Nehemiah 9:26-38

26 "Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. 27 Therefore you gave them into the hands of their enemies, who made them suffer. Then in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hands of their enemies. 28 But after they had rest, they again did evil before you, and you abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you rescued them according to your mercies. 29 And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. 30 Many years you were patient with them, and warned them by your spirit through your prophets; yet they would not listen. Therefore you handed them over to the peoples of the lands. 31 Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

32 "Now therefore, our God--the great and mighty and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love--do not treat lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until today. 33 You have been just in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly; 34 our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors have not kept your law or heeded the commandments and the warnings that you gave them. 35 Even in their own kingdom, and in the great goodness you bestowed on them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you and did not turn from their wicked works. 36 Here we are, slaves to this day-slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts. 37 Its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins; they have power also over our bodies and over our livestock at their pleasure, and we are in great distress."

38 Because of all this we make a firm agreement in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests. (Nehemiah 9:26-38, NRSV)

The following comments are repeated here from November 8, 2005 (Tuesday in the week of the Sunday closest to November 9, Year One):

The historical prayer of confession continues with “a summary interpretation of the period from Joshua to the destruction of Jerusalem” (Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Neh. 9:26-31). This summary is comparable to the introductory summary of the book of Judges (Judg. 2:6-3:6). “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and c ast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and the committed great blasphemies” (Neh. 9:26). The summary here continues with reference to the enemies “who made them suffer,” but they “cried out to you [God]” and “you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hands of their enemies” (v. 27). But this pattern became a repeating cycle. “But after they had rest, they again did evil before you, and you abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you rescued them according to your mercies” (v. 28). This cycle repeated itself over and over, and God warned them again and again. “And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey” (v. 29). “Many years,” they pray, “you [God] were patient with them, and warned them by your spirit through your prophets; yet they would not listen” (v. 30a). And this repeated cycle of rebellion, punishment, repentance or crying to God, and deliverance includes the Babylonian captivity. “Therefore you handed them over to the peoples of the lands” (v. 30b). Even so, God’s judgment was tempered by grace and mercy. “Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God” (v. 31).

The next paragraph appeals to God, “the great and mighty and awesome God, keeping covenant (habb^erîth) and steadfast love (hachesed), calling upon him to “not treat lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until today” (v. 32). The LORD, they say, has “been just in all that has come upon us” (v. 33) though “our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors have not kept your law or heeded the commandments and the warnings that you gave them” (v. 34). This disobedience, they admit was in spite of God’s manifest blessings. “ Even in their own kingdom, and in the great goodness you bestowed on them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you and did not turn from their wicked works” (v. 35). They decry their present position as subjects of the Persian empire, as “slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts” (v. 36). Their proposed remedy for the present situation, against the background of such disobedience, rebellion and suffering of punishment, is to “make a firm commitment in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests” (v. 38). The next chapter begins with a list of the names of those who signed the document (Neh. 10:1-27). “These signatories include persons and clan names from several previous lists (Ezra 2//Neh. 7; Ezra 8), but also reflects a broader religious; and social participation” (Eskenazi, on 10:1-27). A commitment is also recorded from “the rest of the people” (v. 28) who “join with their kin, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his ordinances and his statutes” (v. 29).

or Nehemiah 4:1-23 (alternative reading, Presbyterian and Lutheran traditions)

For the text and comments of this reading see the text and comments of Saturday, November 3, 2007, ten days ago.

Revelation 18:9-20

9 And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; 10 they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,

"Alas, alas, the great city,

Babylon, the mighty city!

For in one hour your judgment has come."

11 And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, 12 cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves-and human lives.

14 "The fruit for which your soul longed

has gone from you,

and all your dainties and your splendor

are lost to you,

never to be found again!"

15 The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,

16 "Alas, alas, the great city,

clothed in fine linen,

in purple and scarlet,

adorned with gold,

with jewels, and with pearls!

17 For in one hour all this wealth has been laid waste!"

And all shipmasters and seafarers, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off 18 and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning,

"What city was like the great city?"

19 And they threw dust on their heads, as they wept and mourned, crying out,

"Alas, alas, the great city,

where all who had ships at sea

grew rich by her wealth!

For in one hour she has been laid waste.

