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This article seeks to provide a wisdom domain moral analysis of Proverbs 1:8–9 on the role of parents in conveying the significance of parental instruction and the development of wisdom in children. As a process through which young individuals acquire and cultivate essential qualities and values that shape their behavior and moral outlook, children character development encompasses various aspects, including moral, social, emotional, and cognitive dimensions, and it is influenced by a range of factors, including familial upbringing, social interactions, cultural influences, education, and personal experiences. Whilst the origin of parents as agents of moral guardian is not explicitly stated in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT), Proverbs 1:8–9 is one of those key passages whose themes underscore the profound significance of family structure and system, and parental responsibility. The verses highlight the spiritual and moral dimensions of family life, promoting a sense of dignity, submission, and personal development within the context of a supportive family structure. The incisive prescriptions of the text offer a journey into self-understanding, self-development, and self-actualization, by reaffirming the family as a pivotal social institution while balancing the roles and responsibilities of parents and children. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article brings together biblical and theological insights from the parental rhetoric of Proverbs 1:8–9 to bear on and help shape the oversight function of parents as agents of children moral development and healthy family life. The verses bridge spiritual wisdom with scientific understanding, presenting a holistic view of how a child grows intellectually, emotionally, and morally.

Migration of people, whether legal or not, is no doubt one of the universe’s enigmas. As a subject that seeks the engagement of interdisciplinary approaches, the biblical text is not in shortage of references to the movement and resettlement of individuals across different narratives and literary forms. Numerous references to ‘sojourners’, ‘migrants’, and the intricacies and reactions that migration generates are found in several portions of the Pentateuch. By employing a narrative methodology and a hermeneutic of ethical deduction as interpretive approach, this article holds that, the patriarchal narrative of Genesis 12:10–20, is fittingly, a narrative of migration that raises several ethical challenges that are profoundly relevant to migrants in socio-economic situations. Abraham’s vulnerable position as a migrant under socio-economic circumstances to Egypt created fear in him and presented him moral dilemmas in which inequalities created by wealth and poverty posed dangers of losing faith. Many individuals and families are faced with similar circumstances today, being caught up in webs of difficult considerations and forced to make unpleasant decisions. Contribution: This article employs a narrative reading of Abraham’s sojourn in Genesis 12:10–20 in an attempt to bring together biblical, literary and theological discourses into dialogue with ethics and migration. The article serves as a viable starting point for discussions about the ethical considerations faced by migrants in socio-economic situations, and how principles of honesty, empathy and responsible decision-making can guide their actions.

While one’s memory might not always be flawless, possibly because of forgetfulness, memory loss, or selective recall, there are certain memories that demand to be remembered. These memories can flow through people’s lives like rivers. Psalm 137 depicts a compelling backdrop and scenario that closely mirrors the actual experiences of individuals and their recollections. This Psalm is regarded as the most direct and poignant recollection of the Babylonian exile in the entire Psalter. Although some may find the desires expressed in the Psalm troubling and unsuitable for New Testament believers, it aligns with Israel’s theological and liturgical response to undeserved or unavoidable suffering. It serves as an entreaty to Yahweh (YHWH), the ultimate source of strength amid powerlessness and hope amid hopelessness. Consequently, Psalm 137 represents a substantial theological statement with contemporary relevance. This article draws a parallel between the emotional anguish experienced by the psalmist, stemming from their unfavourable socioeconomic circumstances, and the similarly oppressive socioeconomic, and psychological conditions faced by many in contemporary times. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article employs the principle of contemporaneity while engaging with the biblical, literary, and exegetical scope of Psalm 137 to establish a theological rationale and contextual adaptation for this retaliatory Psalm attributed to David. The theological assertion is that in a society marked by violence and abuse, where there exists a sinister conspiracy of brutality, invoking YHWH’s intervention by breaking the silence indeed has the potential to effect change. This theological datum makes Psalms 137 resonates in the memory of many today.

