Stephen Dempster
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.
—General Omar N. Bradley1
In their oracles, the Latter Prophets (the Writing Prophets) emphasize different themes suited to their historical contexts.2 Hosea deals with idolatry, Amos with social injustice, Isaiah with unbelief, Micah with venality, Zephaniah with spiritual torpor, Ezekiel with despair, and so on. But I wish to discuss briefly some oracles in Micah to show that some of these themes are interconnected at a very deep level, although separated on the surface.
In particular, there are three sins that Micah excoriates:
Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble,
a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour her stones into the valley
and lay bare her foundations.
All her idols will be broken to pieces;
all her temple gifts will be burned with fire;
I will destroy all her images.
Since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes,
as the wages of prostitutes they will again be used (Mic 1:6–7)
Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance (Mic 2:1–2)
Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice,
you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
and the flesh from their bones;
who eat my people’s flesh,
strip off their skin
and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
like flesh for the pot? (Mic 3:1–3)
At first sight this trio of sins does not seem to be interrelated, but they are like three peaks of a gigantic iceberg which emerge separately from the water but underneath the surface are one large mass. Or a better way to describe the relationship is that there is an inextricable, causal relationship existing between them, an originating source which produces one, which then gives birth to the other.
Connecting the Dots
This can be illustrated in the familiar wisdom description of sin in the Bible: “See, he hatches evil, conceives mischief and gives birth to fraud” (Ps 7:15[14], JPS). The causal relationship is even stronger in the ESV: “Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies” (7:14). James resumes this same theme, observing about temptation and sin that “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (Jas 1:14–15). This is the same indivisible relationship that exists between idolatry, covetousness, and injustice. One leads inevitably to another, and idolatry is the originating sin.3
Frequently biblical scholars can easily isolate these sins and show their clear differences as they exegete their way through the various texts. Thus, in the first oracle noted above, the idols have been brought into the temple of Samaria and are representations of the various fertility deities that proliferated in the belief systems of the Israelite neighbors. Coveting is that act that consumes the time of the affluent who want to enlarge their real estate holdings at the expense of the poor in the land. And the terrible injustice described macabrely as cannibalism pervades the courts as the judicial officials consume the poor by “flaying the bodies of the oppressed, consuming their flesh and even pulverizing their bones to make soup from the marrow. Instead of serving people they serve them up for human consumption.”4
Sometimes the occasional exegete will view the reference to idols as inauthentic since it seems out of character and irrelevant to the context of Micah.5 But here systematic theology can help provide an analysis at a deeper level and see the inextricable relationship between these variegated transgressions.
One exception to this trend among exegetes is John Oswalt, who sees the connection between idolatry and injustice appearing repeatedly in the prophets:
What they are saying is that social injustice is ultimately the refusal to entrust oneself to a fair and loving God. Whenever persons begin to believe that the cosmic order is basically uninterested in human welfare and that those who succeed are those who know best how to capture the cosmic forces for their own purposes (the underlying attitudes of idolatry), the relatively more helpless and vulnerable begin to be crushed. The more helpless the individual, the more devastating the crushing.6
Oswalt’s insightful analysis shows the underlying conceptual link between these two behaviors which seem very different on the surface. But when the prophet Micah adds a third element to the mix, covetousness, the connections and links between these behaviors become even clearer.
As mentioned above, when Micah first begins to castigate the people for their sins, he speaks of idolatry (1:7), covetousness (2:1), and injustice (2:2). Micah’s grouping of these terms together helps clarify the interrelationships between these transgressions and their polar opposites: true worship, satisfaction/generosity, and justice. These are all achieved in the latter days when the blight of war—the epitome of injustice—gives way to peace. And this only happens when the nations go up to worship Yahweh (4:1–2), their hunger for more and more is finally satisfied (4:4), and they seek to produce life instead of death, transforming their swords into ploughshares (4:3). It is when all idols are destroyed that peace can be achieved (5:9–14[10–15]).
But what is the precise relationship between these behaviors? Clues can be deduced in the Ten Words given to Israel at Mount Sinai (Exod 20:1–14; Deut 5:6–18.).
The first three commands stress the transcendence of God. Thus, there can be no other god that can displace Yahweh; Yahweh is the ultimate Reality. And Yahweh’s transcendence is not to be compromised by the making of an idol or the use of his name for ulterior motives. An idol is some object that initially stands for God and therefore compromises divine transcendence, but eventually can be viewed as a “stand-in” and therefore a replacement for God.
