fall of man.  We will then consider the sin of Israel’s king as it is compared to the similitude of Adam’s transgression.

David’s Sin and the Fall of Man

The great archetype of biblical tragedy is the fall of Adam and the woman in the pleasant garden of Eden.[528]  Adam was taken from the dust of the ground and given a pleasant garden for his delight.  A bride was given to the man as well, one made of his very “bone and flesh”(Gen 2:23).  The man received his wife (Gen 2:23), and they were both innocent, betokened by their nakedness without shame (Gen 2:25).  God gave abundantly to them, but forbad them from partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, lest they die (Gen 2:16-17).  The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was beautiful, however, and so she took of its fruit and ate and gave to her husband with her, although God had said that they should surely die (Gen 3:6).  The man and the woman then knew fear and shame (Gen 3:10),[529] and made coverings for themselves (Gen 3:7).  God reproved their disobedience, but they did not yet die, although they were under the sentence of death (Gen 3:19).  Nonetheless they were driven out of the pleasant garden.  A fiery sword turning every way was set forever to prevent their reentering the pleasant garden of innocence, as they were driven eastward (Gen 3:24).  As a token of the sin they had brought upon their seed, their son killed his brother (Gen 4:8).

God, who had first planted a garden in Eden (Gen 2:8), afterwards planted a vineyard in Canaan (Deut 6:11, Isa 5:1).[530]  And He took David from the pasture and made him ruler over Israel, the vineyard of the Lord (2 Sam 7:8, cf. Isa 5:1). After the death of Saul all the tribes of Israel came to David and joined themselves to him as a bride to her husband, saying, “behold, we are your bone and flesh” (2 Sam 5:1).[531] Thereafter when the ark of the Lord was returned to David’s city, the king uncovered himself and danced before the Lord without shame (2 Sam 6:14-20). Similarly, the wife of Uriah was afterwards at her bath.  She too was uncovered and without shame (2 Sam 11:2). When David saw that the woman was beautiful, he took her and knew her (2 Sam 11:2-4), although the penalty in law was that they should surely die (2 Sam 11:2-4, cf. Lev 20:10).[532]  When the woman was found to be pregnant, David attempted to cover his shameful deeds (2 Sam 11:6-25).  But God’s prophet came to David.  He charged him with his sin, saying, “You are the man!” (2 Sam 12:7), but he further announced that David would not yet die (2 Sam 12:13).  Nonetheless David would be driven out of Jerusalem (2 Sam 15:14), making his way to the east (2 Sam 15:30).  He was told that the sword that devoured the one as well as the other would never depart his house (2 Sam12:10, cf. 11:25).[533] And finally, as a token of the judgment he had brought upon his seed, David would know the sorrow of a son who killed his brother (2 Sam 13:28).

The verbal and thematic correspondence between Adam’s fall and the fall of David demonstrate the centrality of their roles as federal representatives in the history of redemption.  But the articulation of David’s disobedience in the matter of Uriah is further contextualized in the law of Moses.  Let’s continue by comparing the account of David and Uriah to the record of Cain and Abel.

David’s Sin and Cain and Abel

Two sons were born to one mother (Gen 4:1-2).  Abel, the younger brother, was a keeper of flocks, but Cain, the elder brother, tended the ground (Gen 4:2).  In the course of time they brought their sacrifices.  The Lord rejected the sacrifice of Cain, however, and he became very angry (Gen 4:6). Cain was warned that sin was crouching at the door, but admonished that he should nonetheless rule over it (Gen 4:7).  Thereafter Cain spoke familiarly with Abel. But he purposed murder in his heart, even though as the elder he should have protected his younger brother (Gen 4:8).  When they were in the field, Cain rose up and killed his brother (Gen 4:8).  So Cain was driven from the face of God to the east (Gen 4:14).  But God spared and protected Cain’s life (Gen 4:15).  Afterwards his wife bore a son to Cain, and he founded a great city (Gen 4:17).

Two men lived in one city (2 Sam 12:1); one was a rich king and the other his poor subject (2 Sam 11:7).[534]  David had many flocks, but Uriah, had only a little lamb (2 Sam 12:3).  The king, however, wanted the lamb of the poor man.  This displayed a lack of pity that should cause a just king to be very angry (2 Sam 12:5-6). Now Uriah showed his loyalty to the king during wartime by resting at the door of the king’s house (2 Sam 11:9), [535] but this frustrated David’s plans against him.  Nonetheless David spoke familiarly with Uriah, even though he purposed murder against him (2 Sam 11:13).  Although the king should have protected his subject, David gave orders so that Uriah was killed in the field of battle (2 Sam 11:14-15, 23-24).  God spared the life of David, however, although he was to be driven east from the city of the king (2 Sam 15:30).  Afterwards his wife bore a son to David (2 Sam 12:24), and he captured a great city (2 Sam 12:29).[536]

Moses required the king of Israel to keep a copy of the law before him all the days of his life.  It is instructive to rehearse how David would have read the Torah after his sin in the matter of the wife of Uriah.  Let’s continue our examination of the first book of Moses in this light.

David’s Sin and the Generation of Noah

            Now it came about that as men began to multiply on the earth that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful; and they took wives to themselves, whomever they would choose (Gen 6:2), and so the earth was filled with violence (Gen 6:13).  And God said, “My Spirit will not always strive with men” (Gen 6:3).  And they bore children to them (Gen 6:4).  But God repented that He had made man, for the imagination of his heart was only evil continually (Gen 6:5).  So God said, “I will blot out man whom I have made” (Gen 6:7).

            Now David saw the daughter of Eliam that she was beautiful (2 Sam 11:2-3); and he took her (2 Sam 11:4) to himself as a wife (2 Sam11:27), even though she was the wife of Uriah (2 Sam 11:3). But David besought the Lord for his sin, asking that the Lord might not take His Holy Spirit from him (Psa 51:11).[537]  He also prayed for a new heart (Psa 51:10), that God would blot out his transgression (Psa 51: 9), for he would have to be delivered from evil (2 Sam 12:9) and bloodguiltiness (Psa 51:4). Thereafter the daughter of Eliam bore a child to him (2 Sam 12:24).[538] 

David’s Sin and Noah’s Fall

            God in grace established His everlasting covenant upon Noah and his seed after He had cut off all flesh from upon the earth (Gen 9:8-11) and had given Noah rest upon the mountain (Gen 8:4).  So God blessed Noah and told him to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, only that man was to shed no blood, for God would require the life of the man who shed the blood of his brother so that he should die (Gen 9:1-7).  And Noah planted a vineyard upon the mountains of Ararat (Gen 9:20).  And in a great revolt against God’s grace in giving him the covenant, Noah drank from his wine and became drunk and shamefully naked (Gen 9:21).  Now Noah was unable to cover his own nakedness, so it was covered by others (Gen 9:23).  And Noah awoke from his wine to pronounce a terrible curse upon his seed because of what his youngest son had done to him (Gen 9:24).

            God in grace established His everlasting covenant upon David and his seed (2 Sam 7:13, Psa 89:3-4) after He had cut off all his enemies and had given David rest in the land (2 Sam 7:1,9).  Now the Lord had planted Israel like a vineyard upon the mountain of his inheritance (2 Sam 7:10, cf. Isa 5:1-7), and given David dominion over all the earth (Psa 2:8). But in a great revolt against God’s grace in giving him the covenant, David caused Uriah to drink and to become drunk, hoping so to cover the king’s shameful nakedness in the matter of Uriah’s wife.  But having failed his purpose, when Uriah awoke in the morning among David’s servants, the king commanded that Uriah be killed.  And so David was charged with blood (Psa 51:14), and was worthy of death (2 Sam 12:9).[539]  Nonetheless David’s sin was covered by God (Psa 32:1), but God pronounced judgment that David’s youngest son would die (2 Sam 12:14). 

David’s Sin and Abraham in Egypt

            Now as Abraham journeyed out of the land of promise toward Egypt, he spoke to Sarai his wife and said, “I know that you are a woman of a beautiful appearance. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ And they will kill me, but they will let you live.  Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me” (Gen 12:11-13).  And it came about that the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.  And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house (Gen 12:14-15).  And pharaoh gave gifts to Abraham (Gen 12:16).  But the Lord judged pharaoh’s house because of Abram’s wife (Gen 12:17). So pharaoh called Abram and reproved him, saying, “What is this you have done to me?  Why did you say, ‘she is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife?” (Gen 12:18).

            Now David was king over all Israel.  And as he walked upon the roof of the house of the king he saw a woman bathing who was of a beautiful appearance.  And he asked concerning her and was told, “Is this not the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?” (2 Sam 11:2-3).  Nonetheless David sent and took her and she came to him to his house and he lay with her (2 Sam 11:4). Afterwards David the king gave gifts to Uriah (2 Sam 11:8).  But the Lord judged David’s house because of Uriah’s wife, because he had taken her to be his wife (2 Sam 12:10).  And God’s prophet reproved David, saying, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight?  You have struck down Uriah with the sword,[540] and you took his wife to be your wife” (2 Sam 12:9).

David’s Sin and Lot’s Daughters

            After God delivered Lot from Sodom, his daughters determined to make their father drink wine in order that they might conceive by him.  They planned this because they believed there were no men left to come to them. So upon a night they induced their father to drink wine, and the older daughter came and lay with her father (Gen 19:33).  On the next day they had Lot drink again, and the younger daughter came to him and lay with her father also (Gen 19:35). So both daughters conceived by their father (Gen 19:37).  The older daughter bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites (Gen 19:37).[541]  The younger daughter also bore a son and called his name Ben Ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon (Gen 19:38).

            After God had delivered David from all his enemies, he determined to make Uriah drink so that he would lie with his wife (2 Sam 11:8-11).[542]  He planned this because the wife of Uriah had come to David and he had lain with her and she had conceived a son by him (2 Sam 11:4-5, 27).  On the first night, however, Uriah refused to drink and to lay with his wife while the armies of Israel were in the field against the sons of Ammon (2 Sam 11:1, 11).  On the next day, however, David made Uriah drink with him until he was drunk. But still Uriah refused to go to his wife (2 Sam 11:11).  Afterwards David took the city of the sons of Ammon, and placed the crown of their king upon his head (2 Sam 12:30).[543]

David’s Sin and Abraham in Gerar

Now Abraham sojourned in Gerar.  And the king of Gerar sent for Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and took her (Gen 20:2).  But God came to Abimelech in a dream and said. “You are as a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife” (Gen 20:3).  But Abimelech had not known that she was another man’s wife.  So God had kept Abimelech from sinning against Him (Gen 20:6).  Then the king returned Sarah to Abraham, and because Abraham was a prophet he prayed for the king that he might not die (Gen 20:7).  And Abimelech asked Abraham why he had done this thing (Gen 20:9).  And Abraham answered, “I said, “Surely there is no fear of God in this place, for they will kill me for my wife’” (Gen 20:11).[544]  Now Abimelech gave gifts to Abraham (Gen 20:14).  And then the wife of Abimelech gave birth again (Gen 20: 17).

            Now Uriah the Hittite dwelt in the land of Israel.  But David the king saw Uriah’s wife and sent for her and took her (2 Sam 11:2,4).  But the Lord sent Nathan to tell him “You are the man” who had done evil (2 Sam 12:7). For David had taken the wife of another man as his wife (2 Sam 12:9).  And after David had given a gift to Uriah (2 Sam 11:8), he had had Uriah put to death in battle (2 Sam 11:24) by a means that recalled the death of Abimelech at Thebez (2 Sam 11:21).[545]  So God asked David, “Why did you despise the word of the Lord to kill Uriah with the sword of Ammon and to take his wife as your wife” (2 Sam 12:9). But Nathan the prophet told David, “You will not die” (2 Sam 12:13,25). Afterwards David confessed that he had sinned against the Lord; then his wife gave birth to a son (2 Sam 12:24).  

David’s Sin and Isaac at Gerar

            Isaac sojourned in Gerar like his father Abraham.  Upon a day Abimelech,[546] the king of the Philistines, was looking out of his window and chanced to see Isaac being intimate with Rebekah, his wife (Gen 26:8).  Now the men of the city had asked about the woman and Isaac had said that she was his sister (Gen 26:7).  Isaac said this because his wife was beautiful in appearance (Gen 26:7) and he was afraid that he would die because of her (Gen 26:9).  So Abimelech reproved Isaac and said, “What have you done to us? One of the people might have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us” (Gen 26:10).  So the king commanded that anyone who touched Isaac’s wife should surely die (Gen 26:11). Afterwards Isaac prospered and had many flocks and herds (Gen 26:14).

            Now upon a day David, the king of Israel, was walking upon his roof and chanced to see a woman bathing (2 Sam 11:2).  The woman was beautiful in appearance (2 Sam 11:2).  So David asked about her and was told that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11:3).  But nonetheless David took the woman and lay with her (2 Sam 11:4).  Then he killed Uriah, her husband (2 Sam 12:9).  But God reproved David and said, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord?” (2 Sam 12:9). Now David had done evil in the eyes of the Lord, for he was like a rich man who had many flocks and herds, yet he took the sole ewe lamb of a poor man (2 Sam 12:2), for which lack of pity he was worthy of death (2 Sam 12:5). 

David’s Sin and Jacob at Shechem

            Now it happened that Shechem, the prince of the Hivites, saw the daughter of Jacob (Gen 34:1-2) and he took her and lay with her (Gen 34:2).[547]  And he asked Jacob to take her as his wife (Gen 34:2). But when the sons of Jacob came in from the field and heard the matter, they were very angry (Gen 34:7), for Shechem had treated the daughter of Jacob as a whore (Gen 34:31).  So they deceived the Shechemites in the matter of circumcision and they killed them with the sword (Gen 34:26).  Then they took all their flocks and herds (Gen 34:28).  But they had made Jacob odious to the uncircumcised in the land (Gen 34:30).

            Now David the king saw the daughter of Eliam and he took her and lay with her (2 Sam 11: 3-4).  The woman, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, conceived.  And David tried to deceive Uriah into going down to his house to sleep with his wife (2 Sam 11:8).  When the deceit failed, David killed Uriah in the field with the sword of the Ammonites (2 Sam 11:23,12:9).[548]  Then he took Uriah’s wife as his wife (2 Sam 12:9). But this was evil in the eyes of the Lord (2 Sam 11:27).  Nathan told him about a man rich in flocks and herds who had stolen the ewe lamb of a poor man.  David became very angry, and judged the man worthy of death (2 Sam 12:2-5).  David had judged himself however, and Nathan told him that his deed had made the uncircumcised to blaspheme against the Lord (2 Sam 12:14).

David’s Sin and Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife

            Now Joseph was fair in appearance (Gen 39:7). And Potiphar’s wife lifted her eyes to look upon Joseph and she said, “Lie with me!” (Gen 39:7).  But Joseph refused because of his gratitude to his master who had given everything to him.  No one was greater in the house than he. His master had only withheld her because she was his wife.  How then, said Joseph, could he do this evil and sin against God? (Gen 39:8-9).  So Joseph fled from her, leaving his garment behind. But Potiphar’s wife took Joseph’s garment and used it to deceive her husband.  And when Potiphar was told all of this, he was very angry (Gen 39:16-19).

            Now the wife of Uriah was beautiful in appearance (2 Sam 11:2). And David sent for her and lay with her (2 Sam 11:4).  And after she conceived David tried to deceive her husband (2 Sam 11:8).[549] But the matter was evil in the eyes of the Lord (2 Sam 11: 27).  Now the Lord rebuked David through Nathan’s parable to show him what he had done.  And David was very angry (2 Sam 12:5).  And the Lord reproved David for his ingratitude and said that He had given him the house of his master as well as his master’s wives (2 Sam 12:8). And if that had been too little, He would have added yet more (2 Sam 12:8).[550]  So David confessed, and said that he had sinned against the Lord (2 Sam 12:13).

David’s Sin and the Book of Exodus

            We have been reviewing David’s great sin in view of Moses’ requirement that the king of Israel keep with him a copy of the law of God all the days of his life.  We first considered David’s sin in light of the Ten Commandments, which are the central message the Pentateuch, published in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. We will continue our exploration of the tragic dimension of David’s sin by selecting those passages in the remaining books of Moses that seem to be most pertinent to our study. 

            In his judgment upon the rich man who stole the poor man’s ewe lamb, as told in Nathan’s parable, David renders judgment against this hypothetical offender according to the law of retribution recorded in Exodus 22:1.  That law requires the following, “If a man steals a … sheep and slaughters it…he shall pay four times for the sheep.”  David tells Nathan that the rich man who had taken the poor man’s one ewe lamb “must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion” (2 Sam 12:6).

            Instructively, David loses four sons to the “sword” that will not be removed from his house (2 Sam 12:10).  The son conceived in sin perished (2 Sam 12:18).[551]  Amnon was slain (2 Sam 13:29). Absalom was slain (2 Sam 18:15). And Adonijah was slain upon David’s death, completing the tally of the four-fold justice David had pronounced against his own house (1 Kgs 2:23-25). The talionic principle of God’s justice is stated in Exodus 21:23-25.  Its application against David in the death of his sons is a fearful commentary on the precision of divine retribution.  Let’s consider the account of the deaths of his sons, and how they taught David the victimizer how to understand the heart of the victims of his crimes.

            David had sinned against the house of Uriah, who was apparently a convert to the covenant Lord from among the uncircumcised Hittites (2 Sam 11:3).  Moreover, David was charged with having dishonored the name of the Lord among the uncircumcised (2 Sam 12:14). Now the son of David conceived in sin died on the seventh day, before he would have received circumcision, the sign of the covenant of Abraham (Gen 17:12), the covenant whose great purpose was to bring blessing to all the nations of the earth (Gen 12:3).

            Amnon violated the purity of his sister, an act that recalled the sin of David against the purity of Uriah’s wife.  Upon hearing that Amnon had defiled Tamar, David was very angry (2 Sam 13:21).  He had likewise been very angry against the rich man in Nathan’s parable, the one who represented David’s own crimes (2 Sam 12:5). For in all of this David learned the heartache of a father whose daughter had been defiled, even as he had defiled the daughter of Eliam (2 Sam 11:3).[552]

            Moreover, Absalom’s multifarious treachery recalled David’s many-faceted crime. Absalom purposed the murder of Amnon, even as David had planned the murder of Uriah.[553]  Like David, he delegated the murder to men under his authority who struck him unawares and killed him (2 Sam 13:28-29). Moreover, Absalom made rebellion against his father and defied him by taking David’s concubines upon the royal roof where David had first desired to take the wife of Uriah (2 Sam 16:22). So David learned the heartache of a man whose wife had been defiled, even as he had defiled the wife of Uriah (2 Sam 11:3). Moreover, David had charged Joab to slay Uriah, and admonished the commander not to grieve at the deed once done (2 Sam 11:14-15, 25). However, David charged Joab not to slay Absalom (2 Sam 18:5), and would not be consoled after Joab did so (2 Sam 18:32-33, 19:1).

            Finally, David became pitiably infirm in his old age.  So his servants secured Abishag, a beautiful young virgin, that she might come to David to sleep in his bosom and keep him warm (1 Kgs 1:2).  The chronicler is certainly alluding to the ewe lamb that was the sole delight of the poor man in Nathan’s parable, the ewe that “slept in his bosom” (2 Sam 12:3). Just as David had unjustly taken the “ewe” that belonged to another, so Adonijah asked for Abishag (1 Kgs 2:21).  And just as David had judged the one taking the ewe lamb to be worthy of death (2 Sam 12:5), so Solomon pronounced death upon David’s fourth son (1 Kgs 2:25).  

David’s Sin and the Book of Leviticus

            The law of Moses required the magistrate in Israel to apply one law both to the sojourner and to the native born, for the Lord of the Covenant is God (Lev 24:22, cf. 2 Sam 12:1).  There was to be no difference due to status.  Moreover, the law of Moses required an impartiality in justice, such that the poor as well as the strong might be governed by the same justice (Lev 19:15, cf. 2 Sam 12:3).  Therefore the Hittite sojourner was entitled to the same equity as the king of Israel. Further, the law of Moses enjoined the sons of the covenant to walk in the fear of God that they might not do harm to one another (Lev 25:17).  This admonition recalls the sin of Abraham in Gerar.  Abraham fell into great sin in the matter of Sarah because, he said, “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place; and they will kill me because of my wife” (Gen 26:11). Finally, the law of Moses forbad a man to lie with his neighbor’s wife (Lev 18:20, cf. 2 Sam 11:4).

David’s Sin and the Book of Numbers

            The great sin of presumption is stated in Numbers 15:30-31.  “But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is a native or a sojourner, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that one shall be cut off from among the people.  He has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment.  He shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.”  And as God charged David through His prophet, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His eyes? …Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, for you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah as your wife.” (2 Sam 12:9-10).[554]  And for such despising of the word of the Lord, when the cup of David’s own iniquity had been made full, Israel was to be cast out of the Land, and suffer the bitterness of exile (2 Chron 36:15-16).

David’s Sin and the Book of Deuteronomy

            The law of Moses charged the king of Israel not to multiply wives to himself, lest his heart turn away from the Lord (Deut 17:17, cf. 2 Sam 12:9). Moreover, the law pronounced a curse upon the man who would strike his neighbor in secret (Deut 27:24, cf. 2 Sam 11:14-15). Moses also required the death of a man found lying with the wife of another man (Deut 22:22, cf. 2 Sam 11:3-4). He was to be taken outside of the gate and put to death, the very place where Uriah was killed at the king’s command (Deut 22:24, cf. 2 Sam 11:23). And David did all of this, causing a great despising of the Lord (2 Sam 12:14).  This despising of the Lord, which David began, when fully expressed in Israel, would cause the captivity of the covenant people (2 Chron 36:16).

The Tragic Abyss in the Bible

            In the sacred commentary on King Abijam of Judah, the chronicler of the kings describes his reign in this remarkable manner:  “And he walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David.  But for David’s sake the Lord gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem; because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite” (1 Kgs 15:3-5).

            David’s reign is the standard by which is reckoned the righteousness of all the kings of Judah.  But the chronicler concedes that the royal standard itself misses the mark.  David’s great transgression in the matter of Uriah the Hittite mars the memory of Israel’s greatest king.  We are left longing for some greater King to come.  We are prompted to dream of a King who is greater than David.  A King who would not defile the bride of the Gentile and then murder her husband.  A King who in love would rather suffer defilement and death Himself if by so doing He could give life and restore purity to all His subjects, Jew and Gentile alike.

            What may we learn of biblical tragedy from the example of David?  The tragic dimension of the fall of David’s house is universal in its application.  It suits all manner of sin.  It shows us the terrible integrity of the law, that to violate in one part is to violate the whole.  But the pattern of David’s sin is not merely a rehearsal of the sins of patriarchs and pagans. The antitype of his transgression is always more aggravated than its type.  It is the contrary of the comparative “better” of the new covenant, for David’s sin is always “worse.”[555]

            David’s “great transgression” plumbs the depths of the tragic abyss in Scripture.  The consistency of his tragic hamartia is remarkable in that it appears to be an articulation of the fall of so many retold in the sin of David. What a waxen nose is David’s wickedness!  How his sin appears to contain all others!

What is that so fatal flaw that emerges to give pattern to the tragic drama?  We note that there is often a “seeing and taking.” Eve, the generation of Noah, Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Shechem, and David exemplify this pattern.  Moreover, these actions appear almost always to lead to the defilement of a woman.  Eve is deceived and abandoned by her husband in her need.  The sons of God abandon their covenant for the daughters of men.  Abraham jeopardizes the purity of Sarah.  Isaac ventures the virtue of Rebekah. Shechem defiles Jacob’s daughter. And David takes the honor of Uriah’s wife.  Other patterns that are not initiated with seeing and taking may also lead to defilement, as with Lot’s daughters and Potiphar’s wife. Moreover, tragic sin leads to death or the threat of death in the curse.  Such is the case with Adam, the generation of Noah, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Shechem and the sons of Jacob, and David. Moreover, Joseph is condemned to prison in Egypt, suffering thereby an emblematic death. 

            The pattern of Biblical tragedy appears to be an action (often initiated by seeing and taking) that leads to the defiling of a woman, resulting in death. It is most often the consequence of the action of a man or men.  But Lot’s daughters and Potiphar’s wife demonstrate that the predator can be a woman as well.[556]

            It is in this light that we can better understand the complementarity of Biblical tragedy and comedy.  In our companion paper on the Samson typology we identified the pattern of Biblical comedy exemplified through Joshua, just as we have now observed Biblical tragedy to be exemplified through David.  David defiles a woman and murders her husband.  But Joshua rescues Rahab, defiled by sin, from a fiery death. If the essence of sinful tragedy is the victimization of the feminine, salvific comedy is the rescue.

The Centripetal Dynamic of the House of David

Now if David represents the pattern of the tragic fall of a royal house, how does the biblical metanarrative make the redemptive transition from tragedy to comedy?  We should begin by observing that the David narrative is in two parts.  David’s rise to the kingdom reflects the comic trajectory of a movement from low to high. The central message of the books of Samuel shows how the right and title to the throne of Israel is given perpetually to the house of David (2 Sam 7:16).  God settles His kingdom upon David with a covenant whose sure mercy can never be abrogated.  The sin of David and his sons is anticipated (2 Sam 7:14), but the promissory covenant of David is unilateral, God establishing David’s house and kingdom forever (2 Sam 7:15-16).

In describing David’s preservation from the dynastic challenge of Saul, the chronicler notes the character of the band that assembled around the young king-in-waiting in the wilderness.  In a comment utterly astonishing for a book designed to assert David’s royal claim, the chronicler writes, “and everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to (David)” (1 Sam 22:2).  Although this comment constitutes a strange gloss as a “mirror of princes” in a fundamentally monarchical treatise, it appears to serve a far greater metanarrative purpose.  From the very beginning, it seems, the house of David attracts the most unlikely and the most disagreeable sorts.  Rogues and renegades constitute the Davidic court-in-waiting.  In short, the standard of David is a refuge for misfits and sinners.

Now the roguish company of David’s beginning is the basis for the comic trajectory that leads through his struggle with Saul to his triumph in a royal palace in Jerusalem.  David’s emblematic victory over Saul, who like Goliath comes against him with a spear but is at last beheaded and stripped of his armor, represents the epic struggle from which comedy can emerge (1 Sam 31:8-9; 2 Sam 3:1).  Afterwards the elders of all the tribes of Israel use the nuptial language of Adam to declare that the entire people is as David’s bride, “your bone and your flesh” (2 Sam 5:1).  This figurative “wedding” completes the comic pattern of the struggle to establish David’s kingdom with an emblematic royal wedding or hieros gamos.

It is upon the heights achieved by David’s comic ascent that the tragic fall of his house occurs.  David’s history reflects a movement from comedy to tragedy.  The history of David’s house begins in obscurity, in the sheepcotes of Bethlehem.  He collects a renegade band of followers while he is in the wilderness of persecution, waiting in simple faith and patient humility for God to lift him up according to His promise.  The dynamic of the comedic ascent is the humble faith of David.  He is little in his own eyes (1 Sam 24:14, cf. 1 Kgs 3:7 and Pro 30:24-28). But at last his pride lifts him up, and like Nebuchadnezzar after him, Israel’s king forgets his God. He strides upon the royal roof of the City of David, the emblem of the height of his kingdom.  But it is the lifting up of David’s pride that causes the tabernacle of David to fall (Amos 9:11-12).

Nonetheless, God’s word promises an everlasting covenant to David, the assurance that his sure mercies will never fail, that God will lift up his fallen tabernacle (Acts 15:16).  And so David is given a Son, once again born in Bethlehem’s obscurity and laid in a manger (Luke 2:4-7).  But He too will draw a roguish company to Himself. For Jesus said, “and if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:32). As John describes it, the Son of David is “lifted up” like the serpent in the wilderness so that anyone who is distressed in iniquity, in debt to the holy law of God, and discontented in his alienation from God can come to Him for healing from sin, just as the faithful in Israel had come for healing to the serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness (John 3:14).  The house of David, then, displays the remarkable dynamic of gathering sinners to itself. It is the standard to which all the nations may resort to find rest (Isa 11:10).

How is this great comic conclusion to the tragedy of David accomplished?  The universality of David’s sin gives us the pattern.  It is this capacity of the house of David to draw both sinners and sin to itself.  David collects his roguish band around himself, anticipating all the disaffected who will gather around the Son of David. And likewise, David’s great transgression is after the similitude of all the tragic sins and crimes of pagans and patriarchs alike.  It is this afferent dynamic of drawing both sin and sinners to the house of David that typifies the great redemption of David’s greater Son.  For when the Son of David is lifted up in Jerusalem, He too will draw sin and sinners to Himself.  And the tragedy of His lifting up will be made the basis of the comedic lifting up of the fallen tabernacle of David.

What a precious Savior is the Son of David!  How all His excellencies surpass David himself!  Consider how we so often entertain charitable impressions of David, all in spite of his great sin.  Do we not likewise often hold ourselves in the same too generous regard, and excuse the many sins that so easily beset us?  If we do so it is only at the price of estimating the preciousness of our Redeemer.  For only as we decrease can He increase. Oh to be little in our own eyes! 

Such is the irony of the biblical comedic reversal. The tragic abyss of our sin is made the measure of our mercy.  And it is only as we estimate our own debt that we can properly tally the price paid for our redemption.[557] 

The Son of David has been lifted up upon a cross.  And He invites all who have been defiled by sin, anyone who is in distress, and anyone who is in debt, and anyone who is discontented to come to Him (John 3:14).  For in His cross all our tragedy is made comedy.  For all who partake of His mercy are made His bride, and share in His scepter and kingdom, for God has established the throne of His father David forever. 

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[1]  Our approach affirms an explicitly historical-grammatical approach to Biblical exegesis.  However, while we believe conservative scholarship in modernity does an admirable work of analyzing the text of Scripture grammatically, it is less capable, in our judgment, of reading the Bible historically.  The modern exegete is generally analytic, but less synthetic than ancient texts require.  His interpretation is literal, but less poetic.  He is trained to think particularly within individual texts, but not canonically within the Bible.  Goethe envisioned the approach we are attempting when he commented, “Wer den Dichter will verstehen, muss in Dichters Lande gehen,” (Whoever will understand the poet must travel to the country of the poet). In other words, if we are to understand the types of the Bible, we must read the Bible through pre-modern eyes.  We must consciously strive to enter into the mundus imaginalis of the first recipients of sacred Scripture.  Only by this means can we read the Bible historically, as well as grammatically.

[2] Apokalupsis, or “revelation,” is literally an “unveiling.”  Moses’ glory had to be veiled before Israel (Exod 34:33-35).  But we are invited by John in Revelation to behold the unveiled glory of Jesus, and by this better revelation to be transformed, as Paul says, from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:12-18).

[3] A similar blazon occurs in the Song of Songs to describe the bridegroom son of David whose head is like gold, his locks like the date palm, his eyes like doves, his lips like lilies, his hands like golden rods, his abdomen like ivory, and his legs like alabaster set on pedestals of gold (Song 5:11-16).

[4] The resulting strategic inclusio appears to commend this minority reading of the manuscripts in Rev 1:11.

[5] The striking statement that John turned to “see the voice” is a type of zeugma, a figure of speech intended to emphasize a verb not properly yoked to the object.  Instead of saying to “hear the voice,” the seer states that he looked to “see the voice”  (for a similar example see Exod 5:21, where the elders of Israel complain that Moses has made them to smell in the sight of pharaoh).  By this means the emphasis is on the theophany as a vision rather than an audition. The figure is deliberate, intended to emphasize the striking character of what is described through a kind of synaesthesia. The figure likewise recalls Deuteronomy 4:12, which is also zeugmatic, and it appears that John has consciously contrasted his vision on Patmos with the theophany of Sinai, where a voice was heard but no similitude was seen.

[6]  John’s falling like a dead man at the feet of Jesus, recorded at the beginning of Revelation, appears to be carefully stitched to the end of the Fourth Gospel.  At the conclusion of John’s Gospel the point is made that John may not die; rather he may remain alive until Jesus comes again (John 21:22-23).  At the beginning of Revelation Jesus comes to John again, who falls at His feet like a dead man (Rev 1:17).

[7]  There is nothing that calms the fears of the child of God more than the touch of the nail-pierced hand.  Jesus’ own piercing reminds us that there is no pain of ours He cannot feel, that no wound we have is too deep to heal.  For our sympathetic High Priest, who touches us, has Himself been touched by our infirmities.

[8]  Other passages in the Bible project Jesus into yet further dimensions.  The psalmist had foreseen that in the latter days the redeemed would be gathered from east and west and north and south (Psa 107:1-3).  Matthew assures us that many will come from east and west to sit at supper in Jesus’ eschatological banquet (Matt 8:11), and that the Ninevites of the north and the queen of the south will come to vindicate the justice of His kingdom (Matt 12:41-42).  Paul prays that the church in Ephesus might know the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Jesus (Eph 3:18-19). Surely all of us who know the goodness of His mercy, like the Shulamite, would summon the breezes of summer, saying, “Awake O north wind, and blow, O south, upon my garden, for my Beloved has removed my transgressions as far as the east from the west, and all my soul blesses His universe of mercy!” (cf. Song 4:16 and Psa 103:12).

[9] Greg Beale’s comment on the lampstands is cogent and well stated, “Part of Christ’s priestly role is to tend the lampstands. . . .Christ tends the ecclesial lampstands by commending, correcting, exhorting, and warning (see chs. 2-3) in order to secure the churches’ fitness for service as lightbearers in a dark world.”  G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Mich, 1999) 208.

[10] Theologically, each binary appears to represent an original and its image or likeness.  God’s image is found in man (Gen 1:26); and man finds his suitable likeness in woman (Gen 2:18, 23).  Heaven’s counterpart is earth, which is ultimately to be conformed to the image of heaven (Pss 46:4, 78:69, 96:11; Isa 66:1; Matt 6:10).  Evil appears to be the corrupted image of the good (Gen 3:4-5), even as death is an ironic image of life (Isa 9:2; 1 Tim 5:6).  And the beginning finds its telic likeness in the end (1 Cor 15:22-26, 54-58), foreseen in the covenant mandate (Gen 1:26-28).

