Remembering God’s Beloved Son: Jeremiah 38:20 LXX and Mark 1:11

Abstract

Abstract Markan interpreters have long observed that the words of the voice from heaven at Jesus’s baptism in Mark 1:11, “You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased,” recall one or more passages from the LXX, most often Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. Yet few interpreters note that Mark 1:11 also bears remarkable similarity to another verse—Jer 38:20 LXX (31:20 MT)—in which God calls Israel his “beloved son.” On closer inspection, there are reasons to believe that Mark alludes to this verse as well as to Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. In addition to the fact that Israel is the only entity known as God’s “beloved son” in ancient Jewish literature outside the New Testament, Mark’s prologue and Jer 38 are united by a common remembrance of Israel’s exodus and the expectation of a new one. If this reading is correct, then Mark simultaneously identifies Jesus as God’s royal son and the embodiment of God’s original son, Israel, in one breath.