Psalm 2, Eclipse on a Full Moon, Die to Observe

1. Devorah Dimant, "Use and Interpretation of the Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha," Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 411.

"Thus the text of wisdom alludes to Ps 2, integrating it and commenting upon it. Ps 2 is selected apparently because it urges kings and judges to exercise wisdom."

Dimant is saying that Wisdom 1:1 and 6:1 allude to the LXX of Psalm 2:10. Let's look at the verses:

Wisdom 1:1: "Love righteousness, you [judges] of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of heart" (NRSV).

Wisdom 6:1: "Listen therefore, O kings, and understand; learn, O judges of the ends of the earth."

Psalm 2:10: Now therefore understand, ye kings: be instructed, all ye that judge the earth (Brenton's English translation of the LXX).

"Kings." "Judges." "Understand." Yes, there's commonality between the wisdom passages and the LXX of Psalm 2:10, which is more evident in the Greek.

I never really viewed Psalm 2:10 as Wisdom seems to interpret it. Wisdom of Solomon's point is that the kings and judges of the earth should learn wisdom and practice righteousness so as to avoid God's judgment. I always assumed that Psalm 2 was saying to the kings: "Straighten up! Stop conspiring against my son, the Davidic monarch, or he and I will stomp you out of existence." But I can understand why Wisdom of Solomon views the Psalm in a more general sense, for Psalm 2:11 tells the kings to serve the LORD with fear. They're not merely to leave the Davidic monarch alone; rather, they must serve the LORD.

My reading of Psalm 2 has been Messianic, since it appears to relate to the Messiah gaining dominion over all of the nations, notwithstanding their resistance. Revelation 19:19-21 gives the scenario that formed the backdrop for my interpretation: "Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh." Kings challenge the Messiah Jesus Christ, and they receive God's wrath as a result. That looks like the message of Psalm 2!

Elsewhere in the New Testament, however, there's a belief that Psalm 2 was being fulfilled in the first century, meaning they didn't think it applied only to the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Acts 4:24-27, the apostles interpret the conspiring of the nations against God's anointed in light of the execution of Jesus by Herod and Pontius Pilate. Hebrews 5:5 applies Psalm 2 to God's anointing of Jesus Christ, which had already occurred.

The New Testament most likely doesn't see the contents of Psalm 2 as a single event (the second coming of Jesus Christ), but rather as something that spreads over many years of history. Christ has inaugurated the end times! And the early Christians warned the rulers of the earth that they should submit to God's Messiah today, since he will one return to set up his dominion.

But Wisdom of Solomon also sees Psalm 2 as a present sort of thing: the kings of the earth are to rule right now in wisdom and righteousness. It doesn't apply Psalm 2 to the single end-time arrival of the Messiah, but it does mention the prospect of a coming judgment for rulers who disobey wisdom. As far as I can see, the "son" vanishes from Wisdom of Solomon's interpretation of Psalm 2, maybe because there was no Davidic monarch at the time (although Solomon seems to be portrayed as the author of the book). In the eyes of the Wisdom of Solomon, there was no "son of God" at the time for the kings of the earth to challenge.

2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 804-805.

Julius Africanus (third century C.E.) "treats the darkness at the crucifixion as miraculous, since an eclipse of the sun would not have taken place at the full moon."

I'll be parading my ignorance in this section! I've read elsewhere that the eclipse of the sun at Jesus' crucifixion is problematic because a full moon was occurring at the same time. That may have something to do with the time when Jesus died, the Passover. Passover usually occurs at or near a full moon. See Apr 20, the date for Passover in 2008. The moon is full!

I don't understand astronomy, but a full moon is not consistent with the moon being between the sun and the earth (a solar eclipse). Somehow, Julius Africanus was sensitive to that way back in the third century C.E. I wonder how.

I'm curious about what exactly Julius thought God did to carry out the miracle. Did God move the moon and place it in front of the sun? Was the darkness an optical illusion, or in people's heads? Did clouds cause it? I don't know.

Many liberal scholars say that the synoptic Gospels have darkness at Jesus' crucifixion because they're trying to evoke the day of the LORD, a time of thick darkness (Zephaniah 1:15). For them, the darkness is something literary or religious that the author put into the plot. It's not historical, as far as they're concerned.