   There are other apparent binaries in the creation account, but they do not seem to be images of each other.  Evening and morning are properly opposites.  In the symbolic world of the Bible they will be subsumed under good and evil.  It is noteworthy that in Genesis both evening and morning are ruled by the light, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. Light, then, is the ruling principle against the darkness, and the diurnal cycle will eventually conclude with light extinguishing the darkness (Rev 21:23-25).  Moreover, work and rest are proper both to God and to man as His image (Exod 20:8-11), and should be subsumed under the binary of God and man.

[11]  Umberto Cassuto notes that the seventy nations of the world (Gen 10) correspond to the number of the sons of Israel (Deut 32:8), A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 2, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984) 177-180 (cf. the seventy souls constituting the family of Jacob, Gen 46:26-27). National Israel is thus constituted a microcosmic image of the macrocosmic nations (Deut 32:8).

[12]  Similarly, Dante reconciles all earthly paradox in his heavenly vision of the Trinity.  Paradiso, Canto 33.

[13] Adam’s side is pierced to provide the substance for the life of his bride (Gen 2:21).  Jesus’ side is also pierced to provide the sacrament for the life of His bride (John 19:34).

[14]  The correspondences of Adam and the other OT human figures to Jesus formally describe the connection between a type and an antitype.  But Jesus’ correspondence to the divine figure in these same OT narratives is not properly typological.  Rather, this correspondence is narrated in the NT in such a fashion as to substantiate the identity of Jesus as the divine Word both before and after the incarnation (John 1:1-3).  Such correspondence necessarily arises out of the consistency of Jesus’ divine nature, both preincarnate and incarnate.  The antitypological aspect of Jesus’ ministry, as it corresponds to His human precursors, is the necessary consequence of His authentic human nature.

[15]  The Apostle Paul instructs us that the account of Adam and his wife is a “great mystery” teaching us about Christ and His bride, the church (Eph 5:29-32).

[16]  Matthew makes explicit the fact of Jesus’ virgin birth (Matt 1:23) before he recounts Jesus’ rescue from the slaughter of the innocents (Matt 2:16).  The Exodus account of the birth of Moses contains a clear statement that Moses was born of natural generation (Exod 2:1-2) before the account of Moses’ rescue from pharaoh’s death decree for the infants (Exod 2:6).  The nativity narrative of Matthew is thus a testimony both to the divinity and the humanity of  Jesus.

[17]  Multiplying bread, that comes from the earth, and fish, that come from the sea, demonstrates the Lord’s dominion over the earth and the sea.  It is the provision that comes from the God of the creation.  Matthew indicates the divinity of Jesus by His dominion over the sea.  He commands a fish of the sea to provide the coin for the tax (Matt 17:24-27); He speaks peace to the storm upon the sea (Matt 8:23-27); and He walks upon a path in the sea (Matt 14:25-26, cf. Ps. 77:20). Luke likewise reports that Peter recognized and confessed his own sinfulness when he saw the Lord Jesus command the fish of the sea into the nets of the fishermen (Luke 5:1-9).

[18]   See Jean Daniélou, “The Mystery of the Name of Jesus,” From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd (London: Burns and Oates, 1960)  229-243.

[19]  The name “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew “Joshua.”

[20] The trumpet septenary is the great weapon of holy war in Israel. 1QMvii14.

[21] Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels results, as with Joshua, in the destruction of a wicked city.  Jerusalem will suffer a judgment that recalls Jericho when “not one stone is left standing upon another” (Luke 19:41-44).  Jesus pronounces this terrible prophecy after He has sent two disciples into the city to find a house of shelter (Luke 19:29-30).  Similarly, the evangelist John fills out the Joshua portrait of Jesus in His rescue of a whore in Jerusalem, recounted in John 8:1-11.

[22]  Peter Leithart, A House for My Name (Moscow, Id.: Canon Press, 2000) 142.

[23] The Samuel passage offers the proleptic note that David later took the head of Goliath to Jerusalem (1 Sam 17:54).  It is interesting in light of this that there is a such a striking homophony between Goliath of Gath and Golgotha, a name derived from the Hebrew word for skull, and the site in Jerusalem where the true Seed of the Woman would afterward crush the head of the serpent, fulfilling redemptive history (Matt 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17).

[24]  The identification of the religious leadership in Jerusalem as the seed of the serpent is further reflected in Christ’s accusations against them recorded in Matthew 12:34, 23:15, 23:33.

[25]  Because of Jonah’s ministry, Gentiles from the east (Nineveh) and west (Tarshish), the cardinal and inveterate enemies of God, praise the Lord for His mercy.  The “sign of Jonah” that was to be given to the Pharisees, of which the Lord spoke, is apparently the serendipitous repentance given to the nations after the burial of Jesus in the belly of the earth (Matt 12:39-41).

[26]  By citing quotations from Isaiah 6 and 53 and attributing both of them to Isaiah the prophet, John provides an apostolic answer to the question of the authorial unity of Isaiah.

[27]  The “glory” is a metonymy of attribute for the Glorious One enthroned as described in Isaiah 6:1-3.

[28]  In an epexegesis of Isaiah’s cry, “Here I am.  Send me!” (Isa 6:8), John the apostle attributes the “I am” formula to Jesus when He is in the aspect of a servant (John 13:13). And Jesus likewise claimed that He had been sent from the Father with the Father’s message, just as had Isaiah before Him (John 12:44-50).

[29] The passage is developed by means of the figure of speech called polysyndeton, or “many ands.”  The verbs are connected by a chain of repeated conjunctions, which has the effect of slowing down the reader to consider the verbs separately and to meditate upon them.  By employing this figure, the evangelist recaptures the drama of the foot washing as the ever- heightening shock of that evening is verbally recreated.  The disciples witness increasing surprise as they see Jesus rising, and laying aside His garments, and taking a towel, girding Himself, then pouring water into a basin, and washing feet, and then drying them.

[30] The theological concordance of this passage with Paul’s teaching about Jesus’ kenosis in Philippians 2:5-8 is unmistakable.  Paul observed that Jesus, fully aware of His divinity, emptied Himself and assumed the role of a bondservant, serving us by His death on the cross.  Central to the theology of both John and Paul is the overwhelming humility of God revealed in Jesus, the God-man. The span of the height and the depth of Jesus’ humility is certainly the greatest mystery on earth, if not in heaven itself!

[31] What a cure for all our pride is offered to us in this single act of divine and human love!  Such utter simplicity and unimaginable profundity perfectly conjoined in this one dramatic deed of the God-man!

[32]  The Fourth Gospel and Revelation are interleaved by elaborate chiastic, parallel, and typological patterns.  Literary and thematic evidence demonstrates that the two books traditionally ascribed to St John constitute an elaborate diptych.  Warren A. Gage, St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

[33]  Time is understood spatially when we speak of a span or length of time.  Similarly, space can only be conceived of in terms of motion, which is measured in time. Space and time appear to define the broadest Kantian categories of the human imagination.  The metaphoric manner of speaking about time within spatial categories allows for manifold figural constructs regarding time itself.  There is “literary” time, recognized by the nature of the genres of epic, lyric, tragic, and comic.  Moreover, there is “typological” time, identified by the synchronological recapitulation of all time at one time.  There is also “linear” time, marked by the diachronological progress of the history of redemption.  Oscar Cullmann further speaks persuasively about “dispensational” and “once for all” time.  Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1959).

[34]  Epic begins in the middle of the action.  Horace, Ars Poetica, 147-148.

[35]  Oscar Cullmann calls the times of Messiah the “decisive mid-point” of redemptive history.  Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1959) 81, 101.

[36]  Aristotle identifies the four genres that constitute the imaginative world.   Poetics (47a).  While epic is unrestricted in time, tragedy occurs “within one circuit of the sun” (49b).

[37]  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971) 129-130.

[38]  The “last days” are thus synchronological.  They are the days of the fulfillment of all the prophets, the recapitulation of all time at one time.

[39]  Hermann Gunkel observed the fundamental interdependence between the beginning and ending of biblical history.  Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895). 369. The epistle of Barnabas makes the same claim, “Behold, I make the end like the beginning” (Barn. 6:13).  Now the relation of former to latter times in the Bible is synchronic in its typological fulfillment.  For example, the “days of Noah” that precede the judgment of God recur in the last days of the first temple prior to the judgment at the hand of the Chaldees (Isa 54:93), in the last days of the second temple prior to the judgment at the hands of the Romans (Matt 24:2, 37-39), and in the last days of the present world prior to the fiery judgment of God (2 Pet 3:5-13).    

[40]  The time from Abel to Zechariah (Gen 4:8 to 2 Chron 24:20-21) spans the entire period of the OT canon, according to Jewish reckoning.  It is an alternative Lukan expression of the claim that the sufferings of Messiah were anticipated by Moses and all the prophets (Luke 24:27).

[41]  It is ironic that the fiery serpents of the wilderness (Numb 21:6) find their antitype in the religious leaders of Jerusalem (Luke 3:7), the leaders whose very teaching is called “leaven” for its uncleanness (Luke 12:1).

[42]  Josephus expresses wonder at the exactitude of the temporal convergence that described the destruction of both the first and the second temples of Jerusalem on the same day (the ninth) of the month of Av, according to the “revolution of the ages” (The Wars of the Jews, 6.4.249-270).

[43]  It is instructive that the judgment of Noah had already characterized the days of the disobedience of the religious leaders of the first temple in Jerusalem, which likewise had culminated in the destruction of the city and the temple.  Isaiah compared the Chaldean armies that were to destroy Jerusalem to “the waters of Noah” (Isa 54:9).

[44]  Isaiah and Ezekiel had likewise compared the wickedness of Judah and Jerusalem to Sodom and the wicked cities of the plain (Isa 1:10 and Ezek 16:44-59).  Indeed, Jesus claimed that the sin of the Galilean cities exceeded that of Sodom and even Tyre and Sidon, the notorious cities of Phoenicia (Matt 11:21-23; Luke 12:15).

[45]  Ezekiel and Zephaniah had likewise used the word “Canaanite” to describe the avaricious spiritual character of the leaders of Jerusalem (Ezek 16:29 and Zeph 1:11).  The LXX reads Chainanaios at Zechariah 14:21.

[46]  King David had suffered the mocking of the Jebusites who taunted him from the security of their redoubt that even the blind and the lame would be able to repel his attack.  As a consequence, David sent his soldiers through the water tunnel to cut off the blind and the lame, all those whom his “soul hated” (2 Sam 5:6-9).  Jesus, as the New David, went into the temple to heal the lame (by the pool of Bethesda, John 5:1-9) and the blind (by the pool of Siloam, John 9:7), thus enlisting the weak through whom He was to overcome the spiritual Canaanites who had usurped the house of God’s name.

[47] “Babylon” is a metonymy for Jerusalem in 1 Peter 5:17 and Revelation 14:8, 16:19, 17:5, 18:2, 18:10, and 18:21. 

[48]  The reader should note the amalgamation of references both to Babylon (from Jeremiah) and Jerusalem (from Lamentations) in the description of the great city in Revelation.

[49] Grant R. Osborne, Revelation (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2002) 605 and Barbara R. Rossing, The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse HTS 48 (Harrisburg, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1999) 61-97.

[50] G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1999) 885.

[51]  David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Tx: Dominion Press, 1987) 426-427 and Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Ezekiel in the Apocalypse: The Transformation of Prophetic Language in Revelation 16:17-19:10 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1989) 265-269.

[52] This identification of “Great Babylon” with Jerusalem does not exhaust the significance of the city in the judgment of AD 70.  The destruction of the temple had major typological significance, foreshadowing the judgment at the end of the age (cf. Matt 24:1-3).  “Full preterism,” in our judgment, fails to recognize the synchronological dimension to the biblical typology of the temple. Such oversight leads inevitably to a procrustean exegesis of the prophetic passages of Scripture.  

[53]  While the LXX names the city of Shinar’s rebellion “Confusion,” the city of Nimrod is called “Babylon” (Gen 11: 9; 10:10).

[54]  Jesus is likewise the True Tabernacle.  John opens the Fourth Gospel with the claim that Jesus “tabernacled among us” (John 1:14).  He concludes his Revelation by means of an inclusio, with a heavenly voice announcing that “the tabernacle of God is among men” (Rev 21:3)

[55]  See Beale, The Book of Revelation, 1117-1121.

[56]  The Bible very commonly depicts wisdom as a choice between two women.  The pattern is seen in the paradigmatic choice of Solomon in his judgment between two whores (1 Kgs 3:5-28), and in the choice implied in the Proverbs between the whore (Prov 5,7) and the woman of virtue (Prov 31).  The same choice depicted in the sapiential literature of the Bible is found also in the patriarchal narratives, where the soul of the male is revealed as he veers between two females: Abraham chooses between flesh and promise in Hagar and Sarah.  Jacob must negotiate his way between comeliness and uncomeliness personified by Rachel and Leah, and Joseph’s character is revealed as he refuses the immoral advances of Potiphar’s wife but receives the daughter of the priestly Potiphera.  Likewise in the NT, the believer is called upon to cast out the covenant of Sinai, represented by Hagar, and to receive the covenant of promise, represented by Sarah (Gal 4:21-31).   Barbara R. Rossing has the best discussion of this paranetic figure of speech and its widespread occurrence in ancient Greek and Roman literature in The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride and Empire in the Apocalypse, HTS 48 (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999) 16-59.

[57] The word kainos or “new” in Revelation is redemptive more than temporal in its meaning (cf. Rev 2:17; 5:9; 14:3; 21:5).  While it does not exclude temporal succession, its essence is redemptive.  When we hear about a new heavens and earth (Rev 21:1), the redemption implied is that of the old heavens and earth.  Similarly, when we hear of a New Jerusalem, the redemption of the Old Jerusalem should be understood (Rev 3:12; 21:2). This usage of new as redemptive is quite consistent throughout the Scripture.  The Bible speaks of the redeemed believer as participating in a new covenant (Jer 31:31), whereby he is made a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), becomes a new man (Eph 4:24) , whereupon he awaits a new Jerusalem in a new heavens and new earth.  “Old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 5:17).

[58]  In 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 the raising of the tabernacle that has fallen down is a figure of speech for the resurrection. 

[59]  Jesus pointedly takes us back through the law of Moses to affirm the law of the beginning in the debate with the Pharisees about divorce (Matt 19:8).  The standard of justice Christ affirms is not the apodictic statute of Moses (Deut 24:1-4), but the natural law of the creation evident from the beginning.  This doctrine of the restitutio principia is a further illustration that Christ’s redemption was to take us back to the beginning.

[60]  The eschatological vision of Scripture is developed as the “day of the Lord.”  The day begins with the night and ends with the morning, according to the reckoning of the Biblical record (Gen 1:5). Metaphorically, the “day of the Lord” likewise begins with the terror of great judgment yielding to the dawn of everlasting peace with God (cf. Amos 8:9 and 9:11-15).  The tragedy of the dark of night is forgotten in the comedy coming on the wings of the morning. As the psalmist sang, acknowledging his deliverance from death, “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psa 30:5).    

[61]  By describing gospel joy going forth from Jerusalem upon the occasion of the resurrection of the True Temple, Luke is certainly redeeming the lament of Jeremiah over the loss of the first temple when the prophet had cried, “The roads of Zion are in mourning” (Lam 1:4).

[62]  After the resurrection, time is no longer an enemy of the Christian, but the very friend of grace.  The Christian faces the unknown future with great faith and hope, all based upon the victory assured by the resurrection.  “And do this (love the brethren), knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us that when we believed” (Rom 13:11).

[63]  Oscar Cullmann helpfully distinguishes between oikonomia time and ephapax time.  Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia, Pa.: The Westminster Press, 1959) 33.

[64]  Jesus taught that His resurrection would be the raising of the Temple (John 2:19).  The temple represented both the cosmic house (Psa  78:69), and the cosmic clock (1 Kgs 6:1; Dan 9:25-27; Matt 24:1-3).  Jesus’ resurrection thus ushered in a new cosmos and a new aeon.

[65]   Jesus is the fulfillment of the “doors” of safety in the OT.  The door of the ark delivered those sheltered behind it into a new cosmos after the cataclysmic judgment of Noah’s flood.  The door of Lot’s house delivered those behind it from the fiery cataclysmic judgment of Sodom.  The door of the Passover Lamb delivered those protected by it from the great plague of death upon Egypt.  Finally, the door of Rahab protected her household from the seven trumpets of judgment that destroyed Jericho when her hour of great judgment had come.

[66]  In this supernatural new world created by the resurrection, wondrous transformations can now be imagined that were unthinkable in the natural order of things.  Whores can be made virginal again.  Publicans can become evangelists.  Thieves can be made alms-givers.  And the chief of sinners can be made the chief of the apostles. 

[67]  Cataclysmic judgment apparently moves sequentially through both water and fire.  Isaiah comforts God’s people facing judgment with the Emmanuel promise of God, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you” (Isa 43:2).  Likewise John the Baptist announced that his baptism was by water, but that Jesus’ baptism would be by the Holy Spirit and by fire (Luke 3:16).  Similarly, Jesus anticipates the judgment of Jerusalem’s temple and the judgment of the world by recalling first the flood of the days of Noah and afterwards the fire of the days of Lot (Luke 17:26-32). 

[68]   Adam is called “the son of God” in Luke 3:38, just as Jesus is called God’s “Son” in Luke 3:22.

[69]  The literal Hebrew states that the Lord smelled the aroma of “rest” (Gen 8:21).

[70]  All of the burnt offerings of the sacrificial system of Israel foretold that Christ, as the Lamb of God, would face the wrath of God, metaphorically expressed in the energy of a fiery altar.  The same fiery suffering of God for His people is seen in the appearances of the Angel of the Lord in the burning bush of Moses (Exod 3:2-4), in the incendiary sacrifice of Manoah (Judg 13:20), and in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 3:19-25). 

[71]  It is noteworthy that the baptized Christian, too, is a microcosm of the world ages.  He is born of water in his first birth (John 3:5), baptized of the Spirit in His second birth (John 3:5, Matt 28:19), his works enter the fire of judgment at his death (1 Cor 3:11-15), and he thereafter receives the eternal city of gold, silver, and precious jewels as his eternal reward (1 Cor 3:12-14; Rev 21:18-21).

[72]  The tabernacle is the house of God in motion and the temple is the house of God at rest. Both are furnished the same and represent the same reality of the dwelling together of God and man.

[73]  Contrast John’s report that the Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Christ (John 1:32), whose body was the temple, with the doves being removed from the temple of Herod (John 2:16).

[74]  All of these temple “houses” thus imitate organic life, a concept which is accessible enough with respect to an individual or to Christ, but for a temple, a nation, or the cosmos itself is quite alien to the western imagination.  But all of these temple “houses” should be understood as existing in the realm of becoming.  They are thus marked by the passage of time.

[75]  The organic nature of the temple “house” likewise makes possible the image of resurrection (cf. John 12:24). Jesus speaks of His resurrection as the raising of a temple (John 2:19).  James spoke of the restoration of David’s kingdom as the raising of his fallen tabernacle (Acts 15:16), and the author of Hebrews speaks of the renewal of the cosmic order after the figure of the changing of a garment that has worn out (Heb 1:10-12; Psa 102:25-26).  Death is thus represented metaphorically as the falling down of the tabernacle and resurrection becomes its raising once again.  Through this metaphor Paul describes the sufferings of the present life as a groaning in “this earthly tabernacle which is our house” (2 Cor 5:1).  He teaches that the Christian has the promise that after the “house” of his mortal body is taken down he will be clothed again with a “dwelling house” from heaven, the earnest of which is the indwelling Spirit (2 Cor 5:5).

[76]  Joseph manages the “house” of Egypt as the chief steward of pharaoh, according to Josephus. The Antiquities of the Jews 2.89.

[77]  The “abomination of desolation” is a genitive of cause.  The desolation is the emptying of the house as the impending judgment is fled.  The character of the people of God is always that of a remnant fleeing from catastrophic judgment.  The household of Noah escaped the judgment of the old cosmos, the family of Abraham left the idolatrous city of Ur, the household of Lot escaped the judgment of Sodom and the cities of the plain, the households of Israel fled the judgments of Egypt, the house of Rahab was delivered from the judgment of Jericho, and the righteous are called out of Babylon. 

[78]  The five stages of the household economy or dispensation are: the founding (kataskeuē or katabolē), the stewardship (oikonomia), the abomination (bdelugma), the desolation (erēmōsis), and the fall (ptōsis).  The “fall” of the house is the tragic moment that begins in abomination and ends in death.  The comic moment is the escape that brings about a renewal of life, most commonly consummated in a marriage that constitutes a new founding.  The stewardship prior to the abomination is the lyric moment of harmony between God, the creation, and man.  Finally, the foundation of the cosmos, the founding of the polis, or the building of the temple constitutes the classical epic gesture.  The life-cycle of the temple “house” is thus the unifying mark of all of life and death in both the observable world and the mundus imaginalis.  Death, then, becomes the tragic prelude to resurrection, which represents the triumph of comedy and the promise of the redemption of all things. 

[79]  Revelation’s Great Babylon expresses the dispensation of the judgment of God, which must be seen as a probative identification of that city with the Jerusalem of the generation of Jesus.  The abomination (bdelugma) appears written on the forehead of the whore (Rev 17:5) and carried in her cup (Rev 17:4).  The people of God exit her city (Rev 18:4) and she is left desolate (erēmoō) and ruined in one hour (Rev 18:17).  Her great city falls (piptō) and is utterly overthrown (Rev 18:2).  She is then consumed with fire (Rev 18:18, 20:9).  In sum, everything occurs against Babylon that the Lord anticipated in the coming judgment of Jerusalem (Matt 24:1-2, 15-16, 25:41).

[80]  The comparisons between the cosmic temple “houses” largely comes from The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Escahtology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984). I have updated some of that original material where appropriate.

[81] Cf. Deut 31:14-32:43; Matt 24:37; 2 Pet 3:6-7.

[82] The notion of Semitic parallelism as a literary form is a well-accepted point of Hebrew exegesis.  The interrelationship of the creative Word and history in Hebrew theological thought is also generally acknowledged.  If the creative Word, then, and history are so inextricably identified in ancient oriental thought, might we not be justified in distinguishing a parallelism of history in Hebrew prose much as we distinguish a parallelism of thought in Hebrew poetry?  The scope of this question is relevant to the hermeneutic of OT history as well as the understanding of NT typology.

[83] Compare the synthesis of original creation and the Noahic recreation in the theology of the wisdom school (Pss 104:9; 74:12-17; Job 38:4-11; cf. also 2 Pet 3:5-7).

[84] The origin of the dove as a symbol of the Spirit (cf. Matt 3:16) may be traceable to a synthesis of these creation accounts.  Genesis 1:2 describes the original earth in darkness and deep (both to be taken as tokens of evil as indicated by their absence in the perfected heavens and earth vision of Rev 21:1, 25), the Spirit of God hovering upon the face of the waters (cf. the “hovering” of the eagle in Deut 32:11).  Noah sends forth first the raven (black and unclean) and then the dove (white and clean), the dove finding no rest upon the waters of wickedness, therefore “hovering” upon them.

[85] A significant implication of the correspondence between the flood narrative and the account of the original creation is the compelling case it makes for the idea of a universal flood.  The Apostle Peter, at least, appeared to read the flood narrative as a universal cosmic catastrophe.

[86] Cf. U. Cassuto, From Noah to Abraham (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1959),124-129; Claus Westermann, Schöpfung (Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1971) 39-43.

[87] Cf. Gen 6:20 with 1:25; Gen 1:26 with 9:2, and also the divine appointment of food for man in Gen 1:29 and 9:3.

[88] The source critical attempt to distinguish the creation of the animals in Genesis 1 (attributed to the Priestly source) from the second account of animal creation in Genesis 2 (attributed to the Jahwist source) must explain the tidy synthesis of elements of both accounts in the Noahic record within the one recreative model.  Here as elsewhere the identification of form patterns calls into question the validity of the source critical method.

[89] Cf. Cassuto, From Noah to Abraham, pp. 158-70 and Henry M. Morris, The Beginning of the World (Denver: Accent Books, 1977), pp. 125-26.

[90] The confusion in conservative commentaries is unwarranted.  Noah did not discover viniculture, drinking in ignorance, being insensible to the properties of wine.  Christ assured the disciples that before the flood the antediluvians were “eating and drinking” (Matt 24:38, cf. 11:19), and we may be certain that Noah both knew of wine and that his sin was deliberate.

[91] The terms “Israel” and the “nations” are often used in scripture in a spiritual sense apart from ethnic significance (cf. Ps 73:1; Matt 6:32; Rom 9:6-13; etc.)  As such they represent the theological distinction between the sons of God and the sons of the serpent, a conception traceable to Gen 3:15 (cf. Matt 3:7; I John 3:12).

[92] The narratives in Genesis are rooted in the prophetic oracles, Gen 3:15 having established the decisive enmity between these Adamic seed.  The intermarriage of the sons of God with daughters of man is a further explication of the strategy of the serpent, revealed in the garden, to seduce the man (Adam) through the woman (Eve), a theologically fundamental principle in Genesis 1-7.

[93] This history perhaps explains Abraham’s extreme care and explicit instruction regarding the choice of a bride for his son Isaac (cf. Genesis 24; also Jacob in Genesis 28), and sets the theological background to the understanding of the seriousness of intermarriage with non-covenant nations (cf. Samson, Solomon, returned exiles; also an echo in I Cor 7:39).

[94] Cf. the cities of wickedness—Babel, Sodom, Pithom and Rameses, Jericho and the cities of the Amorites, which like Babel, were “built up to heaven,” and the Jebusite city finally overcome by David.  Cf. also the titanic struggle between Jerusalem and Babylon in the latter OT prophets (Jeremiah 51; Isa 21:9; Dan 1:1; Zech 2:7; Micah 4:10, etc.) and also in the NT (1 Pet 5:13; Rev 14:8; 17:5, 18).

[95] Cf. Moses’ anticipation of the heavenly city in Exod 15:17, the city of God in the Zion hymns (Pss 46, 48).  Cf. also the Zion of the latter prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Zephaniah, and Zechariah, and the NT heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:2).

[96] That the eschatological projection is derived from the structure of Genesis may be displayed thusly:  the prediluvian models a, b, c, d, and e correspond to postdiluvian Genesis models a’, b’, c’, and d’.  The particular identification of e’ is implicit from an inductive study of Genesis as necessitating the elements of apostasy and cosmic judgment to finish the pattern, points finding explicit statement outside of Genesis in Matt 24:37 and 2 Pet 3:6-7.  The NT confirms the structure of narrative parallels derived from the Genesis material (cf. also 2 Tim 3:1-5 and 2 Pet 3:1-7).

[97] It is interesting to note that the antediluvian Enoch’s preaching of judgment to his generation is applied typologically to the wicked of this present world by Jude (cf. also 1 Enoch 106 [fragment of the Book of Noah]).

[98] The “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 32 represents Pentateuchal expectations of apostasy and cosmic judgment, containing the lament over the spiritual harlotry of Israel which will bring about a fiery overthrow of the earth (cf. especially vv. 19-22).  Note that the eschatological judgment finds God taking his bow of wrath once again, with which he had figuratively destroyed the world of Noah (cf. Gen 9:12-16) and with which figuratively he will finally destroy the present world.

[99] It is the expectation of the everlasting eschaton of perfect righteousness (cf. 2 Pet 3:13, Revelation 21) wherein we find the fulfillment of the messianic blessing first aroused in Gen 3:15 (cf. Heb 11:16, that from Abel to Abraham the hope of the godly seed was ever in the heavenlies).

[100]  Israel is regarded as a microcosm of the macrocosmic nations in Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.”  The same notion of Israel as a microcosm is implicit in the microcosmic significance of Israel’s temple (Psa 78:69) and the correspondence of Israel’s tabernacle to the heavenly pattern (Exod 25:40).

[101]  The bilateralism of Israel’s covenant at Sinai (Exod 19:8) is certainly not sui generic in the Scripture. It clearly has a typological antecedent in the bilateral covenant with Adam.  Such a two-party covenant could only be what theologians have called the “covenant of works.”  While the word “covenant” is not used with Adam in the Genesis accounts, the stipulations of a covenant and the blessings and cursings pertaining to such a covenant are given.  Adam is promised life for obedience and threatened with death for disobedience (Gen 2:17).  This probation is his covenant of works.  In the event, his disobedience is redeemed by a unilateral covenant of promise (Gen 3:15).  The character of all the covenants of promise is genealogical, that is, they promise a seed who will redeem and who will come through the mediator of the covenant (Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, and Christ).  The character of these covenants is promissory (Eph 2:12).  Their language is unilateral, stating what God Himself would do apart from the obedience or disobedience of man. They are therefore not contingent or qualified.  But alongside these covenants of promise are found these two bilateral covenants of Adam and Moses.  Adam’s life and continuance in the garden as well as Israel’s national life and continuance in the land of promise are contingent on obedience.  Their covenantal language is qualified.  These stipulations are formulated as protasis and apodosis: if you obey, you will live or, if you obey, your days will be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God is about to give you. 

                Now these biblical covenants of works and promise are fundamental to the federal theology of Paul.  The contrast is formulated largely in typological terms.  For example, Paul tells us that in Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive (1 Cor 15:22).  Death comes by Adam’s disobedience, but life by Christ’s obedience (Rom 5:17).  All in Adam are heirs to his disobedience and death.  All in Christ are heirs to His obedience and life.  The Pauline federalism requires two covenants: one of works and one of promise. 

                For Paul, federalism is fundamental to the biblical understanding of salvation history.  It is taught from the beginning.  In fact, Paul sees in the relationship of Hagar and Sarah a preview of these two covenants, many years before the formal inauguration of the covenant of Sinai or the teaching regarding Zion.  The argument of Galatians 4 regarding these mothers of Abraham’s sons is typological.  “For Abraham had two sons, one born of a bondwoman and the other born of a free woman…for these are the two covenants” (Gal 4:22, 24).  These Abrahamic sons were ordained to instruct us about the relationship of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion (Gal 4:24-25), of the covenants of law and grace, many years before either “mount” was associated with bondage or freedom.  This instruction, therefore, must be from the very beginning.  It must be traceable to the garden of God itself.  The two covenants must in fact be anticipated by the two trees in the midst of the garden, the one tree yielding the fruit of death and the other promising the fruit of life (Gen 2:9).  The two trees of Eden anticipate the two sons of Abraham, who are thereafter represented by the two mountains of Sinai and Zion, which afterwards represent the covenant of works and the covenants of promise.  It is this typological thread of the covenants that corresponds to the blessing and cursing choice of Moses, the life and death threatening of the prophets, the ways of wisdom and folly presented by the sages, the light and darkness alternative of the evangelists, and the spirit and flesh manner of life offered by the apostles.  

[102]  According to the same federal principle respecting Israel’s king, David’s sin in the matter of the census caused seventy thousand in Israel to die (2 Samuel 24:15-17).

[103]  Indeed David takes notice of Bathsheba when he is at rest upon the roof of his garden terraced palace.  Oriental palaces were known for their gardens (cf. Neh 3:15 with 2 Kgs 21:18, 25:4; cf. also Est 1:5, 7:7).

[104] The scribes and Pharisees of political Jerusalem are held responsible for the blood of all the righteous from Abel (cf. Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51), by which judgment Christ places them in the line of Cain.

[105] C. F. Keil, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.) vol. 10, p. 62.

[106] The deliverance of a remnant in Israel, as in the ark of Noah, is suggested by this simile in Isaiah’s Book of Consolation.

[107] Jack P. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), p. 8.

[108] The two temples in the history of Israel correspond cosmologically to the two ages of world history.

[109] Through Christ’s nakedness God ironically covers the sins of his people.  The use of “cover” in this sense (parallel to “forgiven”) in Rom 4:7 is cited from David’s psalm of forgiveness (Psa 32:1).  The verb “cover” in Psalm 32 is used earlier of Noah’s covering (Gen 9:23).

[110] Consider the great chiastic structure of biblical theology: David’s sin is imputed to the nation, while the nation’s sin is imputed to Christ.  In Adam all die, while all in Christ are made alive!

[111]  Jesus claims an authority that comprehends heaven and earth in Matthew 28:18.

[112] The Jacobite typology supports the view that Nathanael was one of the twelve disciples.  Ancient tradition identified him with Bartholomew.

[113] The Petrine “Bethel” theology is noted by Matthew (16:17-19).  Paul calls Peter a “pillar” in the church (Gal 2:6-9).  In his first epistle, Peter describes the church as a house of God (Bethel), built of living stones (I Pet 2:4-5). Instructively, at the end of Revelation, Peter and the other apostles are metaphorically made into precious stones, the apostolic “rock” that is the foundation of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:14, 19-20).

[114] The contrast with Jacob, who was full of guile (Gen 27:35), shows that Nathanael was like Jacob in his maturity as “Israel” (John 1:47).

[115]  Sychar is in the region of Shechem.  The Old Syriac Gospels read “Shechem” in place of Sychar.  This identification recalls the offense of the sons of Jacob against the Gentile inhabitants of the same region over the matter of circumcision.  The guile of Simeon and Levi (Gen 34:14 LXX) in abusing the covenant sign to disable the Gentiles, whose prince was seeking covenant marriage with a defiled daughter of Jacob, brought death to the Shechemites and disrepute to Jacob.  It is thus a great reversal for Jesus, the True Jacob, in whom there is no guile, to seek a spiritual and covenant marriage with a defiled daughter of Shechem, the woman of Samaria.  Instructively, these twelve disciples, who correspond to the twelve sons of Jacob, will decline to require circumcision of the Gentiles (cf. Acts 15:5-19), understanding the obedience of Christ to the law of circumcision to be sufficient for His “bride.”  Implied in this typology is the claim that Jesus is greater than Jacob, because His “sons” have sought peace and reconciliation with the nations, unlike the sons of Jacob, who gave them an offense (Gen 34:30).

[116]  Revelation 19:16 has the only occurrence of the word “thigh” in the New Testament.  It is identical to the LXX “thigh” of Genesis 32:25 (26) and 32 (33).

