Finding Meaning in the Pentateuch Christianity Today A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Sailhamer- The Meaning of the Pentateuch Introduction (pp. 34-37) Poems in the Pentateuch • The poems are something like the songs in a Hollywood musical. They thematize what the author intends the reader to draw from the narratives. The epilogues return the narrative to its status quo.” (34) • “The focal point of each of these major poems is the promise of a coming messianic king. The three poems in Genesis 49:1, Numbers 24:14, and Deuteronomy 31:29 have an almost identical introduction. In each introduction the central narrative figure (Jacob, Balaam, Moses) calls an audience together ‘in the last days.’ The phrase ‘in the last days’ is found only one other place in the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy 4:40.” (36) • “The phrase ‘in the last days’ occurs fourteen times in the Hebrew Bible… It is about the days of the coming messianic king. The same three poems (Gen 48-49; Num 23-24; Deut 32-33) also have considerable cross-referencing between them.” (36) • “What is said about the king in N...