Mark Gignilliat, “Eternal Generation and the Old Testament: Micah 5:2 as a Test Case,” in Retrieving Eternal Generation

Gignilliat clearly appreciates pre-modern interpretation, especially its emphasis on the theological unity of the canonical books, but he also appreciates the benefits of modern “textual and philological analysis.” He does not present readers with the stark “either/or” found in Emerson’s essay. I found his comments about the biblical grounding of Aquinas’s speculative theology a bit too generous, but the sentiment that constructive theology and exegesis should be mutual, text-grounded endeavors is one I can endorse.

Gignilliat used John Owen as his primary example of a pre-modern reading of the text, and he followed this with a brief account of several other pre-modern interpreters from Cyril of Alexandria to John Calvin. This survey was helpful, but I did find myself wishing that Gignilliat had revealed more of Owen’s exegetical reasoning. In his survey of modern interpretation, Gignilliat does an excellent job of covering in brief compass the key exegetical data. He persuasively argues that  qedem and ‘olam can refer to eternity. He grants that mwts’t [origin? going out?] is a difficult word, occurring only in one other passage. Unfortunately, it is the key word. In the end, Gignilliat reasons that though the passage does not require the eternal generation interpretation it is a fitting interpretation since Scripture is not supposed to be read according to the bare letter in accordance with Christian theology.

If one already has a theology of processions developed from other passages, and if “going out” is a proper translation of מוֹצָאָה in this passage, I can see reading this passage as teaching eternal generation. But if מוֹצָאָה simply means “origin” (see Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, s.v. מוֹצָאָה), then this is more likely a statement about the Son’s eternal pre-existence. In sum, I think Gignilliat successfully argued for the potential of finding eternal generation in this passage, but he wisely did not overstate the case.

For my understanding of Micah 5:2, see this post: Interpretation of Micah 5:2.