Structure in Psalm 56

This psalm has more frontmatter than most: an indication of the person who to whom it is directed; of the melody; of a Davidic connection; of the genre, a miktam, whatever that is; and a historical setting for the text.

Aside from the frontmatter, the song divides neatly into five sections; sections two and four are a sort of refrain or chorus, which separates section one from section three, and section three from section five.

The reader would expect this refrain to be identical in its two occurrences, but in fact there are slight differences. The first instance (verse 4 in English translations, verse 5 in the BHS) reads (in most recent translations, i.e., NIV, ESV, etc.):

In God, whose word I praise,
In God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can mortal man do to me?

The second occurrence (verses 10 and 11 in English, verses 11 and 12 in the BHS) reads:

In God, whose word I praise,
In the Lord, whose word I praise;
In God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

Most of the differences are visible in the English, but some reference to the Hebrew Vorlage is merited. Already in the first line of the refrain, which appears to be the same in both instances, according to English translations, there is a difference in the original Hebrew text.

In the first occurrence of this line, there is attached to the noun ‘word’ a masculine singular third person possessive suffix. In the second occurrence, the suffix is absent. In a literal rendering, this might appear like this:

(1) In God, I praise His word …
(2) In God, I praise [the] word …

The word ‘the’ is placed in brackets, because there is no definite article in the text at this point. To render it into English with no article at all would be to render it into intelligibility. It could arguably be rendered with an indefinite article, but it would be unclear what ‘I praise a word’ would mean. So, while adding the definite article is indeed an emendation, it seems difficult to make sense of the text without some amendment. Of course, as a matter of practice, it is best to arrive at a meaning for a text which requires no emendation, but in the present case, that seems impossible. Any future scholar who might provide such a meaning “deserves the love and thanks of man and woman,” as Thomas Paine wrote in a different context.

Which type of meaning might the author have hoped to communicate by omitting the possessive suffix? Perhaps to establish not only that God’s Word is His Word, but also to establish that it is the only (perfect and infallible) Word. By omitting the possessive, and not replacing it with an article, the author might be establishing ‘Word’ as a proper noun. English usage might offer analogous situations. The church speaks of the “ministry of Word and Sacrament” without any article in front of ‘Word’ and likewise of “let Scripture interpret Scripture” without any article. The author ensures that the reader does not assume that because the Word is “His Word,” there remains a possibility that there would be other “words” (their word, our word, my word, your word, etc.). Rather, “His Word” is “Word” ubiquitously, to the extent that even a definite article is unnecessary. There is no definite article before the name, e.g., of a city: Jerusalem, Berlin, Vienna, Chicago. Likewise, there is no definite article in front of “Word,” because God’s Word is not only without equal, it is also without anything even vaguely comparable.

The divergence between the first and second instances of the refrain grows when the second instance adds an entirely new and additional line. This new line repeats the second instance’s first line, i.e., without the possessive suffix, but replaces ‘God’ with the Tetragrammaton. This could be approximated as:

In YHWH, I praise [the] word …

What did the psalmist intend to express by adding this line to the second iteration of the refrain? Perhaps, as the intensity of the song builds, by shifting from the impersonal job title of ‘God’ and moving to ‘YHWH’ as a proper noun, i.e., a personal name, the psalmist hoped to indicate a stronger relationship between the reader and the Lord.

The addition of this line poses a second question: What was the difference in melody between the first and second occurrences of the refrain? A small change in vocabulary or grammatical structure would not usually necessitate a change in melody, but the addition of an entire line would require the reconfiguration of the musical setting for this part of the Psalm.

The next line in the refrain is the same in both instances: “In God I trust; I will not be afraid.” No investigation is necessary.

Some interpreters link this line to the next, reading “I will not be afraid of … ” and changing the next line from a question into a sort of relative clause.

The final line of the refrain contains a significant change of vocabulary:

(1) What can flesh do to me?
(2) What can man do to me?

The change from ‘flesh’ to ‘man’ is clearly intentional, and in the mind of the psalmist, significant. ‘Man’ can probably be read here without reference to gender, because if the psalmist had intended to denote specifically males, he would have used the Hebrew word ish instead of adam, so ‘man’ can be read here as ‘mankind’ or ‘humanity’ and as a general reference to human beings of both genders in general.

Perhaps the author uses ‘flesh’ to denote physicality: physical attacks by one’s enemies, as well as the weaknesses and temptations which arise from being a physical being with a body. The word ‘man’ would then refer to a broader set of dangers posed not only by humans or to humans in physical ways, but also in spiritual, psychological, political, social, cultural, and other ways.

By use both ‘flesh’ and ‘man,’ the psalmist is ensuring that his reference is not understood as narrow, but rather as broad: There are many types of danger and trouble, physical and non-physical, and the psalmist invites the reader to forsake the fear of all of them. This text brings to mind Luther’s words:

Nehmen sie den Leib,
Gut, Ehr’, Kind und Weib:
Laß fahren dahin,
Sie haben’s kein’ Gewinn,
Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben.

The psalmist, in a time of trouble and danger, sees his rescue coming from God’s Word and from God’s close relationship to him. He resolves to resist fear, even though it arrives in many different forms, and he resolves to put his trust in God.

Structure in Psalm 134

One of the shortest Psalms, this piece for choir and soloist nonetheless presents several structural features. Leaving “a song of ascents” aside as a title rather than part of the work proper, most commentators scan it as six lines or three couplets. This assessment can be left standing with the proviso that the middle couplet’s two lines interact with each other in a more involved way than either the first or third couplet.

The vocabulary is dominated by the word “Lord” which appears five times, more than any other word. This word is conspicuous not only in its frequency, but in its location. Consider its placement in the lines:

Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,
who stand by night in the house of the Lord!

Lift up your hands to the holy place
and bless the Lord!

May the Lord bless you from Zion,
he who made heaven and earth!

If one tampers with the scansion a bit, one might also read:

Come, bless the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord,
who stand in the house of the Lord
by night.

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!

May the Lord bless you from Zion,
he who made heaven and earth!

When asking whether such adjustments are at all reasonable, one notes that the positioning of “by night” after “Lord” is found in the Hebrew Vorlage, and that Hebrew meter in general is less strictly confined to syllables and rhymes, and includes a sort of “meter of ideas” which arranges, e.g., two concepts in each of the two lines of a couplet in order to “balance” the ideas in a way analogous to the way one might balance syllables.

The revised scansion makes more obvious how the word “Lord” might function as a way to end most of the lines. In terms of the music — this Psalm, like most or all Psalms, was probably composed as a performance piece — the word “Lord” might have had a whole note, coming after a series of quarter notes, or be metrically distinguished in some other way. Likewise, the word may have landed on the tonic in terms of pitch, giving a sense of finality, or it may have had a relatively high or relatively low note, or been in some other way distinctive.

The word “holy” has no preposition such as “in” or “toward” in the Hebrew Vorlage, and is a noun which can mean holiness or sanctuary. This poses a challenge for any translator.

The first two couplets are clearly in the second person plural, and the final couplet is in the second person singular. One can easily envision the first two couplets being sung by a soloist, and the final couplet by a choir.

Given the pilgrimage title of the Psalm, the soloist would be the traveler approaching the Temple, exhorting and encouraging the Temple staff, who ensured that worship never ceased, but continued all day and all night. The choir would be the Temple staff, bestowing a blessing on the pilgrim after his long journey.

Some commentators have hypothesized that the final couplet referred to a group, and that the second person singular was used to indicate that the pilgrims had such a unity among themselves that they might well be addressed in this way. This could allow for the possibility that two choirs were used, one singing the first part of the Psalm, and other singing the second part.

The first two couplets contain four verbs, all in the imperative: bless, stand, lift, bless. The final couplet contains a verb with the force, if not strictly the form, of a jussive (bless) and simple indicative verb (made).

Structure in Psalm 107

While the first line of this Psalm contains a second person imperative verb, the remainder of the work is free of any second person forms, whether verbs or pronouns. This work is at its core, then, neither a prayer, addressed to God, nor an exhortation, addressed to the Psalmist’s fellow Hebrews. It is a teaching Psalm, and a reasonable argument could be made to include it into the category of wisdom literature.

Psalm 107 has a clear structure. Verses 1 through 3 form an introduction, and verses 33 through 42 form the first part of a conclusion, and verse 43 is the second part of the conclusion.

The introduction explains that God has “redeemed from trouble” and “gathered” his people, and a third-person jussive tells the reader that the people should thank God for his salvation.

Between the introduction and the conclusion, the body of the Psalm is cyclic and goes through four iterations. Each iteration, and the subparts within the iteration, is clearly marked by identical stock phrases. New cycles begin at 107:4, 107:10, 107:17, and 107:23 with the word “some” in the ESV, but in Hebrew, the initiation of a new cycle is more subtle. Each of the four cycles begins with a plural: three times it is a plural verb and once it is a plural adjective. While understated, it is nonetheless a reliable marker, and this becomes clear after multiple readings.

The first part of each cycle describes a difficult situation in which a group of people finds themselves. The second part of the cycle begins with “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” This sentence is identical in each of the four cycles, and leaves no doubt that it is marking the beginning of the second part of the cycle. After this is a narrative of deliverance, narrating how God saved the people from the situation.

The third and final part of each of the four cycles begins with “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!” After this is another third-person jussive, more particular to the first two parts of the cycle, indicating the specific nature of the rescue for which the people should be thankful.

The first part of the conclusion lists different ways in which God saves; the second part of the conclusion is again a jussive, this time singular, ascribing wisdom to whomever meditates and reflects on God’s salvation.

Psalm 107 displays a deliberate and highly structured organization, almost all of it in couplets, and many of those couplets manifesting the typical parallelism which one associates with Hebrew poetry.

The author uses the jussive frequently; he is telling us about the way things ought to be. This is one piece of data to support the assertion that this Psalm might belong in the category of wisdom literature.

Psalm 107 was presumably, like most or all Psalms, a performance piece set to music. The structual features of the text here noted are suggestive of how the structural features of the music might have sounded.

