Dumbrell explains the faith of Israel

About 20 years ago I stood in a Christian bookstore and read quickly over the back flap of yet another survey of the Old Testament.

The endorsers were making bold claims: "The best survey of the Old Testament, bar none" .... "All who care for high-grade canonical biblical theology should welcome Dumbrell's magnum opus" .... "This is the very best sort of Old Testament survey."

Call me persnickety, but I don't care to read those kind of endorsements of the back of a book unless they are coming from true experts in the field (actually, if you call me persnickety, it will bring you much more into question than it will me, lol).

The quoted endorsers of The Faith of Israel (Baker Academic), are, in fact, true experts in either the Old Testament or Christian theology. Peter Gentry (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), J. I. Packer (Regent College), and Douglas Stuart (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) really want you to read and trust this book. So do I.

I will admit that I was not quick to come to this hearty endorsement. I bought the first edition, then sold it (with few pages turned) when I divested myself of my library in a household move.

I picked up the second edition a few years ago (owing mostly to those superlatives on the back cover), but, for the most part, it stood ignored on my bookshelf until this year.

On January 26, I listed four books that I was using to supplement my reading of the Old Testament. Days later, I pulled Dumbrell's book from the shelf and found a treasure trove awaiting me.

Dumbrell doesn't just restate the material of the Old Testament. He doesn't merely organize it. He makes sense of it.

One example is his treatment of the book of Leviticus. For the contemporary evangelical believer, who has come into relationship with the Living God via placing faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, this book can be quite a puzzle. A variety of sacrifices to be offered, issues of ritual purity to be adhered to, and mandatory festivals are not part of such a believer's life. Dumbrell reminds, though, that Leviticus is part of the history of God's dealings with human beings, and, it therefore, offers a 'snap shot' of sorts.

Last week, I quoted OT scholar Bruce Waltke on the jolt that readers of the Bible get when they leave the narratives of the patriarchs and Moses, and then encounter the specs for the Tabernacle (twice!) in the later part of Exodus. Then, of course, Leviticus falls on the readers like a stack of handsomely-bound law books in the library.

Why does the story change so? Dumbrell points out that the nation of Israel needed a system whereby "covenant relationships could be maintained or repaired."

He says further of Leviticus, "The book is concerned not with antiquarian or peripheral issues, but with the practical issue of how life within the covenant is to be maintained."

Like oxygen to a body, the necessity of God making provision for Israel this way can be seen very clearly by part of the Exodus narrative. In Exodus 32, the Israelites, in their impatience, press Aaron for idols to worship --- and Aaron complies with a calf made of gold! The severe response from Moses and God should not be lost on anyone.

Dumbrell, and Paul House in his Old Testament Survey (B & H Academic), point out the significance of Moses furiously throwing the tablets of stone God had written on, breaking them.

"Besides demonstrating his anger, this action symbolizes the broken covenant," House says on page 59.

"Moses fracture of the two tablets (32:19) is his fracture of the covenant, an action understandable from later Babylonian terms," Dumbrell, page 40.

Unfortunately, the modern reader may shrug his shoulders and think, "So? ... a covenant has been broken."

R. W. L. Moberly spells out the upshot of Israel supplanting Yahweh with a golden calf shortly after having agreed to be in covenant with Yahweh: "... it is rather like committing adultery on one's wedding night," in Theological Interpretation of the Old Testament (Baker Academic).

House adds, "Covenant breaking was a great offense. When it occurred, nations went to war, and clans feuded. Individuals sought restitution from their unfaithful partners. To mark the unfortunate occasion, the covenant's basic requirements, often written on stones, were smashed. New stones were cut only if a new covenant was made."

The nation of Israel is jammed up. Its 'marriage' has come to a screeching halt before it had a chance to develop a history. It has grievously insulted its gracious, benevolent, and jealous bridegroom. We know how the relationship gets repaired --- in this instance. Moses intercedes. And graciously, new tablets are created. The destroyed marriage license, if you will, has been replaced.

But, House poignantly asks, "What if they act like they did in chapter 32 again? Is having Moses pray for them the only way their sins can be covered?"

Hence, the levitical system.

In the parlance of modern romance, God wants these people "in His life." He must give them revelation both of His holiness and how they, in their innate unholiness, may stay in covenant with Him.

"Two dominant threads run through Leviticus, which begins and ends with Sinai (Lev. 27:34)," says Dumbrell, "the goal of holiness for Israel and the need for forgiveness."

On forgiveness, Dumbrell challenges readers to re-examine the text. "To take the common view of the OT sacrifices as being merely typical or symbolic, but hardly efficacious, is to read into the OT the later conclusions of the Epistle to the Hebrews, drawn in light of the finality of Jesus' sacrifice .... To suggest that forgiveness offered through the system was only symbolic or typical reduces sacrifice in the OT to a vague and meaningless ritual. This was never intended."

Nor had God devised a system that the Israelites could 'game.'

"Forgiveness depended ultimately on divine grace," Dumbrell contends, "a fact the OT underscores by reporting occasions in which God forgave without the operation of the system (e.g., 2 Sam. 12). Such instances reminded Israel that sacrifice was the customary means of approach, but that God's forgiveness was not distributed mechanically in a context in which there was a constant disposition to misunderstand the system."

When dealing with, what is often called, the Holiness Code of Leviticus, Dumbrell treats both Yahweh and Yahweh's people.

"When Yahweh manifests himself, his holiness is visible as glory, the radiant power of his being. Glory is not identical with holiness, but it stresses a power included in holiness," he explains. "Glory is often the exterior manifestation of the power and holiness of Yahweh himself, while holiness denotes Yahweh's intimate nature and often has a moral aspect that is not necessarily included in the concept of glory. So holiness refers to Yahweh's inner nature and glory to his outward manifestation. Because Yahweh's holiness implies his absolute power over the world, mighty upheavals in nature attend God's appearing."

Then on to the people: "The call to be holy meant that the people were to develop in themselves characteristics similar to Yahweh's. This process is called sanctification. The process is reciprocal. Yahweh sanctifies (20:8; 21:8, 15, 23; 22:9; , 16, 32), and the people are to sanctify themselves (11:44; 20:7). By keeping the law and by worship the people sanctified themselves and revered Yahweh as the holy God in their congregation (22:32). Yahweh also sanctified them by his holy power working in their lives, affirming the noble and purging the corrupt. Yahweh's holiness sought to penetrate the whole person and not merely the soul."

Most assuredly, the holiness of Israel was not abstract. "Two qualities undergirded the national holy life: justice and love," Dumbrell says. Some of the laws in Leviticus that we may find irrelevant were necessary to teach former slaves how to not become the next oppressors. Dumbrell explains how the principle of lex talionis in Leviticus (an eye for an eye, and so on) "was a great advance in the law codes, for it raised personal injury from a civil tort to a criminal law, increasing the citizen's worth." Plus, Yahweh stressed that Israel was to deal justly with foreigners. It was not to oppress, as it had been oppressed.

"Leviticus is a book operating within a context of grace," he says in summation. "God has redeemed Israel, separated the people from their world (18:24), and given them laws by which they are to live (18:5) and by which the land to which God is bringing them is to be protected (chap. 26). In the final sense, Leviticus is a political document describing Israel as a theocracy, an entity ruled by God. God is to be obeyed because of God's holiness, demonstrated in the saving history of Israel."

Like Gentry, Packer, and Stuart, I commend William Dumbrell's understanding of the Old Testament to you.