Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God. – Psalm 146:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 10, 2013): Psalm 146

For the nations of Eastern Europe, politics seems to have been an exercise in the suppression of a national expression of identity. The suppression of national identity was integral to the smooth development of the nations, especially in the Eastern Bloc countries and within the Soviet Union itself. All national expression had to be suppressed in order for the Union as a whole to move forward. But when the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, tried to revive the lagging Soviet economy in the mid 1980’s, part of the plan was to allow a process of increasing liberalization in the Union. What might have been a surprise to Gorbachev and the rest of the brain trust at the top of the Soviet Union political ladder was that this political liberalization resulted in an increase in the national expression of the member countries and the recognition of ethnic diversity in the region. The effect reached outside of the Soviet Union and into the neighboring countries. The rise of new nations had begun; the new nations were actually ancient ethnic based countries that had not been heard from in generations. And the map of Eastern Europe and Western Asia slowly began to be redrawn.

During the years of the Babylonian Captivity, the national expression of Israel had to be suppressed. After all, that was the purpose of the captivity in the first place. Taking the people captive and removing them from their home was supposed to help in the process of taking the people of Israel and producing out of them good Babylonian citizens. And there is evidence that the process worked very well – at least on the surface. If we take Daniel as a case study, while he never dropped his belief in God, Daniel rose to high office in the Babylonian government – and later in the early days of the Median Empire was a key official in that government. Daniel is the only Biblical source that shows the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar in good light. A chapter in the book of Daniel (Chapter 4) is even written by the Babylonian ruler. Daniel did many great things for the Babylonian Empire – he lived most of his life in Babylon and died in what is now known as Iraq (or possibly Iran.) Daniel, the Israelite prophet, was an honored citizen of the Babylon. And there is some evidence that when the repopulation of Israel became a possibility, there were a number within the captives that had no desire to go back to their ancestral homeland. The only home they had ever known was in Babylon.

And it is during this time that we see a subtle shift in language. God is no longer the deity over Israel – he is the God of Jacob. The terminology had always been there, but now the God of Jacob, or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob began to make more sense than the God of Israel. Israel as a nation no longer existed, and the national expression of the people of God had been successfully suppressed by their captors.

But it is important to also recognize that even though their national expression had vanished for a time, their belief in one God remained. Daniel again serves as an example of a captive that could lose his national identity but not his belief in God. The people may have been slowly changed into good Babylonian citizens, but they remained servants of the one true God – the God of Jacob.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 147