BibleProject - Exile From The Cosmic Mountain

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

This is our third episode discussing the Biblical theme of exile. In this show Tim and Jon breakdown famous Old Testament stories and how the exile theme is often an overlooked aspect of many Bible stories. In part 1 (0-10:27), Tim begins in Genesis 1 and 2, explaining that Eden is depicted as a “cosmic mountain”. This is in reference to other ancient religions that believed their gods lived on mountains. For example, the Greeks believed in their storytelling that the gods lived on Mt Olympus. The Canaanites believed their gods lived on Mt Zaphon. The Hebrews believed in Mt Zion. (See Psalm 48:2 “Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.” ) Tim’s point is that the writers of Genesis 1 and 2 placed Eden and Zion as their idea of paradise which directly competed with their pagan neighbors religious ideas. In part 2 (10:27-29:15), Tim outlines the depiction of peace in the garden. There is peace with the created order, depicted as the fruit being abundant and easy to harvest. There is peace with animals and nature, depicted as man naming animals. Tim explains that in Isaiah 11, part of the vision of the new creation is when humans and animals will live at peace with each other. (A baby playing with a snake.) Tim outlines the history behind the two trees placed in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. After Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they are banished to the East of the garden. Tim says this is the first use of exile language in the Bible. They are exiled to the East, which is later the direction where Babylon is placed. Then in the next story, Cain is also banished/exiled to the East after he kills his brother Able. In Genesis 11, all of humanity is depicted as migrating to the East, and then scattered from there. Tim’s point is that the biblical authors are intentionally developing a theme that humanity is banished/exiled to the East. Tim quotes from Joseph Blenkinsopp saying that biblical authors intentionally placed humanity’s story of fall from the paradise of Eden as a foreshadowing of the coming fall of Israel. In part 3 (29:15-36:56), Tim outlines the story of Abraham. Tim says Abraham is a wandering nomad originally from the geographical area of Babylon. Abraham is called and given a promise of his own land for him and his descendants. Tim explains that Abraham only owns one plot of land in the Bible when his wife Sarah dies and he buys a burial plot. Abraham refuses to be gifted the land and buys it outright. In the story, Abraham uses the phrase “I am a stranger and sojourner in this land among you.” That phrase is adopted in Psalm 31 and 1 Peter to describe the human experience of living in exile. The story of Abraham becomes an archetype that other biblical authors use to say that humanity is rightful home, meaning we are supposed to live on the earth, but it is not in its promised state of existence. In part 4 (36:56-end), Tim outlines the story of the journey of the nation of Israel. Israel inherited Abraham’s promise. But they chose to disobey God and not cross over the Jordan into the promised land. As a result, God exiled them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Resources: Joseph Blenkinsopp - Exile Show Music: Take Off With Me: JGivens So Fly: JGivens Faherenheit 99: JGivens Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music Produced by: Dan Gummel. Jon Collins. Matthew Halbert-Howen.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. We're continuing our conversation this week on a theme in the Bible called the exile. Last week on the podcast, we discussed how the Old Testament was shaped to explore what it means to be an exile, and if there's any hope to ever find true home again. This week, we're gonna go back to the beginning of the story of the Bible

and look at what was depicted as our true home, the Garden of Eden. Eden is depicted with all of the imagery of an idea that would be very common, ancient readers called the Cosmic Mountain. Yeah, a Cosmic Mountain. The Greeks had Mount Olympus, Bale had Mount Hermann, but for the Jewish people,

God's mountain was first found as a garden where humanity lived with God in peace and abundance. There's all these images of true hum, peace among humans, naked, no shame, totally vulnerable with each other, and peace with the created order itself depicted with the image of fruit trees. Things didn't stay that way. Adam of beneath, disobey God. And so, they're exiled, cast out of the garden. So today, Tim and I will walk through the famous Old Testament stories and see how the Hebrews originally saw them

as humanity's journey into exile and a hope for how we can one day get back home. The people living after the Babylonian exile see themselves as retracing the steps of Abraham. Our forefather who also adjured from Babylon. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Okay, so we're gonna drill down on a few key moments in the biblical story to illuminate this bigger picture of exile. We just walked through the big picture of exile, and now let's get in the weeds.

