The Story of the Bible: The Old Testament in Five Acts
We all love stories. We gravitate toward them. Maybe the way you engage stories is through movies, or TV, maybe you are an avid reader. Even those who are sports people connect with the “story” of a sports team. Sometimes teams are even compared to classic stories. We’ve probably heard the phrase “a true Cinderella story” applied to a team. Perhaps it isn’t a specific story that comes to mind when you hear the word, but instead a storyteller. Maybe you were fortunate as I was to have a grandfather who could spin a yarn and keep your attention. Stories are beloved and help us remember.
With sports, a lot of details and statistics can be tracked and remembered if we remember the “story” of our team. And the Old Testament is similar; there can be whole books that we struggle through – Leviticus or Proverbs, for instance. But these books fit into the story of the Old Testament; they are a point on the way somewhere. And we have the Old Testament because God has chosen, as the great storyteller, to reveal himself to us in stories. True stories, but stories nonetheless. Stories that we remember, stories that shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us, and most importantly stories about our great God. This is the great five act play of the Old Testament.
Act 1: From Eden to Entry
One of the first things you notice about the first book of the Bible is that it is concerned with genealogies. The Book is structured around ten such genealogies (Gen. 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 37:2). Without diving into the depths of those, one thing we see is that Genesis presents a genealogical story that begins at creation and ends with Joseph and his brothers in Egypt.
In a similar way, the whole Torah, the books of Moses, move from Eden to entry into the promised land. What begins with the creation of man, marches into and out of Egypt and ends on the very border of the land promised to Abraham.
These books form, in one unit, a retrospective cast for Israel. This is the family (or national) history for Israelites before they come into the land. This history answers the questions: How did God bring us here? Why did we leave Egypt? Was God interested in us before Moses came along?
In these books, God called to himself a people and put his name on them, from the beginning of creation until they entered the Promised Land. Along the way he has miraculously provided for them in so many ways. But these things point beyond themselves as Hebrews 11:8-10 illustrates:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living intents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Act 2: From Tribes to Kingdom
The second act is marked by a move from a group of tribes to a nation. While the judges are able to hold enemies at bay, the books of Joshua and Judges are marked by moral decline. When God’s people enter the land with Joshua, they have no king. Joshua replaces Moses, but his task is far more militaristic. He is to lead the people into the land to take it. And he is no king. God’s people settle in many places, with tribes on both sides of the Jordan river, tribes to the north, east, west, and south of Jerusalem. These tribes settle in their allotments after conflict (Josh. 13:1-22:34).
But then we turn to the book of Judges, and “everybody does what is right in their own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; 21:25). There is no king and little national unity. Tribal battles with the nations around them continue. God’s people are attacked by Midianites, Philistines, and even their own kindred. The promised land has not delivered rest because the people are wicked (Judg. 2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). And so eventually they cry out for a King (Judg. 17:6; 21:25).
Act 3: From Kingdom to Exile
The kingship begins with a promising start. The successes of Saul, David, and Solomon are highlights. Solomon especially can rule over united tribes and oversee large construction projects such as the temple (see 1 Kings 9:15). However, the first three kings are also marked by failures: the rejection of Saul, the decline of David’s house after his sin with Bathsheba, and Solomon’s many wives. Especially David and Solomon serve to underscore the ideal kingship. The Messiah is the “son of David” based in the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam. 7).
But the books of Kings are primarily concerned with another story of gradual decline––this time of the Kingship as representative of the people. Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, is unwise and the kingdom fragments in two. The Northern Kingdom, led initially by Jeroboam, begins, and persists in idolatry (1 Kings 12:28). Because of this it is rejected and is exiled within 300 years (722 BC; see 2 Kings 17:6). The ruling house is unstable along the way as well (1 Kings 15:25-30, 16:9-10, 16:15-22; 2 Kings 1:17; 9:1-3; 15:8-12; 15:13-14; 15:23-26; 15:30).
Yet the story of the Southern Kingdom is similar with brief interludes of “good kings.” The decline is merely slowed. In an illustrative passage the mere volume of idols in the temple at the time of Josiah’s reform astounds (2 Kings 23:4-14).
