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Anticipated arrival of the groom for the wedding [ 2:8–17 ]. The middle of the Song of Solomon gives us a highly metaphoric and hyperbolic reenactment of familiar wedding rituals. In this unit, the woman fantasizes about what the groom’s arrival for the wedding will be like. The invitation to love that the groom is portrayed as uttering (vv. 10–13) is a conventional pastoral genre; in effect, the invitation to go for a walk in the spring landscape is a metaphoric invitation to marriage. Coming through all of the poetic flights are the emotions that all lovers feel as their wedding approaches.
8 The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leaping over the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
9 My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Behold, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
looking through the lattice.
10 My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
11 for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
12 The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing 1 has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree ripens its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.
14 O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the crannies of the cliff,
let me see your face,
let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is lovely.
15 Catch the foxes 2 for us,
the little foxes
that spoil the vineyards,
for our vineyards are in blossom.”
16 My beloved is mine, and I am his;
he grazes 3 among the lilies.
17 Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle
or a young stag on cleft mountains. 4
Preview of the rest of the book [ 2:1–3:6 ]. If the main narrative business of the opening chapter is to initiate us into the world of the book, the function of this unit is to preview what we will find in the rest of the book. This chapter provides an interpretive framework for the book as a whole. The keynotes are as follows: God’s prediction that the Israelites will be thwarted by the remnants of the tribes that they did not subdue (2:1–5); the death of Joshua, accompanied by the ominous comment that the new generation “did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (2:6–10); a summary account of how Israel’s idolatrous apostasy resulted in its lack of military success (2:11–15); preview of the pattern that will ensue in the book of Judges—deliverance for the nation when God raises up individual judges, but apostasy and distress after a given judge dies (2:16–23); a list of the nations that God left unsubdued in order that the nation might learn warfare (3:1–6). We need to fix in our mind the principles that are established here (such as the evil of idolatry and God’s demand of obedience) as reference points by which to measure what happens in the rest of the book.
2:1 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, 5 and their gods shall be a snare to you.” 4 As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 And they called the name of that place Bochim. 6 And they sacrificed there to the Lord.
6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15 Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 19 But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. 20 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people has transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, 22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.” 23 So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
3:1 Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. 2 It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. 3 These are the nations: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. 4 They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. 5 So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 6 And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.
At the potter’s house [ chapter 18 ]. In yet another one of his prophetic object lessons, Jeremiah goes down to the potter’s house for a prophetic field trip. There he sees an artisan shaping and then reshaping a flawed clay pot. This is a symbol of God’s absolute sovereignty over his people Israel (or anyone else, for that matter). God will shape and reshape in judgment and mercy, always doing whatever he thinks is best. In response to this prophecy, the people dismiss God’s word and begin to plot against Jeremiah (see v. 18). The prophet’s vindictive prayer at the end of the chapter seems to betray more zeal for God’s vengeance than passion for God’s mercy (vv. 19–23).
18:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. 11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’
12 “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’
13 “Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations,
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel
has done a very horrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion? 7
Do the mountain waters run dry, 8
the cold flowing streams?
15 But my people have forgotten me;
they make offerings to false gods;
they made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and to walk into side roads,
not the highway,
16 making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by it is horrified
and shakes his head.
17 Like the east wind I will scatter them
before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.”
18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.”
19 Hear me, O Lord,
and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
Remember how I stood before you
to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to famine;
give them over to the power of the sword;
let their wives become childless and widowed.
May their men meet death by pestilence,
their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
22 May a cry be heard from their houses,
when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!
For they have dug a pit to take me
and laid snares for my feet.
23 Yet you, O Lord, know
all their plotting to kill me.
