When I sat down to read it for the first time, I immediate discovered a blatant error in the way Edwards was using his key biblical stiches and the mistakes were dramatic. Below is the current state of my exploration of what I found.
I submitted this manuscript to the Jonathan Edwards Journal, but their reader felt the manuscript was unfinished. It is unfinished but I was hoping that Edwards scholars might be able to help me finish it. I'm publishing a pdf version of the manuscript on my web site: http://www.ferris.edu/isar/mehler-archives.htm. Feedback should be directed to me at mehlerb@ferris.edu.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Exegete
by Barry Mehler, Director of the Institute
for the Study of Academic Racism at Ferris State University in Michigan (www.ferris.edu/isar).
DEUT. XXXII: 35.
Their foot shall slide in due Time.
In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked
unbelieving Israelites, that were God's visible people, and lived under means
of grace; and that, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works that he had
wrought towards that people, yet remained, as is expressed, ver. 28, "void of Counsel," having no
understanding in them; and that, under all the cultivations of heaven, brought
forth bitter and poisonous fruit…
A powerful opening that describes the threatened vengeance
of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, a people “void of Counsel,” having
no understanding in them, a wicked people who, despite all the cultivations of
heaven, brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit. A deeply troubling image, but
the nation that is “void of Counsel” whose “foot shall fall” is not Israel. The
stitches in question refer to the enemies of Israel, those wicked nations that
attacked Israel, it is their foot that will fall in due time when the “Lord
champions His people.” (35:36).
In fact, the 16th century Italian rabbi, the Sfrono read these same stitches as a
warning to Christians who persecuted Israel. This interpretation swiftly drew
the heavy hand of Christian censors.[1]
The antisemitic nature of the sermon should not be overlooked. Frederick Jaher,
comments in his masterful, A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise
of Anti-Semitism in America (1994) that
“Any
comprehensive analysis of anti-Semitism in America… must consider the interplay
of religious, social, and psychological factors. Of these factors, I believe
that religious prejudice—specifically, Christian hostility toward Jews—is
paramount. Other minorities have been heretical, commercially successful,
intellectually accomplished, and prevalently liberal in politics, yet have not
repeatedly been the focus of xenophobic and religious paranoia. None of the
others, however, gave birth to Christianity, killed its God, and was assigned
by Christian doctrine a pivotal role in the cosmic struggle between the saved
and the damned. Uniquely cursed as unrepentant deicides, Jews became the most
consistently demonized outcasts in Christendom. … the essential anti-Semitic
claim [is] that all Jews are treacherous and murderous conspirators.”[2]
Jaher’s insight is especially important here because the
antisemitism was completely missed by almost all readers. Nevertheless, the
starkly antisemitic tone should not be overlooked. Pronouncements such as these
imprinted antisemitism at the very core of Christianity, regardless of how Jews
were treated in various times and places. The American colonies were a vast
improvement over conditions just about anywhere else at the time, but the
antisemitic notions were just as deeply rooted and in the 1920s they became a
significant factor in the explosion of American antisemitism leading to the
1924 Immigration Restriction Act, aimed, at least in good measure, at keeping
European Jews out of the United States.
Here are the two stitches in context:
32:28 ff
For a nation lost in counsel are they,[3]
there is no understanding among them.
Were they wise they would give mind to this,
understanding their latter days:
O how could one chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
had not their Rock handed them over,
had the Lord not given them up?
For not like our Rock is their rock,
our enemies’ would be gods.
Yes, Sodom’s vine is their vine,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah
Their grapes are grapes of poison,
death-bitter clusters they have.
Venom of vipers their wine,
and pitiless poison of asps.
Look, it is concealed with Me,
sealed up in My stores.
Mine is vengeance, requital,
at the moment their foot will slip.
For their day of disaster is close,
what is readied then swiftly comes.
Yes, the Lord champions His people,
for His servants He shows a change of heart
when he sees that power is gone,
no ruler or helper remains.
…
The song ends triumphally:
32:43 - Nations, O gladden His people,
for His servants’ blood will He avenge,
and vengeance turn back on His foes,
and purge His soil, His people.
