CTJ 37 (2002): 9-27

Paradise Lost:
Reading the Former Prophets
by the Rivers of Babylon
Ane C. Leder

After the archangel Michael escorts Adam and Eve down the cliff to the
"subjected Plaine" and disappears, John Milton portrays the couple's unhappy
state and unattended future as follows:
They looking back, all th'Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Some natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.1
Thus, Milton takes his reader through Genesis 3 of the biblical narrative.
These lines will also take the reader to the rivers of Babylon where solitary
Israel, having recendy been removed from the presence of the Lord in
Jerusalem, can only acknowledge the words the poet assigned to Adam on his
way out of the Garden of Eden:
Greatly instructed I shall hence depart.
Greatly in peace of thought, and have my fill
Of knowledge, what this vessel can contarne;
Beyond which was my folly to aspire.
Henceforth I learne, that to obey is best,
And love with feare the onely God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend.
From Joshua through the books of the Kings, the Former Prophets teach all
generations of Israel to fear the only God and to remember the folly to which

ir
This, the following, and the quotation at the end are from "Paradise Lost," Book XII, 641-45 and
557-64. John Milton, English Minor Poems, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica, Great Books of
the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952).

9
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

they aspired and are constantly tempted to seek. We, the Christian inheritors of
this literature, far away from earthly Jerusalem but in the presence of the Holy
One by the Spirit of Christ, are not wiser or better lovers of the only God. As our
ancestors by the rivers of Babylon we, too, are challenged to hear the Former
Prophets and to depart from our reading "gready instructed," filled with that
knowledge "beyond which [it is our customary] folly to aspire."
Until recently the Former Prophets were read as continuing the history of
Israel begun and developed in the Pentateuch, always recognizing the latter as
a distinct unit—the books of Moses. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
critical scholars also argued for continuity between the Pentateuch and the
Former Prophets but did so on the basis of the extension of the pentateuchal
sources as far as Kings. Scholarship dealt with J, E, D, and — as distinct literary
units or redactions, and the story of Israel was no longer that found in the
Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. In 1938, Gerhard von Rad, on the basis
of what he determined to be the earliest statement of Israel's faith history in
Deuteronomy 26:5-9, argued that the story begun with Abraham comes to its
proper conclusion in Joshua. In addition to reading the Pentateuch and the
following books on the basis of the underlying sources, scholarship now was
confronted with a Hexateuch 2 (Genesis through Joshua). Shortly thereafter,
Martin Noth argued 3 that Deuteronomy was the introduction to Joshua
through Kings and that together these books formed the Deuteronomistic
History. There are good reasons for reading the Former Prophets in the light
of Deuteronomy—the language and theology of Deuteronomy reverberate
throughout the Former Prophets—but a Deuteronomistic History reduces the
Pentateuch to a Tetrateuch, a narrative with an unsatisfying ending. In addi-
tion, the book of Ruth, which followsJudges in Protestant Bibles, was excluded
from the Deuteronomistic History because in the masoretic organization of
the canon it is found among the Writings.
Reading the narrative of God's dealings with the nations and Israel from
Genesis through Kings on the basis of underlying sources, or parts of it with a
hexateuchal or Deuteronomistic approach, has consequences for understand-
ing the whole as received and read in the church. 4 With respect to Deuterono-
my, I understand it to perform a double duty. Like a hinge, 5 it concludes the

2
Gerhard von Rad, "The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch," in The Problem of the
Hexateuch and Other Essays (London: SCM, 1984), 1-78.
3
Martin Nodi, The Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981); first published in
German in 1943.
4
On the problems of teaching the historical-critical method in the academy and its conse-
quence for reading the Old Testament as Scripture, see Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology
and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 13-33.
5
Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. "Pentateuch," by David Noel Freedman, 717; and James A.
Sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), 36, 44-45. This avoids leaving Genesis-
Numbers as inconclusive torso.
 PARADISE LOST

Pentateuch and connects the books that follow to the pentateuchal story such
that they should be read in the context of this meganarrative, not only in the
light of Deuteronomy. Reading the Former Prophets only as part of the
Deuteronomistic History separates it from the narrative problem defined at
the beginning of the Pentateuch, its subsequent development, and its partial
resolution in Deuteronomy. Thus, in this article, I will briefly discuss the nar-
rative problem the Pentateuch defines and develops through Deuteronomy
and then present a reading of the Former Prophets in the light of that devel-
opment. I will also briefly touch on Ruth's contribution to and its canonical
function within the Former Prophets. Finally, I will make some comments on
preaching the Former Prophets as an exercise in the torah piety these
Scriptures place before God's people on their "solitarie [but no longer un-
attended] way" to paradise regained.

T h e Narrative Problem of the Pentateuch:

Refusal of Divine Instruction
In his discussion of narrative, plot, and development, J. P. Fokkelman writes:
The full-grown story begins by establishing a problem or deficit; next, it can
present an exposition before the action gets urgent; obstacles and conflicts
may occur that attempt to frustrate the dénouement, and finally there is the
winding up, which brings the solution of the problem or the cancellation of
the deficit.6
Adam and Eve's refusal of divine instruction (Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-8) and the
consequent expulsion from the presence of God in the garden constitutes the
deficit at the beginning of the Pentateuch; it defines humanity's "solitarie way."
Their refusal of divine instruction brings the curse of death from which flow all
manner of disorder upon Adam and Eve's descendants: fratricide, vengeance,
wickedness, and violence. When Noah obediently builds the ark, the narrative
describes that submission to divine instruction (Gen. 6:14-22), which is the only
avenue of escape from the "solitarie way" of Adam and Eve's descendants; but
Babel confirms humanity's dedication to defining its own resolution to the dis-
order that threatens. Subsequently, God promises Abram land and progeny
(Gen. 12:1-3), though Sarai is barren (Gen. 11:30). This divine speech, like
those of Genesis 2:15-17 and 6:14-22, is instruction for life in the presence of
God: submission to these words will bring Abram into the land, bring about
blessing for him, for his descendants, and through him, the nations. Thus,
when we read, "So Abram left, as the Lord had told him" (Gen. 12:4), the nar-
rative depicts Abram son of Adam submitting to the Lord's instruction and
moving toward the Promised Land—the "Eden" (cf. Gen. 13:10) where God
would dwell among his people. With Abram, God begins to undo Adam's

