Wednesday Evening
Adult Bible Study
This is a story of virtue and trust in God. There are several names of importance: Joakim means “the Lord will establish; Susanna means “lily” and Hilkiah means “the Lord is my portion.”[1]
Susanna when faced with the evils that surround either of her choices chooses the one that will require God to vindicate her innocence. She chooses the way that will not break covenant with God. In good story form, God ultimately, through Daniel his chosen, must vindicate Susanna, because her accusers persuade the judges by virtue of the stature in the community, of Susanna’s guilt in this matter.
Daniel is armed with the virtue and the insight that only God can give and Susanna is rescued by God while those who bring “false testimony” against her a executed.
This exilic story is about the virtue of holding to the ways
of the Lord in adverse times while calling on the Lord for deliverance.
The Rev. Dr. Kipp W. Zimmermann
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
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[1] Metzger, Bruce M. and Roland E. Murphy, eds, The New Oxford
Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, The New Revised
Standard Version, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991; Note 1-4, 180(AP).