Bible-ecological meditations.

Paul M. Zulehner

Vienna 2026

Contents

Contents

Prelude

On the Origin of the Miracle of the World

Scientific Response Models

Creation myths

Similarities

The creation myths of the Bible

The entrusted earth

PART 1: LAND USE SYSTEMS

Cultural landscapes

Desert

A diverse natural landscape

Desert fauna and flora

Devastation and desertion

Hagar: the curse of contempt

The desert marches of the People of God

Temptations of Jesus

Mature in temptations

Field

Proverbial

Farmland as a livelihood

Scenes from rural life

The Glean Ruth: a play in three acts

Willow

Susanna in the garden: a feast for the eyes

Pasture land

Assurance of land and pasture land

Successful conflict resolution

The Lord is my shepherd

On the Rivers of Babylon

Pasture and pasture: an end

Forest

Forest fairy tales and fairytale forests

Forest bathing

Primeval and cultural forest

Waldarmes Israel

The forest of Ephraim

Elisha

Forest-friendly gun burning

Garden

Garden of Eden

Garden of Love

Gardens

Jesus' Gardens

PART 2: WHAT GROWS AND THRIVES

Trees

Growing Rings

Dendrology

The Human Tree

The community tree

Tree of Knowledge and Life

The Oaks of Mamre

Wealth of trees

Costume of the Naked

Everyday Places of Peace

Tree nursery

Shrubs

Stumbling

Frutex

Biblical Shrub Stories

Grassland

Steppe

Grass

Hay

Rushes

Weeds

PART 3: BECOMING AND PASSING AWAY

Water

Water

Sowing and Reaping

Desert life without agriculture

Without agriculture: famine

Like farmer's rules

Organic farming

God as sower

Wisdom about sowing and harvesting

Sam des Mannes

Bloom and thrive

Growing up and growing into it

Growing up in faith

A tragic vow

Beauty and power

Grace upon grace

Parenting Counseling

Withering and dying

Transience

Enjoy life

The great and the small death

Peoples

Wicked

Innocent

Liberation from transience

Part 4: HARVESTING

Time of harvest

At the time of the wheat harvest

Thanksgiving

End-time harvest

Harvest Proverbs

Fruits

The wisdom of nature

Fruits and vegetables

Biblical Vegetable Stories

Spices

Balm for body and soul

Myrrh

Hyssop

Mustard seed

Cinnamon

Cereals

Wealth of the country

Greed versus precaution

Ezekiel's visions and symbolic actions

Bread made from cereals

Multiplication of loaves

Flatbread and loaf

Rounding off

Wine

Israel, the vine of God - Jesus, the true vine

The Eater and Drunkard

Vineyard Parables

Double-faced

Advice

Liturgical-Cultic

Olives

Oil of Beauty and Joy

Holy anointing oil

Oil lamps

Dove with the olive branch

Figs

Botanical

Jeremiah's Dream of Two Fig Baskets

Fig porridge medicine

Fig cake

Epilogue

This book is based on an extensive working version. This can be published as an ebook with the title "Blüh' und gethr'! Biblical Meditations" on https://info.zulehner.org/site/pastoraltheologie .

Prelude

Has the world entered a new age in its long history? Since the year 2000, there has been a scientific struggle for this. The reasonably quiet interglacial Holocene had come to an end. Global warming about 11,700 years ago ended the last ice age (the Pleistocene) and prevented the emergence of a new ice age.

Humans have been involved in this development through increasing interventions. An era of rapid change had begun. This was suggested as the name for the new age Anthropocene. After all, humans have become a decisive player in the development of the earth. And not only for the better. The list of worrying symptoms is almost endless. Here are selected examples: species extinction, climate emergency, melting of the polar caps and glaciers, decline of permafrost, rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans, overfishing, land erosion, environmental, water, light and air pollution.¹

However, the International Commission on Stratigraphy², a geological discipline responsible for dividing the history of the earth into clearly defined sections (strati = layers), has so far considered the term to be unsuitable. No clear beginning of an Anthropocene can be identified. Because even 7000 years ago, an influence of humans on the development of the earth's history can be proven through early agriculture.

Now, the Anthropocene may not be a term suitable for geological history. But it can also be read "geoethically": As an answer to the question of the extent to which humans are allowed to influence development, they themselves want to survive on this earth. It not only warns of further burdens on the ecosystem. New possibilities are also explored as to whether "geoengineering" can be used by humans to repair damage caused by them or at least mitigate their threatening effects.

Despite all the confidence in the technical capacity of mankind, the question seems increasingly unavoidable as to how, in the face of irreversible, threatening changes, humanity can nevertheless live in dignity on the one (and currently only) earth.

Such questions do not affect the one humanity in the same way everywhere. Especially in our highly industrialized societies of the global North, there is more urgency to change actions and the attitudes behind them. The Global South causes less damage, but still suffers enormous "loss and damage", which poor countries rightly demand financial compensation from the rich North to mitigate.

The meditative contributions of this book are modest. They want to strengthen or form an attitude in the readers that - translated into action - contributes like a mosaic stone to the total work of art creation.³ Then it could happen that the miracle of the world remains a good place for such diverse living beings: especially for the people who marvel at the miracle, can be grateful for the earth entrusted to them and can develop a nurturing and nurturing approach to the wonder of the world, the earth.

To this end, an eco-biblical foray is undertaken. Now the exploratory journey does not lead into the fauna, the animal world: I have already done this in my book "'Tierisch gut". This book is about flora: It is important to perceive what plants, shrubs and trees grew, blossomed and thrived in biblical times. Joy in the richness of the colourful variety, a grateful marvelling at the beauty of the blossoms and a virtual, empathetic taste of the deliciousness of many fruits may set in while reading.

At the same time, thoughtful horror can arise about how what - well fertilized and watered - had thrived so magnificently - dries up, withers, withers and dies. But not forever. For a cycle of becoming and passing away, a kind of continual resurrection (resurrectio continua) is indicated. Jesus sums this up when he cries out imploringly with a view to himself: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but when it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

On the Origin of the Miracle of the World

The earth was desolate and confused
, and darkness lay over the flood,
and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Genesis 1:1)

The illustrated short history of the time of the outstanding British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) remains a bestseller. At the end of the book, which is well worth reading because it is highly informative, the author sums up: "We live... in a strange world. We want to understand what we perceive around us and ask: What is the universe like? What place do we occupy in it, where does it come from, and where do we come from? Why is it like this and not otherwise?"⁴

Scientific Response Models

Hawking traces the long path of humanity's struggle for answers to modern science. According to the general theory of relativity, there was initially a state of infinite density. With the "singularity" of the Big Bang, a Big Bang, time then began. The universe expanded rapidly and underwent an incredible evolution all the way to humans. In the end, in a Big Crash, a kind of "final bang", the universe would collapse into black holes.

However, this model of the theory of relativity, as Hawking explains as a main representative of modern astrophysics, must be coordinated with the more recent findings of quantum mechanics. To this end, he develops that of the "finite space-time without limits" as an explanatory model. This model asks the question of whether the universe needs a creator, "and if so, does he affect the universe in any other way?"⁵ Isn't the universe without borders a self-explanatory event?

Hawkings, as an honest scientist, notes that his proposal is not yet a complete theory either. But science's insights into the universe would increase rapidly thanks to the view into the vast universe and at the same time into the innermost part of matter, refined by modern telescopes. "Then all of us - philosophers, scientists and laymen - will be able to deal with the question of why we and the universe exist. If we could find the answer to this question, it would be the final triumph of human reason - for then we would know God's plan."⁶

"God's Plan": An astonishing statement by a top scientist who, according to his own information, does not believe in a "creator God"!⁷ Or does he just reject the images that have been used to tell of God and a "creation of the world by God"? Does the theory of relativity, according to which every single person lives his or her own time, also apply to language? At least Stephen Hawking keeps the question of a "creator god" open. He doesn't believe in one, but he can't rule it out definitively either. Obviously, he too cannot avoid "the ancient rumor" that the philosopher Robert Spämann called "the infinite rumor."⁸ The question still remains why there is this universe in which we find ourselves and about which we as humans can think questioningly.

The Recluse⁹ Julian of Norwich (1342-1413), who lived in England, had a vision that was well suited to Stephen Hawking's proposal. In this show, the mystic reports, "God showed me something very small, perhaps as big as a hazelnut, in my hand. It was round like a ball. I looked at it with my mind's eye and thought, 'What can this be?' And the answer came to me: 'It is all that has been created.' I wondered how it could survive, because it was so small that I thought it could disappear immediately. And the answer in my spirit was, 'It lasts and will last forever because God loves it. And everything that exists exists in the same way through the love of God.' In this little thing, I saw three qualities: the first is that God created it; the second is that God loves it; and the third, that God cares for us."¹⁰ The hazelnut an image for Hawking's "finite space-time without limits"?

Creation myths

"Our forefathers told a lot about the origin of the earth. They could not hide the words in strokes like the white men later did. They only told the people who lived at that time. They told of many things. That is why we are not ignorant. Old women don't just talk like that, and we believe them: there are no lies in old age." And then it is told: "Back then, a long, long time ago, when the earth was to come into being..." (Creation myth of the Inuits¹¹)

The questions asked by Hawking are ancient to mankind. Many cultures tell creation myths. Myths explain in supposedly historical stories what is always and everywhere the case and moves people at all times. This is their wise logic: If you can't explain something, tell a story! Explanatory answers to ultimately inexplicable questions are sought. Myths are part of this "explanation of the inexplicable" in the telling of stories.

The questions that moved Stephen Hawking, where the world comes from, how life came into being, why there are human beings in this world that can be found in constant development, and not least why there are human beings in it, revolves around the creation myth of the Sumerians, the myth of the Pelasgians from the time before Greek antiquity, then that from Greek antiquity, the myths of the Inuits, the Rigveda from India, the Yorubas from East Africa, the Voluspá of the Vikings, tales from Brazil, the myth of the indigenous people of Australia, a profound myth from ancient Chinese culture.¹²

Similarities

It is true that these diverse creation myths differ from each other. The actors of creation are different. The sequence of the process of creation is different. And yet, despite all the diversity, there are some striking similarities. I peel them out:

1. There is always a divine protagonist or a heavenly protagonist. For the Sumerians, it is the sky god An. In Greek mythology, the goddess Gaia is considered the primordial mother; Tartarus (the god of the abyss), Eros (the god of love) and the titan Prometheus, who formed the man to whom Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, finally breathed the spirit, cooperate with them. In the myths of the East African Yorubas, the initiative comes from the sky god Olorum, who initially entrusted the creation to his eldest son Obadala. However, he slept through his order because of too much palm wine consumption. Therefore, the sky god passed on the creation commission to the youngest son Odudua. In an original way, a Brazilian myth tells of the Great Spirit Mavutsini, who felt lonely and therefore created a woman from a shell. With her he then gave birth to two sons, the sun and the moon.

2. In several myths, chaotic conditions prevailed at the beginning. In addition, it was pitch dark, as in the threatening depths of the primordial sea, which is called Nun by the Pelasgians and also plays a role in the Chinese creation myth. In the story of the Vikings, on the other hand, there was frost and cold at the beginning: from them rises the human land. In the tales of Australian aborigines, heaven and earth have always existed, but were initially empty.

3. The pictures of a "primordial egg" or "world egg" are fascinating. In the pre-ancient Pelasgians, it is the goddess Eurynome who first separates the primordial sea and the firmament from each other. Then she dances lustfully on the waves. Out of the wind, she creates the snake Ophion by rubbing her hands. From the union with the snake comes the primordial egg, which the snake hatches by wrapping itself around the egg seven times. From this then arises everything that is: the stars of heaven; the earth with its flora and fauna, the sun god Re, who illuminates the earth. The first man then sprouts from the soil of Acadia: a Pelasger, of course, and other men follow. The Chinese myth, on the other hand, is exciting because it presents two images, Yin and Yang, that even Stefan Hawking quotes. This is how the ancient myth from Chinese culture tells: In the world egg, which arose from the depths of the primordial ocean, the first living creature called P'an Ku slept for 18000 years. Then the egg shattered. The light yang became the sky, the dark yin was dark and remained below: it became the earth. P'an Ku grew up, became huge and finally passed away. But now the world grew out of his body and its parts: the breath became wind and clouds, the voice became thunder. The sun shone from the left eye, the moon from the right. The body formed itself into mountains. Tears became rivers, veins became roads and paths. Trees formed from flesh, grass and flowers from body hair. The hair on his head became stars. Parasites (bedbugs, fleas and lice) became the people of different peoples.

4. Most myths tell of the greening of the earth by trees and plants. The Viking god Odin seeks the advice of the other gods (Aesir) and separates day and night from each other. Such measures prepare the earth for mankind: so expressly the myth of the Sumerians.

5. Man has always been there with the Sumerians. The ancient myth of the Greeks is different. It is the Titan Prometheus, who is subject to Zeus, the father of the gods, who forms man from earthly clay. It is the goddess Pallas Athena who then breathes the ghost into him. In the story of the Eskimos, people grow out of the ground. This is reminiscent of the banquet of Greek philosopher Plato. At a symposium, it was to be clarified where Eros, i.e. the attraction between people, came from. Because the process of the emergence of a human being through the interaction of egg and sperm cells was not known at that time, some believed that humans used to grow out of the furrows in the fields. The story of the East African Yorubas is original: because his father had passed on the task of creating the world to the younger one, the older son Obatala had become angry. In the dispute, it was finally achieved that the older son, who had slept through the creation, should also make a lasting contribution: He could model the body of any human being out of clay before the sky god Olorun breathed breath and life force into him. The creation myth of the Australian aborigines is touching. The great heaven and the great earth, made by no one, were empty. The great Altjira¹³ rested on top of her like an emu. Altjira walked around in the sky in the void. Trees grew. Then Altjira created the people who carry him in their hearts. But Altjira lost sight of the people. People can only talk to him in dreams.

6. Several myths reflect on human mortality. The Brazilian creation myth tells that people grieved because of their dead. As a result, the great spirit Mavutsin prepared a remedy in the forest that brings the dead back to life and makes them immortal. Now disobedient Indians wanted to see how the Great Spirit does this, and overheard him illegally. This enraged the Great Spirit. Since then, humans have been mortal forever. The Inuit deal with the wound of mortality in a different way. In her narrative, the people live immortally, but in darkness. It is the woman who longs for light and death. Her wish is fulfilled: Since then, the sun, moon and stars have been shining. And people are dying. In death they ascend to heaven and shine.

7. There is a remarkable detail in the creation myth of ancient Greece: Prometheus, who formed man from earth clay, shaped him like a god.

The creation myths of the Bible

Presumably, the writer of Genesis knew¹⁴ creation myths of other cultures. This would explain the high similarity, especially in the three building blocks: the creation of the world, the creation of man in the Garden of Paradise of Eden, and his expulsion from paradise because he did not comply with God's requirements.

However, the Bible does not only want to explain the origin of the world, where humans come from and why the lives of women and men seem precarious. Rather, the Bible sets clear theological accents in its creation narratives. The search is for an answer to the pressing question: If God created the world in a fundamentally good way, where does evil come into the world? Why is human life on this well-made earth so arduous? But above all: Why is man mortal?

He saw that it was basically good

The first account of creation has as its refrain: God, who created the world, "saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:12, 18, 24), even "very good" (Genesis 1:31). In the description of the successful divine creative work, important areas are singled out. The repertoire available in many cultures is used. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. But "the earth was desolate and confused" (Genesis 1:2). There was a "tohuwabohu", a word that is still used in everyday language for chaos. "Darkness lay over the primeval flood". The creative Spirit of God "hovered over the water": Later, the paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin would take up this point: It is the Spirit of divine love, which is inherent in all development from the very beginning. It is the driving force of evolution. Then one after the other, all the things that are due to the creative power of God are enumerated. The "day" serves as a means of enumeration - but instead of the first day, it could also be written: God created all this: first, second... First, the light and thus (like the Aesir in the Viking story) day and night. Then "secondly" the waters are separated: the old world view serves as a foil: above the vault of heaven, below "thirdly" in the middle of the seas the fertile and habitable land as a disk. And the land turns green: "The earth brought forth young greens, plants that form seeds after their kind, and trees that bear fruit with seeds in them after their kind." Then there are the animals - above what can fly (the birds), below what swims (the fish of the sea), and then what "crawls and flies" on earth. And finally, "sixthly", the "adam", "man", is created, in God's image, in his likeness; male and female, who were to multiply and were appointed God's governors in the care of the successful creation (Genesis 1:27-29).

On the seventh day, a visibly satisfied God is the first admirer of his work of creation. God evaluates his work and finds it to be very successful with the human admirers. In his grandiose oratorio "The Creation", Josef Haydn lets people join in the great satisfaction of God with praise.

Completed is the great work,The Lord's praise be to our song!

Let everything praise his name,For he alone is highly exalted! Alleluia! Alleluia!¹⁵

After the evaluation, God deservedly rests on his grandiose work: reason enough for the believing people of Israel, the Christian churches, but also the trade unions to stand up for Sabbath or Sunday rest.

A garden for the earthlings

Genesis, written by priests, receives a second creation myth: First, what is widely told in the first myth is briefly summarized. The summary leads to the creation of man from the dust of the earth. And just as Pallas Athena breathes the spirit into the human being created by Prometheus from earthly clay, God also does the same with his "earthling"¹⁶ (Genesis 2:4-7).

God then prepares a paradisiacal habitat for "the man" Adam. In this there was no death, no mourning, but simply carefree joie de vivre. However, this was clouded because the "earthling" felt lonely. To alleviate loneliness by living with animals, as many people living alone today try to do in the lockers of high-rise buildings, failed: Animals were not "helpful" in remedying Adam's loneliness. Thus God, equal to Adam (hence from his rib), created woman. Eve "corresponded" to him. She came to his aid. At the same time, Eve became the mother of life.

Did God himself know loneliness, like the Great Spirit Mavutsini, who created a woman out of a shell? Or did God know from his own inner experience (to put it in this anthropomorphic way) that life always means relationship, the back and forth of love, and therefore Allah appears much more lonely than the triune God of Christians, who is in himself "relatedness", a kind of "divine dance".¹⁷ Christian theology speaks of the Trinity, of the one God in three persons. Even more: Could it even be that God created creation less out of loneliness than out of the longing for creation and creatures in its image? Dorothee Sölle, the great Protestant poet theologian, referred to this. God, she wisely noted, deviating from the brittleness of school theology, did not create the world out of nothing ("ex nihilo sui et subjecti"), but out of love ("ex amore"). She was able to rely on the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom 11:24-26).

So it would not be absurd for a believer to answer the question: Why is there a world, why do we humans exist: Because God loves this universe, which one tries to understand with scientific intellect as "finite space-time without borders", he created it as it is. It is his spirit of love that drives the story of creation. Even more: Even if she re-collapses in a Big Crash in the end, she falls into the one who created her. Because, according to the Scottish geologist Hugh Miller in 1854, even before Darwin, it is not man who is the goal of evolution, but the union of God with his creation, for which God has a passion, which he receives from within in a "creatio continua" and drives forward to perfection. For the devout Hugh Miller, the "Big Crash" is the one-ing, the unification of God with a creation that the immoderate God longs for.¹⁸ Is it not for this reason that the moderate man has an immeasurable longing in himself? Is not man himself "finite and without limits" at the same time, because, according to the great Doctor of the Church Augustine¹⁹ , God does not come to rest until he rests at the heart of creation/man, just as man does not come to rest as long as he does not rest at the heart of God? Meister Eckart sensed that God "needs" creation.

The second account of creation, like the first, culminates in the creation of man. And it is still true that what God has done is very good, also because of the paradisiacal living conditions in the Garden of Eden.

Then evil came into the world

But there is still the pressing question of why the living conditions today are no longer paradisiacal, why there is so much evil in the form of deadly violence between people and nations, and how God copes with an increasingly godless and evil humanity.

In addition, in another part of the mythical creation narratives, a talking snake comes onto the world stage. It looks like a seraph, with legs and wings. It sows doubts about God's prohibition to eat from two of the trees of paradise: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.

The story is well-known and has been misogynistic for a long time: The snake seduces Eve, Eve seduces Adam. The entire trio infernal is cursed. From now on, the serpent has to crawl in the very dust from which Adam was made. Adam and Eve's lives become precarious: work in the sweat of their faces, giving birth in pain and, last but not least, the realization that they are naked and mortal. An armed security in the form of Kerubimen with a flaming sword blocks their way back to the tree of life. After all, man now knows why the fundamentally good world is the way it is: full of toil, childbearing pain, mortality - and last but not least, which is then explained in the following chapters of Genesis, why there is more and more malignant violence in the world.

The entrusted earth

For the present eco-biblical journey of discovery, those aspects from the creation myth are to be brought out that can also be found in the myths of other cultures: God entrusts creation to human beings. It is that creation that is originally chaotically empty. Then land forms (1). The earth produces plants and trees (2). These can grow thanks to light and water (3). They form the flora that is not only admirable in its beauty, but also serves as food for humans and animals with its fruits (4).

This names and delimits the four parts of this book. The first part that follows is about the basis of life, namely the earth entrusted to humans. It is important to show that this command of God to mankind to treat the created world in trust has a dramatic history that is closely related to today's ecological crisis.

For the beginning, this was an unproblematic mission: the "first human couple" was to multiply and have many children: they received the mission that also recurs frequently as a promise. For example, God promises Abraham, who in his unsurpassable obedience was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to God: "Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, from me, I will give you a blessing in abundance, and I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore." (Genesis 23:16f.; 1 Kings 4:20; 32:13; Isaiah 10:22; Hosea 2:1; Romans 11:12). Unchecked population growth was the program in Israel perceived as a divine promise. Anything that prevented offspring was therefore considered disobedience to God's birth planning and was therefore reprehensible: masturbation, but also homosexuality. The people needed warriors, farmers and, in view of the high infant mortality rate, a high birth rate.

But what does it mean when this birth-promoting program has become problematic because of the overpopulation of the world? Is there no longer a need for culturally protected privileges of men and women and of generative sexuality? Is it then morally permissible to separate the secret language of sexuality, i.e. symbolic sexuality, from generative sexuality - which was also made possible in practice by the pill: But this was firmly rejected by Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae in 1968? Can discrimination against same-sex love relationships and various forms of sexuality be considered culturally obsolete, even if these were still considered immoral in the books of the Bible? Doesn't it make sense today to welcome and approve of same-sex unions, because it is not good for a person to be alone, no matter what his sexual orientation (usually given by God or "nature") looks like?

We observe a similar change in the relationship of humans to nature. Without them, he could not survive from the beginning. It offered food to man. At the same time, nature was experienced as threatening by people in early times. People had to tame the hostile nature and "submit" in this sense.

This survival strategy in the face of the threatening nature gradually became questionable. Humans gained the upper hand more and more. During this time, philosophers helped with man's new relationship to nature: they freed man from the close interweaving with nature, as was still a matter of course in ancient Indian cultures. The world around us became an exploitable environment. The word environment can be found for the first time around the year 1800. In Danish, it stands for the French word "milieu".²⁰ His linguistic image already expresses a new relationship of man to the world. There is no longer a mindful relationship. Rather, the human being stands in the middle, and all the other world is around him: just "surrounding world". The biblical mandate to "submit" the earth to oneself in a hegeric and fiduciary manner thus took on a dark undertone. However, this led to humans beginning to overwhelm and destroy nature as their own livelihood.

The increasingly destructive subjugation of the environment was facilitated by a great historical achievement of Christianity. For a long time, the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys did not dare to climb the mountains, because they suspected the seat of gods and spirits there. Christianity has gradually overcome such magical-pagan ideas. The world has been disenchanted. At the same time, however, this facilitated man's exploitative-capitalist access to the environment. God's trust mandate for "constructive" nurturing and cultivating could, religiously unhindered, tip over into "destructive" exploitation.

Prophetic thinkers have drawn attention to this fatal development with publications. Carl Amery (1922-2005), writer and environmental activist, founding member of the German Green Party, published in 1972 the pamphlet "The End of Providence. The Merciless Consequences of Christianity".²¹ Eleven years later, the psychotherapist, theologian and writer Eugen Drewermann (born 1940) formulated his ecological critique of Christianity in the essay "The Deadly Progress: On the Destruction of the Earth and Man in the Heritage of Christianity".²² Both authors criticize the interpretation of the so-called "creation mandate" of Genesis.

In the meantime, Christianity has learned to reread the Bible in this regard. The magisterial protagonist for this was Pope Francis; his successor Leo XIV: follows him on this trail. In his eco-encyclical "Laudato si" (2015), named after the beginning of the Canticle of the Sun by its namesake Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis criticized precisely this interpretation of the Genesis passage, which has become fatal for nature (Laudato si, 67). He also used the core sentence that we have only borrowed the earth from our children. This results in the duty to nurture and care for them in such a way that future generations will also find drinkable water, breathable air and uncontaminated fields. It must not be overlooked that ecological insight rubs shoulders with economic necessities. Pope Francis saw coordinating economy and ecology as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today.

PART 1: LAND USE SYSTEMS

The questions of the first main part of this ecobiblical journey of discovery under the title "Miracle World" are: What does it mean in concrete terms to cultivate the entrusted earth in an ecologically responsible way? How are people supposed to use the earth as a basis of life sparingly? What forms of land are available to him? Such questions are pursued in the relevant sciences within the framework of the term "land use systems". An old saying can also be used for this: How can people be responsible users, good managers of the land, of the earth, i.e. "farmers" ²³ or even better "earth keepers"?

In the search for viable answers, we seek advice from the relevant sciences as well as from experiences handed down in the Book of Books, the Bible.

Cultural landscapes

Over thousands of years, people have learned to use the land they find in order to survive. The natural landscapes that could be found gradually became cultural landscapes. Today, there are only a few untouched natural landscapes: parts of the Amazon rainforest are considered primeval forests. However, science is trying to reconstruct the state of natural landscapes out of ecological curiosity. Nature reserves should be left to their own development without as little human intervention as possible. This also serves the ecological protection of rare, endangered or characteristic animal or plant species, plant communities or communities of animals or plants. Natural monuments are also to be preserved in this way.

Humans used the land they found in different ways. This is why we speak of different land use systems. This is a list of the most important systems of use: agriculture, pasture, forestry and forestry. In addition, there is the construction of gardens.

The following considerations also include that part of the earth that does not seem to be usable, but is nevertheless used in its own way. A considerable part of the earth's surface consists of deserts; these are only habitable and usable to a limited extent, if at all.

All these forms of use, including the desert, play an important role in the Bible: in the practical sense of everyday life as well as in the spiritual sense. In the first main part, follow a meditative journey of discovery into the different land use systems. At the beginning, the desert is to be considered.

Desert

Legend.Once upon a time, when the hand of the Lord opened up at the edge of the deserts like a fruit that proclaims its core in summer,there was a miracle: three kings and a star recognized and greeted each other at a distance.Rainer Maria Rilke²⁴

Rainer Maria Rilke begins the legend "Three Kings" with "Once at the edge of the deserts". For him, this is a place where a miraculous event began. Three kings and a star came together. The star preceded the three kings as far as the quiet stable and a manger child with an ox, which, "warm like the west wind, snorts around their ears". Just as Rilke feels his way from the edge of a desert to the incomprehensible entry of a divine Son into world history, so too will we first find ourselves in the profane knowledge of deserts in order to then feel our way into spiritual fields.

Deserts are fringed landscapes of their own kind. They are considered places of death. But deserts are also places that blossom into life unexpectedly, even if only for a short time. In their dull silence, attentive people have heard the soft music of God. According to biblical ideas, however, the desert demon Azasel also lives in the desert. He is traditionally considered a fallen angel and is associated with the devil. Since the days of Moses' brother Aaron in Israel, a goat laden with the sins of the people has been "sent into the wilderness" by the high priest on Yom Kippur. The scapegoat, in other words. A proven strategy if you are looking for a clear conscience without having to change.

In deserts, spiritual events pregnant with meaning take place. In the history of the people of Israel as well as in the life of the one whom their Baptist John outed as the coming Messiah and to whom the star led immediately after his birth to the three who, according to Rilke, met at the edge of the desert.

A diverse natural landscape

In the ecological sciences, such as geobotany or biogeography, deserts are considered natural landscapes. They already existed before humans began to colonize and cultivate the earth. The relevant sciences speak of a desert when an area is devoid of vegetation or at least lacks vegetation. If no more than 10% of the area is permanently covered by plants, it is called a full desert. If the proportion of plants is between 10 and 50%, science uses the term semi-desert.

Deserts come in different variations. There are sand, gravel, stone or rock, salt and ice deserts. These different types of deserts have different climates, from arctic to subtropical. Whether water is available plays a considerable role.

Desert fauna and flora

What grows permanently in semi-deserts is well adapted to the barren conditions. Shrubs, grasses and deep-rooted trees such as acacia trees suitable for desert weather withstand drought well and have increased salt tolerance. They consume little water. Like dromedaries, they are good at storing water. In subtropical "cold coastal deserts", desert plants use the fog that forms in reservoirs over the desert without raining out. Some plants survive the dry periods underground and are briefly awakened to a colourful life by rain. Then even full deserts can temporarily blossom magnificently. Desierto florida is the name of the driest Brazilian Atacama Desert, which causes El Nino to bloom every six to ten years.

The desert fauna is similarly adapted to the desert flora. Insects have developed long legs to keep more distance from the hot desert floor. In Port Sudan on the Red Sea, a record temperature of 83.5 °C was even measured in the sand.²⁵ Some suspect that the camels, the Bactrian camel and the dromedary also have such long legs that they are more protected from the radiant heat. Native to some deserts are the goiter gazelle, the steppe polecat, the snow leopard and the wolf. Reptiles and scorpions are more numerous.

Devastation and desertion

Humans have learned to cross existing deserts with domesticated dromedaries. Water-rich oases were discovered in them. However, deserts were not only found, but created by humans. The unecological treatment of arable and pasture land, the exploitative clearing of forests, and even more so the sealing of soils by residential buildings and shops with spacious parking areas increases the proportion of "desert land" on earth to this day.

Wars also "devastate": not only cities, but also fertile land. Felling the orchards or olive groves of the enemy was forbidden in Israel (Deuteronomy 19:19f.). After all, food sources of the civilian population were destroyed for years to come. But even then, such basic rules of "humane" warfare were disregarded. In the Vietnam War, on the other hand, forests were defoliated by the poison Agent Orange to take away the camouflage of the enemy Viet Cong.

There are reports in the First Testament that God Himself is one of the land desolators. Such action of God against his own creation is interpreted as a punishment for the faithlessness of his chosen people. To this end, God takes Israel's enemies into service to carry out his work of desolation. God had this announced to the people who had emigrated from Egypt through their leader Moses in the event that they turned to other gods (Leviticus 26:31-35)

Ecological groups try to curb civilizational forms of "desertion", i.e. "desertification". Ecopioneers are not only trying to stop the growth of desert areas through desertion. There are also bold projects that are intended to contribute to the reduction of barren desert land. A prime example is a project in Mauritania, Africa, called SAREP (Sahara Renaissance Project). ²⁶ With the help of modern technologies such as solar and wind energy, seawater is to be desalinated and used to irrigate the soil. In this way, two million hectares of fertile land are to be wrested from the desert. In the middle of the desert, ecological islands are created. Not only agriculture will be carried out on these. Trees are also to be planted, forest biotopes are to be created. Sustainable biodiversity is to develop. This project not only serves to feed the country, but is also considered an investment in climate protection, because the forests will absorb considerable amounts of CO2.

The Bible associates the desert with strong images of hope. A kind of de-desertification will take place through God, namely through the very God who has devastated regions and cities as punishment for the treason of the Federal Government. A psalm intones the theme of this divine desolation action: "He makes the desert a pond of water." (Psalm 107:35) The book of comfort of the prophet Isaiah reports on this exuberantly. Here are a few proofs of this:

The desert is transformed. Counter-images to the desert are the garden and the forest (Isaiah 32:5). Paradisiacal conditions will set in: "He made their wilderness like Eden, and their desolation like the garden of the Lord." (Isaiah 51:3) Water will have burst forth in the wilderness, and rivers in the wilderness (Isaiah 35:6). But where there is water, there can be planting: "I make the desert a water pond and the parched land into bubbling waters. In the desert I plant cedars, acacias, olive trees and myrtles." (Isaiah 41:18f.) Justice returns: "In the wilderness justice will dwell, and in the garden righteousness will dwell." (Isaiah 32:16) When all this happens, there will be great joy: "The desert and the dry land will rejoice, the desert will rejoice and blossom like the lily." (Isaiah 35:1) "Let the desert and its cities rejoice, the villages that Kedar inhabits." (Isaiah 42:11)

However, all this will not only happen at the end of time, but will often begin unnoticed and yet conspicuously in the now, according to Isaiah in a dense text that is often quoted in view of the restructuring of the social form of the church:

Think no more of what used to be; Pay no more attention to what is past! Behold, now I am doing something new. It's already sprouting, don't you notice? Yes, I'm laying out a path through the desert and rivers through the wasteland. The wild beasts will praise me, the jackals and ostriches, for I will cause water to flow in the wilderness and rivers in the wasteland to water my people, my chosen one. The people I have formed for myself will proclaim my glory. (Isaiah 43:18-21)

Hagar: the curse of contempt

The desert was not considered an everyday place to live in Israel. This made it possible for people whose lives were harassed or endangered in their everyday environment to flee into the desert.

It is the slave Hagar from the household of the father of faith Abraham, who seeks refuge in the desert (Genesis 16:1-16). The story, which I feel is irritating, goes like this. Abram and his wife, Sarai, had remained childless into old age. Only when they were old, Sarah no longer "fared as women usually do", and Abram was already an old man and obviously nothing worked with him either, they finally received their long-awaited son Isaac thanks to the hospitable hospitality of the passing god. Now the promised Messiah could also emerge from their house.

But before this late and completely unexpected birth occurred, Abram had found a solution in consultation with his childless wife Sarai. The Egyptian house slave Hagar was supposed to play a kind of "surrogate mother". So the polygamous father of faith teamed up with Hagar, his wife's servant. She became pregnant.

As soon as the slave was pregnant with the eighty-six-year-old master of the house, she felt socially upgraded and began to look down on her childless mistress. Which thoroughly pampered them. She complained to her husband, Abram. But he pulled out of the affair and said to his wife: It is your slave. It's in your hand. Sarai then abused Hagar until she ran away. The desert was their refuge.

God did not leave the fate of the abused slave cold, as the Bible tells us in human images of God. He sent an angel. He found Hagar at a water spring in the desert. "Where do you come from and where are you going?" asked the angel, although he knew that for a long time. "On the way to Schur," according to the GPS data provided by Hagar. Thereupon the messenger of God asked her to go home again and not to play emancipation. Literally, he told her: "bow under her hand!" "Emancipations" want to escape exactly from this hand - Latin "e manu". Returning home, Hagar gave birth to her son, much to Sarai's displeasure, but to the delight of Abrams, who named him Ishmael. As Abram had been promised at the beginning of his migration from your in Chaldea, he also had an innumerable number of descendants later. But this does not mean those that the late-born Isaac was to receive as the actual heir.

In the meantime, God had appeared to Abram. He reminded him of the promise he had made to him when he had obediently moved away from your. So he changed his name to Abraham, which means father of the crowd. Abraham thinks that God will fulfill his promise with Ishmael. But then God promises him that he will also expect a son with his wife. Therefore, Sarai should also be given a new name: "Sara, mistress, shall be her name. I will bless her and give you a son from her. I bless her: nations proceed from her; Kings of nations will come from it." (Genesis 17:15f.). Abraham thought it was a joke in view of his and his wife's old age and laughed out loud: "צחק (ṣḥq)" is the Hebrew word for this, and Bible scholars believe that the story is only intended to explain why the son was given this name. When Sara's son was born, she noted joyfully: "God made me laugh; Anyone who hears about it will laugh at me." (Genesis 21:15)

Now there were two heirs in the house of Abraham, Ishmael, the son of the slave girl Hagar, and Isaac, the son of his wife Sarah. That's when it came to a scandal.

One day, Sarah watched as the son born to the Egyptian Hagar Abraham played and laughed. Then she said to Abraham, "Drive out this maidservant and her son." For the son of this maidservant shall not be heir with my son Isaac. (Genesis 21:9f.)

Abraham disliked this jealousy attack of his wife Sarah. But he couldn't do anything. It sounds shameful to the great father of faith how he pulled himself out of the affair. Early in the morning he prepared travel provisions for Hagar and little Ishmael, bread and a skin of water. He put the waterskin around Hagar's shoulder. Then he handed her Ishmael, whose exuberant joie de vivre had driven Sara into wild jealousy.

And again the displaced people find their way into the desert. According to the migration protocol, it is the inhospitable desert of Beersheba with a dry climate and barren landscape. The water supply was quickly used up. The fate of mother and child seemed sealed. Both would die of thirst. So Hagar laid her child under a desert bush. Then she sat down at a distance and cried uncontrollably.

The faith festivals in Israel were convinced that God is one who listens to the cry of the poor. There were as many of them in biblical times as there are today: the slain Abel, the neglected widows and orphans, the oppressed people of the Israelites in Egypt, the exploited workers who were cheated out of their daily wages, without which their families could not survive.

Now God hears the boy who is threatened with dying of thirst screaming and probably also the heartbreaking weeping of the mother. Again, the Blessed One hides in one of his angels. Don't be afraid! So he calls to the desperate woman. But he does not leave it at pious words. Rather, oh miracle, Hagar sees a well. She fills the empty hose and quenches the boy's thirst with it. Rescued in the desert, the fatherless Ishmael remained faithful to the place of his rescue for a long time as a mother's son. "He grew up, settled in the desert and became an archer. He settled in the desert of Paran and his mother took a wife from Egypt." (Genesis 20:20f.) The promise that Ishmael, like his father Abraham, would become the progenitor of a great nation could ripen unhindered towards its fulfilment. And all this because the desert had proven to be not only a threatening but also a saving refuge.

In Islam, the Hagar story is told with a slightly different accent. Ibrahim, as Abraham is called in the Koran, brings Hagar and Ishmael to Mecca. There he discovers that the first house of worship built by the very first of the prophets Adam, namely the Kaaba, had fallen into oblivion. At God's behest, Ibrahim had to leave Hagar and their son there. When Hagar searches for water in the desert, she finds the Zamzam well in extreme distress. During the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, this search for water is symbolically reproduced by Muslims.

The desert marches of the People of God

The history of Israel cannot be understood without two desert migrations or two fundamentally different sections of the one great migration.

In the first leg of the great migration, the people, freed from slavery in Egypt, not only cross the Red Sea, but also move through the desert to the "promised land that flows with milk and honey". With gruesome plagues, Moses, with God behind him, had blackmailed Pharaoh into letting the indispensable Hebrew guest workers go. The pretext: they wanted to sacrifice to their god in the desert. Reluctantly, the Pharaoh joined in, only to chase them shortly afterwards with his army. He was economically dependent on their forced labour. An astonishing migration policy that the pharaoh pursues. The people who had fled to Egypt because of the famine in their homeland were not to be remigrated as "economic refugees" - as right-wing politicians are demanding today - but were to be prevented from leaving the country as indispensable slave laborers.

The military attempt to force the guest workers back into the country resulted in an adventurous destruction of the entire armed forces. She drowned in the Red Sea: a disaster that is still sung about today in the Easter Vigil liturgy of Christians. What happened to the Egyptians is interpreted as a model for what happens in baptism. The old man (the Egyptian) dies. The new man (the saved people of God) comes to new life. The song that Moses' sister named Mirijam danced as a song of joy, beating the timpani, is also heard in the Easter liturgy.

Saved, the people set off. This led through impassable desert. There was a lack of water and food. They did not want to feed themselves with the cattle, sheep and goats they had brought with them: they needed them as a livelihood in the land that God had promised them. When there was no more water, the desert wanderers grumbled. God solved the problem by letting water gush out of a rock. When food became scarce, there was bland-tasting manna every morning. Again the people murmured: Then came swarms of quail at God's behest. Massa and Meriba, the places of murmuring, remained in shameful memory.

On the way, Moses received those instructions for a good life carved in stone at Sinai (Horeb), the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. While Moses received them on the mountain, people made a golden calf for themselves, around which they danced. Today, this has become a warning symbol against capitalist greed. The Israelites paid dearly for this betrayal of God. Because poisonous snakes invaded the camp. Those who were bitten died. Moses "converted" God from his punitive maneuver with a surprising argument: What will the Gentiles say if you free the people, lead them into the wilderness and let them perish there! As a remedy against the poisonous snakes, Moses was to erect the Nehushtan: a stake on which a bronze serpent was attached at the top. Those who looked up to her reverently were healed of the snake bite and survived. In the New Testament, this Nehushtan is compared to the cross of Christ: whoever looks up to the crucified One is saved from the impending death to which the mortal wound of sin leads.

After about a year of wandering in the desert, the people had come to the border of the land to which God wanted to lead them. It was precisely at this border, at Kade's Barnea, that the scandal of despondent disbelief occurred. The people lost their confidence. It ceased to rely unconditionally on its God. It went blow after blow. Scouts from all twelve tribes were ordered and sent out. They came back with good news and bad news. The good news first: The returnees carried a huge grape on a pole. The bad news: the country is fortified, populated with giants, impregnable. Fear spread and displaced trust in God: pagan fear, in other words. The people wanted to return to the land of slavery from which God had just freed them. The wrath of the Lord was kindled upon Israel, and He caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the whole generation that had done what was evil in the eyes of the Lord was extinct. (Numbers 32:13)

So God sent the people on the second, much longer stage of the desert migration. It was a kind of punitive and purge action. This was to last until all mutineers had died. Moses, too, was to see the Promised Land only from a distance, from Mount Nebo, but not to set foot on it. The 808m high Mount Nebo is located in the Abǎrim mountains in Jordan and offers a wide view over the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea to Israel.

That's exactly what happened. Thus the entire wandering in the desert lasted forty years. In turn, many of the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula were traversed. The deserts of Etam, Sin and Sinai; the Paran and Zin. They are mostly gravel, stone and rocky deserts, inhospitable, arid, sparse in vegetation. Snakes lived in them. The nights were cold. In the morning dew, new manna formed daily and nourished the people. It was an experience that Christians transferred to Jesus as the "true manna"; it is hidden in the Eucharistic bread. At times, swarms of quail flew²⁷, which saved the people from starvation. Water was cut out of a rock by Moses to save the people from dying of thirst. In all such experiences, it should be shown that God leads His people and does not abandon them in times of need. So can God be guessed at in need? Does necessity teach us to pray? The accounts of the wandering in the wilderness do not give a certain answer (Exodus 17:7).

Temptations of Jesus

One of the dramatic desert stories from the Second Testament takes place at the time when Jesus faced up to his mission, which he was sure was expected of him by his Father God. He was to gather the scattered twelve tribes of Israel, announce the coming of the kingdom of God, and implement it from the pending future into the present of his time. What did not yet have a place (the outstanding sky) should be located now. What has "no place" in the world ("ou-topia" is what the Greeks call it) demanded a place in history and society. The placelessness was to be located. The life and coexistence of people should literally become more "heavenly".

This is the core imposition on every Christian, on the religious orders, on the whole church, to participate precisely in this. The outstanding sky is supposed to come to earth now - at least in traces. Today it is already about a life like after the resurrection: a life in love, in which death is behind us and only love is left in front of us, as Dorothee Sölle sang in her theopoetry. It is exactly what Jesus taught his followers to pray: "Thy kingdom come!"

Jesus knew how dangerous his undertaking was. He therefore expected suffering and death. Only in this way will he be "successful". The evangelists testify that this is why he voluntarily accepted death in the end. He gave himself voluntarily, for which the word "παραδίδωμι" (paradidomi) stands in Greek.

To ensure that his world-changing mission does not end abruptly with his death, he had founded a movement. Involved in the history of God with Israel and its twelve tribes, he appointed his twelve apostles as placeholders for these twelve tribes of Israel. The fact that there should be just twelve was so important in Jesus' movement that they immediately elected one after the apostle Judas had hanged himself in despair because of the paltry corruption money of 30 pieces of silver. Unfortunately, the young movement had not elected Mary Magdalene, although she was the first to be honored as an apostolic as the first to whom the Risen One had shown himself. Later accounts therefore show her teaching the apostles.

Jesus' three-year program began with John baptizing him in the Jordan River. When he was immersed in the waters of the Jordan, a voice could be heard as a heavenly confirmation, as it were, that the one who comes out of the water is God's beloved Son, in whom he takes great joy. What a good baptismal theology: publish the celebration of a baptism that not only the baptized person, but all people are God's beloved sons and daughters.

Ruach (רוּחַ) means Hebrew moving air, wind.²⁸ The word also stands for spirit, biblically for God's spirit. This blows, Jesus later said, where He wants (John 3:8). Now the spirit wind has blown Jesus into the desert. There he adapted his lifestyle to the barrenness of the desert. Probably to become empty, receptive, sensitive to the essentials. In this way, he wanted to prepare well for his upcoming assignment. It is as if he had done "ordination retreats", as I myself was able to do in 1964 before my ordination in Heiligenkreuz Abbey.

The fact that there is a devil was undisputed in the Jewish worldview. He is considered the seducer who wanted to dissuade people from their attachment to God. So now also Jesus. The devil pulled out all the stops of his art of seduction. After all, there was a lot at stake. If this pious man succeeds, then, it was clear to him, his time would end. Then all power on earth and in the underworld will be snatched from him.

