1.03. Holiness in the Other Books of the Old Testament
CHAPTER III HOLINESS IN THE OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
THROUGHOUT the Old Testament, the above meaning of the word holy is found. The words of Joshua 3:5, "sanctify your selves : for tomorrow God will do wonders among you," recall Exodus 19:10. With Exodus 3:5 compare Joshua 5:15, "the place whereon thou art standing is holy." Notice also Joshua 6:19, "all the silver and gold . . . are holy for Jehovah : into the treasury of Jehovah they shall come." Also Joshua 20:7, "they sanctified Kadesh in Galilee to be a city of refuge : " for these stood in special relation to God. Micah s mother said, in Judges 17:3, " I have altogether sanctified the silver for Jehovah : " for she supposed that, by using the money to make an image, she was devoting it to His service. In the Bk. of Psalms, the word sanctify is never found : a clear proof that it was not equivalent to purify, an idea which not unfrequently occurs there. It is found only once in the other poetical books, in Job 1:5 ; and then in a ritual sense. In Psalms 89:5, Psalms 89:7, as in Job 5:1; Job 15:15, Daniel 8:13, the word holy or saint denotes the angels. And our chief thought about them is that they stand in special relation to God and are doing His work. In Psalms 106:16, " Aaron, Jehovah’s holy one," recalls the ritual phraseology of the Law.
Very rarely in the poetical books does the word holy denote a good man : e.g. Psalms 16:3, " to the holy ones which are in the earth;" and Psalms 34:9, "fear Jehovah, ye His holy ones." A still better case is 2 Kings 4:9, where the lady of Shunem speaks of Elisha as a "man of God, a holy man." This use was prompted by a consciousness that a good man stands in special relation to God. Similarly Jeremiah 1:5, "before thou earnest forth from the womb I sanctified thee, and gave thee as a prophet to the nations." For from his birth Jeremiah was set apart for this special work. As pointing to an intelligent and spiritual service of God, these passages are an anticipation of the New Testament use of these words. This use was rare, because as yet holiness was definitely revealed only in symbolic out line. The inward reality underlying the symbolic form could not be clearly seen until the appearance of Him who was Himself a perfect embodiment in flesh and blood of that which the symbols dimly shadowed. In Isaiah 13:3, the destroyers of Babylon are called God s " sanctified ones ; " because working out a purpose of God. So Jeremiah 51:27-28 : " sanctify against her nations, the kings of the Medes." Also Micah 3:5 : " he that puts not into their mouths, they (the wicked priests) sanctify war against him." They proclaim war, professing to do so in the service of God. Compare also 2 Kings 10:20, " sanctify an assembly for Baal : " the only passage in which the word is used for devotion to a god other than Jehovah. But it was used by one who for the moment professed to believe that Baal was the true God. In the Bks. of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah the word holy and its cognates are frequent, always in a ritual sense. So 2 Chronicles 23:6: " let none come into the house of Jehovah except the priests. They shall come in : for they are holy These books have much in common, in phrase and tone, with the latter part of Exodus, and with Leviticus. In prophetic vision, we read in Isaiah 4:3, "he that remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, everyone that is written among the living in Jerusalem;" and in ch. Isaiah 62:12, "they shall call them The people of holiness, Jehovah s redeemed ones." Compare Zechariah 14:20-21 : " In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness for Jehovah . . . yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness for Jehovah of Hosts." In the Bk. of Daniel, Daniel 7:18, Daniel 7:22, Daniel 7:25, Daniel 7:27, the word holy or saint is a frequent designation of the future people of God. This is an all-important anticipation of the use of the equivalent Greek word in the New Testament. The use of the words holy and sanctify in the above passages scattered throughout the Old Testament confirms strongly my exposition of their meaning in the pre ceding chapter. In Exodus 15:2-13 we read of God as glorious in holiness " and of the " dwelling place of Thy holiness" In Leviticus 11:44-45; Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:26; Leviticus 21:8, with conspicuous repetition, in phraseology closely related to that quoted above and describing the holiness of Israel, God solemnly declares, " Holy am I ; " and on the ground of His own holiness commands the people to sanctify themselves, and to be holy. In two of these passages, the holiness of God is given as a reason for abstaining from unclean food : a third passage refers to the holiness of the priests : and another is a warning to honour parents, to keep the Sabbath, and to turn from idolatry. In Leviticus 10:3 God declares, " in those who are near to Me, I will be sanctified: and in the presence of all the people, I will be glorified." Similarly Numbers 20:12; Numbers 27:14, Deuteronomy 32:51. Also Leviticus 22:32: "ye shall not profane the name of My holiness : and I will be sanctified in the midst of the sons of Israel. I am Jehovah who sanctifies you, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, to be your God." To determine the precise meaning of these conspicuous and solemn words, is no easy task. Its difficulty is seen in the widely different expositions of them adopted by the best scholars. See Leviticus 13:1-59.
