Abstract. 'Atonement' and 'covenant' are central in Revelation (late 1st century CE) with its rich allusions to the OT and to the gospels. So ultimately a careful interpretation of Revelation requires understanding the origins of the 'atonement' concept not only through the Levitic Covenant forms but also in its antecedents in the Near Eastern suzerainty covenant / treaty forms of the 3rd-2nd millenia BCE and in the contemporary monotheist God-concepts of that remote time. For this, historical-critical exegesis may not be safely neglected. A deeper grasp of the nature of 'atonement' and 'covenant' would be revolutionary for the church's practical understanding of the Gospel and her mission.

I. Introduction on hermeneutics and exegesis: From oral tradition to historical-critical exegesis
II. 'YAHWEH's eye view' – Atonement in the OT
III. Daniel 8-9 as Covenant vision and lawsuit – verdict
IV. 95 CE – Revelation as a circulating apocalyptic epistle
V. Outline of the structure of Revelation
VI. Suzerainty covenant, Levitic Covenant, and the Revelation
VII. A few conclusions
VII. References

Appendix 1. The faces of God: God-concepts in the history of the monotheistic traditions (present in part; to be expanded)
Appendix 2. Two goats and two princes
Appendix 3. 11Q13 – the Melchizedeq fragment

A fundamental question for informed Christian believers is, 'What is the basis for our certainty and faith in the Christ and gospel of the New Testament?" Answering this question not only has confessional importance in being "ready always to give account [apologia] to everyone asking the reason for the hope within you" (I Pet. 3:15). It requires us to evaluate the specific claims of the NT about the fulfillment of the OT prophecies and types with Jesus of Nazareth. We must ask, "Did the Christ and the apostles of the NT wrest the OT Scriptures in order to support their claims and gospel?" Based on the OT passages cited, were the central Messianic and apocalyptic claims made by the NT writers in the setting of the 1st century CE warranted? Or were they 'wrested' (II Pet. 3:16) by which the early Christians doubtless meant 'taken out of context.' Each generation of believers and every individual believer has to answer or ignore this question for themselves. And a host of other questions confronting the Christian interpreter.

This central question is far beyond our scope here except to introduce it. A brief historical overview of Biblical interpretation is a necessary place to start, but this would be incomplete without a parallel history of the changing conceptions of God (See Appendix 1). (Partially indebted in this history of hermeneutics section to Alexander, 1993; Barr, 1993; Bentley, 1993; Froehlich, 1993; Armstrong, 1993; Krentz, 1975):