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars: Allusions to False Gods

In the Tanakh there are nine occurrences in which the words ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ and ‘stars’ appear in the same sentence. Tangentially, there is one occurrence in which ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ and ‘constellations’ appear in the same sentence, with ‘constellations’ being a synonym for ‘stars’ (II Kings 23:5).

“The sun, the moon, and the stars” is used idiomatically to mean ‘everything’ or ‘anything’ in twentieth and twenty-first century English. This is not the case in Hebrew.

In the New Testament, there are five occurrences in which ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ and ‘stars’ appear in the same sentence.

While these words in English are simply nouns which refer to astronomical bodies, in Hebrew they were simultaneously names for the idols worshipped by the neighboring pagan nations which surrounded Israel. This placed the authors of the Tanakh into tricky situations: In Genesis, the author uses a circumlocution, referring to the “greater light” and the “lesser light” in order to avoid using the words ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ which are actually the names of heathen gods.

Moses uses these three astronomical terms as a circumlocution to indicate idolatry in general (Deuteronomy 4:19).

Although the authors needed to use care to avoid inadvertently seeming to acknowledge the pagan deities, the semantic fields of these Hebrew words also enabled the authors to construct linguistic slights which insult those idols.

The dynamic of these three words is similar but fainter in the New Testament, the Greek words being less directly connected to the mythological Gods. When Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven,” the meaning is not eschatological, as is often supposed, but rather deals with the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:29). He explains that this astronomical collapse will occur “after” 70 A.D., when the Roman army plundered Jerusalem. Given that the sun, moon, and stars are not significantly different now than what they were two thousand years ago, a literal physical interpretation of this text is not plausible. What then might Jesus have meant?

It is arguable that Jesus is referring to the decline of the polytheistic mythological systems which were ubiquitous and which were, for the most part, the only alternative to the Judaism of the first three decades of the first century. For practical purposes, at the time, if one wasn’t a follower of the Hebrew God, then one embraced belief systems of the ancient world, all of which acknowledged some set of gods and goddesses. The Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian, Hindu, Celtic, and other ancient cultures each had their own distinctive mythologies, all of which had, however, at least these two features in common: they were polytheistic, and they lacked a fervent devotional relationship between the individual and a deity. Their rituals were widely observed, but did not reflect a personal piety.

Following the day of Pentecost, in the mid-30s A.D., faith in Jesus spread rapidly, and millions of people abandoned the polytheistic mythologies. The speed and ease with which individuals walked away from those religious systems is expressed in Christ’s statement that the sun was darkened, the moon gave no light, and the stars fell.

It is plausible to assert that in history, rarely or never have so many people discarded a religion or a belief system so quickly and with so little hesitation.

Jesus is reported as using this phraseology in Luke 21:25, where, like the Matthew instance, it occurs in a transition between Christ’s discussion of the destruction of the Temple and his discussion of the end of this world. Many commentators see this remark in Luke as eschatological, but it possibly, plausibly, and even persuasively can be read as applying to high rates of conversion to Christianity in the decades immediately after the Temple’s destruction.

From where did Jesus get this imagery? One source is probably a text (II Kings 23:5) in which King Josiah worked to free the nation from paganism:

He deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens.

In this text, one sees clearly how “sun, moon, stars,” with ‘constellations’ substituting for ‘stars,’ can easily be read as referring to idols. Why the substitution was made is a question for a separate investigation, but the synonymy is clear enough.

Likewise, a couplet from a hymn (Psalm 148:3) alludes to heathenism’s false gods:

Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!

The Psalmist performs two tasks at once: first, the couplet is part of a longer listing of all aspects of creation praising God; second, the couplet demotes the idols, which, far from being gods, are creations made by God, and far from being praised, praise Him.

Likewise, Isaiah uses (13:10) these three astronomical words in his description of the judgment and downfall of Babylon. This can be read as not only the physical destruction of the city and empire, but also the discrediting of their idols, which are revealed to be null and void.

In like manner, Ezekiel (32:7) uses a similar structure in discussing the downfall of Egypt. Joel (3:15) does the same in describing the downfall of “the nations” (Tyre, Sidon, Philistia, et al.) which had behaved badly toward the kingdom of Judah, although there is a possible eschatological reading of this couplet. Not only do these nations fall, but their gods are revealed to be nothing.

Jeremiah (31:35) indicates that the sun, moon, and stars are subject and subservient to God, and implies, as Genesis (1:14-15) more explicitly states, that these astronomical bodies are to serve mankind by marking times and seasons, and that humans therefore do not serve them.

Analysis of the following is left as an exercise for the reader:

Elsewhere in the Old Testament, this vocabulary triad appears to be used not in reference to pagan deities (cf. Genesis 37:9, Ecclesiastes 12:2, Joel 2:10).

In the New Testament, too, not every time these three words appear together is a reference to false gods (cf. I Corinthians 15:41; Revelation 8:12, 12:1).

Semitic Semantic Syntactic Structures in Luke: Parallelisms in the Visitation

Although the disciples and evangelists composed the text of the New Testament in Greek, they were influenced by the idioms and structures of Hebrew and Aramaic. Certain structures can be identified as Hebraisms or Semiticisms, translated literally into Greek, creating phrases which would be non-idiomatic for native speakers of Greek in the first century.

One of the core features of Hebrew poetry is parallelisms structured as couplets. In its simplest form, this is two lines of poetry in which the second line echoes the meaning of the first. Consider Psalm 25:4

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
Teach me your paths.

And Numbers 23:8

How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?

Generally, this repetition of meaning is not accompanied by any phonological similarities between the two lines. The second line needn’t sound like the first line in order for the couplet to qualify as an example of Hebraic parallelism. Indeed, in the majority of examples, the second line usually doesn’t sound like the first.

Readers who are familiar with, e.g., poetry in English or German will need to unlearn the habit of counting syllables and looking for metrical patterns, or listening for rhymes. Those features are rare in Hebrew poetry.

The authors of the New Testament carried this structure into Greek. Parallelisms can be found in many of the NT books, e.g., Matthew 6:24

For either he will hate the one and love the other,
Or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

Surprisingly, Luke, in his Gospel and in Acts, shows traces of this habit, even though many scholars hypothesize that he was a gentile.

If indeed Luke was a gentile, he may have unconsciously picked up the habit of parallelism through immersion in a Semitic linguistic environment; or perhaps he deliberately used the structure in his writing.

Other scholars suggest that Luke was not a gentile, but a Jew raised in a Greek-speaking community, perhaps in Syria. Many of these Hellenized Jews adopted lifestyles quite different from the Jews in Israel, and lifestyles quite similar to the Greeks and Romans. Yet they were exposed to the Tanakh, i.e., to the Old Testament, as they read the Septuagint. In this scenario, Luke would have picked up the habit of parallelism from the LXX.

Whether Luke was a Jew or a gentile, and whether his use of parallelism is intentional or unwitting, clear examples are found in his Gospel and in Acts. Different editions and translations are inconsistent in whether they mark these parallelisms as poetry by line breaks. Often, the parallelisms are printed as normal prose, hiding the fact that they are poetic.

These verses from chapter one (1:32-36) of Luke’s Gospel, in which the angel Gabriel speaks, are printed as prose in many editions, but they are clearly Greek clauses which follow the rules of Hebrew poetry:

He will be called the Son of the Highest;
And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.

And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
And of his kingdom there will be no end.

And

The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age;
And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

In the Magnificat (1:1:46-55), Mary replies to the angel, and her words are likewise often constructed in parallel couplets:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Mary also expresses herself in another type of parallelism, in which the second line in the couplet is not a direct repetition of the idea in the first line, but rather an extension or development of the first line, or a re-framing of the first line’s idea by showing this idea from another perspective:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

God has “shown strength” in the first line; this “strength” is detailed and amplified when we learn that it was shown in the course of scattering.

The couplet which immediately follows shows parallelism by a sort of double negation:

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estates.

To “bring down the mighty” is to “exalt the humble” — the two are mirror images of each other; they are complementary shapes, like a bronze casting and the mold in which it was cast. The next couplet has the same schema:

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Each couplet speaks of God’s action toward the powerful and the vulnerable. The two couplets themselves form a sort of meta-parallelism and a chiastic structure. The first couplet begins with God’s action toward the powerful and moves to His action toward the vulnerable; the second couplet treats the two in reverse order.

Chiasmus on the level of a two-line couplet, as well as larger chiastic structures which can include many lines, work well with Hebraistic parallelism, and are often found in Scripture generally, but not often in Luke.

Even if Luke was a gentile, and even if he composed his text in Greek, both of which seem likely, his composition is still shaped, consciously or unwittingly, by the semitic literary structures which he must have frequently encountered.

Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Realms: Dual Citizenship

A microscopic percentage of the world’s population holds dual citizenship. Although the topic of dual citizenship is popular in casual conversation, few people have it. Many people mistakenly believe that they have dual citizenship. It can be established only by the appropriate paperwork from two separate countries.

For those who truly have dual citizenship, it has both advantages and disadvantages. Travel is easier with two passports. Dual citizens have twice as many civil rights as other people. But they are subject to being drafted into two armies instead of one, and sometimes have to pay more taxes, because they are paying to two countries.

By analogy, many people have a spiritual form of dual citizenship. Martin Luther explained that there are two domains: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. These two realms both lay claim to a person’s life. Having already received a legal status from a worldly kingdom, people owe taxes and obedience. Having already received eternal salvation from God, people owe thanks and praise to God, and kindness to one’s fellow human being.

Just as a person with two nationalities carries two passports, so spiritually a person wears two hats: simultaneously living and working in the Kingdom of God and in the kingdom of this world, as Erwin Mülhaupt writes:

Ein gläubiger Christ gehört hier auf Erden zugleich beiden Reichen an, so wie ein Christ zugleich Kirchengemeinderat und Polizist, zugleich Vater und Lehrer, zugleich Christ und Richter sein kann.

A Christian moves back and forth between the two roles. In a time of worship, he is humble and does not coerce others; in his worldly role, perhaps as an employee of a governmental regulatory agency, he imposes his decisions on others. Quoting Luther (WA 39 II, pg. 81, line 17), Mülhaupt points to the fact that the Christian in both realms is a subordinate — a subject in the etymological sense — to an authority:

So hat auch ein Christ »zweierlei Bürgerrecht, in dem er im Glauben Christus untertan ist, dem Kaiser aber mit seinem Leib.«

This recalls Luther’s dictum in Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, where he explains that “A Christian man is the most free master of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

This paradox served Luther in that text as he explored Christian living; a similar paradox serves in the investigation of the two realms. It is a paradox, not a contradiction, because it can be systematically sorted into consistent applications, as Mülhaupt notes:

Das ist kein Widerspruch, weil ein Christ nicht nur bei seinesgleichen, sondern auch unter den härteren Bedingungen des weltlichen Regiments zu Dienst und Liebe verpflichtet bleibt.

The doctrine of the two kingdoms prevents any pattern of Christians withdrawing from the world, although this doctrine serves other purposes as well. The doctrine pushes the Christian into the worldly realm and demands that he take action there. Luther is steering away from monasticism and asceticism. Avoiding the world is bad enough, but it’s even worse when it is done in alleged obedience to God. The Christian is called not only be in the world, but to do something there, as Mülhaupt reports:

Gott will keine Weltflucht und keinen Rückzug auf die eigene Innerlichkeit, namentlich nicht aus angeblich religiösen Gründen.

Luther offers (WA 40 III, pg. 207, lines 30ff) a list of prophets whom God sent into political and economic situations, to speak to, and interact with, the government’s leaders. That such leaders were princes and kings in the past, and presidents and prime ministers in the present, makes no difference. God uses His people to steer the events of history; to this end, they must be involved in worldly matters.

Those who withdraw from the world, Luther writes (WA 57, part 2, pg. 107, line 10), fail to love allegedly for the sake of love: they fail to be pious, claiming that isolation is piety.

Thus the doctrine of the two realms gets to the core of the Gospel: it shows Christians how, when, and where to show true charity, whether in the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world, as Mülhaupt concludes:

Die Pflicht zur Nächstenliebe gilt in beiden Reichen. Was sollte hieran zu überholen sein?

This doctrine seems, at first glance, confined to politics and government, but it unfolds to shape all aspects of the life of faith.

Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Realms: Both Kingdoms Are Necessary

Martin Luther explains his ‘doctrine of the two realms’ by explaining the unique and peculiar features, both of the kingdom of this world, and of the kingdom of God. He continues by examining the interplay between the two, and explains why both are necessary, why both can and must complete each other, and why neither is sufficient by itself. The two realms complement each other.

Erwin Mülhaupt notes that Luther first advocates a clear distinction between the two realms and second summarizes the tasks of each: the kingdom of God is to make people pious, and the kingdom of this world is to establish peace and oppose evil deeds:

Beide Regimente sind nötig, beide müssen und können sich ergänzen, keines ist für sich allein genug. Daher der berühmten Sätze Luthers in seine für die Zweireichelehre grundlegenden Schrift ‘Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei’ 1523: ‘man muß die beiden Regimente mit Fleiß unterscheiden und beide bestehen lassen, eines, das fromm macht, das andre, das äußerlich Frieden schafft und bösen Werken wehrt.

The word ‘theocracy’ has caused much trouble over the centuries. To unravel the confusion, it helps to remember that what is commonly called a ‘theocracy’ is actually an ecclesiocracy or a hierocracy. God is perfect. The church, its leaders, and its individual members remain flawed, imperfect, and sinful. Luther rejects the idea of any kind of ecclesiocracy or hierocracy — i.e., he rejects that which is commonly called a ‘theocracy’ because it is not “God’s reign” despite what the name literally implies.

What Luther envisions is perhaps a cosmic version of the concept of ‘check and balance’ or ‘separation of powers’ as the reader is familiar with it from history. Neither the realm of this world nor Christ’s kingdom is to have dictatorial powers, because neither is perfect. Because Christ is perfect, it may seem counterintuitive to say that Christ’s kingdom is imperfect. But Christ has welcomed into His kingdom people who are both sinful and sinners.

Luther clearly rejects the idea of all power being concentrated in a single organization or person, as Erwin Mülhaupt explains:

Luther lehnt also eine Ein-Reich-Lehre ab, ob es die Lehre von einem Reich mit dem Papst an der Spitze ist oder von einem Reich mit einem Politiker an der Spitze.

Each of the two spheres is in some sense limited or incomplete. Luther reminds the kingdom of this world that it cannot create faith and love by means of laws, violence, and administration — which are its only instruments — and therefore cannot create a paradise on earth. He reminds the spiritual kingdom that it cannot, with its means, bring about order, peace, justice, and prosperity.

Erwin Mülhaupt poses a rhetorical question: Is it obsolete to remind each of the two kingdoms to remain in its assigned role? To stay in its lane?

Er mahnte vielmehr das geistliche Regiment daran, daß es mit seinen Mitteln allein Ordnung, Frieden, Recht, Wohlstand nicht erreichen kann, und umgekehrt das weltliche Regiment daran, daß es mit Gesetz Gewalt und Organisation keinen Glauben und keine Liebe schaffen und also niemals ein Paradies oder das Reich Gottes auf Erden erreichen kann. Frage: ist es überholt, in dieser Weise sowohl das geistliche Regiment oder die Kirche als auch das weltliche Regiment oder die Politiker bescheiden an ihre Grenzen zu erinnern, weil ‘keins ohne das andre gnug ist in der Welt?’

Luther had already preemptively answered ​​Mülhaupt’s question. The worldly realm, by itself, produces mere hypocrisy, because even if it issues decrees which correspond exactly to God’s own commands, the people cannot be properly pious without the Holy Spirit in their hearts, even if they do the most magnificent works. In Christ’s realm, by itself, evil is unrestrained, because the world can neither accept nor understand Christ’s kingdom, as Luther writes:

Denn ohne Christi geistliches Regiment kann niemand fromm werden vor Gott durchs weltliche Regiment. So geht Christi Regiment nicht über alle Menschen, sondern allezeit gibt es der Christen am wenigsten und sie sind mitten unter den Unchristen. Wenn nun weltliches Regiment oder Gesetze allein regiert, da muss eitel Heuchelei sein, wenn’s auch gleich Gottes Gebot selber wären, denn ohne den heiligen Geist im Herzen wird niemand recht fromm, wenn er auch die feinsten Werke tun mag. Wenn aber das geistliche Regiment allein regiert über Land und Leute, da wird der Bosheit der Zaum abgenommen und aller Büberei Raum gegeben, denn die gemeine Welt kann es weder annehmen noch verstehen.

In this way, Luther arrives at his conclusion, that both realms are necessary.

Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Realms: Why Worldly Systems of Governance Are Needed

Christ says to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” In so saying, He uses the phrase ‘my kingdom’ three times. This leads the reader to wonder: Against which other kingdom is Christ contrasting His?

In writing about this “Two Kingdoms Doctrine,” Erwin Mülhaupt explains that the “worldly kingdom,” while not Christ’s kingdom, is still a gracious gift from God. It is a sort of concession to the reality that the world after the Day of Pentecost but before the advent of “a new heaven and a new earth” is still, despite the presence of the Savior, a fallen and broken place.

The earthly kingdom has been instituted by God to limit the evil, chaos, and violence which would otherwise run amok on this earth.

The New Testament has a clear-eyed view of the present world: “not all have faith.” Even among those who have faith, who receive Jesus, sin still appears: “I do not do the good I want.” Because sin is present, God has instituted the kingdom of the world, to limit and restrain sin. Legislating restrictions against sin, and enforcing those boundaries, is the task of the worldly kingdom. As such, it is a negative kingdom, because, as Mülhaupt writes, one cannot command people to act out of love.

So God institutes this kingdom “of the left hand,” which operates by means of laws, regulations, legal systems, and ultimately by means of violence, in order to achieve a relative amount of humaneness, justice, and peace. It is clear that the “humaneness, justice, and peace” of the worldly kingdom is deficient, limited, and minimal. Yet it is still a grace, because without it, the earth would be flooded with evil.

The necessity of this arrangement arises from the fallen nature of human beings. When Luther crafted this doctrine, he was not under the illusion that people are good, and that evil resides only in the structures and organizations of the world.

A kingdom could be supplied with the best culture, civilization, and society; it could have the best economic, political, and governmental system; yet it would be plagued with the problems which all human society encounters, because its structures and organizations, however good they may be, are filled with human beings, and thereby filled with evil.

Erwin Mülhaupt writes:

Weil nie alle das Wort Gottes annehmen und weil der Glaube ‘nicht jedermanns Ding ist’ (2. Thess. 3,2) und weil man die Liebe nicht befehlen kann, darum ist es gut und nötig, daß es neben dem Reich Christi noch ein ‘Reich mit der linken Hand’ Gottes oder ein weltliches Regiment gibt, das mit Gesetz, Sitten, Ordnungen, Rechten und mit Gewalt wenigstens eine relative Menschlichkeit, Gerechtigkeit und relativen Frieden sichert und dem stets im Menschen lauernden Chaos wehrt; denn den Aberglauben, daß der Mensch gut sei und daß dsa Böse nur in den Strukturen und Ordnungen steckt, teilte Luther nicht.

Some people might think that Christians — or at least the really good Christians — wouldn’t need or want this worldly governance. A really good Christian would be acting with self-discipline and out of altruistic selflessness, always working for the good of his fellow man and for the good of his community.

This is a complete misunderstanding! Christians, even the best of them, are imperfect, flawed, and sinful, and don’t always do the right thing. All human beings are faced with, and need to face up to, the reality that they often do the wrong thing.

