World Council of Churches
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches
Reformed Churches Bern-Jura-Solothurn
Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF)
INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
“Promised Land”
Church Center Bürenpark, Bern, Switzerland
10 - 14 September 2008
People of the Land versus Wandering People in the Bible
Rev. Prof. James Haire
Charles Sturt University, Australia
A number of mutually contradictory themes in this area are to be found in the Bible, primarily in the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures. It may be helpful to look at them and then go on to see if their interaction may be able to assist us in understanding this matter further.
The theocratic perspective
Here we see the theme of Israel as the people of the land as that land is given to them by YHWH (Yahweh), conditional upon their observing of the covenant. This ideology is closely associated with Moses. Yahweh is the owner of the land, and bestows it upon Israel as a gift contingent upon Israel’s observing of the covenant law. As Yahweh owns the land, so no inhabitants have the right to any part of the land unless Yahweh grants it to them. The indigenous cults have no place before Yahweh, and Israel, in this covenant relationship, must avoid all defilement by the making of idols, as the other people who lived there did. This tradition is most strongly seen in Deuteronomy (for example, Deut. 4:25; 6:14; 7:4; 8:19; 11:6). Here the relationship between Israel and the land is both psychological and sociological. Israel in this situation begins as a landless people, a people without place. Therefore, its place is a given place, a place that is conditional. The substance of that gift from God is to be in a place, to be in the land, that is, to be secure where Yahweh leads it. In this perspective, to be “the people of the land” is a theocratic confession.
Reflections on Israel’s place in terms of history
Parallel with this above are the various reflections in Israel’s history about its situation. Despite the landless tradition, at certain points in their history the people do have land, but that land is reflected on as being given to them by grace. They are given a settlement in Egypt after famine in Palestine (Gen. 47:6,27). They have the monarchy. And ultimately they are able to return to Jerusalem from exile (Neh. 9:38). In these situations a variety of ambivalent perspectives occur. There is the royal perspective, where Israel’s place is seen in terms of the monarchy directing it (1 Kings 3-10). This results in failure and disappointment. Then, there is the experience of exile. Israel has another experience of landlessness in exile. This seems to be the lowest point of Israel’s life, where there hardly ever seems to be any promise (Lam. 1:2,3,6,7,21). But this landlessness becomes the setting for newness and dependence on God (Is. 43:18-21; Jer. 31:17-18, Ezek. 37:5-6). In this emptiness and without resources, Israel finds its security once again in God.
Reflections on Israel’s place in terms of communal life
Then, there is the communal perspective, epitomized in Leviticus 25-27, with agrarian life bound by the sabbath principle of rest every seven years and property restored in the year of jubilee. In this, land is also a temptation, because Israel can begin to stress the secondary rather than the primary. Primary is the worship and service of God. Secondary are those things, good in themselves, that are necessary for communal life. Land is for living on but cannot become the object of worship; this is the sin of the nations around about. Yet Israel in its life behaves like the nations.
In the agricultural festivals, closely related as they are to the land, Israel still celebrates the primary (God’s actions) in the midst of the secondary. Israel constantly struggles to remember the primary and keep the secondary in its place. This the pagan nations round about them do not do (Deut. 8:11-17; 11:16). Land does not exist purely for power. It exists also as a responsibility. It comes as a gift but also brings with it a task. This concept is built upon what is said in Joshua 1:7-8. It is brought out in a number of ways: first, there is a prohibition on the use of land images in worship. This protects the primary from the secondary. Second, there is the concept of the sabbath. The land is not to be worshipped. Third, the land is seen in community terms, and therefore there has to be concern for the poor, the widow and the orphan, the stranger, the sojourner and the Levite (Deut. 10; 14; 15; 24). This tends to accord with the discourse on nahalah, seen more likely as “portion”, “share” or “allotment”, rather than “inheritance”.
