God Is in the Details: the Significance of the Brook of Kidron

Introduction
I've written before on this blog about how the Bible uses geography to convey meaning. I am particularly interested in cases where multiple events, sometimes separated by centuries or even millenia, occur in the same place; in these cases, I often find that the events in question gracefully dovetail to paint a wonderful picture that ultimately points to Christ. This phenomenon is one of many examples of how the Bible works as a coherent whole rather than merely a collection of disparate texts. What may appear to be an obscure, insignificant detail mentioned in passing somewhere in an Old Testament narrative can yield a profusion of intricate meaning when coupled with a New-Testament counterpart, and vice versa. Common settings can act as one of many signposts for discovering such connections.

The Brook of Kidron
In my last post on biblical topography, I talked mainly about rivers. This time I would like to talk about another river - or rather a brook, namely the Brook of Kidron, which spans most of the perimeter of Jerusalem. At multiple times in the Bible, this stream is treated as a definitive border, a kind of Rubicon between the holy city and the wilderness beyond (e.g. Jeremiah 31:40); in this respect, it is not at all dissimilar to the Jordan, or even the Dead Sea. A second theme often associated with this body of water is that of judgement. For example, throughout the books of Chronicles and Kings, whenever the land was purged of its idols - which was a sort of routine experience, it would appear - they would be cast into this brook and burned as concrete declaration that these false gods had been rejected. Kidron's topography was particulary suited to this function given that it remained dry for most of the year and was exceptionally narrow yet deep along the section that abutted the city - a physical abyss if ever there was one. The very name 'Kidron', which means "making black or sad", testifies to its thematic associations.

These associations are also reflected in the three interconnected valleys that, at the time, contained the Brook of Kidron and loosely demarcated the city of Jerusalem: the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Valley of [the Son of] Hinnom (also known as Gehenna), and the Tyropoeon Valley (also known as the Valley of Cheesemongers). The first of these, which separates Mount Moriah (that is, the Temple Mount) from the Mount of Olives, is mentioned in name in only one chapter of the Bible - namely Joel 3, where it is envisioned as a place where Jehovah would judge all of the heathen for their offenses against Israel. Gehenna, meanwhile, was proclaimed by King Josiah to be defiled (2 Kings 23:10) after it was used as the location for idolatrous child-sacrifices (see 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2-6), and it subsequently featured a perpetual inferno used to incinerate the city's waste - including pig intestines, the ultimate uncleanliness. It thus become associated with hellfire (e.g. Jeremiah 7:32; Matthew 5:22,29,30, 10:28, 18:9, 23:15,33; Mark 9:43,15,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6), and may have been the "valley of the dry bones" envisaged by Ezekial (Chapter 37).

Although the themes of wilderness and judgement permeate the Brook of Kidron, so too do their opposite numbers - namely, paradise and grace. I have not yet mentioned the Tyropoeon Valley, which divided Moriah, the Temple Mount, from Zion, the City of David. Although it is today filled to the brim with rubbish and is therefore in keeping with the connotations of the other two valleys, it is also the location of the Springs of Siloam, through which King Hezekiah built his famous aqueduct to provide water for the city (2 Kings 20:20), from which the King's Garden, a plot of land so fertile that it was able to sustain vegetation year-round (e.g. Nehemiah 3:15; 2 Kings 25:4; Jeremiah 39:4, 52:7; Zechariah 14:10), and at which one of Jesus' healings took effect (John 9:7). Speaking of Hezekiah, that great king was also responsible for building a tunnel that connected the Pool of Siloam to the Pool of Gihon, which lay within a valley of the same name that was essentially just the western extremity of Gehenna (2 Chronicles 32:3, 30; 33:14). Gihon, if you recall from my last post on Biblical topography, was also the name of one of the four rivers of Eden (Genesis 2:13).

Prelude
While the Tyropoeon and the Hinnom Valleys contain 'redeeming features', however, it is the Valley of Jehoshaphat that points to the ultimate act of redemption. You will infer from this latter phrase that I referring to Christ; but rather than skip straight to the climax, it is worth prefacing the story with an excursion into the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel 15, David is forced to flee Jerusalem after his son Absalom conspires to usurp the throne. In verse 23, we are told that "all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by, and the king crossed the brook Kidron, and all the people passed on toward the wilderness". After ordering the priests to return the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem - which, you will recall, was supposed to accommodate the presence of God - David, weeping and mourning, ascends the Mount of Olives while Absalom enters Jerusalem to take charge (it is this particular event that indicates he crossed Kidron in the of the Valley of Jehoshaphat). In the next chapter, a relative of (the late) Saul called Shimei approaches, hurling stones, dust, and curses at David and his entourage. Abishai, the chief of David's three mighty men (see 2 Samuel 23), requests permission to decapitate this "dead dog", but David curiously chooses to let him continue his assault, reckoning that the curse has been sent by God.

