10. Pictures in the Historical Books
Pictures in the Historical Books
Joshua
Metaphorical expressions in the historical books of the Old Testament are found primarily in conversations and occasional excursions into poetry. Some of them are common expressions that are almost clichés, such as Rahab’s statements that “all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you” and “our hearts melted” (Josh. 2:9, 11; and see 5:1). In Joshua 7:5 and 14:8, it was Israel whose hearts melted from fear and discouragement. You’ll recall that Hushai used this metaphor when addressing Absalom (2 Sam. 17:10), and it is found in the prophets (Isa. 13:7; 19:1; Ezek. 21:7, 15; Nahum 2:10; and see Ps. 107:26).
In Joshua 2:19, the two spies equate “blood” with “life,” a reference to Leviticus 17:11. To have blood on one’s head or one’s hands is to be guilty of taking someone’s life (see Gen. 42:22; Lev. 20:11-13, 16, 27; 2 Sam. 1:16; 3:29; 4:11; 1 Kings 2:31, 33, 37; Isa. 59:3). This image also relates to Ezekiel’s picture of the watchman who was responsible for the lives (blood) of those in the city (Ezek. 3:17-20; 23:37, 45; 33:4-8). Paul used the image in Acts 18:6 and 20:26, and Jesus used it in Luke 11:50-51 and Matthew 23:35-36. The Jewish religious leaders well understood what it meant (Acts 5:28) and so did Pilate (Matt. 27:24). Deuteronomy 22:8 informs us that it’s possible to have blood “on your house” as well as on your hands.
The Song of Deborah (Jud. 5) pictures God’s victory over Sisera in a dramatic way and closes with a poetic description of God’s people: “But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength” (Jud. 5:31). God had sent a terrific storm to help Deborah and Barak defeat Sisera; and when the sun rose the next day and the storm was over, that sunrise was God’s announcement of His victory. David compared godly leaders to the sunrise, because they brought light and hope for a new day (2 Sam. 23:4).
I wonder how Samson’s wife reacted when she heard him compare her to a cow: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle” (Jud. 14:18). Amos used the same image when describing the lazy, indulgent women of Samaria, and he warned them that they would all be led away like cattle (Amos 4:1-3). The image of hooks that Amos uses is also found in 2 Kings 19:28 and Ezekiel 29:4. In addition, see what God allowed to happen to evil King Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:11). If people will not act like human beings, made in the image of God, then the Lord has to treat them like animals.
Ruth
The words of Boaz in Ruth 2:12 are both beautiful and full of spiritual meaning: “May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” The image of wings usually makes us think of little chicks being protected by the mother hen (Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34; and see Pss. 17:8; 57:1; 91:4), but there is another image involved: the wings of the cherubim in the holy of holies (Ex. 25:17-22). This seems to be the picture in references such as Psalms 36:7-8, 61:4, and 63:7. (Note the reference to God’s sanctuary in Ps. 63:2.) As a Gentile, Ruth was outside the covenants of God and therefore condemned; but her faith in the God of Israel brought her into the very holy of holies! (Eph 2:11-22)
The image of wings appears again in Ruth 3:9, where the word “corner” is the Hebrew word “wing.” (See also Ezek. 16:8.) Ruth asked Boaz to “spread the wings of his protection” over her, something he was most willing to do.
Samuel
God “weighs” our actions (1 Sam. 2:3), our motives (Prov. 16:2), and our hearts (Prov. 21:2; 24:11-12). In fact, He weighs us and isn’t impressed with the weight of our wealth (Ps. 62:9) or our splendor (Dan. 5:27). Job wanted his anguish weighed (Job 6:2; see Prov. 12:25).
It’s worth noting that the Greek word axios, translated “worth” and “worthy” in the New Testament, comes from a root that implies weight. According to Werner Foerster, the picture is that of “bringing up the other beam of the scales.”[1] Worthy people are those who “balance the scales” and are “equivalent” to the measure God has placed on the other side. We are “weighed” by our calling (Eph. 4:1), the Gospel (Phil. 1:27), the Lord (Col. 1:10), God (1 Thes. 2:12), and the glory yet to come (Rom. 8:18). Worthy people are people of “weight” and not chaff that blows away in the wind.
