Notes on Zechariah 8

The first half of Zechariah, or First Zechariah, as it might be called, finishes with one big two-chapter-long parallel structure:

A 7:1-2 Some entreat Yhwh (for poor reasons)

B 7:3-6 Rebuke in regards to fasting

C 7:7-8 Ethical commands, incl. not plotting evil in your hearts

D 7:11-14 Yhwh's anger for disobedience

E 8:1-3 Restoration of the city 

F 8:4-6 Joy for the inhabitants

G 8:7-10 Yhwh will save and return and be their God

F` 8:9-10 Formerly fear for the inhabitants

E` 8:11-13 Restoration of the land

D` 8:14-15 Yhwh's disaster when angered turned into doing good

C` 8:16-17 Ethical commands, incl. not plotting evil in your hearts

B` 8:18-19 Fasting turned into feasting

A` 8:20-23 Many entreating Yhwh from all the nations

I think this works okay. It's often more thematic than lexical. But that's okay. The issue is that when you start with the big structure, you miss things you discover when breaking it down further, and other connections appear. We saw that last week with 6b-7, and there are interesting connections within 8 which would be missed if only examining these verses within the larger context.

From the outset, Zechariah 8 feels very different to Zechariah 7. Where Zechariah 7 had only three speech formulas (v4,9,13), Zechariah 8 has sixteen. These help structure the text more clearly than the parallel structure. We might even use the terminology of major and minor breaks here. The first comes at 8:1, "And the word of Yhwh of Armies came, saying," (וַיְהִי דְּבַר־יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת לֵאמֹר), and then repeats, with the addition of "to me" (אֵלַי), in 8:18. 

Then come the minor divisions, "Thus says Yhwh (of Armies)", in v2,3,4,6,7,9,14,19,20,23. There are also four "asides", three "declaration of Yhwh of Armies" (v6,11,17) and one "says Yhwh of Armies (v14b), which I think are more stylistic than structural. 

Putting this all together, as well as some lexical repetition which I will explain as I work through each stanza, I think there are four larger sections, as follows:

I: 8:1-8

1 The word of Yhwh of Armies came, saying

2 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

3 Thus says Yhwh

4 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

6 Thus says Yhwh of Armies - declaration of Yhwh of Armies

7 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

II: 8:9-15

9 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

11 - declaration of Yhwh of Armies

14 For thus says Yhwh of Armies - says Yhwh of Armies

III 8:16-19 

17 - declaration of Yhwh

18 And the word of Yhwh of Armies came to me, saying

19 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

 IV 8:20-23

20 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

23 Thus says Yhwh of Armies

I: 8:1-8

This first stanza presents as a series of five "thus says Yhwh (of Armies)" statements. They describe Yhwh's intent to transform his people and his place by being with them. Each statement is between two and four stichs long, usually in parallel, either chiastic or whatever the opposite of chiastic is (synonymous?). That is, they are either ABBA or ABAB in form. 

The "declaration of Yhwh of Armies" at the end of v6 sets 8:7-8 apart as the culmination of this stanza, with a shout out to the covenant promise to Abraham, often repeated by the major prophets, that "they will be my people and I will be their God". There is also the addition of "in truth and in righteousness", a reminder of this thread in Zechariah of the importance of truth and the banishing of lying and misrepresentation. 

II: 8:9-15

This stanza is tricky in that it has a bracket but also a coda. At first it seems the section should be 8:9-13, bracketed by "strengthen your hands" (תֶּחֱזַקְנָה יְדֵיכֶם) as the first and last phrase. There are also numerous other repetitions, such as a chiasm spanning 8:11-12 (A/A` the remnant of this people, B/B` peace seed/heaven's dew, C/C` the vine gives fruit/the earth gives produce), and then v13 has two parallel pairs of stichs. 

But what confuses this is that before "strengthen your hands" we hear "do not fear!", a phrase which is repeated at the end of v15. It seems then that while 9-13 should be a section, we are supposed to read the two "do not fear" refrains as holding all of these together. 

Unfortunately the NIV botches the past-referring part of v9-10, again rearranging the Hebrew to make it make sense in English but mangling the sense of it. I think it's trying to say that these are the days of the founding of the temple, and v10 alone is the past. The point being, your conditions are pretty great now. Previously you had to do this gratis, but now you're getting paid, so get to it. 

And if they can get to it, then the promise Haggai made a couple of years earlier will be fulfilled, where the time when you worked for nothing will be transformed into your labour bearing much fruit. This is a time, from 14-15, where the past treatment (I determined to do evil, זממתי להרע) will be repealed and I will now do good (להיטיב) for you. 

III 8:16-19 

This section starts off out of nowhere; I think what's going on is there's a hinge around the speech commands in the middle: "- declaration of Yhwh; Now the word of Yhwh of Armies came to me saying, Thus says Yhwh of Armies". And it's bracketed by hate and love. Plotting evil and lying? These things I hate (v17). Truth and peace? Love them! (v19).

These are the ethical commands we saw back in 7:7-8, combined with the fasting/feasting of 7:3-6. There are also two extra fasts added in, which is fun. There was the fifth month fast in 7:3, fifth and seventh in 7:5, and now, in 8:19, a total of four, with a fast in each of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months. The point is every fast is now a feast, as the conditions are reversed. So the question of Bethel-Sarezer was not the wrong question, but evidently done from the wrong motives. Rather than looking for an excuse to cease fasting, the attention should have been on getting the temple done. It sounds a bit like the paneled housing complaint Haggai makes. Stop worrying so much about things you want, ask what Yhwh wants, and focus on that. And as you do that, all you need will be given you.

IV 8:20-23

These final verses remind us of the picture at the beginning of chapter 2, the walls could never be built large enough to encompass all the people who will be coming to be near Yhwh. 8:21-22 contains another abccba chiasm (a/a` entreat, b/b` seek Yhwh, c/c` i will go/they will come), and then at the end the verb "to be strong" returns, although this time in a different stem. חזק in the qatal was about strengthening their hands, but here in the hiphil it's about grasping firmly, in this case to the hem of a Judahite, so that they might be brought to his God.

This is a fascinating picture, as it's explicitly not a picture of the scattered remnant returning, but non-Jews, Gentiles, being irresistibly attracted to the God of the Jews.

And this is the picture with which Zechariah 1-8 concludes. A God who is at work in his scattered remnant to return them and rebuild his house, to cleanse it of wickedness and duplicity, so that his people might be his and he their God, and they and all people might know him and worship him in fulness and in truth. 