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens. 6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. 7 And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. 8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beersheba. And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one’s left at the gate of the city. 9 However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. 10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech. 11 And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12 And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, he pulled down and broke in pieces and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. 13 And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14 And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.
Finally, the Southern Kingdom is attacked, exile begins in about 603 BC, the temple is destroyed, and the people dispersed in 586 BC (2 Kings 24-25). The gradual decline ends much like the decline of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. But it was slowed by periods of good, godly kings.
Act 4: From Exile To Return
Once exiled, the people of God did not disappear among the nations. We have stories like Daniel that tell us of the exile, or Ezekiel’s prophecies among the exiles. Jeremiah delivered a prophecy by writing a letter to the exiles (Jer. 31).
This time is marked by understandable crises. So much of the promise and the identity of the people of God was bound up with having both land and king. Had God not promised to Abraham a people and a place (Gen. 12, 15, 17)? They were a people, ruled by a king, in a land, and all of this was taken away.
The Psalms offer a window into this. Compare Psalm 89––a lament for the loss of kingship, which culminates book three of the Psalms––with Psalm 97––a Psalm that celebrates YHWH’s Kingship. In book three of the Psalms there are multiple laments at the loss of land and temple. Book four responds by reminding God’s people of God’s own kingship. He doesn’t need a Judean king to rule his people.
These saints look forward to returning to the land, trusting in God’s promise that not only would they be his people, but that they would dwell in a kingdom, with a promised king. All these promises left them waiting on the promises of God.
Act 5: Returned and Waiting
Lastly, with Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai we return to the promised land. In about 520 BC, people began to return to the land, as they were now under Persian rule (2 Chron. 36:22-23). Zerubbabel led a group of returnees as governor of Judea (Ezra 2:1-2). Slowly, through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they can rebuild the walls and temple, returning to worship and reading the Torah in the assembly. Though Jews like Esther and Mordecai remain outside of the land, amongst the nations, during this same period (see Acts 2:5).
In this period, some of God’s people who return to the land are still waiting. The second temple is lesser than the first (Ezra 3:11-13, Haggai 2:2-3), there is no Davidic king, no anointed messianic figure to lead them into the glory that had been promised. It is in this period that the people remain until the coming of Jesus.
Close:
In Act 1, we see God call to Abram, promising a people and a place. At the close of that same act, we have a people on the cusp of entering that very land. There is also the giving of the priesthood and tabernacle, which point us to Christ in the heavenly temple (see Heb. 9:11-14). These point beyond themselves; Christ has been given a people to bring them before the father (1 Cor 15:24; cf. Rom. 11:16-24).
In Act 2, we see that entering the promised land does not bring rest; there are still assaults from without and within and a decline toward idolatry. The rest promised is still to come. And while we get glimpses of a lesser Jesus, like the well-named Joshua, coming in conquest and deliverance, only Jesus sits down in triumph (Heb. 10:12).
In Act 3, we see the promise of the kingship, and it is the Davidic kingship which shapes much of our ideas of the “Messiah,” an anointed son of David. Good kings point us to Christ by continuity, and bad kings by contrast. But the people of God are blessed and cursed because of their representative king (2 Sam 24:10-17).
In Act 4, God’s people are pilgrims, exiles, and scattered. They are a people without a place, without a temple, but they cling to God’s rule and to his word. Especially encapsulated in the book of Ezekiel and book four of the Psalms (90-106), this period is marked by looking to God’s prior faithfulness amidst uncertainty. The hope encapsulated by Isaiah 40:3-11 is that a prior Exodus will give way to a new one.
In Act 5, God’s people are in-between. Some are back in the land, while some such as Esther are not. There is a temple, but it is a lesser one. They are in their ancestral land, but do not even have a vassal king. Thus, they look forward to the Messiah coming to usher in the fullness of God’s promise. A good example is Psalm 132:11-12, “The LORD swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: ‘One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.’”
Read Luke’s other posts on the Old Testament: Why Should I Read the Old Testament Today? and Tolle Lege: The Psalms
Rev. Gossett spoke on this subject at WSI’s 2024 Equipped by the Word Conference.
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