I once had a friend who inherited a considerable fortune, and it became a legitimate snare to his spiritual life. He said it reached the point that his inheritance became his security “just in case God died.” As Reno remarks, idolatry is “the sine qua non of covenant faithlessness in the Old Testament. Idolatry is the final, spiritualized strategy of life based on the hope that the lie might be true, for idolatry epitomizes the spiritualized hope that something other than God has deathless power.”7
The final commandment prohibits coveting, and its objects comprise a comprehensive list: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Here two issues come to the fore, the first being the inner thought life of the person. Yahweh, the unseen one, wants allegiance in the unseen inner thought life of a person. The coveting of these different objects—house, spouse, male servant, female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else—is a consequence of compromised allegiance. The second issue is the number of objects: the collection of seven emphasizes completeness, suggesting a virtually limitless list of desired objects. But the crucial point is that all these objects do not rightfully belong to the subject of the coveting, and thus coveting is a form of injustice—private injustice, which if acted upon will result in public injustice.
The theological relationship between these different behaviors is clear. To have Yahweh as the supreme God is to have One whose throne is founded on justice (cf. Pss 89:14; 97:2). In him all reality is perfectly integrated and proportioned, for he is the Creator. His passion is justice. If some created thing or person or force is elevated to the position of Yahweh and Yahweh is “dethroned,” such a lie can only lead to injustice.
For example, when David covets another man’s wife, he has already erected the idol of sexual gratification above Yahweh, and he commits the injustice of adultery and then murder (2 Sam 11).
When Ahab covets Naboth’s vineyard, he worships at the altar of materialism—embracing the Canaanite fertility religion in which Baal, the rain god, is an idol—and both he and Jezebel commit the injustice of murder and then theft. If Baal is enthroned, Ahab and Jezebel can trample upon the rights of the poor to satiate their limitless materialistic cravings (1 Kgs 21), for Baal requires no restriction on King Ahab’s and Queen Jezebel’s appetites. But neither can he ever satisfy such appetites. In their position as monarchs of Israel, they have the power, and they are in charge. How dare someone like poor Naboth impede their desires! Horrific injustice is the result.
Only the reality of Yahweh can satisfy the human heart. Substitutes thus can never fulfill the desire for the infinite. An essential problem is that when Yahweh is dethroned and any idol takes his place, there is a spiritual insufficiency which is expressed in seeking more and more for the self. Of course, this gives rise to limitless coveting. And this coveting, when acted upon, leads to the proliferation of injustice.
Compromise, Covetousness, and Cannibalism
This is exactly what takes place in Micah. The rich never have enough—dreaming and scheming of ways they can get more and more—because, having abandoned Yahweh, they cannot be satisfied with what they have. Thus, they covet lands and seize them, estates and rob them (2:2). And this is also the hidden motive behind the other examples of injustice in the book.
The judges in the courts, the priests at the temple, and the prophets wherever they are found can all be purchased with money in the form of bribes and other payments (3:11). Money has become the force that drives their lives—they covet it, and this covetousness leads to cannibalism in the courts (3:1–4), connivance among the prophets (3:5–8), and corruption within the priesthood (3:11). The result is appalling injustice.
To help clarify this relationship further, consider the example of two laws, extremely different on the surface, which are juxtaposed seemingly at random in the Deuteronomic legislation that deals with justice:
Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you. Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the LORD your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the LORD your God hates. (Deut 16:20–22)
Many commentators see two disparate laws arbitrarily laid beside each other with no real inner connection. But as one Rabbi clarifies, there are other similar texts which are found together:
The truth is that almost every time the Bible forbids idolatry, it is within the context of the immoral behavior which characterized it: Do not bow down to their gods, do not worship them and do not act according to their practices . . . (Exodus 23:24); Guard yourself lest you seek out their gods . . . they burn their sons and daughters in fire to their gods (Deut. [1]2:30-31); You shall destroy the Hittites . . . in order that they not teach you to act according to all their abominations (Deut. 20:17, 18).8
Idolatry leads to injustice, but covetousness is the fulcrum between the two. The prohibition against coveting functions as a comprehensive list of possible idols and is a type of spiritual thermometer. When coveting occurs, Yahweh has been displaced from his supreme position. Only Yahweh and his provision satisfy human desire. If Yahweh is not worshipped, there is a problem internally, and there will be an external problem in society as covetousness fuels injustice.
