Later text
who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,
Intertextuality Pair
1 Thessalonians 2:15 → 1 Kings 19:10
Echo
Earlier text
“I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”
+ 3 more earlier texts
Earlier text
1 Kings 18:4BSB
for when Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty men per cave, providing them with food and water.)
Earlier text
Again and again the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers because He had compassion on them and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.
Earlier text
So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.
Significance
Paul draws on a well-known tradition concerning the killing of the OT prophets, which by NT times had become a stereotyped expression referring to Israel's historic rejection of God's messengers. This tradition appears frequently in Jesus' teaching (Matthew 5:12; 23:29-37; Luke 4:24; 6:23; 11:47-51; 13:33-34) and in the preaching of the early apostles (Acts 7:52), as well as contemporary Jewish literature (Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah; Pesiq. Rab. 27 [129a]). Paul uses this tradition to highlight the similarity between the persecutions currently experienced by the Thessalonian church, the Judean church, himself, and the persecutions constantly endured by God's righteous prophets. Paul places the rejection of the gospel within the larger framework of Israel's history of rejecting God's messengers—this is not anti-Semitism but rather prophetic critique from within, as Paul himself is Jewish (Romans 11:1) and sees himself standing in the prophetic tradition. The opposition to the gospel is thus not something new but the continuation of a tragic pattern that the prophets themselves experienced and condemned.
- Found via
- G.K. Beale, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (attribution)
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Redemptive-Historical Progression + Analogy