YHWH has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur--
nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which YHWH overthrew in
fierce anger. All the nations will ask: "Why has YHWH done this to this land? Why this
fierce, burning anger?" And the answer will be: "It is because this people abandoned the
covenant of YHWH, the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he
brought them out of Egypt. They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to
them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. Therefore YHWH's anger
burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. In
furious anger and in great wrath YHWH uprooted them from their land and thrust them
into another land, as it is now." The secret things belong to YHWH our God, but the
things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words
of this law.
land with calamities and diseases in his fierce burning anger. He brings curses in furious anger
and great wrath, uproots them from the land and thrusts them out. In the prophets we find similar
statements. The song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5 sounds a very similar note.
reject the Son as the Israelites rejected YHWH. The book of Revelation has equally strong
statements about the wrath of the God and the Lamb.
overwhelming, how can one get by the triumph theme so clearly developed in Colossians? How
can one get by the theme that Christ's obedient self-sacrifice is an example for us? Paul's point in
the great Christological song is stated in Philippians 2:5, "Let this mind be in you which was also
in Christ Jesus." In 1 Peter 2:19-25 the apostle appeals to the death of Christ as a pattern for
suffering believers in his day. To be sure the substitutionary theme is strong in both passages, but
we must not overlook the other themes.
Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the
Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." Then I
saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled
by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are
the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the
right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living
creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and
they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And
they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because
you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and