Let's get in the weeds in some biblical stories, and as always, pages one and two hold many clues and puzzles both. We've spent more time in Genesis one and two than any other chapters in the Bible. I know, it's amazing. I'm becoming very familiar with these chapters. So let's just start with a very basic claim relevant to the thing of the exile that if anywhere in the biblical story, if there's any place depicted as humanity's true home,

the place where it was really home, everything was awesome as it should be. There's only one real candidate and it's pages one and two. The garden of... Yeah, the garden. Just the garden. Yeah, I'm with the garden of Eden. Eden, memory. Means garden. The light. Just the Garden. Yeah, I'm just a garden of Eden. Eden, maybe. It means the light. Oh, the light.

The light. Yeah. The word Hebrew word for garden is gone. And then Aden is the word delight. I told you something different once, but I was wrong about that. So it's the Garden of the light. Garden of the light. Yes.

But in the Bible, is it referred to as a Garden of the light? Or is it just a Garden in this chapter? Oh, in Genesis 2 it's called, God planted a garden in Eden. In Eden? Yeah, okay. And then it's just called the Garden of Eden. In later stories.

Okay. So here's some interesting things that stick out to us as readers of the whole Bible. And certainly to ancient readers of the Bible, this would all be popping, is that Eden is depicted ancient readers of the Bible this would all be popping is that Eden is depicted with all of the imagery of an idea that would be very common ancient readers as a called the cosmic mountain Eden Eden is a cosmic mountain

Eden as a cosmic mountain. Yeah now take hold on when we were working on the heaven and earth book We talked about Eden as like an ancient garden, which I didn't know, and this was really interesting, which is these ancient kings would create, not only would they build these amazing temples, in high places. They would build these epic gardens where they would, I mean, and then I don't remember the guy, but that we quoted from, but there's this guy, this ganging gardens of Babylon. Well, like the hang guards of Babylon, but this guy was describing another one and it just like, basically they're just like, they're carbon rivers, they're like growing

thing. And they're basically creating like a botanical zoo. Yeah, ancient, ancient, that's right. Yeah, with animals and different things, and it was a place to retreat to, until like this is the world as it should be, completely controlled by humans, but still wild and beautiful and lush. Yeah, and often these gardens,

kings of Assyria had them, there's pictures of them, kings of Babylon. It's kind of like our state parks. Yeah, that's right. But they would be less cultivated. Yeah, yeah, these ancient ones were more cultivated. Super cultivated, yeah. And often there would be shrines to gods, shrines everywhere.

Because it was the power and gift of the gods that gave us the ability to make this garden. So that's the image I have in my mind. But now you're talking about some sort of mountain. No, it's the same idea. Same idea. A famous version that is popular in Western culture from Greek mythology is Mount Olympus. Place where Zeus is the chief god, it's the home of the gods. Mount Olympus, which is an actual mountain.

There you go So the mountain Olympus it wasn't a garden Mountain top. How was the similarity here? Oh, oh it was in terms of their mythology It was the royal dwelling place of all their chief gods Okay, but it's not where humans live. That's right. I mean, I don't I don't maybe there were shrines up there I don't know my point is just in maybe there were shrines up there. I don't know. My point is just in their mythology and storytelling. Okay. And there was a corresponding, there was a corresponding mountain of that in Canaanite

religion. Pre-Israelite, right? So Canaanites living in the land. They had a whole corresponding theology of their mountain of the gods called Mount Saffon. And Saffon is the Semitic word for north. And so this mountain was differently identified, sometimes as Mount Hermon. Oh, okay. Hermon?

In the northernmost border of Israel today. Or even further north up into like Turkey and by the Black Sea, the Calcossus mountains, but the dwelling place of the gods. And in Canaanithology, the chief god is named El or El-Yon, and then Baal is an upstart, he tries to uproot and takes Mount Saphon for himself. But it's all, you know, the gods' homes on the Coss cosmic mountain are depicted as well-watered gardens, as sacred tents on tops of the mountains and so on. The rivers come out of this and water all the earth and so on.

So Genesis 1 and 2 begins telling us about God with a word, tames the chaotic waters, and land emerges out of the waters. Genesis one. It's on all the waters gather into one place. And so it's a bit of a cone. It's like a mound emerging out of the waters. The cosmic mound. The cosmic mound.

