Deuteronomy 9:23-10:5

23 And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. 24 You have been rebellious against the LORD as long as he has known you.

25 Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the LORD when the LORD intended to destroy you, 26 I prayed to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, 28 otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.’ 29 For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

The Second Pair of Tablets (Ex 34.1-9)

10:1 At that time the LORD said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.” 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 Then he wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. 5 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me. (Deuteronomy 9:23-10:5, NRSV)

On March 1, 2007 (Thursday in the week of the First Sunday of Lent, Year One), comments were repeated with revision and supplement from February 17, 2005, (Thursday in the week of the First Sunday of Lent, Year One); the comments are repeated again here:

In yesterday’s reading, Moses reminded the Israelites of their sin in making and worshipping the Golden calf (Deut. 9:8-21, with reference to Exod. 24:12-18; 32). In the interval between yesterday’s reading and today’s (Deut:9:22), Moses lists other instances of Israel’s rebellion. “At Taberah also,” he says, “and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the LORD to wrath” (Deut. 9:22). At Taberah, the people complained and “the fire of the LORD burned against them” (Num. 11:2, 3, cf vv. 1-3). At Massah, the Israelites demanded water, and though Moses rebuked them for testing the LORD, he struck the rock to provide water (Exod. 17:2, 6, cf. vv. 1-7. At Kibroth-hattaavah, quail were provided for the people, but because of their “craving” (hv!x3T1, ta’ ^awāh, Num. 11:4, 34), “the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague” (Num. 11:23-24, cf. vv. 31-35).

In today’s reading, Moses refers to the time when he sent “men to spy out the land of Canaan” (Num. 13:1; cf. chaps. 13-14). “And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him” (Deut. 9:23). Moses expresses his exasperation. “You have been rebellious against the LORD as long as he has known you” (v. 24). But he moves on to report his intercession at the time of the Golden Calf affair, essentially offering “a paraphrase of Ex. 32:11-14” (Bernard W. Anderson, NOAB, 2^nd ed., 1994, on Deut. 9:25-29). “Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the LORD,” says Moses, “when the LORD intended to destroy you, I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand’” (Deut. 9:25-26). Moses petitioned the LORD to “remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” As he intercedes for the people, he says, “pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin” (v. 27). Moses provides the LORD with a reason for mercy, “otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness’” (v. 28). “For they are the people of your very own possession,” says Moses, “whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arms” (v. 29). “In Deuteronomy,” says Anderson, “Moses is portrayed as the ideal prophet (34:10-12) who intercedes for the people and who suffers on their behalf (1:37; compare Isa. ch. 53)” (ibid,.).

Next Moses tells how God instructed him to “carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood” (Deut. 10:1), how he followed instructions (v. 3), and how the LORD wrote “the same words as before” (NOwxr9h! bT!k4m09K1 , kammiktāv hāri’šôn, “according to the first writing”), “the ten commandments” (Myr9b!D4, d^evārîm, lit. “words”) again (v. 4) as he had promised (v. 2). “So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me” (v. 5). To verses 1-5 compare Ex. 34:1-4, 27-28, in which the ark is not mentioned. Rabbi J. H. Hertz says, “Some of the Midrashim, followed by Rashi [the outstanding Jewish Biblical commentator of the Middle Ages, who lived in the 11^th and 12^th centuries] are of opinion that there were two Arks–a temporary Ark made by Moses on receipt of the Tables, and the permanent one prepared later by Bezalel [Ex. 25:10-11]” (Pentateuch & Haftorahs, 2^nd ed., 24^th printing, 1981, p. 787, on Deut. 10:3 ). He cites another Rabbinic tradition: “Moses also deposited in the Ark the fragments of the First Tables that had been broken. . . . ‘One should learn from this, to show respect to a scholar who has forgotten his learning through age, sorrow or illness’ (Talmud). We must respect the aged, though they be broken by years and trouble (ibid., p. 788, on v. 5).

Hebrews 4:1-10

The Rest That God Promised

4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“As in my anger I swore,

‘They shall not enter my rest,’ “

though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. 4 For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he sets a certain day-“today”-saying through David much later, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. 9 So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; 10 for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:1-10, NRSV)

On January 19, 2008 (Saturday in the week of the First Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two), comments on Hebrews 4:1-13 were repeated from earlier, as noted there; also on March 22, 2008 (Holy Saturday, Year Two) comments on Hebrews 4:1-16 were repeated from earlier, as noted there. The following comments are based on relevant comments for today’s reading, Hebrews 4:1-10, from these earlier comments:

Chapter four of Hebrews continues to interpret the quotation of Psalm 95:7-11 in Hebrews 3:7-11. According to the biblical narrative, with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, the generation of Israelites that left Egypt under Moses’ leadership, failed to enter Canaan with Joshua. The Psalm quotation concludes with God’s oath. “As in my anger I swore, / ‘They will not enter my rest’ ” (Heb. 3:11; cf. Ps. 95:11). Hebrews understands the Psalm as a promise of “rest” not attained by the Israelites but remaining for the future.