Power and exploitation of power constitute an essential aspect of Micah’s oracles in the literary prophetic book, and surprisingly, exploitation of religious power was both highlighted and criticised by Micah. This article attempted to explore the religious power by reading and re-reading Micah’s metaphor of food in the context of contemporary Christian religious space in Africa that is marked by power relations, economic and material consciousness, exploitation, poverty and corruption. Clearly, images are important in people’s attempt to comprehend God and the spiritual community of which they are part, and to understand their roles. Consequently, this article employed a biblical, literary, theological and comparative method, to explore Micah’s metaphor of food in Micah 3:5 against the background of exploitative powers. In this article, the author believed that Micah’s food metaphor (Mi 3:5) is an appropriate image to capture the imagination and orientation of present-day religious leaders and Christians in Africa, and consequently, a viable medium to re-direct and inspire the work of the ministry, in a materially conscious world. The article thus demonstrated how religious power can become a vehicle for exploitation of people, for services rendered in the community. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article brings together insights from the biblical, literary, and theological exploration of Micah’s metaphor of food in Micah 3:5, into dialogue with practical Christian theology and ethics. Consequently, it provided a voice against commercialisation of spirituality, contemporary religious consumerism, false prophetic activities, and corrupt religious space, in the ecclesia community context.

Micah 7:1–6 represents the prophet’s lamentation of the deficiency of moral value in a beloved nation. The oracle is a watershed in the Book of Micah that is aptly characterised by certain degrees of socio-economic and religious unfaithfulness, especially in privileged circumstances. The oracle unit (Mi 7:1–6) forms the darkest descriptions of degrees about the apparent moral wasteland of ancient Judah. The prophet’s metaphors are used to describe the miserable moral morass of society form a kind of compendium with a progression of thoughts and coherence of moral depravity. This article underscores that when people and society live in dishonesty and corruption, the essentially integrated spiritual-ethical-community of health and prosperity that is expected to unfold in time of covenant fidelity will eventually be reduced to poverty and despair, where people hunt each other for survival. This article explores aspects of dishonesty and corruption in the Book of Micah that are pointers to the tragic situation, analyses the various descriptions of corruption in the oracle unit and consequently examines its ethical imperatives for community living. Contribution: As a biblical, literary and theological interpretation of Micah’s oracle concerning ancient Judah’s moral morass, this article brings together moral insights that are potentially viable for making major contributions to the life of people and just social order in an economics of affluence, politics of oppression and corruption in societies.

Genesis 4:1–16 is a well-known narrative following the ejection of Adam and Eve from the garden. It is an essential aspect of Genesis’ theological unity that consists of a combination of stories that show separation within family and state. The narrative is rich in alternating developmental plot and served as a significant pointer to the divine-human relationship. Obviously, at a time and in settings in which it has become increasingly painful to look at life, as individuals and communities witness the collapse of the pillars of social life, this article identified values and principles, and offered perspectives for dealing with the sequence of violence in order to create possibilities for communal solidarity. In view of the fact that the narrative is rich in its developmental plot, this article exegetically highlighted the textual sub-units in the narrative and theologically attempted to rethink violence from the perspectives of the perpetrator and the victim in God’s creation. The theological datum of the article is that violence in the narrative of Genesis 4:1–16 is an offshoot of perceived divine arbitrariness in which the perpetrator is unable to acknowledge divine prerogative. Consequently, the failure of people to manage their dissatisfaction and to control their impulses in the face of incomprehensible divine arbitrariness, hides the inevitability of violent conflict in daily human experiences. Contribution: The article drew theological and moral implications that will challenge contemporary readers of the Cain-Abel narrative, who are faced with the most profound existential issues of human relationship and thus struggle with violent behaviours of individuals and groups, to embrace its instructive potential for faith and life.

The exposition attempts to use Micah’s metaphor of shepherd-king (Mi 2:12–13) as a heuristic ethical model for reversing oppression and violence in leadership praxis. Given the reality of widespread oppression and violence perpetrated by the powerful, Micah 2:12–13 is interjected into the oracle as a means of accentuating the hope of those who are marginalised and dispossessed. Although Micah’s shepherd-king metaphor interrupts the foregoing context of the oracle of condemnation and doom, the unit logically balances the general rhetorical pattern of judgement, and afterward salvation. Such a canonical and ideological reading presents a window through which informed ethical models are constructed for the reversal of oppression and violence in the readers’ socio-economic and religious context. Micah’s shepherd-king metaphor imagines a restoration of fortune under the leadership of a coming eschatological shepherd-leader allows one a positive construct of a visionary leader, who is a passionate agent of restoration rather than one who is an agent of exploitation, oppression and bondage. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: As a rhetorical literary production, there are seemingly noteworthy ideological and theological intentions in the Book of Micah. Consequently, this exposition brings together biblical, literary, exegetical and theological discourses into dialogue with ethics, ethical demands and practical theology. Granted that leadership affects every aspect of community life, Micah’s beautifully harmonised, biblical shepherd-king in time and context generates insightful alternative and viable components of the process of conveying its life-giving and instructive power for contemporary leadership praxis, both within the ecclesia community and larger human society.

