This illumination appears at the beginning of the book of Joshua, which reminds the reader that Moses did not reach the Promised Land and that Joshua took up the task of leading the Israelites out of the wilderness across the Jordan River. Their progress toward the distant green valley is symbolized by a parade of fragments from the Ten Commandments illumination, and by a gold arched stamp representing the Ark of the Covenant. Hazards encumber their journey: the river is filled with drowned bodies; lions watch from the cliff tops; a scarab beetle seems to want to lead them in the wrong direction. Spiritual temptations threaten: you will recognize the golden calf and an Egyptian eye signifying the false gods of Egypt.
Donald Jackson also represented Egypt in the illumination’s border, taking the design “from a frieze on an Egyptian burial tomb.” (Susan Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, vol. 3, p. 14)
For this final blog post of the 2013-2014 academic year, as we send best wishes to UP graduates, the library is pleased to provide a reflection on this illumination from Theology professor Michael Cameron:
Each of us over the course of a lifetime hears, speaks, reads, and writes millions of words. From somewhere deep within they well up to help us in ways both ordinary and extraordinary, from making a grocery list to comforting a dying parent. From that same deep reservoir of human words God’s covenant drew a special few to express divine love, to teach truth, and to blaze a trail of wisdom. In order to learn and obey God’s will, while Israel was forbidden to fashion images of God they were commanded to know words of God. No wonder that Jewish tradition through the ages has seen the Ten Commandments (literally in Hebrew, “the Ten Words”) as little glowing lanterns of God’s presence (see Psalm 119). But becoming “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22) was and is an enormous challenge. Entering the Promised Land under Joshua, the people formed by God’s wisdom were tossed by huge waves of temptation that threatened to drown the words of the covenant, especially the words forbidding love for other gods. In our world of endless texts and tweets and wooing words of enticement, what waves still batter the covenant commands about faithful love?