BibleProject - David and Goliath the Dragon – Chaos Dragon E7

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

So often the symbol of the chaos monster shows up embodied by a human bent on oppressing other people. Goliath, one of the Bible’s most well-known bad guys, is depicted as having scaly armor like a snake and defying not just Israel, but Yahweh. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the theme of the dragon in the story of David and Goliath.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-18:05)Part two (18:05-32:00)Part three (32:00-42:32)Referenced ResourcesThe Serpent in Samuel: The Messianic Motif, Brian A. VerrettInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTSMusic breaks by Patrick MurphyShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Tyler at Bible Project. I record and edit the podcast. We're currently exploring the theme called the Chaos Dragon, which is a huge theme. And so, we decided to do two separate question and response episodes about it. Right now, we're taking questions for the second Q&R and would love to hear from you. Just record your question by November 1st, 2023, and send it into us at infoabiboproject.com.

Let us know your name and where you're from. Try to keep the question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question infoabivalproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from. Try to keep the question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a really big help to our team. We're so looking forward to hearing from you. Here's the episode. chaos and death and disorder. In the authors of the Bible, use a common, ancient image to depict this reality, the

Sea Dragon. In the story of the Bible, humans are often deceived and align themselves with the power of chaos and death. And when they do, they become themselves, Sea Dragons, snakey monsters. On today's podcast, we're going to look at one such monster, a giant in the Bible that we know of as Goliath. He has a Nakhoshet helmet on his head. Nakhoshet is the word for bronze, but it's spelled with the root letters of the word snake. He was closed with armor of scales. It's the same word to describe the scales of secret creatures. And what he comes to do is publicly denounce the armies of Israel and their God.

He's a creature bent on destruction. And then there's David, a young shepherd kid, who doesn't like that the sneaky giant is defaming Yahweh's name. And David says, listen, I'm a shepherd, I'm like faced off a bear and a lion. Those wilderness creatures of the land of chaos all do to this philistine what I did for the lion the bear. David strikes down Goliath with a slingshot and then cuts off Goliath's head with his own sword. There's this huge emphasis on Goliath's head, which is echoing back to Genesis 315 of stomping on the head of the snake.

Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about the theme of the chaos monster and the story of David and Goliath. I'm John Collins and you're listening to Biblical Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. It's him. Hi, John. Hello.

Hello. Okay. We're in the middle of a series of conversations we're having about the snake and the seed dragon in the storyline of the Bible. Right. Which is a way to reflect on these powerful creatures that symbolize and actually enact de-creation chaos and become a way to think about what does it mean for creation itself to fight against itself and want to pull itself back into destruction and chaos. And to do that, we start looking at just the imagery

of dragons, see dragons, the Tannin. Yeah, in the cultural narratives, mythology and poetry of all of the nations around Israel. So the dragons slaying motif, the dragon's represent chaos, destruction, disorder. This is widespread. This is one of the most dominant cultural stories and images around the biblical authors. So no surprise, the biblical authors take up these images, but then they also have refashioned them to use the symbols and make them work according to their unique convictions about the God of Israel and his purposes in the world.

And what creation even is in the first place. Right. And if the dark abyss, the chaotic waters, is the enemy against the ordered realm of humanity that God created, then Then there's a creature within there this just beast that in this mythic imagination of their neighbors embodies the chaos waters and becomes this just raging monster that wants to destroy and eat life and swallow up life. And so in the biblical author's imagination, this creature, yes, exists is in the chaos waters that God separated from the land, but it's actually part of God's creation and it's good. And it's not necessarily evil and it's good, and it's not necessarily evil, and it's not really a rival of God.

And in the sense that it is a rival against creation, then God will have to deal with it, but in no way is it truly like a rival to God. Yeah, nor is it essentially or in its nature evil, because it can be depicted as God's rubber ducky, like in Psalm 104, it can be depicted as something God is even proud of. But it has a choice like the humans have a choice. And what we see in Genesis 3 is the image of the snake,

dragon-like snake, using its wisdom and status to introduce deception into God's world and to lure God's image bears into death, to embrace their own destruction. That's how we trace the role of the snake in the Garden of Eden story, and then in the story after that of Cain, we introduce another twist, which is humans who listen to the voice of the snake can become agents of the snake, therefore agents of disorder, death, and de-creation. And then man, if those humans that are agents of the snake listening to its voice go and build cities, they become empires and nations.

