I am Not Elijah, Part 1 (John 4:29, 2 Kings 6:12-13)

The following is part 1 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

1. “Come and See”

2 Kings 6:12-13 (LXX)[1] One of his servants said, “No, my lord the king. Elisha, the prophet in Israel, reports to the king of Israel all the words that you say in your bedroom. [The king of Aram] said, “Go, see (Δεῦτε ἴδετε) where this man is, and I will send and take him.” And they announced to him, saying, “Behold, in Dothan.”

John 4:29
“Come, see (Δεῦτε ἴδετε) a man who told me all that I had done; surely he is not the Christ, is he?”

The first proposed allusion is admittedly weaker than most of the following parallels. However, the phrase “come and see” is somewhat distinctive; Δεῦτε ἴδετε occurs in only two other places in the LXX (Ps 45:9 [46:8], 65:5 [66:5]), and neither of them otherwise parallels John 4:29. The phrase is not entirely distinctive in the NT, however. Δεῦτε ἴδετε is used in Matt 28:6, and the similar ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε is used in John 11:34 (see also John 1:39); neither seem to be allusions to 2 Kgs 6:12-13. Although this allusion is weaker than some others, it still is worth considering. The presence of other solid allusions to Elijah/Elisha material in John confirms the possibility that John may use more subtle allusions to the same material. Most importantly, there is some resonance between these two passages. The king of Aram is seeking Elisha because his prophetic knowledge threatens the outcome of his war with Israel. Likewise, the Samaritan woman uses the phrase to point to Jesus’ prophetic knowledge of secret things. Jesus’ knowledge of her multiple marriages was enough for her to suggest that he was a prophet, and perhaps even the Christ (John 4:19, 29).

If the saying of the Samaritan woman is an allusion to 2 Kgs 6:12-13, then John 1:46 may also: “Philip said to him, “Come and see” (ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε).” While ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε looks different from Δεῦτε ἴδετε, the main change is from plural to singular. The switch to ἔρχου is then necessary since there is no singular form of Δεῦτε. Both phrases are legitimate translations of the Hebrew phrase in 2 Kgs 6:13, לכוּ וּראו (see Jdg 13:18, 18:19). Philip invited Nathanael to meet Jesus, who could reveal secrets. While we don’t know what Nathanael’s secret was, Jesus’ knowledge was surprising enough that Nathanael confessed Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. If John 1:46 is an allusion to 2 Kgs 6:12-13, then there is some resonance between the two accounts: Elisha prays for spiritual sight for his servant, and he sees a vision of fiery horses and chariots (2 Kings 6:17-18); Jesus promises Nathanael that he will see a vision of the heavenly ladder (John 1:51).

Of course, there are significant differences between the accounts in John and in 2 Kings 6. Nathanael and the Samaritan woman are both positive examples who quickly trust Jesus based partially on his prophetic knowledge, while the king of Aram is trying to capture or kill Elisha because of his prophetic knowledge.

We might understand subtle allusions like this better if we think of ways that biblically literate people make allusions today. Recently, while I was speaking at a Christian conference, another speaker scheduled at the same time encouraged people to leave his session and come to mine. I later emailed him and thanked him for his self-denying promotion of my teaching. He quickly sent back the reply, “You must increase while I must decrease.” Anyone familiar with the story of John the Baptist quickly recognizes what my friend was doing with the allusion: he was humbly (but humorously) claiming that my teaching was more important than his. He was probably also alluding to the fact that John the Baptist encouraged his disciples to leave him and follow Jesus. But of course it is not a perfect allusion. My friend was not (I hope!) claiming that I was the Messiah, or that he would be beheaded at a party. There are any number of facts about John the Baptist and Jesus that he was not applying to our situation.

Some subtle allusions in the NT may be like this.[2] They use phrases that were well-known enough to biblically literate Jews and Christians to make them recall an OT passage. The allusions are intended to make just a few connections between the OT and NT situations. But the allusions do not imply every connection that is possible to make between the OT and NT situations.

