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Covenant Theology has been a vital topic in both biblical studies and historic and systematic theology. Unfortunately, these disciplines rarely intersect. Such a predicament is answered in the new book Covenant, a vital element of Reformed Theology, which takes a multidisciplinary approach with contributions aimed at interaction between exegesis and dogmatics. Join us as we speak with Jap Decker about his contribution to Covenant, which considers an elusive reference to the Davidic Covenant within the Book of Isaiah.
You're listening to new books and biblical studies, a channel of the new books network in Amiore host, Michael Morales. Jap Decker is professor of biblical studies and Christian identity on the Hank Dijon chair at the Theological University of Campin, the Netherlands. He is widely published with many published studies focusing on the Book of Isaiah. Jap, welcome to new books and biblical studies.
Thank you, Michael. Would you tell us first about yourself and family where you teach and the focus of your research? Yes, 55 years ago, I was born in the beautiful city of Compton in the Netherlands where my father was a student at the Theological University at the time. And there I am now working myself.
However, I myself did not study at Compton, but at the Theological University of Applehorn and at the University of Leiden, both also in the Netherlands. I am happily married for over 30 years now. We have four grown children, five beautiful granddaughters, and we are still expecting the birth of our first grandson. For more than 25 years, I have been a pastor in various reform churches in the Netherlands, 20 years of which we are combined with the teaching position as an Old Testament scholar.
For several years now, I have been working full-time as professor of biblical studies and Christian identity at Compton Theological University, which is a well-known international center for the academic study of reform theology. By the way, Compton Theological University will soon move to Utrecht in order to attract more students and also to have more interdisciplinary opportunities in a much larger academic context. My research focuses on the theology of the Book of Isaiah, and I am particularly interested in the Christian resection of the book and its significance for Christian identity. My PhD thesis, which was supervised by Eric Pills and Windloken in 2004, was on Isaiah 28 and the Zion tradition in the book.
After that, I published a series of articles both in Dutch and English on theological themes in Isaiah, including creation, history, the servant of the Lord, uniqueness of the Lord, and the Vedic covenant. I've also co-edited several volumes, including one on meeting one God in the Old Testament, which was a festival for Eric Pills and another on the interpretation and reception of Leviathan and other monsters of the biblical world. So how did this book on covenant come together? What's the background story?
Well, this new book on confidence for which you invited me is one of the fruits of a unique disciplinary interdisciplinary research group in which biblical theologians and systematic theologians cooperate. This research group goes by the name best, which sounds very pretentious, of course, but is actually just the appreciation for biblical exegesis and systematic theology. He started his group a number of years ago as a collaborative project of the Theological Universities of Compan and Ablorn from the observation that biblical research and systematic theology are often very separate worlds in practice. Of course, they both have their own fields and methods, and these should not mix up too much as we all know since Johann Philip Gardner separated biblical theology from the mathematics.
However, biblical scholars now sometimes leave the theological questions too much aside, organizing their own conferences and producing their own literature, while systematic theologians are sometimes unsure what to do with the results of modern biblical research. One could say in practice today, we too often resemble the laborers who dug the cirolum tunnel in the time of Ezekiel. Biblical scholars' systematically logians each begin digging on their own site, hoping to meet some good time along the way. Well, Ezekiel's tunnel diggers miraculously ended up together, but we often dig in different directions, and it does not always come to a real meeting and to a fruitful conversation.
Therefore, our aim as a research group is precisely to have this interaction between biblical exegesis and systematic theology. We think that's necessary and that it can be both stimulating and fruitful. As a result, biblical scholars hopefully will become more theological, signaling also theological questions in their own readings, and systematic theology might be called more biblical and less ahistorical in its use of description. Our research group therefore organizes annual conferences for both disciplines on important biblical and theological themes, resulting in joint and peer-reviewed publications with Grille.
After previous publications on playing with leviaten, on the solas katura principle, our latest publication is on Confidentism's vital element of Reformed tradition, and the book is edited by Hans Berger, Kurt Kaggle, and Michael Milner. Jaap, would you explain for us what covenant means and basic terms, and why it is so fundamental to the biblical story and faith? Well, in Reformed theology, covenant has always been a central category of thought, the crucial motive providing a grand narrative to understand the history of God's revelation from the Garden of Eden, to the coming of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of Creation. In this grand narrative, covenant indicates the reality and formal regulation of God's relationship with his people.