Emerging out of the waters. And then in Genesis two, got plants, a garden on the cosmic mountain. And the four rivers flow from it. And the four rivers flow. it. And the four rivers flow. Yeah, from it. Yeah. This is why all these attempts to like, where was the Garden of Eden and to locate it,

you know, on like a Google map bound for failure. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This is one view. This is a very common view on the Garden of Eden that it was a kind of place, not an actual place that you were meant to find on a map, modern or ancient. And there are some people who disagree with that, but I think there's real. So the image of, in Israelite cosmology, Old Testament cosmology, then what happens is, because Yahweh is the God who redeemed us from slavery, the God who led us in the promised land, the God who sponsored David in setting up the temple in Solomon, the temple in Jerusalem, is that once you get the temple in Jerusalem, all the Israelites, poets and prophets start composing poetry, talking about Zion and the temple in Jerusalem as the cosmic mountain.

So Psalm 48, it's just opening lines of Psalm 48, right on the bottom there. Great is the Lord, most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zafon is Mount Zion. Is that phone was the Canaanite one? Yes. So you should, they're just saying it. Like what our Canaanite neighbors believe. The up and Zafon, you know what the real Zafon is and who the true chief God is. So like the heights of Zaphone,

it's Mount Zion, the city of the great king. So this is how the image of the Promised Land and Jerusalem within it and Zion and the temple becomes this biblical image that maps right onto Eden and the cosmic mountain and God and humanity and so on. They're polling from the same, that's right, a magic framework. So the authors of Genesis 1 to 11 are using this imagery to depict, retelling that story of all humanity with God on the cosmic mountain, but it's Yahweh, the God of Israel,

who's the creator of it. And this will be important later because this connection between Eden as an image of Jerusalem and the Promised Land, and exile from Eden is gonna become a paradigm of Israelites being exiled from Jerusalem. So this is kind of like this is the underneath idea that helps make sense of this correspondence between Eden

and Jerusalem and the two exiles. But anyway, is Eden is home. Eden is true home, cosmic garden, the cosmic temple, all that stuff. Yeah. It's not perfect. Right? But it's tove. It's good. It's very good even.

And the whole point is God commissioned the humans to cultivate it and multiply and make it even better than it already is. But all these images of true hum, there's peace among humans, they're naked and no shame, totally vulnerable with each other. There's no chance of being taken advantage of, naked and no shame. And peace with the created order itself, fruit depicted with the image of fruit trees, the food just Yeah, falls off. Right? Yeah, like a garden that's been cultivated for us, the food just appears. Yeah, it's like in Parallandra, and see us. It's been a while. So the fruit just appears. Yeah, when ransom ends up on Parallandra, he goes into these floating island gardens

that just grow and drop this fruit. And the way he goes on for two pages, just driving what the fruit tasted like. Because it's like heaven, new creation, to happening in your mouth. Our Mars. Yeah, yeah, anyhow. But again, the new creation, to happening in your mouth. In your Mars. Yeah, yeah, anyhow. But again, back to Eden,

peace with animals, right? The man there, just naming the animals, hanging out with them. Yeah. So it's humanity at home. They're at home with themselves. They're at home in their environment. They're at home with the animals.

Yeah. And think those are all of the ways that, you can get messed up. Yeah, and they're all the ways that we experience are a strangement here on Earth of life. Certainly with other humans. Yeah. Our conflict with other humans are conflict with ourselves

and our conflict with animals. What we call it nature. Nature. Yeah. Not just the animals, but also the elements. Yeah, I Think I think about this when I do annual backpacking trip in a national park different national parks with friends and Every year. It's just five days in the wild. Yeah, so good for me and

It just reminds me of the bigger Human story. Yeah, we all used to live. Yeah Which reminds me of the bigger human story. This is where we all used to live. Yeah. Yeah. And when we see wild animals, we often see big wild animals out of there. And you're just like, why can't we be friends? You're incredible.

It's not as huge elk. Oh, man. Just so close to it. Oh, we saw a moose one year in Rocky Mountain National Park. Actually, it's very dangerous. We shouldn't have gotten so close to the moose, but he was just so docile. He probably sees a lot of humans coming through.

