Eamon Younis: Primal Parousia

By Meredith G. Kline

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Genesis 3:8 describes the approach of the Lord God following the fateful disobedience of the man and the woman in the garden. Judgment was the purpose of God’s coming and he proceeded at once to prosecute his lawsuit against the covenant-breakers and to pronounce the damnation of their tempter.

How then are we to picture this coming of the Lord? One would expect that the theophany would have been fashioned to express the ominous design of the divine mission. Customary renderings of Genesis 3:8a do not convey such an impression, however. The familiar version of it, “and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” suggests something rather more casual. It is the hope of the present essay to show that the kind of epiphany that the historical situation calls for is what the original text actually does depict—an advent of the Lord in his awesomely fearful judicial Glory. And if this is so, Genesis 3:8 turns out to be an account of a primal parousia, a record of the beginnings of what is known later in the Scriptures as the day of the Lord.

The exegesis of Genesis 3:8 to be recommended here emerged in connection with the development of an interpretation of “the Spirit” in Genesis 1:2 as the Shekinah-Glory, the theophanic cloud that meets its again in the exodus history of Israel.[1] The Glory-Spirit was then identified as the specific referent in the creation of man in God’s image (Gen 1:26 and 2:7) and as the sheltering divine Presence over the holy garden in Eden.[2] This reading of Genesis 1 and 2 prepares for the recognition of the theophanic Glory elsewhere in this context, and the discovery of such an additional instance of this theophanic phenomenon in Genesis 3:8—will in turn serve to confirm our earlier identification of the Glory-Spirit.

The Voice of Yahweh

“They heard the voice (qôl) of Yahweh God” (Gen 3:8a). It is generally agreed that the “voice” here is not that of the Lord’s speaking, as though he was heard conversing or calling. It is rather the “voice,” or sound, of the Lord’s coming that was heard.[3] In other passages qôl is used for the sound of approaching feet.[4] The sound in Genesis 3:8, however, is not that of mere footsteps.[5] This passage must be played fortissimo. What Adam and Eve heard was frighteningly loud. It was the shattering thunder of God’s advent in judgment.

One of the prominent aspects of theophany throughout the Old Testament is its distinctive sound. Sometimes this sound is called “the voice of Yahweh” or “his voice.”[6] Instances of this phenomenon of the clarion-identifying sound of the divine Presence, or parousia, are found in historical narrative, in accounts of the visionary experience of the seers, and in poetic descriptions of God’s presence and action in the world, whether reflections on the past or apocalyptic portrayals of future judgments.

There was that day at Sinai that Israel must carry in memory (Deut 4:9f)—the day that dawned with lightnings and thunders (qôlôt), the day when the mountain burned with a fire enveloped in theophanic clouds, for Yahweh came down in fire on the top of the mountain and the whole mountain quaked (Exod 19:16–18; Deut 4:11). Specifically, Israel must not forget that they saw no anthropomorphous or other kind of form on that day—”there was only qôl” (Deut 4:12), as the voice of the trumpet sounded louder and louder and God spoke with thundering voice, declaring his covenant (Exod 19:19; Deut 4:13, 33; 5:4, 22; cf. Heb 12:18f, 25f).

There was also that later theophany at Horeb witnessed by Elijah, which so remarkably paralleled the experience of Moses at Sinai, and here again the greatest possible emphasis is given to the theophanic qôt. According to the traditional understanding of 1 Kings 19:12, what Elijah heard was “a still small voice,” in which case this would be an atypical instance of the sound associated with theophany. But q dmmh dqh may be better rendered “a roaring, crushing voice (sound)”[7] and the insistence of this passage is that while wind, earthquake, and fire accompany the Presence, the Lord is peculiarly identified with the thunderous qôl.[8]

Another historical narrative in which God’s presence is said to have been made known by the sound of his movement in the midst of his heavenly armies is the account of David’s battle against the Philistines in the Valley of Rephaim. On that occasion David’s advance on earth was matched by (or better, corresponded to) Yahweh’s advance above,[9] the latter signalized by the “voice” of marching[10] over the tree-tops (2 Sam 5:24).[11]

New Testament Pentecost may also be mentioned here with its coming of the Spirit as divine witness to seal the new covenant, a counterpart to the Spirit’s descent on Sinai as the Glory-witness to the old covenant.[12] Once again, along with the fire as a sign of the Spirit’s presence there was the sound[13] from heaven, a roaring storm-like noise. The ancient Glory theophany was adapted to this new time after Christ’s incarnation and glorification but the mighty noise was still a major feature among the insignia of the Presence.

Ezekiel’s accounts of his ecstatic visionary experiences provide the most elaborate biblical treatment of the Glory theophany. As perceived by the prophet, it was a cherubim-propelled chariot with the Glory-figure enthroned above a firmament above the cherubim. Such was the hidden reality that was disclosed to him from within what he first caught sight of as a great cloud coming out of the north, driven bv the storm-wind and bright with an inner flashing fire (Ezek 1:4ff). Impressed by the sound as well as the sight of the phenomenon, Ezekiel reports: “When they (the cherubim) went, I heard the qôl of their wings, like the qôl of many waters, like the qôl of the Almighty, the qôl of tumult like the qôl of an army…. And there came a qôl from the firmament above their heads…. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the qôl of one speaking” (Ezek 1:24, 25a, 28b). When describing further appearances of the Glory to him, Ezekiel continues to mention the impressive sound that accompanied it. Attributing the sound again to the moving of the wings of the cherubim and the turning of the wheels (3:13; 10:5), he compares it to the noise of earthquake (3:12) and once more to the voice of the Almighty when he speaks (10:5) and to the sound of many waters (43:2). Of particular interest for Genesis 3:8 is the theophany episode recorded in Ezekiel 9–11, for it is strongly evocative of the Genesis 3 event. Here again the Glory moves in judgment against those who have defiled God’s sanctuary[14] and the offenders are driven out (11:9ff) while the cherubim-guardians are positioned on the east of the holy city (11:22f).

Other seers too remark upon the mighty sound that attended their visionary encounters with the Glory of the Lord. They liken it to the sound of a multitude of people or the sound of many waters and they note that it produced the effect of quaking in all about.[15]

In poetic accounts, the natural and theophanic cloud formations merge, the former being viewed as an extension of the latter so that the inner reality of the theophany becomes the poetic explanation of the natural phenomena. Thus, just as Ezekiel accounts for the roar of the storm wind from the north in terms of the movement of the wings of the cherubim, so biblical poetry elsewhere interprets the noise of thunder in terms of Yahweh giving forth his voice. Indeed, this identification of the voice of the Lord with thunder is found in passages that speak of the manifestation of God’s power in both the ordinary storms of nature[16] and in extraordinary theophanic and eschatological storm phenomena.[17] The prominence of the sound element among the theophanic phenomena is especially evident in Psalm 29, which is a sustained celebration of Yahweh’s qôl (vss. 3–9).[18] As we shall observe further below, the qôl yhwh is an important element in the prophetic portrayal of the day of Yahweh.

Whether it is the sound of the advancing Glory or the sound of the Lord’s speaking from the midst of the Glory, the qôl yhwh is characteristically loud, arrestingly loud. It is likened to the crescendo of ocean and storm, the rumbling roar of earthquake. It is the noise of war, the trumpeting of signal horns and the din of battle.[19] It is the thunder of the storm-chariot of the warrior-Lord, coming in judgments that convulse creation and confound the kings of the nations.[20]

Such a conception of the qôl yhwh clearly fits the Genesis 3:8 situation very well. There too the “voice” of Yahweh is the sound of diivine advent. The verb used for God’s approach (miṯhallēḵ) is used elsewhere for the activity of the Glory-Presence among the Israelites.[21] In Psalm 104:3, in context with a reference to the thunder-sound of God (v. 7), this verb (in the Pi’el) denotes the procession of God, mounted on his wind-driven cloud-chariot. The Hithpa’el of this verb is used to describe the movement of agents of the divine council, which is found within the Glory-cloud, when they are on missions of surveillance and judgment.[22] It also describes God himself engaged in surveillance.[23] Similarly, the purpose of the coming of the Lord denoted by this verse in Genesis 3:8 was to execute judgment. And the “voice” of Yahweh that signalized this coming was a terror going before him, driving the guilty pair into hiding from the Face of their Maker (Gen 3:8b).[24] This advent recorded in Genesis 3:8 thus corresponds fully in its purpose and effect to the awesome approach of the Glory met with elsewhere in Scripture, the approach with which a thunderous voice of Yahweh is regularly associated. There is every reason, therefore, to perceive God’s movement through the garden in Genesis 3 as an advent in the terrible judicial majesty of his Glory theophany and to hear “the voice” that heralded this advent as the characteristic theophanic thunder.

The Spirit of the Day

How the traditional understanding of Genesis 3:8a has managed to maintain itself in the face of what rather obviously must be the point of the statement in its context may be accounted for by the difficulty encountered in the adverbial phrase Irwḥ hyywm (AV, “in the cool of the day”). Starting from the relative obscurity of this phrase, which is not found elsewhere in the Bible, traditional exegesis has been led away from the natural meaning of the first part of the sentence. But if we follow the sound exegetical practice of proceeding from what is clear to what is obscure, it will appear that Irwḥ hyywm, though cryptically concise, is actually an eloquent addition to this verse’s description of the advent of the Glory.

Certainly the customary temporal rendering of Irwḥ hyywm has its problems, quite apart from any grammatical questions arising from the preposition (l-). Why, one wonders, would so simple and ordinary an idea as that of “evening” be expressed by a phrase it once so rare[25] and ambiguous.[26] And what would be the point of such a temporal reference? Are we really prepared to accept the anthropomorphism of the Lord’s seeking the relief that might be afforded by the evening air from the burden of the day? Moreover, on such an interpretation, the purpose assigned to this excursion bears only an incidental relation to what God actually proceeded to do. The momentous primeval judgment would then have transpired just coincidentally to what began as an idyllic stroll.[27]

Understandably, numerous commentators, uneasy with the prevalent view, have sought for a more satisfactory exegesis, some through textual emendation. As alternatives to the temporal view of the prepositional phrase, local and modal interpretations have been suggested, some giving rûäḥ its lexical value of “quarter, direction” and others understanding it as the “wind” and regarding it as the source of the sound mentioned earlier in the verse. It is not our purpose to rehearse and assess in detail challenges to the traditional view presented hitherto, none of which has gained notable acceptance anyway, but to pursue the new possibilities opened by our interpretation of the earlier part of Genesis 3:8a.

