Blog 86: The Backstory of Enthronement
The Genesis 1 creation story is a powerful narrative of deliverance from all things anti-life (v. 2) through the wisdom of His judgments (dividing). The Creator is a conquering King, ordering the chaos and commanding its perpetrators with the power of His voice, and creating a beautiful, life-supporting environment in which He takes up residence. The abundance of food, seeds, and fertility are all declared good. All things He created serve Him and glorify His name. This narrative reveals that Israel’s Divine Warrior spoke and created with wisdom, and then, on the seventh day, rested on His throne in His three-tiered garden temple, ruling with humans. It starkly contrasts the Mesopotamian and Egyptian creation myths of their god’s great battles, triumphs, and homecoming to rest in temples on thrones. In this blog, I will explore the link between the creation Sabbath enthronement and Yom Teruah, set within the Ancient Near East culture.
The Ancient Near East’s mythic epics link the world’s creation to temple building and enthronement.1 In the Babylonian Creation Myth, Enuma Elish, after Marduk’s victory over the god Tiamat and his creation of the heavens and earth with her remains, he and his entourage “rested” in his sanctuary and established his temple there. Likewise, in the Ugaritic Baal Epic, there is a cosmic battle between the sea god and the storm god. Baal defeats Yammu and constructs a palace on his divine mountain to sit enthroned. Like Enuma Elish, Baal struggles against the evil powers of chaos and gains victory over them. For six days, Baal burned his fires of creation and, on the seventh day, ceased and rejoiced in his house and sanctuary. In Ugarit, Baal’s sanctuary throne was a “seat of rest” over his dominion. In Egyptian mythology, the creator-sun god Atum (Ra) created the universe from watery chaos, the god Nun. He also had a resting place in a temple that he established forever. The Hebrew Bible’s Genesis 1-2 life setting of Ancient Near East mythology highlights similarities and distinctions.
“In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Elsewhere, we find that He created it to be inhabited, not in a state of tohu and bohu (Isa. 45:18-19). Genesis 1:2’s disjunctive accent separates tohu and bohu, appearing as an anti-life watery tahom, from Genesis 1:1 in time. What happened? From Israel’s history, rebellion against YHWH caused the waste and empty conditions in the Promised Land (Jer. 4:17, 22-23). In Genesis, the Creator responded by judging, dividing the light from darkness, the waters above from the waters below, and separating the earth from the sea in three successive days. In the next three days, He filled the spaces with life, each in its place. Israel’s Creator’s identity among the nations (“I am YHWH and there is no other”) highlights that His creation does not control Him, but He rules over His creation and lovingly provides for it. His saving actions cause the earth’s inhabitants “to know that I am YHWH,” the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and at His Name, “every knee will bow, of those in heaven, and those on the earth, and of those under the earth” (Phl. 2:9-11). After YHWH conquers/creates, He sets his throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all (Psa. 103:19; 11:4).
Israel’s exodus story echoes the same points of the creation theme. YHWH led His people out of Egypt’s culture of death, vanquished their enemy, re-established His nation, and brought them to His holy mountain temple with His throne in the heavens. On Shavuot, Moses ascended the mountain, and after six days, on the seventh day, YHWH called to Moses, imparting to him the Torah and instructions for constructing the tabernacle, a horizontal replica of Mount Sinai. The building of the tabernacle mirrors the Genesis six-day creation and Sabbath enthronement theme, suggesting that the Tabernacle represented the cosmos where YHWH established His throne (Psa. 103:19; Isa. 66:1-2a), a thought expressed by Josephus’s assertion that the tabernacle furniture “is intended to recall and represent the Universe.”2
YHWH placed His festivals of light in seven months, shaped after the six-day week followed by a seventh day Shabbat (see Blog 4 Chart “Time Marked by Sevens”). The Genesis 1-2:3 pattern of conquering the anti-life enemy, a new creation, and worshiping God enthroned in His holy temple repeats at the appearance of the Lord of lords and King of kings in the seventh month. Wielding the sharp sword of His Word, Yeshua comes riding a white horse to judge and make war against beast powers, resulting in a culture of peace and worship. When the Son of Man comes in His glory with his angelic retinue, He will sit on the throne of His glory and separate the peoples as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats (Mat. 25:31-32). Yom Teruah is a memorial of Shavuot with YHWH’s Edenic enthronement on His holy mountain, ruling from His temple with His followers “resting on His throne” with Him (Mat. 19:28; Rev. 3:21). The seventh month is a Sabbath millennium.
Takeaway:
By the power of His voice, His Spirit, YHWH Elohim restored the heavens and earth, and when He had finished, on the seventh day/month, He rested on His throne in His Eden Mountain Garden with those He had created to rule with Him. While the nation’s gods rested on thrones for any length at whim, the seventh day or month as a rest period existed only in Israel.3 Building the tabernacle for a dwelling place of YHWH’s throne parallels the creation story with day seven, God resting with humans in the Garden, ruling together. Every seventh, we remember the power of God’s voice, His deliverance, and who He created us to be, showing that only He is God, and there is no other.
Footnotes:
1 Moshe Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple and the Enthronement of the Lord,” in Mathias Delcor and André Caquot, eds., Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honeur de M. Henri Cazelles (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag, 1981), 501-512, https://www.academia.edu/44235765/Moshe_Weinfeld
2 Complete Works of Josephus, Antiq. Ill, 180; III, 123; B.J. V, 212f
3 William Hallo, New Moons and Sabbaths: A Case-study in the Contrastive Approach, 1980 in Bible and Spade https://.jstor.org