Why We Need the Bad News of Israelite History

“They’re awful,” one student lamented.

Others fidgeted and some looked down while their fellow student shared her impressions of the Israelites’ antics in the Old Testament narratives I’d assigned the class to read. She went on to complain of dismemberment, distasteful lifestyles, and brutal sexual assault. My class forced many students to confront these shameful realities from Israel’s history for the first time. It was clear the whole class needed to process them together.

Biblical Israel’s story is riddled with bad news. Until they get to my class, many of my evangelical Christian students have never read or heard about these hard stories in Scripture. But we need to own them. Part of what makes the good news of Jesus the Messiah good news is the bad news we find in the narratives of the Old Testament.

Many modern Christians start with creation and the fall then jump directly to Calvary. There’s nothing wrong with the creation-fall-salvation model except that the habit of skipping the in-between part—Israel’s messy history—can lead us to think it insignificant.

There’s nothing wrong with the creation-fall-salvation model except that the habit of skipping the in-between part—Israel’s messy history—can lead us to think it insignificant.

The Bible doesn’t move directly from the promises of the Torah story to the four Gospels. The two are connected by the Israel story. The great merciful acts of Yahweh fill the pages of this rich history.

Yet no biblical author shies away from human sinfulness. We read about rebellion from the land of promise to Mesopotamia and back. And we need to listen carefully because the bad news within redemptive history culminates in the teaching, death, and resurrection of the Messiah. Three examples make this clear.

When Jonathan Was a Youth

The non-chronological arrangement of the book of Judges sets up a shocker of an ending. After things get worse from one deliverer to the next, the book ends with a pair of horrific narratives too depraved to be described by the repeated characterization that “the Israelites did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh” (translation mine, Judg. 2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). Instead, the narrator says, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6; 21:25).

But when did things get so bad? At the conclusion of the Danite false-worship debacle and in the middle of the civil war sparked by the Benjamites’ crime against the Levite’s concubine, the narrator reveals these things took place in the days of the grandsons of Moses and Aaron (18:30; 20:28). To underline the point, the narrator says five times that Jonathan the grandson of Moses was still “young” (17:7, 11, 12; 18:3, 15).

Anyone who looks back with longing to the days when Israel first entered the land of promise should reread the ending of Judges. There’s no such thing as the good old days—at least not in the highlands of Benjamin and Ephraim. Moses’s grandson is still young in the days when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

When Menahem Compromised

If asked, Menahem the ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel might explain that political leaders sometimes need to make difficult decisions for the greater good. By this, Menahem would be referring to his decision to put Israel under vassalage to the Assyrian empire.

How did Menahem pay excessive tribute to Assyria? With other people’s silver, of course. The book of Kings explains that Menahem made this decision to strengthen his own rule (2 Kings 15:19‒20). If this isn’t bad enough, the author includes a gruesome war crime of Menahem to show his evil character.

The biblical text remembers Menahem for ripping open the pregnant women of Tiphsah as retaliation for them not surrendering immediately (v. 16). The ancient Assyrians of Menahem’s day weren’t shy about the brutalities they inflicted on their enemies. Sickening atrocities fill the royal inscriptions and the walls of Assyrian palaces. Yet the Assyrians don’t normally celebrate Menahem’s despicable act. Only one ancient Assyrian inscription and only one visual relief memorialize this behavior.

These rare cases stand in sharp contrast to a long line of Assyrian kings who had their scribes and sculptors repeatedly memorialize the dismemberment, skinning alive, and torture of those they defeated. Menahem’s vile actions set him apart with the worst of the Assyrian kings.

When Nehemiah Pummeled Rebels

Nehemiah does what many leaders only dream about in secret. He physically rips out the beards and beats the rebellious men of Jerusalem who’d entered apostate marriages (Neh. 13:25). Nehemiah knows what’s at stake.

Twelve years earlier, the returned exiles had solemnly promised to obey God’s will. The Judeans had put their promise into writing, and they signed it (Neh. 10), but now they no longer remember their oath. In Nehemiah’s second term as governor, he uses the people’s promise as a checklist to expose their sin (13:4‒31). They rebelled against everything they’d promised, so sinners filled the streets of Jerusalem once again. It’s as though the exile never happened.

Yahweh’s mercy and love appear everywhere in the Old Testament. But the bad news of sinful rebellions also fills the pages of the Israel story. In narratives that take us from the garden to the Babylonian exile, we’re tempted to ask what could be worse. The answer is what happened at Golgotha.

We All Need Bad News First

Pastors, conference speakers, and bloggers have long bemoaned the biblical illiteracy of today’s Christians. But this isn’t merely a matter of inconvenience. It’s not just that we need to offer a remedial explanation of the biblical accounts former generations knew well. No, when younger generations skip Israel’s story, it impoverishes the gospel. We need these stories to strengthen our vision of the good news in at least two ways.

In narratives that take us from the garden to the Babylonian exile, we’re tempted to ask what could be worse. The answer is what happened at Golgotha.

First, when we read about rebellion in the Scriptures, we learn to recognize it in ourselves. The Old Testament doesn’t merely give us pictures of others’ sin; its historical narratives are mirrors to show us our sin (1 Cor. 10:6, 11; James 1:23‒25).

Second, reading about this long history of rebellion shows us the lengths to which Yahweh goes in pursuit of his people. Again and again, Yahweh acted with redeeming grace. Jesus infers that the Old Testament bears sufficient witness to God’s redeeming purposes—enough to leave us without excuse if we reject Christ’s resurrection from the dead (Luke 16:31).

For this reason, the students in my classes need to study Old Testament history even if Israel’s sinfulness leaves them slack-jawed. Only those who understand the depth of human sinfulness can see the need for repentance and the expansiveness of grace. Yahweh in his wisdom has been pleased to present ancient Israel in all its messiness. We need the bad news to recover the goodness of the good news. We need the Israel story that culminates in the teaching, death, and resurrection of our Lord.

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