Humans. And it's just like, my son is so incredible. He's three. Yes. It thinks all animals are his friends. Like, my six year old gets it. Like, you don't mess with some animals. But my three year old is just like everything's a cute baby animal.

To the point where it's like he would probably approach a wild line. And be like, we're gonna hang out. Yeah, don't. In fact, there was this picture of this pretty gruesome, you know, a big snake. And in a normal human's imagination, like that's the enemy. That's terrifying, it's terrifying.

And he was like, baby animal. And I'm like, whoa dude, you're on a different level. Yes. So that, I'm, he was living a new creation in his mind. That's right, yeah, that speaks to something. It's like the image of humanity at home with the animals. Yeah.

It is an image of us living in this world as our true home. Like we have a sense of deep connection to these amazing creatures, but at the same time we are estranged from them, which is why often in utopian like novels or literature there's often some kind of reunion between humans and animals. And the prophet Isaiah chapter 11, his vision of new creation. Who wolf and the wolf.

Or the other. Is of babies playing with snakes. Yeah. Oh yeah. It is. Three times over, it's repeated in the poetry. Yeah. And it's the image of the garden.

Some people would like to believe the snakes just are gone. Yeah, that's right. Let's just give it to the snakes and the spiders. Yeah. And the mosquitoes. So, this is all saying, Eden is this image of this world, but it's the world as you and I have never experienced it. But the world we feel like and we know we ought to experience it. So okay, so we're at home.

It's the world and it's human's home and it's good. But then the trees, the two trees come into play here and we won't go kick us all. Talk about the trees here. Except to say, these trees represent a fork in the road. It's about the knowledge of good and evil. And again, that phrase in Hebrew, just used numerous times throughout the Hebrew Bible means not just to know about good and evil, it's about moral discernment and decision making. Let's use in the wisdom literature. To know good and evil is to make decisions based on what you think good and evil is. So as humanity going to take that knowledge or they go into trust.

So to, so it's this image of if I want to live in the world as it's ought to be, it's going to be a world where I don't get to make the ultimate call of what good and evil is. It's something, something that I, something given to me. Yeah, or something that I'm inevitably going to do poorly with Which is why it should remain It's someone greater and wiser hands. Yeah, and that it's something that I'll live under and receive Yeah, yeah, so that's the vision. So there's but but it's a divine command that's given don't eat of the tree So we're in our true homeland and life here will state this way. If I obey the divine and wise command to not, as we've come to say, redefine good and

evil on my own terms. And so then the other tree is the tree of life is there, which has a whole other prehistory in ancient imagery, mythology, and so on. But in the Bible, the tree becomes this image of life in this garden is proximity to the creator. To be in this garden is to truly live. And so, if I disobey the divine command, the day you eat of it, you'll die. I'll be distanced from the creator

and from the tree and from life itself. So, to be here is to truly live and to be at home. And it's all contingent on the divine command. So that's the set, that's how the story starts. And it's home. And so this is why it's really significant that after the punishment, right, or the consequence of humans taking from the tree of a good

evil, well, actually you've asked this question before. God said, the day you eat of it, you'll die. And then the eat of it, and they don't die. And they don't die, And they don't die. But what does happen? They're exiled. Yeah.

So this is because he's using the word day in a very general sense, like, well, but also I think there's something more nuance than stories trying to get at. So here's the narrative. In Genesis 3, verse 22, the Lord God said, well, the man's become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He shouldn't be

allowed to reach out his hand and take from the tree of life. That would be really bad for humanity. So the Lord God drove him out, Shalach and Hebrew. Drove him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he'd been taken. After he banished, which is in Hebrew, Gharash. So these two Hebrew words, Shalach, Shalach, and Gharash, drive out and banish. After he drove him out, he placed on the east side of the garden, Kerovim, with and a flaming sword,

flashing and guarding the way back. We've talked about these things. So two words, three key words here, drive out, banish to the east. And this is all exile vocabulary. And this is one of the things where once you read the Bible through, then you come back and you're like, oh, the narrator winking at you. Yep. So, Hosea, chapter nine, all of Israel's evil is at the town of Gilgal. I've come to despise their evil deeds there. And so, I will garash them from my house. God says, I'll banish them.

