In the process of recounting the circumstances under which a local Hivite lad raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah, the writer of Genesis comments to the effect that her brothers were indignant and angry because this Shechem “had done an outrageous thing in Israel”. Such a thing, they said, must never be.
It should not need saying that rape is always outrageous, in Israel or anywhere else. Yet strangely, the key words in this passage for some critics are “in Israel”. Let me explain.
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“What does it mean that Saul is also among the prophets?”
The phrase in question comes up a couple of times in scripture, in 1 Samuel 10 and 19. The writer of 1 Samuel tells us that the (rhetorical) question “Is Saul also among the prophets?” became a proverb in Israel. It definitely meant something to the people of God, though not necessarily anything particularly complimentary to Saul.
Can you imagine becoming the subject of a proverb? It might not be as much fun as we think.
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David de Bruyn’s morning email is a short prayer checklist entitled “When God Says ‘No’ ”. I’ve made them myself from time to time, and I’m sure I’ve done a post on the subject at some point over the years. You know what that looks like: “My prayer is not being answered in the affirmative, Lord. So what does your word say about that?”
What possible reasons might there be?
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As we hinted in the introduction last week, this series of incidents in chapter 8 effectively illustrates the moral degradation characteristic of Israel during the period of the Judges. The end of the chapter gives us four more strong indications that all was not well in Israel, even in the home of the one man who had personal dealings with God.
Despite God’s undeserved blessing and a marvelous victory, the end of Gideon’s tale leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Christianity Today’s Caleb Lindgren interviews author Brian J. Wright about his new book, Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus.
Tom: We bounced this article around by email last week, IC, and it was fodder for a few interesting observations. I thought we might revisit it here. One major weakness of Lindgren’s interview is that he never quite gets Brian Wright to define “communal reading” for us, and the term then ends up being used to describe a whole bunch of different things in the course of the interview.
Care to take a shot at defining it?