JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today, Tom and Jason are joined by Dr. Kevin Chen. Dr. Chen is professor of Old Testament studies at Gateway Seminary in Ontario, California. He’s also the author of Wonders From your Law, Nexus Passages and the Promise of an Exegetical Intertextual Old Testament Theology. That remarkable book is the reason we invited him to join us today. Kevin will lead us through Numbers 24, highlighting connections between this passage and earlier scriptures and this passage and later scriptures. You’re going to want to have your Bibles open when you listen. You’ll also want to download the link to the PDF we’ve put in the show notes. This PDF includes six images from the book that will serve you, we believe, as you study Numbers 24. These images will also serve you as you study other passages because the concepts apply to many other Old Testament passages beyond Numbers 24. We’ve also included a link to Wonders From your Law and a link to The Messianic Vision of the Pentateuch. You will want to add these books to your library. They will help you understand the Old Testament and its connection to Jesus.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. Tom and Jason here. Jason, we have been looking forward to this particular podcast for quite some time. It took a long time to arrange, but what do we have happening today?

JD: Tom, I’m delighted to bring a brother and rising significant voice in the area of biblical theology to our listeners. His name is Kevin Chen, Dr. Kevin Chen, and he serves as a professor at Gateway Seminary in southern California. I have been very blessed in the last several years with some significant publications that he has made focused on the centrality of the Messiah in the Old Testament. He, I believe, rightly captures that the Old Testament as a whole is a Messianic document written from a Messianic perspective designed to awaken Messianic hope. And we get to talk to him today. We’ll hear a little bit about his first major book that at least I’m aware of. But then we’re going to focus on a second book called “Wonders in your Law” that’s meditating on some central features of how we define biblical theology.

So, Tom, you and I have defined it as how the whole Bible progresses and integrates and climaxes in Christ. And today we get to really consider the significance of the integration piece. We’re going to be looking at how key passages in the Bible are both drawing on previous Scripture, so that’s Scripture’s use of Scripture, and how those very passages provide foundation for lots of other biblical reflection. So, Scripture’s use in Scripture, both the use of Scripture and the use of Scripture in other texts by later biblical authors. And it’s just such a beautiful concept that we’re going to get to meditate on, reveling in a God who’s orchestrating all of his Word from beginning to end. He is the ultimate author, and he is guiding and leading these prophets who were searching and inquiring carefully to know something about the person and the time of the Messiah. And so, Kevin has given so much of his life to his scholarly life to wrestling with these concepts and packaging them in a way that really serves the church.

So, I’m just glad that he can be on this podcast. That’s where we’re heading. Kevin, we would just love if you could start by sharing a little bit about your family, your ministry background, a relatively recent transplant to southern California, and how the church, how God has brought you to this point. And where really your passion for what we could call intertextuality, understanding how the whole Bible is integrated and how Scripture is using Scripture and certain texts are used in other texts, how did that come and how did you end up having this as your passion, at least you’ve got two major works that have really served the church at large.

KC: Thanks, Jason and Tom. Just first off, thank you so much for having me on and I’m so honored to share with you guys and with your listeners. And so, I’m looking forward to this interaction with you guys. Just a little bit about myself. I’m married to Joyce and we’ve got two children who are in elementary school, Christina and Joel. They’re in 3rd and 1st grade. They’re about to finish up their first school year down here in southern California. We moved down a year ago from northern California, so I’m actually pretty much a California native, although I, for my first teaching position, I was at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee for nine years. I’ve been so blessed by churches that I’ve been a part of over the years. Obviously, I became a Christian because of their ministry, my mom. I was the first one in our family to become a Christian and I came under the mentorship of a godly faithful youth pastor who stoked in me the fire to study scripture and making a long story short that eventually turned into seminary, even though I was doing it part time. I was actually studying engineering and even worked as an engineer for three years. But I felt led to start a PhD in biblical studies after finishing my MDiv, and related to one of Jason’s questions about how I got interested in intertextuality or as some like to call allusion. I’m fine with intertextuality. I got to take some courses from Dr. John Sailhamer, who has been with the Lord for a few years now, but in the previous generation of evangelical biblical scholarship, especially Old Testament, he was a major figure and he was one whose work focused on the exegesis of the Old Testament, taking Hebrew really, really seriously, and making, I think, very strong and even convincing arguments that the Old Testament bears direct witness to the coming of Jesus Christ. And one of the features of the way that he made those arguments was the use of intertextuality. And so taking the Pentateuch as the foundation for the rest of the Old Testament, viewing the Pentateuch as having been written by Moses, maybe a little tiny percentage written by an anonymous inspired prophet later. But in any case, it’s essentially Mosaic, and then treating that as a text that later Old Testament authors can then refer back to because they actually had access to and they studied it and referred to it.

So as far as my current role here at Gateway, it’s been a year and it’s been a great experience. This is a multicultural environment here in southern California. I didn’t actually realize how many people just live here within the United States have this kind of population. It’s comparable to maybe a more spread out New York City, but there’s 20 million people that live here. And coming from all different kinds of backgrounds, so there’s Asians, like myself, there’s Anglos, there’s Blacks, there’s hispanics, there’s more. And we get to experience a little bit of that at our school. I’m trying to think whether I missed anything that you asked me. Let me know.

JD: That’s beautiful.