Apparently, according to Hebrews, entering the “rest” was not completed by the conquest and settling of the promised land. If we look ahead in Hebrews, the rest is to be associated with the following.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24 NRSV; cf. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT, rev. ed., 1990, on Heb. 12:22-24).

So the writer to the Hebrews begins today’s reading with a promise: “the promise of entering his [God’s] rest is still open” (Heb. 4:1). The promise to the Israelites is matched by the promise to us. “For indeed the good news came to us just as to them” (v. 2a), and receiving and benefitting from this promise depends for us, as for them, upon faith: “but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (v. 2b). According to Bruce,

The promise of entering the “rest” of God remains open. The meaning of that “rest” was not exhausted by the earthly Canaan which was entered by the Israelites. . . the spiritual counterpart of the earthly Canaan is the goal of the people of God today. . . . The good news which was proclaimed to them, summarized in such Old Testament passages as Ex. 19:3-6; 23:20-33, told them how the God of their fathers, who had delivered them from Egypt, would bring them safely to the promised land and give them possession of it, and would make them “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” to himself, if only they would obey his voice and keep his covenant. (ibid., on 4:1)

The “rest is defined in relation to God’s resting on the seventh day of creation (Heb. 4:4). The failure of the first Israelite generation to enter the rest is blamed on disobedience (v. 5), emphasized by the reference to Psalm 95 and the repeated quotation of verse 11 (Heb. 4:3, 5). The writer continues to interpret the Psalm.

"Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts." (Heb. 4:7, citing Ps. 95:7-8 LXX)

Noting that the Psalm addresses a later generation of Israelites already living in Canaan, the writer concludes that Joshua [ =Ihsou:V, Iesous] had not “given them rest” (Heb. 4:8), but “a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God” (v. 9). What is this rest? Bruce answers:

It is evidently an experience which they [the readers of Hebrews] do not enjoy in their present mortal life, although it belongs to them as a heritage, and by faith they may live in the good of it here and now. . . . [There are] further references to the eternal homeland which is the heritage of believers, the saints’ everlasting rest–the “better country, that is, a heavenly one” which they desire, the “city” which God has prepared for them, the well-founded city of which he is both architect and builder (11:10, 16). Of this city of God men and women of faith are citizens already, although the full exercise of their civic privileges in it is reserved for the future. (ibid., on 4:9-10)

These words are from the second edition of Bruce’s commentary, published in 1990, twenty-five years after the first edition, and shortly before his death that year. Bruce himself is now surely in “the full exercise” of his “privileges” in the “city of God.”

John 3:16-21

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (John 3:16-21, NRSV)

On August 11, 2008 (Monday in the week of the Sunday closest to August 10, Year Two), comments on John 3:1-21 were based on earlier comments of January 21 and 22, 2008 (Monday and Tuesday in the week of the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two), and on earlier comments as noted there. Relevant comments for yesterday’s reading were repeated yesterday; the remainder, relevant for today’s reading, are repeated here:

The reference to “eternal life,” provided by Jesus’ crucifixion and atonement (John 3:14-15, leads into the favorite biblical verse of many, what has been called “the Gospel in a nutshell”: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). It is worth taking note here of the emphasized statement of the source of God’s action. The word translated “so” (Ou{twV, Houtōs) in the phrase, “God so loved the world,” comes first in Greek for emphasis: Ou”twV ga;r hjgavphsen oJ qeo;V to;n kovsmon (houtōs gar ēgapēsin ho theos ton kosmon, “For God so loved the world”). The word for “world” (kovsmoV, kosmos) has a variety of meanings, including “that which serves to beautify through decoration, adornment, adorning,” a “condition of orderliness, orderly arrangement, order,” “the sum total of everything here and now, the world, the (orderly) universe, in philosophical usage.” But more particularly, in the present context (Jn. 3:16), while it can mean “humanity in general, the world” (e.g. Mt. 18:7), the term here is used “of all humanity, but especially of all believers, as the object of God’s love” (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich [BDAG], 2000, s.v. kovsmoV, kosmos; my emphasis with bold print). The result of such love that God has for all humanity is stated in the next clause: “God so loved (Ou”twV, Houtōs) . . . that (w{ste, hōste) he gave his only son.” The conjunction w{ste (hōste “so that”) introduces “dependent clauses,” as here, “of the actual result” (BDAG, s.v. w{ste, hōste). Raymond E. Brown comments on the word “loved” (hjgavphsen, ēgapēsin). “The aorist [verb tense] implies a supreme act of love. Cf. 1 John iv 9: ‘In this way was God’s love revealed in our midst: God has sent His only Son into the world that we may have life through him.’ Notice that in 1 John the love is oriented toward Christians (‘we’) while in John iii 16 God loves the world” (The Gospel according to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29, 1966, on Jn. 3:16).