Jump over to 1 Kings 1, and the throne is once again being contested by one of David's sons, this time Adonijah, who is holding an epic feast to celebrate his own illegitimate kingship. At the behest of his wife Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, David declares that Solomon will instead be king, according to his apparent promise to Bathsheba (Solomon's mother) and the Lord's earlier decree (see 1 Chronicles 22). There is an indirect allusion here to the Tyropoeon Valley, which separated Zion (where David had reigned) from Moriah (where Solomon would build the Temple), and it is in Gihon where Solomon is annointed as king; the Valley of Jehoshaphat, however, remains conspicuously absent. The text mentions three times that Solomon rode David's mule to his coronation ceremony, which is complete with trumpets and cheering. In the next chapter, David is on his death bed, issuing his last commandments and recommendations to Solomon. In verses 8 and 9, we read that David's final instruction to his son before he dies is to kill Shimei, the curser of 2 Samuel 15. From verse 36 onwards, however, we see that Solomon does not immediately obey this order; rather, he tells Shimei that he must stay within the walls of Jerusalem, and will be executed if he ventures beyond - you guessed it - the Brook of Kidron. Shimei initially accedes to this arrangement, but eventually violates it by pursuing his servants (on a donkey, no less) after they run away, and is duly put to death. In later chapters, Solomon goes on to construct the Temple.

Climax
What is the significance of all of these details? You will no doubt have discerned a few Messianic parallels already - some of which are prophesied in Zechariah chapters 9 and 14 - but let's explore them in more detail. There is a particular period in Jesus' life that represents a mirror image of the Old Testament synposis outlined above, beginning in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, when Jesus comes to the town of Bethany on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. The Old Testament story, too, began on this mountain; but whereas the Old Testament story ended with Solomon executing Shimei, and thus fulfilling the curse of death, the New Testament story begins with Jesus resurrecting Lazarus, and thus portending the blessing of eternal life. In the next chapter (see also Matthew 21; Mark 14; Luke 19), after a stint in the wilderness (during which quite a lot actually happens, according to the other gospels), Jesus is once again in Bethany, but descends the Mount of Olives to enter Jerusalem, presumably crossing the Brook of Kidron in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The procession known as the 'Triumphal Entry' closely resembles Solomon's royal coronation ceremony, complete with donkey and ebullient crowd, the members of which even refer to Jesus as "the Son of David".

Although synchronising the chronologies of the various gospel accounts is not straightforward, it appears that Jesus actually leaves Jerusalem sometime after the Triumphal Entry and returns to Bethany, making at least one more foray in and out of Jerusalem before his final entry (see Matthew 21; Mark 11). Again, a lot actually happens in this interval, perhaps most notably Jesus' prediction that he will destroy the Temple and raise it in three days (Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:5-6) - a kind of augmented antithesis of Solomon's appointment to build the physical building. The more stylised Gospel of John, however, skips directly from the Triumphal Entry (chapter 12) to the Last Supper (chapter 13), which is now believed to have taken place on Mount Zion, the City of David. Indeed, just as David delivered his final instructions to Solomon before his death, it is here that Jesus delivers His final instructions to His disciples - six chapters' worth, in fact! Unlike David, however, who issued multiple commandments - most of them relating to vengeful executions - Jesus leaves one overriding commandment, namely to love one another (John 13:34), speaking extensively of His own execution.

The next transition in John occurs in chapters 18 (see also Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22), where the marvelous symmetry between the Old and New Testament stories really comes to a head. In verse 1, we read that Jesus leaves Jerusalem and crosses the Brook of Kidron - which here receives its only mention in the entire New Testament - to enter the Garden of Gesthemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. From the other gospel accounts, it seems to be here, beyond the categorical border of Kidron, that Jesus actually comes face to face with His fate (which is, however, also his willing sacrifice), namely the utter separation from God (who is geographically symbolised by Jerusalem) that accompanies sin - the judgement, the Gehenna, the place at which false idols and all that was unclean was condemned to the depths and immolated. It is beyond the Brook of Kidron that Jesus, in sheer anguish, cries out to God and even sweats blood in a manner that harks back to David's own sorrowful ascent of Olivet after ordering that the Ark of God's presence be returned to Jerusalem. Indeed, like David, who accepted the curse foisted on him by Shimei and instructed his mighty men not to brandish their swords, Jesus submits to Judas and his posse of guards, directing Simon Peter to sheathe his sword and repairing the damage already inflicted by it.