TK: Yeah, that’s great. Kevin, as we dive into this, I think it would be a help to people. If they would actually work, we’re going to actually end up in one particular passage as a starting spot. But I know as I worked through your book, having a pencil in hand and putting some references in the margins. Even if you don’t know Hebrew, this is one of the great values of a conversation like this or a book like this. And Jason and I wanted to have this conversation for a number of reasons. One, we were just excited about what you wrote. But another thing I would say is we’re just scratching the surface here. So I really would encourage people to download the link we’ll have in the show notes and buy this book. Because we’re going to be touching on one passage, again, encourage you to get your pencil out, write near margins of go to here or see this. But that as we dive into this, Kevin, I think is a real help is we’re working with people who know Hebrew, some of the people who are listening, but many who—most who don’t—but this is a value to all. And so we’re really looking forward to it. So let’s dive in. Maybe you can just touch on The Messianic Vision of the Pentateuch that was published in 2019.

KC: Yes. Yeah, thanks for mentioning it. That was pretty much my first major book after my dissertation was published. And it goes right along the path that Sailhamer had tread and really trailblazed. And really the idea that the Messiah is central to the Pentateuch and the Old Testament is not new to me, despite what impression might be taken from the title of the book. He and I think not only him, but others have made this kind of argument. And for Sailhamer, what he does that’s maybe special is that he tries to do it exegetically. He tried to show that this is what the Pentateuch means. This is the author’s intended meaning, if you will. Sometimes it’s kind of a term that gets used in hermeneutics. It’s the original meaning of the Pentateuch. And I was trying to build upon the work that he had already done in books like The Pentateuch as Narrative and The Meaning of the Pentateuch and some other articles like he had, such as “The Messiah and the Hebrew Bible.” It’s really an important article that he wrote in 2000 or 2001. I just noticed that there was maybe some room to write a monograph that was focusing on the Messiah in the Pentateuch, which even though he had emphasized that point so much, there wasn’t actually a book that was making that argument and focusing from start to finish on that. So I felt that, okay, this could be hopefully a contribution to the conversation. And at the same time, I was also looking at certain texts that he hadn’t dealt with that as extensively. And in some cases, I was taking a few texts in a slightly, but not hopefully not radically different direction. But the point is more that these are conclusions that I came to on my own in conversation with the literature in general that—I do believe that there are several key messianic texts in the Old Testament. It’s the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15, the Lion of Judah in Genesis 49, the Star of Jacob in Numbers 24, which is going to tie into the next book. We’ll talk about that later. And there are others, such as Isaac’s blessing of Judah. I think that there’s not only those messianic prophecies in those passages, but I think those texts actually interconnect and they’re mutually reinforcing. And even though I’m not trying to make the argument and don’t believe that we need to find the Messiah in every single passage, per se. So that when we look at the book as a whole, any of the book as a whole, we’re trying to see how the pieces fit together. And where are there places where the author may be hinting to us what a major theme is or the major theme is in a book, especially a long book like the Pentateuch. There are many things in there, but how do they interconnect? And I see a lot of them ultimately directed to the coming of Messiah in the last days as Genesis 49 and Numbers 24 say. So I deal with many other things, of course, in the book of that length. But that’s the point of the book to argue exegetically and as convincingly as I can, that the Messiah really is at the heart of the Pentateuch.

TK: So Kevin, your book we’re talking about today, it actually has quite a long title that reminds me of something Jason would write. Can’t be satisfied with a short title here.

KC: I don’t mind that association.

TK: Okay, so here we go, Wonders from your Law: Nexus Passages and the Promise of an Exegetical, Intertextual Old Testament Theology. All right, so the foreword here, I just wanted to read something that was from Stephen Dempster. And he’s talking about what you did. And he makes a comment at the end of it and he says, “If only we knew how to read our Bibles.” And he is, it’s almost like he’s, as I read it, he’s saying, and that’s what I’m getting here. Is this is a major way we’re supposed to read our Bibles. So you’re saying that there are wonders in God’s law, not intended to be hidden. However, I think for a lot of us we’d say, I missed it at least, it wasn’t hidden, but I missed it. So can you—we don’t normally talk about a nexus. That’s not, most people at least wouldn’t use it. So what’s the idea of a nexus passage? And then let’s move from there to the analogy you use of a subway as we move forward.

KC: Yeah, I can totally understand the unfamiliarity with the word nexus because I decided to use it. I made up the term for better or for worse. But a nexus just in common language is a sort of meeting point or intersection. So you can think of a four-way intersection on the street. That’s a nexus in a sense. And there’s some intersections that may be even more complicated. And by a nexus passage, I mean a passage in the Bible that has an unusually high number of connections to other passages. Now, every passage in the Bible is connected to other passages, right? Like, you pick some random verse and it’s connected to the one before and the one after. That’s true for every single verse in the Bible. But there are some passages that have even more connections than to its immediate context. So whether it’s Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” it connects to Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 65 that says, “Behold, I’m creating a new heavens and a new earth.” So I would call that, you know, in my own terms. You could call that a nexus connection. If you want to use the technical, academic language, some folks will call it intertextuality, others might prefer to say it’s Isaiah 65 alluding to Genesis 1. But either way, it’s the same thing. It’s a connection between two texts, especially one that’s a further distance away. So for Genesis 1 and Isaiah 65, it’s even in another book. So the connection is spanning biblical books. Now, some nexus connections—because I don’t really specify how long the distance has to be—it could be within the same book because especially for a longer book like Genesis or Isaiah, it could still be pretty far away. But that’s what I mean by a nexus passage.

And to go to the analogy that I opened the book with, I compare the Old Testament to a subway system. And I know that not necessarily all of us have ridden on one of these things before, but if you’d like, you can look up a map online of some of the major cities in the world, whether it’s London or Beijing or something like that. Some of these really big cities in the world, they have very extensive subway systems. And when you look at these maps, you’ll see a lot of lines going in a lot of different directions. And that’s because they stand for these different subway lines that are connecting different endpoints. But what makes these subway networks so useful to people who live in these big cities is that these lines are actually interconnected. So you don’t just have 20 lines going in 20 different directions. But there are these stations known as transfer stations where you can switch to say from the green line, so you’re riding on the green line. And you can switch from that at the transfer station to say the blue line. So that way you can ever, you can get where you want to go. You don’t only have to stay on the green line. And you can switch as many times as you want to to get to where you need to go. And so the analogy that I draw is that even though the first time you look at a map like this, it looks like this really tangled and it looks like a tangled mess. But actually, there’s a design to it. And even more, there’s a unity to it. And you could even say that the whole network is not just the lines, but it’s the actual physical lines that are out there. They are connected via these transfer stations that connect one line to another. And in the same way, I see Nexus passages in the Old Testament as helping us to understand and appreciate how the Old Testament fits together. Because sometimes to a casual reader or even to myself, reading the Old Testament or thinking about the Old Testament can feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of random material. And it’s hard to know whether all this stuff fits together or even if it fits together. But the value of these Nexus passages, just like transfer stations in a subway system, is that they actually connect these different lines. So that’s what I’m doing in the book. I picked 10 nexus passages and I’m not saying that they’re the top 10 or the only 10, but I’m trying to illustrate a concept that I hope will be helpful to readers as we think about the integration of the contents of the Old Testament.

JD: This is super helpful. And then as you begin to think about the idea of intersecting interwoven texts, you begin to understand how the New Testament authors were thinking, how the Old Testament prophets were actually looking at their scriptures and seeing them point to Christ. People might simply look at one distant subway entrance point on a red line and say, how in the world could this connect to the green line on the other side of the city? And yet the Old Testament prophets guide us. The New Testament apostles are guiding us to understand how indeed they are interconnecting. And in your book, you so helpfully, I think, illustrate it 10 times over, showing how there are major passages that actually stand out above others that don’t just have, for example, one allusion. Isaiah 65 recalling Genesis 1, but texts that actually have multiple allusions to past informing texts and that are actually in a multiplied way drawn from, alluded to in later texts. And so they become this hub, as you described it, where so much of the Bible is being held together by one particular passage. So I’m eager to get in. Tom, do you have anything else you want to add before we actually dive into the scripture?

TK: I’m just going to read one sentence from your introduction, Kevin. And you say “Through its purposeful use of words, themes, imagery, plot structure, coordination with another allusion, literary form and/or syntax. A nexus passage connects not only to the passages immediately before and after it, but also to others further away in the literary context.” What I just appreciate there is you’re saying there are actual reasons you can connect the passage rather than just saying I want these to connect somehow.

KC: Yes, you have criteria. Yes, there are criteria. I mean, it doesn’t never becomes a mathematical formula, but there are criteria, such as those that you just mentioned.

JD: And that’s why you can call it an exegetical theology, because you’re actually mining what the original human authors were thinking. And what they were intending and you’re establishing it, you’re establishing your warrant for the claims from the biblical text itself. And with that in mind, I’m just excited to get into, we’ve just chosen to focus this morning as your example, Numbers 24. So take us in to the third and fourth oracles of Balaam, who really in these particular oracles becomes a prophet of Yahweh empowered by the Spirit and declaring, drawing on previous biblical material and then you’re going to show us how that his particular testimony in these two oracles is then drawn on later in scripture. So if you would just overview for us what’s happening at this particular point in the book of Numbers and then move us into how is other theology from Moses in books like Genesis and Exodus actually informing what Balaam is declaring.

KC: So I love this section of scripture that I start, I study Numbers 21 all the way to 24 and I’m sure there’s more things for me to discover. But in this part of the Pentateuch and the biblical narrative, Israel is at a point of transition. That is that most of the wilderness generation, the first generation of Israelites to come out of Egypt have died off in the wilderness. And they’re almost ready to have the second generation try again to enter into the promised land. And you can tell by the census that’s in Numbers 26, because when they recount the fighting men from Israel, the biblical text says that those counted here do not include anybody from that first generation that’s now gone. So in the buildup to that, the Israelites are approaching the promised land for a second time. They had failed the first time and Numbers 14 had told that story of the spies and all that discouragement that came. So they’re on their second approach for the promised land. And by the time you get to Numbers 22 to 24, they are encountering yet another people and another people’s land that’s along the way to the promised land. So they had to go around Edom and then they fight battles with Sihon and Og. And now they have to deal with Moab. So Numbers 22 to 24 involves Israelites’ encounter with Moab. But what Moab does differently from the other peoples that Israel has encountered is rather than trying to say fight them or resist Israel passing through their land, I’m thinking Edom, the king of Moab, Balak, he decides I’m going to do something else. Okay, I’m going to hire someone. Okay, so this is a different approach. He’s not going to muster his army. He’s not going to fight them. He’s going to use spiritual power against these guys. This is what I’m going to try to use against them. And so that’s how Balaam enters into this particular story, which I take to be historical and true.

In Numbers 22, that’s the buildup to this. And this is going to tie into Numbers 24 because one of the things that starts coming out very quickly in Numbers 22 as you move towards Balaam’s later oracles is that the whole point of bringing Balaam in is to curse Israel because supposedly everyone that Balaam curses is cursed and everyone he blesses is blessed. I would see, along with, I’m sure others, that particular description of Balaam in Numbers 22:6 has a reference to the Abrahamic covenant. So to me, whether or not the king of Moab completely knows what he’s saying for us as readers, or whether he understands the connection to the Abrahamic covenant, to us as readers, we can see that connection because we can tell that what his motive here, unwittingly or not, is to oppose the Abrahamic covenant because God has already told Abraham that “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.” And now Israel has this enemy, so many a long time later, who is trying to curse them and apparently there’s this person, Balaam, who unwittingly or not is going to challenge God’s plan for Abraham’s seed. And so in Numbers 22 and 23, the whole story revolves around Balak trying to get Balaam to curse Israel and he keeps trying and that only reinforces the Abrahamic covenant connection to this entire text. So the question, the ongoing tension in the story is, okay, well, what’s going to happen? Are the Israelites going to get cursed by this strange figure that dabbles with evil spirits it seems, or is Israel going to be blessed by God in keeping with God’s power and faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant? We know the answer, but the story unfolds through Balaam not being allowed by God to curse Israel and sometimes even in the oracles, he says things that will remind us of the Abrahamic covenant further.

So for example, like in Numbers 23:10, this is the first time that Balak tries to get Balaam to curse Israel and it doesn’t work, right? But at the very end of this first statement, this first message that Balaam gives, he says “Who can count the dust of Jacob and number a fourth of Israel.” So the word, the theme here is that Israel, they’re too numerous, right? you can’t even count a fourth of them.

JD: Yeah, it sounds like Genesis, it sounds like Genesis 13:15.

KC: Yes, yes, exactly. And so this goes back to the criteria, like I would see this reference to dust as intentionally connected by the Balaam author, Moses, to Genesis 13. But I’m not hanging the whole argument on one word, even though someone might see it that way. We’ve already seen or we can confirm that in Numbers 22 and 23, you’ve already got massive buildup related to connecting this whole passage to the Abrahamic covenant, right? It’s just, it’s so strong in this passage with the themes of blessing and cursing. So we could, we could find more, but there’s, in Numbers 23, there’s going to be more. I think intertextuality with the Abrahamic covenant. If you look in the, let’s see, the second, second oracle, at Numbers 23:19. So Balak tried again, he persists, right? And so part of Balaam’s message, the second time he refuses is that God doesn’t change his mind. Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man that he would lie. He’s not the son of man that he would change his mind. Will he speak and not do it? Will he speak and not establish it?” With the Abrahamic covenant background, that would suggest to me that God, that this is a subtle reaffirmation of God’s promises to Abraham. That Israel is already, you already can’t count even a fourth of them. And God is going to continue to be faithful to Israel. And you can keep asking me to curse them, but God is not going to change his mind to bless them. He’s not going to speak something and not do it. That’s true in the abstract, but it’s also true with respect to, of course, the specific things that God says in the Abrahamic covenant.

So these things I see as crescendoing and really climaxing, sorry, long answer, in Numbers 24. But I think it’s important because I think in Numbers 24 you get more connections to Abrahamic covenant. And when you can already see that there’s connections in 22 and 23, then the ones in 24, at least to me, are easier to accept as being real and legitimate.

So as Numbers 24 begins, like in verse 2, for example, it says that the Spirit of God comes upon Balaam. And I should have also said that in verse 1, Balaam himself is starting to realize that the Lord wants to bless Israel, not curse them. So he’s learning too. And so he doesn’t use quote unquote omens like he usually does in the past. So that tells you that this is not a genuine prophet from the Lord, typically. But this time, the Spirit of God comes upon him. And I suspect that that statement in Numbers 24:2 is meant to heighten the reader’s attention to what Balaam is about to say. I don’t think the point is for us to ignore or downplay what he just said in Numbers 23 because it’s not prefaced by this reference to the Spirit of God. But I do think it is meant to grab our attention to what he’s saying about to say in Numbers 24. And the buildup continues, the suspense continues in verse 3 because—

TK: Kevin, can I just stop you there for one second?

KC: Sure.

TK: So your thought would be as a reader, it would be saying accept this as a word of prophecy. In Numbers 24, don’t—because it’s saying it came, it said the Spirit of God came upon him like a heightened signal—don’t reject this because he’s a strange figure. This language here is saying accept this as a word of prophecy.

KC: I think you would, yeah, I think this probably has a couple implications to it, that being one of them. To mention the Spirit of God here, like you’re suggesting would authenticate what he’s about to say. I think it also is meant to have us pay even closer attention. The other things are important too in 23, but yes, I think this does authenticate even further what he’s about to say in 24. The other thing that is a feature just of this narrative in Numbers 23-24 is that the whole reason why the whole condition that God gives to Balaam is that you can only say what I tell you to say, right? And so even when Balak tries to get Balaam to curse Israel the first couple times, Balaam explains to him and says, didn’t I already tell you? I can only say what God told me to say. And we know that all scripture is God-breathed and is God’s Word inspired. But I think this is meant to help us to pay special attention to the message that Balaam is giving, especially through these messages in 23 and 24.

But back to the suspense that keeps building in 24, starting with the Spirit of God in verse 2. Then he starts using the word oracle. So oracle a lot of times refers to a prophetic utterance. A prophet receives a message or a revelation from God and then he gives a quote-and-quote oracle. And this is the Hebrew word that gets used here in Numbers 23. And 24 verse 3, it’s n’um if you wanted to check it. But when you look at the contents of Numbers 24:3–4, he repeatedly emphasizes his experience of revelation. So you look at Numbers 24, 3, he says, “My eye has been opened.” So he’s seeing something special. He’s testifying to that. Then in verse 4 he says, “I hear the sayings of God.” Okay, so notice the appeal to different senses, right? his eyes open. He’s hearing the sayings of God. And then when you keep reading verse 4, it’s going to circle back to the sense of sight while still reinforcing his experience of revelation. “Who sees a vision of the Almighty?” It’s a vision. This is like another prophetic type of word. Prophets have visions sometimes. He’s using this kind of language in Hebrew. He falls down and his eyes are uncovered. We didn’t look at this passage earlier in Numbers 22. But when Balaam is riding his donkey and he doesn’t know there’s an angel of the Lord until after the third time that it tries to stop him, at that point when he realizes it, the text says that his eyes were uncovered, or eyes are opened. So by saying it in this way in Numbers 24:4, there’s a parallel between his experience here of revelation and that experience then with his donkey in realizing that the angel of the Lord is going to kill me if I keep going. And I’ll skip down because in the interest of time, but as this particular message moves forward, he continues to say many positive things about Israel, which is a sort of blessing, which is also not what Balak wants him to do. But towards the end of this particular passage in Numbers 24:3–9, he then shifts the focus to Israel’s king. So that’s important and that’s where I think direct Messianic connection is going to come in. Because to talk about how great, how blessed Israel is, is one thing. But to talk about their eschatological king and his glory is another, especially as it relates to the Messiah and the Pentateuch as we see in the Old Testament. But you can see it starts to play out at the end in the second half of verse 7 where it says his king will be greater than Agag. There’s a detail here that we won’t chase. But there are some ancient translations of the Bible that would read that as Gog or Gog as you would see in Ezekiel. And his kingdom will be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt. It says in verse 8 and verse 9 as it relates to intertextuality and nexus passages is especially significant. Because if you just follow the way the pronouns are used in verses 7 to 9, especially 7b to 9, you can—I think that along with others, that the most natural way of understanding the subject of verse 9, the person, whoever it is is lying down and the one who’s being blessed, is that same king that’s been mentioned in the second half of verse 7 and even into verse 8. That’s kind of a detailed issue that takes a little bit more time that you or our readers can look into if you want. But something that’s maybe easier to see quickly is that just looking at the content or the words of Numbers 24:9, these two halves of the verse connect to two critical passages in Genesis related to the Abrahamic covenant. How so? Well, in Numbers 24:9 it says he stooped down, he lies down like a lion, like a lioness who will arouse him or raise him. That’s another issue. But that particular line is almost identical to a line that’s used to bless Judah in Genesis 49:9. So when Jacob is blessing his 12 sons, he goes one by one. And when he gets to Judah, he says that Judah is a lion’s whelp. And then later on in that same blessing of Judah, he says that Judah is like a lion that lies down and who dares raise him or arouse him. The significance of that is I think that the line of Judah, that king that’s being prophesied in Genesis 49:8–12 clearly, just look at those verses, is actually being referenced here in Numbers 24:9. Likewise, when it says those who bless you are blessed and those who curse you are cursed, this connects to multiple Abrahamic covenant texts, such as Genesis 12:3, but also Isaac’s blessing of Jacob. So if you’re to compare Isaac’s blessing of Jacob in Genesis 27:27 to 29, with this statement here in Numbers 24:9. So it’s actually Genesis 27:29 is that verse. You’ll notice that Numbers 24:9 is very, very close to that blessing that Isaac gives to Jacob. So bringing together some of these threads, those have to do with the Abrahamic covenant also. Even though they weren’t spoken to Abraham, they’re spoken to some of his offspring. And both of those passages, whether Genesis 27:29 or Genesis 49:9, have to do with a king that’s going to arise from Abraham’s seed. In Genesis 49, it’s pretty clear because it’s talking about the line of Judah. But when you look at Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, it’s actually also about a king because it says of Jacob that your brothers will bow down to you and the peoples will serve you. But that’s really similar here to check Genesis 49:8 through 10, that your brothers will bow down to you. And the scepter won’t depart from Judah until he comes to whom it belongs. And the important part is the obedience of the nations is his, the obedience of the peoples is his. So I see here in Numbers 24:9 that you have other Abrahamic covenant texts that focus not on Israel as a whole, but on their future king. And they’re being drawn together here.

TK: Kevin, can you, you used a description that I found really helpful. You talked about braiding. Would this be an example of braiding and can you explain what that is?

KC: Yeah, braiding refers to a text that combines or intertwines two or more other texts. Usually when people talk about an allusion or something like that, it’s this text, it refers to one other text. And that happens and that’s really important. But sometimes one text like Numbers 24:9, it doesn’t only allude to one text, it alludes to two of them. And it’s braiding them or intertwining them or combining them as well. That’s what I mean by braiding and I actually found out that somebody used that term before as well.