Notes on Zechariah 6b and 7

If you've been with me since the beginning, you would not be surprised to discover we yet again have three sections:

6:9-15 The coronation and obedience

7:1-6 A technical question about obedience

7:7-14 What Yhwh has always said is important

I think 6:9-15 is the epilogue to the visions, and it draws together several threads. But it also suggests a later time than the visions due to the message about the branch. The language also changes from 6 to 7, which suggests 7 is a new section, as is commonly and rightly held, due to the new time reference in 7:1 (cf. 1:1; 1:7) and to there being something of a parallel structure across 7-8.

6:9-15 The coronation and obedience

I can find a nice chiasm here without too much effort. It looks a little something like this: 

A the word of Yhwh (6:9)

B the Babylonian quartet (6:10)

C make a crown (6:11)

D the branch will build (6:12)

D' the branch will rule (6:13)

C' the crown shall be (6:14a)

B' the Babylonian quartet (6:14b)

A' the voice of Yhwh your God (6:15)

This chiastic structure relies on keywords, and is relatively consistent.

A: In 6:9 you have the regular speech formula, "the word of Yhwh came to me saying...", while in 6:15 it concludes with "the voice of Yhwh your God". While the introduction signals the type of speech, the conclusion notes that it is hearing and heeding the voice of Yhwh is what will lead to blessing. In the same way as disobedience led to being vomited from the land, obedience will result in the future tied up with the rule of God's branch.

B: In 6:10 and 14 we meet the Babylonian quartet, who are called exiles (הַגּוֹלָה) to suggest that they have more recently returned. The four get six names in total: while Tobiah and Jedaiah are consistent, Heldai becomes Helem, and McComiskey points out that Helem is elsewhere Heled and Heleb. The fourth name is Josiah son of Zephaniah, but in the second mention he is Hen, which could either be a name, but plausibly even a title: "his grace, the son of Zephaniah). I don't know if this is legit but it sounds like a nice workaround. I'm not sure why they seem to be the recipients of the crown, or perhaps those to whom it is dedicated "as a memorial in the temple of Yhwh" (6:14) but perhaps this crown is the temple's finishing touch, so they merit a mention as those who helped the project over the line.

C: The crown is mentioned here as being made of silver and gold, and for the head of Joshua. It is also a word which looks plural (עֲטָרוֹת), so it could be that the silver and gold of Heldai, Tobiah, Jedaiah and Josiah are already in crown form, and are combined together into a single mega-crown (n.b. Jesus has many crowns in Rev. 19:12) for this new high priest/king.

D: The two halves which started me thinking about chiasms are the repetition at the end of v12 and beginning of 13: he will build the temple of Yhwh. I think rather than dittography this is highlighting this parallel structure. In the first half there is a little pun: "branch his name; from under he will branch out". (צֶמַח שְׁמוֹ וּמִתַּחְתָּיו יִצְמָח). "From under" (וּמִתַּחְתָּיו) sounds like he's staging a comeback, although this is not Zerubbabel being rescued (cf. 9:9) but Joshua being crowned as the branch. I thought he was a partner with the branch (3:8) but it appears he will have to go it alone.

What that will look like we are told in D`, which is that apart from finishing the temple building, he will have the dual role of priest and king, sitting and ruling, as well as being priest, all from the same throne. This is a holding pattern, awaiting the next Davidide to put his hand up, but for now "there shall be a counsel of peace between the two" - the two roles, in the one throne. 

7:1-6 A technical question about obedience

The chiastic structure of 6:9-15 gives way to an ABAB structure, where A is the speech formula and B is the speech, in the first instance (v3) a question of the priests and prophets, and in the second (v5-6) the answer. The context is the time reference, which puts us a couple of years after the previous references in the first chapter. 

Apart from a temporal reference, we are also given a topographical one - or are we? 7:2 says (in word order): 

And [subject] sent Beth-El Sar-Ezer and Regem-Melek and his men...

The verb is a 3ms, which leads interpreters suggest the township of Bethel as a whole sent Sar-Ezer and Regem-Melek along with the employees of one of those two fellows. It could also be that the subject and/or object marker have dropped out. The LXX has another suggestion (as I read it), which is understanding 7:2 as a continuation of 7:1, meaning it is Zechariah who is inquiring of Yhwh. While is may work syntactically, it raises more questions than it answers, such as why Zechariah would need to ask what Yhwh says, and why he would send to Bethel? Translations of the LXX baulk at this and read Bethel (Βαιθηλ) as the object. It still has the problem of a 3ms verb. 

My (very) minority is that Bethel-Sarezer together is one name, Bethel being attested as part of a compound name. We would then have these two recent arrivals, with meaningful Babylonian names (Bethel-Sarezer = may the house of El protect the prince; Regem-Melek = the king has spoken), the first sending the second along with his own employees, to ask the question about whether the purpose behind these fast days are finished.

The two descriptions of the lament month (presumably day in the month) use four different words, probably chiastic:

7.3 Should I weep (בכה) in the fifth month and abstain (נזר) as I have done these many years.

7.5 When you fasted (צום) and mourned (ספד) and this for 70 years, did you really fast (צום) for me?

I am suggesting weep//mourn and abstain//fast as chiastic synonyms; I don't think Zechariah's answer using different lexemes is implying anything as there is enough in his answer to rebuke the questioners without needing there to be something funny going on there too. But I don't know enough - it would be fun if there was!

The force of the question as Zechariah interprets it, is that the questioners think they have done enough to warrant the coming of Yhwh's blessing as promised repeatedly so far in the visions. His rebuke shows he understands their penitence as purely performative. And also, perhaps a little like the rebuke of drunkenness around the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, the focus has been less on the fasting and more on the fast-breaking, the eating and drinking he highlights in 7:6.

7:7-14 What Yhwh has always said is important

The question in 7:7 I think points forward, as the words in question will be revealed in 7:9. The point here is the past conditions were easy, and Yhwh's instructions clear and not hard to obey, yet your ancestors rejected them, and you know well the results thereof. The message is clear then, especially having begun reading in chapter 6: Yhwh your God is willing to bless you; you need only obey. Don't repeat the sins of your ancestors, don't get sidetracked by technical obedience. 

In this section we have a double speech formula in vv8-9, and a brief one in v13. This reveals an ABCABC structure as follows:

A 7:7 Past conditions (life was easy!)

