On the Road to Emmaus

A friend recently asked me to condense some thoughts on the concept of “new exodus.” Surprisingly, especially if such a concept is new to you, I believe that “new exodus” is one of the primary interpretive frameworks for understanding the New Testament. This is an additional example of how biblical interpretation must move in the direction of Old Testament, first and foundational, New Testament second and derivative (though launching off in some surprising turns and creative new directions). I figured I might as well make my response public.

The first thing to say is that the New Exodus is a huge subject and has been the treatment of many scholarly monographs. Here I hope to just introduce some of the primary Scripture verses related to the subject and will by no means be a full discussion.

Obviously, any discussion of a “new exodus” must take into consideration the “first exodus.” The exodus was the deliverance of a company of Jewish slaves from the nation of Egypt in either the 15th or 13th century B.C. This event is described as Israel’s redemption (Ex. 21.8; Deut. 7:8; 13:5; 24:18; an extremely significant word in later biblical texts). By this event, Israel was forged as a covenant nation and it became the pivotal moment of remembrance in the nation’s history. Critical and curious to note is that the exodus, while becoming foundational for many later prophetic and Pauline discussions, had nothing to do with sin. The “redemption” from Egypt was not related to forgiveness, it was sheerly an act of salvation as an overflow of compassion.

In context to the Exodus, God reveals himself for the first time with his personal name Yahweh (Ex. 3.13ff.), which does not carry the metaphysically intrusive (and static) meaning of “I AM” in the sense of an “eternal present.” The concept of an “eternal present” was expressed by the Greek philosopher Parmenides to describe the being who is completely removed from the temporal sequence of everything we experience. Instead this being experiences our past, present, and future simultaneously as one “eternal present.” This was related to his belief that reality is most essentially what is unchanging. This obviously precludes anything in the natural world. The manifold diversity, movement, motion and change in the world we observe are less real than the eternal and indivisible realities behind them. In fact, change, motion and diversity came to be viewed as imperfections from that which is eternal. This philosophical understanding of god and reality was taken up by Plato and Aristotle, and later by Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas, all in varying nuances.

The Hebrews were entirely unfamiliar with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle at this point, and in the midst of the people’s sufferings, I am certain that God did not pause to give a lesson on abstract metaphysics and the relationship between God and time (i.e., that God is “outside of time”). This makes absolutely no sense of the passage in which God declares himself to have seen their affliction, heard their cries, knows (not in an abstract theoretical sense, but in an experiential sense) their suffering and has “come down,” in history, to deliver them. He is the God of history, he is the God experientially involved in history, far from soaring above it as a detached observer, but to the chagrin of Aristotle, participating in its sorrows.

The first key to understanding this divine name is its approximate translation in Hebrew. It seems to be a form of the verb “to be,” and when translated into the English (or even Greek) present tense is rendered as “I AM.” However, Hebrew grammar does not use tense, which indicates the relative time of an action (past, present or future). Instead it uses aspect, which rather than describing the time of an action in relation to the speaker, it describes the contour of the actions. In Hebrew there are only two distinct aspects, the perfect and the imperfect aspect. The Perfect aspect considers an action as complete, or as a whole, regardless of when it happens. This is different than describing an action as completed. It is not an event that is over, but is being consider in its totality without an incomplete, unresolved, progressive aspect to it. It can refer to an action in the past, present or future, but the completeness of the action is in sight and is considered as a whole. The Impefect aspect considers an action that is not seen as a whole. It is on-going and unfinished, regardless as to whether it is past, present or future. In essence, perfective aspect views an action as closed and complete, imperfective views an action as open, on-going and dynamic.

The name Yahweh is a form of the verb “to be” in the imperfective aspect. This means that the interpretation as “I AM” as a static eternal present cannot be what is meant by the Hebrew text. Whatever it does mean, the concept of God’s being expressed in the name is not conceived of as a complete entity, a timeless existence in which all of history is simultaneously present. Whether or not this concept is true of God is a different question, but it is certainly not the meaning of the divine name and is not at all being expressed in the Exodus narratives. Instead, this name connotes an on-going nature of openness, of a dynamic future of engagement with history and the on-going drama of salvation.

The second key is the context in which this revelation comes. The surrounding speech is entirely about the suffering of the Israelites and God’s intention to deliver them. The ensuing narratives are likewise about the same – a suffering people and a compassionate God delivering them with great might and power. It seems odd that God takes a time out to have a lesson in abstract metaphysics. It makes more sense to believe that the revelation of this name is in context to the people’s historical situation and God’s historical intervention.

The third key to understanding the divine name is in the next verse when God describes himself as the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” In other words, Yahweh is the God of covenant. He is the God who made concrete promises to a bunch of earthlings about the future of their life on the earth. Those individuals became pilgrims (nomads, really) in hopeful expectation of the promises of God.

He we see in greater fullness what this divine name may mean. He is the God of an on-going, unfinished historical interaction. He is the God of compassionate involvement with and for his people. He is the God of covenant. Taken together, it seems that although still insufficient, it would be more accurate to translate Yahweh as “I will be” and the explanatory phrase as “I will be who I will be.” In other words, the divine name is about the future of God’s faithfulness to his covenant in the historical intervention and deliverance of his people. This divine name takes the exodus as its paradigm and moment of revelation. If this is what the divine name means, there are significant implications through the remainder of the biblical writings. Yahweh is not simply a tag so God can be called something. It is a powerful expression of hopeful openness to the future despite a conflicted present, in which our confidence is rooted in the historical faithfulness of God to his covenant promises. “He will be” in that he will be true to himself and his word, faithfully present to his people in the actualization of a yet outstanding and unimaginable future, with its ultimate fulfillment in the new creation of all things. The exodus (and the “new exodus”) are centrally about the historical faithfulness of God to his creation, his covenant and his people, in which he participates with compassion in the suffering of humanity, intervening for their deliverance, salvation and restoration.

Related posts

• New Exodus – Part 2 – The Historical Revelation of God (1)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 4) – The Overarching Story of Scripture (14)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 2) (13)
• New Exodus – Part 3 – The Ending of Exile (5)
• Will You Forget Me Forever? (1)