The Hebrew Bible and/or the Old Testament is replete with narratives of families that are devastated and separated by the unfaithfulness of injustice. Such situations are mostly seen to be theologically reprehensible and morally unacceptable. In the book of Micah, the fluidity of the rhetorical characterisation of those who opposed moral values and the godly voice is manifested in shameful actions against women and children. Since children who are deprived of parents are victims, this article attempts to examine Micah 2:9 and the effects of depriving children of their parents against the background of Israel’s social ethics of the marginalised minority. As a background, the article begins with a description of the family as an attractive and viable setting for the growth and development of children, continues with a relative examination of data on Israel’s social justice and marginalised minority, situates and analyses Micah 2:9 within its context, and then concludes with some effects of depriving children of their parents from the perspective of trauma research. Contribution: This article brings together insight from trauma research into dialogue with biblical, literary, exegetical and theological discourse. Such creative dialogue generates insightful alternative and viable components of the process of creating a healthy, viable community, and consequently invites readers to the urgent ethical concern for compassion and care for the most vulnerable in society.

This article examines Malachi’s use of תּוֺרַה in dialogue with the wisdom tradition of Proverbs. The proposition of the article is that wisdom in the book of Proverbs is tôrāh-oriented and that Malachi’s use of tôrāh serves to present and elevate tôrāh as Israel’s Wisdom Tradition/teaching. The ideas of hearing, keeping, or forsaking the tôrāh in Prov 28:4, 7, 9; 29:18 correspond to the idea of remembering the tôrāh of Moses in Mal 3:21. Within the contextual perspective of the Mosaic covenant, it is believed that keeping the Mosaic tôrāh constitute wisdom for Israel (Deut 4:6; cf. Ps. 19:7; 119:130). As taught in the OT, wisdom is, in some extent, the manifest expression and outworking of the Yahweh’s law in the heart and life. Thus, in light of the close connection between tôrāh and wisdom in the OT, this article presents a general understanding of wisdom relative to the HB as a background, it examines tôrāh wisdom from selected passages in the book of Proverbs, analyses the use of tôrāh in Malachi’s dialogue and then concludes with a synthesis of the relationship between tôrāh wisdom in Proverbs and tôrāh usage in Malachi’s dialogue.

Biblical criticism regards biblical books as fundamental texts expressing and embodying the core of faith and practice of a believing community. Thus, in line with canonical criticism, this article assumes the Book of Deuteronomy as a basic text, cherished and believed by those who practice the Jewish and Christian faiths. Primarily, the article analyses the text of Deuteronomy 15:1–11 against the background of its social vision for community living in ancient Israel. The potential significance of this humanitarian and/or brotherly ethics and its associated benefits are the secondary concerns of the article. The article, however, does not preclude reflection on scholarly discussions regarding Deuteronomy’s compositional history, though with limited focus. The article holds that a practical understanding and appropriation of Deuteronomy’s radical humanitarian vision will not only help in raising a healthy community which functions as an alternative to poverty but also reinvigorate commitment to a mission of social responsibility for God’s people living in covenant and/or faith communities.

The article presents a literary and theological analysis of Job 42:2 as a fitting resolution of the conflicting engagement between Yahweh and Job, which enables both parties to preserve their integrity. The article examines Israel’s testimony about Yahweh’s sovereignty as a background, it analyses Job’s testimony in 42:2 and then demonstrates that this passage probes more deeply into the theology of creation – the inescapable purpose of what God does. The article shows that Job’s testimony about the sovereignty of Yahweh indicates an unusual personality and potent force that is manifested in the events of Job’s life as an agent whose sovereignty is remarkably unlimited. The substance of Job’s testimony this article proposes, produces a dynamic figure that has an overwhelming task at the centre stage of its subject’s well-being. This role, moreover, is the engine that drives Israel’s testimony; the splendour of Israel’s faith and the source of Israel’s life. This role is a theological datum of substance.

