End of Exile

NT Wright has sparked controversy for saying that Jesus announces the kingdom as the end of exile. It’s hardly a new thought.

In his discussion of the “particular and general” in his Tyconius: The Book of Rules , Tyconius observes an alternating movement in the prophets. Prophets speak of the restoration from Babylon, or the fall of Babylon to the Medes, both historical events within Old Testament history. But then they will move to “general” prophecy about the fall of the city of man or the deliverance from sin and death.

In Ezekiel 36, for instance, the prophet ‘links the coming of the gentiles to the return of the captives who had been taken from Jerusalem and scattered abroad; and he uses the land which our fathers had possessed to represent the world. For the seven nations promised to Abraham are a figure for all the nations.”

Prophets that are, in particular, about the end of exile are, in general, about the gathering of the nations.