Setting in Biblical Narrative

Summary

Every story takes place somewhere, and in the Bible the setting is a crucial tool. Authors use places, situations, and even spans of time to evoke memories from earlier stories and shape what readers expect to happen — and skilled authors will creatively subvert those expectations to make a point. Tracing recurring settings such as Egypt, the east, and periods of forty reveals layers of meaning, all of which the New Testament authors reuse to show Jesus carrying the world from the garden, out of Egypt and the wilderness, into new creation.

Key Points

How settings work

• When a story begins, the plot and characters are a mystery, but the setting can prepare readers for what is coming.
• Settings evoke memories and emotions from other stories set in similar places — a courtroom suggests crime and justice, a dark run-down house suggests something scary.
• Authors use settings to generate expectations, and a good author will creatively mess with those expectations to make a point.

Egypt as a recurring place

• The first biblical story involving Egypt is Abraham's: called by faith to a new land with the promise of a great family, he arrives during a famine, leaves the Promised Land for Egypt, denies that Sarah is his wife, and Pharaoh tries to marry her.
• God rescues them, striking Egypt with plagues so Pharaoh sends Abraham away wealthy. Egypt becomes the place people end up through bad decisions — but also where God comes to rescue His people.
• The pattern repeats: Abraham's descendants make foolish choices and end up in Egypt because of famine; generations later the family is enslaved, and God again sends plagues and rescues them.
• After returning to the Promised Land, Israel is told never to go back to Egypt — the place of trouble and oppression. So when Solomon, at the peak of his power, marries Pharaoh's daughter and imports Egyptian horses, readers should cringe; a generation later that alliance goes bad and Egypt oppresses Israel again.

Reversing expectations

• In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus' family flees to Egypt — but instead of the bad place, Egypt becomes the place of safety, because they are fleeing King Herod, who behaves exactly like Pharaoh while ruling Jerusalem.
• Matthew reverses the setting to show that Jerusalem has become Egypt.
• These patterns appear in many settings: Babylon, Moab, the wilderness, Bethlehem, and more.

Situations and time as settings

• Sometimes the "setting" is a type of situation rather than a place. Moving toward the east signals trouble: Adam and Eve are banished east, Cain wanders east, people move east to build Babylon — all pointing forward to Israel being exiled east to Babylon.
• Time can be a setting too. Periods of forty are associated with stories where faithfulness is tested: Noah's 40 days and nights (then he gets drunk), Israel's impatient 40 days waiting for Moses on Sinai (the golden calf), the 40-day scouting of the land leading to 40 years of wandering.
• Jesus is tested in the desert for 40 days and reverses the expectation by overcoming the test.

The larger point

• Places, situations, and time periods become full of meaning by evoking memories and setting expectations.
• New Testament authors reuse all of these settings to show that Jesus is the one carrying our world from the garden, out of Egypt and the wilderness, and into the new creation.

Notable Quotes

"Authors can use the setting of a story to prepare you for what's coming."

"Matthew is messing with me to show how Jerusalem has become Egypt."

"Across the whole Bible, places, situations, and time periods become full of meaning by evoking memories and setting expectations."