III. THE δίxα oς WORD-GROUP IN THE SEPTUAGINT
II. LAW AND JUDGMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
There is in the LXX a wealth of material for the student of justification. The words for ‘righteous’, ‘righteousness’, etc. occur hundreds of times and even this is not the whole story. The thoughts of righteousness, justification and the rest are inextricably bound up with other concepts like those of judgment, pleading in the law court, and, especially, law itself. Even in a short treatment it is necessary to take some notice of this, for it has the effect of putting justification in its context. Justification is not an isolated concept. It is part of a whole way of viewing God and the world which sees in law a means of understanding the divine ordering of things. To the men of the Old Testament God was a God of law,474 and a very great deal in their religion cannot be understood if this is lost sight of.
The importance of law as a category for understanding the ways of God is seen in Abraham’s question, ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ (Gn. 18: 25). God is designated by the legal term, ‘Judge’. His relationship to the whole earth may be expressed in legal categories. And the question gives expression to the certainty that He will act in accordance with moral law. The gods of the heathen could not be depended on in this way. They might be expected to react in the most capricious fashion. Not so Jehovah. This difference in understanding the connection of the deity with law may well be the basic reason for the superiority of the religion of Israel to those of the nations round about. Yahweh’s actions were always in accordance with law. He could be depended upon to act righteously. And because He was righteous He demanded of His people that they should also act righteously, act in accordance with ethical law. If they did not, then this same ethical nature of Yahweh demanded that He should punish them. It was inevitable that the wrath of God should be the divine reaction to all sin. The Hebrew could depend on it. It was God’s nature to act in this way. Jeremiah can say, ‘Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgement of the Lord’ (Je. 8: 7, mg.). Judgment is as natural to the Lord as the movements of the birds are to them.
Judgment475 and justification are often connected. The Psalmist can pray, ‘Enter not into judgement with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified’ (Ps. 143: 2), which shows quite plainly that the two ideas are linked. But perhaps the most decisive passage occurs in Deuteronomy: ‘If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgement, and the judges judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked’ (Dt. 25: 1). Justification is clearly part of the whole process of judgment. When men have a controversy they come to the judges. The process whereby their dispute is resolved is called ‘judgment’. And in the judgment when the verdict is >given in favour of one party he is said to be justified’. Justification is clearly the declaration in favour of a party to a law-suit. Many passages could be cited linking justification with some aspect or other of judgment.476 They make it very plain that righteousness is in the Old Testament bound up with legal conceptions. Some study of the latter must accordingly be attempted.
The word which leaps to the mind when one speaks of law in the Old Testament is tôrâh, which may be defined as ‘direction, instruction, law’ (BDB). Whether we take the basic idea to be ‘law’ or, as probably most modern scholars would prefer, as ‘instruction’, it is not in dispute that it is closely associated with Yahweh. In more than eighty of its 220 occurrences it is explicitly said to be His (‘the law of Yahweh’, ‘my law’, ‘thy law’, etc.). A further sixteen times it is ascribed to Moses which, in view of the fact that the Old Testament uniformly regards the patriarch as having received the law from God, amounts to much the same thing. In most other places it seems to be implied that the tôrâh is from the Lord. In fact I have been able to find no more than seventeen places where it seems clear that the word is used of anything other than a law from God.477
If anything, this is even more striking with other words for law. Thus from the root ḥqq we derive the description of Yahweh as ‘our lawgiver’ (Is. 33: 22), and two words for ‘statute’, ḥōq and ḥuqqâh. The former is directly connected with Yahweh in 87 of its 127 occurrences and the latter in no less than 96 out of 104. The bare statistics are enough to show that Yahweh was thought of as One who has a deep interest in law. And the statistics are reinforced by the way in which the words are used. Thus the phenomena of nature are governed by law. God makes ‘a statute for the rain’ (Jb. 28 : 26), and an ‘everlasting statute’ which governs the limits of the sea (Je. 5 : 22). It is from such ordinances as these that Jeremiah can reason to the continuing mercy of the Lord (Je. 31 : 36). Law is thus not simply a demand that God makes on His people: it is the way in which He administers His universe. He can be relied to act according to law.
We might draw similar conclusions from other legal terms. The noun mishpāṭ is connected with Yahweh about 180 times, often in the sense of ‘laws’ (when it differs but little from the words we have already considered).478 It may also be used more generally, sometimes linked with the righteousness words, e.g. ‘Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; thy judgements are a great deep’ (Ps. 36: 6); ‘I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord’ (Je. 9: 24). Here judgment and righteousness seem to be part of the essential nature of the Lord, and it agrees with this that the verb shāphāṭ, which is used of the divine activity over sixty times, may be used in the participial form to denote the Lord as Judge (Ps. 50 : 6 ; Jdg. 11 : 27).
