The following post is an academic review of a journal article from The Catholic Biblical Quarterly about how grace is so often overlooked. Here is the source that I review: W.L Moran, “The Ancient Near East Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963): 77-87.
The article, “The Ancient Near East Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy”, truly broadened my understanding of the relationship between God and the Hebrew people of Israel because it thoroughly explained how certain historical, cultural, contextual, and linguistic factors mutually operated to describe the nature of the association between two linked parties of unequal power. The author, W.L. Moran, argues that Israel’s relationship to God is covenantal, based on treaty, but requiring of a reciprocal degree of devotion that reflects the faithfulness of promise God graciously offered to them. This would most particularly entail and be largely defined by the Israelites’ “loyalty, service, and obedience” (Moran 82). Moran finds much evidence for his argument of a transactional, sociopolitical, and judiciary relationship between a higher power and a subjugated people by citing similarities between Israel and God as they more broadly relate to ancient near eastern kings and their empires.
Personally, I do not think that his argument is sound because it seems like some premises of his argument actually debunk his main point. For instance, the one premise that Moran gave that I felt like did not quite serve to further solidify his argument was his mention of the relationship between King David and the Israelites. All throughout the article, his premises seemed to posit the idea that the relationship between God and the Israelites was one marked by fear, loyalty, reverence, and obedience. Indeed, most of these adjectives typically describe a people who are threatened into obedience for fear that they will be punished; it describes a people who are not primarily honored as an end unto itself, but as a means towards establishing or perpetuating a political or hierarchical end. Yet, when Moran utilized the example of King David’s relationship with his people—positing that it was similar to the way he perceives the nature of God’s relationship with the Israelites—I felt like the two natures were not parallel, but fundamentally juxtaposed.
In the accounts of King David’s reign, Scripture seems to portray a people who loved, admired, and respected King David. The people gave him their loyalty not out of anxious fear, begrudging obedience, or dry obligation, but out of sheer love because their affections had been won over by his unique qualities. Their love and admiration of King David preceded and therefore fueled their loyalty to him. In the article, however, Moran seems to suggest that the relationship between God and the Israelites–which he proposes is characterized by obligation, fear, and prodded obedience–is similar to King David’s relationship with the people. Because I believe there are discrepancies in how he projects the relationship of King David and Israel, I therefore believe his comparison with God and the Israelites is also skewed. Thus, the relationship between David and the Israelites is not a good example to support his main argument, which suggests that the relationship between the Israelites and God is predominantly marked by fear and obligation.
While I personally agree with this article’s argument in part, I would think the Israelites’ loyalty to God is not as much coerced by an intense fear of punishment as it is fueled by a primary and stronger realization of unwarranted grace and faithfulness by the Ultimate of the universe to them, enacted through covenantal promises.