Jeremiah 28, I've put an iron yoke on the neck of the nations. Everyone will serve Nebuchadne yoke on the neck of the nations, everyone will serve Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, Israel, I am about to shalach you, send you out, drive you out from the face of the land. So these are, if you've read through the rest of the Bible, when you see these words in the Genesis narrative, you go, oh, this exile language. And to the east is in the direction of Babylon. So think about how this works in the story. In the day you eat at the tree, you'll die.

That's a God's warning. And then in the narrative, they eat from the tree and they are exiled to the east. So most readers look at the difference and say, oh, that's weird. That's weird or we see it as a glitch in the narrative. Yeah. Instead of the author making a claim about contradiction in the Bible and the one. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to say, no, there's in the slot of death, the day you eat of it, what fits the consequent slot? Death.

In the narrative, what happens? They eat of it and what fits the consequent slot. Banishment. Banishment to the east, exile to the east. And so there's this equation happening in the story that exile is a death, that exile is death. And this is going to be very important for the prophet Ezekiel, who's going to depict Israel's exile in Babylon as death in a valley of dry bones,

and why he depicts the return from exile as resurrection of new human beings. So, Ezekiel's been tracking with how the story works. Exile is a form of death in the narrative logic of the story, which is why then in the next story, as you already pointed out to parallelism with Cain, Cain's got another animal crouching at his door. Well, he's an evil character. A metaphorical animal. Sin, the desire, the inward desire, the enemy within to kill his brother because he's jealous.

We infer from the story that he's jealous. We know that he is bummed. Yeah. He's bummed with God. We know he's bummed with God later. Yeah. We don't know why he doesn't fight brother. His count is fell.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, after he murders his brother, which is the parallel element from taking of the tree of the knowledge of good evil in chapter three, yeah. The breaking of the command is giving in to sin. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

Like, what, at what point do you think, oh, you know what the solution to this is? Yeah. I'm gonna kill my brother. That's good. That will be good the solution to this is? Yeah. I'm going to kill brother. Kill brother. That's good. That will be good. That will be good.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the parallel of taking from the tree. That's right. Kane is defining good and evil, and he defines it as good to kill his brother. And so he's banished. And then what is Kane's consequence? Genesis 4.11.

Now you are cursed away from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood. When you work the ground, in Genesis 3, the Lord sent him out to work the ground. Here in Genesis 4, you are cursed from the ground, and when you work the ground, it won't yield crops for you. You'll be a wanderer in the earth." Cain said to the Lord, oh my punishments, more than I can bear, today you are garash, banished me from the land. I'll be hidden from your presence. I'm a wanderer. Someone's going to kill me. And then the Lord said, no, I'm going to put a mark on you. And so Cain went out and lived east of Eden. So humanity's ban is the same story.

It's the same story. Yeah, so crazy. Genesis 4 is a retelling of Jesus' name. But the fact that it's a different kind of temptation and a different consciousness. It fills it out. It develops the portrait. Yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant It develops the portrait. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's brilliant. Brilliant narrative technique. Yeah. And then the last iteration is in Genesis 11, where the whole land has one language and they sojourn to the east. It's the same phrase. Wow. The whole land does.

Yeah. Everyone. So you can genesis three. They're driven out, banished to the east, came water and banished to the east. To the east. And now Genesis 11 is now everybody with one language moved to the east and what do they build there? They build Babylon. And then they're scattered from there. So there's this then there they're exiled from Babylon. That's right. Well, that's right. Scattered from Babylon. People are scattered there. But the point

of the scattering is that one line of the scattering in the family V Abraham is gonna get traced out of there. Yeah. Because Babylon's built now and it's gonna be a it's gonna contain a player in the story. Yeah. So the whole point is Genesis 3 to 11. It's retelling the story of all humanity as an exile that leads to Babylon. And it's no surprise. What about the other parts of the story like Lamek and... Yeah, I mean, of course that's all related in terms of the building of the city.