So Christians see the need for a worldly regime to keep civic order and promote peace. Christians see that they need this for themselves as guardrails to prevent themselves from running amok. They also see that this is good for the community as a whole, to promote more humane, just, and peaceful behavior from everyone, as Mülhaupt writes:

Ein Christ, der auf der Höhe des christlichen Glaubens und der christlichen Liebe steht, braucht das alles freilich nicht und ist nicht auf Gesetz, Sitte, Ordnung und Recht angewiesen, um das Richtige zu tun. Aber ersten gibt es hier auf dieser Erde diesen Christen gar nicht, der wirklich auf der Höhe des Glaubens und der Liebe steht, und zweitens gebietet die christliche Liebe, um des Nächsten willen alle Bemühungen des weltlichen Regiments um etwas mehr Menschlichkeit, Gerechtigkeit und Frieden zu unterstützen. Frage: ist solch nüchtern, aber dennoch positive Einschätzung und Unterstützung des weltlichen Regiments überholt oder nicht?

Mülhaupt poses a seemingly rhetorical question: Is Luther’s understanding of the two realms outdated? Have people changed? Has human nature changed, that we are so good now that we don’t need a worldly governance to maintain peace, justice, and humaneness?

Luther's Doctrine of the Two Realms: The Distinctive Features of Christ’s Kingdom

Luther’s Zwei-Reiche-Lehre is the “doctrine of the two kingdoms,” and here one must ask: What type of kingdoms are there? Obviously, Jesus (John 18:36) said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His kingdom is not a kingdom like England, Denmark, or Norway. It does not have geographical borders, a military, or a unit of currency.

The word Reich can be rendered as ‘kingdom, empire, realm, dominion’ — i.e., that over which someone rules or has jurisdiction. God rules over the entire universe: over everything which is in space and time, and over anything which is not in space and time. God is omnipresent and omnipotent.

Which empire can oppose an empire which already rules over everything everywhere? This opposing empire is a usurpation and a rebellion.

God’s kingdom is not a physical kingdom, and yet has a universal dominion. The opposing kingdom, the kingdom of the devil, is also not a physical kingdom, has dominion over nothing, yet claims dominion over everything. This is a conflict on the largest possible scale.

Christ’s kingdom is unique, and Luther’s doctrine articulates this uniqueness, as Erwin Mülhaupt writes:

Die Eigenart des Reiches Christi wird von Luther in einer Predigt über den geliebten 8. Psalm folgendermaßen definiert: ‘Christi Reich wird nicht durch äußerliche Gewalt und leiblich Schwert angerichtet, gestärkt und erhalten, sonder … durch Wort Glauben und Geist.’

There is a legitimate debate about whether Christianity entails moderate pacifism or extreme pacifism, but Luther’s words about make it clear — or should make it clear — that violence is not part of the modus operandi of Christianity.

This pacifism is often obscured when those opposed to Christianity try to describe Christianity. Sometimes, even those who claim to be Christians obscure the non-violent inclination which is intrinsic to faith in Jesus.

Every non-violent movement or ideology is borrowing, either knowingly or unknowingly, from the ideas of Jesus. Mühaupt’s writing on this topic carry the title Muß Man Luthers Zweireichelehre Überholen? and thereby pose the question: Are these ideas from Jesus, echoed by Luther, truly timeless? Are they still valid today? Mühaupt continues:

Die einzige Art und Weise wie im Reich Christi regiert und gearbeitet wird, ist also die unentwegte Verkündigung des Wortes, in dem Wort steckt der Geist Gottes, und wenn Gott Gnade gibt, dann wirkt das Wort bei Menschen den Glauben, einen Glauben, der nach Gal. 5,6 ‘durch die Liebe tätig ist.’ Frage: ist Glaube und Liebe überholt? wer will sich anmaßen, über den Glauben herauszukommen, ‘der aus dem Wort gezeuget und durch das Wort sich nährt u. vor dem Wort sich beuget und mit dem Wort sich wehrt,’ und über die Liebe hinauszukommen, ‘die seiner Liebe Furcht, die anderen so begegnet, wie er das Herz bewegt, die segnet, wie er segnet und trägt, wie er sie trägt?’

If non-violence is a premise, then what is the conclusion? Unlike the kingdoms of this world, whose foundation includes a monopoly on violence, God’s kingdom must use a different set of tools to accomplish its goal. Those tools consist of the Word, the Spirit in the Word, grace which guides the process in which the Word works faith, and the actions which result from this. These tools are the alternative to violence.

The passage from which Mühaupt quotes is a sermon delivered by Luther and then edited for printing in 1537. In the paragraph in question, Luther writes about Christ’s conversation with Pilate. The text, lightly modernized, reads:

Damit unterscheidet er gewaltig sein Reich und das Reich der Welt, und lehrt, wie sein Reich gestaltet sei. Das Reich des Kaisers, spricht er, ist von dieser Welt, gehört in diese Welt und nimmt ein Ende mit dieser Welt. Aber mein Reich ist nicht von dieser Welt, gehört auch nicht in diese Welt, ob es schon in dieser Welt geht, und nimmt kein Ende mit dieser Welt, sondern gehört in eine andere Welt und bleibt ewig. Das römische Reich bleibt wohl vor meinem Reich, so es nur selbst will. Denn mein Reich wird nicht durch äußerliche Gewalt und leibliches Schwert angerichtet, gestärkt und erhalten wie das Reich der Welt durch leiblich Gewalt und Schwert angerichtet, gestärkt, und erhalten wird, sondern wird erbauet, gestärkt, und erhalten durchs Wort, Glauben, und Geist. Die Welt ist voll Schalkheit, voll Heuchelei, voll Lügen, voll Faulheit, voll Untreue. Alle äußerliches weltliches Regiment, sie seien gleich mit Tugend, Redlichkeit, und Recht gegründet und gefasst aufs Beste, als sie immer mögen, so sind sie doch voll Falschheit und Lügen vor Gott, und ist kein wahrhaftiges rechtschaffenes Wesen darin.

The distinctive features of Christ’s kingdom are truth and pacifism. The characteristics of the worldly kingdom are falsehood and violence. Luther acknowledges that the worldly kingdom may well be founded with an eye toward virtue, honesty, and justice, but inevitably devolve into, and are sullied by, deception and lies.

Erwin Mülhaupt does a great service by pointing out that Christ’s kingdom is distinctive and in a class by itself.

The difference between Christ’s realm and every other realm is not a difference of degree: it is not merely that Christ’s realm is larger, or endures longer, or more perfectly manifests the virtues which one would desire in a kingdom. Rather, the difference is a difference of kind: Christ’s dominion is absolutely unique and peculiar. The contrast is between Christ’s kingdom and all other kingdoms. It is one-of-a-kind and unrepeatable.

Luther's Doctrine of the Two Realms: The New Testament Foundation for Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Since Jesus began preaching in Galilee, His followers have been struggling to conceptualize the proper relationship between worldly authority and spiritual authority. This has been a universal topic of discussion among Christians for the last 2,000 years.

Martin Luther made a major contribution to this discussion when he formulated his doctrine of the two kingdoms. There are historical antecedents to Luther’s articulation: “render unto Caesar” (Luke 20, Mark 12, Matthew 22), Augustine’s two cities, and the medieval concept of two swords (Luke 22).

Luther did not systematically or clearly express this doctrine, but rather mentions it in passing when it is relevant to his discussion of some other topic. It remains an exegetical challenge for scholars to gather from various writings Luther’s incidental remarks on this topic, and assemble them into a precise set of theses. In this way, Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms is a construct that Luther himself might not have recognized, and competing formulations exist.

The reader may be tempted to quickly place Luther’s teaching about the “two kingdoms” into a pigeonhole labeled “church and state,” but that would do a disservice to Luther’s thought. The modern framing of the question began with the American Revolution, around 250 years after Luther’s time. The modern “church and state” question, no matter which answers may be proposed, is not the same as Luther’s question. To be sure, there are some similarities between the two, but Luther’s context was markedly different than Thomas Jefferson’s.

Not only was Luther’s context different, his method was different. Luther began with Scripture.

Erwin Mülhaupt explains that Luther’s method included a habit of examining what Scripture says, and comparing this to what many readers think it says. Mülhaupt describes Luther’s understanding of John 18:36 and the kingdom of God:

Luther hebt auf diese Stelle oft ab, bei vielen modernen Theologen scheint dies Bibelwort fast vergessen. Man kann auf den Verdacht kommen, es wäre ihnen eigentlich lieber, in Joh. 18,36 stünde: mein Reich ist vor allem für diese Welt, denn ich erhebe den Herrschaftsanpruch über Pilatus und Herodes und den römischen Kaiser und alle Bereiche des menschlichen und politischen Lebens! Aber statt dessen findet Luther, daß Christus im Neuen Testament anerkennende Worte für das Reich des Kaisers, die Macht des Pilatus und Herodes und mancherlei Obrigkeit findet: das Reich des Kaisers hat auch seine Berechtigung Matth. 22,21ff, die Macht des Pilatus ist ihm auch von oben gegeben Joh. 19,11 und mancherlei Obrigkeiten sind auch nicht vom Teufel, sondern »von Gott verordnet« Röm. 13,1. Die Zwei-Reiche-Lehre war also für Luther biblisch begründet. Die biblische Begründung war für ihn sehr wichtig.

For those who’ve already been exposed to Luther’s texts, it’s possible that there’s little new or surprising in what Erwin Mülhaupt states about Luther’s relation to Scripture. Luther’s insistence on seeing Scripture as the foundation and starting-point for theology was a departure from the usual theological methodology of the time. Luther was so successful in propagating his method that it hardly seems controversial now to assert that Scripture is axiomatic. Even those who disagree with Luther often use Scripture in their argumentation, and thereby follow Luther’s example.

Luther defines two domains, each with its own purpose, and each with its own governance. These two realms need to be properly distinguished from each other. Luther summarizes his explanation of the nature and function of the two kingdoms:

Darum hat Gott die zwei Regimente verordnet, das geistliche, das die Menschen zu Christen und zu frommen Leuten macht durch den heiligen Geist unter Christus, und das weltliche, das den Unchristen und Bösen wehrt, so daß sie äußerlich Frieden halten und still sein müssen, ob sie wollen oder nicht.