In the case of Jesus, the cunning devil proceeded purposefully. For his drama of seduction, he chose three important locations in Israel's history: the desert, the temple and a high mountain. In all places he skilfully appealed to deep basic human needs: "From what and from what do I live, who or what has power over me and can I rely on God in the last respect and in the greatest distress and not fall deeper than into his hand? These are the baits that the devil uses to draw Jesus to his side, to lure him into the trap and thereby to dissuade him from his mission," is how Anna Hennersperger described the important life questions of every person behind the temptations in a sermon proposal.²⁹ In effect, the tempter, in his subtlety, suggested that Jesus should serve him, the devil, in his coming appearances, and not his God who had sent him. That would not bring him suffering and death, but applause and prestige among the people, who are hungry for bread and games.

The grandiose poet Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) from Crete had summed up the diabolical theatre. He wrote his novel "The Last Temptation" (1955) a few years before his death. In it, he tells us that at the end of his public ministry, Jesus was gripped by the diabolical doubt as to whether he really had to redeem the world on the cross. It would be easier and more comfortable, but just as expedient, if he would get married, have children with his wife Maria Magdalena and, as a famous and respected rabbi in a bourgeois life, contribute to improving the world. In the novel, it is Judas, of all people, who prevents this by betraying Jesus. Thanks to betrayal, redemption could be accomplished. Nikos Kazantzakis had theologically cleanly summed up that the redemption of the world does not take place in a "bourgeois" way, but through the scandal of the cross, from which Jesus did not dissuade even "the last temptation" thanks to the traitor Judas.

According to the stories of the evangelists, the devil did not succeed in dissuading Jesus from his mission by God. He resists in all three places. He is not willing to change sides. And each time he quotes God's words to show the devil, but also us, how absurd the "bourgeois" paths of salvation he proposes are. He does not want to be a Messiah who wins people over with bread and circuses for himself instead of for God. "Scripture says: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4) He also doesn't want to act like a stuntman and throw himself off the battlements of the temple in the presumptuous hope that God will catch him through his angels at this show. In order to get Jesus on his side, the devil also tries a scriptural text. "For it is written, 'He commends his angels for your sake,' and they will carry you in their hands, so that your foot will not strike a stone.'" Jesus, however, counters in a biblical way: "Scripture also says, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Matthew 4:6f.)

Finally, the devil goes all out and declares what he is ultimately about: On the very high mountain, he showed him "all the kingdoms of the world with their splendor and said to him, 'I will give you all these things if you prostrate yourself before me and worship me.'" Now the cat was out of the bag: Either God or me! Jesus has had enough and commands the insolent tempter, who knew very well who he was dealing with: "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'The Lord your God you shall worship and serve him alone.'" (Matthew 4:10) The devil, as medieval authors would now tell, pulled in his tail, left a goat print, left a peat with the smell of sulphur and disappeared. Angels that the devil had announced to catch a glory-seeking Messianic stuntman in the fall in the event of the devil's hopes for now came and ministered to Jesus, however that may have happened (Matthew 4:11).

Mature in temptations

There is no life without temptations. Heracles, also known as Hercules, had to experience this at the beginning of his great twelve heroic deeds. Among them was the cleaning of the Augean stable, which was not inferior to the cleaning needs of some of today's political landscapes. According to the writer Xenophon³⁰, who had challenged students of the humanistic grammar schools in Greek lessons, which had unfortunately become rare, Heracles was faced with a decision that is no stranger to any of us: he had to "choose between an effortless but short-term and morally reprehensible (eudaimonia, today rather wellness) and an arduous but virtuous and long-term happy path (areté)³¹ . The temptation inherent in life was strong. Heracles decided to take the challenging path and thus became an exemplary hero.

Temptations come, psychologists would explain today, not from a devil, but from inner drives and quite plausible primal desires for reputation, wealth and power. We seek its fulfilment in our ordinary lives. This is a good thing, if we only integrate these wishes and their fulfillment in a measured way into a larger life plan. If there is love; someone cares not only about their own wish fulfillment - loving themselves - but even more about the wishes for a good life of others, especially the people on the margins: all the better. But it is fatal when the fulfillment of wishes degenerates into convulsive self-assertion at the expense of others. We then easily lose sight of the fact that in the end it is not about enrichment, but about the kingdom of God and its coming. If we remain on God's side, then self-love does not become fear-driven narcissism, but matures into love of neighbor and therein into love of God. Then a person can become what he is: a lover, a lover.

This applies to personal development as well as to the political field. In the interwar years, the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Ernst Kretschmer (1888-1964) had formulated about psychopaths with a view to Adolf Hitler: "In good times we treat them, in bad times they dominate us." Is that not the case today in a depressing way? If only the rulers of the world would learn from the biblical logic of Jesus. It would then be less demonic in our staggering world.

Field

Do not hate strenuous work,
not even agriculture,
which was founded by the Most High!
(Jesus Sirach 7:15)

This section is dedicated to arable farming, agriculture. The importance of the field in the life of Israel is meditated; here and there, questions will also arise about our own lives. The concept of the field is semantically broader than that of the field. When the Christmas shepherds keep watch in the "open field" (Luke 2:8), they do not camp in a field. But in many places in the Bible, field means as much as field.

Proverbial

How deeply woven into the everyday culture of Israel the arable land and its cultivation is is shown by a number of proverbial statements. Wisdom is passed down in field and field sayings.

Hard work

In the Book of Proverbs, authorized with King Solomon, a solid household foundation is advised. However, this can only be achieved by those who are first and foremost farmers. Without a field that belongs to you to cultivate, the basis of existence is obviously missing: "Take up your work outside and cultivate your field, then start your household!" (Proverbs 24:27) Proper field work prevents the waste of valuable life time on trivial things: "He who cultivates his field is satisfied with bread, he who chases trivial things is without reason." (Proverbs 12:11; 28:19) The Jerusalem scholar Ben Sira knows that this is not without effort. Agriculture is considered strenuous for him, even if it owes itself to God: "Do not hate strenuous work, not even agriculture, which was founded by the Most High!" (Jesus Sirach 7:15) Even for the poor, a field usually secures their livelihood, even if they are often unjustly robbed: "The newly ploughed field of the poor gives plenty of food, but some things are taken away through injustice." (Proverbs 13:23) Consequently: "Do not move the old border, do not penetrate into the fields of orphans!" (Proverbs 23:10)?

Price of laziness

Although the soil has been cursed by God, disaster and hardship come from the "human condition", i.e. they are inherent in being human. Thus laments the sufferer Job, who must know it as a long-suffering man: "For disaster does not come out of the dust, trouble does not sprout out of the soil, but man was born to toil, like sparks of fire fly upwards." (Job 5:6)

He who does not face the hardships of life out of laziness will pay for it with poverty and need: "I passed by the field of a lazy man, the vineyard of an ignorant man: behold, it was all overgrown with thistles, its surface covered with weeds, its stone wall torn down. I saw it and thought about it, I looked at it and learned the lesson from it: sleep a little longer, snooze a little, fold my arms a little more to rest. Poverty comes over you quickly, misery like an armed man." (Proverbs 24:30-34)

On the suffering of the permanent reformers

There are people, even in the Christian churches, who are constantly calling for reforms. Some only have reforms with sophisticated change management in mind. They cannot imagine something like a "reform wasteland".

For such reform pushers, Isaiah has wise advice at hand from the experience of agriculture. Permanent reformers will not reap anything in the long term because of their reform overzealousness. In your zeal you deprive yourself of the hoped-for success. The prophet Isaiah asks: "Does the ploughman plough all day to sow, does he plough and harrowing his land all day long?" (Isaiah 28:24)

Of course, this wisdom does not speak against long-overdue reforms. Nor is there any denial of a massive backlog of reforms in the churches: the churches are not culturally affine enough and at the same time oblivious to God when it comes to the survival of the traditional social figure. Nor can it be overlooked that church leaders would like to pacify reformers with small reforms in the existing framework: a radical reform of the framework itself would be overdue. The prophet Isaiah, however, calls for a wise measure of reform. We need times of quiet testing of completed reforms.

Farmland as a livelihood

In two eccles, Israel is mentioned in one with the term arable land. Apparently, arable land is part of the identity of the people. It is the foundation of God's promise. He will lead the people from Egypt to an exceedingly fertile land and settle there. It is "the land for which I have lifted up my hand to swear to give it to your fathers." (Ezekiel 20:42) When the people had crossed the Jordan River and conquered the land militarily, they were divided among eleven tribes of Israel. The tribe of Levi was not given any land. But the Levites were given the right to the plant and animal firstfruits that had to be brought to the temple. One part was sacrificed, and the Levites lived on the other part: "You shall give every year a tithe of all the harvest that your field yields from what you have cultivated... Neither shall you forsake the Levites who have the right of residence in your cities, for they do not have a share of land and inheritance as you do." (Deuteronomy 14:22, 27)

This close connection between Israel and arable land becomes particularly clear in times of expulsion and homecoming. For example, the king of Babylon "led Judah away from his soil into exile" (Jeremiah 52:27). The same king, moved by God, caused them to return to their soil (Jeremiah 42:12; also Ezekiel 28:25)

The prophet Jeremiah had announced the unexpected return from exile in an original way. Anatot was a city northeast of Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah was born in it. Men from the city had tried to murder him in vain, for which God punished them (Jeremiah 11:21). With his compatriots he was in the Babylonian captivity. Now God told him to buy a field in his hometown of Anatot from exile. This was to announce to the people, against all their hopelessness, that the return from exile was imminent (Jeremiah 32:7-9).

And so it happened. The return was probably also facilitated by the fact that the head of the royal security Nebuzaradan did not take many arms with him when the majority of the population was kidnapped into exile. They were to continue to cultivate the fields and vineyards: "Nebuzaradan, the commander of the bodyguard, only left some of the poor people in the country behind as wine and arable farmers." (Jeremiah 52:15f.; similar to Ezekiel 34:25-27)

The apostle Paul leans on this equation of Israel and arable land. He had written a letter to the divided Christian community in the port city of Corinth to end the dispute. In doing so, he uses the language of agriculture, although this was not his own profession: Paul made tents. In his admonition to Corinth, he relativizes everything that has grown in the congregation to God; It was God who made everything grow in the church. All the others were only God's co-workers, his farm workers - "useless servants", according to Jesus (Luke 17:19). Paul only planted, Apollos only watered. "So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes it grow. He who plants and who waters, both are one, but each receives his own reward according to his toil." And then there is the strong image, which is reminiscent of Israel as farmland: "you are God's field, God's building". (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)

Scenes from rural life

Clues to how agriculture was practiced by the population in Israel can be found scattered over many books.

Harvest protection

The average Israelites themselves worked in their fields, from the produce of which they and their families lived. Because the harvest was essential for survival, it was protected by strict laws. Theft and damage were punished. If damage was done, it had to be repaired: "If anyone grazes a field or a vineyard and lets his cattle run free so that they graze another's field, then he should give the best yield of his field or vineyard as a substitute. If the fire spreads, it engulfs a thorn hedge and destroys a pile of grain, grain standing on the stalk or a field, then the person responsible for the fire should compensate for the damage." (Exodus 22:4f.)

Fallow

Apparently, people were already ecologically far-sighted in biblical times. Sowing and harvesting were allowed for six years, but in the seventh year the fields had to lie fallow. If something grew, then the poor could help themselves. The rest was to be eaten by the "animals of the field".

Ecology, economy and social issues thus proved to be closely linked long before Pope Francis and his groundbreaking encyclical Laudato si (2015). A strong social accent was also set by relevant ordinances on the so-called Jubeljahr. At the beginning of it, the resounding ram's horn (cheer) was blown. In this year, which recurs every fifty years, the rule was: "You shall not sow, you shall not reap the offspring, you shall not harvest the unpruned vines." (Leviticus 25:8-13) Above all, however, freedom for all was to be restored to the people. This was especially true of those who had lost their freedom through poverty, seizure and enslavement: "Proclaim freedom for all the inhabitants of the land! May it be a jubilee year for you. Each one of you shall return to his property, each one shall return to his clan." Enslaving poverty should at least be diminished, although it should not occur in the society of God in the first place. It reads: "Actually, there shouldn't be any poor people with you; for the Lord will bless you richly in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and which you will possess if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep all this commandment to which I bind you today." (Deuteronomy 15:4-6)

Israel's social legislation used agriculture to relieve the poor. The robbery of the mouth in a vineyard as well as the plucking of ears of corn in the fields by the wayside were legal, as long as one did not take anything with them in containers or bags (Deuteronomy 23:25f.).

The Glean Ruth: a play in three acts

During the harvest of the fields and the harvest in the vineyards, but also in the olive groves (Deuteronomy 24:20-22), something was obviously always left behind. Farmers should be generous with these overlooked ears or grapes. It was not they themselves who were to read them meticulously: rather, the gleaning was left to the poor (Deuteronomy 24:19). Especially when there was famine, the poor were able to survive in this way. This custom gives us a touching story, which is handed down in the Bible in the book of Ruth. This book is one of the five fixed scrolls (Megillot) in Judaism. It is read from at the early summer harvest festival Shavuot. The Ruter narrative is a kind of play in three acts.

Leading Actresses

Ruth is a Moabite. Her husband and father-in-law Elimelech have died. There is hunger in Moab. So Ruth moves with her mother-in-law Naomi to Bethlehem in Israel. A wealthy farmer named Boaz lives there. He is widely related to the family of Naomi. Therefore, according to Jewish law, he is supposed to protect relatives as a so-called goel. However, Naomi does not know whether Boaz will actually take on this obligation.

Act One: Harvesting of Grains

Ruth cares for her mother-in-law Naomi. She is helped by the fact that the barley harvest has already begun. The Moabite woman knows the Jewish custom of picking ears of corn. So she sets off for a field, walks behind the reapers and collects ears of corn. The field belongs to the distant relative Boaz. He visits his field workers. He inquires about the girl and learns that she is "a young Moabite woman who came with Naomi from the grassland of Moab. She said: I would like to pick ears of corn and gather them from the sheaves after the reapers. So she came and endured from the morning until now, and hardly allowed herself any rest." (Ruth 2:6f.)

Boaz is impressed by Ruth. He calls her to him and tells her: "Listen, my daughter, do not go into any other field to read; do not depart from here, but stick to my maidservants; keep an eye on the field where they are reaping, and go after them. I have ordered the servants not to touch you. If you are thirsty, you may go to the vessels and drink of what the servants draw." (Ruth 2:8f.) How does she deserve all this, she asks. Boaz thanks her for sacrificially caring for Naomi. Obviously he wants to help his relatives. He also knew that he was one of the "redeemers" (Goel: גאל), i.e. a possible heir to the assets of the deceased relative. Boaz increasingly involves Ruth in the harvesting process. She can eat with the reapers. If there is anything left, she can bring it home to Naomi. He has them collected not only behind the reapers, but also between the sheaves. What's more, the reapers are even supposed to pull ears of corn out of the sheaves so that she can pick up enough. This goes on until the end of the barley and wheat harvest.

Act Two: on the threshing floor

Ruth tells her mother-in-law Naomi how nobly she is treated by noble boaz. This encourages the wise old woman to give Ruth bold advice. Boaz will toss the barley on the threshing floor at night tonight. She is supposed to go there, but not show herself. Then she is supposed to observe where Boaz goes after work to lie down to rest. Boaz goes to his sleeping place and falls asleep. Then Ruth quietly goes to his bed, lies down at Boaz's feet and covers himself with the lower part of his blanket. This is how she discovers Boaz in the morning: and is frightened. But Ruth calmly tells him, well briefed by his mother-in-law, that he is her solver. Boaz's terror turns to joy. He is probably already looking for a possible future with this committed young Moabite woman. But there is, as Boaz is well known, the nearer relative who is a goel before him. So he suggests to Ruth: "Stay in bed until morning! She remained at his feet until morning. But before they could recognize each other, she stood up. Because Boaz did not want to let it be known that the woman had come to the threshing floor. He said to her, "Give me the cloth that you have put on." She held it out, and he poured six measures of barley into it and loaded it on her. Then he went to the city." (Ruth 3:13-15)

Act Three: at the City Gate

Boaz has asked the other solver and ten elders to the city gate to clarify the situation in a legally binding manner. The closer relative is asked whether he is willing to accept the inheritance and take responsibility for the field as well as for the young Ruth.

What a patriarchal equation of field and woman! It is reminiscent of the harsh saying of Samson, alias Samson. He was drinking with his friends. Then he gives them a riddle to solve. Ask them to explain what the saying means: "From the glutton came food, from the strong came sweet." (Judges 14:14). The friends can't solve the riddle. Then they urge Samson's wife to wrest the solution of the riddle from her husband. For seven days she cries something to him, then Samson, softened, agrees to tell her the solution. So the answer is: "What is sweeter than honey and what is stronger than a lion!" When the friends recite it at the feast, Samson immediately suspects that his wife has betrayed the solution. He therefore scolds his friends in a rather misogynistic way: "If you hadn't ploughed with my cow, you wouldn't have guessed my riddle." (Judges 14:18) As with Delilah, it turns out that Samson was a hero in battle, but a fool in love. This later cost him his hair, his freedom and finally his life.

This leads to a legally binding "solution" to the legal case of Naomi in front of the city gate: "In the past, the following custom existed in Israel: In order to make a ransom or barter transaction legally binding, one took off the shoe and gave it to one's partner. This was seen as confirmation in Israel. So the redeemer said to Boaz, "Acquire it for yourself." and took off his shoe." (Ruth 4:7f.) Boaz takes the ten elders as witnesses. Now Rut is Boa's wife. Naomi has thus made excellent provisions for her daughter-in-law. Everyone is satisfied and praises God, who has put it all together so finely. The jubilation of the women of the city over the events is highlighted:

Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who has not let you lack a redeemer today." His name is to be praised in Israel. You will have someone who will rejoice your heart and provide for you in old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given birth to him, she who is worth more to you than seven sons. Naomi took the child, pressed it to her breast, and became his foster mother. Neighbors praised him and said, "To Naomi a son is born." And they gave him the name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. (Ruth 4:14-17)

The play ends with the reference to the fact that with their marriage, Boaz and Ruth joined the family tree of King David, from whom the Messiah would emerge.

Willow

The pastures are clothed with herds. (Psalm 65:14)

When they heard the word "weidja", the Germanic tribes thought of hunting. There are still indications of this up to our language time. Hunters still talk about grazing or hunting; an animal that was not killed immediately was shot wounded; a hunted animal is disemboweled; the intestines are taken from it. Old Norse (veiðr) and Old English (wáð) also have this hunting meaning. In New High German, its meaning finally shifts from hunting to cattle breeding. Now the word pasture means a feeding place for cattle.

Susanna in the garden: a feast for the eyes

Not only pets were sent to the pasture, but also covetous eyes of humans. Something beautiful, delicious, attractive, desirable is considered a "feast for the eyes". The writers of the Paradise narrative noted: "Then the woman saw that it would be delicious to eat from the tree, that the tree was a feast for the eyes and desirable to become wise. She took some of its fruit and ate; she also gave to her husband, who was with her, and he also ate." (Genesis 3:6) The beauty of the tree has been adversely linked to Eve's covetous, haptic posture.

A bathing wife in royal Babylon was a feast for the eyes of two judges who could not keep their desires in check and could not enjoy beauty, but wanted to possess beauty. I

In this story, a young man named Daniel also plays a key role. He was a prisoner at the Babylonian royal court of Nebuchadnezzar. Under his successor Darius, he gained international renown through dream interpretations. The king wanted to make him, the foreigner, a satrap, i.e. imperial chief administrator. To prevent this, the xenophobic local aspirants concocted a successful intrigue. Thanks to a religious decree wrested from him, the king had to have Daniel thrown into a pit with hungry lions, because he did not worship him, but his God. God's angel saved Daniel. The intriguers and their relatives were torn apart by the greedy lions.

Before all this happened, the following cheeky story took place with a nude bathing wife, two legal representatives without rights and a young man with civil courage (Daniel 13:1-64). The story goes like this:

The rich Babylonian Jehoiakim had the very beautiful and God-fearing Susanna as his wife. Among the elders of the city were now two corrupt judges who went in and out of Jehoiakim's business. They knew that Susanna used to deambulate after lunch in the garden that belonged to the house of the rich in Babylon. "The two eldest saw them coming and going about daily; then the desire for her stirred in them. Their minds went astray, and they turned their eyes away from looking at heaven and thinking of the just punishments. Both were lovesick because of Susanna; but neither told the other anything about his pain. Because they were ashamed that they were so eager to be with her." (Daniel 13:11)

One day an unexpected opportunity presented itself. It was hot. Susanna, accompanied by two girls, intended to take a refreshing bath in the garden. She sent the girls for oil, and made them lock the garden gate as they went out, so as to be undisturbed.

However, the old people, driven by their passion, had already hidden in the garden beforehand. After the maids had gone and closed the garden gate behind them, the two men came up to Susanna, who was bathing: "Do our bidding and give yourself to us! If you refuse, then we will testify against you that a young man was with you and that is why you sent the girls away." (Daniel 13:20) How perfidious! Susanna was trapped. According to the law of Moses, such adultery was punishable by death.

Susanna screamed. People hurried over. And it came as the old people had threatened her. They told the lie about the man who didn't exist.

The next day, the old judges took their perfidy to the extreme. They went to Susanna's husband and demanded the death penalty provided for by law because of his wife's (invented) adultery. Susanna was brought before the trial. The judges wanted to feast on the beauty of the wife once again with bad intentions:

And she [Susanna] came, accompanied by her parents, her children, and all her relatives. Susanna, however, was very delicate and beautiful in appearance. But it was veiled. In order to feast on her beauty, the unscrupulous ordered her to be unveiled. But their relatives and all who saw them wept. (Daniel 13:30)

This was the plea of the depraved judges, who were dominated by their lust for sex:

While we were walking alone in the garden, this woman came in with two maids. She had the garden gate locked and sent the maids away. Then a young man who had been hiding came to her and lay down next to her. We were just in a secluded corner of the garden; but when we saw sin, we hastened to them and saw how they were together. We could not hold on to the man; for he was stronger than we were; he opened the gate and escaped. But we held them tight and asked them who the young man was. But she didn't want to tell us. We can testify to all this. (Daniel 13:36-40)

The assembly, as was customary at the time, believed the judges, not the woman. Susanna was sentenced to death. The desperate Susanna cried loudly to the Lord. He promptly heard her. The still unknown young Daniel, who later survived the lions' den, was touched by God. When he saw Susanna being led to the execution, he shouted loudly into the crowd that the sentence was unjust. He demanded an immediate reopening of the proceedings. So let's start all over again.

The young man was presided over at the new hearing (Daniel 13:51-59). According to the tried and tested interrogation technique, he had the two old men separated and questioned them individually before the meeting. Everyone was able to listen in and form their own judgement. Daniel's trick question was: "Under which tree did you see them socializing?" The first said, "Under a mastic tree." The other: "Under an oak tree" Now her perfidious lie had been exposed. The crowd made short work of it and declared both guilty. They were executed according to the law they were supposed to defend as judges.

And the moral of the story? Be morally resilient. Trust in God. Have civil courage. Stand up against manifest injustice. Don't trust the male perpetrators unchecked, but the female victims. Treat yourself to therapy if you don't have your passion under control. Once you are cured of your greed, it does you no harm if your eyes feast on the beauty of another person without intention: simply because it is a beautiful person, a beautiful man, a beautiful woman. It does not serve your greed, but the glory of God, who has "prepared everything so finely".

Pasture land

From a scientific point of view, pasture land is one of the most important land use systems. On a pasture, mainly herbaceous sweet grasses grow, which serve as the main food for the grazing farm animals. So it is also said: grazing animals "graze". The verb "to graze" is also used. Grazing animals are the result of taming wildlife. These are no longer hunted and killed, but "kept" and bred: animal husbandry and livestock breeding. The beneficiaries of pastures and their grazing by domestic animals are primarily humans.

Even in early times, humans proved to be successful cattle breeders: just like Abel in Genesis. Livestock farming also makes up an important part of agriculture and agriculture in modern cultures. If all grazing species (residential, populated, and remote range) are added together, they make up about 27% of the earth's land surface.³²

The care of pasture land is not only important because of livestock breeding and thus to feed people, but also ecologically. Arable farmers and cattle breeders contribute a lot and so far unpaid to nature conservation, thus to the cultivated beauty of nature.

Pastures can be used in different ways. Unregulated use is rather rare today: In most cases, it is regulated how long the animals use the pasture and what area is open to them for grazing. In demarcated pastures (paddocks) there is a "rotation" of the animals. In this way, the pasture land is protected and protected from overgrazing.

If pasture land is no longer productive, the shepherd and herd move on. Itinerant shepherds do this professionally. For nomads, non-sedentary cattle breeders, the constant moving on characterizes everyday life.

The path from the stable to the pasture is called (cattle) drift. The prophet Isaiah cries out to the people who had turned away from the Lord and turned to idols. In a proverb, he gloomily announces that there will be no more lush pastures for the sheep: "Then lambs will feed there as in their pasture" (Isaiah 5:17). God, in turn, in his care for creation, points out to the tried Job how he cares for the wild ass: "I gave him the desert for his dwelling, to his dwelling the salty drift." (Job 39:6) Today we use the root word "trift" to admonish a conversation partner or a speaker not to "drift" off the topic – Trift and Drift have the same Germanic root (drabi- / treiben). A boat, a party, can drift: they then deviate from the course taken. In a similar sense, the word moral is used when someone drifts off the path of integrity, i.e. goes wrong.

Assurance of land and pasture land

Just as Israel could not live without farmland, it could not live without pastureland. After crossing the Jordan and the bloody conquest of Canaan, which God obviously calculated (Numbers 22:4), the people settled down, and lived primarily from agriculture and animal husbandry. They combined the professions of Cain and Abel, agriculture and animal husbandry. These were part of everyday life in Israel. Important careers began on Weiden. David and Nathan were called to feed their animals (1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 Chronicles 17:7f.).

Successful conflict resolution

This story has sometimes helped me not only to work through conflicts, but also to digest them. Such always have a factual as well as an emotional level. Therefore, factual arguments alone rarely help to really end conflicts.

The story that is helpful to me is about a veritable conflict over sheep pastures. The main actors are Abram and Lot. Abram is known as the shepherd patriarch. Lot, on the other hand, was a nephew of Abrams. Both were on the road with their sheep and goats, cattle and tents before they later settled down. They came to the fertile Jordan region. Soon there was no longer enough pasture land for the ever-growing herds of the two. Their possessions were too large and so they could not settle down together. In addition, the Canaanites and Perizzites also lived in the country.

So there was a quarrel between the shepherds of Uncle Abram and nephew Lot. Abram takes over the job of conflict management. First of all, he reminds us of the emotional level: "We are brothers!" Therefore, there should be no quarrel between us at all. But then he makes a proposal on the factual level that is as wise as it is generous: We separate. We also divide up the pastureland. The Jordan River is to form the border. Abram gives way to the plumb line: choose the land you want for your flock on one of the two sides of the river. I then go to the other side (Genesis 13:9-13).

The Lord is my shepherd

I have met high-ranking scientists, but also politicians, whose favorite psalm is the twenty-third. Like many other of the 150 Psalms, this is said to have come from King David, who accompanied them with string playing. "Beat the strings" is already in the word psalm (ψάλλειν), psalms are something like "plucked songs".

The fact that God is the shepherd was seen as a symbol of God's affection for the people as a whole. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "Like a shepherd he feeds his flock, in his arms he gathers the lambs, on his breast he carries them, the ewes he leads gently." (Isaiah 40:11) Psalm 23 applies this strong image of God's care to the individual prayer:

The Lord is my shepherd, I will lack nothing.
He lets me lie down on green pastures and leads me to the resting place by the water.
He brings back my life force. He leads me in paths of righteousness, true to his name.
Even if I walk in the valley of darkness, I fear no evil; for you are with me, your stick and your staff, they comfort me.
You set the table for me before the eyes of my enemies.You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is overflowing.
Yes, goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will return home to the house of the Lord for a long time. (Psalm 23:1-6)

God's pastoral care can be experienced concretely through the pastoral activities of persons whom God has chosen and appointed. They are to serve as shepherds among the people in the name and in the manner of God. For example, in Psalm 78 - a song of wisdom composed not by David but by Asaph - it is sung that God took David away from the folds of the sheep, took him away from the mothers, "that he might feed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance" (Psalm 78:70-72).

Later, Jesus will take up the image of the shepherd in various ways. He will call himself the good shepherd appointed by God, for his own in the church stable, but also for many others outside church boundaries: in other Christian churches, other religions and among those people of good will who do not know God (John 10:11-16).

But then the risen Jesus will ask Peter, who had betrayed him three times during his story of suffering, for his love three times in a successful therapy session, in order to instruct him just as often: "Feed my lambs!" (John 21:15-19) Jesus does not do all this in order to secure Peter a glorious papal career. Rather, Jesus was moved by his deep empathetic love for people, his capacity for compassion, for compassion: "When he saw the many people, he had compassion on them; for they were weary and weary, like sheep that have no shepherd." (Matthew 9:36): a formulation that already occurs repeatedly in the First Testament³³.

Who feeds the flock of God today: not only the members of the Church, but all of humanity, which is in distress and staggering because fat and mighty sheep of the flock "push aside the weak with side and shoulder, and push away with your horns" (according to Ezekiel 34:21)?

And then the important question: How do the pastors appointed today carry out their ministry in the churches? Do they measure themselves by the good shepherd, who, according to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 34:11, 15f.20‐22), is God himself, and for whom Jesus then knows himself? There are some biblical models that can serve as a standard. In addition to the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the image of the servant at the tables (Luke 22:24-27), the galley slave (Philippians 2:6-8), the washer of the feet (John 13:12-17): an image that seemed to Pope Francis himself to be a priority.

Today, the Catholic Church is wrestling with how a clerical ministerial culture can become synodal. Clerical means an authoritarian exercise of the so-called ecclesiastical pastoral office as deacon, priest, bishop or pope. Then the entrusted serving "authority" easily tips over into domination. The image of the Good Shepherd could contribute to this transformation of the church ministry just as much as the experiences of modern organizational development, which understands leadership as a service, to the community, to the participants and members. An admonition of the Apostle Paul, who said goodbye to his family in tears, remains relevant: "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has appointed you to be rulers, that you may care as shepherds for the church of the Lord, which he has acquired for himself by his own blood!" (Acts 20:28)

The hoped-for cultural change in the exercise of office is laborious in individual cases if a public official has an authoritarian personality structure. However, because it is associated with fears, this is quite resistant to change. In such a case, theological arguments are of little help. This can lead to fierce conflicts between mature church members who demand sustainably effective participation on the basis of baptism, and leaders (ordained or not) who cannot stand participation because of their clerical self-image.

On the Rivers of Babylon

Willow as grassland and willow as flexible tree have the same Indo-European root wei- / \weiə-**. Often willows grow on pastures. Willows as trees play a role in a famous psalm.

Israel had an eventful history as the "flock of God". Repeatedly, the people had to go into exile, which prophets interpreted as a consequence of their unfaithfulness to their God. In times of exile, homesickness for Jerusalem grew. Psalm 137 is full to the brim in the mode of lamentation. It goes so much to the heart. This is probably why it has found its way into world-famous pieces of music³⁴ . The slave chorus "Va, pensiero" in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco (1842) is inspired by the Psalm. The four-part motet by Orlando di Lasso (Super flumina Babylonis, 1585) and the double-choir chorale by Heinrich Schütz (At the Waters of Babel, 1619) are well-known. a setting by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1680) and the composition for choir and orchestra by Gabriel Fauré (Super flumina Babylonis, 1683). Among Antonín Dvořák's Biblical Songs is the piece for voice and orchestra "Při řekách babylonských" (1897). The evergreen "Rivers of Babylon" (1970) by the group Melodians (Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton), based on Jamaican melodies, became world famous. Now, while reading the psalm, you can also track down the dreary experiences in your life and hang the lyres of your life in the weeping willows.

By the rivers of Babylon
we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
On the willows in the middle of it we hung our lyres.
For there those who held us captive demanded songs from us,
our tormentors demanded joy: Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!
How could we have sung the songs of the Lord, far away, on foreign soil?
If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, then my right hand shall forget me.
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth when I remember you no more, when I no longer raise Jerusalem
to the summit of my joy.
(Psalm 137:1-6)

Pasture and pasture: an end

This meditative module on the "land use system pasture" will end with a touch of biblical poetry and the heartwarming light of a visionary picture.

The poetic comes from the Song of Songs, attributed to King Solomon as the Song of Songs of Love from the First Testament, world-famous and often quoted. Just enjoy relevant lyrics about pasture and graze around love and don't overlook how much the lovers are a feast for the eyes for each other in their sung beauty.

You, whom my soul loves, tell me, 'Where do you feed the flock?' Where do you camp at noon? Why shall I be as a veiled woman among the flocks of your companions? If you do not know this, you most beautiful of women, then follow in the footsteps of the sheep, then feed your goats where the shepherds are encamped! (Song of Solomon 1:7f)

My Beloved is mine and I am his; he grazes in the lilies. (Song of Solomon 2:16)

Your breasts are like two fawns, the twins of a gazelle, grazing under lilies. (Song of Solomon 4:5)

Where has your lover gone, you most beautiful of women? Where did your lover turn? We will seek him with you. My lover went down to his garden to the balsam beds, to graze in the gardens, to pluck lilies. I belong to my lover and my lover is mine who grazes among lilies. You are beautiful, my friend, like Tirza, lovely as Jerusalem, fearful as hosts. (Song of Solomon 6:1-4)

From such erotic, almost paradisiacal texts about love, the leap to an apocalyptic vision of pasture is not far. It is a vision of peace into which our warlike world will lead. At least the prophet Isaiah is convinced of this. He lived in Jerusalem about 740-701 BC. In the third part of his work, he looks into the future of the people. For young Christianity, it was a glimpse into the messianic end times (1 Corinthians 11:10), which had come with Jesus and is in the process of maturing into its completion in the end times.

In this messianic time, there will be peace, which the world besieged by violence longs for. Isaiah gives almost unbelievable images of peace, not only among people, but also in and with nature. End-time ecology. And again with the basic melody of the pasture: "Wolf and lamb graze together, and the lion eats straw like the ox, but the serpent's food is the dust." (Isaiah 65:25)

Forest

Let the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his lovingkindness endures forever.
(1 Chronicles 16:31-34; also Psalm 96:12)

Forest fairy tales and fairytale forests

Hansel and Gretel got lost in the forest. It was dark and bitterly cold. This is the beginning of the story, in which at the end the evil witch disappears into the heated oven of the gingerbread house in which she wanted to bake Hansel. Gretel had pushed her in. Finally, the two fairy tale children found their way out of the forest, their pockets full of gold and precious stones.

Snow White, on the other hand, finds refuge in the forest with the seven dwarfs. AI told me this fairy tale³⁵ from the point of view of one of the dwarves named Brummel as follows: "I was just sharpening the pickaxe when it entered our house for the first time. Tender as morning dew, hair like ebony and eyes big with fear. My brothers were excited. She was like a miracle in the forest. I held back. Observed. Listened. - She told of the queen, of the magic mirror and of a hunter with a heart. We decided to protect her. And they... it brought life into our home. The table was set, the floors were shining - and every evening she sang softly by the fire. - But the danger came three times. I especially remember the day with the apple. She laughed, took a bite - and fell like a leaf from a tree. I felt my heart almost become stone. We couldn't save her. - I chiseled the glass coffin myself, so beautiful that even the stars looked at it. Then came the prince. A stranger with hope in his eyes. And when Snow White woke up - it was like spring after an endless winter."

And because forest fairy tales are so touching, another one. A singing and dancing goblin unintentionally reveals his name in a forest clearing with unexpectedly good consequences. This is how it happened: The poor miller's daughter had claimed to be able to turn straw into gold. When the king heard of this, he locked her in a room full of straw so that she could prove her skills. If she doesn't make it, she dies. This puts them in fear and despair. Then a little man comes to her aid. If she promises to give him her first child, he will turn the straw into gold. The daughter joined in. The king was so enthusiastic about the girl's art of transformation that he took her as his wife. She became queen. Had a child. Then the little man appears and demands the promised child from her. However, if she was able to tell him his name within three days, he would withdraw from his demand. By chance, a messenger heard the little man singing in a forest clearing while dancing around the fire: "Today I bake, tomorrow I brew, the day after tomorrow I will fetch the queen's child; oh, how good that no one knows that my name is Rumpelstiltskin!" The king's child was saved.

Forest bathing

The fact that such events often take place in a forest suggests that it has always had and still has a special meaning for people. A provincial exhibition in Lower Austria had chosen the theme "Mystical Waldviertel". Because of the special climate: people go forest bathing in the forest today. This emerged in Japan in the 1980s (Japanese shinrin-yoku, 森林浴): National scientists point to the positive effect of the forest climate on the immune system. Health-conscious people also practice it here: forest bathing de-stresses and inspires. This benefit should already benefit children: forest kindergartens are being set up for this purpose. Forest walks organized, forest hiking trails are considered healthy and relaxing.

Primeval and cultural forest

If forests are untouched by human influence, as is the case with about ten percent of the Amazon rainforest, they are called primary or primeval forests. There are few indigenous tribes living there who have not (yet) come into contact with civilization.

Most forests on earth, on the other hand, are "land use systems". They are cultivated forests and are managed by foresters. Forestry in private and state hands is an important economic factor in many countries such as Austria: 48% of Austria's national territory is forested.

What exactly a forest is scientifically considered has to do with tree population, forest interior climate, forest soils, reduced illuminance, sufficient rainfall, minimum size. German forest scientists define the forest as a plant formation that is "essentially made up of trees and covers such a large area that a characteristic forest climate can develop on it".³⁶

Waldarmes Israel

The so-called land seizure of Israel, i.e. the crossing of the Jordan and the capture of Canaan, is not easy to date. Biblical texts and archaeological findings differ from each other. Despite all this fuzziness, it is about a period between the fifteenth³⁷ and thirteenth centuries BC, i.e. the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. At that time, the people of Israel moved into an area that was much more heavily forested than today. It is true that the plains and valleys were free of forests; they were used for agriculture. There were forests in the East Bank as well as in the low mountain ranges of Judah, Samaria and Galilee. The mountainous regions of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon were known for their majestic cedar forests. The old place name Kirjat-Jearim ("forest city") attests to the forestation.

However, the forests looked very different from the dense, tall forests of Central Europe. They mostly consisted of evergreen, lower trees and shrubs (2-3m high). It was a typical Mediterranean vegetation.

The forests were used intensively without ensuring their reforestation. The demand for construction and firewood was great. Solomon needed a lot of wood to build his "Lebanon forest house" (1 Kings 7:2-5). When the temple was built, mighty cedars were cut (1 Kings 6:14-18).

A lot of wood was needed for the many burnt offerings in the temple. The siege engines used in the war were made with the wood of mighty trees. Herds of goats grazed in the forests. These prefer to eat the young growth. This also hindered the regeneration of the forests. Last but not least, there were forest fires even then. Forests were cleared (Joshua 17:14-18), soils were eroded.

Intensive use by agriculture, livestock farming (especially goats), timber extraction for magnificent buildings and wars thus ledto large-scaledeforestation in Israel. The forest stock has been severely decimated since the land seizure. For centuries, Israel showed little ecological sensitivity to its forests. The price for this was high: the land area of Israel was almost completely deforested in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the occupation period by the Ottomans and British, the situation did not change.

It was only after the founding of the state in 1948 that an ecologically prudent policy found its way into Israel. Reforestation programmes have been set up. According to estimates, about 240 million trees have now been planted. A separate Jewish National Fund (JNF) was established. With its programmes, it contributes to the further reforestation of the country. Climate-friendly mixed forests have been planted. Aleppo pines, oaks and carob trees grow in these. On the hills of Galilee and in the Carmel Mountains there are protected natural forests. Today, 6.5% of Israel's land area is forested.

The forest of Ephraim

Wald played a role in a tragic story in the Bible: it bears the name "Forest of Ephraim". The main character of the story is a man named Absalom.

Absalom had King David as his father and was his third son. When his half-brother Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, David's punishment was far too lenient in his eyes. The king had merely expelled Amnon from the royal court. So Absalom took revenge for the sexual abuse within the family into his own hands and had Amnon killed. Now he had to flee from David himself.

After five years abroad, he dared to return home. But he did this with the intention of becoming king himself in place of his father, because he was much too weak in his eyes. A strong man is needed in Israel and he, Absalom, is the right person for it. So he planned an uprising against his father. Secretly, he recruited soldiers on the other side of the Jordan. King David learned of this and fled from Jerusalem. With the help of spies, he succeeded in luring Absalom out of the city. The battle took place in the forest of Ephraim. This resulted in forest bathing of a completely different kind - a bloodbath in the (2 Samuel 18:6-8). David's army was victorious. Absalom fled on his mule. Now his beautiful long hair became his undoing. His hair got caught in the branches of an oak tree. He was torn from the mule and hung helplessly.

Then there was a dialogue between the soldier who reported Absalom's mishap and Joab, David's military commander, which was questionable from the point of view of war ethics. On the one hand, the fear-driven civil courage of the soldier, on the other, the cowardly murder of the defenseless king's son, whom Joab could just as well have captured alive and led to the king (2 Samuel 18:9-13). The general no longer dwelt on the dispute. He mercilessly took action, which ended with a burial in a forest cemetery (2 Samuel 18:14-17).

When the king learned of his son's death, he gave himself up to his intense grief. This angered the military commander Joab considerably. He went to the king and accused him of mocking the brave soldiers with his grief; he also overlooked the hatred of his slain son, who had risen up against him: "You show your love to those who hate you, and your hatred to those who love you; for you gave us to understand today that the leaders and the warriors mean nothing to you." (2 Samuel 19:7) If he continues like this, he will lose all his soldiers. Then David let go of his grief and showed himself publicly at the city gate (2 Samuel 19:1-9). The raison d'être has triumphed over fatherly love.

Elisha

He had watched as his mentor Elijah had been raptured to heaven. Now he began his prophetic ministry in the northern kingdom of Israel. There he instigated a rebellion against King Jehoram, the son of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. This brought the general Jehu to power, whom he had secretly anointed as the new king by an envoy.

This is about Elijah's successor, the prophet Elisha. He was not only active in domestic politics. He also operates as a brilliant miracle worker. His predecessor Elijah had separated from his pupil in an unusual way. While they were talking to each other, a fiery chariot with fiery horses had come. A whirlwind has lifted horses, chariot velvet Elijah to heaven. After that, Elisha had to return across the Jordan River to get to Beth-El, where he was going to go. Then he took the rolled up cloak of Elijah and struck the waters of the Jordan with it. The river split as the Red Sea once did under Moses (2 Kings 2:11-14). Thanks to this miracle, he was able to get to the other side of the river with dry feet and continue his planned journey to Bet-El.

On the way, men came to him and complained that their water was polluted, which led to miscarriages. The prophet immediately went to the spring and remedied the ecological disaster with healing salt (2 Kings 2:19-22).

Even later, Elisha could not stop the mostly beneficent miracle work. A woman in need could, at his behest, fill countless others with a single jug of oil and thus pay off her debts (2 Kings 4:1-7). An inedible meal became digestible (2 Kings 4:38-41). During a famine, he multiplied bread, as Jesus did later (2 Kings 4:42-44). He healed the Syrian general Naaman (2 Kings 5), which even Jesus would later remind us of (Luke 4:27).

However, some miracles sound like Harry Potter. So the prophet disciples wanted to expand their apartment. To do this, they felled trees on the Jordan River. One of them fell into the water and sank the iron axe, which he had borrowed for this purpose. Desperately, he called the man of God for help. It is reported: "Elisha cut off a piece of wood, threw it there, and made the iron float. Then he commanded, "Fetch it up!" The man reached out and grabbed it." (2 Kings 6:6f.)

In Israel, the forest was highly valued as a valuable building and firewood resource. But he was also scary to them at the same time. Repeatedly, the impenetrable (Zechariah 11:2) forest is related to the wild animals that can be dangerous to humans. The dark night is considered the time of the forest animals (Psalm 104:20). These all belong to God, which is why He is not dependent on the sacrifices of bulls and goats offered by men (Psalm 50:10). But there is danger from lions living in the woods (Jeremiah 5:6; 12:8; Amos 3:4; Micah 5:7) and who roar loudly when fire destroys their habitat (Zechariah 11:3). When the vineyard of God, Israel, is threatened with desolation, a boar comes out of the forest and uproots the vineyard (Psalm 80:14).

But now to the incident with the miracle worker Elisha, in which another dangerous forest animal appears. Elisha was on his way up from the Jordan to Beth-El. There came a gang of forty-two young hooligans from the city. They made fun of his appearance and mocked him: "Bald head, come up! Bald head, come up!" Elisha, who was obviously not a beauty, immediately resorted to one of the harshest punishments: he cursed the high-spirited and cheeky youths who ridiculed his appearance. The curse came on the spot: "Then two bears came out of the forest and tore forty-two young people to pieces." (2 Kings 2:23-25). One can only wonder at such a miracle.

Forest-friendly gun burning

It happened in July 2025. After decades of bloody struggle for political rights, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is classified as a terrorist, decided to lay down its arms. Fighters in their uniforms then carried their weapons to a giant bowl and set it on fire. The weapons burned in the blazing flames.

