Re: [asa] Turning back the sun

I suppose if we were trying to be hyper-literal (if only to show its
shortcomings) then one could answer that the implication below is "from
this time on..." (which seems more implied in the second passage below
and admittedly more nebulous in the first. Sort of like the flood
... "never again" doesn't mean a past occurrence was a violation of
covenant.

--Merv

philtill@aol.com wrote:
> If we want to be hyper-literal in interpreting this passage in Joshua,
> then we should be hyper-literal in interpreting related passages,
> too. Like this one:
>
> Jeremiah 33:25-26
> 25"Thus says the LORD, 'If My covenant for day and night stand not,
> and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established,
> 26then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant,
> not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of
> Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...'"
>
> He says the pattern of day and night are not merely a "fixed pattern"
> that he established, but actually it is at the level of being a
> "covenant". God made a covenant that the day and night would be
> "fixed" (unchanging) patterns. Did God break his covenant with the
> day and night in Joshua 10 by deviating from the fixed pattern? Even
> worse, here in Jeremiah 33 is God now making a promise to Israel
> regarding the utter unbreakableness of his covenant, and doing so with
> an example of a covenant that He knows full well He has already broken
> once before, back in the time of Joshua?
>
> We can make a similar argument from Jeremiah 31:35-36.
>
> 35a Thus says the LORD,
> Who gives the sun for light by day
> And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
> ...
> 36 "If this fixed order departs
> From before Me," declares the LORD,
> "Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
> From being a nation before Me forever."
>
> How believable would God's promise be if we were to understand that
> his "fixed order" wasn't really so fixed back in Joshua?
>

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Received on Sat Sep 29 10:24:32 2007