Q-R

Q

Q (for Quelle, source)  A symbol used by biblical scholars to designate the hy- 

        pothetical source of the material common to Matthew and Luke and not 

        found in Mark.  Not all scholars have accepted the existence of Q as a 

        single document.  There is widespread agreement among scholars that this

        source is represented mainly by the parallel material in Matthew and Luke

        that is not found in Mark; that it contained little narrative and no passion 

        story; that it was composed largely of detached sayings of Jesus; and that 

        its order is better preserved by Luke.  Q is regarded as an extremely valua-

        ble witness to the historical Jesus.  Originating around 50 A.D., it takes us

        back to within twenty years of Jesus’ death.     

QERE  (קרי, that which is to be read)  The scribes were prohibited to alter the

        authoritative consonants of the text; where their oral tradition diverged, it

        was entered in the margin of the Masoretic Text by means of the Qere.

QESITAH (הקשיט, something weighed)  An old weight or coin of unknown

        origin mentioned in Genesis 33, Joshua 24, and Job 42.

QOHELETH (קהלת, preacher, one who calls together)  Alternate spelling of

        Koheleth, the Hebrew title of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

QUAILS (שליו (seh lave))  Any of a genus of small birds, such as quails, par-

        tridges, and pheasants.  Selayv is referred to in the Old Testament and in 

        the Wisdom of Solomon only in connection with its provision as food at 

        the time of the Exodus.   According to the tradition, twice after the He-

        brews’ departure from Egypt, large numbers of these birds descended on

        Israel’s camp; the coming of the quails was interpreted as providential.

                   Quails in the Mediterranean area winter in Africa and migrate 

        northward.  When the birds alight to refresh themselves, they are easily 

        caught.  Presumably it was a cloud of migrating quails that came down  

        on the Hebrew encampment.

QUARRY (מסﬠ (mah sah’), stone of the quarry; הסיע (ha say y’ah), [verb]) 

        An excavation from which stone is cut for building purposes.  Hasay’a 

        is a verb meaning “to cut stone for building.”   Many commentators be-    

        lieve that hashebarim should be translated as “quarry” rather than as a 

        place name in Joshua 7. 

                   Many sites in Palestine preserve evidence of quarrying; the so-

        called “Solomon’s Quarries” is one example.  North of Jerusalem in biblical

        times, it now lies under a section of the walled city east of the Damascus 

        gate.  Rock was cut from the surface, as on the northern slopes of Lachish.

                   Methods of quarrying are illustrated at Samaria, where unfinished 

        stones were found on a quarry bed dating from the Old Testament period.  

        The stone was soft-quality limestone, which hardens with exposure to the 

        air.  Deep channels on four sides were cut; stone was either pried, wooden 

        wedges were inserted, or stone was split loose along a natural cleavage 

        line with a sharp blow.  The channels were cut with short-handled, narrow-

        bladed, iron picks.  In the Roman period stones of 5 to 10 tons were not 

        uncommon.  Presumably rollers or sledges and earthen ramps were used.

QUART (coinix (koy niks))  A dry measure slightly less than a quart.

QUARTERMASTER (מנוחה שר (shar  meh no khaw), quiet prince or noble; [it

        is likely a scribal error, as changing מנחה ﬧש (shar menokhah to מחנה

        שר (shar makhaneh) would translate as “prince of the camp or army.”] )  

        An officer in charge of rations, supplies, etc., for the troops, and possibly 

        custodian of tribute.      

   Q-1

QUARTUS (KouartoV (koo ar tos))  A Christian man who sends a greeting 

        through Paul.  He is also mentioned in the subscription to I Corinthians   

        in the Textus Receptus.

QUATERNION (tetradion (teh tra dee on), New Revised Standard Version 

        translates as “squad.”) King James Version translation of Greek word 

        above.

QUEEN (מלכה (ma leh kaw); basilissa (bah sih lis sah))  A feminine ruling 

        sovereign, or the consort, widow, or mother of a monarch.

                   Queens who ruled as sovereigns of a nation were not unknown in

        the ancient Near East.  The Bible reports 2 non-Israelite queens: the queen

        of Sheba; and Candace of the Ethiopians.  The Hebrews had only Athali-

        ah, who seized the throne after her son Ahaziah’s death.  She usurped the 

        throne for 7 years.

                   It appears that the queen had no unique official status, either in 

        Israel or in Judah.  In Persia, the queens Vashti and Esther were required 

        to show absolute obedience to their husband.  Bathsheba bowed and did 

        obeisance to David, but Saul’s daughter Michal mocked and defied Da-

        vid without penalty.  The place of the queen was the place of honor at the

        right of the king.  Marriages such as that of David and Maacah, Solomon

        and the Pharaoh’s daughter, and Ahab and Jezebel, served as tokens of 

        peaceful diplomatic relationships and alliances between the powers in-

        volved.   Besides the queen there were also royal consorts of lesser im-

        portance who were indiscriminately called queens.

                   If the role of the queen consort was not too significant, the role 

        played by the queen mother was more important.  The influence of the 

        mother of the ruling king was great in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and in the 

        Hittite Empire; the queen mother had an official status in Judah.  The 

        queen mother was greeted by the king with signs of honor.  Solomon 

        rose and bowed before Bathsheba.   The queen mother probably had a 

        crown; she is repeatedly mentioned together with the king.  Athaliah’s abi-

        lity to usurp the Judean throne for 7 years is additional proof of the consi-

        derable power and influence of the queen mother.

                 The status of the queen mother in the northern kingdom of Israel was

        equal in importance to those in Judah; the names of only 2 queen mo-

        thers, Zeruah (mother of Jeroboam, who initiated the split into north [Isra-

        el] and south [Judah]) and Jezebel (mother of Joram, wife of Ahab) were 

        preserved.  This may be due to the editor of the books of Kings’ unfavora-

        ble attitude toward the northern kingdom.

                 The New Testament references to queens do not shed any more light 

        upon the status or office of queen.  

QUEEN OF THE HEAVENS (השמים מלכת (meh leh ket  ha shaw ma yeem))

        The object of worship, particularly by women, in Judah in the time of Jere-

        miah, who censures the Jewish refugees for burning incense and offering 

        libation, cakes in the form of the goddess, to the queen of the heavens.  

        From Jeremiah 7 and 44 it is not possible to determine with certainty the 

        object of worship.  Certain manuscripts read melaket instead of meleket; 

        the former means “handiwork,” as in “heavenly handiwork” (i.e. stars).  

        The Primary Greek Old Testament translates the phrase as “the heavenly 

        host.” 

                   If “queen of the heavens” is to be read, the reference might be to 

        Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility.  It is possible the Astarte, or Ashto-

        reth, the Canaanite fertility-goddess, had preserved more traces of her 

        astral character as the female counterpart of Ashtar than the Old Testa-

        ment or the Ras Shamra texts indicates.

QUEEN OF SHEBA. See Sheba, Queen of.

QUICK, QUICKEN (יח (khay), alive; מחיה (me kheh yaw), preservation of life)

        Archaic King James Version expressions for the Hebrew word.  In the 

        phrase “judge of the quick and the dead,” the “quick” are those still living

        at the Second Coming.

QUINTUS MEMMIUS.  See Memmius, Quintus.

Q-2

QUIRINIUS (KurhnioV)  The Roman governor of Syria, a census by whom 

        is given as the date of the Nativity of Jesus.  The Quirinius census in Jo-

        sephus’ writing clashes both in date and in scope with the data in Luke.  

        Sulpicius Quirinius was elected consul of Rome in 12 B.C.  His succes-

        ses in Alecia earned him a triumph.  In 2 A.D. he accompanied Gaius 

        Caesar eastward as his tutor.   He served as legate in Syria for several 

        years, beginning in 6 B.C.

                   Luke has allocated the nativity events to the “days of Herod the 

        King . . .  in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all

        the world should be enrolled.   This was the first enrollment when Quiri-

        nius was governor of Syria.”   Herod died in 4 B.C.  His son Archelaus 

        was deposed in 6 A.D.   Josephus relates that a census for tax purposes 

        took place in Judea.  

                   If Luke and Josephus are narrating the same event, then the date 

        according to Luke was 4 B.C.; according to Josephus it was 6 or 7 A.D.

        The account in Josephus limits the census to Palestine; Luke has stated 

        that “all the world should be enrolled.”   While evidence exists that a re-

        turn to one’s native residence for purpose of tax enrollment was required 

        in a limited area, the requirement for the return of “all the world” to their

        native homes would not be made. 

                   In Luke’s context, the census is used for two purposes: it seeks to 

        establish the date and it gives the reason for the birth in Bethlehem.  Nei- 

        ther Mark nor John states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but rather 

        imply that Nazareth was Jesus’ birthplace.   And the words translated 

        “This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria,” 

        have been translated differently. 

                   If under Quirinius only one census enrollment took place, then 

        Luke and Josephus are irreconcilable.  If, though, more than one census 

        took place, then reconciliation becomes possible.   Acts 5 reveals that 

        Luke knew of the 6 A.D. census, and therefore he alludes to an earlier and

        first census, in 4 B.C.   Since Josephus’ coverage of this period is quite 

        thorough, the fact that he makes no mention of such a monumental census

        has to be given serious consideration.  The solution of the problem,

        though inevitably unpalatable to many, consists in recognizing that 

        “Luke’s history is not always dependable.”

                   It is likely, however, that we deal not alone with a minor inaccuracy.

        More probable than faulty use was an indifference to historical exactness 

        which characterized Luke.   Luke assumed, with Matthew, the Messiah 

        must have been born in Bethlehem.  The purpose of Luke’s narrative and 

        census is “to bring Joseph of the house of David to the city of David for 

        the birth of the Messiah.”  The setting aside of the accuracy of the census

        of Quirinius necessarily sets aside the birth in Bethlehem.

QUIVER (אשפה (‘ah seh faw))  A container for carrying arrows, usually 

        made of leather, ornamented with metal or paint, and hung over the 

        shoulder.

QUMRAN, KHIRBET.  See the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/ Influen-

        ces Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

QUOTATIONS.  Explicit direct quotations occur very rarely in the Old Testa-

        ment (OT) but comparatively frequently in the New Testament (NT).  The 

        sparse direct OT quotations are from earlier books that have perished:  

        Book of Jasher (Joshua 10); Book of Song (I Kings 8); Book of the Wars of

        Yahweh (Numbers 21); Books of the Chronicles of the Kings [Judah and Is-

        rael] (I and II Kings); Commentary on the Book of the Kings [different 

        names are used in the Bible] (I and II Chronicles); and Memoirs of Nehe-

        miah (Ezra and Nehemiah).  The poetic passages in a prose setting should 

        be regarded, not as quoted, but as simply here recorded.  Between the OT 

        and the literature of Mesopotamia and Egypt, there are many points of 

        contact.

                   In the NT, the scripture is explicitly quoted some 150 times and ta-

        citly quoted 1,100 additional times.  The purpose of quoting the OT is to 

        secure confirmation of a NT statement by an authority respected by Jews, 

        Christians, and God-fearing Gentiles; the OT is also quoted against itself.

        What is thereby confirmed may be a matter on conduct, a general princi-

        ple, or a theological insight.  Very often in Matthew, an event is set forth 

        as divinely willed by appeal to an OT passage which predicts it or can be 

        made to predict it. 

                   By and large, the OT is quoted according to the Greek OT, the lan-

        guage rarely reflecting any knowledge of the Hebrew text.  The chief ex-

        ception to this is the group of 43 quotations in Matthew.   The only pas-

        sage from non-canonical Jewish literature explicitly quoted in the NT is 

        I Enoch 1:9 in Jude 14, but there are a score of echoes from and allusions

        to such books.  Gentile literary forms are present, especially in the man-

        nerisms of the Stoic diatribe frequently present in the Pauline letters.

                   There is no explicit quoting of one NT book by another, but there 

        is a sharing of facts, such as the duplications of Markan pericopes in Mat-

        thew and Luke, the use of Jude by II Peter, and the somewhat less appa-

        rent use of Colossians in Ephesians.  Like the poetic passages in the midst

        of OT prose, the NT has its hymn-like passages in the midst of prose.  

        Various scholars see the following passages as belonging to this class:  I 

        Corinthians 13; Ephesians 5:14; Philippians 2; Colossians 1; and I Timo-

        thy 3.  Tradition is constantly “quoted” in the five narrative books of the 

        New Testament.

Q-3

R

RA or RE.  The Egyptian sun-god, whose chief cult center was Thebes.

RAAMAH  (רעמה, trembling, shivering)  A son of Cush, and the father of She-

        ba and Dedan, the name of an Arabian locality.  Sheba and Dedan traders 

        are reported to have brought the best of spices for the wares of this city.  

        Many have identified Raamah with a city located on the Persian Gulf.  A 

        better identification is with the city of Raamah in southwestern Arabia.

RAB-MAG (מגﬧב־ (rab  mawj), chief of the magi)  The designation of a court 

        official of the Babylonian king; probably from Akkadian, the meaning of

        which is unknown (Jeremiah 39).  

RAB-SARIS (רב־סריס, chief of eunuchs, courtiers)  This is an Assyrian loan

        word in Hebrew, a euphemistic designation for the eunuchs at the Assy-

        rian court (II Kings 18; Jeremiah 39).

RAB-SHAKEH (רב־שקה, chief cupbearer, butler)  The Assyrian and Babylo-

        nian designation of the chief cup-bearer of the king (II Kings 18).

      

RABBAH (רבה, great city)  Ancient capital of the Ammonite kingdom, 36.8 km

        east of the Jordan River in the upper Jabbok River valley, and site of pre-

        sent-day Amman, Jordan.   Rabbah is the only city east of the Jordan 

        which biblical tradition clearly designates as Ammonite.  The Iron Age 

        settlement seems to have been divided into a “royal city” with a fortress 

        on top of a triangular plateau north of the valley, and a “city of waters” 

        guarding a large source of water for the city.  Following the destruction 

        of the Ammonite kingdom in the 500s B.C., Rabbah was not rebuilt until

        Greek times, when the city was renamed Philadelphia.

                   (See also the entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influen-

        ces Outside the Bible section of Appendix. 

                   The earliest Ammonite occupation of Rabbah wasn't before the Late

        Bronze Age (1550-1220 B.C.).  Recent excavation near the Amman airport 

        has disclosed a Late Bronze shrine with many artifacts.  The curious isola-

        tion of the small shrine in the open country 4 km east of Amman would 

        seem to suggest its use by semi-nomadic people and caravan traders of 

        the early Ammonite kingdom.   Several Iron Age tombs have been cleared 

        at Amman whose main contents point to a Late Iron Age II date (700-600). 

                   From an architectural standpoint, the most important period at Am-

        man was the 100s A.D.   The Roman remains include the citadel and the 

        ruins of two temples on the acropolis.  Two other acropolises are without 

        ruins, although some think one of them may have contained the Early Iron 

        Age capital.   Among the splendid constructions south of the main acropo-

        lis is a long street of pillars, along which are arranged an aqueduct, a bath,

        the propylaeum or elaborate entrance of the acropolis, the amphitheater, 

        and an eastern gate and wall.  The city participated extensively in the pro-

        sperity of eastern Palestine during the 100s-200s A.D.

                   On the basis of archaeology, ancient Rabbah would seem to have 

        been established as early as the 1200s B.C.   The most extensive biblical 

        references to Rabbah are in connection with David’s siege of the Ammo-

        nite capital in the early 900s B.C.   Joab directed the initial phase of the 

        siege and captured only part of the city.  David led forth reserve troops 

        and administered the decisive blow.   David pillaged the Ammonite capi-

        tal, and organized Rabbah’s citizens into a labor corvée.  Throughout the 

        United Monarchy, Rabbah continued under Israelite suzerainty.   But 

        sometime from 900-850, the Ammonites regained their independence.

                   No further mention of the Ammonite capital occurs in biblical lite-

        rature until near the end of the 600s B.C.  The ultimate destruction of the

        Ammonite capital by the invading Arab hordes around 580 is vividly de-

        scribed by Ezekiel.  The name of Rabbah is nowhere mentioned in the 

        OT in connection with Jewish history of the post-exilic period.  Philadel-

        phia did not belong to the province of Arabia until the time of Trajan in 

        106 A.D.  It became the seat of a Christian bishop.  In 635 Philadelphia 

        succumbed to the Arab conquest. 

RABBAH (OF JUDAH) (רבה, great city)  A village of Judah in the highland

        district very near Jerusalem; its present location remains unknown.

RABBI, RABBONI (rabbi, my master; from רב, master)  One learned in the

        Mosaic law; hence a teacher of the law.  Formerly, it was simply a title of

        respect, addressed to learned laymen.   In the Talmudic era rab was used 

        chiefly of Babylonian teachers and rabbi of Palestinian teachers.  In the 

        New Testament, rabbi is simply an honorific with no overtones of official

        appointment.  In most cases, “rabbi” and “rabboni” mean Jesus.   This oc-

        curs twice in Matthew, 4 or 5 times in Mark, and some 8 times in John.

RABBITH (רבית, multitude) A border and a Levitical town in Issachar.  “Rab-

        bith” is an error for “Daberath.”

RACA (raka, raca, worthless fellow)  A term of reproach or insult, indicating 

        a person who is contemptible in some way.  Jesus said that anyone who 

        uses this expression will be “liable to the council.”

                   “Raca” has usually been taken as a transliteration of the Aramaic

        reqa, meaning inferior or stupid.   On the other hand, discovery of a 

        Greek papyrus letter from 257 B.C., in which rachan is used has sug-

        gested that the word is a Greek term of abuse.

RACAL (רכל, traffic)  A village in southern Judah to which David sent some

        booty taken from the Amalekites.

RACHEL (רחל, ewe; Rachl) Laban’s younger daughter; Jacob’s second wife;

        mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

                  Like Rebekah, her aunt and mother-in-law, Rachel appears at a well.

        Hers was located near Haran in Mesopotamia, whither Jacob had fled 

        from his brother.  Jacob was immediately attracted to this beautiful she-

        pherdess who was also his cousin, and agreed to work seven years for 

        Laban.  At the end of that time Laban substituted Leah, his older daughter.

        In order to gain Rachel, he worked seven more years for Laban.

R-2

                   Rachel wasn't immediately fruitful after the marriage.  She was both

        impatient and jealous when Leah gave birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and 

        Judah; she gave Jacob her handmaid Bilhah.  The children that resulted, 

        Dan and Naphtali, were named by Rachel.   Rachel’s burning desire for 

        fruitfulness led to her request for Reuben’s mandrakes.  After Zilpah, 

        Leah’s handmaid, had borne Gad and Asher, and Leah had given birth to 

        Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah, then Rachel had Joseph. 

                   When Jacob determined to return to his homeland, both Rachel and 

        Leah agreed with him.   Rachel stole her father’s household gods, which 

        would ensure both success and the family inheritance.  Jacob’s favoritism 

        for Rachel and Joseph is reflected by their position in the processional.  

        They were placed last, where they would be safest.  Rachel’s death came 

        with the birth of her second child, as the company was moving south be-

        tween Bethel and Ephrath.  She called his name Ben-oni (son of my sor-

        row), but Jacob named him Benjamin (son of my right-hand or most-fa-

        vored son). She was buried near Ephrath in Benjamin’s territory.

                   Outside of Genesis, only Ruth 4 and Jeremiah 31 refer to Rachel.  

        The Hebrew idea of corporate personality would suggest that the Rachel 

        traditions reflect tribal history.   Some who see no evidence of history 

        think it is possible that there was once a Rachel tribe or clan.   More cer-

        tain is the history of Israel’s tribes.  Jacob-Israel’s sons represent the 12-

        tribe loose federation which flourished during the period of the judges.

                 That Joseph was born to Rachel in the region of Haran reveals the 

        memory of an Aramean origin of “Joseph’s house.”  Since Rachel’s 

        second son, Benjamin, was born in Palestine, it might be that this tribe 

        was formed only there, or that Benjamin was the first tribe to enter Pale-  

        stine.  The entry of the Joseph tribes into Palestine is possibly reflected 

        in the order of the births of Jacob’s children.   But since Rachel’s son 

        Joseph and particularly Joseph’s son Ephraim, became pre-eminent in 

        the north where these tradition were formed they present Rachel and 

        Joseph as favored by Jacob.

                   In the New Testament there is a single reference to Rachel.   The 

        verse from Jeremiah 31—Rachel’s weeping for her children—is used in 

        Matthew in connection with the slaying of the infants by Herod.

RACHEL’S TOMB.  The burial place of Rachel, Jacob’s wife.  The traditional

        location is about 1.6 km north of Bethlehem.   At least as early as the 300s 

        A.D. there was a monument there.   The present building consists of a 

        square domed room about 9.3 meters on a side, erected by Crusaders.  

        Genesis 35:16 contains a gloss by an editor, explaining erroneously that 

        the Ephrath of Rachel’s burial was in the district of Ephrathah, south of 

        Jerusalem.   Both I Samuel 10:2 and Jeremiah 31:15 assume a situation 

        north of Jerusalem for her grave.  

RADDAI (רדי, subduing)  The fifth son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, and conse-

        quently, an elder brother of David.

RAFT (דברות (do beh roth), float; רפסדות (rah peh so doth), floats))  A

        floating collection of logs, timber, etc., fastened together, for their own con-

        veyance or for a support.  Both words refer to the method which Hiram of 

        Tyre used to transport cedar and cypress logs by sea from Lebanon to 

        Joppa.   It is possible that rafts were used as ferries at the more important 

        fords of the Jordan. 

RAFTERS (קירות (key roth), wall; קרק (ka reh ka’), floor)  Beams supporting

        the roof of a building.

RAHAB (רחב (raw khab), wide, broad)   The harlot who sheltered the men 

        sent by Joshua to spy out Jericho.  According to the narrative.  Joshua sent

        two men in secret to assess the strength of Canaan.   They lodged in the 

        house of Rahab the harlot; the city-king heard of this and sent messengers

        to Rahab, whom Rahab misdirected while hiding the spies.  Rahab visited

        the men hiding on the roof and told them that she had heard of the mighty

        deeds of Yahweh, that she knew Yahweh to be “God in heaven,” and 

        asked the spies to swear that her clan would be spared.   For purposes of 

        identification she tied a scarlet thread in her window.  There is no further 

        mention of Rahab in the Old Testament. 

                   In the New Testament (NT), according to Matthew’s genealogy of 

        Jesus, Rahab was the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz.  Elsewhere

        in the NT, Rahab is cited as an example of justification by works in James

        2, and as one who because of her faith did not perish in Hebrews 11.

RAHAB (DRAGON) (רהב, insolence, pride) One of the names of the mytholo-

        gical dragon vanquished by Yahweh in primordial combat.  The name is 

        found only in poetic passages of the Old Testament (Job 9, 26; Psalm 89, 

        and Isaiah 30 and 51), all written after the 600s B.C.  “Rahab’s helpers” 

        in Job 9 are submarine creatures who support the world; other world folk-

        lore has such creatures.   In Psalm 87 and Isaiah 30 this mythological 

        name is used figuratively to compare Egypt with the proud monster who 

        was reduced to impotence.

RAHAM (רחם (rah kham), womb, maiden)  A descendent of Judah; son of

        Shema, and the father of Jorkeam.

RAIN (םשג geh shem), heavy shower; רמט (maw tawr);  ﬧםז (tsah ram), 

        downpour; brecw (breh ko);   uetoV (hue et os))  Most of the annual 

        rainfall in Palestine occurs in three months (December to early March).

RAINBOW (קשת (kah shat), bow; iriV (eye rees))  The reflection and refrac-

        tion of sunlight by a curtain of falling rain, producing a bow or arc of the

        prismatic colors.  Frequently it has as background the cloud mass of a 

        retreating thunderstorm.  It is the bow which Yahweh has set aside after 

        shooting the arrows of his lightning, and becomes the sign of Yahweh’s 

        covenant that “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all 

        flesh.”  The rainbow became a feature of scenes laid in heaven (Ezekiel 1;

        Revelation 4).

RAISIN-CAKES (אשישי (‘eh shee shay))  Food prepared by the pressing of 

        dried grapes.  Because it is virtually imperishable, such food is suitable 

        for travel and for military provisions.  It was apparently also used in the 

        cult of the fertility goddesses.

R-3

RAISINS (צמוקים (tsee moo keem))  Raisins often appear in lists of provi-

        sions.  They were prepared by soaking bunches of grapes in oil and water

        and spreading them in the sun to dry.

RAKEM (רקם, colorful)  A grandson of Manasseh (I Chronicles 7.16)

RAKKETH (רקת, thinness)  A fortified town in Naphtali, near the Sea of 

        Chinneroth (Galilee), perhaps about 2.4 km north of Tiberias.  The Tal-

        mud suggests that Rakkath is located under modern Tiberias (Joshua 19)

RAKKON (רקון, thinness)  A village of Dan on or near the Jarkon River, not far

        from the Mediterranean.

RAM (רם, high) 1.  Ancestor of King David and Jesus (Ruth 4; I Chronicles 2).  

        2.  The first-born son of Jerahmeel of Judah (I Chronicles 2).  3.  Head 

        of the family of Elihu, one of the friends of Job (Job 32).

RAM (ANIMAL) (איל (‘ah yeel))  A mature male sheep.  The ram was a pos-

        sible sacrificial offering in a number of rituals, including peace offerings

        and the guilt offerings.   The ram was used for meat, rams’ skins were 

        used as coverings for the tabernacle, and the ram’s horn was commonly 

        used in early times for trumpets.   It is the ram, caught by his horns in 

        the thicket that provides a substitute for the Isaac sacrifice.  I Samuel 15,

        Isaiah 1, and Micah 6 have examples of passages that use rams to extol 

        faith and obedience over ritual offerings.

RAMAH (רמה, high place)  1.  A border town in northern Asher near Tyre; the

        exact location of the ancient town is unknown.  It could be Ramia, or it 

        could also be that Ramah in Asher may be the same as Ramah in Naph-

        tali, because the town was located on the common territorial border of 

        Asher and Naphtali.

                   2.  A fortified town in Naphtali, probably 24 km west of modern 

        Safed on the route to Acco.

                   3.  A town in Benjamin’s inheritance, near the frontier between 

        the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah.  

        Baasha, Israel’s king, fortified it in an attempt to blockade Judah from 

        the north.  Asa of Judah dismantled Ramah and used its stones and tim-

        bers to fortify nearby Geba and Mizpah.  In 587 B.C., Ramah seems to 

        have been a gathering point from which the amassed captives of Jerusa- 

        lem and Judah were taken into Babylonian exile.   Ramah was one of 

        the villages reoccupied by returning Benjaminites.

                   Ramah is listed between Gibeon and Beeroth (Judges 4); Debo-

        rah’s palm tree is located between Ramah and Bethel.   The Assyrian 

        army is envisioned by Isaiah as passing in succession through Geba, 

        Ramah, and Gibeah (Isaiah 10).  The references above and others make 

        practically certain its identity with modern er-Ram, about 8 km north of 

        Jerusalem.

                   4.  A town in the hill country of Ephraim, either 14.4 km northeast

        of Lydda, or 19.6 km northwest of Bethel.  It was the native home, official

        residence and burial of Samuel.   The first reference to this Ramah identi-

        fies it as Ramathaim (Ramath with two heights).

                   From their home in Ramah, the parents of Samuel were accus-

        tomed to make an annual pilgrimage to the religious center at Shiloh to 

        worship and sacrifice.  At Ramah, Samuel built an altar; administered jus-

        tice; and from this point he went on annual circuit.   It was at Ramah that 

        the elders of Israel came to Samuel to ask for the appointment of a king; 

        Saul first encountered the prophet here. 

                   Having anointed David successor to Saul, Samuel arose and re-

        turned to his home; David fled from Saul to there.   Seeking to capture 

        David there, both Saul and his messenger prophesied before the prophets. 

