Tag Archives: Moses

Deuteronomy 3: Visions of a Future Land

James Tissot, Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar

Deuteronomy 3: 1-17 Preparing the Way for the Conflict across the River

When we headed up the road to Bashan, King Og of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, for battle at Edrei. ² The LORD said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you, along with his people and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.” ³ So the LORD our God also handed over to us King Og of Bashan and all his people. We struck him down until not a single survivor was left. ⁴ At that time we captured all his towns; there was no citadel that we did not take from them– sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ⁵ All these were fortress towns with high walls, double gates, and bars, besides a great many villages. ⁶ And we utterly destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon, in each city utterly destroying men, women, and children. ⁷ But all the livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves.

⁸ So at that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land beyond the Jordan, from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon ⁹ (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir),¹⁰ all the towns of the tableland, the whole of Gilead, and all of Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og’s kingdom in Bashan. ¹¹ (Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. In fact his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide.) ¹² As for the land that we took possession of at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the territory north of Aroer, that is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, as well as half the hill country of Gilead with its towns, ¹³ and I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, Og’s kingdom. (The whole region of Argob: all that portion of Bashan used to be called a land of Rephaim; ¹⁴ Jair the Manassite acquired the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and he named them– that is, Bashan– after himself, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.) ¹⁵ To Machir I gave Gilead. ¹⁶ And to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the Wadi Arnon, with the middle of the wadi as a boundary, and up to the Jabbok, the wadi being boundary of the Ammonites; ¹⁷ the Arabah also, with the Jordan and its banks, from Chinnereth down to the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, with the lower slopes of Pisgah on the east.

At the end of the previous chapter I spent a lot of time talking about the command of the LORD to the people of Israel to wipe out the people and take possession of the land of King Sihon. In chapter three we see the completion of this theme with the people now taking possession of the land of King Og of Bashan and the occupation of the land of the Amorites and the elimination of the people and the threat of these two kings. There are some differences in this and the previous narrative, where King Sihon was offered terms of peace which, by God’s hardening of the king’s heart, King Sihon and his people refuse the terms of peace which are never offered to King Og as he and his people draw up battle lines against these Israelite invaders. There is a tension in Deuteronomy between the way that the people of Moab and the descendent of Esau are treated and the manner in which the Amorites will be, between the people who are to be the neighbor and those who are to be the enemy. Within Deuteronomy things that may evoke question are given definitive answer, the Ammonites are not the enemy but the Amorites are and for the Deuteronomist what is important is the obedience of the people. It is obedience that is the life and death issue for the people of Deuteronomy to understand. It is obedience that will separate them from their ancestors who failed to enter the Promised Land and who died in their sojourn in the desert. They are called to hear and obey the LORD and those the LORD is speaking through. If we put aside for a moment the trouble that this passage may cause modern followers of the LORD for its practice of genocide, at least within the text, and look at what is happening to the people who are being prepared to cross the Jordan, who after a lost generation are preparing to take possession of the Promised Land. The things that caused the previous generation to turn away, the well fortified cities and the presence of people bigger and stronger than themselves are now proving to be insignificant obstacles as they quickly overcome the ‘giant king’ Og and the fortresses with high walls and double gates. The doubts and fears of the past are being overcome through the demonstration of the power of the people in the present. The close relationship between God’s action of handing over Og and his lands is paired with the reality that there are real armies and fights that the people engage in, ‘we struck him down, we did not leave a single survivor, and we captured all his towns.’ As the people in the story follow they are seeing the concrete ways in which the LORD is working through them in this fight. As they stand at the edge of the Promised Land experiencing the first spoils of the conflict to come, they will find that they have experienced the LORD’s power precisely in the midst of their own perceived lack of strength. They can see in their own triumph the triumph of the LORD. And that in their own obedience they can see the blessing as the previous generation bore the curse of disobedience.

Deuteronomy 3: 18-22 the First Portion of the Land

¹⁸ At that time, I charged you as follows: “Although the LORD your God has given you this land to occupy, all your troops shall cross over armed as the vanguard of your Israelite kin. ¹⁹ Only your wives, your children, and your livestock– I know that you have much livestock– shall stay behind in the towns that I have given to you. ²⁰ When the LORD gives rest to your kindred, as to you, and they too have occupied the land that the LORD your God is giving them beyond the Jordan, then each of you may return to the property that I have given to you.” ²¹ And I charged Joshua as well at that time, saying: “Your own eyes have seen everything that the LORD your God has done to these two kings; so the LORD will do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross. ²² Do not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you.”