The immigrant perspective
Here we see a quite different perspective, that of the wandering immigrant. This is associated primarily with Abraham, but also with Jacob, and has its major presentation in Genesis 11:31-23:30. The sons of Jacob are to be given spaces in this land, where Yahwehelohim is host to many people and is known by a variety of names, including el, elelyon, elshadday, and elolam. Yet these names are identified with Yahweh (Gen. 15:7). Yahweh can appear at various places in the land of Canaan. Moreover, the promise of a share in the land appears to be unconditional. Abraham and his offspring gain a place in the land not by militarism but by negotiation and legal arrangements, for example with the purchase of a field from Ephron the Hittite (Gen. 23). Thus there is ethnic harmony in this shared space rather than ethnic cleansing. There is, for example, great generosity shown by Abimelech, king of the derided Philistines, towards Abraham (Gen. 20:16). What is very significant here is that, although Abraham acquires property, he essentially remains a gēr (ר ג) or resident alien (Gen. 13:14-17; 20:1; 21:3; 23:4). This significant theme is taken up later in the Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran, where Abraham is represented as travelling from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Euphrates in the east, and from the Taurus Mountains in the north to the Red Sea and the Gihon River in the south, along with three Amorite brothers, who were his “friends”.
Reflections on promise and sojourn
The theme of promise is developed and related to sojourn. In our theological history we have tended to see sojourn as noble. For example, the Authorised Version (AV) of the English Bible puts a spin on this word sojourner, and sees it as a pilgrimage or the activity of a pilgrim people (Gen. 47:9, Ex. 6:4 in the AV). This concept of the pilgrimage sounds noble and heroic, and yet the word translated “sojourner” reflects one who is much more vulnerable. In the period from its departure from slavery in Egypt until its arrival in the promised land, Israel regarded itself as a resident alien (Ex. 16-18; Num. 10:10f., 32:13; Ps. 107:27). This wilderness tradition is not of the noble sojourner going towards the land of promise. Israel is the vulnerable resident alien (nua’). Life is precarious. This is a highly non-romantic journey. It is to be in a place where you have no roots, where you never belong, without rights or title or voice. It can lead to death (Deut. 1:32). There is anger and resentment, and it is a struggle to hold to the promise. Yet they go on.
New Testament perspectives
The concepts of the land and of the people of the land are not prominent in the New Testament. Nevertheless, there is the concept of the “kingdom of God/heaven” in the synoptic gospels, the concept of the “eternal life” in the fourth gospel, the concept of “inheritance” or “allotment” in Paul, and the concept of a “homeland” in Hebrews. Therefore, the issue is not outside the perspectives of the New Testament.
In relation to this issue, a number of factors in the New Testament are significant. First, the kingdom of God or heaven is contrasted with the kingdom of this world (Mark 1:14-15; Rev. 11:15); the classic representation of this is Luke 1:51-55. This is a radical reversion of socio-economic concerns of the power of the land. Secondly, the landed/landless arrangements are overturned in the teaching of Jesus (Luke 7:36-50). The dispossessed are now given hope. This reversal of the landless now having a place is part of the scandal of Jesus. Thirdly, the concept of “rest” in Hebrews 3-4 needs to be related to the homeland imagery of Hebrews 11. Finally, in Paul’s theology, the images of land and home are replaced by the picture of an eternal home in Christ and therefore the sojourner/pilgrim nature of Christianity is reinforced. Paul simply is working out the trajectory started in Christ’s teaching.
For further reading
Walter Brueggemann, The Land, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1977 (first edition), 2002 (second edition).
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Uniting Church in Australia Social Responsibility and Justice Committee, and the Australian Council of Churches Commission for Church and Society, A Just and Proper Settlement, Collins Dove, Blackburn, 1987.
Edgar Conrad, “Re-Reading the Bible in a Multicultural World”, in Norman C. Habel, Religion and Multiculturalism in Australia, AASR, Adelaide, 1992.
W.D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1974.
Sean Freyne, Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels: Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations. Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1988.
Sean Freyne, Galilee and Gospel: Collected Essays, Brill, Boston/Leiden, 2002.
Sean Freyne, Jesus, A Jewish Galilean: A New Reading of the Jesus Story. T&T Clark/Continuum, London/New York, 2004
Norman C. Habel, “Conquest and Dispossession: Justice, Joshua and Land Rights”, Pacifica 4 (1991), p. 76-92.
Norman C. Habel, The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies (Overtures to Biblical Theology). Fortress, Minneapolis, 1995.
