Tag Archives: Walter Kaiser

Difficult Bible Passages

Why Is the Son of Saul’s Name Different in 2 Samuel Versus 1 Chronicles?

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The astute Bible reader will notice that the son of Saul who ruled Israel after Saul was killed is called Ish-Bosheth in 2 Samuel, but in 1 Chronicles is called Esh-Baal. What is going on? Both of these accounts are referring to the same person, so why can’t they get his name straight?

Walter Kaiser Jr. and Duane Garrett, in the NIV Archaeological Study Bible, offer some interesting thoughts on why there are name differences:

Some changes in the Biblical text, including euphemistic expressions (intended, e.g., to express something less starkly), are not explicitly marked. One such example occurs with respect to the proper names that contain the element ‘Baal.’ The noun Baal, which originally meant simply ‘Lord,’ came later to signify almost exclusively the proper name of the Canaanite god. Later readers were apt to be offended by the appearance of this name in the Scripture, especially when associated with an Israelite.

Thus, names that included ‘Baal’ were sometimes changed in order to refrain from speaking even indirectly of false gods. For example, in 1 Chronicles the son of Jonathan is identified as Merib-Baal (1Ch 8: 34; 9: 40), whereas in 2 Samuel he is called Mephibosheth (2Sa 4: 4).

So what about Esh-Baal/Ish-Bosheth? They continue:

Similarly, a son of Saul is called Esh-Baal in 1 Chronicles 8: 33 and 9: 39 but Ish-Bosheth in 2 Samuel 2: 8. In both cases the name Baal has been substituted with ‘bosheth,’ the Hebrew noun for ‘shame.’ The change does not appear to reflect a negative judgment on the individual in question, but rather was a way of condemning the name of Baal.

The cumulative evidence of the Hebrew Bible shows that such emendations were not carried out systematically. It is also important to emphasize that most early scribal emendations are explicitly identified as such by marginal notations that preserve the text of the original reading. Viewed in this light, such changes provide insight into the religious sensibilities of various readers of the Bible rather than reflecting an attempt to alter the actual wording of the sacred text.

Bible Interpretation, Sunday School

Commentary on Leviticus 23 (The Feasts of Israel)

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In chapter 23 of Leviticus, God summons the Israelites to worship and to celebrate seven annual feasts he has appointed. Walter Kaiser and Duane Garrett, in the NIV Archaeological Study Bible: An Illustrated Walk Through Biblical History and Culture,  explain that “during these holy convocations the priests presented sacrifices and other offerings, while the common people rested from their daily labor, sometimes fasting and sometimes feasting, and celebrated the seasonal blessings of God and the great redemptive moments in the lives of his people.”

Verse 5 kicks off the calendar of feasts with the Passover celebration. Kaiser and Garrett write:

Passover was celebrated on the fourteenth day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar (our late March to early April). According to Exodus 12:26–27, when subsequent generations inquired about the meaning of the Passover, they were to be told that it commemorated the manner in which the Lord had spared the Israelites the night he struck down the Egyptians’ firstborn sons (Ex 12:29–30 ).

Verses 6-8 describe the second feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Kaiser and Garrett explain the significance of this festival:

The Feast of Unleavened Bread immediately followed the Passover (Ex 12:15–20) and lasted for one week. In the context of the exodus, eating bread without yeast signified hasty preparation and a readiness to depart. Yeast, which was studiously avoided during this feast, became a symbol of the pervasive influence of evil (cf. Mk 8:15 ; 1 Co 5:7–8 ).

Verses 9-14 describe the third spring festival, the Offering of Firstfruits.

The Offering of Firstfruits took place at the beginning of the barley harvest and signified Israel’s gratitude to and dependence upon God. It occurred seven weeks before [the next festival of] Pentecost, but there was also an offering of firstfruits associated with the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost . . . in celebration of the wheat harvest (Num 28:26–31).

Verses 15-22 describe the fourth spring festival, the Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost.

The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, occurring seven weeks after Passover, was a day of sacred assembly in which no work was allowed. Its primary focus was an expression of gratitude to God for the wheat harvest.

Verses 23-25 describe the first fall festival, the Feast of Trumpets.

The Feast of Trumpets, celebrated on the first day of the seventh Hebrew month, marked the end of the agricultural year. The seventh month was important because it also included two major holy days— the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Booths. The blasting of trumpets announced the commencement of this special month.

The Israelites associated the sound of trumpets with the theophany (visible manifestation of God) on Mount Sinai (Ex 19:16–19). Priests had also sounded trumpets prior to the destruction of Jericho (Jos 6:16), and trumpets were regularly used in Israel as a military signal (2 Sam 2:28). Thus, the blast of trumpets at the onset of the seventh month added to the solemnity of this sacred season.

Verses 26-32 describe the second fall festival, the Day of Atonement. Recall that the Day of Atonement was carefully examined in chapter 16 of Leviticus.

The Day of Atonement focused exclusively on atonement for the sins of the people. This ceremony took place on the tenth day of the seventh month. The high priest made atonement first for himself and his family and finally for all the people. Coming at the end of the agricultural year, this feast symbolized a final reckoning before God.

The seventh and final festival of the year is described in verses 33-44, The Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Booths (also called the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkoth) took place five days after the Day of Atonement (Num 29:12–40). The people “camped out” in small huts during this time in order to recall their temporary living quarters prior to taking the land of Canaan. This joyous week was a time of final celebration and thanksgiving for the year’s harvest (Deut 16:14–15 ). As the seventh and last annual feast, the Feast of Booths also represented the Sabbath principle.

