How should we read Old Testament narrative?

Question 1177

A great deal of the Old Testament comes to us in the form of story. The accounts of Abraham and Sarah, of Joseph and his brothers, of the exodus from Egypt, of David and Saul, of Elijah and the kings of Israel, all of these are narrative, the telling of things that happened. Christians love these stories and rightly draw great help from them, yet narrative is also one of the easiest parts of Scripture to misread. Knowing how to handle Old Testament narrative keeps us from drawing wrong lessons and helps us hear what God is actually saying.

The first thing to settle is that these narratives are true history. They are not myths or moral fables dressed up as events, but the record of God’s real dealings with real people in the unfolding of his purposes. Luke and Paul and our Lord himself treated the persons and events of the Old Testament as genuine, and we follow them in this. At the same time these histories were written not only to inform us of the past but to teach us, and learning to read them well draws out their lasting value.

Distinguish What Is Recorded From What Is Commended

The most common mistake in reading narrative is to assume that whatever a character does is being held up as an example to follow. Yet the Bible often records the deeds of its people without approving of them. When Abraham lies about his wife to save his own skin, when Jacob deceives his father, when David takes another man’s wife and arranges the husband’s death, the Scripture is telling us what happened, not commending it. The narrative reports the sin honestly, often showing the bitter fruit that followed, and we are meant to learn from the warning rather than to imitate the deed.

This is one of the marks of the Bible’s honesty. It does not whitewash its heroes but shows them as they were, flawed and sinful, so that all the glory goes to God and none to man. When we read narrative we must always ask whether the writer is approving of an action, condemning it, or simply recording it. Often the surrounding text or the later outcome makes the answer plain, as the troubles that flowed from David’s sin reveal the Lord’s displeasure with it.

This wrong reading creeps in more easily than we might think. A preacher may hold up the cunning of Jacob or the bargaining of Abraham as though these were patterns for our own dealings, when the text means no such thing. The safest course is to let the wider witness of Scripture judge the actions of the characters, since the Bible does not contradict itself. What the law and the prophets and the teaching of Jesus condemn elsewhere, we do not excuse in a patriarch or a king simply because a narrative reports it without an immediate word of blame. The silence of the text at one point is filled by the clear voice of God at another.

Look for the Hand of God in the Story

Old Testament narrative is never only about the human characters. Behind every story stands the God who is working out his purposes through the lives of his people, and the chief actor in these accounts is always the Lord himself. When Joseph is sold into slavery, falsely accused and imprisoned, only to be raised up to save many lives, the lesson is not chiefly about Joseph’s patience but about the God who meant for good what others meant for evil. Joseph says as much to his brothers at the end, and his words give us the key to the whole account.

So when we read a narrative we do well to ask what it shows us about God, his character, his faithfulness, his ways with his people. The exodus is the great revelation of the Lord as the redeemer who hears the cry of his people and brings them out with a mighty hand. The story of Elijah at the brook and at the widow’s house shows the God who provides for his servants in want. Reading narrative with our eyes on God lifts these accounts above mere examples of human virtue and lets us see the One they were written to reveal.

This also guards us against turning every story into a lesson about ourselves and how we ought to behave. The narratives are not first of all mirrors in which we see our own duty, but windows through which we see the living God at work. When we read of Gideon’s small band or of Hezekiah spreading the threatening letter before the Lord, the point is not chiefly that we should be brave or prayerful, true as that is, but that the God who saved his people then is the same God who hears and saves now. Keeping our eyes on him as the chief actor keeps these accounts from collapsing into a string of moral examples and lets them feed our faith in the One who never changes.

Read Each Story in Its Place

Every narrative sits within a larger story, and we understand the part better when we keep the whole in view. An individual account belongs to the life of a particular person, that life belongs to the history of Israel, and the history of Israel belongs to the great account of God’s plan of redemption that runs from Genesis to the coming of the Messiah. The call of Abraham makes full sense only when we see that through his offspring all the families of the earth were to be blessed, a promise that reaches its fulfilment in Jesus.

This wider view guards us from treating the Old Testament as a collection of disconnected tales. The accounts of the patriarchs, the exodus, the conquest, the judges and the kings are stages in a single unfolding purpose, all moving toward the One who would come to save. When we read a narrative in its place in this larger story, we begin to see how it fits into what God was doing across the centuries, and how it points forward, often dimly and sometimes plainly, to the redemption that was to come.

Draw Lessons With Care

Paul tells us that the things written in former days were written for our instruction, and that the experiences of Israel in the wilderness happened as examples and were written down for our warning. So there is a right way to draw lessons from these narratives for our own lives. The faith of Abraham, the courage of Joshua, the repentance of David after his fall, the steadfastness of Daniel, all of these instruct and encourage us. We are meant to learn from the godly examples and to take warning from the failures.

Yet we must draw these lessons with care and not turn a narrative into a promise it never made. The account of God parting the sea for Israel is not a guarantee that he will part the waters before us, and the giving of a son to Hannah is not a pledge that every barren woman who prays will conceive. We learn the character of God and the patterns of his dealings, and we apply them wisely, without forcing every detail of an ancient account into a rule or a promise for ourselves. The lasting lessons are real, but they are found by understanding the story rightly and not by lifting a verse out of its setting.

So, now what?

When you next read a narrative in the Old Testament, slow down and ask the right questions. What actually happened, and is the writer approving, condemning or simply recording it? What does this account show about God and his ways with his people? Where does it sit in the larger story that leads to Jesus? These questions will keep you from the common errors and open up the riches the passage holds.

Above all, read these stories as a believer who is part of the same great account. The God who called Abraham, redeemed Israel and raised up David is your God, faithful and unchanging, and the story that runs through these pages is the story that swept you up when you trusted his Son. Let the courage of the faithful stir you, let the failures of the fallen warn you, and let every account lift your eyes to the Lord who was at work in all of them and who is at work in you.

“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Romans 15:4