Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage. Matthew Levering

Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage - Matthew Levering


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Israel, whom he covenantally unites to himself as his son.

      The point for Pitre is that these prophets present Israel, at the time of the covenant at Sinai (Exodus 24), as God’s youthful bride, with God in the role of covenantal Bridegroom. The covenant establishes not simply an adoptive sonship (with Israel becoming the son of the divine Father), although it certainly does establish such a relationship. Even more fundamentally, the covenant establishes a relationship that is so intimate as to be comparable to the love, mutuality, and friendship of a marriage.

      In pagan worship, temple liturgies and sexual orgies were not uncommonly linked; thus when the Bride of YHWH worships a false god, it is not surprising to find this action linked to sexual acts outside of marriage. The prophets describe this situation in terms of spiritual adultery. Pitre cites a number of prophetic texts to make this point. Examples include Isaiah 1:4, which describes Israel as “estranged” from the Lord, having “forsaken” him; Isaiah 1:21, which describes Israel as “a harlot”; Jeremiah 2:32–33, which compares Israel to a “bride” who has become adulterous; Jeremiah 3:20, in which the Lord complains that “as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel”; and Ezekiel 16:17–18, in which God describes his bride Israel as a “harlot” who took his gifts and made idols out of them. God sums up his charge against Israel in terms of failure to be his faithful bride. Desiring a relationship of profound covenantal intimacy and faithfulness with Israel, God instead is forced to condemn Israel: “Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!” (Ezek 16:32). No wonder that when God wants to symbolize this situation, he commands Hosea to “take to yourself a wife of harlotry” (Hos 1:2) and to “love . . . an adulteress; even as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods” (Hos 3:1). Hosea obeys the Lord’s command, thereby acting out the situation of God and Israel. Beyond mere condemnation, Hosea is preparing for the day when Israel will truly be God’s faithful Bride: “in that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal.’ . . . I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord” (Hos 2:16, 20). The knowledge will be so intimate as to be comparable to the sexual “knowledge” of husband and wife.


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