The Wind and the Waves: Biblical Theology in Protology and Eschatology

by David W. Baker

David W. Baker (Ph.D. University of London) is Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at ATS. This paper was presented to the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research as their invited Old Testament lecture on July 4, 2000.

Abstract

Wind and water are ambiguous forces in the biblical world, and in the Bible itself. Sometimes threatening and sometimes benign and beneficent, these elements bracket the Bible, from the watery deep overblown by the wind of the Spirit in Genesis through the vanishing sea in Revelation. This paper traces the development and use of the motif, highlighting the Old Testament occurrences, but also integrating later uses, especially Jesus’ sovereignty over these elements in Mark 4.

Introduction

Chiasmus, also known as ring construction or concentric parallelism, is a well-recognized literary feature wherein “words, phrases, sentences and even longer texts are sequenced not linearly, but in a cross-pattern”[1] in which the first and last element correspond, as do the second and second from last, and so on. Thus one ends where one began, having gone there and back again. These can run for small word plays such as the first man’s purported self-introduction to the first woman (“Madam, I’m Adam”, for which I have been unable to trace the biblical reference), to the suggestion that entire biblical books such as Galatians[2] and Jeremiah[3] are framed by this structural device.

Interest in the device has spread even beyond academia. Perhaps it is the delight in discovering at times hidden patterns of linguistic play which gives rise to more popular works such as one recently entitled Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You.[4] This interest seems to be broader than linguistic, however, since basic human questions revolve around beginnings and endings. Whether innocent and naïve questions (“Where did I come from, Daddy?” “Where did Grandma go when she died, Mommy?”—questions not quickly answered even in their naïveté!), or more reasoned articulations of national origin (e.g. “My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.” [Deut 26:5, NIV]; or “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation,” which, for the occasion, is the American Declaration of Independence), beginnings and ending fascinate.

A suggestion by a student as to a possible thesis topic led to the concept of this paper. He was interested in studying the background and significance of the astonished question concerning Jesus: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:41). This led to thoughts of wind and water language used elsewhere in Scripture. In this realm there seems to be a cosmic chiasm, ranging form the Urpunkt of the wind of God’s spirit moving over primeval waters in Genesis 1:2 to an Endpunkt of the disappearance of regular terrestrial waters in Revelation 21:1, they being replaced by water from the very throne of God (Rev 22:1). As an intriguing literary, historical, cosmic and theological Mittelpunkt lie Jesus’ encounters with wind and water as recorded in the Gospels.

Previous study

Mine is, of course, by no means the first study to notice thematic links across the canon. Hermann Gunkel wrote an influential study of a purported conflict between God and forces of evil which stretches, he suggests, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 12.[5] He looked at the texts against a background of ancient Near Eastern myth, a different approach than will be followed here. Claus Westermann has also looked at Anfang and Ende in der Bibel,[6] and, in a more modest work, Warren Gage looked at some eschatological trajectories which are launched in Genesis and continue to the end of the canon.[7] Even the text of Genesis itself, starting as it does with the beginning (בראשׁית), leads one naturally to ask about the end (אחרית הימים).[8]

Scope of this study

Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek terms within the semantic fields of water and wind are numerous in Scripture. An exhaustive study of these is beyond the scope of this paper, or even a monograph, as evidenced for example, by a volume by Philippe Reymond concerning only water terms in the Old Testament.[9] Many of the listed terms have a rich range of figurative and metaphorical meaning in Scripture, as do such terms in all languages, since the natural phenomena themselves are so ubiquitous and necessary for life. These figurative uses will not play a primary role here, however. Rather, attention will be directed toward occurrences of the actual phenomena themselves, most particularly when they occur in the context of the workings of God.

The study

I. Old Testament (Summary)

Christina Baxter in her stimulating Tyndale lecture[10] stated that how God acts shows who he is; he is self-consistent and there is no discrepancy between being and doing on his part. What do the actions of God show of his essence in the Old Testament passages which concern wind and water? The Old Testament evidence regarding the contiguous use of wind and water terminology will show the following.

Firstly, God as creator has superintendence or control even over things not specifically listed as being created by him. He is neither faced with a rebellious opponent in his natural creation, nor is he involved in conflict with nature.

Secondly, God uses these aspects of the world, the wind and the rain, as his instruments; they have no autonomous function without him. From the perspective of those who encounter them, their purposes might appear either beneficial or harmful, but God wields them. Even in a text such as Job 26, which appears to be a polemic against pagan religious beliefs by describing a metaphorical battle between God and other deities, water is in God’s control, and it is “his” wind.

Thirdly, there is no rival with God for this power over wind and wave. Other claimants to such authority are shown to be without standing.

A. Old Testament Evidence

Starting at the beginning is a wise move, though the amount of ink spilt concerning the meanings of relevant terms and concepts such as תהום, רוח and מים at the beginning of the canon could, I am sure, more than refill the primeval sea [and one could also make comment on much of the writings in comparison to mere wind, but it is probably more prudent not to go there]. It is commonly suggested that Genesis 1:2 reflects a mythological conflict between Israel’s God (Elohim/Yahweh) and the chaotic deep (tehom).

This purportedly derives, according to Gunkel, from the Babylonian creation myth Enuma elish where the God Marduk (the part played by Yahweh) defeats the sea goddess Tiamat (played by tehom)

with the wind as a weapon.[11] This view, with variations and permutations such as a Canaanite rather than a Mesopotamian background for the story,[12] has been espoused by numerous subsequent writers,[13] being restated for the more popular audience in recent dictionaries.[14]

An effective counter to aspects of this interpretation has been articulated by David Tsumura,[15] who shows that the proposed etymological connection between Tiamat/tehom[16] is fallacious,[17] and that there is no personalization of ‘deep’ or ‘water’ in the Genesis account.[18] Rather, the subterranean sea is the referent of tehom. Any conflict is foreign to the Genesis account,[19] with the only movement20 being that of God’s agent, the ruah. It is often suggested that the sea was threatening for Israel, an object of fear. For example, Robert Luyster makes this claim.[21] He also suggests a Babylonian, rather than a Palestinian or Canaanite setting for the concept of the threatening sea.[22] He states that “for desert nomads water is characteristically a blessing, but for the marsh dwellers between the Tigris and Euphrates the feeling was entirely different.”[23] It is unclear where he places Israel in this equation since they, living in Palestine, are presumably among the “desert nomads” but they borrow the frightening sea concept from Mesopotamia. This interpretation raises questions on geographical, sociological, psychological and textual grounds.