This portion receives a longer telling in Numbers 32, where the tribes of Reuben, Dan and the half tribe of Manasseh receive their inheritance on the eastern side of the Jordan River. The story alludes to what is explicit in the narrative in Numbers, that the people of Reuben and Dan raised more cattle which require plains with larger amounts of feed than the sheep that many of the other tribes predominantly raise. It is true that different types of livestock require different types of property which is why Bandera, Texas where my family lives in the hill country is more frequently used for raising goats and sheep while the vast areas of plains in Texas typically are used for cattle. It is interesting that there is no reason given why the half tribe of Manasseh (the two half tribes of Joseph’s sons which were both large were known by the son of Joseph’s name rather than the other tribes bearing the names of Joseph’s eleven brothers) is also given possession on the east side of the Jordan, but the primary concern of this and it’s parallel in Numbers is that the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh now that they have their land will not feel compelled to fight on behalf of the other ten and a half tribes. The agreement is set that the warriors of these two and a half tribes are to be the vanguard, the troops at the front of the fight once the people are ready to cross the Jordan under Joshua and carry on the fight to take possession of the Promised Land. The people are to see the way the LORD has acted in their own time as well as the stories they have from their parent’s generation to see the way the LORD has provided for them up to this point and will continue to provide for them as the go forward to take possession of the land.

Deuteronomy 3: 23-29 Glimpses of the Promised Land

²³ At that time, too, I entreated the LORD, saying: ²⁴ “O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your might; what god in heaven or on earth can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours! ²⁵ Let me cross over to see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and the Lebanon.” ²⁶ But the LORD was angry with me on your account and would not heed me. The LORD said to me, “Enough from you! Never speak to me of this matter again! ²⁷ Go up to the top of Pisgah and look around you to the west, to the north, to the south, and to the east. Look well, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. ²⁸ But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because it is he who shall cross over at the head of this people and who shall secure their possession of the land that you will see.” ²⁹ So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Moses, as the leader of the people, has often stood between the people and God. There have been times throughout the story where God was ready to turn God’s back on the people and Moses would call upon God to be the God who would fulfill God’s end of the covenant even in the midst of the people’s continuing unfaithfulness. Moses enjoys a close relationship with God and has borne the weight of leadership for the people throughout this journey but will not be there to cross the Jordan. Moses again appeals to God, knowing God’s verdict from earlier in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 1.37) that Moses will not enter the land and yet as Moses has done before he calls upon God to change God’s mind. This time the LORD will not change course, Moses will not enter the land and Moses is commanded not to pray about this again but is, in concession, given a preview of the land. Climbing to the top of Pisgah, Moses is able to look out and see from a high point the lands that the people will enter. This is a part of the transition of leadership and power from Moses to Joshua. Moses is the one who has stood between the people and God, who led them out of slavery, through the wilderness and to the edge of the Promised Land but Moses is now linked with the disobedience of the previous generation. Even though Moses may not have been the one who was disobedient he is pulled down in the weight of the disobedience of the people of that generation. Moses’ role now becomes to lift up the leadership of Joshua, to encourage and strengthen him for the conflict ahead and to pass on one final exhortation to the people so that they may know how to live as the people of God in a new day. Moses bears the cost of the disobedience of the previous generation and now he must charge the new generation to choose the blessings of obedience and not the curse of disobedience. Blessing and curses, life and death, prosperity and famine lie in the choices the people must make in his absence. Until now he has been their leader, their judge, their advocate and the one who could stand between them and the LORD. Now the people must take on these promises and the possibilities of new life for themselves.

Deuteronomy 1: Retelling The Story For A New Time

1 Reply

Moses Speaks To His People at Moab, Charles Mosley, 1747

Deuteronomy 1: 1-8 Retelling the Story

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan– in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. ² (By the way of Mount Seir it takes eleven days to reach Kadesh-barnea from Horeb.) ³ In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the LORD had commanded him to speak to them. ⁴ This was after he had defeated King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei. ⁵ Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this law as follows:

⁶ The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Resume your journey, and go into the hill country of the Amorites as well as into the neighboring regions– the Arabah, the hill country, the Shephelah, the Negeb, and the seacoast– the land of the Canaanites and the Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ⁸ See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land that I swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.”