As previously mentioned, there are references to the Glory theophany in the context surrounding Genesis 3:9 (Gen 1:2, 26; 2:7; 3:22ff), and this theophany is, moreover, called “the Spirit (rûäḥ) of God” in Genesis 1:2. We are thus alerted to the possibility of a similar usage of rûäḥ in Genesis 3:8. And if, as interpreted above, the words in this verse which are qualified by the phrase lrwḥ hyywm themselves refer to the Glory theophany on a mission of judgment, the identification of the rûäḥ here as the divine Spirit, the Glory-Spirit, is quite compelling.

In keeping with this identification of rûäḥ as the Spirit in the judgment context of Genesis 3:8, we find that the divine Spirit is closely linked with the function of divine judgment elsewhere in Scripture too. Of primary importance is the fact that “Spirit” appears as the designation of the Glory-chariot, the Presence of God in sovereign power on judicial missions of surveillance, sentencing, and execution.[28] But in addition to those instances where the theophanic Glory is the Spirit’s vehicle of judgment are the cases where the Spirit comes upon human agents of divine judgment as an empowering endowment.

God’s Spirit thus came upon those who were raised up to be “judges” of his people. The first instance mentioned in the Book of Judges is characteristic. The Spirit of Yahweh came on Othniel “and he judged Israel” (Judg 3:10), that is, he became the agent of God’s judicial action in behalf of Israel, going to war and delivering them from the oppression of Cushanrishathaim.[29] Of his Servant, God declared: “I have put my Spirit on him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations” (Isa 42:1), and the Servant himself claims this Spirit-endowment to carry out the task of the day of God’s vindication of his people (Isa 61:1ff). What is thus affirmed of the Servant of the Lord answers to the prophecy concerning the messianic Branch of the royal line of the son of Jesse: the Spirit of Yahweh will rest upon him (Isa 11:1, 2) for his work of judging the meek of the earth and slaying the wicked (Isa 11:3ff). Similarly, in Isaiah 28, the prophet speaks of a day of judgment in which the Lord of hosts will be a Glory-crown to a remnant-people and a “Spirit of judgment” for those who occupy the tribunal (vss. 5f). Lying behind all this is Isaiah’s eschatological picture of Jerusalem as a perfected remnant-community, purged by “the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning,” the theophanic Spirit-cloud that will also cover the restored Zion as a canopy of glory (Isa 4:4–6).[30]

On our understanding of Genesis 3:8, its identification of the divine agent in the first great divine judgment in human history as “the Spirit of the day” is a fontal revelation of the Spirit’s judicial function. When this theme emerges later in Scripture, there is at times an apparently quite direct allusion to Genesis 3:8. Psalm 139, for example, brings to mind at once the circumstances of Genesis 3, as the psalmist asks: “Where could I go from your Spirit or where flee from your Presence?” (vs. 7). When he confesses that if one were concealed in the darkness of Sheol, the very light of God’s shining Spirit-Presence would make the night like day, exposing the hidden one to plain sight (vs. 12), he clearly evokes the guilty pair hiding in the shadows among the trees of the garden of Eden, yet for all their desperate efforts exposed by the coming of the Spirit of the day (Gen 3:9ff).

Instead of using the designation “Spirit of judgment” (mis̆pāṭ), Genesis 3:8a calls him the “Spirit of the day.” We shall want to reflect on the equivalency of the concepts of the day and judgment, but it will be well first to consider how the sentence as a whole might best be read. What, we must ask, is the meaning of the preposition (l-) in lrwḥ? On the present interpretation an answer is readily supplied by the preposition’s lexical value of “as,” which in various contexts may mean “in the capacity of” or “for the purpose of.”

A few illustrations of this usage, all involving the Glory-cloud and the heavenly council, will be useful. Numbers 22 narrates how the Angel of the Lord went and stationed himself in Balaam’s way “is an adversary” (lésāṭān; vss. 22, 32). Isaiah says of the messianic scion of David on whom the Spirit would rest, enabling him to judge the earth (Isa 11:1ff), that “in that day… (he) shall stand as a banner (lénēs) for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his royal resting place will be (the) Glory” (vs. 10). Using the imagery of a second exodus, the prophet depicts the Davidic king as an incarnation of the Glory-cloud which led Israel out of Egypt, functioning as a rallying ensign or battle standard.[31] An example involving the noun rûäḥ is found in 2 Chronicles 18:21. For the undoing of Ahab, an angel in the divine council offers to go and function “as a spirit of falsehood” (lérûäḥ s̆eqer) in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets.[32] Very similar to the expression “as the Spirit of the day” in Genesis 3:8 is an instance in the Isaiah 28 passage cited previously: “In that day Yahweh of hosts will be present…as the Spirit of judgment” (lérûäḥ mis̆pāṭ; vss. 5a, 6a). In the related vision of the re-created Jerusalem in Isaiah 4, the Glory-cloud (called in verse 4 “the Spirit of judgment and burning”) is said to serve “as a shade…and as a refuge and as a hiding place” (léṣēl…ûlẹ́she ûlémistôr; vs. 6).[33]

We may then translate Genesis 3:8a: “They heard the sound of Yahweh God traversing the garden as the Spirit of the day.” The frightening noise of the approaching Glory theophany told them that God was coming to enter into judgment with them. The sound of judgment day preceded the awesome sight of the parousia of their Judge. It was evidently heard from afar before the searching. exposing beams of the theophanic light pierced through the trees in the midst of the garden. Momentarily, then, it seemed to them possible to hide from the eyes of Glory among the shadows of the foliage. Thus, inadvertently, they positioned themselves at the place of judgment in the midst of the trees of the garden, at the site of the tree of judicial discernment between good and evil.

The Day of the Spirit

If Genesis 3:8 had read “the rûäḥ of judgment” rather than “the rûäḥ of the day,” the course of exegesis would have gotten on the right track much more readily. But once we do discern what the text is saying and see that “the day” must signify judgment, the expression lrwḥ hyywm strikes us as having a very familiar biblical ring to it after all. For eschatological passages of the Bible in both testaments teem with references to the day of the Lord, that day, the great day, the day of wrath, the day of visitation, etc. If we came upon rwḥ hyywm in some later prophetic context, we would probably catch the judgment meaning of “the day” at once. It is just that we had not expected to encounter this terminology of the day of judgment at this early point in the biblical record.[34]

Now, however, we face the problem of accounting for the emergence of “the day” with judicial connotation in Genesis 3:8. If we do not want to regard the expression as a later, rather inept glossing of in earlier narrative source, we must ask whether there is anything in the immediately antecedent context of Genesis 3:8 that would explain the appearance of “the day” in this verse in a conceptual bond with “the Spirit” and freighted with judicial significance. To raise this question will, we believe, prove to be of considerable heuristic value for the meaning of the Genesis Prologue, in which, it would appear, the answer to our question lies. And what we will find is that it is not Genesis 3:8 but more precisely the creation record that is the ultimately fontal source of the judgment reality which the Scriptures call “the day of the Lord.” The Genesis Prologue is the original matrix in which the visual and conceptual shape of that day was first set.

Spirit and day are brought into clear and close conjunction right at the beginning of Genesis 1 in the record of the first day of creation. Though not lying so obviously on the surface, a most significant relationship also obtains between the Spirit and the seventh day. It will in fact appear that the seven-day pattern of the creation record as a whole was so constructed that while it was figuratively indicating the temporal dimension and especially the sabbatical structuring of the creation history,[35] it should also serve as a seven-panelled portrait-paradigm—a prototypal model—of the day of the Lord, which was to be of such great importance in the unfolding biblical revelation of cosmic-redemptive history.

Immediately after the mention of the Glory-Spirit hovering in the darkness over the deep (Gen 1:2), the Spirit’s[36] creative fiat is introduced: “Let there be light” (vs. 3). Then we are at once informed that the Spirit gave to this light, which evidenced his sovereignty over the darkness, the name of “day,” yôm (vs. 5a). It is this day-light (yôm) that is definitively characteristic of a day, for a day, as the closing formula of each day-stanza in the creation narrative brings out, is also named yôm, pars pro toto after the day-light (vss. 5b, 8b, 13b, etc.).[37] In this initial conjunction of the Spirit and day, day (in its nature as daylight) is seen to be a replication of the Glory-Spirit, which is itself, visually, light—the luminosity of the radiant Shekinah.[38] Henceforth, yôm carries with it as it is used for the day of judgment—as already in Genesis 3:8—its original identification with day-light. Accordingly, the imagery of the day of judgment is at times that of sun-rise bringing the light of God’s Glory from the east.[39] The “day” designation for divine judgment highlights the illuminating judicial penetration of the darkness by the light of the eyes of God, which are their own search-beams, for they are “like a flame of fire.”[40]

What we read of the Spirit and the day in the creation record of day one, the definitive day, would be sufficient by itself to account for the expression lrwḥ hyywm in Genesis 3:8. For day one identifies the Creator-rûäḥ as the Creator-Lord of the yôm and the yôm as a creature-image of the divine Glory-rûäḥ; and further, the characterization of the yôm there prepares for its appearance in Genesis 3:8 with the connotation of the (day-) light of judicial exposure.

But the prototypal concept of the day of the Spirit begun in day one is filled out by the record of the other creation days. Viewed as a whole this day-paradigm is found to contain a complex of the elements that are most conspicuous in the later revelation of the day of the Lord. For in the Genesis Prologue, the day of the Spirit is a time when God takes action[41] and pronounces an assessment. The former is a prominent feature in every day-stanza and we need only note the equally obvious fact that the divine action is creative action, by which the heaven and earth and all their hosts are brought forth.

