Re: SYMBOLIC ACTIONS

I still can not understand the "symbolic actions" you think you can give a clarification on the subject?

I will appreciate it very much

Thank you!

Symbolic actions are actions that symbolize or represent (show) a prediction of something that will happen. It's a dramatic way of staging the prediction instead of merely telling it!
    Isaiah walks naked to show what it will be like when a nation is conquered: people will be walking naked as prisoners.
    Jeremiah puts a lock around his neck. Even so will Israelites become prisoners.
    The false prophet, Hananiah, breaks the lock, predicting victory.
    The true prophet, Jeremiah, again puts a lock around his neck, this time made of iron, so Hananiah can't break it. Point made.
    Jeremiah smashes a jar; so God will smash Israel.
    Jeremiah watches a potter at work, changing his work. God molds and changes his people the same way.
    Jeremiah tells the people to fill their wineskins with wine, since they will all get drunk or are already drunk in their values.
    Jeremiah tells kings to step down from their thrones, since they will be forced down when they are conquered.
    Ezekiel stages the conquest of Israel by builiding a brick model of the city and then a ramp, showing how the nation will be conquered.
    Ezekiel does not mourn his dead wife: a conquered people will have no time to mourn their dead.
    Jeremiah is commanded by God to remain childless and unmarried: a warning to the people that when disasters come it's better to be childless and unmarried.
    Amos is shown a bowl of fruit by God. The bowl of fruit is ripe; so Israel is ripe for punishment.
    Jeremiah buys land in Israel. Just so will the people buy land in the future, resting secure in Israel despite their present woes. (Symbolic actions are still used today; recently Taiwanese officials ate US meat to show it was safe to eat!)
    Hosea marries a whore; so God married whorish Israel, and accepts her, despite her adulteries and prostitutions.
    Jeremiah dirties his linen cloth, which makes it good for nothing. Even so Israel has been dirtied in God's eyes.
    Ezekiel joins two sticks together, predicing the unity of Israel and Judah.
    In Ezekiel, God revives dead bones; even so will Israel be revived.
    Zechariah breaks a stick into two, showing their separation.
    In Zechariah, the good shepherd quits in disgust, asking only slave wages, and the sheep are scattered. (Later quoted in the New Testament.)
    Jesus cleanses the temple and drives out the animals. Even so have the animals proved useless as sacrifices; the sacrificial system is at an end now that Jesus is making the supreme sacrifice.
    Actually, almost everything Jesus does in the New Testament can be understood as a symbolic action. But Jesus' symbolic actions regard the present, not the future.
    By curing the lame and blind, Jesus is symbolically saying the future has arrived; the blind and the lame are cured, as Isaiah predicted.
    By giving new laws that replace the laws of Moses, Jesus is saying the new Moses has arrived.
    By resisting the Devil in the wilderness, Jesus is saying the New Israel is now able to obey God's law despite temptations, unlike the old Israel in the wilderness, which was unable to do this.
    Even Jesus' eating and drinking suggests the eschatological banquet, usually promised at the end of time (Isaiah 25:6ff.): by eating and drinking with people of all kinds, Jesus is saying the end has come: this is the promised banquet at the end of time, already here.
    In general, however, in scholarship "symbolic actions" are mostly used of the Old Testament prophets.

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