Oh man, you've got a recipe for a world that looks just like ours and That's essentially what we've been tracing throughout the biblical story in the stories of Pharaoh Egypt in the stories of the Canaanite kingdoms around Israel as Their stories are told and Exodus or Judges they're depicted as human agents of the dragon. So we're gonna go into this story of David, King David, is that where you're going?

Okay, before we do that, can I ask a meta question? Always. Hopefully, it's one of the realest too much. There's the best ones. So there's kind of three different ways into thinking about the same idea. And we can think about them as like the three realms, the three chaos realms, the dark abyss in Genesis 1, and then you've got the tannine, the c-dragon, the lives in the chaos waters.

Then you've got the dry wilderness of Genesis 2, which is also a way to think of the same idea of just nothingness, no creation, no life, and the creature there is the snake. The snake. Yep. Also because it goes into holes in the ground, it's kind of associated with the underworld in the realm of the dead. All right. That should not be forgotten.

So, they feel like completely opposite images. There's some connections, they're reptilian kind of animals. Yeah. But they're two different domains. And then those two ways into it really get blurred to the point where like sometimes you're talking about a snake, but then it's referred to as a seed dragon. Sometimes you're talking about a seed dragon, then it's referred to as a snake. And so there's that.

Then there's a third realm, which we talked about at length, which is the darkness. Darkness. Yes. And now, it's another way, a third way to think about nothingness. And God orders the darkness by saying, let there be light. And then he puts creatures, the host of heaven in the sky, the great light for the day, the lesser light for the night, and also the stars. And the stars are these creatures of the night. And then, so now, when we talk about the creature showing up, it could be a snake, but it could also then be this creature of the

sky in some way too. Yeah. And all of those can be depicted as good or bad. Yeah, yeah, that's right. When's a snake ever depicted as good? Oh, good point. Oh, well, the Taneen can praise God, and can be used by Moses. Yep, or in Isaiah's poetry, he can envision the new creation.

Ah, where they're harmless. Ah, it's an era of peace between humans and snakes. And the toddler's playing with the cobra. That's right. Three realms. Three realms, That's right. Three realms. Three realms, three different creatures. But then it just all gets kind of just blended in the way that I think I just want to maybe understand.

So if they can all be, okay, here's the question. If it gets blended together, then it makes me think, okay, well, these are three ways to talk about some other thing. And so then I wonder, what is that thing? What is that rudimentary thing that these are three ways in to think about like a creature in the domain of nothingness who then decides, I'm going to drag creation back into nothing. Like, what are we talking about?

What are we talking about? Let me just clear the waters with mud, perhaps. The fact, so just once you notice, you identified those three realms, the sky, the dark, and then sky rulers, the chaos waters and the dragon, and then the desolate wilderness, and then sky rulers, the chaos waters and the dragon, and then the desolate wilderness and then the snake. So what I'm trying to do also is do a reverse genealogy often from later books in the Bible,

or second temple Jewish literature, for how did they get to the imagery there using it? To the imagery they're using. So one place where we'll end, our last conversation here, is the scene in Revelation chapter 12, where John sees a sign in the heavens of a huge, great, red dragon on fire

with seven heads, ten horns, and then on the seven heads or seven like crowns. His tail sweeps away a third of the stars, sweeps him to the earth. Then he's going to go stand in front of this woman who John saw earlier, and she's about to give birth to a male seed who's going to rule the nations, and he wants to eat it. But then she escapes the child, is snatched away, and she dwells in the wilderness for three and a half years. And then there's a war in the skies,

and the dragon is now up there with his stars, called angels now, fighting. Are you guys get the imagery here? Well, I don't know if you get the imagery. Sorry. Then the dragon's thrown down to the land, who is the ancient serpent called the slanderer, Well, I don't know if you get the imagery. Sorry. Then the dragon's thrown down to the land who is the ancient serpent called the slanderer,

the Diabolos, or the opposer, the satan, and he deceives the whole world. So let's just stop like, why do you make sense of this? And so I'm trying to do like that reverse engineering. Yes. And all of the imagery is right there in the first chapters of Genesis. I see.

