Is not this the fast that I have chosen: Thoughts on Isaiah 58

 Isaiah 58 is a favorite chapter for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because we as a church are encouraged to fast once a month. Today I taught about the law of the fast in my youth Sunday School class. As I was preparing for the lesson I caught on the phrase, "Is not this the fast I have chosen?" (58:6) and it made me wonder what fast days the Lord had established for his people. A quick search and I found that in the Torah, there is only one day that was designated as a fast day, Yom Kippur. In Leviticus 23: 26 "The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves,[d] and present a food offering to the Lord." It doesn't even say explicitly that people should fast, but it is implied that people should fast and take the food they would have eaten as a "food offering".  By the end of the Old Testament era, there were several more fast days that were observed, which mostly commemorated tragedies in Israelite history, like the destruction of the temple, and the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem.  

Understanding this, the Lord's condemnation of how the Jews were fasting makes more sense. 

3 ¶ Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? 

It seems like these fast days where people were lamenting their captivity had become politicized and had turned into a time of "strife and debate," and a time to mourn in "sackcloth and ashes." This purpose of fasting is far from the purpose God proscribed for Yom Kippur.  

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was just a little before Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the new liturgical year.  It was a time of reflection, resentence and forgiveness. It was the day of the scapegoat ceremony, when the sins of the nation were ritually transferred to a goat, that was then driven into the wilderness, taking the people's sins with it.  It was a time for fresh starts, not a time of mourning.  

As Isaiah 58 continues, it emphasizes that people are supposed to bless the poor and needy through fasting (v. 7) and seek communion with the Lord (v. 9).   When we do, the Lord promises that he will "have our back" so to speak, and empower us with his glory (v. 8).  

Later, Jesus condemned those who fasted "to appear unto men to be fasting."  He called them hypocrites and commended the practice in fasting in secret. ( Matt 6:16-18) I think this has application to the modern time.  What is our first thought when we remember that it is fast day. Is it, "Oh no. I have to starve myself?"  Instead, it should be "who can I bless with my fast today?"  That blessing can come through prayers for another's behalf, and from paying a generous fast offering.  It is not wrong to fast for inspiration for ourselves.  Didn't God promise that when we called he would answer "Her I am?"  The yokes that we break through fasting could be other's needs, or it could be our own sinful nature. 

  

Running Into the Road (Isaiah's second half)

 It has been interesting to transition from the "gloom and doom" chapters of Isaiah, (up to about chapter 39) to the "hope for the future" chapters of this week (40-47)

Last week in Sunday School I told the students that the first half of Isaiah is like a practice I did when my children were very small.  When I had a child that had just learned to walk, I, of course, tried to teach them not to run into the road.  The first time they disobeyed and ran toward the street, I scooped them up and gave them a firm swat on the bottom. When this happened they each looked at me in a moment of surprise, and then burst into tears. I wasn't the kind of mother that spanked my children usually, but teaching them not to run into the street was so important for their safety, I thought it merited a heavier hand. 

In the first half of Isaiah, Israel and Judah were both about to run into the street, (metaphorically).  They were facing, not only defeat, but destruction and captivity if they continued to disobey God. God, because he loved them, sent Isaiah and other prophets to give them warnings in the most blunt and dire terms to try to spare them that consequence. That is why these chapters are so dark and angry sounding. 

Imagine, if one of my children had, even after my warnings, run into the st

reet and been hit by a car.  Imagine me calling the ambulance and riding with my child to the hospital. Do you think that I, as a loving mother, would look at my child, lying in a hospital bed, and berate them for being disobedient?  Of course not. I would show them as much love and support as I could, and try to give them hope for a bright future. I think that is what is happening in the second half of Isaiah (or whoever wrote these chapters, there is some scholarly dispute). God sees the downfall and captivity of Judah.  They have suffered the consequences of their poor decisions, but God wants to tell them that there is hope and that he still loves them. 

If you look at isolated verses of the Old Testament, the LORD can seem like a cruel and vengeful god. But if you look at the story line, as a whole, you see that he never gives up on Israel, even when they are disobedient, and always offers covenant care if they are willing to return to him.

(I didn't have much time to write this between Conference sessions last week, but I hope it is thought provoking.)

Isaiah's Idols: a modern application

 In Isaiah 44, the prophet makes a cutting allegory about those who worship idols. Starting in vs14 he describes a man who cuts down some trees. Some of the wood he uses to build a fire and make bread, some he uses to roast meat, and some he uses to warm himself.  Then from "the residue thereof he maketh a god, even a graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it. and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god." (v. 17)  It is as if Isaiah is shaking his head at this idea. In verse 19 he says, "shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?" 

I have been thinking a lot about the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI).  Four years ago when we studied Isaiah, AI wasn't even on my radar.  Now it is beginning to permeate every aspect of society. When it first started to be readily available on a PC a couple of years ago, it was just a curiosity. I remember one night when my husband and I played around with it, asking it to make up poems, or stories, or a song on different silly topics.  Now my husband uses it every day, sometimes for hours, to work on math problems. I use it to generate illustrations for the books I write for my grandchildren, and at work to help me polish up the language in emails, or hunt for contact information. 

The thing is, when I am working with AI to generate illustrations, I ask it to draw something, and then give it suggestions for small adjustments until I get a picture I can use.  After I go through this process, which can take quite a while,  I always feel compelled to type, "Thank you," or some other polite phrase in the AI chat box. I think this is because the programmers have written the code to not only be polite, but to even compliment the user. It will say something like, "That sounds like a wonderful continuation of your story, Dee." I know the AI is a computer program, but I begin to feel like it is a person and feel compelled to treat it with respect. 

It is easy to see how a person could end up enjoying working with AI so much, that their relationship with the AI borders of idol worship.  It is even more tempting to "worship" AI than it was for the ancient Babylonians to worship idols, because AI really can do things for you that simplify your life. I had AI generate a list of local public schools, complete with addresses, and format it to be printed on Avery size 5060 mailing labels.  It did this in two minutes.  If I had done it manually it would have taken me probably an hour. AI is a powerful tool, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Like any powerful tool, it is important to use it responsibly. 

The important thing is to remember that AI programs are made by people, just as the idol in Isaiah's allegory. They do not love you. They do not have your best interest at heart. If a student asked their mother to write a English paper for them, the mother would say "no" because they care about their child and want them to have the learning experience of writing a paper. If a student asks AI to write an English paper for them, the AI will produce one in a few moments.  

How does one worship something?  They give it attention, make offerings, or even sacrifices, as a sign of obedience. They believe it can help them, follow it's instruction, and adjust their behavior to please it. I think one of the challenges of the rising generation will be to discipline themselves not to let AI become an idol.  We should worship God, but are we also worshipping computers, the internet, social media, and AI? It is a question that we need to constantly ask ourselves. I think there are already some people who are tending in that direction.

Isaiah's Temple Vision

 This week we start the Isaiah lessons in Come Follow Me.  I did some pretty long posts about Isaiah in September and October 2025. I had the interesting challenge this week of trying to introduce Isaiah to 15-year-olds with only a 25 minute lesson.  I decided to compare the writings of Isaiah to a Magic Eye picture.  When you look at a Magic Eye picture, it looks like an baffling collage of random colors and images.  Sometimes the images give you a clue to what the "magic" image will be. In class I used images from my Disney Magic Eye book, and so there were little images of Aladdin in the Magic Eye picture that was a lamp. If you know the Disney movie, Aladdin, you won't be surprised that the hidden image is a lamp. But in order to see the hidden image, you have to unfocus your eyes and look at the picture a new way.