6
J. P. Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide, trans. Ineke Smit (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 1999), 77.
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

refusal of divine instruction and its consequences among all Adam's descen-
dants. Consequently, Abram and all his descendants are greatly instructed.7 In
terms of Fokkelman's definition, God's speech in Genesis 12:1-3 anticipates
the cancellation of the deficit defined in Genesis 2-3.
The rest of the Pentateuch describes how this occurs. Abraham's journey
toward the land continues with his descendants who, when they reach Mt. Sinai,
receive covenant instructions that bind them to God as well as building instruc-
tions for God's dwelling place among them (Ex. 25:8-9). Israel's initial refusal of
these building instructions—they, too, are true descendants of Adam and Eve—
and their construction of the golden calf brings them to the brink of total
destruction (Ex. 32:10). Saved through Moses' intercession, forgiven Israel man-
ufactures the tabernacle appurtenances in accordance with divine instruction
(Ex. 39:42). After Moses assembles the Tent of Meeting and places the furnish-
ings where they belong, the glory cloud fills it. At the end of Exodus, not only
Abraham's descendants but also Adam's progeny—by way of Abraham—are in
God's presence; not by finding their own way back, but by God's gracious bring-
ing them to himself. In this manner, the conclusion of Exodus depicts a solution
to the narrative problem at the beginning of Genesis: The exile from God's pres-
ence has been undone by God's dwelling in Israel's midst.
This solution, however, is only partial; Israel still lacks the instruction to live
with proper fear in the divine presence. From the Tent of Meeting (Lev. 1 : l-2a),
Moses receives and then teaches Israel the divine instructions for clean, holy,
and priestly living in the Lord's presence; the death of Nadab and Abihu con-
veys the consequences of refusing such instruction (Lev. 10:1-3, cf. 24:10-23).
Numbers 1-10 describe Israel's devoted submission to divine instruction in
their organization of the camp,8 but complaints and disobedience to instruc-
tions erupt into the journey from Sinai to the Promised Land, and the genera-
tion that left Egypt will die in the desert for refusal to enter the land (Num.
11-25, esp. 13-14). In the remaining chapters, Moses cautions the second gen-
eration not to repeat this rebellion against God's instructions. In Deuteronomy,
Moses' instructions have the narrative effect of canceling the deficit established
in Genesis 3: Experienced in the first generation's refusal of instruction and
reinstructed in his presence, God's people, now fully instructed, await entrance
to the land, Veil watered like the garden of Eden" (Gen. 13:10).

^This address shapes "the entire subsequent sacred history." Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A
Commentary, rev. ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 159. When von Rad writes, "man's judg-
ment and salvation will be determined by the attitude he adopts toward this work which God
intends to do in history" (160), he ignores the instructional character of Gen. 12:1-3 in favor of the
category of event or history. With respect to v. 4, however, he acknowledges that the narrator
"understands Abraham here merely as the object of a divine command" (162).
Israel's submission is repeatedly indicated: Num. 1:19,54; 2:33,34; 3:39,51; 4:47; 5:4; 8:20, etc.
 PARADISE LOST

Pentateuch as Torah: Instruction

This brief review of the Pentateuch indicates that it is a narrative of instruc-
tion that depicts the way back into God's presence. It is neither merely histori-
cal narrative nor law.9 Deuteronomy itself illustrates this unique character of
the Pentateuch. Framed by historical narrative, it begins and ends by identify-
ing Moses' instructions as "this law" (Heb. torah, 1:5; 32:46; and see 33:4); in
between Moses interprets "the Sinai covenant. He does not offer a new law, but
by means of a rehearsal of the history of Israel since Sinai, he seeks to inculcate
obedience to the divine law had once and for all constituted the nation."10
Although this mixture of historical narrative and speeches is called torah only
in Deuteronomy, the term is applicable to the Pentateuch as a whole. Where
Pentateuch only means "five-fold book," torah fits the content and function of
this literature: Torah explains the necessity for, the refusal of, and the manner
in which instruction is brought about for God's people on the way to the land
where they will live in God's presence. 'The Torah's literary genius," writes
Adele Berlin, Vas the invention of long prose narrative, which surrounds and
overwhelms all the other ancient literary forms. . . . [It is] a genre that sub-
ordinates other genres for its own ends."11 That end is instruction. Using nar-
rative, genealogy, lists, poetry, legal, building, and holiness instructions
Genesis-Deuteronomy instructs its adherents in the story of paradise lost and
brings them from their "solitarie way" to the plains of Moab, the door of Eden,
"greatly instructed."
Moshe Greenberg elaborates on this character of the Pentateuch. Torah,
he says,
serves as the rule or discipline of Israel as a priestly order. That is how the
covenant stipulations are conceived of in Exodus 21-23, in the book of
Deuteronomy, and in the priestly corpus. They are intended to convert the
entire people into an order of priesthood, "a kingdom of priests, a holy
nation" (Exodus 19:6). The classical prophets suppose that this conception

Samara Cohn Eskenazi ('Torah as Narrative and Narrative as Torah," in Old Testament
Interpretation: Past, Present, and Future. Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker, ed. James Luther Mays, et.
al. [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 13-30) argues that understanding Torah as "law" obscures
the narrative nature of Torah.
10
Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament, 211-12. For a discussion of Deuteronomy as torah or
catechesis, see Dennis T. Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 6-22.
11
Adele Berlin, "On the Relationship between Narrative and Law," in "A Wise and Discerning
Mind": Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long, ed. Saul M. Olyan and Robert C. Cully, Brown Judaic Studies
325 (Providence: Brown University, 2000), 28. Later she writes: 'The law and the Tabernacle are
the two manifestations of God's presence. The law is a permanent record of the divine revelation
and the Tabernacle is the locus of the ever-renewing revelation.... In the Torah, there could be
no set of laws without the narrative of revelation and no narrative of revelation without the laws.
The laws would have no raison d'être without the revelation narrative and the revelation would have
no content without the laws" (30).
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