Geographically, Israel finds itself during most of its existence in a non-Mesopotamian, and therefore non-marshland, environment. It is bounded on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the Red Sea, and on the north by the Sea of Galilee. All of these bodies of water are larger than the two rivers defining Mesopotamia, and they would cause greater weather systems than would these rivers, not all of them beneficial. The suggestion that water itself was a threat is true for flooding rivers, as Luyster suggests,[24] but it is equally true, and often more devastatingly sudden, in a normally dry wadi, or nahal, part of Israel’s native geography.

Sociologically, a designation of Israel or its geographical neighbors as “desert nomads” is misleading. Some portions of the region are steppe land (midbar), but Canaan is not desert, and neither Israel nor most of her neighbors should be designated as “nomads” if that is defined as itinerant hunters or herdsmen without permanent settlement. There has been much study of the topic of nomadism in the ancient Near East, especially by Michael Rowton,[25] and this is a point often made by Donald Wiseman.[26] Israel and its neighbors are not well described as nomads.

There is also a psychological difficulty with this interpretation of Luyster. According to them, Babylon fears because they live in watery conditions and know water too well, but Palestine does not fear because they live in desert conditions and do not know water at all. Psychologically, fear seems to be driven in the other direction: fear of the unknown rather than fear of the known. Marsh dwellers make their livelihood from the water. For them it is sustenance and the mediator of life itself. Sailors learn to cope with and overcome the sea’s at times violent nature. The Greeks, a maritime people, often referred to the sea as ‘the wine red sea,’ and this was not because of any linkage between it and battle and bloodshed. Those who know the sea describe it as a thing of beauty rather than as a thing of terror. For water dwellers, the water would not be a dangerous threat causing fear, but a powerful force deserving respect. For a desert dweller, however, the unknown,[27] or that which is simply fabulous such as the sea, would be more likely to cause terror. They would not have been able to develop the coping mechanisms, and would not have discerned any benefit from the sea. It would be more of a powerful threat to them.

Finally, such a concept of the threatening sea appears suspect on textual grounds. In the Enuma elish account, Tiamat, supposedly goddess of salt water, seeks to destroy the iggigi after a failed attempt to do so by her consort, Apsu, lord of the fresh waters.[28] There is a resulting battle between her and Marduk of the storm, and she is defeated and dismembered.[29] From the text itself, this violence does not appear to be a permanent attribute of the waters since no conflict is discernable at the outset of the story. Prior to the creation of the elements of civilized society we read that “Primeval Apsu was their progenitor, and matrix-Tiamat was she who bore them all, they were mingling their waters together.”[30] Other deities come into being, and things proceed harmoniously for a period before any conflict arises.[31] This indicates that one cannot claim, based on this account, that the water is fundamentally threatening.

It is noteworthy that within the Enuma elish narrative any threat by the sea is not to humanity, which is not yet in existence, nor to creation in general. Tiamat’s wrath is directed against the iggigi, a sub-category of divine beings. Mankind is unthreatened, and there seems to be no indication that he has anything to worry about after being created, except an inordinate amount of drudgery in service of the gods.[32]

The suggestion of threatening water and sea as a common motif in the Old Testament can also be questioned by analysis of the biblical texts, including Genesis 1:2, to which we now return.

Whether the term ruah refers to the blowing ‘wind’,[33] a spiritual emanation from God,[34] or even God’s breath,[35] the grammar of the passage shows that ruah, like the waters, is under God’s superintendence. (The suggestion that ‘elohim’ is grammatically a superlative adjective,[36] resulting in ‘a great wind’ is without merit in this chapter where its regular, nominal use as ‘God’ occurs some 25 times). What is presented here is a picture of the serene control of God at the beginning of the creation, or perhaps better, the ordering, process, with no rivals in sight as he prepares the universe for those like him.[37] Any polemic against Mesopotamian or Canaanite cosmogonic beliefs is only implicit as regards this passage itself, though, as Heidel[38] and others have shown, implied they are.

Allusion to the creation event or account is not infrequent in scripture,[39] and several of these allusions include mention of wind and water. Job, in his thoughts on the origins and mystery of wisdom in chapter 28, credits God with establishing wisdom as the fear of the Lord (v. 28) from the very time of creation itself. Wisdom, according to Reymond, corresponds to the “goodness” of creation in Genesis 1.[40] It seems almost to be perceived as one of the laws of nature, founded, like the Mesopotamian me “when he gave to the wind its weight, and apportioned out the waters by measure; when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt” (28:25–26). Wind (ruah) and weather (matar and haziz) are here conjoined as parts of the ongoing life of the world. It would be nice to see this passage as an illusion to the cyclical nature of the seasons, which is the function of the luminaries in Genesis 1:16,[41] but this seems to outstrip the evidence of the passage itself.[42]

Wisdom, or knowledge, and creation also meet in Isaiah 40, where Yahweh’s power will manifest itself in his loving care for his chastised people. His ability to provide this care is but a trifling matter for the God who easily measures in his hand water and soil, mountain and hill (v. 12).[43] This power is juxtaposed in v. 13 with the independence of Yahweh’s ruah, (Who has directed Yahweh’s ruah [here usually translated as ‘spirit’], or as his counselor has instructed him?). No idol can hope to compare to this One of real power and insight (vv. 18–20). Nor can humanity, whom Agur confesses as without wisdom or knowledge in Proverbs 30:2–3. Futile humanity is contrasted by Agur with the One who gathered the wind (ruah), wrapped up the waters (mayim) and established the earth (v. 4).

This divine provider continues to work according to the Psalmist. In Psalm 147:7–20, among other things God feeds animals and birds, waters the earth through rain (v. 8), and makes the waters flow (nzl) by melting snow and ice by means of his ruah (vv. 16–18). As well as being granted, providence can also be withheld, as Amos reminded Israel in chapter 4. Among the natural disasters visited upon Israel in order to bring them back to Yahweh were famine (v. 6), blight, mildew and locusts to affect their crops (v. 9), pestilence and war (vv. 10, 11), and the apparently random withholding of rain (geshem; vv. 7–8). Yahweh’s ability to bring these disasters associates with his being the former of mountains and the creator of the wind (bore ruah, v. 13), a claim not directly derived from Genesis 1, since there no origin of wind water, or deep is explicitly mentioned.

