Seder 117: Ezekiel 20:25---What Do You Mean, "Statutes that were not good..."?

 Ezekiel 20 takes place "in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month."  Commentator Ralph Alexander (EBC) estimates that this date is in July or August of 591 BC.  At this point some elders of Israel came to Ezekiel to "inquire of the Lord" (verse 1).  Alexander speculates that they may have been wondering whether the Egyptians would be able to deliver them from Nebuchadnezzar's dominance.  

Whatever the question, God refuses to dignify it with an answer.  Through Ezekiel, he reminds them of Israel's long history of rebellion,  going all the way back to the nation's sojourn in Egypt.  It is revealed, for example, that one reason for the length of that sojourn was the sin of idolatry (verses 7-8).  

Israel's disobedience, God declares, continued during its wilderness years.  As a result, "I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life" (verse 25).  

What does God mean here?  Sadly, as commentator Daniel Block explains, there have been Christian interpreters, starting with Justin Martyr in the second century (see Dialogue with Trypho, chapters 18-22), who gave an antinomian reading of this verse. By this reading, God gave Israel "bad laws" after the sin of the golden calf as a punishment.  

An examination of Ezekiel 20 shows some immediate problems with this sort of interpretation.  Whatever these "bad laws" were, they did not include the Torah revealed at Sinai, which was a blessing intended to lead to abundant life (see Lev 18:5, quoted in verses 11, 13, 21).  Also, these bad laws were given a generation later, to the children of those who were rescued from Egypt (verse 21).  

There seems to be a clue to the meaning of verse 25 in the frequent references to idolatry in the prophecy, including child sacrifice (verse 26; see e.g., Lev 18:21).  God may mean in verse 25 that he "gave Israel over" to such practices to allow them to suffer the consequences and be brought to repentance.  That is the kind of interpretation given, for example, by Walter C. Kaiser in Hard Savings of the Bible.  This kind of language is used in a number of places in the Bible (Ps 81:12; Acts 7:42; Ro 1:24-25). 

Passover 2026: Isaiah 53:10: "When His Soul Makes an Offering for Guilt"

"When his soul makes an offering for guilt," we read in Isaiah 53:10, part of Isaiah's famous Suffering Servant prophecy.  The word for "offering for guilt" is asam, the name for one of the kinds of sacrifices offered at the tabernacle or temple.

Scholars today, following Jacob Milgrom, often refer to this type of sacrifice as a reparation offering.  Most English translations use "trespass offering" (KJV) or "guilt offering" for this kind of offering, but there are some variations.  CEB uses "compensation offering" and HCSB uses "restitution offering."  

In chapter 3 of The Gospel According to Isaiah 53, Walter Kaiser notes that a reparation offering is usually offered by an individual and makes sure that a debt is paid in full.  These qualities are appropriate for the sacrifice offered by the Messiah for the sins of mankind.   

Reparation offerings were called for in cases of "desecration of sancta"---that is, when something holy had been mishandled or mistreated (Lev 5:14-6:7).  One example would be a situation where someone accidentally ate food that had been set aside for the Levitical priests (Lev 22:14).  In that case, one would bring a reparation offering and make reimbursement for the food, adding a fine of 20 per cent.  

Another example was a situation where a Nazirite accidentally came in contact with a dead body (Num 6:9-12).  In that situation the holy thing that had been defiled was the Nazirite's hair, which was being prepared for an offering at the completion of the vow.  

A third example was a situation where one person robbed another and then came to regret it and wanted to make things right (Lev 6:1-7).  Here the thing that had been violated was a fellow Israelite, one of God's holy people.  In this case the stolen amount was restored along with a 20 per cent fine, and a reparation offering was carried out.  

A fourth example was the reinstatement to the Israelite community of a person who had been suffering from a skin disease.  The skin disease had desecrated a member of God's holy nation.  The ritual carried out in this case (Lev 14:12-18), which involved sprinkling of blood, restored the person to the "kingdom of priests." 

More broadly, Israel's exile was a desecration of Israel.  The Servant offered himself as a reparation offering so that Israel could be restored to the holy status of God's servant.  

In Isaiah 53:8, God says that the Servant was "stricken for the transgression of my people."  The word for "stricken" appears 78 times in the Old Testament, 61 of them in Leviticus 13-14, the chapters on skin diseases.  The prophecy pictures the Servant becoming a "leper" for the sake of the people.  Its references to the marred appearance of the Servant (52:14; 53:2-3) are consistent with such a picture.