The German word Reich can be rendered as ‘realm, domain, or kingdom’ in this context. It can possibly be translated with still other English words. Researchers refer to Luther’s idea as the Zweireichelehre or Zwei-Reiche-Lehre.

Luther’s schema here is simple yet profound: God established two governances; the spiritual governance, which makes people into Christians and into pious persons by means of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of Christ; the worldly governance, which restrains the non-Christians and evil people, so that external peace is maintained and so that they will be civil whether they want to or not.

In this articulation, the worldly government is expressly authorized to maintain peace against the will of the individual. The questions pose themselves: Does the spiritual government refrain from overriding the will of the individual? Does God ever override the will of the individual? The answers to these questions, and many related questions, will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Although working out the details of Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms will get complicated, the basic framework is simple enough, as is his method of working from Scripture. Again, it shows how successful he was, that what seems simple to the twenty-first century reader was new to the sixteenth-century reader.

Theses on Ministry and Theology

Students who are preparing to do ministry, whether as ordained pastors or in some other role, are almost always required to study a certain amount of theology. Why? Some observers criticize such requirements as needlessly abstract and theoretical, an academic distraction from practical hands-on ministry. Other observers argue that ministers, ordained or non-ordained, need more theological training in order to provide guidance and foundations for practical ministry.

(1) Ministry and theology are two distinct and different things. Both are valuable.

(2) Ministry is to theology as the practice of medicine is to biology.

(3) Ecclesiology can be either useful or hindersome to both theology and ministry.

(4) Theology is the pursuit of knowledge. Ministry is the taking of action.

(5) Theology values precision over time. Ministry values time over precision.

(6) Theology informs ministry. Ministry applies theology.

These theses can be seen in a concrete example. A pastor might need to decide whether to invite a specific person to receive the sacrament. This is a well-known topic; scholars write books about it and debate about it. These discussions and publications can stretch out over years.

But in the moment, the pastor must make a decision, and in some cases must make the decision quickly. In a minute, he must take action regarding a topic which the scholars have dissected for years.

This is not to say that the pastor should despise theology; on the contrary, it is for this moment that he has studied theology. Nor should the theologian despise the pastor; the theologian’s task is to provide a toolbox of concepts which are available to the pastor as he does ministry.

These theses are starting points, not conclusions.

Theses on Doctrine and Emotion

(1) It is an error to base doctrine on emotion.

(2) It is an error to fail to base emotion on doctrine.

(3) Doctrine indicates that the emotions of the other must inform the action of the agent.

The error of basing doctrine and belief on emotions has been so well discussed and documented that no further examination of this thesis is needed.

An understanding and internalization of the doctrine of salvation by grace, of the doctrine of God’s omnibenevolence, of God’s unconditional positive regard and affection for every human being, of God’s forgiveness and mercy, and of God’s bestowal of unearned and unmerited favor on every human being is so powerful that it necessarily affects human emotion, and human emotion cannot help but be affected by such understanding.

Any rational ethic must factor the emotions of the other into its calculus of utility. It is a sin to needlessly inflict a negative emotion onto another — sadness, grief, etc. It is a sin to needlessly fail to empower a positive emotion in another — happiness, relief, etc. In a multifactorial calculation of utility, emotion must be considered and weighed against other types of utility.

Repentance: To Change Direction

The word ‘repent’ plays a central role both in the Scriptures and in systematic Christian theology. The word appears early, and is therefore foundational, in the three synoptic gospels.

In Matthew, it is the first recorded word from the mouth of John the Baptist, and is the first spoken word of Christ’s public ministry. In Mark, the first mention of John includes the fact that he preached “a baptism of repentance,” and the first words of Christ’s proclamation include the imperative to repent. Likewise, Luke’s presentation of John the Baptist is nearly verbatim the same as Mark's, and Jesus describes His ministry as calling people “to repentance” (cf. Matthew 3:2, 4:17; Mark 1:4, 1:15; Luke 3:3, 5:32).

Oddly, the word does not appear in John’s gospel at all.

In the synoptics, the word seems to act as a trigger which ignites Christ’s ministry and the power of the Gospel.

The New Testament’s use of the word carries forward the important role which it had also in the Old Testament. Behind the English word “repent” lie several Hebrew vocabulary items. One of them is nacham, which refers to an emotional or psychological process of being sorry or regretting. Hebrew words tend to have large semantic fields, and nacham is no exception. It can also refer to sighing, pitying, or comforting. This requires not only that the translator be sensitive to context, but rather also that the reader reflect on what is shared in all of these divergent meanings. If nacham is “repent” and yet is also “sigh, pity, comfort,” then what is the common thread? “Pitying” and “comforting” are both transitive verbs which take direct objects; to “repent” may be to “pity” or “comfort” one’s self, the reflexive pronoun becoming the direct object. It may be useful to posit that there is more than one type of repentance, and that nacham may refer to one type rather than to all types. The notion of “sighing” may coincide with pivotal moments, of which repentance can sometimes be one.

So nacham might be a moment, a turning point, in which one sighs, considering one’s own sins, pitying one’s self, and yet also comforting one’s self, inasmuch as this insight into one’s nature, though painful, is also however a step toward clarity, toward confessing one’s sins, receiving forgiveness, and receiving from the Holy Spirit an impetus to amend one’s patterns of living.

There is another Hebrew word which is used more often in the Scriptures, and which has an even broader semantic field. The word shuv denotes “turning” and in its root is a literal and physical word: it refers to a change in direction. It can be used to give directions (II Kings 20:5, 9:18; Ruth 1:11, 1:12, Exodus 14:2), telling someone where to go and how to get there: to turn, to turn back, to turn around. In daily life in ancient times, shuv was used primarily as a physical verb of motion.

In the Scriptures, however, shuv is also, and more often, in a spiritual sense: a “turning” of the heart or mind which leads to a physical turning, or more pointedly, which is a physical turning. A repentance, ideally, does not remain a psychological or emotional event, but rather is also a physical change. If one repents of eating too much, then one takes the action of eating less — admittedly imperfectly, because humans of necessity relapse again into those sins of which they repent; yet a detectable physical action was still part of an authentic and sincere repentance.

Ancient Hebrew anthropology did not sharply distinguish between the physical and spiritual aspects of human beings. A Platonic distinction between the material body and the metaphysical soul was foreign Semitic thought. While the Greeks might have reasoned that a human being is composed of a body and a soul, the Hebrew would have argued that a human being is a body and a human being is a soul, inseparably intertwined. Indeed, a Hebrew might not have argued for this view, because this Semitic notion was so foundational to a Hebraic worldview that a Hebrew might not even have considered it as something for which one must construct arguments.

The use of the verb shuv to refer to repentance, then, a “turning” on both a physical and a spiritual level.

Shuv is broader in meaning than “repent” because it can mean a good turning — to turn toward God and away from evil — or a bad turning — away from God and toward evil. This word can also denote God’s turning: He can turn his favor toward people, or His wrath. All of these turnings will manifest themselves both on a spiritual level and on a physical level — and to the Hebrew, those would have been one unitary manifestation, not two linked manifestations.

So it is, then, that Moses asks God to “turn” from His wrath toward the Israelites (Exodus 32:12), warns the people about the consequences of “turning” away from God, and encourages them to “turn” toward God (Deuteronomy 4:30, 30:10). In one event, some Israelites twice use the verb to accuse their fellow Israelites of “turning” away from following the Lord, and the accused use the verb twice in defending themselves (Joshua 22: 16, 18, 23, 29). Solomon speaks of the people “turning to” God and “turning away” from their sins (I Kings 8:33, 35).

Malachi concludes his prophecies by foretelling a great day when God “will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). Nebuchadnezzar, however, prevented his “heart from turning” toward the Lord (II Chronicles 36:13).

A noun form of shuv is teshuvah which is used rarely in Scripture, but frequently in post-Biblical rabbinic Hebrew, to indicate repentance.

In the New Testament, the Greek word metanoia and associated verbal and noun forms refers to repentance. This word refers to a change of mind, or a new mind, or a higher-level mind.

All of this is packed into a single utterance: “Repent!” in the mouths of Jesus and of John the Baptist. This semantic richness requires a great deal of unpacking, but is all compressed into a single word.

So it was that Martin Luther made the very first of his famous 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther was reflecting on pride of place given to this word in the three synoptics.

Luther points to repentance not as a one-time action, nor as a repeated action, but rather as a way of being. This can be quite foreign to many modern Christians, who have been taught that repentance is a pivotal action. But the “turning” of repentance is a continuous process.

When driving a car, one continuously makes very small adjustments with the steering wheel, to the right or two the left, even when traveling on a straight road. Many sophisticated aircraft are continuously adjusting their control surfaces in order to maintain a correct course.

One’s spiritual life is one of constant adjustment — constant repentance — seeking God’s guidance and surrendering to it, day by day, even moment to moment.

This type of repentance is not the image of a cataclysmic heart-rending moment of a tearful sinner on her or his knees. That type of repentance is meaningful and has its proper place. But there is a different type of repentance, which is living-in-the presence-of and a being-led-by, which has been called “joyful” by theologians like Basilea Schlink.

The words “joyful” and “repentance” are not often conjoined. But there is a type of repentance which is indeed joyful: to go through life, turning again and again away from one’s self, turning again and again to God — turning in a way which is both an adjustment of the heart and a tangible redirection of one’s physical life, the daily actions which one takes.

Repentance is neither an emotion, nor is it a human decision to act differently, although repentance can be accompanied by either or both of those. Repentance is an initial phase in the process of regeneration, and that process is started, powered, and performed by the Holy Spirit.

Begotten, Not Made: The Nature of Christ in the Nicene Creed

The prevalent trend in English-speaking countries over the last few centuries has been to render the genitum non factum of the creed into “begotten, not made,” for liturgical purposes. This Latin phrase is a translation of the Greek gennithénta ou poiithénta. The first word of the phrase is etymologically related to ‘generate, genitive, genital,’ etc. from both Latin and Greek. The general etymological meaning is to ‘produce’ and the specific meaning of this particular form and context in the creed is to ‘sire’ and to ‘bear’ or bring forth.