It refers to the reciprocal and ongoing relationship of which the former I will be their God and they shall be my people, his characteristic. Reformed tradition has always given covenant a central role in his theology. It even developed a classic distinction between three different covenants, the eternal covenant of redemption between Father, Son, and Spirit of Satan, the covenant of works made with humanity before the falling sin, and the covenant of grace culminating in Jesus Christ who became mediator of the covenant. These classic distinctions of Reformed covenants, however, were not based on the actual occurrence of several types of covenant in the Old Testament.
The local scholars now can no longer deal with these systematic theological categories because they do not match the dynamics of covenant in Scripture itself. Covenant of works, for example, does not seem to occur in the Old Testament. It's a theological construction foreign to it. And also the role of Israel and its present existence have to be done more justice in theological reflections on the concept of covenant in Reformed theology.
In our few systematic theology, it has to take serious that the Old Testament history tells about various gourids, the Hebrew word that you may translate with covenant, but that depending on its use in different contexts has different meanings and conversations. Besides the study of treaties in the ancient New East has shed new light on the understanding of covenant in biblical texts. For that reason, covenant still is an important theological theme to research, and therefore it does not only appear written in recent studies on biblical theology, but also in study on systematic theology. To summarize the importance of covenant, it's a dynamic concept shaped in different ways in the Old New Testament.
Covenants, one would say, renews the relationship of God with his people in continuously changing circumstances, he is the covenant with Noah, with Abraham and Israel, or the covenant with David. And even though the word beret does not come up equally in all the books of the Bible, it's clear that the reality of the covenant always plays an important role in God's dealings with his people. Our position in the book is therefore that covenant remains a vital element for faith and for Reformed theology, but it has to be reconsidered in more biblical terms in order to show its relevance for present Christianity. And that's what we hope to contribute to with this book.
Your contribution relates to the Davidic covenant specifically to a reference in the book of Isaiah. Would you begin by giving us an orientation to the Davidic covenant? Yes, of course. In essence, my contribution is about the promise of a new and everlasting covenant in Isaiah, and the question of what David has to do with it.
In the Old Testament, the Davidic covenant refers to the promise God made to David that he would always have a descendant sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. And that promise is given for the first time in the so-called prophecy of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7. It's just not called the covenant then. That doesn't happen until later texts, but this prophecy is the source of the idea.
When David has planned to build a house at Temple for God, God prefers to entrust this project with success and so on. But David does receive the promise that God will build a house for him. That means David does not have the fear that his kingship will be only temporary, like that of his predecessor, Saul, who was rejected by God. Instead, God guarantees David that there will truly be and remain at the vidic dynasty of kings.
It has become common to refer to this promise as God's covenant with David, especially because of how David himself speaks of it in his so-called last words in 2 Samuel 23. God has made an everlasting covenant with me, David and says, ordered in all things and secured. And also, Saul in 89 refers back to this promise as the covenant God has made with his chosen love, the servant David. The song reminds God of its after the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Nathan prophecy in itself is not yet straightforward messianic in its content, but in the course of time, the messianic interpretation of it has grown gradually. Probably also in view of the increasing failure of the vidic dynasty. The Davidic covenant then appeared to have a messianic potential. Therefore, prophetic texts in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel hark back to the Davidic covenant by promising the coming of a new day as part of their announcements of a new and everlasting covenant.
Well, the question that my article deals with is how is this actually in the book of Isaiah, when also in this book a future covenant of peace or an everlasting covenant is announced? What does David has to do with it? Isaiah 55 includes a curious reference to David. The quote, sure mercies of or to David.
But just plain for us some of the interpretive approaches to this text and why they matter, how do others understand this reference in relation to the Davidic covenant? Well, for a long time already, biblical scholars have noticed that David is remarkably absent in the prophecies collected within the second and third parts of the book of Isaiah. The only exception is the mention of the short mercies offered for David in Isaiah 55, first three in Hebrew, the Hasdada, Vithane, Ammanim. In the translation of the NRSV, the promise reads as follows, I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall rent to you because of the Lord you got the only one of Israel for he has glorified you. So this is the only text in the second and third parts of the book of Isaiah that refers to David and the covenant the Lord has made with him. Since Gerhard von Ratz and Otto Eisselt, this exception, however, has often been understood as confirming the rule for according to the now usual interpretation of text.
The downfall of the defeated kingdom caused a democratization of the covenant with David and the transfer of his promises to the people as a whole according to the majority or consensus view. Isaiah 55 does not sustain the ancient promise any longer, that there will always be an heir of David on the throne of Jerusalem. After the exile, it's the people as a whole that will be privileged with the same promises which before have been given to David. As a result of this redefinition, it is argued that the defeated covenant has lost the earth its original sense.