Something similar has happened - albeit in a different context - in the history of Israel. Gog, prince in the land of Magog, had long ruled Israel. Now the prophet Ezekiel predicts his downfall. This will bring Israel a long-awaited period of peace lasting several years. This is sung in a similar way to what the prophets Micah (4:1-5) and Isaiah (2:2-4) prophesied for the end of time: There will be no more need for weapons. They are no longer preparing for war. There are no more troop exercises. The swords can be reforged into plowshares. However, the announcement in Ezekiel's vision is even more similar to the symbolic burning of weapons by the PKK than the vision of peace of Micah and Isaiah:

This is the day of which I have spoken: the inhabitants of the cities of Israel will go out, and with arms, with a long shield and a round shield, with bows and arrows, with clubs and spears, they will make fire and heat. For seven years they make a fire with it. They do not have to carry wood away from the fields, they do not cut wood in the forest, but burn the weapons. They plunder their plunderers and rob their robbers, declares the Lord God . (Ezekiel 39:8-10)

Garden

Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,
and put there the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8)

Paradise only reveals itself as paradise
when we are expelled from it.
(Hermann Hesse)

Garden of Eden

In the creation narrative, the land of Eden and the Garden of Paradise are still distinguished. God walks in this garden (Ezekiel 28:13). He is obviously talking to the people whose creation seemed successful to him. He entrusts them with the maintenance of the garden. In vain he warns her against eating apples from the two forbidden pleasure trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of immortality life. They eat from the tree of knowledge. Immediately you will hear the footsteps of God (Genesis 2:7-13), who wants to talk to you about your deed. The result is well known: they are expelled from paradise.

As early as the First Book of the Bible, the Land of Eden and the Garden of Paradise were brought together to form the "Garden of Eden". Eden, the land, means in Hebrew Bliss. Paradise, on the other hand, in the Persian "enclosure". When moving in together, the basic mood of bliss was carried over into the metaphor of the "Garden of Eden". Hieronymus Bosch called his masterpiece, painted between 1490 and 1500, "The Garden of Earthly Delights".

An earthly place

The paradisiacal Garden of Eden is not originally about the otherworldly place where, according to Jewish belief, the righteous are after death. Nor is it about the macho paradise of Islam with the beautiful virgins with pearly white skin who are ready for those men who stand in judgment. Nor is it the heavenly paradise that the dying Jesus promised the repentant robber Dismas without further ado.

The Garden of Eden in the Genesis narrative is rather an earthly place. Its location is vaguely hinted at (in the east, in Eden). There rises a stream that is divided into four streams. The Euphrates and the Tigris can be found on today's world map. They give the mythological garden story a realistic-historical touch. Where exactly this Garden of Eden was, experts are puzzling over and have not yet found a generally accepted answer.³⁸ This is probably not so important with mythical stories that tell in a kind of media report about what is always and everywhere the case.

The extent to which the mythical tale of the Garden of Eden has moved people over the centuries and also touches modern people is shown by its presence in painting. In the Caedmon Manuscript (around 1000) there is a depiction of the "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden". Famous are the painting "Paradise" by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1530), the "Expulsion from Paradise" by Giovanni di Paolo (1445), the "Garden of Eden" by Adi Holzer (2012), "The Garden of Eden" in the Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry (1340-1460) from the 15th century, painted by the brothers of Limburg.

Longing for paradise

The myth of the Garden of Eden brings to light the depths of the human soul. This includes the longing for a happiness without suffering, without it being crammed into space and time. The longing for a homeland, just as Rilke sings of both longings:

That is the longing: to live in the Gewoge
and have no home in time.
And these are wishes: quiet dialogues
of daily hours with eternity.

And that is life. Until out of a yesterday
rises the loneliest of all hours,
which, smiling differently from the other sisters,
is silent towards the Eternal.

Rainer Maria Rilke

This longing for paradisiacal happiness is also associated with the desire for a homeland: because we have no home in time, as Rainer M. Rilke has just said. Many suspect that we come from a paradise and are approaching one in this short lifetime.

Paradies now

The depth psychologist and theologian Monika Renz believes that we always carry this paradise at the bottom of our soul with us. It can be experienced in a paradisiacal basic trust. We experience ourselves "expelled" from this, an experience that occurs in the early development of the human being in the womb of the mother. Typical of the paradisiacal, she suggests, is a non-dual consciousness. Already in early development, however, consciousness becomes dual. For the first time, the human being experiences himself in front of a "world" that can seem fascinating as well as threatening. Monika Renz sees primal fear arising in every human being, which overlays the paradisiacal basic trust. This is tantamount to an "expulsion from paradise". The depth psychologist believes it is possible to use religious rituals to penetrate buried basic trust.

Conversely, however, it seems to happen now and then that the paradisiacal itself comes to the fore. The French sociologist Henri Lefebvre calls such experiences "moments". Among these he counts love, recognition, good work and play. Typical for these moments is that they protrude from space and time, i.e. they give the feeling of eternity. It is the moments that may linger. It is the desire of the apostles to build permanent tabernacles on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Tabor. So people develop something like happiness retention strategies. And fail, according to the realist Henri Lefebvre. And the disciples also had to go down from the mountain of paradise into the valley of everyday life and suffering.

Garden of Love

The beguiling Song of Songs of King Solomon tells of moments of love. The love stories of this world literature are literally paradisiacal. This can be seen in the frequent use of the symbolism of the garden (Eden). The garden is initially closed. Later³⁹ in the history of piety, Mary, the young woman from Nazareth, Jesus' mother, was sung about with the motif of the hortus conclusus. In the feasts of love, which the bride and groom sing about in the Song of Songs, the locked Garden of Paradise is opened. Paradise now. Not only (only) later in an otherworldly heaven. Lovers literally experience themselves "in seventh heaven": a moment in the graded concept of paradise in Islam. Thus the Song of Songs raves about the paradisiacal garden of love, in which it bears fruit and smells:

A closed garden is my sister's bride, a closed spring,
a sealed spring.
At your water channels - a pomegranate grove with delicious fruits,
henna flowers with spikenard,
spikenard, crocus, spice cane and cinnamon,
all frankincense trees,
myrrh and aloe,
the very best balsam.
The source of the garden is you,
a fountain of living water
that flows from Lebanon.

North wind, awake! South wind, come here! Blows through my garden,let the balsam scents flow! Let my beloved come into his garden and eat of his delicious fruits! I come to my garden, my sister bride, I pick my myrrh with my balm. (Song of Solomon 4:12-5:1))

Gardens

In addition to desert, arable land and pasture, the garden is a culturally high-quality land use system. A piece of land is enclosed. In most cases, willow or hazelnut rods are intertwined. The word garden is therefore derived in German from the Indo-European gher and later ghorto (whip, again related to the Latin hortus). The Gothic word garde meant enclosure, pen, fenced area. If, on the other hand, the area was surrounded by a living fence, the word hag was used, which is now a hedge. Some gardens were already walled in the Middle Ages. Now the meaning of the word points in the direction of protected species, similar to the Latin hortus. Linguistically, therefore, the Guard as a guard and protection troop is also related to gardening. With the fencing, the enclosure and the walling, the aim was to create an "enclosed country". The cultivation of plants as food, but also for ornamentation, should be done in a room where there is "garden peace".

There is a considerable variety of gardens: kitchen gardens, vegetable and fruit gardens (often called tree gardens), natural gardens, front gardens, cottage gardens, pleasure gardens, ornamental gardens. The term park is used for public gardens, but this is not always the case, as evidenced by the name of the famous English Garden in Munich. The names of the gardens also vary depending on the planting, such as rose garden, herb garden. Gardens differ according to styles. Persian gardens look different from Chinese or Japanese ones. The French garden has its own charm. This in turn differs from the Italian and English landscape gardens.

Gardens in ancient Israel

Even in biblical times, gardens were a valuable cultural asset. "To each dwelling house belonged a small garden, usually delimited by walls, with fruit trees, with vine and fig tree (cf. 1 Kings 5:5; Jeremiah 29:5; Amos 9:14; Micah 4:4). Kings had large parks that were artificially irrigated (Ecclesiastes 2:5f; Jeremiah 39:4). The temple also included a "garden of God" (cf. Psalm 92:13-16; Genesis 13:10; Ezekiel 47)."⁴⁰

Monastery Gardens

A short time ago I gave retreat lectures to the monks in the Cistercian monastery of Wilhering. This resulted in the book "Tierisch gut". It is the predecessor of this book, so to speak. During a lunch break, the abbot of the monastery proudly showed the just completed complex in the large forecourt of the monastery. He also guided me through the adjacent monastery museum. This shows that a monastery garden has always been part of the monastery complex.

Such monastery gardens have a long tradition. They combine utility and spirituality. In the Middle Ages, the monastery gardens made the community self-sufficient: people planted and harvested what they needed for the kitchen in their own garden. For example, the founder of the monastery Benedict, patron saint of Europe, wrote in his rule: "The monastery should, if possible, be laid out in such a way that everything necessary, namely water, mill and garden, is located within the monastery and various types of crafts can be practiced there."⁴¹

The horticultural art of the monasteries was highly developed. In addition to a kitchen garden and a tree garden, the monks laid out ornamental and pleasure gardens. There was room for rest and prayer. It was also interpreted spiritually what happened in a garden year after year. Blossoming, ripening, hibernation and renewed flowering became a reading aid for the dying and resurrection of man: one reason why tree gardens also served as burial places for monks. The names of some plants have been "Christianized". The lady's slipper or the lady's mint were intended to remind us of Mary. The rose was also closely associated with it; To this day, Mary is sung in the hymn as "Rose without Thorns". Some plants such as St. John's wort (also called hunting devil), mugwort or thistle were supposed to drive away dark forces and demons. Others were considered remedies: monastery pharmacies were important sources of health.⁴² Some orders had dedicated themselves specifically to the sick and thus to monastic medicine, such as the Antonites and the Lazarists. An outstanding connoisseur of medicinal herbs was the Abbess of the Rhine, Hildegard von Bingen. Medical faculties took up this monastic tradition and later planted their own botanical gardens.

Allotment gardens

So-called allotment gardens are of social importance. They owe their name to Daniel Moritz Gottlieb Schreber (1843-1859), who worked in an orthopaedic sanatorium in Leipzig. He reformed the education of young people and promoted the physical activity of children. After his death, Johann Hauschild founded playgrounds for children in Leipzig and called them allotments.

In 1868, a senior teacher named Gesell took the next step. He wanted to connect children with nature and created beds at the edge of the playgrounds. The adults joined in. Gradually, allotment garden colonies were created, which were called allotment gardens. They were not only intended to serve health, but also to alleviate the misery of the metropolitan proletariat. In the thirties, for example, they were real survival aids in Vienna, for example on the Schmelz - in 1995 there were almost 34,000 allotments in Vienna.⁴³

Maze

They are symbols of the path of life: the labyrinths⁴⁴. They are available as building values, mosaics, ornaments, as plantings with serpentines and spirals. They were laid out differently in Crete than in Rome or later in the Christian world. In Europe, hedge labyrinths developed in the late Renaissance. The Laberint d'Horta in Barcelona is famous, where you can look out from a round temple onto the finish area surrounded by eight hedge arches. Princes and rich people had such private hedge labyrinths planted and elaborately maintained. Such can also be found in botanical gardens. Today, they are meditating seekers in spiritual centers of meditation and reflection. A labyrinth, like a person's path through life, always leads to the goal on winding paths.

Similar to the labyrinth is a maze. In a labyrinth, a path leads from the entrance to the middle without branches. A maze, on the other hand, has branches and dead ends. You can "go astray" in it so much that you can't get out of it. Greek mythology tells of a labyrinth in Crete, which was actually a maze. Here follows a streamlined version of the story⁴⁵ with the ancient maze.

Minos, the son of Zeus and Europa, ruled in Crete. His wife Pasiphaë had fathered a descendant in a zoophile affair with a bull, which in turn had been given to Minos by the god of the sea, Poseidon: the Minotaur, half man, half bull. Daedalus had built a maze for this sinister creature as a prison.

Every year, seven virgins and seven young men from Athens were sacrificed to the Minotaur. King Minos had extorted it from the Athenians for years after a military conflict. If they did not send these human sacrifices, he would have the plague sent to them by his father Zeus.

Now Theseus comes into play. He was the strong son of Aigeus. He had become king with the help of the murderous Medea. When another ship with black sails hoisted was to be sent to Crete with the eighteen doomed men, the king's son Theseus demanded to be one of the candidates. When he arrived in Crete, he promptly fell in love with the daughter of King Minos named Ariadne. This love was protected by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. That's why she wanted to make sure that Theseus didn't die in the fight against the huge human bull, like many others who had tried before. She did not doubt that the Superman Theseus would defeat the bull. But she was worried that he would not be able to find his way out of the maze and would die so inglorious death. Ariadne was supposed to prevent this by giving Theseus a ball of wool. He was supposed to unroll the thread as he stormed into the maze. Daedalus is said to have given Theseus hints on how to use Ariadne's thread.

The undertaking was a complete success. Minotaur was killed. Ariadne's thread showed the hero the way out of the maze. Theseus was able to return home with his beloved Ariadne. On the way home, however, Dionysus allegedly confused Theseus' mind. He forgot "Ariadne auf Naxos", an island where they had made a stopover: a mishap to which we owe a famous opera by Richard Strauss with the famous libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal (premiered in Stuttgart in 1912).

The confusion of Theseus produced yet another fatal consequence. On the way there, he had announced to his father: If I kill the Minotaur, we will set white sails on the way home. Theseus had forgotten about it. When Aegeus saw the fleet coming with the unchanged black sails, he was full of pain and despair. He threw himself into the sea and drowned. Since then, the sea has been called the Aegean Sea.

In the meantime, Daedalus had fallen out of favor on Crete because of the killing of the Minotaur and the flight of Theseus and Ariadne. He was locked up in the maze with his son Icarus. The inventor Daidalos carefully planned their escape from it. He created wings for his son and himself with feathers and wax. But Icarus, in his arrogance to be able to fly, came too close to the sun. The wax melted. While Daedalus managed to escape, his son Icarus fell into the sea and was killed. The father buried the drowned son on the island in the North Aegean Sea that is still called Ikaria today.

Jesus' Gardens

Gardens play a dramatic role in the life of Jesus. We set out on a pilgrimage to those gardens that have to do with the finale of the life of Jesus. They are the Garden of Fear, the Garden of Death and the Garden of Resurrection.

Garden of Fear

First of all, there is the Garden of Fear. It is located on the Mount of Olives, a hill opposite Jerusalem. Jesus had gone there with his disciples after the Lord's Supper. Judas was already on the way as a traitor. He, the treasurer of the troupe, would betray the miracle rabbi by thirty pieces of silver. Perhaps he had hoped that he would already have a remedy at hand against an arrest. He was mistaken. He had probably already overheard Jesus' announcements that "the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes; he will be killed, but after three days he will rise again" (Mark 8:31).

As clearly as Jesus foresaw his fate, he felt primordial human resistance to suffering and death rising within him the closer the foreseen occurred. This happened just after the meal in the garden with the olive trees. Jesus withdrew from his followers in this garden to wrestle with his God. Let him let the cup pass by. The fear had gripped him so much that he sweated blood, as the evangelist reported. He suffered a seizure, which medicine calls haemathidrosis (from the Greek haima = blood, hidrôs = sweat).

The fact that people in fear of death can sweat blood and water is not just a figure of speech - in fact, it happens that blood leaks from the pores of healthy skin under stress. In haemathidrosis so-called capillaries rupture - these are the smallest blood vessels in the body. Then blood leaks.

Jesus experienced brutal stress. He had his suffering and death before his eyes. This scared him so much that he sweated blood.

Now we humans are all afraid, even if we don't sweat blood right away. The reeling world frightens us: the wars, the climate emergency, migration, artificial intelligence with its opaque possibilities. Behind these concrete fears is ultimately the fear of finiteness and futility that is characteristic of all human beings after expulsion from paradise, the heart of God from which we come.

Will we learn to come before God in our personal garden of fear with Jesus on the Mount of Olives? Do we learn to wrestle with God? Do we master agreeing in the end in order to survive in our fears? Could fear then be behind us and before us only a love that empowers us to bravely master what inevitably lies ahead? In the garden of Jesus' anguish, could humanity learn to persist in the fears that the reeling world is currently causing us, behind which lurks the fear of finiteness, transience and death?

In the Garden of Death

Jesus is imprisoned. He is questioned. Peter betrays him when a mercenary of the high priest tells him on the head in the cold night at the warming coal fire that he has seen him in the garden with the prisoner (John 18:26). Jesus is brought before those in power. before Pilate he is silent most of the time. But then he outed himself as king of a kingdom that is not of this world, but should come with him into this world: a kingdom of truth, justice and peace, as Pope Leo XIV explained to media representatives at a reception immediately after his election. Then he is crucified and has to go to the next garden of suffering: the garden of death. Now he is overcome by the feeling of complete godforsakenness, which he screams out loud. To then pass away in agreement.

A fresco in the cathedral of the Finnish city of Tampere is entitled "In the Garden of Death". It was made by Hugo Simberg in 1905/06. The artwork shows three skeletons dressed in dark coats, standing between raised beds and devoting themselves to the care of the flowers and trees. Death, represented here by these three figures, does not show itself as a brutal reaper, but as a gentle godfather Death. Every flower and tree in the beds of his garden represents a human life that is attentively cared for by death and transplanted into paradise after death. The figure on the left carefully waters the plants entrusted to him, and to the right of the centre of the picture, one of the figures gently presses one of the flowers to his chest with bony hands.

Hugo Simberg uses a motif from the fairy tale "Story of a Mother" by Hans Christian Andersen⁴⁶. Death has taken her child. The desperate mother does everything she can to get her child back and seeks death. Finally she finds the two of them, Death and the child. For God's sake, she begs him to give her the child back. Then death explains to her - I quote Andersen:

I only do what HE wants!" said Death. "I am HIS gardener. I take HIS flowers and trees and transplant them into the great Garden of Paradise, into the unknown land. But how they flourish there, and how it is there: I dare not tell you! (Christian Andersen)

In the Garden of Resurrection

"I am his gardener": a bridge that death builds in the fairy tale to the third garden, which Jesus entered in the finale of his life. First, the crucified Christ is taken down from the cross after the "Garden of Death" and placed in his mother's lap. The image of the dead Jesus in his mother's womb has inspired many artists to create masterpieces: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Antonio Vivaldi, Giachino Rossini, Josef Haydn, Antonin Dvorak, Arvo Pärt and many others. Michelangelo's Pietà, which can be admired in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, is world-famous. This is an almost archetypal and timeless image of the suffering of so many mothers in the senseless wars of today.

Then they take the body of Jesus, wrap it with linen bandages and embalm it with fragrant ointments. "In the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried." There they put Jesus next to him (John 19:40-42).

Mary Magdalene visits the tomb the next day. She mourns the loss of her beloved Jesus. She stands at the grave crying. There she hopes to at least find his maltreated body. She searches in vain for him among the dead - as two men in white robes, angels in disguise - later let themselves be heard (Luke 24:5). He is risen: which she does not understand before she immediately receives an empathetic lesson.

The grieving lover faces an unknown man. He looks like a gardener, with a shovel in his hand, according to Rembrandt in a hand drawing from 1609. She asks him if he can help her find the body. Even more: whether he didn't even steal the body - perhaps on behalf of the Jewish authorities. The corpse could become a place of worship for its followers (as those in power fear with the corpse of the dissident Alexander Navalny, who was tortured to death). The idea that the gardener could be the one she is looking for does not occur to her at all.

And then the incredibly touching scene with a conceivably brief dialogue of loving recognition: the supposed gardener addresses the woman with a familiar "Maria!". It makes her heart beat faster. She wraps all her pain and longing in the salutation "Rabbuni!", my master! She has found him. However, quite differently than expected. While the eyes of the body show her a strange "gardener", she recognizes the familiar rabbi with the eyes of the heart. She is about to touch him. "It doesn't work!" In almost proverbial harshness: "Noli me tangere! (Don't touch me!) the Risen One lets them know. "I'm not quite finished with my assignment yet." For him, the recognized confidant in the "Garden of the Resurrection" immediately takes her into his service: She is to go to the men who had hidden in fear after Jesus' death and bring them the good news that he is alive. This is such good news that all future generations, when asked what Christianity stands for, have said: "He is truly risen!" In incredibly haunting melodies, this Easter song of jubilation "He is risen!" (Greek: Χριστός ανέστη!; Chritos anéste; Russian: Христос воскрес! - Khristos voskres) in the churches of Orthodoxy. That is the core message of the churches. It is their kerygma, as theology calls it. In his dispute with the Hellenistic resurrection skeptics, Paul even goes so far as to say: If Christ has not risen, our entire faith is fake. And the "followers of the new way" (Acts 9:2) would be the most deceived in history.

Mary Magdalene, the first witness to the resurrection, thus goes to the apostles. Lukas reports about it in an unembellished way. They did not trust Mary Magdalene or any of the other women: they considered the story to be "gossip" (Luke 23:11). A woman cannot testify to anything, especially not the resurrection. It can therefore not be ordained, as our church ears can hear, even though ordained people officially testify to exactly this good news. It is probably only a matter of time before the Catholic Church allows itself to be taught by God at a council⁴⁷ and ordains women. That only men can do this, because Jesus was a man, is a miserable argument. For ordained do not "represent" the carpenter of Nazareth, but the resurrected one. But in this one became one: Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, men and women (Galatians 3:28). In addition to Christ, ordained people also represent the Church of Jesus Christ, which is His body (Colossians 1:18). The church, however, is female. She is called the bride of Christ. Nevertheless, no one claims that only ordained women can officially represent the female church.⁴⁸

The countdown is on until John Paul II's "never-and-never" in Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1984) becomes the insight that Mary Magdalene was the apostle who taught the apostles about the resurrection. And it is precisely for this message that the baptized are ordained. They are to bear witness in the name of the Church to what all the baptized testify to in the Church.

In this scene in the Garden of Resurrection, the circle closes to the Garden of Eden, from which Adam and Eve had been expelled. This is impressively captured in Orthodox art, such as in the Choros Cathedral in Istanbul. The first thing Christ did after the resurrection was to descend into Hades, into the realm of death, into hell. He breaks their gates and leads Adam and Eve, who stand for all of humanity, out of the realm of death with the classic rescue handle. The expulsion from paradise is definitely reversed. Just as in Adam all sinned and were therefore expelled from Paradise, Paradise is open again because of the second Adam, the Risen One. The enjoyment of the fruits of the Tree of Life of Immortality is finally possible (again). I understand that in the face of this almost unbelievable world-historical event, Paul is mocking death:

Death is swallowed up by victory:
Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?
(1 Corinthians 15:54f.)

PART 2: WHAT GROWS AND THRIVES

Trees

You have to be able to walk awayAnd yet be like a tree: As if the root remained in the ground, as if the landscape moved
and we stood firm

Hilde Domin⁴⁹

Growing Rings

Trees are plants, and a special kind of them. To be more precise, they are vascular plants. They have roots, stems and leaves, consist of cells, carry out photosynthesis and grow. The stems lignify (lignify). As a trunk⁵⁰ , the "tree stems" grow upwards, not into the sky, but only until they reach a height determined by the climate and thus by the altitude.

At the same time, they are growing in width. Annual rings are forming. Rainer Maria Rilke adopts this formation of annual rings as a profound image for the unique growth and maturation of a human being. This is how this well-known poem goes:

I live my life in growing rings that stretch over things. I may not be able to do the last one, but I want to try it.

I circle around God, around the ancient tower,and I circle for thousands of years; and I do not yet know: am I a hawk, a storm, or a great song.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Perhaps the last line of the poem is based on Rilke's experiences with trees. These also produce sounds: trees rustle, rustle, whistle, hum, whisper, whiz, roar and whisper.

In their "great song", trees make their contribution to the great praise of the Creator: "Let the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord!" (1 Chronicles 16:33) - "Mountains and hills will burst out in joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands!" (Isaiah 55:12; also Psalm 96:12)

The most frequently mentioned tree in the Bible, with 80 times, is the cedar. Close to it is the slender cypress (18 times). Botanically, it is the Lebanon cedar. It is one of the many cedar species. As the name suggests, it is native to the Lebanon Mountains. The cedar is a stately evergreen pine plant. It can reach a height of 30 to 50m. The diameter can be up to two meters. Cedars can live for 1000 years.

Dendrology

Talking about the tree can make you forget that there are about 73,200 tree species on earth. This is what tree science, called dendrology, teaches. Of these, 19% of these species occur in Eurasia, 8% in North America, 13% in Africa, 8% in Oceania: the most species-rich continent with 49% of all species is South America.⁵¹

Trees can remain evergreen or shed their needles or leaves. Deciduous forests are more likely to be found in the zone with a temperate climate; Coniferous forests with spruces, firs, but also birches in the cold north. Climate change, which is still denied by some, is putting a lot of strain on forests with long dry seasons and high temperatures. More and more forest fires, which are now raging all over the world from Siberia to Spain, from Canada to Turkey, are destroying huge areas of forest. This not only pollutes the atmosphere. At the same time, valuable CO2 storage capacity is destroyed.

A tree is a wondrous natural power plant. The leaves suck in water and nutrient salts (such as potassium, calcium, manganese and iron) from the soil through fine conductive tissues. This occurs when water evaporates on the surface of the leaves. Then a considerable suction tension is created in the fine capillaries. If the leaves are sufficiently differentiated, they send adapted substances (assimilates) back into the trunk so that it can become thicker. This happens in such abundance that it does not harm certain trees if humans extract "tree sap" from them through cuts in the bark and boil them down into syrups. The Canadian maple syrup is famous, which often sweetens our dishes instead of sugar or honey.

The Human Tree

Humans are closely interwoven with the tree in terms of cultural history. ⁵² An old, but still fruitful study by the social psychologist Gerhard Schmidtchen⁵³ has determined what is "sacred" to the Germans. "Holy" is not used here religiously, but socio-psychologically. Now it means: "I won't let anything get to you about that", "that's inviolable for me", somehow "taboo".

Schmidtchen was able to work out that man shows himself like a tree: the unique human tree (which "forests" in a community) grows and roots. So people need stability in their lives as well as mobility. Translated into human categories, it is about the two dimensions of freedom and homeland.

As with the tree, these dimensions are interdependent. If a tree's roots become sick or is even uprooted by storms, it cannot grow either. Conversely, if the crown dies, the root weck also dies and with it the tree. Only in an osmotic intertwining does the sensitive system of a tree remain alive.

It is the same with humans. Anyone who always wants to be free and grow will become a homeless nomad in the long run, psychologically homeless. Those who are always looking for home and never seek the vastness petrify and become a traditionalist in need of security.

We owe the comparison between a man and a tree to a blind man whom Jesus healed. The latter had wetted his eyes with healing saliva. As the blind man gradually regains his sight, he exclaims in amazement: "I see people; for I see something that looks like trees and walks around. Then he laid his hands on his eyes again; now the man saw clearly. He was restored and could see everything very clearly." (Mark 8:24f.)

The community tree

The image of the tree can also be applied to a living Christian community. The Weiz Pentecost Vision, founded in 1989 as a youth movement, has developed its own repertoire of songs. In one of the songs, the triad of God's rootedness, fraternity, human unleashing appears. The Weizer community knows how much it gets its life force from roots that are deeply rooted in God. From this sprouts togetherness and for each other. A community flourishes and provides diaconal services. Whoever is rooted in God, immersed in him, will appear among men, especially among the poor, and will ally himself with them and increase their vitality. This sentence is also true in the opposite direction: Whoever immerses himself with the poor, appears with God, whose estate is the world and people.

Tree of Knowledge and Life

In the Garden of Eden, which God planted after the creation of mankind, God "caused all kinds of trees to grow out of the ground, desirable to look at and delicious to eat, but in the middle of the garden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:9). Those from the tree of knowledge as well as the tree of life were taboo. They ate from the tree of knowledge. So that they could not also attack the tree of life, they were expelled from paradise.

Man knows about his mortality because he longs for the tree of life, i.e. for paradise. Above all, love sharpens the question of death. Many myths of mankind therefore revolve around the question of what is stronger in the end: death or love. In the grandiose vision of the seer of Patmos named John, the return home is paradise takes place at the end of days (Revelation 22:1f., 13f.).

As a church advisor, the Risen One promises the heresy-resistant members in the church of Ephesus a return to the lost paradise: "To him who conquers, I will give food from the tree of life that stands in the paradise of God." (Revelation 2:5)

The Oaks of Mamre

Abraham is considered the progenitor of the people of Israel. God had asked him to leave his home of your. As a migrant towards the promised land of Canaan, the nomad had settled in an oak grove near Hebron in the West Bank. This was probably named after its owner Mamre. In the shade of the oaks - they were probably stately terebinths - the hospitable encounter of Abraham and his wife Sarah with the passing three took place (Genesis 18:1-33). The world-famous Trinity Icon (троица, troica) by Andrei Rublev sees the Triune God in these three. The three are depicted in identical-looking shapes. The icon is a high point in Russian icon painting. It was painted in 1411 as a commission for the Trinity Monastery by Sergiev Posad. From 1929 to 2022, it was in the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow, before it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church for use in church services under protest from the gallery.

In addition to Abraham, his son Isaac, like his grandson Jacob, is counted among the progenitors. Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, was also called Israel, which gave the people as well as the country the name Israel and Israelites. Jacob's twelve brothers, on the other hand, represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Over the centuries, they have become entangled in conflicts with each other. If and because they broke faithfulness to God's covenant with His people, they were exiled. In it, they sang songs of longing for Jerusalem, hanging their harps in weeping willows (Psalm 137:2). Under King Cyrus, the return from the Babylonian captivity was successful. Jesus understood his mission to gather the twelve tribes of Israel. But because parts of the people and his religious leadership refused, he created - again with the "Twelve" - his collection movement, which today bears the honorary name of the church and stands for a renewed covenant.

Before all this happened, the path of Jacob and his sons led to Egypt. Thomas Mann told their story in an exciting way in his magnificent tetralogy "Joseph and his Brothers".⁵⁴ A famine had caused them to move there. It was a blessing in disguise: the favorite son Joseph, who had been thrown into a cistern, had been rescued by a passing caravan and taken to Egypt. In his art of interpreting dreams, he has proven to be a kind of economic sage. Pharaoh had dreamed of good and bad harvest years, according to Joseph's interpretation. He could not interpret his dreams. Joseph then proposed to Pharaoh a wise stock economy for the good years in order to survive the evil years that followed.

It was precisely in these years that old Jacob fled to Egypt with the other eleven brothers of Joseph to escape the famine in Canaan. They settled in Goschen. The colony multiplied. Little by little, they suffered a migrant fate. Initially received magnanimously, they were soon enslaved. The welcoming culture was gone. Then came the great moment in the history of Israel: God heard the cry of the oppressed (Exodus 3:7-10) and led them to freedom. The leader in the dramatic deliverance was Moses. He was a fugitive because he had killed an overseer. Moses received the order from God to persuade Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go. But he needed his work slaves. So he refused. Then God sent the well-known Egyptian plagues.

After this long walk we have arrived back at the trees. In the eighth and ninth of ten devastating plagues, the tree population in Egypt was severely affected: it hailed heavily. Locusts ate the trees bare (Exodus 9:22-26; 10:4f.).⁵⁵ What an ecological catastrophe, which was also interpreted as a punitive action by God! It is not easy to understand that God has hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he does not give in to Moses' demand.⁵⁶

After crossing the Red Sea, the way to the land promised by God ran through the desert of Sina, where they camped for some time. There the people received the law. The tabernacle was made, over which stood the cloud of God. The priestly sacrificial service was established. When all this had happened, according to the travel report, the cloud rose: That was the signal to leave.

Wealth of trees

Under Joshua, after almost forty years of desert punishment, the Jordan was finally crossed. The land grab could begin. The bloodily conquered land was distributed among the tribes. It is praised as a good country in various places. Also because of the trees, their beauty and fertility:

When the Lord your God leads you to a beautiful land, a land of streams, springs and groundwater that springs up in the valley and on the mountain, a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you do not have to eat your bread miserably, where you lack nothing. (Deuteronomy 8:7-9)

Already the fig tree, the olive tree, the pomegranate tree and the vine appear. They are among the eight "deuteronomic trees" that await the desert people in the promised land and that they themselves are supposed to plant and care for over time. When the spies returned from the land beyond the Jordan, they reported the fulfillment of the promise. The protocol of their exploration says: "From there they came to the Traubental. There they cut a vine with a grape and carried it in pairs on a pole, as well as some pomegranates and figs." (Numbers 13:2)

Costume of the Naked

I will turn to the figs in the last part of this meditative book. This is about the fig tree. The progenitors already knew him in paradise. When they had illegally eaten the delicious fruit (was it an apple or a fig?) from the Tree of Knowledge, they had noticed that they were naked and literally standing there in the costume of Eve or Adam. Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung each developed their own models of interpretation of what this mythological note about nudity, shame and sexuality means psychoanalytically with reference to the Genesis narrative. In any case, the naked people covered their newly discovered shame with the proverbial fig leaf.

The fig leaf is used today for moralizing. Just as the two were poorly covered, it is said, someone's social commitment must serve as a fig leaf for unscrupulous business. Does such shameful concealment also work against God? Yes, is it necessary at all? The poet of Psalm 139:1-7 is of the opinion that such hiding from God is not possible at all

Everyday Places of Peace

Sitting under the fig tree and the vine was synonymous with "having peace" in Israel. Micha announced this with this idyllic picture. After the swords are beaten into plowshares and the lances into pruning shears, "everyone sits under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one makes him afraid" (Micah 4:4). The same was true of the peacetime of the wise King Solomon, who had asked God for the gift of receiving a heart that listened to the people: "Judah and Israel lived in security from Dan to Beersheba; each one sat under his vine and his fig tree as long as Solomon lived." (1 Kings 5:5) Simeon, the Maccabee, reigned from 142 to 134 BC. It is said about him that he also brought peace to the country. And again this image of peace: "Everyone sat under his vine and his fig tree, and no one frightened them." (1 Maccabees 14:12)

The coming messianic time, which the prophet Sakhaiah sees in Jerusalem around 520 B.C. in his fourth vision, will also be a time of peace, recognizable again by the pleasurable life under the house trees: "On that day - declares the Lord of hosts - you will invite one another under vine and fig tree." (Zechariah 3:10)

On the other hand, when Israel was at war with the Philistines, King Saul is said to have "sat at the boundary of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree that stands near Migron." There is no question of peaceful sitting under the fig tree at home (1 Samuel 14:2). It would be a blessing for the Middle East if the leaders of the terrorist Hamas, the encroaching Israeli settlers in the West Bank and the entire wartime government of Israel were sitting under fig trees and vines. It would also be a blessing if fig trees and vines could be planted in the Kremlin next to the wonderful churches. If only there were outdoor trees and vines in front of the UN in New York or the Knesset in Jerusalem!

Tree nursery

"Trees in the Bible" are a popular topic of the spiritual book market. Trees are counted, described. Those Bible quotations are mentioned in which they appear in each case. It is also not difficult to move from the tree to the people or the people of God and to send messages to them in the image of the trees. Because the Bible itself does this extensively. It takes the reader to the school of trees, to a tree nursery of a different kind.

Hope is uprooted like a tree, Job complains about God in the face of his manifold trials (Job 19:10). At the same time, he knows that even for a tree stump there is still hope that it will awaken to new life (Job 14:7). This image of hope inspired the prophet Isaiah, whom Paul then quotes and applies to Jesus (Romans 15:12): "In that day it will be the sprout of the root of Jesse who will stand as a standard for the nations." (Isaiah 11:10)

With events in the life of trees (here in a broad sense), the book of Job illustrates the fate of a wicked wicked man: "Before his day comes, he withers away, and his palm branch no longer greens. It repels it like the vine rejects sour grapes, like the olive tree it throws away its blossoms." (Job 15:32f.) "He will never be remembered again, the sacrilege will be broken." (Job 24:20)

The strength, size, and beauty of a tree serve to express admiration for a person. Jakob, who has grown old, blesses his children. Among them is Josef, to whom his brothers have done a lot of harm, but to whom the extended family owes its survival. The blessing father raves about him: "Joseph is a young fruit tree, a young fruit tree at the spring, whose branches rise up the wall." (Genesis 49:22) Soon after, Jacob dies.

Psalm 1 belongs in the guideline of dignified male spirituality. "Blessed" is a man who does not constantly make common cause with the wicked and scoffers. Rather, he adheres to God's instructions. He meditates on them day and night. Then the tree metaphor describes what kind of man is formed in this way:

He is like a tree
planted by rivers full of water,
which bears fruit at the right time,
and whose leaves do not wither.
Everything he does,
he will succeed.
(Psalm 1:3)

Such a godly man lives in a family, according to another psalm, where the woman "is like a fruitful vine, and the children like shoots of olive trees" (Psalm 128:3). In Psalm 144, the answered prayer of a king for his country, it is further enthused: "Then our sons are like young trees, grown tall in their youth, our daughters beautifully designed like pillars on the building of a palace." (Psalm 144:12) A devout believer then feels "like a green olive tree in the house of God" (Psalm 52:10).

Once again, as so often in its long history, "the house of David" had been attacked under King Ahab. "Then his heart and the heart of his people trembled, as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind." (Isaiah 7:2) But the prophet Isaiah, who had been summoned, advised him to keep quiet and not to be afraid. Israel will stand. Apparently, the scaredy-cat still had doubts. Then God advised him (probably through the prophet): He should let God give him a sign that he would successfully help the people. Ahab, however, did not want to demand any: a faux pas that gave history one of the most important and at the same time most complicated promises: the birth of the Messiah from a virgin. "Behold, the virgin has conceived, she gives birth to a son, and will call his name Immanuel. He will eat butter and honey until the time when he knows how to reject evil and choose good." (Isaiah 7:14f.)

The prophet Isaiah's sarcastic mockery of the carvers of wooden idols reads contemptuously. The prophet takes us to the artist's workshop. He stretches the measuring cord, designs a picture with the pen, carves it with the measuring instruments. "He outlines it with the compass and makes the figure of a man, the magnificent image of a man; it shall live in a house." For this purpose, a cedar, a terebinth or some other mighty tree is felled, which was allowed to grow stronger than the other trees in the forest. A laurel tree is also used, which is well watered by rain and allowed to grow large. It is wood without any particular secrets: it is used in the oven, roasted meat, heated with it. How can one be so blind as to believe that a deity lives in a block of wood before whom one bows and prostrates. Ignorant, glued eyes, heart without insight: this is how the prophet characterizes godless action. His conclusion: "Whoever guards ashes has been seduced by his deceived heart. He will not save his life and will not say: I am only holding a mirage in my right hand." (Isaiah 44:13-20)

Such religion-critical prophets did not have it easy. They were persecuted. Many of them killed. David refers to such murderous perpetrators of violence in a psalm attributed to him. Such a wicked person shows himself "spreading like a green, rooted tree". And then the spiritual knockout blow: "He passed away - behold: he was no longer there. I looked for him, but he couldn't be found." (Psalm 37:35f.)

Shrubs

Receive peace in abundance who love your commandment, for them there is no stumbling.
(Psalm 118:165)

Stumbling

When people who spoke Middle High German said strüchen, they meant "stumbling over the roots of a shrub" and falling down. In today's German, we use the word straucheln, which is even more similar to the shrub.

The Bible speaks of such stumbling stumbling in very different meanings. For example, among the soldiers of the invading Assyrians who threaten Israel, there is not one who "is weary, stumbles, none who slumbers and sleeps" (Isaiah 5:27).

The Bible mentions very different groups of people who stumble: the wicked (Proverbs 4:16; 24:16f.), the impudent like Babel (Jeremiah 50:32) or the mighty Nineveh in the onslaught of his destroyers (Nahum 2:6); who does not keep the law of God (Jesus Sirach 32:19f.); who are led astray by dreams (Jesus Sirach 34:5-7). The people stumble, offering incense to "nothings" in vain: "But they let them stumble on their ways, the paths they are used to, so that they have to walk on untrodden paths." (Jeremiah 18:15) The psalmist's "oppressors and enemies; they have stumbled and fallen" (Psalm 27:2).

The causes of the stumbling are also indicated. In a few passages, it is God himself who causes someone to stumble: the "Lord of hosts" becomes "a stumbling block and a rock on which to stumble." (Isaiah 8:13-15) God, who is not pleased with the burnt offerings of his people, "puts obstacles in the way of this people, so that they stumble over them. Fathers and sons together, one like the other perishes." (Jeremiah 6:20f.) God proves to be a "mighty hero" for the protection of the oppressed people. That's why my persecutors stumble and can't overcome." (Jeremiah 20:11).

Much more often it is reported that God protects against stumbling. God also helps those who have stumbled. He stands by the one whose feet stumble and is close to falling (Psalm 38:17f.). Trust in God therefore protects against stumbling: "The Lord strengthens the steps of man, he delights in his way. Even if he stumbles, he does not fall, for the Lord supports his hand." (Psalm 37:23f.) Thus, God is repeatedly thanked in the psalm songs: "Yes, you have snatched my life from death. Didn't you keep my feet from stumbling?" (Psalm 46:13f.; also Psalm 116:8f.) Wisdom (Wisdom 4:11f.), faithfulness to God's instructions, even more love for God (Jesus Sirach 34:19f.) prevent stumbling. Help was also given to the people during the exodus from oppressive Egypt: "He brought out his people with silver and gold, among his tribes there was no one who stumbled." (Psalm 105:37)

In a speech in the Book of Job, his friend Eliphaz says to the sufferer: "Behold, you have instructed many and strengthened hands that are weak. Your words helped the stumbling man." (Job 4:3f.) It is therefore worthwhile, according to the wise Jesus Sirach, to listen to the advice of a pious man and to know for his compassion when one stumbles (Jesus Sirach 37:12).

On the way from Egypt to the Promised Land, God was a reliable support. It is therefore good for the pious "today" to remember this: "Then they thought of the days of old, of Moses, of his people: Where is he who brought them up out of the sea, together with the shepherd of his sheep? Where is he who put his Holy Spirit within him, who made them walk on the right hand side of Moses with a magnificent arm, who parted the waters before them to make an everlasting name for himself, who made them walk through the floods like horses through the wilderness without stumbling?" (Isaiah 63:11-13) Then what the prophet Zechariah announces will be true: "In that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and even the one of them who stumbles will be like David in that day, and the house of David like God, like the angel of the Lord before them." (Zechariah 12:8) The prophet Jeremiah also confidently prophesies: "Behold, I will bring them home from the north and gather them from the ends of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those who are pregnant and women who have recently given birth; they return here as a large congregation. They come weeping, and in mercy I accompany them. I lead them to streams of water, on a level path, where they do not stumble. For I am father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." (Jeremiah 31:7-9)

With all the praise for God, who saves him from stumbling or helps the fallen: A singer is irritated by what he sees as the spiritual grievance, that he, the pious, is in danger of stumbling, while the wicked are obviously doing well:

But I - my feet almost stumbled, my steps almost slipped.
For I have been enraged against the boasters when I saw the welfare of the wicked:
"They do not suffer torments,
their bodies are healthy and well-fed."
They do not know the hardships of mortals,
are not tormented like other people.
(Psalm 73:1-5)

However, the Apostle Paul wrests something advantageous from the stumbling of even the pious in his letter to the congregation in Rome. In the controversy over the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles, he asks: "Did they stumble so that they might fall? Not at all! Rather, salvation came to the Gentiles through their transgression to make them jealous themselves." (Romans 11:11f.)

Frutex

The Latin word "frutex" was not familiar to me as a knowledgeable Latin. It means "shrub". The word is synonymous with bush or "small wood". Botanically, it is not so much the plant itself that is meant, but its growth habit. They are plants that lignify. But unlike trees, which become thicker and form annual rings, shrubs usually do not form a so-called main axis, i.e. a trunk. Rather, several shoots grow from buds close to the ground. If these do not lignify or only a little, they are referred to as herbaceous perennials.

Shrubs are considered perennial. Depending on the species, they green for more or less long. Some only stay green in summer, others always. They reproduce via berries or nuts, which delight humans and animals (such as birds or squirrels) alike. The juniper bush enriches the kitchen with its delicious berries. The cinnamon bush beguiles with its scent; its bark is a noble spice.

Parks and gardens usually accommodate beautifully flowering shrubs. These can stand alone, but also provide protection as a hedge. Even in my garden there are different shrubs: currants, hydrangeas, spiraeas, forsythia, yews, lilacs. I didn't know until now that lavender is also a shrub, or rather a ground-covering dwarf shrub.

Biblical Shrub Stories

No figs are picked from the thistles
and no grapes are harvested from the thorn bush.
(Luke 6:44)

The sequence is remarkable. "At the time when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, there were no shrubs on the earth and no plants were growing, for the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man tilling the ground." (Genesis 2:4f.). Then God created man. And only then did God plant the Garden of Eden "in the east" and put man there. God let all kinds of trees grow there, including the tree with the seductive forbidden apples. And probably also shrubs. In later biblical narratives, such appear rather casually.

The Cinnamon Scent of Wisdom

The Bible mentions many shrubs, solitary or with other shrubs and trees. In his hymn of praise to wisdom, the author Jesus Sirach outdoes himself in raptures (Jesus Sirach 24:12-17). It smells like a cinnamon tree (Jesus Sirach 24:15).

The cinnamon plant is botanically one of the shrubs. Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices, known as early as 2000 BC in Chinese or Indian culture. The scent comes from the cinnamon oil, which is present in all parts of the tree. In the regional house of the Immenseer Missionaries in Taiwan, I could see this myself when I rubbed cinnamon leaves between my fingers.

Hand of Mary: the Rose of Jericho

Wisdom is compared to rose bushes in Jericho (Jesus Sirach, 24:14). The "True Rose of Jericho", a cruciferous plant, has gained considerable importance in customs and folk medicine.

