Week 73: Hebrew Poetry Part 1
October 24, 2011
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Introduction to Hebrew Poetry
Poetry is one of a number of forms of literature that are used in the Old Testament. It is found in the prophets and in the ‘writings’ or ‘wisdom literature’, notably in the Psalms, the Book of Job and the Song of Songs. But since Hebrew poetry is so different from English poetry, we need to consider it in some detail if we are to receive the full benefit from these parts of God’s Word.
It is relatively easy to spot poetry in modern Bibles, since the print is arranged differently from prose sections. Prose has long sentences and full columns, poetry short sentences with larger spaces to set it apart. A cursory glance at a Bible shows that there is substantially more poetry in the Old Testament than in the New.
Prose is the more natural and spontaneous way to communicate. People speak and write in prose using a variety of sentence lengths to communicate their point. Poetry is an abnormal and artificial way of writing. It needs to be prepared beforehand, it requires considerable thought and the words used need to obey the rules of poetic style. We might ask why it is that poetry is used when prose is so much easier.
For example, imagine me coming home and saying to Enid, my wife,
I’m ready for my supper, wife.
Oh good, it’s pies and peas.
You’ve given me a dirty knife –
I’d like a clean one, please!
And since there is no second course,
I’ll have some more tomato sauce!
If I talked like that it would mean that I had thought about my words beforehand. But the artificiality of talking in poetry in such a setting would hamper clear communication!
A deeper effect
Why bother to compose poetry?
Poetry has a much deeper effect on people than prose. Poetry can penetrate parts of the personality that prose would leave untouched.
Deeper into the mind
Poetry is more easily remembered than prose, especially when set to music. It touches the intuitive and artistic part of the brain, that can be left unmoved by the ordered arguments of prose.
So poems from our school days may be remembered decades later, while lectures are forgotten by the next week. For this reason we generally learn our theology from hymns and choruses, which is why it’s important to make sure that the songs used in worship have Bible-based content.
Deeper into the heart
Poetry is used in greeting cards because it is a more effective way of moving the heart of the recipient. It can evoke warm emotions, while the same sentiments expressed in prose would leave the reader unmoved.
Consider the following poem:
They walked down the lane together,
The sky was full of stars.
Together they reached the farmyard gate,
He lifted for her the bars.
She neither smiled nor thanked him,
Indeed, she knew not how,
For he was just a farmer’s boy,
And she was a Jersey cow!
Whenever I have quoted this in a talk, the congregation has laughed. They expect romance but receive something ridiculous, which touches their sense of humour. If the same content were to be expressed in prose, I doubt if it would even raise a smile.
Deeper into the will
Poetry also affects our volitional powers. It moves us to the point where we are determined to act in a certain way. In schools poems have been used to instill values into pupils. War songs have been used throughout history to galvanize soldiers for action.
Consider this poem, entitled ‘Indifference’, by Studdert Kennedy, an army chaplain in World War I:
When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet
and made a Calvary;
They crowned him with a crown of thorns,
red were his wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham,
they simply passed him by,
They never hurt a hair of him, they only let him die.
For men had grown more tender
and they would not give him pain,
They only passed him down the street
and left him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried ‘Forgive them,
for they know not what they do’
And still it rained the wintry rain
that drenched him through and through.
The crowds went home and left the streets
without a soul to see,
That Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.
There is something about the rhythm and the careful choice of words in that poem which compels us to examine our lives.
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Week 72: 1&2 Kings Part 7
October 17, 2011
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Why read Kings?
Christians can be sure that all parts of the Old Testament are also intended for them. We are told in 1 Corinthians that the events in the Old Testament ‘occurred as examples to us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did’. In 2 Timothy we read that ‘all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness’.
Individual application
THE PRESENT
We may not be kings, but we too are examples to others, at work, in the family, in the community. Like kings, we need to set the spiritual tone for the groups we are involved with, especially if we have a leadership role.
We can be tempted to have liaisons with people who have ‘foreign’ gods. We must beware of the dangers of marrying outside God’s family.
Kings gives us the negative example of Queen Athalia, who sought to take up leadership against the will of God. All Christians can be tempted to seek leadership for the wrong reasons, or which is inappropriate for them personally.
Josiah’s reign reminds us that we must be regular readers of the Bible. We can be negligent or ignorant of its truth and face similar consequences.
The book also provides key lessons for Christian leaders, for the king had a pastoral role to exercise for his people, a role he often abused.
