An in-depth look at the foundational books of the Old Testament clearly illustrates that these are not just random samplings of ancient near-eastern literature, but rather a curated, highly organized integral whole, composing a macro-narrative of God’s active presence in creation and the lives of His people – with whom God Himself seeks to interact in paradisical communion as an eternal demonstration of His own nature of love, grace and mercy. This is patently obvious from the introductions of these foundational works, all of which begin with the Hebrew conjunction vav, indicating that the work can only be understood in the context of the whole of scripture, through their conclusions, integrating themselves into the foundational narrative of scripture. This reality is explored throughout the review of each of these foundational books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Through this review of these foundational works, this paper articulates God’s eternal presences in the lives of humanity as He presents answers to the timeless questions of Life and the Universe. Ultimately this paper demonstrates that the great questions of humanity and those of the entire universe requires a great deal more than picking the number 42 at random, as Douglas Adams suggests in his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The biblical understanding of the cosmos and its orchestrated purpose requires a foundational framework to gain the context of understanding – like the walls of a building require a foundation, and the roof requires walls to sit on. Even though it seems counterintuitive that to be covered by a roof, you must first build a floor. So too, comprehension of the ultimate questions that beseech humanity throughout the ages requires some foundation work. To be covered by the blood of Christ, you must first build the foundation of context.
The primary foundation of the great architecture of scripture is Genesis, the majority portion of narrative foundation upon which the bible is built. This book utilizes two different structural devices. The key to understanding the first is the repeating of “the same (toledoth) title: ‘These are the generations/descendants of’ (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19 36:1).”[1] Comparing the narrative sections that follow these titles reveals similarities that point to a typological understanding of a universal plan of blessing that God has for humanity. This plan involves God working to defeat sin and end the curse, ultimately bringing blessing upon all nations of humanity (Ge 22:18). For example, Noah is shown to be a new Adam through whom God provides a reset on creation. However, just like the original Adam, Noah’s first recorded action is one of sin ending in the requisite covering of his nakedness (Ge 9:23), indicating that God’s redemptive work will require a greater protagonist, one that will ultimately fulfil God’s promise to slay the serpent (Ge 3:15). As the story of Genesis progresses, we see the focus of God’s plan being refined, to semitic people (descendants of Shem), to Abram (Abraham), and finally to the family of Jacob (Israel). The outline of Genesis also seems to fit our architecture quite well. It consists of the creation foundation (the Hexaemeron (Ge 1:1-2:3) or six days of creation – this section spans eternal past up until the creation of man), the walls (Protohistory (Ge 2:4-11:26) which spans from man’s creation through the account of the flood ), and the roof (the Patriarchs (Ge 11:27-50:26) – we see in these a substantive structure for redemption, including the Abrahamic covenant, which all work to prepare the way for the Lord’s first delivering of his people to the promised land[2], by way of another exile, this time to Egypt).[3]
In the Hebrew mind the Torah, which is often translated as law, but which may be better understood as instruction[4], was a single literary work. The Pentateuch likely came about as a result of the process of separating the work into 5 manageable scrolls. But each work is securely attached to the preceding material by the Hebrew conjunction vav, . Following Genesis, which articulates man’s ultimate exile from fellowship with God, comes the book of Exodus, which is the beginning of man’s return journey back (or at least one of the numerous iterations of their return journey back). Moberly concludes “One possible way of reading the book as a whole is to see Exodus as probing the meaning of servitude and freedom…Israel is delivered from slavery to Egypt…a slavery of heartless oppression, so as to become a slave to Yahweh instead.”[5] This slavery emphasis seems somewhat myopic, and is one in a myriad of typological dichotomies, where Israel is being delivered from one extreme to another. Indeed, there is some indication in the text that confrontation with Pharaoh is a rematch between Adam and the serpent in the garden, evidenced by the way the ten plagues begin with Moses exercising the Lord’s power over the serpent (Ex 7:8-13). This picture might provide our slavery motif with a more redemptive nuance: in the Exodus, the people are led away from serving Pharoah (whose head-dress is cobra-shaped) to serving Yahweh. Further nuances we could add would include the dichotomy of life in the toil of the curse/life in the spoil of the promised land, and the transition from exile from Immanuel to that of tabernacling with Him, once again as in Eden. The time period covered by the exodus is the 400 years following the death of Jacob. Moberly breaks Exodus into 8 sections, but I would simplify it into 6: the oppression of exile (Ex1:1-7:7), God’s mighty deliverance (Ex 7:7-11:10), the exodus and wilderness testing (Ex 12:1-17:16), the first Sinaitic covenant (Ex 18:1 -19:22), the priestly covenant (Ex 19-31), covenant breaking and fixing (Ex 32-40).