        In Ramah Samuel died and was buried in his house.  In 145 B.C., as head 

        of toparchy called Rathamin, the site and its surroundings were detached 

        from Samaria and assigned instead to Judah.  It could be the same as the 

        Arimathea of the New Testament.

                   5.  A town of Simeon in the Negeb of Judah.   It was one of the ci-

        ties to which David made presents from the booty he gained from the 

        Amalekites; the site is unknown.

RAMATHITE (רמתי) A Ramah native, used in I Chronicles 27 to describe the 

        chief  husbandman of David’s vineyards

RAMATH-LEHI (רמת לחי, high-place of the jaw bone)  The  place where 

        Samson routed a group of Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

R-4

RAMATH-MIZPEH (רמת המצפה, high-place of the watch-tower)  A town assigned to the tribe of Gad in the settlement of Palestine (Joshua 13.26).

RAMESES (CITY) (רעמסס (son of the sun))  The royal residence city in the Egyptian Delta, under the 19^th and 20^th Dynasties, around 1300-1100 B.C.

                 When the Children of Israel began the sojourn in Egypt, they settled in the land of Goshen or Rameses.  Under the Oppression they were forced to help build the store cities of Pithom and Raamses (Rameses).  Egyptian sources show that Ramses II was the namer and thus the founder of the city.  Thebes remained a southern and seasonal capital while Rameses was the northern capital.  It was located in the eastern desert and had harbors for seagoing vessels; its ships also sailed south to other towns.  The texts of the times speak for a location close to the Sinai Desert but in a region having vineyards, olive groves, marshes and fisheries, and accessible by ship from the Nile and the Sea.  The northern half of the eastern Delta best fits all these factors.

                 Scholars do not agree upon the location of Rameses.  The 11 pharaohs named Ramses, particularly Ramses II, named many towns after themselves.   After excavations had been undertaken at Tanis in the eastern Delta, one scholar decided that Rameses was to be found at Tanis.  Increasingly scholars are thinking of an exodus which began across the northern part of Sinai.  Another possibility is Qantir, 24 km south of Tanis.

RAMOTH (ראמות, the Lord has appointed) A person listed as having married foreign wives in the time of Ezra.

RAMOTH (ראמות, precious things)  A Levitical town in the territory of Issachar (I Chronicles 6).  It is the same as Jarmuth in Joshua 21, and probably the same as Remeth in Joshua 19.  A number of identifications have been proposed, but none is satisfactory.

RAMOTH-GILEAD (גלעד רמת, high place of Gilead)  An important fortress in northern Gilead situated in the eastern part of the territory of Gad near the Syrian border, most likely on a three-knolled hill which rises commandingly over the nearby plains.  It is often called simply Ramah.

                 Ramoth-gilead was one of the three cities of refuge in eastern Palestine and a Levitical city; it was the residence of the prefect of Solomon’s sixth region.  After the division of the kingdom of Israel (935 B.C.) the region became exposed to attacks from Syria, but it was not until after the Battle of Qarqar (853 B.C.) that Ahab made an effort to recover the place.  Ahab summoned Jehoshaphat of Judah as his ally, and went to fight with the encouragement of all the prophets except Micaiah the son of Imlah.  Ahab was fatally wounded and the army of Israel retired without accomplishing its purpose. 

                 Ten years later Joram the son of Ahab had greater success.  He captured the city and placed a garrison there under the charge of Jehu.  While Joram was recovering from a wound at Jezreel, a disciple of Elisha came to Ramoth-gilead and anointed Jehu as king.  He surprised Joram at Jezreel, killed him, and seized the throne.  Ramoth-gilead is not mentioned again in the Bible, but it must have shared the fate of the Gilead region, which was overrun by Hazael.

RAMPART (חל (khel), fortification)  The outer fortification encircling a city, consisting of a broad embankment usually made of earth.  It isn’t always clear whether the Hebrew word refers to a rampart or a moat. It seems likely that they were used in most fortified cities. Rampart is sometimes used of fortifications in general.

RAMSES (son of Ra)  Name carried by 11 pharaohs of the 19^th and 20^th Dynasties in Egypt.  The preceding dynasty had won Egypt’s Asiatic empire, but had been stained by the heresy of Akh-en-Aton.  Ramses I (1303-1302 B.C.) was first a military man and then a vizier.  The 18^th Dynasty had arisen in the south of Egypt.  The 19^th had a northern devotion to the sun-god Ra of On.  The dynasty moved its capital to the northeast Delta.

                 The long reign of Ramses II (1290-1224), son of Seti I, left an indelible mark upon Egypt.  He built extensively, and he attached his name to monuments of his predecessors.  In point of fact, he does not seem to have had the energy, vision, or taste of his father Seti.  Since he founded the biblical store-city Rameses, he is the traditional Pharaoh of the Oppression.  Ramses II completed the great hall in the temple of Karnak, the roof of which is supported by many columns.  He also built the Rameseum at Thebes, executed the great cliff temple of Abu Simbel, and erected colossi at Memphis.

R-5

            At the beginning of his reign Ramses II inherited serious political problems.  The Hittites of Anatolia had spread their power and had come to dominate northern Syria.  At the same time there was a great migration of the “Sea Peoples” into the eastern Mediterranean.  These people were raiders by land and sea, and they endangered Egypt’s lucrative trade from Asia. 

     In Ramses II’s fifth year he marched north to fight against the Hittites and their Anatolian and Sea People allies in Syria.  Ramses walked into a Hittite ambush at Kadesh.  His personal courage and the timely arrival of reinforcements saved him from disgraceful defeat.  The Hittites themselves found the Sea Peoples a constant threat.  In Ramses II’s 21^st year hostilities between Egypt and the Hittites were ended by a solemn treaty of peace; 13 years later he married the daughter of the Hittite king.

     Ramses II’s god cult god was active in his own lifetime.  It is entirely possible that some, at least, of the Children of Israel were employed as slave labor on the building enterprises of Ramses II.  Practically all Hebrews had a tradition of Egyptian domination.  This common experience could be unified and personalized by making the Egyptian oppressor a single figure.  Ramses II was succeeded by his son Mer-ne-ptah.  The 19^th Dynasty fell into disorder, and there was around 1200 B.C. a brief time in which an Asian ruled Egypt. 

     In the 20^th Dynasty, Ramses III (1195-1164) did his best to model his reign upon that of his famed namesake.  The movements of the Sea Peoples came to a climax, and the older populations along eastern Mediterranean coast were being dislodged.  Twice Ramses III had to defend his western frontier against Libyan invasions.  In his eighth year he met a major crisis, the attack by a swarm of Sea Peoples, among whom the Philistines were a chief factor.  On land Ramses fought them along the seacoast of Syria-Palestine, but their fleet had to be met within the mouths of the Nile.  He was victorious in both the land and the naval battle. Within 35 years Egypt withdrew from her Asiatic empire and abandoned her copper mines in Sinai.  In its total force, the immigration of the Sea Peoples finished both the Hittite and the Egyptian empires. 

     Ramses III’s later years were marked by internal disorders.  The long period of Egyptian domination of the eastern Mediterranean world was drawing to a close, and she was becoming the futilely intriguing force which she was in Isaiah’s day.  Ramses III left a political-religious will, in which he confirmed the Egypt’s temples in the estates which they possessed at his death.  The document illustrates the Egyptian priesthood’s secular power; they owned an sizable fraction of the land and of the “free” and slave peoples in Egypt.

     The time of the other Ramses can be summed up briefly.  A bronze base for a small statue of Ramses VI found in Megiddo may be a sign of Egyptian occupation of that Canaanite town or simply a royal gift to a friendly prince.  With the coming of the Iron Age, Egypt, which had no iron, suffered a crippling economic inflation and widespread lawlessness; an era of open corruption began.  By 1100 B.C. the pharaoh had become a feeble palace figure, and there was a contest for power among the vizier, the army commander, and the high priest of Amon at Thebes.  In the end the military man won out and founded the 21^st Dynasty around 1090 B.C.  The rule of Egypt was divided between merchant princes of Tanis (Zoan) in the Delta and the generals who also held the priesthood at Thebes.

RANSOM (כפר (ko fer), cover over, forgive, or pardon sin)  Something given which “covers” or cancels an incurred claim over a person or a group.  The life Jesus lived and his death are the means of release from the powers of law, sin, and death.

RAPHA (רפא, quiet, healed)  The fifth son of Benjamin, according to I Chronicles 8; he is not mentioned in Genesis 46.

RAPHAEL (רפאל, God heals) See entry in the OT Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of Appendix.

RAPHIA (Rafia)  A city about 24 km southwest of Gaza.  Although not mentioned in the Bible, it existed from Old Testament times.  It was important as the last city of Palestine on the great military highway from Asia to Egypt.  The strategic position of the city made it a military outpost and fated it to be the site of many battles between Egypt and the nearest ruling power.  Sargon II of Assyria defeated the Egyptians here in 720 B.C. 

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of Appendix.

R-6

RAPHU (רפוא, healed)  The father of Palti, who was sent from the tribe of Benjamin to spy out Canaan (Num. 13)

RAS SAHMRA.  The name of a Syrian mound.  Ugarit was located here.  See Ugarit.

RAVEN  (ערב (or abe))  The largest of the group of birds which includes crows, rooks, jackdaws, magpies, and jays.  The raven is essentially a scavenger, but it will attack any weak or defenseless young living animal.  Among the unclean birds we find “every raven according to its kind.”  In the 1800s, Tristam found no fewer than eight species of this group in Palestine.  Two of the most familiar raven references are in the flood story (Genesis 8) and the account of Elijah’s being fed by the ravens (I Kings 17).

              

RAZOR (תער (ta ‘ar), penknife)  A cutting instrument used in shaving or cutting the hair.  The razor may have been a simple knife, or an elaborate instrument, sometimes decorated.

RE.  The Egyptian sun-god, whose chief cult center was Thebes.  See Egypt.

REAIAH (ראיה, the Lord looks upon him)  1.  A Judahite; son of Shobal and father of Jahath (I Chronicles 4).  
           2.  A Reubinite; son of Micah and father of Baal (I Chronicles 5).
           3.  Head of a family of  temple servants (Nethnim) who returned from exile with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2).

REAPING.  The harvesting of grain by hand. The worker grasps a few stalks and cuts them off with a small sickle made of flints.

REBA (רבע, fourth)  One of the five Midianite kings killed in battle by the Israelites under Moses (Numbers 31; Joshua 13).  Numbers and Joshua each have different settings for their deaths.

REBEKAH (רבקה, captivating)  Daughter of Bethuel sister of Laban, wife of Isaac, and mother of Esau and Jacob.  There is disagreement as to the source root of this name.  Some trace it to the meaning given above, while others trace it to the root-word for cattle, and link it to the female names of other patriarch’s wives, which also have animal meanings.

                 Rebekah is introduced in Genesis 24.  Her hospitality in drawing water was taken as a token that she was to be Isaac’s wife.  After 20 years of barrenness Rebekah conceived twins.  Alarmed at their struggling inside her, she obtained an oracle concerning their perpetual hostility; Jacob became her favorite.  In Genesis 26, Rebekah and Isaac passed themselves off as sister and brother out of fear of the Philistines.  Rebekah and Isaac both disapproved of Esau’s marriage with two Hittite women.  Rebekah plotted with Jacob to cheat Esau out of the blessing Isaac intended for him; Jacob fled to Paddan-aram and never saw his mother again.

                 The only New Testament mention of Rebekah is in Romans 9.

RECAH (רכה)  An unknown place in Judah (I Chronicles 4), perhaps an error for “Rechab.”

RECHAB (רכב, rider)  1.  A son of Rimmon, a Benjaminite from Beeroth.  He and his brother Baanah were captains of raiding bands under Saul’s son Ishbosheth.  They murdered their master and brought his head to David, who ordered them executed.

     2.      We have no certain knowledge of J(eh)onadab’s father; Rechab is either father or ancient ancestor of J(eh)onadab, Jehu’s zealous supporter in the extermination of Ahab’s house.  The name Rechab later designated a group devoted to the nomadic life.  In Jeremiah 35, the Rechabites took refuge in Jerusalem after living a semi-nomadic life in the Judean wilderness.  Jeremiah brought the group into a single chamber, where he learned that they were committed to a nomadic life.  Jeremiah commended their loyalty and contrasted their example with the rest of Judah.  The prophet pronounced doom on unfaithful Judeans, but for the Rechabites’ house he prophesied that Jonadab, Rechab’s son, would never lack a man to stand before the Lord.

R-7

     The Rechabites’ origins are obscure.  We can not be sure whether Jonadab or Rechab was considered the founder of the group that took on nomadic life as a religious duty.  I Chronicles 2 implies that Rechab is part of the Kenite nomads of southern Canaan.  Many scholars think that the Kenites were the original worshipers of Yahweh and that Moses’ Kenite or Midianite father-in-law introduced him to the worship of this god.

     The rule imposed by Jehonadab is the essence of nomadism.  Conflict and antipathy between nomadic life and sedentary, agricultural life is universal.  In the Old Testament (OT) story of Cain and Abel the divine predilection is in favor of the shepherd, and this bias is evident throughout the OT.  The patriarchal sagas point up the classic simplicity and ideal purity of the nomad life.  The law of Moses was represented as having been given in this period before Israel was thoroughly contaminated.  Elijah gained renewed strength through a pilgrimage to the desert.  The southern tribes were slower to conform than the northern tribes, and this was doubtless due in large measure to their closer connections with nomad traditions and ideals.

     The Rechabite regulations are the normal ways of nomads.  The word for tent continued to be used for “dwellings” in general long after the Israelites had accommodated themselves to houses.  The prohibition of agriculture expresses the nomad’s disdain of such pursuits.  The total abstinence from wine is an attempt to preserve the conditions of nomadic life, in which wine was unknown.  While the Rechabites were apparently zealous Yahwists like Jehonadab, still their orders are nomadic rather than Yahwistic.

     The evidence that the Rechabites as a group survived the Babylonian exile is rather tenuous.  One Malchijah the son of Rechab was given the honor of repairing the Dung Gate in Nehemiah’s restorations of Jerusalem.  In late post-exilic times there dwelt at Jabez three families of scribes of Rechabite lineage.  Jewish tradition has it that the Rechabites entered the temple service by the marriage of their daughters to priests.

RECONCILIATION.  The coming to agreement of two or more persons after misunderstandings or alienation.  God has taken steps to overcome this alienation, and has in Christ provided the means of reconciliation.  This is one aspect of the biblical doctrine of redemption.  The Bible recognizes the need of reconciliation, but relationships are derivative from the common dependence of all on God.

                  Basically, sin in the Old Testament (OT) is the breaking of Covenant obligation, either unconsciously or deliberately.  In the former case, the sacrificial system was designed to “atone” for these sins; for willful sins, restitution was required.  The essential meaning of the regular Hebrew verb kaphar (atone) is uncertain.  It may derive from the Babylonian root signifying “wash away,” or from an Arabic root signifying “cover.”  “Atonement” in the OT means expiating sin, never placating God.  The problem of man’s estrangement from his Maker is focused in Genesis 3’s classic narrative, where man and woman, after exposure to temptation, feel unfit to face God.  Man’s only hope is the fact that God continues to feel concern for his creature.

                 In the New Testament, the Greek word katallasso means restoration of harmony between God and man, who otherwise is living on his own inadequate resources.  The main sense of the Greek is reconciliation of man to God.  Subordinate senses are reconciliation of man with his fellows.  The following are four passages which require special consideration:

                 Romans 5:8-11—The estrangement between man and God is described as enmity; the broken relationship is a gulf needing to bridged.  The concept of divine wrath is in Paul’s mind, rather than human will.  It is actually the divine love which is at work in this situation making a new harmony possible; man’s attitude is what needs to change.  God may be said to hate sin, but at the same time God loves the sinner.  We must assume that Paul conceived Christ’s death to have the efficacy attributed to the blood of sacrificial victims.  Alternatively we may suppose that in some way Christ exhausted the power of sin.

                 Colossians 1: 20-22—Here the reconciliation is extended to “all creatures”, and the moral perfection which is the ultimate outcome is emphasized.

                 II Corinthians 5: 14-21—Paul has a message about reconciliation which God has already effected for humankind which was not truly living, but spiritually dead.  New possibilities have been created, and are available when one is “in Christ.”  The “reconciling” in verse 19 indicates the continuous activity of God during Christ’s earthly ministry.  But the benefits have been secured; successive generations have only to choose to claim those benefits.

                 Ephesians 2: 12-17—This passage has in view the fact of Christian experience that the antipathy of Jew and non-Jew can be overcome.  This is evidence of divine operation, since the gulf between Gentile and Jew was regarded as unbridgeable.

     It is God who effects reconciliation. God is the subject, humankind the object.  Reconciliation is not a process, but a completed act.  Christ is the agent of reconciliation; more particularly, his atoning death.  

R-8

RECORDER (מזכיר (ma zeh keer))  An official of high rank in Israel’s royal court.  Perhaps originally he kept in mind the king’s decrees and judgments.  He advised the king and probably was in charge of royal chronicles and annals.  He was also involved in the payment of laborers in the repairs to the temple made under Josiah.

RED (אדם (aw dam), ruddy; purrazw (piar rah zo))  Pigment of varying intensities of red was obtained from insects, vegetables, and minerals in ancient times.  Where the word “red” has been used in the English translation, it refers to the color of natural objects, such as the color of pottage, wine, the sacrificial heifer, and horses.  The uses of derivatives to describe rams’ skins and war shields suggest the artificial production of “red” color.  The significance of the color red as a symbol of sin is apparent in Isaiah 1.

                  In the New Testament, the Greek word pyrrazo is used to describe the color of the sky (Matthew 16).

RED HEIFER  (פרה אדמה (paw rah  ‘ah do maw), red cow)  The animal whose ashes were the principal ingredient of the “water for impurity” used to counteract uncleanness caused by contact with death.  The ordinary word for “cow” is used in Numbers 19.  The red color suggests blood, but since the Hebrew terminology of color is not exact, it may also refer to the reddish-brown color of the earth.

                 The red heifer ritual is described in the Old Testament only in Numbers 19.  A healthy red heifer which had never been put to profane use was an acceptable sacrifice.  The officiating priest sprinkled some of the blood seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting; the carcass was burned outside the camp, not at the altar.  Probably the use of the ash to remove uncleanness made the animal offensive to Yahweh’s holiness. 

                 The priest threw cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet thread on the burning carcass, so that all were reduced to ash together.  The cleansing and healing power of hyssop, the tough durability of the cedar, and the red color of the thread, suggestive of blood, have powerful symbolic value in such rituals.  A clean person gathered the composite ash and stored it “outside the camp in a clean place” until it was needed to treat a case of uncleanness caused by death.  When such a case arose, some of the ash was added to spring water in a vessel, and then the water for impurity was sprinkled from a brunch of hyssop over an infected person.  The officiating priest, the one who burned the heifer, the one who gathered the ash, and the one who sprinkled the water became “unclean until evening.”  The heifer, which was to remove uncleanness, became unclean before its use, just as an unused coffin or an empty gallows causes revulsion because of the use to which it will be put. 

                 The heifer was a sacrificial animal in Israel from earliest times.  A heifer, killed in an uncultivated valley beside a running stream, was used to purge the land of the bloodguilt incurred in an unsolved murder.  The law of the red heifer is one of those rituals which came into Israelite practice from pagan sources, probably through the mediation of the Canaanites.  The spirits of the dead could injure the community of the living unless the prescribed ritual precautions were taken, which usually involved bovine animals.

                 The cults of death and of fertility were interrelated in ancient thought on the principle that such mighty opposites as life and death somehow belong together.  Since the fertility cults and the cult of the dead were prohibited in Israel, the red heifer ritual had to be modified and reinterpreted in Israelite cult practice.  The stain of uncleanness jeopardizes Israel’s relationship to her God.  Uncleanness in priestly thought was, therefore, equivalent to sin.  It was not, however, a sacrifice in the strict sense, because it was not burned upon the altar.  It was a sin offering only in the sense of “something that removes sin.”  Water serves in this case merely to carry the ashes of the heifer, which are the real cleansing agent.  In this ritual spring water is specified as being a more potent symbol of life than the standing water of a cistern.

RED SEA (ים סוף (yawm soof), sea of weed; הים (ha yawm), the sea; לשון ים מצרים (law shone  yawm  me tseh rah yeem), tongue of the sea of Egypt)  The term “Red Sea” is the literal rendition of the Greek; its original source is unknown.  The Hebrew name Yam Suph, “Sea of Reeds” appears to have been originally applied only to the area bordering on the south extension of Lake Menzaleh.  According an Egyptian text, there were two bodies of water near Ramses: the “water of Horus”; and Papyrus Lake.

R-9

                 In antiquity the Red or the Erythrean Sea included both the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.  Today, however, it is limited only to the arm of the sea which separates Africa from Arabia.  Its total length is around 1900 km., and its width varies from 400 km. in the south to about 200 km at the point where the Sinai Peninsula divides the sea into the Gulf of Suez, 200 km long and 29 km wide, and the Gulf of Aqabah, 144 km. long and 24 km wide.

                 The Red Sea is part of a great rift-valley system.  The rift valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea continues southward to the Wadi el-‘Arabah; its submerged section forms the Gulf of Aqabah.  The rift valley forming the Gulf of Suez meets it and together they form the Red Sea, which reaches a depth of over 2.1 km.  The Red Sea presents a number of peculiarities.  There are no large rivers draining into it.

                 The climate causes a large degree of evaporation, resulting in greater salinity than in the open ocean.  A surface current flows in from the Indian Ocean, while a current of very salty water flows outward at a depth between 90 meters and 1.8 km below the surface.  The water is clear and almost green, and it is one of the warmest bodies of water of the earth, 24C°-29C° north to south on the surface, with a uniform temperature below 360 meters.  This high temperature makes it very favorable for all kinds of marine life.

                 Biblical connections with the Red Sea are limited to the Exodus story, and the Judean control of the seaport Ezion-Geber on the Gulf of Aqabah.  Here Solomon built and operated a commercial fleet and carried on profitable trade with Ophir, as well as operating extensive copper mines.  After Solomon, the exploitation of the copper mines of the Arabah and the use of Ezion-geber languished.  King Jehoshaphat attempted to revive overseas trade, “but . . . the ships were wrecked at Ezion-geber.”  His son Jehoram lost the region to the Edomites.  It was recovered by Amaziah and Uzziah through re-conquest, and finally lost by Ahaz. 

                 The equating of Yam Suph with the Red Sea presents a problem.  There are no reeds in either gulf, but only in the sweet-water marshes north of the Gulf of Suez.  The translators of the English Bible have apparently assumed that the expression Yam Suph or hayam invariably refers to the Red Sea, even though the reference may not be to the same waters. 

                 However, a glance at the map of the region, where the Israelites found themselves will show that even the tip of the Gulf of Suez would be too far for them to reach before Egyptian chariots would reach them.  Both terms must refer to the marshy area north of the Gulf of Suez, in the region of the southern extension of Lake Menzaleh.  The confusion of Yam Suph with the Red Sea probably goes back to the Greek translators of the Primary Greek Old Testament.

                 Where then, was the crossing? Three theories are offered here:

                  The traditional southern route. The Hebrews started from Ramses, which was located at Qantir. Finding their way north and east blocked, they journeyed southward on the western side of the Bitter Lakes, and crossed at their southern extremity, which at the time of the Exodus were linked to the Gulf of Suez.  The expression “Sea of Reeds” could have been applied either to the Gulf of Suez or to the part of the sea which connected it to the Bitter Lakes.

                 The central crossing.   The Hebrews left Rameses and, after crossing the Pelusiac arm of the Nile Delta, proceeded to Succoth.   They went to the Lake Timsah, which they crossed either on the northern end at Ismailieh, or on the southern end.  Assuming Ramses is Tanis, the Hebrews headed first southward to Succoth, where they hoped to escape into the Etham wilderness. Finding their way blocked, they turned northeastward, and camped before Pi-ha-hiroth.  It was at this point that the Israelites crossed the Yam Suph, which was perhaps located at the southern extension of the present Lake Menzaleh.  
              The northern  crossing.  This theory identifies Yam Suph with Lake Sirbonis, which is located near the Mediterranean Sea.  Around this lake there are large areas of reeds, which would make the name Yam Suph appropriate. The Israelites, fleeing across the narrow, sandy strip, succeeded in crossing it before the Egyptians could overtake them.  The disaster which destroyed the Egyptians was probably due to a breakthrough of the narrow sandy strip by a strong easterly wind, which caused the water of the sea to pour into the lake basin.

R-10

REDEEM, REDEEMER, REDEMPTION  (פדה (paw daw), ransom; גאל (gaw ‘al), ransom; כפר (kaw far), to cover, atone for sin; lutron (loot ron), ransom)  The legal process of redemption provides the biblical writers with one of their basic images for describing God’s saving activity.  It central position in the vocabulary of modern Christian theology seems to be due to Martin Luther’s influence.  The words “redeem,” “redeemer,”  and “redemption” are used to translate derivatives of the first two Hebrew roots given above, which designate a process by which something alienated, may be recovered for its original owner.

                 The root pada is the more general of the two terms.  In the Old Testament (OT) it is never used except with regard to the redemption of persons or other living beings.  Thus the owner of an ox which has killed a person may be allowed to save his own life with a redemption price.  By Hebrew law, all the first-born are to be sacrificed, but provision is made for redeeming first-born humans and unclean animals by the payment of a fixed amount.  Pada designates objectively the act of redemption and implies nothing with respect to the status of the person who performs it.

                 The root ga’al is purely a Hebrew word, belonging to the realm of family law, which denotes primarily the next of kin’s action to recover the forfeited property of kinsmen.  If one is forced to sell his property, his next of kin is obligated to repurchase it for him.  So intimate is the relationship between the root ga’al and the family that the participial form can be translated as “redeemer,” and “nearest kin.”  In addition to the main technical sense just described, ga’al can also be used in a quite general way to mean simply “redeem” or “deliver.”  While the verbal root kopher has a religious sense in Hebrew and its different forms are usually translated “to make atonement,” the noun has a secular meaning and is translated either “bribe” or “ransom.”

                 Since a redemptive act’s essential purpose is to deliver a person or thing from captivity or loss, it becomes an appropriate image for God’s saving actions among humankind.  In the Babylonian exile, it was inevitable that the image should be used to describe Israel’s similar deliverance from her second period of captivity.  Redemption is one of the basic concepts of the second part of Isaiah (e.g. Is. 43, 44, 52, etc.).  The word “redeemer” or “nearest kin” is one of the prophet’s favorite names for God.  The thought of a redemption price, however, is specifically excluded.  The redemption from sin concept appears nowhere except possibly in Psalm 130.  The redemption concept could also be applied to God’s deliverance of individuals from troubles of various kinds (e.g. Gen. 48; II Sam. 4) and is frequent in the Psalms (e.g. 26, 49, 69, and 103). 

                 In contrast to the frequency with which these words occur in the OT, their use in the New Testament is relatively limited, probably because of the difference in cultural background.  The word lutron or “ransom” occurs only three times, but its occurrence is nevertheless of fundamental importance for understanding Jesus’ own conception of his death as a redemptive act.  The derived verb “to redeem or ransom” occurs in connection with the death of Christ in Titus 2.  In the Pauline letters the noun apolutrosis or “redemption” occurs rarely in the general sense of “deliverance.”  In Hebrews 9 the same term is used in a quite general way as a synonym of “atonement.”  The concept of God’s saving work among humankind as a process of redemption from possession or control by an alien power is one of the fundamental concepts of the Bible.  The interpreter must beware of asking to whom the ransom was paid.

REED (קנה (kaw naw), cane; אבה (‘ay beh), bulrush, papyrus (?); אגמון (ah geh mone), bulrush; KalamoV (ka la mos), cane)  The flowering stalk of any of several species of tall aquatic grasses. 