David, however, was a man of blood, and could not drink the cup of judgement that came from Bethlehem (see 2 Samuel 23) - the cup that Jesus, a man of blood in a very different sense, chooses to bear in Gesthemane. Jesus is taken back to Jerusalem, where, just as the false king Adonijah was feasting when Solomon was coronated, Jesus is crucified as "King of the Jews" during the Passover Feast - outside of the city walls, no less. Jesus thus crossed the Brook of Kidron, where the Israelites had sacrificed their children to the false god Molech, to sacrifice Himself, the Son of God. In so doing, He absorbed Shimei's curse of death, which was due to all of us. However, while Solomon went on to build the physical Temple, Jesus was resurrected in the Temple of his own body. The redemptive repercussions of this twofold act were foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, who proclaimed: "The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever" (Jeremiah 31:40).

Epilogue
If you enjoyed this post or found it insightful, I would encourage you to adopt a similar approach to Bible study. One of the many beautiful things about the Bible is that it contains so many layers of meaning. You can glean the surface level relatively easily, at least in many cases; but to reap the layers underneath, you have to spend time sowing. I have found that God - and not the Devil, as the saying goes - is so often in details. Seek and you will find!

The Parable of the Greek Debt Crisis

I wasn't sure whether to post this on here or my other blog, as it encompasses both Biblical material and current economic events; so, if either of these subjects do not interest you, you may want to turn away now.

Thomas Piketty, the 'superstar' economist famous for his recent book on inequality, was the latest commentator to point out a particularly cruel irony regarding current events in the Eurozone - namely that Germany, while refusing to entertain the possibility of pruning (let alone cancelling) the debt owed to it by Greece, in fact never repaid the vast liabilities that it accrued following the Second World War. Those debts were essentially cancelled by the Allies because they were so obviously counterproductive ('odious' is the technical term, I believe) for all parties involved - such a cumbersome debt burden would prevent the German economy from recovering anytime in the foreseeable future, which would in turn not only prevent the country from ever repaying its debts, but also duplicate the very recessionary climate that facilitated Hitler's rise to power. The same dilemma is clearly at play in Greece today - while far-right parties are waiting in the wings for a chance to pounce, even the IMF admitted in a  leaked document that Greece would not be able to repay its debts even in its 'best case scenario'. Thus, as many commentators (not least Yanis Varoufakis, Syriza's recently-resigned finance member) have pointed out, the 'conditionalities' currently being imposed on Greece, which including beyond-draconian austerity measures that can only have the effect of further strangulating the economy, are incomprehensible from any rational perspective.

All of this is well-known. What I find especially interesting, however, is that Jesus Himself captured this situation quite accurately in his Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, recorded for us in verses 21-35 of Matthew 18, which are transcribed below.


The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (or, the Greek Debt Crisis)

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything'. The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back'. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

"When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant', he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

Singularity and Totality

If you observe a single particle, what you find is an entire universe. If you consider the entire universe, what you find is a single particle.

If you isolate a single moment, what you find is eternity. If you consider eternity, what you find is a single moment.

Organic and Mechanistic Systems

There are two systems. One system, based on rationality, is logical, orderly, and efficient; the other, based on intuition, instinct, and emotion, is reactive, unplanned, and unpredictable. I call the former the ‘mechanistic’ system and the latter the ‘organic’ system.

In psychology, these respective systems are sometimes referred to as the “cold” and “hard” modes of cognition, and also relate to the common distinction between logical and creative, right- and left-brained, or practical and visionary personality types. A similar distinction can be made with regard to our nervous systems, which comprise both somatic and autonomic sub-systems, respectively responsible for voluntary and involuntary activities. In fact, however, the organic-mechanistic dichotomy is an overarching, metaphysical concept that applies to areas beyond our selves. In the social realm, for example, we can distinguish between informal communities and formal institutions. Religion, too, can be analysed using this framework – while some groups are primarily concerned with theology and doctrine, and tend to conduct their services in an organised fashion, others focus on spirit and experience, and operate on a more spontaneous basis.

In a way, of course, the organic-mechanistic dichotomy is merely a restatement of the well-known yin-yang schema. Indeed, like yin and yang, organic and mechanistic systems are at once complementary and competing. They are complementary because no system can function effectively without both sub-systems; think of a person with either no emotion or no logic, or a religion with either no doctrine or no experience. They are competing, however, because the two sub-systems function according to conflicting logics. Indeed, the logic of the organic system is not necessarily logical at all; and the very fact that I have used the word ‘logic’ to describe the modus operandi of both systems – and indeed, the fact that I have referred to them both as ‘systems’ – demonstrates a key insight of the dichotomy, namely that the mechanistic system has an inherent and inexorable tendency to engulf and overwhelm the organic system. This is evident in, for example: the bureaucratisation and patriarchal domination of society; the relentless insatiability of capitalism and empire; and the tendency for schools to focus exclusively on ‘head-knowledge’ to the neglect of other aspects of education.