Following Exodus is the book of Leviticus, again affixed to the preceding books with the vav, indicating it is one of a whole testament communicated in the Torah. Leviticus covers the period of time after the commissioning of the Tabernacle at Sinai. Leviticus’ primary purpose is to deal with the very real problem that God’s people face in the midst of Immanuel, which is: now that the Holy One of Israel dwells in the midst of the people (Lv 1:1), how are they to live in such a way that will not bring about their destruction (Le 10:2-3)? While there are numerous minor characters who are used to present these lessons (Aaron, Nada, Abihu, and Aaron), it may be more accurate to think of this book as having two characters: God and His people. The structure the book uses to achieve its primary purpose is straightforward – it consists almost entirely of a large body of codified laws. It is Ironic, however, that with such an essential purpose in view, the book falls short of ever definitively delivering the people from their peril, as no means of atoning for intentional sin is ever conveyed through the law[6].
Israel is still at Sinai at the commencement of the book of Numbers, beginning where Exodus leaves off, again with the conjunction vav indicating the continuity of the whole (Nu 1:1). The book “concludes with Israel on the plains of Moab…poised to enter the land under Joshua’s leadership.”[7] Structurally, the book is similar to Leviticus in that it mingles narrative with codified law, in a way that is difficult to understand in our modern western context but would make sense to the ancient Hebrew’s concept of instruction (see footnote 3). The trajectory of Numbers follows God’s working in the people of Israel through two generations: the exodus generation (represented by the Moses, Aaron, Miriam, the cowardly spies and Korah’s group) who disqualify themselves from the promised land through their disobedience (Nu 14:23), and the wilderness generation (represented by Joshua, Caleb, and Phineas) who, while not disqualified themselves, still prove to be a similarly adulterous and stiff-necked people (Nu 25). It is interesting too that the righteousness of the wilderness generation shines brightly only when compared to the hard-heartedness of their forefathers, but such is the longsuffering of Yahweh, they earn admittance to the promised land even while managing to quench the provision of God, as is evidenced by their population collapse during their wilderness wanderings.[8] However the Balaam/Balak (Nu 20-25) account solidifies this idea that Israel will thrive as a nation because Yahweh is with them. Despite all the people’s sin, the Lord will continue to bless them. This will be a continued theme throughout the Narrative Foundations, but begs the question: how much longsuffering will the Lord have towards His people?
This question is answered prophetically in Deuteronomy, a series of sermons delivered by Moses from the plains of Moab before the nation of Israel enters the promised land. Moses, the last remaining member of the wilderness generation (and also the last to be disqualified for unbelief (Nu 20:12)[9]), prophetically warns the people of manifold cursing, up to and including the exile that will inevitably befall them once they enter the blessing of the Lord, and then forget Him (Dt 4:25—34, Dt 28). This curse motif is picked up Nevi’im and Ketuvim.[10] The primary purpose of Deuteronomy is to be a megaphone, or an exclamation point at the end of the Torah. It’s Moses’ final attempt to imprint upon the hearts of God’s people His word to them, that they do not neglect to follow it when they come into the prosperity of His blessing (Dt 6:10-19). This must not be interpreted in a legalistic sense, as Moses is clear to indicate that the purpose of the Torah is not that of a binding operational framework, but rather it is a doxological reminder, for those whose hearts love the Lord (Dt 10:12). For Moses (as Paul correctly saw (Ro 2:28-29, 7:12), orthodoxy begets orthopraxy.[11] Thankfully, judgement is not the final word in Deuteronomy as Moses predicts a way back to the Lord’s good graces and provision, “Israel’s exile cannot be the final word on the land because of Yahweh’s compassion and the irrevocability of His covenant with Israel (Deut 4:31), when the people repent he will regather then (30:1-5). However, the book is clear: Israel’s occupation of the land and her prosperity are contingent on fidelity to Yahweh.”[12] From this perspective, it is natural to conclude that Yahweh’s fidelity to ethnic Israel continues past the Ezra-Nehemiac exodus, and that this theme of the people’s return to the blessing of Yahweh must be carried into the eschaton.