The Rose of Jericho bears other names that are informative. It is called the desert rose: because it is native to desert areas of Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Sinai and parts of North Africa. The seeds of the salt plant, which are covered and protected by dry branches, come back to life when it rains. The heat tolerance of the plant is high. It does not grow larger than five to fifteen centimeters, probably due to the desert climate.

It is also called the Jerusalem Rose: because it was often brought back as a souvenir by Jerusalem pilgrims. The pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim made an extended journey to the Middle East in 1336-1341. He wrote a detailed report on this. He also talks about the relationship of the Rose of Jericho to Mary. According to legend, Mary held such a rose in her hand when she gave birth in the stable. According to popular belief in the Catholic regions of Switzerland and southwestern Germany, the blossom opens at Christmas. If this happened, they hoped for good weather and fertility.

Arabic folk medicine valued the rose under the Arabic name "kaf Maryam", which means hand of Mary. Their dried fruits were used to make tea. It was drunk for diseases of the uterus, against miscarriages, birth pains, but also female infertility. Men also drank it against impotence.

The worm in the castor bush

The castor bean bush plays a completely different role. God used one, if you can say so, to teach the incorrigible prophet Jonah two lessons. What God had expected of him was certainly unheard of. He was to go to the godless city of Nineveh, call for repentance, and thus prevent the destruction of the city that God had decreed because of its wickedness. The Prophet thought he could escape the mission. He fled from the client in the direction that led away from Nineveh. In vain. A storm arose, the sailors threw the prophet into the sea because he was held responsible for the outbreak of the storm. A whale swallowed him and spat him out on the shore. This was the first lesson of God: once called, no one escapes her.

Thereupon Jonah reluctantly preached in the city. And lo and behold: all the people and also the cattle fasted and repented. The city, which was doomed to imminent destruction, was saved. The prophet had hoped that he would feel the same way as many other preachers to this day, and that people would hear but not change. He left the city. Because it is hot, he sat down under a castor bush.

The castor bean bush is a spurge plant. In trivial German, it is called a miracle tree, lice tree, dog tree or Christ palm. The plant grows quickly, can grow up to six meters high within three to four months. The leaves are 30-70 cm tall and provide plenty of shade.

This benefited the prophet Jonah. After his unintentionally successful sermon, he left the city angrily. He wanted to see from a safe distance whether the wrath of God would not destroy the disreputable city after all. But God had long since had mercy on the repentant city. The only problem for God was only his insubordinate prophet. He gave him the second lesson. This is described in the teacher's narrative of the Book of Jonah in an inimitable way as follows:

So Jonah left the city and sat down east of the city. He made himself a canopy of leaves there and sat down in his shade to wait to see what happened to the city. Then the Lord God caused a castor bush to grow up over Jonah, which was to give shade to his head and drive away his anger. Jonah was very happy about the castor bush. But the next day, when the dawn came, God sent a worm to gnaw at the castor bush so that it withered. And when the sun rose, God sent a hot east wind. The sun stung Jonah on the head, so that he almost fainted. Then he wished to die, saying, "It is better for me to die than to live." And God said to Jonah, "Is it right of you to be angry because of the castor bush? He answered, "Yes, it is right that I should be angry and wish for death." Then the Lord said, "You have compassion on a castor bush for which you have not worked and which you have not raised." It was there overnight, it died overnight. Shouldn't I have pity on Nineveh, the great city in which more than one hundred and twenty thousand people live, who cannot distinguish between right and left - and so many cattle besides? (Jonah 4:5-11)

Jotam fable: the Tree King

A fable rounds off this module: the jotam fable from the first testament book of Judges. I'll first outline the context. This makes the narrative more accessible.

The narrator of the story, Jotam, has a considerable pedigree. His father was the brave Gideon. God, according to the Bible, had called him to eradicate the Baal cult introduced by the Midianites. However, God wanted this "special military operation" to ⁵⁷ be seen as his and not the soldiers' merit. That's why Gideon had to retire people several times. The logic was amazingly simple: the fewer soldiers fought, the greater the glory of God. Can this be applied analogously to the Christian churches today? The last decommissioning took place at a water source. Those who knelt down to drink heavily had to go home. Those who scooped only a handful in passing came along.

So Jotam had this heroic general as his father. Another brother was Abimelech. He was in office during the time of the judges (1250 to 1000 BC). As a judge, he had to share power with seventy respected men. In the long run, that was not enough for him. He wanted to be king. He managed to do this by murdering: He first eliminated all male members of his father's clan. Then he proclaimed himself city king in Shechem: the inhabitants of the city had supported him in his coup with temple funds so that he could pay his soldiers.

Jotam, his youngest brother, survived the murder. He learns that his brother Abimelech had been crowned king. There he climbs the symbolic Mount Gerizim. On this site, Joshua had erected a high sanctuary on behalf of Moses to worship Yahweh. Later, the Samaritans, who had split off from the temple cult in Jerusalem, built their own temple. Jesus mentions this mountain when he has a spiritually engaged conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well. In order to worship God, the temple in Jerusalem will still be needed on the Gerizim. So Jotam stands on the mountain and raises his voice so loudly that he could be heard from afar.

Presumably, many followed him up the mountain who were skeptical about the restructuring of the liberal-subsidiary judicial system into an illiberal-authoritarian monarchy. He preceded the fable with the admonition to cooperate with the king if they could rejoice over his rule. But he does not hide from them that things could also turn out badly. Just like in the fable. It goes like this:

Once the trees went to anoint a king for themselves, and they said to the olive tree, "Be our king."

The olive tree said to them, "Have I already given up my fat, which gods and men honor in me, and will I go to stagger over the trees?"

Then the trees said to the fig tree, "Go thou, be our king."

The fig tree said to them, "Have I already given up my sweets and my good fruits, and am I going to sway over the trees?"

Then the trees said to the vine, "Go, be our king."

The vine said to them, "Have I already given up my wine, which rejoices gods and men, and will I go to stagger over the trees?"

Then all the trees said to the thorn bush, "Go thou, be our king."

The thorn bush said to the trees, "If you really want to anoint me as your king, come, hide yourselves in my shadow." But if not, then fire shall go out from the thorn bush and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

(Judges 9:9-15)

Fables are timeless. In this way, the Jotam fable can also serve as a mirror for recent political developments. The olive tree, vine and fig tree then stand for the core concern of every social order: the common good - symbolized in the fable by olive oil, juicy grapes and sweet figs. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, they form a functioning civil society.

The thorn bush, on the other hand, shows how much authority, which is absolutely necessary, does not serve freedom, but can degenerate illiberally. Thornbush-like authorities are corrupt and threatening. Fire goes out from them and they eat the cedars of Lebanon. So they threaten the people and their wealth.

Grassland

A person's home is where
he thrives. Aristophanes 450-385 BC)

Grassland is a man-made, i.e. anthropogenic ecosystem. It was and is being wrested from wooded areas and must be used constantly. If this does not happen, green landscapes will gradually recede into forests.

Grassland farming is used for its use. Grasses or herbaceous plants are grown on agricultural land. These are either grazed. Or the grass of a meadow is mowed as a winter supply, dried into hay using different methods, stored in barns or ensiled in different ways.

In times when fossil fuels are being abandoned for ecological reasons, grassland is used to produce energy crops that can be used to generate electricity in suitable bio-power plants.

Not to be forgotten is the sports turf, on which several sports are practiced. The game of golf calls for a creeping type of grass, such as bent or Bermuda grass. This grows along the ground. The golf ball can roll well on it. Tennis is played on sand or grass. But what would Europe be without the many football pitches with their well-kept and now well-watered lawns!

In biblical texts, the word grassland is often used to refer to an inhabited stretch of land. For example, Naomi, Ruth's grandmother, moves away from the grassland of Moab because of the drought and famine that has broken out (e.g. Ruth 1:6). In a victory song, the prophetess and judge Deborah and the military commander Barack mention the grassland of Edom: "Lord, when you came out of Seir, when you came from the grassland of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured out, yes, out of the clouds the water poured out." (Judges 5:4)

Steppes and savannahs

In addition to the grassland created by human cultivation, there is primeval grassland on about one tenth of the earth's surface. This is called steppe or savannah.

The word steppe comes from Russian and refers to the large Eurasian steppes in southern Russia. This area is home to the Przewalski's horses, the Asian donkey and the saiga antelope. They are historically known through the Mongolian equestrian people of the Dginghis Khan, his Golden Horde. In North America, the term prairie is used for steppe, in Argentina it is called pampa. Among the European steppes, the Puszta in Hungary is probably the most famous.

Grassland requires well over 400mm of precipitation per year. In steppes and savannahs, on the other hand, the amounts of precipitation vary. They are high in wet savannahs, lower in dry savannahs, low in thorn bush savannahs. Steppes and savannahs can be farmed depending on the climate. The dryness of the soil can be mitigated by intensive irrigation. Wheat, maize, but also cotton, peanuts and millet are grown on steppe soils. The steppes of North America and Eurasia contribute significantly to world wheat production.

Grasses

There are two large plant families: sweet grasses and sand grasses. The rush family belongs to the latter.

These families have their respective growth areas. Grasslands are home to sweet grasses. Botanically, these are monocotyledonous herbaceous plants. The flowers are inconspicuous, the leaves long and narrow. The blade of the grass, which is divided by knots, is hollow. The flowers are inconspicuous. The inflorescences are formed as panicles or spikes. Sweet grasses include cereals: such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, corn and rice. Their grains form the basis for feeding the world's population, but are also used as animal feed.

There are around 100 genera and 5500 species of sour grasses. In the case of sour grasses, the stem is not hollow, but filled with pith. It is also usually triangular, without thickened knots.

When people talk colloquially about "grass", weed, pot, ganja or Mary Jane, they mean the hemp plant marijuana. Botanically, however, the name weed does not fit for the mostly illegal or only in small quantities legal drug present in the hemp plant.

Some familiar idioms have a connection to grass. If someone says to a situation, "there is no more grass growing", then it is completely lost. Impatient people "pull on the grass" to accelerate a development that takes time. In the Edda, it is said that two of the twelve guardians of the gods were so sensitive to their senses that they could hear the grass growing in the earth and the wool growing on the sheep: it is hard to imagine more sensitivity. If something has long been forgotten, "grass has grown over it". Anyone who wants to watch the grass grow shows extreme patience. Those who die "bite the dust".

With this botanical knowledge, it is possible to take a targeted look at the Bible. Steppe (80), grass (54)/ hay (3), sedge grass (4)/reed (17)/the (bent (6)) reed (7) and rushes (5) are more or less common words there. We will concentrate on the word fields steppe, grass and rushes.

Steppe

"The King-David Report" was initially written in English by Stefan Heym (1913-2001). In 1973, a German translation was published in West Germany, and a year later also in the German Democratic Republic. Heym was German Jewish. He knew the Tanakh, i.e. the holy scriptures of Judaism. However, he did not read them like a believing Jew, but politically. Heym has the report written by historian Ethan ben Hoshaja from the city of Esrah⁵⁸. The King David Report explains well why a stele erected in 2009 in Berlin-Grünau in honor of the writer is engraved with his statement: "I have always interfered H.H." With the politically interpreted story of King David, Stefan Heym holds up a mirror to the Stalinist GDR system.

I open my meditation on the steppe in the Bible with the memory of this great work of a writer who was both honored and persecuted. Because many events in the life of King David take place in steppes. A few moving steppe stories about King David are now to be told.

A tragic men's story

A considerable proportion of the Bible's narratives about King David trace the dramatic and tragic power struggle between two kings: King Saul and his successor David. The prophet Samuel had first anointed Saul as king at the behest of God. The people had demanded a king. But Saul fell out of favor with God because, after winning a battle against the Amalekites, he had not fully executed the spell on the defeated enemy. Perhaps Saul did this out of corrupt self-interest, or he had too much empathy and therefore, ahead of his time, defended himself against what we consider to be an act contrary to international law against the defeated enemies, their cattle and their country. Saul fell not only into disgrace, but also into madness: "The Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord disturbed him." (1 Samuel 16:14) In this situation, Samuel was induced by God to call the shepherd boy David away from the flocks and to anoint him as king in secret. As a secretly anointed king, he comes to the royal court. He was not only handsome, but also a gifted harpist. His virtuoso playing was able to drive away Saul's evil spirits at times. Music therapy, in other words. Then David becomes the darling of the people, which does not do the king any good. David kills the powerful, well-armed Goliath with a slingshot. It was so big, some say mischievously, that he couldn't miss it. He then defeats the Philistines. The jubilation was tremendous: "From that day on, Saul was suspicious of David." (Samuel 17:6-9)

King Saul's jealous mistrust of the successful and acclaimed harpist grows. He wants to get him out of the way. This will be revealed to David by priests. David is able to escape. Now comes the steppe time of David. Steppes and deserts were not only places of refuge for David, but also places of inner maturation. The shepherd became a warrior, the fugitive a king. The solitude of the steppe was, in a way, the "teaching room" of his vocation.

Despite repeated attempts by King Saul to kill him, David remains loyal: because he does not want to attack his king, whom the prophet had anointed in the name of God - as well as him. These are two touching stories in which this loyalty to a king who wants to kill him becomes visible.

The tip of the coat

David and his army come to the aid of the city of Keila. It is threatened by the Philistines. David saves the city. King Saul uses this opportunity in his paranoia, tries to encircle David with his soldiers. He seeks advice from God. He then flees to the Sif steppe. But the Sifites betray him to Saul. So he flees on, first to the Maon steppe. Saul stays on his heels. However, an incursion by the Philistines prevents him from further pursuit. David wanders on to the steppe En-Gedi. After the victory over the Philistines, Saul resumes the pursuit. The secret services work: Saul learns where David is. David, in turn, is warned. He hides in a cave. Exciting what happens then. In his search for David and his men, Saul comes to sheepfolds. There is exactly the cave in which David is hiding with his men. Then the story becomes very human: while Saul relieves himself, David cuts off the corner of his cloak (1 Samuel 24:3-5).

David is not comfortable when he stands there with the tip of his coat. When King Saul leaves the cave with a mutilated cloak after relieving himself, David runs after him, bows, prostrates himself and calls out to Saul not to listen to those who say he must fear David. As proof, he showed him the tip of the mantle (1 Samuel 26:10-14).

Spear and water jug

These words, according to the biblical account, move King Saul to tears. He breaks off the pursuit of the dreaded competitor David. What's more, he predicts that he will become king and that his descendants will endure. But the demons are stronger. And the traitorous Sifites stir up King Saul again and tell him where David is. He initially retreated to his mountain fortress. Then he moves into the desert. There his spies tell him that King Saul is approaching with three thousand men. David takes the initiative and tracks down the camp of King Saul and his men. They have already gone to rest. Saul sleeps next to his commander Abner in the middle of the camp. Around him are his people, who are supposed to protect him. For the second time, there is a touching scene of sparing.

David takes Abishai with him. They sneak into the camp unnoticed. "No one saw and no one noticed anything, and no one woke up; they were all asleep, for the Lord had let them fall into a deep sleep." They get ahead of Saul and Abner. "Saul lay in the middle of the camp and slept; his spear was stuck in the ground next to his head."

Abishai wants to kill the king immediately with his spear. David, however, forbade him, saying that he would not lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed one (1 Samuel 26:8-12). Unnoticed, they are able to leave Saul's camp with spear and water jug. Both go to a hill opposite Saul's camp. First, David humiliates Abner, Saul's commander. He had failed to protect his king at night. If only someone could sneak into the middle of the camp to kill the king. "You deserve death because you did not guard your Lord, the anointed one of the Lord. Look where the king's spear and the water jug are, which stood beside the king's head." (1 Samuel 26:16) Saul, who has long since woken up, immediately recognizes David's voice. He complains that he is persecuting him and that he has to flee to foreign countries to foreign gods. He is annoyed that Saul listens to slanderous traitors instead of trusting his loyalty. He had just demonstrated this to him again in a drastic way. Because killing him would have been easy. But his fear of God, and therefore his loyalty, had prevailed.

Saul is remorseful again. But David can't believe his tears. And rightly so. Because even after cutting off the cloaktail, the remorse did not last long: the demon quickly returned. Saul takes up the persecution of David again. King Saul thus shows us how useless repentance is without real conversion, reorientation, change.

David, who has become cautious, goes to the land of the Philistines. There he befriends their king Achisch. He leaves him a city in which he settles. During this time, he lives from robberies. He leaves a trail of blood on them because he kills all the people and animals he doesn't take with him. Then it comes to the war of the Philistines against King Saul. David was supposed to go along with his people. He himself is appointed bodyguard of the king. But that is tremendous for Achisch's own people. They fear that David could very well turn against them in the fight and beat them as he did in previous years. In this way, they achieve that David was dismissed from the army and sent home.

Saul notices that the Philistines are approaching. He consults God. He is silent. Samuel has already died. So he can't ask him anymore. In his perplexity, he seeks out a fortune teller in En-Dor in disguise. This is supposed to summon the dead Samuel and make him appear. This leads to a dialogue between Saul, who has been unmasked in the meantime, and the spirit of the dead of Samuel. The result is fatal for Saul: his death is announced to him. And so it happens. The Philistines inflict a devastating defeat on Saul. He does not want to be killed by an enemy soldier. So he asks his armor-bearer to kill him with the sword. When he refuses, Saul throws himself into his sword and dies. His body is indignant and desecrated. His head is cut off. Head and armor are sent around the country to spread the news of victory. Finally, the armor is deposited in the Eagle Temple. The body of Saul is pinned to the wall of Beth-shean with the bodies of his three fallen sons. The inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead recover the four bodies, burn them and bury the bones under the tamarisk of Jabesh. Then they fast for seven days. The prophecy of the spirit of the dead Samuel has been fulfilled in a gruesome way.

Bathsheba

Hermann Hesse (1877-1926) published his novel "Steppenwolf" in 1927. The Steppenwolf is considered a lonely, but at the same time independent animal. Hesse sees himself this way: isolated and alienated on the one hand, driven by wild instincts on the other. Hesse works through his conflict with the protagonist of the novel, Harry Haller, in a self-therapeutic way. Hesse could probably also have chosen King David as the main character of his novel. According to Stefan Heym, this also had highly contradictory sides. And this in his political actions as well as in his private life.

King David had several wives, including the three most famous: Michal, his first wife, Abigail of Carmel and Bathsheba. A total of eight wives are mentioned by name in the Bible, but it is also mentioned that he also had other wives and concubines. Each of these women had her own story and significance in the biblical narratives. I am merely telling the dramatic incident with Bathsheba.

David was a womanizer, a homme à femmes, a womanizer. He shamelessly exploits his royal power to do so. There is a war against the Ammonites. David leaves the campaign to his commander Joab. He himself remains in his palace. One evening he goes to the flat roof of the palace. From there he sees a beautiful woman taking a ritual bath. Instead of admiring her beauty and then discreetly turning away, a fierce desire for her awakens in him. Admiration turns into possession. From pleasurable amazement at beauty, evil deeds that arise from unregulated lust. It goes blow after blow. He brings her into the palace. Sleeps with her. She immediately becomes pregnant. Her name is Bathsheba.

However, Bathsheba is married to the Hittite Urija. He is currently serving as a loyal soldier of David and is fighting at the front against the Ammonites. David wants to cover up the fact that he has impregnated Bathsheba. So he has Uriah ordered home from the front by Joab. He hopes that the couple will sleep together after a long forced abstinence. At that time, no one could determine whose child it was with a paternity test, according to David's perfidious calculation. When Uriah arrives at David's house, David asks him to go to his house and wash himself. But Urija, out of loyalty to his fellow fighters, refuses to go to his house: "... my master Joab and my master's servants are encamped in the open field; am I to go to my house to eat and drink and to lie down with my wife?" (2 Samuel 11:11) And Uriah, without sleeping with his wife, returns to his unit.

David then acts just as nasty as his king Saul once tried to do with him: He has him ordered to the front line, "where the battle is fiercest" (2 Samuel 11:15). Urijah, however, fared differently than David. While he survived, Urijah fell in battle. "When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she held the lamentation for her husband. As soon as the mourning period was over, David had her brought to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son." (2 Samuel 11:26f.)

The king, anointed by God, acted profoundly immorally, corruptly, abused his political power: "But in the sight of the Lord was evil what David had done" (2 Samuel 11:27). He was of the opinion that as king he was entitled to all this. No one should criticize him for that. For him, power took precedence over the law. A temptation to which so many egomaniacal and unempathetic-narcissistic rulers succumb in today's reeling world. They believe that they can appropriate foreign territories such as Greenland, Ukraine, the Gaza Strip including the West Bank or Taiwan by military force. In doing so, they disregard applicable international law. The United Nations is proving powerless against such a breach of international law in its current construction. The perpetrators shamelessly use their veto right in the Security Council.

David, however, was thoroughly mistaken. In his drive-driven crime, he had reckoned without God and his prophets. Nathan comes into play. God urged him to go to David and tell him the following story:

Once upon a time there lived in a city two men; one was rich, the other poor. The rich man had a great many sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing but a single little lamb that he had bought. He raised it and it grew up with him together with his children. She ate of her piece of bread, and she drank from her cup, and lay in her lap, and was like a daughter to him.
Then a visitor came to the rich man, and he could not bring himself to take one of his sheep or oxen to prepare it for the one who had come to him. So he took the lamb away from the poor man and prepared it for the man who had come to him. (2 Samuel 12:1-4)

King David became furious with the rich man in Nathan's story. Without thinking twice, he judged: "The man who did this deserves death. He shall replace the lamb fourfold, because he did that and had no compassion." (2 Samuel 12:5f.)

The prophet Nathan, inspired by God's Spirit, had held up a moral mirror to him with this story. And even before David saw through this moral pedagogical ruse, he judged morally accurately. Nathan now only had to open his eyes. That's why he said coolly: "You yourself are the man." The prophet mercilessly exposes the king's shameful deeds: "Why have you despised the word of the Lord and done something that is displeasing to him? You slew the Hittite Uriah with the sword, and took his wife as your wife; by the sword of the Ammonites you killed him." (2 Samuel 12:9)

It gets even more dramatic: the child he fathered with Bathsheba in adultery will die. It actually became seriously ill. David, who had long since deeply repented of his actions, fasted for seven days, sleeping on the bare floor. But the unlawful child died, as the Prophet had predicted: praying and fasting did not help. David went to the temple after mourning the child. When he returned, he demanded to eat. "And David comforted his wife Bathsheba; he went in to her and slept with her. And she gave birth to a son, and he named him Solomon. The Lord loved Solomon and sent the prophet Nathan to call him the name Jedidiah⁵⁹, the beloved of the Lord, for the Lord's sake." (2 Samuel 12:24f.)

How moving. Heaviest guilt. Repentance. Repentance. David composed impressive penitential psalms on the bitter soil of his diverse experiences.⁶⁰ And last but not least: From all these convoluted events comes the great King Solomon, the wise man to whom the Song of Songs is attributed. How God also reaches his goal with people on moral deviations!

Stefan Heym may have hit the bull's eye with his "King David Report": the biblical narratives are less about God than about the legitimation of the rule of the Davidic clan. Solomon commissioned the turbulent story of his father David from the historian Ethan solely to shed light on his ruling house and thus himself. Even God has been harnessed for this.

Grass

Grass does not grow solitary. There are always numerous grass plants that green together. This botanical fact alone is symbolically interpreted in the Bible. "You will learn that your descendants are numerous, your offspring like the grass of the earth." (Job 5:25) God promises this to Job, whom he has severely tested, in an almost suffering-pedagogical speech. God wounds, but he also connects. In times of famine, he saves from adversity, in war from the violence of the sword (Job 5:17-27). Job, however, finds it difficult to simply accept this almost euphoric speech about God. God's wordy consolation meets his sorrow-soaked inconsolability.

One of the Psalms is a legacy of David, the harpist on the royal throne, for his successor Solomon (Psalm 72). If and because he stands for righteousness in his royal judgeship, it will pour down like rain on the fields, like showers of rain that wet the earth, "they shall blossom out of the city like the grass of the earth" (Psalm 72:6-16). Then, according to another psalm, the fate of the unrighteous is also clear: "Even if the wicked sprout like grass, if all who do wrong flourish - then only to destruction forever." (Psalm 92:8)

So don't worry

Jesus follows on from the prophet Solomon once. God cares for his creation. He raves about the splendor of the lilies in the field, which are dressed more beautifully by the Creator than the rich son of David. To continue: "But if God already clothes the grass in this way, which is in the field today and will be thrown into the oven tomorrow, how much more so for you, you of little faith! So don't worry!" (Matthew 6:30f.) In this passage, there are sayings that are known far beyond the circle of Bible experts: "Where your heart is, that is your treasure!" (v.19) Or: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow will take care of itself. Every day has enough of its own plague." (v.34) The advice of Jesus in this bold appeal to carelessness: Take care of what is important, what ultimately remains. Collect treasures in heaven. To put it bluntly: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness; then everything else will be added to you." (v.33)

This basic theme returns in variations, that God cares for his creatures. And not least because he lets grass sprout. "He covers the sky with clouds, he gives rain to the earth, he makes grass sprout on the mountains." (Psalm 147:8) "When the grass comes out, the green appears, you collect the herbs on the mountains." (Proverbs 27:25) "You make grass grow for the cattle." (Psalm 104:14)

Grinding communities in the green grass

In his corrupt delusion of power, King Herod had snatched the woman named Herodias from his brother Philip. John, who baptized repentants, including Jesus, in the Jordan River, had therefore publicly accused him of adultery. Herod imprisoned him. He did not dare to kill him because he was respected by the people. Then came his birthday. Salome, his daughter, danced provocatively. It pleased the lecher. Infatuated with his lustful blindness, he promised her whatever she wanted. Her mother instigated her to claim the head of John. He was immediately beheaded. His head was presented to Salome on a bowl. She passed the bowl on to her satisfied mother. (Matthew John 14:3-12) A terrific material for the great opera by Richard Strauss called "Salome". He had written the libretto himself based on the play of the same name by Oscar Wilde.

Jesus had met with rejection on his preaching tour in his hometown. Then the news of the death of his announcer Johannes came to his ears. So he retreated on a boat across the lake to be alone. But lo and behold, when he came to the shore, a crowd was already waiting for him. The report on the following events speaks of "crowds" of five thousand men alone, plus women and children.

When Jesus came ashore, he had "compassion on them and healed their sick". Then evening fell. Jesus once said: Man does not live by bread alone, but above all by the bread of the Word of God - a saying that also incites the Catholic Church not only to celebrate the Eucharist, but also to celebrate the Word of God.

So the people had nourished themselves with the word of Jesus. But now her stomach made itself known. They were hungry. The disciples of Jesus noticed this. So they wanted to send the people, mainly city dwellers, to the surrounding villages so that they could take care of themselves there. If only you take care of them, Jesus urges the disciples. It didn't work. There were only five loaves and two fish for the crowd. These are impressively depicted in the church of the Tabgha monastery on the Sea of Galilee in a mosaic in the floor in front of the altar.

Nevertheless, Jesus has the people summoned. "Then he ordered people to sit down in the grass." (Matthew 14:19) Then followed the miracle in the green grass, the miraculous multiplication of the few for the many. Matthew tells of it succinctly:

And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, looked up to heaven, praised them, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples; and the disciples gave them to the people, and they all ate and were satisfied. And they collected the remaining pieces of bread, twelve baskets full. There were about five thousand men who had eaten, plus women and children. (Matthew 14:19b-21)

Bread for the World is an aid campaign of the Evangelical Church in Germany. A miraculous event serves as a foil of hope for a starving humanity. With the little that the churches have, many are to be fed. It is a contribution to the huge task that the World Health Organization of the United Nations has set itself on its agenda. Hunger is a major enemy of humanity. The fact that the government of the very people who rely on the Tanakh and proudly call themselves Israel is obstructing the food supply of a fleeing civilian population in the war against Hamas to such an extent that children die or are damaged in their development for the rest of their lives, cries out to heaven and is a crime against humanity. The fact that the terrorist organization of Hamas is of course also heavily to blame for this, because it is taking the Palestinian people hostage for their power interests, does not diminish the guilt of the current Israeli government.

It is tragic that parts of the world's population do not have food security, even though the means are available. This would require the production of huge arsenals of weapons. However, it remains a crime to deliberately cause a famine and use it as a weapon against a defenseless civilian population.

Hay

A number of biblical texts on grass are entwined around the topic of the withering of grass. This process becomes a symbol of transience. He will meditate in more detail in the coming part on the processes of blossoming and withering. Here we should take a look at the word hay, which is not often used. In livestock farming, it means dried grass stored in barns, which serves as food for animals during the winter growth break.

The word hay appears three times in a biblical text. Sometimes it is associated with fire: a nightmare for some of our cattle farmers, when the hay barn goes up in flames after being struck by lightning and the food of the animals is destroyed for an entire winter. The farmer can then often only watch as "hay sinks in the flame". The prophet Isaiah uses this catastrophic scenario to illustrate his plea for the corrupt powerful, "who administer justice to the guilty in exchange for bribery and withhold justice from the righteous. Therefore, as the tongue of the fire devours stubble, and as hay sinks in the flame, so its root will be like mold, and its blossom will fly up like dust." (Isaiah 5:22-24) He rails similarly against the sinners in Zion: "You are pregnant with hay, you bring straw into the world. Your breath is fire that eats you. And peoples will be burned to lime, thorns cut off and blazing in the fire." (Isaiah 33:11f.)

There is more confidence in a hay text by the European Apostle Paul to the congregation in Corinth. This community was fiercely divided. There is no talk of early church romanticism. Paul is talking about his own "church building activity". By God's grace, he was like a wise church builder. Others continue to build on it. Everyone should pay attention to how they continue to build. One thing is certain: the foundation cannot be shaken. For this is Jesus Christ. No one can lay another foundation. This allows us Christians to stand on a foundation and insist on becoming fundamentalists without becoming fundamentalists. But then, according to Paul in his mane, those who continue to build use different building materials: gold, silver, precious stones, but also wood, hay and straw. How someone has now built will inevitably come to light at the end of days. It will be "revealed in the fire" (1 Cor 3:10-15).

Now it is already clear: wood, hay and straw will burn down the fire "at a loss". For - to remind us once again of the Isaiah just quoted: Hay sinks in the flame. But gold, silver, precious stones will endure, yes, even refined in fire.

In eloquent sermons by popular missionaries, fire was usually used to mean the purifying fire or purgatory. Dante Alighieri painted it eerily next to the infernal inferno. Paul's fire text, however, can also be read differently with modern theologians such as Benedict XVI. It is the fire of God's love. This fiery love burns what is no good. At the same time, it purifies the gold that - I hope confidently - is found in the lives of all sinful people. As Karl Rahner once said: "with Stalin, Hitler and me".

Rushes

King Midas had grown dog-ears. With the help of his barber, he managed to hide it under his hair and thus hide it from the public. But he forbade the hairdresser to tell around. But somehow the man had to get rid of this truth that burdened him. So he called her into a hole in the ground. In the ancient Greek legend that reports about it, it is then said that rushes grew there. When the wind blew through them and quietly made it rush, they whispered the message on. Soon all the rushes and thus the whole world knew it. The king's secret had thus become an obvious "truism".

The word is also interpreted differently. Truism or truism is then considered a commonplace. The information is generally known and ultimately has no value. Truisms are told by people who exaggerate banal things as highly interesting in order to make themselves important. This is also close to the botanically validated, old Latin idiom, which reads: "nodum in scirpo quaerere - "to look for a stem knot on the rush". As sour grass plants, however, rushes have no accounts. What is meant by this is that one should not dwell on a simple statement for a long time in vain.

The phrase "something goes into the rushes" comes from the hunter's language. To get to safety from hunters, waterfowl flee into the rushes. In the tall reed grass they remain undiscovered. So if something has gone wrong, then it has gone wrong, we have lost it.

The Saving Rush Basket

It is said that there were seventy people who had come to Egypt as migrants with the old Jacob. They had fled from the famine in their land of Canaan. Joseph, whom his brothers had thrown into the cistern out of jealousy, had - oh miracle - reached there before them. A passing caravan had pulled him out of the cistern and thus saved him. In Egypt, it was sold to the governor Potiphar. He had quickly made a career with him and had become a powerful man in the Pharaoh's empire, not least because of his art of interpreting dreams. Sigmund Freud could have gone to school with him.

The Hebrews, according to the Book of Exodus, were very procreational. They multiplied rapidly because of their high birth rate. A new ruler had long since come to power in Egypt. He was no longer well-disposed towards the Hebrews. He did not experience the immigrants as wealth, but as a threat. This is the case today in many countries where the initial culture of solidarity has tipped over into a fear-ridden right-wing populist remigration policy. The "We can do it" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has now become "We can get them out". Remigration is the corresponding political program. Moderate parties helplessly adopt this program. Their political turn is not directed against migrants. Rather, they want to politically undermine the right-wing populists. It harms the economy, the people seeking protection: but will it really weaken the right-wing populists? Don't people stick to the blacksmith instead of the (imitative) smith?

In any case, Pharaoh wanted to prevent the Hebrews from becoming more and more numerous, although he needed their slave services economically. When all measures to keep the number of Hebrews small through exhausting forced labor and slave labor that was harmful to health failed, he ordered a brutal form of birth control. He commanded the experienced midwives of the kingdom named Shifra and Puah: "When you give birth to the Hebrew women, pay attention to the sex! If it is a boy, let him die! If it's a girl, then she can stay alive." (Exodus 1:16) What a gruesome sexist selection!

Now the power of faith of these two women was revealed. They obeyed God more than the king. They simply ignored the order. When the king called them to account, they declared that the Hebrew women were strong women and had given birth long before they themselves came to the house for obstetrics.

Then the king ordered that all male newborns of recent times be drowned in the Nile without further ado. The girls were allowed to let them live. Something similar is later reported of King Herod: He wanted to kill a potential candidate for his royal throne. Decades ago, the Chinese acted exactly the opposite of the Pharaoh when they decreed a one-child policy to curb population growth. Now most of the newborn girls died. One boy per family, on the other hand, survived because people were desperate to have a male offspring. Gradually, this led to a dramatic shortage of women in the Chinese empire. This kind of birth control turned out to be a fiasco and was turned off again. Politically controlled birth control was usually a path to a dead end. It is often also deeply unethical, for example when contraceptive substances are added to drinking water.

Now it happened: A Hebrew woman named Joshebed gave birth to a son. The father's name was Amram and he was from the tribe of Levi. "Because she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. When she could no longer conceal it, she took a rush-box, sealed it with pitch and tar, laid the child in it, and set it out in the reeds on the banks of the Nile. His sister stopped nearby to see what would happen to him." (Exodus 2:2-4) A rush basket became a lifesaver. In the basket lay the little Hebrew infant. He was later to lead his people out of bondage in Egypt at the behest and under God's protection. Until then, however, there were many surprising and also turbulent events.

It began with the bath of the Pharaoh's daughter in the Nile. When she stepped into the river, she saw the rush basket. She had her maid take it out of the water. In it was the weeping Hebrew child. Pharaoh's daughter had a heart for the beautiful but weeping child. She immediately had a search for his mother. Because the sister was nearby, the mother was quickly found and brought in. Pharaoh's daughter asked her to serve her as a nurse for the boy. And so it happened. Only when the child was weaned did she deliver the rescued man to the Pharaoh's daughter. "She took him as a son, called him Moses, and said, 'I have pulled him out of the water.'"⁶¹ (Exodus 2:10) Moses, the etymologists, suspect that Moses derives from "to draw out".

Moses grew up in the royal household. He knew that he was a Hebrew. One day he was walking through the city. He observed his compatriots doing forced labour. Then he saw an Egyptian overseer kill one of his tribal brothers. This infuriated Moses. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. When he saw no one, he killed the overseer and buried him in the sand. However, two Hebrews had witnessed the incident. The next day, when Moses tried to settle a dispute between these two men, they countered, "Will you kill us like the overseer? So the manslaughter had become known. It also came to the ears of the king. He then ordered Moses to be killed immediately. Then Moses fled to Midian and hid himself with Jethro the priest. The latter told him to look after his herds. He also gave him his daughter as his wife, and thus made him his son-in-law. And again an epoch-changing episode begins.

"One day he drove the cattle out of the steppe and came to the mountain of Horeb." (Exodus 3:1) There Moses had the thornbush experience that turned his life upside down. At the site of the burning bush, he was commissioned to initiate the liberation of the enslaved Israelites from slavery in Egypt. To the Pharaoh, who had sought his life, he had to announce ten gruesome plagues on God's behalf in order to finally make him submissive. Reluctantly, he let the Israelites go, but immediately pursued them with horse and rider. The fugitives made it through the Red Sea unharmed. However, the army of the Egyptians drowned. Miriam, the sister of Moses, beat the drum at the festival of thanksgiving: her and her brother's Moses song can still be heard today in the Christian Easter Vigil celebration (Exodus 15:1-20).

Escaping the oppressive Pharaoh in miraculous circumstances, Moses led the people the long way through the desert. They came to the Jordan. This formed the border to the promised land. Because of the mixed messages sent out by spies, the people refused to occupy the land of Canaan, which was inhabited by giants and mightily fortified. Therefore, God let them wander through the desert for another forty years until the generation of mutineers was extinct. Moses, who continued to lead the punishing wanderers, was also not to enter the promised land: he could only cast a glance over the Jordan into the promised land from Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 32:48-52).

Before his death, he "left" legal instructions to the people.⁶² These were deposited with the "Ark of the Covenant", the sign of God's presence. Moses sensed that people would often not comply with them, as they had done in the past. He sang a song before the meeting. In it, he recalled how God had cared for his people. Therefore, they should not be so foolish as to turn away from their God. Moses argued in the same way as the Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky much later, who dismissed a journalist for his inappropriate questions with the request "Learn history!": "Think of the days of the past, learn from the years of history! Ask your father, he will tell you, ask the old people, they will tell you!" (Deuteronomy 32:7-12)

Moses had climbed Mount Nebo. There he blessed the people and died. "They buried him in the valley, in Moab, opposite Beth-Pegor. To this day, no one knows his grave. Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye was not yet clouded, his freshness had not yet vanished. The Israelites wept for Moses for thirty days in the steppes of Moab." (Deuteronomy 34:7f.)

Under his successor, the people crossed the Jordan. It took possession of a large area that it was convinced had been given to it by God. This land was to reach "from the steppe and from Lebanon to the great river, the Eufrat - that is the whole land of the Hittites - and to the great sea where the sun sets." (Joshua 1:4)

The seizure of the land proceeded in warlike brutality: "There were about forty thousand armed men who marched to fight in the steppes of Jericho before the eyes of the Lord." (Joshua 4:13) There they celebrated "Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of that month in the steppes of Jericho" (Joshua 5:10). God stood by the people in this land seizure. It is said that he also gave tactical instructions to his commander. When the king of Ai defended his city, which had been attacked by the advancing people of Israel, Joshua lured him and part of the troops out of the city into the desert. At the same time, a shock troop from the other side was able to enter the empty city unhindered and pillage it. The king of Ai was captured. The victory was won. God was praised (Joshua 8:4-23). Such a close connection between military conquest and God seems inadmissible to us today.

Weeds

Botanically speaking, there are no weeds. However, it may very well be that plants settle on cultivated grassland that are undesirable and disturbing. Instead of weeds, the terms weeds, wild weeds or crop companions are also used. It is a spontaneous "companion vegetation" in an area planted by humans. If they disturb the sight or damage a harvest, then "weeds" are destroyed. This creates enormous ecological problems because toxic weedkillers are often used, which then penetrate the groundwater and thus the food cycle and burden humans and animals.

"Weeds" also include aggressive plants. These multiply so abundantly that they take away the habitat of native plants. They are called "invasive" because they are "intrusive". Many of these often beautiful exotic plants are harmless. Other invasive neophytes such as mahonia, vinegar tree or the many-leaved lupine, on the other hand, are considered to be dangerous. The same applies to the cherry laurel. This spreads rapidly through its berries: birds eat them and excrete the seeds in various new places.

The Tumblish Lollipop

Jesus was a brilliant storyteller. He used experiences familiar to his listeners. With these he compared what he stood for: the coming of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. In this, God is the formative force for the well-being of mankind. So Jesus was not only concerned with making the world more heavenly, i.e. more human: He also explained this to people in parables.

He compared the kingdom of God to a tiny mustard seed that grows into a huge bush. It is like a sourdough that gradually penetrates the entire dough so that it "rises" and can thus become an enjoyable pastry. And then there is the well-known parable of the sown wheat and the tares sown in it. A farmer at the time feared these weeds. It was a poisonous plant, the so-called tumbler. This occurs in Eurasia and North Africa. At first, it is hardly distinguishable from wheat. But as soon as it is perceptible, it can hardly be weeded out. This is because its root system is so intertwined with the roots of the wheat that the wheat would also be uprooted with the tumbling lolly. So the farmer has to let both grow until the harvest. Then the weeds are separated from the wheat and burned.

Jesus is concerned with the age-old struggle between good and evil. This originated in Paradise, when man ate from the tree of knowledge and learned how to distinguish between good and evil. Cain and Abel then symbolize the two very different brothers, one good and one bad.

The message of Jesus is not difficult to understand. He resolutely opposes the "outliers of the tumbler hole". Let everything grow! For it is impossible to destroy only evil, so that only good can endure.

Such "outliers of evil" did not only exist in the time of Jesus. You are now active on the world stage. They live among us. The Russian Federation wants to restore the lost greatness of the russkij mir. Therefore, it tried to bring Russopular governments to power in former Soviet republics; it sends its soldiers there "to help oppressed Russians" and occupies areas such as the Ukrainian Donbas. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is giving religious support to the Russian ruler Vladimir Putin. In a homily, he calls for the metaphysical evil that he locates in the West to be uprooted: Evil, or more precisely the depraved West, is to be destroyed by military force. Tragically, he sees the paragon of evil symbolized in a "Gay Pride Parad".⁶³

Such thinking can also be found in the West at the moment. A teaching of the church father Augustine is taken up and politicized. Augustine distinguished the Civitas Dei from the civitas terrena. Transferred to the imagery of Jesus' parable: the civitas Dei is the wheat, the civitas terrena the tares. One comes from God, the other is satanic, so it comes from the evil enemy of God. One is characterized by love of one's neighbor, the other perverted by self-love, but tolerated by God for reasons of order. Jesus would also say now: Do not run away, let it grow. In the end, good will win. "Evil will not prevail": a saying of the current Pope, the Augustinian monk Leo XIV. Unlike Augustine and probably also Pope Leo, the impatient runaways think and act. They want to destroy evil - if necessary with military force. While as Jesus does, like Augustine: let it grow, those who do not want to wait for the eschatological harvest cry: run away now. So let us now enforce the kingdom of God on earth with political and military force. We want to "integrate" both now. That is why the impatient runaways are called "integralists". This anti-liberal-authoritarian integralism is currently spreading in right-wing circles of the churches in the USA, just as it has gained popularity among members of Donald Trump's administration. James David Vance and Marco Rubio are its most prominent representatives. Ultra-conservative American ideologues such as Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen, Gladden Pappin or the Austrian Cistercian monk Edmund Waldstein are its theoretical justifiers. "Catholic power centers are closely linked to the Trump administration. These included movements such as Opus Dei, Knights of Malta and the Knights of Columbus. In addition, Haker names non-governmental organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the NAPA Institute as well as the legal association Federalist Society. The latter is a judges' forge and a 'motor for the appointment of judges for life'."⁶⁴

Jesus' counsel not to uproot the poisonous tumbler but to let it grow with the wheat has great spiritual value for each and every one of us. In practice, the two cannot be separated from each other. The "border line" goes inextricably through every religion, even more, through every human being. Even the supposedly "holy church" as well as every baptized person is in this world time "simul iustus et peccator",⁶⁵ i.e. good and evil in one. No one is "without sin", not even the teachers of the law and the pious who wanted to stone the sinful adulteress. (John 7:53-8:11)

In addition. That God is able to integrate evil into the history of the individual human being as well as the development of the world in such a way that it leads it to perfection precisely in this mixture. A creative "integralism" of a completely different kind. In addition, the burning of the wobble hole after the harvest can also be interpreted in the sense of the Apostle Paul, as already outlined in the section on hay: In the end, what does not stand up is burned. But the world as a whole, in which God has "interfered" in one of us, will be saved together with him.

PART 3:
BECOMING AND PASSING AWAY

Water

Blessed is the man who does not follow the counsel of the wicked,
who does not stand in the way of sinners,
who does not sit in the circle of scoffers,
but who delights in the Lord's command, who
meditates on his law by day and by night.

He is like a tree
planted by rivers full of water,
which bears fruit at the right time,
and whose leaves do not wither.
Everything he does,
he will succeed.

(Psalm 1:1-3)

Water

In this first canto of the Book of Psalms, the keyword on which biblical meditation is taken at the beginning of this third part can already be heard: water. Interwoven with this are seas, rivers, streams, springs, dew and rain: these would be worthy of a separate biblical meditation, but this is not possible due to lack of space.⁶⁶

Then it will be about sowing and fertilization. This alludes to what it takes to become and pass away, ripen and bloom as well as wither and rot.

Water of Life

The king is very ill. His three sons are deeply worried. Then a wise old man tells them about a "water of life" that can be drawn from an enchanted castle. This could cure the sick father. So first the oldest and then the second oldest set off. However, neither of them is able to bring home the water of life in the inaccessible castle. They behave highly unroyally towards a dwarf who controlled the way to the castle. That's why the offended dwarf curses them, one after the other. Together with other enchanted people, they find themselves locked up in the castle.

