Glimpses of two other periods in the history of Israel should be sufficient to give at least the flavor of the Old Testament story. The key names are Hezekiah and Josiah during the period of the monarchy, and Ezra and Nehemiah from the post-exilic period. During the approximately four hundred years of Israel’s monarchy, her religious experience was wildly erratic. Some great and good names do stand out, including those of Hezekiah and Josiah, both of whom initiated great religious reforms. Hezekiah’s reform and Passover preceded Josiah’s by about eighty years and are described at some length in 2 Chronicles 29-31. Why does the Chronicler give this story so much space? Perhaps because in Hezekiah’s day, the Passover was quite a novel idea, so novel, in fact, that the priests could not consecrate themselves in time. Levites had to be drafted to help administer the sacrifices (2 Chron. 29:34). The Passover itself had to be delayed for a month so that everything could be done as the law required. The people were so taken with this “new” thing that everyone agreed to extend the feast for another seven days (2 Chron. 30:23).
Now one might think that such a glorious Passover would establish the pattern for generations to come, but how does the biblical record describe conditions when Josiah came to power a few decades later? The Chronicler’s detailing of Josiah’s own development is most illuminating and deserves a closer look.
As told in 2 Chronicles 34, Josiah’s religious experience grew as follows: he was only a lad of eight when he began to reign (v. 1), but he apparently did not begin to “seek the God of David” until he was sixteen (v. 3). What had he been doing for religion before this? Use your imagination. The Bible doesn’t say. After beginning to seek the God of David at the age of sixteen, he finally decided to do something concrete to establish the faith; he began to break down the idols and destroy the pagan altars, but that didn’t actually take place until he was twenty (vv. 3-7). One would think that by now he must have been a devout worshiper of the true God and would have had most aspects of the faith firmly under control. Not quite, for it was only when he was twenty-four years of age that he decided to restore the temple, the official place of worship (v. 8). While the temple renewal was underway, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law (v. 14). The Bible itself does not clearly identify the book that was found, but many scholars think it was the book of Deuteronomy, or at least part of it. In any event, Hilkiah brought the book to the king’s secretary who in turn rushed it to the king. Whatever the precise contents may have been, the king was greatly surprised and shocked (v. 19). Can you imagine both the priest and the king being ignorant of the book of the law—and that so soon after Hezekiah’s great reform? And if the king and priest were ignorant, what was the condition of the average citizen?
I can well remember my reaction when the events of 2 Chronicles 34 finally made an impression on my mind. My “high road” picture of faithful kings, priests, and prophets, who held high the “banner of truth,” needed to be remodeled to fit the picture that the Old Testament itself gives. What a struggle it was for God to reveal himself to those people, people who so easily and so quickly fell so far.
Our last snapshot picture from the Old Testament comes after Israel had been dragged into Babylonian captivity—the just reward for her sins as the biblical account so clearly states. Nebuchadnezzar’s final capture and destruction of Jerusalem is usually dated at 586; the first feeble group of returning exiles apparently headed back for Judah in 536, but morale was a problem. After a half-hearted attempt to rebuild the city and the temple, local opposition discouraged the people and they simply let the temple remain in ruins. Finally, around 520, under the inspiration provided by the prophets Zechariah and Haggai, a drive was begun which resulted in the completion of the temple.
We have no biblical narrative which describes what took place during the next few decades. All we know from the biblical account is that when Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in 458/57, the state of religion was appalling. He and Nehemiah worked together to restore the city walls and the faith of the people. But a most sobering insight is provided by the last chapter of Nehemiah. Ezra had now passed from the scene and Nehemiah has had to return to the court of the Persian king, though the biblical account does not explain why. Upon his return to Jerusalem some twelve years later, which would probably be no earlier than 425, Nehemiah was appalled by the conditions he found. Some of the very reforms he and Ezra had established earlier had been reversed entirely. Read the story yourself in Nehemiah 13 and you will discover further evidence of the “low road” on which Israel so often traveled! In Nehemiah’s absence, the people had given over part of the temple to one of Israel’s avowed enemies, Tobiah the Ammonite; the priests and Levites had simply been left to fend for themselves; the Sabbath had been disregarded; and the Israelites were still marrying foreign wives, contrary to God’s law. That last point was precisely one that Ezra and Nehemiah had “reformed” earlier.
Nehemiah’s response to this multiple threat was vigorous and passionate. In his own words: “I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God . . .” (Neh. 13:25). Tough lines, those. But perhaps not too surprising considering the circumstances.
Descriptions of the history of Israel often suggest that the Babylonian captivity cured Israel once and for all of the worship of pagan deities and turned her to the religion of law, an emphasis that is altogether too clear by New Testament times. But even that religion of law was not easy to come by. The evidence from the Old Testament suggests that virtually throughout her history, even after the exile, God’s people were mostly traveling the “low road.” One could hardly accuse Israel of worshiping God wrongly when she was not even worshiping him at all! But that must have been the case more often than we have been inclined to admit.
After tracing the above scenario, we must now ask the question as to why God would allow such frightful degeneration. Why would he create a world and then let it slide away from him? Why would he choose a people and then not keep them close to him? Those questions have often been asked and they are the right ones to ask. The problem of evil and sin is an ominous cloud over our world. When God’s children either cannot recognize or cannot understand his activity among men, they turn away from him. I do not presume to know the full answer, but I would like to suggest a way of interpreting God’s activity that has helped me to see the Old Testament and the New Testament as part of a consistent revelation of a good God.
A COSMIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
The claim of both the Old Testament and of the New is that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and the source of everything good. How could such a God be the architect of this world with its sin and tragedy? The Bible does not really attempt to answer that question in a philosophical manner, but there are some hints in Scripture that point in the direction of a possible explanation of the course that this world has taken. When these hints are drawn together, a picture of a great cosmic drama begins to emerge. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is perhaps the best known popularization of this drama, but the elements are present in Scripture, and Milton himself draws heavily on scriptural imagery. As the writings of C.S. Lewis attest, the motif is still popular in our modern era.
The drama centers on the great struggle between good and evil, between God and the Enemy of the good. The Old Testament treatment of this drama will be discussed more specifically in the next chapter, but the hints appear very early in the biblical narrative. The serpent of Genesis 3, although more crafty than any of God’s other creatures, is somehow also God’s opponent, raising questions about God’s manner of dealing with humanity. He claims that God arbitrarily has withheld something good from humanity. Traditional Christianity has attributed personal qualities to this serpent and has depicted him as the Great Opponent of God, usually under the name of Satan or simply the Devil.
The suggestion of a great cosmic struggle between this Adversary