The contrast between the creative and sustaining power of God on the one hand and the ineffectiveness of idols has already been noted in Isaiah 40. This is one of a number of cases where there is an explicit polemic against the religious beliefs of the apostate Israelites and their pagan neighbors. Idols are also the target in two more passages from the prophets, both in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 51:15–16 reintroduce several things already met in our discussion, including the wind and creation:[44] “(15) It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. (16) When he utters his voice there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.” This particular articulation of Yahweh as creator of water and wind was apparently well known, since it reappears practically verbatim in Psalm 135:6–7.[45] God in his wisdom and power is in stark contrast to the people who worship idols, which themselves have no real substance (they are hevel, ‘vapor’ v. 18), no truth but rather falsehood (v. 18), and no life force (no ruah v. 17). This picture, with its Sturm and Drang (v. 16) seems in some contrast to the apparent tranquility of Genesis 1.

Jeremiah had previously used the exact same description of God’s creative acts in 10:12–13.[46] Here foolish idolatry is characterized as one of the ‘ways of the nations’ (10:2) or ‘customs of the peoples (v. 3), while Jeremiah 51 is a more specific warning against the practices of Babylon, whose end at the hand of the Medes is already in process (v. 11). The polemic against useless idols is more pointed in 10:11, where they are specifically contrasted to the God of the wind and the water. They are “the gods who did not make the heavens and the earth.”[47]

The last creation (or possibly better, ‘organization’[48]) passage to which we will look is Job 26, which is not an apologetic for Yahweh against unnamed gods, but rather shadowy figures and deities some of whom who are specifically identified. They include Canaanite deities and elements of the afterlife. While time will not permit here an expansion on all of them, they can be noted in the translation of 26:5–13. (5) The shades (refaim, Ugaritic rapi’um[49]) below tremble, the waters and their inhabitants. (6) Sheol50 is naked before God, and Abaddon51 has no covering. (7) He stretches out Zaphon [the sacred mountain of Baal52 ] over the void (tohu, cf. Gen 1:2), and hangs the earth upon nothing. (8) He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not torn open by them. (9) He covers the face of the full moon, and spreads over it his cloud. (10) He has described [better ‘inscribed, hqq] a circle on the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness (cf. Gen 1:2) (11) The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke. (12) By his power he stilled the sea (Yam); by his understanding he struck down Rahab.53 (13) By his wind (ruho) the heavens are made fair; his hand has pierced the fleeing serpent (nahash bariah[54]).

Here the enemy is plainly identified as being opponents to God. They are such since people are led astray to follow after these already defeated nothings rather than pursuing the God who has acted in the past and continually acts in reality in their quotidian experience of day and night, wind and water. Israel in its stupidity follows flickering shades rather than the one to whom these mighty creative acts are of little consequence, only the “outskirts of his ways” (v. 14) rather than what identifies him. The ephemeral beings fade in the presence of the God who is from the beginning.

B. Noah (Genesis 6–9)

Wind and water recur in the text describing recreation, in the story of the flood. This discussion will be briefer since this event did not seem to stir the imaginations and pens of the ancients, as did the creation event. While water does, of course play a significant role in a flood event,[55] it is collocated with wind in only one verse.[56] Upon remembering Noah and his cargo, God sent a wind which dried up the water (8:1), with the procedure used being stopping the rain and terrestrial water as given in the next verse. Unlike the gods in the Gilgamesh epic who were terrified by the forces of nature which they unleashed (“The gods became frightened of the deluge. They shrank back and went to Anu’s highest heaven. The gods cowered like dogs, crouching outside”[57]), God is in complete control. He shows his justice by bringing the floodwaters in the first place, and his compassion by removing them.

It is interesting to note here an example of relativity, or change of perspective. I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said that a hell for humanity could be heaven for mosquitoes.[58] So the removal of water can have different consequences in different circumstances. In Amos 4, which we have previously noted, the desiccation is a punishment, and leads to loss of fruition, while in this case of a flood, desiccation allows fruition (Gen 8:17-“Bring out with you every living thing…so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”; 9:20- “Noah…was the first to plant a vineyard.”)[59]

A similar sequence of events befalls Jonah. Fleeing from the command of the Lord, he embarks on a ship to the west. Yahweh, rather than being eluded, sends a great wind, also identified as a great storm over the sea (1:4). This threatens to swamp the ship and drown Jonah and his traveling companions. The sailors, showing more theological perspicuity than the follower of Yahweh, seek to address the situation, but to no avail until they jettison Jonah (vv. 5–15a). At that instant the tumult tempered, and the resulting calm caused the sailors to fear Yahweh since they recognized his power.

This variation of theme of God producing a violent sea is also found in Psalm 107, which appears to relate to the Jonah story. It provides a vivid, poetic picture from the perspective of one actually caught in a storm: (23) “Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters; (24) they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep; (25) for He commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. (26) They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths… (28) Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble… (29) He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed,” presumably by the cessation of the wind which God had sent.[60]

Reymond understands the “mighty waters” of Psalm 107:23 to contain a frisson of violence within them,[61] though again this seems to outstrip the evidence. The water at the start seems neutral, a place of commerce which is subsequently troubled by God. It appears more accurate to say that violence is possible rather than latent, waiting to burst forth. But so is tranquility possible. Neither are a necessary semantic component of the water itself.

In both Genesis 6–9, on the one hand, and Jonah 1 and Psalm 107 on the other, God brings a storm and then relief, in the first case upon the entire world and in the second, upon an individual, with additional, collateral damage as well. There are important differences between the accounts, however. In Genesis, the wind is the means of salvation, drying up the threatening water, while in Jonah and the psalm it is the purveyor of the peril, and is not mentioned at all at the removal of the peril. In both cases, God (elohim in Genesis, Yahweh in both Jonah and Psalm 107) wields these material forces as a tool, for weal or woe.