What we are reading, of course is the Song of Moses, one of the great poetic songs of the Torah. It is a song of warning to Israel
to be faithful to God, but it is ultimately a song of triumph and a warning to
Israel’s enemies for God will avenge the blood of His servants. In the portion
that Edwards used for his sermon, God is describing the seed of Sodom, the
enemies of Israel who are void of counsel. It is their foot that will slip when
God takes vengeance on them, for if God allowed the enemies of Israel to be
triumphant over Israel, they would believe that they had triumphed over
Israel’s God because they are “devoid of counsel.” If they were wise they would
realize that their triumph over Israel was God’s doing. After all, “how can one
chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, had not their Rock handed
them over, had the Lord not given them up?”
How is it that Edwards came to so misread the text and why
is it that no one in 270 years seems to have noticed this glaring misreading? Edwards has taken God’s words of rebuke
of the enemies of Israel for God’s rebuke of Israel. Edwards has taken God’s
merciless condemnation of the nations for the vindication of Israel and turned
it into a merciless condemnation of Israel? Even if Edwards has a reason for
reading the text in this peculiar manner, shouldn’t some learned man of the
cloth or some sectarian critic of the Great Awakening, have noticed that the text
had been forced into an unnatural position and made to stand in that position
as the pillars of this great pronouncement of God’s wrath against sinners,
restrained by nothing more than God’s will. But that is not what is happening
in the poem where the stitches in question refer to God’s wrath upon the
nations who dare to believe that their victory over Israel was of their own
making, or worse still, a sign of the victory of their gods over the God of
Israel. Israel is saved, not because they repent, but by the grace of God who
fears “a nation void of counsel” will misconstrue their victory as a victory
over God. The Israelites are not
even part of the calculation in these verses, had the nations been wise enough
to recognize God’s omnipresence, the Israelites would have been erased from the
memory of man. After all, God cries out, “Let Me wipe them out, let Me make
their name cease among men.”[4]
I am not an Edwards scholar. I’m a historian of science
whose work focuses on twentieth century eugenics. In 2011, I was hired to
participate in a teacher education program in rural Michigan and I was asked to
do a lesson based on a primary source from the middle of the eighteenth
century. “Sinners” came to mind, not because I knew much about it, I certainly
had never read it, but I was sure it would be easy to find a facsimile online
along with lots of secondary materials. When I sat down to read it through for
the first time and followed the stitches back to their source, it was obvious
at once that Edwards was misreading the text. I didn’t know what to make of it.
I still don’t.
When I first discovered the
misreading, I wrote to Robert E. Brown, author of Jonathan Edwards and the
Bible (2002)[5] and I put to
him the question that was on my mind.
It just seems strange to me that Edwards would so misunderstand the text
and I was wondering if anyone in all the centuries since its publication has
pointed out that the sermon rests on a misreading of the biblical text.[6]
Brown responded: “Thanks for your interesting
observation. I doubt that any one has called attention to that.”[7]
Brown speculated:
I suspect that Edwards would not have been too
concerned about this, perhaps for these reasons. He would have been
inclined to read the Bible in a somewhat "flat" manner, rather than
in a contextualized way. I suspect his interest in that passage would
have simply been this: that God deals with sin by punishing it, whether those
are the sins of his people or the sins of the nations -- and so it would have
application for him and his congregation. A second, less likely, reason
might have been this -- in v. 21 God promises to provoke the Israelites through
a people who are "not a people," a "foolish nation."
Perhaps Edwards saw in this a reference to Gentiles/Christians, and so the
verse would have had application for him in that way also (I doubt this is what
he had in mind, but it is possible).
I ran my question by rabbi, David Krishef who observed:
… I am wondering if Christian
commentaries identify themselves as Israel, and the "enemy" as
the Jews. Therefore, the Christian reading would be that verses which
denote grace are talking about the Christians, and verses which denote
punishment are talking about the Jews.[8]
As I read Edwards sermon, God is angry with His people,
His chosen people, “yea doubtless with many that are now in this Congregation.”
In other words, there is a slide of identification between the Israelites and
God’s new Israel which is what makes Rabbi Krishef’s comments interesting.
Still, the stitches in question are not addressed either to the new Israel or
the old Israel. They are addressed to Israel’s enemies whom God will destroy
for attacking God’s chosen.
In November 2011, I wrote to Avihu Zakai at
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Professor Zakai replied: “Amazing. I am
sending your letter also to the Edwards' center in Yale. Great point.” And that
brings me to the present. What, if anything are we to make of Edwards
misreading and the subsequent 270 years during which no one seems to have
noticed the glaring incongruity?