I was sitting with some of my colleagues earlier this week when someone asked, “Why do you write on things that can be gloomy or less interesting, you spent over a year going through Jeremiah and now you are going to do Deuteronomy. You are about to get married, why not write on something like Song of Solomon.” And my answer was simply I think there is wisdom in going back to these books that as Christians we don’t spend a lot of time in, that rarely appear, for example, in the Revised Common Lectionary, and that those who do spend time with them do it from a moralistic perspective and may be selectively choosing parts that fit their idea of what is important. I also think there is a need for understanding the God of covenant which is the background for the stories of the gospels and the New Testament as a whole. As a person who understands God primarily as a gracious and loving God I also need to be able to wrestle with the multiple pictures of God that are painted by the numerous authors of scripture. I think it is also important to walk with the God who is present in these stories because it is too easy for us as modern people to reduce God to ideas, God is love or God is the unmoved mover, or God is omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing, etc. I think without continually going back to the narratives that we have we run the risk of falling quickly into H. Richard Niebuhr’s statements about American Christianity, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.” (Niebuhr, 1988, p. 193) I could easily write on the gospels or Paul’s letters but I also spend time here because it is a part of scripture I don’t know well and I trust that although it may not be the easiest place to engage the story of God, it remains important.

Also for our Jewish ancestors Deuteronomy is at the very heart of their understanding of God, one of the five books of the Torah, and in many ways a distillation of the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. It is a book which contains the central Jewish command, the Shema, which we will see in chapter 6. Going into the book of Deuteronomy requires me to step into another perspective and another time, and perhaps I like the Psalmist can learn to meditate on this ‘second law’ and find delight. As Psalm 1 states “but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1.2) The word Deuteronomy comes from a mistranslation and the name literally means second law, and it is a second telling of the story and a highlighting of certain key portions of the law. The narrator of Deuteronomy places these words in the mouth of Moses as the people is almost ready to finally enter the promised land after their generation long sojourn in the wilderness. It is the end of Moses journey and the passing of the torch from Moses who led them out of Egypt to Joshua and the new generation who will move into the promise land.

Deuteronomy is not a neutral retelling of history, nor is any of scripture, but it is told in a way to make certain things clear. It is a book that talks about the faithful covenant God who has journeyed with the people from Egypt and will continue to journey with the people. It expounds and interprets history through the lens of God’s covenant faithfulness. Deuteronomy begins by telling the story of God and interpreting the people’s identity in light of that story. Deuteronomy narrates Israel’s identity at this crucial moment as they stand at the transition between sojourners and residents of the promised land, a generation ago they understood themselves as slaves in Egypt and that identity does not easily pass away, but now they are the chosen people called to live in a covenant with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It is an identity that they have failed to live into in the past and it is an identity that they will not easily shoulder in the future but for Deuteronomy their lives and future are at stake as they place the people there in the valley hearing Moses tell about their past so that they may live into their present identity.

Deuteronomy 1: 9-18

⁹ At that time I said to you, “I am unable by myself to bear you. ¹⁰ The LORD your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. ¹¹ May the LORD, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times more and bless you, as he has promised you! ¹² But how can I bear the heavy burden of your disputes all by myself? ¹³ Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders.” ¹⁴ You answered me, “The plan you have proposed is a good one.” ¹⁵ So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and reputable individuals, and installed them as leaders over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officials, throughout your tribes. ¹⁶ I charged your judges at that time: “Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. ¹⁷ You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. Any case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.” ¹⁸ So I charged you at that time with all the things that you should do.