The second element, the feature of judicial assessment, requires special comment. What is in view here is the refrain: “God saw that it was good.”[42] Divine pronouncement, not just casual observation, is the meaning.[43] God, judging his own works in this case, pronounced them good, so signifying that his fiat-decree has been fully executed. Design is evident in the distribution pattern of this judicial refrain. Seven times the declaration resonnds, three times in the first triad of days and four in the second triad, twice each in the third and sixth days (one of the marks of their correspondence in the parallelism of the two triads).[44] In the seventh, summarizing occurrence the pronouncement is heightened to “very good.” Seven acts of “seeing” by the Spirit-Creator are recorded, and here, it would seem, is the ultimate source of the imagery of “the seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Rev 5:6) on judicial missions,[45] the seven eyes which are seven torches of fire burning before the Glory-throne of judgment (Rev 4:5).[46] The dominance of the creation theme in the Revelation 4 context[47] strengthens the likelihood of the suggested relationship between the seven judicial eyes of the Spirit and the seven acts of the Spirit’s seeing in Genesis 1 and that relationslilp corroborates the judicial-declarative interpretation of the refrain, “God saw that it was good.”

Glory-Spirit and light and divine action, creative and judicial—all these features are present in the paradigmatic day of the Spirit-Lord in the creation Prologue of Genesis. Beyond these there are distinctive elements found in the seventh day of creation and its peculiar relation to the Spirit which fill out the prototypal representation of the eschatological day of the Lord.

“The Glory-Spirit was present at the beginning of creation as a sign of the telos of creation, as the Alpha-archetype of the Omega-Sabbath that was the goal of creation history.”[48] Following this statement in the first of the studies from which the present essay arose, there was an analysis of the function of the Glory-Spirit of Genesis 1:2, showing that it acted as a paradigm-power, reproducing its own temple-likeness in the cosmos and in man, the image of God. Another instance of this, noted above, was the reproduction of the Glory-light in the day-light of day one and in that connection it may further be observed that the bearers of this light-likeness, the luminaries of day four, sustain a functional likeness to the Spirit. Just as the Spirit, according to day one, manifested his sovereignty by bringing day-light into earth’s darkness and separating light from darkness and day from night (Gen 1:3–5), so the heavenly luminaries, as replicas of the Glory-Spirit, were given the status of rulers, to give light on the earth and to separate light from darkness and day from night (Gen 1:14–18).[49] But at present our interest is especially in that culminating instance of the Spirit replicating pattern found in the relation between the Alpha-archetype and the seventh day, the Omega-Sabbath.

Within the luminous cloud-veil of the Glory was the enthroned Creator-judge, and that central throne-reality of the Glory finds its apocalypse in the final, seventh panel of the creation “week.” For on the seventh day God rested from his work of creation and this Sabbath of God is a royal resting, an enthronement on the judgment seat. One indication that God’s Sabbath-rest consequent to the finishing of his cosmic house was an enthronement is that the Scriptures present the converse of this idea: they portray God’s enthronement in his microcosmic (temple-) house as a Sabbath-rest.[50] Thus, when Isaiah makes his challenging comparison between the earthly temple built by Israel and the creation temple of heaven and earth built by God at the beginning, he introduces the Sabbath-rest imagery of the creation history as a parallel to God’s throne house: “Heaven is mv throne and the earth is my footstool. What manner of house will ye build unto me and what shall be the place of my rest (ménûḥāh)?” (Isa 66:1: cf. 2 Chron 6:18; Acts 7:49).[51]

Isaiah brings together the Spirit and the Sabbath- ménûḥāh in other passages too. Isaiah 63, reflecting on Deuteronomy 32 (which depicts God’s leading of Israel in terms of the Glory hovering over creation at the beginning),[52] mentions the Angel of the Glory-Presence as the one who bore Israel (vs. 9) and variously denotes the divine Presence as the Holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord (vss. 10, 11, 14) or as his arm of Glory (vs. 12; cf. vs. 15). And the prophet attributes to the Glory-Spirit the guidance of Israel through the depth of the sea (vs. 13; cf. Deut 32:10: Gen 1:2) on to the Sabbath-rest in the land of their inheritance: “The Spirit of the Lord brought him to rest” (vs. 14; cf. Deut 12:9). In effect, the prophet says that in the exodus re-creation there was a recapitulation of the role of the Glory-Spirit in creation from Genesis 1:2 to Genesis 2:2.

Elsewhere; Isaiah says there is to be a second exodus re-creation led by the royal Branch on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest (Isa 11:1f, 11, 15f). By righteous judgment he will introduce the peace of the new creation for the meek of the earth (vss. 2–9; cf. Isa 61:1ff; 65:17–25). In this context the prophet states: “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, who will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his royal resting place (ménûḥāh) will be (the) Glory” (vs. 10 : cf. vs. 12). Isaiah thus perceived that the Spirit-Glory not only conducted to the Sabbath, but was itself archetypal of the Sabbath realm of divine enthronement.

Judicial pronouncements accompany the enthronement motif in the seventh day of creation, enhancing the likeness of the seventh day to the Glory on the one hand and its prototypal relation to the final judgment day on the other. We have observed that the refrain “God saw that it was good” imparted to the other days of creation a judicial aspect. After the creation of the human temple-image of the Spirit, this self-assessing process of divine judgment culminated in a final summary-verdict: “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). This pronouncement was transitional to the Sabbath, indeed, the beginning of the Sabbath. The Sabbath itself is the consummating declaration that creation was finished (Gen 2:1f).[53] This word of the seventh day is like the creative fiats by which God set bounds on the realms of the darkness and the deep, for by it God bounded the period of the six days, closing the age of creation and opening the genealogical times of Adam. But it is also the word of sealing approbation, a declaration of the Creator’s satisfaction in his works. God’s Sabbath celebrates the omnipotence of his creatorhood (Gen 1:1) and the omniscience of the solution achieved by the Spirit of Genesis 1:2c for the architectural problem posed by the deep-and-darkness of Genesis 1:2a and b. Such was the bounding of the deep and the darkness that they too made positive contributions to the kingdom of life which God had designed for the habitation of man, his image-temple. The pronouncement of the Sabbath was God’s word of self-glorifying judgment.

The divine Sabbath was thus a realization in the time field of the judicial sovereignty of God that came to expression in the Glory-Spirit. In the seventh day, the Glory was translated into temporal-eschatological dimensions. The Almighty is accordingly confessed as the One who is, and who was, and who is to come—eternal, unchangeable, yet known from our cosmic perspective as both historical Alpha and historical Omega.[54] Though the divine Sabbath itself is rather a distinctive phase of the Glory than a replica of it, the Creator did produce, preceptively, a replica of the Glory when he instituted the human Sabbath (Gen 2:3). The weekly Sabbath is a copy of the Glory as translated into the sabbatical day of the Lord. It thus appears that the Genesis Prologue closes in Genesis 2:3 with an explicit instance of the recurring feature of the reproduction of the Glory-Spirit paradigm, a reproduction of the Spirit of the day in a symbolic day of the Spirit.

Further, the seventh day, the divine Sabbath itself, is the day of the Lord. Not just a conceptual prototype such as we have in the literary delineation of the seven-panelled day of creation in the Genesis record, God’s Sabbath is rather the original reality which was to confront mankind afterwards as a revelation of him who is to come in a judicial consummation of history, the reality encountered in redemptive history in the parousia of the Spirit-Lord,[55] the fulfillment of the biblical prophecies of the coming of the day of the Lord. As the imitative sign of this original day of the Lord, the human Sabbath is then not only a symbolic celebration of the lordship of God, the Alpha-Creator, but a prophetic sign of the day of the Lord as a revelation of God, the Omega, in his eschatological coming for judgment.[56]

In connection with redemptive history, the judgmental function of the Lord’s Sabbath includes prominently the aspect of victory over the enemy as prelude to the peace and rest of God’s kingdom. This aspect is reflected in the development of the symbolism of the Sabbath sign. For example, God’s judgment of the Canaanites is prerequisite to his establishment of Israel in the symbolic Sabbath-realm.[57] Similarly, in the Jubilee intensification of the Sabbath symbol, the great day of the Spirit is envisaged as a day of the vengeance of our God and thereby a day of liberation and restoration for the meek.[58] Even a meditation on the creation week is affected by this redemptive outlook: Psalm 104, having made its doxological way through the six days to the celebration of the Sabbath (vss. 31ff), injects into the praise of the Lord’s glory the prayer that the wicked be forever consumed from the earth (vs. 35). In a related but more complicated phenomenon, prophecies of the redemptive Sabbath poetically appropriate the deep and the darkness—which in Genesis 1 are not, of course, personal-moral entities—as images of the powers of evil whom the Lord vanquishes on the great day.[59] Thus again, if only formally, the yôm of the Genesis Prologue is seen to have been a preformation of the eschatological day of the Lord.

Taking the pictorial prototype of the day of the Lord provided in the Genesis Prologue as a whole, sabbatical seventh panel and all, we see that it includes all the most significant aspects of that day—theological, spatial-cosmological, temporal-eschatological. It is a day of divine action featuring divine judgment with the penetration of the darkness by the light of theophanic Glory, it is a day of creating heaven and earth and consummating a temple of God made in the likeness of the Glory, it is a day of the revelation of the sovereign glory of the covenant Lord. Taken together, the seven days are the fullness of time of creation, the sevenfold fullness of the day of the Lord. In redemptive re-creation, the day of the Lord, wherein the old passes away and all is created new, is again a fullness of time, in which, as Paul declares, all the mystery of God comes finally into eschatological realization.[60] Standing between Moses and Paul, Isaiah links the creation and re-creation concepts of the day of the Lord as a fullness of time. He prophesies that “in the day” of the Lord’s saving action “the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days” (Isa 30:26). The day of the Spirit, both Alpha and Omega, is a sevenfold fullness of time, a manifestation of the full mystery of the sevenfold glory of the Spirit.[61]

It is this great and notable day of the Lord as presented in prototype in the day of the Spirit in the Genesis Prologue that is in view, illuminating and illumined, when Genesis 3:8 refers to “the Spirit of the day.” When man broke the covenant, the Lord came as the Spirit of judicial light, as the parousia-Presence bringing the day of the Spirit.

