God using human agents to deliverer (his) people from death and oppression constitutes a major recurring storyline in the Bible in general and the Old Testament in particular. Despite its frequency—or perhaps because of it—deliverance as a literary convention remains underdeveloped. Current scholarship instead focuses on exodus motifs (e.g., Estelle 2018, Roberts and Wilson 2018, Thambyrajah 2023) and Mosaic connections (e.g., Postell 2021, Yates and Ross 2021). Such studies in narrative analogy and typology, although exceeding important, converge on but one event in salvation history. While not seeking to diminish the centrality of the exodus in salvation history, this paper proposes that exploring deliverance as a type scene clarifies the elements in deliverance accounts by broadening the scope to allow for fruitful synchronic readings. Moreover, such clarity can provide exegetical cautions and constraints when exploring inner-biblical allusions in deliverance narratives.
The method for discerning the elements of the type scene follows that of Koowan Kim (2011) who holds that type scenes do not have essential and non-essential elements per se (comp. Alter) but rather have a variety of elements such that a story rises to the level of type scene by having a “family resemblance” with similar accounts. Core texts for deliverance type-scene elements include Abraham’s deliverance of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14), Moses deliverance of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 1–15), the major judges’ deliverances of Israel in Israel (Judges 3–16), Saul’s deliverance of Jabesh-gilead in Israel (1 Samuel 11), David’s deliverance of Keliah in Judah (1 Sam 23:1–5), Mordecai and Esther’s deliverance of Israel in Persia (Esther 7–10), and Nehemiah’s deliverance of Israel in Yehuda (Nehemiah). From these stories, the following type-scene elements emerge: (1) foreign oppression, (2) cry out for help, (3) God providing a human deliverer, (4) call and/or commission of the human deliverer, (5) the Spirit upon the deliverer, (6) disputation between the deliverer and foreign leader, (7) victory, (8) spoils, (9) departure from a foreign land, (10) worship of the Lord, (11) land (re)gained and/or rest, and (12) memorial event or edifice. The number of elements, their sequence, and the features and figures within these elements varies among texts (e.g., the mode of worship). These variances, omissions, contrasts, and expansions lead to a deeper understanding of the individual texts and establish a helpful pattern for other Old Testament accounts and for Jesus’s deliverance of sinners in the New Testament.