The mechanistic system colonises the organic system in an attempt to tame its intolerably wild nature, which does not cohere with its paradigm of order, progress, or whatever. By this very token, however, it is the mechanistic system that must in fact be tamed, for its attempts at control ultimately violate the divine balance, producing a lopsided, ineffective, and unviable system that ultimately self-destructs. An industrialised world destroys the natural environment on which it depends; a power-based politics provokes nuclear holocaust; commodification, consumerism, and cost-benefit analysis devalue the very commodities that that they purport to value while excluding those non-quantifiable and non-tradable aspects of life that actually improve wellbeing.

Indeed, it is the failure of the mechanistic system that shows us the need for the organic. I think, for example, of how the vast failures of the current socio-economic system (which I have discussed at length on my other blog) indicate (in my opinion) the need for a more cooperative – that is, a more organic – socio-economy. There is also a clear parallel here to the gospel of Christ, who came not to abolish the Law, with its detailed lists of rules and regulations, but to fulfil it – to complement it with a ‘logic of Love’. Indeed, these two applications – the socio-economic system and the gospel of Christ – are not completely separate. I am particularly reminded of how, in Britain, the mechanistic systems of the Roman Empire – both religious and socio-economic – eventually overpowered the organic systems of the native Celts, only to later implode under the sheer weight of their own organisational apparatus. Such situations likewise reveal the need for a new, more balanced system.

*Note: This post was inspired by Charles Eisenstein’s insightful tome, The Ascent of Humanity.

The Breath of Life: Why I Am Considering Going Vegan

Like the majority of omnivores, I long thought that vegans - at least of the Christian variety - were just deluded cranks who hadn’t appreciated the nature of God's creation. After all, doesn’t it say in Genesis that mankind was given dominion over all the animals?

Yes, it does say that (Genesis 1:26-8); but this does not entail a right to eat animals. On the contrary, in the next few verses, God tells Adam, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” (emphasis mine). At the beginning of creation, when all things were good, both mankind and all of animal-kind - that is, “everything that ha[d] the breath of life”[1] - were vegetarian (possibly vegan, in fact, given that neither milk nor eggs were explicitly mandated for consumption). It is especially interesting to note that both animals and humans were created on the same (sixth) day (Genesis 1:24-31).

In fact, the first time we encounter the death of anything with “the breath of life” - the same breath that God breathed onto the soil to animate man - is after the fall, when God renders “garments of skins” for the ashamed Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:21); presumably, God slaughtered an animal to acquire these skins. From then on, we see animals slaughtered as a sacrifice to atone for the now-ubiquitous sin. Indeed, these animal sacrifices were necessary - while God rejected Cain's sacrifice, which comprised “the fruit of the ground”, he accepted Abel’s sacrifice, which comprised “the firstborn of his flock” (Genesis 4:1-7). It is not until Genesis 9:3, moreover, that animals are explicitly given to man for food in addition to plants. Only a few lines down in verse 8, however, when God delivers his multi-coloured promise to never again judge the world through flood, he specifies that the covenant is not only for Noah and his offspring, but also for "every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth"; the chapter repeats the phrase "every living creature" three more times in subsequent verses. Even when animal consumption is permitted, moreover, there is a sober and reverent caveat that the blood - which is the very essence of life - must not be consumed. The subsequent books of the Law stipulate in more detail the complicated procedures required for animal consumption.

Ultimately, of course, the ultimate atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God – the Blood of Christ – was necessary to abolish the consequence of sin, namely the curse of death. On the one hand, this implies that all foods - including animal products - have become clean (Mark 7:19). On the other hand, this idea could be turned on its head - doesn’t the fact that Christ has defeated death imply that we can/should go back to the Edenic state of veganism? This, I think, is where the ambiguity enters in, and why I am still reluctant to commit one way or the other. Yes, we are living in the New Life of Christ, having been reborn spiritually; but we are living in a strange intermediary period, for although are spirits are redeemed, our souls are still arenas of conflict, and are bodies (along with the rest of creation) are still subject to death (Romans 8:18-25; 1 Corinthians 13:12, 15:50-6). To be sure, one day the process of renewal will be complete, and in that day, even carnivorous animals will become herbivores, living harmoniously alongside the creatures that they once killed (Isaiah 11:6-9, 65:25).

