The fundamental concept of love in the Bible was established by God many years before he began the actual creation exercise. God want us to love him with all our hearts, mind, and spirit for there is no way out of this. The same share of love should be to our neighbors, irrespective of our tribe, nation, race, or color. Love is a character of God, the fundamental concept of the Old Testament. The concept of love extends from sexual love to the love between God and humanity expressed within the community of covenant relationships. This paper therefore, examines the term love in the Old Testament salvation history, covering secular and religious love, with the view to discussing what love in the Old Testament entails and how love can be emulated.
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY OF LOVE
The fundamental concept of love in the Bible was established by God many years before he began the actual creation exercise. Gospel of John records, 'For God so loved the world… (John 3:16). God want us to love him with all our hearts, mind, and spirit for there is no way out of this. The same share of love should be to our neighbors, irrespective of our tribe, nation, race, or color. Love is a character of God, the fundamental concept of the Old Testament. Concept of love extends from sexual love to the love between God and humanity expressed within the community of covenant relationships. This paper therefore, examines the term love in the Old Testament salvation history, covering secular and religious love, with the view to discussing what love in the Old Testament entails and how love can be emulated.
The scope of love in the Old Testament is very broad, extending from the affection of members of the opposite sexes for one another to the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Love (’ āhēb) and its cognate in the Old Testament has a sticking pragmatic character that presupposes a concrete inner disposition that is based on experience and event. Love also includes a conscious act of the person who is loved or the thing preferred. Love in this sense has a sociological basis (Meckenzie, 1978). Old Testament text can be speaking of love even when the word love (’ āhēb) is not used, but the attitude of love is described in the context. For example, "If your enemy is angry, give him food to eat, if he is thirsty give him water to drink,” (Proverbs 25:21) or “If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey, wandering off, be sure to take it back to him." (Exodus 23:4). In these acts of love, the command to love is seen in proper perspectives. The love of Yahweh for Israel re-occurs in several books of Deuteronomy. Idea of love and election appears also on Isaiah 43:4, Malachi 1:24, and Psalms 47:5. The command for Israel to love Yahweh is also very prominent, especially in Exodus 20:6, and Deuteronomy 5:10. Love demands all of one's energy based on Yahweh's love for Israel which motivates him to save and to punish them.
Love in the Old Testament salvation history takes various forms like romantic, love within families and within the bond of kinship, the love of friendship and humans, and the covenant with a personal and active character of human character is the view of divine love in the Old Testament. Love produces the relationship between people, and between man and God.
The most elementary level of love is sexual relationship. The Old Testament term of love (’ āhēb) is also used when referring to sexual love or marital relationship as sometimes given in the creation sense (Wallis, 1976). Genesis 1:28 seem to imply that man is in the image of God in their nature as male and female. This is further suggested by the importance of the term knowledge as a symbol of the relationship of both man and woman as Genesis 4:1 point out, “Adam lay with his wife Eve and she became pregnant…” Isaac and Rebecca (Genesis 24:67) and Jacob and Rachael (Genesis 29:18, 20, 30), are other examples of romantic love in the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes 9:9 encourages man to enjoy life with his wife, whom he loves, as Proverb 5:18-19 pleads, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a disgraced deer-may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love”. The love between a man and a woman is simply recognized as the given nature, with no subjection or lack of restraint. It is also important for one control his or her own emotions. Otherwise, lack of restraint may hurt the other love partner, thus violating the law of chastity as in the story of Amnon in 2 Samuel 13:1-9 where he was filled with sexual desires over Tamar and David's sexual desire over Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11.
Love among family and friend in the Old Testament is used to connect thing which has nothing to do with each other. It gives an attachment rather than sex. David says in 2 Samuel 1:26,” I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was more wonderful than that of a woman.” These feelings of emotion may belong completely to the realm of the original emotion of love and friendship. There is also danger in the opposite of this; the love of Isaac for Esau was because of the trick which Esau killed whereas, Rebecca loved Jacob (Genesis 25:27), which led to the hatred between Jacob and Esau. Jacob's love for Joseph also made other sons of Jacob hate Joseph (Genesis 35:3-35). There was also tribal and relationship of kinship. It is related to the sexual love of Ruth 3:10, where loyalty and kindness to the next of kin are shown. The social life of man in the Old Testament is a very important area in human relations, just as the basic social unit of the family and tribe are maintained by love, the quality of life most desirable in a man is that of kindness, which extends to man’s responsibility in the whole society.
Given the love of the neighbor and enemy in the Old Testament, love should be extended to all spheres of life. Love is regarded as inseparable from humanity and therefore set forth as the norm of social relationship which is included within the scope and shelter of divine law (Quell, G. and Stauffer, E.,, 1969). This supports Leviticus 19:18, "… love your neighbor as yourself." Old Testament considers care of one's own family and tribe to preserve oneself as a standard for measuring one's love for one's fellow love. It also advocates the kind of behavior which equates concern for the well-being of one's neighbors with the assertion of one's own will. In the light of the comparison of Deuteronomy 22:1-4 with Exodus 23:4, Deuteronomy describes help to an enemy, as the comparison justifies us in the including the love of enemies in Leviticus 19:18. From the Old Testament teaching, the neighbor may be friends or enemy, the right attitude to him should be of love and not legality.
