Friday 31 August 2018

Psalm: Psalm 128

Background

Israel has made a dangerous river crossing from the desert, with apparently miraculous help from God, to enter Canaan, the land that God promised when he first brought the people out of slavery in Egypt.

The commandment to set up twelve stones to mark and commemorate the crossing of the Jordan underlines the importance in Jewish religious faith and life of telling and re-telling their story – as a story of God’s choice, rescue and protection of Israel (v. 7). The place where the stones are set up to mark the crossing of the Jordan is named Gilgal, which sounds like the Hebrew word for ‘roll’. Later in chapter 5, in a play on words, the place-name is ‘explained’ as God declares to Israel through Joshua that at Gilgal, he “rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt” (Joshua 5:9).

This foundational experience of being an enslaved and downtrodden people, chosen and rescued by God, is central to Israel’s identity. It is this story that is remembered and retold annually over a special meal called the Seder in Jewish families, as the escape from Egypt is commemorated at the festival of Passover. The flight from Egypt also involved a miraculous crossing of water, the Red Sea, with the help of God (Exodus 14). And it is clear that the twelve stones at Gilgal are to be a prompt for the re-telling this story to future generations – linking the crossing of the Jordan to the crossing of the Red Sea when Israel escaped from Egypt (v. 22-23a).

Israel’s remembering and re-telling of its story of captivity and enslavement, and God’s gracious action in calling and freeing them, is a central part of the nation’s religious life. And as well as shaping their religious imagination, the story is meant to shape their ethical life. The frequent biblical commandments to Israel regarding care, justice and even love for foreigners among them are linked directly with the story of their own shared history, and a call to remember that “you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt” (Exodus 22:21 and 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34).

To Ponder

• Which Bible story is central to your own sense of your own relationship with God? How does it shape your ethical life as well as your spiritual life?
• How should the biblical commandments and the reminders to God’s people about foreigners be understood in today’s globalised world?