Here in my next post in my series on the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, I’m going to focus on the prologue of Mark, particularly his account of John the Baptist. Since Matthew and Luke cover the account of John the Baptist in a similar manner with pretty much the same Old Testament quotations, what I will say about Mark’s account will largely apply to them. Now there is a whole lot packed into those first eleven verses of Mark, so it is best that we just jump right in.
The Messenger and the Wilderness: A New Exodus
Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not have any kind of infancy narrative. After a brief, “This is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Mark introduces us to the ministry of John the Baptist by way of a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, which in reality is a mash-up of Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3: “Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, the one who will prepare your way! A voice proclaiming in the wilderness! Make the way of YHWH ready! Straightaway, make roads for him!”
The first Old Testament reference here, that of God sending his messenger, is an allusion to Exodus 23:20, which is part of a larger section of Exodus 23:20-33 in which YHWH promises the Israelites at Mt. Sinai that He is going to lead them to the Promised Land and that He will give it to them. The Hebrew word malak is translated in the Greek Septuagint as angelos—angel. And indeed, in Exodus 23:20, it is translated in English as angel—YHWH will send His angel ahead of the Israelites to guard them on their way to Canaan and to eventually give them the Promised Land.
Now we usually think of angel in terms of a glowing, floating figure in a white robe, but in both the Hebrew and the Greek, is simply means something along the lines of a royal messenger from a king. Sometimes it can refer to heavenly messengers and sometimes to human messengers—and sometimes it can simply be ambiguous. For our purposes, though, we need to note that Exodus 23:20 is about God sending someone to bring His people into the Promised Land.
The second Old Testament reference here also is in relation to that same messenger and that same way. In this instance, we have to look at Malachi 3:1. Malachi was a post-exilic prophet who prophesied after the Jews had come back from the exile and were back in the Promised Land. Even though they had settled back in the land and had rebuilt the Temple, they still were having problems and full restoration that was prophesied in prophetic passages like Isaiah 40-55 still had not happened. Malachi’s message was simple: even though they were back in the Promised Land, they were still not yet fully purified as God’s people. The priests had failed to adequately teach the people God’s statutes and they were defiling God’s Temple by offering unworthy sacrifices.
Therefore, before YHWH would fully return to His people, said Malachi, some major purification was in order. And so, Malachi hearkens back to Exodus 23:20 and prophesies that before that Day of YHWH came, YHWH would send His messenger who would prepare His way. This messenger of the covenant would come into the Temple and purify both the Temple and the priests with fire, just as one would purify gold and silver. Only then, after the messenger had purified the priesthood, would YHWH return to judge His people. He’d punish the wicked and He’d vindicate the righteous.
What Malachi is doing, therefore, is using language associated with the Exodus to prophesy about the full restoration of God’s people after the Exile. Or to put it more simply, the Jews viewed the return from Exile as a New Exodus. The only problem was that even though they were back in the Land and had rebuilt the Temple, this New Exodus was not yet complete because YHWH had not fully restored them yet.
The third Old Testament reference is of Isaiah 40:3: the voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way of YHWH. This is the verse most immediately recognize to be a reference to John the Baptist. In its original context, though, it is a reference to something else—and it is that “something else” that is so important, because that is the thing to which Mark is connecting John the Baptist.
As I briefly mentioned above, Isaiah 40-55 is all about calling the Jews out of the Babylonian Exile. In doing so, it employs the language of the Exodus and presents the return from Exile as a New Exodus. Just as the Israelites had to travel through the wilderness to get to the Promised Land during the Exodus, so would the Jews once again travel through the wilderness to get back to the Promised Land. Just as the messenger in Exodus 23:20 “guarded the way” for the Israelites to get to the Promised Land, Isaiah 40:3 calls for the way of YHWH to be made ready so that His people could return from Exile.
Putting It Together
If we step back and look at the original context of these three Old Testament passages in chronological order, what we see is the following:
- Exodus 23:20 is about YHWH’s messenger/angel guarding the Israelites on the way to the Promised Land and then delivering the Promised Land into their hands. The rest of Exodus 23:20-33, incidentally, has YHWH telling the Israelites that when they get into the Promised Land they had better listen to and obey His messenger.
