Of Kline and Kings

In his book on the Deuteronomistic history, Terence Fretheim notes the marked differences between God’s dealings with Israel and the expectations suggested by suzereignty treaties: “the historian makes it abundantly clear that God is not bound to react to the people in some schematic or univocal fashion. The relationship between God and people is much too personally oriented, has too much flexibility in it, for contractual language to do it justice. God’s mercy and compassion go beyond simple justice, again and again. God is not bound by form in responding; his actions are not legalistically defined or determined in advance.” That is overstated; God is not free to ignore Israel’s apostasy forever, but has bound himself to bring judgment. But the point is well-taken that Yahweh doesn’t respond rigidly; in a sense, the great problem of Kings is not why God destroyed Israel but how He could have refrained for so long. And that point alone goes a long way to undermining any strong connection between Yahweh’s covenant and suzereignty treaties. It is almost as if Kings is written to show that Yahweh is not a covenant Lord in the way that a lord bound by suzereignty treaty is a covenant Lord. As always, Yahweh adopts the form only to burst it wide open, freely accepts limits to prove in the end that He is without limits.