Why darkness? It may convey God's disapproval of Jesus' enemies, or the evil that appeared to triumph when Jesus was on the cross, or Jesus' endurance in our place of God's righteous wrath, which the day of the LORD is all about (God's wrath, that is). John, however, does not mention darkness at Jesus' crucifixion. Some scholars believe this is because John saw Jesus' death as a time of spiritual light. For John, Jesus was the light of the world particularly when he was finishing the work God had given him to do--at his crucifixion.

Maybe there's an explanation for the darkness during the full moon. Or maybe the darkness conveys a literary or theological point. Maybe it's both! I don't know.

3. "The Law," A Rabbinic Anthology, ed. C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938) 116-117.

"It is written, 'Keep my statutes: through them shall a man live' (Lev. XVIII, 5). R. Ishmael said: How can one know that [in a time of persecution] they say to an Israelite in private, 'Serve the idol, and you will not be killed,' he should serve the idol, and not be killed? Because it says, 'A man shall live through them,' and it does not say, 'A man shall die through them.' But if he is told in public, is he to obey? No, for it says, 'Ye shall not profane my holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel' (Lev. XXII, 32)...(Sifra 86b.)"

When I was in seventh grade, I had a Jewish social studies teacher, and our class spent a week on religion. He told us that Judaism views life as sacred. That's why Jewish doctors are permitted to save life on the Sabbath. And, if a Jew is on the verge of starving to death, Jewish law allows him to eat pork. "It would even let him put salt on it, because human life is sacred," my teacher said.

I thought that contradicted what I read in the Gospels, namely, the scenes in which the Jewish leaders don't like Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But they're not exactly contradictory. The people Jesus healed were not on the verge of death when Jesus performed the miracle. They could have come back on another day, as the leader of the synagogue said (Luke 13:14).

What about the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath? When Brad Young spoke at Hebrew Union College, he said that Jesus was upholding a halakhic point of view. According to the passage he handed out to us, a Jew is permitted to break the Sabbath if he has an ox's hunger, which could place him on the verge of starving to death.

So why did the Pharisees dislike Jesus' disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath? Did they think the disciples didn't have an ox's hunger? If so, they may have had a point. Mark 2 seems to put the incident in Capernaum, which was where Peter lived. Surely they could have eaten at Peter's house after synagogue services, right? It wasn't that far of a journey! They wouldn't starve to death on the way. Was the plucking of grain absolutely necessary for their survival? I don't know. Jesus refers to the example of David, who ate the bread of the priests when on the verge of starvation. So maybe there's some truth in what Brad Young said.

The rabbinic passage I have in quotes addresses a question I have had: When can Jews break the law to save their lives, and when can they not? My social studies teacher said a Jew could eat pork if on the verge of starvation. But II Maccabees 7 tells of story of seven brothers who chose to be martyrs rather than eating the king's pork. Couldn't they have eaten it to save their skins?

No, for the situations were different. In one case, the Jew ate pork in an emergency situation--so he could survive to live a life of obedience to God's commandments. In the other case, the very validity of God's law is challenged. Will the Jews obey God as their ruler, or will they exalt Antiochus as supreme? In their minds, the supremacy of God is something worth dying for.

I wonder if the same principle applies to the Sabbath. In I Maccabees 2, we read of Jews who chose to die at the hands of their enemies rather than fight on the Sabbath. Mattathias then decreed that Jews could fight on the Sabbath. That was a matter of saving their lives so they could continue to live in obedience to God's commands.

But, during the Holocaust, Jews worked on the Sabbath when their Nazi persecutors demanded it. In Schindler's List, it was almost a privilege when Oscar Schindler permitted the Jews to rest on the Sabbath! Shouldn't they have died for their commitment to God's Sabbath, as the seven brothers gave their lives when Antiochus told them, "Eat pork or die?" I'm not sure how an orthodox Jew in a concentration camp would answer that. Maybe he'd express hope that the Jews would see better days and be able to resume their observant Jewish lives.