In the New Testament parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13–21), Jesus aims to show a young man, who wants his brother to divide the inheritance with him, that the root matter is covetousness. He tells the young man—almost rudely—to beware of covetousness, and in v. 15 he supplies the reason in an insightful proverb which sketches the basics of a theological anthropology: A person’s life “does not consist in the abundance of things possessed” (KJV); “Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot” (Msg).
Coveting is a sign that something in one’s soul is askew. One wants what can never satisfy, for only God can satisfy. What is needed is to be “rich towards God,” which means, among other things, giving away possessions rather than hoarding them and being concerned for the needs of others (v. 21).
That is why, a little later in the narrative, Jesus teaches that treasure in heaven (being rich towards God) comes as a result of selling possessions and giving the money to the poor (v. 33). But the reason this can be done is because God has become the centre of the believer’s life: the kingdom of God has supreme place in his or her life and is therefore the ultimate treasure (vv. 31–34). They have been liberated from the slavery of possessions, the slavery of wanting possessions to meet the lack in their lives, which itself was caused by the displacement of Yahweh by means of an idolatrous substitute.
Jesus makes a similar point in a parallel saying in Matthew and Luke when he concludes that it is impossible to serve two masters and thus impossible to serve God and Mammon (Matt 6:24; Luke 16:13). Here mammon is an Aramaic word which means wealth or riches, and it is personified as a god associated with these material possessions. This suggests that coveting money is already a form of idolatry since money has taken on the power of a god, demanding service and homage. It is as if “wealth is an evil and superhuman power that stands in opposition to God, ‘possessing them’ and distracting them from devotion to God.”9 In other words, Mammon is an idol: “Where God does not rule, there rule the idols, the most powerful of which is Mammon.”10
Paul connects the theological dots in two parallel sayings in different letters by noting that covetousness is essentially idolatry, meaning that it regards and treats the object of desire as a god:
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. (Col 3:5–6)
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Eph 5:5–6)
In these passages, “greed” translates the Greek word for covetousness. It is clear from these brief catalogues of sins that covetousness is uniquely linked to idolatry. This is probably because covetousness, in its all-consuming character in occupying a person’s mind and worldview, is the result of the replacement of God, who alone should have that role. While this reference to covetousness occurs in the context of sexual lust, it is inclusive of a lust for wealth as well, and these two idols remain pervasive in much of contemporary, postmodern life.
Paul does not develop the injustice that results from the lust for sex and material things, probably because he does not need to. And one does not have to be an apostle to see the link in western culture, where women’s and men’s bodies—and even the bodies of young children—are objectified and commodified. The sex “trade,” with its human trafficking, is a worldwide blight. Sexual infidelity has destroyed countless marriages and families. And sexual promiscuity contributes to the global proliferation of sexually transmitted disease.
Similarly, the supreme value of wealth and prosperity makes governments mainly concerned with the economy and, of course, jobs, jobs, jobs. Yet this number one priority also engenders incredible corruption, social stratification, and the elevation of economic concerns over ethical and environmental ones. People themselves become viewed as commodities, and medicine and social services are delivered only to the ones who can pay. Certain categories of people are treated as non-persons because they have no economic power, whether it is the unborn, the homeless, the poor, or the nameless children buried in unmarked graves on Canadian Residential School properties.
In many countries, “palms have to be greased” to get any kind of legal action. The wealthy can emigrate if they wish, but not so the poor. The proliferation of sweat shops, child labour, and human trafficking all owe their existence to the idolization of money. Luxury items such as diamonds and jewelry have become polluted by the blood of scores of victims. One percent of the people in the world have 48% of the world’s wealth, leaving 52% to the rest of the population. One Oxfam report on this incredible injustice is tellingly titled: “Wealth: Having it All and Wanting More.”11
Importantly, the desire of nations to protect what they have and to seek more has generated a mass weapons industry, whose production and consumption requires enormous expenditures. In the ten years from 2001–2011, the average yearly expenditure on arms was 1.6 trillion dollars! Over this period, there was an escalation in annual expense from 1.18 trillion to 2.09 trillion dollars.12 This of course may seem like mere figures, but if one thinks of the possibilities for which such finances could be used, it staggers the imagination. In terms of defense spending, the United States spends as much as the next nine countries combined!13 Humanitarian organizations estimate that it would cost only 30 billion dollars to eliminate world hunger and 170 billion dollars to eliminate worldwide extreme poverty over the course of 20 years.14
War itself is injustice writ large and is more often than not the result of full-scale idolatry. From the ancient Assyrian empire seeking to satiate its never-ending appetite for more and more and finally overreaching itself, to the contemporary nation of Russia involved in a military “operation” in Ukraine to feed a nationalistic idol, wars and rumours of wars have been a fact of life because idolatry is ubiquitous in time and space. There is no satisfaction of an idol’s hunger because the idol can never satisfy, and there is no limit to the resultant injustice. Whether it is the flaying and impaling of hundreds of captives in Lachish by the ancient Assyrians or the contemporary bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol and the butchering of civilians in Bucha by the Russians, enough will never be enough. And new weapons will always have to be developed, whether they are the latest battering rams in 700 BC or hypersonic missiles in 2022 AD.
