PEACE: shepherding Assyria with the sword!
Granted, this won't be very organized, I'm just getting it together in case Dr Dan doesn't feel up to coming this morning and leading our adult Sunday School class so soon after his surgery. When I preach or supply, Dr Dan, professor at Gulf Coast State College, graciously takes the class, one of my great and most appreciated blessings.
Anyway, here's my premise, rambling mightily, and doubling back to repeat, all based on today's Old Testament lesson from Micah:
New Revised Standard Version
Micah chapter 5
You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth;
and he shall be the one of peace.
In our adult Sunday School class we have been discovering that our gospel evangelists, most notably Matthew, can be rampant "proof-texters", lifting directly out of context without regard to the prophet's original context, verses, phrases, passages that they find in the Greek language Septuagint translation of the Hebrew bible, that the gospel evangelists regard as supporting their agenda about the origins, life and ministry of Jesus; especially in this our Advent season, as they see and quote it as messianic prophecy in a Time when messianic expectation was high.
This, their then-acceptable practice, was not duplicitous, and is only one of any number of differences between literary practices of that era vs acceptable, credible authorship today.
Furthermore, bear in mind that what Matthew wrote using the now-seeming-unacceptable practices of his day, is canonized as Christian holy scripture, our New Testament, and the fact that we enjoy doing our sort of text analysis in our adult Sunday school class is not meant to denigrate the scripture or invalidate the fact that we honor Matthew's gospel as the inspired word of God. In fact, this is our bible study: if it weren't our bible, we wouldn't be so interested in exploring it.
This sort of original sourcing by Matthew is most interestingly the case for discovery and discussion during our Advent and Christmas season, for our Lectionary texts. Including today's Old Testament reading from Micah chapter 5. Here's what Matthew wrote (Matthew 2:1-6):
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
And in fact, Matthew lifts this from an apt passage, because chapters 4 and 5 of Micah are sections offering hope and prophetic oracles of promise for the restoration of God's people after God has brought in their enemies to deal with them as God's punishment for their sins. In Micah 5 the promise includes God's raising up a kingly leader out of Bethlehem, most suitable and appealing because it's where king David came from. So this new future ruler is seen as a messiah, God's anointed one. Matthew identifies Jesus with that prophecy.
Oddly, our English translations subtly shift the location, sense and meaning of the last verse of our Micah reading for today, so that it concludes the description of the messiah as "this will be the one of peace" regardless that Micah originally uses the phrase "This shall be peace" to introduce, with a bit of Hebrew irony, paradox, sarcasm in enraged vengeance, the prophet's voice (as oracle of God) raising, increasing in volume, intensity, emphasis and anger mounting to a fist-pounding, table-banging threat of the dire doom that's coming upon the Assyrians if they dare set foot on Jewish soil. My point: Micah's passage does not say, as Christian bibles like to refer it, that the new messiah will be one of peace! It shouts "THIS will be peace: A VIOLENT RECKONING FOR ASSYRIA! After describing God's powerful new messiah, Micah goes on to shout,
And this will be peace:
if Ashur (Assyria) invades our land,
if he overruns our fortresses,
we will raise seven shepherds against him,
eight leaders of men.
They will shepherd the land of Ashur with the sword,
the land of Nimrod at its gates;
and he will rescue us from Ashur
when he invades our land,
when he overruns our borders.
Which again reminds me of the term paper I wrote for my Old Testament class in seminary. That, having addressed the above situation of Micah 5, I wrote, "It doesn't sound like peace to me." To which my professor pencilled in red in the margin, "It may not sound like peace to you, Tom Weller, but it sure as hell is peace for Israel".
Micah's prophecy expresses a natural bitterly fierce human desire for murderous vengeance after what the Assyrians have done destroying Israel and its capital Samaria, and their attar on Judah and siege of Judah's capital Jerusalem. With hope and prophetic promise of God's victory for his people Israel and Judah, it's consistent with the horrific descriptions, for example, of how the conquering Israelites under Joshua deal with their enemies the populations of defeated Canaanite cities: at God's absolute inviolable irrevocable command, every man, every woman, every child, every animal, all cattle and sheep down to the last goat kid put to death. Which doesn't sound like our loving, peaceful God to me as a 21st century wimp; but it was God's victory for his people, victory celebrations, as my professor said, sure as hell was peace for Israel. All recorded in the TANAKH, the Hebrew bible, that is the Jews' testament of their history with God as God's chosen people. It's an essence of their Heilsgeschichte, their victories are God's victories for them.
So - - you want peace? We'll give you peace, by God, and this is how it will be, led by our God's new messiah, THIS will be "peace" - - sending our shepherds to "shepherd" you with the sword, Assyria ! ! ! !
It's the same sort of hate-filled rage for vengeance that is expressed in Psalm 137:
Psalm 137 Lament over the Destruction of Jerusalem
By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!
Remember, O Lord, against the E′domites
the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Raze it, raze it!
Down to its foundations!”
O daughter of Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall he be who requites you
with what you have done to us!
Happy shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!
Complete Jewish Bible
Micah chapter 5
But you, Beit-Lechem near Efrat,
so small among the clans of Y’hudah,
out of you will come forth to me
the future ruler of Isra’el,
whose origins are far in the past,
back in ancient times.
Therefore he will give up [Isra’el]
only until she who is in labor gives birth.
Then the rest of his kinsmen
will return to the people of Isra’el.
He will stand and feed his flock
in the strength of Adonai,
in the majesty of the name
of Adonai his God;
and they will stay put, as he grows great
to the very ends of the earth;
And this will be peace:
if Ashur invades our land,
if he overruns our fortresses,
we will raise seven shepherds against him,
eight leaders of men.
They will shepherd the land of Ashur with the sword,
the land of Nimrod at its gates;
and he will rescue us from Ashur
when he invades our land,
when he overruns our borders.