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AnonymousBible: Old Testament: English Standard Version
Nonfiction | Scripture | Adult | Published in 1611A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
God
God is the central figure of the Old Testament narrative, appearing in the texts from beginning to end, and all other figures are assessed in their relation to God. God is presented as a personal being, not a theological abstraction or a nebulous spiritual force, but a divine person characterized by his vast power, goodness, and wisdom, as well as by his relationality. In contrast to many divine figures in other ancient “Near Eastern” texts, God seeks to enter into relationships with human beings, there to pour out his love on them and draw them into ever greater holiness and truth. In one of the Old Testament’s most common refrains about the character of God, he is said to be “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Numbers 14:18; cf. Exodus 34:6; Nehemiah 9:17; and Psalms 86:15; 103:8; 145:8). In traditional Christian doctrine, as based in the text of the Old Testament, God is the uncreated creator, the sole cause of all that exists, and the summit of all virtues. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, a being so great in every respect that nothing greater can even be conceived. As Jeremiah 10:6 puts it, “There is none like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might.”
God appears by several different names within the text of the Old Testament, but all the names refer to the same divine being. One of the most frequent is represented by four Hebrew letters, transliterated as YHWH (from which the renderings “Yahweh” and “Jehovah” both derive). This name, called the tetragrammaton (“four letters”), is based upon the personal name which God ascribes to himself in his first meeting with Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), and it appears in most books of the Old Testament. In the ESV, as in many English translations, an appearance of the name YHWH is indicated by the word “LORD” in all capitals. Other names for God include Elohim and Adonai, more general terms for divinity which are usually translated as “God” and “Lord.”
Because God is infinite, he relates to people in the Old Testament in so many ways that it would be impossible to enumerate them all. There are, however, a few major roles that God plays throughout the Old Testament, including the roles of creator and redeemer. In his role as creator, God is portrayed as bringing forth the universe from nothing; he simply speaks, and creation springs into existence at the command of his word. He does not relate to his creation as a distant power; rather, he is portrayed as being intimately involved with every facet of creation, and especially with regard to human beings, whom he creates in his own image. God’s role as creator is thus not limited to the early chapters of Genesis but extends through everything he does in the Old Testament, as he continues to seek the moral and spiritual development of his people. He also fills the role of redeemer, which is most clearly seen in the exodus narratives, as he saves his people out of the enslavement into which they have fallen. He again appears as the redeemer in bringing his people out of exile after the Babylonian conquest, but both of these historical occurrences point toward a larger theological implication: of God as the redeemer who brings his people out of the spiritual exile of their enslavement to sin.
Abraham
Abraham is portrayed as the founding patriarch of the Israelite line, the person whom God called to enter a covenantal relationship of trust and faithfulness. Abraham is from the Mesopotamian city of Ur, one of the great urban centers of early civilization in the Fertile Crescent, and later lives in Haran, another city in northern Mesopotamia. He is already 75 years old when God calls him, and in response he leaves his homeland, traveling from Haran to Canaan in obedience to God. In the early chapters of his story, he is referred to as Abram, only later modified by God to reflect his prophesied identity as “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5). Abraham becomes the progenitor not only of the Israelites (and thus of modern Jews), but of other national groups as well, including the Ishmaelites (whom modern Arabs claim as their ancestors) and the Edomites.
God’s covenant-promise to Abraham is to bless him and to make his descendants a blessing to the whole earth, as well as to give the entire land of Canaan as the future inheritance of his family. Abraham believes God, even though both sets of promises—land and descendants—look to be extremely unlikely. Abraham’s faith is rewarded when Sarah miraculously gives birth to their son, Isaac. It is from Isaac’s line that the nation of Israel will come, but God asks Abraham to undertake a further act of faith: offering up Isaac as a sacrifice to be slain. Abraham is ready to obey, even in the face of the seemingly impassable obstacle of his son’s death, but God stops Abraham before the sacrifice is offered. His faith in God, shown in the fullest possible degree, thus becomes paradigmatic for the faith of Israel. He represents the theological principle that faithful obedience to God should be the fundamental priority of one’s life, an idea that undergirds the whole theology of the Old Testament. Abraham passes away and is buried in Canaan, and his son Isaac takes up the leadership of the family.