The Prophetic Cure
The prophets know the great remedy for this unholy trinity of idolatry, covetousness, and injustice, which on a mass scale lead to the universal blight of war. It is true worship, hesed, and justice. In fact, Jeremiah points to the fact that, in his day, his people had exchanged the worship of the true God for worthless idols and as a result could never be satisfied:
Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.
Be appalled at this, you heavens,
and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jer 2:11–13)
In another oracle, Jeremiah contrasts the worship of God with the worship of idols and warns against the latter:
This is what the Lord says:
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness [hesed],
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord. (Jer 9:23–24)
Here the idolization of wisdom, strength, and wealth is contrasted with kindness, justice, and righteousness. When Yahweh is placed first, the result is the qualities in which he takes delight.
The central symbol in the book of Micah and in the Book of the Twelve (the Minor Prophets) is the temple. Right in the middle of these prophets—in Micah 3:9–12 and 4:1–5—are two visions of the temple, the place where heaven meets earth, where God’s throne is recognized. In fact, in the inner sanctum of the temple sat the visible footstool, the ark of the covenant, for the invisible throne of Yahweh.
But in Micah’s day, the people were really not worshipping Yahweh: they professed to worship the true God, but they were really worshipping money and power. And the result runs throughout the oracles mentioned above: covetousness and rampant injustice.
Consequently, Micah was the first prophet in history to announce the coming destruction of the temple, an announcement that was probably met with cries of blasphemy and treason by the religious leaders and populace. The place of life had become a place of death, and people hearing the teaching of the priests and prophets left the temple the same way they had entered: idolatrous, coveting, and bent on injustice.
There was no genuine encounter with Yahweh. Thus, the worshippers may have brought many impressive one-off sacrifices to the temple, but these in no way were pleasing to God (Mic 6:6–8). If they had met Yahweh, they would have taken Yahweh with them into their daily lives, walking with him, and being changed so that they would love hesed—that untranslatable Hebrew word that is a combination of kindness, loyalty, generosity to those in need, help for the helpless, and going beyond the demands of duty. With a hesed heart, they would embody a life of justice.15
The reason is that a true encounter with Yahweh changes hearts, satisfies them, and makes the worshipper interested in giving and not taking. The result is a concern to do justice, to be concerned for fairness and equity in personal dealings. That is why the prophet answers the question of what the Lord requires in the following way: to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God (Mic 6:8b).
Satisfied in the Temple
But the destruction of the temple is not the last word in Micah, because alongside the announcement of its death within history is the announcement of its resurrection at the end of history:
In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
All the nations may walk
in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord
our God for ever and ever. (Mic 4:1–5)
In the last days, at the end of history, there will be a new temple, and it will be exalted to the supreme place in the world. This means that Yahweh is exalted and his name has become universally recognized.16 This means that people, walking in his ways, are satisfied and sitting under their own fig trees complete with their own vineyards. There are no more “bloated appetites” because Yahweh’s leadership supplies what has been lacking—satisfaction.17
But the result is not just satisfaction but the love of hesed, of doing good, of giving, of helping, of sharing. Thus, when the nations hear about Yahweh teaching in the temple, they come to Mount Zion bringing their instruments of war—swords and spears—and meet the true God, hear him, and leave changed. They embrace a new vision of the world. They then take their military armaments, used either to defend their interests or to seize more and more “stuff,” and they transform them into instruments for peace: swords turned into ploughshares, spears retooled to shovels, or in more contemporary parlance, tanks transformed into tractors, and rifles into rakes.
