Seal and Pledge
In 2 Corinthians, Paul adopts two metaphors which
underline this certainty of resurrection in the future: “to seal” (sphragizein
σφραγιζειν) and “guarantee” (ho
arrhabōn ο αρραβων) (2 Cor 1:22). A “seal” may have been a
religious metaphor that explains circumcision, baptism, or wearing a mark or
seal of the god. More likely, it was a commercial metaphor: an imprint set in
wax that denoted ownership and, by extension, protection; in legal documents,
such as a will, a safeguard against premature violation; or validation of a document.
The metaphor of a guarantee or down-payment may belong to commercial life,
where it functioned as a deposit or first installment paid for services or rent or wages or goods.
Both the giver and the recipient were under a legal obligation to complete the
contract. The spirit, understood in commercial terms, is God’s guarantee of the
whole of salvation.
Another possible commercial foreground is the story of
Judah and Tamar in Gen 38. Judah asks, “What pledge” (‘ērāvôn עֵרָבוֹן)
shall I give you?” The First item Judah leaves in pledge is his seal (pôtîl
פָּתִיל). Genesis 38:18 is the single instance in the OT where the word “seal”
(more literally, the cord that holds the seal) and “pledge,” occur together. This
association, however, is obscured by the Septuagint, which translates “seal”
anomalously as “ring” (ton dactylion sou τον δακτυλιον σου), although typically it is translated in the
Septuagint by the Greek word “seal” (sphragis σφγραγις). Had Paul been familiar with the
Hebrew of Gen 38:18 or a more typical translation than LXX Gen 38:18, he would have recognized the
association of “pledge” and “seal” and discerned a story that encapsulates the certainty
of God’s promise. If the promise of God is forewarded in this remarkable story
of a bereft widow who becomes the ancestor of David, the messiah, by playing
the part of a prostitute, it can also be forwarded through the flawed but determined
mission of Pual (see Eph 1:13-14). (John R. Levison, In Search of the Spirit,
2 vols. [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2023], 1:82)
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