[1] The NA27 list of allusions suggests both 1 Kings 6:13 and10:16, but 10:16 otherwise has very little in common with John 1.
[2] Brown pointed out another such sly allusion: the use of θύω (normally used for sacrifices) to refer to the hirelings’ killing of sheep in John 10:10 is “a sly reference to the priestly authorities.” R. Brown, John, 1: 386

I Am Not Elijah, Part 3 (John 4:7, 1 Kings 17:10-14)

The following is part 3 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

3. “Give me a Drink”

1 Kings 17:10 (LXX)[Elijah] arose and went to Zarephath, to the city gate, and behold, a widow was there gathering firewood, and Elijah called after her and said to her, “Please give (Λαβὲ δή μοι / קחי־נא) me a little water (ὕδωρ) in a jar and I will drink (πίομαι).”
14 “… the flour jar will not run out, and the oil jug will not run short until the day the Lord gives rain upon the earth”

John 4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water (ὕδωρ). Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink (δός μοι πεῖν).”
14 “whoever drinks from the water I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water…”

John’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the woman of Sychar is probably not a pure allusion to a single OT passage. As others have pointed out, a meeting between a man and a woman at a well is an archetypal image suggesting courtship and marriage (Gen 24, Exod 2). However, in the case of both Elijah and Jesus, the scene describes the beginning of a relationship between a prophet and an outsider woman.

There are a few direct verbal similarities between the two passages. Both include the obvious words ὕδωρ and πίνω. In the LXX, Elijah’s request Λαβὲ δή μοι … ὕδωρ (“please take me … water”) is a fairly wooden translation of קחי־נא, and does not represent the normal use of λαμβάνω. John’s phrase δός μοι πεῖν is a more normal way of requesting water in first-century Greek.

It is the similarities between the whole accounts that are the most striking. God clearly appoints the meeting between Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8-9). As most commentaries on John point out, the phrase “Jesus had to pass through Samaria” (John 4:4) indicates Jesus’ divine appointment with the Samaritan woman. Both the widow of Zarephath and the woman of Sychar are outsiders; the one, a Sidonian widow; the other, a Samaritan sinner. In both cases, the woman gives sustenance to the man of God, and the man of God gives far greater sustenance to the woman. Elijah promises the Sidonian woman that “the vessel of flour will not give out, and the jar of oil will not run short, until the day the Lord sends rain upon the land” (1 Kings 17:10). Jesus promises the Samaritan woman that “whoever drinks from the water that I will give to him will never be thirsty, but the water that I give him will become a spring of water in him leaping up to eternal life” (John 4:14).[1] The allusion seems even more likely to be intentional when we realize that the following scene in John alludes to the following scene in 1 Kings (John 4:46-54/1 Kings 17:17-24).

Although both conversations begin over water, they turn towards God. The Sidonian woman swears “as Yahweh your god lives…”, and Elijah pronounces to her, “Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel…” After Elijah raises her son, the woman affirms her belief: “Now I have known (ἔγνωκα) that you are a man of God and the word of Yahweh is truly in your mouth” (1 Kings 17:24). The Samaritan woman affirms her faith as well: “Lord, I see that you are a prophet” (John 4:19); and “he isn’t the Christ, is he?” (John 4:20). Both stories are, in essence, conversion accounts. The Sidonian woman affirms her belief in Yahweh and Elijah as his messenger; the Samaritan woman affirms her belief in the salvation that comes from the Jews and in Jesus as the messenger of that salvation. In OT terms, both women are invited to join in the blessings of the covenant. In this sense, all five similar stories of a meeting at a well – Rebecca, Hagar, Zipporah, the Sidonian woman, and the Samaritan woman – show the inclusion of an outsider woman in the covenant people.

[1] Although Jesus does not ask the woman for food, the disciples get food from Sychar, and food is a prominent theme in the story (John 4:8, 31-34).

I Am Not Elijah, Part 4 (John 4:50, 1 Kings 17:21-24)

The following is part 4 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

4. “Your Son Lives”

1 Kings 17:21-24 (LXX)
[Elijah prayed,] “Oh Lord my God, please let the life of this child return to him.” It happened as [he had prayed], and the child cried out. [Elijah] led him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, and said, “See, your son lives” (ζῇ ὁ υἱός σου). The woman said to Elijah, “Behold, I have known (ἔγνωκα) that you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is true (ἀληθινόν) in your mouth.”

John 4:50 Jesus said to him, “Go, your son lives. (ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ)” The man believed the word that Jesus said to him and began going.
… ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ ζῇ (4:51)
… ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ (4:53)

In John, repetition and final sayings are often keys to the meaning of stories. “Your son lives” is Jesus’ final saying in this pericope, and it is recorded three times. Jesus’ saying reminds us of John’s theme of Jesus as the source of life, found in almost every pericope in John. As with the rest of the “signs” in John, the healing of the nobleman’s son is designed primarily to reveal something about Jesus’ identity.