Moses
Moses holds a central place in the history and religious life of the Israelite nation, as both the great lawgiver and as a prototypical figure in the prophetic and priestly traditions. Moses was born into an Israelite family in the Levite tribe at the time when the Egyptian pharaoh was pursuing a genocidal course against the Israelites. To save his life, Moses’s mother sends him down the Nile in a basket, and he is found by an Egyptian princess who raises him in the royal house. At the age of 40, Moses has to flee into the desert, where he takes up a new life as a shepherd in Midian. After another 40 years there, he is startled to encounter the presence of God in a burning bush, who calls him to go back to Egypt and proclaim God’s demand that the pharaoh must let the Israelites go. Although initially reluctant, Moses obeys God’s call and bears the message to the pharaoh, who eventually capitulates after God sends 10 plagues of judgment. Moses, having instructed the Israelites how to escape the final plague through a sacrificial rite (which would later be enshrined in Passover), leads the Israelites out of Egypt.
Moses guides the people through the desert to Mount Sinai, there to receive God’s laws, and after that to lead the people to the promised land of Canaan. Here he comes into his role as Israel’s lawgiver, the one to whom God relates the whole code of his covenant-law. This code of laws, capped with the Ten Commandments but stretching to include all the commands enshrined in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, make up the content of God’s covenant with the people of Israel. Under this covenant, if the people are careful to keep the laws and rites God has given, then they have the promise of God’s blessing over every aspect of their lives. The people of Israel prove incapable of faithfully following God’s laws from the very beginning, and because of their disobedience, they spend the next 40 years wandering in the desert. Moses serves as their leader throughout this period, exercising a prophetic office as the bearer of God’s messages for his people, while also upholding the office of his brother Aaron, who puts the ritual aspects of the law in practice by serving as high priest.
As with most of the Old Testament heroes, Moses is far from perfect, and a flaw of his temper leads to him disobey one of God’s directives. Because of this, God decides that Moses will not be able to enter the promised land, but will die shortly before the next generation of Israelites prepare to cross into their inheritance.
King David
David is the prototypical king of the biblical tradition, coming as the second monarch in Israel’s history but defining the role thereafter. As is the case with Abraham’s and Moses’s story, David’s begins with a divine calling, wherein God takes the initiative to reach out and choose him for the service appointed to him. In David’s case, this happens when Samuel anoints him to the kingship while he is still a young shepherd. Although David shoots to prominence after his victory over the giant Goliath, he does not leverage his growing influence against King Saul, but rather waits his time, even when Saul is actively trying to hunt him down. Eventually, Saul dies in the aftermath of a battle with the Philistines, and David ascends to the throne. He is one of the most militarily successful kings in Israel’s history, establishing relatively secure borders and successfully capturing Jerusalem, a Jebusite stronghold in the Israelite heartland. Jerusalem would thenceforward be Israel’s capital city, with David establishing his residence there and with his son Solomon building a permanent temple of God there as well.
Like Abraham and Moses, David stands as a key figure in one of the major covenants which God makes with his people. The covenant made with David involves the promise of an unending kingship founded on a successor from his own family line. Since David’s line lost the kingship during the Babylonian conquest several centuries later, this covenant-promise came to be applied to a future messiah who would be a descendant of David, a role which Christian tradition sees as being fulfilled in Jesus.
David is a complex figure, a man with great capacities for leadership, talents for military strategy and musicianship, and a heart focused on the worship of God. For all his virtues, David also has his failings, and he falls into a major sin when he seduces Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and arranges to have her husband killed in battle. He also seems unable to keep harmony within his own family, and ends up with a son who raises a nearly-successful coup attempt against him. David suffers the consequences of his sins and his poor decisions, but his redeeming quality is that he always turns back to God in sincere and humble contrition, allowing his faith and his love for God to set the direction for his life, even in his darkest moments. For this trait of humble faithfulness, David is called “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).
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