Another detail that could tie in is in Isaiah 52:15, which says that the Servant will "sprinkle many nations."  As mentioned above, the ritual for restoring a person healed of a skin disease involved sprinkling of blood.  Overall, the prophecy pictures the Servant as both leper and offering for the leper, making atonement for "leprous" nations.

Seder 62: Exodus 23---God's Mission Strategy for Israel

 God called the nation of Israel to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex 19:6), bringing blessing to the whole world (Ge 12:3).  The Bible describes some different phases in their missionary work.

Through the Exodus, God proclaimed the Gospel through his mighty works of salvation.  The miracles of the Exodus caught the attention of the people in that region.  When they encountered the Israelites, they reacted in different ways.  

(1) Some were hostile, like the Amalekites (Ex 17).  

(2) Some ran away in fright.  This reaction is described in Exodus 23:27-28:  "I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.  And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanties, and the Hittites from before you."

(Incidentally, the "hornets" in this passage may be metaphorical; they aren't necessarily actual insects.  At any rate, we see here that the Canaanites were to be scared away and not necessarily put to death.)  

(3) Some were attracted to God, like the "mixed multitude" (Ex 12:38), Jethro (Ex 18) and Rahab (Joshua 2).  One part of Israel's ministry was to this group of people; the Israelites were instructed in the Torah to love them (Ex 23:9; Lev 19:33-34) and make them part of Israelite society.

A second phase of their mission involved building a just society in the Promised Land.  To enable that to happen, the Israelites were to destroy all traces of Canaanite religion when they arrived (Ex 23:13, 24).  This would give them a chance to establish an identity in the land as God's people.  Then when other nations observed Israelite society, they would be impressed and attracted to God (Dt 4:1-8; 1 Ki 10:1-10).  

A good source on this topic is Walter Kaiser's Mission in the Old Testament:  Israel as a Light to the Nations.

Seder 29: Genesis 30, 1 Samuel 1-2---Rachel and Hannah

 After about seven years of infertility, Jacob's wife Rachel gave birth to a son, Joseph.  We are not told what use she might have made of the mandrakes she obtained from her sister.  The implication is that this detail is irrelevant.  Genesis emphasizes that it was God who "opened her womb" (Ge 30:22).  

Joseph is one of a series of special sons, miraculously given to couples struggling with infertility, who have important roles to play in salvation history.  Others include Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist.  

These sons were answers to prayer.  Genesis 30:22 notes that God "listened to" Rachel.  In the case of Samuel's mother Hannah, we are given some details about one of those prayers.  Hannah vowed to God that she would dedicate a son to his service "if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me..." (1 Sa 1:11).  Her language is very similar to that of Exodus 3;7, where God states, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people."  Hannah asked God to deliver her from infertility as he had always delivered his people.

When Hannah brought young Samuel to the tabernacle, she gave a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving (1 Sa 2:1-10).  Walter Kaiser, in his book on great prayers in the Hebrew Scriptures, divides the prayer into three parts:

• In verses 1-3, Hannah expresses her great joy and praises God's greatness and incomparability.  In verse 3, when she says, "Talk no more so very proudly..," we can imagine that she has her personal tormentor Peninnah in mind, but the word for "your" in this verse is in plural form. 
• In verses 4-8, Hannah describes how God watches out for those in need, stepping in to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  "The barren has borne seven," she declares in verse 5, and she would go on to have at least six children in all (verse 21).  
• In verses 9-10, Hannah looks ahead to the culmination of God's plan, when God will judge the world and send his Messiah.  Samuel would later anoint the first two kings of Israel, contributing to the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Her prayer expressed the thanksgiving of all the barren women who had been granted children.  It also became a template for future songs of praise.  Mary's prayer in Luke 1:46-55 has similiar structure and content.  A psalm of David recorded in both 2 Samuel 2 and Psalm 18 has several parallels with Hannah's prayer:

• In verse 1, Hannah says that God exalts her "horn"---that is, lifts her up and gives her strength---as does David in Psalm 18:2.
• In verse 2, Hannah refers to God as her "rock," as does David in Psalm 18:2.
• In verse 10 Hannah pictures God "thundering," as David does in Psalm 18:13.  In Hannah's case God answers the taunts of Peninnah.  In 1:6, the verb for thundering is used to describe Peninnah "irritating" Hannah.  
• Hannah ends her prayer with an assertion of God's faithfulness to his anointed king, as does David in Psalm 18:50.  

Seder 16: Genesis 18:22-33---How Many Are Required to Transform a Culture?

