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Thesis 96 • March 5, 2024

Study Notes for “When Empire Comes to Church Part 2: When Shepherds Act Like Kings”

Last week I offered another reason I think John mentions Kidron in 18:1 before the “arrest” of Jesus [footnote: In John, Jesus isn’t so much arrested as he turns himself in; he remains sovereignly in control throughout John 18-19].
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Last week I offered another reason I think John mentions Kidron in 18:1 before the “arrest” of Jesus [footnote: In John, Jesus isn’t so much arrested as he turns himself in; he remains sovereignly in control throughout John 18-19]. 2 Samuel 15 is an allusion of narrative plot (with additional echoes throughout 2 Sam 14-18) which many scholars recognize. What I have not seen discussed is the possible, and I think likely, connection between John 18:1-14 and the other repeated references to Kidron in the OT in Kings and Chronicles. Some commentators note this connection, but do not explore why John would make this connection. I hope to do that today, because it provides another explanation for why and when empire comes to church. Here’s the thesis I stated last week: I believe Peter, at least as portrayed by John, is imitating Jesus’ temple-cleansing violence of John 2:13-25. The only problem is (and it’s a big problem), Peter confuses Jesus’ example with the example of the imperial spirit of Rome and the Jewish leaders.

For starters, here are all the mentions of Kidron in the OT after 2 Samuel 15: 1 Kings 2:37; 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 23:4, 6 (2x), 12; 2 Chronicles 15:16 (same as 1 Kings 15:13); 2 Chronicles 29:16, 14; Jeremiah 31:40. All of those share a common theme: spiritual renewal by cleansing. 2 Kings 23 provides the best example, because it overlaps with the prophetic ministry of Zephaniah which John alludes to in Jesus’ prophetic temple cleansing in John 2:13-25. Scholars recognize many OT intertextual links to John 2:13-25. I want to focus on Zephaniah 1 and 2 Kings 23, because I believe that bridges Jesus cleansing the temple with Peter’s act of violence in John 18:10. Other recognized textual allusions to be mentioned include Psalm 8 and Psalm 69, and I will add a few others I haven’t yet found scholarly support for.

Consider the following (English scripture references taken from the NETS Septuagint translation):

According to N.T. Wright, Psalm 8 is one of the intertextual links with John 2, specifically via the phrase “oxen and sheep” (probata kai boas). Zephaniah doesn’t mention oxen and sheep, but God does say “Let humanity become extinct, and cattle (ktene) [and] the birds of the sky (ta peteina tou ouranou) and the fish of the sea (hoi ixthues tes thalasses) (Zeph. 1:3). All of those creatures are mentioned in Psalm 8, where the Greek LXX is almost verbatim:

[6] And you set him over the works of your hands; you subjected all under his feet, [7] sheep and oxen all together, and further the animals (ktene) of the plain, [8] the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas. (Psalm 8:6-8)

Zephaniah 1:4b, “and I will remove (exairo) from this place (topos) the names of the goddess Baal and the names of the priests.” This echoes John 2:16, “get these things out of here” (airo); John 11:48, “the Romans will come and take away (airo) both our place (topos) and our nation”; and John 18:2 “Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place (topos).” In particular, we can begin to see a subtle (at least to us) thread of temple imagery in John 18: topos in Zephaniah is in the context of temple worship, with priests (hiereon, v. 4) and in v. 5, “those who bow in worship”; topos clearly refers to the temple in John 2:16 and 11:48; and alongside topos in John 18:2, that place was a garden (kepos)

Many are probably familiar with the links between garden and temple in biblical theology. This takes us back to the original garden of Genesis 1-3. While John uses a different word than the Genesis garden, there is an intermediate link through Ezekiel 36:35: “They will say, “This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. The cities that were once ruined, desolate, and demolished are now fortified and inhabited.” The Greek LXX for “garden of Eden” is kepos truphes, or “garden of delights,” which clearly echoes the LXX of Genesis which renders “garden of Eden” as “garden of delights”, paradeisou tes truphes.