20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints and apostles and prophets! For God has given judgment for you against her." (Revelation 18:9-20, NRSV)

The following comments are based, with some editing and supplement, on earlier comments from November 8, 2005 (Tuesday in the week of the Sunday closest to November 9, Year One), from comments on Revelation 18:1-14 from November 11, 2006 (Saturday in the week of the Sunday closest to November 2, Year Two), and from comments on Revelation 18:15-24 from November 13, 2006 (Monday in the week of the Sunday closest to November 9, Year Two):

In Saturday’s reading (Nov. 10, 2007), one of the angels shows John “the judgment of the great whore who is seated on many waters” (Rev. 17:1), that is, “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations” (v. 5). “As we noted, “Babylon” is a kind of code for Rome. In yesterday’s reading (Nov. 12, 2007), another angel announces the fall of “Babylon”: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great” (18:2b), and the reading (Rev. 18:1-8) continues as a “dirge over the fallen city” (Bruce M. Metzger, NOAB, 2^nd ed., on Rev. 18:1-24).

Today, the “dirge” continues. “And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning” (18:9). These kings “will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, ‘Alas, alas, the great city, / Babylon, the mighty city! / For in one hour your judgment has come’ ” (v. 10). Jean-Pierre Ruiz sees here the beginnings of “Lamentation of those who have been enriched through their dealings with the corrupt city” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Rev. 18:9-20), including kings (vv. 9-10, as noted.

Another group of those who lament the demise of Rome is “the merchants of the earth [who] weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves-and human lives” (vv. 12-13). The merchants address “Babylon”: “The fruit for which your soul longed / has gone from you, / and all your dainties and your splendor / are lost to you, / never to be found again!” (v. 14). The lament of these merchants concludes with a kind of refrain: “The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, ‘Alas, alas, the great city, / clothed in fine linen, / in purple and scarlet, / adorned with gold, / with jewels, and with pearls! / For in one hour all this wealth has been laid waste!’ ” (vv. 15-17a).

The final group to lament the demise of Rome includes “all shipmasters and seafarers, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea [who] cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, ‘What city was like the great city?’ (vv. 17b, 18). This group “threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, ‘Alas, alas, the great city, / where all who had ships at sea / grew rich by her wealth! / For in one hour she has been laid waste’ ” (v. 19). But the city that has enriched the kings, merchants and mariners, has been the enemy of the followers of Christ, and so the voice from heaven (v. 4) says, “Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints and apostles and prophets! For God has given judgment for you against her” (v. 20). In the Roman empire, the city was fed by the grain of Egypt and the produce of other provinces.

This critique of “Babylon” and prediction of her fall may, by analogy, apply to cities and corporate structures that defy God’s righteousness and turn themselves into machines for the oppression and destruction of human life. But it is set in the context of the ultimate struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness which, though we customarily refer them to the end of time, were rearing their ugly heads in the late first century of the Christian era. The technologies available to the powers of darkness now, unfortunately, have grown considerably more dangerous in our time.

Should we who live in a world of consumer goods undreamed of even by the Roman elite take something of a warning from this indictment for their fixation on such luxuries? The good life with its amenities is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it becomes deadly when it is gained at the expense of oppressed peoples, slaves and working conditions that border on slavery. The God who pronounced such judgment on the ancient “Babylon” still lives, and is still in control, even in an age of modern Babylons.

Matthew 15:21-28

This reading is presented in the following table for comparison with the parallel passage in Mark:

On October 15, 2006 (the Sunday closest to October 12, Year Two), comments on these passages were repeated from June 12, 2006 (Monday of the week of Trinity Sunday, Year Two), where the comments were combined and revised from June 7, 2004 (Monday of the week of Trinity Sunday, Year Two) from an email sent June 7, 2004 for June 7-13, and from November 8, 2005 (Tuesday of the week of the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year One). The combined and revised comments are repeated again here. For recent comments from the perspective of Mark’s version, see the Archive for August 3, 2007 ((Friday in the week of the Sunday closest to July 27, Year One).

The story of the Gentile woman’s faith is one from that part of Mark which Luke lacks (his so-called “gap” in the use of Mark as a sequence of events), Mark 6:45-8:26. Matthew and Mark have accounts that are close parallels, but with significant differences too, beginning with the designation of her as “a Canaanite woman” (Mt. 15:22) or “a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin” (Mk. 7:26).