[117]  The Fourth Gospel and Revelation, when read together, move from an earthly wilderness to a heavenly garden.  John’s Gospel begins with the Lord Jesus as a Bridegroom.  His wedding and His bride are revealed only at the end of Revelation.  The genre of the Johannine enterprise, expressed in his two great treatises, conforms properly to the conventions of classical comedy.  See Warren Austin Gage, St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001) vii-xi.   

[118]  Both the critical and most Byzantine texts read “lie” instead of “guile” in Revelation 14:5.  The point is the same nonetheless, but it is noteworthy that “guile” (dolos) occurs in a significant minority of the Byzantine manuscripts, and it is represented in the Textus Receptus, giving us the traditional reading. “Guile” is the uncontested reading in John 1:47.

[119]  Lund’s work first suggested the chiastic structure of the angels of this vision to the author.  His otherwise interesting study is seriously marred, however, by his occasional transposition of the text, without any manuscriptural warrant, in order to satisfy his chiastic arrangement.  See Lund, Studies in the Book of Revelation, (Chicago: Covenant, 1955) 182.  His chiastic arrangement of these seven angels, however, is confirmed by this analysis.

[120]  This study will provide an English translation for the Greek NT in all charting.  Words that contain the same Greek root will be presented in bold text.  Words that are not derived from the same Greek root but that appear to be related thematically will be presented in italic text.

[121]  The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 4.

[122]  Ibid. 4-5

[123] See John Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994) 335.

[124] Lund, Studies in the Book of Revelation (Chicago: Covenant, 1955) 177-178.

[125] There is a further clue to the position of the fifth angel, who is described as “standing in the sun” (Rev 19:17).  The angel calls out to the fowl in the “midheaven” (Rev 19:17).  Clearly John’s vision has heaven (Rev 19:11), midheaven (Rev 19:17) and the earth in view (Rev 17:3 and 21:10). This tripartite understanding of the cosmos recalls the Genesis creation account.  The sun was created in “the expanse of the heaven” (Gen 1:14) and the fowl were placed in midheaven, “above the earth in the expanse of the heaven” (Gen 1:20).

[126]  Satan is retained in “prison” (Rev 20:7), the same word as the “prison” of the unclean of Babylon (Rev 18:2).

[127]    That is, the angels are at war with the “guile” or “deceit” that hinders the work of evangelizing the nations.  This correspondence is the connection to the “guileless” Nathanael.  It suggests the reason why the vision of Jacob was promised to him.

[128]   The figure of a millstone being cast into the sea as a metaphor for severe and inescapable judgment is familiar from Matt 18:6 and Luke 17:2.

[129]  An allied metaphor to the “one flesh” bridal mystery is the identification of Jesus as the head, His body being constituted of the church (1 Cor 12:12, Eph 1:22-23 and Col 1:18).

[130]  In Genesis, both male and female derive from God, and the woman derives from the man, being made “suitable for him.”  This original equality of dignity contrasts sharply with the heroic epic of Greece, which is wholly patriarchal in outlook.  The great heroes of Greek epic are Achilles and Odysseus, who move in a world dominated by Agamemnon and Menelaus, Hector and Paris.  Helen is a retiring and pitiable character, while Penelope stays at home by her loom.  What a contrast is Genesis, where the portrait of woman is full-orbed!  Abraham is only developed through his relationship with Hagar and Sarah.  In fact it is the patriarchal thinking of Sarah that seeks fulfillment of the promise to Abraham through Hagar (Gen 16:2).  But according to Genesis, Abraham and Sarah were one flesh at the time of God’s grant of a covenant to Abraham.  Consequently, in the event, the promised seed was only capable of coming through Sarah (Gen 17:19).  Likewise Genesis develops the full character of Rebekah, who, like Hagar, received direct revelation from God.  And Jacob is largely developed through his relationship with Rachel and Leah.   

[131] This capacity of maternal metaphor to transcend human sexuality is reflected in Christ’s apostle, too, when Paul describes himself as having a heart of gentleness toward his disciples in Thessalonica, saying he was “like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess 2:7).

[132]  See Seock-Tae Sohn, YHWH, The Husband of Israel: The Metaphor of Marriage between YHWH and Israel, (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2002).

[133]  The male and female principles are naturally dynamic.  Cf. Joseph Campbell’s discussion of the Tao, regarding the Yang (masculine) and Ying (feminine) principles that underlie all things.  The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton, N. J.: The Princeton University Press, 1949) 152-153. Cf. also Goethe’s insight that the eternal feminine is the dynamic drive of all things (“Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan”) Faust, Part 2, 12.110-111.

[134]  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio taught that the proportions of the body of man correspond to the canon proportions of the cosmos. De Architectura 3.1.3. Similarly, Christ’s body is declared to be the temple, and in the fullness of time His temple will be coextensive with the new cosmos itself (John 2:21 and Revelation 21:22). Vitruvius’ insight certainly  inspired Leonardo’s famous “Vitruvian Man” depiction of human anatomical proportions that attempts to square (the human symbol) the circle (the divine symbol), an image perhaps also suggested by Dante’s beatific vision of Jesus in Paradiso 33. 115-145. 

[135]  This theology is extensively developed in my book The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 27-36. 

[136]  The ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy set in motion the entire western enterprise of hermeneutic and literary criticism.  The truth claims and contradictions between the philosopher (truth is demonstrated through reason alone) and the poet (truth is intuited through the contemplation of images of the beautiful) are expressed most sharply in Plato’s Apology of Socrates.  Cf. Stanley Rosen, The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Studies in Ancient Thought (New York: Routledge, 1988). This ancient dispute is resolved in the person of Christ, who is both the Logos (John 1:1) and the Poetēs (Luke 9:29, Heb 1:3).

[137]  The Creator-Christ is thus both the script Writer and the stage Manager of redemptive history.  Consequently, all creation is conceived to support the redemptive metanarrative.  To correct Aristotle, there is a theanthropocentric principle undergirding all things (Rev 19:11).  Christ could have created a different physical world, but He conceived of one wherein light would struggle with darkness through both diurnal and seasonal cycles.  Such a world would make meaningful the claim that the darkness could not overcome the light (John 1:5), and would give hope that the darkness would at last itself be overcome by the light (Rev 21:23-25).  Such a world would be designed to reveal the Creator to His creatures, and so it would have lions as well as lambs (Rev 5:5, 8), and, yes, foxes (Luke 13:32) and flies (Psa 78:45), diamonds (Rev 21:19) and dung (Phil 3:8).  And such a world would have a physical basis that would require man to eat and drink daily to sustain his physical life, and to rest every evening before awakening every morning.  It is as though the Creator teaches His human creatures that the most important lessons of life are to live in light of a metaphoric communion with God by eating and drinking daily to His glory, and to rest in hope of resurrection when every evening is devoted to the metaphoric death of sleep, undertaken in the assurance that there will be a new awakening at the dawn of morning.

[138]  Aristotle, Poetics, 1450b.  The temporal markers “beginning, middle, and end” describe the development of plot (mythos). Tragedy and comedy are both fully developed plot structures, and thus require a beginning and an end.  Epic is too grand to begin anywhere but in the middle (in medias res).  Lyric alone appears to be timeless. 

[139]  See S. Craig Glickman’s description of the “elegant design of the song” in Solomon’s Song of Love (West Monroe, La.: Howard Publishing Co., 2004) 240.

[140]  The two great books of John constitute a literary diptych.  They are composed to be read together and thus must be interpreted together, as I have argued in St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

[141]  The dwelling together (Gk. “tabernacling”) of God and man is likewise part of the theological vision of John’s epic theme is described at the beginning of the Gospel (John 1:14) and the end of Revelation (Rev 21:3).

[142]  See Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1949) 49-68, 193-229. The separation and return correspond to the cosmogonic cycle.  See especially Campbell’s schematic diagram of the adventure cycle of the hero through separation, battle, sacred marriage, and return.  Ibid.  245.  A comparison of Campbell’s schematic of the hero’s quest with that of Northrop Frye’s schematic of Christ’s adventure is instructive.  See Frye’s The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York and London: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, 1982) 175.  We should note that similar patterns discernible in ancient myths are not the background for understanding the Scripture.  Rather, these ancient (and modern) myths occur in recognizable patterns because they are themselves an imitation (mimesis) of the original redemptive-historical mythos, revealed in Scripture.

[143]  Cf. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 97-109.

[144]  Ibid., 334-341.

[145]  Ibid., 342-345.

[146] Ibid., 336-8.

[147] Ibid., 349-354.

[148] While Aristotle was treating poetry proper, the categories he identified would nonetheless appear to offer an encyclopedia of the imagination that would likewise define the horizons of the literary imagination in narrative as well.

[149]  Northrop Frye develops the generic correspondences to the seasonal cycles a bit differently.  He understands spring to be comedy, summer, romance, autumn, tragedy, and winter, irony.  The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957) 163-239. I have preferred to adhere to Aristotles’ four categories of poetic imagination outlined in his (fragmentary) Poetics. The most elaborate schematic of the generic imagination discussed by Aristotle is given by Louise Cowan in The Terrain of Comedy (Dallas, Tx.: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1984) 9.  Cowan’s superb essay largely develops Aristotles’s poetic types and effectively applies these “forms” to non-poetic literature as well. 

    There is a small but significant body of literature that explores the convergence of literary theory and Biblical criticism.  Cheryl Exum has edited a remarkable collection of essays entitled Tragedy and Comedy in the Bible in Semeia 32 (Decatur, Ga.: Scholar’s Press, 1985).  J. William Whedbee has given us The Bible and the Comic Vision (Minneapolis, Mn.: Fortress Press, 1998).

[150]  The idea that Eden is the well-spring of all poetic invention is suggested by Dante Alighieri in Canto 28 of the Purgatorio. At the summit of the mount, Matelda tells Dante the pilgrim that the breezes of Eden’s garden pollinate the entire planet as they carry the flowers of poetry to germinate according to the climate and soil of the various regions of the earth (Purgatorio 28: 97-120).  Dante’s insight suggests that the soul of man, the generic possibilities of his mundus imaginalis, was fully formed between Gen 1:1 and 3:24.  The imaginative horizons of Eden, then, define and delimit the imagination of fallen man.  Perhaps this limitation underlies in part the threat of the penalty for disobedience, “in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17); that is, the imaginative capacities of man would perish.  If so, it suggests a new flowering of imaginative possibilities for the mind of regenerated man in the new Eden to come (Rev 21-22).

[151]  Epic is cosmopoiesis.  It is the all-encompassing genre, the encyclopedic vision of man.  Homer’s defining exploration of epic understood it to be pregnant with both tragedy (The Iliad) and comedy (The Odyssey).  Virgil’s epic on the founding of Rome reflected the same comic and tragic gestures in what is called the Odyssean Aeneid (Books 1-6) and the Iliadic Aeneid (Books 7-12). Brooks Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995) 215-382.

     The biblical epic covering the first three chapters of Genesis similarly displays both tragic and comic aspects, the fertility blessing upon Adam and his wife in the dominion covenant constituting the comedic possibility of mankind (Gen 1:28, 3:15) and the cursing appended to the covenant of works expressing the tragic possibility of the human experience (Gen 2:17, 3:17).

[152]  The biblical lyric genre is expressed most beautifully in the celebration of the royal bride in Psalm 45, in the love duet in the Song of Songs, in the account of the risen Savior and His encounter with Mary Magdalene in the garden recorded in John 20, and in the vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21-22.

[153]  The biblical tragedy of the fall and exile of man from the garden is sudden, as Aristotle intuited about tragedy, within one circuit of the sun (Poetics 49b, cf. Gen 2:17).  It is the fall of a great house, for Adam held dominion over all creation (Poetics 53a, cf. Gen 1:27-28).  Like the curse upon the house of Atreus in the tragic traditions of Greece, the sin that was original to Adam affected both Adam and all his offspring (see Aeschylus’ Oresteia, cf. Rom 5:12).  Moreover, the tragic account is reported in the elevated language of poetry (Poetics 49b, cf. Gen 3:14-19), and pivots upon reversal (peripety, cf. Gen 3:19) and recognition (anagnoresis, cf. Gen 3:11)  Poetics 50a.

[154]  The oracular judgment spoken to the serpent in Genesis 3:15 sets up many of the literary devices that will characterize the comedic terrain.  First, it expresses the “taunt” figure of speech, which is a derisive announcement of final defeat for the enemy.  Two classic examples of such a trope are the denunciation of the pharaoh in Moses’ Song of the Sea (Exod 15:9-12) and the reproach of the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13-20).  Certain of the imprecatory psalms likewise partake of this classically comedic figure (See e.g., Pss 58, 64, 68). Second, the oracle anticipates a poneros figure in the seed of the woman, who, in spite of great weakness in his begetting, will destroy the serpent and the serpent’s seed (Gen 3:15).  This seed of the woman, as David understood, would be the weak means God would use to ordain a mighty revenge upon His enemies (Psa 8:2); it is classic comedy (Psa 2:4).  Third, the craftiness of comedy is displayed in that the tragic gesture of the woman giving the fruit of death to Adam, when she had been intended to give him life, is reversed comically as she is promised a seed who will nonetheless give life to man again. Finally, the character of comedy to integrate society is suggested when Adam names his wife “the mother of all living.” This is opposed to the disintegration that characterizes tragedy, ultimately through a final death to be visited on the serpent and its seed.

    Classical tragedy occurred suddenly, within one circuit of the sun (Poetics 49b). Comedic victory, as the Scripture unfolds, takes place on the third circuit of the sun (1 Cor 15:4).  Its language of choice, as Aristotle observed, is vulgar and its appeal is to the unsophisticated (Poetics 49ab, cf. Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia).  This comedic democratization accounts for the apostolic choice of agora Greek, the vulgar Koiné, for the new sacred oracles intended as a gospel summons to the rabble of the road (Matt 22:9-10), the common folk constituted not of the religious and political nobility but rather the publicans and whores (Matt 21:23, 31-32). Christ, the eternal Logos, came in the form (eidos) of a bond-servant (Phil 2:7).  He is thus the comedic Poneros, the trickster who took captivity captive (Eph 4:8) and the crafty by craftiness (1 Cor 3:19).  He is the ironic Victor, the Lamb that by His own wounding slew the great dragon (Rev 5:6, 20:2).

    The resurrection represents a comedic revolution in the imagination of the New Testament.  Like Polybius’ wheel of regimes, the literary wheel of the classical preference for tragedy turns markedly at the beginning of the Christian era, revealing a new and “revolutionary” age of comedy.  Greek philosophy since Plato had despised the body.  The incarnation and the resurrection frankly affirmed the body as the creation of a good God, along with its comedic aspects of both wit (the mind) and humor (the body).  The Hellenistic world esteemed the noble Greek tragedians.  In fact Aristotle despised comedy as the inferior genre that imitates the actions of ridiculous and defective people (Poetics 49a).  Christianity reversed this orientation altogether, and understood Christ as the comic Poneros who had changed all things for all time.  The world that had known only the vanity of tragic death within the single circuit of the sun was now reborn in a palingenesis of the imagination, and a new world opened where the third circuit of the sun promised a new beginning in a cosmos where everyone was invited to a komos, a wedding procession (John 20:1-18 and Rev 19:7).

   The New Testament was targeted to an Aristophanic world that longed for a city delivered from strife, newly created by a poetry that had come forth from the grave of Hades (Frogs).  It longed for a brave new world of amazing transformations, where a beetle could become Zeus’ stallion, exchanging his vulgar and earthy fare of dung for a heavenly repast of ambrosia.  It expected a world where spears are changed into sickles, spears into vine poles, and everything was to end in a wedding supper (Peace).  It is a world where the venal city of commerce would be exchanged for the heavenly city of grace, a city celebrating a perpetual wedding supper (Birds).  In short, it presented a vision of a new cosmos, where comedy, as in Dante, transformed the infernal and the purgatorial, and informed the paradisal cosmic realms.  See Louise Cowan, “Aristophanes” in An Invitation to the Classics, ed. by Louise Cowan and Os Guinness, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1998) 55-58.  Evangelical scholarship has a long tradition of misunderstanding, or worse, neglecting John’s Revelation.  In part that seems due to the Puritans, who closed the theatre, largely to suppress the ribald aspect of the comedic works of Shakespeare.  As a result of this theatrical antipathy, the comedic imagination of Protestantism appears to have been restricted, or perhaps even constricted.  Protestant scholars would do well to familiarize themselves anew with Aristophanic comedy, for the Apocalypse is the most comedic book, in the classical sense of the term, in the Bible (see my own St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City [Ph.D dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001] ). It is a vision of a new world addressed to a Hellenistic audience that had already been made to dream of a new cosmic order by the imagination of Aristophanes, who was performed in every amphitheater, as well as by Moses, who was preached in every polis (Acts 15:21). Such a cultural awareness is at the essence of a hermeneutic that is both historical as well as grammatical.

[155]  Greek tragedy likewise explored the woman as the victim of the fall of a tragic house.  One recalls Io, Jocasta, Iphigenia, The Trojan Women, Clytemnestra, and Antigone, among other notables.  Moreover, there are likewise the epic tragic figures of Helen and Penelope, as well as the magnificently tragic Dido.  

[156] Socrates intuited that the earthly city, which represents the soul of man writ large (Rep 368 d), anticipates the perfect city which would correspond to the soul of man whose form is laid up in heaven (Rep 592 a-b). It is wonderful in this light to contemplate the New Jerusalem as a reflection of the form of the true city laid up in heaven, the city expressing the delight of the perfect soul of Jesus.

[157] Similarly the Greeks spoke of the “metropolitan,” that is, the “mater polis” or the “mother city” out of which colonial daughters sprung.  See Warren A. Gage, The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 50.

[158] The fact that the Scriptures thus read primarily speak to the bride of Christ, who is “invited to the wedding,” suggests that the bridal message of the Word of God is most naturally addressed to women.  Women are thus given this entry into the biblical imagination through unmediated metaphor. This feature of Scripture appears to be a further expression of the comedic imagination of the Bible.

[159] See Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1981) 52.

[160] Northrop Frye comments upon the characteristic ambiguity of the female character in literature generally as a “sometimes benevolent, sometimes sinister” archetype.  The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957) 322.

[161] The bride of Christ as “virgin” and “whore” is not sexist.  The references are rather to the collectivity of the covenant people and their moral condition, particularly respecting national idolatry and its frequently associated immorality.  Both the “whore” and “virgin” metaphors are sexually unmarked, for the sons of Israel went “whoring” after the daughters of Moab (Numb 25:1), and Paul wants to present the church a “virgin” to Christ (2 Cor 11:2).

[162]  The most popular propositional statement of traditional Calvinism is set forth in the TULIP acrostic.  These five doctrines are 1) total depravity, 2) unconditional election, 3) limited atonement, 4) irresistible grace, and 5) perseverance of the saints.  Theologically this formula views salvation entirely from the perspective of mankind.  We begin being dead in sins (total depravity) and end as the saved (perseverance of the saints).  What differentiates the saved from the unsaved is the intervention of the triune God.  The Father unconditionally chooses, the Son atones for those particularly chosen by the Father, and the Spirit irresistibly draws those chosen and redeemed to their salvific destiny.  While these several affirmations are certainly scriptural, they are inadequate in one major respect, and sorely in need of correction.  The salvation of the believer does not begin with the total depravity of man but with the unconditional election of Father God.  Such is the sequence required by the pattern of the ancient Near Eastern wedding.  This sequential difference is crucial.  By beginning our understanding of salvation with total depravity we ground that salvation upon the desperate need of a fallen humanity.  But salvation is not grounded in the need of man.  Rather, it is grounded in the unconditioned and elective choice by God the Father of a bride for His Son.  We are saved not because of God’s pity, however so wonderful His pity toward the desperately lost may be.  We are saved rather out of the passion of His elective choice.  The church was chosen for Christ as the gift of the Father.  It is the passion of the Son more than the pity of the Son that causes Him to rescue His bride from sin and death.  It was for the joy set before Him of being eternally with His beloved that Jesus suffered the death of the cross, despising the shame (Heb 12:2).  A new Reformation will come when the church recaptures a deep awareness of the joy that Jesus, the True Isaac, takes in her as His beloved bride, seeing her as both beautiful and virginal, as the true Rebekah.  The passion of Jesus, more even than His pity, is the wellspring of the believer’s everlasting joy.

[163] Cf. Yvonne Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea’s Marriage in Literary-Theoretical Perspective (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1996) 19-82.

[164] See The Anchor Bible, Hosea,  Francis I. Anderson and David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1980) 164. Douglas Stuart reasons that Gomer was “adulterous” not in any personal sense but only as she participated in national unfaithfulness. Word Biblical Commentary, Hosea-Jonah, vol 31. (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1987) 26-27.

[165]  Joshua’s original name was Hosea (Num 13:16). Both “Joshua” and “Hosea” are derived from the same Hebrew root signifying “to save.”  The same name of course will be given to Jesus, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Joshua.”  The purpose of such a naming, in view of Joshua and Rahab and Hosea and Gomer, is that the most characterictic feature of the mission and ministry of Jesus will be His rescue of the “whore,”  a theme found repeatedly in the Gospels (Matt 21:32, Luke 7:36-50, John 8:1-11).

[166]  The whorish Lady Babylon likewise is arrayed in gold and silver and the fine raiment of Shinar (Rev 17:4, 18:11-13).

[167] We are prompted by this delivery of the whore from a fiery death to recall Tamar, who was charged with playing the whore and was like Rahab  “called out,” thereby to be delivered from a fiery death (Gen 38:24-26).  The name Tamar in Hebrew means “palm tree,” a correspondence with Jericho, the “city of palm trees” or “tamars” (Deut 34:3).  The Tamar and Rahab narratives are further linked by the “scarlet cord” (Gen 38:28) and the rivalry between Zerah and Perez for the right of firstborn, a resolution which comes at last against Achan, the son of Zerah, in the Valley of Achor (Josh 7:1,24) as Rahab marries Salmon, the son of Perez (Matt 1:3-5).  And of course the famous Whore of Babylon is likewise identified by her scarlet (Rev 17:4) before her city, like Jericho, falls and then suffers a fiery overthrow (Rev 18:9) The consistency of these emblems and this imagery demonstrates the intricate intertextuality of Scripture and supports the possibility of a sophisticated biblical theology.

[168]  The early church was largely constituted of publicans and harlots, according to the Lord’s own testimony (Matt 21:31). This fact is reflected in the emphasis on Rahab’s faith in the New Testament (Heb 11:31 and Jas 2:25) and Rahab’s household as a type of the church, which was a major theme in the preaching of the church fathers, see Jean Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd, (London: Burns & Oates, 1960) 244-260. This understanding of the church as both whore and bride recognizes the community as a composite assembly of those being transformed into greater holiness from whoredom and those who are mere professors of faith.  The church as whore and bride is also the church of wheat and tares (cf. Matt 13:24-30).  Some will leave their whoredom to pursue purity.  Others will not repent of their whoredom and so will perish (Rev 2:21-23). 

[169] The seven Asian cities thus constitute a metropolitan  urbs septacollis, and remarkably the whore Jezebel sits upon the central of the seven hills.  Cf. Rev 17:9.  

[170] The eschatological banquet is clearly in mind.  See Rev 3:20 and 19:7-9.  See also Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and their Developments (Sheffield, JSOT, 1994) 233.

[171] See Fiorenza, “The Eschatology and Composition of the Apocalypse,” CBQ 30 (1968) 537-69; reprinted in idem, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 35-67; Barbara Rossing, The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride and Empire in the Apocalypse, Harvard Theological Studies 48, (Harrisburg, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1999) 158.

[172] See G. K.Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, Mich.:Eerdmans, 1999) 262.  Warnings are not pronounced against Smyrna and Philadelphia, two faithful churches.  However, both churches suffer from the “synagogue of Satan” in their midst (Rev 2:9 and 3:9) and their deliverance is anticipated in the judgment on Satan announced in Revelation 20.

[173] It is instructive that the description of Jesus addressing Thyatira, the fourth of the seven churches, is the One “whose eyes are like a flame of fire” (Rev 2:18).  This description anticipates the depiction of Jesus as the fourth angel in the vision of the last seven angels, “His eyes were a flame of fire” (Rev 19:12).  The intent of the metaphor of the “fiery eyes” is to present Jesus as the divine Judge, the One can see through all deceit and who will visit righteous judgment, even on the community of faith.  In the context of a call to repentance, the fiery eyes may also suggest the possibility of purgation under the gaze of the holiness of the Son of God.

[174] The transformative character of love was anticipated by the poets, both pagan and Christian.  It is the great theme of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as well as Dante’s Commedia. 

[175]  Surely it is evidence of the comedic imagination of God that Mary Magdalene could be given such great honor on resurrection morning.  Peter and John, who were to be the chief apostles of the church, came to the tomb and then returned home.  They were not given the privilege of beholding the vision Mary saw or the high honor of being the first to see the Savior.  How appropriate that on resurrection morning, when mankind was delivered from the curse of death, woman too was delivered from the effects of the fall!   

[176]  The expansion of the sacred space of the temple to the universal dimensions of the new creation is anticipated in Revelation.  See M. Woudstra, “The Tabernacle in Biblical-Theological Perspective,” New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. Barton Payne (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1970) 100-101.

[177] The tradition has the inferential support of the Scripture to the extent that Mary’s great love is the evidence of a profound sense of forgiveness (Luke 7:47).

[178]  The best study I have found regarding the figural relationship of the visions of Revelation’s Babylon and New Jerusalem, especially in the classical cultural and rhetorical contexts, is Barbara R. Rossing’s The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse Harvard Ttheological Studies (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999).

[179] The moral bipolarity of the civic enterprise represented in the biblical traditions of Babylon and Jerusalem is paralleled in the Hellenic literary tradition of Revelation’s epistolary recipients, the seven cities of proconsular Asia.  Homer’s epic ecphrasis depicted the shield of Achilles with the city of war and the city of peace bounded by the ecumenical river Oceanus (Iliad 18.478-606). The tragedians Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus) and Euripides (The Bacchae) contrasted Athens, which enjoyed divine favor, with Thebes, the city the gods hated.  The comedian Aristophanes, disillusioned with a corrupt and declining Athens, imagined a renewed city of peace and innocence (The Acharnians).  Moreover, the same bipolarity is observed in the Greek historians.  Herodotus divided the world into barbarian and Greek (History of the Persian Wars), and Thucydides represented the dual possibilities of Greece as Sparta and Athens (History of the Peloponnesian War). Moreover, Greek political philosophy understood the ethical tendency of man apart from the polis to be either bestial or divine, (Aristotle’s Pol 1253a), imagery that anticipates much in the Apocalyptic depiction of Babylon and Jerusalem. Consistently, the human political order could be represented by Glaucon’s feverish “city of pigs,”  (Plato’s Rep 372d) and, only in the chance event of divine intervention, by the Arcadian city of the Socratic philosopher-king (Rep 473d).  

[180]  Both the Hellenic and Latin traditions widely utilized the topos of two women to compare morally alternative choices.  For example, Xenophon described the temptation of Heracles by Lady Virtue, garbed in white, and Lady Vice, arrayed seductively (Mem 2.1.21-22).  Barbara Rossing traces the history and the significance of the evil versus the good woman within the classical rhetorical context in The Choice Between Two Cities:Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse  Harvard Theological Studies (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1999) 17-59.

[181]  Claudia Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy (Sheffield: Academic Press, 2000) 61.

[182]  The fact that there are no witnesses and that both women are harlots provides the challenge to discovering the truth that requires wisdom.  The issue must turn solely upon the testimony of two women who, as harlots, are regarded as skilled “liars” (cf. Pro 2:16, 5:2-4, 7:6-21).  Cf. Phyllis A. Bird, Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel  (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) 217.

[183]  The framing portraits of the two women of Proverbs, that is, the picture of the adulterous Lady Folly described in chapter 2 and the noble Lady Wisdom portrayed in chapter 31, constitute a literary inclusio that reinforces the theme of the book, namely, the choice to depart from evil (understanding) and to fear the Lord (wisdom). Cf. Claudia Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond, 1985) 59-60. We should also note a similar wisdom inclusio pattern in the Book of Judges.  The wise choice of the first judge, Othniel, who marries the daughter of faithful Caleb (2:12-13), is contrasted with the folly of the last judge, Samson, who chooses to pursue foreign women and harlots (14:1-16:20, cf. also the pattern where Samson confronts Jacob’s choice between two sisters, the younger of whom is fairer, 15:1-2). These two chiastically paralleled choices in Judges likewise correspond to the theme of the book, which traces the pre-monarchical moral decline in Israel to a time when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Further, the Book of Ruth opens with the syncritical juxtaposition of the choices of Orpah and Ruth regarding Naomi (1:11-18).  It concludes with the paralleled and syncritical choices of the nameless kinsman and Boaz respecting Ruth (4:1-10).

[184]  The Cainite Lamech is notorious for the very reason that he refuses to choose between two women, breaking the pattern of “the beginning” (Matt 19:8) by taking two wives.  His refusal to choose highlights the excess of his character.  If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech will be avenged seventy-sevenfold.  And if God will give Adam one wife, Lamech will take two.

[185]  Only Isaac does not appear to follow the pattern of patriarchal choice between two women.  The text does, however, juxtapose his coming of age between his mother and his wife, noting that Isaac “took Rebekah … and so was comforted after his mother’s (Sarah’s) death” (Gen 24:67).

[186]   J. S. Ackerman, “Numbers,” The Literary Guide to the Bible, R. Alter and F. Kermode, eds. (Cambridge: Belknap, 1987) 82.   

[187]  Paul’s allegory is solidly grounded in the text of the Old Testament.  The connection of Sinai and Hagar is based upon the common use of the verb tsahaq (“mock”) in Exod 32:6 and Gen 21:9.  The apostle appeals to Moses’ comparison of the Israelites’ “mocking” at Sinai to the scorn of Ishmael for Isaac, for which Hagar and her son were cast out of the presence of Abraham.  The same word also describes the “scorn” of his Sodomite sons-in-law for Lot (Gen 19:14) and the “contempt” the immoral wife of Potiphar untruthfully charges against Joseph (Gen 39:14, 17). This verbal concordance scathingly highlights the idolatry and immorality of Israel upon the slopes of God’s holy mountain, graphically underscored again by the disobedience of Aaron and the people in the matter of the golden calf (Exod 32:1-35). Moreover, the theme of strangeness or foreignness is also present in Paul, who reminds the Galatians that the law was given outside of the land of promise, i.e. “in Arabia” (Gal 4:25).  By the verbal linkage with קחצ, Israel’s “strange” conduct at Sinai is compared to the foreign conduct of the father of the Ishmaelites, to the folly of the Sodomites, and to the false testimony of an Egyptian temptress. 

    Sinai is also the mountain of Yahweh, the “God of the fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Exod 3:6).  Sinai is thus the mountain of the particularity of the Mosaic covenant.  Zion, on the other hand, is identified with Salem (Psa 76:2).  She is the mountain of El Elyon, the Most High, the Creator of all the earth (Gen 14:18-20).  It was here that Abraham, while justified but “yet being in uncircumcision,” paid tithes to Melchizedek, the eternal priest-king.  Zion is thus the mountain of the universality of the covenant of grace, mediated by a better priesthood than that officiated by Aaron at Sinai. 

[188]  Of course there is the famous judgment of Jesus respecting Martha and Mary of Bethany.  But this example is not according to the syncritical pattern we are examining.  The crucial decision is not that of Jesus, but, of Mary, who “chose the better part” (Luke 10:38-42).

[189]  The binary worldview of the Bible articulates a series of merisms that express the totality of moral choice.  The Pentateuch speaks of good and evil, the priests distinguished clean and unclean, the prophets express covenant obedience in terms of wisdom or folly, the evangelist speaks of light and darkness, and the apostle speaks of spirit and flesh. But the wisdom we are considering is not the various syncritical figurations of these binaries.  Rather, it is the transfiguration that is possible between them.

[190]  The most felicitous word that comes to mind to describe such salvific reversals is enantiodromia, that is, the conversion of something into its opposite.  C.G. Jung, apparently influenced by Heraclitus’ emphasis upon flux over stasis, made significant application of the term in his consciousness theory.  See Jung, “On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure,” in Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, (New York: Schoken, 1972) 211. The process of enantiodromia, which characterizes the activity of the trickster as savior, according to Jung, corresponds to what we will identify as the comedic imagination.  It expresses the prophetic preview of the character of the messianic age. 

[191]  Biblical literalists sadly miss the full significance of these prophetic passages by imagining that they speak simply of land reclamation in Palestine.  The renewal promised by the prophet speaks of the gospel flourishing of a soul in virtue that was once barren in vice.  To use Paul’s description, the soul according to the flesh worked adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, wrath, selfish ambition, dissentions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveries, and the like.  But after the cleansing waters of the gospel came, the same soul bore the fruit of the Spirit, namely, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:19-23).  Surely the fruitfulness of the soul is a greater gospel expectation than the mere fertility of the soil.  

[192]  “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see.  The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt 11:4-5).

[193]  Solomon’s capacious wisdom is revealed before all in his judgment of the two harlots (1 Kgs 3:5-28).

[194]  Revelation requires us to distinguish between the figure of the Great Whore and Great Babylon, which is the city that is the Mother of Harlots (Rev 17:5).  There is thus the Whore of Babylon as well as the whorish city of Babylon.  Such a partition is required because there is to be a remnant who, like Rahab, will be called to come forth out of the city devoted to destruction while others remain to suffer the whore’s judgment by fire (Rev 18:4).  Great Babylon is thus a divided city (Rev 16:19), unlike the New Jerusalem, which is whole and identified with the virgin-bride.

[195]   The punishment suited for the adulterous woman, according to Moses in the law, was stoning (John 8:5, cf. Lev 20:10, Deut 22:22, 24, cf. Ezek 16:38-40) and burning (Lev 21:9).  In fact, the whorish city of Revelation is stoned by God with hailstones from heaven (Rev 16:19-21), just as the Lord had formerly stoned the king of Jerusalem and his confederates with hailstones from heaven (Josh 10:1-5, 11).  Moreover, the whorish city is burned with fire (Rev 18:9), just as the Lord had formerly judged Jericho, the whorish city of Rahab (Josh 6:24). 

