JY: Welcome to GearTalk. Today Jason DeRouchie will walk through two case studies on seeing Christ in the Old Testament. This is from a message given by Jason at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2022.

JD:  What began as three case studies is now two. On Christ in the Old Testament, Genesis 22, 1-19, Proverbs 8, 22-31. Paul declares, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord,” Philippians 3. Paul was an Old Testament preacher who longed to know Christ and make him known. He was convinced that the sacred writings of the Old Testament are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus, 2 Timothy 3. It was Paul who tried to convince his listeners about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, Acts 28. Indeed, he could go so far as to say to the Corinthians, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2.2. Commenting on this verse, DA. Carson convincingly states, “This does not mean that this was a new departure for Paul, still less that Paul was devoted to blissful ignorance of anything and everything other than the cross. No, what he means is that all he does and teaches is tied to the cross. He cannot talk about Christian joy or Christian ethics or Christian fellowship or the Christian doctrine of God or anything else without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is gospel centered. Paul is cross centered.” Brothers and sisters, I stand before you longing to know Christ, to see and to celebrate him wherever he is revealed. Paul says that it is in beholding the glory of the Lord that we are transformed into his image from one degree of glory to the next, 2 Corinthians 3. Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is they that bear witness about me,” John 5. Later he prays, “This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” John 17. To enjoy eternal life is to know Jesus about whom the Old Testament Scriptures bear witness. And my hope today is to help us know him more through two case studies, the first of which is Genesis 22:1-19, the second Proverbs 8:22-31. I draw these from this recently published honor book, Five Views of Christ in the Old Testament. I draw it from my contribution to that book. And there’s a third case study in here that I just don’t have time to present today.

The five views as they’re presented in the book are listed before you. I take what is called the redemptive, historical, Christocentric view. Let me clarify what I mean by that. An approach that is redemptive, historical is one that accounts for how God’s work and purposes in Scripture progress, integrate and climax in Christ, and how all faithful biblical interpretation must account for the way that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection inform and influence everything God is doing in space and time. Through Jesus, God discloses mysteries, allows shadows to reach their substance and inaugurates a new creation, a new covenant and a new law. A redemptive historical approach requires that we consider every text in view of its close, continuing and complete contexts within Scripture as a whole to fully discern what God meant in any passage. By Christocentric, I mean that our biblical interpretation and application must in some way be tied to the cross for it to be Christian. I also mean that we are to interpret Scripture through Christ and for Christ. To interpret through Christ means that we start our reading as those believing in Jesus with God having awakened our spiritual senses to see and hear rightly spiritual things. To interpret for Christ means that we recognize that Old Testament history, prophecy, law and promises point to Jesus, that he fulfills all of them, and that the Spirit who inspired the Biblical text is working to glorify the Son through it all. That’s what the Spirit does. Christian Biblical interpretation reaches its end only after we have beheld Jesus’ glory and found him transforming us into his image. In previous ETS presentations, I have overviewed seven potential ways to see Christ and savor him in the Old Testament. Those are listed on your handout. I’ll begin my case studies. Genesis 22:1-19, proof and pledge that Yahweh will fulfill his offspring promise.

Placing the offspring promise in the context of Genesis. Before considering Genesis 22’s messianic predictions, which are both typological and direct, the interpreter must first place the passage within the continuing context of God’s story of salvation. Genesis is threaded by the promise of offspring, which includes not only people, but a person. Due to Adam’s sin bringing both curse upon the whole world and corruption within all humanity, Yahweh declared that a single male offspring of the woman, the first woman, would, through his own personal tribulation, triumph over the evil serpent, thus reversing the curse and bringing new creation, Genesis 3. From this point forward, the world’s only hope for blessing and reconciliation with the living God rested on Yahweh’s preserving and realizing the promise of this singular offspring. The narrator ties Genesis 3:15’s offspring promise to the patriarchs by the book’s repeated heading, “This is the account of X’s family line,” or, “these are the generations of.” And also by the linear genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. Genesis 22 occurs within Tara’s family line cycle. This cycle begins with Yahweh promising that Abraham would become a great nation, would be the agent of curse overcoming blessing, and have offspring who would inherit the promised land and become numerous like the dust. Genesis 15 builds on these promises by stressing that the patriarch has yet no offspring, but he believes. Yahweh promises that one offspring from his own loins will be his heir and become countless as the stars. This astronomical imagery connects directly with the singular seed of Genesis 22:17, where God promises, “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky.” Abraham would become the father of many nations in many lands through the promised offspring’s arrival. Two elements in Genesis 22:1-19 indicate that the offspring promise provides a governing backdrop for the narrative. First, the narrator stresses that the patriarch must sacrifice his son, frequently repeats the word son, and notes Abraham’s fatherhood. These elements recall God’s earlier pledge, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned, 21:12, which distinguishes Isaac from the coming offspring. Second, Yahweh directly predicts how the individual offspring will multiply like the stars, possess the gate of his enemies, and be the instrument of blessing to the nations. Thus, I summarize Genesis 22:1-19’s point as follows: God tests whether Abraham will fear him and obey him and obey the call to sacrifice his only son, thus proving that he truly believes that Yahweh will fulfill his promise of a singular male offspring through Isaac, who will deliver and bless all nations.