The Hebrew word kabed means “to be heavy, to have weight,” and is sometimes translated “honorable” and “glorious.” Distinguished people are “people of weight” (Num. 22:15). When Paul wrote about “an eternal glory that far outweighs them all [all our sufferings]” (2 Cor. 4:17), he was probably referring to the Hebrew concept that united “weight” and “glory.”
In her speech to David in 1 Samuel 25:23-31, Abigail contrasts the security of the godly (“bound securely in the bundle of the living”) with the insecurity of God’s enemies who are hurled away “as from the pocket of a sling” (1 Sam. 25:29), a metaphor that would be especially meaningful to a man who was an expert with a sling (1 Sam. 17:50). Hurling people out of the land is often used as an image of judgment. Jeremiah applied it to the people of Judah (Jer. 10:18) and to King Jehoiachin (Jer. 22:26), and Isaiah used it to warn selfish Shebna (Isa. 22:15-19).
In his lament over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, David compared them to eagles for their swiftness and lions for their strength, metaphors that are rather lifeless today (2 Sam. 1:23). But David also compared Saul and Jonathan to “weapons of war” (2 Sam. 1:27). They not only knew how to use weapons (1:22), but they themselves were the weapons. Messiah is compared to a polished arrow in Isaiah 49:2, and the army of Zion is pictured as bows, arrows, and “a warrior’s sword” in Zechariah 9:13. Paul adopts a similar image when he admonishes God’s people to yield the members of their bodies as “instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13), where the word translated “instruments” can also mean “weapons” (John 18:3; Rom. 13:12; 2 Cor. 6:7; 10:4). God not only gives us spiritual weapons to use in the battle (Eph. 6:10-17), but He wants to make us His weapons as we yield to Him.[2]
In 2 Samuel 14, the wily woman of Tekoa used two interesting metaphors when she tried to trick David into being reconciled to Absalom: a burning coal (v. 7) and water spilled on the ground (v. 14). If her only son should be slain, her last burning coal, there could be no more “family” because the fire would go out. This image parallels that of “the lamp going out.” When David was almost slain by the Philistine giant, his men said to him, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished” (2 Sam. 21:17; and see 1 Kings 11:36; 15:4; 2 Kings 8:19; 2 Chron. 21:7; Ps. 132:17). The woman saw Absalom as the only hope for the continuing of the “light of Israel” after David’s death.[3]
“Water spilled on the ground” (2 Sam. 14:14) is a vivid picture of something vanishing that could never again be reclaimed. Job used a similar image (Job 14:10-12), and see Psalms 22:14-15 and 58:7. Only God could reclaim water spilled on the ground, but David could recall his son and guarantee the perpetuation of the royal line. If he didn’t do so, it would be a terrible waste that could not be repaired.[4] Perhaps the image of “water spilled on the ground” reminded David of his experience in the cave when his three mighty men brought him water from the well of Bethlehem (2 Sam. 23:13-17).
David’s song of praise in 2 Samuel 22, repeated in Psalm 18, reflects the natural imagery seen by a man who was both an outdoorsman and a soldier. Five times he refers to God as “a rock” (vv. 2-3, 32, 47) and three times as “a refuge” (vv. 3, 31). The metaphors of the storm (vv. 5-16) and David’s deliverance from drowning (vv. 17-20) remind us of his years of exile in the wilderness of Judea when Saul attempted to kill him. God is a lamp (v. 29) and a shield (vv. 3, 31, 36), so that neither darkness nor danger can frighten His servant. After living in “tight places,” David was brought out “into a spacious place” (v. 20); and God broadened his path for him (v. 37). One of the Hebrew words for “trouble” means “to be in a tight place” (sarar—to make narrow, to be in distress, to bind). God disciplines us in the “tight places” of life and then delivers us into broad places. In the New Testament, the Greek words thlibo and thlipsis carry a similar image of a person being straitened and pressured. Sometimes God enlarges our troubles so that He might enlarge us and put us in a larger place! That’s what He did for David.