Like Lamek City is first round of what will become Babylon. And we learn about these other random cities that are known for different things. Yeah, that's right. Is that connected to the whole banishment thing? Well, I'm just tracking, again, biblical authors. They're doing a lot. They're doing a lot. Yeah, they're developing all kinds of ideas and themes. But how you trace the flow of a theme throughout the Bible

is you look for the key repeated words and images, like little bread crumb trails. Cool. So we follow these terms of banish and to the east. And it happens in these three narratives. That's crazy. They're load bearing. You say these are load bearing stories

for developing the exile theme. And so you walk away from Genesis 11 going, hold a cow, humanity is in a huge mess. Okay, so there's a quote from him, great Hebrew Bible scholar who's got a good insight here. This is Joseph Blinken's shop who wrote an essay all about the way Genesis 11 is preparing you for the story of Israel in Genesis 12. So he says this. He says, Genesis 1 through 11 contains a kind of preview or foreshadowing of the history of the Israelite nation as a whole. It's a history that narrates repeated failures

ending in disasters that are almost but not quite terminal. It's not a coincidence that the early history of humanity in Genesis 1 through 11, and the national history of Israel from Genesis 12 to the end of Second Kings, ends with events stalled in ancient Babylon, like that phrase. In other words, you were sitting in Babylon and waiting for the next thing to happen. The National History, the ends of the second king, our events stalled in Babylon. End of the battle. And with the events stalled in Babylon.

Got it. Like Israel, humanity was placed in an environment of abundance. Permanency there is contingent upon obedience to a divine command. Death is threatened as a punishment for violation, but then the actual consequence that follows isn't death, but exile. So same if you read Deuteronomy, the covenant curses,

or Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, I mean, it's like your disease and waste and your enemies will kill you all. And then what happened was a war that defeated Jerusalem, but way more people went into exile than were killed in the battle for Jerusalem. And then this is an interesting insight he has. Behind the snake and its seductive speech, we can detect the cults practiced by Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Oh, just the way snake imagery is used. In Canaanite.

Canaanite and Egyptian, also an Egyptian depiction of gods. It's on. So these thematic connections between Genesis 1 to 11 and Israel's story suggest, here's the payoff. It suggests that the biblical authors reflected on how Israel's story was itself a recapitulation of a more universal story. Humanity's story was placed at the beginning as a foreshadowing of Israel's story to follow.

So I think he's right. I think he's capturing exactly what's going on here. So, again, this is hard for us, but think in terms of history, the way we would think about it, people who underwent the Babylonian exile, they have all the quilt pieces and stories of this earlier material, where they're making the writing, producing some of it in their day. And then they go back and they retell the history of humanity in the terms of their experience of exiled to Babylon. Yeah. As a way of saying, all humanity is an exile in Babylon.

Yeah. And that's how Genesis 1 through 11 sets you up. So, next key moment, Abraham, the first returning ye from exile. The first one to come back from exile, so to speak. How was that? All humanity has been exiled and ends up in Babylon. Yeah. But now everyone's left. Abraham's family left Babylon.

Correct. Just whole family left Babylon. Yeah. And then Stahls and Haran. Yeah. And then it's from Haran that he ends up going down to the land of Israel, the Canaan, the land of Canaan. And so in the Abraham narrative, it's just a story about a guy going to a new land.

But if you look at how Abraham gets brought up in the book of Isaiah or Ezekiel, the story of Abraham was a huge inspiration for the people coming back from Babylonian exile. Because he had a travel to the land. Because he traveled, his family, his journey was also from Babylon back to the Promised Land. The people living after the Babylonia exile see themselves as retracing the steps of Abraham, our forefather, who also journeyed from Babylon. There's two things I think for the video.

So first of all, that Abrams' family is selected out of the nations to form this just a phrase we've come to use, the counter Babylon. And it's most clear in Genesis 18 where God says Abram will certainly become a great and powerful nation. All nations will be blessed through him. I've chosen him, that's the language of Brodem, out of Mesopotamia and Babylon, and chose him, so that he'll direct his children to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord can bring about for Abraham what he promised.

We get a clue here, the blessing through the family of Abraham will come when the family of Abraham lives by a new ethic, a counter-babelon ethic, which is described here as justice and righteousness. That's one thing, called out of Babylon. The actual verse here says to do what is right and just, but that's the words righteousness and justice. It's the words righteousness and justice. It's the word's righteousness and justice. Yep.

So relevant to the theme of refugees or exiles, even though God promises him the promise land, that's where the term comes from, the land promised Abraham. He himself just was a nomadic tribal herdsman who ranged the land seasonally. With his crew. With his crew. With his household. Big crew. Yeah.