Another aspect is that the word love was used in Hebrew Bible, predominantly about men concerning women and not another way around, and also about parents concerning their children and not the other way around. So the preferential loves explain this in a patriarchal and polygamous society. In ancient Israel, men could have favorite views towards wives, but wives could not have a favorite husband (Ackerman, 2002). Susan, (2002) also clarifies that both fathers and mothers could have favorite sons, but sons could not have favorite fathers or favorite mothers. Some women were also described as ‘loving’ as a man or another woman with that ‘preferential love. This was the case of King's daughter Michal concerning a young man David, and of Ruth concerning her mother-in-law Naomi for whom she abandoned her people. The preferential love for another human being always implied the intensity of feeling in the light of Biblical story can easily be attributed to Rebecca, as she did not feel “very very good” toward Jacob.
The second part of this theological reflection is divine/religious love which has rich theological significance. They are God's love for man, man's love for God, and love between men as seen in religious duty (Viktor, 1976). God's love for man appears as a sentiment between Yahweh and Israel. The concept of election and covenant surfaced. These are acts of God's love in the salvation history of the Old Testament. Love as an election of God can be said to be a divine action. According to Packer (1982), the main Old Testament word designating that of election is the verb, "bahar" which addresses the idea of choice of someone or something out of multiple possibilities. Faith of the children of Israel was laid on the belief that Israel was chosen by God, the source of which was God's, free omnipotent love. The patriarchal and Sinai covenant is the basis of the election of Israel. Election implies an inclusive bond between Yahweh and Israel. God chooses as his heritage, this was his initiative (Deuteronomy 7:6-8); therefore God’s redemption of Israel is the love that upholds the precious thing he has created.
The covenant love maintains the idea between God and Israel as a basis for salvation history (Brandon, 1970). The idea of a covenant relationship characterized Israel's religion and was constantly evoked by the prophets. Covenant being an agreement, God made a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3, 15:10-21), or a group of people as in the case of the Sinai covenant (Exodus 19:5-6). The covenant between God and man is evident that the parties are not equal at all. The course of God’s love for Israel lies in the personal being of God himself. God’s love seeks moral fellowship with Israel. His love cannot be separated from his righteousness and it is not sentimental. Quell G. and Stanffer (1969), observes that against Israelites' sin, God's love is expressed in judgment and forgiveness. God's punishment of sin is not a contradiction of his love (Hosea 11:8). The history of God's encounter with Israel is seen as covenant love. God is the attribute that gives God's identity.
The love of man for God is a response of man to God's love in his gratitude for what God has done for him. In the Old Testament, Moses gave the people of Israel on behalf of God, a ‘ shema ' commandment and regarded it as the central confessional statement on ancient Israel, “Hear oh Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Jesus quoted these words according to Matthew 22:37, in response to lawyers’ (Sadducees and Pharisees) question about the greatest commandment in the law. According to the Hebrews Bible, the shema text in its expanded form includes Love of God (Deuteronomy 6:5-9), reward and punishment for observant (Deuteronomy 11:13-21), and duty of remembrance (Numbers 15:37-41). The Shema statement was to be observed by Jews as part of the morning and evening prayers (Deuteronomy 6:7). It is also to be recited before the death of someone (Va'etchanan, 2019). The early and great importance of the shema is outlined by Jesus' reference to the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:34-40). It was not about how often one thought about God, but also how one thought about God. According to Anna Wierzbicka, in her What Christians Believe: The story of Love and People in Minimal English, the Israelites were not to think about God as someone above us, but above me. Just like Solomon thought about Yahweh very often (1 King 3:3), he felt something very good towards him not towards anyone else, and he wanted to do many things for God including sacrificing animals, burnt incense, and building a temple in Jerusalem. The act of Solomon could be seen as one result of “someone was doing many things”, rather than merely “wanting to do many things.”
In conclusion, the concept of love in the Old Testament salvation history forms the basis of every relation. Whether the love is human or divine, it is the deepest possible expression of the closeness of a personal relationship. It is also employed off the mutual urges of the sexes in which case, there is no restrain or sense of uncleanness. The divine love which is the basis of the Old Testament saving history is not man's sentiment, but creative energy. Since the concept of love is unique, we should look beyond carnal sex and sexuality when the word love is mentioned. God is love, the love of a father in whom every human being is an offspring is worthy of complete emulation. Therefore, since man is created in the image of God, he should emulate this character of God, and children of God and humanity should also exhibit love to all. Love covers every evil thing in the universe; therefore, our responsibility remains to love one another.
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- Mr. Kevin Omondi (Author), 2022, Old Testament theology of love, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1331099