- Isaiah 40:3 is a prophecy that uses the language of the Exodus to call the Jews to come out of the Babylonian Exile, thus portrays the return from Exile as a New Exodus. The voice in the wilderness calls for the way of YHWH to be made, so that the Jews could return to the Promised Land.
- Malachi 3:1 is set after the Jews had returned to the Promised Land but had not yet experienced that full restoration that Isaiah 40-55 had envisioned. Malachi prophesies that the New Exodus wouldn’t be completed until a type of Ultimate Exodus happened, in which YHWH’s messenger would come to purify the priesthood and Temple—only then would YHWH’s presence would return to His people and render judgment.
As one can see, both Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 employ Exodus language, particularly that of Exodus 23:20, to speak of both the return from Babylonian Exile, as well as an event in which the full restoration after the Exile would happen. Great—so what does that have to do with Mark’s Gospel?
What is Mark Doing?
To get right to the point, by alluding to these Old Testament passages at the very beginning of his Gospel, Mark is declaring that the fulfillment of all of these passages has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus Christ—the “good news”—is that the completion of the New Exodus, the full restoration after the Exile, has finally come. In Christ, God has returned to His people to render judgment. This Ultimate Exodus, though, isn’t a mere geographical movement out of either Egypt or Babylon, though. This Ultimate Exodus is one out the old creation into the new creation—this is subtly introduced in the very first words Mark uses in his Gospel: “The beginning of the Gospel…” Scholars have long noted how this echoes the very first words of Genesis: “In the beginning….” They’re right to do so, for Mark is signaling that not only is the Gospel of Jesus all about the Ultimate Exodus, but that it is also all about a New Creation. Indeed, all throughout the entire New Testament, the Gospel is described in Exodus and Creation language. The opening of Mark’s Gospel is no different.
This leads us to two more observations to make to conclude this post. First, since Mark portrays the coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of the Ultimate Exodus, when YHWH returns to render judgment (as in Malachi 3:1-5), it goes without saying that he is using the messenger in Malachi 3:1 to reference John the Baptist. Just as the messenger comes before the coming of YHWH, so too does John the Baptist come before Jesus. Similarly, just as the voice in the wilderness prepares the way for YHWH, so too does John the Baptist prepare the way for Jesus.
Secondly, I believe Mark does one more extremely creative thing in the way he sets up his Gospel. At the end of 1:3, in the second part of his quotation of Isaiah 40:3, he has, “make his paths straight.” The Greek word there that denotes the “making straight” is εὐθείας (euthias). Now, if you read Mark in any English translation, you’ll note how many times the word “immediately” shows up: After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit immediately throws him out into the wilderness; Peter, James, and John immediately leave their nets to follow Jesus—a good 27 different times in Mark does “immediately” show up. It has long been noticed by scholars, and that is one of the reasons why the Gospel of Mark is often depicted with the image of a lion: it seems that Jesus is constantly in a rush, prowling around like a lion.
Well, I think there is another explanation for the word “immediately.” The Greek word that is translated as “immediately” is εὐθέως (eutheus)—eerily similar to the word for “make straight” (euthias). I tend to think that one of the things Mark is doing throughout his Gospel is constantly referring back to Isaiah 40:3. I think what he is essentially doing is showing how that “way of YHWH”—that way of salvation—is “being made straight” in everything that happens in the life and ministry of Jesus. That is way in my own translation I render both εὐθείας (euthias) in Mark 1:3 and εὐθέως (eutheus) throughout the rest of his Gospel as “straightaway.” I think it serves to highlight the wordplay Mark employs in connecting the Gospel of Jesus with the New Exodus prophesied about in Isaiah 40:3.
Conclusion
It certainly is amazing how much Old Testament story Mark can pack into the first three verses of his Gospel, isn’t it? It is incredibly important to recognize, though, for the overarching narratives of New Creation and New Exodus provided the narrative framework to Mark’s entire Gospel. In my next post, I will look more closely at Mark’s depiction of John the Baptist, as well as John’s baptism of Jesus.