“Your son lives” also seems designed to draw the readers’ attention to Elijah’s famous healing of the widow’s son at Zarephath. The phrase is distinctive; it is not found elsewhere in the NT or LXX. It also functions as an allusion in that the phrase causes the reader to notice other connections between the two miracle accounts. In both cases, the miracle results in the parent’s belief that the healer is genuinely from God and speaks for God. The nobleman believed when he heard Jesus (4:50), and then he believed when he heard news of his son’s healing (4:53). The widow’s response to the healing affirms her belief in Elijah in terms that could be comfortably applied to Jesus in the gospel of John. The use of the perfect ἔγνωκα to intensify or solemnize a statement of belief is well-known in John (6:69, 11:27; cf. 1:34, 1:41, 1:45, 4:42). Elijah, like Jesus, is a “man of God” who speaks the word of God. John may have even been drawn to this passage because of his interest in “truth” (ἀληθινόν).[1] Although many books in the LXX use ἀληθινόν, in the NT, it is primarily a Johannine term, and usually applies to Jesus or his message (23 of its 28 occurrences in the NT are in John, 1 John, or Revelation). John’s theology of signs is very similar to the theology of Elisha’s miracle: both produce faith in God’s representative and his message.

If John 4:7 contains an allusion to 1 Kings 17:10 (argued above), then John 4 contains two successive allusions to two successive passages in the Elijah narrative. In intertextual studies, repeated allusions to the same text or nearby texts is one of the criteria for verifying the genuineness and strength of an allusion. The second allusion confirms the suspicion in the reader that the first allusion was intentional. Combined, the allusions suggest that John wanted to show a Jesus who was like Elijah.

John is not the only NT author to allude to Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son. Luke’s account of the raising of the widow’s son at Nain contains the allusive phrase “and he gave him to his mother” (καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ, Luke 7:15/1 Kings 17:23).[2] Luke’s allusion is stronger than John’s, since it has more details in common (the raising of a dead widow’s son by touch rather than the healing of a nobleman’s son at a distance). This suggests that John’s appropriation of Elijah imagery for Jesus is not unique to John.

[1] Similarly, John’s ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινὴ (John 15:1) is an allusion to Jeremiah’s ἄμπελον… ἀληθινήν (Jer 2:21).
[2] A similar allusion can be found in Acts 20:7-10/2 Kings 4:32-37. Paul raised Eutychus from the dead by laying down on top of him, as Elisha did to raise the son of the Shunammite woman.

Most Popular Post: Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman

My blog normally gets twenty to thirty hits per day. But in the last week, I have received more and more hits, until today, there are over 150 hits (according to Google Analytics).

It turns out that almost all the new hits are basically the same profile: someone googles "Nicodemus vs. the Samaritan woman" or some variation, and for some reason Google lists my post on that topic in first place.

So here's my question: are there always a hundred people per day googling about comparisons between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and Google just recently noticed my blog post on that topic? Or is there some reason that hundreds of people suddenly became interested in this comparison? Maybe the passage came up in some church's lectionary cycle? A new documentary on Jesus that talked about Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman?

Nicodemus vs. the Samaritan Woman (John 3, John 4)

Nicodemus	Samaritan Woman
He is well-known	She is anonymous
He scrupulously keeps purity laws	She is permanently unclean
He is a religious leader	She is a religious outsider (even among Samaritans)
He is a great teacher of truth	She believes Samaritan heresies
He is a high government official	She has no power
He is morally respectable	She is morally suspect
He seeks out Jesus at night	Jesus seeks her out at noon
He knows that Jesus is a teacher from God	She knows that Jesus is a Jewish man
Jesus does not fully reveal himself to him	Jesus teaches her clearly that he is the Messiah
He does not understand the living water	She asks Jesus for the living water
He leaves lacking understanding	She leaves knowing who Jesus is
He hides his belief	She tells her whole town about Jesus

Notes:
Some rabbis believed that all Samaritan women were permanently unclean.
Jews viewed Samaritans as heretics: Samaritans only believed in the Pentateuch, which they had altered that to fit their beliefs, and Samaritans believed the correct temple was on top of Mt. Gerizim. There was also a history of violence between Jews and Samaritans.
Samaritans were probably not "half-breeds"; this view comes from assuming that the residents of Samaria mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah are the same residents of Samaria mentioned in the Gospels. However, they are probably not the same people. First-century Samaritans are probably a sect of Judaism, which is how they regarded themselves.