• The oral tradition epoch (prehistory - 1500 BCE and beyond) – There are many indications that the monotheistic ideas, the poetic forms, and the early Semitic culture of the OT had a long and intricate oral prehistory (Tucker, 1971) stretching back at least into the 3rd millenium BCE. One such indication is the widely attested 'sky God' tradition in indigenous oral cultures. In the traditions forming Genesis and in other early poetic oracles and writings it seems evident that the early epiphanies of 'El (a name applied to the Canaanite 'sky God') were claimed by the Yahwist monotheists (Armstrong, 1993). The centuries long transition from oral to written culture is evident in the lingering poetic marks of orality in our OT and in the rich tradition of OT textual variants as late as the 1st century CE (cf. the textual variants in the Biblical manuscripts from Qumran; Thiede, 2000; Horn, 1985).
• The "Rewritten Bible" texts (~1000 BCE-100 CE) – An interpretive retelling of the Bible in the interpreter's own words. The earliest examples are perhaps Joshua and Judges which may be retellings of the story of the lost work "the scroll of the wars of YAHWEH" (Num. 21:14). A definitive Biblical example of this genre is the apparent retelling of the histories of Samuel and Kings in the books of Chronicles. Several of the Psalms also appear in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Later examples include works such as the pseudepigraphal Jubilees, Liber antiquitatum biblicarum, the Genesis Apocryphon, or Josephus' retelling of Biblical stories in his Antiquities of the Jews. Later apocalyptic writings may also be included such as the retelling of Gen. 6-9 by I Enoch 6-11. Another example is the codified Temple Scroll from Qumran based on Torah.
• The Targums (6th-2nd centuries BCE) – Post-Exilic translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic probably for synagogue lectionaries. The translations are not consistently strict, but often ranged from loose translation to the paraphrastic, and frequently evidenced rabbinic modes of thinking.
• Qumran pesharim (~150 BCE-68 CE) – Interpretive commentary on Bible texts in which the original text was quoted in full or in part and commentary was appended by use of formulaic phrases like "the interpretation of the matter" or "the meaning for the last days is this" etc. Interpreters tended to see in Scripture cryptic meanings to be decoded as one might interpret a dream, and then the interpretation set forth in an oracular style. Much incidental NT interpretation of the OT probably falls into this general catagory.
• Commentaries of Philo, an Alexandrian Jew (~15 BCE-50 CE) – Quoted scripture and then commented in argumentative form, allowing for multiple interpretations, and seeking to find affirmations of and parallels between Greek platonism and Scripture. Also tended to exhibit allegorical and speculative modes of interpretation.
• Early Christian hermeneutics (~50-95 CE) – The writers of the NT shared with their fellow Jews the canon of Torah, Prophets, and Writings and also regarded the Greek LXX as sacred. There seems to have been some influence of Midrashic interpretation in the use of some halaka and 'aggada interpretation of the Torah, some eschatological interpretation of the prophecies as indicating the end-times in the post-Maccabean Jewish world, and even a trace of possible Platonic or Stoic ideas perhaps in the idea of the ancient sanctuary being a 'shadow' of a heavenly reality in Hebrews fused to post-exilic Jewish eschatology. Mostly however, the NT motif was of promise-prophecy and fulfillment with Jesus of Nazareth, the gospel in these end-times, and the soon coming eschaton. Also prominent was typology, the idea that the cultic services and symbols of the OT Scriptures were types" or "typical" of the eschatological realities or "antitypes." Paul also a few times utilized the idea of allegoroumena or allegory (e.g., Gal. 4:21-26; I Cor. 10). The ancient Hebrew sanctuary cultus also influenced NT thought, particularly by allusions to the fulfillment with Christ of the Sabbatical Jubilee Day of Atonement, Passover, etc. (Significant for our discussion is whether their claims of 'fulfillment' were in harmony with the exegetical meaning of the OT passages in question).
• The midrashim (Tannaitic ~<70-200 CE; Amoraic ~200-500 CE) – Palestinian rabbinic schools of interpretation which quoted Scripture and gave detailed, intensely argumentative commentary, and set forth many divergent opinions of various rabbis and scholars. The midrash commentaries can be divided conveniently into 'aggada (narrative/homiletical material, broad edifying meanings) and halaka (legal material, rules for living).
• Christian patristic hermeneutics (2nd-5th centuries CE) – Biblical interpretation marked by practical evangelism, catechism, apologetics toward non-Christians, and polemics against 'heretical' teachings, such as gnosticism, the proliferation of pseudepigraphal 'gospels' and epistles, and the rapid spread of Hellenistic (and gnostic) allegorical interpretation and Greek studies such as grammar, literature, and philosophy as tools for Bible study. These works included creedal summaries, commentaries and the hermeneutical writings of the rival Alexandrian and Antiochan schools of interpretation. During this period 'apostolicity' was used as a criterion to assemble documents believed to have apostolic origin into the NT canon.
• Classical Jewish hermeneutics (6th-10th centuries CE) – Practitioners of midrash had many complex rules (middot) of interpretation which were often skilful attempts to read their ideas back into Scripture (eisegesis) although they highly regarded the pesat or plain sense. For the rabbinic midrash it was axiomatic that Scripture is God's voice and that interpretation was an activity performed on a fixed canon. It was considered to be inerrant, coherent, unalterable, non-redundant ('all music and no noise'), and polyvalent in meaning (i.e., multiple co-existing meanings, but no original fixed historical meaning). The influence on modern fundamentalism is inescapable.
• Jewish hermeneutics (medieval times - 17th century) – Much of medieval Judaism sought to preserve the Talmudic tradition, as can be noted with such commentators as Rashi (1045-1105), who sought to stress the pesat. This traditionalism continued until Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) who proposed an early critical, historical hermeneutic. Other developments during this time included a codification of Hebrew philology and grammar (by the reformist Karaite sect and others such as Abraham ibn Ezra, 1089-1164), and a philosophic school which advocated an allegorical hermeneutic based on a neo-platonic version of Aristotle's philosophy (Maimonides). Another development was mysticism which used an allegorical hermeneutic to read mystical qabbalism ('qabbalah' or 'way of the Lord') into Scripture, in a quest to discover the inner 'soul' of Torah.
• Western / Latin Christian hermeneutics (6th-14th centuries) – Patristic writings and commentaries were collected in the 6th century CE. While western Christian interpreters recognized the need for the literal sense of Scripture to be the foundation of hermeneutics, they also made free use of allegorical, moral-homiletical, spiritual, and mystical interpretation.  Medieval schools and abbeys with their experts on grammar, logic, and rhetoric became the centers of early scholastic theology and hermeneutics, where the emphasis shifted away from patristic-style running commentaries and more toward well-defined theological issues or quaestiones, and systematic theologies. Scholastic theology and hermeneutics came into its own with the early dawn of the pre-Renaissance (12-13th centuries) with the founding of medieval universities, and the rise of Aristotelian science and analysis as a tool for Biblical interpretation (e.g., Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas). Late medieval thinkers (Roger Bacon, Pierre d'Ailly) began to call for a return for the Hebrew and Greek for Biblical interpretation. Interest in Hebrew also facilitated the bringing of qabbalistic interpretation into western Christianity during this period.
• Renaissance Christian hermeneutics (15th-16th centuries) – The Renaissance humanists with their recovery of classical Greco-Roman culture and language, applied their knowledge of Greek to interpreting Scripture. Both Lorenzo Valla (who introduced early historical criticism through his discovery of the fraudulent nature of the 'Donation of Constantine') and Erasmus of Rotterdam studied the NT in Greek and rejected scholastic theology. They along with the Reformers and Counter-Reformers wrote commentaries and discussed moral doctrine and theology based on a linguistic, philological, and historical understanding of the Bible. Most importantly Erasmus produced a critical edition of the Greek NT text.
• Christian hermeneutics of the Reformation / Counter-Reformation (15th-16th centuries) – For centuries reformist churches such as the Waldenses, Cathari, and various individuals had appealed to the plain sense of the Bible to challenge the doctrine, traditions, and practices of the Roman Catholic church. Early Reformers such as John Wycliffe (14th century) and Jan Hus (15th century) had carried forward this call for Biblical reform. The Protestant Reformers (16th century) such as Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, and especially John Calvin called for Scripture to be the ultimate rule of Christian faith and practice (sola Scriptura) as the foundation for justification by faith alone (iustitia impii, sola fide), God's objective grace in Christ (sola gratia, soli Christus) and the priesthood of all believers. The Protestant Reformation building on the Renaissance advances in Hebrew, Greek, and hermeneutics produced great Biblical theological systems and creeds which attempted to base doctrine on Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) through seeking the strict grammatical sense. This was a major step toward historical exegesis. By sola Scriptura the Reformation jettisoned the allegorical and scholastic hermeneutics of the Middle Ages and unshackled Scripture so it could exercise a critical role in the church. This opened the way for the eventual development of a true historical exegesis. The Reformers also began evaluating passages of Scripture in the light of Christology and the Gospel. Catholic theologians of the Counter-Reformation such as Jacques Lefevre, Cardinal Pole and Cardinal Seripando at the Council of Trent, and Cardinal Cajetan likewise called for an abandonment of many of the medieval hermeneutical practices and the introduction of the Renaissance hermeneutic using the original languages and the grammatical sense.
• Early modern critical exegesis from the Enlightenment on (17th-early 20th centuries) – Critical views were anticipated even in ancient and early modern times. For example, anachronisms were noticed in Genesis indicating material written later than Moses, by Abraham ibn Ezra (1098-1164) and pursued by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). Erasmus (1466-1536) was likely the first to argue for freedom to offer interpretations emerging from language and literary form, and so anticipated as did Luther later, the freethinking rationalism of the Enlightenment. This was well developed by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) an Arminian in the Dutch church. Another later contributor was the French Catholic Richard Simon (1638-1712) who argued that uncertainties in Scripture militated against the Protestant position. Jean Astruc (1684-1766) pioneered source critical analysis of the Pentateuch. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) held that date and authorship could be established only from the Bible books themselves. John Locke made exegetical contributions including noting Jesus' 'messianic secret' while Sir Isaac Newton worked on biblical chronology and sought to show that some doctrines like the Trinity could not be established from the NT. German professors of the 18th century such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (published 1780-83) methodically sought through language and content to establish dates, authorship, and sources for each of the books of the OT and NT. Important OT scholars included Wilhem Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1849) who worked on Deuteronomy and Julius Welhausen (1780-1849) whose proposal of document "P" as the latest source for the Pentateuch remains a key starting point of discussion for Pentateuch source studies. NT scholars such as Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) held that a conflict between Petrine and Pauline traditions was a decisive event in early Christianity. The works of the various 'questers for the historical Jesus' like Remairus (1694-1768), David Frederich Strauss (19th century), and Albert Schweitzer (19th-20th centuries) were more like speculative theology than biblical criticism, although they did make some important contributions like elucidating the apocalyptic nature of Jesus' teachings (Schweitzer). Important contributions of NT historical scholarship however included work on the Synoptic Problem such as the likely priority of Mark and a common source "Q" for Matthew and Luke, and most importantly, the critical text of the NT by Westcott and Hort. Biblical criticism actually did not alter doctrine much because Protestant neo-orthodoxy found that it comported well with their doctrinal emphases (Lutheran justification by faith, Anglican centrality of the Incarnation, and Calvinistic appreciation of Israel and the covenants of the OT). By the mid-20th century, critical exegesis was also recognized officially within the Roman Catholic communion. However, since the early 20th century fundamentalism has remained very reticent about the approach, especially regarding the conclusions of some of the more liberal practitioners.
• The ongoing legacy of the Enlightenment (17th century - the present) – The western world had been rocked by the world-view altering discoveries of Nicholas Copernicus, Johanne Kepler, and by the new cosmology and physics of Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton and others and so was laid the foundation of the Enlightenment. Anxious to throw off the stultifying superstitions, the cruel religious wars, and the orthodox dogmas of the Medieval and Reformation periods, many thinkers in the West turned to reason and the newly discovered laws of nature as revealing a supreme Being who through nature had given a natural religion of reason and individual conscience (Deism), surpassing the accreted corruptions adhering to many aspects of the orthodox or 'revealed' religions. The growing Enlightenment ideal of individual autonomy and freedom of conscience (rooted in part in the Reformation ideals of 'the priesthood of all believers' and ecclesia reformata semper reformanda) spurred the enlightened quest for individual civil liberties and political rights (US Declaration of Independence, French Rights of Man), resulting in the ideals of limited constitutional government, individual rights, and church-state separation (enshrined in the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, fundamental laws in various countries, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other instruments of international human rights law). As rationalism and Deism became current, many thinkers set to questioning the historical roots of certain dogmas in the Christian faith (Armstrong, 1993). Rather than this being necessarily a negative, the Enlightenment tradition of individual rational free inquiry and religious freedom have both directly contributed to the development of a more mature historical exegesis of Scripture as they have to the rise of modern science. This is so even though some of the thought and historiography of the Enlightenment itself was more philosophical than historical (Krentz, 1975). Although acknowledging that the Bible is contextual, historical and time-conditioned, this insight was sometimes lost with the application of Enlightenment 'common sense' or scientific knowledge to the historical data. Some of the Biblical criticism of this era became simply a philosophical rejection of miracles and the supernatural, and a domesticating of the Bible to suit 18th and 19th century philosophical tastes. Hence a number of 'liberal lives' of Jesus were produced, and there were instances of extensive eisegetical reading of philosophical and political ideas into the text. Many scholars in the various 'quests' for the historical Jesus (including among others the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar) continue pursue in spirit this Enlightenment enterprise of iconoclastic free inquiry (Funk et al. 1993) resulting in some insights of genuine historical significance. Nevertheless, the Enlightenment ideal of rational free inquiry has added much to our freedom to pursue an informed, institutionally-independent understanding of Scripture and to the process of penetrating beyond later interpretations to attempt to recapture the original meaning of the text (what we today call exegesis). The ongoing influence of the tradition of Enlightenment Deism has been enhanced by major modern developments in physics and cosmology.
• 20th century (and beyond) in brief – Historical-critical exegesis (HCE) has gradually come into its own and made many contributions toward understanding Scripture in its historical and cultural context. The methods of HCE have been used by scholars of different persuasions, including devout evangelical Christians, in order to do solid, scholarly work, and these contributions to understanding Scripture are no longer so widely regarded as radical. During the 20th century, many other influences have been brought to bear on Biblical studies. These include the subjective and ahistorical existentialism movement of early and mid-century which heavily influenced NT scholarship through Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and others. The empiricist philosophy of logical positivism and kindred ideas have unfortunately, through a resulting stilted, narrow naturalistic historicism (not to be confused with the 'historicist' prophetic hermeneutic) also continued to hamper the open thinking of some scholars. Likewise, in the hermeneutics of som some conservative and/or evangelical scholars, theological models can sometimes overwhelm exegesis and open conclusions. Other later developments include literary deconstruction (in the tradition of Jacques Derrida) which contributed to the rise of anti-objective post-modern thought. The potential long-term of effect of postmodernism on Biblical studies is yet to be fully seen. However, Biblical studies and historical exegesis have been greatly advanced by the rapid rise of Near Eastern studies and Biblical archeology before and since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in Qumran (1948). Biblical studies have now been further enriched by cultural anthropology, psychological approaches, and a growing appreciation of the literary nature of Scripture.