                 Qaneh seems to have been the generic word similar to the English word “reed.”  This plant is referred to in I Kings 14, where the prophet Ahijah predicted the Lord would smite Israel “as a reed shaken in the water.”  The largest of the reed grasses, the “giant reed,” provides a sturdy, bamboo-like stalk sometimes as much as 3 meters long.  It is used metaphorically, to describe Egypt as a “staff of reed” that broke when Israel relied upon it (Ezekiel 29.  Apparently it might designate the beam of a balance.  Qaneh is used also of the “shaft” and “branches” of the sacred lamp stand.

                 The strange expression “skiffs of reed,” in Job 9 is now generally recognized to refer to the papyrus-reed boats which moved swiftly over the Nile.  One scholar identifies the ‘agemon reed with sedge grass, while others prefer the rush, both of which are common to swampy areas.  Other Hebrew words that are translated “reed” are akhu (reed grass), gome (papyrus), and suph (cattail (?), bulrush).  Yam-suph occurs 24 times in the Old Testament and is given the meaning “Red Sea,” although it literally means “Sea of Reeds.”  In the New Testament the common Greek word kalamos is used for reed or cane.

R-11

REELAIAH (ﬧעליה, terror of the Lord)  One of those whose names head the list of exiles returned from Babylon.  Which Masoretic Text use of the name is correct is uncertain.

REFINING (זקק (tsee kayk), purify; צﬧף (tsaw raf), purify; purousqai (pie roos thie), to be tried by fire, like metals)  Reducing to a fine state.

                 The two Hebrew terms refer to two different processes.  Tseqaq refers to both filtering and melting, the physical process of changing metal from a solid to a liquid and rendering the metal purer by removal of dross.  Tsaraph refers to the extraction by fire supplemented by chemical reactions from ores found in nature.  Melting required a heated crucible or “fining pot” of well-fired pottery.  The earliest smelting was by bonfires, ore heaped on fuel.  Later the shaft furnace was developed.  Still later came a furnace with a natural forced draft.

                 Techniques of refining were adapted to the metal.  Gold and tin required simple melting.  The most extensive refinery excavated in Palestine is at Ezion-geber; the copper and iron ore came from Solomon’s Arabian mines.  Three iron refineries at Tell Jemmeh are dated by the excavator to the 1100s B.C.  Lacking local ores, the Bible peoples probably did only the refining of metals.

REFUGE (מעוז  (maw ‘otes), stronghold, asylum;משגב  (me seh gawb), high, strong place)  “Refuge” as an epithet of Yahweh is one of many synonymous expressions describing Yahweh as the protector of men, a concept which is predominantly found in the book of Psalms.  The pious “take refuge” in the “shadow of God’s wings” (Ruth 2; Psalms 17 and 36); this may meant the temple in Jerusalem.

REGEM (ﬧגם, friend)  One of the sons of Jahdai, Calebite (I Chronicles 2).

REGEM-MELECH (מלך ﬧגם, friend of the king)  One of the deputies sent by the people of Bethel to inquire of the temple priests regarding fasting., in the time of Zechariah.

REGENERATION (anagennan (an ag en nan), to bring forth again; anwqen (an oh then), from above)  Transcendence beyond moral life by encountering Christ through the kerygma.  Thus union with Christ is the continuing Christian experience of selfhood.  Agagennan occurs only in I Peter 1.  Anothen is used in John’s explanation of regeneration in the Prologue and in ch. 3 is in terms of “him who came from heaven.”  The term is then introduced into the saying of Jesus to exclude the objection of an impossible second natural birth.  The nearest parallel to his usage is Hippolytus saying: “We who are spiritual come flowing down from above.”     

                 The translation “beget again” is the begetting from above.  The general propriety of translating different though similar Greek terms with the same English is strengthened when one observes the same gospel saying in later Christian writing using a different Greek word.  The lateness and the rarity of “regeneration” are partly due to the absence of any equivalent term in Hebrew, Aramaic and the Primary Greek Old Testament.  The variation in terminology when the idea is finally introduced not only reflects the availability of the various expressions, but also indicates that the development of the idea within primitive Christianity had already advanced to the stage where the using of the various terms could take place spontaneously.

                 Regeneration in the Wider Greek Culture—“Regeneration” was used by the Stoics to designate the cosmic restoration following upon the world’s being consumed by fire.  The popularized form of this usage was appropriated to designate the restoration after the Flood.  The Pythagoreans applied the term to individuals to designate the transmigration of souls, and the term became current for various kinds of individual restoration.  As the fertility cults developed into mystery religions with an increasingly personal and individual goal, “regeneration” was used to designate the salvation of the believer through initiation. 

                  The so-called “Mithras liturgy” explains how “regeneration” is effected by means of a cultically experienced ascension through the various gates of heaven, during which one beholds “with immortal spirit” the “immortal origin.”  During the vision one is free from the “perishable nature of mortals.”  An inscription from Rome dated 376 A.D. refers to a Phrygian rite in which a person is “reborn for eternity.”  The spring festival of this cult, imitates Attis’ emasculation.

R-12

                 The Corpus Hermeticum is by Hermes Trismegistus; it explains and mediates “regeneration.”  “Stop the working of your bodily senses, and then will deity be born in you.”  The ten “powers” (virtues) of God dispel the 12 punishments (vices), and themselves enter the initiate to constitute the “Logos.”  One has “passed forth out of oneself into an immortal body.”  This intellectually mediated regeneration developed historically out of a more typical sacramental regeneration.  This survey indicates a rather consistent usage of “regeneration” to designate a sacramental anticipation of victory over death.

                 New Testament (NT) Usage of “Regeneration”—From the passages where the terms for “regeneration” occur, certain common traits can be established:

                    Baptism and regeneration: Titus 3 refers to the “washing of regenera-
             tion.”  The Greek word loutron is the technical term for ceremonial
             washing.  John 3 explains regeneration as birth “of water and the 
             Spirit,” where a customary association of regeneration with baptism 
             is probably reflected.  Such a baptismal context is confirmed by the 
             discussion of baptism as related to regeneration in other New Testa-
             ment passages.  Justin’s description of regeneration is conclusive for 
             the association of baptism and regeneration.

        Regeneration through a divine seed, contrasted to human seed:  I Peter 1 speaks of being born anew “not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through God’s living and abiding word.”  Also, John 1 speaks of being born “not of blood nor of the flesh nor of man’s will, but of God.”  The Valentinians saw in John 1 allusion to the “mysterious seed of the elect and spiritual.” 

                 The Corpus Hermeticum is also similar to the John passage: “[the womb from which one is born again] is intellectual wisdom in Silence, and the seed is the true Good [begotten by] the will of God.”  Somewhat similarly, the “Mithras liturgy” contrasts the “perishable nature of mortals” with rebirth by God’s imperishable right hand.”  In the NT the concept of seed as the word of God and the prominence of faith tends to maintain the spiritual understanding of regeneration.

                 Regeneration in Union with Christ In I Peter 1, it says first that rebirth is “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and later that it is “through the living and abiding word of God (i.e. the gospel).”  Since the content of I Peter’s gospel is Christ’s suffering and glory, the word of God and the resurrection coincide, and the person thereby regenerated is “in Christ.”  The Gospel of John 3 also consists in the parallel between regeneration and the Johannine kergyma of Christ’s descent and ascent.  Birth from above is possible because Christ is “from above.”

                 Regeneration as union with Christ has been somewhat formalized in the early church by Justin, where baptism presupposes acceptance of Christian doctrine and takes place in the name of the Trinity.  Justin reveals by treating the Flood story as allegory that the eight persons on the ark (symbolizing baptism) give a hint of the resurrection date.  Justin wrote: “Christ became the beginning of another race regenerated by him through water and faith and wood, containing the mystery of the cross.”  Some of the development toward the term “regeneration” may be reflected in the designation of Jesus as “first-born of the dead,” and in the concept of Jesus being “begotten” at his baptism, in which the believer shares at his regeneration.

                 The original setting at the end of this age.  In I Peter 1 the significance of “regeneration” is expressed:  One is born again to a “living hope . . . and to an imperishable inheritance, for a salvation to be revealed in the last time.”  Thus one is reborn at the end of this age into joy.  In Titus the relation to the Second Coming disappears, and the emphasis falls upon salvation already attained through the divine epiphany.  In John 3, the earlier language of seeing or entering God’s kingdom occurs; this regeneration saying has developed out of Jesus’ original message.

                 Development of the Regeneration Experience—The baptismal and end-of-the-age-settings into which the term “regeneration” was introduced indicate that the initial meaning of the regeneration experience was in terms of Jesus basic pattern:  “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”  In Matthew 18:3 the phrase “turn and become” may reflect a Semitic idiom meaning “become again.”

                 In James 1 the Jewish direction for developing theologically such an illustration as Jesus provided is evident in the somewhat similar rabbinic comparison of the new proselyte with a newborn child, between a child who has no past and a proselyte radically separated from his past.  This is true even where the idea of birth is employed.  This use of birth, in spite of similarities in its context to NT regeneration has not yet produced a doctrine specifically of “regeneration.”  In the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas one finds the same preference for Jewish terms of creation as in James.

R-13

                 Paul also uses the Jewish concept of new creation rather than that of birth to designate regeneration:  “The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”  In Galatians 6 this is expressed in terms of Jesus’ cross, “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  It is apparent that union with Christ has become a new category for describing regeneration.  “Baptism into Christ Jesus” means “baptism into his death, crucifixion of our old self.  The resulting regenerate life can be described mystically as “Christ living in me.” 

                 Paul can in a mixed metaphor speak of birth pangs until Christ is formed in the believers.  In an allegory on Sarah and Hagar he contrasts the Jerusalem above as our “mother” (Sarah) with Mount Sinai “bearing children for slavery (Hagar).”  Yet he explains son-ship to God only in terms of adult adoption as heirs at the end of this age.  The mystic experience itself is described as “transforming” which can, in view of the in-breaking new age, be received now.

                 Thus Paul attains in his concept of “transformation” the basic ingredients of the NT concept of “regeneration”:  the movement from Jewish terms into the more mystical categories characteristic of Greek religiosity.  According to this understanding, regenerate life is lived out of the future.  The same is true in I John, where those who are “begotten of God” cannot sin, but “overcome the world,” and can be identified as those who do righteousness, love, and believe that Jesus is the Christ.

REGISTER.  The formal inscribing of the names of the heads of houses and militarily fit men in lists prepared for military or civil census.

REHKABIAH (REHABIAH) (ﬧחביה, enlargement of the Lord)  Son of Eliezer, and grandson of Moses.  He was chief of one family of Levites set aside for temple duties.

REHKOB (REHOB) (ﬧחוב, spacious place, market)  1.  Father of Hadadezer, King of Zobah (II Samuel 8).

                 2.  A signatory of the covenant made in the days of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 10).

                 3.  See Beth-Rechob.

                 4.  A border town in Asher assigned to the Levites (Joshua 19, 21), whose Canaanite inhabitants Asher was unable to drive out.  It is probably located about 11km east-southeast of Acco; the site was occupied in 2100-900 B.C., and 330 B.C-323 A.D.

REKHOBOAM (REHOBOAM) ﬧחבﬠם (enlargement of the people)  First king of Judah (922-905B.C.); son and successor of Solomon after the kingdom split into Judah and Israel.  The date of Solomon’s death and Rehoboam’s accession is derived from the available evidence from both inside and outside of the Bible.  His mother was Naamah the Ammonitess.  It is hard to say which name came first “Jeroboam” and “Rehoboam.”   It is possible that both are throne names.  The emphasis on the power of the people as against that of the king may be deliberately intended by the use of the names (See meaning given above). 

     Rehoboam became king at 41 and reigned 17 years.  He came to throne at a very difficult time.  Solomon had ruled as a despot, and had aroused bitter resentment, especially in the north with the forced-labor system.  Another resentment was caused by Solomon dividing all the land besides Judah into 11 roughly equal districts, and largely disregarding the old tribal boundaries in the process.  A smoldering resentment was burning, and it came to a head at Solomon’s death. 

     All Israel (i.e. the northern tribes) gathered together at Shechem to make Rehoboam king.  Before he was accepted, the people demanded a lightening of the load imposed by Solomon.  His father’s old advisers suggested he speak as a “servant of the people.”  Rehoboam then took counsel with his young friends who advised him to speak to them, and to promise a heavier and harsher hand than that of his father.  His harsh words to the people meant the revolt of the north.

     He sent Adoram to head off the incipient revolt; the people stoned him to death.  The king fled to Jerusalem, where he gathered Judah and Benjamin to fight against the house of Israel; the planned campaign did not materialize.  Jeroboam of Israel probably appealed for help to the Pharaoh Shishak of Egypt.  Rehoboam’s army apparently disbanded because of an unmistakable warning from Egypt that reprisals would follow the attack.  There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually,” but it was most likely border warfare only.  The territory of Benjamin was included in the southern kingdom of Judah, while the former Danite territory was divided between the two kingdoms. 

R-14

    The Chronicler records that Rehoboam began to build cities for defense in Judah.  It cannot be assumed that the events described took place near the beginning of Rehoboam’s reign.  It is very likely that the fortress building took place after the Egyptian invasion, as a direct result of it.  The list of the 15 fortified towns includes four to the east of Judah, four to the southwest, three to the south, three to the northwest, and Hebron by itself.  It could be a list showing the limits of Judah, or more likely only the fortresses built by Rehoboam.

   The biblical account gives meager information in regard to the invasion of Shishak.  The invasion involved Judah, Philistia, Israel, and even Edom to the east.  It seems clear from the available evidence that a strong and united Israel stood in the way of Egypt’s revived dream of empire.  Shishak had been a Libyan noble, and his army was composed of barbarian troops from Libya and Ethopia.  150 places are named as having been taken; Debir and Ezion-geber were destroyed.  Jerusalem itself was not captured, but a very heavy tribute was imposed on the land.  As a result of this experience Rehoboam set about fortifying his kingdom.  It seems clear that further attacks from Egypt were expected.

    The Chronicler records that Judah was strengthened considerably by the arrival of the priests and Levites from the north.  Rehoboam forsook the Lord’s law, and punishment came upon him in the form of an Egyptian invasion.  The picture which the Deuteronomist presents is very different.  It is clear that the pagan influences for which Solomon was largely responsible continued during Rehoboam’s reign.  Specific mention is made of the construction of high places, pillars, and Asherim; there were male prostitutes in the land. 

    The section dealing with Rehoboam’s family has no parallel in Kings, and raises a difficult problem.  II Chronicles 11 and I Kings 15 do not agree as to the mothers of Abijah and Asa.  It seems best to consider Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah as the mother of Abijah, and Maacah the daughter of Absalom (Abishalom) as Asa’s mother.  As his source the Chronicler names the “chronicles of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer.”  Nothing is known of such a prophetic work.

REKHOBOTH (REHOBOTH)  (ﬨﬧחבו, wide open places)  1.  See Rehkoboth-Ir.  2.  The name of one of the wells dug by Isaac.  After the Philistines had appropriated the first two wells, the third one resulted in no quarrel.   3.  An Edomite city, home of King Shaul, as yet unidentified.

REKHOBOTH (REHOBOTH)-IR (עיﬧ ﬧחבת, wide open spaces of the city, the city of wide open spaces)  A city in Assyria between Nineveh and Calah, built Asshur;  Assyrian texts has no such city listed.  It is possible that the text of Genesis 10 originally read “the wide open spaces of the city of Nineveh.”

REHKUM (REHUM) (ﬧחום, merciful)  1.  One of those whose names head the list of exiles returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel.  2.  An official in the Persian government for the province “Beyond the River,” which included Palestine.  With one Shimshai, he opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem by the Jews after the Exile.  3.  A Levite son of Bani; one of those who aided Nehemiah with the repair of the Jerusalem wall.

                  4.  One of the chiefs of the people, signatory to the covenant of Ezra.           

REI  (ﬧעי, social)  A Judean officer who sided with Solomon in the struggle for David’s throne (I Kings 1).

REKEM (ﬧקם, colorful)  1.  One of the five kings of Midian who were slain by Moses and the people of Israel in obedience to the command of Yahweh.  The war was one of Yahweh’s vengeance upon Midian for luring the Israelites into worshiping Baal-peor.  As it stands in the Priestly Code, the narrative serves primarily to furnish a precedent for the law regulating the distribution of booty.

                  2.  A descendent of Caleb; a son of Hebron and father of Shammai (I Chronicles 2).

                  3.  A city within the territory allotted by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin.  Its location still remains uncertain (Joshua 18).

RELEASE, YEAR OF.  A name mistakenly applied in practically all English versions of the Bible to the Sabbatical Year, based on an incorrect translation, which originated with the Primary Greek Old Testament.  Far more correct would be the designation of Jubilee Year as the Year of Release, the year of liberty or release of Jews enslaved to fellow Jews.

R-15

RELIGION (qrhskeia (thrase ki ah), worship; qeosebeia (thay oh seh by ah), reverence toward God;  eusebeia (yoo seh by ah), reverential feeling; IoudaismoV (yoo day is mos), Judaism)  The words translated “religion” are used almost exclusively in the later New Testament (NT) writings that are more heavily influenced by Greek culture.  They refer to the following:  proper religious observances; a recognized structure of religious-ethical behavior; obedience to the Christian faith.

                 The infrequent use of “religion” in the Bible is due to the fact that the concept of “religion” is itself alien to the core of biblical thought.  Faith to the Hebrew is the concrete response of the whole person to God’s call.  And primary for faith is a person’s relation to God, not their relation to faith structure or cult practice.  The introduction of the general concept of “religion” into the NT writings meant the weakening of the revelation character of Christianity, which now becomes a system of doctrine.  The primary importance of the term “religion” in the NT is in its pointing to the shift from the Hebrew understanding of faith as holistic obedience to faith as an approved system of doctrine, worship, and behavior.

REMALIAH (רמליהו, whom the Lord has adorned)  The father of the Israelite usurper Pekah (II Kings 15, etc.)

REMEMBRANCE.  See Memorial.

REMETH (ﬨרמ, height)  A border town in the territory allotted to Issachar (Joshua 19), probably the same as Ramoth (I Chronicles 6) and Jarmuth (Joshua 21).

REMISSION.  See Forgiveness.

REMMON-METHOAR (ﬧמון המﬨאﬧ , high place set aside)  The King James Version simply spells out the Hebrew letters in English (Joshua 19). See Rimmon #4.

REMNANT (רﬨי (yeh ther), remainder, excess; ﬧיﬨשא (sheh ay reeth), remainder; kataleimma (kat al ime mah), small residue; loipoi, remainder)  The portion of a community which is left, in the case of a devastating calamity; the portion upon which the possible future existence of the community depends.

                 Passages such as Joshua 10:40; II Chronicles 20:23-24; Jeremiah 50:26 illustrate the principle of total destruction in which there is to be no remnant.  The theological use of the term develops where there is mention of the judgment of the holy God on everything sinful and ungodly.  The concept “remnant” includes not only a destructive but also a constructive meaning, i.e. its merciful limitation by God’s free grace. 

                 In the history of the biblical concept of a remnant is mirrored a long trail of faith in salvation.  The author of the Y(J)ahwist (J) document speaks of the deliverance of a remnant of the bearers of the promise, such as Noah and Lot.  Elijah’s story reveals the belief in the existence of a remnant of 7,000 who are true to Yahweh in Israel (I Kings 19).  Amos seems to assume that his opponents have a popular remnant idea.  He treats with irony or bitterly attacks every self-confident remnant hope.  Nevertheless, there remains also in his thinking for those who seek Yahweh and the good, the possibility that they may survive the judgment as a remnant.

                 The idea of a remnant plays a significant role in the case of Isaiah.  The name Shear-jashub, “A remnant shall repent,” which was given to the eldest son of the prophet, proclaims and guarantees that a remnant will return to God after God’s judgment.  But it is God alone who permits the remnant.  Nowhere does Isaiah say who will belong to the remnant.  A fully developed remnant expectation is found in Zephaniah 2 and 3.  As in Isaiah, it is God’s act which creates the remnant; with it, justice is re-established.

                 Jeremiah and Ezekiel both give up any claim to the traditional remnant concept in their proclamation of total judgment.  Jeremiah proclaims the final judgment upon “Zedekiah, his princes, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain . . ., and those . . . in . . . Egypt,” while the “exiles from Judah” are to be replanted and built up anew; the term “remnant” is not expressly used for these people.  In Ezekiel’s case, who himself suffers under the ruthless proclamation of judgment, the escapees from Jerusalem’s catastrophe will be the only proof of the suitability of the judgment.  He anticipates the function of the remnant of the exiles without applying the term “remnant” to them.  The post-exilic community can call itself the remnant which was left.  The remnant continues as a future greatness in numerous promises of salvation from the period after Jerusalem’s catastrophe.

                 In the New Testament the idea of the remnant plays an important role in Paul’s discussion of the course of God’s salvation in the Romans 9-11.

R-16

REPENTANCE (נחם (naw kham), regret; שוב (shoob), turn back, return; metanoew (meh ta no ehoh), change of mind or principle; epiotrofw (eh pee ot rof oh), turn one’s self towards or back)  A variety of ideas, ranging from:  a change of mind; feeling regret; to turning away from sin back to God.

                 In the Old Testament, Israel owes obedience to God, falls under judgment when it strays, and can only recover favor by renouncing sin and turning back to God; an individual may also experience judgment and turn back to God.  The prophets emphasize that humankind’s relation to God is personal, and that sin roots in a wrong relation to God.  Repentance is a reorientation of the entire person and a return to Yahweh.

                 John the Baptist continues the prophetic demand for repentance in the New Testament:  “Bear fruit that befits repentance.  The preaching of Jesus resembles that of John the Baptist.  He deepens the prophetic demand in his interpretation of the inwardness of sin.  Repentance means becoming another person: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  His theological reason for his conduct is:  “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

                 The prophets know that God must give the sinner a new heart.  Repentance in the deepest sense is beyond human powers.  Repentance is no longer only demand; it has become possibility.  Repentance and faith are sides of the same coin.  There can be no genuine repentance which is not also the acceptance of the divine promise.  The term “repentance” occurs infrequently in the writing of Paul and not all in the Gospel of John, because for both repentance is included in faith.  Paul speaks of faith as union with Christ, the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity.  John’s Gospel and letters present the life in Christ as rebirth.

REPHAEL (ﬧפאל, whom God healed)  The second son of Shemaiah; a gatekeeper, an “able man,” who served in the temple at Jerusalem (I Chronicles 26).

REPHAH (ﬧפה, riches)  An Ephraimite.  His parentage is not clear in the present Hebrew text.  His mother may have been Sheerah, builder of Beth-horon; no father is given.

REPHAIAH (ﬧפיה, whom the Lord healed)  1.  David’s and Solomon’s descendant; the son of Jeshaiah and the father of Arnan (I Chronicles 3).  2.  A Simeonite and one among the 500 men of that tribe who made their home in the vicinity of Mount Seir.  3.  A member of the tribe of Issachar, and a son of Tola.  He is reported to have been a mighty warrior (I Chronicles 7).  4.  Saul of Benjamin’s descendant; Binea’s son, and Eleasah’s father (I Chronicles 9).  5.  Hur’s son, and one of those who helped to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall in Nehemiah’s day of.  He had charge of half of one of the 5 governmental districts into which post-exilic Judah was divided.  It can be assumed that he remained in Judah after the downfall of the southern kingdom in 586 B.C.

REPHAIM  (ﬧפאים, dead, departed)  1.  The shades, the dead, inhabitants of Sheol.  They are the weak, shadowy continuations of the living who have now lost their vitality and strength.  The noun may derive from the verb meaning “to sink down, relax.”  A more likely derivation is from the Hebrew verb “to heal or stitch together,” so we may think of the dead as a community bound together in a common existence in Sheol.  The Rephaim are not extinct souls, but their life has little substance.  

                 The Sidonian kings Tabnith and Eshmunazar express the curse that any tomb-robber who disturbs them may have no resting place among the Rephaim.  The most numerous references to the Rephaim are to be found in the Ras Shamra Texts.  These texts, though fragmentary, seem to describe how El, the supreme god of the Canaanite, summons the Rephaim, and they engage in feasting.  This may well be the origin of the Hebrew term, which indicates the persistence among the Hebrews of Canaanite thought-forms.

     2.  An ethnic term designating the Palestine’s pre-Israelite people; the New Revised Standard Version translates it “giants”; the King James Version translates it “giant.”  Israelite tradition speaks of the Rephaim’s gigantic stature.  Og, king of Bashan, had a massive iron bedstead.  This tradition of the aboriginal giants, probably from Hebrew folklore, was partially inspired by the megalithic structures of the Neolithic period.

            “Rephaim” as an ethnic term may also be found in Ugaritic literature, and is frequently the same as “hero.”  These usages lead one to think manly vigor and vitality rather than the netherworld’s shadowy inhabitants, and may indicate the source of the Hebrew tradition which identifies the Rephaim as giants.  The relation between the 2 usages of “Rephaim” is not clear.  Perhaps it is the sense of “community” each implies.

R-17

REPHAIM, VALLEY OF (פאיםﬧעמק  (‘ay mek  ref aw eem), valley of the giants)  A broad valley near Jerusalem, named for the early inhabitants of Palestine.

                 The Valley of Rephaim is mentioned in the description of the common boundary of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.  The boundary went westward up along the Valley of Hinnom, passed by the northern end of the Valley Rephaim, and reached the springs at Lifta, northwest of Jerusalem.  The Valley of Rephaim is mentioned in several episodes of the flight of David against Philistine invaders who ascended from the lowlands and deployed in the Valley of Rephaim, within easy reach of both Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

              

REPHAN (Refan) The primary Greek Old Testament’s rendering of the name of a god which is given as Kaiwan in the Masoretic Text.  Rephan or Kaiwan, clearly an astral deity, is the Babylonian name for Saturn.

REPHIDIM  (ﬧפיﬢים, couches)  A stopping place of the Israelites between the Wilderness of Sin and the Wilderness of Sinai.  Three events are connected with this name.  Here the people found fault with Moses because there was no water, and put the Lord to the proof.  The defeat of Amalek took place here, and was commemorated by the erection of an altar which was called Yahweh-Nissi.  The visit of Jethro may have taken place in this vicinity, though most scholars today believe its locale must have been Mount Sinai.

                 The location of Rephidim depends on the location of Mount Sinai.  The traditional location which places the mountain of God near the tip of the peninsula, is still preferable to either Kadesh-barnea or Midian.  The difficulties which are encountered in accepting the traditional site can be eliminated by the assumption that the account of Exodus and the wandering is made up of separate strands of tradition.  The southern tip of the peninsula is still the most probable location.

REPTILE  (ﬧמש (reh mesh))  Any of a class of cold-blooded, air-breathing, vertebrate animals.

RESEN  (ﬧסן, halter)  A city in Assyria mentioned as a great city built by Asshur between Nineveh and Calah.  No major city thus located is known from Assyrian sources.

RESERVIOR (מקוה (me keh veh), collection (of water as well as other things))  A storage place.  Reservoirs for the storage of rain water were common in biblical times.  Isaiah 22 refers to the reservoir between the two walls for the waters of the Old Pool.

RESH (ﬧ) The 20^th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet as it is placed at the head of every verse in the 20^th section of the acrostic psalm, Psalm 119.

RESEPH  (ﬧשף, flame, lightning)  1.  A member of the northern tribe of Ephraim; son of Rephah and the father of Telah (I Chronicles 25).

