Reformation Commentary on Scripture

Derek Cooper, Martin J. Lohrmann, Derek Cooper, Martin J. Lohrmann

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780830899784
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

"Then David said to the Philistine, 'You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts.'" (1 Samuel 17: 45) Reflecting upon David's victory over Goliath, Reformation translator, theologian and commentator William Tyndale compared it to Christ's victory over sin and death: "When David had killed Goliath the giant, glad tidings came to the Israelites that their fearful and cruel enemy was dead and that they were delivered out of all danger. For this gladness, they sang, danced and were joyful. In like manner, the good news or 'gospel' of God is joyful tidings." The books of 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles, which record the history of Israel from the prophetic ministry of Samuel to the fall of Jerusalem, provided the reformers with some of the best-known narratives of the Old Testament upon which to comment, including Hannah's prayer, the anointing of Saul as Israel's first king, David's triumph over Goliath and his later adultery with Bathsheba, Solomon's building of the Temple, Elijah's challenge to the prophets of Baal, and the healing of Naaman. For the reformers, these stories were not merely ancient Israelite history, but they also foreshadowed the coming of Jesus Christ, and they had immediate relevance for their lives and the church of their day. Thus, Anglican exegete John Mayer perceived within King Josiah's reform of Israelite worship after the discovery of the Book of the Law a prefiguration of "what should be done in the latter days of the gospel, in which a greater reformation of the religion is now being made." In this Reformation Commentary on Scripture volume, Derek Cooper and Martin Lohrmann guide readers through a diversity of Reformation commentary on these historical books. Here, readers will find reflections from both well-known voices and lesser-known figures from a variety of confessional traditions—Lutherans, Reformed, Radicals, Anglicans and Roman Catholics—many of which appear in English for the first time. By drawing upon a variety of resources—including commentaries, sermons, treatises and confessions—this volume will enable scholars and students to understand better the depth and breadth of Reformation-era insights on Scripture. It will also provide resources for contemporary preachers, and encourage all those who continually seek to share the "joyful tidings" of Jesus Christ.

Introduction to 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles

Samuel, Kings and Chronicles: Enduring Value and Depth

The six books studied in this volume contain some of the greatest characters and moments of Scripture. Here are prophets like Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and Elisha, inspiring saints like Hannah and Jonathan, and infamous villains like Ahab and Jezebel. These books describe the lives and works of the kings of Israel and Judah, especially the first three: Saul, David and Solomon. Here, too, are the timeless stories of David and Goliath, Solomon’s wisdom and Elijah’s chariots of fire. Beyond such a “greatest hits” list are even more gems, including Abigail and Nabal, the witch of En-dor, the steadfast prophet Micaiah, the prophetess Huldah and righteous kings like Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah. The biblical books of 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles are indeed spiritual and literary treasures.

Jesus of Nazareth and the writers of the New Testament also knew these books well. Each of the Synoptic Gospels (Mt 12:1-8; Mk 2:23-28; Lk 6:1-5) includes Jesus telling the story of David and his army eating the bread of the Presence in 1 Samuel 21. In the Gospel of Luke (Lk 4:16-30), Jesus scandalously invokes Elijah’s miraculous deeds for the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17 and Elisha’s healing of Naaman in 2 Kings 5 to foreshadow Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles. And both the Gospels of Matthew (Mt 23:33-36) and of Luke (Lk 11:49-51) mention 2 Chronicles 24, where, according to Jesus’ comments in the Gospels, the priest Zechariah was “murdered between the sanctuary and the altar” as a holy and unjustly persecuted martyr. Such references only begin to plumb the depths of the New Testament writers’ frequent discussion of the kingdom of Israel, its naming of Jesus as the “Son of David” and its many other allusions to the kings and prophets of Israel. Further, the importance of these books for the New Testament becomes exceedingly clear when we recall that Jesus identified his crucified and risen body with the holy temple promised to David and first built by Solomon. The histories and theologies of each of the books in this volume deeply informed the theology and witness of the New Testament and the early church.