Historical-critical exegesis seeks the following basic goals which are of course never fully achieved (Barr, 1993; adapted after citation in Krentz, 1975):

• (1) Determination of the text – comparative textual analysis, critical consensus editions of all available manuscripts and variant readings.
• (2) Ascertaining the literary (/oral) form of the passage – literary criticism, form criticism, etc. This includes giving due weight to the absence of elements which have often traditionally been read into the text eisegetically. This also involves not only noting similarities but also differences between different Biblical texts (in wording and in thought and form).
• (3) Recovering the contemporary historical / life situation (Sitz im Leben) of the text – the contemporary life setting in a particular Biblical epoch as determined through chronology, archaeology, studies in contemporary culture and geography, etc.
• (4) Meaning of the words and idiom for original author and listener-reader – comparative contemporary linguistics, philology, and literature; contemporary cultural world of meaning and ideas.
• (5) Understanding the passage in its total context and in the background in which it emerged – contemporary historical events and movements, literary and traditional sources, contemporary cultural world of meaning and ideas, concerns of the original author and audience, editorial redaction, etc. It means also understanding the differential placement of stories and pericopes based on the author's own theological and rhetorical intentions.

In brief the methods of history may be summarized as collect, evaluate, relate-correlate, and narrate-communicate (Krentz, 1975):

• A. Collect – available historical sources and witnesses to an era or event
• Remains – tangible remnants or relics of the past, artefacts intended for immediate use
• Records – materials consciously produced to inform or shape contemporary or future views
• B. Evaluate (interrogate) – Dating and critical evaluation of significant sources, (especially inadvertent witnesses or nonintentional sources yielding more or other information than intended), for their
• Authenticity – the objectivity, veracity, and credibility of witnesses, their internal consistency, emotional/rhetorical levels, bias/prejudice, ability to communicate, intelligibility, possible motivations and viewpoints, etc.
• Integrity – the degree to which remains and records of the past have come down to us unimpaired and uncorrupted by transmission, ascertained levels of anachronism and subsequent intrusions and changes over intervening time, etc.
• C. Relate-correlate – Comparative analysis of contemporary and antecedent sources looking for convergences and divergences in form, event, thought, and ideals, etc.
• D. Narrate-communicate – "What happened?" "Why?" Reconstructing, describing, and interpreting the past in narrative form, which clearly states what is known, unknown, and the possible explanations. Historical narrative recognizes that explanation is imposed and not inherent in the data, and so must remain tentative, subject to revision.

• All behavior, beliefs, and phenomena in a particular culture must be validly understood on the basis of the standards, values, and world-view of that culture (and time), not judged by the standards or beliefs of another culture (or time).

In short, such a perspective allows the historian or Bible scholar to operate freely within the cultural, ontological, or moral world-view of the original author and audience without making anachronistic moral, theological, or scientific judgments.

The question of the NT use of the OT. Richard Longenecker in the conclusion to his book, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (1999), succinctly summarizes the issue:

Covenant. In the OT 'covenant' [beriyth = in the sense of cutting, a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh); from a root, to select] is often expressed in the form of the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty (suzerain-vassal) treaty, of which there are surviving references from the 3rd millenium BCE (3000-2000 BCE), actual treaty texts of the New Hittite Empire in 'full classic form' from the mid-2nd millenium BCE (Hattusa and also Ugarit, ~1500 BCE), and also the Sefira Aramaic inscriptions and Assyrian treaties of Esarhaddon in the first half of the 1st millenium BCE (1000-500 BCE; Kline, 1963). This type of covenant was a treaty between a powerful monarch-empire or "great king" (suzerain) and a client king-state (vassal). It included a summary litany of the benevolent deeds of the suzerain the treaty enforcer, a litany of benefits to the vassal in protection and favor within the suzerain's hegemony, the stipulations binding on suzerain and vassal, and sanctions of blessings or curses for obedience or disobedience (Anderson, 1993). Also there could be a litany of grievances against the vassal who had departed from the covenant, resulting in a covenant lawsuit-judgment and even in a covenant war declaration. This could include a listing of the unrequited benevolent deeds of the suzerain. If the vassal had grievances against the suzerain, these appear in a covenant litigation-appeal to the suzerain to redress the grievances, again listing the former benevolent deeds of the suzerain, and lamenting their departure. The powerful suzerain always retained the option of simply being merciful or gracious to the vassal. The Levitic Covenant 'atonement' system was a particularist development of a general cultural form of the suzerainty treaty. The use of the treaty form for YAHWEH's covenants with Israel was in harmony with the general cultural world-view of the 2nd and 1st millenia BCE when regional and national deities were also in essence regarded as suzerains with rival suzerainties (cf. Armstrong, 1993).

The suzerain-vassal covenant treaty form is evident not only in the Decalogue (Exod. 20 = Deut. 5) but also in the whole book of Deuteronomy, and in other places such as Joshua 24, the 'Song of Moses' (Deut. 32), and Daniel's Covenant lawsuit (Dan. 9). We believe that it recurs many times throughout the literature and poetry of the OT. The ancient suzerain-vassal treaty form is indispensible in understanding the Levitic Covenant paradigm used by the prophets as the framework to portray God's ultimate victory and in understanding the Levitical sanctuary 'atonement' system. We suggest that understanding this is essential to replacing the inadequate, post-biblical and linear-deterministic preterist, futurist, and historicist schools of interpretation.

The suzerain-vassal covenant treaty form (mid-2nd millenium BCE) included the following broad elements which were imported and adapted into the YAHWEH covenants with Israel (adapted from Kline, 1963):

• I. Identificatory preamble – identification of suzerain and vassal in 'I-thou' formulation – could include treaty mediator-testator (sometimes = suzerain himself & his successors)
• Suzerain opened with "These are the words of ...." – cf. opening of Ten Commandments, of Deuteronomy, and the "Thus says YAHWEH" formula of the prophets
• (Sometimes an opening invocation of Covenant witnesses; e.g., to the heavens and the earth, see texts under IV below)
• II. Historical recital (prologue) – Recital of past relations between suzerain & vassal
• Suzerain's Litany of benevolent deeds & accomplishments
• benefits derived for the vassal (to inspire confidence and gratitude)
• also can include litany or record of rebellion by the ungrateful vassal
• III. Covenant / Treaty stipulations – commandments often in apodictic form 'thou shalt not'
• Exclusive fealty to the suzerain – e.g., One God, no other gods permitted in Israel (Ex. 20:1-7)
• Suzerain's dynastic seal / sign – e.g., Sabbath, 'sign of the Covenant' (Ex. 31:13-17; 20:8-11 ~ Deut. 5:12-15)
• Specific commandments – "thou shalt not..., remember..., honor..."
• IV. Covenant / Treaty sacrificial ratification & sanctions – Blessings vs. curses
• Covenant Oath & witnesses: Invocation of the suzerain's gods (& vassal's gods in Hittite) – Only one God in Israel hence apostrophic oath of an appeal to the heavens and earth as witnesses (Deut. 4:26; 30:19; 31:28; 32:1; cf. Ps. 19; Dan. 12; Rev. 11)
• Sacrificial ratification in 'cutting' a covenant & implied self-maledictory oath (Gen. 15, Ex. 24)
• Benedictions, promisory benefits – protection and war victory over the enemies of the vassal, because the vassal's enemies become the suzerain's enemies
• Maledictions-imprecations, penal sanctions
• V. Covenant / Treaty perpetuity – re-ratification & succession to future generations
• Duplicate tablet copies for suzerain & vassal – 2 tablets of stone of Covenant / testimony
• One tablet placed in suzerain's sanctuary & other in vassal's sanctuary – in Israel there was only one sanctuary of 'meeting' or 'assembly' for YAHWEH and Israel, so both tablets placed there
• Tablet placed "under (the feet of)" the suzerain's god – Tablets under the Mercy Seat in the Ark of the Covenant of YAHWEH (Ex. 25:22) which also was the 'place of atonement' (Lev. 16)
• Dynastic mediator-testator's death & testament – Moses' testament and death (Num. 27:12-14; Deut. 33-34), Jacob's testament and death (Gen. 49); Christ's testament and death (Heb. 9-10).
• Dynastic succession – Moses-Joshua succession (Deut.-Josh.); Christ as dynastic Son of David (Ps. 110; Mark 12:35-37 = Matt. 22:41-46 = Luke 20:41-44), as perpetual dynastic Melchizedeq king-high priest (Ps. 110; Hebrews), as dynastic Son of man (Ps. 80; Dan. 7; the 4 gospels).
• Suzerain's royal land grant to vassal – land of Caanan for Israel (Pentateuch), 'New Jerusalem' and the 'new heaven and new earth' (Isaiah 66; II Peter; Revelation; etc.).
• Repetition, renewal and periodic public reading of the covenant / treaty – Deut. 5:6-21; 31:9-31; cf. Ezra.

