Earlier this year, I offered a short reflection on God’s creation of nations as recorded in Genesis 10 and 11. In that post we found that God created nations with distinct characteristics, such as a shared language, kinship, common territory, culture, and laws. Since God created these distinctive categories for our benefit, we cannot blame them for the existence of human conflict. Nor should we attempt to eliminate them in favor of the most recent spate of multiculturalism and globalism inspired by the two world wars of the early twentieth century.
In this post, I want to expand the scope of our Biblical investigation. We will find that God has used nationality as a key aspect of His salvation plan. Further, the Messiah did not come to erase national distinctives. Rather, these distinctives remain important now and in the eschaton.
I Will Make You into a Great Nation
The Babel narrative is followed immediately by another account of national birth. Though Shem’s descendants were listed in Genesis 10, they are repeated in the second half of chapter 11, with a very specific purpose. The culmination of Shem’s line of descent is Abram, a man without children at the end of a long line of fruitful ancestors. God calls him to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land that God would show him.
God tells Abram that, out of his childlessness, He will produce “a mighty nation” (Gen. 18:18). The fulfillment of this promise would be a complete reversal of Abram’s fortunes because children and a lineage were important symbols of influence and wealth. As John Calvin notes, the promise comes with the honor due to nationality.[1] God, having created many nations as a form of discipline for our own good, now begins to create a single nation out of the welter of peoples making their way from Babel.
This new nation is a special creation. They will be “a peculiar people, separated from others, who should be called by [God’s] own name.”[2] Theologian Paul House highlights that the creation of this “special clan, or nation” is emphasized through the remainder of Genesis.[3] Assyriologist and Hebrew Bible scholar Daniel Fleming agrees with House, arguing that “the whole point of Genesis is to explain Israelite identity to Israelites.”[4] Though Israel is a unique nation, as we learn about the definition of their identity, we can also learn about the nature of nations in general.
The Nation of Israel
Kinship
As Abraham’s descendants grow in number, they are also constantly being reminded of their distinct character in comparison to the surrounding nations. Fleming explains, “Abraham’s family forms a tree that defines relationships between Israel and various inland kin,” such as the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Midianites.[5] All of these nations were descendants of various branches of Abraham’s family but remained distinct from Israel’s more precise kinship with its attending common culture, geographic territory, and law.
Historian Azar Gat helps to define the complex relationship between kinship and nationhood. He argues that family groups who gather into tribes are the smallest circle of attachment for individuals. However, multiple tribes and family groups that share a common culture, including language, territory, and religious beliefs, can bridge their differences through a shared ethnic identity. Ethnic groups can be aware of their distinct identities, but, as they encounter differing ethnic groups, the contours of their unique identities are revealed.
An ethnic group that has a strong conscious sense of common identity, history, and fate is referred to as a people. People groups successfully compete for allegiances that bridge “tribal cleavages, political disunity among multiple states, or cohabitation with others . . . within larger states.”[6] Once a people gain dominant control of a state, they are considered a nation. While smaller ethnic groups and peoples may live within the nation, the territorial borders of the state obtain a rough congruence with the territory of the dominant ethnic group.[7] Israel exhibits all the characteristics of this expanding relationship of loyalty.
At the smallest level, Israel is made up of family groups—tribes. While the twelve tribes find common kinship in their forefathers, they are also bound together by a common culture that includes language, territory, and law. The Israelites are a large ethnic group, but they never ground their kinship identity in racial purity. Hebrew and Ancient Semitic languages scholar Alan Millard reminds us that Israel left Egypt as a “mixed multitude” (Exod. 12:38; Num. 11:4, NASB) and that non-Israelites, like Ruth and Rahab, were folded, throughout their history, into the nation.[8]
Thus Israel’s concept of kinship incorporated cultural commitments that allowed immigration into the community. It had a clear process of assimilation into the nation that included circumcision, ritual practices, adherence to the law of the land, and time—only the third generation could be welcomed fully into the assembly (Deut. 23:8). So, while they had clear national boundaries of kinship, those borders were permeable to outsiders who were willing to adopt Israelite culture generally and religion specifically.
This description aligns with Gat’s analysis of the relationship between kinship and national identity: kinship groups hold common culture in addition to biological connections. In fact, common culture can create a perceived kinship that claims just as much loyalty as any actual genetic ties. Immigrants wishing to become part of the nation adopt the common culture and intermarry with the original group over multiple generations so that perceived and biological kinship often merge.[9]
Historically, cultural unity has been closely connected to common religious beliefs and practices. However, as philosopher Roger Scruton has argued, in modern Western nations that observe religious liberty, high culture can substitute as a cultural cement.[10] To Scruton’s point, Gat argues that religion has played an important function in cultural formation, but “shared religion in and of itself rarely trumps linguistic differences to create a common ethnic or national identity.”[11] In this way, even though many Israelites fell into idolatry, their membership in the nation was never called into question.