The list could be continued. The root ykh is employed to tell us that ‘he shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off’ (Mi. 4: 3 ; cf. Is. 11 : 4 and the ‘daysman’ of Jb. 9: 33). Similarly dyn may be used in a beautifully trustful appeal to the Lord as Judge, an appeal moreover based on the fact that the Judge is ‘the righteous God’ (Ps. 7: 8f.). rîbh may be used of Yahweh’s interventions on behalf of His people (‘Blessed be the Lord, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal’, I Sa. 25 : 39; cf. also Je. 50 : 34; Is. 50 : 8, the last-mentioned being notable for its connection of justification with legal processes). Or it may refer to the Lord’s accusations against His people (Is. 45 : 9; 57: 16; Je. 2: 9, 29, etc.).
Nor would the story be complete if we went through all the technical legal terms. There are verbs like shlm which have no necessary legal significance, but which yet are relevant. When, for example, Adoni-bezek says, ‘as I have done, so God hath requited me’ (Jdg. 1 : 7), he is clearly implying that he has been judged by God and dealt with on the basis of that judgment. The thought is carried further by Jeremiah, who says that ‘the Lord is a God of recompences (‘ēl gemūlôth), he shall surely requite’ (Je. 51 : 56; cf. 2 Sa. 3: 39). ‘Thou renderest to every man according to his work’ (Ps. 62: 12) is the general principle, and many passages could be cited to show its operation. Words like pqd are often used to convey the thought of the Lord’s righteous activity in judging men.
We should not overlook the significance of the use of shephāṭîm to denote God’s mighty acts. To take an example, the Lord says, ’I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgements’ (Ex. 7: 4; so also Ex. 6: 6; 12 : 12; Nu. 33 : 4; Ezk. 5 : 10, etc.). The series of events leading up to the deliverance of Israel might well be regarded as a signal display of the divine power. Instead they are viewed as an exercise in judgment. They are viewed in terms not merely of might, but of justice. All is in accordance with law.
Significant also is the fact that the men of the Old Testament sometimes seem to go out of their way to use legal illustrations when they have the divine activity in mind. Today we are inclined to be suspicious of ‘legalism’. Indeed, if we can convict an opponent of too great an interest in law we are half-way to confuting him. No-one today is interested in a legalist. But we should not read this attitude back into antiquity. Legal categories were used not by way of compulsion, because the legal facts were plain and must be stated. They were used from choice. They were eagerly seized on and used with delight. The men of the Old Testament loved a good legal scene, and they never tire of depicting their God as taking part in one. ‘The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the peoples. The Lord will enter into judgement with the elders of his people’ (Is. 3 : 13) ; ‘the Lord sitteth for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgement. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgement to the peoples in uprightness’ (Ps. 9: 7f.). Or consider the very majestic legal scene depicted by Micah, ‘Hear ye now what the Lord saith: Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord’s controversy, and ye enduring foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel’ (Mi. 6: If.; cf. Is. 41 : 1, 21 ; 50 : 8; Je. 25: 31). The list could be prolonged. Yahweh and law went well together.
It is in accordance with this outlook that men can wish to plead, as in a law-court, before the Lord (Jb. 23 : 3f. ; Je. 12 : 1). We sometimes come across statements like ‘he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgement’ (Jb. 9 : 32). Such passages make plain the immense gulf between God and man. They do not modify the principle that God delights in law and judgment.
The interest in law is to be discerned also from the fact that God requires men to exercise judgment (Ps. 33 : 5 ; Pr. 21 : 3 ; Is. 5 : 7 ; 56 : 1, etc.). The repeated prediction of an eschatological judgment (Is. 32 : 1 ; je. 23 : 5 ; 33 : 15, etc.) is also significant. Judgment is not a temporary accommodation to man’s present position. It endures to the end of time.
We cannot leave this section of our subject without noticing that covenant is a legal conception. As we noted in the chapter on that subject, covenant is the characteristic way of viewing the relationship between God and His people. It was the covenant which gave Israel its standing in the eyes of God. Now a legal basis is inherent in the very nature of covenant (cf. Jos. 24 : 25), and often this comes to the surface, for example in 1 Chronicles 16: 17 (= Ps. 105 : 10), ‘And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an everlasting covenant’. Here the parallelism makes ‘statute’ very nearly the same thing as ‘covenant’. Or, again, Jeremiah applies the concept of law in nature to illustrate covenant: ‘Thus saith the Lord: If my covenant of day and night stand not, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob,’ etc. (Je. 33 : 25f.). The orderly movement of day and night is spoken of as itself due to a covenant with the Lord, thus equating covenant and law; then this is applied to show the permanence of the covenant with the nation.