Forgive not their iniquity,
nor blot out their sin from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
13 chapters, 303 verses. The implied purpose of the book is to warn readers not to relinquish their faith in Christ but instead to endure and grow in it. Although the letter names no recipient, there are clues that the author is writing to a group of persecuted Christians with whom he is acquainted. We can infer that they were Jewish converts to the Christian faith and were in danger of drifting from their Christian faith and practice. Next to the book of Romans, Hebrews is the most sustained work of theology in the Bible. Its subject is Christology, with emphasis on Christ’s person, priesthood, and sacrifice, but the book is equally about Christians—about what they need to believe and practice. There is a connection between those two themes: it is because of who Christ is and what he has done that we must persevere and not pin our hopes on religious practices that cannot save us.
| Passage | Subjects Covered | Persons in Addition to Christ Who Are Referenced | Contribution to the Christology | Superiority Motif |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:1–14 | Christ’s superiority to angels | Prophets and angels | Christ’s person | The superior Savior |
| 2:1–18 | Christ as the perfect Savior | |||
| 3:1–6 | Christ’s superiority to Moses | Moses and the Jews of the exodus | ||
| 3:7–4:13 | Warning against unbelief; exhortation to enter Christ’s rest | |||
| 4:14–5:10 | Christ as sympathetic high priest | Priests | Christ’s priesthood | |
| 5:11–6:20 | Mingled warning and encouragement | Christians at risk | ||
| 7:1–28 | Christ as superior priest | Priests | ||
| 8:1–10:18 | The new and better covenant | Recipients of the new covenant | Christ’s sacrifice | The superior covenant |
| 10:19–39 | Exhortation to endure in the faith | Christians at risk | Christ’s followers | The superior life of faith |
| 11:1–12:2 | Honor roll of faith | Heroes of the faith | ||
| 12:3–29 | Variations on the theme of endurance | Christians in need of instruction and the will to endure | ||
| 13:1–25 | Rules for living the Christian life |
The book of Hebrews is a hybrid. It is commonly classified as an *epistle, and it is true that the book has the feel of other NT epistles. However, epistolary conventions appear overtly only in the last eight verses of the book. The book is also often said to be cast into the form of a sermon, but it does not resemble a sermon such as we commonly hear. Sermonic elements consist mainly of the fervent appeals of the writer, which resemble what a preacher might say to a congregation by way of application. These become dominant only halfway through chapter 10, though they are scattered throughout the earlier parts of the book as well. The main *genre is simply the theological treatise, such as we might read in a theological journal or hear in a seminary classroom. The first nine and a half chapters conduct a sustained theological argument about the superiority of Christ over a number of rivals. These chapters are in effect an essay with a thesis, a series of subordinate generalizations, and supporting proof consisting of data and commentary on it. (For more information on items accompanied by an asterisk, see the glossary at the back of this Bible.)
Scholars who know Greek literature well say that the book of Hebrews is one of the most stylistically polished books in the NT. The writer is a master of *imagery and *metaphor, allusions to the OT, comparison and analogy, contrast, and long flowing sentences that build to a climax and often use parallel construction of clauses (vv. 18–24 of chapter 12 are a good example of all these techniques).
Even though the letter does not name its intended audience, we can infer the rhetorical situation from the text itself. The author believes that his readers are caught in a crisis of faith, with reversion to the Jewish religion the specific danger. We can even catch hints of what prompted the crisis: fear of persecution and the continuing appeal of Judaism. This situation determines the rhetorical stance of the writer—urgency about the crisis. The author displays a pastoral concern to dissuade his readers from drifting from their faith. It is customary to refer to the NT epistles as *occasional letters, and the book of Hebrews is thoroughly rooted in the situation just described.
The *rhetoric of the book is partly argumentative, as the author conducts a sustained theological argument such as we might expect in a debate or a theology book. In terms of how the author conducts his theological argument, the book shows a Jewish orientation. The Jewish way of arguing a thesis was to repeat the main idea so often and from so many angles that an audience would finally agree with the proposition that had been advanced (the book of Ecclesiastes is a classic case). In addition to the rhetoric of argument and debate, we find in the book of Hebrews a persuasive rhetoric of exhortation, as the writer appeals to his readers not to abandon their faith. Outlines of the book usually give the impression that the book is a continuous theological argument, but in fact the book swings back and forth between theological argument and persuasive appeal (if we read most of chapters 2–4, 6, 10:19–39, and most of 12, it is obvious that this material is only slightly tied to the theological argument about the superiority of Christ, being instead an appeal not to abandon the faith but to pursue Christ earnestly).