 Abraham's bold intercession in Genesis 18:22-33 is recognized as one of the great prayers of the Bible.  Acting as a counsel for the defense in the trial of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked God to consider sparing the cities of the plain if a sufficient number of loyal followers of God were there.  

Walter Kaiser points out that Genesis 18:22 contains one of eighteen places in the Tanakh where scribes deliberately altered the Hebrew text for theological reasons.  The MT says that Abraham "still stood before the Lord," while the original text said that the Lord stood before Abraham.  The original wording may suggest God's openness and willingness to be "put on trial" by Abraham.  Abraham, trusting both in God's justice and God's mercy, asked rhetorically in verse 25, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"  

After God agreed that he would spare the cities if there were as many as ten righteous people there, the defense rested.  Abraham left the matter in the hands of the righteous judge.  

A reason for Abraham to request that the cities be spared is the fact that a righteous remnant can transform a culture.  We see this later in history, when the early Christians, a minority in the pagan Roman Empire, transformed that culture over the course of several centuries.  Peter in 1 Peter 2-3 instructed early Christians in Asia Minor in ways to do that in their circumstances.  

In the case of the cities of the plain, there just weren't enough righteous people present to salvage those towns.  Lot was there, but he doesn't seem to have had any help. 

Seder 15: Jeremiah 33---God's Faithfulness to His Covenants

 In the final days of the kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem falling to the Babylonians, God sent a message through the prophet Jeremiah giving assurance that he had not abandoned his people.  Restoration would come, with spiritual cleansing and the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Jer 33:6-11).  The Messiah would come to rule over Israel (vv 14-16).  

God affirms his commitment to his covenants, including the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:16) and his covenant with Phinehas (Num 25:11-13).  These things, God says, are as sure as the rising and setting of the sun (Jer 33:20-21), which is guaranteed by God's covenant with Noah (Gen 8:22).

Christians believe that Jesus is now the eternal occupant of the Davidic throne.  Jesus' connection with David is emphasized in the Gospels, beginning in Matthew 1.  Luke's genealogy in Luke 3 traces Jesus' legal ancestry---the ancestry of Joseph---back to David (and ultimately to Adam) by a different route. 

How God's commitment to the Levitical priesthood might play out in the future is as yet unknown.  We know that a future role for Levites is also part of Ezekiel's visions (Ezek 40:46; 43:!9; 44:15; 48:11). On the other hand, we don't know for sure that there will ever be another earthly temple.  In their commentary on Jeremiah, Walter Kaiser and Tiberius Rata ask, "Is this language, then, using older liturgies to make the future understandable to those in Jeremiah’s time? This is one suggestion as to how we are to understand such contrasting ideas" (p. 470).

Seder 96: Psalm 126---Sowing Seeds in Faith

 For the Jewish exiles who returned to Jerusalm from Babylon starting in 538 BC, coming back to the land of promise was like a dream come true (Ps 126:1).  Words of the prophets were being fulfilled.  The repetition of "the Lord has done great things for them/us" in verses 2-3 suggests that the psalmist may have had in mind in particular Joel's prophecy, since a similar phrase also appears twice in Joel 2:20-21.  (Walter C. Kaiser points this out in his book The Journey Isn't Over.)

But other things in the prophecies were not happening yet---e.g., the bountiful harvests described in Joel 2:22 and 3:18 had not occurred, as we see in Haggai 1:6.  And so the people prayed for further restoration--Ps 126:4.

In answer to their prayers, God sent prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who affirmed that God would bring blessing when the people stepped out on faith and put God first.  Psalm 126:5-6 uses the imagery of a harvest to communicate this lesson.  

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!" (v 5)

Sowing may involve tears, since one has to give up grain that could provide food right now in order to plant a crop of grain.  Before anything can sprout, the seed must die (see John 12:24).  But the sacrifice is worth it.  The harvest reaped will far exceed the seed sown.  The psalm concludes, "He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shourts of joy, bringing the sheaves with him."

It is still the case that there is much fulfillment of biblical prophecies yet to occur.  We should continue to sow seed, because the greatest harvest still lies ahead.

Seder 60: Exodus 21-22---Applying the Decalogue in Ancient Context

 Exodus 21-23 give a series of examples that apply the principles of the Ten Commandment in ancient Israel's ancient Near Eastern context.  Some of the examples (Exod 21:1-22:17) are stated in the form "If ..., then ......"  These are called casuistic laws.  Later examples have the form "You should do x" or "You should not do y."  These are called apodictic laws. 

I have found Exodus 21 to be one of the most challenging passages of scripture.  The examples come from a historical and cultural context very different from ours, and so there is much to learn about that context in order to make sense of some of the cases.  Each case can be the source of an interesting discussion.