In the meantime, it might seem reasonable to conclude that even if animals have souls (minds, emotions, etc.), they do not have spirits; and since it is only our spirits that are fully redeemed, whether or not we kill animals is irrelevant. But I can’t get past the phrase in Genesis referring to the animal kingdom, “everything that has the breath of life”– isn’t breath a symbol of spirit in the Bible, for example when Christ breaths the Holy Spirit onto His disciples (John 20:22), and when that same Spirit falls “like a mighty rushing wind” onto the brethren at Pentecost (Acts 2:2)? Indeed, our English word ‘spirit’ comes from the Latin ‘spiritus’, meaning breath. If it was God’s breath that initially gave us our person-hood and that now allows us to partake in His divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4), do not animals then contain some spiritual person-hood? If we bear the image of God, do not animals also, given that they are not all that different from us in a physical sense (there must be a more significant physical difference between a slug and an ape than between an ape and a man, for example)? And even if animals are ‘spiritually dead’, don’t we say the same about those who have not accepted Christ’s sacrifice, whom we most certainly think it is wrong to kill (and even more so to eat!)?

At present, I do not object to killing or eating animals in principle. What I find repulsive is the soulless commodification – the battery hens, the mass-market pig ‘farms’, the factory-line abattoirs – of something (someone?) that bears the same signature of the divine Creator that we ourselves bear. After all, what does it mean to have “dominion” over animals - merely that we are at the top of the food chain? Obviously not, because in pre-sin Eden there was no food chain. On the contrary, when the food chain did come about (after sin that is), mankind was probably not at its apex – I would think that sabre-tooth tigers, leviathans, and whatnot could probably stake a greater claim to that position. Dominion must mean something more holistic than merely domination; it must indicate some sort of stewardship. How can we create a system of dominion in its holistic sense? Surely Christians should be concerned with these sort of questions, if we indeed want to see the Kingdom of God come, His will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven!

Note:
[1] Genesis 8: 21-2 actually specifies that it is land-borne creatures that possess the breath of life.

The Fallacy of Ownership and the Sin of Commodification

The Ownership of Human Life

There is a curious passage in 2 Samuel 24, retold in 1 Chronicles 21, wherein King David provokes God to anger by, of all things, taking a census of the Israelites (and in 2 Samuel, also the people of Judah). Why should this act incur the wrath of God, when censuses had been taken before (just read the book of Numbers) and would be taken afterwards (a couple of chapters later in 1 Chronicles, in fact) without entailing any such consequences?

One possibility, which I would imagine is the one that is usually touted, is that God did not command David to take the census; rather, it was Satan who ‘tempted’ David to do so (in 2 Samuel, most translations suggest that it was God who “incited” David to take action, but apparently this is an erroneous rendering; I’m afraid that I lack the knowledge of ancient Hebrew required for me to comment on this point). Surely, though, a given act is only sinful if it contravenes the Law of God. After all, why would Satan tempt somebody to do something, unless that thing was contrary to God’s commandments?

In fact, in Exodus 30:11-14, we find precisely such a commandment: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord's offering.’” It would appear from this passage that the sin, and the ensuing judgement of pestilence, lay in the fact that David undertook the census without imposing its attendant tax. This is undoubtedly why Joab, the commander who David ordered to carry out the census, was so hesitant to do so, and did so rather unenthusiastically, omitting the Levites and the Benjamites – he understood the grave consequences of such a crime. But why did God require this ‘census tax’, and why did David not implement it?

Fictitious Commodification

Here, I think, we arrive at the crux of the passage. In those days, one was only allowed to count what one owned. This is reflected in Jesus’ teaching that we are more valuable than sparrows because God Himself has numbered the hairs of our head (Matthew 10:29-33; Luke 12:6-7). In this light, the census tax existed as a way of acknowledging that human life belongs to God and God alone, with the king acting merely as a sort of representative; its purpose was to “bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for [their] lives” (Exodus 30:16). David, it would appear, had grown haughty as king, having just defeated the kingdoms of Ammon, Aram, Rabbah, and the Philistines, even smiting the great Philistine giants with his mighty men (1 Chronicles 19-20). As a result, he perhaps felt a sense of ownership over the kingdom, and thus reckoned that it was within his mandate to number ‘his’ people without paying the tax. In other words, he had falsely commoditised something – namely human life – which in fact was owned only by God Himself. The inevitable result was judgement, as symbolised by David’s vision of the sword-wielding angel of the Lord standing by the threshing floor of Onan (Araunah in 2 Samuel) the Jebusite, ready to destroy Jerusalem (see Micah 4:12), and as materialised in the three-day pestilence that God inflicts upon all of Israel.

