How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets E-Book

Peter J. Gentry

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 199

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A Concise Guide to Reading the Prophetic Books The Prophetic Books of the Bible are full of symbolic speeches, dramatic metaphors, and lengthy allegories—a unique blend of literary styles that can make them hard to comprehend. How can we know if we are reading them the way God intended them to be read? In this accessible guide, leading Old Testament scholar Peter Gentry identifies seven common characteristics of prophetic literature in the Bible that help us understand each book's message. With illustrations and clear examples, Gentry offers guidance for reading these challenging texts—teaching us practical strategies for deeper engagement with the biblical text as we seek to apply God's Word to our lives today. 

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“When reading the Prophets, one may despair like the Ethiopian eunuch puzzling over Isaiah, ‘How can I understand, unless someone guides me?’ Fortunately, Peter Gentry meets us on the road and asks, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Gentry ably guides us through this strange and foreign land.”

Lindsay Kennedy, assistant pastor, Calvary Chapel Bothell, Bothell, Washington; blogger, My Digital Seminary

“Gentry succeeds most admirably in his stated objective, which is to enable readers to read and understand the Prophets. And he does so in a way that is truly exemplary, employing a clear, concise, logically developed writing style that makes it relatively easy to probe this potentially difficult subject—the Old Testament prophetic literature. In short, the author demystifies the Hebrew prophets and successfully relates their writings also to hermeneutical issues facing the church today—all in the space of less than 150 pages. This book would serve as a helpful introduction for adult Bible studies as well as college-level courses on hermeneutics. Scholars teaching at higher academic levels too would benefit from Gentry’s excellent pedagogical approach.”

Ernst R. Wendland, instructor, Lusaka Lutheran Seminary, Zambia; Internal Examiner, University of Zambia

“Having established a stellar reputation already through his many publications in Old Testament studies—especially in Septuagint and biblical theology—Gentry reflects broad expertise here in his treatment of prophetism as an institution and in the literary output of the canonical Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. This is more than ‘just another book on the Prophets: their lives, times, and ministries.’ The approach in this case goes beyond the standard of the oeuvres already at hand. Gentry knits together most skillfully the strands of criticism, theology, history, poetry, apocalyptic, and pastoral practicality in a style that betrays at once solid scholarship and transparent readability.”

Eugene H. Merrill, distinguished professor emeritus of Old Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

“When traveling to a foreign land, the experience is so much richer when you have an experienced guide to explain the unique customs, point out things you might have missed, and take you to places you would not dare traverse alone. For modern Western readers of the Bible, the Prophets are a foreign land, even if we do not initially realize it. Peter Gentry, with his decades of experience traveling in this difficult terrain, can be your expert guide to the biblical Prophets through reading this book. I'm overjoyed that Gentry is sharing in print for a wider audience what I first found so helpful as class lectures a dozen years ago. Pick up this travel guide and experience the biblical Prophets afresh.”

Richard Lucas, Biblical and Theological Studies mentor, The NETS Center for Church Planting and Revitalization; associate pastor, Christ Memorial Church, Williston, Vermont

“Peter Gentry is a master exegete and theologian, and in this brief volume he supplies excellent guidance for those of us who desire to read and understand the Prophets with greater biblical faithfulness. With clear prose and numerous examples, he identifies how we should approach the prophetic genre––its grounding in the Mosaic covenant, its structure and use of repetition, its engagement of foreign nations, its use of typology and apocalyptic language, and its appropriation and already-but-not-yet fulfillment in the New Testament. Gentry helps us grasp how the prophets communicated their messages, and by doing so he empowers us to become better interpreters of God’s Word. I highly recommend this book.”

Jason S. DeRouchie, professor of Old Testament and biblical theology, Bethlehem College & Seminary

“Many people set out to read through the Bible but get bogged down in the Old Testament Prophets. Some push ahead anyway, others skip ahead—both missing out on the full counsel of God. But there’s hope—everyone should read Peter Gentry’s new book! Under seven key topics he asks the right questions, and his answers are the most insightful I’ve seen. Pastors and scholars: you’ll benefit too.”

Brent Sandy, former professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Grace College, Winona Lake, IN; coeditor, Cracking Old Testament Codes; coauthor, The Lost World of Scripture; author, Plowshares and Pruning Hooks

How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets

How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets

Peter J. Gentry

How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets

Copyright © 2017 by Peter J. Gentry

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Pearls Before Swine © 2008 Stephan Pastis. Reprinted by permission of Universal Uclick for UFS. All rights reserved.

Cover design: Faceout Studios

Cover image: CSA Images / Mod Art Collection

First printing 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are the author’s translation.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5403-2ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5406-3PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5404-9Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5405-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gentry, Peter John, author.

