NOTES ON THE FIRST READINGS FOR THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT

(if a festal day falls on any of these days, the readings of the feast are used instead)

The First Readings in Lent parallel in some way the Gospel Readings of each day,

rather than following a course of their own.

Monday: Daniel 13: 1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62. This is the story of the virtuous Susanna and the two corrupt elders. The Book of Daniel dates from the time of the persecution of the Jews (2nd. century BC) by King Antiochus Epiphanes; the story of the wise and faithful Daniel and his friends who found favour at the court of Babylon during the Jewish exile there in the 6th. century BC and yet did not abandon the faith of their ancestors, was intended to strengthen faith and resolve in the persecuted Jews of King Antiochus’ time. In that sense, the tales of Daniel are morally if not historically true – this is one of the forms of Biblical truth.

The concluding two chapters of the book contain some ‘tales of Daniel’ which come from a Greek rather than a Hebrew source and were probably added later; not all versions of the Bible accept them as canonical. Such is the story of Susanna, which belongs to the type known to the Jews as ‘Haggadah’ – a moral tale or fable illustrating the character of a hero or heroine.

Commentators have seen in the two corrupt elders who falsely accuse Susanna of unchastity (1) the pagans or (2) those Jews who fell away from their faith in the persecution of King Antiochus.

By divine inspiration, Daniel is aware of the falseness of the elders’ accusation. His “convincing evidence” (conflicting versions of the type of tree found in the garden) would hardly hold water in a modern court of law, but that is not the point. There is a pun in the Greek between the types of tree and the fate which awaits the elders: mastic tree/’split’; oak/’cut’.

[NB There is a shorter alternative version of this reading, and also a complete different alternative, for use ad lib.]

Tuesday: Numbers 21: 4-9. The bronze serpent made by Moses. The serpent placed on a tall pole was seen as an Old Testament ‘type’ of Christ raised on the Cross (today’s Gospel parallel). The making of the bronze serpent was an incident of the Exodus which served to explain the existence in the Temple in Jerusalem of a bronze snake to which incense was offered until the time of King Hezekiah (died 687 BC), when it was destroyed as semi-idolatrous. The snake of bronze, fashioned as an antidote to the snake bites in the desert – themselves seen as divine punishment for the constant complaints of the people on the march – has an obvious parallel with Christ, sent into the world by the Father’s will to take away the sins of the world.

Wednesday: Daniel 3: 14-20, 24-25, 28. The story of Daniel’s three friends in the burning fiery furnace in Babylon, another example of ‘Haggadah’ (see Monday) in the book of Daniel. Daniel and the others had refused to worship the golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar; the local court officials in Babylon, jealous of the rise to favour of Daniel and the others, sought to overthrow them. This is also the motive which we find in the book of Esther, where the elimination of all the Jews was sought.

Thursday: Genesis 17: 3-9. God’s covenant with Abraham before the birth of his son Isaac. As elsewhere in Genesis, a new role requires a new name, so Abram (‘Mighty Father’) becomes Abraham (‘Father of a Multitude’). Most of the blessings given to Abraham refer only to the son to come and to the many descendants, but this one also speaks of the land, that is, the ‘Promised Land’.

Friday: Jeremiah 20: 10-13. Another section of Jeremiah in which the prophet describes the encircling opponents who wish to destroy him for his unpopular message. These opponents throw back in Jeremiah’s face one of the prophet’s most common phrases, almost his motto: “Terror from every side!” – it becomes a kind of nick-name for Jeremiah. Generally in Jeremiah these short autobiographical sections are followed by a pessimistic comment of the prophet on the difficulty of his mission, but here there is unexpected confidence in God. God is seen as protecting the “needy”, a term which increasingly referred not just to those who were materially poor, but also to the pious believers who suffered persecution (the “clients of the Lord”, as they were called).

Saturday: Ezekiel 37: 21-28. As with the rest of Ezekiel’s prophecy, this is addressed to the Jerusalem exiles in Babylon, and speaks of a return home. But it is more than that, for as in other visions of the prophet, we are given a picture of an ideal age, when the people will live in perpetuity in the land, and as one people, no longer divided between North and South, Israel and Judah – a division which had followed the death of King Solomon. In the text immediately before today’s passage, the prophet is told to take two sticks, one labelled Judah, the other ‘Joseph’, and join them together to form one staff: a symbol of union. The vision sees the people as being ritually purified, according to the Law (the Torah), under one ruler, and with God’s covenant with the people reaffirmed for all time. God will “make his sanctuary with them”; Ezekiel elaborates this with the vision of the new and ideal Temple, from which living waters will flow forth – an extract of this vision was read last week.