The book of Joshua is, as its predecessors, introduced with the Hebrew conjunction vav indicating that it exists within the preexisting narrative framework created by the Torah[13]. The book continues Israel’s story, and God’s narrative where Deuteronomy leaves off, both chronologically – after the death of Moses, and traces the conquest of the promised land until the death of Joshua – and thematically – showing a stalwart continuity with the requisite reverberations of the Torah. “The people are ordered under the Torah, Joshua himself is called to show a right attitude toward it (Js 1:7-8), and the conquest itself is mandated in the Torah.”[14] The primary issue preventing the conquest mandate from being fulfilled is that there are already a people dwelling within the land. This can lead to some theological embarrassment: how could a good God demand complete eradication of the inhabitants of Canaan? This is in part explained by the rampant immorality of the Canaanites (Ge 15:16; Le 20:23; De 9:4-5,m 12:29-32).[15] God makes it clear, the “ban of destruction” is not an ethnic cleansing, but a spiritual one. The Canaanites who worship Yahweh (ref. Rahab in Js 2) and those who deal shrewdly within His moral framework (ref. Gibeonites in Js 9) are permitted to live in the promised land, while the Israelites who do not (ref. Achan, Js 7:1) are not.[16] [17] The Israelites fail to fully possess the land as they were commanded (Js 13), a failure that will facilitate future patterns of idolatry as Israel blends undefiled religion (the worship of Yahweh) with idolatry (the worship of the gods of the Canaanites).
The main theatre in which this pattern plays out is in the book of Judges, a drama which unfolds in the days after Israel’s conquest of the land but before God gives them a king. The immorality and anarchy of pre-monarchial Israel is the primary theme of the book. “The refrain ‘in those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit’ (17:6; 21:25; cf. 18:1; 19:1) punctuates the message of Judges.”[18] Tragically this relative morality leads to a downward spiral of depravity, concluding with the bizarre yet nauseating account of the Levite and his concubine, the resultant annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin, and the subsequent mass wife-kidnapping (Jg 19-21). Many other characters and Judges show up in the book, acting as cascading steps down this morally degrading spiral. There are also undertones in the book of the importance of not just having any king, but the right one. This is presumably the author’s intent behind painting the tribe of Benjamin in such a poor light, juxtaposed against the tribe of Judah, which often saves the day. In this the author is covertly condemning Israel’s initial coronation of Saul the Benjamite, rather than a king from the Tribe of Judah, as is called for in the Torah.[19]
As is made exhaustively clear in the book of Judges, the remedy for the moral decay in the land is a king for the land. The books[20] of Samuel[21] recount the process by which the Godly monarchy comes to be, covering the lifespan of the primary characters: Samuel, Saul, and David. Revealed through the books of Samuel, is a theme more fundamental than the formation of the monarchy: the sovereignty of Yahweh’s word and covenant work. After Samuel is established as Israel’s ultimate Judge, the people demand a king to rule them (1Sa 8). In the context of the corruption in Samuel’s house and in the Judges-no-king-motif, it comes as a literary surprise when not only Samuel, but Yahweh Himself, is displeased at the peoples’ request (1Sa 8:6-9). Evidently the faithful response to the felt need for kingship would have been to cry out to the Lord and wait for Him to work. The result of the people’s hasty coronation is the non-dynastic reign of Saul. A reign that quickly goes awry resulting in Saul’s disqualification from kingship for disobedience (1Sa 13:14, 15:23). Now in Israel, just like in Egypt, the Lord’s people are ruled by a unrightful king. The remainder of 1 Samuel shows how the rightful king, David, waits upon the Lord to bring about David’s rightful kingship, even when extreme restraint is required on his part (1Sa 24 & 26). David’s trusting in providence is a sharp contrast to the brashness that brought about the kingship of Saul, and leads to one of the most important contributions to scripture, the Davidic covenant (2Sa 7:9-16), in which Yahweh further narrows the Messianic promises passed down through the Torah. This blessing, both for all the nations generally and for ethnic Israel specifically, will come from David’s seed, to whom Yahweh guarantees an everlasting throne. There is also a thematic chiastic center seen in 2 Samuel 21-24 that indicates that these eternal blessings for David’s progeny will bring with them blessings for all of Israel.[22] Yet the kingship of David is marred by great sin (2Sa 11 & 24) and as a result his reign was marred by rebellion (2Sa 24).