of the Torah as directed to the education of the whole people was known to
their audiences. 12
Greenberg also suggests that the law was made available in a public document
13
"to function as a pedagogue, a trainer in a course of life" for the people of
God. In a similar vein, Walter Brueggemann argues that the Torah articulates
a world of coherence that speaks with authority against the chaos that threat-
ens. Torah, he suggests, discloses without argument or commentary, what binds
a community and allows its ongoing generations and those who join it to
assume a secure identity within. 'The narrative form of the Torah," writes
Brueggemann, "intends to nurture insiders who are willing to risk a specific
universe of discourse and cast their lot there." 14
Israel in the land or exile heard then, and the spiritual inheritors of the
Pentateuch unambiguously hear today, that divine instruction in the presence
of God is the only way to life. This instruction does not change nor is its bind-
ing character linked to any particular people or land; it is rooted in God's self-
revelation at Sinai. Thus, Sinai and not Egypt nor Canaan, is the source of
Israel's instruction; this instruction is not subject to change by imaginative15
reconstruction and contextualization for the production of a relevant, indige-
nous theology that speaks to the local culture. Accordingly, the Lord instructs
his people through Moses:
The Lord said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘ am the
Lord your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live,
and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing
you. Do not follow their practices Keep my decrees and laws, for the man
who obeys them will live by them Do not defilé yourselves... And if you
defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were
before you.'" (Lev. 18:1-3,5, 24, 28; cf 20:22-24)
No earthly soil can produce or sustain the life of God's people. Torah is all
there is wherever they are: Jerusalem, Babylon, Egypt, even to the ends of the
earth—it is more than enough (Matt. 28:18-20). The Pentateuch is divine
instruction, torah, rooted in Sinai. How does this shape our understanding of
the relationship between the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets?

12
Moshe Greenberg, 'Three Conceptions of the Torah in Hebrew Scriptures," in Die Hebräische
Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für Rolf Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. E. Blum,
C. Macholz, E. W. Stegemann (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 366.
13
Greenberg, 'Three Conceptions of the Torah," 371.
14
Walter Brueggemann, The Creative Word: Canon as a Modelfor Biblical Education (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1982), 27.
15
See footnote 25.
 PARADISE LOST

Divine Instruction—Torah—in the Land.

From the perspective of plot development as described above, the Former
Prophets fully cancel the deficit defined in Genesis 1-3. When Israel receives its
rest in the land, fully instructed and committed to obeying the Lord's instruc-
tions (Josh. 24:21; cf. 1:7-9 [to Joshua]; 23:6-8 [to Israel]) it regains Paradise,
that is, it occupies the space designated for the kind of service God instructed
Adam to render in the garden. Thereafter it is a question of shaping time and
space according to God's instructions alone. The land, its gods, and their devo-
tees were not allowed to contribute to this project; Torah as God's alien work
and word would transform the land under Israel's priestly service. The rest is
history, a history narrated from the viewpoint of evaluating Israel's response to
Torah in the land of promise.

Torah in the Former Prophets

The clustering of the noun torah in Joshua (1:7, 8; 8:31, 32, 342; 22:5; 23:6;
24:26; HC0Q rrnn in Josh. 8:31, 32; 23:6 ) and Kings (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 10:31;
14:6; 17:13,34,37; 21:8; 22:8,11; 23:24,25; nm rrnn in 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6;
23:25) forms a frame within which Joshua through Kings develops its plot and
comes to a conclusion. More specifically, the Former Prophets depict a call to
torah piety in the first element of the frame and the consequences of failure to
exercise such piety in the second. Within this torah framework, the Former
Prophets, in a rhythm of promise and failure, tell the story of Israel's entry into,
management of, and ultimate expulsion from the land.

Joshua and Judges

Joshua narrates Israel's obedient conquest of the land under the torah lead-
ership of Joshua. During his leadership and that of his generation, Israel receives
the land from the Lord, enjoys rest from all its enemies (Josh. 21:43, 44), and
serves the Lord as promised (Josh. 24:18, 22, 31; Judges 2:7). Judges 2:10-19
points to the failure of the generations who "did evil in the eyes of the Lord and
served the Baals" (2:11). There follow the cycles of the judges through whom
God graciously intervenes repeatedly, but Israel does not change her ways.
Judges closes with the sordid accounts of entrepreneurial religion, rape, dis-
memberment of a prostitute to call Israel to war, fratricide, and the theft of
brides for the leftovers of Benjamin. "In those days," the narrator intones, "Israel
had no king; everyone did as he saw fit" (Judg. 18:1; 19:1; 21:25).
Hearing Joshua and Judges by the rivers of Babylon, Israel learned that its
Torah commitment was so shallow that it took only one generation to forsake
the Lord (Judg. 2:10), that a plurality of leaders in different locations could not
hold the community together, and that some of these leaders were seriously
flawed. Israel would need consistent national leadership because it was inca-
pable of living out of God's instruction on its own; by nature, Israel sought
blessing from the local fertility gods (cf. Jer. 2:23-24).
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Samuel and Kings

