Baab speaks to this point too. In a discussion of the implications of viewing God as Creator, he remarks that “man [sic] and the universe are contingent upon the fact of God. They derive their existence from him and are consequently not self-sufficient or self-contained. They have meaning and value . . . only in the light of their relation to him.”97 Thus, we cannot conceive of the life God intends for us without also conceiving of God relating with us, participating in our lives.
Walther Eichrodt shares similar convictions. He notes a growing awareness throughout Old Testament history of this relational dynamic and suggests that it reached its zenith with the prophets. Based on a sharp focus on the personal nature of God’s holiness, the overriding concern for the Israelite people became the question of how they stood in the sight of their holy, sovereign, and covenant-making God.98 The prophets helped shape a move toward a more individual (not individualistic) understanding of the need to make decisions regarding obedient participation in God’s ways in the world. A distinction was made, therefore, between persons who were Israelite by birth and persons who were considered to be a part of God’s people through virtue of their individual decisions to obey and follow God.99 Eichrodt concludes by saying that “what raised the individual divine-human relationship to a new plane, making it a full and living reality, was the way in which the prophets carried to its logical conclusion the belief that man’s [sic] relations with God were explicitly personal in character.”100
This Receiving of Life from God Involves Obedience
It becomes quickly obvious to any reader of the Old Testament that God’s granting of life is directly linked to obedience. This is how an integral relationship with the God of life is maintained. Moses’s well-known exhortation in Deuteronomy 30, “therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,” is immediately followed with “loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him.”101 Earlier in Israel’s history, in Exodus 23, God directly links obedience to God’s command concerning idolatry, promising to bless their bread and water, remove sickness from among them, prevent barrenness or miscarriage among the women, go before them to drive out their enemies, and grant them God’s intended length of life for them.102 These are just two of many possible examples that illustrate the direct connection between the obedience of God’s people and the experience of full life as God intended it for them.
Michael Brown helpfully notes that more is envisioned here than simply receiving the health benefits of the “hygienic practices legislated in the Torah,” for “ . . . the text indicates that covenantal obedience would bring about supernatural blessings of health—i.e., more than just reaping the rewards of ‘clean,’ godly living.”103
Norman Whybray echoes this sentiment in his treatment of the Old Testament conceptions of “the good life.” After a chapter-long survey of Exodus through Numbers, he concludes that “these books, while celebrating Yahweh’s power and his desire for his people’s welfare, will have served as a warning to later generations that the good life is attainable only by faithful obedience to his laws.”104 This is a theme we will return to in the section on insights from the Gospel of John. Before proceeding further, however, it would be prudent to discern how the Old Testament authors conceive of life.
The Concept of Life in the Old Testament
It will be helpful to focus on what the Hebrew people envisioned during the periods when they conceived of life as something they could experience during their earthly lifetime. As has already been seen in the earlier references to Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 30, the Israelites, if they remained faithful to God’s covenant, pictured themselves receiving physical sustenance (blessing of bread and water, Exod 23:25), physical health (removal of sickness, Exod 23:25), reproductive fertility (no miscarriages or barrenness, Exod 23:26; abundantly prosperous in the fruit of their wombs, Deut 30:9), long life (fulfillment of the number of days, Exod 23:26), victory over enemies (Exod 23:27–28, Deut 30:7), success and prosperity with crops and livestock (Deut 30:9), security in the land (Deut 30:16), and compassion (Deut 30:3).
Many Old Testament passages refer to the tangible experience of God’s intended life. Psalm 84:11b says that “ . . . no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”105 Psalm 23 refers to green pastures, still waters, an overflowing cup, continual goodness and mercy, and “not wanting” (lacking). Psalm 107 recounts the Lord’s wondrous deeds among the redeemed, including deliverance from trouble (verses 6, 13, 19, 20, and 28), a city to dwell in (verses 7 and 36), healing (verse 20), plentiful water (verse 35), and a fruitful yield with crops and livestock (verses 37–38).
Concerning prosperity, Proverbs exhibits a judgmental attitude to the unjust use of riches, but not toward riches in and of themselves. “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”106 Proverbs also contends that the search for wisdom and understanding is far more important than the search for gold and jewels, but this does not mean that tangible blessings are contrary to wisdom’s desire. To the contrary, “long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.”107
I could share other Old Testament passages to demonstrate the very tangible ways the Hebrew people conceived of life, but these suffice to make the point. These concrete notions concerning what life actually is are fairly strongly agreed upon by a variety of Old Testament scholars. Michael Brown, for example, suggests that Mediterranean peoples shared the idea that God (or whichever deity a people worshipped) would grant blessing to “soil, body, and womb.” Thus, the Hebrew people conceived of life as “adequate food supply, health, longevity, and the ability to reproduce.”108 Sister Marie de Lourdes, in commenting on the Hebrew word hayyim (life), writes that “for the Hebrew, existence was not sufficient for life. To live meant to be vibrantly happy, to have good health, to be considerably successful in undertakings.”109 Levenson proposes that the Hebrew Bible’s concept of life includes “ . . . power, skill, confidence, health, blessing, luck, and joy.”110 In his discussion of the Hebrew word barak (to bless), Oswalt mentions the concepts of long life, fertile reproduction, prosperity, and success, and goes on to say that the primary role of blessing “ . . . seems to have been to confer abundant and effective life upon something . . . or someone . . . ”111
Norman Whybray engaged in an extensive survey of parts of the Old Testament in an attempt to detect the Old Testament’s conception of “the good life.” As a result of this survey, he identified twelve features that appear to be prominent: security, a land to live in, power, food, long life, wealth, family, justice, laws, wisdom, pleasure, and trust in God.112 Notice in Whybray’s list that there is a mixture of tangible features such as food and wealth, and intangible features (though no less real) such as power, justice, wisdom, pleasure, and trust in God. This leads into the next section, which considers a related insight by scholars concerning a shift that took place in Israelite conceptions of life.
The Correlation between Life as “Knowing God” and Life as “Receiving God’s Gifts”
Jacob and Eichrodt discuss how the Old Testament develops a distinction between the singular blessing of being in fellowship with God as independent from the other blessings that God’s people may experience in this life. Jacob talks about the relationship between blessing and the experience of shalom. As the creator and giver of life, blessing originates with God. It is a gift. The result of blessing in the life of the Israelite believer is shalom, “which suggests the idea of abundance, prosperity and peace; this state will only be fully attained in the last times, but for the righteous it can be a present reality, so true is it that there is nothing hoped for which cannot be translated immediately into actual life.”113
Jacob goes on to comment, however, that there was a shift in Israelite attitudes. Over time they moved to a declining emphasis on earthly abundance and success as the