In terms of literary style and theological content, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles are enduring and endearing because they present complex people, themes and events. While cherished images like David the shepherd boy, Solomon the wise ruler or Elijah the righteous prophet capture the popular imagination, there are deeper struggles and questions lingering below the surface. In addition to being a humble shepherd boy, David was also a shrewd and cunning leader from the beginning, with a reign that revealed deep character flaws, including his adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of noble Uriah and a civil war against his cherished son Absalom. In the next generation, Solomon—despite his proverbial wisdom—could not overcome idolatry and the misuse of power, so that the kingdom quickly fell apart under his successors. And though Elijah is one of the great holy men of the Bible, he was also—as the epistle of James says—“a man with a nature like ours” (Jas 5:17), intimately familiar with fear, disappointment and despair. Irony, tragedy, humor and pathos fill the narratives of these six books and invite readers into deep reflection on the many ups and downs of sharing a personal and communal life with God.

Reformation Interpretations of Biblical History

Commentators of the Reformation era were well aware of these complexities. Readers of this volume will be struck by our commentators’ close attention to detail and nuance. From the beginning of the sixteenth century onward, Christian scholars in Europe had access to critical editions of the Hebrew Scriptures and to quality grammatical aids.1 They also knew the historical-critical reality that Samuel and Kings provide the narrative peak and denouement of what is called the Former Prophets in the Jewish tradition (later referred to by modern critical scholars as the “Deuteronomistic History”), that cycle of books based on Deuteronomy that includes Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings.2 The internal continuity of 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings was also clear in the fact that they were named together as the four books of Kings in the Greek Septuagint, a tradition the influential Latin Vulgate continued.

Although 1–2 Chronicles relate many of the same stories as 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century interpreters recognized that the Chronicler’s narratives share a literary heritage with Ezra and Nehemiah rather than with the Former Prophets. Reformation-era scholars, therefore, knew very well that some of the same biblical stories had been told in two intentionally different ways. Additionally, although the sixteenth century became a watershed epoch in the history of biblical interpretation, reforming exegetes did not forget or neglect commentaries and other interpretive aids from earlier times. Readers of this volume will therefore discover that our commentators not only referred to Scripture but also to interpreters from across the centuries, including early church writers and medieval Christian and Jewish scholars, to advance their understanding of the text. Through their own attention to detail and their use of existing resources, scholars of the Reformation era were able to study, interpret and apply the teachings found in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles with a high level of sophistication and self-awareness.

Respect for the Bible as holy and Spirit-breathed Scripture did not prevent Reformation interpreters from careful and critical textual study. On the contrary, reverence for the Word of God pushed them to think seriously about biblical texts, especially when it came to more challenging passages. They did this in a number of ways, beginning with close grammatical and historical study. For instance, the second-generation Lutheran theologian Lucas Osiander recognizes inconsistencies between Samuel, Kings and Chronicles about names and places, but he does not view these as a theological problem. Instead, Osiander asserts that the Chronicler served the church by doing the best work possible with the best available, but ultimately inaccurate sources.3 Martin Luther puts it more bluntly:

The author of the books of Kings goes a hundred thousand steps beyond the author of the books of Chronicles. For he has described the most important and special events, passing over rocky and unimportant matters. If at any place Kings varies from Chronicles, I trust the author of Kings more than the author of Chronicles. And so I agree with neither what Jerome nor Nicholas of Lyra says—that Kings provokes many questions, unlike Chronicles. Kings is to be greatly preferred.4

John Calvin, when confronted with hard passages about God’s actions or emotions, developed a concept of accommodation to emphasize that the cultural complexities inherent to Scripture’s way of speaking must be understood in the broader context of the divine message of grace. Relevant for this volume, Calvin raises this point in his Institutes when considering the issue of God’s repentance, a question especially present in the rise and fall of King Saul.5 On the question of biblical authority and hard textual questions, the Wittenberg Reformer Johannes Bugenhagen in his 1550 commentary on Jonah quotes Augustine of Hippo.

For Augustine wrote most blessedly to St. Jerome something that they even have in their papal decrees, distinction 9: He says, “I have learned to yield this respect and honor [of authority] only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.”6

Though they were without many of the historical-critical tools of today’s scholarship, Reformation-era interpreters were by no means naive about the complexities of biblical texts. Instead, for the sake of good preaching and teaching, they used the best sources, grammatical aids, scriptural commentaries and logical skills possible to derive clear interpretations. This task often meant gathering smaller individual points of teaching (loci) within a passage in order to discern the broader meaning (scopus) of a chapter or book. Philipp Melanchthon employs this “loci method” in his Loci communes rerum theologicarum (1521), a work in which he let these smaller touchstones (loci communes) lead him through the main points that Paul conveys in the letter to the Romans.