The third word of the phrase is related to ‘factory’ from Latin and ‘poet’ from Greek. The general etymological meaning, and the specific meaning of this particular form and context in the creed, is to make, create, or construct.

Lexically, then, the phrase “begotten, not made” is correct, or nearly so.

Communicatively, however, the translation arguably fails, because ‘begotten’ has become archaic, so much so that it is nearly unintelligible to many twenty-first century readers. The word ‘begotten’ is an artifact from an earlier phase of linguistic use.

Can a better rendering be found?

Against the search for a better translation, some might argue that it is the job of believers to catechize one another, and so explain the word and the phrase in which it is found, and so pass on an understanding of the creed.

By that logic, however, everyone would still be worshipping in Hebrew.

So, what might a better translation be? To replace ‘begotten’ with ‘sire’ would achieve little, inasmuch as the latter word is as outmoded as the former.

The authors of the Book of Concord wrestled in a slightly different way with this problem. Both in a 1581 edition at Magdeburg, and in a 1582 edition with no location given on the title page, the phrase is rendered geboren, nicht geschaffen. This would be, roughly, “born, not created.”

Lexically, this translation, given in the Book of Concord, is plausible. There is a significant similarity between the semantic field of genitum and geboren, likewise for gennithénta.

The emphasis in the creed is that the Son is the product of the Father. Therefore, to say that the Son was “born” is perhaps a slight change of focus from the Father to Mary. It is, after all, the woman who bears a child.

But if using the word ‘born’ is not true to the original ideas behind the creed, then might it also be the case that the original Latin and Greek vocabulary were also not true to those ideas? Did the authors of the creed choose their words badly?

Yet inherent in the word ‘born’ is the idea of fatherhood. It is indeed a woman who bears a child, but a father is necessarily and indispensably involved in the process. So the Book of Concord’s use of ‘born’ points to the Father.

One of the topics at hand when the creed was composed was this: If the Son were ‘created’ or ‘made’ like a rock or an asteroid, then the Son would be part of creation and thus subordinate to the Creator; and if the Son were not equal to the Father, then He could not voluntarily surrender that equality when He moved into His state of humiliation. So it is necessary that the Son not be created.

Can it be asserted, then, that the Son’s equality with the Father is posited as powerfully by ‘born’ as by ‘begotten’? If the two options are equally suited to propounding this equality, then ‘born’ has the additional advantage of intelligibility.

No definitive case is here made for altering the liturgical use by dropping ‘begotten’ and replacing it with ‘born’ in the creed. While no such case is here made, the matter merits further investigation.

Confess Your Sins! But How?

The Scriptures contain both imperatives, which command the individual to confess sins, and examples, in which people actually do confess their sins. To admit that one has done something wrong — that one has done evil — requires and nurtures humility, honesty, and courage. Only in articulating a realistic view of one’s self are certain levels of spiritual growth possible. Doing so while knowing that an omniscient Deity is listening requires full truthfulness and candor: God cannot be fooled.

(A note on vocabulary: the word ‘confession’ has two different usages. On the one hand, to ‘confess’ is to admit that one has sinned. On the other hand, a ‘confession’ can also be a statement of belief.)

There are at least three settings for confession: an individual can confess sins directly to God in prayer; an individual can confess sins to another Christian; or a group of Christians can confess their sins together to God. This last setting is called ‘corporate confession.’

Because humans are imperfect, our relationship to God is imperfect. That means that each of these settings has its own drawbacks and advantages.

A confession given directly to God by an individual in prayer can foster intimacy with God, but it lacks an element of coaching in discipleship which a fellow Christian can give; it lacks a straightforward sense of accountability; it is easier to omit entirely.

A one-on-one confession to a fellow Christian can be meaningful, but requires an amount of courage, self-knowledge, and self-disclosure which few people have, especially if it is to be done on a regular and thorough basis.

A corporate confession offers encouragement because it is done with, and in the presence of, fellow believers, but it can be misunderstood, and it can become an empty ritual in which words are recited without thought or feeling.

Perhaps some mixture of all three is best.

Corporate confession requires some agreement as to wording: a liturgy. It can be useful and thought-provoking to compare texts. Here are some common examples:

• We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
• Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.
• O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor miserable sinner, confess to you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserved your punishment now and forever.

There are, of course, many other possible and actual wordings. Each phrasing will have its strengths and weaknesses. Theologians will be able to analyze them ad infinitum and even ad nauseum. Maybe the best practice would be to alternate or vary the wordings from time to time, to retain the congregant’s attention, and to benefit from the peculiar strengths of each wording.

Corporate confession is necessarily general, whereas individual confession allows the person to state specific and concrete sins. In either case, emphasis should be placed both on the “sinful nature” (i.e., original sin) and on sins actively committed (including sins of omission).

Many liturgies include a plea for mercy after the confession. Having admitted that they’ve done something wrong, the people can only beg God for mercy. The word ‘beg’ is central here. One does not say to God, “Because I’ve been good enough to confess my sins, and because I’m sorry for them, please forgive me.” That would amount to a quid pro quo — amount to persuading God to forgive you because of your sincerity and repentance. The true plea for forgiveness is the acknowledgement that people desperately need God’s mercy, but can in no way influence, sway, or talk Him into giving it.

Most historians agree that Martin Luther’s last written words were: “We are all beggars. That’s the truth.” The phrasing points to the absolute powerlessness of the sinner before God. Like a beggar, the only thing people can do is ask.

Whatever form a confession may take, and whichever plea for mercy might follow it, the essential Gospel message is found in the absolution.

The announcement of forgiveness must be clear: the sinner suffering with a terrified conscience must be left with no doubt about God’s forgiveness. To encourage an individual or a group to confess, and then to fail to issue the clearest absolution, is a form of spiritual abuse.

The harm done by not clearly stating forgiveness is so grave that, in a very different setting — in a situation of what is called ‘mind control’ or ‘thought control’ — extracting confessions but withholding absolution is a favored technique by those who would deliberately damage the mental health and thought processes of their victims.

An absolution should identify God as the source of forgiveness, and point specifically to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the transmitter of that forgiveness in the form of atonement — the paying of the price. An absolution can point toward a joyful future in which the forgiven people serve God and delight in His Will.

The proper response to an absolution is a prayer of thanksgiving, or joyful praise music, or both.

Was Luther’s Reformation Successful? What Counts as Success?

Martin Luther presents an interpretative challenge to anyone who studies him. His written output is immense. An edition of his collected writings is thousands of pages of books, short pamphlets, letters, sermons, lectures, and other jottings. Not only is there a mountain of text to analyze, but there is little organization to it, and individual texts are often quite different from one another — even contradictory, as Luther worked his way through developmental stages in his thought.

Beyond that, Luther wrote in different styles. In some passages, he writes with the nuance of a philologist. Sometimes he writes as a caring and kind-hearted pastor. In other passages, he uses the invective and hyperbole of a polemicist. He sometimes writes passionately about his own personal spiritual struggles, and sometimes academically about theology.

Beyond his written output, there are his actions and interactions, his relationships with different thinkers of his era.

To do a close reading of a Luther text can be energizing and fascinating. To attempt to draw large conclusions about his career, to summarize it, to draw a bottom line and boil it down to clearly stated principles, can be frustrating.

Perhaps that is why James Payton wrote a book titled Getting the Reformation Wrong: it is easier to identify erroneous perceptions of Luther than to articulate a correct perception. One can more confidently say what Luther was not, than say what he was.

Some have attempted to see Luther and his Reformation through the lenses of sociology, economics, or political science. While there were ripple effects from Luther’s work in those fields, he was quite clearly not primarily oriented around any of them. Luther was not a political revolutionary, he was not working to restructure society, and he showed little interest in economics. To be sure, there are isolated passages in which he alludes to those disciplines, but always and only in the service of a larger spiritual topic.

Indeed, there are mentions of nearly any conceivable topic in Luther’s writings, which is inevitable, given the sheer volume of his texts. There is an apocryphal story about the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who is supposed to have once pointed to the many volumes of Luther’s works, and said “you can find anything in there!” The story continues by alleging that Barth then threw a rug over the massive bookshelf, and promised to ignore it for an extended period of time. It will be left as an exercise to the reader to see if this story has ever been documented.

James Payton poses the question: What did Luther expect to come of his work? Would Luther have considered his Reformation successful?

This question is posed about Luther’s Reformation, as distinguished from the Anglican Reformation, the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, or the Radical Reformation of Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and others. Luther’s Reformation has the distinction of being chronologically the first of these.

Patton’s question might be phrased this way: What was Luther trying to do?

Again, it is easier to state the negative: what Luther was not trying to do. He was not trying to create an established religion, in the sense that it would be an institution promoted and supported by the state. He was not interested in a theocracy. He was not interested in a detailed programmatic morality to be imposed upon society.

Luther was interested in promoting an understanding of God’s grace — God’s propensity to freely give unearned gifts to undeserving people. Human beings are declared righteous — “justified” — not because of their actions, but because of God’s generosity. People respond to God’s grace by placing their faith in Him. Luther’s central goal was to explain this view of God. From it, he believed that many benefits would flow: primarily, the peace which he himself experienced when he first conceptualized this understanding of God.

The biography of Luther reveals that in his early years, he was an anguished and even neurotic young monk, tortured by the knowledge of his imperfection and sinfulness in the face of a righteous and omnipotent God. How could he ever make peace — make amends — with God? The turning point in Luther’s life was when he discovered that he couldn’t. It would be God who made peace. The relationship between God and humans is restored by God’s action, not by a human’s action. Humans then respond to God’s forgiveness with thankfulness and joy. Luther’s demeanor was less anxious and more bold from that point forward.