The Primal Parousia and the Old Testament

Prophecies of the redemptive day of the Lord are cast in the mold of the primal parousia of Genesis 3:8. In putting it this way we do not mean to say that this is just a matter of conceptual stereotyping in a literary tradition.[62] There are actual objective historical realities in view which are identical.[63] Of course, the literary rendering of the historical reality has its own existence with its own continuities of word and image and this too is part of what we are concerned with—it is indeed the immediate data we are dealing with—as we trace the connection between the Lord’s parousia in Eden and subsequent parousia-events foretold in biblical prophecy. Only a brief suggestive sampling can be given here of a vast amount of relevant biblical data. Our interest is especially in Old Testament passages that are more distinctly allusive to Genesis 3:8 (and thus have particular value for establishing the exegesis of that passage as an original day of the Lord) and on the New Testament’s representation of the parousia of our Lord Jesus (with the light that might be thrown forward on this as its several components are traced back through the Old Testament to Genesis 3:8).

The canonical collection of Old Testament prophets closes with Malachi’s announcement of the coming of the day of the Lord (especially Malachi 3:1; 4:1, 5 [3:19, 23]). That day is foreseen as the time when God takes decisive action (3:17; 4:3 [3:21]), when the Lord approaches for the purpose of judgment (lémis̆pāṭ; 3:5), to administer the covenant lawsuit (3:1, 5), judicially separating the righteous from the wicked (3:18).[64] It is the advent of the judge which is here definitive of the day (3:1f; 4:6 [3:24]).[65]

For our study of the relation of the Glory-Spirit to the day, it is instructive to observe how the coming Lord and the day become interchangeable in Malachi, and elsewhere. Attributes of the Lord are attributed to the day. Like the Lord, the day is called “great and dreadful” (Mal 4:5 [3:23]).[66] Like the Lord, the day has its advent; it is said to be coming (Mal 4:1, 5 [19,23]). This “coming” is not that of bare chronological futurity but of visualized arrival;[67] specifically, it is here a dawning (Mal 4:1f [3:19f]). Since dawning is the way ordinary days come, the sunrise imagery would naturally arise once the advent idea was applied to the eschatological day. Nevertheless, this sunrise mode of the coming of the great day does mirror the Lord’s parousia, which is visually a coming in radiant, earth-illuminating light.[68] Moreover, the dependence of this description of the dawning day of the Lord on the reality of the coming of the Glory of the Lord himself appears in the effects attributed to the day’s dawning: it brings the light of judgment on the earth. This correspondence in judicial functioning of the Lord and the day extends to the dual nature of the judicial sanctions they carry out. The Glory-cloud was the agent of both the blessings and curses of the covenant. Thus, in the day of the exodus[69] the theophanic cloud provided guiding light and protective shade for Israel, but brought confusing darkness and destructive glare on the Egyptians.[70] Malachi pictures the light of the coming great day as similarly twofold in its effects, bringing the curse of burning and the blessing of healing (Mal 4:1f [3:19f]).[71]

That the judgment of the day is not to be construed narrowly in terms of condemnation and punishment is clear from the prototypal conception of the day in the Genesis Prologue, where judicial pronouncement took the form of God’s approval of his creation acts. Condemnation looms large as an aspect of the great day in post-lapsarian history—already and dramatically in Genesis 3:8—but without cancelling out the positive aspects of the day, as the Malachi passage attests.[72] The day of judgment announced by the prophets is a day of both light and darkness, of creative restoration as well as desolating destruction, a day of realization of a Sabbath-consummation of the cosmos as well as of reversion to a chaotic deep-and-darkness.[73] Rebellious peoples and hypocrites who assume it will be a day of light must be warned that they will experience it as a day of gloom and thick darkness.[74] Suffering saints are promised that is the day will come for them as brightness, dispelling their present darkness,[75] as a day of judicial vindication and deliverance.[76]

In Genesis 3:8 the coming of the Spirit of the day, or the day of the Spirit, was signalized by the voice (qôl) of the Lord. The identification of the day of the Lord by its distinctive sound is very conspicuous in the account of the revelation of the Lord at Sinai in Deuteronomy 4:10ff.[77] As an example of this in the Prophets we may take the treatment of the day of the Lord theme in Zephaniah. The expression “the sound (qôl) of the day of the Lord” appears in Zephaniah 1:14. It is the sound of a day of battle, of trumpet blast and warriors’ shout (1:14, 16).[78] Reminiscence of Genesis 3 is suggested by certain contextual features: the parousia of the Lord on this day that is hastening near (1:7, 14; 2:2) with clouds and thick darkness (1:15) is for judicial purpose (3:8),[79] to expose by the divine searchlamps (1:12a) those who feel secure in their conceit that the Lord will not do good or evil (1:12b).[80]

There are passages in Isaiah of special interest for our theme but these will be introduced in connection with an investigation of the parousia-sign of Christ in the following section on New Testament data. At this point we turn to the prophecy of Joel for one further illustration of the continuance of the Genesis 3:8 tradition in the Old Testament. Present in this prophecy, as in Genesis 3:8, are the Spirit-cloud of judgment, the day, and the sound of Yahweh. Most distinctive and calling for special comment is the treatment of the Glory-cloud in Joel 2.

Joel begins with the kind of warning to the wicked which we have observed in other prophets:[81] the day was coming, it was near, but it would be thick darkness, the heartening light of God’s Glory being shrouded by threatening storm clouds (2:1, 2a). But Joel carries this reversal motif much further in a satirical parodv of the concept of God’s advent entertained by the unrepentant.[82] They smugly expected to be overclouded by protective hosts of winged cherubim, the glorious retinue of their heavenly King. The day of the Lord would bring them a cloud of winged creatures indeed! Taking his inspiration from the devastating judgment with which his prophecy opens (1:2ff), Joel boldly portrays the angelic armies of the Glory as a cloud of locusts.[83]

Since the theophanic Glory is the essential core of the day of the Lord, mention of its advent is to be expected in such an extensive portrayal of that day, and various elements in the Joel 2 description are in fact found to be familiar features of the Glory theophany as depicted elsewhere. The description begins by drawing on the account of the descent of the theophanic Presence on Sinai. There is the blowing of the trumpets on the holy mountain and the darkness of the thick clouds about the consuming divine fire (2:1–3).[84] The sound of the army of judgment[85] is likened to chariots and their appearance to horses,[86] reminding us of the Glory, which is a chariot-throne whose sound is that of the winged creatures who bore it.[87] Like these cherubim of the Glory-chariot, the agents of judgment in Joel 2:7f advance straight ahead, not turned aside by any obstacle or opposition (cf. Ezek 1:9, 12; 10:22). Cosmic convulsions accompany the advance of this army (Joel 2:10; cf. 2:31), as they do the parousia of the Glory,[88] and before it is heard Yahweh’s thunder-voice (2:11; cf. 3:16), which from Genesis 3:8 onwards has heralded the approach of the Spirit in judgment. And in phraseology very similar to that employed by Malachi in his rhetorical rhetorical question about the day of the parousia of the Angel of the Glory (Mal 3:2), Joel asks who is able to sustain his judicial cause[89] in the judgment event of the great and fearful day which he is foretelling (2:11). The conclusion therefore seems warranted that Joel’s locust cloud is a grotesque masque for the cherubim cloud of the Glory-Spirit of the day.[90]

We noted above that there is in Joel 2 the same combination of Glory-Spirit, the day, and the sound of Yahweh that we find in Genesis 3:8. Joel’s likening of the effects of the judgment to the transformation of the garden of Eden into a wilderness (2:3) is another intimation that the prophet’s eye was on the primal advent of the Spirit of the day (Gen 3:8).

The Primal Parousia and the New Testament

The several features of God’s parousia as the Spirit of the day that are met with in Genesis 3:8 reappear in the New Testament revelation of the advent of Jesus Christ in glory. Spirit, Glory, pānîm. (Presence, literally Face) are terms used in the Old Testament for the mode of theophanic presence assumed in God’s coming to judgment in the garden and elsewhere. Corresponding Greek terms are applied to the climactic parousia-event in the New Testament, the terms attaching themselves now to the person of the glorified Jersus, the Spirit-Lord. He is presented as the Glory-theophany in incarnation.[91]

The term parousia itself denotes primarily presence,[92] with the idea that the presence is realized by way of a coming as a secondary connotation. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Christ is identified as the Face of God; it is from the face[93] of Jesus that the light of the divine Glory now shines, the face which in the transfiguration-parousia[94] shone like the sun.[95] In the extended treatment of the parousia theme in 2 Thessalonians, the presence of the Lord Jesus, revealed from heaven in flaming judgment, is referred to as his face (prosōpon), with glory (doxa) as a synonomous parallel (1:9).[96]

When Christ’s parousia is spoken of as a revelation in glory, as it is repeatedly, what is in view is the specific idea that Jesus is the embodiment of the theophanic Glory of God revealed in the Old Testament. Jesus so identifies his parousia-Glory when he says the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father (Matt 16:27; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26).[97] Of the same import is the fact that the major features of the Old Testament Glory-cloud phenomenon reappear in the delineation of the glory of Jesus’ parousia. It is an advent-presence amid clouds and accompanied by the heavenly army of angels.[98] Power (dunamis) is a recurring aspect of Christ’s parousia[99] and this was a familiar epithet of the theophanic Glory, associated with the designation of the theophany as God’s hand.[100] Jesus also identified his parousia-glory as a throne-glory[101] and so connected it with the paramount feature within the Glory-cloud—the throne of God.[102]

Like the primal judgmen-advent of Genesis 3:8 and the approach of the Glory theophany elsewhere in the Old Testament, the parousia of Jesus has its heralding sound. The qôl yhwh, “voice of Yahweh,” is heard again as the Lord comes with shout of command, voice of archangel, trumpet of God.[103] In Hebrews 12 the voice of God assumes special prominence among the phenomena of the Glory-parousia. Equivalency of the new covenant Presence-parousia to the Old Testament Glory in this respect is expressly indicated in this passage: the cosmos-shaking voice of the Lord as he speaks from heaven at the escatological judgment will answer to the terrifying, earth-shaking voice of God in his ancient descent in the theophanic cloud with sound of trumpet and voice of words on Sinai (vss. 19, 25f).