Indirect, typological foreshadows of Christ in Genesis 22:1-19. Genesis 22 narrates Abraham’s obedient willingness to offer his son as a burnt offering, Isaac’s sacrificial role in deliverance, and Yahweh’s providing a ram as a substitute sacrifice. Through these features, the passage typologically foreshadows that God would not spare his own son, that Christ would die and rise to life, and he would serve as a substitute sacrifice for sinners. Scripture suggests that the patriarch himself understood to some degree the predictive nature of his test. The father did not spare his own son. By recalling the complete context, we see that the synoptics and John’s writings may present Jesus as the antitypical beloved son whom Isaac anticipated. Similarly, Romans 8:32 likely provides a more direct allusion. “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” Romans 8. Along with seeing an allusion to Isaiah 53:6, 12, Yahweh gave up his servant to death for our sins, many scholars propose that Paul is alluding to Genesis 22:12, 16 where the Lord declares to Abraham, you have not spared your beloved son. Ironically, while Father Abraham, like Father Yahweh, was willing to give up his son, God did not allow the patriarch to complete the sacrifice. The typology in this instance is therefore only partial or perhaps better inverted or ironic. That is, Jesus alone as God’s Son fulfills Abraham’s hope that Yahweh will see. And Jesus alone stands as the antitype to the substitutionary role Isaac foreshadowed but could not fulfill and that the ram ultimately supplied.

