A summary of chapter 12.

So far, writes Boyd,

‘We’ve seen that the cross teaches us that at the center of the story of what else is going on in the OT’s violent portraits of God is the truth that Yahweh is a humble sin-bearing God and that God brings about judgments by withdrawing his restraining Spirit to allow sin to punish sin and evil to vanquish evil.’

Now for another aspect of this.  The NT construes the crucifixion of Jesus as the decisive battle in the age-long conflict between God and Satan.  We must interpret the OT, then, in the light of this cosmic conflict.

According to the NT, the world in its presently state is ‘fundamentally evil’, being ruled by a ‘powerful, diabolic being’.

See, for example, Jn 10:10; Acts 10:38; Eph 2:2; 2 Cor 4:4; Heb 2:14; 1 Jn 5:19; Rev 11:15.

These, and many other texts, give the impression that ‘our world is saturated with powerful, corrupting, demonic agents’.  They are responsible, directly or indirectly, for every temptation to sin and to all sickness and disease.

C.S. Lewis:

‘There is no neutral ground in the universe,” for “every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.’

Most importantly, these evil forces were instrumental in the crucifixion of Jesus.  Yet, at the same time, the very reason Jesus came was to defeat Satan, Col 2:14f; Heb 2:14; 1 Jn 3:8.

If the malign influence of Satan and his minions is so pervasive, then, in order for people to experience the destructive consequences of their sin, God doesn’t need to punish them himself: he merely needs to release them to the power of the devil.

Num 16 records the violent deaths of a group of revels, led by Korah, followed by the death, by plague, of a large number of grumbling Israelites.  This destruction is ascribed to God.  But in fact what happened was that God, with a grieving heart, turned his rebellious people over to the wicked agents of violence.

Paul says as much, when he refers to them being killed by ‘the destroying angel’ (1 Cor 10:10).  In putting this way, the apostle is reflecting a development in Jewish thinking, whereby violent actions, originally attributed to Yahweh, became attributed to the evil one.  (Paul is probably alluding to this episode in Num 16, but the fact that he doesn’t say so directly allows us to think of the destroying angel as God’s agent of destruction in all similar cases in the OT).

There are signs in Num 16 itself that this is the case.

(a) The ground itself is feared as a kind of earth monster (Num 16:34; cf. 1 Pet 5:8).

(b) The notion of Yahweh as a fire-throwing deity (Num 16:35) fits ANE concepts of such gods, just as the netherworld was often associated with fire.

(c) The idea of ‘wrath’ coming ‘out from the Lord’ in the form of a plague need only mean that the Lord allowed these people to suffer the consequences of their own sinful behaviour.  Moroever, in the ANE plagues were often attributed to various malevolent deities; the original audience may well have understood such a deity to have been the agent of God’s wrath.