And they learn war no more. West Point, Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and the various military academies throughout the world will become obsolete because people will worship Yahweh and so covet no longer. A world of idolatry and, hence, covetousness and injustice will give way to a world of true worship, hesed, and justice. Then “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea” (Isa 11:9b). War will be obsolete, and peace will be everlasting.
But it is not as if believers have to wait until the end of history for this to happen. For even Micah’s audience was called to a different way of life in their present. Micah’s conclusion to his oracle was not “Sit back and wait for the inevitable” but “All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever” (4:5; cf. Isa 2:5). They were called to live the future in the present—to go to the temple, corrupt as the leaders were, and meet Yahweh just the same, and to depart, seeking to walk with him, love hesed, and do justice.
For Christians, they too must not just sit and wait. For the new temple has been raised in their midst from the ashes of a destroyed temple. The end of history has happened in the middle of history. Their Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, said that if the temple was destroyed, he would raise it up in three days (John 2:19–20). As the Messiah, he was God’s true temple, to which the temple in Jerusalem pointed. He was the place where heaven was united with earth, and he took upon himself the crushing weight of infinite human idolatry and the resultant covetousness and injustice.
But the destruction of that temple—the cross of Christ—was not just the end of an old world but a new beginning. He was raised to newness of life and pours out his life-giving presence into the heart of everyone who trusts in him so that they can turn their swords into ploughshares, so that they can use their money to share with others, their houses for hospitality, their education for life-giving knowledge.
Together they become like a new temple of light set on a hill, and as their word goes out, lives become transformed because people meet Yahweh (Matt 5:14–16). There can be true peace even in the midst of war because the great vision of the prophetic future has already begun in the middle of history.
Stephen Dempster has been teaching in the area of Old Testament for 37 years at Crandall University in Canada. He specializes in biblical theology, biblical Hebrew, and Old Testament canon. In addition to many essays and articles, he is the author of Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible and Micah: A Theological Commentary. He is currently working on a biblical theology of the kingdom of God called The Return of the King and commentaries on Genesis, Jeremiah, and Isaiah.
Image: Gustave Dore, Micah Exhorts the Israelites to Repent
- Armistice Day Address, Boston, Massachusetts: Nov 10, 1948.[↩]
- An earlier version of this essay is found in Stephen G. Dempster, Micah: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017): 253–58.[↩]
- In a general sense one could argue as John McKenzie does that “in the Old Testament idolatry is the basic sin, the radical vice from which all other vices flow.” See John L. McKenzie, A Theology of the Old Testament (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), 171. My intention is to show its theological significance in the prophetic literature.[↩]
- Ibid, 115.[↩]
- Hans Walter Wolff, Micah: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990), 42.[↩]
- John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 106.[↩]
- R. R. Reno, Genesis, BTCB (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010), 90.[↩]
- Shlomo Riskin, “Parshat Shoftim: To Know God. Pursue Justice,” Jerusalem Post, September 2, 2011.[↩]
- Brian S. Rosner, Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 19.[↩]
- Rosner, Greed as Idolatry, 20. Rosner cites Leonhard Ragaz, Die Gleichnisse Jesu: seine soziale Botschaft (Mohn: Gütersloher Verlag-Haus, 1990), 42.[↩]
- Deborah Hardoon, “Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More,” Oxfam Briefing (Oxford: Oxfam International, January 2015).[↩]
- World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, Bureau of Arms Control: Verification and Appliance Reports, (Washington: US Dept. of State, 2014).[↩]
- Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander Kent, “10 Countries Spending the Most on Military, Analysis and Commentary for US and Global Equity Investors,” 24/7 Wall Street (New York, July 10, 2014).[↩]
- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).[↩]
- Gordon R. Clark, The Word Hesed in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993).[↩]
- Stephen G. Dempster, “‘At the End of the Days’ (בְּאַחֲרִ֣ית הַיָּמִ֗ים)—An Eschatological Technical Term? The Intersection of Context, Lingustics and Theology,” in The Unfolding of Your Words Gives Light: Studies on Biblical Hebrew in Honor of George L. Klein, ed. Ethan C. Jones (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2018), 118–41.[↩]
- For “swollen appetites” see W. Brueggemann, “Vine and Fig Tree: A Case Study in Imagination and Criticism,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981): 194.[↩]