In this verse we read the concept that God's blessing to Abraham and his descendants was, at least partially, in order to bring a blessing on all Gentiles. And at the outset, I must admit that the realization of this fact only sunk in to my consciousness a few years ago even though I had literally been attending church services since my first week of life. I will have to lay the blame of my ignorance mainly on the nature of the various churches I have belonged to over the decades.
Half of these congregations prided themselves on being “New Testament” churches, some to the extent that they actually refused to teach from the Old Testament books of the Bible or confined themselves to the sorts of narratives that would appeal to children such as Noah and the Ark or David and Goliath. These churches liked to minimize the great debt Christians owe to OT teachings and heroes of the faith. Therefore, to them the concept of us being children of Abraham was somewhat abhorrent.
The other congregations I belonged to over the years were strongly influenced by the then (and still today) fascination with the theology of dispensational premillennialism. One of the leaders in that movement famously (or infamously) stated that the present church (which is mainly composed of gentile believers) is a mere “parenthesis” in God's overall plan of history which is really centered in the coming 1,000-year reign in which the political and religious leadership of the planet will be carried out by ethnic Jews headquartered in Jerusalem who will, among other things, revive the practice of animal sacrifices in a brand new temple constructed there. To dispensationalists, therefore, it is tantamount to heresy to suggest that perhaps the main reason Abraham's line was chosen by God was to bless the gentile people.
For example, here is the opinion of one such dispensationalist: “Abram would be responsible for opening the blessing of the Lord to the families of the earth. This Word probably meant that, along with the promises of God that granted enrichment, Abram would share the knowledge of God...It thus became Abram's responsibility to transmit this message wherever he went.” (Ross) Paul's judaizing enemies in Galatia would have had no trouble whatsoever in agreeing with Ross.
But in trying to honestly understand the meaning of Genesis 12:3 (repeated in Genesis 22:18 and 26:4), we run into two main issues, which we will consider in turn.
The Nature of the Blessing
Here we are confronted with two problems, one of a textual nature and the other concerning the interpretation of that text. We can best see this by considering how different English translators have rendered the text:
“In you all the nations on earth will be blessed.” This is the basic translation found in KJV, The Message, and ESV.
NRSV also has this in its wording, but appends the footnote “or 'shall bless themselves'.”
NIV follows suit but adds in a footnote “on earth I will use your name in blessings (cf. 48:20).”
TEV also opts for “I will bless all the nations” with the note “All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed you.”
Living Bible words the same idea slightly differently: “You will be a blessing to.” However, there is an explanatory note reading “I will make your name so famous that it will be used to pronounce blessings on others.”
Finally, RSV reverses the two possibilities given in the later NRSV so that the text itself reads “shall bless themselves” while the alternative reading in a footnote is “shall be blessed.”
Wenham notes, “The rarity of its usage [referring to the particular of the verb 'bless'] has led to uncertainty about the precise meaning of the verb here.” He categorizes the main interpretations into three categories:
1. “be blessed” as found in the Greek Septuagint, Latin Vulgate, Jewish Targum, the apocryphal book Wisdom of Sirach 44:21, Acts 3:25; and Galatians 3:8.
2. “find blessing,” as in NAB
3. “bless themselves,” according to RSV, NEB and AB. The last possibility can be understood to mean “May we be blessed like Abram.”
Wenham adds that the verb form used might be “a way of combining two ideas, that Abram's name will be used in blessing [#3] and that all clans will be blessed in him [#1]. He warns, “Not every individual is promised blessing in Abram but every major group in the world will be blessed.”
Below are some additional attempts to understand what “blessing” means in this passage:
Alexander: “The climax of God's call to Abraham comes in the statement 'so that all the families of the ground may be blessed through you'. The promise that Abraham will become a 'great nation', which comes in the first part of the divine speech in 12:1-3, is subservient to God's principal desire to bless all the families of the ground. The prime motive behind the call of Abraham is God's intention to bless humanity and reverse the disastrous consequence of Adam and Eve's rebellion in the Garden of Eden.”
Carr: “'So that you will be a blessing,' implies that those associated with Abraham and his heirs will flourish as well. Later Laban (30.27-30) and Potiphar (39.5) will both gain blessing through association with Abraham's heirs...'In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed' has been a particularly important passage in the Christian translation.”
Ross: “It appears that at this point a more spiritual significance of 'blessing' is in mind.”