C. Red Sea62 (Exodus 14)

Leaving the relative verdure of Egypt, Israel faced yet another case of the relativity of water at the Red Sea and the Sinai wilderness. In the course of traversing the latter, lack of water caused grumbling and mounting insurrection. This was in spite of God repeatedly exhibiting his gracious love for his ungrateful people by supplying their need for drinking water (Exod 15:22–25; 17:1–7; Num 20:2–13; 21:4–9, though the claim of a lack of water could well be specious here in this story of the bronze serpent, since no such need is said to have been met by God within this passage; Deut 8:15). At the Red Sea, however, too much water in the shape of the sea itself caused the problem. Here Yahweh showed his grace by dividing the sea water sending a “strong east wind” (14:21). This is the source of detrimental dryness in other contexts,[63] but here prepares a way of escape.[64]

This passage has also been construed as a polemic against pagan deities.[65] There is no explicit evidence of polemic in the narrative text itself, since the sea is no more personified as a pagan deity than is the wilderness itself, which is said to have “closed in upon them” (Exod 14:3). The sea is the same sort of impersonal obstacle as is the desert, one that needs to be crossed in order to reach the rest of the Promised Land. The sea does not actively oppose; it passively blocks.

The story is retold in poetic form in Exodus 15, or some would suggest that the poetry was the original, earliest rendition of this event, and possibly the earliest written portion of the Old Testament.[66] Whatever is the actual order of the composition of the two texts is not germane to the point being made here, since there seems to be little evidence of a personified sea here in the poetry either. The wind is presented as the instrument of God (15:8 - “At the blast (ruah) of your nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.”; 15:10b - ”[You blew with your wind,] the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.”) The sea does not oppose God, but rather serves him as an instrument in order to destroy the real enemy of the narrative, the Egyptian army.[67]

This power to conquer human armies thwarting God’s plans is the core of what is remembered when the story is repeated by Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho in Joshua 2:10. She credits the terror felt by her people upon this episode of drying up the Red Sea. Here, unlike Job 26:12, it is not a Canaanite god Yam which is defeated, but the specifically named geographical feature Yam Suph whose physical waters are dried up. While there is no mention in her recollection of the a wind, she does credit the event with robbing her countrymen of their ruah, their ‘courage’, their very heart, which melted at the news of God’s power over the elements just as the ice and snow had done before God’s ruah in Ps 147:18. It appears that a victory by God over natural elements in the visible, earthly realm is sufficient to terrify the inhabitants of Jericho without needing to postulate any mythical battle between various deities.

D. Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings 17–18)

The main task in the ministry of Elijah was to withstand the encroachments of Baalism into Israel. Here we find active confrontation with the claims of Baal/Hadad, the god of the storm: thunder, and lightning, and downpour. Through the rain, which he claimed to provide, came the fertility of field, vine and orchard. Rather than making a propositional announcement regarding the powerlessness of Baal in this area of meteorological phenomena, Elijah provides existential demonstrations of the power of Yahweh. His statement that Yahweh would withhold for three years the water they needed to sustain agriculture and supply the needs of the people (1 Kings 17:1) would have appeared audacious indeed. Ahab must have thought that this was indeed a World Cup match much to his liking. His team was odds-on favorite, since Baal’s game was water provision, and Yahweh is not primarily a water or storm God, according to his perceptions.

As the game progressed, however, Yahweh was shown to have some skill in the area of precipitation, even to the detriment of his own prophet. Elijah himself had to finally seek refuge in the town of Zarephath, the area from which Jezebel, Ahab’s Baal worshiping wife, originally hailed (1 Kings 16:11). When it came to the finals match at Mount Carmel, the situation seemed even more lop-sided in favor of Baal, who not only had the larger team (450 Baal prophets), but also had a much larger band of supporters (400 Asherah prophets; 1 Kings 18:19) and the home field advantage.[68] Even the match itself was being played by Baal rules; goals scored by fire, probably in the form of lightning burning up the ball (I mean, the bull), itself an animal symbol of Baal.[69]

When Elijah’s turn came, the Baal prophets having been held scoreless, he wanted it quite clear that the Baal rules were being followed, so he had the bull sacrifice covered with water, which was claimed to be under the authority of Baal. Then, in response to a quiet prayer, Yahweh, the ‘Unstorm God,’ showed his control over lightning and his superiority over bull, water, and Baal prophet. Finally, at the very end of the match, shows his superiority over Baal himself since he, Yahweh, causes it to rain: 18:44-“Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.”; [45] In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain.”

Whether he knew the actual proverb itself, Ahab was basing his belief on the truth of Proverbs 25:23: “The north wind produces rain,”[70] and since his god, Baal, is associated with the north, he would have been confident. He probably would have done well to keep in mind an earlier proverb now found in the same chapter (25:14): “Like clouds and wind without rain is one who boasts of a gift never given.” His belief in a lying god who promised rain and could not deliver would have catastrophic effect on the nation.[71]

E. Elijah and Jehoshaphat/Jehoram (2 Kings 3)

The final Old Testament episode to which we will look involves the next generation to the episode just studied. Jehoram, son of Ahab and Jezebel, was thwarted in his military campaign against Mesha, king of Moab, due to a lack of water (2 Ki 3:9). His co-campaigner Jehoshaphat, apparently remembering the events of a few years previously,[72] wisely calls for advice from a prophet of Yahweh since he had seen Yahweh’s provision of water already in his lifetime under Ahab.

When Elisha arrived at the kings’ headquarters, he “said to the king of Israel (i.e., Jehoram), ‘What have I to do with you? Go to your father’s prophets or to your mother’s” (3:13a) He is forcing Jehoram to make a personal choice of allegiance:

“Chose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15). “Your house hasn’t done so up to this point. Will you do so now?” Jehoram responds to this choice with blame rather than fealty: “No; it is the Lord who has summoned us, three kings, only to be handed over to Moab,” (v. 13b); i.e. “God got us into this; he needs to get us out.”

In spite of Jehoram’s attitude and ancestry, and only in consideration of Jehoshaphat, Yahweh through Elisha promises to provide, but in a way more powerful and unexpected than even in the context with Baal and the ordinary, proverbial understanding of the relationship between wind and rain. In this instance “you shall see neither wind nor rain, but the wadi shall be filled with water” (v. 17), and this happened (v. 20). This is not being done to be a miraculous appearance of water, though the text could be so read. It could just indicate a natural rainstorm which was happening further upstream.[73] They don’t see either wind, which generally precedes rain, or the rain itself.