The books[19] of Kings[23] trace the activates of the kings of Israel (and of Judah and Israel after the nation is divided (1Ki 12:16-20)) up until the Babylonian exile. The characters are each consecutive king, and with the narrative of these kings comes an evaluative air, determining whether each king in view ruled according to God’s instruction, with a heart after God’s own like that of David, or if the king in view ruled according to the idolatrous nations of Canaan. Characters of the Books of Kings also include other various foils like Jezebel, who work to draw Israel further into idolatry, and Yahweh’s prophets, who work as a restraining force against it. Underlying it all is this biblical concept of the serpent crusher (Ge 3:15), a Messiah who would come and free the people from the curse brought upon Eden. One has to wonder, as they read the account of Solomon, David’s first heir, if the people had thought they had received their Messiah as king, as waving palms and cries of blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord seem to leap from the pages as one reads of Solomon’s splendor, which include the accounts of him receiving supernatural wisdom in a theophanic encounter with God (1Ki 9), building the greatest temple that was subsequently brimful of shekinah, and ushering in a period of global peace and prosperity unlike anything seen in human history before or since (1Ki 10). Yet in the height of his glory, he turned his heart away from following the Lord (1Ki 11), instead worshiping the pagan gods of the surrounding nations, resulting in the removal of the Lord’s full blessing. This tragic pattern is seen throughout the remainder the Books of Kings, where the longsuffering of Yahweh is provoked ever more by the idolatrous acts of the Kings. As the Books progress, a pattern emerges illustrating threats to the messianic line of David, yet through it all we see Lord’s preserving hand at work[24]
As the Nevi’im concludes the audience of scripture finds the people of God in a forlorn predicament. Israel’s priests, kings, and prophets have failed to deliver her, because she is not only the victim of sin, but the culprit. The Lord’s apostate people have been carried off as exiles, and the Messianic line seems to have vanished. At this point in redemptive history, the question begs, how can God bring about redemption for His people when they sabotage His redemptive efforts at every turn? Even the mightiest inevitably fall. Adam, the pinnacle of human perfection, brings the curse. The very first act of Noah, the preserver of all life, is to wallow in drunken nakedness. Moses is disqualified through unbelief, David, Solomon and all the mighty kings thereafter fall short. It would seem that all the tools God has in His arsenal are exhausted!
It is only the faithful student of scripture that knows what to do when it seems as if the Lord’s promises have failed: wait! This is a state that Christian’s find ourselves in on a seemingly daily basis. At this very moment in my own life, I find myself in this predicament. My marriage has been tough – although I suppose most of them are hard at times. In my marriage, many of our issues center around my wife coming to the decision, after we got married, that she didn’t want to have any more children, and instead wanted to focus on her career. After many painful and prayerful years, the Lord changed her mind on this matter, unfortunately by that time the curse of sin had drastically impacted our reproductive capabilities. However, through a miraculous series of events (that you can read about here https://travisirvine.com/miracle-babies/) the Lord provided us with two miracle baby girls. This of course did not solve all of our issues, but the Lord continued to work on both of our lives. Two years later (just over a year ago today) I found myself praying through 2 Timothy 2:15. Previously this had not been a scripture of particular interest to me, nor was I really expecting God to do anything in particular to answer that prayer, but that very month, seemingly out of the blue Sara and I conceived. We decided to name the baby Isaac. A few months later my wife began to have difficulty with the pregnancy, and through it all, I was a pillar of faith for her, certain that God had told me that we were going to have this baby Isaac. As things progressed my prayers became a more desperate, “Lord, please give me my baby Isaac back from the grave.” It was in praying this that I had a great peace and felt the Lord tell me that He would indeed give us baby Isaac back, but soon after, we lost him. What could I do in this situation? Well, the faithful student of scripture knows what to do when it seems as if the Lord’s promises have failed: wait! So, for the past year I have waited for baby Isaac to come back from the grave, which has not been an easy pill for my wife to swallow. Some other huge disappointments have come this past year, but in them I felt the Lord telling me, “just wait, something big is coming in April.”
I write these words on April 22nd. My beloved wife, who through all of these things has been transformed from an ambitious businesswoman to one who desires to be a stay-at-home pastor’s wife, now desperately wants another baby. Yet recently (now just months away from her 44th birthday) she told me she has lost all hope of conceiving again. Yet I wait.