Seed
The meaning of this key word has been discussed by scholars even more since Paul in Galatians 3:29 makes a big deal out of the face that “seed” is singular. He uses that fact to show that it refers to one of Abraham descendants only, namely Jesus Christ. Some commentators accept Paul's reasoning here and explain it in several different ways while others feel it smacks more of eisegesis than exegesis. Both types of comments are given below:
“The stress on seed (cf. Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7), not seeds, was made simply to remind the readers that the faithful in Israel had always recognized that blessing would ultimately come through a single individual, the Messiah (cf. Gal. 3::19). And Matthew declared Christ to be the Son of Abraham and the true Heir to the First Covenant's promise (Matt. 1:1).” (Campbell)
“Paul contrasts the singular seed in the text with the common (and in his view mistaken) interpretation of it as a plural, seeds...Paul argues that Christ is the one heir of Abraham...” (Briggs)
“It would be ludicrous to suggest that Paul was unaware of the collective sense of sperma ['seed'] or that he was hoping that his readers would not detect this 'logical flaw.' In this very passage – indeed, at its climax – he affirms, 'If you are of Christ, then you (plural!) are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise' (3:29). The collective meaning of the term is fundamental for Paul's argument, and this we can hardly read 3:16 as though he were wishing to exclude such a meaning...Paul's readers, and even his Judaizing opponents (all of whom acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah), would have readily acknowledged this identification between Abraham's seed and the Christ.” (Silva)
“The word 'seed' obscures the force of the original [in Genesis], for the original was a collective noun which would have been inappropriate in the plural. The argument is directed not so much to the distinction between singular and plural, as to emphasizing that a collective noun might equally have a purely singular meaning: in effect, that God deliberately used a word not normally used in the plural. Here the word, apparently comprising the whole nation, is seen to have a deeper meaning referring to the single seed – Christ.” (Coad)
“The sense is not to successive generations of men, but fulfillment in one kind of offspring, which is summed up in Christ. This interpretation is not evident in the language of Gn. 12:7; 13:15; 17:7,8; and 22:18, but neither is it excluded.” (Mikolaski)
“In Paul sperma occasionally transcends the basic physical relation to include the spiritual descendants of OT believers. The common NT expression 'seed of Abraham' thus is not restricted to the generic house of Israel, but includes all who possess the same kind of faith as the patriarch...As head of the corporate community (Gal. 3:29), Christ is identified as the ultimate fulfillment of the divine promises to the patriarchs and later to David (Acts 13:23,33ff).” (Demarest)
“Paul knows as well as any other scholar that sperma, 'seed', can have a collective sense even in the singular...He is saying, in typically Jewish fashion, that there is an appropriateness in the use of the singular here in that the true fulfillment is only in connection with Christ. Here all must agree.” (Cole)
“Building on the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, Paul interpreted this as a blessing of the Gentiles through Abraham (Gal. 3.8). Yet the closest analogies to this promise suggest that the alternative translation, 'by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves', i.e., they will say 'May we be like Abraham,' is probably closer to the meaning of the Hebrew. Like 48.20, it envisions other nations of the world looking to Abraham's great blessing and wishing a similar one on themselves (see Ps 72.17).” (Carr)
“While the first mention of 'seed' in [Genesis] 22:17 denotes 'descendants' in the plural, the remaining references to 'seed' are ambiguous; they could refer either to many descendants or to a single descendant. On syntactical grounds, God's comment in 22:18...'through you and your seed all the nations on earth will be blessed', is best understood as referring to a single descendant [i.e. Jesus] (cf. Ps. 72:17).” (Alexander)
F.F. Bruce cites other places in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word zera ('seed') refers to a single person; including Genesis 4:25; 21:12-13; and II Samuel 7:12-15.
Ridderbos says, “Now it is true that many regard this appeal to the singular noun as rather remarkable. For the word translated seed in our version has a collective sense, also in the Hebrew and the Greek (cf. Rom. 4:13,18 and Gal. 3:28)...Many are consequently inclined to regard this whole argument about the singular noun to be simply a piece of 'rabbinical invention,' which does not rest on tenable ground.” Ridderbos therefore believes that the basis of Paul's argument lies in the singular use of the word in passages such as Genesis 17:19-21; 21:12; 4:25; 1 Samuel 1:11.
Guthrie asks whether Paul's argument is “valid from a merely grammatical feature.” His reply is: “At first it seems not only strange but strangely unlike Paul to deduce so much from such a narrow basis...And yet Paul is not basing a truth on a small point of grammar. He has a deep spiritual appraisal of the real nature of Abraham's covenant.”
Martyn approaches the question from a mainly critical viewpoint of Paul's argument: “For Paul God's covenantal promise to Abraham consists of only one thing, God's assurance that he will one day bless the Gentiles in Abraham (Gal 3:8)...Even in focusing his attention on this single verse, Paul ignores two factors: (a) the plain meaning of the word 'seed' in Genesis 17, where it is clearly a collective referring to the people of Israel as the descendants of Abraham, generation after generation; (b) his own earlier willingness to discuss the issue of the identity of Abraham's plural children (v 7; Rom 4:13-16). Thus, bold move follows bold move, for the Galatians are sure to have learned of the expression 'seed of Abraham' from the Teachers, and the Teachers will have used it in its collective sense, insisting that the Abrahamic blessing, having come long ago to the plural people of Israel is now flowing to Gentiles who join that people by observance of the Law...Given developments in his Galatian churches, however, the singular is what Paul actually hears in Gen 17:8, and he is sure that reading honors the true voice of God's scripture (cf. 3:8).”
John Stott provides a good summary of the overall issue, including comments on both the blessing and 'seed': “To what divine promise is he alluding? God promised an inheritance to Abraham and his posterity. Paul knew perfectly well that the immediate, literal reference of this promise was to the land of Canaan, which God was going to give to Abraham's physical descendants. But he also knew that this did not exhaust its meaning...Indeed, it could not have been, for God said that in Abraham's seed all the families of the earth would be blessed,, and how could the whole world be blessed through Jews living in the land of Canaan? Paul realized that both the 'land' which was promised and the 'seed' to whom it was promised were ultimately spiritual.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments