This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 5: The Book You Have Written.

---

In the previous post, we were introduced to the first Old Testament reference to the book of life:

So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, these people have committed a grave sin; they have made a god of gold for themselves. Now if you would only forgive their sin. But if not, please erase me from the book you have written.” The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will erase from my book” (Exod. 32:31-33).

In that post, we explored the context in which this referencee to the book of life is set. Now, we note that these verses tell us names may be erased from God’s book. 

Moses doesn’t offer to die instead of the people, but rather with them. God already has honored Moses with the offer of a nation of his own in place of Israel (Exod. 32:10), an offer Moses declines for the sake of God’s reputation among the heathen nations. Now, Moses seems to say that if God judges the Israelites with annihilation, the Lord might as well take the life of their leader as well. 

Paul echoes this love of the Israelites in his letter to the Romans: 

I speak the truth in Christ ​— ​I am not lying; my conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit ​— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood (Rom. 9:1-3).

Moses and Yahweh both seem to indicate that sinful behavior may cause people to be “erased” (Heb. maha, Gen. 32:32, 33) from a special book in God’s possession. Is this the book of life, or some other book? Maha means to wipe, blot out, obliterate, exterminate, erase, cancel, abolish, or destroy. The term appears thirty-six times in thirty-two verses in the Hebrew Old Testament and is employed in a variety of ways. 

To cite a few examples:

The annihilation of all people in a global flood. “Then the LORD said, ‘I will wipe (maha) mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky – for I regret that I made them’” (Gen. 6:7).

Judgment of the Amalekites. “The LORD then said to Moses, ‘Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out (maha) the memory of Amalek under heaven’” (Exod. 17:14). 

Protection of the tribe of Benjamin. “They said, ‘There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out (maha)’” (Judg. 21:17).

Forgiveness of sin. “Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love; according to your abundant compassion, blot out (maha) my rebellion” (Ps. 51:1).

The ultimate conquest of God over evil and its consequences. “When he has swallowed up death once and for all, the Lord GOD will wipe away (maha) the tears from every face and remove his people’s disgrace from the whole earth, for the LORD has spoken” (Isa. 25:8).

In the ancient world, individuals and governments kept records of populations. These annals were used to define a citizenry, collect taxes, register able-bodied men for military duty, confirm property ownership, and so on. Once the population of a clan, town, region, or nation became so great that no group of individuals could maintain an accurate roll in their memories, an official scroll was written up and preserved.

These records had to be updated as babies were born, the elderly and infirm died, citizens moved away, and new residents moved into the community. The point was to maintain an accurate and up-to-date listing of those alive in the community. Only the names of the living were found in it.

Even illiterate persons and uneducated clans kept such records. For example, a shepherd might keep a bag of pebbles, representing his sheep. When a lamb was born, the shepherd added a pebble to the bag. When a sheep was taken by wild animals, or killed humanely for food, the shepherd removed a pebble from the bag.

This might be what Abigail, the wife of David’s wicked nemesis Nabal, means in her statement to David about her confidence that God is going to preserve the future king’s life:

Someone is pursuing you and intends to take your life. My lord’s life is tucked safely in the place where the LORD your God protects the living, but he is flinging away your enemies’ lives like stones from a sling (1 Sam. 25:29).  

Abigail is saying God holds David’s life securely. To be “tucked safely in the place where the LORD your God protects the living” means to be kept alive. To be flung away is to have one’s life blotted out. 

Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the general idea of blotting out people’s names – making sure they die – is applied to the Amalekites. As Moses tells the Israelites: 

Remember what the Amalekites did to you on the journey after you left Egypt. They met you along the way and attacked all your stragglers from behind when you were tired and weary. They did not fear God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven. Do not forget (Deut. 25:17-19).

The plea of Moses to be erased from Yahweh’s book (Exod. 32:32) is recalled later, when Moses revisits the law, and its associated blessings and curses, with the children of Israel:

The LORD said to me, “Get up and go down immediately from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast image for themselves.” The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. Leave me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they” (Deut. 9:12-14).

Besides the blotting out of large numbers of people – for example, the rebellious Israelites at Mount Sinai – the danger of individuals being cast aside is presented to those who disregard God’s laws:

When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt, thinking, “I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.” This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land. The LORD will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The LORD will blot out his name under heaven, and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law (Deut. 29:19-21).

God’s promise to Moses in Exodus 32:33 is that only those who sin against the Lord by violating the covenant are blotted out, not the entire nation. This theme is picked up later. In the Song of Moses, the Lord is quoted as saying of rebellious Israel:

I would have said: I will cut them to pieces and blot out the memory of them from mankind, if I had not feared provocation from the enemy, or feared that these foes might misunderstand and say, “Our own hand has prevailed; it wasn’t the LORD who did all this” (Deut. 32:26-27).

God even uses wicked kings like Jeroboam to preserve his people in the face of oppression:

For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter for both slaves and free people. There was no one to help Israel. The LORD had not said he would blot out the name of Israel under heaven, so he delivered them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash (2 Kings 14:26-27).

We see in these, and other Old Testament passages, the idea of a book of the living, and we examine these Scriptures in more detail in future chapters. For now, it’s important to note that passages like Malachi 3:16, which we explore in a future post, reflect the general concept of a book, or scroll, of the living. People in Malachi’s post-exilic Judean community put together a book of those committed to keeping God’s covenant. 

As such, they’re presumed to be destined for eternal life rather than erased from God’s book: “At that time those who feared the LORD spoke to one another. The LORD took notice and listened. So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the LORD and had high regard for his name” (Mal. 3:16).

Daniel 12:1 is more direct: 

At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress such as never has occurred since nations came into being until that time. But at that time all your people who are found written in the book will escape. 

Next: The Book You have Written (Part 3)