But here they're all being brought together. As referring to something. Yes. And what is that thing? And I think when I read this, and maybe from just my background, I think that thing is spiritual darkness. What we're talking about is,

or what we've called before spiritual evil, what do we talk about in the, when we did the St. and demons stuff, like we just started calling it, yeah, they're creatures. They are creatures of the divine realm that like humans have. Are these the demons that Jesus encounters too?

Like is this the... Yes. I mean, they're certainly related where those come from, there's kind of multiple explanations in ancient Judaism, all of them with roots in the Bible, but they have different kinds of bodies because they're heavenly bodies.

So they have fundamentally different types of bodies than we do. When you say heavenly bodies. They're just They are when you say body to you just mean physically made up Yeah, whatever that's different. Yeah. Yeah, they have bodies and the biblical authors actually think that those bodies are more We say spiritual we don't mean disembodied No, what I mean is their bodies this is the biblical language for they exist the real There's a whole other realm. The biblical god has just taken this for granted. Yes, okay. What is the thing we're taking for granted here? It's a realm of intelligent beings who image God in a way that's different than you and I

image God here on the land. And they have bodies bodies but their bodies are of a fundamentally different mode than our animal-like bodies here on the land. And they actually take for granted that that realm is actually more substantial in real than you and I are here living outside Vietn. We're the ones living in the shadow realm for the biblical clothers. We're like in the sub-reality. We're in the simulation.

Yes, yes, yes. And angelic or spiritual beings are a step closer to ultimate reality. Interesting. Okay. However, because they're beings, again, biblical authors take for granted, because they're beings that image God God in terms of God's mind.

They have intelligence, will, and volition, and degree of independence. And they can choose folly and rebellion against the wisdom of God just like we can. And I think that's what is being described in Genesis chapter 3, the twin fall of powers and heaven on earth. And that's certainly how Jesus and the apostles viewed reality and viewed the biblical story. And what's interesting is when you ask like, but what is the actual thing? And the biblical authors give us these images. Okay. And then the other puzzle for me, which we don't have to solve now, is, and what

sense is there domain the darkness and the abyss and the like, the nothing state which God created out of? What does it mean there are inhabitants of that? Yeah. If you're realm that you associate with is kind of like defines who you are, what you're after, what you're going for. Right? Then these are creatures who have chosen the darkness. Well, God puts the stars in the darkness.

That's true. He puts the tannine and... That's right. If you put someone in a cage, they become a monster. That's a great. But I don't think that's the idea here. I think the idea is that, that totally, because the stars are in the darkness shining as signs, what they're called. Signs of God's light. Signs of God's light to be representatives of God's light, they're opposed to the darkness.

But they are in the realm that God separated so that life could flourish, the darkness and the cast one. Okay, there's something there I need to understand more, reflect on more. But okay. What is important though, because we have been using this word myth throughout our conversation, the dragon's laying myth, it's important that the biblical authors are using the language of a cultural mythology familiar to them, to describe something that for them is very much not a myth in the way we use the word.

Right. You mean like, fable or superstition. Yeah. There really is something that keeps deceiving every single generation of humans into our own self-ruin on a corporate and individual level. And how do you explain that? Yeah. And there are lots of ways you could explain it. One of the ways the biblical authors do is to talk about this twin parallel realms that are influencing each other. So what is interesting is

that the authors of the Hebrew Bible keep that spiritual parallel realm mostly in the background. And they foreground the human drama on the land. And then occasionally give little peaks and windows into the spiritual drama, but usually they link them together through hyperlinking and word play and imagery. Yeah. And what we saw last discussion was, you know, we have the story of a battle between this corrupt king who's enslaving Israel and Israel, and then when a poet reflects back on it, he's like, oh, the stars were actually a war.

Yeah. It wasn't just this king. It was like. Yeah. And the flood, the powers of the cast waters were also unleashed that day. Yeah. Yeah. So what we're going to see, and what we're going to look at today, the story of David and Goliath, is going to be the same type of thing, except this story is really focused on the one God has raised up to crush the head of the snake. But then what we're going to do again, similarly, is go look at poetic retellings of the story of David, and we're going to find there once again, the chaos monsters at work ended behind

the people that David faced. So we have reflected on and read the story of David and Goliath a couple times now actually in the last year or two. Yeah, just recently in the first point series maybe. In the first point series and in the anointed conversation. Oh, conversation, conversation, that's right. So I just want to read through the introduction to Goliath and point out a few details, some of which we've talked about for some of which we haven't, and then focus on the victory. But then really, I want to get to David's poetic retelling, which is awesome.

