Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Old Testament, and Today. # 66. 01/03/2022
Out of Many, One People
Welcome. The world is different since last week! So ethnicity and nationhood are hot topics.
Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Old Testament.
The eruption of war in Ukraine through Putin’s attempt to incorporate all ‘Eastern Slav’ or Russian people into one ethnically united nation underlines the complexities of aligning ethnicity and nationhood. Living on islands has, at least for the English, led us to think that a nation united by territory and is peoplehood is quite straightforward. Which has lead to a complacency shaken, firstly by the ‘Irish question’ leading to increasing demands for Home Rule, then partition, then bloody conflict in Ulster, which is now in serious danger of being reawakened through an incomplete Brexit. More recent growing demands for independence for Scotland, and possibly eventually Wales have again raised the issues of how can different peoples live in a united nation. If we, then, have found maintaining national unity across varied ethnicities, despite the advantage of strong national frontiers formed by the sea, how much harder in other parts of the world, both in those where national frontiers have depended on the arbitrary agreements of European colonial powers (Nigeria’s problems being a strong case in point), but also across much of Europe, and especially the comparatively flat landscapes of eastern Europe where national frontiers have slithered treacherously to and fro over the centuries.
The Ukrainians have won international admiration for their commitment to retaining national identity and independence. But nationalism, we know, is a two-edged sword. Russian minorities in Ukraine, as also the Baltic states, have had to learn to live as minorities, at times restively, as have Catholics in Ulster or Tamils in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile hegemonic ethnic nationalism has led to increasingly arbitrary populist governments in Poland or Hungary, tinged with racism and Islamophobia. Thus, reports that Poland has turned back African refugees from Ukraine
How then does the relationship between a strong national identity and the presence of varied ethicities work out in the Old Testament? Firstly, that story is less tightly tied to the history of a narrowly defined ethnic group than is often supposed. Exodus 12:38 tells us that when the children of Israel left Egypt “A mixed crowd also went up with them”. J Daniel Hays quotes Walter Bruegemann: “the phrase suggests this is no kinship group, no ethnic community, but a great conglomeration of lower class folk . . . This term is important for the view that earliest Israel was not an ethnic community” (Hays, ‘From Every People and Nation’, p 67). So when it comes to the celebration of the Passover in Exodus 12:43-4 a distinction is made between ‘foreigners’ who may not eat the Passover (v 43) and ‘aliens who reside among you’ (v 48) who have been circumcised and who celebrate it equally with the ‘natives’. The determining factor is not ethnicity but adherence to the Covenant.
The incorporation of such aliens occurs regularly in the Old Testament. Moses’ marriage to a Cushite (or less precisely Ethiopian) woman in Numbers 12:1 is vindicated with the punishment of his sister Miriam with leprosy, and that in a context where there is much grumbling against him. Prohibition on intermarriage is not ethnic, but religious – thus with the Canaanites who could lead them into idolatry, as indeed happened, notably with Solomon and his successors. But the provision for marrying women taken in war in Deut 21:10-14 shows that with due procedures such marriages could happen.
A second element in the Old Testament’s inclusiveness is the vision enshrined in the Psalms and Prophets. Alongside the many strands of inclusion from other ethnic groups that we find scattered through the Old Testament narratives we also find the larger prophetic hope that one day the Gentiles will be fully included in the people of God, thus Psalm 67 speaks both of a God who guides ‘the nations upon earth’ (v 4), who discover his saving power (v 2); so that in response God draws them out in praise to him (vv 3 & 5). An even more intimate sense of belonging is expressed in Psalm 87:4, which speaks of Rahab (Egypt), Babylon, Philistia , Tyre and Ethiopia (Cush) as being regarded as ‘born in Zion’ – that is, they are not privileged guests or proselytes, but full citizens. Similarly for Psalm 47 the confidence that ‘God is king of all the earth’ (v7) leads on to the astounding conviction that ‘The princes of the peoples gather/ (as) the people of the God of Abraham./ For the shields of the earth belong to God;/he is highly exalted’ (v 9). Christopher Wright here puts the ‘as’ in brackets as there is no preposition in the Hebrew, but rather a simple and amazingly bold application of the logic of Genesis 12:3 to create an identification between the princes of the peoples and the people of the God of Abraham.
The prophecy of Isaiah begins with confidence in the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abram with the nations streaming up to Zion to be taught God’s ways, ushering in an age of peace when ‘they shall beat their swords into ploughshares’ (2:2-4). In the later chapters of Isaiah God’s universal sovereignty is expressed more strongly: “To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue swear” (45:23), and concludes most powerfully the Lord’s declaration that “I will take some of them as priests and as Levites” (66:21) – John Goldingay comments on “the revolutionary notion that . . .they will be admitted to the privileges of leading in worship and teaching to which most who were born Israelite could not aspire.” (Isaiah: New International Bible Commentary’, 2001, p 373).
