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The Covenant Relationship
Lesson
Eight (part three)
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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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