That is like Isaiah. You can understand more about what a prophecy means if you know the history and culture of the text, but you get a deeper meaning of the prophecy if you relax your focus and see what Isaiah is trying to saying by the image. 

A great place to practice this is in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly council and receives his call to preach to the people of Judah. This kind of theophany was common in the Old Testament and was a sign of divine investiture. Jacob sees the vision of angels ascending and descending from heaven in Jacob 28:10-22.  Moses talks to God in the Burning Bush, but we also see his temple experience in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. Abraham (Gen 15, 17), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1), Daniel (Daniel 7), and others all had visions that certified that they were prophets of Jehovah. There are other accounts from non-Jewish sources of similar type visons.  Isaiah's vision of the divine council at his young age (he was probably only in his twenties) showed him and the people in his culture that he was a true prophet.

If we look at what happens in the vision, we start to see a picture emerge. Isaiah arrives at the throne room and feels unworthy to be there. "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." (v 6:5).  The one of the cherubim takes a coal from the altar and lays it on his lips saying "Lo, this has touched they lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged."

This is a powerful image.  A Jew from Isaiah's time would be familiar with the idea that burnt offerings take away sins. They had been making offerings for the remission of sins at the temple altars for generations. 

For Christians, however, there is another image here. There is an altar, and something is taken from the altar and given to someone else who puts it to his mouth.  This every much sounds like the sacrament or holy communion. Christians ritualistically partake of the body of Christ to be purified. Christians are not used to associating the holy communion with fire, but In the New Testament, flaming tongues of fire settled on the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost. Even in the New Testament, fire is a well established symbol of God's presence. 

After this purification ritual Jehovah askes, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah replies, "Here I am." It is the same reply that Samuel gave the Lord when he received his call (1 Sam 3). Abraham, Jacob, and Moses all told the Lord, "Here I am." 

But what is Isaiah's call? "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes." (v 6:12 Remember that in Hebrew the heart is the center of understanding).  It sounds like God is telling Isaiah to intentionally make his prophesying difficult to understand.  It is possible that the translator just got the tense wrong for this verse? One of my podcasters suggested it could be translated as "They make their heart fat etc." If, however, Isaiah was indeed called to preach in a way that was difficult to understand, that would explain a lot. For one thing it would explain why he uses veiled imagery and obscure references. But why would anyone be called to preach in a way that was hard to be understood? Perhaps Isaiah was called to preach that way so that only a select few would be able to understand. Maybe the Lord knew that destruction was unavoidable, but Isaiah's preaching would allow those who were able to understand and believe him to escape the coming destruction. That was true of Hezekiah.  He believed Isaiah and was able to survive the attack of Sennacherib. Lehi also believed the words of Isaiah and was able to escape Jerusalem before it fell to the Babylonians. 

Going back to the Magic Eye metaphor, what is the hidden picture in this chapter of Isaiah? What does it say about God and his relationship to man? Even though Israel has been wicked for a long time, the Lord is true to his covenants, and will still keep trying to reclaim them by sending powerful prophets to declare the truth. Even after the nation as a whole rejects him and becomes captive to outside forces, those who truly seek him will receive all their promised blessings. 

Ecclesiastes: Meditating in a Charnel Ground

 I was really touched by Ecclesiastes this week. Partly because I was reading, at the same time, a novel called The Correspondent. It is about a woman coming to terms with the decline of age, and making an effort to put to rights the unresolved issues in her life. It seems like the author of Ecclesiastes is also looking back at his life from old age, but he doesn't have the satisfaction of resolving issues.  He, instead, sees all his efforts as meaningless because as soon as he dies, they will pass onto another. 

I think back to the book of Job.  In the book, Job is stripped of all his worldly possessions and even his health.  Then in the end it is all returned to him double fold. One way to look at the Job story is that it is an allegory of aging.  Do we not all begin to lose everything as we age.  Our children grow up and move away, our job ends when we retire, and we begin to lose our vitality. Eventually friends and family members of our own generation begin to die. My mother had 13 siblings and half siblings, and she has seen all of them pass away except one. Eventually when you die, you lose all your worldly possessions.  They are left behind for others to deal with or dispose of at their whim. 

There is a practice in Buddhism called Meditating in a Charnel Ground. In this practice a person pictures their own end of life.  They picture themself declining in health and beauty. They picture themselves dying and their body slowing rotting away.  It the practice is sometimes even done in the places where very devout Buddhists take their bodies and lay them out in the wilderness for wild animals to consume, or in a bone house made of human remains.  The idea is that only by confronting your ultimate demise can you live your current life fully present. 

I think that is the function that Ecclesiastes plays in the Jewish Bible.  It is a way for religious Jews to confront their own mortality. It is not surprising that they choose King Solomon as their example of a person who has risen to the heights of wealth and power as their protagonists. The writer observes that even he, perhaps the greatest of all Israelite rulers, loses everything at death.  All he did, all he accomplished is left behind.  His kingdom is broken apart at his death, and even his beautiful temple is eventually ravished and destroyed.  All his great wisdom could not change the cycle of seasons, and the whims of weather. If King Solomon couldn't create anything of lasting value, than who could?  

Is there value in meditating in a Charnel Ground, or, in the case of King Solomon, realizing that everything you ever accomplished in life is fleeting and has no lasting impact? When I was younger I thought Ecclesiastes was pretty depressing, but now that I am older I find it a little bit freeing.  It is tempting as we age to try to hang onto things.  I mourned when I had to end my career. I am dismayed sometimes when I look in the mirror and see the lines on my face and my yellow teeth.  This week I as I thought about Ecclesiastes I reached a point where I just accepted that from this time forward (and actually for some time in the past) my life will be a series of letting go.  I have already let go of my good eyesight (age 40) and good hearing (age 50).  I just accept that fact that my feet always hurt at the end of the day and  so do my hips. If I can let go of those things without mourning them, I can live my life freer and happier.  Buddhists believe that grasping, i.e. trying to hold onto things, is a cause of suffering. If in old age we mourn everything we lose, we will spend our whole time mourning. It is better to accept that we will eventually lose everything, and agree with ourselves that when it is time to let something go, we just let it go. We enjoy what we have while we have it, but when it is taken away, we let it drift off like the mist in the wind. 

I also think, like the author of The Correspondent, that the best way to spend our declining years is strengthening our relationships. Are their rifts in my friendships or family relationships that I can and should mend? Are their holes in my relationship with God that need to be filled?  In the end, relationships with man and God are the only things that we carry on to the next life. That being so, why don't we spend our time on those instead of clinging to everything else? 

Psalms: New Insight

 For the past three weeks in Come Follow Me, we have been reading the Psalms.  I was (I thought) assigned to teach the only class we would have on the Psalms and in preparation I decided to listen to all 150 over the course of the three weeks.  I also decided to write down my favorites in different categories: Hope against opposition, Praise, Prayer for Mercy, Promised Faithfulness, and Lament.  I only found out the day before that we were not having a lesson due to training about the new Sunday Schedule. I was a bit disappointed, but it wasn't all for nothing. I did gain some new insights from the process.  

First, many of the podcasters I listened to talked about the Psalms as songs, like an ancient hymnal.  They talked about how they were sung as feast days and in the temple.  I think this is an important an valuable idea to remember, but it wasn't a new idea to me.  The new insight I heard from Rabbi Grover on "The Scriptures are Real" podcast. He said, "Of course the psalms were sung, but so was the rest of the Hebrew Bible." Of course I learned that when I was studying Hebrew, but it hadn't really registered.  The Hebrew Bible has every verse marked with musical notation so the Cantor and sing them correctly. Every time Hebrew Scripture is presented in synagogue, it is sung or at least chanted with a consistent intonation that is marked in the text.  So to say the Psalms were a hymnbook only makes sense to a Christian who isn't familiar with Jewish worship. 