The central *motif of the book is the formula “better,” with the cluster of words better, more, and greater appearing a combined total of twenty-five times. This confirms that the comparative motif, with one thing declared superior to another thing, is the main rhetorical strategy of the book. A common rhetorical form by which the comparison is conducted is analogy, with something in the OT being declared similar to the person and work of Christ. But the analogies are not between two equal things; rather, the author argues from the lesser to the greater. Related to the superiority motif is the motif of progression in God’s revelation and his unfolding plan of redemption: what preceded the death, resurrection, and atonement of Christ was anticipatory, while Christ’s work has the quality of being final in God’s revelation and plan of redemption. Foreshadowing and fulfillment are thus recurrent motifs, and these, in turn, are related to the interpretive practice known as typology—seeing OT events and characters as foreshadowings of Christ’s person and work.
(1) A continuous OT or Hebraic frame of reference, resulting in a multitude of allusions to the OT. (2) Repetition of key ideas and citing of examples and authorities from the past as the preferred means of persuading an audience that an idea is true or of moving them to a desired action. (3) Preoccupation with the OT temple and its practices, especially sacrifices. (4) Within exhortations to readers to keep practicing the Christian faith, the formula “let us . . .” (used fourteen times). (5) Alongside Jewish ways of thinking, the Greek mindset and incipient Platonism, seen in contrasts between the earthly and the transcendent or heavenly, the temporal and the eternal, the imperfect earthly copies of realities and the perfect model of those copies.
The book is designed to achieve the following literary purposes:
(1) Christology: the book of Hebrews is a major NT repository of truth about the atonement of Christ. (2) Progressive revelation: we can infer a thoroughgoing theory of how God’s revelation progressed from the OT to the NT. (3) Salvation: next to the book of Romans, Hebrews is the NT’s most extended discussion of the nature of redemption in Christ. (4) Covenant: the book delineates in detail how the old covenant was fulfilled and in some ways superseded by the new covenant.
The most important story that the Bible tells is the story of God’s plan of redemption as it unfolded progressively through history. The book of Hebrews reveals how the story of atonement reached its final fulfillment in the sacrifice of Christ. The OT is a series of foreshadowings; the book of Hebrews explains in detail how the atonement of Christ constitutes the actual story, the reality behind the shadows.
Christ’s superiority to angels [ chapter 1 ]. The famous first three verses are a prologue to the entire book. They establish Christ as the culmination of God’s progressive revelation of his plan of salvation. The rest of the chapter is built on the rhetorical pattern of a comparison between Christ and angels, with a view toward showing the superiority of Christ. The Hebrew mindset is immediately displayed in the technique of extensive quotation from the OT, as well as the honor accorded to angels. The logic of the passage is editorialized for us at the beginning of verse 5: none of the quoted passages from the OT could be applied to angels; they are reserved for Christ alone.
1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”?
Or again,
“I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son”?
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God's angels worship him.”
7 Of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
8 But of the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”
10 And,
“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
12 like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed. 9
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”
13 And to which of the angels has he ever said,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?
14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
1 2:12 Or pruning
2 2:15 Or jackals
3 2:16 Or he pastures his flock
4 2:17 Or mountains of Bether
5 2:3 Vulgate, Old Latin (compare Septuagint); Hebrew sides
6 2:5 Bochim means weepers
7 18:14 Hebrew of the field
8 18:14 Hebrew Are foreign waters plucked up
9 1:12 Some manuscripts omit like a garment
This reading plan is from the ESV Literary Study Bible. Download this plan (PDF).
Copyright ©2007 Crossway Bibles. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Quotation information. Literary Study Bible notes copyright ©2007.