The same kind of relationship that is found in the Old Testament between the Spirit-Glory and the day, accounting for the phrase “the Spirit of the day” in Genesis 3:8, also obtains between the parousia and the day in the New Testament. Thus, the day is used as a metonym for the parousia of the Lord, so that an advent is attributed to it. In response to the scoffers’ question about the promise of “his coming,” Peter insists “the day of the Lord will come (2 Pet 3:10; cf. 4). He even uses the expression “the parousia of the day of God” (2 Pet 3:12). Paul often refers to the parousia of Christ as “the day of Jesus Christ.”[104] In 1 Corinthians 3:13 the metonymic usage by which the day rather than the Lord is said to be coming and to have a parousia is carried to the extent of predicating of the day the act of judicial declaration of which the real subject is the Lord. In this passage the day is also said to be revealed[105] in fire,[106] whereas elsewhere it is the Lord who is said to be revealed[107] and to be the consuming fire. Like the parousia (whether of the Spirit in the Old Testament or of Christ in the New Testament), the arrival of this “day of God” is proclaimed by a great noise” (2 Pet 3:10). And like the day of the Spirit in Genesis it is a day of creation as well as judgment (2 Pet 3:12, 13).

While commenting on the overlapping relation of the concepts of parousia and day, we may mention a New Testament passage in which the Sabbath instituted in Genesis 2:3 as a sign of the day of the Spirit contributes to the symbolism of an apostle’s ecstatic experience of the Glory-parousia reality. Describing the circumstances of his vision of Christ as the Glory theophany incarnate, John writes: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a great voice” (Rev 1:10, a voice as of trumpet or mighty waters (vs. 15). Here is a striking reminisence of the combination of features encountered in Genesis 3:8—the Spirit, the day, and the voice.

And of course, there was the parousia of the Glory itself, with Christ present as Lord of the covenant to pronounce judgment on the works of his servants[108] in words replete with echoes of the scene in Eden and identified as what the spirit says to the churches.[109]

As in the case of the Spirit of the day at the Fall of man, so the parousia (or day) of Christ, with its purpose of exposing and sentencing the guilty, has as its effect a panic of terror manifested in frantic, futile attempts to hide from the eyes of the divine Presence.[110] According to New Testament teaching, the parousia of our lord, like the Glory theophany described in the record of Israel’s history and in old Testament prophecies of the day of the Lord brings vindication to the saints in the midst of cosmic cataclysm.[111] And like the prototypal day of the Spirit in the Genesis Prologue, the parousia of Christ entails creation of heaven and earth, and Sabbath consummation.[112]

In sum, these equivalencies in nature and function and in effects and consequences clearly show that the parousia of Jesus is the New Testament form of realization of that Old Testament Glory theophany beheld in primal parousia in Genesis 3:8. Of many possible ramifications of this theme it would be tempting, for one thing, to examine the relationship between the parousia and the baptism concepts, a relationship that becomes obvious as soon as it is seen that, like baptism,[113] the parousia too is a matter of the messianic Spirit and fire.[114] Baptism is a sign of the parousia of the Spirit in judgment.[115] But passing by this sacramental earthly sign, we shall conclude this essay by giving some special attention to an eschatological heavenly sign of the parousia, the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.

Messiah’s parousia-sign was a subject of Old Testament prophecy. The same prophet who spoke beforehand of the identifying birth-sign of Immanuel (Isa 7:14) prophesied of his Glory-sign too. It would seem, moreover, that these prophecies of Isaiah were to the fore among the Scriptures that were before the mind of our Lord when presenting the eschatological discourse in which he referred to “the sign (sēmeion) of the Son of Man in heaven” (Matt 24:30). What then do Isaiah’s prophecies, taken together with our identification of Old Testament and New Testament parousia phenomena, tell us about the identity of the heavenly sign of the Son of Man?

We have quoted Isaiah 11:10 twice above and do so once more now because of its relation to Matthew 24:30. “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner (lénēs) for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his royal resting place will be (the) Glory.” Again in the following verses it is said that in that day, the day of eschatological restoration of the exiled remnant,[116] the Lord will “set up an ensign (nēs) for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (vs. 12). Messiah himself, enthroned in the Glory, is here viewed as the rallying banner of the final, universal assembly.[117]

Several times elsewhere Isaiah speaks of the Glory-Spirit as the banner. In Isaiah 31, the Lord’s descent over Zion for the defense of Jerusalem is compared to birds in flight (vss. 4f)[118] and he is pictured as a flaming ensign (nēs) from which the enemy princes flee in panic (vs. 9).[119]

In Isaiah 49, after a promise to give the Servant as a light, to whom those in darkness will come from afar (vss. 5–9), God further promises: “I will lift up mine hand[120] to the Gentiles and set up my standard (nissî) to the people” (vs. 22a). As a result, the sons and daughters of Zion will be brought home from the lands of the Gentiles, as a prey rescued from the oppressors (vss. 22b–26). The hand-standard of verse 22 and the Servant-light of verse 6 accomplish the same mission of world-wide ingathering and are to be identified, so that here, as in Isaiah 11, the messianic Servant is seen as himself the Glory-light-banner.

A similar picture appears in Isaiah 59. “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” (vs. 19b).[121] The image of the standard belongs here to a military scene that finds the Lord arrayed as the divine warrior, bringing vengeance on his enemies (vss. 17f).[122] According to verse 19a, the standard raised by the Spirit (vs. 19b) is the theophanic cloud (the Spirit himself), for it is denoted “the Name” and “the Glory.” The use of the Name designation of the theophanic cloud is apt in a context where it is depicted as a standard, for such a military banner in Israel would be inscribed with God’s name.[123] Here again the figure of the messianic Redeemer is brought into conjunction with the Glory-standard (vs. 20). And the effect of the raising of the Glory-sign is again to inspire the fear of God from east to west (vs. 19a). The banner will be a radiant gathering point, drawing Zion’s far-off sons and daughters from among the Gentiles (Isa 60:1ff).

Once more in Isaiah 66 the same theme and imagery occur. The sound of the Lord will be heard executing vengeance (vs. 6). This manifestation of God’s wrath will be a revelation of his “hand” (vs. 14).[124] The Lord will come with fire and whirlwind-like chariots (vs. 15) for judicial proceedings with mankind (vs. 16) and will set up a standard (ʾot)[125] against the idolaters (vs. 19). That the standard is the Glory is evident, for the result of setting it up is that men of all nations see God’s Glory (vss. 18b, 19b). Connected with this again is the gathering of the Lord’s people out of the nations (vs. 20). There is also a picture of the blessings of re-creation (vss. 22f)[126] and the cursed fate of God’s enemies, who are portrayed as carcasses in a perpetual Gehenna (vs. 24).[127]

Before relating these prophecies of the Glory-ensign to Matthew 24:30 we may note their use of the term “Spirit” for the Glory[128] and mention certain parousia passages in the New Testament which hark back to them and reflect this usage of “Spirit.”[129]

Poetic parallelism characterizes the description of the Lord’s judgment of the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2:8,[130] the brightness (epiphaneia) of his parousia being balanced by the “pneuma of his mouth.” Beyond this stylistic intimation of an Old Testament orientation, there are indications in theme and terminology of a specific dependence on the Glory-ensign context of Isaiah 11. Messiah’s destruction of all the wicked as he comes in judgment to save his people out of tribulation is the theme there too and it is expressed by a parallelism in which “the rod of his mouth” is balanced by “the rûäḥ of his lips” (vs. 4). Verse 2 had just observed that the rûäḥ of Yahweh, the Spirit who qualifies for judgment, rested on Messiah.[131] Then Messiah’s appearance as the Glory-Spirit-ensign is pictured (vss. 10ff). This Isaianic background of 2 Thessalonians 2:8 suggests that the “pneuma of his mouth” is the Spirit of judgment, the Spirit of the day.[132] And this is supported by the parallelism of this pneuma within 2 Thessalonians 2:8 with the parousia-epiphaneia. The identification of the latter with the radiant Glory-Spirit theophany is supported by the allusion to Isaiah 11:10 as well as by the use of the term epiphaneia itself.[133]

Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant on whom the Spirit rests also lies behind the parousia passage in 1 Peter 4, where again the Glory-revelation is called Spirit. Those who share in Christ’s sufferings have a joyful prospect awaiting them at the revelation (apokalupsis)[134] of his divine glory (vs. 13). Indeed, on those who participate in Messiah’s anointing-name (vss. 14a, 16), “the Spirit of Glory and God rests,” as is preeminently true of the Spirit-anointed Servant himself.

Turning now to Matthew 24:30 and “the sign of the Son of Man in heaven,” it has already been observed that the Lord’s account of his coming in the Olivet discourse consists of a whole cluster of features that serve to identify the parousia with the Glory-Spirit theophany of the Old Testament. His advent is to be an epiphany in radiant clouds amid the holy angels of God’s throne, attended by a great noise and cosmic cataclysm.[135] Now, “the sign of the Son of Man in heaven” (vs. 30a) is nothing other than this epiphany itself. Accordingly, what the tribes of the earth are said to see when the sign of the Son of Man appears is “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt 24:30b)). The Lord revealed as the living embodiment of the Glory-Presence is himself the sign of the parousia.[136]

At Jesus’ birth, his identifying sign (sēmeion) was his clothing, the swaddling clothes, the garment of his humiliation, and this position, lying in the manger (Luke 2:12).[137] At his coming again, the identifying (name-)sign of his exaltation will be the Glory-robe in which he is arrayed, his Spirit-clothing, and his position, standing in the heavens. The shepherds were directed to find in the personal condition of the infant Jesus himself, not in something apart from him, his name-sign. So too the inquiring disciples were told that they would know Jesus in his parousia by the glory of his own person, as he comes invested with the name above every name.[138] The parousia-Glory is a self-identifying, self-authenticating signature of God.

