Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 53:4 (Dec 2010)
Article: Exile And Restoration From Exile In The Scriptural Quotations And Allusions Of Jesus
Author: Douglas S. McComiskey

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JETS 53:4 (December 2010) p. 673

Exile And Restoration From Exile In The Scriptural Quotations And Allusions Of Jesus

Douglas S. McComiskey

Douglas McComiskey is professor of New Testament and chair of postgraduate studies, Ridley Melbourne, 170 The Avenue, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia.

I. Introduction

The subject of exile and restoration from exile in the teaching of Jesus has received much attention in recent days. Fundamentally, the question is whether Jesus considered the Jews of his day still to be in the very exile imposed initially by the Babylonians and Assyrians. However, the biblical data is not straightforward since Jesus never explicitly states this. He does nonetheless frequently quote, allude to, and employ themes from relevant prophets. Either he, in midrashic fashion, is applying to his contemporaries passages and themes that were actually fulfilled years earlier, or he, in something of a pesher fashion, is directing them at people he considers to be their divinely intended, primary target audience (or a subset thereof). If the latter, the question remains: what proportion is midrashic and what proportion is pesher? Perhaps both occur. Another obstacle lies in our path. If Jesus and many of his fellow Jews believed that the nation was still in exile, he would not need to state this explicitly, presuming this was common ground. But the resulting rhetoric might generally be vague to those today who are unsure about, or unaware of, this assumption.1 It would appear as though Jesus was merely likening their state to that of exile, or something even less than this. Scholarly opinion is swinging in favor of the position that Jesus and his fellow Jews held this common ground. Indeed, some scholars find exile and restoration from exile everywhere in the NT, yet probably due to overinterpretation.2 However, perhaps a majority of scholars, including Brant Pitre, still

JETS 53:4 (December 2010) p. 674

hold that the exile ended at the return of a few thousand Jews, as narrated in Ezra and Nehemiah.3 Pitre qualifies this, suggesting that “the exile” should be considered two exiles, that of the ten northern tribes and that of the two southern ones, with only the northern tribes still “expelled” in the time of Jesus.4 One difficulty for both positions (exile of both Judah and Israel concluded in the era of Ezra-Nehemiah, or only that of Judah) is that many of the passages on the gathering of the exiles, at the close of exile, have Israel and Judah gathered contemporaneously, and often in conjunction with messiani...

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