Title: How to read and understand the biblical prophets / Peter J. Gentry.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016035994 | ISBN 9781433554032 (tp) | ISBN 9781433554056 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433554063 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Prophets—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible—Prophecies.

Classification: LCC BS1505.52 .G46 2017 | DDC 224/.06—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035994

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-03-04 11:34:10 AM

For C. B.

and my friends at DTS

Contents

Introduction

 1  Calling the People Back to the Covenant

 2  The End of the Covenant, Judgment, and Restoration

 3  The Function of Repetition in Hebrew Literature

 4  The Purpose of the Oracles concerning the Foreign Nations

 5  Describing the Future, Part 1: Typology and the New Exodus

 6  Describing the Future, Part 2: Apocalyptic Language

 7  Describing the Future, Part 3: The Already and the Not Yet

Conclusion

Appendix: Literary Structure of the Book of Revelation

General Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

In our modern society of e-readers, many may have forgotten what a newspaper looks like. Yet hopefully we can all grasp the following illustration. When we pick up a newspaper from a big city, we find many sections. We expect to see the main headlines and news reports on the front page or in the first section. Later on we come to the entertainment section and find there the comics or funnies. Now, here’s the question I want to ask you: can we say that we find truth on the front page and entertainment only in the comics?

The more we think about how to answer that question, the more we come to realize that there may, in fact, be more truth in terms of comment on family life, morals, political events, and current philosophical or social issues in the comics than we find on the front page. However, we can miss it because of what we expect to find in particular types of literature or genres. Consider the example from Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis.

* The author does not agree with the views of the cartoonist. Used for illustration purposes only.

We see in the Pastis comic how Rat completely misses the point of Hagar the Horrible, because the literary features he’s looking at aren’t the ones that really matter. We might hear him shouting, “But what about the literal interpretation of the text?” Intelligent Rat may even appeal to speech-act theory: “But Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, made a promise, and a promise is a promise!” Apparently not all readers in the Western world are able to comprehend comics. The cartoon author is concerned that many readers may not have the proper strategies for reading this kind of literature. Since the comics are pictures, the authors communicate by heavy use of metaphors and symbols.

A lack of proper reading strategies is exactly the problem some have with reading the Bible. When I went to seminary in the 1970s, prior to the shift to postmodernism, the focus was on how to interpret the letters of Paul. But what kind of literary work is a “gospel”? What literary strategies or techniques do narrators or storytellers use to help the reader grasp their main points? And how do we read and understand the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament? In one sense, prophecy is not a particular genre or type of literature, since the prophets use every possible genre and literary type to communicate their messages. Even more difficult to understand are prophecies such as Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation, which are frequently described as “apocalyptic” literature.

A central problem in the Christian church, especially during the last one hundred years, is that we have been reading the Gospels of the New Testament, the narratives of the Old Testament and the book of Acts, and the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament and the New Testament (e.g., Revelation), including apocalyptic prophecies, exactly the same way we read Romans. In addition to this, we support our interpretation by claiming that we are following a literal interpretation of Scripture. But every day as we read the pages of our newspapers (for those of us who still do), we don’t even think about mentally switching gears as we turn from the front page to the comics.

We might well ask if the literature of the biblical prophets actually constitutes its own genre or type of literature, since the prophets use an extremely wide variety of speech types to communicate. They communicate by different kinds of disputation (Isa. 49:14–26) and judgment speeches (e.g., Isaiah 13; Jer. 4:5–8); by promises of restoration and salvation (Isa. 4:2–6; 11:1–9; 40:9–11 ); by allegories (Ezekiel 16; 31:2–9) and parables (Isa. 5:1–7); by lawsuit and legal speeches (Isa. 1:1–20; 41:1–7, 21–29); by biography (Jonah); and by funeral speeches (Isa. 29:1–10). Moreover, the prophets communicated not only by their words but also by symbolic acts, drama, and one-act plays. Jeremiah hid his underwear in a rock (Jer. 13:1–7). Isaiah went naked and barefoot for three years (Isa. 20:1–3). Ezekiel cut off his hair and then burned a third of it, struck a third with a sword, and cast a third to the wind (Ezek. 5:1–4). So how can we say that there is anything particularly characteristic of prophetic literature? How can we employ a method of literary study that attempts to affirm what is typical and not typical? Are there any principles that do apply to all the literature of the prophets?

Yes, there are! In this short work I lay out seven characteristics or features of prophetic literature in the Bible. Understanding and using these characteristics of the biblical prophets as reading strategies will help Christians comprehend these texts for themselves, perhaps for the first time with real understanding. You will have the cues the first readers had for reading these texts. Here are the topics taken up in these pages:

Exposing Covenant Disloyalty

Chapter 1

The Purpose of Announcing Future Events

Chapter 2

The Function of Repetition in Hebrew Literature

Chapter 3

Why So Many Speeches about Foreign Nations?