James Payton writes that even thinkers who were not part of Luther’s Reformation adopted bits of Luther’s theology:

The Wittenberg Reformer wanted to proclaim the doctrine of justification by faith alone which had brought him such comfort after the years spent desperately but fruitlessly searching for peace with God. Luther was unquestionably successful in that endeavor: the whole of his teaching, as we have seen, grew out of and was integrated by his insights on justification sola fide. Moreover, since the other Protestant Reformers joined with him in proclaiming this foundational doctrinal principle, Luther could look with some satisfaction on the success of this teaching.

Even before he famously posted his 95 debate topics in Wittenberg in 1517, Luther had wrestled with, and identified as central, the notion that people cannot reconcile themselves with God. Rather it is God who reaches out to people, who are powerless because they are trapped in their own sinful human nature.

This notion would remain central for Luther for the rest of his life.

Luther was not a programmatic thinker. He did not have a plan or a system which he wanted to institute. Rather, he began by identifying errors or malfunctions in the church as it existed in his time and place, and in people’s perception of God. He wanted to correct those mistakes.

For Luther, then, if someone had asked him if he’d been successful, he might have answered that the extent to which people internalized the concept of being reconciled to God by grace through faith was the extent to which he’d been successful.

In James Payton’s interpretation, Luther was also deeply eschatological. A “reformation” would only happen at the end of time, when all things would be made new. Until that Judgment Day, a true and thorough reformation would not be possible. Rather, Luther thought in practical terms of repairing the church until it was serviceable, fixing it up until it was good enough to get the job done — the job of proclaiming God’s love for people. The ideal church, the product of a true reformation, would not and could not exist in this world, but it would in the next world.

According to Payton, Luther did not see himself as building a new institution — that was never his goal — nor did he flatter himself that his impact would result in the ultimate church, free from every flaw. Luther knew that people and churches will never be perfect in this life, but rather in the next one:

But would he have thought of this large movement he launched, the Protestant Reformation, as a success? It may be startling to many readers to discover that Luther had no intention of starting any “reformation.” It is striking that he never uses the term itself, and he certainly did not think he was involved in any renewal of the church. In his own understanding, Luther was calling it back to its founding truths, but not as a way of “setting things right again”; rather, he believed that he (and others as associates) had been commissioned to prepare the church for the cataclysm of Christ’s impending return. To be sure, Luther was no apocalyptic seer, prognosticating dates for divine interventions to bring history to its end. Even so, he viewed the church and European culture around him as irremediably corrupt, a stench in the divine nostrils that must surely result in the irruption of the end times. A reformation would be a work of the future, to be achieved not through human endeavors but by divine power and intervention at the end of history. In the time that still lay at hand, he believed that he and others should proclaim anew what God had revealed through the apostles and so prepare humankind to meet its Maker. For Luther, if this movement in which he was involved took root, that would not be what he expected.

Luther was often frustrated. Unlike the pre-reformation church, he was not asking people to donate huge sums of money, to make long and arduous pilgrimages, to fast, to self-flagellate, or perform other heroic works. Rather, he was asking people to trust Jesus and to rely on Jesus and to rest in the peace of mind which comes from such faith. But often Luther’s simple message got lost, and people were inclined to return to pre-reformation habits.

It was not merely the habits of the pre-reformation church which led people astray. It was and is human nature itself. Even a person who had not been shaped by the superstitions of the pre-reformation era would be naturally inclined to find something which she or he must “do” in order to merit salvation. The belief that salvation is an unearned gift is a belief which conflicts with human nature’s tendency to believe that it can achieve or earn salvation.

As James Payton explains, Luther was dismayed how the New Testament’s message of “salvation by grace through faith” kept getting lost in old superstitions or in new socio-political concerns:

In the meantime, in the brief span before the cataclysm that would bring history to its culmination, Luther hoped to see the proclamation of justification by faith alone which he and others proclaimed bearing fruit. That fruit would include: many embracing God by faith and, like Luther, finding peace with God; lives transformed by the love received from God, a love freely shown by the recipients to others; and the church edified in and committed to the faith so gloriously reclaimed and proclaimed. However, in the last few years of his life, Luther traveled throughout the regions of Germany into which he could safely venture, conducting church visitations. This experience profoundly dispirited Luther: what he found was so little transformed from what had been common before his labors that he became morose and discouraged. Even the little change he expected to see, a change not leading to a whole-scale reformation of the church, but resulting in small advances in faithfulness before God, he did not readily find. Furthermore, that his own prince and other German rulers used the movement begun under Luther’s efforts to seek their own political ends provoked the Wittenberg Reformer, who viewed this as a perverse misappropriation of his teaching.

So, what would Luther have said, if someone had asked him if his reformation had been a success? Luther probably wouldn’t have understood the question. He didn’t see himself as trying to start or implement a reformation. He saw himself as someone who was trying to proclaim God’s message of salvation, a message which Luther had found in the Scriptures and had experienced in his own life.

The Two Israelite Kingdoms: Is There an Anti-North Bias in the Text?

The reader will be familiar with the civil war which permanently divided the single unified kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon into two separate kingdoms, one to the North, and one to the South. The civil war and the establishment of the two distinct kingdoms took place somewhere around 922 or 931 B.C.

The Northern Kingdom is often referred to as Israel or Samaria, and the Southern Kingdom as Judah.

A prima facie reading of the texts — the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles — might lead the reader to conceptualize the Northern Kingdom as bad, and the Southern Kingdom as good.

But a closer reading of the texts raises questions: Could it be that the authors of these texts were Southerners? Is there an anti-Northern prejudice in the text?

There is evidence in the text which prevents the reader from embracing a simple polarity in which North is bad and South is good. If the hypothesis of a pro-Southern favoritism on the part of the author is accepted, then it might be that the author recorded the data despite himself.

Consider:

• God sent prophets to both kingdoms, not only to the South. To the North He sent Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, and Amos. Some prophets had messages for both kingdoms. The South therefore cannot claim exclusive reception of the Word of God.
• There was apostasy leading to idolatry in both kingdoms.
• Individuals in both kingdoms committed the atrocity of human sacrifice.
• In both kingdoms, among those who refrained from idolatry, there was a mixture of well-executed and poorly-executed worship of the Lord.
• In both kingdoms, there was a continuous “remnant” of people who were faithful to the Lord.
• Both kingdoms, by the time each of them ended, had become largely displeasing to God.

Does the attribution of some kind of slant or spin to the author or authors of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles constitute an attack on Sacred Scripture?

It is possible to discern different leanings among biblical authors. The New Testament authors of the four Gospels seem each to have had his own target audience, and his own purposes in writing; yet the four Gospels relay the same facts. That the authors had their distinct angles and twists in their telling of the events in no way undermines or rules out the veracity of the text.

If the four New Testament Evangelists each offer their own unique packaging of the same account, then it is clear that the human personality colored, but did not violate, the truth of the message given by God.

To ascribe distinctive personal predispositions to the authors, and to hypothesize that these predispositions are detectable in the final form of the text, is in no way to violate the doctrine and dogma that Scripture is infallible, inspired, and true.

To assert that the four New Testament Gospels reflect the distinctive temperaments of their authors is in no way to doubt the reliability of Scripture: so, in the same way, to say that the author or authors of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles had a pro-Southern partiality is in no way to question the accuracy of those texts.

The pro-Southern interpretation of events might be seen, e.g., in the readiness of the author to condemn as apostasy and idolatry actions in the North which might simply have been less-than-ideal implementations of the worship of the one true God.

Correspondingly, the author seems to be more lenient of similar events in the South, accepting as sincere worship which was perhaps suboptimally performed.

Does this question of historical interpretation point to a deeper spiritual axiom?

Perhaps it is salutary to be reminded that God is always at work in every person’s life — those in the Southern Kingdom as well as those in the Northern Kingdom. God has concern for every human being, and desires that all should be in a healthy relationship with Him. The Northern Kingdom fell into apostasy and idolatry quicker, and perhaps with more gusto, than the Southern Kingdom, but in the end, sin is sin, and all fall short.

The important lesson to be learned from these texts is perhaps not about the moral and spiritual decline of the Northern Kingdom, but rather about the smug self-assuredness of the Southern author: a cautionary tale, warning the reader against a sinful and arrogant version of pride.

Consider the fact that individuals often have a distinct handwriting style. Often the reader can readily recognize the penmanship of a family member or close friend. Different people might write out the same sentence, each with her or his distinctive handwriting; but the differences in longhand do not affect the meaning of the text.

Likewise, the authors whom the Holy Spirit inspired to write Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles may have recorded the narratives in their own peculiar styles — possibly including an anti-Northern bias — without affecting the truth of those accounts.

The authority and integrity of Scripture is in no way questioned or undermined by observing that the process of inspiration used human authors, whose humanity, and whose individual personalities, shaped the formation of texts which nonetheless faithfully transmit divine truths.

Structures in Psalms: God, His Attributes, and His Actions

In Psalm 19 and Psalm 20, passages distinguish themselves as components within their respective larger contexts by a degree of parallelism which exceeds the usual parallelism of Hebrew poetry. In Psalm 19 a series of noun-adjective pairings form a definite subunit with the Psalm:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.

Each couple begins with a noun (law, testimony, statutes, commandment, fear, judgments). The pattern is formed by two singular nouns followed by a plural noun; the pattern occurs twice. All six times, the noun is modified by “of the Lord” and after the noun phrase, an adjective appears as a predicate for the initial noun (perfect, sure, right, pure, clean) in the first five instances. In the sixth instance, two adjectives appear (true, righteous).

After the first clause of the couplet, a present participle follows in the first five occurrences (converting, making, rejoicing, enlightening, enduring). The final occurrence abandons the participle for a present tense indicative verb.

The sixth couplet, violating the pattern of the first five in order to signify the end of the passage, doubles the number of adjectives in order to compensate for the omitted participle.

The question poses itself: If this is a more-or-less accurate analysis of the English text, is it also true of the underlying Hebrew Vorlage?

The reader will not be burdened with a detailed and nuanced discussion of Hebrew grammar, but will rather be given the conclusion of that discussion: The English translation of these verses is good enough.