From this brief examination it seems quite clear that the Old Testament consistently thinks of a God who works by the method of law. This is not the conception of one or two writers but is found everywhere. It is attested by a variety of conceptions, many of them taken straight from forensic practices. Among the heathen the deity was thought of as above all law, with nothing but his own desires to limit him. Accordingly his behaviour was completely unpredictable, and while he made demands on his worshippers for obedience and service, there were few if any ethical implications of this service and none of a logically necessary kind. Far otherwise was it with the God of the Hebrews. The Old Testament never conceives of anything outside Him which can direct His actions, and we must be on our guard against the thought of a law which is over Him. But Yahweh was thought of as essentially righteous in His nature, as incorporating the law of righteousness within His essential Being. Accordingly He works by a method which may be called law - He inevitably punishes evil-doing and rewards righteousness. He himself acts righteously, and He demands that His people do the same. This is the consistent teaching of the Old Testament. As G. Quell says, ‘That God lays down the right and as a righteous God is bound to right means for Old Testament piety with all its variation, a proposition which may not be surrendered’.479 Thus, as we approach the question of the use of justification in the Old Testament, we are dealing not with an isolated conception which appears briefly now and then, but with an idea of law which runs through and through the ancient Scriptures.
III. THE δίxα
oς WORD-GROUP IN THE SEPTUAGINT
In both Hebrew and Greek ‘justification’ and words like ‘righteousness’, etc., come from the same root (which fact in itself shows the essentially forensic meaning of the word-group). Our net must therefore be widely cast. So frequent are these words that it will not be possible in a brief examination to do more than glance at a few passages. But we trust that these are representative.
a. Justification
The basic significance of the Hebrew root tsdq, from which the righteousness and justification words take their origin, has been the cause of much discussion, the derivations receiving most support being those which see the essential idea in the notions of hardness and straightness. We cannot here enter into a discussion of the merits of the various suggestions put forward, and can only lay it down that such considerations as those adduced by Snaith480 seem to indicate that the latter is the idea to be preferred, and that the word-group points us to the thought of a standard. ‘Tsedeq, with its kindred words, signifies that standard which God maintains in this world. It is the norm by which all must be judged. What this norm is, depends entirely upon the Nature of God.‘481 If this is so, then the idea of righteousness is conformity to God’s standard, and justification will be a process in which this conformity is either attained, or declared to be attained.
When we turn to those passages where the verb ‘to justify’ occurs, there can be no doubt that the meaning is to declare righteous rather than to make righteous. Thus we find a direction that the judges ‘shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked’ (Dt. 25 : 1). The forensic background is unmistakable and the verb can mean only ‘to declare righteous’ or ‘to acquit’. The same usage is seen in ‘I will not justify the wicked’ (Ex. 23 : 7), and in the woe to them that ‘justify the wicked for reward’ (Is. 5 : 23). The legal content of the term is brought out from another angle when we read, ‘let them bring forth their witnesses that they may be justified’ (Is. 43 : 9), where legal proof based on the testimony of witnesses is the ground for justification.
These are typical passages, and although there are places where the forensic note is not so strong they do not invalidate our conviction that the basic idea is one of acquittal. Both in Hebrew and Greek the verb in question is capable of being used in a variety of non-legal contexts, quite like our verb ‘to judge’. But again, like this verb, the Hebrew and Greek verbs in question remind us of processes of law, and take their essential meaning from those processes of law. That a declaratory process rather than a making righteous is meant is clear from the fact that the verb is applied to Jehovah (Ps. 51 : 4), for it is an impossible thought that He should be ‘made righteous’ in any sense other than ‘made righteous before men’ or ‘declared righteous’.
Finally, let us notice the important words of the psalmist: ‘enter not into judgement with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified’ (Ps. 143 : 2). Here we are face to face with the ultimate question in religion, and the conclusion is that it is impossible for any man to have confidence in his standing before God on the ground of his deeds.
b. The righteousness of men
The noun and the adjective from this root reveal the same essentially forensic significance. The righteous are those acquitted at the bar of God’s justice, and righteousness is the standing of those so acquitted. Thus J. Skinner explains his view that in the Old Testament ‘the forensic element preponderates’ in the idea of righteousness by saying: ‘what is meant is that questions of right and wrong were habitually regarded from a legal point of view as matters to be settled by a judge, and that this point of view is emphasized in the words derived from tsdq. This, indeed, is characteristic of the Heb. conception of righteousness in all its developments: whether it be a moral quality or a religious status, it is apt to be looked on as in itself controvertible and incomplete until it has been confirmed by what is equivalent to a judicial sentence.‘482 The Hebrew concept is not grasped by making a facile equation with the Greek δxαoσύνη or the English ‘righteousness’; it is not an ethical term, but a religious. It takes its origin in the forensic sphere and makes its home in the law of God.