The thing that was helpful for me this year, was to think of the Psalms as prayers instead of hymns.  All through the Old Testament up to this point we have been reading the history of a civilization as a whole.  Except for a few prophets, we haven't yet gotten a sense of what an individual's relationship with God its like. That is what the Psalms offer, a glimpse into ancient individual Hebrew's relationship with God. So, if we look as Psalms as personal prayers instead of hymns, what do we learn?

First we learn that the psalms represent communication to God about the whole range of emotions.  Some are exultant, and some depressive. Some are full of anger and thirst for vengeance, and some are full of faith in the creator. I think we can gather from this that we need not tone down our emotions when we pray.  It is not as if God doesn't already know what we are feeling and thinking. Hiding strong emotions from him is futile and only results in failure to acknowledge them in ourselves. If we confess to God all our feelings, we will process them better and improve our emotional connection with God. 

Second, we must remember that when we read the Psalms we are only getting the part that the people are saying to God.  We aren't getting his response. So when people pray that God will destroy their enemies, that doesn't mean that God wants to destroy anyone.  It only means the person praying wishes their enemies would go away. 

This is a totally natural feeling, especially for the people in the time of the writing of the Psalms.  They had no sense of security.  At any time an enemy might overrun their home, take all their possessions, and even capture or kill family members. If you lived in constant threat like that, you would probably want your enemies destroyed as well.  

We have to remember that Jesus taught "Love your enemies." Reading the Psalms we see what a revolutionary teaching that was for the Jewish people. How much of the Old Testament gives us examples of loving our enemies?  Not much.  That is why Jesus was seen as such a revolutionary, and such a threat to the established Jewish religious beliefs and practices. In summary, when there are ideas in the Psalms that go against what Jesus taught, remember where they come from and give the ancient Israelites a little grace.  Just because they are in the Psalms, doesn't mean they represent God's view of right and wrong.

So there are my insights.  I hope they are useful for someone (since my class isn't going to hear them. Ha ha.)

More Thoughts on Job

 Back in 2022, I did a long post about the Book of Job.  It contains many of the same ideas I have been thinking of this week as we have studied Job again.  Job really is a masterful work, and so intriguing. There are so many unanswered questions: When was it written? Who wrote it and why? Why was it specifically preserved in the cannon?  I think that the fact it is included in the Jewish Bible shows something about the Jewish psyche. 

None of the stories of the Old Testament are simplistic.  Each one involves layers of philosophical questions and ethical issues.  The contrast with other philosophical writings is remarkable. The Buddhist writings, for example, have clear directions in list form that if you follow, you will have a good life and draw closer to enlightenment. The stories in the Jewish Bible are messy, and often contradict each other's doctrines. None of the heroes are perfect, and none of the victories are without controversy.  The Jewish culture seems to embrace the idea that the only way to learn how to wrestle with complicated life questions is to watch others wrestle with complicated life questions. 

I think that one way to look at the Book of Job, then, (and I got this idea from one of the podcasts I listened to this week, though I can't remember which one) is to see it as an example of developmental states of a testimony. 

Innocent Enthusiasm

When the story begins, Job is a zealous follower of God. He faithfully observes religious obligation, and even does extra sacrifices for his children, just in case they have sinned. (Job 1:5).  God calls him a "perfect and an upright man, one who feareth God, and escheweth evil." (1:8)

Endurance of initial trials

When Job loses his possessions and his children, he still clings to his simple faith. "The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (1:21)

Questioning

When Job is then cursed with physical pain, in addition to his loss, he begins to question, not the existence of God, but his motivations. "Why died I not in the womb? shy did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" (2: 11) During this period he is confronted by the philosophies of men that try to convince him that he is unworthy, and that he should give up. His friends tell him "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or where are the righteous cut off?" (4:7)  Job still clings to his belief in God, but begins to question his worthiness, "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me; if I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse." (9:20)

Submission coupled with mature faith

During his trials, Job finally submits to the will of God by admitting that he doesn't understand his ways. "I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee,..I have heard thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eyes seeth thee. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (42: 2, 5-6)

The story of Job seems to communicate that path to mature faith is not easy. There will never be a time when we understand the reasons why terrible things happen to us or to those we love. Once we acknowledge God's supremacy in our lives--that he oversees both the good and the bad with infinite wisdom--we can find peace. 

Esther the "Hidden" Heroine

 Four years ago I made a blog post about the book of Esther that used the four fold interpretation method.  In it I explored the literal, symbolic, contextual, and secret/sacred interpretations of the story.  This time I would like to delve more into the contextual interpretation.

What I learned this year was that the name "Esther" in Hebrew אסתר,  has as its root the word that means "hidden."  As is often the case in the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of the name is the meaning of the story.  Esther's true cultural identity is hidden from the king. He does not know that she is a Jewess until the big reveal at the end of the story.  I think there is an additional significance to her name as well. 

In my original blog, I stated that the story of Esther occurs during the time of the Jewish captivity. That is not strictly true.  Instead, she is a member of the diaspora.  In other words, she is living in Persia about 75 years after the time of Cyrus the Great freed Jews to return to Jerusalem.  The majority of the Jews taken into captivity did not return, but chose to stay in Babylon or other areas. Esther is one of these. 

Esther is therefore "hidden" from the center of Jewish worship, i.e. the Temple. As a result, God's power and influence, which is centered in Jerusalem once more, is "hidden" from those in the diaspora. In fact, although the story talks about Esther fasting and praying for deliverance, none of the words for "God" appear in the entire book. He is not overtly credited for helping Esther or saving the people. 

Yet, the people were saved. God's help is implied throughout the story. When Esther is chosen as queen, when Mordecai thwarts the assassination attempt, when the king can't sleep and asks to be read the history of his reign, all these elements of the story that lead to the salvation of the Jews are understood to be divine intervention, without being outwardly identified as such.

The story of Esther answers a few questions: Does God still watch over his people when they are away from the center of worship?  What does that aid look like?  What does it look like to be a worshiper of Jehovah in the diaspora?  The answer the story gives is that God still loves and watches out for his people, but in subtle, yet powerful ways as long as they live standards of high moral character and religious devotion.

Ezra and Nehemiah: the Influence of Empire.

 We studied books of Ezra and Nehemiah in Come Follow Me this week.  I did a pretty good (and long) post about it four years ago and I don't have a lot to add here.  

The main thing that I noticed as I read (beside what I wrote in my earlier post) is how the rise of empires stabilized the region.  Before the captivity, all disputes seemed to be solved through warfare. This or that tribe would attack a different tribe, and then that tribe would unite with their neighbors to rebuff the attack. It is hard for a small tribe like Judah to experience prosperity when their resources are constantly being used for military campaigns.

In the stories in Ezra and Nehemiah, when there is a dispute, the lawyers send letters to the central government to mediate.  Once the authoritative ruling comes back, the question is basically settled. There is none of the tribal inter-fighting that you see earlier. In Nehemiah, the workers felt some peril from their neighbors, (Nehemiah 4:7) but it was nothing like the long sieges and massive attacks we hear about in Kings and Chronicles. 

After the Assyrians took over the whole region in the 700 BCE, there were a series of "superpowers" that dominated the levant. As one conquered the previous ruler, they took over control of the whole region.  Israel was never again an independent state, Here is a very rough timeline (remember that the BC numbers are counting backwards down to zero)

700's BC Assyria

600's BC Babylonians

500-400 BC Persians (Cyrus was the first Persian)

300-100 BC Greeks (Think Alexander the Great)

100 BC -300 AD Romans (Julius Caesar and his successors)

Even though the Jews were not independent, the stability of the imperial system allowed the Jewish culture to grow. The empires after Assyria did not try to do away with regional cultures and allowed for easier trade and a general growth of wealth and prosperity.  This was especially true of the Greek and Roman empires. Herod the Great who built the massive temple complex that existed in Jesus' time was able to do so because he was a vassal ruler under Rome. The Jewish hierarchy of Priests, Scribes and Pharisees developed in this period, underneath their Greek and then Roman overlords.