THE FUTURE
We will become kings: we too are part of the royal family, preparing to reign with Christ. We can look forward to a bright future. Even if our lives have little opportunity for leadership now, there will come a day when it will be different.
Corporate application
THE CHURCH
Just as Israel put idols on the high places in the land, Britain has a tradition of pagan shrines being situated on the hills. Christian churches now stand on many of these sites, but the danger of compromise with paganism remains. Syncretism, the uniting of one religion with another, is still around and still popular.
When Elijah challenged the people of Israel, he asked them how long they would waver between two opinions. The same question could be asked of the Church today, for in Britain and elsewhere there are professing Christians who see nothing wrong in mixing their faith with pagan religion and contemporary materialistic and new age philosophies. Prince Charles says he prefers to be called Defender of Faith, not Defender of the Faith. We are into an era when it has become fashionable to say that all religions lead to God.
Furthermore, the Church has blessed pagan festivals, often unknowingly. Christmas is the most obvious example: it was originally a totally pagan midwinter festival celebrating the ‘rebirth’ of the sun. The people burned yew logs, sang carols, and ate and drank too much. When the first missionary, Augustine, came to England he sent word back to Rome saying that he was unable to get the people away from this pagan festival. Pope Gregory said that the best policy would be to turn it into a Christian festival, and that is what has happened, with questionable results. Today the Church universally celebrates this pagan festival, despite the fact that it is nowhere commanded or even encouraged in the Bible.
The book of Kings also demonstrates the principle that division leads to decline. Many church fellowships can testify to this sad truth. The nation reached its height in the unity it enjoyed under David and Solomon, and then lost everything in half the time it had taken to achieve it, once that unity had been destroyed. We must be vigilant if the same thing is not to happen to us in the Church.
THE WORLD
The book has a powerful message to offer about God’s sovereignty in human history. Israel is the specific focus of his dealings as he intervenes in the lives of the kings, dispensing blessing and punishment, open to their cries for help. We see how, on the whole, good kings last longer than bad ones. In the same way, God rules over all nations. He chooses leaders and rulers and decides how much time and space each has. He can act in justice, giving the people the ruler they deserve, or in mercy, giving them the ruler they need. He still has the casting vote even in democratic elections.
His ability to overrule in no way reduces human responsibility. He can use even those who have no knowledge of him – a bad ruler like Nebuchadnezzar to take his people into Babylonian exile and a good ruler like the Persian Cyrus to restore them to their own land again.
News agencies only see the human side of history. Prophets discern the divine activity over and above this. That is why the Bible in general and the books of 1 and 2 Kings in particular are so different from other historical records. They give us the whole story, telling the whole truth about what happened in the events of Israel’s saga.
CHRIST
Above all, we need to read Kings because of what it tells us about Jesus. A number of individuals who feature in Kings remind us of Jesus.
- Solomon: Matthew tells us in his Gospel that Jesus is greater than Solomon. Paul writes that Christ is our wisdom. John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus likened his body to the temple. When Jesus died the temple curtain was split from top to bottom.
- Jonah: The prophet is mentioned in Kings. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so Jesus would be raised after three days and three nights in the heart of the earth – in both cases a resurrection from the dead.
- Elijah: Jesus met and talked with him on the Mount of Transfiguration. Elijah was likened to Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist, who had the same food and dress.
- Elisha: Jesus indirectly linked himself to Elisha through the nature of the miracles he performed. Jesus raised a boy from the dead in the village of Nain, next to Shumen where Elisha had performed a similar miracle. He fed 5,000 people with bread and fish, mirroring Elisha’s miracle in feeding the 4,000 with bread. When Jesus died, people came out of their graves, just as a dead man was revived after contact with Elisha’s dead body.
There are also ways in which the life and ministry of Jesus fulfil the expectations of kingship. He is the king the Old Testament people longed for. He is in the royal line of David, and will one day restore the kingdom to Israel. He is the one who fulfils all the promises made about the descendants of David. Here is one king who will not disappoint, one even greater than David.
Conclusion
The book of Kings has a vital message for the world. God is Lord over all, and his people must learn the message of this book if they are not to mirror the decline recorded there, the disintegration of the people of Israel who ceased to listen to God and follow his laws. We can, however, be encouraged by God’s power and ability to deal with his people in ways that are both just and merciful. No one can thwart his plans. His kingdom will outlast the years, and the book of Kings (or Kingdoms) gives Christians a longing for the day when Jesus will be seen by all as the final king.