     2.  A proper name, translated as a common noun in Deuteronomy 32; Psalms 76, 78; Job 5; Song of Songs [Solomon] 8.  Reseph is well attested as a Canaanite god in offering lists and theophoric names from Ras Shamra.  In the Keret epic of Ras Shamra, he is the god of plague or mass destruction.  In Egyptian sculpture he is portrayed with a helmet garnished with gazelle horns.  Beth-shan on a tributary of the Jordan and Arsuf on the coast were cult centers of Reseph.

RESPECT OF PERSON  (הﬢﬧ (haw dar), honor, reverence)  Recognition of the strength, merit, and significance of another.  The Old Testament and the New Testament set forth instances in which respect of persons is invalid.  Laws concerning holiness of behavior state that judgment is to be made without respect of person; when one judges, nasha panim “to lift up the face” is prohibited.  It was said of Jesus: “You speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality.”  God shows no partiality; God is no respecter of persons.

R-18

REST  (נוה (naw vaw), dwell quietly; ﬧגע (raw geh ‘aw), be quiet; ﬨשב (shaw bat), to cease from labor; anapauein (an ap aw ine), to take refreshment)  The translation of a number of biblical words.

                 Usually the rest is purely physical.  Even when people are given rest by God—the rest is bodily rather than spiritual: in a secure dwelling place; in the security and comfort of a good marriage; in freedom from war; in freedom from ordinary work.  Solomon is called a “man of rest” or “peace.”  The only reference to the rest of death is in Job 3.  There does not appear to be any certain instance in the Old Testament of “rest” in the sense of “inward peace.”  Although a verse in Psalm 37 (King James Version) is translated “Rest in the Lord,” the correct meaning is used in the New Revised Standard Version: “Be still before the Lord.”

                 In the New Testament explicit references to rest are few, and are of little or no religious or theological significance.  In the first three gospels and in Paul, the meaning is often simply refreshment.  Ancient interpreters took the burden from which Christ releases people to be the burden of their sins.  None of the other references besides those in Hebrews and one in Revelation are of any religious significance.

                 The only New Testament writer who has much to say about rest is the author of the Letter to the Hebrews.  For this author the Christian gospel’s consummation is that those who truly believe it will enter into God’s rest.  The author takes the phrase from Genesis 2, describing God’s rest on the seventh day, and gives it a wider and deeper meaning, namely that it was God’s gracious purpose that God’s people should share in it.  The good news of this rest has now been proclaimed to us; and by believing in it, we shall enter into that rest.  

                 When we do attain rest, exertion is at an end, for it is “sabbath rest”; “whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from labors.”  Nothing more is said about the rest, but it cannot be supposed to be a state of inactivity.  In the similar passage in Rev. 14, it may be possible to distinguish between toilsome, wearisome work and that work which is done easily and gladly.  The Hebrews author’s language is limited by the humanlike image of God in Genesis, and so may not fully express the writer’s conception of the blessedness of God’s rest. 

RESTORATION  (השיב (heh shobe), return; apokaqistanai (ah po kah thees tah nie))  The destiny of the cosmos seen as the attainment of its original purpose and the preservation of its historical achievement. 

     The concept of cosmic “restoration” is rooted in the instinct of primitive cultures to experience reality as something that goes through endless cycles.  Babylonian astronomy developed the concept of an endless series of “great years” or aeons of astronomically determined duration.  This view was elevated to philosophical status especially by the Stoics who taught a periodic and widespread destruction by fire, followed by a “restoration.”  This cyclic concept was in principle superseded in the Persian’s view of the endtime by the view of a final transfiguration in which all would be saved.  This single-cycle view is what influenced later Hebrew-Christian thought, which meant that restoration must accept a secondary role in the understanding of history.  Yet it continued to supply the Hebrew and Christian view of the endtime with material.

     The verb “restore” became in the Old Testament a technical term for the political restoration of Israel by God.  This concept is attached to Elijah in Malachi 4, where he is prophesied as returning to “restore the hearts of father’s to their children and [vice verse].”  Luke places this Jewish concept of “restoring the kingdom to Israel” on the lips of the disciples at the Resurrection, as an occasion for correcting the view of the kingdom’s nearness and of its limitation to Israel.  The expression “restoration of all things” occurs in Acts 3, and other allusions to the Elijah traditions suggest some such connection in the source material employed by Luke.  In the New Testament the view of the completeness of Christ’s victory does not eliminate the Jewish idea of a realistic judgment, but rather serves as the positive basis for the call to radical decision.

RESURRECTION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT (OT).  “Resurrection” is a blanket term covering three different, but related beliefs: The essential self is awakened from the sleep of death shortly after the latter occurs; the bodies of the dead will eventually be resuscitated, at the end of the present world; the righteous among the dead will be raised collectively, after a Last Judgment, to another plane of existence, or to the world succeeding this one. 

R-19

     Resurrection is thus conceived either as an individual experience or as a common event at this age’s end. The different views are due to the fact that the doctrine was evolved in different philosophies to resolve different problems.  Where death was regarded as sleep, resurrection was the inevitable waking.  Where time was seen as a cyclic process, resurrection answered the question of what happened at the cycle’s end.  Lastly, during religious persecution, it provided assurance to the faithful.  The prevailing image is that of waking from sleep.  But the image of decay and revival suggests also the alternative of the world “blossoming” again.

                 Although it is today a cardinal tenet of both Judaism and Christianity, the doctrine of resurrection was not evolved in Israel until the period of the widespread influence of Greek culture.  The only positive reference to it in the OT occurs in the very late book of Daniel, where it is said that following the appearance of Michael, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame.”  This passage does not represent a natural development of previous Hebrew thinking, but is simply a clever exploitation of popular “pagan” notions.  Attempts have been made to trace a doctrine of resurrection in earlier portions of the OT, but none of the evidence stands up to close scrutiny.

                 Thus, in the parade passage, Isaiah 26, the language is purely hyperbolic; the desired regeneration of a spiritually “dead” community of Israel is likened to the quickening of languishing soil after rain.  The famous words of Job 19:  “I know [If I only knew] that my Vindicator lives . . .”  Job is wishing that he might see before him a benign God and not mere coldhearted opponents!  This voices no definite belief in the raising of the dead, but rather expresses a desperate hope for the impossible rather than a confidence in the inevitable.

                 Psalm 17’s “When I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding thy form,” does not refer to waking from the sleep of death, but simply voices the prayer, or expectation, of one who has sought refuge in a sanctuary.  The phrase in Psalm 1 “the wicked will not stand in the judgment” refers merely to their inevitable collapse when duly arraigned.  Other passages that have been quoted really allude only to rescue from imminent death.

                 It is a false assertion that a belief in resurrection can scarcely have failed to penetrate to the Israelites, because all their neighbors had such beliefs.  The Mesopotamian gods are frequently credited with “bringing the dead to life.”  Actually those instances refer only to preserving in life one who is at the point of death, not actual resuscitation of the dead. 

     And it should be observed that the “dying and reviving gods” are part of an ongoing cycle, and that, although they are mourned as if dead, they are not said to have died and been resurrected, but only trapped alive in the nether world.  Nor can any doctrine of a general resurrection be deduced from the fact that in the Mesopotamian Descent of Ishtar the dead are said to rise along with Tammuz.  This poem refers to the widespread belief that on such occasions the ancestral dead temporarily rejoin their living kinsmen. 

     The plain truth is that there is no evidence in ancient Mesopotamian literature of any doctrine of resurrection.  The Egyptians asserted only that after the body’s demise, the dead came into possession of his essential self.  The problem was not how he could attain immortality, but how he could fail to do so.  In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the departed are said to inhabit the “silent land” with blissful detachment, while in the Mesopotamian poem of Ishtar’s Descent, they are portrayed as dwelling in darkness and squalor, feeding on dust and mud.  Broadly speaking, it was this last conception that existed in Israel before the Greek influences.

     While the formal doctrine of resurrection cannot be traced to ancient Near Eastern sources, certain specific ideas which later became part of the Judeo-Christian concept do indeed appear, in less dogmatic form, in Semitic and Egyptian myth.  The idea of the resurrection of the body is foreshadowed in the belief that certain heroic characters who met their deaths through dismemberment were subsequently restored to life by the miraculous reassembling of their limbs.  In this and other cases, what it is involved is something unusual, not the normal and inevitable destiny of all the dead.

     Second, the element of a last judgment, though articulated mainly on the pattern of Iranian teachings, may be recognized as at least partially a projection into a common event, long believed to be the destiny of the individual dead.  It should not be overlooked that similar ideas always existed among the Greeks and might thus have reached the Jews through the influence of Greek culture, rather than from purely oriental sources.          
     See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha / Intertestamental section of the Appendix.

     There are a number of folklorish ideas later associated with the doctrine of resurrection that are worth mentioning.  The resurrection at the end of this age will be accomplished through Elijah.  The prophet is identified by Malachi with the “messenger of the covenant,” and it is precisely the covenant that assures the faithful in Israel of their eventual revival.  The righteous shall shine like stars (Daniel 12).  It is pertinent to point out that the location of the dead in the stars was a common idea in Greco-Roman paganism.  It is likewise abundantly attested in classical Greek and Roman sources.

R-20

RESURRECTION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT (NT)-OUTSIDE OF THE GOSPELS.  Resurrection's center is that invisible point on the "third day," where faith and history meet in a relationship which remains impossible to solve by historical, scientific or logical means. 

     For Jesus, the assurance of a general resurrection rests upon the conviction that God "is not God of the dead, but of the living." And Paul says, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has been not raised."  Moreover, Paul does not draw general conclusions from the resurrection appearances of Christ; the resurrection hope is never argued from them.  Nor is it argued that in the resurrection body of the Lord we see the type or pledge of our own.  Paul also does not say that our resurrection body will be like his, only that its character will be determined entirely by the gift of God, "as God has chosen." 

     It is important to remember that, for the Hebrew mind, there was no real division between life and death; death was a weak form of life.  At death the soul or spirit left the body but could be called back into it.  The other people raised are indeed dead; but in all these cases the dead person is simply called back to life.  Raising the dead is the continuation of healing beyond a certain point; the agents of it may be purely human.

                 Jesus’ resurrection is different from the other raisings in the gospels; he has passed over the border into the departed spirits’ realm; he is not brought back simply to this life, but is raised forever to the right hand of God. This is done, not through any human agency, but by God alone; only of his raising does the NT use the term "the resurrection."  The most decisive distinction is that this is the resurrection of the Messiah.  For the earliest Christian preaching it is the Resurrection that designates Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.  This is the point at which his reign as Messiah begins, when he enters upon and begins the age of glory.  At the hour when Jesus is glorified, God's messianic act is complete, and the age to come has begun to supersede this one.

                 The statements in I Corinthians 15, Acts 2 and 13, all imply belief in a bodily resurrection.  A bodiless resurrection, or the notion that a man might be spiritually raised while his body lay on in the tomb would have seemed to the Jew an absurdity.  In whatever form the Resurrection was first proclaimed, it must have implied an empty sepulcher.  This, of course, says nothing as to whether the resurrection of Jesus was a bodily event, only that from the beginning it was believed and preached as such.

                 According to all our accounts, it was the appearances, not the tomb, that were decisive for the disciples' faith.  They were an essential part of the earliest witness.  Paul gives a detailed list of them in I Corinthians 15.  In trying to match his appearance accounts with the 4 gospel accounts, there will always be some uncertainty.  There appear to be records of at least 11 different appearances besides the one to Paul; 8 occur in the gospels, and 4 occur outside the gospel (one occurs in both).  The 4 non-gospel ones are listed here:

                  1.  To Peter (I Corinthians 15: 5)                       2.  To disciples (Acts 1: 6-9)

                  3.  To over 500 brethren (I Corinthian 15: 6)     4.  To James (I Corinthians 15: 7)

                While Paul witnesses to purely spiritual visions, the other ones are represented as progressively more materialistic as the gospel tradition develops.  Paul does not regard his own vision as the norm, but rather marvels at his right to include it in the series at all.  All the appearances depict the same phenomenon, of a body identical yet changed, transcending the flesh’s limitations yet capable of manifesting itself within the flesh.  The ground of appeal even for those who had shared in the appearances was not the past, but the present experience of Christ (e.g. Paul's abiding experience of the "Christ who lives in me”). The impression that Paul witnesses to apparitions of the glorified Christ, while the gospels stress an earthly form, is only partially valid. 

     According to Acts 23, it was for the “hope and the dead’s resurrection” that Paul felt himself to be on trial.  It was a “hope . . . which these themselves accept.”  Paul sees the whole Christian gospel as involved in this hope, because Christ has been raised from the dead.  The connection between Christ’s resurrection and future resurrection of those who are in him is emphasized as strongly as the conviction that those who are “in Christ Jesus” are already “alive to God.”  “If God’s Spirit who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you, God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to mortal bodies also through God’s spirit.”

R-21

     This last passage again draws attention to the Holy Spirit as the link, not only between Christ’s resurrection and ours, but also between our present and future state.  The Spirit anticipates the End, when “we shall all be changed” (I Corinthians 15).  For Christ “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him to subject all things to himself.”  The process by which we are “transformed” is the same process by which Christ himself is “formed” in us; this begins at baptism.  By such language Paul relates the risen life at present known in Christ to the resurrection yet to come.

    “Flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. . .  This perishable nature must put on imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.”  The resurrection body is Christ’s body, in union with which and as members of which our own bodies are renewed and glorified.  As to the resurrection body’s nature, Paul’s stresses only that the “person” stays the same, but there is discontinuity of form.  “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” and those that are alive will have no advantage over those that have “fallen asleep.”  Those still alive are those “who are left until the Lord’s coming.”  “God who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into God’s presence.”  Paul is always writing to a situation in which only a minority of Christians will need to be raised.  

                 The focus is always Christ’s Second Coming, rather than raising the dead. Indeed even at Christ’s coming it is only “those who belong to Christ” who are raised.  Paul never brings this resurrection into relation with the general resurrection.  For Paul the important point is the unity between the resurrection of Christians and Christ’s Coming.  The Coming will be a corporate appearing, the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him.”  God will bring with him those who have “fallen asleep.”  Just as Christ’s resurrection was not simply restoration to life but exaltation to victory, so it is with the resurrection of those that are in him; Christian resurrection and Christ’s Coming are essentially one.  It is God’s victory trumpet in Christ, the purpose of whose death and resurrection was that “whether we wake or sleep we might live with him.”

REU (ﬧעו, friendship, friend)  A Shemite; the son of Peleg, and the father of Serug.  It may identify both a Mesopotamian site and a tribe.

REUBEN (ﬧאובן, Behold, a son!)  Jacob’s first-born son and the ancestor and origin of a tribe’s name.  Reuben was always first in the list of Jacob’s descendants.  He found mandrakes which brought Jacob back to Leah, resulting in Issachar’s birth.  Tribal tradition has Reuben laying with his father’s concubine.

                 The tribe of Reuben must at one time have been an important tribe.  Its history obviously began in the land west of the Jordan.  The border between Judah and Benjamin uses a landmark named for Bohan the son of Reuben.  Reuben’s relations to Judah and to the Leah group in general, like those of Gad, date from the early period of the Israelite occupation of the land.  The Blessing of Jacob states:  “Reuben you are my first-born, [but] you shall no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed.”

                 Whether this statement and one like it in Deuteronomy 33 have in mind Reuben’s situation in the land east of the Jordan cannot be determined.  Unlike the tribe of Judah, which was kept separate from the rest of Israel by a crossbar of Canaanite city-territories, Reuben could maintain connections with the loose Israelite confederation.  Reuben is rebuked in the Song of Deborah for not having taken part in the battle.  Probably the remnants of the tribe moved over into the land east of the Jordan either along with the Gadites or soon after them.  Reubenites settled in a relatively confined area in the middle of Gadite territory.  How the events in the tradition of the rebellion of the Reubenites Dathan and Abiram fit into the history up to that time, remains an open question.

                 The later literature makes note of Reuben almost exclusively in statistical connections or in schematic presentations which group “Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh” together.  The Chronicler is able to report only two individual Reubenites, one a leader of 30 men, and the other a chieftain of the Reubenites who was led away into exile by Tiglath-pileser. 

     In Deuteronomy 27, Reuben occupies the first place only in the list of those who are to utter the curse.  In the order for encampment and marching, in the list of the offerings of the leaders, and in the sequence for breaking camp, Reuben has to give precedence to Judah.  In the apportionment commission for the land west of the Jordan, Reuben is naturally excluded.  In the lists of the Levite cities Reuben has likewise yielded precedence to Judah and is classified along with Gad and Zebulun in the last group.  In I Chronicles 1-9, Reuben is relegated to third place in favor of Judah and Simeon.  In Ezekiel 48, Reuben receives the strip to the north of Judah, but the first of the gates of Jerusalem is named for Reuben.  In the New Testament, Reuben is mentioned only in Revelation 7 as the second tribe after Judah.

R-22

REUEL (ﬧעואל, friend of God)  1.  Son of Esau and Basemath the daughter of Ishmael; the father of the Edomite clan chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, Mizzah.  2.  The father-in-law (?) of Moses; the biblical traditions are not in agreement as to the father-in-law’s name or tribe.  The J(Y)ahwist Writer calls him Reuel or Hobab; the Elohwist Writer uniformly names him Jethro.  The possibilities put forward are: all three are the same person; Reuel may be a tribal name; Hobab may be Moses’ brother-in-law; Hobab and Jethro may designate the father-in-law, with Reuel as Hobab’s father.  The last is most widely accepted.                3.      Father of Gadite leader Eliasaph (Num. 2)  4.  A Benjaminite, Meshullam’s grandfather (I Chron. 9). 

REUMAH (ﬧאומה, high)  Nahor’s concubine, whose four sons were the ancestors and the origin of the name of Aramean tribes located north of Damascus, who were distantly related to the Israelites (Genesis 22).  

REVELATION.  In the Bible, primarily a matter of God’s initiative in history and human affairs rather than of the human search and discovery of God.  God is described as revealing God’s self, actions, designs, character, rather than as communicating propositions.  God’s revelation can be received only by those who are humble and receptive.  Within this general sphere, revelation of particular kinds is granted, such as divination, inspiration, prophecy, and vision (See the last four mentioned, Prophet, and Prophetism).  
            The Bible provides ample illustrations of divination:  casting lots; omens; interpreting dreams, etc.  But the ideal in the Old Testament (OT) is on a higher level than these techniques.  The OT ideal is expressed in God’s words describing God’s relationship with Moses:  “If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. . .  With Moses I speak mouth to mouth, and not in dark speech.”  
            The Nature of Biblical Revelation—The Hebrew and Christian religions are both described as “revealed religions.  God has taken the initiative and revealed God’s self, rather than humans discovering the truth.  In the Areopagus speech (Acts 17), Paul says that God has so constituted humankind that they “feel after God.”  God “has fixed a day on which God will judge the world in righteousness by someone whom God has appointed, and of this God has given assurance to all by raising that someone from the dead.”  
            God’s revelation in nature is seen in Psalms 19 and 29.  In Romans 1 the heathen are blamed for failing to recognize a clear revelation of God in nature.  The fact that they were not granted a more specific type of revelation is regarded as no excuse for their idolatry.  This conception of God in nature is far less characteristic of the Bible than the idea that God reveals God’s self chiefly in God’s designs for and in God’s dealings with humans.  God is represented in the Bible as revealing God’s self in actions, designs, and most decisively of all, in Jesus Christ.  It is in history that God’s design is mostly to be perceived. 
            It is further to be noted that God’s self-revelation is personal rather than propositional, revealed in relationship, in actions rather than in statements about God’s self.  Even when revelation can be reduced to a statement, it is a statement of God’s will and purpose.  In Genesis 35 allusion is made in terms of revelation to Jacob in his dream of the ladder.  The vision was concerned with God’s purpose and God’s character as strength and protection.  Samuel can tell Saul what has become of his father’s asses, but he is far more intent upon God’s plan for the leadership of Israel.  It was divine revelation of a drastic moral judgment that began Samuel’s prophetic career as a small child.  Samuel’s ministry marked a revival of revelation.  
            Elisha uses divination by music, but he uses it in the interests of the wars of the Lord.  And the great writing prophets from the 800 B.C. onward are almost wholly occupied, so far as their words survive, with politics, morals, and how they relate to the future.  Of the future vindication of God’s ways among his people it may be said that God has revealed his plan for the house of David.  But such revelation is a matter of the general destiny of the people of God; it is not the divulging of curious details. 

R-23

             Revelation in the New Testament (NT)—The same is true in the NT.  It is true that particulars may on occasion be revealed, e.g.: Simeon by oracles; Paul by divine admonitions; and the choice of the 12^th apostle (by the casting of lots).  Paul writes: God “was pleased to reveal God’s son to me.”  In the same way, when Peter makes his confession of Jesus as Son of God, it is described as divine revelation.  Jesus, as the Word of God, gathers up all the previous piecemeal utterances of God’s self-revelation.  In the NT, it is the gospel which is the contents of revelation.  This gospel includes the Wrath of God (See this subject and also God, NT) as well as God’s mercy.  Again Paul writes:  “In it [the gospel] God’s righteousness is revealed through faith for faith.  Since the gospel is for all Christian as such, there is no exclusiveness in this revelation.  
            It will be seen that such a conception of revelation corresponds with biblical “mystery,” namely God’s design concealed, then revealed when the time is ripe.  It is a striking paradox that “mystery” is so often associated with revelation.  The mystery is divulged only to the humble and obedient.  As Paul puts it:  “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”  
             The gospels may be viewed as written around the twin themes of veiling and unveiling.  Whereas the Synoptic gospels portray the hidden Messiah, the Gospel of John portrays people refusing to recognize who he is.  In both, there is a revelation of the “mystery.”  In John’s gospel, the Baptist has to have the concealed Jesus divinely indicated to him.  This is in keeping with certain phases of Jewish messianic expectation.  
              For the ordinary Christian here and now is claimed an intercourse with God, through Christ.  As human thoughts, Paul says, are known only by the “spirit of the person,” it is only God’s Spirit that can comprehend God’s thoughts.  We have received not the world’s spirit, but the Spirit from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.”  It is “babes” who are chosen; it is those who are humble enough to obey who find out God’s will.  By the Spirit we receive Christ’s mind, and Christ is the revealer of God’s mind.  
            While this is the essence of Christian revelation, and is for all who respond with obedience, there is also the more specialized gift of “prophecy.”  This means a heightened sensitivity to the guidance of God in given situations.  But this is under the control of the ordinary discrimination of the assembled congregation.  It must be added that in II Corinthian 12, reference is made to some special revelation granted to Paul.              
             If the gospel culminating in Jesus, is supremely God’s self-revelation, then scripture necessarily also ranks as a medium of revelation.  The Dead Sea Scrolls exemplify a Jewish treatment of written prophecy as a medium of revelation.  The recognition of scripture as a medium through which the Spirit of God speaks is explicit in Hebrews.  
             The ultimate revelation of God’s purposes is cast still into the future by the NT (“Nothing is covered that will not be revealed” (Matthew 10)); “the Lord . . ., who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.” (I Corinthians 3 & 4)).  Insight into the meaning of present woes and their ultimate outcome can thus be styled apocalypse.  Besides the Apocalypse of John (i.e. Revelation) there are other NT examples of this sort of writing.  The degree to which this type of literature is genuinely in the “prophetic” line may be measured by how loyal it is to the Bible.  Just as “Jesus” testimony is the spirit of prophecy,” so too Christian revelation is authentic when the will of God in Christ is involved and obeyed.  

REVELATION (BOOK OF) (Apokaluyis Iwannou (ah pa kah lip sees  yo an noo), apocalypse, disclosure of John)  The last book in the New Testament (NT) canon, written originally to the “seven churches that are in Asia” (western Asia Minor)  This is the only complete example in the NT scriptures of an apocalypse.  John’s apocalypse far transcends all others of its class in the endeavor to present an explanation for the existence of both evil and God in history, to portray both “what is and what is to take place.”  It is a dramatization of the gospel message sent forth in letter form and intended to be read aloud in the churches.  John attributes his knowledge of it to “revelation” which came to him from God through Jesus Christ, or through “his angel.”  
             General Character—In order to understand the contents and message of this book, an examination of certain features which characterize it is necessary.  All apocalyptic literature is dramatic in character, its varied scenes being reported as “visions” by the seer.  This is true both of pagan apocalypses, like Vergil’s Aeneid, and of Jewish and Christian examples, such as portions of Daniel, and certain apocryphal works.  Indeed, the dramatic form appears to be followed more thoroughly in this work than anywhere else.  
             John alone among apocalyptic writers has superimposed upon the dramatic structure of his book another structure—that of a letter.  To disentangle the drama from the letter is fortunately an easy task.  Paul appears to have been the first Christian writer to present the gospel in letter form.  John follows Paul’s characteristic formulas closely by giving us a salutation, an opening benediction, a prayer, and a closing benediction.  Also something about his style must be noted: there are many violation of Greek grammar, which leads scholars to assume that he “thinks in Aramaic and writes in Greek.”  

R-24

           It has been suggested that the letter should be considered to embrace only chapter 1 or, at most 1-3.  As it now stands, the letter ends, not at 1 or 3, but at 22 with the closing benediction.  The drama is said by John to concern itself with both “what is” and “what is to take place.”  The drama as well as the letter must include the last ⅔ of chapter 1 and chapters 2-3.  It is likely that John first wrote his drama and later superimposed the letter form upon it.  John’s drama was intended as a “parlor” drama—to be read in private or at a local church.  In John’s day all books were scrolls.  The title was appended on a small piece of papyrus attached at one end of the scroll, such as “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants . . .”       

  John terms his book an apocalypse, but his work has a close affinity in spirit and content with the Hebrew prophets as well.  John speaks of it as prophecy in five places (chapters 1, 19, and three times in 22).  Only the apocryphal II Baruch makes the same claim for its author.  John quotes phrases and clauses from the writings of Hebrew prophets in some 150 passages.  While in its literary form John’s work is to be classed with the apocalypses of his day, its teaching is far closer to the Hebrew prophetic scriptures.  Indeed, his “Aramaic thinking” will accord well with John’s close affinity in doctrinal matters with the Hebrew prophets.  It may well be that it was for this reason his book was included within canon of the NT.

    Authorship and Date—John the seer who wrote the Revelation was inspired with the prophetic spirit and fire.  He had a belief in:  God’s universal concern for humankind and for its salvation; God’s omniscience; God’s saving purpose through the Lamb that was slain; and God’s redemptive activity through the incarnate life of Jesus.  This author was perhaps the church’s first scholar to attempt the construction of a theology of history.  This John was the pastor of at least the “seven churches” of Asia, and he wrote to them out of a shepherd’s concern for his flock, while exiled from it in Patmos.  

     Little more can be said of this author, as he tells us no more than this about himself.  It was the almost universal belief of the ancient church that the author was the apostle John.  Modern scholarship has remained unconvinced, preferring to identify the John of Revelation rather with John Mark, John the Elder, or a writer using the name of John to gain prestige for his work.  

     The arguments advanced for the modern theories are not all equally good.  Argument based on a comparison of the Gospel of John and Revelation is unconvincing. They share a dramatic flare and the underlying thought-frames of both are Semitic.  The early date of the apostle John’s death does not invalidate the possibility that some other John wrote both the fourth Gospel and Revelation.  But John the Seer of Revelation has not been convincingly identified with any known John in the first century of the church’s life.  

     The date of Revelation’s writing is nearly as uncertain as its authorship.  The church’s tradition reveals the following facts: a diversity of dates were suggested for the book by late writers, including the reigns of Claudius (41-54), Nero (54-68) and Trajan (98-117); the earlier church writers converged on a date in the reign of Domitian (81-96).  Examination of early traditions and the theories of several modern scholars show that no endeavor to reckon which seven emperors of Rome John has in mind has proved generally acceptable. 