B 7:8-9a Divine speech formula

C 7:9b-10 Yhwh's word to live righteous lives

A` 7:11-13c Past conditions (people rejected Yhwh!)

B` 7:13d Divine speech formula

C` 7:14 Yhwh's punishment for wicked lives

Briefly, three things which stand out are:

1. The use of קרא with ביד הנביאים הראשׁנים in both A sections.
2. The multiple body parts used to reject the good instructions of Yhwh: backs, ears, hearts.
3. The pairs of instructions in 9-10. Two positive, two negative: Do judge justly, do do compassion and steadfast love. Don't oppress the disadvantaged, don't plan evil in your hearts.

Summary

I think that's about it. It probably makes more sense to read 7-8 as one unit, which I might come back to next week. But as I have somehow planned this series to conclude 6 and read that with 7, it's interesting to make these new connections. I think 8 will make more sense of 7, but there's also lots just in 8 that I want to get to next week.

Ogling Obadiah

I've been really getting into Obadiah this last week. I noticed a few points about the structure which have really helped me understand how it is shaped.

For background, Obadiah has always resonated with me because of the way it tells its story. It seems undeniable to me that it's reflecting on Edom's scavenging through the ruins of Jerusalem after the Babylonian destruction, and promising destruction for this scandalous behaviour. I say "seems undeniable" because I came across a TGC article arguing it's predictive prophecy from the 9th century rather than reflecting on the events of the 6th, but I don't buy that.

Things to notice to help with the structure:

1. The speech formulas: v1, 4, 8, 18. 
   This gives us an introduction and three big blocks: 1, 2-7, 8-16, 17-21
2. The day: of the Lord in v8 and 15; of disaster/distress 10x between v11-14.
   This provides some kind of chiastic structure in the centre, with the day of the Lord in 8-10 and 15-16 bracketing the day of Judah's disaster from 11-14.
   I think you can probably find the centre of this in v13a, "you shall not enter into the gates of my people on the day of their distress."
3. "Height" language at the beginning and end, both metaphoric, in terms of arrogance, in 2-4, and literal, in terms of Edom's location, in 19-21.
   
4. The imagery of no remnants in 5-7 maps on to the complete purging through fire in 17-18.
5. The language of the emissary and the nations and the decree from "Lord Yhwh" in v1 also maps nicely on to the final line, 21b: "And the kingdom will be Yhwh's." 

Putting all this together we have an ABCDCBA structure, with some lower-case letters in the middle:

A. Yhwh's message by his envoy (1)

B. The high brought down (2-4)

C. Nothing left (5-7)

D. Your day vs Yhwh's day (8-16)

C'. Everything eaten up (17-18)

B'. Your heights occupied from Mt. Zion (19-21a)

A'. Yhwh's kingdom (21b)

and in the centre: 

D. The day of Yhwh (8-10)

a. 11

b. 12a

c. 12b

d. 12c

e. 13a

d'. 13b

c'. 13c.

b'. 14a

a'. 14b

D'. The day of Yhwh (15-16)

This central structure highlights the greatest crime of all, which is, as with the foreign kings in the following centuries who transgressed the sanctuary, entering into his holy place; in this case it's the gates of his people.

The big structure has well-matched pairs, with the royal language in A, the heights in B, the total end of Edom in C, and the Day of the Lord in D. 

I haven't really seen a structure like this around, probably because most commentators are concerned with the questions around the composition of the book and discerning the redactional layers. But I think this works really well, is very clean, has an appropriate central focus, and a wonderful resolution.

Psalm 33 as a continuation of Psalm 32

 I’ve been looking at the joins between psalms in Book 4 of the Psalter these last few weeks: where they are and aren’t, when they are consistent and when they aren’t. But I was looking at Psalm 33 for a different reason and noticed a couple of things.

 

1/ Psalm 33 is what Peter C. Ho would probably call some sort of acrostic. Not having a go at him but he calls things acrostics which most people in a million years wouldn't consider acrostics. In Psalm 33's case, it's certainly not an acrostic, but it does have22 verses, and it immediately precedes Ps34 which is an acrostic, so it sort of is even though it isn’t.

2/ Psalm 33 is one of the few untitled psalms in the first three books. Apart from Pss 1-2, this is the first since Ps 10 not to have a title. And that’s significant, because Ps 9-10 are often joined together, especially in the versions. The next one without a title is 43, which, again, is often joined to 42 beforehand.

3/ As you finish Ps 32 and move on to 33 you notice that pretty much all the vocab of the final verse of the former is present in the first verse of the latter. And with one exception, it’s in a chiastic order. The prefix for Yhwh is the same in both, and while the forms for רנן and ישר are different, we’ve got an ABCDCBAD layout on our hands:

שִׂמְחוּ בַיהוָה

וְגִילוּ צַדִּיקִים

וְהַרְנִינוּ

כָּל־יִשְׁרֵי־לֵב׃

רַנְּנוּ

צַדִּיקִים

בַּיהוָה

לַיְשָׁרִים נָאוָה תְהִלָּה׃

All of this together makes me wonder if this wasn’t some attempt to have us read 32 and 33 together. Although I have William Yarchin's amazing list of hundreds of manuscripts with variant segmentation, I am not aware of any manuscripts in which these two were read as one psalm, but it’s certainly tempting to do so.

33:1 feels just like a restatement of 32:11, perhaps a (poorly-done) exercise of rewriting in one’s own words. If (and here I’m getting into scary German approaches here) Psalm 32 finished at v7, Ps33 would be a fitting response. That is, 32:8-10 seems a bit out of place. Perhaps the compiler/editor thought 33 should be read rather as the better response to the psalm, where the faithful (חסיד) of 32:6 meet the faithfulness (חסד) of Yhwh in 33:22.

Where I’ve taken this in the preceding paragraph is all pretty wild and speculative, but where I started, the close and deliberate connection between Psalms 32 and 33 cannot be denied, by (1) the lack of title and (2) the reuse, in a chiastic order, of the same lexemes in neighbouring verses of the two. 

Amos 5 Chiasm

I'm working through Amos a few verses a day and came across this nice structure at the end of chapter 5. At the centre of 21-27 is the famous line of v24, "Let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness flow like a never-failing stream." This verse is a very tight chiasm on its own, ABCCBA, but it also acts as a centre-piece for some really perspicuous structures either side of it, which I want to look at briefly.

5:21-23 A four-fold rejection of false piety

These three verses contain four rejections by Yhwh, where something which would normally be praised is rejected. 

21. Hold a festival, a solemn assembly? I won't smell them וְלֹא אָרִיחַ

22a. Offer a burnt offering or a gift? I won't accept it לֹא אֶרְצֶה

22b. Offer a peace offering? I won't look on it לֹא אַבִּיט

23. Sing me a song or play me a tune? I won't listen לֹא אֶשְׁמָע

The structure here is very formulaic, except for the first one, where an additional object follows the negated verb. But otherwise, these verses present four examples of piety, but they are all rejected. Why is this the case? That will become clear after 5:24; acts of piety absent of justice and righteousness are no piety at all.

5:24 Instead, justice and righteousness

As mentioned, this verse has two clauses, which are mirror-images in form.

וְיִגַּל כַּמַּיִם מִשְׁפָּט

וּצְדָקָה כְּנַחַל אֵיתָן׃

24a is verb-comparative-subject (let roll-like waters-justice), and 24b reverses that (and righteousness-like a river-let it flow). The terseness and the precise attention to form highlight this verse as the centre and focal point and their abject absence from all their cultic activities in the previous verses.

25-27 A three-fold carrying

The response and second half of this section uses three near-synonyms for "carrying" to highlight the past, the present and the future. 

25. Did you offer up (נגש) sacrifices those forty years in the wilderness? 

26. Yet you carry around (נשא) the statues of your home-made gods.

27. Therefore I will carry you off (גלה) to Damascus, says Yhwh, God of Armies.

Of course these are not exact synonyms, but they're certainly a variation on a theme. Sacrifices go up, statues go around, and exiles go off. The NIV also points out three variations on idol in v26:

the shrine of your king,

the pedestal of your idols,

the star of your god

I think makes 25-27 another concentric structure, with the added layer in the middle of v26 and also the verbs either side: you carry them, you made them. 

In all, I think these verses are very tightly crafted, with three clear principles behind each group of verses: 21-23 have a negated verb, 24 has the terse justice/righteousness chiasm, and 25-27 plays both with the idea of carrying and the past, present and future. 

Structures in Mark 2-3

 I know I'm supposed to be an OT guy now, but I'm preaching through Mark until Easter, and I can't help myself. There are some things which stand out, and I haven't noticed elsewhere, but help me make sense of it much better. 

Jesus, Justify Yourself! Mark 2:1-3:6

Following Francis Moloney, who sees 2:1-3:6 as part of "Jesus and the Jews" (1:14-3:6), it makes sense to go back to the beginning of chapter 2 to make sense of the five scenes (and not just because there's a nice chiasm he identifies).

2:1-12 Justifying forgiving sins before healing, to show that the key ailment is spiritual rather than physical, which demonstrates he has God's power to forgive.

2:13-17 Justifying calling Levi and eating with his friends in order to show that he has come to call sinners, that everyone who recognises they are sick is welcome in the kingdom of God.

2:18-22 Justifying not fasting in order to demonstrate that these days are new and special days, that Jesus is now with them, but will be taken away.

2:23-28 Justifying picking grain on the Sabbath in order to explain that God made Sabbaths for people to enjoy, not people to keep Sabbaths.

3:1-6 Justifying healing on the Sabbath to show God's intention is to save life, in contrast to the Pharisees who are willing to team up with the Herodians in order to kill.

So we can see that each of these short anecdotes in Mark 2:1-3:6 are about Jesus vindicating his and his disciples' actions, and showing how spurious the claims are which will lead ultimately to his death, which his opponents' will from then on pursue (3:6).

Something changes when we hit the next section, and then there is another change when we hit chapter 4, so how does this intervening section work?

Who really understands Jesus? Mark 3:7-35

3:20-35 is seen to be a Markan Sandwich, but the sections before are a little less clear. 3:7-12 is viewed as a summary of the crowds, while 3:13-19 a summary of the disciples, now that all twelve have been called.

However, I’m always on the lookout for parallels. The parallels between 3:20-21 and 3:31-35 present themselves with not too much work, but the clearest one in 3:7-19 I’ve not seen mentioned. The parallel is actually less clear in the Greek than the English, which takes the idea of "his family" (3:21 EVV) from the second half of the sandwich, namely 3:31-32. In 3:21 it only has the ambiguous “οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ” (those with him), which, in light of 31-32 is interpreted as "his family".

For me, the noting of the locations in 3:7 and 3:13 tell us that we are supposed to read these stories together. 3:7 talks about the sea, while 3:13 has them on a mountain. Both pericopes involve groups of people coming together around Jesus; in 3:7-10 it is the crowd, described by their geographical origin, who are coming to him to be healed, while in 3:13-19 his disciples are mentioned by name (and occasionally a little more information).

This leaves in the centre (3:11-12) the description of the behaviour of the unclean spirits, who alone understand and declare who Jesus is, “You are the Son of God.” Compare this with the centre of 3:20-35, namely 3:22-27, likewise a discussion of unclean spirits.

The question dominating these two pericopes (3:7-19; 3:20-35) is, “Who really understands Jesus?” The spirits alone truly understand who Jesus is, and the threat he poses to them. His family on the other hand think he’s crazy, thereby showing they aren’t truly his family; rather it’s whoever obeys God.

Interestingly, the phrase in the beginning which draws the crowd to him is “what he was doing” (ὅσα ἐποίει, 3:8); who is Jesus’ family at the end? “Whoever does the will of God.” (ὃς ἂν ποιήσῃ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ, 3:35). Jesus is doing the will of God, so he is the one they should follow.

I'm not sure whether this way of making sense of this section Mark 3:7-35 has been raised before, but with the ποιεω inclusio bracketing the two Markan Sandwiches centring on spirits, this seems a coherent way of understanding what's going on.

The troublesome structure of the third wasf of the Song of Songs

I blogged a couple of days about the four wasfs in the Song; 4:1-7; 5:10-16; 6:4-10; 7:1-9. Of particular interest to me was the back and forth between her (5:10-16) and him (6:4-10). The structure of the interaction is quite clear, albeit complicated.

The section 5:9-6:10 (which I am preaching on in a week or so) comes as a direct response to the conflict in the preceding verses (5:6-7) and the plea to the daughters of Jerusalem to pass on a message to him, should they find him. They ask two questions, which each receive a response from her. The first, in 5:9, is essentially, what is so good about him? The second, in 6:1, asks where he might be found. The section (I discussed the break up here) concludes with his wasf, and that's what I really want to discuss. 

But first, the questions from the daughters of Jerusalem both follow a very similar ABAC structure:

5:9 How's your beloved better

beautiful woman?

how's your beloved better

to charge us so?

6:1 Where's your beloved gone

beautiful woman?

where's your beloved turned

so we can look with you?

Her response to the first question is a wasf (again, check my previous post for a description of this), while the answer to the second is a relatively straightforward answer. Again, to summarise the whole section, we have:

5:9 what is he like?

5:10-16 he's pretty amazing

6:1 where did he go?

6:2-3 down to his garden

6:4-10 she's pretty amazing too

5:9 and 6:1 are very similar, and so is 5:10-16 and 6:4-10. Her second answer (6:2-3) is different, and looks forward to the next scene (beginning 6:11). It is a simple ABAB answer:

6:2a My beloved has gone to his garden

6:2b a description of his garden - spices and lilies

6:3a My beloved and me are each others

6:3b he's browsing among the lilies

So that's all quite interesting, but the wasfs are where I want to get to, and particularly the second. But before we get there, the first wasf has a structure which I foreshadowed in my earlier post, which is to begin and end with praise, and then in the body of the wasf (no pun intended) to talk through the attributes of the body with metaphors and similes. 

A 5:10 my beloved is distinguished among 10,000

B 5:11-16a ten-part wasf

A' 5:11b this is my beloved, daughters of Jerusalem

The wasfs in 4:1-7 and 7:1-9[2-10] are essentially of the same form as this one, even if the one in chapter 7 has a little more going on. But if we can say this is the "standard form"—a list of attributes bookended by a general adoration—then how does the wasf of chapter 6 compare?

The short answer is it's complicated. Sort of. If I were a German text critic of a century ago, I would have no problem excising verses, to make his wasf a mirror of hers. But I would be pressed between two options—mirroring hers and excising 6:8-9, or a chiastic structure excising his wasf (6:5-7) altogether. Here are the two options:

His adoration with wasf (no 8–9):

6:4 my darling is as distinguished as Tirzah and Jerusalem

6:5–7 four-part wasf

6:10 the one who appears like the dawn is as distinguished as the moon and the sun

His adoration with chiasm (no 5–7):

A 6:4 she is majestic like the sight of two great cities

B 6:8 though there be courtly women

C 6:9a my dove, my perfect one, is unique

B` 6:9b the courtly women praise her

A` 6:10 she is majestic like the sight of two heavenly bodies

Both of these have great structural integrity, and I don't know how you could choose between them if you were of a mood to excise one or the other. I really like the way the second chiastic structure draws out the parallel between the three groups of courtly women: 

6:8 Sixty queens there may be,

and eighty concubines,

and virgins (almot) beyond number;

6:9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,

the only daughter of her mother,

the favourite of the one who bore her.

The young women (bnot) beheld her

and queens called her blessed

and concubines praised her.

You do need to change the line breaks in the second half of 6:9 to reveal the three-part parallels between 6:8 and 6:9b; EVV have "the young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her." But the Hebrew order is "Saw her did daughters and blessed her queens and concubines praised her." All you have to do is add "did" before queens (a perfectly acceptable addition in Hebrew) and you've got a perfect mirror to 6:8. This also equates virgins/maidens with young women/daughters, which again makes perfect sense even without the parallelism; with it, it is only enhanced. 

What we are left with then are two wasfs, hers and his, which are a matching pair; his is developed further to include his highlighting her uniqueness, even among the presence of the court harem. 

The final thing to mention is the verb דגל, dgl, a verb which is related to the word for "banner", but, according to HALOT, has some kind of base meaning like to be distinguished, which fits the three uses in the song here. It occurs as a qal passive participle in 5:10 to talk about him, the stand out among 10,000. And it occurs as a niphal participle in both 6:4 AND 6:10 in identical constructions, despite the confusingly different NIV translations. 

What's going on then as the bookends of his speech in 6:4-10 is a comparison of her to two pairs of great things. In the case of 6:4 it is two cities, Tirzah (the erstwhile capital of the Northern Kingdom) and Jerusalem (the capital of the Southern Kingdom and of course all Israel under the United Monarchy). George Athas suggests this is referring to the cohorts of women at two centres of Solomon's power, and others too have problems equating a woman with not just one but two cities. In the case of 6:10 she is compared to the brightness of the moon and the sun. In both cases there are two great objects, there is the exact phrase "as majestic as these distinguished [sights], and there is a description of her to which she these objects are to be compared; in 6:4 it is "my darling" and in 6:10 it is her "appearing like the dawn" which is to be compared to the brightness of the two heavenly luminaries.  

For me the parallelism between the two bookends is primary, and it's worth noting it's not the actual cities and luminaries to which she is compared, but the beauty and brightness of them. And sure, they may be no extant textual evidence of women being compared to cities, but this is the Song, so why not? And I would think the rich history of Jerusalem being personified (cf. esp. Lamentations, Isaiah) would mean this is far from a problem.

In conclusion then, his response in 6:4-10 integrates two separate poetic forms, the bookended wasf, and the chiastic structure, the latter reusing the bookends of the wasf. This enables him to both respond to her wasf (5:10-16) in kind, while also developing on the form to highlight her unassailable uniqueness.

Preaching through a Judges series

We've finished going through Judges; I broke it up into 9 weeks a little something like this: 

Judges 1:1-3:6 - beginning badly

Judges 3:7-31 - God's grace

Judges 4-5 - singing salvation

Judges 6-9 - Gideon's gaffes

Judges 10-12 - outrageous oath

Judges 13-15 - Samson's start

Judges 16 - winning through weakness

Judges 17-18 - grifters gonna get grifted

Judges 19-21 - the evil ending

I should add, I didn't think of the alliteration before today - that only just came to me now - always too late!

I try to preach through whole books where I can (see my complete list here), so that people go away from a series knowing that part of the Bible well, hopefully having read the whole thing, and with a growing picture of how the Bible fits together as a whole.

What I have been most struck by as I've worked through Judges (I had two weeks off preaching - Gideon and Samson #1 were preached by others) is the way the book uses recursion or juxtaposition. That is, every story is to be interpreted with reference to the stories either side of it. That is already obvious as the concentric structure of the book is examined, such that the opposing panels handle similar themes: 

Beginning at the end, we meet a Levite from the hill country of Ephraim. Could it be that this was the young Levite from the previous story, who was also a Levite in Ephraim? Probably not, because he moved up to Dan, but the connection is interesting.

So too with the Dan/Micah saga. The story begins without a beginning - it is as if it has slipped in between chapters 16-17. But when it begins we meet a woman who had 1100 silver shekels. Which other woman do we know with 1100 silver shekels? Delilah, from the previous episode, was promised 1100 shekels from each Philistine if she handed over Samson. Could it be that Micah's mother is Delilah? Probably not, but the connection is interesting. 

Similar connections continue throughout Judges (see my notes on Jephthah for some other examples). What this demonstrates is that Judges as a whole is thoughtfully composed, arranged, and edited with reference to every other story. However many original authors or redactors there may have been, the end result is a masterful illustration of adding meaning from structure; juxtaposing two stories next to each other forces them to be understood with reference to each other, so that two stories (or half a dozen or so) are more than the sum of their parts.  

As you work through or read through or preach through Judges, keep asking questions about juxtaposition. Rachelle Gilmour's book on Juxtaposition in Elisha is a superb guide and introduction to the question in general. 

Judge Jephthah in Context

Jephthah in Context

I've been thinking about Jephthah this week, and there are two things to note from the outset. The first is the context. After the long saga of Gideon + Abimelek, and before the long saga of Samson, there is a classic bookended structure:

Minor judges (10:1-5)

Jephthah (10:6-12:7)

Minor judges (12:8-15)

We can obviously say a lot more about the structure, but as a starting point the structure of the minor judges either side is used to mark out Jephthah in the centre as a major judge. But if we wanted to fill out the structure a little more, we can see another layer and more parallels: 

Two judges; many sons on many donkeys (10:1-5)

Sin, subjugation, suffering, supplication (10:6-16)

Jephthah the new judge, one of multiple sons, saves Israel (11:1-33)

A stupid vow and the slaughter of a virgin, succeeded by civil war and a shibboleth (11:34-12:7)

Three judges; many sons on many donkeys (12:8-15)

The parallels between the minor judges (two before, three after) are self-evident. Jair (10:3-5) had 30 sons on 30 donkeys ruling 30 towns. Ibzan (12:8-10) had 30 sons (to whom he married 30 women from outside his clan) and 30 daughters (who he married off outside his clan), and Abdon (12:13-15) had 40 sons and 30 grandsons on 70 donkeys. 

We will meet more donkeys in the chapters to come, but we have seen the wiley Aksah upon a donkey securing extra water rights  (1:14-15) and donkey goers are exhorted to pay attention to the call to unity by Deborah (5:10-11). But we have also seen an army slain with a donkey's jawbone (15:15-16) - perhaps having a dig at these wannabe warlords on their donkeys. 

The numbers 30 and 70 come up as well; 30 pops up several times in the Samson saga and in the epilogue (20:31,39), but 70 is both the number of kings mutilated by Adoni-Bezek (1:7) and the number of his own brothers murdered by Abimelek to become leader - a deal involving 70 shekels (8:30; 9:25). Are these new 70 a redemption of the number or simply a continuation? 

But apart from the minor judges, the structure highlights the situation before Jephthah (sin, subjugation, suffering, supplication; 10:6-11) but also that, after Yhwh grants him the victory, things aren't much different (11:34-12:7). The judges to whom Yhwh grants his Spirit (in Jephthah's case, 11:29) are going to become worse and worse leaders, worse and worse examples, and will highlight more and more what a failure it is to trust in human leaders, who cannot (really) save.

The Shortest Judge

The second is that Jephthah leads for the shortest time of all the judges:

That being said, we aren't always told the full details. We sometimes know how long they were judge for (from Tola onwards) and we sometimes know how long there was peace for because of their reign (up to Gideon). It could be that these timespans are coterminous, for example with Gideon it says "During Gideosn't lifetime, the land had peace for forty years." (8:28b) But we don't have the same information for other judges, and there seems to be a judgement in the latter judges (from Tola onwards) in that Israel weren't granted peace after their judge died. 

But Jephthah stands out because he is at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of lengths (not including Shamgar because we know so very little about him), and, even though we are in a sense comparing apples (years of peace) with oranges (years led for), the only information we are given is what we have to work with. That is, 40-80 years is associated with the first four judges, while 6-23 are the years associated with the latter seven. And Jephthah is at the bottom of everything:

• Jephthah: 6
• Ibzan: 7
• Abdon: 8
• Elon: 10
• Samson: 20
• Jair: 22
• Tola: 23
• Gideon: 40

I think why this matters is because Jephthah is not given a clear rebuke from Yhwh despite his evil vow and his evil fulfilment thereof. Rather, Yhwh is silent throughout. His name is invoked, but he is not. The response is threefold:

1. Jephthah's line is finished. His daughter's virginity is emphasised, as is her being his only child. There will be no Jephthaian dynasty.
2. The immediate aftermath to his victory over the enemy is civil war. There will be no united Israel under Jephthah.
3. His leadership (including his two wars) is the shortest of any judge: only six years. His only legacy is to be known as "the one who couldn't shut up"; Jephthah coming from פתח - to open (one's mouth).

The names of Israel's enemies in Judges 3

Cushan-Rishataim

I've been reading through Barry Webb's NICOT commentary on Judges, he noted the way Cushan-Rishataim's name is used multiple times, and it gives shape to the whole episode.

There is an introduction (3:7-8a), then we hear Cushan-Rishataim's name twice (3:8b-c). The action follows in 3:9-10c, and in the denouement we hear Cushan-Rishataim's name twice more (3:10d-e), before the ending (3:11).

3:7-8a Israel's evil, Yhwh's anger

3:8b-c Cushan-Rishataim set loose

3:9-10c Israel cry out, Yhwh raises up Othniel

3:10d-e Cushan-Rishataim cut down

3:11 Quiet in the land

We can see how the two double uses of Cushan-Rishataim's name frames the raising up of the judge his actions of saving Israel by judging and making war. 

We actually know nothing about Cushan-Rishataim; Webb surveys the various suggestions as to his origin in a list that become ever more farcical: 

Cushan-rishathaim has been variously identified as a Babylonian Cassite (cf. Gen. 10:8), a Nubian, an Edomite, an Asiatic usurper in Egypt (Malamat), a Midianite (cf. Num. 12:1; Hab. 3:7), a chieftain of a tribe related to the Midianites who had migrated north and settled in Syria (Kaufmann), a surviving chieftain of the southern Judean hills (Boling), and, more recently, an Aramean adventurer from the great west bend of the upper Euphrates (Kitchen).

Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 159.