It all led up to the perfect conditions for Christianity to spread throughout Europe. Even though Rome is seen as the "bad guy" in most of the New Testament, the Pax Romana allowed Paul and other early church leaders to travel safely and extensively around the Mediterranean to spread the "good news." 

It is easy to draw a comparison between these events to the events leading up to the restoration of the gospel in the 1800's. Just as the Reformation and founding of America allowed the religious freedom needed as an incubator of the Gospel in the latter days, the stability of the Roman empire enabled the rise and spread of Christianity throughout Europe. Both show God's hand and foreknowledge in accomplishing his work.

Hezekiah and the Siege of Jerusalem: A Pivot Point in History

 Last week I failed to post anything about Elisha. That was mostly because I did a good post about Elisha four years ago and didn't really have any fresh insights.

This week, though, I had quite an epiphany about the importance of Hezekiah and the siege of Jerusalem found in 2 Kings 18 and 19.  

Background

Hezekiah was one of the kings of Judah that tried to follow Jehovah.  He took down the places of idol worship and followed the current prophet, Isaiah (2 Kings 18:3-6).  During his reign, a terrible force, the Assyrians lead by Sennacherib, swept through the Levant destroying every town they came to, and leading their inhabitants into captivity. This is one part of Biblical history that is well attested by archaeology because the Assyrians left inscriptions of their deeds throughout their conquered territories. 

The Assyrians are the civilization that carried the northern 10 tribes into captivity in 721 BCE.  One of their methods of conquer was to try to neutralize the culture of the conquered peoples.  They would split them up and send them into different areas to work as vassals. They would even split up couples, sending the man to be a soldier, and settling the wife and children far away. They did this so that they wouldn't rally, gather support among their own people, and try to overthrow their oppressors. It is this policy of cultural destruction that caused the 10 northern tribes of Israel to become "lost".  They are called "lost" not so much because their physical location became unknown, but because they lost their identity as Israelites and were absorbed into other cultures. 

At the time of the Northern captivity, Hezekiah had been a joint ruler with his father in Judea for six years. He was a firsthand witness to what Assyria planned to do if they ever captured Jerusalem. He was sole ruler of Judah for 20 years when Sennacherib laid siege of Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem were able to withstand the siege longer than other cities in the region because Hezekiah had built an underground aqueduct that brought fresh water into the city, but eventually the food ran out.  They couldn't survive the siege much long when Sennacherib sent Rab-shakeh to demoralize Jerusalem with taunts.  Like any good propagandist, Rab-shakeh warned Judah that they had no hope of withstanding an attack, but if they would surrender, they would live. Logic seemed to be on the side of the Assyrians.  It did seem that Judea were grossly outnumbered and had no chance in their weakened state to survive a direct attack. 

Of course, Hezekiah did the brave and faithful thing.  Instead of giving in, he went to the temple and called for the prophet Isaiah to council him. Isaiah went to the Lord and the Lord told Hezekiah not be be afraid. (2 Kings 19:6-7)  The Lord would take care of Assyria. Hezekiah headed the prophet and Jerusalem was saved when the Angel of the Lord went into the hosts of Assyria and destroyed them.

Impact

The importance of this moment is what struck me this week.  If Jerusalem had fallen to the Assyrians, what would have happened? As far as scholars know, the Hebrew Bible, the Tanach, didn't exist yet.  Scholars believe it was compiled during or shortly after the Babylonian Captivity. If Jerusalem had fallen to the Assyrians at this time, and if they had scattered them among other peoples so that they lost their cultural identity like the Northern tribes, there would have been no Bible. Judaism with its monotheism would have been lost. If there was no Judaism, would there have been Christianity? Christianity grew from Judaism as did Islam. Think of the impact of these two major religions on the western world. What would Europe be like if there was no Christianity to turn it from its polytheism? What would the middle east and northern Africa be like without the stabilizing moral framework of Islam? What would America look like if it had been founded by polytheists instead of Christians?  Even though many in the Western culture are no longer practicing any religion, Western culture was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. 

And it all hung on the decision of one man on one day in one city.  Hezekiah's decision to consult the prophet and believe what he said, despite the fact that it seemed impossible, impacted the future of the whole world. It is astounding to contemplate how much rested on that one decision.

Because Hezekiah chose faith, the Lord destroyed the Assyrian army, and Judah persisted for another 100 years. This was enough time for Babylon to rise to power and overthrow Assyria. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews into captivity in about 587 BCE,  but Babylon treated its captives differently. It brought them to Babylon as a group and put Jewish leaders into positions of respect in the kingdom. The Jewish religious leaders, fearing the the people might lose their religious identity, compiled and wrote what was to become the Old Testament. They were in captivity for about 70 years, and then Cyrus the Great allowed all who wanted, to return to Jerusalem and even gave them money to rebuild the temple. Admittedly, the number who returned were only a small percent of the people who were led away, but it was enough that they were able to reestablish a national identity and restart traditional systems of worship. 

The Spirit of Elijah

 This week in Come Follow Me we studied about the ministry of Elijah.  I wrote a good blog about him in 2022 that discusses why Elijah was so downhearted after he defeated the priests of Baal. 

The question I was wondering about this week is why Elijah is associated with the keys to temple worship.  There are several references to this association in the Doctrine & Covenants. 

 (D&C 2) Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

2 And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
3 If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. (D&C  27:9 ,110:15, and others have similar language)

These all tie back to a scripture in Malachi 4: 5-6
5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Both Jews and early church leaders associated Elijah to the linking of fathers to children, but why?  What event in the life of Elijah caused later believers believe he had to return in order to link families together?

The major accounts we have of Elijah are:
He caused a famine in the land because of wickedness (1 Kings 17:1)
He was fed by ravens (17:6)
He was sent to the widow of Zarephath (17:9)
Miraculously her food doesn't run out (17:16)
He raises her son from the dead (22)
He challenges the priests of Baal and Asherah. (1 Kings 18:18)
He calls fire down from heaven (18:38)
He runs away and hides under a juniper bush and an angel comes to urge him to eat. (18:4-5)
He travels to mount Horeb and talks with the Lord. (19:8)
He senses the Lord in the Still Small Voice (19:12) 

Which of these things ties him to temple work for the dead? I don't know but there are some possible clues.  

1. The way Joseph Smith quotes Malachi 4: 5-6 is different from how it appear in the Old Testament.  Joseph Smith's version says, "I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the Prophet." whereas the passage in Malachi says, "I will send you Elijah the Prophet."  So priesthood is a key.  The miracles Elijah did clearly suggest that he held the Melchizedek Priesthood with the power to command things on the earth (the famine) and in the heavens (the rain on the sacrifices). This is the same priesthood needed to officiate in modern temple ordinances. One of my podcasters even suggested that Elijah was the last Israelite prophet to hold the Melchizedek priesthood, (but what about Elisha?).

2. Elijah did a miracle to reunite a parent and a child and to exercise control over life and death when he raised the Widow of Zarephath's son from the dead. It is a temporal reunion, bringing the child back from death into life, but it might be seen as a type of a spiritual reunion enjoyed by families reunited in the spirit world. (that is a bit of a stretch I admit.)