In our modern, capitalist world, we have committed the same sin on an even wider scale, and to an even greater extent. We have quantified and commoditised all things sacred, even to the point of assigning a monetary value to human life. Indeed, it is surely no coincidence that in economic techniques of cost-benefit analysis, lives are valued according to their (potential) incomes. This stands in direct contravention of the stipulations of the census tax, which state that “[t]he rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord's offering to make atonement for your lives” (Exodus 30:15). All lives were seen as equally valuable, just as God saw them. If pestilence across an entire nation is the punishment for failing to pay the census tax, I dread to imagine what kind of judgement is commensurate with our ubiquitous, unabashed commodification of human life.

The Ultimate Atoning Sacrifice

Thankfully, there are a number of clear messianic overtones in this passage that point towards mercy, grace, and redemption. Jesus was born during a census; echoing the stipulations in Exodus, He came “as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45); He was an innocent “sheep”, as David refers to the Israelites who experience God’s judgement in 2 Samuel 24:17 and 1 Chronicles 21:17 (an interesting contrast - one innocent man taking the sins of many versus many innocent people taking the sins of one person); and mirroring the three-day judgement of pestilence, He was in the grave for three days before rising again. As if this were not already striking enough, there are a number of uncanny similarities between this passage and the episode of Abraham binding Isaac for sacrifice, which in itself is a vivid messianic picture (Genesis 22). Just as the innocent Isaac was to be slaughtered, so too the innocent Israelites were to be punished for David’s sin; and just as the angel intervened before Abraham could do the deed, so too the Lord stopped His angel from destroying Jerusalem at the last minute. The most telling detail is that, as we later dsicover in Chronicles 3:1, Onan’s threshing floor was located on Mount Moriah – the very place that Abraham offered Isaac for sacrifice!

Furthermore, when David purchases the threshing floor from Onan, we witness a ‘strange exchange’. Recognising the infinite value of the sacred, Onan offers the land to David for free, and even throws in some extras, including the threshing sledges along with the wood, the wheat, and the grain for the various offerings that David subsequently performed. The supposed ‘owner’ of the threshing floor states, “[a]ll this, O king, Araunah gives to the king” (2 Samuel 24:23), and “I give it all” (1 Chronicles 21:23). David, however, feels obligated to pay something, perhaps as a tribute to the Lord, and so offers 50 shekels of silver (in 2 Samuel) or 600 shekels of gold (in 1 Chronicles). This exchange is strange because transactions are normally negotiated in the opposite way, with the buyer and seller respectively vying for the lowest and highest possible price. Indeed, there is a sense in which the final price is more or less arbitrary, especially considering that even the currency differs between the two accounts. Surely this is points forward to the New Covenant; and perhaps it provides a model of the New Economy.

The Infinitude of the Divine

The significance of Mount Moriah is even more marked when it is chosen as the site for the Temple in the subsequent chapter of 1 Chronicles, with the construction itself beginning in 2 Chronicles 3 under the reign of Solomon. In fact, the tax was originally used to pay for “the service of the tent of meeting” (Exodus 30:16), and the stipulations for the tax are outlined smack in the middle of the stipulations regarding the Temple. The construction of the Temple on the site of the threshing floor is an interesting juxtaposition of judgement and blessing; indeed, the threshing floor is often portrayed as a place not only of the former, but also the latter (Numbers 18:30; Joel 2:24). It is almost as if God’s presence could not be established until a sort of purification had taken place.

What is peculiar, however, is that, as we know from numerous passages, the measurements of the Temple were comprehensively quantified; there are chapters and chapters in Exodus, for example, meticulously outlining the specifications of the Tabernacle, which are reflected in the specifications of the Temple outlined in, for example, 2 Chronicles 3 and 4. At the same time, the building of the Temple involved seemingly unquantifiable amounts of resources; in 1 Chronicles 22, we are told of “great quantities of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing, and cedar timbers without number”, as well as “craftsmen without number”. The Temple is the place of meeting between God and man, divine and worldly, sacred and profane, temporal and eternal, numerical and infinite.

After it has been decided that the Temple will be built, eventually permitting the return of the Ark of the Covenant and the re-establishment of God's presence as King of Israel, we witness a change in David’s attitude. Although the various categories of people (stewards, musicians, builders, etc.) are still referred to as David's “property” (1 Chronicles 27:31), in his final public prayer as king David himself avers, “O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own” (1 Chronicles 29:16, emphasis added). Furthermore, now that God is acknowledged  the “own”-er, quantification serves to glorify Him rather than to glorify His earthly representative: vast censuses are taken of the people without incurring any punishment; indeed, wrath comes upon Israel because Joab does not fully complete the census (1 Chronicles 27:24). Note that Joab also failed to complete the first census that David ordered, but in that case, his refusal may well have averted rather than invited further judgement.