Moses is characterized as the type of leader who takes everything on his shoulders and the people follow, but this type of leadership not only burns out the leader dealing with every issue that comes up but it also prevents the people from taking ownership for their own calling. Now in the ancient world where most people were not literate and relied on kings, priests, and judges to be not only the interpreters but the readers of the law it was crucial to have people entrusted to this. This may refer back to both Exodus 18 and Numbers 11 which refer to two separate events, but the character of Moses in the retelling is interesting. In Exodus 18 it is Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who sees Moses spending all his time adjudicating minor manners and says to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone.”(Exodus 11.18) and so it is at his father-in-laws urging that Moses appoints judges. In Numbers 11 the people are complaining and Moses reaches his breaking point saying, “Why have you treated your servant so badly?…I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.” (Numbers 11.11, 14) Now it is Moses who appeals to God from exhaustion, frustration and in desperation looking for assistance and God provides a portion of the spirit that is on Moses and give it to these seventy elders. In Deuteronomy Moses is the wise and trusted leader and Moses comes up with the idea and the people respond, “the plan you have proposed is a good one.” The story perhaps begins with the appointing of judges because of the critical nature having good judges will play in the story as it goes forward. Living justly requires a set of good and competent judges and a strong and impartial legal system which cares for the poor and the rich, the citizen and the immigrant is critical to living out their identity as the people of God.

Moses by Victorvictori, permission granted by author through WikiCommons

Deuteronomy 1: 19-33

¹⁹ Then, just as the LORD our God had ordered us, we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, until we reached Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰ I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. ²¹ See, the LORD your God has given the land to you; go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you; do not fear or be dismayed.”

²² All of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us to explore the land for us and bring back a report to us regarding the route by which we should go up and the cities we will come to.” ²³ The plan seemed good to me, and I selected twelve of you, one from each tribe. ²⁴ They set out and went up into the hill country, and when they reached the Valley of Eshcol they spied it out ²⁵ and gathered some of the land’s produce, which they brought down to us. They brought back a report to us, and said, “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.”

²⁶ But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; ²⁷ you grumbled in your tents and said, “It is because the LORD hates us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸ Where are we headed? Our kindred have made our hearts melt by reporting, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we; the cities are large and fortified up to heaven! We actually saw there the offspring of the Anakim!'” ²⁹ I said to you, “Have no dread or fear of them. ³⁰ The LORD your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness, where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you traveled until you reached this place. ³² But in spite of this, you have no trust in the LORD your God, ³³ who goes before you on the way to seek out a place for you to camp, in fire by night, and in the cloud by day, to show you the route you should take.”

There is no identity without knowing one’s story. The book of Deuteronomy narrates again the story of the people at the edge of the promised land a generation ago in order to construct a different identity in this new generation. They are the children of those who did not trust the LORD at this crucial moment in the story and they have the opportunity to act differently than their ancestors. They are the children of the people who God, “who carried you, just as one carries a child” but still had not learned to trust in the God who journeyed with them. Perhaps learning to trust in the LORD who we don’t always see is one of the hardest things to learn, and even though I think Luther is correct to interpret the first commandment, “We are to fear, love and trust God above all things” (Luther, 1994) It is more difficult to live that ideal out in the realities of life and conflict. Moses can see and interpret reality to the people, that the LORD has given them possession of the land and that it is a good and prosperous land but people will always see the giants and the walled cities.

One thing I noticed about this is that there is a changed dynamic. In the previous section Moses made the suggestion about the judges and the people felt it was a good idea, but here the people make the suggestion of exploring the land and Moses felt the plan sounded good. Perhaps, without reading too much into this, this is one of the dangers that leaders face. Knowing when to listen to the people they lead and knowing when to stick with their own plan. The time of scouting out the land allows many of the doubts to return. The murmurs of the journey through the wilderness return. The people continue to misunderstand who the LORD is and the way they are to relate to this God who has led them or their journey. The people see the LORD’s absence while Moses sees the LORD’s presence and continually calls the people to trust in the LORD who has been present throughout the journey.

Deuteronomy 1: 34-45

³⁴ When the LORD heard your words, he was wrathful and swore: ³⁵ “Not one of these– not one of this evil generation– shall see the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors, ³⁶ except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his descendants I will give the land on which he set foot, because of his complete fidelity to the LORD.” ³⁷ Even with me the LORD was angry on your account, saying, “You also shall not enter there. ³⁸ Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, shall enter there; encourage him, for he is the one who will secure Israel’s possession of it. ³⁹ And as for your little ones, who you thought would become booty, your children, who today do not yet know right from wrong, they shall enter there; to them I will give it, and they shall take possession of it. ⁴⁰ But as for you, journey back into the wilderness, in the direction of the Red Sea.”