Now all the hope of the sick king rests on his youngest. He wins the dwarf's goodwill. He gets the tools he needs to get to the enchanted castle: bread to calm the lion on watch and an iron rod. He is able to free his two brothers. And even more fairytale-like: Among the liberated is a beautiful princess. She wants to marry him. So did he. But first, according to the empathetic princess, he should bring the healing water to the sick father. Then let him come back to her. No sooner said than done. The younger one rests a bit. Then he draws from the well of the water of life and makes his way home with his redeemed brothers. On the way, he frees the people in three countries threatened by war and hunger from their misery with sword and bread.

The two brothers envy him his grandiose political success. Because she predestines him and not her to succeed her royal father. They also dislike the story of the beautiful princess. Because she would stand over them as queen in the future. In this way, they want to throw their younger brother out of the race for the throne. They manage to secretly exchange the water of life with seawater on a boat trip. When he comes home, the youngest son hands the sick king the water, which they both consider to be the healing water of life. But instead of the healing water of life, the sick father drinks the harmful salt water. His condition deteriorates rapidly. Now the hour of the nasty brothers has come. They whisper to the father: "Father, your youngest son wanted to kill you with unhealthy salt water! He wanted to get rid of you in order to become king himself! And he already has a princess with whom he wants to marry!" After this murmur, they heal the sick man with the stolen water of life as proof.

The healed father is angry with his youngest son. He wants to have him shot on a hunt. But the hunter gives him his father's order. So he escapes the planned assassination attempt and flees to the enchanted castle. At last he can marry the beautiful virgin. But the nasty brothers, whose wickedness has now been proven, run away and disappear, never to be seen again. The repentant father makes his youngest his successor. The wedding is celebrated. The young couple is happy. The whole kingdom celebrates with them. And if they haven't died, they're still alive today.

No life without water

This fairy tale by the linguists and cultural anthropologists Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm, which I have reproduced here in simple language, reminds us of the healing importance of water for all life. The Greek philosophers Empedocles and then Aristotle counted water among the four primordial elements, along with fire, earth and air. The world is made of them. Similarly, the Taoist Five Elements doctrine. Now it's water, wood, fire, earth and metal. The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus considered water to be the primordial substance of life in general.

Life originated from water, according to evolutionary research. If researchers want to clarify whether there is life outside the Earth, on one of the many planets in space, they look for water.

A human being consists of 70% water. It spends its early development as an embryo in the amniotic fluid of the uterus. Water is drunk, but is also contained in solid foods. It is remarkable that there is a German word for the fact that hunger is satisfied. Then someone is "full", so we say. But when the thirst is quenched, we have no word for it. The artificial word "sitt" has not prevailed. Is it possible that we do not have a word for quenched thirst because the thirst for water and thus for life is ultimately unquenchable? A perfect template for spiritual thoughts, which appears in two Psalms at once. "As the deer longs for fresh water, so my soul longs for you, God. My soul thirsts for the living God." (Psalm 42:2f.) The poet of Psalm 63 sings just as forcefully - the book of Psalms calls the king David. This song is sung in the Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church as the first psalm in the first lauds of the first week. This literally makes it the headline for all the prayer of the church.

Water law

Because no one can survive without water in the long run, the right to sufficient water plays a major role. Water law was and is therefore an important part of law books. It is one of the municipal tasks to supply people with drinkable water and sufficient service water. In this respect, however, a global policy for the common good still has enormous tasks ahead of it: "Worldwide, about 4 billion people or two-thirds of the world's population do not have sufficient water available for at least one month a year. 1.8 to 2.9 billion people suffer from severe water shortages for 4 to 6 months a year, about 0.5 billion people all year round."⁶⁷ According to a UN resolution adopted by a majority in 2010, all people have a fundamental right to access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. The guaranteed right to water thus does not protect many people from life-threatening thirst.

But water does not only enable life. It can also destroy lives. This happens when there is too much or too little water. Floods and drought have always been humanity. In the course of man-made climate change, floods and drought are increasing in a threatening way. They cause enormous damage and bring death to many living beings, animals and humans.

Because water is so important to all life, it is not surprising that it is also often found in the Bible. In the biblical narratives, water is important for both everyday and religious life.

Water above and below

The Bible's narratives about the creation of the world are not scientific expertise. They do not aim to explain how the world came to be. Rather, the main message is: God created a good world. It is "fine". You can count on the world to be a good place for anything that lives.

This core statement about a good and reliable creation is clothed in pictures. It is images that make up language. The old linguistic images can also be found in our current language despite our modern world views. We stand carefree on a beach on the Greek Cycladic island of Santorini - and watch in fascination as the sun sets. I have climbed mountains myself to experience a sunrise. With moving words, the author of Psalm 19, it was supposedly again the musician on the royal throne David, sings about the everyday events. It is the text that forms the basis of one of the most sung choruses from Joseph Haydn's grandiose Creation Oratorio:

The heavens tell of the glory of God
and the firmament announces the work of his hands.
One day tells the other,one
night announces it to the other,without
speech and without words,their
voice remains unheard.
But their message goes out to all the world, their news to the ends of the earth.
There he has built a tent for the sun.
She comes out of her chamber like a bridegroom;
she rejoices like a hero to run her course.
At one end of the sky it rises
and runs to the other end;
nothing can hide from its embers.
(Psalm 19:2-7)

Worldviews have changed profoundly in the course of history. At the time of the writing of the two accounts of creation in the priestly writings of Genesis, there were three levels in the oriental worldview: heaven, earth, the underworld - i.e. the realm of God, the habitat for plants, animals and humans, the underworld as the realm of the dead. The earth was meant to be a disc (see also Job 26:5-14):

There was water above and below. Above all, the water up in the vault of heaven was of enormous importance for life. From there came the rain - in the figurative language of the Bible it says: "He blows his wind - the waters trickle" (Psalm 147:18). As long as there was no rain, the authors of the Bible assume, life was not yet possible.

Below, water collected in the sea, which was separated from the dry land. Both were to become habitats for a tumult of animals.

Modern astronomy has long since replaced this view of the world and turned it upside down. Even if it still seems like it to us, the earth is no longer the center. It is not the sun that revolves around the earth, but the earth around the sun. "Geocentrism" has had its day, "anthropocentrism" (everything revolves around the human being) and with it "androcentrism" (everything revolves around the man) are in crisis. Although: An old liturgical hymn, which is documented at the beginning of the letter to the Colossians, sings carefree: "For him all things were created" and means the risen Jesus, the Christ (Colossians 1:16; also Romans 11:36). The heliocentric worldview of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Keppler has definitively replaced the biblical-oriental-Greek worldview, not in everyday language, but scientifically.

The resistance of the church to this change in world view was great. Galileo Galilei became a case for a serious miscarriage of justice by the Catholic Inquisition. Only John Paul II rehabilitated the convicted man. At that time, biblical studies still had an enormous development ahead of it. The fact that there are fundamentalists today who still interpret Genesis according to the old world view and regard it as a natural history report shows that science does not have it easy with all people of our time. It does not follow that the Bible is "not right," but that reading the Bible aright is a highly demanding art.

Amazement and gratitude

It is important for the biblical storytellers to connect everything that happens in the world and in its history with God. From the point of view of the Bible, natural history is therefore always also salvation history. This theological assumption arises from an amazement at the beauty of creation. The more astronomy penetrates into the vastness of space and quantum physics into the depths of things, the greater the amazement. Amazement goes hand in hand with gratitude for the grandiose world. When gratitude and amazement over beauty coincide, praise for the Creator and His greatness has resounded since time immemorial. In such praise songs, water images are often used: "More than the roar of many waters, mightier than the surf of the sea, is the Lord on high." (Psalm 93:4) But it is not only the people who praise the admired creation. In biblical texts, everything that is joins in the praise of mankind: "Praise the Lord, all you works of the Lord; praise him and glorify him forever" (Daniel 3:57) Quite a few psalms are full of praise for creation and its Creator. Details from the process of creation are picked out, with reference to water again and again: "It collects the water of the sea and dams it." (Psalm 33:7) Psalm 136 as a whole is a kind of litany of thanksgiving for God's eternal grace since the creation of the world.

Threat and Salvation

As much as the beauty of creation can inspire amazement and gratitude, beauty goes hand in hand with violent threats. This is especially true for water. Many texts speak of threatening floods of water. These usually stand as placeholders for deep distress in which someone or the entire people has fallen. That is, when the water is up to their necks. Even worse, God Himself was able to put His people in such a predicament because of their unfaithfulness, as described in a judgment speech by the prophet Isaiah on Israel (Isaiah 8:5-9).

The pious in Israel then ask God to deliver them from the threat illustrated by the water images. If the threat is overpowering, the request becomes a scream. Once the rescue has taken place, the request is transformed into thanks to the rescuer. It is obvious that the Psalms are good formats for threat and salvation. Here are a few examples:

Someone feels "poured out like water" in the face of his enemies (Psalm 22:15). When David sees himself saved from his persecutor Saul, he sings a song of thanksgiving. God Himself "reached down from on high and took hold of me, and drew me out of mighty waters" (2 Samuel 22:17). Similarly, a pious person trusts in the Lord; he is convinced: "If high waters flood in, they will not reach him. You are my protection, you keep me from trouble and save me and wrap me in joy." (Psalm 32:6f.) Similarly, this song from the Book of Psalms: "Save me, O God, for the water is up to my throat! I have sunk into the mud of the abyss and have no foothold. I have fallen into water depths, the flood is sweeping me away." (Psalm 69:2f.)

Again and again great trust in the saving hand of God comes to light: "God, in your great lovingkindness, hear me, with your saving faithfulness! Tear me from the swamp, so that I may not sink, so that I may escape from my haters, from the depths of the water, so that the flood of water may not sweep me away, the abyss does not swallow me up, the well shaft does not close its mouth over me! Hear me, Lord, for good is your lovingkindness, turn to me in your great mercy!" (Psalm 69:14-18; similar to Psalm 88:18 or Psalm 144:7)

Water and fire

Water and fire are primordial elements, even more elemental forces. They can be useful, nourish and warm. But they can also threaten. In most cases, the adjective "enormous" is then added to it. To be rescued from a conflagration and flood of water can therefore stand for a great rescue operation. One has escaped death.

The picture is filled with archaic fears. To be rescued from such a situation arouses strong emotions. No wonder it is used in the Bible for God's rescue mission. "We passed through fire and water, but you brought us out to the fullness," rejoices the prayer of a rescue thanksgiving song (Psalm 66:12) The prophet Isaiah uses this image of fire and water to remind the people of Israel how important they are to their God.

It is not difficult to extend the promise to Israel to a baptismal child. This can only begin with the passage "I have called you by your name" (Isaiah 43:1). But then comes the dramatic promise of rescue, which is supposed to take away all fear from the relatives as well as later from the child and can make them a person of confidence:

But now - this is what the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and who formed you, O Israel, says: Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine. If you walk through the water, I am with you, if through streams, they will not carry you away. If you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, no flame will burn you. For I, the Lord, am your God, I, the Holy One of Israel, am your Savior. (Isaiah 43:1-3)

Mozart lovers unexpectedly find themselves in The Magic Flute. The walk through the conflagration and flood of water is part of the final test of the prince and those who love him: Tamino and Pamina. The text is based on Isaiah. You will be taken to the examination stamp. Deadly dangers await there. Then two armoured men appear. They sing a chorale whose melody is identical to Luther's chorale "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" (Psalm 12), which in turn is based on the Bach cantata of the same name (BWV 2). In this ancient melody, the archaic knights sing of the fact that "he who wandereth this road full of trouble shall be purified by fire, water, air, and earth; if he can overcome the terror of death, he swings up to heaven from the earth." Tamino looks the danger manfully in the face and demands that the horror gates be unlocked for him. Then he hears Pamina's voice. And all together, the armoured men, Pamina and Tamino sing together that they can walk this path of fear together: "Now no fate separates us from you, even if death were destined." But before they set off, the happiness of the reunion is sung about in musically unsurpassable tenderness: "Tamino mein! Pamina my! Oh, what luck!" Then the Magic Flute comes into play: "We walk through the power of sound joyfully through death's gloomy night." In Isaiah, the Magic Flute would be a placeholder for God himself: the old flute, carved from a thousand-year-old oak tree, God uses to protect the lovers on their way through the deadly dangers. They survive the "embers of fire" as well as the "water floods" and "courageously fought the danger". Saved, they sing, in the style of the Masonic world of thought of the time: "You gods, what a moment! Isis's happiness is granted to us."

Water stories about Moses

But water does not only play an important role in the life of Jesus. This is also the case in the biography of Moses, the liberator of the people. Israel's exodus from slavery in Egypt is inconceivable without water scenes. Moses himself had been rescued from the water of the Nile in a rush basket and thus from the infanticide that was taking place. Then it comes to the tenfold blackmail of the Pharaoh with the so-called Egyptian plagues. After all, the Pharaoh had refused to let the slave people who were useful for the pyramid building go. The plagues read like a horror catalogue. Then the Nile water is transformed into blood (Exodus 7:20). A frog invasion from the Nile covers the whole country (Exodus 8:2). Water frozen into hail kills people and livestock, destroys crops and trees (Exodus 9:22).

Crossing the Red Sea

An unparalleled military spectacle then took place in the Red Sea (Exodus 14:19-31). The Pharaoh, who reluctantly let the people go, immediately repented and pursued the trek of the emigrants with a powerful force. Then the Lord, the Bible tells us, saved them in a miraculous way. Moses stretched out his staff. The water parted. The people with the herds moved through the Red Sea on wind-dried ground. Then the Egyptians come with horses and chariots. They also move into the open corridor between the water walls into the sea. Moses then stretches out his staff again from the safe shore. The masses of water collapse over the armed forces of Egypt. Everyone perishes. Moses and his sister Mirijam sing about the rescue of the fleeing Israelites with relief. The suffering of the women and children in Egypt who have lost their husbands and children is not mentioned at all.

The passage through the waters of the Red Sea is an event that echoes in many texts of the Bible. One of the readings in the Christian Easter Vigil liturgy is dedicated to her: there she is interpreted as a symbol of saving baptism.

When the Israelites stood at the Jordan, they sent out spies. They were supposed to clarify the situation. When they sought shelter with a prostitute named Rahab, they were betrayed to the king in Jericho. He wanted to capture her that night. But the harlot reported this to the spies, saying to them, "The people among us are all afraid of you, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea because of you, when you came out of Egypt. We have also heard what you have done to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan: you have executed the ban on them. When we heard this, our hearts melted and everyone's breath caught because of you; for the Lord your God is God in heaven above, and here on earth beneath. Now swear to me by the Lord that you will show mercy to my Father's family, as I have shown you, and give me a sure sign that you will leave my father and mother, my brothers and my sisters, and all that belongs to them, alive, and that you will save us from death." (Joshua 2:10-13) After she had successfully asked for her family to be spared with these words, she let the spies down from the roof on a rope. They were then able to escape their captors unscathed. When they arrived at the camp on the waters of the Jordan, they were able to tell how everyone was afraid of their invasion. In fact, their fear was not without reason. The occupation of their land took place with great brutality: in the name of God. To this day, supposedly orthodox Israelis, settlers or warring politicians believe that they can do the same and do so again in the name of God. And the world is watching.

Massa and Meriba

The reports about what is behind "Massa and Meriba" do not read euphorically at all. Massa means "temptation", and Meriba means "strife".

The people are on their way through the desert near the mountain of Horeb. There is a lack of water. People are in danger of dying of thirst. They mutinied against Moses and Aaron, their leaders. The old nostalgia for Egypt also comes up right away: We were slaves there, but we were doing well at the fleshpots of Egypt. We had enough water to drink. Behind the mutiny is a deep mistrust of God. He had sent them "into the desert to perish there". The theologically abysmal question is raised: "Is the Lord in our midst or not?" (Exodus 17:7). It is the doubt of God of the suffering, of those threatened with thirst. A kind of doubt about God in the midst of the people of God. The gifted theologian Josef Fischer from Passau should use this quote to ask whether there is not also a kind of "ecclesial atheism" in the Christian church of today.⁶⁸

Moses presents himself to God under the pressure of mutiny. The latter advised him to hit a rock with his staff. Water poured out. The grumbling people were saved. God's reputation and that of his informant Moses were restored.

It had been similarly dramatic before. And that right after the saving passage through the Red Sea. When they set off safely from its shores, the path leads through the Schur desert. They find no water in it. Then they come to Mara. There is water there. But this is "mara", which means bitter. The people grumble. Moses presents himself to the Lord. What follows now sounds like a Harry Potter again. God gives Moses "a piece of wood. When he threw it into the water, the water became sweet." (Exodus 15:25). When their thirst is quenched, they move on. You will get to Elim. "There were twelve springs and seventy palm trees; there they set up camp by the water." (Exodus 15:27) They finally arrived in the promised land. It was a magnificent land, a land of streams, springs, and groundwater that gushes forth in the valley and on the mountain (Deuteronomy 8:7-11).

Jesus at Jacob's Well

According to the evangelist John, Jesus also loves this image of the living water. He seems to apply it to himself and his salutary words. At least that's what he tries to explain to a woman from Samaria. The itinerant preacher is on his way from Judea to Galilee. He has to go through Samaria. He passes the famous Jacob's well: This is located near the property that Jakob had bequeathed to his son Josef. Tired from wandering, Jesus rests at the well. Meanwhile, the disciples have gone to the city of Sychar to buy food.

A Samaritan woman passes by. Jesus speaks to them and asks them for water. This is an unusual matter: Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman with whom Jews did not even speak. They had separated from each other on the important religious question of where God should be worshipped. The Samaritans worshipped God on Mount Gerizim, while the Jews considered the temple in Jerusalem to be the only legitimate place of worship. So the woman is amazed and says: "As a Jew, how can you, a Samaritan, ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink? The Jews do not associate with the Samaritans." (John 4:9)

Then Jesus surprises the woman and says: He can give her a completely different, a "living water". "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; rather, the water that I give him will become a spring in him, whose water flows into eternal life." (John 4:10-15) Thus, just as life-giving water flows from the temple near Ezekiel, so Jesus also refers to himself as such a source of water; and everyone, like everyone who drinks, can become a source for others himself. What a biophilic narrative!

The woman is thrilled and relieved. When this man gives her some of his water, the tedious daily fetching of water will be over. The high theology that the evangelist John put into the mouth of Rabbi Jesus visibly overwhelmed her.

Water in the life and work of Jesus

However, the conversation about living water is only one, albeit an outstanding example, of the fact that water played an important role in Jesus' three-year ministry. The public appearance begins with the water of the Jordan. There the one whom the Bible calls the "forerunner" who prepares the way for the Messiah is baptized. Reluctantly, he also baptizes Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17). The Gospels tell us that a dove descended. A voice also attested to the baptized person that he was God's beloved Son. How often did I promise this to the baptismal candidate on the head during the celebration of the baptism of children, when I poured the baptismal water on him. In doing so, I am convinced that with the celebration of baptism we do nothing more and nothing less than publicly proclaim what all newborn babies are children of the one God, and that long before and even without baptism: All human beings are beloved children of God. The liturgy of baptism is thus above all a solemn proclamation of what God intends for all human beings.

Later, after the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were to be baptized again and yet differently: "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:6) Here, too, the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit on the disciples of Jesus, who were gathered with the Mother of Jesus, is a symbol of the outpouring of the Spirit of God on all. According to the prophet Isaiah, all are to become gifted to the Spirit: "But after this will come to pass: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will be prophets, your old will have dreams, and your young men will have visions. I will also pour out my Spirit on servants and maidservants in those days." (Isaiah 3:1f.)

In biblical Jesus stories, the destructive power of water also appears. A sea storm threatens to sink the ship in which the disciples were sitting with their rabbi. But he slept peacefully. Awakened by the panicked disciples, he said to them quite coolly: "Why are you so afraid, you of little faith? Then he stood up, threatened the winds and the lake and there was complete silence." (Matthew 8:26)

According to Jesus in a sermon, water proves to be destructive even for an unwise house builder. Instead of building proper foundations on rocky ground, he literally put his house "in the sand". Jesus, however, meant his own house of life and the building instructions that his words could form. Some stick to them, others don't. They are threatened with adversity: "Anyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them is a fool who built his house on sand. When a cloudburst came and the masses of water flooded in, when the storms raged and shook the house, it collapsed and was completely destroyed." (Matthew 7:24-27)

A phrase with water became proverbial. It comes from the Passion story. Some representatives of the people of Israel had led the rabbi, who had been captured on the Mount of Olives, to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. They demanded that he condemn him to death on the cross. He wanted to abide by the law. So he interrogated Jesus. In the end, he found no guilt worthy of death in him. When the prosecutors still demanded his conviction, he angrily had a bowl of water brought to him and "washed his hands of it". He thus stands for all those who shirk their responsibility, deny all guilt, knowing full well that they have nevertheless made themselves complicit. They present themselves as legally and morally clean, even though they have "dirty hands."⁶⁹ Maybe they wash their hands because they know they are dirty.

Jesus is then crucified. The account of his death ends with a soldier thrust his lance into Jesus' side to determine whether he is really dead. Blood and water flowed out (John 19:34). Medically informed people are not surprised: a pericardial tamponade has accumulated fluid in the pericardium, which was released by piercing the heart. Christian mysticism meditates the events profoundly. Blood and water are seen as symbols of the two main sacraments: the Eucharist (blood) and baptism (water). Both, "offerre et tinquere" (Tertullian⁷⁰), constitute the "sacrament" of the Church. Another interpretation sees in the blood the proof that Jesus is true man, in the water that he is true God. Matthew, on the other hand, is important that a prediction of the prophet Zechariah was fulfilled in the stabbing of the lance: "They will look at him whom they have pierced." (Zechariah 12:10)

Temple show of the prophet Ezekiel

Water of life is a longed-for commodity not only in myths and fairy tales, but also in the Bible. In the third part of his book, the prophet Ezekiel looks at the end-time Jerusalem, to which he gives the name "Here is the Lord!" (Ezekiel 48:35). The temple in which God dwells is the center of the new city. In his vision, Ezekiel is led to the east entrance of the temple. And then something dramatic happens: water begins to gush out of the temple. It goes to the south side: water flows there too. Then the "man" who leads him in his show instructs him to walk a thousand cubits: then water reaches him up to his ankles. Another thousand yards further on, it is already up to its knees in water. Then up to the hip. Finally, the gushing trickle has become a wide river, in which the prophet can only swim to the shore. There his dream guide begins to explain to him what he should see: "Where the river goes, all living beings, everything that moves, will be able to live and there will be a lot of fish. Because this water gets there, they become healthy; wherever the river goes, everything stays alive... All kinds of fruit trees grow on both banks of the river. Their foliage will not wilt and they will never be without fruit. Every month they bear fresh fruit; for their waters come out of the sanctuary. The fruit will serve as food and the leaves as a remedy." (from Ezekiel 47:6-12)

This vision of Ezekiel of the water of life demands interpretation. Core messages are: The water brings life - to the trees on the shore, to the fish in the sea; it makes unhealthy water (such as in the "Dead Sea") healthy. And not to be overlooked: This healing water emanates from the temple, and there again from the altar. Ultimately, God is the source of the water of life, according to the message of the moving vision.

The circle closes

The Bible remains faithful to Jesus' trail of living water. In the last book of the Christian Bible, the finale of the story is watched, this time by the seer John on the island of Patmos. A "slaughtered lamb", symbol of the crucified and risen One, plays a leading role. It is able to open the seven seals that reveal dramatic events in the time leading up to the completion of history. Once these woes have been passed, nothing stands in the way of completion. The circle to the time before the expulsion from paradise closes. In Eden, a river was already springing up, watering the Garden of Paradise with the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, and swelling into four great rivers that make life possible. Among them were the Euphrates and the Tigris. (Genesis 2:10-14) In the Revelation of Brother John, on the other hand, there is talk of springs "from which the water of life flows, and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17) And then Jesus is quoted almost verbatim. "Whoever is thirsty, I will make him drink freely from the spring from which the water of life flows." (Revelation 21:6) "He who is thirsty, let him come. Whoever wills, let him receive the water of life free of charge!" (Revelation 22:17) Finally, the circle to the creation account in the Book of Genesis shoots almost without gaps, which also reminds us of the vision of the prophet Ezekiel:

And he showed me a river, the water of life, clear as crystal; he proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Between the street of the city and the river, on both sides, stands a tree of life. Twelve times it bears fruit, every month it gives its fruit; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the peoples. There will be nothing more that falls on the curse of God. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name is written on their foreheads. There will be no more night, and they do not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun. For the Lord their God will shine upon them, and they will reign forever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

Sowing and Reaping

Those who sow with tears will reap with joy.
They walk, yes, go and weep and carry the seed to sowing. (Psalm 126:5f.)

Desert life without agriculture

In its young history, Israel went through a formative time in which it had not sown. That was the time in the desert. "I remember your faithfulness to your youth, the love of your bridal time, as you followed me in the wilderness, in the land without seed," God told his saved people through the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2:2). It was a time when Moses gave the wandering people in the morning dew manna that "looked like coriander seeds and tasted like honey cake" (Exodus 16:27; also Numbers 11:7). In addition, there were swarms of quail and water from the rock to tame hunger and thirst. With this encouragement, the prophet wanted to remind the people: Relying on God, obeying His instructions, is more important than cultivating fields. For in the desert, God ensured survival with the help of his servant Moses, not self-farming in the sweat of the brow.

But then the people crossed the Jordan and took possession of a fertile land. This was divided fairly among the tribes of the people. Only the tribe of Levi received no land; he was entrusted with the temple service and provided by the other tribes with a tenth of their fruits. Land ownership and thus agriculture had become the basis of life. If the yield failed to materialize or was destroyed in wars, famine occurred.

Without agriculture: famine

In the time of Isaac, Jacob's son and Abraham's grandson, there was such a famine in the land. However, Isaac did not emigrate to Egypt like his father Jacob once did. Rather, he moved to the nearby territory of the Philistines, who were well-disposed at that time. There Abimelech reigned as king. Like the Egyptian Joseph once gave the population of his country, he also gave Isaac land. Then it says succinctly: "Isaac sowed in this land and he reaped a hundredfold this year. The Lord blessed him; the man became richer and richer until he was very wealthy." Then the mood changed. The Philistines envied him because of this obvious blessing from heaven. So he had to emigrate again. Now not out of necessity, but because of the envy of the hosts (Genesis 26:1-14).

The land promised by God to Abraham and which the Israelites were able to conquer after the arduous wandering in the desert was exceedingly fertile. The prophet Balaam, who is not in the service of the God of Israel, "the man with open eyes", "who sinks down with unveiled eyes", is full of praise for this land, which he was supposed to curse on behalf of the Moabite king Balak: "Jacob, how beautiful are your tents, your dwellings, Israel! They stretch like brook valleys, like gardens by a river, like aloe trees planted by the Lord, like cedars by the water. The water runs from his buckets, abundant water has its seed." (Numbers 24:5-7)

Starting a family in Israel was associated with the acquisition of a field. Then you could sow and harvest. The life of the family was secured: "If you have chosen a fertile share of the whole field, sow your seed confidently, trusting in your noble origins!" (Jesus Sirach 26:20)

Like farmer's rules

Anyone who cultivated a field had to proceed in a planned manner. The prophet Isaiah gave practical instructions to farmers in Israel, which he immediately interpreted theologically. "Listen and hear my voice, pay attention and hear my words. Does the ploughman plough all day to sow, does he plough and harrowing his land all day long? Isn't it like this: When he has leveled its surface, he sprinkles black cumin and sprinkles cumin, sows wheat in rows, barley on the staked piece and emmer on its edge? So instruct him, teach him to the right order his God." (Isaiah 28:23-26)

Clever and enthusiastic action was necessary to be able to harvest something in the end. The depressive author of the book Ecclesiastes is thoughtful and gives insightful advice: "He who constantly looks at the wind does not come to sow, he who constantly watches the clouds does not come to harvest. Just as you cannot know the way of the wind or the becoming of the child in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you cannot know the work of God, who does all things. In the morning begin to sow, even in the evening do not let your hand rest; for you cannot know in advance what will be successful, one or the other, or even whether both will lead to good results at the same time." (Ecclesiastes 4-6)

Organic farming

The establishment of a sabbatical year in Israel was ecologically far-sighted. The field should remain fallow and be able to recover. There was neither ploughing nor sowing. What nevertheless grew in the fields thanks to grains that had remained in the soil from the last harvest was to benefit the poor and animals alike. This testifies to an early eco-social sensitivity. "For six years you can sow in your land and bring in the harvest; in the seventh you shall leave it fallow and not till it. The poor in your people shall eat of it, and the rest may be eaten by the beasts of the field. You shall do the same with your vineyard and your olive trees." (Exodus 23:10f.; also Leviticus 25:1-55)

God as sower

God himself is already portrayed as a sower at the beginning of the Bible. The creation of the world already mentions that the young green and the fruit trees form seeds so that they can continue to multiply: "Then God said, 'Let the earth sprout young greens, plants that form seeds, fruit trees that bear fruit after their kind, with seeds in them on the earth. And so it happened. The earth brought forth young greens, plants that produce seeds after their kind, and trees that bear fruit with seeds in them according to their kind. God saw that it was good. Evening came, and there was morning: the third day." (Genesis 1:11-13)

After the expulsion from paradise, the lives of women and men changed permanently. Mentally, it could also have been the other way around: people experienced their hardship and searched for a mythical explanation (Genesis 3:16-19).

Despite all the hardship that agriculture causes, the Adam man, or more precisely the man, should not withdraw from the effort of sowing. Because only then is there a chance of a successful harvest. Above all, however, it is important to make an effort and at the same time to hope for God's blessing that allows us to grow. God then acts like many a government, which doubles what has been collected by committed people for people in need. The Scheiber of the second letter to the church in Corinth skilfully interweaves human activity with the work of God:

Remember, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; he who sows with blessing will reap with blessing. Let each one give, as he has resolved in his heart, not disgruntled and not under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver. In his power, God is able to pour out all the gifts upon you, so that you will always have sufficient resources in all things, and you will still have enough to do good to all, as it is written in the Scriptures: He distributed, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures forever. God, who gives seed for sowing and bread for food, will also give you the seed and cause the seed to sprout; he will make the fruits of your righteousness grow. In all things you will be rich enough for every unselfish goodness; it will evoke thanks to God through us. (2 Corinthians 9:6-11)

In a mystical way, the author of the first letter of Peter uses the seed as a metaphor: "Obedient to the truth, you have purified your hearts for a sincere brotherly love; therefore do not cease to love one another with all our hearts. You have been begotten anew, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed: of God's Word, which lives and endures." (1 Peter 1:22f.)

Jesus took up the image of the sower. He applies it to himself. He sows God's Word. Will it grow, he asks the listening crowd. Depends on this, he immediately gives an answer to his own question: namely on what the ground looks like.

Apart from the fact that some seeds are immediately picked up by birds before they can take root in the soil. This soil can be rocky, with little fertile soil and hardly any water. If the sun dries away the low moisture, the seed withers. The prophet Joel observed something similar long before Jesus' parable: "The seed lies dried up under the clods; the barns are desolate, the granaries are crumbling; for the grain has withered." (Joel 1:17)

Some seeds, according to Jesus, fall between the thorns - whereby Jesus, the Bible expert, takes up the warning of the prophet Isaiah: "Take new territory under the plough and do not sow into the thorns!" (Jeremiah 4:3) In thorns, Isaiah and Jesus agree, the young shoots cannot unfold.

And then the good case desired by Jesus: The seed falls on fertile ground and brings rich fear - Jesus gives incredible numbers for this: "sometimes a hundredfold, sometimes sixtyfold, sometimes thirtyfold" (Matthew 13:8).

Jesus goes to great lengths in this parable (Matthew 13:18-23) to patiently interpret it to the people. For him, the seed-pecking birds are the evil spirit that takes away the word that was sown in a person's heart by God.

Then there are those who want to "experience God in a fast-track process": the word is heard enthusiastically, but it does not take root in life. It does not change this person in the long term. No religious resilience develops.

For others, the word is suffocated in everyday worries. Or even more tragically: the word of God is suffocated in richness. Enrichment instead of the kingdom of God. Jesus does not speak out against the fact that we have a possession to survive, but that the possession has us (in a grip). Although Jesus also taught radical needlessness and thus carelessness: "Learn from the lilies of the field how they grow: they do not work and do not spin. But I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of them." (Matthew 6:28f.) Francis of Assisi followed this advice. The argument of the Poverello from Umbria: If you don't have property, you don't need soldiers to defend it. You then live peacefully and carefree.

Jesus' parable speech leads to an urgent appeal to the listeners: Let the seed of my words fall into the soil of a ploughed heart! Listen to my words! Open the ears of the heart! Let my word penetrate deep into you! Do not prevent my word from lifting you up and reorienting you! Do not be deaf to God! Escape from the booming noise of the world that prevents you from hearing the soft music of God! And last but not least: Understand my word! Make an effort!

It is not difficult to update such impositions of Jesus. Perhaps Jesus' calls today would sound like this: Educate yourselves spiritually and theologically! Take a Bible Course! Start a Bible study! Share the Word with others, and you will learn to delve deeper into it! And count on it: it is a living word and of its own accord urges to grow in you and to bear fruit! God's Spirit not only inspired the authors in the past, but also inspires those who read or listen to it today with open ears.

Wisdom about sowing and harvesting

Sowing and harvesting have inspired people throughout the ages. This is proven by old proverbs that refer to these primal agricultural processes. Jesus Himself explicitly quotes a well-known saying: "For here the proverb is right, 'One sows and another reaps'" (John 4:37).

This can be understood in a positive way. In my study there is a statue from Africa, carved from dark ebony. It shows generations sitting shoulder to shoulder. Without the knowledge of our ancestors, we would be far more ignorant. Progress lives from the saying that one sows and another reaps.

In the case of the sufferer Job, however, this statement turns into darkness. Now the sufferer complains: "Then let another eat what I sow." (Job 31:8)

Paul gives a moral touch to the connection between sowing and reaping: "Do not be deceived: God will not mock him; for what a man sows, he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7). In this sense, the prophet Hosea also warns: "For they sow the wind and reap the storm" (Hosea 8:7). Similarly, Job recognizes: "He who plows iniquity, he who sows disaster, reaps it also" (Job 4:8). Or even more succinctly: "He who sows iniquity reaps disaster" (Proverbs 22:8). That is why the wise author from Sirach admonishes: "Do not sow in the furrows of iniquity" (Jesus Sirach 7:3). He advises those who seek wisdom to approach it like a farmer to his field: "Go towards it like a ploughman and a sower" (Sirach 6:19).

Above all stands the tender green of hope: "Grace and beauty are desired by the eye, but above both stands the tender green of sowing." (Sirach 40:22)

Sam des Mannes

Images of agriculture are transferred to humans. This applies in particular to the term "seed". In nature, the seed signals the beginning of life, of plants and trees. Similarly, a human life springs from the seed of the man. Only from this: At least that's what people thought in those times when the egalitarian role of women and their eggs was still unrecognized. "In my mother's womb I was formed into flesh, solidified in blood in ten months from the semen of a man after pleasurable intercourse." (Wisdom 7:1f.)

But the same is also a placeholder for generation. In Mary's great hymn of praise, the Magnificat, it says: "He [the highly praised Lord] takes care of his servant Israel and remembers his mercy that he promised to our fathers, Abraham and his descendants for ever." (Luke 1:54f.) In Latin, as every friend of Johann S. Bach's grandiose Magnificat has in his ear, it says "semini eius in secula", literally translated as "his seed for eternity". In other words, the generation that owes itself to Abraham's "seed". From this sequence of "seeds"/generations the expected Messiah was to emerge. Believing Jews are still waiting for his coming. Christians believe that he has already come in Jesus from Nazareth. Since the Messiah was conceived as male, a devout Israelite wanted a male descendant. Sarah, the wife of the father of faith Abraham, was initially unable to bear a "firstborn" to her husband. Therefore, Hagar, Sarah's servant, had to step in. Thus, for religious reasons, there was a considerable pressure to conceive and give birth. This has to do with a moral-theologically momentous history.

Seed collection

Judah was the fourth son of Jacob and his wife Leah. According to biblical protocols, he was moderately involved in the sale of the second youngest brother, Joseph, to Egypt. (Genesis 37:26) The king gave his name to the southern kingdom of Judah (926-587 BC) with the capital Jerusalem - the northern kingdom called itself Israel (926-722 BC), capital was Samaria. The king Judah gave Tamar to his ancestor, the firstborn named "He", as his wife. However, he died childless at an early age. A disaster for the royal family. No successor! So the king asked Tamar to take his second son named Onan as her husband. This is what Moses had prescribed.

So, after mourning for her deceased first husband, named He, Tamar legally married his brother Onan. He had been instructed by his father, in the spirit of the Mosaic Law: "Go to your brother's wife, perform the marriage of brother-in-law with her,⁷¹ and procure offspring for your brother!" However, it annoyed him thoroughly that he was supposed to bring a child into the world, which, according to the law, should not belong to him, but to Tamar and his husband, who had died. So instead of impregnating Tamar, he "masturbated". The biblical protocol reads as follows: "Whenever he went to his brother's wife, he let the seed fall to the ground and perish, so as to withhold offspring from his brother." (Genesis 38:6-10; here v.10) Onan therefore fell into disgrace with God, as did his brother He before him for an undisclosed reason. And like Him, Onan also died childless. Since that time, masturbation, named after Onan, has been considered a reprehensible refusal to procreate. This was seen as a great guilt, also towards the expectation of the Messiah. Whoever masturbates sins gravely, according to the moral theological manuals later. This is because it does not use its seed generatively. In the context of forced procreation, this is perhaps understandable. But in general? Especially since the Messiah expectation is fulfilled for Christians?

After Tamar had lost her husband Onan because of the refusal to conceive, the king should have given her the next son Shelah as a husband by right so that he could father a child with her. He promised this to his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar. But he consoled her with the fact that Schela was still too young. She should wait. In reality, the king was afraid that this third son might also die. Tamar had to live in her royal father-in-law's house and wear widow's clothes despite her guaranteed right to a man.

However, Tamar still wanted children. She came to these through a morally questionable, but all the more clever ruse. She had heard that the king had set out to shear sheep in a place called Timna. Then she took off her widow's clothes and disguised herself as a prostitute. She covered her face in accordance with custom. So she followed the king. She sat down at the entrance to Enajim, which is on the road to Timna. There she waited for a suitor. She knew her father-in-law's sexual over-giftedness and therefore hoped that he would want her. This was followed by a story full of cunning and lust, in which the king sought sex without consequences from a face-covered prostitute, while Tamar wanted to get the king's semen in order to finally become pregnant. Your child should be royal. The coup succeeded. She became pregnant. Two handsome princes were born at once.

Tamar had cunningly reached the goal of her dreams. With twins, her desire to have children was even more than fulfilled. She had her longed-for heir. In this way, Tamar entered the family tree of Jesus as one of four women (Matthew 1:3). For Hezron descended from the twin, who, as is reported, boldly squeezed past his brother at birth, and from him in turn King David.

The grain of wheat must die

The seed is given a completely different theological weight by the Apostle Paul. He wrestles with the Hellenistic Christians in order to bring them closer to the resurrection of the whole human being, i.e. with soul and body. Baptized Greeks did not have a cultural understanding of such an idea of resurrection. A resurrection of the spirit, yes. But of the body that is definitely dying and decaying before our eyes: unimaginable, so no.

Here Paul refers to the seed that is sown. For example, a grain of wheat. This grain dies in order to be able to grow into high-yielding wheat. For the grain of wheat, the seed, Paul now sets the body of man. This, too, can only blossom into eternal life if it dies first: "Now someone might ask: How will the dead be raised, what kind of body will they have? You fool! Even what you sow does not come to life if it does not die. And what you sow is not yet the body that will come into being; it's just a naked seed." (1 Corinthians 15:35-37) After this opening comparison, the Apostle argues in theological imagery:

It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is corruptible, what is raised is incorruptible. What is sown is poor, what is raised is glorious. What is sown is weak, what is resurrected is strong. An earthly body is sown, a supernatural body is raised. If there is an earthly body, there is also a supermundane body. This is also what it says in Scripture: Adam, the first man, became an earthly living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But the supernatural does not come first; first comes the earthly, then the supermundane. The first man comes from the earth and is earth; the second man comes from heaven. Just as the one from the earth was earthly, so are his descendants. And just as the one from heaven is heavenly, so are his descendants. As we were fashioned in the image of the earthly, so we will also be fashioned in the image of the heavenly. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49)

Sowing and reaping - that is a powerful image, full of life experiences. It runs through the Bible like an invisible bond that links human action with divine order. It is true that God does not give his blessing to every seed - and not everyone who sows will also reap. But those who sow in tear-inducing toil can hope to be able to reap with jubilation one day. A comforting philosophy of life!

Bloom and thrive

In the days to come, Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and prosper, and the world will be filled with fruit.
(Isaiah 27:6)

Once the soil has been prepared, if necessary also fertilized, the seeds have been sown, then the time of blossoming and thriving, of growing and maturing, much sung about in poems, begins. This applies to plant nature as well as to animals and humans. The pictures of "bloom and thrive!

Omne ens est verum (all being is true) is an old Latin saying. Others increase this sentence: "All being is beautiful" (omne ens est pulchrum). Both are probably true. Wisdom is beautiful and beauty is wise. The thoughtful Jesus Sirach seems to have had a special feeling for this. He sings a "Praise of Wisdom". He paints these with a blooming imagination (Jesus Sirach 24:13-18).

The miraculous process of ripening and blossoming is given almost poetic attention in the Bible from the very beginning. Already in the Garden of Eden, God "caused all kinds of trees to grow out of the ground, to be desirable to behold and to eat deliciously" (Genesis 2:9). "The almond tree is in bloom" (Ecclesiastes 12:5). Jesus refers to lilies in his parable of carelessness (Luke 12:27). Green grass sprouts abundantly for the cattle (Psalm 104:14). When the sufferer Job ponders God, he sees him as the creator of animals. God provides for them. Therefore, "their young can grow strong, grow in the open, run out, and do not return to them" (Job 39:4). In the scorching heat, a castor bush with large leaves grows over Jonah in a short time and grants the prophet refreshing shade (Jonah 4:6); of course, only until the worm is inside and the shadow is gone. A mighty tree grows out of the tiny mustard seed, in which chirping birds nest (Matthew 13:31f.). Constantly and everywhere it grows, blossoms and flourishes in the Bible.

After many sufferings and doubts about God, the sufferer Job was finally given a good life again: "But the Lord blessed Job's later life more than his earlier life. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of cattle and a thousand donkeys." Part of this abundant wealth was that he was able to lead an extremely happy family life. He could enjoy the joys of fatherhood. With his wife, he had seven sons and three extremely beautiful daughters, whom he loved dearly, as their pet names suggest. One stands out for its flower and fragrance:

The first he called Jemima, turtle dove, the second Kezia, cinnamon blossom, and the third Keren-Happuch, make-up squirrel. There were no more beautiful women in the whole country than the daughters of Job. Their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. Job lived another hundred and forty years after that, and he saw his children and grandchildren, four generations. Then Job died, very old and full of life. (Job 43:14-17)

Growing up and growing into it

Not only plants, people and peoples flourish and thrive in the Bible. Likewise, a cultural way of life can flourish. This happened to the annoyance of the pious Maccabee brothers under Jason, who acted as a depraved high priest. He introduced the Greek way of life among his compatriots. Humanistic education was in, but it was an abomination to the pious. "With pleasure he had a gymnasium built directly below the castle and he got the sons of the best families to put on the Greek hat. This led to a flowering of the Greek way of life. The foreign species had an influx." The priests did the same. Because of all the modern attractions, they simply had no time for temple service. They preferred to "hurry to the sports field as soon as the call to throw the discus went out to take part in the game, which was forbidden by law. They did not respect the honours of their fatherland for anything, but they were quite obsessed with Greek awards." (1 Maccabees 4:10-15)

We change our perspective, but remain in the field of words of blossoming and thriving. It is one of the wonders of creation how a human life matures from the fusion of a female egg and a male sperm cell and blossoms into an adult human being. Growing up, outstanding people have recognized, accepted and lived their mission. And often under complex conditions. This growing up is often mentioned and emphasized in the Bible.

So Moses, having grown up, recognized his belonging to the enslaved people of the Hebrews. He no longer felt himself to be a member of Pharaoh's powerful family and his daughter, who had rescued and raised him from the Nile. He became one of his people, whom he was to serve as a leader from then on.

Jesus had recognized his calling to sing the kingdom of God to earth. To ensure that his work does not end with his anticipated death, he had started to collect followers. With these he traveled through the country and came to the city where he had grown up, as Lukas expressly notes. There, the adult son of the city reads selected passages from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue - of course, it is also possible that Luke has compiled the texts for his Gospel. Jesus applies these passages to Himself. It is a kind of inaugural lecture, a declaration of government by the kingdom of God. "He sent me," the audience let it be known. What a sense of mission of a mature one! Perhaps we can cut ourselves off from this: Have I already found my mission in this world as an adult, do I follow it, opportunely or inopportunely, not just occasionally, to quote the Apostle Paul in a slightly modified way (2 Timothy 2:4)?

Growing up in faith

Paul, the European Apostle just quoted, expects every person to grow up in faith. He was particularly diligent in the congregations he founded, as evidenced by a lively correspondence.

