will escape. And with this remnant God will again rebuild a faithful people.6
Jesus obviously shared this belief in Israel’s election. Precisely because of his Jewishness he addresses his prophetic call to the people of Israel. And having drawn the consequences of the Jews’ disobedience, he dared to announce the rejection of this stiff-necked people, while also envisioning the birth of a “remnant,” of a “small flock,” to which the Father would give the kingdom and to which the nations would be drawn.7
The Moral Bias
Perhaps even more important than the belief in election is Israel’s moral sense, or what we shall call the “moral bias of the Old Testament.” Like the Greek philosophies, Oriental cosmogonies try to explain the creation of the world and the origin of evil and death. Yet humanity always comes out as the victim of fate. Some refer to the Fall as a cosmic catastrophe; others explain evil as the necessary shadow cast by the good. For some, creation is subjected to the perpetual cycle of death and new beginnings. For others, the problem of evil is resolved by successive reincarnations of the human soul until its final absorption into God. The majority find consolation for the world’s injustices in the hope for a celestial paradise where sin and death will be abolished.8
The Old Testament, on the other hand, dares to attribute evil and death to a strictly moral cause. Death enters history because of humanity’s fault. And it is man who drags the other creatures with him into death.9 At first glance, such notions seem revolting. How can Genesis be reconciled with modern paleontology and evolutionary views that tell us that disease and death affected plants and animals long before man ever appeared on earth? Moreover, if the Old Testament is right, the righteous should be rewarded for their virtues. But how many depraved families enjoy impudent happiness, and how many virtuous ones are struck by inexplicable catastrophes! How many inoffensive nations are annihilated while the brute force of unscrupulous conquerors prevails! No. Humanity’s sin cannot be the only cause of suffering and death. Job and the Old Testament psalmists already protested against such an unjust doctrine.
However, there is another way, asymmetric to be sure, of looking at the biblical notion of the Fall and its consequences. It demands that we abandon the search for an explanation of evil and death. When we look deeper into the Bible we discover something very different, something that incites action. Here I am, thrown into the world, a person alone before the God of Israel. I cannot declare, “I was born by chance,” or “I am conditioned by my environment, the toy of heredity and of events that drag me along.” No, I must allow myself to be “offended.”10 What? God says I am the only one to blame for my sins? Yes. The only master of my temperament? Yes! Of my environment? Certainly. Of my nation and the way it behaves? Indeed. Of my death and the fall of a world headed straight for suicide? Exactly. The Bible describes how we are all responsible for our death and the death of those around us. And because the Bible is not a philosophical dissertation, it adds one paradox to another by stating that we are guilty because we reject forgiveness. We would not be guilty if our heredity had no cure, but we are guilty insofar as we neglect the cure that God freely gives us.
Jesus gave no other explanation to those who questioned him about the death of eighteen people crushed by a falling tower. “Do you think that they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:4). In other words, repentance comes first. Fall on your knees before God and confess your sin. Then get up and change the course of history!
In the Hebrew world, there is no explanation of evil. Redemptive history shows us a different way to get out of it: repentance and faith. By requiring us to repent, God acts in history not so much as Creator, but as Redeemer. Through the repentance of a few, God says to the whole of a sick history, “Rise and walk!” Such an injunction awakens in every person who hears it the response of faith. Such faith gives humanity its true measure and moves history forward. This is the gospel of the kingdom of God.
Inexorable Justice
The asymmetrical nature of Hebrew thought, and thus of Jesus’ approach, can also be found in its requirement of justice. Take, for example, the law of retaliation expressed for the first time in the Book of Genesis after Cain had killed his brother. Abel’s blood demanded revenge. Justice had to be established. Cain was to die because he had killed. But God decreed that whoever would kill Cain must also pay the price of blood: “If anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Gen. 4:15; 9:6).
This principle of justice, known as the lex talionis, was codified by Moses in the following terms: “You are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exod. 21:24). From then on, strict accounting regulated human relationships and one’s relationship to God.
Today, our customs are less rigid. Of the law of retaliation, our legislators have retained only provisions concerning liability.11 Israel, however, could not rid itself of its peculiar election. It existed for a moral purpose. God had said, “You shall be to me a holy nation.” Much more was required, therefore, of the Jews than of the other nations. They had to give an account for every sin before it could be erased.12
Israel was also marked by God’s law in its relations with other nations. No compromises were allowed. Yahweh ordered the destruction of non-Jews living in the land. “Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshipping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God” (Deut. 20:16–18). The Pharisees of Jesus’ time continued to observe this law to some extent when they ordered the Jews to avoid all contact with pagans or Samaritans (John 4:9). They acted this way to save their people from idolatrous contamination. Even in Jesus’ day the people of Israel were ready to use holy violence as soon as the purity of worship was desecrated. We even know of one inscription that threatened death for any pagan who dared venture into the court of the temple.
The Christian faith, rooted in the Jewish mindset, does not deny the necessity of sacred violence – far from it. But this violence has assumed a different form, thanks to the person of the goel.
Who is the goel? He is the “avenger of blood.” According to the Law of Moses, if someone had been murdered, the goel had the responsibility of carrying out the vendetta against the guilty person. “The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death” (Num. 35:19). The goel was the victim’s next of kin. He was also the appointed protector of his relatives. If an indebted kinsman were forced to sell his land, the Book of Leviticus decreed, “his nearest relative (goel) is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold” (Lev. 25:25). The goel is thus closely intertwined with the ideas of vengeance and redemption.
The goel was also expected to marry the wife of his deceased kinsman as well as redeem a kinsman who had become enslaved. “If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself…one of his relatives may redeem him, an uncle or a cousin or any blood relative” (Lev. 25:47ff.).
In Isaiah and the Psalms the goel often refers to God himself, with the double meaning of avenger and redeemer of the people of whom he is the kinsman. “Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it…The Lord has redeemed (ga’al) his servant Jacob” (Isa. 48:20). “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you… For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in
