Ep 264: God, Israel, and the Suzerain-Vassal Treaty

In this episode I discuss how the covenant God made with Israel in the Old Testament was a form of an ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal treaty. Building from the fantastic work of Sandra Richter’s ‘Epic of Eden’ book, a suzerain vassal treaty is one in which a king or imperial power, the suzerain, makes a treaty with a lesser kingdom or people, the vassal. They are asymmetrical in the sense that the suzerain clearly holds the power but also reciprocal in that both parties are contractually obligated to one another. Generally, the vassal offers loyalty and taxes to the suzerain while the suzerain grants military protection in peace. Seen in this light, the covenant God makes with Israel depicts him as the rightful king, and in the climax of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy 27-32, the blessings and curses of covenant faithfulness are laid out clearly. If vassal Israel honors suzerain YHWH by obeying His Law, God will bless Israel, keep them safe and well-fed in the land, protect them from outsiders, and allow them to be a light to the pagan nations. If Israel breaks covenant, God will withhold his protection. This logic, found already in the giving of the Decalogue in Exodus 19-24 and Leviticus 26, can be understood through the framework of suzerain-vassal treaty, depicting God as the true king. For Christians seeking to derive political principles from the Old Testament, this is one important aspect of ancient thought to consider. 

Media Referenced:

Epic of Eden: https://a.co/d/0hZfe5ZZ

Dru Johnson on OT Politics: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-263-the-torah-the-old-testament-and-christian-politics-with-dru-johnson/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, guys. Welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. I have another short solo episode for you today. I really hope that you guys caught the interview that came out on Tuesday this week with Drew Johnson on politics in the Torah in the Old Testament. That was a fascinating conversation. And on this show, I do a ton of work on the political implications of the New Testament, but I've only really dipped my toe in the Old Testament a handful of times. So that interview is awesome. And I just got off the interview with Drew Johnson as I'm recording this right now. And in our small group and in my Bible reading, and obviously in this conversation, I've had a lot of thoughts about the Old Testament and the political consequences of the Old Testament. And I wanted to talk about one in particular today, and that is the idea of the covenant with Israel as a suzerain vassal treaty between God and his people. Now, I have been reading through this book with my small group. It's an excellent book. I read it like 15 years ago. It's called The Epic of Eden by Sondra Richter. And apparently she is coming out with a second edition later on this year. And I am on IVP's list to get an advanced copy and hopefully get an interview with her. So I hope that I get to have Sondra Richter on the show later on so that I can ask her about this in person. But she talks about the many covenants that God makes in the Old Testament. You know, God makes a covenant with Abraham, He makes a covenant with Moses, He makes a covenant with Noah, He makes a covenant with David. So God's making all kinds of covenants. But of course, the big one is the law, that it's the covenant that God makes with Israel on Mount Sinai. And one of the ways that Sondra Richter, and she she is by no means alone in understanding it this way. And Drew Johnson, I don't know if he would necessarily use the term Suzera and Vassal Treaty to describe the kind of contract or covenant that God makes with Israel, but it is very clearly cast in the terms of an ancient Near Eastern covenant. And as we were reading through this book with our small group, we read through the chapter on the covenant with Israel that God made. And Sandra Richter talks about the nature of a suzerain vassal treaty. Now, this is a very common treaty in the ancient Near East where a suzerain, a great king or an imperial power, makes a contract with a vassal group of people, whether that be a tribe or whether that be a kingdom of some kind. So you have the suzerain who is the one in a position of power, kind of the imperialist, and then you have the vassal who are underneath the suzerain. And generally the way that these suzerain and vassal treaties work is that the vassal uh talks about how they are the vassal agrees, in essence, to be loyal to the suzerain. The vassal will pay taxes, the vassal will be obedient to the suzerain, uh, but in exchange, the suzerain will provide them with peace and military protection. So these suzerain vassal treaties are asymmetrical in the sense that the suzerain has the power in the relationship, but they're uh reciprocal and that both sides have obligations that are given to one another. And Sondra Richter and other Old Testament scholars have noted that the covenant that God makes with God is in essence an emulation of this suzerain vassal treaty. And in a passage that she has in her book, The Epic of Eden, she talks about the stipulations of the suzerain vassal treaty as it relates to Israel and the covenant that they make with God. And this is what she says. She says the stipulations of the secular agreement, the suzerain vassal treaty, consisted of the suzerain's expectations of his vassal. Remembering that the most critical of these expectations was the ongoing exclusive loyalty of the vassal towards the suzerain. Note that Yahweh begins his covenant with, you shall have no other gods before me, talking about Exodus and the giving of the law, the first, the first giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, before Moses has to smash them after the golden calf and then make nuance. But she says, Note that Yahweh begins his covenant with, you shall have no other gods before me, and then proceeds to detail every possible possible rationalization of this command. She goes on to quote, quote, Exodus 24 through six. And this is what Exodus says: You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the guilt of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing uh faithfulness to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandment. Yahweh's point, according to Sandra Richter, no other suzerains. Remember that Abraham's kin had been long in the land of Egypt and that their commitment to monotheism was anything but assume. How would Yahweh make his people understand that they were to worship him alone? By putting the idea of monotheism into terms that they would