There could also be some funny business going on with his name. 3:8b describes him as "Cushan-Rishataim, king of Aram-Naharaim." Naharaim means "two rivers", so if you deconstruct Rishataim, the "aim" ending is a dual form (i.e. two) and the "Risha" beginning uses the consonants of "wicked" - hence "Double-wickedness". We don't know anything about what wickedness he got up to, but he dominated Israel for eight years, causing them to repent (at least for a time) of their apostacy and to cry out for a saviour.

Eglon the king of Moab 

Anyway, that is all a precursor to what I was most interested in - the use of the name of Israel's enemy in the second section. Essentially what we see is a degradation in the name of Eglon the king of Moab throughout the episode. It begins with a short chiasm:

3:12a Israel again did evil in the eyes of Yhwh

3:12b Yhwh raised up Eglon the king of Moab

3:12c Because they did evil in the eyes of Yhwh

As the episode goes on, Eglon the king of Moab is mentioned numerous times:

3:12b And Yhwh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel

3:14 And the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab 18 years

3:15c And the children of Israel sent in [Ehud's] hand a gift to Eglon king of Moab

3:17a And [Ehud] presented the gift to Eglon king of Moab

However, this is the last time Eglon gets the full title. The next mention, in the same verse, is just his name, and no title:

3:17b Now Eglon was an exceedingly fat man

After this devastating description, his name is never mentioned again. He is "he", "him", and is described as in the WC (literally, something like "the upper cool room"), on his "throne" (I think this is a punny way of saying the toilet), and so overwhelmingly obese that Ehud's sword is swallowed by his fat as faeces comes out.

Indeed, the only other time he gets a mention is as "their lord" (3.25d), who had fallen on the ground, dead. 

Once Eglon the king of Moab is dead, Moab are prey for the hunter, and Ehud has Israel essentially guard the Jordan so that any Moabites trying to escape back over the border get killed , with 10,000 rich and powerful men dying. 

Reflection

I'm still trying to work out whether this is about making fun of Israel's enemies, or about making fun of Israel. On the one hand, the death of Eglon is told comically (with certain similarities to the poo jokes in Daniel 5), so that Israel's victory through an unlikely saviour (a lefty!) is even greater. But on the other hand, it is these morbidly obese people who are able to subdue Israel for 18 whole years. Those they killed trying to escape at the Jordan were not warriors but fat bureaucrats, and if Israel were devoted to their LORD rather than to evil, then they may have been able to withstand their Moabite "Lord".

Epilogue

Interestingly, Shamgar, the final Judge of this chapter (3:31), has no named adversary, but just the Philistines more broadly. If you're interested to read more about him, there's a fascinating blog over at isthatinthebible you might be interested in. 

Understanding the Millennium - Part 4

I was going to finish this series with the previous post, but I needed some more practice writing millennium (two l's, two n's). So, to start with, the structure. Again, as with the last section of chapter 19, 20:1-10 is concentric, meaning the elements repeat each other with the first reoccurring last, the second reoccurring second last, usually placing the emphasis on the middle element.

A 20:1-3a Satan is bound in the Abyss for 1000 years

B 20:3b Satan is released for a short time

C 20:4-6 The martyrs are resurrected and given thrones for 1000 years

B` 20:7-9a Satan is released and leads an end-time army

A` 20:9b-10 Satan's army is destroyed and he is thrown into the lake of sulphur forever

Working from the outside in, how does this structure help us make sense of this, and, in particular, the 1000 years?

• A, A` (1-3a, 9b-10) Important to note here is that the situation is not too different from the beginning to the end. Satan is out of the way. In the first part, he is bound for a very long time, and in the second, he is thrown into the fiery lake forever. If there weren't a release, one could almost be forgiven for thinking 1000 years is almost as good as eternity. 1000 years is longer than any human can contemplate - what will things be like in 3020 AD?  But it is temporary, even in such a time-frame, but it will be made permanent, as the dragon, the source of the other two parts of the satanic trinity, is likewise thrown into the fiery lake to join them.
• B, B` (3b, 7-9a) Here we see an inexplicable release. It really doesn't make sense, because he is bad, he is the pangolin or the bat or whatever started Covid19, and he has no business being released. And yet, he is. For a short time. Not 1000 years, perhaps not even 3½ years. Enough time to rouse up an end-time army to erect a siege around the holy city. It is again important to note that the release in 20:3 is the same release as 20:7, so that this paragraph reads as a whole structure rather than linearly. Again, as Jason suggested to me, rather than the "Israel smashes her enemies" battle, this is more a "Israel is under siege" battle, reminiscent of Assyria's siege of Jerusalem under King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18-19). Perhaps it is a concidence, but a fascinating one, that before that siege begins, Hezekiah is established as the one who smashed the bronze snake statue which people had begun to worship (18:4). And now here, in a "type" of that scene, the "ancient serpent" leads the end-time armies of Gog and Magog to besiege God's people yet again. 
• C (4-6) Despite the goings-on, the central focus is not the rampaging of the dragon, but the people of God, the martyrs, who are given thrones and authority to rule. They are the ones who did not receive the mark of the beast (Rev 13:16-17; cf 19:20), but stayed true and trusted God. This time period appears to be concurrent with Satan's imprisonment, and is the rule which has been promised to the saints in Thyatira back in 2:24-29 who resisted Satan. This millennial rule and the binding and destruction of Satan is also the answer to the cries of the martyrs in 6:9-11; their time has now come. 

I think the exegetical payoff of seeing the passage in this way, noting the parallel structures, is that it shows equivalencies - the two releases of Satan are clearly one and the same, but the 1000 year imprisonment and eternal destruction are also not so different. Sure, one includes a release for bad behaviour, but on the one hand, it is very short lived, and on the other, it confirms God in his judgement that the dragon, and all who followed him, are incurably evil and are rightly condemned to the fiery lake. 

This structure also shows the focus - it is not about the 1000 years, but about the reign of the saints in the midst of the destruction of evil. Again, Satan is described in a fourfold manner: 

1. the dragon
2. that ancient serpent
3. the devil
4. the Satan

The dragon is the most vicious character of the book - he devours the children of God - the very people who will judge him; the serpent is the pangolin of sin from Genesis 3; the devil is God's adversary, and the Satan is the accuser. But his destruction is assured, in the same way as the martyr's vindication is assured. 