Zepheniah 1:5 also includes a possible link to John 18:10 and the name of the high priest’s slave. I admit this will seem like a stretch, but here it is: most English translations follow the Hebrew text of Zeph 1:5 which ends with “loyalty to Milcom”. However, the LXX translated that to “swear by their king” (basileus). What’s going on there? Here’s where it gets interesting. 2 Kings 23 recounts the reforms of Josiah in Judah, which overlapped Zephaniah’s ministry. The entire chapter is worth reading https://www.bible.com/bible/1713/2KI.23.CSB, but here are two verses with clear links to both John 2 and John 18

2 Kings 23:12-13 And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Achaz, which the kings of louda had made, and the altars that Manasses had made in the two courts of the Lord's house the king also tore down and pulled down from there and threw their dust into the Wadi Kedron. 13 And the king defiled the house that was in front of lerousalem, on the right of the Mount of Mosoathk, which Salomon, king of Israel, had built for Astarte, offense of the Sidonians, and for Chamos, offense of Moab, and for Molchol, abomination of the sons of Ammon.

First, there is the pattern noted above with cleansing idolatry from the temple and tossing the refuse into the Kidron Valley [“Wadi Kedron” in LXX]. Then, hiding almost in plain site among a list of idols, there is “Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon.” Milcom, which the LXX transliterated as Molchol, is the same Hebrew name from Zephaniah 1:5. To get us back to John 18, it’s helpful to see Molchol in Greek: Μολχολ. This bears resemblance to the high priest’s servant Malchus, or Μάλχος, which of all the evangelists only John names. And what does his name mean? Many scholars believe it means king. Which, as noted above, is how the LXX translated Milcom in Zephaniah 1:5. So Josiah cleansed the temple and destroyed a place of false worship devoted to Molchol, Zephaniah prophesied the removal of those who swear by the Lord but also swear by Molchol, and Peter removed the ear of Malchus, and all of those names mean, or at least possible mean, king. Whether or not there is significance in the name itself, I believe John’s mention of the name Malchus is part of his multilayered  allusions to these OT texts that give a unique spin on the arrest narrative. And there are more echoes.

Zephaniah 1:6 contains another echo for John 18. “and those who turn aside from the Lord and those who do not seek the Lord and those who do not cling to the Lord.” Three times in ch. 18 Jesus speaks to the arresting party “seeking” him. Seek is a key word in John, accounting for 27% of NT uses at 32x, and more than any other NT book (Luke runner-up with 25x). Those who do not seek the Lord are also among the group being removed from this place (Zeph 1:4), which again alludes to the temple. Ironically (one of John’s favorite rhetorical devices), Jesus emphasizes the seeking of Jesus by Judas, the Jews, and the Romans, but it is seeking unto death (a running theme in the “discourses of controversy” section of John 5-12, cf 5:18, 7:1, 7:19, 7:25, 7:30, 8:37, 8:40, 10:39, 11:8,) opposite of the first and last acts of true discipleship seeking of the Son of God by Peter and Andrew (1:38) and Mary Magdalene (20:15).

With Psalm 69 clearly in the background of John 2 (ie 69:9/2:17, “Zeal for your house will consume me”), Psalm 69 might also add to the allusional background of John 18, further solidifying a temple-cleansing image. Psalm 69:32 also mentions seeking: “Let the poor see it and be glad; seek God, and your soul shall live.”

Zephaniah 1:9 “And on that day I will publicly punish all in the gateway, who fill the house of the Lord their God with impiety and fraud.” Although the only shared word is “house”, this sounds similar to Jesus’ statement in John 2:16, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” This connection to John 2 becomes more clear in Zephaniah 1:11. At least, more clear once we see how scholars connect that verse to John 2:16. Here is the LXX for Zeph 1:11.