xαoσύνη or the English ‘righteousness’; it is not an ethical term, but a religious. It takes its origin in the forensic sphere and makes its home in the law of God.The forensic background to the concept is seen clearly in such a passage as Isaiah 5 : 23, which pronounces a woe upon them that ‘take away the righteousness of the righteous from him’, for obviously a moral quality cannot be taken away from a man. What is meant is that wicked judges will, for the sake of gain, give the verdict to the wrong party, thus depriving the innocent of the status of acquittal which is his due. This is the sin which is described as ‘condemning the just (or righteous)’ (Pr. 17 : 15), while in Proverbs 24: 23f. to say to the wicked ‘Thou art righteous’ is apparently an illustration of the saying ‘It is not good to have respect to persons in judgment’. An instructive passage along similar lines is Deuteronomy 16: 18-20, where words from the tsdq root (‘just’, ‘righteous’) are freely intermingled with legal terms (‘judges’, ‘judgement’, etc.).
Such intermingling is far from being rare, and indeed ‘to do judgement and justice’ is a stock Old Testament phrase. There are also references to ‘violent perverting of judgement and justice’ (Ec. 5 : 8) and the like. In the same category we must place Amos’s impassioned plea, ‘Let judgement run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream’ (Am. 5 : 24).
The forensic use of words from this root is often found in the book of Job, as when the patriarch says: ‘Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified’ (Jb. 13 : 18). Here he can mean only that he will be declared righteous, as by a judge giving sentence in a lawsuit. So also, when the Lord says to Job, ‘Wilt thou also disannul my judgement? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?’ (Jb. 40 : 8), the forensic note of the passage and the opposition of condemning to being righteous show that ‘righteous’ here means something very like ‘declared righteous legally’. It is this which gives us the background against which we must understand the question thrice repeated with slight changes: ‘How should man be just with God?’ (Jb. 9: 2, and see 15 : 14 ; 25 : 4). In each case it is standing with the Lord that is in question, and the implication is that man is completely unable of himself to attain such right standing.
It is, of course, true that ’righteous’ comes to have an ethical meaning and in many passages this is to be stressed. But this meaning develops naturally out of the forensic idea and we need not doubt that the legal idea is the basic one.
c. The righteousness of God
The Old Testament consistently thinks of Jehovah as a just (or righteous) God. He is often depicted as a Judge, for example, ‘the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself’ (Ps. 50 : 6) ; ‘he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness’ (Ps. 96 : 13) ; ‘the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgement’ (Is. 5 : 16). It is clear that the men of the Old Testament delighted to view God in His capacity as Judge.
An interesting insight into the stress placed on this aspect of the divine nature is to be found in an expression in the Song of Deborah. With reference to recalling the great deliverance wrought by the Lord the singer says: ‘there shall they rehearse the righteous acts (mg. righteousnesses) of the Lord’ (Jdg. 5 : 11). The actions in question were, of course, displays of power. But the thing which appealed to the Hebrew was that they were not simply displays of power, they were evidence of the righteous nature of their God. ‘The righteous Lord loveth righteousness’ (Ps. II: 7). Nor is this regarded as temporary, but as a permanent element in God, for He can say, ‘my righteousness shall not be abolished ... my righteousness shall be for ever’ (Is. 51 : 6, 8).
It is implied in the thought that God is the righteous Judge that He demands right living on the part of men. This is expressed so often in the Old Testament that it is superfluous to make quotations to prove it. It is fundamental that the Lord has set His law before men and that He expects them to walk therein.
A very interesting feature of Old Testament teaching on the righteousness of God is that it is often linked with salvation, as when the psalmist says: ‘The Lord hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly showed’ (Ps. 98: 2), or when the prophet gives the words of the Lord; ‘my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished’ (Is. 51 : 6). This connection is met with sufficiently often for us to think that it is not accidental; righteousness includes a salvation aspect. But it is always a salvation in accordance with ethical laws, a salvation which accords with righteousness. It is a deliverance of the people of God, who are proper objects of such deliverance just because they are the people of God. In passing we note that this is not the same as the New Testament teaching on the righteousness of God. There we have the different thought that ‘the righteousness of God’ brings salvation (and salvation in a fuller sense) to sinners.483