Quotes about Exile

Jesus had been raised from the dead; therefore, he really was Israel's Messiah; therefore his death really was the new Passover; his death really had dealt with the sins that had caused "exile" in the first place; and this had been accomplished by Jesus's sharing and bearing the full weight of evil, and doing so alone. In his suffering and death, "Sin" was condemned. The darkest of dark powers was defeated, and its captives were set free.

Monotheism and election, taken together, demand eschatology. Creational/covenantal monotheism, taken together with the tension between election and exile, demands resurrection and a new world.

The resurrection isn't just a surprise happy ending for one person; it is instead the turning point for everything else. It is the point at which all the old promises come true at last: the promises of David's unshakable kingdom; the promises of Israel's return from the greatest exile of them all; and behind that again, quite explicit in Matthew, Luke, and John, the promise that all the nations will now be blessed through the seed of Abraham.

Or again we might say that we are at a Daniel-like moment, for Daniel and his three friends faced a challenge unlike that of most of the Jews before them. The world as the Jews had known it for hundreds of years from Joshua onward had gone. Not since the captivity in Egypt had Jews been strangers in a strange land as they found themselves when defeated and deported as exiles to Babylon in the sixth century B.C.

We can well imagine Jews feeling a bit out of their element—maybe intimidated and shamed by their own story, which began in slavery, ended in exile, and with absolutely zero contributions to philosophy or science. "Some 'chosen people'! What kind of God did you say you follow? Apparently one who lets bad things happen to you.

Christians today have more in common with the Israelites wandering through a lonely and threatening desert or exiled to a hostile land than with Paul and most other New Testament writers. The Old Testament doesn't speak in the booming voice of imminent triumph. It speaks of generation after generation of the faithful and not so faithful, of successes and failures, of God's presence and God's absence.

It is only to admit that what we have cannot be explained as an early (second-millennium-BC) document written essentially by one person (Moses). Rather, the Pentateuch has a diverse compositional history spanning many centuries and was brought to completion after the return from exile.

When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its produce to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

Behold, this day You have driven me from the face of the earth, and from Your face I will be hidden; I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

So Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

His father Isaac answered him: “Behold, your dwelling place shall be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of heaven above.