3. Elijah definitely was trying to turn the hearts of the people back to their spiritual roots or "fathers" Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he built his alter in the battle against the priests of Baal, he purposefully made it of 12 stones, "according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob." (18:31) This is hardly unique to Elijah.  Didn't all the Old Testament prophets try to remind Israel of their religious foundations?

I admit that the connection of Elijah to temple work and eternal families is not clear to me, yet Malachi associated Elijah with tying generations together, and in modern scripture, he is associated with keys to do temple work. Sometimes it is interesting to have an open question like this.  Someday I will be studying or listening to podcasts, and I will figure it out.  That is always a fun moment when a long standing question is finally resolved.  

The Hand of God

 I must admit that this week it was difficult for me to hear about the David and Bathsheba story over and over again during my different podcasts.  It was more clear than ever to me that Bathsheba was not a willing participant in the experience in any way and was brutally victimized by David. You have to give her credit, though, for ensuring that her offspring, Solomon, inherited the thrown. The story of David and Bathsheba reinforces the ideas that I covered in last week's post about the Old Testament writers including each hero's fatal flaw. 

Instead of dwelling on that and the doctrinal problems surrounding it I want to talk about something I noticed about Hebrew idioms that use the word for hand.  Hand, in Hebrew is yad, יד, and, as in English, it occurs in a lot of idioms. The first occurrence of the word is in the book of Genesis 3:22 when Adam has partaken of the forbidden fruit and God must guard the way to the tree of life "Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever". In Hebrew hands usually represent power and agency. In this passage, Adam reaching to take the fruit with his hand, would represent his choice to defy the commandment of God. 

In the reading for this week there are eight references to hands in 1 Kings 8 which contains Solomon's dedicatory prayer on the temple: 

15: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which spake with his mouth unto David my father, and hath with his hand fulfilled it,

22 And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven:

24 thou spakest also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day

38-39 That prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house: Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, 

42  For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm;) when he shall come and pray toward this house

53 For thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant

54 And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven.

56 Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.

Things that are interesting from these passages:

1. If hands represent agency, the priest, by lifting his hands toward God, expresses that he is bending his agency to God's will.  

2.  In 15 and 22, God's will is spoken by his mouth, and fulfilled by his hand, but when Moses is involved as in 53, and 56, things are promised, not by the mouth, but by the hand of Moses. This reinforces the idea that when we say, "by the hand of _____" it is not literally something he is doing with his physical hand.  It is an act of will, i.e. because Moses bent his will to God, God was able to act through him. 

3. In v 42, God is said to have a "great name" and a "strong hand."  These clearly represent respect and power. 

So why is all this hand imagery important?  I find it important because of the crucifixion.  When the resurrected Lord wanted to prove to his disciples that he had accomplished the atonement, he showed them his wounded hands. The exact things that represent power and agency, he allowed to be pierced for our sakes. I think Jesus carefully selected the form of his physical death before it happened. He could have chosen to be drowned, or beheaded, or clubbed, or stoned. Instead he chose to be crucified, the only form of death I know of that focuses on the hands. By showing his disciples his wounded hands one by one, it is as if he is saying, "Look. I voluntarily gave up my power by becoming mortal, and my agency by submitting to the will of my father. I who was above all things, put myself below all things.  And I did it for you." 

How the Great Have Fallen

This week in Come Follow Me we read about David's reign as king of united Israel, and his ultimate fall from grace when he commits adultery with Bathsheba and arranged the murder of her husband. I have always hated the fact that Israel's greatest king and the ancestor of Jesus ended his reign in such an unrighteous way. His whole life David tried to be faithful to the Lord, and then at the end he fell to temptation.  

This year as I read the story I kept wondering why the writers of the Old Testament included it at all. Yes, Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon, so she was pretty important in Jewish history. For Christians, Jesus was a descendant of this unholy union. I just wondered why they wanted to air their dirty laundry.  They could have said, "David married the widow of his general Uriah who was killed in battle," which would have been entirely factually true, even if incomplete. If they had, we would have all felt better about King David.  

Then I began to think of other prominent Biblical leaders who were generally revered, but also have one story where they behaved badly. The list is pretty long.  It starts with Adam and Eve.  They were pretty righteous except for the forbidden fruit thing.  Then there was Noah, who made the awesome ark, but then was found drunken in his tent. Abraham was the originator of the covenant, but kept telling people that his wife was his sister. Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright. Moses was kept from entering the promised land because he smote the rock without giving the credit to God, and there are more.

I began to wonder if Jewish writers actually want their religious leaders to appear to be flawed in some way. These stories were passed down as oral traditions for generations before they were written down in the Tanakh. It's hard to believe, after all the retellings, that some of the "warts" would have been rubbed away by time if they hadn't specifically prevented that from happening. But why?

I don't know the answer for sure, but here are a few ideas.

1.  Flawed leaders are more relatable. By making their founding patriarchs flawed it shows all the people that they can hope, even in their flaws. You can imagine a elderly Rabi saying, "What you did was not so bad. Look at David, our greatest king. Even he had problems."  

2. They believe that there is wisdom to be gained by wrestling with the messiness. If in the stories everything is black and white, with some good people and some evil people, then our understanding of life is superficial. Real life is not like that.  There is much that is grey and there is good and evil in everyone. Avoiding that truth is not helpful. It is only by wrestling with the way things are that someone gains insight and wisdom.

3. There is one more idea that isn't as obvious as 1 and 2, but I think there might be something to it. When my husband's parents traveled in the middle east they visited a carpet weaver.  They learned from the artisan that whenever they made a carpet, they intentionally introduced a flaw into the pattern.  They did this out of respect for God. Only God is perfect and nothing man-made should aspire to be perfect like God. Maybe something like that is going on here.  Maybe there is an idea that it would be an affront to a perfect God for the Jews to portray their leaders as perfect. Not only is it not true (for no one is perfect) but it would be blasphemous. Remember when a follower of Jesus said, "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" and Jesus responded, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God." (Matt 10: 17-18)  Even Jesus, who was the only perfect person, did not want to be called "good" out of respect for God. So maybe the writers of the Old Testament purposefully and carefully included at least one story about their revered leaders that showed their imperfections as a way to highlight the perfection of God.

In the Western culture we are raised on fairy tales.  In most of them there are clear heroes and villains.  In modern times we have stories of superheroes and supervillains.  Even when they have complicated personalities and backstories (think Batman) it is always clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.  Not so in the Old Testament and that makes Western readers uncomfortable. Sometimes we just have to sit in the discomfort and try to see if there is any wisdom to be found there.

How can we look at God's commandments to commit genocide?

 This week in Come Follow Me we read about the rise and downfall of Saul in the book of Samuel.  One of the most famous scriptures of this week's reading is from Samuel 15:22 "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." On the surface this looks like a great moral of the story.  Saul should have obeyed the Lord instead of disobeying him in order to make more sacrifices. 

One of the podcasters this week, however, pointed out how this simplistic view is problematic. We read the verse, but forget the commandment that Saul was disobeying. "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (15:3)  So the thing that Saul was disobedient to was the command to commit genocide, including killing women, children and babies. It seems from the text that Saul did kill all the women and children, but was being chastised by the Lord for not killing all the animals. 

Of course you can see all the red flags here.  Could the same God who gave the Ten Commandments including "Thou shalt not kill," turn around and command someone to slaughter women and children?  My husband made the observation that after the Ten Commandments are given in Exodus the whole rest of the Old Testament seems to ignore them. 

So how can we wrestle with what seems to be the Lord's command to break his own commandment? Different podcasters I listened to this week had different approaches that I will try to outline here.