My childless Sara has had severe morning sickness for the past 4 days, and is showing other symptoms of being with child, although it is still a few days too early to say one way or the other and pregnancy tests keep coming back negative. I have so many doubts. So much weakness. Did I just imagine it all? Did God really say these things to me? Am I going to look stone-cold crazy to my wife and others that have heard this tale. We’ll know for certain very shortly. But I can confidently say that Sara and I have reached the end of ourselves. Once again, we find ourselves in a place of no hope, waiting for the miraculous work of God.
Yet this is the position the faithful always find themselves in, just look to Hebrews 11 as your paradigm of hopeless causes! This utter dependance on the working of God is intrinsic to believers throughout all of the Narrative Foundations on through all of Church History and into my own intertestamental period that I find myself in right now. Believers throughout find that it is in this dearth of human resources that God sets the stage for His great work. Indeed His greatest work, that of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and even if it turns out that I am just stone cold crazy, and God isn’t giving me baby Isaac back from the grave, God has given us His miracle baby, Jesus! In Him, we find a new representative of humanity – far superior to Adam, a new Savior of the world – who far exceeds the righteousness of Noah, a new mediator of the law – one who could keep it completely, and a new King of Peace – one who can serve the Lord perfectly and usher in a Edenic era far superior to that of Solomon. We find that the narrative foundation of the Bible articulates conclusive answers to the questions of Life, the universe and everything else perplexing cosmos. The universal answer is: Christ! And the universal call, wait on Him! We must practice a life of utter dependance on this preeminent Messiah because He is creation’s only hope. Jesus has come to fix what is broken, and we must trust in Him.
[1] Gordon J Wendham, Book of Genesis, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 247-248
[2] Or perhaps the second as the deliverance of Noah’s ark could be considered the prototypical promised-land deliverance
[3] Ibid. 248
[4] Instruction not only in what some might call the codified legal portions of the Torah, but also didactically through the narrative portions. For example, the reader of the Torah would be instructed in the redemptive framework, by an understanding of the failure of the first (national) Sinai Covenant (Ex 19:9-22 cf. Dt 5:22-31)
[5] R. W. L Moberly, Book of Exodus, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 215
[6] Paul L. Redditt, Book of Leviticus, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 448
[7] Kent L. Sparks, Book of Numbers, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 540
[8] Ibid. 538
[9] There is a great deal of debate over the exact nature of Moses’ disobedience in striking the rock at Meribah, as the only charge brought by the Lord is “you did not believe in me…” (Dt 20:12). The main point of this incident becomes clear when the faithful exegete does not burden it with extrabiblical supposition. The fact that Moses the bringer of the law, and arguably the most righteous adherent to it, is disqualified due to unbelief, when viewed through the lens of the preceding Torah which spoke of Abraham, who came before the law, and was considered righteous, because he believed. The significance of this reverberates throughout the New Testament. Ge 15:6 cf. Ro 4:1-22, Ga 3:6-9, He 11:8-10, & He 11:17-19
[10] An interesting note on prophecy is that the majority of future predictions, are just the Prophets’ reiterations of the Lord’s preexisting promises of Judgment for idolatry. Prophecy is less about knowing the future and more about knowing the scripture!
[11] Daniel I. Block, Book of Deuteronomy, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 540
[12] Ibid. 172
[13] Indeed all the Narrative Foundation books bear this vav and are thus canonically affixed to this foundational body.
[14] J.G. Mconville, Book of Joshua, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 407
[15] Ibid.
[16] Another apologetic for ban of destruction lies in the Creator’s prerogative. It is divine right to issue land deeds to whomever He wills. Yahweh in this instance had done so for Israel, making the Canaanites the invaders, not Israel. (a situation unique in human history.)
[17] One final, more esoteric, apology suggests that Yahweh did have an ethnic cleansing in mind when He orders the ban of destruction. Yet it is not a Canaanite ethnicity in view, but a demonic one (ref. Js 11:22, cf. Ge 6:4; Nu 13:33; Dt2:10, 21, 9:2 & 1 Sa 17:4-7)
[18] J. Alan Groves, Book of Judges, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 412
[19] Ibid.
[20] In the TaNaK, books 1 and 2 are the same literary work, separation may have begun due to scroll size limitations.
[21] See footnote 13
[22] Brian E. Kelly, Books of Samuel, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 718
[23] See footnote 13
[24] Richard s. Hess, Books of Kings, in DTIB , ed Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerAcademic, 2005), 424