     There is a remarkable interleaving between the Fourth Gospel and Revelation.  In the account of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, the Jews ask Jesus for a “sign” to show His authority to execute judgment (John 2:18).  In the account of Jesus’ rescue of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus shows that no one in the temple has the moral authority to judge an immoral woman and to execute the Mosaic law by stoning her.  This charge effectively makes the Jerusalem temple the seat of whoredom (John 8:1-11).  In Revelation 15:1, a great “sign” is given, namely, the vial judgments poured out upon the whorish city and her temple, wherein the Lord does vindicate the law of Moses by stoning the whorish city and her temple (Rev 16:21, cf. John 2:18).

[196]  Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 3.13

[197]   See G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999) 847-861.

[198] The classical genre of the climactic vision of Revelation, describing the triumph of good over evil in the context of a divine wedding (komos), is comedy.   Cf. Aristotle, Poetica 1449a; see Daniel Russ, “The Bible as Genesis of Comedy,” in The Terrain of Comedy, ed. Louise Cowan (Dallas: Pegasus, 1984) 59.  The quarrel among modern commentators on Revelation regarding the character of apocalyptic genre has generally not led to helpful textual analysis. Cf. F.D. Mazzaferri, The Genre of the Book of Revelation from a Source-Critical Perspective Beihefte zur ZNW 54 (New York: de Gruyter, 1989) 60-75, 160-84.  The categories of Babylon the damned and Jerusalem the blessed, which largely reflect apocalyptic analysis, neglect the tension represented by Psa 87:1-4, where Babylon, the archetypical evil city, is promised salvific blessing, and Ezek 16 and 23, where the prophet excoriates Jerusalem for her whoredoms.

   The general absence of the comedic imagination in theological commentary, especially expressed in a failure to appreciate the transformative nature of love (see Hos 1:2; cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses) and the purgatorial character of comedy (see Ezek 16:60-63, Dante’s Purgatorio from the Commedia, and “Dante’s Letter to Can Grande,” Essays on Dante, ed. Mark Musa, trans. Nancy Howe (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1964) 34-47), has led, as we shall argue,  to an underestimation of the full range of literary possibilities represented by the Babylonian Whore in Revelation.  In fact, the redemption of the immoral woman is a significant theme in Johannine as well as Biblical theology. See the account of the Samaritan woman (John 4:4-42), the woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11), and the story of Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18, cf. Luke 8:2).  See also Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Casta Meretrix,” Explorations in Theology, vol. II Spouse of the Word, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991) 193-288, Jean Daniélou, “Rahab a Type of the Church,”  From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Typology of the Fathers, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd (London: Burns and Oates, 1960) 244-60, and J.M. Vogelgesang,  “The Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Book of Revelation.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1985) 98-112. One should consider as well the complexity of the role of the immoral woman expressed most imaginatively in western literature by Chaucer, Dante, Cervantes, Hawthorne, and Dostoyevsky.

[199]   The cup of the Whore is filled with a wine that represents the blood of the saints (Rev 17:4, 6).  It is thus an anti-communion, even as the supper of God, where the fowl of the air feast on the flesh of the unrepentant kings of the earth, is an anti-eucharistic supper (Rev 19:17-18).

[200]   To “wonder” (thaumadzein) has an awed astonishment as its most fundamental expression, particularly an awed recognition of divine presence. In Homer it is occasioned by the appearance of the divine (Odyssey 1.323).   In Hesiod, Thauma is the father of Iris, the messenger of the gods depicted in the rainbow that unites heaven and earth (Theogony 265).   Moreover, for Plato wonderment is the beginning of philosophy (Theaetetus 155d).  It is, according to Phaedrus, the essential attribute of the divine Eros (Symposium 178a).

[201]  For those who hold to a reformed theology of particular redemption, the identity of the Whore of Babylon should be beyond dispute.  How precise are these great doctrines of the reformed faith!  And yet at what a price comes this vindication of reformed soteriology in view of the large history of reformed misidentification of Babylon’s Great Whore!  May the Lord of all mercy forgive us.  Semper reformanda!

[202]  See my St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001) 30-89.

[203]  The Samaritan woman, who from her mixed heritage could speak of “our father Jacob” (John 4:12) and yet was distinguished from the Jews (John 4:9), is a perfect emblem of the bride of Christ, a composite community constituted of both a remnant from Israel and a remnant from the nations.

[204]  See Gen 3:1; Exod 7:15, Pss 58:4, 140:3, Isa 27:1, Jer 8:17, Matt 23:33, Rev 12:9. 

[205]   One implication of the brazen serpent typology is to diagnose for Nicodemus the spiritual state of Israel.  God through Christ had once again given a heavenly Manna to His people. Indeed He had given a better Manna  (John 6:30-58). But just as their fathers in the wilderness had despised the manna of Moses (Numb 21:5), so the generation of Jesus was likewise “grumbling” (John 6:43) at God’s provision of heavenly Bread (John 6:33-35).  And just as Moses had lifted up the serpent to give healing to the people under judgment (Numb 21:8), so the True Moses would Himself be lifted up to give healing to all those who, likewise under judgment, would simply look to Him and live (John 12:32).

[206]   Isaiah 11:10 connects the “standard” of Numbers 21:8 with the arboreal image of the Davidic house as the “root of Jesse.”

[207]  Similarly, Euripedes has Pentheus become a sparagmos upon a tree of death in the Dionysian wood.  The Bacchae 1047-1152.

[208]  The wine and the bread service to the king of Egypt recalls the priestly ministry of Melchizedek, king of Salem, who offered wine and bread to Abraham (Gen 14:18). Wine and bread are the staples of physical life.  As such, metaphorically, they likewise sustain spiritual life.

[209]  Joseph interprets the destiny of the two ministers with an ironic play upon the figure of “lifting the head.”  The wine minister will be restored, and thus his head will be “lifted” (Gen 40:13).  On the other hand, the bread minister will be destroyed, and thus his head will be “lifted” as he is hung (Gen 40:19). The text likely intends an echo to the irony expressed in the oracle of destiny found in Genesis 3:15 with respect to the word “bruise.”  The serpent and the Seed of the woman would both be “bruised,” however, the serpent mortally but the Seed of the woman not mortally.

[210]  The number of the slaughtered from Ai is said to constitute twelve thousand (Josh 8:25), a number that to the Hebrews would certainly have recalled the amphictyonic camp of Israel’s twelve tribes.  Clearly Israel is dispossessing and replacing the Canaanite nations.  Ai is the symbol of that replacement. 

[211]  This battle surely became Joshua’s paradigmatic victory since it occurred in the region where Abraham erected his first altar in the land promised to him (Gen 12:8).

[212]  This juxtaposition compares the religious leadership of the second temple with the Canaanites under the ban of Joshua.  The Lord Jesus makes the same accusation when He charges the temple priests of having made the temple into a “house of merchandise” (John 2:16), a citation from Zechariah 14:21, where the word for merchant is “Canaanite.”

[213]  The grief of David for Absalom is perhaps the single best illustration of why David is called the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22).  David’s ability to grieve even over his wicked son Absalom offers a window into the sorrow of Father God when He saw His own beloved Son, in the full imputation of our sin, upon the tree of death.  A similar source of grief is suggested in the sorrow of Abraham, who was commanded to sacrifice his unique and greatly beloved son Isaac (Gen 22:1-2).  By these pictures of the sorrowful heart of a father for his son we are invited to take measure of the love of God the Father, who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, not sparing even Jesus from His own tree of death.

[214]  Haman secures his edict against the Jews and then sits down to drink (Est 3:15).  He plots to have Mordecai hung so that he can delight himself at the king’s banquet (Est 5:14).  The author is showing the appetitive nature of Haman, whose feasting is associated with his rapacious hatred of the people of God.  Haman anticipates Judas, who plotted the death of Jesus while his hand was with Him “in the dish” (Luke 22:21, cf. Psa 41:9).

[215]  The Hebrew word for “showed” is from the same root as the word “Torah” in Hebrew.  The Torah is God’s “law,” the stipulations that “show” us the way to life.  Torah is the traditional word for the five books of Moses, as well.  In this context, Moses writes that God “showed” him a tree.  Metaphorically, the entire enterprise of Moses is captured in this gesture, for Moses’ whole purpose in the Torah is to point us to the tree of Christ that causes all our bitterness to change to sweetness (Gal 3:23-26).

[216]  The leaves used for healing, taken from this tree, contrast with the leaves taken from the fig tree in Eden, which were ineffective to heal the shame of sin.

[217]  The lemma of the sycamore tree (sukomorea of Luke 19:4) is suk-, meaning “fig.” We should compare the fig tree, sukē, in John 1:48.  The fig was the “sweet” fruit of the ancient Near East.  The sycamore and the fig tree demark the spiritual transformation of bitter to sweet in the lives of Zacchaeus and Nathanael.  In these accounts they constitute a reversal of the role of the fig tree in Eden, which represented the transformation of Adam and Eve from innocence to shame.

[218]  In fact the Lord reproved His Emmaus disciples for their foolishness in not understanding the pattern of Messiah’s suffering and glory from the Scriptures (Luke 24:25).  Emmaus is approximately a two hour walk from Jerusalem.  It would be a fair challenge to modern evangelical exegesis, it should seem, to ask for a two hour disquisition on the suffering and glory of the Christ, that is, a demonstration of the necessity of His death, burial, and third day resurrection from the Old Testament, beginning with Moses and touching  the prophets and the psalms (cf. Luke 24:20-21, 25-27, 44-46).   

[219]  Gordon Fee boldly denies that such a demonstration is possible.  He does not appear even to stagger before so frankly denying the dogma Paul is so clearly affirming. He states explicitly, “neither the tradition of the third day nor the Resurrection is well attested in the OT…” The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1987)  727.  Anthony Thiselton attempts to circumvent a part of the problem by claiming that most likely the phrase “according to the scriptures” does not modify “on the third day” but only “he was raised” in 1 Corinthians 15:4.  The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Mich: Eerdmans, 2000) 1196-1197. But as we have observed, this opinion does not take account of Luke 24:44-46, which suggests that the creed cited in the Corinthian letter is in fact consistent with an early Christian conviction that the third day resurrection was well attested in the Old Testament.  For a survey of recent  literature claiming that the resurrection is largely unrecognized in the Old Testament, see N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003) 85.

[220]  Richard B. Hays, “Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection,” The Art of Reading Scripture, Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003) 216.

[221]   Ibid., 230.

[222]  Note, for example, the pattern of the Christian’s new life delivered from sin according to Paul: “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with Him” (Eph 2:5-6).  See also the resurrection character of the believer’s identification with Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom 6:5), the Christian’s resurrection life in the Spirit (Rom 8:11), the resurrection life of the new Israel (Rom 11:15), the heavenly character of the Christian’s resurrection life (1 Cor 15:42-49).

[223] Richard B. Hays suggests that eschatological hope expressed in a miraculous childbirth, deliverance from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Canaan, and exile to return anticipate the resurrection doctrine in the Old Testament.  “Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection,” 234.

[224] The tabernacle and the temple both represent the dwelling place of the covenantal believer with the Spirit of God.  The symbolic identity of the tabernacle and the temple is seen in the similarity of the articles that furnish both of them, including the altar of sacrifice, the laver, the table of showbread, the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the holy ark.  The tabernacle is mobile, and speaks of Israel’s pilgrimage (cf. John 1:14).  The temple is fixed, and represents the settlement of Israel’s inheritance (John 2:21). Both figures are fulfilled in Christ.

[225]  Early on after Pentecost both Peter and Paul understood the cruciality of Psalm 16 to the resurrection of Christ.  Both apostles maintained that David, speaking as a prophet in Psalm 16, foresaw that the Lord would know death but not corruption (Acts 2:24-32 and Acts 13:35-37).  According to the customary opinion, referenced in the account of the resurrection of Lazarus, corruption occurred by the fourth day (John 11:39).  We may reasonably infer, therefore, that the apostles understood David to foresee a resurrection by the third day.

[226]  Biblical blessing is constituted of both fertility and dominion (Gen 1:28).  The twin challenges to the gospel, then, are the travail of the woman and the enmity of the beast.  These themes represent the history of redemption in John’s vision of the woman who cries out in childbirth before the great red dragon, who waits to devour her son (Rev 12:1-5).  The miraculous birth of the woman’s seed, whether from a barren or a virginal womb, precedes the assault of the serpent, depicted often through theriomorphic imagery.  The greatest example is the Lord Jesus, the Seed of the Woman, who was born of a virgin (Matt 1:23) and who defeated Herod, under the figure of a fox (on the third day, Luke 13:31-32), the Pharisees, under the figure of a brood of vipers (Matt 12:34; N.B. that they are given the sign of the third day, Matt 12:40), and Satan, under the figure of the dragon of old (Rev 20:2).

[227]  Bruce K. Waltke notes that this hirsute character of the child anticipates his “animalish nature.” Genesis (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2001) 358.  

[228]   By ruling over the “wild ass,” the “goat,” and the “evil beast,” the seed of the woman will fulfill the divine mandate, namely, that man is to have dominion over the beast (Gen 1:28, cf. Gen 37:33).

[229]  The theme of irony is expressed in the patriarchal narratives through the remarkable reversals of fortune.  In each case the younger brother prevails over the elder.  Isaac is called in preference to his elder brother. Jacob supplants his elder brother’s birthright and blessing.  And Joseph’s elder brothers bow down to him.   

[230]   Judah (LXX, “Judas”) had delivered Joseph to the Ishmaelites for silver (Gen 37:26-28).  Similarly, Judah delivers Samson over in bonds to the Philistines (Judg 15:11-12). 

[231]   The birth of Samson will cause the fall of the Dagon temple (Judg 16:30), and the birth of Samuel will portend the fall of the priestly house of Eli (1 Sam 4:18).  In other words, the “seed of the woman” will cause the destruction of a pagan temple and the rejection of an apostate priesthood.  The destruction of the “temple” is emblematic of the death that precedes resurrection, according to the Lord’s declaration in John 2:19.

[232]  The resurrection is figuratively described as a birth in John 16:19-21 and Revelation 12:5.

[233]  The Lord Jesus compared the grief of the disciples over His coming death to the travail of a woman entering labor (John 16:21).  Their grief would suddenly turn to joy at His resurrection, just as a mother’s sorrow turns to joy at the birth of her son (John 16:22). Mary Magdalene enacts this rhythm of grief suddenly turned to joy in the account of her garden encounter with the risen Christ, when her tears turn to joy (John 20:15-16).  Mary Magdalene’s grief to joy at Christ’s resurrection thus reenacts Mary of Nazareth’s sorrow to joy at Christ’s birth.

[234]  The swaddled (Luke 2:7), and thus mummiform, Infant was placed in a manger, which in Syro-Palestine would have been a hollowed out limestone block.  In Jesus’ burial by Joseph, after His body was wrapped for interment, Jesus was placed in a rock-hewn tomb (Luke 23:53).

[235]  While our consideration of the “third day” component of the resurrection is deferred until the last section of this discussion, the frequency of its occurrence in these figural “resurrection” narratives is striking.  It is clearly well beyond the possibility of random occurrence.  It will be noted as it occurs.

[236]  There is a question as to whether the “third month” of Exodus 2:2 is relevant to the pattern of third day deliverance.  It is noteworthy that David is permitted to choose his punishment after the sin of the census, whether he would suffer three years, three months, or three days of several punishments.  In the event he was given three days, after which the people were delivered from death (1 Chron 21:11-12).  This passage may suggest that the symbol undergirding the offer to David of alternative punishments is three “measures of time” for judgment followed by deliverance.  Now an understanding of three “measures of time,” rather than literal days, would alleviate the challenge of understanding Christ’s reference to three “days and nights” in Matthew 12:40 and the problem that has posed to chronologists of the passion narrative.  Nonetheless, the Scripture deems it important to relate that Moses was delivered from death in his third month.

[237]  Joseph is delivered from the dungeon to sit at the right hand of pharaoh (Gen 41:14, 40).  Joseph thus anticipates Moses, who is delivered from a death decree to become an adopted son in pharaoh’s court (Exod 1:22 and 2:10).  The same remarkable trajectory is seen in Daniel, too, who will be delivered from the lion’s den to be given authority over the whole of Darius’ kingdom (Dan 6:1-3, 23).  Each of these remarkable trajectories anticipate the career of Christ, who is placed in the earth as a condemned Criminal only to be raised to the throne of His Father in heaven.  These several patterns of Old Testament suffering followed by a royal glory foretell the ascension of Christ to the throne of heaven, the completion of gospel glory in the New Testament.

[238] Saul is juxtaposed to Goliath in his hostility to David (note the play on the word “dog” in both narratives of pursuit, 1 Sam 17:43, expressing Goliath’s pride, and 24:14, expressing David’s humility).  That David survives against both heroic assaults is a testimony to the “resurrection” power at work in David as the “seed” of the woman who prevails over bestial enmity.  Both Saul and Goliath are noteworthy for their exceptional stature (1 Sam 10:23 and 17:4).  Each has outsized armor (1 Sam 17:5 and 17:38).  Both Goliath and Saul come against David with a spear (1 Sam 17:45 and 18:11).  Finally, both are killed with a sword and then beheaded (a “bruising” to the head according to Gen 3:15, cf. 1 Sam 17:51 and 31:4, 9).  In suffering the hostility of both the uncircumcised giant and Israel’s king, David anticipates Christ, who will suffer the enmity of both the Gentiles and the Jews (Acts 4:27).

[239]  Jesus commands the Pharisees to report to Herod that the Christ will achieve His goal on the third day. (Luke 13:31-32).  That goal is the rebuilding of the temple and Jerusalem.  This is the reason Jesus calls Herod a “fox.”  Herod is situated in the Antonia fortress attached to the temple complex on temple mount.  In other words, the “fox” is traversing the walls of Jerusalem, the sign of Jerusalem’s impending destruction (Neh 4:3), and defiling the sacred site of the temple (Lam 5:18), which shows the desolation of the house left to the Jews who rejected their Christ.

[240]  Kenneth E. Bailey has an insightful book on the parable of the prodigal son as a retelling of the Jacob story of exile into a far country.  Jacob and the Prodigal:  How Jesus Retold Israel’s Story (Downer’s Grove, Illinois, Intervarsity Press, 2003).  N.T. Wright observes that the prodigal son’s return from exile is a type of resurrection narrative, namely, that a return from exile is a “vivid form of ‘life from the dead’…” The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003) 437.

[241]  The return of Jacob to the land of promise anticipates the account of the exodus of Israel from Egypt, which is another return from exile account. God appoints the day for Jacob to return home (Gen 31:13) after ten trials in the land of exile (Gen 31:7, 41), and his escape is discovered by Laban on the third day (Gen 31:22).  God delivers Jacob from the pursuit (Gen 31:23), and in doing so pagan gods are mocked (Gen 31:19, 30, 35).  The release of Jacob should have been celebrated with song and timbrel (Gen 31:27). Jacob returns to the land of his fathers with great wealth (Gen 32:5), but he has to pass through Esau to arrive at home (Gen 32:6).  Similarly, the exodus from Egypt begins with God appointing the day of Israel’s return (Exod 3:8) after ten trials in the land of exile.  Moses asks pharaoh to take the people into the wilderness for three days (Exod 3:18, 5:3).  God delivers Israel from pharaoh’s pursuit (Exod 14:23, 28), and in doing so mocks the pagan gods (Exod 12:12).  Israel celebrates their release with song and timbrel (Exod 15:20-21).  So the children of Israel return with great wealth (Exod 12:36), but they must pass through Esau to arrive at home (Deut 2:4-5). 

[242]  There is an implicit polemic against the Osirian theology of resurrection in Joseph’s mandate to his brethren.  Osiris’ body was retrieved from Syria by his wife/sister Isis and returned to Egypt, for only in Egypt could the body be raised to live again.  By having his body carried out of Egypt to Canaan, Joseph is testifying to his faith in the promise of the God of his fathers for a bodily resurrection.

[243]  The Philistines place the captured ark of God before Dagon in the temple in Ashdod (1 Sam 5:2).  On the next morning they discover Dagon has fallen before the ark and so they raise Dagon up again (1 Sam 5:3). On the morning of the third day, however, Dagon had fallen and broken to pieces before the ark (1 Sam 5:4-5).

[244]  God is no respecter of persons.  The delivering up and capture of the Ark causes the fall of both Israel’s priest and the Philistines’ temple god.  Similarly, the Philistines are sorely plagued by God (1 Sam 5:6); moreover the Israelites, who mishandled the holy Ark, are likewise severely plagued by God (1 Sam 5:19).

[245]  The “ichabod” judgment on Israel’s first temple is reported by Ezekiel, who saw the Spirit abandoning the sanctuary (Ezek 10:18, 11:22-23).  The same “ichabod” judgment is enacted by Jesus against the second temple when He releases the doves to escape the temple courtyard, emblematically representing the withdrawal of the Spirit from the sanctuary (Matt 21:12).

[246]  This captivity in bonds is metaphoric death, as can be seen in the language David uses to celebrate Abner who escaped the “death of a fool,” not having been “bound with chains” (2 Sam 3:34).

[247]  Royal repentance is demonstrated by building the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Psa 51:18-19).

[248]  The Red Sea deliverance could have been discussed under patterns of resurrection recalled in a release from a death decree (Exod 15:9) or in a return from exile (Hos 11:1), but it seems best to discuss it under the pattern of a deliverance through the waters of judgment since Paul conceives of Israel being “baptized” unto Moses at the sea (1 Cor 10:1-2). Many of these patterns of resurrection fall into several of the identified categories, showing the highly developed character of these associations within the texts of Scripture.

[249]  In a bold anthropomorphism, Israel’s psalmist rebukes the covenant Lord for sleeping in the midst of the jeopardy of His people.  The psalmist cries, “Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord?” (Psa 44:23).  The cry of the psalmist anticipates the perplexity of the disciples on the sea.  They too will only find peace when the Lord of Glory arouses Himself to deliver them!

[250]  W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison note that the evangelist has assimilated the two rescue at sea narratives by the commonality of the plea to Jesus for rescue (Matt 14:30 and 8:25).  A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. II, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991) 508.

[251]  That is, after three night watches have past (Matt 14:25).

[252]   Taking Jesus onboard the ship, with the implied rocking of the boat, proves to the disciples that He is not a “shade,” demonstrating His authentic humanity.  Moreover, the fact that the sea is then stilled demonstrates His divinity.

[253]  Bitterness and sweetness are symbols of evil and good and darkness and light (Prov 5:20), as well as death and life (Eccl 7:26).  For Israel in Sinai, the journey was a deliverance from the bitterness of Egyptian bondage  (Exod 1:14, 12:8) to the liberty of the land of promise, flowing with sweet milk and honey (Exod 3:8, 17, cf. Judg 14:18 and Prov 27:7).

[254]  The root word “point out” underlies the Hebrew word “torah,” or instruction.  How can a Christian not understand that by this symbol the Mosaic Torah is gesturing toward that very tree that would possess the potency to change bitter to sweet, thereby delivering the people of God from the certainty of death, and that on the third day?

[255]  Moses tells us that the Lord stood upon the rock at Horeb (Exod 17:6) and that he should have spoken to the rock at Meribah before the eyes of the people (Numb 20:8).  Moses disobedience in striking the rock in the sight of Israel was taken as an affront to God (Numb 20:12), for David tells us that the Rock of Meribah was God, who should have been praised (Psa 95:1, 8).  Paul identified the Rock as Christ (1 Cor 10:4).

[256]  I am thankful to my friend Paul Hurst who observed that the Lord’s care for the provision of His mother, spoken from the agony of His death on the cross (John 19:26-27), constituted obedience to the fifth commandment.  This is the first commandment with a promise, namely, of prolonged days  (Exod 20:12, cf. Eph 6:1-3).  In order for the promise of this commandment to be fulfilled, Jesus would have to be raised from the dead that His days might be long upon the renewed earth which the Lord His God was about to give Him.

[257]  I am not persuaded that Paul’s healing was a literal desquamation. The symptom that was alleviated when he was cured of blindness was “something like scales.”  The NT hapax legomenon “lepis” is found in the LXX of Leviticus 13:2,7, where the signs and symptoms of leprosy are described.  I believe Luke is choosing this word carefully in order to suggest a leprous condition by means of a simile (hōs).  The root “lēpo,” meaning “to scale,” is common to both “lepis” and “lepra,” the usual word for leprosy, i.e., the “scaling disease.”

[258] Paul’s baptism teaches the gospel in several respects.  In his Gospel Luke noted that the Pharisees refused the baptism of John, having no sins to confess (Luke 7:30).  When Paul the Pharisee submitted to the waters of cleansing, he was confessing that what he formerly regarded as clean and blameless according to the law had been discovered to be unclean, a type of spiritual leprosy.  Moreover, the longing of the Gentile Naaman had been for the waters of Damascus to have the same saving efficacy as the waters of Israel.  “Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” (2 Kgs 5:12).  Under the Old Covenant only the waters of the Jordan were appointed for the healing of the Gentile.  But now under the New Covenant the rivers of Damascus can give their waters for the baptism of Saul, and so they are sufficient to heal the Pharisee of Israel from the leprosy of his disobedience to the Lord Christ.  Now in the eschaton of the kingdom the plea of Naaman is realized, and the Abanah can cleanse the “leper” even as the Jordan.  For the prophets had foretold a day in which springs of living water would issue from the throne of the Living God (Psa 36:8, Jer 17:13, Ezek 38:12, cf. John 19:34), forming a great river which for abundance would fill the seas (Zech 14:8), for cleansing would wash iniquity from the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Zech 13:1), and for healing would give drink to the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Eze 47:12, Rev 22:2).

[259] The resurrection of the widow’s son in Elijah’s upper room anticipates Luke’s account of a woman named Dorcas who fell sick and died.  The disciples washed her body and likewise laid her in an upper room. Three men from Joppa, including Peter, came to the house and Peter prayed for her and her spirit returned to her and she rose up and lived.  Similarly, Paul was preaching to an assembly in an upper room when a young man named Eutychus fell from the third floor and died.  Paul fell upon him and his spirit returned and he was given alive to the brethren.

[260]  Jehoiachin’s deliverance from the prison recalls the release of Joseph from the dungeon.  Both changed their clothes upon release, which signals a reversal in their fortunes (Gen 41:14 and Jer 52:31-33).  And both were exalted to the court of the king (Gen 41:40 and Jer 52:32, 34). The release from the dungeon and exaltation to the right hand of the throne anticipates the resurrection of Jesus from the grave and His ascension to the right hand of the throne of Majesty.

[261] Paul, as an antitype of Daniel, was delivered from the mouth of the Roman lion.  The apostle took this sign as an assurance of the resurrection power of God (2 Tim 4:17-18).  Instructively, that same rapacious Roman lion would devour the enemies of Christ in AD 70.

[262] The cruciform image of this double binding between two guards is noted again in Acts 21:33, where Paul is described as likewise “bound by two chains.” 

[263]  Just as Jesus was wounded in the side (John 19:34), so Peter receives a similar stigmaton in his side.  That this striking is emblematic of death is seen in the same chapter, for Herod himself will be struck by an angel of death (Acts 12:23).  There is a significant comedic element in Acts 12.  Peter is the eiron, and Herod is the alazon in the narrative.  Contrasts include the unified church in fervent prayer for Peter (Acts 12:5) and the feigned adoration of the Sidonians for Herod (Acts 12:20).  Peter is naked and in bonds (Acts 12:7-8) and Herod is arrayed in royal apparel and seated upon a throne (Acts 12:21).  Peter is mistaken for an angel, though he is a man (Acts 12:15) and Herod, who is merely a man accepts the adoration of a god (Acts 12:22).  Finally, Peter is delivered from death while Herod is overcome, the tragic and final consequence of Herodian hubris.

[264]  Peter passes through two guard posts and an iron gate before he is freed into the city.  That is, there are three impediments to his release that must be overcome (Acts 12:10).

[265] When Jesus contextualizes His cross with the brazen serpent in the wilderness, He necessarily delegitimizes the temple of Herod.  He is suggesting that Israel is spiritually in the wilderness of exile, awaiting the true regathering.  See N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1996) 428-430.

[266] Once again the stigmaton recalls the wounding of Jesus.

[267]  Having survived the viper it is no wonder that Paul could celebrate the conquest of death and sing, “Oh death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).

[268]  The first temple in Israel was destroyed and rebuilt. This rebuilding was a figurative “resurrection.”  But the second temple in Israel was destroyed, suffering an eternal or “second death.”  Only the “temple” of Jesus’ body was resurrected to eternal life.  Jesus is the everlasting temple; He is the Priest from whom God accepts sacrifice and only in Christ does God reconcile Himself to men (John 2:19).  In Revelation it is the beast from the sea which suffered a lethal wounding and lived again (Rev 13:3, 12).  Might this “first beast” be the temple of Herod, which uttered great blasphemies against God?     

[269]  There is a remarkable triplicity in the texts of Scripture that refer to the tabernacle/temple.  Jesus raises the third temple of Israel on the third day after the destruction of His body (John 2:19).  All the synoptic Gospels report that Peter spoke of building “three tabernacles,” which appears to be a highly prophetic and symbolic text (Matt 17:4, Mark 9:5, Luke 9:33). The triplex tabernacle theme is especially evident in Luke/Acts.  As we have noted, Peter offers to “make three tabernacles” (Luke 9:33).  Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla are three “tabernacle (tent) makers” (Acts 18:3).  Paul greets the brethren from Rome at Tres Tavernae (L. “three tabernacles”) (Acts 28:15).  Stephen recalls the three tabernacles of Israel, the tabernacle of Moloch (Acts 7:43), the tabernacle of the testimony (Acts 7:44), and the tabernacle of David (Acts 7:46).  Finally, James, citing Amos 9:11, recalls the three-fold restoration of the fallen tabernacle of David (Acts 15:16).  We will see that the Davidic kings celebrate a great release or victory at the temple on the third day (David in 1 Chron 21:12; Hezekiah in 2 Kgs 20:5, 8; and Jehoshaphat in 2 Chron 20:25).  While it is not completely evident why this triplex phenomenon occurs, it appears that in Acts at least the evangelist associates the symbol of the “three tabernacles” with the remnant coming forth from Israel and the acceptance of the gospel by the Gentiles.

     Moreover, Peter identifies three “tabernacle” ages of cosmic history (2 Pet 3:5-13).  He describes the cosmos of the world that was (i.e. from Adam to Noah, 1 Pet 3:5-6), the present heavens and earth (i.e. from Noah to the second coming of Christ, 2 Pet 3:6-7), and the new heavens and earth (i.e. the eternal temple, 2 Pet 3:13).  Now confession and repentance, which mimic resurrection in a movement from death to life, is particularly pronounced with reference to Peter, whose repentance and restoration is always three-fold.  John associates Peter’s three denials of Jesus around a charcoal fire (John 18:18) with Jesus’ three-fold restoration of Peter around a charcoal fire (John 21:9, cf. John 21:14). Likewise, Peter’s repentance about what should be regarded as clean or unclean occurs in his vision of the sheet lowered from heaven three times (Acts 10:9-16). It seems apparent that there is yet much to study regarding the Scriptural symbolism of the tabernacle triplex and the underlying significance of the number three in Scripture in general.

[270]  Jacob prophesies that he will not see Joseph again until he sees him in “Sheol.” In the event Jacob’s prophecy is ironically fulfilled in Egypt (Gen 46:29-30). The identification of Egypt with the grave is strengthened by the manifest of the caravan that took Joseph down to “Sheol,” namely, “aromatic gum, balm, and myrrh” (Gen 37:25), all products supporting the Egyptian cult of the dead. Moreover, the mocking of Moses by Israel at the Sea likewise identifies Egypt with her graves (Exod 14:11).

[271]  God first causes organic life to come forth from the earth on the third day of the creation week, bringing forth the “trees bearing fruit with their seed in them” (Gen 1:12-13).  Similarly, God calls forth His Son from the earth on the third day, as the Firstfruits of the new creation (1 Cor 15:4, 23).

[272]  The Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 thus shows Christ as both the Lord of Sinai and the New Moses, the commandment to evangelize and disciple the nations corresponding to the Ten Commandments given by the Lord to Moses.  But Matthew also makes the Great Commission the antitype of the Divine Mandate of Genesis 1:28, as well as the redemptive correlative to the commission of Joshua with regard to the nations of Canaan.  Each of these aspects contextualizes the cruciality of the climax of the Matthew’s Gospel found in the Great Commission.

[273]  The resurrection on the third day becomes the day of Christ’s anointing as King over all Israel according to Psalm 2:7 (cf. Acts 13:33).

[274]  For the third day as the day of life and death decision see Genesis 40:12-40; Genesis 34:25, and 1 Kings 3:18.

[275]  Once again we anticipate the victory of the Son of David over all His enemies and even death itself as He raised the temple of His body on the third day (John 2:19).

[276]  This Davidide affinity for the temple on the third day perhaps undergirds Luke’s narrative of Mary and Joseph discovering their Son in the temple after searching for Him through three days of sorrow (Luke 2:48).  The narrative of the temple in Luke 2:41-52 anticipates the resurrection by its chiastic juxtaposition within the Gospel to the Emmaus narrative of Luke 24:13-35.  Both accounts center upon anxiety that Jesus, upon whom so much prophetic expectation had been placed, has been lost.  In the first account, Jesus’ parents search in sorrow for Him but find Him after three days (Luke 2:48).  In the last account, the Emmaus disciples are saddened, too, but likewise find Him after three days (Luke 24:17). Jesus rebukes His parents for their lack of understanding (Luke 2:49).  Likewise He rebukes the Emmaus disciples for their slowness to believe (Luke 24:25).  Both accounts describe a hasty return to Jerusalem. His parents return in order to find Jesus (Luke 2:45, His disciples return to announce that He has been found (Luke 24:33-34).  Both accounts emphasize the remarkable understanding of Jesus, displayed in a question and answer format with the teachers (Luke 2:46-47) and the disciples (Luke 24:19, 26).  Neither account elaborates upon the content of Jesus’ teaching, but both accounts describe the subjective or “heart response” of Jesus’ mother (Luke 2:51) and of His Emmaus disciples (Luke 24:32).

[277]  See Scott Hahn, “Covenant, Oath, and the Aqedah: Διαθήκη in Galatians 3:15-18,” CBQ 67 (2005) 90-94.