The poem entitled “The Last Words of David” (2 Sam. 23:1-7) focuses on the kind of leaders God wants for His people. A godly ruler is like the dawning of a new day after the storm (v. 4), which may suggest the contrast between Saul’s kingship and David’s. The godly leader brings forth grass (vv. 4-5), but the ungodly leader produces thorns (v. 6).[5]
Kings
The image of the yoke (1 Kings 12:4, 9-11, 14, 19, 21) is first found in Genesis 27:40. Israel’s enslavement in Egypt was the wearing of a yoke (Ex. 6:6-7), and God used the same imagery to announce Judah’s deliverance from Assyria (Isa. 10:24-27; 14:25). While it certainly was motivated by humane concerns for the animals, the prohibition against yoking an ox and an ass together (Deut. 22:10) was used by Paul to enforce the believer’s separation from sin (2 Cor. 6:14). Israel’s apostasy meant breaking off God’s yoke (Jer. 2:20) and taking the yoke of foreign gods (see Ps. 106:28). As we shall see later, Jeremiah is preeminently “the prophet of the yoke.”
“Jezebel’s body will be like refuse on the ground.” That was Elijah’s prophecy and it came true (2 Kings 9:34-37). The ultimate in humiliation was to have one’s corpse treated like garbage and especially like manure, which is what Israel sometimes did to their enemies (Ps. 83:9-10). This was the way Jehovah humiliated His rebellious people in Judah (Jer. 8:1-3; 9:22; 16:4; 25:33). The image in Isaiah 25:10-11 is especially vivid: first Moab is trodden into the manure, and then the people have to swim through it. What a way to bring down a nation’s pride! Jesus said that tasteless salt wasn’t even fit for the manure pile (Luke 14:35), which shows how tragic it is when a professed disciple loses his or her character. Manure is at least good for something, but tasteless salt “is no longer good for anything” (Matt. 5:13).
Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Assyria (2 Kings 19:20-34; Isa. 37:21-35) speaks of Jerusalem as “the Virgin Daughter of Zion,” a title used almost exclusively by Jeremiah (Jer. 14:17; 18:13; 31:4, 21; Lam. 1:15; 2:13; and see Amos 5:2). Like a virgin daughter protected by her father, Jerusalem would be protected by Jehovah; and her walls would not be breached by the invading Assyrian army. Jeremiah saw the “virgin city” invaded by Babylon, violated and crushed like grapes in a winepress (Lam. 1:15). But he also saw the day coming when the city would be restored and the Lord would treat Jerusalem like a “virgin daughter” again (Jer. 31:4, 21).
Isaiah compared the Assyrian army to shoots of grass in the field and on the housetops (2 Kings 19:26; and see Ps. 129:5-7). They had no deep roots and would be scorched by the rising sun. The Assyrian soldiers were like animals who would be led away in humiliation (2 Kings 19:28; see vv. 35-37). But see what Assyria would do to King Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:10-11).
There are two images in 2 Kings 21:13, the first relating to building construction and the second, to the domestic task of washing and drying dishes. The measuring line and plumb line were used for construction, but the Lord would use them for destruction. (See Isa. 34:11, Lam. 2:8, and Amos 7:7-9.) People wash dishes so they can use them again, and God would cleanse Jerusalem of its evil rulers so that He might eventually start anew with a godly remnant.
Chronicles
We have already noted the metaphor of lions (1 Chron. 12:8; see 2 Sam. 17:10). The image of the breaking of a dam (1 Chron. 14:11) is found in 2 Samuel 5:20. God’s people as “aliens and strangers” (1 Chron. 29:15) is an image that begins with Abraham (Gen. 17:8; 23:4; and see 28:4; Ex. 6:4; Heb. 11:13) and continues into the New Testament (1 Peter 2:11). The patriarchs lived in tents because they were looking for a permanent city and didn’t want to get too settled down in this world (Heb. 11:13-16). When Lot abandoned his tent and moved into the city of Sodom, he took the first step toward ruin (Gen. 13).
“The most effective poetry is that which leaves you with an emotion or sense of its potential in your own thinking.”
“For the poet’s trade is not to talk about experience, but to make it happen.”
“And what therefore is truth? A mobile army of metaphors. . . .”