What Is Biblical Theology? A Guide to the Bible’s Story, Symbolism, and Patterns by James M. Hamilton Jr

Author:James M. Hamilton Jr [Hamilton, James M. Jr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781433537738
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

IMAGERY

Does this talk about symbolism seem abstract? Does the Bible’s big story seem abstract? The images the Bible uses are meant to give real-world illustrations of these abstract concepts. So it’s as though the biblical authors are recognizing that things are complicated, and they’re trying to help their audience understand by using examples. Take a tree, for instance.

A TREE, A ROOT, AND A BRANCH

God’s work in creation is related to his work in redemption. So at creation, we read: “God planted a garden in Eden . . . . And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:8–9).

Then to help us understand that the nation of Israel, redeemed from Egypt, is like a new creation, Asaph talks about Israel as though the nation is a vine planted by the Lord:

You brought a vine out of Egypt;

you drove out the nations and planted it. (Ps. 80:8)

Isaiah also develops this image, presenting the Lord planting a vineyard in Isaiah 5:1–7. Because the vineyard produced rotten fruit (5:5), Isaiah is sent to harden the hearts of the people until they are driven into exile (6:9–12). This will be like the tree of Israel being chopped down and having its stump burned, but the holy seed is in that stump (6:13). The Lord is going to use the nation of Assyria as the axe that cuts down the tree of Israel (Isa. 10:5–15), but a shoot is going to come from the stump of Jesse, a branch that will bear fruit (Isa. 11:1–10). This shoot is both an individual and a symbol of a nation reemerging. The king from David after exile stands for the reestablishment of the nation of Israel. Isaiah gets a lot of mileage out of branch imagery; as we have seen, he connects this shoot from the stump of Jesse to the suffering servant who bears the sin of the people in Isaiah 53 by likening the servant to “a root out of dry ground” (53:2).

This tree imagery is used all over the Bible. We’ve just seen how Isaiah talks about the Messiah as a shoot from the stump of Jesse. The judgment on the garden God planted in Isaiah 5, the tree chopped down in Isaiah 6, and the shoot from Jesse’s stump in Isaiah 11 are all telling the story of Israel. The nation has broken the covenant God made with them at Sinai, so they will be exiled from the land. But God will keep the promises he made to David, when beyond exile a descendant of David will arise.

It may be that Isaiah was prompted to use tree imagery to describe the history and future of Israel and her Messiah because of the use of similar symbols in Psalms 1 and 2. These first two psalms introduce the whole book of Psalms. Psalm 2 is strongly messianic, and connections between Psalms 1 and 2, with the Davidic tinge of the whole Psalter, color Psalm 1 with a messianic hue.

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