      On the whole, the period 81-96 (Domitian) appears to accord best with the thesis of Revelation and with the contemporary condition of the church.  While it is possible that churches other than those mentioned existed in the province of Asia, it is unlikely that the church at an earlier date would have reached the low moral and spiritual ebb reflected in Revelation 2-3.  Domitian strenuously insisted on the recognition of the divinity of the imperial line and by his day emperor-worship was the one universal cult in Asia Minor, the one sort of pagan worship which is portrayed in Revelation as intolerable.  Finally, a late date is suggested for the book, if John employed a number of the other NT books in searching for materials for his own.  

      Revelation was treated as Holy Scripture early in church history.  Hermas (95-100 A.D.) used its imagery, and Justin Martyr (145), employed the book and mentioned its author by name.  The so-called Muratorian Canon remarks:  “And John in the Apocalypse, although he writes to 7 churches, yet speaks to all.” Irenaeus, Lyons’ bishop (175) also used the work.  Finally, under Jerome’s influence, it wound up in the Vulgate.  

     The Old Latin Manuscript contains a translation of the African type, and has fragments of Revelation along with the other New Testament writings.  Tertullian (200) and Cyprian (235-58) both wrote in Latin and employed the African Latin translation of the New Testament, including Revelation.  Clement of Alexandria (Egypt, 212) is our first authority to quote the book.  He is followed by Origen (235).  Dionysius of Alexandria (200s A.D.) challenged the Johannine authorship of the book, though he accepted it as canonical.  

R-25

     In the area for which John wrote his book, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis appears to have been the first on record to have employed it as authoritative; he was followed by Melito of Sardis (160-190).  In northern Syria, Revelation experienced its most checkered career.  Some used and quoted from the book, while others omitted it along with the minor Catholic letters.  

     On the whole, Revelation’s text is fairly certain, based on the surviving version.  Most of the variations have to do with the original’s ignorance of Greek grammar, and the varying degrees to which the version’s scribe tried to correct gender, number, noun-form, and mood and tense of the verb.  The most striking variants concern the number of the beast (13:18) and Armageddon’s spelling (e.g. Harmagedon).  There is little or no evidence for the text’s rearrangement on an extensive scale in Revelation.  The only obvious ones are 15:1, which should come after verse 4 of that chapter, and 20:7-10, which should come after verse 3 of that chapter.  

     Contents: Structure—The seer of the NT apocalypse was a martyr suffering for his evangelistic activity.  The dramatic character of his writing served to provide a new medium for the setting forth of the gospel message.  Other writers had invented and/or used the “gospel” format effectively.  It remained for John to employ the apocalypse’s dramatic potential to the same end.  The books’ contents suggest that the key to proper interpretation lies in discovery of its dramatic structure.  John was clearly heir to the Hebrew-Christian and the Greco-Roman traditions.  His combining of these traditions may be exhibited under the following headings:  sevenfold drama pattern; stage props for the drama; cosmic state of John’s drama; and prologue and epilogue.  

     It has been suggested that the book readily divides itself into 7 Acts, each Act having in turn 7 Scenes.  Act 1 gives us the picture of the church contemporary with the author.  Acts 2-7 similarly present with “what is to take place hereafter.”  The several methods of interpretation are not all mutually exclusive.  It is possible, for example, to combine the dramatic method with several methods of interpretation, and this seems to be required by John’s original intention.    

     From ancient times the number “7” symbolized completeness or finality to the Semitic mind.  The 7 seals, 7 spirits of God, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls are clear examples of this fact.  It would seem obvious that we should look for an all-embracing sevenfold pattern as forming the framework of a book.  Following this format, we would have seven major divisions with seven minor ones each, i.e. seven Acts, each with seven Scenes.   

     Acts 1, 2, 3, and 5 are easily distinguished by their focus on four different sets of seven objects; the scenes are indicated by the announcement of the successive items in each group of seven objects.  Acts 4, 6, and 7 are indicated by subject, and the scenes within them begin with an introductory word meaning to “see” or “show.”  When divided into the seven acts we have: Act 1—2:1-3:22; Act 2—6:1-8:1; Act 3—8:7-11:18; Act 4—12:1-15:4; Act 5—16:2-16:21; Act 6—17:3-20:3; and Act 7—20:11-22:5. 

     If the seven-times-sevenfold structure of the drama found in Revelation follows the Semitic pattern, it seems equally certain that in several respects John borrows from the known setup of the Greco-Roman stage. The first 12 verses of Act 1 and gaps between the others (1:9-20; Chapters 4 and 5; 8:2-6; 11:19; 15:5-16:1; 17:1-2; and 20:4-10) in this format are primarily used for describing the stage setting of each act, except for the last half of chapter 5, which is two hymns of the Slaughtered Lamb.  Some of John’s interpreters have so misunderstood his purpose in these sections as to imagine them to represent independent visions.  

     It is to be expected that the stage settings for Acts 1 and 2, which set the stage for all that transpires throughout the book, will require considerable elaboration of their settings as compared with the Acts which followed.  The picture of Son of man in his activity among the churches is a necessary backdrop for describing his lordly sway over the church universal as portrayed in the seven Scenes of Act 1.  And the lengthy description of God upon his throne, and the cast of creatures and elders surrounding God was necessary to introduce the seven Scenes of Act 2.  

     It is instructive to note in this connection that the hymns of both creatures and elders are indicated as proceeding eternally—a neat way of suggesting that this is stage-prop material and not part of the scenic activity carrying forward the theme of the drama.  While all these stage props are taken bodily from the furnishing of the Jewish temple or else serve to give expression to the Christian ideology.  Their very use as stage setting is suggestive of the Greco-Roman stage.  

R-26

     Not only the stage furnishings, but also the over-all contours or larger dimensions of the scenery on John’s cosmic stage, are suggestive at once of the arrangement of the Jewish temple and of the Greco-Roman stage, which had developed a standardized plan.  The theater at Ephesus was semicircular in shape and had a capacity of some 25,000 people.  It was backed by an elevated stage upon which was erected a skene, which formed a sort of backdrop for all the action as well as a convenient dressing room.  On either side of this skene were erected two wings or parskenia, and before it a prothyron or porch.  It is here suggested that John conceived of the cosmic stage on which was to be enacted the drama of the Christian theology of history as assuming in general the aspect with which his readers would have been familiar. 

     There is one touch left to make complete the picture of similarity between the Greco-Roman drama and the New Testament (NT) apocalypse.  It is now proposed that Revelation 1:7-8 take on significance when viewed as a prologue and as containing the accustomed announcements by the “herald” or interpreter of the theme of the play.  John’s prologue contains an announcement by a herald of the “star” of his drama—namely, Jesus Christ, and of the living God as “sponsor” of its action.  The epilogue (22:6-20) contains the endorsement of the Lord, the Spirit, and the author of the drama, John as its prophetic medium.            

     Outline 

I.   Title of the Apocalypse (first three verses)

II.     Salutation to the Seven Churches (1:4-6)

      III. Prologue: 2 voices (Herald and Lord, 1: 7-8)

IV.  Act 1:  The church on earth, 1:9-3:22

A.  Setting: The 7 golden lampstands

                  (1:9-20)

B.     The letters to the 7 churches (chs. 2-3)

      1: Passionless church (Ephesus, 2:1-7)

                        2: Persecuted church (Smyrna, 8-11)

                        3: Tolerant church (Pergamum, 12-17)

                        4: Compromising church (Thyatira, 18-29)

                        5: Dead church (Sardis, 3:1-6)

                        6: Missionary church (Philadelphia, 7-13)

                        7: Arrogant church (Laodicea, 14-22)                           

       V.  Act 2:  God’s purpose in history, 4-8:1

A.     Setting:  Throne of God, 4:1-8; odes of creatures and elders, 8-11; the sealed book and the Lamb, 5:1-7; hymns, 8-14

B.     Opening of the 7 seals, 6:1-8:1

      Scene

   1: Rider on white horse, 6:1-2

   2: Rider on red horse, 3-4

                       3: Rider on black horse, 5-6

   4: Rider on yellow horse, 7-8

   5: Prayer of martyrs, 9-11

   6: Endtime events: cosmic catastrophe, 6: 12-17; sealing of the martyrs, 7:1-8; martyrs in heaven, 9-17

   7: Silence in heaven, 8:1

              VI.   Act 3:  Church in tribulation, 8:2-11:18

     A.   Setting: Altars, prayers of saints, 8:2-6  

     B.   Sounding of seven trumpets, 8:7-11:18

        Scene       

         1: Hail and fire fall, 8:7

         2: Mountain cast into the sea, 8-9

         3: Star falls on rivers & springs, 10-11

4: Heavenly bodies darkened, 12; eagle announces 3 woes, 13

5: (woe 1): Pit of abyss; locust, 9:1-12

6: (woe 2): 4 angels released, 13-15; 200,000,000 horsemen, 16-21; angel with little book, ch. 10; Gentile times, 2 prophets, evil city, 11: 1-14

7. (woe 3): Worship in heaven, 15-18

R-27

    VII.      Act 4: Salvation of the church 11:19-15: 4

A.     Setting: Ark of the covenant, 11:19

      B.   Showing of seven pageants, 12:1-15:4

Scene

         1: Woman and the dragon, ch. 12

         2: Beast arising from sea, 13:1-10

         3: Beast arising from land, 11-18

         4: Lamb & 144,000 martyrs, 14:1-5

         5: Doom of Babylon foretold, 6-13

         6: Son of man on white cloud and wine press of God’s wrath, 14-20

                        7: Hymn of Lamb chanted, 15:1-4

                 VIII.  Act 5: World in agony, 15:5-16:21

                   A.     Setting: Tent of witness, 15:5-16:1

B.  Pouring out of the 7 bowls, 16:2-21

Scene

         1: Plague to earth (boils), 16:2

         2: Plague to sea (blood), 16:3

         3: Plague to rivers & springs, 4-7     

         4: Plague to sun (burning heat),8-9

         5: Plague to beast’s throne, 10-11

         6: Plague of Armageddon, 12-16

                     7: Plague to air (devastate), 17-21

                 IX. Act 6: Judgment of the world, 17:1-20:3

      A. Setting: Angel from sanctuary, 17:1-2

                  B. Unfolding of 7 plagues, 17:3-20:3

       Scene

                           1: Woman on scarlet beast, 17: 3-5

                           2: Beast at war with woman, 6-18

                           3: Final cosmic oratorio, 18:1-19:10

                     4: God’s Word, white horse, 11-16

                     5: Angel standing in sun, 17-18

                     6: Battle of Armageddon, 19-21

                     7: Satan cast into abyss, 20:1-3

                 X.   Act 7: Church in Millennium, 20:4-22:5

                  A.     Setting: Church enthroned w/Christ, 20:4-6; Satan’s authority,                                                 defeat, 7-10 

B.   Fulfilling of God’s 7-fold plan, 20:11-22:5

        Scene

           1:  Old Heaven & Earth, 20:11

           2:  Last Judgment, 12-15

           3:  New Heaven & Earth, 21:1

           4:  New Jerusalem, 2-8

           5:  Measuring city, 9-21

           6:  City’s illumination, 22-27

           7:  City’s source of life, 22:1-5

                  XI. Epilogue: Endorsements & warnings, 6-20

                  XII. Closing Benediction, 21 

     Symbolism and Thought-Frames—These are fabric out of which an author fashions his message.  They may be considered from the standpoint of their origins and from their essential content or teaching.  Babylonian, Zoroastrian, Egyptian and other pagan sources have been claimed for John’s imagery, (e.g. “7 spirits”; views of creation, heaven, and hell).  It is also claimed by some that the pagan sources have been mediated to John either through Gnosticism or by Jewish apocryphal or apocalyptic writings common to Jewish and Christian apocalyptists.  The mediating agencies are the OT scriptures, and the common Christian tradition. 

R-28

   John’s thought-frames are generally those of the Hebrew prophets.  These include God’s sovereignty, chosen people of God, the Lord of the church as “son of man,” witnessing and martyred people, congregational elders ruling with God or Christ, and the efficacy of prayer.  Prophecy typical of prophets like Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah is to be seen in the portrayal of the Son of man’s Lordship over and redemptive activity for his church in the open vision. 

   John presents these prophetic teachings after the usual apocalyptic fashion through the medium of a characteristic and striking symbolism, which is partly obscure but for the most part intelligible even today.  God’s sovereignty is expressed by the vision of the divine throne room, God’s unapproachable holiness by that of the “sea of glass mingled with fire,” God’s grace by a rainbow, God’s omniscience by the “seven spirits of God,” and God’s judgment upon all creation (“from his presence earth and sky fled away”).  The kingdom of evil is symbolized by the dragon and his angels and the corporate sin of the race.  The corporate sin of the race is represented by a swarm of locusts and “troops of cavalry.”  The evil messiah of this kingdom finds expression under the form of the “beast rising out of the sea.”  

   Further, the archangel Michael stands for Christ in his battling with the forces of unrighteousness, “seven lampstands” for the church universal, “seven stars” for the “angels” (i.e. bishops, messengers, heavenly counterparts, and Sodom and Egypt, “Babylon” and the city or world of humankind for world culture.  The “new Jerusalem” stands for God’s people, the “woman clothed with the sun” for the community of God’s people out of which God’s messiah comes, the “great harlot” for the evil community of the beast, and the “river of the water of life” and the “tree of life” for the final salvation which God affords his people.  The background and stage setting are supplied by the paraphernalia of tabernacle and temple, such as the lampstands, golden bowls, altar of sacrifice, golden altar of incense, and the sanctuary with its ark of the covenant.  

   The symbol creating the most difficulty is the number of the beast.  Most of  history’s tyrants, from Nero to Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler, have at one time and another been said to answer to the description of the beast and to furnish in numerical values attaching to their names in Hebrew or Greek the “number of the beast.”  Almost as much difficulty has attended interpreting the meaning of the famous 4 horsemen, which, if related to Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 represent war or conquest, international or civil strife, famine, and death.  

      Message and Methods of Interpretation—Employing the drama with its Greek stage and stage props, John endeavors in his book to set forth the divine philosophy of history.  This is an account of God’s redemptive activity, carried in the context of both humankind’s general futility and the church’s ineffectiveness.  The seer is concerned to comfort and encourage a persecuted church.  His earnest desire is to place the church’s dire extremity in the context of the world’s equally great need and of God’s redemptive purpose.  The church is at once the company of the saved and the redemptive agency by which God will both save and rule.  

    It is a mistake to see in the book merely consolation for Christians experiencing persecution.  It far transcends the wish to make the church more introspective than it already is.  The focus of attention throughout the book is neither upon the church’s sufferings nor upon her exclusive salvation, but rather upon God’s ultimate saving purpose and upon the church’s part in its achievement.  

    Revelation opens with a vision of the Son of man walking in the midst of his church and holding in his right hand its spiritual core.  John says that, being “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” he heard behind him a loud voice, and that, turning round, he saw a seven-branched lampstand or seven separate lampstands.  If one would see Jesus, he means to say, let him look at the church for it is here that he is to be found!  

   The church is realistically portrayed in Act I of the outline above as it was in John’s day.  The 2 wayward churches of Ephesus and Laodicea are mentioned first and last in the list of 7, corresponding to the 2 outside arms of the lampstand; the 2 faithful churches are mentioned 2^nd and 6^th; the middle 3 churches (branches of the lampstand) are in varying stages of being polluted by the beliefs of those outside the church, from tolerance of emperor-worship to compromise with deification of the state to the death of the spirit of true worship.  

    If in Act 1 we see the church as it is on earth, in Act 2 we are transported into the heavenly regions that we may view the historical scene in the perspective of God’s eternal purpose.”  The seven-sealed book contains the following scenes: Scenes 1-4 chart the progress of empire, from conquering, to discord, to commerce, to death; Scene 5 is the church’s prayer for deliverance; Scene 6 provides a summary of the endtime events; Scene 7 is a cosmic pause in the action.  

R-29

     Acts 3 and 5 are complementary in that they elaborate the endtime events already narrated.  Act 3 portrays the church in the tribulation of the last times, while Act 5 portrays the secular world during the same time.  This is John’s way of saying that cosmic calamities cannot really touch God’s people. The prayers of the saints are indicated as bringing forth God’s effective action within history, while, on the other hand, the world cannot even approach God’s sanctuary during the tribulation of these times.  The church’s evangelism proceeds in the city called at various times Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Babylon.  Although martyred, the church rises and ascends like its Lord into heaven.  The so-called Battle of Armageddon is one of ideologies, not of guns and bombs.  

     Similarly, Acts 4 and 6 are complementary, the one presenting how God will proceed with the salvation of God’s people during the tribulations of the endtime, and the other the effects of God’s judgment on the secular culture opposed to God’s will.  It should be clear that for John the endtime embraces the whole period of the church’s history, from Incarnation to the Revelation’s events; both of these Acts end in their closing scenes with the final judgment of Satan and his hosts.  

    In Act 7 we have the “play within the play.”  The church is now seen seated with Christ and reigning with him throughout the Millennium.  To say as John does that the church reigning with Christ is privileged to observe the successive events presented in the seven Scenes is simply to say that it alone has the spiritual insight to foresee the eternal purposes of God in their completeness.  Accordingly, throughout history the church is led by the Spirit to see that all creation is in God’s sight judged as unworthy, that God will create a cosmos after God’s own liking, and that God is progressively bringing ever nearer the “new Jerusalem.”  

    It is perhaps not surprising that a variety of methods of interpretation should have been tried with reference to the Revelation.  Accordingly, Christian scholars have always approached a study of John’s book with minds biased on the subjects with which it deals, and the net result has been chaotic.  The five types briefly described here are historical, apocalyptic (endtime), literary, allegorical, and dramatic.  

    The first two are difficult to separate; scholars are uncertain whether the author intends a contemporary description of the Roman Empire, a visionary prediction of the endtimes, or perhaps a commentary on the cycle of divine redemptive activity and human attempts to resist it throughout history.  Some interpret it from a literary standpoint, viewing it as the end product of a series of editors assembling materials derived from Jewish, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other similar sources.  Others ignore its literal meaning and search for hidden ones (i.e. an allegory).  They often go beyond the subject of John’s original ideological theme.  

REVERENCE (ﬧאהי (yeh ray ‘aw), fearing; השﬨחוה (he sheh tah khah vaw), bow down; foboV (foe bos), fear, astonishment)  There is no typical word in the original biblical languages corresponding to the English “reverence.”  It is sometimes used for the above Hebrew and Greek words (The King James Version uses it for heshetakhavah).  The expression phobos Christou challenges the adequacy of the oft-used phrase “fear of the Lord” to contain the full dimension of the human response to God’s fearful righteousness expressed in love.  

REWARD (שחﬢ (shah khad), gift, present, bribe; ﬤﬧש (saw kawr), hire, wages; שלם (shah lam), repayment of a debt; misqoV (me thos), hire, wages; antapodosiV (an tah po doe sees), repayment of a debt)  The English word “reward” may have a neutral meaning of “recompense for good or evil,” but most often it suggests a benefit or favorable compensation.  
           The operation of biblical reward has several levels; there is person to person; God’s recognition of obedience and service; happy outcome; and a gracious repayment in the life to come.  It is to be noted that words used in Hebrew and Greek suggest the idea of the wholeness of an action, the completion of a deed.  It is assumed that action naturally carries consequences, whether of reward or of punishment.  
           This article is concerned with reward in its ethical and religious dimensions.  God’s covenant with Israel was the evidence of God’s loving favor.  Their obedience brought prosperity and possession of the land.  Disobedience was a covenant violation and would bring disaster and death.  The history of the judges and the kings was written in terms of reward for faithfulness and punishment for sin and idolatry.  In Psalms and the wisdom literature this “neat doctrine of rewards and punishments” was applied to the individual life.  Elsewhere in the Psalms this neat mechanical pattern breaks down when the psalmist prays for forgiveness and says:  “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities.”  

R-30

       Proverbs follows the orthodox doctrine, but the writer (writers) of Ecclesiastes found that life did not work neatly and the retribution doctrine did not always apply.  In the book of Job the friends take the position that righteousness is rewarded by prosperity and long life, while sickness and poverty are the recompense for sin; Job observes that the wicked prosper.  (See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.)
            In the Judaism in which Jesus lived, God punished sin and rewarded righteousness.  The lawyer in Luke 10 provides an example of good works with a view to reward from God.  Reward is an almost constant feature of Jesus’ teaching.  The reward motive is sharply curbed in the parable of the laborers (Matthew 20) where the payment of one denarius is for all.  In the judgment scene of Matthew 25 the righteous are rewarded with a place in the kingdom, but their service was so far from being done for a reward that the righteous were unaware of what they had done. How far Jesus’ teaching was from self-seeking reward appears in the paradox “Whoever would save his life will lose it; whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”  
            Discussion of Jesus’ reward ethics should include 4 considerations: reward is of the same character as the principle, action, or service done; reward can be understood as the necessary consequence of the way of life Jesus taught; rewards are included in the salvation offered as the gift of God to all who will respond in faith; and the goal to which Jesus directed people is not self-aggrandizement, but self-forgetful service in God’s kingdom.  In the consideration of rewards we can see the sharpest difference between the Synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John.  Eternal life in the Fourth Gospel rests on belief, but this life is not a reward of the future after death.  Jesus says he goes to prepare a place for his disciples.  The future reward becomes a present possession in fellowship with the Father and the Son.  
            In the letters of Paul, the theme is that God in Christ freely justifies the believer, who enters into new life in Christ.  In this new state the believer enjoys the gifts of the Spirit in reward and victory in the moral struggle.  Paul just as persistently asserts human responsibility for their actions and their accountability before God or Christ.  “He will render to every one according to their works.”  At a few points Paul refers to reward in this life. In general he finds that in this life there is only pain and hardship, and he projects the Christian’s rewards into the future.  In the kingdom each will receive awards in proportion to his records on earth.      
            This apparent contradiction between justification by faith and the repayment principle has been much discussed.  Both doctrines are clearly in Paul’s thinking, and he does seem to be aware of a contradiction.  Paul as a Jew would naturally think in terms of human accountability before God.  Human accountability is basic to the order of life, but Paul sees the Christian entering on a new order of life in the Spirit where victory over sin is assured and where judgment will not bring the wrath of God but final vindication.  
           In the Letter to the Hebrews we hear of the promise of rest, into which all should strive to enter.  Christ has offered perfect sacrifice for the sin of all, and yet the believer could fall away and finally face fearful judgment.  The Letter of James deals vigorously with “accountability.”  The doer of righteousness will be blessed in this life, but all face the imminence of judgment.  The author of I Peter confidently looks forward to the Christian hope at Jesus Christ’s revelation.  Faithful people suffer trial now, but then they will enter their inheritance and receive the crown of glory.  There are many exhortations and injunctions without mentioning reward.  For the slave in suffering it is enough to have God’s approval.  The book of Revelation was written for the vindication of those who suffer now but who will have a share in heavenly Jerusalem.  God’s judgment brings wrath upon the wicked, but to the saints there will be no hunger, thirst, sorrow and suffering.  

REZEPH (צףﬧ, coals)  A town mentioned with Gozan and Harran in the message of Sennacherib’s commander to Hezekiah as an example of cities long ago captured by the Assyrians.  Reseph was located near the West end of Jebel Singar and had in 701 B.C. been in Assyrian hands for a century or so.  Most probably it was incorporated as an integral part of Assyria by Shalmaneser III after his campaign in that region in 838 B.C.  

REZIN (ציןﬧ, accepted, beloved, prince)  King of Damascus (died 732 B.C.).  In 738, like Menahem of Israel, he paid tribute to the Assyrian king.  During the reign of King Ahaz of Judah, Rezin joined King Pekah of Israel in an attack on Judah with the intention of placing an Aramean on the throne of Judah.  Rezin’s attack on Jerusalem failed, but King Ahaz was terrified.  Despite the prophet Isaiah’s advice to remain calm and trust in God, Ahaz sent treasure of his temple and palace as a rich bribe to persuade the Assyrian king to help Judah.  

R-31

         When Tiglath-pileser III attacked in 733 B.C., Pekah of Israel was assassinated, and Hoshea was made king of Israel.  Rezin fled to Damascus, where he was besieged like a “caged bird.”  Unable to take Damascus for a year, the Assyrians turned against the Arabs, Tyrians, and Philistines.  In 732, Damascus was captured, and many of its inhabitants were exiled.  After the city’s fall, the kingdom of Damascus lost its independence.   

REZON (ﬧזון, prince)  Aramean leader who was an adversary of David and Solomon as the captain of an independent band of marauders.  During the reign of Solomon, Rezon seized Damascus and made it the center of a new and powerful Aramean state.  

RHEGIUM (to Rhgion (toe  reh gee on))  A town in southern Italy where Paul stopped on the way to Rome; the modern Reggio or Reggion Calabria.  Rhegium is on the Strait of Messina, where the island of Sicily is only 10 km away.  See also the entry in the OT Apocrypha/Influence Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.  

RHETORIC AND ORATORY.  In English, rhetoric is descriptive, interpretive, or persuasive composition of language; oratory is the art of effective public speech.  Both rhetoric and oratory presuppose grammar.  In both Greek and Latin, however, the terms were identical.  The origins of Greek rhetoric go back at least to Homer, and like all Greek art was a natural expression of the Greek culture.  
          See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.  
         Attempts have been made to trace the influence of classical standards of rhetoric and oratory in the New Testament.  The best example is the Letter to the Hebrews, which has been outlined as having the three major elements of Greek oratory.  The most one can say is that the work is the finest example of Greek prose in the New Testament and that Greek rhetorical standards have influence the writer.  
         Other examples that have been chosen to illustrate classical influence include Paul’s speech before the Areopagus, which at least begins as Greek oratory. The rest of Paul’s speech was not modeled on the Greek orators, but ended like a Hebrew prophet’s grave warning of doom.  The forensic speeches in Acts, Paul’s defense on the steps of the Castle of Antonia, the one before the Sanhedrin, or the climactic speech before Festus, Agrippa, and Bernice all reflect the skill of Acts’ author, but do not show any of the explicit organization or composition which was typical of Greek and Latin oratory.  Paul was no Greek rhetorician reciting a speech; his style was far more like that of the popular Cynic-Stoic “diatribe.”  He positively rejected the artful literary and rhetorical devices of the “wise in this age.”  
        The same is true of the discourses of Jesus in Matthew and John, or the logic of Romans, Galatians, Revelation, or James.  Christian were not for the most part learned or the politically dominant class.  Their “models,” so far as they had any, were not Greek or Roman, but biblical.  It was in a later period that the artificial and popular rhetoric of the time began to influence Christian preaching and writing, especially sermons.  

RHODA (Rodh)  Apparently a slave in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark; it is possible, however, that she was simply a member of the household.  She joyfully recognized Peter’s voice outside the door, after his release from imprisonment.  Tradition claims this house as the place where the Last Supper was held, and it was perhaps the headquarters of the Jerusalem church. 

RHODES  (RodoV)  A Greek island and city on the southeastern edge of the Aegean Sea.  Rhodes is the largest island in the Aegean after Crete, measuring some 67 km by 27 km with Asia Minor only 16 km away.  Its central part is mountainous, its coasts have good harbors.  As the natural station for Aegean traffic enroute to the Orient.  Rhodes early developed into a prosperous trade center.  Paul’s ship on its way from Miletus and Cos to Patara stopped at Rhodes in accordance with ancient navigation routine (Acts 21). .            See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.  

RIBAI (ﬧיבי, the Lord defends)  The father of Ittai, who was a member of the company of the “Thirty” Davidic Mighty Men (II Samuel 23; I Chronicles 11).

R-32  

RIBBAND (ליתפ  (paw teel), string, cord)  Archaic, King James Version form of "ribbon."  