⁴¹ You answered me, “We have sinned against the LORD! We are ready to go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.” So all of you strapped on your battle gear, and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. ⁴² The LORD said to me, “Say to them, ‘Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not in the midst of you; otherwise you will be defeated by your enemies.'” ⁴³ Although I told you, you would not listen. You rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴ The Amorites who lived in that hill country then came out against you and chased you as bees do. They beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. ⁴⁵ When you returned and wept before the LORD, the LORD would neither heed your voice nor pay you any attention.

⁴⁶ After you had stayed at Kadesh as many days as you did,

Can we learn from our past or are we somehow destined to repeat it? One of the things that the prophets of Israel will do over and over again is to take these central stories, like the story of the exodus and recast them to be heard again in their day. The will use the stories of the past to tell the people of their time the cost of their disobedience to their covenant with God. The God of the Bible does get angry, does show emotions, is become wounded by the disobedience of the chosen people. This time when Israel refuses to hear the word of the LORD leads to the LORD being unwilling to hear them. This is one of those times where the people missed their window of opportunity, and the LORD through Moses (even in the midst of God’s anger) tells Moses to warn the people not to go up, but the people strap on their equipment and proceed to walk into their own defeat.

This disobedience has consequences not only for the people but for Moses. The narrative places the blame for Moses’ inability to reach the promised land at the feet of the people. Their disobedience not only brings anger on themselves but on Moses, and even though Moses has stood in the gap between the people and God, now Moses finds himself caught between the people and the LORD.

One of things this makes me ponder is the God who refuses to hear. We often act as if God hears every prayer regardless of how we interact with the world God has made, and there may be some truth in this, but there is also truth in the view of the Deuteronomist where our actions and our lives matter to God. The LORD presented by Deuteronomy does care about the lives of the people who are supposed to represent God in the world. Yet there is a hope, it is not an immediate or cheap hope. God will not stay angry forever, there will be a time when God listens to the people again. It may be a generation later when the sons and daughters who grow up in the wilderness now are adults ready to enter the promise land but ultimately, for Deuteronomy, God will uphold God’s part of the covenant but not on a human timeline.

Perhaps in a later time, when all the books scholars like to label the Deuteronomic History (Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings) are brought together the people are looking back on their history trying to make sense of their world. They are trying to bring order to the chaos of living in the midst of the exile in Babylon. As they look back over their story they find meaning in who they are called to be and how they are called to live. Even without the land or the temple or a king they are still the people of the covenant and perhaps in this time of disobedience where a generation is lost in the wilderness they can find hope in their own lost generation in exile.

Images for Transfiguration Sunday, Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday of Lent

Transfiguration Sunday

The initial reading is Moses being called up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, the design of the Tabernacle, etc. I found what I think is a really different image of Moses that reflects the multiple roles he constantly had to do in his time leading the people of Israel.

Moses by Victorvictori, permission granted by author through WikiCommons

And now on to a few of the plethora of images of the Transfiguration:

Transfiguration by artjones@deviantart.com

Giovanni Bellini, Transfiguration of Christ (1487-1495)

The Saviour’s Transfiguration, an early 15th century icon attributed to Theophanes the Greek

Transfiguration by Raphael, (1518-1520)

Ash Wednesday

There are a lot of images of black crosses and ashes out there, for imagery this time I’m focusing on Psalm 51 which the opening line attributes to David after he is confronted by the Prophet Nathan after he had go in to Bathsheba

Bathsheba by Artemisia Gentileschi (1636)

Pieter Lastman, King David Handing the Letter to Uriah (1611)

Pieter Lastman, King David Handing the Letter to Uriah (1619)

James Tissot, Nathan Rebukes David (1896-1902)

Palma Giovane, Prophet Nathan ermahnt Konig David (1622)

First Sunday of Lent

Two really rich pictoral readings, the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Matthew’s full temptation narrative

First a couple select images of the Adam and Eve story I found interesting,

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by Dr. Lidia Kozenitzky (2009) Image made available by artist through WikiCommons

William Blake, Adam and Eve (1808)

The Fall of Man by Lucas Cranach (1530)

And the Temptation, where in Matthew there are the three distinct temptations

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi, Christ in the Desert (1872)

There are multiple artists who have done representations of the three temptations, like William Blake or Peter Paul Reubens, I’m going to just show James Tissot’s interpretation: