Clinic, Pt. 3

When the ancient Israelites had finally settled in Canaan, the new Garden land that had been promised to Abraham and Sarah, we can imagine there being an air of palpable joy and hope for the future. God had rescued them from the external threat of Egypt and called them into the Sinai Covenant, a special partnership to help the Israelites better become a Clinic that could work to defeat the internal threat of the corruption in their human nature and repair their broken relationships with God, each other, and Creation. They were ready to follow the Law , a treatment plan God gave them at Mount Sinai so that they could, in a sense, enter a new Garden land and live out the vision God had for human life.

The Israelites learned over time, however, that even with Land and Law, it was still very difficult for individuals and groups to live in the way needed to cure their sin-sickness. Soon after settling in Canaan, the Israelites fell into a cycle, as described in the opening chapters of the book of Judges. Instead of worshiping God, following the Law, and working to bring others into their human-nature clinic, they worshiped the gods of the Canaanites, did what was evil in God’s sight, and let the corruption in their nature worsen. Inevitably, the Israelites’ imitation of their neighbors would turn into subjugation, as the Canaanites would temporarily conquer them. It was as if the Israelites had a choice: follow God’s ways to be ruled by him, or follow the Canaanites’ ways to be ruled by them.

The people and leaders would eventually repent, and God would raise up an individual as a judge to defeat the enemies. In the following peacetime, the judge would watch over Israel, helping the people to interpret the Law and settle disputes. The Israelites would resume the treatment plan for a time, but the next generation would inevitably repeat the same mistakes, starting the cycle over.

Israel’s First Kings

After many of these cycles, the last of which ended with misconduct among even the Judges, the Israelites realized that something needed to change. Unfortunately, they misdiagnosed the issue. Instead of realizing that it was their unfaithfulness to God and his treatment plan that repeatedly led to enemy occupation, they blamed their troubles on not having a king to protect them. They asked God for a king to lead Israel’s defense and rule the people on behalf of God. Even though God warned the Israelites about the additional hardships that a king would cause, they persisted, and he relented. Israel’s first king, Saul, did achieve a number of military victories, but he also killed many Israelites while trying to hold on to the throne from David, who God chose to replace Saul.

David was Israel’s most revered king. He grew up as a shepherd and gained prominence when he defeated Goliath, the champion of the Philistines. When God chose him to replace Saul, Saul planned to kill David, which forced David into hiding for many years. When Saul died in battle, David was able to take the throne. David also accomplished great things for Israel, including military victories, the capture of Jerusalem, and its conversion to Israel’s capital. Out of God’s affection for David, he promised that all of Israel’s future kings would come from David’s line. In spite of all this, David’s personal sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband demonstrated that even he could not always resist the influence of his corrupted human nature.

David’s successor, his son Solomon, built Israel’s first temple, which replaced the tent-like tabernacle as a central location for Israelites to carry out their ritual sacrifices. God’s presence resided in the innermost temple chamber, the Holy of Holies, which was considered the place where Heaven and Earth met. Solomon was respected as a wise ruler who greatly increased Israel’s wealth and military strength, but he did this in part by imposing high taxes and forced labor on the Israelites, fulfilling God’s earlier warning about the hardships that a king would cause for the people.

The Path to Exile

The existence of a king was a double-edged sword for Israel. Because of the king’s overarching power and influence, a good king could guide the nation in the Covenant on a path to healing and restoration. But for the same reasons, a bad king could lead Israel towards worshiping false gods and set the nation back for a generation or more. Israel’s kings were supposed to follow the Law , and prophets were able to provide some kind of accountability for the monarchy, serving a function similar to independent political media today, but the kings were more likely to persecute or ignore them than to change their behavior. Under the kings, the Israelites soon fell back into the same cycle as under the judges: abandoning God, suffering without his protection, and later turning back to him, only to eventually abandon God again when times got better.

It is important to understand human agency and God’s agency in how and why opposing nations would temporarily conquer the Israelites. Israel sometimes sought to be like other gentile nations, make alliances with them, or impress them with wealth. As kings collected wealth in Jerusalem at the expense of the average Israelite, they also drew the attention of other kings. God allowed other nations to invade Israel or break treaties with Israel. But God was not being vindictive; he was revealing with sadness what the Israelites were doing to themselves on a spiritual level. People who remove themselves from under umbrellas during a storm will get wet; similarly, when the Israelites were unfaithful to the Sinai Covenant and sought protection using their own wealth, strength, and alliances, they removed themselves from under the umbrella of God’s protection. Note: this dynamic was unique to Ancient Israel because of their special relationship with God and their role in God’s salvation plan, as discussed in A Note on Violence in the Old Testament. It should not be applied to any other individual, group, nation, or country, past or present, since God’s salvation plan has already been accomplished through Jesus.

This cycle continued for several centuries, until it stopped. But not in the way that we would hope. After repeatedly failing to uphold their side of the Sinai covenant–failing to follow God’s treatment plan and serve as a clinic for the corruption in human nature–the warnings of exile from Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 18:24-28 came to pass. The Israelites left God’s protection, and the land “vomited them out.” In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians conquered the northern part of Israel, and most of the Jewish population was killed, deported, or converted to other faiths. In the 6th century BCE, in what is known as the Babylonian exile, the Babylonians conquered the southern part of Israel. The independent monarchy was ended, God’s shining presence left the temple, and the temple was destroyed. Many of the Israelites were either deported to the Babylonian empire’s other lands or fled to Egypt.

The Refining Fire of Exile

All of this violence, destruction, and tragedy could have easily led to the loss of the Jewish religion altogether. Many Jews were scattered abroad among the Gentile nations, and all Jews lamented the loss of God’s presence in the sanctuary after the Babylonian conquest. Since Israel’s role as Clinic was initially tied to sovereignty in Canaan, it was unclear what plans, if any, God still had for them.

Fortunately, many of the Israelites were able to hold on to God in hope, in spite of the unimaginable hardships they experienced. For them, exile became a chance to reflect on their history and faith. They were in a spot similar to the generation of Israelites that were forced to wander the desert for forty years after their unfaithfulness to God at Mount Sinai. They had to reflect on the core of their faith and help their children believe that God would keep his promises to Abraham, Moses, and David. But how? How would God restore the Jewish people from exile so that they could fulfill their role in restoring all humanity from the original exile from the Garden of Eden? How would God help them to accomplish their mission to restore the Earth and all of its people back the wholeness of relationship with him?

The Israelites’ problem was a paradox. In order to live out their responsibilities as God’s image-bearers, they needed to circumcise their hearts. To circumcise their hearts, they needed to follow the Law, God’s treatment plan. But following the Law had proved impossible because the corruption in their hearts kept leading them astray. None of the support systems that God had given and the Israelites had asked for worked. Land, leaders, prophets, and protection–none of these had helped them to continually follow the Law and complete God’s treatment plan. Something more was needed, Israel came to understand.

A Partial Return

A large group of the Jewish people were able to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and its temple when the Babylonian empire was defeated by the Persian empire many years later, but their spiritual exile continued. God’s presence did not return to the temple, and the Jewish people were under constant rule from other nations . Over the next 400 years, the Jewish people awaited God’s response to their condition.

The prophets who had warned of exile had also proclaimed God’s promise to restore Israel, but it was unclear how God would accomplish that. The parts of the Bible written during the exile, including the final form of the Book of Psalms, focused on God’s promise to the Davidic kings. The prophet Isaiah had spoken of a “servant” from the house of David, sent from God to be the Messiah (a Hebrew word meaning “anointed one,” translated as “Christ” in Greek and “savior” in English) who would somehow restore them from exile.

But the Jewish people also knew that God worked in a timeline and by methods that were mysterious to them, so they waited, watched, and hoped. In time, their hope was answered. That is the topic of the next C: Cure.