Isaac, the potential burnt offering. Abraham’s test required that he willingly sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering at Moriah. Prior to the tabernacle’s construction and the incorporation of the sin and guilt offerings, the burnt offering was the only atoning offering for human sin. Texts like Leviticus 9:24-10:2 demonstrate that burnt offerings can consist of substitutes or sinners. But only the killing of the substitute allows the repentant rebel a renewed relationship with the living God. Was Isaac to die as a substitute or as a sinner? Scripture most commonly uses the language of burnt offering with respect to substitution and nothing in the close context draws attention to a wickedness in Isaac demanding immediate justice. Hence, God likely sets Isaac forth as a vicarious sacrifice standing in for the sinner Abraham or a broader community. However, God did not allow Isaac to stand as a substitute sacrifice, likely because he himself was a sinner. The complete biblical context informs us that burnt offerings would continue until the ultimate substitute’s arrival, since they functioned as an illustration or figure, NIV, ESV, parabola, pointing to what God would accomplish in Christ during the time of the new order, Hebrews 9. Abraham, like Noah before him in Genesis 8, required sustained substitutionary expressions. Isaac could not stand as the substitute, for he himself bore sin’s blemish. God supplies a curse-bearing substitute. Within the story of God’s salvation, the Lord had promised Abraham, whoever curses you, I will curse. When ratifying his covenant of land, offspring and blessing to the patriarch, Yahweh dramatically passed between the animal parts, signaling that he would bear the curse of death if his fulfilling the covenant with Abraham was jeopardized. But since he also conditioned the fulfillment of the covenant promises on the obedience of Abraham’s children, and because all people were innately wicked, Genesis both anticipates that God would be forced to curse them and implies that the Lord would in turn have to curse himself. We now see the significance of the coming offspring and the way Genesis 22 points to the new son of God, who would himself stand as humanity’s substitute. At the beginning of Genesis, God promised that an offspring of the woman and divine image bearing son would destroy the evil one in his sinful work, Genesis 3:15. Thus, where the first man and son of God failed to provide and protect, thereby bringing curse to the original creation, the logic of Genesis 3 in complete Biblical context teaches that this new man and son of God would succeed, thereby securing blessing for a new creation. Nevertheless, while God would raise up this new son, his victory would be costly. The serpent would smite the man’s heel, which when considered from the complete context, at least implies that this son would endure a blow from the one who had been a murderer from the beginning, John 8. From the start, therefore, Genesis anticipates that the promised offspring would in some way bear the curse, but overcome, smiting the serpent’s head, thus reconciling the world to God. Before Genesis 22, the narrator has already intimated for the reader the future curse of both the offspring and God himself. Later prophetic revelation further associates the self-sacrificing royal deliverer with Yahweh and God with his wise royal son. Prior to Genesis 22, the narrator has already associated Isaac with the coming offspring, Genesis 15 and Genesis 21, such that Isaac’s arrival reinforces the certainty that the deliverer will come after and from him. Since Isaac’s life is so bound with the offspring who is to experience tribulation unto triumph, one is not surprised that Isaac will endure suffering to foreshadow the one to come. Yet he is not sufficient for the role. In Abraham and Isaac’s dramatic dialogue up the mountain, the father declared, “God himself will provide a lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” The Hebrew term rendered lamb is, “seh,” a generic term for any small livestock beast. After Yahweh’s angel held back the patriarch’s death bringing hand, the specific type of beast God supplied was a ram. Perhaps to distinguish the type from its antitype, Isaiah notes that the suffering servant was like a lamb, Hebrew “seh,” to the slaughter, Isaiah 53. Both Isaac and the substitute are figures for the greater substitute that Genesis itself anticipates. Abraham rejoiced that he would see Christ’s day.

At least two features within Genesis 22 suggest that Abraham himself understood the predictive significance in his test. First, even after seeing the substitute ram and offering it as a burnt offering instead of his son, Genesis 22:13, Abraham called the place, “Yahweh will see,” using a yiqtol rather than a qatal. It is not, “Yahweh has seen.” Abraham recognized the replacement ram as a foreshadowing of how Yahweh will see to fulfilling the offspring promise and to overcome the curse with blessing. Thus his testimony became a perpetual statement of hope in the one we call Christ. At the mountain of Yahweh, it will be seen. A second feature indicating that Abraham saw his test as predictive further supports this reading. The three-day journey from the region of Beersheba in the Philistines land to Moriah, approximately 56 miles, was unnecessary if Yahweh only desired to test Abraham, for this could have been done without distant travels. By means of this journey, the patriarch would have recognized something more about the promised offspring as a person and about the location, means, and timing of how God would secure his ultimate victory. As for the location, God brings Abraham to a mountain in the region of Moriah, the future location of temple sacrifice, 2 Chronicles 3, and ultimately Christ’s sacrifice. The chronicler explicitly identifies Moriah as the place of sacrifice, showing that he saw Abraham’s word as prospective. With respect to the person, in coming to Moriah, Abraham has returned to the region of Salem, Jerusalem, and the king’s valley where the priest king Melchizedek of Jerusalem blessed him. By this act, and for Abraham’s benefit, Yahweh is likely associating Melchizedek, the king of righteousness and peace, with the promise of the offspring, whose coming the patriarch’s obedience at the mountain would secure. As for means, Yahweh calls a father to give up his son. Within the complete biblical context, this act points to the father’s greater gift in Christ. The Lord also restores this son and supplies a substitute to bear the wrath he deserved. Abraham knew his son would return with him by whatever means the Lord chose. Thus Abraham told his servants regarding him and his boy, we will worship and then we will come back to you. The author of Hebrews saw in Abraham’s statement his belief that God would even raise the dead. Within the complete context, Isaac’s resurrection anticipates the promised offspring who likewise would triumph through tribulation. Regarding the timing, the narrator identifies that Abraham’s test, culminating in his figuratively receiving back his son from the dead, occurred on the third day after he had began his journey. As such, this narrative may be one of the instances where in scripture, this is what is written. “The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,” Luke 24.