understand, political terms. Thus the covenant at Sinai couches the relationship between Yahweh and Israel and the well-known conceptual framework of an international political relationship. Just as the nation would never bind itself to more than one suzerain unless they like to live dangerously, Israel was not to bind herself to more than one deity. Now, there's a lot going on there, and I think that that does really help us explain the contract that God makes with Israel. And again, the climax of this contract, from my vantage point, is Deuteronomy 27 through 32. These are the covenantal blessings and curses. You get a hint of this or an abbreviated form of this in Leviticus 26. And you also see this in the covenant that God makes, in the foundation of the covenant that God makes with Israel in Exodus. So this is a major theme throughout the Pentateuch. So God is the suzerain, Israel is the vassal, and if vassal Israel is exclusively loyal to God, then God will bless them. God will send them to the promised land, he will provide them with food and protection from outside enemies, and they will be able to be a light to the nations. They will be able to be a witness to the nations. Remember, this all goes back to the covenant that God makes with Abraham, that his descendants will be a blessing to the nations. This goes back to Genesis 12, one through three. So this these are the blessings that God will pour out on Israel if Israel remains faithful to him in their suzerain vassal contract, covenant treaty. Now, on the other hand, if Israel is unfaithful and they worship other gods and they don't obey covenant, then God will withhold that protection from them and they won't have food. They will be invaded by outside powers and they will ultimately lose the land and go into exile. And this is, if you want a summation of the entire law, the entire covenant, the entire contract that God made with Israel, take 20 minutes of your life, maybe not even that long, and read Deuteronomy 27 through 32. This is exactly what the writer of Deuteronomy says. And at the very end in Deuteronomy 32, the writer of Deuteronomy presupposes that Israel is going to fail and that God will have to come back and rescue them. This is in Deuteronomy 30 as well, but it's laid out very beautifully in poetic form in Deuteronomy 32. So this is what's going on. And I think that the best way to conceptualize that is as a suzerain vassal treaty. Now, the political implications of this for us is we're thinking about what the Old Testament does for our understanding of politics as a Christian, is that it makes the explicit claim that for the people of God, there can only be one true king. And that one true king is God over all of creation. That for Israel, not only is Yahweh their God, but he's also their exclusive king. Built into the Pentateuch, built into the law, built into the suzerain vassal covenant contract with Israel itself, is a passage in Deuteronomy 17 that we talk about, well that I talked about with Drew Johnson on the episode that came out on Tuesday, where Israel is going to ask for a king, according to the writer of Deuteronomy. And the writer of Deuteronomy gives really just one stipulation for that king. That king is to memorize the Torah and lead all of Israel into covenant obedience. It's to lead Israel into being faithful to God. That is the role of the king. And as I think Drew Johnson did such an awesome job of explaining this in a way that I had never really thought of it before, where he says that in the description of the king of Israel in Deuteronomy 17 is completely void of all of the trappings of kingship in the ancient Near East. There's no taxation, there's no militarization, there's no war, there's none of that stuff is built into the ideal king according to the contract that God makes with Israel. The one thing that the king of Israel is supposed to do is lead the people faithfully to God. This is why in prophet after prophet, but this is especially true. I mean, I think Ezekiel 34 is the best example of this in the prophets. The prophet Ezekiel says that the leaders of Israel are like wicked shepherds that are leading the people of Israel astray, right? The people of Israel are like lost sheep because the shepherds have not been rightly guiding them. Of course, the whole purpose of the shepherd, the king, was not to replace God. All right, it's not that God is somehow revoking his kingship by saying that Israel can have a human king. The king is supposed to be a mediator between the people and God. The king is supposed to lead people, the the the human king is supposed to lead the people of Israel to worship their true king, which is Yahweh, the God of all creation. And that's what's going on in the covenant that God makes with Israel. And of course, Israel fails to be obedient to the covenant, and therefore all of the curses that were foretold in Deuteronomy and then also in Leviticus and Exodus befall Israel. They're kicked out of the land. They don't have protection from outside. God withholds his protection from them, and they ultimately go into exile with the promise that God will one day have to make good on his covenant, uh like God will one day have to make good on his covenant promises, fulfilling his covenant promises and redeeming and restoring Israel. But not because Israel was faithful to God and his covenant, but because God, as the suzerain, is righteous. He upholds his side of the covenant that he made with Israel. And covenant faithfulness is in both the Old and New Testament one aspect. I would say not the exclusive aspect, but it is very obviously one aspect of God's righteousness. And I think that this is especially true in Romans, in particular, because Paul is dealing with the issue of God's covenant promises to Israel. This is what Romans 9 through 11 is all about. And I need to do some more work on that. Um, but I and I want to record some episodes on it because I do think there are political implications. But as we're thinking through the political implications of the Old Testament, there is essentially one perspective on kingship, and that is that Yahweh is the true king, and any king of Israel will lead the people to Yahweh. And in the New Testament, that king, that promised son of David, is Jesus who leads the people to rightly worship God. Now, Jesus is also, uh, as John makes clear in John chapter one, the word made flesh, right? That God comes down himself to rescue us, that the king that we worship, King Jesus, is also in in some way God himself, right? And so all of these categories kind of get bound up together, but we know that we worship the one true God of the universe through serving the his