Let me begin by talking about the land, the Holy Land, the land of the Bible. Geography played a significant role in shaping ancient Hebrew ethics and theology. Situated between the northern and southern superpowers of the ancient Near East, Israel lived under constant threat of invasion and occupation from these economic and military empires.
(In my writing and preaching I frequently reference empire. Allow me to give a definition. Empires are rich, powerful nations that believe they have a divine right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape history. The Bible gives a sustained critique of empire from Genesis to Revelation — particularly in Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Gospels, Acts, and especially Revelation. Empires are an enemy of God’s purposes because what they claim for themselves — a manifest destiny to shape history and a divine right to rule other nations — is the very thing God has promised to his Son.)
Living in the shadow of the northern empires of Assyria and Babylon and the southern empire of Egypt, ancient Israel was extremely vulnerable to the expansionist policies of those powerful empires. The biblical history of Israel was a long narrative of threat and oppression. From this acute sense of vulnerability, Israel developed a keen concept of neighborly justice. One reason the Old Testament talks so much about neighborly justice is because the Hebrew people so often suffered from unneighborly injustice. When you’re the top dog you don’t think so earnestly about justice, but if you’re on the bottom you have a different perspective. There’s a reason Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. are probably the two best examples of American prophets. Their prophetic edges were sharpened on the cruel flints of slavery and segregation. The Hebrew prophetic tradition developed in the crucible of enduring threat, invasion, and oppression from Gentile empires. In this crucible of suffering a theology of justice was forged, but it also produced the slag of vengeance expectation.
Following Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Judea, the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem, and the forced deportation of Jews to Babylon in 587 BC, Isaiah of the Exile penned these words.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God.
–Isaiah 61:1, 2
The Jewish people had been forced into exile in the foreign land of Babylon — they were the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners. But the poet-prophet envisioned a coming Jubilee of liberation, restoration, and divine favor. When that day comes the poor will hear good news, the captives will be liberated, and the prisoners will be set free as God inaugurates a season of divine favor. Naturally, this prophecy became a primary text shaping Messianic expectations.
Comments