So to the David and have been in the land. This is after judges from our last conversation. They've chosen a king for themselves, King Saul. That didn't go very well. And so now God has actually is raising up David, and he was privately appointed as king in God's eyes in the previous story, for Samuel 16. That's God in Samuel and so on, and the seven brothers who were not chosen. And then this is the next story after that. So, it's Saul is still currently King David is just the shepherd kid and he's nothing special to anybody except the Prophet Samuel.

So the story just begins. The Philistines Gathered their camps for battle and they were gathered at the Thornbush Which belongs to Judah so the Philistines are the bad guys in the story and they're gathering for battle against Israel a town called Soko, which is the word Thornbush So Eden echoes right off the bat. We're battling near the thornbush. Yeah, near the wilderness. Yeah, and this is related to the image of when Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden. They go to live and work the land and die in the land of thorns and thistles.

So anytime you mention thornbushes, and from that point forward, you know, you're in the, it's an Eden image or an exile from Eden. Anytime you mention thorn bushes, and from that point forward, you know, you're in the, it's an Eden image or an exile from the end. Right. An exile image. Yeah. So they camped between thorn bush, soko, and azzeca, which refers to soil that's been broken up. Like toiled soil. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So they're creating a field out here. Yep. And the wilderness. Yep. Near fs.domim, which means no bloodshed. Yeah, yeah, so they're creating a field out here. Yep, and the wilderness. Yep near FS Damim which means no bloodshed

There's a lot of blood about to be shot. That's ground. Yeah Now Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and encamped at the Valley of a la and a la is The name for a really nice kind of terabet tree. Which is a beautiful tree. Here, do you want to see a picture of one? Yeah, let's just... It's a nice tree that can grow out in desolate areas and give you nice shade. Yeah.

And a nice tree. Mm-hmm. Very, very lush. Yeah. I think I'm mushrooming green tree in the wilderness. So here we are near Thornbush and Broken Soil and no bloodshed. But Saul and the men of Israel, well they've got the nice terabits tree that they're hanging by.

Okay. Now they formed ranks to meet the Philistines in battle. The Philistines were standing on one side, the army of Israel standing on the other side with a valley in between So you've got like the nice little tree hill over here. Yeah, then you've got the thorn bush and broken soil over there You can just see here where we're going here. Okay, all right Then a man of in between Went out from the camps of the Philistines. This word is translated It's a phrase each baynaiam that literally means man of the in between

It's translated champion in all of our English translations Champion it's interesting That's just that caught on the man of the inn between yeah, yeah, we talked about this before Mm-hmm, and then that word between that's the wisdom word right? Yeah, we're Bane or bean. Yeah. Yeah, it's foreign from that word. Yeah Between to discern between but here it's you've got Eden on one side right and in the no man's way and the other in the no man's land Like where the fate of Eden or exile will be determined. It's going to happen in between. And who is this guy?

Who's this creature? Yep. So, there was a guy whose name was Goliat. That's how you say his name in Hebrew. Goliat. Goliat, yeah. Golayath. Yeah.

And what is interesting is his name likely is not have Semitic origins, but it's spelled with the letters of the word exile. I don't know, it's just interesting. The man of the exile, the in-between. And he's from the Philistine city of Goth, which a capital city. Now, his height, I mean, this is what Goliath is most famous for. He has a giant. His height.

Yeah. However, it depends on what ancient version or manuscripts. Which manuscript you have. You're reading. If you're reading the medieval Hebrew manuscripts that most of our English translations are based on, he's six cubits in a span, which is around nine foot nine inches. You know the tallest male divers right now?

No, no, tell me. I think he's eight foot, like two. Wow, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's medieval, called the Maseratic text tradition. What's interesting is that in the second temple period, so like thousand plus years before earlier,

from the Maseratic text tradition, you had Jewish scholars who spoke Greek, translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek, called the Septuagint, and they used Hebrew manuscripts to translate into Greek. And the Septuagint, translation, and also an ancient Jewish historian from the time of Jesus, named Josephus, and also Hebrew manuscripts of Samuel found in the Dead Sea Scrolls all read four Cubits in to span namely that he's seven foot nine inches. Which is still massive. Especially for, don't we know through finding bones of dead people from

long ago like we were shorter back then. Like. Like in general, humans. Yeah, it's just like now like, you know, six foot, I'm six foot, you're six foot. Like that's just kind of, not, it's a little above average. Sure, there's genetic trends and patterns. Yeah, that's interesting. But back then, I think people were like, like five foot was a kind of a tall person,

maybe five and a half. That's a good, I'm sure somebody listening to this conversation knows, knows about that. But anyways, what I think is interesting is that the question among textual scholars, you know, who sort out these kinds of things is, is it more likely that the Goliath got shorter or that he was made bigger? Because these are mutually, he was one or the other. Yeah.