Covenant lawsuits whether suzerain litigations or vassal litigation-appeals would use similar patterns of (i) identificatory preamble, (ii) historical recital, (iii) covenant stipulations, (iv) fulfillment of covenant sanctions, and (v) promise of / appeal for covenant perpetuity or continuity. It should be remembered that since the suzerain-vassal relation was covenantal rather than simply legal, such litigations are often found in wartime settings or even as what we would call 'declarations of war.' One wonderful example of a suzerain litigation is Ezekiel 16. An excellent example of a vassal litigation is Daniel's prayer (Dan. 9:1-19). (It is interesting to note that YAHWEH the great Suzerain's immediate Covenant verdict in Dan. 9:20-27 contains the explicit and only scriptural explanation of the Covenant vision of Daniel 8:1-14). Interestingly many of the Covenant litigations in the OT end with the concept of 'atonement.' The significance of this is overwhelming – to this we shall return.

The ratification of God's Covenant with Abram in Genesis 15 has the essential features of the suzerainty treaty including even a covenant lawsuit and judgment.

The eyes and ears of YAHWEH. After noting the suzerain-vassal covenant motif, one is better prepared to study the concept of 'atonement' in the OT by noting how frequently vivid anthropomorphism is utilized first in the early descriptions of YAHWEH, the God of heaven, in the so-called 'Yahwist' tradition (attributed to a source / tradition in the 10th-9th centuries BCE according to the venerable but ever-beleaguered 'documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch'; Clines, 1993; Coogan, 1993; Kikawada & Quinn, 1985). YAHWEH appears apparently anachronistically in Genesis (cf. Ex. 3:3; II Sam. 6:2) and is variously described as walking, hearing, looking with curiosity, coming down to see and investigate whether things are as He heard them to be, regretfully changing His mind, being angered at heart, and smelling a 'soothing fragrance' which encourages His Covenant favor. Doubtless from even before the time of Julius Wellhausen (19th to early 20th centuries), these anthropomorphisms seemed to be charming, quaint reminders of an archaic view of the Deity before concepts of transcendance had securely developed.

However what has not been noticed as clearly is the use of these sensory anthropomorphisms as sophisticated indicators of the judicial investigatory role of God as judge and Covenant enforcer of justice in the world. When YAHWEH God created all the animals and birds to assuage Man's primal loneliness, and brought them to Man "to see what he would call them" (Gen. 2:18-20), He was delegating creative authority to Man as a Covenant client ruler (vassal). A judicial capacity as wronged Covenant suzerain is evident when after the sin of the first humans, YAHWEH is heard "walking up and down in the garden in the cool of the day" and calling out to Man, "Where are you?... Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree...?" (Gen. 3:8-11). YAHWEH provided clothing from the skins of slain animals to cover their newly-discovered nakedness (Gen. 3:21). After Cain murdered Abel, YAHWEH investigates by asking Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?.... What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me from the ground" and then passes sentence of crop failure and banishment (Gen. 4:10-12).

After the 'daughters of men' bore 'giants' to the 'sons of God,' YAHWEH "saw that the evil of man was great on the earth" and his thoughts were evil. Then YAHWEH "repented that He had made man on the earth, and [was] angered in His heart;" He resolved to destroy man, but "Noah found grace in the eyes of YAHWEH" (Gen. 6:1-8). The same judicial anthropomorphism is not limited to the so-called Yahwist tradition, because in the Elohist tradition (though to appear ca. 9th-8th centuries BCE) "God ['Elohim] saw the earth, and look! the earth was filled with violence." God tells Noah that "the end of all flesh has come up before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them" and instructs him to make an ark against the coming flood, and promises to establish His Covenant with Noah (Gen. 6:12-22). YAHWEH then calls Noah, his household, and the animals into the ark "because you I have seen righteous before Me in this generation" (Gen. 7:1).

After the flood, Noah builds an altar and sacrifices some of every clean animal and bird. In the so-called Yahwist version of the post-flood Covenant, "YAHWEH smelled a soothing fragrance" and resolves within Himself to never again "curse the ground for the sake of man because the thought of man's heart is evil from his youth" and never again to destroy every living thing but rather decrees that "as long as the earth remains" perpetual "seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8:20-22). In the so-called Elohist version of the post-flood Covenant blessing God ['Elohim] makes a Covenant with men and "every living creature" that "all flesh shall not be cut off again by the waters of the flood...for everlasting generations" and commands that all "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen. 9:1-17). In this Covenant, God stipulates that the "fear and dread" of humans will rest on every living thing and they will be food for man, only "you shall not eat flesh in its life, its blood." God institutes a Covenant sign: "My bow I have set in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of a Covenant between Me and the earth. And when I shall gather the clouds on the earth, then shall be seen the bow in the clouds, and I will remember My Covenant which is between Me and you and every living soul of all flesh; and shall not become again the waters for flooding to destroy all flesh" (vs. 13-15). He repeats again, "And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it to remember the everlasting Covenant between God and every living soul of all flesh which is on the earth" (v. 16). It is the sight of the rainbow, that is, God's seeing it which reminds Him of His Covenant. This is the first mention of the concept of an "everlasting Covenant" in the OT.

Two other specific examples in Genesis of the Covenant judicial sensory anthropomorphism of God may be found in the stories of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11) and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18). In the first, "YAHWEH came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men built" (11:5). In the second story, YAHWEH says "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very heavy. I will go down and see if they have at all done according to the cry coming to Me, and if not, I will know" (18:20-21). Apparently because of Abraham's pleading, God agrees to go and see if He 'find' righteous people in Sodom so He can spare it.

The notion of 'atonement' is inseparable from God's Covenant-judicial eyes, ears, and nose. Nearly 40 times God is described as being propitiated by the smell of a "soothing fragrance" and numerous times He judicially acts based on what comes up into His eyes and ears.

Primordial Covenant. In the divine sensory anthropomorphism of the creation-flood cycle we see the unmistakable evidences of the Near Eastern suzerainty covenant / treaty form. In the so-called Elohist creation account of Genesis 1-2:3, we see a Covenant 'conquest' (echoing the language but not the ontology of ancient Near Eastern creation myths) where 'Elohim the great Suzerain establishes His hegemony of light, order, and life against the primal forces of lifeless chaos and darkness, and then looks and sees everything He did very good, and declares it thus. He grants subrulership of His creation suzerainty to Adam (male and female) as His client king-state (vassal). The sanctified seventh day is a sign of this creation suzerainty treaty when "He finished all his works which he created and made" (Gen. 2:1-3). The destruction of earth in the flood (Gen. 6-9) is evidently a Covenant desolation where we see the undoing of the client state and ultimately the unraveling of the creation hegemony itself as earth returns temporarily to lifeless chaos and darkness (cf. Isa. 13; 34).

'Atonement' – kaphair "to cover". It is in this overall context of YAHWEH's judicial sensory anthropomorphism that we see the Hebrew concept of 'atonement' arise. The Yahwist anthropomorphism of the Deity as a Near Eastern suzerain king hearing, seeing, smelling, looking to find out, and finding pleasure or displeasure based on what He learns all combine into a very vivid motif of the sensory perceptions of YAHWEH being the means of His Covenant judicial inquiry. This religious-cultural understanding of God (pre-Monarchic to post-Exilic period, 1500-200 BCE) seems to be the historical setting for the significance of the Hebrew word kaphair in Israel.

This is missed by the customary English mistranslation of kaphair as 'atonement' (at-one-ment) when the word means rather "to cover" or "to make covering" in a concrete judicial sense and "to expiate" or "to make expiation" in a figurative judicial sense. The meaning of the root verb kaphair is used in a concrete, non-judicial sense in Genesis 6:14 to describe Noah's 'covering' the inside and outside of the ark with kopher (pitch, covering), the noun form of kaphair.