Direct Predictions of Christ in Genesis 22:1-19. In his second speech, Yahweh’s messenger makes two promises, both expressed by an infinitive absolute plus yiqtol construction in Hebrew. “I will surely bless you and will surely make your offspring as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore.” Yahweh’s commitment to bless recalls his words in Genesis 12:2. His mention of the stars alludes to Genesis 15:5, which identifies that the offspring who had come from the sun, from his loins, would become countless like the stars. Against the NIV, we should regard the offspring in 22:17b as singular since the verb, “multiply,” commonly means to produce children when it governs living organisms. In light of this, it seems possible that the offspring in Genesis 22:17 is actually the singular deliverer who will himself multiply into a community. The masculine singular pronoun, “his,” modifying offspring in verse 17, further supports this conclusion. Moreover, Genesis’ overall plot structure witnesses a narrowing of vision that moves from the world to Israel to a royal offspring in Judah’s line upon whom all the world’s hopes rest. The offspring in Genesis 22:17-18 is singular on account of Collins’ understanding that an adjective or pronoun’s number make explicit whether zerah, seed, bears a singular or plural referent. The close proximity of the three instances of zerah in 22:17-18 suggests that all are singular in the context. The flow of thought is as follows: the singular male offspring of the woman who will strike a death blow to the head of the serpent and whom Yahweh will name through Isaac will multiply like the stars. The first result of this community will be that the singular offspring will possess the gate of his enemies. The second result is that all the nations of the earth will regard themselves blessed in this offspring. The earth’s nations, counting themselves blessed, constitutes the promised great multiplication and likely signals the eschatological shift from Abraham fathering one nation, Israel, during the Old Covenant, to his fathering many nations, the church, united to Jesus, the true Israel, and the New Covenant. All these are in some way incorporated into the singular offspring, and through their multiplying, he claims enemy turf. This suggests that during the reign of the mail deliverer, the land promised to Abraham will indeed expand to lands, plural, which is exactly what Yahweh promises Isaac in 26:3-4. Furthermore, when considering the complete context, both Peter and Paul regard 22:18 as a Messianic text. I’m thinking Acts 3, Galatians 3, and I suggest therefore that Genesis 22:15-19, accounts to a direct Messianic prophecy.

In summary, in Genesis 22:1-19, Yahweh tests Abraham to reveal whether he would fear God and obey the divine call, thus proving that he truly believed that Yahweh would fulfill his promise of a singular male offspring through Isaac. In response to the patriarch’s obedience, Yahweh both typologically confirms and directly predicts that he will indeed realize what he has promised. He will do this by providing a penal substitutionary sacrifice for sinners and by multiplying the male offspring into a massive community, which will result in the singular offspring overcoming his enemy’s stronghold and in his being the one in whom some from all the earth’s nations regard themselves blessed.

Proverbs 8:22-31–Wisdom is God’s royal Son by whom he creates the world. Overviewing the poem. In Proverbs 8’s immediate context, personified wisdom urges listeners to embrace the truth of her instruction (vv. 4-11), identifies her noble associations and the benefits she brings (vv.12-21), notes her eternal origins and joyful involvement in creation, (vv. 22-31), and charges her sons to heed her voice to experience life rather than death, (vv. 32-36). This meditation on creation includes many semantic and conceptual links with Genesis 1:1-2:3. Analyzing the discourse suggests that the unit divides into two parts, 8-22 and 23-31, both of which offer interpretive challenges.

Concerning part 1, wisdom declares that Yahweh possessed, “kana,” possessed her before he did any acts. The verb, “kana,” in Proverbs 8:22 means to possess, whether by acquisition, purchase or generation. The NIVs brought forth derives from the verb’s use in the context of generation, but to possess still appears to be the base meaning of kana. God has always possessed wisdom, which was present with him before he created anything. It was present as an underlying divine quality or function that his being generates and that is essential or organic to his nature. I render Proverbs 8:22 as follows. “Yahweh possessed me, the beginning of his way, earlier than his acts from then.” The phrase, “the beginning of his way” stands in apposition to “me” and likely marks wisdom as the preeminent element of God’s purposes.