So which one is the original that got changed or adapted in the other manuscript traditions and seems more likely that he would get bigger over time. And to say shorter is relative, because seven foot nine inches is not short. Either way, he's huge. And this itself is a hyperlink back to the theme of the Giants. Yeah. In the storyline of the Torah and prophets. The Giborah, the mighty warriors. The Gibor is the same. Yeah, but the Giborem. The Giborem. Yeah, who are linked with the Nephilim, the hybrid mutant offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of Adam. And you've got figures like Nimrod.

Gilgamesh. Yeah, ancient kings like Gilgamesh. Yes. Giant warrior kings. Giant warrior kings. This is a trope and a motif of mutant offspring on the land. The illicit union of heaven and earth in the production of a human ruler or champion. The man of the end between.

Oh, wow. So he's not to be. Oh, wow, yeah. So he's not, oh, so fascinating. My son is reading for Samuel right now, and we meet on Fridays for lunch. We talk about what he's read in the last week. So we were talking about the story, literally, on the last Friday. So we were talking about all kinds of stuff,

and he was asking about the armor and all of this. But his question at the end was like, so, will God show mercy on Belaya? How's this question? And I was like, well, he doesn't have a head anymore. I thought it was such a good question because I took it as a backwards compliment that like, okay, I think I've been talking about Jesus enough to my kids and how Jesus taught his followers to treat their enemies. That I think he's wrestling with that tension

of like, well, even if Goliath is an enemy, like is there love for him too? Can you get pulled onto the Eden's out of the valley? Yeah, yeah, even with your head cut off. Anyway, but the point is his humanness is clearly being deemphasized in his monstrous qualities, being brought to the fore. He has a n'choshit helmet on his head. A Koshits, the word for bronze, but it's spelled with the root letters of the word snake. And that word's going to use four times to describe Goliath.

He was closed with armor of scales. Scaly. Scaly armor. Not all of translations have the word scales in there, but it's the same word to describe specifically the scales of sea creatures in the impurity food lists. Oh, and also in the book of Ezekiel, there's a big sea dragon with the same scales. This one's pulled out of the Nile with all the fish and its scales. There you go. Yeah. So his body armor was 5,000 nachoshit sheckles. He had nachoshit grieves on his legs and nachoshit

cimitar slung between his shoulders. What's a cimitar again? He had big curved plates over the curved plate. And then he had a spear and then the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam. All right. Well, let's stay out of the valley. Yeah. And what he comes to do is publicly denounce the armies of Israel and their God. So he's a creature bent on destruction and not just on destruction, but on defamation of the name of God. So of course, David is, you know, raised up and he comes to give his brother some food. And he's like, this guy can't talk about Israel and the God of Israel that way. And so Saul hears about this punk kid who's like mouth and off from the ranks about the giant.

And so he brings David into his tent. And he's like punk rock here. He is punk rock. Yeah. And Saul says to David, like, man, you can stop talking like that. You can't go fight that guy. Yeah, you're kid And David says listen, you know, I'm a shepherd. I Have like faced off a bear and the lion out in the wilderness before and You know when I saw them I attacked and killed them. And I'll do to this philistine, what I did to the line, the bear. So those wilderness creatures of the land of chaos,

the crouchers. The crouchers? Yeah, I've taken care of them before. So this guy will be like them. taken care of them before. So this guy will be like them. So he's comparing Goliath specifically. So then in the victory scene when David comes to do his thing to Goliath, there's this huge emphasis on Goliath's head, which is echoing back to Genesis 315, stomping on the head of the snake. So we're told that he took a sling stone Yeah, from his bag. He struck the Philistine on his forehead the stone's Sank, ooh Farrow and his army's sank into the chaos waters like a stone. Oh Now here is a stone sinking into his forehead. Oh my god. Not good. I thought for sure a hyperlink Then he fell with his face on the ground. That is his mouth in the dust.

