Saturday, November 10, 2012

Covenant Class, Lesson 8-C


The Covenant Relationship
Lesson Eight (part three)
 
Who is the “subordinate king” of the Sinai covenant?  With only one exception[1], suzerainty treaties were made “king to king”; from the sovereign Hittite king to a subordinate king.  One preamble reads of the two monarchs:  “They swore an oath to one another and concluded this treaty with one another.”  Both the historical prologue section and the section for curses and blessings are expressed in personal terms, king to king.  This even extends to circumstances in which the people of the lesser king threaten to depose him.  The Hittite king swears his loyalty to him personally, and the people do not enter into the covenant relationship.


It is clear that Sinai follows this form so that the obvious sovereign king is Yahweh, Almighty God!  What is not obvious is, who plays the role of the subordinate king?

Moses is never called a king, though he is a leader.  His children are not the heirs to his power.  Nothing in the Sinai covenant identifies Moses as king, with Israel as his subjects.  It looks as though it is the people of Israel who fill the role as king!  Incredibly, they are not king as a corporate whole, but this status is bestowed upon every individual Israelite.  Notice the Ten Commandments; they are not commands to be fulfilled by the people as a whole, but by “individual” people.  And God distinguishes between those individuals who keep covenant, and those who do not.  He blesses one and curses another.  Individuality counts.  Berman concludes, “the subordinate king with whom God forms a political treaty is, in fact, the common man of Israel; that every man in Israel is to view himself as having the status of a king conferred on him—a subordinate king who serves under the protection of, and in gratitude to, a divine sovereign.

Stipulated Visits:  The Hittites mandated as a show of loyalty, that the subordinate king make regular appearances before the sovereign.  And, the Hittites (unlike the Assyrians) let honor go both ways between sovereign and vassal.  One treaty reads:  “Sunashshura must come before his majesty and look on the face of his majesty.  As soon as he comes before his majesty, the noblemen of his majesty [will rise] from their seats.  No one will remain seated above him.“  The phrase “look on the face of his majesty” is often used to describe a formal, official court visit (Gen. 43:3, 5; 44:23, 26; Exod. 10:28-29; 2 Sam. 3:13, 14:32).  Similar language for a court visit appears in Ex. 19-24 where God commands:  “three times a year, all of your males shall be seen by the face of the Lord —YHWH.”  Since people obviously cannot actually “see” God, the meaning of “royal visit” is all the more obvious.  Joshua Berman writes:

The command that each Israelite male embark on pilgrimage is patterned after the requirement that a subordinate king visit the court of his sovereign, to see the face of his lord (master), that is, God.  What is most instructive here is the fact that this is enjoined on all adult males.  In the Hittite political treaties, of course, only the subordinate king is called on to visit the sovereign.  Indeed, it would be beneath the dignity of the sovereign to receive all of the commoners subject to the subordinate king.  Thus, the treaty imagery in the Bible does not bypass the subordinate king; the common man of Israel himself takes on aspects of a subordinate king.  He is the one addressed by the covenant; he is the one on whom God has bestowed favor, and it is he who is enjoined to pay a fealty visit to the “court” of the divine sovereign.

Covenant readings:  Another stipulation on the vassal was that the treaty be read out periodically in his court.  The Hittite king once stated, “[This tablet which] I have made [for you, Kupanta-Kurunta], shall be read out [before you three times yearly].”  In another treaty, the Hittite king states, “Furthermore, this tablet which I have made for you, Alaksandu, shall be read out before you three times yearly, and you, Alaksandu, shall know it.”  A parallel stipulation in the Bible pertains to all members of the children of Israel.  Each and every one must hear, because each stands as the vassal of God (Ex. 24:3-8, see also Deut. 31:10-13, Josh. 8:30-35 and 2 Kings 23:2-3):

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice saying, “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!”  Moses then wrote down all the commands of the Lord. . . .  Then [Moses] took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people.  And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will faithfully do!”  Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, “this is the blood of the covenant that the Lord now makes with you concerning all these commands.”

More honor for the “common man”!  The Hittite treaty is significant as the model for Sinai because honor went both ways between vassal and suzerain.  In Israel, the people honor God; and God honors the people!  We saw the same notion in the accounts of Creation and the Flood (while similar pagan mythologies used creation and flood stories to lower the status of the “common man”).  The same trend is seen in another area:  Israel is presented as the spouse of God.

Again, the distinction from surrounding cultures and religions is significant.  The gods married, but they married goddesses.  And this marriage was seen as the model for the king and his wife/wives.  Joshua Berman suggests, “For these cultures to conceive of the marriage between a god and a human, or group of humans, would have been as unthinkable as for us to imagine the marital union of a human and a cat.”

The marriage metaphor applies to Israel as a whole, to the people collectively.  Yet, the arrangement holds tremendous meaning for individuals, for the “common man”.  In the ancient world, the common man was merely a servant to the king.  And the king was the one who had a relationship to the gods, as though on top of a priestly order.  Yet in Israel, the people were a “kingdom of priests” (Exod. 19:6) and the expectation that all the people would maintain holiness and behave in rather priestly fashion.  Only priests in Egypt were circumcised; in Israel circumcision was for the common man.

Whose Interests Are Served in the Sinai Covenant?  Not the king, since God relates directly with the people.  Not the “upper class”, since they are mentioned only in responsibility to the poor, to the common man.  Not the priests, who are denied land ownership and are not exalted.  Not the prophets either.  Rather, Berman notes, “the common man was transformed from a mere servant of kings into one who stands in honor before the Almighty as nothing less than a servant king.”  If we follow suspicion to see whose interests are served, it is the common man, and his covenant with God that truly benefits from the order created by the Israelite religion.  This emphasis is more than unique, it was revolutionary in the ancient world.  The common man is given dignity by the favor bestowed by God, who sees him as a king worthy of honor.



[1] Berman writes, “Of the eighteen suzerainty treaties whose texts we have, only a single one is between a Hittite king as sovereign and an entire people, with no mention of a king.  The form of this treaty differs in significant ways from the treaties made with subordinate kings.  This treaty has no historical prologue and no section delineating the blessings that will accrue to the subordinate for compliance.  As noted, both Exodus and Deuteronomy contain narratives outlining the beneficence of the “sovereign king”—God—toward Israel.  Put differently, the Sinai narratives resemble the form of the Late Bronze Age Hittite suzerainty treaty made with a subordinate king and not a subordinate people.”

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