Second, wisdom declares herself to be Yahweh’s means for carrying out his intentions both before creation and at creation. Before creation, Yahweh installed wisdom as his representative, verse 23. NIV says, “I was formed.” ESV, “I was set up.” The verb, “nasak,” with this meaning, occurs elsewhere only in Psalm 2:6. “I have installed my king in Zion.” Solomon likely associates wisdom’s primordial exaltation in Proverbs 8:23 with the future anointed king’s exaltation in Psalm 2:6. At the very least, the link probably identifies wisdom’s royal status in relation to God even before time began. Thus, the JPS renders Proverbs 8:23 from the distant past. “I was enthroned.” Wisdom portrays itself as God’s commissioned image bearer or royal agent who has enjoyed this post from eternity, from the beginning, from times before earth, 8:23. The noun, “olam,” means only a remote time, but the close context concerns eternity past. As Postel notes, “because wisdom precedes creation, it must be regarded as uncreated and as a consequence, eternal.” Yahweh brought forth or strengthened, “kh’il,” wisdom before the waters, mountains and fields. While interpreters debate the precise meaning of the Hebrew verb, “kh’il,” the text’s overall flow depicts wisdom as an eternal effect of God himself.

Next, at creation, wisdom was Yahweh’s constant companion, present when he established the heavens and joyfully and faithfully serving beside him when he made the earth. The noun, “amon,” in verse 30 is likely a bi-form of the adjective, “amun,” faithful, and the noun, “amun,” faithfulness. While some point to Song of Songs 7:1; Jeremiah 52:15, to render “amon” artisan or craftsman, the meaning, “faithful one,” works fine in these contexts. The NIV’s, “I was constantly at his side,” adequately captures the meaning. At creation, wisdom constantly rejoiced before Yahweh in his earth’s soil and with the sons of Adam.

Wisdom is God’s son in Proverbs 8:22-31. Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman to entice his royal sons to desire her. Nevertheless, wisdom’s female persona is secondary to the book’s message. For the royal sons should not only embrace but also embody wisdom. Furthermore, in Proverbs 8, wisdom is neither a feminine part of God nor his consort. Instead, the first person’s speech, I, me, my, mutes the feminine portrayal, thus allowing wisdom to be both with God and of God. Significantly, at the book’s end, that is the close context, a certain Agur, son of Jocka, asks four rhetorical questions whose contents recall Yahweh’s queries in Job 38 and echo Yahweh’s creative acts that Proverbs 3:19-20 and chapter 8:27-31 describe. The queries are these, “Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hand has gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth?” 30:4. He then queries, “What is his name? And what is the name of his son? Surely you know.” Salehammer claims that “this verse intentionally alludes to wisdom’s part in creation in chapter 8, to raise the question of the identity of the one who is with God.” More specifically, 30:1-6 is prophetic speech, making up what 30:1 terms an inspired utterance or oracle. The text reinforces this through the phrase, “the man’s utterance,” which occurs elsewhere only three times and always at the head of Messianic predictions. Numbers 24, two times, and 2 Samuel 23. Contemporary translations consistently render 30:3 negatively as the last of four declarations of ignorance; however, the Hebrew retains no negative in 30:3 and the word order suggests a contrast with what precedes. “I have not learned wisdom, but knowledge of holy ones I know.” Despite being weak and uneducated, Agur received an oracle, a truthful Word of God, that supplied knowledge of holy ones, “kedushim.” The plural form, holy ones, is unexpected as a reference to God. In Scripture, its only other unambiguous use as a substantive with reference to God is Proverbs 9:10, which captures the book’s thesis at the very end of the first main unit. “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Yahweh, and knowledge of holy ones is understanding.” Most interpreters view these examples as plurals of majesty, following the pattern of Elohim, God. So they give the plurals a singular reference and simply render it holy one. However, these would be the only such examples in Scripture. And the singular forms, “El,” in 30:11, and “eloah,” 30:5, for God, draw further attention to the plural, “kedushim.” McKenzie and Shelton rightly note the occurrence of the duo at the end of verse 4 suggests a plurality, that is the Father and the Son, suggests a plurality in the holy ones here in verse 3. Similarly, the Father and the Son in 34 naturally points back to the holy ones of 30:3. This link identifies a united, holy nature in the distinct persons of the Father and his Son. Furthermore, the connection with 9:10 strongly associates the relationship of the Father and the Son in 30:4 to Yahweh and an eternally-begotten wisdom in 8:22-31. Targum Neophyte ties these texts together by rendering Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, with wisdom, the Son of Yahweh completed the sky and the land.”