Why a 'covering'? 'Covering' from whose eyes? The purpose of the motif of a 'atonement-covering' has roots in the suzerainty covenant-treaty judicial background. The eyes of the great king or suzerain represented judicial sharpsightedness, particularly when many of the great kings of the 3rd to 2nd millenia BCE were regarded as divine incarnations. "A king who sits on the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes" (Prov. 20:8). Nearly 60 times in the OT, there occurs the repeated motif of finding or being granted "grace," "mercy," or "favor"  "in the eyes" or "in the sight" of a superior whether God or a king or a slavemaster. The 'atonement-covering' was for the eyes of YAHWEH God of the Covenant. The 'covering' was a merciful shield from the searching justice of the eyes of the great Suzerain. The Giver of the great righteous Covenant Law is YAHWEH to whom it was said, "(You are) purer of eyes than to view evil, and You are not able to look upon vexation" (Hab. 1:13). In Psalm 10, the psalmist in imprecatory prayer cries out: "Arise, O YAHWEH, O God ['El]! Lift up Your hand; do not forget the lowly. Why does the wicked despise God?.... You have seen, for You take note of mischief and vexation, to repay by Your hand.... You are the Helper of the orphan. Break the arm of the wicked and evil one; search out his wickedness (until) You find none" (Ps. 10:12-15). "If You will keep [track] of iniquities, O YAH, O Lord, who shall stand? But with You (is) forgiveness, that You may be feared. I wait (for) YAHWEH..." (Ps. 130:3-5; possibly a Jubilee Day of Atonement prayer).

'Atonement' was to withdraw evil from God's sight, either through 'covering' and/or complete destruction, in order to turn aside His righteous indignation. The whole sanctuary service was remove sin from the sight of YAHWEH and His Covenant. Sacrifices were to 'atone-cover' on behalf of human nakedness and deficiency and sin from the unblinking gaze of God's searching justice, so that God could have merciful and keep Covenant with humans. The 'covering' was mercifully granted by the great Suzerain for his vassals. The 'atoning-covering' blood, the ever burning and totally consumed burnt offerings leaving nothing but ash, the perishing of the scapegoat in the wilderness, and the burning of sacrificial remains outside the camp, and the Jubilee desolation of land where iniquity had reigned – all spoke of justice being done before the eyes, ears, and nose of God. A bribe (kopher) could also be used to corrupt a ruler so 'cover' his eyes from doing justice.

So how is kaphair, 'to cover,' used in the OT?

Kaphair is used 35 times in the Piel preterite tense (active voice) mostly to describe the result of a Levitical sacrifice. The sinner would bring the sacrificial animal to be killed, the priest would apply the blood in various ways, burn the fat, and 'atone-cover' on behalf of the person and his or her sin would be forgiven. The forgiveness of sin or remission for uncleanness was always consequent to the fact that the sacrifice had 'atoned-covered' in behalf of the individual or congregation, house, or land burdened with sin or deficiency. The Piel preterite of kaphair appears in the 'song of Moses' which is actually YAHWEH's suzerain Covenant lawsuit and declaration of war ending with "Rejoice O nations of His people: for He will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will atone-cover [kaphair] on behalf of his land and his people" (Deut. 32:43).

Kaphair is used 34 times in the Piel infinitive tense mostly to describe how the priests were to make an 'atonement-covering' for the sins of Israel and individuals and for their souls in the sanctuary sacrificial rituals. By eating pieces of the "most holy" sin offering in the "holy place" the priests were to be substitutionary "bear[ers] of the iniquity of the assembly to atone-cover [kaphair] for them before YAHWEH" (Lev. 10:17). In the oracle of 2nd Isaiah against 'the daughter of Babylon' YAHWEH proclaims in couplet parallelism how "evil shall come upon you; you shall not know its origin; mischief shall fall upon you, and you shall not be able to atone-cover [kaphair] [from] it" (Isa. 47:11). Babylon will not be able to propitiate her coming day of calamity. Most famously, the Piel infinitive of kaphair appears in Daniel 9:24 where Gabriel proclaims to Daniel in Messianic Covenant Jubilee Day of Atonement terms that "70 weeks are decreed... to make atonement-covering for iniquity...."

Kaphair appears a few times in the Piel imperative tense sometimes in Covenant prayers. One significant case involved what to do when an anonymously murdered person was found. The distance would be measured to the nearest city. The 'elders of the city' were to bring a never-yoked heifer down to an 'ever-flowing stream' which is 'neither plowed nor sown' with 'the priests, the sons of Levi' and there break her neck. The elders would wash their hands in the stream praying, "'Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen (it). Atone-cover [kaphair] (for) Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, O YAHWEH; and do not put innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.' And the blood shall be atoned-covered (for) them [kaphair – Nithpael future] . And you shall put away the innocent blood from among you, for you shall do that which is right in the eyes of YAHWEH" (Deut. 21:1-9). Note that the atonement-covering is made so that Israel's actions may be right in the eyes of YAHWEH.

Kaphair is used 24 times in the Piel future tense mostly to describe how the priest shall sacrificially make an 'atonement-covering' for the sons of Israel, for the tabernacle, the altar, and sanctuary, and so on. An almost archetypal and etiological appearance of Piel future kaphair is found in the cadenced fokloric story of Jacob the eponymous ancestor of Israel (Alter, 1996) when he was returning from exile and preparing to meet his estranged and angered brother Esau (whom he had cheated of the birthright years before) now marching against him with an armed band (Gen. 32). Jacob sends before him several paced droves of animals as gifts to Esau, with instructions to say, "'Look! your servant Jacob (is) behind us!' for he [Jacob] said, 'I will cover [kaphair] his face by the present, the one going before me, and afterward I will see his face – perhaps he will accept my face" (Gen. 32:20). After sending his gifts and encampments over the Jabbok, Jacob remained alone that night where a Night-Stranger wrestled with him "until the rise of the dawn" (Gen. 32:26). The Night-Stranger who apparently could not get the better of Jacob in the struggle, with a mere touch mysteriously dislocated Jacob's hip, and said, "Send Me away for the dawn has arisen." But Jacob held on to Him begging to be blessed, and he was blessed with a new name "Isra'El, because you have contended with God ['Elohim] and with men ['enoshim] and have prevailed" (Gen. 32:28). However the Night-Stranger declined both to give His own name or to remain long enough for His own face to be seen as dawn twilight gave way to the coming morning light. Jacob named the place "Peni'El, because I saw God ['Elohim] face to face and my life is delivered" (Gen. 32:30). Jacob limping crossed over Penuel as the sun arose, to go and see his brother's face and to be reconciled with him (Gen. 33). Although the Night-Stranger's name and face had been covered, Esau did accept Jacob face to face in brotherly reconciliation. Through the epiphanic manifestation of the mysteriously anonymous Night-Stranger, an atonement-covering had been made for Jacob's great sin both before God and Esau. Jacob realized apparently that the Night Stranger was God (v30; cf. Hos. 12:2-6). Also comparable are the cases of YAHWEH disguised as a shepherd / tiller and then pierced as a false prophet by father and mother (Zech. 12-13), and the Lion of Judah disguised as a Lamb 'having been slain' (Rev. 4-5).

The Piel future tense of kaphair was also used to describe an incident when a retributive act "turned away YAHWEH's wrath from Israel." As the encampment of Israel was in Shittim, "the people begain to fornicate with the daughters of Moah. And they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed to their gods. And Israel was joined to Ba'al-peor" (Num. 25:1-4) so that "the anger of YAHWEH burned against Israel" (v. 4). YAHWEH instructed Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them before YAHWEH, before the sun, that the fierce anger of YAHWEH may be turned away from Israel" (v. 4). Moses told each of the "judges of Israel" to kill all "his men" who had "joined to Ba'al-peor" resulting in a "plague" in which 24,000 died (vs. 5, 9). Even as "the plague" raged and Moses and all Israel were weeping at the door of the "Tent of meeting [mo'ed]," an Israelite man brought a Midianite women into his tent in front of everyone. Seeing this, Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the high priest, seized a javelin, ran into the tent after them, and impaled and killed them both (vs. 7-8). "The plague" stopped (v. 9). YAHWEH took this occasion to make a "covenant of peace" with Phineas and his posterity, complete with identificatory preamble, historical recital, covenant-treaty obligation, sacrifice 'atonement-covering' ratification, and perpetual succession:

The Piel future tense of kaphair is used in a story about the solution to an agrarian community crisis (II Sam. 21). In David's time, there were 3 consecutive years of famine. David "sought the face of YAHWEH" to find out why (v1). YAHWEH replied: "(It is) because of Saul and because of (his) house of bloodshed, because he put to death the Gibeonites" who were "the remnant of the Amorites" (v2) to whom the sons of Israel had sworn protection (Josh. 9). Saul's genocidal scheme had plotted their elimination and had resulted in many of them being killed (v5). David inquired of the Gibeonites: "What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement-covering [kaphair] that you (may) bless the inheritance of YAHWEH?" (v3). The Gibeonites replied that they wanted neither gold nor silver from Saul's house and desired that "no man be put to death for us in Israel" (v4). Instead they requested 7 of the sons of Saul to be handed over "and we will expose [yaqa' – sever, separate, abandon] them to YAHWEH in Gibeah" (v6). "They exposed them in the mountain before YAHWEH, and the seven fell together" apparently "executed" by YAHWEH "in the first (days) in the beginning of the barley harvest" (v9). They were mourned by "Rizpah the daughter of Aiah" a lady of the family, and buried on the orders of David (v10-14). "Afterward God heard prayer for the land" (v14).

Kaphair furthermore appears a couple times in the Pual preterite tense. In one of these, kaphair is also used in a retributive setting in the 'oracle against the drunkards of Ephraim' (Isa. 28:15-22) where YAHWEH the great Suzerain annuls a covenant of disloyalty through 'atonement-covering', re-establishes and ratifies His Covenant with Zion, and rises up in a judicial declaration of war:
 

Kaphair also appears a few times in the Pual future tense. One of them is from Isaiah's 'temple of YAHWEH' vision (739 BCE) in which one of the seraphim took a live coal from the altar and touched Isaiah's lips saying, "See, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is removed and your sin is covered [kaphair]" (Isa. 6:7). The Pual future of kaphair also is seen together with its noun form, kopher, in the law about the city of refuge for the manslayer (Num. 35). Someone guilty of manslaughter could flee to a designated city of refuge for trial, and there remain "until the death of the high priest, and after the death of the high priest shall the manslayer return to the land [of] his possession" (Num. 35:28). The murderer could flee there also, but would be put to death upon trial and conviction (v. 30). "And you shall take no atonement-covering [kopher] for the life of a murderer who (is) condemned to death, for he shall surely be executed" (v. 31). Fascinatingly there could be no atonement taken either for the life of manslayer outside of the 'city of his refuge' until the high priest's death. Here is another clear case of a substitutionary / tachat atonement-covering: "And you shall take no atonement-covering [kopher] (for him) to flee to the city of his refuge, to return to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest" (v. 32). Apparently, the high priest as cultic 'mediator of the Covenant' who made the yearly atonement-covering on the Day of Atonement served as substitute and proxy for the life of the manslayer. After the priest's death the deed of the manslayer was considered to be atoned for-covered. The rationale for this judicial arrangement lay in the suzerainty Covenant between YAHWEH (suzerain) and Israel (vassal): "And for the land (there is) no atonement-covering [kaphair] for the blood which is shed in it, other than the blood of him who sheds it; and you shall not defile [tameh] the land in which you are living, [in] which I dwell in the midst, for I (am) YAHWEH, dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel" (Num. 35:34-35).

The withholding of the possibility of atonement-covering before YAHWEH could be used as part of a Covenant oath of judgment for rebellion against His suzerainty. In the 'oracle against the house of Eli,' YAHWEH swears a Covenant-treaty oath before Samuel the boy prophet in Shiloh: "....In that day I will rise up to establish [qum] to Eli all that I have spoken to his house, beginning and end. And I declare to him that I am judging his house forever, for the iniquity which he has known, for his sons have been making themselves vile, and he has not restrained them; and therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of the house of Eli shall not be 'covered' by sacrifice or by offering forever [kaphair – Nithpael preterite]" (I Sam. 3:12-14).

The sacrifices and offerings were both Covenant re-ratifications by blood (cf. Gen. 15) and in the case of the sin offerings and trespass offerings, they were 'atonement-coverings' for the guilt and inadequacy of the vassal, the sons of Israel. Blood as the carrier of life was sacred and central for 'atonement' in the Levitic Covenant system and eating it was forbidden: "And any man of the house of Israel or of the alien who is staying in your midst, who eats any blood, I will set My face against the person that eats blood, and I will cut him off from the midst of his people. For the life of the flesh (is) in the blood, and I have given it to you  on the altar, to atone-cover [kaphair] for your souls [nephesh]; for it is the blood which atones-covers for the soul" (Lev. 17:10-11). The spilled blood of the sacrifices substituted on behalf of the guilty vassal's blood which was spared and not spilled. The Levitic sacrifices of atonement-covering themselves followed the form of a Near Eastern suzerainty covenant-treaty and served as a renewed Covenant confirmation:

• (i) identificatory preamble = Specification of the sanctuary / altar of God (Suzerain) and the repenting son of Israel who is the sinner (vassal) bringing the sin offering, trespass offering (lamb/goat/dove), etc.
• (ii) historical recital = sinner's (vassal's) confession of guilt,
• (iii) covenant stipulations = the commandment or statute violated,
• (iv) fulfillment of covenant sanctions & re-ratification = blood of the sacrifice 'atoning-covering' in place of, or on behalf of the sinner's (vassal's) blood,
• (v) covenant perpetuity = the sin, transgression, trespass of the sinner (vassal) is forgiven (by the Suzerain). The forgiven sinner (vassal) then lives instead of the sacrifice and does not die.

Yom hakippurim. The most detailed explanation of 'atonement-covering' in the OT is in the chiastic center of the Pentateuch, the statutes for the Day of Atonement[s] in Leviticus 16. Here as elsewhere the 'atonement-covering' concept combines the objective substitution and retribution motifs together.
 

The Covenant War 'Song of Moses'. One of the most exact examples of the Near Eastern suzerain covenant-treaty form within Levitic Covenant literature is the 'Song of Moses' (Deut. 32). This poem combines elements of the treaty form, a declaration of covenant war, and the explicit substitutionary-retributive nature of the OT concept of atonement-covering.
 

Another prophetic oracle that exhibits the Covenant / treaty form in a Covenant declaration of war, the concept of atonement-covering, and Covenant desolation is found in Isa. 34-35. This passage is heavily cited in Revelation.

The book of Daniel in its central Hebrew Covenant sections places the 'atonement-covering' concept within the Jubilee Day of Atonement framework of the Levitic Covenant (Greer, 2001a, 2002). The 'promised land' of Israel was to keep 'sabbaths of years' or 'weeks of years' which meant having 6 years of harvest and a 7th year of Sabbath rest (Lev. 25). After 7 'Sabbaths of years' (49 years), Jubilee redemption and release from debt bondage, cancellation of debt, and restoration of lost inheritance, were to be proclaimed on the 10th day of the 7th month, the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16; 25). Failure to keep the land's Sabbaths would result in Sabbatical Covenant desolation, but ultimate restoration and redemption would occur upon repentance (Lev. 26). This Covenant framework forms a backdrop to Daniel set as it is in the Babylonian captivity (6th-5th centuries BCE).

The recurring process motif throughout Daniel in both the narrative and visionary sections is (i) abomination (ii) judgment and (iii) kingdom (Greer, 2001a). The Aramaic visionary-interpretational units of Daniel 2 and 7 focus on the kingdoms of the nations (goyim) using a metal image and culticly unclean beasts, while the Hebrew single visionary-interpretational unit of Daniel 8-12 centers on the experiences and the standpoint of the Covenant people Israel, using culticly clean and sacrificial animals. The (Covenant) vision of 8:1-14 is explained progressively in 8:15-25, 9:23-27, and ch. 10-12. It has been argued (Ford, 1996), correctly we believe, that 8:14 is the symbolic climax of the book and that the rest is explicatory of the vision of 8:1-14. All the events described in this vision are interpreted in the Dan. 9 oracle as being completed during the '70 weeks' or 'sevens.' Like the other visionary-interpretational units, Daniel 9 stretches from Daniel's time to the establishment of the kingdom of the God of heaven.

It should not escape our notice as we examine Levitic Covenant language in Daniel 8-9 that the lawsuit-verdict of Daniel 9 is in the form of the Near Eastern suzerainty covenant-treaty.
 

The Covenant-treaty lawsuit and judgment of Daniel 9 contains Gabriel's explanation of the previously unexplained details of the Covenant vision of Daniel 8:1-14. This vision contains the central question and its answer which together make the Covenant heart and climax of the entire book of Daniel. Together Daniel 8-9 indicate a remarkable sequence where the Covenant-treaty testament of the Suzerain is ratified by the violent death of the Suzerain's Testator at the very time and in the very event in which Suzerain's sanctuary containing the Covenant-treaty is attacked, violated and cast down by the enemies of the Suzerain. Daniel 8-9 also exhibits the combined "vision" and "Covenant" equivalence motif found in Gen. 15, Isa. 28, Hab. 2, and alluded to in Rom. 1.