In his eschatological discourse our Lord was clearly drawing upon Isaiah’s prophecies of the parousia-sign. That Jesus, in his word about the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, was introducing anew Isaiah’s theme of the Glory-ensign is put beyond question by the fact that the sign in each case performs the same distinctive function. The function of the Glory-ensign in Isaiah’s prophecies—and the importance of the matter is evident in that every one of the relevant passages mentions it—is the gathering of God’s people from the ends of the earth. In Matthew 24, immediately after the reference to the Glory-sign itself comes the statement that the Son of Man will send his angels with the sound of trumpet to gather the elect from one end of heaven to the other (Matt 24:31; Mark 13:27). And if Jesus’ words at this point are clearly in direct continuity with Isaiah’s prophecies of the Glory-ensign,[139] the interpretation of the sign of the Son of Man which sees it as the apocalypse of the Messiah as the Glory-Spirit is confirmed.

More than that, the Isaianic prophecies indicate that the particular imagery in view in “the sign of the Son of Man in heaven” is that of the military standard (called nēs or ʾôṯ by Isaiah). The metaphorical depiction of the Glory-cloud as a military standard was natural; for on the one hand, these battle flags (as noted earlier)[140] were identifying name-banners and, on the other hand, the Glory-cloud as the revelation of God is in the biblical idiom sometimes called “the Name” of God. The military metaphor of the standard becomes quite explicit in the description of the parousia of the Word of God in Revelation 19:11ff. In this picture of Jesus as the incarnate Glory,[141] leading the armies of heaven to war, he is portrayed as a veritable living name-banner, inscribed on both Glory-robe and Spirit-body with the name that belongs to him alone (vs. 12):[142]

“King of kings and Lord of lords” (vs. 16).[143]

The military image of the battle-standard fits readily into the Matthew 24 context where its companion battle-signal, the trumpet,[144] as well as the angel legions are also mentioned. The trumpet signal of Matthew 24:31 summons the people of God to their ranks in the army[145] which is seen in Revelation 19:14 following the messianic warrior on the white horse to the final judgment.[146] And the Spirit-Lord whom they follow is his own battle-standard. The Son of Man in heaven is himself the sign, the name-banner, of the Son of Man. Invested with the Glory-Name, he comes in the day of the Lord as the Spirit of the day.