This article focuses on Malachi’s distinctive claims that guarantee a well-ordered community, namely the validity and feasibility of a Torah-compliant community. Since Torah compliance is a fundamental core of Israel’s life, in the book of Malachi, Yahweh’s Torah functions as the reliable and invariable authority for the community well-being as a whole. Community well-being as pictured by Malachi is created not only by Yahweh but also as the consequent contemplation and action of community. Malachi notes clearly that it is the sins of the community as a whole that renders it inconceivable that Yahweh’s blessings should attend to them as they are now, and Malachi demands certain definite and substantial actions as preconditions to the manifestation of the desired expectations. To him the secret of creating and maintaining a healthy, viable community and living as people in covenant relationship with Yahweh, is by ‘remembering’ (upholding and practicing) Yahweh’s Torah. Accordingly, Malachi enjoined his audience to remember the Torah of Moses, which constitutes the fundamental dimensions of their relationship with Yahweh. This article is thus an attempt to understand Malachi’s concept of a Torah-compliant community and its associated blessings of happiness and shalom.

This article demonstrates the vindictive tone of Malachi�s final sermon by highlighting the amazing reversal of fortunes of the righteous and shocking end of the wicked. Such a reversal or antithesis this article proposes, serves as a climax to the literary motif and artistic brilliance of reversal noticeable in the book of Malachi. The substance of Malachi�s message is that of triumph of Yahweh�s justice over obvious inequalities of life. Malachi 3:13�21 reveals that beyond the horizon of lived reality lies a judgement moment in which good and evil are still criteria of what is acceptable and unacceptable to Yahweh. The article examines the literary structure and content of the this unit of Malachi�s oracle, provides detailed exegesis of the cynicism or antithesis in the text and concludes by synthesising the result in an attempt at reconciling Yahweh�s supposed justice with obvious life�s inequalities. Malachi�s prediction of the ultimate restoration of the fortune of the righteous and shameful end of the wicked, stands as a refutation of the insinuation that to serve Yahweh is worthless.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article not only focuses on the synchronic dimensions of this text, but also the diachronic perspectives. The literary analysis is combined with a historical embeddedness of this text. This text poses a challenge to the reader of the 21st century and invites the modern reader to a explore life, and specifically fullness of life amidst circumstances not conducive to fullness of life.

The family is the bedrock that forms the indispensable foundation for discipleship. It was instituted by the Creator as his primary setting for human development and nurture (Gn 2:18�25; Ps 68:5, 6). Thus the crisis involving marriage and the family is indeed a cultural crisis of the first order. Social life quite simply cannot function effectively without the family. Whilst according to Flowers and Flowers: �Christian families face the challenge of understanding and stretching toward the divine design for life and relationships, even as they dwell in a world where hard reality find us far short of God�s plan for family living�, this article demonstrates that Malachi�s prophetic oracle (2:10�16) is an urgent motivation and challenge to Yahweh�s people in faith communities to be living embodiment of the ideals of fidelity, commitment and steadfastness. In honouring these values and ideals, the article further challenges Yahweh�s faith communities to seek concrete ways of affirming, strengthening, empowering and supporting persons and families in their efforts to live in faithfulness to the values they recognise and esteem.

Any time humans in any culture consider primary ethical concepts, justice will be to the fore. Much seems to hinge upon it whether human society is to function with any semblance of civil order, security and harmony. When justice is pervasively trampled upon, the very fabric of liveable society crumbles. The apprehension for justice is clearly reflected in almost all of the Old Testament (OT). It is an important theological motif in the OT. This is found in such OT literature as historical, legal, prophetic and wisdom writings. This evidence thus reveals that the apprehension for the issue of justice was one of the many ways by which Israel’s multifaceted social life was knit together throughout its various ancient historical developments. No aspect of the life of Israel was excluded from this kind of apprehension for justice, and Yahweh was understood to be actively involved in its entire phase. This article examines Malachi’s fourth disputation in the light of the lawlessness alluded to in Malachi 2:17 and the corruption of personal and civil morality in Malachi 3:5. In the discussions that follow, this article examines the need for the justice of Yahweh; that is, Yahweh’s righting of past wrongs and the reversal of sinful societal order. The purpose is to enact a communal ethic for those who generously care for the neighbourhood and are firm in their devotion to Him, that is, God.