16 February 2024
Pageau's book is laid out in tiny little short chapters for a very good reason. The material points you to a radical shift in mythology, a completely different worldview. It takes time to absorb that. If you buzzed through it in just a few day, I would suspect you didn't understand it.
His first long chapter (47) deals with implications of these new mental associations in the context of the big blessing and curse ceremony on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, early in the Conquest under Joshua. You have a representation of a pillar of blessing and an axle of curse, a warning to build space and purpose through the Law or to suffer time and futility under the curse. Pageau notes pointedly that God does not enjoy contradicting Himself, but He certainly will, and did with the Exile. The ocean of futility is there for a reason.
The one primary reason a law code was so difficult for Israel, aside from their being the most obstreperous of all nations on the earth, was that they kept seeing the Covenant as restrictions, not as a privilege. The boundaries were a crown of glory, a marker of Eternity. Nothing could have done Israel more good; all else is a decline into absurdity.
But this time, Pageau does a better job of connecting the number seven to the Covenant. In the next chapter, he notes that the cycle of seven is fundamental to resetting things to their natural state on a regular cycle. There's the seventh day of rest, the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee. He doesn't mention it, but the Jubilee is not unique to Israel, though perhaps the structure is. We have a long history of jubilees in the Ancient Near East as a standard royal policy that was understood as absolutely necessary to restore justice and juice the economy. It normally happened whenever a new ruler came on the throne. All debts were declared void and at least some slaves were set free.
Pageau does mention how risky this can be, but still a necessary element in our mortal existence, as it expresses something of God's divine moral character. But it's very easy to overturn space with time. He cites the example of Jericho. The city was a sore spot with Jehovah, and He commanded the Israeli troops to march around the city to symbolize the destruction of the turning wheel of time. The time for the end of Jericho had come; the symbolism was a weapon. Time for a Jericho Jubilee.
In Chapter 49, Pageau paints the image of the Sabbath as a covenant between space and time. Neither encroaches on the other; there is no ongoing war in which one might destroy the other. If you can understand the economic necessity of a jubilee, then you can understand how the Sabbath prevents human economic activity from locking into the ruthless oppressive power of those who seek wealth -- such people will always be with us. Besides, it prevents economic oligarchies from challenging the power of the royal family. Nobody in their right mind wants to endure the tyranny of middle class materialists. Humanity would perish too soon were it not for forced jubilees and sabbaths.
But of course, the stated purpose of the Sabbath cycle is to remind humans of Eternity. It's a periodic time to stop and contemplate mortality and divine revelation. It brings us back to the recognition that the Creator is the only One who really understands Creation. All work makes people forget who has provided for their survival.
There are pillars in real space and time, and then there is the pillar of transcendent truth -- two different things on different levels. Pageau refers to the transcendent as a "meta-space". It gives all earthly space and construction meaning, and requires the principle of balancing between time and space. The only One who can help us keep the balance is the Creator. The greatest mercy of God is forcing humans to recognize they need Him.
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