Here are some more posts on Nicodemus; here are some more on the Samaritan woman; and here are all my posts on the Gospel of John.

Believe... life (John 4:46-54)

In my last post, I talked about Jesus' healing of the nobleman's son (John 4:46-54). One theme is the growth of belief - the crowd has inadequate belief, the nobleman believes before the healing, and the nobleman believes (more) after the healing, along with his household. Another theme is life: the repetition of the phrase "your son lives" is John's hint to us about what matters in the story.

These two themes remind us of the message of John's gospel: believing in Jesus leads to life. John tells us that he wrote his gospel so that "you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life..." (John 20:31, see also 10:10).

This is an easy one for mature Christians to overlook. We reason that we have already believed in Jesus and so already have life. John's message, we think, is for those who do not yet believe. But I agree with most John scholars that John was written for believers. If our first belief brought us life, then our growing belief brings us growing life. Martha clearly believes in Jesus (John 11:21), but Jesus asks her to believe more (John 11:26); after Martha believes more (John 11:27), Jesus asks her to believe still more (John 11:40).

Jesus' word to the nobleman, Jesus' word to Martha, Jesus' word to us: believe and have life... believe more, and have more life. It's a simple challenge to take up, one that we can try tomorrow: learn something more about Jesus, believe it, experience more of the abundant life. On the days that we believe the most, we live the most. The times that we feel the most shrivelled are the times when we are least contemplating and trusting Jesus.

(Side note on Greek: in this scene, the boy is called a paidarion (child, with the implication "little" or "dear"), a huios (son), and a pais (child or boy). That reminds us that different words often mean the same thing, and that an author may use synonyms just for style or for very slight nuance. If there is any significance to John's variation, it's only that it is appropriate for the father to use the word paidarion as a term of endearment).

The picture: The Raising of Lazarus, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1310-11. One of my favorite medieval artists.

"Your Son Lives" (John 4:46-54)

In John 4:46-54, John tells the story of Jesus healing the son of a nobleman of Capernaum. I used to think that this story was kind of plain vanilla, especially when compared with the stories nearby - Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, and the paralytic of Jerusalem. But it turns out, as you might suspect, that there is more than meets the eye.

1. In each scene, John shows Jesus confronting, replacing or fulfilling a major institution of Judaism. Jesus is compared with purification rituals and the Temple (ch. 2), with a great rabbi (ch. 3), with a sacred well (ch. 4), and with the sabbath (ch. 5). In this scene, Jesus is compared with the rulers of Israel.
2. The story has similarities to the healing of the centurion's servant (Matt 8:5-9) in that it involves healing at a distance in Capernaum. The The Gospel of John, a great movie, depicts this scene as if it were the same as Matthew's. But John tells the story with a Herodian nobleman and his son, not a centurion and his servant.
3. Most scenes in John show Jesus as the source of life, echoing the idea found in John 1:3-4. The nobleman says "come, before my child dies;" Jesus says "go, your son lives" (4:50); the servants say "his child lives" (4:52); the nobleman remembers that Jesus said "your son lives" (4:53). Repeating it three times, as well as ending the account with the saying, tells us that John thinks it is important: Jesus is the source of life.
4. Jesus uses the same words as Elijah does when he raises the son of the widow of Zarephath (ze ho huios, in Greek; see LXX 1 Kings 17:22). This may be an intentional allusion. Jesus is elsewhere compared to Elijah; here, he is seen as greater than Elijah by healing at a distance. (Paul does something similar in Acts 20:7-12; see this post).
5. John is encouraging faith, as he often does. Jesus begins by pointing out the shortfall of signs-based faith (John 4:48). The nobleman then "believed the word that Jesus said" before he saw the miracle (4:50); then "he himself believed" after seeing his son, along with his whole household (4:53). He is a model believer - his faith grows, and through him, others come to believe.
6. Most scenes in John have a foreshadowing of the death of Jesus. This one doesn't, but I don't know why.

The picture: The Healing of the Official's Son, from Auslegung der Episteln vnd Euangelien..., by Martin Luther, published 1544 (Courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University).