The reason for one of the letters was initially different. Paul was probably in a prison in Ephesus. Then a man named Onesimus was assigned to him as a servant. He was a runaway slave. Now he was to return to his master. He was also a Christian. Paul gave the returnee a kind of letter of recommendation. In this he wanted to persuade Philemon to forgive the slave and accept him as a fellow believer. This was an important step towards overcoming slavery, which, however, was still a long time coming in the Christian world. It was not until the Spaniard Bartolomé de las Casas (1494/5-1566) that the slaves of America were respected as equal and baptizable human beings. In America, the abolition of slavery took even longer. And even today, despite the successes of the murdered Martin Luther King, there is a movement in the United States that sees blacks, once slaves, as inferior. Hence "Black matters!", a movement against racial discrimination triggered by the murder of a black man by a white police officer, i.e. against the fact that only what is white and male counts. Rich if possible. And right-wing to right-wing radicals.

This socio-ethically important letter of the Apostle Paul to the baptized slave owner Philemon is also about an important topic of religious education, which Immanuel Kant anticipates in a certain way with his enlightened appeal against immaturity⁷² . Paul apparently experienced a lot of ignorance and immaturity among church members. He had preached to them the gospel of Jesus, the Christ. Of his birth, death and resurrection. Baptized people, he thought, are people who have become knowledgeable, enlightened. In doing so, he has trained people who not only understand the gospel, but can even teach it. Because every Christian becomes "missionary" in the course of his Christian career, like himself. But far from it. In his brief letter, he states resignedly:

For although you should already be teachers in time, you need one anew to instruct you in the beginnings of God's words; and you have become those who need milk, not solid food. For everyone who is still nourished with milk is inexperienced in proper speech; he is an underage child; solid food, however, is to be distinguished between good and evil for adults whose senses are trained through use. (Hebrews 12:12-14)

A tragic vow

Gilead is considered the ancestor of the area of the same name east of the Jordan River, which borders on the territory of Ammon. With a prostitute he had brought Jiftach into being. After that, he had other sons with his wife. Now growing up comes into play again. In the first case, however, this growth was not advantageous for Jiftach. He had the reputation of a brave hero. But his half-brothers, who had grown up, "said to him, 'You shall not inherit in our father's house; for you are the son of another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brothers. He settled in the land of Tob." (Judges 10:2f.) There he gathered "men who had nothing to lose" as warriors.

Then, when the Israelites were threatened by the Ammonites, the elders of Gilead, who were allied with the Israelites, asked him for help. Yiftach agreed. However, he did so on the condition that they would make him their leader after a victory with the Israelites.

The brave hero Jephthah immediately prepared for Israel's campaign against the Ammonites. Before he went to war, it is said that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. He made a serious mistake. He made a risky vow by saying, bowed down before God: "If you will really give the Ammonites into my hand, and if I return safely from the Ammonites, then whatever comes to me from the door of my house shall belong to the Lord, and I will offer it as a burnt offering." (Judges 11:30f.) What was risky was that he did not decide in advance what he would sacrifice, but rather left it to chance.

Thus, as fate would have it, a heartbreaking tragedy occurs. Led by the hero Jephthach and with the tailwind of God, the army of the Israelites triumphs over the Ammonites. They return home joyfully. Yiftach comes to his house in Mizpah. And froze. His only, still virgin daughter comes to meet him "with hand drums and round dances". Yiftach tears his clothes in pain. He complains to his daughter that she has plunged him deep into misfortune. But the daughter rightly replies that he should not have sworn so pompously: "My father, you have opened your mouth too wide to the Lord. Do to me as it came out of your mouth, after the Lord has given you vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites!"

Then she asks for two months to weep for her fate in the mountains with friends. When she returns home, she is sacrificed, as promised. How did you think it would have been for Jiphthah when he went back to the temple? If he had fully agreed with the psalm, which says: "Blessed are they who dwell in your house... They are walking with increasing strength." (Psalm 84:1-6) Or did he rather feel abysmal grief over his lost daughter, whom he loved more than anything? With his heavy heart, he could not have joined in the light-footed hymn of praise: "Then our sons are like young trees, grown tall in their youth, our daughters beautifully designed like pillars on the building of a palace." (Psalm 144:10-12) Perhaps he would still have smelled the burning smell of his sacrificed daughter when he visited the temple.

This tragic event was not forgotten not only because it has found its way into the Bible. Rather, it became "the custom in Israel that year after year the daughters of Israel go and sing to the daughter of Gileadite Jephthah for four days, every year" (Judges 11:34-40).

Beauty and power

In the following, we turn the spotlight on two female figures from the Bible. Her beauty is praised. But unlike in the Song of Songs of Love, in which love is sung in itself, it is not about the beauty of love in itself. Rather, beauty is purposed. The two women use it in a tough way for power politics. Powerful men become weak in front of strong, beautiful women. One pays for it with his life. Both beautiful women reach their destination. With God's blessing. Because both women were not only beautiful, but also God-fearing.

Judit

In the legendary and legendary doctrine "Judith", written in Greek around 100 BC, it is said that the advance of Holofernes came to a standstill in front of the small mountain fortress of Betulia, which protected access to northern Palestine. Trusting that God would stand by his people, as he has so often demonstrated throughout history, Israel resisted. Holofernes, surprised by the resistance, then attacked the fortress with 182,000 men. The situation of the defenders seemed hopeless. Therefore, the inhabitants of the city urged their king Uzziah to give up.

Now the beautiful and rich Judit comes into play. The curriculum vitae praises Judith as a God-fearing and rich woman (Judith 8:1-8). Her husband Manasseh had been struck by lightning during the barley harvest in the open field and died. Her husband had left her gold and silver, servants and maidservants, cattle and fields, which she held in her possession. No one could say anything bad about her; for she was very God-fearing. She was an attractive widow: "She had a beautiful figure and a blooming appearance." She hid her attractive appearance behind her widow's clothes. This alone inspired artists such as Sandro Botticelli (1470, 1472/73, 1495), Michelangelo (1509), Titian (1515, 1570), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1525, 1530), Peter Paul Rubens (1616), Rembrandt van Rijn (1634, 1653) and Gustav Klimt (1901, 1909) to create world-famous paintings. Composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti (Guiditta, 1695), Antonio Vivaldi (Juditha triumphans, 1716), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (La Betulia liberata, 1771) and Arthur Honegger (Judith, 1925) wrote grandiose pieces of music. Judit embodied courage, determination and self-sacrificing love of the fatherland.

First, Judit criticizes the lack of trust in God of those who wanted to give up. Then she dresses up finely. With her maid she goes to the enemy camp. Immediately she is led to the general. She wins him over through her attractiveness as well as through her clever speeches. She is allowed to go in and out of the camp. On the fortieth day of the siege, he organized a huge party. Soon he was drunk, with love and with wine: "But Holofernes was quite beside himself with delight at her. His passion ignited and he was eager to be with her. For ever since he had seen her, he had been waiting for a favorable opportunity to seduce her. When Holofernes said to them, "Drink and be happy with us," Judith replied, "I will drink gladly, sir, for I have never experienced such an honour in all my life as I have today." She grabbed it, ate and drank what her servant had prepared in front of him. Holofernes became more and more cheerful because of them and drank more wine than he had ever drunk in a single day in his life." Then the banquet was over.

Drunk and turned on, Holofernes had taken the beautiful Judit to his tent after a feast. There were fatal turnarounds. The Book of Judith is transformed into a pious thriller:

Judith alone remained in the tent, where Holofernes, overwhelmed by wine, had sunk forward on his bed. She had ordered her servant to stand outside her bedchamber and wait, as she did every day, until she came out; she would go out to pray. In the meantime the whole company had departed, and there was no longer a human being in Holofernes' bedchamber. Judith went to the bed of Holofernes and prayed silently, "Lord, God of all might, look mercifully at this hour on what my hands will do for the glory of Jerusalem." Now the moment has come for you to take care of your inheritance and for me to carry out my purpose, to the destruction of the enemies who have risen up against us. Then she went to the bedpost at the head of Holofernes and took down his sword from there. She went very close to his bed, seized his hair, and said, "Make me strong, O Lord, God of Israel, this day." And she struck his neck twice with all her strength and cut off his head. Then she rolled his torso from the bed and took the mosquito net down from the carrying poles. Shortly afterwards she went out and gave the head of Holofernes to her servant, who put it in her ration bag. They then both set out as usual, as if they wanted to go to pray. However, after crossing the camp, they went around the gorge, climbed the mountain to Betulia and reached the city gate. (Judith 13:1-10)

The next morning, the head of Holofernes is displayed on a wall. This gives the defense attorneys courage. They follow Judit's advice and make a successful attack. In panic, the besiegers flee.

The finale of the story in the Book of Judith is a great hymn of praise. "The Lord slew him [Holofernes] by the hand of a woman. As surely as the Lord lives, who has protected me in the way I have walked, the sight of me has deceived him and brought him to destruction, but he has not defiled or defiled me with any sin." (Judith 13:15)

Also because of the piety of the woman, God has saved the people of Israel again. God, who according to Judith does not sanctify violence, ended the war through the deed of the pious woman (Judith 9:7; 16:2). A God-fearing woman committed a tyrant's murder. What Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907-1944) and his followers failed to do with Adolf Hitler in 1944, Judit had her courageous trust in God accomplished.

With her feminine charms, Judith had hunted down the powerful military leader. It can be dangerous to succumb to a woman's beauty. The inferior can easily become a superior one. A woman's weapon can be more powerful than the edge of a sword. The Bible does not hesitate to interpret that the hand of God was involved. It is astonishing how easy it was for the biblical authors to write such things. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis, noted the Roman poet Ovid. Or in the imitation of Johannes Nas from 1565: "Die zeit wirdt verendert vnd wir in der Zeit."⁷³ Has our time learned? Aren't power, wealth and sex often closely interwoven even today? More than is good for the world?

Ester

It was the time of exile in Babylon. The Jews kidnapped from their land were enslaved. The powerful Grand Vizier of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Artaxerxes) named Haman wanted to commit genocide among the Jews. The Jewess Ester was able to thwart this by risking her beauty.

The story begins with two separate feasts. The king celebrated with his cronies. His beautiful Queen Vashti, on the other hand, was lying at the table with the women in another location. Tipsy, he wanted to impress the assembled princes and the people with his beautiful queen. So he sent his seven servants, who were eunuchs, to Vashti. She is to put on her diadem and show herself on the catwalk: "so that the people and the princes may admire her beauty; for she was very beautiful." (Esther 1:11). But she refused to let herself be presented as such an object to the gawkers. This violated the king's male honor. In addition, this was a dangerous precedent for the men's world:

For the queen's conduct will be known to all women, and they will lose respect for their husbands, saying, 'King Artaxerxes commanded Queen Vashti to appear before him; but she did not come. From this day forward, all the princesses of Persia and Media, who hear of the queen's behavior, will reproach all the king's princes, and there will be much anger and vexation. If it pleases the king, may an irrevocable royal decree be issued, which will be recorded in the laws of the Persians and Medes: Vashti may no longer face King Artaxerxes. But the king confers the rank of queen on another who is more worthy than herself. (Esther 1:17-19)

So the king disowned his wife, the queen. In the long run, this was an untenable situation. A new queen was needed. "Then the king's pages said, 'We should look for young girls for the king who are very beautiful.' The king is to commission men in each province of his kingdom to bring all the young girls who are very beautiful to the women's palace in the castle of Susa and hand them over to the royal eunuch Hegai, the overseer of the women. There they are to be subjected to the necessary beauty care. And the girl who pleases the king is to become queen instead of Vashti. The king liked the proposal and acted accordingly." (Esther 2:1-4) A casting was set in motion. A beauty contest throughout the Persian Empire. A Miss of Persia was chosen. However, after the pre-selection by the royal beauty hunters, there was only one jury member: the king.

Now in the royal castle of Susa lived a Jew named Mordechai. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. He was the uncle of the Jewish orphan named Ester. Mordechai managed to introduce Ester to the main headhunter. He accepted her into the crowd of girls who were being prepared for the casting before the king. That was a time-consuming procedure. For a whole year, the girls were subjected to dignified beauty care in a royal spa: "six months of myrrh oil and six months of balm and other beauty products" were applied. Then they came before the king on the catwalk.

There would have been no Book of Esther if this beautiful girl had not won. And the chutzpah: Now a Jewess was the Persian queen. Mordechai had told the girl to conceal her origins. Beauty sells. Blooming youthful beauty has brought Ester to power. Because "Ester ... pleased everyone who saw it. It was in the tenth month, the month of Tebet, in the seventh year of the king's reign, that Esther was taken to Artaxerxes in the royal palace. And the king loved Esther more than all the women before, and she won his favor and affection more than all the other girls. He put the royal diadem on her and made her queen instead of Vashtis." (Esther 2:15-17)

The Hebrew portion of the book tells how Esther used her power for the benefit of her Jewish people. This was also urgent. In the meantime, the Grand Vizier has drawn up a plan for the extermination of the Jews. The Jews learn about it and are horrified. Ester also notices it. Then she invites the king and the grand vizier to a feast. As Haman, who planned a precursor to the Holocaust, walked through the city, he met the grieving Mordechai. Because the latter does not pay him the expected respect, he decides to take him to the gallows. He immediately has one set up. Then it comes to the feast. Esther tells the king about the genocide decree. The king is furious and has the Grand Vizier hanged on the gallows that he has prepared for the Jew Mordechai.

And once again Esther asks the king for a feast. Now she wins him over to issue an alternative decree to protect the Jews in the Reich. And she succeeds. Thanks to her beauty, Esther thus gained royal power in the Persian Empire and saved her people from extermination.

With this act, Esther has made it into the Jewish festival calendar; Purim is celebrated in their memory. She owes this to her patron and protector Mordecai, who wrote down everything that had happened (Esther 9:20-27).

Grace upon grace

This building block will end with an appreciative observation, wise advice and educational advice for fathers from the pen of the wisdom teacher Jesus Sirach. The observation concerns the inner beauty of a woman, a passage that can also be written for men today. This is followed by a brief piece of advice on staying young, which does not require cosmetic surgery or cosmetics. The conclusion is a kind of mirror into which fathers can look who feel responsible for the growth of a daughter. Just visit with me to his wisdom school. First of all, in praise of women:

Grace upon grace is a shameful woman; nothing equals one who controls herself. As the sun shines in the heights of the Lord, so the beauty of a good woman adorns her house. Like a light that shines on the holy lampstand, so is a beautiful face on a noble form. Like golden columns on a silver base, so are well-shaped legs on firm heels. (Jesus Sirach 26:15-18)⁷⁴

Parenting Counseling

And who shouldn't care about the blossoming of the children? Jesus Sirach first convinces with his own experience, then turns to sons, and finally gives everyone good advice to stay young:

When I was young, before I went on a journey, I openly sought wisdom in my prayer. At the temple I asked for her and until the last I will look for her. As with the blossom, so with the ripening grape, my heart rejoiced in it. My foot went the straight way, from my youth on I traced it. (Jesus Sirach 51:13-15)

Listen to me, ye pious sons, and flourish like a rose that grows by the river. Exudes fragrance like incense! Sprouts blossoms like a lily! Spread fragrance and sing a song of praise and praise the Lord for all the works!" (Jesus Sirach 39:13f.)

Child, keep the bloom of your youth healthy, do not give your strength to strangers! If you have chosen a fruitful share of the whole field, sow your seed confidently, trusting in your noble origin! Then your descendants will surround you, they will grow up trusting in the noble origin. (Jesus Sirach 26:19-21)

Finally, here is the extremely realistic mirror, into which many a father can look with a thoughtful smile:

For the father, a daughter secretly means insomnia, worrying about her robs her of sleep: in her youth, that she does not fade, and in living together, that she is not hated; in her virginity, that she will not be dishonored and will not become pregnant under the care of her father, in her association with a man, that she will not be unfaithful, and in living together, that she will not be barren. Watch over a stubborn daughter closely, lest she make you the laughing stock of the enemy, the talk of the town, and the rebuke of the people, and that she may not put you to shame in a great multitude. (Jesus Sirach 42:9-14)

Withering and dying

For all flesh is like grass, and all the glory of man, like the flowers of the grass.The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen away. But the word of the Lord remains forever.
(1 Peter 1:24f.⁷⁵)

With this text from the first letter of the Apostle Peter, Johannes Brahms begins the second part of his masterpiece "A German Requiem". Peter, on the other hand, quotes the prophet Isaiah (40:6f.) quite verbatim. Although Brahms performs his Requiem exclusively with biblical texts, he did not want to compose a religious piece that would also have been suitable for liturgy. In a letter to Clara Schumann, he called his grandiose composition a "human work".⁷⁶

In doing so, however, he did not stray far from the anthropological sobriety of the Old Testament writer Ecclesiastes, a book from the Jewish Tanakh. Brahms, Ecclesiastes and Job define the framework of this module. It's about the flip side of growth: everything that lives on earth passes away, plants, animals and people. What blooms withers. What thrives dies. What beautifies, rots.

This law of becoming and passing away, of course, applies only in this earthly life. In the same letter of the Apostle Peter, from which Brahms took a verse for his funeral song, there is the promise: "When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the never-fading crown of glory." (1 Peter 5:4) The world of plants will also be redeemed, detached from the cycle of flourishing and withering.

Transience

Since the expulsion from paradise, transience has been the inescapable fate of man. We are born and die. Our lives are sandwiched between cradle and grave. From womb to tomb, as it is called onomatopoeically in English. Transience and finiteness are man's inescapable fate. Job and Ecclesiastes confront her, as thoughtful as they are concerned.

In the Book of Job, transience is "only" a side theme, albeit an existentially moving one. Rather, this magnificently through-composed book is a lesson in the theology of faith. The main character of the story is Satan, who appears as man's "accuser" before God. He wants to clarify the question of whether someone is only attached to God when he is doing well. If even a believer falls into misery, then he turns away from God and curses Him. Of course, this also applies in the female form.

The devil wants to clarify this question with the help of a case study, a theological case study. The pious Job has to serve for this. Job quickly feels terribly bad. In addition to clever conversations with friends, a speech by the sufferer stands out. In it, he laments his fate. He goes into the fundamentals: "Man, born of woman, scarce in days, restless, he rises like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last." (Job 14:1f.) Then he recalls the dark experiences of people who have forgotten God:

Yes, just ask the former generation and remember what the fathers researched!
We are only of yesterday and know nothing, as shadows are on earth our days.
Do they not instruct you, do they not speak to you, do they not give you words from their hearts?
Does the reed grow up without a swamp, does sedge grow tall without water?
In bloom and not yet mowed, it is already wilting mainly grass.
(Job 8:8-12)

This sorrowful knowledge of transience recurs in several places in other biblical books. In a psalm entitled Moses' Supplication, it is sung:

To the dust you make man return, you say, 'You children of men, return!'
For a thousand years are in your eyes like the day that passed yesterday, like a watch in the night.
You sweep them away, and they become like sleepers.They are like the grass that grows in the morning: in the
morning it blossoms and grows up, in the evening it withers and withers.
(Psalm 90:3-8)

The author of the Book of Wisdom - it was probably not King Solomon, but a scribe trained in Hellenistic rhetoric - also notes laconically:

Short and sad is our life; there is no cure for the end of man, and there is no one known to deliver from the underworld. By chance we have become and afterwards we will be as if we had never been. Smoke is the breath in our nostrils and thought is a spark in the beating of our hearts; if it is extinguished, then the body crumbles to ashes and the spirit blows away like thin air. Our name is forgotten over time, no one remembers our works. Our life passes like the trail of a cloud and dissolves like a fog that is chased away by the rays of the sun and pressed to the ground by its warmth. Our time passes like a shadow, our end is not repeated; It's sealed and no one comes back. (Wisdom 2:1-5)

How small the people appear, how weak are the rulers and judges of the earth in the face of the greatness of God: "He has handed over the princes to nothingness, he has made the judges of the earth like the vain. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner is their seedling rooted in the earth, than it blows on them and they wither; the storm carries them away like chaff." (Isaiah 40:22-24)

Enjoy life

A cheerful heart is good for health,
a depressed mind causes the limbs to wither.
(Proverbs 17:22)

But how should a person live in the face of his inescapable transience? Ecclesiastes and the Book of Wisdom give similar answers to these questions, but set different accents. Little is known about Ecclesiastes. What is revealing for us, however, is that the book was probably written at the end of the third/beginning of the second century BC, i.e. in a time when the tradition of Israel meets Greek modernity. In this way, Jewish theology allies itself with Greek anthropology, the divine and the human and the all-too-human.

The gaze of Ecclesiastes is not only directed at God, but also at man. The human experience and how to live well with it are getting attention. This makes the book topical for us today. Ecclesiastes describes the experience of transience in a depressive way. But how to get along in it, he gives quite optimistic instructions.

The gloomy prelude to his doctrine of man (anthropology) is often quoted and belongs to world literature: "Breath of wind, breath of wind, said Ecclesiastes⁷⁷, breath of wind, breath of wind, that is all breath of wind. What advantage does man have from all his possessions for which he exerts himself under the sun?" (Ecclesiastes 1:2f.) In the same tone, the author, who is depressive-realist in his analysis, continues: "I had planned to examine the knowledge and to investigate whether everything that was done under heaven was not a bad business for which the individual people had toiled through God's mandate. I watched all the deeds that were done under the sun. The result: It's all a breath of wind and a pipe of air." (Ecclesiastes 1:13f.) In short, the best thing a person can do is first and foremost to know about his transience. But that's no reason for the author to hang his head and indulge in sadness. Rather, he advises exactly the opposite:

So: Eat your bread joyfully and drink your wine joyfully; for what you do God has long since determined as He pleased. Wear fresh clothes at all times and never lack fragrant oil on your head! With a woman you love, enjoy life all the days of your life full of breath of wind that he gave you under the sun, all your days of breath of wind! For this is your share of life and possessions, for which you exert yourself under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do as long as you have strength, do it! Because there is neither doing, nor arithmetic, nor ability, nor knowledge in the underworld to which you are headed. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)

About two hundred years later, the author of the book Wisdom takes the same line. But unlike Ecclesiastes, he makes the reader feel very bad. For he puts these words into the mouth of a wicked person, but seems to do so with envious sympathy - and is probably not entirely wrong: "Come, let us enjoy the goods of life and savor creation, as the youth deserves! Exquisite wine and anointing oil shall flow abundantly for us, no flower of spring must escape us. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let no meadow remain untouched by our hustle and bustle, everywhere we want to leave behind signs of happiness; for this is our share and this is the inheritance." (Wisdom 2:6-8)

The great and the small death

To wither in its radical form means to die. It is the great death around which everything revolves, according to Rainer Maria Rilke in the Book of Hours⁷⁸:

O Lord, give each one his own death, the dying that goes out of that life in which he had love, meaning and need.

Because we are only the peel and the leaf.The great death that everyone has within himself is the fruit around which everything revolves.

But the biblical texts also know other forms of decay, of perishing, in addition to inescapable death. These are "small deaths" that do not completely sweep away and destroy. They can be a reading aid for transience, or a "punishment" for guilt and sins. In the biblical narratives, such "punishments" affect entire peoples, but also individuals, the wicked and the innocent. They appear to be decreed by an angry-punishing god. Here are a few very different examples.

Peoples

Often peoples come off badly in the judgment of the prophets. And not only Israel itself. The people of Moabite are said to be descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham. They lived east of the Jordan River and were often in armed conflict with Israel. They incur God's wrath because of their arrogance. The prophet threatens them with destruction. This threat was fulfilled in 612 BC. In that year, Nineveh is⁷⁹ destroyed by the Babylonians and Medes (Isaiah 16:6-10).

The fall of Babylon, which the prophet Isaiah announces, is described as desolation: "Her cities will become a desolation, a land of drought and desert." (Jeremiah 51:43) According to Isaiah, the arch-enemy Egypt will fare ecologically badly: "The canals stink, the Nile arms of Egypt are shallow and desolate, reeds and reeds are withering." (Isaiah 19:6). Ezekiel's curse word against Egypt sounds grim: "Therefore, behold, I am proceeding against you and your arms of the Nile. I will make the land of Egypt a barren wasteland, a desert from Migdol to Syene and to the border of Kush. Neither the foot of man nor the foot of an animal passes beyond it. It will not be inhabited for forty years. I will make the land of Egypt a desert in the midst of desolate lands. His cities shall lie desolate for forty years in the midst of desolate cities. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and drive them out into the lands." (Ezekiel 28:10-12)

The "Lord of hosts", i.e. God, acts devastatingly on his earth: "Behold, the Lord devastates and devastates the earth; it changes its face and disperses its inhabitants. Then it is the people like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the creditor like the debtor, the one who borrows like the one who borrows from him. The earth will be devastated, it will be devastated, plundered, plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth withers, it withers, the world withers, it withers; the high places of the people in the land are withering away." (Isaiah 21:1-4)

It is particularly striking when the divine curse of destruction of the prophets strikes the chosen people of Israel, as a whole or after the division in the individual kingdoms and regions. The prophet Hosea conveys God's judgment on his faithless people: "For the Lord accuses the inhabitants of the land: There is no faithfulness, and no love, and no knowledge of God in the land.⁸⁰ No, curses, lies, murder, theft and adultery are getting ready, bloody deed follows bloody deed. Therefore the land shall wither, and all its inhabitants shall wither." (Hosea 4:1-3)

Wicked

Job, drenched in suffering, is in conversation with his friend Bildad. In the process, the friend talks about the fate of a wicked man. He compares it to a huge tree cut off from its divine spring: "From below its roots wither, from above its branches wither" (Job 18:16). Job thinks of the wicked man in the same way as his friend: "Before his day comes, he withers and his palm branch no longer greens." (Job 15:32) Similarly, a psalm says: "Do not be upset with the wicked, do not be enraged against those who do evil. Because they wither quickly like the grass, they wither like fresh green." (Psalm 37:1f.) The wrath of God over the guilt of mankind hits nature hard: "He turns rivers into a dry desert, oases into a thirsty wasteland, fertile land into a salty steppe, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants." (Psalm 107:33f.)

The Apostle James sets his theological sights on wealth and possessions: "Let the brother who lives in a low class boast of his high dignity, but the rich man his lowliness; for it will fade away like a flower in the grass. For the sun rises with its heat and scorches the grass; the flower withers and its splendor fades. So also the rich man will perish in everything he undertakes." (James 1:9-11)

For Isaiah, no wicked person escapes the wrath of God: "But apostates and sinners collapse. Those who leave the Lord are finished. For they will be put to shame because of the oaks that you have desired, and you will be put to shame because of the gardens that you have chosen. Yes, you will be like an oak tree whose leaves wither, and like a garden that has no water." (Isaiah 1:28-30)

The prophet Jeremiah, however, is not so sure of this logic that the wicked will fare badly. He apparently knows wicked people who, in his eyes, are doing outrageously well, which disturbs him spiritually. It grieves him that the land of the righteous withers while the wicked live well (Jeremiah 12:1-4).

Withering is also used in a figurative sense. The prophet Zechariah threatens the leaders of the people in Israel, who are failing in the eyes of God: "Woe to the good-for-nothing shepherd who forsakes the sheep! The sword over his arm and over his right eye! His arm shall wither completely, his right eye shall be completely blind!" (Zechariah 11:17)

Innocent

The fact that God is angry with the guilty, punishes them and makes them suffer is acceptable. But that the innocent also suffer? Job complains about this before God. The lawsuit can quickly turn into an indictment. Then God stands, as it were, before the judgment of men. God is accused. The targeted accusation: Why do you, God, let innocent people suffer? Children and the elderly in the wars? Slain victims of earthquakes? Why?

This is the dark theodicy question: θεός (theós) means God in Greek, δίκη (díke) justice. Doesn't God act most unjustly towards suffering innocents? Is the "justice of God" not more than just a pious wish? Will the lesson about Job continue? The text fluctuates between lamentations and accusations, without reaching a final verdict.

Job first laments his fate with heartbreaking words. He curses the day He was born (Job 3:1-26). And then Job accuses his God helplessly. And not to turn away from God, but precisely because he clings to his God and does not let go of him even in suffering: Which made the devil, who appears as an "accuser" in Job, lose his bet:

My life has become disgusting to me, I give free rein to my lamentation, I want to speak bitterness in my soul. I say to God: Do not pronounce me guilty, let me know why you are feuding with me! What do you gain by committing violence, by rejecting the toil of your hands, but shining forth above the plan of the wicked? Do you have the eyes of a mortal, do you see how humans see? Are your days equal to the days of men, and your years like the days of a man, that you seek my guilt in me, searching for my sin, even though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can save from your hand? Your hands have formed me, made me; then you turned around and destroyed me. Remember, how clay you made me and to dust you let me return. Have you not poured me out like milk, like cheese, made me curdle? You have clothed me with skin and flesh, you have interwoven me with bones and sinews. You have bestowed life and grace on me, and your care has protected my spirit. But you hide this in your heart; I know that's what you had in mind. If I sin, you will guard me, you will not absolve me of my guilt. If I were guilty, woe betide me! But even if I were in the right, I should not lift up my head, I am satiated with reproach and tormented with sorrow. If I do raise it, you will chase me like a lion and prove yourself wonderful to me again. You have brought up new witnesses against me, you have heaped your indignation on me, you are always leading new armies against me. Why did you let me come out of my mother's womb, why did I not pass away before an eye saw me? I would have been like never before, carried from the womb to the grave. Aren't a few the days of my life? Leave me alone, that I may look a little serene before I go away without return to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, to the land as dark as the night, where there is a shadow of death and no order, and when it shines, it is like the night.

The great theologians Romano Guardini and Karl Rahner came to the conclusion that there is still no satisfactory answer to this question of people to God about the terrible suffering of innocents. One can only believe that God suffers with those who suffer. This was shown by the suffering of Jesus. But this is not an ultimately insightful answer either. Good theology in particular knows that it does not have a suitable answer to all questions.

Liberation from transience

In the book of Revelation, creation returns to its paradisiacal state through fierce final battle. This is painted as a new city, as the new Jerusalem descending from heaven to a new earth. The waters of life flow there. There stands the tree of immortal life, the tree of immortality. Those who have been expelled from the homeland of paradise return to it.

Christianity feeds on this good news for mortal humans. This is the culmination of the message of every truly Christian church, its so-called kerygma, what it stands for and stands for. The churches attribute this good news to the resurrection of one of humanity: Jesus, the one born of a woman. The firstborn of creation. One for all. All like him: so in a nutshell.

In the second part of his Requiem, Johannes Brahms lets the first letter of Peter sound with the knowledge of the transience of man. Before the composer repeats this passage for musical reasons, he inserts a verse from the Epistle of James as a consolation song as a kind of "responsorium" (interlude).⁸¹ This puts us in the world of experience of a farmer who hopes, even is sure: Even if the seed sown dies - the invigorating rain will come "from above". In the face of death, therefore, one does not have to enjoy life as a last opportunity, but can enjoy what is transient, even if it is transient, in trains and at the same time patiently endure:

Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.Behold, a farmer waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and is patient until he receives⁸² the morning rain, and Abendregen.So be patient.( James 5:7)

Part 4: HARVESTING

Time of harvest

In regions where there was only a single harvest due to the climate, a good yield was essential for survival. Because crop failures often lead to hunger and hardship. A good harvest required an alert feeling for the right time, favorable weather and rapid work. The many farmhands and maids who once worked in agriculture were gradually replaced by highly efficient agricultural machinery.

Harvest times stood out from the course of the year even in biblical times. Important events were tied to them. Something important then happened at the time of the wheat harvest, the barley harvest or the wine harvest. Here are two selected examples.

At the time of the wheat harvest

Reuben, the son of the progenitor Jacob, had gone out at the time of the wheat harvest to bring home mandrakes for his mother Leah. Mandrake is a legendary plant from the nightshade family, known since ancient times for its mystical and medicinal effects. Now Jacob had married Leah and his younger sister Rachel. When she saw the valuable mandrakes, she wanted to have some too. Leah, who was probably not happy that Rachel was her husband's preferred second wife, was furious at this: Now you have already taken my husband away from me, and now you also want to take away the mandrake that my son has brought me. A strange deal is then made: "Then Jacob shall lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes." What was strange about it was that Lea was Jacob's first wife anyway. But polygamy is obviously not a simple relationship model. In any case, Rachel received from the mandrakes, and Jacob slept successfully with Jacob. The name of the son Issachar, who was begotten that night, reminds us of this: He was called "Son of the reward" (Genesis 30:14-18).

The following idiosyncratic event, which dealt with the healing of plagued diseases, occurred at the time of the wheat harvest: The Philistines had defeated the Israelites and robbed them of the ark of the covenant. This sacrilege had brought them great misfortune; they were afflicted with plagues. So they wanted to return them. They escorted the sanctuary to the border. Then they were seen by the people of Beth-Shemesh. They "were just in the valley harvesting wheat. When they looked up and saw the ark, they were very happy about it." The ark was placed on a large stone. Then burnt offerings and sacrifices were offered. Five princes of the relieved Philistines were present and participated in the sacrifice to be freed from the plagues. "Five golden sores" symbolized diseases and "five golden mice" devastation: "These are the golden sores that the Philistines paid to the Lord as an expiatory offering: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gat, one for Ekron, plus the golden mice according to the number of Philistine cities among the five princes, from the fortified city to the open village. The great stone on which the ark of the Lord was placed still lies to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-Shemesh." (1 Samuel 6:17f.)

Thanksgiving

Those who reap the grain shall also eat it and praise the Lord.
(Isaiah 62:9)

If there is early and late rain and the harvest is good, then God is praised. This is what the poet of Psalm 107 does: "He makes the desert a pond of water, the parched land an oasis. There he let hungry people live, who built an inhabited city, cultivated the fields, planted vineyards and achieved a rich harvest." (Psalm 107:35-37)

It is mainly religiously influenced agrarian cultures that celebrate Thanksgiving. So also Israel. Two festivals are tied to the harvest in the field and in the vineyards: "You shall also keep the festival of the harvest, the first fruit of your sowing in the field, as well as the festival of the harvest at the end of the year, when you have brought in the yield of your field." (Exodus 23:16f.⁸³)

The classic harvest festival is Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. It is reminiscent of the time when the Israelites lived in huts (Sukkot) in the desert. At the same time, thanks are given for the autumn harvest (Deuteronomy 16:13-15).

End-time harvest

In the Bible, harvest is seen not only as a seasonal process, but also as an eschatological process. It stands for perfection and judgment. Jesus tells his parable of tares and wheat to the impatient fundamentalists, who want to fight metaphysical evil and morally depraved with atomic bombs if necessary. They should be patient until the harvest: "Let both grow until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers: first gather the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them; but bring the wheat into my barn!" (Matthew 13:24-30)

Harvest time is also in the other parable, in which a landowner planted a vineyard. Bible scholars are trained to recognize in this a picture of God's people. Then it is a matter of whether he will get fruit: "When the harvest time came, he sent his servants to the vinedressers." (Matthew 21:34) But everyone, including his son, is killed. Finally, the murderers themselves. Harvest time is not a good time for them in the end.

An unpleasant harvest season is coming for Israel's enemies. The Babylonian Empire, which Israel had long oppressed, will suffer through them: "For thus says the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is stamped down; a little while longer, then the harvest time has come for them." (Jeremiah 51:33)

Harvest time stands for judgment. The judgment is pronounced in the face of all for faithless Israel: "Hasten all of you, gather together, you peoples all around! Bring down your warriors, O Lord! Let the nations set out and go up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. For there I will sit in judgment on all the peoples around me. Swings the sickle; for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread the winepress; for it is full, the troughs are overflowing. For their wickedness is great. And yet you have not turned back to me, declares the Lord." (Joel 4:11-13)

But then the view widens. All peoples will be summoned before the divine tribunal. The prophet Isaiah paints a gloomy picture of this (Isaiah 24:1-13). It is true that this dramatic description of the "harvest time" is followed by words of comfort and final confidence. But the road to get there is long.

Harvest Proverbs

There are well-known and lesser-known sayings about harvesting. They revolve around the deeds of the wicked as well as the righteous. Both have consequences. In addition to doing good or evil, doing nothing, or more provocatively, the non-doing of the lazy is also proverbially considered. Then the perspective changes from the logical to the emotional: concern grows when a harvest fails to materialize. But if there is plenty of harvesting, joy arises.

The good reaps differently than the bad

The First Testament is concerned with reminding us that what we do has concrete consequences. Doing and going are connected. Wise sayings emphasize this connection. "Knowledge of the commandments of the Lord is education for life, but those who do what pleases him reap from the tree of immortality." (Jesus Sirach 19:19)

More often, the consequences of evil deeds are looked at: "He who sows iniquity reaps disaster" (Proverbs 22:8). Similarly: "For they sow wind and reap storm." (Hosea 6:4) "They sowed wheat and reaped thorns, they toiled, it was of no use to them." (Isaiah 12:13) The prophet Hosea admonishes: "Sow for yourselves in righteousness, reap in love. But you have ploughed in iniquity; therefore you have reaped crimes and eaten the fruit of falsehood." (Hosea 10:12f.) Those who do not want to reap injustice should be careful when sowing: "Son, do not sow in furrows of iniquity, and you will not reap sevenfold!" (Jesus Sirach 7:3) Unfortunately, many do not adhere to it. Therefore, the sufferer Job remarks critically: "Wherever I look, he who plows injustice, who sows disaster, reaps it." (Job 4:7) It would be helpful to listen to such criticism, but sometimes the admonishers reap only malice - admittedly to the detriment of the scoffers: "Poverty and shame are reaped by a despiser of discipline, but he who heeds rebuke will be honored." (Proverbs 13:18) Even well-founded criticism does not always go down well: "He who rebukes the undisciplined reaps reproach, he who reprimands the wicked reaps shame." (Proverbs 9:7)

An honest person reaps many blessings, while the hasty one who wants to enrich himself quickly does not go unpunished: "He who cultivates his field will be satisfied with bread, he who pursues vain things will be satisfied with poverty. An honest man reaps many blessings, but he who hastens to enrich himself does not go unpunished." (Proverbs 28:19f.)

The Sluggard

The laziness of some farmers is severely reprimanded. There can be no question of praising laziness. They are called out with a momentous "self-blame". The sluggard receives no praise: "Like snow in summer and rain at harvest time, so inappropriate is honor for a fool." (Proverbs 26:1)

"The sluggard does not plow in autumn; if he searches in harvest time, there is nothing. The plans in the heart of man are deep water, but the wise man draws it up." (Proverbs 20:4f.)

"A sluggish hand brings poverty, a diligent hand makes you rich. Anyone who collects in summer is a clever person; he who sleeps at harvest time will be disgraced. Blessing comes on the head of the righteous, violence is hidden in the mouth of the wicked." (Proverbs 10:4)

"If you let your house deteriorate, you reap the wind." (Proverbs 12:29)

"Go to the ant, you lazy one, look at its behavior and become wise! It has no leader, no overseer and ruler and yet it provides food in summer and gathers supplies at harvest time. How long, you lazy one, will you lie there, when will you get up from your sleep? Sleep a little, snooze a little, fold your arms a little more to rest. Poverty comes over you quickly, misery like an armed man." (Jesus Sirach 6:6-11)

Crop failure

It was not uncommon for the colony to suffer from crop failures. There was too little or too much rain. God's blessing failed to materialize: "You sow much and reap little; you eat and are not satisfied; you drink, but it is not enough for you to get drunk; you put on clothes, but they don't keep you warm, and whoever earns something deserves it for a perforated bag." (Haggai 1:6) "Ye have hoped for much, but behold, it was little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? - Saith of the Lord of Hosts. Because my house is in ruins while each of you runs for your own house. Therefore, for your sake, heaven holds back the dew and the earth withholds its yield." (Haggai 1:9f.)

Fruits

The branch of the tree God,
which reaches over Italy, has already blossomed. He might have liked to be
filled with fruit, prematurely, but he got tired in the middle of blooming, and he won't have any fruit. Rainer M. Rilke⁸⁴

The wisdom of nature

Reproduction and dispersal are an inherent survival strategy in the plant world. This testifies to the wisdom of creation. In some plants, propagation and spread occur "asexually": like strawberries, they sprout cuttings. Others have spores that form on the leaves, are tolerated by the wind, fall into the ground and sprout again. The finely chiselled fern that I can admire in my garden, for example, has such spores. The most pleasing form of plant reproduction for humans and animals is the formation of fruits that contain seeds. They then serve not only reproduction, but also pleasurable enjoyment.

Nature shines in this regard with a variety of variations. In some plants, the ripe seeds fall out of the fruit and spread. In others, the fruit breaks down into several parts, each of which carries (one) seed. Others, finally, envelop the seeds permanently: with a dry skin or with water-containing flesh. Some fruits grow "in the air", i.e. high up on trees, others on the surface close to the plant, and still others underground.

In everyday language, edible water-containing fruits are called "fruit". Fruit markets all over the world present a colourful picture. The fruit markets in Provence are famous. They offer a wholesome and enjoyable sight: apricots, plums, pears and apples from native plants. Other fruit comes from far away. However, flying mangoes do not come close to the enjoyment of mangoes freshly picked from trees in Taiwan, as I was recently able to see for myself at a course for missionaries. To prevent them from being colonized by insect larvae and thus inedible, mango farmers have to wrap each individual fruit with a paper bag or a close-meshed net. This is time-consuming work, but ecologically better than pesticides.

In our northern latitudes, "tropical fruits", lemons and oranges are in demand. It may be pleasant for consumption if, for example, tangerines have no seeds. But it is also a little "against nature", which is not only out for enjoyment, but also for reproduction. It's a nice anecdote: The Vatican is said to have banned seedless oranges. Because these only serve pleasure and not reproduction. This sounds like Paul VI's controversial pill encyclical Humanae vitae from 1968. This pope was concerned that by separating lust and procreation, people would act "contra naturam" (against nature), go after pleasure and prevent procreation. Such splitting is morally reprehensible, and that in both directions: reproduction without lust and lust without reproduction.

Fruits and vegetables

We are still moving in an introductory area of botanical basics. So far, the two terms fruit and fruit have been considered. Near her word fields is that of vegetables. Botanically, fruit is used for reproduction, vegetables are not. Fruit is formed from pollinated flowers and contains seeds. Vegetables consist of roots, leaves, stems and tubers. Fruit comes from perennial plants, vegetables tend to come from one- or two-year-olds.

Vegetables taste hearty or mild, are boiled, steamed, fried, used in soups or added to other dishes. Fruit tastes sweet or sour; unlike vegetables, it has a high sugar content; it is eaten raw, but also made into juices or boiled down as jam.

And finally, a difference on a completely different level: vegetables are rarely mentioned in the Bible. From fruit, on the other hand, often. Therefore, I meditate first in due brevity on the vegetables in the Bible, then in detail on the fruit with its many types. An insertion about spices forms a kind of interlude.

Biblical Vegetable Stories

Moses reminded the Israelites that in Egypt, after sowing the seeds, they had to irrigate the soil artificially. He added "as in a vegetable garden" (Deuteronomy 11:19). In the promised land, on the other hand, God would spare them this work of watering the garden because of the abundant rain. This shows that the Israelites had planted vegetable gardens.

Ahab kills because of a vegetable garden

That a vegetable garden was important for the household in Israel is shown by a highly criminal incident reported by King Ahab. It is told in the first book of Kings (1 Kings 21:1-29).

The prophet Elijah had been in his hometown of Tishbe when the word of the Lord reached him. He was to go to Ahab king of Israel. He had just gone down to the vineyard of Naboth of Jezreel to take possession of it. He wanted the property at all costs because it was closer to the royal palace and the royal palace wanted to convert the vineyard into a vegetable garden.

Naboth, however, had steadfastly refused to sell the inheritance of his fathers to the king. The king was then very angry. His backstabbing wife Jezebel noticed his bad mood and suggested a perfidious plan. This was carried out immediately. Jezebel bribed two vile witnesses who were to testify before the convened city court that Naboth had spoken blasphemously about God and the king. It was punishable by death. The plan worked. The innocent Naboth was found guilty and stoned to death in front of the city. Seduced by his wicked wife, Ahab had sacrificed an innocent man for a vegetable garden.

This angered God. Elijah, whom he had sent, who found Ahab in the vineyard, had to hurl the gruesome consequences of his deed at him. "In the place where the dogs licked Naboth's blood, dogs will lick your blood too." His wife Jezebel would also perish and be eaten by dogs at the wall of Jezreel, Naboth's hometown.

Ahab was terrified to the depths of his soul. He tore his clothes. He fasted. He wore a penitential robe. God allowed himself to be softened by this and refrained from the planned punishment. This is how God explains it to his slightly irritated prophet: "Because he humbled himself, I will not let disaster come in his days." The wrathful judgment of God was not carried out, but it was postponed. Jezebel was killed by a fall from a window, her body was torn apart in the field of Naboth, and the descendants of Ahab also felt it later. King Jehu, Ahab's successor, had Jehoram the son of Ahab killed and also threw his body into Naboth's field. This incident shows how much God and his church, which understands itself prophetically, challenges the corruption of those in power.

Jesus' Pharisee Ashashing

A confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities of his time fits in seamlessly here. The itinerant preacher castigated their hypocrisy with threatening lamentations: "But woe to you Pharisees! You give tithes of mint, herb and all vegetables and ignore the law and love of God. You have to do one without omitting the other." (Luke 11:42) Bringing gifts to God, such as vegetables, is good, according to Jesus' message. But law and justice are more important to God. Jesus talked himself into a rage and became fundamental: "You burden men with unbearable burdens, but yourselves do not touch the burdens with a finger." (v46) "You have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves did not go in, and you prevented those who wanted to enter." (Luke 11:48)

Vegetarian

In English, vegetables are called vegetables. The word is related to the German foreign word vegetation. And of course also with vegetarians. The latter are people who consciously decide not to consume food that comes from killed animals. Consequently, they only eat a plant-based diet. The word vegetarian goes back to England in the 19th century. A Vegetarian Society was founded there in 1847.