To deepen the mystery, in his biblical exegesis, the
so-called, “Blank Pages” Edwards correctly interprets the stitches:
[Deuteronomy 32:35.] Here God begins on a new subject.
Before he spoke of punishing his professing people by the cruelty of their
enemies; now he speaks of vengeance on their enemies for that cruelty as upon
their enemies, when he shall be about gloriously to deliver his people from
their hands. The same thing is further insisted on, the Deuteronomy 32:40 and
following verses; and then the consequent joy and prosperity of his church is
spoken of Deuteronomy 32:41. This vengeance and this mercy shall be fulfilled,
especially at the calling of the Jews and fall of Antichrist.[9]
Thus, Edwards correctly interprets the stitches in his
exegesis and then misinterprets them in his sermon. Indeed we find similar readings in John Gill (1697–1771) the
English Baptist pastor and biblical scholar and Matthew Henry (1662–1714) the
Presbyterian author of the six-volume, Exposition of the Old and New
Testaments (1708–1710). [10]
Henry notes:
In jealousy for his own honour, he will not make a
full end of them, v. 26–28. 1. It cannot be denied but that they deserved
to be utterly ruined, and that their remembrance should be made to cease
from among men, so that the name of an Israelite should never be known but
in history; for they were a nation void of counsel (v, 28), the most
sottish inconsiderate people that ever were, that would not believe the glory
of God, though they saw it, nor understand his loving kindness, though they
tasted it and lived upon it. Of those who could cast off such a God, such a
law, such a covenant, for vain and dunghill-deities, it might truly be said, There
is no understanding in them.
So, Edwards is not alone in both understanding the simple
meaning of the text and applying the stitches to both Israel and its enemies. In
fact, it is clear that he is applying the stitches to members of his own
congregation as well, “Yea God is a great deal more angry with a great number
that are now on Earth, yea doubtless with many that are now in this
Congregation, that it may be are at Ease and Quiet, than he is with many that
are now in the Flames of Hell.”[11]
If we think of Israel and Sodom as “us” and “them”, the poem
is primarily a warning to “us” not to abandon our protector. When we abandon
God, death and suffering is brought upon us by “them.” When the verse says that
“their foot shall fall” it may be speaking specifically about the fruit of
Sodom, but it is primarily a warning to us.
So, it is not that Edwards use of the stitches cannot be
justified, but why has the question never been addressed? I must say frankly
that is embarrassing to have thought so long about this and have so little to
show for it, but the question seems worth posing. How did Edwards come to misread the stitches and why is it
that no one seems to have noticed the anomaly despite the fact that it is
probably one of the most controversial and widely read sermons in American
history and has surely been read by countless scores of biblical scholars,
preachers and academics.
[1]
Obadiah ben Jacob
Sforno was an Italian rabbi, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician.
He was born at Cesena about 1475 and died at Bologna in 1550. His commentary on
the Torah is part of the traditional complilation called the Mikraot Gedolot - which simply means, The Major Writings or the major
commentaries. The material cited here is from Sforno: Commentary on the Torah, translation and explanatory notes
by Rabbi Raphael Pelcovit (Brooklyn: Mesorah 1987) p. 1005. Pelcovit points out
that the original commentary was heavily censored “in most cases by a convert
to Christianity.” Careful examination of the censored verses “readily reveal
what aroused the censors.” p. 1005.
[2] Frederick Jaher, A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise
of Anti-Semitism in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1994), p. 16.
[3] The translation presented
here is from Robert
Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A
Translation with Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton 2004) pp. 1044-46. Alter
notes on this stitch: “As the following lines make clear, the
reference is not to Israel but to its triumphant enemy. Had they real understanding, they would
realize that such a spectacular defeat as they inflicted on Israel could only
have been God’s doing.”
[4] Alter, op. cit. Deut. 32:26.
[5] Robert E. Brown, Jonathan
Edwards and the Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
[6] Barry Mehler to Robert E.
Brown via email, 19 February 2011.
[8] Krishef bam re Sinners 23F11
[9] Edwards, Blank Pages, pp.
309-310.
[10] John Gills, Exposition
of the Bible, available online at:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/deuteronomy-32-35.html.
Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old and
New Testaments, available online at:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/deuteronomy/32.html.
[11] Edwards, Sinners,
(Boston 1741) p. 6-7. Available online from the Libraries of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Electronic Texts in American Studies, http://digitalcommons.unl.eud/etas/54.