Such ethnic complexity found expression in the Law As regards the Old Testament Stephen Rhodes counts 36 references to treating the immigrant with mercy (‘Where the Nations Meet’, p 133). He rightly concludes ‘the most important virtue any church can embody is the virtue of hospitality’ (p 134). The late Jonathan Sachs commented that the Hebrew Bible has 36 references to loving the stranger; only one to loving your neighbour.
David G Firth’s “Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets”. (IVP New Studies in Biblical Theology, 2019) gives a very helpful overview of issues of nationhood and ethnic diversity covered by the history from Joshua to 2 Kings, which well repays serious study, describing how such beliefs were indicated in the Former Prophets - that is, the six historical books from Joshua through to 2Kings. (Firth teaches at Trinity College, Bristol, and has written widely and illuminatingly on the Old Testament – I am currently reading his Apollos commentary on 1 & 2 Samuel). Pushing back against the simplistic pattern (seen at its most black and white in Richard Dawkins) that these books chronicle a rampage of aggressive, bloodthirsty ethno-nationalists bent on the ethnic cleansing of the land they invaded, Firth tells a much more complex and theologically focused story.
The paradigm is set at the beginning of Joshua where not only the Canaanite Rahab but her whole family (a not inconsiderable slice of the Jericho population are spared) so that they become in effect part of Israel, thus her appearance in the genealogy of Matthew 1:5; whilst conversely the Israelite family of Achan are destroyed because of his disobedience. The Canaanite becomes an Israelite, and the Israelite in effect a Canaanite; and this for theological reasons. Rahab has recognised that “The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:11), Achan ignored the command of the same God. The pattern is echoed in 2 Kings 5 which records “The change in status between Naaman and Gehazi is a crucial element within the story as the foreigner comes into the orbit of Israel’s life (while yet remaining a foreigner) while the Israelite moves into the pattern of an invalid foreign life” (p 156). Naaman’s healing exemplifies a theme in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings 8:41-43 that the Lord will hear the prayers of foreigners who comes to pray. Significantly, Naaman trusts the Lord for forgiveness even as he bows down in Rimmon’s temple (5:18)
There is no space to go into the very rich detail of Firth’s close application to the text. It is well worth all preachers, and especially those in multi-ethnic congregations, studying it in detail. For example amajor theme is learning from foreigners. The loyalty of Uriah the Hittite contrasts with David’s infidelity and treachery in 2 Samuel 11. We see their exemplary behaviour in the rebellion against David. He is supported by 600 Gittites (from Gath, once a Philistine stronghold) led by the faithful Ittai the Gittite (2 Samuel 15:18-22) and by Hushai the ‘Arkite’ (a Canaanite group – Joshua 16:2) in his support, and spying, for David (2 Samuel 15:32-37). Such references to foreign origin are lost or found quaint by many modern readers. (Modern equivalents highlighting people’s origins might be Rishi the Punjabi, Priti the Gujerati, Kwasi the Akan, or David (Lammy) the Guyanese). To the text’s first readers they both pointed to the virtues of non-Israelites, and the repeated unfaithfulness of Israel. Thus by the time of Manasseh in 2 Kings21:9 the Israelites had become worse than the nations they replaced.
A major theme running through the book is ‘the people of God are not defined by ethnicity but on the basis of a faith relationship with Yahweh’ (p 172). Firth, an Australian who has taught in South Africa and Zimbabwe, as someone who knows from experience what it is to be a migrant and a foreigner, most movingly in his brief final words describing his experience in Zimbabwe (p 185). “My work as a biblical interpreter cannot be separated from this experience, perhaps because as with any reader my experience of the world makes me more aware of some themes within the Bible than others” (p 2). So he concludes with ‘Pointers for an ethic towards foreigners’ (pp 183-186).
Firth’s strong emphasis on faithfulness as a the pre-eminent factor defining the Former Prophets understanding of the people of God (and which is squandered by unfaithfulness) has direct significance for the church’s binding responsibility to live out at the level of worship, fellowship and mission its vocation as a united multi-ethnic people. But what might this mean for secular, multi-ethnic societies, including both Britain and Ukraine?
If faithfulness to God is not the bonding factor nonetheless a commitment to the common good, undergirded by frequent cross-ethnic interaction, is a powerful factor. In this respect it is positive that Ukrainian politicians with strong past commitments to Russia have now publicly committed themselves to the defence of Ukrainian independence.
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Add Ons.
* Gresham Colleges on-line lectures: Professor Alec Ryrie’s series on Missions continue with an important upcoming lectures on ‘How Protestant Missionaries encountered Slavery’ on March 9th. Full details on the Gresham College web-site.
* The Latimer Trust monthly on-line newsletter contains two wise blogs on ‘Equipping the church For (cross-cultural) ministry through (cross-cultural) apprenticeships, by Andy Harker. It focusses mainly on the benefits of apprenticeships overseas, especially Africa, but also makes important transferable points about cross-cultural ministry apprenticeships in this country – a much-needed initiative for ministry development.