What is Scripture?

h/t The Very Rev. Fr. Paul Nadim Tarazi

In their Hebrew Bible canonical order, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, major prophets amongst the latter prophets, sequentially instruct us as to what scripture is.

Scripture is the unchanging instruction of YHWH unto life. Scripture is superior to soothsayers and seers. Scripture repeatedly reorients a disoriented and crooked generation back onto the road of righteousness. Scripture is not for private reading in your head, rather for public reading aloud, that perhaps the people hearing will turn away from their evil ways. Scripture cannot be destroyed by earthly fire produced by the will of man. Scripture is a baton passed from one prophet to the next. Scripture is to be eaten whole. Scripture is sweet.

For YHWH spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their fear, nor be with dread. YHWH of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. He will be as a holy abode, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of stumbling over, To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; They shall fall and be broken, Be snared and taken.” Bind up the testimony, Seal the instruction among my disciples. And I will wait on YHWH, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him. Here am I and the children whom YHWH has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel From YHWH of hosts, Who dwells in Mount Zion. And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the instruction and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

isaiah 8:11-end

Now it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from YHWH, saying: “Take a scroll of writing and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote on a scroll of writing, from Jeremiah’s mouth, all the words of YHWH which He had spoken to him. And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am confined, I cannot go into the house of YHWH. You go, therefore, and read from the scroll which you have written at my instruction, the words of YHWH, in the hearing of the people in YHWH’s house on the day of fasting. And you shall also read them in the hearing of all Judah who come from their cities. It may be that they will present their supplication before YHWH, and everyone will turn from his evil way. For great is the anger and the fury that YHWH has pronounced against this people.” And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading-aloud from the scroll the words of YHWH in YHWH’s house. Now it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before YHWH to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem. Then Baruch read-aloud from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of YHWH, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court at the entry of the New Gate of YHWH’s house, in the hearing of all the people. When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of YHWH from the scroll, he then went down to the king’s house, into the scribe’s chamber; and there all the princes were sitting—Elishama the scribe, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor, Gemariah the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes. Then Michaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read-aloud the scroll in the hearing of the people. Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, “Take in your hand the scroll from which you have read in the hearing of the people, and come.” So Baruch the son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand and came to them. And they said to him, “Sit down now, and read it in our hearing.” So Baruch read it in their hearing. Now it happened, when they had heard all the words, that they looked in fear from one to another, and said to Baruch, “We will surely tell the king of all these words.” And they asked Baruch, saying, “Tell us now, how did you write all these words—with his mouth?” So Baruch answered them, “He proclaimed with his mouth all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink in the scroll.” Then the princes said to Baruch, “Go and hide, you and Jeremiah; and let no one know where you are.” And they went to the king, into the court; but they stored the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the hearing of the king. So the king sent Jehudi to bring the scroll, and he took it from Elishama the scribe’s chamber. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning on the hearth before him. And it happened, when Jehudi had read three or four columns, that the king cut it with the scribe’s knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor did they tear their garments, the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words. Nevertheless Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah implored the king not to burn the scroll; but he would not listen to them. And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king’s son, Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but YHWH hid them. Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words which Baruch had written from Jeremiah’s mouth, the word of YHWH came to Jeremiah, saying: “Take yet another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, ‘Thus says YHWH: “You have burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and cause man and beast to cease from here?’ ” Therefore thus says YHWH concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. I will punish him, his seed, and his slaves for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but they did not heed.” Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it from Jeremiah’s mouth all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And besides, there were added to them many similar words.

Now it shall be, when you have finished reading-aloud this scroll, that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. Then you shall say, Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her. And they shall be weary.

jeremiah 36; 51:63,64

Moreover He said to me, “son of the groundling, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll. And He said to me, “Son of the groundling, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.” So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

ezekiel 3:1-3