A Judgement Oracle

This semester in seminary I’m taking a class called Hebrew Prophets on the Old Testament prophetic books. One of our assignments was to write a judgment oracle for today in English but in the style of Hebrew poetry around an issue that we feel strongly about. The assignment is not to be taken as Scripture writing but to better understand the Biblical role of prophets. As while the prophetic books include prophecies, they also express concern about the here and now in expressing strong disapproval of injustice, unrighteousness. Also the professor points out that God speaks through Scripture, therefore it is not a misrepresentation to speak out against things in God’s name which clearly go against what is written in the Scriptures. I wrote my oracle against the frequent neglect for social justice for the poor, a theme which comes up often in the Bible, yet is rarely preached upon today as often as it should be. Personally I view this work mainly as a tool to draw attention to the issue and not as a prophet of doom.

1 Thus says Yahweh of hosts,
Snarling words of fury against His People

2 “Woe to you rich Christians who neglect justice,
You well-off who ignore the poor.

3 Because you have exploited the poor to live in luxury,
Surrounding yourselves with sweatshop goods.

4 You have gorged yourselves with rich foods,
But have allowed others to perish for lack of food.

5 You have guzzled gallons of fancy coffee lattes, sodas and wines,
But have neglected those in need of clean drinking water.

6 I despise your many prayers for riches,
But I am deprived of prayers on how to use wealth to bless others.

7 You were blessed to be a blessing upon others,
But selfishly you have hoarded the blessing unto yourselves.

8 Therefore, I will withdraw my blessing from you,
I will set my hand against you.

9 You have whored yourselves after consumerism and greed,
therefore, your pursuit of wealth will betray you.

10 You shall desire and shall not receive,
What you have shall not satisfy you any longer.

11 And in that day I will refuse to listen to you,
For you did not listen to the cries of the poor.

12 Therefore I will not relent,
Unless you repent!” declares Yahweh.

An Unusual Spiritual Reflection

For my one seminary class on 1 & 2 Samuel, we had a neat creative writing assignment to write a spiritual reflection from the perspective of one of the people in the narrative. I wrote mine from the perspective of a priest of Dagon from the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 4-6.

I will never forget the first time I saw Yahweh and how naive we were in our dealings with him. I was within the temple of Dagon as usual being a priest when I heard a loud commotion of people approaching when I went out to see a group of the commanders of the army carrying an enemy god that they had captured in battle against the Hebrews. It quickly struck me that it was Yahweh, the same god who had devastated Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt had been defeated at the hand of Dagon the father of Baal and the rest of our gods. Although I couldn’t get over how plain and unimpressive the god who had bested Egypt appeared of being only as an empty throne with cherubim on either side on top of a golden chest splattered with dried blood, which only contained some type of foodstuff in a golden urn, a strange looking staff and two stone tablets of his laws.

The next morning our sense of celebration was hindered when we awoke to find Dagon fallen in the temple and having to get ropes to haul him back up into his place. At the time I wasn’t not sure if it was just me or not but Dagon appeared to have fallen face forward toward Yahweh almost as if he was paying homage to his latest servant. The next day it became clear that that was the case as once again Dagon was fallen over before Yahweh as well as every other lesser god was also fallen over face down toward him as well. Only this time Dagon’s hands and head were cut off and laying on the temple threshold too far away. At first we though that the second fall had broken Dagon but upon looking the closer edges were clean and smooth as if some ethereal sword had chopped them off. In addition there was growing panic among the people from a massive outbreak of tumors and mice which seemed to pop out from under every stone and tree around the city, which resulted in lords taking Yahweh off to another town. I couldn’t figure out what kind of god Yahweh is from how he has been acting. As what kind of god will betray his people and even his own priests to death at the hands of their enemy. If he was stronger than Dagon they why didn’t he choose to demonstrate it on the battle field like every other god instead of allowing himself to be captured and carried off to another temple to best it single handedly in combat? Could it be as Yahweh claims to the Hebrews that they are to have no other gods or that he intends to kill them so there are no more and only he remains? Oh no! We have to protect Dagon in his weakend state until he can be restored along with Asherah, Baal and the others by getting Yahweh as far away as possible before he does to Philistia what he did to Egypt. And it was at that time when I was lost in thought that I was informed that that lords of Philistia had called for me concerning Yahwah and the plagues throughout the land.

Praise Dagon that the lords of Philistia had more sense than Pharaoh and would listen to reason even though a few priests thought the misfortune upon the land was simply by coincidence. Upon my advice they prepared golden images of the plagues of mice and tumors to carry off with him and set them upon an unguided cart yoked with milk cows separated from their calves. Then to the astonishment of some the cart took off unattended as if Yahweh’s hand was driving the dairy cows to act like experienced horses and he rode off along the road back to the land of the Hebrews. I only pray that the guilt offering and the freedom to go where he wants is enough to passivity Yahweh and that he’ll lift his hand of oppression from the land of Philistia.