Land
God’s promise of nationhood is tied to another important commitment—land. One of the major characteristics of a nation is a shared geographical location. A significant portion of the book of Joshua and the Pentateuch is devoted to explaining the geography of Canaan and its relationship to the Israelites. Even Abraham who owns only enough Canaanite land to bury Sarah progresses from north to south across the Promised Land, building altars as he goes, “almost as if he is claiming the land for the Lord who sent him there.”[12] Though Abraham does not see the fulfillment of God’s promise, his descendants do.
When famine forces the aged Jacob to make his way to Egypt, God encourages him not to fear the journey, “for,” He assures him, “I will make you into a great nation there. . . . and I will assuredly bring you up again” to your land (Gen. 46:3–4). The journey of faith into Egypt is accompanied with a promise of returning to their own land. When God brings them home, the land is portioned out with precise detail, emphasizing, as John Monson argues, that “the geographical setting is a vital resource for understanding Israel’s entry into Canaan.”[13]
Ancient Near East scholar Steven Grosby notes that a well-defined sense of borders is a constitutive characteristic of nationality in the ancient and modern worlds. Further, the association of a people with their land often recognizes the association of nationality with a particular ethnic group, which includes biological ties and cultural assimilation.[14] Thus, the borders of the Israelites’ land are essential to defining their identity in contrast to the surrounding nations.
Blessing the Nations
We noted earlier that Abraham’s descendants were going to be a special people. In part this characterization is related to God’s relationship to them alone, but it is also a recognition of their part in God’s plan of redemption. They are not intended to keep the blessings of their relationship with God to themselves. Rather, they are the channel through which God will heal all nations.
After Abraham shows his obedience to the voice of God by being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, God expands on His original promise to this wandering nomad from Ur of the Chaldeans. He explains that He is not only going to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation but also bless all nations through them (Gen. 22:18). God reiterates this promise to Isaac to shore up his courage during a famine (Gen. 26:4). He even promises to reward the Israelites’ obedience by placing them high above all nations (Deut. 28:1). They will lend to nations and rule over them (Deut. 15:6). Yet His blessing is not meant only for them.
Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, we find that God has great plans for bringing salvation to all nations. As the descendants of Abraham undergo God’s punishment for their rampant and extended disobedience, God sends Isaiah to promise healing to them. He will send a Servant, Who will raise up the tribes of Jacob from their suffering and be a “light of the nations so that [His] salvation may reach the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6). The coming Messiah Who is a son of Abraham will bring salvation to all nations. In fact, they are His inheritance (Ps. 2:8), and they will stream to Him for rest (Isa. 11:10), bringing their wealth with them as a blessing to the Lord (Isa. 60:5).
Thus, through His chosen nation, God is redeeming all nations to Himself so that, on the last day, “behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages,” shall stand “before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,” with palm branches in their hands singing praise to God and His Lamb (Rev. 7:9). Nor will they pass away. Rather, the nations will be healed for all eternity (Rev. 22:2). Our national identities are important, created by God for our lives in the present and throughout the eschaton.
Conclusion
The characteristics of the nation of Israel give us a specific example of what makes up a national identity. Historian and scholar of nationalism Adrian Hastings argues that the Bible presents Israel as “a developed model of what it means to be a nation—a unity of people, language, religion, territory, and government.” [15] For this reason, Israel can help us to understand the contours of nationality, especially in relation to kinship and territory. In my next essay on nationalism, we will explore how this knowledge should inform our thinking about nations, international policy, multiculturalism, and globalism in the present.
[1] John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King, vol. 1 (1847; reprt., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 347.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Paul R. House, Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1998), 71.
[4] Daniel E. Fleming, “From Joseph to David: Mari and Israelite Pastoral Traditions,” in Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? ed. Daniel I. Block (Nashville: B&H, 2008), 79.
[5] Ibid., 79, 81.
[6] Azar Gat with Alexander Yakobson, Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 22.
[7] To find Gat’s more detailed treatment of this framework, see Gat, 20–24.
[8] Alan R. Millard, “Were the Israelites Really Canaanites?” in Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? ed. Daniel I. Block (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008), 168.
[9] Gat, 19–20.
[10] Roger Scruton, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture (South Bend, ID: St. Augustine’s Press, 2000), 14.
[11] Gat, 25.
[12] Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 109.
[13] John M. Monson, “Enter Joshua: The ‘Mother of Current Debates’ in Biblical Archaeology,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture, ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 442.
[14] Steven Grosby, Biblical Ideas of Nationality: Ancient and Modern (Winona Lake, ID: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 121.
[15] Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 18.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks