In the narration of stories there are varying degrees to which narrative time tallies with the events of the story. Being told “Jack climbed the beanstalk” condenses a good few hundred metres of skyward climb into four words, whereas when Proust eats a bickie that one bite takes ages.
Similarly in Biblical narrative. While the tendency is for sweeping summaries in which Samaritans carry people to inns in the space of a verse, there are the scenes when it takes as long for something to be read as it could have taken for it to happen. Exchanges between characters may fit this bill. The rarer ones are the slow downs, where the narrative takes longer than the thing itself. Biblical narrative rarely takes Proust’s biscuit.
You can’t turn narrative thinking into a speedometer but there is one interesting insight in all this: watch for slowdowns. When the Biblical narrative slows, as it sometimes does within a story, it’s worth watching out for and appreciating how that may shape our reading response.
This week’s Sunday lectionary reading included one classic example from Jeremiah 32: 1-3 and 6-15. 587 years before Jesus, the Babylonians are the big Empire of the day, surrounding Jerusalem and about to conquer the people and take them into exile. Jeremiah, imprisoned within the besieged city –a double bind – has a word from the Lord.
Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came to me: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth”
Anathoth, possibly modern Anata, ten miles outside Jerusalem, right in the territory already overrun and taken over by the Babylonians. The value of real estate there will have plummeted.
But sure enough:
My cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.”
In a prophetic act, Jeremiah buys it.
Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. And I bought the field
Just note how Hanamel had his conversation in ten words, when he: said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth”
Not so the words “I bought the field.”
But here’s the slow down. Instead of just saying “So I bought the field” it reads:
I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.
It goes on
Then I took the sealed deed of purchase,
and it’s worth flipping to Jeremiah 32 and finding that slowdown at work. Detail like this shows that what is happening is one of the most important moments in the story of Jeremiah. These details are written out of love. This is a moment of prophetic love:
When the narrative slows, watch it. When the narrative moves from summary into slower pacing. Something is going on here that may cause us to ask what all these details are doing.
Here it’s a prophetic act that works like poetry. The weighing and the signing are acts of love and hope in the face of annihilation.
For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
Watch when the narrative speeds and slows and, as with all such narrative reading…enjoy!
PS. more of this sort of thing can be found in, “In the Way of the Story” Huw Thomas (Wipf & Stock – publishing in November)
Huw Thomas 
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