Samuel opens with a devastating illustration of Israel's condition: loud and
rude Peninah, immensely fertile by nature; Hannah, barren and distressed;
and the feckless Eli who fails to recognize Hannah's distress and whose sons
abuse the priesthood. Samuel then goes on to describe how the Lord's
promised word to Hannah (1 Sam. 1:17) is fulfilled through Samuel, Saul, and
especially David whose leadership the Lord promises to secure among his
descendants forever (2 Sam. 7). Thus, Samuel narrates how the Lord abases
the proud among Israel—Peninah—and its leadership: Eli, Hophni, Phinehas,
and Saul; and exalts the lowly among Israel—Hannah—and raises them to
national leadership: Samuel, Saul, and David. However, even the righteous
David fails: His sin with Bathsheba and the ineffective administration of justice
in his own household threatens to ruin God's kingdom. Kings opens with an
aged, less than vigorous David and the battle for Solomon's succession. After
Solomon's accession to the throne, David reminds him that his observing the
Lord's instructions will secure the throne ( 1 Kings 2:3; cf. 9:1-9). Subsequently,
Solomon administers the kingdom wisely and builds the temple. After the glory
of the Lord fills the temple, Solomon himself exhorts Israel: "your hearts must
be fully committed to the Lord your God, to live by his decrees and obey his
commands as at this time" (1 Kings 8:61). Nevertheless, the promise of faithful
national leadership through the kings ends in dismal failure. Beginning with
Solomon in his later years, the kings exercise leadership with administrations
that compromise God's instructions for such leadership (Deut. 17:14-20) with
pagan paradigms for administering life in the land. Many of the kings intro-
duce elements of contemporary Canaanite religions into Israel's covenant life,
or allow its wholesale redefinition. Ahab in the north (1 Kings 17-19) and
Manasseh in the south (2 Kings 21:1-18) exemplify such revisioning of Israel's
way of life and national leadership. Manasseh's leadership, we are told, "led
(Judah) astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had
destroyed before the Israelites" (2 Kings 21:10; cf. v. 11). Manasseh's grandson
Josiah, the last king in Kings to receive extensive treatment, Valked in all the
ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left." He gave
torah leadership over Judah as Joshua had done over all Israel (cf. Josh. 1:6-9).
Hearing Samuel and Kings by the rivers of Babylon, Israel learned that its
national leadership, like the people themselves—remember Judges—is one
generation away from torah-lessness, David to Solomon and Hezekiah to
Manasseh; that they regularly dismiss the torah warnings delivered by the
prophets (2 Kings 17:13, 18, 23); and that not even Josiah's massive reforma-
tion and submission to the instructions of the law turned the Lord from his
decision to expel Judah from his presence (2 Kings 23:27; 24:3, 20) as he had
expelled Israel earlier. Neglect of torah not only begets a second exile from
God's presence but the awful conclusion that human leadership of God's peo-
ple is fundamentally flawed.
 PARADISE LOST

By the rivers of Babylon Israel understood that it had been expelled from
God's presence for the same reason he drove Adam and Eve from the Garden:
refusal of divine instruction; like Milton's Adam, Israel is now "greatly
instructed" in the benefits and the consequences of ignoring torah piety. This
instruction lies at the heart of the Former Prophets' canonical function,16 as
illustrated by the book of Ruth.

Is Ruth Also a m o n g the Prophets?

Before discussing torah piety in Ruth, it is necessary to examine its canoni-
cal location. Although in the Christian Scriptures Ruth is located in the Former
Prophets, scholarship17 tends to work with the Hebrew manuscript tradition
where Ruth is found in the Writings, following Proverbs or the Song of Songs;
the Greek and Latin traditions—reflected in the Scripture used in the Christian

16
Terence E. Fretheim, (Deuteronomic History [Nashville: Abingdon, 1983], 21) suggests that the
heart of the Deuteronomistic historian's concern is the first two commandments of the Decalogue;
Richard D. Nelson ( The Historical Booh [Nashville: Abingdon, 1998], 75) that the "warnings of Moses
(Deuteronomy 31) andJoshua (Joshua 23) set up the central plot" of the Deuteronomistic History.
^Introductions that treat Ruth as part of the Writings: Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old
Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979); Rolf Rendtorff, The Old Testament: An
Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); Barry L. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament: An
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth, 1995); William Sandford LaSor, et. al.
Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982). Those who treat Ruth among the Former Prophets: Andrew E. Hall andJohn H.
Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) ; Raymond Dillard
and Tremper Longman III, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994);
Erich Zenger, et. al. Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1995). Ruth is
excluded from Fretheim, Deuteronomic History and from Nelson, The Historical Books. Nelson does,
however, include Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, also members of the Writings in the Massoretic
Canon, as the Chronistic History.
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Church—place it between Judges and Samuel. Arguments for or against the

original order—taken by many to be the Hebrew manuscript tradition—are
plentiful but difficult to verify. A more beneficial avenue of approach to this
problem, argues Childs, is "to explore the effect of a canonical ordering on the
reading of the book and the differing theologies involved in the canonical
arrangements of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles."18 For example, following
Proverbs, Ruth would echo the praises of the "worthy woman" of Proverbs
31:10-31 because the narrator so describes Ruth in 3:11.19 This would suggest a
wisdom reading of Ruth, not unlike that suggested for the Joseph story.
Similarly, the phrases "man of standing" (TVÍ ∫121  √ , which describes Boaz in
2:1) and "a woman of noble character" (bviffltfX,which describes Ruth in 3:11)
echo descriptions of Gideon andjephthah as "mighty warrior" (^‘˙ ∫133 and
'‘–– ∫flÁ3, Judges 6:12,11:1), provide a link to Judges, and support the reading
of Ruth as a tale of faith's heroism or the providential ways of God. 20 What,
then, is the effect of locating Ruth between Judges and Samuel?21

T h e Historical Frame
By referring to the judges in Ruth 1:1, the narrator asks the reader to recall
Israel's torah-lessness and the famine, its consequence (Lev. 26:19; Deut.28:23,
24). From these introductory clauses, the narrative narrows down to Elime-
lech's family and finally to Naomi, a woman as bereft of the future as Israel
appears to be. As with Israel in Judges, the reader may expect a judge to come
to Naomi's rescue; the narrative provides two, one totally unexpected. The
chaotic time of the Judges continues in 1 Samuel: The priests are weak and cor-
rupt, the word of the Lord is scarce (1 Sam.3:l), and Israel is powerless against
her enemies—until Samuel becomes ajudge. 'Throughout Samuel's lifetime,"
says the narrator, "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines" (1 Sam.
7:13). Not so during Saul's reign: "All the days of Saul there was bitter war with
the Philistines, and whenever Saul saw a mighty or a brave man, he took him

18
Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 564.
19
Johanna W. H. Bos, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, Knox Preaching Guides (Atlanta: John Knox, 1986), 9.
^Edward F. Campbell, Ruth: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor
Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 35, points to a series of verbal correspondences between
Judges 19-21 and Ruth.
21
Zenger (Einlätungin das Alte Testament, 149-51) argues that Ruth's location between Judges
and Samuel defines it as a counter narrative to the abuse of the Levite's wife in Judges 19-20. He
suggests that the relevance of Ruth for contemporary Christians is found in reading it as a Story of
Women (Frauengeschichte), as a Story of Strangers (Fremdengeschichte), and a Story of Hope
(Hoffnungsgeschichte). Similarly, Michael S. Moore ('To King or Not to King: A Canonical-Historical
Approach to Ruth," Bulletinfor Biblical Research 11, no.l [2001] : 35) understands Ruth as a response
to the politics of despair in Judg. 17-21.
 PARADISE LOST

into his service" (1 Sam. 14:52). David "defeated the Philistines and subdued
them,... the Lord gave David victory wherever he went" (2 Sam. 8:1,14); "he
reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people" (2 Sam.
8:15). David, Ruth's great-grandson, brought an end to the disorder all Israel
suffered during the time of the judges. The connection between Ruth and
David is clearly stated in Ruth 4:17; his name also concludes the Perez geneal-
ogy, which is the second element of the historical frame. Whether Ruth was
written in the early monarchy to exalt the Davidic dynasty or in response to the
strict marriage laws of Ezra, the historical frame—no matter Ruth's canonical
location—requires that the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz be heard in terms
of Israel's repeated evil in the eyes of the Lord during the time of the judges
and the promised future represented by David.