JD: And so in doing so, it’s actually calling the reader to read, for example, read Numbers 24:9 in light of both of those texts. And to even push us back to Genesis 12 and Genesis 27 and consider how are they linked. And when we do that, we all of a sudden see, oh, well, Genesis 12 is built, is reaching all the way back to Genesis 3:15 and the promise of this hoped-for deliverer who will crush the serpent. And Genesis, well, then moves on to Genesis 22, which is anticipating an individual seed of Abraham who will possess enemy gates and through whom all the world will be blessed. And then we arrive at a text like Genesis 27 and then it moves on to Genesis 49. It’s letting us know that this king is not only an offspring of the woman, but an offspring of Abraham. And now he’s going to be in the line of Judah. And now in this Balaam text, he’s bringing this all together and the Yahweh’s king who’s going to lead. I mean, it’s all in the future. That means we’re not talking about the past Exodus. We’re talking about a future new Exodus that he’s going to lead. And so far, you’ve only pointed to Genesis texts, but in your book, you also point to Exodus and note how the one who’s going to lead the new Exodus is the very one that’s been hoped for in the line of Judah since the book of Genesis. And all of a sudden, Balaam’s oracle is intertwining or braiding all of this together. Very helpful.

KC: Yeah, that’s exactly right.

TK: Kevin, if you were preaching from the Genesis 27 passage… so I’m hearing this and I’m saying, wow, I would like to get—I would like to actually talk about Genesis 12 also because I think it relates to it based on Numbers, I can get there. Would you do that? Would you? Because it’s easier being in Numbers to say I see it combining the two there. But in your preaching, would you say, I’m going to get you here and show you what the text is doing. Round out something here. Like, can I trace that? Can I trace the braid backward and say this is actually, let’s fill out the idea here based on later scripture?

KC: I think I would definitely make the connections with Genesis 12:3. I suppose it. This is a hypothetical question. So I think it would depend on what I’m trying to do with this.

TK: Sure.

KC: But if I was trying to bring out the Messianic significance of Genesis 27, it’s a long passage, then I think we’d have to spend a lot of time on verses 27 to 29. And I think you could provide, I think it would be legitimate to provide some broader context in the Pentateuch and showing how, oh, well, this king, seemingly, that Isaac is blessing because he does say to Jacob, let your brothers serve you and let the nations. He’s actually not Jacob. It’s going to be one of his descendants. And then he can show briefly in Genesis 49 that this blessing is then passed down to Judah. But it’s actually not Judah either. And then I think you’re pretty much almost there. Because it’s, you know, it’s an eschatological Judah or David, who is the one that’s going to fulfill it.

JD: Now, you said that you didn’t want to go here, but I just want you to, I do want you to touch on it because it’s going to inform. You mentioned this king is higher than Agag. Let that be actually one of the points that pushes you ahead and helps us consider possible future texts that were written after Numbers 24 that… Where might you go and why?

KC: Yes, let me explain the issue again. So in Numbers 24:7, most modern translations of the Bible are going to say, let his king or his king will be greater than Agag. Now it turns out that both the Septuagint, I believe, and revisions of the Septuagint, and that’s some important ancient texts that are sometimes considered when scholars do try to determine what the original text read. They instead have Gog. The significance of that little difference is which king we are more likely to be talking about in Numbers 24:7. Sometimes when people prefer the Agag manuscript of Numbers 24:7, they will then argue that Numbers 24:7 to 9 is with reference to David and Solomon and that era. Because one of Saul’s failures involved an Amalekite king named Agag. So, ergo, right, the king is greater than Agag is from that era. It could even be Saul, but even if it’s not Saul, they might say, okay, well, it’s David because it’s from around the same time. However, if you adopt that the more likely reading is Gog, then the king in Numbers 24:7 cannot be Saul, David, Solomon, or any of them, because Gog, according to Ezekiel 38, Gog is mentioned in that passage, is an eschatological enemy.

JD: It’s mentioned in that passage as if the reader is already aware of this figure. I mean, it’s just dropped. The name Gog is dropped into the text. And this would be the only other place in Scripture that he would have been brought up. And in a context where the Messiah is triumphing over him.

KC: Yes, Ezekiel 38 says that refers to Gog as “he of whom the prophets wrote.” So, that’s what, yeah, that’s another argument in favor of Gog in Numbers 24:7.

JD: Well, go beyond that now and just consider other later Old Testament texts that you see drawing on that. Oh, actually, is that as far as you want to go into Numbers 24, do you want to go deeper into the star of Jacob?

KC: No, no, that’s fine. Yeah, we can go to some other texts.

JD: All right. I’ll just say for our listeners that there—that Kevin has so much more in this chapter. He pushes into Balaam’s fourth oracle where a star will rise from Jacob and a scepter will arise out of Israel and crush the forehead of Moab. And he notes how even that crushing imagery reaches all the way back to the imagery of Genesis 3:15. And how a star rising reaches backward to all the stars that Abraham saw that produced hope for him in the offspring promise. And now what’s being envisioned is one particular star whose light is shining brighter than all the others, all the other lights grow strangely dim in the light of this single star, whom we ultimately know as Jesus. So there’s so much more in his chapter on Numbers 24 and I encourage the listener to dive in further. But you, Kevin, right now, take us further into the Old Testament just on the basis of what you’ve covered so far in Numbers 24 and give us some examples beyond the potential Ezekiel 38 text of how later authors are alluding to Numbers 24.

