This column is about the Old Testament, but on this occasion, I need to begin in the New. In Acts 8 we read of an apparently chance encounter between Philip, and a man described as ‘an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury’ [Acts 8:27].
The man was clearly a successful civil servant, commanding no doubt a good deal of power and perhaps a sizable salary. But he was a eunuch. Occasional scholarly attempts to view this description as metaphorical have largely been overruled. This is probably a man who was castrated in childhood, in order to be set aside for high service without the distractions of love and family. Did he choose this status? It seems unlikely. This is a man who has suffered violence at the hands of others; violence which has left him with enduring physical consequences, and no hope of fathering children. In the story, the eunuch is reading Isaiah 53 and, in his now-famous words, asks Philip ‘About whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ [Acts 8:34].
We often rush on to the wonderful conversion story, and perhaps to his other rightly famous question ‘What prevents me from being baptised?’ [Acts 8:37]. But before we do that, let’s look at the Old Testament passage which is in view. This, incidentally, is an extremely good practice whenever we encounter quotations or allusions to the Old Testament in the New.
I wonder why the man was reading Isaiah 53. Had he just got to that point in his study of the entire book? Or was there something about that song which made him linger there, which kindled his imagination? Because here, in the very words of scripture, he would have found something which perhaps reflected his own experience.