“Lament, you who inhabit the destroyed [part], because all the people were made like Chanaan; all those buoyed by silver were utterly destroyed.“

The LXX transliterates “Canaanites” from the Hebrew of Zephaniah 1:11, but our English translations have “merchants” (CSB) and “traders” (ESV). According to Alicia Myers, this is because of the association with Tyre, a leading “Canaanite” trade city in the ancient world. She writes,

Because of Tyre’s importance in trade, it provided the standard weight for exchanging shekels at the Jerusalem Temple. The Tyrian shekel, then, was the coin that would have been sitting on the tables of the moneychangers when Jesus arrived. The description of the temple as an οι  ̓͂κον ἐμπορίου, therefore, results in a comparison between the temple, which was supposed to be a holy place, and Tyre, a profane gentile city whose wealth nevertheless directly influenced the daily life of the temple in Jerusalem.12

Ok, but what is the point of all of that? Again, Zephaniah provides OT allusions for John’s framing of the temple-cleansing scene in John 2, and Zephaniah also provides allusions for John’s framing of the arrest scene in John 18. Ergo, both scenes include temple-cleansing themes.

Zephaniah 1:12 offers another possible connection to John 18. “And it shall be on that day, I will search lerousalem with a lamp, and I will punish the men who despise their ordinances, who say in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.” Synonyms don’t provide such strong allusions as texts that use the same words, but the reference to “lamp” (lychnos) is suggestive given John’s reference to “lanterns” (phanon) and “torches” (lampadon).

I’m walking in uncharted territory, as far as I’ve seen so far, so I won’t be offended if readers take this with more than a few grains of salt. Here is another possible allusion in John 18:5b-6 [5b] Judas, who betrayed him, was also standing with them. [6] When Jesus told them, "I am he," they stepped back and fell to the ground.” John, more clearly than any other evangelist, peels back the surface of things to see deeper spiritual realities at work. This is true for Judas just as much as it is for Jesus. The very first reference to Judas comes in 6:70-71 where Jesus calls Judas “a devil” (although unknown to the disciples at the time). John wants his readers queued in, in unmistakable terms, to the demonic influence at work in the person of Judas. So while the reality is shocking, the attentive reader is not surprised by 13:27, “After Judas ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him, "What you're doing, do quickly."” When we get to the arrest scene in 18, the last time we see Judas, we must remember 13:27. What does it mean that “Satan entered” Judas? Without consulting commentaries, we can simply trace the times John uses the word “entered” and find a relevant theme. In John 18-20 “entered” seems to have a mundane, literal meaning, transitioning from one location into another. But the first uses occur in John 3 discussing the new birth, where Nicodemus asks if one can “enter his mother’s womb,” and Jesus answers, “unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:4-5). We are clearly in the realm of spiritual reality here (not simply non-physical, mind you, but unseen spiritual realities under and behind the physical). In John 4:38 Jesus says that “others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” The next three instances are in John 10 where the good shepherd and his sheep enter the sheep pen. The word for “sheep pen” is aule, which John uses in the good shepherd discourse (10:1 and 10:16), but also in Peter’s denial scene to refer to the “courtyard” (aule) of the high priest. Thus, the sheepfold is at the same time a temple image.

John helps us understand Satan “entering” Judas alongside belonging to God’s kingdom and belonging to God’s sheepfold. But I believe we can combine those two to reinforce the temple imagery. Revelation has some very similar instances of entering

  • Rev 3:20 “See! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter to him and eat with him, and he with me.

  • Rev 15:8, 21:27, 22:14 all refer to entering the temple and the city of God

So, when Satan enters Judas, he is doing temple action. He is mimicking God himself by mimicking divine indwelling of a human being (Rev 3:20). And this remains the case when we see what happens to Judas in John 18. Here is 18:5b-6 again

Judas, who betrayed him, was also standing with them. When Jesus told them, "I am he," they stepped back and fell to the ground.

Can you guess where I’m going yet? Try finishing this chain: Satan —> Judas —> standing —> on the ground. Try removing Judas: Satan —> standing —> on the ground. Surely there is a reason John reiterated Judas’ presence with the Jewish and Roman authorities right before the fell to the ground; such superfluous detail is something more critically minded scholars would question as inauthentic, pointless repetition, but John is a master storyteller and does not make blunders. No, he expects his readers and hearers to have the minds and hearts filled with the stories of Scripture to pick up on his clues. Surely Jewish readers, upon hearing that Satan-in-dwelt-Judas fell to the ground, would think of the serpent of Genesis which was cursed to crawl on the ground. Granted, there are not explicit textual links between Gen 3:14 and John 18:6. Here is the LXX of Gen 3:14

And the Lord God said to the snake, “Because you have done this, cursed are you from all the domestic animals and from all the wild animals of the earth; upon your chest and belly you shall go, and earth you shall eat all the days of your life.