This could also be a means of making Israel and her kings realize the primary cause of the graces granted to them. It seems to be driving them back from secondary to primary causes, something grasped later by Jeremiah, who wrote: “Can any idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who can do this (14:22).” Reymond takes this as a personalization of the clouds, who themselves then are able to decide to give rain or withhold it.[74] Jeremiah’s argument, however, seems to be in the opposite direction. He is denying personality to both idol and cloud, both of which are inanimate and powerless on their own. Clouds cannot give rain except at the impetus of a higher, personal power, namely the God of Israel.

II. New Testament

In only two separate incidents in the life of Jesus, wind and wave come into textual contact. Using the Old Testament background presented above, how would participants and recorders of them have understood this?

A. Stilling the storm (Matt 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25)

After a strenuous day of preaching and performing wonders, Jesus enters a boat with his disciples. He is exhausted and falls asleep, even though a violent storm[75] comes on the sea,[76] causing waves (kumaton) to threaten to swamp the boat. Jesus rebukes the wind (anemos) and the sea (Matthew and Mark, with Luke reading kludon, waves), resulting in a calm. His amazed disciples ask concerning who he really is, since his power is such that even wind and sea (anemos and thalassa, Matthew and Mark) or wind and water (udatos, Luke) obey his rebuke.

Some have read this passage as a continuation of Jesus’ previous work of exorcizing demons, personifying the water and wind here. This is suggested since the term ‘rebuke’ (epetimesen) used here is directed toward demons elsewhere (e.g., Mark 1:25; 3:12; 9:15; in 8:33 directed toward Peter who is speaking Satan’s words).[77] Gundry has convincingly argued that this is not the case,[78] and there is no demonic involvement explicitly mentioned in the texts.

Numerous scholars look to the Old Testament for the background for the narrative presentation of the event. A number favor this being a reflection of Exodus 14 where God used the wind on the Red Sea (see above, p. 21-22).[79] There are numerous divergences between the episodes, however, which lead to questioning this suggestion. As Gundry has pointed out, the enemy in Exodus is the Egyptian army, while here it is the sea, and in Exodus the wind is a tool for salvation, while here it a cause of danger.[80] One could also say that in the Gospels the salvation is from the water while in Exodus the salvation is by the waters, which are never pictured as threatening in Exodus, unless you are an Egyptian.

Pesch suggested a connection with the Jonah story where also a storm threatens the life of a sleeping man.[81] Gundry questions this interpretation as well in several grounds: the sleepers sleep in different places (hold- Jonah; stern- Jesus), different vocabulary (pneuma and kludon in Jonah LXX; lailaps and siesmos in the Gospels, although Luke does use kludon in the passage), and historical peculiarities.[82]

This suggestion might well deserve reexamination, however. The other major candidate for literary influence would appear to be the Noah episode in Genesis 8:1, but the wind a saving force there compared to it as a threatening one here seems to be a major hurdle. In both Jonah and the Gospels wind and water enclose the event, occurring at beginning and end, while the wind only ushers in the end in Genesis. The resultant emotion of the occupants of the boat is the same in Jonah and the Gospels: fear (Genesis - yr; LXX and Gospels - phobos). In any case, the resultant wonder at the mighty acts of God as being one who controls everything, even the elements, is a regular result of these most irregular acts throughout both Testaments.[83] The noteworthy thing for the disciples in our case is that the one who is doing these acts of God is Jesus.

B. Jesus Walking on the Sea (Matt 14:22–33; Mark 6:47–52; John 6:16–21)

In another instance the disciples were out on the sea, only this time Jesus was not along. The waves picked up (kumaton, Matt 14:24; thalassa diegeireto, John 6:18) with a strong wind. When Jesus walked out toward the boat on the sea, the disciples took heart. Matthew has Peter joining Jesus walking on the water (hudatos; 14:29) but, frightened by the wind, he starts to sink until Jesus catches him. Matthew and Mark conclude with the wind ceasing when Jesus (and Peter) reaches the boat (Matt 14:28–32; Mark 6:51), and all aboard are amazed (Mark 6:51) and start worshiping Jesus as God’s son (Matt 14:33). John records nothing of Peter, the calming, or the worship.

This situation is presented in a slightly different way than any we have encountered previously. Here there is no explicit mention of divine power in either bringing the wind and water or in controlling them. Jesus simply walks on the water as if it were a path through a park. The incident with Peter seems to be showing Jesus’ power in being able to act in a saving way through or during the course of the storm rather against or to quell it. Divine control is implicit in the event, even if not explicit in the text, and is recognized as such by the disciples. Their amazement (not the fear of the previous episode discussed) and worship which follow are again usually associated with a divine act. This divine identification would have been augmented by Jesus statement of identity as the “I am” (ego eimi) in Matthew 14:27.[84]

No Old Testament passage provides a clear referent for this episode. There is the similarity of the Red Sea becoming a pathway, but the dissimilarities outweigh the similarities. Using the natural elements to go from one place to another has some parallel with God riding on the clouds (Psalm 104:3; cf. 68:4),[85] but that is the topic of another occasion.

The fury of wind and sea provide the narrative backdrop against which the actions themselves are played out. In developing the narrative, they seem to fulfill the same role as the wind and sea in Genesis 1. In that passage also there is no discussion of origin; the wind and waters are stage setting props upon which the story plays itself out. In both cases God is able to work out his will, bringing order and stability without removing either element, as least as far as it is recorded in the texts themselves. In some way Jesus is also acting as creator, if not of peace, which is not explicit in the Genesis account, at least of order.

C. The Age to Come (Revelation 21–22)

The closing of the chiasm is much more blurred. The wind (anemos) in Revelation is constrained by the 4 angels in chapter 7, and does not reappear, being replaced by the personified pneuma.

Any collocation of wind and sea (thalassa) is no longer possible after Revelation 21:1, when the sea also is no more. Beale suggests that the sea in this passage means not only the physical body of water, but also includes all of its figurative usages.[86] The connotations which he draws on to justify the elimination of the physical water are all negative, however.[87] While these do exist, they should not be seen to indicate that the sea is intrinsically evil or in opposition to God, since we have shown here many counter examples.