[278]  This passage (along with its progeny in Gen 24:60) certainly underlies Christ’s claim that the “gates of Hades” would not prevail against His church (Matt 16:18).

[279]  The “seed of the woman” would have his heel bruised by his great victory (Gen 3:15).  Similarly, Abraham’s “seed” would prevail over the gates of his enemies in his great triumph (Gen 22:17).

[280]  In the mythopoeic portrayal of John in Revelation, the Son of the woman (Rev 12:1-5) prevails over the serpent of old (Rev 20:2, 10). Likewise, in the eschatological vision of Paul the apostle, Jesus prevails over the last and greatest enemy, death, crushing the “sting” of death in sin (1 Cor 15:53-57; cf. Rom 16:20).

[281]  See also Deuteronomy 32:43 and Isaiah 11:10.  Moreover, the tendency of the Davidic palace to welcome multiple and foreign wives became an ironic preview of the bride of Christ as constituted of a multitude that no one could number, taken from every tribe (Rev. 7:9-10).  There was thus an ecumenicity within the palace of the Davidic kings that foreshadowed the diversity of the citizens of the New Jerusalem.

[282]  Just as we observed an ecumenicity in the palaces of the Davidide kings, so was there an ecumenicity expressed in the sanctuaries of the Aaronic priests.  The tabernacle and the temples of Israel were all constituted from the plunder of the nations (the tabernacle was constructed from the tribute of Egypt, Exod 12:35-36 and 35:20-35; the temple of Solomon built was from the tribute of the nations surrounding Israel, 2 Sam 8:11 and 1 Kings 5:51; the second temple was subscribed from the treasuries of Persia, 2 Chron 36:22-23 and Ezra 1:1-11; and the temple of Christ’s church is likewise built from the plunder of the nations, Matt 12:29).  On the symbolic ecumenicity of the eschatological temple of Israel as reflected in its being constituted of the trees and animals indigenous from many remote regions of the earth, see Warren A. Gage, The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 54-58.

[283]  The NT consistently expresses a universalization, as against the OT, of both sacred time and sacred space.  The Sabbath is universalized by Paul when the apostle grants permission to the believer to “count all days alike” (Rom 14:5-6 and Col 2:16-17, cf. Exod 20:8).  Similarly, OT references to the “promised land” of Canaan are also universalized in the NT as Christ claims dominion over all things in heaven and earth (Eph 6:3, cf. Exod 20:12; Rom 4:13, cf. Gen 15:18; Matt 5:5, cf. Psa 37:11).

[284]  Ishmael is blessed because of his father Abraham, God promising to make him into a great nation of twelve princes.  But he is not incorporated into the covenantal blessings promised to Isaac (Gen 17:18-21). Similarly, Esau is given a blessing by his father Isaac, but the covenantal blessing goes to Jacob (Gen 27:38-41).

[285]   A literal understanding of the “seed” of Abraham makes the evangelical mission of the NT utterly impossible.  It would erect once again the very “dividing wall” that Christ Himself has taken down (Eph 2:14-15). The particularities of Israel’s “imperfect” Mosaic law and superseded Sinaitic covenant (Heb 7:19, 8:7-13) would swallow up the universal promises of the prior Abrahamic covenant (Gen 12:3).  In order to break free of the particularity of Israel, the apostles recorded the new oracles of God not in classical Hebrew but in vernacular Greek, for God was calling out of the nations of the Hellenized world a new Israel, where all ethnic, social, and sexual statuses were transcended, where there was neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (Gal 3:28 and Col 3:11).

    The apostles certainly understood that the universalization of the particularity of “Israel” was essential to their commission to make disciples of every nation.  Thus they consciously universalized sacred time (all time is Sabbath time, Col 2:16), and sacred space (all lands are promised lands, Matt 28:18-20).  Moreover, they made all foods clean and holy (God has called clean what was once unclean, Acts 10:9-16), and understood all Israel’s sacrifices and sacred seasons to be fulfilled in Christ’s (once and for all time) universalized offering (Heb 7:22-27).  

[286]  The bridal theology of Paul (Eph 5:23) and John (Rev 21:2) makes possible the church’s participation in her Husband’s sign of circumcision (Luke 2:21).  The implication of this theological identification of the believer with Christ, as the church is His spouse, is massive.  Jesus’ circumcision fulfills the everlasting requirement of the Abrahamic covenantal sign for the church community, mysteriously made “one flesh” with Christ (Gen 17:9-14; Eph 5:31-32). Physical circumcision is thus rendered immaterial to the Christian believer, whether from Israel or from the nations (1 Cor 7:19).  

[287]  Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991) 44-47.

[288]  The olive tree is explicitly associated with David (Psa 52:8) and the young olive plants with the children of the righteous (Psa 128:3).  Israel and Judah are likened to an olive tree that is cut down for disobedience (Jer 11:16).

[289]  There is a tradition that identifies Tamar as an Aramean (Jub 41:1).

[290]  The spiritual particularity of the true Israel is seen when the two Moabite women are named, Orpah and Ruth, but only Ruth is chosen (Ruth 1:14).  Likewise two Hebrew men are cited, the nearest kinsman and Boaz, but only Boaz is named (Ruth 3:12-13).  The universality of the true Israel is seen when a royal son of Judah is given to a Moabite woman and a Hebrew man. 

[291]  Although Bathsheba was a Jewess, she had married a proselyte.  The point is that Matthew goes out of his way to incorporate the name of a Hittite into the royal genealogy of Jesus.  

[292]  W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 1, (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark Ltd, 1988) 176-177.

[293]  The patriarchal histories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob foretell the entire history of Israel until the coming of Christ, the New Joseph who, like His type, was to give bread to the nations of all the earth (Gen 41:57 and John 6:51).  Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt and his deliverance through plagues from pharaoh anticipated the exodus under Moses, Isaac’s sojourn in Canaan foreshadowed the settlement of Israel in the land, and Jacob’s banishment to the east and subsequent return to the land of promise foretold the exile of Israel to Mesopotamia and the return from exile.

[294]  F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1905) 1048.

[295]  The Hellenistic (and post-Socratic) translators of the LXX rendered misphāt with eidos in Exodus 26:30.  The heavenly pattern of justice is thus placed in the realm of the eidetic, the formal or ideational region beyond any earthly instantiation.  This occasions a remarkable coincidence between the Hellensitic and the Hebraic notions that the pattern of the heavenly tabernacle/city is the hope of man, according to which all things in the visible realm should be ordered.  In his great treatise on justice, Plato records Glaucon’s lament that in this world the just city can only exist in words (en logois) and not in deed, along with Socrates’ suggestion than nonetheless “perhaps there is a pattern (paradeigma) of it laid up in heaven” Republic 592b.  Socrates’ poetic intuition takes place at the farthest limits of his dialectic.  Its rational coincidence with the revelational argument of the author of Hebrews is remarkable (Heb 8:1-5, 11:16, 12:22-23).

[296]  In fact both Luke (Stephen) and the author of Hebrews use the word typos to describe the relationship of Moses’ tabernacle to the heavenly court shown to Israel’s lawgiver on the mount (Acts 7:44 and Heb 8:5).

[297]  Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, vol. 1, trans. J. A. Baker, (Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1961) 384-387.

[298]  The fact that the transcendent God would humble Himself to dwell within the tent curtains of a portable tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai anticipates the humble beginning of the ministry of Jesus, who though He was in the beginning with God and created all things, first appeared to the disciples as He tabernacled in flesh among His people in the wilderness of the Jordan (John 1:14).

[299]   Solomon lamented that his temple could not contain God.  But Jesus is greater than Solomon, and He creates a new cosmos, a new heavens and earth, which is a temple large enough for God to tabernacle therein together with man (Rev 21:1-3).

[300]   In Plato’s Republic Socrates spoke about the ills of the cities of men, suggesting that without justice there can be no remedy for man (Rep 473d).  But through dialectic he reasons concerning the good city, Kallipolis, which can be reached only through the comedic imagination by traversing three waves of “ridicule” (Rep V).  The first of these comedic “waves” is to recognize the equality of men and women, that women are just as educable as men (Rep 451d).  The second “wave” is to abolish the private and have all things, even families, in common (Rep 457d).  The third and greatest “wave” is to recognize that only a philosopher-king can rule the beautiful city upon earth according to the pattern of heaven (Rep 473cd).  In sum, Socrates acknowledges the injustice of the soul of man and the cities he creates.  He suggests that the true city can only be envisioned in comedy, the realm of the ridiculous. And he teaches that by reason alone there should be no conventional distinction between male and female, that humanity is one family, and that only a divine man, who understood the realm of being in heaven, could bring such an earthly city into the realm of becoming (Rep 592ab).

      The argument of Socrates in Plato’s Republic is remarkable for its pre-Christian understanding.  The apostles taught that man was unjust in his being because of the fall of Adam (Rom 5:12).  The fall of man causes us to consider the pre-lapsarian world as an imaginative gateway to a good city—a human community where there was an original equipoise between males and females (Gen 1:27; Gal 3:28), where there was no scarcity and hence all belonged to one family (Gen 2:1; Acts 2:45), and where God ruled upon the earth through man (Gen 1:28; Col 1:13-18).  All of that original blessing being lost in the sin of the first Adam, the apostles envision a new or heavenly city as the hope of man made possible by the Last Adam (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:2).  That city appears most clearly in John’s Revelation, the NT book that conforms most closely to the conventions of classical comedy, even ending in a wedding supper (komos).  The New Jerusalem is the singularly just city, the city of the soul of the divine Son of Man writ large.  It is the city that Socrates could only imagine.  But it is the good city that Saint John tells us he truly saw, coming down to earth from the heavens adorned in beauty like a bride for her Husband (Rev 21-22).  See Warren A. Gage, Saint John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

[301]   See Plato’s Republic 473d.  The aspirations of the Hellenistic world for just regime based upon a mediated justice informed by the heavenly pattern and implemented by a royal rule upon the earth were easily compatible with the messianic hope of the Scripture, as the church apologists recognized.  The NT went beyond the imagination of classical political philosophy, however, in offering a solution to the most intractable political problem, the conflict between the rich few and the many poor.  The most radical political program of the apostles is the democratization of the royal-priesthood.  The doctrine of the universal priesthood of the believer makes possible a cosmopolitan transcendence of all political particulars, and the universality of the royal authority of the believer overcomes all class and status distinctions by elevating the status of the many to the royal court of Christ Himself (1 Pet 2:9). The Melchizedekian priesthood of Jesus, which He bestows without distinction upon His church, makes possible an ecumenicity that was unimaginable under the Aaronic priesthood (1 Pet 2:9); moreover, it makes possible a cosmopolitanism that was likewise unimaginable to post-Socratic Hellenistic political philosophy (Col 3:11).

[302]  See Psalm 78:69 and Isaiah 40:22b. The temple of god as a cosmic house was a common aspect of the ideational world of the ancient Near East.  See Warren A. Gage, The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 54-58.

[303]  Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, if we read the epistolary address with the majority of the manuscripts, contains the most elaborate Pauline teaching on the cosmic temple Christ raised as a new community of Jews and Greeks (Eph 2:11-22).  Paul announced his doctrine of the universal temple to the church community in the city dominated by the temple of Diana, whose devotees had so assaulted Paul in his evangelical work in Ionian Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41).  Paul thus founded a spiritual temple, by the words of his epistle, which was to supplant the Artemisian temple.  Like Jesus, Paul thereby doomed the pagan temple to destruction.  In fact at a later time John wrote concerning the “lampstand” of Ephesus (Rev 2:5), suggesting by this temple furniture that Christ’s cosmic temple had already expanded to the leading city of Roman Asia.

[304]  What a triumph over Satan and the kingdom of darkness is represented by the apostolic doctrine of the universal temple!  Satan in the beginning had tempted Adam and his bride with the illicit promise that they who were created in the image of God should be like God (Gen 3:5).  But in the grand redemption of the Last Adam, God dwells in the heart of each believer so that all are in fact made like Christ, who is the express image of God (Col 3:10; cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3).

[305]  Alexander’s great enterprise to create a cosmopolis out of the ancient world reached its climax as well as its collapse when he began to design a dress that incorporated both Persian and Macedonian raiment, symbolizing his attempted union of Europe and Asia.  The Macedonians rejected the new amalgamated fashion, however, and the Alexandrian empire refused to adhere after Alexander’s death.  Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. John Dryden (New York, New York: Modern library, n.d.) 833-834.   

[306]  Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, trans. S. H. Hooke, (New York, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954) 189.

[307]  The ancient temple city was composed of a cosmic mountain (axis mundi), a community (centrum mundi), and a garden (umbilicus mundi).  See Warren A. Gage, The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 51.

[308]  See Warren A. Gage, Saint John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001) 105-113.

[309]  This is the typical type-scene that sets up the expectation of the revelation of the bride (Gen 24:1-60, 29:1-20, Exod 2:15-21).

[310]   Intermarriage was likewise central to the cosmopolitan project of Alexander, who took a Parthian wife in Roxana and encouraged his Macedonians to do the same.  Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. John Dryden (New York, New York: Modern library, n.d.) 834-835. 

[311]  The pattern of the doubled twelve represents the ecumenicity of the heavenly city.  There are twenty-four thrones in heaven, a magistracy certainly constituted of the twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve apostles of the nations (Rev 4:4, 10, 8-10).  The twenty-four elders celebrate the worthiness of the Lamb whose blood has redeemed men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev 5:9), making them, like Israel, a kingdom of priests (Rev 5:10).  Moreover, the city has twelve foundations named for the apostles of the nations and twelve gates named for the tribes of Israel (Rev 21:12-14).  Instructively, the tree of life bears twelve kinds of fruit in each of the twelve months of the year (Rev 22:2), fully satisfying the redemption and healing of both Israel and the Gentiles.

[312]  For the significance of this juxtaposition in the context of the paraenetic literature of the ancient Mediterranean, see Barbara R. Rossing, The Choice Between Two Cities:  Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse, Harvard Theological Studies, (Harrisburg, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1999).

[313]  While “like God” is formally also a simile, it is a resemblance of identity, and thus closer to metaphor.  See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1968) 728-729.  Cf. Numb 11:1, Neh 7:2, Psa 122:3, Isa 1:9-10,  Matt 14:5, John 1:14.

[314]   Paul’s representative catalogue of the cardinal nations in Colossians 3:11, Greek, Jew, barbarian (Persian), and Scythian, appears to reflect largely the horizons of Herodotus.  The Greek historian divided the oikumene, that is, the known, inhabited world, into Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Scythian extremities.  These four cultures were distinguished largely by their poetry.  The Scythians, as the most primitive, had no understanding of metaphor.  They had no images of the gods, being unable to recognize an image as an image.  To illustrate this incapacity for simile, Herodotus reports his famous description of the Scythians who confounded feathers for snow (Hist 4.31)  As a consequence, they made no images of the gods (Hist. 4.59), not being able to distinguish image and reality. On the other hand the Egyptians mistook the image for the reality itself, illustrated in their reification of the soul in the mummified body (Hist 2:90). Moreover, the Persians (barbarians) did not conceive of their gods as images at all (Hist. 3.29).  Finally, the Greeks were capable of a robust distinction between the image and the reality and therefore had the basis for an authentic metaphoric poetry (Hist 4.30-31).  See Seth Benardete, Herodotean Inquiries (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999) 100-103, 129. 

      It was the ability to distinguish image from reality that made possible the emergence of philosophy.  This precondition requires the recognition that poetry transcends historical particulars.  This capacity enables us to see the cosmography of Herodotus as a kind of anticipation of Plato’s divided line, with the Scythians confounding image with reality, the Egyptians reifying the image itself, the Persians distinguishing the gods from images entirely, and the Greeks capable of conceiving reality apart from the image at all.  See again Seth Benardete, Herodotean Inquiries (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999) 129-130. 

     It is the capacity to think poetically that transcends historical and cultural particularities, as Aristotle observed in the Poetics (1451b).   This capacity can even show itself in the particulars of history, however, when those permanancies grounded in nature are investigated, as the historian Thucydides claimed (The Peloponnesian War 1.22-23).  These poetic constructs came together in the Hellenistic world as the Peloponnesian War brought about the end of the Greek poleis, and the cosmopolis of Alexander, a project certainly inspired by Aristotle’s philosophy, likewise subsequently collapsed.  The NT evangelists and apostles, however, showed that the particularities of race, custom, sex, and status could after all be transcended in the God-man.  Thus the City of God was conceived so that all could be reconciled to God through Christ, the divine Logos (poetry).  This redemption involved the restoration of the proper relationship between God and man, who is made in the image of God.  This task, which is fundamentally poetic, at long last made possible the peaceable kingdom of the prophets.

[315]  A number of conservative expositors have expressed their suspicion of typology by seeking the supposed safety of “Marsh’s dictum.”   This hermeneutical principle rejects any “type” not expressly so named in scripture.  As formulated by Bishop H. Marsh, “There is no other rule by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of scripture itself. …if we assert that a person or thing was designed to prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by divine authority, we make assertion for which we neither have, nor can have, the slightest foundation.”  Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible (Cambridge: C&J Rivington, 1828) 373. The NT, however, is clearly not using typos or its cognates to express a technical terminology, as Marsh’s rule would presuppose. See D. Baker, “Typology and the Christian Use of the Old Testament,” reprinted in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? : Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New, G. Beale, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 320-321.  See also L. Goppelt, s.v. “typos,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Friedrich, ed., trans. by G. Bromiley, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972) 8:246-259.

[316]  E. Miner states, “…the ability to declare typology absent is a kind of proof of sound modern critical method.”  “Afterword,” in Literary Uses of Typology, E. Miner, ed. (Princeton: University Press, 1977) 377.

[317]  C. Seitz suggests that typology represents a crisis in hermeneutics that masks underlying crises in our understanding of providence, ecclesiology, and pneumatology.  Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) 33.  We would add the observation that hardly any area of dogmatic theology is left unmarked by a figural reading of the scripture.  Among the ancient questions directly addressed by typology are divine sovereignty and human freedom in history, the trustworthiness of the Christological claims of the NT, and the relationship of the old to the new covenant. While these theological implications of typology are vast, any investigation that can so alarm both conservative and critical theologians promises to be both highly rewarding and altogether great fun!

[318]  In our opinion, this is a case of a legitimate concern causing an illegitimate disregard of a method of interpretation clearly warranted in scripture. Biblical typology, as we shall see, is inextricably connected to history.  It partakes of both diachronic (e.g., the covenants of promise) and synchronic expression (e.g., the tabernacles/temples). Its historiography is thus both linear and cyclical, describing the full contours of the sovereignty of the Lord God over history.

[319]  The written word, like the Living Word, partakes of both human and divine aspects.  Typology is an exploration of the divine metanarrative of the Word.  It presupposes the organic unity of canonical scripture composed by some forty major authors over a span of some fourteen centuries.  Modern critical schools, both theological and literary, reject a metanarrative upon naturalistic and rationalistic grounds.

    Post-modernism, as a literary school represented by R. Barthes and M. Foucault, is at war with the logos.  The war itself is ironically typological.  It attempts a new crucifixion of the logos, that is, the denial of all legitimizing discourse.  It will fail, because to deny ultimately is finally only to rage against a resurrected

affirmation.  In our opinion post-modernism represents the entropy state of the western literary tradition.  We are ripe for a new creation, perhaps through the prophetic proclamation of a typological logos.       

[320] Goppelt, TDNT, 8:255.

[321] Most modern works dedicated to typology (after Marsh) commonly assume that the fundamental question of method is the NT interpretation of the OT.  See P. Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture, 2 vols. (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1876) 1:47.  L. Goppelt states that typology is an attempt “to interpret the OT the way it is interpreted in the NT as applied to the Christ event.”  Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, trans. by D. Madvig, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982)  xxi.  Goppelt’s method is thus to examine NT passages where the OT may be detected and then examine the context to determine whether or not a typological interpretation of the OT is given. Ibid. 19. R. Davidson follows Fairbairn and Goppelt in identifying the task of typology as the NT interpretation of  the OT, but he narrows his proposed method to an examination of “hermeneutical ‘typos’ passages,” that is, to suggesting a method derived from a careful exegesis of those passages of the NT wherein “typos” appears to signal a typologically important section, namely, 1 Cor 10:1-13, Rom 5:12-21, 1 Pet 3:18-22, and Heb 8-9. Davidson, Typology in Scripture: A Study of Hermeneutical Typos Structures, (Berrien Springs, Mich: Andrews University Press, 1981) 115-190.

[322] The NT is written in a vernacular koine Greek.  In a metaphorical mimesis of the humility of the Son of God in the incarnation, whereby the Living Word took upon Himself an authentic human nature enclosed in earthen clay, the Word of God in the NT has taken upon itself the ordinary idiom of a common hellenistic agora. The Bible is clearly intended to be accessible to the ordinary understanding of the common man or woman. Consequently, the reformers were certainly correct in insisting that the Scripture should be given to the people (WCF 1:8).   

[323]  The believer acknowledges, however, that true understanding of the Word comes from the Father who enlightens (Matt 11:25, 16:17) and from the Spirit who inspires (John 16:13).   This conviction removes the Christian from the western philosophical tradition, which seeks truth by reason alone, but it does not remove him from reason.  The Logos alone is reason.

[324]  E. S.-Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World  (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) 34.

[325] See B. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001) 57.

[326] Aristotle claimed that the ability to create metaphor was not universal (Poetics 59a), but the popularity of the ancient theatre appears to substantiate a common capacity to appreciate the poetic. Other ancient authority, however, suggests that the capacity to distinguish between image and reality was blurred among certain people.  Herodotus described the barbarian Scythians as a people utterly incapable of distinguishing image and reality.  The Scythians once prevailed over a much larger army of rebelling slaves by attacking them with whips instead of swords, thus terrifying the insurgents with an “image” of their subjection. History, 4:3-4.  Likewise, the Scythians themselves described the northern regions as filled with feathers, which Herodotus understood to be a figure for snow, which is like feathers.  Herodotus concluded that the Scythians were unable to distinguish the image and the reality. Ibid. 4:31.  S. Benardete noted that the Scythians confounded metaphorical with actual identity, which is why they had no statues of their gods. Herodotean Inquiries, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969) 116.  On the other hand, the Egyptians had statues precisely because they did confound the image with the reality it represented.  The iconographic art of Egyptian reliefs depicted enemies as either diminutive or decapitated, lest their images represent a real threat to the pharaoh.  Likewise, the perceived reality of pharaoh’s body as imago dei informed the iconic art of mummification. Consequently, the preservation of the image of life was thought to assure its actual continuance.  To that end, the mummy was ithyphallic in imitation of Min (to give fertility) and sceptered in the mummiform imitation of Osiris (to give dominion over death).

[327]  There are many other allusions to the original creation account of Gen 1 in the record of the new creation of Noah in Gen 8.  We note several other lexical and logical particulars, including the concordance of the words “deep,”  “day and night,” man in God’s “image,” and the animals coming out of the ark “after their kind.”   For other examples, see my The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 10-11.

[328] God claims through Isaiah to have “created” Israel (43:1,15), just as He “created the ends of the earth” (40:28).

[329] Corresponding to the division of the waters in the creation (Gen 1:7) is the dividing of the waters at the sea (Exod 14:21).  Once again, there are a number of other lexical and circumstantial particulars connecting Exodus 14-15 and Genesis 1 that we need not mention here.  They are enumerated in The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984), 67.

[330] Ibid. 65-66, 69-70.

[331]  The pattern of the believer’s redemption, prefigured in the original creation out of chaos, militates against any synergistic theory of justification.  In both creation and redemption the elements are the same.  We begin with darkness.  The Spirit moves.  The Word is spoken.  The Light shines into darkness. Creation is ex nihilo, just as redemption is sola gratia.

[332]  There are other redemptive patterns based upon the creation narrative of Gen 1 that display an artful application of these images.  We should mention one of them, first noted to us by S. Craig Glickman.  It is the account of Jonah, whose disobedience caused the Lord God to send His wind (Spirit) upon the sea (Jon 1:4).  Jonah (H. “dove”) was thereupon cast into the stormy waters, causing them to cease their raging (Jon 1:15).  After the repentance of the prophet, Jonah was cast up on dry land (Jon 2:10) at the word of the Lord.  Afterwards, through this prophet bringing the word of God, the light of redemption shone into the darkness of Nineveh (Jon 3:10).   

[333]  For the Christian committed to a creationist understanding of Genesis, the constituent parts of the created order are revelatory of the glory of God.  Consequently, the telos of the physical and animal creation is not anthropological, as Aristotle claimed.  Rather, creation’s purpose is revelatory and doxological.  It is to reveal God to the praise of man.  Thus the rainbow is made a part of the physical creation to remind us of the wrath of God by which He destroyed the wicked in the flood of Noah (Gen 9:13-15).  But the same rainbow has now been made the emblem of His covenant of peace (9:12), a symbol that bespeaks the beauty of His heavenly throne (Rev 4:3).  The rainbow is thus the first pattern of the hope of Israel’s latter prophets that the weapons of war would be transformed into implements of peace (Pss 46:9, 76:3, Isa 2:4, Mic 4:3).  Similarly, we understand the purpose of the animal creation to reveal God’s glory.  Consequently, the lion and the lamb were created to express the same dual aspects of the character of God’s throne, He whose rule is both fearsome (Rev 5:5) and gentle (Rev 5:6-8).

   Again, in contrast to Aristotle, the human senses are not merely the self-actualizing capacities of the soul.  Rather, they are themselves physical metaphors of spiritual realities.  Consequently, physical sight is a metaphor for our perception of the divine Light and physical speech is the image of our likeness to the divine Word.  The Lord gives or withholds our physical senses (Exod 4:11) in grace for His own glory (John 9:3).  It is this truth that affirms the wholeness of the disabled Christian, who has lost the mere metaphor, but not the sensible reality.  For the Christian who is blind does not walk in darkness, for the Lord is his Light.  And for the believer who is dumb, the Lord is his Song.   

[334]  Aristotle, Poetics, 59a.

[335]  Faith itself is grounded in imagination.  It is the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1)

[336]  We have adapted these remarks from some observations on poetry by Louise Cowan.

[337] We might illustrate analogy by comparing the sacramental “fall of man” (“she took of its fruit and ate” Gen 3:6) with our restoration in the communion of Christ (“This is My body, take and eat” Matt 26:26).

[338] An illustration of the value of a sensitivity to form in the biblical record is the observation of Gordon Wenham that the flood narrative of Genesis is constructed in an elaborate chiastic structure called a palistrophe.  The pivot verse is Gen 8:1, “And God remembered Noah.”  The literary structure is made to depict the subject of the theme, for the chiasm ascends as the waters of the flood prevail over the mountain tops, and the chiasm reverses and declines to imitate the assuaging of the waters.  “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978) 336-348.  For an excellent introduction to several of the many structural patterns of the OT we would recommend D. Dorsey, The Literary Structure of the OT: A Commentary on Genesis to Malachi (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999).  We would also commend J. Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994). 

[339] The iconic power of literary figure was called ecphrasis by the ancient rhetoricians.  The classic illustration of this figure is the depiction of the shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad.  The shield represents a map (image) of the world of human possibilities that is described so vividly that the reader appears to “see” the object itself. Surrounded by the river Oceanus, the shield displays the two cities of war and of peace. Iliad 18:468-616. Barbara Rossing has identified the two cities of Revelation, depicted as the whorish Babylon and as the virginal New Jerusalem, as constituting a Johannine ecphrasis. The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride and Empire in the Apocalypse, Harvard Theological Series (Harrisburg:Trinity Press, 1999) 17-59.

  We should note that the power of the biblical text to suggest images explains the impetus for eastern iconic art as well as medieval illumination of scriptural manuscripts. See I. Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalion (Chicago: The University Press, 1993) 107-111. On the other hand Judaism discouraged iconic representations of the Bible out of deference to the second commandment.  Nonetheless Samuel ben Jacob, the eleventh century annotator the Leningrad Codex, designed the  massorah of Exodus 15 to represent the waves of the “Song of the Sea.”  See B. Waltke, “How I Changed My Mind about Teaching Hebrew,” Crux 24.4 (1993) 13. Islam also forbad textual iconography as a violation of the commandment against images of the divine.  But the natural impulse to image making expressed itself nonetheless in a beautiful calligraphic ornamentation of sacred texts.

[340] Poetry, according to Aristotle, arises out of the nature of man; it is thus anthropological and natural in its origin (Poetics 48b). The four classic literary genres were recognized as imitations of the fundamental gestures of the soul.  They are the comic, the lyric (or dithyrambic), the epic, and the tragic (Poetics 47a). As Dante recognized, but unfortunately few others after him, the Christian message, describing a low beginning followed by a high ending, is essentially comedy in the classical sense.  It is a message of triumph overcoming tragedy. For example, the pattern of biblical time, which moves from evening to morning, suggests comedy.  Similarly, Joel’s “Day of the Lord” begins with the darkness of great judgment that preceeds the dawn of a glorious redemption (3:14,18). The summary of the OT given by Luke, whereby the prophets spoke of the suffering of the Christ and the glory that would follow (24:26-27), likewise traces the essential trajectory of classical comedy.

   Moreover, the Bible speaks to the lyrical soul, for example, in the Song of Songs, in certain of the psalms, and in the comfort passages of the Upper Room discourse (“I am the Vine,” etc.).  It includes the epic in the depiction of the triumph of the Lamb who slays the dragon and then constitutes the new creation, as foreseen in Revelation.  And it includes the tragic in its truest sense in the sacrifice of Jesus (in one day, or, “within one circuit of the sun,” as Aristotle required of tragedy, Poetics 49b).

[341]  The NT’s only explicit use of “allegory” is found in Galatians 4: 21-31.  Paul finds an analogy in the persecution of the new Christian believers by the synagogue in the mockery of Isaac by Ishmael (Gen 21:9).  The “mockery” that describes Ishmael is the same word used to characterize the idolatry of Israel in the disobedience at Sinai (Exod 32:6).  Paul’s method, then, is to identify the spiritual condition of late second temple Israel with the apostasy of Sinai.  It is based upon a careful exegesis of the Pentateuch and an analogous recognition of the same pattern of disobedience at work in the opposition of unbelieving Israel to the new Christian community.  Paul’s allegory, then, is profoundly exegetical.  It is wholly dependent upon the historical and lexical accuracy of the Pentateuch, and so does not appear to differ substantially in method from his typology.

[342]  We will give extended consideration to the subject of historiography (namely, what determines that which is “chronicle-worthy” in the Bible) and history in later chapters on the covenant and the tabernacle.  The quarrel between G. von Rad and R. Bultmann over the question of the validity of biblical typology turned on the question of linear v. cyclical time.  This question is so critical, and the articulation it requires is so elaborate, that we will defer its discussion at this point.  For now, we will consider the foundation of typology in poetics. 

[343] Poetry is unique in its revelatory capacity since it can speak on multiple levels.  Hesiod’s muses claim to be able to make falsehood sound true (Theogony 27-28). Similarly, there was ever the ambiguity of the oracular utterances that characterized Delphi’s python.  Likewise an esoteric tradition characterized the mystery cults as well as the Christian gnostics.  We might compare the Lord’s statement that there is a knowledge of the kingdom of heaven that is the particular (albeit not private) privilege of the believer.  To those who were outside the kingdom, the Lord spoke through the concealment of the parable (Matt 13:10-11).

[344]  There is a pattern in Scripture of covenant participants revolting in episodes of notorious sin just after God pronounces His gracious covenanted purposes on their behalf.  This pattern highlights the merciful love of God, who perseveres with His people in showing them His loyal love in the face of their stubbornness and rebellion.  The sin of Adam in the “fall of man” (Gen 3:6) follows the statement of the dominion covenant of creation (Gen 1:28).  The sin of Noah in drunkenness and immorality (Gen 9:20-27) follows God’s giving him the rainbow sign of the covenant (Gen 9:12-17).  The sin of Abraham against Sarah and the Egyptians (Gen 12:10-20) follows the announcement of his covenant of promise (Gen 12:1-3).  The sin of David in killing Uriah in order to take Bathsheba as his wife (2 Sam 11:1-21) follows hard upon the statement of his covenant of sure mercies (2 Sam 7:1-29).  Moreover, the announcement of the covenant of Sinai (Exod 19:5) is followed by the idolatrous adultery of the people in the matter of the golden calf (Exod 32:1-35).  Surely the Lord is steadfast in His graciousness to us.  His mercies are new every morning (Lam 3:22-23).

[345]  Abraham deserted his covenanted land for Egypt in the face of a famine.  Similarly, Abraham deserted his covenanted wife for an Egyptian handmaid in the face of Sarah’s barrenness.  The text is offering a major critique of patriarchal society and its derogation of the female.

[346] Rethinking Genesis: Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991) 132-133.  Garrett intriguingly observes that the three episodes are carefully crafted through a pattern whereby the elements of each individual narrative are restated in one of the parallel passages, but not both.  For example, two narratives begin with famine, but not the third.  Two narratives concern Abraham and Sarah, but not the other.  Two accounts take place in Gerar, but one in Egypt.  Two narratives mention the beauty of the wife, but not the third.  Two narratives show God’s direct intervention, but not the other.  In two of the stories, the king enriches the patriarch, but God enriches him in the third.  There is another two out of  three pattern, which Garrett does not mention.  In two of the narratives the deceitful sin of the patriarch follows just after the promise of God’s gracious covenant is stated to Abraham and to Isaac (Gen 12:1-3 and 26:2-5). This juxtaposition of the gracious bestowal of God’s covenant and Abraham’s and Isaac’s faithlessness aggravates their sin of unbelief with ingratitude. 

[347] The two Abrahamic narratives have in common the key expressions “Abraham journied to the Negev” (Gen 12:9 and 20:1),  “sojourn,”  “ wife/sister,” Sarah was “taken,”  “and (pharaoh/Abimelech) called to Abraham and said, ‘what is this you have done…?,’”  “sheep, oxen, male slaves and female slaves.”

