Attitude of Jehovah toward His own
Attitude of Jehovah toward His own(TOC)
In the patriarchal period of revelation no explicit use is made of the term love to designate the attitude of Jehovah toward His own. Even in the Mosaic period the word does not occur until Deuteronomy. Nevertheless, equivalent forms of statement show that the conception itself is not wanting. Man is said to have been made in the image of God, and obviously the underlying idea is that in his very constitution he is adapted and designed for communion with God. The entire mode of God's seeking our first parents immediately after the fall reveals the most tender care and solicitude. In the promise that enmity will be put between the serpent and the woman and their respective seeds, the pledge of friendship with Him who puts this enmity is implicitly contained. Enoch and Noah walked with God, and Jehovah declares Himself the God of Shem in the pregnant covenant sense of this phrase. Abraham throughout his history appears as the ideal friend of God, though only later revelation explicitly calls him so (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8). On the second occasion that Jehovah makes the covenant with Abraham, the import of the covenant is summed up in the formula that He will be a God unto the patriarch and unto his seed after him. In connection with Abraham also, the significant term "to know" is found for the first time, as descriptive of the loving condescension wherewith Jehovah chose him for a relation of special intimacy with Himself. Afterward this term reappears, where it is said of the children of Israel in Egypt that God heard their groaning, remembered His covenant with the patriarchs, looked upon them and knew them (Exodus 2:24, 25). To Pharaoh God speaks of Israel as His firstborn, i. e., His dearly beloved son (Exodus 4:22). Immediately before the making of the Sinaitic covenant and the promulgation of the Decalogue, all Jehovah's gracious dealings with His people connected with the Exodus are summed up in the beautiful words: "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:4-6). In the four classical statements, where the Torah rises to the height of a description of the character of God, His benevolent attributes, such as lovingkindness (Chesed), mercy, grace, longsuffering, faithfulness, are strongly emphasized (Exodus 20:5, 6; 34:6, 7; Numbers 14:8; Deuteronomy 7:9, 10).
All this sufficiently shows that there is no essential difference between the several parts of the Pentateuch in the recognition of this side of the divine nature. Still it is not accidental that in Deuteronomy the conception of Jehovah's love attains to a relatively greater prominence and clearness of expression. Deuteronomy stands on the dividing line between the legal and the prophetic types of revelation. While embodying a real law code, it at the same time approaches the character of prophecy in that it goes back from the single concrete commandments of Jehovah to certain general, spiritual principles, and varies the categorical imperative of the other codes with the winning note of persuasion and exhortation. In this light we must also interpret its emphatic assertion of the divine love. The lawgiver appeals to this, because it affords the supreme motive for that obedience from the heart which he endeavors to urge upon the people. Precisely because the conception is thus used as a motive for obedience, it attaches itself to the figure of the love of a father for his son, which we already met at an earlier place in the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 32:5, 6, 19; Exodus 4:22, 23). It should be noticed, however, that in thus bringing forward the thought of Jehovah's love for Israel, Deuteronomy throws special emphasis upon the elective character of this love. It is not so much the general fact that Jehovah now loves the people, but rather the special consideration that in the past at a definite moment He set His love upon them, to the exclusion of all other nations, upon which the book dwells. The emphasis thrown on this feature is closely connected with the practical purpose which the whole idea is made to serve. In nearly all the passages where Israel is exhorted to love Jehovah this has the specific meaning of a warning against the service of other gods. The sincerity of their affection for Jehovah must show itself in this, that it excludes all similar relationships to false deities; and it is corresponding to this that the elective discriminating element in the origin of God's love for Israel is emphasized. He also did not choose many nations, but gave His love to Israel alone (Deuteronomy 4:19, 20, 34, 35; 10:14-16; 32:8, 12). Upon the truth that this particular love for the covenant people is intended to become ultimately subservient to the salvation of all nations Deuteronomy does not reflect. Its point of view is indicated by the words of the Song of Moses: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel" (32:8).[1] That the Pentateuch, as a whole, knows this wider outlook, its sublime structure exhibiting Israel's history, as the central movement of the history of the race, sufficiently shows. Nevertheless, even here it would be an error to find in the service to the cause of universalism appointed for Israel the only and adequate explanation of the election of this one people to privileges from which all others are excluded. No unprejudiced reader will be able to escape from the conclusion that the manner in which the particularism of the divine love is developed proves it to be a principle of intrinsic and permanent significance. It is urged as something without which Jehovah's love for His people would not be what it actually is, nor possess the full spiritual value which in reality belongs to it. On the basis of the Old Testament statements alone, altogether apart from their New Testament interpretation, we are led to infer that the national election of Israel, besides serving a historical purpose in a larger international economy of redemption, springs also from some other mysterious reason not deducible from the facts of this world, but strictly pertaining to the hidden counsel of God, and typifying by its operation on a national scale with reference to Israel the elective, particularistic character of supernatural grace with reference to individuals everywhere.