KENNETH COPELAND AND EXODUS 15:26

Back in the 1970's I attended a church in which my wife and I became quite involved in the young married group. We not only met during Sunday morning classes but also for Wednesday night potluck dinners and lessons. One of the young men in this group had definite charismatic leanings and viewed himself as a budding pastor. Although he seldom attended our Wednesday get-togethers, he pressured us into studying a slender paperback book by Kenneth Copeland. I thought that the title was “None of These Diseases,” but the only book in print by that title now is by some other author. Whatever the title was, I do remember that Exodus 15:26 was about the only scriptural proof he gave for his main thesis that all we have to do is believe in God and He will bless you in every way, especially financially and in terms of your health.

After convincing us to study Copeland's book, the budding pastor stopped attending Wednesday nights and so the rest of us took turns teaching from each chapter. The first man struggled through the opening chapter, and then it was my turn the following week. I remember providing an easy scriptural rebuttal to each one of Copeland's assertions, at the end of which one woman in our group asked, “Why in the world are we wasting our time on this nonsense” and everyone else agreed. I should have kept my copy of the book since it would be interesting to revisit it after all these years, but I threw it away long ago.

Recently, I looked up some news articles concerning Copeland and his ministry to see what he is up to. You may already know more than I do on his activities, but I did find it interesting to see that now he is considered to be the wealthiest pastor in America with a net worth of $760 million living in an 18,000 square foot mansion in Texas located on 24 acres in Texas. He was quoted as saying, “When people drive by, they will know there is a God.” I am afraid that many more people would be thinking, “There is a sucker born every minute” considering the donations from his loyal followers that built that house.

Of course, Copeland has come for his share of criticism over the years for his lavish lifestyle, and rightfully so. He defends his mansion by explaining that it came from a dream his current, and third, wife had. Then God told him to build that house for two reasons: as a “ministry” to his wife and as part of his promised personal prosperity. At a conference of like-minded believers, he told them, “You may think it's too grand. I don't care what you think. I heard from heaven. Glory to God, hallelujah.”

It is interesting that Copeland has expanded his ministry empire using the very same appeal of Scientology: Follow our rules and we will make you rich and famous.

Although his teaching of the prosperity gospel is bad enough, his beliefs regarding freedom from disease are worth at least looking at through the lens of his Exodus 15:26 proof text. It appears in the Bible three days after the crossing of the Red Sea when the people begin complaining already about the lack of drinkable water. At that point,

“The LORD “made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he put them to the test. He said, 'If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the LORD who heals you.'”

The first thing to consider is the translation of the Hebrew word mahalah, or “diseases.” Harrison explains that the “the root hlh describes a general state of physical weakness (Gen 48:1) which is not always attributable to senility or disease...In Eccl 5:13 the NIV renders it as 'grievous': 'I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner.'” Parenthetically, that is a valuable lesson that Mr. Copeland would be wise to remember.

The specific word found in Exodus 15:26, mahalah, also appears in I Kings 8:37 and II Chronicles 6:28 where it is translated as “plague” by NIV, NKJV, NEB and NRSV. But the exact meaning in each case must be determined by looking at the context in which it occurs.

The diseases referred to in this passage are obviously the plagues Egypt had just experienced (see Exodus 7:8-11:10). If you look at these ten plagues, the only ones that could be considered as “diseases” in our sense of the word are the deadly pestilence and the boils. However, the pestilence was strictly an animal disease that did not touch the people. Of course, there is the tenth plague of death on the firstborn, but that would hardly fall in the category of an illness.

Thus,

    NEB translates the word in Exodus 15:26 as “sufferings;”

    The Jerusalem Bible renders it as “evils;”

    B.W. Anderson writes, “diseases, i.e. the Egyptian plagues;”

    Fretheim says, “Israel itself [is] now subject to the plagues;” and

    Durham explains: “The 'diseases of Egypt' refer to the mighty acts by which Yahweh made himself known to Israel and to the Egyptians in Egypt.”