[348]  Both Abrahamic accounts describe similar chronological development:  Abraham finds himself among the ungodly.  Sarah represents herself as Abraham’s sister out of fear that Abraham will be killed for her, as she is very beautiful.  The pharaoh/king takes Sarah, jeopardizing her purity and promise.  God intervenes, delivering Sarah.  The pharaoh/king protests his innocence, stating that he would never have taken Sarah had he known she was Abraham’s wife.  Abraham is blessed with many flocks and slaves.

[349]  Dorsey, Literary Structures, 56. Sarah’s equal dignity with Abraham is suggested by the fact that the Lord changes both their names to emphasize their nobility as He gives the covenant sign of circumcision (Gen 17:5, 15).  Moreover, He promises a seed to both of them (Gen 17:6, 16).

[350]  Dorsey, Literary Structures, 57.

[351]   The term “and there was a famine in the land” is compared directly to the famine of Abraham in Genesis 12:10, an identity with the specific difference that Isaac is told not to go to Egypt in Genesis 20:2.  The specific citation and reference invites a comparison of the Isaac and the Abrahamic narratives. Moreover, the restatement of the covenant promises likewise corresponds to the first Abraham account.  The pattern of the “appearance” of the “wife” creating fear that men will “kill” the patriarch is identical in all three accounts. Moreover, Isaac hears the same complaint uttered by pharaoh, “what is this you have done…?”  and then Abimelech makes a “command” concerning him, just as had pharaoh respecting Abraham.

     The account of Isaac’s dwelling in “Gerar” with “Abimelech” clearly corresponds to Abraham’s second defection among the Philistines.  Moreover, in both accounts “Abimelech called” the patriarch and asked “what have you done to us?”  In both accounts Sarah and Rebekkah are preserved from “touching.”

[352]  The Isaac wife-sister account follows the same sequence as those of Abraham: Isaac likewise finds himself among the ungodly.  His wife represents herself as his sister out of fear that the men will kill him for her, for she is beautiful.  The plot is discovered, however, and Rebekkah is delivered undefiled.  The pagan king protests his innocence, and rebukes Isaac for jeopardizing his kingdom.  Isaac is then uniquely blessed.

[353] Dorsey, Literary Structures, 57.

[354] Isaac’s reckless and immodest “sporting” with Rebekkah before an open window (Gen 26:8) is strikingly expressed with the same verb used of Ishmael’s “mocking” of Isaac (Gen 21:9) and Israel’s “merriment” before the golden calf (Exod 32:6). It is likewise the patronymic root of “Isaac,” and thus reflects a deliberate and severe criticism.

[355]  Remarkably, the patriarchal accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can also be read to anticipate the entire OT history of Israel.  Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt previews the first exodus.  Isaac’s deliverance from the Amorite king and chieftans and his prosperity in the land prefigures the period of Israel’s conquest and settlement in Canaan.  Moreover, Jacob’s servitude to Laban in Padan Aram and his return to the land from the east foreshadows the second exodus of Israel from the Babylonian captivity. The subsequent accounts in patriarchal history are of Jacob’s twelve sons (the duodecimal number representing a universal amphictyonic or zodiacal array, cf. Gen 15:5, 17:5), and the Joseph narrative, whereby a son of Israel gave bread to the entire earth (Gen 41:57).  The accounts of Joseph and his brethren project the expectation that after the return from the captivity of Babylon, Israel’s mission to bring blessing to the nations according to the ecumenical covenant of Abraham would be fulfilled (Gen 12:3).

[356] Erin Ulrich, one of our students, makes the intriguing suggestion that the sin of Abraham during his Egyptian sojourn may have a causative relationship to the bondage of Israel in Egypt.  Her suggestion is bolstered by the fact that the Lord promised Abraham to deliver his descendants in the fourth generation (Gen 15:16), the same Lord who visits the sins of the fathers on the sons unto the fourth generation (Exod 20:5).  

[357] See J. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 295. See also A. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996) 273.

[358]  The thematic correspondences between Gen 12:12-13,16 and Exod 1:16,20 are instructive.  In both accounts a pharaoh is deceived in order to save the male(s).  Likewise in both accounts the deceiver(s) are “dealt well with.”  Abraham’s deception is justly reproved by pharaoh, but the deception of the midwives is blessed by God.  Remarkably, the two midwives are honored as more worthy than father Abraham, and their names are memorialized in Exod 1:15.  The deliverance of Israel’s deliverer from pharaoh’s decree is altogether accomplished by women.  Shiprah and Puah outwit pharaoh, Jocebed and Miriam save Moses, and the daughter of pharaoh subverts her father’s decree.  Moses, a type of Israel’s deliverer (Deut 18:18), is truly also a type of the “seed of the woman.”

[359]  It is noteworthy that Eli the priest would afterwards be chargeable with despising the piteous prayers of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. The silence of Hannah’s humility before the Lord was judged by Eli to be drunkenness (1 Sam 1:12-16).  In the face of the injustice and harshness of Eli’s rebuke can we not hope for a better priest, one who could imagine the possibility of redemption even for one who was truly drunk (Rev 17:6), yet whose glorious redemption could make her like a new Eve, the mother of all living (Rev 21:2)? 

[360] Israel rebuffed Samuel’s admonishments against wanting a king like all the other nations.  But the Scripture claims that it was not Samuel they refused, for the Lord God had been their king (1 Sam 8:6-9).  In the fullness of time the Lord God would again be offered as Israel’s King.  But they would have no king but Caesar (John 19:15).

[361]  Nathan’s parable speaks of Israel’s shepherd-king who had many flocks but who sought out and slew another’s only ewe lamb in order to dress the table of a stranger (2 Sam 12:1-4).  The Gospels tell us of another Shepherd-King of Israel, one who spoke a parable about a man who left his many sheep to seek out and restore one lonely and perilously lost lamb (Matt 18:10-14 and Luke 15:3-7).

[362] Nathan charges David with being “the man” (ish), that is, a man like Adam.  We have already described the sin of David according to “the similitude of Adam’s transgression” in the Gospel of Genesis, 68-69. But there is more. The pattern of the “wife-sister” narratives portrays David’s sin as a wickedness that even oriental despots could justly claim they would never have even contemplated.  And Abraham charges that a nation where such a crime could happen would be a nation where there was no fear of God (Gen 20:11).

  There is an afferent dynamic to David’s sin described in Scripture.  David’s crime against Uriah recalls Cain’s murder of his innocent brother Abel.  David’s wanton taking of Bathsheba reminds us of the generation of Noah, when the sons of God took to themselves the daughters of men, whomsoever they chose. David’s strategy to make Uriah drunk in order to accomplish his wicked deception is borrowed from Lot’s daughters.  His pretended covenant kindness to the Gentile Uriah, which masked the murder in his heart, reminds us of the wickedness of Simeon and Levi.  And in setting a table for Uriah, and dressing it for a fellowship meal all the while planning to murder his guest, David is like Saul. 

   In all these multifarious crimes of Israel’s great king are we not being taught to long for a greater David?  a king whose mercy would suffer the imputation of the sins of his people upon himself, that through the same centripetal dynamic of David’s house, the sin of both Israel and the Gentiles might be redeemed.        

[363]  Samuel’s warning to Israel about desiring a king describes the pattern of an oriental despot (1 Sam 8:10-18), who would gather chariots around himself (cf. Exod 14:6-7), who would take the children of the people to be cooks and bakers for his court (cf. Gen 40:20-22), who would take the fields of the people along with their cattle (cf. Gen 47:13-24), and who would at last enslave Israel (cf. Gen 47:25). The pattern of royal sin in Israel that begins with David, whose wantonness is worse than the pharaoh known to Abraham, ripens into a likeness to the pharaoh known to Moses in the kingdom of David’s son.  For Israel, who in bondage had built treasure cities for pharaoh (Exod 1:11), afterwards in bondage built treasure cities for Solomon (2 Chron 8:4-6).  Ironically, Israel under the Davidides begins to resemble Egypt.  In the fullness of time Israel will be ruled by an Idumean king who, like pharaoh, would slaughter the male children of Israel.  And they will slaughter the Passover Lamb in Jerusalem, the “great city which is spiritually…Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified” (Rev 11:8).     

[364]  The Bible offers a transformational vision for those who truly meditate upon Scripture.  These divine oracles speak to the human soul entire.  We dare not read them equipped solely with the tools of the intellect.  Nor should we come to them armed only with our native affectivity.  

     The tragedy of David’s great and paradigmatic sin, when viewed through the patterns here enumerated, moved my own heart to weep, for the same analogical imagination that so condemned David, likewise condemned me.

     Nevertheless I found those tears were redemptive as I looked to the patterns of my own sin.  Perhaps there are some readers like me, who also see David’s crimes and through them can imagine their own.  If the reader will permit, I will share my own heart’s meditation, my personal lament composed in tears of sorrow for David’s sin, and yet in thankfulness for David’s greater Son.

     What crimes are these which David did that undiminished through thirty centuries still  mar the memory of the shepherd king who shared the very heart of God?  How the mighty king has fallen!

     I wept in pity for David, the hero of my boyhood dreams, who slew the giant and whose myriad triumphs were sung by Israel’s maidens, yet who in one terrible revolt of crime shattered Sinai’s commandments more surely than Moses smashed the tablets of the law.  David kept his sabbath upon a day when Israel’s king should have gone forth to battle, for God had not yet given him rest.  And so he coveted the wife of Uriah, which covetousness was idolatry.  Then he stole Bathsheba, and adulterously knew her, dishonoring the memory of his father who had carved the sacred covenant of God into David’s very flesh.  And to cover his crime he killed good Uriah, and gave occasion for the enemies of God to blaspheme the Holy Name of the One God of Israel.  He even schemed by falsehoods to deny Bathsheba’s son his true father, for which sin God deprived David of that son.

      I will weep for thee, David, for “this revolt of thine is like another fall of man.”  For were you not once happy in the garden of God’s delight, unashamed in your nakedness while dancing in joy before the ark of God’s presence?  Bathsheba, too, naked but unashamed in her bath.  But then you saw her, and delighted in that which the law forbad saying, you shall not take the wife of another, neither shall you touch her, lest you die.  Nonetheless you took her for yourself, and tasted her sweet fruit, and knew all the delights of her  garden enclosed.  Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb was the wife of Uriah to your taste.  And Uriah’s bed, more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold.  But then the fruit of her womb declared openly your secret shame, and your schemes of deception, like so many unseasonable fig leaves, bore no fruit to cover your crime.  Only the mercy of God could put away your death, and cover you in repentance on the day the prophet charged, “Thou art the man!”  Mere man.  Naked and ashamed man.  Made of the same earthen clay as the man Adam. But like the fiery whirling sword made for Adam, so was a sword appointed for you, one that would devour the one as well as the other, but that should never leave your house and would bar you from entering again the innocence of God’s delightful garden.  And so at last your son, like Cain, killed his brother.  And that same son drove you out, like Adam, eastward from the throne city of David, the dwelling place of the presence of God Most High.

      I weep in fear of you David.  For as a man I too have known the shame of eyes filled with secret lusts and a heart filled with hates disguised, crimes that the perfect law of Christ charges with the same degree of injustice as those by which you desecrated your kingdom.  And so for my crimes too a Son of David must die.  The ancient sword must be awakened to be sheathed in the bleeding bosom of Israel’s True Shepherd.  For David’s crimes.  And for mine.  The fiery sword of the law slaughters the one as well as the other.  But the word of the prophet gives hope, for the mercies of David are sure.  Truly Saul has killed his thousands, and David, his tens of thousands.  But the Son of David has saved His myriads of  millions.  And He has slain the great dragon.  One day with a throng that no man can number, I with David, and Bathsheba, and yes, with good Uriah too, will stand together arm-in arm and sing,  “Hallelujah! He alone is worthy!”            

[365] If the sleep of Adam in Gen 2:21 is a preview of the death of Christ, then the Scripture is presenting a picture of redemption prior to the necessity of redemption, which arises only after the “fall of man” in Gen 3.  The theology implied by this sensus plenior reading, namely, that the “Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), is profoundly predestinarian.  

[366]  Eric Auerbach has shown the power of recognition by a scar in his essay “Odysseus’ Scar,” Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton: The University Press, 1953) 3-23. 

[367]  Jesus addresses Mary twice by the word “woman,” the name of dignity Adam spoke to his bride (Gen 2:23), before He speaks her personal name (John 20:13-16). 

[368] Jesus Himself has become the tree of life in the midst of this new Eden, for to partake of His fruit is to live forever.  He became the tree of life by his death upon the tree where He who was wholly good was made to know our evil.  His resurrection power had been foreshadowed by Aaron’s rod that budded and Jesse’s stump that branched. The bringing forth of life from death, from the priestly rod as well as the royal tree of David, presaged the priest-king who was to have the keys of death and Hades.

[369] The meeting of Jesus and Mary in the garden is a comedic conclusion to the tragedy of the suffering and death of Jesus.  So the Lord speaks to Mary of His ascension to God the Father (John 20:17), anticipating the day when Mary, representing the bride of the Lamb, will descend from God the Father upon her wedding day (Rev 21:9-10). Once again, the endings of John and Revelation are to be read in parallel, as both anticipate the wedding of the Lamb.  The language and setting describing a divine wedding is dithyrambic or lyrical in genre, as the allusions to the Song of Songs demonstrate. (We should also note that the Lord rebukes Mary’s touching Him as being out of season.  Mary’s rebuke is chiastically related to the Lord’s rebuke of Mary His mother at the beginning of John’s Gospel.  In both instances, the two Marys are premature in what their actions signify).  Finally, the resurrection of divine Adam suggest an epic retelling of a new creation.  Consequently, the New Adam, the God-Man, breathes upon his disciples, giving them the Spirit of God, and creating the possibility of a new humanity (John 20:21-22, cf. Gen 2:7).  Similarly, as Louise Cowan has noted, one of the characteristics of epic is to restore the equilibrium between masculine and feminine.  In the great honor Jesus bestows upon Mary Magdalene, a once defiled woman now made suitable to represent a bride for the Son of heaven, we are offered a new vision of the possibility of woman.    

[370] Jesus’ resurrection wipes away the tears of Mary in the garden (J 20:13-16).  This picture at the end of the Gospel is an emblematic preview of the end of Revelation, when the Lamb will wipe away the tears of His bride (R 21:4).  Moreover, the portrayal of Mary, who had been defiled by seven demons, in the role of a new Eve expresses a redemption in the Gospel that parallels the salvation of the whore of Babylon who becomes the bride of Christ in Revelation.  Both of these Johannine books correspond in their comic ending, anticipating a glorious redemption concluding in a divine wedding.  These patterns constitute a part of the balance between the parallel stories of John’s two great books.  They sustain a perfect equipoise.

[371] We have already seen examples of the typological use of the OT by the OT in the “wife-sister” narratives.  We have also noted the typological use of the OT by the NT. Similarly, we are now examining the typological use of the NT by the NT.  Clearly typology is a broadly occurring canonical phenomenon.

[372] Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of John does not include a narrative of the birth of Jesus.  This is probably because John’s emphasis in the opening of his Gospel is the eternality of the uncreated Son of God, the One who “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2).  But John does give an account of the “nativity” of Jesus in chapter 12 of the Revelation.  This depiction is as follows:

“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and pain to give birth.  And another sign appeared in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.  And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth.  And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour the child.  And she gave birth to a son, a male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to his throne” (Rev 12:1-5).

While John’s language in this passage is symbolic, its general intent is quite clear.  The child that is born is Jesus, who ascends into heaven to the throne of His Father.  After the ascension Jesus assumes royal authority over all the nations to “rule them with a rod of iron” (Psa 2:9).  The Lord’s Davidic and kingly authority is His by right and title because He has been “born” of God: “Thou art My Son.  Today I have begotten Thee” (Psa 2:7).  In other words, Jesus’ kingdom authority rests upon the fact that He has been “begotten” by Father God in the resurrection from the grave. The resurrection of Jesus is thus a kind of birth story.  It is an account of our Savior’s being “born again” in a new nativity.  In His first birth Jesus was born of a woman.  But in this second birth from the tomb, Jesus was uniquely begotten by Father God.

[373] John assumes his reader’s familiarity with the synoptic Gospels.  For example, he does not provide a nativity story like Matthew and Luke that would have answered the charge that Jesus was not from Bethlehem, the city of David (John 7:42).  Without this dependence on the synoptics, the Johnannine Messianic claims of Jesus would be decisively defeated.  Moreover, the pattern of John’s nativity typology assumes a familiarity with the Bethlehem nativity account. 

[374] Mangers in Syro-Palestine were made of hollowed out limestone blocks, as observed from the royal stables at Megiddo dating from the ninth century B.C. Cf. Luke 23:53.

[375] It seems clear that the twelve disciples represent the faith community that suffers travail like that of a woman about to give birth as they see their Savior suffer death.  The disciples of Jesus are like the woman crowned with twelve stars who labors to bring forth the Child (Rev 12:1).

[376] It is noteworthy that the two Josephs and the two Marys are chiastically contrastive.  One Joseph is poor; the other is rich.  One Mary is pure, but suffers the loss of her reputation for purity because of Jesus.  The other Mary had been impure, but Jesus had restored her purity.  Morally, she had been made a “virgin” again, one worthy to “beget” the Lord Jesus in her heart!  In other words, all kinds of people, regardless of their social or moral position, are welcomed into the family of faith to have a relationship with Jesus!

[377] Matthew’s Gospel presents an elaborate New Moses typology.  In one slight detail, Matthew gives us a different perspective on Mary Magdalene’s role in the typological understanding of the apostles.  The evangelist describes Mary (Miriam is the Greek for Mary) watching the events of Jesus’ death and burial “from afar” (makrothen …Miriam).  This detail recalls Miriam, the sister of Moses, who watched from afar to see what should happen to the infant set upon the waters in an ark.  In the Exodus account, Miriam watches from a distance as the child, who was under the sentence of death, was lifted up in one hour to become the son of the royal house.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Mary (Miriam) is watching from afar as the New Moses is suffering under the sentence of death.  By so describing Mary, the evangelist anticipates the hour when Jesus will be lifted up to sit at the right hand of God on High.

     The evangelist has described the Lord’s love for woman through the figures of Eve, Mary of Nazareth, and Miriam.  His love is thus transcendent.  It is at once spousal, maternal, and sororal.  It will also be sacerdotal, as we shall see.

[378] The pattern of correspondences between the birth of Jesus as recounted in Matthew and Luke and the resurrection of Jesus as described by John demonstrate that truly the Lord is sovereign over history as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Rev 22:13).

[379] We begin this study with an essay that exemplifies typological exegesis in the conviction that, to reconfigure the famous aphorism of Hegel, the dove of the Spirit descends in the light.  In other words, we believe that the cogency of a biblical type can be intuited by the analogical imagination and will be, to the heart of the Christian believer, illumined by the Spirit of God. 

[380] “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew “Joshua.”

[381] See Jean Daniélou, “The Mystery of the Name of Jesus,” From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd (London: Burns and Oates, 1960)  229-243.

[382] While the high priest Joshua the son of Jehozadak played a significant role in the second possession of the land in the restoration from the exile (Hag 1:1, 2:1-3, Zech 3:1-10), that is, after the second exodus, he is apparently unnamed in the NT. Moreover, he does not compare to the prominence of Joshua the son of Nun in the typology of the fathers. He probably does, however, prefigure the priestly role of Jesus, who is the builder of the true temple and who will purify the sons of Levi.

[383] Joshua was also overlooked in ancient Jewish commentary, which exalted the law and the lawgiver of Sinai.  Philo, for example, hardly mentions Joshua at all.  This silence is very likely because the role of Joshua in the Bible underscores the incomplete character of the ministry of Moses, which was unable to bring the people into the land.  It is thus Joshua who completes Moses’ work, while removing the reproach of the people resulting from Moses’ neglect of the circumcision of the new generation.  Moreover, it is Joshua who must reinstitute the covenant.  In other words, the role of Joshua prefigures the prophet greater than Moses who was yet to come. See Deut 18:15-18 and Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality, 229-230.

[384] There are only two explicit references to Joshua the son of Nun in the NT (Acts 7:45 and Heb 4:8).  By comparison, Adam is cited 9 times, Abraham, 73 times, Moses, 80 times, and David, 59 times.

[385] Socrates suggested to Adeimantus the advantages of a synthetic view of a difficult issue under the figure of a man with poor eyesight who is challenged by little letters but who can see much better when they are written large (Rep 368 cd). In modernity, with the total triumph of the analytical method, we have largely lost the advantage of a synthetic or a synoptic perspective.  Much of the typological richness of the Scripture will remain obscure if we persist solely in a microanalytic method.

[386] It is noteworthy that John, who understands Jesus as the true tabernacle (John 1:14, 2:21), would by the baptism of Jesus have us recall the prefigurative character of the descent of the ark of the Lord into the waters of the Jordan (Josh 3:17). The ark’s passing through the waters identified the Lord of glory with His people in passing through the liminal threshold of death. Its antitype is the baptism of Jesus, which fulfilled all righteousness (Matt 3:15). 

[387]  St Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 444) made explicit typological connection between the destruction of Jericho and the ruin of the second temple of Jerusalem.  He wrote: “But Jesus, son of Nave, was a type of Him in many things; for when he began to rule the people, he began from the Jordan; thence also did Christ begin to preach the Gospel after He was baptized.  The son of Nave appoints the twelve to divide the inheritance; and Jesus sends forth the twelve Apostles, heralds of truth, into the whole world.  He who was the type saved Rahab, the harlot, who had believed; the True Jesus on the other hand says: ‘Behold, the publicans and the harlots are entering the kingdom of God before you’ (Matt 21:31).  With but a shout, the walls of Jericho collapsed in the time of the type; and because of these words of Jesus: ‘There will not be left here one stone upon another’ (Matt 24:2), the temple of the Jews just opposite us is fallen.” Catechesis 10, The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, vol. 1,  trans. by Leo McCauley and Anthony Stephenson (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1969) 203.

[388] The story of Rahab constitutes a major theme in the preaching of the church fathers, demonstrating that they accurately read the spirit of the NT with respect to this woman who so clearly represented a gloriously free grace.  In a church community largely constituted, at least originally, of publicans and harlots (Matt 21:31-32), the account of Rahab surely spoke great comfort to those many converts who had so recently renounced notorious sin. See Daniélou, “Rahab a Type of the Church,” From Shadows to Reality, 244-259. In this connection it is noteworthy that just as Joshua delivered the house of a harlot of Jericho, so similarly Jesus delivered the house of Zacchaeus, a publican of Jericho (Luke 19:1-9).  The harlot was a Canaanite and the publican was a Jew.  Both of these scandalous Jericho sinners, along with their households, are delivered as though to show how wide is the embrace of the mercy of God: to harlots and publicans, to women and men, and to Gentiles and Jews.

[389] We have dealt at length with the gospel significance of Ruth, who bore the stigma of “the woman of Moab,” in “Ruth upon the Threshing Floor and the Sin of Gibeah: A Biblical Theological Study,” WTJ 51 (1989) 369-375. Both the accounts of Rahab and Ruth describe a privileged Israelite man cut off (Achan; the nearest kinsman) and a humble Gentile woman grafted in.

   The matter of the one who had been “the wife of Uriah,” to complete the pattern of the Matthean genealogy,  mentions by name the good Hittite, whose loyalty to the God of Israel so strikingly contrasted with David’s adulterous disobedience (2 Sam 11:11).  Similarly, Tamar’s perseverance, in wanting to be a mother of the promised seed, contrasts with licentious Judah, who confessed, “she is more righteous than I” (Gen 38:26). The gospel message of the women honored in the evangelist’s genealogy is thus a comfort to all of us who might believe ourselves unworthy of the free grace of Jesus.  Surely He is the Friend of sinners!

[390] One of the characteristic themes of NT typology, as Leonhard Goppelt observed, is a heightening (Steigerung), Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, trans. Donald Madvig (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 199.

[391] The scarlet cord is also made a simile for the lips of the Shulamite bride of the son of David (Song 4:3), the chosen one who was black but lovely (Song 1:5).

[392] The account of Joshua and the whore of Jericho is typologically connected with the account of Hosea and the prostitute Gomer.  Joshua, who showed mercy to the prostitute Rahab, originally was named Hosea (Num 13:16 and Deut 32:44).  Moreover, Hosea, the prophet to Northern Israel, promised mercy in the valley of Achor, which had witnessed Joshua’s judgment on Achan (Hos 2:15 and Josh 7:20-26).  The connection between Hosea’s Gomer and Rahab, along with Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba,  suggests the theme of a putative “whore” who was to become the bride of a prophet-king.  This theme, extending in the OT from Genesis to Hosea, anticipates the greater redemption in the NT, where the bride of the Lamb, redeemed from all her harlotries, is made ready for the True Joshua, who leads the armies of the True Israel  (Rev 19:7, 11-14). 

[393] The scarlet cord of Rahab has become the rubric of alleged typological excess when regarded, as by some of the fathers, as a prefiguration of the blood of Jesus.  When viewed within the matrix of the biblical associations respecting the house of the harlot, however, the issue of the typological significance of the scarlet is not so easily decided as though we should simply disregard the accident of a common crimson color.  The account in Joshua makes much of the door of Rahab, which had an oath of bloodguiltiness as its protection (Josh 2:17-21).  It is thereby to be associated with the door of the ark, which protected the family delivered from flood (Gen 6:16, 7:16), the door of Lot’s house, which protected the family to be delivered from fiery brimstone (Gen 19:10), and the door of the Passover, which, marked with blood, protected those families delivered from the death angel (Exod 12:7,13).  Moreover, the window of Rahab, tied with the scarlet cord, marked the place where the two Israelite spies had been delivered.  To the analogical imagination, one recalls Tamar, whose bloodied womb had delivered two sons to Judah, one of them tied with the scarlet cord.

[394] Because the Hebrews epistle so carefully expounds upon the priesthood of Jesus (Heb 7-9), the choice of a whore to be the climactic example of faith is most remarkable!  Clearly Christ, as the Melchizedekian Priest, has a greater priesthood.

[395] There is a pattern of God sending two messengers into an anti-theocratic  realm before He releases judgment.  One thinks of Enoch and Noah, who testified to the antediluvians (Heb 11:5-7), of the two angels who entered Sodom (Gen 19:1), the two prophets (Moses and Aaron) who announced judgment to Egypt (Exod 5:1), the two spies who entered Jericho (Josh 2:1), and the two witnesses who are sent to Great Babylon (Rev 11:3).

[396] Rahab’s house was clearly open to strangers and thus accessible to the Israelite spies.  It is noteworthy that this prostitute, who welcomed men who came into her, was saved by welcoming the two Israelites who came into her house.  Her mode of sin was thus made the means of her salvation. Such is the ironic wisdom of God.

[397] Contemporary theological discourse often, it seems, imitates the impersonal objectivity of scientific scholarship.  More and more it appears that evangelical pulpits are following the example of theological discourse.  But the Christian will not be able to be dispassionate about a method of biblical study that seeks out the pattern of the Lord’s suffering and glory in the OT.  When typology is properly done, however, so that the Lord is prefigured in the Scriptures, the heart of the believer will glow within, like the seraphs who burn before the throne (Luke 24:32), aglow with wonderment and praise. Biblical typology is a new wine.  It requires the new wineskin of a different discourse. 

[398] (Josh 24:2).  Jericho was devoted to the worship of the moon god, the same idolatrous practice pursued by Terah and renounced by Joshua (Josh 24:2).  Moreover, Rahab’s name (rahab) is homonymous with  Rahab (rāhāb), the archetypical anti-creation god of the Baal cosmogonic cycle.

[399] If Rahab sought mercy, having heard only of the mighty judgments of God through Moses (Josh 2:8-12), how much more should we be encouraged to seek grace, having also heard of the mighty mercies of God through Christ Jesus!  The Scripture is portraying a greater Joshua, who has a better charity (cf. Numb 11:28 and Luke 9:49-50).

[400] The Gibeonites, like Rahab, sought peace with Israel, but by less noble means.  They took dry bread and old wineskins to deceive Joshua, who cursed their guile by making them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of God (Josh 9:3-27).  But the True Joshua blesses all who come to His sanctuary, offering them the best wine and the bread of life freely.  And He serves His own, carrying the wood of their cross, and pouring water into a basin to wash their feet.

    Randy Beck observes that in both the Rahab and the Gibeon narratives the Mosaic command to destroy the Canaanite is circumvented by a covenant.  The covenant, it seems, can overcome the proscriptions of the Mosaic law.            

[401] Kenneth Bailey draws attention to the gesture of great regard the Lord gives to this unnamed woman of shame when Jesus looks at her while addressing Simon the pharisee. Through Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1980) 16.

[402] The picture of a Jesus who received immoral women was a scandal to the religious leaders in the time of the Gospels, and likely explains the ancient textual critical problem in John 7:53-8:11.  Northrop Frye has observed the theme of the scandal of God’s unfaithful spouse.  His comment on John 8:1-11 is worth noting, “There is also the woman taken in adultery who has firmly established squatter’s rights on the beginning of John 8, despite the efforts of nervous editors, ancient and modern, to get her out of there.”  The Great Code  (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982) 141.

[403] The destruction without mercy of the families of Jericho (Josh 6:17) touches upon several dogmatic issues that are, as with this passage itself, rarely addressed.  If the reader will permit this polemical excursion, we would make the following observations.  First, the judgments of God are no less severe in the NT than they are in the OT.  In the Gospel of Luke Jesus warns the weeping women of Jerusalem, which in her opposition to the True Joshua shows her character as spiritual Jericho, “Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28).  Similarly, in Revelation, the True Joshua goes to war against the city of the Great Whore by sounding seven trumpets of judgment before her.  The trumpets will cause Great Babylon to fall.  But in preparing beforehand the seven churches for holy war, Jesus threatens whorish Jezebel with the warning that unless she repents, “I will strike her children dead and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the mind and the heart” (Rev 2:23).  The wrath of the Lord is an attribute of His unchanging Being.  God is always the same, as both testaments affirm.  Therefore, the Bible does not permit an “evolutionary” understanding of God such as the one made popular by the history of religions school and its progeny.

   Second, the execution of the children of Jericho can only be explained on the basis of the ancient doctrine of original sin. The fact that the sword of Joshua destroyed these children (at God’s command) is no different in its moral gravity than the destruction of the children presupposed by the waters of Noah or the fire of Sodom. We are reminded of Voltaire’s withering lament, “And can you then impute a sinful deed, To babes who on their mothers’ bosoms bleed?” The Lisbon Earthquake (1755). Nonetheless, the Christian believer, whose heart has been taught to love his enemies and whose sensibilities are softened by the Lord’s sweet love of little children, must affirm that all the judgments of God are righteous, even if their ground is beyond our understanding. The NT teaches us more clearly that God has mercy in judgment, and that the Father knows the sorrow of a heart that lost a Son to a bloody death. Therefore we have a better hope for the eternal destiny of these children who died upon the sword of Joshua.  But we must remember what Voltaire forgot, namely, that God does not answer to our bar of justice.  We do not instruct the Lord in love and mercy, He who is love and mercy.  The Christian theodicy of love and mercy is the cross of the Son of God.

  Third, the Christian believer must acknowledge that the duty of a warrior in Joshua’s army was clear when he charged over that fallen wall of Jericho and was confronted with a Canaanite family.  However terrible it appears to us on this side of the Sermon on the Mount, the issue is whether we will believe God or no.  If we affirm with the tradition that the Canaanite family should justly perish, that terrible avowal drives Joshua’s double-edged sword through the heart of any Pelagian or Arminian fantasy we might entertain about the nature of man or the free agency of the will. We are shut up entirely to the hope that God, who is rich in mercy, can save those who perished without mercy.  We also know from the NT that we, no less certainly than the Canaanite, are justly condemned by our own sins, and that we, too, justly deserve death. But we also confess that we have been surprised by a mercy that sought us out when we, like Jericho’s hapless children, did not know how to ask for it.  Just as for the generation that spoke against themselves the frightful imprecation, “His blood be on ourselves and on our children” (Matt 27:25), even for some of them the ancient sword was awakened to strike the Shepherd (Zech 13:7), that a better blood might cover both their own sins and the sins of their children. The better blood of the True Joshua now pleads mercy for His erstwhile enemies so that “the promise might be to you and to your children” (Acts 2:39).   Surely mercy is greater than justice, even as Jesus is greater than Joshua.

[404] The curse of Joshua upon any who would rebuild Jericho was fulfilled after Joshua (Josh 6:26).  It is certain that God directed the devotion of the city, and His providence set a watch upon it (1 Kgs 16:34).  Because Jericho figuratively represents the Old Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem had to be founded by One who was to lay her foundations and set up her gates at the price of His only begotten Son.  The True Joshua took the curse of the old Joshua upon Himself, turning the curse into a blessing. 

[405] The sacred writer tells us that “Joshua arose early in the morning” when Israel crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan (3:1), when he led the final attack against Jericho (6:12), when he set out to rectify Achan’s pollution of the camp (7:16), and when he warred against Ai (8:10).  Let the enemies of God and all the powers of darkness tremble when Yeshua arises early in the morning!

[406] God rained down hailstones upon the Amorite kings led by the king of Jerusalem (Josh 10:6-11).  In Revelation God likewise rains down hailstones upon Jerusalem, under the figure of Babylon the Great (Rev 16:21). Modern commentators often miss the target city represented by Babylon, identifying her primarily with pagan Rome.  But Jerusalem of the late second temple is the antitype of all the cities of chaos, including Babylon, as we shall see (cf. Rev 11:8).

[407] Revelation 6:15-17, which describes the kings of the earth hiding in caves and crying out for the rocks to cover them before the day of wrath of the True Joshua, shows clear dependence upon Joshua 10:16-18.

[408] Joshua stopped the sun and the moon in their courses that the day of the slaughter of the Amorite kings might be prolonged (Josh 10:12-13).  But the True Joshua causes the sun and the moon to cease in their courses altogether, gilding His city of peace with the eternal light of His redemption (Rev 21:23).

[409] Joshua appointed six cities as refuge sanctuaries for those fleeing the revenge of bloodguiltiness.  The fugitives were to remain in those cities until the death of the high priest (Josh 20:2-9).  But the true Joshua has become our high priest (Heb 7:21-27), by whose death we are eternally released unto liberty, and He has appointed the church as a refuge in every city for those who carry the burden of bloodguiltiness (Matt 5:21-22).