son, the king, the Davidic Messiah, Jesus, who himself was created in the or as as Paul puts it in Philippians chapter two, he was in the form of God, but emptied himself and became obedient to the point of death, even dying on a cross. And and for that reason, God highly exalted him over all the nations. So we believe that Jesus is this king over all the nations. So what point am I trying to get at here? Ultimately, I think that if we are going to draw any conclusions about the political perspective of the Old Testament and how the Old Testament must shape the way that Christians understand our political commitments today, it's just, I mean, obviously, it's like the Suzerain Vassal Treaty. There can be no other gods other than our God Yahweh, and we cannot substitute him for any political leaders. And I do think that there are a lot of Christians in the modern Western world, particularly in the United States, that we love to divorce religion from politics. Like we have two separate categories for religion and politics that they obviously didn't have in the ancient world. And the suzerain vassal treaty that God makes with Israel is a great example of that. It's it's just as much political as it is theological. And Richter is right to bring that out in her text. And we have to understand that that covenant that God makes with Israel is a political covenant as much as it is a religious and social and moral one as well. Like all of these things were combined for the ancients in a way that we try to divorce in the modern world, but we can't do that. We believe that there is only one God, and that God is Yahweh, and that we have to be obedient to him through fidelity to his son Jesus, who is the rightful heir of David's throne. And reflecting on that suzerain basal treaty, that is one major plank of our political theology that we, I think, must, we're obligated to embrace it. There can be no other king, which means that for Christians, we can't put our hope in worldly political leaders. They are only going to let us down. They're only going to fail because they are not God. And that also means that our conceptualization of political power has to be God's conceptualization of political power. It's about mercy and compassion and kindness and the care for the vulnerable. This is a point that Drew Johnson makes in his work that these are these are fundamental to what it means to serve the one true God who really cares about his relationship with human beings. And if we believe that we are living in the new covenant, which is very clear, this comes from Hebrews, this comes from the institution of the Lord's Supper and the Gospels, we are living in the new age, the new covenant era. So we are still in, we are a part of the people of God as Gentiles. We've been grafted into the family of Abraham. We're living in the eschatological age right now. We are under the new covenant. Therefore, just like the covenant that God made with Israel, which he fulfilled in Jesus, we have to worship Yahweh, the King of Israel, exclusively. And all of our priorities have to be shaped by him and by the kingdom that he established through his son, Jesus. And we are incorporated in that through the power of the Spirit. So all of this is going on there. And I think the the point that I want to make in this very short episode, just to wrap up, because like I said, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna make this long, is that when we think about the law in the Old Testament, we should think about this in terms of a political contract, a covenant, because that's exactly the way that it was cast. In trying to make the law something that it isn't, whether, you know, kind of this obsolete moral code or something that was applicable to the ancient Israelites, but not to us, that just doesn't quite work. And regardless of what we think about the prescripts of the law, which I think that um, you know, there's a lot to be said for that. I think that Jesus reinterprets the law in light of the eschaton, and I think Paul does too. And I don't think Gentiles are obligated to follow the precepts of the law, but we all are obligated to follow the spirit of the law in that sense. So whatever whatever you make of that argument, it doesn't really matter. The point is that the law can instruct us that we must give our fidelity to God and to God alone, and that that has a massive political implication. We can't go entangling ourselves with the political leaders of this world if we believe that Yahweh is the one true creator God. That's the message that we that that at base, like at minimum, at minimum, that's the message that we should get out of the law. It's a suzerain vassal treaty. We are God's vassals, God is the ultimate king. All right, those are some of my initial thoughts on that. I think that uh, you know, once my book comes out in a couple of months and we are we're getting really close, hopefully by the time this episode is released, I will have a physical copy of my book in my hand and I'll show it on a future episode. But um, but I I I hope that as this book comes out, I can start thinking about some of these Old Testament concepts in more detail. I feel like uh there's a lot there. Drew, this conversation with Drew Johnson, like I said, it just kind of blew my mind. There's just so much going on in terms of how Christians can reconceptualize politics in light of the Old Testament witness. Um I think that on the show, I've obviously scratched the surface, but just barely. You know, I'm always referring to the Old Testament in my episodes on the New Testament, and I've done some work on the prophets and some other related issues like that. But man, we are just beginning to scratch the surface. So I think there's a whole, there's a whole avenue of research there that is untapped. And I'm excited to start diving into some of that. So, anyways, I really hope that you guys enjoyed today's show. As always, libertarianchristians.com. You can donate to the Libertarian Christian Institute. You can go and buy our merch there. Uh, I actually asked I accidentally shattered my Libertarian Christian or my Protestant Libertarian podcast highball glass, and I was watching it in the dishwasher a couple weeks ago and had to buy a new one. Uh so go and buy some of those. They're great. They're great, um, they're great highball glasses, and they are basically indestructible unless you drop them from like a very high distance onto a hard surface. But, you know, there's that. So again, uh please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you're watching this on YouTube. This helps get these ideas out there. 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