Faithfulness to Law
D. F. Rauber 's well-known study22 describes the Ruth narrative as a move-
ment from Naomi's emptiness: her loss of food, home, husband, and children;
to her fullness: food, a home, and offspring. The behavior of Ruth and Boaz,
the key actors in this movement, fills the emptiness of Naomi's life. Ruth's
behavior is characterized by the manner in which she leaves Moab and what she
does upon arriving in Bethlehem; Boaz in his reception of Ruth in the field and
on the threshing floor and the redemption of Elimelech's fields.
As did Abraham, Ruth abandons her own family and its security and clings23
to Naomi. With the force of a self-maledictory oath, she forsakes her identity—
her people, her gods, a grave in her native soil—to share Naomi's apparently
empty future. When Boaz tells Ruth "I've been told... how you left your father
and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not
know before," (2:11), his words not only evoke the Lord's instruction to
Abraham: "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and
go to the land I will show you" (Gen. 12:1), they also identify the Moabitess as a
daughter of Abraham. Moreover, upon her arrival in Bethlehem Ruth imme-
diately asks Naomi for permission to glean in the fields behind the harvesters,
<t
thereby behaving in accordance with the instruction of the Lord: When you
reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or
gather the gleanings of your harvest. . . . Leave them for the poor and the
alien." (Lev. 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut. 24:19-22) The narrative depicts the Moabitess

^D. F. Rauber, "Literary Values in the Bible: The Book of Ruth,"Journal ofBiblical Literaturen
(1970): 27-37.
23
The verb "to cling" (Ò2∫) evokes Gen. 2:24: "For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united (pal) to his wife, and they shall be one flesh." This verb evokes "firm loyalty
and deep (even erotic) affection," according to Robert L. Hubbard Jr., The Book of Ruth,
International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 115.

19
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Ruth as a daughter of Abraham whose faithfulness to the Lord's instructions

fills Naomi's emptiness.
Similarly Boaz, who when he hears about Ruth's gleaning, instructs his har-
vesters: "pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her
to pick up and don't rebuke her" (Ruth 2:16). Boaz models submission to the
Lord's instructions concerning the poor and the alien. More than that, when
Ruth, at Naomi's shrewd encouragement, asks Boaz to be Naomi's kinsman-
redeemer, he gives evidence of his good faith by giving her six measures of bar-
ley so Ruth would not have to go back empty-handed (Ruth 3:17). Later, Boaz
maneuvers the nearer kinsman to abandon his claims and goes into debt by
redeeming Elimelech's fields. The narrative depicts Boaz as an Israelite whose
pietyfillsNaomi's emptiness: "(he) keeps his oath even when it hurts" (Ps. 15:2,
4). That which the judges accomplished throughout Israel and in national lead-
ership in the time of David, Ruth and Boaz did locally. They are the unexpected
judges who respond to the cry of the oppressed: Their law faithfulness filled
Naomi's emptiness. Their faithful embodiment of the Lord's instructions
restored order to a paradise in trouble.

T h e Canonical Location of Ruth

Of course, Ruth's and Boaz' law faithfulness is an integral part of the narra-
tive wherever it is found in the canon. Its location in the Christian canon, how-
ever, unites this element to and reinforces the prophetic evaluation of Israel's
law faithfulness developed in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. With these
books and within the torah frame that defines the Former Prophets, Ruth's
brief narrative addresses the central problem of Joshua-Kings: Israel's failure to
heed the Lord's instructions and the consequent chaos. Ruth and Boaz' behav-
ior is not merely religious or heroic, they do what God instructed Joshua and
what the people committed themselves to do in Joshua 1,23, and 24. They did
what Israel and Judah failed to do after the judges died and under the leader-
ship of their kings: live by the Lord's instruction. Ruth embodies in narrative
form the instruction of Leviticus 18:5: "Keep my decrees and laws, for the man
who obeys them xmll live by them." Ruth and Boaz model the torah piety that fills the
emptiness of Naomi, and through David, relieves the oppression Israel suffered
at the hands of its enemies; they keep at bay the chaos that threatens when the
Lord's instructions are ignored. With this message, the Ruth narrative occupies
the center and focal point of a second "Pentateuch." Keeping in mind the
rhythm of promise and failure we note the following:
 PARADISE LOST

Josh»
A r ft ' A1 f^ y
Israel Israel ignores Torah piety David brings The kings
commits itself torah; serves brings order to serve other
to keep torah and follows fullness to Israel by gods.
and serve other gods. Naomi and serving God. Torah-
the Lord. Israel's lessness
emptiness

National National National National

promise failure. promise failure

Reading Ruth as modeling torah piety is not a novelty; the Targum to Ruth
understands the Moabitess to be the proselyte par excellence because she sub-
mits to the law without question; and, of course, its liturgical role at the Feast of
Weeks suggests a close tie to the celebration of the law giving at Sinai.24
Moreover, Ruth recalls the central teaching of the Pentateuch and that of
Joshua 22-24: Living by the Lord's instructions will secure Israel's promised
rest. Perhaps the notion of torah piety suggests legalism or work righteousness;
but it need not. After all, divine instruction called for such piety in Eden as well
as after the rescue from Eden. Furthermore, Paul reminds us that Vhat the law
was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful m a n . . . in order that the righteous
requirements of the law might be fully met in us" (Rom. 8:3-4; cf. Matt. 5:17;
John 15:9-17; Lev. 18:5). It is torah piety, the faithful submission to God's
instruction, exemplified by Christ, that alone makes possible life in his pres-
ence.25 Ruth greatly instructs those who weep by the rivers of Babylon in the way
(cf. John 14:6-7) of paradise regained.
Three Gentile-Israelite pairs illustrate and illuminate the theme of torah
piety: Rahab of Canaan who acknowledged the Lord's mighty works and sub-
mitted to the instructions of the Israelite spies and so gained life and Achan of
Judah who ignored the Lord's instructions concerning the booty from Jericho
and died; Naaman of Aram who submitted to the prophetic word and was
cleansed and Gehazi of Israel who craved the things the kings of the nations