[410] The Warrior vision of Revelation is in the context of a new creation (R 21:1), and consequently is stated in the familiar form of the epic cosmopoesis described in the OT by H. Gunkel,  Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895).  Adela Yarbro Collins has recognized the same mythopoeic pattern in Revelation 17, Crisis and Catharsis, The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia:Westminster Press, 1984) 58, and Revelation 12, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation HDR 9 (Missoula:Scholars Press, 1976) 57-142. 

[411] The classical genre of Revelation’s climactic vision, describing the triumph of good over evil in the context of a divine wedding procession (komos), is comedy.   Cf. Aristotle, Poetica 1449a; see Daniel Russ, “The Bible as Genesis of Comedy,” in The Terrain of Comedy, ed. Louise Cowan (Dallas: Pegasus, 1984) 59.  The quarrel among modern commentators on Revelation regarding the character of apocalyptic genre has generally not led to helpful textual analysis. Cf. F.D. Mazzaferri, The Genre of the Book of Revelation from a Source-Critical Perspective BZNW 54 (New York: de Gruyter, 1989) 60-75, 160-84.  The categories of Babylon the damned and Jerusalem the blessed, which largely reflect apocalyptic analysis, neglect the tension represented by Psalm 87:1-4, where Babylon, the archetypical evil city, is promised salvific blessing, and Ezekiel 16 and 23, where the prophet excoriates Jerusalem for her whoredoms. The general absence of the comedic imagination in theological commentary, especially expressed in failing to appreciate the transformative nature of love (see Hos 1:2; cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses) and the purgatorial character of comedy (see Ezek 16:60-63, Dante’s Purgatorio from the Commedia, and “Dante’s Letter to Can Grande,” Essays on Dante, ed. Mark Musa, trans. Nancy Howe [Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1964] 34-47), has led, as we shall argue,  to an underestimation of the full range of literary possibilities represented by the Babylonian whore in Revelation.  We would encourage biblical expositors to a consideration of the redemptive potential of the “fallen woman” represented most imaginatively in the western literary tradition by Dante, Cervantes, Hawthorne, and Dostoyevsky.  Strikingly, theological commentary largely disregards this redemptive possibility in spite of the fact that the rescue of the immoral woman is also a significant theme in both Johannine and Biblical theology. See the account of the Samaritan woman (John 4:4-42), the woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11), and the story of Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18, cf. Luke 8:2).  See also Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Casta Meretrix,” Explorations in Theology, vol. II Spouse of the Word, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991) 193-288, Jean Daniélou, “Rahab a Type of the Church,”  From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Typology of the Fathers, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd (London: Burns and Oates, 1960) 244-60, J.M. Vogelgesang,  “The Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Book of Revelation.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1985) 98-112, and Raymond C. Ortland, Jr., Whoredom:God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996).

[412]  We have developed this thesis in “St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

[413] The Joshua typology between the two books of John is developed primarily within the parallel pattern of correspondence sustained between the books.

[414] The logical and chronological patterns support the analogical and typological interrelationship between the two Johannine books.  The more elaborate the patterns, the more convincing is the typology.  Each of these methods of analysis: logical, chronological, analogical, and typological, as the several hypostases of the Logos, contribute to the method of exegesis presented in this book. 

[415]  Gilgal is the place of Joshua’s renewal of the covenant for Israel.  It is the camp where Joshua circumcised the people, fulfilling the requirements of the Abrahamic covenant, and where he reinstituted the observance of Passover, the neglected feast of the Mosaic covenant. Gilgal is derived from the verb gālal, which means “to roll,” for it was here that the Lord “ rolled away” the reproach of the people from their neglect of the law of Moses.  We note a further symbolic use of “gālal” in the victory ceremony at Makkedah, where Joshua commanded large stones to be rolled against the grave of the Canaanite kings, memorializing their “reproach” (Josh 10:18).  In the NT the True Joshua rolls away the reproach of the people of God at “Golgotha” (also derived from gālal).  Moreover, the True Joshua reinstitues the covenant for the people of God by fulfilling on our behalf all the righteous commandments of the law, by giving us a circumcision not made by hands with a flint knife, and by rolling away the stone that sealed our grave. 

[416] The coat coveted by Achan was from “Shinar,” the Semitic name for the land the Greeks called Mesopotamia (the land between the rivers). The eastern cities of Babel, Erech, and Accad were in Shinar (Gen 10:10).  The text suggests that Jericho had a commercial relationship with Babel in the east.  The AV thus rendered the word Shinar in this context with “Babylonian.”

[417] Rahab hid the spies under stalks of flax drying on her roof (Josh 2:6).  The flax, of course, was for making linen, the fabric commonly used in eastern burials.  To the analogical imagination these spies, pursued by the king unto death (Josh 2:14) are figuratively buried.  Thereafter they must remain hidden for three days (Josh 2:16).  Afterward, they are restored to Joshua and the camp of Israel (Cf. Rev 11:7-12).

[418] The pattern of telescopic heptads in Joshua, that is, seven trumpets sounding upon the seventh march of the seventh day, sets the pattern in Revelation for the seven bowls poured out upon the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the trumpets being the seventh seal. 

[419] There are clues to the identity of the Babylonian whore woven within the Johannine material according to the parallel and chiastic patterning that ties the two books, the Fourth Gospel and Revelation, together.  The Great Whore of Revelation, who drinks her cup of loathsomeness and is arrayed in scarlet (Rev 17:4), is a mockery of a queen (Rev 18:7) now that her great hour of judgment and death has come (Rev 18:10).  Parallel to the Great Whore of Revelation is the blessed Lord Jesus of John’s Gospel, who in His suffering for us drank the loathsome cup (Rev 18:11), was arrayed in scarlet (Rev 19:2), had His kingdom mocked (Rev 19:3), and suffered death when the great hour of judgment had come (Rev 17:1). Clearly, John is telling us that the Lord Jesus took the reproach of the whore of Revelation upon Himself.  For anyone who has a reformed doctrine of particular redemption, the identity of the whore is already beyond dispute.

  Moreover, the chiastic pattern of correspondence between the Gospel of John and Revelation also provides a clue to the identity of the whore.  For Lady Babylon, who thirsts although she sits upon the waters (Rev 17:1,4,6), has a relationship with seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come (Rev 17:10).  And when John  recognized her, he marveled (Rev 17:6). Chiastically, the whore of Babylon corresponds in the Gospel account to the Samaritan woman, who in her thirst came to Jesus, sitting upon the well (John 4:6-7).  The Samaritan woman likewise has a relationship with seven men.  Jesus says to her, “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (John 4:18).  And when the disciples and John saw her, they marveled (John 4:27).

  Surely the identity of the Great Whore should cause us to marvel as well.  For the OT type of the whore of Babylon is none other than Rahab, the whore of Jericho and a type of the church.  If we conclude from this evidence that the whore of Babylon will become the bride of Christ, then there could not be a more graphic emblem of the truth of the reformed soteriology of sola gratia. On the other hand, this vindication of reformed soteriology is at the price of falsifying the most common historical identification of the whore of Revelation within Protestant circles, which, consequently, becomes five full centuries of slander.

[420]  St Gregory of Elvira (AD 396) made explicit the typological identification of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho with John’s account of the judgment of Great Babylon in Revelation.  The pattern that would suggest the redemption of the whore of Babylon as a new Rahab is clearly present in this fourth century witness from Spain.  While the editio princeps was not available to us, a translation of the relevant passage occurs in Daniélou’s From Shadows to Reality. The following quotation is from page 257: “Just as the Church made up of many nations is called a harlot, so, as a type of the Church, we see Rahab welcoming the Saints. The fall of Jericho prefigures those last days when the destruction of this world will be brought about and the seven plagues through the seven trumpets or the seven angelic vials will strike the human race together with Antichrist.  Then no one will be saved except those shut up in Rahab’s house, that is, the Church.”

[421]  The identification of the whore of Babylon as the antitype of Rahab, and thus a type of the church, does not lead to a salvific universalism.  Rahab was surely not the only whore in Jericho, and certainly all the wicked, who did not “come out” of the city, perished.  The command in Revelation for the people of God to “come out” of Babylon (18:4) is the invitation to participate in Rahab’s deliverance. For all of those who remain, their whorish city will be utterly destroyed (18:6-24).

[422]  This glorious message of hope for those so desperately lost is the heart of the teaching of the Son of God.  It is the crux of His gospel message.  The Lord Jesus has come to this world’s Jerichos to rescue His Rahabs and to deliver His Zacchaeuses, all those harlots and publicans who, like their predecessors who sought the repentance of John the Baptist (Matt 21:31-32), would dare to imagine that the love of a holy God could reach down far enough to deliver them. 

     The True Joshua requires a new army to fill His pulpits with those who will once again learn to be strong and very courageous (Josh 1:7), an army of poets and songwriters who will sound again the gospel’s silver trumpets before the walls of this world’s Jerichos -- trumpets announcing a terrible judgment to the unrepentant, but trumpets sounding a wonderful jubilee to all those who, like Rahab, will forsake their sins. 

      We need a new army.  An army of those with strong imaginations. Imaginations courageous enough in the knowledge of the free grace of God to believe that a whore from Babylon could in truth become the bride of Christ. Imaginations that hear so scandalous a message and can believe it is not blasphemy.  Imaginations that can envision the depths of their own sin, and so recognize that this scandalous message is the gospel’s very truth.

      We need a new sword for the battle.  A sword of the Word, awakened from dogmatic slumbers and fashioned in the fiery foundry of metaphor.  Just like Milton, who knew that the power of poetry would prove at last to be more compelling than all the armies of Cromwell, we need a new and more poetic restatement of our ancient truths.  We need a new sounding of the old gospel of Paul and the apostles, faithfully transmitted through Augustinian Catholicism and Reformed Calvinism– under no illusions about either the nature of man or the power of God in the gospel.

      We must, however, sound a more certain sound upon our trumpets of truth.  A more biblical sound.  We should present the gospel in its native dress – a bridal dress, in the metaphor of an eastern wedding.  Our tale is the story of a heavenly romance. It tells of a love that begins in the heart of Father God, who unconditionally chose a bride in grace, one who would be suitable for His beloved Son.  It is a drama about a bride whose unfaithfulness made her totally unfit and utterly unworthy of that Son.  It speaks of the steadfast love of the Son, who nonetheless paid a great dowry price for her in confidence that she would return His love.  It tells of the Spirit, whose love irresistibly wooed the betrothed back to a pure love for the Son.  And it promises the hope of a heavenly and everlasting love, a faith which enables Jesus’ betrothed to persevere unto the glorious day of her redemption, when she will descend from heaven as a bride, having made herself ready for the Prince of Glory.  

[423] Cf. Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:42-49.

[424] E. F. Scott, The Book of Revelation (London: SCM Press, 1940) 183.  We might also compare Aristotle’s discussion of the “visual” impact of metaphor upon the hearer’s imagination, Rhet. 3.11.

[425] Charles Lock, “Some Words After Chiasmus,” from John Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond (Crestwood:N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994),  365. 

[426] The typology of the cross of Jesus in the outstretched hands of Moses was commonly taught among the church fathers.  In combination with the typology of Joshua at the head of the armies of Israel, as prefiguring Jesus, the theme is pervasive both in the eastern and western branches of the church. Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality, 231-235. 

[427] The support of Moses’ arms by Aaron, the high priest, darkly foreshadowed the complicity of Caiaphas in Jesus’ crucifixion.  Caiaphas delivered Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified (John18:28). The high priest of Israel thus slaughtered the Passover Lamb of God.

[428]  According to an ancient tradition, the Jordan was counted among the rivers of paradise (Ecclus. 24:35).  The association of the Jordan with the old creation was observed by Frank Kermode, “Jordan is an archetypical threshold.  Crossing over its water is baptism; the dove that descends is a figure not only of the spirit from above but also of that pneuma that brooded over the formless waste of waters in the beginning, at the great threshold between darkness and light.”  The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. By Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1987) 448.

[429]  Just as Joshua gave Israel a land for which they did not labor and cities which they did not build (Josh 24:13), so the True Joshua gives to True Israel a wholly gracious inheritance in the City of God (Rev 21:10).  This paradisiacal land is the “rest that remains for the people of God” (Heb 4:8-9).  The Book of Joshua is unambiguous that the land promises in Canaan, given to father Abraham,  were fulfilled by Joshua’s typical conquest (Josh 21:43-45, 23:14) .  The NT teaches a universalized understanding of the land promises for the present age (Gen 12:1,15:7, 17:8 = Rom 4:13; Exod 20:12=Eph 6:1-3; Psa 37:11=Matt 5:5), and the heavenly understanding of their fulfillment for the age to come (Rev 21:1).

[430] The Gospel of John and Revelation are arranged chiastically to each other as well as parallel to one another.  Consequently, the beginning of the Gospel is reflected upon at the end of Revelation.  The Gospel opens with the Lord at the Jordan, where He chooses Peter to represent the “stone” (John 1:42), a passage likely at the root of the ancient doctrine of Petrine primacy for the foundational apostle of the church (cf. Matt 16:18).  Revelation displays the serendipitous fulfillment of the promise to Peter, for now all of the apostles are not merely common stones, rather, they are precious stones, the twelve foundations of the city of God (Rev 21:14,19-20).

[431] The solemnity of this ceremony is suggested by the fact that two entire chapters of Deuteronomy are devoted to describing its stipulations.

[432] It may be helpful to the reader set out in broad outline the chiastic arrangement of the other paired mountains in Matthew’s Gospel.  The first of Matthew’s mountains is the mountain of the temptation, the scene of Satan’s offer to give Jesus world dominion for His disobedience (Matt 4:8-10).  The last mountain corresponds to the first.  It is the mountain of the commissioning, the place where Jesus proclaims that He has been given universal dominion after His obedience (Matt 28:16-20).  The other pair of Matthean mountains emphasize the singularity of Jesus “alone.”  The third mountain of the separation, which Jesus ascended “alone” (Matt 14:23), is corresponded to the mountain of the transfiguration, where Jesus was likewise uniquely “alone” (Matt 17:8).  The pattern that results from Matthew’s chiastic arrangement of the seven mountains is     A  B  C  D  C´ B´ A´. This chiastic pattern builds an imaginative “mountain,” so that the literary structure coincides iconographically with Matthew’s literary theme, which is especially developed in his Mosaic typology.  That is, Matthew depicts Jesus as the Prophet who brings us the word of the Lord from the mountain of God.

[433] The nine pronounced beatitudes and the eight pronounced woes are arranged as antiphonal responses to each other as enumerated.  The reader will note that chiastic order confirms the majority text reading for Matt 23:14. The correspondence to the seventh beatitude, however, which assures the righteous that they are the children of God, is deliberately gapped in the case of the Pharisees.

[434] The exhortation of Joshua for the people to forsake Babylon and pursue Zion constitutes a call for the faithful in Israel to follow the paradigmatic pilgrimage of father Abraham, who forsook the eastern city of idolatry and sought the blessing of Melchizedek, the priest-king of Jerusalem.

[435] The syncritical figure of two women, one evil and the other good, is a topos common to hortatory literature.  The biblical pattern of such a paranesis is graphically illustrated in the wisdom book of Proverbs.  The book is framed by Lady Folly (Prov 5) and Lady Wisdom (Prov 31), which, as Claudia Camp observed, constitutes an inclusio.  Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond, 1985) 59-60.  The choice between two women is a significant typological figure within the sapiential literature of the Bible.  The figure graphically illustrates the crisis of the choice between wisdom and folly, generally a matter of life and death. The chief illustration of Solomon’s wisdom is, of course, his choice between two harlots, the vindication of the mother of the living son and the justice accorded the mother of the dead son, an account that follows immediately upon his prayer for wisdom (1 Kgs 3:5-28).  Moreover, it is the choice between two women that often exposes the wisdom or folly in the patriarchs and kings of Israel.  One recalls Abraham’s choice between the flesh and the spirit personified in Hagar and Sarah, Jacob’s choice between the barren comeliness and fecund uncomeliness in Rachel and Leah, and Joseph’s choice between an illegitimate as against a legitimate union represented by the wife of Potiphar and the daughter of Potiphara. Similarly, the chronicler of Israel flanks David’s critical choice between the two portraits of Bathsheba as the lawful wife of the loyal Uriah and as the adulterous widow and mother of a dead son.  In the NT we observe the Lord’s vindication of the wise choice represented by Mary’s devotion as opposed to Martha’s distractions, the choice of the Galatians for grace against law presented in Paul’s allegory of Sarah and Hagar, and the Johannine parenesis of the two women at the end of Revelation.

   Similarly, the Hellenic tradition utilized the same figure of two women to compare morally alternative choices.  Xenophon described the temptation of Heracles by Lady Virtue, garbed in white, and Lady Vice, arrayed seductively (Mem 2.1.21-22).  Barbara Rossing traces the history and the significance of the tradition of the evil versus the good woman in Revelation within its classical rhetorical context in The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride and Empire in the Apocalypse, Harvard Theological Series (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1999) 17-59.

[436] An “ekklesia” is a summoned assembly (from ekkalein “to call out”).  It is the normative term in the LXX for the Jewish congregation, and in the NT for the Christian community, s.v. ekklesia, H.G. Liddel and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 509.

[437] By far, in my judgment.

[438] Consistent with our usual convention, correspondences sharing the same Hebrew root will be shown in boldface type, and correspondences that are thematically parallel, but not lexically corresponded in the original text, will be shown in italic type.

[439]  Abimelech tells Abraham, “Behold the land is before you, settle wherever you please” (Gen 20:15).  This is the language of separation first used by Abraham in separating from Lot, “Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me” (Gen 13:9).

[440]  The “wife-sister” narratives each chronicle great sin.  Abraham and Isaac are given the covenant of redemption that promised a land, a seed, and a blessing to the nations (Gen 12:1-3).  In each of these narratives (Gen 12:10-20; 20:1-18; 26:1-33) the patriarchs compromise all the promises of that great redemptive covenant in what amounts to a serious revolt against the Lord of the Covenant.  They abandon the land that had been promised them to sojourn in Egypt and Gerar.  They deliberately venture the purity of their wives in order to save themselves, thus putting in jeopardy their promise of a “seed.” And in so doing, they further bring great plagues and judgments on the nations of their sojourn.  The character of this patriarchal revolt is best measured by the rebuke Abimelech delivers to Abraham when he protests the violation of hospitality that his deceit had accomplished upon the innocent people of Gerar.  Abimelech’s piercing question, posed in his stinging reprimand of Abraham, is later lodged by Moses against Aaron for his idolatrous sin in the matter of the golden calf. Clearly the juxtaposition of these two accounts demonstrates the magnitude of the sin of Abraham and Isaac against Egypt and Gerar – a sin likened to idolatry.

[441] Isaac’s herdsmen strove with the herdsman of Gerar (Gen 26:20), a scene which recalls the striving between the herdsmen of Abraham and the herdsmen of Lot that resulted in their separation  (Gen 13:7). Isaac memorialized the contention in the names he gave to the wells, Esek (quarrel) and Sitnah (enmity).

[442] Jacob’s history in Paddan Aram is prophetic of the entire Egyptian sojourn, while, simultaneously, Jacob is himself a type of Moses in his deliverance from Egypt.

[443] As Jacob fled from Esau, he came to Bethel, where, after the sun went down, he took a stone and put it under him and rested upon it (Gen 28:11).  After seeing a divine vision in a dream, Jacob awoke and erected the stone as a pillar stone (Gen 28:22), for there God had made a vow to him (Gen 28:13-15).  Jacob’s pillar stone at Bethel anticipates the altar stone of Moses at Rephidim (Exod 17:15), for there God made a vow against Amalek (Exod 17:14), after they took a stone and put it under Moses for him to rest upon until the sun went down (Exod 17:12-13).

[444]  Robert Alter cites the further example of Isaac as a betrothal scene, since his father’s agent encountered Rebekah at a well.  He notes seven scenes that constitute the chronicle of a hero finding his wife at a well:  the hero (or his agent) travels to a far land; he comes to a well; he meets a maiden who comes out to the well; either the hero or the bride-to-be draws water from the well; the girl ‘hurries” or “runs” home to her father or brother, the hero is extended the hospitality of the family; and a marriage is contracted between the hero and the maiden he met at the well.  The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981) 52.  We might add a similar type-scene in John’s Gospel, in the Lord’s encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42).  In the Samaritan woman the patriarchal pattern is dramatically broken, however, for she is not a virgin, having had five husbands and having lived with a man outside of marriage (John 4: 18).  Jesus is able to love the unlovely, and is willing to enter into a spiritual betrothal with her.  In this He is surely greater than Jacob, who could only love one who was lovely (Gen 29:17-18, cf. John 4:12).

[445]  Both accounts emphasize the humiliation of the foreign gods.   A woman surmounts the household gods of Laban at the time of her uncleanness (Gen 31:34-35).  See Bruce Waltke with Cathi Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001) 430.  Likewise, the plagues of Egypt are declared to constitute a polemic against Egyptian idolatry (Exod 12:12).

[446]   Both Galeed and Gilgal are derived from the Hebrew root gālal, meaning “to roll,” metaphorically applied to the heap of stones set up as memorials in both places.

[447]  God does not visit pharaoh in a dream, speaking to him through His prophets, Moses and Aaron.  But God had similarly spoken to Abimelech in a dream of the night (Gen 20:3), by which He delivered Abraham’s family in Gerar in another preview of the exodus.

[448]  The “earrings” were afterwards also associated with the idolatrous ephod of Gideon (Judg 8:22-27).

[449]  The title “dukes of Edom” is unique to the Jacob account in Genesis 36 and Moses’ Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:15.

[450]  The covenant family is invited by pharaoh to dwell in the region of the land of their choice.  Pharaoh says to Joseph, “The land of Egypt is before you” (Gen 47:6), using the gracious language of Abraham toward Lot (Gen 13:9) and Abimelech toward Abraham (Gen 20:15).  

[451] Lit. a “pit” (Gen 40:15, cf. 37:24).  It should be remembered that Egypt is a figure for the grave and the land of the dead in the Bible.  This is reflected in Jacob’s ironic comment that he would only see Joseph again in Sheol (Gen 37:35), which in the event is Egypt, and in the cynical mocking of Israel at the sea, “is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us here to die in the wilderness?” (Exod 14:11).  Consequently, to be in a subterranean dungeon (Gen 40:15) in Egypt is a figurative burial for Joseph.  Likewise, the exodus from Egypt to the paradisal land is a figure of resurrection (Gen 50:24-26).

[452] A further aspect of Joseph as a type of Moses is the fact that both married a daughter of a foreign priest (Gen 41:45 and Exod 2:16, 21) and both had two sons by a priest’s daughter (Gen 41:50 and Exod 18:2-4). 

[453]  Judah offered to take upon himself the punishment of enslavement in order to release his brother Benjamin, who was condemned by the cup discovered in his possession, the cup whose possession merited death (Gen 44:1-9, 33).  Jesus, however, offered a greater deliverance, for He actually drank the cup in order to release his brothers from their sentence of eternal death (John 18:11).

[454]  The Samaritan woman asked Jesus whether He was greater than Jacob (John 4:12).  Jacob met the beautiful and virginal Rachel at the well of Haran (Gen 29:16-17).  Jacob loved her and gave her all his heart.  Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar.  She had had five husbands, and was now living in open and notorious sin with a man who was not her husband (John 4:18).  Jacob could love one who was lovely, but Jesus’ love is greater, for He can love one who is no longer lovely, one who is no longer pure.  Truly Jesus is greater than Jacob (John 4:12). 

[455] Jesus promised to send His Spirit to all His people (John 14:16, 26, 15:26, 16:7), and He emblematically breathed His Spirit into them, just as God had breathed the Spirit into Adam (John 20:22).  Joseph’s Spirit was unique to him (Gen 41:38).  Moses’ Spirit was imparted only to the seventy elders in Israel (Numb 11:24-25), and he longed for the Spirit to be given to all God’s people (Numb 11:29).  Jesus’ ministry is greater, however, for He imparts His Spirit to all those who will come to Him (John 7:37-39).

[456] In my dissertation I present evidence for the case that the adultery pericope is authentic to the Gospel, and that John’s Gospel and Revelation constitute a literary diptych.  W. Gage, St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dallas, 2001).

[457] It is the character of the wise in Scripture to detect the “finger of God,” and yet, “for all their piety and wit,” to be confounded.  The magicians and wise men of Egypt were dismayed by the judgments of the plagues, and reported to pharaoh “This is the finger of God” (Exod 8:18-19).  Likewise the Chaldeans and diviners of Babylon were unable to decipher the message of the fingers writing on the palace of the king (Dan 5:5-8).  The temple of Jerusalem, in John’s Gospel, is likened to the palaces of the kings of Egypt and Babylon, for the scribes and Pharisees are dismayed before the writing hand of Jesus (John 8:6).  Jesus’ writing was greater, however, for it dismayed her accusers and thus secured mercy in the midst of judgment for a woman accused of immorality (John 8:11).

[458] It is fundamental to apostolic theology that the Lord, just like Joseph’s elevation, ascended to the right hand of the throne of His Father (Acts 2:30; Heb 1:8, 8:1, 12:2).  The same theology informs the Johannine understanding of Christ’s ascension (Rev 5:13). Father God, like Jacob, has surrounded His beloved Son with the many colors of a rainbow throne (Rev 4:3).  Like Joseph in his exaltation by pharaoh, Jesus wears a robe of linen with a golden collar (Rev 1:13, cf. Gen 41:42).  Jesus is exalted because He, like Joseph in his humiliation, likewise had a coat dipped in blood (Rev 19:13, cf. Gen 37:31).

[459]  John the Beloved saw the twenty-four elders of heaven, who represent the twelve elders of Israel as well as the twelve apostles of the Lamb (cf. Rev 21:12, 14), falling down before the One who sits on the throne, who is the Word of God  (Rev 4:10).  Through their federal representatives, all the people of God are thus bowing before Jesus.

[460] The patriarchal narratives also foretell the entire history of Israel.  Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt anticipates the exodus, Isaac’s dwelling in Canaan foreshadows the dwelling of Israel in the land in the midst of the Canaanites, and Jacob’s journey to Paddan Aram foretells Israel’s exile to Babylon and the return to the land of promise.  After the patriarchs comes Joseph, who foretells the Messiah who would give the bread of life to all the world.

[461]  The Hebrew word ark (tebah) is used only for the ark of Noah and the ark of bulrushes of Moses (the work for the “ark” of the covenant is different in Hebrew).  Both the ark of Noah and the ark of Moses are daubed with pitch or bitumen to make them water worthy (Gen 6:14 and Exod 2:3).  It seems apparent that Moses’ mother prepared the ark in faith and consigned her son, condemned to suffer death by the waters of the Nile, over to the God who delivered Noah through the waters of judgment.  It is a beautiful gesture of faith that God, who saved Noah from a watery death, would likewise deliver her son Moses.

[462] Both Noah and Moses are miraculously delivered through forty days and nights of testing (Gen 7:4, 12 and Exod 24:18, 34:28).  Moreover, both Noah and Moses bring judgment on the Nephilim (Gen 6:4 and Numb 13:33).

[463]  Both accounts show a resulting scattering (Gen 11:8 and Exod 5:12).  The consequence of the Lord’s judgment on Babel and Egypt was the scattering of the people.  The same word for “scattering” is used of the diaspora of the Jews among the nations after the judgment on Jerusalem and its temple (Jer 10:21; Ezek 11:17, 20:31, 41, 28:25).

[464]  I have worked out the entire typology of Gibeah of Benjamin and Sodom in “Ruth Upon the Threshing Floor and the Sin of Gibeah: A Biblical-Theological Study” Westminster Theological Journal 51 (1989) 369-375.

[465]  Ishmael’s “mocking” is ironically described by the same root that underlies the name “Isaac” (Gen 21:9).

[466]  Aaron’s defection in presiding over an idolatrous sacrifice as his first public worship in Israel, massively mars the priesthood that he represents.  It makes us, from the very beginning, long for a better priesthood and a better sacrifice.  Moreover, the account of Aaron’s priestly offering to the golden calf comes just after Moses’ account of the purity of the priestly anointing oil, the holy garments of the priest, and the celebration of the holy Sabbath (Exod 31).  Further, the golden calf narrative is set in the center of the texts that set forth the plan for the tabernacle and its furnishings and the actual building of the tabernacle.  As such, the golden calf idolatry mars the narrative of God’s tabernacle by literarily placing an idol in the midst of Israel’s holy tabernacle.  It constitutes a rebellion of the generation of the exodus that is nothing less than stunning in its magnitude.  

[467]  Esau laments that Jacob was well named, for he had supplanted (yaqob) Esau of his birthright and blessing (Gen 27:36).  We have already noted the significance of Israel’s mocking (tshaq).  Exodus 32:6 thus recalls a pun on the names of both Isaac and Jacob, all to show the character of the rebellion at Sinai to correspond to Ishmael and Esau.  In this revolt, Israel too despised her birthright and blessing in the Lord.

[468]  The Book of Judges appears to urge the necessity of the monarchy by noting, “in those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6, 21:25).  Nonetheless, God’s rule over Israel through charismatic judges is clearly regarded in the prophetic tradition as a regime superior to the monarchy that followed (1 Sam 8:6-9).  We must therefore conclude that God’s rule through Samson’s twenty-year judgeship was, in this respect, a nobler rule than David’s, displaying a wisdom greater than Solomon’s.  Israel’s rejection of God’s judges recalls the men of Sodom, who rejected the “judgeship” of Lot (Gen 19:9) and the Israelites in Egypt, who rejected the “judgeship” of Moses (Exod 2:14).  In all of this Jerusalem, where the Lord was crucified, became the spiritual antitype of Sodom and Egypt (Rev 11:8).  The Israelite demand of Samuel to have a king “like all the nations” was a rejection of the rule of God through the judges like Samson. In the fullness of time Israel would reject the rule of God in Jesus Christ, the True Samson, saying, “We have no king but Caesar.”

[469]  Samson also shares with Isaac the characteristic of being a unique son of his father and mother, suffering from a contemptuous mocking (Judg 16:25, cf. Gen 21:9), and uttering a prophetic oracle in a blindness near to death. Both are likewise willing to submit to a typological death, Isaac at Moriah and Samson at Gaza.

[470]  The Gospel writers draw upon a number of features in the Samson story to portray the ministry of John the Baptist as a new Samson who precedes Jesus, who thus becomes a new David.  Both Samson and John the Baptist are born of a barren woman who is told by an angel that she should not drink wine or strong drink (Judg 13:2,14, cf. Luke 1:7,15).  Both are notably “hairy,” (Judg 13:5, 16:22, cf. Mark 1:6).  They both feed upon wild honey (Judg 14:8-9, cf. Mark 1:6). They both confront “wild beasts” in the wilderness (Judg 14:5, cf. Luke 3:7). Their story includes a “friend of the bridegroom” (Judg 15:2, cf. John 3:29).  Both are imprisoned (Judg 16:21, cf. Mark 6:17, John 3:24). They are both given over to a violent death by the treachery of a woman (Judg 16:18, cf. Mark 6:19).  They are both horribly wounded in the head (Judg 16:21, cf. Mark 6:27).  Finally, they each have friends who come to gather their body for burial (Judg 16:31, cf. Mark 6:29).

[471]  Samson’s mother is required to abstain from wine and strong drink, and Samson is to be a Nazirite from birth to death.  These solemn stipulations would appear to predict a man of notable sobriety and moral rectitude.  But Samson’s first adventure is to seek a bride from among the daughters of the uncircumcised.   As Barry Webb describes the story, it makes “striking use of the literary technique of ‘contrary to expectation’...”The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987) 174.  Moreover, the Samson narrative is replete with riddles, unexpected plot twists, misunderstandings, deceptions, and masquerade. We are thus alerted to the genre of comedy.

[472]  “Samson” morphologically resembles, and certainly is derived from, the Hebrew shemesh for “sun.”

[473]  Luther described the purgatorial character of the comedy of God’s justifying the ungodly in his maxim simul peccator et iustus.  This attribution is particularly suitable to Samson.

[474]  See Robert G. Boling, Judges, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1975) 233.  See also James L. Crenshaw, Samson: A Secret Betrayed, A Vow Ignored (London: SPCK, 1979) 124.  But compare also James B. Jordan, Judges: God’s War Against Humanism (Tyler, Tex: Geneva Ministries, 1985) 242.  Jordan describes the comedic character of the Samson story, without identifying a particular genre.

[475]  We must inevitably think of the laughter of God against the nations conspiring rebellion, as depicted in Psalm 2:4-6, when we see the Philistines plotting to bind Samson, the Lord’s anointed judge, with cords and fetters. 

[476] Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, (London: Oxford University Press, 1927) 73-74.

[477]  As when He declares all His redemptive work “finished” on the sixth day (John 19:30, cf. Elohim in Gen 1:31-2:3) and then breathes upon the disciples to impart the Holy Spirit (John 20:22, cf. Yahweh Elohim in Gen 2:7). 

[478]  As when He feeds the multitude of Israel, multiplying bread for them in the wilderness (John 6:5-14, cf. Exod 16:4).

[479]  A summary of the Lord’s titulary may be seen in the answer of the disciples to the Lord’s question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist, some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets” (Matt 16:13-14).  But as Peter understood, only the Christ could be the culmination of all of them at once.

[480]  The “sun” is, of course, metaphorically paired to the moon, the “lesser light.”

[481]  Jacob is specifically given a “solar name” in Joseph’s prophetic dream: “Now he (Joseph) had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun (shemesh) and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”  And he related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “Shall I (Jacob) and your mother and your brothers actually come and bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”  (Gen 37:9-10).  There is a remarkable pattern of verbal concordance in the Samson story that suggests its typicality with the Jacob narrative.  Samson, like Jacob, is miraculously conceived by a barren woman (Judg 13:2, cf. Gen 25:21).  Samson is the heir of Jacob’s prophetic blessing upon Dan, wherein he was likened to a serpent who bites the heel, recalling the supplanter name of Jacob (Gen 49:17, cf. Gen 25:26). Samson, like Jacob, is confronted by a father-in-law who hinders him from taking his preferred bride and offers a choice between two sisters, the younger of whom is fairer (Judg 15:2, cf. Gen 29:16).  Samson literally possesses the gates of Gaza (Judg 16:3), a feat that recalls the promise to Jacob as Rebekah’s seed, that he “should possess the gates of his enemies” (Gen 24:60).  Samson is victorious over his enemies “hip and thigh” (Judg 15:8) a victory that recalls the particular weakness of Jacob at the time he prevailed over Esau (Gen 32:25). And most telling, Samson’s mother and father see the theophany of the God of Jacob revealed at Peniel, both accounts connected by the divine rebuke suggested in “Why do you ask My name?” (Gen 32:29, cf. Judg 13:18) and the miracle that those who saw the theophany survived (Gen 32:30, cf. Judg 13:22-23).

