Ecclesial Solidarity in the Pauline Corpus. James T. Hughes

308. The same assembly to which 1 Maccabees 2:56 referred, Numbers 13:26.

309. Philo, Abr. 20; Philo, Ios. 73; Philo, Decal. 39; Philo, Spec. 1.55; 2.44; Philo, Prob. 6, 138.

310. Philo, Deus 111; Somn. 2.187.

311. Philo, Aet. 13.

312. Deut 4:10; 9:10; 18:16. This assembly, of course, features in Exodus, although it is not translated with ἐκκλησία.

313. Knox, Selected Works, 24.

314. McConville, Deuteronomy, 105–6, notes that only Moses stood before the Lord at Horeb.

315. See McConville, Deuteronomy, 131–32, for the foundational nature of this assembly.

316. Deut 23:2–4, 9.

317. Du Toit, “Paulus Oecumenicus,” 135. See also McConville, Deuteronomy, 131.

318. Josh 9:2 (Eng: 8:35).

319. Judg 20:2; 21:5, 8.

320. Ezra 10:1, 8, 12, 14.

321. Neh 8:2, 17. Duggan, Covenant Renewal, 85, notes the emphasis on community here, emphasized seven times in these verses with five different expressions.

322. Duggan, Covenant Renewal, 104–5.

323. Ps 21:26 (Eng: 22:25); 39:10 (Eng: 40:10). In context, perhaps also Psalm 21:23 (Eng: 22:22) can be included here, as well as the assembly of the many of Psalm 34:18 (Eng: 35:18). A similar usage can be detected in some of the Sirach references noted earlier.

324. Ps 25:12 (Eng: 26:12); Ps 67:27 (Eng: 68:28). See also Psalm 149:1, the assembly of the saints. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 648, talk of a cultic community here.

325. Ps 106:32 (Eng: 107:32). Note the parallel here with the elders. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 108, argue that the elders here are not an official body.

326. The same can be said of Proverbs 5:14 and Job 30:28, which may have a more localized assembly in view.

327. Joel 2:16.

328. Whether or not all the men of Israel is to be taken as an expansion of v. 1, or whether those listed in v. 1 are counted as all the men of Israel is not essential here, as either way this is not an actual assembly of all Israel. O’Brien notes this representative use, of a “congregation of tribal leaders, or patriarchal chiefs” in 1 Kings 8 (“Church,” 90). See also Gray, I & II Kings, 207 who regards the presence of tribal representatives at the ceremony as possible.

329. See also 2 Chr 6:3, 12, 13; 7:8.

330. 1 Chr 28:2, 8; 29:1, 10, 20. This assembly is not comprehensive (28:1), yet functions in 20:8 as all Israel, the assembly of the Lord.

331. 2 Chr 1:3, 5.

332. This assembly is clearly not comprehensive, as it sends out for the “rest of our brothers.”

333. 2 Chr 10:3 may be an exception to the general pattern of representative assemblies, as there are no indications that the assembly is representative. However, the logistics of gathering all Israel, and the way in which they can be sent away and reconvened in three days (10:5), may indicate that it was functionally representative.

334. See also 2 Chr 20:14.

335. 2 Chr 20:4.

336. 2 Chr 23:2. A similar dynamic is at work in 2 Chr 29:23, 28, 31, 32; 30:2, 4, where a more limited assembly is in view.

337. 2 Chr 30:2, 4, 13, 17, 23–25.

338. 2 Chr 30:10–11.

339. Examples of a tendency to refer back to the wilderness wanderings in general can be seen in 1 Maccabees 2:56 and Sirach 46:7, which both refer back to Numbers 13:26.

340. 2 Chr 30:6.

341. 2 Chr 30:26.

342. See also Japhet, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 913–15, who notes that these chapters contain material not in the 2 Kings account, and highlights the frequency of קָהָל in the Hezekiah periscope (928). Both these observations indicate the importance of Horeb, as Hezekiah’s idealized kingship climaxes in a restoration of the assembly.

343. Ezra 2:64; Neh 7:66. Giles, What on Earth, 234, sees here references to Israel as “a religio-political entity,” arguing that the note of assembly is absent. I think it is better to see these two references as a record of the company of the traveling exiles as they returned, a company that was assembled as it traveled.

344. Philo, Leg. 3.8, 81; Philo, Post. 177; Philo, Ebr. 213; Philo, Conf. 144; Philo, Migr. 69; Philo, Somn. 2.184. Implicit references: Philo, Mut. 205; Philo, Virt. 108. Spec. 1.325 builds more general applications to assemblies from Deuteronomy 23.

345. See Schmidt, “ἐκκλησία,” 527 for the four occasions when the translation is from the stem קהל. See Johnston, Doctrine, 36 for a sample summary of usage.