Chapter 4

Where the Past Becomes a Model for the Future

Chapter 5

Apocalyptic: The Use of Wild Metaphors and Symbols

Chapter 6

Chronology and Literature That Paint Panoramas

Chapter 7

It is not my purpose in these pages to push a particular brand of eschatology, i.e., what the Bible teaches about events in the future or at the end times. What I hope and pray is that this book will help all believers learn how to read and understand the texts of the biblical prophets on their own. They are a different kind of literature from Romans, as much so as comics differ from the front page of a newspaper. We need to spell out in detail the rules for reading this kind of literature if the church is going to understand these texts as the authors intended us to understand them.

1

Calling the People Back to the Covenant

Everything in the prophets is based upon the covenant made between God and Israel during the exodus from Egypt, especially the expression or form of the covenant as it is found in the book of Deuteronomy. Claus Westermann, in his book Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, demonstrates and details this in many ways.1 For the prophets, their perspectives on social justice, their promises and their threats, even their very sentences and words, are all based upon the book of Deuteronomy, an expansion and renewal of the covenant made at Sinai.

Covenant: an agreement between two parties making binding, official, and permanent a relationship of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust. Not a business contract or marketplace agreement.

The Abrahamic covenant is foundational to the Mosaic/Israelite covenant in Deuteronomy, and the Davidic covenant is a further development in the sequence of covenants established by God. So the statement, “Everything in the prophets is based on the Mosaic covenant made at Sinai and renewed at Moab,” is not intended to exclude prophetic statements that may be directly tied to the covenant at creation,2 the covenant with Abraham, and the covenant with David. Nonetheless, the main concern of the prophets is Israel’s relationship to Yahweh as defined by the Mosaic covenant.

As a covenant people, Israel was constantly flagging in her loyalty to Yahweh. Instead of being completely devoted to Yahweh (i.e., holy), they hedged their bets with Baal, the rain god, and other false gods used by humans to manipulate the powers that be; and instead of loving their neighbors as themselves, their lifestyle and society were filled with social injustice.

Illustration from Isaiah 5 and 6

Hebrew Literature

Isaiah 5 and 6 provide an excellent example of this business of “calling the people back to the covenant,” and a detailed explanation of this section will help us illustrate this aspect of prophetic writing.

As we noted above, reading and studying the Bible may not be straightforward for readers with a modern and Western background in culture and language. The biblical texts in origin are ancient and Eastern—they come from a different culture and a different time. The normal pattern of Hebrew literature is to consider topics in a recursive manner, which means that a topic is progressively repeated. Such an approach seems monotonous to those who do not know and understand how these texts communicate.

Using the recursive approach, a Hebrew author begins a discourse on a particular topic, develops it from a particular perspective, and then concludes his conversation. Then he begins another conversation, taking up the same topic again from a different point of view. When these two conversations or discourses on the same topic are heard in succession, they are like the left and right speakers of a stereo system. Do the speakers of a stereo system give the same music, or do they give different music? The answer is that the music they give is both different and the same. In one sense the music from the left speaker is identical to that of the right, yet in another way it is slightly different so that the effect is stereo instead of just one-dimensional. Just so, in Hebrew literature the ideas presented can be experienced like 3-D Imax movies with Dolby surround sound—they are three-dimensional or full-orbed ideas.

This pattern in Hebrew literature functions on both macro and micro levels. Individual sentences are placed back-to-back like left and right speakers. Paragraphs and even larger sections of texts are treated the same way. There is a more detailed description in chapter 3, but in just a moment we will see the importance of grasping these literary patterns in the Hebrew Bible.

Literary Unity of Isaiah

Few scholars today treat the book of Isaiah as a literary unity. Methods of studying the text are heavily influenced by the rationalism of the Enlightenment period and focus on modern and Western literary approaches instead of ancient and Eastern rules for composing texts. As a result, most of the commentaries are focused on grammatical and lexical details of individual words and phrases, with the result that no larger picture of the book as a whole emerges from their labors.

For a hundred years or more, scholars have not asked, What were the Hebrews’ own principles and rules for telling stories? And how did the authors of that culture and time construct their works? Yet if those questions are asked, it is possible to discern a central theme for the book of Isaiah as a whole and to divide the book into seven separate sections in which Isaiah goes around the same topic like a kaleidoscope, looking at it from different perspectives. The literary structure of each prophetic book as a whole is fundamental to interpretation.

Barry Webb is one scholar who has taken the unity of Isaiah seriously and has argued persuasively that the book as a whole centers on the theme of corruption and social injustice in the city of Jerusalem, or Zion, in the eighth century BC that results in divine judgment but ends with a vision of a future renewed and transformed Zion.3

Isaiah 1 details the idolatrous worldview gripping Jerusalem and the corruption in society resulting from it. The covenant made between God and Israel at Sinai (and expanded and renewed on the plains of Moab) describes curses and judgment on the people for violating the covenant. After the judgment, however, God will remake, renew, restore, and transform Zion, and Isaiah 2:1–4 envisions this future Zion as a mountain dwarfing all others and one to which all the nations will stream to receive instruction from Yahweh on behavior and lifestyle.

Then in chapters 3 and 4 Isaiah goes around the same topic again, indicting Jerusalem for social injustice and ending with a glorious vision of the future Zion. He depicts the road from judgment to a future city of Zion, which is characterized by righteousness, in the language of a new exodus. Just as God brought his people out of bondage in Egypt after 430 years, so he will bring them out of their slavery to sin and chronic covenant unfaithfulness into a brand-new creation and a community bound by a new covenant. This new exodus will be bigger and better than the first.

The next section runs from chapters 5 to 12 and begins to develop the same themes a third time in the context of a military and political crisis in Judah. Assyria, a sleeping giant, had awakened and was expanding westward toward Syria and then southward into Palestine. The countries of Syria (with its capital in Damascus) and the northern kingdom of Israel (with its capital in Samaria) were putting pressure on the little kingdom of Judah in the south to join them in an anti-Assyrian coalition. The plan of King Ahaz of Judah was to become a vassal or client-king of Tiglath Pileser III of Assyria (called “Pul” in the Bible) and appeal to Assyria to fend off his Israelite and Aramaean enemies to the North. This section also ends by focusing on a future Messiah—a coming King—and the new exodus, giving us a glorious vision of the new world and his rule there.

As we might expect, this third section, chapters 5–12, begins by developing further the accusations of the loss of social justice. We might also expect that by this time Isaiah’s audience had had enough of his message. So this time, in order to make sure that his audience participates, Isaiah presents his message in the form of a parable. His approach to the audience is similar to how Nathan the prophet approached King David when the Lord sent him to the king to confront him about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. There, too, Nathan used a parable to get audience participation from the king and thereby have David condemn himself (2 Sam. 12:1–6).

As we focus our attention on Isaiah 5, it is extremely important to observe the literary structure. Here we want to ask: In what form is this message given to us? In other words, what is the shape of the text? The arrangement and form or literary shape of the statements in the text are as important for interpretation of a communication as the meaning of the actual individual sentences.

Chart 1.1

Explanation of Isaiah 5

Outline or Structure of Isaiah 5:1–30

I.  Song of the Vineyard

5:1–7

A.  A Story of a Vineyard and Its Fruit

1–2

B.  The Listeners Asked for a Verdict

3–4

C.  The Decision of the Owner

5–6

D.  The Application to Judah

7

II.  Bad Grapes: Indictment of God’s People

5:8–24

A.  Round 1

8–17

1.  Woe: Land Grabbing

8–10

2.  Woe: Partying and Revelry

11–12

a.  Therefore 1

13

b.  Therefore 2

14–17

B.  Round 2

18–24

3.  Woe: Mocking Divine Justice

18–19

4.  Woe: Inverting God’s Standards

20

5.  Woe: Self-Approved Wisdom

21

6.  Woe: Partying and Inverting Social Justice

22–23

a.  Therefore 3

24

III.  The Vineyard Ravaged: Announcement of Punishment

5:25–30

A.  The Final Therefore

5:25

Chapter 5 is divided into three sections. The first is a parable or song about a vineyard, in verses 1–7. The second section goes from verses 8–24 and applies the parable to the people of Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah’s time. The last section describes the coming judgment: God will bring a distant nation to conquer and destroy them and their way of life.

The parable and its application. The “Song of the Vineyard” in the opening section can be briefly summarized. The parable is divided into four stanzas. The first stanza relates in song a story of a farmer preparing a vineyard and expecting good vintage. Instead, he is met by rotten, stunted grapes.4 In the second stanza the listeners are asked for a verdict. The third part confirms the rhetorical question posed in the second stanza by relating the decision of the owner of the vineyard. He will do exactly as the listeners expect him to do—he will destroy this useless fruit orchard. Then comes the punch line of the parable, and what a great shock it is. The parable is applied to Judah and Jerusalem in the last stanza; they are the bad grapes!

Verses 8–24, which I have entitled “Bad Grapes,” constitute a damning indictment of the people of God. A series of six woes details and specifies the bad grapes indicated in verses 2 and 4 of the parable. The literary structure is the clue to the meaning of the text. The key words are woe and therefore. Woe is a key word used to describe and identify the sins for which the people will be punished. Therefore is a key word used to detail the divine punishment for these specific sins. The punishment is based squarely upon retributive justice, since this is the main principle of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy).

Notice, however, how these woes are presented. First there are two woes, in verse 8 and verse 11, which are followed by two therefores, in verses 13 and 14. Then there are a series of four more woes, in verses 18, 20, 21, and