Oh. Interesting. The snake will eat dust. Yes. Yes. Yes. David ran over and stood over the Philistine, took his own sword. He took the instrument of death from the monster and he killed him and cut off his head with it. David then took the head

of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem. When David returned from striking the Philistine, Abner took him to Saul, the head of the Philistine in his hand. So there's a huge focus on the head of the monster. And you're saying that's important because the idea in Genesis 3 is that a seed of the woman will come and strike the head of the snake. You got it. Yep, that's right. So if you're interested in pursuing snake imagery in Samuel more, and just so you know that I'm not crazy, there's a scholar, Brian Verrett, who did a whole study on this,

just called the serpent in Samuel a messianic motif. And what he shows is actually how there's many human characters that are a David's opponent throughout the narrative that are described using snake imagery or language, but just happens to go live as the first one in David's story. So as has been a practice last few episodes, there's a narrative, but then what I want to do is go look at poetic retellings of a narrative to see what kind of imagery they use to retell the tale. In this case, we have another version at the end of David's life, near the end, in 2 Samuel chapter 22. And let's just dive in. We'll go up to see how it works. So it begins, David spoke to Yahweh the words of this song, on the day Yahweh delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, including Gleuth, and also from the hand of Saul. And he said,

Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. I take refuge in God, my rock, in my shield, the strength of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge, oh my Savior, you will save me from violence. I call upon Yahweh, he's worthy of praise, and I am saved by those who hate me. Okay. He's clearly calling up many times, Goliath was just the first of which, unless you count the bear and the lion and the cow's. Where there's some danger, threat, and he was rescued.

So what you expect is maybe a retelling of one of those scenes. For breaker waves of death engulfed me. This is the chaotic ocean imagery. Yeah. Currents of chaos. Well, yeah, there it is. Overwhelmed me. The ropes of the grave, she all entangled me. The ropes of the grave, sh-all, entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.

We haven't talked about this in relation to this conversation. This is the underworld, sh-all. Sh-all, the death, yeah, death, yeah. But remember the snake, the snake, you know, can go down in a little hole and it goes down there. It's under the land. Yeah. And this is also like, it's under the ground, it's associated with the chaos waters that are under the ground too. Correct. Yeah. And this is also like, it's under the ground. It's associated with the chaos waters that are under the ground too. Correct. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

So right at the moment, you think he's going to tell a story about encountering some nasty humans. What he describes, storm waters. Yeah. And these like, chords coming up from the ground and dragging him into the grave. It's a horror movie. Totally.

Image. Yeah. And I've run into these before in the Bible, like chords. It feels like this isn't the only place, the ropes of shiol or the... What is that? What is that image? What is that from? Yeah.

So, if an Eden, humans begin by emerging out of the dirt, called forth by God's word and hands and His breath, and then they stand up. So to come up from the dust is because of God's creative act, but to return to the dust, it's like getting pulled back in. Dragged back in. What are these chords dragging? Yeah, it's like it's inevitable. It's like a trap that you can't, the snares of death. You can't escape it. We're all every day. It's like every day, you look around and you could just see a hand popping up out of the ground trying to get you back in. Something like that. So in my distressed, I called upon Yahweh. To my God, I called, and he heard my voice from his temple.

This is Jonah's prayer. Yes. Oh, yeah. Or, yeah, you could say Jonah's prayer is following a key trope or motif. We talked about the... Yeah. He heard me from his heavenly temple. And being entangled and sheol, and then he's like, and then I called out to Yahweh.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. The earth heaved and shook. The foundations of the skies trembled and heaved because of his anger. Smoke went up from his nostrils. Fire came out from his mouth. Burning coal devoured. They burned from him. Wow. This is the cosmic fire. The storm gods coming. What's going to follow is a description of Yahweh that sounds just

like the descriptions of Bale or Marduk or the different storm gods depicted in the classic dragonslang myth. Smoke and fire meaning clouds and lightning. He bowed the heavens and he came down. What does it mean he bowed the heavens? Oh, meaning like clouds peeling off and swirling down. Because look at what he says. Okay. Thick clouds under his feet. He's a cloud rider. He's riding a cloud like a surfboard. Wow. He rode upon a cherub. Oh, wow.

