Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
The Covenant
God’s covenant with humankind incorporates both his promise
to grant Abraham and Abraham’s descendants a promised land and the
religious laws given to the Israelites. The covenant resembles ancient
legal codes and treaties in which a lord or landowner specifies
the conditions of a vassal’s service and vows to protect the vassal in
return. The biblical covenant, however, represents not just a contractual
agreement but also a passionate, tumultuous relationship between
God and humanity. God’s covenant passes to Abraham’s descendants,
unifying the lives of seemingly disparate people within a developing
story. The biblical writers suggest that this story is not theirs
but God’s—a means for God to show his purposes and his values to
humankind by relating to one family.
The covenant is a unifying structure that allows the
human characters to evaluate their lives as a series of symbolic
experiences. At first, the signs of the covenant are physical and
external. God relates to Abraham by commanding Abraham to perform
the rite of circumcision and to kill his son, Isaac. In Exodus,
God shows his commitment to the Israelites by miraculously separating
the waters of the Red Sea and appearing in a pillar of fire. The
religious laws are also symbols of the covenant. They represent
customs and behavioral rules that unite the lives of the Israelites
in a religious community devoted to God. Moses suggests that these
laws are to become sacred words that the Israelites cherish in their
hearts and minds (Deuteronomy 11:18).
The covenant thus shapes the personal memories and the collective
identity of the Israelites.
Doubles and Opposites
At the beginning of Genesis, God creates the world by
dividing it into a system of doubles—the sun and the moon, light
and dark, the land and the sea, and male and female. When Adam and
Eve eat the forbidden fruit, and when Cain kills his brother Abel,
good and evil enter the world. From this point on, the Old Testament
writers describe the world as a place of binary opposites, or sets
of two basic opposing forces. These forces include positive and
negative, good and bad, and lesser and greater. These distinctions
characterize the ethics of the Israelites. The laws in Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy outline the criteria for being ceremonially
clean or unclean, and for choosing obedience over disobedience.
Biblical writers frequently challenge these distinctions.
As twins with opposing traits, Jacob and Esau represent ideal character
doubles. When Jacob steals Esau’s inheritance right, the younger
son triumphs over the older son by dishonest, rather than honest,
means. The reversal of fortune portrays God’s covenant with humankind
as a preference for the unexpected over the conventional, as well
as God’s willingness to accomplish his ends by imperfect means.
The epic of Samson similarly blurs the line between weakness and strength.
Samson, the icon of human strength, conquers the Philistines only
after they bring him to his weakest by shaving his head and blinding
him. Such stories question the human ability to tell the difference
between good and bad.
Geography
The geography of the Old Testament determines
the moral and religious well-being of the Hebrew people. The biblical
authors circumscribe the spiritual story of Abraham and his descendants within
a physical journey to and from the promised land. In a sense, the
flow of the narrative can be summarized as a constant yearning for
the promised land.
Displaced in Egypt, the Israelites grow in number without
a religion or national identity. The journey with Moses to the promised land
defines Israel’s religion, laws, and customs. In Joshua, Judges, and
the first book of Samuel, Israel’s struggle to secure its borders mirrors
its struggle to enjoy national unity and religious purity. David
and Solomon’s kingdoms represent the height of Israel, for Israel establishes
a religious center in Jerusalem and begins to expand its territory.
The division of the nation into northern and southern kingdoms represents
the fragmentation of the promised land and, by implication, of God’s
promise to Israel. The ultimate exile into Assyria and Babylon denotes
Israel’s religious estrangement from God.