KC: Yeah, that’s one of the things that makes this passage so fascinating to me is that on the one hand it connects back to these Genesis texts and Exodus texts. And on the other hand, it connects forward to later Old Testament books because I think we can show that later Old Testament authors paid attention to Numbers 24. So even though maybe to today’s readers, we don’t think much of Numbers 24, maybe even draw a blank. That appears not to be the case for Old Testament authors because they cite it and refer to it in their own writings. So I’ll give you a quick overview and then we can look at a few examples. But in one of the diagrams in my book on page 139, I list the Old Testament books that I found that refer to Numbers 24. And they include Judges, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Obadiah, Psalms, Proverbs, and Daniel.

JD: Absolutely amazing, absolutely amazing.

KC: Right, right. So that’s what’s behind the book title. I experience that the Bible has one understanding like how could you have a passage that is referred to by so many biblical authors? We’re going to assume that they’re all different authors, right? It’s like nine, it’s like nine books right there. It’s amazing.

JD: Nine-road intersection. I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? But that’s what we see here. This one intersection includes all these outlets. You come to one spot, Numbers 24, and it’s reaching its tentacles in nine different books. And even as you get into those books, it’s not like one spot. Some of them have multiple allusions to this single text. So take us, take us in.

KC: Yeah. One example would come from Amos 9:11 and 12. And we didn’t look closely at Numbers 24:18 earlier, but we can supplement a little bit here. This is part of the star of Jacob’s prophecy that starts in Numbers 24:17, where a star comes out of Jacob and a scepter arises from Israel, crushing the foreheads of Moabites, skip down to verse 18. Then it says that Edom will be a possession. And Seir will be a possession as well, whereas Israel will do valiantly. When you look closely at Amos 9:11– 12, it also describes the restoration of the house of David. Well, that’s already one connection to Numbers 24:17. Why? Well, not because Numbers 24:17 directly mentions David, but because they’re talking about an end times king, who when we bring in some other text like Genesis 49, that tells us that this end times king is coming from the line of Judah, if we’re talking about the same king, then the star of Jacob is also the line of Judah. And so this then would refer to the Messiah taking possession of Edom. And that’s these same ideas and themes are exactly what’s in Amos 9:11 and 12. God says I’m going to raise up the fallen booth of David. Of course, it’s looking at from the perspective of exile and the house of David rising and falling. From Numbers’ perspective, it’s looking forward. So it’s not looking at the rise and fall of David’s house. But it is talking about an end times king of Israel possessing Edom. That’s the key. And that is in both Amos 9:11 and 12, and Numbers 24:17 and 18.

TK: And the specific thing there is that they may possess the remnant of Edom, which is like giving that list we read at the very beginning from your introduction, a textual clue. All right, the themes I was seeing, the text is actually pointing that direction.

KC: Yes. Yes, you can verify it when we look at the words that are used in addition to the themes. And Obadiah fits in right in with this, not that it has a very clear messianic prophecy because I’m not aware of one. But what it does talk about is Israel possessing Edom. So that by itself is a connection between Amos and Obadiah, those two books. But we’re kind of triangulating again. It’s also a connection back to Numbers 24:17 and 18. And so that’s already two books that are connecting back to Numbers 24, especially the star of Jacob. And one of the fascinating things about this part of the research for me is that part of it was just simply pulling commentaries off the shelf and collecting or noting places where, like a Jeremiah expert, things that this passage in Jeremiah refers to Numbers 24. And I’m just like collecting them, this information out of these published material and then just making one additional easy step to say, you know, hey, guess what? A lot of Old Testament books refer to Numbers 24. That was part of the research. But it’s, when you look at it, if that’s what people have already been noticing, just haven’t put it together.

JD: Now, now you stop your book at the Old Testament prophets alluding back—like an Amos—alluding back to Numbers 24. And as you already said, Numbers 24 is only one of ten texts that you show this massive intersecting of biblical reflection. But if we get to Amos 9, all of a sudden we consider a book like Acts in Acts 15 where James in the Jerusalem Council quotes Amos 9 as justification that we have come to the point in redemptive history when this messianic king is possessing nations, plural, where his kingdom is being realized in space and time. What was hoped for Moses when he wrote Balaam’s oracle down, what was hoped for Amos is now being realized in James’ day. And many Acts scholars would say, oh, well, it’s clear that James is at least referring to Amos. But he even introduces the quotation in Acts 15 referring to prophets plural, not just to one prophet. And all of a sudden we see, well, he may be citing Amos, but Amos himself is citing through the form of an allusion, Numbers 24. And all of a sudden we’re seeing this interwoven-ness of the biblical text. So well, Tom, before even the podcast started, you mentioned another example, why don’t you just give it as it comes to your mind.

TK: We were talking, Jason and I were talking as we were reflecting on the book of going back to that Gog example, how Revelation is the end of Revelation in particular is going to talk about the war, the battle that takes place. ESV doesn’t use the definite article there. So it makes it sound like it’s a battle could be any battle, but it’s clear based on quotations John is thinking about Ezekiel 38 in particular. So that thought, do you find, and I can see you nodding your head already, but the New Testament authors are doing the exact same thing as the later Old Testament prophets were doing? And just the, you’d say, John then in Revelation, his subway, his first subway spot that would be to Ezekiel, but he would have in his mind and John would be able to say, I actually know where that came from too because I also have Numbers in my mind. Do you see them working it out like that?

