This picture was created at the request of one of FOE’s monthly supporters. In this image I tried to bring together two uses of “צְרוֹר” or “bundle / parcel” from 1 Samuel 25:29 and Job 14:17.
In 1 Samuel, Abigail blesses David, saying that YHWH will keep the life of David “in the bundle of the living,” even in the face of his enemies. In Job 14:14-17, Job muses over what a theoretical “life after death” might look like…it would be a life marked by reconciled relationship between God and His human creatures (v.15) grounded in the forgiveness / removal of human sin and rebellion (v.16-17, v. 17 speaking of sin having been sealed up in a bundle and removed). In verse 18, Job slips back into despair in the face of the ceaseless march of entropy, but his glimpses of a possible life beyond death in v.14-17 remain a glimmer of hope in the midst of darkness and are–for the disciple of Christ–an anticipation of what is to come for those who are united to the True Man who does, in fact, die and live again (v.14).
When we bring these two passages together–linked by the concept of the “bundle,” what we see is a hope that YHWH will bind the lives of His people in a bundle of the living, even as He will reconcile His people (a people who have passed through death into new life) to Himself by binding up and taking away their sin in a bundle. Ultimately, of course, we see this “dual bundling” achieved in the crucified and risen Jesus….
Indeed, Jesus Himself not only bears, but also becomes the “bundle” in whom are bound the lives of all the truly living ones (He Himself being, the Living One), even as He is the “bundle” in whom are bound up and removed all the transgressions of His people (1 Peter 2:24). And as the One who passes through death into new life, He is the one in whom alone our sins can indeed be bundled up and removed, even as we–in Him–are preserved through death to “live again” (Job 14:14), bound securely with ligaments of the Spirit in the Body of Him in whom we live and who is our life.