While wind and water do not occur together in Revelation, hints of them can be seen in Revelation 22:1. There the “river of the water of life”, an allusion to Ezekiel 47 and Zechariah 14:8,[88] issues from God’s throne. Since the original physical world had been completely destroyed, as this section of Revelation is understood by some,[89] and this reflects a completely new one, water plays an important role in the new as it did in the old. Now God is stated in this new beginning to be the source of the water which at the first beginning was without stated source. The water at the beginning, which was organized and named in the process of bringing forth life, now becomes itself that source. Water was there at the start, and water will be there at the end, and over all is God, creator, provider, sustainer, and Lord.

Notes

1. Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation (London/ Downers Grove: SPCK/ InterVarsity Press, 1989) 295.
2. J. Bligh, Galatians (London: St Paul Publications, 1969). Other studies of New Testament chiasmus include John W. Welch, ed., Chiasmus in Antiquity : Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981); Nils Wilhelm Lund, Chiasmus in the New Testament : A Study in the Form and Function of Chiastic Structures (Peabody, MA : Hendrickson, 1992); John Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language : Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond (Crestwood, N.Y. : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994); Ian H. Thomson, Chiasmus in the Pauline Letters (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995)
3. Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric, SBLDS 18 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975).
4. Mardy Grothe, Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You: Chiasmus and a World of Quotations that Say What They Mean and Mean What They Say (New York: Viking, 1999).
5. Hermann Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit : eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 und Ap Joh 12 (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1895).
6. Claus Westermann, Anfang und Ende in der Bibel (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1969).
7. Warren Austin Gage, The Gospel in Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, IN: Carpenter Books [a division of Eisenbrauns], 1984).
8. See Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, transl. John A. Baker (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Westminster, 1967) II, 109–112; Gage, Gospel in Genesis.
9. Philippe Reymond, L’eau, sa vie, et sa signification dans l’Ancien Testament (VTSup 6; Leiden: Brill, 1958).
10. Christina Baxter, “The Incarnation: Its Significance for History and Humanity” delivered 3 July, 2000 at the triennial joint meeting of the Tyndale Fellowship .
11. Schöpfung and Chaos; Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, transl. John H. Marks (OTL; London/Philadelphia: SCM/Westminster) 50.
12. John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea : Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, 35; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
13. David Toshio Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2 : A Linguistic Investigation (JSOTSup 83; Sheffield : JSOT, 1989) 45, n. 2; idem, “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood : An Introduction, “ “I Studied Inscriptions before the Flood” : Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11 (SBTS 4; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994) 30-32; Benedikt Otzen et al., Myths in the Old Testament, transl. Frederick Cryer (London: SCM, 1980) 33-34.
14. Traces of this ancient cosmogony are still evident in the priestly account of creation in Genesis 1. Here the wind of God was instrumental in creation, a detail that is reminiscent of Marduk’s final blow on Tiamat: a raging wind sent into her mouth (ANET 67). According to the biblical writer, a firmament divided “the waters from the waters” (Gen 1:6). Hence the concept in the Bible of the two deeps calling to one another (Ps 42:8—Eng 42:7).” C. L. Seow, “The Deep,” ABD II 125. See also B. Alster, “Tiamat תהום,” Karel van der Toorn et al., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed. (Leiden/Grand Rapids: Brill: Eerdmans, 1999) 867-869 [henceforth DDD].
15. The Earth and the Waters, 46. See also Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of the Creation (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951) 98-101.
16. Ludwig Koehler et al., Hebräisches_und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament IV (Leiden: Brill, 1990) 1557-1559; Eduard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job, transl. Harold Knight (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1967) 30
17. See also Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1966), 22; Heidel, Babylonian Genesis 99.
18. See also John Skinner, Genesis, 2nd ed. (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930) 17; Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11 : A Commentary (Minneapolis : Augsburg, 1984) 105.
19. C. Kloos, Yahweh’s Combat with the Sea: A Canaanite Tradition in the Religion of Ancient Israel (Amsterdam: G. A. van Oorschot/ Leiden: Brill, 1986) suggests evidence of the Canaanite battle motif in such Old Testament texts as Psalm 29 and Exodus 15.
20. See e.g. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 107 and Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (WBC 1; Waco: Word Books, 1987) 17 for discussions regarding the meaning of the verb used here.
21. Robert Luyster, “Wind and Water: Cosmogonic Symbolism in the Old Testament,” ZAW 93 (1981) 1; cf. Reymond, L’eau, 182.
22. Luyster, “Wind and Water 1.
23. Ibid. 9.
24. Ibid.
25. Michael Rowton, “Urban Autonomy in a Nomadic Environment,” JNES 32 (1973) 201-215; idem, “Autonomy and Nomadism in Western Asia,” Orientalia 42 (1973) 247-258; idem, “The Role of Ethnic Invasion and the Chiefdom Regime in Dimorphic Interaction : The Post Kassite period (ca 1150–750 BC)” Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. Francesca Rochberg-Halton (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987) 367-378. See also John Tracy Luke, Pastoralism and Politics in the Mari Period : A Re-examination of the Character and Political Significance of the Major West Semitic Tribal Groups on the Middle Euphrates, ca. 1828-1758 B.C. (PhD thesis, University of Michigan; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966); Pierre Briant, Etat et pasteurs au Moyen-Orient ancien (Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1982); Ofer Bar-Yosef and Anatoly Khazanov, ed., Pastoralism in the Levant: Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: Prehistory Press, 1992); Benjamin Adam Saidel, “New Insights into Ancient and Modern Pastoral Nomads,” BSR 23 (1997) 349-353.