Notes

See my “Creation in the Image of the Glory-Spirit,” The Westminster Theological Journal 39 (1977), 250ff. (hereafter “Creation in the Image”).
In addition to the article mentioned in note 1, see its sequel, “Investiture with the Image of God,” The Westminster Theological Journal 40 (1977), 39ff. (hereafter, “Investiture”).
The subject of the participle mit±halle„k± initially is Yahweh God, not qo‚l, and the sound is the sound of God (cf. “your sound,” vs. 10 {Gen 3:10}). Yet it is the sound of the motion of God’s approaching that was heard and in effect the sound too moved across the garden.
See 1 Kings 14:6 and 2 Kings 6:32.
“Walking” is a misleadingly imprecise translation of mit±halle„k±. See further below.
See Psalm 18:13(14); Isaiah 30:31; Jeremiah 25:30; Joel 3:16.
This is argued convincingly by J. Lust, “A Gentle Breeze or a Roaring Thunderous Sound?,” Vetus Testamentum 25 (1975), 110–115. In 1 Kings 19:13, qo‚l refers to God’s voice in challenging question. Note the structural similarity between the encounter and dialogue as described in this passage and that in Genesis 3:8ff.
The point then might well be to reaffirm the emphasis of Exodus 34:5ff and Deuteronomy 4:12ff: God is not apprehended in the visible and palpable, but reveals himself in the covenant word of the Spirit, proclaiming his sovereign name.
Battle scenes in royal Assyrian reliefs depict human king below and divine king above in identical warrior-posture.
The noun (s£éàa„d±a„h) that defines qo‚l here is hapax legomenon. It is from the verb s£àd “step, march,” which belongs to the Sinai-conquest theophany tradition (cf. Judg 5:4; Ps 68:7[8]; Hab 3:12). The verb ys£á used with s£éàa„d±a„h in 2 Samuel 5:24 appears as a parallel to s£àd in each of these other passages.
Cf. also 1 Samuel 7:10.
See “Creation in the Image,” p. 256.
The noun e„chos used here is found in the description of the Sinai theophany in Hebrews 12:19 with reference to the sounding of the trumpet spoken of in Exodus 19:16 (where the LXX uses the verb e„cheo„).
Cf. Ezekiel 43:3.
See Isaiah 6:4–6; Daniel 10:6f; Revelation 1:15.
See, e.g., Job 37:4f; Psalms 29:3ff; 104:7 {Ps 104:7}; Jeremiah 10:13.
See, e.g., Psalm 46:6(7); 68:33(34) {Ps 68:33}; Isaiah 30:30; cf. Psalm 18:13(14).
Since thunder is similarly spoken of in the Ugaritic texts as “the voice of Baal” (ql bàl), a hymn like Psalm 29, whose terminology in general recalls Canaanite texts, was probably designed, for one thing at least, for the polemic purpose of rejecting Baal’s claims in favor of Yahweh’s with respect to lordship over creation and nature’s storms.
Cf., e.g., 2 Samuel 5:24; Isaiah 30:30ff; Joel 2:11; 3:11, 16 {Joel 3}; Zephaniah 1:14. Similarly, Baal’s identity as the thunderer is related to his role as a divine warrior.
Cf., e.g., Psalms 18:9f, 13 (10f, 14); 47:5(6) {Ps 47:5}; 68:33 {Ps 68:33}; 104:3, 7 {Ps 104}; Isaiah 30:27, 30: Ezekiel 1:24; 43:2 {Ezek 43:2}.
Leviticus 26:12: Deuteronomy 23:14(15); 2 Samuel 7:6f.
Job 1:7; 2:2 {Job 2:2}; Zechariah 1:10f; 6:7 {Zech 6:7}; cf. Genesis 5:22, 24; 6:9 {Gen 6:9}.
Job 22:14. Eliphaz imputes to Job (unfairly) the sentiment that God, by reason of the thick clouds about his heavenly dwelling, cannot see, what is happening on earth (vss. 13, 14a {Job 22}) but walks about (i.e., surveys) only the vault of heaven (vs. 14b {Job 22:14b}). Possibly Eliphaz is comparing Job to Adam, who supposed he might hide from God. Note the apparent allusion to prediluvian world history immediately afterwards (vss. 15ff {Job 22:15ff}).
Cf. Judges 5:5; Psalm 68:2, 8 (3, 9).
Cf., e.g., léàet± àereb in Genesis 8:11; 24:11 {Gen 24:11}: etc.
“The wind (ru‚äh£) of the day” might be an oppressive hot wind (Job 37:17; Jer 4:11; Ezek 17:10; 19:12 {Ezek 19:12}; Hos 12:1; 13:15 {Hos 13:15}; Jon 4:8) rather than a cool evening breeze.
U. Cassuto (A Commentary on the Book of Genesis [Jerusalem, the Magnes Press, 1961], pp. 152ff) offers an alternate temporal interpretation that has the merit of showing concern for the context. He reads rwh£ as cognate to all Arabic and Ugaritic verb denoting action that takes place in the afternoon and he takes hayyo‚m as referring to the very day Adam and Eve sinned. The point is then that the threat of Genesis 2:17 did not fail (though Cassuto himself does not understand béyo‚m in Genesis 2:17 in such literal terms).
On the designating of the Glory theophany as “Spirit,” see “Creation in the Image,” p. 252 and see further below.
Cf. Judges 6:34; 11:29 {Judg 11:29}; 14:19 {Judg 14:19}; 15:14, 20 {Judg 15}; 1 Samuel 11:6; 16:13 {1 Sam 16:13}.
See “Investiture,” p. 40. Note the expression “the eyes of his glory” in Isaiah 3:8.
For the name-banner aspect of the Glory-cloud see further below.
Consider together this passage and Genesis 3:1ff and Numbers 22:28ff.
The redemptive irony emerges here that the concealing shadows and covert which the guilty pair in Eden sought are available in the very Glory-Presence from which they futilely fled when that Glory-Spirit approached as the Spirit of burning judgment.
Typically, in the recent and most comprehensive treatise on the use of the term “day” in the Old Testament, S. J. DeVries’ Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), Genesis 3:8 is not even mentioned.
See my “Because It Had Not Rained,” Westminster Theological Journal 20 (1958), 146–157.
Though “Spirit of God” is abbreviated to “God” through the remainder of the creation account, the reality denoted by ru‚äh£ in Genesis 1:2 is to be understood as in view throughout, as the emergence of the divine council usage in Genesis 1:26 shows. See “Creation in the Image,” pp. 259f.
The concept “day” here is thus not starkly temporal-quantitative but is filled with an identifying quality.
See 2 Corinthians 4:6 for a biblical allusion to the Spirit’s production of light at the creation as a prototype of later divine action, specifically of the redemptive illumination of men by the glory-light of the Lord, the Spirit. Note the Glory-Spirit theme in the broader context of 2 Corinthians 3–5 {2 Cor 5}.
See, e.g., Psalm 19:4ff; Ezekiel 43:2; Zechariah 14:7; Malachi 4:1f. (3:19f); Romans 13:12; 2 Peter 1:19.
Revelation 1:14. This is a description of Christ as the Glory-Spirit incarnate. See “Creation in the image,” pp. 262f and “Investiture,” p. 53. On the primal light and judgment, compare too John 1:5 and 3:19 {John 3:19}.
The focus on divine intervention and action is particularly sharp in Psalm 118:24 and Malachi 3:17 and 4:3 {Mal 4:3} (3:21), if the correct rendering of the key phrase is “the day when God acts.” Note in these contexts the idea of the shining light of God’s Glory (Ps 118:27 and Mal 4:1f [3:19f]).
Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31.
The discriminating, elective, judgmental force of the verb ra„áa„h, “see,” is well attested. Cf., e.g., Exodus 39:43. Of special interest is an instance in the day of the Lord context of Malachi 3. The prophet rebukes the people for their blasphemous calumny that God saw (pronounced) all the evil-doers good (literally, they were “good in the eyes of Yahweh”) and for their cynical query, “Where is the God of judgment?” (Mal 2:17). Then he warns them that in the day when God takes action they will “see between the righteous and the wicked” (Mal 3:18), distinguishing one from the other easily by the contrasting judgments of ultimate curse or blessing meted out to them by the Lord on the great day.
In the second day-stanza this pronouncement is postponed until the bounding of the waters, which began with the separation of the waters above and below (vss. 6–8 {Gen 1}), had been completed by the further limitation set on them to make room for the dry land (vss. 9f {Gen 1:9f})—a theme that receives special emphasis in biblical reflections on the sovereign might of the Lord.
Cf. 2 Chronicles 16:9; Ezra 5:5; Zechariah 3:9; 4:10 {Zech 4:10}.
They are also identified as the seven Spirits. The eyes and the fire are united in the eyes of fire of Revelation 1:14, where they are the eyes of Christ, the Spirit-Lord, as also in Revelation 5:6 (cf. above note 40).
See especially vs. 11 {Rev 5:11}.
“Creation in the Image,” p. 257.
This identity in functional accomplishment of days one and four continues to be an unanswered demonstration of the non-sequential, topical arrangement of the data in the creation account. Cf. note 35 above. That the Glory is paradigmatic for the heavenly lights may be seen further in their identification as “the host of heaven” (e.g., Deut 4:19; 17:3 {Deut 17:3}), corresponding to the hosts of the angels of light, which are conspicuous in the Glory-Spirit of the day. See further below, note 136.
Cf. “Creation in the Image,” p. 258; “Investiture,” pp. 39-46 and p. 51, n. 61.
The point cannot be pursued here at length. On the conjunction of throne and Sabbath-rest, see 1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalm 132:7f, 13f; (cf. Num 10:35fg). On the sabbatical connotation of ménu‚h£a„h, cf. Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 12:9; 1 Kings 8:56; Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 4:3f, 9.
Compare Isaiah 63:9f, 16 with Deuteronomy 32:11, 15, 18.
The pattern of the eschatological day is clearly manifest here. Cf., e.g., Revelation 10:6f and 11:15 {Rev 11:15}.
Cf., e.g., Revelation 1:8.
Cf. Revelation 1:7f.
The garden-sanctuary in Eden represented the Glory as temple-kingdom and the recurring Sabbath was instituted to represent the Glory as the Spirit of the seventh day. Together, Eden and Sabbath are the space-time coordinates of the symbolism of the eschatological metamorphosis of the kingdom of God into the Glory-dimension.
Cf. Hebrews 4:8.
Cf. Isaiah 61:1ff.
In the background of this biblical development is the use of the deep-and-darkness in mythological traditions to set forth a confused fusion of physical and ethical realities. The biblical usage involves demythologization of the pagan sources on the one hand and allegorical adaptation of certain elements in Genesis 1 on the other (which is not to be confounded with interpreting Genesis 1 allegorically).
See Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:9f; cf. Matthew 13:11ff; Mark 1:15; Colossians 1:15–20; Revelation 10:7.
See Revelation 4:5, 11, 5:6 {Rev 5:6}; cf. 1:14 {Rev 1:14}.
Form-critical and traditio-historical analyses have led to various suggestions as to the source of the yo‚m yhwh: eschatology influenced by mythological notions of cyclic cosmic catastrophe and renewal, festival days of the deity in the cult, holy war traditions of God’s day of battle, judgment days of the covenant lawsuit—or some combination of these. What, if any, historical factuality might he behind these traditions is usually left discreetly obscure in studies conducted along these lines. But the yo‚m yhwh is not just an idea whose emergence is to be explained as derivative from one or more traditions found in biblical literature; it is an antecedent historical reality. And the reason that the day of the Lord is in evidence in such a variety of major biblical traditions is that the judicial theophanic Presence, which constitutes the heart of the yo‚m yhwh, was a dominant reality, sovereignly active throughout the entirety of Israel’s historical existence.
The identity affirmed allows for modal variations in the primal and later parousia events.
Cf. Malachi 2:17. The apostates blasphemously asserted that the Lord did not distinguish between good and evil. This is one of several possible indications in the terminology and ideas of the context just before Malachi 3 that the prophet’s thoughts were ranging back to the garden and man’s Fall.
According to Malachi 3:1, this advent is a coming of the Angel of the covenant, the divine figure peculiarly identified with the Glory-Spirit at the exodus.
See also Joel 2:11, 31 and Zephaniah 1:14. On the use of these terms to describe the Lord, see Psalms 76:1 (2); 99:3 {Ps 99:3}; Daniel 9:4; Malachi 1:14.
This arrival is sometimes described as near or hastening; cf. Ezekiel 7:7; 30:3 {Ezek 30:3}; Joel 3:14; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1:14.
See Ezekiel 43:2. The figure of the wings (Mal 4:2 [3:20]) was probably suggested by the winged cherubim which are a prominent feature of the Glory and give rise elsewhere too to the use of the imagery of wings with reference to it (cf. “Creation in the Image,” pp. 251-253. The symbol of the winged sun-disc as an emblem of divine majesty may be recalled here. Ultimately, Malachi’s identification of the Lord’s coming in Glory-light with the coming of the light of the great day must be traced to the connection of the Glory-Spirit with the dawning daylight of day one in Genesis 1, where the Spirit’s identification as “Spirit of the day” begins to find its explanation.
For the use of “day” for this event, cf. Judges 19:30; 1 Samuel 8:8; 2 Samuel 7:6: Psalm 78:42; Isaiah 11:16; Jeremiah 7:22; 11:4, 7 {Jer 11}: 31:32 {Jer 31:32}; 34:13 {Jer 34:13}; Hosea 2:15. The judgment of Egypt and deliverance of Israel, together with the covenant-creation event at Sinai, constitute a comprehensive day of the Lord. One aspect of the parousia of the Glory not connected with the day in the Malachi passage, the qo‚l yhwh, is strikingly related to the day of the Lord’s advent at Sinai, especially in the Deuteronomy 4:10ff account. On the depiction of the exodus event as a new creation, with particular allusion to Genesis 1:2, cf. “Creation in the Image,” pp. 251ff.
