(Part 1)

JBTM Robert D. Bergen
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Ruth 4:17–22) and the Messianic line that was climaxed and concluded by the coming of
Jesus Christ (see Matt 1:5–16).
D. Quotations
Biblical narratives are a special type of narrative; I call it hortastory—that is, stories infused
with exhortation, designed to provide readers and listeners with guidance for living.
More than that, Biblical narratives are theological hortastory, written to guide people into a
deeper understanding of God’s nature and ways, as well as his expectations for humanity.
Biblical writers used a special kind of event to accomplish the incredibly important
tasks of conveying God’s ideas and behavioral guidance—the speech act. Through the miracle
of narrative speech, characters give voice to much of the intellectual content—especially
theological ideas and behavioral guidelines—that the author wished to convey to his
readers and listeners. Since evangelical Christians like myself recognize God as the author
of all Scripture, we affirm that in Old Testament speech acts placed in the mouths of important
human characters we come upon God’s own authoritative pronouncements.
Of course, words spoken by the participants in biblical narratives can and do perform
other, more mundane, functions as well: they make actions more comprehensible by revealing
intentions and establishing motives; they adjust the emotional content of associated
events; and they create relational connections between key characters. These functions
are vital to a well-told story, but they are secondary to the presentation of theological and
behavioral information. To gain a sense of the relative importance of individual speech acts
by individuals, I recommend you adhere to the following guidelines:
1) Pay attention to who is speaking within the narrative. As a rule, the authors of Old Testament
narrative placed the ideas they wished to emphasize within the longer speeches of
the narrative’s most prominent and socially or religiously significant characters. The more
socially powerful or religiously influential the character who spoke, the more important
the ideas contained in that person’s speech are likely to be. Thus, the venerable prophet
Samuel’s longest speech (205 Hebrew words; 2 Sam 12:6–25) can rightly be regarded as his
most thematically central speech, especially in view of its concluding prophetic warning
that “if you continue to do what is evil, both you and your king will be swept away” (v. 25).
Speech acts by kings and prophets were certainly important, but they pale in significance
to speeches uttered by Yahweh. If a passage you are studying contains a quote spoken
by God or his supernatural representative, consider the ideas and directives in it to be of
central significance to the narrative as a whole. It was Yahweh, not Moses, who first uttered
the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1–17), gave directions for the construction of the Tabernacle
(Exod 25:1–31:17) and established the sacrificial system (Lev 1:1–7:34). It was the Lord,
not King Solomon, who brought a sobering dose of reality to the celebratory dedication of
the great temple to Yahweh in Jerusalem by threatening the destruction of both the temple
and the nation that built it (1 Kgs 9:1–9).
Though socially powerful males occupied center stage in Old Testament narratives,
others could play important roles as well. In fact, biblical authors had at their disposal