WAITING FOR THE LAND
The Story Line of the Pentateuch
By Arie C. Leder. P & R Publishing. 238 pages. £13.99
ISBN 978 0 875 521 961
Don’t mind and heart just rejoice with elation for a book that not only takes the Bible seriously as the Word of God, but also brings out of its treasures things new as well as old?
Notwithstanding the title he has chosen, Leder’s insistence is that ‘the land itself is not crucial’ (p.114); ‘the goal of Israel’s march from Egypt is not first of all to enter the promised land’ (p.200). What we lost in Adam was not place (Eden), but life in the presence of God, and the Lord’s wondrous work of grace is targeted not on a return to or recovery of place, but to direct and abiding fellowship and union with him. We are ‘exiled from his life-giving presence ...until exile is completely reversed by the coming again of Immanuel’; till then ‘God’s people will have no place to call home’ (pp.186,196). The whole Bible revolves round this focal point, but, in particular, it is the theme of the Pentateuch. Leviticus, the book of ‘Priestly instruction for Life in God’s Presence’ (pp.ll5ff) is the centrepiece of the five books, the encapsulation of their (and the Bible’s) essential intent. Leder reviews the Pentateuch as a whole, as well as each of its five components, with a concluding chapter, ‘Waiting for the land Today; The Church as a Desert people’. Many helpful diagrams adorn his pages.
