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David O. Bales
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| David Bales brings a unique perspective to this In The Original: Insights From Greek And Hebrew For The Lectionary Passages. Along with teaching World Religions and Ethics, he also taught Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek. He was a pastor for 33 years, and has written four books and innumerable stories, sermons, and articles about the Bible and the Christian faith. His website is: dobales.com. |
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In The Original: Insights From Greek And Hebrew For The Lectionary Passages is SermonSuite's newest sermon help. Each week David O. Bales will provide preachers with at least one and usually two insights from the lectionary readings. He'll elucidate the Bible passage with information that only comes from one who reads (not just "looks up") the biblical languages. Continued reading of this column will:
1) Better equip you for preaching;
2) Deepen and broaden your understanding of the biblical message;
3) Motivate you to learn or review your Greek and Hebrew; and
4) Increase your love for God and others. |
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Proper 19 | OT 24 | Pentecost 16
Go to the full installment
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Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
What is this: The world waste and void (v. 23)? If it were painted on a canvas instead of written in a book, it would look like a cartoon: Mountains shaking, hills rattling, valleys rolling -- yet, all in the dark. It could describe dusk in Berlin May 9, 1945 or night in Nagasaki August 10, 1945.
Is it a dream? Partly. It's prophetic shock and awe. It's Jeremiah's vision of the world falling apart. He knows this disintegration will come soon. He's one of the prophets who warn the southern Hebrew kingdom of Judah that if they don't perform justice and cling to Yahweh-God, they'll be destroyed. The destruction came piece by piece at the hands of the Babylonians, ending violently in 586 BC. (See Isaiah 12:2-6 in Advent 3 for explanation of the name "Yahweh.")
Bohu (v. 23) only occurs three places in the Hebrew Scriptures and always with tohu. Once it's also near tohu (Isaiah 34:11), but the two words are bound together in Jeremiah 4:23 and Genesis 1:2. With tohu meaning "wasteland, nothingness" and bohu meaning "emptiness," chances are that tohu wabohu (wa is "and") were strung together to make a chaotic sound referring to the worst/dangerous chaos imaginable.
In his prophetic vision Jeremiah says, "I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void/tohu wabohu." Even in English it sounds like Genesis 1:2: "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void/tohu wabohu." Jeremiah continues in the next line describing the de-creation of the world, "I looked... to the heavens, and they had no light"; whereas creation continued in Genesis 1, "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."
Genesis pictured God creating out of a mess that's why many modern translations begin Genesis 1:1, "When God began to create the heaven and the earth...." God's first creative act brought order out of chaos, something substantial where before there was only black water. Now in Jeremiah's vision, creation sinks back into disorder. Genesis 1 is reversed: humans, animals, and vegetation vanish. The dry land totters. The sky no longer grants light and the chaos restrained in eternity after God's original, creative touch returns....
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