Hebrews Chapter Eleven, Persecution

 

Hebrews 11:37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—[38] of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

 

The history of the prophets is a tumultuous one. We also know, from the words of Jesus Christ, that the persecution of the prophets began immediately with Abel’s murder, Luke 11:50, 51. In this same verse (Luke 11:51) our Lord mentions a prophet named Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the temple. This is unlikely the prophet whose book is in the OT, but another prophet, one of many sent by God that the people spurned and killed.

In fact, so many of His messengers were slain by the Jewish people that Jesus could use this sad toll in a parable. In Luke chapter 20, Jesus told the people that the owner of a vineyard sent his servant numerous times to collect his due, but the vinedressers beat and killed those he sent, Luke 20:10-12. In Mark’s gospel He stresses in this parable that not only were they shamefully treated, but often killed, Mark 12:5. Mark 12:4 alludes to death by stoning in our present passage, when Jesus states, “and at him (the prophet) they threw stones.”

 

The Jewish Talmud indicates that Isaiah, friend of King Hezekiah, was sawn in half with a wooden saw by King Manasseh. Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) and Tertullian (155-220 AD) acknowledge the traditional belief of the prophet’s demise, as does the theologian Origen (185-253 AD). It is believed by numerous expositors that Hebrews 11:37 likewise acknowledges Isaiah’s terrible death at Manasseh’s hands.

 

Urijah was a prophet of the Lord, a contemporary of Jeremiah, that was killed with the sword in the days of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Jeremiah 26:20-23. Shamefully treated by a king that certainly ought to have known better, one of the king’s officials saved Jeremiah from a similar fate, Jeremiah 26:24. Ahikam, the man that saved Jeremiah, was the son of Josiah’s scribe, Shaphan, 2 Kings 22:9, 12. In Josiah’s reign the Decalogue was discovered, and Josiah sent men to Huldah the prophetess to inquire after God’s will. Huldah, who was likely contemporaneous with Jeremiah, though older than him, warned of the coming calamity that would befall Judah in the days following Josiah’s reign, 2 Kings 22:20. Ahikam clearly recalled Huldah’s warning, and understood that Jeremiah was speaking the same message, an oracle of the Lord, and intervened to avoid at least the guilt of his bloodshed.

 

The final portion of verse 37 appears to focus on Elijah, who was described thus, “He wore a garment of haircloth, with a girdle of leather about his loins,” 2 Kings 1:8, RSV. For his entire prophetic ministry Elijah was hounded by the godless King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. This weak-willed king and his scheming queen ruled northern Israel, or Samaria, to the nation’s inexorable hurt, assuring their inevitable exile to Assyria in days to come. Ahab was the product of the tutelage of former godless kings the likes of Baasha and Omri, and thus defied and rejected Elijah’s word, and the authority in which he spoke it. John says of what we choose to genuinely hear: “They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them,” 1 John 4:5. Further, he attests, “We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error,” 1 John 4:6.

 

Gripped by the spirit of error, and as Cain persecuted Abel for his righteousness, Ahab did all that he could to kill the man of God. Elijah spent years hiding in solitude, afraid of the king and at least once wishing for death, 1 Kings 19:4. Likewise, John the Baptist, who was still an Old Testament prophet because the church dispensation hadn’t begun, was clothed and lived like Elijah, Mark 1:6, Matthew 11:11. Jesus also affirmed that John had been given the prophetic office, preceding the Christ’s arrival, Matthew 11:9. But the ill treatment of the prophets was alive and well in Jesus’ time. Of John they said, “He has a demon,” and of Jesus, “Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Matthew 11:18, 19. The world rejects God, not because of a dearth of evidence, but because He interferes with their selfish, self-deifying lives. Acknowledging God assumes that one admits they have no control over life and surrenders that illusion. The world prefers the lie Satan sold them, so they persecute His prophets to silence the inconvenient message that compels them to enter into reality.

 

The author of the epistle says of the saints and of the prophets, “the world was not worthy.” Solomon warns in Proverbs, “He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury,” Proverbs 9:7, RSV. During His sermon on the Mount, Jesus reiterated that wisdom another way, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces,” Matthew 7:6. But this is not a reason to shirk duty; no, scoffers and wicked men need correction, because otherwise they certainly will not turn to the Lord. God knows, not us, when someone will hear the message of the gospel and believe. Solomon warned of the consequences imparting wisdom brings. Jesus used dogs and swine, neither having a good connotation from Scripture. Until the end, the term dog denotes unruly men that are governed by carnal impulse. Swine are unclean animals they Jews were not meant to handle. The response of such worldly people will be both ungrateful and cruel. More than that, regardless of how they treat the messenger, the reception of the message deprives the hearer of any semblance of an excuse before a holy God, John 9:39-41.