In which the exiles come to (a) completion
Genesis 2:1-4
Then the heavens and the earth were
completed, and all their array. And God completed on the seventh day the task
He had done, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the task He had done.
And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, for on it He had ceased from
all His task that He had created to do. This is the tale of the heavens and the
earth when they were created.
Daniel 9:1-3, 20-23
In the first year of Darius son of
Ahasuerus from the seed of Media, who was made king over the kingdom of the
Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, came to understand in the
books the number of years that according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah
the prophet were to fulfil the devastation of Jerusalem—seventy years. And I
turned to the Master God to petition in prayer and supplication, in fasting and
sackcloth and ashes…
I was still speaking and praying and
confessing…when the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision before, glided
down in flight, reaching me at the hour of the evening offering. And he
imparted understanding and spoke to me and said, “Daniel, now have I come out
to convey wisdom to you. At the beginning of your supplication the word was
issued and I have come to tell you that you are beloved…”
The opening verses of Genesis
2 form a pivot and a bridge between the first origins story, focused on
Jerusalem and her destruction and restoration, and a second origins story,
focused on Babylon and her role in the shaping of God’s people. Each story
converges on this point, at the completion of God’s task, on the seventh day or
seventh decade, from opposite directions. And this cessation is hallowed, made
holy, just as the task of exile is also a holy activity. It is hallowed, by the
longing of God’s people for God, and of God for God’s people, coming together;
and it happens in time, according to the very fabric and rhythms of the cosmos
God has established.
Advent is standing on the bridge that
joins heaven and earth, Jerusalem and Babylon, where the unseen is rendered
visible, and what was once separated is joined together.
Biblical
texts: Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary
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