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This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Lawson Younger
Hello. My name is Dr Lawson Younger. I am Professor Emeritus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School of Trinity International University.
David Capes
Dr Lawson Younger, Lawson, good to see you. Welcome. This is your first appearance on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Lawson Younger
It sure is, David. Thank you for inviting me.
David Capes
We’re excited that you’re here. You’re going to be doing a lecture here at the library. We’ll be talking about that a little bit later on. But let’s begin, as we normally do. For folks who don’t know you, who is Lawson Younger?
Lawson Younger
I am married. I have three children, two sons and a daughter and five grandchildren, three granddaughters and two grandsons. My wife and I have a lot of fun with them, entertaining them and just being Papa and Granny.
David Capes
Very good, very good. Now, you taught up at TEDS for many years, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. What took you there? How did you get there?
Lawson Younger
Well, I had taught at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, for 10 years. I was the Old Testament department there. The whole department! So I got to do pretty much what I wanted to do. It was all undergraduate teaching, and it was fun. But I think it made me a better teacher, because I needed to be more visual so that students would track well and follow. So, Trinity sought me out to see if I would come. They needed someone that concentrated, particularly in the former prophets, the historical books of the Old Testament, which I do. That’s the part of the canon that I concentrate in a lot. And they needed someone to teach some of the ancient Semitic languages and history, ancient Eastern history.
David Capes
And so that’s been your sweet spot.
Lawson Younger
That’s been my sweet spot for 35-plus years.
David Capes
Wonderful. Where’d you go to school?
Lawson Younger
I went to Catawba College in North Carolina, where I started as a math major, and I became a believer in Christ during that time. That’s another story altogether. But I then transferred to Florida Bible College. I finished there, went to Dallas Seminary and did a ThM. I became very much convinced that the Lord was leading me to teach Old Testament in a professional kind of context. I had taken four years of Latin in high school with the sole purpose of never studying any language ever again. I was a math major.
Well, that was funny, because of course, having had that Latin, Greek came very quickly. At least the grammar syntax is so similar. Then Hebrew was the next step. In any event, I felt very led to engage in the Old Testament. I grew up in Virginia, where there’s so much history. My mother was very much a history lover and my father enjoyed it a lot too. So, we traveled a lot up and down the East Coast to all kinds of different historical sites. As a child, I saw many things and became interested in history. When I became a believer, I became very much drawn to the history of the Old Testament.
David Capes
And that’s a long history. People don’t realize that compared to the New Testament. The New Testament is one generation or so but the Old Testament is 1000 or 2000 years. So our focus today is going to be on Isaiah, because that’s the context of your lecture. I love your title. I don’t have it word for word but it’s Hazael, and he’s this superhero of the Arameans. He was their king, and he was the scourge of the Hebrew kingdoms. The title is very creative. But Hazael is not Moses. He’s not David. So, who is Hazael? Give us a thumbnail and then let’s dig down.
Lawson Younger
Hazael is mentioned in nine different passages of the Bible, so he’s actually a much more significant person than you might think. Sometimes most of the chapter is about him. Just taking that fact alone means he’s important. He was a very important person because of the way in which he not only created an empire, but the way in which he impacted biblical history.
David Capes
So where is this empire located?
Lawson Younger
Hazael became king of Aram Damascus. The Bible joins Aram with Damascus. Sometimes they just call it Damascus, sometimes it’s simply called Aram. And these are the Arameans, and they’re best known for their language Aramaic, which became the lingua franca of the ancient Near East.
David Capes
Which tells you how important they are.
Lawson Younger
Oh they are. They are quite important. And the Arameans are not only in Damascus, but they have many other kingdoms, dozens of other kingdoms, dozens of tribal entities and polities, all throughout what is today Syria and Iraq, the Fertile Crescent.
David Capes
So today when we hear Damascus, Syria, is that the same location as Damascus in Aram?
Lawson Younger
The actual location of Damascus, Old Testament Damascus, is right in the downtown center of Damascus. The main mosque in Damascus is built upon several other temples, a Roman temple, and before that, an Aramean temple to the storm god Hadad. We have a few archeological discoveries, minor kinds of pieces, but nonetheless enough to know that this is the case. That’s all the location.
David Capes
Let’s locate it now in terms of numbers, history. Are we talking the time of Abraham? Are we talking the time of the judges? Are we talking monarchy?
Lawson Younger
We’re talking about the divided monarchy period. We’re talking the ninth century. To be precise in dating, we can say about 844 to 843 BC. This would be the time period of Israel and Judah. Independent polities in their own sense, and with their own kings and all the intrigues and various things that go on. This is actually part of the story. Hazael is involved in dealing with both of these in some significant ways.
David Capes
Who are some of the biblical characters that Hazael connects with. They’re foes of each other maybe. If he’s the superhero, he’s got to have a nemesis. Well, he is the nemesis in a way.
Lawson Younger
I call him an Aramean action hero. Action hero just fits with him. As for the other players, first of all I’ll just mention Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is commissioned to anoint Hazael, King. There is another king of Aram Damascus, at this time, Ben-Hadad. This is what is done in 1 Kings 19. Later, we see that it is, in fact, Elisha who follows after Elijah who goes and predicts that Hazael will become the king of Aram Damascus.
