fire,
noun Fire is one of the most frequently employed
metaphors in both the Hebrew and the Greek portions of the Bible,
twenty-five times in the book of Revelation alone. The fascination
of early people with fire is not hard to understand. Before Joseph
Priestly in England and Antoine Lavoisier in France isolated oxygen
in the late eighteenth century, fire was a mystery. As a natural
disaster and as a means of waging war, fire could be terrifying. As
the only source of light and heat, other than the sun, fire was also
a necessity for survival.
In ancient times,
fire was a part of religious ritual in the burning of incense,
grain, and portions of animal carcasses. The burning of ritual
offerings, thuo in Greek, provided the basis for the
metaphors translated into English as patience1 and lust.2
Even in the modern
world, fire holds a certain fascination. Brush fires, forest fires,
and chemical fires can be terrifying, especially as they threaten to
destroy people’s homes and businesses. Fire continues to be one of
the horrors of war. At the same time, many people find comfort in a
campfire or a fire in a fireplace. The flames of candles give a
meal more a sense of romance or gentility than artificial light can
provide.
The English word fire may be
etymologically related to the Greek word pyr. Most of our
fire-related words ─ such as pyre, pyrotechnic, and pyromaniac ─ use
the Greek root. Pyr is the equivalent of the Hebrew esh.
The two biblical words for fire have the same connotations and
appear in the same kind of metaphorical expressions.
Fire used literally
They
shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over
the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. [Exodus
12:8]
The sons
of the priest Aaron shall put fire on the altar and arrange
wood on the fire. Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the parts,
with the head and the suet, on the wood that is on the fire
on the altar. [Leviticus 1:7-8]
Aaron
shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar
before the Lord,
and two handfuls of crushed sweet incense, and he shall bring it
inside the curtain and put the incense on the fire before the
Lord.
[Leviticus 16:12-13]
Hazael
asked, "Why does my lord weep?" Elisha answered, "Because I know the
evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their
fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the
sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant
women." [II Kings 8:12]
A man
said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he
suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into
the water.” [Matthew 17:15]
When they
had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat
down together, Peter sat among them. [Luke 22:55]
Fire useD metaphorically
Fire identified
with God
For the Lord
your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. [Deuteronomy
4:24]
Indeed
our God is a consuming fire. [Hebrews 12:29]
Fire as an
indication of God’s presence
There the
angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked,
and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. [Exodus 3:2]
The Lord
went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them
along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them
light, so that they might travel by day and by night. [Exodus
13:21]
Now Mount
Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord
had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the
smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. [Exodus
19:18]
Then the
angel of the Lord
reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched
the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from
the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the
angel of the Lord
vanished from his sight. [Judges 6:21]
As they
continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses
of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a
whirlwind into heaven. [II Kings 2:11]
Divided
tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested
on each of them. [Acts 2:3]
God
declares that I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on
the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. [Acts
2:19]
For it is
indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,
and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord
Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire. [II Thessalonians 1:6-8]
Fire as an
indication of God’s displeasure
Then the
Lord
rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord
out of heaven. [Genesis 19:24]
Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not
revoke the punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with
threshing sledges of iron. So I will send a fire on the house
of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad. [Amos
1:3-4]
Just as
the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it
be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and
they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all
evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [Matthew
13:40-42]
If your
hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to
enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire. [Mark 9:43]
If we
willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the
truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful
prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume
the adversaries. [Hebrews 10:26-27]
And the
devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire
and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they
will be tormented day and night forever and ever. [Revelation
20:10]
Fire related to
human attributes assigned to God
Wait for
me, says the Lord
,
for the day when I arise as a witness. For my decision is to gather
nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation,
all the heat of my anger; for in the fire of my
passion all the earth shall be consumed. [Zephaniah 3:8]
In my
distress I called upon the Lord
;
to my God I cried for help. . . Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals
flamed forth from him. [Psalm 18:6, 8]
His
eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many
diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself.
[Revelation 19:12]
Fire as
purification or testing
In the
whole land, says the Lord
,
two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one-third shall be left
alive. And I will put this third into the fire, refine them
as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will
call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, "They are my
people"; and they will say, "The Lord
is
our God." [Zechariah 13:8-9]
Who can
endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For
he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will
sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the
descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they
present offerings to the Lord
in
righteousness. [Malachi 3:2-3]
John
answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one
who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the
thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his
threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the
chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." [Luke 3:16-17]
The work
of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it,
because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire
will test what sort of work each has done. [I Corinthians 3:13]
In this
you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer
various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith ─ being more
precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire
─ may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus
Christ is revealed. [I Peter 1:6-7]
Fire as human
emotion
I was
silent and still; I held my peace to no avail; my distress grew
worse, my heart became hot within me. While I mused, the fire
burned; then I spoke with my tongue. [Psalm 39:2-3]
They are
kindled like an oven, their heart burns within them; all night their
anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
[Hosea 7:6]
Set me as
a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong
as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of
fire, a raging flame. [Song of Solomon 8:6]
Fire associated
with offensive people
They
surrounded me like bees; they blazed like a fire of thorns;
in the name of the Lord
I
cut them off! [Psalm 118:12]
Scoundrels concoct evil, and their speech is like a scorching
fire.
[Proverbs 16:27]
As
charcoal is to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a
quarrelsome person for kindling strife. [Proverbs 26:21]
If your
enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them
something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning
coals on their heads. [Romans 12:20]
So also
the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How
great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue
is a fire. [James 3:5-6]
Even a quick look at
the fire metaphors in each of the above sections will suggest that
the followers of Jesus drew on Hebrew imagery in telling the story
about the impact of Jesus on their lives. They presented Jesus as a
second Moses by saying that tongues of fire had affirmed the
authenticity of Jesus just as fire had revealed the divine presence
in the life of Moses. The Jesus followers also drew on the Hebrew
Scripture for the fire metaphors indicating the nature of God’s
displeasure and the ideas of purification and testing. The
continued use of the fire metaphor was one way Christians laid claim
to being a legitimate expression of the Hebrew tradition.
Although Christians
have always understood how fire works as a figure of speech, they
have had a tendency to take literally references to fire in
connection with stories they take to be historical. Many also have
had a literal understanding of fire identified with hell3
and Satan.4 For the past two hundred years, however, a
critical approach to the Bible has suggested that these passages may
have more power when fire is recognized as a metaphor for an
experience of the divine presence or for the present-life result of
destructive behavior than when they are taken literally. Fire as a
description of torment in an existence after death may have had a
positive effect on some people’s conduct, but over the centuries all
too few Christians have been frightened sufficiently by the prospect
of eternal fire to mold their lives according to the teachings of
Jesus.
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- For
patience, see From Literal to Literary, p. 186.
- For lust,
see From Literal to Literary, p. 165.
- For hell,
see From Literal to Literary, pp. 122-123.
- For Satan,
see From Literal to Literary, pp. 221-224