RIBLAH (ﬧבלה, abundant) An ancient Syrian town situated south of the Lake of Hums.  Its geographical position is where the military highways to Egypt and Mesopotamia crossed.  Riblah is known from the time when  Judah (southern  kingdom) had to fight for its life against the Egyptians, then the Babylonians.  King Josiah died in battle against Egypt, and when his younger Jehoahaz was made king, Pharaoh Neco disapproved, imprisoned him at Riblah, and made his brother Eliakim, renamed Jehoiakim, king and Egypt's vassal.  
         After Neco’s defeat at Carchemish in 606 B.C., Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon took over the rule of the Near East, so Jehoiakim became tributary to him; however, he refused to pay the tribute.  Because of this, Nebuchadrezzar’s armies pushed into Palestine.  Jehoiakim died, and his young son Jehoiachin took over, following his father’s foreign policy, which led to Jerusalem’s capture in 597.  Jerusalem’s last king, Mattaniah—or Zedekiah, as he called himself—ruled until 586, when Nebuchadrezzar ended Jerusalem’s kingdom.  
        At first Jeremiah the prophet seems to have been successful in persuading the king not to annoy Nebuchadrezzar, but Zedekiah was unable to control the war party.  Nebuchadrezzar immediately came on the scene and encamped at Riblah.  Eventually Zedekiah was captured, his sons were slain before his eyes, which were then put out.  He was bound in fetters and taken to Babylon. 

RIDDLE (היﬢה (he daw), enigma, proverb)  A literary form involving a matching of wits; the challenger hints at a concealed meaning which the contestant is to discover.  
        The classic biblical example of the riddle is Samson’s in Judge 14.  At his wedding feast, Samson proposes his riddle: “Out of the eater came something to eat.  Out of the strong came something sweet.”  It alludes to the honey which Samson had found in the carcass of the  lion. Samson’s wife gave them a hint in the form of another riddle.  Samson surmised their source and accused them with:  If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”  
         It is quite possible that both the riddle and his wife’s hint are really older than the Samson narrative.  If that is the case, then Samson’s riddle must have had another answer.  One may eat and drink too much at a celebration, so that from the eater his food may come forth and from even the strong the sweet.  This common experience may have been the original solution to Samson’s riddle.  His wife’s hint is itself a riddle the solution of which is not hard to find:  it is love which is “sweeter than honey” and “stronger than a lion."       
         The authors of a riddle are sly.  They are both revealing an amusing analogy and keeping it for themselves.  The riddle is a form of humor akin to the fable, allegory, parable, and simile.  But the riddle wasn’t just a game; it was a test of wisdom.  Solomon’s renown rested largely on his skill at solving riddles.  The queen of Sheba saw “all the wisdom of Solomon” in his answers to hard questions (i.e. “riddles”).  Daniel 8 describes a king-to-come as a “king of bold countenance, who understands riddles.”  Riddles were a deposit of tradition and lore.  The riddle was a literary form employed even by the prophets (Ezekiel 17; Isaiah 5).  
          In fact, the riddle was one of the media by which God revealed God’s self.  Of Daniel it was said: “an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems.”  Tradition distinguished Moses as one prophet with whom God communicated directly and not in dark speech; this implies the normality of divine communication through “dark speech, such as riddles.”  The riddle seems to be from the age of mythology, when people sought to uncover the gods’ carefully guarded secrets. 

RIE  (ﬤסמﬨ (koo seh met), spelt)  King James Version translation of the Hebrew.  This is now believed to be spelt wheat or emmer wheat.  Rye was not indigenous to Bible lands, but is a grain common to cold climates.  

RIGHT HAND (ימין (yaw meen))  The side or direction, as well as the hand itself; often used in a figurative sense, with or without the word for hand.  
         In common with most cultures, the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) assign special significance to the right hand as the hand of strength, the hand of blessing; while the left hand is unusually deceptive and deadly.  The right hand is the side on which a person is threatened, and where his deliverer must stand to protect a person.  The “right hand of God” is the OT metaphor of God’s mighty power by which God creates, wages war, and delivers his people; God may even use it against God’s own people. 

R-33

           In the NT, Psalm 110 is used to allude to the enthronement of Israel’s king in the throne room immediately south of the temple.  The psalm is quoted or echoed many times in the NT as a virtually constant element of the apostolic witness to the exalted Christ, reigning in honor and power at the right hand of God.  

RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT (OT) (יקﬢצ (tsah dak), just, equitable). Righteousness in the OT is a thoroughly Hebraic concept foreign to the Western mind and at variance with the common understanding of the term.  The ancient meaning of tsadaq does not shed much light on its later meaning.  Examination of the uses of tsadaq in each of its contexts helps us find a common factor governing its use.  It is not behavior in accordance with an ethical, legal, psychological, religious, or spiritual norm; it is not conduct which is dictated by either human or divine nature.  Tsadaq is a concept of relationship; one who is righteous has fulfilled the demands laid upon one by the relationship in which one stands.  
          Hebraic righteousness is the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship; each relationship brings with it specific demands.  Demands may differ from relationship to relationship: righteousness in one situation may be unrighteousness in another.  When God or human fulfills the conditions imposed upon him with a relationship, they are, in OT terms, righteous.  
          Righteousness as a Communal, Legal, and Covenantal Concept—The righteous person in Israel was the person who preserved the peace and wholeness of the community because it was they who fulfilled the demands of communal living.  The righteous cared for the poor, the fatherless, and the widow.  They lived in peace and prosperity because they upheld the peace and prosperity—the physical and psychic wholeness—of their community by fulfilling the demands of the communal and covenant relationship.  This is why tsadaq sometimes stands parallel with shalom.  For this reason it can be translated “prosperity.”  It is understandable that the OT sets over against the tsadiq (tsah deek) the rasha’, the evildoers, because they destroy the community itself by failing to fulfill the demands of the community relationship.  Their sin is evil committed against a covenant partner, one with whom they stand in relationship.  
          These facts help to explain the legal use of tsadaq.  The term is often used as a correlate to shaphat, “to judge.”  Thus one might conclude that righteousness is a legal concept.  One who is righteous is one who is judged to be in the right.  That which is right in a legal sense is that which fulfills the demands of the community relationship.  Righteousness is not an impartial decision between two parties, based on a legal norm, but is protecting, restoring, and helping righteousness in the communal relationship.  Righteousness is the fulfillment of the communal demands.   
          The constant plea of the prophets is for righteousness in the gate, for a restoration of the foundations of the communal life.  The judge was not the only one who had to uphold the community in Israel.  The king, too, was responsible for protecting and restoring the right; this was his covenant duty.  When the Messiah comes, his kingdom will prosper through righteous judgments.  The first of three meanings of tsadiq in Israel was one who fulfilled the demands of the relationships in which one stood.    
          Because Israel stood in a covenant relationship with Yahweh, righteousness was also a religious concept.  To be righteous, Israel had to fulfill the demands of her relationship with Yahweh.  But not all righteousness had a religious basis.  An act on the social plane is not righteous because it satisfies a demand of the law.  It is righteous because it fulfills the demands of a social relationship.  And we must observe that Israel’s relationship to Yahweh was not dependent on her righteousness.  The covenant relation was prior to all law and all demands.  Yahweh’s station within the covenant relationship was that of Lord; only the Lord could break it.  Israel could reject her God and bring God’s wrath, but she could not escape her relationship with God. 
         In the OT there is nothing legalistic about the relation of Israel with her God.  It is based on grace, on Yahweh’s loving choice of a few oppressed Semitic tribes.  Within this relationship of grace the law is given as a guide by God to God’s covenant people.  But the law is meaningless outside the relationship, outside the covenant.  The law is God’s guidance within the covenantal relationship.  The context of the law is the holiness, Yahweh’s lordship.  One who does not in faith accept that lordship, cannot be righteous before Yahweh, though they fulfill all other precepts of the law.  The relationship to Yahweh, the faith relationship, is primary.  

R-34

              If righteousness depended solely on the fulfillment of the law, any sin would shut off the sinner from God’s grace.  The law provides for a day of atonement.  One thing is unpardonable: the rejection of God’s law, or faithlessness.  That is, failure to acknowledge Yahweh’s lordship, failure to accept provisions for restoration to communion, and failure to acknowledge Yahweh’s gracious leading of Yahweh’s people.  These are the OT equivalents of sin against the Holy Spirit.  The fulfillment of the law does not constitute righteousness, but the righteous fulfill the law because they accept it in faith as God’s gracious guidance. 
         Yahweh and the Afflicted as Righteous—Righteousness is one of the major motifs in the witness to God’s person.  Yahweh’s righteousness consists not of works or distributive justice, but the fulfillment of the demands of Yahweh’s relationship with the people Israel.   Yahweh’s righteousness of is most often portrayed in legal terms; it is usually in the function of judge that Yahweh is pictured as righteous.  Yahweh restores Israel’s right; this is fulfillment of relationship with her.  Israel constantly appeals to Yahweh’s righteousness for deliverance from trouble. Yahweh’s righteousness consists in Yahweh’s intervention for Yahweh’s people.  So Israel’s people should call on their God in the day of trouble.  Yahweh’s righteous judgments are saving judgments.  As the earth’s judge, Yahweh decides for Yahweh’s people, delivering and saving them.  
         Those who have had their rights taken away from them within such a relationship are also righteous; this is the second meaning of tsadaq in the OT.  The judge declares the oppressed or afflicted to be tsadaq, to be in the right.  From the time of enslavement in Egypt, Israel has been in the right over against her enemies, and God has been her champion.  Within the community, those who are righteous are those who are oppressed.  Prisoners and the blind, the widow and the fatherless, the alien and the poor are righteous before God.  
         Righteousness: Sinfulness and Faith—Often in the OT one who is called tsadaq is at the same time sinful; “no one living is righteous before thee.”  Yahweh’s righteousness is sometimes the source of forgiveness.  Yahweh’s righteous judgments restore the right to those from whom it.  has been taken, but they also put down the wicked; righteousness and vengeance, salvation and condemnation, deliverance and punishment all go hand in hand.  But restoration is an integral part of punishment; only because Yahweh saves does Yahweh condemn.  That which gives the oppressed Israel or the afflicted person hope in Yahweh’s deliverance is not his sinlessness.  The poor and oppressed have a righteousness beyond their oppressed state.  This righteousness is their faith, their fulfillment of their relationship with Yahweh in the midst of their sin. 
       Wherever you find an appeal to Yahweh’s righteousness or salvation or deliverance in the OT, you find the attitude of faith.  Those who are faithful are those who wait for Yahweh, who hope in Yahweh, and who seek after Yahweh.  Yahweh is their only hope and sure salvation; they turn to him in faith. Righteousness here is the saving judgment of Yahweh which intervenes on behalf of the repentant.  In this sense Israel calls herself righteous, because she believes, and because she knows her faith to be her one sure foundation. 
      Justification and the Covenant—Israel’s confidence that her faith in Yahweh will lead to her salvation rests on God’s choice of her and God’s covenant with her.  By preserving God’s people, Yahweh fulfills the demands of the covenant relation.  Righteousness or unrighteousness, believing or unbelieving, she stands in a covenant relationship with her God.   
      The third meaning of tsadaq is primarily the message of the second part of Isaiah, where  righteousness is justification, a “being declared righteous” by the Lord of the covenant.  The gift of righteousness is announced in Isaiah’s second part.  Israel is a sinful folk, sunk in idolatry (Isaiah 44, 50, 53).  And in the middle of her exile Israel thinks herself to be lost.  In short, Israel has forgotten the covenant, because Yahweh is wrathful.  She has no faith and therefore ultimately no righteousness of her own.  
          So, despite Israel unrighteousness, the message of Isaiah’s second part is that the covenant still stands; still God’s relationship with God’s people endures.  God’s word, God’s promise, and God’s agreement stands forever.  In short, Yahweh will fulfill the demands of the covenant relationship by declaring righteous her who had no righteousness.  Despite failure to do the right, despite lack of faith, Yahweh, the creator, the king, the judge of all the earth will decide in her favor.  Righteousness in the OT, then, is fulfillment of the demands of a relationship, whether with people or with God.  And though human righteousness fails, God’s endures. 

               The ancient belief that God is righteous occurs in Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Esther countless times. Among God’s righteous attributes are the gradual lessening of God’s anger (Daniel 9); righteous are God’s works (Daniel 9).  The righteous and their works are in God’s hands (Ecclesiastes 9). Some authors are persuaded that God alone possesses righteousness and that humans are devoid of righteousness. “. . . in the place of justice, there was wickedness and in the place of righteousness, there was wickedness” (Ecclesiastes 3). 

R-35

   

                 Other stretches of this literature affirm or assume that the world does contain, has contained, or will contain some righteous people.  “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”  Also envisioned is winning converts to righteousness by those who have themselves exemplified righteousness (Daniel 12).  The only outright abandonment of the belief in supernatural reward and punishment appears in Ecclesiastes.  “There are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous (Ecclesiastes 8).”  One fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked (Ecclesiastes 9).”   Curiously the nonconformist book of Ecclesiastes attained canonization while many of the conformist works of the same period or slightly earlier remain apocryphal, including a few that are, like Ecclesiastes, attributed to the illustrious king.  

RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE APOCRYPHA.  See the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.  

RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT (NT) (dikaiosunh (dih kah os oo nay), fair and equitable treatment, justice; adikia (ah dih kee ah), to act unjustly, wrong)  

                 “Righteousness” in the NT presumes a covenant relationship, which, for its preservation, needs the active participation of both covenant partners.  The one who upholds, and therefore preserves this covenant relationship is designated “righteous.”  Those acts which break this relationship are unrighteous.  The act is righteous because the covenant relationship has, for its preservation, required such an act from that party to the relationship.  God’s righteousness is most clearly demonstrated in his saving acts on behalf of man.  Man’s righteousness, on the other hand, consists of, and depends upon his trusting acceptance of God’s saving act in Christ. 

                   Reliance on God Alone for Righteousness—Humans through their disobedience, rejected the ejected the demands which the covenant relationship laid upon them, breaking the relationship, and thus God is released from God’s covenant promise.  If God fulfills this promise, the covenant relationship will be upheld despite human action.  Since God, by God’s act in Christ, upheld the relationship, God is the sole source of righteousness. 

                  No one has fulfilled the demands of that covenant, therefore no one is righteous.  The Gentiles have not acknowledged God in the way their relationship to God required.  The Jews have also rejected the demands which the covenant relationship laid upon them.  Nor will keeping the demands of the law enable the Jews to claim righteousness.  To keep the law would meet the demands of the covenant, were it not for the fact that the relationship to God has been broken.  Works of the law are not righteous in God’s eyes, because the covenant has been broken.  The righteousness of the law can be fulfilled only in those who participate in the restored relationship.  Only God “pronounces righteous”; there is no other.  

                  It is acknowledgment of this fact that underlies the activity of John the Baptist.   Acceptance of John’s baptism means that God alone is the source of a relationship with God and of righteousness.  The Pharisees and the lawyers rejected this baptism, and did not admit that righteousness is from God alone.  They want their own righteousness, and thus deny themselves all righteousness.  

                  It is the NT’s witness that God has elected to uphold the covenant relationship with sinful humans.  This righteousness has characterized God’s dealings with Israel.  This same righteousness comes to light in Christ.  God enables humans to be saved by fulfilling the salvation of humans.  God proves God’s self righteous.  Because Christ’s sacrifice is supreme obedience, Christ thus fulfills the covenant relationship’s demand upon humans; obedience to God.  The relationship is restored, but God is still the source of righteousness.   

                  It is Christ’s act of obedience by dying on the cross, which nullifies the disobedience of humans whereby they broke the covenant relationship with God.  Because this is humankind’s only chance for righteousness, there can no longer be any question of “righteousness through the law.”  Righteousness is possible for humans only through the death of Christ.  Because of Christ, humans can nevertheless share in the relationship and be righteous, despite their sin in failing to obey God.  Because this is so central, the NT witness never tires of statements of Christ as the source of human righteousness. Because Christ’s act of obedience fulfills the covenant, the NT frequently identifies Christ as “the Righteous” (Acts 3, 7, 22; I John 2).

R-36

  

                  Because Christ alone has met the demand for obedience which the covenant relationship laid upon humans, Paul says that God made him “our righteousness.” This righteousness, because it depends on what Christ did for humans, can only be regarded as a gracious gift.  The sin of rebellion is placed upon Christ and overcome by him.  The results of the relationship with God are inseparably linked to Christ.  All of this means that Christ is the proof that God has decided to preserve the relationship.  

                 This relationship to God is the sole criterion for human righteousness, so a person is righteous only when they enter into this relationship; God restores the relationship.  Righteousness is a matter of a person’s relationship to God, not an ethical state.  When a person is in a positive relationship to God, through God’s act in Christ, that person is truly righteous; God does not treat a person “as if” a person were righteous.  God, through Christ, restores the covenant relationship, and the person who, by God’s gracious decision, participates in this relationship is in fact righteous.  

                 Since God is the sole source of righteousness, a person must rely on God for righteousness.  Reliance on God carries with it the necessity of admitting that a person is incapable of their own righteousness.  Because John the Baptist leveled the same demand, he came in the “way of righteousness.”  All a person could offer to such a relationship was repentance—i.e. admission of failure to meet the demands of the relationship.  The sinner who could only plead for mercy did participate in that relationship, whereas the Pharisee was denied participation.  To rely on one’s own “righteousness” is to deny oneself participation in this relationship.  Simeon is righteous because he says that God alone can fulfill the broken covenant’s demands.       

                 That a person must rely on God to uphold the covenant relationship is what Paul called faith.  Only on the basis of faith does God pronounce a person righteous.  To emphasize the meaning of faith, Paul contrasts the righteousness of faith with that of the law.  “Righteousness under the law” did nothing toward restoring, the relationship with God.  True righteousness is not from the law; it is from reliance on God.  Whether for Jew or for Gentile, righteousness must come from God.   

                 Since God gave the law to the Jews, how is the law to be understood?  For Paul, God's original covenant with humans laid upon humans the demand of obedience; this covenant was broken by Adam through his disobedience.  The law points, not to an original covenant, but to a restored covenant.  The law was introduced into a relationship upheld only by God’s righteousness.  One can remain in covenant relationship to God only by admitting that this relationship depends on God’s grace.  The Jews misunderstood this; they thought that their keeping the law, their works, made them righteous in God’s presence.  Because of this misunderstanding, the Jews pursued the law’s righteousness as though it depended on works.  Christ becomes the law’s end and consummation, because he makes perfectly clear that reliance on God alone makes one righteous. 

                Therefore, says Paul, from the beginning, only faith “is reckoned as” righteousness.  Abraham’s trust in God, because it accepted the relationship with God by relying on God and not on oneself to uphold it, is a righteous act.  The law and circumcision came after this act, therefore they cannot be the basis of Abraham’s relationship.  Abraham accepted God’s promise because he trusted God, and thus he entered into the covenant relationship which God offered him.  This is true of all people.  To trust that God will uphold the covenant relationship though the people have broken it, and to rely on God (in Christ) to do this is to accept the relationship, and be righteous.  So long as people refuse to trust that God (in Christ) has restored the covenant relationship, people remain outside a relationship to God.  Faith is admission that works are of no avail in preserving the covenant relationship.  Admitting that a person can contribute nothing is the only thing a person contributes to the relationship with God. 

                 For Paul, to be “counted righteous by faith” means to accept the fact that one is righteous by God’s action in Christ. The terms “righteous by faith,” “righteous by grace,” and “righteous by Christ’s blood” all mean that the covenant relationship with God exists because through Christ’s obedience, God alone upholds it.  To participate in the covenant relationship (righteousness) is to participate in God’s fulfillment of the covenant.  

                  Conceptual Uses of Righteousness—The great majority of the occurrences of the “righteousness” concept has this underlying thought pattern:  God desires fellowship with humankind; God chose Israel with whom to establish a covenant.  Through human rebellion and sin, this covenant was broken; humans can’t restore the covenant fellowship with God.  Though the Jews held that law embodied the covenant relationship which God laid upon humankind, once the covenant is broken, the law is powerless to restore the relationship.  

R-37

                 Through Christ, God re-established the covenant relationship.  In addition to accepting fellowship with God, humankind must uphold community fellowship.  Thus, the NT sees righteousness on two levels:  accepting the covenant relationship with God and the covenant community.  Righteousness depends on God’s restoration of the covenant.  Only as God forgives sin and reestablishes the relationship in Christ, can humankind stand within that fellowship.  

                The NT uses the concept “righteousness” to designate a relationship between humankind and God.  Cornelius, a centurion, is called a “righteous” man because he is a “God-fearing” man—i.e. one whose attitude is the attitude which the relationship to God requires.  Elymas the magician is an “enemy of all righteousness” because he destroys the relationship with God by obscuring this relationship’s requirements.  Jesus calls a judge “unrighteous” because the judge met the demands neither of the relationship to God nor to humankind.  Jesus is called righteous” because, by his sacrifice, he brings people to God.  Those who trust in themselves for their righteousness are told that they are less righteous than a confessed sinner who knows righteousness depends on one’s relationship to God. 

                  John the Baptist is acknowledged a “righteous” man even by his executor.  For Paul, the righteous are those who stand in a positive relationship of trust.  Only those who have yielded themselves to God and accepted the divine-human relationship can yield his “members” as “instruments of righteousness.”  The difficult use of the word “righteousness” in the report of Jesus’ baptism is best understood in relational terms.  By his submission to John’s baptism, Jesus recognizes the necessity of this new covenant relationship.  To recognize the baptism by participating in it is to welcome the new relationship that the baptism announces, and thus to “fulfill all righteousness.”  God’s kingdom, in turn is also inseparably related to God’s righteousness. 

                  The words “righteous” and “unrighteous” are often used to describe the preserving or breaking of a relationship between people.  The steward, who used his position to his own advantage, is “unrighteous” because he has broken the relationship of trust with his master.  Jesus uses several examples of actions which, because they are not motivated by compassion, will break a relationship.  To hate a man or desire a woman breaks the relationship of compassion as surely as acting on those impulses.  In order to gain information with which to convict Jesus, the Jews send spies who pretend to be “righteous” in relation to Jesus.  The money paid to Judas is called the “reward of his unrighteousness.”  It is also a “righteous thing” for children to obey their parents, because this way the relationship between them is upheld.  Paul tells the Philippians that it is a “righteous” thing” for him to feel as he does about them, because this feeling strengthens their relationship. 

                 When a covenant relationship is established, both partners of the agreement assume certain responsibilities for upholding it.  Elizabeth and Zechariah are “righteous before God,” because they obey fully and thus they fulfill the demands of the relationship.  These demands may vary with individual situations.  The two elements necessary to uphold the covenant are trust in God and obedience to his will.  Thus James affirms that a man is called righteous “by works and not by faith alone,” though both are necessary. 

                 Paul has a similar position.  For Paul, sin and righteousness are mutually exclusive.  One needs to trust and obey God, thus meeting the demands; then one is righteous.  Paul uses “obedience” to say that one must “yield to obedience,” in order to fulfill the covenant relationship’s demands.  To become “enslaved to obedience” means to perform all acts in order to uphold the divine-human relationship.  These same demands James calls “works”; the divine-human covenant relationship’s demands are met by obedience to God. 

                The majority of cases where the terminology of righteousness is used are best understood in a relational sense.  The cases where “righteousness” is used in relation to the law are somewhat limited.  If an accusation distorts the facts, it is unjust.  The one falsely accused is just because the facts favor them and refute the accusation.  The centurion beneath the cross exclaims that Jesus must surely have been “just.”  In the same sense, Pilate’s wife warns her husband to have nothing to do “with that righteous man.”  The lawyer who asks Jesus about the central element of the law seeks to “justify himself” by asking who his neighbor is.  Jesus tells his listeners to decide what is right.  The legal nature of part of the vocabulary of “righteousness” is also indicated when it is employed to describe legal proceedings.  The same general use of the terms is evident when the NT describes the Last Judgment. 

                 There are also some instances in the NT where the words under study seem to mean  justice” in the retributive sense.  God considers it “just” to repay with suffering those who cause Christians to suffer.  Yet it must be noted that this use does not contradict the use in a relational sense.  God’s retributive punishment is against those who harm the covenant people; just rewards are given to those who act on behalf of humankind. 

R-38

                  Righteousness:  Personal Benefit and Conformity to a Norm—The covenant relationship between God and Humans, restored and upheld by God in Christ, place a demand for acknowledgement that humans can contribute nothing to the upholding of this covenant relationship.  The restored (new) relationship also includes the creation of a new community among humans.  Because the act whereby humans can participate again in the covenant relationship is the obedient self-sacrifice of Christ, who thus acted for the benefit of sinful people, those who participate in the covenant relationship are also expected to act only for the benefit of others.  

                 Thus, the demand which the new covenant relationship lays upon humans in relation to God  is faith.  To act for the benefit of others is thus to uphold the relationship by meeting its demand.  Jesus is righteous because he acted for the benefit of others.  There is no unrighteousness in Jesus, because he seeks the glory of the One who sent him.  The relation between people is determined by the relation of God and a person; God’s acts are acts of mercy and humankind’s acts must be the same.  Thus, the “righteous” are those who have met the demands toward humankind which are laid on them by their participation in the covenant relationship.  They have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty.  Those who have invited the poor and the lame to the feast will be deemed righteous in the Last Judgment. 

                 In the same sense, those who are diligent in avoiding actions for personal benefit to the detriment of the relationship with humankind are considered very righteous.  Such people will suffer discomfort and even death rather than, by resisting, act to their own benefit and break the relationship.  In this sense Jesus’ admonition to avoid resistance must be understood:  it concerns refusal to act for personal benefit, but it is not a demand to avoid all forceful action.  

                 On the other hand, those who act for personal benefit are called “unrighteous” in the NT.  Jesus warns people not to perform acts of righteousness for the purpose of seeking admiration.   Jesus was unrelenting in condemning the Pharisees; they acted selfishly.  God acted in love, thus fulfilling the relationship with humankind, so humans must show love toward humankind.  Lack of unity within a group is also termed “unrighteousness” when it is based on a faction that seeks to uphold its own view to the disregard of others. 

                  If righteousness is to be understood as a relational term, then it is also true that it cannot mean “conformity to a norm.”  Righteousness is fundamentally more concerned with the covenant relationship with God, and more particularly with humankind’s broken and restored relationship to God, than it is with humankind’s morality and ethics.  In this case, righteousness clearly denotes a trusting relationship to God.          
                 The clear statement that no one is counted righteous before God on the basis of works should be enough to eliminate moral conformity from consideration.  Jesus’ condemnation of those who thought righteousness consisted only in conformity to a norm (the Pharisees) and his association with those whose morals were of the lowest type, indicates that Jesus was not interested primarily in moral purity but in a relationship of repentance and trust in God.  And Jesus himself is called “righteous,” not because his acts conform to a moral norm, but because by his obedient, sacrificial death, he brings all into a new relationship to God.  

RIM (גב (gab), King James Version, felloe)  Part of the wheels used for the stands of bronze in Solomon's temple.  

RIMMON (ﬧמון, pomegranate) 1. A Beerothite; father of Baanah and Rechab, the men who killed Ishbosheth (II Samuel 4). 
            2.  The deity whom Naaman the Syrian and the king of Syria worshiped in his temple; a title used by Assryia for Hadad, the storm god.  Rimmon’s identity with Hadad and his significance in the religion of the Syrians of Damascus is confirmed by the name “Ben-hadad,” borne by several kings of Syria.  
             3.  A town in southern Judah whose full name is Ain Rimmon.  First assigned to Simeon, it became a part of Judah’s Negeb district of Beer-sheba.  The whole Judean hill country as far south as Rimmon is envisioned as becoming a plain with Jerusalem towering above it.  
            4.  A town in central Zebulun on the southern edge of the Plain of Asochis, about 10 km north northeast of Nazareth.  It became a Levitical city. 
            5.  The rock of Rimmon near Gibeah; the place to which the remnant of Benjaminites fled to escape from the victorious Israelites who punished Gibeah and Benjamin for Gibeah’s atrocity against a Levite and his concubine.  Ravines protect it from approach from the north, south, and west.  The congregation of Israel invited the 600 escaped Benjaminites to return from their hiding place and provided them with wives from Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh.  If the suggested reading of Isaiah 10 is correct in the New Revised Standard Version, Rimmon was one of the places on the route to Jerusalem taken by the Assyrian conqueror.