The significance of these festivals is commonly missed by evangelical Christians. Consider the words of Gordon Wenham in The Book of Leviticus (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament):

Three of the principal OT feasts were taken over directly by the Christian Church: passover = Good Friday, unleavened bread = Easter, weeks = Pentecost. The three most significant events in Christ’s redemptive ministry coincided with these festivals. That they no longer always coincide today is because of various modifications to the calendar introduced since the first century.

The linkages between the feasts and Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are unmistakable. Wenham explains,

The last supper seems to have been a passover meal (cf. Matt. 26:17), and John implies that our Lord was the true passover lamb whose bones were not to be broken (John 19:36 quoting Exod. 12:46; cf. John 19:14). Easter Sunday was probably the day the first sheaf was offered as a dedication offering. It is this ceremony of offering the firstfruits which led Paul to speak of Christ in his resurrection as the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:23). Elsewhere he uses another aspect of the festival of unleavened bread as an incentive for holiness: as all yeast had to be cleared out of the home in preparation for the feast of unleavened bread, so sin must be put out of the Christian community.

When did the Holy Spirit come to the church? On the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost. It occurred the 50th day after Easter. Wenham continues:

Recognition of the OT background to these Christian festivals could perhaps give greater depth to Christian worship. When we celebrate Good Friday we should think not only of Christ’s death on the cross for us, but of the first exodus from Egypt which anticipated our deliverance from the slavery of sin. At Easter we recall Christ’s resurrection and see in it a pledge of our own resurrection at the last day, just as the firstfruits of harvest guarantee a full crop later on (1 Cor. 15:20,23). At . . . Pentecost we praise God for the gift of the Spirit and all our spiritual blessings; the OT reminds us to praise God for our material benefits as well.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

How Do Biblical Proverbs Operate?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

The Bible contains numerous proverbial sayings (not just in the Book of Proverbs), and these sayings have some characteristics that must be kept in mind when reading them.  These characteristics can also be found in non-biblical proverbial literature.

Biblical scholar Walter Kaiser lists a few of these characteristics in his book The Uses of the Old Testament in the New.  Here is Kaiser’s list:

1.  Universal moral statements in proverbial literature may be limited to:

a. only a certain tendency of some thing(s) to produce a certain effect (e.g., Prov. 15:1 – though there are times when it may have no effect on wicked men)

b. only telling what generally or often takes place without making it an irreversible rule for any and all situations (e.g., Prov. 22:6 – though some children occasionally will refuse the best of parental leadership and help)

c. only noting what is the normal course of action without listing some implied or understood exceptions (e.g., Matt. 5:34 – though this does not forbid us from taking legitimate oaths in court)

2.  Universal moral truths in proverbial literature may often be stated as direct opposites when they are meant to be understood in terms of priorities or to be taken comparatively in such expressions as:

a. “I desire mercy, not sacrifices” (Hos. 6:6; Matt. 9:13; Matt 12:7)

b. “To obey is better than to sacrifice” (1 Sam 15:22; Ps. 51:17, 19; Jer. 7:22-23)

3.  Universal moral truths in proverbial literature often assume that the correspondingly proper circumstance is also understood, thus:

a. Prov. 26:4

b. Prov. 26:5

I hope these three points help you to better understand what’s going on when you read proverbs in the Bible.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Has God Promised You New Revelation?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Some Christians seem to think so, based on John 14:26, John 15:26, and John 16:12-13.   Here are each of these passages:

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” – John 14:26

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.” – John 15:26

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” – John 16:12-13

After reading these passages, some Christians claim that the verses are promises to all believers, that the Holy Spirit will reveal new truths about God, will teach new things that have never been heard before to each of us.  They claim these verses promise that privilege.  Is that really what these verses are saying?

I think the answer is clearly “no” when we carefully read these verses in context.  All of these verses are from Jesus’ Upper Room discourse.  In this discourse, Jesus is specifically addressing his disciples about what is to come, with one of the primary themes being Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit would remind them of what Jesus said to them during his earthly ministry, but the Spirit would also give them new revelation.  What we have is an indication of how the New Testament letters and books would come together – the Holy Spirit acting in concert with Jesus’ disciples.  What we do not have is an open promise to all believers to receive new revelation from the Holy Spirit.  These promises were only for the disciples of Jesus who lived with him.

Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser is worth quoting at length here from his book The Uses of the Old Testament in the New :

As any serious student of the Bible will recognize those passages were not directed to believers at large, but to those disciples who had been with Jesus during His earthly pilgrimage.  The promise was for additional revelation and thus we are given some hints as to how the NT canon was shaped.

Almost every cult and aberration from the historic Christian faith has appealed at one time or another to these three texts as the grounds for adding to or bypassing the inscripturated Word of God.  But all fail to meet the tests given in these texts because they never personally walked with our Lord on this earth.  They never heard instruction from His lips, so how could they recall what they never once heard?  Neither were they witnesses from the start of his three-year ministry.  But the apostles were!  Therefore, they were the ones who would record the life, words, and works of Christ in the gospels with the Holy Spirit’s aid of recollection (John 14:26); they were the ones who would teach doctrine (“what is mine,” John 16:14-15); and they were the ones who would predict the future (John 16:12); for they had been eyewitnesses and auditors of all that had happened to and was spoken by Christ (John 15:26-27).

These verses, my friends, do not promise that we will all receive a new word from God.  Instead they promised the inspiration of the Word of God we now have in the New Testament.  Instead of wishing for new words from God, maybe we should cherish the words He has already given us.