The wise king as God’s Son in Proverbs and beyond. Additionally, Proverbs most commonly uses the language of sonship with respect to the royal line that we learn elsewhere will culminate in a king whose dominion will never end. While Proverbs never explicitly mentions the promises of 2 Samuel 7, the superscription identifies Solomon as the son of David, the king of Israel, which places Proverbs within this historic and prophetic continuing context. Furthermore, Proverbs intends to train the royal son or sons whose wisdom is grounded in the fear of Yahweh. It is here that Solomon’s allusion to Psalm 2 becomes significant. Just as Yahweh from eternity past installed his wisdom Son to represent him, Proverbs 8, so also Yahweh designates his Messianic king, his begotten Son, Psalm 2:7, upon his installation as king in Zion, having triumphed over his enemies. Utilizing the complete biblical context, Schreiner notes, “If Proverbs is viewed from a canonical perspective, the ideal picture of the king points to a future king, a king who fulfills the promise of the covenant with David, Jesus Christ.” The internal witness of Proverbs suggests that those who composed and or compiled the book portrayed wisdom as God’s eternally begotten son and also believed that that royal son of David and of God would be wisdom incarnate.

This accords with the complete context when one considers the New Testament’s description of Jesus. What the wisdom of God said, Jesus says, thus identifying himself as wisdom, Luke 11. Jesus’ wisdom exceeds Solomon’s, Matthew 12, and he proves it in his deeds and testifies to it in his teaching, Matthew 11. Christ is God’s wisdom who stands against foolish human speculation, Colossians 2, and who becomes our wisdom through his cross-victory, 1 Corinthians 1. Other New Testament texts identify Jesus’ wisdom when they declare him to be the divine word through whom all things were made, John 1, and the very nature of God who becomes human, dies a substitutionary death, and then is exalted to the highest place, Philippians 2. Perhaps the clearest parallel appears in Colossians 1. Here Paul alludes to the wisdom Son of Proverbs 8 and 30, when he identifies that God has brought believers into the kingdom of the Son, Colossians 1, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one who is before all things and in whom all things hold together, and the one in whom all God’s fullness dwells.

Summary. As Yahweh’s eternally-begotten Son, wisdom was the beginning of God’s way, which manifests itself both in Yahweh’s appointing wisdom as his representative even before creation, and by wisdom serving joyfully and faithfully beside Yahweh at creation. Alongside the Father, the wisdom Son was one of the holy ones, which implies the Father and Son enjoyed a unified nature, but were distinct in person. As Son, wisdom incarnate would represent the Father by reigning as the Messianic King, fulfilling the promises to David and standing greater than Solomon as the bestower of wisdom on future children of God. Thus Proverbs 8:22-31 magnifies Jesus, and these are two of the ways that I see Christ in the Old Testament, magnifies Jesus through a blend of Principle 5, Jesus as Yahweh, and Principle 6, Jesus as Ethical, Ideal. I’ve got a conclusion. You’ve got it on your paper. My time’s up. Questions.