1. Literal approach: Yes, God did command them to utterly wipe out their enemies.

    Those who take this approach within the LDS faith try to justify this by saying that the society was so corrupt that it would be unjust of God to let it continue.  Any babies born to that society were doomed to be raised in wickedness. It was better to send all the inhabitants back to God where they might have a chance to change their ways, than to leave them on earth where they would doom themselves and infect others with their wickedness. We need to take the "eternal" perspective instead of just looking at the mortal experience.

2. Historical Hindsight: No, God didn't command them to utterly wipe out their enemies, but when they looked back years later, they imagined that he did and that their failure to do so caused the moral decline of their society that lead to the Babylonian Captivity.

    Those who take this approach say that this history was written during the Babylonian Captivity when the people of Israel where looking back and trying to figure out what went wrong. They see their main sin as turning to idols.  They think, "If only we had utterly destroyed the people of the land, we would not have been tempted to worship their gods and depart from the true worship of Jehovah." Because they believe that would have worked, they project that belief on the past.  They imagine that God did tell them to destroy the other nations, and their failure to do so was their downfall.

3. Historical Hyperbole: God told them to take other lands, but the strength of the command was intensified in accordance to local history-keeping customs.

    I have heard the scholarly opinion that the text of Samuel, (and Kings and Judges) follows the style of other ancient texts from that time period.  It was the style of historians in that era to exaggerate the nature of their conquests.  Not only was a town "conquered," but it was "utterly wiped out."  We use similar ways of talking in English.  When one sports team thoroughly defeats a rival, they might claim "We totally destroyed them" when in reality, no one was destroyed, just defeated. In this opinions the command to destroy women and children is not really what happened, but is told that way to reflect the weightiness of the event.

4. These stories are not histories, but parables.

Believers in this approach don't believe that these narratives represent any real historical event, but are merely symbolic parables constructed by the captive Jews to explain both their own origins and their sad decline into captivity. Saul is not a historical personage, but a character type: someone who started out strong but was corrupted by his own pride. The whole story is a cautionary tale, full of symbolism.  God's command to kill all men, women, children, and animals represents our need to purify ourselves of all our sins, both big and small. We must kill our imperfections no matter how animalistic or innocent they might appear. 

I don't know what the real answer is but I will give my opinion.  I am not a believer in #1.  I can't bring myself to believe God commanded a righteous nation to commit such terrible acts of violence.  Not only would innocents be lost, but the attacking armies would have suffered huge mental consequences of such an act. I don't think anyone can stab a baby and come through emotionally and spiritually intact.  Would God destroy the souls of his servants by making them destroy the bodies of their innocent victims?

I am also not a really going for #4 either.  I do think there must have been some historical basis for the stories in the history books of the Bible. The stories are to complicated and messy to be entirely made up. There is some (though not a huge amount) of archaeological evidence that support the Biblical accounts. Some place names have been found and some names used in the Bible have been found on a few inscriptions. 

So that leaves me considering #2 and #3.  I personally believe that a combination of these two are the most likely answer.  I think there is a literary tradition here that needs to be taken into account.  The stories of the Old Testament really do resemble in tone and language other stories of the same period. They had a culture and morality that wasn't the same as ours and they reflected that culture. I also think that the writer(s) of Samuel were trying to look back and figure out what went wrong so that they could make better decisions in the future. They project their ideas onto the story and claim that commandments came from God. Why else would have Saul failed, unless he disobeyed God?

The final question then, is if these records do not accurately reflect God's real dealings with his people, are they of any value?  That's another hard questions.  I guess my answer is that as I read the Old Testament I do feel inspired by some of the stories and thematic elements. I feel inspired by Joseph's persistent faithfulness.  I feel compassion and kinship with characters who sometimes are righteous and sometimes fall short. I see the good examples and the cautionary tales and examine my own life. This year, especially, I have been encouraged by God's patience with Israel and his unflagging attempts to help and save them despite their wickedness and hope the same efforts will be made for my own imperfect soul.

I think one of the Old Testament's biggest strengths is that it forces us to struggle with the messiness of mortality. No one is perfect. No civilization is completely righteous. Some good people do bad things, and some bad people do good things. It is the way people are. It is complicated and there are lots of grey areas, and there are lots of things we don't understand. Why pretend there isn't? So we wrestle and try to find our own way of hope in belief and faith.

Ruth and Hannah as Types

 I didn't post anything about the book of Judges last week since I did a pretty good post about it in 2022 and didn't have anything new to add. 

This week, however, I have two different things I wanted to post about. I did a post about Ruth in 2022 that covers the basics of the story. One thing I would add to that which I didn't know before, was that one reason Boaz might have been more compassionate toward Ruth is that he understood what it meant for a woman to be a foreigner and convert in Israel.  We learn from Matthew 1:5 that Boaz' mother was Rahab, the "harlot" who hid the spies of Israel in Jericho, and by so doing so was spared and protected when Joshua stormed that city.  Even though Boaz in the book of Ruth seems pretty well of, it might have been difficult for him to find a bride since his mother was foreign and a former prostitute. His kindness to Ruth may reflect his feelings toward his immigrant mother. 

The main thing I saw in the stories of Ruth and Hannah this time was that they can be seen as types.  I wrote before how Sarah's life foreshadowed the future of Israel. Sarah was "sold into Egypt" when her husband claimed she was his sister years before Joseph was sold into Egypt. The fact that the Lord remembered her and provided a way for her to be redeemed foreshadowed Israel's eventual escape from Egypt. This seems like a bit of a stretch unless you remember that throughout the Old Testament the Lord compares his relationship with Israel as a marriage. Later Jeremiah is even commanded to marry a harlot as a symbol of Israel worshiping other gods. I think both Ruth and Hannah's stories foreshadow things that are about to happen to Israel.

First let's talk about Ruth.  She is a Moabite, that is, not a member of the covenant family.  She marries an Israelite and comes to start to understand what Jehovah worship is. When her husband dies, she decides to stay with Naomi and follow the God of Israel rather than the gods of her own culture. Together they go back to Bethlehem and there she impresses and marries an Israelite man and through her the Davidic line is perpetuated.  How does this reflect what is happening is Israel?  Just as Naomi and her family left Bethlehem and traveled to pagan Moab, Israel has left their covenant with the Lord and has gone after idols. They leave because of a famine in Israel. We learn in the book of Judges that there was a famine of righteousness in Israel.  None of the Judges are without flaw, and the final judge, Samson, has truly left the covenants of Israel to follow a foreign path of violence and disregard for the law.

Israel needs a new system of government.  Later in 1 Samuel, we learn that they ask Samuel to find and anoint a king for them because they want to be like other nations (1 Sam 8:20). They are bringing in a foreign form of government just like Naomi is bringing in a foreign bride for Boaz. I think it is no coincidence that it is through Ruth, a foreign import into Israel, that the new foreign form of government, the Kingship, is established though David, her descendant. In other words, just as Naomi went into a foreign land and brought back a bride for Boaz, Israel looked to their foreign neighbors to replace the system of Judges with a King. 

Hannah likewise foreshadows  things that are about to happen in Israel.  Eli is a true High Priest, but his sons are corrupt.  The name Eli, means, Our God, so even though Our God is faithful, his sons, the house of Israel, and particularly the priests of Israel, have become corrupt.  God seeks a true priesthood but cannot find it among the priestly caste. Israel is barren, like Hannah, but when they pray for a king, just as Hannah prays for a son, the Lord grants their request.  Hannah gets a son, and Israel gets a king.  But Hannah doesn't get to keep her son.  After a few short years, he is given up to a lifetime of service in the temple as Hannah promised. Likewise, Israel does not get to keep its kingship.  Saul, David and Solomon rule over Israel as a united kingdom, but on Solomon's death the tribes of Israel fragment, and never again is Israel united under one ruler. In other words, even though Hannah rejoices at having a son, and Israel rejoices in having a king, for both the joy is short lived. 