Vegetarianism has several varieties. Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy products, but no eggs, meat or fish. Ovo-vegetarians, on the other hand, consume eggs, but no dairy products, meat or fish. The vegan women are the more pointed form: they avoid all animal products, including milk, eggs and honey. They even reject the use of leather.

The justification is both animal ethics and health: animals should not be killed for consumption. In addition, vegetarian or vegan diets (if you also pay attention to vitamin B12, zinc, iron, omega fatty acids and, above all, protein) are considered healthy. Spiritual-religious feelings resonate. If you like to refer to the Bible, here would be a good passage for vegetarians: "Then God said, 'Behold, I give you every plant that produces seed in all the earth, and every tree that bears fruit with seed in it. They shall serve as food for you. To all the animals of the earth, to all the birds of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth that has the breath of life in it, I give all green plants for food. And so it happened." (Genesis 1:29f.)

It was only when Noah left the ark after the Flood that God allowed him and his family to eat animals - but without their blood, which is why animals are slaughtered in Judaism to this day (Leviticus 17:10-14): "Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth! Fear and terror of you shall settle on all the beasts of the earth, on all the birds of the air, on every thing that moves on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are given. Everything that moves and lives shall serve you as food. All this I hand over to you like the green plants. Only flesh with his life, his blood, you must not eat." (Genesis 9:1-4)

For some contemporaries, vegetarianism is a kind of question of faith. Some strongly advocate it, others consider it an unhealthy madness. As much as the story about the Babylonian short-term vegetarians Daniel and his colleagues puts vegetarianism in a good light, there are also less friendly texts about it in the Bible.

In the Christian community in Rome, there was apparently a fierce dispute about diets. This was not, as was later the case with the Council of the Apostles, about eating unclean food in the young church, but about the consumption of vegetables and meat. The dispute was not without its challenges. The apostle Paul intervened angrily.

When reading this biblical passage, it should be noted that Paul is ultimately not concerned with nutrition, but with tolerance and respect for one another, especially in matters of faith. He urges the Christian community in Rome: "Accept him who is weak in faith, without arguing with him about different opinions!" (Romans 14:1) At the same time, he calls for similar respect with regard to the different diets, whereby vegetable eaters do not come off well as weaklings: "One believes that he can eat everything, but the weak one only eats vegetables. He who eats meat should not despise him who does not eat it; but he who does not eat meat, let him not judge him who eats it." (v.2f.) Then he says: No matter how someone eats, God has accepted everyone, vegetarians and meat-eaters. Therefore, everyone, no matter what they are and what they eat, should give glory to God and thank him: "He who eats meat does it for the glory of the Lord; for he thanks God in doing so. And he who does not eat meat refrains from doing so for the glory of the Lord, and he also gives thanks to God." (Romans 14:6)

But then Paul leaves his examples behind and climbs to the top of the spiritual ladder. In doing so, he formulates the sentence that I had printed on my "first picture" (Romans 14:7f.) in 1964:

For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself: if we live, we live to the Lord, if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For Christ died and came to life to be Lord over the dead and the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? And you, why do you despise your brother? We will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, 'As I live,' declares the Lord, every knee will bow before me, and every tongue will praise God. So each of us will give an account of ourselves before God. (Romans 14:7-12)

Spices

Spikenard, crocus, spice cane and cinnamon,
all frankincense trees,
myrrh and aloe,
the very best balm.
(Song of Solomon 4:14)

They are essential oils that rise to our noses or that we taste in our mouths. Some have experienced and suffered the importance of smelling and tasting during the Covid 19 pandemic. Their ability to smell and taste disappeared, usually temporarily, temporarily.

Spices are obtained from parts of plants, from leaves, flowers, from the bark and roots, from fruits or the sap of the plant. Fresh, dried or processed, they season food and drinks.

In addition to spices, resins also bring fragrance. Both differ botanically: spices are extracted from plant parts, while resins are secreted from plants or taken from them. With some fragrances such as balsam, both are the case.

The use is also usually done in different ways. Resins are often used as "incense", such as frankincense, myrrh, mastic, ladanum, straw drops or galbanum. Moses gave detailed instructions for making a special incense that could only be used "for the Lord" (Exodus 30:34-38). Spices were also used to make proper anointing oils, which can only be used for holy persons such as sacred implements. (Exodus (John 30:22-33).

Fragrances occur with varying frequency in the biblical texts. Here is a list with the respective number in brackets: balsam (39), myrrh (16), hyssop (13), wormwood (10), mustard seed (9), cinnamon (8), aloe (7), caraway (7), coriander (2), mint (2), cassia (1) and dill (1). I will take a look at a handful of the most frequently mentioned fragrances in the following.

Balm for body and soul

Something is "balm for the soul", as the saying goes. It does us good to receive praise, recognition. Good words flatter the soul. Sometimes proverbs specifically name what is "like balm". Instead of words, there is music, time, a kind heart, laughter and patience.

Balm is a syrupy mass. This is secreted by balsam trees either as a secretion. However, the outflow of the substance can also be triggered by incisions. It is also possible to boil plant parts. The fragrance obtained in this way is a more or less fat-soluble mixture of resins and essential oils. The typical balsam smell is reminiscent of vanilla and cinnamon.

Balsam was already one of the most expensive spices in biblical times. Only more was paid for saffron. Those who had a lot of balm were considered rich. When the legendary Queen of Sheba heard about the wise King Solomon, she sought him out to guess. She wanted to check whether his reputation was justified. "She came to Jerusalem with a very large retinue, with camels carrying balm, a vast amount of gold, and precious stones, and entered Solomon and talked to him about all that she had pondered in her heart." (1 Kings 10:2) After the puzzle hour, the skeptical queen had to acknowledge the king's wisdom without envy. Then she gave him what she had in her luggage: "She gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, plus a very large quantity of balm and precious stones. Never again did so much balm come into the land as the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon." (1 Kings 10:10)

Balm was not only used for anointing oils and incense. It was used for illnesses, for dying as well as for burial. The "Balm of Gilead" was said to have outstanding healing powers. Gilead is located east of the Jordan River and was famous for extracting this resin from a shrub from southwest Arabia called Commiphora gileadensis. They were sent there in case of serious illnesses and an experienced doctor was brought along with the balm . Thus, in a time of moral and religious decay in Judah, the prophet Jeremiah may well ask in a spiritual sense: "Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no surgeon there?" (Jeremiah 8:22)

Balm was also used to embalm the dead. When Jacob, the son of Isaac and the father of Joseph, whom his brothers had thrown into a cistern out of jealousy, but who then had a meteoric career in Egypt, died, he wept over his death. "Then Joseph ordered his servants, the doctors, to embalm his father. So the doctors embalmed Israel. Forty full days passed over this, because that's how long the embalming lasted. The Egyptians wept for him for seventy days." (Genesis 50:2f.) Afterwards, the embalmed body (Genesis 50:26) was transferred to Jacob's homeland, Canaan, and buried there.

Myrrh

Only the springtime of God was there, only His Son, the Word, was perfected. All strength turned to the radiant boy, and all came to him with gifts; all sang his praise like cherubim.

And it smelled softly rose of the Rosen.Er was a circle around the Heimatlosen.Er went in cloaks and metamorphoses through all the rising voices of the time.

Rainer Maria Rilke⁸⁵

They are two verses of the touching poem by Rainer M. Rilke entitled "The Branch of the Tree God", which still has many fans: I like to count myself among them. The grandiose message of the Gospel is skilfully condensed into a few lines. The Son is remembered with the Gospel of John as the word that was spoken into the world and was to implant a springtime in history.

Then the sensual lines with familiar biblical images: He smells soft - as the rose of roses. As if an intimate "Kyrieele ice" resonates while the image of the Rose of Jericho blossoms. And then the big sigh of relief for those pushed to the margins of life: "He was a circle around the homeless." All this after the rather depressing first stanza of the withered branch of the tree of God that reaches across Italy: a brief analysis of the "tired of blossoming" church of "Rome" in Europe.

Then the little verse in the middle: "All strength turned to the radiant boy. All brought their gifts to him." This leads directly into meditation on another important spice from the Bible: myrrh. Bible confidants are familiar with the relevant account of three men who knew the interpretation of the stars from afar: "They went into the house and saw the child and Mary his mother; Then they fell down and paid homage to him. Then they brought out their treasures and offered him gold, frankincense, and myrrh as offerings." (Matthew 2:11) The fact that they were from far away is interpreted as a sign of the importance of the birth of the small child for the big world.

The precious metal gold was a sign of royal dignity. Jesus will simply answer Pilate's question as to whether he is a king in the affirmative, only to add that his kingdom is not of this world. It would be a misunderstanding, to which some people like to indulge out of political interests, that the kingdom of God therefore has nothing to do with the world. And that churches and their leaders should therefore stay out of politics. But this royal man from Nazareth considered it his mission that this kingdom of heaven should come to earth now. It is then still "not of this world", but very much "in this world". In the liturgy of a young feast of the Catholic Church at the end of the liturgical year, the feast of Christ the King, this kingdom is sung of with very concrete characteristics: it is "the kingdom of truth and life, the kingdom of holiness and grace, the kingdom of justice, love and peace". The king of the world, symbolized in gold, thus brings to the world exactly what it lacks and apparently cannot create for itself: life, holiness and grace, i.e. the gift of wholeness, of not having to do. Wholeness then means peace, which cannot be had without truth and justice. And all this culminates in love. The coming of the kingdom of God causes the world to become more "heavenly", i.e. more human. A "civilization of love" blossoms.

Frankincense plays an important role in the temple cult of Israel. It is a resin that, sprinkled on coals, produces a fragrant smoke that rises to the sky. According to a good interpretation, the relationship of the newborn child to God is symbolized. One admires with amazement an intimate interweaving that some call divinity. Today, the smoke of the fragrant resin in the liturgy indicates that the space is sacred, but also that our prayers rise like smoke to heaven.

And then there is myrrh. Myrrh is an aromatic gum resin. This is obtained from various myrrh bushes that belong to the balsam shrub family. The shrubs bear thorns. They grow up to three meters high. They grow preferably in Somalia, southern Arabia, but also Ethiopia.

Myrrh is used in very different situations. We have already met such a person in the Song of Songs of Love. Myrrh served as an aphrodisiac in ancient times, and is said to stimulate the goddess Aphrodite to send her love arrow. Before genital sex, the beds were sprinkled with it. Aphrodite is not the only person associated with myrrh in Greek mythology. Smyrna, the daughter of the priest and King Kinyras of Cyprus, gave the myrrh its name. Her priest-king father had impregnated her. She gave birth to the beautiful Adonis whom Aphrodite in turn loved and who bled to death in her arms when the love rival Ares - transformed into a boar - had mortally wounded him. But the mother hadn't noticed any of that. Because even at birth it has turned into a myrrh tree. Smyra means myrrh in the Greek language.

Myrrh appears in the life of Jesus not only at his birth, but two more times at the early end of his life. A kind of myrrh trilogy is created. First of all, it is a gift from international visitors to the newborn. Herod wanted to exploit them in order to eliminate his potential competitor. He failed thoroughly: the astronomers were instructed to go home by a different route. The young couple got wind of King Herod's evil intentions and immediately fled to Egypt, which made Jesus a migrant. According to the story, the newborns of this time had to pay with their lives. The angry king had them assassinated.

From birth, the myrrh arc stretches to death on the cross. For Jesus, the story of suffering ends outside the city, nailed to a cross. Jesus had become so unsightly through scourging and crowning with thorns that Pilate hoped that his bloody appearance would move the agitated "crowd" to a pitiful "it is enough." But the "Ecce homo" - see what this person looks like - did not bring about a turnaround. The soldiers who were now to crucify Jesus wanted to at least "sedate" him. At that time, myrrh was used as a painkiller, which was mixed with wine and given to Jesus in a container. Jesus "did not take him" (Mark 15:23b). Jesus' refusal to drink and thus alleviate his pain has been the subject of much spiritual speculation. It could very well be that Jesus deliberately took upon himself not only death, but above all the sufferings before it. The evangelists unanimously emphasize that he voluntarily surrendered himself to the tormentors, surrendered himself. He wanted to "accomplish" death in full consciousness. He persevered. So he could, breathing out his spirit, shout out for the bystanders to hear: "It is finished." (John 19:30)

The body has been removed. He lies on the lap of the woman who gave birth to him. Unlike the apostles who had fled out of cowardice, she and other women had endured under the cross: Stabat mater dolorosa (the sorrowful mother stood). There she stood, the weeping Lady of Sorrows, with the dead Man of Sorrows in her arms. Their unimaginable pain has inspired sculptors such as Michelangelo and composers such as Giacomo Rossini to create grandiose works.

Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man and respected member of the Sanhedrin, had obtained from the Roman governor Pontius Pilate that the body could be removed. He was joined by Nicodemus. He was a silent follower of Jesus. He had even managed to get into conversation with the wandering rabbi at night. Both now organized a quiet funeral in a hurry. Joseph had a grave nearby in which no one had ever been laid to rest. There they prepared the body of Jesus for the provisional burial. Nicodemus had brought with him "a mixture of myrrh and aloe, about a hundred pounds, so a tremendous amount. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with linen bandages, together with the fragrant ointments, as is the custom at Jewish burials." (John 19:39b-40) After the feast, the women wanted to finish what the two men had provisionally started. But they came too late. According to the story, they found only the linen bandages that smelled of Jesus and the spices. The tomb was empty, they told the unbelieving disciples, who had locked themselves up in fear.

On the spot where the tomb was, the mighty Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands today in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine. In this church, which was repeatedly destroyed in dispute with the Ottoman Empire, there is a small chapel called the Aedicule. If you lean into it through a narrow opening, you can see a stone in the rock on which the body of Jesus is said to have lain. Today, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is administered by six Christian denominations according to detailed rules of the game. They reflect the common root of the one Christian church in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus: at the same time, manifold conflicts over the church administration also demonstrate the unpleasant situation of the division of the Christian churches, against which Jesus worshipped - obviously in vain - until before his death.

Hyssop

It was over. Jesus had fulfilled his mission. He had wandered the country for three years after thirty years of a more or less inconspicuous life. He explained to the ordinary people what he was about. Heaven was to come to earth. Even now. At least in traces. To this end, he has also founded a movement so that his mission does not end with his foreseen death. With this knowledge, he was able to place his life in the hands of the one he affectionately called Father.

There is a final event that seemed worth telling to the evangelist John:

Afterwards, knowing that everything was now finished, Jesus said, in order for the Scripture to be fulfilled, "I thirst." A vessel full of vinegar stood there. They put a sponge full of vinegar on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had partaken of the vinegar, he said, "It is finished!" And he bowed his head and handed over the spirit. (John 19:28-30)

The "sitio" (I thirst) has been spiritually explored by many. Was it just physical thirst, a parched mouth, the desire for something to drink? Or was it the thirst for people, for his people and their faith, as the church father Augustine wrote: "He thirsts - for the faith of his people. The Creator thirsts for the creature."⁸⁶? Is it the thirst of every human being for God, as Psalm 63 sings? In any case, the surrounding soldiers had physically understood the call. That's why one of the troops takes a vinegar sponge - he puts it on a hyssop branch. Jesus tastes of vinegar. He then speaks his last of the seven words brilliantly set to music by Joseph Haydn on the cross (it is finished) and dies.

Hyssop is a dwarf shrub from the mint family with blue-violet fragrant flowers. It has aromatic oil glands. It is native to southern Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Hyssop has served as an anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic medicinal and spice plant in our latitudes since the 16th century. In Mediterranean cuisine, hyssop is used as a spice.

In Israel, hyssop was used in purification rituals. Once a leper had become clean, he was also purified in a cult way so that he could live fully integrated again. Two live pure birds, cedarwood, crimson and hyssop, were used in the seven sprinkles (Leviticus 14:2-8:48-53). But hyssop could cleanse anyone of guilt. For example, a psalmist sings a text that is encountered in the funeral liturgy: Relieve me of sin with hyssop, and I will be cleansed; wash me and I will be whiter than snow! (Psalm 51:9)

Hyssop is then encountered in the rescue ritual that saved the Israelites from the angel of death before the Exodus from Egypt. So that they knew where they had to pass without killing the firstborn, the doorframe was smeared with the blood of a lamb. This was the instruction: "Then take a hyssop branch, dip it in the bowl of blood and spread some of the blood in the bowl on the lintel and on the two doorposts!" (Exodus 12:22)

Mustard seed

Meister Eckhard found a poem that tries to approach the unspeakable reality of God with images, without wanting to understand him. He commented on the old text full of admiration. He gave it a title with "Granum sinapis". Granum sinapis is the Latin term for the mustard seed. With this title, the mystic pointed out that the short and simple poem, written in the vernacular, can have a great effect like a mustard seed. It is accessible to everyone. In addition, as he then commented, it contains a deep mystical theology that senses a unity between God and man. Small in substance, but great in its power.

In his visual language, the medieval master follows in the footsteps of Jesus. He also used the mustard seed in two of his speeches. As botany teaches today, this is not the smallest of all seeds. Orchid seeds can be smaller. But in the time of Jesus, it was culturally considered the smallest.

Power of faith

Jesus interpreted the power of unshakable faith with the amazing power of growth. A man had a moonstruck son. The child suffered from it, fell into water or fire and injured himself as a result. Full of hope for the group that went through the country with Jesus and whose healings were reported, the man had gone to the disciples. He asked her to heal the son. But they couldn't. Jesus was almost angry. He castigated unbelief, probably of all those involved, of those who were looking for healing and of those who were to bring it, the disciples. Then Jesus healed the son, and the damaging demon came out of him.

When Jesus was alone with the disciples, they let their frustration out of themselves. They asked Jesus, "Why were you able to heal the son, but we couldn't?" Jesus' succinct answer: "Because of your little faith. For, truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a mustard seed, then you will say to this mountain, 'Go from here to there.' and he will move away. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 14:19f.) In the Luke story, the disciples accused of unbelief ask the Master to strengthen their faith. The Master replied, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Root yourself and transplant yourself into the sea.' and he would obey you." (Luke 16:6)

Big and fast

The small mustard seed is then the main actor in a parable of Jesus. It symbolizes the kingdom of God. To sing this to the earth, Jesus saw it as his mission. On earth, which is close to God's heart, things are supposed to be more heavenly and thus more human: truth instead of lies, peace instead of violence, justice instead of oppression of the weak and poor.

The mustard seed parable deals with this realm. It is interpreted by Bible scholars in two directions. One interpretation: The kingdom of God begins small and inconspicuous. It is already there with me, Jesus said, and from me it spreads like an infection to those who follow me and form my movement. But it has the power to become big. Jesus probably did not mean during his lifetime. But after that. The movement of Jesus, which bears the honorary name of the church, has now grown into a global player. To speak with Rainer M. Rilke: it has become so wide and planted so deep. The other interpretation: The kingdom of God will grow unexpectedly quickly. The mustard seed has the power to do this (Matthew 13:31f.).

In his mustard seed discourses, Jesus could count on the fact that his listeners were very familiar with the peculiarities of a mustard seed. At the time of Jesus, the mustard plant was already native to Europe as far north as China and Ethiopia. Today, it can be found all over the world. The cultivation of mustard plants is already evidenced by finds in the Indus Valley on the Indian subcontinent in a civilization that existed until 1800 BC.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices in the world. It was known in the great cultures of human history: in China and India even before 2000 BC. In Egypt, the spice was used in the embalming of the rich dead. The ancient Greeks valued cinnamon in medicine, but also as an aphrodisiac. He served in the kitchen. It was also added to the incense in the temple.

When Poppaea, the wife of the emperor Nero, died, he had fragrant cinnamon fires lit in the streets of the city of Rome. After the Romans, the Arabs dominated trade. In Europe, cinnamon enjoyed great popularity as a spice and remedy for gout.

After landing in 1498 on the southern Indian island of Ceylon, today's Sri Lanka, the Portuguese Vasco da Gama finally brought this spice to Europe in 1502. The lucrative cinnamon trade, long dominated by Venice, led to wars between Portugal and Holland in order to secure the trade in spices, including cinnamon, from the Indian region.

To this day, cinnamon comes mainly from Asia: from China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. There are very different species. These differ according to the respective content of cinnamon oil, other fragrance oils, but also the content of curamine, which is harmful to health.

Cinnamon is also called zinnamon, older is cinnamon. In some European languages, the spice is named after the reed (Latin canna), so Dutch kaneel.

Today, you pay the most for Ceylon cinnamon on the spice market. It is obtained from the Ceylon cinnamon tree, which is also called the real cinnamon tree. It is evergreen and can grow up to 18m high. Twigs and branches are used for cinnamon production, the sprouting of which is promoted by cultivated tree pruning. Harvesting takes place three times a year. The grey, somewhat white-spotted bark of the young cylindrical branches is peeled. The brownish to greyish coloured bark of the trees, which can be up to 60 cm thick, is also used.

Kurt Tucholsky wrote: "First a lot of screaming and mighty cinnamon."⁸⁷ He criticized exaggerated fuss. The derogatory phrase "Don't talk cinnamon" has only been known since the 19th century and truly does not do justice to the tasty spice. A sweet cinnamon roll gets you far more.

Cereals

In his Death Fugue, Paul Celan takes up the figure of Sulamite as a symbol of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. She is a figure from the Song of Songs of the First Testament. There she is called Shulammit. Her name is reminiscent of shalom, peace, as well as Solomon, to whom the Song of Songs is attributed. Stunningly beautiful wheat, as their beauty is sung about (Song of Solomon 7:1-5).

Meditating on grain in biblical texts is also less poetic, in brittle legal language. Grain was legally protected as an indispensable foodstuff. If grain caught fire due to the negligence of someone else, then the damage had to be repaired: "If the fire spreads, it engulfs a thorn hedge and destroys a pile of grain, grain standing on the stalk or a field, then the person responsible for the fire should compensate for the damage." (Exodus 22:5)

Storms such as hail, the mushroom-like grain blight, but also locusts could cause considerable crop failures and thus threatening famines: "If you came to a pile of grain that was supposed to have twenty measures, there were only ten; if you came to the press to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty." (Zechariah 2:16). This seems to have happened repeatedly (Zechariah 2:17).

The people wanted to avert crop damage by a kind of weather blessing. "When there is famine in the land, when pestilence breaks out, when grain blight, rust, locusts and vermin appear, when enemies besiege them in their own land, when any plague or disease strikes them, hear every prayer and supplication of each individual and of all your people Israel, for they all know their need and their suffering, and lift up their hands to this house, hear them in heaven, the place where you dwell, and forgive!" (2 Chronicles 6:28-30)

Wealth of the country

Grain was of paramount importance to the good life in Israel. It distinguished the wealth of the territory promised by God and then appropriated in the conquest of the land. Unlike in the dispensable years of desert migration, they should no longer worry about sufficient food. It was, as is reported several times in hymns, "a land of wheat and barley, of vine, fig tree and pomegranate, a land of olive tree and honey, a land in which you do not have to eat your bread poorly, in which you lack nothing" (Deuteronomy 8:8f.; also 2 Kings 18:32; Isaiah 36:17). Grain was grown. The fields were harvested. The harvested ears of corn were threshed (Judges 6:11)

Then the grains were sifted, a process so familiar that Jesus was able to use it in a comparison when he warned Peter of his susceptibility to betrayal: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded that he sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not be extinguished. And when you have repented, strengthen your brethren. Then Peter said to him, "Lord, I am ready to go with you even to prison and death." But Jesus said, "I tell you, Peter, before the crows today, you will deny three times that you know me." (Luke 22:31-34.)

Grain was ground into flour. For this purpose, friction stones were used in the individual households. There were also community mills powered by animals. This gave him the wise saying: "Thou shalt not put a muzzle on the ox for threshing." (Deuteronomy 25:4) The grinding of cereal grains was a woman's business. Jesus also takes up this production step in the hands of women to illustrate how unexpectedly the Son of Man will return at the end of time: "Of two women who grind grain in the same place, one will be taken away and the other will be left behind." (Luke 17:35) John the Baptist comes to speak of this coming of the one whom he baptizes to the final Last Judgment. In passing, we learn how the wheat is separated from the chaff on the threshing floor. The grains are thrown into the air with a shovel. The grains, heavier than the chaff, fly less far than the chaff. Even easier when a wind supports it: "But the one who comes after me is stronger than me and I am not worthy to take off his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He already holds the shovel in his hand; and he will clean his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn; but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never fails." (Matthew 3:11f.) This process is called "whirling"; it contains the word part throwing, throwing the grain with the "Worfschaufel" to clean the grains.

In view of the abundance of grain produced, a lively grain trade was able to develop. We learn about this indirectly in the book of Nehemiah. He restored faith in Israel. The well-informed politician observed that "the peoples of the country offer goods, especially grain of all kinds, for sale on the Sabbath." He therefore ordered that "nothing should be taken from these foreign merchants on the Sabbath or on any other holy day" (Nehemiah 13:15-22).

That grain was also shipped is evident from a shipwreck account in the Lucan book of the Acts of the Apostles. There were two hundred and seventy-six people on board with Paul when the ship was caught in a dangerous storm off Malta. Then Paulus confidently set about eating. His example inspired the others to do the same. And then they dropped payload, similar to how an airplane with landing problems first dumps kerosene in the air: "After they had eaten their fill, they threw the grain into the sea to lighten the ship." (Acts 27:38)

The value of grain is shown by the fact that it was used as a means of payment like money. For example, King Solomon paid the workers of his friend King Hiram, who had cedar and cypress wood felled for the construction of the temple, annually with "twenty thousand grains of wheat for the maintenance of his farm and twenty grains of the finest oil" (1 Kings 5:25; 2 Chronicles 1:9).

Moses, however, generally forbade interest to be demanded from one's own countrymen for any "means of payment": "You must not take interest from your brother: neither interest on money, nor interest on grain, nor interest on anything else for which interest is charged." (Deuteronomy 23:20) Israel saw itself as a society of equals in which there should be no poor. At least that's how it should be. When this ideal was betrayed in Israel, prophets railed against it in the name of God.

To bring justice to bear was written in the princes' specifications: "Thus says the Lord God: Enough, you princes of Israel! Eliminate violence and oppression! Ensure justice and justice! Stop driving my people from their ground, declares the Lord God." (Ezekiel 45:9) In practice, this also meant that scales and dimensions were calibrated for wheat and barley. Outside of Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, you can still marvel at similar "calibrations": a cavity indicates the size of a loaf of bread. A steel cubit was the obligatory measure of length. Today, a physical reference measure is used. The original metre or the original kilogram serve as the basis forcalibration.

An important unit of measurement for grain in biblical times was the volume measure Hómer. "One Hómer seed of barley is equivalent to fifty silver shekels." (Leviticus 27:16). That was about 220 to 360 liters. The prophet Hosea was supposed to symbolically show the people the breach of the covenant with God. To do this, he was to love another man's wife and commit adultery with her. And because this woman belonged to the other man, he bought her from him for "fifteen pieces of silver and one and a half hómer of barley". Then he said to the woman: "You will stay with me for many days now!" (Hosea 3:2f.)

In the eschatological book of Revelation of John, a black horse appears. "The one sitting on him held a set of scales in his hand. In the midst of the four living creatures, I heard something like a voice say: One measure of wheat for a denarius and three measures of barley for a denarius." (Revelation 6:5f.) One measure was about 1.1 liters. An almost unaffordably expensive daily ration.

Greed versus precaution

The wise saying from the Book of Proverbs ("He who trusts in his riches falls": Proverbs 11:28) touches on a speech of Jesus that is handed down in the evangelist Luke. The occasion was somewhat peculiar: One of the "crowds" wanted Jesus to settle the inheritance dispute with his brother. Really, Jesus says, that's not my job. Nobody ordered me to do this. Jesus, however, takes this request as a template for an incendiary speech against greed. Did he even suspect such a thing in the questioner? In any case, he holds up a moral mirror to the listeners, which apparently appealed to the evangelist of non-possession, Luke, spiritually:

There was a good harvest in the fields of a rich man. Then he thought to himself: What should I do? I have no place to put my harvest. At last he said, "This is how I will do it: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones; there I will put all my grain and my provisions. Then I will say to my soul: Soul, now you have a large supply that will last for many years. Rest, eat and drink and rejoice! Then God said to him, "You fool! That very night your life will be reclaimed from you. To whom will then belong what you have accumulated? This is what happens to one who only collects treasures for himself, but is not rich with God. (Luke 12:16-21)

For all the Philippica⁸⁸, that is, for all the passionate, often accusatory addresses against a political or moral predicament, here against wealth: As experts on the scriptures, neither Jesus nor Luke could argue anything against a reasonable precaution. The Book of Genesis tells of such a story at length in the so-called story of Joseph (37-50). When Stephen, a professing Christian, was accused of his faith, he spoke before the inquisitorial high priest and the angry crowd full of the Spirit. In doing so, he delivered a well-informed short version of the story of Joseph - Thomas Mann filled 1344 pages in his epic novel tetralogy "Joseph and his Brothers" in the hardcover complete edition⁸⁹. Stephen went as far as he was at the same time (Acts 7:2-16).

His powerful speech had not exonerated Stephen. Rather, the audience was so upset that they turned into a lynch mob and silenced the eloquent speaker by throwing stones. Dying, he became like his master by forgiving his murderers.

Ezekiel's visions and symbolic actions

The prophet Ezekiel should accompany us here for a good part of the meditative path to the keyword grain. He loved to speak vividly. He told visions and performed symbolic actions. In other words, a kind of parable, not like Jesus in words, but in deeds. Mostly insightful right away, sometimes in need of explanation.

In a grandiose vision, the prophet beheld the chariot of God in his heavenly glory (Ezekiel 1); he told of idolatry in the temple in order to reveal the hidden sins of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8): God's glory therefore left his sanctuary (Ezekiel 10-11). The prophet saw a new temple and a new land (Ezekiel 40-48). His vision in the Valley of the Dried Up Bones of the Dead, symbol of the resurrection of (not only) Israel, is moving (Ezekiel 37:5-10).

The prophet's grandiose visions are flanked by a series of symbolic acts. For example, he took a brick slab. On it, he drew the city of Jerusalem as it was besieged with miniature weapons. This was also done by the Babylonians (Ezekiel 4:1-3). Then Ezekiel had to lie on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days. In doing so, he symbolized the years of guilt of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Furthermore, Ezekiel shaved his hair and beard and divided the cut hair into three parts. Then he burned, smashed and scattered these parts. The same will happen to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: one-third will die from the pestilence, one-third from the sword, one-third will be scattered (Ezekiel 5:1-4).

And then there is the symbolic act that has to do with the grain. Ezekiel prepared bread from various grains. This was baked over feces dung. To do this, the Prophet drank only rationed quantities of water. This symbolized the famine with too little water and bread as well as the hopeless struggle for ritual purity during the siege of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:9-17).

This is followed by further symbolic acts along the predicted fate of the people. Ezekiel packed his flight baggage and went out (Ezekiel 12:1-7), indicating the imminent banishment. He trembled as he ate in fear and terror at the coming judgment (Ezekiel 12:17-20). At the sudden death of his wife, he showed no mourning, because even during the loss of the temple such mourning was not permitted (Ezekiel 24:15-27): "Son of man, behold, I am taking away the joy of your eyes by a sudden death. But you shall not mourn or weep. You must not shed a tear. Moan, stay still! You shall not hold any mourning for the dead. Tie your headband and put your shoes on your feet! Do not cover your beard and do not eat the bread of men!" (Ezekiel 12:16f.)

Finally, Ezekiel did a sign full of confidence. He united two staffs. These stood for the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah and were to be reunited under a common king (Ezekiel 37:15-28).

Bread made from cereals

Everyone in Israel was well acquainted with bread. It was the central staple food in biblical times. Often "bread" stood for "food" in general. It was commonly prepared as flatbread with a diameter of 20-50 cm. The poor used the cheaper barley, the rich the more expensive wheat.

Multiplication of loaves

For the sensational multiplication of the loaves, Jesus used barley bread. That's how it happened. When Jesus' listeners preached to a large crowd on a mountain all day long and healed their sick, the people were hungry. Jesus took this as an opportunity to explain to the people how important he and his message were for them. He "knew what he wanted to do," the evangelist John notes in retrospect. He intended people to have an unmistakable experience. He gave them bread for dinner. The process is well known (John 6:1-21). Because it was late and the way to a shop was unreasonable for the many people, Jesus asked his disciples to feed the people themselves. It doesn't work, said Philippus for the troops. There is only one little boy there. And this one has no more than five barley loaves and a few fish. Impossible enough for everyone. Barley bread: the bread of the poor. And then the conceivably brief account of the monstrous event: "Then Jesus took the loaves, said the prayer of thanksgiving, and distributed to the people as much as they wanted; he did the same with the fish. When the crowd was satisfied, he said to his disciples, "Gather up the remaining fragments, so that nothing will perish." They collected and filled twelve baskets with the chunks that were left over from the five barley loaves after the meal." (John 6:11-13)

The evangelist John puts his bold theological interpretation into Jesus' mouth. Jesus himself is the "bread for the world". Anyone who "eats" it, i.e. unites with it as with bread and absorbs it, "likes to eat", digests it, as it were, no longer needs to worry about his life even in death. That went too far for some. They had thought they had a politician in front of them who could conjure up bread. Instead, they saw before them a spiritualized guru who spoke unimaginable things. This led to the first "wave of resignations" from the still dewy Jesus movement. Jesus even left it up to the disciples to leave him. But their spokesman Peter: Where should we go? "You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68)

There had been a miraculous increase in barley bread in Israel before. The course of these events shows striking similarities to what Jesus accomplished long afterwards. It was in Gigal where the prophet Elisha had his prophetic school. So it is told succinctly: "Once a man came from Baal-Shalisha and brought the man of God bread of first fruits, twenty barley loaves and fresh grains in a bag. Elisha said, "Give it to the people to eat." But his servant said, "How shall I serve this to a hundred men?" But Elisha said, "Give it to the people to eat." For this is what the Lord says: They will eat and leave left. Now he set it before them; and they ate and left over, just as the Lord had said." (2 Kings 4:42-44)

Flatbread and loaf

Bread was freshly baked by the women for each day as a flatbread or as a loaf of bread. For this purpose, a dough made of flour, water and salt was prepared. Sometimes oil or honey was added. Hot stones, clay ovens or ashes were also used for baking.

Bread was prepared in two ways: leavened or unleavened. A sourdough set aside from the previous day was added to the freshly prepared dough. He let the bread rise before baking and gave it a delicious taste. Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to such leaven: "Again he said, 'To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?' It's like the leaven that a woman took and hid under three seas of flour until the whole thing was leavened." (Luke 13:20f.) It will spread from the inside in the "dough of the world" and leaven it. Paul reminds the Corinthians of this, but at the same time warns them not only to remember the Jewish Passover, which referred to the blood of the young lambs on the doorpost. Rather, they should remember the Christian Paschal lamb, who gave his saving blood on the cross. Then Paul shifts his speech from unleavened bread to leaven and moves from the saving to the moral: "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole dough? Get rid of the old leaven so that you are new dough! You are already unleavened bread; for Christ was sacrificed as our Paschal lamb. Let us therefore not celebrate the feast with the old leaven, not with the leaven of wickedness and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth!" (1 Corinthians 5:6-8)

But bread was also baked as a flatbread without such sourdough. These are still called matzahs, Hebrew mazzot. Unleavened, it was a bread of remembrance of Israel's hasty departure from Egypt (Exodus 12). Therefore, at the memorial meal of the Exodus, on Passover, only unleavened bread is consumed. Three matzah are stacked and used at the Seder meal the night before. These must be processed and baked within 18 minutes.

Rounding off

We have come to the end of this biblical grain meditation. Two Bible quotations are to round it off: one familiar and one lesser-known. Jesus' sentence is familiar, in which he interprets his own doomed and saving fate: "If the grain of wheat does not fall into the earth and die, it remains alone; but when it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24) A hymn (Gotteslob 620), written by the Limburg priest-poet Lothar Zenetti (1926-2019), takes up this sentence and lets it slip into the heart by singing:

The grain of wheat must die, otherwise it will remain alone; one lives from the other, none can exist for himself. Mystery of faith: in death is life.

So the Lord gave his life, gave himself away like bread. Whoever has taken this bread announces his death. Mystery of faith: in death is life.

Whoever celebrates this mystery shall himself be like bread; so he allows himself to be consumed by all human misery. Mystery of faith: in death is life.

The Lord has chosen us as bread for many people; we live for each other, and only love counts. Mystery of faith: in death is life.

Less familiar to most of them is a statement from the Book of Sirach, in which he praises benevolence and helpfulness: "He who repays goodwill offers the finest wheat flour, and he who gives alms offers a praise offering." (Jesus Sirach 34:3f.)

Wine

You cause grass to grow for cattle
and plants for man's agriculture,
so that he may obtain bread from the earth
, and wine that rejoices the heart of man,
so that he may make his face shine, and strengthen
the heart of man with oil and bread.
(Psalm 104:14f.)

Thanks to Noah. He was a farmer and, according to the Bible, was the first to plant a vineyard (Genesis 9:20). This is how he gave wine to mankind. This was drunk extensively, for example at folk festivals. At the solemn promulgation of the law, Moses was able to sing: "The Lord alone guided Jacob, no foreign god stood by his side. He led him to the mountains of the land, and he ate of the fruits of the field, he quenched him with wine from the rocks, with oil from crevices. With butter from cows, milk from sheep and goats, plus fat from lambs, from rams from Bashan and from goats, plus fine flour from wheat. You drank the blood of the grapes fermented." (Deuteronomy 32:12-14) When, after the end of the Babylonian captivity under Nehemiah and the priest Ezra, the Torah was read again in public, a celebration was also celebrated. Here, too, not only tears of joy flowed, but also excellent "sweet" wine flowed (Nehemiah 8:9f.).

The wine showed its double face even with the first winemakers. Noah had once again drunk over his thirst. He became drunk. Because he got hot, he exposed himself in the tent. There he lay stark naked on the ground. Then archaic things happened with catastrophic consequences for one of the participants and his descendants: "Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers about it outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a cloak; they both laid it on their shoulders, walked backwards, and covered their father's nakedness. They had turned their faces away so that they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine frenzy and learned what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan." Let him be a slave of slaves to his brothers! And he went on to say, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and Canaan be his slave." God creates space for Japheth. He shall dwell in Shem's tents, and Canaan shall be his slave." (Genesis 9:18-27) At the unimaginable age of nine hundred and fifty, Noah, who had survived the great flood and left wine to mankind, died.

Later, a wine story in the house of Lot, the nephew of the father of faith Abraham, was more favorable, albeit highly incestuous. We know Lot from the devastating event in the city of Sodom. Because of its corruption, it was destroyed by a sulphurous firestorm. While fleeing, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt because she had looked around against the instruction of the angel of God (Genesis 19:26).

After fleeing Sodom, Lot and his two daughters lived as remnants of the family like hermits in a cave in the mountains. Time passed. Now the daughters wanted children at all costs. "One day the older one said to the younger one: Our father is getting old and there is no man who associates with us, as is customary all over the world." So the father had to serve. This was possible thanks to the wine. "So they gave their father wine to drink that night; then the elder came and lay down beside her father. He didn't notice how she lay down and how she got up. The next day the older woman said to the younger, "Behold, yesterday I lay with my father. If we give him wine to drink tonight, then come and lie down with him. So we will receive offspring through our Father. So they gave their father wine to drink that night; then the younger one got up and lay down beside him. He didn't notice how she lay down and how she got up. Both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father." An unusual type of birth planning even by biblical standards. One gave birth to Moab, the ancestor of the Moabites, and the other to Ben-Ammi, from whom the Ammonites are descended (Genesis 19:30-38).

Israel, the vine of God - Jesus, the true vine

According to the Mosaic account, the vine was one of the seven fruits of the promise (Deuteronomy 8:8). He even stood out among them. After all, it became a symbol of Israel and its God's relationship with it: "You dug up a vine in Egypt" (Psalm 80:9). It flourished magnificently and bore fruit. People prayed to God to take good care of his vine (Psalm 80:15).

Jesus takes up the image of the vine and uses it for self-expression. In his eyes, God remains the winemaker. But he considers himself to be the "true" vine. Those who are associated with him are then his branches. His lifeblood flows through them and makes them fruitful (John 15:1-8). Paul will use the formula "ἐν Χριστῷ εἶναι" (to be in Christ: Romans 8:1; 1 Corinthians 15:22; 2 Corinthians 5:17). But those who are not united and do not bear fruit wither are cut off and burned by their father's vinedresser. This is how Jesus formulated it, colored in the theology of the evangelist John:

The Eater and Drunkard

Jesus was not averse to the good life, including the enjoyment of wine. He was even insulted as a drunkard because of his joie de vivre: "The Son of Man has come, he eats and drinks, and you say, 'Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'" (Luke 7:34)

Jesus liked to go to weddings. So in Cana in Galilee. His mother was there. In the account of the miraculous story that took place there, we learn a lot about the course of weddings. They drank exuberantly. A separate master was responsible for ensuring that the wine did not run out. But at this wedding, the existing supply was drunk away prematurely. The attentive mother of Jesus notices this. She tells her son about the embarrassing situation that they have no more wine. Jesus brusquely scolds his mother for her undisguised imposition of taking care of wine supplies "in his own way". But then he turns the water of six jugs into wine. And in excellent wine. This in turn annoys the master diner, who thinks that the groom simply does not want to serve the best wine. However, it is customary to serve the good wine first. At the beginning of a drinking party, people still notice whether the wine is of high or inferior quality.

Word of what really happened quickly spread and made it into the Gospel of John (John 2:1-12). The story has inspired many preachers in masses and celebrations of the Word. They are surrounded by puns about water and wine. The Italians say: "Predicare bene e razzolare male." (Preach well, but act badly.) Or in German: "Preaching water and drinking wine". The accusation is directed at politicians, churchmen, preachers and moralists. It was in this spirit that Heinrich Heine wrote⁹⁰ in the epic poem "Germany. A Winter's Tale" as follows: "I know they drank wine secretly and preached water in public."

Vineyard Parables

Jesus didn't just like to drink wine. He was also well versed in viticulture. His stories, with which he fascinated the people, show this. His metaphor of the wineskins is well known. No one would pour young wine into old wineskins. The fermenting wine would tear them apart (Matthew 9:17). Speaking of young wine: The wise man from Sirach named Jesus advises: "Do not give up an old friend, for a new one is not like him: new wine, new friend; when it is old, you will drink it with joy." (Jesus Sirach 9:10)

At one point, Jesus tells of workers who are hired to work in a vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). Although they work for different lengths of time, they all receive the same wage. A denarius. Unfair, some say. Others, on the other hand, see it as a precursor to a basic income for all or a family-friendly basic security: everyone receives the minimum amount that a family needs for a day to live.

In another story, a father wants to send his sons to work in the vineyard (Matthew 21:28-32). One says yes, but doesn't go. The other says no, but then gets to work. Jesus clearly takes the side of the one who takes action and does not just make empty words.

It is bloody in a vineyard that a landowner plants, fences in, digs a wine press in it and fortifies it with a watchtower. Then he leases the vineyard. At harvest time, he wants to have the fruit to which he is entitled collected. He sends a few messengers, and in the end his son. Everyone is killed because in the end the tenants think: If the heir is dead, they can keep the vineyard. The audience understood. The tenants are executed. The vineyard will be given to other tenants. For Jesus, this is again about God and His vineyard Israel (Matthew 21:33-46).

We encounter wine in the dramatic finale of Jesus' short public life. He celebrates the Seder meal with his followers. They drink wine from the blessing cup. Jesus foretells that it will be the last time "until the day when I drink of it again in the kingdom of God" (Mark 14:17-25). When he hung on the cross on the rocky Golgotha at the gates of the city, they gave him "wine to drink mixed with gall; but when he had tasted it, he would not drink it" (Matthew 27:34).

Double-faced

According to Greek mythology, it was the god Dionysus who gave wine to the people. The fermented grape juice is said to put them in ecstasy. In the process, they can forget everyday life and their worries. Above all, they can approach the divine intoxicated. "Godful!" exclaim some connoisseurs over an excellent wine. "Heavenly" calls those whom the wine lifts above everyday life.

However, wine has two faces, one light and one dark. It has both a beguiling and a destructive effect. It can delight and sad. The biblical narratives know both sides. Wine is sometimes used specifically to make it easier to achieve one's own goals. Advice is given for cultured drinking.

The light face

Wine makes courageous and strong, heroic: "Wine is to drink for those who grow weary in the desert" (2 Samuel 16:2). Soldiers drank it to numb their fears. This is how the psalmist can sing. "Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a hero who was stunned with wine." (Psalm 78:65) "Those of Ephraim will be like a hero. Your heart will rejoice as with wine." (Zechariah 10:7) Fear and joy are close together, as was the case thousands of years later with the Second Church Assembly in the Vatican (1962-1965). At the beginning of the grandiose letter on the mission of the Church in the world of today, we read: "The joy and hope, sorrow and anguish of the people of today, especially of the poor and oppressed of all kinds, are also the joy and hope, sorrow and anguish of Christ's disciples. And there is nothing truly human that does not resonate in their hearts." (Gaudium et Spes, 1)

Wisdom compares itself to wine that it mixes for men (Proverbs 9:5). "In vino veritas", according to a proverb in Rome. The gloomy Ecclesiastes affirms: "I carried on my research on myself by tempting my body with wine, while my intellect led knowledge to pasture, and by capturing ignorance." (Ecclesiastes 2:3) The same brooding man considers it wrong not to enjoy life in view of the inevitable end of every human being in death: "One feasts and wants to laugh, the wine delights the living." (Ecclesiastes 10:19) "Eat your bread joyfully and drink your wine joyfully; for what you do God has long since determined as He pleased." (Ecclesiastes 9:7) According to Isaiah, however, the short-sighted godless like to do something similar in the face of their transient life: "Joy and gladness, killing cattle and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: eating and drinking, for tomorrow we die." (Isaiah 22:13)

Enjoying wine can make you grateful to God because it puts you in a good mood. Thus the wine has the psalmist sing: "You cause grass to grow for cattle and plants for man's agriculture, that he may gain bread from the earth, and wine that rejoices the heart of man, that he may make his face shine with oil and bread, and strengthen the heart of man." (Psalm 104:14f.)

"Wine, women and song" are the triad of a connoisseur in my hometown of Vienna. The titles of the Heurigen songs alone are full of wine bliss. God Himself descends from heaven to partake of it: "There shall be a wine"; "I riach an Wein"; "Beim Wein derfst net bland sein"; "Yes, yes the wine is good".

The Bible also knows about the wholesome combination of fermented grape juice with singing: "Wine and music rejoice the heart, but above both is the love of wisdom." (Jesus Sirach 40:20) The same author is enthusiastic: "A seal of ruby on golden jewelry, such is a game of the musicians at the wine feast. A seal of emerald in a golden setting is a melody with sweet wine." (Jesus Sirach 32:5f.)

The Dark Face

Wine can not only make you understandable, but also drive you crazy. "Wine and cider rob my people of their minds." (Hosea 4:11) When Jeremiah announced the destruction of the Babylonian empire, he clothed its rulership in harsh words: "The nations have drunk of his wine; therefore the peoples have lost their minds." (Jeremiah 51:7)

Wine experiences in the book of proverbs attributed to Solomon sound unpleasant: "Those who sit with wine until night come to taste the mixed wine. Don't look at the wine, how it shimmers reddish, how it sparkles in the cup: it drinks so easily! Finally, he bites like a snake, spraying poison like a viper. Your eyes see strange things, your heart talks confused stuff. You are like one who sleeps on the high seas, who falls asleep over the helm of the ship." (Proverbs 23:30)

Even prophets and priests sometimes did not do the wine any good: "Even they waver from the wine and stagger from the beer: priests and prophets waver from the beer, are dazed with the wine. They stagger from the beer, they waver in their visions, they stagger in the decision." (Isaiah 28:7) Was this the reason why God Himself told Aaron and his followers not to drink wine when they approached the sanctuary: "The Lord said to Aaron, 'You and your sons must not drink wine or beer when you come to the tabernacle, lest you die. May this be your eternal statute for your generations." (Leviticus 10:8f.)

Advice

It sounds like an entertaining synthesis of the light and dark sides of wine. Jesus from Sirach gives tongue-in-cheek advice on how to behave appropriately during a wine feast.

Don't play the strong man when it comes to wine! For many have been ruined by wine.
A smelting furnace tests the hardness of the metal, so the wine tests the hearts in the quarrel of the haughty.
Wine is just like life to people if you drink it in moderation.
What is life if wine is missing? He was created for the cheerfulness of man.
Happiness of the heart and serenity of the soul is brought by wine, drunk at the right time and in moderation.
Bitterness of the soul is wine that is drunk too much in excitement and in an argument.
Drunkenness increases the tendency of an unreasonable person to the point of insult, impairs the strength and inflicts wounds.
At the wine feast, do not blame your neighbor, do not despise him for his merriment.
Do not say a word of abuse to him, and do not corner him with a demand. (Jesus Sirach John 31:25–31)

In the book of Proverbs, the sons receive wise counsel: "Hear, my son, and be wise, direct your heart in a straight way. Do not join the wine-drinkers, those who feast on the consumption of meat; for drunkards and gluttons become poor, drowsiness clothes in rags." (Proverbs 23:19-21)

Men should also be smart when dealing with women. For example, Jesus Sirach, who is visibly experienced in women, advises them: "Never sit with a married woman, and also avoid wine feasts with her, so that you do not turn your soul to her and you do not fall into ruin in your passion!" (Jesus Sirach 9:1-9)

The same author sums up his messages himself, so to speak: "A drunken worker will not get rich, and those who despise the little will soon fail. Wine and women seduce the wise, and he who gets involved with whores is reckless." (Jesus Sirach 19:1)

Liturgical-Cultic

Wine was just as present in the temple cult as it is to this day in the Christian churches in the Eucharistic services. At the climax of the Eucharistic Prayer, the chalice with the transformed wine is raised by the presiding priest. It is the ritual of which Paul says:

For I received from the Lord what I then delivered to you: the Lord Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread, gave thanksgiving, broke the bread, and said, "This is my body for you." Do this in remembrance of me! In the same way, after the meal, he took the cup and said, "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood." Do this, as often as you drink from it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat of this bread and drink from the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

Olives

If a tree can grow old, it is the olive tree or olive tree. Perhaps the oldest olive tree is probably in Vouves on Crete today. Its gnarled age is estimated at a whopping 3500 years. Trees that are over thousands of years old can be admired in Spain. Experts assume that the olive tree has been cultivated as a crop since the fourth millennium BC. There are more than a thousand varieties of olive trees. In the botanical study of trees, dendrology, the main variety of the olive tree is called "Olea europaea".

Olive trees can grow to a height of ten to twelve metres and stretch their branches wide. The formation of the roots depends on the nature of the soil. If the soil is loose, roots grow up to seven meters vertically into the depth. On rocky soil, shallow roots tend to develop and form a branched network around the trunk. Most roots spread at a depth of about one meter. Experts point out that each main root can be assigned to a main branch. If a branch is removed, the associated root degenerates.

Olive trees reproduce in two ways. Either saplings sprout from seeds, the seeds that birds spread. However, cuttings, young, flexible branches, about a year old, ten to fifteen centimeters long, healthy and free of diseases, can also ⁹¹ grow into young trees. When a tree grows old, a rough brown bark develops. The bark of the young branches, on the other hand, is silvery. The leaves and the ripening fruits are green - olive green.

If the olive tree grows wild, it is usually smaller than the cultivated one. The olives of the Wildling also remain smaller. The apostle Paul took up this distinction between wild and refined in his letter to the Romans in order to compare Israel and the Gentile Christians. They are of the same species, come from the same root, and yet they are different. The Gentile Christians are like branches of a wild olive tree grafted onto the grafted tree, while noble branches have been removed because of their unbelief. But as grafted branches, they have no reason to become arrogant. Because the only thing that counts is faith, i.e. to remain in the goodness of God. And as in other places, Paul hopes for Israel that it can be grafted in again as the original noble branch (Romans 11:16-24).

The olive tree and Israel cannot be separated from each other. His beauty is symbolically applied to Israel. This is remembered precisely when the people have become unfaithful to the covenant with their God: "The Lord had called you a luxuriant olive tree of beautiful form." (Jeremiah 11:15)

The olive tree probably comes from the Aegean Sea, but was soon native to the entire Mediterranean region. The Mediterranean climate with an average temperature of 15 to 20 degrees and 200-700 mm of precipitation is ideal.

The olive tree - in this name the fruit is the focus, in the name olive tree the yield: but always the same tree is meant - is an evergreen plant. It does not lose all its foliage at any time of the year. Rather, leaves that are several years old fall off, regardless of the season.

Israel had every reason to be grateful to their God for this and to rejoice in the gifts. The prophet Jeremiah foresees how the people will return to their land from which they had been expelled, and that there will be great rejoicing: "They will come and rejoice on the heights of Zion, they will shine with joy over the blessings of the Lord, over grain, wine, and oil, over lambs and oxen." (Jeremiah 31:12) The prophet Joël is similarly enthusiastic. His hymn of praise to God begins with a text that I have grown fond of in recent months and that I extend to the whole world: "Then the passion for his country awoke in the Lord, and he had mercy on his people. The Lord answered his people and said, "Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, that you may be satisfied with them." (Joel 2:18f.)

Olive groves were adorned with young and gnarled olive trees, which were often several hundred years old. The trees were pruned so that they would bear more. It was a kind of rule of the oil farmers: "The more crooked and gnarled, the better the yield."

Depending on the area, olive trees bloom from the end of April to the beginning of June. If drought or nutrient deficiencies stress the tree before flowering, the yield is reduced because the number of flowers is reduced and flowers do not bear fruit. The Book of Job sees this as a symbol for the fate of the wicked: "Like the olive tree, it throws away its blossoms." (Job 15:33).

The pollination of the olive tree blossoms is done by the wind. Then the fruit can form, olives ripen. When ripe, the olives take on a black color and are sought after as delicious Kalamata olives, for example. The olives are not edible raw because of their bitter substances. These bitter substances are washed out after harvesting by repeated soaking in water.

The sweet to sour fruits, which are popular with humans and animals alike, are preserved. The oil trade flourished. Sometimes to God's displeasure: "They make an alliance with Assyria and deliver oil to Egypt," the prophet Hosea complains about Israel and Judah (Hosea 12:2). Olive tree plantations took up 11.1 million hectares of land in the world in 2023 . More than 20 million tons of olives have been harvested worldwide. Spain was the largest olive producer, ahead of Italy, Turkey and Portugal. The total European share was 58.6%.

Once the olives are ripe, they can be harvested. This is done in various ways. Sometimes you wait until the fruits - ripe - fall into stretched nets. Some oil farmers pick the olives by hand in a laborious process. The Bible mentions a third type: beating off the fruit with sticks⁹². A socially wise rule is attached to this practice: "If you have knocked down an olive tree, you should not also search the branches. What still hangs should belong to the strangers, orphans and widows. When you have harvested the grapes in your vineyard, you should not harvest them. It should belong to the strangers, orphans and widows. Remember, you were a slave in Egypt. That is why I make it your duty to keep this provision." (Deuteronomy 24:20-22)

90% of the harvested olives are processed into oil. We learn something about the production in the Bible, even if in a dark context. The wicked man is threatened with an evil fate; this includes the futility of his efforts: "Between walls they press oil, tread the wine press and yet have to thirst." (Job 24:11). This is how oil production proceeded in biblical times: the olives were crushed with stones. The purest oil has already been extracted. Further oil was then squeezed out of the crushed olives with lever presses or weights.

Oil was an abundant food in Israel. But it served the people in many other ways: cosmetic, political, ritual. Let us meditate on relevant biblical texts one after the other.

Oil of Beauty and Joy

The longed-for Messiah was to come from the house of David. And this despite the fact that things were morally upset in the king's house. God obviously writes his salvation history on crooked lines to this day. This is shown by the following moving event. These have already been told in the chapter on the forest, which is first briefly recalled, and then the story with a cunning woman is referred:

Amnon, a son of David, had fallen madly in love with his sister Tamar. He raped her. Absalom killed him when he was drunk. He had to flee. Little by little, David's heart turned back to Absalom. The royal general Joab noticed this. He wanted to help his employer reconcile with Absalom. To do this, he got a clever woman from Tekoa. He briefed her: "He said to her, 'Do as if you are mourning, put on mourning garments and do not anoint yourself with oil! Act like a woman who has been mourning a dead person for a long time." (2 Samuel 13:2) Oil was associated with joy, not sorrow.

This woman did. She told the made-up story she had been given: one of her sons had killed the other. Therefore, they are trying to kill the murderer. But she would not be able to overcome his death. The king should therefore place him under his protection so that he would not be killed. David was softened and promised.

Now the clever woman came out with the true intention. The king himself is involved in this story, it is about his son, whom he is persecuting because he killed his brother. He could also put him back under his care and have him return to Jerusalem. With the restriction that Absalom was not allowed to move into the palace and was not allowed to be seen by the king, King David agreed. Joab was blessed because of his cunning. (2 Samuel 13:38-14:33)

Again and again, the oil becomes a symbol of the abundantly flowing goodness of God: "I am showered with fresh oil" (Psalm 92:11). God cares for man, "so that he may make his face shine with oil" (Psalm 104:15). Even well-founded criticism is experienced as a salutary oil: "If a righteous person strikes me, it is love, if he rebukes me, it is anointing oil that my head does not refuse." (Psalm 141:5) The cordiality of a friend out of inner conviction rejoices like anointing oil and incense to the heart (Proverbs 27:9).

In the Bible, fraternal harmony is praised with "oily" words, then it goes "like clockwork" among the brothers:

Behold, how good and how beautiful it is when brothers dwell together in harmony.
It is like precious anointing oil on the head that flows down to the beard, the beard of Aaron, which flows down to the hem of his garment. (Psalm 133:1f.)

Holy anointing oil

Oil not only made you beautiful. Oil also sanctified persons or things that were anointed with it.

Kings and sanctuaries were anointed

Repeatedly, God has commissioned prophets to anoint those whom He wanted to have installed as kings. Ointment was the main ritual of royal consecration. The kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were not only crowned, but also anointed.

Oil was not only used to anoint kings, but also to the sanctuaries and the persons who served in them.

The Catholic Church still knows altar consecrations today. She anoints with chrism, which means anointing oil in the Greek language, on the altar table used in the celebration of the Eucharist. Moses had already been asked by God to do this: "Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything that is in it. Consecrate them with all their implements! So it will be holy. Anoint also the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and consecrate the altar. So the altar will be most holy. Anoint the basin with its frame and consecrate it!" (Exodus 40:9-11)

God also gave Moses the recipe for the production of the anointing oil, which was to be used exclusively for anointing in the sanctuary and not for cosmetic purposes under the penalty of "eradication from the people" (Exodus 30:22-33).

Bet-El, the sanctuary of God

Lus becomes Beth-El, Jacob Israel. Is it about the explanation of names, those of the city of Bet-El and the names of the land/people of Israel? In any case, two exciting events are told in Genesis. With the help of his mother Rebekka, Jakob has obtained the blessing by stealth. With a goatskin around his wrist, Jacob has outdone his brother Esau. Despite the blessing he had received from the old and blind Isaac, he had to flee.

On the way, he spends the night outdoors. He takes a stone and puts it under his head. There he has the vision of the ladder to heaven in a dream (Genesis 28:12-15). When he wakes up in the morning, he is deeply stirred by God's presence and His promise. He experienced the place as "godful": "It is nothing other than the house of God and the gate of heaven." Then he "takes the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a stone and poured oil on it. Then he gave the place the name Bet-El - House of God -. The city used to be called Lus." (Genesis 28:17-19)

It was many years later. Jacob had returned to Canaan. In the meantime he had been reconciled with Esau and had given him large gifts of animals and cattle. He was married and had many children. Then God invited him to go to Beth-El, the place of the first revelation, and to renew the covenant. So he moved to Beth-El. There he "built an altar and called the place God of Beth-El; for in fleeing from his brother God had revealed himself to him there" (Genesis 35:7). In Beth-el, Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, died and was buried there.

Then Jacob had another appearance of God. God "spoke to him," so the story goes. At the same time, God again assured Jacob that he would give him the land promised to his ancestors Abraham and Isaac, that he would make his descendants a great nation and give them good kings. A kind of God-guaranteed MIGA, make Israel great again! The whole thing was to remain unforgettable because from now on he would no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. Then "God ascended from him". Absorbed by what he had experienced, Jacob/Israel now set about creating a place of remembrance: "Jacob erected a stone mark, a memorial stone, in the place where God had spoken to him. He poured a libation over it and poured oil on it. Jacob gave the name Bet-El to the place where God had spoken to him." (Genesis 35:14)

The Anointed One

The expected Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ, Mashiach) is called Χριστός (Christ) in the Second Testament. It is the Greek word for the Hebrew מָשִׁיח (Mashiach), just "the anointed one". Paul can therefore write with regard to the "son" in the letter to Philemon: "Your throne, O God, stands forever and ever, and: The scepter of your rule is a righteous scepter. You love right and hate wrong, therefore, O God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy like none of your companions." (Philemon 1:8f.) He can refer to a saying of the prophet Isaiah, also quoted by Jesus in his "Declaration of Government" (Matthew 4:16-30), about the Lord's anointed one and his mission. Among other things, it says that he will give the poor oil of joy instead of mourning.

Christian anointing rituals

In a Christian baptismal ritual, such diverse sanctifications flow together. After pouring the baptismal water over the baptismal water, the baptized person is anointed with chrism. Anointing is also used in the rituals concluding baptism, i.e. "post-baptismal", which were replaced by baptism during the transition from the catacomb church to the Constantinian mass church and which complete it as "confirmation". This makes it obvious to everyone that this baptized and "confirmed", i.e. strengthened, person is a royal, priestly and sanctified human being with grandiose dignity.

In the Catholic Church, the sick are anointed: "If one of you is sick, let him call the elders of the congregation to him; they are to say prayers over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. Prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they will forgive him." (James 5:14f.) People who carry out the pastoral service to the sick in the Catholic Church full-time or voluntarily have been pressuring the church leadership for years so that such healing ointments can also be carried out in hospitals by non-ordained pastors in the sense of the letter of James. As long as it is not possible in the sacramental form, quite a few anoint with simple prayers. But is such action less "sacramental" because it happens without commissioning?

In some church areas, women have been ordered as myrophores in recent years. They are literally anointing oil bearers. A kind of "office for women" was created. It is a reminder of the anointing of Jesus by the sinner who anointed Jesus at the meal in the house of a rich man. The woman incurred the anger of the disciples. It would have been much better to give the money to the poor. But Jesus defended her. Cryptically for his listeners at the time, he declared: She did it in advance for my funeral (Matthew 26:6-13).

At Catholic priestly ordination, the hands of those who touch the "Holy of Holies" are anointed. The core ritual of ordination, however, is the laying on of hands with the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

Oil lamps

Until the invention of gas lamps and electric light bulbs, oil was also a proven remedy for the darkness of the evenings and night. They have increased people's activity time after sunset. Oil lamps were produced for this purpose. To fill them, they had oil jugs at hand.

The history of the oil lamp goes back thousands of years, and the first mention of this device dates back to the 6th century BC. Oil lamps had different shapes and constructions. The earliest version was created in ancient Egypt. The oil lamp is also known in the Arab world. In the Koran it is sung: "Allah is the light of heaven and earth. Its light can be compared to a niche, with a lamp in it. The lamp [...] burns (with oil) from a blessed tree, an olive tree, which is neither east nor west, and whose oil is almost bright, (yet) without fire coming to it [...]." (Sura 24:35)

In Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, such lamps were in use in the Middle Ages. For an oil lamp, vegetable or animal oil was used as fuel. Torches and candles used before were less efficient and burned quickly, while oil lamps provided a more durable and stable source of light.

A classic oil lamp consists of an oil tank, a wick and an ignition source. The wick was usually made from a textile material that absorbed the oil that was placed in the tank. After lighting the wick, the oil gradually evaporated and burned, creating light. Simple oil lamps were made of ceramics, ornate ones, which were often used for decoration, of bronze or silver.

With the invention of electricity in the 19th century, oil lamps quickly began to lose importance. Electric light proved to be safer, more efficient and more practical. Nevertheless, oil lamps are still used in some areas, such as camping, and can serve as design elements and antiques. Today, oil lamps are experiencing a renaissance. They create a romantic atmosphere in their beauty and elegance.

Jesus' Oil Lamp Parable

Jesus assumes the everyday use of oil lamps when he explains the kingdom of heaven to the listeners with the image of a wedding. He was concerned with the moving question of who will be admitted to the wedding hall. The groom himself acts as a bouncer and controls who is admitted and who is not. Two points are important: You need oil for the lamps, and exactly at the time when the groom greets the guests and lets them in. Only half of them are wif enough and manage to be ready to enter. They have enough oil for the lamps and are awake. The other half just doesn't have enough oil for the lamps when the groom arrives unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Now they want to beg something from the women who have oil. But they say: It doesn't work. Because it won't be enough for us either. So they go to the dealers to get oil. When they return, the admission time has expired and the door is locked. They knock. But the groom literally leaves her standing. I don't know you, so his oppressive saying with long-term consequences (Leviticus 24:14).

It is not only in the parable with the ten virgins, which urges us to be vigilant, that Jesus proves his familiarity with oil. While the virgins used the oil for their lamps, oil is used as a remedy in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan, who had compassion on the one who fell among the robbers and was wounded, pours healing oil on his wounds (Luke 10:34).

And then there was the story of the corrupt administrator who had squandered the entrusted fortune of a rich man. In order to avoid dismissal, he bribes the debtors. He will forgive them part of what they should have reimbursed. The first one he set out to do, he asked, "How much do you owe my master? He answered, "A hundred barrels of oil." Then he said to him, "Take your promissory note, sit down quickly and write fifty." (Luke 16:5f.) To the one who owed wheat, he reduced the number of sacks from a hundred to eighty. The interpretation of Jesus is astounding. He reports on the reaction of the owner, whose assets were again reduced by a kind of discount campaign by the steward: "And the Lord praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted wisely, and said, 'The children of this world are wiser in dealing with their own kind than the children of light.'" (Luke 16:8)

Dove with the olive branch

A dove had been let out of Noah's ark stranded on Mount Arafat. She returned with an olive branch in her beak. Pablo Picasso was inspired by this event to create his famous dove of peace, which made it onto stamps.

The Olympic Games are a strong sign of the dream of a peaceful humanity: the logo of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens therefore shows an olive wreath. In its clutches, the eagle holds an olive branch in the Great Seal of the United States: this powerful symbol still has the power today to make the administrations of the United States advocates of a just peace in the world! The flag of the United Nations is also decorated with an olive branch. All these emblems stand for the peace so much desired in the war-weary world. This longing is all the greater the more people suffer from the hostage of wars.

The world's major religions also stand for peace, or more precisely a just peace. It is not true that Islam is a warmongering religion. Rather, it is true that every sura of the Qur'an (except one) begins with the invocation of Allah the Most Merciful. There is far less talk of war in the holy book of Islam than of the stories in the First Testament. The standard for Christianity, admired by Mahatma Gandhi, is the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are those who do not use violence! Blessed are the peacemakers! (Mt 5:3-12)

Figs

Figs are part of the wealth that awaited the desert wanderers in the promised land: a sign of good land and prosperity. They had received confirmation from the scouts. In addition to a giant grape, they also brought nutritious figs. It was the excellent produce of the land, of which, after the harvest, a tenth part was paid to the temple and the tribe of Levi who served there: which Tobit, who was known for his observance of the law, also did, as he himself relates: "I was often the only one who went to Jerusalem on the feast days, as it is written in all Israel in eternal order. With the first fruits and the first fruits, the tithe of the cattle and the first shearing of the sheep, I went to Jerusalem and used to give everything to the priests, the sons of Aaron, for the altar. And the tithe of grain and wine, oil, pomegranates, figs and the rest of the fruit I gave to the sons of Levi who were ministering in Jerusalem." (Tobit 1:6f.)

Botanical

Botanically, the fig is the fruit of the fig (Ficus carica). This is native to the Mediterranean region. The fig tree is one of the oldest domesticated crops. In my garden in Vienna there are two magnificent fig trees of the hardy Bavarian fig "Violetta". They wear extensively twice a year. I experience myself richly gifted. I also gave a neighbor a cutting. To do this, I buried the end of a low-lying younger branch in the soil in spring. In the fall, he had put down roots. Now it grows in the neighbor's garden and bears sweet 3-5 cm rather purple fruits.

In a prayer of thanksgiving, the prophet Habakkuk describes the time of need as follows: "It is true that the fig tree does not bloom, there is nothing to harvest from the vines, the olive tree does not bear fruit, the cornfields bear no fruit; there are no sheep in the pen, there are no cattle in the stable." (Habakkuk 3:17). But he knows that this time of need will pass. Then the fig tree will also "bloom" again.

Botanically, the flowering of the fig tree means that pear- or bottle-shaped inflorescences with a diameter of three to five centimetres form in the leaf axils. These are by no means the fruits, the "flowers" have been shifted inwards. Only a small opening is free, which is almost completely closed by scale-like bracts. In some varieties, they have to be pollinated by small fig gall wasps. The fig tree in my garden can do it alone; it is "parthenocarp", as botany teaches. I harvest twice: in late summer and autumn. The ripe figs are sweet, rich in vitamins, minerals and calories. I eat the figs from the tree, enjoy them in muesli, process them into a delicious jam, dry them. I can well understand the prophet Micah's lament: He is deeply moved by the fact that "there is no grape to eat" and "no premature fig that my heart desires" (Micah 7:1).

Jeremiah's Dream of Two Fig Baskets

The prophet Jeremiah had a fig dream (Jeremiah 24:1-10). He saw two baskets full of figs. In one were very good early figs, in the other inedible bad figs. The interpretation is strong: The good figs are those that were taken away to Babylon under King Jehoiachin in 597 BC. They are there because God wants to purify them. With them he wants to renew his people. He gives them a new heart. They will become his people, he will be their God. These figs are good because God prepares them for the future.

The bad figs are those that had remained in Jerusalem under King Zedekiah and now sought protection from Babylon's grasp in Egypt. In doing so, they oppose God's plan of purification. Inedible, they become the laughing stock of the peoples. Sword, plague and famine will come upon them, so the prophet perceives in the fig basket dream. They have no future. Clinging to external certainties instead of going God's ways does not last, according to the threatening message for the "bad figs". Compared to the abducted, the bad figs are those who think they are saved. But they are threatened with a bad fate. God's judgment. While God's salvation is promised to the purified. The dream is a key text for the exile theology of the prophet Jeremiah.

Fig porridge medicine

Figs were used as medicine in biblical times. King Hezekiah had become terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, gives him a very bad prognosis. Consequently, he is to order his house: "For you will die, you will not live." The king was shaken. He turned from his sickbed with his face to the wall. Then he prayed fervently: "Oh, Lord, remember that I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a complete heart, and that I have done what is good in your eyes!" He cried loudly.

This visibly touched God's heart. He immediately ordered the prophet, who was about to leave the city, to turn back and tell the king: "Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. Behold, I heal you. The day after tomorrow you will go up to the house of the Lord. I'll add fifteen more years to your days. Out of the fist of the king of Assyria I will deliver you and this city, and protect the city, for my sake and for the sake of my servant David." Now all that remained was to set the healing in motion. The prophet mutates into a doctor. He called on the king's relatives: "Get a fig porridge! They fetched him, smeared him on the ulcer and the king was healed." (2 Kings 20:1-11) Hezekiah then sang a song of thanksgiving and made a pilgrimage to the temple (Isaiah 38:21).

Fig cake

Figs were a valuable food. This was due to the high calorie content of figs. With other nutritious additions, figs were used to bake delicious and nutritious "fig cakes".

Strengthening for a soldier

David, having fled from Saul, was still in the realm of the Philistines and was in their service. It was around 1010 BC, Saul was still alive; he fell later in the fight against the Philistines. At that time, the Amalekites, a predatory nomadic people in the south of Canaan, the Negev desert and Egypt, were up to mischief. Supposedly, they were descendants of Esau.

Now they had attacked and burned down the city of Ziklyg, which David had received from the Philistines. Women, children and possessions were abducted. David and his men are deeply desperate. The people are incensed against David because he did not protect them and want to stone him because of his military failure. He "strengthened himself in the Lord his God" (1 Samuel 30:6). A coincidence comes to his aid. An Egyptian slave had fallen ill on the retreat of the Amalekites and had been picked up by David's men. He revealed secret information about the whereabouts of the Amalekites and showed the way. But before he did this, the weakened Egyptian had been strengthened by David's people. This is how it is told:

An Egyptian was picked up in the compound and brought to David. They gave him bread to eat and water to drink, as well as pressed figs and two raisin cakes. When he had eaten, his spirits returned; for he had not eaten a morsel of bread or drunk a sip of water for three days and three nights. (1 Samuel 30:11f.)

Fig and raisin cakes were considered calorie-rich food in the Israeli household. But they were also an important part of the army's rations during campaigns. At the inauguration of King David in Hebron, emissaries came from all tribes. Some "brought food for sustenance on donkeys, camels, mules, and cattle: flour, fig and grape cakes, wine, oil, and a large quantity of cattle and sheep; for there was joy in Israel." (1 Chronicles 12:41) Fig and grape cakes are specifically mentioned as desserts of the festive buffet.

Recipe for Biblical Grape and Fig Cake

Experts from the Diocese of Linz⁹³ have reconstructed a recipe of the biblical grape/fig cake. Most of the ingredients in the Bible have strong symbolic power: figs and grapes are considered signs of the "promised land" (Deuteronomy 8:8). Nuts and almonds are reminiscent of the rod of Aaron, which blossomed and bore almonds (Numbers 17:23). Flour and oil are basic ingredients of many offerings in the temple (Leviticus 2). Honey is part of the hope formula that God will give a "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8). The spices cinnamon and cloves appear in biblical texts as trade goods and offerings (Revelation 18:13).

Here is the reconstructed recipe for a grape cake with figs:

Ingredients:

500 g flour

300 g figs

200 g dried fruits, nuts and almonds

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp jam

2 eggs

2 tbsp sugar

250 ml milk

10 g butter

Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange

1 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Spices: cloves, cinnamon, ginger

1 tsp baking soda

1 dash of rum

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 200 °C.

Chop the figs and nuts into small pieces, pour rum over them and let them sit.

Dissolve baking soda in milk.

Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy.

Mix all ingredients and spices.

Place in a greased dish, reduce the temperature to 180 °C and bake for about 75 minutes.

Epilogue

In this meditative book, I have set myself the goal of combining the diverse images of nature and agriculture in the Bible with today's ecological responsibility ("geoethics") and personal spirituality. For me, the wonder of the world is not a resource to be exploited. Rather, as the Bible tells us, it is a garden entrusted to us. In meditating on biblical growth processes, it can well happen that my own life and faith can also "blossom and flourish" even more intensively.

My eco-biblical forays are divided into four main parts:

I give the first main part the scientific title "Land Use Systems". The different biblical habitats are opened up meditatively. The desert appears as a place of trial and experience of God (Hagar, Jesus), the field and pasture as places of God's work and pastoral care (Psalm 23). The forest and the garden (Eden, Song of Songs) stand for protection, beauty, but also for human error (Fall of Man).

In the second main part, I turn to what grows and thrives: the lush flora is in view. Trees (such as the cedar or the olive tree) serve as images of the righteous man or the people of Israel. Shrubs (thorn bush, castor oil) and grassland (grass, weeds) illustrate transience, but also the kingdom of God (mustard seed parable).

The third main part is dedicated to becoming and passing away . The cycles of life are admired. The water (rain, dew, rivers) enables life and rescue (Red Sea); But it can also be seriously harmful. Sowing and harvesting as well as ripening and blossoming are symbolic of spiritual growth and human development. The inevitable withering and dying is broken by the Christian hope of resurrection and unfading.

In the fourth and last part, the focus is on harvesting diverse fruits. Cereals (bread of life), wine (joy, but also danger), oil (sanctification and healing), figs and spices are meditated. These gifts are interpreted both in their everyday meaning and in their symbolic depths.

So I risked a mixture of biblical interpretation, cultural history and spiritual reflection. I wanted to show the deep love of the biblical narratives for nature. It should also be made clear that the nurturing and nurturing approach to creation is inseparably linked to a mindful relationship with God and an empathetic sense of social justice.

With the author of the second book of Maccabees, I conclude my biblical wanderings:

That's why I'm stopping the story here. If it is well and skilfully told, I have reached my goal; but if it is bad or mediocre - I have done my best. It is equally harmful to drink unmixed wine or pure water. Wine mixed with water, on the other hand, tastes delicious. Similarly, it also depends on the structure of the narrative whether it pleases the ears of the one who gets his hands on this book. I want to close with that. (2 Maccabees 15:37-39)

Anmerkungen

[←1]

A complete overview is provided by https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropozän

[←2]

International Commission on Stratigraphy. Stratigraphy can determine the age of the Earth's layers, which in turn allows for a reconstruction of the Earth's history.

[←3]

A scientific apparatus is largely dispensed with. I document here that I have consulted relevant Wikipedia contributions. I also used AI to systematize large amounts of Bible quotations, but also to free the text from duplication. The main part of the thesis consisted of analyses of the biblical text with the software MAXQDATA. With the help of search words, it is possible to search for those paragraphs from the entire text of the standard translation in which the search term occurs.

[←4]

Hawking, Stephen: The Illustrated Short History of Time, Reinbek 152000 (A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, New York 1988), 228.

[←5]

Loc. cit., 233.

[←6]

Loc. cit.

[←7]

Ducharme, Jamie: Stephen Hawking Was an Atheist. Here’s What he Said About Got, Heaven and His Own Death, in: TIME-Online March 14, 2018 - https://time.com/5199149/stephen-hawking-death-god-atheist/

[←8]

Mandl, Georg: Das uralte Gerücht, in: DIE FURCHE vom 16.4.020, 12. - Ders: Zufall, Freiheit, Christentum, Zürich-Berlin-München-Neckenmarkt 2018.

[←9]

Recluses or inclusives (from Latin inclusus "enclosed") allowed themselves to be included in an inclusive society for a life characterized by prayer and asceticism. Due to their extreme form of detachment from the world with the aim of achieving perfection (perfectio), inclusive women enjoyed a high spiritual reputation, especially in the European Middle Ages. In their ascetic principle, they correspond to the early Christian pillar saints of the Middle East. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkluse (8.7.2025)

[←10]

According to Lienau, Detlef: Grounded Faith: Christian Natural Spirituality, Göttingen 2025, 212f.

[←11]

In past centuries, the Inuit have told each other myths and legends on summer evenings in the tent, but especially during the long winter nights in the igloo and qarmaq (earth sod house). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit-Mythen (6.7.2025)

[←12]

Sources include: Eskimo Fairy Tales Cologne 1969 - Museum of Ethnology 1987 - Fairy Tales and Myths of the Brazilian Indians Freiburg 1990 - Reis, Vladimir/Teissig, Karel: Fairy Tales from the South Seas, Hanau 1976 - Steinwede, Dietrich/Först, Dietmar: The Creation Myths of Mankind, Düsseldorf 2004 - http://www.martina_traxler.public1.linz.at/Datei/Geschichten/Schoepfungsmythen.pdf (8.7.2025)

[←13]

https://mythlok.com/altjira/ (8.7.2025)

[←14]

It was probably written between the 7th and 4th centuries BC.

[←15]

No. 28: Chorus.

[←16]

Adamah stands for earth, from whose "dust" (Hebrew afar) man was formed by God.

[←17]

Rohr, Richard/Morell, Mike/Paul, William: The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, New Kensington 2020.,

[←18]

Bresch, Carsten: Evolution - Kluft und Brücke zwischen Glauben und Wissen, Freiburg 1981 (Kath. Akademie). https://www.ub.uni-freiburg.de/recherche/digitale-bibliothek/podcasts/rede-des-monats/ (8.7.2025)

[←19]

"You created us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you." Augustine, Confessions, 397-401, Book I, 1. https://bkv.unifr.ch/de/works/cpl-251/versions/aug-conf-bkv/divisions/3 (8.7.2025)

[←20]

Kluge, Etymological Dictionary, 804.

[←21]

Reinbek 1972.

[←22]

Regensburg 1983.

[←23]

Farmer Origin of the term: Determinative compound from the nouns land and wirt. The word has been documented since the 17th century and is formed to innkeeper with the old meaning "landlord". https://www.wortbedeutung.info/Landwirt/ (8.7.2025)

[←24]

Rilke, Rainer M.: Die heiligen Drei Könige (Das Buch der Bilder, 1902, revised 1906).

[←25]

https://www.wissen.de/bildwb/sind-wuesten-immer-heiss (7/12/2025)

[←26]

https://on.orf.at/video/14281860/15906360/wald-in-der-wueste-projekt-in-mauretanien (10.7.2025) - https://www.eppendorf.com/at-de/beyond-science/off-the-bench/off-the-bench-bright-minds/green-sahara/ (10.7.2025)

[←27]

Manna and swarms of quail are also reported in the Koran in Sura 2:57.

[←28]

Image: Breath of life, Byzantine mosaic 12th century. - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruach (12.7.2025)

[←29]

Hennersperger, Anna: Proven in Probation. First Sunday of the Easter Lent Season, in: Word of God Celebrations on All Sundays and Holidays, Ostfildern 2025, Issue 2025/2,

[←30]

Xenophon, Memorabilen 2,1,21-34.

[←31]

https://de.wikipedia.org/(13.7.2025wiki/Herakles_am_Scheideweg (13.7.2025)

[←32]

This is the data from the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data (23.7.2024)

[←33]

Micah 22:17; 1 Kings 18:16; Judith 11:19.

[←34]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_137#Wirkungsgeschichte_in_der_Musik (23.7.2025)

[←35]

Question of 28.7.2025)

[←36]

Burschel, Peter/Huss, Jürgen: Grundriß des Waldbaus, Berlin 21999, 39f.

[←37]

According to 1 Kings 6:1, the Israelites left Egypt 480 years before Solomon built the temple, around 1440-1460 BC.

[←38]

More on this dispute: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garten_Eden (25.7.2025)

[←39]

Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger: Das Hohelied der Liebe, Freiburg 2015, 122-126.

[←40]

Schwienhorst-Schönberger: Song of Songs, 122.

[←41]

Regula Benedicti, 66.

[←42]

Mayer, Johannes Gottfried: Klostermedizin: Die Kräutergärten in den ehemaligen Klosteranlagen von Lorsch und Seligenstadt, Regensburg 2002. - Klostergärten. Food for Body and Soul, St. Ottilien 2025.

[←43]

Müller, Fritz C.: Wer steck dahinter (Who is behind it), Düsseldorf 1964.

[←44]

Ricci,Franco Maria (Hg.): Labyrinths: The Art of the Maze, New York 2013.

[←45]

The myth is told in a humorous way in Köhlmeier, Michael: Das große Sagenbuch des griechischen Altertums, Munich 1999, 496-511.

[←46]

https://maerchen.com/andersen/die-geschichte-von-einer-mutter.php (28.7.2025)

[←47]

God had sent Peter three dreams at Joppa to give up his "never-and-never" about eating supposedly unclean food (Acts 10:9-16).

[←48]

See also Neuner, Peter: Ecumenical Theology. Complete revised new edition, Freiburg 2025, 258.

[←49]

from: Ziehende Landschaft, 1955.

[←50]

This is different with shrubs. They do not form strains. More about this in the next module.

[←51]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baum (30.7.2025)

[←52]

More about Mensch und Baum in Demandt, Alexander: Über allen Wipfeln. Der Baum in der Kulturgeschichte, Cologne 2002. There is the sentence: "No other creature is so diverse, so closely linked to the fate of mankind as the tree."

[←53]

Schmidtchen Gerhard: Was den Deutschen heilig ist, Freiburg 1979.

[←54]

The work was created between 1933 and 1943. A trip to Palestine in 1925 had inspired the gifted poet to do so.

[←55]

It can also be found in a nutshell in Psalm 78:46 and 48 Psalm 105:32-34 - hail and locusts appear again in Revelation. Those who do not have the mark on their foreheads are hit there. Hail: Revelation 8:7; Locusts: Revelation 9:3.

[←56]

More on this Zulehner, Paul M.: Cordiality in a heartless world. Courageous Meditations, Ostfildern 2024.

[←57]

SMO is the name for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law.

[←58]

"Ethan the Esrachite" is mentioned twice in the Bible, in 1 Kings 5:11 and as the author of Psalm 89:1, which King David supposedly did not think was good enough and therefore attributed authorship to Ethan.

[←59]

This is the name of a smaller, local spiritual group that has separated itself from the Catholic Church.

[←60]

The penitential psalms 6, 32, 37, 51, 143 are attributed to David, but not 102 and 130, which Augustine also includes in this group of psalms. They have found their way into music. In 1584, for example, Orlando di Lasso composed the Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales. In 1707, Johann S. Bach composed the cantata "From the depths I call, Lord, to you", based on Psalm 130.

[←61]

Moses, the explainers of the origin of the word assume, is derived from the Hebrew "to pull out". However, in Egyptian it can be "from ... born". The German Bible translation I quoted alternates between Moses and Moses. I chose Moses in this book without considering other spellings to be wrong.

[←62]

If you want to find out more about the highly complex history of the origin of Deuteronomy, read the lexigraphic article "Introduction to the Book of Deuteronomy", in: Braulik, Georg: Geliebt und erwahl, Regenburg 2025, 120-129.

[←63]

Sermon Kirill I, 6.3.2022.

[←64]

https://www.vaticannews.va/de/welt/news/2025-09/theologin-konservative-netzwerke-bauen-usa-zu-theo-autokratie-um.html (4.9.2025) - Also: https://www.furche.at/religion/heiligenkreuz-rektor-zur-causa-waldstein-eine-entschuldigung-genuegt-nicht-15933477 (24.9.2025)

[←65]

So the Augustinian monk Martin Luther in his doctrine of justification.

[←66]

If you want to find out more about this, you can find such eco-biblical meditations in the ebook: https://info.zulehner.org/site/pastoraltheologie

[←67]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasser (10.9.2025)

[←68]

Zulehner, Paul M./Fischer, Josef/Huber, Max: Sie werden mein Volk sein. Grundkurs gemeindlichen Glaubens, Düsseldorf 1981.

[←69]

This is also the title of Jean Paul Sartre's play from 1948. For the protagonist Hoederer, all means are right if they are effective. For him, purity is an idea for fakirs and monks. For Hoederer, politics means dipping one's hands in dirt and blood, i.e. getting one's hands dirty. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_schmutzigen_Hände (15.9.2025)

[←70]

„De exhortatione castitatis“ 7,3.

[←71]

The legal term is Leviratsehe.

[←72]

In 1784, Kant wrote the oft-quoted article "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?" There he defines self-inflicted immaturity as follows: "Immaturity is the inability to use one's mind without the guidance of another." In order to overcome immaturity, he calls out to the underage: "Sapere aude!" - Have the courage to use your own mind! (www.deutschestextarchiv.de , 30.9.2025)

[←73]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora_mutantur (29.9.2025)

[←74]

Jesus Sirach can also do things differently: "A woman for sale is respected like sputum, a married woman is a tower of death for her lovers." (Jesus Sirach 26:22) He devalues prostitutes as human beings, which is what they like to do in patriarchal societies that favor prostitution. At the same time, he warns men not to engage in adulterous relationships with married women.

[←75]

Johannes Brahms, A German Requiem, Part 2 [Slow, March-like, B flat minor, 3/4]. The text is from the old Luther Bible. Here is the text version from today's Standard Translation: "All mortals are like grass, and all its beauty is like the flower in the grass. The grass withers and the flower withers; but the word of the Lord endures forever." (1 Peter 1:24f.)

[←76]

Brachmann, Jan: Brahms zwischen Religion und Kunst, in: Wolfgang Sandberger (ed.): Brahms-Handbuch, Stuttgart-Kassel 2009, 129.

[←77]

This summary preface was probably preceded by an editor of the book.

[←78]

Rilke, Rainer M.: Die Gedichte. After the edition of the complete works by Ernst Zinn, Insel Verlag 1957. Das Buch von der Armut und vom Tode, 1903.

[←79]

The prophet Nahum describes the people of Nineveh as "dense thorny bushes" and "tangled winds". They "will be burned like dry chaff; nothing is left". (Nahum 1:10)

[←80]

The expression comes from legal language: God acts like a plaintiff who takes his people to court. The charges are serious: no fidelity (Heb. 'emet), no love (Hebrew chesed), no knowledge of God (Hebrew da'at Elohim).

[←81]

[A little more moving. G flat major, 3/4]

[←82]

The Early High German "empfahe" means "receive" today. Today's Standard Translation reads: "Therefore, brothers and sisters, endure patiently until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer also waits for the precious fruit of the earth, he waits patiently for it until the early rain or the latter rain falls. You should be just as patient." (James 5:7f.)

[←83]

Also: "You shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks for yourself with the first fruits of the wheat harvest and the feast of the harvest at the turn of the year." (Exodus 34:22)

[←84]

The poem is dated 26.9.1899, with the location Berlin-Schmargendorf. Here is the first of three verses.

[←85]

The poem is dated 26.9.1899, with the location Berlin-Schmargendorf. Here are the second and third verses.

[←86]

Augustinus: Tractatus in Ioannis Evangelium, Tractatus XXVIII, Nr. 3.

[←87]

Tiger, Theobald, in: Die Weltbühne, 8 (1930), 289

[←88]

"Philippica" is named after the famous speeches of the Greek orator Demosthenes against King Philip II of Macedonia.

[←89]

Mann, Thomas: Josef und seine Brüder, Frankfurt am Main, 72007.

[←90]

Heine, Heinrich: Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen, Hamburg 1844. - https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/heine/wintmrch/wintmr01.html

[←91]

Dangerous as well as feared are: fire bacterium, olive fruit fly, olive scale aphid, cushion-shaped fire sponge, tubercle disease.

[←92]

The beating of the fruit with poles was already judged disparagingly by Pliny the Elder (23/24-79). Pliny Secundus (Pliny the Elder): Naturalis Historia 15, 11-12

[←93]

https://pfarre-taufkirchen-pram.dioezese-linz.at/dl/kkprJKJKMloLlJqx4KOJK/1gN_Rezept_fuer_einen_Bibelkuchen_neu_pdf. - Similar: https://www.rewe.de/rezepte/bibelkuchen/?ecid=sea_bing_vs_nonbr_rewe%7cco%7cenga%7cn%7crdk-nb-dsa-index_kategorie-rezepte_text-ad_331681563_1164383052170761_kw:rezepte_mt:b_cr:_d:c&msclkid=1e2c0607df2e1e17813d6f22bee6848d (25.11.2025)