As Sailhamer points out, reshith is the antonym of aharith. Or in English, beginning is the antonym of last. Thus the Torah begins, "In the beginning" (bereshith) (Gen 1:1) and then the poetic climaxes are explained as telling what will happen "in the last days" (beaharith hayyamim) (Gen 49:1, Num 24:14, Deut 31:29). The only other place in the Torah where this phrase is found is Deut 4:30. These reflections are inspired by his article, "A Wisdom Composition of the Pentateuch?" in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce Waltke published by Zondervan.

This observation encourages us to see that the protology (words about first things) of Gen 1:1 is written to correspond to eschatology (words about last [or ultimate] things) of the poems following Gen 49:1, Num 24:14, and Deut 31:29. One point stressed at WTS was that the prologue of Genesis (Gen 1:1-2:3) as well as the first book of Genesis (Gen 2-4) is eschatological. But we do not need to look beyond the opening word ("in the beginning") to be pointed to the last days. We are living in the last days now, but the phrase in the Torah pointed first to the days of King David before ultimately to the days of his son and Lord Jesus Christ.

To see how the poems pointed to the King we should observe the intertexuality of the poems (that is, how they are in conversation or even quoting one another). Here I am expanding from discussing the three major poems to include the other prominent poems in the Torah. Sailhamer calls it cross-referencing. He notes, for example that Num 24:9a quotes Gen 49:9b. Speaking of the King from the tribe of Judah, these two poems both say, "He crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?"

Comparing the major poem in Genesis 49 and the major poem starting in Num 24:15 we can see the king's scepter mentioned with Judah in Gen 49:10 is mentioned in Num 24:17. The advance of Numbers is to note the king will defeat certain people groups. As Sailhamer notes, Gen 10 helps you to identify where these people groups in the Numbers poem fit. In fact, it may be that one reason for the writing of Gen 10 was to explain the groups mentioned in Balaam's poem. These peoples are not mentioned in the surrounding story of Numbers, you have to look at Gen 10 to learn about them. The major poem of Deut 32 mentions the events of Gen 10: "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God" (Deut 32:8). This last poem in Deut 32:10 also uses the word tohu from Gen 1:2.

Therefore, Sailhamer argues that Num 24:24 is showing how the Noahic poetry of Gen 9:27 about Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem extends to the last days. The Kittim were from Japheth (Gen 10:4). Asshur is one of the sons of Shem (Gen 10:22) and Eber is considered his son too (Gen 10:21).

Sailhamer also says, "In addition, the literary parallels between Deut 33 and Gen 49 are well known. Whole phrases from one poem have been inserted into the other" (p.22). I have noted this previously because Deut 33 is the work of a later hand, but one that borrows from the earlier hand of the Torah. At some point I would like to examine this claim further.

But the point shown here is that "in the beginning" (especially for the purposes of this post, Gen 1-11, the unit that comes before the patriarchal narratives) points us to "in the last days" (Gen 49:1, Num 24:14, Deut 31:29).

Labels: eschatology, japheth, protology, sailhamer, shem

This text is a prologue for the whole of Genesis, the whole of the Torah, the whole of the Old Testament, and the whole of Scripture. It is not a science textbook.

As a prologue to Genesis 2-3 in the Garden of Eden, the creation of man is parallel to the creation of vegetation. The text also reveals what would happen if Adam had passed his probation -- he would continue to fill the earth and spread the garden and enter Sabbath rest. As a prologue to the story of Israel, it describes the creation of the sea and the land on Days 2 and 3a in a way similar to the Exodus Event. The waters separate and dry land appears. Moreover, the text teaches us that Israel was to be the servant of God and the king of creation (including the nations). In two words, Adam and Israel were to be a 'servant king' or, in one word, a 'son'. As a prologue to Scripture as a whole, it points us to the the goal of creation -- a fruitful earth filled with people glorifying God and entering His Sabbath rest.

The days of Genesis 1:1-2:3 are not literal twenty-four hour periods of time. First of all, Day Seven does not end in the text but continues throughout Scripture (Day Eight begins ahead of time with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). Secondly, the sun, moon, and stars are not created until Day Four. And thirdly, these days while figurative with respect to earthly time are describing a heavenly reality. That is, the days and the speech of God all take place in the invisible heavens.

The days of Genesis 1:1-2:3 are not sequential periods of time on earth. Clearly Day Seven must be last and Day 6b must take place after Days 1-6a, but the days are not arranged sequentially. First of all, Day One and Day Four take place at the same time on earth. Day Four repeats language from Day One. On Day four it says that these lights are "to separate the day from the night" (Gen 1:14) and "to separate the light from the darkness" (Gen 1:18). This is precisely what was accomplished on Day One: "God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night" (Gen 1:5). The text through repetition means to let us know that these two Days take place at the same time on earth. Moreover, we should not expect that God would use His providence ("the earth brought forth vegetation" Gen 1:12 and "When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land" Gen 2:5) in one area and sustain light without His normal means of providence until Day Four.