The term ‘Syrophoenician’ indicates that this woman was from Phoenicia, located in the Roman province of Syria, or, more specifically, from the area of the old cities of Tyre and Sidon. In the parallel passage (Matt. 15:22), the woman is called a ‘Canaanite,’ an ancient geographical designation that would have included this area. (Philip L. Shuler, in Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 1985, s. v. Syrophoenician)

Dennis C. Duling says that “Canaanite [is] a scriptural term for ancient Israel’s pagan enemies (see, e.g., Deut 7:1; cf. Mk. 7:26) here used to designate a Gentile” (HarperCollins Study Bible, rev. ed., 2006, on Mt. 15:22). The term translated “Gentile” in Mark 7:26 is literally “a Greek woman” (Hellēnis, fem.), but the point, of course, is that she is not a Jew. “The issue about clean and unclean is closely related to the attitude towards the Gentiles,” notes Krister Stendahl (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, sec. 686h, p. 787 on Mt. 15:21-31). Mark calls the woman Syrophoenician (Syrophoinikissa, Mk. 7:26), but Matthew calls her Canaanite (Kananaia, v. 21). The terms could both refer to the same ethnic group, but Matthew’s “biblical term” alludes to “the chief enemies in the time of the Judges, as the epitome of the heathen” (Ibid.). All the more remarkable, then, that “Gentiles could now [in Matthew’s church?] share in the riches at the table of God’s children.”

 Matthew reports that at first, Jesus “did not answer her at all,” adding that “his disciples came and urged him, saying ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after’ ” (Mt. 15:23). In Mark Jesus “entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” (v. 24), so the coming of the woman seems to interrupt an attempt to withdraw from the crowds and get some rest. Jesus responds to her directly, saying “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mk. 7:27; cf. Mt. 15:26). By children, Jesus means the Jewish people, as reflected in Matthew’s pointed statement, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24; cf. 10:5-6, in the instructions for the mission of the Twelve). One would like to think that Jesus speaks of throwing the children’s food to the dogs (Gentiles) with a twinkle in his eye. His last words in Matthew’s Gospel call for the disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (panta ta ethnē, a term often translated “Gentiles”), and in Matthew’s Gospel the first persons to recognize the newborn Jesus and “pay him homage” (Mt. 2:11) are “wise men (magoi) from the East” (2:1), that is, Gentiles. The Gentiles are clearly not forgotten in this most Jewish of Gospels.

 As I remember, Tom Mullen’s book on The Humor of Jesus included this remark about the dogs along with the saying about the camel and the eye of the needle (Mt. 19:24//Mk. 10:25//Lk. 18:26) and others. (Tom Mullen is a former Dean of Earlham School of Religion.) Jesus certainly “makes it up to her” in the end. “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (Mt. 15:28). The word “dogs” is an insult, of course, But “to Jesus’ insistence that the manifestation of the kingdom (food) is primarily for Israelites (children), she gives a reply that wins the debate” (Richard A. Horsley, NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Mk. 7:27-28 cf. Mt. 15:26-27). I believe that since Jesus commended her faith, “great is your faith!” (Mt. 15:28, cf. “For saying that . . .” Mk. 7:29), and healed the daughter, that must have been his intention all along, and the “debate” was intended to bring out the woman’s expression of faith. William Barclay points to her love for her child, and her faith, a “faith which worshipped,” for “she began with a request; she ended in prayer” (The Gospel of Matthew, Daily Study Bible, 2^nd ed., vol. 2, pp. 122-123). She also had “indomitable persistence” (p. 123) and “the gift of cheerfulness” (p. 124):

This woman brought to Christ a gallant and an audacious love, a faith which grew until it worshipped at the feet of the divine, an indomitable persistence springing from an unconquerable hope, a cheerfulness which would not be dismayed. That is the approach which cannot help finding an answer to its prayers. (Barclay, p. 124)

There is further irony in the saying of Jesus, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24, noted above; lacking in Mark), after which he proceeds to heal the daughter of a Gentile woman. But joking aside, there are serious issues here, the place of Gentiles in Jesus’ kingdom and the mission of the church. In both Gospels this account follows the speech about the “tradition of the elders,” which criticizes Pharisees for focusing on external piety and neglecting defilements that proceed from the heart. Jesus has moved into Gentile territory, “the district of Tyre and Sidon (v. 21, cf. Mk. 7:24).

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

deanworden@comcast.net