24
For Jewish exegesis of Ruth, see D. R. G. Beattie, Jewish Exegesis of the Book of Ruth, JSOT
Supplement 2 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1977).
25
This is abundantly clear from Ezra and Nehemiah; renewal of the covenant and submission
by self-maledictory oath to "do the law of God as issued by his servant Moses," especially these
three: no intermarriage, sabbath observance, and bringing in of the firstfruits and maintenance of
the temple of the Lord (Neh. 10:29-39). The reading of the law itself had been the occasion for
great joy (Neh. 8:1-10).

21
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

desired (2 Kings 5:26) and became unclean. 26 These two pairs illustrate the
prophetic evaluation by contrast: those who have not the law and still do the
things of the law and those who have received the law but ignore it (Rom. 2:14-15).
The third pair, Ruth the Moabitess and Boaz of Israel, illustrate and reinforce
the prophetic kerygma and the promise of torah piety. The contrasting pairs in
Joshua and Kings remind exiled Israel that the nations are not outside the
Lord's will (cf. Gen. 12:3b) and that Israel is not indispensable. Ruth teaches
that Jew and Gentile together, when rooted in the Lord's instructions as true
descendants of Abraham, will not only enjoy the benefits of torah piety but may
also be the Lord's instruments for responding to the needs created by the dis-
order of sin.27 Whether among the nations or Israel, the disorder that threatens
finds its remedy in submitting to the instructions from the Lord. Those who live
in exile or in the rebuilt Jerusalem (Ezek. 18; Ezra 10:2-4; Neh. 8-9) can only
enjoy the delights of paradise regained by torah piety.
By its inclusion, the book of Ruth not only participates in the prophetic
instruction of the other Former Prophets, but it also illustrates the canonical
function of the Former Prophets with its miniature dramatization of true torah
piety. The piety of Ruth and Boaz brings about blessing and life—the kind
envisaged by Leviticus 26:3-13 and Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and a theme con-
templated in Joshua 1:7-9 and 23:6. Its historical framework places this piety in
the context of Israel's disobedience and the role of the monarchy. Like Ruth,
the Former Prophets instruct God's people in torah piety, the consequences of
its abuse (Lev. 26:14-46; Deut. 28:15-68), and the hope of its faithful and kind
(∫œ–) practice. Like Ruth, Israel and its leadership must abandon its false gods
and cling to its covenant Lord. Like Rahab, Ruth, and Naaman, Israel (Achan
and Gehazi) and its leadership must acknowledge the true Lord, confess its sin
of abandoning and provoking God to anger (Judg. 2:10-23; Ezra 9; Neh. 9) and
repent (Lev. 26:40-45; 1 Kings 8:46-51). Yes, Ruth is also among the prophets.

Preaching the Former Prophets

From the creation narrative through Moses' death, the Pentateuch declares
a world that is ordered and secured by God against the chaos that threatens
because of human sin. In the post-lapsarian world, order is secured by God's
word and experienced by submission to it; that is the lesson of the flood and
supremely of Sinai. Proclamation of the Pentateuch discloses what binds 28 the

26
Arie C. Leder, "2 Kings 5 in the Pulpit: One Leper or Two?" in Reading and Hearing the Word:
From Text to Sermon, Essays in Honor of John H. Stek, ed. Arie C. Leder (Grand Rapids: CRC
Publications, 1998), 91-106.
27
Ruth and Boaz are the 'judges" who rescue Naomi.
28
The phrase "the disclosure of binding" is the tide for Brueggemann's discussion of the Torah
mode of knowledge in his The Creative Word, 14-39.
 PARADISE LOST

community throughout its generations: torah, the inscripturated voice of God.

Preaching based on the Pentateuch is torah catechesis, it is horeticP
In the light of its torah frame, preaching the Former Prophets is also horetic.
Where the torah preaching of the Pentateuch declares a world ordered against
the threat of disorder, the Former Prophets evaluate Israel's—the people and its
leadership—stewardship of the land ordered by torah—as defined, for exam-
ple, by Deuteronomy—in the light of Israel's sworn commitment to serve the
Lord according to the instructions of the Lord (Josh. 8:30-35; 23:6; 24:1-28),
including its desire for a king (1 Sam. 8; 10:17-25; 12:16-25). The dissonance
between Israel's promise—Joshua and Samuel—and its failure as indicated by
Judges 2:10-23 and 2 Kings 17:7-23; 21:1-18—creates a proclamation of com-
mitment, reproof, self-examination, repentance, hope, and renewal through
recommitment to a torah piety as illustrated by Ruth. The preaching of the com-
mitment to shape life in the Promised Land by torah is enunciated, for example,
in Joshua 22-24 where an altar and a stone are witnesses to Israel's solemn oath
before the Lord; in the Elisha narratives, which point to the prophet as the
bearer of the word of the Lord for the sake of Israel; and in 2 Kings' evocation
of Hezekiah's trust in the Lord andjosiah's return to torah leadership. The
preaching of reproof and self-examination focuses on Israel's insistent subver-
sion of torah and consequent mismanagement of the land. Prophetic critique of
Israel and its leadership is above all torah critique of Israel's love for cultural rap-
prochement, as in the Elijah narratives and Ahab and Manasseh's syncretistic
administrations. The proclamation of repentance calls Israel back from her wan-
dering ways to the voice of the one who spoke from Sinai (1 Kings 8:46-51).
Hope and renewal for the community is held before Israel through the torah
piety Ruth and Boaz. Prophetic preaching is not anti-torah.
Brueggemann, however, argues that where torah is taken up into the con-
sensus and is essentially uncritical, prophecy expresses a different mode of
knowledge and education that is intrusive, critical, and challenges "the consen-
sus for the sake of a new word from the Lord."30 Although he states that the com-
munity cannot understand the prophets if it has no knowledge of torah, it is the
function of the prophets to teach the arrival of a new truth, an alternative imag-
ination. Thus, where education in the torah mode means receiving normative
articulations of the faith, "education in the prophetic means teaching folks not
to take too seriously official truth about fact, knowledge, value, or power."31 It is
easy to understand this as a tension between the prophet and torah.
According to Brueggemann, however, the challenged consensus is the prod-
uct of the monarchy, an institution foreign to Israel's ideal of charismatic, 'just