26. E.g.”Abraham Reassessed” in Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A.R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1980/ Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 141-145
27. Reymond, L’ eau 164.
28. Alster, DDD 868. The iggigi are Mesopotamian wararior gods; see Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch I (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965) 366-267 and B. Kienast, “Igig, Anunnakku und,” RLA 5, 40–44.
29. “Epic of Creation” IV:93-V:62 in The Context of Scripture I: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 398-399. 
30. 1:2–5 in ibid., 391.
31. Alster (DDD 868) says: “Alongside with the violence principle of killing, sexual productivity appears in the poem as a means of creation.”
32. “Epic of Creation” VI: 5–8 in Hallo and Younger, Context I 400.
33. Targum Onkelos, New Jewish Version, New American Bible, NEB, NRSV.
34. KJV, NASB, NIV.
35. Nic. H. Ribberbos, “Gen il und 2, ” OTS 12 (1958) 243; O. Steck, Der Schöpfungsbericht der Priesterschrift: Studien zur literarkritischen und überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Problematik von Gen 1, 1–2, 4a (FRLANT 115; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 235-236. Concerning the history of exegesis, see K. Smoronski, “Et spiritu Dei ferebatur supra atmos,” Bib 6 (1925) 140-156, 275–293, 361–395.
36. E.g. Targum Onkelos; Ibn Ezra; J. M. P. Smith, “The Syntax and Meaning of Genesis 1, 1–3, ” AJSL 44 (1927-1928) 111-114; idem, “The Use of the Divine Name as Superlatives,” AJSL 45 (1928-1929) 212-213; ZA W 47 (1929) 310; S. Moscati, “The Wind in Biblical and Phoenician Cosmology,” JBL 66 (1947) 306; D. W. Thomas, “A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew,” VT 3 (1953) 214-224; von Rad, Genesis 49; Harry Orlinski, “Plain Meaning of Ruah in Gen 1:2, ” JQR 48 (1957) 174-182.
37. God’scontrol of the sea as part of creation is stated in Job 38:8–11 where he sets its boundaries. In Babylonian literature, control of “the bolt, the bar of the sea,” in which the water is withheld to cause drought, is in the hands of Ea (W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-hass: The Babylonian Story of the Flood [Oxford: Clarendon, 1969) 110-111 r. v: 1–2; 116–117 r. i: 6–7, 10–11; 118–119 r. ii: 4–5, 11–12; 120–121 r. 11:34–35; see the philological discussion on p. 166.
38. Heidel, Babylonian Genesis.
39. Gen3:20; Neh 9:6; Job 26:13; 27:3; 38:4ff.; Ps 33:6, 9; 90:2; 100:3; 102:25; 104; 139:15; Eccl 12:1; Isa 40:26, 28; 42:5; 45:18; Jer 10:12–16; Am 4:13; John 1:1ff.; Acts 4:24; 14:15; 17:24; Rom 1:20, 25; 11:36; 1 Cor 11:7–9; Col 1:16; 1 Tim. 2:12–14 Heb. 1:2; 11:3; Rev. 4:11; 10:6.
40. Reymond, L’eau 45.
41. Ibid.
42. Reymond’s association of matar with specifically winter rain (19) and ruah as ‘wintery blasts’ (45) seems to be adding unsubstantiated temporal specificity.
43. InPsalm 33:6–7, Yahweh gathers the sea’s waters (me hayam) and the deeps (tehomot), which he has created by means of his ruah, into a storage bottle, and, according to Psalm 135:6–7, he removes the wind from storage (tsr, the same word as in Ps 33:7) and provides water from the thunderstorm.
44. Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 101–150 (AB 17a; Garden City: Doubleday, 1970) 261-referring to UT 67:5- clouds, wind, mdl, rain.
45. There is only one grammatical difference between the two passages. Psalm 135:7 has the first and last verbs as participles (i.e., “makes the clouds rise…brings out the wind”) while Jeremiah 5:16 uses vayyiqtol forms (i.e. “he raised clouds…he brought out wind”). Most English translations do not reflect any difference between the two grammatical forms.
46. The only difference between the two Jeremiah passages is the reading vaya’aleh in 10:13 and the shorter vaya’al in 51:16.
47. The verse is alone in Jeremiah in being in Aramaic. Various reasons have been proposed for this anomaly. The Targum and Rashi suggest that the people who would be exiled in 587 BC from Jerusalem are getting an anticipatory glimpse of their exilic language, while Jack R. Lundbom suggests that the verse contains a pun which would have been lost if rendered into Hebrew (Jeremiah 1–20 : A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 21A; New York: Doubleday, 1999) 593. The context mentions several times the stupidity of idols and their worshipers (10:8, 14, 15). This could possibly be yet another indication of the stupidity of idols, who are not even able to comprehend Hebrew, but must use Aramaic, the current lingua franca.
48. Reymond, L’eau 175.
49. HALOT 3, 1275; John E. Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) 365, n. 12; J. de Moor, “Rapi’uma - repahaim, ZAW 88 (1976) 323-345; C. L’heureux, “The Ugaritic and Biblical Rephaim,” HTR 67 (1974) 265-274; Marvin Pope, Job (AB 15; Garden City: Doubleday, 1965) 183- also in Phoenician funerary inscriptions; Mark. S. Smith, “Rephaim,” ABD 5, 674–676.
50. “Dead, Place of,” ABD 2, 101–105; it is at times personified.
51. Hartley, Job 365, n. 11; related to death in Job 38:12, the grave in Psalm 88:11. In Revelation 9:11 as Apollyon, the angel of the bottomless pit; Herbert G. Gerther, “Apollyon,” ABD 1, 301–302- personified here and in Proverbs 27:20.
52. Hartley, Job 365; J. Roberts, “Sapon in Job 26:7, ” Bib 56 (1975) 554-557; Reymond, L’eau 15, 175–176.
53. J.Day, “Rahab,” ABD 5, 610–611.
54. Used elsewhere of Leviathan (Isa 27:1; KTU 1.5.1.1). Possibly the two creatures are the same (ibid.). For a discussion of Rahab and serpent, see Reymond, L’eau 189-193; C. Uehlinger, “Leviathan לויתן)3-117,” DDD 511-515; K. Spronk, “Rahab רהב,” DDD 684-686.
55. As mabbul (indicated here as A) and mayyim (here B) - Genesis 6:17 (AB); 7:6 (Ahayah B), 10 (BA), 17 (A…B), 18 (BB), 19 (B), 20 (B), 24 (B); 8:1 (B), 3 (BB), 5 (B), 7, (B), 8 (B), 9 (B), 11 (B), 13 (B); ma’ayanot tehom - 7:11; 8:2; geshem - 7:12; 8:2. For a study of mabbul, see Kloos, Yahweh’s Conflict, 62–69, who sees it as designating the “heavenly ocean” (cf. J. Begrich, “Mabbl. Eine exegetisch-lexikalische Studie,” Zeitschrift fur Semitistik and verwandte Gebiete 6 (1928) 135-153) which carries no hostile connotation (66), at least in Psalm 29. 
56. In Gen 6:17 God warns that he is about to deliver a ‘flood of water’ on all that has within it the ruah, usually read as ‘breath’ of life.
57. Benjamin R. Foster, “Gilgamesh,” Hallo, Context of Scripture I, 459.