Yeah, multiple wives, lots of kids, lots and lots of animals, kind of grazing the hills. And if you read the stories, you usually hang out in the vicinity of larger towns or villages. Right? Extended family to cousins. All that kind of stuff. He's forming, yep. So he actually only ever comes to own or purchase only one plot of land. And that story is told in Genesis 23,

Sarah dies. wife Sarah dies. And he wants to purchase a burial. Okay. three, a Sarah dies, wife Sarah dies, and he wants to purchase a burial cave. I remember someone teaching on this, it was like how to, how to do business deals. What? What? This chapter being like this is, because he negotiates with this thing.

Because he negotiates with this. This is, this is God teaching us how to do business deals. Wow. That's why this chapter's here. That's terrifying. It's terrifying. That's terrifying. Okay. Wow.

Yeah. It's just like, oh, I don't know what the story could be about. Oh, it's five tips for doing this in my life. The Bible is the like self-help manual kind of thing. Anyway. So here's the story about the Sojourner, right, from Babylon, come. It got promised him the land but it's just a promise.

He doesn't have any titles or deeds to show for it. So he goes into this Hittite community and he negotiates buying this cave and what they want to do is, quote, give him the land for no cost or reduced cost, but what that would do, especially in a reciprocal honor shame society, is that would put him in their debt. And so what he says is not, I'm going to buy it fair and square, I'm going to pay for this plot of land. And then there's this important line here where he identifies himself, he describes himself to the these Canaanites. And what he says is, I am a immigrant and temporary resident among you. Genesis 23 verse 4, or other

English translations have, I'm a stranger and sojourner. You'll find this phrase only appears two other times in the whole Bible. One is in Psalm 31, where the poet says, I'm a stranger and sojourner in the land, just like my ancestors. So he's alluding back to this story. And then Peter. Sorry, that was which. That was one time in the Old Testament.

And what time was that? Sorry, I missed it. Psalm 31. Psalm 31. Yep. And then these two words are used one time together in the New Testament, and we've actually already come across them. Peter. In first Peter. So, first Peter adopts this phrase that Abraham used to describe himself to Canaanites, to describe these followers of Jesus

throughout, living in Asia Minor in the first century, fascinating. So you have an exile, so to speak, or sojourner, for whom the Promised Land, this is my divinely promised home. I don't own a square inch of it. And so he purchases a small little piece. And this becomes this narrative piece. And this becomes this narrative image of hope that even we trust that this place is supposed to be a new Garden of Eden, the promised blessing land through which all creation will be blessed. But all we've got to show for it right now is a little... Gravesite. A grove of trees with a burial cave. It's such a cool image of it's just this,

this pitiful little thing, and that's actually all we really can count on. Can point at. Can point at, but that itself is a symbol of this grand hope of the Promised Land as a whole. This story's really cool that way. That's cool. So that's, that's- It's also how you can do business deals.

It's also how you do business deals. So, that little story, random story. Genesis 23 actually develops a really key image of Abram as a sojourner. And they all know him. Like all these Canaanites they know him, and I'm sure he brings good business right in the town. But he describes himself as somebody who's not at home here, even though it's the place God promised to him in the long run. And so this is in the land or is this outside the land? Yeah, no, he's in the south of Jerusalem. So that's Abram. So he becomes this archetype to which the biblical authors

will all point and draw upon. Yeah. We're in our land, but it actually doesn't belong to us. It belongs to all these other people groups, but we trust that it belongs to us even though we don't have much to show for it. The moment. That's cool. From here, what's relevant is just really condensing. So family of Abraham grows. They go down to Egypt. They are immigrants in Egypt. Once again, the whole story of this family is, they belong nowhere. All right, they end up in another land

where it isn't their home. And they are soldiers and immigrants there and they end up enslaved. So the whole Exodus story. They get brought out of Egypt and they're on their way back to the land of our ancestors. They make a stop at Mount Sinai, where the ethic of justice and righteousness,

the counter-babel on ethic gets developed even more with Mount Sinai. And there's this pairing, we can't, I don't think we can do this in the video, this is just interesting. Where the year they spent, excuse me, the year they spend at Mount Sinai begins this kind of symbolic

overlap with the cosmic mountain of Eden. So Eden is the divine mountain that represents true home and it's where the divine command was given. Take care of this place, trust me, and my knowledge of good and evil, and you'll get to stay here. And then Mount Sinai, even though it's in the wilderness Becomes the place where they meet with God like Eden. They build the tavernacle there, which is a recreation of And they get the divine command that will allow them to stay not here at Mount Sinai but in the new in the promised land so the Torah