29
I owe this term to Stanley D. Walters, see his discussion "Reading Samuel to Hear God," XXX,
below.
^Brueggemann, The Creative Word, 41.
31
Ibid., 42.
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

in time" leadership embedded in the Mosaic covenant traditions.32 Thus, the

prophet does not challenge torah as such but rather the powerful who have
used torah to justify the monarchy. As a lone charismatic voice against stifling
traditions, the prophet disrupts the social manifestations of the consensus of
the powerful. Thus, Brueggemann sets the charismatic, the gifted and pas-
sionate prophet, over against the institutional and the leadership traditionally
associated with it: the king and the priest. Prophetic preaching is imaginative;
priestly and royal management dull and self-serving. In this Brueggemann
reflects certain scholarly reconstructions of the rise of kingship and the nature
of leadership in premonarchic Israel. These have the effect of setting the lone
charismatic leader over against all institutional forms of leadership. Prophetic
preaching is then disruptive of the status quo, not the kind that maintains social
stability. Instances of both can be found in Scripture (2 Sam. 12:1-25; 24:11-25).
The other effect is that the scholarly reconstruction of what "really happened"
in ancient Israel is set over against the biblical narrative with the result that the
received biblical narrative itself is understood to be the product of a self-serving
hegemonic institution.33 There is then no received text that academy and
church read and hear together. Ultimately, what matters most for Bruegge-
mann is Israel's prophetic rhetoric that imaginatively constructs a new reality
and an alternative community, one not characterized by a shape foreign to the
charismatic, egalitarian ideal.34

32
The tension between the Mosaic covenant and the Davidic royal traditions is a fundamental
theme in Brueggemann'swork. See his The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 11-43.
33
This tension between historical critical reconstruction of the biblical text and the received nar-
rative is explicit in the influential work of Norman K. Gottwald who ("The Impact of Ancient Israel
on our Social World," Currents in Theology and Mission 6 [1979]: 84) writes that "biblical" Israel's
memories "lie buried within the official sacred books of the establishment churches, their social
revolutionary content ignored or consigned to past ages." Only a proper imaginative social-scien-
tific reconstruction can rescue these memories. See his massive study, The Tribes of Yahweh. A
SoäobgyoftheReägion ofLiberated Israel, 1250-1050B.C.E. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1979).Brueggemann's
theology of an alternative community is inspired by the ideal "all Israel," an egalitarian community
produced by Gottwald's social reconstruction. Similarly, in his discussion of the conquest of
Canaan, Robert Allen Warrior ("A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and
Indians," in Voicesfromthe Margin: Interpreting the Biblefromthe Third World, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah
[Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991], 290) Argues for historical scholarship's reconstruction of what really
happened in Canaan. He prefers Gottwald's peasant-revolt model and writes: "Nonetheless, schol-
arly agreement [sic] should not allow us to breathe a sigh of relief. For historical knowledge does
not change the status of the indigenes in the narrative and the theology that grows out of it. The
research of Old Testament scholars... does not solve the problem. People who read the narratives
read them as they are, not as scholars and experts would like them to be read and interpreted.
History is no longer with us. The narrative remains."
^Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1997), 122, where he says, uthe utterance is everything. The utterance leads to reality, the
reality of God that relies on the reliability of the utterance." For a discussion on Brueggemann's
notion of normativity, see John Sietze Bergsma, "Normativity in Walter Brueggemann's Theology of
the Old Testament," (Th. M. thesis, Calvin Theological Seminary, 1999). In his latest work (Testimony
to Otherwise: The Witness of Elijah andElisha [St. Louis: Chalice, 2001], 5-25), Brueggemann develops
 PARADISE LOST

This opposition between the charismatic 'just in time" and regularized insti-
tutional leaders can also be traced to the views of leadership in the early church
as proposed by Adolph von Harnack (institutional), Rudolph Sohm (charis-
matic) , the sociology of Max Weber, and the historical reconstruction of Israel's
religion championed by Julius Wellhausen. Where sociologists have moved
beyond Weber's position, according to Rodney R. Hutton, Old Testament
scholarship has not.35 He observes that "Israel's institutions cannot be ran-
sacked in order to find examples of charismatic and institutional forms of lead-
ership." The leaders have different functions, "but each of them is charged
with charismatic power in its own way." Thus, he continues,
As judge, the leader is one who is raised up from among the people to
deliver them from sin and death. As king, the leader is the community's sym-
bolic presence of universal justice and righteousness who, on behalf of the
community, embodies its commitment and passion toward the vulnerable
members of society. As prophet, the leader is the community's primary inter-
cessor, one who intuits how God is speaking to the present situation and
who risks treading on the fringes of appropriateness in order to signify
God's volatile word. As priest, the leader is charged with the integrity of the
community's holiness, with making proper distinctions between what is
foundational for its identity and what will infect it and will diminish the
proclamation of the gospel.36