Just as it was Solomon, of whom it was prophesied “Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest” (1 Chronicles 22:9) who built the Temple, so it was Christ, the Son of God and the Man of Rest who has rebuilt the Temple and reclaimed the Kingdom, which now resides within and between us. As ‘walking temples’, we know that our lives are not our own; they were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). With His own life, Christ has paid the ultimate atonement, the ultimate ransom, the ultimate tax for our lives. In response, we should “give it all to the king”, just as Onan did, including our own lives, as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1); for in doing so, we live in the New Covenant. One day, when Christ returns, the world will be judged on the threshing floor once again, with the wheat separated from the chaff (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:17). Just as the Temple was built on the site of Onan's threshing floor, from this judgement will descend a New Jerusalem, defined according to the same measurements but with Christ Himself is the Temple (Revelation 21).

The Monastic Economy: a Macroeconomic Account of the Bible

In this post, I would like to lay out a utopian vision of the economy (if not in a blog, where is one permitted to indulge in such fantasies?). What exactly do I mean by ‘utopian’? I could be referring either to an economy for an ideal world, or the ideal economy for a fallen world. My vision actually touches on both areas, because as fallen but saved individuals living in a created but fallen world, our reality does indeed contain aspects of both.

The Economy of Eden

To see this, first ask the question: is economics a product of the fall? In other words, was there an economy before sin? I would say yes, but not in the sense that we usually understand it. There was no scarcity, no private property, and no trade; everyone just ate from the unlimited abundance of the Garden of Eden, while everyone also held stewardship over that garden. In this regard, it was much like communism. However, we will really know the answer to this question, because Adam and Eve sinned while they were still the only people on the planet. Even if there was some division of labour between the two, the sophistication of the economy was critically limited by the small number of agents; although it was not a ‘Robinson Crusoe economy’ – the sort of single-agent economy usually invoked as an analytical starting point in economics textbooks – it was only one step above, perhaps akin to the situation in which Crusoe meets Sunday but without the scarcity and trade.

We do know, however, that the economy of Eden was regulated, albeit with only one regulation, namely the prohibition of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In fact, it was only the infringement of this regulation that economics as we know it – “the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between given ends and scarce means which have alternative uses”, in Lionel Robbins’ famous neoclassical definition – came about. So in this sense, the economy (and the study thereof) are indeed a product of the Fall; with sin came scarcity, private property, and market exchange, and all their associated evils – exploitation, inequality, alienation, waste, and environmental degradation, just to name a few. Critically, the contravention of the original regulation (that is, original sin) paved the way for an economy based on individualistic, selfish behaviour.

The Economy of the Old Covenant

How to remain set apart for God in a world of sinful nature and economic evil? In the Old Testament, the solution is more regulation (‘the Law’), set out in the first few books of the Bible after Genesis (i.e. the rest of the Torah). In some ways, this regulated economy was remarkably backward, not least in the fact that slavery was permitted. However, all were seen as equal under God and equally bound by the Law, and all would share in the inheritance of the Promised Land. Furthermore, although private property was permitted and even secured, it was extraordinarily malleable. In Leviticus 19:9-10 (see also 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-22), for example, Moses writes: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” Accordingly, anyone was allowed to eat from the wheat fields and vineyards of another, so long as she did not store any of the produce (Deuteronomy 23:45-6).

We also know that work was prohibited on the seventh day of each week (Exodus 20:8-12, 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:12-15); that every seven years there would be “Sabbath for the land”; and that after the ‘seventh-seventh’ (forty-ninth) year there would be Jubilee (Leviticus 25) in which debts would be forgiven, slaves would be set free, and property redeemed. There were also explicit directives against taking advantage of the poor and needy, for example through usury (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35-7; Deuteronomy 23:19, 24:10-5). Finally, prefiguring a kind of welfare state, a form of taxation (tithing) was imposed to provide for the “the Levite…the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow” (Deuteronomy 14:29). In short, regulations were implemented in order to protect against the adverse social effects of a fallen economy, and with conformance to these regulations, the economy would approach, if never fully re-enter, the abundance of Eden, to which numerous Old Testament prophets (economic commentators and forecasters?) alluded.