[482]  This pattern is likewise consistent with Jacob typology.  Just as Jacob is wounded and disabled in the hip when he cries out in prayer to the Lord for his great deliverance from Esau, so Samson is wounded and disabled as he cries out in prayer to the Lord for what becomes his greatest act of deliverance for Israel.  All of this likewise anticipates Jesus, who at the point of death cries out, “It is finished,” thus expressing, in His greatest weakness, His greatest triumph (John 19:30).

[483]   J. Marcellus Kik has the best discussion we have found of the biblical use of the apocalyptic imagery of solar calamity to describe the overthrow of various regimes in his An Eschatology of Victory (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1971) 127-135. Kik cites the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel who deploy the language of sidereal darkness to depict the overthrow of Babylon, Edom, Egypt, and, finally, Israel.

[484]  Cf. also the blindness of the prophets of Israel described in Lam 4: 13-17.

[485]  Cf. John 12:40 and the double fulfillment of Isaiah’s original oracle in 6:10.

[486]   David, the boy champion over the Philistine Goliath, will be presented as a new Samson when Abner urges the elders of Israel to submit to David’s scepter: “For the Lord has spoken of David, saying ‘By the hand of My servant David I will deliver My people Israel from the hand of the Philistines’” (1 Sam 3:18).  This Samson typology likewise applies Samson’s Joshua name to David.  But as with Samson, David is a flawed image of the “deliverer” of Israel.  David, like Joshua, captures a Canaanite stronghold (the fortress city of the Jebusites) as his first act of conquest at the head of the twelve tribes of Israel (2 Sam 5:6-9).  But Joshua had rescued the harlot Rahab from the judgment of Jericho, redeeming her from a life of defiance to the holiness of God and saving her household from death (Josh 6:22). David, however, violated the purity of Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite, in Jerusalem, and killed her husband by the hand of the Ammonites (2 Sam 11:1-4; 12:9).

[487]  Might Samson’s seven locks resemble trumpets?  While there is no literary connection between the trumpets and the locks, the text suggests a certain “punk” look to Samson’s hair.  The possibility that a radical “do” might be of value in envisioning a point relevant for biblical exegesis is too irresistible for this expositor to ignore completely, as I most certainly should!

[488]  In fact, both accounts use the directive ה with Timnah.

[489]  Samson shares with Joseph the indignity of having been lifted up from the cleft/pit and delivered over to bonds at the suggestion of Judah (Judg 15:11-13, cf. Gen 37:26-28). Ironically their lives are thereby spared. Samson, like Joseph, is also pestered day after day by a woman who betrays him to a prison (Judg 16:16, cf. Gen 39:10,20).  Unlike Joseph, Samson destroys the crops of standing grain of the Philistines (Judg 15:5, cf. Gen 37:7, 41:49). Both are betrayed for silver (Judg 16:5, cf. Gen 37:28).  Finally, both Joseph and Samson are shaved on the day that marks the great reversal in their fortune (Judg 16:19, cf. Gen 41:14, Isa 50:6).

[490]   The threat of whoredom jeopardizes the Abrahamic promise regarding the seed, and the consequence is often a curse, rather than a blessing, upon the Gentile nations.  Both aspects of this biblical theological theme oppose the promise of the Abrahamic covenant that the Seed should bring about a blessing to the nations, the chief custodial responsibility of the christological officer.  Abraham and Isaac ventured the purity of their wives, bringing God’s severe judgment upon Egypt and Gerar (Gen 12, 20, 26).  The humbling of Dinah by the Hivite prince, who treated a daughter of Jacob like a whore (Gen 34:31), led to Simeon and Levi exacting so great a revenge against the Shechemites that they made the name of Jacob to became odious to the Canaanites and the Perizzites (Gen 34).  Judah’s affair with Tamar, whom he treated as a whore, brought shame to God’s anointed among the people of Enaim and Timnah (Gen 38).  Moreover, all Israel played the whore with the daughters of Moab at Baal Peor (Num 25).  Similarly, Samson’s flirtation with the whore of Gaza preceded severe judgment upon the entire city (Judg 16).  David committed adultery with the wife of his loyal Hittite warrior.  His slaughter of her husband by the sword of the Ammonite brought severe judgment upon the nation that was to be a light to the world (2 Sam 12:10). Moreover, both Israel and Samaria became harlots who seduced the nations, bringing judgment instead of blessing (Ezek 16:26-34). Finally, the Great Whore commits fornication with the kings of the earth, bringing great judgment upon them (Rev 17:1-2).

[491]  “Tamar” is the Hebrew word for  “palm tree.” In the account of Judah’s sin, Tamar pretends to be a whore.  She conceives and two sons are born of her womb.  The firstborn Zerah is marked with the scarlet cord at his birth.  Perez is Tamar’s after born son.  The author of Joshua has highlighted the same themes to draw his portrait of Rahab.  The story takes place in Jericho, which is named the “The City of Palm Trees” i.e., “The City of ‘Tamars’” (Deut 34:3, cf. 2 Chron 28:15, and Judg 1:16, 3:13).  Rahab, the whore, is a woman of faith like Tamar.  She delivers two men, the Israelite spies, to safety.  Her window, which figuratively represents her womb, is marked with the scarlet cord.  Thereafter Achan, the seed of Zerah is cut off (Josh 7:18), and Rahab begets a son to Salmon, the son of Perez (Ruth 4:18-21, cf. Matt 1:5).  In judging Achan, the Lord God disregards the scarlet cord that represented Zerah’s claim of election. Rather, the Lord God places the scarlet cord of election upon the “womb” of Rahab, who becomes one of the mothers of Christ. (Matt 1:5).       

[492]  It is crucial to recognize that the phrase “to play the whore” is not a sexually determined term in the Bible.  This unmarked verb is capable of describing the illicit conduct of men as well as women (cf. Numb 25:1).

[493]  Leviticus 21:9 teaches that the law appoints a fiery death for the whore.

[494]   This recognition and reversal is an example of Aristotelian anagnoresis and peripeteia, characteristic of tragic drama.  It anticipates a similarly striking recognition and reversal after another immoral episode with a christological officer, when the prophet Nathan brings his charge against King David (2 Sam 12:5-7).  In each case the tragic aspect of the dramatic recognition leads to a great repentance, the serendipitous gesture of tragedy becoming the basis of the comedy of redemption.  The biblical vision that makes tragic peripety the basis of comedy is thus “better” than the tragic trajectory identified by Aristotle.

[495]  Sonya, in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, illustrates this pattern of redemptive reversal as the whore becomes the Christ figure.

[496] See Robert G. Boling, Judges, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1975) 73-76.  See also Dale C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 28-30.

[497]   The Angel of the Lord only appears three times in the OT: to Moses, to Gideon, and to Samson’s parents.  But He appears in a fiery theophany only to Moses and to Samson’s parents (Exod 3:2 and Judg 13:20).  He appears to Gideon, but not in fire (Judg 6:12).

[498]   We have already seen that Samson is given a Joshua name, and that his relationship to the whore of Gaza and the Amorite city recalls certain elements of the account of Rahab and Jericho.  It is noteworthy that the Samson story gestures toward One who will be both like Moses and Joshua.

[499]   Peter J. Leithart has wonderfully exposited this principle of the head wounds suffered by anti-kingdom champions in the Bible, noting the examples of both Sisera and Abimelech from the Book of Judges.  A woman crushes Abimelech’s head during the siege of Thebez (Judg 9:52-54). Goliath and Absalom likewise express this pattern of head wounding from the Books of Samuel.  See A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2000) 34, 142.  Leithart notes the paradigmatic description of Goliath of Gath, who comes to battle dressed in scale armor (1 Sam 17:5), i.e., to resemble the serpent.  David crushed his skull with the rock from his sling.  The son of Jesse, in the apparent weakness of his youth, represents the seed of the woman (1 Sam 17:49).  To complete the irony of the pattern, David beheads Goliath with his own sword (1 Sam 17:51).

[500]   Barry Webb notes the verbal and thematic correspondences between the Samson and the Sisera stories. However, he does not comment on them. The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987) 164-165.

[501]   Instructively, Nicodemus actually witnessed the Son of Man “lifted up.”  The evangelist notes that both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea “took the body” and prepared it for burial (John 19:38-40.

[502]   The law of Moses cursed anyone hung upon a tree (Deut 21:22-23).  Jesus on the cross became a Curse.

[503]  The mule is a “semi-donkey” in Greek, the root onos being in common between these LXX and NT accounts.  

[504]  This understanding of the sorrow of the Father over the cross of the Son is clearly not a form of patripassionism.  On the contrary, it deepens our understanding of the Johannine contemplation of the dimension of the Father’s love for us by suggesting something of His grief over the death of His Son.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” (John 3:16).  Moreover, this perspective helps round out our far too often misshapen Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty.  Jesus truly does show us the heart of the Father when He weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), for truly God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek 18:32, 33:11).

    Neither does such an understanding of David’s remorse for a disobedient son suggest a universalism, for it is clear that Absalom was a reprobate son of David.  Rather, this view highlights the love of the Son for us, that He could humble Himself to suffer as a reprobate like Absalom for our sins.  For truly we deserved a disinheritance like that of Absalom.

[505]   The prince of darkness transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14).  Similarly the Seed of the Woman becomes the serpent lifted up (John 3:14).  For by such wisdom the Lord takes the crafty by craftiness (1 Cor 3:19), and takes captivity captive (Eph 4:8).

[506]   The recognition of the anti-kingdom representatives and emblems as anticipating the cross of the Savior constitutes an enormous expansion of the realm of Biblical typology.  It gestures toward a full-orbed systematic theology as well, consistent with the monotheistic claims of Holy Scripture.  Yet it draws a bright line to differentiate the sinless Savior from the Savior suffering for the sin of His people, thus preserving the theology of the perfect holiness of Jesus. 

[507]  There is a pattern of desperate thirst preceding deliverance as an emblem of salvation in the OT.  Israel thirsts at the bitter waters of Marah before Moses made the waters sweet with the tree (Exod 15:22-25).  The people thirst again at the waters of strife of Meribah before Moses brings forth water from the rock (Exod 17:1-7).  David laments a terrible thirst both in his psalm of suffering (Psa 22:15) and in his psalm of distress (Psa 69:21), before stating his confidence that God will deliver him from all his oppressors (Psa 22:22-24; 69:29-36).  And Hezekiah is made to thirst before the Lord judges his enemies by the angel of judgment (2 Chron 32:11).  In all of these we observe a thirsting unto death followed by a great deliverance. The culmination of all these crises of thirst is heard in the cry of the Savior from the cross, “I thirst!” (John 19:28).  Truly His tree makes all our bitterness sweet.  And when He is struck, living waters pour forth for us.  His tongue was made to cleave to the roof of His mouth in order that we might be raised from the dust of death.  And He was given vinegar for His thirst in order that we might partake of a better wine. For He has become, to all who believe, the Angel of Life whose living waters cause us to thirst no more.

[508]   The verb describing the renewed growth of Samson’s hair is חמצ, which carries the basic meaning of  “to sprout.”  This same root is used in late Hebrew for the figure of the New David, the “Shoot” or the “Branch” to come from David’s tree.  Just as the strength of Samson was shorn and then “sprouted” anew, so the tree of David that had fallen would “sprout” a new Branch (Psa 132:17; Jer 23:5, 33:15; Zech 3:8).  Samson’s “sprouting” new hair resulted in the collapse of the temple of Dagon.  But the “Sprout” of David will build the temple of the Lord (Zech 6:12).

[509]  A birth by a mother who is either barren or beyond the years of childbearing is frequently a pattern for the christological officer, a miracle finding its culmination in the virgin birth of Jesus, the Seed of the Woman.  We should cite the examples of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, the wife of Manoah, Hannah, and, presumptively, the widow Ruth. 

[510]  Both the birth and burial/resurrection accounts of Jesus are told through the eyes of a Joseph and a Mary of Galilee.  Both accounts tell of the mummiform (cloth wrapped) body of Jesus.  Both have angels from heaven announcing good news to men.

[511]  Isaiah tells us that the God whose name is “Wonderful” will be born a child, but that the “government will rest on his shoulders” (9:6, cf. Judg 13:18).  The prophet’s language emphasizes the Samson-like character of Christ.  Isaiah’s recollection of the God who works wonders anticipates the mighty deeds to be wrought by Christ, who would manifest His great strength in apparent weakness.  In the ancient East the gates of a city were emblematic of its government, a metonymy of place for the site where the wise counsels of the elders were held. Isaiah foresaw that the True Samson, although a Child, the emblem of weakness, would carry the government upon His shoulders, just as Samson had carried away the gates of Gaza (Isa 9:6, cf. Judg 16:3).

[512]   There is a pattern of Samson putting a torch between two tails of foxes (Judg 15:3), being bound with two new ropes (15:13), carrying the two gates of Gaza on his shoulders (16:3), being bound with two bronze fetters (16:22 n.b. the dual form), and being positioned between the two pillars of the Dagon temple (16:29).  The Samson parallels in his struggle with Philistine Gaza anticipate the role of the destroyer of the city (two gate posts) and the sanctuary (two pillared house) of Daniel 9:26.  Cf. also the Jachin and Boaz columns of Solomon’s temple complex.  The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake: Eisenbraun, 1984) 56.

[513]   G. Gerleman suggested that the Book of Ruth was originally a part of the Book of Judges, separated out only for liturgical reasons. Ruth: Das Hohelied [BKAT 18, 2d ed., Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1965] 1.  Edward F. Campbell and Robert C. Bowling have noted a number of strong literary and grammatical connections between the two books.  Ruth, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975) 35.  If the books of Judges and Ruth have a common authorship, as seems likely, then the record of national whoredom with the Moabites (Numb 25:1) underlies the account of the remarkable inclusion of Ruth, the Moabitess, within the covenant people.  The Book of Ruth then continues the pattern of the thematic development of the christological officer (Boaz) and his relation to the “whore.” 

      The Book of Ruth specifically names Tamar in the blessing pronounced upon Ruth by the elders of Bethlehem (4:12), for Ruth will preserve the line of Perez (4:18).  In order to secure her levirate right, however, Ruth must “go down to the threshing floor” (3:3,6,14).  Now the “threshing floor” was the place of the harlot, according to Hosea.  The prophet wrote an accusation against Israel, saying, “You have loved the wages of the whore on all the threshing floors” (9:1).  Consequently, Ruth ventured her reputation for purity by her nighttime approach to Boaz to ask for covenant marriage.  In this risky venture of faith, she recalls the faith of Tamar and Rahab.  There is thus a pattern in the Bible of women of faith venturing their reputations for purity that we might have a Redeemer. Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth are named in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, which also names Mary of Nazareth, who must likewise have been thought to have “played the whore” when she conceived during her betrothal but before the marriage was consummated (Matt 1:18-20, cf. John 8:41).  For a detailed discussion of Ruth’s strategy in approaching Boaz in the guise of a whore, see Ruth Upon the Threshing Floor and the Sin of Gibeah: A Biblical-Theological Study, WTJ 51 (1989) 369-375.

[514]  The great insight of the comedic vision is God smiling in serene pleasure over a cosmos constituted of both inferno and paradiso, the singular affirmation of a sovereignty that was pleased to bruise the Son of God that the sons of God might enter paradise. This is, after all, a necessary theological inference from the monotheistic affirmation of Holy Scripture.

[515]   The Jerusalem crowds had cried out the imprecatory curse, “his blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matt 27:25).

[516]  The association of Luke 23:28 and Acts 2:39 is a part of the larger chiastic pattern that interweaves the two treatises of Luke.  See “St John’s Vision of the Heavenly City” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Dallas, 2001) 193-201.

[517]  The comedic theme of the joy of childbirth after Zion’s prolonged barrenness is developed (with John Randolph Beck) in “The Gospel, Zion’s Barren Woman and the Ethiopian Eunuch,” Crux 30 vol. 2 (1994) 35-43.

[518]  Philo describes the dress of the harlot in the first century AD as follows, “Her hair is dressed in curious and elaborate plaits.”  She is arrayed in “costly raiment” with “bracelets and necklaces and every other feminine ornament wrought of gold and jewels and hung around her” De Sacrificiis 21, trans. by F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library, vol 2, 107-109. Paul’s First Letter to Timothy would have addressed a community at least in part constituted of former cult devotees to Diana of Ephesus. The city was notorious for its courtesans, and Paul’s admonition, regarding modest dress appropriate for the Christian woman, likely had this background in view.

[519]  To deliver us from our harlotry, our Lord, like the Levite, likewise had to make a journey to Bethlehem.

[520]   The roof represents a height from which one must take care lest he fall.  Consequently, the law of Moses imposed a duty to build a parapet around the roof  “so that you may not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone should fall from it” (Deut 22:8).  The equity of this law teaches us that, contrary to Cain’s wicked denial, we are our brother’s keeper.  We must be vigilant against bringing our neighbor into a place of jeopardy.  If the parapet law of the roof required David to be wary of negligent harm to his neighbor, what would be the penalty of the law for calculated murder? 

     Moreover, the roof had been made a place for the preservation of life in the early history of Israel.  Rahab the whore, and David’s ancestress, had hidden the two spies of Joshua from the murderous intention of the king of Jericho upon her roof, and so preserved their lives (Josh 2:6).  But David, the king of Jerusalem, made his roof the place from which he plotted to treat Uriah’s wife as a whore, and crafted his murderous intentions against her husband.

     Many years later Jeremiah would announce that Jerusalem would be delivered over into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, because the kings of Judah forgot the Lord by offering up incense to Baal and pouring out drink offerings to idols upon their royal roofs (Jer 19:13, 32:28-29). The sin of David, which resulted in the destruction of his kingdom, began upon a roof in Jerusalem.  That sin was to find its culmination upon a royal roof in the days of Jeremiah (Jer 19:13).  How fearfully well composed and how piteously prophetic had been David’s song, “Your beauty, O Israel, is slain on your high places! Oh how the mighty have fallen!” (1 Sam 1:19).  

[521] There is a pattern of prophetic rebuke of the tyrannical sins of the king.  Nathan rebukes David for slaying Uriah and taking his wife.  Elijah rebukes Ahab for killing Naboth and taking his vineyard.  And John the Baptist rebukes Herod for taking his brother’s wife.  In this pattern of prophetic rebuke, Nathan is a type of Elijah, and they are then types of John the Baptist.  David is the type of Ahab and Jezebel, and they are then types of Herod.

[522]   David apparently decided that the private murder of Uriah was the sole means to prevent the public exposure of the royal scandal.  In doing so he typifies the calculation of Caiaphas, namely, “it is expedient that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish” (cf. John 11:49-50).

[523]   There are several features of the examples of biblical narrative tragedy we have observed that correspond to dramatic tragedy as understood by Aristotle in the Poetics.  The lexical comparisons are not precise, of course, but their pervasive occurrence is generically instructive.  Tragedy is the recounting (mimesis) of the action (muthos) of a royal house whose sin (hamartia) brings death. The actor is a federal head, and thus his crime has severe consequence for his kingdom.  Tragic sin is a moral, and not merely a mental, lapse. It usually takes place in an acropolitan palace, a setting that suggests prosperity and danger; it results in a gruesome murder (opsis).  It brings about a prophetic reckoning (nemesis).  The effect of biblical tragedy, and how it differs from classical Attic tragedy, will be seen as we further explore its pattern (melos).

[524]   The palace bed of King David recalls the rest God had given him from all his enemies (2 Sam 7:1,11).

David is emblematically at the height of his reign when he arises from his bed and walks upon the roof of the royal palace in Jerusalem.  The prominence of David is graphically illustrated by the bifid literary construction of 2 Samuel. The first half of the book describes the advance of David’s kingdom (2 Sam 1-10), the second half describes the beginning of its decline (2 Sam14-24); both halves are pivoted upon the account of David’s sin, which is given the place of highest prominence in the chiastic structure of the book (2 Sam 11-13).   The height of David’s reign in 2 Samuel likewise corresponds more broadly to the zenith of Israel’s history, as reflected in the genealogy of Jesus recorded in Matthew’s Gospel.  The structure of Matthew’s genealogy is historiographically stylized.   Matthew narrates fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian captivity (Matt 1:17) in order to demonstrate that the trajectory of the advance and decline of Israel is pivoted upon the matter of David and his relationship to “her who had been the wife of Uriah” (Matt 1:6). 

[525]   Isaiah’s similitude for the fall of the houses of David and Nebuchadnezzar, that is, of Jerusalem as well as Babylon, is a mighty tree cut down.  Before his word of comfort concerning the “shoot from the stem of Jesse” (Isa 11:1), the prophet describes God’s great judgment against the royal line of David by saying “Behold, the Lord of hosts will cut down the boughs with great might, and all those who are lofty in stature (LXX  hubris) will be felled” (Isa 10:33). Likewise, God’s swears judgment against Babylon by saying, “I will put an end to the arrogance of the prideful (LXX  hubris), and will humble the pride (LXX hubris) of the ruthless” (Isa 13:11).  Similarly, Jeremiah warns that God will judge Babylon, so that “the prideful one (LXX hubris) will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up, for I will kindle a fire in his cities (LXX reads ‘forest’), to devour all around” (Jer 50:32, LXX 27:32). 

    Isaiah depicts the tragic trajectory of the hubris of the king of Babylon in 14:4-21.  Babylon’s king boasted, “I will ascend to heaven… I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa 14:13,14).  But Isaiah describes the confounding of his pride in his fall, “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn!” (Isa 14:12).  Rather than ascend to heaven, the king descends to sheol (Isa 14:11).  This trajectory appears to describe the gesture of the soul that is imitated in tragedy.  It attempts to challenge heaven by ascending beyond the limits appointed to man.  It achieves only the grave, and a descending into the nether world.

    Classical tragic theory understood a movement from olbos (prosperity) to hubris (pride) to phthonis (divine envy) to atē (blind disposition to transgress) to hamartia (transgression) to nemesis (balancing retribution). The biblical development likewise begins with prosperity (2 Sam 12:7-8) followed by pride (Psa 51:10, cf. 17).  There appears to follow a despising of God (2 Sam 12:9a) that leads to moral evil (2 Sam 12:9b) that requires a just retribution (2 Sam 12:5-6).  But biblical tragedy can also lead to the abyss from which the comic ascent can begin through a redemption that constitutes a new creation (Psa 51:10).

[526]  Read with LXX and the MT of 1 Chron 20:1.

[527]   Read with the MT and LXX against 4 Q Samª.  But cf. P.Kyle McCarthy, Jr., II Samuel The Anchor Bible (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1984) 296.

[528]  The fall of Adam is the paradigm of all tragedy.  It occurs prior to the promise of redemption through the seed of the woman, the pattern of all comedy.  It follows the lyrical delight of the pleasant garden and the epic account of creation.  All the great patterns of mimetic imagery are thus, as Dante suggests in Canto XXVII of the Purgatorio, the seeds of poetry that blossom out of the experience of Eden: its wonder (epic), its delight (lyric), its loss (tragedy), and the hope of its regain (comedy).  These four fundamental gestures of the heart describe a biblical anthropology, for they show that mankind possesses a soul prepared for the gospel of redemption. 

   God, in His goodness, teaches the cycle of the soul through the metaphor of the seasons of the year, as we are annually reminded of the great redemptive drama to which we are all invited to participate.  The transitions of the seasons display this story. Spring teaches the epic of creation.  Summer intimates the delight of lyrical bliss.  Fall warns us that we are subject to tragic death.  Hope, however, is the gift of winter, for it promises redemption and new life. 

   And if the seasons of the year are made to serve the liturgy of salvation, so are we given psalms to celebrate the same cycle of redemption.  David appointed Levites to minister in song before the ark of the Lord, to petition for deliverance from lamentable circumstances, to give thanks for saving deliverances, and to praise the Lord, the Creator God.  It was appointed to David, the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart, the great yet greatly forgiven sinner, to give us the models of our rich treasury of the psalms of worship.  He did so through the patterns of the praise found in the epic, the “inner court” intimacy of lyric, the lament of the tragic, and thanksgiving expressed through the comedic imagination (1 Chron 16:4).     

[529]  Biblical tragedy creates fear and shame as opposed to the fear and pity of classical tragedy.  Its effect is to prompt us to an awareness of our need for catharsis, the cleansing cover of the blood of the Redeemer.  The patterns Aristotle first observed in 5th century BC Attic tragic drama suggest something of the universality of the soul fashioned by a moral Creator.  We are made to recognize the terrifying fear of knowing that divine wrath has been awakened because of the shame of our disobedience.  But the possibility of the catharsis of the soul is a prefiguring of Christian redemption.  

[530]  The pattern of David’s sin against Uriah’s house as a reenactment of the fall of Adam is a part of a much broader and more elaborate retelling of the account of creation, the garden, and the fall.  This context is outlined in The Gospel of Genesis (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1984) 67-72.

[531]  The metaphor of the Davidic king as the husband of his people will find its final expression in John’s vision of the Son of Man receiving His people as a “New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21:2).

[532]  Adam and his bride sinned by calling that good which God called evil.  The sin of confounding good and evil was the savor of the fruit of disobedience from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The chronicler of David’s sin shows us the irony of this fatal choice when he reports that David assured Joab in the matter of Uriah’s death with the words “do not let this be evil in your eyes” (2 Sam 11:25) just prior to recording that “the thing David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Sam 11:27).

[533]  David’s sin is more aggravated than Adam’s, for David disregarded the warning of  Adam’s example.

[534]  David is the rich king and Uriah his poor subject in Nathan’s parable.  Ironically, this particular word for “poor” is used by David to describe his own sense of unworthiness when Saul the king offers his daughter to him in marriage (1 Sam 18:23).  To heighten the irony, King Saul intended David harm thereby (1 Sam 18:21). David, in his relationship to Uriah, thus resembles Saul in his relationship to David.

[535]  The pathos of the scene of Uriah asleep at David’s door is heightened to realize that the verb from the parallel passage of Cain is ץבר, which is translated “crouching” (Gen 4:7).  This verb is used by David to describe the good shepherd who causes his sheep to “lie down” in green pastures (Psa 23:2).  Uriah was thus like a sheep, resting in the generous provision of his king at the door of the palace. And David’s desire to slaughter this sheep was the sin that he should have ruled over (cf. Gen 4:7).

[536]  Nathan charges David with killing Uriah by the sword of the Ammonite in order to take his wife (2 Sam 12:9).  In all of this David’s crime exceeds the violence of Lamech, the son of Cain.  For Lamech took two wives (Gen 4:19), while David took many (2 Sam 12:8).  Moreover, Lamech killed a man for wounding him (Gen 4:23).  But David killed a man who only loved and honored him (2 Sam 11:11).

[537]   It is only the covenant faithfulness of God that preserves the promise to David’s house after his great sin (2 Sam 7:15).

[538]  The historiography of Matthew’s genealogy traces the decline of Israel from David and the matter of Uriah’s wife to the Babylonian captivity (Matt 1:6, 17).  The prophet Isaiah compared coming judgment of the Babylonian assault upon the land as being like the “waters of Noah” (Isa 54:9).  The sin of David, then, may be viewed as a sin comparable in its effects to the sin of the sons of God in the days of Noah.  See The Gospel of Genesis (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1984)  68-72. 

[539]  David’s sin is thus more aggravated than the sin of Noah, for David slaughtered the good Uriah, and in his murder David shed the innocent blood of a man made in the image of God (cf. Gen 9:5-6).

[540]  David’s sin is thus more aggravated than the sin of Abraham.  For the pagan pharaoh protested that he had put Abraham’s seed in jeopardy out of ignorance, but David had done this to Uriah’s house knowingly.  Moreover, pharaoh had taken no life, but David had done so.  And in so doing David had behaved as Abraham had expected of a tyrannical pharaoh of Egypt.

[541]  And so he is also the father of David through Ruth the Moabitess.

[542]  The daughters of Lot thought that inducing drunkenness would preserve seed upon the earth.  David’s design in inducing drunkenness, however, was to disown the seed that Uriah’s wife had conceived by him.  His sin is consequently more aggravated than that of the daughters of Lot.

[543]  How it suits David’s sin, that he should wear an Ammonite crown after committing a crime that recalls the wickedness of the mother of Ammon!  Yet for this, David’s great sin, his greater Son must one day wear a crown of thorns.

[544]  David’s sin is thus more aggravated than the sin of Abimelech.  For the pagan king did not know that Sarah was another man’s wife.  Moreover, Abraham believed that a city where they would kill a man to take his wife was where there was no fear of God.  How ironic that Jerusalem’s sin was greater than that of Gerar of the Philistines!

[545]  The precedent most apt to the war strategy that should have informed the counsels in David’s Jerusalem was not Abimelech at Thebez, but Abimelech at Gerar.

[546]  This second example of an Abimelech of Gerar should have served as a double warning to David. Abimelech feared the moral consequences of unknowing sin.  David disregarded the moral consequences of known sin.  Abimelech’s dismay at learning that a married woman was holding herself out as eligible for marriage demonstrates that David’s actual sin was more aggravated than the potential sin of the Philistines.

[547]  There is a pattern of the use of the verbs “to see and to take” to describe sinful conduct.  David, of course “sees and takes” the wife of Uriah (2 Sam 11:2-4).  But this verbal pair is used to describe Eve (Gen 3:6), the sons of God (Gen 6:2), the Egyptians (Gen 12:15), Leah (Gen 30:9), and Shechem (Gen 34:2).  The exception, of course, is Shem and Japheth, who “took” a covering and walked backwards toward their father in order that they might not “see” his nakedness (Gen 9:23).

[548]  David’s sin recalls the wickedness of both Shechem (defiling Jacob’s daughter) and Jacob’s sons (murder). But David’s sin is more aggravated than either.  For Dinah was not another’s wife when Shechem took her.  And David’s murder of Uriah was without any prior provocation.

[549]  David’s actions in all of this resemble those of Potiphar’s wife. But the sin of Potiphar’s wife led to the imprisonment of an innocent while David’s sin was aggravated by an innocent’s murder.

[550]  The word “added” is from the same Hebrew root as the name “Joseph” (See Gen 30:24).  It is likely a deliberate word choice in order to invoke the righteous example of Joseph before David.  It is intended to shame his sin.

[551]  The innocent son who dies is a type of Christ.  The son of David dies for another’s sin.  David forfeits the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul.

[552]  We have seen how David’s crimes recall the wickedness of Potiphar’s wife.  There are several other connections of this Tamar story to the Joseph account that heighten the pathos of the rape of David’s godly daughter.  First, apart from Joseph, Tamar is the only other person named in the Scripture to wear a “coat of many colors” (2 Sam 13:18).  The chronicler tells us that the virgin daughters of David wore these coats, again most likely to signify the delight of the father in his daughters, just as Jacob had delighted in Joseph.  In both accounts, the one wearing the beautiful coat was subjected to the violent enmity of brotherly blood kin.  Ironically, Amnon uses the words announcing Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers to set up his crime against his sister.  He says, “Send out everyone from me!” (2 Sam 13:9, cf. Gen 45:1).  But then he uses the words of Potiphar’s wife when she attempts to seduce Joseph.  He says, “Lie with me!” (2 Sam 13:11, cf. Gen 39:12).  See Peter Leithart, A Son to Me (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2003) 230-231.   

[553]  However, David’s murder of Uriah was not mitigated, as was Absalom’s murder of Amnon, by the humiliating rape and harsh rejection of a sister.

[554]  Esau despised his birthright, and that without remedy (Gen 25:34). The sons of Eli despised the offering of the Lord, and the house of Eli was cut off forever (1 Sam 2:17, 3:13-14). And Goliath despised the youth of David, and suffered death at his hand (1 Sam 17:42).

     But David acknowledged his sin, and his confession was his only offering; for he knew that a broken and contrite heart God would not despise (Psalm 51:19). For the greater Son of David too would be despised (Psa 22:7), in order that He might rescue those who delight in Him (Matt 27:39-43, Luke 23:35).

[555]  Just as Paul was set forth as an example of the greatest of sinners becoming the chief of the apostles in the New Testament, so David appears to represent the greatest of sinners, save Adam, in the Old Testament.  Certainly the examples of David and Paul teach us that none need despair of God’s mercy.  But David also teaches us that none may presume upon grace. 

[556]  How ironic that one of the most central themes of the so-called patriarchal narratives is the oppression and defiling of woman. Such tragically determined action expresses the heart of Biblical wickedness.  By way of comparison, consider the gentleness of Jesus in His tender regard for women.  What a robust comedic imagination He had!  For contrary to the example of Judah, who saw a whore in the disguise of his daughter-in-law, Jesus could see a bride in the disguise of a whore.

[557]  For those who can receive it, all things can be redeemed in Christ.  For even David was given repentance after his great sin against the house of Uriah.  The chronicler tells us that after his repentance David went in to Bathsheba and through her God gave David a son, Solomon, the beloved of the Lord (2 Sam 12: 24).  This is likewise recorded for us in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus,  “and to David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah” (Matt 1:6).   Now Matthew obscures Bathsheba’s personal name in his genealogy.  Why does he do so?  Traditionally it is thought that Matthew nominates her as the one “who had been the wife of Uriah” in order to emphasize David’s murder as well as his adultery.  But might he intend another purpose?  Could the good evangelist be showing us that David’s repentance made him a type of “levirate” redeemer to Uriah’s house?  Are we prompted to imagine a redemption whereby David could become the covenant brother who raised up seed to Uriah, so that Jesus is the Son of David and the Son of Uriah, by a glorious levirate redemption? (Deut 25:5-6).