R-39

RIMMON-PEREZ  (ﬧמן פﬧץ), breach [pass] of the pomegranate)  One of the stopping places of the Israelites between Rithmah and Libnah. 

RING (ﬨטבע (tah bah ‘at), signet-ring, curtain rings [in tabernacle]; גליל (gaw leel), circle; Crusodaktu- lioV (kroo sod ak too lee os),  having rings on the fingers; SfragiV (sfra gees), signet ring.) 

RINNAH (ﬧנה, rejoicing, cry for help)  A son of Shimon; one of the members of the southern tribe of Judah. 

RIPHATH  (ﬧיפﬨ)  Son of Gomer and grandson of Japheth  (Genesis 10).  Riphath is non-Semitic and probably Anatolian, together with his brothers, Ashkenaz and Togarmah. 

RISSAH (ﬧסה, ruin)  A stopping place of the Israelites in the wilderness between Libnah and Kehelathah. 

RITHMAH  (ﬧﬨמה, broom)  The stopping place of the Israelites in the wilderness after Hazeroth.  

RITUAL.  See also Worship in the Old Testament; Worship in the New Testament Times, Jewish; Worship in the New Testament Times, Christian. 

RIVER (ﬧנה (naw har), stream; לנח (nah khal), brook, torrent; ﬧיא (yeh ‘or), river, especially the Nile; אפיק (ah feek), brook, torrent, channel [of the brook] ) Biblical rivers mentioned by name are:  Abanah; Ahava; Chebar; Euphrates; Gihon; Gozan; Hiddekel; Jabbok; Kishon; Nile; Pharpar; Pishon; River of Egypt; Tigris; and Ulai (See the individual entries for each of these rivers.)   
                 Rivers are frequently referred to in indicating geographical boundaries.  They were used for: irrigation; defense; fishing; healing; baptism; prayer; and places for meeting God.  Rivers are mentioned in a figurative sense to suggest the prosperity of a region.  Righteousness is compared to a nakhal atham, perennial stream.  Of special note are the pictures of a river which flowed from Eden (Genesis 2). 

RIVER OF EGYPT.  See Egypt, Brook of; Egypt, River of. 

RIZIA (ﬧצאי, delight) A chief in the tribe of Asher, and a mighty warrior (I Chronicles 7).   

RIZPAH (ﬧצפה, hot stone, coal)  Daughter of Aiah, and a concubine of Saul.  After the death of Saul, Abner took Rizpah as his wife; this act amounted to a claim to the throne.  Abner then made good his claim by beginning his negotiation to make David king in Israel.  David sought forgiveness by handing over seven of Saul’s sons, two of whom were Rizpah’s, to be hanged.  Rizpah began a heroic vigil by the bodies, keeping off the birds and beasts of prey for a long time (II Samuel 21).  

ROAD (ﬢﬧך (deh rek), path; odoV (oh dos), way)  Roads and trade routes figured prominently in the geography and history of Palestine, which served as the landbridge among the empires of the ancient Near East. They served as trade routes, military roads, and as sacred ways for pilgrims. The importance of roads and travel is evident in biblical history.  Caravansaries along these realized tremendous profits from charges and tolls.  The major route from Palestine to Egypt lay along the coast.  The exiles to Babylon in 586 B.C. probably went around the Fertile Crescent and down the Euphrates to Babylon.  According to Nehemiah 7, a group of returning exiles brought horses, mules, camels, and asses with them. 
                 The most famous road system in biblical lands was the Great West Road, or the Road to the Sea.  One branch of this road joined Damascus and Dothan, crossing the Jordan between Merom and Galilee.  Another branch went West from Safed to Acre through the valley between Upper and Lower Galilee.  A branch also went through Capernaum and down the Plain of Gennesaret.  A shorter branch connected Capernaum with the Plain of Esdraelon.  Main roads also joined Galilee and the Plain of Esdraelon with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Beer-sheba.  There was a road in very ancient times from Jericho up to a point  north of Jerusalem. 

R-40

                  A major north-south route joined Asia Minor with the spice routes from Arabia; this route ran south from Damascus and down the plateau on the eastern side of the Jordan.  A major road ran westward from Petra to Gaza, and would seem to have joined routes from Arabia.  Many of the great cities in the Syrian and Jordanian deserts were essentially caravan cities and military outposts. 
                The Romans built numerous roads in the area in efforts to consolidate and maintain their empire's political and military interests and to strengthen the Pax Romana.  Many of their roads, which were built and maintained at great expense, are still visible, especially in Jordan.  Jesus of Nazareth seems to have shown a preference for byways.  Several major caravan routes and Roman roads connected Nazareth with the Mediterranean, Megiddo, Jerusalem, and the Sea of Galilee.  After going down the Jordan’s east side, Jesus probably took the ancient road from Jericho to Jerusalem.  Paul frequently traveled the highways of Palestine, Asia Minor, and parts of Europe.  He entered Rome on the Appian Way between the port of Brindisi and Rome. 

ROADS AND TRAVEL.  See Travel and Communication. 

ROBBERY.  See Crimes and Punishments.  

ROBE (מעיל (meh eel), ‘mantle; פסים ﬤﬨנﬨ (koo toe neth  pas eem), long dress with sleeves covering the hands, King James Version translates it as “coat of many colors”; בגﬢ (baw gad), cloak, garment; clamuV (kla moos), cloak; Stolh (sto leh), long garment; Imation (im at ee on), upper garment, mantle.  

ROCK.  See Palestine, Geology of. 

ROCK BADGER (שפן (shaw pawn), coney)  Any of a family of small mammals having hooves.  The only variety found outside Africa is the Syrian hyrax; it does not burrow but lives in rocky regions.  To use the term “badger” for this animal is without any justification.  

ROD  (מטה (mat tah), staff; שבט (shay bet), staff, scepter)  A stick cut from the stem or branch of a tree and used for numerous purposes.  Straight staffs, thicker at one end than at the other and of varying lengths, were the protection and support of shepherds and travelers on foot.  A shorter staff with a knobbed end often studded with nails or bits of flint, served the soldier and the shepherd as a weapon. 
                 Mattah is translated “rod” chiefly when it refers to the wonder-working rods of Moses and Aaron.  Similarly, shabet may refer to the stick for threshing cumin; to the staff of authority; to the staff with which the shepherd herds his sheep.  When translated “rod,” it usually means a scourge, the instrument of punishment. 

RODANIM  (ﬧוﬢנים)  Genesis 10 has “Dodanim,”  but since the Hebrew “d” and “r” are so similar, it could be the same word, meaning inhabitants of the island of Rhodes. 

ROE, ROEBUCK (יחמוﬧ (ya kheh mor), goat, red gazelle)  The roe deer, a very graceful animal.  It is one of the smallest members of the deer family, the adult male standing about 66 cm in shoulder.  Its antlers rise almost vertically from the head, becoming forked only near their summit. 

ROGELIM (ﬧגלים, fullers’ place) City in eastern Gilead; home of Barzillai, who befriended David when he arrived in Mahanaim in flight from Absalom.  It was located on the Jabbok in the hills east of Mahanaim. 

ROMAMTI-EZER (ﬧממﬨי עזﬧ, lofty helper (?))  One of the musicians, sons of Heman, appointed by David to serve in the sanctuary.  It may not be a name, but rather part of a liturgical prayer. 

R-41

ROMAN EMPIRE.  The complex of political, military, social, and cultural forces which controlled the  Mediterranean world and Western Europe from 30 B.C. to the 400s A.D.  
            (See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix. 
            At its height the Empire included all of the Mediterranean and extended from Britain south to Morocco, east to Arabia, North to Turkey and Rumania, and west along the Danube to the Rhine in Germany and to the east there were forts and camps.  From 1-100 A.D. there were between 25 and 28 legions constantly under arms. At full strength each legion was composed of 6,000 officers; they often functioned with 3,600. 
           Under the Empire, the basic silver coin, the denarius, retained most of its value and circulated at par with the various local drachmas of the East.  There was only a gradual decline in the denarius’ weight and silver content, which led eventually to devaluation and price inflation in the 200s A.D.  In 33 A.D. Tiberius suddenly enforced an old law requiring capitalists to invest in Italian land, which caused a financial panic.  
           From the beginning of the Christian Era onward both astrology and magic played a significant role, and astrologers, while occasionally expelled from Italy, exercised strong influence over most emperors.  Magic was forbidden by Roman law when it resulted in damage to persons or property.  Magic was often associated with the foreign cults and prophecies.  These cults came chiefly from the Orient.  The traditional civic cults of Greece and Italy were overshadowed by the new expressions of the ancient Eastern religions.  Gods like the Egyptian Isis, the Great Mother from Asia Minor, and Mithras could provide “salvation” or escape from fate.  
           The worship of Isis, occasionally repressed, gradually spread throughout the Roman world. Public rites and testimonies of miraculous powers, made her cult attractive.  Mithraism, on the other hand, was private and had no special priestly class in the Roman Empire.  It does not seem to have been an important rival to Christianity until the end of the 100s.  Christians found stronger competition among philosophers than among oriental priests, because Christianity felt itself to be closer to philosophy.  Those explaining Christianity in the 100s reflect the effort to come to terms with philosophy, especially religious-minded Middle Platonism.  Philosophers generally advocated monotheism.  Isis was known as the “countless named,” while Jews and Christians were conspicuous because of their denial that their God was known by non-biblical names.  
           Philosophers felt free to reinterpret the old Roman official religion and to distinguish "philosophical theology” from “civil theology.”  12 gods were officially recognized by the state and were served by 16 pontiffs, the chief being the Pontifex Maximus; this body presided over the official rites.  There were also colleges, such as the augurs, who discerned whether the gods approved or opposed official actions.  Rome tolerated other religions, as long as they were not threatening either the established religion or traditional morality. 
            The Roman attitude toward the early church cannot be viewed in isolation from the Roman attitude toward other foreign religions.  Just as the Jews believed that idolatry led to adultery, so Romans believed that foreign superstitions led to sexual promiscuity or cannibalism.  The Druids of Gaul were regarded as inhumanly barbarous, since human sacrifice was said to be a part of their rites; Augustus and Claudius took action against them.  The religion of Isis was foreign, but Rome did not carry on continuous war against the cult. 
            In Roman eyes Christianity was a superstition because it was foreign, and because it involved worship of a criminal condemned by a Roman governor.  Its missionary zeal, its emphasis on the end of this age and beginning of a new one, and its unwillingness to relate itself to Judaism or the state meant that it could only be regarded as potentially subversive.  The earliest report about Christianity noticed by Rome must have been from Pontius Pilate to the emperor.  Under Claudius, there were Jewish riots at Rome which involved the name “Chrestus.”  According to Acts, Roman officials either protected or ignored Christians.  It was only when the Roman procurator was absent that James the Lord’s brother was put to death (62).  There was considerable antipathy toward Christians after the fire in Rome, and under Nero some Christians were put to death.  Under Domitian, Christians seem to have been investigated in relation to problems arising out of Judaism.  
            Jesus’ opponents claimed that he was obstructing tax payments, but Jesus said that what belongs to Caesar should be paid him.  Philo and Josephus were pro-imperial, while apocalyptic writers were not.  Those writing in opposition shared in a widespread attitude of hostility toward the Empire, found especially in frontier provinces which did not appreciate the benefits of the “wasteland” situation, an attitude which led to rebellions against the Empire, and fairly frequent mutinies of Roman troops in the provinces.  Somehow these nations preferred liberty to the blessings of Roman rule and of Greco-Roman culture.

R-42

             
            There were influential Christians who in spite of persecution expressed loyalty to Rome.  Athenagoras stated that Marcus Aurelius and his son’s rule was given them by God.  Melito held that Christianity, which had grown up with the Empire and had been persecuted only by bad emperors, should be its state religion; this finally happened in the 300s.  It was in part a natural outgrowth of the ecumenical mission of the church. 

ROMAN RELIGION. Roman religion’s origin was prehistoric, with mainly “primitive” rites and practices, observed and perpetuated without explanation, without divine revelation or command, but solely because they belonged to ancestral custom.  These rites had been found to work or—more often—their neglect had been found to be disastrous; sacrifices, supplications, purification, and other ceremonies were used.  Roman religion was essentially a system of ritual, without a theology, or an authorized set of religious instruction.  This “cult of the gods” meant more than worship and included care, devotion, and constant attention to their needs.   
            Roman religion was legalistic, with specific requirements which men must meet if they hoped for specific responses.  A Roman said, “I give so that you may—or will—give,” and made it clear that his gift was meant for a particular god or group of gods and no other.  The request’s language was as explicit as a lawyer’s formulation of a deed, a transfer, or a claim.  What the higher powers required was also set forth, as well as special divine guidance in severe crises.  The Sibylline Oracles and the art of divination were an inheritance from the Etruscans. Perhaps divination’s origin must be traced back even further to Babylonia. 
            The general character of ancient Roman religion was “primitive,” with many surviving features of animism, magic, and demons.  Certain “sacred” places or things possessed supernatural power, or were possessed by supernatural beings.  In dealing with the supernatural, it was of paramount importance that the correct formula be used.  Any omission, repetition, or transposition was unlucky and invalidated the whole procedure.  Most of the rites were so old that there was no explanation of either their origin or their meaning.  They originated when only semi-personal local powers were addressed, not gods.  We cannot ascribe all this to “primitive” religion, about which we know very little.  What we find in Roman religion is the survival, modification, and eventual submergence of prehistoric rites which were shared in some measure with other Italians.  The oldest inhabitants of Italy were a presumably indigenous group of people among whom were settled various invading or immigrant nations:  Indo-Europeans, Greeks, Etruscans, Ligurians, and Celts. 
             See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.   
             Roman Religion in New Testament Times—From 50 to 150 A.D., the tide of “orientalism,” with its magic, astrology, “mystery” cults, and occultism, was still held somewhat in check.  After Marcus Aurelius, the floodgates were opened.  It is quite improbable that the early Christians were influenced by the mystery cults; the period of popularity of these cults, in the West, came later. 
            The hope of redemption through Christ and the expectation of the coming kingdom of God at the end of this age found little contact or support in Roman religion.  Indeed the church in the years before 100 A.D. met the greatest threat to its existence when it confronted the imperial cult.  Emperor-worship was one more importation from the East, and not an original element in Roman religion.  Its spirit was essentially political and even commercial; Christians were not able to participate.  The result for the church was long decades of martyrdoms during the persecutions which broke out after 60 A.D., and lasted into the 300s.  The real impact of Roman religion upon Christianity was seen long after the persecutions had ended.  The political ideas and ideals of responsible world government, the universal maintenance of law and order, even an altered form of the college of pontiffs, with its Pontifex Maximus, came to expression and fulfillment in Latin Catholicism. 
            Its conception of sainthood was tinged with ancient ideals of sobriety, seriousness, even gravitas  (solemnity).  Its worship and devotion was formed on the ancient Roman appreciation of pietas (piety), its great virtues of humilitas (humility), the opposite of superbia (pride), and of fiducia (loyalty).  Men spoke of the duty of belief and of unquestioning acceptance of theological definitions and of ecclesiastical authority.  All these characteristics of Latin Catholicism were a legacy from elements of the ancient Roman character.  These are factors of far greater importance than the more overt and obvious emphasis on such matters as correct ritual.  

ROMANS, LETTER TO THE.  A letter written by the apostle Paul to “all God’s beloved in Rome,” and now found as the 6^th book of the New Testament (NT) canon, first among Paul’s letters.  It is Paul’s longest, and offers the most comprehensive account of his understanding of the gospel of Christ as the effectual divine remedy for the plight of humankind, the universal sinfulness and guilt which no human effort can remove.  It approaches more nearly than any other of the apostle’s writings to the formal theological treatise.  The theology is not developed in immediate relation to particular problems.            

R-43

        Outline

I.   Introduction, 1:1-15

            A.  Salutation, 1-7

            B.  Thanksgiving, 8-9

            C.  Desire to visit Rome, 11-15

     II.  Gospel of Salvation, 1:16-8:39

            A.  The gospel is God’s power put forth to bring salvation, 1: 16-17

            B.  Universal need of salvation, 1;18-3:20

                  1.   Gentile guilt from idolatry and moral corruption,  1:18-32

                  2.   Jewish guilt, 2:1-16

                  3.   Jewish assumption of superiority, 17-24

                  4.  Jewish knowledge of law, 2:25-3:8

                  5.  Sin and guilt are universal and law does not remove them, 
                          3:9-20

            C.  The grace of God brings deliverance through Christ, 21-26

            D.   No place is left for human pride, 27-31

            E.   Abraham, counted righteous through faith, chapter 4

            F.   A new relationship with God brings certainty of final salvation, 
                      5:1-11

            G.  Reign of grace more powerful than sin, 5:12-21

            H.   Life under grace, chapters 6-7

  1.  Baptism is participation in the death and risen life of Christ,  
        6:1-14 

 2.  Slave analogy, 15-23

 3.  Marriage analogy, 7:1-6

 4.  Negative effects of law, 7-25

I.  Life under grace:  Spirit brings freedom, power, present help, 
        future glory, 8:1-30

J.       Love of God in Jesus, 31-39

III. God’s faithfulness and Israel’s failure, chapters 9-11

       A.     Paul’s concern for Israel, 9:1-5

          B.   God’s promise not for all born Israelites, 6-13

             C.   God’s will not subject to human challenge, 14-24

 D.   God’s promise to Gentiles, 25-29

 E.      Israel’s self-righteous in the law, not righteous of faith, 
         9:30-10:21 

 F.      Israel’s faithful remnant, 11:1-10

 G.     Israel’s failure brought salvation to the Gentiles, 11-16       

 H.     Gentile presumption of superiority: fable of the olive tree, 
         11:17-24

 I.   God’s mercy upon Israel, 25-32

 J.   God’s unfathomable wisdom, 33-36   

   IV.  Ethical instruction and exhortation: law of Love, 12:1-15:13

          A.     Dedication to God, 12:1-2

          B.     Each person’s responsibility for service to all, 3-13

          C.     Love of enemies, 14-21

          D.     Obedience to civil authority, 13:1-7

          E.      The commandments equal love, 8-10

          F.      Salvation soon, 11-14

          G.     Only God judges, 14:1-15:13

          H.     Self-denial for the sake of others, 13-23

           I.        Christ’s example, 15:1-13

     V.     Concluding remarks, 14-33

       A. Missionary accomplishments, 14-21

       B.  Immediate plans, 22-29

             C.  Request for prayers, 30-32

             D.  Benediction, 33

R-44

       VI.  Ephesus letter, chapter 16

             A.     Introduction of deaconess Phoebe, 16:1-2

             B.     Personal greetings, 3-16

             C.     Warning against troublemakers, 17-20

             D.     Greeting from Paul’s associates, 21-23

              E.      Doxology, 25-27      

           Argument: Key Terms—The first key terms gives us the noun “righteousness”, the verb “justify”, and the adjective “just”; they are translations of dikaiosune, dikaio, dikaios, respectively. The usual sense of the first key term is “declare righteous”; this is the legal interpretation.  It leaves us with the monstrous notion, which is not adequately defended, that God “pronounces men righteous” who are in fact guilty of sinning against God.  God’s pronouncement itself makes one righteous; one is brought into a right relationship with God.  Guilt is annulled and sins forgiven; but more than that, the believer is “put in the right.”  We are “justified by God’s grace as a gift,” not in any sense or degree as a compensation for merit.  
            The second key term is apolytrosis, “redemption.”  In the common Greek usage it would suggest the freeing of a slave or of a captive upon payment of a ransom.  But in a well-known Old Testament (OT) usage the word is employed figuratively to signify Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.  This was the redemption with which the life of God’s people began and on which it continued to be based.  Now in the gospel, the “redemption which is in Christ Jesus” brings an infinitely greater deliverance, not of Israel but of all humankind. 
             The third of our key words is ilasterion, “expiation.”  In ordinary Greek usage it would convey the thought of appeasing an angry deity.  Jewish scholars used the verb ilaskomai to signify the “covering” or purging of sins, not the appeasing of God.  The death of Christ is conceived as a sacrifice by which the sins of humans are purged.  Christ’s life is represented as having the mystical power to expiate the sins of humans and thus to remove the evil infection which debars them from communion with a holy God.  It is not a matter of divine anger to be appeased by sacrifice, but of divine love that removes the stain of sin which makes communion with God impossible. 
            Using these terms, Paul has brought out the thought that this triumph over sin is all God’s doing.  Humans can only make the faith response, which in turn can only receive God’s bounty.  In chapter 4, Paul tries to show that the gospel of grace, of justification by faith, is in harmony with OT revelation.  Even Abraham was not justified by “works,” but by his faith in God.  The Abraham story also witnesses to the gospel’s universalism; it shows that Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him for righteousness before he was circumcised.  
            Argument: Main Theme—The letter’s salutation conveys in brief Paul’s conception of his his commission and of the high glory of the Christ whom he preaches, and implies that the breadth of his apostolate is such as to include the Romans, to whom he extends the apostolic greeting of grace and peace.  The gospel of God is defined as the “power of God [put forth to bring] salvation to every one who has faith,” and the “righteousness of God revealed through faith for faith.”  The “righteousness” of God is here used in the active Hebrew sense of that which vindicates the right.  God’s “righteousness” is God’s saving power making itself active.  The repeated insistence on faith through righteousness introduces one of the fundamental tenets of Paul, which is related to the universalism of the gospel, and to it being the antithesis of legalism, a doctrine that makes salvation depend upon human moral achievement. 
            The universal need of salvation is now demonstrated by an analysis of the condition of humankind, with no concern for social injustice, economic distress, or military and political despotism.  All evil derives from humankind’s willful rejection of the truth of God.  This primal repudiation of responsibility to God has clouded the human mind and led to the immense folly of idolatry. 
            Paul turns his attention to the stern critic of Gentile vices, and accuses him of being himself guilty of the crimes which he is rebuking.  Paul tells us explicitly that the censor who he has in mind is the Jew.  Evil will be punished and goodness rewarded to Jew and Gentile alike.  The good Gentile will put to shame the Jewish transgressor.  The apostle has now shown that “all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin.”  The law can do nothing to clear humans of the charge; it can bring only the knowledge of sin. 

 R-45

           Paul is now prepared to restate his main theme in greater fullness, in the light of his analysis of the plight of humankind.  With the verse “Now . . . apart from law (Romans 3:21),” Paul proclaims that in the manifesting of God’s righteousness God is now acting “apart from the law.”  God is not dealing with humans as a judge deals with culprits on the basis of violations of the law.  This verse indicates that Paul is not using the language of the law courts to describe God’s gracious dealings with sinful people.  The thought is not simply that God is revealing God’s self as righteous in God’s own person, but that God is acting with power to make right triumph over wrong.  All are in the same condition before God—sinful, guilty, and unable to put things right; “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by God’s grace as a gift.”  
            Argument: Christian Life—Paul now begins to recount the spiritual blessings: peace with God; hope of sharing God’s glory; joy intensified through suffering; and divine love (5:1-11).  If God could so manifest God’s love toward us while we were God’s enemies, how will it be after we are reconciled to God?  Verses 12-21 bring the thought back full circle to the analysis to the state of humankind.  In his opening analysis, Paul had been concerned chiefly to show that sin involved all humankind in guilt; here he speaks of sin as bringing death upon all.  He uses the story of the Fall, so that Adam through disobedience brings sin and death, and Christ through obedience brings righteousness and life eternal.  
           The next step in the argument is to deal with possible misunderstandings and willful misinterpretations that Paul must have encountered.  Paul begins his rebuttal of the idea that people could “continue in sin that grace may abound.”  Paul reminds his readers of all that is involved in Christian baptism, i.e. a kind of burial, a participation in Christ’s death.  It is unthinkable that after having thus “died to sin,” we should any longer live in it.  He bids us therefore think of ourselves as “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”              
            In a 2^nd approach, he takes up the thought of moving from the old life, which was in slavery to sin, into the freedom of a son in his father’s house.  Paul now turns to the more difficult question of the Christian life’s relation to the law.  Now he takes the position that the Christian, as he died to sin, has also died to the law.  Here Paul uses the marriage relationship figure.  Christians “have died to the law through Christ’s body, so that [they] may belong to one another.”  Paul is content with the basic thought that through death the Christian has entered into a new union with Christ, and that the old relationships and obligations no longer apply.  
             If baptism into Christ’s death means dying to the law, as it means dying to sin; if being freed from sin means also being freed from the law, are we not saying that the law is sin?  No, the law is indeed God’s law, and is in itself holy and just and good.  The evil is not in the law, but in human nature.  Deep down in humans, below the level of the rational mind and will, there is a predisposition to evil too powerful to be overcome by the conscious mind’s approval.  The law acts as a provocation to the sinful impulses and brings, not life, but death.  People are at war with themselves, and their moral perception is overcome by irrational inner evil.  “I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.”   
           The secret of this victory is the theme of chapter 8: it is the Spirit of God.  “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.”  This is the Spirit of childship, which enables us to call God “Father,” and to know ourselves as God’s sons and daughters.  “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.”  Thus we see how God brings us to the destiny which his foreknowledge and predestination have prepared for us.  Paul ends his exposition of his great theme with a tremendous assurance of the triumphant love of God in Christ.
           This exposition of the gospel, now completed, is to be made the grounds of an exhortation to live a life in accordance with the will of the God.  This exhortation is to be deferred for some time, while the apostle enters upon a lengthy discussion of the great theological problem which has been raised for him by the success of the Gentile mission and the repudiation of the gospel by the mass of the Jewish people. 
           Argument: Chapters 9-11—These chapters constitute a relatively self-contained section within the letter; commentators are sharply divided as to how it fits into the letter and the main theme.  To some, it is an integral part of the main argument.  Some hold that this section is the very heart of the letter.  Yet to others the passage has seemed to be so complete in itself that it can be regarded as a stock “sermon.”  