Cf. my By Oath Consigned (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), pp. 68f.
For a further allusion to Genesis 3 in this passage, compare the imagery of Malachi 4:3 (3:21) with that in Genesis 3:15.
For a full and balanced presentation of the eternal curses and blessings introduced by the eschatological day, see Zechariah 14.
Cf., e.g., Isaiah 13:9ff, 34:4, 8ff {Isa 34}.
See especially Amos 5:18–20; cf. vss. 8f; cf. Isaiah 10:17; Jeremiah 13:16; Ezekiel 30:3. The expectation of the hypocrites, though not justified for themselves, does witness to the persistence in popular tradition of the idea of the primal relation between the day of the Spirit-Lord and the light, delineated in Genesis 1.
See, e.g., Isaiah 60:1–3; cf. 59:16ff {Isa 59:16ff}.
See, e.g., Isaiah 34:8; cf. 35:4 {Isa 35:4}.
See note 69 above.
See also Isaiah 13:4–6, where the approach of the coming day is disclosed by the sound of the tumult of the armies of the Lord. Cf. Isaiah 30:30f; Jeremiah 25:30, 33; Joel 2:11; 3:14, 16 {Joel 3}.
The judicial idea is present in làd whether it is read “for a witness” or “from (my) throne.”
Here too the judgment of the day is two-sided; it brings vindication to God’s oppressed people (3:11ff {Zeph 3:11ff}) and wrath on those who sin against the Lord (1:2ff, 17ff {Zeph 1}; 3:8 {Zeph 3:8}).
See note 74 above.
Of form-critical interest is an example of the reversal motif applied to things divine in the Ugaritic texts. In the Canaanite mythology, Baal, a god of blessing, has his “house” on the majestic heights, place of Utopian fertility and lavish banquet. And Mot, a god of the curse, has his house too, but it is the reverse of Baal’s. At least, according to the customary reading of the key text (UT 51), Mot’s house is in the depths, a place of miry desolation and loathesome diet—noble inheritance for a god, this estate in corruption!
The locust plague imagery, obvious enough in the description of the day of the Lord in Joel 2:1–11, is also explicit again in 2:20, 25 {Joel 2}.
Cf. Exodus 19:16ff; Deuteronomy 4:11, 36. Note the reference to Exodus 34:6 in Joel 2:13.
On the army imagery, cf. 2 Samuel 5:24; Ezekiel 1:24.
Cf. 2 Kings 2:11; 6:17 {2 Kgs 6:17}.
See the comments on Ezekiel’s vision of the Glory above.
Cf., e.g., Psalms 18:7ff (8ff); 68:7f {Ps 68:7f} (8f); Zechariah 14:4ff.
Psalm 112:5b indicates the force of the verb kwl used by both Joel and Malachi: “(the righteous) will sustain (Pilpel of kwl) his words in judgment.” In Malachi 3:2 and Joel 2:11 “day” serves as the equivalent of “his words in judgment” as the object of kwl (Pilpel in Malachi, Hiph’il in Joel). Parallel to kwl in Malachi 3:2 is ‘md, often used for standing in court (cf., e.g., Pss 76:7f {Ps 76:7f} (8f); 106:23 {Ps 106:23}; 109:6 {Ps 109:6}; 130:3 {Ps 130:3}; Isa 3:13; 50:8 {Isa 50:8}; Zech 3:1).
The adaptation of Joel 2 in Revelation 9 tends to confirm the interpretation of Joel 2 as a non-terrestrial phenomenon. There the locust army apparently represents a demonic host under the fallen star, Apollyon, angel of the bottomless pit, a counterpart to the hosts of Glory under the Angel of the covenant (cf. Joel 2:11 and Mal 3:1). Compare also Paul’s theme of the Satanic masquerade: Satan masquerades as an angel of the Presence-light and his false super-apostles pose as true apostles (2 Cor 11:13–15), while the career of his counter-Christ culminates in a parousia masquerade (2 Thess 2:8f).
See footnote 40 above.
Its antonym is apousia, “absence”; cf. Philippians 2:12. See also note 94 below.
Cf. Hebrew 9:24, where proswpon, “face,” is used in allusion to the Shekinah-Face in the holy of holies. It is used in the Septuagint for panîm.
The revelation of the majesty of Jesus on the holy mount when the Glory of the theophanic cloud was replicated in him is called by Peter “the power and parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:16–18).
Cf. too Revelation 10:1.
Cf. also Revelation 6:16; 20:11 {Rev 20:11}.
Cf. John 17:5, 24; Acts 7:2, 55.
Matthew 16:27; 24:30f {Matt 24:30f}; 25:31 {Matt 25:31}; Mark 8:38; 13:26f {Mark 13:26f}; Luke 9:26. See too 1 Thessalonians 4:16f, 2 Thessalonians 1:7 cf. Acts 1:9–11.
Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (iscus); cf. 2 Peter 1:16, with its conjunction of power and parousia.
Cf., e.g., Exodus 15:6; 32:11 {Exod 32:11}; Deuteronomy 4:37; 9:29 {Deut 9:29}.
Matthew 19:28; 25:31 {Matt 25:31}.
See “Creation in the Image,” pp. 254f and “Investiture” pp. 44f.
1 Thessalonians 4:16. See also 1 Corinthians 15:52; 2 Pet 3:10; cf. Exodus 19:16; Zechariah 9:14. The motif of the thundering noises and sound of trumpets runs through the eschatological drama of the Book of Revelation, occurring particularly in association with divine epiphany (cf., e.g., 1:10, 15 {Rev 1}; 4:5 {Rev 4:5}; 8–11 {Rev 8-Rev 11}, especially 10:3 {Rev 10:3} and 11:19 {Rev 11:19}).
1 Corinthians 1:8, cf. vs. 7 {1 Cor 1:7}; 5:5 {1 Cor 5:%}; 2 Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 1:6, 10; 2:16 {Phil 2:16}; 2 Thessalonians 2:2, cf. vs. 1.
Thus, if “day” is indeed the subject of the verb apokaluptw.
Cf. Malachi 3:2, 4:1 {Mal 4:1} (3:19).
Cf. Luke 17:30; 2 Thessalonians 1:7f.
Revelation 1:11. Cf. Revelation 2 and 3 {Rev 3}.
See Revelation 2:7, 11, etc. For a similar combination of the enthroned Glory, the Spirit, and the voice see Revelation 4:1ff.
See, e.g., Revelation 6:16f. On vs. 17b {Rev 6:17b}, cf. Malachi 3:2.
Matthew 24:29ff; Mark 13:24f; Luke 21:11, 25f; Hebrews 12:18ff; 2 Peter 3:10–12; Revelation 6:12ff; 20:11 {Rev 20:11}.
2 Peter 3:13.
Cf. Matthew 3:11f; Luke 3:16f; cf. Mark 1:8.
On the trajectory of the parousia of the Glory-Spirit, which begins in Genesis 1:2 and 3:8 {Gen 3:8} and continues through the exodus-event (cf. 1 Cor 10:2) to the final parousia, is the episode of Jesus’ own baptism, involving the paradigmatic parousia features of the advent of the Spirit (in avian form, cf. John 1:32f), the accompanying voice from heaven, and the pronouncing of judgment (of approbation) on God’s Son. In the associated episode of the temptation of Jesus, the avenging Glory-cherubim of the Genesis 3 history of the first Adam have a counterpart in the ministering angels (Matt 4:11; Mark 1:13).
Included is the judgment of approbation manifested in the perfecting of the Glory-image and cosmic re-creation.
There is possibly a reference to the Glory-cloud in ya„d±o‚, “his hand,” in verse 11 {Isa 11:11}. On the use of ya„d£ for military signals, see Joshua 8:19; Isaiah 13:2; and note 120 below. Cf. also 2 Samuel 18:18; 1 Chronicles 18:3.
Cf. John 12:32.
Cf. Deuteronomy 32:11 for the comparison of the Glory-cloud and a bird.
On the identification of the divine Glory-ensign as fire and furnace (Isa 31:9b), cf. Genesis 15:17.
Note the parallelism of “hand” and “standard” here and see note 116 above.
The verb, no‚sésa„h, is best taken as a denominative of ne„s. Cf. Psalm 60:4(6), where the verb and the noun are paired in poetic parallelism.
See “Investiture,” p. 52 on the relation of the divine armor and Glory.
Cf. Psalm 20:5 (6); Isaiah 62:10, 12. See Y. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness (London, Oxford U. Press, 1962), pp. 38ff.
See notes 116 and 120 above.
On the use of áo‚t± for the standard, see Numbers 2:2; cf. Isaiah 19:1, 19f. In the Qumran War Scroll, áo‚t± is regularly used for the military banner; ne„s and ya„d± are also used for signs.
Cf. Isaiah 65:17.
Cf. Isaiah 34:3, 15.
Isaiah 11:1ff, 10 and 59:19 {Isa 59:19}.
Isaiah’s treatment of the eschatological Spirit should be considered in connection with the New Testament’s identification of the eschatological-glorified state as a Spirit-state.
Cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:9. It has been observed that in apocalyptic passages New Testament authors have a tendency to fall into the style of the Old Testament prophets.
Cf. Isaiah 42:1ff. and Matthew 12:18ff.
The image-symbol, “Spirit of his mouth,” might then be the same as was enacted by Jesus when he blew on his disciples the wind of his mouth, interpreting it as symbolic of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). If the expression refers to the Lord’s words (cf. Ps 33:6), an identification of these words with the Spirit is understandable in terms of such teaching as John 6:63 and Matthew 10:20, particularly when read against the background of Isaiah 11:2ff and 42:1ff.
Cf. 1 Timothy 6:14–16; 2 Timothy 4:1, 8; and especially Titus 2:13, which speaks of the epiphany “of the glory of the great God.”
On the noun, cf. 1 Corinthians 1:7; 2 Thessalonians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:7. On the verb apokaluptw, cf. Luke 17:30; 1 Corinthians 3:13.
See above, notes 98, 99, 111.
Cf. Matthew 24:3. The phenomena in the heavens that accompany the Glory-parousia are called “signs” in Luke 21:11, 25. The Glory is the sign; the luminaries are reflective signs. This is in keeping with the status of the luminaries as replicas of the Glory-Spirit, the archetypal light (cf. note 49 above), and with the function assigned them at creation (Gen 1:14).
Cf. Ezekiel 16:4.
The announcement of the birth-sign came through a revelation of the Glorv of the Lord of angelic hosts, so that the Glory-sign of the parousia served as a (private) sign of the first advent too. And as the stars of heaven, replicas of the Glory, are ancillary signs of the parousia, so they too functioned at the first advent as an accompanying sign of the one born king of the Jews (Matt 2:2).
Further evidence of this is found in the relation that can be traced between the saying about the eagles and the carcass conjoined to Jesus’ prophecy of his coming (Matt 24:28) and the statement about the carcasses of the wicked in the final Glory-ensign prophecy of Isaiah (66:24 {Isa 66:24}). The two passages are interlinked by Isaiah 34. The phraseology of the prediction about the birds of prey in Isaiah 34:15 and the statement in Isaiah 34:3 about the carcasses of the victims of God’s vengeance are utilized in Matthew 24:28. Isaiah 34:3 is also echoed in Isaiah 66:24 (this being but one detail in a broad similarity between Isaiah 34 and 35 {Isa 35}, which closes the first part of the work, and Isaiah 66, which closes the second part).
See note 123 above. For the Glory as Name, Cf. “Investiture,” pp. 59f.
Note the features in Revelation 19:12, 15 adopted from the vision of the Lord in Revelation 1:13ff.
Neither the extent of the influence of Old Testament ya„daà on oida in the New Testament nor the precise meaning borne at times by ya„daà has been sufficiently appreciated. The basic meaning of ya„daà, “know,” grades into “acknowledge, acknowledge as one’s own, own.” A close parallel to Revelation 19:12 is found in Zechariah 14:7, which also deals with the day of the Lord’s parousia, declaring that it is acknowledged as the Lord’s or belongs to the Lord (not, as usually rendered, “it is known to the Lord”). The recognition of this meaning for oida (viz., own as belonging to oneself) is recommended by and at the same time clarifies a passage like Matthew 7:23 (cf. Matt 25:31ff). That the idea in Revelation 19:12 is not that of the incomprehensibility of God (as, e.g., in Judg 13:18) is evident from the use of the same idiom in Revelation 2:17 for the name received by the victorious saints. There too, the point is that none but the overcomers owns the name, or passively, the name belongs to no others. In Revelation 19, verses 15b {Rev 19:15b} and 16 {Rev 19:16} answer questions raised by verses 12b {Rev 19:12b} and 13a {Rev 19:13a}. The arrangement is chiastic; verse 15b {Rev 19:15b} accounts for the blood on the warrior’s robe (cf. vs. 13a {Rev 19:13a}) and verse 16 {Rev 19:16} informs us where the warrior’s name was inscribed and what it was (cf. vs. 12 {Rev 19:12}). This prophecy of the parousia Glory-banner is based on Isaiah 63:1ff, a passage where we find a particularly plain instance of ya„daà in the sense of “own, acknowledge” (see Isa 63:16). This passage could be added to the series of Glory-ensign prophecies in Isaiah cited above (cf. Isa 62:10). In this connection the use of proginwskw in the sense of “own, claim for oneself, elect” (Rom 8:29; 11:2 {Rom 11:2}; cf. 1 Pet 1:2) should also he mentioned.
Cf. Revelation 19:11, 13. Here again the theme of a universal gathering for judgment is immediately associated with that of the Glory-banner.
Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:16. On the importance of the trumpet signals in the military practice of Israel and in the Qumran War Scroll, see Yadin, op. cit., pp. 87-113.
Cf. Numbers 10:9.
With Revelation 19:14 compare verse 8 {Rev 19:8} and 3:4f {Rev 3:4f}; 6:11 {Rev 6:11}; 7:9, 13 {Rev 7}.

Eamon Younis

Thursday 7 May 2020

Primal Parousia

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