Exodus 21 begins with some examples involving servitude.  The Israelites had recently left a condition of slavery, and God will forbid them from subjecting anyone else to what the Egyptians had done to them. 

 The revelation in Exodus prohibits what we would usually call "slavery."  Stealing is forbidden in general, including in particular kidnapping people and selling them---what we call "human trafficking" (Exod 21:16).  Moreover, everyone in a household was to be allowed to rest every Sabbath (Exod 23:12).  

But when people became completely impoverished, there needed to be a way for them to survive.  The way discussed in Exodus 21 is a kind of indentured servitude, where an impoverished person would work for someone else for a set period of time.  

In some cases a family might become so poor that they could not afford a dowry for their daughter.  In that case they might arrange a marriage for the daughter as both a servant (presumably for some set period of time) and a wife.  Exod 21:7-11 is meant to protect a young woman in that situation.  

One unusual case appears in Exod 21:22, where two men are fighting and one accidentally strikes a pregnant woman, apparently causing her to give birth prematurely.  There is a large literature on this verse, trying to determine what it might have to say about the issue of abortion.  

Commentaries on this section of scripture contain helpful information like the following:

• A number of the examples in these chapters have parallels in ancient Near Eastern law codes.  One thing that distinguishes the Torah from these codes is that in general, the Torah places greater value on preserving life and less value on property than other ANE sources.  Also, the Torah is more egalitarian, not according greater value to elites as other codes do.  
• A number of examples mention the death penalty.  For crimes other than first-degree murder, death is a maximum penalty rather than a mandatory one--see verses 29-30 for an example.  This claim is based on Num 35:31, which specifies that capital punishment should not be replaced by a fine in the case of first-degree murder.  Implied then, is the idea that capital punishment can be replaced by a fine for other capital crimes.  (I first learned about this principle from Walter Kaiser's book Toward Old Testament Ethics.)
• The lex talionis ("an eye for an eye", etc.) is not about personal revenge.  Instead, it is the judicial principle that the punishment for a crime should fit the crime.  Only in the case of "life for life" has it been taken literally in Jewish law.  Verses 26-27 illustrate applications of the principle.  When a master causes serious injury to a worker, putting out an eye or a tooth, the worker is to be set free.  (This is one of the places where Exodus 21-22 differs from Hammurabi's Code, which states a literal application of "eye for an eye" in number 192.)  

Seder 26: Psalms 121 and 133---Faith and Fellowship on the Journey

 Psalms 121 and 133 are two of the "psalms of ascents", the psalms from 120-134.  These psalms are traditionally associated with the journey to Jerusalem for one of Israel's pilgrimage festivals---Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.  A number of books have been written about these psalms, and these books often reflect on the guidance these psalms give for people at various stages of life's journey.  

Two such books are Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and Walter Kaiser's The Journey Isn't Over.

In Psalm 121 the pilgrim looks up to the hills (the journey to Jerusalem was uphill), perhaps with a mixture of anticipation (of coming into God's presence at the festival) and anxiety (of what dangers may lie ahead on the journey).  At this point the pilgrim either (a) states that the source of his help comes from those hills (as in the KJV); or (b) asks (perhaps rhetorically) about the source of his help.  Either way, the psalm makes clear that the pilgrim puts his faith squarely in God as the source of help.  The same God who is in covenant with Israel is also the creator and ruler of everything.    The Psalm goes on to poetically state that God's help is available at all times and places, now and forever. 

At the festivals people came together from many places to worship God in unity, celebrating a common heritage of redemption.  Psalm 133 reflects upon how sweet and refreshing that unity is.  It looks back to a time when Israel enjoyed great unity, at Mt Sinai when Aaron was anointed Israel's first high priest (Lev 8).  

Seder 5: Gen 6-7---One Pair or Seven Pairs?

One frequently-asked question about Gen 6-7 is why God instructs Noah to include a pair of each type of animal on the ark in Gen 6:19-20, then has Noah include 7 pairs of each clean animal and one pair of each unclean one in Gen 7.

Critical scholars often charge that these accounts are contradictory and result from two different accounts of the Flood being poorly patched together to form these chapters of Genesis.

Conservative scholars, on the other hand, see no contradiction here.  In one literary pattern that sometimes appears in the Bible, an instruction is described first in general terms, then repeated in more detail.  Gen 6-7 is a good example.  (Num 14:20-35 is another.)  Noah's instructions are given in broad strokes in Gen 6, then laid out in more detail in Gen 7.

A good source here:  Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible, IVP, 1996.