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Week 71: 1&2 Kings Part 6
October 10, 2011
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Elijah
It was this event which marked the start of the prophet Elijah’s ministry. He was a Tishbite from Gilead, in the Trans-Jordan region, and was regarded as one of the finest of Israel’s prophets. Although there is no book written in his name, Kings covers more of his life than most of the kings themselves.
He is best known for his confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is 12 miles long and juts out into the ocean in the north of Israel. At the eastern (inland) end there is a large depression just below the summit where 30,000 people could gather. This must be the place where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal, whom Jezebel had introduced to the palace. There is a spring there that never runs dry, even in a drought. The text tells us that Elijah doused the sacrifice with water, even though there had been no rain for three and a half years.
The story is well known. Elijah built an altar and challenged the prophets of Baal to build their own altar alongside his and call on their gods for fire to burn up the sacrifice.
It was a very clever challenge. We now know that the altars of Baal had a tunnel underneath where a priest would be concealed to set fire to the wood when the people cried out to the god. Elijah cunningly asked them to build their altar in the open and promised to build his altar in exactly the same way, only he would also add water to make the challenge greater. His boldness led him to mock the priests in such a way that if his experiment had failed he would surely have been killed. He encouraged them to shout louder, suggested that their god was on holiday or relieving himself. It was a key moment in the history of the northern tribes. God sent the fire, Elijah’s sacrifice was burned up and Israel knew who was truly powerful. The prophets of Baal were routed.
This amazing story has an unlikely sequel. When Jezebel heard about Elijah’s victory and the death of her prophets, she threatened Elijah. Despite his victory over the 400 prophets of Baal, Elijah ran for his life to Horeb. The prophet was emotionally and spiritually exhausted, so God graciously sent an angel to cook him a meal, and later assured him of his presence and provision for the future of Israel. God had already set aside a colleague for Elijah to continue the work.
Elisha
Elisha, the plowman, succeeded Elijah in the prophetic role. He asked Elijah for a ‘double portion’ of his spirit – a phrase that is frequently misunderstood. It does not mean that he wanted to be twice the prophet Elijah had been. It was actually a phrase taken from the inheritance customs. If a man had four sons, his estate was divided into five when he died and the double portion went to the eldest son, who became the heir of the family business, with the extra money to help with the responsibility. In asking for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, Elisha was asking to be his heir and successor to be allowed to ‘take over the business’.
Elijah told Elisha that if he saw him leave the earth, he could be his heir. Elijah was one of the few people in the Bible who never died (Enoch was another). The text tells us that he rode in a whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw him depart. Elijah’s robe fell on the ground, Elisha picked it up and walked to the River Jordan. Elisha’s ministry was given an excellent start, with God parting the river for him, assuring Elisha that he was with him just as he had been with Elijah.
The work of Elijah and Elisha
The two prophets were very different. Elijah was the fighter, the preacher, the man who challenged the people. Elisha’s ministry was more pastoral in nature. On one occasion he raised to life a widow’s son, in the village of Shunem, just half a mile from the village of Nain where Jesus would do the same thing. Elisha also fed 4,000 people with a few barley loaves. Elijah’s ministry seems similar to that of John the Baptist and Elisha’s to the ministry of Jesus.
Elijah and Elisha were two of a number of prophets whom God sent to the northern tribes: Jonah was a prophet to Israel before he went to Nineveh, and he appears in the book of Kings. Amos and finally Hosea were also sent. The prophecy of Hosea contains some of the deepest emotion of all the prophets, as he enacts within his own life the heart of love God has for his people.
The amount of space given to Elijah and Elisha in Kings reminds us that God gave the people frequent warnings about what would happen if they did not behave according to his law.
God’s warnings
WORDS
Throughout the spiritual demise of the nation, the priests should have been reminding the people of their responsibilities. But they were too close to the establishment to provide an objective voice, so God sent prophets instead.
There were six prophets sent to the north: Ahijah, Jehu, Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea. There were also a number who ministered to the south, before and during the exile: Shemaiah, Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel and Ezekiel.
It is important to note that God always gave his people a warning of his punishment if they continued in sin. The whole principle of the Bible is that God judges people for doing what they know is wrong. People who have not heard about Jesus will not be sent to hell because they have not heard about Jesus, but because they have done wrong against their own conscience.
Israel and Judah ignored the messages they received, preferring the false prophets who told them that all was well and gave them false reasons for the disasters that had befallen them. The true prophets were nonetheless prepared to tell the truth and pay the price of ridicule, beatings, punishment and sometimes death.
DEEDS
The warnings God sent were not just verbal, they were also visual. The people should have seen that God’s blessings were being taken away from them. Note how the warnings increased in their severity:
- They lost territory when Hadad led Edom out of the ‘commonwealth’.