Takes the place of the tree of life as the image of the divine command. This is why in the story of the Bible video we have the tree represent the same fork in the road that the Ten Commandments represents. Yeah. Kind of thing. So great, all you have to do is go into the Garden of Eden again. Yeah. Obey the divine command. We've been here before. We've been here before. So great, all you have to do is go into the Garden of Eden again. Yeah. Obey the Divine Command. We've been here before. We've been here before.

So this is why you get to the passages in the Torah that warn what will happen if they break the Divine Command. Or when they will break the Divine Command. Yes, that's right. And it's all the same imagery and vocabulary that was planted for us there in Genesis 1 through 11 of exile. So Leviticus 26, if you don't listen to me and if you don't follow these commands, if you redreck my decrees and to test my Torah, my laws, then here's what I'll do, I'll scatter you among the nations, exile. So we have this developing vocabulary for exile.

It's banish, drive out, scatter, which will then form all of the language for the return from exile to regather. If I scatter to you, I'm going to regather. If I banished you, I'm going to receive you. That kind of thing. Deuteronomy 4. after you and your children and grandchildren have lived in the land a long time and you become corrupt and you make idols into evil, then you will quickly

perish from the land. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples. So the promised land becomes the new Eden. Yeah. And the exile is predicted. And the exile is predicted. And the exile is predicted. An interesting little, this is a rabbit hole. I want to do some more homework on this.

But the story then in the wilderness rebellion of the spies going into the land, and they go in and they find this huge valley full of great clusters. This image of a abundant garden abundance. And then they take the bit of Eden back. Right? You know? And then of course, they, they, is realites. Then they also say, there's no way we can go in there. We're going to get crushed. There's nephalum in there. The giants there. They're going to crush us. And so they say, let's appoint a leader, a new leader and go back to Egypt.

Yeah. And God says, sorry guys. That's like, a new leader, and go back to Egypt. Yeah. And God says, Sorry guys. That's like, yeah. Yeah. It's a turning point. Yeah. So what God says is, the number of days, those spies were in the land, is the number of years you're going to wander out here in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah. And so the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness becomes a kind of exile from the promised land. But it's that it's the exile from the... Yeah, it's a pre-exile exile. And the reason why I'm describing this as an exile is because this is how Ezekiel seems to have viewed this story. If you read Ezekiel chapter 20, he goes through this four cycles

of retelling Israel's history. And he talks about the exile to Babylon, he calls it the wilderness. We were sent into the wilderness of the nations. He calls it. So for the biblical authors, it's all connected. The 40 years in the wilderness is almost a pre-figuring of the going back into the wilderness of the nations in the Babylon. The figure is wilderness. Yeah, it's a figurative wilderness in Babylon. Anyway, which of, and that's what happens, the Israelites actually go into the land,

build the kingdom. And on the mountain of Jerusalem, you get the temple built, which is an image of the cosmic mountain. It's a little recreation of Eden in Jerusalem. And the temple to Solomon and all garden of Eden, all that stuff. We've explored that in other videos and conversations. And so here in the new Eden, represented by the temple in Jerusalem and the Promised Land. They break the divine command, just like humanity, and they are banished and driven out. And we're all the way back now to those two waves of exile of the northern tribes and then

the southern tribes in 586 BC. So that's the big story, but you can really, from Genesis to second Kings, but you can see all of a sudden like, Oh, this whole thing is a pretty tightly knit. It's super tightly knit with exile and Babylon and Eden and the promised land. It's all connected. Yeah. As a coherent statement. Both about Israel and about humanity as a whole. Hmm, that's cool.

This is Carla Dennis. I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina. What I like best about the Bible project is it inspires me to dig in more. It inspires me to read the word and it gives me a framework of what has happened before that chapter and what the main purpose of that chapter is and the direction it's taking me. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowd-funded project by people like me. Find free videos, study, nose, and more at theBibleProject.com. you