It isn't as close of a connection as the story of Sarah predicting the story of Israel, but I still think in both cases,  God is using the marriage relationships described in these stories as symbols of his relationship with Israel. 

Book of Joshua

 This week we have done a cursory study of the book of Joshua.  Four years ago I wrote a blog post about the symbolism in the conquest of the city of Jericho. It is a pretty good post about the purpose of the book of Joshua, and some symbolism of the fall of Jericho. Some of what I wrote there bears repeating.  The Book of Joshua was written many years after the fact, and was written for a specific purpose: i.e to give Israel a pattern for covenant behavior that leads to God's help and favor. It is written in historic hyperbola.  In Joshua it states that the Israelites totally destroyed various populations, but then later in Joshua and Judges, these very cities are mentioned as if they are still existing communities. For example, in Joshua 11 the Israelites destroy the village of Hazor and burn it to the ground, but in Judges 4, Deborah conquers it again.  In Joshua 10, Hebron is destroyed, but in Joshua 15 it is given to Caleb as an inheritance. It seems clear that when the book of Joshua states that a town was totally destroyed, it means that Israel had some kind of victory there.

There were a few other things that podcasters mentioned this week that I want to mention here. In my 2022 post I mentioned that there was no evidence that there was a walled city at Jericho at the time that Israel left Egypt during the late bronze Age. Kerry Muhlestein in The Scriptures are Real said that he worked on a Jericho excavation and there is evidence that Jericho existed as a walled city in the late bronze age, but that one of the main archeologists that adamantly denies that it did exist then purposefully denied the evidence because of her own bias. So that was interesting.  

Still, I don't know if proving that Jericho was a real city or not is super important.  I stand by my earlier exertion that the book of Joshua was written, or at least edited, by a later author who used folk stories about the founding of Israel in the promised land to teach about the importance of covenant obedience. Twice in Joshua there are formal covenant ceremonies.  The first is at the beginning of the book in Chapter 5. After the people cross the Jordan river, the males are circumcised (2), then they kept the passover (v. 10) during which they would have recounted the story of the Exodus. Then Joshua meets the angel of the Lord (v. 15). 

The second is in Joshua 24.  Joshua knows he is about to die, so he gathers the people in Shechem where the Ark of the Covenant is.  Joshua reminds them again about their history, going this time clear back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v. 2-4). Then he recounts all the Lord did for them since they left Egypt, and came into the Promised Land (v. 6-13).  Then he says, "Therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth...Choose thee this day whom ye will serve...but for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (v 14-15)  The people answer and promise that they will serve Jehovah (v. 24).  Finally the story states, "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elder that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel." (v. 31)  It is a "tada!" statement,  "Look, this is what it means to serve the Lord." 

The Shema

 This week we read chapters from the book of Deuteronomy as part of Come Follow Me.  When I was in college I used to think of the Book of Deuteronomy as "ether in print."  There were  actually a few times when I was having trouble falling to sleep because of stress or anxiety, so I started reading Deuteronomy and then was able to nod off.  I don't hold that opinion any more, and have found much of interest in the book.

Tradition holds that Deuteronomy was written by Moses, but most scholars believe that it was probably passed down orally until much later.  Some scholars associate it with the text found my Josiah when he was restoring temple worship in Israel (2 Kings 22:8).  When Josiah read it he recognized that it foretold that Israel would be destroyed because they did not keep their covenants with the Lord and followed after idols.  Josiah was so upset his tore his clothes (a sign of deep despair).  A few years after Josiah's reign, Israel was taken into captivity. 

One of the main jewels of the Book of Deuteronomy is the Shema. It is the text of a covenant or commandment given from the Lord to the people of Israel right before entering the "promised land." The Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 and is called the Shema because the first word of 6:4 is "shema", which means "hear" or "attend".  It contains a passage that Jesus later quoted when a lawyer asked him what was the greatest commandment: 

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all they soul and with all they might." (v. 5) (see also Matt 22:37)

This is a notoriously difficult passage to translate. The word לבב, means heart, but in the Hebrew language the heart isn’t the center for emotion like it is in English, (that’s the abdomen). The heart is the center of true understanding and devotion.  

The word soul, נפש, comes for the word for your neck.  When the Lord creates Adam, he breaths into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). The neck it where that breath, symbolizing your spirit, goes in and out of your body. When breath stops, life stops. Even though this word means neck, it is used as an idiom for your essential self in the Bible more than it is used to represent your physical neck.

The last word, מאדך (me'odecha) comes from an adverb meaning "very" or "a lot." When God finished creating the world and he said it was “very good” the term for very is מאד, me'od (Genesis 1:31). But here it isn’t used as an adverb, but as a noun. That last letter "ך" is a suffix that means "your". The the word means something like "your very-ness" or "your much-ness". It isn’t used in this form anywhere else in the whole Old Testament, only this passage. I think the writer couldn’t come up with a word strong enough to express how much of yourself you should use to worship God, so he made up one. 

The author here is using amazingly strong words to try to communicate how much we should love the Lord and how faithfully we should serve him. I think it is why this prayer has endured a central tenet of Jewish worship and is so powerful and meaningful for Jewish people today.

Of course, because Jesus repeats it in the New Testament, it is also a powerful part of Christian worship. Every Christian must ask themselves if we worship God with all our heart (devotion), soul (essential being) and me'odecha.

Shema Israel

Jesus is the GOAT: a look at the Day of Atonement

This week in Come Follow Me we read about a couple of the sacrifices regularly conducted in the Tabernacle. This year I have been able to see more than ever before how all of these ancient practices, although they seem a bit barbaric to us, were actually pointing to the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is as if God was sitting up in heaven with Mother God, and trying to come up with as many ways as possible to foreshadow the life and mission of Jesus. They tried using every sense--taste, smell, touch, sound, sight. They used a variety of ceremonies and places--the altar of sacrifice, the altar of incense, the laver, the show bread, the menorah, the curtains... everything foreshadowing some aspect of Jesus' life and mission as our Savior. 

I can't go into all of them in one post, so I wanted to talk about the Day of Atonement. It is one of the high holy days in Judaism, and the only time that anyone was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. It is explained in Leviticus 16:2-22.  The high priest first made a sin offering for himself, washed himself, and changed into specific clothing to represent his ritualistic purity. Then he took two goats and presented them at the door of the Tabernacle. There they cast lots to establish which goat will be sacrificed and which will be set free as the scapegoat. The first goat was offered up as a sin offering for all the people. The high priest brought the blood of the offering into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat (the cover of the Ark of the Covenant). Finally, he went out of the Holy Place, confessed over the live goat all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and then sent him off into the wilderness. 

Some of the symbolism here is really clear.  The first goat represents Jesus whose blood atones for the sins of the people.  Just as Jesus will advocate before the throne of God for us, the blood of the first goat is placed on the Mercy Seat, which represents the throne of God. This symbolic act says, "Look father, I have given my blood for these people, therefore have mercy on them."

But what of the other goat? The sins of the House of Israel are ritualistically placed on the second goat and that goat is taken out of the camp.  One obvious symbolism is that the second goat also represents Christ.  He takes upon him our sins and then removes them from the community. By his departure (i.e. his death) the community is cleansed of sin. 

But why does one goat die and one goat live?  Jesus died for our sins (first goat) and thus reconciles us to God.  He also takes away our sins, like the second goat, but where does he go with them?  Does he pass them off to another community?  Is it understood that he would die in the wilderness?  One Jewish commentary, Mishna Yoma 6:6, suggests that the scapegoat was pushed off a cliff.  This symbolized that those sins were permanently removed out of the community in a way that they wouldn't come back. 

