Daily Bible Reading: Judith 8 and Hebrews 9

Judith 8 - Judith, model of all things Jewish, is a widow. Her husband, Manasseh died some years ago of sunstroke. She is beautiful, virtuous and quite wealthy. When she hears of what the elders told the people about waiting five days, she calls them in and rebukes them, saying that God cannot be manipulated or coerced in this way. We must trust that God will not desert his nation. We must give thanks to God and allow him to test us as he tested Abraham and all our ancestors.

They praise Judith’s wisdom and virtue but ask her to pray that there may be a downpour to fill their empty cisterns. She tells them “God is not to be coerced as man is , . . Rather, as we wait patiently for him to save, let us plead with him to help us. He will hear our voice if such is his good pleasure” (8:17). She thinks the people have been faithful in recent days and that she feels they “may hope he will not look on u s disdainfully or desert our nation” (8:20).

She says to her people, “let us set an example to our brothers, since their lives depend on us and our most sacred possessions—Temple and altar—rest on us” (8:24).  They should remember how he treated Abraham and all the patriarchs. They too must be willing to be tested. Judith, who is recognized by Uzziah and the people for her wisdom tells them her plan: “I shall make my way out with my attendant. Before the time fixed by you for surrendering the town to our enemies, the Lord will make use of me to rescue Israel. You must not ask what I intend to do” (8:34). 

Hebrews 9 – The Old Covenant was a covenant of outward worship, sanctuary, map-stand, table, loaves, Holy of Holies, incense, and golden items. Priests performed “acts of worship” and once a year offered “blood . . . for his own faults and the people’s” (9:7). But none of these things could “possibly bring any worshipper to perfection in his inner self” (9:9). They were “rules about the outward life . . .intended to be in force only until it should be time to reform them” (9:10). 

I must note here an experience I had when I first returned to the Catholic Church back in 1991 – the plan being to bring what I had learned of the “Inward” Gospel of Christ to Catholics and appreciation for the imperfect but continuous traditions of the Church to Friends – that I spoke to Catholics about the “outwardness” of their rituals. I can’t tell you how strongly they pushed back, telling me that if I thought their sacraments and practices were merely “outward” I had another think coming. And I have found this to be quite true myself. The things Friends see as “outward” in traditional Christian worship or back in the apostles’ day in traditional Jewish worship were most likely quite “real” and authentic and inward too to the people who were serious about their faith. And sitting in silent worship, observing the rules for speaking in Meeting, being “Quakerly” in everything you do can also be “outward.”

But returning to Hebrews - now that Christ has come, “He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, which is better than the one made by men’s hands because it is not of this created order” (9:11).  He has “entered the sanctuary once and for all” (9:12), taking not the blood of a sacrificial animal but his own blood and has “won an eternal redemption for us” (9:12). He “offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit , . . [to] purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God” (9:14).

He compares the death of Christ to the death of a “testator” whose “will” becomes effective only after he has died. So with Christ, his death brings to man the “will” he made for our benefit – a will that makes the “new covenant” our gift. Once is enough. He need never offer himself again (9:25). He “has made his appearance once and for all” (9:26).  When he next appears, it will be not “to deal with sin but to reward with salvation those who are waiting for him” (9:28). And they call John the Quaker gospel!

Daily Bible Reading: 2 Samuel 3 and Mark 7:14-37

2 Samuel 3 – A long war ensues between the house of Saul and the house of David.  David has six sons during the seven years he spends in Hebron: Amnon, Ahinoam’son; Ahinoam was his first wife; Chileah, his son by Abigail; Absalom, Maacah’s son – Maach’s father was king of Geshur, located in the Golan Heights; Adonijah, Haggith’s son; Shephatiah, Abital’s son and Ithream, son of Eglah.

           

Saul’s son Ishbaal (or Ishbosheth—to avoid use of the word baal) is a weak king who really does not have the loyalty of Israel.  It is really the force of his commander Abner who keeps the cities of Israel loyal to him.  They are centered in Gilead (at the city of Mahanaim). Jonathan, Saul’s other son is dead, and his son Meribbaal (Mephibosheth or Meribbosheth) is crippled (see 4:4), having been dropped at age 5 when his nurse dropped him running away to keep him safe after hearing of Saul’s and Jonathan’s deaths.

           

With the combat having come out in David’s favor, Abner now makes a play for control of Saul’s house by sleeping with one of his concubines.  Abner gets angry after the altercation this causes and determines to go over to David’s cause “For just what the Lord has sworn to David, that will I accomplish for him, to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul, and set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan to Beer-sheba” (3:10). He actually tells Ishbaal this, and Ishbaal is reasonably afraid. The problem for Abner is that if he helps to deliver Israel to David, he will be seen as a threat to Joab, commander of David’s forces. Not only has Abner killed one of Joab’s brothers, he is ambitious to be equally important to David as he has been to Ishbaal.

Abner sends messengers to David indicating his willingness to join him.  David only asks that when he comes, he bring with him Saul’s daughter Michal.  David had won Michal from Saul by killing 200 Philistines (1 Sam. 18:20-27) and bringing the king their foreskins. Somehow in the conflicts with Saul, she had been removed from him and given to another man in marriage (Paltiel), a man who apparently loves her a great deal.  Through his contact with Abner, the traitor, David sends word to Ishabaal about his desire for Michal, and reminds him of the high price he paid for her. Ishabaal apparently agrees to return her. Paltiel follows Michal in tears when Abner brings her out with him (3:16). 

Abner contacts the elders of Israel who apparently have wanted to make David their king for a while and tells them that he will now permit David to become king.  Abner goes to Hebron and David receives him at a banquet.  David sends Abner off to rally all Israel so that they can make a covenant to seal the deal. But now Joab returns from a campaign and hears about the coming of Abner.  Joab confronts David because he is furious that Abner was received so well by him. I am sure he fears for his own place in David’s court but he is also angry because this is the man who killed one of his brothers. He tries to tell David that Abner must be out to deceive him.  And then, without David’s knowledge, Joab sends men after Abner to have him killed. What intrigue and drama there is in this story!

David learns of Abner’s  and declares that he (David) is without guilt for this bloodshed.  He sees to it that Abner is buried at Hebron and he laments his loss with fasting and prayer: “All the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; just as everything the king did pleased all the people” (3:36). He even repudiates the violence of Joab and his brother.

This killing, which David renounces and tries hard to put on Joab’s tab will be echoed in the killing of Uriah later, a killing Joab arranges at David’s command but which he will make sure ends up on David’s tab, so to speak.

Mark 7:14-37 - It is not the outward thing that makes clean or unclean—whether hands or foods or laws—but the “the things that come out” of man that “defile” (7:14). He explains this more when he is alone with his disciples.  “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer” . . . it is what comes out of a person that defiles.  For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly” (7:18-23)

The next paragraph shows him in a house in Tyre, receiving a Syro-phoenician woman who begs him to come and heal her daughter who is possessed of some “demon.” He tries to dismiss her, “’Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs’”(7:24-29). The woman here teaches Jesus to observe his own teachings I think.

           

Then he goes on to the Decapolis region where he cures a deaf man who also cannot speak.  Again, he orders people not to speak of what he does, but “the more he ordered them the more zealously they proclaimed it” (7:36).