- They lost independence when the Trans-Jordan tribes came under the control of Syria and one tribe, Naphtali, was lost totally to Assyria.
- Judah saw the other nine tribes deported to Assyria.
- Eventually they too faced deportation to Babylon, in three stages.
Apart from the spoken prophetic messages, therefore, there were a number of warning signs from events which were clearly heading for disaster, but the people ignored these too and did not change their ways.
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Week 70: 1&2 Kings Part 5
October 3, 2011
(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)
Divided kingdom
The reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel are recorded differently.
| NORTH | SOUTH |
| Date of accession | Date of accession |
| Length of reign Formally condemned Name of father |
Age at accession Length of reign Name of mother |
| Reference to sources | Summary of character Reference to sources |
| Death | Death and burial |
| Son or usurper | Son as successor |
The kings of the north are all compared to the first northern king, Jeroboam, who was a bad king. So we read repeatedly of subsequent kings: ‘…and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just like Jeroboam.’
In the account of the kings of Judah in the south, the writer uses different records and varies the order and the details. He starts with the date when they began to reign, but follows with the king’s age – Josiah was just eight, for example. The length of the reign is given next, but then comes the name of the mother, not the father, for reasons which are not clear. (Today a person qualifies as a Jew if their mother is a Jew, but in the Bible it was the father who determined nationality.) Then comes the judgement as to whether they were good or evil. Whilst every king in the north was evil, the south had a mixture of good and evil, with David as the benchmark.
The kings
The north had 20 kings and the south had the same number, but the south survived for 140 years longer than the north because, as we noted earlier, good kings reign longer. Some of the bad kings survived only a couple of months before being killed.
As mentioned above, the northern kings were all bad, although some were not as bad as the others.
The south had six good and two very good kings (Hezekiah and Josiah), but also had one who was the worst of all. This is the exception to the rule about bad kings and short reigns, for Manasseh reigned for 55 years.
The south had just one dynasty, whereas the north had nine, with the succession changing hands due to assassination six times.
There was one queen. God had told David there would always be a man on the throne – women were not allowed to rule as monarchs. Athaliah had other ideas. She was Jezebel’s daughter and married the king of Judah in the south. She wanted to be the first queen of Israel, so she systematically killed all the children of David’s royal line, so that the way would be open for her to become queen. However, an aunt took the youngest boy, Joash, and hid him ready to take the throne when Athaliah died, so the royal line was spared.
The two very good kings of Judah were Hezekiah and Josiah. Hezekiah was contemporary with Isaiah and his story is included in Isaiah’s prophecy. Hezekiah was a good king in many ways. It was he who ordered the digging of the tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem and make it safe against enemies. His big mistake occurred when he was taken ill and welcomed to his palace men from the (then) small and unknown city of Babylon. They brought a ‘get well card’ and Hezekiah was flattered that someone so far away knew and cared about his illness. He showed the men round the palace and the temple. It was Isaiah who pointed out the error. He told Hezekiah that the Babylonians would take away everything he showed them. Some years later they did just that.
The other good king came to the throne of Judah at just eight years of age. Josiah was born in the same year as Jeremiah the prophet. While they were cleaning the temple his men found the scroll of Deuteronomy, which had not been read for many years. When King Josiah read the curses God had promised if his people strayed from his laws, he was alarmed and began at once to put things right. He ordered a national reformation, destroying all the high places and calling a halt to the idolatry which had infected the land, in the hope that this would bring renewal. But people’s hearts remained far from God. It is not possible to make people good by passing good laws.
Josiah also made a big mistake: he went to war with Egypt when he did not need to and he was killed at Megiddo. When he died the nation reverted to the evil practices he had stamped out.
Hezekiah was followed by Manasseh, a very bad king who took evil to new depths. He worshipped the god Molech, and this included sacrificing his baby sons in the valley of Hinnon, or ‘Gehenna’. He also executed Isaiah the prophet for his preaching, ordering to him to be bound and put inside a hollow tree trunk, after which two carpenters with a big saw cut the tree in half.
One of the worst kings was Ahab, who married a Phoenician princess from Tia. Her name in Phoenician meant ‘primrose’, but the same name in Hebrew, Jezebel, meant ‘garbage’, and this was how she was known. It was clear that she used Ahab to achieve her own evil ends and that he needed little persuading. It was her scheming, for example, which arranged the death of a neighbor, Naboth, so that Ahab could take possession of his vineyard.