What if,  however,  there is another foreshadowing here.  Maybe the scapegoat represents what Jesus did after his death.  The casting out of the scapegoat does happen after the sacrifice of the first goat. We know from the scriptures that after he was killed, Jesus went and ministered to the spirits in spirit prison (1 Peter 3: 19-20). Couldn't that be like a wilderness of type? We also understand that Jesus visited his other "sheep" (John 10:16). From a Biblical point of view, that could represent the Gospel going to the Gentiles. From a Book of Mormon point of view, it could represent Jesus visiting the saints in the Americas. Both of these groups could be metaphorically on the other side of a barren wilderness because they were separate and different from the community where Jesus taught during his ministry.

This is all a bit of a stretch. None of the podcasters I listened to this week brought up this idea as a possible symbolism of the scapegoat.  Still, who knows? There has to be some reason why there are two goats and one is left alive. In all the other sacrifices, the animals are killed. 

It is easy to see symbolism if you are looking for it, and it is easy to take it too far.  One might even suggest that a "goat" is used in this sacrifice instead of a sheep or bull because God knew that 3000 years later in English the term "G.O.A.T" would be an acronym for Greatest of All Time, and Jesus was certainly the greatest man of all time. That's silliness, of course, but it could make a good t-shirt, especially for those who know their Old Testament.  In a way it explains the symbolism of all the sacrifices of the Levitical worship: "Jesus is the GOAT". 

A Kingdom of Priests

When the children of Israel arrive at Mount Sinai, the Lord tells them "You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself.  Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom priests, and an holy nation" (Exodus 19:4-6)

Did this happen to the House of Israel in the Old Testament?  In a way it did, but in a limited scale.  In Exodus 19 the Lord told Moses to bring the people to the bottom of the mountain so they could hear his voice. The people came, and they saw the lightning and thunder on the mountain, and heard the voice of the Lord but it sounded to them like a trumpet. (v 18-19)  Then in Exodus 24, Moses, Aaron, and 72 others were admitted onto the mountain where "They saw the God of Israel...And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God and did eat and drink." (v 9-11) These experiences distinguished these people as witnesses of God. They were singled out as a special group of people, or "treasure" because they had this experience and entered into a covenant with God.

Most of the House of Israel, however, refused to receive the full blessing the God wanted to give them. When Moses came down from the mountain with the Law, "All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off." (Exodus 20: 18-21)  The people were too afraid to listen to the Lord directly and enter his presence. Then, soon after they feared because Moses had been the in Mountain talking to the Lord for a long time.  They made a golden calf and worshiped it when God had expressly commanded them not to make any images. (Exodus 32) They are not ready to become a "nation of priests", so the Lord creates a subset of priests to serve them. 

The Lord commands the people to build the tabernacle, and then consecrates Aaron and his sons to be priests to serve in the Tabernacle (Exodus 28).  The Levites and descendants of Aaron continued to server in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, for hundreds of years until Herod's Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.  In that way, the House of Israel partially fulfills the command to be "kingdom of priests, and a holy nation," but the priesthood was limited to a select few who officiated in the temple. The other tribes of Israel depended on the temple workers to help them perform ordinances and make covenants.

So what about today?  Is there a "kingdom of priests" today?  I only know of one church that invites all members to become priests and priestesses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invites all worthy young men to be ordained as priests beginning at age 16. All worthy adults are washed and anointed to become priests and priestesses in holy temples.  In the ancient temple, only the high priest may enter the Holy of Holies once a year. In modern temples all worthy adults are invited to symbolically pass through the temple veil and enter the Lord's presence when they receive their temple endowment. In a very real way the members of the LDS church fulfill the Lord's request to be a "kingdom of priests".

So if members are part of this "kingdom of priests" what are our responsibilities? In ancient days the priests made it so that all the house of Israel could perform the ordinances required by the Judaic Law. That is what the modern LDS church is offering to the whole world today. They recognize that all peoples and cultures have truth and their own kinds of relationships with God, but only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can people recieve and perform the ordinances, and make the ritualistic covenants they need to fulfill God's plan for them.  That is why we build so many temples.  That is why we send our young people and older people to serve as missionaries.  We are the kingdom of priests that the Lord is sending out serve the entire world.   

A Closer Look at Manna

 For my Sunday School lesson today I decided to focus on the parting of the Red Sea and the bestowal of Manna in the wilderness. It made me look closer at Manna, how it was described, and the rules about how it was to be gathered and eaten.  

First of all, what was Manna.  There are a few different words and phrases that described it.  In Exodus 16:31 we read that "it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey." in Exodus 16:14 we learn that it was "a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground." We also learn in 16:21 "and when the sun waxed hot, it melted."  I have to admit that the first thing that came to my mind with this description was Dipp'n Dots.  We learn elsewhere, however, that they would "bake" it and "seeth" or boil it. So it wasn't Dipp'n Dots. For my class, I made a honey graham cracker recipe, crumbled the dough, and cooked it. It wasn't white like real manna, but the students enjoyed gathering it up from the butcher paper I had spread on the floor.

My attempt to make Manna taught me something about the message of the Manna.  I think the reference to Coriander in Exodus 16:31 refers to the size of the bits of Manna because it is followed by the phrase, "and the taste...". Here is a picture of Coriander seed.

As you can see, it is pretty small.  I think a modern American would say it is about the size of pepper corns. The Lord tells them that they are to gather one omer every morning per person(16:15) , and the chapter says that it was found on the ground (v. 14).  An omer is believed to be about two quarts. 

So think about what it would take to gather two quarts of something the size and shape of a peppercorn.  They couldn't just scoop it up, or they would get a handful of dirt mixed in with their Manna.  They would have to bend down, pick up each piece, one at a time, and put it into their container.  After that they would then have to either grind and cook it as bread or boil and eat it.

In John 6: 25-40 Jesus compares himself to Manna, the bread of life.  Several of my podcasters, and materials in the Come Follow Me manual talked about how just as the children of Israel had to gather Manna each day for physical sustenance, we have to give ourselves spiritual Manna each day to stay spiritually strong. If gathering Manna is a symbol of diligently seeking God's spirit, what do the details of Chapter 16 teach us?

First of all, we need to feed our spirits every day. We can't gather enough spiritual food on Sunday to last us through the week.  If we try to rest on yesterday's spiritual laurels, it could go rotten in our souls.  

Second, the daily spiritual experiences we seek are not necessarily large.  Spiritual health is based on many small acts of devotion, like picking up the many pieces of Manna in an omer.  These could include saying prayers, daily scripture reading,and small acts of service. Each is another seed of the bread of life. 

Third, to collect spiritual sustenance, we have to humble ourselves.  The people gathering manna had to bend over, probably to their knees, just to see the Manna in order to pick it up. It took physical effort and focus. If we don't bend over, examine closely, and focus, we are likely to end up with a metaphorical handful of dirt instead of the bread of life. 

Finally, if we do humble ourselves, gather spiritual experiences daily, and focus our lives on Christ, the Lord does send us, each day, what we need to get through the day. In the Lord's Prayer Jesus taught his disciples, "Give us this day our daily bread." He will sustain us.  Maybe we aren't eating Thanksgiving dinner every day, but we aren't starving to death either.  He is faithful and will provide. 

We get the impression from the scriptures that Manna was not only nutritious, but also delicious.  The scripture describes it like "cakes of honey" and "bread made with oil", (think doughnuts). Likewise our daily communion with God can also be a delicious part of our lives. It will sustain us and help us get through whatever wilderness we might encounter.