So Days One and Four are parallel. In fact, Day One describes kingdoms and Day Four describes the kings. "God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern (or rule over) the day, and the lesser light to govern (or rule over) the night" (Gen 1:16). Days Two and Five are also parallel. On Day Two the kingdoms of sky and sea and then Day Five the kings of sea creatures and birds. Notice that the kings are created in the opposite order to the kingdoms (chiastic order). Also, they are described as kings by blessing them with a dominion (kingdom) mandate, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth" (Gen 1:22). Moreover, another thing the author does to make sure you read Days Two and Five as parallel in this literary structure is to leave out the phrase "and God saw that it was good" or something similar on Day Two and to leave out the phrase "and it was so" on Day Five. Thus "and it was so" or "and light was" for Day One (phrases that in Hebrew look much more similar than in English) is said a perfect seven times and "God saw that it was good" or "very good" is said a perfect seven times. The only place these are missing in the structure are on days two and five. Leaving out the comment about it being good is appropriate for Day Two because land has not appeared yet -- so in a very real sense it is not good yet.

Days Three and Six are also parallel. The main way this is communicated is through having each have two creative acts. The phrase "And God said, Let..." takes place eight times in the first six days. And to make this work Days Three and Six are both given two. The diagram compared to the text will help you visualize this better. On Day 3a there is the creation of the kingdom called land. On Day 6a there is the creation of land animals. And on Day 3b there is the creation of the kingdom called vegetation, and on Day 6b there is the creation of people as kings. The dominion mandate for man is over the whole of creation in general but more specifically over the garden (preparing us for Genesis 2-3).

Thus at the end of Day Three the formless or more literally "wilderness/desert" earth is on its way to becoming fruitful and at the end of Day Six the void or better empty or "deserted" earth is on its way to becoming full.

Whenever we interpret Scripture we must try to discern what it is that the author is doing. In this text, once you see the structure, it is clear that the Days are not literal nor sequential from an earthly perspective. God is trying to teach us much more important things than a science textbook. And Genesis 1:1-2:3 is fully the word of God and without error.

And this is 'literally' a prologue to the book of Genesis. The rest of Genesis, beginning with Gen 2:4, consists in ten books each beginning with a phrase like "These are the generations of..." and Genesis 1:1-2:3 is the kingdom prologue.

I am heavily indebted to the works and teachings of Meredith Kline (even borrowing his book titled Kingdom Prologue for the title of the post), Lee Irons, and Lane Tipton for this post.

Labels: framework, Genesis, Genesis 1, kingdom, kings, kline, prologue, protology

Meredith G. Kline's God, Heaven, and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos is a fun book for the biblical scholar. Kline is still providing volumes of insight within a single sentence, but this time with much fewer hyphenated words. There was one paragraph with "altar-throne-temple-city" and the customary coined Klinisms like Glory-Spirit still show up from time to time. But, by and large, the sentences are a little more readable.

The book accomplishes its goal (telos). Tracing from the beginning of the cosmos to the telos of the theme of the Mount of Gathering from the Genesis Garden of Eden to Revelation's resurrected Har Magedon. The biblical story is much more fascinating, as related by Kline, than all of the fictional tales out there on "Armaggedon."

Like Alleluia should be Hallelu-yah (Hebrew for Praise Yah--the nickname of Israel's God: Yahweh), this really should be transliterated as Har Magedon not Armaggedon. In both cases, the Greek has a rough breathing mark that corresponds to the guttural "h" sound but the English translators ignore. Har is Hebrew for hill or mountain, the latter being preferable here since this would the top of the world - figuratively speaking the highest mountain. And Magedon, Kline explains, is really Moed in Hebrew. Moed is Hebrew for assembly or gathering or congregation. The -on ending is common for Hebrew nouns. And the "g" sound is trying to transliterate a soft guttural letter 'ayin that we usually do not pronounce at all. Moreover, John always explains transliterated words by giving a translation into Greek. Here that is found in the sentence too: "he gathered them to the place called in Hebrew har magedon." Thus Har Magedon means Mount of Gathering. Kline also makes other points to solidify the argument, including where the phrase is the cosmic polar opposite to Hades or the pit. Thus the Heights of Zaphon on the one hand, and the depths of the pit on the other. The pit in Revelation is the Hebrew term Abbadon, the angel of the Abyss or Hades or Sheol, and often a synonym. It is found where we would expect the opposite of Har Magedon to be in Revelation.

Kline traces this motif from the mountain of Eden through Ararat through Sinai-Horeb through Jerusalem-Zion to the new Jerusalem. In the end, he provides a stellar explanation of the 3 and 1/2 times interval in Daniel and Revelation. And he avoids the errors of pre and postmillennialism and provides positive development of the so-called amillennial view, which really believes that the millennium is the period between AD 70 and Christ's return. The 1000 years is time from the heavenly perspective, total and complete. But the time is 3 and 1/2 years and not FOUR from the perspective of the saints suffering persecution and martyrdom. Four is the wisdom number for complete. Thus, from the perspective of the saints, HOW LONG? will not be too long. We will not be utterly destroyed and consumed. Throughout this discussion, Kline remains Christocentric or better yet Christotelic in explaining the victory belongs to Jesus Christ on the Mount of Gathering at the end of the present world order.

For those of us who are living in the symbolic "3 and 1/2 years" that have taken from AD 70 into the present and possibly beyond, not knowing when Christ will return on the clouds, this book removes much of the confusion that others would frighten us with. May all the glory go to God. May He gather us to Har Magedon soon. Amen.

Labels: amillennialism, armaggedon, daniel, eschatology, kline, mountain of God, protology, revelation, telos