PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong
In Deutero-Isaiah, then, Israel – or Israel’s representative – is presented as experiencing
divine vindication, while those who had judged according to human appearance
experience shocked repentance.
Daniel
The book of Daniel repeatedly features the motif of reversal, developing both the image of
the boastful ruler and that of the righteous sufferer.
In chapter 2, the king (2:2: βασιλεύς 18 ) demands something that is impossible for mortal
humans (v11: πάσης σαρκός) to accomplish, and orders execution when it is not
accomplished. The “God of heaven” grants the revelation of a mystery (2:19: μυστήριον)
to Daniel and his companions, and their execution is averted. Daniel himself is promoted
and honoured.
In chapter 3, the king perceives that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to worship
him, and he threatens to have them executed in the furnace. They entrust themselves to
“God whom we serve” (3:17), and, indeed, this God is shown to miraculously save his
servants (3:28: τοὺς παῖδας αὐτοῦ). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are vindicated and
promoted.
In chapter 4, the ruler Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as refusing to acknowledge that “the
Most High rules over the kingdom of humans [ἀνθρώπων] and he gives it to whomever
18 I draw attention to the Septuagint terms here, as these will be significant when looking
at the terminology of reversal in Paul’s Greek.
23