Numerous references throughout OT literature indicate that the adverbial interrogative "Until when....?" [ad ma'atiy] does not merely imply an end point but indicates (1) starting point, (2) specific process, (3) duration, and (4) end point (cf. Exod. 10:4, 7; I Sam. 1:14; II Sam. 2:26; Ps. 4:2; 94:3; and many others). Daniel 8:13-14 are no exception. All four of the above are explicit within these very verses. And between Daniel 8 and 9, every feature of the Covenant vision (8:1-14) is explained within the context of the '70 sevens' (9:23-27). Daniel 10-12 simply furthers the interpretation of the vision (8:1-14) in the context of the '70 sevens' (9:23-27). Nowhere does an exegesis of this vision indicate that a time for "Daniel's people, holy city, and holy mountain" is 'cut off' from a longer time period with the remainder allotted to another Covenant people and holy city. On the contrary, the Covenant is "cut" through a Jubilee 'weeks' of years oracle in perpetual confirmation, atonement-covering, redemption, and restoration for "Daniel's people, holy city, and holy mountain" and for no one else (Dan. 8:14; 9:16-19, 23-27; 10:1, 14; 11:16, 28-32, 45; 12:1-3, 7, 11-13). The future of the very Covenant people Israel, the sanctuary, Jerusalem, and the glorious holy mountain Mt. Zion which Daniel prayed about in his Covenant Litigation prayer (Daniel 9:1-22) are central in God's full Covenant Judgment answer and explanation (Daniel 9:23-12:13). There is nothing even remotely 'dispensational' in the book of Daniel anymore than in any of the other OT prophets.

With Cottrell (2002), we note that there is no explicit linguistic connection between nitz^edaq in Daniel 8:14 and taher in Leviticus 16. However, we must disagree that Dan. 8:14 in its context has no reference to the Day of Atonement, thus implying atonement-covering and judgment. Let us summarize some rather surprising and we believe not coincidental parallels in Covenant imagery between Jubilee / Day of Atonement of Leviticus 16 (25-26) and the Covenant vision and explanations of Daniel 8-12:

Suppose that far from the Day of Atonement being unconnected with Daniel 8:14, the Levitical Covenant / Jubilee Day of Atonement paradigm provided the very historical exegetical backdrop to the vision of Daniel 8:1-14 and its explication in chs. 8, 9, and 10-12? The Day of Atonement motif may even illuminate the riddle of the princes in Daniel 9:26-27 (Appendix 2). What if the 11QMelchizedeq fragment from Qumran is surviving historical evidence that these was recognized in the 1st century, and may well have provided the paradigm of the eschatological proclamations found in Mark 1 and underlying the whole epistle to the Hebrews and the apocalyptic outlook of the NT? In fact the close continuity between 1st century (BCE-CE) apocalyptic Judaism and 1st century (CE) Christianity and their interpretation of Scripture has often been neglected (See Appendix 3). If these suggestions are so, then a further window of understanding may be opened on Revelation.

In fact the broken 7 or 3 ½ times of Daniel 7:25 and 12:7 are carried over into Revelation as the "kairon kai kairous kai ymisy kairou" (Rev. 12:14, 'time, times, and half a time' or 3 ½ times), the 1260 days and the 42 months as a rubric for the time between Christ's 1st Advent and the end of the Gospel witness (Rev. 11-14). This '3 ½ times' may well be equivalent to and alluded to as the "short time" (oligon kairon) left to the enraged dragon when he is defeated and cast out of heaven at the accession of the Man Child (Rev. 12:5-14; JIF discussion, 13 August 2002).

Historical setting (indebted in part to Thomas, 1979). Revelation is a tightly-structured series of visions internally attributed to a certain John exiled to Patmos because of 'the testimony of Jesus' (Rev. 1). Sources in the early church held that the Apostle John was banished to the Isle of Patmos by the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE) who in his persecution of Christians made free use of exile (Thomas, 1979). Some early sources place John's exile in the 14th year of Domitian (95 CE). Revelation is addressed to the seven Christian churches in Asia Minor each of which each show a level of individual development and characteristics. The 7 cities cited in Roman Asia were important centers arranged in a circular rout with Ephesus being nearest to the Isle of Patmos, however use of the number 7 may indicate completeness and thus also be intended to address the universal church (Sweet, 1993). Thousands of fragments of Revelation are reported to have been found on the western Anatolian peninsula in the ancient cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea indicating its wide circulation in the cities with churches addressed (MT Olsen, pers. comm. to a member of JIF). In chs. 1-3 and 22, Revelation contains elements similar to other NT epistles, proceeds in an apocalyptic literary form in the middle sections, and can be thought of as a circulating apocalyptic epistle.

Although the authorship of Revelation was disputed in later centuries, John (Rev. 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8) the apostle of Jesus was attested to be the author of Revelation in the early church (Justin Martyr, 2nd century CE in Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, ch. 81; Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, ca. 70-150 CE in Against the heresies; Irenaeus, ca. 180 CE). A number of language usage similarities link the 4th Gospel, the Epistle, and Revelation: (1) Logos is applied to Jesus Christ. (2) "the Lamb" is applied to Christ Himself, not merely as a symbol or type of Christ. (3) The usage of the term alethinos, 'that which is true,' is frequent (10 times in Revelation, 9 times in the 4th Gospel, 4 times in the Epistle, and only once in the Pauline epistles). (4) The nikos of 'he who overcomes' is frequently used in the Epistle and in Revelation. (5) The Levitic sanctuary allusion using the verb skenou 'to tabernacle' as a synonym for 'dwell' is applied to God in Christ and found only in the 4th Gospel in incarnational terms (1:14) and in Revelation (13:6; 15:5; 21:3) in Covenant fulfillment terms.

Many works have been done on the structure of the book of Revelation. The chiastic structure of the whole epistle and of its various sections have been outlined quite convincingly (one excellent example is Austin's cited in Ford, 1982, vol. 1). Revelation has also been outlined in terms of 7 parts of 7 items each following the rubric of Prologue, Epilogue bounding recapitulations of (i) introduction, (ii) progression, (iii) episode, and (iv) consummation (Erdman, 1936). Almost every outline has been unable to account for some detail.

One fascinating paradigm holds that Revelation has a septenary Sabbatical structure with 7 sections of 7 episodes / items with a recapitulatory interlude between both sections 6 and 7 and between items 6 and 7 within each section (Christoffel, 2002). Early work on this structural paradigm reveals a compelling organic completeness implying that it is fundamentally inherent in Revelation. Furthermore, with Revelation's well-documented heavy dependence on Scriptural and Covenantal allusion (Farrer, 1949; Moyise, 1995), it seems very likely that the septenary-interlude structure might have deep roots earlier in the Biblical poetic and prophetic tradition. The strength of any paradigm is its ability to make predictions. Christoffel (pers. comm.) has pointed that the imagery of the main sections of Revelation follows the imagery of the Days of Creation week (Gen. 1-2:3) with a similar series of corresponding couplets (1-4, 2-5, 3-6).

This septenary-interlude structural formula (Christoffel, 2002) has indeed been specifically powerful in predicting the underlying structure of Genesis 1 and also of Daniel 9:24-27. Kikawada & Quinn (1985) showed that the Creation-Sabbath week in Gen. 1-2 follows a pattern of (1) prologue, (2) days 1-6 in corresponding pairs (1-4, 2-5, 3-6), and (3) an epilogue of the 7th day. What they did not notice was that in Genesis 1, there is also a recapitulatory interlude between the narratives of the 6th day when Man is created and the 7th day in terms of the dominion of Man over the whole living creation (Gen. 1:26-30). Missing the interlude they did not notice that the prologue is an itemized summary of 6, followed by a recapitulatory interlude, and that the epilogue is consumational. Likewise the Covenant vision interpretation of Daniel 9:24-27 has an itemized hexameric prologue, a recapitulatory interlude, and a consummational epilogue (Greer, 2001a).
 

The septenary-interlude formula may prove to be another powerful form critical genre for the OT exegete.

The general elements of the Near Eastern suzerainty covenant / treaty are found within the individual progressive recapitulations of Revelation and in the overall structure of the epistle, as well as specific Levitical Covenant elements particularly of the Day of Atonement. The repetitive nature of Revelation is such that the different Covenant elements likely also recur within the different sections.