So already we can see that Exodus 15:26 is not exactly the ideal proof text for those who would try to connect it with the healing of people's diseases and other physical conditions. But there is yet more to consider. For one thing, the scholars Chan, Song and Brown note that some interpret Exodus 15:26 as being written in the past tense so that it refers to the Israelites being recently spared from Egyptian plagues. If so, then it should not be understood as a promise at all, just as a reminder to them of what had already happened due to God's mercy.

Or we could go as far as Bernard Ramm and ask whether these words from God might be not a promise but a warning to a nation who “now thought that she was spiritually superior to the Egyptians.”

But assuming that it is a promise to the Jews, an even more important factor to keep in mind is whether it is a promise that (a) carries on over to New Testament believers and (b) is even to be applied on an individual basis rather than a communal one. Both of these contentions are dubious at best, especially the second point since throughout the history books in the OT blessings or curses are always associated with the actions of the Twelve Tribes or their designated leader, the king. As the majority of the nation went one way or another, all the people suffered or were blessed as a whole.

And in terms of the NT witness, it is true that Jesus and his apostles exercised the power to relieve the sufferings of certain individuals. But at the same time, Jesus made it clear that the fact a person had an illness should not be viewed as a sign of disobedience to God in any way. This was a huge change from the general OT attitude that equated prosperity and good health as the prime indicator of God's blessings on a person. Jesus turned that idea on its head by denouncing the rich and favoring the poor and disadvantaged. Thus, it is no accident that those who tout the prosperity gospel turn to the Old Testament to support their ideas and ignore much of the teachings of Jesus and James on that subject.

Next, let us consider the immediate context of Exodus 15:26 a little more closely. This verse is actually sandwiched between two occasions (15:23-25 and 15:27) where God provides drinkable water for the Israelites by having a log thrown into the water. So Ramm asks, “Why does this section occur here?...It may be connected with the healing of the bitter water at Marah. God is saying in effect, 'Just as I could heal the bitter waters of Marah, I can heal your bitter diseases.'”

Cole expresses this same idea when he states that “presumably the diseases 'put upon' the Egyptians refer in the first place to the plagues in general, but in particular to the turning of the water into blood, which made it undrinkable. Israel will never find the water that God supplies unpalatable: he is YWH their healer.”

Childs says that “the connection between the 'healing' of the water and 'Yahweh their healer' (v. 26) seems to be a very ancient one...The story is reminiscent of certain features in the plague tradition, in which the miracle is effected by means of a particular use of an ordinary rod (4:2) or by changing a common substance into something uncommon (9:8).” I would emend his statement a little bit to state that it has a more obvious similarity to the first plague in which the striking of the water with a (wooden) rod of staff turns water into blood. So this first positive miracle after crossing the Red Sea forms a perfect parallel, or reversal to be more precise, with the first plague. And other allusions to the ten plagues follow immediately:

The next testing of the Israelites in the story occurs in Exodus 16 when the people complain about the lack of food and God “rains down food from heaven.” (16:4) This a reversal of sorts of three separate plagues – those of the hail, locust, and animal pestilence which destroyed the food supply of the Egyptians. We could also contrast the frogs covering the land of Egypt in Exodus 8:6 and the locust covering the land in 10:15 with the quail covering the camp in 16:13. Another possible comparison is seen in the stinking of the Nile (7:7) and the stinking of the dead frogs (8:14) with the fouling of the manna by worms after one day (16:20). The final plague on Egypt and the final test of the Israelites have a similar correspondence: In both cases, obedience to God's commands allows the Jews to ward off a hostile attack by an adversary, the angel of death in the first instance and the Amelekite army in the second case.

All of the above examples serve to demonstrate two facts. First, the translation “diseases” in Exodus 15:26 is probably not the best one in this case since it obviously applies to a wide number of disasters, few of which have anything to do with medical conditions. Secondly, just as the plagues were visited on the Egyptian people as a whole, so the promise given in Exodus 15:26 obviously applies to the corporate body of Israelites, not primarily to the individuals.