Few interpretive questions are as important as whether the apostles handled the Old Testament (OT) responsibly. If they read Christ into the OT instead of correctly discerning Him in it, then our faith rests on a flimsy foundation.[1] First Corinthians 10:4b—“for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ”—is the prosecution’s Exhibit A for those who allege that the apostles read Christ into passages that said nothing about Him in their original form.[2]
Was Paul allegorising the OT to make it point to Jesus? Not at all! We can either write him off hastily as a naïve allegoriser or give him the benefit of the doubt for being a deep thinker and diligent teacher, in which case we must try to understand his logic.[3] Whereas others assume that Paul irresponsibly allegorised Exodus 17:1–7 and Numbers 20:8–11 by reading Christ into the accounts, I argue that he responsibly handled those texts by recognising Christ’s real presence in them.
There was an entrenched Jewish interpretation that the rock followed the Israelites. They were refreshed by water from a rock at the start (Exod. 17:1–7) and end (Num. 20:8–11) of their time in the wilderness, so rabbis speculated that this was a way of saying that the rock was always with them as their source of water.[4] However, Paul did not believe that a physical rock followed them in the desert. He believed that God was their “spiritual rock,” and He was present with them in the person of Christ. Where did Paul get this idea? Let us try to reconstruct his logic.
Paul had Deuteronomy 32—a passage that Hebrews also applies to Jesus—in mind when he wrote 1 Corinthians 10. He would apply Deuteronomy 32:15 in 1 Corinthians 10:19–22 to show that worshipping idols is fellowshipping with demons. Moses’s preferred name for God in Deuternonomy 32 is “the Rock” (Heb. צוּר, vv. 4, 15, 18, 30–31; cf. vv. 12, 37, 43), who “fathered” and “saved” them by bringing them out of Egypt. “The Rock” remains a preferred name and metaphor for Yahweh throughout the OT (cf. 2 Sam. 22:2–3, 32, 47; Pss. 18:2, 31, 46; 19:14; 28:1; 31:2–3; 42:9; 61:2; 62:2, 6–7; 78:35; 89:26; 92:15; 94:22; 95:1; 144:1; Isa. 17:10; 26:4; 30:29; 44:8; Hab. 1:12).
Paul knew that the Scriptures alternate between saying that Yahweh led Israel and His angel led them in the wilderness. First the Scripture says, “And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night” (Exod. 13:21). But soon afterwards it says, “Then the angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them” (Exod. 14:19). After the exodus itself, the Lord promised this: “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be attentive to him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your rebellion, since My name is in him” (Exod. 23:20–21). The Angel of the Lord would lead them in the wilderness, and the name of Yahweh was in Him! Exodus 32:34, 33:2, Numbers 20:16, and Isaiah 63:9–14 all report the Angel leading His people.
Christians have long recognised “the Angel of the Lord” in various OT passages as God the Son, the preincarnate Second Person of the Godhead.[5] He both (a) is Yahweh and (b) is distinct from Yahweh. Paul recognised that Yahweh was present with His people throughout their exodus and wilderness journeys, but he also understands that He was specifically present as Christ, the Angel of the Lord.
Isaiah refers to Yahweh as “the Rock” four times ( 17:10; 26:4; 30:29; 44:8). In 8:14, he predicts that the Lord of hosts (Yahweh) will be “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” to Israel and Judah. Both Paul (Rom. 9:33) and Peter (1 Pet. 2:8) apply this to Jesus. He is Yahweh, the Rock of offence! Jesus applied Psalm 118:22–23 to Himself; He is the stone that the builders rejected (see Matt. 21:42–44; Luke 20:17–18).
If we correctly follow Paul’s logic, he was not allegorising the OT at all. He was summarising its theological teaching succinctly. Yahweh, the Rock, was present with His people throughout their wilderness journey in the form of His Angel, who was the preincarnate Christ. Isaiah recognised Yahweh as “the Rock” and spoke of the Messiah as “the Rock of offence,” providing a precedent for Paul’s interpretation. Paul did not believe a physical rock followed Israel, but he did believe a spiritual Rock was always with them—Christ, the Angel of Yahweh. He did not read Christ into the wilderness narratives; he rightly recognised that He was present with Israel throughout.
Sources:
[1] Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Baker Academic, 2018).
[2] Dennis T. Olson, Numbers: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Reprint edition (Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 129–30; Peter E. Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well’ in 1 Cor 10:4: An Extrabiblical Tradition in an Apostolic Text,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 6 (1996): 23–38; Henning Graf Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation: From the Old Testament to Origen, ed. Susan Ackerman and Tom Thatcher, trans. Leo G. Perdue (Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 1:64.
[3] Abner Chou, The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles (Kregel, 2018).
[4] Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2010), 451; Enns, “Moveable Well.”
[5] Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Eerdmans, 2006).
Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of SATS.