Using the usual understanding of Hebraic parallelism, one might tentatively conclude that:

§ In the mind of the Psalmist, “law, testimony, statutes, commandment, fear, judgments” are, if not perfectly synonymous, then at least words with related and overlapping semantic fields.

§ Likewise with “perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, righteous.”

§ So then also the following phrases: “converting the soul,” “making wise the simple,” “rejoicing the heart,” “enlightening the eyes,” and “enduring forever.”

It would therefore be possible to take this well-defined structure and salva veritate rearrange its parts, as in the following examples:

The law of the Lord is perfect.
The testimony of the Lord is sure.
The law of the Lord is sure.
The testimony of the Lord is perfect.

Likewise, the second clause of each couplet could be arbitrarily replace and become the second clause of another couplet, to wit:

The testimony of the Lord is sure,
rejoicing the heart;
The statutes of the Lord are right,
making wise the simple.

To be sure, these arbitrary rearrangements will have different nuances than the original text. Yet they will be true. The result is fruitful for meditation and preaching. The Psalmist was doing his best to capture God’s majesty in human words; yet it is known that human words are incapable of doing that fully.

Commenting on Psalm 19, Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil note that the subunit in question sets itself apart from other parts of the Psalm by using “YHWH” instead of “Elohim” to refer to God. They also report that Torah “does not in itself mean the law, but a pointing out, instruction, doctrine or teaching, and more particularly such as is divine, and therefore positive.”

Psalm 20 offers a similar text-within-a-text. A series of optative clauses are presented as parallel:

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble;
May the name of the God of Jacob defend you;
May He send you help from the sanctuary,
And strengthen you out of Zion;
May He remember all your offerings,
And accept your burnt sacrifice.

Selah

May He grant you according to your heart’s desire,
And fulfill all your purpose.

We will rejoice in your salvation,
And in the name of our God we will set up our banners!

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.

The pattern here is perhaps more complex than in Psalm 19. The first three clauses are parallel and synonymous: “May the Lord …” and “May the name of the God of Jacob …” and “May He …”

But the fourth iteration omits the subject, allowing the “He” from the previous line to be distributed to the next optative verb “and strengthen you …”

Here the English can be somewhat misleading. In several of these lines, the English clause has two verbs, “may” and “answer,” or “may” and “defend,” or “may” and “send.” In Hebrew, the optative is achieved with a single verb: the English “may” is a modal auxiliary which is replaced in Hebrew with a one-word verb form. The other option for a translator is equally structured: “Let the Lord answer you …” or “Let the name of the God of Jacob defend you.” Again, two English verbs, “let” and one other, replace a Hebrew structure which has only one verb.

Occasionally, English achieves a structure similar to the Hebraic one-word optative, as in the well-known song:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.
And God send you a Happy New Year.

In this song, the phrase “God bless you and send you …” is a true optative, replacing the more cumbersome “Let God bless you and let Him send you …” or “May God Bless you and May He send you …”

In this text from Psalm 20, the first two lines are neatly parallel, and offer an economy of structure. The next six lines, i.e., lines three through eight of the larger subunit, offer a variation of that structure, the first, third, and fifth lines stating the grammatical nominative subject, and the second, fourth, and sixth lines distributing that subject by means of the conjunction “and” over the second clause.

The “Selah” seems oddly placed, intervening within a structure rather than marking a change of structure. It will be left as an exercise for the reader to determine the logic of this placement.

After the eighth line of the passage, i.e., of the larger subunit, the structure is temporarily abandoned altogether. A couplet appears with no optative verb, but rather with indicative verbs. Here, too, the logic of the placement of this couplet demands exploration.

A final single line, not a couplet, returns to not only the structure, but the exact wording, of the first line of the passage, i.e., “May the Lord …” and works in a summative capacity with the phrase “all your petitions.”

Again, the question must be posed, whether this analysis of the English translation applies with equal validity to the Hebrew Urtext. It has already been seen that the Hebrew one-word optative form appears in the more cumbersome English two-word forms, “May He remember …” or “Let Him remember …”

Are there other issues in the translation? Certainly there are, but are they relevant to the present discussion? Probably not.

It could be noted that, e.g., the Messianic over- and undertones are stronger in Hebrew, given that the noun “salvation” is a form of the name “Jesus.”

Generally, the Hebrew text exhibits that marvelous economy of words which Hebrew generally has in contrast to English. Often a single Hebrew word requires two, three, or even four English words to make a reasonable English translation.

Using again the principles of Hebraic poetic parallelism, the reader may deduce synonymies:

To write that God will “answer you in the day of trouble” is to write that He will “defend you.” To write that He will “send you help from the sanctuary” is to write that He will “strengthen you out of Zion,” and so on.

Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil explain that Psalm 20 is “closely attached” to Psalm 19. The subunit within Psalm 20 has “a synonymous parallelism of the members,” and they suggest that the placement of “Selah” within the text might be explained by the Psalm’s ritual use: if it were sung during worship, the “Selah” might indicate a pause for the actual physical placement of the sacrifice.

By extension, if the “Selah” indicates the physical performance of a sacrifice as part of the rhythm of worship, then the seemingly disruptive placement of the couplet that begins with “We will rejoice …” may be perceived as more fitting inasmuch as it functions to begin the conclusion of that particular phase of the worship service. The final optative clause could be seen as the end of that phase.

In sum, the understanding of parallelism and synonymy in these two Psalms has importance both for devotional reading and for theological reading.

What Does It Mean to “Bless” Someone?

The word “bless” is often used, and yet despite this frequent employment — or because of it? — a precise definition is often absent from the minds of those who write or say it. The lack of an exact understanding of this word can lead to misinterpretation and conceptual errors. On a practical level, it can lead to wasted time and energy, or worse, to a disappointment with God.

A close reading of Scripture shows that God blesses humans, humans bless God, and humans bless each other. That is a first clue.

Another clue is that rarely — perhaps even never — is anything besides God or a human blessed. There are misleading phrases, like “blessing a house,” which means that not the physical structure but rather the people who live in the house receive the blessing. The “house” can even refer to the family itself, like the “House of David,” which simply means a dynasty or royal family.

Likewise, one does not properly “bless a meal.” At the Last Supper, Jesus did not bless the bread (cf. Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 24:30). English translations can be deceptive on this point. Jesus took the bread and blessed God. This is more clear in the Greek text of the New Testament, which in turn represents a transcription of the Passover prayer which Jesus uttered in Hebrew or possibly Aramaic. Jesus spoke a common Hebrew mealtime prayer, something like this: “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who brings forth bread from the field.” From this it is clear that the words, or the people who utter them, are blessing God, not the food.

Likewise, in I Samuel 9:13, the expression “to bless the sacrifice” is an elision. The words spoken at a sacrifice bless God to whom the sacrifice is made, and the person on behalf of whom the sacrifice is made.

So it stands that one does not bless inanimate objects.

As to what exactly a “blessing” is, Semitic philology offers clues. The root word is related to “knee” or the act of “kneeling.” One kneels to show respect and honor to someone. Blessing shows one’s respect or honor for another. This is easily plausible for humans blessing God, and for humans blessing each other. It can be surprising to conceptualize God as “showing respect and honor” to a human being. It seems to be an inversion of hierarchy. Yet it is so. Theologically, it points to God’s grace: the bestowal of unmerited and unearned gifts: certainly, humans do not deserve to be honored or respected by God, yet He does so. Christologically, this connects to the humiliation of Christ: that Jesus consented to be made flesh, to be born as a human being, which was a cataclysmic downgrading of His status, and at the same time an upgrading of what it means to be human.

So God blesses people: He honors and respects them.

This sense of ‘honor’ and ‘respect’ in no way limits God or makes Him subservient to humans. This is a type of honor and respect which a superior can show to his subjects: a generous king.

Instead of identifying “blessing” as showing “honor and respect,” it may be helpful to rephrase it as “unconditional positive regard,” a wording invented and popularized by Stanley Standal and Carl Rogers.

While the word ‘bless’ can be used in conjunction with the giving of a gift, a blessing is not synonymous with a gift beyond that honor, respect, and positive regard. One might say that God has “blessed a person with much money,” which means two things: God has blessed the person, and God has given much money to that person. The money is not the blessing, and the blessing is not the money. God might give because He blesses, or as a sign of His blessing, but the giving is one action, and the blessing is another. The two are distinct.

Blessing should not be confused with the giving of material gifts: “Blessed are the poor.” Jesus is and was blessed, yet suffered. Ordinary people, too, can simultaneously be blessed and suffer. One can be blessed and endure pain, poverty, rejection, loneliness, etc.

God is the source of all blessings. Blessings bestowed by God are primary. When humans bless each other, it is a secondary blessing, a regifting of God’s favor.

Blessings are often accompanied by physical symbolic acts: the laying-on of hands, a sacrifice, etc. Such acts are not blessings, but rather sensory cues to alert people that a blessing is taking place.

After the Incarnation, some formerly symbolic acts became efficacious and powerful: Bread and wine no longer merely symbolize God’s work, but rather become God’s work. The waters of baptism no longer merely symbolize the washing away of guilt, but rather actually wash away guilt.

This one vocabulary word is used often and in a wide variety of contexts. It has a large and elastic semantic field, yet a field with some precise boundaries. ‘Bless’ often overlaps with ‘thank’ (cf. Psalm 103:1-2). It can also overlap with ‘praise.’

When God bestows His blessing, He Himself is at work and is present in a non-trivial way, above and beyond His baseline omnipresence. A blessing is certainly a “giving,” yet a giving not of material benefits.

God is certainly the source and generous Giver of all physical benefits: houses and clothing and food, etc. Yet these gifts are not the primary referent of ‘blessing.’

In blessing, God perhaps gives Himself. In placing His name onto people (Numbers 6:27), He blesses them. When God blesses a person, that person receives gifts, but not material gifts. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a blessing (Luke 11:13, Hebrews 2:4).

When humans honor and respect each other, and do so out of merely human power, the effect is salutary but limited. When God blesses, He changes the person whom He blesses. To be blessed is to receive more of the Holy Spirit. To be blessed is to be made more like Christ.