One thing, however, is certain. In the four passages in which God speaks of Himself as Holy, all which passages we find in a book which is occupied almost exclusively with the Mosaic ritual ; in the two passages quoted above from the song of Moses in Exod. xv. ; and in those in which God claims to be sanctified by those who surround Him ; the word holy must represent the same idea as in the hundreds of passages surrounding them in the books of the Law, in which it is predicated of men and things. For the number and commonness and variety of the visible objects called holy in the everyday life of Israel must have given to the word a clearly defined meaning well understood by every Israelite. By representing God as calling Himself holy, the writers and editors of the Sacred Books, and with them the nation which accepted these books as divine, recognised that in dealing with these holy objects Israel stood before a Holy and Supreme Personality, of whose unseen nature these visible objects were a divinely-given expression.
We have seen that the one element common to all the holy objects, men, things, places, ritual, and times, was that by God s express command they all stood in a solemn relation to Him as specially His own. To speak of God as holy, is to say that this command and claim were a revelation of His nature. And this we can understand. Moses, Aaron, and Israel, encamped around the Sacred Tent, had thoughts about God very different from those of earlier days. To Aaron, Jehovah was now the supreme Personality who had claimed from him a lifelong and exclusive service. This claim was a new era, not only in his everyday life, but in his conception of God. Consequently, the word holy, which expressed Aaron s relation to God, was suitably used to express also God s relation to Aaron and to Israel. In other words, God s claim to the un reserved and exclusive devotion to Himself of the holy objects was an outflow of His inmost nature : and because He is what He is He can do no other than claim this unreserved devotion. Else where we shall see that it is an outflow of His infinite Love, which is itself the inmost Essence of God. This close relation of the holiness of God to the holy objects of the Old Covenant is clearly asserted in Leviticus 20:26: "Ye shall be for Me holy men ; because holy am I, Jehovah. And I have separated you from the peoples, to be Mine."
Since God s claim to the unreserved devotion of His people surpasses infinitely all claims put forth for the gods of the nations around, it reveals the unique majesty of God. So Exodus 15:1; Exodus 15:1 : " Who is like Thee among the gods, Jehovah . glorious in holiness!" And Mount Sinai, where He solemnly announced His claim, is called in 5:13 "the dwelling-place of Thy holiness."
Since this claim is an outflow of His inmost nature, and remains the same whatever man may do, it may be called the OBJECTIVE Holiness of God. When He manifested, in word or act, the strictness of His claim and His determination to uphold it, He was said to be sanctified, as in Leviticus 10:3, in the case of Nadab and Abihu. When men yielded to God the devotion He claimed, i.e. when in the subjective world of their own inner and outer life they put Him in the place of honour as their Master and Owner, they were said to sanctify God. So Deuteronomy 32:51, "because ye did not sanctify Me in the midst of the sons of Israel." So Numbers 27:14. This is the SUBJECTIVE Holiness which God claims for Himself in the hearts of His servants. In the Bk. of Psalms, the word holy is sometimes, and the word holiness frequently, applied to God. In the vision in Isa. vi., the Seraphim proclaim three times that Jehovah is Holy. This solemn and emphatic repetition asserts His in violable claim to the devotion of His intelligent creatures. Throughout the Bk. of Isaiah, we find some 24 times (also 2 Kings 19:22) the phrase "Holy One of Israel ; " and in Isaiah 29:23 " the Holy One of Jacob." So Psalms 71:22, Psalms 78:41, Psalms 89:18,
We also found six places in the Books of the Law, and many others in the Psalms and Prophets, in which the words holy and holiness are predicated of, or attributed to, God : and from these we learnt that God s claim was not merely casual, but was an outflow and expression of His Essence; that men sanctified God and His Name by rendering to Him the devotion He claims ; and that as the Creator of the World who had revealed Himself to Israel as to no other ancient nation, and had thus placed Israel in peculiar and solemn relation to Himself as His possession, Jehovah became the Holy One of Israel.
These results are independent of the dates and authorship of the Books of the Old Testament. For the general agree ment of all extant Hebrew Manuscripts and the Greek Septuagint Version proves that the Old Testament as we possess it in modern Bibles reproduces with substantial correctness books held sacred by Israel during the Persian dominion. These books preserve for us Israel s memory of its past history ; and reveal a knowledge of God, and a trust and joy in Him, unique in ancient literature. Moreover this memory of the past and these thoughts about God, by whomever the books were written, collected, or edited, were the intellectual and moral and religious back ground and atmosphere of the Gospel of Christ. In these ancient books, from various sources and of different dates, mostly un certain, we cannot detect with confidence any definite and substantial progress of thought. For throughout the Old Testament we find a clear knowledge of one personal God, the Creator of the world, the righteous Ruler of men, and the covenant God of Israel. And, although the symbolic conception of holiness be comes much more prominent in what seem to be the later documents, the radical conception of holiness is the same throughout.
Moreover, everywhere we find, alongside the exclusive holiness of certain separated objects, men or things, definite assertions of the holiness of the entire nation. So Exodus 3:5; Exodus 19:4-6; Exodus 19:23; Exodus 19:20, which are probably among the earliest parts of the Old Testament, compared with chs. Exodus 29:37; Exodus 30:29, Leviticus 11:45; Leviticus 19:2, apparently of much later date. This homogeneity of books written during many centuries points to a unique religious impulse which for long ages following dominated the thought and worship of Israel. And it is impossible to doubt that this impulse was due to a teacher of colossal influence, Moses, and to an event unique in the religious history of mankind, the Exodus.