John uses a different and unusual word for “ground”, chamai. In the NT it is only used by John, here, and in 9:6 when Jesus “spit on the ground” to make mud when he healed the blind man. Chamai is also only used two times in the OT, in Job 1:20 and in Daniel 8:12. I believe there are enough relevant clues to suggest there really is something to this Genesis 3:14 connection. Most importantly, the Job and Daniel passages don’t just use the same word for ground, they use the exact same phrase, “fell to the ground”,  and although conjugated differently, the verb for “fall” is the same, pipto. Observe further:

In Job 1:20 Job “fell to the ground” after learning about all that the Lord had taken away. What do we have in the near context? Satan, or diabolos in Greek (cf John 6:70), “takes away” all that Job had, and it is twice repeated that marauders and horsemen “killed the servants with daggers” (1:15, 17). The word for dagger is the same as John 18:10, maxaira, and the word for “killed” is apokteino, different than Peter’s “cutting”, but still looks and sounds similar in greek, apokopto. The word for “servant” in Job 1 is pais, whereas Malchus is a doulos. So there isn’t perfect verbal correlation, but I believe Job 1:20 supports seeing Judas falling to the ground as a type corresponding to the serpent of Gen 3:14. There is the textual link in “fell to the ground”, plus the narrative similarity in God allowing a diabolos to harm his servant.

Daniel 8:12 doesn’t have a clear Satan reference, but the context includes temple imagery. In 8:10, “the sanctuary will be desolated”, “and their place and sacrifice were taken away.” The language of “place…taken away” might sound familiar, because it’s the exact words the chief priests and Pharisees use in 11:48 to speak their fear that Rome will “take away [exairo] both our place [topos] and our nation.” Whatever it means that “The horn threw truth to the ground” (CSB; “justice was thrown [fell, pipto] to the ground” in LXX), Daniel 8:12 appears to provide another link that suggests John is providing a frame for Jesus’ arrest.

It’s time to pull these threads together. Here are the relevant OT themes I hear John echoing, starting with the one discussed last week:

  • Rival kings embattled for the rightful throne, the servants of the one plotting against the servants of the other

  • The place of God’s dwelling, whether garden, temple, kingdom or sheepfold

  • The presence of Satan / accuser / betrayer in God’s dwelling place

  • The cleansing of God’s dwelling place by the removal of idolatry and injustice

The key textual links in John 18:1-11 for those allusions are:

  • Kidron Valley (v. 1)

  • Garden (v. 1)

  • Place (v. 2)

  • Torches and lamps (v. 3)

  • Seeking (vv. 4, 7, 8)

  • Judas…fell to the ground (vv. 5-6)3

  • Sword

  • Malchus

To see where all of this leads, here is my corresponding post When Empires Comes to Church Part 2: When Shepherds Act Like Kings

1 Myers, A. D. (2023). Revelation through violence? Jesus in the Temple in John 2:13–22. Review & Expositor, 120(1-2), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/00346373231199503

2 Myers is commenting on Zechariah 14:21c, “And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of Armies.” However, she cites another scholar, Joel Marcus, who includes Zeph 1:11 along with other passages where “Canaanites” means “merchants” due to “the Canaanites’ association with mercantile cities such as Tyre and Sidon and their involvement in trade and seafaring.” Marcus, “No More Zealots in the House of the Lord: A Note on the History of Interpretation of Zechariah 14:21,” NovT 55 (2013): 22–30 (23).

3 I do wonder if John intentionally unclear re: whether or not Judas is included in the “they” that fell to the ground? Was he perhaps still standing, just as “the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth it might devour her child” (Rev 12:4)?