Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Das messianische Problem; Spannung: König

Kurzinhalt: Messianic problem; tension between prophet and king

Textausschnitt: 84/13 The term "Messianic problem," which originates in Christian exegetic interests, is justified in so far as the Christian symbolism of the Messiah has indeed unfolded in continuity with the prophetic symbolism developed in the articulation of these questions. It is misleading, however, ...
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85/13 Hence, in the crisis of Israel the prophets were interested not in a Messiah but in the conduct of their kings; and when the conduct seemed to accelerate rather than to avert the disaster, they became interested in the type of ruler who would succeed the Davidic Anointed of Yahweh, as soon as some semblance of organization would rise again from the "remnant" left by the storm of history. (473; Fs)
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88/13 Once the image of the ruler has become articulate, it can be converted into a standard by which the conduct of the concrete ruler is to be measured. This possibility, which also exists in cosmological civilizations, acquires a peculiar importance in Israel because the kingship was syncretistic in the sense that a rulership in cosmological form had to find its place in the theopolity created by the Sinaitic revelation. And the combination of the two forms was achieved, as we have seen, through the prophetic institution of David and his house by a word of Yahweh which declared the king to be his son. ... Through the history of the monarchy runs, from its beginnings, the theocratic tension between prophet and king - from Samuel and Saul, through Nathan and David, to Elijah and Ahab, and to the revolt against the Omrides. And this theocratic tension in the royal institution forms the never-to-be-forgotten background for the concern of the great prophets, since the middle of the eighth century B.C., with the figure of the King. (474; Fs)
89/13 In the prophetic occupation with the problem three phases can be distinguished:
(1) an institutional phase, represented by Amos and Hosea;
(2) a metastatic phase, represented by Isaiah; and
(3) an existential phase, represented by Jeremiah. (474; Fs)