KC: I believe so. I don’t have examples off the top of my head, but just in my own reading, there are times when I, you can pick up the New Testament author is drawing off of multiple Old Testament texts. Maybe a more obvious example of that would be certain quotations of the Old Testament. Sometimes we’ll just quote one person or one text, but sometimes they’ll quote from multiple Old Testament books in a row. So that already suggests like a kind of not just a sort of cherry-picking approach to the Old Testament, but rather a deeper more thorough going knowledge of it and appreciation of its own intertextuality.

TK: How is moving just to you personally, how has this changed how you interact with the scriptures? As someone who preaches, teaches, raises a family, this thought, how has it changed you?

KC: To me, it really does show the wonders of Scripture, and it encourages me personally in my faith that we really are dealing with the Word of God. It’s an amazing book, and I believe that the Bible is a work of, when I say this in the book, I think it’s the work of divine genius working through thoughtful human authors. And I believe that as a result of my own studies. There is even a sense in which Dr. Sailhamer introducing me to this kind of thing resulted in my call to ministry. I mentioned briefly my engineering career, and it’s a good career, but I was just so captivated by this and felt led to pursue it full time, and by God’s grace, I’m getting to do that as a professor and doing the research and writing too.

JD: Well, brother Kevin, I am so blessed by you, by your writings, and that God opened the door for us to have you on today. I truly hope our listeners will take a deep dive, it will challenge their minds, and your book will take them some time to get through. But you have modeled in your book, and given us a taste of it today on this episode, you’ve modeled rigorous care over the Word of God. Indeed, so many who want to just dismiss the idea that Jesus is indeed at the heart of the Old Testament text—I think you’re showing exegetically, we cannot say that, that from the Old Testament itself, we’re seeing the very context out of which the New Testament authors’ conclusions, how they were seeing the Bible, how someone like Luke could record Jesus saying, now you can understand the Scriptures that in it was written that the Christ would suffer, that he would die, that he would rise, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name throughout the world, beginning from Jerusalem. I think your books, both of them together, are really helping the church today grasp: How could they say such a thing? It’s through this interwovenness, this braiding, this intersecting of text after text after text through numerous allusions building upon one another. The Old Testament authors had a Bible, and they were using their Bible in an early stage before the finished canon, there was a preliminary canon, and they were using Scripture, and then later authors were building upon it, and your own discussion today has modeled that for us so well, and I am grateful.

KC: Thank you.

TK: Amen.

KC: It’s such a joy.

TK: One final thought for me, this is something I was reflecting on earlier. It’s interesting, the Balaam story, it’s not concluded at the end of this, obviously he plays a role in Israel’s ultimate disobedience. They’re not ultimate disobedience, but immediate disobedience. But the text really doesn’t go there in Numbers at that point. And as I was reflecting on this, I felt like what the text does, it leaves me in a spot where I’m not questioning his credentials to say what he just said. Do you have any reflections on that? Why the text didn’t go to that spot and leaves us in a spot where we’re thinking, Balaam, you’re like a prophet, but you’re not, but it didn’t go to the spot of you’re a destroyer of Israel. I feel like the text wants us to see him in this context as a prophet.

KC: I think that’s true. It doesn’t give you a negative impression of him at the end, even though there are little hints in the middle of the Balaam narrative chapter 22-24 that he’s not like your godly prophet type either. So I can only speculate with the rest of us because this is rightfully a classic question, like what do we do with this guy? On one level, I think it’s showing the sovereignty of God. And if this passage is as Messianic as I believe it to be within the Pentateuch, it’s one of the most important Messianic passages. He exists. And yet it’s spoken by this person who not only has a sticky background and is going to have a future failure, but he’s a non-Israelite too.

JD: So within the book of Numbers, Moses does add in chapter 31—he lets us know, okay, though God used him and though he proclaimed accurate truth about the eschatological age and about the coming king, he reflecting on the Midianites and their destruction when God brings judgment on them. It says, “Behold, these on Balaam’s advice caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against Yahweh in the incident of Peor.” And so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. So we do have, even within Numbers, a helpful guide to the readers that though the sovereign God is—I mean, Balaam had every intent to curse Israel and yet God is greater. And the sovereign God overcame, just as you were saying, overcame Balaam’s own intent and brought about blessing to Israel in accordance with his Abrahamic covenant promises. He brought about blessing to them and yet Balaam could still—I mean, God could use a donkey. He can use a sinful magician from the north. He can use anything to bring about his ultimate purposes of blessing for his people.

And you go into the New Testament and it’s very clear that you should be still thinking of Balaam as a bad guy. So he had words that were better than his own. He was speaking the very Word of God and that trumped all. He was merely a human agent that God was using temporarily to proclaim what is beautiful and what is true that we’ve got to celebrate today.

TK: We can, yeah, we can treasure his words and at the same time not treasure the man. It’s amazing to talk about Wonders from your Law like how the Word can clearly do both those things at the same time.

Kevin, I wish we could spend more time today talking about these things and moving forward. Thank you for taking the time.

JD: Thank you.

KC: Yeah, well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much guys.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Check the show notes for a link to diagrams from Wonders from your Law. You’ll also find a link to Wonders from your Law and Kevin’s earlier work, The Messianic Vision of the Pentateuch in the show notes. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org. And jasonderouchie.com to give to the work of Hands to the Plow visit handstotheplow.org or click on the link in the show notes.