this tension in terms of an ather of (royal) hegemony and an or of (prophetic) imagination. The
prophetic imagination is necessary, he argues, because "the prophetic narratives are not contem-
poraneous to us and need not be made contemporaneous. They are not relevant to our lives." This
is so because of the gap between the then and now. Even so, these (i.e., the Elijah and Elisha) nar-
ratives "have invited imaginative alternative and have provided the materials for such conviction.
This testimony is the offer of an uncensored, unfettered articulation of the One beyond the ordi-
nary who is enacted through human agency; hearing imaginatively is the responding act that talkes
this testimony, grounded so old and deep, and connects it to present life in a way never before con-
jured, that is, never before the new hearing" (pp. 127-28). The biblical text, then, is only the occa-
sion and invitation for an imaginative speech act, rhetoric, which creates an inviting Otherwise
(= or) over against the royal, domesticated, hegemonic religious and economic either. Moreover,
the connection between the body of Christ today and the people of God in Old Testament
Scripture is not organic, neither as a body spiritually engrafted into the olive root (Rom. 11:17-21),
nor as a people inheriting the same received text. It is rather a connection of charismatic rhetoric
and its imaginative power.
35
See Rodney Hutton's discussion on "Charisma, Office, and Theological Method" in his
Charisma and Authority in Israelite Society (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 1-16.
36
Hutton, Charisma and Authority, 209-10. Indeed, Hutton suggests that the community itself
must be understood in some sense as charismatic, in touch with the transcendent, and that it vali-
dates its leaders by acknowledging the requisite charismata in different ways (pp. 98-104; 130-37).
So Paul speaks of the church and its leadership: no charismatic personalities apart from the
charismatic community itself. It is not therefore a matter of setting the charismatic over against the
institutional.
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Prophets are critical. They challenge, and their messages are intrusive—not
of torah nor of the monarchy as an institution foreign to Israel's ideal but of
torah-lessness, of a false articulation of torah in a given moment (1 Kings 21,22).
They intrude on the comfortable consensus shaped by attempts at revitalizing
torah with up-to-date revisioning enabled by the Baal and Ashtoreth worldviews
(Jer. 2:8; 2 Kings 17:13, 23; See also Jer. 2:26; 7:23-26; 8:8-10.). As Elijah with
Ahab, they bring word of the curse the torah prescribes for such subversion.
Like righteous judges, clean priests, faithful kings, and prudent sages, true
prophets are servants of torah and the institutions that express it faithfully.
The Former Prophets, then, do not disrupt a torah consensus, for it is not a
matter of the leaders' consensus. Torah stands secure, like Sinai, unaffected by
Egypt, Canaan, or the apathy of people Israel. Rather, the Former Prophets call
Israel to repent and walk the old paths in their environment (cf. Jer. 6:16; 18:15),
they urge God's people to return to what homiletician Richard Lischer calls its
"linguistic base camp," the language that defines its raison d 'etre9 the language that
shapes the torah piety of Ruth and Boaz. Torah is Israel's linguistic base camp as
the gospel is that of God's people today. In an environment that operates with
what Lischer calls the translation model of preaching, which "builds on the
premise that if we can make the gospel resemble the best in the current cultural
consensus," the absence of such a linguistic base camp produces an inability to
agree theologically on what is true or original and the consequent danger that
the therapeutic or political applications of the Good News have no choice but
to assume independent status as gospels themselves with their own ortho-
doxies and constituencies (see Gal. 1:6-7). I know of one denomination that
has a commission on race that is excruciatingly subdivided in "Committee on
White Concerns," "Committee on Native American Concerns," and so forth.
With no theological center, the church gets balkanized.37
Preaching that abandons its torah-gospel linguistic base camp ends up in the
desert and gets swallowed up by the world and its religiosities It will have the
appearance of pious godliness but not its power.
This does not mean, however, that the imagination has no role in prophetic
preaching; it all depends on what feeds the imagination of the church in its
environment. Jeremiah's proclamation of the old cisterns and ancient paths
(Jer. 2:13; 6:14) in the days of Josiah's administration is refreshing in a land
devastated by an imagination fed by ever new paths and instant cisterns. To
preach security amidst such chaos and help God's people hold on to what is
true will require the imaginative skillJeremiah demonstrates (Jer. 2:23-24; 31-33).
In Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, and among the peoples of the world today, the
Lord's voice is only and always refreshing. Sinai is the only wellspring for true
and original prophetic preaching. In a world drowning in postmodern

37
Richard Lischer, 'The Interrupted Sermon," Interpretation 50 (1996) : 175-76.
^Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Boston: Cowley, 2001), 48.
 PARADISE LOST

newspeak and tempted by promises of life through the latest religious tech-
nology, Sinai remains. It is a solid rock.
At Sinai, God is revealed as a deity who jumps the track, a God who gets
derailed for the sake of the things of humanity, for the sake of the people Israel.
That revelation to Israel is a completely new way of seeing God. In the ancient
pagan imagination, the high gods, the really big players, were ensconced in
some heavenly realm where they—well, acted like gods. They squabbled and
had love affairs among themselves; they feasted and accepted sacrifices from
human beings. They might be propitiated or bribed to push events one way or
another on earth, but theirs was a very limited engagement with humanity.
The drastically new thing that happened at Sinai is that the Creator of heaven
and earth entered into unlimited engagement with the people Israel.38
The fresh way of seeing God at Sinai was made clearer in him whose life and
ministry are Torah incarnate (Matt. 5:17-20). The greater than David, grand-
son of Ruth, instructs us in the exercise of that piety that is our righteousness
before the Lord (Deut. 6:25). In his discussion on the law and righteousness,
David E. Holwerda observes that
when Jesus instructs this young man to sell what he owns and give to the
poor, he is issuing a specific commandment that does indeed go beyond any
literal commandment of the Old Testament. But this commandment is one
that in this particular case applies to the young man the radical requirement
of love implicit in all the commandments. The second table of the law, which
Jesus quotes, demands that the young man loves his neighbor as himself.
Although Jesus' commandment is radical in its demands, it applies the true
understanding of the authentic righteousness contained in the law and the
prophets to the specific situation of the rich young m a n . . . . in the story of
the rich young man, Jesus maintains the validity of the Old Testament law,
radicalizes its demands by using the Old Testament law of love as the
hermeneutical key to the law, and insists on discipleship.39
Torah piety is nothing less than the Old Testament's anticipation of Christian
discipleship, "to walk as in his presence." Ruth and Boaz modeled it in the shad-
ows; our Lord in the splendor of his Father's holiness. Having heard and reflected
on these Former Prophets let every Christian descendant of Adam confess:
Greatly instructed I shall hence depart.
Greatly in peace of thought, and have my fill
Of knowledge, what this vessel can contarne;
Beyond which was my folly to aspire.
Henceforth I learne, that to obey is best,
And love with feare the onely God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend.

^David E. Holwerda,/esws and Israel' One Covenant or Two? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 124-25.
 ^ s
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