And flew. He was seen on the wings of the wind. He made darkness a canopy around him, a collection of thick rain clouds. Storm God showing up. Wow. Okay, he always has a storm god here. So what happens when the storm god comes?

Well, usually it means a battle against the monster to see monster. Yep. From the brightness before him flamed burning coal, Sophia, Yahweh thundered from heaven the most high uttered his voice. He sent arrows. This is what Marduke does. Oh yeah, against his tonine. Yeah, so again, in the Babylonian version of the Dragon Slang myth, it's in a very famous epic poem

called Inuma Elish. Marduke, patron, got a Babylon, defeats the chaos waters by blowing wind down a big monster's throat and then sending arrows down her throat. And her name is Timat, which is the same Semitic water. Saltwater? Yeah, saltwater.

And it's the same Semitic word underneath the Hebrew word to home, which is the Abyss waters. Okay. So now here, Yahweh, sending his arrows and he scattered them, lightning, and he directed them. Now we're kind of talking about David's enemies again. Yes, not well.

I keep reading. Then the channels of water of the sea were exposed. The channels of water, the sea were exposed. The foundations of the world exposed at the rebuke of Yahweh from the blast of the breath of his nostrils. Is this the idea of the separating land from water again? Yeah, yeah. You're always blowing so much air out of his nose and fire that it like pushes back the sea and creates a realm on which he can found the dry land. And XS-15 that it's the wind of Znostrels, right?

Yes. That blows the sea open. Yes, exactly. So what's fascinating is, this is a good example. The biblical authors adopt the language of the storm god, but then always adapting and tweaking it towards their unique conceptions and claims about the god of Israel. So right at the moment where you expect to see the dragon, it's just the waters.

Okay, but that's not completely out of touch because the dragon is the waters. Exactly, it's in the waters, it's associated with. Yep. But also is the embodiment of the waters. Exactly. It's in the waters. It's associated with. Yep. But also is the embodiment of the waters. Yep. Okay. And the language of deliverance and rescue is about part splitting the waters to create

dry land. And that's not a scope either in terms of the storm god usually flays open or like. Yeah, totally. Sea dragon. Yep. Okay. I think what's interesting is those particular images, the volumes turned up on them. I think because of the unique, the Israelite way of talking about

Yahweh's power over chaos was shaped by their historical experience with what happened at the Sea of Reeds. And also, I think, influenced their ways of talking about creation, splitting the waters to dry land, kind of merge. Those are ideas already out there, but they're uniquely emphasized in biblical literature. So what happens then? He, there's Yahweh, sent from a high position and took me, he drew me up out of the waters. And he, oh, actually, this phrase drew me. This verb is the same verb used to describe what Pharaoh's daughter did to Moshe. She says, I name him Moshe because I mushyty him up out of the waters. So David is describing himself like Moses being taken up out of the waters. He delivered me from my enemies.

And like, oh, they're the bad guys. They finally appeared. Before they've just been waves and cords of death. He delivered me from those who hate me, from those more mighty than me. But Yahweh was my support. He brought me to a spacious place. He saved me because of his delight. So we're retelling all of these

stories. Every time David got saved from an enemy, we're reflecting back on something meta, like the cosmic meta story that was happening over and over and over again is really in the image of some bigger drama at work in the world. And here the focus is on the deliverance and victory of God's chosen one over the K.S. water was a monster. Yeah. Well, specifically the waters.

Goliath was the first of these enemies. So the character described as like a snake is now here described as the chaos waters that need to be blasted by always nostrils. Most of David's enemies afterwards are just kind of his family and like fellas realize. Yeah, that's right. His son, that's right. Like Saul and his crew. Also Joab and Cheva.

But you're right, you're right, and Saul. And it seems like the Saul is thinking about everyone whose David's been like countering his enemies. But you're saying, let's keep Goliath in the forefront of her mind, because he was the first enemy that David had to slay. And he was very clearly depicted as a snake of the in-between man, the chaos creature. And in this poem, when David's encountering an enemy, it's very clearly the chaos waters. A force of chaos, both from the waters and from the underworld,

trying to drag him down into the land. So, yeah, this poem takes the particulars of, like, one story or a set of stories in David's life and wants to see some bigger drama being played out in them, which is the Yahweh. We'll deliver his chosen one from death itself in order to overcome the forces of death and chaos and deliver his chosen one into a nice little spacious high rock that's a delightful place. Presumably, so that he can do through that one something good on behalf of many others, but that is how the story will continue to unfold. But it's a symbolic imagination at work here that's inviting us to see greater forces that work in the day-to-day experiences that we have, some greater drama. Greater forces at work. Okay.