The famous Reformation slogan sola Scriptura expresses that desire to go deep into the truths and wonders of the Christian faith through the careful study of Scripture. Contemporary readers should be aware that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sola Scriptura was not used as an excuse to put an end to critical thinking; indeed, such an approach would have been dismissed as unbiblical and unpersuasive by theologians of all confessional backgrounds. While some theologians were more confident of human reason’s ability to come to edifying scriptural conclusions than others, nevertheless they all engaged Scripture with the idea that the good use of reason and critical thinking was essential to good biblical interpretation. Therefore, trusting in the triune God of Scripture and following the rule of faith in their various contexts, interpreters sought to gain wisdom and edification even in the Bible’s most mysterious passages by applying their hearts and their minds to spiritual truth.7

Diverse Confessional Perspectives

While the commentators collected here each sought to be faithful to the “Spirit that gives life” in their work, their diversity of perspectives is immediately apparent. Thus an exciting aspect of this volume is the chance to study why various commentators chose to comment on the themes and loci that they did. Although the goal of all writers was to share good biblical teaching with their audiences, they often did this in different ways. For instance: was David the ideal prophet, priest and king whose model should be the guide and norm for all godly leaders? Or was he a man of blood, war and sin, whose greatest example for later generations are his moments of humble faith, sincere repentance and servant leadership? Interpreters colored David’s successes and failures differently, depending on the theological points they viewed as most important in the biblical text itself. Some upheld David as the godly ruler par excellence, while others viewed him in his best and worst moments as a great example of simul iustus et peccator (“simultaneously righteous and sinner”). In either case, interpreters aimed to be faithful to Scripture and persuasive to their audiences.

For this reason, readers should be aware that this volume is not a collection of answers. Instead, it is more like an invitation to listen to theological and exegetical conversations from the Reformation era. Sometimes these conversations included the (relatively) confessionally neutral discussion of grammatical points and relevant cross-references to other parts of the Bible. Some of the conversations readers will overhear in this volume, however, took place amid the more heated debates of the period. If such conversations never happened in person, they often found written expression. For instance, the Augsburg Confession invoked David as a good example to follow as a godly king but not as a source of holy mediation or intercession, a position based on Scripture’s descriptions of David as a man who sinned and required forgiveness.8 In another example, when addressing antinomian reformers who wanted to abrogate the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles reaffirmed the Old Testament writings as divinely inspired works whose moral commandments ought to remain binding.9 Working in this theological context, English commentators therefore often emphasized the lasting moral and spiritual wisdom to be found in these biblical histories. As a third example of how these books influenced public discourse, John Calvin and his followers were involved in written controversies with Lutherans about how best to interpret David and the “messianic psalms.”10 Although Calvin tended to prefer a more historical or moral reading of these psalms and the Lutherans tended to argue for a more christological interpretation, all parties sought to offer interpretations that were faithful to the text itself and to its spiritual meaning that gives life (2 Cor 3:6). This volume, therefore, offers a fascinating look into the relationship between biblical interpretation and the development of church doctrine, practice and polity. While all interpreters aimed for faithfulness to the text, their respective encounters with the text led to different—biblically grounded!—insights, which bore different fruits.

These general confessional differences quickly become evident in the comments on Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Reformed and Puritan writers commented much more on matters of discipline and holy living than Lutheran writers, who saw justification by faith and the theology of the cross almost everywhere they looked in these historic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Project Staff
• InterVarsity Press
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Bible Translations
• A Guide to Using This Commentary
• General Introduction
• Introduction to 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles
• COMMENTARY ON 1 SAMUEL
• COMMENTARY ON 2 SAMUEL
• COMMENTARY ON 1 KINGS
• COMMENTARY ON 2 KINGS
• COMMENTARY ON 1 CHRONICLES
• COMMENTARY ON 2 CHRONICLES
• Map of Europe at the Time of the Reformation
• Biographical Sketches of Reformation-Era Figures and Works
• Sources for Biographical Sketches
• Bibliography
• Author and Writings Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for the Reformation Commentary on Scripture
• Reformation Commentary on Scripture Board of Advisers
• Series Editors
• Volume Editor
• Reformation Commentary on Scripture Series
• IVP Academic Textbook Selector
• Copyright