Very good, yes. Yes, I will. So the question is, can I speak to the relationship of Isaac as son of Abraham and the coming seed as son of Abraham? Because I noted in Genesis 21:12, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned, and I’m arguing that that offspring is not a people but a person. From the beginning in Genesis 3:15, we see a singular pronoun, who? And I agree with Collins, not in the entire article, but with respect to pronouns and adjectives, that when you see, when you have a collective noun, it doesn’t mean that it’s both singular and plural. It means it can be singular or it can be plural, and the form never changes grammatically. Moses is able to distinguish singular and plural seed. He can use singular pronouns in Genesis 3:15 and in Genesis 22:17b. But he can use plural pronouns in Genesis 17:8-9, when he says, “Abraham, to you and to your offspring, I will give this land, and my covenant will be with them.” And he uses plural pronouns. Moses can distinguish. Therefore, Genesis 22 is referring to a singular male descendant. The focus of the text is on this coming one, who will be the agent through whom Abraham will move from being a father of one nation to a father of many. The connection between Genesis 15, he saw the stars, in the context of, I need the heir. I think the narrator, Moses, has already set us up through linear genealogies, through the Toledot headings, “these are the generations of,” to have us link the promise of the offspring from generation to generation, all the way up to Abraham. We’re supposed to see him longing for the coming one. His wife is barren. He needs an heir. But what God says is, “I will raise up one from your own loins, and then the offspring will become as numerous as the stars.” Rather than rendering it the offspring will be as numerous as the stars, that’s what the ESV says, meaning the offspring is plural, I think it’s the offspring singular will become as numerous as the stars. So he can use that language of multiplication with respect to Abraham being the father of one nation in the land. They can multiply like the sand on the sea, Genesis 3, Genesis 13. But he can also use the exact same image to talk about what I believe is the church. It’s the multiplied remnant, and it is through Isaac, so it’s working a trajectory culminating in the coming one of Genesis 49:8-10, in the line of Judah, from Genesis 3:15, all the way up to that focused offspring promise. I think the entire book with two genealogies is—those who are the mission field and those who are hoping in the offspring promise with the target of the mission field. That’s the rebel line and the remnant line in the book. And the offspring promise is just so dominant, it seems to me, both Genesis 15 and Genesis 22, Isaac is not the offspring. He is the heir. He is the instrument, the agent, through whom the offspring will rise, upon whom all of our hopes rest.

JD: In Genesis 22, you’re referring to the reference back to the Abraham Isaac story and that Abraham’s faith was working. And it specifically says, the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, was fulfilled in Abraham’s obedience. That’s what it says in James 2. The scripture, his faith was fulfilled. The same faith that justified him was the faith that sanctified him. And what that faith was, was looking outside of himself. He couldn’t produce the heir. He was bringing nothing to the table. And so he is trusting God to do for him what he could not do for himself, ultimately through the offspring promise. That’s where his faith lies. So I agree with Walt Kaiser that the narrator, Moses, holds off on the discussion of faith. Even though the writer of Hebrews sees faith all the way in Genesis 12, it was already there. He holds off on the “amman” Word Group for Genesis 15 in the context of the offspring promise to note justifying faith is linked directly with him. Hebrews, there was—Let me just pause there. That at least touches the James thing. We can talk about Hebrews after. There was more questions.

Audience: So in Proverbs chapter 8, I really appreciate your exegesis. Particularly in verse 30, you took, “amon,” as not being a builder, but as a faithful one. I always consider that to be entailed to wisdom as creator. So can you—because I don’t see any creation, like wisdom as being a creator in creation.

JD: In this text, he’s rejoicing. But in Proverbs 3, God is actually creating through wisdom.

Audience: It doesn’t require that wisdom as the creator.

JD: He is with God. He is a person. And he is before creation. And I say he’s a person because the author of Proverbs links in Proverbs 30 this wisdom with God’s Son. And so the author who is himself—so it’s Agur but I have no problem seeing Agur anticipating the coming wisdom Son. Solomon in Proverbs 8 anticipating the coming wisdom Son. In Proverbs 4, he just told us, everything that I’m saying to you is what my dad told me. He refers to David. So here he is, the son out of adultery. And it’s in that very context. He’s saying, don’t go after the woman of foolishness. And Solomon is simply passing on to his kids what he learned from his father in the context of his Bathsheba episode. And in the weight of that, it’s what is the thesis of the book? Fear Yahweh and have knowledge of the Holy Ones. And when I see that Holy Ones, it seems as though this is personal. This is God and wisdom, the wisdom from Proverbs 8. Have knowledge of these two persons who are united in nature because they’re the Holy Ones. They both are holy, united. And as Postel argues, I fully agree with him, that because wisdom was with God before creation, wisdom has to be eternal. Wisdom is with God. And so I think, I just think the New Testament authors, they’re searching and inquiring carefully to know what person in time, sorry, they are looking at the Old Testament text, and these Old Testament authors are meditating, not only on gaining visions and gaining dreams, they’re looking at Scripture. And I think Solomon, before him David, after him Agur, really believed that the promise of the offspring was real and they associated that coming one with wisdom.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For additional materials celebrating Christ in the Old Testament, please visit handstotheplow.org.