Understanding the historical underpinnings of the Covenant-based 'atonement-covering' motif in both its substitutionary and retributive functions helps to organically illuminate why both elements are essential to the full revelation of God's Covenant Testator – Jesus the Christ.

'Atonement' and 'covenant' are central in Revelation (late 1st century CE) with its rich allusions to the OT and to the gospels. So ultimately a careful interpretation of Revelation requires understanding the origins of the 'atonement' concept not only through the Levitic Covenant forms but also in its antecedents in the Near Eastern suzerainty covenant / treaty forms of the 3rd-2nd millenia BCE and also in the contemporary monotheist God-concepts of that remote time. For this, historical-critical exegesis may not be safely neglected.

Evidence is gradually accumulating that a Levitical Covenant paradigm was foundational to all the OT prophets, and strongly undergirded the NT. By this we suggest that the prophets, including Daniel, worked in a conditional Levitical Covenantal paradigm rather than from a western, linear-deterministic time paradigm such as embodied in the post-Biblical preterist, historicist, or futurist constructs (Greer, 2001a).

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Anderson BW. 1993. "Covenant." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Armstrong K. 1993. A history of God: The 4000-year quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Barr J. 1993. "History of interpretation: Modern Biblical criticism." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Bentley JH. 1993. "History of interpretation: Christian interpretation from the Middle Ages to the Reformation." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Berreman G, Bright W, Carmack R, Diaz M, Fox R, Goldschmidt W, Graburn W, Honigmann J, Labarre W, Littleton CS, Mandelbaum D, Murphy R, Norbeck E, Potter J, Salisbury R, Schwartz T, Service E, Steward J, Sturtevant W, Swartz M, Valentine C. 1971. Cultural anthropology today. Del Mar, CA: CRM Books, Communications Research Machines, Inc.

Christoffel L. 2002. "Tentative outline of the book of Revelation: A study of Structure." The Jesus Institute Forum: http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org/RevChart.html.

Cottrell RF. 2002. "The 'sanctuary doctrine' – Asset or liability?" Presented to the Association of Adventist Forums, 09 February 2002. The Jesus Institute Forum: http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org/AssetOrLiability.html.

Erdman CR. 1936. The Revelation of John. Philadelphia, PA: Publisher unknown.

Farrer AM. 1949. A rebirth of images: The making of St. John's Apocalypse. London, UK: Dacre Press.

Fitzmeyer JA. 1974. Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament. Scholar’s Press, University of Montana: Missoula, Montana.

Ford D. 1982. Crisis! A commentary on the book of Revelation. (2 vols.). Newcastle, CA: Desmond Ford Publications.

Ford D. 1996. Daniel & the coming king. Newcastle, CA: Desmond Ford Publications.

Froeliche K. 1993. "History of interpretation: Early Christian interpretation." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Funk R, Hoover R, & the Jesus Seminar. 1993. The five gospels: The search for the authentic words of Jesus. New York, NY: Polebridge Press, MacMillan Publishing Company.

Garcia Martinez F. 1996. The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English (Wilfred Watson, translator; 2nd ed.). William B. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI.

Greer L. 2001a. "Toward a Levitic-Covenantal Apocalyptic – Part I: Covenant foundations: Exegesis of the vision of Daniel 8:1-14 in outline." The Jesus Institute Forum: http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org/LAPart1.html.

Greer L. 2001b. "Toward a Levitic-Covenantal Apocalyptic – Part III: Covenant foundations: Hebrews and the Jubilee Day of Atonement." The Jesus Institute Forum: http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org/LAPart3.html.

Greer L. 2002. "Jubilee festival: Christians and the ancient sanctuary." Adventist Today. 10 (4[July-August]): 12-13. To be eventually posted on http://www.atoday.com.

Clines DJA. 1993. "Pentateuch." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Coogan MD. 1993. "J." In: BM Metzger and MD Coogan (eds.), The Oxford companion to the Bible. New York, NY / Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Kikawada IM & Quinn A. 1985. Before Abraham was: A provocative challenge to the documentary hypothesis. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Kline MG. 1963. Treaty of the great king – The covenant structure of Deuteronomy: Studies and commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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Leupold HC. 1949, 1969. Exposition of Daniel. (1949 by The Wartburg Press, Augsburg Publishing House; Reprinted in 1969 by Baker, 19th printing in 1985). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company.

Longenecker RN. 1999. Biblical exegesis in the apostolic period. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Moyise S. 1995. The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation. In: Porter SE (Exec. Ed.), Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series 115. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.

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In the beginning God

Inherent in human beings from time immemorial has been an experience of the transcendent, of something beyond and above the world of appearances and change (Armstrong, 1993). Many peoples and cultures have personified this transcendence as "God" – perhaps the most taken-for-granted concept ever. There are few if any conceptions that we (and an inumerable multitude of human beings before us) have taken as more absolute and timeless than our ideas of God. In actuality however, there may be few ideas that are more historically contingent than our ideas of God.

Under the rubric of the 'the faces of God' here we summarize scholarly work from over the years on the history of God-concepts and draw some further conclusions of our own. In this, we refer to two different notions. As has been correctly pointed out, we cannot know the history of "the ineffable reality of God itself" but can recover the history of our human conceptions of the divine (Armstrong, 1993). (1) So, the 'faces' refer to the long historical succession of God-concepts, which are entwined in the projections of our fears, our loves, and our yearnings toward the ultimate Reality. (2) On the reciprocal side, it may well be that the inception of those 'faces' or God-concepts could be unique, transcendent breakthrough events into our world of that ultimate reality – the epiphanies of the Deity.

A phylogeny of God. In modern systematic biology, a phylogeny is a nested hierarchy of lineage-descent relationships among an in-group containing taxa of putatively related organisms generated by one of several possible mathematical algorithms. Although we cannot do this with the history of God-concepts, we can chronologically summarize the history of our human God-concepts under the specific God-concept, the earliest inception (a 'transcendent insertion'?) or defining epiphany of that God-concept, and the characteristics of the Deity preserved in that given God-conception. The historical interrelationships between God-concepts can be explored. However, it is in the original  inception of God-concepts that a true epiphany or revelation of God (the 'ineffable reality' in some facet) may be found. The earliest God-oral traditions about God eventually were captured over time in the Hebrew Scriptures, and further developed in the Gospels and epistles of the NT. Historical exegesis prepares the way for our attempt to capture the intersection of God-concept inception / 'transcendent insertion' epiphanies which may form the very essence of Scripture.

The Day of Atonement counterpart between the violently cut-off "goat of YAHWEH" and the "goat for 'az'az'el" banished and left to perish non-violently (Leviticus 16) may well provide a rubric for distinguishing the competing entities of the two princes based on activity and sentence structure in Dan. 9:26-27 in the context of the Covenant vision of Dan. 8:1-14 and its Gabrielic interpretations.
 

Homily! Recognizing the tight counterpoint structure between Messiah and antichrist (as per the Covenant paradigm of Lev. 16), it becomes immediately obvious that vs. 26-27 concern the universal battle between Christ and antichrist between Cross and Advent, not mere local events like 'the stoning of Stephen,' the destruction of Jerusalem, or a localized endtime 'tribulation' scenario. The stage, the actors, and the events are far too vast. “Until the end” when “that decreed shall pour out on the desolator” is equivalent to ‘finishing the transgression and bringing in everlasting righteousness.’ It is equivalent to the breaking of the ‘dark ruler’ without hand when the sanctuary is vindicated (8:14, 25). It is equivalent to the kingdoms of earth being crushed and replaced by the growing mountain of the kingdom of God (2:44-45). It is equivalent to the Son of man receiving His kingdom when all peoples serve him and the opposing kingdoms of darkness being destroyed (7:13-14, 26). It is equivalent to the ‘king of the north’ coming to his end with none to help him when ‘Michael the prince standing for the sons of your people’ stands up (11:45-12:1).

The close continuity between 1st century (BCE-CE) Judaism and 1st century (CE) Christianity has been largely ignored, including likely fragments of Mark (7Q5, ~50 CE) and I Timothy (7Q4) found in Qumran (Thiede, 2000) and of Matthew (Magdalen papyrus) which may be as early as 60 CE (Thiede, 1995).

One very fascinating manuscript fragment contains Biblical pesher interpretation very similar to that in Hebrews. Like Hebrews, 11Q13 pulls together the elements of the 'last days,' the Jubilee Day of Atonement, atonement, judgment, vindication, redemption, and a Melchizedek king-high priest. The contemporary overlap between the writing of the Dead Sea scrolls in Qumran (150 BCE - 68 CE) and the NT (~40-95 CE) must be kept in mind.