The description here of God’s Son, whom he was moved by love to give, calls for comment. The words (to;n uiJo;n to;n monogenh: (ton huion ton monogenē, (Jn. 3:16; cf. monogenh;V qeovV, monogenēs theos, variant reading, monogenh;V uiJovV, monogenēs huios 1:18) have been variously translated: “his only Son” (NRSV), “his one and only Son” (TNIV), “his only begotten Son” (AV/KJV), and so forth. The word monogenhvV (monogenēs) describes the “only son” of the widow at Nain (Lk. 7:12) whom Jesus raised from death (vv. 11-17), as an example of how the word pertains “to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship, one and only, only.” But more particularly, as in John’s usage here, it pertains “to being the only one of its kind or class, unique (in kind) of something that is the only example of its category” (BDAG, s.v. monogenhvV, monogenēs). There is none other like Jesus.

The next clause is a statement of purpose, the purpose of God’s giving. He “gave his only son so that [or ‘in order that’ ( i{na, hina) everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. The expression, “everyone who believes in him” combines the verb pisteuvw (pisteuō), “believe,” and the preposition, “in” or “into,” is one expression with this verb that means “to entrust oneself to an entity in complete confidence, believe (in), trust, with implication of total commitment to the one who is trusted” (BDAG, s.v. pisteuvw, pisteuō). The Lexicon adds that in our literature “God and Christ are objects of this type of faith that relies on their power and nearness to help, in addition to being convinced that their revelations or disclosures are true.” The verb for “perish” (BDAG, s.v. ajpovllumi, apollymi), as used here (middle voice), can be a cry of anguish by sailors in a storm-tossed vessel, but especially, as here in John, of eternal death. But the alternative, for those who believe, is eternal life (a common theme in the Gospel of John, e.g. 3:36; 4:14; 5:24, and so forth).

John 3:16, the “Gospel in a nutshell,” has a paragraph of its own in the New Revised Standard Version. Raymond E. Brown, sees connections backward–“the theme of Jesus’ death” (vv. 14-15)–and forward: “If [v.] 16 assures us that the purpose of the Father’s giving the Son in Incarnation and death was eternal life for the believer, [v.] 17 paraphrases this in terms of salvation for the world” (op. cit., on Jn. 3:16).

The following verses spell out the contrast between the results for those who believe in God’s Son (v. 16), and those who do not. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (vv. 17-18). God’s purpose was to provide for those who believe in his Son, not to condemn the rest. But the consequence for those who do not believe is spelled out; they are “condemned already.” The contrast here is explained in terms of light and darkness. “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (v. 19). Not only do some “love darkness,” but “all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed” (v. 20). On the other hand, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (v. 21)

Brown notes similarities in this “dualistic vocabulary of vss. 19-21 (light/darkness; practicing wickedness/doing truth)” to the dualism of Qumran texts (i.e. Dead Sea Scrolls): “According as man’s inheritance is in truth and righteousness, so he hates evil; but insofar as his heritage is in the portion of perversity, so he abominates truth” (1QS iv 24, cited by Brown, p. 148, on Jn. 3:19-21).

If there is a twofold reaction to Jesus in John, we must emphasize that the reaction is very much dependent on man’s own choice, a choice that is influenced by his way of life, by whether his deeds are wicked or are done in God (vss. 20-21). There is a consistency in the two sides of the dualism: evildoers are disbelievers, while good works and faith go together. Thus, there is no determinism in John as there seems to be in some passages of the Qumran scrolls. . . . the idea is that Jesus brings out what a man really is and the real nature of his life. Jesus is a penetrating light that provokes judgment by making it apparent what a man is. The one who turns away is not an occasional sinner but one who “practices wickedness”; it is not that he cannot see the light, but that he hates the light. (ibid., pp. 148-149, on Jn. 3:1-21)

We need not find ourselves in that last group. “But these [signs/this book] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31).

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

deanworden@comcast.net