The Economy of the New Covenant

But what about the New Covenant, of which these prophets also spoke? This leads me back to the opening passage of this post, for although we are indeed living in a fallen world, the ultimate act of redemption – the ultimate Jubilee – has already occurred; although we are still waiting for Christ to “make all things new” (Revelation 21:5), we are ourselves “new creations in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). So as Christians we are living in a strange sort of time lapse, which Paul often refers to in his letters. In Romans 8:19-23, for example, he describes how “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” One way of understanding this odd situation is that although our spirits have been redeemed, our bodies are not yet glorified; our souls, meanwhile, are currently in the process of being sanctified. This implies that we can experience some aspects of God’s design and Christ’s redemption even in today’s fallen economy, because the behavioural foundations of that economy (at least the part of the economy inhabited by believers, which is an important caveat to keep in mind in the following) have fundamentally changed.

So what might a redeemed, not-yet-glorified, and still-being-sanctified economy look like? Before I hazard a guess, I would emphasise that Christ did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17-20). This implies that the regulations of the Old Testament will be fulfilled without needing to be enforced, namely through the punishment of death. In this respect, I think it is relevant that, as believers, we are all members of a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). Although the Levite priests in the Old Economy had no property of their own, apart from the cities set aside for them. At the same time, they had special privileges in redeeming property – a sort of ‘jubilee at will’. Our priesthood is similar, I feel, but also different; it is, after all, based on the order of Melchizedek, rather than the lineage of Aaron (Hebrews 7:13-7).

The vision I have for the economy, which follows on from the priesthood concept, is what I call “the monastic economy”, although it might just as accurately be called a “kibbutz economy”. Monasteries have historically acted not only as religious institutions dedicated to worship and scholarship, but also, and simultaneously, as economic units engaging in large-scale production and prolific trade. The economy I have in mind would be made up of similar socio-economic groups, each comprising, say, five-hundred ‘monks’ (and ‘nuns’!). Each monastery would be self-sufficient in basic services such as education and healthcare, but not necessarily in all goods; it would engage in agricultural and industrial production, selling its surplus products to other monasteries in exchange for its outstanding requirements, perhaps directly through barter or perhaps through a system of money, or perhaps through some centralised ‘clearing house’. Each monastery would be autonomous, controlled in a democratic (and, through the New Covenant within each believer, hopefully theocratic) manner, for example with regards to how to distribute responsibilities and apportion rewards, what to produce and what to purchase, and so on. As intrinsically social groups, the monasteries would also purport to reintegrate the social dimension back into the economic, and vice versa, thus naturally fulfilling the innumerable regulations on social life stipulated in the Old Covenant (although disciplinary codes would undoubtedly need to be democratically established in each monastery – we are, after all, in the process of being sanctified).

If the communist flavour of this vision upsets the reader, I would remind her of the point I made with regard to the economy of Eden, viz. that it, too, was palpably communistic. That said, it might be alleged that such an economy, if implemented within the confines of a fallen world, would be incredibly backward, leading to the sort of decline experienced in, say, China under Mao Zedong. The precedent of the Mondragón cooperatives in the Basque Country, however, demonstrates that cooperative enterprises need not be run purely as communes, but can rather enjoy the benefits of specialisation, management, and innovation, and can therefore thrive on a large scale. In fact, monasteries themselves provide a telling precedent; apparently, monks in the Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire developed a prototype blast furnace in the 1500’s – centuries before the Industrial Revolution – and were set to use it on a large scale before being evicted by Henry VIII (see here).

Relatedly, it might be alleged that monastic enterprises would fail to incentivise workers and suffer from ‘free-riding’, given the fallen nature of mankind. However, Mondragón again provides evidence that the individualistic behaviour usually assumed by economics to prevail unconditionally is in fact a product of an economy based on such behaviour, and that alternative economic organisations can elicit alternative modes of behaviour. After all, is it not the crux of the New Covenant that we are given the gift of grace in spite of any works of our own, and are thus motivated to carry out good works (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-9)? Do we not love because we were first loved (1 John 4:19-21)? And does not love sum up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:36-40; Galatians 5:13-4)? In any case, the argument can be made that communal, communal, and generally unconventional forms of enterprise are only inefficient (and only suffer from the ramifications of individualistic behaviour) precisely because they are unconventional, which leads to various kinds of formal and informal ‘institutional bias’. Accordingly, if they were scaled up to the entire economy, their inefficiencies would disappear.

Alas, this vision is thoroughly utopian, firstly because not everyone would agree on it, and secondly because there would be no way to implement it without going through the intermediate stage of complete nationalisation that Marx envisaged – a step which, as the experience of the Soviet Union attests, would undoubtedly backfire when it comes to altering the behavioural foundations of the economy. There are also potential pitfalls that I have not covered, such as the possibility for monasteries to exploit each other, or for internal systems of exploitation to develop (pitfalls to which Mondragón also gives precedent!). But one can dream...