Bill and Birken, however, has described this majority few in the seventies already as an opinion that is in imminent danger of becoming an unfounded dogma of biblical theology. The first problem is how to interpret the genetics in the Hebrew expression Hasde David. Thus, this indicates the sure mercies of David himself, David being the subject, or the sure mercies which the Lord has given to David David in the object of phrase. Most scholars agree that the expression has to be understood in line with Psalm 89, which mentions the mercies and greatest deeds of the Lord bestowed upon David, in Hebrew Hasde at a nine.
The minority of scholars however prefer to understand the Hebrew phrase in Isaiah 55 as referring to the sure mercies of David himself, taking it as a subjective genitive, interpreting the new covenant as a divine recompense for David's own loyalty to the Lord, for example, in bringing the ark to Jerusalem, or interpreting the promise in line with tradition as a straightforward messianic prophecy, sometimes even directly linking it to the suffering servant of chapter 53. The faithful kindnesses of David himself, the messianic David in this case, should then be identified with the sacrifice the servant brings. And the resurrection of the servant then prepares the way for the fulfillment of God's promises in the Davidic covenant. However, neither line of interpretation I find confinsing, majority or consensus few does not confense, but neither does this straightforward messianic interpretation of Isaiah 55.
So give us now your approach to the Davidic reference within the flow of Isaiah. Yes, I would like to do that, of course. My own approach to the Davidic reference in Isaiah 55 builds on the biblical theological approach of Hank Bion, an Old Testament senior scholar from the Netherlands. My chair at Compton Theological University is named after him and Hank Bion is also an honorary doctor of our university.
Bion has developed a canonical view on the concept of covenant that focuses on the theological meaning of the Davidic covenant, in the context of the relationship between the Old and the New Testament. It goes too far to describe his theology in detail, for that I would like to refer to my article in the book, but in short, Bion understands the Davidic covenant as a covenant within a covenant, which was meant to anchor and to reinforce Sinai covenant. He argues that there has always been an apparent weakness in the Sinai covenant, before the Sinai covenant was made dependent on the loyalty and obedience of the humans within the covenant. For that reason, the Sinai covenant would never reach its goal, though it was founded on the unconditional covenant with patriarchs, conditional form of the Sinai covenant itself clearly created a problem which absolutely resolved.
You with this inherent weakness, the detailed sacrificial system with priests and offerings was put in place, but in practice, this system as well was dependent on its observance by the human side of the covenant. History would show that Israel often failed and thereby brought in danger the future of the covenant. Psalm 78, for example, describes the fundamental crisis Israel was in at the end of the period of the judges. The Lord then abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh.
He even delivered the ark of his power to captivity, his glory to the hands of the foe. He rejected the Psalms, says that, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. Instead, he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves, and he chose his certain David, and made him the shepherd of his people, Jacob, of Israel, his narrates. Well, the young then argues that the Davidic covenant in essence was meant to fortify the human partners of the Sinai covenant by reinforcing it with the unconditional Davidic prophecy in order to guarantee its future.
First of all, David and his descendants had to take care of the temple where the Lord would dwell among people and reconciliation would be established on the altar. Initially, it may seem that this does not solve the problem of the inherent weakness of the Sinai covenant for the Davidic kings often failed just as Israel, it's healthy. But in contrast to the Sinai covenant, the Davidic promise itself is ultimately unconditional, or is closely connected to and even anchored in God's election of Zion, which theologically precedes his election of David. The young then concludes that David and Zion together prepared for the new covenant, which was announced in the Old Testament already and will be inaugurated when, with the calling of Jesus Christ, whom the New Testament reveals as being the fulfillment of both David and Zion.
Well, building on this, bitter call, theological view, I argue that the Davidic reference in Isaiah 55 should not be understood as a democratization of the Davidic covenant. For calling God's mercies to David's shore or steadfast up Nehem and Nehem, presupposes that the original significance of the Davidic promises remains. In line with the young, I propose to understand that the Davidic reference in Isaiah 55 has a reinforcement of the covenant with the people of Israel by connecting it with the unconditional promise of the Davidic covenant, announcing the making of an everlasting covenant God be clear as to remain loyal to his people. But in many facets, this loyalty in his dealings with the house of David.
To stay in the covenant, Israel therefore has to focus on the gracious deeds of God to David and his house in the past as well as in the future. The new covenant as announced in Isaiah 55, in fact, then is a continuation of the Sinai covenant, but without his weaknesses, thanks to the Davidic covenant. Someone might object as Isaiah 55 no longer speaks of the promise of the descendants who will sit on David's throne forever, which is the core of the Davidic covenant. Indeed, that's remarkable.
Instead, Isaiah 55 calls David a witness to the peoples and a leader in command for the peoples. However, this also appears to be an inherent aspect of the Old Testament understanding of the Davidic covenant. Climactic ending of Psalm 18, for example, makes this clear. You make me add all the nations that David says in Psalm.
And it appears that David's rule over the nations is closely tied to his witness to the peoples, just as in Isaiah 55. For Davidic clears that he will praise the Lord of Mormon nations subjected to him. In my view, in Isaiah 55, it is the Davidic reinforcement of the covenant with Israel in particular, that guarantees that Israel finally will be able to exercise his witnessing role among the nations. In this way, the Lord will glorify Israel.
Nations, Israel did not know before, will come to it, just as the nations that David did not know before had come to him, as it is explicitly stated at the end of Psalm 18. Therefore, the Davidic reference in Isaiah 55 is not the straightforward messianic prophecy. It is better to understand that the Davidic covenant here in its function connects the Sinai covenants and the promise of the New Covenant. The everlasting character of the Davidic covenant was able to give the promise of the new covenant, the sure foundation, who conclude my already thoughtful answer.
In my view, it is far too superficial and interpretation to explain Isaiah 55 as a democratization of the Davidic covenant. The everlasting covenant promised here is nothing less than the now upgraded version of the covenant with Israel, receiving its sure foundation and guaranteed duration from the Davidic covenant. Isaiah 55 does not nullify the original sense of the Davidic promise, neither explicitly nor implicitly. Besides the previous chapter, Isaiah 54, verse 9 explicitly eludes to the contents of the covenant of Noah as an argument to emphasize the reliability of the newly announced covenant of peace.
Both texts might be linked together. Speaking of the Davidic reinforcement of the covenant with Israel, presupposes I would argue that the Davidic covenant itself retains its original significance, just as the covenant with Noah, retains its significance when the everlasting mercy of the Lord, which is great, characteristic of his covenant, is appealed to in Isaiah 54, to proclaim the also persistent character of the covenant of peace. I would you say the reference to David relates to the servant figure in Isaiah. In my view, there is only a small relationship with the motive of the servant, namely in the use of the designation witness.
In Isaiah 55, verse 4, which says that the Lord has made David a witness to the peoples. In the Isaiah context, it probably relates to the vocation of servant Israel to be a witness in the lawsuit of the Lord with the idols of the nations, which is emphasized in the second part of the book. The Davidic reinforcement of the covenant is proclaimed in Isaiah 55, guarantees that Israel finally will be able to exercise its witnessing role among the nations. In my view, it's not obvious that Isaiah 55 alludes to the death and supposed resurrection of the servant of the board from chapter 53, a son scholars claim.
In general, it's clear that the book of Isaiah nowhere identifies the suffering servant with the expected Davidic king from the first part of the book, nor is there any identification to be supposed in the Davidic reference in Isaiah 55. It's only the third part of the book I would argue in Isaiah 61, that another agent of the Lord presents himself a messenger, anointed with the spirit, who comes to proclaim the year of grace from the Lord. In him, I recognize certain characteristics of the Davidic king announced in the first part of the book and also of the servant of the Lord, announced in the second part, but only in the New Testament, to all these different lines from Isaiah, come together in one person of Jesus Christ, who appears to be the fulfillment of all these different agents from the book of Isaiah. In the book of Isaiah itself, all these agents has to be distinguished from each other and should not be brought under one denominator, such as the expected Messiah, because then you lose sight of the distinctive colonies connected with each of the agents in the book of Isaiah's own.
Well, Jeff, before we let you go, are there any other projects you're working on you can tell us about? Well, from our research group, the biblical, exegesis and systematic theology, two publications are still in preparations. One on Israel as a humanitical challenge for theology and for Christian faith. And also one on the logic of God's love.
We hope both can be published in 2023, but that depends on the peer review process, which sometimes takes more time than expected. This book on confidence has also been the editing process longer than originally planned. Another project in which I participated at the moment is a project of the University of Proteostro, South Africa, which will lead to the publication of a biblical theology of prayer, hopefully also in 2023. My contribution to this project is on prayer in a mayor's office in Isaiah and Jeremiah in particular.
And to conclude my answer, I'm also still planning to write a theology of the book of Isaiah. The debt project will take several years to come. Jeff, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for being with us.
You're welcome, Michael. Alright friends, you've been listening to new books and biblical studies, a channel of the new books network. Until next time. Goodbye.