58. Source undetermined.
59. Thewriter of 4 Maccabees, in exhorting his hearers based on the flood event, turns the function of the wind around from what it is in Gen 8:1. He uses it as a scourge rather than as the instrument of salvation. He writes: “Just as Noah’s ark, carrying the world in the universal flood, stoutly endured the waves, so you, O guardian of the law, overwhelmed from every side by the flood of your emotions and the violent winds, the torture of your sons, endured nobly and withstood the wintery storms that assail religion” (4 Maccabees 15:31–32).
60. The psalm continues with further claims of God’s power over water, which he is able both to withhold (“He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into a thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste”, 33–34a) and provide (“He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water”, 35), though no mention of wind is included here.
61. Reymond, L’ eau 178.
62. Translating difficulties over whether the yam suph should be rendered as either “Red Sea” or “Reed Sea” is not germane to this paper. For an introduction to these and other problems, see John R. Huddlestone, “Red Sea,” ABD V 633–642.
63. Literal- Jonah 4:8; figurative- Isa 27:8; Ezek 17:10; 19:12; Hos 13:15.
64. East and south winds (teyman) are also mentioned in Ps 78:26 in the context of the wilderness wanderings. The immediate context mentions God blessing his unfaithful people by sending manna (vv. 24–25) and meat (vv. 27–29). Since there is no mention of the east wind within the narrative of the wilderness wanderings in Exodus, the use of the term in the psalm most logically refers to this event at the Red Sea which enabled the Israelites to reach the wilderness. While dischronologization such as this is not uncommon in narrative texts (see W. J. Martin, “‘Dischronologized’ Narrative in the Old Testament,” Congress Volume: Rome, 1968 [VTSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1969] 179186; David W. Baker, “The Consecutive Non-Perfective as Pluperfect in the Historical Books of the Hebrew Old Testament (Genesis - Kings)” [Regent College, Vancouver MCS thesis, 1971], chronological rigour is even less necessary in poetic texts.
65. Day, God’s Conflict 97–101; Mary Wakeman, God’s Battle with the Monster. A Study in Biblical Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 1973)
66. See discussions of dating, in which its oral composition is placed in the twelfth century and its writing in the tenth, in Douglas K. Stuart, Studies in Early Hebrew Meter (HSM 13; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976); Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973) 121-125; David Noel Freedman, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980) 176-178.
67. God’s sovereign control over the Red Sea is also a motif in the New Testament, though without mention of wind; e.g. Acts 7:36; 1 Cor 10:1.
68. For a discussion of the significance of Mt Carmel as Canaanite religious site, see Henry O. Thompson, “Carmel, Mount,” ABD 1:874–875; M. J. Mulder, “Carmel,” DDD 182–185.
69. For the religious significance of the bull/calf in Canaanite practice, see N. Wyatt, “Calf,” DDD 180–182 and the bibliography there.
70. A similar weather proverb, though with different wind directions, seemed to be common in Israel much later, since Jesus used two against the people in Luke 12:54–55: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It’s going to rain’; and so it happens. (55) And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.” Since the Palestinian wind bringing rain was not generally a north wind, as stated in this proverb (25:23), it has been suggested that the proverb has a non-Palestinian origin (J. van der Ploeg, “Prov. xxv 23, ” VT 3 [1953] 189-192; Reymond L’eau 9; Derek Kidner, The Proverbs: An Introduction and Commentary [TOTC; London/Downers Grove: Tyndale/Inter-Varsity, 1973] 160). A customary weather pattern is also reflected in Jesus’ teaching concerning the reception or rejection of his message being like wise or foolish builders (Matt 7:24–27). On both builders “the rain fell, the floods came, and winds blew and beat upon the house.”
71. See Reymond L’eau 11.
72. The dates of the kings involved are: Ahab: 874–852 BC; Jehoram: 852–841 BC; Jehoshaphat: 873–849 BC (NBD passim).
73. C.F. Keil, The Books of the Kings (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950 rep. of German original) 304.
74. Reymond, L’eau 43.
75. Seismon, usually associated with turmoil by earthquake, in Matthew, and lailaps, ‘hurricane’ in Mark and Luke.
76. Thalassa, Matthew and Mark, while Luke uses his customary, and more accurate limnon, ‘lake’.
77. William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 177; Robert H. Gundry, Mark : A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 240.
78. Ibid
79. Lane, Mark 176; Walter Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary 8, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 911.
80. Gundry, Mark 243.
81. R.Pesch, Das Markusevangelium (Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 2; Freiburg: Herder, 1976) 1, 246.
82. Gundry, Mark 246.
83. See J. D. Douglas, “Fear,” NBD 373–374. 36
84. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew : A Commentary on his Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 299; Donald Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary 8, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 344.
85. Used of Canaanite Baal; CTA 4.5.12; 4.3.18; 2.4.8, etc.; see Moshe Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’” JANES 5 (1973) 421-426; Day, God’s Conflict 31–32; Tremper Longman III, “The Divine Warrior: The New Testament Use of an Old Testament Motif,” WTJ 44 (1982) 294-297. For other Canaanite (and Egyptian) motifs in Psalm 104, see the discussion and bibliography in Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60–150: A Commentary, transl. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989) 295-299.
86. Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation : A Commentary on the Greek Text (Carlisle/Grand Rapids: Paternoster/Eerdmans, 1999) 1042.
87. Ibid.
88. David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22 (Word Bible Commentary 52C; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998) 1175-1176; Beale, Revelation 1103. This also goes back even further, being an allusion to the river which flows out of Eden in Genesis 2:10–14; see ibid., Leon Morris, The Revelation of St. John : An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC; Leicester/ Grand Rapids: InterVarsity/ Eerdmans, 1983, rep. of 1969 edition) 248.
89. Aune, Revelation 1117.