And this is where we began. Like, what are we talking about? What are these greater forces at work? Because it can feel like, oh, I'm fighting against my brother, or I'm fighting against who I just think is my enemy. But there's this story underneath, or we might even say above, which is, no, you're actually your real encounter here is something else.

Yeah, you know, here's where my mind goes. Jesus, who's mind was shaped, imagination was shaped by these poems and these stories. You know, the night that he was betrayed, he's sitting at a table with his followers and he's talking about how one of you is going to betray me and Peter speaks up and he's like, no way, not me. I'm with you, Jesus. And this is in Luke's account, Luke 22 verse 31, Jesus says to him, oh Simon, Simon, you know what? The Satan has made a request to sift you like weathe brother. I've been praying for you that your faithfulness will not fail. So he's anticipating that Peter's going to

have some moment where his faith is going to be tested as a legion to Jesus. It's kind of a joke kind of thing. Satan comes and goes, you know, can I have my way with this guy for a second? Can I have a second with Peter? Yeah. Yeah. Let's see how faithful Peter really is. So, imagining, here's a moment of choice. Peter will have a whether he'll be loyal to his rabbi and friend

and that choice of, wait, aren't you the man who was with him? Right? And the courtyard by the fire. When he has an opportunity to say, yeah, I malight with Jesus. Yep. Yeah, he says, I don't know the man. That is being sifted. That moment is the cosmic mirror of that above is that this faithfulness is being tested like Job before God. And then later, when Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Cassemony, when he sees the soldiers

coming, what he says to them, and these are Jewish soldiers coming from the temple, saying, what are you coming at me like I'm a criminal, like a bandit here, Robin Hood kind of figure? I've been with you in the temple every day, and you didn't stretch out your hands against me." And then he says, but this hour belongs to you and to the power of darkness. So Jesus sees a monster coming at him in the form of Jewish temple guards like his brothers. So I think something like this is what it means to see the world in these cosmic terms. There's a bigger story. And then of course, what Paul says is your enemy is not flesh and blood. Not flesh and blood.

Yeah. But what does he say it is? It's the, what's the word he uses? He uses a whole bunch of words. Yeah. Against the rulers, authorities, world powers of this darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the skies, dressed in the armor of the Messiah. So yeah, this is a foreign way to view the world for many people. So to talk about the dragon is to talk about a reality that underneath the evil that we experience

or even can participate in is a deep, menacing dark power that we can be ruled by and it can do damage. And it can kind of so embody people and cultures. It's hard to distinguish between. Yes. Yeah. Is that is that my brother hating me? Or is that something else underneath? Yep. And then internally like within Peter, when I choose to hate my brother or sister, it's like, is that me? Where's that some other thing working in and through me to lead to disorder and chaos in this relationship or in my community? It's like nobody's innocent here. We're all caught in the web, as it were. And that's the portrait of the human condition.

And then the story of David, you know, is really emphasizing this theme, but what if there was one who really knew how to handle the snake and crush its head and liberate us out of the chaos waters in the realm of the snares of the grave To take us up and set our feet on a high place of delight. That would be cool If somebody was able to do that

and I think that's what the stories of David are designed to just keep Tantilizing that longing and drive the story forward further into the writings of the prophets. Okay, and that's where we'll go next. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we're exploring the Skrull of Isaiah, where the chaos monster shows up as the nation of Babylon. Isaiah's looking up to Ruslan and saying, the fire's coming and the fire of Babylon. Isaiah's looking up to Russelin and saying, the fire's coming, and the fire is Babylon. Even the monster that God summons

to bring that fiery purification will be itself held accountable to divine justice. Today's episode is brought to you by our podcast team, producer Cooper Peltz, associate producer Lindsey Ponder, lead editor Dan Gummel, editor's Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Tyler Bailey mixed this episode, Hannah Wu provided the annotations for the annotated podcast

in her app, and all the music in this episode was provided by Bible Project staff. The Bible Project is a crowd-funded nonprofit. We exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus, and everything we make is free because of the support of thousands of people just like you. So thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Zach and I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee.

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