R-46

          Actually, the section is by no means as coherent as an independent construction would be.  It more strongly suggests a man thinking on his feet.  The thought is constantly interrupted by several tentative suggestions.   There are also some few but distinct points of contact with things on which the apostle has touched on earlier.  If these 3 chapters had disappeared from the earliest copies, and from the present version, it would never occur to any reader that there was anything missing between the end of the 8^th chapter and the beginning of the 12^th.  The problem which is here attacked is the hardening of the Jewish people in opposition to church and the gospel.  It seems necessary to regard the section as a discussion of another theological problem.  
            The section begins with the apostle’s passionate outburst, as he voices his concern for the salvation of Israel and rehearses the glorious privileges of his “kinsmen by race.”  He is perhaps reacting to the unfair charge that he has become a renegade to his own people.  The main problem to which Paul now turns is that which is presented to a Christian Jew by the spectacle of the rejection of the gospel by the Jews.  Is God then untrue to God’s own promises to the patriarchs?  Or “has God rejected God’s people?”  The Israel of the promises is not to be identified with the Israel of natural descent.  From the days of the patriarchs it is clearly shown in scripture that the promises are limited in the application to an elect number within the elect race.   
           It is impossible to feel that Paul has dealt at all successfully with the difficulties which are raised by his unqualified assertion of the arbitrariness of the divine will.  Paul “answers” the objection, “Is there injustice on God’s part?” with “God has mercy upon whomever God wills,” and that humans are presumptuous if they ask God for God’s reasons; Paul’s responses are not really answers.  Yet Paul cannot really be satisfied with the erection of such a stone wall.  He cites the prophetic scriptures to show that God has revealed God’s purpose, both of calling the Gentiles into God’s family of love, and of preserving only a remnant of Israel. 
           Paul is, of course, fully persuaded that the will of God is exercised in perfect wisdom and  love, for without this wisdom and love, the absolute will cannot but take on the appearance of a monstrous tyranny.  We must realize the profound truth of Paul’s central principle, that humans are not the measure of all things; humans cannot without intolerable presumption call God to account; one must trust.   
             Paul makes an explicit statement to the concrete historical fact which has occasioned his problem: Israel, with all its prior advantages, has failed to attain righteousness.  Paul now seeks the cause of Israel’s failure, not in the mysterious and unchallengeable divine degree of reprobation, but in the nation’s misguided zeal.  Israel has not lacked opportunity to hear the word, but, she has failed to understand and to respond.  It would not be true to say that God has rejected Israel, for “there is a remnant chosen by grace”; the apostasy of the majority is not the story’s end.  Even in Paul’s time it has issued in salvation’s extension to the Gentiles.  
           Paul now interjects a warning to the Gentiles against despising the Jews as rejected of God, using the image of a shoot of wild olive being grafted onto a cultivated tree.  The lasting interest of the passage lies chiefly in its reflection of Paul’s view of the church as the true continuation of the historic community of Israel.  The “mystery” of the final salvation of all Israel is now unveiled.  God still purposes to show them mercy.  He expresses again the belief that God has given God’s promise to all Israelites without distinction, for “they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.”  Even in unbelief and hostility they are still in God’s hands, and his purpose of mercy will in the end triumph over their present disobedience. 
            Ethical Instruction—Paul’s concerns seem to arise directly out of disorders or problems that have actually come to light in the life of the particular church to which he is writing.  In Romans, it is not at all certain that the apostle has any specific knowledge of the moral and spiritual condition of his readers or of any problems that may be causing them concern.  Yet even here, it seems likely that he is writing out of his wealth of experience with other Gentile churches.  The ethical section of Romans takes on something of the nature of a general treatise.  Paul here sets forth the main lines of his ethical teaching. 
            Paul is giving us an ethic of redemption, not a system of morals applicable to humankind in general.  Humans in their natural state are not capable of moral achievement.  The moral life of individual Christians is not determined by their own nature as human or by their environment, but by their relationship to God in Christ.  The Christian is not seen as a practitioner of private virtue, but as a member of the body of Christ, living in a nexus of mutual responsibilities and benefits.  

R-47

            But the church lives in the midst of a pagan society under a pagan government, and the apostle must show how Christians are to behave toward their pagan neighbors and governors.  The powers of government derive ultimately from God, and are a terror to wrongdoers; Christians must obey their rulers, not out of mere dread, but “for the sake of conscience.”  This positive view of the state as an organ of the divine government of the world has had a profound influence upon the relations of the church with the state throughout history.  It remains true that civic responsibilities fall within the realm of religious duties for a Christian.  The whole duty of the Christian may be summed up under the one commandment, which embraces all the moral obligations of a person:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Romans 13:8-10). 
           A particular problem of moral theology, arising out of the ramifications of the sacrificial system of ancient paganism, gives the apostle occasion to teach great lessons of tolerance, humility, respect for the opinions and even for the scruples of others.  Nothing is more characteristic of Paul than this habit of penetrating—and leading his readers to penetrate—beneath a particular or local problem to the fundamental principles of Christian truth which determine the Christian’s answer.  Paul leads us to see that we must look upon people whose scruples we do not share, not as a morally inferior person, but as one whom God has accepted.  You must set their welfare above your own liberty, for “if your brother is injured by what you eat, you no longer walk in love.”  Our regard for others must be measured by the infinite value that Christ has set on them; for the sake of their conscience we must limit our freedom. 
           Authenticity and Integrity—There is no other letter with any greater claim to authenticity.  There is clear evidence of its use by other Christian writers before the end of the first century and shortly thereafter—in other NT writings and in the Apostolic Fathers.  Every list of the Christian scriptures which has come down to us includes Romans among the letters of Paul.  The letter belongs to the first generation of the church, and there is much in it which could not reasonably be related to any later situation; the language includes scores of words and phrases which are characteristic of the vocabulary of Paul. 
            The question of integrity is focused on the end of the letter, specifically chapter 16.  Most of this chapter is regarded as a separate letter, with the last three verses, the “great Doxology,” being an even later addition.  There is a good deal of evidence to show that in early times there were copies of the letter in circulation which end with chapter 14.  The style and vocabulary of the great Doxology is not Pauline, and practically all commentators are agreed that it is not from his hand.  Doubts of its authenticity are confirmed by the variation in the position which it holds in different manuscripts.  The vast majority of them place it at the end of 14; a few of those of the highest quality have it at the end of chapter 16.  The oldest has it at the end of chapter 15.  The Doxology may have been composed as a fitting conclusion to the whole body of Paul’s correspondence.  
            The evidence that some early copies ended with chapter 14 is confirmed by Origen of Alexandria, who tells us that Marcion cut away all that follows 14:23.  But Marcion may simply have had it in the short form in which it was already circulating.  The evidence within chapter 15 seems to indicate that it belongs in the original letter; the thoughts reflect Paul’s mind and follow upon the thought of chapter 14 without any break. 
            Chapter 16 is another matter.  The letter comes to a natural end with chapter 15.  The long list of greetings to his friends in Rome does not fit with the fact that he has never been there.  Also, the list includes Aquila and Prisca, who had been expelled from Rome, and were later associated with him at Ephesus.  Along with the other greetings and the warning against troublemakers, which better fits a church which Paul knows, we are almost forced to the conclusion that this chapter was addressed to the church at Ephesus. 
            Some believe that this chapter by itself is a letter addressed by Paul to the church at Ephesus.  Others believe the Ephesus theory causes more problems than it solves.  The conclusion of this article is that the letter to the Romans consisted originally of chapters 1-15, and that chapter 16 is at least part of a letter originally addressed to the church at Ephesus. 
             Destination, Occasion, and Purpose—The opening words on the earliest manuscripts are “pros Romaious, to Romans.”  The idea that the letter was composed originally as a general letter was inspired by the observation that copies existed in early times which omitted the words “en Rome, in Rome.” But it is clear that entire paragraphs at the beginning and end of the letter are addressed to a particular local church; and there can be no doubt that this is the church at Rome.  The letter was probably dispatched from Corinth shortly before Paul set sail with his companions.  The date cannot be determined with certainty, but will fall between 54 and 57. 
           Nothing is known of the founding of the Roman church.  When Paul wrote his letter, this church was well established and already known, composed mainly of Gentiles, with a certain number of Jewish members, and was a Greek-speaking community.  It is not until the later years of the 100s that we find the earliest Latin documents of the Roman church.  It must have been founded before 50 A.D., for the conflicts occasioned within the Jewish community led to Emperor Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome. 

R-48

           Paul may have hoped to visit the Roman church, but had hitherto been prevented from doing so by the demands of other work.  He has completed the tasks which he set for himself in the Eastern provinces and is looking forward to a mission in Spain.  First, however, he must make a trip to Jerusalem with a contribution which his Gentile churches of Greece and Macedonia have raised for the Jerusalem poor.  
           The letter we have was written primarily to pave the way for his intended visit.  He feels that he has some contribution to make toward the strengthening of their faith, and he is quick to add that he counts on receiving, as well as conferring, a blessing.  He disavows any desire to suggest that their own faith and knowledge are deficient, and almost apologizes for writing to remind them of what they already know.  He is manifestly bent on removing misunderstandings of his gospel; he invites their support of his mission in Spain. 
          This careful and wide-ranging exposition of the significance of the gospel seems to come lose to a formal, definitive account of the apostle’s mature understanding of the Christian faith.  Perhaps Paul half-divines the central place which the church of Rome is destined to attain, and chose it as the initial recipient, that it may also be the lasting guardian, of his greatest theological legacy.  In the mother church of Jerusalem he cannot have too great confidence.  
           A strategic insight seems to have guided him in the establishment of his key churches throughout his missionary career.  That same insight may have enabled him to see that Rome must shortly become the capital city of the growing empire of Christ.  In some degree, then, the Letter to the Romans gives permanent expression to Paul’s clear understanding of the nature of the gospel, its relation to the Old Testament and to the Judaism of the law, and its power to bring human life into new relationship with God.  The general importance of this letter in the history of Christian theology cannot be overestimated, and it remains indispensable to the understanding of most of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and what Christian life had to offer in terms of spiritual growth. 

ROME (CHURCH).  This article is an attempt to bring together all we know about Rome’s Christian community from the fragmentary material we have.  This material is: a few references in classical writing (Suetonius, Tacitus); inferences from Christian writings; references elsewhere in the New Testament (NT); fragments of tradition; and archaeological evidence.
          It is probable that Christianity came to Rome very early in the apostolic age, but nothing is known about the church’s founding.  “Visitors from Rome” heard Peter’s first sermon on the day of Pentecost; these would surely carry the gospel to their fellow citizens.  One tradition, preserved in the letters pretending to be by Clements, attributes the first preaching of the gospel in Rome to Barnabas; another reports that Peter came there as early as 42 A.D. 
          The Roman Suetonius tells us that Claudius “expelled the Jews from Rome because they were continually rioting at the instigation of Chrestus”; it seems likely that “Christus” is meant.  Suetonius is probably giving us a garbled reference to the disturbances in the Jewish community over the propagation of the gospel, perhaps at the time of its first introduction.  It would seem that Aquila and Priscilla, Paul’s associates at Corinth, had been members of a Christian group in Rome.  There is reason to believe that Christianity came to Rome some time before the year 50.   
           Paul’s letter to the Romans, written no later than 58 and perhaps as early as 53, throws no great light upon the character of the Roman community; Paul had not yet been to Rome himself.  His words are based upon the assumption that he is writing to a predominantly Gentile community; he even feels that he must warn them not to despise the Jews, the “natural” branches of the olive tree.  The whole argument against the possibility of justification by the works of the law presupposes that the community has had some indoctrination in the Jewish insistence on the “righteousness which is based on the law.” 
          The question will always arise of how far his exposition is based on the character and needs of the Roman community, and how far it reflects simply his own experience of the problems and needs of any Gentile church.  A writing from the 300s A.D. tells us that “there were Jews . . . who had delivered to the Romans the tradition that while professing Christ they should keep the law.”  Is this confirmation of a historical fact, or is the writer making inferences from the Letter to the Romans.  If the tradition that the Letter to the Philippians was written in Rome is correct, supporters of it will suggest that the gospel has made it to the imperial court.  

R-49

            If we can persuade ourselves that Paul wrote the Pastorals from Rome, they will throw some light on the conditions of his imprisonment and his relations with the Roman church.  In II Timothy 1, the writer speaks of a general alienation from him of Asian Christians.  “[Onesiphorus] was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me eagerly and found me.”  This suggests that none of the members the Roman church could even tell Onesiphorus where he was to be found. 
           Tacitus and Suetonius tell of the mass persecutions which the Roman church suffered under Nero, but gives no useful information about the nature of the community, except that it was very large.  The Christians were detested for their hatred of the human race (Tacitus); they were a “race of men given to a new and deadly superstition” (Suetonius).  The Emperor Domitian sentenced many Romans of noble family to death or banishment, including Flavius Clemens, M. Acilius Glabrio, and Domitilla.   Some believe that these three suffered as Christians, but that belief is not well-supported by evidence. 
             Mark, the earliest gospel, was probably made at Rome following Nero’s persecution.  This gospel may be regarded as the tradition concerning Jesus as it was known and prized by the Roman church.  Its central emphasis on the cross is not peculiarly Roman.  Yet it derives an added poignancy from the experience of martyrdom through which the church had been passing.  As one of the principal sources of Matthew and Luke, as well as in itself, this gospel must be acknowledged to be the first of the great and enduring contribution made by the church of Rome to catholic Christianity.  
           It is held by some critics that the Letter to the Hebrews was written to the Roman church.  The date and destination of Hebrews are as much in doubt as the author’s name; but it is clear that about this time the Roman church began to acquire a leadership position.  In their writings, neither Clement nor Ignatius makes any reference to a bishop; in both their letters it is the Roman church that is in view, and there is no indication that it was governed by a church “monarch.”  All the documents addressed to the Roman church or issuing from it during the 100s A.D., are in Greek.  Latin Christianity did not begin in Rome, but in North Africa.   

ROME, CITY OF.  Capital of the Roman Republic and Empire and of modern Italy; halfway down the western coast of Italy and about 16 km up the Tiber from the port of Ostia. 
             Description—As reported by Pliny the Elder in 73 A.D., Rome was founded in 753 B.C.  In Pliny’s time Rome’s walls around the seven hills measured 21 km. in circumference.  The length of all the roads within Rome is a little more than 96 km.  Starting in the north and moving in a clockwise spiral, the Seven Hills of Rome are: Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, Capitoline, and Palatine.  Like modern cities, Rome expanded from a central core.  Here the Roman Forum is located, surrounded by Quirinal, Caelian, Palatine, and Capitol.  The Colosseum was built near the city’s center, 78 (?)-80 (?) A.D.  

                   Under Augustus (ruled 27 B.C.-14 A.D.) the city was divided into 14 districts, and a kind of police force had been created, consisting of three “urban cohorts”; prostitution was not outlawed but regulated.  He also established seven cohorts of vigiles for fighting fires, each responsible for 2 of the 14 districts; Forum Romanum, Palatium, and Templum Pacis were in the center.  Beginning in the north and moving clockwise, the other 11 districts are:  (1)Via Lata and (2)Alta Semita (northern); (3)Esquiliae, (4)Isis and Serapis, and (5)Caelimontium (eastern); (6)Porta Capena, (7)Piscina Publica, (southern); (10)Trans Tiberim and (11)Circus Flaminius (western).  Alta Semita, Romanum, Palatium, Templum Pacis, Isis and Separis, Circus Maximus, and part of Avetinus are within the walls of ancient Rome.  The fire in Nero’s reign (64 A.D.) started near Palatine Hill; it left only four districts untouched, while three were completely leveled.   

                  Under Tiberius less building went on, but he began the temple of the deified Augustus.  The more practical-minded Claudius devoted his attention to building aqueducts.  Nero finished the circus near the Vatican and erected his Golden House in the land cleared by the great fire.  A colossal statue of Nero stood in the approach from the Forum.  Vespasian built the Colosseum (79-81) and began Titus’ triumphal arch.  

                 Foreigners in Rome—During New Testament (NT) times there was a great influx of foreigners into Rome, especially from the East.  The foreigners tended to remain in rather isolated groups.  Two examples of “imported” religious groups may be given.  First, conservative magistrates viewed the worship of Isis with great disfavor, while others tended to allow the construction of Isis’ shrines.  It was not until the 100s or 200s A.D. that temples of Isis could be described as “everywhere.”  Archaeology suggests that the goddess had a large number of private chapels earlier than that.  Second, the spread of the worship of the Persian Mithra led to the construction of many places of worship in Rome. 

R-50

                 The principal Jewish quarters of Rome were in the west, central, northwest, and southwest sections.  Presumably the first Christians lived or met in the same quarters.  There were at least thirteen Jewish synagogues, including those of:  the Augustesians (dedicated to Augustus); the Agrippesians (to Agrippa); Herodians (to Herod?); the Vernaculi (Jewish slaves born in Rome); and the Hebrews (conservative traditionalists?).  During Nero’s reign some Christians were martyred in the Gardens of Agrippina, Peter and Paul possibly among them.  Our earliest evidence for their martyrdoms is given in I Clement, written in Rome around 96 A.D.  Gaius of Rome said around 190 A.D.:  “ . . . if you are willing to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way you will find the trophies of those who founded this church.”  

                 The earliest evidence of Christian concern for the relics of martyrdom is provided in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (156 or 167).  Is it likely that in Nero’s time Christians would have been allowed to bury the bodies of those condemned for arson?  In 1939 the pavement of the basilica of Constantine was found.  A little monument, part of a wall built between 160 and 170, could occupy a central position.  This monument very probably marks the spot were the Christians of the 100s believed Peter had been martyred, if not buried.  The probable conclusion to be drawn from the literary and archaeological evidence is that both Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome at the time of Nero.  

                 Both Jews and Christians had catacombs at Rome; these were subterranean rooms and passageways used for burying the dead.  Six Jewish catacombs have been discovered, and many more Christian ones.  Domitilla, Priscilla, and Callixtus are the earliest, though they are no earlier than the latter half of the 100s.  They were often richly decorated with wall paintings of religious themes.  The figure most commonly portrayed is the good shepherd with his sheep on his shoulder.  Questions about Christian ownership of meeting places arose in the 200s, and we know that early in the 300s there were at least 40 churches at Rome.  The most prominent were three great basilicas by Constantine:  St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s outside the wall, and St. John Lateran.  

                  See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix. 

ROOF (גג (gawg); ﬧהקו (koraw), beam; stegh (steg ay))  In ancient Middle Eastern houses the flat roof, covered with clay, was easy of access and a place where members of the family spent a lot of time. 

ROOM (מקום (maw kome), place; מﬧחב (meh reh khawb), wide place; topoV (top os), place) 

ROOT (ﬧשש(sho resh); riza (pee tsah))  A word used almost exclusively in figures of speech (Deuteronomy 29; Isaiah 27; Jeremiah 12; Ezekiel 31). The expectation of a coming great ruler from the Davidic dynasty produced the figures “root of Jesse.”  

ROPE (חבל (kheh bel), cord; ﬨעב ('eh bote), cord, interwoven work; scoinion (skoy nee on), cord made of rushes)  A thick cord formed with twisted strands of leather, sinews, vines, or plant fibers, used for many agricultural, military, nautical and domestic purposes.  Neither Hebrew nor Greek distinguished between rope and cord.  Rope-making is older than either spinning or weaving.  Rope was so cheap in Israel that to wear it was a sign of poverty.  The only New Testament use of rope is for the tackle of a ship (Acts 27). 

ROSE (חבצלﬨ (khah bats tseh leth), narcissus; rodon (roe don))  The true rose is not mentioned in the Bible, but there are several references to it in apocryphal literature.  The King James Version translates the above Hebrew word as “rose of Sharon.”  The New Revised Standard Version preserves “rose,” but footnotes it as “crocus.”  Clearly the Hebrew does not mean “rose,” but the identification is disputed.  The true rose was known at least since Greco-Roman times.  The so-called “rose of Jericho” is dried tumbleweed, which opens like a rose when put in water. 

ROSETTA STONE. See entry in Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of Appendix. 

ROSH (ﬧאש, head, chief) Seventh son of Benjamin.  He is listed as a grandson in the primary Greek translation, and is not listed at all in the lists of Numbers 26 and I Chronicles 8. 

R-51

RUBY  (פנינים (peh nee neem), pearls, red coral)  King James Version translation of the Hebrew; the New Revised Standard Version has “pearl” or “jewel.”  Real rubies are not found in Near Eastern excavated sites. 

RUDDER (phdalion (peh dah lee on))  Early in boating history it must have become apparent that a dugout or canoe could be steered only from the stern.  While shortly after it was found that 1 steering oar was enough to guide a boat, 2 paddles were used in Egypt.  The use of 2 paddle-rudders continued into Roman times. 

RUDDY (אﬢם (ah dam), to be red) Translation of various forms of adam.  While the Song of Songs [Solomon] 5 and Lamentations 4 refer to ruddy complexions, earlier passages (I Samuel 16, 17) may refer to red hair. 

RUE (phganon (peh ga non))  A strong-smelling perennial shrub with gray-green leaves and lemon-yellow clusters of flowers.  It was widely used a condiment, in medicines, and as a charm.  Jesus criticized the Pharisees: “You tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God” (Luke 11).  Both Matthew 23 and some ancient manuscripts use “dill” in place of rue. 

RUFUS (RoufoV, the Latin form means “red-haired.”)  1. Son of Simon of Cyrene.  Though Simon is mentioned in all 3 Synoptic gospels, his sons are referred to only by Mark.  They must have been well known in the community to which Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark.  

                  2. The recipient of a greeting in Romans 16, called an outstanding Christian.  If Roman 16 is an integral part of Romans, the two people mentioned here may be identical.  But the increasing tendency to regard this chapter as a separate letter, would make such an identification considerably less likely. 

RUG (שמיﬤה (seh me kaw), mattress, covering)  The covering Jael put over Sisera (Judges 4).  The versions generally used words meaning heavy wraps used for cold weather and for sleeping, though the primary Greek translation implies one of the curtains used to partition the tent.  

RUHAMAH (ﬧחמה, pitied)  A new name to be given Israel in the day of redemption, denoting the change in God’s attitude (Hosea 2). 

RULER OF SYNAGOGUE (ﬧאש הﬤנסﬨ (rosh  ha kaw nah soth), head of assemblies; arcisunagwgoV (ar kee sin ah gaw gos), presiding elder of a synagogue)  The leader or president of a synagogue, whose particular duty was to care for the physical arrangements of the synagogue services.  Several men in this position are mentioned in the New Testament: Jairus, the father of a 12 year-old girl whom Jesus raised from death (Mark 5); an unnamed man who became indignant when Jesus healed on the sabbath (Luke 13); those who permitted Paul and his companions to speak in the synagogue at the Antioch in northern Asia Minor (Acts 13); Crispus, a convert to Christianity at Corinth (Acts 18); Sosthenes, also ruler of a Corinthian synagogue at the time of Paul’s first missionary journey (Acts 18; and perhaps I Corinthians 1). 

RULERS OF THE CITY.  See City Authorities. 

RUMAH (הﬧומ, lofty) The town of Zebidah, Jehoiakim’s mother, and/or her father Pedaiah,  A place called Ruma was the home of two brave Galileans who attacked the 10^th Roman Legion.  Presuming that Jehoiakim’s immediate ancestors would be expected to come from Judah, a location in Judah has been sought.  

RUNNEL (טﬧה (raw hat), watering-troughs)  A watering trough where flocks cared for by Jacob came to drink. 

RUSH, RUSHES (אגמן (‘ah geh mone), reed) A reed-like plant, usually associated with river banks and marshes.  The term is used loosely in all English Bibles, to translate several Hebrew words. 

R-52

RUST (חלאה (kheh leh ‘aw), scum; brwsiV (bro sees), eats [away]; ioV (ee os), poison )  Biblical terms for rust are associated with various metals and apparently  mean “corrosion.”  The rust of a “pot” or caldron is a symbol of Jerusalem’s “filthy lewdness.”  New Testament references to rust are: Matthew 6, where the word is brosis and precious metals are implied; and James 5, where the word is ios and the metals subject to corrosion are gold and silver.   

RUTH, BOOK OF (ﬧוﬨ, friend) The story of Ruth and Naomi, a tale of human kindness and devotion transcending the limits of nation- or self-interest.  The biblical Ruth was a Moabite woman who had married a Hebrew, a native of Bethlehem in Judah, who was living in Moab.  On the death of her husband, she accompanied her Hebrew mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem.  She became the wife of Boaz, a kinsman of her husband.  Their son was Obed, grandfather of David, and she was a distant ancestress of Jesus Christ.  

                 Content and Date—A family from Bethlehem in Judah—Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their 2 sons—sought refuge in Moab in a time of famine.  The 2 sons took Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth.  When the 3 men died, Naomi resolved to return to her native land.  Orpah follows partway and returns to Moab.  Ruth declared her complete devotion to her mother-in-law, and went with her to Bethlehem.  Ruth gleaned in Boaz’s fields.  Naomi asked first one kinsman, and then sent Ruth to ask protection from Boaz, as next of kin; Boaz took Ruth as his wife.  The son born of this marriage was celebrated as a son “born to Naomi”; this child was to be the ancestor of David.  

                According to tradition, Samuel was the author of Judges and Ruth.  The story has its setting in the period of the judges.  In its present form, however the book of Ruth shows considerable evidence of a post-exilic date between 450 and 250 B.C.  The genealogy of David in chapter 4 reads like genealogies of the post-exilic period.  In content it seems too brief to cover accurately the whole period from Perez to David; it is the same as that given in I Chronicles 2.  The content of the book as a whole, with its story of a foreign woman who became a member of Israel’s most respected family, suits the post-exilic period’s special concern of particularism.  The combined evidence of the author’s view of the past, the language of the book, its content, and its place in the canon, points clearly to a post-exilic date.  

                 It seems unlikely that the writer of Ruth created a fictional story.  The name Obed is not suggested by the explanatory saying “A son has been born to Naomi,” and the connection with David may well have been an addition.  There is no indication that Ruth’s author made use of written sources.  The perfection of story form which the book shows suggests the possibility of a long oral tradition.  The story’s details sound like elements in a folk tale that have been successful through many tellings.  It may even have been an ancient cultic myth of Bethlehem, in which the harvest ritual, the lamenting, and a new child’s birth were all connected.  Whatever the origin, or the date of the original materials, the result is a tale which is a work of art. 

                  Purpose and Place in Canon—Ruth is an outstanding example of Hebrew literature.  The author has used detail and contrast so that the magnanimity of Ruth and Boaz is highlighted against the backdrop of still laudable but ordinary goodness of Orpah and the first kinsman.  Naomi’s final success in bringing about a restoration of the family line is given its proper importance in contrast to her own realistic valuation of the odds against its likelihood.  The story makes an artistic whole.  In the light of this obvious artistic success, it may well seem unnecessary to look for any other purpose.  

                 It is true that Ruth has outstanding themes:  human kindness over and above conventional duty; unselfish devotion to Naomi; devotion to a woman who was both a foreigner and a mother-in-law, beyond any reasonable requirement of duty; or put another way, the “law of kindness which transcends national boundaries and makes all people kin.”  The book’s religious emphasis, however, is that Ruth was accepted in Israel in spite of her foreignness.  The stress seems to be on the fact that this kindness was not limited by any of the usual prejudices, on the part either of Ruth or of Boaz.  That “Ruth the Moabitess” could then be the great-grandmother of David is the fitting climax for this theme. 

R-53

                 The concern of post-exilic Judaism with the problem of particularism and universalism is one argument for the date of the book.  In the second half of the 400s B.C., Nehemiah attempted to put an end to all marriages of Jews with non-Jews.  Many scholars have taken the book of Ruth as a response to this specific attempt to enforce the separation of Israel from other peoples, and have considered the designation of Moab as Ruth’s country of origin as the deliberate choice of a nation excluded by Nehemiah’s law.  And yet it could be a historical fact, since David turned to Moab as a place of sanctuary for his parents.  The story speaks for itself, without resorting to a sermon against exclusion.  It seems impossible to limit the purpose of Ruth to an attack against any specific set of wrongs.  The book has a positive purpose:  the possibility of good will and respect for another human being, without any regard for national or religious intolerance.  

                  It is certainly this theme of universalism that is in part responsible for Ruth’s existence as a written book of the Bible.  The statement of universalism was, no doubt, one reason for the acceptance of Ruth as holy scripture.  Another and more compelling reason was the fact that it deals with David’s ancestry.  In the Hebrew Bible, Ruth is found in Kethubim or Writings section of the canon.  In all recent Jewish tradition, however, Ruth belongs as 1 of the 5 Megilloth, or Scrolls, which are read annually on special occasions.  

                 The primary Greek Old Testament did not preserve the division between the Prophets and the Writings, but put Ruth after Judges.  The Talmudic statement that Samuel was the author of Judges and Ruth seems to represent acceptance of this opinion.  In the English translations of the Bible the tradition of the primary Greek Old Testament is maintained.  Ruth’s place in the Hebrew canon, as the book to be read on the feast of Shabuoth or Weeks, gives some indication of the significance of the book in Jewish tradition.  Shabuoth is the biblical festival celebrating the close of the weeks of the great harvest, and Ruth, with its harvest setting, is associated with this festival.  The tradition connects Shabuoth also with the giving of the law.

R-54