I think my point in all this is that trying to work out timetables and pre- and post- and even a-millennialism is a route which not only misreads the genre of Revelation, it also emphasises something which isn't a thing. The purpose of the 1000 year binding/reign is to show that the saints have been vindicated. But instead it is weaponised into this highly technical and irrelevant doctrine to divide and confuse. 

Why, however, is Satan released? It is not explained in the text. One suggestion is that it is to prove Satan's guilt - after 1000 years, surely Satan would be reformed? Sorry, no, still a scorpion. The other is, and this links really well with the Gog and Magog story from Ezekiel 38-39 which is referenced here, is that Satan's attack is used against her. Koester notes that "Gog, who devised battle plans against Israel (Ezek 38:11–12) only to find that God used Gog’s own schemes to defeat him (Ezek 38:4, 17; 39:2)." (Koester, Anchor, 771) What worse place to mount an attack against God's people than at God's holy city. But when Satan is released, he assembles the armies, and heads straight to the place which will mean his ultimate downfall. 

The question which must be answered by anyone who holds a view that this is not a story of a deeper reality and a deeper truth, but a timeline of the last days, is, how does a timeline of 1900 years plus in the future (and counting) help the original recipients in the 90s AD in western Asia Minor? 

My humble suggestion is that for people in fear of their lives, whose children were being stolen as slaves, whose cities were garrisons for their oppressors, that the distant future approaches to reading Revelation would be an insult to them. "You mean we have to wait that long for God to do anything?" Instead, the reading that is as true for them as it is for us is this:

Evil seems powerful and it seems like the Jesus who died and rose and ascended into heaven does not care and is not coming back. But this is God's world. Nothing happens he does not know about, and nothing can change the truth about good and evil. It is right to persevere and to resist and to stay true to your saviour who stayed true to you. And because this is God's world, and because it is stained and contorted by sin, God will bring an end to the very thing that started sin in the first place. 

So that's how I read Revelation, and if you have thoughts or suggestions, you're welcome to comment here or on fb or twitter or pigeon post. Actually, scratch that last option. I don't like pigeons. Chickens are cool though. 

Understanding the Millennium - Part 3

As we get ever closer to the key passage, it is worth noting, as my friend Jason reminded me, that there are two battles depicted which describe the destruction of the satanic trinity. The first, in chapter 19, details the destruction of the beasts we first met in chapter 13.

A 17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair,  “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”

B 19 [And] Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.

C 20a But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf.  

D 20b With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. 

C` 20c The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur.

B` 21a The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, 

A` 21b and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

• A, A` (17-18, 21b) The expectation after 19:1-10 is that the wedding feast of the Lamb will follow. But instead we arrive at the "great supper of God." It is not a feast for the people of God, but a slaughter. The only people who will feast are the birds--the birds of carrion--who are gathered to feast before the battle has begun, and shortly thereafter have a banquet on which to gorge themselves. 
• B, B` (19, 21a) The followers of the beast gather with him, but with no description of the battle required, the battle is won the moment it is begun.
• C, C` (20a, 20c) The description of the capture and dispatch of the beast and the prophet is similarly brief, but brutally final. No one looks forward to going down to the underworld, but even worse, it seems (at least from Num 16:33; Ps 55:15) is to be thrown down alive. This preempts the identical punishment of the dragon in the following scene (20:10).
• D (20b) At the centre of this scene is an epexegetical comment which explains that the central issue is the idolatry encouraged by the false prophet, of the beast. This central concern of the book of Revelation, that Christ alone should be given glory. From the inaugural vision of Christ in chapter 1, through the warnings to persevere in chapters 2-3, and the lion/lamb at the centre of the throne room in chapters 4-5 - not to mention the depiction of the beast as a pseudo-Christ in chapter 13 - the question of who you worship is what it is all about. 

There are three key things to take away from this first battle:

1. the battle is swift - too short to describe and easily won by Christ
2. the indictment is how they have misdirected worship away from Christ
3. this battle is reminiscent of many battles easily won by the people of God in the Old Testament. Battles were either won with hardly a casualty, or they were lost disastrously and embarrassingly. This is the first type, and it is over before it is begun.

What then of the the second battle, where the Satan - noticeably absent from this battle - is destroyed?

At the outset, it is worth noting that the capture and imprisonment of the dragon is similarly swift and one-sided (20:1-3a). It is an angel - not even Jesus - who is able to lock Satan away in the Abyss. It could be a part of the first battle, or a consequence of it, although the introductory formula (και ειδον, and I saw) seems to suggest it might be a new scene or sequence. Nevertheless, he is imprisoned and, after a few things happening, is similarly dispatched to the fiery lake of sulphur to complete the destruction of the satanic trinity (20:10).

That is, whatever the details, and however troubling the intervening events might be, the outcome is certain, and the saints can be reassured that staying faithful to Jesus is worth it, they will be vindicated, and the very instigator of evil - the ancient serpent - will be destroyed forever.

Secondly, what is going on with the 1000 years, with the release, with the new wave of attacks, with the 1000 reign of martyrs? I'll get to that next time.

Thyatira's Chiasm - Revelation 2:19

There's so much going on in Revelation in terms of structure. One interesting feature of the book is where irregular constructions are used to highlight something. In 2:19, as Jesus outlines the commendable things in the Thyatiran church, there is this odd construction with the word σου (of you) occurring, not after each item, nor only after the whole list, but before and after the list of five positive traits.

οἶδά 

σου 

τὰ ἔργα 

καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην 

καὶ τὴν πίστιν 

καὶ τὴν διακονίαν 

καὶ τὴν ὑπομονήν 

σου

"I know of you, the works and the love and the faith and the service and the endurance, of you." It should just be translated "I know your works and your love and your faith and your service and your endurance," but "your" only occurs before and after the list.

Why? It could be, perhaps, that it's trying to draw attention to this group of admirable traits present in Thyatira, despite the difficult context they find themselves in. And, above all of them, it could be that the central one--their faith/trust/belief--is what is of supreme importance.

When this letter (2:18-29) begins wrapping it, it returns to the idea of trust. 2:25 reads,

"Only this: what you have, hold on to it, until I come." 

It is only by their faith in Christ, and not the teaching of Jezebel (20-23a), the deep things of Satan (24), that they have can be certain of conquering and keeping the works of Jesus until the end (26). 

So it could just be that John didn't want to write σου out five times, but he did write it twice, including once before the list begins, so I think it's fair to say there was some purpose in doing so. It could have been to draw attention to the whole list, or it could be to draw especial attention to the central idea: your faith/trust/belief in Jesus.