A God So Near and Additional Exodus People

Two biblical passages help us frame a conversation about chosenness, about election, about being God's people.

Deuteronomy 4:6-8 and Amos 9:7

The passage from Deuteronomy resides within a more substantial speech by Moses to the Israelites:

You must observe them [statutes and ordinances] diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

Moses encourages the people to demonstrate their wisdom through obedience to God’s teachings. If they obey, other people will notice and proclaim them a wise nation.

However, the passage swiftly turns from focusing on the people’s obedience to concentrating on God’s relationship with Israel.

Brueggemann notes,

“The evident intention of this statement is to make a bid for obedience to the Torah. The subtext of the statement, however, is that only Israel has a God so near, and only Israel has a Torah so just; that is, only Israel can claim to be peculiarly privileged in the world of the nations. Thus what purports to be a theological affirmation of ‘only [YHWH]’ turns out to be a claim, in rather blunt ways, for ‘only Israel.’”
Walter Brueggemann, “‘Exodus’ in the Plural (Amos 9:7),” in Many Voices, One God: Being Faithful in a Pluralistic World, ed. Walter Brueggemann and George W. Stroup (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 15–34, here 18.

In this passage from Deuteronomy, we indeed have a beautiful affirmation of a God so near. It is a profoundly comforting theological assertion about God’s presence to a particular people.

Yet the declaration turns into an occasion to speak about Israel’s uniqueness as God’s people, as God’s exceptional nation. The passage offers the typical description of the relationship between God and the people of Israel: Israel is God’s people; God calls them into a relationship; they are unique and unlike the other nations and peoples of the earth because of this relationship with their God. In many ways, we are describing a covenant relationship between the God of Israel and the people of Israel.

Despite some contemporary attempts to make this relationship individualistic and private, it is communal. Deuteronomy affirms that God chooses a people, not a person. We could examine many passages within the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures related to this idea of an intimate relationship. Still, this particular one is sufficient to illustrate Israel’s general understanding of its chosenness by God.

Amos 9:7 complicates our understanding of God’s unique relationship with ancient Israel. The single verse is found within a larger judgment oracle against Israel. It is posed as a rhetorical question to the people of Israel:

Are you not like the Ethiopians to me,
O people of Israel? says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

Two remarkable assertions within the verse deserve our attention. First, the people of Israel, who are presumed to be God’s special people, have their status compared to that of the Ethiopians. It must have been a staggering and insulting comparison for a nation that considered itself unique.

We might imagine the people’s response to be: “Well, no, we are your chosen ones, O God. We are nothing like the Ethiopians!”

Yet that’s the shocking claim of the verse: the Ethiopians are like the Israelites to God.

Second, God mentions not only Israel’s exodus from Egypt but also two additional exodus events in which God delivers the Philistines and the Arameans. In other words, God has other exodus people! God delivers Israel’s enemies like God delivers Israel. It is an astounding and confounding claim.

The claim seems incompatible with notions of Israel’s chosenness. The two questions found in Amos 9:7 indeed challenge the claims of uniqueness by Israel in Deuteronomy 4. They undermine the predominant understanding of God’s relationship with Israel as being God’s only chosen people in the Hebrew Scriptures. Amos calls into question God’s unique covenant with Israel.

Deuteronomy 4 encapsulates the common understanding of the special relationship between God and Israel. God has chosen Israel to be God’s special people; other peoples have not been chosen in this same manner. This chosenness means having “a god so near.” Amos 9 undercuts this prevailing assumption with the rhetoric of multiple exodus events and depicts God as a rescuer of other peoples. God has additional exodus people. Taken together, the questions of Amos ask Israel why it feels so unique in its relationship to God.

Deuteronomy 4 and Amos 9 represent an ongoing conversation in the Hebrew Bible regarding God’s relationship with Israel.

[This post is adapted from my book, Father Abraham's Many Children.]

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

1. If you know someone who might like to read this newsletter, forward this email to them.
2. If you would like to subscribe to this newsletter, click here.